Sunset

by LaLadyCavalier

Against the far wall of the cafeteria, Edward was sitting all by himself—and, to Lily's horror, he was looking right at her.

6. Surprises

Thank you guys sooo much for the reviews. They're like unique little sushi roles, and they fill up my soul. And thanks to everyone who followed/faved too! Here's the longest chapter yet. I hope you like it!

(Sidenote: I realized after posting last that the site has been replacing some of my …. with ... Please forgive any incorrect ellipses you may have seen!)

(Sidenote #2: Yo, have you ever gone and timed one of E and B's convos and seen how short they really are—like, a half hour lunch break taken up with what comes to like 10 or 15 mins worth of talking? No bc you guys are prolly a lot less obsessive about it than I am and I envy you :"D)

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Chapter 6

Surprises

Lily teetered between walking on air and…. Actually, she was too busy with the first part to analyze the nag of more unpleasant feelings, at least for the moment. Even Mr. Mason's reprimand when she came in late to English didn't faze her. For as long as she could, she staunchly pushed down every thought that wasn't anticipation or awe. Edward's burning words echoed in her mind. I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Lily. Passionate, peculiar words. She ignored the confusion that came with such a statement, replaying his voice over and over again—the look in his eyes, the grin he had given her…. Ugh, bliss.

This haze of happiness lasted all the way through class. Cue the buzzkill bell. Lily finally gave in to the questions screaming at her from the back of her head.

It could all be some elaborate prank. A practical joke between Edward and his siblings maybe. See how long she'd go on believing him, all the way up to Saturday at her front door. He would pull up with a car full of friends and family, laugh and ridicule her as it began to rain, etcetera. A cheesy B-movie at best. Not anything very original, and not anything like what Edward would do outside of her wild imagination...hopefully.

So what were the alternatives? Mood swings, for one, in which case he would probably change back to Sullen Cullen by day's end. Misguided remorse was another option; he might have made the offer out of guilt for his rude behavior, or even out of pity. That would be way worse than him changing his mind on an imbalanced whim. A third option was that he had some ulterior motive, like needing an excuse to get out of the dance himself. That was plausible too.

Lily walked to her next class alone. Something pinged in her head that said Mike and Eric should have been there. She should have been worried about the double absence—that it was in response to their previous interactions—but she couldn't find it in herself to care. Doubt as dark as hot tar was sticking to her every thought, all centering around a certain redhead. It was turning her mood from meh to melancholy, and it only got worse as the morning wore on.

Why on earth would Edward Cullen want to spend any amount of time with her? The only reasons she could come up with were that he wanted to gauge how much she knew about his secret—nothing to tell there, unfortunately—or that he hoped this would ingratiate her to him enough so that he wouldn't have to worry about her blabbing to...who, the government? Her dad? She had no clue. Confusion was the predominant emotion, even in comparison to the dread and suspicion that stormed over her head.

It was all one big bundle of unpleasantness by the time lunch rolled around. She dragged her heels behind Jess and Ange as the former tried to convince the latter to ask Eric to the dance. Lily was glad they hadn't involved her in their conversation yet. She was preoccupied with her conspiracy theories and more pragmatic expectations of disappointment. The thought of seeing Edward again had her heart hammering in dread. Skipping lunch seemed like a nice idea all of a sudden.

She kept her head down as they got in line. She didn't want to look at Edward's table or consider what she might see when she did. Maybe he would just ignore her for the rest of the day, never bring up this morning and his offer ever again. ...Was that really what she wanted to happen?

Jess was still trying to talk Ange into the dance plans, albeit in more covert terms now.

"Lily, back me up here," she demanded. "Don't you think a certain someone would have a good time with a certain someone else? It's better than going alone. I could tell Mike to have him ditch the glasses. That would be great, right?"

Lily looked up at her, as hopeless for an answer as Angela looked helpless for an argument. Fortunately for them both, Jess appeared to grow distracted as she looked out across the room. Very distracted. Her blue eyes went wide, and she froze in place until they had to walk forward in the line. Lily shuffled behind the shorter girl, both relieved and reluctant to sink back into her reverie. That didn't happen either though. After a few more silent moments, Jessica turned and pinned her with a weird, almost calculating expression.

The look disappeared with a smile as Jess leaned close and said in a stage whisper, "Edward Cullen is looking over here."

Lily practically jumped. Her eyes flew to the Cullen table. She took in the one empty space and felt her heart sink lower than ever. Well, so much for wondering what she really wanted; the answer became obvious when faced with Edward's absence.

Then Jessica's words sank in. Lily shook her head in bewilderment. Just as she was opening her mouth to ask Jess what she had meant, she caught sight of him. Her stomach dropped into her shoes when she did.

Against the far wall of the cafeteria, at a table almost straight across from his family's usual corner, Edward was sitting all by himself—and, yes, he did appear to be looking in Lily's direction.

Only...it probably wasn't her direction. It probably wasn't any direction at all. Just Edward Cullen looking at a random spot that happened to be where they were standing. Her mom did it all the time, accidentally getting someone's attention with a vacant gaze not intended for anyone in particular.

Lily looked down at her sneakers to avoid meeting his eyes, mortified to feel her face turning red as a Wethersfield onion. In a few moments, he would probably be looking somewhere else. She didn't say anything to Jessica about it. Her heart was pounding too hard to speak evenly anyway—and she had no idea whether the reaction was good or bad, elation or horror, excitement or—

"Lily." Jessica's voice was oddly strained. Maybe she was having a similar reaction. "I think he's staring at you."

"It probably just looks that way," she answered shakily. "Like last time. He just likes staring at random things."

The line moved, and Lily looked up from her feet. She could have looked anywhere, really, but her eyes went straight to him like a pair of magnets.

Edward's eyes were waiting. It was difficult to tell from so far away, but, for just a moment, she thought they looked pensive, or something like it. Then he smiled at her, and the whole room got brighter. Every stormy worry washed away beneath the weight of such a sunny expression.

A throat was cleared somewhere behind her. Lily closed the gap in the lunch line and fumbled for a bottle of something to drink. She'd forgotten to grab a tray, but she didn't care. Hunger was the furthest thing from her mind. She looked back up at her friends, who were looking at her with the same vaguely astonished expressions, and then the three of them turned to look back at Edward Cullen in unanimous disregard for discretion.

His eyes hadn't waivered; they peered directly into hers. She gave him a feeble wave, and his smile grew. He waved back in an impossibly elegant gesture.

Jessica's voice was sharp with shock when she asked, "Are you going to sit with him?"

"I—uh—don't know." The line moved forward relentlessly. Lily wished for a traffic jam and walked as slowly as the students behind her would allow. "He's probably just saying hi. That's all."

Jessica stomped out of line and waited for Lily and Angela. "Edward Cullen does not say hi to people," she insisted in a whisper. "And he's still looking over here!"

Lily glanced over her shoulder as she finished paying for her drink. She nearly dropped it when Edward lifted a hand and crooked one finger in a come-hither motion. Her stomach looped a double loop.

"What do I do?" she begged as they huddled to the side of the line. Angela stared helplessly at Lily's desperate expression. Jess just hmphed and looked away.

In lieu of any useful input, Lily gulped and said, "Well, uh...I guess I'll go over there then. Do y'all mind? If he does, um, ask me to...eat with him?" Even as she suggested such an impossible thing, Lily's heart kicked its tempo up several notches in a resounding crescendo of, Yes—ask me—please! Maybe it was pathetic, but suddenly the question of whether he was being genuine or not no longer bothered her.

Jessica flipped her hair with one hand and huffed, "Whatever." She sounded more disinterested than dismayed, but Lily still frowned as her friend walked away. Jess was probably just hungry, but still…. At least Ange definitely wasn't offended; she made the facial equivalent of "good luck" before following after Jess.

Lily was alone in the world for an instant as she turned back around and searched the room for Edward. The four corners of the globe locked into place as soon as she found his eyes again. He was staring at her with an odd expression. What the emotion was exactly, she didn't know, and there wasn't a good opportunity to try guessing when she had to walk across a crowded lunchroom to get to him.

She wove her way around one rowdy group after another, keeping her eyes to herself as she passed the chattering clusters of students. It didn't even occur to Lily to glance at her own table until she was already well past it.

The rest of the lunchroom seemed to melt into thin air behind her when she finally reached him. The gossip died down. The walls faded away. Edward Cullen sat in front of her, waiting for her, smiling at her.

"If you would like," he said in a voice that cut through the cotton in her head, "you could sit with me today." It wasn't a question, but his chin tilted down and his eyebrows tilted up as if it was.

Lily nodded mutely. She put her hand on the chair across from him, and Edward's expression twitched.

"But only if you would like to," he added. Something sounded off about his voice all of a sudden. It was the same with his expression too. Lily blinked away her bleary daze and realized that Edward looked uncertain, maybe even unhappy. His smile was tight-lipped and a far cry from the grin he'd originally given her.

"Didn't you...want me to?"

"Of course I do. What I don't want is for you to feel obligated."

"Oh. ...Oh!" Was that why he suddenly looked so unsure? He was afraid that he'd put her on the spot in front of her friends—that she didn't actually want to sit with him? "Don't worry, I do. Want to sit with you, I mean. If that's okay."

"Well then." Edward gestured to the seat in front of her with a smile that was quickly warming back up. "Please," he murmured.

Silk. Honey and silk. That was his voice. A symphony in a single word.

Lily dropped into her seat, heart pounding. She couldn't help but grin at him, strange as this all was, and when he beamed back at her, it felt like her heart might stop altogether.

Edward's smile faded, however, when his eyes flickered down to the table in front of her.

"Is that all you have for lunch?"

She followed his gaze and saw for the first time what she had bought—a bottle of lemonade.

"Yeah, but it's fine," she answered. "I'm not even hungry." She probably could've been starving and still wouldn't have cared. Her stomach, on the other hand, did not seem to agree with its owner's optimism. It growled right on cue, but Lily didn't acknowledge it. Thankfully the sound was too quiet and the lunchroom too loud for her lunch buddy to have heard the betraying rumble.

His tawny eyes flickered down and up once again, this time with a highly skeptical expression. "Is that so?"

Lily opened her mouth to either protest or snark at him...and then the realization sank in. For a few seconds, she just sat there like a frozen fish. It was such a small thing, such a random bit of oddness, that she almost hadn't caught it at all.

"Did...you just hear my stomach growl?"

He looked puzzled—and if that had been all there was to it, she might have dismissed the strange detail entirely. But then, suddenly, Edward's face drained of expression. She couldn't read the emotion in his eyes, but the reaction was enough to convince her of what had just happened.

Lily gasped in wicked amazement and practically leaned halfway across the table.

"You did, didn't you? Wow! I mean…." She shook her head incredulously. Part of her was waiting for Edward to deny it, but all he did was stare at her, his expression an empty deadpan. No confusion, no offense. She blinked hard and shook her head again. "Wow. Okey-dokey, I'll add that to the list then. Super strength, teleportation, and now super hearing? Ha! What else can you do?"

He didn't answer. His face hadn't changed out of that blank, rigid mask; Lily had no idea what emotions might have been fighting behind it, but she felt a sharp pang of regret all the same. She looked down at her lemonade and fiddled with the metal cap.

"Well, if you didn't want me to know, you shouldn't've said anything to begin with," she snarked. No response. "Would you have liked it better if I pretended not to notice? Nobody else would've heard that. I couldn't help noticing."

When he still didn't answer her, Lily sighed. She twisted the lid off her bottle and rolled it back and forth between her thumb and index finger. "Sorry," she muttered. "I don't say things like that to make you mad. Like with your eyes and all. I don't mean to. I promise."

She tilted her head back to take a swig of the sour drink, her eyes on the window high above Edward's head. The light outside was gray, but a bright gray. Sunlight wasn't far away behind the clouds.

"I'm not mad at you, Lily."

When she looked back down, Edward's tray was on her side of the table. Flattered as she was by the generosity, and in spite of her very empty stomach, Lily insisted, "I can't take your lunch." She smiled at him, and then rolled her eyes and added, "I mean, between the two of us, I'm the one that needs to skip more meals, heh."

His bright eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. She couldn't decide whether the expression was stern or peevish, but she thought there was a touch of exasperation in his voice when he said, "Eat, Lily. Please."

After a moment of staring, she pulled the tray closer. "Are you sure you're not hungry?"

Edward's face cleared without warning. A mysterious little smile appeared on his lips. "No," he answered in a much lighter voice, "I'm not hungry…."

Lily popped a tater tot in her mouth and rolled her eyes again. "Geez, why does literally everything you say sound like it has a double meaning? Do you even know how to have a normal conversation?"

...Oops.

She swallowed the tot like a rock as her skin began to smolder. Edward's eyes flickered down to her cheeks. He was frowning.

"Sorry," Lily apologized, awkward as a hair in a bowl of soup—but then she shook her head and repeated, "Sorry," with a little more dedication. "I've got a pretty bad mouth, if you haven't noticed."

Edward's expression was suddenly pleasant, almost amused. Like a strobe light. Dizzying.

"Really? I've never heard you swear." His smile was teasing, but Lily gave him a serious response anyway.

"Not like that. At least not out loud. Or at least not in, uh, public. Um. I mean…." His amused expression grew more pronounced as she stuttered. "I meant, like—I just say mean things."

"Making an observation is mean?"

"Well, sometimes, yeah."

"An observation may be biased, but it can't be cruel or kind. By nature, it's simply a matter of perception."

"Okay, okay—I'm sorry all the same," she said and resisted another eyeroll. "I'm definitely not a conversation connoisseur myself. Hypocritical. Anyway. Did you call me over here just to give me a philosophy lesson, o-o-or...?" She copied his earlier teasing smile to make it clear that she was just kidding.

"No, I didn't." And he was all the way back to brooding once again. Lily eighty-sixed the smile.

"Okay. What then?"

"Well…." He paused, and then the rest of his words followed in a rush. "I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly."

She frowned. "Not to be rude again, but do you, like, have an obsession with metaphors or something? I mean...there's no way you don't know that I have no idea what you're talking about, right?"

He smiled and said, "I know."

Arms crossed, Lily slumped back in her chair and tried to look grumpier than she felt. "Spiffy," she huffed, popping a few more tots in her mouth as pensively as she could. A few carrot sticks too, for good measure. Half a minute of surprisingly comfortable silence passed by while she chewed.

When she lifted her eyes off the tray again, Edward's sunlit gaze hadn't lost any of its amusement. It made it that much stranger when, apropos of absolutely nothing she could identify, he told her, "I think your friends are angry with me for stealing you."

It took her a moment to get past the oddly heart-fluttering phrase "stealing you" and actually understand what he had said. She almost turned around to check...but what if his bizarre observation was actually true? Jessica hadn't seemed too happy about getting ditched…. So she just sat up straighter and assured him, "That's silly. They're probably just curious. Don't worry."

He hummed doubtfully. The sound would have put a choir to shame. "I happen to be very good at reading people," he said in a low voice. He looked utterly untroubled by the concept of her friends' anger, and, for some reason, Lily couldn't bring herself to worry about it much either. That was probably mean. But Edward was smiling at her with eyes like evening sunshine, meaning the sky could have fallen and she wouldn't have cared.

"They're nice," she said with a dismissive shake of her head. "They'll forgive you."

The smile turned wicked, and the sunbeam eyes gleamed. "But I might not give you back."

Her entire face prickled with heat. She scrunched her eyebrows together and stuck her tongue out at him.

He chuckled at her inane response. The sound had Lily beaming—until a thought occurred to her. "But...how come?" she asked. "I mean, no offense, of course, but why? Like, why sit with me, or...anything?" The question that had plagued her ever since their morning conversation: what could he possibly want with her?

"I told you—I got tired of trying to stay away from you. So I'm giving up."

Those words had the same effect on her as before, practically lifting her out of the chair. The only thing that kept her from floating away altogether was his golden gaze boring into hers. ...And yet there was something bleak there too, in his eyes and his words.

Concern cut through Lily's momentary bliss. "Wait, what do you mean giving up?"

"Exactly what I said," he answered, and she watched his smile shrink. "I'm giving up on trying to be good. From now on, I'll just do what I want and let the chips fall where they may."

She sighed in irritation. His words didn't make a lick of sense to her, and his voice sounded oddly...bitter? Cynical? Miffed, maybe—but why? What did it mean? "And the metaphors continue. Yippee," she griped with mock enthusiasm. "Chatting with you is like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube by ear."

The crooked smile reappeared in all its glory, brighter now with amusement. "I'm sorry," he apologized over a chuckle. "I always say too much when I'm talking to you. That's one of the problems."

Despite her irritation with his brick-thick metaphors, the expression on his face swept her away. Golden eyes, golden smile…. It was like she was back down South again, afternoon light on the water and the trees...but sunlight never stole her breath the way his smile did.

Lily took a few moments to refresh her memory on how the whole inhale-exhale thing worked. Once she had figured it out again, she asked, "What are the, uh...rest of the problems?"

All she got for that was another enigmatic smile.

She put on her best frown and tried to channel a disapproving Charlie Swan. "You just love having secrets, don't you?"

"Not at all," he replied.

Lily scowled at him. The way Edward never took his eyes off her face made it hard to keep up the grumpiness, but she gave it her best shot. "Yeah, well...could you do me a favor and try to make what you are sharing a little more...comprehensible? 'Cause I'm still not really getting any of it."

"Sorry, but I'm counting on that."

"Thanks a lot, O Cryptic One," she groused, nearing the end of her patience. "Okay, how about just telling me this: are we friends...or not?" Her face was genuinely grouchy now, but she felt anxious too. Here it was—another perfect chance for him to turn her down. At least it would solve the Seattle mystery if he did. She really should have been grateful for the opportunity to figure this out. Pity? A practical joke? Or did he really want to be—

"Friends," he murmured, hanging the word in the air between them without quite touching it himself. As if it was something he didn't quite want to touch.

Lily swallowed a small but sharp stab of pain. She breathed through her nose and tried to smile like it was all so silly. "Or not," she said with a shrug. "Doesn't bother me much either way."

Edward's doubtful expression shifted into a more suspicious one. His mouth quirked down and one elegant bronze eyebrow rose up. He looked like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and that knowing look irked her. Extremely.

The back of Lily's neck was hot enough to fry an egg as she leaned forward over the table. "Well, what the heck am I supposed to say, Edward?" she demanded, flushed and fuming. "That it bothers me, you not wanting to be friends? That I can't figure out why you'd want to be friends with me in the first place? Tell me the answer to that one, Mr. Know It All." She crossed her arms, bit her cheek, and turned away from him.

"You have something of a temper, don't you?" he asked in a voice that was utterly serene. She turned even further away, practically right-angling him now. They sat in silence for a moment, and then, almost too quiet for her to catch the words at all, he murmured, "I can't imagine anyone not wanting to be friends with you, Lily."

She didn't mean to turn back to him—her body did so of its own accord. The look that she saw on his face was inscrutable, but as she stared, it slowly melted into a soft smile. His eyes, though, were still too intense for her to believe the expression.

Lily heaved yet another sigh and muttered, "Well, you sure don't act like you wanna try it out for yourself, buddy ol' pal."

His pale lips drew apart in a full-on grin, one edge higher than the other in perfect imbalance. "You're being absurd again."

Her lips sucked together like she'd bit into a lemon, and she was one second away from some hateful remark when he continued, "But I'm warning you now that I'm not a good friend for you."

She blinked. The words had a wall of solemnity behind them, unless she was reading that wrong; they caught her off guard and poured a bucket of cold water on her temper. "Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because you're not listening to me. I'm still waiting for you to believe it. If you're smart, you'll avoid me."

Lily squinted at him and fussed, "You go from telling me you wanna be friends to saying things like that. You're like a human strobe light, dude."

He didn't say anything, just smiled at her in that odd, unreadable way.

After a long moment of staring back at him, she huffed and spoke again, calmly. "So. You do wanna be friends with me? Even though you think we shouldn't be? Or at least..." she struggled to sum up the bewildering exchange... "even though you think I shouldn't be friends with you?"

"Yes," he answered in a serious voice that didn't match his smile. "You shouldn't."

She shook her head, marveling for the hundredth time at how mysterious boys could be—sometimes like an entirely different species. "Well, sorry, but I happen to think it could be nice, us being friends. We already have so much experience being frenemies—" Lily gave him an over-the-top, extremely sarcastic crook of her arm— "that it might just be easier to convert it all to, like, positive energy."

One of his eyebrows lifted, and it looked like he was trying not to smile. "'Positive energy?'"

"Ugh. Friendship, whatever. I'm saying it would be less of a headache for us both if we just called a truce. I know we're pretty different and all, and you're a guy and I'm a girl and stuff, but, um...you know." She frowned in embarrassment. This was quickly turning into a ramble, although Edward's expression didn't show it. "I just think we could be pretty good friends, if we put our minds to it. I wanna give it a try. Even if…." Her voice trailed off as she frowned harder, spinning the lemonade bottle back and forth between her hands. The truth was clear-cut but pretty darn pitiful. She hesitated to admit it.

"What?" he asked, leaning forward over the table a little. His white fingers were splayed flat on top of it. "What are you thinking?"

She glanced up at Edward and then quickly back down at the bottle. She was in danger of getting sun-stroke if she looked at him too long.

"I was thinking that I...well...that maybe we could be friends and stuff even if you don't...talk to me. About things. I mean, plenty of people don't, and they're still friends. I know that's not the way it's supposed to be, but oh well."

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

It was Lily's turn to narrow her eyes at him with heavy skepticism. How could he possibly not know what she meant? Wasn't it obvious?

"Oh, I don't know, Edward," she snarked. "Maybe I mean how you go from avoiding me for a whole month to telling me that I should be avoiding you? Or how you refuse to tell me what the heck you are, even though I've seen more than enough to convince anyone that you aren't exactly an average guy? How you never, ever, ever explain any of it, in spite of the fact that you really can trust me?"

His jaw tightened, and his smile faltered.

"I mean," she went on, less caustic now, "you could go ahead and spill the beans right this very minute, and I wouldn't ever tell a soul! I don't know what you think might happen—like, if I'll blab to local law enforcement or the FBI or something, but I won't. I won't tell anyone. I promise. ...And I'm gonna figure you out eventually, so why not just get it over with?"

Her posture matched his now: leaning forwards, hands pressed flat to the table, fingers splayed. Still as a statue, Edward grit his teeth and stared her down, even as she begged, "Just give me a hint. One little hint. Please? I've been wracking my brain for a month, Edward."

"And what have you come up with?" he asked, effortlessly parrying her question with one of his own. The evasion and the thick apathy in his voice annoyed her, but she managed to manage her temper for once.

"Nothing much," Lily said with a shrug, imitating that indifferent tone. She leaned back and pursed her lips with an attitude of "meh, I could take it or leave it." As if they were discussing something of little interest—the weather, instead of whether or not he was human. "Just one or two theories, that's all."

Edward chuckled and asked, "And what are these theories?"

Lily did her best to scowl. "How come I'm supposed to answer your questions, but you won't answer any of mine?"

His smile became pleading. He leaned forward another inch. "Please, Lily? I would love to hear them."

She blinked sporadically while her brain blew a fuse. Nobody could resist Edward Cullen saying their name and the word "love" that close together. Ugh, so unfair. In a dazed voice, she stammered, "Um, well...I guess I could, um...give you my top three, if you want. ...But you have to promise not to get mad at me. Okay?"

He tilted his head, eyes glued to hers. "I promise you that I won't."

"...All right then. You asked for it…. Theory number one: superpowers."

He laughed outright. "That's not very original."

Lily stuck her tongue out at him and quipped, "Everyone's a critic."

He chuckled under his breath for a second more and then leaned in even further, eyes eager, lips quirked up in his uneven grin, and said, "Next." It was the most charming expression she had ever seen. Lily was going to have to start actually wearing makeup, if he kept making her blush like this. That probably wouldn't help, though; it wasn't like she could hide the tips of her ears or cover up her neck. Maybe she'd start wearing scarves and earmuffs indoors, really embrace the crazy.

"Okay. Number two...and this one's my weakest bet, so...prepare to laugh again. I know it's silly." She grimaced at him a little, took a bracing breath, and asked, "Aliens?"

He did laugh—even harder than the first time. His golden eyes disappeared behind one hand.

"Hey," she protested, "blame the Sci-fi Network, not me!" But it was impossible not to grin when Edward was laughing. Geez, what a heavenly sound. She wouldn't have been surprised if the whole room went quiet to listen. ...And that was when something awful occurred to her. Lily turned to look over her shoulder.

Eyes. All over the lunchroom, eyes. It was bad enough that she could see interested looks aimed at her from every corner of the cafeteria, but even worse than that was the fact that her entire table was staring, even Angela. She looked curious, and Eric looked glum, but Mike and Jessica both looked positively peeved. Jess flipped her face away when she noticed Lily's gaze. Mike's chin and eyebrows lifted an inch—Lily couldn't tell whether it was in defiance or some kind of question. She smiled at him but quickly turned back around, a part of her nervous that Mike might come over. She had no idea why he would, but that was the feeling she got.

Edward's smile was waiting for her. "Your boyfriend seems to think I'm being unpleasant to you—he's debating whether or not to come save you from me."

Lily stared at him in open-mouthed consternation...and with an inexplicable touch of indignance too. "Mike's not my—geez! He's not my boyfriend. We're just friends, that's all." Just like she was just friends with Edward. Funny how much the phrase stung in connection with one boy so much more than the other. She quickly went on to get away from that troubling thought. "And anyway, why would he think you're being unpleasant?"

"He noticed that I made you angry before. Now he believes I'm ridiculing you, and that you look uncomfortable," he explained, his face doing something odd on the last part. The smile came back after a moment, sunshine through the clouds. "As I said, I'm very good at reading people. Apart from you, that is."

"Well, he's probably just...wait, what? Me? Seriously? ...Dude, I can't hold a poker face for anything."

His eyes smoldered into hers like he was trying to study her soul. She held her breath and stared back while the world turned to gold around her. It was like having a staring contest with an archangel. When her eyelids started twitching, she conceded defeat.

"Maybe you just think you're good at it," Lily teased after looking away. She cleared her throat, and then her stomach rumbled.

Edward reached forward slowly and pushed his tray closer to her with the tips of his fingers. "Lunch is almost over," he said in a low voice.

Lily dug in while her lunchmate continued to stare.

"No, I'm sure of it," he said after a minute or so of silence. "You're an exception. I haven't the faintest idea why, but you are."

Her heart tripped and fell face-first over the words "you're an exception." Even without context, it had to be every teenage girl's dream to hear such a thing. Especially when it came from a boy like Edward Cullen. Mysterious, intelligent, well-spoken, and insurmountably handsome...not that the last part mattered of course, technically speaking. Still...it sure as heck didn't hurt his case.

Lily found it rather difficult to remember what they had just been talking about. "An exception to what?" she finally managed.

He smiled at her in that infuriatingly indecipherable way, like a male Mona Lisa. I know something you don't know. It should have ticked her off, but it didn't. Probably because he was still looking at her like that….

Lunch. Focus on lunch. She picked up a chocolate chip cookie and bit it in half.

"I believe we were discussing your theories."

Oh crap.

Lily breathed in sharply instead of swallowing the bite of cookie. A few crumbs went down her windpipe and kicked her lungs into reverse. Edward halfway stood up, concerned to an almost comic degree—his round eyes and sky-high eyebrows made him look like her mom when she was mad. Lily would have laughed, if the dry cookie crumbs hadn't been lodged in her throat.

"I'm fine," she rasped after a round of forceful coughs. "Geez, I'm choking, not dying." That didn't help the look on his face at all. "Just kidding." Another minute of coughing and wishing the floor would open up beneath her feet, and then Lily finally said, "So. Uh. Yeah…. Theories."

"Yes," Edward agreed after a few more moments of cautious staring. He folded his hands in front of himself on the table, his face still serious. "Your third one."

Crap. Maybe she should've just let the cookie take her out. Why had she agreed to this? She took a long drink of lemonade, and then she took her sweet time screwing the cap back on tight.

"Well, uh...um…." Lily chewed her cheek a few more seconds before admitting, "I've gotta warn you, this one's the most…."

"Concerning?" he offered in a soft, somber voice. She frowned at his frown and shook her head.

"Actually, I was gonna say absurd…." She made a face at him, hoping the word would snap him out of whatever strange mood he was in. Edward looked like he was about to be sentenced to life in prison.

"Aw, come on. I'm not about to guess that you're just the mild-mannered alter ego of...duh duh-duh-duh duh! Superman!" Lily put her hands on her waist, stared off into the distance, and tried to look noble and steely.

"Although," she added after a few seconds, "I guess that would've gone with my first guess. Or would it technically be the alien theory?"

It was lame and goofy, but it worked a little; Edward snickered. But the brooding frown was still there in his eyes when he said, "Go ahead then."

She did her best to brace herself and wished she could've braced him too. What she did have in mind was actually worse than accusing him of comic book fame, so she skirted the word a bit and suggested, "A supernatural being?"

His jaw locked. His eyes went blank. His voice was toneless when he asked, "Such as?"

Lily gasped. Edward winced a tiny bit when she did, and she muttered an apology. Meanwhile her mind was going ninety to nothing. It looked for all the world like she had hit on the right note at last.

"Are you an angel?" she whispered.

The blank look faded away. Something darker and yet simultaneously lighter took its place as he smiled. "You couldn't be further from the truth."

Aw, darn it, she thought. Well, that was her last theory, boo. But why had he looked so strange about it if she was wrong? Maybe he was just offended, or embarrassed on her behalf, or he thought she was just—

"Aren't you going to ask about the opposite?" he demanded in a rush.

"What? Opposite?" Lily blinked at him. When she realized what he was talking about, it took her a few moments just to speak again. "Oh. You mean...the opposite like—as in a, um...?" She trailed off, hoping he would direct her to a different conclusion. But he didn't, and suddenly the room felt cold despite the warm ochre of Edward's eyes.

He smiled at her, his lips pursed. It wasn't a pleasant expression, but it wasn't frightening either. He looked like he was waiting for something to happen. Expectant. Tense. Utterly resigned. Lily might not have been able to read most people well, but there was no way to miss those emotions in his pale, boyish face.

She connected all the dots in that small space of silence. His unearthly beauty. The inhuman abilities she had witnessed. Those vague but ominous warnings.

His secret.

Whatever Edward Cullen was, he was dangerous...and he was hoping she would be smart enough to realize that and stay away. ...So he'd been trying to tell her the truth after all. Ha, so much for metaphors.

In a tone that was nearly as light as her reeling head, Lily dared to ask, "Is this the part where I'm supposed to run away screaming? Don't you think that'd be kinda cheesy? ...But that's seriously what you're waiting for, isn't it—why you said we shouldn't be friends, and that I should avoid you and everything."

Edward didn't answer her. He just stared. The look on his face had changed back into the focused, dissatisfied one that was becoming such a familiar sight. After a couple more seconds of that, he smiled. Again, it wasn't a happy expression.

"Well," she snapped with a short laugh, her words bordering on frenzied, "I'm not going anywhere, Eddie boy, so you're just plumb outta luck!" She was unscrewing the cap on her drink with unnecessary vehemence, and the lid went skidding across the table. Edward caught it. He didn't give it back.

"And if you're implying the...other thing," she said after a long pull of lemonade, "about what you are and all...I don't buy that either."

"Why not?" His hushed voice smoothed the edge of temper from her thoughts. He was pushing her away—or at least rooting for it—and that made her mad. But there was something in his eyes, and she couldn't name it, but it tugged at her heart like nothing else.

"Well, if we're talking about diabolical forces here..." she rolled her eyes and shrugged one shoulder, even as a tiny chill ran down her back; Edward's expression never changed... "you don't seem like the right type."

It was a paraphrase of Angela's words to her weeks ago. Mrs. Cullen's words came back to her too. "You're pretty sweet, behind the riddles and rudeness—not that I'm one to talk about being rude of course. I just can't see you actually hurting someone." The last part came out very quietly, a volume that fit the raw honesty of those words. He might have caused her a lot of turmoil so far, but she had no doubt in her mind now that he hadn't meant to.

"Can't you?" he asked in an equally muted voice.

"No, I can't. ...Is that how you see yourself?" They were his words this time, and they appeared to hit home. He'd been fiddling with the bottle cap up to that point; he clacked it down on the table now.

"I'm certainly not on the side of heaven," he snapped.

Usually getting snapped at would have her hackles raised, but it didn't happen. Despite his prickly attitude, she had the strongest urge to comfort this boy. Maybe she was realizing that he didn't think as well of himself as everyone on the planet would have assumed—and she definitely knew a thing or two about not liking yourself.

"Okay, okay," she said gently. "That's fine. Most people aren't anyway."

"I'm not like most people." He looked at her with another emotion she couldn't comprehend, although it was loud as could be in his strange amber eyes. "I'm not like you."

"Don't brag," she tried to joke.

Edward shook his head. There was a disgruntled look on his face all of a sudden. He spun the lid on the table like a quarter; it stayed in one spot and made a perfect silver blur as he said, "You don't see yourself very clearly."

"I could say the same for you."

He practically scowled at her. In spite of that, she continued, "So...you're dangerous. Okay, I can believe that," and then, for a moment, Edward looked simultaneously relieved and pained. Until…. "But I know you're not bad, whatever else you might be."

His voice was almost inaudible when he said, "You're wrong." For only the second or third time in their entire conversation, he looked away from her, down at the table where he fidgeted with the lid.

She wanted to argue with him. She wanted to tell him all the good things she saw, but Lily knew it wouldn't help. After all, she didn't know the real Edward. He hadn't given her the chance, apart from their alone time during a cryptic lunch and a parking lot stroll. Everything she would tell him wouldn't matter, because it was all superficial. His looks, his voice, his charm, they were appearances—observations, as he had said. Purely biased and ineffectual against the monster that was self-loathing. Nobody knew that better than her.

Lily was trying to come up with something helpful to say when Edward spoke. "You'll be late to Biology if you don't leave now."

She looked around at the practically deserted lunchroom for the first time in what felt like ages, and then back at him. "Oops," she said, but she didn't move. Neither did he. "You want to, uh...walk together? Strength in numbers and all that jazz." The tantalizing idea of walking to class with Edward…. She would happily be late if it was for that. She would do a cartwheel in front of the whole school for that.

Even though he still wasn't looking at her, his lips lifted in a smile. "Thank you, but I'm not going to class today," he said. He was weaving the lid through his white fingers the way she had seen people do with pencils, only Edward did so with a mesmerizing speed and dexterity no normal person could have hoped to match.

She resisted the urge to ask him, once again, how he did that. "How come?" she asked instead.

"It's healthy to ditch class now and then." He flicked the lid high into the air—much, much higher than it should have flown from such a small motion—and caught it without looking. When he finally met her slack-jawed stare, Lily saw that his eyes were still troubled.

"Is that an invitation?" she asked, careful to say it like it was a joke.

He looked surprised, and, for a few seconds, she wondered if he would actually say yes. Lily knew she would accept the offer if he did. She had only ever spent hooky days at home, and she couldn't imagine what might happen if she went off with him now, but the answer would have been yes anyway. Yes in a heartbeat.

Edward stared at her for just a few seconds more before he shook his head and said, "You'd better hurry," right as the warning bell sounded. She did so, glancing back at him one last time when she reached the cafeteria door; he was still sitting at his table, his expression as unreadable as ever.

Lily was glad there were so few people to see the ridiculous figure she made as she practically ran to Biology. Nobody would ever picture someone like her sitting with someone like Edward Cullen.

She only just managed to reach the classroom without being tardy. She tripped and dropped her stuff as she came through the door; she didn't even have time to take off her jacket. Luckily, Lily was seated and sweating by the time the bell buzzed, and Mr. Banner wasn't even in the room. That was where her good luck ended though. The first thing she noticed when she sat down was the mutual staring from her two friends, and she knew it wasn't just because of the high-speed entrance. Any hopes for them overlooking lunch were abandoned. Mike looked at her balefully—his expression almost seemed disapproving—and Angela stared with open curiosity, but at least she smiled when she met Lily's eyes. It was an awkward kind of smile though. Dang. She would have to apologize to them both for skipping out on lunch. She would do that at the end of the period. Lily didn't want them to think that she was planning to ditch them permanently. Maybe she could invite Edward to sit at their table next time, although she kind of hated the idea of giving up the chance for more one-on-one talk...having Edward's undivided attention, his eyes and his laughter all to herself….

Mr. Banner came in not a minute after she did, but the sound of his entrance still startled her. "Afternoon," he said as he pushed into the room, his arms full of little white boxes. He set them all down on Mike's table with a sigh. Mike looked between the unexpected stack and their teacher's face with comic confusion.

"Please distribute those to the class, Mr. Newton," Mr. Banner said pleasantly. Mike nodded and stood up. "Okay, guys, I want you to all take one piece from each box. Pay attention, all right?" He retrieved a pair of gloves out of the pocket of his lab coat and put them on with a rubbery snap. The sound was undeniably ominous. Lily glanced around to see if anyone else thought so, and there were a few other students who looked like their seats were suddenly a dentist's chair. The rest of the faces ranged from curious to bored as Mr. Banner explained the contents of the boxes. Lily's face, however, lost most of its expression—and the majority of its color—when her teacher held up a small blue piece of plastic and split it open. A barb. Surprise surprise, they were doing blood typing today. Fantastic….

When Mr. Banner grabbed Mike's hand for a demonstration, she was quick enough to dodge the sight, but her stomach still jolted around like the backseat of a bad car ride. Just the thought of the red oozing from Mike's finger—well, don't think about it then, idiot—made her scalp prickle with sweat and a chill slide down her spine.

"Put a small drop of blood on each of the prongs…. And then apply it to the card, like so."

Lily kept her gaze on the shiny black surface of the table, breathed evenly, and focused on her stomach. The jumping jacks were settling down a bit. She wasn't really queasy at all...yet. Maybe this time would be different. Comparatively speaking, it would be hardly any blood at all, right?

Mr. Banner talked about a blood drive in Port Angeles that weekend, but Lily didn't listen. She stared at the unassuming cardboard box sitting on the table in front of her. She could do this. It would only be a teeny tiny drop, and it was her own blood too. Her blood was perfectly fine, no danger there. If she kept her eyes to herself and avoided everybody else's body fluids, nothing would happen.

She pulled the box close and removed the three cards, flipping each one over, front and back, as if that would help her identify them. She gingerly held the little blue square that contained the barb; it was the only part of the process she felt confident with, at least directions-wise. Skewer finger—check. The rest was a mystery to her partially panicked mind.

Maybe she wasn't thinking straight when she decided to look around at her classmates, hoping to get a better grasp on the process. Instead of that, all she got was a veritable kick to the gut. The boy in front of her had turned to his partner. "Trick shot," he said as he squeezed his index finger high above a small, pronged object. He missed it. A glob of red splattered onto his open notebook.

Lily whipped her face away from the sight, stomach churning. She was an idiot to have looked up from the table to begin with. Her hands were pressed flat against the cold surface, but she could barely feel it beneath her palms. Oh no. She touched a hand to her face and felt nothing but prickles of numbness over her skin. Oh no.

Her voice sounded shaky and strange when she turned in her seat and called, "Uh, Mr. Banner?" He'd been going around the room and was almost to her table. At the one behind him, a boy was holding his hand out for someone across the aisle to see—and a thin trickle of blood was dripping down his palm. Bile and horror rose up inside her like a sickening duet.

"Lily, are you all right?"

When she opened her mouth to answer him, out lurched the vomit in an incredible arc. It splattered right onto Edward Cullen's empty chair. Well...at least it wasn't all over her face and clothes. Lily felt overwhelmed with simultaneous mortification and relief, because thank goodness her lab partner had skipped class today.

Mr. Banner retreated a hasty step and called, "Can someone take Lily to the nurse, please? Quickly?" A boy came up beside her and put an arm under hers. She blindly groped for his shoulder and grabbed on tight. She felt gratitude for the volunteer's bravery in the face of certain vomit.

"Can you walk?"

She nodded in answer to Mr. Banner's question, even though it made her already dizzy head feel like a sloshy brain slushy. It was better than opening her mouth and throwing up again. Dang, she really shouldn't have pushed her luck like that. Idiot.

It wasn't until she was out of the classroom that Lily even realized who her helper was.

"Sorry, Mike. I know I'm heavy."

"No, you're fine," he practically grunted. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead that probably matched her own. She was leaning on him, concentrating on lifting her legs—right, left, right, left—but they were so heavy, and she couldn't feel the ground. She couldn't feel anything. That was a very bad sign. First temperature, then touch, and then came the blackout—or, rather, the whiteout. Last time it had happened, everything had gone all blank and spooky. Not unconscious, but no sound or sensation or anything. Just a surreal, empty, claustrophobic space of nothing. She wasn't looking forward to a repeat of sensory deprivation time...or of the inevitable nicknames, for that matter. Lily Swoon. That's what they would call her after this.

"Mike, hang on a minute," Lily slurred. She couldn't feel the clammy air or even the mist on her skin.

"We're almost to the office," Mike panted.

"Yeah, but…." Chances were she wouldn't make it to the office at all if she didn't rest for a moment. She tried to say that, but another option asserted itself: passing out right there on the sidewalk instead. That worked too. At least Mike had the sense to try lowering her slowly when her knees started giving way, otherwise she might have taken them both down.

"Just...need a minute," she breathed, and her voice sounded far, far away. Everything began to spin around her in slow motion, like a dramatic movie scene. Unable to resist the sickly sensation, she slumped over and barely even registered the damp sidewalk against her face.

Her eyes were closed, but she still felt the spinning. She heard someone call her name—shout it urgently—and she wanted to answer, but she couldn't. Two voices spoke, but they had grown too muffled for her to understand them. Time was temporarily suspended as she sank down into the empty mist with one thought: man did she hate blood-typing.

Eventually, her surroundings firmed back up. The world stopped turning around her. The cement beneath her cheek became more solid and stable—colder too. That was a good sign. She was coming out of it now….

Lily gingerly cracked open her eyes against the pale gray light and realized that she was looking up into an even paler face.

"Edward?"

"Hello there," he said pleasantly.

She blinked up at him—up. From a strange angle. Only then did she notice why the world still felt like it was moving. He was carrying her.

"Put me down," she gasped. "I'm too heavy!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Lily," he said as if carrying a 200 pound girl across campus was the most natural thing—and, to her astonishment, he acted like it was too. He wasn't even sweating. In fact, he was smiling.

"Are you sure?" she whispered. What she had mistaken for cement was actually his chest beneath her cheek. His skin felt cold through his shirt, like an ice pack. Lily was grateful for that, along with the fact that her face was apparently still too devoid of blood to blush; that part came in handy when Edward answered her, "It's my pleasure," and actually sounded like he meant it.

And then he ruined it by sounding extremely entertained when he asked, "So you faint at the sight of blood?" He grinned. "And not even your own blood."

"Shut up, Edward," she said through her teeth and closed her eyes again, fighting both embarrassment and nausea. If she threw up on him at this point, it was his own darn fault. "Where's Mike?"

"I sent him back to class," her chauffeur informed her cheerfully.

Lily squinted up at him. "Why do you say it like that? Was he…."

She was still deciding on a word—it was difficult to pluck one out of the fuzz inside her brain—when Edward supplied, "He was a little put out that I relieved him of his duty, yes."

Lily blinked, and then she giggled. It was such a goofy way to put it, like they were knights vying for the honor of lugging her around. Then she sighed. "Now I've got two things to apologize for. First lunch and now this. Spiffy."

"I'll try not to make stealing you such a habit," Edward chuckled. "Although I did warn you."

"Warn me what?" He did do a lot of warning and all.

She couldn't decide whether Edward's voice was lighthearted or intense when he explained, "That I might not give you back." Her heart fluttered all the same.

The ground seemed to glide beneath them, as if he wasn't even walking. He was so graceful, Lily could hardly tell one step from another. After years of believing she'd never get to be carried bridal style, here it was now—and on the way to a nurse's office of all things. Even with the sickly, embarrassing circumstances and the possibility of Mike's resentment looming over her, she wouldn't have traded one bit of that walk for the entire world. She shut her eyes and tried not to smile.

"Oh my," came a female voice an indefinite amount of time later. Lily noticed that the air was warmer now, and that she was far away enough from passing out to feel the subtle temperature difference. Thank goodness.

"She fainted in Biology." Edward's quiet but urgent voice vibrated beneath her cheek.

She opened her eyes and saw Ms. Cope opening the door to the nurse's office for Edward, a look of surprise and concern on her kind face. The nurse, an older woman, looked up from her book with a similar expression.

Edward lowered his passenger to the crinkly brown cot effortlessly; she hung on to his neck until she was firmly situated. Just to be careful of course. The last thing she needed now was to break the little bed with her sudden weight. There was nothing more to it than that, even if she did feel a strange pang when she had to let go.

He stepped away from her in what looked a lot like a hurry. The wall made a hollow and surprisingly loud thump when his back hit. His eyes were wide, but his voice was calm and reassuring when he spoke.

"She's just a little faint. They're blood typing in Biology."

"There's always one," the nurse said with a sage nod. Edward's expression melted into one of amusement. His snicker seemed loud enough to Lily's ears, but the older woman didn't appear to notice. "Just lie down for a minute, honey; it'll pass."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you."

"Has this ever happened before?"

"Yes ma'am," she conceded meekly before reassuring, "It's nothing abnormal or anything—for me, at least."

This time the nurse did notice Edward's cough-covered laugh. She told him, "You can go back to class now," and Lily's heart panged yet again.

Edward didn't bat an eye as he lied, "I'm supposed to stay with her." It should have been irritating how easily he got away with that, especially to someone whose poker face couldn't have fooled a child. Instead, Lily felt vaguely grateful for it.

"I'll go get you some ice for your forehead, dear." With that, the nurse bustled out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.

"Ugh," Lily groaned, throwing one arm over her eyes.

Edward's voice was sharp with concern when he demanded, "What's wrong?"

"I threw up in class. I probably made Mike pull a muscle. Take your pick."

"I told you ditching was healthy," he snarked. She stuck her tongue out at him without looking. There was faint laughter in his exhalation, but he sounded a lot less amused when he said, "You scared me for a minute there. I thought Newton was dragging your dead body off to bury it in the woods."

She scoffed a little. "Hardy har har."

"No, honestly—" the levity was back in his tone now— "I've seen corpses with better color. I was concerned that I might have to avenge your murder."

Lily lifted her arm and narrowed her eyes in his direction. "I'm torn between being flattered and insulted," she said and then rolled over to look at him—so that she could speak to him more easily of course. Looking at him had nothing to do with her smile when she quipped, "What would you have done to avenge me? Challenge him to a duel, mayhaps?"

Edward barked a laugh. A one-note song, a staccato symphony. "Something like that," he answered, his voice fluttering with amusement.

She sighed dramatically and lamented, "Poor Mike. He wouldn't've stood a chance against a guy who can teleport."

His grin grew more pronounced. "He absolutely loathes me," he said, oddly upbeat.

"Aw, no, I'm sure he was just annoyed at the situation, not you. No loathing."

"Oh, it was definitely loathing. I'm very good at reading—"

"Good at reading people—yeah, yeah, yeah." Lily rolled her eyes and mumbled, "Y'know what, Mr. Know It All? Let's just go ahead and add telepathy to the list, shall we?"

Edward froze.

If he had just laughed it off or rolled his eyes or something, she never would have noticed...but he stayed still and silent as a statue, and that's what made her think about it.

She blinked at him for a few seconds, and then her eyes widened. She shot up on the cot with a gasp, propped up on one elbow. "What?" she whispered furiously. "Are you serious?"

He didn't answer.

"Are you freaking kidding me? You...you're psychic?"

Still no answer. He just stood there like a deer in headlights. And here Lily had thought she had a bad poker face! Of course, that was still very true; she had a blush coming in with a vengeance now. All the things she'd ever thought about him—but her brain pushed that life-threatening consideration away in instinctive self-preservation.

"That's how you knew I was fainting. Even though you were ditching, you knew. Oh my gosh. And...the van—did you, like...use your mind? Is that it? Can you read my mind? What am I thinking right now?" She thought of tacos and waited for his answer.

"You're being absurd again." His voice was lower than ever. Strained. Wow...she really was right. It looked like he was about to say something else, but then the door opened and the nurse walked in, a cold compress in her hand.

"Here you go, dear." Lily took it with a thank you and pressed it to each cheek briefly before holding it against her forehead. "You're looking better."

"I feel a lot better now, yes ma'am." She would feel even better after leaving this tiny office. The need to talk to Edward in private overwhelmed any lingering physical discomfort. She stood up.

Just then, the door opened again and Ms. Cope stuck her head in.

"We've got another one," she said ominously.

Lily handed the compress back to the nurse. "I'll get out of your hair," she told her.

And then Mike and another boy from Biology burst through the door. Apparently her friend had been designated the official transporter of invalids today. The other boy's face was ashen.

"Oh no," Edward muttered. "Go out to the office, Lily."

She just stared at him in consternation for a second—but his expression looked serious. She spun and nearly caught the still-swinging door with her face. Edward's hand shot out just in time to save her from a smushed nose. Without even stopping to thank him, she ducked under his arm and darted out of the infirmary.

Once she was back in the main office, Lily turned around to see if he was following her and smiled when she saw that he was.

"Thanks," she said. "For saving my face. And carrying me." And staying with her, and laughing for her, and…. Lily's face was already red, and suddenly remembering that he could read minds didn't help that one bit. "And everything else. Obviously."

"You're welcome," he replied. The expression on his white face was difficult to read, but she thought he looked a little surprised. "Thank you for listening to me."

She mimicked his low voice with a teasing tilt of her head. "You're welcome. And it was tacos, by the way."

His eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

Mike came through the door before she could answer—or rather, ask him why he had to ask "what" if he could just read her mind. Come to think of it, hadn't he said that she was rather difficult for him to read? That definitely did not apply to Mike, however. Edward's observation seemed to be spot-on as the blonde boy glowered at him. His face was gloomy when his eyes flashed back to Lily.

"You look better," he said in a grumpy kind of way. He must have been tired from all the volunteering.

Lily tried to sound chipper as she replied, "Yep. Thanks for helping me, Mike. I really do appreciate it."

Mike hummed dubiously. His voice sounded a little lighter when he asked, "Are you coming back to class? I can walk with you if you want."

"Oh, uh, well," Lily stammered. She desperately wanted an excuse to linger here a little longer—as long as Edward was lingering too. Fortunately, it occurred to her that she actually had a legitimate justification. "I would just get sick again probably. If people are still, um, blood typing and all. I think I might just head home." She added the last part in case Mike said that the blood business had finished up already. "Better safe than sorry, right?"

"Yeah, I guess…. So...are you going this weekend? To the beach?" He glanced at the other boy as he said this. Mike's face looked a little stoic, but maybe it was just his tiredness. Edward leaned against the counter, still as a statue and staring off into space. The whole scene gave Lily serious deja vu of the old days in Biology. Had it even been long enough to call it "the old days" yet? Geez, it felt like so much had changed in such a short span of time!

"Of course. I'm looking forward to it," she said with a smile, hoping to distract Mike from the mood he was in. Maybe it wasn't just tiredness. Maybe he was upset with her, still grumpy about lunch—or about having to drag her halfway across campus.

"We're meeting at my dad's store," he told her, "at ten." His eyes zipped over to Edward one more time. They really didn't look friendly.

"Okey-dokey, I'll be there," she assured him. "Thanks again for inviting me and all." Guilt was still stirring her guts, so she hoped her gratitude showed through loud and clear.

Mike left after that, his parting words glum in spite of their cheerful sentiment. "Feel better soon, Lily."

"Thanks, I'll try," she said to his back. She couldn't resist a sigh of relief when the door shut behind him. Guilt stirred again...but it was overshadowed by the fact that she was finally alone with—

Edward's voice was suddenly right next to her. "You said that you wanted to go home?" She jumped a little and turned to look up at him. Her heart pounded, and her ears and cheeks practically sizzled. When he was this close, it was easy to remember how often she forgot his height; she had to tilt her head back a bit just to look him in the eye. His reddish-brown hair fell across his forehead. His skin looked pearly, almost luminescent. She had to work hard not to stare at his mouth, but that was quite the challenge when his face was so darn close to hers…. Wait, what had he asked?

Home, right. She was supposed to be sick enough to go home, oops—she definitely didn't feel very sick anymore.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah?"

"I can take care of that," he promised, leaning closer than ever. Her heart did a drum roll, and she nearly combusted when he murmured in her ear, "Go sit down and look beleaguered."

"Um...beleaguered?"

He smiled. It was like being shot with a canon at close range. Her gulp was as loud as a bull frog's, but at least she didn't pass out again. "Tired and ill," he whispered.

"Ah. Right. Can do," she whispered back and staggered away. At least she had the walk of an invalid down pat, thanks to him. Lily took a seat in one of the metal folding chairs and leaned back with her head against the wall. She shut her eyes and scrunched up her forehead in an effort to appear as uncomfortable as possible.

He could have been a star of the silver screen or a golden age radio crooner when he called, "Mrs. Cope?"

"Yes?"

"Lily has Choir next hour, but I don't think she feels well enough. Actually, I was thinking I should take her home now. Do you think you could excuse her from class?"

Lord above, his voice had the timbre of liquid sunshine—no, something sweeter than that. Caramel. Or melted butterscotch, like his eyes.

While she was contemplating the candy qualities of his voice, Ms. Cope was asking, "Do you need to be excused too, Edward?" and Edward was answering, "No, I have Mrs. Goff. She won't mind."

"Okay, it's all taken care of. You feel better, Lily."

"Thank you, ma'am," Lily whispered with a pained smile. She was laying it on pretty thick, but it all was from the unfounded paranoia that Ms. Cope would see through her act and send her back to class. It hadn't even occurred to her to worry about her friends' potential concern when they found out she'd gone home. Oh well. Mike would tell them she was fine.

She was better than fine, actually. As Lily got up to leave, Edward came over to her, and she thought, This is definitely worth getting sick.

"Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you again?" It sounded sincere, but his expression had become sardonic now that his back was turned to Ms. Cope.

She pressed her lips together even as the offer made her heart butterfly all over the place. "No, thank you," she replied primly. His face grew more sarcastic than ever when he held the door open, but Lily was too happy to care. She still stuck her tongue out at him though—on principle.

It was drizzling outside, she had the rest of the day off, and she would get to spend a little more time with this fascinating boy. Lily would've gone through blood typing shenanigans every day for a week, just to feel the way she did at that moment. She lifted her face to the fine mist of rain and sighed happily. The happiest she had felt since coming to Forks, nearly...and that probably had to do more with the company she now shared than anything else. The fact should have bothered her. Instead, it had her beaming as she flipped around to face her companion. He was staring out into the rain, his face oddly expressionless.

Lily couldn't deny the hope that welled up in her chest when she asked, "So, uh...you wanna come with? To La Push? I mean, Saturday. Not now, obviously. La Push—First Beach—this Saturday."

Edward looked at her out of the corner of one eye, and his cheek rose in a smile. "I really don't think I was invited," he said dryly.

She pouted. "You were too—by me, just now. Mike won't mind."

"Let's you and I not push poor Mike any further this week. We don't want him to snap." His eyes gleamed, and he started to look more genuinely cheerful, as if he enjoyed the idea of antagonizing Mike.

Her heart fluttered over the way-too-wonderful words "you and I."

"Ah!" She stopped in her tracks. They were in the parking lot by now. "Oh man, I almost forgot." Although it almost seemed too bizarre to believe when she remembered. Sorry, Lily thought, staring at him with an embarrassed smile. I swear I didn't mean that like...I mean, I meant it in a friendly way. Not a weird one. Wonderful like friendship. It's nice that we're friends now. That's all.

Edward's expression was more befuddled than she had ever seen it before. "What?"

"What what?" What part of what she had thought had confused him?

"What did you forget?"

"What?" It was her turn to be befuddled. Had she thought it wrong, somehow? Was she not thinking loud enough or something?

She was nearly glaring at him in her concentration now. As loud as she possibly could think, she thought, Can you hear me?

Edward's expression didn't change.

Lily felt her lifespan shrink. She groaned like a rusty swing set and hid her face in her hands. Oh geez, she was such a complete and total idiot! Great. Great job, Lily. Just great.

"What is it?"

She shook her head without looking up, too mortified to answer. He really had to believe she was crazy now, if he hadn't believed it before.

"Lily," Edward insisted sharply, "tell me what's wrong."

"I thought you were a psychic," she moaned, voice muffled by her hands. "Like...telepathy, telekinesis…. I'm so stupid!" And then it occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, he could have completely forgotten what she'd said in the nurse's office—or chalked it up to her infirm state or something—and she had just missed a perfect opportunity to pass this whole thing off as nothing but a headache. But instead she went and reminded him of the stupid thing she'd said. No way he would dismiss it now.

"And if I hadn't just told you that again instead of...ugh! I'm double stupid. I'm just…. I'm gonna go." Lily hung her head and turned away from him. She began to walk in the direction of her truck, tears burning her eyes. Edward snagged the sleeve of her coat between his fingers and held her back.

"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded. He sounded oddly upset.

She blinked up at his undeniably unhappy expression. The rain was picking up intensity, soaking her hair and the front of her shirt, but she didn't care.

"Home? I just thought..." that it would be better to cut her losses and go stew in her own misery, rather than inflict more of her embarrassing antics on him and potentially lose even more of his respect... "that you might be tired of me."

"Didn't you hear me promise to take you safely home? Do you think I'm going to let you drive in your condition?"

There was rain in her eyes, dripping down her chin and throat into the collar of her shirt, but she didn't wipe her face. It helped disguise the tears that she couldn't blink away. Crying because she was ashamed, and then feeling ashamed that she was crying. It was a vicious but familiar cycle, one which she would have liked to avoid in Edward's presence, if at all possible. Maybe honesty would save her—end this interaction so she could go cry in the privacy of her truck. She wanted to be alone, and he couldn't object to letting her go if she clearly explained that last doozy; maybe he was too nice to have noticed it, even when she'd pointed it out.

"Edward, I literally just accused you of being magic," she reminded him with a rueful smile. "I think the best thing for both of us is if I just go home now. Before I show anymore of my stupid. Gotta keep some dignity intact, right?"

His eyes burned into hers. They were more golden than ever against the dull grey sky and his auburn hair, darker now with the rain. Water dripped down his face and into his eyes, but he hardly seemed to notice. His lips were nothing but a thin line, and his jaw was tight. She thought he looked...intensely conflicted…. Like there was something on the tip of his tongue driving him crazy.

"I mean...that is crazy, right?" She only asked it to make sure he understood what a loon she was. Not because she felt a tiny spark of hope or anything like that. The rain made her eyes sting, and her bra was damp, and she still kind of wished she could just scurry away from him and hide, but Lily couldn't look away in that moment.

Edward's eyes seemed to flicker between the two of hers, like he was looking for something there. Then he sighed.

"Please come with me," he said, his velvet voice husky.

A thrill ran through her, head to toe.

"Am I...actually right?"

His teeth clenched. "We can talk in my car—you're soaking wet," he muttered. "Allow me to drive you home." It sounded closer to a command than a courteous request, but she didn't even care.

She nodded and squeaked, "Okay," just like she had at the start of the day. What wayward paths they had traversed between morning and afternoon. ...Ha. Geez Lily, get a grip on the melodrama; a boy offers to drive you home, and you fall to poetic pieces. Disgusting.

When they got to his car, he didn't get in. He went to her door and opened it for her. Like a gentleman. A gentleman with rain-tangled hair and damp clothes that clung—agh, keep it together!

She buckled herself in with a sigh. Keeping it anything close to together didn't seem like something she could manage much longer. Edward got in, turned the heater up and the music down, and pulled out of the parking space without buckling up.

"Click it or tick it, buddy," she teased him, only halfway kidding. Her eyes went back and forth between the seat belt and his face pointedly. "My dad's a cop."

He sighed and did as she asked. She smiled. It grew into a grin when she recognized what was playing. "Oh, 'Clair de Lune!'"

"You know Debussy?"

"Hey, don't sound so surprised. I am a choir kid, after all. I know my stuff." Lily realized she was awfully close to bragging and amended, "Well, I don't know him very well, actually—I mean, my school's chamber choir sang one of his pieces once. But of course I know 'Clair de Lune.' It's one of my mom's favorites, and, y'know, a staple of Romantic music and all. I mean, Romantic like the period, of course—obviously—not like, um...heh…." She trailed off with a halfhearted laugh and sighed. Something occurred to her then, and Lily turned in her seat to face him as fully as she could.

"But I guess I don't need to explain what I meant," she asked hopefully, "if you really can read minds?"

Edward flinched. His nose wrinkled, and his hands clenched on the steering wheel.

Lily leaned back in her seat and watched him stare out the rainy windshield. "You aren't going to tell me about that either," she guessed, "are you? ...Can you at least tell me if I'm right? If I was close? I'll go crazy if you don't. Well, crazier."

"As if you didn't know too much already," he muttered under his breath. Then he said, firmly and clearly, "No, Lily, I cannot read your mind."

It felt like she shrank half a foot. "Ah. So I am crazy."

"I didn't say that," he scolded. "It was...an incredible guess."

"Incredibly doofy?" she offered.

He sighed like she was being ridiculous. "Lily, you are—"

"If you call me absurd one more time," she threatened him, "I'm gonna kick your butt."

His lips sucked together. For one second, she thought he was mad, but then his chest shuddered a little, and she saw the sparkle in his eyes. He was laughing. Her heart sang. But then, for no reason at all, he winced, and his expression transformed into something bordering on agony. Like someone had just stabbed a knife into his back. The way his nose wrinkled would have been adorable, if he hadn't looked so….

"Are you okay?"

He nodded.

"Do you have a migraine? My mom gets those all the time. Do you need to, like, turn the heater off or roll down a window or anything?"

"I'm fine," was all he said. His voice was tight. She didn't dare ask him anything more.

There was no sound for a while after that except for the car, the rain, and the music playing quietly above it all, like a delicate harmony to the scene instead of just another part of the background noise. In spite of myriad unanswered questions, Lily felt profoundly peaceful.

"What is your mother like?" Edward asked suddenly.

She looked at him and saw that he was looking at her. His eyes were curious. The agonized grimace had disappeared, to her relief.

"My mom? Well…. She's a lot like me, only way prettier—she has blue eyes and great skin, and she's tall and slender. Quirky too, but with her it's a lot more charming. We're exactly alike in the scatterbrain department though. A couple of lemmings leading each other off one cliff after another, heh."

When she didn't say any more, he asked her, "What else?"

She smiled at his unexpected interest...but the smile quickly faded. "She's irresponsible like me. We end up in a lot of awkward situations because of each other. But she's really brave and confident and...really paradoxical. Like, she'll nag me to death about one little thing I do wrong, but if I mess up big time, she'll jump to defend me. She does the same thing with total strangers—sticking up for them, I mean. She's really sweet like that. I just...bring out the worst in her. ...We've been fighting a lot these last few years. That's kind of, um…." Lily trailed off in embarrassment. He was probably just making conversation, and here she was acting like that person at checkout who takes it way too literally when asked, "How are you today?"

"Kind of what?" he asked.

It took a moment to recover from her surprise. "Are you sure I'm not getting too nitty-gritty for you?"

His smile was wry but his voice was polite when he said, "Not at all."

"Okay…. I was saying that...that's kind of why I moved away. Kind of the whole reason actually. Well, that and Phil. She married him last year, so, uh…. Now they're free to roam wherever the wind blows them and all. Couple o' crazy kids. Well—Phil's not crazy. He's crazy about my mom at least. And vice versa."

Edwards eyebrows pulled down like he was concentrating on something. It was difficult to imagine, however, that her chatter could be interesting enough for such an intense expression. She hoped her negativity hadn't made him uncomfortable.

"Do you approve?" he asked.

"What?"

"Do you approve of your mother's choice?"

"Oh. Phil? Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, well...okay, I didn't at first—not that it matters, of course—but it turns out that he's a really great guy. Kind of young for her and stuff, but he's actually really good at taking care of her. That's more than I could ever do anyway."

"Why doesn't it matter?"

"Huh?"

"Why doesn't it matter whether or not you approve?" He didn't sound one bit impatient at having to repeat himself so much, and it gave her the courage to give him an honest answer instead of just a respectable one.

"Well, I mean, for one thing, my mom and I don't really ever talk about boys—except when she's, like, chewing me out, heh...so the subject never really...came up? Not to make it sound like she didn't care. If I thought he was bad news or something, she would've listened. Anyway, he makes her happy—that's what's important. And she's given up so much to make me happy, so…. Even if I thought he's a little too young or whatever, what does it matter?" Lily shrugged and then, for the sake of lightening things up, she added with a smile, "And you know what they say: age is but a number. Besides, he really does take super good care of her. She hasn't gotten in a single scam or lost her wallet even once since they got hitched."

His eyes weighed on hers, flickering back and forth, right and left, as if he was looking for something. "That's very generous of you," he began. "I wonder—"

"Not really," she scoffed. "She's given up a ton for me over the years. Like, she always wanted to be a teacher, but—oh, agh, sorry. You were saying?"

He shook his head, a small smile on his lips. "Please continue."

Lily shook hers. "Really, I was just babbling. Your turn."

Edward sighed but went on, "Do you think she would extend the same courtesy to you? No matter who your choice was?"

"What do you mean?"

He gave her that searching look again. He should have had his eyes on the road, but before she could even hold on to that thought, his movie star voice was murmuring, "If you were to choose someone she considered...unwise...someone who made you happy in spite of your differences...would she put your happiness first?"

"I mean, uh," Lily floundered under the weight of his electrifying stare, "I'm not sure. She doesn't really like boys—with me, I mean. Not that there's ever really been—um, but yeah. I don't know. It's different with her, obviously. Her and boys, I mean. She's an adult and I'm not, all that jazz. But as for me choosing someone—assuming she was okay with me dating at all, heh—I guess...it would just depend on the guy?" She closed her mouth forcibly, anxious to see how he would respond to her ramble.

Edward nodded. "No one too scary then," he teased.

Lily grinned. "Ha, that depends on your definition of scary."

"And what is your definition of scary?"

"What's yours?"

"I asked you first."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't know. Facial tattoos and skin implants?"

Edward laughed, clear and musical.

Lily beamed and said, "Now tell me your definition." Maybe that would shed some light on things….

But he simply shook his head, and, instead of answering her question, asked another one himself. "Do you think that I could be scary?" He raised one eyebrow, and the ghost of a smile floated around his lips.

For a moment, Lily wavered between telling the truth or trying to be tactful. But thinking of her mother had reminded her that she came to Forks for changes, one of which was more honesty in her life. So she answered, "Yeah, I kinda do. Dagger eyes and all. I thought you wanted to punt me out the window when we first met." She laughed, but Edward's pleasant expression had disappeared entirely. In its place was something serious. Or was it closer to anger? Eyebrows furrowed, lips pursed…. Although he certainly had no room to be angry at her when he was the one who—

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice soft, almost mournful. Oh, maybe the look on his face was something else after all. Guilt? Embarrassment? Ugh, she was so bad at human interaction, geez.

Lily shrugged, no idea what to say.

Edward's tense expression didn't change. She really should have been more concerned with how little he was looking at the road. His voice was even softer when he asked, "Are you frightened of me right now?"

"No!" She winced—she'd been too loud and quick to protest—and then, "No," she repeated in a proper inside voice. Stellar job, Lily.

Instead of cringing or rolling his eyes or something, Edward's serious air faded away in favor of an expression that would've made da Vinci itch for a paintbrush.

"Okay, now you," she insisted, unable to resist a lighter tone when the sun was out. Or were his eyes closer to stars? Same difference, really. But there was something there that the sun just didn't have, warm and golden though it was…. Lily shook away the momentary tangent and asked, "What about your family? I wish I had siblings. Do you guys all get along?"

Edward glanced down at the clock on the dashboard; Lily looked too. She realized that it was later than she thought, and that Debussy had switched to Chopin at some point, and, unfortunately, that the car had stopped. They were parked in front of her house now.

"In general, yes," he answered. "They will, however, be quite upset if I make them wait in the rain."

"Oh. Right. I guess you are their ride and stuff, heh. Family carpool—must be fun."

He smiled at her wryly. "It is...interesting."

"Crowded, I bet."

"Very."

"Why don't y'all take separate cars?"

"Conservation of finite resources," he said. Lily laughed and was relieved to see his smile grow—she hadn't been sure whether or not he was joking. She couldn't see any sign of impatience from him either. But he had to be hoping that she would hurry up and let him go.

Her hand went to the seat belt slowly, heavy with reluctance. "Sorry to keep you," she said. So much for lying less—she could have kept him there an hour and wouldn't have regretted it one bit...well, apart from keeping his brothers and sisters stranded at school.

"Don't be," he told her. She made the mistake of looking into his eyes again and got stuck there for an unguessable amount of time, her hand still holding the buckle. Finally, Edward smiled and said, "You probably want your truck back before Chief Swan gets—"

Lily gasped and cut him off. "Oh my gosh, the truck! Geez, and all my stuff too! What do I do? Ugh!"

"I'll have Alice drop your truck off after school," he replied simply. "Your things will be in it, safe and sound."

"Oh." She blinked at him. "Well...okey-dokey then. Thank you. My books are probably—oh, actually, someone probably took them to the front office."

"Don't worry," he said, but not in a dismissive way. It made her smile again.

"Well, I...I guess I'll head on in. I've got a Riverside Shakespeare, so at least I can work on Macbeth in the mean time."

He nodded. "The Riverside is certainly a venerable edition."

"My mom found it at an antique fair. She was in a playhouse when I was little." Lily swallowed the urge to draw this out even longer. Edward's eyes were steady, his smile pleasant and lopsided. Apparently he was very good at hiding his impatience. "Thanks again—for driving me home and carrying me and stuff. Tell Alice thank you for me too, okay?"

"I will."

Lily finally released the seatbelt. It zipped back into its place. She touched the door handle but didn't pull it.

"Hey, um...before you go. Well, before I go." She chewed her cheek. "I just want to make sure about something."

His expression didn't change, but there was something a lot less relaxed about it when he answered, "Yes?"

"Well…." Her eyes danced up and away from his a couple of times before she got the courage to just come out and ask, "Are you still gonna be my friend tomorrow?"

It was a silly sounding question. She expected him to smirk at her, maybe laugh a little. Instead, he looked as somber as he ever had before.

"I am your friend, Lily," he said in a low voice, "for as long as you want me to be. I don't think I can resist it, at this point."

Her heart beat a staccato syncopation with the quiet piano music. "I do want you to be," she confessed like it wasn't already uncomfortably obvious.

He smiled, although it definitely wasn't a one-hundred percent untroubled smile. "Then I shall be." The words sounded almost like a vow. Her heart was all the way up in her throat now.

"So, uh," she breathed shakily, "see you tomorrow then?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Aw, how come?" She didn't even bother trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice, and she didn't regret it when it took some of the shadows away from his smile.

"Emmett and I are starting the weekend early."

"Oh…. What are y'all gonna do?"

"We're going to be hiking in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, just south of Rainier."

"Oh. Sounds fun. ...Be safe."

Edward laughed like there was something funny about what she said. "I will be," he told her with easy confidence, and then he added, "And, Lily, will you do something for me this weekend?" He tilted his chin down and let his brilliant eyes shine into hers. She might have done anything he asked when he was looking at her like that.

"Uh-huh?"

"Don't be offended, but you seem to be one of those people who just attracts accidents like a magnet. So...try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or anything, all right?"

Well, that was almost extremely insulting. Lily's temper snapped at her heels, but she was never very good at being mad at someone just before she had to say goodbye.

"Your confidence is inspiring," she snarked, rolling her eyes on the last word. "Ugh. Fine. I promise. I won't even get a sunburn."

"Don't count on that," he warned her seriously, as if he was actually worried about her suffering a second degree tan or something. "The sun will be out Saturday."

"Okay, okay. Lighten up. Even if I did get burned, that's literally the worst thing that can happen to anyone around here."

Something about her words had him frowning; she wasn't sure what she'd said to do that, but she regretted it.

"I'll be fine," she guaranteed with a smile. "Thanks for worrying about me, I guess...even if you do sound like a paranoid nut."

He shook his head. She sighed and opened the car door.

"See you later, Edward."

"Take care of yourself, Lily."

One last, last look into his pensive, peculiar eyes, and then she shut the door gently and watched him drive away, his silver car screened in by the thick rain. She didn't even realize how hard it was coming down until that moment...or that she'd never given Edward her car key, uh oh. She stood on the porch and patted the pockets of her jacket—first one, and then the other. As if by magic, the key was gone.

---

Whewf!

Nothing to do with this chapter in particular (a reviewer pointed this out to me) but I realized that Bella says PE is mandatory all 4 years...but the arts are HUGE in Washington far as I know, and I just can't imagine a cute high school like Forks not having any arts programs. So...choir ftw! Idk about band. I was lucky to have a school that did both, but maybe Forks is only just starting to branch out into the arts in 2005? Someday they'll have a mysterious donor who gives bigtime to the school, especially the arts programs, and THEN they'll have a band ;3 Lily would always love Forks, whether or not she always lives there.

P.S. Edward grabs a tray for lunch in this chapter, unlike in the book, bc he worries about Lily skipping meals, and I know I'm the one who wrote it but I just had to point it out ghhdhgfs ;w; Love this boy.