“I’ll admit, I do sort of envy him here,” I confessed.

“She’s very pretty.” Bella guessed wrong.

Ugh! “I don’t envy him the girl – just the ease of the suicide,” I clarified teasingly. “You humans have it so easy! All you have to do is throw down one tiny vial of plant extracts…”

She interrupted me with a gasp. “What?”

I sighed, remembering the night I thought James had killed her. I had no hope. To think of my life without her was so painful that death was the only answer to ease the pain. “It’s something I had to think about once, and I knew from Carlisle’s experience that it wouldn’t be simple. I’m not even sure how many ways Carlisle tried to kill himself in the beginning…after he realized what he’d become…And he’s clearly still in excellent health.” I smiled.

Bella turned her body to face me. Her eyes met mine and she looked terrified. “What are you talking about,” she demanded. “What do you mean, ‘this is something you had to think about once’?” That wasn’t the reaction I was looking for. Again, she surprised me with her words.

“Last spring, when you were…nearly killed…” I took in another large gulp of her heady scent, reveling in her aliveness. I didn’t want to bring her mood down so I smiled again. “Of course I was trying to focus on finding you alive, but part of my mind was making contingency plans. Like I said, it’s not as easy for me as it is for a human.” I explained, hoping to ease her terror.

She looked up, and stared at nothing. She was probably remembering that fateful night. She shook her head trying to erase the memories, I guessed. She returned her gaze to me, seizing my eyes. “Contingency plans?” she gulped.

“Well, I wasn’t going to live without you,” I rolled my eyes, I thought it was obvious. “But I wasn’t sure how to do it – I knew Emmett and Jasper would never help…so I was thinking maybe I would go to Italy and do something to provoke the Volturi.” I remembered Carlisle’s stories and memories of the Volturi. I remembered how I thought about this when the one person that really mattered in the world was possibly dead.