This story WILL NOT make sense without first having read "Anticipation." (Sorry!) :(

Warning: This story contains substance abuse, a homosexual romantic relationship, and mentions of rape.

Chapter 1

The rainfall was gentle. I listened to it, content, before cracking open one eye to see how my room looked in the dim morning light. I stretched my arms over my head, fingers brushing the wall as I rolled onto my back. I thought quietly for a few minutes, and then as usual remembered:

Jason Northwood was dead.

Everyday it became easier to think his name. Everyday my heart felt a little lighter in the morning, as if I had rediscovered the same treasure a hundred times now and each time was as glorious as the last. Yes, each new day with his diminishing shadow was better than the last.

Getting out of bed in the mornings had never been so easy. Going to school beneath Forks' rainy sky had never been so bright.

Maybe that wasn't true- I would still have given anything to go back to before he'd ruined my life. I still woke sometimes in a cold sweat, his voice echoing in my head. I couldn't truly say life was perfect, but I liked to think that it was as close to it as it could be for someone with a past like mine.

"Hey, Dad," I greeted a gruff looking Charlie at the table when I finally ventured downstairs.

"Happy birthday," he muttered in response.

I had forgotten. "Oh, yeah, thanks."

Charlie sighed and drank his coffee in silence while I ate breakfast. I suspected that there was more to come because the silence felt heavy, but nothing could make me miserable.

Finally Charlie spoke. "Your mother thought I should get you a camera for your birthday."

"What? Why? I mean... not that I have anything against cameras," I added, not wanting to seem ungrateful if he had in fact gotten me one.

"That's what I said. But I thought that you might appreciate this more."

I looked around. I didn't see anything.

"Uh... appreciate what?"

Charlie hefted a long, thin box up from the floor by his feet. It was wrapped, although it seemed rather last minute, with tape sticking out oddly in a place or two. The paper more or less fell away without much effort on my part.

Beneath the wrapping. was a heavy wood case with a complex closing mechanism. I fiddled with it until I finally had the catch undone, quickly lifting the lid to see my gift.

A gun.

"Awww yes, thank you so much."

"Char." Even a kid as often misbehaved as me can't ignore a tone like that. I looked up, tearing my eyes away from the double barreled rifle with considerable effort. "It's not a toy," Charlie said disapprovingly.

"Right-o."

"I don't want you fooling around with it. It's for-"

"Target practice and hunting should I ever take it up, okay, Dad, okay."

"And now you need to go to school," he added.

"But-"

I didn't want to go now.

"Go."

But I probably shouldn't press my luck.

"Ugghhh, okay."

I sensed that the school day might be long. It wasn't until I was driving away that I regretted, briefly, how flippant I'd been. Giving their sons a gun for a birthday was something I suspected many fathers did, but it showed an amount of trust on Charlie's part that I didn't realize I'd gained, and given my past wasn't sure I'd earned.

Still, I wasn't about to complain.

I was distracted as I drove, and made it to school later than usual. I slid into my seat in my first period class with only a few minutes to spare. Edward was already there.

"Happy birthday."

"Charlie got me a gun."

Edward was used to my less than stellar conversational skills, so I assumed that the appalled look on his face was a direct result of my gift and not the fact that I hadn't acknowledged his greeting.

"And thanks," I added as that occurred to me.

"That's... dangerous," Edward finally said, mouth said in a grim line. "You realize it's not a toy, right?"

"Yeah," I said with a roll of my eyes. "Thanks Dad. I got it."

Edward didn't respond for a long time, and I could tell he was trying to decide what to say. He did this often, especially lately, and I wondered what was going on. Our friendship had only grown stronger over the summer, and I felt as close to him as I did to my best friends from back home in Phoenix. In some ways I felt closer to Edward than I did to them- I felt indebted to him for everything he'd done for me, and alternatively awed and grateful that he would put so much on the line for me. Still, there were parts of me that Edward still didn't know, and there were definitely parts of him that I didn't know. Sometimes Edward would become quiet, as he was now, and I worried about why- if this were Glen, Matt or Ben, the best friends I'd grown up with, I'd probably be able to guess what they were thinking. And it didn't happen often that they had to think before they spoke with me. I wondered what Edward was filtering out when he got like this.

"I just don't want you to shoot your own foot off or something," he finally told me with a crooked grin.

I laughed, but a voice in my head asked why it took so long to come up with a comment like that.

Still, nothing could keep me down for long. Jason Northwood was dead.