The Long Night

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Bella didn't awaken until nearly nine o'clock in the morning. Despite my desire to see her, to talk with her, to perhaps hold her while she continued to cry, I was grateful that she had slept in a little, resting her exhausted body after all that she had undergone yesterday. Her beautiful brown eyes, still a little swollen but finally dry, met mine, and I anxiously prepared myself for the return of her tears.

“Hey,” she croaked hoarsely, then cleared her throat.

I watched her carefully, waiting for her lovely, expressive eyes to refill with tears. But, strangely, they remained clear. The expression in her eyes was weary yet resigned, and I breathed a faint sigh of relief.

“No, I'm fine. That won't happen again,” she insisted softly.

But I wasn't certain that I believed her. How could she shift from sobbing her heart out all night long to this tired but collected Bella? Was the pain she expressed so violently last night gone? Just like that? I felt disbelief tightening my features, and her expression then morphed from controlled to guilty.

“I'm sorry that you had to see that,” Bella whispered, looking at her hands rather than at me. “That wasn't fair to you.”

Frankly, I didn't care what was “fair to me” at all—I just needed to know the answer to my extremely vital question.

I placed my palms on her pale cheeks and looked at her earnestly, afraid to know the answer to the question I had to ask, but unable to continue not knowing—not after her storm of tears for hour upon hour last night. All of Alice's assurances of the night before faded away, and fear gripped my heart once again.

“Bella,” I asked, unable to keep a slight tremor from my voice as my heart clenched...my heart which should have been pounding in sheer panic had I still been human. I swallowed hard, then forced out the question, “...are you sure? Did you make the right choice? I've never seen you in so much pain—“ My voice broke on the last word, and I was unable to continue. My eyes burned, warning me that if I had been able to weep, my eyes would be filled with tears at the moment.

Bella looked at me with wise eyes, almost smiling as she leaned forward, pressing her fingers against my mouth as she shushed me gently. “Yes,” she answered softly but emphatically.

But after her agonized weeping of last night, I found it difficult to believe her. “I don't know...” I frowned at her, trying to express my doubts in a way that wouldn't hurt her feelings. “If it hurts you so much, how can it possibly be the right thing for you?”

She looked at me with a hint of exasperation, nearly rolling her eyes. “Edward, I know who I can't live without.”

“But...” I started to reply.

Bella interrupted me. “You don't understand,” she said, shaking her head ruefully. “You may be brave enough or strong enough to live without me, if that's what's best. But I could never be that self-sacrificing. I have to be with you.” She lowered her voice earnestly, “It's the only way I can live.”

She was beginning to convince me, but not completely. I saw the guilt fill her eyes again...and her need.

Her need for me.

Bella needed me.

She needed me.

Not Jacob.

Me.

I breathed in deeply, inhaling her heady, beloved scent as the knot in my chest that I had been attempting to ignore since I first saw her slumped across the seat of her truck last night begin to dissolve.