Author's note: Snow day yesterday!! I was able to finish up this rediculously long chapter!! I hope you like it, and I'm not kidding, it took up ten Microsoft Word pages, so I won't be disappointed if you don't finish it in one sitting. Thanks (again) so much for the reviews on the last chapter!! I would love more, and thank you for reviewing and requesting. Love you guys and enjoy the chapter =]

Love,

Mel

12. Answers

He took a deep breath, and put his hand through his hair. He looked nervous. "This is my first time telling anyone my life story, Avs. It's incredibly hard for me, considering my power and all. Memories for me are so vivid, it's like I'm actually living them again. As you can imagine, the bad memories are the most agonizing. The emotions, the smells, the sights… they're all as dramatic as they were at the time it happened. What's weird is most vampires couldn't tell you their life stories. Human memories fade after your changed, but mine stayed with me, even more prominent than before I was changed." He looked down and chuckled. "Having powers is almost more of a sacrifice than a perk, you know?"

I nodded, longing for him to begin. "So just start from the beginning."

He pursed his lips and thought for a moment. "I was born May sixteenth, 2010, in Jacksonville, Florida." He paused for effect, his eyes flashing towards me and a smile on his face. My mouth was wide open, and I closed it automatically. I swallowed hard.

"Okay. Go on." I replied calmly.

"My mother was Renée, and my father was Philip Dwyer. They were older parents to me, my mother in her early forties and my father in his late thirties. He was a minor league baseball player there, and we moved around Florida a few times every few years he got traded as he got older. So, we lived in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Key West, Clearwater Beach… I lived near a sunny coast line almost all of my human life. And, inevitably, I surf."

I smiled, about to open my mouth and tell him I did the same, but he beat me to it. "As do you. And not too shabby… but I could sure give you a few pointers. I mean, I've had about a hundred years of experience." He said with pride. I crossed my arms, smiling.

"Anyway, my parents were incredibly loving, and my life was good. But there was always something different about my mother. She always seemed to look past everything, like something was missing in her life, something she longed for very much." He looked down, trying to suppress an emotion. "Sometimes I'd hear her crying at night, when I was around ten or eleven, and I finally made her tell me.

"She revealed to me I had a half-sister, about twenty-five years older than me, that hadn't returned her phone calls, visited, or let alone made contact with my mother since she was married almost fifteen years earlier. Her name was Bella, and she had lived in Forks with her father, Charlie. She married Edward, whom was already a vampire for a hundred or so years, when she was eighteen, and went on her honey moon with him and never returned… going by what Charlie said…"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "So they did actually return?"

"Yes. There was a bit of a complication while they were on their trip…"

He let the silence linger, so I broke it. "What kind of complication?"

"Well, you see, Bella got pregnant."

My eyes almost bugged out of my head. "Pregnant!? A human and a vampire!? Is that even possible!?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, evidently, considering Renesmee walks the planet."

My heart stopped beating. "Renesmee?" I breathed.

He smiled, knowing of my dream, I guessed. "She's seventeen now. Much different from the girl in your dream. You know… Vanessa?"

I then realized how much the little girl in the picture resembled Vanessa. "I knew she looked familiar!"

He laughed and shook his head. "Ava, you're so smart yet so blind sometimes. I remember watching the overview of your first day of school. The second you saw Renesmee at the table with Jacob, the picture from your closet popped into your mind but you diminished the possibility at the same nanosecond. You're too analytical."

"Well, I don't see a reason for getting my hopes up for the impossible." I argued. "All that leads to is disappointment."

He looked into my eyes. "Ava, vampires exist. I don't know how much more impossible can you get than that."

I didn't look away from his warm, honey colored eyes. "There's always the theory of unicorns."

He smirked and shook his head. "Okay I take that back. You are impossible, Ava Jameson."

I smiled and rolled my eyes, aching to get closer to him. "Okay, get back to your story, Cullen-Dwyer-Swan."

He closed his eyes, getting himself back to his vivid memories. "So, Charlie did indeed know about the baby, but died thinking she was Edward's niece, and never knew she was his biological granddaughter. See, the thing about Charlie, which still confuses me to this day, was that he didn't care about Bella's new, shockingly beautiful and different appearance, nor did he ask any questions. I mean, he didn't even blurt a single question when Jacob freaking phased in front of him…"

I was thrown off yet again. "Phased…?" I stopped him.

He came out of his memory and smiled. "You always knew there was something different about Jacob. I remember you noticing how his skin tone dramatically contrasted ours on the first day."

I groaned. "And what is he?"

"He's a werewolf." He said, awaiting my reaction.

More mythical creatures? And I thought vampire was crazy… "A werewolf? Seriously?"

"Seriously." He nodded.

I shook my head, trying to figure this out. "So, what, does he, howl at the moon?" I asked sarcastically.

He threw his head back and let out a booming laugh. When he looked at me, his golden eyes were sparkling. "That is the exact question I asked Bella when she was telling me about Jacob. And the answer is no. He can actually phase into a wolf when ever necessary. He doesn't have to wait for a full moon or anything like that. And don't worry, there's a reason a werewolf living with a family of his automatic enemies."

"You mean mythical creatures don't get along?" I asked wryly.

Ronan rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Keep in mind we're not talking about rainbows and unicorns and leper cons with pots of gold. Werewolves tend to call us 'cold ones' and 'leaches' because of our bad reputation for drinking human blood, and many other native legends from years and years ago. Anyway, you see, werewolves do this thing called imprinting, that even with the memory reading, I still can't fully understand. I guess it's kind of like love at first sight or whatever, and the second they lay eyes that person, they cannot be away from them, like they are bound to that person for life. The second Jacob looked into Renesmee's eyes, he was inseparable from her forever more."

The love story added to the butterflies already raging in my stomach from being in the very presence of Ronan. A small smile formed on my face.

He noticed my smile. "What?"

"I'm trying to figure out why you're so concerned about your 'agonizing' memories. Everything I've heard so far doesn't sound half bad. Love at first sight, eternity together, loving parents…"

He stopped me with a serious expression. "Ava, I haven't even told you how I came about being a vampire."

I nodded. "Well, go on."

"Okay. Well, there was an explanation to the whole Mike Newton story that you heard on the first day of school. I hate to take all the credit for one of the biggest mishaps in vampire history, but I guess it was partly my fault.

"Maybe about two weeks before I was born, Alice had a vision and saw it coming. Edward saw it when he read her mind while they were hunting that morning, and they wanted to keep it from Bella, but she of course could tell from Alice's random blank stare while pursuing a grizzly bear that this vision was significant. And Bella got it out of her best friend/sister-in-law of course. They thought she would just be surprised, speechless and motionless for a minute or so, then recollect herself and be okay. But that was definitely not the case.

"Now remember, Bella at this point had only been a vampire for about five years, and newborn vampires usually are blood thirsty monsters who go around and pretty much feed on any human being. Edward was planning on taking her to a remote place to be trained to abstain human blood and become a vegetarian, but Bella was very good at containing herself from the very beginning. Her record was completely clean. For that whole five years, she hadn't even come close to harming a human. Until that day.

"When Alice told her that her mother was having another child, something just snapped inside of her. Like a rubber band, that had been fraying at its edges for the longest time with all the stress that had assaulted her life since having an unpredictable child, and on top of that becoming a vampire, it finally gave, and she went on a rampage. Looking at Edward's memory, which is in the top ten of his worst I've seen; her eyes just became rabid at the news, and she let out a loud, ear-piercing snarl before she ran at top speed through the woods toward something that smelled absolutely scrumptious.

"Edward didn't entirely process what had happened until she had about a five second head start through the trees, and she was almost half-way to the human before Edward ran after her in a desperate attempt to save her from the one thing she feared most." He shut his eyes and put his fingers to his temples, concentrating.

"When Bella finally tackled her pray and was about to rip into its neck and drink, she realized who she was straddling." He opened his eyes, a small smile forming on his lips. "It was her golden-retriever like friend from her human days; she hadn't seen him since the wedding where he sat among the guests, feeling sorry for himself. He had wanted Bella since the first day she attended Forks High. And when Bella saw him, the boy from her vague human memories was no more.

"His blonde hair was cropped shorter, and laugh lines were beginning to form around his eyes. She had heard he had three kids, each one year apart, and was married to one of Bella's friends from high school, Jessica, who died a few years after the incident due to far along cancer that took over her system. He was no longer a boy, he was a man. And, at that moment, Bella didn't know what to do. Mike had seen as clear as day that she was no longer the klutzy Bella Swan he remembered, and no matter how much it would put she and her family in danger, she couldn't kill him. She couldn't kill the father, the husband, and what Bella really realized for the first time he experienced, but she never would experience; getting older.

"When Edward knocked Bella off Mike, and he slowly pushed himself off the ground, Bella desperately tried to negotiate with him, but he just stood there in awe. Soon, he ended up just running out of the meadow he was hunting in, and called the police, but Bella's father, who was the police chief of Forks at the time, would not hear of this 'superhero' talk… even though he knew Mike was most likely telling the complete truth. And you know the rest concerning Mike… but you have also come across his old website."

I nodded, taking his whole story in. "Yeah… but no one believed him, right?"

He shook his head. "You know, the whole town of Forks thought her was insane, and basically told him 'Good riddance' when he was sent off to the mental institute outside of Port Angeles, but I know of one person who did believe him."

I gasped. "Your mother."

He smiled. "Exactly. It was right before websites went hands-on oriented actually, just months before, and I told her to maybe try and look up this half-sister of mine online, because, you know, I was pretty interested myself. She told me it was no use, that she had been looking up her name, Bella Swan, for years, and nothing close to her daughter came up. I tried to persuade my mother to try again, but she started to tear up at my begging, and as a ten year-old, I didn't like seeing her upset, so I let it go.

"Later that night, however, I couldn't stop thinking about this Bella Swan or Cullen, so I let curiosity get the best of me, and before bed, I got on my computer and looked up Bella Swan, and as my mother informed me, nothing came up that matched the picture I had stolen off my mother's desk of Bella and Edward on their wedding day." He shook his head, his eyebrows furrowing at the memory. "For some odd reason, I was very frustrated with this. As a fifth grader, I remember while researching killer whales for a project, and not really caring when I couldn't find any facts about the largeness of their teeth. I actually just made it up, to be honest. But not being able to find Bella, it really bothered me. Like, I had to find her. She was my sister, and being an only child my whole life, it fascinated me, made me excited to have a sibling.

"So I sat, for maybe about two hours past my bed time on my laptop in my bed, looking through hundreds of web pages. After searching Bella of Forks, Washington, Forks High school-Bella Swan, and other outrageous searches for this girl, I finally thought… what if I simply typed in Bella Cullen?

"When I did, I got to page seven on the search engine, you've probably never heard of it, and I almost slammed my laptop shut. But for some reason, the words 'Supernatural Beings In Forks', which had absolutely nothing to do with my search, caught my eye, and I clicked on it. And you know what picture was under the huge title font?"

I smiled. "It was the one you were holding in your hand, right?"

He smiled back, inched closer to me, and took my hand gingerly. My heart flipped. "Exactly right."

I closed my eyes, and tried to even my breathing. "So, what did you do?"

He chuckled. "Well, after flying out of my bed and doing a happy dance that shook the whole beach house, Renée came into my room, her eyes as slits, and told me to get in bed or I'd be sorry. But I couldn't contain my excitement for my deed of finding Bella, Edward, and some other random people with the last name of Cullen on the page. I pulled her over to my computer, and the irritated look on her face was no more when she began looking through the page. Soon, tears were streaming down her cheeks while she was reading. I went up to give her a hug, but she pointed at a picture on the screen. It was smeared, ripped at the sides, and was sent to the computer by an old cell phone. But the little girl in the neglected picture looked excruciatingly familiar.

"My mother was smiling then, when she whispered, 'I'm a grandmother?'"

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "So Mike found a picture of Renesmee? But how? They secured all the pictures in the house so well…"

"But don't forget, they were in a huge hurry." Ronan explained, "The second Mike ran out of the woods, they ran back to the house, threw their valuables in the floorboards, made the closet unable to open by any able human, and fled to London. But when Bella collected a few of the pictures they had of Renesmee and stuffed them into her coat pocket, one fell out, and when Mike trespassed on the property days later, he found it, and considered it proof because Nessie grew so fast. Remember, he saw her full grown in the forest. Only a child bred from a superhero could be able to grow that fast in his mind.

"Anyway, at that point, my mother was certain that Bella was still out there somewhere, not a superhero per say, but she was in Forks after the wedding, and Charlie bluntly lied to her for years. So, she called Charlie, and it was probably the most yelling I'd ever heard her do on a phone call. But Charlie still continued to lie, and told her about Mike being crazy and thrown into an insane asylum for sometime, but she didn't care about that. She had proof; the little angel-faced girl who looked identical to Bella and Edward, but Charlie denied her assumption and told her it was a computer-generated photo. So Renée, being overbearing and harebrained over everything she believed in deeply, she hung up the phone on Charlie, and continued searching for her daughter. Unfortunately, Mike's website was the only website she could find about the Cullens, and I began to lose interest in her vigorous search, because a few years later, I found her…"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He squeezed my hand harder. I could tell this girl was a difficult memory. I squeezed his hand back.

I closed my eyes with him and rubbed his hand with the one that wasn't being crushed by his. "It's okay, Ronan. Just think of happy memories of this person…" I paused, thinking of something to maybe trigger a good memory of this girl. "Like the first day you met her." I guessed, hoping it wouldn't make his condition worse.

His breathing evened and he let out a weak laugh. He opened his eyes, and they were glowing again. "The talent show."

He was smiling again, and like a direct relationship, my heart was fluttering again. "Okay, the talent show. What happened there?"

He shook his head, the smile still on his face. I breathed a sigh of relief as he started. "I was in the audience with a few of my stupid guy friends, and we were trash talking everyone who went on stage, especially the band that beat my best friend Harrison's five minute guitar solo last year.

"Don't get me wrong, I wasn't poor-spirited… I was just being a good friend. I was looking at the program at who was next, to see what I could say about the person when he or she came on stage to make my friend feel better. But when I saw her name, I had absolutely no idea who she was. Her name was so different. Desirée Russo. And it said she was singing an older song, one that I'd never heard of. I was into old bands, believe me, but the song was by a solo artist of the 1990s and 2000s I guessed. It was called Angel by someone named Sarah; the last name was cut off from the program. I sat back in my seat, waiting for a prissy high school girl to come up and sing some hip-hop song that was over played on the radio at that time, but when she came on stage, I was surprised.

"She was wearing an emerald green, silky looking dress that went down a little above her knees, a dress that matched her eyes I figured out later. Her deep, olive-toned skin was glowing under the lights, and her black hair was pulled up in a messy bun on her head. She grabbed the microphone swiftly, and walked to the middle of the stage. When she was directly under the spotlight, she said, 'This is for my grandma, Adrianna. You are forever in our hearts.' And with that, the music started, and when I heard her beautiful singing voice, I was mesmerized. The song was soft, incredibly powerful, and the entire audience fell silent. Even Harrison shut his big mouth for the first time that whole night."

He shook his head and laughed, "It took all my will-power to not break down crying at her voice, and when she was done singing, the audience paused for a few seconds, taking the stunning performance in, then erupted into a huge applause. I saw her silently wipe a stray tear from her cheek and smile, bow slowly, then quickly prance back stage. That's all it took. I was in love."

After he said he was in love, I couldn't help to feel a pang of jealously engulf my heart. I shook it away as best as I could, and squeezed his hand harder. "So…?" I said, sounding as enthusiastic as I could.

"I ran out of the auditorium as fast as possible with out an explanation to any of my friends. She was fifth out of thirty on the program. I figured if I left then, I could get to the flower shop down the street and get a bouquet back to her before the show was even over…"

I started laughing. "What?" He asked, the brilliant smile still on his face.

"You were pretty bold, weren't you?" I asked, "Giving flowers to a girl you never even met. Not a lot of guys would have the courage to do that."

"Are you kidding me? I was definitely not the kind of guy to do that. I just felt the urge to do it the second she was done singing. I saw it in some chick-flick my mom wanted me to watch with her earlier that week, and the guy ended up winning the girl at the end. I just had to be with Des. The urge was as intense as my mother wanting to find Bella. I think I inherited this passion for things from her, to tell you the truth.

"So, I ran down to the flower shop, and with the mere five dollars I had in my pocket, I bought her a single rose. But as I was running back up to the school, the significance of what I was doing hit me, and I was scared out of my wits. What if she thought I was just some weirdo-broke surfer giving her a rose, and she rejected it?"

I rolled my eyes at his boyish thought. "She loved it, didn't she."

"She kissed me on the cheek and everything." He said, beaming. "How did you know?"

"Okay, you're the one calling me blind, and you think giving a rose to a girl you don't even know, who sang her heart out to the audience wouldn't be absolutely flattered to receive a rose from you? I'd probably have the same reaction." I chuckled.

He looked down and took a deep breath, closing his eyes, squeezing my hand again. "We're getting to the hard part of the story, Ava."

I shook my head. "What? You and Desirée falling in love? It seems like fate brought you together. What could possibly go wrong?"

He shook his head, his voice thick with hurt. "Everything, Ava. Absolutely everything.

"I can tell you stories among stories of me and Desirée's years. We were bound together. She and her family came over for Christmas Eve dinner, and my family and I went to her house for Christmas Day brunch. Our families were incredibly close, and Rée and I had plans for our future together. We were only sixteen at the time, and we planned on getting married right out of high school, and moving to California to get her a record deal and go to college. We even got each other promise rings for Christmas the first year our families merged for the holidays. We thought it would become a tradition until the day we died, Christmases together, movie nights every Friday, filling out applications to almost every college in California together, and never leaving each other's sides. We were waiting until we got married to lose our virginity to each other, Ava." He stopped, closing his eyes tightly, and tried to even his breathing.

"But that dream was killed when Bella came back."

I was flabbergasted. "Bella came back? But why? Wouldn't Renée know she was different?"

"The last thing Bella wanted was for Renée or me to see her, but she missed her mother terribly, and was always curious about me. So, while the Cullens had moved on from London to Dublin, Bella moved down to Fort Lauderdale, and even though Edward had warned her not to do that, she fled down there anyway. Edward inevitably came with her, not being able to leave her side, and wearily stayed with Bella as she'd set out each night to watch over us as we slept.

"When ever one of us would wake up, she was able to get out of the room fast enough so we wouldn't think anything of it, but one night when Phil was in Texas somewhere playing a game and Renée was alone, Bella wasn't fast enough, and Bella couldn't bring herself to leave her distraught mother after hearing her sleep talk about her long-lost daughter almost the whole night. And after my mother demanded and explanation on what her gloriously beautiful daughter was, Bella told her everything. Little did Bella know, however, the Volturi were on her trail."

My eyebrows furrowed. "The Volturi?"

Ronan turned my hand palm up, and began tracing the creases. My heart was on the verge of coming out of my chest at that point. "The Volturi are the unofficial 'rulers' of all vampires. Aro, Caius and Marcus. Three guys, one hell of a lot of power."

"Are you trying to tell me that three guys have the power to rule a race of super-powerful mythical beings? Come on. What makes them so scary?" I asked.

"Well, the three guys are millennia upon millennia years old, and the guard of ten plus vampires is what we fear most. Almost everyone has an extraordinary attribute. One, a young girl, can inflict immense pain on someone just by looking at that person with an angelic smile. She was their super power for a long while. But then they came across a new vampire. The one…" He paused, getting his breathing under control and concentrated on tracing my palm. "The one that ruined my life. Shattered my dreams. And took away the lives of too many people I loved."

I took the hand he was vigorously caressing mine with, and held onto it tightly. "Ronan, you don't have to talk about it."

He shook his head, his face creased with concern, now concentrating on my hand. "No, I promised you my life story in full detail, and that's exactly what you're going to get."

He took a deep breath. "Well, I had no idea about Bella. My mother didn't tell me about her, and I think I know why now. I'm sure Bella told her it was against the Volturi's rules to tell a human about vampires, and that was her explanation for not making contact with her for all those years. My mother was just trying to preserve my life, just incase, by some slim chance, something went wrong. I swear she had some sixth sense, because two nights later, she was in a horrible 'car accident' with Phil when she went to pick him up from the airport while I was at Rée's house." His breathing became sharp, and he squeezed my hand tighter. I felt a lump form in my throat.

"Oh, Ronan." I breathed, trying to contain the tears that threatened to slide down my cheeks. I had to be strong for him.

He took a deep, shaky breath. "The Volturi's secret weapon, she was changed about a decade earlier by Aro, and had worked as a receptionist for the Volturi for a long while, as a human. Aro was positive she had potential for great power as a vampire, and when he finally changed her, his assumption had been right. Gianna had a power that would keep the Volturi at top-notch for a long while.

"Her power was like another vampire of the guard, Demitri's, but Gianna's was even more powerful. While Demitri could only track any living thing he put his mind to, Gianna was a tracker, but could also see what the being she was tracking was doing at exactly that moment. One night, she happened to be on the computer, and came across Mike's website on a list of now unusable websites. So, she decided, for the heck of it, to see what each one was doing. She ended up seeing and hearing my mother and Bella's conversation as clear as day. So, she reported her finding proudly to Aro, and she and Demitri set off for my mother the next day." Ronan's breathing became ridged again.

"My parents were driving on a deserted road with a ravine right next to it, so they effortlessly pushed them off the side with their strength, and the car was found the next day, a piece of mangled up metal wrapped around a tree." He shut his eyes tightly, exhaling loudly.

"Ronan…" The tears had escaped my eyes at this point.

"But it wasn't so horrible," he cut me off, "I had Desirée and her family that, I could consider my family by that point. They were there for me, and I knew I could get through it with them. As long as I had Des, I would be okay.

"The funeral was slow and painful, there was a lot of crying, and Des and I made a speech for my parents. After burying their caskets side by side, there was a little after funeral get together at the Russo's house, and I saw an abnormally beautiful couple standing by the Russo's piano, kind of out of place, with a miserable looks on their faces out of the corner of my eye. They turned quickly when I fully looked at them, and swiftly made their way out of the door, but I could've sworn they look familiar. I left Des in the house and told her I'd be right back, and I made my way out the door.

"It was kind of a bleak day in Fort Lauderdale, the sky was dark from an incoming thunderstorm, and the wind was blowing tiredly. I looked around, and continued walking across the street until I entered a small wooded area. Suddenly, the girl was in front of me, as clear as day, and I knew exactly who she was. 'Bella?' I asked her, and then she told me 'No questions' as she scooped me up, ran me deeper into the woods, put me down, and put her teeth to my neck. Searing pain was all I could feel for the next two and a half days." He grimaced and then continued.

"Bella and her husband, Edward, told me everything for these two days, leaving me once to leave a note for the Russos, telling them that I took off to think for a few days. When my transformation was over, however, I told Bella Des had to be changed, too. She obeyed, and kidnapped her from her bedroom that night and brought her to the woods after Edward took me hunting. Reé only took two days to be changed, and even though I was still new to the whole idea of being an immortal, bloodsucking beast, I figured it wouldn't be so bad spending eternity with my Desi. But, unfortunately, that dream was also diminished.

"The Russos obviously put out a report to the police that she was missing despite the note Bella left the family saying she was looking for me, and Des felt guilty. I told her not to do it, that it would get her parents killed, but she did anyway. She told her parents about us.

"Alice frantically made her way to us with the rest of the Cullens at that point, seeing a horrible vision of all of us getting killed by the Volturi, so she knew they were on our trail. Rée was extremely nervous for her parent's lives, but I told her not to worry about them, and to not leave our sides at this point. I told her that I loved her too much, and didn't know what to do if she died along with her parents. But, of course, she was indignant, and when I took my eye off of her, just for a fraction of a second it seemed, she ran out of the woods to see her parents taking off in their car to go somewhere, and she followed them.

"When I realized she was gone, I saw her memory of her parents leaving, and her following them, so I ran out of the woods, following the same root, with my now over-protective family on my trail. But when we got to them, we were too late. The car was smashed into a tree, and there was a burning pile next to it…" Ronan's teeth suddenly clenched together, and he swiftly pulled his hand away form mine, startling me. His hands were suddenly pulled into tight fists, and his face was twisted in agony. His breathing was sharp and unsteady, and he was grunting in pain.

I began shaking my head, trying to figure out what happened. "Ronan? Ronan! What's the matter? Ronan…" I put my hand to his cheek, but he pulled away.

Hot tears began to burn in my eyes. I was scared. "Ronan," I sobbed, "It's okay. Just take deep breaths."

He opened his eyes then, and I could see they were burning with hurt and anguish. He looked into my eyes, begging for mercy. "Please, Ava, say something, anything. Anything to take my mind off of Reé."

My breathing was shaky, and the tears were streaming down my cheeks. "Um… I want to live life, and never be cruel…" I began to sing horrendously through my sobs.

"I want to live life, and be good to you…"

He was beginning to calm down; he was concentrating on humming the song along with me.

"That's it," I nodded, getting closer to him, "In… two… three… out… two… three."

He grabbed my hand, hard, and I let the pain inflict my hand; I hated seeing him in such agony, it was agonizing for me to watch.

After a minute, he realized how hard he was holding my fragile, human hand, and he eased up on the pressure.

His breathing was still heavy. "I was afraid of that. I almost hurt you, Avs. That's how vivid the memories are. The images, the smells, the emotion, it all comes back to me like the moment it happened. It's extremely dangerous, especially because that, right there, has to be my worst and most vivid memory."

The tears were still streaming down my cheeks, and my voice was choked with sobs, "Well, you're okay now, right?"

He chuckled, and began wiping away my tears with his finger for the second time that day. "Avs, it's alright. And 'We Never Change'? That was my parent's wedding song, and you know what else is weird about that, Ava?"

I was smiling weakly then, looking into his eyes. "What?"

"I listen to that song every time a memory like that invades my mind, and I feel better."

"Well, I'm glad I picked the correct song." I said, noticing how the sun had almost completely descended. What time was it?

Ronan checked his watch at the same second, and took a deep breath. "Well, that's pretty much it. I should be getting you home. Your parents will be getting worried."

"Ha. That'll be the day. And did you just say pretty much it?" I replied bitterly.

Ronan closed his eyes for a moment in deep concentration. "Scratch that. You're mother's last memory at the moment is something that she saw on Celebrity Now an hour ago. I'm sorry, Ava."

"You didn't answer my question." I stated.

"I'll let you fill in the cracks of my story with the questions you will ask on the ride to Seattle this Friday after school. I'll let you think about them this week." He said with a weak smile.

I furrowed my eyebrows, and a smirk formed on my lips. "Are you asking me on a date?"

He smiled and nodded. "Yes, I guess I am. And Alice is coming along in a separate car, if you don't mind." He rolled his eyes. "She wants to take you shopping."

My eyes brightened. "Then I accept most definitely."

"Good. Now come on, up you go." He said, holding his strong arms out to me.

I sighed, and gladly went into his arms. As he cradled me as he ran, it felt so natural, so right, like it was something habitual, something we'd be doing for the rest of our lives. When we were out of the forest and at my lone car in the parking lot, as soon as he put me down, I tripped on a rock.

He caught me before I fell, and rolled his glowing, honey-colored eyes. "Klutz." He told me, and all I could do was beam at him as he helped me into the Porsche.

So, this is love?