I shifted slightly on the tree branch, readjusting my position to procure a better view of Isabella Swan. I had been watching her through the night habitually over the past two weeks and still hadn’t decided what course of action to take.

On one hand, it would be all too easy to just leap through her window and end her life in one quick movement. There would be no blood, no evidence linking me to it, a mysterious murder in the night with no leads. My family could continue their inconspicuous lives here without falling under suspicions. I would have to leave, of course.

I couldn’t possibly stay here, continuing to go to that school knowing that it was short one student because of me. I would have to leave, but it was an option that didn’t involve prematurely uprooting my family, therefore qualifying it as one of the better ones.

Of course, I could just deny my intense thirst and coexist beside the tormentingly delicious girl without killing her, but was I strong enough to do that? If I attempted to travel that path, and failed… What if I jumped up in a room of teenagers and took her there? The family would have to move.

Was that a chance I was willing to take? I had already tried to leave without bringing any closure to the status of myself and Isabella Swan’s relationship… or lack thereof. It hadn’t worked. I couldn’t stay away… so now I had only two choices left.

The question remained: Which was the right choice?

Night after night I sat there on that same branch, staring at the young girl. As if somehow the answer would just come to me. As absurd as it sounded… I was waiting for some sort of a sign. I was waiting for some hint from a greater power that would point me in the direction of the right choice.

The idea was almost laughable.

If there was in fact a higher power out there, why on earth would it grant me of all creatures any further insight than I had already been given by powers that did not belong. Why would any being of purity ever lead something as dark and soulless as I to an answer?

“Edward.”

I narrowed my eyes on the unmoving figure in the bed. Had she really just spoken my name? I must have been hallucinating. How desperate I was for an answer! I was actually beginning to conjure up false witnessing to set my ever-reeling mind to rest.

“Edward…”

There, again. It was unmistakable that time. There was no possible way that I could have imagined the chord her voice struck… how she lingered breathily over each syllable.

My eyes focused in on her again as she stirred. My name on her lips once more, though barely more than a whisper, she rolled over, still asleep, so that her face was towards the window.

And she was smiling.

Whether the action was an undeserving gesture sent from a too-generous God, or just plain luck, will always be a mystery to me.

The only thing that was certain was that when Isabella Swan murmured my name in her sleep, she saved her own life. And when she whispered it with a smile, she won my heart in an instant.

--

It was reminiscent of that evening 5 years ago as I sat, again, struggling to decide what to do. Hours had turned into days. Days had turned into weeks. She was in a coma, there was no doubt of it. She wouldn’t be speaking my name in her sleep as she had all those years ago. In fact, I had never seen her so unanimated before. It was almost frightening how quiet she was. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. Her eyes didn’t flutter as dreamt. She was completely motionless.

I watched over her for weeks. At certain points in her physical recovery, I could almost see her wounds healing. Day by day the bandages were removed and her wounds closed up. Luckily, there was minimal scarring. Nothing drastic, and nothing that altered or affected her immaculate beauty. 3 years had passed and she had only grown more beautiful with each passing day.

I knew that my constant position at the foot of her bed was not helping anything. There would be no sign that I could mistake as a gift from the Gods this time. She would not breath my name, and each moment I spent sitting there, waiting for her lips to part and my name to roll of her tongue was only deepening my disappointment.

By no means was I disappointed in her. Of course I couldn’t be disappointed in her for the current situation. I was disappointed in myself. It was in my nature to blame myself, but even Carlisle had slipped an accusation into his thoughts on accident from time to time. Where she was, the condition she was in… all of it could have been prevented if I just would have stayed with her.

If I never would have told her that I didn’t want her… if I hadn’t made her believe for the tiniest of seconds that I didn’t need her, this wouldn’t be.

Where would we have been now had I not deserted in her in the damp forest of Forks three years ago? Would we both be in college together? Would we be married? Engaged? Would Bella be a vampire?

We certainly would not be here… in this hospital room.

The more I looked at it, the higher I felt the threat to my sanity becoming. The plain white walls that had seen far too many patients. The dull pattern on the 365 floor tiles, the soft glow of the lighting that hung from the 68 ceiling tiles… all of it was so absurdly sanitary and plain. This room was unlike other rooms. No visitors bustled in and out on a daily basis, no soap operas sounded from the practically decrepit television screen. No flowers or cheery “Get Well” balloons decorated the shelving units.

Just four blank walls, an unconscious girl, and a immoral and selfish vampire who did not deserve to be in the presence of such a wonderful woman.

Her blood was her own again… but somehow it wasn’t the same as I remembered it. It seemed dead, almost. As if it had been sitting idle for so long that it had gone stale from lack of adrenaline.

Her face was pale and peaceful. No hint of red beneath the surface of her cheeks to torment me… but how I missed the way she would blush…

Without realizing it, I had stood and crossed to the side of the bed. I extended a shaky hand to brush my thumb across her cheekbone. Just one little touch…

Startled by voices outside the door I sprang back into my seat and resumed my attention on staring at her rather than trying to touch her.

“Shh, Emmett… this is a hospital, have some respect.”

“Why? Isn’t it good if people on this floor wake up? Isn’t that the goal?”

I sighed as the familiar voices of two of my siblings traveled through the open door. Moments later, Alice and Emmett entered the room cautiously, peeking around the corner to see me sitting in my usual spot.

“Hi, Edward.” Alice smiled slightly. I realized with a start how long it had been since I had seen her. I wasn’t home very often these days…

“Alice.” I nodded, “What are you doing here?”

She placed her hands on her hips as she retorted, “Oh please. The only reason I left Bella was because you insisted on it. She is still my best friend and I love her dearly. I wish Carlisle would have told us about this sooner. I would have been here… Esme wanted to come, but she had classes. She said she‘ll come visit her later.”

“Really, Edward. You know how much Bella meant to us. How could you expect that we wouldn’t come as soon as we heard..” Emmett said as he moved to Bella and gave her hand a light squeeze.

“Oh, Bella…” Alice cooed as she crossed the room in three long strides. “What happened to you?” She murmured as she swooped down and planted a light kiss on Bella’s forehead.

I quickly averted my eyes. Little did Alice and Emmett know, they had just performed the actions that I had been dreaming of doing since I first entered this room. They could show that affection to Bella without it being total hypocrisy though. Alice and Emmett hadn’t done anything wrong. They weren’t at fault, here.

“I shouldn’t have forbid you from looking into her future.” I said to the ground.

Alice paused for a moment and then crossed back to me, raising my chin with her tiny hand and meeting my stare. “No. You shouldn’t have. But even so, Edward. This is not your fault.”

“Alice, please. How can you say that? I never should have left her. She was a danger magnet from the start and I should have known that she would get hurt somehow.”

“Edward… is this what you’ve been doing? Sitting in here and beating yourself up over this?” Emmett interjected. “That’s messed up, bro. Even for you…”

I rolled my eyes before looking back down at the floor for another second.

“Alice…” I said, my head snapping back up again. “Is she going to wake up?”

Her expression was unreadable for a moment, and when I tried to read her thoughts they came back blank and imageless.

“No. I haven’t been attuned to her for so long… its hard for me to see that. I can’t tell…”

I nodded my understanding.

“I’m sorry..”

“No, it isn’t your fault.” I promised her.

Silence consumed us then as we all sat, staring at Bella. Each of us willing her to wake up in our own ways.

“How did Charlie react when he saw you in here… or, have you been avoiding his visits? Why wouldn’t they have transferred her back to Forks where it’s easier for him to-”

I frowned, apparently Carlisle hadn’t told them about Charlie or Renee when he had finally told them about Bella.

“Charlie’s dead, Alice.” I interrupted her.

A gasp, and then- “No!”

I nodded. “Renee too.”

“What happened!?” Emmett frowned, concern fringing his voice.

I shrugged. “We can’t know anything for certain until Bella wakes up, but Carlisle did some research and looked into her file and he said that Charlie died in a fire that burned down their house, and Renee got in a car accident.

“Oh no…” Alice whimpered, “Poor Bella.”

“Do you see where I could have prevented this now?” I urged, “Things could have been so much better for her if I would have just stayed…”

“Jasper takes a lot of the blame for this too, you know.” She stopped me. “He feels terrible about what happened that night at her birthday party. He was so ashamed… and he knows that that’s why you made the decision you made. Because it was too dangerous, right?”

That struck a chord. I hadn’t discussed my reasons behind leaving with anyone… I hadn’t really spoken to any of them at all in the last few years. I was reclusive and practically a hermit.

“He would have been here. He loved Bella too… but..” She gestured to our surroundings with a flick of her head, “This isn’t exactly the best place for him… even though he’s gotten a lot better. The night he almost hurt Bella changed him. He’s been much more determined to abstain from human blood since then…”

I nodded, not knowing exactly why she was telling me this.

“Wait a second…” Emmett started, a rare, thoughtful look crossing his face. “What’s going to happen to her when she wakes up?” He made special emphasis on the word ‘when‘, a fact that I appreciated.

“What do you mean?” Alice frowned.

“Well… she has no where to go. No family or anything… hey, Edward, this could be your chance, dude! You could win her back and she could come stay with us!”

“No… Emmett, that’s ridiculous! She’s moved on. I’m sure she doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

“Well fine then,” Alice snapped, “You can just stay locked up in your room like you always do. Just because you didn’t want her doesn’t mean that we still don’t.”

As soon as she said it, regret shot through her mind like a poison arrow.

“Edward, I’m sorry…” She backtracked quickly. “I shouldn’t have..” She trailed off as I angled my head towards the ground again to hide the hurt on my face.

“We’ll leave.” She whispered, squeezing my shoulder once and leading Emmett out of the room quickly.

Several paces down the hallway I heard Emmett hiss - “What the hell was that!?”

“I don’t know!” Alice hissed back, “I didn’t mean to say it..”

“It’s Edward for crying out loud, Alice! You shouldn’t have even been thinking that!”

“I know! I was just so…”

Their voices died down as they moved farther away, the sound of their thoughts quickly following.

Alice was right. It had been wrong of me to force them to leave her behind. I wasn’t the only one that had cared about her and I shouldn’t have forced that decision upon everyone. Maybe if I hadn’t done so then Bella wouldn’t be in this situation right now.

Maybe if I hadn’t been such an idiot… Bella wouldn’t be stuck in a coma that she would likely never come out of.

I had listened to the thoughts of every nurse and every doctor in here… including Carlisle’s. I knew the odds of her waking up from this kind of a coma were rare.

I quickly leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes as I heard the footsteps of Charlotte, the afternoon nurse coming in to check the many different machines just as she did at this time every other day. Carlisle made sure to express the importance of maintaining our human façade while we were in the hospital. It was weird enough to the residents of this hospital that Carlisle was either nearly inhuman, or unhealthily obsessed with his job. He rarely slept and they scarcely saw him with food. I played along by pretending to accept the hospital meals nurses would generously supply me with from time to time, though really just flushing the food down the toilet when they left. I also made sure that I pretended to sleep when nurses would check in on occasion… especially the obnoxious night hours nurse called Erin. It was hard to pretend to be sleeping as she gawked over me and openly stared at my body and pictured me naked, but it beat the alternative of having to participate in a conversation with her. I fake-slept 90% of the time when Erin visited, but only on occasion when the nurse was Charlotte.

Charlotte was a nice lady. Her thoughts were full of concern for several different patients, and the only time she thought about me other than in acknowledgement was when she concerned herself over how broken hearted I would be if Bella never came out of this coma.

The thing that I liked the most about Charlotte was that she still had hope for Bella. Somehow, knowing that there was one other person who still had hope was a comfort. All I had now was hope.

Hope that Bella would wake up, and hope that - if she did - she wouldn’t hate me as much as I deserved for her to.

Hope was all I had right now, and I was grateful to share it with somebody.