SHE'S GOT MY BLOOD RUNNING COLD

10. I used to just hang out with friends

The others didn't get back before I left. We'd all moved back to La Push, technically. But with Seth's imprinting and my being the Alpha our unofficial territory is VampireLand. When I got there the next morning I looked around for Avelina. Bella and Edward were on the couch watching Seth play with Nessie, Esme was in the kitchen, Carlisle and Alice were upstairs. Thankfully, Rosalie wasn't around. Not as thankfully, neither was Avelina. Edward looked up at me and pointed his thumb out back, answering my thoughts. I nodded once and headed out the back door, my plan was to keep on walking until I found her. It didn't take very long, maybe five minutes or so, before I stopped on the edge of a small clearing. The sun had made a rare appearance over Forks today, sunlight flowed through the gaps in the trees of the Cullen's forest. I stood at the edge of the brightly-lit clearing, shocked. Avelina was sitting in the middle of the clearing. Her legs were crossed, her weight braced on her hands. Her eyes were closed and she hung her head back, turning her face to the sun as her redder-than-ever curls cascaded down her back. Every inch if her white marble skin was covered with sparkling....well...sparkles, for lack of a better word. I had never actually seen a vampire in the sunlight before, I felt as though Bella may have mentioned it once but I had obviously never given it much thought. It was really...cool, for one thing. I mean, how sweet is it that sunlight can turn you into a disco ball? But it was more sophisticated than that, if I had a normal attitude I would have acknowledged how beautiful the sight of it was. But I'm me, and I shouldn't be able to take twinkling monsters seriously in that way. It was nice, though. But...there was also something about it that made my fists curl up. Something about it made me twitch and tremble and want to run away from it. It was just so... unnatural. Nothing alive that was meant to be on earth should be able to sparkle like that, it went against the laws of nature. It was so strange....so foreign...so....vampire. I remember telling Bella nearly every day that vampires were unnatural creatures, the wolf of me was born in me, I'm meant to be the way I am, I'm basically a part of nature. And nature shied away from immortals.

"Are you going to stand there all day or did you want to talk?" Avelina called out to me, her eyes still closed. I closed my eyes for a moment, repeating the line in my head a few times. Avelina, just Avelina. Her personality, her story, her smile, nothing freaky about her. I could focus on that, I could focus on the Avelina part of this vampire, I was even getting quite good at it. I opened my eyes and walked out into the clearing. I sat deliberately with my back to her and all her sparkly craziness, but I was still essentially right next to her. And I may have had this conversation back to back anyway. "I don't bite." She assured me.

"I know, you just have to understand that as a werewolf seeing this kind of stuff doesn't come easy for me. Unnatural isn't easy for me." I said.

"I respect that." Avelina said, I was glad she understood. "I'm assuming you talked to Edward?" She continued.

"Yeah, I asked him yesterday like I said."

"And you're still here, still talking to me, still willing to exist in the same world I do." She mused. I was confused.

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't I?" I asked.

"I figured you'd hate me. Taking a life, and I made it sound like I hadn't before. You should be angry with me, aren't you?"

"The last thing I feel is anger." I said seriously. Well, maybe it wasn't the last thing, but that's okay because the other stuff wouldn't be very healthy for her.

"What is it that you feel, then?" Avelina asked, trying to keep curiosity out of her voice.

"Well, first I'd say I feel sad. Depressed, actually, it was a horrible story to hear. Then I'd probably feel sorry for you, even though you probably don't want to hear that. Then I feel...well, it's hard to explain. It's kind of like... I'm so horrified that I almost want to make it up to you. I know I have nothing to do with any of this, but I want to...fix it, I guess, and make you happy again."

"Male instinct." Avelina said, I could sense her begin to smile. I smiled a little bit too. "What else do you feel?" Avelina urged.

"I feel almost proud of you for carrying on like you did. That was a while ago, and you're still here with us. Edward was rushing off to Italy when Bella died."

"Death isn't a release, though it is a reunion." Avelina breathed, she continued before I could question, "I believe in a lot of things about death, and someday I'll confirm them. But I just keep getting these feelings that the world isn't ready to let go of me yet. Even though I am a monster. I feel like I have to spend 400 years making amends, and then I may die happy. That's just a random number of course, I just felt like once I'm gone I won't be able to help down here anymore, and there were too many things that I felt I needed to do. Go on."

"And I'm very glad of that." I continued, "I'm glad you're here and then I'm grateful as well as glad that you felt I could hear that story."

"You say it as though in particular." Avelina pointed ou.

"I'm sure there's things you haven't told me." I said, "And I'm sure they're very important things too, but you don't need to tell me things. I have no right, and I'm honored that you told me anyway. In a way, I mean, because Edward told me but still..." That made Avelina chuckle quietly. "Enough with me." I said, "Tell me what you feel." I had turned throughout the conversation, I had twisted myself around so that I was look at the top of Avelina's head. With a sigh, she raised her head, her curls sliding up my arm. She turned around and laid on her stomach, propping her chin in her hands and look directly at me. I turned to a more natural position so I could look at her properly.

"I feel guilty." She said first and foremost, "Guilty for not saying something sooner. Guilty because you're right; there are other things that I haven't told you, things that may be necessary to know if we're to be friends." She paused, which was good because I needed to think a moment. She'd never called us friends before, I'd never considered us friends before. Well she knew all my secrets, even though I didn't give her permission for any of them. I knew a couple of hers, there was no keeping the fact that she was a vampire or that I was a werewolf...that was there and accepted. Plus I was sitting in a clearing with her miles away from home having a heart-to-heart with a certain sparkling someone that's supposed to be my enemy. I guess you could count that as friendship. But the kicker for me was: I didn't really care that she was a vampire. It was like she was in a completely different class than every other vampire (except most of the Cullens, anyway). Sure, I could acknowledge that's what she was but at the end of the day I still wanted to be around her. She smelled like a vampire, looked like a vampire, sparkled like a vampire, moved like a vampire, put on a show like a vampire, but she didn't really act like a vampire. And somehow my body just knew it, even when my mind didn't: not even my hands shook when I was around her. If anything, she helped my temper. When she stopped me from...approaching...Renesmee, I was so angry I should have transformed, and the touch of a vampire shouldn't have helped that since it should have made it worse. But it helped, and ultimately saved little Nessie. I nodded so that Avelina would keep talked. She smiled appreciatively before continuing, "And I want to tell you, but I'm not sure if I have it in me yet. But I promise, someday soon I'll tell you...maybe Edward can tell you part of it."

"He read that part off your mind, too?" I asked.

"He was there." Avelina replied darkly, "He saw everything, he was there the whole time." I didn't know how to reply to that.

"What else?" I asked to change the subject.

"I'm really happy that you don't hate me. Really, really happy. I appreciate that Edward told you, I can tell he really respected my privacy and only told you enough to answer your question. I feel sad too...thinking about it. I mean, that's a given but I can't get over it. Time passes and wounds heal over, they always have. But this one just scabs than reopens."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you never get over it. A lot of people don't." I said, somehow trying to make it sound encouraging.

"I respect you, Jacob. And frankly I'm a little jealous, you're so outspoken and so many people care about what you do. You make tough decisions, giving up things that you need in order to do what's right, and there is nothing that I respect more than that. Thanks for putting up with me, I know I can kind of drive people crazy." That took me back to the first day I met her, I hated her so much. That was weird and almost painful to think about now. She didn't deserve my hate, she didn't deserve anyone's hate. We sat there in silence for a long time, it's one of those experiences that seems to take hours but really only takes a couple of minutes.

"I want to know some of those things you feel you'll need to tell me." I said eventually.

"How patient." She said sarcastically. I looked at her seriously.

"Just give me one then, every now and then just give me one." She hesitated and I continued, "You know everything about me, I just want to find out more about you."

"One," Avelina sighed, "You get one question, choose it carefully." I tried to gather scattered thoughts about the clues I had picked up in the past few days about Avelina. There were so many I didn't know how I'd be able to choose just one. Eventually I settled on one I found the most curious.

"The other day you were talking to Leah about being a good sister. Which was really nice of you, by the way, she never gets that. And you mentioned that you had a little sister once, but she was sickly and died young." Avelina nodded stiffly. "What happened?" I asked. Avelina took a few deep breaths with closed eyes, when she opened them she looked at me seriously, honestly.

"She wasn't exactly sickly. My little sister, Marjorie, was about four years younger than me. But she was born with down syndrome, back then such mental disorders were shameful and frightening. For a while we kept her locked up, Mother told everyone that her baby had died. But she was alive, she was in the attic the whole time. But once, when I was twelve, a houseguest wandered too far and discovered her. Afraid and ashamed, my father threw her out to die on the street. She was eight years old. Marjorie was eight years old, she was innocent, and sweet. After becoming immortal I looked her up, too. They found her body a few weeks later, no one would take her in and she starved. She died young, alone, scared, and unloved. I loved her though, but she never knew. I snuck up to see her, I wasn't allowed up there. So I never told her how much I cared about her, and she died never knowing."

"That's horrible." I whispered.

"I know." She whispered back. Then she stood, "We'd better get back." She started to leave the clearing, but just as she reached the edge of the trees something occurred to me.

"Avelina!" I called after her. She turned to me and raised her eyebrows. "Edward told me about him. The man...but he didn't tell me his name. What was his name?" Avelina just looked at me as a smile spread across her lips.

"Sorry, Jake." She said with amusement, "You already used your one question." And she disappeared behind the trees.

Yes, this took a while but remember: The longer it takes me to write the better I feel the chapter has to be for you! I've been busy, I actually wrote this completely in school, mostly in first hour and that seemed to work pretty well! Review!