Hello all! So sorry for the delay in this last update. I decided you would all be happier if I posted all three of these chapters at once. You all deserve it after being so kind to me. I know that sometimes I get too overwhelmed to respond to everyone's reviews individually, but I appreciate and adore each and every one. Thank you!
Enjoy!
B-POV
"Bella!"
My treacherous heart cheered.
He found me, it seemed to sing, he finally found me!
I coolly reminded myself that the reason he needed to find me was because I spent almost all my time and energy at school actively avoiding him. Dropping out of our shared class was easy. Convincing our friends to try out a new lunch spot was difficult. In the end, it didn't matter much. I ate most of my meager meals in my truck or as I walked to class, while I discovered the longest, emptiest stretches of campus to get me from one place to another.
The sidewalk connecting the farthest freshman lot and the school facilities building was typically empty. Sandwiched between a thick tree line and a road seldom used, it was the most secluded path that would bring me from my truck to campus. I hadn't seen anyone other than facility workers use it before. Until now.
Edward's footsteps picked up in a run to catch up to me. His breath was even as if the sudden sprint was nothing. Having felt his stupid abs myself, I doubt the excursion phased him at all. He truly was the worst.
"I'm so relieved to see you. Are you finally feeling better?"
It took me a moment to understand the meaning behind his words. He thought the illness I faked to end our date early was real. What an idiot.
"Yup," I said, hoping my clipped tone would give him a clue to leave me alone.
"Oh, thank goodness," he breathed. "I've been so worried about you."
I stopped abruptly to maintain my composure. It wasn't fair. No lie had the right to sound that convincing. He must be a real psychopath to be able to force so much tenderness into his voice.
"I don't know if you remember this, but you asked if I would ever perform at the club, and I promised you that I would play for you. Well, I have a spot. Tonight. If you're still interested."
I could see it now: Edward up on stage, announcing a song dedicated to me, only to perform a mocking ditty about our time together, the audience bursting into horrendous laughter and raucous applause.
"I already have plans tonight," I lied as I started walking again. Edward followed, but I stayed right in the center of the narrow walkway, so there wasn't any room on either side to join me.
"That's fair," he breathed. "Do you have time next weekend? I could try to reschedule."
"I have plans then, too."
"Okay…" his voice faltered as his devious plan began to crumble. "Then, I'll see you in class on Tuesday. I have all the notes for the lectures you've missed. I already made copies for you."
"I won't need them. I dropped out of that class."
That finally got a reaction out of him. "What!?" in a crazy fast movement, he was suddenly in front of me, his eyes wild with worry. I looked away from them immediately, refusing to be drawn by his charms yet again. "Why would you do that?"
"I was never happy with the workload in that class. I decided to save myself from the torture."
He stepped to the side, to let me continue down the path. He kept the perfect pace to remain by my side, I couldn't leave him in the dust or trail behind. "I wish you said something to me about it."
"I didn't realize my class schedule was so important to you."
"Everything you do is important to me," he mumbled hastily, as if the words were an involuntary reflex. Then, louder, after a sigh: "Is there any place you can squeeze me in this weekend? We could meet up at the library…"
"All booked up. Sorry."
"Then, on Monday, after your classes."
"I have a lot of work… I can't get more behind than I already am."
"You just dropped a class," he pointed out.
"Because I was behind in my other classes."
"You can work in the library."
"I don't know what to tell you, Edward. I don't work well in the library."
He stopped abruptly, in the middle of the path. "Please, Bella. Try to work with me here. I… I…" he ran his long fingers through his ginger hair, pulling it up into a spiky disarray. Unbelievably, it made him more handsome. I hated him for it. "I can't keep doing this."
Though it was my chance to leave him, I stopped, as well. Drawn to the seemingly ancient sorrow in his voice. "Do what?"
His honey-gold eyes met and held mine. A deep, desperate desire swirled in the sweetness of the color. "Be without you."
That ridiculous confession snapped me right back to reality. There was no world where someone like Edward could possibly feel like that for me. He got off on making impossible confessions, only to snatch them back. I wondered if he hated all women or just fat women.
"I want to be with you, Bella, but we have to talk about something before we move forward."
"Then, maybe we shouldn't talk about anything."
He quirked his head. "I don't understand where this is coming from. Did I do something wrong?"
I laughed in his face. Cruel and sharp. As far as I knew, he never did anything right.
His disgusting, perfect features pinched tighter at the sound. "Whatever it is, I'm sure what I have to say will explain it. Please, give me a chance."
"Why?" I demanded. I was never one for confrontation—I preferred to forgive and forget—but Edward's persistence was becoming frustrating. Was his desire to humiliate me so strong that he needed to force his way into my good graces?
The icy chill in the demand froze Edward solid. He stood unblinking, for a moment too long. When he reanimated, his motions were awkward, choppy. Like a robot that was about to short-circuit. "I love you."
His eyes widened, as if he couldn't believe what he said, either.
It was too much. My heart erupted into fireworks while the rest of me shook from the explosion. Edward's love was everything I wanted. I wished I could believe that I did—slip back into that pocket of ignorance that allowed me to think he was mine. To think he was a special boy and I was a special girl. That we had been drawn to one other under supernatural circumstances.
But Edward was not powered. Those things weren't real. Just like his love for me. He was just another one of those pretty, deceptive boys who got bored of never being told no and always being told yes and wanted something new to play with.
That's all this was to him.
Just as the mist in the air picked up into a drizzle, tears welled in my eyes. I squeezed them shut, hoping to hold them back.
"Bella?" He was too good at this. My heart believed the concern in his voice to be true.
"Why are you doing this to me!?"
"I'm sorry! I-I-I know it's too fast, but-but if you…"
While he stuttered through his fake apology, I reopened my eyes. The tears persisted, but they were no longer the fat, slow tears of sorrow, but the fiery tears of anger. As if the flame burned him, Edward took a small step back. "How stupid do you think I am?"
"Not at all!" he practically pleaded. "Bella, I don't think you're stupid at all."
"How many lies are you going to try to get me to believe!?"
"None!" he shook his head frantically. "I'm trying to tell you the truth."
"Because you love me?" I spat the word.
Hair dampened from the rain and desperation soft on his features, he looked pathetic. When he finally spoke, his voice was small. "Yes."
"God," I growled. I spun on my heels, hoping he had the sense to finally leave me alone. "I don't want to hear anything you have to say to me."
He didn't. "Please!" He caught my hand. "Just five minutes…"
I yanked my hand out of his grasp. "If you love me as much as you claim to, you will never speak to me again."
He closed his gaping mouth obediently.
E-POV
I pressed my forefinger into middle C. The note sang out, strong and true. I held the note until it faded into silence. My other fingers were supposed to complete the cord in my head, but they could not find the right keys. In fact, I couldn't name the cord at all. I tried again, only to end with the same, disappointing result.
After my entire world shattered, I remained on the path along the forest long after Bella's retreating form disappeared. Eventually, my fingers itched for my piano—something to do with my hands and somewhere to put my heart. When I sat at the piano, no music came. Even simple scales eluded me.
For the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon, I pressed high C over and over, coaxing the rest of my hand to follow. It never did.
For the thousandth time, Carlisle's thoughts drifted up to me, "Edward, please talk to me."
I pressed harder on the key, to drown out the thoughts.
Esme arrived home from work, and the salacious plan for Carlisle came to a screeching halt when she heard the key from the piano. "Edward?" she called out. I was supposed to be in class with my other siblings. The fact that I wasn't flooded her mind with the same concern that punctuated each of Carlisle's thoughts.
He must have met her at the front door. Though I was too far away to actually hear the whispered conversation, I was close enough to hear the thoughts that accompanied their discussion. They were still talking when Rosalie and Emmett returned home from school.
"He's been here the whole time!" Rosalie shouted. I could hear the rage in her voice as well as her thoughts. "We waited for you!"—dickward, she added in her mind—"a little heads up would have been nice!"
Esme relayed her concerns to Rosalie, but Rosalie shrugged them off. "I don't care. He needs to come down here and explain himself. Edward!"
Ignoring her would only make her more aggravating, so I reluctantly hoisted myself off the bench and trudged down the two staircases to where my family convened in the front room.
I lingered on the third-to-last step and issued my apology to Rose. It lacked heart, because I no longer had a heart to use. Suddenly, the door slammed open with enough force to rattle the windows and shake the frames. Jasper burst through. Alice's frantic voice called after him, desperate to know why he darted out of the car before it stopped. Our eyes met and held—my face void of emotion and his twisted with the agony I worked to hide. "Jesus Christ. I thought someone was dying."
"What happened?" Esme demanded, her head whipping between the two of us.
"Nothing that can be fixed, so it doesn't really matter."
Everyone's attention flew back to Jasper, looking for a more concrete answer. He licked his lips as if he needed to physically taste the air. His eyes held mine as he picked out the subtle notes and nuances of my emotions, like a sommelier with a new glass of wine. "Devastation. Heartbreak. Hopelessness."
Gasps and sympathetic murmurs echoed in the room. I glared at Jasper, angrily. For years, I harbored his deepest, hungriest thoughts from the family. Kept them to myself, knowing they were his secrets to share. Yet, he shared my hidden emotions at the first chance he got. He might as well have stripped me naked, I felt so vulnerable and exposed. I hoped he felt that, too.
"Bella," Esme deduced right away. "What happened with Bella?"
I regarded my mother with a long, bleak stare. "Bella no longer wishes to see me."
Alice sucked in a sharp breath through her nose. Emmett's hand dropped from where it was laced through Rose's. Esme stepped up to where I lingered on the staircase and rubbed my arm. It took all my willpower not to shrink away from her touch. I wanted to get this over with and return to my piano. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure." With my eyes shut, all I could see were Bella's eyes. Usually melted with warmth and desire, hardened and cracked with hate. "She hates me."
"Edward, honey, you've always been prone to overreaction. You can't read her thoughts; Japer wasn't there to read her emotions. We don't know that she meant it."
Alice was on the same bandwagon as Esme. She released Jasper's hand from comforting him through his agony—my agony. "Think about what Jasper said…"
"Add a hundred years of built-up angst and shame and her feelings would be identical to Edward's," Jasper added, repeating his words from a previous conversation.
"She wouldn't just hate you! Not when her feelings for you were so strong!"
"Hate is also a strong emotion," Emmett added unhelpfully. He was never one to read the room.
"I don't think it's true," Esme started, the gears turning in her mind, "Alice, go to the school and strike up a conversation with her, Jasper will follow and—,"
"Esme! There's nothing we can do. It's over. We should all just move on."
"You will never be able to move on," Carlisle said, softly.
"I am not going to give this up, Edward." Then, back to my siblings, "Jasper will follow and—,"
"We knew there was a chance she would figure out I lied to her. I broke our kiss. I ran into the rain. For all she knew, she caught the fake illness I used earlier in the week, and it sent her home early. She has every right to be upset with me."
"All of that was going to be explained when you told her the truth! Why didn't you tell her?"
"This was the first I'd seen of her all week. It wasn't the time." I thought of my disastrous confession of love, and Bella's immediate dismissal. Adding an impossible confession on top of the obvious one wasn't going to help either of us. "She asked me not to speak to her."
"Woah, woah, woah." Rosalie held up both hands, to slow the conversation like one would slow traffic. "Ignoring the fact that Edward tossed aside each and every rule Carlisle thoughtfully laid out for the family—which should obviously be discussed later—you kissed her, you fled, and she went home sick?"
Though the question was aimed at me, Esme was the one who answered. "Yes, that's what happened."
"And she was sick all week." Rosalie used air quotes around the word sick.
"Yes," I muttered.
"Oh my god," Rosalie laughed once, hard and cruel. "I knew you were all being delusional about this thing, but I didn't expect you to be downright stupid." Esme rose a finger to chastise her daughter, but Rosalie spoke over her, "The girl figured it out. She knows you're a vampire."
Every mind in the room went suspiciously blank. All except Rosalie, whose mind churned out insults aimed at me while she seethed with rage, "Think about it. Just the other day you were bragging about how observant your little human was." She clenched her teeth, " I knew you would do something like this! From the second I saw you alone on the bench with that girl, I knew you would put the entire family in jeopardy!" She elbowed Emmett in the ribs, "Did I not say this was going to happen."
Emmett remained mercifully silent.
I swallowed loudly. "If what you're saying is true, she only knows what I am. You would all be safe."
Rosalie pointed to Carlisle. "She connected you with Carlisle. How long until she runs into Esme at the Elementary school? How long until she notices one of us at school?" Rosalie threw up both hands in the air in frustration. "Do we have time to lay down the groundwork for our departure, or should we take the weekend to leave?"
No one made any motion to leave. No one voiced a plan.
Rosalie picked up on the mood of the household without any supernatural gifts. "No one wants to leave."
"Angel," Esme's voice slipped into the lilting tone she used whenever Rosalie was in one of her moods, "don't you think this is a bit premature?"
"Of course, you don't think we should leave. Of course! Any other time suspicion arose, we would be long gone. No matter how much groundwork I already put in for my degree. No matter how many friends Emmett already made. We would run off into the night. But because everyone's golden boy might be a bit sad, we're going to risk everything!"
"That's not what's happening and you know it. Those other times were reactions to thoughts Edward heard or visions Alice had."
"I haven't seen anything," Alice latched on, no more willing to let the dream of me and Bella die than Esme. "I still see you graduating with honors, Rose. Dr. Ivan will still agree to be on your thesis committee. Both those visions are clear as day."
"Oh please," Rose rolled her eyes. "Your visions are as reliable as the Zoltar machine down at the arcade."
"Hey! I have always seen big decisions like this! I saved your ass in Montreal!"
"Just admit it!" Rosalie bellowed, "Everyone in here was willing to risk the safety of the family for Edward."
"Your brother deserved the chance, Rose," Carlisle said, calmly. "Just as much as you did."
"I was careful!" she screamed. "Why did I have to wait four years for a chance with Emmett, while Edward thought only of himself?!" Emmett put a hand on Rosalie's shoulder. She shook it off and stepped back. "No! You were as much of a problem as the rest of them! You're on his side. Every, single one of you is more eager to help Edward than you are to help me!"
At once, everyone but myself stepped forward, wanting to placate Rose. Whenever someone would say something kind in her direction, she would whip it back at me with cruelty.
At any other time, I would have used the distraction to flee. Back to the silence of my room and the solace of my piano. But I was rooted in place. My mind in turmoil and my heart scraped raw. On top of the searing pain of heartbreak—echoed and amplified by Jasper's gift—my family's thoughts ravaged my mind like a tornado. Usually, my family was careful around me—they were truly more than I deserved. When we were all together, they were careful to think only about what they wanted to say, and paid attention.
Now, their enhanced minds moved at a mile a second, twisting and turning. Tensions were at their highest levels. Torn between two beloved members. Wondering if it was better for us to leave. Wishing things with Bella went differently. Unsure of the best course of action, and frantically thinking up solutions that would appease both me and Rose.
Each time I emptied my head, one of my family's runaway thoughts would slip into my mind.
"What will my chem partner think if I leave her in the middle of a group project…"
"There's still time. All we need to do…"
"I knew it was a mistake…" The chaos in the room pulled the thought from Carlisle's mind before he could catch it.
I stared at him—horrified—for a moment before I reeled back my emotions. It wasn't his fault for thinking it, it was my fault for being able to hear it.
I wasn't quick enough. Carlisle caught my stare and immediately apologized. "Edward, you weren't meant to hear…"
"I understand," I whispered. "It was meant to be a secret."
The comment caught everyone off guard, and suddenly each of my family members worried that it had been their secret I had heard.
I should have been a better person. A better person would have let it slip, knowing a person's thoughts were their own. My extra hearing was the enemy—not my family. Had I not been in excruciating pain and overwhelmed to the highest extent, I would not have turned to my mother and yelled, "Are you fucking serious?!"
Carlisle was immediately defensive. At vampire speed, he stepped between me and his wife and apologized. "I'm sorry, Edward."
His passing thought was the least concerning of the group but hurt all the same. My lips trembled as I went against my moral code and spoke Carlisle's hidden thought out loud. "You regret allowing me to make the choice."
His hands flew up to my shoulders. "Not enough to ever act on it."
"You regret giving me a voice in my own life."
"I know how you operate, son. Always with your heart—subject to your own emotions whether they be anger, guilt—or in this case—love. I hoped to give you the chance to approach a situation a bit more logically. And maybe if you had, maybe if you were more careful and thoughtful, you would not have scared this girl away."
His hands squeezed my shoulder tighter, silently begging me to accept his apology. As much as his words stung, my father was right. If I hadn't kissed Bella, if I wasn't insistent on taking her on that date, if I moved slower, if I thought more, maybe Bella wouldn't despise me right now. If I hadn't told Bella I loved her, I would not have received the withering stare that was now seared into my mind.
Though, I could have been saved from such pain, according to Alice and the concern of both my brothers and the vision she revealed to them in confidence.
Carlisle may have doubted me, but at least he never lied. Heart stinging, mind reeling, I turned to my best friend, my sister. "You had a vision of me in Tibet? Last week?" I hid in the Yangpachen hot springs when my piano wasn't enough to sustain me.
"I didn't know what it meant!" Alice cried. "You could have been visiting. It could have been anything. I didn't want you to get anything in your head that doesn't need to be there!"
"God!" My hands flew up to my hair and I gave the strands a solid tug. "Right after my date with Bella. Whatever decision brought on that vision happened right after my date with Bella!"
Had I known, had I the smallest warning, I could have done something to fix my relationship with Bella. Or at the bare minimum, not offer my heart to her only to have it crushed. "You knew I was going to fail! Why wouldn't you tell me?"
Both Jasper and Emmett muttered an apology—Emmett out loud, Jasper in his thoughts. "We all agreed that it was best not to meddle with your decisions. That maybe, knowing you fled would cause you to flee."
"Now you choose not to meddle?" I reached my hands into my hair and pulled. Alice meddled in everything. Every chance she got. Her lack of meddling was nothing compared to the active meddling of another.
I bared my teeth at my mother. Something I had never done, not even in my early days as a newborn vampire. "The only reason I ever pursued Bella was you! Your insistence that I let her choose." I threw my hands in the air. "Well, she didn't choose me!"
Esme stepped towards me. I stepped back, further up the staircase.
"All because you knew best. Because I was to follow your relationship as a guide. But it lead me to failure—and you knew it would. You didn't even choose Carlisle when you discovered the truth. You didn't accept him."
It was the smallest reveal. Esme's memory of the same hatred she harbored towards Carlisle, that she figured Bella must have felt towards me.
"What did you want me to do, honey?" Esme asked. If she could cry, tears would have pooled in her sorrowful eyes. "If you knew I didn't accept Carlisle right away, you would have given up on Bella before you even tried."
"Clearly, I should have!" I gestured toward Carlisle, "He certainly thinks so."
Carlisle shifted to his other foot, uncomfortable with his inner thoughts brought into the open. I was a monster for dragging them out, but I was too hurt to care. My heart was mutilated, and my own family had sharpened the knife before they handed it to Bella.
"Rosalie is the only damn person in this room who didn't lie to me!"
"I don't care about you enough to put in the effort to come up with a lie."
"The rest of you set me up to fail. So, shut off your goddamn thoughts! I don't want to hear how sorry you are. I don't want to hear your plans to attempt to fix this. I don't want to hear what you would have done differently." I looked at Rosalie, standing as far away from me as the room would allow, her arms crossed, her ruby lips twisted into a scowl. "I don't want to hear how hideous you think she is."
I never revealed Rosalie's cruelest thoughts. I always kept them to myself, knowing how a person's heart didn't always match their surface thoughts. But I was beyond caring.
She wasn't. Rosalie's gold eyes darkened with rage. Her mind flitted between embarrassment and frustration.
Emmett's hand flew to Rose's lower back. "Why would you think something like that, Rosie?"
Her husband's genuine concern pushed her over the edge. Rosalie lunged at me, but Emmett caught her.
"This is why no one can stand to be around you!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs.
"She's sorry, Eddie," Emmett promised over his shoulder while holding back Rose.
"No, I'm not!" Rosalie declared. She straightened, adjusted her jacket, and fixed her hair. "Carlisle swallowed his doubt to give you a chance. Esme twisted a minor detail to encourage you. Alice kept a vision to herself to protect your future. Why the fuck are they apologizing to you?"
I couldn't respond because there was no answer. As always, Rosalie was right.
"No one should have to apologize for thinking. Everyone acted for your benefit!" she jammed her pointer finger in my direction. "You cannot be upset with them! The only person you have any right to be upset with is yourself. You lost the girl and endangered the family by acting on your own accord. Because at your core, you're a disgrace and a failure."
She took another step towards me, pushing away Emmett's hand that instinctively flew up to protect her. "So, no. I'm not going to apologize. I am going to continue to think that you dropped our family standards to the ground when you chose to pursue that girl."
I hurled myself at my sister.
Esme shrieked. Alice wailed. Rosalie growled. Carlisle and Emmett dove into the fray, in a fruitless effort to keep us apart.
Then, there was silence.
Not for time since he joined the family, Jasper sucked the emotion out of the room, leaving us all as mellow, almost lifeless. It was the closest we would be to the corpses we truly were. My hands dropped to my side from where they wrapped around Emmett's bicep, tearing the fabric. He didn't react to the tear. My lungs were no longer engulfed in flames; my heart no longer ached in agony. Alice's panicked features relaxed. Emmett's arm collapsed from where it held Rosalie back. She and I both stood upright and stepped closer to one another than we typically could handle.
"Now," Jasper rarely addressed us as a whole group, and whenever he did what he had to say was worth listening to. "There's a real issue at hand that we have to figure out."
Emmett, without any humor in him to crack a joke, said, "A human might know our secret."
"That's right, buddy. Let's take a moment to think. We are acting on circumstantial evidence. Do we always behave this way?"
"No," Alice shook her head. Her windchime voice dulled; she sounded bored. "We don't leave until whispers start. We don't want to bring any attention to ourselves, and that includes abrupt, unwarranted departures."
"Thank you, Darling." Jasper smiled down at his partner—the only one of us with any emotion to allow him to do so. "Our names will be brought up more if we suddenly vanish."
"So, then Edward leaves," Esme suggested, with nothing in her heart to sway the logic of the solution.
"He needs to stay here and listen for thoughts about us," Rosalie stated, typically the last person who would want me to stick around. "Especially around the girl's friends."
"I can do that."
"Alright," Jasper nodded. "We are all in agreement that we will remain until there is concrete proof of the girl's suspicion."
Everyone nodded in unison.
Jasper released whatever grip he held on our emotions. The weight of the pain dropped back into my heart caused me to choke and stumble—I had to catch myself at the edge of a table. Rosalie did not fare better. With the return of her feelings, she immediately growled, sharp and vicious. Shocked by her own voice, she clamped both hands over her mouth.
Holding onto my stomach like I had been punched, I bent over in pain. The searing heartbreak. The empty despair. And now, the drowning waters of guilt, for yelling at my family. Barely able to breathe, I stumbled through the darkness, fought against the flame. When I arrived at the base of the stairs, I regarded each member of my family with a heartfelt gaze. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."
This time, they let me retreat without argument. I barely got through the door to my room when I fell to my knees, shaking with tearless sobs. I hated everything I was. The monster for scaring away the girl I loved. The telepath for overwhelming my senses until I cracked and broke. The burden as a brother and son for hearing the things no one should.
I crawled deeper into the room, to the chair in the corner that was the furthest away from any thought in the house. Resigned to live forever as the only thing in this miserable life I could stand to be.
Alone.
Sorry everyone. I love Edward too much—I have to make him suffer!
