We sat at our usual table for lunch.
A strange kind of truce existed at that table. The three of us--Edward, Alice, and I--sat on the extreme southern end of the table. Now that the "older" and somewhat scarier (in Emmett's case, certainly) Cullen siblings had graduated, Alice and Edward did not seem quite so intimidating, and we did not sit here alone. My other friends, Mike and Jessica (who were in the awkward post-breakup friendship phase), Angela and Ben (whose relationship had survived the summer), Eric, Conner, Tyler, and Lauren (though that last one didn't really count in the friend category) all sat at the same table, on the other side of an invisible line. That line dissolved on sunny days when Edward and Alice always skipped school, and then the conversation would swell out effortlessly to include me.
Edward and Alice didn't find this minor ostracism odd or hurtful the way I would have. They barely noticed it. People always felt strangely ill at ease with the Cullens, almost afraid for some reason they couldn't explain to themselves. I was a rare exception to that rule. Sometimes it bothered Edward how very comfortable I was with being close to him. He thought he was hazardous to my health--an opinion I rejected vehemently whenever he voiced it.
The afternoon passed quickly. School ended, and Edward walked me to my truck as he usually did. But this time, he held the passenger door open for me. Alice must have been taking his car home so that he could keep me from making a run for it.
I folded my arms and made no move to get out of the rain. "It's my birthday, don't I get to drive?"
"I'm pretending it's not your birthday, just as you wished."
"If it's not my birthday, then I don't have to go to your house tonight..."
"All right." He shut the passenger door and walked past me to open the driver's side. "Happy birthday."
"Shh," I shushed him halfheartedly. I climbed in the opened door, wishing he'd taken the other offer.
Edward played with the radio while I drove, shaking his head in disapproval.
"Your radio has horrible reception."
I frowned. I didn't like it when he picked on my truck. The truck was great--it had personality.
"You want a nice stereo? Drive your own car." I was so nervous about Alice's plans, on top of my already gloomy mood, that the words came out sharper than I'd meant them. I was hardly ever bad-tempered with Edward, and my tone made him press his lips together to keep from smiling.
When I parked in front of Charlie's house, he reached over to take my face in his hands. He handled me very carefully, pressing just the tips of his fingers softly against my temples, my cheekbones, my jawline. Like I was especially breakable. Which was exactly the case--compared with him, at least.
"You should be in a good mood, today of all days," he whispered. His sweet breath fanned across my face.
"And if I don't want to be in a good mood?" I asked, my breathing uneven.
His golden eyes smoldered. "Too bad."
My head was already spinning by the time he leaned closer and pressed his icy lips against mine. As he intended, no doubt, I forgot all about my worries, and concentrated on remembering how to inhale and exhale.
His mouth lingered on mine, cold and smooth and gentle, until I wrapped my arms around his neck and threw myself into the kiss with a little too much enthusiasm. I could feel his lips curve upward as he let go of my face and reached back to unlock my grip on him.
Edward had drawn many careful lines for our physical relationship, with the intent being to keep me alive. Though I respected the need for maintaining a safe distance between my skin and his razor-sharp, venom-coated teeth, I tended to forget about trivial things like that when he was kissing me.
"Be good, please," he breathed against my cheek. He pressed his lips gently to mine one more time and then pulled away, folding my arms across my stomach.
My pulse was thudding in my ears. I put one hand over my heart. It drummed hyperactively under my palm.
"Do you think I'll ever get better at this?" I wondered, mostly to myself. "That my heart might someday stop trying to jump out of my chest whenever you touch me?"
"I really hope not," he said, a bit smug.
I rolled my eyes. "Let's go watch the Capulets and Montagues hack each other up, all right?"
"Your wish, my command."
Edward sprawled across the couch while I started the movie, fast-forwarding through the opening credits.
When I perched on the edge of the sofa in front of him, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me against his chest. It wasn't exactly as comfortable as a sofa cushion would be, what with his chest being hard and cold--and perfect--as an ice sculpture, but it was definitely preferable. He pulled the old afghan off the back of the couch and draped it over me so I wouldn't freeze beside his body.
"You know, I've never had much patience with Romeo," he commented as the movie started.
"What's wrong with Romeo?" I asked, a little offended. Romeo was one of my favorite fictional characters. Until I'd met Edward, I'd sort of had a thing for him.
"Well, first of all, he's in love with this Rosaline--don't you think it makes him seem a little fickle? And then, a few minutes after their wedding, he kills Juliet's cousin. That's not very brilliant. Mistake after mistake. Could he have destroyed his own happiness any more thoroughly?"
I sighed. "Do you want me to watch this alone?"
"No, I'll mostly be watching you, anyway." His fingers traced patterns across the skin of my arm, raising goose bumps. "Will you cry?"
"Probably," I admitted, "if I'm paying attention."
"I won't distract you then." But I felt his lips on my hair, and it was very distracting.
The movie eventually captured my interest, thanks in large part to Edward whispering Romeo's lines in my ear--his irresistible, velvet voice made the actor's voice sound weak and coarse by comparison. And I did cry, to his amusement, when Juliet woke and found her new husband dead.
"I'll admit, I do sort of envy him here," Edward said, drying the tears with a lock of my hair.
"She's very pretty."
He made a disgusted sound. "I don't envy him the girl--just the ease of the suicide," he clarified in a teasing tone. "You humans have it so easy! All you have to do is throw down one tiny vial of plant extracts..."
"What?" I gasped.
"It's something I had to think about once, and I knew from Carlisle's experience that it wouldn't be simple. I'm not even sure how many ways Carlisle tried to kill himself in the beginning... after he realized what he'd become..." His voice, which had grown serious, turned light again. "And he's clearly still in excellent health."
I twisted around so that I could read his face. "What are you talking about?" I demanded. "What do you mean, this something you had to think about once?"
"Last spring, when you were... nearly killed..." He paused to take a deep breath, snuggling to return to his teasing tone. "Of course I was trying to focus on finding you alive, but part of my mind was making contingency plans. Like I said, it's not as easy for me as it is for a human."
For one second, the memory of my last trip to Phoenix washed through my head and made me feel dizzy. I could see it all so clearly--the blinding sun, the heat waves coming off the concrete as I ran with desperate haste to find the sadistic vampire who wanted to torture me to death. James, waiting in the mirrored room with my mother as his hostage--or so I'd thought. I hadn't known it was all a ruse. Just as James hadn't known that Edward was racing to save me; Edward made it in time, but it had been a close one. Unthinkingly, my fingers traced the crescent-shaped scar on my hand that was always just a few degrees cooler than the rest of my skin.
I shook my head--as if I could shake away the bad memories--and tried to grasp what Edward meant. My stomach plunged uncomfortably. "Contingency plans?" I repeated.
"Well, I wasn't going to live without you." He rolled his eyes as if that fact were childishly obvious. "But I wasn't sure how to do it--I knew Emmett and Jasper would never help... so I was th
inking maybe I would go to Italy and do something to provoke the Volturi."
I didn't want to believe he was serious, but his golden eyes were brooding, focused on something far away in the distance as he contemplated ways to end his own life. Abruptly, I was furious.
"What is a Volturi?" I demanded.
"The Volturi are a family," he explained, his eyes still remote. "A very old, very powerful family of our kind. They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose. Carlisle lived with them briefly in his early years, in Italy, before he settled in America--do you remember the story?"
"Of course I remember."
I would never forget the first time I'd gone to his home, the huge white mansion buried deep in the forest beside the river, or the room where Carlisle--Edward's father in so many real ways--kept a wall of paintings that illustrated his personal history. The most vivid, most wildly colorful canvas there, the largest, was from Carlisle's time in Italy. Of course I remembered the calm quartet of men, each with the exquisite face of a seraph, painted into the highest balcony overlooking the swirling mayhem of color. Though the painting was centuries old, Carlisle--the blond angel--remained unchanged. And I remembered the three others, Carlisle's early acquaintances. Edward had never used the name Volturi for the beautiful trio, two black-haired, one snow white. He'd called them Aro, Caius, and Marcus, nighttime patrons of the arts...
"Anyway, you don't irritate the Volturi," Edward went on, interrupting ray reverie. "Not unless you want to die--or whatever it is we do." His voice was so calm, it made him sound almost bored by the prospect.
My anger turned to horror. I took his marble face between my hands and held it very tightly.
"You must never, never, never think of anything like that again!" I said. "No matter what might ever happen to me, you are not allowed to hurt yourself!"
"I'll never put you in danger again, so it's a moot point."
"Put me in danger! I thought we'd established that all the bad luck is my fault?" I was getting angrier. "How dare you even think like that?" The idea of Edward ceasing to exist, even if I were dead, was impossibly painful.
"What would you do, if the situation were reversed?" he asked.
"That's not the same thing."
He didn't seem to understand the difference. He chuckled.
"What if something did happen to you?" I blanched at the thought. "Would you want me to go off myself?"
A trace of pain touched his perfect features.
"I guess I see your point... a little," he admitted. "But what would I do without you?"
"Whatever you were doing before I came along and complicated your existence."
He sighed. "You make that sound so easy."
"It should be. I'm not really that interesting."
He was about to argue, but then he let it go. "Moot point," he reminded me. Abruptly, he pulled himself up into a more formal posture, shifting me to the side so that we were no longer touching.
"Charlie?" I guessed.
Edward smiled. After a moment, I heard the sound of the police cruiser pulling into the driveway. I reached out and took his hand firmly. My dad could deal with that much.
Charlie came in with a pizza box in his hands.
"Hey, kids." He grinned at me. "I thought you'd like a break from cooking and washing dishes for your birthday. Hungry?"
"Sure. Thanks, Dad."
Charlie didn't comment on Edward's apparent lack of appetite. He was used to Edward passing on dinner.
"Do you mind if I borrow Bella for the evening?" Edward asked when Charlie and I were done.
I looked at Charlie hopefully. Maybe he had some concept of birthdays as stay-at-home, family affairs--this was my first birthday with him, the first birthday since my mom, Renee, had remarried and gone to live in Florida, so I didn't know what he would expect.
"That's fine--the Mariners are playing the Sox tonight," Charlie explained, and my hope disappeared. "So I won't be any kind of company... Here." He scooped up the camera he'd gotten me on Renee's suggestion (because I would need pictures to fill up my scrapbook), and threw it to me.
He ought to know better than that--I'd always been coordinationally challenged. The camera glanced off the tip of my finger, and tumbled toward the floor. Edward snagged it before it could crash onto the linoleum.
"Nice save," Charlie noted. "If they're doing something fun at the Cullens' tonight, Bella, you should take some pictures. You know how your mother gets--she'll be wanting to see the pictures faster than you can take them."
"Good idea, Charlie," Edward said, handing me the camera.
I turned the camera on Edward, and snapped the first picture. "It works."
"That's good. Hey, say hi to Alice for me. She hasn't been over in a while." Charlie's mouth pulled down at one corner.
"It's been three days, Dad," I reminded him. Charlie was crazy about Alice. He'd become attached last spring when she'd helped me through my awkward convalescence; Charlie would be fore'ter grateful to her for saving him from the horror of an almost-adult daughter who needed help showering. "I'll tell her."
"Okay. You kids have fun tonight." It was clearly a dismissal. Charlie was already edging toward the living room and the TV.
Edward smiled, triumphant, and took my hand to pull me from the kitchen.
When we got to the truck, he opened the passenger door for me again, and this time I didn't argue. I still had a hard time finding the obscure turnoff to his house in the dark.
Edward drove north through Forks, visibly chafing at the speed limit enforced by my prehistoric Chevy. The engine groaned even louder than usual as he pushed it over fifty.
"Take it easy," I warned him.
"You know what you would love? A nice little Audi coupe. Very quiet, lots of power..."
"There's nothing wrong with my truck. And speaking of expensive nonessentials, if you know what's good for you, you didn't spend any money on birthday presents."
"Not a dime," he said virtuously.
"Good."
"Can you do me a favor?"
"That depends on what it is."
He sighed, his lovely face serious. "Bella, the last real birthday any of us had was Emmett in 1935. Cut us a little slack, and don't be too difficult tonight. They're all very excited."
It always startled me a little when he brought up things like that. "Fine, I'll behave."
"I probably should warn you..."
"Please do."
"When I say they're all excited... I do mean all of them."
"Everyone?" I choked. "I thought Emmett and Rosalie were in Africa." The rest of Forks was under the impression that the older Cullens had gone off to college this year, to Dartmouth, but I knew better.
"Emmett wanted to be here."
"But... Rosalie?"
"I know, Bella. Don't worry, she'll be on her best behavior."
I didn't answer. Like I could just not worry, that easy. Unlike Alice, Edward's other "adopted" sister, the golden blond and exquisite Rosalie, didn't like me much. Actually, the feeling was a little bit stronger than just dislike. As far as Rosalie was concerned, I was an unwelcome intruder into her family's secret life.
I felt horribly guilty about the present situation, guessing that Rosalie and Emmett's prolonged absence was my fault, even as I furtively enjoyed not having to see her Emmett, Edward's playful bear of a brother, I did miss. He was in many ways just like the big brother I'd always wanted... only much, much more terrifying.
Edward decided to change the subject. "So, if you won't let me get you the Audi, isn't there anything that you'd like for your birthday?"
The words came out in a whisper. "You know what I want."
A deep frown carved creases into his marble forehead. He obviously wished he'd stuck to the subject of Rosalie.
It felt like we'd had this argument a lot today.
"Not tonight, Bella. Please."
"Well, maybe Alice will give me what I want."
Edward growled--a deep, menacing sound. "This isn't going to be your last birthday, Bella," he vowed.
"That's not fair!"
I thought I heard his teeth clench together.
We were pulling up to the house now. Bright light shined from every window on the first two floors. A long line of glowing Japanese lanterns hung from the porch eaves, reflecting a soft radiance on the huge cedars that surrounded the house. Big bowls of flowers--pink roses--lined the wide stairs up to the front doors.
I moaned.
Edward took a few deep breaths to calm himself. "This is a party," he reminded me. "Try to be a good sport."
"Sure," I muttered.
He came around to get my door, and offered me his hand.
"I have a question."
He waited warily.
"If I develop this film," I said, toying with the camera in my hands, "will you show up in the picture?"
Edward started laughing. He helped me out of the car, pulled me up the stairs, and was still laughing as he opened the door for me.
They were all waiting in the huge white living room; when I walked through the door, they greeted me with a loud chorus of "Happy birthday, Bella!" while I blushed and looked down. Alice, I assumed, had covered every flat surface with pink candles and dozens of crystal bowls filled with hundreds of roses. There was a table with a white cloth draped over it next to Edward's grand piano, holding a pink birthday cake, more roses, a stack of glass plates, and a small pile of silver-wrapped presents.
It was a hundred times worse than I'd imagined.
Edward, sensing my distress, wrapped an encouraging arm around my waist and kissed the top of my head.
Edward's parents, Carlisle and Esme--impossibly youthful and lovely as ever--were the closest to the door. Esme hugged me carefully, her soft, caramel-colored hair brushing against my cheek as she kissed my forehead, and then Carlisle put his arm around my shoulders.
"Sorry about this, Bella," he stage-whispered. "We couldn't rein Alice in."
Rosalie and Emmett stood behind them. Rosalie didn't smile, but at least she didn't glare. Emmett's face was stretched into a huge grin. It had been months since I'd seen them; I'd forgotten how gloriously beautiful Rosalie was--it almost hurt to look at her. And had Emmett always been so... big?
"You haven't changed at all," Emmett said with mock disappointment. "I expected a perceptible difference, but here you are, red-faced just like always."