Endless gratitude and love to Mariahjile for editing this and helping me keep it secret.

I push the key in the door and turn it, groaning as my muscles protest even that slight movement. The gym session was the last thing I wanted to do tonight, but the pressure of white satin cuts into me like the too-tight corset strings that bind my wedding dress.

"Hi, love," I call as I half-fall over the threshold, throwing my gym bag on the hall floor. Nothing but silence greets me, and my eyebrows draw together. "Edward?"

I walk into the big, open space of our living area. The lights are off, soft music playing in the background. I turn around toward the kitchen, only to see Edward sitting at our small table, two dinner plates and a mostly-burnt candle for company.

"Where were you?" he asks softly, his gaze fixed firmly on the congealed food in front of him.

I swallow. "I went to work out after class. Why are you sitting in the dark? Are you trying to train yourself into having night vision?"

He doesn't laugh at my lame joke, instead fisting his hair in his hands. "Working out? Again?" I didn't know words could be heavy, but his are; disappointment-laden and defeated.

I swallow hard, fighting the worry his tone causes.

"What day is it, Bella?"

I shake my head, confused. "Tuesday. Edward, what—"

"The date."

I take a deep breath. "The 17th. Look, why…" I trail off, because something nasty twists my stomach in its iron grip. The candles, the food, the music…

"We met three years ago today," Edward says, finally looking up. His smile is so sad, it cuts me; so wistful, I'm glad I only have to see it in dim candlelight. His words suck all the air out of the room until there's none left to breathe. The awkward tension between us is unfamiliar and unwanted, and I don't know how to handle it.

"I'm sorry," I say, voice trembling.

He shakes his head. "Maybe it was stupid to think you'd remember. Maybe I'm just being sentimental," he replies, and it hurts. He palms the back of his neck in a way he hasn't done in years, and that hurts, too. He fidgets, and I realize he's uncomfortable - that I've made him feel uncomfortable for loving me, for remembering days that other men wouldn't.

Nothing hurts as much as that does.

"Edward, I'm sorry," I repeat, tears spilling down my cheeks. He says nothing this time, just running his eyes over my face.

"Not as sorry as I am," he says quietly, but the words reverberate in my mind as if he'd shouted them. He takes one last look at me before sighing and leaning to blow the candle out.

In the darkness, he leaves nothing but a whisper of warmth as he walks past me.

I hear the front door click shut seconds later.

I collapse onto the couch, letting the still-playing song about waiting for love to come override the voices into my head. I cry until my face is covered in more tears than skin, and then finally, I sleep.

I wake to find Edward crouching beside me, the pale strips of dawn across the ceiling telling me he stayed out all night.

He says nothing, just stares at me with tired eyes. He brings one hand to brush my hair away from my face, then leans in to kiss my forehead

"I'm sorry," I whisper. It comes out hoarse and frightened, and Edward's lips press harder against my skin. "I lost track of time. I had to get in 90 minutes on the elliptical, and by—"

Edward pulls back too far for me to reach, his mouth surrounded by lines of sadness. "Almost three years of loving you, even longer wanting to love you, and it's still not enough." He doesn't say it, but 'I'm not enough' is a sad echo following his words, and I am breaking inside. "When will you understand that I think you're beautiful just as you are?"

My eyes flutter closed, unable to bear the tortured look on his face. "It's the wedding, Edward. There will be photos and all eyes on me, and I don't want to be the fat bride."

"You won't be the fat bride!" His temper breaks, forcing me to stare at the wildfire of upset blazing across his face. But just as quickly, the flames burn out, leaving nothing but ash. His lips shake, and I feel hollow inside. I'm wounding him, slicing into his softest parts, yet I don't know how to stop. "And even if you were, I wouldn't care. I don't care what color you wear. I don't care how your hair looks. I don't care about your weight."

I reach toward him, but he retreats, and I am drowning, drowning. "Edward…"

"I care about nothing but being able to call you mine, Bella. I wish you felt the same."

I open my mouth to speak, but the pain in my chest won't let me. Edward squeezes his eyes shut, a single tear escaping as he does. He sighs - but not the happy sound he gives when I tell him I love him, or the amused hum when I've made him laugh. This is harsh, brash, loud in the foreign strained silence between us.

It sounds like an ending.

He walks away, not turning back when I call his name. I curl into a ball and bury my face in the soft blanket he must have covered me with, feeling like my heart is breaking into a million pieces. I want to run after him, squeeze him so tight his warmth chases the cold that lingers within me, but I can't, because I don't deserve to. I take and take from Edward, using all he gives as plaster to cover the cracks inside me, and still I want more.

If love is a drug, I'm firmly hooked up to an IV of his. He brings me sweetness and laughs and so much happiness. But happiness is addictive, and some days, I still don't have enough to give me a rush. Those are the bad days, when the mirror is an enemy and those cracks of mine peek through. There are days when the circles under my eyes are just that bit darker, the creases of my face seem deeper. There are times that I hurt so much, I cry until I'm dry. The hurt still remains, and not even Edward's gentle touch is soft enough to soothe.

"Three years spent loving you," he said. "And it's still not enough." Except it is enough, and sometimes it's so enough that it's too much. Some days I am sad and distant and aching for no reason at all, and I wish he didn't mark those as days he's failed. Most of my life has been spent unable to find worth in myself, but I find so much worth in him. I wish I could tell him that he fills up so many of my voids, but there are still some I have to fix myself.

But I can't, because the words are trapped behind lips that have seen more sadness than smiles. They're stuck inside that deepest, most destructive place that not even his light can reach. It tries, though. He tries, and he succeeds. His love shines into me like sunbeams, and there are times they glow so bright that my darkness is turned to shadow.

I wonder sometimes if I was made to be broken; if there is something about me not quite like everyone else, not quite whole, as though the hinges keeping me together are bent. But then at other times, I get so full of nothing, so full of everything, that I wish there was a way for it to drip out of me with every step I take. I wish I could leave a trail behind me wherever I went, so the sadness and self-doubt could slip away into pavements and carpets and burn through them like acid instead.

I am greedy, I know. I wish for too much, and I have hands too small to hold it all. My wish above all else is that Edward knows I love him. My love is bigger than the ocean, wider than the stars, but it's tinged dark around the edges with a desperation to be loved back that taints and turns it black. And it feels that's what I give him - adoration and sadness.

I wish I knew which was stronger.

I wish I knew which he thinks of when he's lying in bed at night, staring at the patterns of ceiling-paint. Am I what makes him smile in his sleep? Or am I the reason some mornings I wake up to find him facing the wall, each bump of his vertebrae stiff-straight, turned away from me?

I hate that I am shallow enough to think my body makes me undeserving. I listen to his words about me, sweet ones like 'beautiful' and 'gorgeous', and my needy heart is a sponge, soaking them all up. But there are other words from other people, ones that hit my heart and instantly scar.

My hands shake as I remember wedding dress shopping, of my joy and excitement washed away by rudeness and turned to rust.

"We only go up to a size 16."

I fisted my hand, forcing myself to keep my eyes up and not let them drop to the floor. "I'll fit in your dresses, then."

"Hmm," she said, but what was more important was what she didn't say. Her expression communicated all that her lips didn't.

I tried on chiffon and lace, but they itched against skin that felt stretched too thin. I smoothed satin over bumps, let bodice boning reshape my figure into something apparently better.

"Maybe something with a higher back," the assistant said, staring at the flesh jutting over the corset top.

"Maybe something to cover your shoulders," she suggested, staring at the place my arms are widest.

"Maybe something smaller," she offered, staring at the poofy skirt, but she didn't mean the skirt.

She meant me.

She meant that I should be smaller. She meant that I had a nerve to walk into a bridal shop and try on something in a size they stocked, because brides should not be a double-digit. She meant that I should wear a sack with apologies for my body embroidered with thread.

Didn't she know those apologies were already written all over my skin in permanent ink? That if she looked at the place my thighs chafed and my wobbly chin met my neck, she'd find nothing but 'I'm sorry'?

I didn't leave the shop with a dress that day, but I left with her words sewn across my self-esteem. I visited other places, tried on other dresses, and even found one I loved - even if I didn't love it on me. I tried to believe the compliments given by assistants were real, until I remembered they were paid to be nice. They were paid to be sweet. They were paid to make me feel pretty.

My wedding guests aren't. I imagined them silent as I walked down the aisle, venom hidden behind smiling lips, as they stared at me stuffed into cream taffeta. I imagined stares between couples, raised eyebrows and bitten-off words, as I stood before them pretending to be beautiful.

So I began to work out. The shame of the gym was nothing compared to the shame that lived and breathed inside my reflection. I ran for hours, and each mile took me further away from Edward. I lost weight, but I also lost my self-respect. I lost myself.

I should have told the dressmaker to go fuck herself. I should have told her that I have a man who loves me no matter how unattractive she thinks I am. I should have told her that my beauty will always outshine hers, because mine doesn't come at the price of making others feel ugly.

I can tell her all that, I realize, by not letting her words have any power over me now. I wipe my face dry of tears as I sit up. I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. I get up and stand up straight, head high.

And then, I go get my man.

Edward looks up from where he lies in bed when I walk in to the bedroom, his eyes tear-filled and heartbreaking.

"This is killing me, Bella," he says, and I feel it in every strained syllable.

"I love you."

His eyes squeeze shut.

"I love you more than I knew it was possible to love someone, Edward. And I'm so, so sorry I let you think, even for a second, that I didn't."

He holds an arm out, beckoning me, but I have to let these words out once and for all.

"It started with a comment from the dressmaker at the first bridal shop I went to," I start, but then I laugh, because it started so long before that. It started farther back than I can even remember. "She looked at me like she couldn't believe someone was marrying me, as if she couldn't believe anyone could look at me and find value and beauty. But you do, Edward."

He turns on his side to face me.

"I'm scared every day. I'm scared of the world outside of my front porch, of strangers with tongues like knives and eyes full of judgment. I panic whenever I think of going to a place I've never been or meeting people I don't know. But actual, real fear? That's not something I've ever had, because I've never cared enough about anything to be terrified to lose it. I never felt fear, because I never had anything to protect, anyone to protect. And I never had anyone to protect me. I learned to be my own hero. The only dark I've ever been afraid of is inside me."

He whispers my name, but I can't stop.

"I'm terrified to lose you. No one has ever found anything about me worth sticking around for. No one has ever seen anything in me that they couldn't let go of. But you do. And I'm frozen whenever I think about that going away. So I thought if I looked better, you'd stay. I thought if I wasn't the fat girl I'd always been, maybe someone would finally find something lovable inside me."

I move toward him, let my trembling fingers meet his and hook around them tightly. "You found the good inside me that they couldn't. You dug deep until you found all the things I'd been hiding, and you stopped me being alone. You took things that I hated and made them things you loved, and they didn't seem so bad after that. You made me feel special and important in a way nobody else has. You made me feel like the center of your universe, and I'm sorry I was too blind to see I deserved that."

Edward brings our joined hands to his lips, kissing them softly. "You see it now?"

I laugh, my tears finally brimming over. "I do."

"I missed you."

"Me, too. And I'm so sorry that I lost sight of what was really important."

He sighs when I sit down next to him, that happy sigh that makes everything within me light up. I press my lips to his, butterflies erupting in my stomach when I taste the smile behind his kiss.

"I can't wait to be your wife."

He drags me down to lay beside him, his arms wrapping around my body and squeezing me to him. "I can't wait to be your husband."

"You are the most important thing to me, Edward," I whisper. "You are what makes my life good."

"You are my life. Period."

"I'm sorry I almost ruined this." I nestle closer into him.

"You didn't. I wouldn't have let you ruin this. I would never have let you go. The only thing I'm sorry for is that I didn't have to bail you out of jail."

I draw back to stare at his smirking face. "Jail?"

"You should've kicked that dressmaker's ass all the way from here to the next state."

We both laugh, the air around us filled with love and so much happiness. "Can you imagine coming to pick me up from jail and finding me halfway inside a wedding dress?"

"Well, then I'd end up in jail right alongside you."

"You'd want to kick her ass, too?"

"Yes, but I'd also have to kick the ass of every man who saw my beautiful bride before I did."

I laugh so hard I snort, then bury my face in Edward's soft t-shirt. "You're a goof."

"A goof who loves you," he replies, running a hand over my hair.

My cheeks hurt from how wide my smile is.

"No one talks badly about my girl," he says quietly, and then he kisses me. He kisses my mouth and my neck before kissing my chest, my stomach, between my thighs. He kisses me everywhere, and when he isn't kissing, he's telling me how much he loves me in a hundred different ways.

Every time, I believe him.

My worries about being the center of attention were needless, because when I finally walk up the aisle, I'm too caught up in Edward to focus on anything else. He wears a charcoal grey suit and a white shirt, with a clover green tie that makes his eyes look like emeralds. Those eyes shimmer with tears as I get closer, his lips breaking from their smile to mouth 'I love you.'

We spend the ceremony with our fingers entwined, uncaring of what anyone thinks. We repeat the words spoken by millions of other couples before us, but I doubt any of them have meant their vows as much as Edward and me. When the justice of peace pronounces us as man and wife, my whispered "finally" is echoed by the way Edward kisses me; soft enough to be proper but so soulful that I see our whole future play before me.

We walk arm-in-arm out back down the aisle, because my time being alone is over. Edward will always be beside me. Guests cheer and smile, but I only have eyes for the beautiful man next to me, beaming like all his dreams have just come true.

All mine have.

We step out into brilliant sunshine, the glare blinding us for a second. And in that tiny moment, that sliver of time between the movement of a hand on a clock that feels like it could last forever, I know there's never been a love brighter than ours.

A few hours later, we're back in each other's arms. The twinkle of soft lights play across Edward's face and hair, the flashes making him look almost ethereal. He feels that way, too - otherworldly, too good to be true. But he's here, holding me close, his dress shoes stepping down hard on my toes.

"Sorry," he whispers, wincing, and I have to bury my face in his lapel so those watching don't see my laugh.

"Nice to see you starting off our marriage as you mean to go on."

"It's only fair that I let you know what you're in for, Mrs. Cullen."

"You stepping on my toes during every dance?"

"Yes," he says, that dimple of his bracketing his smile. "And me dancing with you anyway, even though I'm terrible and I hate it."

"I told you we didn't have to do the dance if you didn't want to!"

He kisses the top of my head softly. "I told you that I wouldn't miss holding you this close for anything, especially not now that you're my wife. I have to show you off."

"Show me off?"

"Of course." His eyes sparkle. "A hot thing like you for a wife is something a man has to be proud of."

I shift slightly, stifling a giggle as he yelps when my heel presses down on his toes.

"Point taken, Mrs. Cullen."

"Are you going to call me that any time you say something?"

He squeezes my hand. "Considering calling you mine has made me the happiest person alive, it's a fair bet I'm going to be reminding myself of it from time to time." He rubs his finger across the band of silver that now sits beside my engagement ring.

His face is blurry, but this time, it's from my tears rather than the lights. "I love you so much, Edward."

"I love you, sweetheart."

"We're going to be happy, aren't we?"

"So happy. The happiest."

I kiss him gently.

"You look so beautiful today, you know. Waking up next to you every day reminds me of just how lucky I am, but you walking down that aisle toward me…" He clears his throat. "You took my breath away, Bella."

"Edward," I say, like a prayer, so full of love I can barely contain it.

"Things haven't been easy between us, and things probably won't always be good. But I hope you know I'm going to thank God every day for bringing you to me, even when we argue and fight. I never knew it was possible to care for someone the way I care for you. I'm going to remind you every day just how much you mean to me. I'm blessed to call you my best friend as well as my wife, and one day I'll call you the mother of my children, too. We're going to make it, Bella. I promise you. And when you get sad, I'm going to hold you tight and tell you it's okay. That darkness you're afraid of, baby… I'm going to break through it," he whispers.

I smile against his shoulder, not caring that my tears are probably smearing my make-up. "You already did," I reply, and then I press my lips to his, hard enough he knows he finally has all of me.

"I'll love you forever, B," he promises when we part.

And he does.

Edward's love set me free - to live, to be, and most importantly, to love him back, each and every day of my life.

At last, the skies above are blue.

This was written to celebrate my Twific writing anniversary. It's about what this fandom and this corner of the internet should always be about - love. Thank you for reading, for the reviews, and for the constant support.

I hope their happiness brings you some of your own. xoxo