"I thought you would be back the moment I sent you away," He chuckled to himself.

He returned the book he'd been reading to a shelf across the room, moving gracefully with a smile on his face—I wanted to think that my being there had brought him at least a shred of the happiness he expressed now, but he seemed genuinely at ease, as one would feel comfortable in a familiar place in solitude. The stereo by the bed, which had been a dominant component of my surroundings when I had first arrived, filtered more suitably into the backdrop now that I was settled, a beautiful, melodic piano quietly whispering from the speakers.

I had been too stunned for words, at first, incapable of striking any conversation with him; so, he'd sat and patiently waited for my heart rate to return to normal and my thoughts to untangle themselves as he finished his novel in a matter of minutes. As I was still reclaiming the skill of speech, he had explained to me in detail the complexities of the book and its theme—he spoke fluently and beautifully, never pausing a moment to find the right words or reconsider his analysis. He knew precisely what he was talking about as he was talking about it, so I would not have felt apt enough to add anything to his monologue even if I'd tried.

He glanced over his shoulder at me, waiting for my reply.

"Oh, well, I-I…" I struggled to find the proper words, "I was having a little trouble remembering everything."

His eyes softened understandingly as he moved back to the bed. "I'd forgotten. Stephenie suffered from the same set of symptoms—it will take you a few times to adjust, after which you'll be able to transition between realities quite nicely. That's why it is so easy to fail to identify which is the dream and which is not."

I nodded. "Hmm." Looking around the room, I was able to recall the memories of the previous evening much easier now. I could almost remember the entire conversation word for word.

Edward must've noticed my epiphany. "All coming back to you, is it? Alright, now try to remember what you were doing just now, before you arrived here."

"That's easy, I was…" I paused. "I was…I don't—I don't remember."

"Now your reality seems the dream," He smiled. "It will be the same when you return. You'll have forgotten whatever it is we talk about today. Give it time, this phase will pass."

"So…you're allowing me the time, then?"

I waited with bated breath as he considered his reply. "To be decided."

I wished more than anything that he had responded differently, that he had at least offered me the opportunity to prove my dependability. But, no, he wouldn't budge. Not unless I attempted to move him, to convince him how badly I truly wanted to hold on to this reality. His face lightened with curiosity as he analyzed my presumably hilarious expression.

"I'm sorry to have upset you." He patted the bed, gesturing that I come sit beside him.

I sulked to where he had motioned, slumping down on the soft comforter with a heavy exhale. This made him laugh.

"Remarkably like Bella, you are," He mused. "You absolutely fail to recognize a dangerous situation when it arises."

"You may not see things my way," I pouted, folding my arms, "but I see this as a stroke of luck—the most I've had in a very long time."

He blinked, confused.

"This is a dream come true," I sighed. He smiled at my naiveté. "You don't seem to grasp that very well. Happiness is a superficial feeling where I'm from…I don't know one person who I'd say is truly happy. Well, except for my friend, May Carroll, maybe. But she's naturally that way—she doesn't see the bad in life, or in people. Sometimes I wish I could be more like her."

He blinked again, only this time he seemed utterly fascinated. His eyes, milky butterscotch in color, widened and warmed, that same sense of comfort by reason of familiarity still effervescent in his demeanor. I enjoyed the idea that the absolute normality of my life thrilled him; it even perplexed me. His thought processes were a fabulous mystery to me—what it must feel like to be such an experienced, intellectual person surprised?

"What are you thinking?" I wondered.

He grinned even wider. "That's my line."

I sat back on my heels. "Are you asking?"

"Tell me about them," He asked eagerly. "The people in your life, I mean."

"Hmm," I looked up at the ceiling. "I'm not sure that's a very interesting topic..." He prompted me to explain, nonetheless. "Well, I'll start with the most interesting, then, and work downward until you're bored enough for me to stop. My family's no clan of undead, warn you—we haven't many extraordinary stories."

He shrugged, this fact seeming to excite him even more.

"I have an older brother, Eli," I began. "People say he looks like me, but we're nothing alike. He went to this fancy school up in Fairbank Harbor, but got kicked out as a freshman because he skipped school a lot and stole the headmaster's car. My parents never liked him much…and I'm not quite sure why because he's the most fascinating person I know. Everyone in town respected him—the simple people, you know, not the well-to-do—because he was smarter and cleverer than anybody gave him credit for, but he never really liked people, I guess. A couple months before he left, he told me that I was his only real friend…." I looked out the window, imagining the moment as if I were there.

He'd spent most his time at a cove along the beach, where you could see the lighthouses off the shore and the pier down the busier end of town, and that's where he'd felt the safest to be alone with his thoughts—I couldn't help but feel honored when he offered to take me there, whether it was only once or not. We'd been sitting on a driftwood log, watching the sun set after a rainstorm, the high tide washing up the sand to tickle our toes before ebbing back. It had been about a month before he graduated from Beacon. If I had known then that I would hardly see him after that summer, perhaps I would have confirmed my mutual fondness out loud.

"He's a people person now," I continued to Edward, leaning back on the bedpost. "He lives in Manhattan, dropped out of college a couple months in without my parents knowing and married this girl he met at a club down the street from his apartment. He runs a crummy dive bar now, I think, unless he sold that for the rented space on the skyline…but, anyway, live music plays there all the time and he makes the menu and a bunch of college kids hang out there on the weekends, especially when a game is on…. Last I heard he's really happy with what he's got and, if my deduction skills are of any value, I'd say he only started living after he left home. That's why I want to get away from there something awful…." I stopped.

Edward asked, "And your parents?"

"Beth and Fred?" I shook my head. "Not really worth talking about."

"What about your friends?"

"Hmm, well, there's Jen—she's a Jessica Stanley if I ever knew one."

He laughed outright at my analogy.

"And Andrew," I sighed, "well, I don't want to be as mean as to say he's comparable to Mike Newton because I know you don't like him much, but he has his moments. Kevin Fulton…he's the nicest boy I know, kind of like May. But I wouldn't call him happy—just content, I guess, if that. Jack Brooks has got the self-confidence of a Tyler Crowley, and Ella is nothing short of a Lauren; those two could be role-players if they really wanted to, they play the parts so well. All the boys play lacrosse, which is a big deal on the east coast. You haven't got a Y chromosome in your body if you don't play lacrosse."

"I would have thought football is of greater standing."

"That's the Midwest," I exhaled. "It's not about being big and strong, it's about being lean and fast."

Edward smirked. "Sounds like Emmett would be thoroughly disappointed."

"You know, baseball's a close second," I told him. "Eli's a huge Mets fan."

"Not a Yankees enthusiast, hmm?" Edward inquired.

"Oh, that's sacrilege in his mind," I laughed. "I'm not sure if my brother even owns anything the color navy, he's so devoted."

Edward glanced down at his navy V-neck and made a face.

I giggled—God, it felt so natural to giggle here, whereas back home it felt almost like I laugh someone else's laugh, live in a shell where my brain is the only genuine piece of me—and a thought suddenly sparked in my head. "You think I'd get to watch you play ball? Oh, please, let me, I'd really love it."

He ran his hand through his hair. "I'm not sure how well I'd be able to play ball by myself. Though I'm sure I could pull it off. Pitch, catch and bat all at once…I'd be fast enough, at least."

I took a deep breath. "Why do you have to be so stubborn…?"

"Oh, you're right, I could play with my family," He nodded, feigning momentary contemplation. "Ah, yes, I could ask them if setting up a camera on a tripod would be too intrusive, could say I'm making a documentary for my own sake. Then I could show it to you next visit…"

"Edward, please," I picked up a pillow that was at the end of the bed and tossed at him. He caught it in his left hand and promptly wound up to throw it back, tilting his wrist at a fraction of an angle so that it would just fly past my head when he realized that, even with something so soft, the blow would surely knock me off the bed. Instead, a side table by the sofa took the hit, a rusted hourglass tipping off the edge before Edward was all of a sudden beside it to push it back into place with his fingertip.

He exhaled in the cumbersome silence, keeping his finger on the metal artifact as if it helped his balance.

"I am not going to have this argument with you," He shut his eyes.

I looked down at my hands.

"And, already, I shouldn't be allowing you this much!" He gestured to the empty air between us. "I cannot do this to myself, to my family—not again. Perhaps I'd be more lenient if you came first…no, probably not even then. There is nothing more keeping you here than my own curiosity, or my desire to…I'm not even sure. I cannot talk to Alice, or Emmett, or even Bella like I can talk to you. Presumably it's the distance between us—a world away—that makes me…feel safe."

"As if anything is a danger to you."

"You are," He nodded, looking out the window. "And Bella…goodness, I fear for my sanity around her."

My eyebrows furrowed. "Why?"

"She perplexes me still…. I cannot believe that not even the bond of matrimony, a sacred act, makes me feel any closer to the mystery that is her processes—what she must think at the little things. I desire to know my wife…to the fullest extent…but in some ways the mystery is a good thing. It comforts me on one point, at least."

I moved away from the bed to stand beside him.

He examined my inquisitive look for a long while. "She hasn't the ability to read my mind, but she knows me better than I know myself. So, if whatever she sees in this soul is of any worth to her, I can only hope that I will truly have eternity to make sense of her."

I was warmed by the intensity of his love, and it brought me some unassailable hope. There is such a thing, I thought to myself. It does exist. What was this 'thing', I can't help but wonder? What was 'it'? Before I was able to ponder much further, Edward was out with the answer.

"Love, of any sort, is as much in the eye of the beholder as is beauty."

I folded my arms across my chest. "Well, there's plenty worthy of love in you."

He chuckled at the thought, most likely compiling what he considered to be his cache of sins.

I wanted the thought gone from his head as if I was the one that planted it there. "And why am I dangerous to you?"

His expression grew vacant as he stared away at some faraway point in the woods. "The closer you become to me, the farther away you become from your own world. I can't have what happened with Stephenie happen again, Olivia, I—" He stopped.

I followed his gaze, which was now locked on the bedroom door.

In one quick movement, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me in the direction of the adjacent bathroom. "Carlisle's home," he said in a rushed whisper. "He must've alternated shifts this week. Oh, how am I so thick…"

"Edward…"

"Shh," He spun me around on my heels. "My father has some banquet tomorrow and he's requested that we all go. I'll return home early and see if you can come then."

"How will I know what time to…?"

"He's in the garage," Edward exhaled, indefinably anxious, but he put a smile on his face as he said, "Go, I'll see you, then."

And, with that, all traces of the music was gone from my head and replaced with the sound of pounding rain and blaring car horns. I lifted my head from the steering wheel with a start and, just after noticing a blurred figure at my window, I realized my foot was on the gas. The car jolted forward with a deafening screeching sound—or maybe I was just disoriented—and I slammed on the breaks.

The person who'd been at my window disregarded courtesy now that he figured something was seriously wrong, thrusting open my door.

"I thought you'd fallen asleep! You alright!"

I looked up at the man in confusion, as if I had never seen a real human being before. I recognized him as Thomas Redmond, the local mechanic—he was almost unmistakable with his dark, thick mustache and rough, pudgy hands that were now trying to pull me out of the car into the fresh air and the rain. A few people had gathered behind him at this point, curiously peeking over his wide shoulders to get a look at me.

Oh, great. I'd started a scene.

"I'm fine," I slipped out of his grasp, trying to reach around him to close my door, but he wouldn't have it.

"I'll call your father," He nodded, as if confirming the action to himself, and stepped back to retrieve his phone from his pocket. Just enough space so that my door could clear him. I pulled the door shut and sped through the light as it shifted to the subsequent red cycle.

Never had I been so eager to return to the house that had previously been my hell. Never had I so eagerly rejoiced the excitement of my life, which seemed new in light of my opened eyes—for once, I was so happy, it frightened me. Which was most likely why the total of three speed cameras in the entire city acquired my picture in the ten minute drive home.