Edward tensed, not moving for what seemed like years. Eventually, his face twisted in this unexplainable way, but I could tell he was mad. Really mad.

“Is this some kind of sick joke you and Alice set up?” he snarled, and continued without letting me say anything. “God, I wouldn’t think Alice could get that low. And this is cruel, even for you. I may not know you, but I thought you were nice. Someone that I could maybe even trust eventually, but now I see you’re just like every other vampire in this world. Selfish. Evil.”

That hurt. I may be selfish at times but not evil. Never evil. Not even when I wasn’t a vegetarian. Even then I didn’t think I was evil. I reached for him instinctively, feeling his pain. It coursed through the arm around us like a thousand knives. I wanted to hold him. I never want to let him go.

He hissed when my hand touched his arm lightly. I didn’t move my hand. Instead, I said, “Edward, please believe me. This isn’t a joke. I am Bella. Or, at least I was. I’m Izzy now, but Bella was my past. You were my past. I still love you Edward.”

“I still love Bella, but you aren’t her, Izzy,” Edward said. “You’re some sick vampire who wants to mooch off my pain. That or you’re seriously disturbed. Either way, you’re not my Bella.”

I couldn’t believe this. He didn’t believe me. It felt like someone had stabbed me a thousand times, over and over. I wanted to cry – if I could, that is. I had no way to prove it to him, especially now that I had told him I could read his mind.

He was turning to leave. I had to stop him. I had to make him believe me. I grabbed his wrist and swung him back around to face me. I remembered a time when I wouldn’t have been strong enough to even stop him but now I was just as strong as him, maybe even stronger.

“Please, just let me go, Izzy,” he said. “Let’s just both forget about this.”

“Bella!” I yelled. “I’m Bella! You have to believe me. She’s not dead because she’s standing right in front of you! I love you and I still do. More than anything. If you walk away, I’ll never be able to live with myself again.”

I was sobbing tearlessly. I couldn’t make him believe me. I had expected him to take this news hard but not for him not believe me eventually. And I had no way to prove it to him. If he were to never believe me I might as well go back to the Volturi and beg for death. Now that I had seen, had touched him, had looking into his topaz eyes again I knew there was no way I’d be able to live without him for even a minute more.

“Listen, I think you might have a serious mental disorder,” Edward said, comfortingly – as if he’d rather believe I was some kind of lunatic than that this was sick joke or even…true. “I have never heard of a schizophrenic vampire or anything, but I’m sure Carlisle could help you. Now, I’ll take you back to my house and we can…”

He tried to push me into his Volvo but I wouldn’t budge. Instead, searching his brain for anything that might give this away, I tried my last desperate measure. He wasn’t thinking about this particular thing at the moment so maybe it would…

“Bella. Whenever you would kiss Bella, she would go overboard,” I said quickly, barely even thinking. “She wouldn’t want to let you go. And you were too concerned for her safety to risk doing anything, even kissing her a lot. But she didn’t want just little pecks, she wanted a bit more. And when you proposed to her that one night in your room – before the fight with Victoria – you let all your guards down and Bella could never understand why.”

I knew I was babbling a little…okay, I was babbling a lot. But this was my last resort. I had to say everything I possibly could.

“How would you know that?” Edward yelled. “Are you some kind of spy? Why do you want to cause me pain like this?!”

He lifted his hand as though he was going to strike me but lowered it, looking exasperated. But not before I saw the glistening ring on his pinkie finger. It was my wedding ring! He had kept it all these years! Well, more technically, it was his mother’s –his real mother’s – ring, but he had given it to me. And seeing it reminded me of the bracelet around my wrist. If nothing else would convince him that would.

I quickly pulled the chain out of my pocket and laid it in my hands. The little, wooden wolf hung off the side of my hand while the diamond heart sparkled in my palm.

“If I’m not Bella, explain how I’ve had this for the last hundred years,” I asked.

His mouth dropped open. I seriously thought it would’ve hit the ground if it had dropped an inch farther. His eyes bulged out a little and I thought he was going into shock for a second.

“Oh. my. god,” he whispered, staring down at me. “Bella?”

I nodded. Yes. He finally believed me! I could hear his thoughts bouncing off the inside of his skull. Surprised, happy, ecstatic thoughts.

And then, all of the sudden, I was in his arms. He had me lifted off the ground by the waist and was twirling me around. Just like how reunions always go in the movies. I was giggling and wrapped my arms around his neck. When he set me down, our lips found each other, as though they were connected by a magnetic force. He kissed me with such passion. Such love. There were no boundaries because we didn’t need them anymore. His tongue explored the inside of my mouth and I drew myself closer to him so that there was no air in between us.

“Bella,” he whispered when he pulled away, smothering his face in my cropped, blond hair. “Oh, Bella, I never thought this day would come.”

“Me neither,” I said, finding his lips again. We had a hundred years worth of kisses to make up for.