“Oh, Mom, you don’t have to do that!” Bella was upset by the idea of her mother sacrificing for her. That wasn’t the direction their relationship went. “You can sleep at home—I’ll never notice.”
“I was too nervous,” Renée admitted, self-aware enough to sound sheepish after her brag. “There’s been some crime in the neighborhood, and I don’t like being there alone.”
“Crime?” Bella was instantly on high alert.
“Someone broke into that dance studio around the corner from the house and burned it to the ground—there’s nothing left at all! And they left a stolen car right out front. Do you remember when you used to dance there, honey?”
We weren’t the only ones who had stolen cars. The tracker’s had actually been parked around the south side of the dance studio. We hadn’t known to clean up his crimes as well as our own. And it was helpful to our alibis, as that car had been boosted a day before we’d arrived in Phoenix.
“I remember,” Bella said with a quaver in her voice.
I had a difficult time holding my position. Renée, too, was moved.
“I can stay, baby, if you need me.”
“No, Mom, I’ll be fine. Edward will be with me.”
Of course he will. Oh well, I really have to do some laundry and I should probably clean out the fridge. That milk is months old.
“I’ll be back tonight.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, Bella. Try to be more careful when you walk, honey, I don’t want to lose you.”
I worked to control the grin that burst through my façade.
Bea came in to make her rounds, weaving around Renée in a practiced way to get to Bella’s monitors.
Renée kissed Bella on the forehead, patted her hand, and then made her getaway, eager to tell Phil the news that Bella was better.
“Are you feeling anxious, honey?” Bea inquired. “Your heart rate got a little high there.”
“I’m fine,” Bella assured her.
“I’ll tell your RN that you’re awake. She’ll be in to see you in a minute.”
Before the door was closed behind Bea, I was at Bella’s side.
Her eyebrows were raised high, either worried or impressed. “You stole a car?”
I knew she meant the car in the parking lot, but she wasn’t wrong. Except that it was two cars. “It was a good car, very fast,” I told her.
“How was your nap?” she asked.
All the playfulness of our interaction faded. “Interesting.”
The change in mood confused her. “What?”
I stared at the tall mound that was her mangled leg, not sure what she would see in my eyes. “I’m surprised,” I said slowly. “I thought Florida… and your mother… well, I thought that’s what you would want.”
“But you’d be stuck inside all day in Florida,” she pointed out, not following. “You’d only be able to come out at night, just like a real vampire.”
The way she phrased it made me want to smile, but I also wanted very much not to smile.
“I would stay in Forks, Bella. Or somewhere like it. Someplace where I couldn’t hurt you anymore.”
She stared at me with a blank expression, as though I’d answered her in Latin. I waited for her to process my meaning. Then her heart started to beat faster and her breathing shifted into hyperventilation. She flinched with every breath, her expanding lungs pushing against her broken ribs.
An echo of the grieving future Bella flashed across her face.
It was hard to watch. I wanted to say something to ease her pain, her terror, but this was supposed to be the right thing. It did not feel right, but I couldn’t trust my own selfish emotions.
Gloria walked into the room, just in for her afternoon shift. She appraised Bella with an expert eye.
I’d say she’s about at a six. It’s good to see her poor eyes open, though.
“Time for more pain meds, sweetheart?” she asked kindly, tapping the IV feed.
“No, no,” Bella objected, breathless. “I don’t need anything.”
“No need to be brave, honey. It’s better if you don’t get too stressed out; you need to rest.”
Gloria waited for Bella to change her mind. Bella carefully shook her head, her expression a mixture of pain and defiance.
Gloria sighed. “Okay. Hit the call button when you’re ready.”
She glanced at me, not sure how she felt about my constant vigil, and then looked at Bella’s monitors once more before leaving.
Bella’s eyes were still wild. I put my hands on either side of her face, barely touching the broken left cheek. “Shh, Bella, calm down.”
“Don’t leave me,” she begged, her voice breaking.
And this was why I was not strong enough by myself. How could I cause her more agony? She lay here now in taped-together pieces, struggling with pain, and her one plea was that I stay.
“I won’t,” I told her, while I mentally qualified my answer. Not until you’re whole again. Not until you’re ready. Not until I find the strength. “Now relax before I call the nurse back to sedate you.”
It was as though she could hear my mental caveats. Before—before the hunt and the horror—I’d promised her many times that I would stay. I’d always meant it, and she’d always believed. But now she saw through me. The rhythm of her heart wouldn’t settle.
I stroked my fingers along her whole cheek. “Bella, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here as long as you need me.”
“Do you swear you won’t leave me?” she whispered. Her hand twitched toward her ribs. They must be aching.
She was too fragile for this now. I should have known, and waited. Even if Renée had just offered her the perfect option for a vampire-free life.
I took her face in my hands again, let the consuming love I felt for her fill my eyes, and lied with all the experience of a hundred years of daily deception.
“I swear.”
The tension in her limbs relaxed. Her eyes did not release mine, but after a few seconds her heart eased into its normal rhythm.
“Better?”
Her eyes were wary, her voice unsure when she answered. “Yes?”
She must have sensed that I was still holding something back.
I needed her to believe me, just long enough to let her safely heal. I couldn’t be responsible for complicating her recovery.
So I tried to act as I would if I were hiding nothing. As if I were exasperated by her agitated response. I made an annoyed face and muttered the words, “Overreacting just a little bit, don’t you think?”
I said them too fast; she probably couldn’t understand.
“Why did you say that?” she whispered, a tremor in her voice. “Are you tired of having to save me all the time? Do you want me to go away?”
I wanted to laugh for a hundred years at the idea of me tiring of her. Or cry for a thousand.
But the time would come, I was sure now, when I would have to convince her otherwise. So I tempered my response, made it lukewarm, moderate.
“No, I don’t want to be without you, Bella, of course not. Be rational. And I have no problem with saving you, either—if it weren’t for the fact that I was the one putting you in danger… that I’m the reason that you’re here.”
The truth had found its way into the end of my speech.
Bella scowled at me. “Yes, you are the reason—the reason I’m here alive.”
I couldn’t hold on to the lukewarm. I whispered to hide the pain. “Barely. Covered in gauze and plaster and hardly able to move.”
“I wasn’t referring to my most recent near-death experience,” she snapped at me. “I was thinking of the others—you can take your pick. If it weren’t for you, I would be rotting away in the Forks cemetery.”
I recoiled from the image, but then returned to my point, not letting her sidetrack my remorse.
“That’s not the worst part, though. Not seeing you there on the floor… crumpled and broken.” I fought to regain control over my voice. “Not thinking I was too late. Not even hearing you scream in pain—all those unbearable memories that I’ll carry with me for the rest of eternity. No, the very worst was feeling… knowing that I couldn’t stop. Believing that I was going to kill you myself.”
She frowned. “But you didn’t.”
“I could have. So easily.”
Again, her heart started to pound.
“Promise me,” she hissed.
She was glaring at me now. “You know what.”
Bella had heard the direction of my words. She could hear me talking myself up to the strength I needed. I had to remember that she read my mind a thousand times better than I could read hers. I had to put my need to confess aside. The most important thing now was her recovery.
I tried to only say true things so she wouldn’t see through me as easily as before. “I don’t seem to be strong enough to stay away from you, so I suppose that you’ll get your way… whether it kills you or not.”
“Good.” But I could hear she was not convinced. “You told me how you stopped.… Now I want to know why.”
“Why?” I echoed blankly.
“Why you did it. Why didn’t you just let the venom spread? By now I would be just like you.”
I’d never explained this to her. I’d danced around her questions with such care. I knew that she hadn’t uncovered this truth in any internet research. I saw red for a moment, and in the center of that red, Alice’s face.
“I’ll be the first to admit that I have no experience with relationships.” Bella’s words flowed quickly—worried about what she’d given away and trying to distract me. “But it just seems logical… a man and woman have to be somewhat equal… as in, one of them can’t always be swooping in and saving the other one. They have to save each other equally.”
There was truth to what she was saying, but she was missing the central point. I could never be her equal. There was no way back for me. And that was the only equality that left her unscathed.
I crossed my arms on the edge of her mattress and let my chin rest on them. It was time to calm the fervor of this discussion.
“You have saved me,” I told her calmly. This was true.
“I can’t always be Lois Lane,” she warned me. “I want to be Superman, too.”
I kept my voice soft, soothing, but I had to avert my eyes. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I think I do.”
“Bella, you don’t know,” I murmured, my voice still gentle. “I’ve had almost ninety years to think about this, and I’m still not sure.”
“Do you wish that Carlisle hadn’t saved you?”
“No, I don’t wish that.” I never would have met her if he hadn’t. “But my life was over. I wasn’t giving anything up.” Except a soul.
“You are my life. You’re the only thing it would hurt me to lose.”
She was describing my side of our relationship exactly.
And what will you do when she begs? the memory of Rosalie whispered in my head.
“I can’t do it, Bella. I won’t do that to you.”
“Why not?” Her voice was rough, louder with anger. “Don’t tell me it’s too hard! After today, or I guess it was a few days ago… anyway, after that, it should be nothing.”
I struggled to hold on to my calm.
“And the pain?” I reminded her. I didn’t want to think about it. I hoped she didn’t want to, either.
Her face went white. It was hard to watch. She struggled with the memory for a long moment, and then her chin came up.
“That’s my problem. I can handle it.”
“It’s possible to take bravery to the point where it becomes insanity,” I murmured.
“It’s not an issue. Three days. Big deal.”
Alice! It was probably good I had no idea where she was right now. I realized this was on purpose. She was going to avoid me until I’d calmed down, I was sure. I wanted to call her, to tell her what I thought of this cowardly evasion, but I would bet she wouldn’t answer.
I refocused. If Bella wanted to continue this discussion, I was going to continue to point out the things she hadn’t considered.
“Charlie?” I said succinctly. “Renée?”
This was harder for her to make light of. Long minutes passed while she worked to find an answer. Once she opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She never looked away, but the defiance in her eyes slowly turned to defeat.
Finally she lied. It was obvious, like it usually was.
“Look, that’s not an issue either. Renée has always made the choices that work for her—she’d want me to do the same. And Charlie’s resilient, he’s used to being on his own. I can’t take care of them forever. I have my own life to live.”
“Exactly,” I said, my voice heavy. “And I won’t end it for you.”
“If you’re waiting for me to be on my deathbed, I’ve got news for you! I was just there!”
I waited till I was sure my voice would be even. “You’re going to recover.”
She took a deep breath, winced, and then spoke slowly in a low voice. “No, I’m not.”
Did she think I was lying about her condition? “Of course you are,” I said earnestly. “You may have a scar or two.…”
“You’re wrong. I’m going to die.”
I couldn’t maintain my composure. I heard the stress in my voice. “Really, Bella. You’ll be out of here in a few days. Two weeks at most.”
She stared back at me dejectedly. “I may not die now… but I’m going to die sometime. Every minute of the day, I get closer. And I’m going to get old.”
Anxiety shifted to despair as I grasped her meaning. Did she think this was something I had not considered? That I’d somehow missed this glaring fact, that I’d not noticed the tiny changes in her face, highlighted by my rigid sameness? That, lacking Alice’s gift, I couldn’t see the obvious future?
My face fell into my hands. “That’s how it’s supposed to happen. How it should happen. How it would have happened if I didn’t exist—and I shouldn’t exist.”
Bella snorted.
I looked up, startled by the shift in her mood.
“That’s stupid,” she said. “That’s like going to someone who’s just won the lottery, taking their money, and saying, ‘Look, let’s just go back to how things should be. It’s better that way.’ And I’m not buying it.”
“I’m hardly a lottery prize,” I growled.
“That’s right. You’re much better.”
I rolled my eyes, but then tried to regain a portion of composure. This wasn’t good for her, as her monitors could attest.
“Bella, we’re not having this discussion anymore. I refuse to damn you to an eternity of night and that’s the end of it.”
I realized as soon as my words were out how dismissive they sounded. I knew how she would respond before her eyes narrowed.
“If you think that’s the end, then you don’t know me very well. You’re not the only vampire I know,” she reminded me.
Again, I saw red. “Alice wouldn’t dare.”
“Alice already saw it, didn’t she?” Bella said, confident, though it appeared Alice had kept some things to herself. “That’s why the things she says upset you. She knows I’m going to be like you… someday.”
“She’s wrong.” I was confident, now, too. I’d circumvented Alice before. “She also saw you dead, but that didn’t happen, either.”
“You’ll never catch me betting against Alice.”
She stared at me, defiant again. I felt the stern lines of my own face, and worked to relax them. This was a waste of time, and there was so little of that left.
“So where does that leave us?” she asked hesitantly.
I sighed, and then laughed once without much humor. “I believe it’s called an impasse.”
An impasse that led to an inevitability.
Her heavy sigh echoed mine. “Ouch.”
I looked at her face, and then the call button.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” she said unconvincingly.
I smiled at her. “I don’t believe you.”
Her lip pushed out. “I’m not going back to sleep.”
“You need rest. All this arguing isn’t good for you.” My fault, of course, always my fault.
“So give in,” she suggested.
I pressed the button. “Nice try.”
“No!” she complained.
“Yes?” Bea’s voice sounded tinny through the little speaker.
“I think we’re ready for more pain medication,” I told her. Bella scowled at me, and then winced.
“I’ll send in the nurse.”
“I won’t take it,” Bella threatened.
I looked pointedly at her IV bag. “I don’t think they’re going to ask you to swallow anything.”
Her heart took off again.
“Bella, you’re in pain. You need to relax so you can heal. Why are you being so difficult? They’re not going to put any more needles in you now.”
Her face had lost all its stubbornness; she was only troubled now. “I’m not afraid of the needles. I’m afraid to close my eyes.”
I reached out to hold her face, and smiled at her with perfect sincerity. This wasn’t difficult. All I wanted—all I would ever want—was to look into her eyes forever. “I told you I’m not going anywhere. Don’t be afraid. As long as it makes you happy, I’ll be here.”
Until you’re healthy, until you’re ready. Until I find the strength I need.
She smiled despite the pain. “You’re talking about forever, you know.”
A mortal kind of forever.
“Oh, you’ll get over it,” I teased. “It’s just a crush.”
She tried to shake her head, but gave up with a wince. “I was shocked when Renée swallowed that one. I know you know better.”
“That’s the beautiful thing about being human,” I said quietly. “Things change.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
I had to laugh at her sour expression. She knew how long I could hold my breath.
Gloria bustled in with syringe already in hand.
He needs to give her some peace and quiet, poor thing.
I moved out of her way before her “Excuse me” was half out of her mouth. I leaned against the wall at the other end of the room, giving Gloria space. I didn’t want to irritate her enough that she would try to kick me out again. I wasn’t sure where Carlisle was.
Bella stared at me anxiously, worried I was going to walk right out and keep going. I tried to make my expression reassuring. I would be here when she woke up. As long as she needed me.
Gloria injected the painkiller into the port. “Here you go, honey. You’ll feel better now.”
Bella’s “Thanks” was less than grateful.
It took only seconds for Bella’s eyelids to close.
“That ought to do it,” Gloria murmured.
She gave me a pointed glance, but I stared toward the window, pretending I didn’t see. She shut the door quietly behind herself.
I flitted back to Bella, cradling the good side of her face in my hand.
“Stay.” The word was slurred.
“I will,” I promised her. She was drifting now, and I felt able to speak the truth. “Like I said, as long as it makes you happy… as long as it’s what’s best for you.”
She sighed, only partly conscious. “’S not the same thing.”
“Don’t worry about that now, Bella. You can argue with me when you wake up.”
The corners of her lips curled into a faint smile. “’Kay.”
I leaned down and kissed her temple, then whispered “I love you” into her ear.
“Me too,” she breathed.
I laughed halfheartedly. “I know.” That was the problem.
She fought against the sedation, turning her head toward me… searching.
I kissed her bruised lips softly.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
“Edward?” She could barely shape my name.
“Yes?”
“I’m betting on Alice,” she mumbled.
Her face went slack as she sank fully into unconsciousness.
I buried my face in the hollow of her neck and breathed in her searing essence, wishing again, as I had in the beginning, that I could dream with her.