Edward opened the car door for me, continuing to offer his arm in support, which I was surprised to see how much easier it made slipping into the seat. I settled myself as he crossed over to his side of the car, getting in and finding the key slot with an accuracy and grace that was equally enviable and attractive. He pulled smoothly into traffic and the thrum of the engine settled into me as we began driving back to Forks.

"Theoretically," he said into the comfortable night and silence of the car, "could you care for a monster?"

I couldn't hide my smile.

"Well," I said, matching his tone but also sounding as though I were playfully humoring him, "in theory, I suppose it is safe to say that I already do."

As I said it, I realized just how true it was.

"You matter to me, Edward," I said, all playfulness gone from my voice. "I support you and I want you to be happy."

The expression on his face jumped from emotion to emotion; moved, skeptical, happy, worried, grateful, sad, disbelieving. Lonely.

"You might not say that," he said solemnly, "if you knew everything there was to know about me."

He considered, "Let's say, again, in theory, that I already do."

He sucked air through his clenched teeth, "Even if you could, I would find it hard to believe that you could so easily forgive-"

"-a vampire?" I asked.

Edward thrashed in his seat. The car's speed bobbled, and we jerked left and right on the road. For all of that, we still stayed within the lines of our lane. Even if there had been more cars on the road, we would have remained safe.

"How could you possibly-?" he all but hissed, and then became silent.

"Who?" he asked, his tone so hostile, I instantly found myself fearing for Jacob's safety.

"No," I said.

He looked at me, and his glare was so intense, I could almost see the red behind his contacts.

"Who!?" he demanded, and I felt myself flinch involuntarily. He saw my motion and became still and reflective. He looked back towards the road, visibly trying to relax.

"No," I said. "Edward, I trust you, but trusting you does not mean giving you everything you want. You have provided me with no evidence at all that giving you that information would be good for anyone involved. You don't need more of an excuse to hurt anyone more than you already-"

"You're right," he said, his tone only slightly biting.

I shut up.

"I didn't react…" he said, taking a deep breath, "with thought, only instinct. My instincts aren't very trustworthy right now. I am sorry."

I took a deep breath too, "So, you really are… a…."

"Damned, undead creature of the night?" he asked, a cynical little smile on his lips. "Yes."

Saying that cost him something. I could see it. It was painful for him to be so bold, so open and honest, but I could also see something I might have called relief.

"How old are you?" I asked.

His cynical smile became a bit more genuine, "We are quickly passing out of the theoretical."

I searched his face.

"You're still afraid," I commented. "You think that the more I know about you, the more likely it would be that I will ask you to leave."

He nodded, silently.

I reached for his hand. He jerked back, and I froze. He looked almost ashamed of his reaction, and replaced his hand on the wheel. I continued forward, and this time, he did not pull away. I took his hand in mine.

"Edward," I said, hoping I sounded more sure than I felt, "would you be satisfied with only a portion of me?"

He looked at me, not knowing where I was going with this.

"Would you be okay with only getting to know me in part?" I asked.

He sighed.

"I think I would go completely insane," he said lackadaisically.

"I want to know you," I said, trying not to sound eager. "I want to know it all, good and bad. I want there to be nothing but fearless honesty between us."

He considered, "Tell me a truth."

I came up short, "I'm sorry?"

He looked over at me.

"I want to know you as well," he said. "I would like to know a truth about you, something you do not normally reveal to many people. I suppose the request is a bit selfish, but I care more about hearing what you have to say than I do about being polite."

I thought about his request.

"I guess," I said slowly, "I guess I don't really fit in with my friends."

He leaned closer to me, his focus seemingly entirely on me.

"Eyes on the road! Eyes on the road!" I exclaimed, bracing myself with my right hand and leaning against my door. He rolled his eyes.

"I do not rely as heavily on my sight as you do, Bella," he complained. "I would not put you in danger."

"I…" I started, "okay. It's just… it is easy to forget what you are, sometimes…."

I don't know why, but this made him smile.

"You were saying?" he asked politely.

"Was I?" I asked, confused. "Oh! Right. My friends."

I took a deep breath and looked out at the night.

"I have never really thought of myself as a teenager, I guess," I said, trying to put my feelings into words that might actually make sense. "It's like… I haven't ever been interested in things like hair and makeup or sports and cars. Homework I like and enjoy, which made me an oddity all on its own in Phoenix. Add to that that I don't really connect well with people my own age, mostly because they find such trivial things so wholly important and neglect the things most vital to their well-being and happiness. So, I end up having more in common with people who are substantially older than me, but do not get on well with them because I lack experience, and I don't get on with kids my age because I behave so much like an adult."

I was quiet a long moment.

"I know exactly what you mean," he said, then smirked, "Granted, in my case, I believe it has everything to do with the fact that I have lived much longer than your average seventeen year old."

I paid attention to his face.

He was different at night. I could see it, if not completely explain it. It was almost like there was more substance to him, as though he was more vital, if not more animate. His skin wasn't paler, but his color was richer somehow. His beauty was no more than it had been, but it was as though an element you never would have guessed was missing had been returned. He was as he always had been, and more without having been less before.

"How old are you?" I asked.

He gave me a sort of suave yet teasing smile, "I told you; seventeen."

I found myself rolling my eyes, "And how long have you been seventeen?"

His grin turned positively gorgeous, and I found myself having to look away, lest I give some rather embarrassing vocalization of my enjoyment.

"A while," he admitted, his expression sobering, "Is it so important?"

"The number isn't," I said. I didn't need to add that knowing him was the point. He got it.

"I was born to my human life on June twentieth," he said, his voice as rich and cultured as a charismatic historian or college professor of literature, "nineteen oh one."

It took me a moment to understand that what he added at the end was the year. Even as I was expecting it, I was not able to wrap my brain around…

"A hundred and three years?" I murmured, unable to comprehend so much time.

He nodded slowly, as though afraid he would startle me if he moved too quickly.

"I was alive for seventeen years," he said, "I was born to my immortal life, if you can call it living, in September of nineteen eighteen. If I hadn't been… changed, I would have died anyway. The Spanish Influenza had already claimed the lives of my mother and father. It was a hard time, between the Great War and the devastating outbreak. Add upon that my new status as an undead creature of the night, and you might have some idea how tumultuous my early years of unlife were."

A hard edge had entered his words, and I felt as though some part of him was back there, carrying me with it. It felt grayer back there, desaturated and stark, poor and all of these things so pervasively that it seemed a given, inescapable.

"How many people have you killed?" I asked. It just slipped out. I don't know what made me ask it.

He looked as though I had just stabbed him. It was like he hadn't felt the blade go in, because it didn't make sense to him that I could, ever would…. Now, he was feeling it as the blade was drawn out, trying to understand what had happened. Pain ripped and rippled across his face, and I felt like the biggest bitch in Bitchtown.

His expression locked down into a mask, but I could still see the anger that tinged through it.

"One thousand, seven hundred and eighteen," he said. Then he reconsidered, "Pardon, one thousand, seven hundred and twenty two."

I looked at him. So many lives. It was hard to imagine. That was over half the population of Forks. Had I even ever come into contact with that many people? How many was that a year? I would have to kill more than a hundred people a year to come close to that, and I don't think I could take many people out when I was a toddler. How could I think such things so cavalierly? It was almost as though I was trying not to think about…

I saw it. I saw them. The men, those who had tried to hurt me, the men who had brought up the count four more bodies. I saw them, now, all of them, screaming, terrified, bloody and broken and ended. He had done that to them. He had killed them.

"I…" I tried to speak, but the words got stuck in my throat. "I…"

I felt the car accelerating.

"What…?" I tried, confused.

"That was a mistake," he said. "I shouldn't have told you that. I shouldn't have told you any of it."

"Edward," I tried to say, suddenly aware that we were speeding along, speeding me home. That he was speeding me away from him.

"No," he said, refusing to look at me. "This… this shouldn't have happened. I don't know what I was thinking! As though you could ever accept me!"

Something twisted in me, hard. For a second, I was afraid I might puke in his car, in front of him.

"What are you going to do?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"What I should have done in the first place," he all but snarled. "I am going to take you home and then leave you alone, get out of your life before something drastic happens!"

Something fluttered in me, feeling frantic.

"What?" I half cried. "No!"

"Yes!" he spat back. "I don't want you to get hurt, Bella!"

"No!" I insisted, feeling my face heat up. "I don't care. I want you."

He glared at me, and for the first time, that first day, I thought he might kill me again.

"Never say that," he said, voice quiet and deadly cold.

It was my turn to feel stabbed.

My throat closed, making a single sound that didn't resemble gagging impossible. I tried to protest, to scream, to make any sound at all, but then, I didn't want to make any sound as the hurt finally fought its way past my limits. I didn't, I couldn't vocalize anything, for fear of giving away just how much his words pained me.

"Are you crying?" he all but whispered, just audible over the engine's thrum.

I said nothing and turned my falling tears away from him.

"No," he said, a little louder but as though he spoke to himself, almost as though he was trying to convince himself. "I didn't want this."

I reached for the door handle.

"Bella!" he hissed in denial, his fingers hitting the door lock just in time. I managed to pull the lock and hold it as I pulled the door handle.

"Bella!" he roared, and I heard the ratcheting of the emergency brake as I shoved with my whole body, hoisting the door open and launching myself from the car in one fluid motion.

I don't know what happened. I lost myself in the flight, seeing only a wash of headlights and the spinning of stars about me as I fell, for a moment as though gravity had no hold on me. I heard the squealing of tires, but they were so far away, seemingly slowed to a degree I could not completely register the sound. I hung in the air, as though stretching out the moment before I knew the impact and the pain and the damage would come. It would be hard, but not nearly as hard as staying in that car would have been.

The landing never came. At all.

I couldn't see very well. My vision was mostly obscured in the darkness, but I could see the car. It was small in its distance, tilted while half off the road, the internal light on, the headlights shining up into the trees below. Beyond the trees, I could see the waters of Lake Sutherland, but the angle was all wrong. The ground seemed so far away. The car was still upon it, but I could see the open door and the roof, both the hood and trunk. It was like a toy, something I might reach out and grab. Or, reach down.

His arms were seemingly loosely about my waist, but though his grip seemed light, it supported my entire weight, for nothing else bore me in the open air but his hands.

My back was to his front as he held me, my feet brushing and bumping almost lazily against his shins. My hands fell at my sides, and I had a deep desire to wrap them about his at my middle, but I denied the feeling. His head was beside mine, just above and to one side, and I could feel his coolness, just noticeable warmer than the air about us, as though he might have gathered some warmth from inside the car.

"You can't do that," he whispered, sounding truly shaken for perhaps the first time since I had known him. I had the sudden childish desire to drag his hands away from me, though from the angle of the car, I knew that we must be high, at least five stories or so.

"The point," I said listlessly back, "was to get away from you."

That seemed to bring him back to himself.

"Let me take you home," he said. "Then you will never have to see me again."

"That," I hissed myself, "isn't what I want."

In an instant, he was no longer behind me. His hands were now loosely upon my forearms as he was in front of me, facing me, my feet settling lightly atop his.

"Which is it?" he demanded. "Do you want to be away from me or not!?"

I tried to pull my arms away, but his kept to mine with an unerring consistency, like magnet or gravity. It probably didn't hurt that he had a much longer reach than me. Finally, my frustration bubbled over.

"I want you to stop denying yourself!" I cried loudly into the night.

He stilled quite a bit then.

"You are afraid," I said harshly. "Welcome to the real world! We're all scared. I am terrified because despite everything that has happened, I am still here, standing beside an honest to god vampire, who murdered four men before my very eyes tonight, and the one thing that scares me the most is that you might leave!"

I don't know when I buried my face into his chest, but he had his arms about me, and the softness of his shirt felt so crisp and cool against my hot, damp face. He smelled…. better than anything I had ever smelled in my life. It was as though every scent that could ever peak my attention, my admiration, and my attraction had been distilled into its most potent and concentrated form, and then just enough was laid into his skin that I kept wanting to forever return to make sure it was possible for any man to smell so good. And, with every inhale, I dared to wonder if he smelled as good as I remembered, and he smelled better. How had I not noticed this before?

"I don't want you to leave," I said. "It hurts to even think about the idea. And I hate it!"

My sudden cry bounced back from some unseen ridge in the dark, echoing even muffled as my voice was again him still.

"I hate that I could be so unmade by you," I confessed. "But, at the same time, I don't care. I am in awe of you and understand why it is so hard for me to think about being apart from you. It isn't like my freewill has been taken. It's as though every choice that I would ever want to make would be, as though my decision was so inevitable, it is undeniable."

At that moment, I wanted nothing so desperately as to kiss him, but something in me made me feel like it was a bad idea.

"I don't," I said quietly, "I don't know what to do. I know what I want, but I don't know what can be. I can't condone murder. I'm not perfect. And yeah, there are going to be times when I can't let go of what you have done. But, that won't be all the time. I think I might just have it in me to forgive it. I'm not going to give you an ultimatum or tell you what to do. But I can make my own decisions. So can you."

I pulled back, knowing my eyes were still wet, my face a mess.

"What do you want?" I asked.

He looked as though he had no expression. But, by the minuscule light from the car far below and the star far above, I could just make out the barely noticeable twitches of his face, as his emotions warred about the battlefield of his continence.

I don't know what tipped me off to the fact that we were descending. The loose bits of our clothing beginning to float might have been it, but it seemed perfectly ordinary to me in the moment. The subtle wind rustling by had been happening the entire time. But as the ground pressed up beneath our feet, I was unsurprised. We settled back to our usual height difference, and I felt grounded somehow, as though this small difference was somehow important, a norm to which we should always return, as sturdy and inexorable as truth.

I looked up at him, and his dark eyes shone with starlight, stark and glimmering against his skin, flawless in the pale low light.

"I want to do what's right," he said, his voice breathy and words quick, "what is good, and not just what is quick and convenient. It would be easy to leave, in so many words, but really, what would I have to gain except less risk? You say that I am afraid, and again and again, you are correct. I am a coward. I challenge any man who has had to deny himself his entire… existence, to finally reach for that which he has told himself he least deserves and most desires and to do so without a care in his heart. Braver men than I have no doubt done so and failed, and I am neither man nor mortal nor courageous. Even now, I would rather spout verbiage than state my hopes aloud. But I am afraid the cruel hand of fate would slap my outstretched hand, even if it weren't cricked into a savage claw."

His hand came forth, slow, as though reaching towards a dangerous animal, though I had no doubt who the dangerous one was here. He touched my face, carefully, and I felt myself settle against the movement, as though my natural and unconscious inclination was the lean into such a touch, but his hand rode the minimal edge, only brushing my skin with the lightest contact, leaving me shuddering and somehow deeply unsatisfied.

As his hand left my face, I felt his other hand brush past and around, under me, and I was carefully lifted and put to rest once again upon the seat in the car. He was practically impersonal in his motions and manner as he maneuvered me, and I got the impression that he was attempting to minimize his liberties with me. This idea pleased me but at the same time left me wanting more.

The door closed without a single excess of sound, as though he held fast the handle and moved the door so close to the frame that he could release the catch and let go without jarring or impact of any kind. In almost the same instance I heard him let go of my door, he was opening his. After adjusting the vents towards me and releasing the brake, he steered the still running car back onto the highway.

There was a moment of long quiet, and then I said, for lack of anything else and needing the silence to break, "So, vampires can fly. In theory, of course."

I saw the ghost of a smile grace his face.

"Some can, after a fashion," he said, his words unburdened in a way I hadn't heard before.

"There are lots of abilities that we have over humans," he went on. "We are like humans in that way, with no two who are the same, at least that I've met. We have a lot of common abilities, which vary in strength, and the trend follows that the older the vampire, the more potent those abilities become."

I smiled, "So, vampires can fly?"

He did as well, "Mostly, they can limit their own gravity. It makes it easier to jump or climb and to stay suspended. Some, like me, can suspend that gravity altogether. But what you might call flight is a rare ability indeed. I have never heard of a single vampire who has control over their motion even if they neutralize their gravitational motion."

I thought about that, "Then how did we get so high?"

He stilled, in the way he usually came up short when I touched on something he hadn't considered.

"I…" he began, "I am not sure. It is possible that in my flight from the car, I might have pushed us upwards. I don't have any other explanation for it."

I considered it.

"Maybe it is just because you're so old," I said.

He gave me a trying look, half amused and half bemused.

"No!" I protested. "I just mean that you said that it becomes more potent with age. Maybe this is just more of your potential."

He gave a brief smile, heartfelt but sad somehow.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I…" he began. "I want to encourage you to be yourself in all things, of course. But I also regret that you are starting to see me for what I am as well. I liked it better when you saw me as simply another person."

I considered that, "But you think you aren't?"

He looked at me, and somehow, I wasn't as frightened as I once had been as we drove. He was inhuman, but really, he had been since the day I met him. He was capable of so much more than anyone I had ever met, good as well as bad. If I chose to focus on the bad, I would be left with only ugliness, but that could be said of anything in life. As we sat together in a vehicle as it sped smoothly through the night, never leaving its lane, our eyes on the others, I realized that trusting him was a choice. I wasn't obligated to, and there was ample reason not to, if I decided not to. And that was when I understood; trust is something you do or don't do, and the reasons for your decision come afterwards.

"I trust you," I said. "I might not be great at it all the time, but I am here because it is my choice. I might make a different decision later, but it is my choice too."

He grinned, but it was a brittle thing.

"Can you accept that I feel the same way?" he asked. "Though you are far better at it than I?"

"Of course," I said a bit loudly, my words exasperated.

He turned back to the road as we started pulling into town.

"I have, of course," he said, "been existing much longer than you with the excuses not to trust, to not have faith in anything. It is hard to suddenly change what I have based my entire existence on for so long."

He was quiet then, and the car stopped in front of my house.

"But," he said, looking out at the night, "I never wanted to be a monster. Given that the alternative was death, it is hard for me to say that I might have been better off. But I want to be better, more than just what I am. I would rather not be the villain of my own story."

"You'd rather get the girl?" escaped my mouth before I could even think.

He gave me his half smile, sideways and with an added flash of roguishness. I was pretty sure my heart was about to beat its way out of my chest and go zinging around the interior of the car, possibly beating its way out of that too.

"Get implies that I can obtain you," he said. "But I somehow don't believe you are the sort to be taken. You're natural states seems more to be… one who is accepted when given."

I found myself nodding, lost now that I could see his face better in the light from the porch.

"Would you mind terribly if your father came out and found you sitting in a car with a boy?" he asked.

I felt suddenly annoyed with fate. That sounded like possibly the worst scenario possible, save for Charlie marching out armed. Granted, leaving this car for any reason was equally detestable to me.

"Will you be there tomorrow?" I asked. "At school?"

"Yes," he said, as though saying the words settled the matter for him, as though he was just as reassured by the idea as I was. I reached for my bag.

"What did you buy?" he asked politely.

"My dress," spilled out of my mouth.

He looked almost stunned. I know how he felt.

"We're still going?" I asked. "To the dance, I mean."

He looked a bit confounded.

"I didn't want to assume…" he said, dropping off. "If you changed your mind…."

I wanted to smack him.

"Will you stop that!?" I demanded in pique. "I make my decisions. Me!"

He was trying very hard not to smile. It made being irritated way more work. I gathered up my bag.

"Tomorrow," I said.

"Tomorrow," he agreed. I reached for the handle.

"Oh, and Bella," he said.

I froze. His voice had come from much closer than where he had been sitting a moment ago. I turned, slowly, and found him mere inches from me, his face filling up my whole world, the cool air passing out of him brushing against my skin, my… lips.

"Yes?" I said, barely a whisper, barely a word.

He searched my expression one last long moment.

"Have a good night," he said, opening my door for me.

It wasn't as though I were expecting him to kiss me. Honestly, if he had, I might have freaked out a little, worrying about it. I hadn't really considered that it was even a possibility. As it was, I didn't think it was possible for me to be more dazzled by him.

I managed to get out of the car without simply flopping out onto the pavement. I made it to the porch and fumbled with the bag and the keys and when I looked back, he was already gone.

I closed the door as quietly as I could, but still, Charlie's response was immediate.

"Bells?" he called.

"Yeah, dad," I said. "It's me."

As though it would be anyone else.

"Did you have a good time?" he asked.

My mind flashed over the events of the evening. I couldn't imagine how so much had happened in a single night, how much my life had changed in so short an amount of time. Everything seemed so different now, I wasn't even sure what tomorrow would bring.

"Yeah," I said easily, which was strange since I wasn't at ease at all.

Suddenly the phone rang.

"I've got it," I said, setting down my bag and hustling to pick up the cordless.

"Swan residence," I answered.

"Just Bella!" squealed Jessica. "Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Dish!"

I walked upstairs.

"Jess," I said placating, "calm down."

"I am calm!" she squeaked, several octaves higher than usual. "You know what? I'm not calm! Why should I be freakin' calm!? This is a freaking out moment worthy of freakoutedness!"

"Jess," I all but complained. "It isn't that big a deal."

"Not a big deal?" she said with remarkable calm, until she screamed so loud there was feedback on the line, "NOT A BIG DEAL!?"

I held the phone away from my ear until things quieted down.

"Did you see how he looked at you?!" she hissed. "Oh my god… And the way he invited you! It wasn't a demand, but it was all forceful, like he didn't want to give you a choice, like he wasn't going to let you get away. This is… big. This is bigger than big. This might be the most important bit of importance that has ever happened in the history of Forks!"

"Okay," I said, half embarrassed and half dismissive. "Either you are making fun of me or you're overreacting."

"Bella!" she cried pleasantly. "Do you have any idea how often a boy has looked at me like Edward freakin' Cullen looked at you tonight?! Never! It's like, you're on a whole different level here. One, I almost hope I'm never on! It's fun from over here, but I wouldn't want the responsibility. I mean, unless it was, like, actually Edward… I mean, I wouldn't want to have to let the guy down, ya know? I mean, he's gorgeous and all, but, like… well, he cares about you, obviously. But like, if I were in your shoes-"

"Spit it out, Jess!" I said with no heat.

"Um, like," he said. "Okay! Like, he cares about you. Anyone can see that. How do you feel? About him?"

I felt momentarily like I had once when I had tripped walking up the stairs in seventh grade. I had landed exactly wrong and somehow managed to hit myself in just the precise place so that I knocked the air out of myself and had my diaphragm seize up for a bit, making it hard for my heart to even beat.

"I…" I said, trying to get my pulse to work right and my lungs to function correctly. "What?"

"How do you feel about Edward?" she said, exaggerating every word.

I was pretty sure my brain wasn't full of cooled hot glue, but I didn't exactly have an easy way to check.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

She sighed, as though I had just asked her if I could try on every article of clothing she owned.

"What is your deal?!" she asked, her voice practically cracking in its intensity. "So, you hate him? Is that it?"

"No, I…" I said, then thought about it.

"Edward isn't like anyone I have ever met," I said. "He isn't perfect-"

"Right," she laughed. "I do have eyes."

I snorted, "I'm not talking about his face. He has flaws, and what is more, he recognizes them. He actually sees them."

"And that's important?" Jess asked. "Having flaws and seeing them?"

"Well, yeah," I said. "The only perfect people are those who can't admit that they are human. I mean, I bet you dollars to donuts that you couldn't get a single boy in our group to admit when they are wrong."

"True," she accepted. "And that is important?"

"Very," I said. "Edward knows that he isn't perfect, and wants to do something about it. He can be a total jerk sometimes, but I understand why and I know that he is trying to be more than that. He wants to be more. He wants to be good."

Something happened in me, a sort of warm building in my middle, something I had never really felt before. It was sort of like when I had crushes on fictional characters, but much more intense. At that moment, I wished Edward was there with me. I felt like I wanted to be close to him, wanted to feel him hold me again, like there was nothing else in the world but him and me. Cool though his touch was, I wanted to tingle with that cold, feel it against my skin, leeching the warmth from me.

"You've got it bad, don't you?" Jess asked.

"Oh shut up!" I protested, smiling.

"Did he kiss you yet?" she asked.

Then, suddenly something came to me that I hadn't considered. How much of Edward was like a normal boy? I mean, did he… could he… what sort of things did he want… could he even…?

"No," I said, remembering that I was answering a question. "I don't…"

"What?" she asked.

I couldn't say that I wasn't sure if my vampire suitor was even interested in the common activities of hormone laden teenagers, so I said something that was equally true.

"Edward is sort of old-fashioned," I said, as though admitting an embarrassment. In actuality, I sort of liked it.

"Oh," she said. "Bummer."

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

"You don't seem all too broken up about it," she commented.

I shook my head, "I'm not. He is sort of amazing. I don't really feel like I am missing out."

And I realized I didn't and I wasn't. Being with him was so much better than making out with some gorgeous…. Okay, it was mostly worth it.

Suddenly I could hear Jessica's mom on the other end of the phone, saying something about homework.

"Okay, yes!" Jess was saying, sounding rather annoyed. "Yes! Okay. Okay! I heard you. Mom!"

Finally she turned her attention back to me.

"I gotta go," she said. "We will continue this in trig!"

"Bye Jess," I said. We hung up. I went to go put up the phone and found that my bag was on the stairs. Dad must have moved it there from out of the hall to the entry hall on his way to his room, which he was apparently in now, what with the TV and all. I looked into the bag.

I was going to the dance, with Edward, in a matter of days. Somehow, I wasn't dreading it nearly as much as I thought I would be. It could be worse, I knew that, but for now, I was happy. There was a long road ahead of us, I could tell. I was ready to start working my way down it, with him.