B-POV

Running into Jessica from orientation had been nice, but I didn't expect anything to come from our impromptu coffee date. So, I was shocked to see a text from her the following morning, asking if I had time in my schedule to meet up with her and a few girls for lunch. Before I finished typing out my schedule, she messaged me the time and place to meet. I deleted the message and replied with a simple thumbs up.

With fresh plans in place, I got ready for the day with a tinge of enthusiasm. It seemed Charlie was right. When my father told me college students were too mature to harbor ignorant hatefulness of a body that didn't belong to them, I didn't believe him. However, Jessica's kindness had backed up his claims so far.

"You look nice today," Charlie commented as I strolled into the kitchen. It was hardly a compliment from Charlie—he said something along those lines to me every day. I wore a comfortable fifties jumpsuit with buttons down the front. I never thought I would be a jumpsuit person, but there was something to be said about throwing on one article of clothing and being fully dressed for the day. One and done.

"Thank you," I said, readjusting the fabric around my chest. The jumpsuit was one of my tighter ensembles, but also the nicest. It was silly, but I wanted to look pretty for my lunch with a group of potential friends.

I tossed a Poptart and a banana in my bag to serve as my snacks for the day. I wasn't hungry enough for breakfast just yet, but still needed a cup of coffee to warm and wake me.

"Charlie. What is this?" A can of instant coffee sat where the coffee maker should have been as if it were a suitable replacement.

"A temporary solution."

I raised a single eyebrow in his direction.

"Temporary. I swear. By this time tomorrow, you'll be drinking a cup of coffee so delicious, that you'll forget every cup you've had before. Including this one."

"I doubt it," I mumbled, reading the instructions from the can. I would have to pinch my nose and force it down, but instant coffee would be better than spending money for campus coffee. With another promise that we would learn how to use the new coffee maker that night, Charlie and I finished our morning routines and went our separate ways.

My first class of the day was a three-hundred-level course on classic literature. I had taken the prerequisite class in high school and had already completed the reading list independently. Bronte, Austin, and Alcott have always been my favorites. I was pleased to find them on one reading list. Besides, I was always looking for a reason for a reread of Wuthering Heights.

The moment class started, I should have known it was going to be a bad day. Honestly, I should have figured that out after the first sip I took of instant coffee. When the professor called the class's attention to the front of the room, I noticed I was surrounded by empty desks. I had gotten to class early and sat in the middle towards the back. While I was lost in my current romance novel, the rest of the class filled the spaces far to my left and right, and front, but not one sat directly beside me. I was an island in a sea of unoccupied desks.

Then, the professor projected the syllabus onto the screen. "As you can all see, I have updated the syllabus. It had been brought to my attention that my previous selections were on high school reading lists, so I came up with a couple of lesser-known titles for us to discuss in this course. To keep us fresh."

Silently cursing whoever brought that up, I wrote down the new reading list as the professor talked about returns to the college bookstore. People didn't sign up for Classic Literature for fresh; we signed up for the excuse to write thorough essays on Jane Austin.

Just when I decided class couldn't get any worse, the professor clicked to the next slide, which simply stated PAIR UP in harsh, black letters. "For attendance, you will complete small, simple assignments. Usually with a partner… Since it's the first day of class, you and a partner only need to find something in common you have with each other." She grinned as if this was a fun assignment and not a form of torture.

All around me, students paired up. I barely received a spare glance, let alone an offer.

After a few moments, the professor noticed me. "Oh," she frowned at her roster. "We're supposed to have even numbers." the professor glanced down at her list, "Someone must have dropped…"

As if on cue, the door to the classroom squeaked open. Despite his careful entrance, everyone in the room turned to gawk at the newcomer. As he stepped in, the world broke.

He stopped time. Silenced every sound. Sucked all the air out of the room.

He was—without a single doubt—the most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life. From his tousled, bronze hair, past his broad shoulders that narrowed to his lean hips, down to his impossibly long legs.

The classroom remained an empty void with this beautiful boy at the epicenter as he took a few tentative steps inside. As if he knew his effect on the world around him, he ducked his head and slouched his shoulders. It wasn't until he lowered his gaze to his feet that the professor realized she needed to speak with him. She met him at the front of the room to bring him up to speed, stuttering once, when he met her gaze to ask a question.

Time slowly restarted. The students around me returned to their conversations. I managed to inhale a shaky breath.

The air did not last long in my lungs, because when the professor finished speaking, she pointed at me. "There's your partner."

Before I could see his reaction to being paired with me, I dropped my gaze to my desk. Disgust, horror, apathy. Whatever it was, I didn't want to know. I would have absolutely nothing in common with that beautiful boy, except maybe disdain for the current situation.

I hoped he would be okay with one of us lying about our favorite color.

The chair next to me dragged across the floor as he sat next to me. To avoid looking up, I busied myself with writing my name on the top of a piece of paper.

"Your name is Bella?" His voice was far too alluring for a casual conversation between two strangers.

I swallowed, then nodded.

He chuckled lightly at the irony, as most did. My name meaning beautiful when I was the furthest thing from it was a joke missed by no one. In fact, I had gone through middle school with the nickname Belly.

"How fitting." Though I did not look at him, I could hear the smile in his voice, as he played off his laugh with casual ease. He drummed his fingers on his desk. "Shall we get started?"

I kept my eyes glued to the tip of my pen pressed onto the page. "What's your favorite food?"

People could always find common ground with food. Love was given with food. Comfort was offered with food. Happiness was celebrated with food. Everyone had a special tie to a specific food.

"I don't really have a favorite food."

I was glad my face had been lowered so he couldn't see my blatant disbelief. Of course Mr. Chiseled-Jaw Swimmer's-Body wouldn't have a favorite food. I moved right along to the next question. "Where are you from?"

"Chicago. You?"

I simply shook my head. I had hoped he was from Washington, so we could say we were from the same state. But he ruined that plan.

"Favorite color?"

"Green."

My favorite color was brown, but I could create a convincing lie for green. I was going to write it down and get this whole thing over with, but he interrupted me. "Where are you from?"

"A teeny tiny town. It doesn't matter."

"Which teeny town? And what's your favorite color?"

"Green. Same as you."

"No, it's not." He spoke with a lot of confidence for someone who knew nothing about me.

I finally looked up at him, exasperated. "Who cares?"

Looking at him was a mistake. This close, I could pick out individual stands of his impossibly full, long lashes. Eyelashes surrounding honey-golden eyes. Like the long list of girls he no doubt captured with those eyes, I turned towards him so I could lean in, closer. Keeping our eyes locked, he turned and leaned in, as well. At this proximity, he dropped to a whisper. His voice was more melodic than any song, smoother than silk. "I do. What's your favorite color?"

"Brown." The word slid off my tongue, unbidden. Like, he had pulled the answer straight from my heart.

I straightened in my seat, breaking the trance. I gasped for breath; I didn't realize I had stopped breathing.

He straightened, as well. He raised his eyebrows as if to say I knew it. "And which teeny town are you from?"

"I assure you, you won't know it."

"Try me."

"Forks."

He smiled. Even smug, he was charming. "I know Forks."

"Seriously?" No one had ever heard of Forks, Washington. And if they did, they knew it as the saddest, wettest place in the Continental US.

"My parents bought a house right outside of Forks."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Yes. Right off the river. We moved in this summer."

I couldn't believe it. We actually had something in common. "So, we can say we both commute from Forks!" I started to write it down, but he made a sound of dissatisfaction in the back of his throat. "What?"

"That group over there figured out they both lived in the same apartment complex in Ontario."

"So?"

"What about the bonus points?"

"What bonus points?"

"The pair with the most interesting fact gets bonus points."

"No one ever said that."

For a fraction of a second, his perfect, full lips pursed in a small o, as if he had been caught doing something wrong. Just as quickly, he smoothed his expression and jumped right back into the conversation. "I know someone who had this professor before. Emily always gives bonus points for things like that." He folded his arms on his desk. "How many translations of The Odyssey have you read?"

"Just the one."

"How much Shakespeare have you participated in?"

"None..."

"Really? You'd make an inspiring Rosalind."

I ignored how endearing it was that The Odessey rereads and Shakespeare acting were the most interesting things about himself he could think of. Instead, I sighed. "You seriously want to try this hard for one extra point?"

He nodded, absolutely. "My sister is taking a different section of this course. I need every advantage I can get."

"Competitive, are we?"

He shook his head. "Only with my sister. And anything pertaining to baseball. Any sport, really. And music." His eyebrows scrunched together in the cutest way. "I might be really competitive, actually," he laughed.

I laughed with him. "Well, I'm not competitive, so we can't put that down."

"It wouldn't be interesting enough for those bonus points, anyway." He drummed his fingers on his desk in a tight pattern. "Do you play any musical instruments?"

"Piano." Charlie and I had taken lessons together. Neither of us had any fun.

His golden eyes shined brighter. "What is your favorite to play? Chopin? Rachmaninoff? No," he waved his finger in the air, "let me guess." My cheeks burned as he searched my face. "You're a Clarie de Lune girl."

Under the sudden intensity of his gaze, I was pleased with myself and my earlier decision to dress up for lunch. It felt good to give him something pleasant to look at. "What makes you say that?"

"Elegant. Warm. Soft."

Soft.

Fat.

The word brought me crashing back down to Earth. It was one of the nicer synonyms, but it meant the same. And what it meant was that it didn't matter if I wore a ballgown or a potato sack. Someone as glorious as the creature beside me was never meant to be with someone like me.

Uncomfortable, I looked back down at the sheet of paper. I was swimming toward dangerous waters and his golden eyes were whirlpools threatening to drag me under.

"My dad and I quit after a handful of lessons."

"I'm assuming that means you can't play anything blindfolded," he mused. "If you live in Forks, you enjoy hiking, yes?"

"I often go with my dad." Between my feet and Charlie's need to photograph every detail, our hikes were long, tedious affairs. We rarely make it to the final destination.

"Have you ever fallen down the Sol Duc waterfall?"

Despite myself, I laughed.

E-POV

I finally understood why Emmett went through such ridiculous lengths to get a laugh out of Rosalie. As it were, there were few pleasures more intoxicating than getting a pretty girl to laugh.

And Bella was beautiful.

I hadn't seen a girl so beautiful since 1953, and the girl beside me blew her out of the water. Round, apple cheeks. Soft, supple lips—currently gnawed on, but attractive, nonetheless. And the real beauty: those soft, brown eyes. Large as a doe. Deep as the ocean. Warm as a fire fading into embers.

"No," she said between chuckles. "But you have?"

Truthfully, I hadn't. Emmett had a few days earlier. His account of the incident had the whole family in stitches. I was pleased to receive a similar reaction from Bella.

"I was looking up and I stumbled off the edge."

"What were you looking at?"

In his story, Emmett had convinced himself that an unidentified flying object was an alien spacecraft and raced through the woods to catch it. Looking at the lovely Bella, and how her pale, perfect skin shined even in this dim lighting, my tongue told a different lie, "I was following the stars."

"Dazzled."

"Quite," I agreed, painfully aware of the feeling.

I hoped she would look back up at me, but her focus was still downcast. After a few moments of silence, I started us back up again. "Any other hobbies besides hiking?"

Without lifting her eyes from the notebook, she shook her head. Thick, mahogany tresses spilled off her shoulder down over her chest. "I don't think we'll find any common ground there."

I highly doubted that. As an immortal being without the need for sleep, I'd dabbled in just about everything over the years. "What makes you say that?"

"I've never stepped foot on any sort of sport ball field."

"Not into sports?"

"Some sports are okay. It's for the safety of others, more than anything." She raised her foot in the air in the aisle between our desks and gave it a shake. "My dad tells me my feet could be classified as weapons of destruction."

"You're clumsy?" Adorable.

She flushed; I chuckled.

"No matter. Give me the strangest hobby you've tried. Whatever it is, I'm sure I tried it, too."

She attempted to switch gears, "Furthest place you've traveled?"

I had traveled just about everywhere on this planet, but I ignored her question. There was no chance a human girl had a more unique experience than an immortal. True to my newfound competitive nature, I wanted to prove it to her, "Trust me. I've dabbled in plenty of unusual affairs. Much more than you, I'm willing to bet."

Finally, she looked up at me with those eyes. A smile tugged at the corner of her perfect mouth. She pointed to her chest, "Scatter-brained, erratic father joined every club or group or team imaginable and dragged me along to all of it. What's your reason?"

I chose a half-lie. "Constantly moving. Picked up something new everywhere I lived."

"I still think I have you beat. Charlie is a kindergarten teacher. He has entire summers off, bored out of his mind."

With a wave of my hand, I challenged her to do her worst.

"Pickling." I was sure this was the first time that word was used in such a harsh, competitive tone.

The tone was warranted because she had me beat on her first attempt. "Another one."

Bella grinned, pleased with her well-deserved victory. "Jell-O art."

"What on Earth is that?"

"You inject Jell-O with other Jell-O to make art."

At her description, I could only blink. She laughed.

"One more," I said, frustrated with losing my own game.

She leaned back in her chair, perfectly at ease with the security of her victory. Her hair fell back over her shoulder. "Ham curing."

"Okay, okay," I held my hands up in surrender. "You win. Tenfold." She smiled widely, and her face was more beautiful for it. I reached over and tapped her notebook. "You better write competitive on that list, by the way. Because you absolutely are."

Still smiling, she wrote it down.

"I've perfected darts, you know. I can get a bullseye every time."

"I'm sure you can," she said in the same voice a mother would use to console a grumpy child.

"I'm fluent in Latin." Along with fifty other languages, but there was no need to mention that.

She regarded me with the single raised eyebrow of someone who remained unimpressed. "Are you going to spend the rest of the time sulking, or do you want the stupid bonus points?"

"Bonus points, please."

"Charlie learned how to flyfish this summer. And for one terrible weekend, tried making balloon animals. His most recent hobby has been his best in years: antiquing."

My eyebrows rose. If Bella was interested in collecting antiques, I would be right up her alley. I could be the oldest antique in her collection. "My family collects antiques, as well."

"Yeah?" she perked up.

"Is that what your clothes are? Antiques?" I couldn't help but notice the old-style cut of her collar, though she hid it behind her thick hair.

"Yes, um, vintage."

"Lovely," I offered.

Bella wrote down a phrase, but she started to rethink it, "Our families collecting antiques isn't really an interesting similarity between us, though."

"True. However, a fallout of that hobby probably is. I know I've broken a timeless piece of furniture. What about you?"

She tapped the eraser on the sheet of paper instead of answering. If she had, she didn't want to admit it. So, I moved on to the next idea without pressing the subject. "How about using an obsolete object rather than a modern, working one?"

"Ugh. Charlie insisted on buying an antique coffee maker from the 1920s. It's gorgeous and in perfect shape. But he got rid of our old one before we even had time to learn how it works or if it works at all. This morning, I had to drink instant."

She made a face that informed me I was supposed to find that fact revolting. I tried my best to empathize. "Oh wow."

"It's only been one day," she admitted. "But one is more than enough."

"My family grew too attached to a typewriter. They truly thought computers were a fad, but the typewriter would live on."

"We have a typewriter, too! Charlie already made our Christmas cards with it."

"Add it to the list."

"You too?"

I wished I could tell her about my family's last Christmas card. We never had anyone to send them to, but Esme enjoyed the keepsake. With no one able to say no to Esme, we gathered for her each year, no matter what corners of the world we were in. The picture on the front of the card was most of the family at the North Pole, while the inside contained a photo of Carlisle alone at Magnetic North. There was no way to explain any of this to a human.

Before I could come up with a suitable lie to describe the essence of the card, our professor called our attention back to the front of the class. Time was up and we needed to hand in our answers for attendance.

Bella ripped out a sheet of paper from her notebook and scribbled a single word in the center.

"Oh!" she blushed attractively. "I didn't even ask for your name."

"Edward. Edward Masen."

Her small smile was as soft and pretty as the rest of her.

She wrote my name next to hers and thrust the paper into my hands to bring it up to the front of the room. Waiting in the small queue of students at the lectern, I glanced at what Bella had written.

Dazzled.

Of course, she used my ridiculous story for inspiration. I smiled, then wondered at the choice. I supposed she wanted to hand in an interesting answer after my insistence on getting those bonus points.

Once she collected mine, Emily waved the full stack of papers in the air before filing them into a trapper keeper. "Thank you for these. I hope not all of you lied about your favorite color, because I will be giving the team with the most interesting fact a bonus point."

On my way to my seat, I tried to give Bella a told-you-so expression, but her attention was back on her notebook. I sat back down without a single glance from her. It was just as well. It was a slip on my end, mixing up Emily's thoughts with her verbal instructions. There was no reason to draw any more attention to it. Not even to earn another soft smile from Bella.

Emily dove right into her first lecture, which was more of a crash course on how she wanted our annotations for class to be written. At the end of class, I hoped to bid the lovely Bella farewell, but she was already up, her books snatched in her arms instead of placed back in her bag. I watched as she hurried away and smiled a little when she tripped on the leg of a chair.

I tried my best not to dwell on Bella's hasty exit as I packed up and walked to my next class. Her next class must have been on the other side of campus, and she needed to rush to make it in time. Even if she didn't, it hardly mattered. She had one pleasant conversation with a stranger. Surely, it wasn't as impactful to her as it was to me. She no doubt had dozens of interactions just like ours during these first few days of college and would likely have dozens more.

In my next class, I was surprised to hear two familiar mental voices, and even more surprised to see two familiar faces. In the back of the lecture hall, a small pixie of a girl sat beside a dark, looming figure. She beamed and excitedly waved for me to join them.

For most people, it would be a wonderful surprise to have their best friend join their class unexpectedly.

For me, it was an omen.

I slid into the seat in the back row beside Alice's husband, mate, or boyfriend, depending on the audience. At college, she presented him as her partner.

"Hey man," I greeted.

Howdy, Jasper thought at me. Out of all my family members, Jasper was the only one who preferred to communicate with me using my gift. After seventy years, he'd only said about a hundred words directly to me out loud. He was the original blueprint of the strong and silent type.

"What are you two doing here?" I spoke at a volume too fast and low for the humans around us to hear.

Alice spoke for the pair. "We found out that our accounting class was going to start with a prerequisite test, so we switched to another course. This professor is going to give out bagels."

"You can't even eat the bagels."

"We appreciate the gesture," she shrugged. "Because we had an open block, we decided to join you here!"

I looked up at Jasper, keeping his mind carefully blank.

I didn't buy it. "What did you see?"

Giving me a quick scowl to show her distaste for my tone, Alice cleared her mind and telepathically revealed an image.

Alice's mind was a disjointed scrapbook of the future. Her visions came and went sporadically. She spent decades attempting to control them enough to show her what she wanted to see, with no such luck. The scrapbook image she showed was of Bella and me in our class earlier that day, sharing a laugh.

"Who's the girl?" Alice asked.

"No one."

"It doesn't look like no one. You never look that happy. You never look happy."

"I was happy when you found my mother's brooch at an estate sale."

"That was in 1986!" Alice wailed, causing the students around us to stir. She dropped her voice back to a whisper. "Who's the girl?" she repeated.

"Drop it."

Alice persisted. "Was it because of your conversation with Emmett? Why that girl? What was the joke? Was it actually funny? Why that girl?"

I stared straight ahead at the podium in the front of the room even though the professor had not yet arrived.

You can't hear her thoughts, Jasper guessed.

I nodded.

"What was that? What did you just answer?" Though it had only been four seconds, Alice's patience had already run out. "Someone tell me!"

"I can't hear her thoughts."

Alice gasped with unrestrained delight.

"Please don't make this a bigger deal than it is."

"Are you kidding? This is huge!"

Finding Bella's silent mind was a pleasant surprise. However, it was always a gift to find someone whose thoughts were off-limits to me. Typically, a simple conversation with a human required almost all of my focus. I would need to push away all other voices but theirs to understand what they were saying while watching their lips to make sure I answered their verbal statements rather than their thoughts. On top of that, I couldn't entirely ignore their thoughts, because I needed to ensure they weren't suspicious of my true nature.

It was a pain.

Talking with Bella felt like opening the door to a close friend. There was no need to put up an act or try to be anything but myself. Easy. Effortless. Open.

"I'm always able to make friends with people who have silent minds," I reminded Alice.

Alice scoffed. "Oh right. There was the guy always tripping acid…"

"It was the Seventies."

"…the Elvis impersonator…"

"Luc could have brought his show to Vegas if he didn't live in Brussels and spoke any English."

"…and the seventy-five-year-old music teacher."

"Posey and I had a lot in common." To this day, I considered Posey one of my closest friends.

"You've never been friends with a pretty girl."

It was true. None of my friends had been as pleasant to look at as Bella.

As I had that thought, Alice gasped. Another vision of the future flickered into existence. This time, Bella and I sat in the library, blatantly ignoring the homework on the table in front of us to talk to each other instead. Bella held her neck in her hand with a casual elegance that was so becoming of her. In the vision, she leaned in towards me, as if what I was saying was the single most delightful thing she had ever heard in her life.

"You're really going to care about this girl, Edward."

My eyes traced over Bella's face, committing her warm expression to memory.

"Look how human you look," Alice marveled.

I tore my eyes away from the image of Bella and looked at myself in the vision. I sat hunched over, so I could speak at a volume suitable for a library. My expression was as open and friendly as hers was. A rarity for me.

"It's the fluorescents."

"Nope," she popped the 'P', "Not at all. It's the warmth in your eyes."

I said nothing more until the professor started the lecture on Ancient Cultures of the World. As the professor spoke, I shoved back every other thought and sound in the room. Alice's overactive imagination, Jasper's criticism of the courseload, and my own wistful wants.

Just as a general note, I am reducing the power of these vampires. Neither Edward nor Alice can control their gifts. The vampires run slower—they can run as fast as a cheetah for an indefinite amount of time, not so fast that they are invisible. Their senses are duller—they can hear as well as a fox, not well enough to hear a heartbeat. Any inconsistencies with canon Twilight vampires are intentional.