What would she want from me? Would she ask for the truth that I wasn’t allowed to tell her—the truth I didn’t want her to ever, ever know?
“That depends on what you want.”
“It’s not much,” she promised.
I waited, curiosity flaring excruciatingly, as usual.
“I just wondered…,” she said slowly, staring at the lemonade bottle, tracing its lip with her littlest finger, “if you could warn me beforehand the next time you decide to ignore me for my own good? Just so I’m prepared.”
She wanted a warning? Then being ignored by me must be a bad thing. I smiled.
“That sounds fair,” I agreed.
“Thanks,” she said, looking up. Her face was so relieved that I wanted to laugh with my own relief.
“Then can I have one in return?” I asked hopefully.
“One,” she allowed.
“Tell me one theory.”
She flushed. “Not that one.”
“You didn’t qualify, you just promised one answer,” I argued.
“And you’ve broken promises yourself,” she argued back.
She had me there.
“Just one theory—I won’t laugh.”
“Yes, you will.” She seemed very sure of that, though I couldn’t imagine anything that would be funny about it.
I gave persuasion another try. I stared deep into her eyes—an easy thing to do with eyes so deep—and whispered, “Please?”
She blinked, and her face went totally blank.
Well, that wasn’t exactly the reaction I’d been going for.
“Er, what?” she asked a second later. She looked disoriented. Was something wrong with her?
I tried again.
“Please tell me just one little theory,” I pleaded in my soft, non-scary voice, holding her gaze in mine.
To my surprise and satisfaction, it finally worked.
“Um, well, bitten by a radioactive spider?”
Comic books? No wonder she thought I would laugh.
“That’s not very creative,” I chided her, trying to hide my fresh relief.
“I’m sorry, that’s all I’ve got,” she said, offended.
This relieved me even more. I was able to tease her again.
“You’re not even close.”
“No spiders?”
“Nope.”
“And no radioactivity?”
“None.”
“Dang,” she sighed.
“Kryptonite doesn’t bother me, either,” I said quickly—before she could ask about bites—and then I had to chuckle, because she thought I was a superhero.
“You’re not supposed to laugh, remember?”
I pressed my lips together.
“I’ll figure it out eventually,” she promised.
And when she did, she would run.
“I wish you wouldn’t try,” I said, all teasing gone.
“Because…?”
I owed her honesty. Still, I tried to smile, to make my words sound less threatening. “What if I’m not a superhero? What if I’m the bad guy?”
Her eyes widened by a fraction and her lips fell slightly apart. “Oh,” she said. And then, after another second, “I see.”
She’d finally heard me.
“Do you?” I asked, working to conceal my agony.
“You’re dangerous?” she guessed. Her breathing hiked, and her heart raced.
I couldn’t answer her. Was this my last moment with her? Would she run now? Could I be allowed to tell her that I loved her before she left? Or would that frighten her more?
“But not bad,” she whispered, shaking her head, no fear evident in her clear eyes. “No, I don’t believe that you’re bad.”
“You’re wrong,” I breathed.
Of course I was bad. Wasn’t I rejoicing now, finding she thought better of me than I deserved? If I were a good person, I would have stayed away from her.
I stretched my hand across the table, reaching for the lid to her lemonade bottle as an excuse. She did not flinch away from my suddenly closer hand. She really was not afraid of me. Not yet.
I spun the lid like a top, watching it instead of her. My thoughts were in a snarl.
Run, Bella, run. I couldn’t make myself say the words out loud.
She jumped to her feet. Just as I started to worry that she’d somehow heard my silent warning, she said, “We’re going to be late.”
“I’m not going to class today.”
“Why not?”
Because I don’t want to kill you. “It’s healthy to ditch class now and then.”
To be precise, it was healthier for the humans if the vampires ditched on days when human blood would be spilled. Mr. Banner was blood typing today. Alice had already ditched her morning class.
“Well, I’m going,” she said. This didn’t surprise me. She was responsible—she always did the right thing.
She was my opposite.
“I’ll see you later, then,” I said, trying for casual again, staring down at the whirling lid. Please save yourself. Please never leave me.
She hesitated, and I hoped for a moment that she would stay with me after all. But the bell rang and she hurried away.
I waited until she was gone, and then I put the lid in my pocket—a souvenir of this most consequential conversation—and walked through the rain to my car.
I put on my favorite calming CD—the same one I’d listened to that first day—but I wasn’t hearing Debussy’s notes for long. Other notes were running through my head, a fragment of a tune that pleased and intrigued me. I turned down the stereo and listened to the music in my head, playing with the fragment until it evolved into a fuller harmony. Automatically, my fingers moved in the air over imaginary piano keys.
The new composition was really coming along when my attention was caught by a wave of mental anguish.
Is she going to pass out? What do I do? Mike panicked.
A hundred yards away, Mike Newton was lowering Bella’s limp body to the sidewalk. She slumped unresponsively against the wet concrete, her eyes closed, her skin chalky as a corpse.
I nearly took the door off the car.
“Bella?” I shouted.
There was no change in her lifeless face when I yelled her name.
My whole body went colder than ice. This was like a confirmation of every ludicrous scenario I’d imagined. The very moment she was out of my sight…
I was aware of Mike’s aggravated surprise as I sifted furiously through his thoughts. He was only thinking of his anger toward me, so I didn’t know what was wrong with Bella. If he’d done something to harm her, I would annihilate him. Not even the tiniest fragment of his body would ever be recovered.
“What’s wrong—is she hurt?” I demanded, trying to focus his thoughts. It was maddening to have to walk at a human pace. I should not have called attention to my approach.
Then I could hear her heart beating and her even breath. As I watched, she squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. That eased some of my panic.
I saw a flicker of memories in Mike’s head, a splash of images from the Biology room. Bella’s head on our table, her fair skin turning green. Drops of red against the white cards.
Blood typing.
I stopped where I was, holding my breath. Her scent was one thing, her flowing blood was another altogether.
“I think she’s fainted,” Mike said, anxious and resentful at the same time. “I don’t know what happened. She didn’t even stick her finger.”
Relief washed through me, and I breathed again, tasting the air. Ah, I could smell the tiny bleed of Mike Newton’s puncture wound. Once, that might have appealed to me.
I knelt beside her while Mike hovered next to me, furious at my intervention.
“Bella. Can you hear me?”
“No,” she moaned. “Go away.”
The relief was so exquisite that I laughed. She wasn’t in danger.
“I was taking her to the nurse,” Mike said. “But she wouldn’t go any farther.”
“I’ll take her. You can go back to class,” I said dismissively.
Mike’s teeth clenched together. “No. I’m supposed to do it.”
I wasn’t going to stand around arguing with the moron.
Thrilled and terrified, half-grateful to and half-aggrieved by the predicament that made touching her a necessity, I gently lifted Bella from the sidewalk and held her in my arms, touching only her rain jacket and jeans, keeping as much distance between our bodies as possible. I was striding forward in the same movement, in a hurry to have her safe—farther away from me, in other words.
Her eyes popped open, astonished.
“Put me down,” she ordered in a weak voice—embarrassed again, I guessed from her expression. She didn’t like to show weakness. But her body was so limp I doubted she would be able to stand on her own, let alone walk.
I ignored Mike’s shouted protest behind us.
“You look awful,” I told her, unable to stop grinning, because there was nothing wrong with her but a light head and a weak stomach.
“Put me back on the sidewalk,” she said. Her lips were white.
“So you faint at the sight of blood?” A twisted kind of irony.
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.
“And not even your own blood,” I added, my grin widening.
We arrived at the front office. The door was propped open an inch, and I kicked it out of my way.
Ms. Cope jumped, startled. “Oh my,” she gasped as she examined the ashen girl in my arms.
“She fainted in Biology,” I explained, before her imagination could get too out of hand.
Ms. Cope hurried to get the door to the nurse’s office. Bella’s eyes were open again, watching her. I heard the elderly nurse’s internal astonishment as I laid the girl carefully on the one shabby bed. As soon as Bella was out of my arms, I put the width of the room between us. My body was too excited, too eager, my muscles tense and the venom flowing. She was so warm and fragrant.
“She’s just a little faint,” I reassured Mrs. Hammond. “They’re blood typing in Biology.”
She nodded, understanding now. “There’s always one.”
I stifled a laugh. Trust Bella to be that one.
“Just lie down for a minute, honey,” Mrs. Hammond said. “It’ll pass.”
“I know,” Bella said.
“Does this happen a lot?” the nurse asked.
“Sometimes,” Bella admitted.
I tried to disguise my laughter as coughing.
This brought me to the nurse’s attention. “You can go back to class now,” she said.
I looked her straight in the eye and lied with perfect confidence. “I’m supposed to stay with her.”
Hmm. I wonder.… Oh well. Mrs. Hammond nodded.
It worked just fine on the nurse. Why did Bella have to be so difficult?
“I’ll go get you some ice for your forehead, dear,” the nurse said, slightly uncomfortable from looking into my eyes—the way a human should be—and left the room.
“You were right,” Bella moaned, closing her eyes.
What did she mean? I jumped to the worst conclusion: She’d accepted my warnings.
“I usually am,” I said, trying to keep the amusement in my voice; it sounded sour now. “But about what in particular this time?”
“Ditching is healthy,” she sighed.
Ah, relief again.
She was silent then. She just breathed slowly in and out. Her lips were beginning to turn pink. Her mouth was slightly out of balance, her upper lip just a little too full to match the lower. Staring at her mouth made me feel strange. Made me want to move closer to her, which was not a good idea.
“You scared me for a minute there,” I said, trying to restart the conversation. The quiet was painful in an odd way, leaving me alone without her voice. “I thought Newton was dragging your dead body off to bury it in the woods.”
“Ha ha,” she responded.
“Honestly—I’ve seen corpses with better color.” This was actually true. “I was concerned that I might have to avenge your murder.” And I would have.
“Poor Mike,” she sighed. “I’ll bet he’s mad.”
Fury pulsed through me, but I contained it quickly. Her concern was surely just pity. She was kind. That was all.
“He absolutely loathes me,” I told her, cheered by that idea.
“You can’t know that.”
“I saw his face—I could tell.” It was probably true that reading his face would have given me enough information to make that particular deduction. All this practice with Bella was sharpening my skill.
“How did you see me? I thought you were ditching.” Her face looked better—the green undertone had vanished from her translucent skin.
“I was in my car, listening to a CD.”
Her mouth twitched, like my very ordinary answer had surprised her somehow.
She opened her eyes again when Mrs. Hammond returned with an ice pack.
“Here you go, dear,” the nurse said as she laid it across Bella’s forehead. “You’re looking better.”
“I think I’m fine,” Bella said, and she sat up while pulling the ice pack away. Of course. She didn’t like to be taken care of.
Mrs. Hammond’s wrinkled hands fluttered toward the girl, as if she were going to push her back down, but just then Ms. Cope opened the door to the office and leaned in. With her appearance came the smell of fresh blood, just a whiff.
Invisible in the office behind her, Mike Newton was still very angry, wishing the heavy boy he dragged now was the girl who was in here with me.
“We’ve got another one,” Ms. Cope said.
Bella quickly jumped down from the cot, eager to be out of the spotlight.
“Here,” she said, handing the compress back to Mrs. Hammond. “I don’t need this.”
Mike grunted as he half-shoved Lee Stephens through the door. Blood was still dripping down the hand Lee held to his face, trickling toward his wrist.
“Oh no.” This was my cue to leave—and Bella’s, too, it seemed. “Go out to the office, Bella.”
She stared up at me, surprised.
“Trust me—go.”
She whirled and caught the door before it swung shut, rushing through to the office. I followed a few inches behind her. Her swinging hair brushed my hand.
She turned to look at me, still unsure.
“You actually listened to me.” That was a first.
Her small nose wrinkled. “I smelled the blood.”
I stared at her in blank surprise. “People can’t smell blood.”
“Well, I can—that’s what makes me sick. It smells like rust… and salt.”
My face froze, still staring.
Was she really even human? She looked human. She felt soft as a human. She smelled human—well, better actually. She acted human… sort of. But she didn’t think like a human, or respond like one.
What other option was there, though?
“What?” she demanded.
Mike Newton interrupted us then, entering the room with resentful, violent thoughts.
“You look better,” he said to her rudely.
My hand twitched, wanting to teach him some manners. I would have to watch myself, or I would end up actually killing this obnoxious boy.
“Just keep your hand in your pocket,” she said. For one wild second, I thought she was talking to me.
“It’s not bleeding anymore,” he answered sullenly. “Are you going back to class?”
“Are you kidding? I’d just have to turn around and come back.”
That was very good. I’d thought I was going to have to miss this whole hour with her, and now I got extra time instead. A gift I obviously did not deserve.
“Yeah, I guess…,” Mike mumbled. “So are you going this weekend? To the beach?”
What was this? They had plans. Anger froze me in place. It was a group trip, though. Mike was sorting through the other invitees in his head, counting places. It wasn’t just the two of them. That didn’t help my fury. I leaned motionlessly against the counter, controlling my response.
“Sure, I said I was in,” she promised him.
So she’d said yes to him, too. The jealousy burned, more painful than thirst.
“We’re meeting at my dad’s store, at ten.” And Cullen’s NOT invited.
“I’ll be there,” she said.
“I’ll see you in Gym, then.”
“See you,” she replied.
He shuffled off to his class, his thoughts full of ire. What does she see in that freak? Sure, he’s rich, I guess. Girls think he’s hot, but I don’t see that. Too… too perfect. I bet his dad experiments with plastic surgery on all of them. That’s why they’re all so white and pretty. It’s not natural. And he’s sort of… scary-looking. Sometimes, when he stares at me, I’d swear he’s thinking about killing me. Freak.
Mike wasn’t entirely unperceptive.
“Gym,” Bella repeated quietly. A groan.
I looked at her and saw that she was unhappy about something again. I wasn’t sure why, but it was clear that she didn’t want to go to her next class with Mike, and I was all for that plan.
I went to her side and bent close to her face, feeling the warmth of her skin radiating out to my lips. I didn’t dare breathe.
“I can take care of that,” I murmured. “Go sit down and look pale.”
She did as I asked, sitting in one of the folding chairs and leaning her head back against the wall, while behind me, Ms. Cope came out of the back room and went to her desk. With her eyes closed, Bella looked as if she’d passed out again. Her full color hadn’t come back yet.
I turned to the receptionist. Hopefully, Bella was paying attention to this, I thought sardonically. This was how a human was supposed to respond.
“Ms. Cope?” I asked, using my persuasive voice again.
Her eyelashes fluttered, and her heart sped up. Get ahold of yourself! “Yes?”
That was interesting. When Shelly Cope’s pulse quickened, it was because she found me physically attractive, not because she was frightened. I was used to that around human females, those who’d grown somewhat acclimatized to my kind through continued exposure… yet I hadn’t considered that explanation for Bella’s racing heart.
I liked that thought, perhaps too much. I smiled my careful, human-soothing smile, and Ms. Cope’s breathing got louder.
“Bella has Gym next hour, and I don’t think she feels well enough. Actually, I was thinking I should take her home now. Do you think you could excuse her from class?” I stared into her depthless eyes, enjoying the havoc that this wreaked on her thought processes. Was it possible that Bella…?
Ms. Cope had to swallow loudly before she answered. “Do you need to be excused, too, Edward?”
“No, I have Mrs. Goff. She won’t mind.”
I wasn’t paying much attention to her now. I was exploring this new possibility.
Hmm. I would have liked to believe that Bella found me attractive like other humans did, but when did Bella ever have the same reactions as other humans? I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
“Okay, it’s all taken care of. You feel better, Bella.”
Bella nodded weakly—overacting a bit.
“Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you again?” I asked, amused by her poor theatrics. I knew she would want to walk—she wouldn’t want to be weak.
“I’ll walk,” she said.
Right again.