AN: Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

I have read many comments how Edward got off so easily because Bella took him back so quickly, but I never felt the time Edward was separated from Bella was an easy time for him. So here is my take on how Edward felt after leaving Bella.

Part of this is also based on a comment Alice made to Charlie in New Moon. Tell me what you think in your review.

----------------------------------------------------

Edward's Heartbreak

It was not an easy decision to make, but I had to do what was in Bella's best interest. My family agreed to abide by my decision. I knew my love for Bella would never end or decrease, but her love for me, I knew would fade with time. She is only eighteen; she has never experienced love before so she has to time to find someone she can love more than me. Besides, after almost a century of listening to adolescent minds, I know they are easily changeable where affairs of the heart are concerned, and Bella will be the same. She will get over it and move on with her life. As Bella told her mom while in the hospital in Phoenix, what she felt it was only a crush.

I on the other hand will never find anyone else I will love, no one other than Bella. She is my other half and no one will ever replace her. I know this is true and there is no changing this fact. It's only been one month since I said goodbye. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and Bella's reaction was not what I had expected. That is also something I'll never forget about Bella; she never reacted the way I expected, or the way any other human would have reacted. I had waited for her to break out in tears and maybe even yell at me, but she didn't. If I could only have heard her thoughts, it would have been easier to know what to say to have made it easier for her.

It also surprised me that she so easily accepted the idea that I didn't want her in my life. My life, that is a joke — I don't have a life. That's what I'd been trying to make Bella understand; I wasn't alive, I just existed. I want more for her then that, but the fact that she honestly believed I didn't love her is hard to fathom. How could she not know that leaving her was the hardest decision I've ever had to make? That when I turned my back on her I was ripping my own heart out. It was like dying all over again.

Would Bella ever realize that I would never be whole again because she is no longer part of my existence? I told Bella to go on with her life, but it is questionable if I'll be able to go on with my own existence. Better yet, do I want to go on knowing she is out in the world loving someone else, living with someone else, and having a family and a life with someone else?

I tried to fill my time with other thoughts and activities, but it's useless, even the piano and music are no longer a refuge for me. Instead of finding solace, I find memories. Memories of Bella lying in bed wrapped in my arms as I hummed her to sleep with the lullaby I wrote for her, Bella cautiously walking past my stereo system fearing she would damage it, or Bella and I just laying on my sofa talking, kissing and listening to the music flowing from my stereo system. I promised Bella she would forget, I wish I could make the same promise to myself, but I know I will never forget, and I am finding it hard to stop the memories when they flooded back into my mind. The visions of Bella are so vivid and alive, that I am fooled into thinking I can reach out and touch her.

I told Bella we never sleep, which is true. I believed I never dreamed because I couldn't dream, but I discovered my thinking flawed. I didn't dream in the normal sense, but every time I closed my eyes, my memories create indelible images so real that I watch my time with Bella constantly replaying itself. If they are dreams, they will fade, but I know they won't; yet they are still dreams because I can never make them a part of my life again.

I had one chance at heaven and I gave it up. I left the angel of my life and have since lived in hell every day. I don't have nightmares, but my visions can very well pass for nightmares. Whenever I close my eyes, I see Bella. Her deep expressive eyes, her soft luscious kissable lips, her heady blush, and her extremely desirable body, but then the vision alters and I see someone with her, and he is enjoying the physical relationship with Bella that I was denied. In those moments, my anger flares up and the need to destroy something overwhelms me. I've learned not to range to far from wooded areas, so when the compulsion consumes me, I have a place to go.

Hell cannot be any worse then the pain I've experienced since separating myself from Bella. I always joked that we can't be physically hurt, but this hurt is just as physical as if someone were ripping me apart because in a sense I have been ripped apart. That dead organ that use to be my heart feels as if it is continually being torn out of my chest and mutilated. My fingers ache for one more chance to caress her soft skin, my eyes ache to look upon her beautiful face, and my lips ache to touch her lips. My sense of smell suffers the most; Bella's scent was so intoxicating and overpowering, but since she's no longer near, I desire to taste of her fragrance again. I long to bury my nose in her neck and breath in deeply of her aromatic quintessence.

I even began distancing myself from my family because even their presence reminded me of Bella. I know Carlisle and Esme wishes for me were to be with Bella forever. Now, whenever they look at me, I can only see sympathy for my loss, but it is a reminder of what I have lost. Jasper's look is sympathetic as well, but also sorrowful because he feels it is his fault that I left in the first place. Emmett, well it's his thoughts more than looks that constantly remind me of Bella. He dwells on how I should have changed her and how he would have changed her if he had been me, but he also remembers how much she made him laugh. Rose is the only one who says and thinks nothing about Bella, but she always has that smug look of 'I told you it would be better if we got rid of her.'

The worst or maybe I should say the best memories come when I look at Alice. Her sympathy is as deep as Carlisle and Esme's because she was strongly attached to Bella. When I look at Alice, I remember her smile when I first saw Bella the night of the prom. On that night, my desires for Bella as a vampire vanished as my desires for Bella as a man inundated all my other senses. I had always known Bella was beautiful, but that night she was perfection embodied. No angel could ever compare to Bella; she was a lone star brightly shining in the heavens showing me the way to paradise, and I threw that all away and will never have an opportunity to regain any of it.

If I ever thought my existence was lonely before, it was nothing to what it is now. Before, I had thought I could be complete in myself and be happy, but now, when I watch the others together, I know I'll never be complete because I ripped myself away from the only person, in all eternity, who can make me complete. Now I see an eternity of darkness, misery, and loneliness looming on my horizon.