My eyes remained focused on Bella as Jasper and Antara slowly left the room. Both seemed equally concerned, as Jasper hovered before closing the door quietly behind him. I had called out to Antara, and she had suddenly appeared in my room, Jasper by her side. I had never seen Bella so agitated before. When she called out my name in anguish I knew I needed Antara's calming words to infiltrate the nightmare Bella was living...
The nightmare that was my past.
My past, a product of an infinite number of events... the past that Bella had re-lived.
It almost seemed ironic to me that I could see snippets of the future, an array of boundless opportunities, while Bella could witness the past... the past that was fixed in stone. Like Bella and I, the past and the future had merged this evening and had become one.
Intuition was and always would be intrinsic to my mind, yet there had always been elements of the unknown that even my intuition had been unable to break down. This evening Bella had somehow unlocked the gateway I had unintentionally kept secure for so long. Before meeting Jasper I had existed by quietly moving from place to place, keeping myself hidden, almost blinkered to my surroundings. Not once did I stop to examine my own preconceptions of the world before... the world where I had been human... I merely accepted that I was once human, and was now a vampire...
Even Jasper's calming influence did very little to unmask the secrets of my past. Oh, his gift stopped the selfdepreciation I had always felt from tearing away at me, but the past was still a mystery to me.
Until now.
I looked into Bella's eyes that were now a pale yellow.
She recognised my past, she had witnessed it... and those echoes of time had caused her to cry.
I had caused her to cry...
I, with my clearly turbuleaned past...
I, who had given Bella her gift to begin with.
"I am so sorry," I whispered in a voice I barely recognised.
Bella's arms were around me in seconds. Her speed was second to none as she slowly started to rock me gently in her arms.
"You survived..." she whispered back as I burrowed my head against her chest.
Yes I survived...
But what had I survived?
Bella's words came floating back...
"I can't do this... I can't see them treat you like this...."
"No... leave her alone... don't...."
"No... stop it; please... you're killing her...."
Had I survived some ordeal I was oblivious to? An ordeal that Bella had witnessed with her gift?
Antara had remained so calm throughout the whole nightmare that had unfolded before me. Bella's suffering had plagued me, leaving me with a distressing agony that burned deep where my heart had once existed...
An agony that had left me feeling guilty.
I knew there was nothing I could do to change what had already happened in the past, but watching Bella, the innocent bystander, observe images that were clearly tormenting her...
I wanted it to stop.
My past, compared to Bella's pain, was insignificant. Bella was all that mattered to me. Bella who was still holding me tightly against her.
