“I think that you will go back,” she said, her voice taking on just a hint of her long-lost Russian accent. “No matter what it is… or who it is… that haunts you. You’ll face it head-on. You’re the type.”
Her thoughts were as certain as her words. I tried to embrace the vision of myself that she saw. The one who faced things head-on. It was pleasant to think of myself that way again. I’d never doubted my courage, my ability to face difficulty, before that horrible hour in a high school Biology class such a short time ago.
I kissed her cheek, pulling back swiftly when she twisted her face toward mine. She smiled ruefully at my quickness.
“Thank you, Tanya. I needed to hear that.”
Her thoughts turned petulant. “You’re welcome, I guess. I wish you would be more reasonable about things, Edward.”
“I’m sorry, Tanya. You know you’re far too good for me. I just… haven’t found what I’m looking for yet.”
“Well, if you leave before I see you again… goodbye, Edward.”
“Goodbye, Tanya.” As I said the words, I could see it. I could see myself leaving. Being strong enough to go back to the one place I wanted to be. “Again, thank you.”
She was on her feet in one nimble move, and then she was running away, ghosting across the snow so quickly that her feet had no time to sink in. She left no prints behind her. She didn’t look back. My rejection bothered her more than she’d let on before, even in her thoughts. She wouldn’t want to see me again before I left.
My mouth twisted downward. I didn’t like hurting Tanya, though her feelings were not deep, hardly pure, and, in any case, not something I could return. It still made me feel less than a gentleman.
I put my chin on my knees and stared up at the stars again, though I was suddenly anxious to be on my way. I knew that Alice would see me coming home, that she would tell the others. This would make them happy—Carlisle and Esme especially. But I gazed at the stars for one more moment, trying to see past the face in my head. Between me and the brilliant lights in the sky, a pair of bewildered chocolate-brown eyes wondered at my motives, seeming to ask what this decision would mean for her. Of course, I couldn’t be sure that was really the information her curious eyes sought. Even in my imagination, I couldn’t hear her thoughts. Bella Swan’s eyes continued to question, and an unobstructed view of the stars continued to elude me. With a heavy sigh, I gave up and got to my feet. If I ran, I would be back to Carlisle’s car in less than an hour.
In a hurry to see my family—and wanting very much to be the Edward who faced things head-on—I raced across the starlit snowfield, leaving no footprints.
“It’s going to be okay,” Alice breathed. Her eyes were unfocused, and Jasper had one hand lightly under her elbow, guiding her forward as we walked into the run-down cafeteria in a close-huddled group. Rosalie and Emmett led the way, Emmett looking ridiculously like a bodyguard in the middle of hostile territory. Rose looked wary, too, but much more irritated than protective.
“Of course it is,” I grumbled. Their behavior was ludicrous. If I weren’t positive that I could handle this moment, I would have stayed home.
The sudden shift from our normal, even playful morning—it had snowed in the night, and Emmett and Jasper were not above taking advantage of my distraction to bombard me with slushballs; when they got bored with my lack of response, they’d turned on each other—to this overdone vigilance would have been comical if it weren’t so irritating.
“She’s not here yet, but the way she’s going to come in… she won’t be downwind if we sit in our regular spot.”
“Of course we’ll sit in our regular spot. Stop it, Alice. You’re getting on my nerves. I’ll be absolutely fine.”
She blinked once as Jasper helped her into her seat, and her eyes finally focused on my face.
“Hmm,” she said, sounding surprised. “I think you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” I muttered.
I hated being the focus of their concern. I felt a sudden sympathy for Jasper, remembering all the times we’d hovered protectively over him. He met my glance briefly, and grinned.
Annoying, isn’t it?
I glowered at him.
Was it just last week that this long, drab room had seemed so killingly dull to me? That it had seemed almost like sleep, like a coma, to be here?
Today my nerves were stretched tight—piano wires, tensed to sing at the lightest pressure. My senses were hyperalert; I scanned every sound, every sight, every movement of the air that touched my skin, every thought. Especially the thoughts. There was only one sense that I kept locked down, refused to use. Smell, of course. I didn’t breathe.
I was expecting to hear more about the Cullens in the thoughts that I sifted through. All day I’d been waiting, searching for whichever new acquaintance Bella Swan might have confided in, trying to see the direction the new gossip would take. But there was nothing. No one particularly noticed the five vampires in the cafeteria, just as before the girl had come. Several of the humans here were still thinking of her, still thinking the same thoughts from last week. Instead of finding this unutterably boring, I was now fascinated.
Had she said nothing to anyone about me?
There was no way that she had not noticed my black, murderous glare. I had seen her react to it. Surely, I’d traumatized her. I was convinced that she would have mentioned it to someone, maybe even have exaggerated the story a bit to make it better. Given me a few menacing lines.
And then she’d also heard me trying to get out of our shared Biology class. She must have wondered, after seeing my expression, whether she was the cause. A normal girl would have asked around, compared her experience to others’, looked for common ground that would explain my behavior so she didn’t feel singled out. Humans were constantly desperate to feel normal, to fit in. To blend in with everyone else around them, like a featureless flock of sheep. The need was particularly strong during the insecure adolescent years. This girl would be no exception to that rule.
But no one at all took notice of us sitting here, at our usual table. Bella must be exceptionally shy if she’d hadn’t confided in anyone. Perhaps she had spoken to her father; maybe that was the strongest relationship… though that seemed unlikely, given that she had spent so little time with him throughout her life. She would be closer to her mother. Still, I would have to pass by Chief Swan sometime soon and listen to what he was thinking.
“Anything new?” Jasper asked.
I concentrated, allowing all the swarms of thoughts to invade my mind again. There wasn’t anything that stood out; no one was thinking of us. Despite my earlier worries, it didn’t seem that there was anything wrong with my abilities, aside from the silent girl. I’d shared my concerns with Carlisle upon my return, but he’d only ever heard of talents growing stronger with practice. Never did they atrophy.
Jasper waited impatiently.
“Nothing. She… must not have said anything.”
All of them raised eyebrows at this news.
“Maybe you’re not as scary as you think you are,” Emmett said, chuckling. “I bet I could have frightened her better than that.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Wonder why…?” He puzzled again over my revelation about the girl’s unique silence.
“We’ve been over that. I don’t know.”
“She’s coming in,” Alice murmured then. My body froze. “Try to look human.”
“Human, you say?” Emmett asked.
He held up his right fist, twisting his fingers to reveal the snowball he’d saved in his palm. It had not melted there; he’d squeezed it into a lumpy block of ice. He had his eyes on Jasper, but I saw the direction of his thoughts. So did Alice, of course. When he abruptly hurled the ice chunk at her, she flicked it away with a casual flutter of her fingers. The ice ricocheted across the length of the cafeteria, too fast to be visible to human eyes, and shattered with a sharp crack against the brick wall. The brick cracked, too.
The heads in that corner of the room all turned to stare at the pile of broken ice on the floor, and then swiveled to find the culprit. They didn’t look farther than a few tables away. No one looked at us.
“Very human, Emmett,” Rosalie said scathingly. “Why don’t you punch through the wall while you’re at it?”
“It would look more impressive if you did it, gorgeous.”
I tried to pay attention to them, keeping a grin fixed on my face as though I were part of their banter. I did not allow myself to look toward the line where I knew she was standing. But that was all I was listening to.
I could hear Jessica’s impatience with the new girl, who seemed to be distracted, too, standing motionless in the moving line. I saw, in Jessica’s thoughts, that Bella Swan’s cheeks were once more colored bright pink with blood.
I pulled in a few short, shallow breaths, ready to quit breathing if any hint of her scent touched the air near me.
Mike Newton was with the two girls. I heard both his voices, mental and verbal, when he asked Jessica what was wrong with the Swan girl. It was distasteful the way his thoughts wrapped around her, the flicker of already established fantasies that clouded his mind while he watched her start and look up from her reverie as though she’d forgotten he was there.
“Nothing,” I heard Bella say in that quiet, clear voice. It seemed to ring like a struck bell over the babble in the cafeteria, but I knew that was just because I was listening for it so intently.
“I’ll just get a soda today,” she continued as she moved to catch up with the line.
I couldn’t help flickering one glance in her direction. She was staring at the floor, the blood slowly fading from her face. I looked away quickly, to Emmett, who laughed at the now pained-looking smile on my face.
You look sick, brother mine.
I rearranged my features so the expression would seem casual and effortless.
Jessica was wondering aloud about the girl’s lack of appetite. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Actually, I feel a little sick.” Her voice was lower, but still very clear.
Why did it bother me, the protective concern that suddenly emanated from Mike Newton’s thoughts? What did it matter that there was a possessive edge to them? It wasn’t my business if Mike Newton felt unnecessarily anxious for her. Perhaps this was the way everyone responded to her. Hadn’t I wanted, instinctively, to protect her, too? Before I’d wanted to kill her, that is…
But was the girl ill?
It was hard to judge—she looked so delicate with her translucent skin.… Then I realized that I was worrying, just like that dimwitted boy, and I forced myself not to think about her health.
Regardless, I didn’t like monitoring her through Mike’s thoughts. I switched to Jessica’s, watching carefully as the three of them chose which table to sit at. Fortunately, they sat with Jessica’s usual companions, at one of the first tables in the room. Not downwind, just as Alice had promised.
Alice elbowed me. She’s going to look soon. Act human.
I clenched my teeth behind my grin.
“Ease up, Edward,” Emmett said. “Honestly. So you kill one human. That’s hardly the end of the world.”
“You would know,” I murmured.
Emmett laughed. “You’ve got to learn to get over things. Like I do. Eternity is a long time to wallow in guilt.”
Just then, Alice tossed a smaller handful of ice that she’d been hiding into Emmett’s unsuspecting face.
He blinked, surprised, and then grinned in anticipation.
“You asked for it,” he said as he leaned across the table and shook his ice-encrusted hair in her direction. The snow, melting in the warm room, flew out from his hair in a thick shower of half liquid, half ice.
“Ew!” Rose complained as she and Alice recoiled from the deluge.
Alice laughed, and we all joined in. I could see in Alice’s head how she’d orchestrated this perfect moment, and I knew that the girl—I should stop thinking of her that way, as if she were the only girl in the world—that Bella would be watching us laugh and play, looking as happy and human and unrealistically ideal as a Norman Rockwell painting.
Alice kept laughing and held her tray up as a shield. The girl—Bella—must still be staring at us.
… staring at the Cullens again, someone thought, catching my attention.
I looked automatically toward the unintentional call, easily recognizing the voice as my eyes found their destination—I’d been listening to it so much today.
But my eyes slid right past Jessica and focused on the girl’s penetrating gaze.
She looked down quickly, hiding behind her thick hair again.
What was she thinking? The frustration seemed to be getting more acute as time went on, rather than dulling. I tried—uncertain, for I’d never done this before—to probe with my mind at the silence around her. My extra hearing had always come to me naturally, without asking; I’d never had to work at it. But I concentrated now, trying to break through whatever armor surrounded her.
Nothing but silence.
Whatis it about her? Jessica thought, echoing my own irritation.
“Edward Cullen is staring at you,” she whispered in the Swan girl’s ear, adding a giggle. There was no hint of her jealous annoyance in her tone. Jessica seemed to be skilled at feigning friendship.
I listened, too engrossed, to the girl’s response.
“He doesn’t look angry, does he?” she whispered back.
So she had noticed my wild reaction last week. Of course she had.
The question confused Jessica. I saw my own face in her thoughts as she checked my expression, but I did not meet her glance. I was still concentrating on the girl, trying to hear something. Intent focus didn’t seem to help at all.
“No,” Jess told her, and I knew that she wished she could say yes—how it rankled her, my staring—though there was no trace of that in her voice. “Should he be?”
“I don’t think he likes me,” the girl whispered back, laying her head down on her arm as if she were suddenly tired. I tried to understand the motion, but I could only make guesses. Maybe she was tired.
“The Cullens don’t like anybody,” Jess reassured her. “Well, they don’t notice anybody enough to like them.” They never used to. Her thought was a grumble of complaint. “But he’s still staring at you.”
“Stop looking at him,” the girl said anxiously, lifting her head from her arm to make sure Jessica obeyed the order.
Jessica giggled, but did as she was asked.
The girl did not look away from her table for the rest of the hour. I thought—though, of course, I could not be sure—that this was deliberate. It seemed as though she wanted to look at me. Her body would shift slightly in my direction, her chin would begin to turn, and then she would catch herself, take a deep breath, and stare fixedly at whoever was speaking.
I ignored the other thoughts around the girl for the most part, as they were not, momentarily, about her. Mike Newton was planning a snowball fight in the parking lot after school, not seeming to realize that the snow had already shifted to rain. The flutter of soft flakes against the roof had become the more common patter of raindrops. Could he really not hear the change? It seemed loud to me.
When the lunch period ended, I stayed in my seat. The humans filed out, and I caught myself trying to distinguish the sound of her footsteps from the rest, as if there were something important or unusual about them. How stupid.
My family made no move to leave, either. They waited to see what I would do.
Would I go to class, sit beside the girl, where I could smell the absurdly potent scent of her blood and feel the warmth of her pulse in the air on my skin? Was I strong enough for that? Or had I had enough for one day?
As a family, we’d already discussed this moment from every possible angle. Carlisle disapproved of the risk, but he wouldn’t impose his will on mine. Jasper disapproved nearly as much, but from fear of exposure rather than any concern for humankind. Rosalie only worried about how it would affect her life. Alice saw so many obscure, conflicting futures that her visions were atypically unhelpful. Esme thought I could do no wrong. And Emmett just wanted to compare stories about his own experiences with particularly appealing scents. He pulled Jasper into his reminiscing, though Jasper’s history with self-control was so short and so uneven that he was unable to be sure he’d ever had an analogous struggle. Emmett, on the other hand, remembered two such incidents. His memories of them were not encouraging. But he’d been younger then, not as adept at self-control. Surely, I was stronger than that.
“I… think it’s okay,” Alice said, hesitant. “Your mind is set. I think you’ll make it through the hour.”
But Alice knew well how quickly a mind could change.
“Why push it, Edward?” Jasper asked. Though he didn’t want to feel smug that I was the weak one now, I could hear that he did, just a little. “Go home. Take it slow.”
“What’s the big deal?” Emmett disagreed. “Either he will or he won’t kill her. Might as well get it over with, either way.”
“I don’t want to move yet,” Rosalie complained. “I don’t want to start over. We’re almost out of high school, Emmett. Finally.”
I was evenly torn on the decision. I wanted, wanted badly, to face this head-on rather than running away again. But I didn’t want to push myself too far, either. It had been a mistake last week for Jasper to go so long without hunting; was this just as pointless a mistake?
I didn’t want to uproot my family. None of them would thank me for that.
But I wanted to go to my Biology class. I realized that I wanted to see her face again.
That’s what decided it for me. That curiosity. I was angry with myself for feeling it. Hadn’t I promised myself that I wouldn’t let the silence of the girl’s mind make me unduly interested in her? And yet, here I was, most unduly interested.
I wanted to know what she was thinking. Her mind was closed, but her eyes were very open. Perhaps I could read them instead.
“No, Rose, I think it really will be okay,” Alice said. “It’s… firming up. I’m ninety-three percent sure that nothing bad will happen if he goes to class.” She looked at me, inquisitive, wondering what had changed in my thoughts that made her vision of the future more secure.
Would curiosity be enough to keep Bella Swan alive?
Emmett was right, though—why not get it over with, either way? I would face the temptation head-on.
“Go to class,” I ordered, pushing away from the table. I turned and strode away from them without looking back. I could hear Alice’s worry, Jasper’s censure, Emmett’s approval, and Rosalie’s irritation trailing after me.
I took one last deep breath at the door of the classroom, and then held it in my lungs as I walked into the small, warm space.
I was not late. Mr. Banner was still setting up for today’s lab. The girl sat at my—at our table, her face down again, staring at the folder she was doodling on. I examined the sketch as I approached, interested in even this trivial creation of her mind, but it was meaningless. Just a random scribbling of loops within loops. Perhaps she was not concentrating on the pattern, but thinking of something else?
I pulled my chair back with unnecessary roughness, letting it scrape across the linoleum—humans always felt more comfortable when noise announced someone’s approach.
I knew she heard the sound; she did not look up, but her hand missed a loop in the design she was drawing, making it unbalanced.
Why didn’t she look up? Probably she was frightened. I must be sure to leave her with a different impression this time. Make her think she’d been imagining things before.
“Hello,” I said in the quiet voice I used when I wanted to make humans more comfortable, forming a polite smile with my lips that would not show any teeth.
She looked up then, her wide brown eyes startled and full of silent questions. It was the same expression that had been obstructing my vision for the past week.
As I stared into those oddly deep brown eyes—the color was like milk chocolate, but the clarity was more comparable to strong tea, there was a depth and transparency; near her pupils, there were tiny flecks of agate green and golden caramel—I realized that my hate, the hate I’d imagined this girl somehow deserved for simply existing, had evaporated. Not breathing now, not tasting her scent, I found it hard to believe that anyone so vulnerable could ever be deserving of hatred.
Her cheeks began to flush, and she said nothing.
I kept my eyes on hers, focusing only on their questioning depths, and tried to ignore the appetizing color of her skin. I had enough breath to speak for a while longer without inhaling.
“My name is Edward Cullen,” I said, though she already knew it. It was the polite way to begin. “I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bella Swan.”
She seemed confused—there was that little pucker between her eyes again. It took her half a second longer than it should have to respond.
“How do you know my name?” she demanded, and her voice shook just a little.
I must have truly terrified her, and this made me feel guilty. I laughed gently—it was a sound that I knew made humans more at ease.
“Oh, I think everyone knows your name.” Surely, she must have realized that she’d become the center of attention in this monotonous place. “The whole town’s been waiting for you to arrive.”
She frowned as if this information was unpleasant. I supposed, being shy as she appeared to be, attention would seem like a bad thing to her. Most humans felt the opposite. Though they didn’t want to stand out from the herd, at the same time they craved a spotlight for their individual uniformity.
“No,” she said. “I meant, why did you call me Bella?”
“Do you prefer Isabella?” I asked, perplexed that I couldn’t see where this question was leading. I didn’t understand. She’d made her preference clear many times that first day. Were all humans this incomprehensible without the mental context as a guide? How much I must rely on that extra sense. Would I be completely blind without it?
“No, I like Bella,” she answered, leaning her head slightly to one side. Her expression—if I was reading it correctly—was torn between embarrassment and confusion. “But I think Charlie—I mean my dad—must call me Isabella behind my back. That’s what everyone here seems to know me as.” Her skin darkened one shade pinker.
“Oh,” I said, and quickly looked away from her face.
I’d just realized what her questions meant: I had slipped up—made an error. If I hadn’t been eavesdropping on all the others that first day, then I would have addressed her initially by her full name. She’d noticed the difference.
I felt a pang of unease. It was very quick of her to pick up on my slip. Quite astute, especially for someone who was supposed to be terrified by my proximity.
But I had bigger problems than whatever suspicions about me she might be keeping locked inside her head.
I was out of air. If I were going to speak to her again, I would have to inhale.
It would be hard to avoid speaking. Unfortunately for her, sharing this table made her my lab partner, and we would have to work together today. It would seem odd—and incomprehensibly rude—for me to ignore her while we did the lab. It would make her more suspicious, more afraid.
I leaned as far away from her as I could without moving my seat, twisting my head out into the aisle. I braced myself, locking my muscles in place, and then sucked in one quick chestful of air, breathing through my mouth alone.
Ahh!
It was intensely painful, like swallowing burning coals. Even without smelling her, I could taste her on my tongue. The craving was every bit as strong as that first moment I’d caught her scent last week.
I gritted my teeth and tried to compose myself.
“Get started,” Mr. Banner commanded.
It took every single ounce of self-control I’d achieved in seventy-four years of hard work to turn back to the girl, who was staring down at the table, and smile.
“Ladies first, partner?” I offered.
She looked up at my expression and her face went blank. Was there something off? In her eyes, I saw the reflection of my usual human-friendly composition of features. The facade looked perfect. Was she frightened again? She didn’t speak.
“Or, I could start, if you wish,” I said quietly.
“No,” she said, and her face went from white to red again. “I’ll go ahead.”
I stared at the equipment on the table—the battered microscope, the box of slides—rather than watch the blood wax and wane under her clear skin. I took another quick breath, through my teeth, and winced as the taste scorched the inside of my throat.
“Prophase,” she said after a quick examination. She started to remove the slide, though she’d barely examined it.
“Do you mind if I look?” Instinctively—stupidly, as if I were one of her kind—I reached out to stop her hand from removing the slide. For one second, the heat of her skin burned into mine. It was like an electric pulse—the heat shot through my fingers and up my arm. She yanked her hand out from under mine.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. Needing somewhere to look, I grasped the microscope and stared briefly into the eyepiece. She was right.
“Prophase,” I agreed.
I was still too unsettled to look at her. Breathing as quietly as I could through my gritted teeth and trying to ignore the fiery thirst, I concentrated on the simple assignment, writing the word on the appropriate line on the lab sheet and then switching out the first slide for the next.
What was she thinking now? What had it felt like to her when I had touched her hand? My skin must have been ice-cold—repulsive. No wonder she was so quiet.
I glanced at the slide.
“Anaphase,” I said to myself as I wrote it on the second line.
“May I?” she asked.
I looked up, surprised to see that she was waiting expectantly, one hand half-stretched toward the microscope. She didn’t look afraid. Did she really think I’d gotten the answer wrong?
I couldn’t help but smile at the hopeful expression on her face as I slid the microscope toward her.
She stared into the eyepiece with an eagerness that quickly faded. The corners of her mouth turned down.
“Slide three?” she asked, not looking up from the microscope, but holding out her hand. I dropped the next slide into her palm, keeping my skin far from hers this time. Sitting beside her was like sitting next to a heat lamp. I could feel myself warming slightly to the higher temperature.
She did not look at the slide for long. “Interphase,” she said nonchalantly—perhaps trying a little too hard to sound that way—and pushed the microscope toward me. She did not touch the paper, but waited for me to write the answer. I checked—she was correct again.
We finished this way, speaking one word at a time and never meeting each other’s eyes. We were the only ones done—the others in the class were having a harder time with the lab. Mike Newton seemed to be having trouble concentrating; he was trying to watch Bella and me.
Wish he’d stayed wherever he went, Mike thought, eyeing me sulfurously. Interesting. I hadn’t realized the boy harbored any specific ill will toward me. This was a new development, about as recent as the girl’s arrival, it seemed. Even more interestingly, I found—to my surprise—that the feeling was mutual.
I looked down at the girl again, bemused by the vast range of havoc and upheaval that, despite her ordinary, unthreatening appearance, she was wreaking on my life.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t see what Mike was going on about. She was actually sort of pretty for a human, in an unusual way. Better than being beautiful, her face was… unexpected. Not quite symmetrical—her narrow chin out of balance with her wide cheekbones; extreme in the coloring—the contrast of her light skin and dark hair; and then there were the eyes, too big for her face, brimming over with silent secrets.…
Eyes that were suddenly boring into mine.
I stared back at her, trying to guess even one of those secrets.
“Did you get contacts?” she asked abruptly.
What a strange question. “No.” I almost smiled at the idea of improving my eyesight.
“Oh,” she mumbled. “I thought there was something different about your eyes.”
I felt suddenly colder again as I realized that I was not the only one attempting to ferret out secrets today.
I shrugged, my shoulders stiff, and glared straight ahead to where the teacher was making his rounds.
Of course there was something different about my eyes since the last time she’d stared into them. To prepare myself for today’s ordeal, today’s temptation, I’d spent the entire weekend hunting, satiating my thirst as much as possible, overdoing it, really. I’d glutted myself on the blood of animals, not that it made much difference in the face of the outrageous flavor floating on the air around her. When I’d glared at her last, my eyes had been black with thirst. Now, my body swimming with blood, my eyes were a warm gold—light amber.
Another slip. If I’d seen what she meant with her question, I could have just told her yes.
I’d sat beside humans for two years now at this school, and she was the first to examine me closely enough to note the change in my eye color. The others, while admiring the beauty of my family, tended to look down quickly when we returned their stares. They shied away, blocking the details of our appearances in an instinctive endeavor to keep themselves from understanding. Ignorance was bliss to the human mind.
Why did it have to be this girl who would see too much?
Mr. Banner approached our table. I gratefully inhaled the gush of clean air he brought with him before it could mix with her scent.
“So, Edward,” he said, looking over our answers, “didn’t you think Isabella should get a chance with the microscope?”
“Bella,” I corrected him reflexively. “Actually, she identified three of the five.”
Mr. Banner’s thoughts were skeptical as he turned to look at the girl. “Have you done this lab before?”
I watched, engrossed, as she smiled, looking slightly embarrassed.
“Not with onion root.”
“Whitefish blastula?” Mr. Banner probed.
“Yeah.”
This surprised him. Today’s lab was something he’d pulled from a senior-class course. He nodded thoughtfully at the girl. “Were you in an advanced placement program in Phoenix?”
“Yes.”
She was advanced, then, intelligent for a human. This did not surprise me.
“Well,” Mr. Banner said, pursing his lips, “I guess it’s good you two are lab partners.” He turned and walked away, mumbling “So the other kids can get a chance to learn something for themselves” under his breath. I doubted the girl could hear that. She began scrawling loops across her folder again.
Two slips so far in one half hour. An extremely poor showing on my part. Though I had no idea at all what the girl thought of me—how much did she fear, how much did she suspect?—I knew I needed to put forth a better effort to leave her with a new impression. Something to quell her memories of our ferocious last encounter.
“It’s too bad about the snow, isn’t it?” I said, repeating the small talk that I’d heard a dozen students discuss already. A boring, standard topic of conversation. The weather—always safe.
She stared at me with obvious doubt in her eyes—an abnormal reaction to my very normal words. “Not really.”
I tried to steer the conversation back to trite paths. She was from a much brighter, warmer place—her skin seemed to reflect that somehow, despite its fairness—and the cold must make her uncomfortable. My icy touch certainly had.
“You don’t like the cold,” I guessed.
“Or the wet,” she agreed.
“Forks must be a difficult place for you to live.” Perhaps you should not have come here, I wanted to add. Perhaps you should go back where you belong.
I wasn’t sure I wanted that, though. I would always remember the scent of her blood—was there any guarantee that I wouldn’t eventually follow her? Besides, if she left, her mind would forever remain a mystery, a constant, nagging puzzle.
“You have no idea,” she said in a low voice, glowering past me for a moment.
Her answers were never what I expected. They made me want to ask more questions.
“Why did you come here, then?” I demanded, realizing instantly that my tone was too accusatory, not casual enough for the conversation. The question sounded rude, prying.
“It’s… complicated.”
She blinked, leaving it at that, and I nearly imploded out of curiosity—in that second, it burned almost as hot as the thirst in my throat. Actually, I found that it was getting slightly easier to breathe; the agony was becoming a tiny bit more bearable through familiarity.
“I think I can keep up,” I insisted. Perhaps common courtesy would compel her to answer my questions as long as I was impolite enough to ask them.
She stared down silently at her hands. This made me impatient. I wanted to put my hand under her chin and tilt her head up so that I could read her eyes. But of course I could never touch her skin again.
She looked up suddenly. It was a relief to be able to see the emotions in her eyes. She spoke in a rush, hurrying through the words.
“My mother got remarried.”
Ah, this was human enough, easy to understand. Sorrow flitted across her face, bringing the small pucker back between her brows.