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When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?
I didn’t care, for the moment, that the whole town was talking about me. I didn’t think about the spectacle I would have to star in much too soon. I didn’t worry about tripping on my train or giggling at the wrong moment or being too young or the staring audience or even the empty seat where my best friend should be. I was with Edward in my happy place.
“Get to sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.” “Thanks! That’s sure to help me wind down.” “I’ll meet you at the altar.” “I’ll be the one in white.” I smiled at how perfectly blasé I sounded.
Edward held out his hand. Charlie took my hand and, in a symbol as old as the world, placed it in Edward’s. I touched the cool miracle of his skin, and I was home.
He kissed me tenderly, adoringly; I forgot the crowd, the place, the time, the reason… only remembering that he loved me, that he wanted me, that I was his.
“Enjoying the party, Mrs. Cullen?” he whispered in my ear. I laughed. “That will take a while to get used to.” “We have a while,”
“Not a nightmare.” I shook my head, scrubbing the back of my hand against my eyes. “It was a good dream.” My voice broke again. “Then why are you crying?” he asked, bewildered. “Because I woke up,”
And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays. William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act III, Scene i
10. WHY DIDN’T I JUST WALK AWAY? OH RIGHT, BECAUSE I’M AN IDIOT.
“I told you—,” I started to say. “Did you know that ‘I told you so’ has a brother, Jacob?” she asked, cutting me off. “His name is ‘Shut the hell up.’”
“I can do this. I can do this,” she muttered, sounding a lot like that kids’ book about the little engine that could.
“Stop being a jerk, Jacob,” she whispered. She looked too weak to get mad at. I tried to smile instead. “You say that like it’s possible.”
And if it helps Bella, it’s a good thing, right? Both Leah and I stared at him. What? Mom dropped him a lot when he was a baby, Leah told me. On his head, apparently. He used to gnaw on the crib bars, too. Lead paint? Looks like it, she thought.
I snorted. Vampire mother hen—bizarre.
Nose to the ground, Leah. This isn’t a race, it’s a reconnaissance mission. I can do both and still kick your butt. I gave her that one. I know.
Wow, this is going to sound bad. But, honestly, it will be easier to deal with your pain than face mine. Fair enough. I know it’s going to be bad for you, Jacob. I understand that—maybe better than you think. I don’t like her, but… she’s your Sam. She’s everything you want and everything you can’t have.
Because, if it was turned around, I’d want Bella to do that for me. And so would Rosalie. We’d both do it her way. Ugh! You’re as bad as they are! That’s the funny thing about knowing you can’t have something. It makes you desperate.
My old mind hadn’t been capable of holding this much love. My old heart had not been strong enough to bear it.
“What… did you call her?” Jacob took a step farther back, managing to look sheepish. “Well,” he mumbled, “that name you came up with is kind of a mouthful and—” “You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?” I screeched. And then I lunged for his throat.
Rose looked wary. Jacob looked troubled. Renesmee looked beautiful and impatient.
Jasper felt my mood change. “Er, Edward, you might not want to distract her like that right now. She needs to be able to focus.” Edward pulled away. “Oops,” he said. I laughed. That had been my line from the very beginning, from the very first kiss.
he looked like Zeus’s younger, better-looking brother.
Often, when I looked back over my first three months as an immortal, I imagined how the thread of my life might look in the Fates’ loom—who knew but that it actually existed? I was sure my thread must have changed color; I thought it had probably started out as a nice beige, something supportive and non-confrontational, something that would look good in the background. Now it felt like it must be bright crimson, or maybe glistening gold.
My eyes had not moved from his since Alice’s departure. We’d stared at each other all night, staring at what neither of us could live through losing: the other.
For a moment I thought that maybe what we were attempting might be possible. Maybe Renesmee could do the impossible and win over our enemies as she had our friends. And then I remembered that Alice had left us, and my hope vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
vampires. I was amazed at the easy acceptance the visiting vampires had for Jacob; the problems Edward had anticipated had never materialized. Jacob seemed more or less invisible to them, not quite a person, but also not food, either. They treated him the way people who are not animal-lovers treat the pets of their friends.
We did not hope for the same things, but we all hoped.
It was not going to be the end of the world. Just the end of the Cullens. The end of Edward, the end of me.
“This won’t be the first time I’ve fought to keep myself from a king’s rule,” Garrett said in a teasing tone. He walked over and clapped Benjamin on the back. “Here’s to freedom from oppression.”
Edward and I had not had a last grand scene of farewell, nor did I plan one. To speak the word was to make it final. It would be the same as typing the words The End on the last page of a manuscript. So we did not say our goodbyes, and we stayed very close to each other, always touching. Whatever end found us, it would not find us separated.
It was almost impossible to believe how much things had changed since last June. Seven months ago, our triangular relationship seemed impossible, three different kinds of heartbreak that could not be avoided. Now everything was in perfect balance. It seemed hideously ironic that the puzzle pieces would fit together just in time for all of them to be destroyed.
He would not win if I lived. I was fiercely glad to be so powerful that I left him no way not to kill me.
His face glowed with an expression of triumph that I didn’t understand—it was the expression an angel of destruction might wear while the world burned. Beautiful and terrifying.
Like the half-human Nahuel, in a hundred and fifty years she would still be young. And we would all be together. Happiness expanded like an explosion inside me—so extreme, so violent that I wasn’t sure I’d survive it. “Forever,” Edward echoed in my ear. I couldn’t speak anymore. I lifted my head and kissed him with a passion that might possibly set the forest on fire. I wouldn’t have noticed.
“Damn it,” he growled, kissing hungrily down the edge of my jaw. “We have plenty of time to work on it,” I reminded him. “Forever and forever and forever,” he murmured. “That sounds exactly right to me.” And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever.
