A/N: OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THIS?! An update!

Yes, I'm a terrible person for making you wait. Yes, I understand if you're pissed off at me. And no, I'm dying or fatally ill. I don't have the swine flu (though my friend came down with it, ahh!). Note at the bottom.

Oh, and I loved reading all your predictions about the voice Edward heard. Interesting thoughts! The correct answer did pop up, but I won't say who or how many of you got it.

On with Chapter FOURTEEN!!!

I jumped down from the tree and picked a leaf off of my sleeve.

Ah, he's one of them.

I vaguely wondered who that person was in Charlie's dream, but didn't care to find out. I needed to run around a bit; still reeling slightly from the river of emotions I felt before. I wanted to return home too. I felt like playing my piano.

Turning the corner of Bella's street, I sped off towards home.

Chapter 14: Shine - BPOV

I had strange dreams last night.

It started off normal. Well, as normal as a dream could get. I was in my kitchen, making a sandwich for Charlie, adding extra pickles, just the way he liked it. Apparently, I had a cat, though I have no idea where it came from. The cat was playing with the pickles and I was telling it to put the pickle down when it suddenly got dark outside. Confused, I stepped out in my backyard, looking up at the sky.

Suddenly, a maze surrounded me. A really big and complicated maze. It was dark and cold and I had no idea what I was doing or which direction I was supposed to go. Scared, I started walking. Just walking aimlessly through the maze. It seemed endless and I kept running into dead ends.

Then I got that eerie feeling that someone was watching me. That feeling when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and The Twilight Zone music starts playing in the background. And then you whirl around, hair flying movie-star-like…

And no one is there.

Yet you still have that feeling of someone watching.

This happened to me while I was in the dark, confusing maze. No one was there, but the creepy feeling remained.

Then I heard his voice. Edward's voice, saying my name and nothing more. But he wasn't there with me. It was sort of like the weird someone-is-watching feeling; no one there, but you could still feel it, but in this case, I didn't feel his voice. I heard it.

And then I started running and running, trying to get to Edward since I trusted him to get me out of this mess, like he had gotten me out of so many messes before. But as I ran, his voice seemed to get farther away. I ran into more dead ends than before and soon, Edward's voice was replaced by a ghostly whisper. Sounding vaguely familiar and sort of like a tired, old man.

"Isabella…"

I stopped running and looked around, even though I knew by then that no one would be there.

"Isabella…"

The dream ended abruptly as I suddenly woke up, snapping up into a sitting position, breathing heavily and with a sweaty forehead. I tried to slow down the beating of my heart and calm down my breathing as I swiped away the hair sticking to my forehead.

It was still dark out. My clock said it was only four in the morning. Sighing, I fell back onto my pillow and stared at the ceiling. The pale moonlight from my window was causing the tree outside to cast a shadow across my room.

I started getting sleepy again and my eyes started to drift close.

But then I got that feeling all over again. The feeling that someone was looking at me. Watching me.

I stared around the room, seeing no one. I cautiously turned on the light on my bedside table. My eyes immediately squinted, not used to the sudden light after sleeping in the dark for hours. I slowly rose from my bed, taking a few steps so I was standing in the middle of my room.

Doing a three-sixty, I surveyed the room, even opening my door and looking down the hallway. There was no one, but the feeling that someone was there with me never left. I was about to return to my bed when I spotted my closet.

Someone could fit in there quite easily, waiting to pop out again as soon as I returned to bed and turned out the light.

I walked slowly towards my closet, my hand reaching for the knob. My heart was beating rapidly within my chest. So what if someone was in the closet, what would I do? Scream for Charlie? Hurl a book at the intruder? Jump out the window, then after making sure both my legs were intact, run down the street?

I gripped the knob and exhaled a long, slow breath.

Be brave, Bella. Channel Inigo Montoya. He's brave. Okay, intruder. My name is Bella Swan. You trespassed in my house. Prepare to die.

I turned the doorknob and whipped the door open.

Silence. Nothing.

No one was there. Again. I was starting to see a pattern to this.

I stuck my head inside the closet and looked around, but it had nothing but my clothes and a few suitcases inside. Cue The Twilight Zone music.

Sighing, I closed the closet and went back to my bed. I crawled under the covers and turned out the light. I had to be imagining things. There was no one there, so there couldn't be any danger. It was just my overactive imagination and paranoia. I burrowed deeper into my bed as I drifted back off to sleep, trying to ignore the little nagging feeling in the back of my mind.

* * *

The next time I woke up, it was eight in the morning and it was from a much more pleasant dream. I had been frolicking through a field of daisies, wearing a yellow sundress and singing show tunes. It was strange yet I was slightly disappointed when I woke up and realized it wasn't real.

I brushed off the feeling and sat up with the whole "I hate mornings" attitude going and simply sat silently in my bed as I waited for the sleepiness to leave my head. And then I spotted it.

One of my books was lying face down on my desk. It was not there when I fell asleep last night, I was sure of it. The book was Emma and I remembered seeing it on the floor beside my bed right before I fell asleep. Nothing was supposed to be on my desk except for a few school papers and my computer.

I groaned as I realized Charlie must have moved it. Probably when he poked his head in to check on me in the mornings. I had to talk to him about that. He may have been my father, and therefore he may have parental rights, but I did not enjoy the thought of him poking around my stuff while I was sleeping.

Rolling out of bed, I slinked into the bathroom, showering and doing whatever else to wash the sleepiness away. It was Saturday. No school, no bugging Edward… just plain lazing around.

I dressed casually and went downstairs to find a note from Charlie. He went fishing with Billy Black again. You would think with how many times they go out and fish every weekend, they'd get tired of it.

I suspected I was in for a day on my own and zoomed up the stairs after eating breakfast. I would do my homework and then maybe… read. And do the laundry. I don't know. Living in a little house in a little town with nothing to entertain you was even more dull than I thought. Huh.

I was almost finished with my work when there was a knock at the door. Frowning, I went downstairs to answer it. I wasn't expecting anyone and I highly doubted there were many door-to-door salesmen in Forks.

Well, it definitely wasn't a door-to-door salesman on the other side of that door. It was Edward.

I raised my eyebrows questioningly at him. He was grinning crookedly at me. Well, he seemed to be in a good mood.

"Hey," I said, stepping aside to let him in. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged, walking inside. "I wanted to see you," he replied simply.

Okay, swoon. I already knew I was really starting to like Edward, more than I should and more than I could control. He made these weird butterflies in my stomach and I hated spending time away from him. I contained these feelings though since for now, we were just friends and besides, I doubted Edward felt the same for me.

Not to mention I wasn't completely sure of what I was feeling. It was confusing and sometimes I just liked to think that it was attraction, lust if you even want to call it that, to his looks. That guy was gorgeous and I was a single girl. Of course I would notice him. Pssh…

"Was I interrupting something?" Edward asked, seemingly unable to wipe the smile off his face. If he was going to be grinning at me all day, I'd be sort of creeped out.

"Not really," I said. "I was just going to do some chores. Laundry, I guess."

"Do you want help?"

I imagined him putting my bras and underwear, as well as Charlie's boxers, in the washing machine and shook my head. Red bloomed in my cheeks. "No, that's okay. You don't have to stay here if you don't want to. I'm not doing anything exciting, anyway. You would be bored."

He smirked. "I will most definitely not be bored, Miss Swan."

"So are you just going to stand there…?"

"You said you didn't want help. What else is there for me to do?"

So he was just going to stare at me while I worked? That would be unnerving no doubt. And creepy. Like those horror movies where the victim (usually a defenseless female. Sexist movie-makers) would be minding her own business and then she turns around and BAM! Some creepster is standing in the corner, staring at you. Maybe even holding a chainsaw, but that was only in certain situations.

Edward didn't have a chainsaw, but it would still be weird. Him watching me.

Granted, he did make conversation with me while I dumped a load of laundry into the machine.

"You look a little tired," he said. "I'm guessing you didn't sleep well last night?"

I shook my head, grimacing a little as I remembered my nightmare. And the strange feeling that someone had been watching…

"No, I had a nightmare," I said. "Made me restless."

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he asked. The offer was sweet and I knew his heart was in the right place, but I didn't want to tell him what happened in my dream. I didn't want to know what he would think of me if he knew I not only dreamed of him, but that the dream was a bad one.

"No, it's okay."

"Well, I'm willing to bet you slept better than I did," he said, smirking.

"And why is that?"

Edward grinned almost devilishly. "I don't sleep."

My head snapped in his direction, surprised. Although I really shouldn't have been since he was just full of surprises and there was still so much about him and his family I didn't know. "You don't sleep? Ever?"

He shook his head, still smiling. He seemed to like getting these surprised reactions out of me.

"So you feel perfectly awake and alert all the time? You never get tired?"

"No, I never get tired. Though sometimes I wish I could sleep. Being awake all time does become dull after a number of years. You run out of things to do during the night after a while and in my case, all my brothers and sisters are occupied with, well, each other."

"Do you ever feel lonely? Like a seventh wheel? You know, since you don't have a girlfriend or anything." I got kind of quiet as I said the last words and blushed. I turned my head away though I knew he had seen. I didn't even know why I was blushing. I had feelings for him, but I wasn't implying anything… At least I don't think I was.

When I looked back at Edward, he was smirking again, though his eyes were more intense than before. His expression was amused and even a little playful, but his eyes were serious and looked as if they were trying to convey something. I felt myself blushing a little more under his stare.

"No, I never felt lonely, but sometimes I did feel like I didn't fit in with all the happy couples. But that didn't make me want to fit in. I had no desire to find someone like 'a girlfriend or anything', as you put it."

I dropped the subject, turning back to the laundry, but it didn't escape my attention that he had said 'I had no desire…' Had. As in, past tense.

I could still feel his eyes on me as I finished up in the laundry room. He followed me as I left. Standing awkwardly in the living room, I thought, Okay, now what? I felt comfortable talking to him at school, but here? At my home where he decided to make such an unexpected visit?

"So…" I said, turning around to face Edward. "Is there anything you wanted to do?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but then something happened.

The room became noticeably brighter. But I never turned on any lights. I turned around and saw sunlight pouring through the windows. I involuntarily smiled. I loved the sun and the warmth. The bleak grayness of Forks was often heavy and this sudden burst of unexpected sunshine was a definite mood lifter. For me, anyway.

"Weird," I said. "They forecasted a small bit of sunshine for tomorrow, not today. I guess it came a little early."

I turned back to face Edward, only to find that the spot he was standing in was empty. I looked around to find him standing as far from the windows the room would allow, leaning against the opposite wall. The sunlight didn't quite reach him.

And then I remembered; vampires did something out of the ordinary in the sunlight. Edward told me they didn't burn like old vampire lore says, but that they still did something that kept them out of the public eye on a sunny day.

Was he just going to stay in the shadows until the sunlight passed?

"Edward?" I said, but he raised a hand, silently motioning for me to stop.

"Please wait for a second," he said stiffly and then reached into his pants pocket and taking out a slim silver phone. He pressed the buttons and had it up by his ear in a flash.

"Alice?" he said into the phone, turning so he wasn't facing me anymore. He said something more, but it was so fast, that it only sounded like a whisper of wind. He ran a hand through his hair and then, though he wasn't facing me, I could tell he pinched the bridge of his nose. He was frustrated. Was it really so awful if he was caught with me in the sun?

After another moment, Edward hung up and faced me again. "Sorry," he apologized. "My sister purposely decided not to tell me about the unexpected weather conditions today."

"Can't you read her mind?" I asked, genuinely confused. Couldn't he have just seen it in her head?

"When Alice doesn't want me to see something, she likes to block me out."

"How can she…?"

Edward sighed and rolled his eyes. "Usually she sings annoying songs in other languages, in her head of course, or sometimes she even likes to think about her… interesting nights with Jasper, knowing I would not want to see it." He cringed and I laughed.

"So what now?" I asked. "Are you going to show me what you do in the sunlight?" It was a bit bold, and it was clear Edward hadn't planned to show me today, but no time like the present, right? He hesitated.

"I don't really have much of a choice, do I?" he muttered to himself.

"Well, come on out," I said, as if I was trying to coax a small, shy puppy to come and play. Edward was no puppy though.

He hesitated once more before looking me square in the eye. "Don't be afraid," he said quietly, before taking a step into the light.

I gasped at what I saw, my eyes widening to take him in. He didn't burn in the light. No, he did quite the opposite; he shone. It was as if his skin had a layer of tiny diamonds, the light reflecting and bouncing off of him. It was the most unusual, yet at the same time, the most brilliant thing I had ever seen.

I took a step towards him, though he was probably expecting me to have done the opposite. Edward remained standing there, stiff. He watched me with eyes that looked almost vulnerable. As if he was waiting for me to pass judgment. Well, I guess he was.

I cocked my head to the side and circled around him, observing from all angles. He had never looked more inhuman than he did now. He had also never looked more beautiful.

I went back to standing in front of him. "Wow," I said anti-climatically.

Edward chuckled humorlessly. "You see me like this and all you can say is 'wow'?"

"Well, what do you want me to say?"

"What you really think."

"I think… you're beautiful." I paused and thought about what I just said. "Sorry if that makes you feel like a lady," I laughed.

He looked at me in disbelief. "You're not scared of me? You're not disgusted in what I am?"

I shook my head. "I already told you that I'm not scared of you." And just to lighten up the mood, I added, "You sparkle, Edward. Last time I checked, sparkling isn't very macho or frightening. I'm kind of disappointed. Why should I be scared of something that twinkles?" I snickered and the corner of his mouth twitched up.

"You really shouldn't have said that," he said in a warning tone. I immediately took a step back. He took one forward. Mischief flashed in his eyes for a split second, and faster than I could blink, he was gone.

I quickly spun around, looking for a sign of Edward, but saw nothing. I felt him there though, lurking in the shadows so I wouldn't see the light reflecting off his skin.

I didn't like being surprised. I was the type of girl who not only jumped five feet in the air when something surprising happens in a movie, but screamed too. So being in surprised in real life was no better; it was worse.

"Come on, Edward," I said, still looking around. "I promise I won't call you Glitter Boy… or Tinkerbell… Scout's honour." He still didn't come out. "Edward? I swear, if you jump out at me and –"

All of a sudden, Edward popped out of now where, growling loudly in my ear from behind me.

I jumped, screaming pretty loudly to my utter embarrassment. I heard Edward laughing and whipped around to glare at him, not amused in the slightest. Okay, so maybe I dug myself into that one for teasing him about his, uh, glittery skin, but I was still the fragile human and my nerves didn't like to be hacked at! I almost had a heart attack!

"What the hell, Edward? I think my heart stopped beating for a second there!" I said as soon as my heart started to slow down again. "It was just a little light hearted teasing. No need to scare the crap out of me." I plopped down on the couch and crossed my arms. "Ugh, bad childhood memories…"

Edward chuckled. "Sorry," he said, not sounding apologetic in the least. "I couldn't resist." I just continued to stare him down, keeping up a cold glare.

Truth was, I wasn't really that angry. Just a little annoyed. However, I was keeping up the angry charade just to see what he would do.

He continued to grin at me, in all his shining glory, for another moment. Seeing that I was not wavering, his smile faltered a bit. "Did I truly scare you? You're not really mad, are you?"

I didn't answer. This was fun.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to be truly afraid. Though you should know that you were never in any danger. You were perfectly safe." By the time he said the last line, he looked as if he was trying to convince himself more than me.

I relented and smiled at him. "I know, Edward, and I'm not really mad. I'm just playing with you."

We spent the rest of the day talking. Talking like we did in Biology class; about life, my childhood, books… just about everything. We got to know each other even more than we already did. Even with the knowledge he was a vampire, I had never felt more comfortable and relaxed just talking with someone before. And I think Edward felt the same way; never had I seen him in such high spirits before now.

The bout of sunshine didn't last long, and soon it was cloudy again. Though it wasn't raining, which was nice.

Finally, the day was entering the late afternoon and I knew Charlie would be home soon. Edward stood up to leave, looking reluctant.

"It's time for me to go," he said. "But may I see you tomorrow? I want you to come meet my family."

His family? His vampire family? Suddenly I had a flash of a haunted mansion with the Addams Family living inside, but quickly dismissed that thought; the Addams Family weren't even vampires.

"Your family?" I said, stalling. His family intimidated me to be honest. I wasn't sure if I was ready to meet all of them yet even though I've already met a couple and seen all of them minus Edward's mother. Rosalie in particular didn't look too inviting.

Edward nodded. "Please? They've all been wanting to meet you, especially Alice and my mother, Esme. It would mean a lot to them if you came. And, of course, it would mean a lot to me as well."

"What if they don't like me?" I asked, still not sure if I wanted to go yet.

"They'll all love you." Edward stared at me for a second, his eyes softening. "But if you don't feel comfortable with going yet, we don't have to."

I shook my head, deciding just to go. "No, it's okay. I'm probably bound to meet them sooner or later. Might as well make it sooner. I'd love to go, Edward, really."

He smiled. "After you meet them, I'd like to do something else, if you'd like. Just the two of us," he said.

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet. But you would you like to spend the afternoon with me?"

"Like a date?" The words were out of my mouth before I could filter them. My eyes widened as soon as they were out and I wished I could go back in time and keep them in. How embarrassing.

Edward wasn't laughing at me though. Instead, he looked contemplative. "Hmm, well I would very much like for it to be a date. Would you?"

Say what? Did he just imply that he liked me? That he wanted to date me?

I may not have been the most self confidant of people, but I knew I would be an idiot to turn this down.

"Yeah," I said quietly. He smiled brilliantly.

"Then it's a date. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning. Is nine fine with you or did you want to sleep in?"

"No, nine is fine."

"All right, Bella. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye." I watched him start to walk away when suddenly I noticed his Volvo wasn't anywhere in sight. "Wait, Edward." He turned. "Where's your car? How did you get here?"

He smirked. "I ran."

And then he was gone.

A/N: Yeah, yeah, I'm horrible. Please review :) If you wanted a meadow scene, it will be coming, but it will be different from the book. Oh, and from maybe next chapter (or the chapter after that) onwards, AVSWR will start to take a turn and will be quite different from Twilight.

I wasn't originally going to say this, but I felt I owed you a proper explanation for not updating in so long. You deserve nothing less. The thing is, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer two months ago. He received surgery but due to unexpected complications, he ended up staying in the hospital for much longer than we originally thought. He's still in there right now. He's very sick and so I've been spending time I would normally be writing, with him.

So please don't be too angry in your reviews. It's not just you guys I've been neglecting, but online life in general.

But no worries. I promise it won't take this long to update again. Things are starting to calm down at the hospital so I will have more time to write. I'm on break from school too.

Peace out.