A/N: Your reaction upon receiving this alert: "Who the hell is LaLaLovely47, and what is Kingdom Come?" You probably forgot. It's cool. So, wow. Almost six months. All I have to say is I'm really, really, really sorry. My life has pretty much been shit lately, so I actually didn't think much about writing. I'm really sorry. Also, chapter three WAS a chapter; I didn't get a lot of reviews for it, but I deleted the author's note that was there before, so if you're a bit confused as you start to read this, it's probably because you didn't read it. I know it's been a really long time, but I love this too much to give it up (I have a lot more written then you all have seen, well over 30,000 words), so I promise I will see it through. Please, please, please review. All of my e-baked goods (or real ones, if you'd like) go out to you in apologies, and I love you all. =]

--

Chapter Three.
Strange and Beautiful.

--

I woke unrested and mentally exhausted. I briefly considered skipping school altogether, maybe even dropping out, if only to catch up on sleep. I decided that, as it was only my second day of classes, I would struggle through sleep deprivation and possible humiliation from semi-comatose collisions with various objects, if even for just another six hours. Those six, heinously torturous hours loomed ahead of me like a dark ocean waiting to swallow me up.

As I'd promised myself the day before, I would be infinitely more careful and guarded with myself today, not allowing my idiotic, flustered emotions to betray me the way they had so egregiously done before. I would close myself and lock myself up and throw away the key. My feathers were officially ruffled, and I didn't enjoy it. The only solution was clear - I would avoid Edward Masen as if my life depended on it. Edward Masen equaled plague.

I'd woken a mere eleven minutes before my alarm went off, cursing my circadian rhythm. Irrational, yes, that I believed that eleven minutes made any sort of difference in the grand scheme of tiredness, but when I'd been continuously tossing and turning to the beat of steady rain and steadily disconcerting dreams, every moment of blessed unconsciousness was to be treasured.

With a few extra minutes to spare, I made the effort to dress carefully and casually, focusing on every single snap, button, and zipper, if only to keep myself from fainting in exhaustion. I was dully pleased that it was a monotonous task to perform, because anything requiring a modicum of brain activity would be impossible for me to achieve for another hour or so, at least.

My favorite black corduroy pants were a little bit linty from being packed underneath a yellow wool sweater, and I spent an unnecessary amount of time lint rolling them from waist to hem. I pulled them on, along with a white long sleeve t-shirt and my trusty, well-worn Birkenstock slides. Warm, fuzzy socks were of course worn underneath them.

Charlie was already gone when I made it downstairs, so any mumbled and barely coherent pleasantries were saved for another day. I managed to chug down a mug full of hot tea without scalding myself before stuffing a few Clif bars and a bottle of Arizona into my backpack and departing the house, pleased that it was not raining and my jacket was only slung over my arm and not being worn and utilized.

I was still only twenty, maybe twenty five percent conscious, so I drove much more slowly than was completely necessary to abide the speed laws, and by the time I finally got to school and found a parking place, I was officially late.

My blood pressure jumped anxiously as I had to go to the front office and wait behind a long line of slackers and stoners who had also failed to make the tardy bell to sign in and retrieve a late pass. The longer I was outside of the confines of my designated classes, the higher my risk was at having to interact with the very person I was attempting to avoid. It still flustered me that I wanted or felt the need to avoid him at all, but there was nothing to be done about it. I felt conflicted, confused, and idiotic, but between that and the bubbling of...whatever it was...that I'd felt the day before - I'd take the idiocy any day.

The line whiddled slowly down, a single person every single minute. Eventually, with only two strung-out looking girls left in front of me, both with short-cropped, white hair, I felt a little more relaxed than I had fifteen minutes earlier. I'd been in one, common area of the school for an extended period of time, and had yet to have been ambushed by seeing or otherwise having to interact with Edward. Things were looking up.

But then again, I really needed to learn to shut my mouth when it was in my best interest, internally speaking or not. Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw the same shining mop of red hair that had been a recurring theme in my horrifyingly bizarre dreams last night. He was dressed, again, impeccably, in a pair of light blue jeans and a simple, yet attractive crewneck black wool sweater. I could see a shiny, silver, expensive looking watch peeking out from underneath his sleeve.

He was listening intently and nodding as an administrator gestured violently about some issue or another that was clearly irritating him. Edward was facing in my general direction, and it was only by the grace of God that I had not already been noticed, or at least by the grace of the portly man's violent anger.

I turned my body quickly away, so I could pretend that I hadn't seen him, avoid from being seen myself, and also wouldn't seem very inviting towards any sort of early-morning interaction. I couldn't rightfully remember if I'd brushed my teeth or not, and I knew for a fact that I was out of my favorite mints. But that didn't really matter since I didn't plan to be speaking to him at all.

At last! I exalted inwardly, the two washed up girls finally managing to write their names on the correct lines. I bent over the counter to scribble my own name as Ms. Cope wrote out my late pass. She quietly asked me why I was late today, and I replied without thinking, "Traffic." She raised her eyebrow and smirked, clearly not buying my obvious lie. It was an excuse born in the constantly car-congested streets of Phoenix when I was late from rushing my mother to work when she lost her own keys, and was a hard reflex to snap.

I finished writing all of my information in the sign-in book, straightened myself, and reached over to all but snatch the tiny sheet of paper from her manicured fingers. Just a few more seconds, and I would be out the door, free to walk as fast as I possibly could to my first period class. I was giving him no room to catch up to me or try and engage me in any form of conversation.

"Have a nice day, Bella!" Ms. Cope said cheerfully and loudly, and I barely suppressed the urge to reach across the counter and strangle her. My entire body froze up and my eyes widened in fright. I could feel his eyes burning into my back. I turned, unnaturally slowly, just enough to peek around the edge of my hair and see that he was, indeed, staring at me with unbridled curiosity.

A low, inaudible squeak issued from the part between my lips, and I could do nothing but dart from the stuffy office, my dignity not quite still in tact. I managed to make it halfway down the hallway and into the staircase before running into the banister, leaving what I was sure would be a beautiful purple and green bruise on my right thigh. I winced, but continued up the stairs, anxious for the sanctuary of an Edward-free English class.

It was going to be a very, very long day.

--

I always thought it was an exaggeration - a cliche, if you will, when people said that tension could be palpable enough to cut with a knife. I laughed when Dane Cook talked about licking the air and tasting the awkwardness of a situation.

Dane Cook had no idea what he was talking about.

Edward had clearly been offended by my little performance in the office that morning. Either that, or I was smelling exceptionally bad. I rubbed my nose, so I could smell the back of my hand, and caught a whiff of only my favorite lotion. I frowned - it was clearly me that he found foul, and not my scent.

As I'd walked into French, I pretended to be studying my feet very intently as I made my way to my desk, which had me unavoidably walking in the direct eyeline of Edward. I'd ignored him until I was safely in my seat, and when I did finally glance up at him, he smiled grimly, as though he didn't really mean it, and I'd barely suppressed the urge to sneer at him.

My back and forth respect for my new French teacher had faltered when she'd spontaneously decided that, with our desk partners, we would be practicing our tenses and talking about our previous weekend, as well as our plans for the following.

I'd quickly had to formulate a game plan for forced interaction with Edward, and I chose silence, with only the absolutely necessary words being spoken.

My heart was pumping stress, instead of blood, through my tangled veins. I was on the edge of my seat, not anticipating the next moment, but clutching the edge of the desk with strained fingers as I tried to toe the invisible boundary between focusing intently on my French lesson, attempting not to affront him any more than I already had, and keeping my mind squarely away from the entire situation.

I truly did not want an enemy in this school, nor did I want someone who made my heart speed up just the tiniest bit when they spoke to me. I wanted to be a good girl, serve my time in Po Dunk, USA, and then make my escape to college. That was all I wanted out of life - not even to make friends in this Godforsaken place. Goodness knows I didn't want any more connections than completely necessary to this miniature excuse for a town.

I sighed deeply, to calm myself. I pushed all thoughts of total isolation and stupid boys out of my head and focused solely on French.

"Comment alles-tu?" I asked Edward conversationally, visualizing him as an ugly, fat woman.

"Bien, et toi?" The image of warts and a moustache disappeared as his velvety, intensely masculine voice washed over me. I felt a chill roll up and down my spine at the sound of his perfect accent rolling the French words around on his tongue.

I cringed at the thought, and stared intently at the picture in our textbook of young French teenagers frolicking on a city street as we continued to practice the ancient language. My scowl became deeper and more pronounced as the conversation went on, and as every time he spoke the immaculate words, I resisted the urge to allow my eyes to roll into the back of my head.

Today, it was Edward who darted from the room at the end of class, clearly as eager as I was yesterday to depart this strange, awkward atmosphere that formerly, I only felt, but was now apparently a mutual discomfort in the air whenever we were around one another.

I frowned at myself for, so quickly, making a mess of things. He'd been genuinely trying to be my friend, and I'd briefly accepted before being rude by doing silly things like literally running away when I saw him or purposely trying to not meet his eye. He was acting perfectly normally and perfectly friendly, yet I was a blubbering fool. The term losing my mind now seemed not exhaustive enough to describe the state of my thoughts.

I spent two not-long-enough periods dreading heading to biology. Though we sat several rows apart, and despite whether or not there actually was any sort of tenseness floating around, my overactive, paranoid mind and I would inevitably explode with awkwardness.

And, like I guessed, I felt cumbersome and idiotic the entire period, feeling completely like I was being watched with a hateful stare, and every time I turned to meet his eye with a death glare of my own, he would simply be taking notes or working on the lab we had been assigned.

I was able to breathe deeply in relief when I finally made it to my car and sat in the driver's seat a moment, just smelling the already familiar aroma of leather and tobacco. I pulled out of the parking lot and drove home stunned, partly guilty and partly shocked at the events that had occurred in my day.

I drove home in a daze, no thoughts generated and nothing around me soaking into my feeble brain. I did homework in a daze; a vague notion occurred to me that everything I was doing was probably wrong. That was fine, it was early in the semester and I could make up points from a homework that might turn out to be an epic fail.

I greeted Charlie and made chili and cornbread for dinner, foggy-minded. I watched Grey's Anatomy, and even the combination of both McDreamy and McSteamy gallivanting across the screen naked (though thankfully not in the same scene) didn't shake the thick oddity hugging around my mind.

Only when I was showered and getting ready for bed did I realize what was going on around me.

I remembered, sort of, the dreams I'd had the night before. They'd been crystal clear and disconcerting earlier in the day, but as the morning and afternoon had worn on, I'd of course forgotten all details concerning them. All I recalled was Edward, fog, and a strange desperation to save him from something.

I hoped that no dreams would come to me that night, or that they'd at least be of naked McDreamy's and McSteamy's instead of Edward and fog and desperation.

I curled up in my bed, pulling my blankets up to my chin and crushing my face into my pillow. I spent the rest of my night vehemently - and successfully, thank God - willing away every inane, unfounded thought of Edward Masen in my head.

--

I took a deep, dramatic breath, trying fruitlessly to steady myself. I stood a few feet away from the door to my French class, pacing. Away from the door, towards the door, away from the door, towards the door. I'd deliberately stayed put in the cafeteria during lunch, engaging in mindless chatter about people I didn't know and gen-ed classes that I didn't take.

But now, the fear of Edward (no, no, bad Bella! You're not afraid of him, fool!) and the fear of losing a letter grade for skipping class were waging a bloody war inside my head, gore and casualties galore. The benefits of the former were insurmountable - my already wounded pride would have time to heal its deep gashes, and I would have less time around this boy who surely thought I was a lunatic. There were no pros to the latter, only an undeniably unsavory con.

I thought to myself. Indifference would work excellently in this situation. So what if he was nice to me? So what if he was rude? I'd given him the hot and cold pretty badly, it was only fair he would do the same in return, however immature it was. Now, neutrality was exactly the brand of medicine I needed.

I finally sighed, resigned. Charlie would have a stroke if he saw a C on my report card, and due to the fact that my French teacher in Phoenix had been a slightly senile, completely asinine import directly from Paris, my French skills were already lacking a little of what the Forks students weren't. Missing class was not an option, let alone getting caught in the act of it.

I walked in just as the bell rang, practically tensed on the balls of my feet. I mentally rolled my eyes - pfft. Running away. What a joke. How well that had served me before.

I expelled an enormous breath of relief when I saw the seat next to mine was empty. Yes! I triumphed inside my head. The voice in the back of my mind wondered about my plan for indifference, though I reminded it that that was simply the plan for when Edward was around.

I spent a pleasant period with my legs stretched out on the chair next to me, though Madame gave me several pointed glances telling me that she, in fact, did not appreciate my dirty, questionable looking slides on her chairs.

I conjugated verbs by myself. When it was time to do the activity, I didn't have a partner, and got to skip out of the work. My 300-word composition went unreviewed by a peer, but I could take Madame aside and ask her to give it a look over the next day before class.

As I made my way towards study hall, feeling light and relieved, I relished in the fact that I'd be able to function without a mental barrier for another day. I felt no qualms in sitting at a table in the back, several open seats surrounding me, pulling out my iPod and turning on my 'Favorites' playlist before tucking into some of the mountain of biology homework that was due eighth period. I worked for a good half-hour before I was interrupted.

I jumped nearly a foot in the air when I saw Edward walking towards me through the curtain of my hair; the brown mess of it was hanging over my left shoulder as I bent over the thick AP textbook, and though he couldn't tell that I was watching him, I was intensely scrutinizing every move he made. He paused a few feet away from where I was, an indecisive expression crossing his features, and he looked for a moment as though he was going to turn around and walk away. I cursed myself when I instinctively hoped that he wouldn't.

Only a few seconds passed, and the uncertainty was gone from his face and he strode forward, sitting heavily down in the chair just to my left. I ended the sentence I was writing, deliberately unhooked my headphones and turned off my iPod, then turned to look at him directly.

I was abruptly blown away by how astoundingly beautiful he was. I'd made an effort the day before to not gaze into his angular, perfectly proportional face any more than was absolutely necessary, and I felt suddenly not only overwhelmed by his gorgeous lips and nose and cheekbones, but by the smoldering, darkened look burning from his eyes. He seemed simultaneously anxious and furious, frustrated and unnerved by his own anger.

I'm sure I looked like a deer caught in headlights - I could feel that my face was frozen in shock, and as he absorbed my startled and nearly horrified look, his own softened measurably, until he seemed to have his emotions under control.

He turned away from me briefly, studying the grain in the heavy wood table, still not speaking. His eyes found mine again, and I had, at the very least, composed myself marginally.

"I have a question to ask you," he finally ventured, and if at all possible, I felt even more perplexed than before.

"Yeah...?" I said quietly, not trusting my voice to be reasonable. I admitted to myself that I had literally been obsessing over him for at least twenty-four hours, and I was somewhat irritated that just as I was making a concerted effort to steel myself towards him, he had to rush into my study hall all intense and weird-like. I barely kept myself from scrunching my nose in frustration as he struggled for words.

"Are..." he began, hesitating again, "Are you afraid of me?" I leaned away as though someone actually had slapped me, visibly taken aback. I was honestly expecting something more along the lines of 'Are you schizophrenic?' or 'Are you mentally challenged?'

"No," I replied immediately and honestly, "Why would I be afraid of you?" He looked as disjointed as I was for a very brief moment, and then his shoulders slumped, some unknown weight suddenly lifted off of their broad physique. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and he seemed momentarily lost within the depths of his own thoughts.

"No reason," he answered quickly. The expression on his face was unfathomable - some absurd mixture of relief and secrecy colored the arches of his eyebrows as they, too, came together in concentration. I felt the urge to reach my hand out and smooth them down, smooth over his worries, ease his problems. I berated myself internally, chewing my lip extremely violently, as if in punishment.

"I'm more afraid of myself than anything," I murmured before I could stop myself, so quietly that I hoped he wouldn't hear. It was the honest truth. I wasn't in the least bit scared of him, merely of my reactions towards him.

"What do you mean?" he inquired softly, frank interest clear and profound in his voice. I sighed at myself, shaking my head and cursing inwardly. I shouldn't answer this question. I shouldn't even be talking to him. A wry, self-hating smile curled the corners of my lips. When I finally answered him, I felt as though I had no choice in the matter - if I did have any say, I would not speak to him or think about him or dream about him at all. It was as though he were a planet and I was a little rock being helplessly pulled into his sphere of orbit.

"Are you ever..." I paused, stuttering over my words, trying to phrase the question appropriately, "Are you ever...afraid...that the smallest decision can ruin the rest of your life?" I had an innate problem of constantly fretting over the smallest things, thinking about colleges and life and choices and death. It was probably the primary reason I was so vehemently working to avoid him; the risk of allowing myself to become friends with him was too great to manage.

His answering smile was knowing and indulgent.

"All the time," he said quietly, nodding softly.

I had to turn away from him, focus my attention briefly on some unknown point outside of the window to center and bring myself back down to earth. My restraint was fading very, very quickly, and grounding myself was a sudden necessity. When reality actually began leeching onto the smeared, dream-like edges of my consciousness, I felt the acute need to bring this very strange and very intense conversation back into the light of casual banter and completely erase any inklings of familiarity or intimacy between us. I was grasping at threads here, and the smallest move on his part was going to send me spiraling down into the bottomless pit of...a crush. I mentally shuddered melodramatically at the thought.

"Sometimes I wonder," I said, glancing over at him, and he seemed totally enraptured with every word I was saying, "If I choose to wear the blue sweater instead of the green, if the world will somehow come to an end. You know, that whole Sound of Thunder thing."

He shook his head and chuckled loudly, laughing the musical laugh that I now seemed to be growing very fond of. I could feel myself hanging by the last, single, solitary thread of my self-control, spinning like a dead leaf waiting for a gentle breeze to push me from my tree.

"I doubt it," he said, the snickering causing the tenor of his voice to go up and down. He sobered almost instantaneously, eyeing the dark blue zip-up hoodie that I'd donned during French class, since the teacher insisted on leaving all of the windows open to the forty-degree breeze. It was my favorite - a pretty color somewhere between royal blue and a dark navy.

He reached out and touched the soft fabric so gently that I didn't even feel the pressure of his fingertips against the cotton arm, and then his hand was gone before I could think anything else of it.

"That color does look very nice on you," he said, almost shyly. I blushed a furious apple red, and I had to turn my head away and bury my nose in my shoulder to hide my face.

Snap. I felt the final string of my self-restriction give way under the heavy, flattering burden of his compliment. That was it. I was done for. What was I going to do now? Continue to avoid him? Drop out of school? Move out of the country? All were sounding like pleasing, easier options than the ones being presented to me. Actually becoming friends with him.

Oh, the horror.

As the bell rang, he rose swiftly from his seat and departed study hall without another word, leaving me in a wake of flustered, light-headed frustration. I stood on legs of jelly and barely managed to walk in a straight line to my next class.

That night, as I lay in bed, I realized that I couldn't avoid him anymore; I truly wanted to be friends with him, if only to get to know him better and try to understand the complexities that he presented to me. I was too intrigued by the strangeness that he was, the incomprehensible combination of friendly and deeply intense, of forthcoming and oddly mysterious. In a period of exactly thirty-six hours, I had gone from a self-assured, happily independent girl to a girl who had a crush. I gagged out loud at the thought.

I didn't have a choice. My dreams that night, the same odd, flat, fantastical and misty silver-blue forest that had been there the night before, only confirmed my suspicions. The same odd pull towards my final destination solidified the sudden fascination I felt.

Boy, was I in for it.

--

Woah! Okay, a lot has happened in this chapter, now! This was originally two chapters, but now it's just a little epic.

Rereading this, I realized the slight similarities to the imprinting scene in Breaking Dawn. I wrote this section probably in June or July, a good month and a half before Breaking Dawn came out, so obviously I had no idea that Stephenie Meyer would have something similar in that book I like to call an Epic Fail. Yes. I said it. But that's neither here nor there...

P.S. To all of my readers who have this story on favorites lists and/or story alert (and there are many of you), please, please, please take the time to review. Unsurprisingly, it's not as nice to know that you may or may not be reading - it's kind of like saying, "Well, I'll follow your story but don't think it's good enough to give you my opinion on it." I honestly want to know your thoughts, good or bad. I review 99.9 percent of what I read, and if I don't it's because I don't have an opinion on it. I hope that you all can pay me the same courteous respect, though I know I don't deserve it. I know that I didn't update for a very long time, but I was honestly working to make the story better, and now I hope I've updated with something really quality. I really hope that some of you can PLEASE FORGIVE ME and give me some feedback. Thank you so much. =]]]]]]]