The next day was better. And worse.

Better because, though dense clouds blanketed the town, it didn't rain. Because people didn't look at me as much. Because even though my lunch group was different than my Phoenix group, I at least had high school friends to sit by. Because the whole day felt like treading water instead of drowning in it.

It was worse because purple rings hung around my eyes. Wind had blustered and echoed around the house. All night. It's cool. I'm not bitter. I just thought, you know, with my experience sleeping through car horns and sirens and my neighbor's trombone lessons, it wouldn't be so bad. But here I was, falling asleep in Trig and getting called out by Mr. Varner. Here I was, knees shaking during my squats.

And also because—god, I don't even know why I'm saying this—Edward Cullen wasn't at school.

During my shower last night, I thought of all the ways I could confront him over his rude behavior. Giving him a pop to the jaw was at the top of my list, obviously. After a while, I had to face facts: juvie wasn't worth it, my arms were sore, and also, I was objectively weak as hell.

So then I thought, okay, I could call him out next time. Battle of wits. I knew enough Bukowski to string up a damn good insult. So I imagined all these scenarios in my head about how I would do it. A lot of them still led me to the punching scenario.

Long story short, my anger fizzled into my grand solution: give him the ole cold shoulder. There ya go. Sucky plan, but I promised Rene I wouldn't get in trouble. And since she's never been big on promises, I have to be.

Cullen's not being there made it easy to keep my word, but dammit, I wanted some action! Not punching, per se, but that dude needed to be told: Like me or not, I won't take crap some some guy who doesn't know the first thing about me.

Except he never showed. Not at lunch, not at Biology.

Not the next day.

Nor the next.

Either he switched classes, was deathly ill, or he was a mastermind genius trying to dismantle all my defenses for some sick little game he employed just for me. Probably not the third option.

Probably for the best he was gone instead of here, being rude to me. Screw that guy. He was gross.

"Ew," I said. A week after my first day of school, Angela and I stood under the metal roof connecting the lunchroom with the science wing, watching snowflakes fall.

"Don't like snow?"

"Snow means it's too cold for rain."

Angela chuckled. "When I was a kid, my parents would take me and all my siblings sledding at this one hill in La Push—Have you been there?—I cried like every year."

It was one of the first real laughs from my chest. "Charlie's not a snow guy, but we did go out hunting in La Push, and there was —" a snowball exploded on the wall behind us; we flinched. Eric and another guy that sat at our table, Mike, sparred with snowballs.

"Doesn't that hurt?" I asked her. "The snow?"

"You've never been in a snowball fight?"

"Never. Mom likes warm climates."

"Lucky."

Laughter thrummed through our pavillion. You knew it was the Cullens laughing, too, because their laughs lilted in harmony. My eyes caught them coming up behind us. The other two Cullens, Jasper and Emmett, were soaked with snow. Their fingers had combed trenches through their hair. Alice and Rosalie yelped when Emmett shook his hair out next to them. They looked like they were in some teen movie. Weird.

As they passed us, Eric wrapped his wet, chilly hands around our shoulders and murmured, "Hey. Listen. Didju guys hear? Emmett got suspended for putting a live lobster into Jell-O dessert in Food Science— Angela, we gotta get that story for the paper."

"Emmett's still in school. He's literally behind you." As she wrinkled her nose and chattered about the details with him, we entered the lunchroom in front of the Cullen pack.

From their corner, I could see Edward, cheeks dewy, eyes glittering, smiling—at me.

My whole world fell away.

I blinked, startled, stopped. When I met his eyes again, they were looking behind me.

"Excuse me." A light, lilting voice said behind me. I spun around. Breathless. The small pixie-haired girl with teardrop eyes that glittered like boiling honey winked and smiled as she brushed past.

"S-sorry." I stumbled out of the way. Of course. Edward was staring at the Cullens who were literally right behind us. Of course he was looking at them.

So I thought. Halfway through lunch, Jessica turned to me and said in a low voice, "Edward Cullen is staring at you."

I glanced over at him. His head was already turning, but not quick enough. I could see the smirk on his lips. Rat bastard.

"Dude's weird," I said to her, not taking my eyes off my salad.

"Why?"

"He straight-up hates me. No idea why. I haven't said a thing to him. It's weird."

"Sure it's weird. Everyone knows it's weird. Why do you think they only talk to each other?" Jessica rolled her eyes like she was disappointed in herself for conceding this point: "I mean like, they're polite. They're nice. People don't dislike them. They just keep to themselves. Like, they probably won't be mean to you, but don't bother trying to have a conversation with them. You'll never get anywhere."

So it was better to just forget about it, right? I mean, there were people who actually wanted me around.

My lunch table, for example, who invited me out to go to La Push Ocean Park with them in a couple weeks. Or, Eric invited me, anyway. Then Jess extended the invitation to Angela, and I wondered, with a rising sense of embarrassment, if we'd been the only two who hadn't been invited yet. Still, the whole table encouraged us to go. La Push wasn't getting snow like Forks, and these next couple weekends would start getting warmer, the first push away from winter.

I wired my jaw shut on the way to Biology II. Relief bloomed over my tense muscles when I walked inside. My table was empty, save for a microscope and a box of slides. Neat-o. Cullen would skip again, and I'd get to do cool microscope stuff by myself. Win-win.

Minutes passed. I sketched over the color of my notebook. Succulents. Once, my ex-best friend Georgi and I found an alley, red bricks blank. A vandal's dream. She drew a safari. I created a succulent garden, some small 9x9-inch in the corner. The light green stood stark against the red. My favorite project ever, and the last one I ever completed.

I heard his footsteps. "Hello," I greeted him without looking up—if only to show him how petty and awful he was. Maybe that was petty of me. Either way, he started it, and no one could blame me for not being coolly civil.

"Hi there."

Wait, what?

I looked up.

He sat as far away from me as the table allowed, but he angled his chair toward me. Beads of melting snow slid off his hair. He was still smiling. Still glowing.

"My name is Edward Cullen," he said. His voice sounded as smooth as the DJ on the Sunday Night Slow-Jam station back home. "I didn't have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bells. —No, Isabella, right? Isabella Swan?"

My mind spun. Who was this guy? Seriously, I wasn't lying when I said that he looked like he actually wanted to murder me. Had I made the whole thing up?

"Whichever. How'd you know? My name?"

"You told me."

"R-right."

Mr. Banner started class. It gave me time to reevaluate my confrontation plan. New Plan A: talk to this guy like a normal human being, because he's being nice and I like not having to hate him.
More than that. I mean, the guy had his own orbit. Under his gravitational spell, my nerves crackled like live wires, my attention shifted permanently to my left, he was all I could smell, all I could listen t—

"Ladies first, partner?" Edward asked. He beamed. I tossed him my weakest smile. Glanced around. Microscopes. Slides. Right. Biology.

I grabbed it from him and popped in the slide. Relief relaxed me some. Well, well. If it isn't my Biology I assignment from last year.

"Prophase."

"Do you mind if I look?"

Before my eyes could narrow, I blinked a few times to turn the you son of a bitch glare from my face into a coy smile.

"Be my guest."

When I passed the microscope, our hands touched. Nerves in my hand sparked. I pulled back. His fingers were cold as snow. They burned a trail into the side of my hand.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, pulling his hand back. Our microscope stood untouched for a moment before he grabbed it with his other hand. "Prophase." Duh. He jotted it on our worksheet—in perfect cursive, I might add.

Edward switched slides and glanced at it for no more than a second.

"Anaphase."

"Do you mind if I look?" I thought he wouldn't catch my mocking him, but I saw the flicker of a smirk.

"Why of course," he said, so genteel we probably both wanted to vomit. "Something wrong?"

I didn't want to tell this guy that I was waiting for a pass to punch him. When I caught his daisy-yellow eyes, I—

Wait. "Did—did your eyes change color?"

"Hm?"

Last time they were black—maybe a dark brown. They looked back, the way they stood striking against his pale skin. Maybe it was the fluorescents? Maybe it was the flush of color in his cheeks that off-set the color? Whatever the case, they were different today. Gold flecked from his irises like an eclipse spilling sunlight. "Your eyes. Did you get contacts?"

"Yes," he said, no hesitation, without looking at me. "I did."

Really? Honestly, I'd thrown out that suggestion because I didn't know what the hell else it could be. Now that I was thinking about it, how would that make sense? Wait—didn't his sister have gold contacts too? She did, right?

I didn't respond, and his pursed lips rendered him inhospitable.

We finished the worksheet in silence. Afterward, I continued sketching my beautiful plants.

"So, you miss Phoenix?"

Wait, are we actually talking? "What?"

"I noticed the succulents."

"Oh. Um. Yeah. Kinda. I mean. I sorta moved around a lot. But Phoenix was a good spot." Where did he get that info, that I'm from Phoenix? It's not like succulents are to Phoenix what sourdough bread is to San Francisco. "Most people think it's just a desert. But there's life there, too. Like succulents." Wow. Smooth. "I took joyrides out into the desert to draw them."

"May I ask why you moved here? I know Chief Swan lives here, but…."

"It's—complicated."

"I can keep up."

I sucked in my cheeks. When Rene saw me getting out of the cruiser, I didn't look at her. I watched the way her tears fell down her face, how they forced trails and, as the crying got worse, how they veined across her cheeks. How the tears dripped off her chin. Everyone and everything made my mother cry. But not me. Never me.

"She got remarried."

"Ah." His face lit up like he solved some grand mystery. "You don't like her spouse?"

"Nah, Phil's a good guy." When Rene told him about the spray painting, he didn't say anything. His lips pursed. He was disappointed—I could see that in the way he crossed his thick, hairy arms, the way he look down at me from that awful mustache. That was about it. He promised Rene that she could raise her child "her way"; he had a child of his own he was fighting custody for, so he understood.

Except he hadn't seen the years of buildup. He hadn't seen Rene's "let the child parent you" take to motherhood. All he saw was my sudden reckless need to find Bella Swan.

I figured, based on his limited knowledge of me, Phil wouldn't understand that I was less of a rebellious teen and more like a fed-up caretaker.

But before I left for Forks, after my mother had gone to the car crying and before my flight hit the electronic boards, I told Phil: listen, whatever happens, make Rene happy. If nothing else. She's a big traveller, loves it, but she can't take care of the details. Don't let her make breakfast sandwiches by herself. —Oh, and don't let her forget she's got dry cleaning to pick up on Friday for an interview at four. Be sure to pay the rent a few days early this month so we can get Mrs. Jones off our backs. —Off her back, I mean.

And I think he understood. His eyebrows pulled up, relaxed. I think he knew why I had to go. It was the best for the both of us. Rene and myself.

"What are you thinking about?" Edward blurted out. My head snapped towards him. "I apologize. I—like to know what people are thinking."

"It's fine. I, uh—yeah, I like Phil. Plays ball for a living."

"Have I heard of him?"

"Probably not. He's minor league. Minor minor. Moves around a lot."

"And your mother sent you here so that she could travel with him."

"No. I sent myself."

"I'm not sure I understand."

I sighed, cherry-picking my words. "She, uh, wouldn't make the choice. To send me away. So I...took away the choice."

"You 'took away the choice?'"

"It sounds Italian-mob-ish, but I'm not a bad person."

"I never said you were a bad person." He glanced away. "But it sounds like you were doing 'bad person' things." I chuckled. "Am I wrong?"

"It's contentious."

"'Contentious,'" he teased. "That doesn't sound promising." What a grating way for Edward to extract information. Successful, but still.

"It was an immature way to handle a situation. But she wasn't happy there in Phoenix. She was trying to do the whole 'mom' thing, and I appreciated it, and I love her, but she's not momish. And after years of me having to be the one who—" sigh "—Forget it. Point is, you can only make her see what she wants to see. That woman's as stubborn as a flock of ox." Another Rene-original catchphrase. Mainly used to describe me.

"So you take care of her," Edward said.

That grating line of questioning finally ground me down to nerves. "Look, don't take this the wrong way. I'm not about to tell you my life story." My heart hammered, and I found myself saying, "Especially if you're switching classes on me." Bam. Spicy. How d'you like me now, Cullen?

Edward's face fell. "I'm not. And I apologize if you—if I seemed a little unwelcoming. I was angry. Not at you. On an unrelated note, my siblings and I usually take all our classes together. I thought I could get an AP Chem spot with my sister, Alice. It didn't materialize. But whatever you thought my intention was, I never meant to offend you."

Color flushed to my cheeks. Sure, it was no black eye, but seeing the apology in his eyes, hearing it…made me feel pretty good. Not gonna lie. It's like a punch to the face but without the bruised knuckles. "I accept your apology," I said, a touch cooler than I wanted.

When the bell rang, Edward rushed gracefully out the door as he had last Monday. It almost made me hate him. Even when he's wrong, he still walks like he's right.

And once he was out of the way, out of sight, out of earshot, something hit me. The stress of...everything. My stomach churned, and I barged into the nearest girls' bathroom, setting my forearms on the water-stained counter and learning over the porcelain sink. Breathing.

Rene told me not to go. She said it wouldn't be healthy. It would be dangerous. Stupid. And I, god, I didn't know why the hell I was freaking out now or why I was thinking about the stupid shit Rene says because this surely wasn't what she meant: being interrogated by an extremely attractive guy about my life. I had even rolled my eyes at Rene because—what, suddenly Forks is somehow more dangerous than shadowing my mother to make sure the burners don't get left on, to make sure the apartment door isn't unlocked when she comes home stumbling drunk at three in the goddamn —

"Bells?"

Breathe. I gasped in a large breath of air and released it as slowly as possible. My heart was racing.

That lilt. A voice I recognized but didn't know.

I cracked my eyes open and slid them to the threshold. Where Edward's little sister stood. Alice. The pixie. Bony, smooth fingers flighty on the bathroom tile, tapping. Unsettling. Mesmerizing.

What was there to say? "Uh, y-you know me?"

The dark red of her lips, the color of Snow White's poisoned apple, flicked into a nervous smile. "Sort've. Can we...talk?"