"Edward," she mumbled softly.
She was dreaming of me.
Could a dead, frozen heart beat again? It felt like mine was about to.
"Stay," she sighed. "Don't go. Please...don't go."
She was dreaming of me, and it wasn't even a nightmare. She wanted me to stay with her, there in her dream.
I struggled to find words to name the feelings that flooded through me, but I had no words strong enough to hold them. For a long moment, I drowned in them.
When I surfaced, I was not the same man I had been.
My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?
At the time that I had become a vampire, trading my soul and my mortality for immortality in the searing pain of transformation, I had truly been frozen. My body had turned into something more like rock than flesh, enduring and unchanging. My self, also, had frozen as it was - my personality, my likes and my dislikes, my moods and my desires; all were fixed in place.
It was the same for the rest of them. We were all frozen. Living stone.
When change came for one of us, it was a rare and permanent thing. I had seen it happen with Carlisle, and then a decade later with Rosalie. Love had changed them in an eternal way, a way that never faded. More than eighty years had passed since Carlisle had found Esme, and yet he still looked at her with the incredulous eyes of first love. It would always be that way for them.
It would always be that way for me, too. I would always love this fragile human girl, for the rest of my limitless existence.
I gazed at her unconscious face, feeling this love for her settle into every portion of my stone body.
She slept more peacefully now, a slight smile on her lips.
Always watching her, I began to plot.
I loved her, and so I would try to be strong enough to leave her. I knew I wasn't that strong now. I would work on that one. But perhaps I was strong enough to circumvent the future in another way.
Alice had seen only two futures for Bella, and now I understood them both.
Loving her would not keep me from killing her, if I let myself make mistakes.
Yet I could not feel the monster now, could not find him anywhere in me.
Perhaps love had silenced him forever. If I killed her now, it would not be intentional, only a horrible accident.
I would have to be inordinately careful. I would never, ever be able to let my guard down. I would have to control my every breath. I would have to keep an always cautious distance.
I would not make mistakes.
I finally understood that second future. I'd been baffled by that vision - what could possibly happen to result in Bella becoming a prisoner to this immortal half-life? Now - devastated by longing for the girl - I could understand how I might, in unforgivable selfishness, ask my father for that favor. Ask him to take away her life and her soul so that I could keep her forever.
She deserved better.
But I saw one more future, one thin wire that I might be able to walk, if I could keep my balance.
Could I do it? Be with her and leave her human?
Deliberately, I took a deep breath, and then another, letting her scent rip through me like wildfire. The room was thick with her perfume; her fragrance was layered on every surface. My head swam, but I fought the spinning. I would have to get used to this, if I were going to attempt any kind of relationship with her. I took another deep, burning breath.
I watched her sleeping until the sun rose behind the eastern clouds, plotting and breathing.
I got home just after the others had left for school. I changed quickly, avoiding Esme's questioning eyes. She saw the feverish light in my face, and she felt both worry and relief. My long melancholy had pained her, and she was glad it seemed to be over.
I ran to school, arriving a few seconds after my siblings did. They did not turn, though Alice at least must have known that I stood here in the thick woods that bordered the pavement. I waited until no one was looking, and then I strolled casually from between the trees into the lot full of parked cars.
I heard Bella's truck rumbling around the corner, and I paused behind a Suburban, where I could watch without being seen.
She drove into the lot, glaring at my Volvo for a long moment before she parked in one of the most distant spaces, a frown on her face.
It was strange to remember that she was probably still angry with me, and with good reason.
I wanted to laugh at myself - or kick myself. All my plotting and planning was entirely moot if she didn't care for me, too, wasn't it? Her dream could have been about something completely random. I was such an arrogant fool.
Well, it was so much the better for her if she didn't care for me. That wouldn't stop me from pursuing her, but I would give her fair warning as I pursued. I owed her that.
I walked silently forward, wondering how best to approach her.
She made it easy. Her truck key slipped through her fingers as she got out, and fell into a deep puddle.
She reached down, but I got to it first, retrieving it before she had to put her fingers in the cold water.
I leaned back against her truck as she started and then straightened up.
"How do you do that?" she demanded.
Yes, she was still angry.
I offered her the key. "Do what?"
She held her hand out, and I dropped the key in her palm. I took a deep breath, pulling in her scent.
"Appear out of thin air," she clarified.
"Bella, it's not my fault if you are exceptionally unobservant." The words were wry, almost a joke. Was there anything she didn't see?
Did she hear how my voice wrapped around her name like a caress?
She glared at me, not appreciating my humor. Her heartbeat sped - from anger? From fear? After a moment, she looked down.