Author's Note: I will be updating more frequently for the foreseeable future! Yay! I hope you're enjoying this story. Please review if you are. It really motivates me to continue writing.

~.~

I didn't want to go to school. I felt feverish and awful and I just didn't want to go.

I picked up the phone and called Charlie – telling him I wasn't feeling good and wanted to stay home. He told me to relax and that he'd call the school.

I tried to go back to sleep but it was impossible. The steady thrum of rain beating against the roof was far too loud.

I got up, feeling restless. I took my cell phone off the charger and scrolled through my contacts, not really looking for anything in particular. But when I saw his name I changed my mind.

I called his house – Billy answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Billy. Is Jake around?"

A pause. "He's at school. You want to leave a message?"

"Oh – no. That's okay."

"All right, Bella. Goodbye."

It was over in a few seconds. I sighed, feeling depressed.

I dropped the phone on my nightstand and looked at the clock – I should have been in class fifteen minutes ago. I felt strangely guilty.

"Bella?"

His quiet voice made me jump. I turned around, my hand on my chest. "Jesus! You scared me!"

He looked at me, worried. "My apologies. I wanted to check on you. Alice said that you weren't coming to school today. I hope it's not because of our argument last night."

I toed the carpet in lieu of answering.

"You used to be happy to see me," he said quietly, "now you stay home from school to avoid me. Things have really changed."

I nod in agreement and sit on the edge of my bed with my hands folded in my lap. "Everything is different now. I'm different."

"And I'm frozen," he said, quiet as a whisper. He looks over at me, a sad smile on his face.

"You're still Bella Swan – the girl I love. That will not change. It doesn't, for us, you know."

I wrinkle my forehead, confused. "What doesn't change?"

"Who we love, who we're bonded with. Its eternal. I will love no one else the way that I love you – until I cease to exist."

What once would have delighted me now fills me with dread. "So if things didn't work out, with us…"

" I would still be at your beck and call. There's nothing you could do to make me not love you," he smiles sadly. "That's why it's so rare for one of us to fall in love with a human. You're in a perpetual state of motion, of change. You are like a butterfly. You grow, mature, blossom, and fade away on a whisper of wings. It's a constant process and you're here for such a short time. It's a risk, a terrible risk, to allow ourselves to feel for you, but I was lost when you told me you loved me in your sleep – utterly lost. I told you that you were my life, and you are, now and always."

"Then why would you leave me, if I'm everything to you?"

"Because I was a total fool. I wanted you to grow, to become a woman, to really live. You deserve that. I don't think you grasp how special life can be. How every moment is lost the second it is experienced."

"And I don't think you understand how painful life can be, how every living second can seem to last an eternity," I respond thinking of how I felt when he was away.

"We each see through our own lens. You cannot comprehend what I've seen all this time that I've been alive – and I can't really understand how you feel, being human, because I've forgotten what that was like. But regardless of our many, many differences, we found one another. Don't you think what we have is special?"

I nod, almost unwillingly. "Yes."

"You would cut me out of your life? Just like that? Knowing that I am bound to you?"

I sigh. "I'm not cutting you out."

He kneels before me and grasps my hands. "Then let me in, Bella."

His eyes smolder a moment before his lips capture mine and I bite back a protest as the icy fire of his passion engulfs me. His tongue darts into my mouth and I gasp, surprised. His hands are in my hair, on my shoulders, gliding down my arms, feather soft and I can only breathe through him. Somehow, we've moved and I feel myself sinking into the mattress, his marble body atop of mine. He tears his lips away and I look into his coal black eyes, frenzied and full of passion, with fascination and fear. He's moved his lips down, past the erratic pulse point in my throat, between my breasts, down the plane of my stomach. And then, he moves into dangerous territory, sliding his hands up my bare legs, lifting the fabric of my nightdress, and then sliding down, hooking my underwear, tugging them down below my knees.

I know this shouldn't be happening, not like this, but I'm powerless to stop him as he dips his head and breathes me in and I feel his mouth on my sex for the first time. I arch into him, a crazy cry as his tongue delves into me, and its cold, so cold, but it's only making me hotter. I can't help it but my hands grab the back of his head and I beg him, incoherently. I don't know what I want, or what to do but I suddenly don't want him to stop. It's like being on a rollercoaster and you feel yourself being lifted higher into the air, and the oxygen seems to get thin, and then you scream as it tips forward and you crash down with a thunderous rush.

My moaning cries slow as he drags himself away to sit at the end of my bed. He's breathing raggedly, though I know he doesn't need the air.

"Gods," he whispers as he runs his hands through his rumpled hair.

I close my legs, feeling a flush of embarrassment now that sense has returned. I pull my nightgown down and wait for him to say something.

At long last he turns to look at me. "I'm sorry, Bella. I shouldn't have…"

I stare at him incredulously. "Why not? It was amazing. And everything is okay now." I was still alive as far as I knew - more alive than ever, actually. Before he'd left I'd imagined being intimate with him in a million different ways and one of my fantasies had actually come true. I never thought anything like that could happen with our differences. I want him to be as excited as I am – as happy, even for just this moment. But I knew it wasn't going to be that easy – with him, nothing ever is.

"Bella, it was far better than I could have imagined but it was indecent of me to take advantage of you like that. I'm so ashamed of myself."

"Don't you get it?" I ask, exasperated. "I'm not some proper lady from the early 1900's. Things are different in this day and age. I didn't ask you to stop. Can't you ever just enjoy the moment?"

He looks shocked. He opens his mouth but closes it.

I can't believe he's speechless at a time like this. "Really, Edward?"

He looks lost. "You've wanted me to do that?"

"And a hell of a lot more. Duh."

"But its so dangerous, Bella – you've no idea how much!"

"Yeah but you handled it fine. You didn't kill me."

"But I could have. I was so foolish – so impulsive. Damn it, Bella. I can't think straight around you!"

The afterglow fades quickly and my irritation returns with a vengeance. "You seriously could win an Oscar for angst."

I jump out of bed and grab my bag of toiletries.

"Where are you going?"

I hold up the bag. "To take a shower – a hot one. It's gotten a little cold in here."

I walk into the bathroom and close the door a little harder than necessary. I just don't know how to feel about anything. Am I supposed to be guilty? What did I do wrong?

I step into the shower, letting the stinging water rush over me. I can't ever seem to win. If he would only allow himself to be a little more human, or at least try and see things from my perspective once in awhile!

We truly are from two different worlds. Perhaps this is what happens when two stars collide. They just destroy each other.