Unexpected ~•Edward Cullen•~

°•20•°

🌛CHAPTER 20🌜

*°Eden's POV°*

A few days has passed by, and i haven't heard anything from Edward, and once again, I woke up with his name on my lips again.

The other side of my bed was cold. Really cold-like he hadn't been there for days. Because he hadn't.

My phone was taunting me: especially with the last message Edward has send to me the day after my birthday.

Edward😘
Need to handle something. Stay home, it's safer there.

Even his texts smelled like a lie.

I got up getting ready for the day, and slowly making my way too school, once i got to school, i was climbing out of my jeep when Alice materialized beside me, her smile too bright. "Don't look at me like that. He's fine."

"Then why won't he answer me?" I shoved my phone in her face-12 Unread Messages.

Her pupils dilated. A vision flickered behind her eyes. "He's just... busy."

The lie tasted like pennies on my tongue.

Throughout the day i only kept on dragging myself around, to my next classes, until school came to an end, to which I immediately headed home.

I stopped the jeep in my driveway when i saw him, waiting for me.

*°Third Person's POV°*

Edward stood at the tree line, his skin too pale in the afternoon light. "We need to talk."

Eden knew.

The way his hands hung limp at his sides. The absence of his scent on the wind. The too-careful distance he kept as he led her into the woods-like she was made of glass.

"Is this about your so called business trip?" she asked, voice brittle.

A crow screamed overhead. Edward flinched.

"We're leaving. All of us." He stared at a point just past her shoulder. "People are starting to notice Carlisle hasn't aged since we moved here. It's too dangerous."

Eden barked a laugh. "Bullshit. Alice would've seen that coming."

The first lie cracked open between them.

Edward's mask slipped-just for a second-revealing the raw terror beneath. "There are older monsters than us out there, Eden. Ones who'd tear through Forks to get to you if they knew-"

"Knew what?" She stepped closer. "That I'm human? That I'm fragile? That I'm inlove with a vampire? Newsflash, Eddy-I've survived hunters, werewolves, and your psychotic ex-tracker. I don't need your protection."

A branch snapped.

Rosalie emerged from the shadows, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. "We're done here."

Edward's face shut down completely. "Goodbye, Eden."

He turned.

Eden grabbed his wrist-and for the first time, he didn't pull away from her warmth.

"Look at me when you lie to my face," she whispered.

His golden eyes were bottomless pits of grief. "I love you too much to watch you grow old, but I also can't beg you to become one of us."

Then he was gone.

The trees swallowed him whole.

The trees blurred.

Eden stood frozen, Edward's last words hanging in the air like gun smoke. Somewhere beyond the pines, an engine roared to life-then faded into the distance.

Gone.

Her knees hit the moss first. Then her hands. The earth smelled of damp soil and gasoline, the imprint of his tires already vanishing from the mud.

First, she screamed.

A raw, ragged sound that sent birds exploding from the canopy. It tore her throat open, this scream-not human, not animal, but something in between. Something broken.

Then, she burned.

Fingers clawed at her own arms, scraping away the memory of his touch. The switchblade he'd given her for her birthday tumbled from her boot-E+E glinting cruelly in the sun. She hurled it into the ferns.

Last, she shattered.

Collapsing onto her side, she pressed her forehead into the cold earth. Her body convulsed-not with sobs, but silent, gasping tremors that left her mouth dry and her ribs bruised.

Above her, the sky darkened. Rain began to fall-heavy, punishing drops that soaked through her clothes, her hair, the bandage on her arm until the bloodstains bloomed anew.

Somewhere beyond the storm, a wolf howled.

Eden didn't hear it.

All she heard was the echo of his lie:
"I love you too much to watch you grow old, but I also can't beg you to become one of us."

And the terrible, suffocating silence that followed.

*° Edward's POV °*

The steering wheel cracked under my grip.

Sixty-seven miles per hour. Seventy-three. Eighty.

Not fast enough.

Eden's scream still chased me-a sound I'd carved into my bones centuries from now. I rolled up the windows, but it didn't matter. I'd always hear her.

In the rearview mirror, Forks dissolved into green hell.

First, I lied.

"It's for her own good," I told the empty car. The words tasted like rust.

Then, I broke.

My foot slammed the brake. The Aston Martin fishtailed onto the shoulder.

I was out before the engine died, retching venom onto the asphalt. My body convulsed-not with sickness, but the phantom memory of her pulse under my lips.

Alive. Alive. Alive.

And I'd left her alive.

Last, I bargained.

The burner phone burned in my pocket. One call to Carlisle:

"Tell me I'm not damning her."

Static. Then, softly: "You're saving her."

A crow landed on the roadside, cocking its head. I bared my fangs-

The bird didn't flinch.

Smart creature, I thought. It knows a hollow man when it sees one.

I got back into the car.

Driving faster down the road, away from her.

*🌛Unedited🌜*