Author's note: Hey everyone!! Thank you so much for the reviews on the last chapter. You are all amazing. =] I hope you all had a memorable and merry Christmas with your families, a fantastic Hanukah, or a spectacular Kwanza. What ever you celebrate, I hope it was amid the warmth of your family and friends. Thank you again for reading. You have no idea what the reviews mean to me. Thank you and keep it up =]

Love,

Mel

14. Separate

I finished my class work in Pre-Calc slower than usual, and submitted it to the school's Grading Center, where it would be graded in maximum-security cyberspace, and then our grades would be e-mailed to our school accounts later that day. I sat with my chin resting on my fist, tapping my stylist impatiently on my corduroys. Could the seconds tick by on the digital clock mocking me on the wall any slower? The last thirty seconds since I had finished the work had to be the slowest of my entire existence.

On top of that, Alice's vision of an infuriated vampire relative wouldn't stop invading my thoughts. There wasn't even a question about the fact of what was going on. She hated me because I was human, imposing danger on her family. It was as simple as that, and I could live with it. It truly wasn't absurd judgment at all. But there was one question nagging my brain. What did Ronan mean by 'it's just history repeating itself'?

"Ava." I heard someone whisper and I was snapped out of my thoughts. I turned around to Cindy.

I have to talk to you, she mouthed, pointing dramatically toward the door that I would be sprinting out of to the cafeteria. The anticipation of lunch with Ronan was killing me. But I nodded anyway, and gave her a weak thumbs-up.

Right on cue, the bell rang, and I practically sprang out of my chair, shoving my laptop into my bag and made my way as quickly as possible to the door. I tapped my foot impatiently as I waited outside for Cindy to make her way out of the classroom, figuring she got talking to Mark, the curly-haired football player that sat next to her and constantly dropped his pencil that she happily picked up for him every chance she got. She'd been triumphing over this guy at lunch for a week.

She finally came prancing out of the room, waving goodbye to Mark, who neglected to return it and instead dumped his ice-cold water bottle down his teammate's jersey. I rolled my eyes, and she giggled.

"I asked him to come to the movies with us next week. Is that okay?" she asked giddily.

The damage was already done, I thought grudgingly, a mental picture of Mark throwing popcorn at the innocent people in front of us. I smiled anyway for my friend. "Of course it's okay. You are the one putting this whole thing together." I pointed out.

She grinned. "I'm so excited! At least now I have an arm to snuggle up to if I get scared." She giggled.

I giggled along with her, picking up my pace toward the cafeteria. It then occurred to me that I didn't ask if Ronan could sit at our table.

"Cindy? Is it okay if Ronan sits with us at lunch today?"

"Who?" She asked.

"You know… Ronan Swan? The one with the adopted siblings?"

She furrowed her eyebrows, but then I saw the light bulb ignite in her head. "Oh!" She giggled. "Your man candy?"

I rolled my eyes, smiling and blushing. Ronan would get a good laugh out of this when he saw it enter my memory bank. "Uh, yeah, I guess."

"Sure he can, Ava. The more the merrier." She replied with a smile. Her eyes became wide then and she gasped. "He should come to the movie, too!"

"I'll ask him if he's interested." I replied quickly, only steps away from the cafeteria.

When I swung open the doors to the cafeteria, Ronan's glorious, pale face was grinning at me. He was sitting at an empty table, and he patted the seat next to him. I guess he wanted to speak to me alone.

I turned to Cindy, who was beaming at me. "Is it okay if I…" I started.

"Go on," She cut me off. "Don't forget to ask him about the movie." She patted me on the shoulder and pranced off to my usual table where Max, Katrina, and Madison were looking me on, perplexed. I shrugged them off, though. Ronan was waiting.

I smiled at him as I came toward the table. "Hey." I greeted him. He stood up and pulled out my chair. I sat in it happily, and thanked him with my British accent. He rolled his eyes, and pushed his untouched food tray in front of me.

"I made sure I got here early for the chocolate moose, I know it's your favorite." He told me.

"Thank you." I took a bite of the turkey sub he put on my tray.

"So, you really want me to come to that movie with you?" He asked, looking as if suppressing a laugh as I chewed.

After I swallowed, I said, "Only if you want to… what's so funny?"

He shook his head. "Do you know what the movie's about?"

I thought for a moment, and then realized I had absolutely no idea. "All I know is that it's a horror."

"Okay, let me ask you a different question then. Would it be too ironic for a vampire to see a movie about rabid vampires on a killing spree in Pennsylvania?"

I slapped my palm over my mouth before I could burst out laughing and spray fruit punch all over the table.

"Seriously?" I asked him after I swallowed.

He nodded. "I'll happily watch the parody of my self if it means being with you for an hour and a half, however."

I nodded, butterflies evading my stomach naturally. "Okay. I would like that."

He closed his eyes and sighed then, smiling.

I shook my head. "Don't think you're getting off that easy. I've been waiting to ask you about Rosalie for three periods, I'm not giving up on that now."

"Dammit." He said, his eyes still closed and smiling. His peaceful face sent my heart fluttering uncontrollably.

"What's going on, Ronan?"

He groaned, opening his eyes, an irritated expression replacing the peaceful one. "Bella misses Rosalie and Emmett, so she called Rose to tell her everything was taken care of and fine, so Rose probably figured that you were out of the picture and decided to come back. Alice told me last period that she pulled into the parking lot seconds after we turned off walking to your English class, and she wasn't too happy when she saw us together.

"They went home for this period to try to work it out, but you never know with Rosalie. Emmett's I'm sure totally fine with it, but Rose is always the one to start these problems." He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"What did you mean by Rosalie doing this is just history repeating itself?"

"When Bella was human and Edward fell in love with her, that didn't sit too well with Rosalie, so she gave Bella havoc until she finally realized how incredibly vain she was being and decided to make amends. Since then, Bella and her had been at peace, but this peace was turned into a strong friendship during the time Rosalie stayed loyal to her when no one else, even Edward, would with her decision to keep Nessie during the time of her pregnancy with the half-vampire baby that was eating her alive. In other words, she'll come around sooner or later. Just don't worry about it."

I couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt for sending part of his family off to Alaska. He could see the sad expression on my face, so he carefully took my chin in his hand. "Ava, please don't blame this on yourself. Okay?" His eyes were intense on mine.

I managed a weak smile. "Okay." I looked past Ronan to see my table watching me like I had three heads. "And let go of my chin before they start drooling over there." My eyes flickered in their direction.

He pulled his eyes away from mine and turned his head toward my table, and at the same second, each head snapped down at their lunches. He turned back to me with a smirk on his face. "Is that better?"

I couldn't help but smile. "Much." I continued staring into his warm, honey-colored eyes.

"So, this doesn't bother you anymore?" I asked, curious about his Des memories.

He shook his head. "Holding you're head like this? No. It used to, but for some reason, memories of you are more intense than ones with Des. Now when I hold your head like this, I think of the first time in the forest with you. Nothing of Des comes back too vividly." His eyes were glowing. "It's amazing."

"Wow." I managed. I was enveloped in his warm eyes, and the smell of his breath was intoxicatingly sweet. I didn't care that there was a table of people watching us like hawks. All I wanted to do was close the space between Ronan and I; feel his lips move against mine. But I knew that, no matter how much it killed me inside, that couldn't happen yet. The last thing I wanted to see was him agonized with the memories of his past love. I cared too much about him to see him hurting, even though it was taking every bit of restrain I had not to softly place my lips on his.

"Are we interrupting anything?" I heard a high-pitched voice trill from behind me. I snapped my head around to find Alice, Bella, Edward, and the blonde boy watching us patiently.

"No." Ronan told them grudgingly. "Sit."

Alice happily took the seat next to me, and pulled the boy down in the seat next to her. He smiled at me. "I don't believe we've met, Ava. I'm Jasper." He reached his available hand toward me. I took it.

"Nice to meet you." I told him with a smile.

"So, that was quick. What happened?" I heard Ronan ask.

Edward put his face in his hands. "The conversation lasted for about a fraction of a second. She's furious, but Emmett convinced her to stay, at least. She'll be coming back next period."

"Well, I guess that's good." Ronan shrugged. "She'll get over it, right?"

Bella let out a long sigh. "Sooner or later." The table of vampires looked worried. I could tell they cared about Rosalie, even if they did have their misunderstandings. Even though they weren't blood relatives, they were more well-bound and loving than my family could ever hope to be. I took Ronan's hand, and he squeezed it.

Ronan and Edward were looking at each other then, like they were having an internal conversation. They were having an internal conversation, I corrected myself.

Ronan swiftly got out of his chair then, startling me, and pulled me up with him. "Excuse us for a moment." He told his family, his worried eyes connecting with mine. He led me out of the lunchroom, and when we were out the door, alone, he turned me towards him.

"You know that no matter what I say or do, I love you, right?" He asked, the intensity back in his eyes.

I nodded, face creasing in confusion. "Yeah, of coarse. Ronan, what's going on?"

"We shouldn't sit together at lunch. Or be seen together as much around here. It's too dangerous… Edward made a good point of that at the lunch table…"

I held his hand tighter. "What do you mean?"

Ronan closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. "After Gianna…" He grimaced. "After what Gianna… did… well, Aro wasn't too happy with her. Edward and Carlisle actually went to Volterra to speak with Aro about the incident, and he apologized for her outrageous behavior. Aro had originally sent her to make sure everything was okay and that they weren't putting us vampires in danger, but instead she ended up acting in violence. So, Aro made an agreement with Carlisle and Edward that she is not allowed to watch us anymore. Aro can check if she is with his power of seeing everything that passes a person's mind in their lifetime, so the agreement was pretty legit; she has no idea where we made our residence. She was also banned from coming in contact with us again, but that doesn't mean she can't watch people we interact with and see us together…"

He let the silence linger. "Who would she know that interacts with us?" I asked, incredulous.

"Cindy writes a gossip blog for the school, Ava." He said, his voice strained.

"Oh." I choked. It all made sense. Gianna could look up any of the aliases she was aware of that the Cullens lived under and find them instantly if she decided to write about Ronan, and she would start watching Cindy. "I'll just tell her we…"

He shook his head. "No. It's better to just let it be. If she asks, nothing happened between us. Say… I don't know… 'He wasn't the one'… er… something. I don't watch romantic comedies obviously…"

I nodded. "Yeah, I got it." I swallowed hard. I'd have to make Cindy's blog my homepage.

His face was still expressionless. "Alice will go pick up your car. She misses that thing so much."

My eyes got wide. Of course the flashy, yellow car was hers. "Oh, right. That's a good idea."

He looked at me then, doing his best to smile. "I'll stop over later okay? Love you."

I nodded. "Love you too."

He looked at the door behind us. "I have an idea. Follow my lead." He stepped in front of the automatic door, and when it began to slide open, he forced it impatiently. It wasn't until I saw him storm off to his table with several pairs of eyes on him that I understood what he was doing. I let out a long sigh and stormed off to my old table, and heatedly pulled out the available chair next to the girl with dark hair and blue eyes that sat at our table, Jade.

Her eyes got wide and she pulled her pod phone out of her ear. "What's with you?"

Cindy noticed me from across the table then, and her eyebrows came together in confusion. "Ava, what happened?"

I shook my head. "We just didn't click."

"What!?" she shouted, "Okay, Ava, there was definitely some clicking going on over there. Did you even notice the way he was looking at you?"

Crap. Think, Ava. "Oh," I spat, sounding disgusted. "I know. He was doing anything he could to get a look down my shirt. What a pig."

"Oh, really?" She asked. "I could've sworn there was something there between you guys, but if that's the case, then, ew." She laughed, and I half-heartedly joined her. "Well, hey, that's alright, it gives me time to actually get homework done in study hall next period instead of writing the gossip blog."

Phew, I sighed in my head, relieved that my improvisation was successful. "Yeah, well, that's a good thing." I couldn't help but smile. I noticed Max shaking his head toward the direction of the Cullens.

"Want me to take a swing at that Swan-Mason for you?" He asked, punching his fist into his palm.

I slapped my hand over my mouth so the laugh wouldn't escape my mouth. "No," I chuckled, "There's no need for that."

"Are you sure?" He asked.

I couldn't help but picture how the fight would turn out, and it was taking every bit of my restrain not to burst out with laughter. Ronan would get a kick out of this one. "Positive, Max." I replied.

The bell rang then, and everyone got out of their seats besides me. I couldn't help to look over at the Cullen's table to see them swiftly taking their untouched lunches to the garbage. Ronan was still sitting, too, watching me. When our eyes met from across the room, I sighed, butterflies evading my stomach once again.

Friday could not come any sooner.