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"You don't believe me, do you?" he whispered, his face paler than his usual pale—I could see that even in the dim light. "Why can you believe the lie, but not the truth?"

 

"It never made sense for you to love me," I explained, my voice breaking twice. "I always knew that."

 

His eyes narrowed, his jaw tightened.

 

"I'll prove you're awake," he promised.

 

He caught my face securely between his iron hands, ignoring my struggles when I tried to turn my head away.

 

"Please don't," I whispered.

 

He stopped, his lips just half an inch from mine.

 

"Why not?" he demanded. His breath blew into my face, making my head whirl.

 

"When I wake up"—He opened his mouth to protest, so I revised—"okay, forget that one—when you leave again, it's going to be hard enough without this, too."

 

He pulled back an inch, to stare at my face.

 

"Yesterday, when I would touch you, you were so… hesitant, so careful, and yet still the same. I need to know why. Is it because I'm too late? Because I've hurt you too much? Because you have moved on, as I meant for you to? That would be… quite fair. I won't contest your decision. So don't try to spare my feelings, please—just tell me now whether or not you can still love me, after everything I've done to you. Can you?" he whispered.

 

"What kind of an idiotic question is that?"

 

"Just answer it. Please."

 

I stared at him darkly for a long moment. "The way I feel about you will never change. Of course I love you—and there's nothing you can do about it!"

 

"That's all I needed to hear."

 

His mouth was on mine then, and I couldn't fight him. Not because he was so many thousand times stronger than me, but because my will crumbled into dust the second our lips met. This kiss was not quite as careful as others I remembered, which suited me just fine. If I was going to rip myself up further, I might as well get as much in trade as possible.

 

So I kissed him back, my heart pounding out a jagged, disjointed rhythm while my breathing turned to panting and my fingers moved greedily to his face. I could feel his marble body against every line of mine, and I was so glad he hadn't listened to me—there was no pain in the world that would have justified missing this. His hands memorized my face, the same way mine were tracing his, and, in the brief seconds when his lips were free, he whispered my name.

 

When I was starting to get dizzy, he pulled away, only to lay his ear against my heart.

 

I lay there, dazed, waiting for my gasping to slow and quiet.

 

"By the way," he said in a casual tone. "I'm not leaving you."

 

I didn't say anything, and he seemed to hear skepticism in my silence.

 

He lifted his face to lock my gaze in his. "I'm not going anywhere. Not without you," he added more seriously.

 

"I only left you in the first place because I wanted you to have a chance at a normal, happy, human life. I could see what I was doing to you—keeping you constantly on the edge of danger, taking you away from the world you belonged in, risking your life every moment I was with you. So I had to try. I had to do something, and it seemed like leaving was the only way. If I hadn't thought you would be better off, I could have never made myself leave. I'm much too selfish. Only you could be more important than what I wanted… what I needed. What I want and need is to be with you, and I know I'll never be strong enough to leave again. I have too many excuses to stay—thank heaven for that! It seems you can't be safe, no matter how many miles I put between us."

 

"Don't promise me anything," I whispered. If I let myself hope, and it came to nothing… that would kill me. Where all those merciless vampires had not been able to finish me off, hope would do the job.

 

Anger glinted metallic in his black eyes. "You think I'm lying to you now?"

 

"No—not lying." I shook my head, trying to think it through coherently. To examine the hypothesis that he did love me, while staying objective, clinical, so I wouldn't fall into the trap of hoping. "You could mean it… now. But what about tomorrow, when you think about all the reasons you left in the first place? Or next month, when Jasper takes a snap at me?"

 

He flinched.

 

I thought back over those last days of my life before he left me, tried to see them through the filter of what he was telling me now. From that perspective, imagining that he'd left me while loving me, left me for me, his brooding and cold silences took on a different meaning. "It isn't as if you hadn't thought the first decision through, is it?" I guessed. "You'll end up doing what you think is right."

 

"I'm not as strong as you give me credit for," he said. "Right and wrong have ceased to mean much to me; I was coming back anyway. Before Rosalie told me the news, I was already past trying to live through one week at a time, or even one day. I was fighting to make it through a single hour. It was only a matter of time—and not much of it—before I showed up at your window and begged you to take me back. I'd be happy to beg now, if you'd like that."

 

I grimaced. "Be serious, please."

 

"Oh, I am," he insisted, glaring now. "Will you please try to hear what I'm telling you? Will you let me attempt to explain what you mean to me?"

 

He waited, studying my face as he spoke to make sure I was really listening.

 

"Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason… And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything."

 

I wanted to believe him. But this was my life without him that he was describing, not the other way around.

 

"Your eyes will adjust," I mumbled.

 

"That's just the problem—they can't."

 

"What about your distractions?"

 

He laughed without a trace of humor. "Just part of the lie, love. There was no distraction from the… the agony. My heart hasn't beat in almost ninety years, but this was different. It was like my heart was gone—like I was hollow. Like I'd left everything that was inside me here with you."

 

"That's funny," I muttered.

 

He arched one perfect eyebrow. "Funny? "

 

"I meant strange—I thought it was just me. Lots of pieces of me went missing, too. I haven't been able to really breathe in so long." I filled my lungs, luxuriating in the sensation. "And my heart. That was definitely lost."

 

He closed his eyes and laid his ear over my heart again. I let my cheek press against his hair, felt the texture of it on my skin, smelled the delicious scent of him.

 

"Tracking wasn't a distraction then?" I asked, curious, and also needing to distract myself. I was very much in danger of hoping. I wouldn't be able to stop myself for long. My heart throbbed, singing in my chest.

 

"No." He sighed. "That was never a distraction. It was an obligation."

 

"What does that mean?"

 

"It means that, even though I never expected any danger from Victoria, I wasn't going to let her get away with… Well, like I said, I was horrible at it. I traced her as far as Texas, but then I followed a false lead down to Brazil—and really she came here." He groaned. "I wasn't even on the right continent! And all the while, worse than my worst fears—"

 

"You were hunting Victoria?" I half-shrieked as soon as I could find my voice, shooting through two octaves.

 

Charlie's distant snores stuttered, and then picked up a regular rhythm again.

 

"Not well," Edward answered, studying my outraged expression with a confused look. "But I'll do better this time. She won't be tainting perfectly good air by breathing in and out for much longer."

 

"That is… out of the question," I managed to choke out. Insanity. Even if he had Emmett or Jasper help him. Even if he had Emmett and Jasper help. It was worse than my other imaginings: Jacob Black standing across a small space from Victoria's vicious and feline figure. I couldn't bear to picture Edward there, even though he was so much more durable than my half-human best friend.

 

"It's too late for her. I might have let the other time slide, but not now, not after—"

 

I interrupted him again, trying to sound calm. "Didn't you just promise that you weren't going to leave?" I asked, fighting the words as I said them, nor letting them plant themselves in my heart. "That isn't exactly compatible with an extended tracking expedition, is it?"

 

He frowned. A snarl began to build low in his chest. "I will keep my promise, Bella. But Victoria"—the snarl became more pronounced—"is going to die. Soon."

 

"Let's not be hasty," I said, trying to hide my panic. "Maybe she's not coming back. Jake's pack probably scared her off. There's really no reason to go looking for her. Besides, I've got bigger problems than Victoria."

 

Edward's eyes narrowed, but he nodded. "It's true. The werewolves are a problem."

 

I snorted. "I wasn't talking about Jacob. My problems are a lot worse that a handful of adolescent wolves getting themselves into trouble."

 

Edward looked as if he were about to say something, and then thought better of it. His teeth clicked together, and he spoke through them. "Really?" he asked. "Then what would be your greatest problem? That would make Victoria's returning for you seem like such an inconsequential matter in comparison?"

 

"How about the second greatest?" I hedged.

 

"All right," he agreed, suspicious.

 

I paused. I wasn't sure I could say the name. "There are others who are coming to look for me," I reminded him in a subdued whisper.

 

He sighed, but the reaction was not as strong as I would have imagined after his response to Victoria.

 

"The Volturi are only the second greatest?"

 

"You don't seem that upset about it," I noted.

 

"Well, we have plenty of time to think it through. Time means something very different to them than it does to you, or even me. They count years the way you count days. I wouldn't be surprised if you were thirty before you crossed their minds again," he added lightly.

 

Horror washed through me.

 

Thirty.

 

So his promises meant nothing, in the end. If I were going to turn thirty someday, then he couldn't be planning on staying long. The harsh pain of this knowledge made me realize that I'd already begun to hope, without giving myself permission to do 5.0.

 

"You don't have to be afraid," he said, anxious as he watched the tears dew up again on the rims of my eyes. "I won't let them hurt you."

 

"While you're here." Not that I cared what happened to me when he left.

 

He took my face between his two stone hands, holding it tightly while his midnight eyes glared into mine with the gravitational force of a black hole. "I will never leave you again."

 

"But you said thirty," I whispered. The tears leaked over the edge. "What? You're going to stay, but let me get all old anyway? Right."

 

His eyes softened, while his mouth went hard. "That's exactly what I'm going to do. What choice have I? I cannot be without you, but I will not destroy your soul."

 

"Is this really…" I tried to keep my voice even, but this question was too hard. I remembered his face when Aro had almost begged him to consider making me immortal. The sick look there. Was this fixation with keeping me human really about my soul, or was it because he wasn't sure that he wanted me around that long?

 

"Yes?" he asked, waiting for my question.

 

I asked a different one. Almost—but not quite—as hard.

 

"But what about when I get so old that people think I'm your mother? Your grandmother?" My voice was pale with revulsion—I could see Gran's face again in the dream mirror.

 

His whole face was soft now. He brushed the tears from my cheek with his lips. "That doesn't mean anything to me," he breathed against my skin. "You will always be the most beautiful thing in my world. Of course…" He hesitated, flinching slightly. "If you outgrew me—if you wanted something more—I would understand that, Bella. I promise I wouldn't stand in your way if you wanted to leave me."

 

His eyes were liquid onyx and utterly sincere. He spoke as if he'd put endless amounts of thought into this asinine plan.

 

"You do realize that I'll die eventually, right?" I demanded.

 

He'd thought about this part, too. "I'll follow after as soon as I can."

 

"That is seriously…"I looked for the right word. "Sick."

 

"Bella, it's the only right way left—"

 

"Let's just back up for a minute," I said; feeling angry made it so much easier to be clear, decisive. "You do remember the Volturi, right? I can't stay human forever. They'll kill me. Even if they don't think of me till I'm thirty"—I hissed the word—"do you really think they'll forget?"

 

"No," he answered slowly, shaking his head. "They won't forget. But…"

 

"But?"

 

He grinned while I stared at him warily. Maybe I wasn't the only crazy one.

 

"I have a few plans."

 

"And these plans," I said, my voice getting more acidic with each word. "These plans all center around me staying human."

 

My attitude hardened his expression. "Naturally." His tone was brusque, his divine face arrogant.

 

We glowered at each other for a long minute.

 

Then I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, I pushed his arms away so that I could sit up.

 

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked, and it made my heart flutter to see that this idea hurt him, though he tried not to show it.

 

"No," I told him. "I'm leaving."

 

He watched me suspiciously as I climbed out of the bed and fumbled around in the dark room, looking for my shoes.

 

"May I ask where you are going.'" he asked.

 

"I'm going to your house," I told him, still feeling around blindly.

 

He got up and came to my side. "Here are your shoes. How did you plan to get there?"

 

"My truck."

 

"That will probably wake Charlie," he offered as a deterrent.

 

I sighed. "I know. But honestly, I'll be grounded for weeks as it is. How much more trouble can I really get in?"

 

"None. He'll blame me, not you."

 

"If you have a better idea, I'm all ears."

 

"Stay here," he suggested, but his expression wasn't hopeful.

 

"No dice. But you go ahead and make yourself at home," I encouraged, surprised at how natural my teasing sounded, and headed for the door.

 

He was there before me, blocking my way.

 

I frowned, and turned for the window. It wasn't really that far to the ground, and it was mostly grass beneath…

 

"Okay," he sighed. "I'll give you a ride."

 

I shrugged. "Either way. But you probably should be there, too."

 

"And why is that?"

 

"Because you're extraordinarily opinionated, and I'm sure you'll want a chance to air your views."

 

"My views on which subject?" He asked through his teeth.

 

"This isn't just about you anymore. You're not the center of the universe, you know." My own personal universe was, of course, a different story. "If you're going to bring the Volturi down on us over something as stupid as leaving me human, then your family ought to have a say."

 

"A say in what?" he asked, each word distinct.

 

"My mortality. I'm putting it to a vote."

24. VOTE

 

 

HE WAS NOT PLEASED, THAT MUCH WAS EASY TO READ in his face. But, without further argument, he took me in his arms and sprang lithely from my window, landing without the slightest jolt, like a cat. It was a little bit farther down than I'd imagined.

 

"All right then," he said, his voice seething with disapproval. "Up you go."

 

He helped me onto his back, and took off running. Even after all this time, it felt routine. Easy. Evidently this was something you never forgot, like riding a bicycle.

 

It was so very quiet and dark as he ran through the forest, his breathing slow and even—dark enough that the trees flying past us were nearly invisible, and only the rush of air in my face truly gave away our speed. The air was damp; it didn't burn my eyes the way the wind in the big plaza had, and that was comforting. As was the night, too, after that terrifying brightness. Like the thick quilt I'd played under as a child, the dark felt familiar and protecting.

 

I remembered that running through the forest like this used to frighten me, that I used to have to close my eyes. It seemed a silly reaction to me now. I kept my eyes wide, my chin resting on his shoulder, my cheek against his neck. The speed was exhilarating. A hundred times better than the motorcycle.

 

I turned my face toward him and pressed my lips into the cold stone skin of his neck.

 

"Thank you," he said, as the vague, black shapes of trees raced past us. "Does that mean you've decided you're awake?"

 

I laughed. The sound was easy, natural, effortless. It sounded right. "Not really. More that, either way, I'm not trying to wake up. Not tonight."

 

"I'll earn your trust back somehow," he murmured, mostly to himself. "If it's my final act."

 

"I trust you," I assured him. "It's me I don't trust."

 

"Explain that, please."

 

He'd slowed to a walk—I could only tell because the wind ceased—and I guessed that we weren't far from the house. In fact, I thought I could make out the sound of the river rushing somewhere close by in the darkness.

 

"Well—" I struggled to find the right way to phrase it. "I don't trust myself to be… enough. To deserve you. There's nothing about me that could hold you."

 

He stopped and reached around to pull me from his back. His gentle hands did not release me; after he'd set me on my feet again, he wrapped his arms tightly around me, hugging me to his chest.

 

"Your hold is permanent and unbreakable," he whispered. "Never doubt that."

 

But how could I not?

 

"You never did tell me…" he murmured.

 

"What?"

 

"What your greatest problem is."

 

"I'll give you one guess." I sighed, and reached up to touch the tip of his nose with my index finger.

 

He nodded. "I'm worse than the Volturi," he said grimly. "I guess I've earned that."

 

I rolled my eyes. "The worst the Volturi can do is kill me."

 

He waited with tense eyes.

 

"You can leave me," I explained. "The Volturi, Victoria… they're nothing compared to that."

 

Even in the darkness, I could see the anguish twist his face—it reminded me of his expression under Jane's torturing gaze; I felt sick, and regretted speaking the truth.

 

"Don't," I whispered, touching his face. "Don't be sad."

 

He pulled one corner of his mouth up halfheartedly, but the expression didn't touch his eyes. "If there was only some way to make you see that I can't leave you," he whispered. "Time, I suppose, will be the way to convince you."

 

I liked the idea of time. "Okay," I agreed.

 

His face was still tormented. I tried to distract him with inconsequentials.

 

"So—since you're staying. Can I have my stuff back?" I asked, making my tone as light as I could manage.

 

My attempt worked, to an extent: he laughed. But his eyes retained the misery. "Your things were never gone," he told me. "I knew it was wrong, since I promised you peace without reminders. It was stupid and childish, but I wanted to leave something of myself with you. The CD, the pictures, the tickets—they're all under your floorboards."

 

"Really?"

 

He nodded, seeming slightly cheered by my obvious pleasure in this trivial fact. It wasn't enough to heal the pain in his face completely.

 

"I think," I said slowly, "I'm not sure, but I wonder… I think maybe I knew it the whole time."

 

"What did you know?"

 

I only wanted to take away the agony in his eyes, but as I spoke the words, they sounded truer than I expected they would.

 

"Some part of me, my subconscious maybe, never stopped believing that you still cared whether I lived or died. That's probably why I was hearing the voices."

 

There was a very deep silence for a moment. "Voices?" he asked flatly.

 

"Well, just one voice. Yours. It's a long story." The wary look on his face made me wish that I hadn't brought that up. Would he think I was crazy, like everyone else? Was everyone else right about that? But at least that expression—the one that made him look like something was burning him—faded.

 

"I've got time." His voice was unnaturally even.

 

"It's pretty pathetic."

 

He waited.

 

I wasn't sure how to explain. "Do you remember what Alice said about extreme sports?"

 

He spoke the words without inflection or emphasis. "You jumped off a cliff for fun."

 

"Er, right. And before that, with the motorcycle—"

 

"Motorcycle?" he asked. I knew his voice well enough to hear something brewing behind the calm.

 

"I guess I didn't tell Alice about that part."

 

"No."

 

"Well, about that… See, I found that… when I was doing something dangerous or stupid… I could remember you more clearly," I confessed, feeling completely mental. "I could remember how your voice sounded when you were angry. I could hear it, like you were standing right there next to me. Mostly I tried not to think about you, but this didn't hurt so much—it was like you were protecting me again. Like you didn't want me to be hurt.

 

"And, well, I wonder if the reason I could hear you so clearly was because, underneath it all. I always knew that you hadn't stopped loving me."

 

Again, as I spoke, the words brought with them a sense of conviction. Of rightness. Some deep place inside me recognized truth.

 

His words came out half-strangled. "You… were… risking your life… to hear—"

 

"Shh," I interrupted him. "Hold on a second. I think I'm having an epiphany here."

 

I thought of that night in Port Angeles when I'd had my first delusion. I'd come up with two options. Insanity or wish fulfillment. I'd seen no third option.

 

But what if…

 

What if you sincerely believed something was true, but you were dead wrong? What if you were so stubbornly sure that you were right, that you wouldn't even consider the truth? Would the truth be silenced, or would it try to break through?

 

Option three: Edward loved me. The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than me he might be, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.

 

Was that what I'd been trying to tell myself?

 

"Oh!"

 

"Bella?"

 

"Oh. Okay. I see."

 

"Your epiphany?" he asked, his voice uneven and strained.

 

"You love me," I marveled. The sense of conviction and Tightness washed through me again.

 

Though his eyes were still anxious, the crooked smile I loved best flashed across his face. "Truly, I do."

 

My heart inflated like it was going to crack right through my ribs. It filled my chest and blocked my throat so that I could not speak.

 

He really did want me the way I wanted him—forever. It was only fear for my soul, for the human things he didn't want to take from me, that made him so desperate to leave me mortal. Compared to the fear that he didn't want me, this hurdle—my soul—seemed almost insignificant.

 

He took my face tightly between his cool hands and kissed me until I was so dizzy the forest was spinning. Then he leaned his forehead against mine, and I was not the only one breathing harder than usual.

 

"You were better at it than I was, you know," he told me.

 

"Better at what?"

 

"Surviving. You, at least, made an effort. You got up in the morning, tried to be normal for Charlie, followed the pattern of your life. When I wasn't actively tracking, I was… totally useless. I couldn't be around my family—I couldn't be around anyone. I'm embarrassed to admit that I more or less curled up into a ball and let the misery have me." He grinned, sheepish. "It was much more pathetic than hearing voices. And, of course, you know I do that, too."

 

I was deeply relieved that he really seemed to understand—comforted that this all made sense to him. At any rate, he wasn't looking at me like I was crazy. He was looking at me like… he loved me.

 

"I only heard one voice," I corrected him.

 

He laughed and then pulled me tight against his right side and started to lead me forward.

 

"I'm just humoring you with this." He motioned broadly with his hand toward the darkness in front of us as we walked. There was something pale and immense there—the house, I realized. "It doesn't matter in the slightest what they say."