Disclaimer: I own an SAT Prep book, a dry erase board that won't erase, Alice bands that have bows on them, a clock that is telling me that it's 5 o'clock in the morning, and a beautiful poster of Nice, France. I do not own Twilight.

I see your face in my mind as I drive away,
'Cause none of us thought it was gonna end that way.
People are people,
And sometimes we change our minds.
But it's killing me to see you go after all this time.

Music starts playin' like the end of a sad movie,
It's the kinda ending you don't really wanna see.
Cause it's tragedy and it'll only bring you down,
Now I don't know what to be without you around.

And we know it's never simple, never easy.
Never a clean break, no one here to save me.
You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand,
And I can't,
Breathe, without you,
But I have to,
Breathe,
Without you, But I have to.
-Taylor Swift "Breathe"

My mouth fell open with the shock of the disembodied voice. The melodic sound hung in the air around me, unheard by any of my nearest neighbors. My mouth hung open like a dysfunctional trap door, wide enough for a plethora of flying insects to enter. And also wide enough for the smell to touch my tongue.

My breath rushed from my lungs, kicking out the unneeded oxygen, and letting the scent soak in to every taste bud on my tongue. It was the softest kind of muted musk that I had ever smelt. It was as if I had smelt it in a dream long ago, one I didn't realize that I remembered, and the familiarity made my stomach fly up into my throat. I could not believe it.

But even though I didn't necessarily recognize the scent, I knew whom it belonged to, and it made my unnecessary breath hitch. I had smelt vampires before, their smooth, impossibly perfect scent being the easiest of all species to identify; but the small hint of cedar mixed with the brassy smell of the blood they drank was what gave away the scent of a vegetarian. Clothilde had been the only one I had actually smelt it on before.

But no one else's scent could throw me so thoroughly into the pits of love and lust the way that his did. His scent was so different from the others. It was as if my nose knew how much I loved him.

So, I did the only thing I thought seemed sensible.

I ran.

Not even bothering to give any kind of explanation to my to my friends, I ran as fast as I humanly could to my car, throwing myself into the drivers seat with a force that made the metal underneath give a slight pop. I felt my muscles protest to the speed I was moving. My self-preservation instincts were telling me to run as fast as I could, never looking back, and the speed I used was far too slow. I should have sprinted, leaving only a flash of color in my wake.

I didn't stop to examine my prized car. I didn't stop to be sure I gripped the handle gently. I didn't even stop to let myself breathe. I forced my key into the ignition, not even bothering to check to make sure that it was the correct one. I pushed it harder than I had intended to, forcibly molding the metal to fit the ignition, and part of my key ring splintered off into my hand.

I ignored the fragments of metal dust, wiping them off of my hand on my jeans, and throwing the car into reverse out of my parking spot. I caught a flash of platinum blonde hair, and my breathing picked up, letting the leathery scent of my car engulf every sense I had. I was gasping for unnecessary air, and shaking with an emotion that I could not properly place. Fear, anger, excitement, and lust were the front-runners, but I could not be certain of any of their accuracy.

I almost hit a pedestrian on the way to the street, but I barely cringed. The last thing I heard before tuning out of the real world as I turned out of the high school parking lot was the sound of about a dozen voices yelling "Bella!"

My mind's voices all screamed above one another as I careened down the highway towards my house. I wondered if any of them would follow me, and I found myself looking out of my rearview mirror more often then normal. My hands clenched the steering wheel harder than I had ever done before, and I feared for its safety.

But only when I was halfway back to my house did I realize that I had never actually seen them. The flash of blonde hair I had seen could have belonged to anyone. Blair, possibly. It could have easily been someone else. Anyone else. There was no reason for me to believe it was Rosalie.

Except Alice's voice, that is. Her voice was too unique, too bell-like, too perfect, too easily recognizable, too… everything. Alice's voice personified the perfection that vampires possessed to lure in their prey. No human could ever have such a voice. It would be too cruel to the rest of the race.

But I had been too afraid and confused to turn my head even a millimeter in the direction that I had heard the voice or smelt the smell from. I was afraid to know whether or not I was insane. I wouldn't have been able to see them without falling apart.

I pictured them though. I remembered Alice's smile, and the way she practically vibrated from the intensity of her desire to reach the reality of every vision she saw. I saw Rosalie's hair, the way it personified everything of the perfection that she was, from the tips of her perfectly manicured fingers to the toes of her Prada pumps. I saw Jaspers scars, the small one on his forehead that was so faint, and yet so prominent against his already incomprehensible pallor, and the way his face had twisted into that painful scowl whenever he was near me. That wouldn't be a problem anymore, I thought sardonically. I remembered Emmett's jokes, and the way they made the air around him smile with him as he laughed. I saw Carlisle's kind smile and understanding eyes, and Esme's motherly need to hug you in your pain. I longed for that hug with the most intense form of nostalgia. I could feel the ghost of her arms engulfing me as I pulled my car into my garage.

I looked to myself in the rearview mirror, my eyes fogged with moisture-less pain and confusion.

And then I thought of Edward. Edward's… Just. Edward. Everything about him. His touch. His laugh. His lopsided smirk. His perception of his own perfection. His eyes and the emotions they portrayed. His voice. His inner turmoil.

And I thought of the way I had left my friends so coldly. They didn't deserve that. They had been nothing but good and caring towards me. They shouldn't be punished because my demons, in every sense of the word, had reappeared to wreak havoc on my life, including their involvement in it.

I'd just have to pass it off as cramps or something the next day. It was a simple enough excuse, and no one would ever question it. I knew as I stared at myself in the mirror, my lips set in a suborn line, that I would return to school the next day. I would not run the way that they had. I would face them. I would look each of them in the eyes, tell them of the pain that they had caused me, and then leave before they knew the extent of how much of that pain was caused because I had loved them so much. Loved him so much.

But when seven rolled around the next morning, I couldn't pull myself out of bed. I let the alarm blare in my ear for a full hour, finding a Bach composition to add to my list of hidden songs.

I lay in bed, wishing for the sleep that I knew would never come, and recounted every memory I had of the Cullen family. I didn't need to be specific in my thoughts; only the vague idea of their family in my foggy memories could cause the sort of coma that paralyzed me for days.

I only left my house once in seven days, to go hunting. It was the only truly vital thing that could draw me from my home. Hunting was a necessity for me to be anywhere, even in my own home. The thirstier I got, the easier it was to smell the blood of my neighbors. And as my thirst mixed with their scents, I thought of things that I instantly regretted.

I would not let myself become that person.

Again.

Blair called every day before and after school to see if I was feeling better and whether or not I was going to make an appearance. She had wanted to come over several times, but I quickly brushed her off, saying that the doctor thought I was too contagious. And if I wanted to really split hairs, I had received my medical license 27 years ago, and I could give myself any diagnosis I pleased. I decided on mononucleosis. It was simple, concise, and required no questions.

But when Monday rolled around, the week mark since I had heard Alice, a week since I had my very public shutdown of my nerves, I decided that I was done hiding.

I dressed more calculatingly than I had in years, careful to choose my favorite pair of jeans and one of the many shirts that Clothilde had insisted upon me buying when we were living in Paris several years before. I meticulously styled my hair, using every styling tool that I had collected at Clothilde's insistence over the years.

I knew that I needed to be completely confidant in every superficial way if I were to fake my mental confidence.

If I hadn't been hallucinating, that is.

Blair hadn't mentioned any new students, and she was a usually very forthcoming with such gossip. There was a definite possibility that I had just temporarily lost my sanity for those few minutes. After all, I believed I was a vampire. Didn't that constitute insanity in most places in the world?

As I attempted to curl my hair with unusually shaky hands, something I hadn't done since my commencement from Cambridge three years before, I searched my own eyes in the mirror. I couldn't even read my own thoughts. All I saw was the amber eyes of the naïve teenage girl that I had once been. I had been transported back in time in more ways than once in the past week. I felt like the same girl who had shyly but determinedly loved him.

And, worst of all, I felt susceptible to it happening again.

I shook my head, carefully placing the curling iron back on the bathroom counter, and chastised myself. You know how it works Bella. You've seen it happen time after time. You fell in love with his species, not him. You fell in love with his magic. It was easy to convince myself of this. More than one stranger on the sidewalk had walked up to me and proclaimed their undying love. Vampires were easy to fall in love with. Everything about them made them seem godly. Even people with attitudes like the one that Rosalie had displayed to me would be considered perfect because of all of their superficially perfect qualities. Our voices, our smells, and our appearance; It all made us seem so… lovable.

But it was all an illusion. I knew that Edward had to have been one of those illusions.

He had loved me for my scent, the temptation of killing me; and I had loved him

It was the only explanation for why I could have so easily fallen so wholeheartedly in love with him. It had been too easy, at least the falling part had been. The rest was much more complicated.

I had decided on my plan of action when I pulled my car into its usual spot in the parking lot. Everything was exactly the same as it had been the previous Monday. It was eerie. I saw that my friends were already heading towards me, some looking happy to see me after so long, and one looking frighteningly determined in her decision to let me have it.

Blair pulled the passenger door open haughtily, throwing herself down into the seat and crossing her arms so I knew I had not been forgiven for my absence and the mystery surrounding it. She was mad that I had blown her off when she had offered to come over and watch over me.

I rolled my eyes and turned up the volume on my stereo, letting Three Days Grace tell me of the animals that they had become. Oh, if they only knew!

"God! How do you listen to this crap Bella?" She punched the power button with her perfectly manicured index finger, and fell back into the plush leather seat with a delicate harrumph.

"At least I don't fawn over a weird looking little man wearing a leather jumpsuit and making the speedboat sound with his lips," I prodded back, referring to the latest teen sensation on the airwaves, and adding an eye roll.

And then I smelt them again. A slight, barely-noticeable gust of wind brought the sweetest scent of cedar and palatable blood into the car and through my nostrils. I stiffened in my seat, my jaw snapping shut and my teeth grinding together in frustration.

Luke's fingers snapped in front of my eyes, and it was more the sound than the sight that snapped me from my own head. I hadn't even realized that he stood at my opened car door. I forced myself from my own tangled mind and tried to focus on my surroundings, letting the scent fade into the background. I willed myself to become detached from myself. I had to see everything as a third party right now, otherwise I would go insane. I couldn't let myself feel the way I knew I felt. I had to let the excitement and eagerness quell inside me before I joined the human world.

"Don't be an idiot, Edward." I shuddered. The sound of Rosalie's angered voice as the car came into the parking lot. The mere sound of his name was enough to make my body become completely alert.

In a fit of insanity I threw myself hastily out of the car, barely even stopping to grab my bag with my books in it over my shoulder as I half crouching in my attempt to stealthily move from one end of the parking lot towards the courtyard at the other end. I could hear my friends following behind me, their steady steps and hasty questions of my sanity reaching my ears as I tried to keep out of sight.

I kept my eyes on the silver car as it easily came to a stop in a spot near the edge of the lot. It was amazing how close this vehicle resembled the Volvo. I saw pictures and memories replay themselves within my minds eyes like an old projector as I watched him turn slightly in his seat to face his siblings in the back of the car.

There were two memories that were most prominent when I thought of that damned silver Volvo: the day he had saved me in Port Angeles and I had confirmed my suspicions of his supernatural species; and the day of my 18th birthday as he drove me home. It seemed like everything came back to that day. In my mind it was the day that he stopped loving me.

I cut myself out of my flashbacks as I saw him pull his lanky frame from the driver's seat. He was even more graceful than I remembered, if only for the fact that I saw his movements more clearly now. He was scanning the parking lot with his x-ray eyes, and my stomach jumped into my throat at the thought that he may have been searching for me.

I hastened my footsteps from my hiding place behind a rather large football player who was attempting to make googley-eyes at me. I would not let Edward find me. Our meeting had to be on my own terms. He would not force himself on me. I would not allow it. I had to believe that I would not fall to pieces at his feet when we finally spoke; which was an inevitability.

I followed the stream of traffic into the school building, my friends following behind me, questions written all over their faces, and insanity theories taking flight in their brains. I could not, and would not, ever be able to explain this to them.

I lasted a total of four hours. Four hours without seeing him. I had thought of him for the entire 240 minutes since I had seen him. His scent was burned into the receptors in my nostrils, burned into the pit of my stomach where acid had once sat, and burned into my mind as the single most beautiful thing to ever touch me. But the sight of him had been much worse.

When I reached the cafeteria at mid-day, I was ready to be engulfed in the monotony of the teenage mind. I wanted to hear about Blair's date with Sam over the weekend, I wanted to hear about the guy behind the cash register at the movie theater who had shamelessly flirted with her despite her date's presence, I wanted to hear about the latest updates for the winter formal, I wanted to hear about the latest exposé in the school newspaper about Speedo-stuffing on the swim team, and I wanted to hear about the way that Hailey was being completely blown off by her partner in biology despite her signature hair-flippy-thing.

But life could never be that simple for me. Life hated me. God was punishing me for all my wrongdoings over the past fifty years. He had seen each moment of weakness, each sin, and each blasphemous statement of exasperation.

My friends were each talking, in their own way, of the Cullen's. I let Blair, Hailey, and Ava explain the new students to me without interruption. I knew everything that they could possibly tell me, but I listened anyways. They told me the story of the doctor and his wife, and their five adoptive children. It seemed like lines pulled directly out of my past. I could hear Jessica Stanley's voice echoing in my head as Blair spoke. The girls told me about the Cullen boys' "dreaminess", impeccable hair, powerful bodies, impeccable fashion sense, and kissable lips.

The boys beside them spoke in excruciating detail of their attraction to the two girls. I had never heard such an itemized list of lustful qualities. I had always known that Alice and Rosalie were beautiful; it had been the first thing that I myself had noticed about them, after all. But I had never considered that an indifferent sneer could ever be considered an aphrodisiac, as Liam had described it.

I could feel my stomach lurch in both disgust and protectiveness for the family. I wanted to pick up my tray and speed to the library where I could loose myself in a novel. I didn't want to listen to them describe them anymore. I just wanted to sort out my own thoughts of them.

But instead of fleeing, I simply smirked to myself. I thought of just how kissable Edward's lips had been. These girls would squeal in delight if they heard the confirmation to their assumptions. I had always loved the way his lips felt against mine. They were cold, controlled, but passionate. He had pushed every single one of his boundaries when we would kiss. He would give me the closeness that I craved, but with the caution that was necessary.

"Oh my gosh, look, here they come." Hailey placed a hand over Blair's forearm, her voice a soft and excited whisper as she watched the Cullen's progress through the cafeteria with glazed eyes.

I froze. I had forgotten this part. All day I had been craving the freedom that the hectic, bustling cafeteria would give me. I had been hoping for the numbness that mindless teenage chatter could bring… but I had stupidly forgotten that it would be the point where I would be forced to be around them. There was no hiding anymore.

I swear that they did it on purpose. As the doors to the cafeteria opened up from the quad, everybody and everything in the roomed seemed to silence and freeze to look in their direction. I watched with exasperating and annoyance as they entered the room in their pairs, their bodies sleek and controlled in a way that made it seem as if they were moving in slow motion.

Edward was in the middle of the group of his siblings. He seemed uninterested by anyone around him, and his eyes flitted about the room in the same way they had that morning. And this time I knew that he was searching for me.

And then he spotted me.

From then on, I only vaguely recognized that his siblings were with him; Alice was at Edward's side, clutching to his forearm and standing on her tip-toes to see why he had suddenly stilled in his search, Jasper behind her, the pained expression I remembered from the days of our education at Forks High School seeming to be long forgotten. Emmett and Rosalie were rapped in their own world, their arms tangled around each other's bodies, and talking heatedly in low whispers.

Jasper caught Edward's attention, and I was given the chance to study him from afar. I tried to hear what they were saying, but the buzz of the students separating us made it impossible.

Complete and overpowering joy rippled through me after finally seeing him. But fear and anxiety still persisted. I was shaking with the bottled-up emotion of it. He could still make me as giddy as a schoolgirl. He still had that power over me. I was resentful of that power. I didn't want him to hold any supernatural sovereignty over me the way he had before when I did everything he said, or wanted, without question or hesitation, I did not want it to be his puppet. But I couldn't stop the joy bubbling in my stomach and chest, threatening to spill over onto the cracked linoleum floor and engulf me from my feet upwards.

I wanted to just run to him and throw my arms around him, locking him in my embrace and make him understand that I would never ever let him go ever again. He would never be able to leave me again. I would not let him.

But if it were truly him, he would already know how I felt. Jasper would know first, he would sense every emotion, however conflicted, that flitted through my body, meaning Edward would know by association. Edward couldn't read me, but he most definitely could read Jasper. No matter what, he would know of the pleasure I had at being so near to him again, however treacherous those thoughts were to me and my frazzled emotions.

I couldn't stop myself from studying him the same way I had that first day in the cafeteria. He was identical to my memories in every way except for his… mass? It was the only word I could think of to describe it. He looked so easily touchable from this angle. He looked far less foreboding. I wanted to run the pads of my fingers along his jaw line and experience just how his skin would feel now that my body was as solidly granite as his. I felt the need to reach out, even from this distance, and touch him. I could practically feel him, every part of him; the way he would stroke my hair and hum to me as I fell asleep, the silkiness of his hair, his hard body against mine as I slept, and the soft cotton of his shirt when I clutched it and pulled him closer. And as if he had felt my eyes inspecting him, as if he had felt every single one of my memories assault him, he turned away from his silent discussion with Jasper, and turned towards me again, our eyes meeting.

His eyes locked on mine, and I was shocked. Students and faculty jumbled and blurred in groups of faceless people all around me. A jolt of the opposing forces of cold and heated electricity flickered through my body, making me weak at the knees. The earth shifted, the oceans parted, the sun blacked out, lions roared, dogs howled, horns blared, hurricanes formed, tornadoes touched down, fireworks exploded, babies were born, wedding bells chimed, heart monitors skipped back to life, and high school sweethearts were meeting for the first time as toddlers in their play-pens; and everything in that moment was perfect. Every vein inside my body, all of the long-dry highways to my heart and brain, suddenly seemed to fill again. I felt like a glass filling with water, or lungs filling with air. It was so right, and so new, and so…

Wrong.

My toes curled in anger at myself, my nails digging into my palms, and I bit onto my lower lip in a way that I hadn't in 50 years.

Only he could do this to me.

And the hallucination theory was shot to hell.

* * *

A.N.: This chapter is named for the song by Simon & Garfunkel. Every chapter will be both named after a song and have lyrics at the introduction, both of which were inspirational and somehow connected to the plot.

A 'thank-you-kindly' to my amazing beta/muse AdabellaCullen. I want to send really cool Rob/Kellan/Jackson porn to her for her amazing support of both me and this story after this chapter. She has officially reached muse/angel status. She pretty much came up with the end to this chapter, I was just the elaborator, as well as dealing with my insanity and insecurity. We had to have gone back and forth with about 12 e-mails for this chapter, and I will be eternally indebted to her. :)