I HAD THE SENSE THAT I'D BEEN ASLEEP FOR A VERY long time—my body was stiff, like Ihadn't moved once through all that time, either. My mind was dazed and slow; strange, colorfuldreams—dreams and nightmares—swirled dizzily around the inside of my head. They were so vivid. Thehorrible and the heavenly, all mixed together into a bizarre jumble. There was sharp impatience and fear,both part of that frustrating dream where your feet can't move fast enough… And there were plenty ofmonsters, red-eyed fiends that were all the more ghastly for their genteel civility. The dream was stillstrong—I could even remember the names. But the strongest, clearest part of the dream was not thehorror. It was the angel that was most clear.

　　It was hard to let him go and wake up. This dream did not want to be shoved away into the vault ofdreams I refused to revisit. I struggled with it as my mind became more alert, focusing on reality. Icouldn't remember what day of the week it was, but I was sure Jacob or school or work or somethingwas waiting for me. I inhaled deeply, wondering how to face another day.

　　Something cold touched my forehead with the softest pressure.

　　I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut. I was still dreaming, it seemed, and it felt abnormally real. I was soclose to waking… any second now, and it would be gone.

　　But I realized that it felt too real, too real to be good for me. The stone arms I imagined wrapped around me were far too substantial. If I let this go any further, I'd be sorry for it later. With a resigned sigh, Iwrenched back my eyelids to dispel the illusion.

　　"Oh!" I gasped, and threw my fists over my eyes.

　　Well, clearly, I'd gone too far; it must have been a mistake to let my imagination get so out of hand.

　　Okay, so "let" was the wrong word. I'd forced it to get out of hand—pretty much stalked myhallucinations—and now my mind had snapped.

　　It took less than half a second for me to realize that, as long as I was truly insane now, I might as wellenjoy the delusions while they were pleasant.

　　I opened my eyes again—and Edward was still there, his perfect face just inches away from mine.

　　"Did I frighten you?" His low voice was anxious. This was very good, as delusions went. The face, thevoice, the scent, everything—it was so much better than drowning. The beautiful figment of myimagination watched my changing expressions, with alarm. His irises were pitch-black, with bruise-likeshadows under them. This surprised me; my hallucinatory Edwards were usually better fed.

　　I blinked twice, desperately trying to remember the last thing that I was sure was real. Alice was part ofmy dream, and I wondered if she had really come back at all, or if that was just the preamble. I thoughtshe'd returned the day I'd nearly drowned…"Oh, crap" I croaked. My throat was thick with sleeping.

　　"What's wrong, Bella?"I frowned at him unhappily. His face was even more anxious than before.

　　"I'm dead, right?" I moaned. "I did drown. Crap, crap, crap! This is gonna kill Charlie."Edward frowned, too. "You're not dead.""Then why am I not waking up?" I challenged, raising my eyebrows.

　　"You are awake, Bella."I shook my head. "Sure, sure. That's what you want me to think. And then it will be worse when I dowake up. If I wake up, which I won't, because I'm dead. This is awful. Poor Charlie. And Renee andJake…" I trailed off in horror at what I had done.

　　"I can see where you might confuse me with a nightmare." His short-lived smile was grim. "But I can'timagine what you could have done to wind up in hell. Did you commit many murders while I was away?"I grimaced. "Obviously not. If I was in hell, you wouldn't be with me."He sighed.

　　My head was getting clearer. My eyes flickered away from his face—unwillingly—for one second, to thedark, open window, and then back to him. I started to remember details… and I felt a faint, unfamiliarblush warm the skin over my cheekbones as I slowly realized that Edward was really, truly here with me,and I was wasting time being an idiot.

　　"Did all of that really happen, then?" It was almost impossible to reassign my dream as reality. I couldn'twrap my head around the concept.

　　 "That depends." Edward's smile was still hard. "If you're referring to us nearly being massacred in Italy,then, yes.""How strange," I mused. "I really went to Italy. Did you know I'd never been farther east thanAlbuquerque?"He rolled his eyes. "Maybe you should go back to sleep. You're not coherent.""I'm not tired anymore." It was all coming clear now. "What time is it? How long have I been sleeping?""It's just after one in the morning. So, about fourteen hours."I stretched as he spoke. I was so stiff.

　　"Charlie?" I asked.

　　Edward frowned. "Sleeping. You should probably know that I'm breaking the rules right now. Well, nottechnically, since he said I was never to walk through his door again, and I came in the window… But,still, the intent was clear.""Charlie banned you from the house?" I asked, disbelief quickly melting into fury.

　　His eyes were sad. "Did you expect anything else?"My eyes were mad. I was going to have a few words with my father—perhaps it would be a good timeto remind him that I was over the legal age of adulthood. It didn't matter so much, of course, except inprinciple. All too soon there would be no reason for the prohibition. I turned my thoughts to less painfulavenues.

　　"What's the story?" I asked, genuinely curious, but also trying desperately to keep the conversationcasual, to keep a firm grip on myself, so I wouldn't scare him away with the frantic, gnawing craving thatwas raging inside me.

　　"What do you mean?""What am I telling Charlie? What's my excuse for disappearing for… how long was I gone, anyway?" Itried to count the hours in my head.

　　"Just three days." His eyes tightened, but he smiled more naturally this time. "Actually, I was hoping youmight have a good explanation. I've got nothing."I groaned. "Fabulous.""Well, maybe Alice will come up with something," he offered, trying to comfort me.

　　And I was comforted. Who cared what I had to deal with later? Every second that he was here—soclose, his flawless face glowing in the dim light from the numbers on my alarm clock—was precious andnot to be wasted.

　　"So," I began, picking the least important—though still vitally interesting—question to start with. I wassafely delivered home, and he might decide to leave at any moment. I had to keep him talking. Besides,this temporary heaven wasn't entirely complete without the sound of his voice. "What have you beendoing, up until three days ago?"His face turned wary in an instant. "Nothing terribly exciting." "Of course not," I mumbled.

　　"Why are you making that face?""Well…" I pursed my lips, considering. "If you were, after all, just a dream, that's exactly the kind of thingyou would say. My imagination must be used up."He sighed. "If I tell you, will you finally believe that you're not having a nightmare?""Nightmare!" I repeated scornfully. He waited for my answer. "Maybe," I said after a second of thought.

　　"If you tell me.""I was… hunting.""Is that the best you can do?" I criticized. "That definitely doesn't prove I'm awake."He hesitated, and then spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. "I wasn't hunting fot food… I wasactually trying my hand at… tracking. I'm not very good at it.""What were you tracking?" I asked, intrigued.

　　"Nothing of consequence." His words didn't match his expression; he looked upset, uncomfortable.

　　"I don't understand."He hesitated; his face, shining with an odd green cast from the light of the clock, was torn.

　　"I—" He took a deep breath. "I owe you an apology. No, of course I owe you much, much more thanthat. But you have to know,"—the words began to flow so fast, the way I remembered he spokesometimes when he was agitated, that I really had to concentrate to catch them all—"that I had no idea. Ididn't realize the mess I was leaving behind. I thought it was safe for you here. So safe. I had no idea thatVictoria,"—his lips curled back when he said the name—"would come back. I'll admit, when I saw herthat one time, I was paying much more attention to James's thoughts. But I just didn't see that she had thiskind of response in her. That she even had such a tie to him. I think I realize why now—she was so sureof him, the thought of him failing never occurred to her. It was her overconfidence that clouded herfeelings about him—that kept me from seeing the depth of them, the bond there.

　　"Not that there's any excuse for what I left you to face. When I heard what you told Alice—what shesaw herself—when I realized that you had to put your life in the hands of werewolves, immature, volatile,the worst thing out there besides Victoria herself—he shuddered and the gush of words halted for a shortsecond. "Please know that I had no idea of any of this. I feel sick, sick to my core, even now, when I cansee and feel you safe in my arms. I am the most miserable excuse for—""Stop," I interrupted him. He stared at me with agonized eyes, and I tried to find the right words—thewords that would free him from this imagined obligation that caused him so much pain. They were veryhard words to say. I didn't know if I could get them out without breaking down. But I had to try to do itright. I didn't want to be a source of guilt and anguish in his life. He should be happy, no matter what itcost me.

　　I'd really been hoping to put off this part of our last conversation. It was going to bring things to an end somuch sooner.

　　Drawing on all my months of practice with trying to be normal for Charlie, I kept my face smooth.

　　 "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 itthis time. "This has to stop now. You can't think about things that way. You can't let this… this guilt…rule your life. You can't take responsibility for the things that happen to me here. None of it is your fault,it's just part of how life is for me. So, if I trip in front of a bus or whatever it is next time, you have torealize that it's not your job to take the blame. You can't just go running off to Italy because you feel badthat you didn't save me. Even if I had jumped off that cliff to die, that would have been my choice, andnot your fault. I know it's your… your nature to shoulder the blame for everything, but you really can'tlet that make you go to such extremes! It's 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 himfree. I had to make sure this never happened again.

　　"Isabella Marie Swan," he whispered, the strangest expression crossing his face. He almost looked mad.

　　"Do you believe 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 than you can comprehend.""Then… what are you saying? I don't understand.""Bella, I went to the Volturi because I thought you were dead," he said, voice soft, eyes fierce. "Even ifI'd had no hand in your death"—he shuddered as he whispered the last word—"even if it wasn't myfault, I would have gone to Italy. Obviously, I should have been more careful—I should have spoken toAlice directly, rather than accepting it secondhand from Rosalie. But, really, what was I supposed tothink when the boy said Charlie was at the funeral? What are the odds?

　　"The odds…" he muttered then, distracted. His voice was so low I wasn't sure I beard it right. "The oddsare always stacked against us. Mistake after mistake. I'll never criticize Romeo again.""But I still don't understand," I said. "That's my whole point. So what?""Excuse me?""So what if I was dead?"He stared at me dubiously for a long moment before answering. "Don't you remember anything I told youbefore?""I remember everything that you told me." Including the words that had negated all the rest.

　　He brushed the tip of his cool finger against my lower lip. "Bella, you seem to be under amisapprehension." He closed his eyes, shaking his head back and forth with half a smile on his beautifulface. It wasn't a happy smile. "I thought I'd explained it clearly before. Bella, I can't live in a world whereyou don't exist.""I am…" My head swam as I looked for the appropriate word. "Confused." That worked. I couldn'tmake sense of what he was saying.

　　He stared deep into my eyes with his sincere, earnest gaze. "I'm a good liar, Bella, I have to be."I froze, my muscles locking down as if for impact. The fault line in my chest rippled; the pain of it took mybreath away.

　　 He shook my shoulder, trying to loosen my rigid pose. "Let me finish! I'm a good liar, but still, for you tobelieve me so quickly." He winced. "That was… excruciating."I waited, still frozen.

　　"When we were in the forest, when I was telling you goodbye—"I didn't allow myself to remember. I fought to keep myself in the present second only.

　　"You weren't going to let go," he whispered. "I could see that. I didn't want to do it—it felt like it wouldkill me to do it—but I knew that if I couldn't convince you that I didn't love you anymore, it would justtake you that much longer to get on with your life. I hoped that, if you thought I'd moved on, so wouldyou.""A clean break," I whispered through unmoving lips.

　　"Exactly. But I never imagined it would be so easy to do! I thought it would be next to impossible—thatyou would be so sure of the truth that I would have to lie through my teeth for hours to even plant theseed of doubt in your head. I lied, and I'm so sorry—sorry because I hurt you, sorry because it was aworthless effort. Sorry that I couldn't protect you from what I an. I lied to save you, and it didn't work.

　　I'm sorry.

　　"But how could you believe me? After all the thousand times I've told you I love you, how could you letone word break your faith in me?"I didn't answer. I was too shocked to form a rational response.

　　"I could see it in your eyes, that you honestly believed that I didn't want you anymore. The most absurd,ridiculous concept—as if there were anu way that I could exist without needing you!"I was still frozen. His words were incomprehensible, because they were impossible.

　　He shook my shoulder again, not hard, but enough that my teeth rattled a little.

　　"Bella," he sighed. "Really, what were you thinking!"And so I started to cry. The tears welled up and then gushed miserably down my cheeks.

　　"I knew it," I sobbed. "I knew I was dreaming.""You're impossible," he said, and he laughed once—a hard laugh, frustrated. "How can I put this so thatyou'll believe me? You're not asleep, and you're not dead. I'm here, and I love you. I have always lovedyou, and I will always love you. I was thinking of you, seeing your face in my mind, every second that Iwas away. When I told you that I didn't want you, it was the very blackest kind of blasphemy."I shook my head............