Bella, please," I pleaded for the fifth time. "I need you to talk to me."
She had been letting me hold her, allowing me to keep her close, but she stubbornly refused to look up at me. All I wanted to do was shower her with kisses, but I couldn't do that until I knew for certain that she still loved me.
"Edward, you already said everything you needed to say in the woods that day," she sighed, keeping her head and eyes focused on the floor of the plane.
"Isabella, if you truly believed that, you would not have come to Italy. You love me."
"I never said I didn't."
"Then why won't you talk to me?"
"Because you don't love me," she replied, her voice barely more than a breath.
"How can you say that?" I asked, trying to keep from sobbing. "I love you so much more than I could ever say. You are my angel, my Bella."
"But...you...said..." she stuttered, finally looking at me. Her brown eyes were filled with so much hope and fear that it broke my undead heart.
I held her face in my hands, stroking her warm cheeks with the pads of my thumbs. How I had missed her warmth, her smile, her voice...I had missed every single thing about her and now that she was with me again, I would never let anyone or anything come between us.
"Will you please try to hear what I'm telling you? Will you let me attempt to explain what you mean to me?" I waited to make sure she was really listening. "Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars-points of light and reason...And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything. That's why I went to Volterra, Bella. I thought you had left me here, all alone, without a single reason to live. I love you so much that I can't handle the idea of living in a world where you are not."
"Do you mean that?" she asked, begging me with her wet, brown eyes to tell her the absolute truth.
I smiled the crooked grin she loved best. "I do, Isabella. I mean it more than anything I have ever said in my entire life. I love you and I want to be with you. If you'll take me back."
"Oh, Edward," she cried, throwing her arms around my neck. "I never stopped loving you, not for one single second. We are far from done talking about this, but I'm just so happy that you're back. Please promise that you won't ever leave again."
"I can't leave, Bella. I can't do anything without you," I confessed. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
I tried to get her to sleep, knowing we had plenty more to talk about once we made it back to Forks. But my stubborn Bella refused to sleep, preferring to stare at me and trace my face with her little hands instead.
VBR-MB-VBR-MB-VBR-MB-VBR-MB-VBR-MB-VBR-MB-VBR-MB
The rain was coming down in thick sheets as the plane touched down in Forks. It was evening now and it was quite chilly, not that I could feel the temperature difference myself. I only knew because it was the main thought running through the minds of many of the humans inside the airport.
As we came off the concourse, Alice led the way to the parking garage where our family was waiting for us. Bella was barely awake and staggered a bit as I held her to me, trying to keep up with Alice.
The last forty-eight hours had put all of us through hell. I was barely able to contain the myriad of emotions welling up within me. I felt anger at myself for leaving Bella at all. There was also overwhelming despair at the fact that it was becoming all too clear to me exactly how much damage my absence had done, not only to myself but to my family and my Bella. My world had been upside down for months now and at the last possible moment, my angel, my Bella had saved me from myself. She came for me...for me! She was the one who usually needed saving.
