Bella Swan was a nice girl once. But that was a long time and many mistakes ago.
Edward Cullen never stopped thinking of the beautiful girl he left in that small town years before.
When he finally sees her again, she is a different person he...
you're the same as you started, and you just jump a little higher
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I couldn't believe her story. How could a person do that to another. No, I take that back, how someone could do that to Bella. All I wanted to do was track those men down and tear them limb from limb, slowly ripping body parts off. I had spent a very long amount of time never becoming violent, but I knew all my composure I had spent a century building would go out the window if I ever saw those men. I was practically shaking with rage when she described the details. I probably would have lost it if it wasn't for the last part describing how guilty she felt. Admittedly I was surprised she was so callous to her mother but for her to blame herself. Unthinkable. She had just gone through a traumatic attack. You can't be held responsible for your actions following something like that. When she broke down and cried to me. My heart broke from her pain.
And then she said the worst thing of all. The bottom dropped beneath me, because she said it was spring of her junior year. Spring, when we had left mere weeks before the attack. Spring when I was mooning over that stupid car crash. Spring when I was running around like a sullen teenager up in Denali.
I could have saved her. I could have protected her from those maniacs. If I would have been less selfish. If only I would have stayed. I could have stopped it all. I could have stopped it and maybe Bella and I could have been together then. If I had only would have manned up and stayed. It was what my family wanted. I was the one who forced us all to leave. She may blame herself but I knew I was just as culpable. I knew even then how important she was. I thought I was doing the right thing by leaving. I thought I was protecting her from what I was.
Instead she was friends with a werewolf, was attacked by delinquents in Port Angeles and worked at a strip club. I could have stopped it all.
How different our lives would have been. We could have graduated together. Maybe gone off to college—She would have loved Dartmouth. Maybe even got married. She would have never known the pain that she knew now.
I held on to her and tried to comfort her. I tried to reassure her that I would be there. That I should have been there for her. We stood there for a long time; her arms around my waist, her face smashed against my bare chest. Her tears were hot against my skin. She finally pulled away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"God, I can't believe I just spilled all of that on you. You are probably so freaked out, by now," she said, her voice thick with tears. She attempted a smile. I wiped a tear away with my thumb.
"Anytime, love. You can talk to me anytime. I'm glad you feel comfortable talking to me about it."
"You're the only person I've ever told the whole story to," she revealed with a sideways glance. "I've never told anyone the truth. Not my dad, not Jacob, not...well, no one has heard it. Is that weird that I told you?"
