Stephenie Meyer owns everything, and I am enchanted by her work.

Chapter Seven: Finding the Thread

I finally went back to school a week after my release from the hospital. A week after the funeral. I still didn't have the energy to drive my beast of a truck, so I had to endure a ride to school in the cruiser. Charlie offered to turn the lights on for me so I could have an "entrance" as we pulled up to the school. I smiled feebly at him, remembering that when I was four years old, I used to BEG him to run the lights when I was in the car.

I looked toward the bike rack. Alice's bike wasn't chained up there. She wouldn't be waiting by our lockers for me. I felt like I was watching myself walk into the building. I felt like someone else was moving my legs for me.

Rose was standing by her open locker. Alice's locker was there, in between mine & Rose's. The glittery silver "A" sticker was still stuck to her locker door. I wondered if all her stuff was still inside. If William hadn't been around to take her things, then I guessed Dr. Cullen and his family would have to do it. They were the closest thing to family that she'd had.

I stood staring at my locker for several moments. I could not remember my combination. Rose touched my shoulder and asked me what was wrong. I looked at her and then my hand reached out to the glittery "A" on Alice's locker. I touched it and then walked away. I had all my books in my bag already. I could try to remember the combination during English.

My senses were assaulted and overwhelmed as I walked into the English classroom with Rose, and I knew Edward was there. I felt a little dizzy as my heart rate sped up suddenly, and I practically fell into my chair. Without even looking, I knew that Edward was sitting in the back row, near the door, three seats back and two over from me. I knew because that was the only empty seat before. And now the seat on the row next to me was the only empty one. Rose sat behind Alice's empty desk, and I wondered how she could stand to stare at the constant reminder.

I floated through the day until lunch. Rose and I sat together quietly, neither of us eating. We both laughed when Rose broke the silence, "Remember when she got pissed off at Jessica and flicked a sporkful of mashed potatoes right at her head?"

"Oh God!" I giggled, "And Jess reached up into her hair and pulled it out like it was a dead bug or something, and Alice didn't miss a beat. She just kept telling us under her breath about Jess blocking her locker for the fifteenth time in the girl's changing room while Jess scoured the room for the culprit!" Hysteria was quickly coming over both of us.

We were exchanging these little stories and laughing when Jazz and Angela joined us at the table. Others migrated toward us one by one, our stories acting as a siren song to anyone who missed Alice. I was comforted by the presence of these people who remembered her. Alice had liked them all, and they all missed her in their own ways. They each had stories to add to ours. By the end of lunch, I felt exhausted from thinking about her and weary from the hysteria, but also lighter. I felt like some of the fog had lifted away from my heart.

We all had to race to our next classes because we had lingered as long as we could, stubbornly hanging on to the threads of comfort we had pulled out of our memories of Alice.

When I jogged into the biology room, my elbow caught the door handle and I dropped my books just inside the threshold. The teacher stared at me because the bell had already sounded the beginning of class, so I scrambled to gather all my stuff into my arms and scamper into my chair. That's when I noticed that Alice's seat wasn't empty. Instead, sitting next to me was Edward.

I felt like I had been struck by a bolt of lightening because seeing him and smelling him this close, simultaneously, was so utterly overwhelming to all of my senses. He smelled more desirable than ever, and I my head reeled as though I were utterly intoxicated by his presence. And he LOOKED so much more incredible and perfect up close than he had when he was standing across from me at Alice's grave.

I forgot to open my notebook and listen to the lecture. I was fixated on Edward. His skin was flawless, if pale. His hair was lush, if messy- the messiness only made it more luscious. His eyes were smoldering despite the unusually light hue of the brown. Had I thought they looked like honey before? Now they looked like two perfect butterscotch candies mounted under a deeply brooding brow.

Yes, he was brooding. Scowling even. He had locked eyes with me at first but then shifted his gaze to the front of the room, with difficulty it seemed. Then again, it was so difficult for me to look away from him that I just stared.

He was godlike in his perfection. His beauty was powerful, fascinating, frightening, and unfathomable.

I don't know how long I stared at him that day. I kept taking deep breaths of him, and occasionally it seemed as though he were watching me intently from his periphery. I didn't see any movement from him after he turned his face away though. In fact, I could swear once again that he wasn't even breathing. He wasn't taking notes on the lecture either. He sat with his fists clenched at his sides, the tendons in his forearms as taught and pronounced just under his skin as steel cables pulled under a sheet of finely woven silk. I could practically see the fibers of his muscles straining under his perfect, smooth flesh. I wanted more than anything to reach out and touch him, but I just sat there, gazing drunkenly at him, ogling him blatantly while my head swam with a thick fog. And he just sat there, his entire body carved into a perfect vision of angry beauty.

When the bell rang, he was gone. Just gone. He got up and left so quickly that it was almost unnatural. Almost as unnatural as his beauty.

The entire first week back at school passed this way. I stared at Edward, and he hated me silently. Looking back on it, I guess my teachers ignored my bizarre behavior and inattention because they chalked it up to grief. And I was too perpetually stunned by Edward to realize that anyone else might notice my behavior at all. No one said anything to me, and eventually I was able to stare less and less. I was able to concentrate on the teachers for short periods of time before lapsing into an Edward-induced daze.

And I noticed that as the days wore on that though his face maintained the sharp edge of furious loathing, he sat slightly less stiffly, walked slightly less quickly, and remained slightly less silent.

The first time I heard his voice, I thought I was daydreaming. He had been called on in class to answer a question, and I was paying vague attention to the teacher rather than staring at Edward at that moment, so when I heard his voice, at first I didn't realize the sound had come from him. It was dulcet and low and resonant and whispery and smooth with a dark edge to it. It was molten chocolate and velvet on fire. After he spoke, I turned my head slowly toward him because before my brain had figured out that it was his voice, my instincts KNEW it was his voice.

That day he smiled at me. Sort of. Half of his mouth curved up as he looked at me, and I felt my mouth instantly water as I watched his beautiful lips curl. I wanted to lick them. Instead, I just stared at him like a big goggly fish. I swear he chuckled slightly under his breath as he turned his face back to the front of the room. He did still seem to be scowling, but at the same time, he was more of a man and less cold, hard, stone.

I found myself thinking about Edward morning, noon, and night. I knew it was fast becoming an insane obsession. I hadn't even spoken a word to him yet. But still, I was fascinated by him. When he wasn't near me, I would inhale deeply against whatever I had worn to class that day, trying to pick up a hint of his scent. I would replay his every movement in my head like scenes of a movie on repeat. I wanted to know why he hated me.

After a while, I came to the conclusion that he blamed me for Alice's death.

If she hadn't been visiting me at the hospital, William wouldn't have been driving her home in that storm. I knew there was no blood relation, but Alice was practically a daughter to William, who was a cousin (or something) to Dr. Cullen, who was married to Edward's sister. Tenuous. Six degrees of separation. But still, family is family.

The only time I didn't think about him was when I was in the supermarket.

I found myself picking up Alice's former habit of hitting the store after the evening rush when the guys were stocking the shelves. I don't think I did it on purpose, but I did have Jazz's schedule memorized because of Alice. One night in the middle of November I was actively ignoring the cartoon turkeys with word bubbles coming out of their cheerful beaks trying to entice me to eat them, and I found myself on an aisle I had tended to avoid ever since I had been back on my feet.

It was surreal the way the Raisin Bran boxes sort of swirled around on the shelf as I stared at them. They went fuzzy, and then my face felt wet.

"Hey," A low voice crooned soothingly behind me. "Hey, Bella. It's okay. It's okay." Warm arms surrounded me, and I wept.

Jazz breathed into my hair as he held me and I cried freely for the first time in weeks. I don't know how long we stood there, but I do remember the calming sound of his voice, and the way he stroked my hair until tranquility surrounded me.

Eventually, I sniffed and wiped my eyes with a wry, embarrassed smile. He returned the smile in a bracing, reassuring way and handed me a wad of paper towels from the basket he was pushing around to restock the shelves.

"I miss her, too."

"Oh, Jazz," I sighed and squeezed his arm as I looked around to make sure I had successfully shaken off the disorienting dizziness. "She was really in love with you, you know."

I honestly don't know what possessed me to blurt that out, and for a moment the words hung on the air around us while the crappy speakers blared out a bad power ballad. Jazz stared into my eyes and then slowly stepped toward me again and wrapped his arms around me in a bone-crushing embrace. At first I didn't know what to do with my arms. I wasn't sure if he was coming on to me or if he was overcome. Then I felt his chest heave and heard his breath lurch out his lungs unevenly, and it was my turn to do the comforting.

I pressed my cheek to his chest and stared around his shoulder and held him while he used me as a temporary refuge from his pain. His voice gurgled up from his chest once or twice as he mourned for the girl he hadn't even realized he had loved.

My own breath hitched when I saw two golden eyes staring at me through the huge plate glass window at the front of the building. The exterior lights illuminated Edward's lustrous hair like a halo around his beatific face. Tiny droplets bounced off of his shoulders and cheeks as he stared back at me with a tense set to his jaw and a crease in his perfect forehead. As Jazz released me, I lost the connection with Edward's gaze, and when I looked back to the window, all I saw were two red dots as the tail lights of his Volvo slipped stealthily out of the parking lot.