104

Time seems to pass by at a vampire's pace, and it's hard to keep up.

The girls are already in the middle of their senior year of high school. Angela is taking a few college-level courses and working full time at the tutoring center. Alice chooses an on-job training elective that allows her to leave school after three periods so she can work at Cora's. She's never been serious when it comes to schooling, and I'm not going to fight her this year because she's still planning on being changed so soon after graduation. She wants to save as much money as possible before her three-day burn.

We continue visiting V.C separately to work on our applications at our own pace. Alice and I have already started taking the mandatory therapy sessions, but Angela is still in no hurry to be changed.

Ben approached me with the idea of her taking a gap year or two after she gets her diploma so he can take her backpacking through Europe. He also gave me the heads-up that Angela was planning to sit us down and push for me to suffer the three-day burn sooner rather than later. We didn't have to wait long, and Bella and I were ready. Angela's argument was valid. She'll be off doing her own thing before she settles down for college and figured Alice and I should get started on our second lives while she's away.

It's something Bella and I have taken into consideration. I've been stopping by V.C. a lot to work on my application, and I'm making good headway.

Speaking of my vampire, Bella has taken it upon herself to single-handedly revamp, pun intended, the house. A project she's taking all too seriously.

She's slowly driving me insane as we go over plans for redecorating our bedroom.

"Which one do you like best? Contemporary Gray or Morning Fog?" Bella asks and holds up two gray paint chips.

I squint. "They look the same to me."

She sighs and waves one in my face. "Contemporary Gray is a few shades darker than Morning Fog." She pauses. "Which reminds me, you have an optometrist appointment tomorrow at one."

I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off.

"You've been putting this off for months, old man. You're officially out of excuses. I'm going to be busy volunteering with Rosalie and Rabbit down at the park, so Alice will take you."

"Bella—"

"They're going to dilate your eyes so you won't be any good for four to six hours." She holds up a set of paint chips. "Forget those two. We're going to go with Earl Grey and a Perle Noir trim."

"What's the point of asking me if you just end up going with what you wanted in the first place?"

"Because I want you to feel you have a choice in the matter," she quips.

I chuckle and toss a carpet sample at her. Bella is a vampire, so she catches it with ease and holds it up against the paint she's chosen.

"Ooh, this might work."

I roll my eyes and try to stand up, wincing when my knees crack in protest. "I think I'm officially too old to sit on the floor for extended periods." I groan.

The idea of getting changed sooner rather than later is starting to sound better and better.

Bella just laughs and turns back to her samples. "I promise I'll give you a massage when we get home from the hardware store."

I groan again for an entirely different reason.

"Oh, no, Edward Cullen. You are not getting out of this." Bella glares. "You promised."

We might as well start paying rent to the hardware store at this point. My vampire has been a frequent visitor since she decided to take on the massive project. We spend the rest of the day going back and forth in the shade of gray she wants to paint our bedroom and driving the poor hardware store's employees crazy with her indecisiveness.

By the time we make it back home, the girls are already in for the night. We order Chinese, and they fight over egg rolls and fortune cookies while Bella scours over her ideas for our ensuite bathroom. I revel in the noise and laughter and thoroughly enjoy the massage before bed.

I bask in our version of normal.