I do not own Twilight.

"You nervous?"

I turn, stretching my arms over my knees. We've been sitting on the beach for the past hour, and the waves are making me sleepy. I smile at him. "No."

He grins and I know he knows I'm lying.

I drop my head to my knees, looking at him from the corner of my eye. "What if I forget everything? I feel like I didn't even learn anything in college." I sigh and stare up at the dark blue sky. It's just before sunset and the air is getting cold. "How am I supposed to be ready for the real world?"

Edward laughs and pulls me against him, kissing the side of my head. "You'll be fine, Bella. You're smart. You'll figure it out."

"What about you?" I ask, wanting to stray from the impending topic of starting my new job, and first real job, tomorrow in Port Angeles. Editing for a magazine. How am I supposed to edit when I can barely even remember what I learned in my last four years of English courses? "Have you started packing for Portland?"

"I'm not leaving for another three weeks." Edward picks up a stone and tosses it across the sand. I know he's still upset about leaving me. "'Sides, I gotta grab the rest of my stuff from my dad's."

I pull away from him and stare in silent horror. I hadn't known this. I thought he had all of his stuff at the apartment. "Can't Emmett do it?"

"He's done enough for me." Another rock, further this time. Angrier.

"Yeah, but he has a smaller chance of getting into a fight with your dad." He glances down at me, his green eyes almost luminescent against the orange glow from the sun over the ocean. "You just got off parole, Edward. Don't put yourself in that situation."

He looks away from me back towards the water and for a second I think he's going to ask me to drop the subject, but he doesn't. "I'm not gonna hide from my dad, Bella." He grabs another stone, holds it in a tight fist, before letting it fall back to the sand beside us.

"Can't you go when he's not home?" I ask, staring at the pebble.

I look up when he laughs, because I know he isn't amused. "When's that?"

I bite my lip. "I'm coming with you."

"Absolutely not." His answer is instantaneous.

"Charlie, then." Surely, with a man of the law, Mr. Cullen wouldn't try anything too asinine, but Edward only shakes his head.

"Why? Edward, I don't trust him." He doesn't answer this time. "Does he know you're leaving?"

He shrugs halfheartedly. I know he doesn't care about what his dad thinks, but I do. I do, because I don't want it to come back on Edward and Emmett.

"Does he know your mom came back?"

He shrugs again and I want to scream in frustration, but he continues. "I don't know. Whatever he knows is because of Emmett. You'd have to ask him."

"You think he knows about Peter?" I can't picture Emmett talking about Peter to anyone, much less his father.

"Probably not," Edward agrees. He hasn't spoken about Peter since Esme returned and left a few days later, with a promise to be back in two months. Just before the start of the new school year. I have a spike of anxiety just thinking about it; about leaving Edward, about him being in another state again...

"Do you think he'd be mad?" He makes a face and I lick my dry lips "Sorry. I'll stop talking about it."

He smiles and I'm surprised to see that it's genuine. "You can ask me anything, Bella." He sighs. "I don't know. I don't think he'll give a shit. He doesn't seem to miss his family much." He exhales a laugh and it's obvious to see that he doesn't care about anything that has to do with his dad and his dad's feelings. It's nice to see that he's let it all go; that he doesn't let his dad's problems with life take a toll on his own.

I reach up to run a hand through the hair at the back of his head. "I'm sorry," I whisper.

He shrugs. "Not your fault."

I lean forward and kiss him. He kisses me back and I have to pull away before we do something indecent on a public beach. I laugh. "Aren't you hanging out with Jas and Jake?"

He grins and presses his lips to mine once more. "Yeah, tonight. Said they wanna get me hammered now that I'm off parole."

I roll my eyes, but laugh anyway. I'm happy for him. I'm happy he has Jasper and Jake back. I'm happy Emmett's given him a place to stay for the time being. I'm happy his mom has come back. And, most of all, I'm happy we can be like this with each other. We can be how we were before we went off to college, if not better.

I just hope we can keep up with it when he leaves in a few weeks.