A Different Kind of Fear

Written by: iik8r
You can read the original post here:
All Credit goes to the Original Author

Everyone who knew me could tell I was making a sacrifice. My mom and my dad weren’t fooled, but I pretended that they were wrong. It was just easier that way. There was no reason to complain about how cold and wet Forks, Washington was. They already knew that, and they knew I would prefer warm, dry weather any day. It wouldn’t help to make this harder for them, too.

My mom deserved some time with her new husband, Phil. He made her happy, and it was as simple as that. She would want to travel with him on his baseball trips, and she wouldn’t be able to leave me if I stayed with her in Phoenix. What kind of daughter would I be if I kept her from being with him, especially when I knew it made her so unhappy?

It was only right that I would move to Forks to live with my dad. It made sense. Besides, I wouldn’t have to stay more than a couple years.

I was nervous about the whole move, though. I was nervous to have to start over with new friends. I felt like it wasn’t as easy for me to relax around people. It was in my nature. I had a bottle of prescribed medication to prove it. I might be better, but I was still far from cured.

Charlie, my dad, was sitting across the table from me, a half-eaten bagel in one hand and the newspaper in his other. He was like me in so many ways. He, like me, preferred the quiet. I’ve never really asked him before, but I was pretty sure he had the same sorts of problems with anxiety as I had. We rarely discussed that sort of thing. How typical.

I had to give him credit, though. He was doing what he could to make this comfortable. He was welcoming and helpful beyond what I had expected… just a little quiet at times.

“You excited about starting school?” Charlie asked me, dropping the newspaper down on the table. He knew I wasn’t. I could tell he was looking for something to say—after all he wasn’t any more used to this situation than I was. Maybe he thought it was his obligation to have these sorts of morning chats.

“I’m kind of nervous, actually,” I answered, letting my spoon sit idly in my cereal bowl. It was hard to eat when my hands were quivering. I held them in my lap, clasping them together tightly to stop them.

“The kids here are really nice. Great bunch of folks,” he said helpfully, trying to ease the anxiety that I knew he could feel in me.

I answered his statement with a non-committal grunt. I felt like it wasn’t a matter of whether I liked them or not. That didn’t concern me. What concerned me was what they would think of me.

Stop it. You’re doing much better now than you were year ago.

That was when I’d started my treatment for social anxiety disorder.

“Bella, you’ll be fine. You just might have to give it some time.” My dad was trying to encourage me and boost my morale. He wasn’t just talking about me adjusting to a new school. I knew he was right. I knew I’d be fine. These first days would be an exception to the progress I’d made… but after a week I’d be able to work on getting better again. I’d expected this much.

“I know,” I said softly, unclenching my hands. “Maybe I should get going,” I suggested, grabbing my bowl and heading over to the sink to wash it out. School didn’t start for forty-five more minutes, but I figured that some quiet time to calm down in my truck would be necessary for my first day of school.

I grabbed my school bag and headed out the door, making dash for the red truck Charlie had gotten for me. The cold air did not agree with my lungs, or my wardrobe. I’d bought a few more sweaters, but I wasn’t prepared for this painfully cold morning air.

Forks High School, henceforth my school, was entirely different from any school I’d ever seen before. It more closely resembled a college campus in that it was comprised of a bunch of smaller buildings rather than one large one. It took me a few minutes to figure out which one held the office, but I’d gotten to school early enough that I didn’t have to worry about being late. Besides, I’m sure the new girl would be pardoned on her first day if she missed the tardy bell.

I was going to have to get used to that title. New Girl.

The receptionist greeted me enthusiastically, guessing who I was immediately. Forks was small enough that everyone knew everyone else’s business, and they probably knew who I was because I was most likely the only unfamiliar face within a ten-mile radius.

After she handed me a map of the school, my schedule, and a form for me to have all my teachers sign I was sent on my way, out to face my first day of school.

In the short amount of time I’d been in the office, the school’s campus became quite a bit more populated. I could see groups of people hanging around their cars in the parking lot and gathering around the benches. How could they stand to be in the cold willingly?

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was getting a lot of attention. I could feel eyes following me around as I walked to English, my first class. It was pretty unnerving. I couldn’t help but wonder what they saw—what they thought of me. My face flushed a little, but in the cold air I’m sure it went unnoticed. Everyone had rosy cheeks.

Once I reached English, I introduced myself to the teacher, handed him the form to sign, and headed straight for the seat he’d assigned to me. I sat down and pulled a crossword out of my backpack, needing something to focus on. I was never good at initiating conversations with people I didn’t know. I was working on it.

Not surprisingly, I felt a pair of eyes on me within minutes of sitting down. I dropped my pencil and turned to see a boy with slick black hair and a bit of an acne problem. He had a very kind smile. “Isabella, right?” he asked me.

“Yeah. Bella, actually,” I explained, smiling back at him weakly.

“Cool. I’m Eric.”

“Hey,” I greated.

“So, how’re you liking Forks so far?”

I raised my eyebrows a little. I didn’t really want to answer him truthfully. I had a feeling that badmouthing his hometown might be a little rude. “I don’t know, I just got here yesterday.” At least it wasn’t an entire lie.

“Man, I’d hate to jump right into school like that.” Eric seemed a little bit on the eager side to me, but at that point I was just thrilled that someone seemed to want to get to know me. I would have talked to anyone who was willing to talk to me first.

Eric continued on to tell me a little bit about what Forks was like, offering to show me around sometime if I wanted. This was when I got a little uncomfortable. It felt… like he was trying a bit too hard, and I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression about me.

“Oh… Well, maybe,” I answered vaguely. It kept him happy enough, but was pretty sure that he got that I wasn’t accepting his offer.

At this point, the teacher walked to the front of the classroom and started class.

The first half of the day kept up a similar pattern. A person or two would greet me when I took my assigned seat in class and introduce themselves. I would tell them I preferred to be called Bella, and they would ask me what I thought of Forks. It was all so repetitive. Charlie was right, though. Everyone was really friendly.

By the time lunch came around, I was very much ready for a break from class. My stomach had clenched at first when the lunch bell rang because I was uncertain if I would have anyone to sit with, but one of the girls I’d met, Angela Webber, graciously invited me to sit at her table.

We sat at a lunch table with a few other faces that I’d recognized from a few of my previous classes. Among them were Eric, a kid named Mike Newton, a girl named Jessica, and a girl named Lauren. They seemed happy enough that I was joining them, but I felt out of place nonetheless. They were talking school gossip… and considering the fact that I didn’t know the names of anyone who wasn’t at the table with me, I couldn’t exactly participate.

My eyes roamed the cafeteria for a lack of something better to do. This place wasn’t too different from Phoenix, actually… at least it wasn’t if you were inside, away from the weather. It was nice to know that teenagers seemed the same here as they did in Arizona…

Except for the people at one table.

My eyes were drawn to them immediately. The five students at that table were all gorgeous with perfect face structures and oddly pale skin, but that wasn’t why I noticed them. It was the inactivity that caught my attention. They weren’t eating. They weren’t talking. They weren’t even really looking at each other. They just sat there.

Jessica turned to follow my eyes to the table on the other side of the room, then to me. Right at that second, one of the pale kids lifted his head and looked straight at me. He had rusty colored hair and piercingly dark eyes that took me by surprise.

“Don’t even bother, they keep to themselves,” Jessica said.

I tore my eyes away from the boy and looked over at Jessica, confused. “Who are they?”

“They’re one big happy family,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “They think they’re better than everyone else or something. I don’t know. They’re all adopted.”

I caught a trace of what sounded like resentment in her voice. I wasn’t sure what she had against them. In most schools, a group of people who looked as flawlessly perfect as them would be in the very center of attention. It didn’t really make sense.

Angela and Jessica explained the family to me, telling me that two of them, Rosalie and Emmet, were dating, as were the two they said were named Alice and Jasper. The other one, the one who had looked up at me, was named Edward. They had been taken in by a man named Carlisle Cullen and his wife, Esme.

I glanced over at them again a few moments later. Edward had turned back away, looking at nothing in particular but wearing a strained expression on his face. He was concentrating on something. He looked puzzled.

Lunch was coming to a close, and most of the people in the cafeteria were finishing up their conversations… except for the Cullens. As nonconformist as ever, they sat, exchanging only a few occasional words.

Mike told me he had biology next with me, and so offered to go with me to my next class, only once I’d left the cafeteria I realized I’d left my wallet at our lunch table.

Hoping my wallet would still be there, I pushed my way back though the door to the cafeteria, where a few groups of students—the Cullens included—were packing up their bags for their next class.

The wind blew in with me, sending shivers down my spine. It seemed unfair to me that the cold weather from outside followed me constantly. It was like the weather was mocking me. I pulled my coat tighter to my body and then immediately sighed, relieved, as I spotted my wallet sitting exactly where I’d left it. Thank goodness for that.

Turning to leave, the table where the Cullens were sitting caught my attention once again. This time they weren’t gazing around randomly. All of their eyes were fixed on Edward, whose eyes bore into me. To say that he was glaring at me would be an understatement. He was absolutely glowering at me. I could feel the hate radiating off his body.

I stopped where I was, a deer in headlights. Had I done something? That was impossible, I hadn’t even talked to the guy, and yet he was writhing in his chair, his hands gripping the table in front of him. I heard a snap followed by the dull thud of a chunk of plastic hitting the floor. A bit of shiny white bounced off the floor and landed again, rolling to the side. My eyes widened as I realized a chunk of the table had just fallen to the floor. The eyes focused around him became pleading and angry, as though his adopted family were demanding him to do something.

More than a little freaked out, I backed away, glad to leave the scene behind me and join Mike in biology.

The rest of my first day of class was uneventful. My biology teacher assigned me to a lab table, and whoever it was that normally sat in the other chair never showed up for class. Mike took that spot instead, using this chance to try to talk to me. He didn’t have much luck, though. I wasn’t being the most responsive person. I was naturally on the quiet side, but my mind was elsewhere, anyway.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about that kid with the rusty hair and the black eyes. I knew I shouldn’t be bothered by what a complete stranger thought of me, but I was. That sort of thing always bothered me. What had I done wrong? He’d looked like he was on the verge of having a fit. It didn’t make sense.

When the day was over and I went back home, I let myself think through my day, critiquing myself. I knew I wasn’t supposed to do this, because it indulged my anxieties, but since it was my first day somewhere knew, I felt like I should be granted this one pardon.

The next day I was for the most part a less anxious because I knew what to expect. The only thing that worried me was that I might see Edward, and that he’d again have something against me.

I parked my truck in the school parking lot. There were fifteen minutes left before classes started, so most of the students were just starting to head inside. I grabbed my backpack and slid out of the car, stumbling a little when the force of the backpack fell off the seat and onto my back. No one saw me, though, so I slammed my door shut and headed to go inside.

“Bella!” I heard someone call. I turned to search for the sound and saw Angela standing by a rusted Camry, waving at me.

“Oh, hey,” I answered, making my way over to her. She was pulling a couple books out of the back seat of her car.

“Ready for your second day?” she asked, her voice soft.

“Well if I’m not I guess I’m in trouble.”

Angela smiled. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be good,” she agreed.

I wanted to ask her more about the Cullens, Edward in particular. She would know them better than me, so maybe she’d have a better idea of why he’d been so furious to see me. I decided not to, figuring I could ask later if the same thing happened today.

“You’re in English with me, first,” Angela mentioned. Was she? I hadn’t exactly been paying much attention during that first class yesterday. Even if I had seen her I probably wouldn’t have recognized that it was her, but I guess she’d figured as much.

“Oh, great,” I sighed, glad I would have someone to talk to. She was so much easier to be around than Mike or Eric. That could be because she was a girl, since I was still tragically intimidated by most guys. For the most part, that was my biggest problem left. Talking to guys made my knees shake and my mouth go dry.

Angela also seemed so much kinder than the rest of the people I’d met. Jessica and Lauren came off as really catty and opinionated. They were the kind of people I sometimes avoided. Angela, on the other hand, seemed so much sweeter. She was more the sort of person I would hang out with than anyone else I knew in Forks.

Lunch was fairly uneventful on my second day. Edward wasn’t there to join the rest of the Cullens, so I was much more relaxed. I did wonder about him, though. Why wasn’t he there? Had he gotten sick? Could it have something to do with me?

Of course, it was silly of me—or maybe it was more conceited—to even consider that I might have anything to do with his absence. I was letting my anxiety-driven mind get out of hand again. I was always doing that. I always let myself think up these delusional thoughts about how people thought poorly of me. That was exactly the sort of thing I had to stop.

I don’t think I talked much at lunch. It exhausted me. Being social was always a little tiring to me, but when the people were unfamiliar it was so much worse. If I kept this up I might lose my chance to make any friends. I was going to have to start talking more.

When lunch ended, I left the cafeteria again with Mike, who talked up a storm on the way to class. This time, I jumped right on in, holding up my side of the conversation.

Inside the biology room, I took my assigned seat, and Mike again took the empty seat next to me, no doubt planning on staying there until the teacher walked up to the front of the room.

“Yeah, I heard that we’re going to be taking a field trip to Olympic National Park at some point this year in here,” Mike said, animatedly.

“Really?” I asked, horrified. I did not mesh well with hiking. I’d learned that long ago and avoided it when I could. “Why? For what?”

“For this class. It will be great,” he explained, oblivious to my reaction, “We’ll be gone the whole day and miss our other classes. I think we’re going to be doing some hands on stuff with the plants or something.”

“Why not go to an arboretum, then?” I asked, wishing we had that alternative. Arboretums were safe and just as interesting as far as I was concerned.

“What fun is that? You ever hiked before?”

“A long time ago,” I told him, honestly.

“See, you just need to try it again.”

I didn’t respond to that. I definitely didn’t feel like I needed to try hiking again, not when I was sure to end up flat on my face.

“Well if you don’t have any good boots for it you should stop by my parents’ store. We own Newton’s Outfitters. I can get you a discount.”

Great.

“Well… thanks,” I said, really hoping I wouldn’t have to take him up on his offer. Maybe there would be a way I could miss the trip and do a replacement assignment instead.

It was at this point that we heard someone clear his throat. I looked up in time to see Edward Cullen reach my lab table.

“I believe this is my seat,” he said, his voice ringing clear and smooth.

You have got to be kidding me.

Mike turned to me again, an apologetic expression on his face. He didn’t want to leave. If the alternative was that I had to sit next to Edward then I didn’t want him to leave either.

“Stop by sometime,” Mike said, smiling. I wouldn’t get his hopes up on that.

Mike stood up and sulked over to his table a few rows behind mine. The moment he was gone I turned to face the front of the classroom, hiding my face from Edward as he set his bag on the table and took his seat.

My face flushed as Edward scooted his chair in and glanced over at me. I made a point of not looking at him. I didn’t want to look over and see the same hatred fill his perfect face. I bet he wished he could sit anywhere else more than I did.

Stop it! He has no reason not to like you. You’re letting your mind get carried away. That’s it.

“Did I miss anything yesterday?” he asked, his voice tense and cold, but beautiful nonetheless.

My head automatically whipped over in his direction. He looked just as stiff as he sounded. His chair was scooted as far away from mine as was possible, and it looked like he was trying hard not to look at me, either. Once again his hands were gripping the table. I immediately remembered the way he’d snapped off a piece of his cafeteria table the day before as easily as I could snap a twig. I wondered if that would happen again.

“Not really,” I answered, my voice soft.

There was something very strange about the way he was sitting. It took me a moment figure out what it was, but then the answer was so obvious. He wasn’t moving. At all. He looked like a statue.

My face reddened again and I turned to face the front of the room. The two of us sat there, unmoving, until class began. Edward was much better at not moving than I was, though. Maybe it was just because I fidget a lot when I’m nervous.

Once the bell signaling the end of the class rang I turned to the side to reach my backpack and slid the zipper open. By the time I had turned back to the front of the room to grab my biology textbook, Edward was no longer sitting next to me. The door to the room was swinging shut. Everyone else in the room was gathering their stuff together.

How did he do that?

There wasn’t much that happened the rest of my first week of classes. Every day, I got to school and met up with Angela. The two of us would go to English together. Next was Trig with Jessica, who I usually didn’t talk to all that much, and then Spanish.

Come lunch I sat with the same group of people, and I always, without exception, caught myself glancing over to the Cullens’ table. I was always a little afraid Edward would be glaring at me, but he never was. His blonde sister, on the other hand—I think her name was Rosalie—had taken to looking over my way a few times, disapproval always evident on her angelic face.

Before biology, Mike and I would talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. I never tried to steer the conversation. Edward would arrive a few minutes into the conversation, signaling for Mike to go to his real table. That marked the start of the tense silence between Edward and me. One of those days, I found myself shaking a little. I’d had problems with social anxiety for years, but never had I been so sure of someone’s disapproval of me. It was one of my biggest fears, and thanks to Edward it was fulfilled.

The weekend had been much better than the school week. Angela had called me to say that a bunch of people from our school were going to get together to watch a movie that night.

“It will be fun,” she assured me. “We’ll probably pop some popcorn… maybe tell ghost stories or something.”

“I don’t know…” I answered uncertainly. I was actually a bit intimidated by the idea of it. “I’m not sure if I can make it.”

“Oh.” Angela sounded disappointed. I had a feeling that she knew I had no good excuse not to go. I really felt bad about that because I would have liked to hang out with her, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready yet to hang out with so many people that I’d only known for, what, six days? That was a lot to take.

“Maybe we can do something before you head over there, though?” I suggested. I might not have wanted to be surrounded by people, but I didn’t want to be a hermit, either.

“Yeah, sure,” Angela said, sounding a little more energized. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. What is there to do around here?”

“Not much,” Angela laughed. “If you want to do something good you usually have to go to Port Angeles. Unless you like hiking through the woods there isn’t a lot to do here.”

“Then how about you come over here?” I suggested.

“Yeah. When do you want me over?”

“Whenever. You can come now if you want. I’ve got nothing going on here.”

I heard Charlie come down the stairs at this point, whistling some upbeat tune. When he saw I was on the phone he stopped and headed over to the fridge.

“I might be half an hour,” she said. “I’ve got to finish my English essay now if I’m going to be gone all day.”

“That’s fine. Do you know where I live?” I knew it was a small town and that there were no secrets, but I wasn’t sure if where I lived was considered common knowledge or not.

“Yeah, I think so. I know essentially where you live and I know what your house looks like. I’ll manage.”

“Alright, then. I’ll see you soon.”

When I hung up the phone, Charlie was standing by the microwave, heating up a frozen dinner. “So you’ve got someone coming over?” he asked me, leaning against the counter. He seemed cheered by the idea.

“Yup. Angela’s coming over in a bit.”

“Weber?” he questioned me.

“Yeah. I’ve got a few classes with her,” I explained.

“A nice girl,” he commented softly and then paused for a moment. “So if I head out today, then, you’ll be fine?” he asked uncertainly.

“Mmhmm. Where are you going?”

“I fish with Billy a lot on the weekends. It’s not a huge deal. I can stay home if you ever need me to.”

“Well you don’t need to today,” I insisted. “Really.” Even once Angela left, if Charlie wasn’t back by then it would be nice to have the house to myself for a little while.

“Okay, Bells. I’m just grabbing a quick bite and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

I went back up to my room until Angela arrived so I could work on my English essay. I knew I wasn’t going to finish it right then, but that was part of the beauty of not joining her to watch movies. I’d be able to finish it and the rest of my homework once she left and then have the rest of the weekend to relax.

True to her word, Angela knocked on my door nearly exactly 30 minutes after I had hung up with her. I gave her a brief tour of my house and then we went up in my room for a while. I put some music in my CD player and the two of us lounged around on my bed and talked about some of the most random things. It was just so easy to be friends with her.

At one point, Angela admitted to having a crush on this one guy who, honestly, I couldn’t remember. His name was Ben.

“Honestly, you probably won’t have much trouble finding him. He’s kind of short. I’m actually taller than him,” she told me, her lips pulling into a bashful smile. Ah, the drawbacks of being tall. I most likely would never have that problem.

“Well maybe you’ll have to point him out to me, then,” I suggested.

“Yeah. You’ll probably see him on Monday,” she thought out loud. “Has anyone caught your attention?”

The truth was that someone had, but not really in the way she meant. I thought about Edward Cullen a lot, just not romantically. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I’m not really looking for anyone, though.” Honestly, as much as I dreamed about finding a guy I knew that I probably wouldn’t be able to handle it too well.

Angela’s expression turned understanding. Sometimes I wondered whether she could pick up more than I was saying out loud, but then again my mom had always told me that I was an open book.

“Though I do have a question about someone at school.”

“Alright.”

“Is Edward always so—cold? I get the feeling that he hates me.”

Angela’s eyebrows knit together. “Really? That’s weird.”

“So he’s nice to you, then?” I asked, discouraged. Clearly his scowl was saved for me.

“Well, not exactly. He’s really,” Angela paused to think of the right word, “cordial. He’s gentlemanly or something, I don’t know, but he doesn’t go past that. He doesn’t really talk to anyone outside of his family.”

“Does he try to keep away from you?”

“Edward does that?” Angela asked, surprised. I nodded. “No. I’ve never seen him do a single rude thing ever. He just makes polite small talk.”

“Maybe I’m just misinterpreting something,” I suggested. I didn’t really believe it though.

“Yeah, maybe.” Angela seemed more likely to believe this.

One thing was certain. Whatever it was that made Edward so angry and tense was entirely exclusive to me.

I sat staring at my crossword puzzle. I’d never been particularly great at them, but I had this one about halfway done. It was what I had to do before biology. I’d gone to class prepared, because there was no way I was going to sit through that intense silence and just stare blankly in front of me.

‘Forty-one across: Crocheted coverlets.’ I paused for a moment, tapped my eraser on the newspaper a couple times, and filled in ‘AFGHANS.’ I wasn’t positive it was right, but it would work for now.

‘Thirty-four down: Well-known tower.’ It was three letters long, the second letter being the second ‘A’ in ‘afghan.’ Well, that couldn’t be right. Maybe ‘afghan’ was wrong. I tried to list all the towers I knew to myself, any of them that had short names: Sears Tower, Eifel Tower… but those had five letters. Something, ‘A,’ something. Nothing fit.

My pencil hovered over the clue. I was missing something. Surely I was. If it was well-known, how come I couldn’t think of the answer?

“Triple A.”

My head snapped to the side when I heard the velvety voice next to me. His eyes, which had been lingering on the crossword, jumped up to meet mine. Did he just speak to me?

“Sorry?” I asked, feeling oddly at a loss for words. It was like my brain had stopped working properly.

“The clue said ‘Well-known tower.’ The answer’s ‘Triple A.’ Tower isn’t a building, it’s a towing company.”

I looked back down at the clue. It fit. “Oh… that’s tricky,” I commented, penciling ‘AAA’ in the blanks.

“Yes, they try to trick you when they can.” His lips stretched into a crooked smile. Why was he talking to me? I thought he hated me. It was hard to believe that now, though, when his expression was so warm. He looked different. His face looked softer, I knew, but I wasn’t convinced that that was only because he was smiling.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever properly introduced myself,” he continued when I had said nothing in response. “I’m Edward.”

I was still completely baffled by this extreme change in his behavior, and considering that and my sudden deer-in-headlights syndrome it took me a moment before I managed to answer, “I’m Bella.”

“You’re surprised I’m talking to you,” he said, not as a question but as an observation. I guess it probably was easy to tell with me staring like an idiot.

“Well, yeah, you’ve made a point of saying as little to me as possible all last week.”

“If I remember correctly I spoke more than you did.”

He had a point there. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to point out that the only reason I hadn’t spoken much was because he’d glared at me as though I was the devil incarnate. Did I really want to remind him that he had had such an intense reason to dislike me?

“Well why the sudden change?”

Edward’s eye contact with me strengthened. I got the feeling that he was looking for something in my eyes. He was trying to decide how to respond. “I decided I’d been rude before.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I hadn’t wanted to say that. I didn’t want to make him think it was fine to stare at me through murderous eyes, but my weakness was that I was always searching for acceptance. If there was something I could do that would make someone think better of me, I often did it. At least I could take comfort in that I didn’t do that as much as I used to.

“So you like doing crossword puzzles?”

“Only on days when I think the people I sit next to are going to be rude.” I said. It was his word, not mine. He chuckled.

“I guess I had that coming,” he allowed. The intensity of his eyes made me want to hide, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to turn away. Impossibly, I did. I blinked and looked down at the desk in front of me. It felt so much safer.

EPOV

One of the most surprising things about Bella Swan was that where most girls wouldn’t be so quick to let go what had happened her first week here she had. She had dropped the subject. I had wanted to kill her. I had wanted to leap across the cafeteria the first day I’d met her and rip through the skin on her neck. I’d wanted to drink her dry. While I doubted this girl knew I had wanted—and still wanted this very second—to kill her, there was no way she could have been oblivious to the way I had acted. She should think I was crazy. She should think I was the most unkind person she had ever met.

It worried her, it must have. Otherwise why would she have confided in Angela about me? I’d heard her thoughts of some conversation the two girls had had. Bella had wanted to know why I seemed to hate her. She showed no sign of resentment. Perhaps she did resent me, but there was no way for me to even know that for sure, because this insignificant girl had some way to block my thoughts.

That was what really drove me crazy.

Never in nearly a hundred years had I had to try to figure out what was going on in someone’s head. I always knew automatically. I didn’t search their thoughts out, their thoughts found me. I was so used to knowing their thoughts that I depended so very much on it. I needed to know what people were thinking.

When Bella looked at me, I had some vague idea of what she was thinking. I could see the faintest shadows of her thoughts in her expressions, but she had to intensify my frustration by refusing me even that. She was looking at the black lab table in front of her. She was giving me nothing to go by. How difficult she was!

Most girls gave in entirely to me under my gaze. They’d stare in awe, their defenses down. They were meant to—it was how vampires attracted their prey. This girl didn’t. She fought it. Why? It didn’t make sense. Why was she so different?

I was going to figure her out, though. I was determined to. Whether I was going to find a way to hear what she was thinking or else know her enough that I could figure out her thoughts, I would crack this.

Mr. Banner stood up from his desk at the front of the class and pushed a small paper tray to the edge. Class didn’t start for a few more minutes but he didn’t want fieldtrip business to cut into his class time. “I hope you all still have your permission slips for our trip to Olympic National Park on Friday,” he said, resting his hand on the desk by the paper tray. “They’re due Wednesday in class, but if you’ve got them now, you can set them right in here.” I bet I’m going to have to get more slips. They always lose them over the weekend….

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the slip we’d been handed on Friday. It was laughable that I should need to fill one of these out when I was older than the teacher--when nothing, not the animals nor the landscape, could possibly bring any harm to me.

I heard Bella sigh softly next to me as she pulled her permission slip out of her backpack.

“Are you not looking forward to the trip?” I questioned her. It wouldn’t surprise me. Word was that she’d grown up in Phoenix. She probably hadn’t ever really hiked before.

“How did you know that?” she asked me, her eyes snapping up to mine again, only for a second.

My eyes widened ever so slightly. Crap. I’d been trying so hard to use any clue I could to figure her out that I had forgotten that it was unnatural for people to hear as much as I could. Her sigh had probably not been anything more than a soundless exhale to her. “Your body language gives away more than you think,” I lied smoothly. I watched the skin crinkle between her eyebrows as she frowned slightly.

“I don’t really like hiking,” she answered, her eyes holding mine for just a second longer and then flickered away again.

If only I could get her to look at me! The normal ‘laws’ didn’t apply to her. “Why is that?” I spoke to myself. Did she look away because she was strong enough to resist? Because she could feel that I was dangerous? Because she wasn’t as forgiving as I had thought?

“Because no one should ever have to see me hiking.” She had assumed my question referred to her dislike for hiking.

I smirked. “I’m sure you’re not that bad at hiking. So many people say they are bad at something and they are no worse than everyone else.”

“No, trust me. I can find something to trip on when I’m walking on a flat surface.”

I still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t exaggerating, but I let that pass. “So then why go on the trip?” I asked. Most high schoolers have no problem playing hooky.

“Aren’t I supposed to go?” she asked, suddenly confused.

“That wouldn’t stop a lot of people.”

“Well, I figure in a town this size I can’t just say Charlie refused to sign my slip. I’m sure word would get around somehow, and I’d rather not pretend to be sick in bed all day.”

That still wouldn’t stop a lot of people, but I said nothing.

A particularly strong gust of air swept through the room as five more students came into the room. I had been breathing as little as I could as a precaution, but a moment’s weakness was all it took. I was caught unprepared as Bella Swan’s concentrated scent slapped me right in the face. I was overcome once more by a deep-seeded desire to rip the girl next to me to shreds. It would be so easy. All I would have to do was decide to do it and it would be done. My mouth filled with venom.

No! I would not let myself do it! If I acted, I would mess everything up, not just for me, but my whole family. We would have to move again, and I knew my brothers and sisters wouldn’t like the idea of having to start over again as sophomores in high school so soon.

If I killed her, I would never forgive myself. I was done with killing people. I had promised myself I would never do it again.

But she smelled so good….

I held my breath and pushed my chair away from Bella a sixteenth of a second after I smelled her scent. I had hunted every day last weekend to prepare myself for this. It wasn’t going to be enough. I could still remember the way she smelled. I could imagine the way her blood would feel going down my throat.

Bella turned to look at me again, no doubt recognizing that I was doing what I had done last week. I had been so sure, having heard Angela’s thoughts and having filled myself past what I thought possible with blood already that I would be able to handle a conversation with her.

“You’re eyes are different,” she commented. She was entranced by my eyes again.

“What?” I asked. She had caught me off-guard. I couldn’t think right when every ounce of my will was focused on not killing the girl next to me.

“They’re golden.”

Yeah, my eyes were different from most people’s. It came with the territory. My lifestyle, hunting animals, gave me golden butterscotch eyes. My usual explanation was an automatic one. “Some people have golden eyes. It’s a genetic mutation.” That last part was a lie, but most people were willing to accept the possibility. At least, they were more willing to accept that then the idea that I could be some supernatural creature.

“No, I mean they’re different than before. They were black before.”

I tried to play indifferent. I forced myself to laugh. “Believe it or not you aren’t the first to tell me that. It must be a trick of the light.” What was I doing wrong today? How was this girl figuring out more about me than I was about her? I was going to have to convince her that she didn’t know as much as she did.

I was going to even the score.

“You sure you want to turn that in?” I asked her, motioning to her permission slip. I was desperate for a reason to get away from her for a moment. She couldn’t follow me up to the front of the room. I was out of air. I wouldn’t be able to figure out more about her if I couldn’t speak.

“Yeah. Might as well,” she answered, and before she got the chance to pick it up herself I snatched the slip of paper. I was very careful only to move as fast as I had to in order to get it before she did. I wordlessly got up and set our two pieces of paper in the tray on Mr. Banner’s desk and took in a deliciously clean breath of air. I could do this. I could make it through class.

Returning to my seat next to Bella, I returned my chair to its previous position a little closer to Bella. Now was not the time to call attention to the fact that there was something different about me.

“Guess you’ve got no choice now but to go,” I stated, pointing out the obvious.

Bella groaned. “Just don’t laugh too hard when I fall… but yeah, I guess I’m going.”

The surprised I’d felt so far in biology that day was nothing to surprise of realizing that I was glad she would be going on the field trip, too.

At the end of biology, Edward again managed to disappear out the door before I’d even managed to put my book back in my backpack. I guess at the end of the day, the conversation we’d just had hadn’t mattered.

I don’t know why I let myself believe that the fact that he had wanted to talk to me would make us even the least bit friends. I must have done something wrong. Maybe I’d said something I shouldn’t have. Maybe… I felt my cheeks flush. How lost had I gotten in his eyes? Had he noticed? Correction: how could he not have when I started talking about them? That just might have been the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. It had just…come out. He probably thought I was falling in love with him or something. No doubt he thought that I had some serious attachment issues. Okay, so maybe I did have attachment issues… but instead of becoming attached to people really easily, the exact opposite was true for me.

I had tried to keep from losing myself in his eyes, but clearly I hadn’t done a good job of it. I’d creeped him out. Way to go, Bella.

Normally I would try to point out to myself why this wasn’t necessarily true, but in this case it didn’t seem like there was another explanation. I’d never, ever, stared at a guy like that before.

I must be losing my mind.

My day didn’t get better after biology. Gym that day involved rope climbing. I had an impossibly difficult time even getting on the thing, and when I’d finally managed to get three feet off the ground my feet lost their purchase on the rope. I fell backwards onto the blue mat below. Thank god that mat was squashy. I’d saved my tailbone from abuse, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to develop a nasty purple bruise within the next 24 hours.

I had no idea how Charlie had managed to live alone for so long. How could someone live entirely off of cereal, frozen dinners, and take-out? I had only put up for it for one week and already I was getting sick of it. School cafeteria food was starting to look appealing, so clearly something wasn’t right.

On my way home from school, I stopped by the grocery store. I had never done much cooking, but I knew it couldn’t be too hard. Many recipes were really simple, and besides, some things came semi-premade. I picked out some chicken, bread crumbs, cheese, fruit, and pasta among other things. I knew that it would be money out of my wallet for now, but I didn’t expect Charlie would make me pay for food when he’s always paid for it before… especially not if I would be saving him money in the end.

I kept the first meal simple. I took some packaged ravioli and stirred it in boiling water. When that was nearly cooked through, I took out some meaty spaghetti sauce and heated that up in a bowl.

By the time Charlie got home from work, the kitchen smelled like cheesy Italian cuisine.

Charlie came in through the door, a worn expression on his face. A couple steps into the living room, however, he straightened up, sniffing the air. “Bells? You cooking?” he asked me. He seemed to be trying to decide whether or not this was a good thing. He had no way to know if I could cook.

“Kind of,” I answered from the kitchen, pouring the ravioli out of the pot and into the strainer. “I hope you like ravioli.”

“Wow,” my dad answered, speechless. “You didn’t have to cook, honey.” I half wanted to answer ‘yes I did,’ but I figured that might be rude.

“I wanted to cook,” I said. I had always wanted to learn how to do it right, so this wasn’t a lie. “I’ll be done in just a minute.”

Charlie went upstairs to put some of his things away from work, and by the time he came back down I was sprinkling shredded cheese on top of the ravioli and tomato sauce. He fetched us something to drink and we sat down for our first ‘homemade’ meal.

We ate in relative silence. We still weren’t too good with talking to each other yet, but we managed to get by on discussing our days. I conveniently left out anything and everything that had to do with Edward Cullen.

The phone rang just as we were sitting around the table, asking what our plans were for the night. Dad got up to get the phone and I grabbed my plate and his to take to the sink.

“Hello?... Just a second.”

I looked over at Charlie at this. “For me?” I asked him curiously.

“Yeah, it’s Angela. Go ahead and take this, I’ll do the dishes.”

I had to admit that I was glad I had someone who would call me so soon after moving to town. I took the phone and pressed it to my ear. “Angela? Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey, Bella. I’m not interrupting anything am I?” she asked me.

“No, not really. We just finished dinner.”

“Okay good. I’m calling for two reasons. One, because I’m really wanting to wait a little longer before I start my homework, and two, because I figured you’d want to know that Mike is crushing hard on you.”

I looked over to my dad who was rinsing the tomato sauce off of our plates. I really hope he wasn’t close enough to have heard that.

“Really? How do you know?” I asked as I walked into the living room as far as the cord would allow and let myself fall onto the couch.

“Well first of all, you can kind of tell by watching him.”

“Seriously?” This was not good. What was I supposed to do about Mike?

“Yeah,” Angela affirmed. “But today… I don’t know what happened in your biology class today, but suddenly Mike hates Edward.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little defensive on Edward’s behalf. “What did Edward do that was so wrong?” I asked.

“By the sound of things, he talked to you.”

“And that’s the whole reason Mike hates Edward?” This was wrong. This was so wrong. I talked to Edward once and suddenly one of my friends was going crazy. Well, I didn’t know how good of friends Mike and I were, but I was not prepared for something like this.

“Yeah. That and the fact that he’s convinced you were ogling him.”

“I was not ogling Edward!” I argued, now defensive for myself. I couldn’t let anyone think that. It was too embarrassing.

“I didn’t say you were,” Angela maintained. She sounded sincere. “I’m sorry. I swear I’m not trying to make things all dramatic. I just thought… you’d want to be warned.”

“Warned?”

“Yeah… in case Mike starts acting funny.”

I sighed into the phone. “Well, thanks.”

“Your welcome.”

I pulled my legs up onto the couch with me and wrapped my free arm around my knees. “Do you think I should distance myself from him a little or something?”

“If you don’t like Mike like that…”

“I don’t,” I immediately answered.

“Well, then, you should know that Mike is a pretty persistent guy.”

Of course he would be. It was just my luck that a persistent guy would like me when I wasn’t even capable of keeping myself together around guys long enough to have any sort of relationship. “What do you think I should do, then?”

“I don’t know. We should just see how Mike is, first.”

“Okay.” I paused again. “Thanks Angela,” I said again.

I didn’t stay on the phone much longer with Angela. We both had work we had to get done. Within ten more minutes, I walked back into the kitchen and hung up the telephone. Dad was helping himself to some of the store-bought brownies I’d brought home earlier.

“So you’re friends with Mike and Edward?” Charlie asked me, trying in vain to sound casual.

I groaned a little. I had not been thinking about what parts of my conversation with Angela Charlie would be hearing. I had gotten distracted when I was worrying about what to do with Mike. “It’s nothing.”

“You sure? Nothing you want to talk about?”

“Nothing,” I agreed. “Honestly, the whole thing is kind of stupid.”

Charlie looked a little relieved. I wasn’t sure if he could handle having a talk about boys with me just yet. Not when he was barely used to having a daughter around.

“Okay, then. Glad everything’s alright.”

I wasn’t sure I’d go that far, but I smiled anyway and excused myself to go do homework.

I didn’t sleep too well that night.

In the morning, I met up with Angela in the parking lot, as usual. I was a little later than usual, so she joined me at my truck as I got my backpack together and made sure I had what I would need for the day.

As I shouldered my bag, I saw Mike making his way across the parking lot over to where Angela and I stood. He had a tense smile plastered on his face. Angela and I made eye contact for a brief moment. She had been right. I don’t know why I was surprised; I knew she was a pretty perceptive person. Judging by the way she was looking at me, I could tell she knew I was not looking forward to this. There was a trace of a sympathetic smile on her face.

“Hey, Mike,” she called out to him once he was just a few feet away. “How are you?”

“Hey, I’m good. Thought I’d join this party over here today.” He looked very pleased with himself.

“Oh, well it’s not too much of a party,” I muttered, looking over at Angela more than I was Mike. “We were just headed to class.”

“Well that’s great, because my first class is in the building right by you guys.’”

“Yeah, come on,” Angela invited. She shot an apologetic look over in my direction. She wasn’t one to flat out deny anyone. I would have probably done the same thing.

Angela maneuvered herself in between me and Mike. The three of us barely said anything on the way to the buildings, most likely because Mike wanted to talk to me and Angela and I couldn’t really talk about what we would have normally. It put an uneasy silence between all of us, but on the positive side it would set the stage for me showing Mike that I didn’t like him as more than a friend.

I was going to have to thank Angela later on for this.

Mike parted ways with Angela and me twenty feet from our English class. “I’ll see you guys at lunch,” he had said, taking a few steps backwards so he could face us as he started to walk away. “Bye, Bella.” Again, that smile of his peeked through and he tried to make eye contact with me. I didn’t make it easy for him

“See you,” I said, smiling only as much as I had to so I wouldn’t seem callous. I felt horrible. I didn’t want to do this to Mike. I didn’t want to flat-out tell him ‘no’ because I didn’t want to lose him as a friend… but he was too nice to deserve this. It wasn’t his fault that I was terrified of relationships.

No, that wasn’t necessarily true. I longed to have a relationship. It was more the intimacy that scared the crap out of me. It wasn’t just the physical intimacy that I was trying to avoid, although that was a huge factor for me. Even the emotional intimacy… I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to tell someone exactly what went on in my mind. I just couldn’t bear to let someone in and know the real me. What if they didn’t like what they saw?

Angela pushed her way through the door to our English classroom first. I was glad she did, because it gave me a moment to shut my eyes and breathe out. It gave me a split second to let my protective wall down and let what was going on in my head run rampant. It felt so good not to guard myself.

I recomposed myself and adjusted my backpack on my shoulders. If I let myself take longer than a second, Angela might turn back to see if I was coming in after her.

As I reached for the doorknob my eye caught on a figure standing at the door a building down. At first I thought it must be Mike, but when I turned my head to look properly I realized it was Edward. He was watching me intently, a mildly thoughtful expression clear on his face. I would have guessed he’d been listening in on us if it weren’t for the fact that he was standing too far away to hear anything… not to mention the fact that barely anything had been said at all. My eyes widened just slightly, and he fought back what would have undoubtedly been a laugh. That was my cue to step through the door.

It was harder to avoid Mike during lunch. We had a full thirty minutes together, and I couldn’t use class as an excuse not to talk to him. I tried a little harder than usual to talk to other people when I could, particularly Angela. She was my confederate in this whole thing. Each time I avoided him, I felt the same stab of guilt crush my chest. Maybe this wasn’t worth it. Maybe it would be easier than I thought to just tell him to back off.

By the time lunch was over, my resolve to simply avoid Mike was failing. The point of my plan had been to subtly get the idea across to him, but if I kept this up any longer I would just be jerking him around.

When we walked to biology together, him talking animatedly as usual, he walked closer to me than normal. His arm brushed against mine the whole way there. At one point the back of his hand ‘accidentally’ grazed the back of mine. It was like he was trying to get the courage to grab my hand. I had to stop him before he could make a real move, because this wasn’t working. If I let him make a move just so I could turn him down, wouldn’t that make me some sort of monster?

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk when there were fewer people around. Mike naturally stopped with me. “Did you forget something?” he asked me, glancing back in the direction of the cafeteria.

“No. Mike, you can’t do this, okay?” I said, hoping I could get the message across without being too straightforward.

“What, walk you to class?” he asked me. His eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what I’d meant.

“No. I mean any of this.” Mike’s face softened as he started to comprehend what I was saying. “I can’t do this,” I corrected, trying to be fair, “so please, don’t try.” I fully met his eyes here, trying to convince him that he shouldn’t keep trying.

“Oh… that’s cool.” His eyes flickered away. Rejection sucks.

We walked the rest of the way to biology in silence. This time, Mike didn’t follow me to my lab table to chat. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was nursing his ego or if he was mad at me. What if he was mad at me? Had I handled this wrong? Should I have confronted him sooner? I definitely should have.

I knew the day wasn’t going to get too much better. Any second now, Edward would walk through those doors. I was going to have to make a point of not looking at him and prove that I wasn’t some hormone-riddled girl with a silly crush. I would have to undo the damage I had done yesterday. I just could not let him think that I liked him. No one was allowed to see that part of me.

I’d done this sort of thing before. It was no big deal. I had done nearly the same thing with Mike, only this time, rather than convince someone else not to pursue me, I had to prove that I wasn’t doing any pursuing.

And yet I couldn’t deny that part of me wanted so badly to see those golden eyes again.

EPOV

I considered my first real conversation with Bella a success overall. I might not have learned a whole lot about her, but she was talking to me, now. It was somewhere to start from, and considering how rude I’d been the first week of classes, that was a pretty big achievement. As far as I was concerned, I was well on my way to figuring her out.

The way she was acting today, however, made me uncertain. I had seen her as she and Angela had parted from Mike for their first classes. Mike had practically been singing in his head after that, but I could tell from Bella’s face and Angela’s thoughts that Mike had not been welcome. Bella, in particular, clearly wasn’t excited. Before she followed Angela into her English class, she had completely lost her composure. For one second, she looked exhausted and frustrated, maybe even a little glum. I couldn’t figure out why, though.

To be fair, maybe I shouldn’t have been listening in, but when Bella noticed me watching, her reaction made my day. I saw in her eyes the same response she had probably seen in mine when she had made the comment about my eyes. This time, she had shown me something she hadn’t intended to show. Hadn’t I said I would even the score?

I used lunch period to figure out more about what had happened that morning. Alice was trying to get Jasper to eat a potato wedge, and Rosalie and Emmett were simply gazing into each other’s eyes. The couples were being couply, which left me free to search through Angela’s and Mike’s mind a little more.

I wonder if she would pull her hand away if I tried to hold it. I frowned. That was definitely Mike’s thought. For a few minutes, no one thought anything that particularly interested me, but then Angela’s thoughts finally gave me something else I could use.

She won’t be able to avoid him on the way to biology.

Oh really, now? Bella was avoiding Mike… because she didn’t like him, back? Why would Bella do that? Most girls, Jessica, in particular, were crazy about Mike. Was it because she thought he wasn’t good enough for her? I wasn’t sure that was it, because I doubted that Angela would lend a hand to help with something like that. It could be that Bella was resistant to make any strong connections in Forks. Most people would have trouble accepting a life in a town like Forks after living in a city like Phoenix, after all.

What was with this girl? I had earned degrees in Sociology, Psychology, Biology, and most other subjects that dealt with people and I could read minds… and yet this girl was still a mystery to me.

I allowed myself a glance at Bella. What was it about her? She was rather pretty. Maybe she really did think that Mike wasn’t good enough for her. Maybe that was why she didn’t seem to have many friends. It was possible that she just had a big ego. I couldn’t imagine why a girl like her wouldn’t have a lot of friends in a town like this unless it was because she didn’t like them. She must choose to be alone. Still, that didn’t match with the fact that Angela seemed to like being with her. Angela wouldn’t be friends with someone like that.

God, he’s looking at her again. He’d better stop. Mike was complaining in his head. I couldn’t keep myself from laughing a little. It made me oddly pleased that Mike saw me as a threat.

My laugh attracted Jasper’s attention. I pretended I didn’t notice he was looking at me. What is with him lately?

Suddenly, my elevated mood was gone.

Chill out, man, Jasper thought back at me. What’s with the mood swings today?

I sent him a look that clearly showed my annoyance. Jasper shrugged his shoulders, deciding to stay out of it. Fine.

Just do it. Again Mike’s thoughts echoed in my head. He and Bella were gathering their things and getting ready to head to biology. I had to see this.

Grab her hand. Grab her hand.

“See you at the car,” I muttered to my family, excusing myself from the table so that I could watch this show play out.

Mike was fumbling horribly. I almost felt bad for him each time his hand jerked, trying to make itself act. If he hadn’t done it yet, he wasn’t going to be able to.

Suddenly, Bella stopped. I was not surprised that Mike stopped immediately after.

“Did you forget something?”

“No. Mike, you can’t do this, okay?”

“What, walk you to class?”

“No. I mean any of this. I can’t do this so please, don’t try.”

I was grateful Jasper wasn’t around to feel my reaction to this.

--

When I entered the biology classroom, I was relieved to see that for once I didn’t have to ask Mike to take his own seat. I wasn’t too happy, however, with the fact that Bella had her crossword puzzle out again. That wasn’t a good sign. Hadn’t she said that she had brought it out because she had thought I was going to ignore her again?

I set my books down on the lab table, making just enough noise to show Bella that I was there. She didn’t look up. I frowned a little and took my seat, glancing to the side to look at her. She was further along on this crossword puzzle than she was on yesterday’s.

“I’m not planning on being rude today,” I told her, watching as she wrote a word in on her puzzle.

“I know,” she said simply. She didn’t move her head in the slightest or pause in any way. Her heart was beating rather fast, though.

Bella Swan was avoiding me. There was no other explanation. Why was she doing it? I wasn’t stalking her, I wasn’t trying to grab her hand, and I had only really spoken to her once. True, I had ignored her last week, but it had seemed, yesterday, that she was past that. What could have changed in 24 hours?

Again, I wondered if she just didn’t want to be friends with the sorts of people who lived in Forks. It wasn’t just Mike. It was everyone. Hadn’t she also turned down an invitation to join her classmates watching movies? I was pretty sure I’d heard a few people’s thoughts on that. She could be smug or vain. That still didn’t explain the fact that someone like Angela would want to be her friend. I was thoroughly stumped. That just didn’t happen to me.

“I’m at a loss, here. Are you mad at me?”

Bella’s forehead crinkled and she looked to the side at me. She looked just as confused as I did. “Should I be?”

“I’d prefer you not be.” My eyes locked with hers.

“Well I’m not.”

What was she doing? Why did she have to be so different from every other human? I understood almost every student at Forks better than their parents ever would, and if one of them were the ones whose thoughts I couldn’t hear, I still would be able to figure them out.

I was almost positive Bella wasn’t lying. With her looking at me, I would have been able to sniff out a lie—or at least I’d like to think I could. Bella’s cheeks turned a faint pink under my gaze.

Mike swore loudly inside his head.

“So why the crosswords?”

Bella turned away from me again, looking down at the puzzle. “They’re something to do before class.”

“You know, most people use this time to talk to their classmates.”

“Well then I guess I’m not like most people.”

“No kidding,” I muttered whispered softly to myself. If she heard me, she acted like she didn’t. Bella wrote in another word on her puzzle. She was back to the silence.

I was out of air. I tried to be inconspicuous as I turned away and filled my lungs with as much air as I could. It burned going down, but I could handle it. “How come you’re so quiet?”

“Why do you do that?”

I froze. Was she picking up on me turning away to breathe? That was something I would not be able to explain away as easily… or at least not without offending. I could just play dumb.

“Do what?” I asked, deciding that was the safest way to proceed.

“You’re always asking me questions. I feel like I’m being interrogated.”

“Maybe you are,” I said, relieved that she hadn’t noticed anything else that wasn’t particularly human. I was willing to admit to intentionally asking a lot of questions if it meant that I kept anything about me being a monster a secret. “Does that bother you?”

Bella laughed out in exasperation. “Again! Why are you psychoanalyzing me?”

“Well, you’re pretty atypical.” Bella didn’t seem to know what to make of that. She almost looked embarrassed by my assessment. “I don’t mean to offend. It’s just a statement of fact.”

She still looked puzzled, but before she could ask me more about it, the bell rang and class started.

Once class ended, I made my usual quick escape. It was always so hard to make it through that class on only as much air as I needed to talk… especially when I was half tempted to smell Bella’s mouthwatering scent.

This time, however, Bella was out the door nearly directly after me. Usually, she and Mike would go to their next class together. She had gotten her backpack ready so she would be able to make a quick escape after class. It seemed that Bella was determined not to spend more time with him than necessary.

I turned back to look at her for a moment, curious about this behavior. She saw me looking at her and she immediately turned, taking a different, slightly longer route to the gym, but not before I saw a smile bud on her face. Rather, I saw her try to resist that smile, but I could see it in the tension around her lips.

After school got out, I managed to pick out Mike’s thoughts. Bella hadn’t spoken anything to him aside from a few short, detached responses. It was good to know that he was as frustrated as I was, but at least I got the better end of the bargain.

I couldn’t help it, I was pleased with myself. It was impossible not to notice that she had been trying to avoid both me and Mike that day, but the similarities ended there. I didn’t know what her reason was for avoiding me, but I was confident it was for a different reason, whatever it may be. She had openly confronted him, but not me, and she had not said any more to Mike all day long than she absolutely had to… but she had initiated part of her conversation with me in biology. Best of all, she had smiled when she realized that I was looking at her in the hallway. She might have tried not to, but the automatic response was all that I cared about.

It all added up to one thing: Bella did not have the resolve to keep avoiding me. I couldn’t resist smiling at my realization.

My brother’s and sisters were already piling in our silver Volvo when I reached the parking lot. “He’s in an oddly good mood for a school day,” I heard Jasper comment. I rolled my eyes. He couldn’t have honestly expected I wouldn’t have heard that, even from the other side of the parking lot.

Hey, happy boy, we’re waiting, Alice thought from the passenger’s seat. She wore an accusing, smug expression on her face.

I’m not sure if I’d admit this to anyone, but I was disappointed on Wednesday. It was such a nice day, too—sunny for the first time since I’d moved to Forks. I’d almost forgotten how amazing it felt on my skin, tingly and warm, even in winter, and yet in the end I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have.

Angela and I met up again in the parking lot before school. Mike spotted us when he parked his car, but he didn’t come over. That wasn’t why I was disappointed, but it still didn’t help because it made me feel oddly ashamed.

“I feel so bad,” I complained to Angela.

“Bella, you really don’t need to be. If Mike was making you uncomfortable you can’t help it. You told him the truth and there’s nothing wrong with that.” I wanted so badly to just accept that. I kept reminding myself that I didn’t have to feel guilty, but I did anyway.

“If there’s nothing wrong with it then why is Mike avoiding me?”

“You avoided him,” she pointed out.

She had a point. I had avoided him. That’s exactly why I deserved this.

“He’s probably nursing his ego a little, so give him time for that. He isn’t used to being turned down but he’ll probably bounce back in a few days. He’s persistent, remember?”

Once lunch came around, I was feeling a little better. That might have been because I hadn’t had the chance to see Mike again yet, but the sunny weather got all the credit.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see the sun again,” I said, in awe that I could feel so good on a Wednesday at school.

“I know, it feels nice not to wear rain gear for once, doesn’t it?” Jessica had overheard me on her way to the lunchroom and joined in on our conversation.

“You seriously have no idea. I swear, for a while I thought the weather was mocking me. It’s like it was trying to make my move here even harder.”

“Oh, if you think you had it bad, the Cullens had it worse,” Jessica said, all-knowing when it came to gossip about them.

“What do you mean?”

“They moved here a year ago,” Angela explained as we pushed through the doors to the cafeteria and got in line for food.

“Yeah,” Jessica said, jumping back in. “Everyone says they must have been, like, huge outdoorsy people. They go hiking or camping every chance they get.”

I turned to search the cafeteria tables. Sure enough, the Cullens’ table was empty. I felt something inside me deflate. To think that I had left my crossword puzzle at home that day. I’d been counting on having another strange—but compelling nonetheless—conversation with Edward.

Mike talked to me a little on the way to biology, but it was definitely different. He wasn’t as lively or as chatty as he used to be. He stuck around my lab table before class, but our conversation was punctuated by a few awkward silences. It was pretty embarrassing, to be honest.

I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what he thought about me. I could practically hear what he was thinking myself. She’s such a tease. Maybe even It’s a good thing she turned me down because I don’t want to be with a bitch.

Still, I couldn’t pretend that a fairly large part of me was glad that he was stepping back.

After gym, which thankfully involved watching a movie about the history of basketball, I found Angela throwing her backpack into the back seat of her Camry. “Hey Bella, get in the car for a minute.”

“Okay…” I agreed, not sure what this was about. I opened the passenger door, creaking as it opened, and slid in the seat. I followed Angela’s lead and closed the door. “What’s up?”

“You still want to know who Ben is?” she asked me, a bashful smile growing on her face. Even if I hadn’t been curious about who this boy was, I would have said ‘yes’ just because of the bright gleam in Angela’s eyes.

“Yeah, he’s here?”

“Yup. He wasn’t in school yesterday… but… see that guy in the green and blue T-shirt?”

I spotted him easily. He was cute, I had to admit, but Angela had been right about him being short. It was just so surprising because Angela was pretty tall. Personally, I would have wanted someone taller than me… and then a pair of golden eyes popped up in my mind’s eye.

“Aw, are you guys good friends?” I asked her, shaking the image from my head.

“Kind of… I mean, you know me, I’m kind of quiet.” I shrugged a little. She might be a little quiet, but I still envied that being social wasn’t too hard for her if she wanted to be.

“You should go talk to him,” I suggested. He was alone, so it would be a good opportunity for her.

Angela sighed. “Maybe tomorrow.” I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it either.

The clouds rolled back in the next day, blocking out the sun. At least it wasn’t raining. That was a huge plus, because if there was any sort of precipitation at all it probably would have frozen to the ground instantly. The ground felt frozen solid from the night.

I sat in my truck, bracing myself so I would be ready for the biting cold air. Jessica pulled into the parking spot next to mine and waved at me. She must have been crazy. She wasn’t wearing her coat yet. Just the idea of that made me shiver.

I shoved my gloves on over my hands and wrapped my scarf over the lower half of my face, and then got out of my car, grabbing my backpack. Even as bundled up as I was, the cold air still caught me off-guard.

“See you at lunch,” I said to Jessica as I walked by her car.

“See you.” She shut her car door and jogged over to her trunk, where I sincerely hoped she was keeping her coat. I wouldn’t have been able to go without a coat quite that long, but maybe she was more used to the cold than I was. She hesitated in front of her car trunk, patted her pockets, and then kicked her bumper. “Shit!”

I paused and turned around. “What’s wrong?”

“I locked myself out of my car, that’s what’s wrong! My coat, my backpack… they’re in my trunk!” She paced a few steps, muttering to herself. “Oh crap, oh crap!” Jessica bobbed up and down a few times, as though trying to warm up as she thought.

I looked down at my gloves. I had thick pockets. I could do without them, right? Hoping I wouldn’t be sacrificing my fingers, I slipped my gloves off.

“Here, you can use these today,” I offered, holding them out to her. On a second thought, I unwound my scarf from my neck and held that out, too. At least I had a coat. I could make it one day.

Jessica’s eyes lit up. “Oh my god, thank you!”

I bit my lip. “It’s no problem.” I might not have wanted someone to freeze to death, but that was still a lie.

“I owe you so big!”

I just smiled a little, hoping that she would have done the same for me if I was in the same situation. I wasn’t so sure.

Jessica ran off in the direction of the office, most likely so she could call her parents and tell them she’d locked herself out. I pretty much ran myself, wanting to get inside even more now that breathing in meant that my lungs were practically filling with ice.

Going from class to class without gloves or a scarf wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. True, we had to go outside for every class change, but when my hands were in my pockets they were warm enough. I couldn’t carry anything extra and it was a little less convenient, but I could manage it. The cold air on my face on the other hand, especially if there was a gust of wind, was very nearly brutal.

Somehow, I made it through lunch. On the way to biology, Mike was nearly his normal self again. It felt a little like he was trying to show that he could behave, as though if he didn’t pursue me I might change my mind. His attitude changed when he saw that Edward was already sitting at our lab table.

“See you,” he said shortly, reminding me of a five-year-old.

“Yeah… see you in gym.”

I walked over to my seat and set my backpack down on the floor before sitting down. I heard Edward laugh next to me.

“What?” I asked, not sure if he was laughing at me.

“Your friend isn’t too happy, I don’t think.”

I turned around in my seat to look for Mike. He was making a point of filling out his agenda and not looking up.

“Probably my fault,” I said, guilt flowing through my veins.

“Actually, I don’t think it is.”

I looked over at Edward, not sure what he meant or why he thought he had the authority to make that judgement. He returned my gaze with his slightly-darker butterscotch eyes. A trick of the light? That had been his claim. “Body language,” he reminded me. “People give away more than they think they do.”

I was not comforted by this, because if that were true he would know how nervous I was around him right at that moment… and how when he looked at me my mind went blank. It was like I couldn’t sort through my thoughts so whatever came to mind first, good or bad, was usually the first thing that came out of my mouth.

“I really hope you can’t read me,” I said automatically, telling more of the truth that I would have if I could think through my actions a little better.

“Why?” he asked, his eyes searching me again. I didn’t like feeling so powerless when he did that. I didn’t answer. “Actually, I don’t think I can.”

“Really?” Strange. I would have thought that anyone could read me better than I wanted. I felt like my thoughts were radiating off my skin on display for everyone.

“Well, I can… just not like I can for others. I’ve already told you you’re different.”

Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He had insisted it wasn’t bad the other day, but I wasn’t so sure. A lot of the time, all I wanted was to be more normal. It would mean that I would be capable of a larger group of friends and maybe a boyfriend. If I were normal, class presentations wouldn’t send me down an anxiety spiral.

“I can’t figure out, for example,” Edward continued, “why someone who is adapted to warm weather would give their gloves and scarf to someone they barely know on the coldest day we’ve had so far this season.” I wanted to shrink in my seat. I couldn’t take this scrutiny.

“I thought you were going to stop with the psychoanalysis,” I muttered, looking away.

“I never said I would.” Edward was amused. Well, I was glad he was having fun while I was squirming in my seat! He could have had the decency to cut back a little. “That was just something you hoped for.”

“So why do you keep doing it?”

“That’s a good question,” he said, partially to himself. “I guess I’m curious about you.”

“Lucky me.”

“Is it because you’re trying to rack up karma points?” he asked me, going back to me giving away my scarf and gloves.

“Not really…”

“Then why?”

What I wanted to know was why he felt the need to know… and why I felt compelled to tell him.

“Well, it’s just the right thing to do, right? I at least had a coat and she had nothing. Wouldn’t everyone have done that?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Well that sucks, because I’d like to think that someone would help me out if that’d been me.”

“It just depends on who it is,” Edward assured me, grinning a perfectly crooked smile that showed off his perfectly white teeth.

EPOV

So any theory I’d had about Bella being vain and into herself or not wanting to be friends with people at Forks was out the window. Bella was too altruistic for that—someone who put others before herself couldn’t be a cold person.

I could see in the way her blood pulsed through her hands and face that she had been freezing. Maybe I would have expected someone who was from Washington or Montana to lend a hand if they were adjusted to the cold, but not someone from Phoenix, Arizona. Not someone who was probably suffering some sort of weather shock.

My family was waiting for me again once school got out for the day. This time, however, I didn’t hear a single impatient thought in their minds. Rose, Emmett, and Jasper were concerned. Alice was trying to hide her excitement by counting the dust particles floating around in the air but doing a very poor job of it.

Here goes I heard Emmet think as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

“What’s going on?” I asked

I could hear what none of them wanted to say out loud.

Jasper’s right, he’s been acting different since she moved to Forks.

This is dangerous.

Why is he being so careless

872, 873, 874…

“This is about Bella,” I spoke out. It wasn’t hard to figure out. There were no secrets in the Cullen family.

“Something’s been going on with you. Are you sure you’re under control?” I could tell Jasper wasn’t trying to gang up on me. I could feel genuine concern in his thoughts, but he was also guarded. He was always prepared for the worst.

I didn’t answer right away.

I bet it’s because of her blood. Rosalie didn’t seem likely to believe any explanation except that the pull of Bella’s blood on me was making me crack under the pressure.

“No. It’s not her blood that’s bothering me.” I said, sighing.

“Does it not still have the same effect on you?”

“Of course it does, don’t be stupid.” I told her.

“Yeah, I don’t think that sort of thing changes,” Jasper agreed with me.

“Trust me, it doesn’t,” I responded, grimly. If only that weren’t the case…

“Then why are you so bent up over this girl? She’s just a normal human.”

I couldn’t understand how Rosalie could even ask that. Had she even looked at her? Had she heard a single thing Bella had ever said? “That girl is not normal by any means,” I said, defensive.

Of course Emmett loved that. A knowing smile spread across his face. “I think Edward has a crush,” he declared in a singsong voice.

“I have not!”

“Sure.”

“I don’t! If you weren’t so persistently dense you’d just listen to me.”

“You get touchy when you’re defending someone, don’t you?”

A hiss rose up in my throat.

“I think I hit a nerve,” Emmett commented out loud, thoroughly enjoying himself.

“Oh Emmett, hush!” Alice broke out of her counting trance to smack Emmett’s shoulder. Not that it did much. “Come on Edward. We’re listening,” she encouraged.

“I’ve been trying to listen, too—to her. I can’t hear what she’s thinking.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Really?” Jasper was sitting more alert now.

“Yes. This has never happened before. I wonder if I should tell Carlisle.”

Edward, that’s really dangerous.

“How is it dangerous? She’s a human girl!” Why must Jasper be so ready to jump to that conclusion over a girl? If anything, this was dangerous for her.

“Exactly. She isn’t supposed to know what you are. It hasn’t been a problem before because we’ve stayed away from most people in the past, but you’ve been able to keep tabs on what the ones we are around are thinking so we could know if they are catching on. If you are going to be spending more time with her…”

“I’m not going to spend more time with her!” I interrupted. “I just have one class with her!”

Jasper looked to his side, seeking verification. “Alice?”

A vision of me and Bella sitting around in a bedroom—hers, most likely—came into focus. Sorry. I would have shown you earlier.

She’d told Jasper about it before.

“That’s absurd,” I said, not believing it, though I wanted to.

Alice shook her head. “Edward, it’s true.”

“Not necessarily!”

“But it’s probable.”

“Anyway,” Jasper spoke up again, “if you are going to be spending time with her, she’s more likely to notice something. You won’t be able to tell if she figures out something she shouldn’t.”

“Edward, if we have to move because you’ve finally decided to get a crush—on a human girl of all things—I’m going to be pissed.” Subtlety wasn’t one of Rosalie’s strong points.

“Yeah, man. Not the best idea.” Emmett, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to me, reached his arm over and squeezed my shoulder.

This was just getting ridiculous. “It’s pointless talking to you all,” I said, very close to giving up my argument. “You just don’t listen.”

Rosalie hissed. “Honestly! You’re accusing us of not listening? Hark who’s talking!”

“Plus you can’t forget that there is always the chance of you killing her…. ”

Emmett’s reminder sent a sharp pang to my chest. I couldn’t bear the thought of Bella’s blood on my figurative hands. How could I possibly exist with the guilt of killing someone like her? I knew very well that if I let my feelings go unchecked it was a very possible future.

I knew he liked her.

“Jasper, shut up!”

“You can’t pretend that this isn’t a risky situation.”

“Well if this is such a problem what do you expect me to do?”

Silence again. I heard everyone consider then dismiss the obvious answers in their heads. I couldn’t change classes now that we were in out second week of the semester, and we had no proof that Bella either would figure out what we were or that she would pose a threat to our family. The future was too murky for Alice to figure that out. There was nothing that could be done until something more had happened and we all knew it.

“I might be able to see if we’ll have a problem later on,” Alice suggested, frustrated that she couldn’t give a definite answer. I don’t know her well enough.

I hadn’t expected she would be able to see much about Bella, anyway. “You’re not very attuned to her,” I agreed. It would be a matter of chance if she managed to see something about her.

“That can change.” There was a hopeful edge to her voice. Alice wanted to be friends with Bella.

“You’re joking,” I said, frowning.

“I’m not laughing.”

I breathed out a deep sigh. “There’s no point in arguing this, is there?” I knew all too well that if Alice had her mind set on something, there was little I could do to stop her.

“Nope! None whatsoever!”

Once we reached home, I dropped off Emmett, Jasper, Rosalie, and Alice and then headed out again. I needed some time to myself.

One of the drawbacks of being a Cullen was that it was nearly impossible to be alone. Everyone could hear every sound made in the house and surrounding grounds, and even when the whole family stood perfectly motionless I could still hear way too much. I always had other people’s thoughts running through my head. It made it hard to make room for my own.

It took maybe two minutes to reach my spot in the forest. It was a meadow clearing with tall, swaying grass and a small stream. The meadow looked as quiet as it sounded. In the spring wildflowers would be scattered in nearly every color of the rainbow, but right now there were none and the grass had a muted, grayish color to it because of the temperature. I welcomed the sound of the blades of grass brushing against each other and the water running over smooth stones. It was calmer than my house ever was. I could breathe here.

I stood in the direct center of the clearing and let my thoughts run wild.

First, I pictured the image Alice had shown me in the car, only I added my own details. My creation was much richer in color, and Bella, her expression thoughtful in Alice’s vision, was alight with excitement. She was glad I was in her room. She shouldn’t be, though. If she knew the truth, she should be horrified. She should scream and demand that I leave her house and not speak to her again.

It would be the right way for things to turn out. I knew that very well. She already seemed nervous around me. I wasn’t sure whether or not I needed to tell my family that. Could she have suspicions? Was it because she was starting to realize that there was something odd about me, too? I wouldn’t doubt it. Bella was inconveniently perceptive.

An hour passed as I turned over my thoughts, trying to consider the situation from every angle. At this point, I wasn’t sure I could just leave her alone. Somewhere in the past few days, the line between observation and infatuation had become blurred. I no longer knew where I stood.

I hated myself for wanting to put her in danger, but I couldn’t deny that I wanted to be around her. Was my resolve strong enough to avoid her? I wasn’t so sure. Not now that I knew that she was such a genuinely good person. And smart, judging by the crosswords and how she did in biology… and how much she seemed to figure out about me. Plus, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that she was… well… quite pretty.

My time in the meadow had gotten me no where. I felt no more certain of what to do than I had been before.

When I got back home, I could hear Esme and Carlisle upstairs in his office. This would be a good time to turn to my parents. I needed their guidance.

“Come on in Edward,” Carlisle spoke up when he heard me approach his office. The door was open, so I walked right in. He was in his office chair with Esme sitting across his lap, one arm around his shoulders. “Is everything okay?” he asked, no doubt seeing the carefully blank expression on my face.

“You heard about today?” I asked, walking directly up to his desk.

“Yes, I have.”

“Honey, you stress yourself out too much,” Esme said.

“Do I?” I asked, bitterly. I wasn’t entirely sure I was stressed enough. If only I could get it through to myself how much danger I was on the brink of putting Bella in, I should be able to leave her alone.

“Of course,” Carlisle agreed. “I understand how serious this situation is, but you don’t see how much you’ve changed since you’ve stopped hunting humans again.”

I couldn’t help but be skeptical. Judging by how hard it was not to kill Bella, I wasn’t sure how much I believed that anymore.

“Edward, for almost every single vampire, even us vegetarians, if they had met someone like Bella, they’d already be dead by now.”

“So you’re not going to tell me to stop talking to her?” I had almost counted on him to set down the law. If he told me to leave Bella alone, I would do it, and she would be all the safer because of it.

“Of course not. You’re going to see who you want to see. I know that. I can’t and—for now—won’t stop you… but I do beg that you exercise caution.”

I looked over at Esme, who was, to my surprise, beaming at me. I’m happy for you.

Like that wasn’t jumping the gun. She must have heard all about Alice’s vision.

I couldn’t take all their confident cheerfulness. They expected too much of me. I would disappoint them all. In the end, Bella would either run away screaming from me or be dead.

“Thanks,” I muttered, racing out of the office and back to my room. I shut the door behind me, even though I knew it only created the illusion of privacy.

As if to prove me right, I heard Carlisle speak to me from his office. “Please make sure to hunt tonight.”

“I will,” I promised.

You really should listen to them. It was Alice, and she wasn’t talking about how important it was for me to hunt that night. I didn’t feel like responding. I didn’t need to be cheered up. What I needed was a good reality-check. I needed to fully grasp what this was going to do to Bella.

Before I could get too down on myself, another image interrupted my train of thought. It was another vision I hadn’t gotten the chance to see yet. This one was for the fieldtrip to Olympic National Park tomorrow. I watched the image play like a film in my head and smiled.

When I woke up that morning, I was feeling very on-edge. I couldn’t keep my knees or my hands from quivering. They weren’t shaking badly, but I could feel it and it was making things difficult for me. My stomach was in knots. I really needed to get a grip on myself.

I could tell by the way Charlie was watching me eat my cereal that he knew I was anxious. He tried to look like he wasn’t worrying over me, but I knew he was. He was right to.

“Why are you so jumpy today?” he asked me, finally deciding to speak up.

I shrugged my shoulders a little. “Today’s the field trip.”

Understanding washed over Charlie’s face. “You’re afraid you’re going to fall in front of your classmates?”

“Yeah…” It was the easier thing for me to admit to. I wasn’t sure what my dad would think if he knew what was really making me so nervous.

“Bells, people fall on trails all the time. If you trip they’ll know it could just as easily have been them.”

When I started getting nervous about the hiking itself, that was probably what I would try to remind myself… only it wasn’t ironclad because I knew I would probably trip a lot more than once. People would notice.

“I know. I’ll be fine. I just have to make myself believe it.”

“You will.” For a man who didn’t speak a whole lot, that had been a nice little pep talk. The only problem was that it didn’t have to do with what made me nervous.

“I’ve got to finish getting ready,” I said, rinsing out my cereal bowl and then heading back upstairs.

Before I left for school, I went into the bathroom and set my shaking hands on the sink ledge. The shaking was getting worse and that was making me tense up. I needed to calm myself down.

The truth was that my anxiety had nothing to do with falling and everything to do with Edward Cullen. I knew I was being stupid, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t been worrying about the trip since the moment I had gotten home from school yesterday.

The thing was, I liked to consider myself pretty much cured when it came to speaking up in class, presentations, and talking to people when they were girls. I’d had practice with that. It had been easy to convince myself there wasn’t anything to be afraid of.

Boys, on the other hand, were an entirely different problem. I hadn’t talked to them much. I had little if any experience with them even as friends. In the past, I had completely stayed away from any guy I had liked for fear that if he started thinking that I liked him he would think less of me because he wouldn’t like me in the slightest. Even guys who were simply friends were difficult for me a lot of the time… and Edward… I had no idea what was going on with him.

I had a crush on him. I was fully aware of that now. I didn’t know how strong it was, but my thoughts were undeniably focused around him. I had no reason to like him, though. I hadn’t talked to him all that much, and suddenly I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Where did that come from?

This was the point where I’d normally start pushing him away to keep my crush a secret, but this is where the problem was: I didn’t think he would let me. For some reason—which I realized with chagrin probably had nothing to do with romance—he was interested in me. It seemed strictly a curiosity with him, as though I was some sort of psychology experiment to him. I might as well be.

I knew there was a good chance I would be seeing Edward far more today than I had since I had moved to Forks. I had never had to have a lengthy conversation with him. I didn’t know how to talk to a guy I liked for that long or how to do it without him somehow realizing that… I had a crush.

My quivering hands found my prescribed Paxil. I’d already taken my medication for my social anxiety that day, but my dose wasn’t really high so I figured it’d be safe to take another… just for that day. The medicine itself probably wouldn’t make a difference since it took a few weeks for the body to respond to Paxil, but I would feel better nonetheless with a little extra medicine. I was going for a placebo effect.

When I reached Forks High School, I headed straight to the cafeteria, as instructed, where the rest of the junior class waited. Angela was sitting at our usual lunch table, as were a bunch of my other classmates. Edward and Alice Cullen were keeping to themselves a few tables down. Edward was looking at his sister with a peculiar expression on his face.

“Bella! Over here!” Angela was waving at me, trying to get my attention. She looked between me and the Cullen table, and then she waved me over again.

The bus ride to Olympic National Park felt longer than it should have. The junior year class was just barely large enough that two busses were necessary, which meant that most students, myself and Angela included, got seats to themselves.

The air was bitter cold in the mountains. The weather was supposed to warm up as the sun rose, but for now I was grateful to have my gloves and scarf back. The sun was low enough in the sky that we couldn’t see it past the trees. I wished it would hurry up and climb in the sky so we could thaw out a bit.

In order to keep groups together better and make sure that everyone would get to hear the tour guide, we were split into separate tour groups based on our biology classes. That meant spending the entire day with Mike and Edward… and no Angela. I was right to take extra medicine that day.

Our tour guide was a 30-something year old woman with an overly cheerful demeanor for this hour of the day. She wore her short, blonde hair in low pigtails and a smile so wide that I knew her lips would start quivering soon from the strain.

“You guys ready? Good! Right this way! I hope you’ve got your hiking boots today!”

I groaned to myself, but followed after her. I didn’t want to be that person who held up the whole group of people because she couldn’t suck up her dislike for hiking… or rather tripping. Mike fell into step next to me by the time we had lost sight of the other biology classes.

“You ready for this?” he asked, clearly excited about this hike. I could read it in the crinkles framing his eyes.

“Yeah,” I lied, unable to make myself give a fuller answer to sound convincing. I didn’t want to ruin his fun with my complaining.

“Just wait until we get a little further in. This time of the day should be great for seeing wildlife. If we’re lucky we might see a coyote or something.”

My eyes widened a little. “There are coyotes here?”

“Oh yeah, of course there are. Cougars, too, but they pretty much avoid people.” He said this all very casually.

Cougars. No biggie.

My biology class was pretty quiet for the first forty-five minutes. Everyone was still a little groggy save for the tour guide, Mike, who was just too excited to know how to hold his tongue, and Edward, who was right up front with our guide.

I couldn’t fight back the wish that he weren’t so far up, even though I was terrified of the idea of walking with him and not knowing what to say. I would never be able to catch up there, not with my feet catching on roots and jagged rocks, anyway. I had managed not to fall—an accomplishment in my eyes—but it was slowing me down. Eventually Mike noticed this, and I started lagging behind him.

I couldn’t help but admire the ease with which Edward navigated the trail. It truly was second nature to him, making even Mike and the tour guide look like novices in comparison. Maybe he should be the one leading the way and telling us about the park. At least then I would be paying attention.

After a little while, I was starting to get used to hiking. I wasn’t catching my feet on rough edges anymore and I was no longer lagging behind as much. I relaxed a little.

“You know, this isn’t so bad,” I found myself admitting to Mike as he crossed the stream blocking our path. I wouldn’t have gone so far as to say I was enjoying dodging all the traps nature had set up for me, but I was no longer fretting over embarrassing myself with my clumsiness.

“See, I knew you’d like it,” Mike said.

“Mm-hmm,” I said, again deciding not to admit to such a huge fan of the outdoors that I merely tolerated hiking.

I stepped onto the first stepping stone in the stream. I totally had this.

“If you ever decide you want to try this again we can always get some people together and come back.”

I hesitated, but it probably looked like I was concentrating on getting my footing on the next stone crossing the stream. “Yeah, maybe,” I answered vaguely, not wanting to commit to anything like that. “That depen—”

My foot hit a slick spot on a rock and I fell, splashing into the stream below me. The water wasn’t too deep, but I’d managed to submerge half of my legs and arms and all of my back in the water. The first thing I noticed was that my butt was sore from the fall. The second thing I noticed was how half of my body was instantly numbed--it felt like I was taking a bath in a bucket of ice.

The third thing I noticed was a pair of blazing, golden eyes looking down at me and hands pulling me up out of the water. How Edward had even heard the splash from the front of the group was beyond me. The tour guide was oblivious from what I could tell. And how had he known it wasn’t just someone’s foot slipping in the water? I didn’t wonder about how fast he had gotten here—with that kind of grace in a forest he probably could have gotten here that fast if he had run.

“Bella, are you hurt?” he asked me, setting me on my feet on the other side of the creek. His eyes were searching mine, looking for any sign that might mean I was.

I couldn’t speak with him looking at me like that. My voice was caught in my throat so I shook my head. I could feel intense heat rise in my cheeks. My face must have been scarlet.

His eyes drifted down to my coat, evaluating me. I was suddenly very aware of the fact that I was shivering.

“Bella, here, take this.” I had completely forgotten about Mike. He was unbuttoning his coat, but Edward stopped him, holding up his hand. His eyes were still set on mine.

“No, I’ve got this,” he said. Mike glared at the back of Edward’s head, no doubt resenting how little he was involved. When Edward shrugged off his coat, this time I interrupted, finally finding my voice.

“Edward, no, you’ll freeze!”

“You already are, and not to offend but I’m much better equipped to deal with the cold than you are.” He was holding his coat out to me.

I glanced at the coat and turned, heading to follow after the group that was falling out of sight. I didn’t want to lose them, and I couldn’t take Edward’s coat. I’ve never been able to take other people’s coats before. I couldn’t take that kind of attention from a guy, and it made me uncomfortable that someone would get cold because of me. Edward was not going to get sick over me.

“Bella!” Mike called out, following me, “Your coat is wet, are you crazy?”

“We’re going to lose the group,” I said, ignoring Mike. Ignoring his request.

“No, we’re not,” Edward said, frustration thick in his voice. I kept walking anyway. I just wanted to get out of this situation. I wanted them to leave me alone. I didn’t need or want people worrying over me. I didn’t like that kind of attention. “Mike, would you catch up to the tour guide and slow her down a little?” Edward finally said, sounding impatient. Was he really annoyed with me over something like this?

Mike looked between the two of us and jogged after our class reluctantly.

“Bella, please, just put this on.”

“What about you?” I asked. My teeth rattled as I spoke.

“I’ll be fine, I promise,” he said. By the way he brushed the matter away I almost believed him.

“Edward—”

“Look, you said it yourself,” he said, putting his hand on my back and starting to push me to follow after Mike so we wouldn’t fall further behind. “You wanted to think that people would help you out, too, like you had helped Jessica. Well, I’m helping you out.”

“That was different,” I argued. “That was me giving someone gloves and a scarf, not my entire coat!”

“Why are you being so stubborn?” His impatience was back again.

“I’m not going to take your coat.”

He was silent for a moment. “How about this. I’m not going to wear this coat for the rest of the hike regardless. Someone might as well wear it.”

I turned to look in the opposite direction as Edward.

“Bella, please?”

I sighed and gave in, reaching over to take it from him. When my hand brushed against his I almost dropped the coat. His hand was just as cold as the water had been.

“Your hand is so cold!” I gasped, holding his coat out to him again. I wanted him to take him back. He was lying when he said he’d be fine without it.

“Just my hands,” he said quickly. “They’ve got bad circulation. I’m still not taking the coat back.”

I glanced down at the coat for a moment as we continued down the path and finally gave in. I got out of my wet coat, which Edward immediately took, and put on his dry one. I started feeling warmer almost immediately. The best part, though, was the way his scent completely enveloped me.

“Thanks,” I said, meaning it.

Edward smiled. “I’m just glad you’re listening to sense.”

With Edward’s help, we caught back up to the rest of the group easily. His hand remained steadily on my back to help push me forward and navigate the trail. I’m glad he couldn’t see the wide, stupid grin that spread across my face. Maybe I was letting myself get carried away, but it felt intimate to me. It both thrilled and terrified me. What if he thought it was, too? Was he expecting that we would suddenly have some sort of romantic thing going on? I got a sudden visual of Edward trying to flirt with me while I tried to ignore him. He would hate me. He would react like Mike and stay away, no doubt thinking that I was a mental case. He would be right.

Stop it! Don’t take this for more than face value! He’s just being nice. He’s helping you catch up. He feels bad for you because you fell. That’s it. You don’t need to freak out.

I was freaking out anyway. I was pretty sure I would have been shaking even if my clothes weren’t wet.

Every now and then, I could see Mike turn and look back at me and Edward. He wasn’t at the front of the group anymore, but I could tell he felt a little wounded by not being allowed to help. He was keeping his distance for now.

The tour guide made a few stops so that we could examine the trees around us. She was trying to relate what we saw to what we were learning about photosynthesis, but most of the class wasn’t paying attention. At one point we stopped at a clearing with a few overturned trees that acted as benches. We sat down and were instructed to be silent to see if any of the wildlife would come out. We never saw more than squirrels, birds, and a small lizard.

This whole time, Edward was sticking close to me. He was probably either making sure I didn’t hurt myself or else maybe I had been right about him starting to like me. Maybe both. I couldn’t get myself to say anything to him. I was too positive I would say something stupid and ruin whatever he already thought of me. Half of me hoped that if I was quiet, he would go back up to the front of the group so I would be able to breathe again. I would be much more comfortable, but I would just criticize myself later for pushing him away.

Once we started descending the mountain again, I was afraid my clumsiness would return. It was all mental. I knew that if I fell, now, rather than falling uphill I would fall downhill, which was much much worse. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, because my certainty that I would fall led me to almost lose my footing a couple times.

Eventually, I did fall… kind of. I was walking a few feet in front of Edward as we were descending a set of rocks that looked like stairs formed by nature. I tripped over a root that was wedged between two stones and fell forward. I shut my eyes and braced myself for the crash that I knew was coming, but I never hit the ground. Instead, I felt a pair of arms wrap around me and set me back upright. Was it possible for someone a few feet behind to catch someone who was falling forward? Could that someone even have time to react at all?

Edward’s arms were still wrapped around me, as though I would fall over again if he let go. I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding in.

“You okay?” he asked, slowly dropping his arms, making sure I was steady.

“Yeah.” God, this was embarrassing. How many times was this guy going to see me fall and make a fool of myself? It felt like the hike was going… well… downhill. I was drawing so much attention to my flaws.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone fall half as often as you.”

“I told you so.”

“Clearly I’m going to have to watch out for you more, won’t I?” He looked amused, to my horror.

I blushed and started after the group again, not looking at Edward. Yeah, I was going to be mentally beating myself up about this trip for weeks.

“Don’t make commitments. It’d be a lot picking me up off the ground.”

“Would that be so bad?” My heart jumped. Despite everything he sounded almost… hopeful. Confused, for sure, most likely because I was being so evasive, but definitely with hope.

I couldn’t get myself to answer. For me, it would be. The question felt more significant than just being about having someone around to watch out for me. I could have kicked myself for not answering. I was such a coward. I couldn’t help it, I was in unchartered territory, and that terrified me. The situation scared me. Edward’s persistence scared me. Edward himself… he didn’t scare me. I did want to be with him, but I was starting to feel like that was impossible. I wasn’t recovered enough.

I needed something else to talk about… anything. I couldn’t let Edward think I was pushing him away. Preferably something that took the focus off of me.

“There’s something odd about you,” I said. It was the first thing that came to mind.

“Really?”

“Yeah… I can’t put my finger on it. It’s almost like you’re… not human or something.” I wasn’t serious about the last part, I was just trying to get across the point that he was so much different from anyone I had ever known.

“That’s stupid.” Edward was tense next to me. Had I really offended him that much?

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, trying to backpedal. “I just… You’re so fast. You’re eyes change colors and the only people I’ve seen as pale as you are albino, but that can’t be it because your hair is pigmented.” As I listed this stuff off, I started realizing that maybe there was something unhuman about him. Everything seemed like such a little thing that it might almost be possible, until you strung them together and saw how many there were. “You tore a chunk off the lunch table that first day…” I remembered in awe. I had almost forgotten that part.

“Bella, enough.” The finality in his voice made me sure I’d overstepped some boundary.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered quietly. I should have thought of something else to talk about.

“Why are you apologizing?” He wasn’t mad.

“I thought I upset you…?”

“I’m not upset. Not with you.”

“Oh.” What did that mean? He hadn’t cleared anything up at all.

“Let’s just say that I’m not… like you. It would be in your best interest to stay away from me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m bad for you.” Was it just me or did that imply that one or both of us liked the other? Why else would he be bad for me?

“I’m still not following.”

“Bella,” he said, frustrated. “I’m dangerous. You’d be better off without me around.” I might have thought he was trying to make an excuse to get away from someone as messed up as me, but I believed him. Maybe it was the way his eyes were gleaming. They’d always been mesmerizing before, but now they made him look almost dangerous. He really thought he was bad for me. Maybe he really wasn’t human… but if he wasn’t, what was he?

And yet, he still made my heart race in all the right ways.

Besides, could someone who would warn me about themselves and insist on me wearing his coat so I wouldn’t freeze really be all that bad? If I was afraid, it wasn’t because he thought he was dangerous. That had nothing to do with it.

The sun was reaching higher in the sky. As this happened, the air around us started warming up. I was still shaking, but now it was because I was nervous how attentive Edward had been this whole trip and because I didn’t know how to handle that rather than because of the temperature. My classmates were starting to take their coats off. By this point, I was dry again, and I was getting pretty warm, too, but I was reluctant to take off Edward’s coat. It smelled so nice.

As much as I would have loved to hold onto Edward’s coat longer, I knew I probably should give it back to him. He stopped me, though, the moment I started pulling down the zipper.

“What are you doing?” he asked me, frowning.

“Um, giving you your coat back?”

“No,” he said firmly, his tone disapproving. “You’re still shaking.”

I was shaking. I didn’t know how to act around him and I was terrified I would do something to make him think I was defective or stupid.

“I’m not cold,” I said. It was true.

Edward paused and looked me over. I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks. “No, I guess you’re not,” he said thoughtfully.

I took off his coat, and this time he didn’t try to stop me. “Take it.”

He didn’t even look down at his coat. His eyes wouldn’t leave my face. I felt like he was trying to see inside me.

“Why are you shaking?” he asked me.

My mind went blank under his fixed gaze. I didn’t have the mental capacity to think up an excuse. “Who says people only shake when they’re cold?”

EPOV

Why couldn’t I hear her thoughts? This would have been the perfect time to be able to understand what was going on in her head. There was only one other explanation I could think of.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

Bella looked back at me with wide eyes. She said nothing, but instead looked away and used her hair as a curtain to block me out. It was as good as a ‘yes’ to me.

If I had a working heart, it would have deflated.

This was what I had wanted, wasn’t it? I wanted her to be afraid. If it meant she would stay away from me and stay safe, wasn’t that for the better? Somewhere, I had managed to reveal enough about myself that she, like everyone else in Forks High School, wanted stay away from me. It was probably a mix of me warning her and all those times I had used my vampire strengths that day to keep her from falling or so I could be the one to help her out of the creek.

I should be relieved. I wasn’t.

All those silences on the trail… Come to think of it, it would explain why she had been trying to avoid me that week at school. She had started noticing that there was something unhuman about me even then. She had been trying to follow her survival instincts from the start, but I hadn’t let her. I had held my ground. I really was a monster.

I wouldn’t let myself force her to go against her instincts any longer.

I gave Bella her coat back and she gave me mine. I kept my distance from her for the last half hour of the hike. Mike, at least, was pleased. He spent the rest of the time talking her ear off. I could hear the elation in his thoughts.

When we got back to the buses, Alice was waiting for me expectantly.

How’d it go? She was thinking, brimming with excitement.

My face was set. I didn’t look at her or even acknowledge her. I just climbed back on the bus and took my seat. Alice took the seat right next to me. I really wished she would leave me alone.

“What happened?” she asked me, soft enough that no one else would be able to hear her over the rumbling of the engine.

“Bella is afraid of me,” I answered in the same manner.

“But my vision—”

“Came true,” I said, completing her sentence. She had seen Bella wearing my coat. She had been smiling as I led her with my hand on her back. That had happened. “She was avoiding me practically the whole time aside from that. Now I know why.”
“Did you hear her thoughts?” Alice asked.

“I still can’t. I asked her if she was afraid. She didn’t answer but she might as well have.”

“You wanted her to stay away from you,” she reminded me. It didn’t make the ache in my dead heart go away.

“I know.”

Alice stared at me. “Shouldn’t this make you happy, then?”

“No. I don’t want her to stay away.”

Edward had to be bipolar or something. There was no other explanation.

After the field trip, I had expected he would be around even more. I felt like I had handled the whole hike very poorly, and yet considering how persistent Edward had seemed before and the way he had been looking out for me after I had fallen in the stream I would have thought I’d be seeing more of him

That is, that’s what I had expected until I admitted I was afraid.

I was proud of myself for telling the truth. It was such a big step for me, since I rarely told the truth about that sort of thing. Normally, I would deny any suggestion that I was uncomfortable or afraid; I wouldn’t want to call any more attention to my anxieties than absolutely necessary. It should have been a reason to celebrate.

It wasn’t.

As soon as I had told this to Edward, he had stayed away from me. I wasn’t sure if he was repulsed or weirded out, but it sure felt that way. Maybe I had finally chased him away. It seemed like my fear of him getting too close to me had finally won out. It had made me do what I had not wanted to do. I always did this, and I very badly wanted to kick myself for it.

In the span of a minute, Edward had gone from being my unofficial guard dog to a complete stranger. He missed school on Monday to go hiking again, since the weather was nice, but for the rest of that week, he barely paid attention to me. Occasionally I caught him looking at me, but aside from the a few “Good mornings” and “Goodbyes” he didn’t talk to me. Me, the coward that I was, couldn’t try to start talking to him, myself.

That week felt longer than I thought it could. The heavy silence between Edward and me persisted even past that. On Wednesday, Mr. Banner had lab tables working together to pick out the differences between plant and animal cells. On that day, the list of phrases Edward would actually say to me got a new addition: “May I have a look?”

The tension sitting around the same microscope was unbearable. It smothered me. I was sitting so close to him, and yet he barely seemed to notice me. By the end of the exercise my hands were shaking enough that I was having trouble writing my observations. I tried to pretend that nothing was happening, hiding my hands when I got the chance. Judging by the way Edward’s eyes always seemed to zoom in on my hands when they were out in the open I don’t think I had him fooled.

My days had started to follow a pattern. Every day, I would start my day off with Angela. By the time lunch came and went, Mike took her place. In biology, Edward would very predictably refrain from talking as much as possible. Gym was the only thing that changed in the slightest because I always went in not knowing how my clumsiness would interfere with whatever the instructor had lined up for us that day.

Monday marked the day when fissures started appearing in my newly set schedule.

“Hello, Bella!”

I snapped around at the door of my truck. I had been going through the books I had in my backpack, making sure I had everything I would need that day, when I heard an unfamiliar, musical voice behind me. Alice Cullen, of all people, was leaning against the front of my truck, smiling warmly at me. I was caught off-guard by her sudden appearance.

“Alice—hey.”

“Cold day out, isn’t it?” she asked me as she twisted a short strand of her short black hair between her thumb and forefinger. She said this lightly, like the weather didn’t bother her in the slightest.

“Yeah. It’s pretty cold,” I agreed awkwardly. I was waiting for her to say something. Maybe she had a reason that brought her to me, like a message to deliver or… something. That didn’t seem the case, though. She looked perfectly at ease, as though she always stopped by my truck on the way to her first class.

I couldn’t figure out what she was doing here, but she wasn’t talking. “Um… did you have a good weekend?” What else was there to say?

“Oh yes! I had a lot of fun, my whole family went hiking.”

“Oh, well that does sound fun,” I said politely, even though I didn’t see the appeal.

“Yeah. Too bad it Monday had to come. What about you? How was your weekend?”

“It was alright I guess,” I answered. I hadn’t really done much. Angela and I had gotten together on Saturday and Jessica joined us halfway through, but aside from that I had pretty much done homework and spent time with Charlie. “Nothing exciting, but I got a good bit of my homework done.”

That was lame. She was talking about having a huge family hiking trip and all this fun she had had. I was talking about homework.

“Oh hey, Angela, how are you?” Alice suddenly asked as Angela joined us over by my truck. Angela seemed just as surprised as I had been.

“Good, you?”

“Great! Well, I’m going to leave you girls. I’ve got to get over to my first class. I’ll see you later, Bella!”

I stared after her with a confused frown set on my face.

“Alice Cullen?” Angela asked me, catching my expression. “What was that?”

“I have no idea,” I answered truthfully.

The changes didn’t stop there. All five of the Cullens sat at their usual table that day at lunch, and yet Edward didn’t show up for biology. I automatically remembered my first day at Forks High School, when Edward had glared at me with dark, hateful eyes. He had missed biology that day, too. I hoped it wasn’t some sort of sign. I didn’t want to think that there could be a connection between the two events.

Mr. Banner quieted the class down when the bell rang. He had a white box sitting on his desk.

“So, how many of you know your blood types?” he asked, clapping his hands once and rubbing them together. Only seven students raised their hands. “That’s it? No one else?” he asked, but simply shrugged his shoulders and walked over to his desk.

“By the end of class today, you will all know your blood types.”

I froze in my seat. I’m pretty sure I stopped breathing altogether.

“Here is what you are going to be doing,” he announced as he shoved his hands into a pair of latex gloves. I didn’t even have time to brace myself—he took a very thin needle out and pricked his finger.

My stomach churned.

“You’re going to want to wait until I can prepare your cards before you prick yourself,” he explained, squeezing the tip of his finger lightly so that a drop of blood flowed out of his pinprick, “but then you can come to the front and get the supplies you’ll need.” The sight… the smell… it was all making me sick.

I rose my hand, desperate to get out of there before the lesson got any further, or at least before I passed out in the middle of class.

“Yes, Miss Swan?” he paused, studying my face. “Do you need to go to the nurse’s office?”

“Yes,” I answered meekly.

“Take the pass by my briefcase,” he instructed, nodding his head over to where his briefcase sat partially open on his desk.

I practically ran out of that room, but once I had escaped I started fully feeling the effects of the blood. I clutched one hand over my chest, willing myself to make it to the nurse’s office. The images in front of my eyes spun ever so slightly, but it was enough to make the ground feel wobbly and unstable.

I let myself fall onto a bench and rested my head between my knees. I was hoping that if I stopped for a couple minutes, the rest of the walk to the office would be easier.

“Bella?” I recognized that velvety voice.

“What?” I groaned, wishing that the one time Edward had decided he wanted to chat in the past two weeks hadn’t been when I was on the verge of passing out or throwing up.

“Are—are you okay?” I might have thought he sounded concerned if he hadn’t been avoiding me.

“Yeah, I always sit like this,” I said sarcastically. I felt too light-headed to care about being pleasant.

“Oh, really?” Edward asked, humoring me. I could practically hear a smile in his voice. Seriously, why was he doing this now? “What happened?” he asked, seriously this time.

I exhaled deeply and shut my eyes. “I can’t stand the sight of blood,” I explained.

“Blood typing,” Edward realized out loud.

“Mmhmm.”

“Well come on, let’s get you to the nurse.”

I peered up at Edward for a moment and then returned my head to my knees. “Just let me sit here for a moment,” I mumbled into my jeans.

Edward was silent for a moment, and then he walked forward and sat down on the bench next to me.

“I’m sorry.”

“That blood makes me queasy?”

“For scaring you,” he clarified. He wore a slight frown on his face.

“But I’m not afraid of you.” Well, I was afraid of the situation I was in around him sometimes, but I’d never been afraid of Edward, himself.

“Why aren’t you?”

I picked my head up off of my knees. It almost sounded like he wanted me to be afraid. “Should I be?”

“I told you that you would be better without me. I told you I was dangerous. That doesn’t frighten you?” he asked, his eyes intense on mine.

“No.”

“Why?” Edward’s voice was strained and irritated.

“I don’t know. I’m just not.”

Edward didn’t respond for a few moments, and just watched me intently.

“Then how come were you shaking?”

I blushed and looked away. I didn’t want him to figure that out. If he didn’t lighten up on his questions I was sure to start shaking again.

Edward shifted next to me. “Oh, I see.”

In my peripheral vision, I could see comprehension replace the confusion and irritation on his face. I scrunched my eyes shut and buried my head back in my knees, where it belonged. Please tell me I hadn’t just given myself away.

He did know. I could feel it in the silence.

The morning after the blood typing, I had almost convinced myself that I’d been wrong about Edward. I had thought he knew that I had social anxiety disorder, but how could he have? It’s not like SAD was a really common thing. I knew that I wouldn’t have known what it was if it wasn’t for the fact that I was recovering from it. SAD wasn’t common like depression or as popular to the public as schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

There was no reason to believe that Edward knew about it. It was possible that he knew that I had been anxious, but that didn’t mean he knew the extent of my problems. He couldn’t have.

Angela went off to lunch without me, since my Spanish teacher had asked me to drop off her attendance sheet in the office. I made the quick detour to turn in the papers, and on my way from the office to the cafeteria I ran into Mike. He smiled and jogged over to meet me. It was nice to have someone who I could tell—without a doubt—was always glad to see me.

“Hey, Bella,” he said as he fell into step next to me.

“Hey, Mike, how’s it going?”

Mike shoved his hands in his pockets. “Good. So, uh, how are you feeling today?”

“Pretty good I guess,” I said. I could feel a trace of pink light up in my face as I remembered what was going on the last time Mike had seen me.

“Good, because you were looking really pale yesterday in bio.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to laugh it off. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“So, what? Blood makes you feel sick, then?”

“Yeah. It always has. Good thing I don’t want to be a doctor when I grow up.”

Mike laughed. “Yeah, that might not be too good.”

Once the cafeteria was within view, Mike slowed down his pace. I slowed down with him and turned to face him.

“What?” I asked, wondering if something was wrong or if he had forgotten something.

“How would you like to do something this weekend?” I could hear the hope in his voice, and that made me feel even worse for the fact that I suddenly wanted to leave him on the sidewalk.

“Mike I told you that—”

“I know, you don’t want to date and you don’t want me to try. I got it. It doesn’t have to be a date.”

My palms were starting to feel damp, so it was a good thing I was wearing gloves. “I don’t know…”

“We can’t even hang out as friends?”

He was making me feel guilty. I hated feeling guilty! To be perfectly honest the idea of spending a lot of alone time with any guy, even strictly as friends, was something I didn’t even want to consider. Plus, I highly doubted that Mike truly wanted us to go down the friends path.

“Now’s not the best time,” I muttered, hating myself for lying. I picked up our pace so we could join the cafeteria crowd and leave this conversation behind. “Maybe some other time?”

I could tell by Mike’s expression that he wasn’t sure I was serious about trying again later. His face hardened ever so slightly. “Alright. Maybe later,” he said, keeping his voice light.

I was very glad to reach the cafeteria, because I doubted Mike would keep trying in the cafeteria. He always approached me when we were somewhere more private.

Once I had gone through the line and bought my food, I took a seat next to Angela at our usual lunch table. Her eyes flickered back and forth between me and Mike. She had noticed us come into the cafeteria together, it seemed, and she probably noticed something different in his or my facial expression. I gave her a significant look, trying to communicate with her that I would tell her what had happened sometime when there weren’t as many people around. She seemed to understand, because she turned to listen in on what the rest of the table was talking about.

My eyes roamed the cafeteria, landing on the Cullen table. It was getting to be such a habit, now. One of the first things I would do every lunch period was check to see if Edward was there. I wanted to know that I would see him in biology, but today I was looking for some sort of clue for what Edward would be like today. His mood seemed to change so much that it was hard for me to keep up with him. I wasn’t sure if he would still be talking to me today, and I was hoping to find the answer.

Edward wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure why, because the rest of his family were in their usual seats. The blonde one, Rosalie, was watching me with hostile eyes. What was her problem?

I sighed to myself, accepting that I wouldn’t be seeing Edward in biology. I would have to wait even longer to see how he was reacting to yesterday.

Angela tugged on a bit of my sleeve and pointed in the direction of the lunch line. “Why is Edward staring at you?”

My heart skipped a beat. My eyes followed Angela’s line of sight until it landed on a table that was usually empty. Well, today it wasn’t, because Edward sat there with his arms folded across his chest. No one else was sitting at the table. When he motioned me over to his table the thoughts in my head went into hyper drive. Was this about yesterday?

“Hang on… I’m going to see what he wants.” Again I got a questioning look from Angela. I had no answers for her, so I shrugged my shoulders, grabbed my tray and backpack, and walked over to Edward’s table.

“Hey, Edward.” Edward choked back a laugh. “What?” I was suddenly afraid I had done something stupid without even realizing it.

“Nothing—it’s Mike. I think he’s a little jealous.”

I turned to check behind me. Mike was staring pointedly at his pizza slice and focusing way too much on the layer of grease on top of the cheese. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was upset when that I had just turned him down only to join Edward for lunch.

“Well, considering that he’s already jealous you might as well join me for lunch today, right?” His grin was absolutely irresistible, showing off his perfectly white teeth.

I set my stuff down and took a seat, “I guess you’re right,” I agreed, only I wasn’t nearly as amused by Mike’s jealousy as Edward seemed to be.

“I wanted to apologize to you,” he said, his expression suddenly unreadable.

“What for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

His deep butterscotch eyes jumped away from mine and then back. It was all the proof I needed that Edward knew exactly what was wrong with me. “I feel like I stumbled in somewhere private. I’m not sure I’m welcome.”

Damn right he wasn’t welcome. I didn’t want someone knowing that sort of thing. Until yesterday, the only person who had known anything about my anxieties in Forks was my dad. It wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted people to know. I much preferred that people would come to know me by what they noticed themselves, rather than what they had heard about my past.

I couldn’t blame Edward for it, though, so I said nothing and instead imitated Mike, looking down at my food. It was more my fault than anything, and he certainly hadn’t done anything out of malice. I just wasn’t ready for people to know that about me, and I wouldn’t be until my social anxiety disorder was well behind me. The effect Edward had on me was all the proof I needed that I still had a ways to go.

“When did you find out?” he asked me when I didn’t respond.

“I was diagnosed a year ago,” I said, picking up a fork and poking at my mashed potatoes. When I looked back up, his eyes were still focused on me. “How did you know?”

Edward didn’t answer right away. He was thinking. “I’ve studied a bit of psychology,” he said, being delicate with his wording.

“But that’s not a class here.”

“You’re right, it isn’t.”

What did he mean by that? Did he just roam the internet and randomly decide to read all he could find about social anxiety disorder? Last year, his sophomore year, had been his first year at Forks which meant that if he had taken a high school psychology class he would have had to have taken it as a freshman. I was pretty sure that most high schools didn’t allow freshmen to take psychology. Wasn’t it an AP course? Maybe I was thinking of a different subject.

I dropped the subject moving onto something I cared more about. “So you don’t think I’m some freak, then?” I asked. Some people thought so. They were entirely focused on the fact that people who kept to themselves were different, unnatural, strange… I might not be at that point anymore, but I couldn’t deny that it was part of my past.

“Why would I think that?”

“It’s not normal.”

“Bella, compared to me you are blissfully normal.”

“This is where you tell me I shouldn’t hang out with you, isn’t it?”

Edward chuckled. “That sounds about right.” I could have sworn his eyes were sparkling.

“Then why did you have me come over here if you were going to tell me off for it?” I was getting frustrated with him.

“Because I wanted you to,” he answered simply. “As long as you don’t object, I won’t try to stay away again.”

Something clicked in my head. Edward had been staying away because he thought I had been afraid of him. He had been trying to help me. That was, in some weird way, the nicest thing a guy had ever done for me.

“Well, I don’t.”

Edward smiled.

I took a bite of my mashed potatoes, looking over at Edward’s untouched tray of food. Come to think of it, I had never seen him eat before. Did this also have to do with the reason he was convinced he was dangerous?

“You don’t ever eat, do you?”

“No. I don’t.” Edward picked up his fork and stirred around his vegetable medley, perhaps to make it look like he was at least thinking about eating to everyone else.

“You don’t eat anything? Do you have any needs at all?” I asked, only half seriously.

“I do, just none that you have.” I knit my eyebrows together, confused. Edward sighed out. “Ah, it seems you get me admitting things I shouldn’t.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, my fork of mashed potatoes halting in midair. “Are you saying you don’t have to sleep?”

“I can’t sleep,” he corrected.

“Then what do you do? I mean, what do you actually need?”

“Please, Bella,” Edward said, pleadingly. His hand shot forward, contemplating grabbing mine to emphasize his need, but he retracted it. “Just leave it.” His voice sounded so lovely and silky, and with him looking at me with such soft, stunning eyes like that I found I couldn’t deny him.

“Okay,” I agreed.

Edward looked pleased for a moment, but within moments it melted into a frown. “Alice,” he stated, frustrated. It almost sounded like a warning. Where had that come from?

I wasn’t sure what he meant until a couple seconds later when Alice set her own tray of untouched food next to Edward.

“Bella, how are you?” she asked enthusiastically. I still couldn’t get over how she acted as though I’d been her friend for years.

“Good,” I answered, then hesitated. “You?”

“Yes, Alice, how are you?” Edward asked sarcastically. He looked mildly irritated. I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something.

“Oh hush, Edward. Don’t be rude. I just wanted join you and Bella.”

I decided to busy myself with my food, taking a large bite of pizza and letting them talk it out. They didn’t, though. They seemed to be talking with their eyes. Alice looked at Edward with a simple smile on her face, and Edward’s demeanor changed smoothly from one of annoyance to one of reluctant acceptance.

“So you feeling better today?” Alice asked. “I heard you got sick in biology yesterday.”

I groaned. Edward laughed.

“Alright, you have some things to tell me.”

Angela was sitting on my bed while I was kneeling on the floor and looking through the movies I owned. We had agreed on a movie night, but the problem was that I couldn’t find a good movie, and Angela seemed set on getting information out of me.

I sighed, turning away from my movies to look up at Angela. “What do you want to know?”

“Pretty much everything.”

“About Mike?” I asked, delaying. I wasn’t stupid—I knew what she wanted to know.

“I stopped wondering about him when Edward wanted you to join him at lunch!” She was leaning forward now, waiting for a response. “I can figure out what happened with Mike, that’s not hard. It looks like you turned him down again or something, but since when have you been friends with Edward?”

Were Edward and I friends? “I’m not exactly sure.”

“Because I got the impression that you thought he didn’t like you.”

“I did. I guess I was wrong.” I blushed a little. He definitely didn’t dislike me. Whenever he wasn’t avoiding me for some noble reason he seemed to always be around.

“So what happened yesterday, then?”

I didn’t think it would be right to mention all the unhuman things about him or his warnings to stay away. It didn’t feel like my place to tell her when I truly didn’t believe that Edward was dangerous. As for my social anxiety… I still wasn’t sure I was ready to tell her about that. I wanted to tell her sooner or later, but for now I would wait.

“I don’t know,” I said, getting a little flustered. Talking about being with someone I liked felt almost as hard to me as actually being around them. “Normal stuff, I guess. He thought it was really funny that Mike was getting jealous.” It had been just about the only thing we’d talked about that I could mention.

“Yeah, poor Mike.”

I pulled a few movies off the shelf behind me and set them in front of me. I didn’t really want to watch any of them, honestly. I’d seen them all too many times, but what kind of movie night would it be without a movie?

“I don’t know, I can’t decide which movie to put in. You decide,” I said.

Angela slid off my bed and sat on the floor in front of me, picking up a couple and then setting them down.

“So anyway,” she said as she picked up another movie, checked the premise on the back, and then set it back down, “if Edward does it again, would you want to join him?”

“I don’t want to abandon you at lunch,” I said. I might not have known Angela long enough to be super close to her yet, but I wasn’t going to ditch her.

“That’s sweet, Bella,” Angela said, smiling, “but I don’t want to hold you back, either. Would you want to join him again?”

“Yeah, I would.” It was the honest truth. In fact, I hoped I would get to do it again soon. If he didn’t wait for me at lunch the next day would that mean anything?

“Do you like him?” Angela was still smiling. It looked like she wanted me to say yes.

“Angela…”

“I’m sorry for all the questions,” she said, suddenly turning serious at the signs of stress appearing on my face. “I’ll stop if you want me to. I’m just… I don’t know, I guess I’m excited for you.”

I knew Angela didn’t mean harm by it. In fact, I was glad that I had a friend who was eager to know about this sort of thing—not for gossip but because she was excited for me. It made me want to tell her everything, but how much would I look like a fool if I was completely misinterpreting the signs? Maybe he really did just want to be friends.

“I think I like him way more than I should considering how little I know him.” I wasn’t just referring to the fact that there was something huge about Edward that he was keeping from me. I was also talking about how, for about half of the little time I’ve known him he didn’t talk to me at all. I really hadn’t had much time to talk to him.

Angela’s smile popped right back on her face.

Angela and I ended up deciding to see if there were any movies on TV that were worth watching. The only thing we could find that wasn’t already half over was a black-and-white horror flick about vampires from the late 1950’s. It was tacky and not even remotely believable, but highly entertaining.

Despite all the laughing, there was something about the movie that really bothered me. I couldn’t quite pin down the reason that it disturbed me, though. Something just wasn’t right.

It wasn’t until Angela left afterwards and I was climbing into bed that I figured out what had been bothering me. The vampire in the movie had reminded me of Edward to an insane degree. The vampire in the movie and Edward were both charming, pale, and beautiful.

I remembered something else Edward had mentioned. He had said he had none of the needs that I had. Vampires drink blood… and that was definitely something that I didn’t need. Could that be one of his needs?

Clearly my exhausted mind was loosing its grip on reality. It was just my head fooling with me, I was sure. It was late and I had halfway drifted off to sleep. I knew there was something different about Edward, but this wasn’t it. There were too many things that being a vampire couldn’t explain.

Weren’t vampires supposed to sleep in the day? Wasn’t the sun supposed to scorch them? And yet, Edward went to school. The days he missed were because he was hiking. True, those were sunny days, and so one could say that I had no proof that he didn’t just stay inside… but no one could navigate a hiking trail with as much grace as Edward had without having actually done it a lot. He would have had to be outside in the sun.

Then there was the fact that Edward didn’t fly—though he was really fast.

That’s not to mention that I simply could not believe that a vampire could exist.

If Edward was some sort of non-human creature, he was probably something that wasn’t covered in myths.

I fell asleep within ten minutes, having convinced myself that Edward was no vampire.

EPOV

Ever since the fieldtrip to Olympic National Park when I saw just how much danger Bella attracted—not to mention the fact that she had a vampire trying to force his way into her life—I had been worried she might attract more. I kept seeing people’s thoughts of Bella tripping throughout the day. The problem was that I was only around her for a couple hours of the day, usually, so that meant that there was a lot of time when I wouldn’t be able to help her.

When I mentioned my concerns to the rest of my family, some of them—namely Rosalie, Jasper, and Emmett—didn’t take me seriously. They said that they couldn’t understand my ‘fixation’ with her, as they called it. They said she was just an obsession.

Alice, however, was all too thrilled that I was worried about Bella. She said it was about time that I found someone to care about. She was also thrilled that she kept getting visions of her and Bella being friends in the near future. Actually, Alice was already starting to speak of Bella as though they already were friends, which quickly got on my nerves. When you added in the fact that she was having more, clearer visions of Bella, she was simply ecstatic.

Eventually, wondering about whether or not Bella was okay started to drive me crazy. I decided I was going to stop by her house… just for a little while. Just long enough to know that she was alright.

Rosalie wasn’t too pleased with me when I left home. She thought I was losing my mind, and maybe I was.

I was able to find Bella’s house pretty easily. I had seen it a few times in her father’s head as well as in Angela’s. Once I found it I realized immediately, to my relief, that Bella was okay. I got a quick glimpse into Angela’s thoughts as she climbed into her car and drove away. She was thinking about what she needed to get done before school the next day, which wasn’t remotely helpful to me.

I waited for Angela’s thoughts to die down, and once they did I scaled the wall of the house, looking for the window to Bella’s room. She was still awake, but she was picking out her pajamas for the night.

I jumped down from the window and ran into the forest, climbing up in a tree so I could stay hidden while I waited for Bella to go to bed and fall asleep. I wasn’t sure why, but I was very reluctant to leave just yet. I had told myself I would leave once I had seen her, but now that I was there, I wanted to stay with her.

Were I a human, surely I would be in danger of ‘peeping tom’ status.

In the distance, I could hear the sound of Bella breathing. I waited on my branch amongst the wind and cricket chirps until it came more slowly and steadily.

Finally satisfied that Bella was asleep, I jumped down from my post and climbed back up to her window. The door creaked when I opened it, but Bella remained asleep. She only grumbled in her sleep and rolled over onto her side away from me.

I remained on her windowsill for a moment, ready to jump back down in case she woke up, but she didn’t. After a few minutes, she rolled over again, facing me. Her face was peaceful… more so than I’d ever seen it at school. I was used to seeing traces of uncertainty or stress in her features, but here, she looked beautifully serene. I might have been the one built to lure in my prey, but she was the one that had me hypnotized.

For a while, I lost track of time. Whether minutes or hours had passed, I was not sure, but I eventually decided that I should leave and allow her some privacy while she dreamt.

Before I could completely commit to leaving, I heard her voice ring out.

“Edward.”

I froze for a moment and then crept forward, trying to figure out if she had woken up. Her eyes were still closed.

“Edward,” she said again, then rolled over, facing away from me.

If I had a beating heart, it would have started racing. Was she dreaming about me? For a moment, I wondered if I was trespassing on the inner workings of her mind… but when had I ever not shamelessly tried to hear her thoughts? This would be the closest I would get to hearing what went on in her head. Was I strong enough to give that chance up?

No. No, I wasn’t. Especially not when the thing she was thinking about was me.

I crept back into the shadows of Bella’s room and watched from there, trying to gauge again whether she had woken up based on her breathing when she again turned in her bed, now lying on her back. “A vampire?” she asked, still asleep.

My eyes widened. She couldn’t have possibly figured out what I was… could she? Was she really so much more perceptive than I had thought she was?

This was not good, not even remotely. Would she tell anyone? Would anyone even believe her if she told? If she tried to tell, would I be able to stop her?

A cold fear settled in me. My family’s cover could be completely blown. We would have to leave Forks and find somewhere else to live. I would never see Bella again, but she would be better for it. She would get the chance to be with someone who wasn’t so hazardous to her health…

But hadn’t she already known that something was different about me? She had already assumed that I wasn’t exactly human, and yet she hadn’t told. Maybe, just maybe, Bella would be able to keep this to herself. If she did, we would be able to stay. I would have to ask Alice to pay even more attention to Bella’s future to see if she would tell anyone that we were vampires.

This might not be as bad as it seems. I told myself. Everything might still be okay… only now, Bella might finally know enough to be afraid of me. Now that she knew what I was, would she even want to talk to me?

EPOV

The next day at school, Wednesday, I arrived not knowing what to expect. Part of me wanted to back away from Bella, again, and allow her the chance to have a normal high school experience that didn’t involve vampires, but hadn’t I promised her that I would not stay away from her again as long as she didn’t object? It would have to be up to her. I could not make that decision for her.

I decided to use lunch to my advantage, again, to make sure I got Bella out of the hearing range of humans. The first test for her reaction would be whether or not she would sit next to me again at lunch.

I took a seat at the same table as yesterday and waited as the students started to fill in. My eyes were immediately drawn to Bella when she arrived. I watched as she glanced back over to the table where the rest of my family sat, frowned just slightly, and then looked over at my table. Her face was so blank that I couldn’t tell whether she was glad to see me or scared.

Bella turned to go walk through the line. It was hard to believe that I had seen her only a few hours ago… and yet she had no idea.

There he is. I knew he liked her. He can’t keep his eyes off her.

I recognized Angela’s thoughts fairly easily, but did not look over at her. I tried not to draw attention to the fact that I could hear what other people were thinking whenever I could.

I bet Bella’s excited he’s waiting for her again. Why else would he be there?

That definitely caught my attention. Would Bella be excited? I could only think of one reason she might be that happy. Was it possible that she liked me, too? Or rather, was it possible that she had until she realized that I was a vampire? Maybe now that she knew the truth she will have changed her mind. The idea upset me. I had found out too late that she was interested in me, as well.

I refused to let myself linger on this, and instead waited as Bella left the lunch line with her tray. Again, her eyes shot over to me. I nodded my head over to the empty seat next to me and watched as a pink blush rise up in her cheeks. I couldn’t help but smile to myself, triumphant that I could make her blush. The hint of red looked lovely on her face.

“Hey,” she said as she walked up to my table stood by the empty seat beside me. She was hesitating.

“I was wondering if you might want to join me a second time,” I said, verbalizing my invitation.

Bella’s eyes widened, but not out of fear. She must have thought I was safe enough, because she set her things on the ground and sat down. At least she wasn’t completely avoiding me. I was trying to decipher the way she moved. I was looking for any sign that she was more nervous than usual. She had hesitated a little, but how was I supposed to know if that was something she might have done anyway? Was she afraid because of her social phobia or because I was a vampire? Was it something else?

“You look surprised,” I decided out loud, wondering if that was why she was hesitating. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know… I guess I didn’t really expect you’d be waiting here a second time.”

I’d been right, and that pleased me. Maybe I was getting better at reading her. “Why didn’t you?” I asked.

“I guess I thought that you might want to eat with your family again.”

“They can manage without me for another lunch period. I’ve spent more time with them than anyone in this school has spent with theirs.”

“Are you guys really close?”

“Very.” It was a given in my family. It was hard not to be close when you had so much time together and when it was virtually impossible to have secrets.

Bella looked over at my family’s table, where Alice was trying really hard to look like she wasn’t listening in. Are you going to let me come over there? Alice wasn’t bothering to mask how eager she was. I scoffed at her, trying not to laugh.

“What?” Bella asked, suddenly alert. She must have thought I’d scoffed at her.

“Nothing, it’s just… my sister.”

The blank expression on Bella’s face told me that she didn’t know what I had meant.

“Are you close with your family?” I asked Bella, choosing not to go into the fact that I could hear thoughts just yet. Wasn’t it enough for now that she knew I was a vampire?

“I guess so,” she said with a sigh. “I mean, I am with my mom, but things are different with my dad. We’re both kind of quiet so it makes it harder for us to bond sometimes.”

“So, what, do you two only discuss what’s going on in your lives?”

“Pretty much. We’re getting better at it, though.”

Aw, they would make a cute couple. There was Angela again, but her thoughts were interrupted by Mike’s

I bet he thinks he’s so cool. What does Bella see in him?

The rest of lunch and biology passed without a hitch. I was cautious at first, not wanting to do anything to scare Bella, but she didn’t seem to be acting much differently from the way she had the day before. Maybe it really wasn’t a big deal to her. Maybe her survival instincts really were non-existent. I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing—it was mainly a good thing for me, but it was undoubtedly a bad thing for her.

By the time school was over, I was fairly convinced that Bella wasn’t afraid of me, or at least not enough to be afraid while she was at school. There were a lot of other people around, after all.

I was only mildly annoyed with myself for watching Bella from my Volvo as she pulled her backpack off of her shoulders to search for something. After all, what else was I supposed to do? I had to wait for Alice, Rosalie, Jasper, and Emmett, and they would not risk their human façades just so that they could get back home sooner.

Bella’s car wasn’t parked far from mine. In fact, she had to walk past mine in order to reach hers. As she did so, she looked over in my direction and… there it was. A small, shy smile, but it was meant for me all the same.

Bella’s smile faltered, and I realized that she had slipped in a puddle. I didn’t hesitate as I threw open the door of my car and raced over to catch her, reaching her and throwing my arms around her when she was just a foot off the ground. Her backpack fell into the puddle, splashing against our legs.

Watching out for Bella was starting to look like a full-time job.

Bella was a little tense at first as she realized what had happened, but then relaxed in my hold. “Thanks,” she muttered.

“It seems like I’m always catching you, doesn’t it?” It was hard not to laugh at how this was turning into some sort of ritual.

“I never asked you to…” Bella protested, but I didn’t let her finish her thought.

“What kind of person would I be if I let you fall?” I challenged. When I was met with silence, I smirked. “Exactly.”

I felt Bella tug away from me, not trying to stand up, but trying to free herself from my arms. “Oh, crap!”

“What?”

“My notes!” she cried, grabbing her backpack out of the puddle. She pulled the zipper pocket open and took out a couple notebooks. The bottom halves were soaked through. “Crap!” Bella opened up the top notebook and flipped through the pages that were starting to stick together. The wet portions were completely illegible.

“I can’t read them!” she complained, a tone of panic in her voice. “We’ve got a biology test in two days and half of my notes are washed off!”

By the looks of things, Bella was more afraid of failing a test than of me. I took the soggy notebooks from her and offered her my hand to help her up. “How about this: I go home with you, you copy my notes… what?” Bella was suddenly looking at me frozen nervous eyes. She might have backed away the slightest bit.

“I-I don’t know if that’s a good idea…”

“I see.” It seemed to me like Bella wasn’t afraid to be near me when other people were around, but that she thought I might be more dangerous if we were in a more private environment. If only she knew that if there were other people around and I was determined to kill her, those other people wouldn’t make a difference. I would kill them, too, before they could understand what was going on. I wasn’t too eager for her to know that, obviously.

“So do you not want to because of your social anxiety or because I’m a vampire?” I asked, testing my theory.

When Bella’s expression morphed from confusion, to understanding, and then to shock I realized I had just made a catastrophic mistake.

“What?!”

“I--didn’t you know?” I asked frowning.

“No!” Bella was looking at me as though I had just grown a second head. Or fangs.

“Oh… Bella—”

“How did—”

“Can we not talk about this here?” I asked, looking around me. I didn’t think that anyone around was close enough to have heard anything suspicious, but I wasn’t going to make that gamble. I took her by the arm and led her to my car, opening the passenger door for her. She looked up at me with questioning eyes but obeyed my silent command, getting into the car.

“I didn’t want the whole school to overhear,” I explained once I had climbed back in the driver’s seat and closed the door. Her scent was already attacking my senses, making my throat burn with thirst. I was going to have to deal with it, though. This was going to require a lot of talking, and therefore a lot of breathing.

“Sorry.” I almost thought she was apologizing for the burn she caused in my throat.

“You seriously did not know?”

Bella was silent for a moment. “Should I have?”

“No, but I though you had figured it out.”

“How did you think that?”

All those times I had interrogated her were catching up to me. Suddenly, I was the one in the spotlight.

“How could you possibly have known I thought that?” Bella repeated.

What? “I thought you said you hadn’t known.”

“I hadn’t. I considered it, though,” she admitted. Her eyes were searching mine, as though she were looking for a trace of the vampire within me. “I thought it was too far-fetched, so I decided I was wrong.”

“You dismissed the idea?”

“Up until about two minutes ago. How did you know?”

I could hear just how deeply she wanted to know. It was awfully backwards—she was worrying about the wrong thing. She should be worrying about her life, not her secrecy. I had invaded her secrecy, though, and I was fully aware of it. I had essentially spied on her. I wasn’t too keen on admitting that to her.

“Oh my god,” Bella whispered. “Can you hear my thoughts? Oh my god, you can, can’t you? That’s how you knew!”

The irony made me snort with laughter.

“No, Bella. Calm down.” It was surprising how much the idea of that bothered her. She looked horrified. “Yours are the only ones I can’t hear.” If I could have heard her thoughts, I would have realized already that she hadn’t known what I was. Bella must not have thought of this in her current panicked state.

Bella calmed down visibly, relaxing her muscles and sitting back in the seat. “Really? Why?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“But you can hear everyone else’s?”

I nodded once. “For as long as I’ve been a vampire.”

“So if you can’t hear my thoughts, how did you know I’d considered the whole vampire theory.” Bella’s voice had a definite cautious edge to it again.

I didn’t answer. I changed topics, feeling as though there were more pressing issues to deal with. “Are you not terrified?”

“Of what?”

“You are impossible,” I sighed, gripping my steering wheel.

“Oh, the vampire thing?”

“The vampire thing,” I mocked. How could she be so unconcerned? “You say that like it’s not a big deal.”

Bella bit her lip. For a fraction of a second, I wondered what would happen if she bit it hard enough that her lip started bleeding.

“If you were going to kill me, wouldn’t have you done it already?” she asked me.

How could Bella even think that? Didn’t she realize that a person’s scent is always there, a constant temptation? She was just so… blasé about it.

“Just because I can resist one moment doesn’t mean I always will be able to. My family tries to live off of animals instead but we’re not perfect.”

“But you’re around people every day. There haven’t been any deaths.”

I did not want to go into this. She was realizing that it wasn’t usually hard to live around people. I didn’t want to tell Bella why she was more difficult than everyone else. She shouldn’t have to know that. I should be able to deal with it by myself without putting her at risk.

“Just suffice it to say that my kind is known to kill people. That should inspire at least a little fear in you. You’d be right to be scared.”

“I’m not.” Bella wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was facing straight ahead and had her arms crossed tightly in front of her. I could hear a slight quiver in her voice. She had said she wasn’t afraid of me….

“So all this,” I said, motioning to her arms, a clear sign of discomfort “and you not wanting to have me come to your place… that’s not because you’re afraid I might kill you but because you’re afraid you’ll do something that will make me think less of you?”

“Pretty much,” Bella said, nodding shortly. Her cheeks reddened just slightly.

I couldn’t decide whether I was glad that she wasn’t afraid of what I was or if I should be upset that she wasn’t. On one hand, that meant that she could possibly get over her fear of being around me, but on the other…. If I wanted to keep doing something that put her life on the line, then I didn’t deserve someone like Bella, anyway.

But I’d said I would leave it up to Bella, hadn’t I?

“Bella, I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would make me judge you badly.”

She turned her head and met my gaze. There it was again, that small smile meant just for me.

“If you think I’m capable of… keeping control of my thirst around you… then know that regarding you in a positive light is absolutely effortless. I always have.”

If she doesn’t believe you then you should have her ask us. We can testify for you. Emmett’s amused thoughts were popping up in my head. I personally think she’s got a right to know how much you blab about her. My family was pretty close to the car now. I wondered how much of our conversation they had heard.

I wasn’t about to let Emmett interfere, not when whatever was going on between Bella and me was at such a fragile stage. He would have too much fun trying to get me to squirm. It was time to wrap this up.

“How would you like to do something with me on Friday? To celebrate finishing our first biology test?” The words just fell out of my mouth. I hadn’t exactly intended to suggest doing something out of school, not when Bella had just turned me down. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was asking her out or just suggesting we hang out. Of course, I wanted to believe the former.

“Like what?” Bella asked. She looked surprised, but not particularly nervous about the idea.

“Just leave that to me. What do you say?”

Bella bit her lip again. How I wished I could hear what was going on in her head! “Maybe,” she said. She was smiling again, not at me, but to herself. Maybe I was doing something right. The idea cheered me.

“That’s good enough for me,” I said. If she even considered it, it would mean something.

“Well, I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked, reaching for the door handle.

“If you’d like. Lunch?”

Bella nodded, looking over at me. “Bye, Edward.” She opened the door and got out of the car, but not all too gracefully. I shook my head, laughing as I wondered to myself how likely she would be to fall again. I knew I would be right there to catch her if she did.

BPOV

I spent a good part of the next day thinking over Edward’s suggestion for Friday. It was absolutely ridiculous how much I wanted to tell him that yes, I would love to spend time with him outside of school. It started to feel like this would be my first real shot at getting to know Edward.

Nevertheless, the idea of so much one-on-one time with Edward terrified me. Would I be able to find enough things to say to keep it from getting awkward? What if he got bored? If it were to become too much for me to handle would I be able to get out of there before I made myself look like a neurotic freak? It just felt like there were so many things that could go wrong.

And yet, Edward was being oddly supportive. I was surprised that he couldn’t read my thoughts, because he was doing exactly what I needed to approach the situation with as clear of a head as possible. He didn’t press me on the issue at all. I had lunch with him on Thursday again, and he didn’t bring up the invitation even once. Edward was allowing me to bring it up when I was ready, and I was grateful for that. It meant that I could consider my options without feeling as much pressure.

Ultimately, the fact that Edward hadn’t forced the subject was the reason I decided to accept his invitation. It seemed like a casual enough invitation and that made me think that I could handle the time with him. My stomach did a small flip as I set my mind on this, just before leaving for school on Friday morning. It was hard for me to decide if it was out of excitement or anxiety. I grabbed my school bag and headed out the door.

If I had known that Edward was going to be waiting in front of my house, leaning against his silver Volvo as though it were the most natural thing in the world to drive me to school, I would have started getting nervous the moment I woke up.

“H-hey,” I stuttered, caught completely off-guard.

Edward smiled a crooked grin at me. “Good morning,” he greeted. I could have sworn someone had printed out a car ad from a couture magazine and set it up in my driveway. It was unfair that someone could look so flawlessly perfect at this time of the day. My eyes were probably squinty from sleep, whereas his eyes were alight with humor and studying me carefully… and as beautiful a shade of topaz as ever.

“Hey,” I said in response, halted in my spot in front of my house. My heart jolted in my chest, and I had no problem figuring out that that was a result of the warm feeling rising up inside me. I was excited that he was there.

“So are you coming to school today or not?” he asked me, opening the passenger door of his car.

“Yeah,” I said, unfreezing myself and walking over to the car. I didn’t really know how to handle this sort of chivalry, but nonetheless I climbed into the passenger seat. “Thanks.”

He closed the door for me and ran—if you could call practically reappearing at the driver-side door running—to the other side of the car and got in beside me. It explained a lot. How many times had he magically been there for me? At the time I hadn’t been sure if I was losing my mind or just really bad at noticing things, but he really could move faster than anyone I had ever known before. Clearly he was no longer hiding those things from me.

“I figured it’d be a good idea to save gas by carpooling. It’s better for the environment, you know,” he mused, a hint of irony in his voice as he started the car and pulled onto the street. It made sense, I decided. Weren’t vampires supposed to be immortal? Some people might not be too worried about the environment, but I suppose if Edward was going to be around for a long time he would have to face the consequences, himself.

The moment we hit the street, Edward accelerated, and I saw the needle on the speedometer jump to 120 miles per hour.

“Edward! What are you doing?!” I shrieked, grasping the edge of my seat. Was he trying to get me killed?

“Calm down, I won’t crash. My reflexes are way too good for that.” Edward was completely at ease. Even more than that, he was enjoying this.

I peered out my window, and the speed of the images blurring by made my head spin. “What about the car’s reflexes?” I demanded, only slightly less panicked. Edward seemed to really believe that this was safe… but I was scared stiff.

“Rosalie tweaked this car. Trust me, you’ll be okay.”

“If you really do care about conserving gas then you’d slow down!” I argued, taking a different strategy. Suddenly I knew Edward hadn’t wanted to drive me just to preserve the environment. The car slowed down a little.

“How about a compromise,” Edward suggested.

The speedometer read 90 miles per hour. “Some compromise!” I said, stunned. Still, I loosened my grip on the seat. At least I could see the images outside the car, now. I could handle it.

Edward chuckled . “Sorry, I guess it’s hard to relate to human fears when you haven’t been one for a few decades,” he said, letting the car slow down to 70 miles per hour. I was grateful, even if it was still quite a bit faster than I usually drove to school. “You ready for the test today?” he asked me, suddenly.

“Yeah, I think so” I answered. I had set aside a couple hours to review the material the night before. “Are you?”

Edward shrugged his shoulders trivially. “I’ve taken tests just like this several times before. There wasn’t really a need to study.”

I guess that made sense, but it didn’t seem like the test held much importance to Edward. “So then tonight is just meant to be a celebration for me?”

“If you accept the invitation it won’t be,” he said, looking over at me with an accusing, crooked grin. An embarrassingly predictable blush rose in my cheeks. “Does that mean you want to do something tonight?”

“Yeah.” I absolutely did. Even if I hadn’t been sure, with the way his eyes bore into mine it would have been very hard to say ‘no’. “Edward, the road!”

He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the road, but again he was perfectly calm. Edward breathed out a laugh and shifted his attention back to the road. “So I’ve got a few questions for you.”

“About what?” I asked.

“Just your past—with SAD.”

I was a little guarded about discussing this sort of thing with Edward, but I was willing to do it. “Alright,” I said, giving him permission.

“How did it affect you?”

“That’s a pretty large-scale question…”

“Okay then. How did it affect you dating-wise?” He said this completely casually, and yet I felt like he was asking this for a specific reason.

I didn’t answer right away. Was tonight actually supposed to be a date? I wasn’t sure what our plans were supposed to be, anymore. I had assumed it would be something a little more laid-back and less significant.

“Sorry, is that too personal?”

“No, it’s fine,” I assured. The question didn’t bother me as much as the implications behind his question. “I didn’t date. I haven’t dated.”

“At all?”

“Not once.”

“I find that very difficult to believe,” Edward said, thoughtfully.

“If you knew me in Phoenix you wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“Is that why being around me is hard? Because you haven’t had as much experience with this sort of thing?”

There he was again, implying that we were very nearly dating, but didn’t I really like Edward? Shouldn’t I want him to notice me romantically? So why did his implication that we had something going on between the two of us set off a mental alarm in my head?

“I guess so,” I said.

Edward pulled his car into the school parking lot. I was completely flabbergasted. I had never gotten to school in such little time before. Normally, I wouldn’t have gotten to school for another five minutes.

“It makes sense,” Edward allowed. “You’ve got to prove to yourself you can handle it.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, pulling my bag up on my lap. I knew I had plenty of time before I needed to get to class, but I suddenly needed escape. Everything in the car felt so intense. Edward was being careful to be nonthreatening but I was somehow losing my nerve. “I’ve got to get to class,” I lied. “I need to talk to my English teacher.”

I was very frustrated with myself for lying to Edward, and even more so for scrambling out of his car. This wasn’t right. I shouldn’t be doing this, and yet I couldn’t help it. I was letting myself be a slave to my old patterns.

Angela joined me a few minutes later in my English class. She smiled at me and took the desk to my left.

“You’re here! I thought you weren’t going to be here today,” she said as she dropped her book bag on the floor.

“You did?” I asked.

“Yeah. Your truck wasn’t in the parking lot.”

“Oh that’s right. Edward drove me here today.”

Both Angela’s eyes and smile grew wider. “Seriously?”

Angela looked more excited than I felt. “Yeah. I didn’t know he was going to.”

“So he just… showed up?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Pretty much.”

I could tell by the way her smile faltered that she could sense something was wrong. “Everything okay?”

I didn’t want Edward to know I was having second thoughts. I had told him I wanted to be with him tonight, and it felt wrong to take that back now. I knew that if I let Angela think I was afraid about that night that Edward would be able to hear it in her thoughts.

“Oh, yeah,” I assured her, brightening up my voice. “I just hadn’t expected Edward to be there. I guess I didn’t know how to react to it right away.”

Angela grinned. “Aw, Bella! You’ll have to let me know what happened after tonight. What is it anyway? Is it a date or what?”

I shrugged my shoulders and made myself smile. “I’m not sure. I think Edward might be considering it to be one.”

My nerves simmered on low through the whole school day. At lunch, I sat with Edward again, but our plans were not brought up, which helped only marginally. I made it through the rest of the day okay, and the car ride back to my house went smoothly enough. I couldn’t tell if Edward knew I was on the verge of losing my grip.

He told me he would pick me up around eight. That gave me four hours to try to calm myself down. I might be able to do it.

I quickly found that sitting around wasn’t helping me at all, so I started off doing homework to keep myself occupied. Having gotten a good chunk of it done, I moved on to put some premade barbeque chicken in the oven for Charlie. He got home around six-thirty and asked if I had any plans for that night. I told him that I did, but I was very vague on the details. I had a feeling that it wouldn’t calm me down any more to explain to my dad that I had some sort of semi-date in just over an hour.

It was during the last hour before I expected Edward that I lost my grasp on all rational thought. My calming exercises had let my mind wander free and think up all the little ways the night could go wrong. I envisioned falling silent and Edward thinking something was wrong with me. I was saying something that offended him. I was tripping over my feet. I was being too reserved.

My hands started shaking and my throat went dry. The shaking then spread to my knees and then my whole arms were shaking. My imagination then incorporated these into what could go wrong. I was knocking something over with my shaking hands. Edward could see me shaking and was disapproving of my overreactions. He thought I was neurotic, unstable, broken. He was deciding I wasn’t worth the effort.

I suddenly felt like it wasn’t possible for the night to go well. If I was acting like this and letting myself get worked up, it would be impossible for me to enjoy the night, and therefore things would be rocky by default. I was ruining my chances.

My heart was beating loudly, feeling like it was trying to jump out of my body through my throat. Suddenly, my hands were feeling numb. Weird, my hands had never gone numb before.

Edward would be here, soon. He would see me freaking out. I didn’t want him to see that. I should call him and cancel. Why hadn’t I asked for his number? If I told him I was sick when he arrived, would he believe me? Would he hate me for it?

I stood up, deciding to try splashing water on my face. When I tried to walk, I almost fell over. My feet felt unstable and the room seemed to spin around me. He would be here in five minutes. Oh crap. Oh crap.

I can’t do this.

My breathing skyrocketed and I let myself fall back onto my bed, feeling like I was falling apart. I wanted to escape this. I needed to get away and put this behind me. I had tried. I had given it an honest shot. It clearly wasn’t working. Game over.

BPOV

I can’t do this.

My breathing skyrocketed and I let myself fall back onto my bed, feeling like I was falling apart. I wanted to escape this. I needed to get away and put this behind me. I had tried. I had given it an honest shot. It clearly wasn’t working. Game over.

I jumped when I heard my window fly open. Suddenly, Edward was standing in the middle of my room. His eyes were wide with an eager concern and they jumped to me, huddled on my bed. “Bella! What’s wrong?” His voice was thick with worry.

I didn’t have enough wits about me to think up a lie. “I don’t know if I can do this!” My words came out in an uncontrolled frenzy.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Edward said urgently. His face softened and he took a couple slow, deliberate steps closer towards me.

“Oh god! I’m so sorry!”

“Bella—”

“I’m sorry, I’m going to ruin this!” Tears were clouding my vision and I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. I was humiliated, both for the fact that I knew I was being irrational but couldn’t help it anyway and because Edward was seeing me during what had to be the worst panic attack I’d ever had.

“Bella, no you’re not. Breathe!”

“What do you think I’m doing?!” I demanded.

“Breathe slowly.” Edward was right at the edge of my bed, trying to coach me down from my panic.

“I’m sorry! I knew this would happen!” My head was spinning. I felt a cold hand wrap around mine. The effect was soothing against my burning skin and brought me back down to earth.

“It’s really okay,” he said, trying to look me straight in the eye. I wasn’t making it easy for him. I couldn’t bear to let him see into me in this state.

A tear escaped down my cheek, but I brushed it away before it got far. “It really isn’t,” I argued, my voice cracking halfway through. “You probably think I’m crazy. I can’t even see you outside of school without freaking out!”

“That’s crazy. I don’t think that at all.”

I laughed out a shaky, skeptical laugh. It might have sounded more like a sob in my current state.

“I don’t,” he insisted. He sat on the edge of my bed, now holding my hand in both of his. He was rubbing small circles in the back of my hand with his thumb. “I think this is a big step for you and that must make it very difficult for you.”

I didn’t have a solid reason to believe him, and yet I did. He was saying all the right things. I finally met his gaze and wiped away any remaining moisture from around my eyes.

“You’re just making me feel worse by being so perfect about this! You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

“That’s just silly. Why wouldn’t I want to?”

“Because anyone else would be easier to be with. They would be normal.”

Edward laughed. “You’re talking to a vampire here. Neither of those words could ever apply to me.”

He just wasn’t getting it. “Edward—”

I lost my train of thought as Edward dropped my hand and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against him. His body was hard and cold—it felt like a marble statue had engulfed me. My body went stiff and I couldn’t stop shaking in his arms. I very badly wanted to. I could pretend he didn’t notice me shaking when he was just sitting next to me, but when he was holding me against his body I became even more painfully aware of how violently I was shaking.

I couldn’t relax in his arms right away, but Edward just held onto me and started humming a soothing melody in my ear. He combed his fingers through my hair while I tried to bring my breathing down to something more normal. I started to relax in his arms little by little. My shaking eased up and it no longer felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. The whole time, Edward kept up his humming and held me securely against him, but it felt more like he was holding me together.

We could have sat there for five minutes or twenty. I wasn’t sure. When I felt like I nearly had full control over myself again I let out a long, steady sigh. “I really wish you hadn’t seen that,” I said softly.

Edward stopped humming. “I would have been surprised if I never did.”

“It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t like people to see me when I’m freaking out. It sucks because it’s been at least seven months since I’ve had a panic attack.” It had felt like I was doing so well, and yet Edward had brought out the worst one I had ever experienced, but he had also helped me return to a calmer state faster than I ever had before.

“I guess I ruined that record, didn’t I?” Edward’s voice was light with humor. I felt his arms tighten around me just a little.

“I guess so.”

“I’m sorry it happened, though.”

I smiled ruefully to myself. “It’s okay. You’re right, it probably would have happened eventually.”

We fell into silence, but this time it was much more relaxed. I was almost comfortable sitting there with him, even though I had never sat with my body pressed up against another guy’s before, much less one that felt like a stone.

“How did you know something was wrong?” I asked suddenly. I remembered the way he had burst into my room. He had somehow known that something was going on.

“I heard you.”

“And you could tell I was panicking?” I hadn’t even been saying anything. How had he been able to tell?

“I could heard it in the way you were breathing… even in your heartbeat.”

I hadn’t known his hearing was quite that strong. I was awed.

“We don’t have to do anything now if you don’t want to. We can stay here—or I’ll leave if you prefer.”

I hesitated. I’d almost forgotten that this was supposed to be some sort of date, but now I remembered. My breathing caught in my throat. I was fully aware that a small part of me wanted Edward to leave. I might have been more comfortable at that point, but I was still scared. Every moment of this was unchartered territory for me, and I wasn’t sure I knew how to handle that. I craved to feel calm and safe. I needed that security.

Edward’s arms around me loosened. It was as though he could feel my uncertainty in the silence.

“No, don’t leave,” I blurted out. It was such an automatic response that I surprised even myself. Still, I knew deep down that I wanted him to stay.

I was very aware of some boundary I had just crossed. It was as though by asking him to stay I had completely morphed the situation. I had told him to stay, and it was immensely significant that I both wanted and told him to stay.

I felt Edward’s hands brush against my bare arms as his hands returned to their original location. I raised my own up, holding his arms against me. It felt nice. I realized that I did feel safe—incredibly so, but in a way I had never experienced before. My hands were still quivering slightly, but I knew that anything could have happened outside of my room and I would be fine. As long as Edward was there, I could handle it.

Suddenly, I felt Edwards arms tug out from under mine, and next thing I knew he was gone. I looked around my room, confused. What had just happened?

“Charlie’s coming.” I heard Edward’s whisper come from out my window. Oh yeah, I had forgotten that he thought I was supposed to be meeting up with someone, and I doubted he would be thrilled with the idea of someone coming in through my window.

“Bella?” I heard Charlie’s voice call out as he ascended the staircase. I grabbed a random book off my floor and lied down on my bed. I opened it up and hoped it would look like I had been reading this whole time.

“Yeah?” I asked, just as my bedroom door opened.

“You still going out tonight? I thought you were going to be out of here twenty minutes ago.”

“Yeah… there was a change of plans.” At least Charlie hadn’t seen me freak out. I doubted he would have known how to handle it.

“Really?” he asked, frowning a little. “So you’re staying home, then?”

“I think so. I’m kind of tired.”

“You’re not feeling sick, are you?”

“No,” I assured him. “I just think I’d rather stay home, now.”

“Alright, then. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

I stayed frozen in place, waiting to drop my book until the moment my door shut. When I leaned across my bed to set by book on my nightstand, Edward was suddenly right in front of me.

“You didn’t tell him you were going to be with me tonight,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.

“How did you…? Oh.” I had almost forgotten that he could hear thoughts.

Edward tapped his temple, confirming what I had guessed. “He was assuming you were going to be with Angela tonight.” He didn’t look upset, but I felt a little guilty regardless.

“I thought telling him would make me more nervous,” I explained.

“I understand,” Edward said, sitting next to me on my bed once again. His hand automatically reached for mine, but I was the one that laced our fingers together. He smiled and rested our joined hands on his thigh.

I could handle this. Compared to having a panic attack right in front of Edward and a fifteen-minute long embrace, this was easy.

“I’m sorry, Bella.”

I looked over at Edward, surprised. “What for?” What had he possibly done wrong?

“I knew you liked me. I heard it in Angela’s thoughts, but I guess I got carried away. I should have been more sure that you were ready.”

That was just insane. “You couldn’t have known. I had been willing to do whatever I needed to keep you from finding out how nervous I was. It’s what I do.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Edward was running one of his fingers lightly along my forearm. A small trail of goose bumps chased its path. “I’ve studied psychology before. I majored in it once, and yet I don’t think I fully appreciated just how hard this is for you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t expect you to know that sort of thing,” I objected. I couldn’t expect someone to know something I wasn’t telling them. It just wasn’t right.

“I’d rather I did know.” Edward’s eyes flickered up to meet mine.

“Okay,” I said, only able to hold his gaze for a couple moments before the intensity was too much for me. “For now, you just need to know that I might be a while before I’m really comfortable. I’m warning you now that I might be slow. I can’t say for sure.”

Edward smiled and raised my hand up, slowly and deliberately. He pressed his lips against the skin directly above my knuckles. His lips were so light on my hand that I barely felt the cold from his marble skin. I got the feeling that he was testing himself just as much as he was testing me. “The glorious thing about being immortal is that you learn to be patient.”

Having noticed Edward’s own careful movements, I realized that this was probably hard for him, too. I knew that some part of him wanted to kill me, an idea that sent a small shiver down my spine, but that he was doing everything he could to resist. He would want to progress slowly, too, if only to keep me alive. Maybe this pairing was all too perfect. We both were stepping past friendship with intense caution, only for entirely different reasons.

“I want to try this again,” I told Edward. He smiled a crooked grin down at me. I was pretty sure I could feel something inside me melt.

“Bella Swan, are you asking me out?”

I blushed but didn’t look away. “I guess I am.”

EPOV

I stayed at Bella’s house until 11:00. I made sure to keep my distance from her for the most part, both for her sake and my own, with a few slip-ups. I knew Bella could easily get overwhelmed, and I knew that I wasn’t ready to be able to handle much contact with her, but it was unbelievably difficult not to reach my hand out and stroke her skin. It wasn’t as smooth as mine was, but it was soft and warm.

It felt like fate was playing a cruel joke on us. Of course fate paired me with someone I couldn’t physically be with. It was such an unusual combination that there had to be some force behind it. Why else would the two of us have to move forward exceedingly cautiously? It was cruel that we should make a couple, and yet it made so much sense.

It just made me want Bella even more.

Why must we desire that which we cannot have? Who made that law up? As much as it pained me, I was glad for it, because the pain was of such a joyous variety that I would take it over the alternative any day.

I’m losing my mind, that made no sense at all. I really was, and Bella was responsible for it.

I returned home once Bella decided that she wanted to go to bed. I would be back later, I already knew, but I hoped to give her a little privacy and time to herself before I returned. Besides, I knew I owed it to my family to see them. They were still a huge part of my life, and I couldn’t forget that.

He’s… happy. I’m not used to him being like this. I could hear Jasper’s confused thoughts coming from the area in front of the television. He knew why I was cheery, but he could not understand why I found such happiness in Bella. He was still very wary of her.

Fool. He’s such a fool. I can’t believe he told her. Rosalie was still unbelievably bitter and not willing to let go of the fact that I had let it slip to Bella that we were vampires. She had taken to making huffing noises every time I entered a room, and she did not disappoint this time. Right on cue, the moment I walked through the front door she let out a short breath of air, dripping with disapproval.

Alice, on the other hand, who was playing herself in a game of chess, was trying to keep herself from bombarding me with questions. Curiosity tinted every thought running through her head. I wonder if she’s calm again.

“You knew?” I asked Alice.

“Not right away,” she said. Not until she started considering telling her dad she was sick.

Wow, Bella really had wanted to back out. My elated mood came down a little as I remembered just how upset she had been. I should have been surprised that she had almost canceled, but it bothered me more than anything else. How could I make this work?

How are you supposed to date her if she panics each time you plan something?

“That’s exactly what I was just wondering,” I said, taking a seat across from Alice. “It’s harder for her than I thought.”

Harder for you than you thought.

“Well, yeah. That’s a given.” If I could only hear Bella’s thoughts it would be so much easier for me to figure out what was right for her. I would know when to slow down and when it would be okay to make a move.

I picked up one of the pawns Alice had already taken off the board and passed it between my fingers. I was used to having the ability to hear thoughts, and without that I didn’t know how I could possibly progress with Bella. I felt about as weak as the pawn.

Maybe you shouldn’t plan.

My eyes flickered back up to Alice, not sure what she was getting at.

Don’t tell her ahead of time, just show up. If the anticipation is too much for her then leave that part out for now.

I was definitely interested, now. Would it work? I wouldn’t be able to just appear in her bedroom like I had tonight. I would need to at least give Bella the opportunity to turn me down without feeling guilty. She should have that option.

I could see Esme come down the stairs from the corner of my eye. From the sound of things she had been with Carlisle in his office. She smiled at me and made her way over to where Alice and I were sitting around the chess board.

“How was your evening with Bella?” she asked. I could hear the excitement in her voice.

“Unexpected,” I said, setting the pawn back down on the table. “I should have seen it coming, though—Bella was having a panic attack when I got there.”

Emmett was highly amused by this. If she’s afraid to date you, you must be really bad with romance.

“Funny,” I said, dryly.

“It’ll just take time, dear. She’s a smart girl, she’ll figure out in time she doesn’t have to be afraid of you… after all, she was smart enough to see what a catch you are.”

I laughed and shook my head. I need not narrate the sorts of teasing thoughts that went through Emmett’s head at this point.

“I think you’re biased,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not right.” She smiled and set her hand on my shoulder. It was an affectionate gesture.

I may have been mildly embarrassed my Esme’s confidence in me, but it gave me a little more confidence of my own. I would figure out how to move forward from here, and I had the advantage of seeing the outcomes in Alice’s visions.

BPOV

“So I take it you guys didn’t kiss,” Angela said. It was Saturday, and Angela had invited me over to her house for dinner. It was nice having edible food without having to cook it, myself.

“No. We mainly talked,” I said. I was sitting in her desk chair and spinning around slowly, examining her room. I liked it. It fit her personality, and it fit our age. My room largely looked like it had when I used to visit Charlie for a couple weeks in the summer, back when I was much younger. “He was really sweet about it, actually. I think he was trying really hard not to overstep any boundaries.”

“It’s kind of weird that you had that sort of reaction, though,” she said, flipping through her yearbook from the previous school year. “I mean, it’s a strong reaction to have. Has that ever happened before?”

I slowed my spinning. I figured we were getting to be pretty good friends and that I could trust her with the truth. “Yeah, um… I used to have social anxiety disorder.”

Angela looked up from the yearbook and frowned a little. I could tell from her expression that she didn’t really know what that meant. I explained it to her, telling her what I used to be like as well.

“You know, I wouldn’t have known,” Angela finally said.

“Really?”

“Really. It does explain things a little better, though.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I can tell that when you’re with people you seem fine, but sometimes I get the feeling that you avoid being social.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, rolling my eyes at myself. “I definitely do that sometimes.”

“Sometimes I do that, too, though,” Angela said, her eyes falling back on her yearbook. “Wow, I forgot how bad my picture was last year.”

“Can I see?” I asked, getting up from the chair and joining her on her bed. She turned the book a little so I could get a better look at it. “Oh come on, you look fine.”

“I hate my smile there,” she said. She turned the page. “Edward’s picture is perfect, of course.”

He looked exactly like he did the last time I had seen him. It wasn’t just his absurd beauty that made him stand out on the page. To me, it felt blatantly obvious that he looked older than the other sophomores on the page. Maybe he only did because I now knew that he was immortal. Maybe Angela couldn’t really tell because she had no idea he was permanently frozen in time. It was the same with his sister, next to him. She looked too old to be a sophomore

“Let’s not depress ourselves by reminding ourselves that our yearbook photos will never look like fashion headshots,” Angela said, sighing as she shut the book. “I wish I had a boyfriend that looked like Edward.”

“Oh, I don’t… well, I’m not sure what we are.” We hadn’t actually dated yet. How could we be a couple?

“You’re more than friends, though.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

I was upstairs, writing an email to my mom when the doorbell rang on Sunday evening. I heard my dad open the door and say something to whoever was there, followed by a pause.

“Bella?” he called up to me a few moments later.

“Yeah, dad?”

“You’ve got a guest.”

I clicked the Send button and came downstairs to see who was there. I was surprised anyone had shown up because I wasn’t expecting anyone. I tried to remember if I’d left anything at Angela’s house that she might have stopped by to return to me as I came down the final steps and walked into the living room.

It wasn’t Angela at the door.

It was Edward, looking like some sort of Greek god, as always. My heart skipped a beat and I’m sure he heard it. He acted like he hadn’t noticed and instead smiled a crooked grin at me.

“Edward?” I asked, my voice thick. I felt like I’d lost my voice.

“Bella,” he responded, his eyes, smolderingly golden, set on mine. “How would you like to spend to come out with me for a while?”

An evening with Edward? It would easily be a hundred times better than whatever I might have done otherwise.

I glanced over at Charlie. “How’s your homework coming?” he asked.

“It’s done.” I’d finished it Saturday afternoon.

“Then go ahead, Bells. But remember, it’s a school night,” he said, directing the last part mainly to Edward. His voice was stern. “Get her back here by ten.”

“Yes, sir,” Edward said. “I’ll take good care of her.”

My dad grunted in acknowledgement. “Well then,” he said, losing the authority edge. He sounded more like a father who had no idea how to deal with a daughter going on a date. “Have a good time.”

“Bye, dad.”

Edward walked me to his Volvo and opened my door for me. I climbed in and waited the half of a second that it took for him to take a seat in the driver’s seat.

“What was that about?” I asked

“I can’t read your mind, Bella,” he said, smiling. “What was what about?”

“Just showing up?”

Edward started his car. It was amazing how much quieter it was than my truck. I was used to its loud rumbles. “I figured you wouldn’t get as nervous if you didn’t have the time to anticipate.”

“Then why not just come through my window again?”

“I wanted to give you the chance to say no,” he explained. “Also, I wouldn’t have risked this if I hadn’t known that Charlie would know I was with you.”

That seemed odd. Honestly, I would have preferred that my father not know I was spending time with boys. It just led to awkward father-daughter conversations. “Why did he have to know?”

Edward was silent as he pulled the car out of the driveway. He was considering how to answer. “I wanted to have a reminder that there will be consequences if I don’t return you home.” He gave me a significant look.

It was to make sure he wouldn’t kill me. I swallowed.

“Did I frighten you?” he asked.

“Not really.”

Edward smirked.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of Edward, exactly. I trusted him. I couldn’t see how Edward could hurt me. I knew he wouldn’t. That didn’t make discussing my death a comfortable conversation topic.

“Where are we going?” I asked, looking outside as the dark images flew by. I didn’t do this for long. He was going much too fast for me to look out the side window without either feeling sick or getting scared. The speedometer read 90. “Edward, please!”

He sighed and let off on the gas pedal until we were going 80 miles an hour. This time I sighed, and so he let the car drift to 65. “I’m almost going the speed limit,” he said, complaining.

“If my dad pulled you over right now you’d still get a massive ticket.”

“I’m a safer driver at a hundred miles an hour than he is when he’s going twenty,” he said. He was probably right.

I was starting to realize that I didn’t know where we were. The area was vaguely familiar, but I had never driven here before, myself.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see when we get there. Have you already eaten?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we’ll be there shortly.”

BPOV

If Edward were a human, I would have been sure he had taken a wrong turn. But he was a vampire. I had already accepted that Edward didn’t accidentally mess up—he was just too perfect for that.

So why were we approaching a dead end? In the headlights I could just barely make out that the road halted about 50 yards ahead of us. This had to be intentional, but it made no sense. Then, confirming my suspicions, the car crawled to a stop and Edward pulled his key out of the ignition.

“Where are we?” I asked, gazing out the window and trying to make sense out of our stop. Edward appeared in front of my door and opened it for me. I climbed out, wary of having a clumsy moment because I could barely see the ground now that the headlights were gone.

“Well, we’re not in Forks,” he said. “I wanted to show you something.”

My eyes were starting to adjust and I made out a small wooden sign, indicating a trail. I could not yet make out the clearing in the forest to see the path for myself.

“Are we hiking?” I asked, my voice shriller than I’d intended. “At night?” This was not good. Not at all. I didn’t like the idea of not seeing where I put my feet.

“I am, you’re not.” Before I got the chance to figure out what he meant by this, he took my arm and swung me onto his back. “If you can’t hike during the day what makes you think I’ll let you hike when it’s dark?”

It was a very good point, although I did not admit it out loud. Besides, I was once again overly aware of our proximity. His scent overwhelmed me. I couldn’t resist the urge to press my head against the back of his neck. The effect was dizzying.

“It’s hard enough looking out for you when you can see, at any rate,” Edward said, having a little more fun at my expense.

“Ha ha.” I said, dryly.

Edward walked us over to the edge of the forest, but not to the trail. “If you don’t like my driving, you may want to close your eyes for this.”

“Why?” I asked, suddenly alarmed.

“You’ll see.” I could hear a smile in his voice.

Edward took off before I’d managed to shut my eyes, and I immediately knew why I should have obeyed right away. He darted through the forest, dodging trees and branches narrowly at blinding speeds. My eyes couldn’t focus on anything as it whizzed by, but what really scared me was that I could never see just how narrowly he missed ramming into a tree.

I squeezed my eyes shut and strengthened my grip around Edward’s neck. I could still feel the wind blasting against us, but I couldn’t tell we were moving. We might have been sitting in front of a particularly powerful fan for all I knew.

A few minutes later, the wind slowed. I could no longer feel anything other than Edward: his hands holding my legs in place around his waist, his back pressed up against my stomach. My head was reeling, but not because of the sprint.

“Are we there?” I asked, my eyes still shut.

“Yes. Do you need help down?”

“Um…” I unlocked my legs, finding it much more difficult than I had expected it to be. I must have had a really strong hold on Edward. “I think I’ve got it.”

Edward eased me down from his back anyway, sensing my trouble. Once my feet hit the ground I looked around me, trying to figure out where we were. We were still in the forest. “Is this it?”

“No, it’s just beyond those trees.” Edward took my hand and carefully guided me ten yards further. He was my eyes, helping me pick the safest path.

We came to the edge of a small clearing that took my breath away. Moonlight filtered through, casting a gentle silver glow on the field. It leeched the colors from the wildflowers dotting the grass, but did not detract from their beauty. I could hear the trickling of a stream somewhere just out of sight.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.

Edward rested his hand on my back, encouraging me forward. I wandered out into the center of the clearing. “I come here sometimes when I need to think,” he said, “particularly if I want to stop hearing people’s thoughts. It’s ironic that I come here with the one person whose thoughts I most desperately wish to hear.”

“I’m glad you can’t,” I said. If he could hear the nonsense and the obsessing that went through my head, I would never be able to get over the embarrassment.

Edward joined me in the center of the field and lifted his hand to my face. The tips of his fingers slid from my temple to my chin, never taking his eyes away from mine. It kept me locked in place. My heart accelerated.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, his hand dropping as he noticed the change in my heartbeat. I couldn’t tell if his voice was hopeful or defeated.

I shook my head, an automatic response, but his wistful smile told me that he saw through my lie.

“I can take you back.”

“I told you I’m not afraid of you. Not like that.”

“Regardless, it wasn’t the wisest move on my part.”

“What if I don’t care?” I objected.

Edward was silent, perhaps listening to my heart. “You want to stay?”

I nodded, and his responding smile chased away every thought in my mind. Even in the faint moonlight, his smile took my breath away.

I hadn’t been sure, at first, what it would be like to date Edward. In my mind, dates at least partially involved food. That’s how it usually was in the movies and in many of the books I’d read. That was clearly not going to work with Edward, and I had been uncomfortable with the idea of Edward taking me to a restaurant and paying for my meal so he could watch me eat. I hadn’t been sure what we would do if dining wasn’t an option.

I was relieved to find that, even without going to a restaurant, there were no awkward pauses with Edward. We may have had fewer activities to choose from on a date, but it was much easier than I’d expected.

EPOV

In our first moment of true silence, Bella was laying on her back in the grass, looking up at the stars. She’d said she liked how she could see so many more stars now that we were away from road lights and light from houses and store signs. She was calm, so much more so than I could have hoped for. It both scared me and made me hopeful. On one hand, it meant that it might actually be possible for us to keep going down our current path, seeing each other and getting to know one another better… but I still fought with myself over whether it was in her best interest.

I was laying next to Bella, trying to keep a carefully measured distance from her. I liked the warmth radiating off her body, and I still longed to reach out and touch her, but I still had to keep in mind that I still wasn’t sure of the level of control I had over my thirst for her blood, and I didn’t want to make her anxious. It was one thing holding Bella when she was falling apart and needed help, but I had no reason to hold her that I could defend, now. How I wish I did.

Rather than holding her hand, I shifted so the sides of our arms grazed. Bella, feeling my arm by her, turned to face me, a faint smile on her lips. Her pupils nearly spanned the entire area of her irises. I had no doubt that she could barely see me.

“It was a bad idea for me to take you here at night,” I said.

“Why?” Bella asked. “Is this because I couldn’t hike?”

“No, because the dark makes you even more defenseless.” It was very foolish of me. I had wanted to share my meadow with Bella—to share another side of me with her. I thought the night setting would lend to making the meadow peaceful and would have a calming effect on Bella. I now saw the mistake in this plan. “I’m asking you to trust me more than I had a right to by bringing you here. If I were to lose control—”

“You won’t.” Bella sounded more sure of myself than I was.

“You have much too much faith in me,” I said, sitting up at looking down at her. Her eyes had trouble finding the precise location of my eyes. I was asking her quite literally to trust me, a vampire, blindly, and she rose to the occasion. She wouldn’t even see anything coming. The thought made my throat flair. “I suppose it’s easy for a human to want to trust a vampire, though. That’s what makes this so dangerous. I draw you in.”

“And I don’t even resist,” Bella agreed.

I had to smile here. “You do more than any other human I’ve known. Compared to anyone else you are far more difficult.” Most humans may be instinctively afraid of me, but I knew that if I were to flirt with them, whether romantically or to lure them in, they wouldn’t hesitate the slightest. Bella wasn’t like that. She was more careful. I wouldn’t have to plan how to proceed with anyone but her.

I could see a faint pink glow light up Bella’s face and her eyes wandered away from my face. “That’s a great reputation to have,” she muttered. Could she possibly be embarrassed?

“You holding back could be the very thing that makes it possible for me to control myself,” I said. “And I can only be grateful that you have something that’s in favor of keeping you safe.”

Bella was silent. It drove me crazy, because it was blatantly obvious that she was thinking about what I had said.

“What are you thinking?” I asked, or maybe it would be more accurate to say ‘begged.’

“I…” she fell silent again. She was editing her thoughts. Frustrating! “I had never really considered that having social phobia could keep me safe.”

“Something is in your favor, at least,” I said.

“It isn’t, though,” she said, pushing herself up into a sitting position in front of me. “I’d rather live a little more dangerously if it meant I could date… live.”

What was she saying? She wanted to throw herself at a vampire? Push him over the edge only to have him drink her dry? That wasn’t just dangerous, that was insane, but it inspired more desire in me—that she welcomed the risk, wanted it. A selfish, unforgivable hope raged inside me, and I needed to debunk it. I was starting to think it would be okay to move forward physically, to kiss her.

It was with excruciating caution that I leaned forward. With each inch, the fire in my throat burned twice as strong, but I persisted, resting a hand along the side of her face. I could see the blood pooling under her cheeks, and it didn’t help me tame the monster inside me. I stopped breathing when our lips were a mere two inches apart, and halted.

I had definitely proven myself right, it would be too dangerous to proceed, and I knew I should back away… but I wanted to kiss her far more than I should, perhaps enough so that I could not back away. “Are you willing to ‘live’ if the consequence is death?”

Bella’s eyes were wide with an unidentifiable emotion. It wasn’t quite fear, nor was it excitement or longing, but it may have been some mixture of the three. “You wouldn’t kill me.” Her voice came as a raspy whisper.

“Do you trust me?” I asked. The memory of her scent buzzed loudly in my head. I could feel venom leak into my mouth. I moved closer, and now a mere centimeter separated the two of us.

“Yes.”

Bella was breathing heavily, waves of her scent hitting my face. If I were still breathing, she would already be dead.

When our lips just barely touched, the vampire in me started winning over the civilized side of me. I was no longer sure that I had control, and I didn’t know what would happen if our mouths joined fully. We lingered there, but I could not find the will to pull back

And then Bella turned her head away.

“Oh my god,” she whispered. She brought her hands up to her face and broke away from my hand. “I’m sorry…”

I blinked a couple times, and my head cleared. The monster retreated.

“I don’t know why I did that,” she went on.

I was relieved she had. I wanted to say that I would have been fine if I had kissed her, but I couldn’t be sure. I might have killed her. I couldn’t figure it out.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated.

“You did the right thing,” I finally said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure how much control I had.”

“Ugh,” she groaned shutting her eyes for a moment. “This is really embarrassing.”

“Bella, it’s okay. Honestly, I’m glad you stopped us.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I knew who it was before I pulled it out. The display read ‘Alice.’ I couldn’t leave her in the dark after the images she had probably seen.

Alice didn’t even wait for me to greet her once I opened my phone. “Edward, what happened? I just saw—”

“Bella is fine,” I said. I knew what Alice would have seen, because I knew how close Bella could have been to dying.

“Thank god,” Alice gasped. “The future was jumping so fast between her death and her living, I wasn’t sure what was going on. I didn’t know if you’d killed her.”

My jaw tightened. Thank god I hadn’t. “Everything is fine over here,” I reassured her.

“Well good. Edward, I’m serious, don’t hurt her. She’s going to be my friend, too, you know.”

I glanced over at Bella, who was laying in the grass once more, her fingers woven into her hair. I really wished I could hear what was going on in her head. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll fill you in on it later.” I hung up the phone and turned back to Bella.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Alice,” I said, shoving my phone back into my pocket. “She just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Why would she think I wasn’t?” She was looking at me again. I was glad she wasn’t avoiding me after the almost-kiss.

“She can see bits of the future sometimes. She sees the results of the decisions we make, but it changes.”

“Oh,” Bella said and then fell silent for a moment. “What did she see?”

I wasn’t sure if Bella should know this. I didn’t want to scare her, but then again she never did seem to be afraid for the right reasons. Maybe she should be. Maybe it would keep her safe. “Most likely she saw two visions: one of us kissing and one of you dead.”

Bella didn’t respond.

“I wish you’d tell me what you are thinking,” I said.

“I don’t think I can say. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

Well that was just confusing. I sighed and stood up, walking over to Bella to offer her a hand up. “We should go. I think we’ve risked your life enough for one evening.”

Bella looked surprised, but she took my hand. I lifted her onto her feet. “There’s going to be another?” she asked.

“Well, maybe not an evening, or at least not out in the dark,” I clarified, “but if you’d like, then yes.”

She still looked surprised, and it drove me insane that I couldn’t know why, but it didn’t sound like I would get any answers just yet.

The thing that tortured me the most was that I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t have killed her if she hadn’t backed away.

BPOV

“So,” Charlie said, scratching his head uncomfortably. “How was your evening with—uh—with Edward?”

It was Monday morning, and I had been hoping I would make it out the door to school before this topic came up. This would have been so much less… awkward if Charlie wasn’t so much like me. I wouldn’t mind having this talk with my mom, because she wouldn’t approach the topic as though it were the last thing she wanted to discuss.

“Good,” I answered, staring into my cereal bowl. “We don’t have to have this talk.”

“I’m your father,” he said. “It’s part of my job description.”

I hadn’t finished my breakfast, but I got up anyway and went to the sink. I didn’t necessarily try to make this a habit, but sometimes I try to busy myself when something potentially awkward is about to happen. I think it makes me feel less in the spotlight.

“So what did you two do?”

“Mainly talked. He took me to this clearing in the forest.”

With my mom, I might have volunteered the information that we almost kissed. I’m sure I would have told her, but with Charlie, less information was always better. It definitely was not a good idea to mention that I’d grazed lips with Edward or that I spent the entire night dreaming about what it would have been like if we actually had kissed.

“He didn’t…” Charlie was struggling with his words. “He didn’t pressure you at all or anything, did he?”

“Dad!”

“Bells, as your father I’ve got to ask.”

“No. No, he didn’t,” I said scrubbing my bowl out and setting it in the dish drain.

“Okay, good to hear it.”

“Yeah, but listen, I’ve got to go.”

“Isn’t it a little early to be heading for school?”

Yes. But I didn’t want to stay here and let my father keep interrogating me about my date with Edward. I didn’t know what to tell him when I still hadn’t figured out what I thought about what had happened.

“I need to have my English teacher read over my essay,” I lied. I went up to my room, brushed my teeth, grabbed my backpack, and ran back down the stairs. “Bye, Dad, I’ll see you tonight.”

Charlie wished me a good day at school as I headed out the door, and I halted in my tracks on the sidewalk. Edward’s car was waiting.

Edward climbed out of the car. He must have just gotten here. “Good morning.”

“How did you--?” I started to ask. He was a vampire. Did I need any more of an explanation? “Never mind.”

Edward explained anyway. “Alice told me you’d be going to school early today.”

I frowned. “Didn’t you say that her visions are based on what we’ve decided?”

“I did,” he nodded. He walked over to the passenger side and opened the door for me.

“But I just decided that less than four minutes ago,” I said as I climbed in the front seat.

“Really, now?” he asked as though I was missing something. “You know how I drive.” Edward shut the door. Wow. How fast did he drive when I wasn’t in the car?

We didn’t talk about our date. I think Edward was trying to be considerate, but it left a bunch of unanswered questions. I was a little surprised, because I would have thought that, after last night, he would decide against pursuing something with me… if not because I had freaked out on him again then because he was trying to be noble. It seemed like the sort of thing he would do—try to stop seeing me because he was unsure of his control. He had avoided me once before because he was trying to do the right thing.

Maybe that was the real reason I’d been surprised to see him parked in front of my house. Maybe part of me assumed that we would have taken a step back.

Instead of bringing up the previous night, I asked Edward questions about himself. I wanted to understand what he was, and Edward patiently answered every question I had. He humored even my most ridiculous questions. Honestly, I was amazed by how willing he was to discuss it. In the past, he had been more reluctant to go into details, but maybe it didn’t bother him as much to explain anymore. I barely noticed the parking lot slowly filling with other students as time passed.

“So, then, what happens if you eat something?” I asked.

Edward laughed. “I have to cough up anything I eat later on.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“That’s precisely why I eat as little as I can. That and the fact that human food is about as repulsive to me as mud is for you.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Do you have to do that often?”

“On rare occasions, but sometimes, yes. It comes with the territory of living with people.”

I cringed. “Okay,” I said, trying to think up another question.

“You know, it’s wholly unfair that you’ve learned so much about me and I know so little about you.” He was doing it again. Edward’s warm, butterscotch eyes were bearing into mine and my eyes were locked with his. I couldn’t have turned away if I had wanted to.

For a moment I forgot to breathe. “What’s there to know?” I asked. “I’m not a mythological creature that you just recently learned actually does exist.” He already knew what humans were like. I had known absolutely nothing about what Edward was until very recently.

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Fine, you can ask questions, next.” It wasn’t going to be nearly as interesting as learning about changing eye colors or what makes him sparkle in the sunlight.

But Edward didn’t get the chance to start, because the warning bell rang, and I knew we had to get going if we didn’t want to be counted as late.

When I entered my English classroom, Angela was already there. I smiled at her and took the seat next to her. “Hey, how was the rest of your weekend?”

“Well,” she said, trying to hold back a wide smile and failing, “I got to talk to Ben some… a lot actually.”

By the sound of things, Ben had called her with a question about a trigonometry assignment. Discussing trig lead to discussing school and what they do after school, and suddenly he was inviting her over so they could have a ‘casual hang-out’ sometime soon. Since it sounded like no one else was going to be there, it seemed likely that this ‘casual hang-out’ was more significant than Angela or Ben had admitted out loud to each other.

Of course, Angela was excited. Once class started, I kept noticing her attention drift away from the teacher. It wasn’t hard to guess about what—or whom, I should say—she was thinking. I was going to have to remember to let her look off the notes I had taken for English later on that day.

Once English got out, Angela and I grabbed our bags and headed to Trigonometry together. “So what about you?” Angela asked. “How was the rest of your weekend?”

I blushed immediately.

“Is that a good or a bad blush?” she asked.

That was a very good question. “I’m not sure.”

“Okay, then, what happened?”

I waited until we got to our government classroom and then I explained my previous night to her. I told her how Edward had just shown up at my door so I wouldn’t have time to get anxious, how he took me to a clearing in the woods and we talked and looked up at the stars.

“And then… we almost kissed,” I said, conveniently leaving out the part about how Edward had been fighting the urge to kill me the whole time.

“Wait, almost?” she asked, surprised.

“Yeah.” I bit my lip.

“As in, you two didn’t actually kiss.”

I groaned at myself. “Our lips were literally touching and everything.”

“And then what?”

“And then I turned away.” Oh, how badly I wish I hadn’t.

Understanding lit Angela’s eyes. I could tell she knew it had something to do with the fact that I used to have social anxiety disorder.

Considering the fact that I can’t even kiss a guy I might have to rethink thinking myself as recovering from SAD. I couldn’t help but be frustrated with myself.

“How’d Edward take that?” Angela asked.

“He seemed okay about it.”

“And how have you been taking it?”

“I can’t stop thinking about it!” I said in a hushed whisper. We both laughed. “Seriously, it’s taunting me.”

“Because you’ve been nervous about it?”

“No, because I wanted to kiss him. So badly. I went into the night convinced I would do it, but when he was right there with his hand on the side of my face… it just didn’t happen.” I touched my hand to my cheek the way he had.

Angela offered me a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure you’ll get another chance.”

I really hoped so.

Trigonometry and Spanish passed by slowly and uneventfully. I was feeling a tad antsy by the time lunch arrived. Edward was waiting for me at the entrance to the cafeteria. He smiled as I fell into step next to him and we entered the cafeteria together.

Edward leaned closer to me and spoke into my ear. “You’ve been thinking about our almost-kiss.”

His breath on my neck sent shivers through my entire body, but his words were what made me stop where I was. “I thought you couldn’t hear what I was thinking,” I said, my voice low.

“I can’t,” he said simply, smiling. He looked pleased with himself. “But I can hear every conversation being held within these walls,” he reminded me.

My eyes widened, horrified. “You were listening?” I asked. That’s so embarrassing! I knew he could hear really well, but I hadn’t expected him to pay attention to my conversation.

“I wasn’t planning to, at first,” he said. He rested his hand on my back and urged me forward so I wouldn’t hold up the lunch line. “I was checking up on you.”

“Edward, this is school,” I protested. “I can make it through a class period without hurting myself.”

“Can you? Because I’m not always sure.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered. I inconveniently chose this moment to bump into the person in front of me in line.

“Case and point,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. Edward grabbed a tray and started filling it with one of each kind of food. I was going to ask why he was taking so much food for me at first, but then I remembered that he probably needed to look like he was eating, too.

“The point is,” he said, “once I heard you talking about us… how was I supposed to stop?”

I would be lying if I said that I would give up a chance to hear what Edward said about me to his family.

“So you’re stalking me,” I concluded. I wasn’t being serious. To tell the truth I was flattered that he was that eager to hear what I thought of our night.

“I wouldn’t call that stalking.” I got the feeling he wasn’t telling me something. His face was oddly smug. “Are you angry?” He handed the cashier a couple of bills and we headed to the table that was quickly becoming our table.

“No, not really,” I said.

Edward laughed as he set the tray on the table. I sat down and he took the seat next to me, then he scooting his chair closer to mine. I looked over only to realize that his face was once again inches away from mine. He was looking at me intently, and I was pretty sure my brain melted into mush. I was reminded of how badly I had wanted to kiss him last night. What would it have been like if our ‘almost-kiss’ had actually happened?

“It’s all I can think about, too,” he said, and then backed away.

BPOV

Gym was particularly difficult the day after my date with Edward. After biology, he had walked me to the gymnasium. Once again, as we stood outside the door, I had felt a magnetic pull, seemingly drawing us together. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I could see the conflict raging in his eyes. His jaw tightened just slightly and his fingers hovered by my cheek… and then he changed course. Instead, he took my hand in his and placed a feather-soft kiss on my knuckles. His eyes didn’t leave mine until he dropped my hand, flashed me a crooked smile, and walked away.

I was frozen by the door for moment, trying to get my breathing back to normal. How did he do that? I didn’t really have a word for it… He left me breathless. Dazzled me. That’s what he was doing to me.

I think when Edward dazzled me it had a lasting effect that day. I had more trouble concentrating in gym than usual, which was unfortunate because that class is already my worst when I actually have my wits about me. It is definitely better to have a clear head when you have objects flying at you.

“Watch out!”

I was barely aware of the warning until a basketball collided with my shoulder. I fell backwards, falling into another student and knocking them down as well. The plus side of all this was that I twisted my ankle as I fell, which meant I got to sit out the rest of gym, watching from a safe distance.

Once class was over and I was done for the day, Mike offered to help me to the parking lot. It may have been a little unnecessary—I probably could have made it to Edward’s car on my own, but, although perhaps Mike was being overly eager, I was glad to have the extra help.

Mike had his arm around me while my arm was over his nearest shoulder, and I had to admit it made walking much easier. I felt a tiny, sharp pang with every step, but I knew it would have been worse without someone holding me up a little. He paused when we reached the edge of the parking lot.

“Where is your truck?” he asked, noticing that it wasn’t there.

“Um, Edward gave me a ride today.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” I said. I bit my lip. I could practically feel disappointment emanating from him. I might be uncomfortable around him sometimes, but I still felt guilty.

“So, what, are you two dating?”

“Mike,” I groaned. It was weird enough talking about this with a girl but even more so with a guy. I felt my face warm as blood rushed to my cheeks. “Yeah, we are.”

“I was wondering about that. You’ve been with him a lot lately.”

I silently started wishing that Edward would hurry up and find me.

“I thought you didn’t want to date anyone,” he said.

I looked away from Mike. “I wasn’t planning on dating at all.”

“You’re dating Cullen,” he pointed out.

“Edward,” I corrected.

“Whatever. You’re dating him.” I could hear the dejection in his voice. I felt horrible.

“Aw, Mike… I wasn’t planning on this happening.”

“Sure you didn’t,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. Since when did Mike have an attitude?

“I saw this coming from a mile away. I don’t like it. It’s not right, something’s weird about him.”

“Well, thanks for your concern,” I said, starting to get annoyed with him, “but Edward and I are fine.” I took my arm off his shoulder so I could go and sit on the bench a couple feet away, but Mike kept his arm around me.

“I’m serious,” he said, “I wouldn’t be—”

“Thanks, Mike,” said a cool, velvety voice. Edward. “I can take her from here.”

Somehow, Edward was just behind us. He never ceased to amaze me with the way he could show up unnoticed. I would have smiled at him, but the expression on his face was cold and warning.

--

EPOV

How could anyone be such a danger to themselves? Once I had seen Bella’s fall through Mike’s thoughts, I was eager to get out of Spanish. What was she thinking? She hadn’t even been looking! If only I had gym with her… but what would I have been able to do for her if I had been there? Unless I had been right by her side I wouldn’t have been able to prevent it without arousing suspicion. Plus, I doubted I would have been able to change my schedule, so I was stuck in Spanish. It was absurd that I should have to stay here when I knew Bella had hurt herself—it wasn’t as though I could possibly learn anything else in high school, anyway.

When Mrs. Goff let us out of class, I could already hear Mike getting up the courage to confront Bella about me. I was highly offended by how ecstatic he was that Bella had twisted her ankle. He was glad to have a reason to have his arm around Bella’s waist and to prove to her that he was reliable. His excitement was the only reason he waited as long as he did to bring me up, waiting until he noticed that Bella’s truck wasn’t there. He swore in his head.

I was trapped walking at a human pace. It was unbelievably frustrating. I would not be able to walk faster through the crowd of students filing out of their classrooms.

It wasn’t often that someone got on my nerves as much as Mike. I didn’t like hearing his thoughts about Bella. He wouldn’t deserve her; he was blind to the amazing person that she was. His attraction for her was surface-deep, and hearing such thoughts bothered me.

Only for a few moments did he think any genuine thoughts for her. He was concerned about her dating me.

He’s a freak. How can she not see that? Something’s off about him.

He was right. I was dangerous for her. I shouldn’t let myself pull her away from humanity.

My regrets didn’t last long when Mike’s thoughts took a turn.

It must be the money. Or the cars.

I might be more sympathetic towards Mike’s situation if he had more respect for girls. How could anyone who knew Bella even the slightest even question her motives? I was furious that Mike was letting himself assume that Bella could be superficial, even if it was only to make himself feel better.

“Thanks, Mike,” I said, curtly, when I had reached the two of them. “I can take her from here.”

Whoa. Freak. Where’d he come from?

Mike wasn’t helping to keep me calm.

“Alright,” Mike said, slipping Bella’s backpack off his shoulder and holding it out to her. I took it instead, and Mike scowled just slightly. It’s just because he’s rich, he reminded himself. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and walked away.

“Bye,” Bella said.

I watched after Mike as he walked away. “How’s your ankle?” I asked, turning to Bella.

She frowned at me. “I think it’s a little better… were you listening again?” The disapproval in her voice softened my temper.

“It happens pretty naturally,” I said, which was partially true. It is hard to block out all the voices, but I may have tried a little less to ignore the voices and thoughts coming from the gym. “What happened?”

“I was hit by a basketball… I fell.”

I rolled my eyes a little and shouldered Bella’s backpack. Did I dare wrap my arm around her like Mike had? Was I sure I could control myself again? I’d done it before. I’d held her in my arms when she’d had her panic attack. I’d been fine then, and the urge to touch her now was unbearable.

I was exceedingly cautious as I wrapped my arm around Bella, holding her up enough so she wouldn’t have to put much pressure on her bad ankle. I could feel the warmth of her body seep through her clothes and mine. The sensation was intoxicating.

“I gathered that much on my own,” I said as I started us towards my Volvo. “You weren’t even paying attention. Why is that?”

Bella laughed to herself, sounding nervous. “I was distracted… I was thinking about you.”

Had anyone ever spoken better words? My lips tugged up in a smile, despite the warning going off in my mind. I was dangerous for her in more ways than I’d thought. On one hand, I was responsible for her getting pummeled by a basketball—as though I weren’t dangerous enough for her already—but knowing that she had been distracted because she was thinking of me? Amazing.

--

That evening, I returned to Bella’s room yet again. It pleased Alice, at least. Esme as well. Rosalie just huffed out a sigh as I left, not saying anything. She didn’t need to.

What could he possibly see in her? How could he possibly be interested in her when he was never interested in me? She’s just a human!

I didn’t let Rosalie’s thought’s get to me. I knew she was just jealous because no single guy had ever been able to resist her for her looks. It may not have bothered her as much when I showed no interest in anyone, but now that I was seeing Bella she was thrown for a loop. In a way I did feel some sympathy for her. More than anything, I was amazed that she couldn’t see why Bella appealed to me so much. How could I not be helplessly drawn to someone so unique, so interesting, so breathtaking? It was an insult to Bella that Rosalie didn’t seem to understand.

Bella was already asleep when I reached her house. When I climbed through her window, she was already mumbling in her sleep. I couldn’t pick out any words right away—her words were jumbled together and sounded more like a groan than an actual string of words. I might have laughed, but I didn’t want to wake her.

Through the night, Bella said my name five times. Each time, I would have sworn I was floating. She was dreaming about me. I may not know what the dreams were, but the fact that I was there with her in her dreams was enough. I liked thinking that a dream version of myself was there to protect her while she slept.

Surely I couldn’t have been sitting in the rocking chair by Bella’s bed for long, and yet the sun was starting to rise. The night had gone by in the blink of an eye, but I was not ready to leave. I should leave, I knew. It would be the right thing to do… but the idea of staying was so tempting. What would it be like to be the first thing Bella saw when she woke up?

I shouldn’t let myself think these thoughts. I wasn’t sure Bella would be ready for that. I didn’t want to push her past her comfort level for my own satisfaction.

But what is worse: watching Bella in her sleep and lying about it through omission, or watching over her in her sleep and possibly upsetting her by revealing just how incapable I am of letting her out of my sight? I owed it to Bella to be honest.

It is possible, though, that I weighted the arguments intentionally in favor of convincing myself to stay. I wanted to stay with her. I wanted to be there when her eyes flickered open.

Bella groaned when her alarm clock went off, pulling her comforter over her head. She lay there for a few moments, perhaps trying to fall back asleep despite the beeps before throwing the covers back down and rolling to the side to shut off her alarm.

When Bella’s eyes fell on me she practically jumped. Her eyes widened and her heart raced wildly. She held her hand over her heart.

“Oh my god, Edward!” Her voice came out as breathy gasps. I couldn’t decide if I was feeling more guilty or entertained.

“Did I startle you?” I asked.

“Obviously,” she said. Her heart rate was still up, but it was calming down. “Is this another attempt to cut down on anticipation?”

“No,” I admitted. “I did this for my own selfish purposes.” They were very selfish, indeed.

Bella was silent for a moment, trying to read my expression, most likely. “How long have you been here?” she asked, wary.

I rocked the chair back. “A while.”

To my surprise, a faint smile spread across Bella’s lips. She was glad I was there. “How long is a while?” she asked.

“Most of the night.” I crossed the room to sit next to Bella on the bed and took her hand in mine. It was all I was willing to risk right now. I didn’t want to push Bella’s comfort. “How’d you sleep? Although I suppose I can guess that for myself,” I said with a smile.

Bella blushed and her eyes, still tired from her sleep, widened. “Was I talking in my sleep?” she asked. I could see in her eyes that she already knew the answer to this. She expected it.

“You do most nights,” I said.

Bella groaned and, to my surprise, rested her head against my shoulder, burying her face. “Please tell me you weren’t here to listen to all that.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“You were! You were here, weren’t you?”

“Do you wish I hadn’t been?”

Bella was thinking, and again it drove me crazy that I couldn’t hear. All those thoughts running through her head… and she was keeping them from me, only allowing me to hear the select few that she verbalized. “No,” she said, thoughtfully as she picked her head up off my shoulder. “I just… I can guess the sorts of things I’ve been saying.” She looked at me with questioning eyes.

“You did say my name a few times,” I said.

Bella squeezed her eyes shut and groaned again. “What else have I said?” she asked.

“You’ve said ‘vampire’ before,” I said, laughing. If only she knew how much she had scared me that night. “That’s why I thought you knew I was a vampire a while back.”

“What else?”

“You’ve mentioned Phoenix a few times… and Renee.”

Bella sighed. “I guess that’s not so bad.”

“Last night you said something about how we’ve almost kissed.”

“Wow, that’s so embarrassing,” she muttered.

“It shouldn’t be,” I said, tentatively wrapping my arm around her waist. She didn’t pull away… actually, she leaned against my side. “I’ve thought about it a lot, too, the only difference is I’ve always been awake at the time.”

Bella turned to look at me. Her eyes flickered down to my lips for just a moment. “How do you do that?” she asked. Again, I caught her glancing down at my lips.

“How do I do what?”

“Always say the right thing.”

Did I really? That was surprising, seeing as how I never seemed to be thinking the right thing. Right at that moment, for instance, I was thinking once again about how much I wanted to kiss her. I couldn’t force that on her, though. She couldn’t possibly want to be so close to my teeth. No human should want to put themselves in such danger.

The way she was looking at me, though, I almost had myself convinced I was mistaken. Her face was solemn, her lips parted, and once again her heart beat was steadily accelerating.

“Stay still,” she said. I obeyed, freezing in place. I was a marble statue, not breathing, not fidgeting by even a nanometer. As Bella inched closer I found I had no wish to kill her. Her scent still scorched my throat, but all I wanted was for her to find whatever it was that she needed to close the rest of the distance between us.

After what felt like a torturous moment of anticipation Bella’s lips met mine, but where last time she turned away, this time she molded her lips entirely to mine. An electric jolt seemed to run through my body on contact. I thawed from my frozen state and reciprocated, cupping her face between my hands and kissing her back. It was a moment of the purest bliss as our mouths moved together. My heart soared.

Bella’s breathing came on heavier and her fingers wound in my hair, holding my face against hers. The burn in my throat grew stronger, as did my desire for her blood as I started realizing just how easy it would be to bite her lip. I pulled away.

For a moment, Bella looked confused, but then comprehension washed over her face as she met my eyes. Did she see the monster festering inside me?

“Sorry,” she said.

I held up a finger, motioning for her to wait for a moment. The monster was retreating. I breathed in and out, and then it was gone.

I nodded. “I apologize for that. I almost lost my sense of self.”

“Oh. Are you okay?” she asked me.

“I’m considerably better than okay.” I smiled at her. I could not remember a better experience in over 100 years.

Bella returned the smile. “Is it pathetic that that was my first real kiss?”

“It was mine as well,” I admitted. “You’ve got social phobia as an excuse. I’m 108 years old and I’ve got none.” None except that I hadn’t met Bella until a couple months ago. I laughed. It was hard not to when I was feeling so light-hearted. “I’ve waited so long for you.”

Bella blushed and looked down. “I’m sorry about that.”

I smirked. “No, I mean all those years before I knew you. I more or less accepted that dating wasn’t in my cards.” Bella smiled at me and rested her hand on mine. I turned mine over under hers and linked our fingers together.

Bella’s usually gone into the bathroom by now. Maybe I just didn’t hear the door.

Charlie’s thoughts were getting curious. I knew I would be pushing my luck if I stayed longer.

“You need to get ready for school,” I said.

“I’d rather not go.”

“I’m already responsible for leading you into temptation. I’m not going to help you flunk out of school as well—”

“Can’t you tutor me?” Bella asked. “You’ve been through high school a bunch of times already, haven’t you?”

“—and it’s important that you experience as normal of a human experience as you can. I’m not going to let you dating a vampire change that.” I got off her bed and tugged lightly on her hand to help her up. Bella sighed but followed my lead. She had no problem getting up… it looked like her ankle was doing much better.

“Are you going to drive me to school again?” she asked. The hope in her eyes made me smile.

“Would you like me to?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“Then I’ll be here.” I lifted Bella’s chin upwards and slowly brought my face down to hers, kissing her once more. I welcomed the warm tingles that shot through my body.