Tiny flecks of burnt butter swimming in ivory milk mould themselves into the hard casing of a face, copper grass forming two bushes above a hollow cavity that fills with gold that solidifies and remains liquid with each passing second…
A face glorious and beautiful is formed; smooth almost pore- less skin, a nose straight and elegant in its masculinity and pale purplish lips capturing eyes of bashful virgins. It is his eyes she gazes into, his eyes she drowns in…
Topaz domes hold a sadness that seems ancient and beautiful; who knew despair could be so seductive and a smile so rarely given so addictive...
I should move away…
I shouldn't be watching her.
I shouldn't be in her room.
Why in the name of all that was real in this world was I here. How had I wandered from my hunting ground, my peaceful little clearing and wound up here… before her. I was supposed to go home after the phone call, after she said goodnight. My mind had tried desperately to convince some substitute for my heart of this… my mind had tried, failed and my limbs had driven through the night in a trance.
This was wrong… if I was found out… this was completely wrong.
She lay in her bed, her covers wound tightly over her body. She had left the window open and the only thing visible too me to give reality to her presence-aside from her scent and familiar heart beat-was her umber hair splayed over the covers like liquid silk tipped in golden brown.
I left without looking back, running against the night and begging unknown forces that my mind would regain control.
Xx~xx~xX
"My painting sucks…" Angela whined peering over at my own and frowning. "Don't tell me Da Vinci is a lost relative of yours…"
"No he is not" I said dryly.
Back to Pensive Model…
"I am not…" I began and then opted to huff instead.
"You are not my friend?" she asks grinning and ignoring my moodiness. "You sound like my little brother"
"I am not a brother to you"
"Okay then" she chuckles colouring in a border of one of the boards in glitter.
"Glitter…?" I say in shock. "Are you serious… glitter Angela?"
She pauses her colouring in, glitter-pen hovering over the paper and looks at me indicatively.
I like purple glitter…
"That's beside the point" I mutter too low for her to hear. "Glitter on an Elizabethan Art Project"
"I... I like purple" she said staring at the board in realisation, her thoughts noting that I was indeed concerned for the project-not mad at her.
"We can use a sort of dusty purple paint" I sighed, leaning absently on my arm, the industrial carpet of the class room tickling my skin "If you want maximum marks... you have to make it authentic"
"You talk as if this is my project and you are only tutoring me" she chuckles smiling at me-a free movement of her full matted pink lips and I feel an odd snaking feeling in my stomach. It is disrupted immediately when I hear his thoughts searching for her, and the classroom door opens…
"Angela?" Ben murmurs, closing the door behind him and taking a step forward, waving his hand cautiously at me in greeting. I nod back at him and glare at our half completed board as Angela's mind is overcome by incoherence and fluttering exclamations.
"Oh… I got lost… in time" she giggles, trying to pack her pencil case but knocking it over instead-pens rolling out in various directions. I would have stopped their escape easily but opted to prolong the moment she would leave with Ben for Mathematics, the moment she would leave me…
She scrambled on her hands and knees collecting her pens while I watched silently; Ben noting the odd way I watched her but disregarding it instantly. He stood nervously by the door, slightly irritated at Angela's clumsiness-a clumsiness he never once thought was due to his presence.
"Uh… see you late Edward" she breathed smiling quickly at me, collecting her bags and disappearing through the door in her new high from being with an oblivious Ben.
I was left alone with her purple glitter pen, forgotten beneath one of the tables.
Xx~xx~xX
"You are late" Emmett huffed. "You are never late…"
"At least now you know how I feel when you take long with Rosalie…"
"So you were late 'taking long' with whom" Emmett laughed, nudging me to forcefully and almost toppling me of my seat.
"What's that?" he asks when I place the glitter pen carefully in front of me; he tried reaching for it and then stopping when I moved it an inch away.
"A pen"
"I can see that" he says dryly. "But why is it pink"
"That Is not pink…" I murmur. "It's purple"
"Who cares" he chuckled quietly. "What I want to know is why it is glittery? Are you trying to accessorize with your skin?"
"Shut up and learn some Spanish" I huffed and opened my text book, watching our teacher battle with her own inferior Spanish.
"Glittering vampire is collecting glittering pens" he chuckled under his breath. "Oh, Jazz is going to love this one at lunch time"
Xx~xx~xX
The children love it when a teacher gets sick.
The class is devoid of any authority figure save for Leah Clearwater's timid position behind the large desk (she sat awkwardly, semi-hiding and eating her lunch early) and is filled instead with unproductive chatter and laughter of teenagers. I cannot bring myself to utter a word to her, my curiosity killing me on her standing with Ben and her ability to easily forget my still form besides her disheartening.
She is scribbling furiously in her notebook, her nose nearly touching her page and occasionally straightens up to push her glasses up. It is Lunch soon, and Angela thinks ahead-finishing up her Math homework before moving on to her Physic's work. Mike Newton waves his hand at her but she doesn't notice and I don't care enough to alert her. They know she has finished her homework, they know she has a kind heart and they think they are important because… there is no just reason to this.
A few seconds later, my personal space that consists of Angela and her strawberry shampoo is taken over by Mike, Lauren and Jessica in their quest for free homework.
"Angela…!" Jessica exclaims, startling Angela into slashing a blue line over her physics work-equations she had been struggling to complete ruined.
"Dude…we have been calling you over to our table for like… minutes" Lauren sighs rolling her eyes; as though their table was some form of sacred space. I remain quiet and unmoving, staring out the window and watching them through their own minds. I am easily forgettable like this, a statue…
Oh, my gosh… how can she even do all these confusing sums next to him…
Easily dismissible to anyone outside of Jessica and her obsessive infatuation! She immediately began turning to past forgotten fantasies… lurid and offensive…
"Won't you help me with my Math?" Jessica asks Angela while twirling her hair in my direction, casting me not so surreptitious looks and fluttering her overly done eyelashes.
"By help she means copy" Lauren scoffs, watching the back of my unmoving head in petulance. She wants me to turn and look at her, she wants me to turn and notice that she is wearing a very low v neck… Argh…
"Okay" Angela whispers, reaching down into her bag for her Mathematics book. I really shouldn't do this… it's not fare on them… I should offer to help them with their maths so they can pass their tests…
She could be cocky and snarky with a vampire but felt this overwhelming compassion for unworthy children…! I wished she would fold her arms; smirk at them as she had done with me and called them out… refused them her Math book…
"Hello Cullen" Mike said finally after minutes of angry internal ranting that I didn't pay him and his posse any notice.
I quirked my head slightly-enough that he would know I regarded him-and stiffened back to my position, shuffling my arm a little for a more human movement.
"Uh… how far are you guys with your project?" Angela asks when Mike grabs a stool and stubbornly sits on our desk, folding his arms defensively and scowling at the back of my head. She doesn't like the odd animosity reflecting of Mike, she doesn't know that Mike hates that Jessica and Lauren insisted on coming over to our desk when she would not go to theirs because of 'Cullen and his freaky paleness'…
"Not far" Lauren sighed.
"I am just going to Google the whole thing and paste it on a board" Mike said half interested "You?"
"Edwards and I…" Angela murmurs touching my bare arm with soft fingers to grab my attention, to include me in their useless human conversation and causing my whole arm to catch fire, the heat spreading to my face and from my previously scowling reflection I see wide startled golden eyes.
"Edward and I have completed the board" she says her hand leaving my burning frozen skin, disappointment tainting her thoughts that I was still 'upset that she left me to do most of the work on the board alone' and would not indulge Mike and his groupies.
"Oh… okay" Jessica says slowly and I can see from Laurens eyes, Jessica's contorted expression-her thoughts confused as to why Angela could touch me when she couldn't even speak to me. "And what of the piece of literature… you are supposed to include?"
"Argh" Angela sighs. "I don't know… we chose to do William Shakespeare but I think everyone is doing that… it will be easy because we are working on his work in English, right. Just copy from the English…"
"Isn't it strange that we have a Shakespeare test on Elizabethan times…?" Lauren asks.
"Yeah…" Mike scoffs. "I bet that stoner Art teacher of ours had a gay talk with our English teacher on how to 'pansify' our football team"
"Of topic" Lauren sighs. "What Shakespearean work are you doing… with Edward"
Oh I wish he was my partner… oh that sweater…
"We are not doing Hamlet or Macbeth" I say automatically, stopping Angela's furious mental flipping of all the pieces she knew, startling everyone on the table.
"Then…what are we doing?" Angela asked.
"Shall I compare thee… of course" I sighed, sitting straight and including them in my vision finally.
"Shall I.. What?" she asked her brow creasing in confusion.
"How can you know Macbeth, Hamlet… King Lear… and not this particular poem and call yourself a Shakespearean heart?" I laughed, watching as she pouted slightly, ignoring Jessica, Mike and Lauren's disbelieving silence at the familiarity in which I addressed Angela and Angela responded with.
"Well… I am sure you are going to tell me about this poem" she murmured shyly-embarrassed at not knowing it.
It felt like I had quenched the parching dryness in my throat when I had finally spoken to her, removed the blindness from my eyes when I had finally looked at her and released the knife in my side when I had regarded her as part of my world.
"Shall I compare thee…?" I whispered, ignoring the silent stares of the three other human children, holding her gaze desperately and calculating easily how long I would have to deliver this to her before the bell released her from my inhuman hold. It was wrong for me to upset the balance, to turn to my vampirism… it was wrong and dangerous but I wanted what Ben had got moments earlier from her. I wanted her attention… how selfish… entirely deliciously selfish she had made me…
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" I murmured, falling into her brown eyes-my own reflection smoothing over in them into a tranquil angel-demon lost and forgotten in her never ending kind heart, her vision of me in her mind solid the children diffusing around us… I was all she could see and hear. She was all I could hear, smell and see… forever.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath too short a date.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimmed
And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade when eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and gives life to thee
At first I thought it was I who had hypnotized her; it was because of me she could not look away, it was because of my callousness with my deformed nature we were staring at each other as though there was no other alternate image to gaze into…
How wrong I was.
I was the one who was hypnotized. She had compelled the vampire, she had my burnt heart pumping dead blood, and she had my mouth dry and my vision… I had gone insane, these things could not happen to a vampire. These things… were impossible.
I had no heart for my chest to be squeezing this tight, I had no sweat for my skin to feel this hot and cool simultaneaously and of spit… oh yes. I had venom…
I searched into her mind, my own mind a clouded mess of all things to do with her; olive skin, curved lips, tiny nose and dark hair…. Eyes wide and doe-like, brown and umber with golden flecks… I was drowning… I would surely die…
She blinked. I blinked. The spell was broken and the bell rang.
From their minds, I saw my form pick my bag up swiftly and escape childishly but still with a supernatural grace from under the table; unable to move near Angela. From their minds I heard the disbelief of what had just passed between Angela and I…
What had just passed?
What had I done?
What had I done to myself… I knew she was unharmed. Startled, disorientated by my concentrated presence… a presence I had wished to cause her to view me more closely… but instead it was I who had viewed her too closely. Dug a pit so deep the light was put out, thrown myself into it and now I was scrabbling to find my way out.
She had become my prison.
Xx~xx~xX
"What's wrong with you?"
"I am not in the mood Rosalie" I said with little conviction, prodding my salad half heartedly and refusing to look up at Angela's insistent questioning gazes.
She sat with Ben, opposite our table, discussing the project and discussing me.
The moment I had felt; when the earth had moved as I recited those words written decades upon centuries ago… that unrecoverable feeling that had escaped as I fell into her eyes for two minutes and sixteen seconds of wording Shakespeare, had been different for her, for myself and for Mike and his posse.
In my immortality and different perception of time, it had felt like years of watching her eyes and watching her thoughts and mind's vision form my face differently through that time. For her, it felt like something easily refutable; easily explainable to Edward's need for perfection, Edward's easy attractiveness and eloquence.
I sat in her mind like a bruised section of skin located somewhere not easily reachable and its itchiness easily forgotten for minutes at a time. She knew she shouldn't scratch it because it would hurt…
I was unattainable, she chanted. Her chanting and mantra convinced her that the moment she had seen-the things she had imagined in my eyes-were a result of spending to much time with me.
I looked up at her and she gasped.
Does he like… no never, get a hold of your self Angela. It was just poetry… you are sitting next to Ben… Sweet Ben who doesn't have mood swings and a thousand girls adoring him… just you. only you Angela, only you can see Ben's true beauty…
I couldn't help myself… all the confusion in my stomach, venomous snakes twisting hard and painfully and she sat with the adorable pimply Ben, trying to grab her infatuation back for him and couldn't stop thinking of my eyes.
I smiled at her and she dropped her plastic fork.
"What are you doing ?" Rosalie asked looking around the cafeteria for the thing that had me smiling. "You can't do your mind reading and smile at nothing!"
"Rosalie…" I sighed. "Leave me alone… please"
"Babe, he has been weird the whole day…" Emmett murmured. "Just ignore him… its nothing…"
"He is just having his period" Jasper finished, smirking at me from across the table. What's with the emotional fluctuations?
"It's nothing… just… had a funny memory" I grinned at him and he huffed, returning his attention back to a pouting Alice.
Alice.
I had to make sure she kept her concentration on Jasper… I had to be careful… no active decision the next time I spy on Angela, no-not spy-check on her. The next time I check on her…
The next time I check on her? Was it going to be a regular thing…? If Carlisle found out the 'right and wrong' speech I would receive… oh heavens… I felt uncontrolled.
Unhinged, derailed and entirely happy.
I waited for her to forget my voice, to have no recall of the words I had told her through Shakespeare; the secret I had murmured to her in front of her peers so freely and vulnerably. I waited long, I waited hard but for the remainder of the day… it was all she could think of-possibly failing her chemistry test because of it. All she could hear was my voice-unable to pay attention to Jessica's chatter at gym.
I waited but the image of my smiling face-a smile exclusively for her-kept her heart beat working over time and my own dead one squeezing at the remnants of living.
What did I want to come out of this…? What cruelty was I inflicting on her for my own personal joy and addiction? This had to end… but not just yet… just this once, I could be selfish. This moment, on this incomparable cold summer's day, I would have this.