Disclaimer: Anything recognizable is not mine.

My dream was odd. It was more like a vision than anything else. I was in a room that was pretty small; the walls were white with one wall replaced by a large window, and the only other thing in it, besides me, was a table—long enough for a human body—that was cushioned on the top and a mirror. And in the mirror, was an image of me. I say an image, because it looked like me, but it didn't.

My skin was so much paler than normal. It had virtually no color. My hair was longer than I remembered it being, down to right below my butt, and was much glossier and thicker. My cheek bones were a small bit higher, my chin a bit more pointed, my nose a little straighter, and my lips were perfectly full and a perfect shade of rose pink. And my eyes…

I gasped.

My eyes, which had originally been a deep blue, were now a bright scarlet red.

I looked away from the mirror, toward the ground, and listened to my own body. I wasn't breathing. There was no heartbeat.

I was…a vampire?

Before I could think for too much longer, two arms wrapped around my waist, and I was encompassed in a feeling of safety and warmth at the feeling of the body settling in around me. My eyes shut for a moment and a small breath came out of my mouth at the feeling. I felt a chin drop on my head, and then that disappeared and I felt a nose on my exposed throat instead. I opened my eyes to look at the arms wrapped around me. They were obviously male, with the muscle corded around the forearms. Their skin was the same shade of ivory as mine, so he was a vampire. And then I noticed the imprints in their skin that were intertwined with each other. Teeth marks. My fingers came up to trace them for a moment before I turned to look at the head on my shoulder.

That was when I woke up. Every. Single. Time.

The dream followed me at night for the next month following the accident. I was able to get my boot off after only a month—thank God I was a fast healer—and was currently in physical therapy for a while.

Bella and I had been the center of attention for the first week after the accident, which was something we both hated. Tyler Crowley kept following us around, and, if we weren't together, he would alternate who he was bothering. Mike and Eric hated it as much as we did, and were pretty obvious about their dislike of Tyler's attention on us; however, Tyler wouldn't take the hint from any of us, and I was doing my best not to just turn around and deck him and tell him we were even to get him away from me.

At home, Bella had pestered me about where Jasper and Edward had been standing during the accident, and I was vehement in telling her that Jasper had been on his way over to me and was close enough to help. I didn't know where Edward was at the time, but he was probably coming over to talk to her or something. Eventually, she got frustrated over my repeated answer and gave up on asking, though I think she was still watching me to see if I'd slip in my lies for whatever reason.

Bella had also been incredibly tense lately because Edward had been avoiding her hard core since she has tried to interrogate him at the hospital. She was getting to that weird mopey-anxious-depressed-but-trying-not-to-seem-like-it-and-failing-miserably thing she had going on for the week that Edward left.

I was so tired of it that after the fourth week, I marched into art and right up to Emmett and said, "Could you please tell your brother to get his head out of his ass before I either kill myself or bring a baseball bat to school for his car?"

"Jasper?" Emmett asked, cocking his head to the side.

After I had sat down in my chair and stowed my bag underneath the table, I turned to Emmett with a deadpanned look and said, "Emmett, why would I be mad at Jasper? And he doesn't even bring his car to school, so why would I bring a baseball bat for it?"

"I don't know," Emmett said, looking confused and a little sheepish.

I slammed my head down onto the desk in front of me. He may be a vampire, but sometimes he wasn't very smart. "No, Emmett. I meant Edward."

"Ah," he said, nodding his head. "Bella getting bad again?" He remembered how I was last time she was like this.

"You have no idea," I said, some of my words warped by the desk. "Mom keeps calling me and asking if I'm sure Bella is all right and that I should call more and that if we ever get homesick, we can come home whenever because for some reason she thinks that's the real reason that Bella can't get her shit together."

Emmett's large hand patted my back gently, the coldness seeping into my skin. The one thing I did notice was that I really didn't mind or notice the iciness of their skin when they touched me. Weird right? "It'll get better."

I snorted into the desk. "Yeah. Once Edward finds the stick he lost up his butthole four weeks ago at the hospital."

Emmett snorted a chuckle and was about to respond until Ms. Julian walked in and began lecturing us on warm and cool colors. So that conversation was over.

Chemistry was interesting that day. Especially when one kid accidentally tried to mix some sodium and water together and explode the classroom. Luckily, Mr. Ardin caught him before they could touch, and saved us all. Apparently that kid couldn't read the label on the bottle. Dumbass.

Lunch was awkward. Bella told me how Jessica had called and asked her if she was planning on asking Mike to the dance that was coming up. Apparently Mike had rejected Jessica in some sort of way, because Jessica was sulking and trying to sit as far away from Mike as possible. And she pretty much refused to talk to Bella or me. Bella I understood, since Mike was standing her up for Bella, but what had I done? I was my usual, extremely fascinating and bubbly self. Maybe I should tell her it's rude to ignore others just because they are related to someone else they are mad at.

After lunch, my life became a little more awkward when Tyler cornered me at my locker. As I was getting my books out for my next class, Tyler came up behind me and put both hands on either side of my body against the lockers, effectively caging me in. I turned around in the small space, looking up at him in confusion. When he didn't say anything for a few seconds, I pushed my back up against my locker so I was as far as I could get away from him and asked, "Can I help you with something?"

"You could go to the dance with me," he said, flashing what I'm sure he thought was a charming smile. Too bad he reminded me of a monkey.

"Uh, hell no," I said, looking around him for ways to escape from his ass. The kid was persistent as hell, and I probably wouldn't be able to leave anytime soon unless I punched him in the face to distract him. Or kicked him in the balls. Heehee. I should do that.

Tyler frowned. "Why not?"

Oh, shit. I didn't think of an excuse in advance for this. I stared at him for a moment, chewing on my lip as I tried to think of a good reason. While I usually would just tell the boy to fuck off because I didn't like him, I was trying to be polite about it so he wouldn't get his panties in a twist. I knew he was trying to make up for the van thing again, and if I rejected him without a good reason, he'd just try to convince me for the next week and a half to go with him. Come on. Think. What would Bella do? What would Bella do?

Oh, yeah! In the book, Bella said she was…

"She'll be with me that weekend," a gruff yet smooth voice answered for me. Jasper. My savior. I nearly sighed in relief when I heard his voice. I looked over at him with a soft smile on my face. He, however, was busy staring at Tyler with one of the most serious faces I'd ever seen on him. And his eyes were almost pitch black. Uh oh. He's pissed.

Tyler looked down to me and asked, "Is this true?"

I glanced over at Jasper, who met my eyes for a split second, before looking back up at Tyler. Thinking on the fly, I chirped, "Yep. We were planning on going to Seattle and checking out the new ice skating rink up there."

Did Seattle even have an ice skating rink? Oh, well. Hope Tyler doesn't notice.

I saw Tyler run his eyes slowly over my body, and I thought for a second that I could feel the air vibrate. Tyler then met my eyes and slowly dropped his arms, backing a couple steps away from me. Looking between Jasper and me, he shrugged and said, "All right. If you're sure. I'll try Bella later."

And with that, he walked away. I let out a breath of relief. I most definitely never want anyone to cage me in like that ever again. That was awful.

A cold hand grasped mine and began tugging me in a quick pace toward class.

"Are you all right?" Jasper asked, meeting my eyes with his now dark browns.

"Yeah, Soldier Boy," I laughed out nervously, looking at the ground. "I'm good." I don't think I'd ever felt that helpless in my life, and nothing had even happened. Maybe I'm developing claustrophobia?

We walked in silence through the sprinkling rain. It was a little more awkward than usual, and I hated it. We got to the classroom and took our seats right before the bell rang thanks to the brisk pace that Jasper had been pulling me at. Trying to cut the awkwardness, I looked at Jasper and asked, "So…does Seattle actually have an ice skating rink?"

Jasper raised an eyebrow, giving me an odd look. He was obviously amused when he asked me, "You didn't know whether or not Seattle actually had a skating rink when you said that?"

"No…" I said slowly, my face sheepish. What? How am I expected to know everything that Seattle has? I haven't been in Washington for months. "But they do, right?"

Jasper shook his head at me, chuckling a little bit, "Yes. They built one about four months ago in the mall."

"Oh, my god! Seriously? Can we really go? I've always wanted to try ice skating!" I said excitedly, bouncing up and down in my seat. Phoenix didn't have any place to go ice skating, but I used to watch it on TV all the time and since then I'd wanted to try it.

Jasper shook his head, his hair waving back and forth in front of his face, and said, "Sure, Seri. We can go sometime."

"Yay!" I said, sounding vaguely like a little kid whose parent had told them they were going to buy them their favorite ice cream on a hot day. Two scoops.

And just like that, the awkwardness was gone, and I had some nice plans to look forward to in the near future.

After we said our goodbyes after class, I met up with Bella, who was walking without the golden retriever that is Mike, which was unusual. When I questioned her on it, she told me, "He asked me to that dance that's coming up."

"Ah," I said. "And you rejected him. Because he's annoying and you don't want to cause fourteen people to go to the hospital that night with your bone-breaking dance skills."

Bella gave me a slight glare and said, "He's not that annoying."

I snorted at that, then laughed internally. Ha ha. She didn't even try to redeem her dance skills. That's how you know it's bad.

"Tyler cornered me after lunch and asked me," I told her. Then, before she could ask any questions, I asked, "So, what was with the pensive look on your face that you had before I got here?"

Damn. I shouldn't have asked. For the rest of the time that we walked to the gym, got dressed, and got onto the basketball court that was set up, I had to listen to Bella rant about Edward. Apparently, he'd finally talked to her today—maybe Emmett had actually said something like I'd asked him to—and he was being cryptic with her. He was still being an ass, but at least he was talking to her. And the ranting anger was a step up from the annoying sulkiness of him ignoring her, so I'd take it for now.

As we walked back to our cars, I noticed a dark figure leaning against my truck. What the fuck? It had better not be Tyler….

Nope. Just Eric, I realized as I got closer. I smiled at him as I opened the driver's side door of the truck and threw my bag inside. "Hey, Eric. What's up?"

He smiled back, looking a little nervous. He shoved his hand in his pockets and looked at the ground, shuffling his feet every once in a while. Finally, he looked back up at me and said, "Uh, I was just wondering if…um…you would consider…going to the dance with me?"

I raised my eyebrows at him. I actually did like Eric as a friend, a lot more than I did Tyler, but I wasn't expecting this. I kind of felt bad for having to let him down.

"Sorry, Eric, but I was planning on going to Seattle that day," I told him apologetically.

He looked back at the ground. "Yeah, that's what Tyler said, but I thought maybe you were just trying to get him away from you. I know he's been annoying you."

This is true. I had, at one point, ranted to Eric about how Tyler followed Bella and me around all the time.

"Yeah…" I said sheepishly. "But I really am planning on going to Seattle that day. Sorry."

"It's okay," he said, smiling sadly at me. "Maybe next time, right?"

"Yeah…maybe," I said, and with that, he turned to walk away. Or maybe not. I didn't really like Eric in that way at all, but he was a nice boy. I felt bad for having to turn him down.

With a sad sigh, I climbed up into my truck and turned it on. I ended up right behind Bella, and almost died laughing when Tyler Crowley showed up at Bella's passenger side window. I knew he was asking her about the dance, and that she was rejecting him. I also knew that Edward had stopped on purpose so that Tyler could do it. As much as Edward was annoying me at the moment, that was pretty funny to me. Nice one.

I watched as Alice, Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper all walked up to Edward's Volvo in front of Bella's truck and hopped in before Edward sped away.

Once Bella and I had gotten home, I decided to help Bella with dinner, which turned out to be chicken enchiladas. She ranted about Edward some more to me and we talked about our upcoming plans to go to Seattle on the Saturday of the dance. She was a bit surprised when I told her that I had decided to go to Seattle too, but she brushed it off as a twin thing. I didn't tell her about Jasper coming, because then a whole new conversation would be started up and I didn't want to go into that.

As we were cooking, the phone rang. Bella answered, and took a couple minutes to talk to whoever was on the line. After she hung up, she informed me that it had been Jessica telling her that Mike had accepted her invitation to the dance. Thank God. That was meant that Jessica was going to go back to being the happy-go-lucky gossip girl that we met her as.

After she was done on the phone, we went back to making dinner in silence. I could tell she was concentrating hard on something—probably the Edward thing—so I just hummed songs that Renee used to sing around the house as I diced chicken.

Dad seemed a little suspicious when he came home to the smell of green peppers. Who could blame him? We spent four hours one day during summer running around Port Angeles and Seattle trying to find some Mexican food that seemed at least slightly edible. Trust me when I say that there wasn't any. But I think Dad did call the health inspector on, like, three different places. Good times.

"Dad?" Bella asked once we were all sitting down for dinner.

"Yeah, Bella?"

"Um, I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to Seattle for the day a week from Saturday…if that's okay?" Bella more stated than asked.

"Yeah. Me too, Pops. I wanted to check out the new ice skating rink," I said through a mouth full of chicken.

"Why did you want to go, Bells? I can't imagine you're planning on going ice skating," Charlie jested, looking between the two of us. I snickered as Bella's face turned pink.

"Well, I wanted to get a few books—the library here is pretty limited—and maybe look at some clothes," she said, trying to help her case without sounding pushy. I mentally rolled my eyes.

"The truck doesn't get very good gas mileage," Charlie said before looking over at me. "Neither of them."

"Yes, but we do know how to put gas in both the trucks," I said slowly, raising an eyebrow at him. Was he saying that I wasn't capable of putting gas in my own car?

"Are you two planning on going together?" Charlie asked, sticking another forkful of food in his mouth as he stared at us.

Bella opened her mouth, but I beat her to it, saying, "Probably not. I only want to go to the skating rink, and I'm not sure how long I'll be there. And Bella wants to go get essentials, not babysit me at the ice rink. Our scheduling doesn't quite match up."

"Seattle's a big city, and Bella hasn't been here as much as you have Seri," Charlie said warningly.

I rolled my eyes.

"Dad, Phoenix is five times the size of Seattle—and I can read a map. Don't worry about me," Bella said reassuringly. I could also tell she was a bit miffed at the fact that he thought she would get lost. Ha ha. I grinned.

"I suppose," Dad said after a few moments. "But I want both of you girls to be careful."

"Thanks," Bella said.

"We will, Daddy," I said, giving him a large smile.

"Will you two be back in time for the dance?" he asked.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Really, Dad. I hate dressing up, and Bella can't dance. Do you really think either of us were planning on going?"

"Good point," Dad said gruffly, and that was the end of that conversation.

The next day at school, Bella practically parked in the middle of nowhere in the school's parking lot, since that was as far from the silver Volvo that contained the future 'love-of-her-life' as she could get at the moment. I'd gotten there about fifteen minutes before she had, and was happily sitting on the tailgate of my truck, swinging my legs in time with the music coming through my headphones. Emmett sat beside me, jokingly criticizing every single song that came on, even though he knew almost all of them himself.

I nudged Emmett and pointed over to where Bella had just pulled in.

He looked at me. "What?"

"Just watch," I said, a little surprised that he didn't know what his brother was about to do. I'd had another vision right after I'd gotten up about Edward asking Bella to Seattle, and that was one of the reasons that I'd shown up before her.

I watched as Bella dropped her keys to the ground, and as she lent down to pick them up, Edward was suddenly leaning against her truck, swinging her keys around one finger. I looked up at Emmett. His eyes were wide.

"How good are your lip reading skills?" I asked him, popping my earbud out of my ear and winding it around my MP3 player.

Emmett looked into my eyes and grinned. "I was trained by the CIA, Little Red."

I rolled my eyes, but the thought did linger in my head. He'd been alive for a good seventy-plus years. Why not?

"She's getting mad at him for showing up out of thin air all the time," Emmett whispered conspiratorially in my ear as I stared intently at them. "Now, she's getting mad about the traffic jam he caused so that Tyler could ask her to the dance on Saturday."

I saw Edward snicker.

"Oh, damn. She's accusing him of regretting that she didn't get hit by that van," he said. I rolled my eyes. "Shit. He's mad now."

"Of course he is. The boy is more hormonal than a pregnant woman on her period," I said back, causing Emmett to snort.

Bella looked really angry from what I could see, and she was starting to walk toward the school—toward us. Edward took a couple long, quick strides to catch up to her.

I nudged Emmett when he didn't say anything for a few seconds. They were obviously talking, and I was getting zero information.

"She asked why he won't leave her alone," he said. He chuckled a couple seconds later. "She asked if he had a multiple personality disorder."

"She'd probably like him even more if he was schizophrenic," I told him. He raised an eyebrow at me, but I just shook my head. No need to tell him about her need to help others, or whatever. He'd figure it out eventually.

"He just asked her to go to Seattle with him next Saturday," Emmett said, sounding surprised. "He offered her a ride and everything."

"She'll accept," I told him confidently.

A few seconds later, he said, "She accepted." He looked over at me suspiciously. "How'd you know that?"

I rolled my eyes as I jumped off the tailgate. "I live with the girl, Em. I have my whole life. She likes Edward, whether she knows it for sure or not." I grabbed my book bag, slinging it over my shoulder, and nodded my head toward the school. "Come on, Mountain Man. We need to go before we're late."

Emmett grinned as he jumped down from my tailgate. As he did so, he scooped me up, throwing me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and jogging toward our art class. I hung from his shoulder, screaming and laughing all the way.