Twilight and all of its characters belong to Stephanie Meyer.

The news of my solo pool party floated around the school without much attention. Since it made two of the most intimidating seniors look like they had bullied a harmless orphan, it gained little traction—especially since that orphan was only standing up for the school loner. Apparently, speaking ill of the two brutes was a big no-no, even for the gossips like Lauren. By the next day, my story was already falling out of popularity. Which was fine by me.

At the start of the day, lunch was the last thing I wanted to deal with. But I had spent all morning with Jessica and Lauren, and neither of them brought up my little swim, so I was confident I would make it through with little to no ridicule.

For the first time since I had started this school, Isabella Swan entered the courtyard after I did. Usually, she was already sitting in her corner spot, nose in a book, by the time I sat down. Today, as I retrieved my lunch, she scurried in through the double doors. Although she kept her gaze on her feet, she was able to maneuver among the throngs of students without bumping into or touching any of them. As I watched, I realized that she did not achieve this feat from grace alone, but rather, the rest of the students shied away from her body as if they were repelled by her somehow. I couldn't imagine that, though. Who wouldn't want her delicate hand to brush across theirs accidentally, or feel the weight of her little body against theirs, if only for a fleeting moment?

I thought about the two times I touched her—both completely uncalled for on my part—and remembered wishing I could hold onto her forever. Both times, I had wanted to draw her in closer, not push her away.

I was still envisioning the thrill of her touch when I paid for my lunch and turned for my table, only to immediately cross paths with her. She stopped short, just before she could crash into my lunch tray. When she looked up at me, her eyes went from slightly confused to utterly horrified. Her tattered paperback fell from her hands and fell onto the hard, tile floor with a loud slap. As we stared at one another, I watched her coloring shift from white to pink to red. I offered her what I had hoped was a warm smile, but her eyes only widened in response. Without a spare glance towards her book now sitting on the dirty courtyard floor, Isabella turned and marched right back out of the courtyard the same way she had entered it.

I was left standing there, saddened and dumbfounded, with no idea of what I had done to cause such extreme reactions out of her. I reached down and grabbed her book from the floor. Although I was certain I was the last person she would want to save it for her, I didn't want to get trampled or ruined out here.

Whatever small progress I had made with her by intervening had been pushed back by my idiotic reaction to the revelation of her deafness. I had her there—sweet and stunning and ready to talk to me—and I foolishly let my brain deactivate when she had signed to me.

Oh, I see.

Oh, I see? Who even says that? She clearly thought I was a massive jerk. Just one of the other kids in the school who would push her away and label her as a loner and a loser for something she had no control over.

Fortunately, I had a plan to fix it.

When I arrived home that afternoon, I found that Esme had—naturally—gone above and beyond with my request for a book on sign language. A mountain of books was left on my desk including a full textbook, several phrasebooks, a dictionary, and even a workbook. My plan was to surprise Isabella by learning her language and show her that her communication barriers meant nothing to me. And once I proved to her that I truly wasn't a jerk, if she wanted to thank me for my heroic efforts with a few kisses, I certainly wouldn't contest.

I spent the entire weekend putting together lesson plans I had found online or watching ASL tutorials. Monday, I had done more work in my sign language studies than in my actual classes. In fact, I had skipped lunch and went straight to the physics room so I could work on a few more phrases without too many questions or wayward glances. Too soon, I felt Angela's soft presence behind me.

"You're learning sign language?" she asked as she slid into her seat.

I nodded absentmindedly.

"Let me know if you want anyone to practice with," she offered, "I'm fluent."

I slammed the book shut and stared at her incredulously, "Seriously?"

She nodded, "I have a hard of hearing aunt."

My mouth was still hanging wide open like an idiot. "I'm just starting. Can you teach me?"

"Absolutely. When would you like to start?"

"This afternoon? Right after school?"

She laughed at my eagerness. "Awesome. I'll let Ben know I'll have a plus-one for our homework sessions today."

After school, Angela agreed to drive with me to the coffee shop where she and Ben typically met up every day to do homework. She explained that she and Ben drove to school together every day, so neither one of them would be abandoning their cars for my benefit. I still didn't understand why I couldn't just follow their car to the shop, but what did I know?

The coffee shop itself screamed LA. In Forks, there were two coffee shops: Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks. Here, every street corner seemed to have its own unique little shop, each one looking less like a coffee house and more like a plant nursery. The ceiling was exposed with plants hanging from the pipes—I wasn't sure if that was good for the pipes or not. The plants themselves covered the ceiling, as well as every available surface. The furniture was an eclectic, cozy mix of wood, metal, and leather that didn't match and perfectly matched at the same time. Each drink was named after a different plant, and though I was sure most people found it charming, I found it confusing. Angela—the saint that she was—asked me what my usual drink was and ordered for me, so I didn't have to look like a fool in front of the barista.

When our drinks were ready, Angela and Ben led me to a table in the back corner of the coffee shop and settled in. Ben dove into a Calculus assignment right away, and I sat across from him, copying his movements with my ASL books. He looked up briefly when Angela sat beside me instead of him but said nothing.

"I taught myself the alphabet this weekend, and a few common phrases, but I have no idea how to string together any sort of coherent sentence on my own," I explained to Angela, looking through my notes.

I felt Angela's gaze on me and heard her take a long swig off her iced coffee. "Edward, I feel like I barely know you."

I wasn't quite sure what to say to that.

"I want to know my students before I teach them—really understand them. Tell me five facts about you that I don't know."

I sighed, "Angela, I really want to focus on sign language, okay?"

"Oh, right," she laughed uncomfortably. "This is study time, sorry."

I nodded, appreciative that she could respect what I wanted. When I peeked back up at her, she was staring straight down into her lap, looking somewhat mortified.

I decided to throw her a line. She was going out of her way to help me after all. "Baseball in my favorite sport."

She perked up immediately, "Do you play?"

"No, I never had the opportunity to join a team."

"That sucks," Angela sympathized, "Well, now, your family's so big that you could start your own team!"

We were close—there were only seven us of. Carlisle and Esme needed to find two more orphans before we would be ready for the minor league.

"I like baseball, too," she added.

Ben snorted into his math book, "Since when?"

"Since forever, Ben," Angela snapped, throwing him a warning glare. Ben mouthed an "okay," and went right back to math.

Angela grabbed my forearm with both hands, "Tell me another!"

I tried to soften my rejection, "We should work on some ASL."

"Oh!" Angela rifled through my bag and pulled out my ASL dictionary, "Try to tell me your facts in sign language. It'll help us practice!"

She was so excited, I couldn't bring myself to reject her again. I decided to go easy on myself. I pulled out my phrasebook and modified one of the phrases slightly.

"My favorite food is pasta."

It looked like she understood what I said. She repeated the gestures, showing me the correct form, but changed the last word to say chicken wings, according to my dictionary.

"A wing girl, huh?"

"Wing girl?" Ben asked, trying to stay involved in our silent conversation.

"I told him my favorite food," Angela explained.

"Oh!" Ben's eyes widened, "You should see her eat those things, Edward. She practically inhales them. The last time we got wings together, she ate like ten before I got through one."

"Ben!" Angela exclaimed.

"How do you know you're not just bad at eating chicken wings?" I challenged.

"Thank you, Edward!" she wiggled her pointer finger in Ben's face, "You're just bad at it!"

The two of us laughed as Ben sulked.

"Give me another one," she requested.

I nodded, flipping through my phrasebook, looking for a little more of a challenge, "I do not know how to…" I found the first verb I didn't know how to do, "…yodel."

She laughed, "Okay, but there are few who do."

"I know, I'm just running out of things to say," I admitted. My brain always felt completely fried when I had to answer a question about myself. It only took one question for me to forget I was a person with interests and thoughts.

"Okay well… what about relationships? Family…friends…girlfriends?"

"Smooth, Ang," Ben commented. He suddenly jolted, as if someone had kicked his shin under the table.

"Uh," I placed my hand on the back of my neck, "You all know my new family. Friends? Not too many. I was pretty much in and out of my last high school because the adoption came through, and before that, skipped around quite a bit from home to home…"

As expected, Angela's posture stiffened, and suddenly the iced coffee in her hands was the most interesting thing in the world. It was the way most people acted when they remembered I was not like them. It wasn't hard for Angela to break past the shiny Cullen exterior to expose Edward Masen, and—like everyone else—Edward Masen and his broken life made her uncomfortable.

Angela managed to pull herself back together fairly quickly, "Last fact then we can move on… Favorite book?"

That was more like it. Something about myself that wasn't too personal but could still make her feel like she knew something about me. Any sort of friendship with me tended to stay right on the outskirts of any sort of real relationship. In a safe zone: only discussing music and books and nothing that would remind them what I would be going home to.

This was an easy question, I flipped through the book, and could only manage two of the words in the title. Luckily, Angela picked up on what my favorite book was just from "God" and "Ring".

"Lord of the Rings is my absolute favorite," Angela beamed, back to her sweet, chipper self now that we were back in the safe zone. "I swear I can recite the movies by heart. And it's not just that. Tolkien himself and the world he built is fascinating. I can never get enough!"

Across the table, Ben spoke up, "Did you know Tolkien was good friends with—,"

"C.S. Lewis?" Angela and I finished at the same time. We looked at each other and laughed.

"Yeah," Ben grumbled, annoyed that we ruined his fun fact, and turned his attention back to his math problem.

"Tolkien's the reason Lewis included a lamppost in Narnia," I added, "Because Tolkien said lampposts don't belong in fantasy settings, and he added it in to spite his friend."

"Really?" Angela said, "I actually didn't know that one! And here I thought I knew all the useless Tolkien trivia."

"Stick with me," I joked, "And you'll learn useless facts you've never dreamed of knowing."

She elbowed me in the arm, "I think I will. I like it here."

I spent the next two weeks practically glued to Angela's side, desperate to learn ASL as fast as possible for Isabella Swan. Angela was a fantastic teacher. Intelligent, patient, kind. It was only a matter of time before I would be able to hold my own in a conversation with Isabella.

During the time together, we learned that we had a lot more in common than sign language and Tolkien, and our lessons were forced to go on for longer and longer, as we often found ourselves going off on tangents about books or movies or music. We had gotten so friendly, I had almost told Angela about Isabella Swan and asked for advice.

Almost.

oOo

One Monday after Angela and I had spent a particularly grueling weekend together, I was greeted at the lunch table with the usual barrage of mixed emotion. The borderline salacious "Hellos" from Jessica and Lauren, the less-than-enthusiastic nods from Tyler, Mike, and Eric, merely acknowledging my presence and nothing more. Ben and Angela must have been running late because I was missing an actual friendly greeting from Angela and a strained smile from Ben.

Lauren pulled me down beside her, "You didn't like my post from this weekend, Jessica. I was showing off my new bikini."

Jessica plucked a grape off of my tray, "I was busy. You know, actually having a life."

Lauren eyed the grape with disdain and took one for herself, "Well, it got plenty of likes without you."

This was their new little game: sitting on either side of me and talking around me, like I was involved in their conversation. Usually, I sat silently, seeing how many of their words I could translate into sign language in my head. Today was no different. I was still at a pretty basic level, but I think pretty soon I would be able to get simple points across to Isabella Swan.

Suddenly, Ben slammed his lunch tray on the table, "Thanks for the invite, man."

His aggression startled me; I'd never seen Ben like this, "What?"

"Angela said she spent all weekend with you. I would have liked to be included."

Lauren looked at me as if I had just insulted her, "What's this now?"

"We were only studying. We have a test in Physics today." It was going to be a killer, too. Over the weekend, Angela and I had to use some of the time we spent on ASL for studying for this monster. Angela was the only reason I felt prepared at all.

I looked up at Ben who was still looming over the table, "I'm sorry, man. It was a last-second decision. Seriously, it was all studying. You didn't miss much." I didn't understand why he was so irked over this. Over the past two weeks, he spent our afternoons at the coffee shop engrossed in his homework, as if he was trying to actively ignore what Angela and I were talking about. Why would he want to spend an entire weekend like that?

"Oh, a big test?" Lauren smoothed her expression, "We should have known, Jessica."

Jessica tilted her head to the side, "What do you mean?"

Lauren circled her chin with her forefinger, "Angela always breaks out when there's a big test." Beside her, Mike and Eric snickered.

"Lauren!" Jessica hissed, fighting a smile.

"What? It's too obvious," Lauren nodded her head towards Angela, still waiting in line for her food, "The color of her face doesn't match the color of her neck."

"That's hardly her fault," Jessica said, "You know concealers don't get as pale as she needs them to be. She's like a ghost!"

"That doesn't mean she can't have a decent skin-care routine in place. I'm pretty sure she still just washes her face with bar soap."

Jessica scrunched up her nose, "Ew!"

I had no idea what she was supposed to use if she wasn't supposed to use soap. I wondered how they would react if they found out that I washed my hair, face, and body from the same three-in-one bottle.

Lauren leaned into the table, "So how many do you think she has?"

Jessica giggled, "Lauren! You're so mean!"

"I say eight."

Still giggling, Jessica added, "Five. With two of them fresh and uncovered."

The girls were still giggling when Angela arrived at the table, "Hey guys!" she greeted.

Before she could sit down, I stood up with my lunch, blocking her from the two other girls. "You know what, Angela? I need to review those formulas before next period. Will you quiz me on them again?"

I began ushering her away from the table before she could even respond, "Oh! Of course, Edward."

"You look lovely today, by the way," I offered—loud enough for the table to hear me. Hopefully, my comment sounded sincere to Angela, but the rest of the group could hear the accusation behind it.

She ducked her head, trying to hide her smile, "Thank you."

We found a set of empty chairs at one of the long tables that bordered the courtyard. As soon as we sat down, Angela was already pulling out her study guides and notecards.

I could now see Isabella Swan perfectly in my line of sight. In my haste to get Angela away, I didn't bother to angle myself away from her, like I had to nowadays. It was clearly a mistake. Even from here, I could see Isabella's eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open. She looked shocked, maybe even hurt. My first thought was this was simply a reaction to what she was reading, but her book was lowered and she was staring right at me.

Before I could even begin to make sense of Isabella's appalled expression, Angela began firing off test questions in my direction. I tried to get myself to focus on waves and optics and frequency and focal lengths, but my chest ached from the hurt in Isabella's gentle eyes. I needed to rectify whatever caused her grief, but I hadn't the faintest clue what even caused it, let alone what I could do about it. I wasn't able to shake the feeling throughout lunch and into the following class.

Unless these test questions were going to be on a beautiful, silent girl with captivating eyes shrouded in mystery, I was probably going to fail.