Note: This has been re-editted as of 3/16/2009.
GRAVITATION
by Yih
"Love—is anterior to Life—
Posterior—to Death—
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Earth—"
- Emily Dickinson
1. First Sight
Seattle 2008
Edward POV
Something tickled my nose when I walked into the classroom – I could smell the scent of freesias. It was fresh, tantalizing, alluring. My eyes quickly scanned the student body of 200 and laid eyes on someone I didn't expect to find… another vampire.
She caught sight of me just when I caught sight of her.
Her eyes were surprisingly golden and she looked perfectly in control sitting in this room with so many delectable meals surrounding her, waiting for the introductions to their first year at medical school to begin. What was a vampire doing here?
It didn't at all make any sense with anything I had ever learned about others of my kind with the exception of one, my father, Carlisle. But Carlisle was an extreme example of kindliness and good in the world where there was so much evil and destruction.
I did not usually do this, but I opened my mind to the noise and the chattering thoughts of so many other people in the room to sift through the ruckus just so I could figure her out. It was not easy, latching on to a mental voice I had never heard before, but as I picked through the crowd I could not find hers.
I'm nervous, I don't know what to expect…
This is going to be boring. I'm wasting my time here…
I should have slept in. I'm tired…
I can't wait to start!
Why are there no cute guys… oh wait, the one in the front is hot. Damn hot—
I closed my mind and shut out the other voices, which was easy when I was thinking about something. Hers was not in the mix of voices, but perhaps it was because I couldn't pick it out in the crowded ocean. Or she just wasn't thinking about anything right now.
She smiled at me and suddenly I remembered something Alice had once told me when I had asked her about love… "It's difficult to explain to someone who has never felt it and perhaps it's easier for me when I have the ability to conceive the future, but love can hit you all at once and knock the breath out of you."
I felt exactly like she had said – breathless. I knew I was smiling back at her and it probably looked ridiculously dorky, but I couldn't help it. Now, even more than before, I wanted to hear her thoughts, to know if she was feeling what I was feeling.
Emotions so sudden, so completely absorbing that I had to be hallucinating because love at first sight, did such a thing even exist?
They existed… in movies or fantasies.
What I felt couldn't possibly be love. I would leave it at attraction. It had been a long while since I had come across another female vampire that I didn't consider a sibling and this particular female was beautiful in just my sort of way.
She had dark brown hair, luminous pale skin that wasn't the chalky white it could have been, and her eyes were gentle and held just the right amount of curiosity I thought. I chuckled silently as I had to analyze her, the first time I really had to think about what someone was thinking in nearly a century. How frustrating and refreshing all at once!
"Now if everyone would find a seat, we will begin the introductions to your coursework this semester!" boomed a baritone rich voice from the front of the hall.
His comment was clearly directed toward me, since I was the only standing and luckily, I didn't look entirely foolish because my mind worked swiftly at a speed humans couldn't comprehend things and I hadn't been standing there for more than half a minute at most and I did have the dilemma of finding a seat in the very crowded lecture hall.
Luck was not on my side, I noticed, since there wasn't a seat available near the girl. I settled for squeezing into a seat in the back row where I could stare at her without appearing to look at her at all and at the same time, pay just enough attention to the man in the front who would be illustrating to us the trials that awaited us as first year medical students.
It was nothing I hadn't heard before. After all, it wasn't my first time to attend medical school. I had gone once before, about fifty or so years ago and I'm sure not much had changed. They'd probably added more on humanity to create a more well-rounded doctor, but it was still all basic sciences the first two years.
I had been almost tempted to go abroad this time, just to experience something different, but Esme, my mother, preferred that I stay close to home and I was literally a short run away from home back in Forks. It wasn't bad being close to my family. I missed them tremendously when I wasn't around, but sometimes I needed to be by myself too.
It was a difficult thing, being able to read minds and it had taken me a long time to master my power and if I hadn't had Carlisle from the very beginning, I don't know if I could have stayed sane. I was extremely lucky that I only had the tiniest portion of my ability when I was a human, unlike Alice. As much as my real parents had loved me, I don't think they would have taken too kindly to a son that heard 'voices.'
I wonder how she would take it when she knew that I was a mind reader. I stared at the back of her head, at her glossy brow hair and wondered why I still couldn't hear her thoughts. She was completely silent. Even someone who was good at blocking their thoughts couldn't be that good. It was hard to keep thinking about nothing for too long, it was much easier just to think of incessant, boring things – repeating string of Latin words or singing an annoying song as Alice often did to keep me out of her mind.
Suddenly, it occurred to me that maybe she wasn't blocking me, maybe I just couldn't hear her. My eyes widened for a fraction of a second as I processed the bizarre possibility that she might be the one creature in the world I couldn't hear. Unbelievable and utterly astonishing and that much more fascinating.
Now if it was true, that I couldn't read her mind at all, then more than ever did I want to meet her. I wasn't only attracted to her, I was curious as well. I don't remember the last time I was curious about someone. It was hard to be curious when you knew exactly what that person was thinking. Maybe that was why I had never fallen in love.
Maybe it was hard to fall in love when you knew intimately what the other person thought about you and about everything else. There was no mystery, no learning involved. It was too easy, too simple.
I stared at the girl with renewed interest. I wanted to know her name and I wanted to guess at what she was thinking.
Yes, that would be fun. I smiled to myself, thinking that going to medical school again for the second time might not be as tedious as I thought. I don't really know why I chose to do it again. I usually liked trying new things, but maybe fate was leading me to this strangely silent girl.
Fate, I scoffed, had handed me a crap hand to play with.
And yet, I should be grateful for all the good, wonderful people in my life, but I didn't fit into their perfectly happy world. I was the joker in a deck of cards. I needed to be tossed out at the start of the game. Carlisle and Esme. Jasper and Alice. Emmett and Rosalie. They were all matched pairs and I was the odd one out.
I was used to this, I had been living like this for decades and it hadn't really bothered me in the beginning because I knew one day I would find her… the girl that was meant for me. I didn't want to wait centuries though, like it took Carlisle to find Esme, and maybe it wouldn't. Maybe this girl in front of me, the freesia smelling girl was the one.
I was getting ahead of myself, being optimistic. I'm sure Alice would crack a smile at that. Me being optimistic about love? About anything? Now that was surely a laugh. I was the hopeless pessimist and I had a right. Who wouldn't be a little downtrodden when they had the ability to listen to everything that no one else should ever hear?
I still don't know if I liked my power. It's useful and it's a burden.
And the one time I really want it to work, it doesn't.
I looked at the clock on the wall, it hasn't even been ten minutes yet and we still had nearly two hours of lecture before we'd be free for lunch and I could approach her and find out more about her in the normal way. That amused me, to actually get to know someone without peering into their head.
I glanced absently away from her to the front, where a professor was droning on about gestation. This was certainly the last day of class that I would be attending. Thank goodness for streaming video lectures, although… if she went to class then maybe I would go as well, if she proved as interesting as I hoped.
For what else did I have to occupy my eternal existence?
To be continued…
A/N: I wasn't really sure where I was going with the story and I'm not sure why I set it in medical school, maybe because it would be easier for me to write about it since I'm in medical school myself. ^_^;;. I hope you liked the peek into Edward's mind and I hope I did his voice okay. As for Edward's characterization here, hopefully it looks familiar and not too OOC, although of course it's going to be different since (1) Edward doesn't want to drain her dry (2) she's a vampire, so none of this OMG I can't be with her b/c if I change her I'm going to damn her soul. The story will be alternating between Bella's POV and Edward's in a way that hopefully won't throw you for too much of a loop.
Please please pretty please keep reviewing and let me know if I should continue (and also, suggestions never hurt!).
Released: 2/24/2009
