Breaking Dawn

“They’re not all bad. Some are nice. So… colorful. Underwater, with the fish and the coral. It all seems like it’s really happening—I don’t know that I’m dreaming. Maybe this island is the problem. It’s really bright here.”

“Do you want to go home?”

“No. No, not yet. Can’t we stay awhile longer?”

“We can stay as long as you want, Bella,” he promised me.

“When does the semester start? I wasn’t paying attention before.”

He sighed. He may have started humming again, too, but I was under before I could be sure.

Later, when I awoke in the dark, it was with shock. The dream had been so very real… so vivid, so sensory.… I gasped aloud, now, disoriented by the dark room. Only a second ago, it seemed, I had been under the brilliant sun.

“Bella?” Edward whispered, his arms tight around me, shaking me gently. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

“Oh,” I gasped again. Just a dream. Not real. To my utter astonishment, tears overflowed from my eyes without warning, gushing down my face.

“Bella!” he said—louder, alarmed now. “What’s wrong?” He wiped the tears from my hot cheeks with cold, frantic fingers, but others followed.

“It was only a dream.” I couldn’t contain the low sob that broke in my voice. The senseless tears were disturbing, but I couldn’t get control of the staggering grief that gripped me. I wanted so badly for the dream to be real.

“It’s okay, love, you’re fine. I’m here.” He rocked me back and forth, a little too fast to soothe. “Did you have another nightmare? It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real.”

“Not a nightmare.” I shook my head, scrubbing the back of my hand against my eyes. “It was a good dream.” My voice broke again.

“Then why are you crying?” he asked, bewildered.

“Because I woke up,” I wailed, wrapping my arms around his neck in a chokehold and sobbing into his throat.

He laughed once at my logic, but the sound was tense with concern.

“Everything’s all right, Bella. Take deep breaths.”

“It was so real,” I cried. “I wanted it to be real.”

“Tell me about it,” he urged. “Maybe that will help.”

“We were on the beach. . . .” I trailed off, pulling back to look with tear-filled eyes at his anxious angel’s face, dim in the darkness. I stared at him broodingly as the unreasonable grief began to ebb.

“And?” he finally prompted.

I blinked the tears out of my eyes, torn. “Oh, Edward . . .”

“Tell me, Bella,” he pleaded, eyes wild with worry at the pain in my voice.

But I couldn’t. Instead I clutched my arms around his neck again and locked my mouth with his feverishly. It wasn’t desire at all—it was need, acute to the point of pain. His response was instant but quickly followed by his rebuff.

He struggled with me as gently as he could in his surprise, holding me away, grasping my shoulders.

“No, Bella,” he insisted, looking at me as if he was worried that I’d lost my mind.

My arms dropped, defeated, the bizarre tears spilling in a fresh torrent down my face, a new sob rising in my throat. He was right—I must be crazy.

He stared at me with confused, anguished eyes.

“I’m s-s-s-orry,” I mumbled.

But he pulled me to him then, hugging me tightly to his marble chest.

“I can’t, Bella, I can’t!” His moan was agonized.

“Please,” I said, my plea muffled against his skin. “Please, Edward?”

I couldn’t tell if he was moved by the tears trembling in my voice, or if he was unprepared to deal with the suddenness of my attack, or if his need was simply as unbearable in that moment as my own. But whatever the reason, he pulled my lips back to his, surrendering with a groan.

And we began where my dream had left off.

I stayed very still when I woke up in the morning and tried to keep my breathing even. I was afraid to open my eyes.

I was lying across Edward’s chest, but he was very still and his arms were not wrapped around me. That was a bad sign. I was afraid to admit I was awake and face his anger—no matter whom it was directed at today.

Carefully, I peeked through my eyelashes. He was staring up at the dark ceiling, his arms behind his head. I pulled myself up on my elbow so that I could see his face better. It was smooth, expressionless.

“How much trouble am I in?” I asked in a small voice.

“Heaps,” he said, but turned his head and smirked at me.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “I am sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean… Well, I don’t know exactly what that was last night.” I shook my head at the memory of the irrational tears, the crushing grief.

“You never did tell me what your dream was about.”

“I guess I didn’t—but I sort of showed you what it was about.” I laughed nervously.

“Oh,” he said. His eyes widened, and then he blinked. “Interesting.”

“It was a very good dream,” I murmured. He didn’t comment, so a few seconds later I asked, “Am I forgiven?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

I sat up, planning to examine myself—there didn’t seem to be any feathers, at least. But as I moved, an odd wave of vertigo hit. I swayed and fell back against the pillows.

“Whoa… head rush.”

His arms were around me then. “You slept for a long time. Twelve hours.”

“Twelve?” How strange.