23. Existing without Purpose

[Edward POV- 7+ months ago]

'She's safe. She's alive,' I heard Alice say in her thoughts as she sat in my room with me.

It had only been an hour since I'd left Bella's house after our night together. School was the last thing on my mind and it's not like I wouldn't be missing anything that I hadn't all ready studied.

When I'd come home I hadn't needed to say anything. Long distance hearing was an unfortunate part of vampire life and I'd arrived home wearing the same clothes that I'd been in before.

"I could have killed her,' I said aloud.

"But you didn't," Alice answered. "You're not the first vampire to have sexual relations with a human."

I winced away at Alice's words. I didn't need a sex talk from my sister of all people. She was right of course. Our cousins in Denali had become well known as various succubae for luring men to their beds. Sometimes they lived shortly but a majority of the time they didn't survive the encounter.

Bella was lucky. She'd been battered and bruised. I didn't even want to be at school to hear what people were thinking: that I was an abusive boyfriend, that Bella liked a rough relationship. I kind of hoped that if they knew Bella as well as I then it was clumsy mistake after clumsy mistake or that it could have been a medical condition. Sometimes humans bruised easily because of lack of iron and anemic deficiencies or cancer.

But her luck was bound to run out.

'We're still leaving though,' Alice thought as matter of fact.

I had seen the vision with her, with my decision having been made.

"It's the only way I can keep her safe," I said getting up and leaving the room.

I met my family downstairs. My decision affected us all.

"We have to leave Forks," I said to them.

"But we just got here a couple years ago," Rosalie complained.

"Bella almost died because of me last night," I said trying to hide my thoughts of her bruises and almost caving to biting and tasting her blood. "And because of Jasper," I added. "She's not safe with me around."

"Are you sure about this Edward," Esme asked outloud.

Internally I could see that my choice was slightly hurting her. All she and Carlisle ever wanted for me was to find someone to love, in hopes that I would find my mate the way they had. And now that I had found someone in the most unconventional way possible, I was putting an end to my short-lived bit of happiness.

"If this is truly your decision," said Carlisle, "We'll support it."

"I can't keep hurting her this way, Carlisle," I said to my adoptive father. "She deserves better than me. She deserves to be human."

Carlisle nodded and placed a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. "We'll leave as soon as you need us to."

"Now would be good. I want to be gone by the time Bella gets out of school."

"Edward," Alice said shaking her head, "You at least owe her an explanation. You can't just up and leave without saying goodbye. Even you're not that shallow."

"And I'll give her one. I just want us all to be gone before she decides to come looking."

"Okay."

"Sure am gonna miss it here," said Emmett, "Just couldn't keep it in your pants could ya?"

"Emmett," Esme said scolding him for his language.

It was done.

I'd left Bella in the woods a day ago.

My family had relocated to Boston, Massachusetts but I hadn't been much for their company or anyone else.

The only thing I'd asked of Alice before we'd left was that she under any reason not search for Bella's future and even if by accident to try and look away before she got anything useful. To make sure of it I made sure to put as much distance between my family and myself as possible so that I could not read Alice's thoughts and see her visions.

I'd originally thought of settling at my family home in Chicago, Illinois but that didn't seem sufficient enough.

As of late the south was suffering from an abundance of mountain lions, they were thriving, some even making their way onto local school grounds in the surrounding areas of the Big Bend region near Presidio, Texas. A border town with a population of less than 5,000. Nothing but hills and desert where sun and burning temperatures took up a majority of the year with the occasional rainstorms in the summer and snow drifts in the winter. One of the towns in the state that western civilization had yet to reach; the nearest Walmart being over 150 miles away in the town of Fort Stockton.

Presidio was a near nothing town. Exactly what I needed.

My time was spent in doors during the day and wandering the town and surrounding areas at night. The traditional style of our kind. There was nothing for me here and that was the point.

To keep myself busy, I applied to one of the nearby universities for their online graduate program in geology. I had no interest in the field but anything was better than thinking about the life I'd left behind. And with the national park nearby it seemed only fitting.

I'd never truly understood the appeal of Texas that Jasper harbored despite the bad memories that came with it until now when I'd found myself living her.

Desert sunsets. Drives that led nowhere. Infinite stars due to the lack of light pollution at night.

And plenty of mountain lions, foxes, and coyotes to keep sustain me for a while.

My leisure time in Presidio didn't last. A month later I found myself getting restless. The dryness of the area was starting to irritate me. I longed for the fall and cold of the northern region. I longed for Forks but that wasn't an option.

As long as she was there I couldn't be. A year or two and she'd be gone hopefully; back to her mom in Phoenix or Florida, wherever Renee was living these days.

I enjoyed living as a night-walker. To walk in the day in some place forest like or an area with not a lot of sunlight would have felt like a betrayal. I had left her so she could have a chance to live a normal life, to move on. That didn't mean I had to.

She had all ready altered me so completely that the man I'd been before her was gone and it felt as if I couldn't get back to that even if I tried. Her hold on me remained irreversible and unchanging.

I existed and that's all I could do.

Exist and pass through the world without moving forward, without purpose.

Praying to a god I didn't believe in for time to pass quickly.