"Please. Be serious." She said.

Her words made my forehead crease, brows knit.

As much as I wanted to burn her face into my every last neuron, I had the decency to look away.

"I already lied to you once, Bella, the darkest kind of blasphemy. I am being exceptionally serious."

"You say that like you're going to stick around."

Her voice was frail, brittle and dark, and spoke to every dark phobia I possessed.

"Bella, you tried to kill yourself, even recreationally." Alice's explanation clanged in my head, gong-like. "I will never let that happen again."