"What do you want to talk about?"
"How long have you been able to teleport?"
"My dad says the first time I did it I was two. He and Mom got into an argument and I just vanished. They started searching the house, thinking I couldn't have gone too far. They searched the whole house from top to bottom, getting more worried all the time. They finally found me in my room, sitting in my crib with my stuffed animals and tears in my eyes."
"Do you like the ability?"
"Sometimes. It's not an easy thing to be able to do something like this and yet know that if you use your power you could end up dead or seeing someone else die. I saved three children shortly before I came here. It wasn't a hard decision to make, saving them. I just had to decide if it was worth the problems it could cause doing it. I mean really, I could get killed for using my power in public. I made sure that no one else saw me do it. I managed to get the kids out of a burning building and laid out in the backyard without anyone seeing me. For three days afterward, though, I looked over my shoulder, scared to death that someone had seen me."
"How do you manage to keep from using the power on a regular basis? I know that sometimes it gets hard to run at human speed instead of vampire speed."
"I just remind myself of the riots I've seen on TV because of mutants that use their powers in full view of the normal people. Most normal people don't want to deal with mutant powers just because it's something different from what they've always known. But at the same time, powers like mine are frightening to them. I mean, would you want someone around that could teleport right into a place, as long as they've already seen it, and then back out?"
"But I do know someone like that. And I kind of like having her around." He smiled at her, brushing the hair back from her face. "Why are people so frightened of what's different?"
"Because they're raised with a certain comfort zone. Think about it. You had a comfort zone before I came along. But what was the deal with the first day I met you? You looked like you'd smelled something absolutely disgusting when I sat down next to you."
"Quite the contrary, Bella. I smelled something so delicious that I wanted to drain your blood right there in the classroom. I would have killed everyone in the room in order to do just that. I was actually thinking about how to kill everyone the quickest in order to not raise an alarm before I could get to you." He chuckled. "And now I find out that the carnage I was contemplating might have been a little pointless. You could have escaped me easily enough."
She smiled at him. "I don't know if I should be glad that it took you so long to figure out the best way to kill a whole classroom of people or frightened of you."
"I'm glad. Because it gave me time to get away and think about what I was about to do. Alice told me several times that killing you would kill your dad. I realize now just how right she was."
"My dad loves me. He just couldn't deal with my power. That's why he didn't fight to keep me when he and Mom divorced." She bowed her head. "Although there was a time when I thought it was just that he didn't love me."
"How could you think that, Bella? He let you spend summers with him and some holidays didn't he?"
"Yeah. But that just isn't the same as living with someone full-time. I love my mom but she's more than a bit scatter-brained. I have to be the adult there and when I'm with Charlie that tends to carry over because I don't know how to be anything else."
"But your mom has Phil now."
"And he makes sure that she doesn't do anything dangerous but he doesn't make her think about what needs to be done like paying the bills or the fact that she needs to eat three times a day. He just pays the bills himself and put food in front of her. Sometimes I think he likes taking care of her more than he lets on."
"It's possible. But as long as she's happy …"
"And she is. I'm just not so sure I am." Seeing the look on his face, she continued. "I like most of the people here. In fact there's one in particular that I think I might like more than is good for me." She smiled at him. "But I've been taking care of my mother for so long, that it kind of feels like a part of me is missing when I'm here. Grandmother always says that even though Mom is her one 'normal' child, she does have a special ability. She sees everything so simply that she looks past all the trimmings and straight to the heart of a matter."
"That's not such a bad thing." Edward was enjoying playing with her hair. Bella was starting to notice that she could hear some of his thoughts. 'I hate seeing the sadness in her eyes. I want to see her smile more often. She's so beautiful and even more so when she smiles.'
"I'm not you know."
"Not what?" Edward was confused.
"Not beautiful. I'm not beautiful. Rosalie's beautiful. Gorgeous even. Alice is cute. I'm just plain old Bella."
"First of all, I didn't SAY you were beautiful. I thought it."
"Sorry. One of my powers is that, when I'm around someone with a power, as long as they're within twenty feet of me, I can use their power. If I'm around them long enough, it sticks around after they leave. And we think that if I'm around someone for the right length of time, the power becomes a permanent part of me."
"Interesting. We might have to test that theory. Anyway, Rose maybe beautiful but she's a blond and I prefer brunettes. And Alice is cute. But she's my little sister. I can't possibly look at her like that. Even if I did, Jasper would probably kill me. He's very protective." He hooked one finger under her chin and pulled her head up to look in his eyes. "And you are not plain old anything. Bella means beautiful in Italian and it describes you to a tee." He leaned in slowly. Bella leaned toward him and their lips met in a gentle kiss.