Twilight and its characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. This chapter does include the briefest mention of child abuse and neglect.

I kept my head down during dinner, hoping to keep any and all attention away from myself. After my talk with Emmett and Jasper this morning, I now knew that my life at school was a popular topic of conversation among my siblings. It was only a matter of time until Bella's name made it down the family grapevine. I thought I had handled my lunch with Bella with discretion, but I couldn't be sure. For all I knew, the librarian could have been another one of Rosalie's friends, like the barista at the coffee shop.

Thankfully, Rosalie had a piano test she needed to practice for, and Jasper needed to make a few finishing touches to his latest project, so dinner was not the long, dragged-out affair it normally was. It was my turn to help Esme with the dishes, but she wasn't someone I had to worry about. Esme was content with small talk about school, and if that took a turn towards a path I didn't want to go down, it was easy to get her to rant about a customer at work instead. As soon as that was finished, I walked past the video game Emmett and Alice were setting up in the living room in favor of studying in my room.

The moment I passed Carlisle's office, an idea struck, and I was surprised I hadn't thought of it before. Sitting at a grand mahogany desk that looked older than he was, was my new father. My new father who went to medical school. My new father who had an intimate understanding of the human body, and what could be wrong with it.

"Hey, Dad..?" I started the question, not quite sure what I was going to do with the answer.

"Yes, son?"

I leaned awkwardly against the doorframe, "How does somebody become mute?"

"Oof," he leaned back in his desk chair, "Mutism can be a tricky diagnosis to make… Sometimes the culprit is purely physical: damage to the brain or speech muscles. Sometimes the culprit is emotional or mental, or a combination of the two."

"Is there one that's more common than the other?" Specifically for devastatingly beautiful teenage girls?

"Let's see here…" He turned in his chair and scanned the shelves for a moment or two before pulling out a book. He peeked over at me, still lingering in the doorway to his office, "Come in, Edward. Sit."

He watched me as I entered the room and settled into one of the plush guest chairs on the opposite side of his desk. Despite living here for almost two months, this was the first time I had been in Carlisle's office. Behind the desk, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were packed to the brim with academic books. The bookshelves seemed to be the only thing in the room he had control over—the rest of the room screamed Esme. The large, ornate desk sat in the middle of the space wasn't something a practical doctor would choose for himself. The rest of the space was decorated with office-esque objects he wouldn't need and probably never touched: a globe, an hourglass, a telescope.

"Here we go," he muttered and began reading from his book, "Neurogenic mutism is a lack of speech due to underlying damage to the brain. The mutism can be short or long term, static or progressive—it all depends on the region of the brain affected and the level of damage sustained."

My ears perked at the words short term and progressive, "So, there's a chance they could speak again if it's neurogenic?"

Carlisle nodded absentmindedly, his eyes still scanning the page. That was a good sign. Maybe Bella's current condition was only temporary, and somewhere in the future her speech would return.

"What causes it?" I asked.

"Surgery, dementia, traumatic brain injury, seizures, medications…" Carlisle listed.

Bella wouldn't have dementia—if her mutism was physical, any of the other factors could have caused it. I internally cringed at the idea of tiny Bella suffering from a blow to the head so severe that she lost her ability to speak.

"What about the other one?" I asked, "Emotional?"

Carlisle scanned the text, flipping through a few more pages before he found what he was looking for, "Psychogenic mutism is when a person stops speaking, but without any injury to the brain. These individuals can speak in some circumstances but not others, or with some people but not others."

He muttered more of the text to himself and spoke up again when he found something interesting, "the most common types of psychogenic mutism include," he held up one finger, "Elective mutism, where a person chooses not to speak as a result of psychological issues." A second finger, "Selective mutism, where a person wants to speak, but find they can't." And his thumb, "Total mutism, where a person doesn't speak under any circumstance."

Emotional seemed better already. If Bella's mutism was emotional there was a chance that one day, she could be comfortable enough around me to speak. However, I knew better. Growing up in foster care, I was well acquainted with the darkest parts of humanity. I had lived with plenty of traumatized children recently saved from homes filled with abuse and neglect. If Bella's mutism was emotional, she could have suffered through any one of those pasts. The mere thought tore my heart in two.

Still, I had to ask, "And the causes?"

"Severe anxiety disorder, feeling threatened, experiencing a tragic event, and then a bunch of different disorders," Carlisle read.

Just as I suspected. There wasn't a witch that took her voice, and it wouldn't return by the kiss of a handsome prince. A greater force held Bella's tongue, and whatever it was severely damaged her either physically or emotionally.

it didn't make me want her any less.

In fact, it made me want to go to her. Take her into my arms and keep her there, like nothing could ever hurt her while she was in my embrace.

Carlisle interrupted my thoughts, "What's this for, Edward?"

"What?" Carlisle raised his eyebrow at me while I searched for an excuse, "Oh. Um. School."

"Aren't you taking Physics?"

"Yeah," my brain always turned into scrambled egg whenever it had to come up with a good lie, "This is for another class. It's for a paper for, um, English."

Carlisle lowered her glasses and tilted his head down, as if the glass barrier was somehow affecting our communication, "And you picked to write about mutism?"

"Random topics were assigned."

"Oh," he pushed his glasses back into place, "I think Alice's class did something similar… Her paper was on the environmental impact of drywall."

"Yikes," I muttered.

"Send it my way when you're finished," he offered, turning back to his computer screen dismissively, "I'll edit it for you."

I hoped this didn't mean I would have to write an extra paper on mutism for the sake of a little white lie, "Thanks, Dad. Will do."

OoO

Throughout the night, I had been plagued by nightmares about Bella. Every time I shut my eyes, Bella was losing her voice in a new and horrifying way, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Unable to calm her as she suffered from a panic attack so severe, it looked like she would convulse right out of her own skin. Desperately trying to hold on to her as she was ripped out of my arms by a pack of brutes and beaten on the head. Finding her huddled in the corner of an abandoned shack, bruised and malnourished. Sitting beside her as she lay unresponsive in a hospital bed, with thick bandages wrapped around her skull.

By the time it got to lunch, I had probably imagined every scenario that could have caused her mutism, right up to a meteor falling from the sky and hitting her on the head. When I spotted her in the library, braiding and unbraiding the end of her ponytail, I hurried to her side, like if I was away from her too long, something else could happen to her.

She didn't look up when I sat my brown bag lunch on the table beside her. I remembered to pack my lunch that morning to not only avoid curious glances but to also avoid that stupid little half-jog I had to do down the halls to make it to the lunch lines quickly.

"Hey Bella," my voice was softer than usual, no doubt an effect of my ridiculous nightmares. I needed to get a grip.

Her answering smile didn't reach her eyes.

Immediate distress sent my heart plummeting down from my chest and into my feet. "What's wrong?"

"My day," she signed.

I took my seat beside her, "Are you worried about answering my questions?"

She answered with a grimace. The phrase severe social anxiety blared in my mind like an alarm, I struggled to find the switch to turn it off.

Bella pulled the notebook we used yesterday out from her bag and quickly wrote, you're either going to think I'm weird or boring.

Feeling stupid, I leaned back into my chair. Bella's mutism didn't come from any severe anxiety. She had no more nerves than anyone else that had to reveal the bits and pieces of themselves to another person as they went from strangers to…more. And good god, did I want to be more with her.

"Oh, I'm counting on that," I smiled encouragingly, "I happen to be exclusively attracted to weird, boring women."

She rolled her eyes to hide the joy that sparkled in them.

Now that we were both more a little at ease, I thought through the list of questions I had for her. I needed to avoid the ones that made me look like an insane, over-protective cynic, even though recent evidence proved that I was exactly that. This was a date, after all, I needed to keep things light.

"So, the nefarious LA rainy season is starting soon, huh?"

She picked up her pen to write her response in the blank notebook in front of her, but I stopped her before she could begin.

"No, wait. Don't answer that. We are not going to talk about the weather," I wanted to learn about her, not recreate the conversation I had with my mother that morning. I tried again, "You started at this school this year. Where were you before that?"

Still here, she wrote in her notebook, just homeschooled.

I wondered if her homeschooling and her muteness had anything to do with each other, and which one was the chicken and the egg.

"How long were you homeschooled?"

Since I started school.

I suddenly remembered a girl who got pulled away from a mentally unstable mother and placed into my foster home until her extended family could be contacted. The mother locked the girl in the house with her and used the Bible as her only source for homeschooling. I doubted Bella's homeschool experience was traumatic enough to cause her muteness, or she wouldn't be in such advanced classes here. Still, I couldn't help but worry.

"Who taught you?"

I taught myself. Workbooks and online classes.

That didn't seem traumatic at all. Boring, perhaps. A bit isolating. "Was it lonely?"

Sometimes, she looked at the page sadly for a moment or two before adding, but I'm okay with being alone.

"Me too," I agreed. She looked up at me and the two of us exchanged small smiles before she lowered her gaze back down to her notebook.

"Well," I continued, "Do you like it here?"

She had to think over her response. I think so. The lessons are more creative and challenging, which I like. Online courses get tedious after a while.

"Is that why you picked this school?"

I didn't really pick anything. I took a bunch of placement tests. This school offered me the best scholarship.

I didn't bother to contain my awe. A person would have to be killer smart to have a school this small and prestigious pay for them to attend. She couldn't have suffered any traumatic brain injury to cause her muteness and remain this sharp, right?

I shook my head. Light. We were keeping things light, "Wow, beautiful and brilliant. Impressive."

She tried to look indignant over my compliant, but my favorite blush warmed her cheeks—an adorable reaction to how my words truly made her feel.

It's not that impressive. Schools like this want colorful resumes. A mute student adds diversity that they can brag about.

Before I could stop myself, I asked, "What's it like?"

I wanted to take it back, but she didn't seem troubled by the question. In fact, she wrote her response immediately.

It's what I expected. The teachers know I don't speak. They don't address it. They'll skip over me if the class has any sort of oral presentation.

That didn't seem like the way to handle it. I figured the faculty would adjust their lesson plans so they could include Bella. I wondered how much she was left out of, purely due to the laziness of others. I suddenly remembered Rosalie's first description of Bella was as a loner and a loser—she didn't mention anything about her not being able to speak. "Do the people in your class know you can't speak?"

Probably.

"Probably?" I didn't like that response. It meant she was left out of things a lot, "How do you not know?"

They all avoid me. They know there's something wrong with me.

I frowned, "There is nothing wrong with you."

Yes, there is. I'm a freak.

I stared at her, looking for a quivering lip or a wavering expression. Something—anything—that showed me she didn't actually believe the words she had written on that page. However, her eyes bore into mine, strong and sure. Those people truly made her think that she was a freak.

Her classmates picked up on her silence and immediately wrote her off, as if she ended there, as if she had nothing more to offer. If I wasn't careful, I would let my worry and my fear over her past do the exact same thing.

I didn't want to be thought of only as an orphan because of my past, or as a Cullen because of one, dominant trait. I wanted to world to know Edward. Bella was the same. And it didn't matter that she was mute, or how she became mute because both of those things were just small parts that made up Bella as a whole. Along with being mute, she was bright and sweet and just a little bit silly.

And she was definitely not a freak.

"Let's see here…" I muttered. Slow and deliberate, I lifted her chin with two fingers and turned her face towards mine. I searched her face for any sign that my touch was crossing a line and was relieved to find none. Her beautiful eyes swirled with want, not fear.

I turned her face to the right, then the left, "No extra eyes or noses that I can see…"

"Do this, please," I bared my teeth at her. Her eyes widened at my strange request, but she complied. I tilted her chin up towards my face and nodded, "Just as I suspected… no fangs…"

I removed my fingers from her chin and took her hand in mine, where I carefully examined each finger, "No webbing of the hands or feet that I can discern…"

I placed her hand back on the table and leaned in, "Do you put on a clown mask and throw deviled eggs at strangers?"

She jerked her head back slightly and cocked it to the side. If she was confused by my behavior before, she was completely lost now. Despite her confusion, she signed, "No."

I shook my head in mock disappointment, "Well then, I'm sorry, Bella, but you're just not a freak."

I could almost hear the click in her head when she put together my words and my actions. Defiance hardened her eyes as she narrowed them at me. When she picked up her pencil to write a response, the words she wrote were larger and without any of her cursive embellishments. I can't talk, Edward.

"You're talking to me right now."

She threw me a stone-cold you've-got-to-be-kidding-me look.

"Yeah," I nodded, "I'm going to be that annoying about this. Go ahead, tell me what else you think makes you a freak, I'll prove you wrong."

I can't do oral presentations.

"Public speaking is the number one fear in the country," I quoted, "In one of my old schools, some girl got so freaked out about speaking in front of the class that she cried and fainted. When she woke up, the class applauded her anyway and she received an A. She never had to do another presentation, and no one said anything about it."

Check and mate.

Bella flexed her jaw and wrote, the class can't do group projects because I can't participate in them.

"No one cares about that. Group projects suck; you're doing everyone a favor."

She audibly huffed—it was the first actual sound I had ever heard her make. No one knows to call me Bella.

"I let a teacher call me Edwin for almost an entire year because I was too nervous to correct her," I chuckled to myself, "I even started writing the wrong name on my tests so I wouldn't confuse her."

Bella finally cracked a smile.

"See?" I encouraged, "Not a freak. A little shy, maybe, but all that does is make you painfully adorable and incredibly sweet."

She bit her lip and lowered her gaze to hide her smile—immediate proof of how adorable she truly was. After fiddling with the pencil for a moment or two, she wrote, that's funny—that's exactly what being embarrassingly desperate makes you.

I laughed at her call back from what I said about myself earlier that week. A bit of pride was added to her small smile from earning my laugh. The two of us basked in the lightened atmosphere our gentle flirting brought.

I glanced at my forgotten lunch still sitting in the center of the table. "I've been so besotted by someone, I forgot to eat…" I muttered, reaching for my lunch, "Do you mind?"

Bella shook her head and gave me the universal gesture to go ahead.

Fully feeling how hungry I was, I fished out a bag of chips and popped them open—Bella jumped at the loud sound in the otherwise quiet library but composed herself quickly. I held the bag out to Bella as an offering, to which she shook her head. At that moment, I realized I had never seen her eat lunch, not even when she sat alone in the courtyard. "You know what? I don't think I've seen you eat before."

Her pretty face paled and her eyes widened as if she had just realized she made a terrible mistake. She snatched the pencil from the table and quickly scratched into the notebook, I eat.

I nodded, "I'm sure you do. But I've never seen it at school."

At night.

"Only at night?" I popped another chip in my mouth, "I don't know how you do it. Even with breakfast, I'm starving by lunch every day."

She pointed to her previous sentence, I eat.

I chuckled at her persistence, "I believe you," I took another chip out of the bag, "What do you like to eat?"

She looked genuinely frazzled by such a simple question.

"Fish," she signed.

"Fish?" I repeated out loud, a little confused, "Like just fish? What kind of fish?"

She glanced around the room, like the answer to my question would be written on the spines of one of these books. Then, the spark of an idea flickered across her face.

Sushi, she wrote. She looked entirely pleased with herself, and I couldn't begin to understand why.

"So, you eat sushi at night. Got it."

She sucked her cheeks in and furrowed her brow, like a stern-looking fish face. She was determined to prove something, but what it was, I couldn't be sure.

I'll show you.

"You'll show me?" I repeated with a laugh.

Then, I suddenly understood what was going on. The discomfort. The agitation. The offer to watch her eat sushi at night. Bella was trying to get me to ask her on a date. She might have been a brilliant student, but she definitely wasn't smooth. That could be easily forgiven, though.

"Bella, would you like to get sushi with me tomorrow night?"

Although I thought I asked the question she was fishing for, her face slacked, and she went completely still as considered my question.

A small, wistful smile blossomed across her face, making her entire expression glow, even here in the dim light of the library. I had never seen anything more beautiful. When her eyes met mine, my heart stuttered to a stop, then picked up in double time.

Then, she nodded. And the whole world seemed to sing.

"Wonderful," My voice stuck in my throat, and I took a swig of water to clear it, "Do you have a place you like to go?"

She shook her head, which struck me as odd. If she liked sushi so much, I figured she would have a favorite restaurant.

"Alright," I said, "I can ask one of my sisters. I'm sure they'll know of something good in town. Sound good?"

"Sounds good," she signed.

"Great," I smiled, "I can't wait for you to show me how you eat sushi at night."

I know that this is just a sweet little story and there's not much to comment on, but I would appreciate a little emoji in the reviews, just so I know you all are happy with how this is going. We're going to actually get to the plot in the next chapter!

Thank you!