My alarm clock flashes 4:30. I sigh. I will have to be up for my first class in less than three hours and I'm facing yet another sleepless night. I've been lying in bed for nearly four hours now, alternating between staring at the ceiling and listening to the muted sound of my roommate's humidifier through my bedroom wall. I roll over, but I don't roll into a warm, solid, comforting mass. No, my double bed is empty because you're not here with me. I wonder if you've even found your way to bed yet. If you have, you're probably not alone. I can picture your bedmate. She's blonde, tall, tan, leggy, and has gravity-defying boobs thanks to a great plastic surgeon and daddy's credit card. I always knew you'd end up with that type of girl, the complete opposite of me. I close my eyes to block out the very vivid picture of this girl wrapped around you like a vine and my mind wanders back to a much more pleasant place.

The clock flashes 1:58. I laid as still as I could, not wanting to disturb Edward lying next to me. Tonight had been perfect, so much better than anything I could have imagined. I listened to his breathing, trying to decide if he was still awake. If he was, I wondered what he was thinking. Would his thoughts match mine or was he having regrets? Had I done something wrong? The noises he'd made and the words he'd whispered in my ear as he moved above me had made me think that we were on the same page, but maybe I was wrong. After all, it wasn't like I had anything to compare it to.

"Stop it." His velvety voice startled me. I turned to look at him curiously. The room was dark, but I could make out his face in the moonlight coming through the window. He gently touched my forehead. "You've got that wrinkle right there, the one you get when you're thinking too much."

I smiled. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

He chuckled and I melted a little inside. "I know you too well, Bella. You're probably analyzing everything that happened tonight like a sports coach looks at game footage. Stop worrying so much!"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry. I can't help it. I just…I didn't know if…" I couldn't quite bring myself to share what I was thinking. Hadn't I read in Cosmo that guys think girls with confidence are sexy? Probably a lot more sexy than a neurotic girl who had just lost her virginity. I tipped my head so that my hair covered my face.

Edward pushed my hair behind my ear and brushed his thumb across my cheek. "I understand how you feel. I'm probably just as nervous as you are right now. This has never happened to me before." His voice was soft and sincere. I hesitantly raised my eyes to meet his, those piercing green eyes that had first drawn me to him.

I frowned in confusion. "But you said you've-"

"I've had sex before. But that wasn't just sex. I think I'm falling in love with you. I have been ever since you crash-landed in my life." He smiled softly and held my gaze.

My eyes filled with tears and I opened my mouth several times, but I couldn't seem to make my voice work. Finally I stuttered, "I love you, too."

He pulled me closer to him and pressed his lips to mine. This wasn't our first kiss, but it was probably the best kiss we'd ever shared because of all the emotion behind it. An indeterminable amount of time later, he pulled his head back and laid it down on the pillow, pulling me with him so I was lying across his chest, cradled in his arms. As I fell asleep, my hand was pressed to my lips, trying to hold that kiss there for as long as I could.

Suddenly I'm back in the present and a weight presses against my chest when I realize I'm all alone in my bed. I can't just lay here any more, so I roll out of bed and turn on the lamp. I don't know what I'll do to pass the time. I've already watched all the middle-of-the-night infomercials, cop shows and reruns that I can stand in the past month. I can't make too much noise or I'll wake Alice, and she's already threatened to drag me to the health clinic three times this week. I know she's worried about me. All of my friends are worried about my sleepless nights and lack of appetite. I love my friends and I don't want them to worry about me. I wish there was some way I could get them to stop paying such close attention to me. Lately, they seem like they're afraid to leave me alone, as if something might happen if I have too much quiet time alone with my thoughts.

My eyes drift to the bulletin board hanging over my desk. When I first moved into my dorm room freshman year, that bulletin board had been plastered with class syllabi and brochures that had been shoved in my face during the activity fair my second day on campus. Now it was covered with pictures of us, of the many crazy adventures we'd shared. I've come such a long way from the person I was when I left for college. One particular moment comes to mind, that fateful first day of Freshman Composition.

I breathed deeply and paused a moment before I opened the door to the classroom. Okay, I thought to myself, I'm going to go in there standing up straight. I'm going to make eye contact with the other students. I'm going to smile at people and answer them if they talk to me. And I'm NOT going to trip. Fat chance of any of those things coming true! I thought I must be the most shy, clumsy person ever to walk the earth. I'd have to check the world record book. That would give me an excuse to make a trip to the library and avoid my dorm room for another hour. It wasn't that I didn't like my new roommate. She was incredibly friendly, just a lot more than I was used to.

I grew up in many different places. My mom is what some would call a "free spirit," if they were being nice. She is kind and thoughtful, but she's also spacey and forgetful. She's spontaneous, never staying in one place too long. She left my father when I was three and in the years that followed, we moved all over the country. The longest we ever stayed in one place was nine months. After we'd been somewhere for awhile, Mom would start to get bored and restless and begin to search for the next great adventure. I was the one who made sure the bills were paid on time and there was food in the house. I learned to take care of myself at a very young age. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother. Moving around as much as we did, I never made any close friends, so she was my best friend and closest confidante. She just wasn't very good at the whole maternal thing. When I was sixteen, Mom met Phil, a minor-league baseball player ten years younger than her. Surprisingly, he was the complete opposite of all of the other men she'd dated in the past. Phil was solid and steady, a lot more like me than my mother, but the two of them just seemed to work. Phil was on the road a lot and I knew Mom missed him when she was home with me, so I chose to move in with my dad during my junior year of high school. I left behind the booming metropolis of sunny Phoenix for the rainy dreariness of small-town Forks, Washington.

My dad and I are incredibly alike, both quiet and independent. After you've spent five minutes with him, you can tell why my mom and dad didn't work as a couple. But Dad was okay to live with. He appreciated my cooking after years of being a bachelor and he basically left me alone to do my own thing. I'd never really been good at making friends, not that we'd stayed anywhere long enough for me to really get to know people. All of my life, I'd spent any free time at school in the library and bolted down my lunch as quickly as possible with my nose stuck in a book, escaping the torture of the cafeteria as soon as I could. I was smart and I did well in my classes, but I didn't volunteer information unless I was called on. I preferred to draw as little attention to myself as possible. The only time people really noticed me was in Gym. This is due to the fact that I can't walk ten steps without falling down..

I almost opted to stay in Forks after graduation and attend community college in the nearby Port Angeles, but I knew if I didn't get out of Forks for college, I might never leave. U-Dub was the only school to offer me a full scholarship, or I never would have ended up at such a huge school. I swear I filled out a roommate profile. This was supposed to match you with someone who had a similar personality and similar habits. The person doing the matching must have been drunk and high, because my roommate was as far from me in personality as you can imagine. I had just finished unpacking when Alice burst into the room, talking a mile a minute. She grabbed me in a tight hug. I was surprised that someone so small had such a tight grip. She swore that we were going to be the best of friends. Then she somehow convinced me to help her haul all of her belongings into our tiny shared room. I still have no idea how she managed to fit all of her clothes and shoes into that tiny space and still have room for a bright pink, feathered bean bag chair. Needless to say, I was fairly speechless our first month together, but Alice talked more than enough for two people. No matter how hard I tried to convince her that I was fine the way I was, she made it her mission to socialize me. She dragged me to nearly every event and party she heard about, in an effort to discover what "made me tick." Somewhere along the way, she became someone I couldn't live without, the person I trusted with all my secrets. But I still won't let her dress me.

Anyway, that first day of class, only my third day on campus, I was so busy worrying about how to avoid my overly spastic roommate that I didn't notice that the boy sitting in the row I was making my way across was pulling out his backpack to dig for something. My foot caught on the backpack strap and I went flying. He managed to catch me before I hit the ground, but he couldn't stop my elbow from knocking into the water bottle sitting on his desk. The open water bottle. The water bottle that ended up spilled all over his pants, and you know what that looked like. I disentangled myself from his arms and backed away as quickly as I could, muttering apologies and trying to hide my flaming cheeks behind my long brown hair. I fell into a seat at the end of the row and tried to peek through my hair at him without him noticing. He was gone, but he returned a moment later, the stain on his pants still prominent. He mopped up the puddle on the floor with the paper towels he had brought with him, then plopped back into his seat. His head swiveled toward me and I looked away as fast as I could, but not before he caught me peeking. He smiled. Or maybe grimaced.

I spent the rest of the class staring at my blank notebook, barely glancing up. Although writing is one of my favorite hobbies, I was too afraid of catching his gaze to risk looking at the teacher for more than a few seconds at a time. When the class finally ended, I bolted from my seat and made my way to the exit as quickly as possible, keeping my eyes on the floor. I was almost home free, but I slammed into something solid and felt hands grasping my upper arms. I tipped my head back and I was immediately lost in the greenest eyes I had ever seen.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" The sound of his rough voice made my knees wobble. He was smiling crookedly. If he hadn't been holding onto me, I might have just collapsed to the floor. No boy had ever made me tingle with just the sound of his voice and a smile. My mouth worked, but I couldn't seem to force any sound out. He grinned. "You should slow down. We wouldn't want anymore freak indoor tidal waves, would we?"

My face flamed and I finally found my voice. "I'm so sorry!" I mumbled. "I would take walking lessons, but the school doesn't offer any. I'll buy you a new bottle of water. And a new pair of pants. I'm really, really sorry!" I was so embarrassed that I couldn't seem to control my verbal diarrhea, but my voice trailed off as he threw back his head and laughed.

"Don't worry about it. Could have happened to anyone."

"It could have happened to anyone, but it always happens to me." I'd managed to regain my voice, not stand there staring at him like an idiot, so I may as well just go with it.

He chuckled again. "I take it that this happens to you pretty often?"

I nodded. He smiled his crooked smile and I felt something flutter in my stomach. "I'm Edward."

"Bella. I am. I mean that's my name, Bella." And the word vomit continued. Could I be any more stupid? But for some reason, he wasn't running screaming in the opposite direction. In fact, he was still grinning at me as if he found me amusing. Or maybe he just felt sorry for the freak who couldn't string together a proper sentence.

"It's nice to meet you, Bella." Edward released my arms and grabbed my hand to shake. "I'd love to spend more time talking with you, but my next class is literally across campus and I have fifteen minutes to get there. Why don't you sit by me on Wednesday?"

I swallowed and tried to answer him, but my poor brain was too overwhelmed with his beauty to do something as difficult as actually form words, so I nodded and bit my lip. He raised his hand and brushed his fingers across my lower lip, tugging it free of my teeth. "Don't hurt yourself. You never know when you might need that lip." With a grin, he walked away. My own hand covered my mouth, as if trying to hold on to the feeling of his touch.

I shake my head and tear my gaze away from the picture of the six of us in lawn chairs at an outdoor concert my freshman year. I should take down the pictures of you. It hurts to look at them. It hurts knowing that they're there, even when I'm in another room. But for some reason, I can't find the strength to lift my hand to take them down. I am pathetic. No doubt you've already removed every trace of me from your life. I'm just waiting for Alice to come home from your apartment one day with a box full of my things. I know you won't give them to me yourself. I haven't even been able to pack up your things. They're still lying around the apartment where you left them. Your clothes, your toothbrush, the book you've been trying to get me to read for months, even your favorite movie. I know I should give them back or at least put them away, but I can't bear to erase the proof that you were actually here once, a part of my life.

Deep down, I know that putting your things away won't erase your presence from my life. Your presence is deeply embedded, like the roots of a tree under a concrete building. Your best friend is dating my best friend and roommate. Jasper has never taken either of our sides. That would go against his calm, easygoing nature. And Alice has always been on my side. She may drive me nuts sometimes, but I know I can count on her no matter what. She probably goes out of her way to make you uncomfortable when she's visiting Jasper. This thought makes me smile, just a little. My gaze lands on a framed photo of me and my mother on my dresser.

I loved spending spring break with my mother in Florida. She and Phil are doing really well and it was nice to spend some time in the sun and heat. I never thought I'd be so happy to return to rainy Washington., but it's him I'm anxious to see, not the weather. I can smell the rain as I step of the plane.

I sat next to Edward that Wednesday, and every class after that. We talked a little, before and after class and during breaks. A few weeks later, he asked me where I came from before our class together. His class was in the same building, so we started walking together to class. We exchanged e-mails and phone numbers so that we could proofread each other's papers. We studied together for the midterm. He asked me to meet him to study over coffee. He asked me to eat lunch with him and his brother. I loved his brother Emmett. He was like a teddy bear. A giant, muscular, 300 pound teddy bear. His girlfriend Rosalie was supermodel gorgeous and completely silent, but she gave good bitch brow. I was too intimidated to look at her, so I talked to Emmett. I laughed uproariously at his imitation of Edward's childhood imaginary friend. Edward punched his brother, but he smiled anyway. Emmett found me highly amusing, especially my klutziness and my tendency to turn tomato-red after I took three sorority girls down with me. He told Edward I was a keeper and invited me to a party at his fraternity that weekend. Edward insisted on accompanying me, to "protect me from jerks."

Alice was thrilled with my newfound friend, mostly because his roommate was the guy she insisted she would marry someday. She invited herself along to the fraternity party, flirted shamelessly with Jasper, and somehow convinced the two guys to drive us to IHOP after the party. Then back to their suite. Alice and Jasper disappeared into his bedroom, so Edward and I got to know each other better in the common living room.

I learned about the girl he dated for two years in high school who he lost his virginity with, then who broke his heart when she met someone "of better quality." He was cautious around girls. He didn't want to get hurt again. But he thought I was different, special. He made me feel so comfortable, I found myself confessing my darkest secrets, my shyness, loneliness, and inexperience. Somehow, this didn't scare him off. He claimed it made him like me more. Then he gave me my first kiss and asked me out on my first date.

We spent almost all of our free time together, sometimes just the two of us or sometimes out doing crazy things with Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie. I almost couldn't bring myself to be away for him for a whole week during spring break, but I missed my mom. I couldn't wait to see him again. I ran off the plane, somehow managing not to trip. My head whipped around the airport terminal, searching for his messy bronze hair. Finally I found him, grinning at me with that crooked smile. I don't remember how I got to him. One minute I was across the terminal, the next I was in his arms, smelling his familiar spicy scent, listening to his heart through his soft flannel shirt. He kissed me hard. This kiss felt different from the other kisses we had shared, somehow more important now that we knew what it was like to be separated. I put my hand against my mouth, trying to hold on to the feeling for as long as possible.

My knees buckle from the force of my memories. I'm sitting on the floor of my bedroom in the middle of the night, wearing your favorite shirt, surrounded by memories of you. I remember the first party we went to as an official couple. You know I hate to dance. It's really more for the safety of the people around me. But you insisted. You pulled me into your arms and guided my body with your own. My eyes never left yours and I danced better than I ever have, never noticing our surroundings.

I remember how nervous you were meeting my father the first time. How you shook his hand and called him sir. I remember us walking down the Main Street in Forks, your hands shoved in your pockets, taking in the very limited scenery. When my attention was fixed on the new releases in the bookstore window, you snuck up behind me and put a snowball down my back.

I remember all of the different kisses we shared. Hot and passionate, slow and sensuous, brief and affectionate. You loved to kiss me when I was in the middle of saying something, especially if Alice was involved in the conversation. I would get so exasperated with you, but now there's not a day that I don't miss those rude interruptions.

I pull my knees up to my chest. I can't even think straight. All I see of you now is a foot or an elbow in Alice's pictures before she snatches them away from me. I can't sleep without the sound of you breathing next to me. I used to stay up at night just watching you sleep. Now I stay up, literally feeling you slipping from my life more and more each day, forgetting me. I go out with our friends on the days you aren't around. I smile and pretend to be okay, faking a smile when they talk to me, straining my ears for the slightest mention of you in conversation.

I'm so angry with you, it hurts to think about you, but at the same time I can't bear the thought of you being unhappy. Three years and I can't remember what my life was like before you were in it. I can't picture my future without you there. I can't function in the present without you. I don't know how to be without you. I don't know how to be something you miss.

"I looked up plane tickets on the Internet yesterday. Southwest Airlines seems to be the best deal." I smiled. We weren't leaving for Boston for another six months, but I was too excited. I couldn't stop myself from planning every little detail of the next few years of our lives.

Edward had gotten into medical school at Harvard, his first choice and lifelong dream. We hadn't really had an official conversation about our future, but we were graduating in three months and I couldn't see myself being separated from him. Boston had publishing houses, and surely one of them was hiring. I would settle for assistant copy editor if it meant being with him and letting him follow his dream.

I heard him sigh beside me on the couch. I closed my laptop and turned toward him. His face was blank and unreadable. I felt a shiver of unease. We had been together so long it was rare that I couldn't read his expression like a book.

"We're not going to Boston, Bella." His voice was hard and cold. Before I could ask him what he meant, he continued. "I'm going to Boston in July. You're going to England."

"I told you, I'm turning down the fellowship. I don't want to be in boring, cold, stuffy England by myself. Boston is the only place I want to be." I couldn't get the words out fast enough.

"You're not turning down the fellowship, Bella. You're taking it. You've been dreaming about this for as long as I can remember." Still so hard and cold, like a marble statue. He wasn't looking at me.

"Edward, dreams change." I was beginning to feel desperate. I tried to keep my voice from breaking. "I want to be wherever you are."

"Where I'm going is not the right place for you."

"Where you are is the right place for me."

"Bella, I don't want you to come with me."

"You…don't…want me?" I could barely get the words out.

"No." The calm finality in his voice cut into me like a knife.

"Well, that changes things," I replied dully. I couldn't believe how calm and removed my voice sounded. I couldn't feel a thing. It was like I was outside of my body, looking down on this incomprehensible scene.

He still wasn't looking at me, like he couldn't bring himself to give me even that small bit of consideration. "I'm not good for you, Bella. I won't bother you again." He kissed me quickly, then pulled back. He stood up and strode out of my apartment without looking back. "Goodbye, Bella," I heard his voice as the door closed with a final sharp click.

Although I couldn't really feel it, my hand was pressed to my mouth, as if it were trying to hold on to him.

I leave for England in less than a week, but it doesn't really matter whether I'm here or there. My body goes through the motions, but it's like an empty shell. I never imagined we'd end like this. I whisper your name, then press my fingers to my lips, trying to hold on to one last piece of you. Just like a last kiss.