The hum of quiet filled the room, broken only by the soft rustle of fabric in my hands. I folded a pair of jeans over my knees and set them on the growing stack beside me. The suitcase Edward had carried in sat half-empty at the foot of the bed, waiting for me to finish.
Everything felt strange—like I was moving inside someone else’s life.
This wasn’t my room. The scent in the air was too clean, the bed too neat, the walls too still. My room had creaking floorboards, a closet door that never shut properly, and the constant murmur of a baseball game from downstairs. It had the sound of Charlie clanking dishes around when he didn’t know what to say.
But that was behind me now.
I kept folding. A hoodie. Another T-shirt. I tried not to think too hard as my hands worked. But the memories kept breaking through, sliding under the door I’d tried to shut on them.
The look on Charlie’s face when he saw me with the suitcase. That dark red flush of hurt and frustration rising in his cheeks. His silence said more than if he’d yelled. And the worst part was, I hadn’t fought him on it. I hadn’t said goodbye. I’d just walked away.
Because staying would’ve meant lying—to him, to myself. And because Edward was right. The Volturi were coming.
The proposal was still a knot in my chest.
He’d asked me to marry him.
And I hadn’t answered.
I’d wanted to. A part of me had screamed to say yes right then and there. But the other part—maybe the wiser part—had stayed quiet. Because love wasn’t the problem. I loved him with every fractured piece of myself. It was everything else that terrified me.
What if I said yes too soon and regretted it later? What if I only thought I was ready because the ground beneath me had finally stopped shaking?
What if I wasn’t whole enough to give myself to him the way he deserved?
Another shirt. Folded. Stacked.
This room was still his. I was just trying to find space in it.
And in the quiet, I couldn’t tell if I was settling in—or waiting to fall apart again.
The drive to the Cullens’ house felt longer than it should have. I didn’t know if Edward was already there or how the rest of them would react to me. The last time I’d stepped into that house, was just a few days ago. I hadn’t expected Rosalie’s hug. Or the way Esme had lit up when I walked through the door.
Jasper stayed tucked away near the back of the room, like he was trying not to breathe me in. I couldn’t blame him. He didn’t look at me, and I didn’t push. Emmett grinned at me from his sprawl across the chair and offered an exaggerated thumbs-up. I couldn’t help but laugh a little.
But it was Rosalie—beautiful, often distant Rosalie—who crossed the room and pulled me into a hug like we were sisters. I barely had time to react before she was steering me toward the couch, her arm looped around mine like this was always the way things had been between us.
Esme joined us a moment later, her smile warm, maternal. She asked me about school. About Charlie. About whether I’d thought about college.
College.
I didn’t even know where I’d be in six months.
I answered the best I could, laughing where I was supposed to, keeping my voice steady. I told them Charlie had kicked me out. I didn’t mention the part where I’d pushed him to do it. And they all accepted me like I belonged there. Like they hadn’t left me in pieces once before.
The house was too quiet, even with the low murmur of voices around me. I sat curled up on the couch beside Esme, a mug of something warm between my hands just to have something to hold. It was probably tea, but I hadn’t really tasted it.
I felt like I was being observed, but not in a threatening way. Just… noticed. Studied. Like everyone was waiting to see if I’d fall apart.
Rosalie was nearby—not quite touching, but close. It didn’t seem accidental. She kept her body angled toward me, her expression softer than I was used to seeing on her face.
I appreciated it more than I could ever say.
Then the door opened, and I looked up.
Edward.
He paused as soon as he saw me. I could tell he was assessing, unsure if I needed space. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t know what I needed. But my face betrayed none of that—I gave him a small, steady smile. The kind you offer someone when you’re holding back a wave and trying not to let it show.
He returned it, tentative, and stepped into the room. Close, but not too close.
Esme stood, smoothing her hands over her apron. “Bella, sweetheart, I warmed up some soup for you. It’s nothing fancy, but you haven’t eaten.”
I nodded, grateful for her tenderness. “Thank you, Esme. That’s… really sweet of you.”
She gave me a warm smile and disappeared into the kitchen. Everyone else gave us our version of privacy—lingering just far enough to pretend they weren’t listening, failing in the gentlest, most obvious ways.
“I expected you back so sooner,” I said to Edward quietly.
“I needed to drive,” he said. “Clear my head.”
That struck something in me—familiar and painful. I nodded. “That makes sense.”
He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. But I wondered what had really been going through his head. The proposal still hovered between us like a question neither of us wanted to repeat.
Later, after dinner—after I’d forced the soup down just to give Esme peace of mind—I’d gone upstairs. The house hummed softly below me. I could hear Alice humming faintly from somewhere in the room, probably reorganizing my closet. Emmett’s laugh echoed from somewhere distant.
I was in Edward’s room. Sitting cross-legged on the floor beside my suitcase, folding and refolding the same shirt. It didn’t need organizing. None of it did. I just needed something to keep my hands busy.
There was a soft knock, the door creaked slightly, and then his voice came low. “Hey.”
I looked up. He was leaning in the doorway, eyes tired but kind. And mine.
“Can’t sleep,” I murmured.
“Me neither,” he said, with a faint smile. “Habit, I suppose.”
I managed a weak laugh.
He crossed the room slowly and sat beside me, close but careful. “Need help?”
I shook my head. “Just… trying to make it feel real. This. Moving in. Leaving.”
The word caught in my throat, thin and frayed. Leaving.
When I told Charlie I was leaving, I thought I’d feel brave. Grown. Like I’d finally stood up for myself. But instead, I’d felt small. Like a girl with no one behind her anymore.
“I thought I’d feel defiant,” I admitted. “Proud. Independent. But I just felt… tired.”
He didn’t interrupt, and I was grateful.
“I know this probably looks like I’m running away,” I said, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “But I’m not. I’m here because I want to be with you. I just… don’t know what that means yet. I don’t know if I’m ready to think about forever.”
It felt awful to say. Awful, because I knew how much it mattered to him. Awful, because I wanted to say yes. Every part of me wanted to fall into his arms and agree to everything—eternity, marriage, the whole impossible thing.
But I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t still hurt. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t scare me.
He nodded, his voice quiet. “You don’t owe me anything. Not an answer. Not a timeline. Not… anything.”
My chest ached. I reached for his hand.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.
“You won’t,” he said, and I knew it was a lie. A kind one, but still.
We sat in silence. His fingers threaded through mine. It was the most grounding thing I’d felt all day.
After a long while, I leaned against his shoulder. I closed my eyes, listening to the quiet rhythm of a house full of people who didn’t sleep. Who just… waited.
“Is it okay,” I asked softly, “if I just sleep here? With you?”
His voice was a whisper, and I felt it in my bones.
“Of course.”
***
I woke to the sound of voices, low and urgent, threading through the floorboards below me. It took a second to remember where I was—the soft sheets beneath me, the faint trace of Edward’s scent in the air, the Cullens’ house.
And then the empty space beside me.
Edward was gone.
I sat up slowly, blinking against the dim lamp light, the room still half-wrapped in shadows. I pulled on the nearest sweatshirt and padded toward the slightly cracked bedroom door, every step quiet. The voices came from downstairs—Edward, Carlisle, Alice. I could only make out pieces at first, fragments that hinted at something heavier than I was meant to hear.
Then Carlisle’s voice, clear and calm:
“And if you told her?”
Silence.
Then Edward, sharper, almost hoarse:
“She’d say yes out of fear. Or guilt. Or some twisted sense of self-sacrifice. And then what? I marry her because the clock is ticking? Turn her to save her from them?”
A pause.
“What kind of life is that to offer someone?”
The words hit like a cold wave. My breath caught in my throat, and I leaned lightly against the doorframe, grounding myself.
Alice’s voice followed, gentle but unwavering:
“The only one she’d ever accept. You know she’ll choose this path eventually. She’s always known.”
My heart thudded harder. This path. Turning. That unspoken thing hanging between us for days now. For months. And suddenly, beneath the weight of it, every question I hadn’t let myself ask was clawing to the surface.
“But she hasn’t said it. Not yet,” Edward said.
“And I can’t take that choice from her. Not again.”
My chest ached. I wanted to run down the stairs, to tell him he hadn’t. That I knew what I was doing. That I was just scared—not of him, but of losing myself again. Of becoming something I couldn’t undo.
Another stretch of silence followed. I could hear the quiet creak of floorboards as someone shifted.
Then Carlisle’s voice, steady but kind:
“We’ll prepare for whatever comes. But for now, let her rest. Let her find her way back to you without the shadow of the Volturi shaping her every thought.”
The Volturi. That name again. Cold and ancient and absolute. I remembered Edward’s words from what felt like a lifetime ago, the night of my eighteenth birthday. He’d told me they were law. That they enforced secrecy. That they killed to protect it.
And now… now I was the problem. The secret.
Edward’s voice, smaller now:
“And if we run out of time before she’s ready?”
“Then we fight,” Alice said.
“You’re not doing this alone.”
I didn’t know when I started crying. The tears had come quietly, trailing down my face without warning. I wiped them away quickly and stepped back from the door. They weren’t just talking about the future anymore. They were talking about survival. Mine. Theirs.
And a choice I hadn’t made.
Not yet.
I slipped deeper into the room like a ghost, wiping at my face, though the tears kept coming. My throat ached from holding them in. I crawled under the blankets, curling onto my side with my arms wrapped tightly around myself.
I didn’t want to think anymore. I didn’t want to imagine the look on Edward’s face downstairs when he said those words—out of fear, or guilt. Like choosing him could ever be anything but everything I wanted.
But still… I hadn’t said yes.
And maybe that silence was speaking for me.
Eventually the tears slowed. My breathing evened out. I let exhaustion claim me.
The dream came softly, like a memory I’d never lived.
I stood in a quiet courthouse, my hand in Edward’s. My heart should have been pounding, but it wasn’t. It didn’t need to be. I was still. Calm. Eternal.
Esme straightened my simple white dress. Alice beamed behind a tiny camera. Carlisle stood beside Edward, looking impossibly proud. Rosalie, next to me, didn’t glare or roll her eyes—she smiled.
The Justice of the Peace said something kind, but I only focused on the way Edward looked at me. Like I was already his, forever.
Then: a blur of trees and cold air, sharp with life. Edward and I moved silently through the woods, side by side. The taste of blood was not sickening—it was clean. Natural. Necessary. Our hands brushed as we moved. His laugh echoed in my ears. It was the only sound in the world I needed.
Later, we lay together in the meadow. Sunlight scattered through the trees above us. The air was warm on my marble skin. When I lifted my hand, the light fractured across it—rainbows dancing on every surface. I turned toward Edward, and he was shining too. A thousand glittering fragments of gold and diamond light flickered across his face.
He looked at me like I was his equal. Like I had always been meant to stand at his side, just like this.
“Forever,” he whispered, his voice carrying the weight of something sacred.
I opened my mouth to answer—
—and woke with the word yes stuck behind my teeth.
The room was still and dim, bathed in the pale blue light of early morning. Edward was beside me again, lying perfectly still but watching me, his golden eyes soft and unreadable.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t ask.
And I didn’t tell him what I’d overheard.
Or about the dream.
I just scooted closer to him and rested my head on his chest, letting the silence hold us.
For now, that was all I could give.
And he didn’t let go.
The morning light crept in through the window, casting soft gold across the floor. Edward lay beside me, one arm curled loosely around my waist. We hadn’t spoken much since I woke. There was comfort in the silence, but it wasn’t enough anymore.
I shifted to face him fully. “Can I ask you something?”
His eyes flickered to mine, wary. “Of course.”
I hesitated. “It’s about my birthday. The one we had here.” As if he needed the explanation.
He didn’t flinch, but the stillness in him grew heavier. “Okay.”
I looked down at my hands, fingers worrying the edge of the blanket. “I’ve tried to make sense of it a hundred different ways. I keep thinking—if things had happened differently, maybe you wouldn’t have left. Maybe I wouldn’t have fallen apart the way I did.”
Edward’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing.
“So I need to know. Why did you think leaving me was the right answer?” I kept my voice even, but I couldn’t keep the ache out of it. “Why not talk to me? Or trust me to make my own choice?”
He sat up slowly, drawing his knees close, his hands clasped tight between them. “Because I thought I was poison.”
The words hung between us, low and sharp.
“I thought… if I removed myself from your life, you’d be safe. Maybe even happy. Maybe you’d go to college. Meet someone human. Someone who wouldn’t put you in danger just by breathing near you.”
I shook my head, stunned by the way his voice trembled. “You honestly believed I’d just… forget you?”
“I hoped you would.” He glanced at me, guilt carved into every line of his face. “Not because I didn’t love you. But because I did.”
Tears stung the backs of my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. “You broke me, Edward. You didn’t just leave—I thought I’d imagined everything we were. That none of it was real.”
“I know.” His voice cracked. “Every day I was gone, I thought about coming back. But I thought staying away was the only way to protect you. I thought I was saving your life.”
“You didn’t save me,” I whispered. “You just left me bleeding slower.”
The silence between us tightened, but I didn’t look away. I needed him to hear this.
“I’m not fragile,” I said softly. “I can break, yes—but I heal too. You don’t get to make my choices for me, not anymore.”
Edward nodded slowly, every motion deliberate. “You’re right. I stole your choice. I thought I was protecting you, but I see now—I was just afraid. Afraid of what loving me might cost you.”
I reached for his hand. “That’s not your decision to carry alone.”
He looked down at our joined fingers, then back up at me. “I’m sorry, Bella. More than I can ever say.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “But I needed you to say it anyway.”
The silence stretched again, but it wasn’t heavy anymore. Just quiet. I watched his thumb brush across the back of my hand, slow and reverent. He hadn’t let go.
I took a breath, then another. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
He looked up immediately, that familiar flicker of apprehension returning to his eyes. “Anything.”
I swallowed hard. “The proposal.”
His expression shifted—barely—but I saw the way he held still, like he was bracing for impact. I hated that. I hated that this—this hope—was something I could wound him with.
“It’s not about how I feel about you,” I said quickly. “I love you. That’s not the issue. It never has been.”
His throat worked in a swallow. “Then what is?”
I hesitated. “It’s… fear, I guess.”
His brow furrowed.
“I’m afraid,” I admitted, “that if I say yes—if I commit to you completely—and something goes wrong, you’ll leave. Like last time. That I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone again. And this time I don’t think I’d survive it.”
His hand tightened around mine.
“You left before when it got hard,” I said gently. “And I’m not trying to throw that in your face—I know why you did it. I know what you were trying to protect me from. But I also remember how you walked away, and how you didn’t come back until there was a threat looming over us.”
The memory of that conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear echoed in my mind again.
She’d say yes out of fear… or guilt… or some twisted sense of self-sacrifice.
And then what? I marry her because the clock is ticking? Turn her to save her from them?
That was what he feared. That I would say yes for the wrong reasons.
But he didn’t know I’d heard.
Didn’t know I was afraid of the same thing—that maybe he was asking because he thought he had to. Because the Volturi would force a decision. Because the clock was ticking.
I looked at him then, really looked—at the way he waited without a single word of defense, just that quiet ache in his eyes.
“I want to be with you, Edward. You’re it for me. That’s not what I’m afraid of.” My voice caught. “I just need to believe that you won’t run next time things get hard. That this isn’t about… avoiding a deadline.”
His face shattered open, not with shock, but understanding.
“I want forever,” I said softly. “I do. I’m just not ready to put a ring on something I’m still scared to believe in.”
The silence that followed was so still, it felt like time had paused around us.
Finally, he nodded. One slow, reverent dip of his head.
“I’ll wait,” he said. “As long as it takes. I won’t ask again until you’re ready.”
And even though no promises were made, no decisions sealed, I felt the tiniest sliver of something in my chest begin to stitch back together.
After Edward left the room, I stayed curled beneath the blanket, listening to the soft hush of the house. It was barely morning, but the sky beyond the window was already beginning to lighten—soft gray filtering through the trees.
I exhaled slowly, watching the pale light creep across the floorboards, and let myself feel everything.
It wasn’t just about the proposal anymore.
It was about the after.
Because saying yes to Edward didn’t mean just wedding vows or promises whispered in the dark. It meant saying yes to this world. His world. A world where time didn’t touch him. A world ruled by creatures like the Volturi.
I didn’t know much about them—not really. Only what he’d told me that night of my birthday. That they were old. Powerful. That they enforced the laws that kept the vampire world hidden from the human one. That crossing them meant death.
I didn’t know the details, but I knew enough to feel the weight of them like a clock ticking in the back of my head.
They were coming.
That much was clear, even without hearing Edward’s conversation with Alice and Carlisle. The words haunted me still:
She’d say yes out of fear… And if we run out of time before she’s ready?
Then we fight.
Fight. Against something ancient and merciless. Something that could destroy us both. And he’d do it—for me.
I closed my eyes, trying to picture a future where that wasn’t looming over us. A normal future. But that word didn’t belong to me anymore. Maybe it never had.
There was no going back to high school worries or picking colleges or imagining a life that didn’t include immortality or blood or war. Loving Edward meant choosing this. All of it. And pretending otherwise was just another kind of lie.
Still, I wasn’t afraid of the Volturi—not in the way I probably should have been. Not if it meant standing beside him. What scared me was the idea of not being strong enough when the time came. Of hesitating.
Of costing us everything.
I sat up slowly, wrapping my arms around my knees. My heart felt bruised, but steadier than it had in days.
Whatever came next—whether I said yes today or not—whether I turned tomorrow or years from now—I knew one thing with certainty:
When the Volturi arrived, I wouldn’t let Edward face them alone.
I would choose him.
Again and again, for as long as they gave me time.
1.7562 Billion Miles 