Sorry this is a couple days late. My wifi crapped out on me . . . which has made my life a living hell. Never realized how important wifi was until I had to go to work to write a research paper for school. Crazy. Definitely sucked but it's fixed now!

6

Everyone Leaves . . . It's an Inevitability

Edward stared at me, his eyes wide and full of shock. "What?" he asked.

"Don't do it again," I repeated and then added, "Please." He closed his eyes, and seemed to take a handful of deep breaths before opening them up again. We stared at each other in silence for a moment, and just when I was about to tell him to leave again, he spoke.

"Why not?" he asked finally, running a hand through the mess on top of his head. I sighed and sat on the edge of my bed, poised to jump up and move if he tried to touch me again.

"Because, Edward. Did you not hear me when I said that whenever someone touches me, I get a vision of their death? Or did you just think that excluded making out?" His eyebrows furrowed and he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, biting down on it. I paused at the feeling of the slight jealousy coursing through me as I realized that I wanted to bite his lip. That feeling would get me nowhere. "I've seen your death three times now, Edward. It doesn't make it any less terrifying. Nothing ever does. So, please, just stop trying to touch me."

He sighed heavily and leaned back against the door frame. "Fine, I won't touch you until you ask me to. But, Bella, we can be friends without touching. Please, can't we just be friends? That's all I ask." I narrowed my eyes at his use of the word 'until', like he was confident I'd be asking him to touch me in the future. How could he –despite what he knew about my visions- think I'd ever want to see them repeatedly? He cocked an eyebrow at me as his lips pulled into a crooked grin, and my heart thumped unevenly in my chest. I decided to ignore it and focus on his question instead.

"You're not listening to me, Edward. We can't be friends. I'm leaving. I'm either being sent away, far away, or I'm running away. So what's the point in trying for a friendship when I won't even be able to stick around to watch you realize that I'm not worth it?" He glared at me and pushed away from the wall, stalking a few feet towards where I sat on the bed. He towered over me, his hands clenched into fists by his sides.

"Stop fucking saying that, Bella." I flinched at the curse word and the low, angry sound of his voice. I stared up at him in shock as he reached towards me, wrapping his fingers around my blanket covered arms and lifting me to my feet. "You're worth it. You're worth everything. Every rumor we'll have to ignore, every angry glare from all the boys who wish they could talk to you, too, every moment I'll have to fight for you, even if I have to fight against you in order to do it. You're worth it, damn it. I don't care what your mom says, or what the people at school say, or even what you say. I want to be here for you. I want to be here with you. So stop saying you're not worth it, because every time you do, I just become more determined to show you how fucking wrong I think you are. You're worth everything," he repeated, lowering his voice until it was just a whisper.

Tears were rolling down my face at this point. No one, not one single person since my father died had ever shown me they cared about me. Now this boy, this strange boy that I hardly knew, was telling me all the things I'd always wanted to hear. I was sick of feeling like a worthless freak, like no one cared if I lived or died. Some of the pain that went with believing that lifted from my heart, because he cared. Edward cared. Just like I hardly knew him, he hardly knew me. And the majority of what he knew about me should have sent him running for the hills, calling the cops about the crazy girl who believed she could see people's future deaths at just a brush of their skin. But he wasn't. He was here with me because he cared about me.

I felt lighter than I had in years, since before my dad died.

Without thinking of what it meant for the future, I dropped the blanket from around my shoulders and stepped closer to him. I threw my arms around his neck and pulled his face down to mine, capturing his lips with my own before he could say anything or smirk at me in that way of his. As always, I was thrown into the vision, but it didn't scare me as much as it had the previous times I'd witnessed it. Maybe it was because I was becoming desensitized to it –how weird; becoming desensitized to a vision of my own death - or maybe it was because I was expecting it. Or maybe because I'd purposely initiated the contact in the first place, so it didn't come as such a shock to me, I didn't know. There was no way for me to know for sure, but for the time being, I just didn't care. I wanted this, wanted him. I cared about him, he cared about me, and I felt like I finally deserved some happiness. Because if someone as amazing as Edward cared about me, I must be worth something after all.

Once the vision ended, I was able to really throw myself into the kiss. I pulled him closer by tightening my arms around his neck, crushing my mouth to his and parting my lips to let his tongue in. He groaned, a low sound deep in his throat that had my entire body flushing with heat. I'd never felt anything like it before, and it had me pushing myself even closer to him. His arms, previously immobile by his sides, lifted up, one arm reaching around so his hand could rest on my lower back, and the other lifting so his palm could cup my cheek. I smiled into the kiss and pulled back slightly so I could suck his lower lip into my mouth, biting down and nibbling gently. He let out another groan, and I sighed in response.

He had no idea what those sounds were doing to me . . . neither did I, for that matter. I had no previous experience to go off of.

A few moments later, I pulled back, feeling light headed from lack of oxygen and the slew of emotions he was evoking in me. Keeping my arms around him, the bare skin of my forearms touching the back of his neck, I leaned forward, pressing three more tiny kisses to his lips before I buried my face in his shoulder. Tears continued to stream down my face, dampening his shirt, but I couldn't bring myself to be embarrassed. Instead, I just inhaled his unique scent and whispered, "thank you," over and over again. At first, I didn't know if he could even hear me, but when I felt him turn his head to brush his lips against my temple, I could tell he had.

"I meant every word, Bella. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but we have a connection. I can feel it. You're meant to be part of my life, and I'm meant to stay right here by your side. Always." A shudder ran through my body as I felt the truth of his words, somewhere deep within me. He was right; we were meant to be something to each other. Just what, though, I didn't know. Were we supposed to be friends? More than friends? It would explain why we would be together in the vision of our deaths, which just led me to more questions. Did I cause his death, or did he cause mine? Was it an accident, a mugging, a misunderstanding? Nothing about it was making any sense to me, but I couldn't force myself to step away from him. And suddenly, a more urgent question popped into my head.

Why, even though our skin was touching –my arms around the back of his neck, his bare fingers skimming the bare skin of my lower back where my shirt had ridden up-, was I not seeing the vision again? Ever since my eleventh birthday, I'd been able to see the visions at the slightest brush of someone's skin against my own. Every single time, without fail. It always happened. Edward had proved already to be no exception. Then why wasn't the vision repeating itself as we continued skin-to-skin contact? I didn't understand it.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, his lips brushing against my ear. I shivered against him, my brain clearing of all of my worries for a second. But when he pressed a soft kiss to my temple and, again, I didn't see the vision, they came rushing back.

"I'm thinking about why I'm not trapped in a repeating vision of your death when you're still touching me." He pulled back to look at me, raising his eyebrow at my wording. I bit the corner of my lip to keep myself from smiling. "What? It's true. Just like always, I saw it when our skin first touched. But once it was over . . . it didn't show again. But we're still touching." I tightened my arms around his neck and wiggled my hips a little so his fingers slid against my skin to show him what I meant. His eyes darkened a little, and his fingers dug into my back to pull me close again as he lowered his face to mine.

He slanted his mouth over mine, kissing me gently and slowly. Our lips moved together softly, and I felt the pressure all the way down to my toes. I'd never felt anything like it in my life. I never wanted him to stop, but I needed to know what he thought the answer to my question was. Pressing one more soft kiss to his lips and dreading what I had to do, I pulled away, dropped my arms, and stepped back far enough for his hands to slip off my waist. His lower lip jutted out into a pout, and I giggled a little. He was actually really cute when he was being playful.

"Edward, I'm serious. I don't understand this." He sighed and nodded, moving to sit down on the edge of my bed. I sat next to him carefully so our skin didn't brush. Even after everything that had just happened between us, I was still slightly hesitant to change the way I'd always kept everyone at a distance because of my power. It was difficult to imagine going from pushing everyone away to completely letting someone into my life in just a day. He already knew more than anyone outside my parents did, and my head was starting to spin as doubts began creeping into my head.

Edward was a great person. From what I'd witnessed so far, he was funny, smart, and so, so sweet. He cared about people easily, and was nice without fail. He gave his trust and his kindness freely, and saw the best in people first, instead of making snap judgments and jumping to conclusions. As far as I could tell, he was a great person.

And me? What could I offer him? I wasn't special . . . at least, not in a good way. I was a freak, with no friends or social life. I had a shitty family situation, with a father who died and mother who wanted to send me away because she couldn't handle the fact that her only child wasn't perfect. There was nothing about me that could hold him in my life. I wasn't good enough for him, and I was afraid he'd realize that if we got any closer. What if I completely let him in, trusted him with my heart, only for him to figure out he could do better and hurt me?

Maybe I should push him away now, before he has a chance to hurt me, I thought to myself, looking down at my hands in my lap. Edward only allowed me a couple seconds to think before he reached towards me, the sleeve of his sweatshirt pulled over his hand so he didn't touch my skin, and lifted my chin with his finger. He turned my face towards him and forced me to meet his gaze. I stared at him for awhile as his eyes bounced back and forth between mine.

"Nope," he said, shaking his head. My eyebrows furrowed, and he removed his hand from my jaw to rub his sleeve covered fingers over my forehead to smooth out the creases it'd caused. "Don't, Bella. I'm serious. It won't work."

"What are you talking about?" I asked quietly, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. I was surprised at how much pain it caused me to think of pushing him away now, when I had just found him. But I also understood why it would upset me. I hadn't allowed myself to have a friend since I was younger and didn't understand what my gift was. Because loving someone in any way, just to find out how they died and not have a clue how to stop it, was agonizing. So from a very young age, I decided not to love anyone. My dad was the once person I'd allowed myself to love unconditionally, but I hadn't been able to help him, either, despite all of my warnings to him that he would die in the line of duty. I still remembered the first time I'd seen his death.

I was five years old, and my father had taken the day off from work. He let me stay home from school, too, because it was my birthday and he wanted to spend it with me. While my mom was at work, he'd brought me to the Fork's Diner, really the only place to eat out in the tiny town, and bought me the biggest ice cream sundae I'd ever eaten in my life. As he sat there across from me, making me laugh and turning me into even more of a diehard daddy's girl, he picked up his spoon and went to steal a bite of my ice cream. I reached to push his hand away, and when my knuckles touched his thumb, I was sucked into the vision of his death for the first time, despite the fact that it hadn't been the first time his skin had touched mine.

He was standing with his back against a brick wall, a gun held in between his hands and brought up against his chest to keep it steady. He was nervous, and his hands were shaking slightly as he released one from around the gun and reached into his jacket pocket. He felt around for a couple seconds before his fingers closed on something thin and hard, yet slightly flimsy, and he gently pulled it out to look at it. It was a laminated picture of me, one I hadn't seen by my fifth birthday, so I figured it must not have been taken by that point. In the picture, I was smiling widely, my brown eyes happy as I held a tiny kitten in my arms. He exhaled a breath and whispered my name reverently. "Bella." That one softly spoken word held all the sadness and grief of someone sure they were about to lose everything that mattered most to them, everything they loved most in the world.

"Swan, lovely to see you again." The voice rang out next to him just a second before he felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed against his left temple. He closed his eyes and dropped his own gun onto the ground, his other hand tightening around the picture of me. He brought it up to his face and pressed his trembling lips against the smooth photo. "Who's that, Swan?" the voice asked mockingly. "Your bitch?" With an angry growl, my father released the picture and spun towards the man, attempting to wrestle the gun out of his hands. The gun went off three times in rapid succession, and my father fell to the ground, his hands coming up to cup the blood flowing from the bullet wound in his neck. The last thing he saw was the picture of me on the ground an inch in front of his face before everything went black, and I was sucked out of his body and thrown back into my own.

When the vision ended, I'd absolutely lost my shit in the middle of the diner. I'd started screaming and crying and begging my daddy not to leave me, to never leave me. He'd wrapped his arms around me and held me to him as he fished a few bills out of his wallet and put them on the table, and he didn't let me go until I fell asleep on his chest in his car, still in the Diner's parking lot. I tried so hard to get him to listen to me, to explain the vision to him so he could prevent it. But he never listened. While he knew my visions were always accurate, and he believed that I'd seen what I told him, he didn't change anything about his life to keep it from happening. He'd just hold me as I cried and tell me that everything was going to be okay.

But the vision came true. He was killed. He got shot twice in the neck and bled out behind an old building in Seattle. Nothing was ever okay again. And the worst part of it was . . .

His killer was never found.

Thanks for reading! :)

So, I got a few reviews asking why Bella told Edward her secret so fast, and when I was thinking about it, I realized my plan for this story as it is doesn't really explain that. So I'm just going to tell you now. Bella hasn't had anyone to talk to or really confide in since her father died when she was twelve. She's seventeen. That's a long time to not have anyone you really feel like you can trust. So, even though she was trying to push Edward away, part of her is desperate for the companionship he's offering. She's been feeling alone for so long without anyone to help her through the tough times she's going through, and Edward is there offering the friendship she doesn't even fully realize she wants so bad. And on top of that, she is completely convinced she's being sent away. Renee's mind is made up that she can't stay, and she cannot figure out a way out of it. So she doesn't think she'll be around Edward for that much longer anyway. Unconsciously she figures she'll just confide in him, allow him to be there for her, to be the kind of friend she needs, and then be sent away out of his life forever. It's like telling someone you don't know -who you'll never see again- your deepest, darkest secret just to get it out of your system. Like a weight lifting off your shoulders just so it doesn't feel like you have to carry the burden of it alone anymore. Does that make sense?

Anyone ever been there? Where you have a secret you just desperately need to tell someone? But you can't tell anyone you know for whatever reason? I definitely have.

Also, there have been some reviews asking why Edward is so persistent in getting Bella to be his friend -or more. That will become clearer in later chapters as she gets to know him a little bit better. But it also got me thinking: should I write an EPOV of the first couple chapters and post it as an outtake? That way you'll know from Edward himself what draws him to Bella, and why he just won't let it go. I'm leaning towards yes, but ultimately it's your decision. Let me know either way in a review! (I've actually already written an EPOV of the first chapter . . . so I'll probably post it later this week or sometime next week after some maintenance unless I get reviews specifically asking me not to.)

Also, in regards to the sequel to Life On the Island . . . I am working on it. I will be posting the first chapter sometime in March. I'm not sure what that updating schedule will be like, or if it will interfere with the updating schedule of this story, but I hate disappointing everyone who keeps asking for it. I will work as hard as I can to get as many chapters written as I can, and I'll try very hard to keep a consistent updating schedule for both. I'm going to try my best to not let you down.

R&R! Thanks again! Love you all :D