Author's Notes (April 29, 2011): Special thanks to duskwatcher2153, Aleeab4u, GreatChemistry and smexy4smarties. They're keeping me in line.

Chapter pic: None

Chapter music: bit(dot)ly/sotpm22-music

"SINS OF THE PIANO MAN"
CHAPTER 22: HAUNTED BY GHOSTS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

How do I end up this way?
A constant knot in my gut,
Tied with uncertainty and with lust.
A classic case, I suppose,
A haunted man, who can't outrun his ghosts
They're in my skin and my bones.

"Constant Knot" by City and Colour

EDWARD MASEN
I parked my car alongside the road, some distance from the house. Walking at a human pace to the brick driveway, I listened to Bella's rhythmic heartbeat. It calmed my scattered thoughts. Somewhat.

I kept staring at the objects in my hands—a stargazer lily tied with simple twine to a CD case—wondering if I was doing the right thing. I hadn't bought an arrangement, much to the florist's dismay. I'd learned from human thought over the years that an overabundance of flower arrangements after a funeral was a rather awkward problem and more a reminder of grief than a comfort. As such, I'd only bought the one flower. The number of flowers probably didn't matter. I could buy Bella all the flowers in Washington State, and it wouldn't fix our problems. I knew that.

The florist had assured me that this species of lily had an appropriately symbolic meaning of sympathy. She put it into words as "It says you're sorry."

And I was. For so many things.

I wanted to do more, but the thing I wanted to do most—take back my actions—I couldn't do, and with gifts, I'd learned quickly that Bella appreciated small gestures with significant meaning; extravagance embarrassed her. So I was down to a lily and a CD. Hopefully, there was at least some significance to this gift. Perhaps she'd find comfort in the music, even if she was yet understandably uncomfortable around me.

When I'd made it to the porch, I stood there for ten minutes, perhaps longer. There were thirty-one flaws in the door, some natural, some not. A lonely pair of muddy boots that had belonged to Charlie leaned into one another at one end of the porch, near a weathered bench with chipped red paint. A vacant mud dauber's nest was wedged in a corner. Spider silks hidden in nooks and crannies shifted with the breeze. I took inventory of every detail. It did nothing to calm me.

Of course, I knew I was stalling, but knowledge of that didn't stop me. I'd rehearsed what I would to say to Bella, but it didn't feel right. Nothing felt right; nothing had felt right since I'd hurt her.

Everything was wrong, right down to my own body. My hair was a mess. The unnecessary scarf about my throat, though soft, was like a hangman's noose. Venom continuously flooded the back of my mouth—sweet and slick and unwelcome. At times, I was statue still; at others, I fidgeted, humanlike in my distress.

Finally, I grew a pair and knocked on the door.

There was a light thumping sound as Bella's socked feet met the stairs, then the door swung open. Whoever she'd thought might be on the other side, I was obviously not one of them, which saddened me. Her eyes widened; her pulse quickened. I smelled adrenaline and hated how much her blood still called to me.

"Edward? What are you doing here?" She ran a hand over her hair, flattening fly-away strands.

"Don't worry. I'm not looking to stay," I said quickly, hoping to put her at ease. "I only wanted to give you something." I stuck out the hand that held the CD case and lily. I'd been much more debonair in all my imagined scenarios.

Bella's hands shook as she accepted my gift. "A CD?" she asked, studying it. She trailed the tip of a forefinger down the lily's green stem, then along the corner edge of the CD case.

I nodded, though she wasn't looking at me. "You wanted me to compose something." I hesitated to say Charlie's name.

Bella's eyes snapped back to my face. "For my dad?"

"There are two tracks on the CD"—the other was her lullaby—"but yes, I composed something for him. It's not much, I know..."

The scent of salt hit the air as tears welled in her eyes. "Edward, this is wonderful… Thank you. You don't know what this means to me. I didn't know you'd really do it…"

"I hope I've done him justice," I said, feeling more and more uncomfortable now that the work was in her possession. "Your father was a good man."

Sniffling, she nodded. She pulled the CD and lily in close, to hold them to her stomach. "You're coming to the funeral, right? Alice said she gave you the details."

"This Saturday—of course I am."

"Good, okay. I'm glad." Bella chewed on her bottom lip, looking young and uncertain.

"Are you all right here, alone?"

"I'm fine." She looked over her shoulder into the house. "Just doing some cleaning, giving stuff away. After the New Year, Esme's gonna help me fix everything up and sell the house."

I hadn't expected that. "Sell it? Are you sure? If this is about money—"

Her gaze came back to me, narrowed. "It's not. I just…" She sighed and shrugged. "I don't know that there's any reason to keep it. Any reason to stay here. Forks has never been my home. I thought once—but no, it's not."

"So you'll go back to—"

"I may leave Washington," she blurted out.

Well. So much for my living in Port Angeles.

"I see," I murmured, and my chest felt tight. "Is this because of me—somewhat?" I told myself I'd understand if it was, that I'd understand if she wanted to run away.

One day, I'd fade from her memories. It killed me.

Staring at her hands, Bella stroked the CD case with her fingers. "I don't know. Partly. Maybe. If you can't tell me the truth,"—her words broke off, and she pulled in an uneven breath—"I'll have to leave. I don't know where I'll go or what I'll do, but if you don't really want me, I can't be here."

"Bella," I chastised. "Of course I want you. You must know that by now."

That I wanted too little of her had never been the problem.

Her eyes glistened as she looked up at me. "I know you want me…in a way. In a lot of ways. But you don't really want to tell me." She swallowed. "You're afraid. For me—maybe even of me?"

I breathed out a laugh that sounded hollow and dark. "You've always been very perceptive."

"Not perceptive enough, though," she whispered. Keeping one hand on the lily and CD case, she reached out with the other and gripped one of my hands. She took another shaky breath, and blood rushed to her cheeks. "Whatever the truth is, we can face it together. I'm sure."

So many hopeful thoughts swam through my mind in that moment—powerful ideas that drowned out the cacophony of nearby people's musings. I entertained daydreams of Bella's acceptance, of everything working out. Then the waves crashed down upon me with memories of my innocent victims begging for mercy, of my cruelty in how I'd toyed with some of them, of bruises the shape of my fingerprints dark upon porcelain skin.

Bella deserved better.

"The truth is often more palatable before you know it," I said.

Bella frowned and let go of my hand. "Knowing would be better than not knowing," she spat. She sucked in a breath and took a step back. "Then I could at least understand the things that have happened around me—to me. When are you going to get that? When are you going to get that I love you? Have you ever thought that I maybe want to help you with whatever it is that"—she waved her free hand in confusion—"with whatever's up with you! Whatever you are. I know it bothers you."

I didn't reply. For what felt like the thousandth time, we'd come to an impasse. The same one. It was always the same one.

She didn't invite me in, nor did I ask to stay. This was merely one difficult conversation of more to come. I thought that somewhere deep down, despite all the anguish, we both knew now was not the time to truly go into it, not with Charlie's ghost yet hovering in the background. Bella needed space still. I needed to decide what to do.

After the funeral, then. Then, we would talk. Then, we'd come to some conclusion. Perhaps… Perhaps I would even tell her the truth. I didn't know.

"I should go." I kissed Bella's forehead. "I'm sorry."

She kissed my cheek. "Have some faith in me. Please."

I left with the fading warmth of her kiss.

For the next three days, I lived between Forks and Port Angeles. Bella had always instilled in me a number of emotions, not least of which included curiosity and obsession. I tried to balance these feelings, to give her space and privacy as I should, but I often found myself back in the woods behind her house. When I was away from her, it bothered me, especially now, when she was grieving and alone. I needed to see her, needed to hear the steady, fluid rhythm of blood in her veins, and—shallow though it may have been—I desperately wanted to know if she liked my music.

How my pieces were received had always mattered to me—more than it should have—and with Bella… Well, Bella's opinion I held in the highest regard. What would she think of my work when alone? She liked it well enough when I played it for her, but hearing it recorded would be different. I didn't have her unedited thoughts to tell me how she felt. Only in these stolen moments, when I watched her in shadows, could I find out even a piece of the truth.

I waited and watched, and she listened. But it was more than that. She listened again and again and again—so many times that I wondered how she wasn't sick of the tracks. Still, I was pleased, honored. Perhaps I had done right by Charlie, by his daughter.

Sometimes she cried when she listened. Sometimes she smiled. She played the CD when she was awake and left it to endlessly repeat while she slept.

At least in this, I thought, I'd done something right. I couldn't take back what I'd done, perhaps I'd never even be able to tell her the truth, but in this I'd shown her a human part of myself that was peaceful and worthy of some pride. If this was what I left her with, I could be satisfied. That was what I told myself, at least.

Then, the day before Charlie's funeral, something strange happened.

It was early evening; however, being winter, there was little light. The CD I'd made for Bella played on repeat on the old stereo inside the house. She'd turned the volume up and left the back door ajar, so she could listen while she sat on a plastic lawn chair in the backyard. She was bundled up in a coat and blanket, a lone Citronella candle glowing warm and golden in its bucket holder by her sneakered feet. A notepad and pen lay on her lap.

She sat still, with her head tilted back and eyes closed, and I dared to edge nearer. I was drawn to her. Her body, the misty puff of her breath, the beacon of candlelight, were warm and bright against the cold darkness of winter, against the unforgiving lifelessness of my flesh.

As the music I'd composed for Charlie lilted, some level of peace descended to infuse Bella's spirit. I watched it happen. A calm smile played on her lips as a single teardrop rolled along the side of her nose, reflecting the flickering candle flame. I'd seen people listen to my work before; I wasn't unused to seeing emotion on their faces. With Bella, though, it was different. It always was.

In the months that I'd known her, even in those quiet moments we'd shared, I'd never seen her look this way—not quite. The lines of her face were smooth, as they were when she slept. Her heartbeat slowed to calmness. Everything about her radiated peace and acceptance.

It was as if my world—perhaps the whole world—quieted with her. The voices in my head softened to a whisper, and I felt my shoulders sag, as if some heavy burden had finally—finally—been removed from my back.

Whatever overcame her, it eventually drove her to write. She'd told me once that she'd liked to write before Charlie was ill, that words had been a comfort to her time and again, when she'd been a child pulled between two parents, an adolescent misfit in the burning hot Southwest, a drifting college-goer. Life's many demands had made her abandon the interest, but now she wrote again to the sound of my piano music. I sat at the base of a tree and watched, enjoying the peace her mood had fostered, wondering at how attuned I was to her at times.

As she slept that night, I stole into the house to read her words. She'd placed them under the weight of the dragonfly fossil. There were scribbled verses here and there in the margins, a letter to the Cullens to thank them for all their help during Charlie's illness and with the funeral, and lastly, Charlie's eulogy. She'd been working on drafts of it for a long time, I knew, but this was freshly written and stronger than previous versions. Perhaps my music had inspired her. I liked to think so. Tomorrow she'd speak these words before a small gathering of people.

I wondered how she'd handle speaking about her father to others. Bella didn't seem fond of being the center of attention, and I knew she had a less than favorable opinion of a number of the citizens in Forks after their lack of support. Never mind that she never would have accepted their help; that was beside the point.

As I sat in a rocking chair at the foot of her bed, I ran my fingers over her script. She had a chicken-scratch sort of hand, like most of her generation did; elegant penmanship, after all, was no longer sought after. Our times were different. I had faint memories from my human childhood of having my knuckles smacked with a wooden yardstick when I slipped into "rebellious" left-handedness. Yes, times had indeed changed. People, social customs and expectations had changed, while I lingered in this limbo of neither life nor death.

I looked at Bella and sighed.

Women expected more equality and less protection these days—honesty, disclosure. Bella expected these things of our relationship, and truly, I felt she had every right to—were I a man. I couldn't forget for one moment that I wasn't only a man. Not anymore. I'd forgotten myself with her that night. I wouldn't again.

But to tell the truth or not? I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. A catch-22.

I was terrified that I might hurt her more than I already had, that she might hurt me. Worst of all, and not without a great deal of irony, I knew time was running out.

I needed to hunt before the funeral. The dry burn at the back of my throat had evolved past the point of distraction. No matter how much I'd become used to denying myself human blood and Bella's especially delectable scent, I needed twice as much blood to be around her comfortably. I was decimating Washington's ecosystem.

There was no escaping the need for blood, and rarely had I even escaped the want. Once an addict, always an addict.

Running through the forest, I searched for something that would quell my thirst; I aimed for expeditious, not necessarily flavorful. Winter had driven most wildlife to migrate or hibernate, but deer were yet plentiful as they nosed about in the woods, searching for edible moss and bark. I found a doe and took her blood without preamble, eager to return to Bella one more time before I made my way to Port Angeles and readied myself for the afternoon.

As I neared Forks' city limits again, thoughts drifted into my head. One part of my brain sifted through them casually, unable to completely ignore them; mind reading wasn't something I could turn off, even after decades of the nonsense.

It was always the same. People having sex. People masturbating, while wishing they were having sex. People having sex, wishing they were masturbating. Pornography. Enough deviancy to appall local churches, really. Arguments over money. People hating their jobs. Inane Facebook status messages that no one cared about. Jenny was eating a late breakfast. Peter thought that was "cool." A hangover. A maxed-out credit card. A dirty diaper. A bargaining prayer with God. I'd heard it all a million times before.

But then one mental voice, an all too familiar one, floated up out of the dissonance.

I should have been here. How can I make this better? I don't want you to hate me.

I recognized it at once, even if I didn't want to believe it was her. With an anguished cry, I stopped beside a tree and ceased to breathe. No. No, it couldn't be… Not now. Please, not now. I put all of my focus on that one mental voice.

But it was her. I'd know her mind anywhere, because it had played a crucial role in changing me forever. The scattered and childlike mental leaps, the way she thought directly to people in her mind, the uncomfortable uncertainty over her own flightiness: all of this was Renée.

All of this would be my undoing.

How had I not realized she'd come for the funeral?

I still didn't want to believe it was so. I shook my head and ran the rest of the way to Charlie's old house, where I hid again to wait and watch.

A red rental car was parked at the end of the driveway, and Renée stood at the front door, much as I had days earlier. I leaned against a shadowed tree, agonized, as if my tireless limbs were incapable of holding up my weight. It truly was her—no longer a girl, perhaps, a little thicker around her middle, a few lines at the corners of her eyes, but Renée, all the same.

She held a large flower arrangement in her hands. It was bright, cheery—orange and white and pink and yellow. They were colors for her, more than for Bella or Charlie. Renée had trouble seeing past herself; that hadn't changed.

I stood among the trees and watched as she knocked on the door, as Bella not only allowed her entrance into the house, but threw her arms around Renée's neck in a tight embrace, crushing flowers between them. When they let go of one another, there was awkwardness, knowledge of all the times Renée had not followed through as a mother, but Bella gave Renée a watery smile and invited her inside.

And I stood on the outside, looking in, wondering how I could survive this.

"I'm glad you're all here," I said to the three Cullens that had become my unlikely friends. They'd welcomed me into their home again, despite my panicked demeanor. I glanced at Alice. She was already dressed in funeral black. "I'm sure you know why I've come."

"Not really." She tilted her head. "What's going on?"

"Renée."

I thought that would be enough for her to understand, but she only stared at me, her mind its usual entanglement of visions; no particular thought about Renée surfaced, save confusion over what I would have to do with her. I stared back blankly.

"Are you nervous about meeting her?" she guessed.

I barked out a laugh. "You don't know," I said in surprise.

"Know what?"

So she really hadn't been watching my existence unfold. This time I wished she did know, if only it would mean I didn't have to tell them. I was newly embarrassed by my past. These vampires had a much more spotless track record than my own, and now I had need to share one of my darkest nights with them.

"Is Bella all right?" Esme asked in concern from where she sat beside Carlisle on a small sofa.

We were all seated. I could smell food in the kitchen—a roast, ham, something with an egg base—early preparations for the evening meal the Cullens had promised they'd hold after Charlie's funeral. It was all so human—life and death and food. None of us rightly fit into such an equation, especially me.

"Bella's all right, I suppose—coping," I answered, remembering her serene expression from the night before.

"Then what troubles you?" Carlisle said. "You said Renée…"

"I didn't expect her to be here. I don't know why I didn't, but I didn't."

"I booked Renée's flight," Alice said. "She's only here today—staying in Port Angeles tonight. I didn't know it'd be a problem." Her brows bunched together. "Why is she a problem, Edward?"

"Renée and I…" I looked down at my hands, where they rested on my lap. I remembered all the times I'd cleaned human blood from beneath my nails. "We have a past."

"A past?" Alice asked. She sifted through memorized visions too swiftly for me to hold onto them.

"I met Renée before," I explained. "Before Bella."

"When Renée was a girl?" Esme asked.

Unable to contain my energy, I rose and began to pace the length of the living room, from the Christmas tree that was before one of the large front windows, to the doorway of the kitchen. "1987," I answered, "to be exact."

"Eighty-seven?" Carlisle intoned. "But that… While Renée was pregnant with Bella?" That can't be right.

I turned on him and shouted, "I didn't know!"

Carlisle raised his hands. "No one's judging you here." His thoughts proved as much, but still I glared at him.

"Tell us what happened," Esme coaxed, her voice gentle.

I collapsed down to the couch again and rested my head in my hands. "It's a long story. I'm not proud of it."

"The funeral isn't for hours yet," Esme said. I hope he tells us.

I didn't see where I had a choice. There was no way I could handle this alone.

So I told them a brief history of my sordid existence, what I'd become in the last three decades. Alice knew some things—knew of my ritual to kill innocents on the twelfth of each month—but there were other details she'd missed. She'd not known how bad it had gotten before I met Renée, how consumed I'd been by blood and bitter anger. She'd definitely not known about Renée herself or that it had been Bella's barely-there life that had made me give up human blood. She'd only known that Bella was a key to bringing me into the Cullen fold.

I'd surprised the oracle, but there was no victory in it.

"You see my problem," I said when I was finished telling them what I had to share. Their shock was palpable, their pity almost stifling. "If Renée sees and recognizes me, everything falls apart—even more than it already has." I looked at Alice. "What happens when I don't go to the funeral?"

She frowned. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean, I really don't know. I can't know. Some of the Quileutes will be there. The werewolves have a defense mechanism against me. Any time they're involved, I can't see what's going to happen."

"Great," I said dryly. "That's just great." Fucking overgrown dogs.

"We'll help you," Carlisle offered. "Between the three of us, I think we can keep you and Renée apart, but still let Bella see you've attended the funeral."

Esme nodded. "I'll help distract Renée when necessary."

"You would do that for me?" I looked at all of them.

"You're part of the family, dear," Esme said, smiling. Alice nodded emphatically at my right. "We protect our own as best we can."

Family. Perhaps they were.

"I… Thank you," I said, meaning it. "I apologize for bringing you into the middle of my problems. I've done this to myself. It should really be my—"

"Edward," Carlisle interrupted, his lips twisting into a bitter smirk. "As much as I loathe it, lying is part of our lifestyle. We'll help protect you from this."

"Does this seem done to you?" Esme asked, one hand on her hip as we stared at a honey-glazed leg of ham.

"It looks done," I answered. "The temperature is right, at least."

"Human food is such a challenge," she opined. If only I hadn't burned that second batch of quiches…

"Have you worked with cream cheese yet?"

She looked up at me. "No, why?"

"Don't," I said, unable to suppress a shudder.

"Edward?" Carlisle stood at the doorway of the kitchen. "Do you have a moment?"

I glanced at the clock on the microwave. "I should be going. I need to change for the funeral."

"We're the same build. You can borrow one of my suits." Come take a walk with me.

There was something about the tone of his thoughts that told me I wouldn't enjoy this conversation. "Will you be fine here?" I asked Esme, hoping she'd say no.

She waved a hand. "Of course. I've been cooking longer than you have, no doubt. Go on."

Carlisle and I walked along the edge of the Sol Duc River, which snaked through part of their property. I tried to gather from his thoughts the reason for this walk, but his mind was calm and still, as always.

"Quite a story you shared with us," Carlisle said after some time of walking.

"I wish it wasn't my story to tell."

"We don't always get to choose, do we?" You hardly had control over what happened. It's understandable. "Bella's blood calls to you. I didn't know."

"Yes," I replied simply, and swallowed venom. It came whenever I consciously thought of her blood.

"Your control is commendable," Carlisle said. "Few are able to ignore a siren call such as that. It's amazing that you've not hurt her."

Looking down at my feet as they stepped through brush, I said quietly, "Alice hasn't told you."

"Told me what?" What is it?

"Renée isn't the only complication. I left out that part. I thought you knew, that Alice would have told you. I… Bella and I aren't exactly on the best terms. At present."

"Ah," he said. "Things did seem tense between you two, but I thought it was primarily Charlie's passing and the issue of your telling her the truth."

I balled my hands into fists. "I hurt her."

Horrible scenarios flashed through Carlisle's mind—broken bones, bleeding, both external and internal. He spoke none of these, however. "Tell me what happened. Do I need to examine her?"

I shook my head. "She didn't want to call you. I asked."

"Are you sure she's physically well? Bella has been known to downplay injuries in the past, believe me."

"She's bruised badly, but…I think she's all right. She's healing. It was a week ago." The bruises were now an ugly green and yellow, but healing, nonetheless.

You've been watching her without her knowledge.

I nodded once, ashamed.

Carlisle frowned. "What happened exactly?"

"I lost control," I said, my voice soft. "She'd gone to La Push. She didn't tell me where she was, that she was going there. And then she smelled like Jacob Black when she got home." A growl built in my chest. "It was too much on top of everything else. I reacted. I couldn't think." I remembered losing myself to fear and anger, to an animal instinct that no normal man would be slave to.

"You attacked her." An accident, but you attacked her. She's lucky to be alive.

"Yes." My voice broke on the word. "And all she wants from me is the truth."

"It sounds as though both of you have been lying to one another. Truth might have prevented that from happening." The truth will set you free.

"It might make me lose her forever."

"Are your actions now ensuring you'll keep her?" Carlisle challenged.

"No," I admitted, frowning. "You're right."

He stopped and turned to me. I stood still before him, and he put a hand on my shoulder. "You have to choose, Edward. I think you know this. Your past with Renée is unique, to say the least, but Renée is hardly the only problem you'll face in trying to have a relationship with Bella, with any human."

I jerked away from him. "As if I need you to tell me that!"

He didn't react to my outburst. Calm yourself. Beginning to walk again, he said, "My family and I need to leave soon. I'm afraid my coworkers have become too suspicious of my agelessness." He sighed, his thoughts tinged with frustration. "I'm on sabbatical now, and we're hoping to leave by February."

This news was surprising enough to cool my frustration. "You're going to leave Bella?"

Carlisle glanced at me. "That depends wholly on your decision. And hers." He pictured a red-eyed Bella. "I told you we would help if that's the path you're choosing." He gave a hesitant smile. "Where we relocate may depend on whether we have a hungry newborn to contend with, of course."

I stopped walking and looked up at the cloudy sky that was visible amid breaks in the trees. "I don't know what to do, Carlisle," I admitted. "I'm lost."

"Do you want my honest opinion?"

"Any wisdom you have to share would be greatly appreciated," I said wryly, looking back at him.

"Revealing our secret is to play a dangerous game," he said, "but I believe you've already made your decision, Edward." You want to change her, or you'd not be standing here now. Whatever you're telling yourself—whatever excuses you're making—they aren't true. "You know this."

"I could leave," I protested half-heartedly.

His brows lifted. "Could you?"

I imagined leaving—truly imagined it. It had been a vague concept before that moment, a simple matter of my not being where Bella was. I'd thought of it as if Bella were in Forks, and I were in Port Angeles—apart, but close, driving or running distance. But it wouldn't be that way. She would go elsewhere—far elsewhere, perhaps—and I shouldn't follow. She would grow older. I wouldn't. So many paths, and none of them would be ones I should or could take.

"I could try to leave," I amended.

"And you think you could part from her for eighty years?" he said. "Through knowing she married another, perhaps had children by him?"

Sadness and jealousy rolled through me. The thought of another kissing her burned hot and angry in my stomach, and ached in my chest. "I don't know."

"If you can't say yes, then you have your answer. Anything past that is up to Bella." He touched my shoulder again. "We should head back."

I followed him silently, wondering, and feeling impossibly tired in doing so. I was tired of fighting what I wanted, of being afraid, of denying Bella the one simple thing she continued to beg of me. I couldn't imagine decades of struggling against this, of not being by her side. When I thought purely of what I wanted—consequences and reality be damned—I wanted to share my life with Bella. With her at my side, it would be a life.

Was it really that simple? Could it be?

"Do you think she'll accept me?" I asked when we reached the porch of the Cullen mansion.

"You won't know until you tell her the truth," he said. Then he smiled and thought, But Esme accepted me.

Indeed, she had. I watched Esme and Carlisle interact then. The way she sent him a soft smile, the way he touched her wrist, how their thoughts were often in tune, as happens after decades of knowing another.

I watched Esme fuss over Carlisle's tie as Alice flitted about me, complaining that Carlisle's suit didn't fit me as well as a tailor-made one would have. I didn't bother telling her that the one I'd planned to wear wasn't tailored either; she likely already knew.

Esme leaned up on tiptoe and kissed Carlisle once his tie was straight, and I knew the twisting in my stomach for what it was: envy. I wanted what they had. I wanted honesty as much as Bella did. For the first time, that desire overrode my fear. I even allowed myself to hope—only a little, but the seed of it was there—to imagine the possibility that Bella might accept me, that the truth might not make her run away, screaming. She said it wouldn't. Perhaps she was right.

At least Carlisle was right. I did have my answer. It was possible I'd had it for a long time. If I survived Renée's presence, I would tell Bella the truth.

Closing Notes: I still suck at review replies. I got to some of you, but not all. :( Please know I read everything you write, though! I love hearing your thoughts.

Much love,
Solarrr