Chapter 2: Friends
The trip to Seattle was a bad idea. Not because of her father's reasoning that she would get lost and mugged in such a large city – she could maneuver herself around some tall buildings and nefarious plots. Not because of Jacob's reasoning that the vampires were after her – they weren't even in Seattle, were they? And certainly not because of Jessica's reasoning that she would miss the homecoming dance.
No, it was because the road between Sequim and Port Angeles was torn to bits and apparently her tires couldn't handle it twice in one day. Bella heard a popping noise before her truck began to skid and she pulled to the side of the dark, empty road. For the first time, she was grateful that Charlie had stocked her glove compartment with a Washington road map, first aid kit, energy bar, and flashlight. She grabbed the flashlight, relieved that Charlie remembered to put fresh batteries in it, as well, and discovered her left front tire was rapidly deflating.
Ten miles from any civilization in either direction and Bella had no idea what to do.
She had a vague idea how to change a tire, but she had no spare and no jack, so that was out. It was nearing eleven o'clock at night and no one had passed by in fifteen minutes. No one was coming to help her. She could sleep in her car, eat the energy bar if she got hungry. Surely the traffic picked up in the morning. It was freezing, but she could keep the car running and the heater on.
Satisfied, she turned to get back in the car when headlights appeared around the corner. Fear gripped her stomach for a moment from years of horror movies set on back roads, then relief. It was probably a kindly farmer who would give her a ride to Port Angeles and a pay phone. A farmer driving very fast.
First, it became clear that the car was silver. Then that it was a Volvo. Then that it was not a coincidence and that really was Edward driving in all his stunning beauty.
The Volvo pulled to the side a few yards behind her truck. Edward sat inside the car with the light on, staring at her. Bella stared back. Finally, he slid out of the car and came to her, stopping two feet away.
"Are you okay?" he murmured.
Bella didn't want to answer, didn't know how to answer. She had a pan to make it through the night alone in her truck. A vampire interrupted this plan and was quite possibly stalking her with aim to kill her. And yet her body relaxed every muscle, pooled warm relief in her belly. How was she?
"What are you doing here?" she said instead.
"I've been following you all day," he said promptly, eyes pale amber and shiny. "Do you realize
what a of magnet for trouble you are? I could only imagine what would happen to you in a city the size of Seattle."
"I'm fine," she said, and she realized her tone was soft and kind, comforting him. "You—you were worried about me?"
"I was petrified. I'm always petrified."
Here, in the darkness, alone with him, she realized the truth. "You don't want to kill me, do you."
Edward released a choked laugh. "Did my behavior make you think I was a sociopath?" His arm lifted in stilted movements and he touched the tips of her hair at her collarbone. She wanted to press his hands to her, but, even now, she couldn't do that.
"No. Not exactly. I know you're a vampire, Edward."
"What?" His fingers dropped from her hair and he took a step back.
She stepped forward. "My boyfriend's a werewolf—"
He stepped back again. "Werewolf?" She forced her body to stay still.
"Do you—you must know about the werewolves." He nodded, his gaze still very weary, ready to run if forced. Run from her if she knew his secret, not kill her. Somehow his instinct was flight, not fight. "Um. Well, he told me. That you and your family are vampires. But I've been—I thought—why haven't you been eating people?"
"We don't do that. We—we're quite unusual. We know only one other family like us. We survive off the blood of animals. Don't the dogs know that? I can't believe they haven't attacked if they think we're causing harm."
Bella opened her car door and sat down, grateful for the activity, the excuse to turn her back to him. Of course she knew that it was part of the treaty that the vampires could only live in Forks if they never bit a human, but—how could it be true? Jacob and the rest of the pack were so angry with the Cullens. They had to be doing something wrong.
"Why don't you kill humans?" she said, though that wasn't the right question at all.
"We don't want to kill. I don't want to hurt you, Bella." He was right in front of her, but she couldn't look at him, her hair fallen forward, curtaining him away from her. Her throat ached, her eyes burned—she was crying. She laughed. Why was she crying? "Oh, no," Edward said. He pressed his hands against her shoulders. "Don't sound so relieved. I'm not being honest. I do want to kill you. More than most! You—you are the most delicious thing I've ever come across. I never dared imagine you. You were right to fear me the way you have. I shouldn't be here."
He stepped back, but Bella came forward again, tripping out of the truck and on to her feet to remain in contact. "I want to kill you, but if you died—I couldn't bare it."
It was the most incredible thing anyone had ever said to her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself up. For a few seconds, Edward was like a statue and Bella thought her muscles couldn't sustain a pull-up for any longer when he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. At first she thought he would bite, but he only sniffed her, pressing his cold nose to her neck. Bella just enjoyed the feel of his body against hers, every impossibly hard muscle and cold soft skin.
Entirely too soon, he pulled her apart from him and stepped several feet away from her. "This is wrong, Bella. You can't be so involved."
"I'm not involved," she said quickly. "I'm in love with my boyfriend. You're just—some guy. A very attractive—hey, yeah. Just turn off your allure—"
"You knew as far back as that? That's what you meant?" He laughed. "Well, in any case, I can't turn it off. As a vampire, my features were enhanced to attract prey, but it's just as an actor uses his features to attract job offers. I just look like this."
"Still, I'm not involved. I'm just relieved you're not going to kill Jessica and it's coming out a little tremble-y."
"I would never kill Jessica." Bella grinned and he narrowed his eyes. "Well, I have had a few fantasies about killing her… breaking her neck so she doesn't scream when I attack you."
Bella had a brief image of she and Edward alone in Mr. Varner's classroom, Bella straddling him, baring her neck, and Edward running his cool tongue across her pulse point, skimming with his teeth, much blunter than she knew they really were.
Edward took her distracted silence to be fear and smiled at her—relieved that she would stay away from him? She smirked back. "It's not going to work. That idea is pretty sexy. I'm not scared of you."
He scowled. "You have no sense of self-preservation. You're going to get yourself killed. I can't give you a hickey, do you realize that? My hickey leaves you dead in my arms."
That wasn't the worst image in the world, either. She took a deep breath to try to clear her head, but the air was tinted with his scent. "I'd never let you give me a hickey, anyway." Liar. "I have a boyfriend. He's a werewolf. He's very sexy."
Edward growled and walked quickly to his car, then walked right back to her. "I'm sorry. You're right. Neither one of us is really involved. I'll take you back to him now. Or, if you prefer, you can use my phone to call a tow truck. It will be here in about twenty minutes. You don't have to spend any unnecessary time with me." He was holding out his small, silver cell phone to her and looking at his feet. Bella took a few steps closer to him.
"Just because I don't want you to give me a hickey doesn't mean I don't want to spend unnecessary time with you." She took the cell phone from him – her hands were nearly as cold as his in the night air, and waited for her to look at him before she put it in her pocket. "The first day we met you said you wanted to be friends. Now that I know you—well, don't want to want to kill me, can't we be friends?"
"You want to be friends?" he demanded. "You really want to be my friend?"
"Yes." She tried to keep calm in the face of his – anger?
"You're not attracted to me?"
"It doesn't matter." How did Edward have any friends if they couldn't be attracted to him? Besides— "I'm sure Jacob's friends with girls he's attracted to. And I—want to know you."
"You're so young, Bella." He didn't sound angry any longer, he sounded sad. "It does matter. It always—"
"How old are you?"
"What—? I'm seventeen. But I'm vastly more mature than you."
She beat down her own annoyance. He was angry. She needed to make him laugh. "How long have you been—building up this maturity?"
"A while."
They shared a smile, but Bella didn't forget her aim. "Please, Edward."
/
Edward's body might have died at seventeen, but after eighty years he had better control of his hormones than this. He was in love with Bella Swan. His primal urge to drink her blood was only matched by his urge to taste her in another way. He spent a lecture on binary fission so aroused he feared to move and tear his jeans… because her hair was wet from the lunchtime rain, clinging to her neck.
But just because he wanted to kiss her didn't mean he had to kiss her.
He could be her friend. Just her friend.
"Okay," he said. "I want to know you, too."
She smiled. Glorious. "Act of friendship number one, drive me home."
"I would have done that when we weren't friends." Maybe he was grumbling, but he couldn't help it.
"Yeah, but it means more now." That made little sense to him, but if he meant more to her for whatever reason, he wouldn't question it. "And it means we won't have an awkward drive back to Forks."
Bella used his phone to call AAA and her father. Charlie was glad she wasn't alone, especially glad that one of Dr. Cullen's kids was with her, lucky he volunteered at Red Cross in Seattle, and Edward was once again amazed at the trust Carlisle inspired in people when even Esme alarmed other women when she walked through the drugstore. They waited in Bella's truck for the tow to arrive. He teased her that he was surprised the antique could make to Seattle even one and a half times, that her speakers made even Seattle's excellent KEXP FM radio sound bad. He considered teasing her over the dying flowers hanging from her rearview mirror, but he was too delighted she'd kept them. He would have betrayed himself.
"In the fifties, boys with this truck would ask the girls out to the drive-in and only fast girls would say yes," he informed her, instead. "The seats are as cushy as a mattress."
They both looked around themselves, at the long, fat leather seats and imagined using it as a mattress, lying on it together. He couldn't read her mind, but he could see it in her face, in her blush, in how she wouldn't look at him. Too late, she laughed and said, "Do you know this from experience?"
"No!" he said. "I have never owned a truck. Is this 1953?" She nodded. "When some boy was trying to get laid in his dad's new pickup—" She wrinkled her nose, at the idea of seventy-year-old sperm on her passenger seat, perhaps? He bit back a smile. "—I was driving a Ferrari 375. White. They only built forty of them. It was the biggest reason I wanted to move to Alaska. It was so incredible driving that beauty on the ice."
"What happened to it?"
"Emmett crashed it. He had no finesse for ice racing. Oh, Emmett's my brother at Dart—well, my brother who's hiding out at our house. We managed to clean it up before there was an oil spill and Alice saved a baby polar bear from being killed in the fire. The mother was furious. That was a very messy relocation."
"Have you been in Alaska since the 50s?"
"No, no," he said. "We move about every four years to different sunless places in the world. It's important to Carlisle to be a doctor, so we leave when it's becoming obvious that he hasn't aged… he was only twenty-three when he became a vampire, so it's a stretch to call him old enough to have gone through modern medical training, but people believe what they want. We must also move when someone figures out we're… different."
"So…" Bella chewed on her pinkie nail and nudged her hair around her face. "Are you going to move now? Now that you know I know?"
They should. If the werewolves were returning to La Push, if even one beautiful little human knew, they should leave. Better safe then sorry. But Edward didn't want to. Esme was doing stunning restoration work on their house, Carlisle was enjoying working in a smaller hospital, the nearby hunting was excellent… but that really had nothing to do with it.
"I don't want to leave," he said. She peaked through the veil of her hair, her eyes soft, her smile hopeful. "We won't leave. At least not right now. If anyone else finds out—if the werewolves tell—"
"I won't tell anyone! And Jacob – my boyfriend – wouldn't have told me about himself if I hadn't seen him phase for the first—"
"You were there?" As if he had no control of his own body, Edward's arms lifted Bella into his lap, his hands moved over her face, her throat, checking for wounds. "Did he hurt you?"
"I'm fine," Bella said softly, pressed his hands to rest on her shoulders. "I tripped running away, skinned my knee and my palms… probably would have happened anyway." They stared at one another, their faces inches apart. Edward wasn't breathing, but the scent of her blood lingered. He could feel her warm breath through his whole body, as if she could fill his lungs for him. Then she looked away and tried to laugh. "Have you heard of imprinting?"
Edward had to force himself not to clench his hands and shatter her delicate bones. If the dog had imprinted on Bella, Edward would—kill himself. The realization shocked him. He would rather be dead than know he could never have her.
"The leader of the pack, Sam, he imprinted on a girl, Emily, and another guy in the pack has imprinted on someone… Emily and Kim know. Jacob's father knows." Subject shifted and no mention that Jacob had imprinted on her. Edward felt every muscle uncoil. "All the Quileutes know about the legend, but I think only those seven know it's real. And me."
That was eight. That was absolutely too many.
There was a knock on the window. A black man in plaid flannel and cargo pants smiled at them. Edward rolled down the window. "Sorry to interrupt, lovebirds. You call for a tow?"
For a moment, Edward was surprised that he hadn't heard the enormous flatbed tow truck pull up. Then he realized he had heard it, just far back in his mind, leaving room for the more important conversation. The man winked at them. Too bad I didn't wait five minutes, might have seen the cutie with her top off. Bella blushed.
Edward opened the door quickly, so it hit the man in the knees, then helped Bella on to her feet. "Yes, we did. Here's the insurance information," he said, grabbing the little pile of papers off the seat where Bella left it and her wallet out of her purse. "And Ms. Swan's ID. You'll tow the truck to that address. I'll be driving her in my car and you can follow us if you wish. Do you need anything else?"
The man blinked. "She needs to sign a—"
Edward pulled a clipboard out of his hands and held it out to Bella. She hid a smile in pursed lips and signed. Edward gave back the clipboard, raised an eyebrow, and nodded when the man shook his head. "We'll be waiting in the car if you require anything else. Thank you."
Edward led Bella to the Volvo with a hand on the small of her back and the man called, "Thank y—you! Sir!"
Bella laughed once they were sitting inside the car. "That was incredible. You are a force of nature. I'm always scared to do anything, like when I'm talking to a bank teller or—"
"Most people are. But you pay their salary, Bella. That man wouldn't have a job if you didn't buy his insurance and drive an primeval car. A man getting paid eight dollars an hour to wear plaid and maneuver a giant machine does not get to wink at you." He growled. "Or think about you with your shirt off."
"I'm sure he wasn't thinking about me with my shirt off."
"I assure you, he was." Edward checked the man's mind again: more comfortable in that fancy car anyway, better to lay her out on— "He still is! I should have hit his knees harder."
Bella squinted out the windshield, at the man sliding under the car to connect her car to the tow hook. "How can you tell?" Her eyes widened. "Oh, no! You can read peoples' minds, can't you? You can!"
"Yes, I can." Edward hadn't exactly been trying to hide it – when Bella told him she knew his secret, he'd felt like she knew everything, about his family, his past, his entire self – but he was still surprised she took that leap. "You're much more observant than I gave you credit for."
"Jacob said that some of the vampires had extra powers, but… he thought it was just part of the legend. What am I thinking right now?" she said quickly, then her eyes widened and she blushed. He'd never been so disappointed that he couldn't read her, not even when she started glaring at him in Calculus.
"I can't hear your thoughts. You're the only exception I've ever met. What were you thinking?"
"No way," she said. "I think my thoughts are hidden from you because they're too embarrassing to be heard by other minds."
"Everyone has embarrassing thoughts—no, very embarrassing," he insisted at her incredulous face. "Did you know Eric Yorkie has a fantasy of you in a Catwoman suit dominating him on the football field?" She looked stricken and he very nearly snorted. "I probably shouldn't have told you that."
"Can your whole family read minds?"
"No, not at all. Alice and Jasper both have gifts above and beyond the norm for our kind, but that's it—Carlisle is very special in his own way, more compassionate than anyone I've ever known. More concretely, though, Alice sees the future, possible futures. Jasper can manipulate emotions of the people around him, quiet a crying baby or rouse the students in his first period class. He was very charismatic as a human. I was very perceptive of the people around me."
"And Alice?" Edward explained Alice's missing past, that she had a vision of Carlisle and his family, that her first memory was of Jasper's face.
"Alice and Jasper are together? It sounds so silly when I say it that way, after a story like that. It's more like they were never apart, isn't it? Like they completed one another."
"It's often like that with our kind. We're a very large family, usually it's only two: mates, a couple. Even within our family, Rosalie and Emmett are together—" Bella smiled at him. "And Carlisle has Esme."
"And you're alone?"
Edward met her gaze before he could stop himself, looked down over her perfect little body, then back to her eyes, bright, like a clear glass of coffee in front of the sun, and didn't know what to say, when the tow truck man knocked on the window again.
Although he was relieved for the interruption, Edward again opened the door quickly, this time hitting him hard on one shin. "So sorry," he said. "How can I help you?"
The man bounced on one foot. "Ow! Um, I'm ready to go. If you'd like to lead the way. Sir."
"Certainly. Thank you." Edward waited in a deep silence in the car until the man got in the tow truck, then he started back on the road. He couldn't look at Bella, but out of his peripheral vision, he saw she wasn't looking at him either. Perhaps this would be an awkward drive back to forks after all. Perhaps he couldn't be just her friend. He sighed. With the tow following him, he had to stay within truck speed limits and it made his ankle ache.
"So—how did Carlisle find Esme?" Bella said, hesitantly.
"That's a lovely story, actually," he said. He wished they could bypass the subject of love altogether, but taking the focus off himself was good enough. Under most circumstances, he would have told a succinct version, but he sought a thorough change of subject.
"Esme grew up in Ohio at the turn of the century. When she was sixteen, she broke her leg climbing a tree and her parents took her to the doctor in Columbus – Dr. Cullen; Carlisle. This was a few years before Carlisle found me, so I don't know anything first hand… I've wondered if it was this experience with Esme that led him to change me. He didn't understand how lonely he was until he met her. They connected right away. They made each other laugh. Esme has a little silver scar on her leg from the fall and she said she would touch it and think of him when she felt lost. They were together for an hour, but that was enough." Telling Bella this story, he couldn't help thinking of that weekend in April when she'd had her leg broken and he'd taken care of her. Should he have not come back? Perhaps if they were meant to be together, she would have found her own way back to him.
"She went home with her parents and he thought he'd never see her again. Carlisle was happy just to know she was in the world somewhere, but ten years later, he found her in the morgue of the hospital where he worked, her heart still beating, just faintly. Esme had married an abusive man. She ran away from him when she got pregnant, to protect the baby, but little William died not long after anyway.
"She tried to kill herself. Instead, she woke up from the pain of the change to Carlisle's face. She started weeping and I could hear his thoughts so loudly, suffering, scolding himself for playing the role of god again, hurting this perfect creature… but then she kissed him, just fell into his arms, fell into his body, like they were becoming one entity. I had to leave. They made love on the bed, no words spoken until they were done. I didn't want to listen, but they were so—enthusiastic, I suppose. Passionate."
"You'll have that, Edward," Bella said, after a few moments. But not with you, he finished for her. He couldn't say anything. "You know imprinting? Jacob didn't imprint on me. I tell him he's going to meet the perfect girl for him one day and drop me like a hot potato." A piece of the steering wheel broke off his Edward's hand. He stared at it, unbelieving, then realized he wasn't holding the actual steering wheel any longer and grabbed on to it again. It all happened too quickly for Bella to notice. "He thinks it won't – can't – happen, that he's too interested in me to even notice someone else. But he can't know that. He only hopes that's true."
"Do you hope that's true?"
"Of course," she said quickly. "But I mean—I love him, you know? But I'm eighteen. Most people don't marry their high school sweetheart."
If Jacob wasn't forever, Bella should end it now and be with Edward. Love him. Marry him. He squeezed the little piece of steering wheel in his hand, let it fall like dust to the floor, trying to calm down. No. It would be best for Bella if she ended it with the werewolf and forgot about Edward entirely. With her luck, she'd find some out-of-control young witch to date next. Edward, at least, could protect her, even from himself—no!
He closed his eyes and prayed to a god he was sure had forsaken him long ago that some day he accepted he couldn't be with Bella, wasn't meant for her. Really internalized it. Perhaps didn't even want it anymore, although that was unlikely. The dog had no concept of wanting her forever.
"That's true," he said slowly. "I'm sure you'll fall in and out of love a lot in your life."
"Has that been true for you?"
"No," he said. "I think it's different for my kind. Once I'm in love, I'll always be in love." He glanced at her and saw she was almost sideways on the seat looking back at him. "So—don't judge yourself based on me."
/
Bella was wrestling with two inappropriate feelings. She was grateful that he had never been in love before – that meant no one had been more important to him than her (not that she was important at all, not that Jacob wasn't important to her, very important—more important, really). Still, she was annoyed that he wasn't in love with her. No, annoyed was the wrong word. Sad, maybe. And still, all she wanted was to be his friend.
That was a lie. But she couldn't break up with Jacob – well, why couldn't she? Why not break up with him? Then she thought of his smiling face, of not calling him when she got home tonight, of never sitting in his warm kitchen again, or handing him tools while he worked on his car, and she felt sick, literally like she might faint or throw up. Plus, she thought in effort to ground herself, looking at Edward's chiseled profile, she was lucky he even wanted to be her friend. Breaking up with an excellent guy, an excellent boyfriend, for a sexy, unavailable vampire would be the stupidest thing in the world.
She was going in circles now.
Looking for something else to talk about, or at least think about, Bella caught sight of the steering wheel. "What happened to that!"
"What?" He followed her gaze and touched the jagged edges of the broken circle. "Oh, this. I broke it."
"With what?" Edward flexed his hand and she slowly realized. "With your bare hands. Wow, you're strong."
"You're right to be afraid of me."
"I'm not afraid of you! Edward, I know you haven't spent much time with humans… touching humans, but I think you have a natural instinct for what is breakable – okay to break, not possible to break – and what is not." He huffed, unconvinced. Bella wondered for a moment if he needed to breathe and filed the question away. "I'm serious. Earlier, you pulled me into your lap, do you remember? When you found out I saw Jacob turn into a wolf for the first time."
He nodded. "It was a comment about Jacob that made me hurt my beautiful car, as well."
Bella laughed. "You didn't hurt me. I'm not even bruised, I can tell. Your instincts knew you were handling me, a human, someone you—" care about "—want to be friends with and your muscles managed their strength appropriately. It must be a vampire thing or even something special to you, because—Jacob doesn't do that."
Another piece of the steering wheel broke off. Edward didn't seem to notice. "He does hurt you."
"No! I mean, sometimes. He doesn't always realize how strong he is now. It's only been a few months. Actually, four months—tomorrow, wow, I should—what I mean is, it's never serious. Just some finger-shaped bruises around my arm, once in a while. Mostly when we're—" Bella blushed. Edward threw the bit of steering wheel on to the floor of the car, embedding it a few inches from his left foot. "My point being that I don't think I have to be scared of you. In any case, I'm not."
"You're far, far too trusting, Bella." She flinched away from his hard words. "You shouldn't let the dog touch you. You shouldn't let me anywhere near you! Drive you home, indeed! I could have thrown my steering wheel at your head. I'm not even in control of my car. I shouldn't be a licensed driver."
"Edward." Bella put her hand on his arm. His muscles were tense and hard, even compared to his marble-like relaxed state. "I think this is you in a viable tantrum and I'm fine. You haven't hurt me."
"You're like a soap bubble, Bella. One strong breath and you're broken. I could hurt you so easily."
"You won't." This might have been an impossible argument, so Bella thought it best to change the subject. "Do you have to breathe?"
"What? Um, no. It's just habit. We do it for a sense of smell. I've frequently decided not to breathe so I don't have to smell you. Because I want to kill you, Bella."
"Yes," she said, a little smugly. "But if I died, you couldn't bare it."
"Perhaps I said that in the relief of the moment, that the worst thing that happened to you in Seattle was a flat tire, the way young boys say, 'I love you' after orgasm. Did you consider that?" Bella wasn't sure that he meant to be funny, but she couldn't help laughing anyway. Edward's mouth curved up a bit.
"So you don't have to breathe. What about the other vampire stories? Fangs?"
He lifted his lip and ran his tongue over his teeth, normal except for their white brilliancy. The muscles in her thighs clenched in response. "No need, your skin's like butter. I'm not burned by the sun… or garlic or holy water. A wooden stake through the heart would never make it through the skin. There are no hunters that wield the strength and skill needed to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness."
"Was that a Buffy the Vampire Slayer quote?"
"Yes, it was. Alice loves Buffy. Everything in that show is wrong," he said. "But quite amusing."
"So no living underground with iron candelabras and coffins to sleep in?"
"No coffins." His expression sobered. "We don't sleep."
"Oh." Bella had been prepared for this possibility, but the enormity of difference between them caught her like a blow to the stomach. "Jacob thought that was a legend, too. He thought it was too much of an unfair advantage, like you could just run for hours until the pack got exhausted. Not that—they don't get tired too easily, either," Bella added quickly.
"I will not kill your boyfriend in my sleepless nights." He sighed. "We won't attack the wolves unless duly provoked. And that's not my style, besides. I don't need to run."
"I didn't mean to offend your masculinity—"
"You didn't."
Another tense silence, this one lasting until Port Angeles.
"Why did you go to Seattle, anyway?" he said as they passed the final lights of the city, tall signs for McDonalds and Holiday Inn.
"Forks leaves something to be desired—"
"In the way of entertainment?"
"Sort of. Books. I was never one for online shopping and its basically impossible with the ancient computer I have to work on – dialup and it's too late for a antivirus – I think it would register McAfee and shut down completely, one too many hamburgers before the heart attack, you know?" Bella was babbling, but Edward seemed right there with her, smiling at her joke, nodding at the concept of old computers, although from the tailored jeans he wore to the Volvo he drove, broken steering wheel notwithstanding, Bella figured he'd never experienced it.
"Anyway, it's hard to find books and Seattle has some pretty good independent bookstores. I was going to try for Portland—"
"Powell's."
"Exactly. But I didn't think I the old guy could make it and clearly I was right. I might not have gotten one way."
"Why didn't Jacob drive you?" Bella wished he hadn't brought up Jacob and from the tightening
at the corner of his eyes, he wished it too, but it was too late now. And really, this would never work if they couldn't talk about that part of her life.
"He and the pack train pretty hard on Saturdays. It's the first day of the week they don't have other commitments – school and work, so they're all really excited about it and when I brought it up, Jacob was clearly pretty disappointed to miss out. And I don't mind being on my own."
Edward studied her for a long moment. "I'll take you to Portland sometime. Did you get some books, at least?
"The All Trout Cookbook," she said and he laughed. "Classic. And Dr. Zhivago. No one's heard of it yet, but I think it's going to be big."
"Ah, Boris."
"Did you know Boris Pasternak?" Bella was trying to mock the pretentious familiarity of using an artist's first name, but Edward nodded.
"'Know' is too strong a word. Remember I mentioned the other family that lives like me? One of them, Irina, has a great fondness for books set in cold places, and so all classic Russian literature, but especially Dr. Zhivago. She and Boris had a little affair in the 20s. This was before Zhivago—he'd just published a book of poetry, very well received, quite good—it falls like a ripe pear into the storm, with a single clinging leaf—mm.
"She was in Russia to find him and I was there—um, taking a tour of the continent. I spent an evening with him at a party, distracting his wife while he and Irina found dark corners. Very serious kind of man, but she adored him. I think you'll like the book. Do you enjoy the classics?"
Bella told him she did and he spent the rest of the drive asking about what she'd read, what she'd appreciated, what she'd fallen in love with, what she'd hated. While she was defending Wuthering Heights, he opened the glove compartment and put in a new CD, which she realized on the second track was Collision Course, an EP Linkin Park released the year before.
"You like this music?" she interrupted herself.
"Do you not?" His finger moved toward the eject button.
"No! I do! I just didn't think you would."
He shrugged and relaxed back into his seat. "I'm not a big fan of rap in general, but on top of Linkin Park, Jay-Z sounds pretty good."
"Exactly! The songs enhance one another, right?"
"Absolutely," he said. "Now please continue to explain why evil true love is worth a—fifth reading, you said?"
"You have a black heart."
"No, Heathcliff has a black heart—that's the problem."
"Black and filled with all the colors of the rainbow of love for Cathy."
"Actually, white has all the colors. Color is just light and white reflects all the visible wavelengths of the light around it—"
"No, see Heathcliff is a baser man. He's not about color theory, he's about the color you get when you mix all the paint together on your paper: black. No, not even black. Brown. My favorite color. Just enough softness to get my young heart beating hard."
Edward stared at her, almost laughing, she could tell. "Okay. It's chick lit."
Bella wanted to argue, but she couldn't. "That makes Dickens dick lit, you know."
"Oh, certainly. He is the original dick."
Literature was a much easier topic to maintain and they kept each other smiling all the way back to her house. She made sure not to bring this up, but it was wonderful having someone to talk to that had not only read Wuthering Heights, but also had a firm opinion on it. Even Renée, who shared most of her interests, had introduced many of her interests to her, had no special love of words or stories, and now that she lived in Forks, Charlie, Jacob, and the kids at school didn't even like the idea of something as dense as Brontë. Edward discussed the controversy of incest between Emily and her brother (or was it Charlotte? – "It was definitely Emily," he insisted, "Charlotte was as prudish as a fig.") and the upcoming movie on the lives of the Brontë family (She was firm: "If Jonathon Rhys Meyers was their brother, they were all doing him.").
She was surprised when Edward pulled into her driveway. Time seemed to pass very quickly, but it was almost two in the morning when the tow handler had her truck unloaded and drove away. Charlie came out, slouching and droopy-eyed, and gave Edward a long handshake in thanks.
Edward offered to come by the next day and change the tire. Charlie said they had a spare in the garage and it would be easy job and to that Edward said he could do it now. Charlie laughed. "I think you've played knight in shining silver paintjob enough for one night. You must be exhausted."
Bella giggled because Edward was never tired – she, on the other hand, was very tired. Edward smirked at her, but let it go and got back in his car. "See you on Monday?" she said through his open window.
He nodded firmly. "Unless it's sunny."
"I thought you weren't burned by the sun," she whispered, glancing at Charlie. Leaning against the wooden railing, eyes closed, he was quite possibly asleep on his feet.
"I'm not. But—well, I'll show you sometime."
Despite their decision to be friends, Bella had a hard time imagining a time when he would want to spend time with her, or when she would want to put that much strain on her relationship with Jacob.
"Maybe when you drive me to Portland," she said wistfully.
He took one of her hands in his and squeezed. "It would be a lovelier drive down the state if the sun was shining. Just as conspicuous in Oregon, though." She grinned and wondered what was conspicuous – maybe their skin became transparent in the sun, showing all their frozen innards. His gaze focused away from her for a moment, then looked back. "Jacob's around the corner. You'll want to shower vigorously when you get inside or he won't be able to bare sleeping with you."
"He doesn't sleep with me."
"He will tonight." He bared his teeth, almost a smile, and started the car. Bella stepped back and watched him until he disappeared around a tree.
She helped Charlie up the stairs and into bed, then gathered her toiletries and bathed in hot water and a fresh bar of soap. Jacob was waiting in her room when she came in, restacking some books – he often misaimed when he came through the window and broke something.
"I'm glad you're not dead on the side of the road."
Bella rolled her eyes. "Yes, a very likely option when he doesn't hunt humans."
"Just because he doesn't doesn't mean he won't."
"Actually, that's exactly what it means. And if he was planning to stray from his diet, he wouldn't do it after he told me to call Charlie to tell him he's driving me home, is he?"
Jacob couldn't argue, and, by his blazing gaze, he was infuriated by that. "He could have left you on the side of the road."
"Are you listening to yourself?" Bella sat down on her bed and watched him pace in front of her, like a dog waiting to be let outside
"I mean after he loaned you his phone. The tow was coming, he didn't need to stay."
"He offered to leave, actually." Unnecessary time, she heard repeated in her mind. "I asked him to stay. He's a good guy, Jake. We're friends."
"What brought this on?"
"Well, from the way you and the pack behave, I thought he was an evil—"
"He is evil! The leeches want to eat humans, Bella." He grabbed her shoulders and she shook him to remind him of his own strength. He shook her back, gently. "The cow isn't friends with the farmer. The Cullens could keep this whole town in corrals if it wasn't for the pack—"
"I think the cow is pretty trusting of the farmer, actually—"
"You're smarter than a cow—"
"Oh, thank you, sweetheart—"
"—but you're not acting like it."
"—and they could keep us in corrals, but they don't. They put their children in the school system, Dr. Cullen saves lives at the hospital—if you would stop listening to your instincts and use your brain, you would see they're doing the best they can. They work harder just to get through the day than you or I can even imagine and—not acting like it? Not acting like it, Jacob? You think I'm as dumb as a cow?"
"No, that was thoughtless—" He tried to pet her hair, but she jumped away from him.
"If I wouldn't break my fingers again, I would hit you. I don't even want to look at you!"
Jacob was gone when she turned back. He never left in a fight, not until he felt he won. Had this vampire thing screwed him up that badly? Bella blinked and saw she had the cordless phone in her hand. The door opened.
"Bells, what's going on?" Charlie looked even sleepier than before and Bella winced.
"Sorry, Dad. Just talking to Jacob on the phone."
Charlie smiled, imagining her in a wedding dress and living two blocks away for the next thirty years. "Okay, kiddo. Just keep it down for your old man."
She nodded. As soon as the door closed, Jacob was back in front of her.
"I'm sorry," he whispered and put his arms around her. The break Charlie provided let her anger slip away and her body curled into his without thought. "It's just that the bloodsuckers are dangerous, no matter what their credo says. You trip on carpet. I don't want to think about what would happen on a road that rocky."
"It's not that rocky," she said into his shirt. In her mind, she saw herself on a mountain range with Edward (in forest-toned lederhosen, like at the end of The Sound of Music), his arms around her every time she fumbled.
"Please," Jacob said. "Please, just don't see him. You have friends – friends whose only danger to you is their unholy lust. I'd prefer it if you spent every second with Mike Newton than any second with the leech."
"Mike will be thrilled to hear it," she said and thankfully Jacob laughed.
"Don't you dare." He organized them on the bed, under just one blanket because Bella got overheated with anything more. She was grateful he hadn't made her promise anything, that his natural confidence made him believe she'd given in without her saying so.
Jacob didn't go to her school, he didn't know what she did there. Jacob didn't know she talked to Anne Lacey, either—no need to bring up cordial conversation. It could be like that between her and Edward.
She really wanted to know what happened to him in the sun.
1) Did I read somewhere that Esme's baby's name was William, or did I make that up?
2) On the FAQ on her site, Meyer said Linkin Park was the CD Phil gave Bella and Edward had in his car, so that's where my EP choice is based is based. She didn't want to say the band's name in case Twilight wasn't released for years, but I have control over when this fic is released, obviously, and this is formally set in 2005, so I figure I'm good to go.
3) About that Brontë film, in 2005, JRM was in line for the role – as of now (Aug. 08), he's out and the movie itself seems to be in limbo. :(