"All I want is nothing more than to hear you knocking at my door. 'Cause if I could see your face once more, I could die a happy man I'm sure. When you said your last goodbye, I died a little bit inside. I lay in tears in bed all night. Alone without you by my side"
- "All I Want", Kodaline

…

Chapter Twelve:

EPOV

"Don't run from me." I pleaded with her. The four words came out sounding just as pathetic and needy as I felt.

I could see the light of awareness leaving her beautiful brown eyes as she tried to get farther and farther from my touch. I had seen the look before. It was the same dead look she'd given me when Charlie pulled my tall clumsy body off her small, bruised figure. My fingers had clutched at her soft skin so roughly that I could already see the hand shaped marks I left on her hips where her torn nightshirt couldn't cover her pale, soft flesh. The flesh that I had bitten into, leaving a dark scarlet smear of blood just under her neck, came back to me in violet flashes of color.

But it was hat look that haunted me. I could see it just as clearly today as I did seven years ago. Even though the event was veiled by my bipolar rage, a teenage boy's broken heart, and a fifth of Jack Daniels I stole form my father's office, it was my most vivid memory.

A year of intense therapy, mandated by Chief Swan who had filed the restraining order, his compromise with my father so he wouldn't throw my ass in prison for 10 years on assault and attempted rape charges, several brutal months spent finding my perfect prescription "cocktail", and weekly counseling sessions that continue to this day, and I still couldn't get those brown eyes out of my head. Like any person, I had my good days and bad days, but it was always shrouded in a thick cloud of my own dismal past. I wished so many times that I could just move on. Every Wednesday at 6pm I sit on my therapist's couch and say "I am not that nineteen year old boy anymore".

It worked for a while, nothing ever faded like I had hoped, but soon I was able to sleep soundly through the night without waking up with my hands strangling my pillow to death. I put back on some weight and a little muscle, leaving the sickly body I was existing in behind with the rest of my emotional baggage. I found an outlet in my studies, my dual degree kept me busy while my music allowed me the perfect escape for expression. I wasn't punching holes in walls anymore or making my mother cry. I was doing…fine, a little more than just existing. I maintained for the most part, but every once in a while I would find a smile creeping its way onto my face or a pang of sadness stabbing at my insides when I thought about my family so far away. Both things, I was told, which were good signs that my medication was allowing me to function as a normal person would.

But the moment I saw her, it all came crashing down around me. I knew I shouldn't have gotten anywhere near Forks. I should have known better than to tempt my fate like that. Our paths were too intertwined to go a whole two weeks without seeing her heart-shaped face and big doe like eyes appear before me. The longing to see my family outweighed that fear however, as I ran the consequences over and over in my head the more I thought about putting everything aside for a week to return to my roots. The need to feel my mother's soft form wrapped in my arms and cradle my baby sister in my embrace, something I'd wanted to do since I got the phone call from a stoic sounding Emmett about our nephew, was all consuming. So I went against my better judgment and ignored my therapist's words of caution, jumping on the first plane out of Chicago before I could change my mind. I had only thought to stop and call my mother, the one person in my immediate family who stood by my side through the entire ordeal, during my long layover somewhere in the middle of Montana. I knew the moment I had told her about my impulsive decision that I had made a horrible mistake. That terrible pause between the end of my confession and the beginning of her rather genuine excitement was enough to tell me that I would meet opposition the moment I step foot in Forks, Washington.

I never expected it would all start the same place that it had ended. Or would you consider it more like the ending to an infamous beginning? Who's to tell? I guess the technical doesn't really matter in the end, only the mess that falls in-between, and either walking right back into that damn sunroom, seeing her beautiful face masked in nothing but utter shock, felt like I was reliving my worst nightmare over again or the sweetest dream.

Since that moment…had it really only been four days since she collapsed to the floor at the sight of me? Had it only taken four days for my entire world to come screeching back to a halt only to be flipped turned upside down the moment her eyes met mine and I realized that I needed her to see that I wasn't the same sick boy who didn't know how to deal with the rage building up inside of him, with the doubt that he wasn't good enough, with the innocence that he had been entrusted with when Bella came into his life.

But how could you ask someone to forgive you for ruining them? How would you ask the only women you've ever loved if she could put aside the fact that you had tried to rape her, that you had tried to strangle her with my bare hands. Yes, it still haunted me.

As she tried to pull away from me once again my mind screamed out…mine.

I reached out to try and bring her back to me, to claim what was mine, but the moment my fingers touched her hand she yanked her arm out of my reach.

I was instantly horrified at my actions, at my internal possessiveness. It was the same gnawing desires that had dragged me down to the half human thoughts that began to wreak havoc over my nineteen-year-old mind. Each time I would lay eyes on her, her cream and peaches skin, her expressive chocolate brown eyes, those plump pink lips caught between her teeth, a torrid flame burned through me. It screamed out so loudly I couldn't hear anything but that one word.

Mine.

"Unhealthy possessive tendentious brought on by the influx of hormones and instability in his mental health" my physiatrist had put a name to the yearning that would tear me to shreds every time she came anywhere near me.

It took two psychiatrists and a handful of therapists to finally weed through the tangled web that such an obsession had weaved in my mind. At first it was almost torturous, knowing she was out there, out of my reach, ready for someone else to snatch her away from me. I remember vividly pacing back and forth in a doctor's office, my hands buried deeply into my long untamed hair, pulling painfully to find some kind of centralized pain that wasn't radiating from within my chest, an ache I could control. It was all about the control. I spend two years dominating over my little Isabella, and when she left she stripped me of that precious power. I went crazy. Carlisle sat in a chair off to the corner, his face impassive as he watched me meltdown, Esme was forbidden from witnessing my sessions for that very reason. But my old man had no problem listening to the doctor ask question after question, pushing every last nerve until all I could do was allow my knees to hit the ground, my hand still yanking uselessly at my roots, screaming out a strangled sob as tears ran down my flushed cheeks.

Several years later I remember coming across a quote by an author that I could no longer remember, but his words struck a cord deep inside me as I read them.

"Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor."

After giving it much thought I decided that there wasn't really anything beautiful about those moments when so much was coursing through my body that I could not even hold it up on my own two feet. I had fallen apart and it took so long just be able to collect that pieces and figure out what to keep and what to let go of.

Isabella Swan is a person, she is not a possession, and she is not mine to control. I control only my life.

It was the mantra that I repeated until the words made no sense, until it was just the sound of vowels and consonants running off my tongue. It was the biggest piece of myself that I had to learn to overcome before I could even think about getting back on my feet.

I repeated those two sentences in my head quickly as that possessive voice growled lowly from its battered corner in the back of my mind. I felt helpless as I took all of her in, a familiar burn spreading through my body.

Flashes of an awkward teenager immediately popped into my head when I had first seen her coming down the stairs with Jasper. That oversized jersey and worn pair of jeans were more familiar than the pencil skirts and high heels that made her legs look miles long. She had come a long way in seven years. Physically, she was no longer that little girl. Her face had filled out to a beautiful heart shaped structure, her body finally curved in all the right places, making me long to place my hand in the concave dent that existed just above her hip, the perfect place for a child to rest. Little Bella was a thing of the past, the woman who stood before me now was the broken remnants of her hidden underneath years of forced smiles.

Seeing her again was the strangest thing for me. A million thoughts flooded my head before she even had the chance to crumble to the ground. In the most innocent sense, meeting her familiar, molten, chocolate eyes reminded me firstly of the little girl who used to wander around my house, standing behind pieces of furniture as I played the piano, trying not to be caught. A brief glance at her rosy colored lips conjured images of our stolen moments together in my bedroom when my parents were out of the house or in the back of a dark theater, the armrest digging into both of our sides as we wrapped ourselves around one another. These memories turned to darker ones that flitted across my mind in sharp shards. Moments in my life that I had spent years trying to work passed. Then I happened to glance at the shiny stone that reflected in the sunlight off her ring finger, her hand wrapped around a flute of champagne.

She belonged to someone else now.

I took another step towards her on instinct, but I realized the error in my movement when tears began to coat her eyes with a glassy sheen. They began to fall freely from her eyes, dripping in large drops down her flushed cheeks.

"Bella, let me just take you home." I was pleading with her again, wishing that she would just let me do something right for a change. I just need to touch her, to show her that I wouldn't hurt her. I felt desperate, a ball of nerves twisted tightly in my stomach making me want to throw up.

Her words from earlier still rang in the air around me, threatening to suffocate me every time I tried to reach for her smooth skin.

"Sick of seeing your face in my nightmares. Sick of everyone telling me that I need to see a goddamn shrink. And I'm so fucking sick of you ruining my life Edward."

Her words still burned in my ears.

"One more step," A deep voice demanded from inside me and I was too weak to resist.

As I moved closer towards her I could see the veil of consciousness slipping from her eyes. They stayed wide and clouded with tears, but I knew from experience that she was no longer seeing the reality in front of her.

"No!" She shouted out at me, holding one shaking hand out between our bodies while the other was balled into a fist so tight her knuckles turned white. She took several abrupt steps away from me and started to twist her head back and forth taking panicked looks towards the people who moved around us, but I could tell she didn't really see the crowd that began to take notice of our scene.

One hand weaved habitually through my hair that was slightly dampened by the sweat that came with this atypical heat. I felt desperate and powerless as I watched almost all recognition leave her expressive eyes. My free hand moved on it's own accord, knowing that if I could just touch her she would come back to me.

Don't run from me.

"Don't touch me!" Her shriek, finally sending several bystanders in our direction, but I was too busy watching as she lost her balance trying to get as far from my outreached hand as possible. Her voice was coated in thick tears that seemed to line her throat as they fell freely from her eyes, sounding broken and frantic. My own hot tears began to blur along the rims.

Suddenly she was falling backwards, her hands reaching out behind her to stop her fall as I flung myself forward attempting to catch her flailing body from hitting the hard concrete.

"Bella." I called her name. I needed to pull her curled up little body into my lap, to wrap her in my arms and promise to never hurt her again, but within the few seconds that she had hit the ground and I was moving towards her, several pairs of arms were restraining me from getting to her.

My highly susceptible anger bubbled inside me and I saw red as the nameless and faceless restraints kept me from what was mine. Mine.

"Isabella!" I roared.

Her beautiful eyes slid closed just as I broke free from the bystanders' arms. I didn't make it very far as my brother's large frame suddenly blocked my view of Bella who was now being lifted from the ground by a frantic looking Jasper.

I look up into Emmett's big blue eyes, looking just like my father with his disappointed, concerned, and yet uncaring and harsh stare.

It had all only taken five minutes to transpire, but it was enough to bring every memory I had worked through and moved away from, to flood the forefront of my mind with each suppressed vivid detail.

Seven years ago…

Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight…

I counted the ceiling tiles on the ceiling for the tenth time in the last half hour, my eyes raised to look only at the slightly yellowing square pieces that made up the ceiling of my hospital room. I didn't dare look anywhere else than at what was directly above me. I could feel Carlisle's cold stare ripping through my skin like a laser.

It was the first time in days that I had woken from a drug induced sleep and had finally felt sane. It felt like the first time I wasn't bogged down by the heavy feelings that usually weighed down my chest and made it hard to breath, the kind of emotions that clouded my vision in beet red anger, unhealthy possessiveness, and caused me to do destructive things. While being away from the mania and the depression for this one moment felt like a breath of fresh air I had been waiting to take for years, this moment of lucidity brought back the remembrance of why I was strapped to a hospital bed with my father sitting directly across from me giving me a look that could only be described as deep hatred, while my mother stared out the window, her arms crossed and her back facing towards me. I could briefly see her rubbing the crucifix that always hung around her neck between her thumb and pointer finger.

"Bella?" I finally groaned out her name, a single tear worked its way out of my left eye and down my tight feeling face.

There was silence for a single second before Carlisle was up and out of his uncomfortable looking chair and standing alarmingly close to my face, with that same deadpan stare directed at me.

"Do you…can you…"He let out a frustrated breath as he tried to find the words. "Do you even know the kind of damage you've caused son?" The word 'son' came out sounding like the foulest of curse words.

I opened my mouth, but I couldn't find the words.

"Do you even remember what you did to that poor girl?" Another tear slipped from the place where it had been pooling on the edge, just waiting for the perfect moment to spill over the side.

I took a deep and painful breath, that shook my whole body before finally forming a sentence to answer my father, who now was standing with one hand on the other side of my head and the other one gripping the edge of my bed, bringing his face very close to my own, leaving my gaze to wander nowhere but into his garish stare.

"How bad…is she okay?" I didn't even recognize the gritty sounding voice that came out of my own mouth.

My father had never been a harsh man. He was a benevolent caretaker and a compassionate doctor, but neither benevolence nor compassion could be seen anywhere on this man's face. His eyes were bloodshot, with tiny red veins pulsing around his irises, while the heavy looking dark bags under his eyes made him look at least half a decade older than he actually was. I didn't recognize my father as his hand turned into a fist, gripping onto the sheets next to my head.

I couldn't take anymore of his glare, it make a vile combination of anger and sheer joy bubble up from my stomach to the base of my throat. I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time and I wasn't sure which emotion was appropriate for the situation.

I bet even the ceiling tiles pitied me at this moment.

"Edward, look at me." Carlisle commanded. I knew his voice was supposed to sound threatening, but it just came out sounding like a jumble of syllables. I suddenly felt lethargic and it took everything I had in me to roll my head back towards the sound of my father's voice.

"Bella." A smile formed around the vowels and consonants that made up her beautiful name.

"Edward!" My dad came into sharp focus for a moment, for just a brief second I could see him very clearly. His skin sagged in weird places, his eyes were glassy, and his lips looked dried and cracked as his tongue came out to wet them futilely. He gripped my shoulders and gave my sore body a quick shake, which send an electrifying stabbing sensation straight to my ribs. "She's gone Edward, Charlie took her home. You're..." his disciplinarily tone cracked for a moment, his voice breaking in a crackle of tears that he held in his throat. Carlisle's fingers dug deeper into the skin of my shoulder, which seemed to push away the familiar blackness that was starting to creep in around the edges of my vision. He cleared his throat before his crystal blue eyes, the same eyes my sister and brother had inherited, captured my own lily pad orbs, my mother's genes. "You're never going to see her again Edward. She's leaving Forks for good."

His words came slowly at first, the way a dream does just after you've woken up from a deep sleep, you know that just a moment ago you were deeply immersed in a different world but you can't quite recall the details. All it takes however is a brief glimpse of a word, a thought, a movement, or a person, to bring it all crashing back.

I'm not sure how long I sat in that slow stage, waiting for the little morsel of recognition to come back to me, but when I finally did hook onto a coherent thought, it was of a pair of chocolate brown irises, mahogany hair, and a heartbreakingly sweet little smile that got my lethargic head to replay my father's words.

"No," I'm not sure if the actual denial made it's way out of my mouth or not, but I could feel my head being moved back and forth, expressing the same sentiment.

"Edward, sweetheart, it's for the best. For both of you." A softer, gentle voice came from farther away in the room. I knew whom it belonged to, but their identity quickly faded away in insignificance as my precious Isabella's came to mind again.

Mine.

"NO!" I screamed out this time, hearing my outburst reverberate off the hospital walls and back towards my ears.

There were loud sounds all around me. A crash of some sort, a sharp sting coming from the crook of my elbow, the cold tile against my feet, the screaming voices of all three of us in the room. I couldn't make out any words or even which actions I was participating in, I could only thing about what had been taken away from me. What they took away from me.

Sometime later I felt the same cold title against my cheek, I couldn't move and my ribs ached horribly, but nothing ached more than the pounding of my heart knowing that the missing half was somewhere out of my reach. If the two halves weren't joined soon I feared both pieces would hemorrhage.

"Bring her back to me…" My voice sounded clear in my clouded head, one last thought before I fell into the abyss.

A/N:

I hope you enjoyed a little EPOV, I thought it was time to switch it up a little bit and see that there is just as much turmoil going on with Edward.

Did you like EPOV? Let me know.

F.