High school. Purgatory no longer, it was now purely hell. Torment and fire... yes, I had both.
I was doing everything correctly now. Every i dotted, every t crossed. No one could complain that I was shirking my responsibilities.
To please Earnest and protect the others, I stayed in Forks. I returned to my old schedule. I hunted no more than the rest of them. Every day, I attended high school and played human. Every day, I listened carefully for anything new about the Cullens—there was never anything new. The boy did not speak one word of his suspicions. He just repeated the same story—I'd been standing with him and then pulled him out of the way—till his eager listeners got bored and stopped looking for more details. There was no danger. My hasty action had hurt no one.
No one but myself.
I was determined to change the future. Not the easiest task to set for oneself, but there was no other choice I could live with.
Archie said that I would not be strong enough to stay away from the boy. I would prove him wrong.
I'd thought the first day would be the hardest. By the end of it, I'd been sure that was the case. I'd been wrong, though.
It had rankled, knowing that I would hurt the boy. I'd comforted myself with the fact that his pain would be nothing more than a pinprick—just a tiny sting of rejection—compared to mine. Beau was human, and he knew that I was something else, something wrong, something frightening. He would probably be more relieved than wounded when I turned my face away from him and pretended that he didn't exist.
"Hey, Edythe," he'd greeted me that first day back in Biology. His voice had been pleasant, friendly, one hundred eighty degrees from the last time I'd spoken with him.
Why? What did the change mean? Had he forgotten? Decided he had imagined the whole episode? Could he possibly have forgiven me for not following through on my promise?
The questions had stabbed and twisted like the thirst that attacked me every time I breathed.
Just one moment to look in his eyes. Just to see if I could read the answers there...
No. I could not allow myself even that. Not if I was going to change the future.
I'd moved my chin an inch in his direction without looking away from the front of the room. I'd nodded once, then turned my face straight forward.
He did not speak to me again.
That afternoon, as soon as school was finished, my role played, I ran halfway to Seattle, as I had the day before. It seemed that I could handle the aching just slightly better when I was flying over the ground, turning everything around me into a green blur.
This run became my daily habit.
Did I love him? I did not think so. Not yet. Archie's glimpses of that future had stayed with me, though, and I could see how easy it would be to fall into loving Beau. It would be exactly like falling: effortless. Not letting myself love him was the opposite of falling—it was pulling myself up a cliff face, hand over hand, the task as grueling as if I had no more than mortal strength.
More than a month passed, and every day it got harder. That made no sense to me—I kept waiting to get over it, to have the struggle become easier or at least level off. This must be what Archie had meant when he'd predicted that I would not be able to stay away from the boy. He had seen the escalation of the pain.
But I could handle pain.
I would not destroy Beau's future. If I was destined to love him, then wasn't avoiding him the very least I could do?
Avoiding him was about the limit of what I could bear, though. I could pretend to ignore him and never look his way. I could pretend that he was of no interest to me. But I still hung on every breath he took, every word he spoke.
I couldn't watch him with my eyes, so I watched him through the eyes of others. The vast majority of my thoughts revolved around him as though he was the center of my mind's gravity.
As this hell ground on, I lumped my torments into four categories.
The first two were familiar. His scent and his silence. Or rather—to take the responsibility on myself, where it belonged—my thirst and my curiosity.
The thirst was the most primal of my torments. It was my habit now to simply not breathe at all in Biology. Of course, there were always the exceptions—when I had to answer a question, and I would need my breath to speak. Each time I tasted the air around the boy, it was the same as the first day—fire and need and brutal violence desperate to break free. It was hard to cling even slightly to reason or restraint in those moments. And, just like that first day, the monster in me would roar, so close to the surface.
The curiosity was the most constant of my torments. The question was never out of my mind: What is he thinking now? When I heard his quiet sigh. When he twisted a piece of hair absently around his finger. When he threw his books down with more force than usual. When he rushed into class late. When he tapped his foot impatiently against the floor. Each movement caught in my peripheral vision was a maddening mystery. When he spoke to the other human students, I analyzed his every word and tone. Was he speaking his thoughts, or what he thought he should say? It often sounded to me as though he was trying to say what his audience expected, and this reminded me of my family and our daily life of illusion—we were better at it than he was. But why would he have to play a role? He was one of them—a human teenager.
Only... he occasionally didn't behave like one. For example, when Mrs. Banner assigned a group project in Biology. It was her practice to let the students choose their partners. As always happened with group projects, the bravest of the ambitious students—Ben Daws and Nichole Laghari—quickly asked if I would join them. I shrugged my acceptance. They knew I would complete my portion perfectly, and theirs, too, if they left it undone.
It was unsurprising that McKayla allied herself with Beau. What was unexpected was Beau's insistence on the third member of their group, Tanner Galvaz.
Mrs. Banner usually had to assign Tanner to a group. He looked more surprised than pleased when Beau tapped his on the shoulder and awkwardly asked if he wanted to work with him and McKayla.
"Whatever," Tanner responded.
When he was back at his seat, McKayla hissed at him, "He's a total stoner. He won't do any work. I think he's failing Biology."
Beau shook his head and whispered back, "Don't worry about it. I'll catch whatever he misses."
McKayla wasn't appeased. "Why did you do that?"
It was the same question I was dying to ask him, though not in the same tone.
Tanner was, in fact, failing Biology. Mrs. Banner was thinking about him now, both surprised and touched by Beau's choice.
No one ever gives that kid a chance. Nice of Beau—he's kinder than most of these cannibals.
Had Beau noticed how Tanner was usually ostracized by the rest of the class? I could imagine no reason besides kindness for reaching out to him, especially with Beau's shyness in the way. I wondered how much discomfort it had caused him and decided it was probably more than any other human here would have been willing to go through for a stranger.
Given Beau's grasp of Biology, I wondered if the grade from this project would even save Tanner from failure, in this class at least. And that was exactly what happened.
Then there was the time at lunch when Jeremy and Logan were talking about the number-one dream destinations on their bucket lists. Jeremy chose Jamaica, only to feel immediately one-upped when Logan countered with the French Riviera. Taylor chimed in with Amsterdam, thinking of the famous red-light district, and the others began sounding off. I waited anxiously for Beau's answer to the question, but before McKayla (who liked the idea of Rio) could ask for his take, Erica enthusiastically named Comic Con, and the table erupted in laughter.
"What a nerd," Logan hissed.
Jeremy snickered. "I know, right?"
Taylor rolled her eyes.
"You're never going to get a boyfriend," McKayla told Erica.
Beau's voice, louder than his usual timid volume, cut into the melee.
"No, that's cool," Beau insisted. "That's where I'd want to go, too."
McKayla was immediately backpedaling. "I mean, I guess some of the costumes are cool. Anakin Skywalker." Should have kept my mouth shut.
Jeremy and Logan exchanged a glance, frowning.
Ugh, please, Logan thought.
"We should totally go," Erica enthused at Beau. "I mean, after we save up enough." Comic Con with Beau! Even better than Comic Con alone...
Beau was thrown for a second, but after a quick glance at Logan's expression, he doubled down. "Yeah, I wish. It's probably way too expensive though, right?"
Erica started breaking down ticket prices and hotels versus sleeping in a car. Jeremy and Logan returned to their earlier conversation while McKayla listened unhappily to Erica and Beau.
"Do you think it's a two-day drive or three?" Erica was asking.
"No idea," Beau said.
"Well, how long a drive is it from here to Phoenix?"
"You can do it in two days," he said with confidence. "If you're willing to drive fifteen hours a day."
"San Diego should be a little closer than that, right?"
I seemed to be the only one who noticed the light bulb going on over Beau's head.
"Oh yeah, San Diego definitely is closer. Still two days for sure, though."
It was clear he hadn't even known the location of Comic Con. He'd only chimed in to save Erica from teasing. It was revealing of his character—I was always compiling my list—but now I would never know where he would have chosen for himself. McKayla was nearly as dissatisfied, but she seemed oblivious to his real motivations.
It was often like this with him: never stepping out of his quiet comfort zone except for someone else's perceived need; changing the subject whenever his circle of human friends grew too cruel to one another; thanking a teacher for their lesson if that teacher seemed down; giving up his locker for a more inconvenient location so two best friends could be neighbors; smiling a certain smile that never surfaced for his contented friends, only revealing itself to someone who was hurting. Little things that none of his acquaintances or admirers ever seemed to see.
Through all these little things, I was able to add the most important quality to my list, the most revealing of them all, as simple as it was rare. Beau was good. All the other things added up to that whole: Kind and self-effacing and unselfish and brave—he was good through and through. And no one seemed aware of that besides me. Though McKayla was certainly observing him nearly as often.
And right there was the most surprising of my torments: McKayla Newton. Who would have ever dreamed that such a generic, boring mortal could be so infuriating? To be fair, I should have felt some gratitude to her; more than the others, she kept the boy talking. I learned so much about him through these conversations, but McKayla's assistance with this project only aggravated me. I didn't want her to be the one who unlocked his secrets.
It helped that she never noticed his small revelations, his little slips. She knew nothing about him. She'd created a Beau in her head who didn't exist—a boy just as generic as she was. She hadn't observed the unselfishness and bravery that set his apart from other humans, didn't hear the abnormal maturity of his spoken thoughts. She didn't perceive that when he spoke of his mother, he sounded like a parent speaking of a child rather than the other way around—loving, indulgent, slightly amused, and fiercely protective. She didn't hear the patience in his voice when he feigned interest in her rambling stories, and didn't guess at the compassion behind that patience.
These helpful discoveries did not warm me to the girl, however. The possessive way she viewed Beau—as if he were an acquisition to be made—provoked me almost as much as her crude fantasies about him. She was becoming more confident of him, too, as time passed, for he seemed to prefer her over those she considered her rivals—Taylor Crowley, Erica Yorkie, and even, sporadically, myself. She would routinely sit on his side of our table before Biology began, chattering at him, encouraged by his smiles. Just polite smiles, I told myself. All the same, I frequently amused myself by imagining backhanding her across the room and into the far wall. It probably wouldn't injure her fatally...
McKayla didn't often think of me as a rival. After the accident, she'd worried that Beau and I would bond from the shared experience, but obviously the opposite had resulted. Back then, she had still been bothered that I'd singled Beau out over his peers for attention. But now I ignored him just as thoroughly as the others, and she grew complacent.
What was he thinking now? Did he welcome her attention?
And finally, the last of my torments, the most painful: Beau's indifference. As I ignored him, he ignored me. He never tried to speak to me again. For all I knew, he never thought about me at all.
This might have driven me mad—or worse, broken my resolution—except that he sometimes stared at me as he had before. I didn't see it for myself, as I could not allow myself to look at him, but Archie always warned us; the others were still wary of the boy's problematic knowledge.
It eased some of the pain that he gazed at me from a distance every now and then. Of course, he was probably just wondering exactly what kind of an aberration I was.
"Beau's going to stare at Edythe in a minute. Look normal," Archie said one Tuesday in March, and the others were careful to fidget and shift their weight.
I paid attention to how often he looked in my direction. It pleased me, though it should not have, that the frequency did not decline as time passed. I didn't know what it meant, but it made me feel better.
Archie sighed. I wish...
"Stay out of it, Archie," I said under my breath. "It's not going to happen."
He pouted. Archie was anxious to form his envisioned friendship with Beau. In a strange way, he missed the boy he didn't know.
I'll admit, you're better than I thought. You've got the future all snarled up and senseless again. I hope you're happy.
"It makes plenty of sense to me."
He snorted delicately.
I tried to shut him out, too impatient for conversation. I wasn't in a very good mood—tenser than I let any of them see. Only Jessamine was aware of how tightly wound I was, feeling the stress emanate out of me with her unique ability to both sense and influence the moods of others. She didn't understand the reasons behind the moods, though, and—since I was constantly in a foul temper these days—she disregarded it.
Today would be a hard one. Harder than the day before, as was the pattern.
McKayla Newton was going to ask Beau on a date.
A girls' choice dance was on the near horizon, and she'd been hoping very much that Beau would accept her. She hadn't yet worked up the nerve to bring up the subject. Now she was in an uncomfortable bind—I enjoyed her discomfort more than I should have—because Jeremy Stanley had hinted at the idea. She didn't want to ask him outright, still hopeful that Beau would choose her (and prove her the victor over him other would-be suitors), but she didn't want to Jeremy to find another date, leaving her to miss the dance altogether. Jeremy, hurt by her hesitation and guessing the reason behind it, was thinking daggers at Beau. Again, I had the instinct to place myself between him and Jeremy's angry thoughts. I understood the instinct better now, but that only made it more frustrating when I could not act on it.
To think it had come to this! I was utterly fixated on the petty high school dramas that I'd once held so in contempt.
McKayla was working up her nerve as she walked Beau to Biology. I listened to her struggles as I waited for them to arrive. The girl was weak. She had waited for this dance purposely, afraid to let her infatuation be known before he had shown a marked preference for her. She didn't want to make herself vulnerable to rejection, preferring that he take that leap first.
Coward.
She sat down on our table again, comfortable through long familiarity, and I imagined the sound it would make if her body hit the opposite wall with enough force to break most of her bones.
"So," she said to the boy, her eyes on the floor. "Jeremy said that you don't do dances."
"Yeah, that's true," Beau answered immediately, a slight hint of guilt in his tone. It was hard not to smile as McKayla processed his tone. She'd been hoping for dismay.
She scrambled for the right response. "Oh," she hesitated and almost turned tail. Then she rallied. "I thought maybe he was making it up."
"Uh, sorry, no. Why would he make up a story like that?" he demanded. His tone was disapproving, but there was the faintest hint of relief there as well.
What did that mean? An unexpected, intense fury made my hands clench into fists.
McKayla did not hear the relief. Her face flushed red—fierce as I suddenly felt, this seemed like an open invitation—and she looked at the floor again as she spoke.
She frowned. "I think he wants me to ask him."
Beau smiled. "You should. Jeremy's great."
She shrugged. "I guess." Then she took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye with a quick, nervous smile. "Would this 'I don't dance' thing change if I was the one asking you to go?"
Beau hesitated.
In that moment, I saw the future more clearly than Archie ever had.
The boy might say yes to McKayla's question now, or he might not, but either way, someday soon, he would say yes to someone. He was attractive and intriguing, and human females were not oblivious to this fact. Whether he would settle for someone in this lackluster crowd, or wait until he was free from Forks, the day would come that he would say yes.
I saw his life as I had before—college, career... love, marriage. I saw him waiting at the altar again, dressed in a black tuxedo, his face flushed with happiness as the sound of Wagner's "Bridal Chorus" rang through the air.
The pain I felt while I imagined this future reminded me of the agony of transformation. It consumed me.
And not just pain, but outright rage.
The fury ached for some kind of physical outlet. Though this insignificant, undeserving girl might not be the one Beau would say yes to, I yearned to pulverize her skull with my fist, to let her stand as a proxy for whoever it would be.
I didn't understand this emotion—it was such a tangle of pain and fury and desire and despair. I had never felt it before; I couldn't put a name to it.
"Um, sorry, again," Beau finally responded.
McKayla's hopes plummeted. I would have enjoyed that under other circumstances, but I was lost in the aftershock and the remorse for what the pain and fury had done to me.
Archie was right. I was not strong enough.
Right now, he would be watching the future spin and twist, become mangled again. Would this please him?
"Would it change if someone else asked you?" McKayla asked sullenly. She glanced at me, suspicious for the first time in many weeks. I realized I had betrayed my interest; my head was inclined in Beau's direction.
The wild envy in her thoughts—envy for whomever this boy preferred to her—suddenly put a name to my emotion.
I was jealous.
"No," the boy said with a trace of humor in his voice. "It's a moot point anyway. I'm going to be in Seattle that day."
Through all the remorse and anger, I felt relief at his words. It was wrong, dangerous even, to consider McKayla and the other mortals interested in Beau as rivals, but I had to concede that they had become just that.
"Does it have to be that weekend?" McKayla asked harshly. It offended me that she used this tone with him. I bit back a growl.
"Yeah. But don't worry about me. You should take Jeremy. He's much more fun than I am."
The curiosity was not as vicious as it would have been before—now that I was fully intending to find out the answers to everything. I would know the reasons behind this new revelation soon enough.
This Seattle trip was clearly an excuse to say no—did he refuse purely out of loyalty to his friend? He was more than selfless enough for that. Did he actually wish he could say yes? Or were both guesses wrong? Was he interested in someone else?
"Yeah, I guess," McKayla mumbled, so demoralized that I almost felt pity for her. Almost.
She dropped her eyes from the boy, cutting off my view of his face in her thoughts.
I wasn't going to tolerate that.
I turned to read his face myself, for the first time in more than a month. It was a sharp relief to allow myself this. I imagined it would feel the same to press ice to an aching burn. An abrupt cessation of pain.
His eyes were closed, and his hands pressed against the sides of his face. His shoulders curved inward defensively. He shook his head ever so slightly, as if he were trying to push some thought from his mind.
Frustrating. Fascinating.
Mrs. Banner's voice pulled him from his reverie, and his eyes slowly opened. He looked at me immediately, perhaps sensing my gaze. He stared up into my eyes with the same perplexed expression that had haunted me for so long.
I didn't feel remorse or guilt or rage in that second. I knew they would come again, and soon, but for this one moment I rode a strange, jittery high. As if I had triumphed rather than lost.
He didn't look away, though I stared with inappropriate intensity, trying vainly to read his thoughts through his liquid blue eyes. They were full of questions, rather than answers.
I could see the reflection of my own eyes, black with thirst. It had been nearly two weeks since my last hunting trip; this was not the safest day for my will to crumble. But the blackness did not seem to frighten him. He still did not look away, and a soft, devastatingly appealing pink began to color his skin.
What are you thinking now?
I almost asked the question aloud, but at that moment, Mrs. Banner called my name. I picked the correct answer out of her head and glanced briefly in her direction, sucking in a quick breath.
"The Krebs Cycle."
Thirst scorched my throat—tightening my muscles and filling my mouth with venom—and I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate through the desire for his blood that raged inside me.
The monster was stronger than before, rejoicing. She embraced this dual future that gave her a fifty-fifty chance at what she craved so viciously. The third, shaky future I'd tried to construct through willpower alone had collapsed—destroyed by common jealousy, of all things—and she was so much closer to her goal.
The remorse and guilt now burned with the thirst, and if I'd had the ability to produce tears, they would have filled my eyes now.
What had I done?
Knowing the battle was already lost, there seemed to be no reason to resist what I wanted. I turned to stare at the boy again.
I could see that his cheek was deep crimson now.
The monster liked that.
He did not meet my gaze again but twisted a strand of his dark hair nervously between his fingers. His delicate fingers, his fragile wrist—they were so breakable, looking for all the world as though just my breath could snap them.
No, no, no. I could not do this. He was too breakable, too good, too precious to deserve this. I couldn't allow my life to collide with his, to destroy it.
But I couldn't stay away from him, either. Archie was right about that.
The monster inside me hissed with annoyance as I struggled.
My brief hour with him passed all too quickly, while I vacillated between the rock and the hard place. The bell rang, and he started collecting his things without looking at me. This disappointed me, but I could hardly expect otherwise. The way I had treated him since the accident was inexcusable.
"Beau?" I said, unable to stop myself. My willpower lay in shreds.
He hesitated before looking at me. When he turned, his expression was guarded, suspicious.
I reminded myself that he had every right to distrust me. That he should.
He waited for me to continue, but I just stared at him, reading his face. I pulled in shallow mouthfuls of air at regular intervals, fighting my thirst.
"Yes?" he finally said, a hard edge to his voice. "So... um, are you... or are you not talking to me again?"
I wasn't sure how to answer his question. Was I speaking to him again, in the sense that he meant?
Not if I could help it. I would try to help it.
"Not," I told him.
He closed his eyes, which only made things more difficult. It cut off my best avenue of access to his feelings. He took a long, slow breath without opening his eyes, and spoke. "Okay..."
Surely this was not a normal human way to converse. Why did he do it?
But how to answer him?
With the truth, I decided. I would be as truthful as I could with him from now on. I didn't want to deserve his distrust, even if earning his trust was impossible.
"I'm sorry," I told him. That was truer than he would ever know. Unfortunately, I could only safely apologize for the trivial. "I'm being very rude, I know. But it's better this way, really."
His eyes opened, their expression still wary. "I don't know what you mean."
I tried to get as much of a warning through to him as was allowed. "It's better if we're not friends." Surely, he could sense that much. He was a bright boy. "Trust me."
His eyes tightened, and I remembered that I had said those words to him before—just before breaking a promise. I winced when his teeth clenched together with a sharp click—he clearly remembered, too.
"What are you thinking?" I asked.
"I guess... that it's too bad you didn't figure this out earlier, saved yourself the regret," he said angrily.
I stared at him in shock. What did he know of my regrets?
"Regret? Regret for what?" I demanded.
"For not letting Taylor's van crush me when it had the chance," he snapped.
I froze, stunned.
How could he be thinking that? Saving his life was the one acceptable thing I'd done since I met him. The only thing I was not ashamed of, that made me glad I existed at all. I'd been fighting to keep him alive since the first moment I'd caught his scent. How could he doubt my one good deed in all this mess?
"You think I regret saving your life?"
"Yeah," he retorted. "I mean, what else? Seems kind of obvious."
His estimation of my intentions left me seething. "You're an idiot."
How confusing and incomprehensible the workings of his mind were! He must not think in the same way as other humans at all. That must be the explanation behind his mental silence. He was entirely other.
He jerked his face away, gritting his teeth again. His cheeks were flushed, with anger this time. Slamming his books together in a pile, he yanked them up into his arms, and marched toward the door without meeting my stare.
Even as vexed as I felt, something about his anger softened my annoyance. I wasn't sure exactly what it was that made his exasperation somehow... endearing.
He walked stiffly, without looking where he was going, and his foot caught on the lip of the doorway. His things all crashed to the ground. Instead of bending to get them, he stood rigidly straight, not even looking down, as if he was not sure the books were worth retrieving.
No one was here to watch me. I flitted to his side and had his books in order before he had even examined the mess.
He bent halfway, saw me, and then froze. I handed his books back to him, making sure my icy skin never touched him.
"Thanks," he said in a sharp voice.
"You're welcome." My voice was still rough with my former irritation, but before I could clear my throat and try again, he'd wrenched himself upright and stomped away toward his next class.
I watched until I could no longer see his angry figure.
Spanish passed in a blur. Mr. Goff never questioned my abstraction—he knew my Spanish was superior to his and gave me a great deal of latitude—leaving me free to think.
So I couldn't ignore the boy. That much was obvious. But did it mean I had no choice but to destroy him? That could not be the only available future. There had to be some other choice, some delicate balance. I tried to think of a way.
I didn't pay much attention to Eleanor until the hour was nearly up. She was curious—Eleanor was not overly intuitive about the shades in others' moods, but she could see the obvious change in me. She wondered what had happened to remove the unrelenting glower from my face. She struggled to define the change, and finally decided that I looked hopeful.
Hopeful? Was that how I seemed from the outside?
I pondered the idea as we walked to the Volvo, wondering what exactly I should be hoping for.
But I didn't have long to ponder. Sensitive as I always was to thoughts about the boy, the sound of Beau's name in the heads of those humans I really should not think of as rivals caught my attention. Erica and Taylor, having heard—with much satisfaction—of McKayla's failure, were preparing to make their moves.
Erica was already in place, positioned against his truck where he could not avoid her. Taylor's class was being held late to receive an assignment, and she was in a desperate hurry to catch him before he escaped.
This I had to see.
"Wait for the others here, all right?" I murmured to Eleanor.
She eyed me suspiciously, but then shrugged and nodded.
Girl's lost her damn mind, she thought, amused.
Beau was on his way out of the gym, and I waited where he would not see me. As he got closer to Erica's ambush, I strode forward, setting my pace so that I would walk by at the right moment.
I watched his body stiffen when he caught sight of the girl waiting for him. He froze for a moment, then relaxed and moved forward.
"Hey, Erica," I heard his call in a friendly voice.
I was abruptly and unexpectedly anxious. What if this gangly teen with her unhealthy skin was somehow pleasing to him? Perhaps his earlier kindness to her had not been entirely selfless?
Erica swallowed loudly. "Hi, Beau."
He seemed unconscious of her nervousness.
"What's up?" he asked, unlocking his truck without looking at her frightened expression.
"Uh, I was wondering if you would go to the spring dance with me?" Her voice broke.
He finally looked up. Was he taken aback, or pleased? Erica couldn't meet his gaze, so I couldn't see his face in her mind.
"Sorry, Erica," he said, sounding flustered. "I'm not going to the dance."
This pitiable girl did not irritate me as much as McKayla Newton did, but I couldn't find it in myself to feel sympathy for her angst until after Beau had answered her in a gentle voice.
"Oh, okay." She'd already heard this; still, it was a disappointment.
"Because I'm going to be in Seattle," he told her. "It's the only day I can go. So, you know, oh well. I hope it's fun and all."
"Okay," she mumbled, barely daring to raise her eyes to the level of his nose. "Maybe next time."
"Sure," he agreed. Then he bit down on his lip, as if he regretted leaving her a loophole. That pleased me.
"See ya." Erica slumped forward and walked away, headed in the wrong direction from her car, her only thought escape.
I passed him in that moment and heard his sigh of relief. I laughed before I could catch myself.
He whirled at the sound, but I stared straight ahead, trying to keep my lips from twitching in amusement.
Taylor was behind me, almost running in her hurry to catch him before he could drive away. She was bolder and more confident than the other two. She'd only waited to approach Beau this long because she'd respected McKayla's prior claim.
I wanted her to succeed in catching him for two reasons. If—as I was beginning to suspect—all this attention was annoying to Beau, I wanted to enjoy watching his reaction. But if it was not—if Taylor's invitation was the one he'd been hoping for—then I wanted to know that, too.
I measured Taylor Crowley as competition, knowing it was reprehensible to do so. She seemed tediously average and unremarkable to me, but what did I know of Beau's preferences? Maybe he liked average girls.
I winced at that thought. I could never be an average girl. How foolish it was to set myself up as a candidate for his affections. How could he ever care for someone who was, by default, the villain of the story?
He was too good for a villain.
Though I ought to have let him escape, my inexcusable curiosity kept me from doing what was right. Again. But what if Taylor missed her chance now, only to contact him later when I would have no way of knowing the outcome? I pulled my Volvo out into the narrow lane, blocking his exit.
Eleanor and the others were on their way, but she'd described my strange behavior to them, and they were walking slowly, staring at me, trying to decipher what I was doing.
I watched the boy in my rearview mirror. He glowered toward the back of my car without meeting my gaze, looking as if he wished he were driving a tank rather than a rusted Chevy.
Taylor hurried to her car and got in line behind him, grateful for my inexplicable conduct. She waved at him, trying to catch his attention, but he didn't notice. She waited a moment, and then left her car, forcing her gait into a saunter as she sidled up to his passenger-side window. She tapped on the glass.
He jumped, and then stared at her in confusion. After a second, he rolled the window down manually, seeming to have some trouble with it.
"Sorry, Taylor, I can't move," he said, his voice irritated. "I'm pinned in."
He said the last part in a hard voice.
"Oh, I know," Taylor said, undeterred by his mood. "I just wanted to ask you something while we're trapped here."
Her grin was cocky.
I was gratified by the way he blanched at her obvious intent.
"Will you go to the spring dance with me?" she said, no thought of defeat in her mind.
"I'm not going to be in town, Taylor," he told her, irritation still plain in his voice.
"Yeah, McKayla told me that."
"Then why—?" he started to ask.
She shrugged. "I was hoping you were just letting her down easy."
His eyes flashed, then cooled. "Sorry, Taylor," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "I'm not going to the dance."
Given his usual practice of putting the needs of others above his own, I was a little surprised at his steely resolve when it came to this dance. Where did it spring from?
Taylor accepted his excuse, her self-assurance untouched. "That's cool. We still have prom."
She strutted back to her car.
I was right to have waited for this.
The horrified expression on his face was priceless. It told me what I should not so desperately have needed to know—that he had no feelings for any of these human females who wished to court him.
Also, his expression was possibly the funniest thing I'd ever seen.
My family arrived then, confused that I was, for a change, rocking with laughter rather than scowling murderously at everything in sight.
What's so funny? Eleanor wanted to know.
I just shook my head as Beau revved his noisy engine angrily. He looked like he was wishing for a tank again.
"Let's go!" Royal hissed impatiently. "Stop being an idiot. If you can."
His words didn't annoy me—I was too entertained. But I did as he asked.
No one spoke to me on the way home. I continued to chuckle every now and again, thinking of Beau's face.
As I turned onto the drive—speeding up now that there were no witnesses—Archie ruined my mood.
"So do I get to talk to Beau now?" he asked suddenly.
"No," I snapped.
"Not fair! What am I waiting for?"
"I haven't decided anything, Archie."
"Whatever, Edythe."
In his head, Beau's two destinies were clear again.
"What's the point in getting to know him?" I mumbled, suddenly morose. "If I'm just going to kill him?"
Archie hesitated for a second. "You have a point," he admitted.
I took the final hairpin turn at ninety miles an hour, and then screeched to a stop an inch from the rear garage wall.
"Enjoy your run," Royal said smugly as I threw myself out of the car.
But I didn't go running today. Instead, I went hunting.
The others were scheduled to hunt tomorrow, but I couldn't afford to be thirsty now. I overdid it, drinking more than necessary, glutting myself again—a small grouping of elk and one black bear I was lucky to stumble across this early in the year. I was so full it was uncomfortable. Why couldn't that be enough? Why did his scent have to be so much stronger than anything else?
And not just his scent—whatever it was about him that marked him for disaster. He'd been in Forks for mere weeks and already he'd twice come within inches of a violent end. For all I knew, right at this very moment he could have wandered into the path of another death sentence. What would it be this time? A meteorite smashing through his roof and crushing him in his bed?
I could hunt no more and the sun was still hours and hours from rising. Now that it had occurred to me, the idea of the meteorite and all its possible allies was hard to dismiss. I tried to be rational, to consider the odds against all the disasters I could imagine, but that didn't help. What were the odds, after all, that the boy would come to live in a town with a decent percentage of vampires as permanent residents? What were the odds that he would appeal to one so perfectly?
What if something happened to him in the night? What if I went to school tomorrow, every sense and feeling focused onto the space where he should be, and his seat was empty?
Abruptly, the risk felt unacceptable.
The only way I could be positive he was safe was if there was someone in place to catch the meteorite before it could touch him. The jittery high swept through me again when I realized that I was going to go find the boy.
It was past midnight, and Beau's house was dark and quiet. His truck was parked against the curb, his father's police cruiser in the driveway. There were no conscious thoughts anywhere in the neighborhood. I watched the house from the blackness of the forest that bordered it on the east.
There was no evidence of any kind of danger... aside from myself.
I listened and picked out the sound of two people breathing inside the house, two even heartbeats. So all must be well. I leaned against the trunk of a young hemlock and settled in to wait for stray meteorites.
The problem with waiting was that it freed up the mind for all kinds of speculation. Obviously the meteorite was just a metaphor for all the unlikely things that could go wrong. But not every danger would streak across the sky with a brilliant splash of fire. I could think of many that would give no warning, hazards that could slink into the dark house silently, that might already be there.
These were ridiculous worries. This street didn't have a natural gas line, so a carbon monoxide leak was improbable. I doubted they used coal frequently. The Olympic Peninsula had very little in the way of dangerous wildlife. Anything large I would be able to hear now. There were no venomous snakes, scorpions, or centipedes, and just a few spiders, none of them deadly to a healthy adult, and unlikely to be found indoors regardless. Ridiculous. I knew that. I knew I was being irrational.
But I felt anxious, unsettled. I couldn't push the dark imaginings from my mind. If I could just see him...
I would take a closer look.
In only half a second, I had crossed the yard and scaled the side of the house. This upstairs window would be a bedroom, probably the master. Maybe I should have started in the back. Less conspicuous that way. Dangling from the eave above the window by one hand, I looked through the glass, and my breath stopped.
It was his room. I could see him in the one small bed, his covers on the floor and his sheets twisted around his legs. He was perfectly fine, of course, as the rational part of me had already known. Safe... but not at ease. As I watched, he twitched restlessly and threw one arm over his head. He did not sleep soundly, at least not this night. Did he sense the danger near him?
I was repulsed by myself as I watched him toss again. How was I any better than some stalker? I wasn't any better. I was much, much worse.
I relaxed my fingertips, about to let myself drop. But first I allowed myself one long look at his face.
Still not peaceful. The little furrow was there between his eyebrows, the corners of his mouth turned down. His lips trembled, and then parted.
"Okay, Mom," he muttered.
Beau talked in his sleep.
Curiosity flared, overpowering self-disgust. So long I'd tried to hear him and failed. The lure of those unprotected, unconsciously spoken thoughts was impossibly tempting.
What were human rules to me, after all? How many did I ignore on a daily basis?
I thought of the multitude of illegal documents my family needed to live as we liked. False names and false histories, driver's licenses that let us enroll in school and medical credentials that allowed Carine to work as a doctor. Papers that made our strange grouping of nearly identically aged adults comprehensible as a family. None of it would be necessary if we didn't try to have brief periods of permanence, if we didn't prefer to have a home.
Then, of course, there was the way we funded our lives. Insider trading laws didn't apply to psychics, but it certainly wasn't honest, what we did. And the transfer of inheritances from one fabricated name to another wasn't legal, either.
And then there were all the murders.
We didn't take them lightly, but obviously none of us had ever been punished by human courts for our crimes. We covered them up—also a crime.
Then why should I feel so guilty over one little misdemeanor? Human laws had never applied to me. And this was hardly my first adventure with breaking and entering.
I knew I could do this safely. The monster was restless but well fettered.
I would keep a careful distance. I would not harm him. He would never know I'd been here. I only wanted to be certain that he was safe.
It was all rationalization, evil arguments from the devil on my left shoulder. I knew that, but I had no angel on the right. I would behave as the nightmarish creature that I was.
I tried the window, and it was not locked, though it stuck due to long disuse. I took a deep breath—my last for however long I was near him—and slid the glass slowly aside, cringing at each faint groan of the metal frame. Finally it was open wide enough for me to ease through.
"Mom, wait...," he muttered. "Scottsdale Road is faster..."
His room was small—disorganized and cluttered, but not unclean. There were books piled on the floor beside his bed, their spines facing away from me, and CDs scattered by his inexpensive CD player—the one on top was just a clear jewel case. Stacks of papers surrounded a computer that looked like it belonged in a museum dedicated to obsolete technologies. Shoes dotted the wooden floor.
I wanted very much to go read the titles of his books and CDs, but I was determined to take no more risks. Instead, I went to sit in an old rocking chair in the far corner of the room. My anxiety eased, the dark thoughts receded, and my mind was clear.
Had I really once believed him average-looking? I thought of that first day, and my disgust for the human girls who were so fascinated by him. But when I remembered his face in their minds then, I could not understand why I had not immediately found him beautiful. It seemed an obvious thing.
Right now—with his dark hair tangled and wild, wearing a threadbare t-shirt full of holes with tatty sweatpants, his features relaxed in unconsciousness, his full lips slightly parted—he took my breath away. Or would have, I thought wryly, if I were breathing.
He did not speak. Perhaps his dream had ended.
I stared at his face and tried to think of some way to make the future bearable.
Hurting him was not bearable. Did that mean my only choice was to try to leave again?
The others could not argue with me now. My absence would not put anyone in danger. There would be no suspicion, nothing to link anyone's thoughts back to the accident.
I wavered as I had this afternoon, and nothing seemed possible.
A small brown spider crawled out from the edge of the closet door. My arrival must have disturbed it. Eratigena agrestis—a hobo spider, from its size a juvenile female. Once considered dangerous, more recent scientific study had proven its venom inconsequential to humans. However, its bite was still painful... I reached out with one finger and crushed it silently.
Perhaps I should have let the creature be, but the thought of anything hurting him was intolerable.
And then suddenly, all my thoughts were intolerable, too.
Because I could kill every spider in his home, cut the thorns off every rosebush he might one day touch, block every speeding car that got within a mile of him, but there was no task I could perform that would make me something other than what I was. I stared at my white, stone-like hand—so grotesquely inhuman—and despaired.
I could not hope to compete against the human girls, whether these specific girls appealed to him or not. I was the villain, the nightmare. How could he see me as anything else? If he knew the truth about me, it would frighten and repulse him. Like the intended victim in a horror movie, he would run away, shrieking in terror.
I remembered his first day in Biology... and knew that this was exactly the right reaction for him to have.
It was foolishness to imagine that if I had been the one to ask him to the silly dance, he would have canceled his hastily made plans and agreed to go with me.
I was not the one he was destined to say yes to. It was someone else, someone human and warm. And I could not even let myself—someday, when that yes was said—hunt her down and kill her, because he deserved her, whoever she was. He deserved happiness and love with whomever he chose.
I owed it to him to do the right thing now. I could no longer pretend that I was only in danger of loving this boy.
After all, it really didn't matter if I left, because Beau could never see me the way I wished he would. Never see me as someone worthy of love.
Could a dead, frozen heart break? It felt as though mine would.
"Edythe," Beau said.
I froze, staring at his unopened eyes.
Had he awakened, caught me here? He looked asleep, yet his voice had been so clear.
He sighed a quiet sigh, and then moved restlessly again, rolling to his side—still fast asleep and dreaming.
"Edythe," he mumbled softly.
He was dreaming of me.
Could a dead, frozen heart beat again? It felt as though mine was about to.
"Stay," he sighed. "Don't go. Please... don't go."
He was dreaming of me, and it wasn't even a nightmare. He wanted me to stay with him, there in his dream.
I struggled to find words to name the feelings that flooded through me, but I had no words strong enough to hold them. For a long moment, I drowned in them.
When I surfaced, I was not the same woman I had been.
My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?
At the time I became a vampire, trading my soul and mortality for immortality in the searing pain of transformation, I had truly been frozen. My body had turned into something more like stone than flesh, enduring and unchanging. My self, also, had frozen as it was—my personality, my likes and dislikes, my moods and desires; all were fixed in place.
It was the same for the rest of them. We were all frozen. Living stone.
When change came for one of us, it was a rare and permanent thing. I had seen it happen with Carine, and then a decade later with Royal. Love had changed them in an eternal way, a way that would never fade. More than eighty years had passed since Carine found Earnest, and yet she still looked at him with the incredulous eyes of first love. It would always be so for them.
It would always be so for me, too. I would always love this fragile human boy, for the rest of my limitless existence.
I gazed at his unconscious face, feeling that love for him settle into every portion of my stone body.
He slept more peacefully now, a slight smile on his lips.
I began to plot.
I loved him, and so I would try to be strong enough to leave him. I knew I wasn't that strong now. I would work on that one. But perhaps I was strong enough to circumvent the future in another way.
Archie had seen only two futures for Beau, and now I understood them both.
Loving him would not keep me from killing him if I let myself make mistakes.
Yet I could not feel the monster now, could not find her anywhere in me. Perhaps love had silenced her forever. If I killed him now, it would not be intentional, only a horrible accident.
I would have to be inordinately careful. I would never, ever be able to let my guard down. I would have to control my every breath. I would have to keep an always cautious distance.
I would not make mistakes.
I finally understood that second future. I'd been baffled by that vision—what could possibly happen to result in Beau becoming a prisoner to this immortal half life? Now—devastated by longing for the boy—I could understand how I might, in unforgivable selfishness, ask my father for that favor. Ask her to take away his life and his soul so that I could keep him forever.
He deserved better.
But I saw one more future, one thin wire that I might be able to walk, if I could keep my balance.
Could I do it? Be with him and leave his human?
Deliberately, I locked my body into perfect stillness, froze it in place, then took a deep breath. Another, then another, letting his scent rip through me like wildfire. The room was thick with his perfume; his fragrance was layered on every surface. My head swam from the pain, but I fought the spinning. I would have to get used to this if I were going to attempt any kind of regular proximity to him. Another deep, burning breath.
I watched him sleeping until the sun rose behind the eastern clouds, plotting and breathing.
I got home just after the others had left for school. I changed quickly, avoiding Earnest's questioning eyes. He saw the feverish light in my face and felt both worry and relief. My long melancholy had pained him greatly, and he was glad that it seemed to be over.
I ran to school, arriving a few seconds after my siblings did. They did not turn, though Archie at least must have known that I stood here in the thick woods that bordered the pavement. I waited until no one was looking and then strolled casually from between the trees into the lot full of parked cars.
I heard Beau's truck rumbling around the corner, and I paused behind a Suburban, where I could watch without being seen.
He drove into the lot, glaring at my Volvo for a long moment before he parked in one of the most distant spaces, a frown on his face.
It was strange to remember that he was probably still angry with me, and with good reason.
I wanted to laugh at myself—or kick myself. All my plotting and planning was entirely moot if he didn't care for me, too, wasn't it? His dream could have been about something completely random. I was such an arrogant fool.
Well, it was so much the better for him if he didn't care for me. That wouldn't stop me from pursuing him, from trying. But I would listen for his no. I owed him that. I owed him more. I owed him the truth I was not allowed to give him. So I would give him as much truth as I could. I would try to warn him. And when he confirmed that I would never be the one he would say yes to, I would leave.
I walked silently forward, wondering how best to approach him.
He made it easy. His truck key slipped through his fingers as he got out of the cab, and fell into a deep puddle.
He reached down, but I got to it first, retrieving it before he had to put his fingers in the cold water.
I leaned back against his truck as he started and then straightened up.
"How do you do that?" he demanded.
Yes, he was still angry.
I offered his the key. "Do what?"
He held his hand out, and I dropped it into his palm. I took a deep breath, pulling in his scent.
"Appear out of thin air," he clarified.
"Beau, it's not my fault if you are exceptionally unobservant." The words were wry, almost a joke. Was there anything he didn't see?
Did he hear how my voice wrapped around his name like a caress?
He glared at me, not appreciating my humor. His heartbeat sped—from anger? From fear? After a moment, he looked down.
"Why the traffic jam last night?" he asked without meeting my eyes. "I thought you were supposed to be pretending I don't exist."
Still very angry. It was going to take some effort to make things right with him. I remembered my resolve to be truthful.
"Ah. That was for Taylor's sake. She was figuratively dying for her chance at you." And then I laughed. I couldn't help it, thinking of his expression yesterday. Concentrating so hard on keeping him safe, on controlling my physical response to him, left me fewer resources to manage my emotions.
"What?" he gasped, and then broke off, appearing to be too furious to finish. There it was—that same expression. I choked back another laugh. He was mad enough already.
"And I'm not pretending you don't exist," I finished. It felt right to make my tone casual, teasing. I didn't want to frighten him more. I had to hide the depth of my feelings, keep things light.
"I don't know what you want from me."
"Nothing."
"Then you probably should have let the van take me out. Easier that way."
It was irrational for me to be so affronted—he didn't know all the effort I'd expended to keep him alive, he didn't know that I'd fought with my family for him, he didn't know of the transformation that had happened in the night. But I was angry all the same. Emotion unmanaged.
"Beau, you are utterly absurd," I snapped.
His face flushed, and he turned his back on me. He began to walk away.
Remorse. My anger was unfair.
"Wait," I pleaded.
He did not stop, so I followed him.
"I'm sorry, that was rude. I'm not saying it isn't true"—it was absurd to imagine that I wanted him harmed in any way—"but it was rude to say it out loud."
"Why won't you leave me alone?"
Was this my no? Was that what he wanted? Was my name in his dream truly meaningless?
I remembered perfectly the tone of his voice, the expression on his face as he had asked me to stay.
But if he now said no... well, then that would be that. I knew what I would have to do.
Keep it light, I reminded myself. This could be the last time I would see him. If that was the case, I needed to leave him with the right memory. So I would play the normal human girl. Most importantly, I would give him a choice, and then accept his answer.
"I wanted to ask you something, but you sidetracked me." A course of action had just occurred to me, and I laughed.
He sighed. "Fine. What do you want?"
"I was wondering if, a week from Saturday..." I watched the shock cross his face, and fought back another laugh. "You know, the day of the spring dance—"
He cut me off, finally returning his eyes to mine. "Is this funny to you?"
"Will you please allow me to finish?"
He waited in silence, his teeth pressing into his soft lower lip.
That sight distracted me for a second. Strange, unfamiliar reactions stirred deep in my forgotten human core. I tried to shake them off so I could play my role.
"I heard that you were going to Seattle that day, and I wondered if you wanted a ride." I offered. I'd realized that, better than just learning about his plans, I might share them. If he said yes.
He stared at me blankly. "Huh?"
"Do you want a ride to Seattle?" Alone in a car with him—my throat burned at the thought. I took a deep breath. Get used to it.
"With who?" he asked, confused.
"Myself, obviously," I said slowly.
"Why?"
Was it really such a shock that I would want his company? He must have applied the worst possible meaning to my past behavior.
"Well," I said as casually as possible, "I was planning to go to Seattle in the next few weeks, and to be honest, I'm not sure if your truck can make it." It felt safer to tease him than to allow myself to be too serious.
"Make fun of me all you want, but leave the truck out of it."
"Why would you think that I'm making fun of you?" I asked. "The invitation is genuine."
"My truck is great, thanks," he said in the same surprised voice. He started walking again. I kept pace with him.
Not an explicit rejection, but close. Was he being polite?
"Can your truck make it to Seattle on one tank of gas?"
"I don't see how that's your problem," he grumbled.
His heart was beating faster again, his breath coming more quickly. I thought the teasing should put him at ease, but maybe I was frightening him again.
"The wasting of finite resources is everyone's problem." My response sounded normal and casual to me, but I couldn't tell if it he heard it the same way. His silent mind left me always foundering.
"Seriously, Edythe, I can't keep up with you. I thought you didn't want to be my friend."
A thrill shot through me when he spoke my name, and I was back in his room, hearing him call out to me, wanting me to stay. I wished I could live in that moment forever.
But on this point, only honesty was acceptable.
"I said it would be better if we weren't friends, not that I didn't want to be."
"Oh, wow, great, so that's all cleared up," he said sarcastically.
He paused, under the edge of the cafeteria's roof, and met my gaze again. His heartbeats stuttered. In fear or anger?
I chose my words carefully. He needed to see. To understand that it was in his best interest to tell me to go.
"It would be more... prudent for you not to be my friend." Staring into the ocean-like depths of his eyes, I entirely lost my hold on light. "But I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Beau." The words felt like they'd burned their way out of my mouth.
His breathing stopped, and in the second it took for it to restart, I panicked. I'd truly terrified him, hadn't I?
All the better. I would collect my no and attempt to bear it.
"Will you accept a ride to Seattle with me?" I demanded, point-blank.
He nodded, his heart drumming loudly.
Yes. He'd said yes to me.
And then my conscience smote me. What would this cost him?
"You really should stay away from me," I warned him. Did he hear me? Would he escape the future I was threatening him with? Couldn't I do anything to save him from me?
Keep it light, I shouted at myself. "I'll see you in class."
And instantly remembered that I would not see him in class. He scattered my thoughts so thoroughly.
I had to concentrate to stop myself from running as I fled.