“Option three: Edward loved me. The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brillant or perfect than me he might me, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.Was that what I'd been trying to tell myself?"Oh!""Bella?""Oh. Okay. I see.""Your epithany?" he asked, his voice uneven and strained."You love me," I marveled. The sense of conviction and rightness washed through me again.Though his eyes were still anxious, the crooked smile I loved best flashed across his face. "Truly, I do.”

“The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than me he might be, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.”

“You don’t know?” he whispered harshly. “You truly don’t know that you mean everything to me?”Hardly daring to believe her ears, Mia pushed at his chest to put a little distance between them so she could look up at his face. “I do?”“Of course, you do.” His gaze burned into her with an intensity she had never seen before. “How could you doubt it?”“Are . . . are you saying you love me?” she asked tremulously, afraid to even voice such a possibility. What if he said no? What if she’d misunderstood him, and he would now laugh at her silliness? Her chest tightened in anxious anticipation.“Mia, I love you more than life itself,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “If anything happened to you . . . If you were gone, I would not want to go on living. Do you understand me?”

“He told me once I was flawless in his eyes, because my imperfections made me that way. Imperfections build character, but in the end he is close, but might as well as not exist. So, where is flawless now? He too saw me fall off the pedestal. He called me beautiful all of the time, even when I said I failed or I was a mess he still found me beautiful, but that isn't how he sees me anymore. I'm not beautiful or flawless. I'm just something like the sun, and he's the Icarus who flew too close. I don't think I'll ever see him again, and it is best that that is the case. It is best for me to marry, and forget, because I can't go back. And even if I could, it would not change the facts as they are. I loved him too much. I needed him too much. I craved the very sound of his voice. He was the world to me. He was the very breath I breathed. And it almost ruined me. And it almost ruined him. They don't tell you that about love. How it can ruin you by its mere existence. How it can be so deep that it devours you. And that...is most frightening.”

“I had a daddy, didn't I? He wasn't perfect and he certainly wasn't the one I'd dreamed he would have been, but I had one all the same. And I'd love him as much as I'd hated him, hadn't I? All that distance, all that time wasted, but the fact that he'd inspired such passion in me meant something in itself. I can honestly say now that I think that's special. Screwed up and turned inside out, we were special him and me, and I am so thankful that I can say that I had a daddy and that he mattered. All his faults and failures mean nothing to me now.”

“His hands as he worked were deft and sure, but so gentle -- he was being careful not to hurt me any more than he had to. I sat very still, hardly daring to move.I was in love with him.The knowledge swept through me, truer than anything I'd ever known. Oh, my God, I was in love with him.”