Disclaimer: I'm only playing in the world of Twilight. It's not my world. Unfortunately.

A/N: Yes, it is a point of view switch. Welcome to the story in Edward's head. You'll find that I do this a lot. And I'm not gonna tell you when I do anymore. You should be able to pick up on it easily.

Chapter Two

I supposed Charlie had a right to hate me.

Any normal, sane father would, even without a knowledge of what I really was. A revelation of that sort would surely push Charlie over the edge. I couldn't help but wonder if he had ever had any suspicion about my family. Surely Billy Black had said something by now. And yet, nothing in his current thoughts spoke of any qualms about vampires.

The only thing on his mind at the moment was how much he hated teenage boys in general. I couldn't help but find some of his plotting against me more than a little amusing.

My steps carried me quickly to my car. I could see Bella through the thin material of the curtains, looking up at her father through those long, dark eyelashes that I loved so much. Again, there was that insistent frustration at not knowing her thoughts.

She never told me everything.

She has a right not to, I fumed at myself as I slid into my seat and jammed the key into the ignition. I heard the engine turn over and fire smoothly, sounds that didn't register to the human ear. I backed carefully out of the drive: the last thing that I needed now was to give Charlie an excuse to write me a ticket.

My thoughts couldn't be occupied with the police chief of Forks for long though. They quickly raced on to contemplating his only daughter.

Holding her in my arms again was the closest I was ever going to get to heaven. Or was it? Her observations still left me staggered. Was it really in my heart to believe Carlisle?

I glanced in my rearview mirror. Her house, her home, there with Charlie. How could she be so eager to leave all of that behind?

My foot found the accelerator easily, slamming it to the floor boards as soon as I'd left her street. The Volvo shuddered slightly under the abuse. Rosalie was going to have my head if I kept treating my car like this.

Or perhaps we'd be even.

Rosalie had suddenly begun practicing an amazing amount of self-control around me. The number of uncharitable thoughts about Bella had dwindled, and it was with no little amount of satisfaction to myself that I "heard" her berating herself.

I smiled wryly as I thought about the changes in my family's behavior. Though I was the youngest when I was changed, I still held the position of "elder brother", it seemed. Only Alice was able to find the courage – or would impertinence be a better word?—to question my actions in anything but a rhetorical manner.

It had taken forever to get her to tell me what Bella had gone through after I'd forced the departure of our family. When she finally did, she spoke quickly, quietly. Her normally careful patterns of speech were lost in her eagerness to escape me.

"Charlie said she just lost it at first, it was like she wasn't there at all. He tried to send her to her mother, but she wouldn't have it. He said she screamed in her sleep all the time. And after that, he made it sound like…. like she died, Edward."

"And I killed her."