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"He's really in a meeting?" Angela whines for like the millionth time. For once, I'm telling the truth when I assure her that he's video conferencing with someone and can't take her phone calls.

"Can I take a message?" I prompt, trying to get her off the phone. My head is killing me, my skull feeling like it's going to crack apart from all the pressure building behind my eyes.

"I guess. Just remind him that we have reservations at La Table tonight with my parents. Actually, don't say the part about my parents-I don't want him to come up with an excuse to miss it. Again."

As I'm jotting the message down onto a sticky note, Edward Cullen has appeared beyond the open elevator doors to our floor. He steps out, running a hand through his dark, coppery hair that seems a bit too messy to be done on purpose and he's smiling at Jessica as she rushes to greet him, smoothing her pencil skirt as she goes.

I hang up on Angela without saying goodbye, too busy observing this rare occurrence to care about niceties. People try to stop him to chat, but he brushes them off-albeit politely-and keeps walking.

Towards me.

His eyes dart to the nameplate on my desk, Bella Swan, and I see his lips move-barely, but enough to notice that he's trying my name out on his tongue.

The wave of pleasure that rolls through me is a little jarring.

"How can I help you, Mr. Cullen?" I say in my fake professional receptionist voice. His lips twitch.

"Is Ben busy? I've got a question for him."

I glance at Cheney's door. "He's meeting with someone but I'm sure he wouldn't mind the interruption."

"Oh, no, that's okay. It's not urgent."

"Want me to let him know you stopped by?" I cringe by the end of my response, a sharp pain hitting me behind the eye.

"Are you alright?" he asks, brows furrowing in concern. I resist the urge to press my palms into my eyes.

"Yes, sorry, just a headache."

"Nothing to be sorry about," he says softly. "I'll shoot Ben an email. Feel better."

Wait wait wait wait wait, the headache pounds, but I'm too dumbfounded by the fact that he's spoken to me to move.

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I spend the weekend in bed, treating myself to microwavable rice that I dress up with cold stir-fry sauce and reading through the Real Ones books.

There has been talk that the Real Ones went into hiding, that some of them may still be living among us, though unlikely. Some of us may have Real One DNA, born of halflings generations and generations ago, but the genes are so diluted at this point that you would have more in common with a rock than a Real One.

"Depressing," I mutter aloud to myself. I look at the black and white illustrations on the next page, the way that the Real Ones seem to glow with an aura. It's like a shadow, threatening to take over the form it surrounds.

I think of the Vigilante's green eyes as I fall asleep.

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I force myself to leave my apartment on Sunday evening. My skin's crawling, my blood's boiling, but for once, my head isn't on the verge of exploding. I walk, feeling the rare winter sun on my face.

I go to the corner store to stock up on bread and peanut butter and end up getting distracted by a display of nail polish. I look down at my nails, bitten to the quick, their edges jagged. I haven't had my nails painted since I was little.

A pretty pink for a pretty girl, mom had said. I grinned, six years old and missing too many teeth. It was for my first day of school. Well, my first day at that school. I was kicked out of kindergarten the year before at my assigned school for "causing a disturbance."

To this day, I can't remember a single detail about that incident, except that the following morning was the first time I was seen by a doctor who wasn't my pediatrician.

I grab a bottle of polish named Pinktini and roll it in my hands, contemplating the color with a frown.

I buy it, along with my food, and I leave it on my windowsill.

It starts to gather dust.

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