THE BREAK UP

I was turning away from Life, love, and from everything that had meaning, from Bella. Standing here on the path next to her house, I was breaking both of our hearts. Hers would heal, mine, well it didn't matter. What I was, what I am, is not safe for her. I can't keep her standing on the edge of danger. I have to let her go.

"That was nothing Edward, nothing!" she said.

"Your right" I agreed "it was exactly what was to be expected."

"You promised! In Phoenix, you promised that you would stay__"

"As long as that was base for you," I interrupted to correct her.

"No! This is about my soul, isn't it?" she shouted almost begging. "Carlisle told me about that, and I don't care, Edward. I don't care!"

"You may not care about your soul Bella, but I do" I mentally corrected her.

"You can have my soul. I don't want it without you __ it's yours already!"

I took a long breath, thinking, staring at the ground, ordering myself to "Lie, Edward lie. You must lie better than that!" My stomach turned and I hardened my face and my focus as I looked back into her eyes.

"Bella, I don't want you to come with me." I said coldly.

The look on her face and the emptiness in her eyes, were almost unbearable when she whispered "You…don't…want…me?"

The incomprehension that lingered there, until her face matched her eyes. How could she believe me so easily? "Bella what are you thinking".

Watching the blankness cover her like a mist rolling across the ground, "Bella I lied, I'm sorry, forgive me!" screamed in my head behind my eyes but never reached my lips.

"No." did reach my lips, a complete contradiction of my thoughts.

"Well that changes things." She whispered calmly.

"Of course I'll always love you" I said looking into the trees. I couldn't let her see how much this pained me to do. After all it was for her I was doing this. Giving her a chance, a chance at a happy human life. "Don't waver, don't be selfish, don't be a coward. Let her go she will heal in time" I reminded myself.

"In a way" left my lips as I continued with the blasphemy, "But what happened the other night made me realize that it's time for a change." A change for you Bell "Because I'm… tired of pretending to be something I'm not, Bella. I am not human." I want to be Bella, but I'm not. "I've let this go on much too long, and I'm sorry for that." I've been selfish with you Bella, so selfish.

My thoughts as I spoke the lie screamed "I'll follow you after you've lived your life."

"Don't …Don't do this." She said sounding sick.

I had no apology in me for that. I would follow her after her life was over. I told her that. Even thou she didn't comprehend it fully at the time.

"You're not good for me, Bella." I lied, twisting the truth, turning the knife in my own heart again. I was no good for her and had told her that.

"If…that's what you want." She spoke as I watched the color completely drain from her face, her cheeks, and finally her neck. Now she was as white and as cold as the mist. Like I could not see the ground thru the mist neither could I see the life in her eyes.

Numb, yes she was numb but she would forget. "She would heal. I would not" I told myself. "You will have a soul." and I continued, nodding my head once.

"I would like to ask you one favor, though, if that's not too much." I said in response to the dead look on her face. She wouldn't, couldn't do anything to hurt herself.

"Anything." She said a little stronger.

"Don't do anything reckless or stupid" I ordered, knowing I had to right, but she had to be safe. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

She nodded.

I calmed myself from thinking she might hurt herself. Alice told me once if I had killed her it would kill Charlie too. I knew that to be true. I had to give her another reason to move on.

"I'm thinking of Charlie, of course." No I'm not, I'm thinking of you Bella only you." "He needs you."

"Take care of yourself", "for me and", "… for him." I relaxed a little. "And I'll make you a promise in return" "This had to be true, This had to be a promise" "I promise that this will be the last time you'll see me." "I'll see you forever" "I won't come back. I won't put you though anything like this again. You can go on with your life without any more interference from me. It will be as if I'd never existed." "But to me you will always exist. Your hold is unbreakable and forever."

I watched her shaking as if she were going to break into pieces. But it was me who felt like my insides were going to pieces. Not just falling apart but being ravenously torn into a million pieces as I spoke each sentence of my lie, tearing and cutting at my resolve.

"Don't worry. You're human – your memory is no more than a sieve. Time heals all wounds for your kind." "But not my kind Bella." I could hear her heart pounding inside her chest as if it wanted to escape, and the blood rushing threw her veins, but it never reached her skin. It never gave her back her color.

"And your memories?" She asked with a still quite voice.

"Well" I said. "Lie" my brain screamed at me. "I won't forget. But my kind… we're very easily distracted." I smiled but it did not touch my heart. "Better for her to think that I've moved on." I had moved on. I had moved on into the blackest of nights. One, with no moon or points of light. So dark I was now blind. I stepped away from Bella, my light, a comet that rushed across my sky and was now setting. Back into the darkness of night.

"That's everything, I suppose. We won't bother you again." I told her. "I made everyone to agree to it. Unconditionally. They will pay if they do."

She twitched and took in a small breath.

"Alice isn't coming back" she asked me without voice or wind. Her eyes did not shift. Her head did not move.

Shocked, I was forced to stand there watching my lies tear at her heart. I could only shake my head, "No.".

She was brave and good and I knew I was hurting her.

Even small and weak as she was, she still had a voice.

Then I found my voice "No. They're all gone. I stayed behind to tell you goodbye." "I have to say goodbye. I have to set you free."

"Alice is gone?" she said in disbelief. Was it to me or was it to herself, I couldn't decide.

I had to finish this conversation before it finished me. What would it hurt now if I let her know Alice had wanted to say goodbye herself, but I wouldn't let her. It had to be a clean break.

"She wanted to say goodbye, but I convinced her that a clean break would be better for you!" "Better for you both."

I watched her trying to focus, trying to draw in another breath, to ask another question. "This has to end now." Clean, not jagged." Not like a knife was used to cut out someone's heart. Not like what was happening to me on the inside.

"Goodbye Bella." I said trying to pull away before she could ask her question, before her hands could reach me.

"Wait!" she spoke as she moved so slightly forward with her hands reached out towards me further.

I grabbed her wrists and held them to her side. "Take care of yourself." I whispered to her, breathing on her skin. I ripped myself away before I kissed her and faltered with my resolve. Then ran into the forest as fast as I could. Like the coward that I was.

I moved thru the forest and back to her house within seconds. I had pilfered her letter to Renee and got the pictures and negatives from it. I only had minutes if not seconds to retrieve the photos from Bella's room that I had not gotten before she arrived back from school.

No mistakes.

In her room I quickly gathered the photo's of me from her photo album, the CD I had made for her out of the CD player, and the airline tickets Esme and Carlisle had given her. But I couldn't leave with them, I couldn't.

I shouldn't, but I gave into my selfishness and quickly pried up a floor board inside her closet and left a small piece of me with her. Hidden and hopefully never discovered.

Maybe in 50 years, after she had healed, had a life, and had forgotten about me.

I replaced the board using my thumb like a hammer, pressing the nail back into place as if it had never been disturbed… and I had never existed.

I left the same way I had come. From outside her window I looked towards the path. She wasn't there. "I shouldn't have had this much time."

Nothing, she still hadn't cleared the woods. I listened. I quickly moved away from the house and past the tree line staying away from the path. I stopped and listened again. A short distance away a faint rustling of leaves, a bushing of small branches against something, fabric maybe, a lite thump and a quick intake of air, a sob.

For the love of all that is Holy! Bella, you're going the wrong way. Was this never going to end?

I rushed back to the house. Charlie had not returned yet but it would be soon. I was safe. On the Kitchen counter I left a note for Charlie.

"Going for a walk with Edward, up the path. Back soon, B."

Back in the woods I followed Bella's sent until I found her. Hiding behind trees and out of her sight I watched her walk like she was climbing some great mountain. Knowing she would never succeed but continuing forward. "It's the wrong direction."

I could hear her quite breath saying my name with defeat in its tone. In my head I yelled "Don't do this Bella."

She couldn't know I was watching her. Watching her struggle to find me, But I was here watching and breaking in two.

"This is reckless and childish and idiotic Bella."

It was getting darker now and she was stumbling more now and falling. There were scratches on her hands; her knees were caked with mud.

"Bella turn around. Go home to Charlie. Go back to Jessica…to your friends." I said over and over in my mind as I followed her deeper into the woods.

Further and further from the safety of her home. Closer and closer to the high, slipper edges of the stream, she continued to move.

"Bella, stop this right now!" My mind roared. I watched her move and stumble, falling over the side of the slope.

She tumbled and fell.

"NO Bella, watch what your doing. Do you want to kill yourself then? Is that what this is about?" rang in my head with a loud snarl.

"Don't Move!" I yelled almost aloud. My resolve almost broke; I almost ran to her, picked her up. But she got back up on her feet, moving back to the edge of the ravine.

"Don't do this, Please, for me, please… No Bella" sang even louder and with an angry, biting tone to it.

I could reach out right now, this very second and end the torture, but all would be for not if I did.

It was darker now for human eyes. I wish I had human eyes so I couldn't watch this. So that the memories of Bella's fight wouldn't haunt me but it was too late. They would haunt me. They haunted me now.

How long had Bella been in the woods now, 4, 5, 6, hours? I wasn't paying attention. Were they looking for her? Searching for her yet? I couldn't hear any mental voices yet.

Bella started to climb up the ravine of the river. I could smell the sweetness of her blood from the scratches on her hands and face.

"You promised…nothing stupid" I cringed. She was almost to the top. She had to get out of there, back to the flat ground just above her now.

Her hand slipped from the moisture on the rock and I thought she was going to fall.

If she did, this time I would reach out and end the torture.

She froze hanging there at the edge, almost to the top now "Stop that. Don't you dare give up!" I encouraged silently with a cringe as I watched tears start to flow from her eye's and the words "He's gone." slipped from her lips.

"Fight damit, Bella keep fighting." I mouthed.I wanted so to close my eyes but I couldn't, not until Bella was over the edge and safely away from the edge.

"Quite now Bella, Don't push…slowly Bella…one more pull…be very careful." I whispered so low I knew she didn't have a chance of hearing but it was as if she could.

She pulled herself back over the edge and crawled a few feet and paused away from the ledge.

"How much longer could this go on? How much longer…till they came…to search, and to find my Bella."

Bella rose to her feet using a tree for support and pushed herself forward mumbling "He's gone…..He's gone."

I closed my eye's and leaned back ready to end this nightmare, when in the far distance I heard the mental tone of the worried people coming, coming to rescue my Bella. It strengthened my broken resolve. I held myself in place.

Bella continued to move forward still heading in the wrong direction. My head sagged and if I could have cried I would have. But Bella didn't get far, no more then 100 meters (I was moving again to watch her from the darkness) when she tripped and fell. But this time she did not get up. She did not move for what seemed like an eternity. Then she rolled to her side, breathed and curled up on the wet bracken.

I could hear the voices now far in the distance thou I doubted Bella could.

She shivered.

I heard their mental voices as they called her name aloud.

I heard a voice thinking about how Billy Black had volunteered some boys from La Push, the Quileute Indian reservation to come fine my Bella.

Sam, Jerad, and Paul were in the woods looking. They knew the woods better than anyone. Why not, they were wolves. It was time for me to leave. They were close enough to find her soon and I'm sure they wouldn't like to find me here. Even with the treaty between the Cullen's and the Quileute, they still didn't trust us and they shouldn't.

Bella lay on the ground curled up in a ball as I watched her, still hidden from her.

The voices were getting closer when it started to rain.

They would find her soon. It was time for me to leave. I rushed from the forest to where I had parked my car. In minutes I was inside and racing from town. In what direction I did not know. I would be light in a short few hours.

So I drove to Seattle and got a hotel room. I turned on the T.V. for the sound. Hoping that would distract my mind. But I was wrong. News was on every channel.

I didn't think about this being on T.V. I couldn't believe that they I had gotten to Seattle and in the room before they had found Bella. I left to soon. I should have stayed longer.

A "Breaking News story."

Teenage girl, Isabella Marie Swan, lost in woods of Forks, Washington. The scene at Bella's house was too much. So many people were out looking for her. Charlie looked scared and angry. He was clutching a piece of paper. Harry Clearwater was behind him trying to reassure him. Ambulances, fire trucks, Police cars were lined around the house all flashing their lights. Trucks and cars were lined up and down the street. As the camera swept across the scene I saw kids from school, Jessica, Angela, Ben, Mike, and many more.

Town's people search thru the night.

Over and over.

Repeated on all the channels was the miraculous return of Bella Swan to her Father's waiting arms and shaking body and three Quileute men standing in the background.

I buried my head in my hands. "What have I done?"