"'Liv," I heard someone whisper. "Olivia, are you awake?"
I rolled over onto my side, burying my face in my pillow and failing to catch the irritated groan that escaped from my lips. When my aggravator persisted, I groggily lifted my head from my pillow to see Eli through the greasy, tangled netting of my hair. He looked exhausted, as if he hadn't slept at all, and his breath reeked of the faint scent of alcohol; I recognized the look on his face before he even said a word.
He was leaving.
"I should've guessed," I frowned, my head falling back into my pillow.
He put his hand on my arm. "I'm sorry to leave you to the dogs so readily, but I really should be getting back. I have some unattended business in New York, but, hey, I'll call more often, I promise. Us siblings gotta stick together, right…?" He noticed my downcast expression.
I took a deep breath.
"You can always visit me in Manhattan, kid, you know that," He smiled tiredly. "God, I don't want you to think that I'm always ditching you…"
"What were you doing last night?"
"Drowning my sorrows," He shook his head. "Dad was pissed and, hell, may the force be with you when he sees you next. But, yeah, I had to get out of the house, so I met up with a few friends from Beacon and went out. Nothing too crazy, I can reassure you—I wasn't in the mood."
I nodded. "No dancers or kegs, right?"
"You know me."
"Yes, I do."
"I'm getting better, really," He exhaled. "Believe me, that formal scared me outta my skin. You won't see me drinking myself blind anymore, not after that. Besides, once you get my age, you kind of want to remember what you did last night rather than let it all blur together, you know? Hayley's always on my back about it anyway. She's making sure that I take it easy."
"I'll have to meet her sometime soon," I told him. "I'd like to know my sister-in-law, if you don't mind."
"We're not technically married…" He paused. "Well, I guess we are, but we just skimped on the ceremony and the commitment part of it."
Almost as if a single word of what he said triggered my memory, I suddenly recalled last night and all of its glory. It was a dream, I was sure. But I wasn't about to readily accept that it was.
I had left the Cullens' an hour after I arrived—Edward wanted time for my scent to dissipate before his family returned home. My time there had had the essence of a dream, considering it now took me a long moment to remember how it had started and what the nature of it was. Never did I think—if I ever received the impossible opportunity to speak to Edward Cullen—I would ever forget what it was we had discussed. If anything, it should've be one of the most cherished conversations I would ever partake in. I should've recorded it, for goodness sake.
As I summoned up what I could remember of the conversation from the prior evening, I just then noticed the erratic spirit of our variable topics. They altered from lighthearted and casual—music I preferred or books I adored—to heavy and highly conditional—the mechanics of my involvement should the dice roll in my favor and I would be able to stay, however briefly, in Forks. Without any formal acknowledgement, we suddenly began speaking as if my permanence in this equation was inevitable, and we both knew that there were formalities to address if that were the case. Edward was convinced that my existence could only remain between us, to spare his family another round of the emotional trauma that gaining and losing a friend in Stephenie had caused them. We had constructed a few rules and regulations, as were necessary: I was allowed a limit of one visit a week and, at the finish of each stay, we would have to organize a proper occasion for my next pop-in, one where Edward's family was out; I was restricted to no more than an hour per visit, as that seemed fitting in order to keep my being a secret; and, the most important rule of all, I was to tell no one, in Edward's world, should I run into someone, or my own.
We would've made a pact in blood, but that seemed hardly appropriate. The intention was the same, though.
We were sworn to secrecy, Edward and I. And, whether the dream proved real or not, I had to at least treat it as if it was.
Eli knelt at my bedside letting me file my thoughts accordingly, though he hadn't a clue what they were about—and I knew that I could not tell him. He must've thought I was still faithful to the topic at hand, which I had, as a matter of fact, completely forgotten.
Only a few seconds had passed, so I didn't want to seem rude for having so quickly checked out of our conversation, seeing that it was the last I would share with my brother for however long.
"Hmm," I said, using my sleep depravity as an excuse for becoming sidetracked.
"Don't worry about me," Eli patted my head. Then he added, "And send Mom and Dad my best."
"They don't know you're leaving?"
"I got home, like, five minutes ago," He admitted. "They're still asleep."
"Oh." I exhaled noisily.
"Whew," Eli scrunched up his nose and waved his hand in front of his face. "Lovely morning breath, you've got there, 'Liv. Make sure you brush your teeth before homeroom."
"Homeroom." I moaned. "I forgot I have school."
"Happy Monday," Eli stood, kissed me on the top of my head, and strode to the door. He turned to look back at me and say, "Stay out a trouble, kid," before disappearing out my door and quietly making his way down the steps.
It was an unfortunately gloomy, wet morning that day on the coast. A few active fishermen were preparing to depart from the dock, while most of the sails remained tied down until tomorrow and whatever better weather it entailed; it would most likely storm today, as it periodically did after any particularly long, dry streak. The sun had certainly claimed its stake over the small little town for almost two weeks, so it was no wonder that the weathercast called for near four inches in the coming days.
The hilled streets were crowded with houses and shops in the innermost design of the costal port, chainlinked and cinderblock fences toward the western wooded side of town and weathered picket fences by the oceanfront. Just beyond the small supermarket was the high school on a short crest above the waves, the only public institution in town. There was a private hillside school farther up the coast, but Eli had not been very popular there, so my name on the file was the honest explanation they had given for my rejection. Beacon High School was no dump, though, and Beth was perfectly satisfied when I was accepted with flying colors.
On the southern side of campus was long brick wall that separated the grounds from the rest of the town. Against this wall was the running track, inside of which was a manicured football field, and a baseball field was just beyond it. The school itself was a tall brick structure, three levels in height with windows symmetrically aligned on its face. The parking lot, now glistening with lightly falling rain, was surrounded by a cluster of elderly oak trees that towered above everything else in sight, and provided some cover now that the rainfall began to pick up.
I was relatively early, so the lot was not crowded; only a few cars were parked on the blacktop, the majority of which being the faculty spaces. I did, however, notice Andrew Brier's car a few spots down. He and two other boys were at the hood of his pickup, waiting for the rest of the student body to arrive.
Andrew waved me over once I was out of my dry cabin and shivering in the crisp, misty air. "Olivia!" He called.
I shuffled over to them, creating ripples in the gathering puddles on the asphalt surface as I crossed the lot.
The three all played lacrosse, which was their claim to fame here, and they retained popularity though it was the offseason. I was friends with them by association—one of which I was lab partners with, and the other two I had met through my good friend, Jennifer Mitchell. We had all become quite a tight-knit group over the summer and our friendships had lasted throughout the first semester and into the first months of the New Year.
Andrew Brier was not especially tall—probably my height, I guessed—with golden-brown hair, consistently in disarray, and dark eyes. He filled the role of comedic relief quite eagerly freshman year and had upheld it ever since. Today he wore khaki pants and a formfitting polo, skillfully portraying the typical athletic, east coast teenager that seemed a trend in this place. He had been leaning against the grill of his truck, and moved forward to greet me as I approached.
The tallest of the three boys was Kevin Fulton, a blonde, pale, lanky teenager whose academic and athletic skill surmounted any shred of sociability he could muster. He was introverted, but courteous and thoughtful to those who knew him well—it was undemanding and uncomplicated to be his friend, he was not as pretentious as some of his friends.
And, if Kevin was the least pretentious, the last boy, Jack Brooks, was the living definition of the word. According to Andrew, though, Jack's ostentatious demeanor was simply pretense—he liked May Carroll, whom I had developed a close friendship with over the past few years, and his exaggerated personality was simply a ploy to impress her; as far as I knew, his attempts were futile, but, surprisingly, it was his persistence that flattered her. Jack was similar in stature to Andrew, though a bit wider at the shoulders, and had had a short, auburn crew cut for as long as I'd known him.
"How was dinner with the folks last night?" Andrew asked.
I blinked. Dinner felt like days ago. "Oh…eventful."
"I can imagine," Jack scoffed, draping his arm across the bed of the truck. "Did Eli make a scene?"
"I wish. I'll probably be grounded for a month." I stopped for a moment to consider my momentary luck. "Thank God I hadn't run into my parents on my way out of the house this morning."
"Well, you're really growing up, aren't you? Finally standing up to your folks?" Andrew said, his statement rather out of line considering most of my friends had never met my parents besides a quick 'hello' when they just so happened to cross my path when I had company over.
I did not want to think of my rash actions last night as rebelling, since that was more Eli's forte than my own, but the raw emotions were accurate, to say the least. It was the intention that was wrong—I should not have acted that way, in front of my dad's boss, no matter how good the redemption felt. Either way, I would not be savoring the sweet taste of victory much longer, if that were even what I was feeling now; my parents would not let me hear the end of this, at least until I found my place again and did not speak out of turn.
Kevin must have realized that I was in no state of mind—or mood—to truthfully answer Andrew's question, so he thankfully distracted me by asking, "Did you finish the Doctor Zhivago discussion questions for Lit?"
"Oh," Andrew's teasing expression was replaced with a hilarious combination of frustration and fear. "Shoot, I completely forgot about that. Jack, you have your book with you?"
While Jack fumbled through his backpack for his copy, I smiled gratefully at Kevin.
I did not mean to become so easily detached from the conversation from that point on, but I could not help but resurrect my curiosity from that morning, eagerly returning to my thoughts before the rest of our group would arrive.
Although acknowledging Edward Cullen as factual and as concrete as I was seemed a feat within itself, I couldn't help but imagine beyond what little sample of a truly surreal enchantment I had been granted last night (given last night was real); the lean, intelligent boy of one-hundred-and-ten that I had met was just one member of the vast fantasy I was turning over in my head now. I knew there was a set of the stories in the school library, and I considered brushing up on my knowledge with this new mindset during my study period this afternoon—but I could hear a faint warning siren wailing in the back of my head. What if I should not want to be reminded of the events, of the characters? Though it seemed a fantastic chance occurrence, perhaps I did not want to remember the dangers and awes that were now reality…. Perhaps I should not want to accept them as reality….
The last thing I wanted was to psych myself out of this (if it were really true). It was just like me to reject a possibility by uprooting the flaws in any situation—what did it matter if there was danger? What did it matter if there were things in that reality that I had never before dreamed of in my own? Exactly. It did not matter. It should not matter. I should be embracing this as a remarkable, exclusive prospect.
I decided that I would try to return tonight. And I would have to prepare for my return accordingly—I would have to spend my day struggling to remember how to do so.
It was very strange, the technicalities of this phenomenon. It certainly had the fundamental nature of a dream—I had trouble recalling exactly how the lovely vision into this other world began, or the breadth of it. What exactly had we talked about, Edward and I? I knew the regulations he demanded I follow, I remembered those quite well. It was the casual subjects we'd brushed upon that evaded me now. Vaguely, in the back of my mind, I felt as if we had discussed Bella, if at all briefly; but, then, I decided that was impossible, seeing as Edward's family had been deemed off-limits to me—there really was no point in us bringing up what was no more than a figment of my imagination, as far as I was supposed to be concerned.
Of course, I was disappointed that I could not meet them. How could I not be? I would have to find some way to convince Edward to let me talk to them, if only for a few minutes time. To at least see their faces…
That is, if I could just remember how to get there. That was my first and foremost priority at the moment: returning to Forks. Edward must have mentioned, whether intentionally or not, how to return—he must've—if only I could just remember…
"Oh, good!" A high-pitched voice startled me from my reverie. "You've got your discussion questions out! I'll need to compare them to mine…" Jen Mitchell had just gaited over to Andrew's truck, playfully snatching the crumpled loose-leaf paper from the boys' hands and pulling out her notebook to judge the validity of her answers.
I was in too much of a daze to greet her—let alone, send the proper signal to my brain in order to form any compilation of words—so, with one listless wave of my hand, I left my friends in the parking lot and headed for the building as the ten minute warning bell sounded.
By lunch, my thought process still was the disorderly mess it had been that morning, and very little progress had been made, much to my dismay.
I had managed to remember a few insignificant points, though. And they added at least some sense of solidity to my murky memories.
I recalled something along the lines of conversion and, for the shortest blip of a moment, I did consider it to be that of a religious sort. But, then, the context slowly filtered back into play when I thought long and hard about it. It was from a musical standpoint—Edward had told me that Bella had converted him to the same sorts of musicians that I enjoyed. It took me a short moment to remember what had come of that discovery, and I recalled promising to make him something. A CD, I believe it was.
There had also been something else that I was able to resurrect, something that evoked the emotions of the moment rather than the actual moment itself. I recollected a sense of confusion, something he'd said that surprised me—something that I didn't expect. And I knew that, in this world I knew so much about, something surprising should have been the first thing I would've been able to call to mind. I knew it had something that differed from the facts I knew, something that was out of place… It had taken me a good ten minutes, but I finally remembered that it was not a what I was longing to remember. It was a who. Bella and Edward's hybrid daughter: an impractical hoax as far as the Cullens were concerned, but a considerable element of the story as my world knew it. This insight into my previous evening paved the way for a few other discoveries to be made—I recalled Edward mentioning something of Rosalie's embarrassment, and Emmett's amusement; this led me to remember how it was the Cullens came into possession of the film in the first place; and the recollection of Stephenie's impermanence was a reminder of Edward's hesitation, of his absolute anxiety over what my presence in his world necessitated.
If my inability to properly remember could be illustrated as probing the walls of a black, stuffy room for a light switch or a door, then my few breakthroughs were the equivalent of becoming too languid to continue searching and deciding to dig at the floor with my stiff fingers. I knew I could do better. There had to have been something obvious that I was failing to recall—and, at this point in time, that something was how to return. None of my questions would be answered if I couldn't solve this single riddle. And that was that.
Though I did not realize at first, May Carroll had begun to walk alongside me as I made my way down the hallway to the cafeteria; she, unlike Jen, did not desire conversation as if it equaled in importance to the air we breathed, so we walked together in content silence, letting our thoughts fill whatever social voids we shared.
May was quite beautiful—enviously so, if you considered it long enough, for she was not the obviously beautiful type. She had curly black hair that cascaded in little ringlets down the small of her back, and wide eyes that allowed ample access to her innocent thoughts. As an admirable facet of her personality, it was simply her nature to be compassionate towards everyone, and it astounded her whenever someone acted otherwise. It seemed the only conceivable way to function to her, which was most likely a result of her upbringing with the considerate family that she had. Though she and Kevin were quite similar in terms of benevolence, she had never had much trouble in the sociability department—the only people who disliked her only had a foundation of jealousy to stand on. There truly was nothing else to hold against her.
We both bought small lunches consisting of bottled ice tea and sandwiches before retreating to our usual table in the center of the cafeteria.
The rectangular room was tall and long with pale blue, chipping paint on the walls. The majority of the seats were taken by the time we took our own, filled by the substantial student body that attended here; the room was unintentionally segregated down the middle—underclassmen on the eastern-facing end and upperclassmen on the opposite. As juniors, we were still establishing our stake on the upperclassmen side, so we presided on the outskirts of the section, situated at the divide. The ocean could be seen from the window, foaming white with tumultuous, crashing waves, and the sky had grown much grayer since I was last outside.
May and I took the two available seats between Andrew and a girl named Ella Gregg, whom I did not know that well. She had short, bouncy blonde hair that waved to about her chin and small blue eyes. There was a sharpness to her jaw that angled all of her features, and made her cheekbones protrude out, casting dark shadows around her eyes. She wore a significant amount of a makeup, though it suited her, and a dark cardigan that contrasted her skin color too drastically. She resembled Jack, the way she had a sort of portentous attitude about her, and no one had yet stepped out to inform me of her personal reasoning for such a pretense, which led me to assume there was none.
Jack was in the middle of sharing his weekend with a dark-skinned boy from the lacrosse team who sat beside him, but he discarded the obviously less interesting topic of his own life as soon as May pulled up her chair.
"Hey, May," He greeted promptly, leaning over Ella to talk to her. "How was babysitting on Friday?"
I would have considered this a humble excuse May had provided Jack—as she recently had to resort to doing—but she had told me the same thing, so I knew it was true. Seeing that lying wasn't in her wheelhouse, it had become my job to fabricate most of her stories.
"A challenge," she answered with a smile.
"Hey, May, did you take that history test yet?" Jen asked her from across the table, stabbing her fork into a plastic box of baked ziti.
"So," Andrew leaned toward me, "tell me what happened last night."
I blinked, my thoughts scattering in a daze. Was there a chance that I may have mentioned my encounter with Edward in passing during my second period with Andrew? No, that was quite impossible. I was too introspective today to acknowledge anyone else, so the possibility that I may have voiced my current befuddled emotions was very unlikely.
"Did you throw a fit or what?" He smirked.
"Oh." He was referring to dinner with Mr. Montgomery. "Sort of."
"Don't worry," He shook his head. "I feel your pain. Sometimes I just think my parents don't hear a word I'm saying, and, I don't know, when it's bottled up that long, it doesn't matter who is listening."
"Yeah, I guess."
"You think your parents are mad?" He wondered.
"I'm sure they are," I nodded. "My dad sent me to my room last night, and that was the last I'd seen him. Believe me, I don't look forward to going home tonight."
"You could call and say you're studying at my house," He shrugged. "All of us could get something to eat and hang around town for awhile, if you want to try to get out of it."
I sighed, "No, they wouldn't let me." I paused for a moment, accepting that returning to face my parents was the thing to do in this situation, instead of hiding from them. But, secretly, I knew that the real reason I wanted to return home was to be with my own thoughts, far away from the distractions that I once appreciated. The sooner I was alone the better. "I'm kind of tired anyway."
"Alright, maybe some other time," He smiled.
I took a sip of my drink.
"Sometimes it's just best to close your eyes and not think about it, right?"
And, all of a sudden, my hand returned to the dark wall and found the light.
You just have to consciously concentrate on it. Close your eyes, imagine it, and you'll be back.
I sat there in stunned silence as someone who had just been delivered some wonderful, incomparable news would, almost too tempted to rise from the lunch table, hurry out to my car, and rush home at this very second. There was little that was keeping in my chair, but, of what little there was, I knew right well that the most important was what my parents' interpretation of my ditching school early would add up to. They would recognize the patterns as that of one they had formerly noticed in my brother—leaving school at will to be with his thoughts had been one of the first steps he'd taken toward purposefully estranging himself. And my parents would make certain that they would not stand obliviously by as a second child created an illusionary world in which to escape (my brother's life was a story in itself, and I, along with my parents, rarely dwelled on it).
So, it was responsibility alone that kept me in place and, though I suddenly remembered Edward had mentioned that my reality would resume in the exact moment in which I abandoned it, I decided to wait until I was alone.
I progressed through the tedious day with difficulty—an unseeing eye to the worried looks I received from my friends, unresponsive to my teacher's questions, incapable to so much as pick up a pen and scribble on an assignment no matter its straightforwardness. Luckily, my friends had no intention of spending time with me once the final bell tolled and I was to my car in a heartbeat, eager to return home.
As I glided to a stop at the light at the bottom of the hill, I brought my hand to my face, considering an unsettling thought. I had been consciously concentrating on only one thing for the entire day—that one place, that one room, that one face was all that mattered to me, was all that I could see as I sleepwalked through my day. I analyzed my buzzwords for a moment—close your eyes—and wondered if that made the only difference. I clamped my eyelids shut, imagining the dream that I so avidly wished to return to, but there was nothing but the open intersection and the drizzling raindrops on my windshield and the blaring red light above my head once I opened my eyes again.
I groaned, closing my eyes softer now and pressing my head up against the steering wheel. I heard horns honking behind me, which most likely meant the light had changed to green, but I didn't care; I let them maneuver their way into the shoulder and around me, ignoring them as they shouted on their way past.
The rain intensified, but the sound dwindled to the point where I could not hear it anymore, drowned out in the quiet melody of a song I was unfamiliar with—that was strange. I did not remember turning on my radio when I got in the car; I distinctly recalled leaving it off in order to better think in the silent environment of my cab. But it was definite and certain now, almost as if someone was increasing the volume.
I labeled it as nothing more than supporting evidence of my own insanity.
"Edward," I exhaled, almost as a form of surrender. It was unlikely I would ever see him again.
"Yes?" A silky smooth voice came from just a few feet away from me, matching the timbre of the low music. The voice reached my ears not in a way that I would hear the sound travelling from a passenger in the tight cabin of my car, but, on the contrary, the way a voice would travel across a lofty, cushioned, expansive room.
I brought my head up from the steering wheel—which was no longer a steering wheel at all, but the back of a wooden desk chair that I was lounging in. I looked up to perceive my surroundings, but all my perception of setting was an ability suddenly rendered unachievable.
Across the room, reclining on the large iron cast bed, Edward looked at me from over the top of a book even larger than yesterday's, a charming crooked smile on his face.