Favvisar ur : "New Moon"

s.452 - 453.

The clock tolled, and he took a large stride toward the light.
"No!" I screamed. "Edward, look at me!"
He wasn't listening. He smiled very slightly. He raised his foot to take the step that would put him directly in the path of the sun.
I slammed into him so hard that the force would have hurled me to the ground if his arms hadn't caught me and held me up. It knocked my breath out of me and snapped my head back.
His dark eyes opened slowly as the clock tolled again.
He looked down at me with quiet surprise.
"Amazing," he said, his exquisite voice full of wonder, slightly amused. "Carlisle was right"
"Edward," I tried to gasp, but my voice had no sound.
"You've got to get back to the shadows. You have to move!"
He seemed bemused. His hand brushed softly against my cheek. he didn't appear to notice that I was trying to force him back. I could have been pushing against the alley walls for all the progress I was making. The clock tolled, but he didn't react.
It was very strange, for I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still, in that instant, i felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast, through my veins again. My lungs filled deep with the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been a hole in my chest. I was perfect - not healed, but as if there had been no wound in the first place.
"I can't belive how quick it was. I didn't feel a thing - they're very good," he mused, closing his eyes again and pressing my lips against my hair. His voice was like honey and velvet. "Death, that sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty," he murmured, and I recognized the line spoken by Romeo in the tomb. The clock boomed out its final chime. "You smell just exactly the same as always," he went on. "So maybe this is hell. I don't care. I'll take it."
"I'm not dead," I interrupted. "And neither are you! Please Edward, we have to move. They can't be far away!"
I struggled in his arms, and his brow furrowed in confusion.
"What was that?" he asked politely.
"We're not dead, not yet! But we have to get out of here before Volturi-"
Comprehension flickered on his face as I spoke. Before I could finsih, he suddenly yanked me away from the edge of the shadows, spinning me effortlessly so that my back was tight against the brick wall, and his back was to me as he faced away into the alley. His arms spread wide, protectively, in front of me.


"I-" He took a deep breath. " I owe you an apology. No, of course I owe you much, much more than that. But you have to know" -the words began to flow so fast, the way I remembered he spoke sometimed when he was agitated, that I really had to concentrate to catch them all-"that I had no idea of any of this with Victoria...
Not that this is any excuse for what I left you to face. PLease know that I had no idea of any of this. I feel sick, sick to my core, eaven now, when I can see and feel you safe in my arms. I am the most miserable excuse for-"
"Stop," I interrupted him. he starred at me with agonized eyes, and I tried to find the right words-the words that would free him from this imagined obligation that caused him so much pain...
"Edward," i said. His name burned my throat a little on the way out. I could feel the ghost of the hole, waiting to rip itself wide again as soon as he disappeared. I didn't quite see how I was going to survive this time. "This has to stop now. You can't think about things that way. You can't let this...guilt...rule your life. You can't take responsebuility for the things that happen to me here. None of this is your fault, it's just part of how life is for me...
It's not your fault! what you did was very irresponsible - think of Esme and Carlisle and-"
I was on the edge of losing it. I stopped to take a deep breath, hoping to calm myself. I had to set him free. I had to make sure this never happened again.
"Isabella Marie Swan," he whispered, tha strangest expression crossing his face. He almost looked mad. "Do you belive that I asked the Volturi to kill me because I felt guilty?"
I could feel the blank incomprehension on my face. "Didn't you?"
"Feel guilty? Intensely so. More that you can comprehend.
"Then...what are you saying? I don't underbstand."
"Bella, I went to the Volturi because I thought you were dead," he said, soft,eyes fierce. "Even if I'd had no hand in your death"-he shuddered as he whispered the last word-even if it wasn't my fault, I would have gone to Italy. Obviously, I should have been more careful-Ishould have spoken to Alice directly, rather that accepting it secondhand from Rosalie. But, really,what was I supposed to think when the boy said Charlie was at a funeral? What are the odds?
"The odds...,"he muttered then, distracted."The odds are always stacked against us. Mistake after mistake. I'll never criticize Romeo again."
"But i still don't underbarn," i said. "That's my hole point. So what?"
"Excuse me?"
"SO what if I was dead?"
He starred at me dubiously for a long moment before answering. "Don't you remember anything I told you before?"
"I remember everything that you told me."
He brushed the tip of his cool finger against my lower lip. "Bella, you seem to be under a misapprehension" He closed his eyes, shaking his head back and fourth with half a smile on his beautiful face. It wasn't a happy smile. "I thought I'd explained it clearly before. Bella, I can't live in a world where you don't exist...
I'm a good liar, Bella, I have to be. Let me finsish! I'm a good liar, but still, for you believe me so quickly. He wnced. "That was excruciating.....Yesterday when I would touch you, you were so...hesitant, so careful,and yet still the same. I need to know why. Is it because I'm too late? Because I've hurt you too much?That would be...quite fair. I won't contest your decision. SO don't try to spare me my feelings,please -just tell me now whether or not you can still love me, after everything I've done to you. Can you?" he whispered.
"What kind of an idiotic question is that?"
"Just answer it. Please."
I starred at him darkly for a long moment. "The way I feel about you will never change. Of course I love you - and there is nothing you can do about it!"
"That's all I needed to hear"
His mouth was on mine then, and I souldn't fight him. Not because he was so many thousand times stronger than me, but because my will crumbled into dust the second our lips met.