A/N: Hello lovelies. Let's get right down to it, yeah?

Like any teenage boy, Edward was preoccupied with sex. He thought about it. A lot. Having a girlfriend didn't help. Having a girlfriend who felt amazing under his hands, her body warm and responsive to him, made things harder.

More than one thing.

Of course he could wait. He wasn't an animal out of control. They'd talked about it like rational human beings and agreed they both wanted to wait for the right time. It didn't feel right to have sex under their parents' roof, so it wasn't going to happen when they were in high school. The idea of renting a hotel room felt tawdry; they didn't want to feel like they were sneaking around.

The night before he'd left for Dartmouth, he'd held Bella in his arms, in his bed, for as long as he could before she had to return home.

"There's no rush," he'd murmured against her hair. "We have the rest of our lives."

They'd agreed. They would know when the time was right.

Being away at college, sex was an inescapable topic. It was on everyone's minds and everyone was doing it. He couldn't have been the only virgin on campus, but sometimes it sure felt that way. His peers couldn't wrap their heads around why a guy like him who could have his pick of the women on campus would be faithful to a phantom girlfriend.

"A high school kid," his roommate sneered as if he himself hadn't been a high school kid only a year earlier.

"She's never going to know. What do you have to lose?" another of his friends had said.

"Everything," Edward replied bluntly, and left it that.

They didn't let up though. They spun all sorts of stories that, despite his best efforts, got under Edward's skin.

"I'm from a small town," one girl had said. "There's nothing to do there but drugs and sex. If you didn't give her the sex when you were there, she's probably found someone else just as bored as she is."

Sometimes, just sometimes, he began to wonder if he was naive. The narrative in his head was beautiful. What he had with Bella was a dream. Just thinking about her made him bright-eyed and so ecstatic, he didn't know what to do with himself. She made his belly flutter. She made him listen to the sappiest love songs and nod his head fervently to every ooey, gooey word.

She made him believe in forever. More than that, he couldn't wait for their future together. Why not, when what he felt for her was everything good, pure, and breathtakingly beautiful in the world?

Listening to his peers, he started to second guess himself. Was he being stupid? Was he not living in reality? Was what he had with Bella really as malleable and, well, human as everyone else's relationship?

It didn't help that most of her friends were boys. She hung out more with Seth Clearwater and Mike Newton. Mike had helped her get a job at his father's store. When he spoke with her on the phone, her conversation was peppered with Mike's name, Seth's and a boy from the reservation she told him was having trouble taking no for an answer.

Still, when he was home for Thanksgiving, winter break, and spring break they were attached at the hip. She hardly remembered the other boys' names when they were together. When she was with Edward, she seemed just as he felt: wrapped in bliss and entirely, head over heels, in love.

And then there was the night before.

Bella came out to see him - and to tour the campus - on their own.

They were finally, finally on their own. No parents. Edward's roommate had been banished for the night.

Far and away, the night before had been the best night of Edward's entire existence. Despite the fact they were clumsy, nervous first-timers, the whole night had been a study in perfection. Just seeing Bella like that, her body bared and glorious in front of him, was better than anything else. He treasured each moment, marvelled in every blush, every tiny noise he was able to draw from her.

And when he slid inside her for the first time, it was like coming home. He felt complete. Whole. Right.

A lot could be said about sex. He knew it could be rough. He knew it could be fun. He knew it could be horrible. The night before, he discovered that with Bella, the poets who talked about sex being as close to God as one could get and still be alive were right.

There was nothing else in the world - only them, the way their bodies moved together, her voice, breathy and filled with pleasure, in his ear. Just the way his name tumbled from her lips gave him the greatest joy he'd ever known.

He went to sleep with Bella wrapped up in his arms, feeling part of a greater whole. Though there was some vague part of him that thought he was perhaps being a tad ridiculous, he felt as though he'd stumbled on a secret that no one else in the world had ever known before.

Waking up with her small, nude body pressed against him, their limbs tangled and overlapping, was exactly how he wanted to start every day for the rest of his life. For something so entirely final, Edward had never been more at peace with an idea as he was with forever by her side.

He let full wakefulness come on slowly, enjoying the way the early morning light played off her skin. He'd wondered if he would feel different after their first time, and he did. Absolutely he did.

How was it possible to feel so connected with another person? She was in his blood. Surely they were part of the same soul.

Adoring and awed - feeling nothing but lucky that this girl, this woman, chose him above all the seven billion people of the world - he carefully reached out, smoothing a strand of hair back over her ear so he could look on her face.

His best friend. His girlfriend. Now his lover. And one day...

His heart skipped a beat when he remembered what was in his pocket. All day long the day before, as he'd shown her around the campus, he could feel the ring box resting against his thigh. More than once, he'd wondered how she didn't feel it, didn't question the slight bulge it left.

Edward still didn't know how he was going to propose. One after another, elaborate scenarios presented themselves. Laying there with Bella beside him, he suddenly understood he'd been silly.

This was Bella. She wouldn't want elaborate. She wouldn't want to be part of a spectacle.

No.

There in his tiny bed, as they took the first step of the rest of their lives together, was perfect. Just them. Just this warm, blissful bubble.

Resolute, Edward began to look around, careful not to disturb the girl in his arms. He kicked his foot out from under the blanket, hooking his jeans from where they'd fallen to the very edge of the bed. Carefully, trying not to knock the jeans to the floor, he brought them toward him.

"Yes," he hissed under his breath when the jeans were close enough he could grab them.

Bella made a small noise, a little moan, and her eyelashes fluttered. Edward frowned at himself, and quickly reached out to run the back of his knuckles down her cheek. "Shhh, baby," he whispered. "It's early yet. Go back to sleep."

She blinked a few times as though she was considering it.

He hummed softly, a sweet lullaby he knew she liked when he sang. Her head began to tilt.

But then her eyes snapped open. "Edward?" she mumbled.

"I'm right here, beautiful girl." Since she was awake anyway, he began to press little kisses against her forehead, a brush to the tip of her nose.

"Edward," she repeated, the word a rasp.

He concentrated on kissing her, one hand on her cheek, the other working their way through his pocket until his fingers closed around the ring box.

"Are you awake?" he murmured against her lips.

"Mmhmm."

"Good." He kissed her once more and pulled back slightly so he could look at her. His pulse felt thready. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. "I've been thinking this morning."

Her eyes met his. He thought she looked sleepy but alert.

Reminding himself that she had already promised she would say yes when he asked, Edward pressed on. "I've been thinking that next year, you'll be here with me. We'll be together forever in just a few months, and-"

To his surprise, her eyes closed. She rolled over, sitting up as she did. Edward stared at her bare back, disconcerted. "Bella?"

She didn't answer. She reached for her shirt, slipping it on and then grabbed her pants up off the floor.

"Bella?" he tried again. The lump in his throat got larger, more painful. He felt slow.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

"Look, Edward." She still had her back to him. "Before you go on, there's something you should know."

Slowly, Edward sat up, next to her. He put his hand on her back but she stood as though his touch burned her. He gulped. "Okay. What?"

She paced a few steps away and then back. "I..." She swallowed hard and huffed. "I'm not coming to Dartmouth next year."

Edward's stomach, his lungs, seemed to fill with ice water. "What?" the sound was strangled.

"I started thinking about it a while ago - after you left. But now that I've toured the campus with you and seen it for myself, I know it's not the right place for me."

Her words couldn't have hurt worse if she'd stabbed him in the gut.

"I've been thinking, maybe we need to reconsider what we're doing."

And twisted.

"I... This is a great school, but I think it's just not for me. I want to go to California."

"Okay," he said slowly, his brain scrambling. He didn't understand what was going on. "If you don't like Dartmouth, maybe we can take next semester off. I'll come home, and then-"

"No." Her voice was louder than it had been. "No, I don't want you to do that."

Edward felt light headed - almost faint. "What are you saying, Bella?"

"I'm saying..." She was wringing her hands, and she still wasn't looking at him. "We're really young, Edward. It was a nice dream. Really, it is a nice dream - our plan - but it's not the only one, you know? I think... I think I need some space to figure out what I really want."

Edward opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Until that moment, he hadn't ever understood the term "tongue tied". He was. He was rendered absolutely speechless. His brain refused to work, refused to string two words together, let alone the litany he wanted to shout.

"Look. My flight home is in a few hours. Don't worry about me, okay? I know you didn't expect this. I'll get a taxi."

"I... I thought you were staying a few days." The words came out as though someone had gripped his balls and were twisting. Honestly, it might as well have been the truth.

"What's the point? I don't want to be here." She sounded so flippant.

Edward felt riddled with holes. Being flayed alive and set on fire would hurt less.

Bella had picked up her duffle bag. She never unpacked, he realized.

She'd been planning this. She'd been planning this while they talked on the phone for hours, when they counted down the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes until they would see each other again.

She'd been planning this when he was panting, "I love you," against her skin when they made love for the first time.

"I'm going to go," she said quietly. "I'm sorry. You'll... I'm just sorry."

And then she was gone, taking his heart and his soul with her as she closed the door behind her.

~0~

Edward's stomach revolting tossed him into wakefulness suddenly. He lurched out of bed, stumbling, catching himself against the wall before he barely made it out to the hall and into the bathroom. He fell to his knees in front of the toilet just in time.

He felt wretched in more ways than one. His body seized as, purging what little was left inside him. If he wasn't so busy holding onto the commode for dear life, he might have grabbed his head. He vaguely wondered if it was actually possible for it to explode as it was threatening to do.

When he was finally done, he flushed the toilet and rested his head on the seat, trying to catch his breath. He felt like crap. He felt hollowed out and serrated around the edges.

He just ached.

Edward hadn't even noticed Bella enter the bathroom. He didn't realize she was there until he felt a cool cloth against the back of his neck.

His thoughts spun. It was hard to think past the painful thud, thud, thud of his heart beating in his head. And as usual when she was near him, there was that inevitable sense of longing - just one more ache to add to the pile.

He remembered most of the night before. He remembered watching Bella with his parents - how automatically she moved to help his mother at dinner. No one asked or prompted her. She just gave so willingly, instantly. He remembered Emmett's stories, and none of them had really surprised him. Bella had always been that way, thinking of others before herself when they were in need.

Of course, he remembered how she helped him up, put him in bed. She was doing it for his mother, he understood that, but she didn't need to make him comfortable. She didn't have to take off his shoes or tuck him in. She could have made him sleep on the couch, but she hadn't.

And now she was still taking care of him though his parents were probably still asleep and no one was watching them.

The cloth felt good on his superheated skin, and Edward felt, for a moment, so thankful. His heart twisted a little at the tender way she wiped at his neck and forehead.

But there was his dream-memory of how brutally and completely she'd thrashed his heart. For what? Her excuse had been she wanted to see what else was out there for her. What had she chosen? Forks and a life of martyrdom?

With a growl, he pushed her hand away.

She sighed. "I'm trying to help you."

"I don't need your help." He got to his feet, but he stumbled, and she was there, wrapping her arm around his waist.

She snorted. "Yeah. I can see that. Look, I know how distasteful you find it to touch me, but suck it up. You should have thought of that before you drank yourself stupid."

He was annoyed because she was right. And she was still helping him, leading him over to the counter. When she was reasonably certain he wasn't going to fall again, she reached for the paper cups Esme had always kept stocked in each bathroom. She filled it with water and as he drank, she got his toothbrush and toothpaste out.

"Go away," he demanded, knowing full well he sounded like a grumpy toddler.

Something antagonistic flashed in her eyes. "When you go back to bed, I'll leave you alone. I'm not going to let you bash your head open being a stubborn brat."

He growled again, completely aggravated by everything: his stupid decision to drink that much, his stupid decision to get her to marry him...

He laughed when it occurred to him. She'd once promised she would say yes if he ever asked her to marry him. That was one promise she'd kept.

Edward gnashed his teeth as she followed him, her hand out, ready to help, back to bedroom. He sank down on the couch. She hesitated, but went to sit on the bed.

The air between them was alive. Heated. Heavy.

"I met your friend Emmett," he said lowly, randomly.

There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but he was still mostly drunk and very angry. He didn't feel at all well, and between that, his dream-memory, and his increasingly confused feelings, he just knew he was going to say something stupid.

It didn't seem to be stopping him.

Bella's eyes flicked up to his and she breathed in and out slowly. She cleared her throat. "How is he?"

Edward's laugh was grating. "Seems like you're up to your old tricks. You ditched your friends just as easily as you ditched me. I suppose I should feel grateful. You didn't give them the benefit of dumping them to their face."

She sucked in a sharp breath.

"Let me ask you something... your ex. Jacob."

The look in her eyes warned him he was heading down a dangerous path, but he was on a roll now.

"You knew him when you were in high school." He was connecting the dots, trying to align the picture of Bella he'd had when he was a teenager with the one he'd built up over the last eight years and the reality of the woman in front of his eyes.

Bella swallowed. "Yes," she confirmed simply, offering no details or excuses.

He nodded. "So, I've always wondered who it was you fucked before you fucked me. Was it him?"

The look on her face - as though he'd punched her in the gut - made him only sicker with himself, but he couldn't form the words to take it back.

"Why the hell would you say something like that?" she said, exhaling with a gust.

Again, he spoke before he could think. "You weren't a virgin," he said bluntly.

She wrapped her arms around herself. "What?" she demanded.

"You had no fucking hymen," he spat. At the time, he'd been relieved. He didn't want to hurt her, and he'd figured she'd just lost it. That happened; he knew that happened. But after she left him, he couldn't fathom how the night they'd spent together was so meaningless unless there was someone else. Or maybe his classmates were right. Maybe while he'd been planning their forever, she was bored and having fun.

Her eyes narrowed, filled with angry tears. "You are an unimaginable bastard." Her tone was a harsh whisper. "Of course I was a virgin. There was no one but you. Before and for years afterward, there was no one but you."

He didn't say anything at that. He wanted to call her a liar, but he didn't believe it. She was telling the truth; he knew she was. It didn't fit with any of the storylines he'd created in the wake of their break-up, but it was true nonetheless.

Bella stood, crossing her arms and facing away from him, breathing in and out. "When does this end?" she asked, her voice hard.

"What are you talking about?"

"When am I punished enough?" she demanded, turning toward him with fire in her eyes. "When does this stop? There is a point where anger isn't a justification. There is a right and wrong way to treat another person and you crossed it. Ages ago."

Edward rubbed his temples. God, his head hurt so much. His heart hurt.

Just everything hurt.

"You understand that at this point, it's you - only you - who's making us both miserable," she said.

Edward blew out a breath. "I know that," he admitted quietly.

"Then why-"

"Because I can't like you. I don't know how!" The words bubbled up and out like a volcano exploding, all terrible, burning, destructive fire. "Because this is easier than losing you again. It makes me an asshole, and I hate it. I hate hurting you. You can't imagine how much it hurts, but it's the lesser of two evils, because if I don't hate you, I don't have a choice except to love you! I can't do that again. I can't!" He was shouting by the time he was done, breathing raggedly.

Bella was staring at him, her eyes wide and her mouth open.

Sighing, Edward slumped, throwing his arm over his eyes. He breathed in and out slowly, catching his breath, trying to quell his queasy stomach.

"I'm sorry," he said, his tone so soft now, defeated. "I am. I really am. But I don't know how to do this." He felt like he was losing the last shred of his sanity. Already it was worse than it had been directly after she left him - when nothing in the world made even a tiny bit of sense.

Now, he didn't know what way was up. He hated her, he loved her. He was annoyed. He adored her. She was...

Well, in all honesty, she was exactly as he remembered her: kind, beautiful, and smart. That made it so much harder.

Why?

If she hadn't changed so entirely, how had she been able to dismiss them, all their plans, the beautiful life they could have shared, so flippantly? How, after spending the night in each others arms, could it have meant so little to her?

He'd built up this vision of her in his head, twisting bits and pieces of information to feed it. If she was such a bitch, obviously the life they'd planned together had always been a fiction. He couldn't lose something built out of materials that hadn't ever existed.

But if she was there in front of him, still the same at her core though she'd lost some of the sure idealism of teenagehood, that future existed. It was tangible.

And still out of his reach - not for him.

Now his mother was running out of time, and that alone was more than Edward could reconcile with.

It was all so much to deal with.

"Edward." Bella's voice was so quiet when she spoke. "We have to figure this out. I can't let you keep doing this to me. You understand that right?"

Edward's stomach twisted again, and he breathed through his nose. She was better than him. She always had been. She had every right to hate him - he had been so cruel to her - but here she was, asking again to talk it out.

Yes, it would probably hurt a lot. He was already in unimaginable pain, reliving the aftermath of their breakup at the same time he was dealing with his mother's imminent death, but he owed it to her to try.

"I know," he finally said.

He heard her soft footfalls across the room, and then her gentle hands in his. "Come on. Get up. Get in bed. Sleep this off."

Standing on shaky legs, he let her lead him to bed and tuck him in again.

"Bella," he called, realizing suddenly she was at the door and not the couch. His heartbeat sped, remembering her walking out the first time, and he panicked. "Where are you going?"

"I'm just going downstairs."

He settled down, feeling slightly better. His eyelids were heavy. "Bella?" he called again.

"What?"

"I am sorry."

There was silence for too many long moments. He dragged his eyes back open to see if she was still there. She was. "We have to talk," she said finally.

"We will," he promised before he fell back asleep, too entirely drained of everything in him to stay awake longer.

A/N: Little background for you.

Thanks so much to Songster for beta and barburella for snippy Edward comments.

SO! How are we feeling, kids?