The water was bitter with a tinge of lemon. Bridget set the glass back down on the table and picked up her fork, staring down at the food on her plate. Suddenly filled with dread, she glanced to her right, meeting the eyes of her boyfriend. Charles, like his cousin, was bequeathed with the same elongated face, though his was thinner and his nose not as long. He had a wide set of baby blue eyes, slight shadows marred its underneath when light hits over his head. His eyebrows were thin, covered by his unruly blond hair. There was something almost lazy about his movements, a conjunction of long limbs and elfish features. He was an elegance of princely degree.

She was never quite sure, when the idea of having a very, almost too good-looking boyfriend had taken hold. Bridget was sure it wasn't inspired by the fairytales her parents read to her once in a blue moon, nor from the time she had her nose in books before having a clique was mandatory in middle school. But every single one of her exes and current boyfriend were princes in their own rights, and Jade noticed it long before she did. Do you want to be a princess or something? she had asked, go to France and look for the Grimaldis, I'm sure you'll manage. To which Bridget rolled her eyes and threw a volleyball at Jade's arm.

But now that she looked at another who caught her attention, maybe it was true.

Edward

It was a most natural form of curiosity for humans to want to know what other people think of them and vice versa, but akin to that was also the fact that one doesn't know what they have until they don't.

Peace.

The peace he had in his own speculation and reciprocation was taken away the moment he realized why everybody seemed so unnaturally talkative and forward. It was a bliss to not know that a guy walking by was struggling to make ends meet financially, or the upperclassman that sat on the bench was fighting a losing battle to depression, because if there was one thing he learned from the admirable patron of his dysfunctional family was that you help where you can, but you can't save everyone. That is not the way this cruel world works, and he was bound to learn from those who learned the hard way. After all, he won the jackpot because he could sympathize very well; all those years of having an expressive mother and a father who was the polar opposite had him latching onto the trait early on in his human life.

With time, he understood the difference someone's intelligence and interests could make in the way they sound. Some dreamt in beautiful colors, some completely lacked of them, and some just didn't. The imaginative lot had more pictures than words, which gave him both entertainment and dread. Those with strong artistic streak impressed him so thoroughly when they managed to compare the most mundane objects to visual arts and unknowingly expanded his knowledge in the process. Then there were those who gave him an imaginary headache, the ones who could recall everything from what they ate last night to what the professor wore in the last two weeks down to the color of their shoelaces. It was the closest eidetic ability to that of his kind, but of course, they were naturally more methodical and tuck their secrets in neat little boxes. Close to that were the ones who thought in a mishmash of several languages all at once; they confound and mesmerize him, giving his brain a brief intermission when he happened to not know the language even though he was determined to keep shortening that list.

'Oh, that's the math transfer? Cute!'

It took him a few years to completely stop responding to any sentence that was 'blurted out' by random strangers, but humans who saw him for the first time seemed to share a similar line of thought that it didn't bother him anymore when they pictured things that he would never have done, like saying yes to go out on a date with a human. Rose would've called it travesty.

The piece of paper in his hand had B302 printed right under AFM, and he knew it was the right room when he heard his name echoed around. They were excited and anxious to have a new face joining their tight group, some for their performance, some for whether he was dateable. No matter the circumstances, people never really leave high school days behind, they just think around it instead of in it.

'Does look like a smart kid.'

'Isn't that Cullen from school?'

His eyes slid slightly to the left, seeing the boy he heard from the corner of his peripheral. Edward recognized him, another name in the endless list of people whom he knew a little too intimately to his liking. Kevin Taylor, an intelligent kid he knew from Spence Preparatory who could've gone anywhere he wanted if he could be more trusting. Mr and Mrs Taylor were practitioners of bad parenting to the point that their mild genius son was never appreciated the way he ought to be. Kevin was one of the few that Edward actually talked to in Spence, but he deserved so much more attention than the one that came from the school faculty and a ninety five year old teenager. It was Kevin's humble line of welcoming thoughts that made Edward return his smile.

Kevin was wondering whether the cake he chose for his younger sister was pretty enough, because their parents gave her a stump of cash to spend in exchange of birthday wishes when all she wanted was a family dinner with a pretty cake and songs.

In Edward's unspoken opinion, Kevin's love for his undeserving family reminded him of Carlisle's fondness of his, because even with the mess the young new family made decades ago, he still had the aspiration to make it work purely out of the deep affection and adoration they hold for one another. He believed it was for this very reason the olympiad medalist Kevin Taylor stayed for his sister instead of packing for Boston, just like how Edward surprisingly didn't mind humoring Alice's request for him to go back to New York. Her request was crafted into a cryptic question and not even a single glimpse of what she saw slipped into his view.

If you can extend the family like Rose did, would you do it if I tell you to?

Well, if she said it that way… He'd rather the fault not be placed on him. Scorned Alice could drive him crazy faster than the shallowest thinker he'd ever met.

"Mr Cullen?"

Alan Turner was propitiously a man of above average intellect, though with a certain disliking towards nonchalance — which must disagree with him so fervently since he was teaching undergraduate students who were mostly blasé teenagers with a tonne of quandaries from having their first taste in flourishing into adulthood.

Being the UAA transfer kid certainly set a bar high up for him to reach but it wouldn't be much of a challenge after achieving his doctorate twice, so Dexter was just another private institution he would attend to hopefully learn something new. There were a few faces he recognized on his way to the lecture room, those from Spence that he attended with Alice and Jasper and some whom he'd seen here and there along the journey. This would be the first time he broke their siblings tradition of separating from their parents after the school cycle ended, letting Carlisle and Esme be like any other parents who had to let go of their children when they go to college. It was a break they need as a family unit, to go their own ways for a few years before reuniting again to start over somewhere else, hopefully somewhere new, with an almost childish excitement to be together again.

Edward was not amused to be away from the niece and nephew because the next time they start over, they wouldn't be so small anymore. As relatively unchanging individuals, they felt a pull towards those who does, things that grow and flourish like a work of art. So he missed their petty fights and chatters already. Only for you Alice...

Prof Turner handed him the semester's syllabus half-accusing Edward for not inputting his email address. It was printed neatly without a dent on the paper, which was especially pleasing to him since his vision allowed him to see even the lightest crease.

It looked like he would learn something new after all. Disliking arithmetics when he was a young child receiving an expensive education meant that he flinched at the idea of learning advanced scientific mathematics. But beating the odds, Jasper managed to hook him into the concept of financing a few years back when he claimed that each of the family should care more than taking a financial manager's advice on what they should or should not do with their fortune. It was what landed him in UAA, taking up the challenge to earn a BSc in Actuarial Science, which mostly consisted of maths and finances that were ultimately put for insurance.

He hadn't been so elated for education in awhile, and it gave him a good feeling that put him in an almost constant good mood.

Edward chose the seat near the back corner, one of the many that was unoccupied. People in this class were used to one another, been a part of the same, relatively small group for two years now that they unconsciously drew a map of seating arrangements in their heads, and he had seen them, which was why he knew this one was empty.

He approached the table after responding to greetings that came, to his relief, from everyone. His family's reputation must've preceded him for them to open a spot in their math family even when there was instinctive wariness in the edge of their thoughts. Them Cullens knew that being cordial and actually making acquaintances make their 'life span' in a place longer, especially when (with the help of the Cullen women) they mastered the outward appearance of aging with the help of fashion and hairstyle.

It wasn't only to make them feel like they belong and enjoy a city to its fullest, but they'd like Carlisle to stay in the position he liked most, the one with the biggest responsibility and as of now, he was a head surgeon. With the fact that it took fourteen years of education to be a certified specialist surgeon, Carlisle couldn't exactly appear in one place and start being one at 'twenty seven'. No matter how much they'd like to dissociate themselves from the public, they needed to be social to do what each wanted. Carlisle naturally was an amiable man who worked well with others in the medical field, Esme couldn't work as a designer and not hire people to do the heavy lifting since she supposedly couldn't, Edward himself enjoyed education and music and he couldn't achieve any accolade without having connections within, and so was the rest of the family.

He took a seat, still on the progress of making himself somewhat comfortable with how creaky it turned out to be (that must be why nobody wanted it)— no problem, he could just stop moving — when he stumbled in his own senses.

It was ridiculous.

He felt more naked than if he was to go skinny-dipping in the lake.

And he wasn't even supposed to be a creature to be thrown off-guard.

The initial shock of being cut off his senses had him clenching his fists, a small relief flooding him when he could feel the friction of skin even when his chest felt like plumbing down to his stomach when he was sure he wasn't supposed to feel fine sand crunching beneath his soles. There was a nasty stickiness and an itchy sensation, combined with scorching heat on his head and back, and to his horror even the smellof saline water.

Panic rose in his throat, his privacy had been snatched so suddenly and thoroughly he wasn't quite sure how to react next. Closing his eyes, he opened it again and felt his eyes water. Too bright.

The next time he opened them, he had to blink one more time to make sure. This was Rochester in the middle of August. And he was in a small grey classroom in B building of Dexter University. Not a beach.

None of the students spared him more than a glance out of curiosity and interest, and they definitely didn't notice his out-of-character mild panic.

A frown lining his features, his eyes quickly scanned the room, wondering what was happening, and whether he had missed something. A smaller part of his mind was blaring sirens to look out for others like him. But he hadn't smelt, felt, nor heard anything out of the ordinary.

He was in the middle of listening in to everyone, broadening his extra sense to point out who, when the second snatch came as if he had beaconed it. The process was swift and painless, but this… this felt too painfully intimate now that he could actually see what was happening. Decades spent on unwillingly listening in to other people's perusal didn't prepare him to be in literally someone else's shoes.

He had pivoted in the same spot and was now facing the opposite direction, head tilting down to look at a pair of colorful sandals on rather small and feminine feet, his right hand outstretched in front of his face. He had to admit, they were pretty fingers: long, and the palm was rather large, fit to play the piano and reach an octave with the thumb and pinky, or even one more note if lucky. There was a bundle of skin on the middle finger - from writing and pushing the pen excessively on it he was sure. It didn't make the hand ugly, but his thumbnail absentmindedly scratched on the rough surface.

He looked up, and now he could see a modest, all-white, window-paned beach residence. The noise of wave crashing to the rocks in the background accompanied the strong gust of wind attacking his bare upper-arms.

He felt his feet breaking into a jog, treading through swallowing sand and made his way up to the doors. It was—

"Miss Wilson," a sharp, clearly annoyed voice snapped Edward and his snatcher out of the pleasing scenery and back to the grey classroom. "Late again, are we?"

In secondhand annoyance, Edward clenched his fist, mildly surprised when he caught the very same movement in his peripheral, and even more surprised for not liking the interruption. His eyes quickly focused on the particular hand. A feminine right hand, clenched and unclenched. There.The calloused middle finger.

His hesitance astounded him.

He almost didn't want to know his snatcher.

He didn't want the mystery killed, a mystery so rare to someone who hears too much.

Trailing up, he slowly built a side profile: slightly calloused fingers adorned with rings, a slim arm covered by a plaid blazer, blonde hair on her back slightly darkened by the damp weather, a peek of a cream turtleneck, and the golden glint of a necklace on her chest before zeroing on the face. A strong, feline jaw, a full protuberant set of lips quickly turning down into a scowl, a slanted nose, dusted with the lightest freckles under the minimal makeup, a protruding hazel eye: more green than brown, and a sharp-edged, defined eyebrow.

And she was staring down at Professor Turner, distaste running through both her and the Professor's heads.

'It's seven oh five,' Edward caught her flitting thought. It was the first time he heard her voice. It was a pleasant, clear voice with a distinct round accent tinging the particular 'oh'. English?

It was true. She wasn't late.

He didn't like where the Professor's private mumbling was going. He definitely wasn't nice to his own student, the very one Edward remembered from the odious mention of her name in his thoughts. Her family was in the news for the most unfortunate reason, orphaned so suddenly and unexpectedly. Alan Turner thoughtlessly decided she had had enough time to grieve and he had the right to judge whatever she did now with no aberration. He didn't like her for being the child of a prominent family, for not having to work a single day in her life, and even her excellent GPA didn't persuade him to think that maybe that was where her time went.

Surprisingly, the girl's mind was going in the same direction. She knew he didn't like her, and she knew exactly why.

Edward couldn't stop the smile lining his features, finding himself rooting for her.

The third snatch was the final straw.

This time he was seeing the Professor from the right side angle— her angle—, eyes focusing on the book Prof Turner was holding. Edward noticed now what gave off the illusion; the noise. It was more of a peaceful ambiance that came a little too clearly as if there was nobody else in the room, because there was only her and the Professor.

It gave him a prickling sensation like he was going through an underwear drawer he definitely didn't have any business in.

But curiosity killed the cat and he so rarely encountered a mind visualization so strong.

It was quick, just a move of the finger as the Professor flipped a page. It was an uncomfortably incongruous feeling of having one's finger cut by paper; the sharp pinch that made one jump and cradle their finger so quickly and wish to protect them from papers forever.

If his body could, shivers would've run down his spine and goosebumps would forcefully attack his skin. His utterly dead, impossible to penetrate skin, yet he swore he felt it.

The image fizzled out as quickly as it had appeared.

Bridget Wilson had a moue on her face, but it straightened out and formed a Mona Lisa smile before she turned her back on the Professor. 'I have no obligation to be nice to him whatsoever.'

He snorted quietly. She definitely wasn't the kindest person in the room.

This tall girl with long blonde hair, buttery complexion and odd micro-expressions; enigmatically smiling and indolently observing him as she walked pass was the one visualizing the beach house and felt the scorching heat.

And Edward found her dismay for the fact that he took her bag's designated seat incredibly amusing.

'Why anyone would want that seat is beyond me.'

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