AN: Hey guys, so sorry for the formatting issues when I uploaded yesterday, I have no idea what happened. Hopefully this goes through okay .

Chapter 4: Invitations

Charlie was predictability frantic but calmed down as soon as I told him Carine had seen me and pronounced me well. His faith in her seemed to be absolute. Nevertheless, I let him support me out of the exit doors while Beau deftly intercepted our friends. I might have been seeing things, but it seemed like Edythe was shooting stern looks at anyone else who tried to get close. Something about the Cullens made most people avoid them at the best of times, I could only imagine the impact of one of them trying to ward someone off. Actually, I didn't have to imagine it – I'd been on the receiving end of such looks from Edward enough times now to know.

We drove home, and I had to get on the phone and reassure my mother that I was alright; to my horror, Charlie had told her what happened. When she was finally suitably mollified, Charlie insisted I go straight to bed. Even though I assured him once again that I didn't have a concussion, he stayed home and checked on me every few hours, scolding me if I was doing anything more strenuous than reading a book. It was frustrating to say the least. He kept wanting to do something for me, so I asked for the pain meds the doctor had recommended and some food around lunch time. He brought me the pills with a big glass of water and a slightly lopsided sandwich, and the frustration ebbed in favour of a surge of gratitude. He was really trying hard. I remembered the flap Renée had been in on the phone, the same way she would always get whenever I was sick. Charlie's helpless parent panic was subtler, quieter, but no less impactful. I could picture him hovering over Beau in the grips of some childhood flu or stomach bug, desperately trying to find something useful to do. I thanked him for the sandwich with a kiss on the cheek that made him go red and retreat very quickly.

Around three, I had the sudden wild thought that the truck might not make it home, but I needn't have worried; it roared into the driveway right on time.

"Barely a scratch, just needs new taillights," Beau reported when I asked after the beast. "Maybe could do with a paint touch-up, but I don't think there's much point, honestly. Tyler's van is totalled, his parents aren't going to be happy."

"What about the other car, the beige one we parked next to?" I asked, hoping I wasn't being too obvious. "I think it got a little dinged up."

He shrugged. "Looked fine to me. And I told everyone the story to spread, should've pretty well disseminated by tomorrow morning."

"It's not a story, it's what happened," I insisted.

"Sure, of course." He sounded like he totally bought it now, unlike earlier in the ambulance. "Still, be prepared. A lot of people are going to be looking for a first-hand account."

And so they were. Everywhere I went on Wednesday, there were curious looks and eager, probing questions. Mercifully, it didn't take many repetitions of the same story for people to get bored and stop asking. McKayla and Jeremy in particular seemed very disappointed that there weren't more details to be had. Almost everyone I spoke to said they hadn't even seen Edward there until the van was pulled away, but few of them questioned it too deeply. Clearly, I was the only one so embarrassingly aware of the infuriating boy to have noticed his sudden change of location.

Another mercy was that Edythe finally warmed up to me. When she came to say good morning, she spared Beau only the briefest of kisses before sliding her arm through mine. My brother made some spluttery, incoherent noises of protest, but she hushed him firmly and started talking to me as she all but dragged me across campus.

"How are you feeling?" was her first question, sincere concern her foremost emotion.

"Fine," I replied, trying not to seem too taken aback by her abrupt about-face. "Nothing hurts anymore. Tell your mother thank you, the Tylenol really helped."

Edythe fairly beamed at that, and the sight was breath-taking. "Oh, she'll be so glad, I'll be sure to pass that along. She said you might have a bit of a goose egg behind your ear, but..." She studied the fall of my hair carefully. "You can't tell at all."

I smiled, patting my hair self-consciously. I'd found the lump in question that morning, but I hadn't even thought of it being visible. "Thanks, good to know."

She took full control of the conversation then, regaling me with an account of the reaction to the accident at her house, the fussing over Edward, particularly from their father, Earnest. I told her about Charlie, and we laughed together at the silliness of overprotective dads. According to Edythe, once it was established that her brother was perfectly fine, the mood had switched to annoyance that Carine had had a chance to meet me while the others remained strangers. That surprised me a little; the kids, at least, could come and talk to me whenever they wanted. I decided not to say so though, because honestly, Edythe's brother and sisters made me nervous. I had briefly caught a glimpse of the other four Cullen siblings as they loaded me up yesterday. Unlike my brother, they hadn't charged forward to see if Edward was okay, and my passing glance over their expressions had revealed more anger and disapproval than concern. Alice had maybe looked a little worried, but at me, not her sibling. Rosalie's glare had been absolutely murderous.

Edythe walked with us all the way to English, though Beau hinted more than once that it was the wrong direction for her first class. He trailed behind the two of us, sulking over his sudden abandonment. Edythe indulged him with a firmer kiss at the classroom door – drawing more than a few stares – while I went inside, shaking my head at them.

By contrast to Edythe's sudden friendly mood, her brother seemed to have decided to ignore my very existence. I greeted him in Biology with self-assurance and calm, knowing I had done exactly what he asked of me all day.

"Good afternoon, Edward."

His only response was a curt nod. He wouldn't make eye contact and continued to sit at the extreme far end of the table. He acted like I wasn't even there. We had no further contact that class, or any other time for the rest of the week... or the next week. I glanced at him from time to time across the cafeteria, watched him walking between buildings or across the parking lot – he turned out to be the mysterious driver of the Volvo – but he never looked at me. His golden eyes steadily darkened toward black, then turned honey-coloured, then darkened again. Piqued, I tried to show him no more attention than he showed me, all while wishing Mr Banner would set another lab so he would be forced to talk to me. It was miserable.

A month passed in just the same way. Tyler continued to be a nightmare, constantly pestering me for ways to make things right. I came right out and told him that all I wanted was for him to forget about it, and Beau tried to warn him off several times, but he wouldn't let it go, tracking me down between classes and always trying to sit by me at lunch. Logan seemed weirdly annoyed by his attention, though I couldn't fathom why. Edythe proved to be the most effective ward against him, and she took to waiting for me at the cafeteria door so that we were always well into a conversation by the time we sat down. She would then monopolise my attention for the whole hour, so Tyler didn't have a chance to get a word in. The two of us continued to get to know each other, finding we had a lot more in common than we realised. We had a lot of mutual favourite books, movies and music, and similar opinions about things like manners and double standards. She even began spending the weekends at our house rather than whisking Beau away to hers, and often the three of us would hang out together. Beau joked that she was practically dating both of us and got a couch cushion to the head for his trouble. I also realised, as my comfort grew and I found I could observe her more easily, that Edythe had exactly the same strange golden eyes as her brother, darkening and lightening in almost exactly the same pattern. This similarity, so specific, a trait so bizarre in one and so completely beyond unlikely in two, confused me more than almost anything else about their odd family. I began wondering if all of them were somehow the same that way, as they were in so many others, but I was never close enough to Alice, Jasper, Eleanor or Rosalie to be able to tell.

Much to my frustration, the time was also marked with repeated dreams staring Edward. In them, it was always very dark. Edward, several yards away from me, observed me through cold, black eyes, then turned and walked away, leaving me alone in the blackness. I ran and shouted, but I couldn't catch up with him and he never turned back around. Time and time again, the frantic need to reach him woke me in the middle of the night, anxious and twitchy and unable to sleep for a long time. I was back to being tired most days, which sucked. This, coupled with my own irrational irritation with my unconscious mind, led me to lash out, at my brother in particular. He took it in stride and gave as good as he got, but Charlie had to break up more than one fight at the dinner table and finally threatened to ground us both if we didn't quit it. That had made me cry, which neither of the boys knew how to deal with. Something of my dour mood must have shown through in my emails to Renée, or perhaps Beau or Charlie or both were feeding her their own version of events. She called often, always expressing concern, offering to go back home if that was what I needed. I reassured her as best I could, and put concerted effort into regulating my behaviour, only allowing myself to fall apart in the privacy of my room.

On the school front, the Spring Dance was on the horizon and it was all that many people could talk about from the moment the first posters went up. The girls were particularly excited; the Spring Dance was traditionally a girl's choice dance, and there seemed to be a lot of ladies looking for the perfect opportunity to make a move on their current crush. To all our surprise, Erica was the first girl in our group to bag a date, securing a yes from one Silas Bergman, a sophomore she knew from Debate Team. Jeremy was eyeing McKayla, hoping she would ask him but never able to catch her alone to give her the opportunity, much to his frustration. Even Angela seemed to have a boy in mind, though she was cagey about who and insisted that it would never work. The other boys were grumbling about having to wait to be asked by a girl. I privately thought Logan seemed to object to the idea of going anywhere with any girl, ever, while Tyler watched me with an expectant air that I did not like at all. Edythe and Beau observed the whole procedure with somewhat wistful expressions and somehow became even more gooey, no doubt basking in memories of their own first date. They had decided not to go, which surprised me at first.

"Dances aren't really our thing," Beau said when I asked. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you what fresh hell results from me trying to dance."

I did understand and made suitably sympathetic noises. Edythe giggled.

"You do look ever so dashing in a tux, my love," she said, stroking his cheek lovingly and smoothing down the front of his flannel shirt like it was the lapel of a suit jacket. "And I know you loved me in that dress."

"Well, yeah, duh," my brother stammered, turning bright red.

She smouldered at him for a moment longer before releasing him and turning to me. "The dance was really just the excuse I needed to chivvy him along a little."

"You knew he liked you," I said with a grin, not even having to ask. I could just picture 15-year-old Beau, utterly unable to hide his fascination with this beautiful girl. I felt just a twinge of irritation at the realisation that 17-year-old me probably wasn't doing much better with her brother.

Edythe laughed softly. "Oh yes, I knew. My siblings thought I was completely insane, asking out a total stranger like that. But who could resist this cute face?"

She squeezed Beau's chin lightly. He made a horrendous face at her, crossing his eyes, scrunching up his nose and poking his tongue out of the side of his mouth. We both laughed at him, she kissed his cheek and he pinged back to normal, grinning widely.

"And the rest, as they say, is history," he finished, touching his forehead to hers. I smiled. Now that I knew Edythe better and had had a real chance to see them interact, I found I felt the same about my brother's relationship as I did my mother's. I knew I should be dismissive of such intense young love – goodness knows Renée had raised me to be – but there was a sense of permanence to the way Beau and Edythe were together which made me think that theirs might be the one in a million high school sweethearts story that actually went the distance. Now, if we could only get Charlie settled, I mused as I walked to Biology; everything about our house made me painfully aware that he had never gotten over Renée.

McKayla had taken to perching on the edge of my lab table before class started, perhaps taking heart from the fact that Edward ignored her as thoroughly as he ignored me. Following my lead, she blanked him in return, chattering about everything and nothing until Mr Banner called us to order. She was more disappointed than I was about the aborted snowball fight – it didn't snow again – but was now looking ahead to a beach trip that she was trying to organise, which only needed a break in the rain to go ahead. The day Beau announced he wasn't going to the dance, however, she was focused on the same subject.

"So," she said, a teasing glint in her eye. "Who are you planning to ask to the dance?"

I baulked. "No one. I'm not going."

That seemed to surprise her, though I couldn't fathom why. She'd seen me in Gym, after all. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Edward's head tilt just slightly towards us, like he was listening too.

"Really? Oh." She was thoughtful for a moment, then smiled conspiratorially again. "Jeremy will be disappointed. He definitely wants you to ask him."

I laughed. "Are you kidding? Kay, he obviously wants you to ask him."

She blinked a few times. "You think?"

"I know," I assured her. "He's been flirting with you for at least as long as I've known you both."

She was frowning a little now. "Jeremy. Huh."

"You should ask him," I prompted. "Sooner rather than later. It's really not nice to keep stringing the poor boy along."

I made my tone teasing so she would know I wasn't telling her off. She smiled and I could practically see the gears turning in her head.

"You know, I think I will. Thanks for the heads up, Bella."

"No problem. Now we just have to figure out who Angela wants to ask."

"Ha! Good luck with that." She gave me a searching look. "You're really not going?"

"I don't dance," I insisted, making a face. "Coordination and I are not good friends."

"Oh, right," she cringed, no doubt remembering my various PE disasters. "But you could still come, you know. We could make it a group thing, I'm sure all the boys would dance with you if you asked, and they wouldn't make it a big deal if you trod on their toes or something."

I shook my head firmly. "Sorry. Besides, I'm going to Seattle that weekend, I'm in desperate need of a decent bookstore." The plan was concocted on the spot, a convenient excuse that I hoped she would pass on to anyone else who asked, but I quickly decided that a trip to the big city wasn't actually a bad idea.

"Your loss, I guess," she said with a shrug. "Enjoy yourself."

She hopped off the desk then and crossed to her own seat as Mr Banner called the class together.

Perhaps out of habit, perhaps prompted by some sixth sense, I glanced sideways at my partner. To my intense surprise, he was looking at me. His black eyes were full of frustration again, and though I returned the stare he didn't look away. He seemed to be searching for something in my eyes.

"What?" I hissed.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

I huffed and focused stubbornly on the teacher, who helpfully called on Edward for an answer, though I'd managed to miss the question. I tried hard to stamp down the surge of emotion that I felt, purely from him acknowledging me for the first time in nearly six weeks. My knee bounced for a good five minutes before I finally calmed down. When class ended, I stacked my books, expecting him to race away as usual. He didn't.

"Bella," he said, his voice wrapping around my name in a way that I shouldn't like as much as I did.

I raised an eyebrow at him, inviting him to say whatever he wanted to say, but he was silent.

"Are you talking to me again?" I prompted.

"Not really," he replied, half-smiling now. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, resisting the urge to swing my books at his stupid, perfect, confusing, distracting face.

"I'm sorry," he went on, in defiance of his own pronouncement. "I'm being unconscionably rude, I know. But it's better this way, trust me."

I frowned. "I don't understand."

"It's better if we're not friends."

Well, that was one I'd heard before. I refused to acknowledge how much more hurtful the words were coming from this beautiful boy compared to, say, Chrissy Jones uninviting me to her sleepover in 4th grade.

"Maybe you should have figured that out earlier," I snapped, turning my sour mood firmly onto him. "Saved yourself all this regret."

He went from serious to perplexed in the blink of an eye. "Regret? For what?"

"For saving me. You should have just let Tyler hit me, then you wouldn't have to deal with me anymore."

His mood shifted again, changeable as ever. Now it was somewhere between aghast and angry. "You honestly think I regret saving your life?"

"You obviously do," I shot back, hating the sadness creeping into my tone.

He let out the strangest hissing sound, with just the barest hint of a growl low in his throat. "You don't know what you're talking about, Bella."

Just like that, I was done. Done with this conversation, done with his condescending attitude, done with him altogether.

"Whatever, Edward." I swept my books into my arms and stalked toward the door. My dramatic exit was spoiled when my toe caught the lip of the door frame and I stumbled, dropping my pile loudly. I half-considered leaving them there, but of course that was stupid. But by the time I stooped to collect them, they were already gone, gathered back into a pile and politely offered by Edward's white hands. I snatched them rudely and continued marching away from him, feeling the heat of his stare on the back of my head the whole time.

I caught a break in Gym; we were moving on to basketball, and it was Coach Clapp's habit to spend a session explaining rules and doing demonstrations before letting us loose on a new sport. Beau and I were very deliberately not called on to help with any examples.

The downside was that I had plenty of time to stew, so my ire had not entirely cooled by the end of the hour. Beau trailed behind me as I stalked towards the truck, his customary goodbye with Edythe cut short by my perfunctory, "Let's go." I knew I should feel bad, and I did, but I was just a little bit more angry than repentant and not quite able to face the kind, lovely girl who never failed to remind me of her endlessly frustrating sibling.

"You okay?" my brother asked nervously once we were safely ensconced in the cab, me behind the wheel. I just shook my head, seethed and pulled out of the spot.

Only to have to slam on the brakes when Edward's Volvo swung out into the lane and idled in front of us. I could see from here that his siblings weren't in the car yet; they were still crossing the parking lot, Edythe looking disapprovingly in his direction.

"For crying out loud!" I fumed, rounding on my helpless brother. "What the hell is his problem?"

Beau looked a little scared. "I don't know, you pissed him off somehow."

I growled and revved the engine, the ever-present grumble surging into a deafening roar. I would just clip his bumper, that wouldn't hurt him. Just take a chunk out of that shiny silver paint job.

Beau must have seen in my eyes where my mind was headed. "Don't do it, Bell," he warned. I ignored him and revved again.

A tap on my window made us both jump. Tyler was stood there, smiling idiotically. I wrestled the window down far enough to talk to him.

"Sorry, Tyler, we're stuck behind Cullen." I griped.

"I know," he said cheerfully, not even seeming to care that a line was rapidly forming behind his new used Sentra. "But I thought, since we're trapped here, I might as well come and ask you something."

My stomach dropped. I had a pretty good idea what was coming.

"Will you ask me to go to the Spring Dance with you?" Tyler went on, oblivious to my mood.

"I'm not going to be in town, Tyler," I replied sharply, willing Beau to really be telepathic and not question my lovely little excuse. He was mercifully silent.

"Yeah, that's what McKayla said," Tyler admitted.

"Then why-"

He shrugged. "I thought maybe she made it up, to stop any other guys from pestering you, you know. Some kind of weird girl solidarity thing."

I ground my teeth and refrained from pointing out that he was the only boy pestering me with any regularity.

"I'm sorry, Tyler," I said stiffly, not meaning it in the slightest. "I really am going out of town."

His breezy mood was unaffected. "No worries, we still have Prom."

Before I could say a word, he strode off back to his car. I gaped after him.

"Yeah, you're gonna wanna nip that in the bud," Beau mused from the other side of the cab. "That's his 'I mean business' voice. Chances are he'll show up on our doorstep come Prom night, even if you don't say another word to him between now and then."

I made an angry, frustrated noise somewhere between a growl and a scream and dropped my head to the steering wheel. The horn honked loudly, and I jolted back upright in time to see Alice and Jasper slide into the back seat of the Volvo. In the next space over, still parked, the three older girls were also getting into Edythe's car, and Rosalie was glaring from driver to driver as if she couldn't decide who she was angrier at. I could just see Edward's eyes watching me in his rear-view mirror; they were crinkled around the edges and his shoulders were shaking. The ass was laughing at me. I leaned on the horn again, deliberately this time, but the sound barely started blaring before the Volvo shot off out of the lot and into the street. In the time it took me to gather myself and get back in gear, Edythe had calmly pulled out and followed him.

If I'd had any hope that my twin would let me seethe in silence as we drove home, it didn't last long.

"When did you get to be such an angry person?" he asked, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. "Seriously, what happened to my sweet, gentle little sister?"

"Two minutes," I snapped, annoyed with myself that even now I couldn't control that reflex. "And Edward Cullen happened. He's completely infuriating! 'It's better if we're not friends,' what the hell does that even mean?"

I'd muttered the last part to myself, not expecting him to hear, but he had.

"He actually said that to you?" He sounded troubled.

I nodded tightly. "Then basically called me an idiot because I pointed out something which is obviously true. All after being a complete tool at the hospital and ignoring me ever since..." I gripped the steering wheel, the material creaking slightly, and willed away the angry tears threatening to form. "Makes me want to kill him."

"Hey now!" Beau held out his hands placatingly. "Don't say that while I'm here. I want plausible deniability when they start pressing charges." He sat up straighter, goofing around now, one hand in the air as if taking an oath. "'No, Your Honour, I had no idea my sister would try to run down my girlfriend's brother outside the Thriftway. History of violent outbursts? That's news to me, sir.'"

Somehow, the sheer stupidity of his actions broke through my pulsing rage and I laughed. He grinned, latching on to my amusement and coming up with mock denials to ever more elaborate attempted murder schemes the whole way home. I did notice that in no scenario did I apparently succeed in ridding myself of the boy-menace, and I figured that was his way of reprimanding me. I'd calmed down by the time I parked up on the kerb, leaving the driveway for Charlie as usual. Still, I knew spending too much time thinking about Edward would put me back in a bad mood, so I strove to distract myself with the complex preparation of chicken enchiladas. It didn't completely work; I was too practiced with chopping and slicing and monitoring the state of the frying pan to have to devote all my attention to my tasks. But I did my best, and I at least managed to hold the new 'Angel of Vengeance' side of my personality in check for the rest of the evening.

Charlie looked suspicious when he caught the smell of green peppers. I had noticed that Beau's cooking tended toward comfort food, old favourites that he knew our dad would like, probably because they reflected a lot of the diner fare that I remembered being the staples of our vacation time diets. I was more varied in my influences, and it showed in what I made. I preened ever so slightly when Charlie's apprehension vanished after the first bite.

"This is really good, Bells," he enthused in a very un-Charlie-ish way.

"Agreed," Beau said, equally as enthusiastic. "Reminds me of that restaurant in Phoenix that Mom took us to that one time, do you remember? She called it 'the good Mexican place.'"

I smiled. "Gabriel's, I remember. We used to go there all the time." What I'd made wasn't nearly as good as that, but I still felt a surge of pride that I was getting the boys to trust my cooking. I mentally catalogued a few more world food options to trial in the coming weeks.

"Hey, Dad," I ventured when he was almost done. "I just wanted to let you know, I'm heading to Seattle, a week on Saturday. If that's okay." I didn't like the precedent that asking permission set, but I felt rude, so I tacked on the last sentence to soften it slightly.

Charlie frowned. "Why?" Like he couldn't imagine anything Forks couldn't provide.

"Mainly I want to find a good bookstore," I said with a shrug. "And I could use some more warm weather clothes. It's colder here than I was expecting." I realised belatedly that my source of transportation might not be available. "I can have the truck, right, Beau?"

Beau nodded easily, munching happily. "Fine by me, I have plans with Edythe. She won't mind picking me up."

The furrow in Charlie's brow deepened. "You aren't going with her, Beau? Seattle is a big city, she could get lost."

"Phoenix is bigger," I pointed out, not about to be treated like some helpless damsel in my own home. "And I can read a map."

"Bella can take care of herself, Dad," Beau reassured him, grinning at me in a way that showed he was thinking about my aggressive attitude this afternoon. "You'll want to watch the gas tank though, the truck's mileage is awful."

I'd considered that. "I have a bit of extra money saved up, I'll stop whenever I have to."

Charlie was convinced at last and moved on to the next concern. "Will you be back in time for the dance?"

Of course, everyone in town knew the schedule of dances at the high school. "No, Dad, I'm not going."

There was a teasing glint in my father's eye, but a twinge of worry too. "No one ask you?"

"It's girl's choice, Dad," Beau reminded him.

"Oh, right. Well, no one caught your eye then?"

"Dad," I whined, not wanting to touch that one. There was, of course, one boy who had caught much more than my eye, but I was refusing to think about him.

"Alright, alright, I get it," Charlie surrendered, letting the subject drop.

The next day, I wanted to park as far from the Cullens as I could. Avoidance, beyond what was absolutely necessary, seemed like the best course of action if we wanted to keep from playing out one of Beau's courtroom scenarios. But it was my brother's turn to drive, and he parked right by Edythe's white Impala, as he did whenever possible. The silver Volvo was on the other side.

Edythe was waiting by the front of her car and danced up to Beau at once. She seemed to be in an especially good mood this morning, eager to pull him away towards the school buildings. Edythe tended to be a more reserved sort of girl; I'd always noticed the air of maturity, poise and all-round refinement that she emanated. She often seemed a lot older than eighteen and wasn't generally one to bounce or get over-excited, but this morning she was practically hovering. I trailed behind her and my brother, contemplating what on earth could have put her in such high spirits.

"Good morning."

The voice beside me was gentle, not loud or especially startling in and of itself, but it was so sudden that I jumped half a foot and instinctively clutched at my chest. Out of nowhere, Edward was walking beside me, an amused smile at my reaction already spreading across his lips. I glared.

"What, are you trying to give me a heart attack now?"

That brought the smirk out in full force, coupled with the intense burn of his now light golden eyes. "That would we rather counterproductive, don't you think? After the effort I've already expended to keep it beating."

"Could have fooled me," I griped, my eyes stubbornly forward as I continued marching towards English. "Apparently pretending I don't exist didn't work so you've decided to irritate me to death."

Edward sighed heavily. "Bella, you are being absurd. I'm not trying to cause your demise by any means."

I wasn't sure if I was imagining the very slight hesitation before he said the word 'demise', almost as if he didn't like it. I turned my head just slightly to look at him, and there was sad twist to his eyes, though the lopsided smile was still firmly in place.

"The traffic jam last night?" I reminded him.

He chuckled. "That was for Tyler's benefit, not mine. I've noticed you can be a little… unobservant at times, and I had to give the poor boy a chance."

"You…" Infuriating, insufferable, exasperating, obnoxious, aggravating… The string of adjectives refused to resolve at an appropriately awful noun, so all the words stayed trapped behind a wall of sheer fury. I felt the urge to hit him and put on a surge of speed, trying to give myself the distance I so desperately needed.

"Wait!" He wasn't having it, his long legs catching up and keeping pace with me easily. "I'm sorry, that was rude. Not untrue," he qualified, "but rude of me to say, nonetheless."

"Please just leave me alone," I said, praying again that I wouldn't start crying.

"Can I ask you something first? I did have a purpose in walking with you this morning, but you side-tracked me."

I huffed. "Fine. You have 30 seconds."

"I was wondering if, a week from Saturday – you know, the day of the Spring Dance –"

I whirled on him, furious. "Are you kidding me?"

"I still have 20 seconds," he reminded me, too calm for my liking.

I made a curt 'get on with it' gesture.

"I wondered if you wanted a ride for that trip to Seattle."

That brought me up short. Until yesterday, this boy had barely even given me the time of day. Now he was volunteering to spend an eight hour round trip with me in the enclosed space of his car.

"Why?" I asked, every bit of my confusion in my voice.

He shrugged. "I've been planning my own trip to the city, and I've seen that truck in action, I'm not sure it will make it there and back."

I started heading for class again, wiping away the rain that had dripped onto my face from looking up at him. "The truck will be just fine, thank you very much."

"But can it get all the way to Seattle and back on just one tank of gas?" he pressed, keeping up with me again.

"None of your business," I grumped, well aware I was being juvenile.

"We all have a responsibility to preserve our planet's finite resources," he said, eminently reasonable. "I'm just trying to do my part."

"I don't understand you, Edward," I sighed, hating the thrill that skittered up my spine just from saying his name. "I know we should at least try to get along, for Beau and Edythe's sake, but I thought you didn't want to be friends."

"I said it would be better if we weren't friends, not that I didn't want to be."

"Because that makes complete sense." My words dripped sarcasm. I stopped walking and looked up at him; we were under the overhang of the cafeteria roof now, so I could do it without getting my face wet. Unfortunately, his face was so completely distracting that I was in danger of losing my train of thought completely.

"It would be more… prudent for you not to be my friend," he elaborated, not clearing my confusion at all. "But as you say, our siblings have ensured that we are going to be in each other's lives for the foreseeable future. And if I'm being honest, I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella."

For what felt like the first time since I'd met him, Edward's expression was pure honesty. His voice was low, and the look in his eyes was akin to the smouldering gaze that his sister gave my brother at their most intensely romantic. That was ludicrous, of course – the idea that anything like that could happen between Edward and I. But still, I couldn't quite catch my breath as our eyes held.

"Will you let me take you to Seattle?" he murmured, his tone gentle yet demanding a response.

My throat had gone dry and I could only nod.

He smiled very slightly, then his face went serious again.

"You really ought to stay away from me," he warned. "I'll see you later."

Then he pivoted on his heel and walked away into the rain.