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Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer, as we all know.

September

"You are incredibly childish, you know that?"

Edward gave me a bewildered glare. How dare she? it looked like he was thinking.

Well, I dared. My vampire boyfriend might be super-strong and indestructible, but that didn't mean he was allowed to throw tantrums like some two-year-old.

"Lauren, what…?"

"I tell you I want to go to college before I get married, and you get all furious? What is time to you, really? It's just four years…"

"But I… you… I just…" he cut himself off, drew a deep breath, rubbed his forehead. "You want to study Latin? And philosophy? And you want my family to pay for it?"

"Why not? It's not like you don't send yourselves to expensive colleges and universities every few years. And you just said you wanted to marry me."

"I want you to be my wife first, not able to run off at a whim afterwards!"

That did it. "You think I would use you just to end up a runaway bride?" I screamed. "Here's a piece of logic for you: If I wanted your money over you, there are dozens of things I would rather do with it than get a proper education!" I started to cry.

I couldn't help it – that accusation hurt. Alluding to my former shallowness was not the way to persuade me, anyway, but sometimes it surprised me what people really thought of me. It was true that in my adolescence I had been quite insecure and uncomfortable in my own skin – hadn't we all? – and maybe I had behaved badly and treated some people like crap, which they never deserved, but I had grown up now. Somewhat. I was no angel, but I was no gold digger either. If my boyfriend was rich, so be it; if he wanted to buy me things, I would happily accept; but if he had been poor, I would still have loved him. Wasn't my tolerance of his flaws proof enough of that?

"Lauren…" murmured Edward, a twinge of regret in his voice. He wrapped his icy arms around me, and I embraced him and cried softly into his cashmere shirt where it covered his cold chest. "Lauren, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that…" A cold hand stroked my hair.

"Did you… did you mean it, though?" I managed in a hoarse whisper, muffled but probably still clearly enough to his ears.

He hesitated.

"Did you?" I looked up at him through my tears. It occurred to me that my mascara was probably running.

"I don't want to lie to you."

I huffed and pushed him away. That is, tried to push him away – my limited human strength had nothing it should have said against his supernatural, statuesque body. Still, he released me, and I turned to reach for the tissue box I keep on my nightstand.

"I know I can be a bitch," I said after wiping the black smear off my cheeks and blowing my nose, "but I still love you." The last part came out in a very small voice. "I'm just trying to be sensible," I whispered, my back still to him. He was so quiet that I eventually turned back, half expecting him to be gone, and met his glance. He looked sad, but said nothing. "I'm going to bed," I said at last. "Please leave. I need to think." No need to voice what was implied: that his presence made such very difficult.

He nodded, headed for my window. I watched him leap into the night, still sad but calmer. He hadn't meant what he said – he couldn't have. According to vampire mythology, or what little I knew of it, vampires fell in love for life, and that is quite a long time if you are immortal.

Getting ready for bed, my thoughts spun. He had dated that Southern girl who came to live with her father, our chief of police, almost a year ago. That hadn't worked out – his attraction to her had been the scent of her blood and the fact that he could not read her mind – read her mind! I still worried sometimes that he might have read my mind and realised how shallow and superficial I am – and her attraction to him had been his money – his words – and the fact that he had detested her at first, oddly enough. Some girls were in it for the chase, apparently. Anyway, the Swan girl – Bella, right? – she hadn't been all bad. She was probably just like me; hostile because she was insecure, seemingly aloof and arrogant because she liked to be alone, and preferring chick lit to heavier books. I had only begun to develop a taste for the latter recently, having started my senior year in high school and having a boyfriend who loved me… unconditionally. I sniffled a little as I crept under the covers, reaching for the romance novel I was currently reading. P.S. I love you. A husband dies, and the last message he leaves for his wife, is that. It is like saying: oh, and by the way, this is really too obvious to mention, but I will say it anyway. I love you more than anything – so much that I will spend the last months of my life making sure that you can go on without me.

In a way it fit perfectly. I knew my life felt long to me, but to Edward it would be like nothing. He had scarcely lived more than a century, remembered about eighty years of it, and yet he thought the remaining six or so decades of life I had left to live would be but a brief moment to him. I had tried to explain to him that if I lived sixty-two more years, my life would have been as long as his had been now, but to no avail. I couldn't blame him, though; knowing he had eternity ahead of him would likely stretch his perception of time all by itself. Knowing he would have eternity to spend alone after I was gone… I could tell that he didn't like the thought. I had tried to comfort him, tell him that he would get over me in a relatively short time afterward, but he had not been willing to listen.

Maybe, I thought drowsily after a few pages, maybe we do hurry up and love because we know it's going to end. Maybe… it doesn't have to be that way.

I fell asleep then, the book dropping from my hand to the floor.