"All that next day I eavesdropped on the minds of everyone you spoke to, shocked that you kept your word. I didn't understand you at all. Your moral fiber was the strongest, most extravagant I'd ever seen. But I knew that I couldn't become more involved with you. It tortured me. Every day the perfume of your skin, your breath, your hair... it tortured me as hard as the very first day."
He met my eyes again, and they were surprisingly tender.
"And for all that," he continued, "I'd have fared better if I had exposed my family secrets at that first moment, than now, here—with no witness and nothing to stop me if I were to hurt you."
I was human enough to have to ask. "Why?"
"Isabella." He surprised me by pronouncing my full name and then playfully ruffling my hair with his free hand.278 A shock ran through my body at his casual touch. "Bella, I couldn't live with myself if I ever hurt you. I don't think anyone would live with me if I hurt you, especially you. You don't know how it's tortured me." He looked down, seeming tortured. "The thought of you, still, white, cold... to never see you blush scarlet again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses, to never hear you cough or feel your sneeze... it would be unendurable."
I tried my best to wrap my head around the grave nature of his problem; my problem. It didn't seem like there was any way out for either of us. He lifted his glorious, agonized eyes to mine.
I'm not sure which one of us spoke next. "You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever."
My head was spinning at the rapid change in direction that our conversation had taken. From the cheerful topic of my
278. What's his other hand so busy with?