Twilight and all of its characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. So, I had this chapter finished, but after rereading, I realized there were just two characters talking, and not Edward and Alice. So, I needed to change everything to make the only thing a little more them.

I tried not to care.

I wanted to be pissed at Isabella for what she did, but I didn't have it in me. I even sank so low as to sit at our table in the library during lunch, hoping she would stumble in with a heartfelt apology and an excuse. But she never came.

In fact, it seemed that she had dropped off the face of the Earth. For the next two weeks, her old Chevy was missing from the parking lot. The daily storms of the LA rainy season kept the courtyard clear, but she wasn't in the indoor lunchroom or the library, silently lost in a paperback. I knew my reaction should have been good riddance, but instead, I found myself searching for her, wanting nothing more than to see her face.

The girl picked up and left in the middle of our date without so much as a goodbye, and I actually missed her.

I tried not to care.

It was becoming more and more apparent that I was not made out of Harvard Westlake material. I had expected to feel the pressure with the accelerated coursework when switching from Fork High School to Westlake. What I hadn't expected was the heightened expectations put on me by my new siblings. It seemed every teacher at this school had a fond connection with at least one of my siblings and was vocally disappointed to not find the same outcome with this Cullen.

Your sister Rosalie was able to handle the coursework in this amount of time.

Jasper excelled at this almost immediately.

You can learn a thing or two from your brother, Emmett.

Maybe some of Alice will rub off on you.

I lost count of the times I heard the phrase, I expected more from a Cullen.

I wondered if maybe I hadn't passed any of the preliminary exams, and Esme and Carlisle paid my way into the school. Or—much more realistically—if every bit of brainpower I had was used up on yearning for a pair of soft, brown eyes swimming with silent secrets for me to uncover.

I tried not to care.

When I came to terms that Isabella would not be joining me for lunch in the library ever again, I sat back at my usual lunch table. Jessica had officially started dating Mike Newton, and Lauren had latched on to his best friend Tyler Crowly. At first, it was a relief. Jessica had officially forgiven me for my rejection and I was certain that my fan club would dissolve with the new relationships.

But to my great disappointment, it lingered on. Every tickle of Lauren's fingers across the back of my neck, every brush of Jessica's hand down my arm felt dirtier than before. I wasn't sure if it was because of their new relationships, or if it was because I had already decided my body was only meant to be touched by one pair of soft, cool hands.

Then, there was Angela. I had canceled our sign language study courses after my failed date with Isabella, now that it was abundantly clear that I no longer needed them. Still, Angela requested my presence with her at the coffee shop, and I went. Her poor, misguided heart gave her the strength to bear the new, uncomfortable atmosphere with ease while I sulked in silence and struggled through my assignments.

What I needed was a switch to flip that would take all of my feelings for Isabella and give them to the girl who was also fun and sweet and far more dependable. However, such a switch did not exist and try as I might, everything I felt towards Angela was purely platonic, and nothing more.

I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I repeated to myself as the tedium of laundry day let my mind wander too far without me giving it permission to do so.

"What are you doing?" a small voice drifted in from the hallway. I glanced up to see Alice standing uncomfortably in the doorway to the laundry room.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I asked, stuffing one sock into another and tossing them into a basket. "I'm putting away the damn laundry."

"On a Saturday night?"

We were two seconds into our conversation, and I was already ready for it to be over. "Well. I started earlier, however, whenever I run out of clean clothes, someone,"—I glared up at her—"just buys me new ones with her absurd family credit card. So, if I want something specific, I have to wash it all to find it. Which now takes for-fucking-ever."

"You can ask Esme—,"

"I don't want Esme to do it for me," I snapped.

Alice set her jaw and took a deep breath through her nose, "I was going to say you can ask Esme to donate anything you don't want."

"Well, isn't that wonderful of her?" Even the pile of shirts I was sorting through could pick up on my sarcasm.

Alice lingered in the doorway and watched as I tried to free the other leg of a pair of pants from the bottom of my clothes mountain, only to cause an avalanche to topple to the floor. I took a deep breath, muttered an oath, and bent down to pack the clothes back into place on the counter.

"What are you doing?" I asked when she skipped into the room.

"I'm helping," she responded coolly. She pulled herself so she was sitting crossed-legged on the counter beside my massive pile of clothes.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" I was certain she had a whole flock of friends waiting to see what she would be wearing for her night out so they could go and buy it the next day.

She was already looking through my t-shirts. "I'll cancel."

Despite my protests, she began rifling through my things, looking for pairs of socks. Eventually, I conceded and began explaining how I wanted things sorted in the various laundry baskets placed around the room. Naturally, she had an opinion on every one. Soon, the clothes I had already sorted were re-sorted by Alice's approved method.

After I innocently folded a shirt, Alice stopped me, "You should really hang up your button-downs, or they'll wrinkle."

Maintaining direct eye contact with her, I took the neatly folded shirt, balled it into a mound, and shoved it in the basket.

"Cut it out," she snapped.

"Cut what out?" I asked, balling up the next shirt.

"Whatever this is," she gestured vaguely in my direction, "I mean, I know you were never the most extroverted person, but at least you used to smile. Now you just sulk and suck everyone into misery with you. It's annoying. So cut it out."

"How do you know I'm not always like this?"

Alice sucked in a breath, "Because if you were like this, Carlisle and Esme wouldn't have picked you to join the family."

That was this thing: I didn't belong in their school or their family or their perfect, little life. "Well, they made a mistake."

"No, they didn't," Alice insisted.

"There is no reason for them to want me, other than a tax deduction and something unique to brag about at parties."

"That's not true!"

"Why else would they adopt a bunch of teenagers, Alice?"

"Because we're alone!" she yelled, losing her cool. She took another deep breath through the nose while running her fingers through her halo of black, spiky hair, causing it to stick out even more. When she spoke again her voice was more level. "Because Carlise and Esme had to create a family from scratch. They weren't going to make a mistake."

I looked down at the shirt in my hands that I've tried to fold three times by now, "Yes they could."

Alice crawled across the counter and shoved the clothes I was working on into a clean basket, "Is that why you've been acting so weird?" she asked. "You don't think you fit in with the family?"

"Alice," I groaned, trying to reach past her and grab other clothes. "Just. Drop it. Okay? It's nothing."

"No!" she tore a pair of shirts from my hands, "Why don't you think you fit in with us?"

"I'm just not like the rest of you," I explained. I tried to reach around her to grab more clothes, but she kept using her body to block me.

"In what way?"

"I don't know, Alice. In lots of ways."

"Name six."

"Oh my god."

"I bet I can name them." Alice pushed more clothes off the counter, so she was seated in a more comfortable position. "You have red hair. You have green eyes. You only have eight toes."

"Alice…"

"What?" she shrugged innocently, "If you're not going to tell me, I'm just going to have to guess. Hmm... let's see... you're secretly a furry." Alice pinched her face, "That's a bit cringy, Edward."

"Alice!"

"Well, what is it?" she demanded, "Why are you so against being a part of this family?"

"I have nothing against being a part of this family." The idea of being part of a family called to a very dormant part of me, a part of me I had to repress after years of hope. But I had been right not to hope, even after the news of my adoption, because although I might have found a family on paper, I could never truly be part of it. And that was becoming clearer with every passing day. "I don't belong here with you guys."

She quirked her head to the side, like a bird, "Why do you say that?"

"Because if I'm not getting pressured by every teacher at that goddamn preppy hellscape you people call a school to be more like the four of you, I'm getting fondled or scorned by students who expect the same. And when they get to just me under that Cullen name, all they'll find is disappointment."

I frowned, thinking about how Bella left right after I told her I wasn't like the rest of my siblings on our date. I knew Lauren and Jessica latched on to me from the beginning because of my new last name. Did she, too, only seek me out to become close to the unattainable Cullen family?

"Who makes you think that?"

I fluttered my hands in a vague outward direction, "The leeches that latched to my arms the moment they found out I was a Cullen and haven't let go."

Alice looked to the side skeptically, "Or you're good-looking fresh blood at an otherwise boring school and they wanted an in with you and the only thing they knew about you was your new family."

I wasn't sure what to say to that. But, it felt like I was suddenly struggling to hold my ground. "Well, I definitely don't belong at that school like all of you."

"I'm sure you're doing fine—you passed all your entrance exams."

"I'm getting C's in my classes."

"So?" she shrugged off immediately, "Emmett got D's."

"Well, I can't play sports like Emmett can."

"You think Rosalie ever touched a ball in her life?" Alice challenged. "She's a Pilates bitch."

"Well, why does it feel like every single teacher at that school knows one of you, and expects me to be just like you?"

Alice giggled, "Oh Edward, you aren't a bad Cullen; you're a younger brother."

That thought had literally never crossed my mind. "Oh."

She laughed a little louder, "Every single one of us got shit for not being like the others. Everyone expected Jasper to be able to handle a ball like Emmett, and everyone wanted Rosalie to run for student government like me. It's what happens when you have siblings. You'll be compared to us for the rest of your life. And you know what? Eventually, we'll be compared to you, too."

"Everyone at school seems to talk about how perfect the four of you are all the time."

That got her rolling. "We're not perfect kids, Edward. We're just lucky enough to have parents who allowed us to follow our passions. And so do you, now."

I continued to sort and fold as I considered what Alice was saying. Getting attention and higher expectations sucked when they came from not being a proper Cullen, however, they had a whole, new meeting behind them if they were consequences of being a younger brother.

"But there's more to it... isn't there?" Alice asked, mostly to herself.

Of course there was more to it. The escalation of all my doubts started with a public rejection by the soft, silent girl who somehow became my entire world. My fears had vanished with her smile and came back in full force with her disappearance.

I kept my head down, unwilling to share that. One personal confession was more than enough for the day. But Alice wasn't about to just leave me be. She got up on her hands and knees and crawled over the countertop until we were eye-to-eye. I leaned back slightly, but she only leaned closer; so close that I could feel her hot exhalations on my face. Unmoving, she stared into my bewildered eyes for several uncomfortable moments.

Then, she screamed.

I jumped back, screaming along with her. I spun around the room, ready to fight whatever threat caused her distress before I realized absolutely nothing was wrong. "What the fuck, Alice!?"

"It's a girl!"

"What!?" I asked, still shouting with her.

Alice swung her legs out in front of her, so she was sitting on the edge of the countertop, "The teachers aren't on your ass because you're not like us, they're on your ass because you're daydreaming in class about a girl! The flirting girls aren't bothering you because you think it's a Cullen they want, they're bothering you because you wish someone else was flirting with you!"

How did she do that? "I just told you what it's about." Psychic as she may seem, I was not going to discuss Bella with Alice.

"Yeah, but I don't buy it. Stupid remarks from teachers or flirty girls aren't going to put you in a funk. You survived Middle School as a foster kid; I know you got tougher skin than that. Whatever caused this," she frowned and flailed her arms around, "was personal. So, it's a girl; unless it's a boy," she wiggled her eyebrows at me.

I sighed heavily, "Fine, yes. It's a girl."

Alice squealed; it blasted my eardrums.

"Okay," she held her hands out as if she was preparing herself for something serious, "We can win her, Edward. If she has half a brain, she'll see you have whatever she's looking for if she wants herself a Cullen."

"Alice..." my sister was officially out of the sour mood caused by me, which meant the words were flowing a mile a minute. In this short amount of time of living with her, I already learned she often had to be reeled back into any conversation.

"She definitely finds you good-looking. I mean you should have heard my friends the other day, asking how old you were the second you left the room," she giggled at her own memory, "Is that why you've been working out with Emmett so much? Maybe that's your problem! Some girls don't want muscle, they want their men lean and mean like a green—,"

"Alice!"

"Who is it? I knew like everyone at that school, even the sophomores, so I probably know her! Together, we're going to woo her, Edward!"

There was no sense in hiding it, now that there was nothing to hide, "Isabella Swan."

"Oh." All of Alice's enthusiasm burst like a bubble. "So, it's true."

"What?"

"It's just that…" Alice picked at her nails, "Rosalie says there's something wrong with that girl."

"There's nothing wrong with her," I retorted immediately, a little harsher than necessary. Then, a little softer, "She can't speak."

"Like at all?"

"Nope. Completely mute."

"If she can't talk to you—,"

"She can talk to me," I interrupted, "I picked up some sign language, and she can write things down."

"Okay," Alice dragged out the word, "So, how did this mute girl make you think you didn't fit in with the family?"

"We had lunch a few times. She was everything I imagined she would be… sweet, smart, a little goofy sometimes. She does this thing where she bites her lip to hide her smile when I tease her that's just," I clutched my heart, unable to find the right words.

"Aw, she sounds cute!" Alice chirped.

"She's wonderful," I corrected. "Two weeks ago, I asked her on a date and—,"

"The sushi!" Alice shouted.

I shot her a look and she clamped her hands over her mouth. She opened them to whisper a quick sorry and closed them again.

"I took her to get sushi," I quirked an eyebrow at Alice, daring her to interrupt again. She didn't, and I continued. "because she said it was her favorite food. I thought the date was going well. She seemed happy to be there and into me the entire time…"

"But…?"

"She left," the words burned my throat a little on their way out, "she left right in the middle of our date without so much as a word."

"What?" Alice chirped, "Why?"

"I don't know," my voice sounded sad, even to my own ears, "She left right after I told her I didn't fit in with the rest of my siblings."

"Do you really, really think she left the date because you said you aren't like the rest of us? Any girl with half a brain can see that you're great, whether she thinks you fit whatever Cullen mold they're created or not."

If I was being honest, I didn't even think of that excuse until recently, "I don't know what else it could be," I sighed.

"What else happened?"

While we continued folding and sorting my clothes, I recounted the date for Alice with as much detail as I could.

"So... you talked about us, Bella said she was the black sheep of her family,"

"Black seal," I corrected.

Alice's facial features pinched, "Weird."

"I know."

"She said she was a black seal, it started to rain, so the two of you moved inside, then she made up going to the bathroom because she actually just walked out the front door."

That sounded right. "Yupp."

"And you haven't seen her in school since?"

I shook my head.

Alice plopped down on a stack of neatly folded clothes in one of the baskets with a huff, "I don't know what it could be, Edward. I was hoping there was some big, blinding problem you were too much of a man to see, but I got nothing. But what I can tell you, is that she didn't leave because she was disappointed that you weren't like us."

"You think?"

"Definitely. For one thing, the idea that you aren't like us is a load of bull. But also, she hadn't known Rosalie was your sister," Alice pointed out.

"I've been replaying that date in my head over and over, trying to figure out what I did wrong. I think I just wanted an excuse. Something, anything to make it all make sense."

"Maybe you didn't do anything," Alice suggested, "maybe something is wrong with her."

"There is nothing wrong with her," I repeated.

"You don't know that, Edward."

I fought against the childish impulse to snap back at her. Because if I was being honest, I had no idea what caused Isabella's mutism or if it had anything to do with her leaving me that night. Instead, I went with something that was unequivocally true, "It wouldn't matter if there was."

Alice was quiet for a few seconds. "Really?"

"I-I can't think straight when it comes to this girl, Alice. I don't think there's anything that would make me not want her. It's insane. She could come up to me and offer up the shittiest, most ridiculous excuse, I would take her back. I wouldn't even ask any questions or anything, I would just take her back," I sighed. "Isn't that the saddest thing you've ever heard?"

"No," Alice answered honestly.

"I guess I shouldn't ask that question to an orphan," I teased.

She tossed her flip-flop at my head. We both chuckled at the loud slap that sounded when it fell on the ground.

"No," she dragged out the word in a mocking tone, "because I know exactly how you feel."

"Yeah?"

She began fiddling with the bracelets around her wrist, "I know exactly how it feels to want someone no matter what."

"You had a perfect, mute girl stand you up, too?"

"No," she put her elbows on her knees to rest her chin in her hands, "I want a boy. A perfect, wonderful boy who would be perfect and wonderful with me. But we're not meant to be together like that. If I ever told him how I felt he would freak out and never speak to me again."

"You don't think he would want you?" I asked in disbelief, "But you were the class president to raise a record-breaking amount of funds for the school."

She turned the corner of her lips up briefly at my joke, but then her face dropped back into a very un-Alice-like expression. "It would be wrong for us to be together," she insisted.

"Why?"

"Just would."

It wasn't like Alice to have a two-syllable response.

"How do you deal with it?"

"I just take comfort in all the happy moments I have with him. I hold them close to my heart and tell myself that they're enough."

"What if I already had all of my happy moments with her?" I asked.

"Then be grateful you had any at all."

We lapsed into a comfortable silence from there. From her perched position in the laundry basket, Alice watched in silence as I folded up my final shirt: the bright yellow running shirt I needed to run at night.

Suddenly, Alice's phone went off, causing us both to jump out of our induvial musings. She glanced at the notification and put it back in her pocket, only to receive another notification. Then another, and another. Alice's friends were not nearly as she was willing to sit out on their night's outing.

"You should go."

She grinned sheepishly, "You sure?"

I glanced at the clock on my wall, "It's only eight-thirty. Go."

Alice hoped up from her spot in the laundry basket, all traces of our previous conversation gone. She smoothed her shirt, did a little pirouette, and struck a pose.

"Cute," I approved.

She smiled ruefully and skipped to the door of the laundry room.

Before making an exit, her hand lingered on the doorknob, "You belong with us, Edward. Carlise and Esme want you here. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise, no matter how pretty they are."

I smiled back at her, "Thank you, Alice."

When she was gone, I fiddled with the yellow shirt in my hands—finding it was the entire reason I did my laundry in the first place. I peeked out the window and saw the final remnants of this evening's storm. The rain wasn't a deterrent for me—if I didn't run in the rain in Forks, I didn't run at all. Besides, my talk with Alice put a lot of thoughts in my mind that I needed to sort through, and I always did my best thinking while running.

I pulled on my shirt and the rest of my running gear and went down to the beach. The sand slowed my pace significantly, but the rain helped harden the ground, so I was able to run for longer than I had been on any other attempts at running on the beach I had made previously.

About a mile into the run, I spotted something dark coming out of the ocean up ahead of me. A shark fin? Did sharks live here? That felt like something I should know.

I continued, considering how well-researched I should be on sharks living near the ocean when it emerged again. Closer up, I got a better view of its shape and size.

It was a head.

Definitely a human head.

Further back in the water than anyone should be, especially in this weather.

I looked to my right and to my left to see if anyone else was chasing after the person in the water, but I was alone on the beach.

Hurriedly, I wrenched off my sneakers and pulled off my shirt, and ran towards the last place I saw the head.

As I ran into the water, a strong, unsteady flow of water swept me off my feet, like a rushing river in the middle of the ocean. Rip current. I floundered for a moment or two but was able to break the surface of the water. Logically, I knew that I should stay calm and swim parallel to the shore, but in practice, it was very, very hard to stay calm, especially since I had no idea where the shore was anymore and didn't know which direction would be considered parallel.

Every time I resurfaced, I was knocked back under by progressively larger waves. I couldn't breathe, I had water rushing in through my nose and mouth, and my mind was going nuts. My body was growing tired from the strain of fighting against the water, and it suddenly gave out. I couldn't move a single muscle. Not very wisely, I wasted my last breath by shouting mindlessly as I slowly sank deeper into the water. I was panicking, I was out of control, I tried to wave my arms and legs furiously, but they had given up on me.

It dawned on me that I was drowning and I wasn't going to make it. My body was limp, my mind went blank, and I gave up on all effort. I just let go, and my flaccid body just floated in the water for a few seconds. In the water before me, a dark figure swam towards me. A fishtail swished behind it, but human arms reached out for me. Before I could find out if this thing had come to kill me, my lungs had more or less given out, and everything went dark.

The next moment, I was vomiting. My lungs and stomach felt like there was lava churning inside of me. Tired and confused, I collapsed onto the sand.

Wet hair tickled my face, and I felt something press up against my heart. I blindly reached for the object and felt cold skin. My fingers traced down a narrow nose and then across a pair of petal-soft lips. I knew these lips. I dreamt about these lips every day for months.

"My Bella," I heard myself whisper, "My beautiful Bella."

I let my hand rest against her cheek, while my thumb continued to stroke her perfect lips.

I heard her exhale in relief, but she didn't say anything.

Of course, she didn't say anything.

She couldn't.

I moved my hand away from her lips and ran my fingers through her long, wet hair, starting at her temple, all the way down to the tips. When I placed my hand down on what I thought was her hip, I felt something cold and almost slimy instead. Suddenly my hand was shoved away and the weight of her head vanished. My hands reached around for her but found nothing but sand.

Panicked, I bolted upright, but she was gone.

I know this chapter was a bit long and rambly and I'm sorry! But Edward and Alice wouldn't shut up. Also, to those who are picking up what I'm putting down in terms of Alice's storyline… let me know what you think.