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We sped along the freeway, allowing me the pleasure of going much faster than the speed limit allowed.

“Can’t I just ask one more question?” she pleaded.

I sighed, wondering what her question would be. I doubted that she would ever run out of questions.

“One,” I told her sternly.

“You said you know I hadn’t gone into the bookstore, that I had gone south. How did you know that?”

I looked away, trying to decide how to tell her, how much to tell her. I wanted to protect her, to keep her at an arm’s length, hoping she would stay just a little bit longer because I hadn’t given her the full story and if I gave her the full story she would leave.

Bella was getting impatient. “I thought we were past the evasiveness,” she grumbled.

She wanted the truth? Fine. “I followed your scent,” I told her frankly.

I waited for her to say something, to tell me how frightening my admission was, how much of a freak I was.

“Then you didn’t answer one of my first questions…” she trailed off.

I knew she wouldn’t let me question her. “Which one?” I asked her.

“How does it work-the mind reading thing? Can you read anybody’s mind? Anywhere? How do you do it? Can the rest of your family…?”

I smiled, her voice just trying to keep up with the pace, stumbling over the speed of her questions, just like Bella herself.

“That’s more than one,” I pointed out, hoping to lay her questioning to rest. Instead she waited patiently for my answer.

“No, it’s just me. I hadn’t hear anyone, anywhere. I have to be fairly close. The more familiar someone’s…voice is, the farther away I can hear them. But still, no more than a few miles.” I tried to think of a metaphor, something that she could better understand. “It’s a little like being in a huge hall filled with people, everyone talking at once. It’s just a hum, a buzzing of voices in the background. That is, until I can hear one voice and then what they’re thinking is clear.

“Most of the time I tune it all out-it can be very distracting. Then it’s easier to seem normal,” as if I could fall into the category of normal, “when I’m not accidentally answering someone’s thoughts rather than their words.”

It felt strange, telling her this. I had never really spoken to anyone about my power, except for Carlisle and Alice. Yet telling Bella felt strangely good, like I was unburdening myself with an unnecessary secret.

“Why do you think you can’t hear me?” she asked me.

Another question. This time I didn’t have an answer.

“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “The only guess I have is that maybe your mind doesn’t work the same way the rest of theirs do. Like your thoughts are on the AM frequency and I’m only getting FM.” I grinned, pleased with my metaphor.

“My mind doesn’t work right? I’m a freak?” she asked, panicked.

“I hear voices in my mind and you’re worried that you’re the freak,” I laughed, unable to enjoy the absurdity of her question. “Don’t worry, it’s just a theory…which brings us back to you.” The perfect segue.

“Aren’t we past all evasiveness now?” I asked her.

She sighed and I wondered why she was so reluctant to tell me about herself.

“Holy cow! Slow down!” She yelled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, startled by her sudden exclamation.

“You’re going a hundred miles per hour!” She shrieked, her voice uncharacteristically high.

A hundred? I was going slower than usual. “Relax, Bella.”

“Are you trying to kill us?” she demanded, her voice still high.

“We’re not going to crash,” I assured her.

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I always drive this way,” I explained to her.

I smiled at her, hoping to reassure her. Her eyes became wider, her breathing stopping for a millisecond.

“Keep your eyes on the road!” She demanded after a beat.

“I’ve never been in an accident, Bella, I’ve never even gotten a ticket.” I grinned again, making a joke of my abilities. “Built in radar detector.”

“Very funny,” she told me angrily. “Charlie’s a cop, remember? I was raised to abide by traffic laws. Besides, if you turn into a Volvo pretzel around a tree trunk, you can probably just walk away.”

“Probably. But you can’t,” I reminded her softly. I took my foot off the gas, letting the car drift to eighty. I sighed. “Happy?” I asked her.

“Almost.”

“I hate driving slow,” I grumbled.

“This is slow?” She asked me unbelievably.

“Enough commentary on my driving,” I snapped. “I’m still waiting for you latest theory,” I reminded her.

She bit her lip, suddenly looking very vulnerable.

“I won’t laugh,” I promised.

“I’m more afraid you’ll be angry,” she whispered.

“Is it that bad?” Maybe she didn’t think I was Bruce Wayne.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

I waited, wondering what she thought I was. “Go ahead,” I encouraged.

“I don’t know how to start,” she admitted.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning? You said you didn’t come up with this on your own.”

“No.”

“What got you started-a book? Movie?” Full of questions, so unwilling to provide answers.

“No. It was Saturday, at the beach,” she looked at me, checking my reaction.

“I ran into a family friend-Jacob Black. His dad and Charlie have been friends since I was a baby.”

Where was she taking this?

“His dad is one of the Quileute elders.”

Now I knew where this was going. The Quieutes were the only ones that knew what we truly are. Just as we knew what they truly were.

“We went for a walk and he was telling me some of the old legends, trying to scare me, I think. He told me one…” she trailed off.

“Go on,” I told her.

“About vampires,” she whispered the words.

I gripped the steering wheel, wishing that the conversation would not take this turn. “And you immediately thought of me?”

“No, he….mentioned your family,” she told me.

She knew. She didn’t consciously know it, but she knew that I was a vampire. I had wanted to lie to her, my teasing about her theories was just that-teasing. I would eventually leave her, as I had to. It was the easiest way, the simplest way, to go about things.

Despite it being easy, it wasn’t to be. I knew she would eventually find out but I wanted to be the one to tell her. I would have told her eventually. To have her hear from our enemies was worse.

“He just thought it was a silly superstition,” she assured me quickly. “He didn’t expect me to think anything of it. It was my fault. I forced him to tell me.”

“Why?” I couldn’t imagine Bella using any interrogation techniques on one of those dogs.

“Lauren said something about you, she was trying to provoke me. An older boy from the tribe said your family didn’t come to the reservation, only it sounded like he meant something different. So I got Jacob alone and I tricked it out of him,” she confessed, her face prettily red with a blush.

“Tricked him how?”

“I tried to flirt-it worked better than I thought it would,” she said, hardly believing her own words.

“I’d like to have seen that.” I doubted anyone-mortal, vampire, or dog, could have resisted her if she set her mind to flirt. “And you accuse me of dazzling people-poor Jacob Black.” He hadn’t stood a chance.

“What did you do then?”

“I did some research on the Internet.”

Oh all the places to look-completely full of misinformation about us.

“And did that convince you?” I hoped to sound disinterested, hoping that sounded like I cared not one bit that she thought I was a vampire.

“No, nothing fit. Most of it was kind of silly. And then…”

Why did she insist of being so damn frustrating! “What?”

“I decided it didn’t matter.”

I couldn’t believe her, I didn’t want to believe her. She should be running-recognizing the monster that I was, refusing to carry on an sort of relationship to me.

“It didn’t matter?”

“No,” her voice as soft as an angel’s, “It doesn’t matter to me what you are.”

A being not fit to be in society? A thing that could not go out into direct sunlight? A monster that thirsted for her blood?

No. She couldn’t possibly accept that.

“You don’t care if I’m a monster? If I’m not human?”

“No,” soft again, yet still unyielding in her conviction.

“You’re angry,” she sighed, upset. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No,” I said, still angry, angry at myself for being unfit to be in her presence, for what monster was allowed near an angel? Angry at her for giving me such acceptance, for being a little fool. “I’d father know what you’re thinking-even if what you’re thinking is insane,” I conceded.

“So I’m wrong again?”

I couldn’t lie to her. “That’s not what I was referring to. ‘It doesn’t matter’!” I spat back at her.

“I’m right?” She was incredulous at the thought.

“Does it matter?” I threw her words back at her.

I heard her intake of breath, how she slowly let it out before answering me. “Not really,” she said. “But I am curious.”

Go figure. “What are you curious about?” Then again, what AREN’T you curious about?

“How old are you?”

I answered without thinking, as I always did. “Seventeen.”

“How long have you been seventeen?” she asked shrewdly.

“A while,” I admitted.

“Okay,” she smiled, the first she graced me with the entire night. I looked down at her, wishing desperately I was worthy of her, worried that the knowledge that I was a vampire would send her off into shock. She only smiled wider.

“Don’t laugh, but how can you come out during the daytime?” she asked me innocently.

I laughed, I always found enjoyment in the myths about us. “Myth.”

“Burned by the sun?”

“Myth.”

“Sleeping in coffins?”

“Myth.” I hesitated, wondering if I should offer more. “I can’t sleep.”

I wondered if she would ask me how I spent me nights-it was the most obvious follow-up question. Would I tell her I spent them watching her sleep?

“At all? She asked instead.

“Never.”

I looked at her, wishing I could hear her, wishing I was human. I hadn’t had as hard of a time as some of my siblings, yet I found myself wishing that I could sleep as she did, that I could dream of her.

“You haven’t asked me the most important question,” I noted.

“Which one is that?”

“Aren’t you concerned about my diet?” I asked her, sarcasm dripping from my voice.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “That.”

“Yes, that. Don’t you want to know if I drink blood?”

She flinched, the bluntness of my words hurting her. “Jacob said something about that.”

“What did Jacob say?” I asked, knowing that surely the legends greatly exaggerated.

“He said you didn’t…hunt people. He said your family wasn’t supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals.”

“He said we weren’t dangerous?” The Quileutes distrusted us greatly.

“Not exactly. He said you weren’t supposed to be dangerous. But the Quileutes still didn’t’ want you on their land, just in case.”

I remained in silence, wondering what she thought. Knowing Bella, I doubted she thought we were dangerous. Still, I wondered. I wondered what the Quileute boy told her, I wondered what she thought of the boy and his stories.

“So was he right? About not hunting people?” She asked.

“The Quileutes have a long memory,” I whispered, mostly to myself.

“Don’t let that make you complacent, though,” I warned her. I had to convey to her that I was a danger to her. “They are right to keep their distance. We are still dangerous.”

She frowned, “I don’t understand.”

How could I explain to her that no matter what we thirsted for blood-except for Carlisle, who had hundreds of years to conquer his thirst? “We try. We’re usually very good at what we do. Sometimes we make mistakes. Like allowing myself to be alone with you.”

“This is a mistake?” Bella asked, disappointed.

For her it was, as it was for me. If I was the least bit sane, I would have stayed as far away from her as possible. But I loved being with her, knowing that she was safe, saving her even though I felt panic whenever she was in danger.

I wondered what would happen after I dropped her off. If I would go to school the next day and find that she was avoiding me like the plague, that this would be my only chance to truly talk to Bella.

“Tell me more,” she begged. I wondered if she was desperate as I was to make this night last.

“What more do you want to know?”

“Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people,” she suggested.

“I don’t want to be a monster.”

“But animals aren’t enough?” she observed.

“I can’t be sure, of course, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk. We call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger, or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time,” I thought of the time I met Bella, how hard it was even though I wasn’t thirsty. “Sometimes it’s more difficult than others.”

“Is it very difficult for you now?”

Being in such proximity to her? Feeling the warmth radiate off of her, hear the beat of her heart, smell the amazing smell of her blood?

“Yes.”

“But you’re not hungry now,” she told me, her voice not in question.

“Why do you think that?”

“Your eyes,” she told me simply. “ I told you I had a theory. I’ve noticed that people-men in particular, are crabbier when they’re hungry.”

I laughed. Her observation was so dead on, so simple. “You’re observant, aren’t you?”

“Were you hunting this weekend, with Emmett?”

“Yes,” I had to, in order to be with her. But I didn’t want to and maybe if I hadn’t, none of this would have happened. “I didn’t want to leave but it was necessary. It’s a bit easier to be around you when I’m not thirsty.”

“Why didn’t you want to leave?”

“It makes me…anxious…nervous…to be away from you.” I looked at her, so happy to finally be with her, to not be in that constant state of nervousness because I wasn’t in Bella’s presense. “I wasn’t joking when I asked you to try to not fall in the ocean or get un over last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you. After what happened tonight, I’m surprised that you did make it through a whole weekend unscathed.” I shook my head, then remembered the almost-healed scrapes on her hand. “Well, not totally unscathed.”

“What?”

“Your hands,” I reminded her. Bella was probably injured so much that she forgot what injuries she’d sustained.

“I fell,” she sighed.

“That’s what I thought,” I smiled. “I suppose, being you, it could have been very much worse. That possibility has tormented me the entire time I was away. It was a very long three days. I really got on Emmett’s nerves.” He refused to hunt with me for extended periods of time until “I got over the human.”

“Three days? I thought you got back today.”

“No, we got back Sunday.”

“Then why weren’t you in school?”

Did I hear anger in her voice? Was she upset that I wasn’t there?

“Well, you asked if the sun hurt me and it doesn’t. But I can’t go out in the sunlight, at least not with anyone looking.”

“Why?”

“I’ll show you sometime.” I had this compulsion every single side of me. I would have to show her sometime why I was absent during the sunnier days. Perhaps if she finally saw what a freak I was, she would leave.

“You might have called me,” she accused.

Why would I do that? How could I possibly call her? “But I knew you were safe.”

“But I didn’t know where you were. I-“

Hope surged through me. Was she honestly concerned about me? I wanted to think that she thought about me, just as I thought about her, constantly. Was my name that was on her lips an indication that she cared about me, dare I say it, beginning to love me?

“What?” I asked her, urging her to finish her sentence.

“I didn’t like it, not seeing you. It makes me anxious, too.”

She was blushing, searching my face for my reaction.

“Ah,” I groaned. “This is wrong.”

I was falling even more in love with her. She worried about me, keeping herself up at night worrying about me.

This was wrong. She shouldn’t feel this way, she shouldn’t love someone so unworthy of her love.

“What did I say?”

“Don’t you see, Bella? It’s one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved. I don’t want to hear that you feel that way. It’s wrong. It’s not safe. I’m dangerous, Bella. Please,” I begged, “grasp that.”

“No,” she said petulantly. She stuck her bottom lip out and it was suddenly very hard to breathe. Why did she have to make this so hard?

“I’m serious,” I growled at her.

“So am I,” she told me stubbornly. “I told you, it doesn’t matter what you are. It’s too late.”

No! She could not think that. I was constantly a danger to her, constantly fighting to make sure that I didn’t sink my teeth into her flesh, drinking her life away. It was not too late. Not for her.

“Never think that,” I commanded her.

I hurt her, the pain on her face was evident. I wanted to tell her that I loved her too much to have her risk her life for me, that I was unworthy of her, that the monster in me was too strong, that I would eventually lose the war.

“What are you thinking?” I asked her. I wanted desperately to soothe the hurt that she obviously felt.

I watched her face, wishing the pain would erase itself. I saw the tear drops stream down her face.

“Are you crying?” I had no idea how to comfort her. Vampires couldn’t cry, I couldn’t remember the time I was directly involved with a crying female.

“No,” she said, but her voice lilted, betraying the falseness of her words.

I reached out to cup her cheek, wishing to comfort her in someway. I pulled back, knowing that I would only hurt her and myself more.

“I’m sorry,” the words weren’t enough. I had made her cry. I doomed her with my presence.

I tried to distract her, wanting to know something that I hadn’t gotten the chance to ask her. “Tell me something.”

“Yes?”

“What were you thinking tonight, just before I cam around the corner? I couldn’t understand your expression-you didn’t look that scared, you looked like you were concentrating very hard on something.”

“I was trying to remember how to incapacitate an attacker-you know, self-defense. I was going to smash his nose into his brain.”

What was she possibly thinking? Bella, little, fragile Bella attacking someone? “You were going to fight them? Didn’t you think of running?” Like a normal person?

“I fall down a lot when I run.”

Knowing Bella, she probably would have injured herself more if she had run.

“What about sreaming for help?”

“I was getting there.”

I sighed. “You were right-I’m definitely fighting fate trying to keep you alive.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes, I have a paper due, too.” I smiled, “I’ll save you a seat at lunch.”

I stopped the car in her driveway, realizing that she managed to ask all the questions once again.

“Do you promise to be there tomorrow?” she asked me.

I smiled, thrilled that it meant so much to her that I would be there. “I promise.”

She thought about it for a minute, then accepted my promise with a nod of her head. She took my jacket off, handing it back to me.

“You can keep it-you don’t have a jacket for tomorrow,” I told her. Part of me loved the thought of her wearing my jacket, a subtle claim to her.

“I don’t want to have to explain it to Charlie,” she told me.

“Oh, right.” Bella was right. It was easier to not have to explain it to him.

I looked to the woods, swearing I could smell them. They wouldn’t dare…I had to warn her, without giving too much information. It would only lead to more questions but I had to. She had to know.

“Will you promise me something?” I asked her. It was only fair, after all, she made me promise to come to school.

“Yes?”

“Don’t go into the woods alone.” I couldn’t bear the thought of those dogs going anywhere near her.

“Why?”

Why couldn’t she just accept my warning?

“I’m not always the most dangerous thing in the forest. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I promised her, thankful that she had left it alone. Though she didn’t know it, I would probably see her tonight, after I finished hunting. I sighed, wishing that I prolong the moment just a little longer.

“Tomorrow, then,” she said sadly.

“Bella?” I leaned toward her, wondering if I could dazzle her again.

Her scent was glorious, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide.

“Sleep well,” I told her.

Her heart stopped beating, just for a second. I pulled away, satisfied that I affected her as much as she affected me. I watched her stumble out of the car, using the frame for support. Only Bella would manage to injure herself while getting out of a car, I chuckled to myself.

I waited until she got to the front door, confident that she would be safe until I was with her again and drove home.

Description
We sped along the freeway, allowing me the pleasure of going much faster than the speed limit allowed.

“Can’t I just ask one more question?” she pleaded.

I sighed, wondering what her question would be. I doubted that she would ever run out of questions.

“One,” I told her sternly.

“You said you know I hadn’t gone into the bookstore, that I had gone south. How did you know that?”

I looked away, trying to decide how to tell her, how much to tell her. I wanted to protect her, to keep her at an arm’s length, hoping she would stay just a little bit longer because I hadn’t given her the full story and if I gave her the full story she would leave.

Bella was getting impatient. “I thought we were past the evasiveness,” she grumbled.

She wanted the truth? Fine. “I followed your scent,” I told her frankly.

I waited for her to say something, to tell me how frightening my admission was, how much of a freak I was.

“Then you didn’t answer one of my first questions…” she trailed off.

I knew she wouldn’t let me question her. “Which one?” I asked her.

“How does it work-the mind reading thing? Can you read anybody’s mind? Anywhere? How do you do it? Can the rest of your family…?”

I smiled, her voice just trying to keep up with the pace, stumbling over the speed of her questions, just like Bella herself.

“That’s more than one,” I pointed out, hoping to lay her questioning to rest. Instead she waited patiently for my answer.

“No, it’s just me. I hadn’t hear anyone, anywhere. I have to be fairly close. The more familiar someone’s…voice is, the farther away I can hear them. But still, no more than a few miles.” I tried to think of a metaphor, something that she could better understand. “It’s a little like being in a huge hall filled with people, everyone talking at once. It’s just a hum, a buzzing of voices in the background. That is, until I can hear one voice and then what they’re thinking is clear.

“Most of the time I tune it all out-it can be very distracting. Then it’s easier to seem normal,” as if I could fall into the category of normal, “when I’m not accidentally answering someone’s thoughts rather than their words.”

It felt strange, telling her this. I had never really spoken to anyone about my power, except for Carlisle and Alice. Yet telling Bella felt strangely good, like I was unburdening myself with an unnecessary secret.

“Why do you think you can’t hear me?” she asked me.

Another question. This time I didn’t have an answer.

“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “The only guess I have is that maybe your mind doesn’t work the same way the rest of theirs do. Like your thoughts are on the AM frequency and I’m only getting FM.” I grinned, pleased with my metaphor.

“My mind doesn’t work right? I’m a freak?” she asked, panicked.

“I hear voices in my mind and you’re worried that you’re the freak,” I laughed, unable to enjoy the absurdity of her question. “Don’t worry, it’s just a theory…which brings us back to you.” The perfect segue.

“Aren’t we past all evasiveness now?” I asked her.

She sighed and I wondered why she was so reluctant to tell me about herself.

“Holy cow! Slow down!” She yelled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, startled by her sudden exclamation.

“You’re going a hundred miles per hour!” She shrieked, her voice uncharacteristically high.

A hundred? I was going slower than usual. “Relax, Bella.”

“Are you trying to kill us?” she demanded, her voice still high.

“We’re not going to crash,” I assured her.

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I always drive this way,” I explained to her.

I smiled at her, hoping to reassure her. Her eyes became wider, her breathing stopping for a millisecond.

“Keep your eyes on the road!” She demanded after a beat.

“I’ve never been in an accident, Bella, I’ve never even gotten a ticket.” I grinned again, making a joke of my abilities. “Built in radar detector.”

“Very funny,” she told me angrily. “Charlie’s a cop, remember? I was raised to abide by traffic laws. Besides, if you turn into a Volvo pretzel around a tree trunk, you can probably just walk away.”

“Probably. But you can’t,” I reminded her softly. I took my foot off the gas, letting the car drift to eighty. I sighed. “Happy?” I asked her.

“Almost.”

“I hate driving slow,” I grumbled.

“This is slow?” She asked me unbelievably.

“Enough commentary on my driving,” I snapped. “I’m still waiting for you latest theory,” I reminded her.

She bit her lip, suddenly looking very vulnerable.

“I won’t laugh,” I promised.

“I’m more afraid you’ll be angry,” she whispered.

“Is it that bad?” Maybe she didn’t think I was Bruce Wayne.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

I waited, wondering what she thought I was. “Go ahead,” I encouraged.

“I don’t know how to start,” she admitted.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning? You said you didn’t come up with this on your own.”

“No.”

“What got you started-a book? Movie?” Full of questions, so unwilling to provide answers.

“No. It was Saturday, at the beach,” she looked at me, checking my reaction.

“I ran into a family friend-Jacob Black. His dad and Charlie have been friends since I was a baby.”

Where was she taking this?

“His dad is one of the Quileute elders.”

Now I knew where this was going. The Quieutes were the only ones that knew what we truly are. Just as we knew what they truly were.

“We went for a walk and he was telling me some of the old legends, trying to scare me, I think. He told me one…” she trailed off.

“Go on,” I told her.

“About vampires,” she whispered the words.

I gripped the steering wheel, wishing that the conversation would not take this turn. “And you immediately thought of me?”

“No, he….mentioned your family,” she told me.

She knew. She didn’t consciously know it, but she knew that I was a vampire. I had wanted to lie to her, my teasing about her theories was just that-teasing. I would eventually leave her, as I had to. It was the easiest way, the simplest way, to go about things.

Despite it being easy, it wasn’t to be. I knew she would eventually find out but I wanted to be the one to tell her. I would have told her eventually. To have her hear from our enemies was worse.

“He just thought it was a silly superstition,” she assured me quickly. “He didn’t expect me to think anything of it. It was my fault. I forced him to tell me.”

“Why?” I couldn’t imagine Bella using any interrogation techniques on one of those dogs.

“Lauren said something about you, she was trying to provoke me. An older boy from the tribe said your family didn’t come to the reservation, only it sounded like he meant something different. So I got Jacob alone and I tricked it out of him,” she confessed, her face prettily red with a blush.

“Tricked him how?”

“I tried to flirt-it worked better than I thought it would,” she said, hardly believing her own words.

“I’d like to have seen that.” I doubted anyone-mortal, vampire, or dog, could have resisted her if she set her mind to flirt. “And you accuse me of dazzling people-poor Jacob Black.” He hadn’t stood a chance.

“What did you do then?”

“I did some research on the Internet.”

Oh all the places to look-completely full of misinformation about us.

“And did that convince you?” I hoped to sound disinterested, hoping that sounded like I cared not one bit that she thought I was a vampire.

“No, nothing fit. Most of it was kind of silly. And then…”

Why did she insist of being so damn frustrating! “What?”

“I decided it didn’t matter.”

I couldn’t believe her, I didn’t want to believe her. She should be running-recognizing the monster that I was, refusing to carry on an sort of relationship to me.

“It didn’t matter?”

“No,” her voice as soft as an angel’s, “It doesn’t matter to me what you are.”

A being not fit to be in society? A thing that could not go out into direct sunlight? A monster that thirsted for her blood?

No. She couldn’t possibly accept that.

“You don’t care if I’m a monster? If I’m not human?”

“No,” soft again, yet still unyielding in her conviction.

“You’re angry,” she sighed, upset. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No,” I said, still angry, angry at myself for being unfit to be in her presence, for what monster was allowed near an angel? Angry at her for giving me such acceptance, for being a little fool. “I’d father know what you’re thinking-even if what you’re thinking is insane,” I conceded.

“So I’m wrong again?”

I couldn’t lie to her. “That’s not what I was referring to. ‘It doesn’t matter’!” I spat back at her.

“I’m right?” She was incredulous at the thought.

“Does it matter?” I threw her words back at her.

I heard her intake of breath, how she slowly let it out before answering me. “Not really,” she said. “But I am curious.”

Go figure. “What are you curious about?” Then again, what AREN’T you curious about?

“How old are you?”

I answered without thinking, as I always did. “Seventeen.”

“How long have you been seventeen?” she asked shrewdly.

“A while,” I admitted.

“Okay,” she smiled, the first she graced me with the entire night. I looked down at her, wishing desperately I was worthy of her, worried that the knowledge that I was a vampire would send her off into shock. She only smiled wider.

“Don’t laugh, but how can you come out during the daytime?” she asked me innocently.

I laughed, I always found enjoyment in the myths about us. “Myth.”

“Burned by the sun?”

“Myth.”

“Sleeping in coffins?”

“Myth.” I hesitated, wondering if I should offer more. “I can’t sleep.”

I wondered if she would ask me how I spent me nights-it was the most obvious follow-up question. Would I tell her I spent them watching her sleep?

“At all? She asked instead.

“Never.”

I looked at her, wishing I could hear her, wishing I was human. I hadn’t had as hard of a time as some of my siblings, yet I found myself wishing that I could sleep as she did, that I could dream of her.

“You haven’t asked me the most important question,” I noted.

“Which one is that?”

“Aren’t you concerned about my diet?” I asked her, sarcasm dripping from my voice.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “That.”

“Yes, that. Don’t you want to know if I drink blood?”

She flinched, the bluntness of my words hurting her. “Jacob said something about that.”

“What did Jacob say?” I asked, knowing that surely the legends greatly exaggerated.

“He said you didn’t…hunt people. He said your family wasn’t supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals.”

“He said we weren’t dangerous?” The Quileutes distrusted us greatly.

“Not exactly. He said you weren’t supposed to be dangerous. But the Quileutes still didn’t’ want you on their land, just in case.”

I remained in silence, wondering what she thought. Knowing Bella, I doubted she thought we were dangerous. Still, I wondered. I wondered what the Quileute boy told her, I wondered what she thought of the boy and his stories.

“So was he right? About not hunting people?” She asked.

“The Quileutes have a long memory,” I whispered, mostly to myself.

“Don’t let that make you complacent, though,” I warned her. I had to convey to her that I was a danger to her. “They are right to keep their distance. We are still dangerous.”

She frowned, “I don’t understand.”

How could I explain to her that no matter what we thirsted for blood-except for Carlisle, who had hundreds of years to conquer his thirst? “We try. We’re usually very good at what we do. Sometimes we make mistakes. Like allowing myself to be alone with you.”

“This is a mistake?” Bella asked, disappointed.

For her it was, as it was for me. If I was the least bit sane, I would have stayed as far away from her as possible. But I loved being with her, knowing that she was safe, saving her even though I felt panic whenever she was in danger.

I wondered what would happen after I dropped her off. If I would go to school the next day and find that she was avoiding me like the plague, that this would be my only chance to truly talk to Bella.

“Tell me more,” she begged. I wondered if she was desperate as I was to make this night last.

“What more do you want to know?”

“Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people,” she suggested.

“I don’t want to be a monster.”

“But animals aren’t enough?” she observed.

“I can’t be sure, of course, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk. We call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger, or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time,” I thought of the time I met Bella, how hard it was even though I wasn’t thirsty. “Sometimes it’s more difficult than others.”

“Is it very difficult for you now?”

Being in such proximity to her? Feeling the warmth radiate off of her, hear the beat of her heart, smell the amazing smell of her blood?

“Yes.”

“But you’re not hungry now,” she told me, her voice not in question.

“Why do you think that?”

“Your eyes,” she told me simply. “ I told you I had a theory. I’ve noticed that people-men in particular, are crabbier when they’re hungry.”

I laughed. Her observation was so dead on, so simple. “You’re observant, aren’t you?”

“Were you hunting this weekend, with Emmett?”

“Yes,” I had to, in order to be with her. But I didn’t want to and maybe if I hadn’t, none of this would have happened. “I didn’t want to leave but it was necessary. It’s a bit easier to be around you when I’m not thirsty.”

“Why didn’t you want to leave?”

“It makes me…anxious…nervous…to be away from you.” I looked at her, so happy to finally be with her, to not be in that constant state of nervousness because I wasn’t in Bella’s presense. “I wasn’t joking when I asked you to try to not fall in the ocean or get un over last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you. After what happened tonight, I’m surprised that you did make it through a whole weekend unscathed.” I shook my head, then remembered the almost-healed scrapes on her hand. “Well, not totally unscathed.”

“What?”

“Your hands,” I reminded her. Bella was probably injured so much that she forgot what injuries she’d sustained.

“I fell,” she sighed.

“That’s what I thought,” I smiled. “I suppose, being you, it could have been very much worse. That possibility has tormented me the entire time I was away. It was a very long three days. I really got on Emmett’s nerves.” He refused to hunt with me for extended periods of time until “I got over the human.”

“Three days? I thought you got back today.”

“No, we got back Sunday.”

“Then why weren’t you in school?”

Did I hear anger in her voice? Was she upset that I wasn’t there?

“Well, you asked if the sun hurt me and it doesn’t. But I can’t go out in the sunlight, at least not with anyone looking.”

“Why?”

“I’ll show you sometime.” I had this compulsion every single side of me. I would have to show her sometime why I was absent during the sunnier days. Perhaps if she finally saw what a freak I was, she would leave.

“You might have called me,” she accused.

Why would I do that? How could I possibly call her? “But I knew you were safe.”

“But I didn’t know where you were. I-“

Hope surged through me. Was she honestly concerned about me? I wanted to think that she thought about me, just as I thought about her, constantly. Was my name that was on her lips an indication that she cared about me, dare I say it, beginning to love me?

“What?” I asked her, urging her to finish her sentence.

“I didn’t like it, not seeing you. It makes me anxious, too.”

She was blushing, searching my face for my reaction.

“Ah,” I groaned. “This is wrong.”

I was falling even more in love with her. She worried about me, keeping herself up at night worrying about me.

This was wrong. She shouldn’t feel this way, she shouldn’t love someone so unworthy of her love.

“What did I say?”

“Don’t you see, Bella? It’s one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved. I don’t want to hear that you feel that way. It’s wrong. It’s not safe. I’m dangerous, Bella. Please,” I begged, “grasp that.”

“No,” she said petulantly. She stuck her bottom lip out and it was suddenly very hard to breathe. Why did she have to make this so hard?

“I’m serious,” I growled at her.

“So am I,” she told me stubbornly. “I told you, it doesn’t matter what you are. It’s too late.”

No! She could not think that. I was constantly a danger to her, constantly fighting to make sure that I didn’t sink my teeth into her flesh, drinking her life away. It was not too late. Not for her.

“Never think that,” I commanded her.

I hurt her, the pain on her face was evident. I wanted to tell her that I loved her too much to have her risk her life for me, that I was unworthy of her, that the monster in me was too strong, that I would eventually lose the war.

“What are you thinking?” I asked her. I wanted desperately to soothe the hurt that she obviously felt.

I watched her face, wishing the pain would erase itself. I saw the tear drops stream down her face.

“Are you crying?” I had no idea how to comfort her. Vampires couldn’t cry, I couldn’t remember the time I was directly involved with a crying female.

“No,” she said, but her voice lilted, betraying the falseness of her words.

I reached out to cup her cheek, wishing to comfort her in someway. I pulled back, knowing that I would only hurt her and myself more.

“I’m sorry,” the words weren’t enough. I had made her cry. I doomed her with my presence.

I tried to distract her, wanting to know something that I hadn’t gotten the chance to ask her. “Tell me something.”

“Yes?”

“What were you thinking tonight, just before I cam around the corner? I couldn’t understand your expression-you didn’t look that scared, you looked like you were concentrating very hard on something.”

“I was trying to remember how to incapacitate an attacker-you know, self-defense. I was going to smash his nose into his brain.”

What was she possibly thinking? Bella, little, fragile Bella attacking someone? “You were going to fight them? Didn’t you think of running?” Like a normal person?

“I fall down a lot when I run.”

Knowing Bella, she probably would have injured herself more if she had run.

“What about sreaming for help?”

“I was getting there.”

I sighed. “You were right-I’m definitely fighting fate trying to keep you alive.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes, I have a paper due, too.” I smiled, “I’ll save you a seat at lunch.”

I stopped the car in her driveway, realizing that she managed to ask all the questions once again.

“Do you promise to be there tomorrow?” she asked me.

I smiled, thrilled that it meant so much to her that I would be there. “I promise.”

She thought about it for a minute, then accepted my promise with a nod of her head. She took my jacket off, handing it back to me.

“You can keep it-you don’t have a jacket for tomorrow,” I told her. Part of me loved the thought of her wearing my jacket, a subtle claim to her.

“I don’t want to have to explain it to Charlie,” she told me.

“Oh, right.” Bella was right. It was easier to not have to explain it to him.

I looked to the woods, swearing I could smell them. They wouldn’t dare…I had to warn her, without giving too much information. It would only lead to more questions but I had to. She had to know.

“Will you promise me something?” I asked her. It was only fair, after all, she made me promise to come to school.

“Yes?”

“Don’t go into the woods alone.” I couldn’t bear the thought of those dogs going anywhere near her.

“Why?”

Why couldn’t she just accept my warning?

“I’m not always the most dangerous thing in the forest. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I promised her, thankful that she had left it alone. Though she didn’t know it, I would probably see her tonight, after I finished hunting. I sighed, wishing that I prolong the moment just a little longer.

“Tomorrow, then,” she said sadly.

“Bella?” I leaned toward her, wondering if I could dazzle her again.

Her scent was glorious, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide.

“Sleep well,” I told her.

Her heart stopped beating, just for a second. I pulled away, satisfied that I affected her as much as she affected me. I watched her stumble out of the car, using the frame for support. Only Bella would manage to injure herself while getting out of a car, I chuckled to myself.

I waited until she got to the front door, confident that she would be safe until I was with her again and drove home.