Edward’s departure hollowed you out in ways you hadn’t known were possible. It carved you open, leaving you with intrusive thoughts that clawed at your sanity, nightmares that left you gasping in the dark, and three long days lost in the woods with no memory of how you even survived.

His absence wasn’t just painful — it was unraveling you. And then came the cliff-jumping.

No ropes. No wetsuit. No Jacob yelling at you to stop. Nothing but the pounding surf and the desperate hope that, just maybe, you would see his face again. You stripped off your coat, letting it fall onto the damp forest floor, your breath fogging in the frigid air. And without another thought, you leapt.

The water was a shock — icy, ruthless, swallowing you whole. And as you surfaced for air, you saw her: Victoria, a streak of flaming hair cutting across the cliffside like a warning.

Panic flared. You thrashed. Then: crack.

Your head struck a submerged rock, and the world dimmed, sound dissolving into a muffled hum as you sank: sinking, sinking toward the ocean floor. Through the haze of near-death, you turned your head. and there he was.

Edward. Edward Cullen.

His face appeared like an echo of memory, soft and sorrowful, and for a single peaceful moment, you were content to let the darkness pull you under. If this was the end, at least you wouldn’t die alone.

But of course, someone had to ruin it.

Strong arms dragged you upward, ripping you from the brink. You surfaced violently — coughing, choking, alive. Jacob Black hauled you onto the rocks, wrapping you in warm furs, forcing fresh clothes onto your trembling body. On the drive home, he barely spoke: jaw tight, knuckles white on the steering wheel. But when he pulled up outside your house, he froze.

“There’s a vampire here,” he said darkly, slamming the truck door behind him as he jumped out.

Your heart jumped with him. Fear flickered — Victoria? But beneath it, buried under exhaustion and hope, pulsed another possibility — Edward. You stumbled inside, and nearly had a heart attack when Alice appeared. She was freaking out.

Her visions had shown your ‘death’, and to her, your cliff jump hadn’t been a cry for clarity: it had been a suicide attempt. And honestly… she wasn’t completely wrong.

The phone rang. Jacob snatched it from the wall, scowling, glaring at Alice like she might combust on the spot.

“Planning a funeral,” he said into the receiver, voice sharp and dripping with disdain, before hanging up with a satisfying clatter. You had no idea who was on the other end. Jacob didn’t bother to tell you.

But thousands of miles away, in the marble halls of Volterra, Edward Cullen stared at the remains of his shattered phone — glass and metal crushed in his palm.

He had seen Alice’s vision. He had heard Jacob’s words. And in the echo of that cold, final sentence, everything inside him collapsed.

He had lost you.