She jumped, and then stared at him in confusion. After a second, she rolled the window down manually, seeming to have some trouble with it.
"I'm sorry, Tyler," she said, her voice irritated. "I'm stuck behind Cullen."
She said my surname in a hard voice--she was still angry with me.
"Oh, I know," Tyler said, undeterred by her mood. "I just wanted to ask you something while we're trapped here."
His grin was cocky.
I was gratified by the way she blanched at his obvious intent.
"Will you ask me to the spring dance?" he asked, no thought of defeat in his head.
"I'm not going to be in town, Tyler," she told him, irritation still plain in her voice.
"Yeah, Mike said that."
"Then why--?" she stared to ask.
He shrugged. "I was hoping you were just letting him down easy."
Her eyes flashed, then cooled. "Sorry, Tyler," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "I really am going to be out of town."
He accepted that excuse, his self-assurance untouched. "That's cool. We still have prom."
He strutted back to his car.
I was right to have waited for this.
The horrified expression on her face was priceless. It told me what I should not so desperately need to know--that she had no feelings for any of these human males who wished to court her.
Also, her expression was possibly the funniest thing I'd ever seen.
My family arrived then, confused by the fact that I was, for a change, rocking with laughter rather than scowling murderously at everything in sight.
What's so funny? Emmett wanted to know.
I just shook my head while I also shook with fresh laughter as Bella revved her noisy engine angrily. She looked like she was wishing for a tank again.
"Let's go!" Rosalie hissed impatiently. "Stop being an idiot. If you can."
Her words didn't annoy me--I was too entertained. But I did as she asked.
No one spoke to me on the way home. I continued to chuckle every now and again, thinking of Bella's face.
As I turned on to the drive--speeding up now that there were no witnesses-- Alice ruined my mood.
"So do I get to talk to Bella now?" she asked suddenly, without considering the words first, thus giving me no warning.
"No," I snapped.
"Not fair! What am I waiting for?"
"I haven't decided anything, Alice."
"Whatever, Edward."
In her head, Bella's two destinies were clear again.
"What's the point in getting to know her?" I mumbled, suddenly morose. "If I'm just going to kill her?"
Alice hesitated for a second. "You have a point," she admitted.
I took the final hairpin turn at ninety miles an hour, and then screeched to a stop an inch from the back garage wall.
"Enjoy your run," Rosalie said smugly as I threw myself out of the car.
But I didn't go running today. Instead, I went hunting.
The others were scheduled to hunt tomorrow, but I couldn't afford to be thirsty now. I overdid it, drinking more than necessary, glutting myself again--a small grouping of elk and one black bear I was lucky to stumble across this early in the year. I was so full it was uncomfortable. Why couldn't that be enough? Why did her scent have to be so much stronger than anything else?
I had hunted in preparation for the next day, but, when I could hunt no more and the sun was still hours and hours from rising, I knew that the next day was not soon enough.
The jittery high swept through me again when I realized that I was going to go find the girl.
I argued with myself all the way back to Forks, but my less noble side won the argument, and I went ahead with my indefensible plan. The monster was restless but well-fettered. I knew I would keep a safe distance from her. I only wanted to know where she was. I just wanted to see her face.
It was past midnight, and Bella's house was dark and quiet. Her truck was parked against the curb, her father's police cruiser in the driveway. There were no conscious thoughts anywhere in the neighborhood. I watched the house for a moment from the blackness of the forest that bordered it on the east. The front door would probably be locked--not a problem, except that I didn't want to leave a broken door as evidence behind me. I decided to try the upstairs window first. Not many people would bother installing a lock there.
I crossed the open yard and scaled the face of the house in half a second. Dangling from the eave above the window by one hand, I looked through the glass, and my breath stopped.
It was her room. I could see her in the one small bed, her covers on the floor and her sheets twisted around her legs. As I watched, she twitched restlessly and threw one arm over her head. She did not sleep soundly, at least not this night. Did she sense the danger near her?
I was repulsed by myself as I watched her toss again. How was I any better than some sick peeping torn? I wasn't any better. I was much, much worse.
I relaxed my fingertips, about to let myself drop. But first I allowed myself one long look at her face.
It was not peaceful. The little furrow was there between her eyebrows, the corners of her lips turned down. Her lips trembled, and then parted.
"Okay, Mom," she muttered.
Bella talked in her sleep.
Curiosity flared, overpowering self-disgust. The lure of those unprotected, unconsciously spoken thoughts was impossibly tempting.
I tried the window, and it was not locked, though it stuck due to long disuse. I slid it slowly aside, cringing at each faint groan of the metal frame. I would have to find some oil for next time...
Next time? I shook my head, disgusted again.
I eased myself silently through the half-opened window.
Her room was small--disorganized but not unclean. There were books piled on the floor beside her bed, their spines facing away from me, and CDs scattered by her inexpensive CD player--the one on top was just a clear jewel case. Stacks of papers surrounded a computer that looked like it belonged in a museum dedicated to obsolete technologies. Shoes dotted the wooden floor.
I wanted very much to go read the titles of her books and CDs, but I'd promised myself that I would keep my distance; instead, I went to sit the old rocking chair in the far corner of the room.
Had I really once thought her average-looking? I thought of that first day, and my disgust for the boys who were so immediately intrigued with her. But when I remembered her face in their minds now, I could not understand why I had not found her beautiful immediately. It seemed an obvious thing.
Right now--with her dark hair tangled and wild around her pale face, wearing a threadbare't-shirt full of holes with tatty sweatpants, her features relaxed in unconsciousness, her full lips slightly parted--she took my breath away. Or would have, I thought wryly, if I were breathing.
She did not speak. Perhaps her dream had ended.
I stared at her face and tried to think of some way to make the future bearable.
Hurting her was not bearable. Did that mean my only choice was to try to leave again?
The others could not argue with me now. My absence would not put anyone in danger. There would be no suspicion, nothing to link anyone's thoughts back to the accident.
I wavered as I had this afternoon, and nothing seemed possible.
I could not hope to rival the human boys, whether these specific boys appealed to her or not. I was a monster. How could she see me as anything else? If she knew the truth about me, it would frighten and repulse her. Like the intended victim in a horror movie, she would run away, shrieking in terror.
I remembered her first day in biology...and knew that this was exactly the right reaction for her to have.
It was foolishness to imagine that if had I been the one to ask her to the silly dance, she would have cancelled her hastily-made plans and agreed to go with me.
I was not the one she was destined to say yes to. It was someone else, someone human and warm. And I coul
d not even let myself--someday, when that yes was said-- hunt him down and kill him, because she deserved him, whoever he was. She deserved happiness and love with whomever she chose.
I owed it to her to do the right thing now; I could no longer pretend that I was only in danger of loving this girl.
After all, it really didn't matter if I left, because Bella could never see me the way I wished she would. Never see me as someone worthy of love.
Never.
Could a dead, frozen heart break? It felt like mine would.
"Edward," Bella said.
I froze, staring at her unopened eyes.
Had she woken, caught me here? She looked asleep, yet her voice had been so clear...
She sighed a quiet sigh, and then moved restlessly again, rolling to her side--still fast asleep and dreaming.
"Edward," she mumbled softly.
She was dreaming of me.
Could a dead, frozen heart beat again? It felt like mine was about to.
"Stay," she sighed. "Don't go. Please...don't go."
She was dreaming of me, and it wasn't even a nightmare. She wanted me to stay with her, there in her dream.
I struggled to find words to name the feelings that flooded through me, but I had no words strong enough to hold them. For a long moment, I drowned in them.
When I surfaced, I was not the same man I had been.
My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?
At the time that I had become a vampire, trading my soul and my mortality for immortality in the searing pain of transformation, I had truly been frozen. My body had turned into something more like rock than flesh, enduring and unchanging. My self, also, had frozen as it was--my personality, my likes and my dislikes, my moods and my desires; all were fixed in place.
It was the same for the rest of them. We were all frozen. Livingstone.
When change came for one of us, it was a rare and permanent thing. I had seen it happen with Carlisle, and then a decade later with Rosalie. Love had changed them in an eternal way, a way that never faded. More than eighty years had passed since Carlisle had found Esme, and yet he still looked at her with the incredulous eyes of first love. It would always be that way for them.
It would always be that way for me, too. I would always love this fragile human girl, for the rest of my limitless existence.
I gazed at her unconscious face, feeling this love for her settle into every portion of my stone body.
She slept more peacefully now, a slight smile on her lips.
Always watching her, I began to plot.
I loved her, and so I would try to be strong enough to leave her. I knew I wasn't that strong now. I would work on that one. But perhaps I was strong enough to circumvent the future in another way.
Alice had seen only two futures for Bella, and now I understood them both.
Loving her would not keep me from killing her, if I let myself make mistakes.
Yet I could not feel the monster now, could not find him anywhere in me. Perhaps love had silenced him forever. If I killed her now, it would not be intentional, only a horrible accident.
I would have to be inordinately careful. I would never, ever be able to let my guard down. I would have to control my every breath. I would have to keep an always cautious distance.
I would not make mistakes.
I finally understood that second future. I'd been baffled by that vision--what could possibly happen to result in Bella becoming a prisoner to this immortal half-life? Now--devastated by longing for the girl--I could understand how I might, in unforgivable selfishness, ask my father for that favor. Ask him to take away her life and her soul so that I could keep her forever.
She deserved better.
But I saw one more future, one thin wire that I might be able to walk, if I could keep my balance.
Could I do it? Be with her and leave her human?
Deliberately, I took a deep breath, and then another, letting her scent rip through me like wildfire. The room was thick with her perfume; her fragrance was layered on every surface. My head swam, but I fought the spinning. I would have to get used to this, if I were going to attempt any kind of relationship with her. I took another deep, burning breath.
I watched her sleeping until the sun rose behind the eastern clouds, plotting and breathing.
I got home just after the others had left for school. I changed quickly, avoiding Esme's questioning eyes. She saw the feverish light in my face, and she felt both worry and relief. My long melancholy had pained her, and she was glad it seemed to be over.
I ran to school, arriving a few seconds after my siblings did. They did not turn, though Alice at least must have known that I stood here in the thick woods that bordered the pavement. I waited until no one was looking, and then I strolled casually from between the trees into the lot full of parked cars.
I heard Bella's truck rumbling around the corner, and I paused behind a Suburban, where I could watch without being seen.
She drove into the lot, glaring at my Volvo for a long moment before she parked in one of the most distant spaces, a frown on her face.
It was strange to remember that she was probably still angry with me, and with good reason.
I wanted to laugh at myself--or kick myself. All my plotting and planning was entirely moot if she didn't care for me, too, wasn't it? Her dream could have been about something completely random. I was such an arrogant fool.
Well, it was so much the better for her if she didn't care for me. That wouldn't stop me from pursuing her, but I would give her fair warning as I pursued. I owed her that.
I walked silently forward, wondering how best to approach her.
She made it easy. Her truck key slipped through her fingers as she got out, and fell into a deep puddle.
She reached down, but I got to it first, retrieving it before she had to put her fingers in the cold water.
I leaned back against her truck as she started and then straightened up.
"How do you do that?" she demanded.
Yes, she was still angry.
I offered her the key. "Do what?"
She held her hand out, and I dropped the key in her palm. I took a deep breath, pulling in her scent.
"Appear out of thin air," she clarified.
"Bella, it's not my fault if you are exceptionally unobservant." The words were wry, almost a joke. Was there anything she didn't see?
Did she hear how my voice wrapped around her name like a caress?
She glared at me, not appreciating my humor. Her heartbeat sped--from anger? From fear? After a moment, she looked down.
"Why the traffic jam last night?" she asked without meeting my eyes. "I thought you were supposed to be pretending I don't exist, not irritating me to death."
Still very angry. It was going to take some effort to make things right with her. I remembered my resolve to be truthful with her...
"That was for Tyler's sake, not mine. I had to give him his chance." And then I laughed. I couldn't help it, thinking of her expression yesterday.
"You--" she gasped, and then broke off, appearing to be too furious to finish. There it was--that same expression. I choked back another laugh. She was mad enough already.
"And I'm not pretending you don't exist," I finished. It was right to keep this casual, teasing. She would not understand if I let her see how I really felt. I would frighten her. I had to keep my feelings in check, keep things light...
"So you are trying to irritate me to death? Since Tyler's van didn't do the job?"
A quick flash of anger pulsed through me. Could she honestly believe that?
It was irrational for me to be so affronted--she didn't know of the transformation that had happened in the night. But I was angry all the same.
"Bella, you are utterly absurd," I snapped.
Her face flushed, and she turned her ba
ck on me. She began to walk away.
Remorse. I had no right to my anger.
"Wait," I pleaded.
She did not stop, so I followed after her.
"I'm sorry, that was rude. I'm not saying it isn't true" --it was absurd to imagine that I wanted her harmed in any way-- "but it was rude to say it, anyway."
"Why won't you leave me alone?"
Believe me, I wanted to say. I've tried. Oh, and also, I'm wretchedly in love with you.
Keep it light.
"I wanted to ask you something, but you sidetracked me." A course of action had just occurred to me, and I laughed.
"Do you have a multiple personality disorder?" she asked.
It must seem that way. My mood was erratic, so many new emotions coursing through me.
"You're doing it again," I pointed out.
She sighed. "Fine then. What do you want to ask?"
"I was wondering if, a week from Saturday..." I watched the shock cross her face, and choked back another laugh. "You know, the day of the spring dance--"
She cut me off, finally returning her eyes to mine. "Are you trying to be funny?"
Yes. "Will you let me finish?"
She waited in silence, her teeth pressing into her soft lower lip.
That sight distracted me for a second. Strange, unfamiliar reactions stirred deep in my forgotten human core. I tried to shake them off so I could play my role.
"I heard you say that you were going to Seattle that day, and I was wondering if you wanted a ride?" I offered. I'd realized that, better than just questioning her about her plans, I might share them.
She stared at me blankly. "What?"
"Do you want a ride to Seattle?" Alone in a car with her--my throat burned at the thought. I took a deep breath. Get used to it.
"With who?" she asked, her eyes wide and bewildered again.
"Myself, obviously," I said slowly.
"Why?"
Was it really such as shock that I would want her company? She must have applied the worst possible meaning to my past behavior.
"Well," I said as casually as possible, "I was planning to go to Seattle in the next few weeks, and, to be honest, I'm not sure if your truck can make it." It seemed safer to tease her than to allow myself to be serious.
"My truck works just fine, thank you very much for your concern," she said in the same surprised voice. She started walking again. I kept pace with her.