Her shoulders had slumped, and suddenly I recognized her posture. It was just the same as yesterday, when she’d hesitated to answer my question about whether she believed she cared more for me than I did for her. I’d put her in the same position again, of confirming her interest in me without receiving an assurance in return.

Cursing my curiosity, I returned to my questions. Perhaps my obvious fascination with every detail of her personality would convince her of the obsessive level of my interest.

“What kinds of flowers do you prefer?”

“Um, dahlias. For looks. Lavender and lilac for fragrance.”

“You don’t like to watch sports, but did you ever play on a team?”

“Just in school, when they made me.”

“Your mother never put you on a soccer team?”

She shrugged. “My mom liked to keep the weekends open for adventures. I did Girl Scouts for a while, and once she put me in a dance class, but that was a mistake.” She raised her eyebrows as if daring me to doubt her. “She thought it would be convenient because it was close enough for me to walk there after school, but no convenience was worth the mayhem.”

“Mayhem, really?” I asked skeptically.

“If I had Ms. Kamenev’s number, she would corroborate my story.”

She looked up suddenly. All around us, the other students were gathering their things. How had the time passed so quickly?

She stood in response to the commotion, and I rose with her, gathering her trash onto the tray while she slung on her backpack. She reached as if to take the tray from me.

“I’ve got it,” I said.

She huffed quietly, a little exasperated. She still didn’t like being taken care of.

I couldn’t focus on my still-unanswered questions as we walked to Biology. I was remembering yesterday, wondering if that same tension, with the yearning and the electricity, would be present today. And sure enough, as soon as the lights went off, all the same overwhelming cravings returned. I had positioned my chair farther from hers today, but it didn’t help.

There was still that selfish part of me arguing that holding her hand would not be so wrong, even suggesting that this might be a good way to test her reactions, to prepare myself for being alone together. I tried to ignore the selfish voice and the temptation as best I could.

Bella was trying, too, I could tell. She leaned forward, chin propped against her arms, and I could see her fingers gripping under the edge of the desk so tightly that her knuckles were white. It made me wonder what precise temptation she was struggling against. Today she didn’t look at me. Not once.

There was so much I didn’t understand about her. So much I couldn’t ask.

My body was ever so slightly leaning toward her now. I pulled myself back.

When the lights came back on, Bella sighed, and if I’d had to guess, I would have named her expression relief. But relief from what?

I walked beside her to her next class, fighting the same internal battle as the day before.

She stopped at the door and looked up at me with her clear, deep eyes. Was that expectation, or confusion? An invitation or a warning? What did she want?

This is just a question, I told myself as my hand reached out to her of its own volition. Another kind of question.

Braced, not breathing, I let just the back of my hand graze the side of her face, from her temple to her narrow jaw. Like yesterday, her skin warmed to my touch, her heart beat faster. Her head tilted just a fraction of a centimeter as she leaned into my caress.

It was another kind of answer.

I walked away from her quickly again, knowing that this one aspect of my self-control was compromised, my hand smarting in the same painless way.

Emmett was already seated when I arrived at the Spanish classroom. So was Ben Cheney. They were not the only two to note my entrance. I could hear the other students’ curiosity, Bella’s name thought alongside mine, the speculation.…

Ben was the only human not thinking of Bella. My presence made him bristle a little, but he wasn’t antagonistic. He’d already spoken to Angela and made a date for this weekend. Her reception of his invitation had been warm, and he was still riding the high. Though he was wary of my intentions, he was cognizant that I had acted as catalyst for his current happiness. As long as I stayed away from Angela, he had no problem with me. There was even a hint of gratitude, though he had no idea this was exactly the outcome I’d desired, too. He seemed a clever boy—he rose in my estimation.

Bella was in Gym, but as in the second half of yesterday’s class, she did not participate. Her eyes were far away whenever Mike Newton turned to look at her. She was obviously elsewhere in her head. Mike guessed that anything he had to say to her would be unwelcome.

Guess I never really had a chance, he thought, half-resigned, half-sullen. How did it even happen? It was, like, overnight. Guess when Cullen wants something, it doesn’t take him long to get it. The images that followed, his ideas of what I’d gotten, were offensive. I stopped listening.

I didn’t like his perspective. As though Bella had no will of her own. Surely, she’d been the one to choose, hadn’t she? If she had ever asked me to leave her alone, I would have turned around and walked the other way. But she’d wanted me to stay, then and now.

My thoughts drifted back to check in on the Spanish classroom, and they naturally tuned in to the most familiar voice, but my mind was tangled around Bella as usual, so for a moment I didn’t realize what I was hearing.

And then my teeth clamped together so hard that even the humans near me heard. One boy looked around for the source of the cracking sound.

Oops, Emmett thought.

I curled my hands into fists and concentrated on staying in my seat.

Sorry, I was trying not to think about that.

I glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes before I could punch him in the face.

I didn’t mean any harm. Hey, I took your side, right? Honestly, Jasper and Rose are just being silly, betting against Alice. It’s the easiest wager I’ll ever win.

A wager about this weekend, whether Bella would live or die.

Fourteen and a half minutes.

Emmett squirmed in his seat, well aware what my total motionlessness indicated.

C’mon, Ed. You know it wasn’t serious. Anyway, it’s not even about the girl. You know better than I do whatever’s going on with Rose. Something between you two, I guess. She’s still mad, and she wouldn’t admit for all the world that she’s actually rooting for you.

He always gave Rosalie the benefit of the doubt, and though I knew that I was just the opposite—I never gave her the benefit of the doubt—I didn’t think he was right this time. Rosalie would be pleased to see me fail in this. She would be happy to see Bella’s poor choices receive what she considered their just reward. And then she’d still be jealous as Bella’s soul escaped to whatever waited beyond.

And Jazz—well, you know. He’s tired of being the weakest link. You’re kind of too perfect with the self-control, and it gets annoying. Carlisle’s different. Admit it, you’re a little… smug.

Thirteen minutes.

For Emmett and Jasper, this was just some sticky pit of quicksand I’d created for myself. Fail or succeed—to them, in the end it was nothing more than another anecdote about me. Bella wasn’t part of the equation. Her life was only a marker in the bet they’d made.

Don’t take it personally.

There was another way? Twelve and a half minutes.

You want me to back out of it? I will.

I sighed, and let the rigidity of my pose relax.

What was the point of stoking my anger? Should I blame them for their inability to understand? How could they?

How meaningless it all was. Infuriating, yes, but… would I have been any different if it hadn’t been my life that had changed? If it hadn’t been about Bella?

Regardless, I didn’t have time to fight with Emmett now. I would be waiting for Bella when she was done with Gym. So many more pieces to the puzzle I needed to discover.

I heard Emmett’s relief as I darted out the door at the first sound of the bell, ignoring him.

When Bella walked through the gymnasium door and saw me, a smile spread across her face. I felt the same relief I had in the car this morning. All my doubts and torments seemed to lift from my shoulders. I knew that they were still very real, but the weight was so much easier to carry when I could see her.

“Tell me about your home,” I said as we walked to the car. “What do you miss?”

“Um… my house? Or Phoenix? Or do you mean here?”

“All of those.”

She looked at me questioningly—was I serious?

“Please?” I asked as I held her door for her.

She raised one eyebrow as she climbed in, still doubting.

But when I was inside and we were alone again, she seemed to relax.

“Have you never been to Phoenix?”

I smiled. “No.”

“Right,” she said. “Of course. The sun.” She speculated about that silently for a moment. “It creates some kind of a problem for you…?”

“Indeed.” I wasn’t about to try to explain that answer. It was really something that had to be seen to be understood. Also, Phoenix was a little too close for comfort to the lands the aggressive Southern clans claimed, but that wasn’t a story I wanted to get into, either.

She waited, wondering if I would elaborate.

“So tell me about this place I’ve never seen,” I prompted.

She considered for a moment. “The city is mostly very flat, not much taller than one or two stories. There are a few baby skyscrapers downtown, but that was pretty far away from where I lived. Phoenix is huge. You can drive through suburbs all day. Lots of stucco and tile and gravel. It’s not all soft and squishy like it is here—everything is hard and most things have thorns.”

“But you like it.”

She nodded with a grin. “It’s so… open. Just all sky. The things we call mountains are really just hills—hard, thorny hills. But most of the valley is a big, shallow bowl and it feels like it’s filled with sunlight all the time.” She illustrated the shape with her hands. “The plants are like modern art compared to the stuff here—lots of angles and edges. Mostly spiky.” Another grin. “But they’re all open, too. Even if there are leaves, they’re just feathery, sparse things. Nothing can really hide there. Nothing keeps the sun out.”

I stopped the car in front of her house. My usual spot.

“Well, it does rain occasionally,” she amended. “But it’s different there. More exciting. Lots of thunder and lightning and flash floods—not just the nonstop drizzle thing. And it smells better there. That’s the creosote.”

I knew the evergreen desert shrubs she referred to. I’d seen them through a car window in Southern California—only at night. They weren’t much to look at.

“I’ve never smelled the scent of creosote,” I admitted.

“They only smell in the rain.”

“What is it like?”

She thought about that for a moment. “Sweet and bitter at the same time. A little like resin, a little like medicine. But that sounds bad. It smells fresh. Like clean desert.” She chuckled. “That’s not helpful, is it?”

“On the contrary. What else have I missed, not visiting Arizona?”

“Saguaros, but I’m sure you’ve seen pictures.”

I nodded.

“They’re bigger than you’d expect, when you see them in person. It takes all the newbies by surprise. Have you ever lived anywhere with cicadas?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “We were in New Orleans for a while.”

“Then you know,” she said. “I had a job last summer at a plant nursery. The screaming—it’s like nails on a chalkboard. It drove me crazy.”

“What else?”

“Hmm. The colors are different. The mountains—hills or whatever—are mostly volcanic. Lots of purple rock. It’s dark enough that it holds a lot of heat from the sun. So does the blacktop. In the summer, it never cools off—frying an egg on the sidewalk is not an urban myth. But there’s lots of green from the golf courses. Some people keep lawns, too, though I think that’s crazy. Anyway, the contrast in the colors is cool.”

“What’s your favorite place to spend time?”

“The library.” She grinned. “If I hadn’t already outed myself as a huge nerd, I guess that makes it obvious. I feel like I’ve read every fiction book in the little branch near me. The first place I went when I got my license was the central library downtown. I could live there.”

“Where else?”

“In the summer, we’d go to the pool at Cactus Park. My mom had me in swimming lessons there before I could walk. There was always some story in the news about a toddler drowning, and it freaked her out. In the winter, we’d go to Roadrunner Park. It’s not huge, but it had a little lake. We’d sail paper boats when I was a kid. Nothing very exciting, like I’ve been trying to tell you.…”

“I think it sounds lovely. I don’t remember much about my childhood.”

Her teasing smile faded, and her eyebrows pulled together. “That must be difficult. And strange.”

It was my turn to shrug. “It’s all I know. Certainly nothing to worry about.”

She was quiet for a long time, turning this over in her head.

I waited out her silence for as long I as could stand it before I finally asked, “What are you thinking?”

Her smile was more subdued now. “I have a lot of questions. But I know—”

We spoke the words simultaneously.

“Today is my day.”

“Today is your day.”

Our laughs were synchronized now, too, and I thought how strangely easy it was to be with her this way. Just close enough. The danger felt far away. I was so entertained I was nearly oblivious to the pain in my throat, though it was not dull. It just wasn’t as interesting to think about as she was.

“Have I sold you on Phoenix yet?” she asked after another quiet moment.

“Perhaps I need a bit more persuasion.”

She considered. “There’s this one kind of acacia tree—I don’t know what it’s called. It looks like all the others, thorny, half-dead.” Her expression was suddenly full of longing. “But in the springtime, it has these yellow fuzzy blossoms that look like pom-poms.” She demonstrated the size, pretending to hold a blossom between her thumb and index finger. “They smell… amazing. Like nothing else. Really faint, delicate—you’ll get a sudden hint of them in the breeze and then it’s gone. I should have included them with my favorite scents. I wish someone would make a candle or something.

“And then the sunsets are incredible,” she continued, switching subjects abruptly. “Seriously, you’ll never see anything close here.” She thought for another moment. “Even in the middle of the day, though, the sky—that’s the main thing. It’s not blue like the sky here—when you can even see it here. It’s brighter, paler. Sometimes it’s almost white. And it’s everywhere.” She emphasized her words with her hand, tracing an arc over her head. “There’s so much more sky there. If you get away from the lights of the city a little bit, you can see a million stars.” She smiled a wistful smile. “You really ought to check it out some night.”

“It’s beautiful to you.”

She nodded. “It’s not for everybody, I guess.” She paused, thoughtful, but I could see that there was more, so I let her think.

“I like the… minimalism,” she decided. “It’s an honest sort of place. It doesn’t hide anything.”

I thought of everything that was hidden from her here, and I wondered if her words meant that she was aware of this, of the invisible darkness gathered around her. But she stared at me with no judgment in her eyes.

She didn’t add anything more, and I thought by the way she was tucking her chin just slightly she might again be feeling like she was talking too much.

“You must miss it a great deal,” I prompted.

Her expression didn’t cloud over the way I half expected. “I did at first.”

“But now?”

“I guess I’m used to it here.” She smiled as though she was more than simply resigned to the forest and the rain.

“Tell me about your home there.”

She shrugged. “It’s nothing unusual. Stucco and tile, like I said. One story, three bedrooms, two baths. I miss my little bathroom most. Sharing with Charlie is stressful. Gravel and cactus outside. Everything inside is vintage seventies—wood paneling, linoleum, shag carpet, mustard Formica counters, the works. My mom’s not big on renovations. She claims the dated stuff has character.”

“What is your bedroom like?”

Her expression made me wonder if there was a joke I wasn’t getting. “Now or when I lived there?”

“Now?”

“I think it’s a yoga studio or something. My stuff is in the garage.”

I stared, surprised. “What will you do when you go back?”

She didn’t seem concerned. “We’ll shove the bed back in somehow.”

“Wasn’t there a third bedroom?”