7. Clair de Lune

The next day, I drive my siblings to school without uttering a single word, grimly determined to go through with my plan to ignore the boy. My sullen scowl, permanently etched in my features, discourages any questions about my state of mind. Only Alice dares to voice her doubts.

"What's going on, sister? The little I see of your future is all shadowy and shapeless again. I can't make head or tail of it…"

"I'm here, am I not? I'm fulfilling my obligations, as we agreed. That doesn't mean I have to condemn him to one of the futures you and Emmett consider the most likely."

"I know you are not leaving; that would be shirking responsibilities and you're not the type, but what do you plan to do then?"

"Aside from monitoring all his conversations to make sure he doesn't start sinister rumors about our family? Nothing at all, actually. I'll just pretend he doesn't exist. It won't be easy, but I don't have a choice. I can't leave; you're right about that."

Alice huffs, annoyed, but she doesn't argue anymore. Maybe she's resigned to not befriending the human, despite her previous visions, or maybe she doubts the strength of my resolve. It doesn't matter. I know what I have to do and I won't be deterred. If it's true I care about him, I must protect him from the danger I pose to him first and foremost. The poor boy still doesn't know how close I came to killing him the very first day I met him.

The others keep quiet throughout the ride, but I'm all too aware of their thoughts. Rosalie, as expected, is still extremely annoyed. She only cares about how all of this will affect her life and she doesn't like the idea of leaving Forks because of my inane crush on a human. Emmett, overprotective as usual, is genuinely worried about me, but he can't truly understand me. In his view, there is no reason I should stay away from the boy since I like him so much, but he respects the fact that I have made a decision. Jasper is unconcerned; he trusts Alice's visions and he thinks it's only a matter of time before I either kill the boy or befriend him even more. I'll do my best to prove him wrong.

Once we are out of our car, we linger in the parking lot until it fills with students. Brandon is immediately surrounded by his peers, when he shows up, and he spends the next few minutes fielding questions about yesterday's near-death experience. When pressed for details, he keeps repeating, time after time, that I was standing next to him at the time and only my quick reflexes saved his life. Of course, nobody asks me about it, but I would only confirm his words. He's clearly peeved; he doesn't like to be the center of all this attention, but he sticks to the script and never wavers.

I'm glad to report the good news to my siblings, and spend the morning scanning the minds of anybody who comes in contact with Brandon with identical results.

By the time we are sitting in the cafeteria, and I once again reassure my siblings of his silence, I have to admit that contradictory feelings are busy stirring parts of me that had been frozen, I thought permanently, long before the recent havoc. I'm happy he's keeping his word, but that causes a range of emotions I interpret as shame; I reneged on my side of the bargain and he knows it, and yet he's doing his best to protect me. It's probably just gratitude for saving his life, but it still rankles that I will only betray his trust further when I snub him as I must. My feelings for him are only growing stronger, but I must quash them and pretend otherwise.

My siblings and I nibble on our food and chat among ourselves, but I listen to every word that comes out of his mouth. When the loutish goons he hangs out with ask him whether he had a chance to grope me, he looks clearly upset, even more so than when he was just lying to them, and seems shocked by their juvenile lechery. It's quite endearing, but he's not making my work any easier; I imagine looking up at the sky, my hands still clinging to the few holds I can find in a vertical surface of rough granite. My hands and shoulders are tiring, and the edge of the cliff is still far above me, way too far. The distant line where darkness and light meet floats above me, taunting me, apparently unreachable. How will I ever get there?

We head out and I get to class before he does. I sit on the edge of my chair, as far from him as possible though, partly to limit the effects of his mouth-watering aroma and partly in preparation; I have a part to play. Once again, he does his best to thwart me. He smiles brightly when he sees me and spears of pain skewer me even as I pretend to barely notice his arrival.

"Hi Lynn." He says, smiling and serene; my mind goes into overdrive. Why is he so friendly? Could he really have forgiven my betrayal so easily? My heart sinks when I force myself to nod, scowling, and turn away from him while noticing the discomfort my rejection is causing through the teacher's eyes.

Well, I tell myself, as much as this will sting, it's still nothing compared to all the hurt I would bring into his life were I to choose a different course of action. He might be upset now but he will be fine; at least he still has his life and his family.

These thoughts should bring me some solace, like Carlisle says cold water soothes, in humans, the pain caused by a burn, but I feel none. I breathe as little as possible, but when I draw in air to answer a teacher's question tongues of fire ravage my throat. And yet, that is nothing compared to the agony of not being able to simply ask him what he's thinking, or of having to pretend I despise him and do not wish to interact with him. Not that it matters. If he ever learns what I really am he won't want to be near me anyways. That thought only makes the pain even more unbearable.

Yet, I spend the rest of the afternoon forcing myself not to look at him. To physically do so is not that hard, but I'm also constantly tempted to observe him through other sets of eyes. I can endure almost two agonizing hours in the darkness, and then my will capitulates and I search the minds of his friends. I hear him talk about something trivial to Jessica, his resigned politeness obvious to me, but she has much more extensive designs on him. Alice and I are in our history class. She flinches when my right hand tenses and a pencil loudly snaps in half. The teacher stops speaking for a few seconds, but resumes his lesson, probably discarding the whole thing as an accident, which it certainly was.

Jessica's possessiveness toward him, as she thinks he will be hers, really annoys me. If I have to stay away from him, however, I must ignore my anger. I heard Angela's voice, and I decide to look at him through her eyes. She likes Brandon a little, but she's very shy and she's mostly concerned with her grades and another boy at the moment. I like that, but it's not the only reason I find her hospitality much more pleasant; she's just a nicer person. She often thinks about her younger sister, and how to help her parents at home. She's rather selfless, even generous, like the boy seems to be at times. He was just defending Angela after some annoying comment made by Jessica.

I look at his green eyes, and I try to understand his thoughts, trying to divine the reasons for the kindness Angela and I couldn't fail to notice. The bell rings and I almost run back to the car, Alice in tow. We drive home, and I spend the night in the forest, trying to forget who I am and where I'm headed. Of course, those liquid green eyes are always in my thoughts.

The next couple of weeks, Brandon and I settle into a trite routine. Outwardly, we refuse to acknowledge the other even exists. My obsession, however, still grips me, and I can't help constantly following him around the school, albeit vicariously, using oblivious eyes and minds to further my own ends. I try to avoid Jessica's unintended hospitality, but I often have to bite the bullet. Now that I'm apparently out of the picture, she's trying to swoop in for the kill and she's often in his company, trying to get him to open up to her. I appreciate her efforts, since thanks to her I learn a lot more about him, but still resent having to hear her most unruly thoughts.

In French class she brazenly flirts with him before every lesson, even sitting on the edge of his desk, maybe showing him a profile of her big breasts… No, I refuse to think of her as a rival. I'm not part of this slice of high school drama, no matter how much it occupies my mind. This kind of stuff all looked so beneath me, just a few days ago, and yet now I'm just another almost-love-stricken, or possibly just-infatuated, teenager. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

And yet, there is something else going on. Brandon, unaware of my constant, indirect surveillance, normally as disdainful of my presence as I am of his, keeps sneaking looks at me, on occasion. When he does, I often hear him sigh, and that sound twists like a knife in my guts. The questions I would like to ask him are like long sharp needles I cannot pull out of my skull. Why is he sighing? Does he miss our chats as much as I do? I have lock my teeth tight, lest those questions escape and ruin all the efforts I made to avoid him. And yet, even though I don't understand it, I must admit that it somehow pleases me that he still looks at me as often as he did the first few days after the accident. Alice keeps bugging me about it, saying that he likes me, but I know she's wrong this time. I can tell I really angered Brandon with my snub; why would he like me? Besides, he must be wondering what kind of a freak I am.

He certainly kept his word; the questions have eventually dried up, but his version of the events never changed. My family and I are safe. If he spoke up more than two weeks after the accident he would just be met with ridicule. I'm sure he won't blab regardless; he seems to follow his own code, to the letter. I did save him in miraculous circumstances though, so, yeah, he must be curious, nothing else.

My siblings are also glad of his silence, of course, and are now more relaxed. Rose still holds a grudge, stubborn as ever, but she's also relieved. Jasper is puzzled, but not ungrateful, quite the opposite.

"You know, little sister, maybe I can see why you like this boy. He certainly has guts, and he's honoring his word despite your betrayal. There is something to be said about that. Too bad he's a human."

I respond with a snort; these days I rarely bother to talk to anybody. I just try to get to the end of each and every school day.

It's too bad that even in the life of a vampire some things never go as planned. I doubt my attempt to scale the cliff and regain solid ground has made any difference, but, if it did, it's all undone at the end of that second week.

That Friday, I show up for our only class together and occupy my usual spot. I see him walk in through another kid's eyes, carrying a guitar in a worn out, black soft case. Out teacher, however, never comes in. Instead, an admin guy tells us she fell suddenly ill and there was no time to replace her. He encourages us, instead, to do our homework or review other materials. When he notices Brandon's guitar, he invites him to play something. Surprised, he agrees to practice a classical piece. My curiosity burns as fiery as ever and now I wonder what he will play. At least this time I won't have to wait for long to get an answer.

After checking the tuning and tweaking some of the pegs he hits the first few notes and my heart drops down an endless chute; my thoughts feel a little lighter, floating like a balloon, unmoored. I recognized the piece immediately; it's Claire de Lune, by Debussy. It was written for the piano but Brandon is attempting a guitar version that appears to be rather challenging. That's not the reason for my sudden misery, though. The thing is, this is probably my favorite classical piece. Out of the thousands of works he could have played, he somehow managed to choose the one I couldn't possible turn a deaf ear to. I really don't know what to make of this coincidence… The more I learn about him, the harder it is to resist the constant pull he exerts on me. I'm so surprised that, for the first time in two weeks, I actually turn to look at him, biting my lip and pondering the mysteries of the universe.

While he's playing I force myself to look away again, and then shutter my eyes, but I cannot avoid listening; the music has me in his thrall. It reminds me of the first time I heard the piece. Carlisle and I were in New York, only a few years after I'd been turned. One night, we were walking past a concert hall. It was snowing, and of course the cold didn't bother us, but we saw a bill advertising a performance of Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, which includes the piece now played by the boy. When you don't sleep you have to find ways to kill time, and we decided to attend.

Music hadn't been a big part of my life when I was a human; my family was poor and survival was our only real goal. That night, with Carlisle, was the first time I'd ever attended a concert, or really paid attention to any music. By the time the evening was over, I was in love with the third movement, meaning Claire de Lune, and I knew I wanted to do more than just listen to it. Carlisle, always the perfect father, bought us a piano and found a teacher. To our surprise, I was a natural, and I went on to learn and compose too many pieces to count them.

Through Jessica's mind, enraptured by Brandon's unexpected talent and at least temporarily less annoying, I look at Brandon again, struggling to play the challenging guitar version of this piece. His execution is far from perfect but it doesn't matter. I can feel how much it means to him and I know he'll get there.

A new fantasy replaces my old memories. I see myself walking by a lake, the moon high in the sky, its light painting a silver trail on the water. The notes carry me along as I stroll through magical woods, holding his hand, asking him questions about his life, and looking at the stars above us. When I realize how impossible this vision is, it takes all the control I have left to maintain my stony silence; I feel like my insides are being ripped to shreds by a rabid wolverine.

When the last note fades into thin air and I hear him put away his guitar, the bag rustling as he pulls it over the instrument, my lips part without permission and give voice to one of the questions I'd been able to hold back thus far.

"You like Debussy?" I ask softly, dumbfounded by the unexpected slip of concentration.

"I like Clair de Lune." He replies while he gathers his stuff and marches out of the room.

I listlessly join my siblings and drive them home in silence, too distracted to even bother sorting through the buzzing emanating from their minds.

As they enter our home, I run off into the woods again. I hope Alice won't be hurt by my rudeness, but I need to be alone. I scale random peaks, dive into gorges away from human eyes, then climb the tallest Douglas Firs I can find and search the horizon….

It's all in vain. I can't stop thinking about him. How could he choose to play that one piece? On a whim I search for his place, the chief's home, and its nearby forests. Once I get near, I perch on a bough, not too far. There is a light in the window above the front door. There is nothing to see, but before I can leave I hear the notes of Debussy's piece again. Brandon is still practicing. Yes, he's stubborn enough; it's not easy but he will master it.

A million thoughts swirl through my mind and I just sit there, entranced, listening to the boy's music and trying to get my bearings. I haven't fallen into the abyss yet, but the edge is farther than ever. And every note he plays reminds me how easy it would be to just simply let go.