The graduates were welcomed back to Forks High School for a quick reception before the permanent end of their High School career. It was only August, and most of the kids there were too excited about leaving school to really care about university. If Alice, Edward, and Bella weren't supposed to be "graduating", he wouldn't even have come. Since Carlisle and Esme got off for some stupid work conference, why couldn't he skip off? And Rosalie was fixing up some old car...
They were just outside the gym entrance when Alice, Edward, Bella, Emmett and Jasper saw a familiar face. A girl that Emmett just couldn't let go. In fact, she was driving him crazy.
Emmett was having the same problem as Edward. He had a strange attachment to a teenage girl. It wasn't that he didn't love Rose, but their relationship had always been more "physical" than spiritual.
The human girl had dark hair, dyed some time ago by the colour. She had one long piece of black hair in the front. That entised him, because he had always longed for Rose to have a rebellious quality.
He remembered how he had bugged Edward for his attachment to the clumsy girl. Now Edward was picking on him.
"You can't have her, Emmett. You'll eat her alive."
"Good thing Rosalie isn't here," Alice whispered. Jasper covered her mouth.
"Maybe he can have her, Edward. It worked out for us," Bella said, "maybe it could work out for them, too."
Edward was still holding Emmett back. Not that he could do it alone. "Hmph," Edward mumbled, "with Rosalie in Forks? Fat chance! She'll find out soon enough."
Emmett growled, struggling against Jasper and Edward's grip.
Bella backed away, eyes widening to the sight. She never could get used to it.
Alice embraced Emmett, laughing quietly to herself. He snapped at her, but she flitted away. Jasper pulled her aside, letting go of Emmett. "Let him be," he whispered to Alice.
"Jas...per! Get back...here!" Edward struggled to speak with the weight of the grizzly against his chest. He tried to hold the bigger man in place.
The dark haired girl disappeared down the hall, and Emmett went mad trying to chase after her. If he was human, blood would have pounded in his ears. But since he wasn't, he just craved for her blood, wishing to hear it pound in her ears.
"Get him out of here!" Bella shouted, panicked. She knew, from experience, what could happen to vampires when the had found someone who's blood sang to them. Edward was of the minority, the strict few who could go against their nature and actually control the urge.
"It's a bit...difficult!" Edward was still struggling to hold Emmett, even with Jasper trying to assist him.
"I'll help!" Alice danced around her burly brother, locking her arms tight around the only gap in their grip-his waist. They had never realized how strong the pixie could be. Suddenly, the weight of the bear became easier to hold. They slowly pushed him out the double doors of the gym, down the hall, out of the main entry doors, and into the parking lot. Emmett was snapping the entire way.
Bella opened the door of the tiny little volvo, and shoved Emmett inside. With Alice's help.
Slowly Emmett stopped pushing his teeth against the glass windows. "What...was that?" he asked, breathless. He opened the car window, letting the smell of the fresh air dull his memory of the blood scent.
"You almost killed another human," Edward mentioned, trying to be brief. "A girl."
"It's okay," Jasper said, comforting his brother internally. "I wanted to kill her, too." Her, and every other human in the building. It had been that way for a while.
Alice hopped in the back seat, wondering what the attraction was to the humans. It wasn't so hard for her, after all. She'd been around Bella for god-knows-how-long, and she'd never wanted to kill her. Well, not much, at least. "Savages," she giggled.
Bella rolled her eyes as she climbed into the car. She looked slightly nauseated, likely from her experiences in a car with the Cullens before. "Can we get this ride over with?" She closed her eyes tightly, and her mouth formed into a straight line. She was sitting in the middle seat, next to Alice, and Edward climbed into the seat next to her.
"Always the nervous passenger," Edward murmured with his lips pressed against Bella's wrists.
"Lovers!" Emmett shouted, still grinding his teeth. "Can we hurry this up before I want to kill that girl again? Aw, thanks, I just reminded myself again!"
Jasper smiled wearily from the driver's seat. "We're almost home. Carlisle will know what to do."
"He's...working..." Emmett gasped, still short for breath.
"Quit whining!" Edward shouted, glancing at Bella. Her eyes were still firmly closed. "We all have to go through it sometimes!"
"Shut it!" Emmett growled. His fist shot through the passenger window.
Emmett was right, unfortunately. Carlisle was not yet home from work. Luckily for the Cullens, he was starting to calm down. Edward was smart enough to know that Emmett had not forgotten the human girl.
Emmett had taken to watching the new TV Edward had bought after his "outburst" on Bella's birthday the previous year. Unfortunately, the usual program he watched-"World's Deadliest Predators" on Animal Planet-was not helping.
"Come on, Emmett," Edward said, being careful not to rouse Emmett's steadily growing temper, "Let's go upstairs."
Jasper swung his legs around the back of the sofa when Emmett left, grabbing the universal remote and switching the channel to Much Music. He sat in silence, enjoying the sound of the screaming band while Alice also sat there in silence. But she was pouting.
Leaping to the other side of the couch, she pulled the remote from his pale hands. She was afraid to miss the tribute to the Beatles on the other music channel, though they weren't really from her era. Alice danced around the sofa, grinning at her triumph. Jasper groaned with evident defeat, and then smiled slightly at Alice's adorable behaviour.
Bella didn't want to involve herself in the imprisonment of vampires in their own home, so she found a seat at the dining room table and picked up a piece of fruit from a plate. It looked slightly unusual, too perfect to be real, but it would have to be, to be in the Cullen house. Biting it, she spat out the apple with disgust. Styrofoam. She should have known that it was all for show, after all, the only person who ate food in this house was herself.
No one even heard the door close before Rosalie ran into the house. Hearing Emmett's strangled voice upstairs, she ran up to greet him, arms outstretched. Needless to say, she was disappointed.
"Her name is Natasha. She likes crazy rock bands, facebook, and band tee-shirts." Edward sighed as he finished telling the girl's life story. Emmett couldn't hear enough. In order to get this cache of information, he had to read the girl's mind all morning. "Maybe Jasper should date her..."
Emmett growled menacingly. "I never wanted to date her in the first place!" he licked her lips. "She's just so...appetizing."
Edward grimaced at Emmett's conversational way to mention consuming humans. Well not consuming, exactly, just drinking their blood. "Don't think about that, Emmett! I can't afford to have you go all grizzly bear on us again!"
Rosalie appeared in the doorway, tapping her long fingernails against the frame. "Emmett...don't you remember the others? How you lost control over the ones who's blood sings to you the way Bella's sings for Edward?" She tried using the technical terms. The ones Edward had been using after his suicidal trip to Italy.
Emmett nodded shamefully. He remembered how great the bloodshed had been, and how, at the time, he had hardly regretted their deaths at all. He could not express how much he appreciated the golden-haired angel staying with him when he wasted the blood the first time. Rose had helped him, soothed him, the same as she still stood. Trying to understand.
"This girl's blood sings? You need to plug your ears! Do whatever it takes, but don't hurt her." Rosalie smiled at him. "Don't give in again."
Edward slipped out of the room, content to leave Emmett and his wife alone. Emmett would have very little trouble distracting himself from thoughts of the human girl with Rose in the room.
Edward bounded down the stairs, and Bella was still searching for some edible food. "What's the matter?" He asked, pressing his hands to her human-pale forehead. Today, she was no paler than usual.
"I don't feel so well," she replied. "With the talk of blood and devouring humans..." She gasped slightly as Edward began cradling her in his arms. She started to lie. "I'm fine now, actually. Feeling much better. And I'm not so hungry anymore..." Not after eating her way through all that fake Styrofoam fruit.
"Liar," Edward laughed, and began asking her what she wanted. She compiled the short list of asprin, apples, and water, and then they both headed to the store. Edward tried to keep the pantry stocked with food for his human fiancée, but sometimes it was difficult to keep up with her needs.