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With slow, almost ceremonial movements, Nate raised his hand and let his fingers barely graze the cold surface of the urn. It wasn't a firm or prolonged touch, but a restrained brush, as if he feared breaking the solemnity of the object with a gesture too abrupt. In that touch, there was more reverence than strength, more nostalgia than anger.
Sensing the weight of the moment, Edward stepped back a few paces in silence. He didn't make the slightest sound; he understood this instant didn't belong to him, that he had to limit himself to being an invisible witness.
Nate slowly lowered his hood, allowing the faint grayish light filtering through the curtains to wash over his face. Then, with a deliberate motion, he removed his dark glasses. His eyes, a deep crimson red, gleamed with an icy shade that seemed to betray everything he had once been.
He smiled with a touch of irony, a broken, almost bitter smile, before speaking:
"I know I look different… Maybe what bothers me most about these changes is that I no longer have the same eye color as Dad and you."
His voice faltered slightly as he spoke those words, but he soon regained firmness, as though forcing himself to stay upright.
"As you can see… that's not the only thing that changed. Since you left, life has kept moving forward. Funny, isn't it? I swear, when I heard you were gone, I felt like the world stopped for a moment. But not even losing someone like you can make things stand still forever…"
The silence of the room enveloped him, heavy and reverent. The old house seemed to hold its breath, listening. Nate let out a faint sigh and, after a few seconds, his lips curved into a brief, soft smile, touched by something that almost resembled tenderness.
"Not everything is bad. Even if I can't be close to the people I used to know, I don't feel alone. Alice is with me, and she always will be. I wish you had spent more time with her… When she's near, things look so much better to me. Everything feels less… cold. I feel less angry… less disappointed."
He lowered his head slightly, and a trace of vulnerability, rarely seen in him, appeared on his face. His voice dropped to a low, almost intimate tone, heavy with confession.
"I did a few things you wouldn't be proud of. I found the man who killed Dad…"
The air in the room grew heavier. Nate fell silent for a few seconds, as if the words resisted coming out, as if biting them hurt more than saying them. At last, his voice emerged, dry, direct, stripped of ornaments.
"It all happened so fast. Before I knew it… I had already ended his life with my own hands. I think the worst part is that I don't feel guilty anymore. The man begged for his life, even said Dad wouldn't have wanted me to do it. But I didn't care. When I saw the life leave his eyes… all I felt was relief."
An ironic smile reappeared on his face, this time tinged with a darker shadow that made him seem more distant, more dangerous.
"I think that's what makes me different from Dad and from you. You were good people, always seeing life with kind eyes. I can't be like that."
The room remained still, as though the house itself had been trapped in the gravity of those words. It was as if the walls absorbed his pain and kept it within every crack, every restored piece of furniture, every corner that still smelled of the past.
Edward watched him silently from afar, his face heavy with a strange burden: a mixture of pain, understanding, and absolute respect for the confession Nate had just given.
Nate took a deep breath, eyes fixed on the urn resting on the shelf. Outside, the overcast Forks sky barely filtered a dim gray light through the windows, bathing the room in melancholy, a gray seemingly crafted to enclose his grief.
"I've really tried to leave everything behind," he began, his voice low and restrained, every word weighed down by an unbearable heaviness. "You, Dad, and Mom would have wanted me to move on… not to let anger dictate my path. But every day, every hour, every minute of the day… I am furious."
Nate's hands clenched tightly, veins taut beneath his pale skin, as if his fingers were trying to hold onto the fury consuming him.
"I'm furious with the one who killed you. I'm furious I didn't make the man who killed Dad suffer more. And I'm furious that the ones who killed Mom are still out there… free, as if nothing happened. As if her life had been as worthless as a stone kicked along the road."
His brow furrowed harshly, and his crimson eyes burned with a searing glow, barely restrained.
"It's almost as if they were mocking me," he whispered, his voice rough, breaking. "Mocking my pain…"
He fell silent again, jaw clenched, chest rigid, as though every breath was a battle against the storm raging inside him.
"I don't understand," Nate continued, and though he tried to mask his words with irony, his voice was fractured, as if he spoke from a crack that could never be sealed. "It's almost like some cruel joke, don't you think? Every person I love is torn from my life as if I don't deserve that kind of happiness."
He paused for a long moment, his gaze lost in some distant memory, as though his mind had traveled back years in the blink of an eye.
"When Dad and Mom died, I promised myself I'd never let anyone get too close again. Not even you. I convinced myself that the only way to survive was to keep everyone away, to build a wall between me and the rest of the world. When I came to Forks, all I thought was to live with you for a couple of months, endure until I turned eighteen… and then disappear. Leave without looking back."
The sharpness in his voice softened slightly, as though a ray of tenderness had pierced through his armor. His features softened for a second, but it was a moment so fragile it seemed it could shatter with a sigh.
"But it was inevitable to grow fond of you, wasn't it? With your endless patience, with your way of being so loving without needing words. You never tried to replace Mom and Dad. You never tried to chain me down, never tried to mold me. You gave me freedom… and even with all my arrogance, I got used to you. To your gentle laugh, to the way you called my name as if everything was okay."
He leaned forward slightly, his voice trembling faintly.
"And still… I couldn't do anything to protect you."
Nate closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to contain something heavier than any physical strength he possessed. When he spoke again, it was with a twisted, bitter smile, almost cruel toward himself.
"I must seem fake, right? Talking about pain when I can't even cry for you. I think about it, and I hate myself inside. I wish I could… I wish I could cry right now. But that's something I left behind when I accepted what I am. Something I sacrificed to have the strength to protect, to never break again."
He inhaled deeply, the air heavy in his lungs as though he carried an invisible stone. Every word from his lips seemed to tear another piece of his soul away.
"I know I took too long. That I failed. I failed you, Dad, Mom. I failed everyone. But it won't happen again, I swear it. Even if I have to tear the world apart with my nails and teeth… I'll never let anyone hurt the people I love again."
The room fell into a dense silence, a void that pressed on the chest. The air felt colder, stiller, as if even the day respected his confession.
After a long sigh, Nate slipped a hand into his pocket. His fingers, usually firm, searched clumsily, as though the weight of what he carried made him a child again, unsure.
"I won't be able to visit you often, Grandma," he murmured, his voice artificially calm, like a veneer covering a turbulent ocean. "It's hard for me to be around people. And it would be selfish of me to take you with me. As you would say… it would be a sin to deprive others of your company."
A faint, dim smile appeared on his face, just a shadow of what it once had been.
"But at least I want to leave you something… something to keep you company."
He carefully took out a small cloth pouch. He held it as though it contained a sacred secret, and when he opened it, the metallic gleam of two rings reflected in the dim light. They were his parents' rings. He took them with reverent care, as though afraid they might break, and placed them beside the urn.
"I think it's only fair that Dad and Mom keep you company," he whispered softly. "I guess they'll have plenty to talk about… after so long apart."
His gaze sank into that vessel, fixed on the ashes of the only figure who had managed to soften his life in Forks. For a moment, his mask slipped, and the emptiness in his eyes was so vast it seemed ready to swallow everything around him.
"Just wait for me," he added in a low, trembling voice. "I have too many things to settle… but when it's done, I'll come for you. Maybe by then, I'll have a home with Alice. A place where nothing and no one can ever threaten us again."
Silence reclaimed the space, heavy as a gravestone. Nate remained still, trapped in his inner world, where pain and rage entwined until they were indistinguishable.
Finally, he took a deep breath. With mechanical movements, he put his hood and sunglasses back on, as though wrapping himself once more in the armor that kept him standing. He turned toward Edward, his voice solemn, almost a decree:
"Now then… You were with her in her final moments. Tell me… what was she thinking?"
Edward, who had witnessed in complete silence that monologue of scars and confessions, was left speechless. He had seen Nate in many forms since he arrived in Forks: as a latent threat, an unexpected ally, someone relaxed, even in love. But never like this: so vulnerable, so human in the middle of his darkness. That vision only fueled the guilt consuming him.
Almost stammering, he answered:
"At first… nothing. When the paramedics took her, she was unconscious. But I stayed with her during her last minutes… and she wasn't scared, or in pain. She was only worried about you. Her greatest concern was knowing she was leaving you alone."
Nate listened intently. At first, his face softened, but as the words sank in, his expression hardened. He lowered his glasses just enough for the blaze of his anger to cut directly toward Edward.
"Now answer me… where were you when the attack happened?"
The weight of the question crushed Edward like a slab of stone. Guilt pressed him down, cold and sharp. He swallowed hard, his voice rushed, as if trying to justify the unjustifiable.
"Nate… I never meant for anything to happen to her. That night I stayed with Bella at my house. I believed if anyone came to Forks, they'd come directly for her. The plan was to stay away from town, to protect Charlie and your grandmother while I looked after Bella…"
Fury erupted across Nate's face. He stepped forward, his voice turning into a whip that slashed through the air.
"And it never crossed your mind that by leaving Charlie and my grandmother alone, you left them defenseless? You didn't even think of something as basic as contacting the Quileute to keep watch? You wouldn't even have had to think that hard! It's the same thing I did when we went to Phoenix to catch James!"
Shame suffocated Edward. The thought had never once crossed his mind, and now his mistake towered before him like a mountain he couldn't ignore.
Nate gave him no respite.
"Not only were you careless and stupid… You were weak. You couldn't even finish off that vampire."
Edward snapped, raising his voice as if clinging to the last defense.
"You don't understand! It wasn't just the vampire; Jacob was there too… he was confused and attacked me. I couldn't handle both at the same time while protecting Charlie and Bella. Even without experience, a newborn is stronger… and Jacob, as a wolf, is powerful…"
Those words broke the last thread. In a blink, Nate was in front of him, seizing his shirt collar with icy brutality.
"I would have stopped them! If it had been me, that vampire would be ash and everyone would be safe. Your weakness cost an innocent life!"
Edward tried to pull his hands away, but shock struck him violently: he couldn't move Nate even an inch. Nate wasn't just holding him; he was crushing him with devastating strength.
Nate's eyes burned with pure rage. His voice came out venomous, heavy with resentment.
"Things aren't like they were when we spoke in that forest. You're only still alive out of consideration for your sister."
A chill froze Edward's blood. He could hear Nate's thoughts with terrifying clarity: a dark whirlwind where the idea of killing him right there gleamed with dangerous intensity.
The silence was unbearable. The tearing of fabric beneath Nate's fingers was the only sound breaking the dense air.
Then, an abrupt noise jolted them both: the screech of tires outside, followed by a car door slamming.
In perfect sync, like two hunted shadows, Nate and Edward released their grip and vanished upstairs in a rush of air. They had barely left the scene when the front door burst open, and Charlie Swan rushed in with hurried steps, climbing out of his patrol car with his heart pounding and his eyes locked on the interior of the house.