“I’m the one who betrayed your trust.” came a muffled murmur from the darkness of the room. “I left you…bleeding.” The word was an open wound in itself. I shuddered through the tears.
“Stop blaming yourself, it’s torture!” I commanded in a gurgled voice. My face was still in my hands.
“Please don’t…” My hands were being pulled away from my face by cold pressure.
My eyes stung but he was holding my chin and so I sought his gorgeous face through the blur.
“Don’t hide your face, please.” He leaned forward. “I’ve been without it for far too long.”
I sucked in a tight breath which burned my chest. It still seemed absurd but now it was plain on his face that Edward was telling the truth. Alice wouldn’t lie. She didn’t lie when she saw me becoming one of them even though at the time I had been more sure about my future. She wasn’t lying to me now. So Edward would stay as long as I wanted him.
I just needed to find out if he would still want me after knowing what I’d done.
“Do you still want me?” I asked quietly.
Edward leaned forward more. And I leaned back but he only caressed my face with his marble white and smooth hands.
“If what I said in the forest was all a lie then you should know that I never wanted to utter those words.”
That was declaration enough.
The reasons I couldn’t find for the voice on the roadside and in Port Angeles now came to me like a revelation. Like opening a secret chest and finding the answer that had brought me there, that had guided me this far.
“You love me.” I whispered. It wasn’t a question.
Edward’s lips pulled into a wide grin. And his eyes looked relaxed for the first time since I saw him.
“Certainly.” His grin turned into my favorite crooked smile.
I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded. Suddenly, I was so tired of speaking.
Edward’s coal black eyes caught my attention again.
“How long has it been since your last hunt?” I questioned with a frown.
Edward sighed.
“Alice and I hurried over here without thinking about how long we’d stay.” He replied. “Alice is in better shape than I am.”
“I noticed.” I slid off the bed. Going around to the other side, I clasped my hand around his snowy wrist.
“So go hunt. Now.” I commanded.
Edward gave me a small smile. “Will your window be open when I return?”
I bit my bottom lip.
“Even if I wasn’t sure that you’d come back it’d still be open.”
“Now you’re sure?” He asked, warily.
“Although, I don’t necessarily understand what might make you come back.” I confessed.
“Why’s that?” Still wary.
I shrugged but my face was far from unworried. Any second now it would break down. “I don’t deserve you.”
Edward’s lips parted. He looked about to say something but decided against it.
“You know when you said that loving you never made sense to me?” He asked instead.
I nodded.
“It never made sense to you either.”
I diverted my gaze from that beautiful face that I never understood. Never comprehended how it could be real. Again, he was telling the truth. It never made sense to me why Edward Cullen would fall in love with someone so unmerited such as I.
Edward lifted up my chin.
His smile was warm in the strangest sense of the word.
“Still, we didn’t have a choice, did we?”
I tried to smile.