Chapter 14

I took yet another deep breath. Brought my knees to my chest on the little bench and wrapped my arms around them.

It's now or never, Bella. I told myself. Either you do it now, or you leave. Immediately. If you can't do this now, you never will be able to and you will lose him on your own account. You will have no one else to blame for it, but yourself if you don't talk to him now.

I stared at my hands, which were in immense pain because of how tight I was squeezing them. I closed my eyes tight shut and went for it.

"Edward, I'm a Shape Shifter." I said faster than I had meant to in the first place, but he's a Vampire, he would hear me.

Though, I did wonder for a second because he didn't say anything. My eyes were still closed, so I couldn't see him to know if he was even still there. I strained to hear his breathing, I heard nothing.

I opened my eyes thinking that he had, in fact, left me there. But he was sitting in the same expectant position I had left him in. He hadn't moved a muscle, he just stared like he was frozen in time. It was as if he was a beautiful statue that has a sign on it 'Do Not Touch'. I wasn't able to go near him because I was afraid. What would he do, say?

He finally looked at me, his eyes were sad.

"I had suspected, this whole time, that you were something I wouldn't really like. I've never liked anything of your kind, but I cant' not like you, Bella." His voice had an odd tone, sort of sad and happy at the same time.

"So, you're in like with me?" I asked jokingly, trying to lighten the mood far from my drab one. In any second, he would realized that I was a monster to be feared and yell 'Someone find the pitchforks!' It would all fall apart soon, and I knew it.

He laughed infinitesimally, I wasn't even sure it was a laugh. He looked into my eyes. "How long have you known about me?"

"When I first saw your family at school. It was simple, my mind is trained to pick out your kind. That was part of their need for me. I found the weak ones." I was more thinking out loud than really speaking to him, but he needed to know that too.

"What do you mean? Who are 'they'?" He was confused and a little scared.

I put my head in my hands and knew I was on the verge of tears. He would surely run at this news. Why was I so stupid? Why would he need to know this? Oh, right. So he could save himself from me.

He took my wrists in his hands and pulled them away from my face. Tears were steadily streaming down my cheeks, but he looked at me lovingly. His scent filled my nosed and sent sparks all the way down to my toes.

"No!" I said as I pulled away from him and inched as far as I could on the booth. "I'm a monster! Can't you see?"

I was full on crying and didn't care now.

"Bella, you are not a monster. At least not as much as me."

"Oh, really? How could that possibly be true? I'm one of the things that make children afraid of the dark or scared to go in the woods on a full moon! I'm the farthest thing form human." I almost screamed at him.

"No you are not." he said each word slowly. "I am."

"HA!" I scoffed at him, he was shading his eyes from my true being. "You, at least, used to be human, I never will be. I've been this way my whole life, you were born human. You had a real life, a real family that you could tell things to. My only family was a pack of dumbass wolves that only used me because I'm a first! I'm a purebred, full on Shifter. I'm something to be collected, not loved or anything near that.

"My parents aren't Shifters, and I wasn't bitten. So, how could I be a Shifter? I'm an innovation, like the first of my kind hundreds of years ago. From what I know, there hasn't been a spontaneous mutation like mine since then. And the worst part is, I'll never die! I'm supposed to be here forever to create more like me. This is the worst thing that could have happened and I apologize to my mom every day for having a wretched being like me as a child. I moved in with Charlie because of it." I finally stopped speaking, I couldn't anymore. My sobs were too strong, they took over.

I heard Edward get up, but I thought he was leaving me; I cried harder. Instead, he came and sat down beside me, he wrapped his arms tightly around me like he could hold the pieces that were left of me together.

I took his scent in, it was so nice. "You smell so good, it makes me feel better. Almost." I felt his chest rise and fall as he laughed.

"I'm supposed to smell disgusting to you, aren't I?"

"Yes, and I've asked myself why you do smell so good pretty much every time I've seen you. It baffles me, your family smells like they are supposed to, but you are different."

"It's the same with me, you don't smell like a shifter and you smell better than a human."

"We are just two anomalies in this crazy world."

Someone coughed to make their presence known. I didn't have to look up to know it was the sluty waitress. I kept my face buried in Edward's chest as I said, "Check, please."

"You didn't even touch your food." Edward said.

I quickly took one bite. "That's not true."

Our waitress wasn't very pleased when she came back with the check, Edward paid in cash so we could leave faster.

"You have a nice night." the hostess said invitingly as we walked out, Edward didn't even look at her when her thanked her.

Edward led me out to his car and opened the passenger door for me and closed it softly once I was in. He walked gracefully and quickly around to the driver side.

Once he was in the car, he started the engine and turned the heater on high. It was cold that night, but not to me. I, after all, was a Shifter and didn't get very cold.

"There's no need for that." I said, turning it down.

"Oh, sorry; forgot."

I didn't know what to say. I just sat there as he pulled out into the traffic.

"You didn't answer one of my questions. You said something about you finding the weak ones and that was why 'they' needed you."

"Right… that." How to phrase the sentence where you tell someone that you've killed Vampires since you were thirteen? "Well, 'they' are the pack that I used to sort of belong to. And I meant that I… helped hunt Vampires. But, I never liked doing that. Usually, they stayed out of our town because of how big of a group we had there, but my pack made me and I was too afraid of being alone to disobey their orders. And it turns out, that having a good sense of smell and intuition was the only reason they kept me around." I was still bumbed about that.

"You used to hunt us?" He didn't look at me, just stared out the windshield at the road.

"I'm not proud of it. I've told you before that I don't like what I am and I don't like what I had to do. It's not exactly the happiest moment in my life an I'm glad to be rid of it."

"And the weak ones?"

"They had me watch them; see which was the newest or slowest or most vulnerable." I paused. I didn't like this situation, not one bit. "I separated that one from their coven as inconspicuously as was possible and the pack came in to finish the job."

"You didn't have a part in actually killing them?"

"No, I wouldn't. I refused to. I'll fight who I have to, but I won't kill; it goes against every moral I have, everything that I was raised on. I might be this monster that is a threat to all of humanity, but I won't succumb to it. I could never live with myself if I killed any person, whether it be vampire or not."

"So much alike." he mumbled to himself. He looked less angry now, but I couldn't be for sure. "You said having your abilities was the only reason they kept you around like they had let you go?"

"It sure does seem like that. I haven't had word from them since I've been here. It's like they've deserted me at the worst point in my life they possibly could have!"

"Why is it the worst?"

"I'm a teenager, Edward. It's supposed to be all parties and boys and peer pressure, not whether to eat the mountain lion or the deer for dinner tonight. You see movies about our age group and they're always like, 'What will I do if I don't get a date for prom?', I'll never have that."

"I understand, I'll never have the life my parents dreamed for me either."

"And you're what? 108 years old? How do you deal with it?"

"It's hard sometimes, I'm still getting used to the 'afterlife'. I got a whole new family, new immortal life, a new species! I had to start all over; move, leave my family, friends and future aspirations. I wanted to go to war, wanted to fall in love, start a family." he paused many times, it was like he had never talked to anyone outside of his coven about this.

"Are you saying that since you're a vampire now, you're incapable of love?" My chest felt like it had been ripped in two, I had found someone to love and he didn't, or couldn't, love me back.

"Not incapable, but undeserving."

"Why do you think that?" It was preposterous. If anyone was undeserving of love it was me! I had a hand in killing hundreds upon hundreds of vampires and ruined my family's lives.

"I've not always lived a 'vegetarian' life style. I used to think that it was okay to kill if they had done something wrong, broken a major law, killed someone."

"So you did bad to prevent bad from happening?" That didn't sound too terrible.

"In some ways, but I still murdered people. Many people actually."

"Its not like you killed the innocent, it could be much worse Edward. You could have done what I did."

"You never actually killed them." he said simply, like it made all the difference.

"No, but I hunted them, trapped them, bamboozled them. Whatever you want to call it, but I had the upper hand and used it against them. I was the reason why all of them are dead."

"They were killers, they could have gone on killing the innocent." he was trying to piece together a flimsy argument to say that I wasn't just as bad as him, if not worse.

"Isn't that the same as you?"

"My victims were human." He was trying to hide his sorrow.

"You did what you had to. I don't punish people for that, if you hadn't done something, you wouldn't be here with me. I wouldn't have a friend in the world right now."

"You have many admirers in Forks." he reminded me.

"Admirers and friends are on different sides of the spectrum. I will never be able to tell them what I am, never be able to talk freely about what I've done. That's why I decided not to leave because I need you."

He furrowed his brows. "Why would you leave?"

"I was afraid to stay, afraid I would ruin the ruse I had built. It's your scent, really. I told you that you smelt nice, but I didn't go into details. You smell amazing; amazingly delicious. I almost couldn't control myself the first day I was near enough to smell you. I was pretty close to snatching you in the hallway and killing you then. You've no idea how horrible I felt about myself and how perplexed I was about this whole situation. I'm still worried that I'll slip up and won't be able to control this inhuman urge to feed. I could easily be the monster I fear and lose everything. I could kill, with the slightest flick of my finger." I stared out the window, unable to keep talking about the phobias I had.

"So, what happened tonight?" he asked.

"You bought me dinner." I said dumbly.

"I mean before that, with the men." he clarified. It seemed like days ago that I had that encounter with the group of men.

"Oh, right. Where to start? Well, after Jessica and Angela finished shopping for their dresses we still had some extra time before our we wanted to eat so they went for a walk on the bay. I stayed behind, said I'd meet them at the restaurant, and went looking for that bookstore. Which I didn't even go very far in because it looked so crappy. Stores like that really piss me off, I mean if you want to call yourself a bookstore, at least sell other books besides ones about Wiccans and Spiritual Awareness-" he cut me off.

"Um, Bella? Getting a little off task, aren't we?"

"Sorry, but that's like my biggest pet peeve." I smiled meekly at him, he accepted my apology so I went on with my story prior to my rant. "Well, since I didn't find anything in that bookstore, I thought I might find another, so I kept walking. I was sort of daydreaming as I walked and wasn't watching where I was going. Of course, I got lost rather quickly, all the buildings around me were empty.

"I still kept going forward because I would get even more lost if I turned around. I made a few turns and came across a pub. As I approached, these four drunken men came stumbling out. They hit on me and I politely declined them."

"Politely, you say?" he asked skeptically. He knew me too well already.

"Okay, maybe I was rude and stomped on one of their feet."

"Thought so, keep going."

"After I stepped on him, I walked away and they didn't follow, or so I thought. I turned a corner and then two of them came walking behind me. They stayed maybe twenty or so feet away, so I didn't do anything, I didn't even look at them.

"I made a few more turns and there the other two were, on either side of the road; waiting. They came closer to me and so did the ones behind me. It felt more like they were herding me than following or stalking me. I decided to play it cool, but when I got in the middle of their little circle, they closed in, I was surrounded." I stopped, I could see everything that had happened in clear view, like a movie being played over and over in my head.

"Then what?" Edward prompted.

"Then one of them tried to grab me. I couldn't help but start to shift, and I tried my darnedest not to, I swear, but I grabbed the guy trying to touch me and brought him to the ground. My claws were starting to form already and he was bleeding and whimpering at my feet. I felt such a rush from it though, it makes me sick to my stomach. I broke his arm cleanly and let him fall to the ground, screaming." The movie wasn't just playing in my head, it was real life, it was happening again. But I wasn't seeing it from my point of view, I was an unspoken third party, I was a bystander. It made me think of what could happen to me if someone actually was there. Would I be found out?

"Bella?" Edward's voice was in the back of my mind, clouded from what I was seeing in my head, but it brought me out of the trance. Finish the story and it will stop, Bella.

"I told the men to leave and they ran from me. It was like every nightmare I had ever had; they ran as fast as they could and yet not fast enough. And it was all to get away form the monster that had almost killed all of them and left one of their friends broken and bleeding on the pavement, me." It had finally sunk in, I was my own night terror. I was everyone's.

"They were attacking you, what could you have done?"

"I could have handled it better, that's what I could have done. If you could read minds, why didn't you see me in their thoughts?"

"It didn't look like you, they were hysteric and drunk. When I saw you sitting on the ground, I thought the worst and figured that animal had done something to you. I was more afraid than I had been in the last ninety years."

"Well, I'm glad someone cares."

We were pulling up to my house and I had to say goodbye. I didn't want to, didn't want to forget his scent.

"Will you be at school tomorrow?" I asked hopefully.

"Alice says it will be overcast tomorrow, so yes I will."

"Good." I said as I began unbuckling my seatbelt.

"Oh, and Bella?"

"Yes?" I said, looking up. His face was inches from mine, I could smell the breath he was exhaling and was getting lightheaded.

He leaned in ever so slightly, but I gladly met him in the middle. His lips were cold and hard, but inviting. He kissed me very lightly, then pulled away.

"Sweet dreams, Bella."

I stumbled unsteadily out of his car and into my house.

"How was the shopping, Bells?" Charlie called as I started to walk up the stairs.

"Um, what?"

"The shopping, how did it go?"

"Oh, right, uh, they both got really pretty dresses. They're both really excited. I'm tired, I'm going to bed."

"Alright, night."

"Night, Dad."

I plopped down on my bed as soon as I entered my room. I couldn't believe it, Edward Cullen had kissed me. I was elated.