"I wish I knew what you were thinking." Edward is teasing and loving, cold arms around her waist. Too close, she thinks. Suffocating.
She smiles. "No you don't. I'm not that interesting."
Jasper doesn't like being alone with her. She can tell. He is turgid, wide eyes noticeably following her, carefully keeping himself at a distance.
And she can tell the rest of the Cullens don't like him being alone with her either. She can tell by the way they always watch him when she's in the room- and they're all probably thinking the same thing, vivid memories of blood down her arm and his wild, killer eyes.
She's still so painstakingly human- glass bones and filled with blood. It pains them so much to be around her. Their masochism makes her laugh, makes her want to pain them even more (if only to see how far they'll bend before one snaps).
Edward's away today, off with Emmett and Carlisle and little Alice, off killing animals and feeding a hunger he can never quite satiate. Only Esme and Rosalie remain in the house, just close enough to hear her if she screams. And Jasper, trying vainly to act like he doesn't want to eat her. And her, not caring enough to be normal.
"Can you tell me about what it was like in the south?" she asks, cloying, feigning innocent. She's too close. She can almost touch his shoulder if she leans just a little more and he is acutely aware (she can tell).
"I've told you about it before," he replies tensely. She smiles and he can probably feel what she is feeling. He doesn't even try to make her afraid.
"Yeah, but I want to know more. I'm sure you left out bits and pieces last time. Because Edward told you to, right?"
"You wouldn't want to hear those parts."
"But what if I would?"
That night she sleeps with Edward's arm wound tight about her chest, still lukewarm from elk and mountain lions. She has the most vivid dreams of a pretty Hispanic girl with eyes like wine and a predator's smile and a soldier, too charismatic for his own good.
Her teeth are at his throat, ripping at flesh and vein, and her hands are scratching his back and the young soldier's face is a twisted mask of ecstasy and pain.
"Do you feel pain when you're a vampire?"
The Cullens own a television for her benefit. She plays another vampire movie she dug up and wonders if they hate it for its inaccuracies and are just too polite to tell her.
"Well, yes," Carlisle answers, seeming uncomfortable. "But not in the same way humans do."
"Why do you want to know?" Alice asks her, smiling sweetly, her dainty fingers laced with Jasper's scarred ones. There is no malice behind those eyes, and Bella guesses that some other fault in her powers is at work.
"I was curious." Bella shrugs, nonchalant. "I remember Riley is all." Riley, the poor boy that got ripped apart piece by piece and still continued to fight in the name of a false love.
"Don't think about that," Edward says in a manner that is supposed to be consoling. His arm is about her shoulders and she itches to move. "You shouldn't be thinking about such violent things."
She doesn't argue. It takes too much effort.
On the screen, a prostitute is being killed. A vampire is pretending to save her from eternal damnation and is killing her while another watches, helpless and tortured (and she can't help but notice the similarities between Edward and the second, such bleeding hearts they are). Edward turns it off, his face twisted in disgust and guilt.
She goes back to the Cullens' when she knows they will not be home. They left on another hunting trip that morning, but it was Jasper's turn to stay behind- just in case. She knows because Edward told her not to go by the house until he came back, because it wasn't safe and that's all he ever wanted, really. For her to be safe, that is.
She would be offended and irritated if it had not been so perfect.
He's standing at the foot of the staircase when she walks in, his hand tensely clasping the banister, and she imagines the cracks in the wood under his palms. "What are you doing here?" he asks, voice dry, filled with want and hunger and she can feel it.
"Isn't it stupid to resist being who you are?" she says instead of answering. "I've watched you and I've lived around all of you and I've decided it's stupid. You're not human, so it's not cannibalism if you drink one's blood. It's just part of who you are."
"That's not why you came here."
"Make me a vampire. I want to be one right now."
"No."
She stares at him and he continues to glower pitifully. His grip is still tight, his expression pained.
"I could give you what you really want. I could be the person you really need."
"What about Edward?"
"What about him?"
More silence and his resolve is weakening, she can tell.
"It doesn't have to be forever. Just a little while."
Jasper sighs, but he's already letting go of the banister. "Everything is forever when you're a vampire."
The door closes with a satisfying click and she finally sheds the face she's worn since the day she fell in love with Edward Cullen.
Her coffin is empty when it is lowered into the ground because she drowned in the ocean and her body was never found. Probably washed out to sea, people said. Probably down at the bottom of the ocean by now.
Her father cries, unabashed, and Sue Clearwater places a comforting hand on his shaking shoulder. Jacob's face is distorted, lines of anger and hatred etched into his expression that she doesn't know the source of.
The scent of them, reeking vitality and the copper-taste of blood twist at her stomach. She grits her teeth and she bears it because she is stronger than some filthy newborn. She is stronger then they think she is.
"Isn't this depressing for you?" Jasper asks. He sounds tired, sad, but he stays beside her.
"Not really."
Edward won't talk to them. Alice is resigned, drowning her sorrows in memories and visions. They are alone and still he stays beside her.
She smiles, but the expression doesn't feel quite right. Her body feels too thin, too hard, and all her expressions come out distorted and feral. Below her, her funeral is moving molasses-slow. She had thought eternal life would seem quick when she could never sleep, but everything just drags on and on and she wonders how she's going to live like this.
Hunger twists in her, for blood and for the sad, emphatic boy a mere breath away. "I feel better than ever."