Twilight: Betrayal

Chapter 20

"Bella."

I whirled around to find Rosalie standing in the doorway. She smiled a friendly smile and I returned my own. It felt brittle and raw, as if I were exposing a piece of myself unwillingly; a piece of my pain that I normally keep well hidden. She frowned and her brows fell, seeing past my facade.

I turned back to stare intently into the woods, searching for answers to questions that the forest could never begin to fathom. I felt undeniably and irrevocably lost.

Rose came up beside me and rested her white hands on the thick wooden rail. She twirled her wedding ring three times around her finger before she said anything. "I know you don't want to talk about Edward, but there's so much you need to know, Bella. It's not what it seems."

I scoffed. She definitely had lousy timing. I leaned my elbows on the rail beside her and placed my face in my hands, peering through my pale fingers. "What are you talking about?" My voice was muffled though I knew she could understand it.

"Edward was coerced into all of this, Bella. Alice has been pulling the strings."

I chuckled darkly. "Rose, this is ridiculous. Please, stop. Edward is a grown man-"

"He wasn't a grown man 63 years ago when we left. He couldn't eat, he isolated himself, he wouldn't even talk to us. Alice was the one who was whispering into his ear that we should leave in the first place. Alice is the one who talked him into it."

I turned to face her fully. "Yeah, and what did she say? 'Lets run off together and leave that human behind, she'll never be good enough?'. It doesn't matter if she was the one to put the idea in his thick head, he went along with it. He left me. He did this." I huffed and turned back to the forest, clenching my fists side by side.

"He came back, Bella." Her voice was soft as she spoke, calming me enough to not run into the woods and get lost in the dense greenery that made up Forks.

"Yeah, 63 years later. Why is that so impressive to you? You would have come back eventually anyway." I turned to leave, having had enough of this conversation. I had too much on my plate as it was.

"He came back to forks to beg your forgiveness. Not 63 years later, but 7 months after we left."

I stopped in my course to the door. He came back for me? "What?" I whispered. I knew if I spoke aloud, my voice would break under the strain of everything.

"Yes." She spoke slowly and softly to me, attempting to keep my emotions under control. She thought I was a fleight risk and she definitely wasn't wrong.

"He came back for you, but when we got here, you were already dead. Or so we thought. After that, he fell back into his depression but it was worse, Bella. He wasn't Edward, he wasn't anyone. He was void of any personality. He was hell to be around. When you spoke to him, it was like speaking to a wall. He wouldn't respond, wouldn't even blink. He didn't eat unless he was forced to."

"Wait." I waved for her to pause, clenching my eyes shut. "Stop. I dont get this. So you all came back for me?"

"Of course we did, sweetheart." A frail Esme appeared from thin air beside me, placing a light hand on my shoulder. "We were devastated to hear that you were no longer with us."