Why hadn’t I asked what was going on? Because they would’ve just given me that evasive smile that I’d seen a lot of lately and pretended as though I hadn’t spoken.

Heidi opened the door with a flourish, here gazed glued to mine leaving me dazed the same way Edward often had. My nails bit into my palm in an effort to escape her bewitching stare and finally I was able to look past her at the people that had entered the silent room.

Time stopped. The world no longer rotated. Life as I knew it, ceased.

My heart all but stop, my eyes burned with unshed tears, and it took everything in me to continue to breathe as I watched the entire Cullen brood, along with five others, line up in front of us.

Aro’s hand fell upon my own which was clutching the arm of the chair in a death grip.  “Breathe, Isabella.”

But I couldn’t because there – right in front of me, looking as heartrendingly beautiful as the first time I’d laid eyes on him – was Edward. My Edward. My angel. Only a few feet away, and yet, it might as well been a thousand.

I was only half aware of the conversation around me as I stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights of a fast approaching car.

Carlisle’s hand was on his shoulder and judging by the tension carved into his face, he was restraining Edward. Almost made me believe that Edward was trying to get to me, but why would he? I meant nothing to him anymore. The Cullens showing up was no more than them fulfilling an obligation. That’s all. Aro had summoned them and they had come. It had nothing to do with me and I couldn’t afford to believe otherwise. I wasn’t going to fall back into that pit of despair that I’d lived in for so many months. In order to come out of this meeting with my sanity intact, I had to distance myself from them completely.

A dainty hand grasped at Edward’s other arm drawing my attention to the exquisite woman by his side with her strawberry blonde hair cascading around her small, but shapely body with the face of an angel and two stunning caramel eyes looking at him with such concern…and love. He’d brought one of his distractions with him, how lovely. Almost made me wish I had Dylan by my side, but that would be a lie since I meant nothing to Dylan either. Not only was I jealous that Edward had found a replacement, but that I didn’t have one to throw in his face.