Twilight Fan Fiction ❯ Shooting Star ❯ Truth ( Chapter 14 )

CHAPTER 14: Truth

 

The rest of the room around me blurred out of sight.

There was only Tanya and Edward.

I couldn't breathe.

Time stopped.

I had always known I wasn't good enough for him. I could not compete with this gorgeous, immortal creature. What she had said was true. He deserved so much better. He did not belong in my world, or I in his. We were so different, and he and Tanya were the same. They were both heartbreakingly beautiful, both strong, both intelligent.

Both immortal.

I small sob escaped my lips and, through my vision that was now swimming with tears I hadn't noticed brimming over, I saw Edward look up. Had one whole second passed?

“Bella?!” His voice was horrified. I didn't want to see. My legs pulled me away, my face in my hands. I was sobbing now, but I didn't care who heard me. “Now look what you've done, Tanya!” I heard Edward shout. “How dare you.” I was running through the TV room, but my leg caught on a chair and I went sprawling. I fell face first into the carpet.

But I got up, scrambling and blind, and kept running. I reached the stairs, ignoring his voice calling my name behind me. Wrenching open the door to the stair well, I felt around for the railing, using it to guide me up the stairs.

“Bella! Bella, wait! Let me explain!”

I ignored him and continued up the stairs. I tripped again, but gripped the railing so I didn't go tumbling down the stairs and break my neck.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I sprinted down the hall to the meadow room, fumbled with the doorknob for a minute before pushing the door in, scrambling inside, and slamming the door shut behind me. I flung myself across the room and onto the bed, burying my face in a pillow.

“Bella!” Edward called from the other side of the door. “Please let me explain! Bella, love, please!”

His voice was so beautiful. Even through all of my pain, I could appreciate that. Begging and pleading, his voice was still that of an angel's. And by some miracle the angel was calling my name.

He'd said he'd loved me so many times. He'd shown me. He'd married me. He'd promised to make me immortal so that I could be by his side for the rest of eternity. Yet after all of that, I still thought I didn't deserve him.

“Bella, please let me in.”

Slowly, moving like an old woman, swung my legs off the bed, and crossed the room. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the door. When I did, I gradually turned the doorknob and opened the door a crack—just barely enough so I could see his face.

I knew what he was seeing on my face. Tear tracks would be staining my cheeks. My eyes would be circled in red. My eyes would be holding pain. But I couldn't mask any of it because the pain was so fresh.

Once he saw my face, his twisted into a horrified expression. Agony shot across his flawless features.

“Bella…”he whispered, his expression so heartbreakingly pained and beautiful. I opened the door all the way, moving like I was only half conscious.

I felt his cold arms around me. He buried his face in my hair. I didn't know what to say…didn't know what I could say.

“Bella, what did you see?” He asked me in a hushed, soothing tone, his hand stroking my hair.

“She said—” my voice cracked, so I cleared my throat and started again. “She said you couldn't possibly be happy with me—that you deserved someone better. She said you didn't belong in my world, and that we're too different. Unlike her. And then she kissed you.” Pain shot through me. Clear and strong. As I spoke the words myself, I realized the truth of them.

“You know I love only you. Tanya kissed me. You are the only one I will ever love. For eternity…and beyond that. No one else. It will always be just you and me.” His arms constricted around me.

I sobbed again as the image of Tanya's lips on his flashed in my mind.

“But she…” I trailed off, the sobbing starting again. Edward scooped me up and sat me on the bed.

“You think what she said was true?” A hint of anger edged into his tone. I drew my knees up to my chest, and stared at them, tears swimming in my eyes again.

“It was true.”

Abruptly, strong hands ripped my arms from around my legs, and my knees from up against my chest. I was pressed back against the bed, and Edward was suddenly over me, his legs on either side of mine, his hands circling my wrists and pinning them beside my head on the pillow.

Anger burned in his golden eyes as I stared back at him, my sob locked in my throat.

“You think I prefer Tanya?!” He was defiantly mad now. I couldn't move…I was paralyzed.

And his lips were crushing mine—cold and urgent and furious. My eyes fluttered shut, my lips moving against his. My heart went into hyperactive mode. His hands freed mine, but his body held me pinned against the covers. My hands, of their own accord, reached up to tangle in his bronze hair. His hands were all over me—on my face, on my arms, on my waist.

His kissed me with an infuriated need that was like nothing I'd ever experienced.

His mouth opened against mine, his tongue, ice cold, tracing my lips. So far gone was I that I did not remember to keep myself in check—to make sure I didn't make it too hard for him—that I sighed, parting my lips.

Instead of pulling away, startled like he had the first time we'd kissed, he seized my bottom lip between his own, gently drawing it into his mouth for a split second. The flavor was better than anything I'd ever tasted.

It was so sweet…so incredibly sweet.

And then his tongue licked across the front of my teeth. Edward groaned into my lips and I shivered beneath him. His icy tongue traced my lips once more before his slowed against mine, and he finally pulled away.

We stayed like that for a long minute, both of us breathing heavily.

“Edward…” I breathed.

“Do you think I would ever do that with Tanya?”

“Tanya?” After a kiss like that, I had completely forgotten Tanya. His lips pressed to mine again, but very gently and sweetly this time.

“I love you more than everything else in this world put together, Bella. I would rather die than be with anyone else.”

“I know you're much better than me in so many ways,” I mumbled, “but would it count for anything if I said I love you too?” Instead of responding, he just ducked his head to trail his mouth along my collar bone.

The painted trees around us seemed to let in light that filtered through the leaves just like it did in our meadow. The slow movements his lips were making on my collar bone were making my breath come in short gasps.

After what seemed like years, he raised his head, and rolled over onto his back beside me. I laid my head on his shoulder, and cuddled against his stone chest. A light breeze ruffled the curtains covering the open window. The sun streamed through the window and glittered off Edward's face and arms. I heard myself suck in a breath at his beauty.

This was just like the night we were dancing in the Cullen's front entry…when everything was at temporary peace. Everything was perfect. The moment was perfect. I had no want or need to do anything but just lay there in his arms on the bed in the meadow room, watching the sun glitter off his skin, and trying not to fall asleep.

At that moment, the Volturi chasing after us for an unknown reason…Jacob's pack in trouble…Tanya trying to kiss Edward…

All of it seemed so far away. Like we were in our own world again. Like there rest of the world was all just an unpleasant dream, and we were the only ones who really existed. I listened to the steady rhythm of his breathing as my eyelids drooped.

I must've fallen asleep because I woke up to a scream.

“Somebody help! They're going to kill each other! Somebody! Please!”

Edward was up off the bed in a flash, pulling me with him. He carried me in his arms as he flew down the stairs and into the entry hall.

“Somebody! Make them stop!” The screaming was coming from outside. Edward burst through the front door.

At first I only saw Tessa, her eyes shining with fear and confusion. But then I heard the vicious growling coming from the forest. Edward set me down and I turned to see.

At the edge of the trees there was a pale figure with a red top and beige cargo pants. I realized at once that it was Kate. She was snarling ferociously at something else in the woods. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust—to see the humongous shape that almost blended in to the trees.

The other shape was a huge russet colored wolf, its lips pulled back over its razor sharp teeth.

Jacob growled a fierce snarl before lunging for Kate's throat.