AN: Back again! So glad that so many people are continuing to enjoy this story, and I'm really sorry for breaking the new schedule right after I set it, pretty much. As I'm sure everyone can relate to, life is pretty hectic right now. In a good news, bad news situation, I've decided to take part in NaNoWriMo this year for the first time in ages, and I'm using this fic as my project. Good news - lots of progress on the story. Bad news - updates will go on pause until December while I focus on writing and put the editor brain away for a bit. I promise to be back as soon as I can and do my best to stick to a regular upload schedule; however I have to stress that this is a hobby and my work and other life commitments have to come first.

To the guest reviewer who asked how Edythe knew that Beau had learned the truth, Beau does not have the same ability as Bella in this story. His mind is as open as anyone else's, so Edythe can see his desires and Edward can read his mind. He would have heard the new knowledge and been able to let his sister know. (Alice would also have seen him plan to confront her, but of course she wouldn't see the motivations behind the conversation.)

As a note, I do respond to all reviews individually, if you would like to ask a question try to do so while logged in, then I can answer you straight away :)

Chapter 8: Confirmation

I was jittery on Monday morning, looking forward to seeing Edward, hearing everything from his perspective. The info dump from Edythe had been rattling around my brain all day Sunday while I wrote my Macbeth essay and cleaned the house. So much answered, yet so much still left to ask.

Beau noticed my preoccupation but waited until we were in the truck to comment on it. "Something exciting at school today?"

I smiled at him, feeling so much better now that we were back to having no secrets. "The Cullens will be back today, right? I have a lot of things to talk to Edward about."

My brother shook his head. "They won't be back yet, Bell. Look at the weather." He gestured out of the windshield at the sun still beaming brightly, apparently not confined to the weekend.

I frowned. "What do you mean? Clearly daylight doesn't bother them, that's a myth, right?"

"It is a myth that they get burned by the sun," he conceded. "But they can't come out in direct sunlight. It has an… interesting reaction with their skin. It would be obvious they aren't human, so they stay out of sight on sunny days."

I tilted my head to one side, curious. "What kind of reaction?"

"It's hard to describe, you kind of have to see it to understand. I'll ask Edythe if she'll show you sometime."

I nodded, then slumped a little, disappointment setting in. "So they won't be back at school until it stops being sunny? When will that be?"

"Wednesday, according to Alice."

"I'm guessing she's a little more accurate than your average weatherman," I mused.

Beau laughed. "Just a little, yeah."

I sighed heavily; two more days until I got to ask my questions. More importantly, two more days until I could see him again. I was thrown, as I had been a few times over the last few days, by how much of a priority that suddenly was to me. I had never had these kind of feelings before, and I was finding them very disconcerting. I still wasn't quite sure what name to put to them – I was hoping seeing Edward again would help me clarify that. For now, I was only helplessly in need of him.

Beau read my mood perfectly. "You've really got it bad, huh?"

"Does it get any better?" I asked

"It doesn't go away, if that's what you're asking," he said. "And you don't really get used to it either. But it gets... manageable is the best word, I think."

"That's not very reassuring," I told him honestly.

He just shrugged. "Best I've got, sorry. Welcome to being in love with an immortal."

Well that was a big word, and not one I was ready to let myself contemplate. I thought back to our conversation on Saturday, when Beau had brought up romance and my mind had instinctually rejected the idea. Not on my own account, that much I understood; I'd acknowledged my attraction, and there had to be something more to it if his being a blood-sucking creature of the night didn't make a difference to me. But there was still the matter of Edward being so much more than I was. There was absolutely no way that he could feel the same way about me – the world only had room for one impossible couple, and Beau and Edythe were already filling the quota. Abruptly, I was struck with fear; I'd been so focused on when I would get to see Edward, all the things I wanted to ask him, I'd never stopped to consider that he might not want to talk to me at all. Sure, he'd been welcoming enough last week, but I knew well how quickly his moods could change. And now that I knew the truth, would that be too much for him? Perhaps he could handle talking to me when he could drop vague hints of danger, but an open, honest conversation would overwhelm him.

Thoughts in the same vein plagued me all the way to school, and for most of the day. I couldn't even enjoy the sunshine properly, knowing that it was keeping him away. I missed Edythe at lunch, once again bombarded by Tyler. By the end of the day, I was thoroughly miserable, and Beau was visibly concerned. When we got home, the house felt strangely claustrophobic again, and with my big paper finished and most of my other homework dealt with, I decided that I could afford to take an afternoon off and get some much-needed vitamin D exposure. I grabbed an old quilt from the linen closet and my worn out collected works of Jane Austen and went out to the back yard. Picking a spot far from the reach of the trees' shadows, I laid out the quilt and settled down on my stomach, feet crossed in the air. I started flicking through the book to find the story I wanted; Pride and Prejudice was a favourite, but I'd read it recently, so I picked Sense and Sensibility first. However, I was only a few chapters in when I remembered that the male lead was called Edward, which left me hopelessly distracted and unable to focus on the plot. I tried Mansfield Park, but that featured an Edmund – far too similar. I sighed heavily and shut the book with a snap, rolling over and closing my eyes.

"Abandoning Austen? Who are you and what have you done with my sister?"

I cracked one eye open, tipping my head to see Beau approaching from the house, his own book in hand.

"Too many 'Ed' names," I admitted. "Honestly, weren't there any other options in Regency England?"

He chuckled as he settled cross-legged beside me on the quilt. "What are your feelings on Arthur's?"

He waved his book, a battered copy of The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy. I grinned and nodded. "I could go for some space travel."

As Beau started reading out loud, I closed my eyes again, focusing all my attention on the nonsensical adventures of the hapless Arthur Dent and the feeling of the sun washing over my skin. Somewhere around the introduction of two-headed airhead Zaphod and Trillian the beautiful astrophysicist, I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, Beau was shaking me awake and the light had completely changed.

"Hey, sleepy head," Beau said, holding back a smile. "Time to start making dinner, it's your turn, remember?"

I sprang up, bobbled slightly, then regained my footing. The shadows were stretching longer, just touching the edge of the blanket, and the sky was noticeably darker. Strangely, I had the weirdest feeling we were being watched by someone.

"Why didn't you wake me sooner?" I griped. "I'm not going to be ready when Charlie gets home."

"I'll help," he offered, and he did. However, we quickly found that we were not in any way compatible in the kitchen; he kept getting in my way and questioning the instructions I was giving him, and I ended up chasing him out with a wooden spoon just as Charlie pulled into the driveway. I apologised profusely to my dad for the delay, but he waved me off and went to watch the sports channel while he waited.

"Hey, Dad," Beau piped up once we were sat eating. "Our group at school are going over to Port Angeles tomorrow to do some shopping for the dance, is it okay if we go too?"

"Which friends?" Charlie asked, like he didn't already know all their names.

"Tyler, Angela, Erica, Jeremy and McKayla."

"No Logan?" I asked. The plan was news to me, but I was curious, and Beau clearly intended for us both to go.

"He's busy," Beau explained. "We'd have gone today but Jer and Kay are going on a date."

"Fine by me," Charlie said easily. "But you guys still aren't going to the dance?"

"No, Dad," we said together, then Beau continued, "The guys want some advice from the one of us who's actually managed to hold down a girlfriend for more than a week."

"And girls always like to have other girls help them pick dresses," I finished, leaving out the fact that I was far from a fashion guru and had only ever gone on that sort of trip with Renée.

Charlie shook his head at us. "I love you two, but it's still creepy when you do that."

After we'd said goodnight to Charlie and retreated to our rooms, I was just looking around, trying to decide what to do with myself, when I heard Beau thumping up the stairs. He opened my door without knocking, his eyes bright with excitement. Before I could tell him off, he'd closed the door and started talking in a hushed, hurried voice.

"So Edythe told Edward about our conversation yesterday morning, how cool you were about everything and how you wanted to talk to him, and he's kind of on the fence but she thinks you could probably convince him, he's outside right now so all you have to do is open the window and call for him."

I blinked, trying to process the rush of information. "Edward's... outside?"

"Yes!" Beau's tone rang with frustration at my slowness. "And he wants to talk to you. Well, not quite, but you could get him to talk to you. He's only going to sit in a tree watching you all night otherwise." The last sentence was said in a very pointed way and slightly louder.

"Can he hear us?" I whispered, aghast.

"Probably," Beau admitted. "And he can hear what I'm thinking anyway. So don't worry about having to yell or anything. Honestly, the open window could be enough, but an invitation will definitely seal the deal. Now, stop jabbering with me and get on with it!"

I shook my head at him. "You are the weirdest brother ever."

"But you love me!" he sang as he left my room as quickly as he had arrived.

I sat heavily on the edge of my bed, contemplating for a moment the strangeness of a brother who encouraged his sister to invite a boy into her room without their father's knowledge. In fairness to him, I had never even considered ratting him out for Edythe's apparently nightly visits. Then I had to address the current point of order – did I want to let him in? I'd been silently bemoaning the time before I could see him again, but was I actually ready, right now, to talk about everything out in the open? I tried to picture him in here, but the image wouldn't come together. How could something so extraordinary even exist in somewhere so staid and normal?

Only one way to find out.

I stood, decided but still nervous, and crossed to the window. It slid more smoothly today, which surprised me; I'd done nothing to it since Saturday and hadn't mentioned it to the boys. But it was only a momentary wonder, the thought quickly consumed by more pressing matters. I poked my head out, my eyes scanning the trees for a glimpse of white or bronze, but if he was still here he was clearly very well hidden – I could only see dark, shadowed green.

My fingers shaking where they gripped the window ledge, I cleared my throat and spoke at a normal volume. "Edward, are you there?"

I cringed slightly at how awkward I sounded and listened for a reply. There wasn't one.

I waited another moment, struggling to think of something else to say, before settling on a simple, "Come in," then ducking back inside and going to sit back on the bed. A cool breeze wafted in through the window, ruffling my hair and making me shiver. I took the blanket folded at the end of my bed and wrapped it around my shoulders. It felt weird to watch the window, but I didn't want to start doing anything else. A tense minute passed.

Then a pale hand appeared on the lip of the window. I jumped, my breath hitching, and I saw the knuckles tense and the fingers start to loosen.

"It's okay," I said hurriedly. "You just startled me. Please, stay."

The hand paused, then tensed again, and Edward pulled himself into view. He looked just as nervous as I did, with an added note of caution in his eyes. He paused, framed by my window, like something was keeping him from coming inside.

The rush of relief at seeing him again was palpable and not a little disorienting.

"Hello," I said softly, happy that at least my voice didn't shake.

"Hello," he replied, wary.

He didn't move and we stared at each other for a moment that became increasingly tense and uncomfortable. Then he sighed, turned his head over his shoulder and muttered something that I couldn't hear.

I wasn't going to let him get away with that anymore. "What was that?"

He looked back at me, slightly startled, then composed himself. "Nothing, just talking to my sister. She's... being a pain."

I smiled. "Haven't you heard? That's what sisters are for."

Finally, he smiled back, just a small curve of his lips. "I believe I have heard something of the kind. May I come in?"

"Please," I insisted, probably a bit too fervently but I couldn't bring myself to care.

It was a relatively small gap for a fairly large person to climb through, and yet he managed it with a smooth, practiced ease, not in the least bit ungainly. It seemed that one moment he was hovering outside, and the next he was stood in the open space by the window. The image I had been struggling to reconcile was complete, and it was more overwhelming than I ever could have imagined.

Edward stood perfectly still, watching me intently with butterscotch gold eyes. It was starting to make me slightly uncomfortable, both the stare and the stillness, and I had to look away.

"Will you sit down?" I asked, awkwardly patting the bed beside me and immediately thinking that might be a bad idea. He was already too much; if he got that close, I could very well explode.

"I don't think that would be wise," he said, a new note of tension in his voice.

My heart sank, but I tried not to let my disappointment show. "Why? I mean, you sit this close to me in Biology."

His face turned dark. "In Biology, there are witnesses."

I felt my heart start fluttering at that, his implications more than clear in his tone. From the look he gave me, I could tell that he could hear it too. He sighed heavily.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to frighten you. But there are things that I have to be honest about, for both our sakes, and one of those is how dangerous I am to you, more so than anyone else."

I frowned. "Will you explain that? And please, sit down somewhere, the hovering makes it worse."

He smiled, very slightly, and folded himself onto the floor where he stood so that he was sitting cross-legged instead, but still the same distance away from me. I pulled my feet up, mimicking his pose, and pulled the blanket around me a little tighter.

"That's a very big question to start with. Wouldn't you rather ease in with something simpler?"

His tone was calm and collected, but I got the distinct impression that this request was as much for his benefit as mine – he didn't want to talk about that yet.

I made a face. "I'm not sure I have any simple questions left. I could ask about the mind reading thing, but I think Edythe gave me a pretty comprehensive run-down on that. The rest are all... silly things. Or very big things."

Like 'How do you feel about me?' or 'How do I feel about you?' I wasn't sure he would be able to answer either of those.

"I want to answer silly things," he insisted. "I want to know every thought you have, every question your mind can come up with. Is there a story you've heard, perhaps, or a myth that I can confirm or deny?"

He really didn't want to talk about why he was so dangerous. I had been right before; he could do vague, but specifics bothered him for some reason, no matter what he said about wanting to be honest. Yet somehow, I couldn't help indulging him, just a little longer.

"Well, Edythe told me about the no sleeping thing, and Beau told me about the sun... sort of." I thought hard, trying to think of another vampire myth. "What are your thoughts on garlic?"

Edward smiled, and I immediately knew I would do anything to keep those smiles coming.

"Smelly, and I've no particular attraction to food in general, but it doesn't repulse me."

"Crosses and holy water?"

"One of many stories concocted to make humans think they have a fighting chance, I'm afraid. I'm actually quite religious, in a way, and Carine certainly is."

"Good to know," I said, smiling back. Then I thought of one he would really like. "Can you turn into a bat?"

I succeeded; he actually laughed, not loudly but with a genuineness that I didn't often see from him. His guard was well and truly down, if only for that one short moment. I couldn't help giggling along.

"I told you all I had were silly questions," I reminded him when we had both calmed down.

"And big ones," he pointed out, a sombre air beginning to descend.

"Yes, those too," I agreed. After a moment of hesitation, I added, "Are you ready for the one I asked earlier? Will you explain properly about being dangerous?"

Edward sighed heavily, and the urge to hug him was so strong that my hands twitched. Slowly, I reminded myself, don't spook him.

"How much did Edythe tell you about our... feeding habits?" He cringed slightly; clearly he still didn't want to talk about this.

"Not much," I said, trying to be as casual as I had been on Sunday morning. "She brought it up, surprised I didn't ask about it, I guess, but then we never really got into the details. Jules told me that you feed on animals instead of people, but the Quileutes wanted you far away from them just in case."

Edward hummed in acknowledgement. "The Quileutes have long memories. And that Jules girl is becoming something of a liability, Carine may need to speak with her mother."

I winced, hoping I hadn't just got my new friend in a lot of trouble.

"But, regardless," he went on, "she was correct. We have chosen a different path to others of our kind, but that does not make us any less dangerous. If anything, we can be more... explosive, when we do lose control."

I took that in, absorbed it while carefully controlling my expression, and asked the question he would probably be expecting. "Does that happen a lot? One of you losing control?"

He didn't seem exactly happy to be answering that question, but he was obviously prepared for it. "It depends which one of us you're talking about. For Carine, never, but she has had many years to perfect her control, her... tolerance, if you will. Jasper is the newest to this lifestyle, the least practiced, so his outbursts have been more frequent. But even for him, it's been a while."

"And the rest?"

"Once or twice, many decades ago now," he admitted begrudgingly.

"That's not so bad," I said. "I mean, I'm guessing it's a lot better than the ones who don't live like you do."

Edward was looking at me like he thought I might have a screw loose, but was either too polite or too afraid of the potential consequences to call me out. Then he pressed on.

"Of course, I'm only talking about our slip-ups, the times that we actually killed." He leaned deliberately on the last word, as if to force it to sink into my head. "That doesn't include all the many thousands of daily temptations and dozens of close calls over the years."

"Sure," I allowed, determined now to stay reasonable and calm, just to prove him wrong. "But wanting and doing are two very different things. I wanted to rear-end you the day you blocked me in so Tyler could accost me, but I didn't do it. I'd have to check with Charlie, but I'm pretty sure you can't be arrested just for wanting to crash into someone."

Finally, the serious face broke and he smiled. I felt a rush of something like accomplishment for making it happen. Both the feeling and the smile faded quickly, however, giving way to an expression of such deep melancholy that it made my heart rise into my throat.

"It's an interesting theory, but there's a little bit of a gulf between a momentary whim to damage my car and what I was considering on the day we met."

I didn't want to ask, but I had to. "Tell me?"

Edward's eyes were pained, his agony beyond obvious; I couldn't tell if it was something he couldn't control, or if he was deliberately playing it up for some reason.

"If I do..." he began slowly, unwillingly, "you must promise to send me away if it's too much. I will understand, and I won't fight you on it. As much as I don't wish for you to think badly of me, I know it is inevitable once you hear the truth."

Something about that assumption of my reaction really rubbed me the wrong way, just like his early assumptions about my family. In a split-second decision, I slid off the bed so I was also cross-legged on the floor. I was no more than a foot closer than I had been, but he still tensed. I ignored it, looking him dead in the eye now that we were on the same level.

"Tell me, and let me decide."

A weighty silence hung between us, then he sighed and nodded.

"Alright. Please, stop me if I scare you."

He waited for me to nod my agreement before he went on, then began speaking to the floor rather than looking at me. By now, he was practically radiating shame and discomfort.

"I knew you were coming, of course. Between Beau and the rest of the school, the rest of the town, I couldn't help hearing about it. The excitement over you would have been obvious to anyone. With my gift, it was almost unbearable. I had seen you from a hundred different angles before I ever saw you with my own eyes, and I'll admit, I couldn't fully understand it, all the anticipation for what appeared to be a very ordinary human girl." He glanced up, apologetic. "Sorry. I'm trying to be honest about my thoughts at the time, I don't mean to offend."

I shook my head and gave him a little smile. "Please just tell it in whatever way makes sense to you. I won't be upset or frightened."

He looked like he didn't quite believe that, but kept going. "The only thing remarkable about you, as far as I could tell, was that I couldn't hear your thoughts. That had never happened to me before, and I worried that perhaps something was wrong with me. But everyone else came through as loud and clear as ever. Only you were silent. When I realised you were in my class, I was actually glad. I hoped that if you were closer, I would be able to hear you, or I could talk to you and try to unpick some of your thoughts through your voice or on your face. But then, you walked past that accursed vent."

His expression turned angry then, a pale shade of the anger that had been in his eyes that day – I shuddered just remembering that look. This was less fury and more loathing, and I could tell instinctually that the emotion was turned inward, directed squarely at himself. I once again felt the urge to go to him, comfort him, reassure him that everything was okay. But I knew that I needed to let him speak at his own pace and in his own time; this was a painful story for him to tell, and only once it was all out in the open would he trust my reaction. Still, when a few seconds of tense silence had passed, I had to prompt him.

"You looked... very angry," I whispered, just about holding in the cringe at that understatement.

He laughed darkly, one harsh chuckle. "Yes, I suppose I was. In that moment, with your scent washing over me... I had never wanted anything in all my life as much as I wanted to taste your blood. I was thirsty that day, overdue for a hunt, but it was more than that. Everything else I had ever smelled paled in comparison to you. And I was angry, angry that you were tempting me so, angry that I couldn't have you right then and there like I wanted to. You were like... like a demon, summoned from Hell to burn me, to ruin me, to undo years of restraint in a moment of weakness."

Edward put his face in his hands, scrubbing roughly before gliding them up to knot his fingers in his hair. My hand reached out without my permission, but I caught myself and pulled it back.

"That whole hour," he continued in a low, rough voice, "I was concocting plans in my head. All the ways I could minimise the number of witnesses, minimise the noise and commotion that would be caused, while giving me as much time with you as possible. First it was the route I would take around the classroom, the time it would take to snap every neck so that none of them could raise the alarm."

Without meaning to, I shuddered as I pictured the members of my Biology class and thought of how close I had come to inadvertently being the cause of their deaths.

"Then I decided that that was too much death, too much destruction. If I was going to completely disappoint my mother, I could at least keep the extent to a minimum. I began to think about how I could get you alone, offer to show you to your next class and simply lead you off into the woods or some such scheme. And when that wasn't good enough, I started to consider following you home, catching you alone in the house before your father got back, climbing into this very room-"

He broke off, almost choking on his own awful daydreams.

"Beau..." I whispered reflexively.

Edward nodded. "Yes, he was the hiccup in that particular plan. He would know exactly what had happened, and my sister wouldn't have let me silence him. There was always a problem with every idea I came up with, and I wonder now whether it wasn't my subconscious trying to turn me away from carrying out that most heinous act. Always, too, the thought of Carine, how upset she would be, how much trouble I would cause for the others, kept me from moving forward with any of my schemes. Instead, I spent the hour planning and burning, and raced away as soon as I could. In the fresh air I could think clearly, and I knew I had to get far away if I was going to have any chance of resisting your pull. I waited for my siblings to finish school, then dropped them near home and went straight to my mother. We traded cars – she had a full tank of gas – and the next morning I was in Alaska."

That startled me a little. "That far?"

He looked almost embarrassed. "We have friends there, so that was part of it. But yes, I did feel I had to be that far away from you. Had I stayed in town a merely skipped school, there would still be too much temptation to go to your house, or to linger in the shadows, ready to pounce the moment you were alone and vulnerable."

I was trying to see things from his perspective, to put aside any horror or fear I might be feeling and truly understand. It was difficult; I still didn't fully comprehend everything he was talking about, so far removed was the story from anything I had ever experienced. I was pleased to find that I wasn't actually all that frightened. If I had known all this at the time, I might have been. But I knew him now, at least better than I had then. I felt I had a sense of who he was, deep down. More importantly, my answer to Beau's final question yesterday hadn't changed – it didn't matter. My mind wasn't changed by the sorry tale; if anything, I still felt the overwhelming urge to comfort him for what he saw as such a horrendous failing on his part.

"You came back though," I said, voice even, trying to keep only curiosity in my tone.

He looked slightly startled, then almost suspicious. "Yes, I did. I decided that I wasn't going to be beholden to my baser instincts, or to you. You were just a girl, nothing special, why should you chase me away from my family, from the place I wanted to be?" He cringed. "Just thinking about my thoughts then is uncomfortable, with how everything has changed."

That caught my attention. My heart started thumping, and I willed it to slow down before he noticed. The air suddenly felt charged with... something, something big and important and potentially life-changing.

"Changed how?" I breathed.

Edward's eyes locked onto mine, the deep gold burning with newfound intensity. It was a searching, piercing gaze, seeking understanding and answers in my eyes where my shrouded mind was closed to him.

"Aren't you afraid?" he said softly, incredulously. "Bella, I just told you that I want to kill you. Make no mistake, that urge has not gone away. Being here alone with you is the most dangerous thing I have ever done. I should leave, you should be sending me away. But you're just..."

"Waiting for an answer to my question," I finished for him. "Edward, I understand that you could hurt me if you wanted to. I understand that a part of you does want to. I swear, I'm not ignoring that, I just... I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I trust you."

He shook his head violently, standing up in one fluid movement that I would have missed if I'd happened to blink. I stood too, much less gracefully, the blanket still around my shoulders falling to floor with a soft thump. He turned to the window, but I stepped around him; he froze at my nearness, giving me the chance I needed to get between him and his escape route.

"You've had plenty of chances to play out one of your plans," I pressed on. "Weeks and weeks when you could have lured me off on my own. Last week, you could have insisted that I ditch Biology with you. Hell, when you drove me home, we were all alone in your car for what, half an hour? And no one was home, you could easily have got in. Clearly-" I gestured to the window behind me, "-scaling a building is not an issue for you. Or you could have not brought me home at all, driven out into the woods somewhere no one would ever find me, where no one could prove that you had done anything."

"Beau would know..." Edward mumbled, sounding almost weak. For once, I had the upper hand.

"Yes, because you made sure he knew who was taking you home. Sure, he could have worked it out, and maybe your family would realise, but you chose to tell them. You made sure that you could be held accountable. I bet you wouldn't have come in here if Edythe wasn't downstairs right now, probably listening to all of this. You know she can stop you if you try to do something you shouldn't."

He shook his head. "She's not fast enough for that."

I ignored him. "I think you will always make sure that there is something which you perceive is stopping you from hurting me, whether it's people around, or someone waiting for me, or someone knowing we're together. You will always set up that barrier for yourself, because as much as there is a part of you that wants to hurt me, there is also a part that doesn't want to. And right now that part is winning."

My final pronouncement seemed to hang in the air between us, settling like snow. Edward stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time. I gazed back, getting a little lost in those beautiful eyes. I could feel a bit of my strength melting – not in a bad way, just in a gooey, weak-kneed, swoony sort of way that I didn't know could happen outside of a novel. But I did see, deep in his eyes, just the smallest spark of hope. I knew he believe me yet, but he wanted to, and that was something. That was everything, because if he wanted to believe me, maybe he wanted to trust me too.

"How have things changed?" I asked again, softly, not wanting to break this quiet, soft moment.

More than once, I had answered one of his questions too readily, too truthfully, because his otherworldly gaze had discombobulated me. Now, somehow, I was apparently having the same effect on him. His voice was just as quiet as mine when he finally replied.

"When I came back, at first I was just doing damage control," he began. "I knew I hadn't presented a very good human face to you, and I had to fix that. I fed to excess the night before, trying to quench my thirst so I could focus on making sure you had no suspicions. It was kind use, I burned just as fiercely. But I could at least concentrate, I could be polite, and when we started talking... I got swept away by simply hearing about your family. I found myself analysing every minute expression on your face, hoping for some clue to the thoughts behind your words. You... fascinated me. It became more than cordiality, I really did want to know every mundane detail of your life. I still do." He gave a bashful half-smile, then went serious again. "And then, when I had barely begun to unpack all the ways you perplexed me, the chance was almost snatched away from me."

I knew what he was talking about. "The van."

He nodded. "Yes, that. You asked me why I did it, why I bothered." He said that word disdainfully, clearly not liking it. "I told you I didn't know, and that was partly true. Afterwards I came up with an excuse. If you had been hit, if your blood had spilled across that blacktop, fresh and exposed, I don't think I could have stopped myself from exposing us. But I only thought of that much later, when I knew I would have to explain myself to my family, some of whom were very unhappy with what I did do. In the moment, the only thought in my head was, 'Not her.'"

Slowly, caution tightening the sides of his eyes, Edward reached out and ran his finger down a loose-hanging strand of my hair. My breathing hitched and my heart pounded, but I held absolutely still. He twisted the end of the strand gently around his finger tip, watching it as he spoke.

"I'm not sure when it happened, but sometime in the last few months, you have become incredibly precious to me. I almost don't recognise the man I was before we met, the man who dared to think that you were ordinary." He released my hair and recaptured my eyes. "Now I see that nothing could be further from the truth."

In that moment, gazing into each other's eyes in my small, boring bedroom, I couldn't even begin to process that. About one thing, however, I was absolutely certain.

I was utterly, unequivocally, and unconditionally in love with Edward Cullen.