Disclaimer: If I were Stephanie Meyer, I think you'd know by now.

Beware- Angst ahead.

A/N: I know its short- I was going for intensity, not length.

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He was hurting.

He was being torn apart form the inside, pain was washing over him in tortuous waves, so strong he almost thought he was being changed again. Alice's pleas reverberated in his thoughts as his mind screamed at him to stop- stop torturing himself, to stop this blasphemous lie- begging him to consider his psychic sister's logic, screaming and writhing in the pain of this loss, convulsing with the pain of loosing her, but even more so, the pain of hurting her, when he had sworn to himself and her sleeping form on his damned existence he would never cause her pain of any kind. Ever.

"You…don't…want me?"

She was confused- he could see the conflict in her eyes, faith in him warring with what was obvious. Pain waiting in the wings to take her away from the world, and he was letting it, he was practically giving her to it- no matter, he tried to tell himself. Humans move on- she is human. She would recover, with out him, she would recover.

His mind wailed in anguish.

He would loose another loved one; another piece of his condemned soul was being chipped away. First his father, then his mother- then his life, and now his heart, his heart was going to be ripped from him here and now; he had to answer her, and he knew what his answer had to be. His jaw clenched on reflex, and his arms trembled; the muscles warring subtly between the over whelming desire to hold her and banish all the pain form her, the desire to run. To run from the monster he was being, to run from the pain she was causing.

And the ever-present longing to take her life.

No- He had to let her live, he had to keep her safe from exactly that desire- he had to do this, he had to keep strong, he had to tighten his resolve.

"No."

And then the pain took him.

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A/N: It just came to me while reading New Moon; how exactly did poor Edward feel when he had to deny his love and want for Bella? I imagine it can't have been good.

R n' R and appease the beast!