The week following the accident never seemed to end. My family did everything they could to entertain me, but, really, what I lived for were the short visits by Bella, who came by without fail every afternoon after school to bring me her notes. I was thinking of ways to make her stay longer than the five minutes or so she usually was here, but without much success.

My family wasn't exactly helping. Without saying anything, they made her feel unwelcome. As soon as she showed up in the afternoon, they made themselves scarce, disappearing into other sections of the house, but never without giving Bella an unfriendly look. I didn't know what to think of it, but never had an opportunity to ask any of them.

Her short visits didn't give me much time to work out what she was thinking of me. She didn't hate me, of that I was now sure. She also seemed to like me at least a little bit, else she wouldn't drive all the way to my house for five days straight just to give me some damn notes she could have given anybody in my family during school. It might have been out of a sense of obligation to the guy who had saved her life and who was bound to his house because of that, but I doubted that.

Not knowing for sure, however, did drive me crazy.

Naturally, my behavior didn't go unnoticed by my family as they were all watching me like a mother bird is watching her chick.

On Friday after Bella had left, I heard a knock at the door of my room.

At last I had started to feel better. I barely had any headaches anymore, the dizziness and nausea were both completely gone. I finally could move again, the bruises on my side had almost completely faded. The only remainders of the accident were the healing scar on the right side of my head, and my shoulder, which was still immobilized and would be for at least two more weeks.

"Come in," I said, reducing the volume of the music I had been listening to. I had been lying on my bed, my thought, as usual nowadays, on Bella, but now I sat up to see who was coming in.

"Edward, we're having a family conference," my father said, standing in the door frame.

"About what?" I asked carefully. If there was a family conference than something serious was going on. Like somebody had slipped up and we're going to move once again. Move away from Forks and away from Bella.

I had a bad feeling about this.

As my father didn't answer my question, I got up from my bed and followed him down the stairs.

Even though I was the only one in the family to actually eat normal food, we had a huge dining table, big enough to host a dinner party of ten people. My family was already there. Carlisle sat as usual at the head of the table, Esme at his side. Rosalie and Alice sat on either side of him, only Jasper remained standing. He was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed in front of him. Emmett took his seat next to Rosalie and I followed him. There was an uncomfortable quiet surrounding the table.

"What is this about?" I asked no one in particular, not able to stand the silence.

"Bella," Emmett said.

Her name guaranteed my full attention.

Emmett's face was unreadable, but on Carlisle's and Esme's faces I saw something like sorrow.

"Has something happened to her?" I asked, my heart pounding in my chest. My eyes searched Jasper. If one of my family had slipped up, it was most likely him.

But his eyes were still golden, as were everybody else's.

"No," Rosalie said, "not yet."

"What do you mean with 'not yet'? Nothing is going to happen to Bella, you hear me!" I glared at my mother, challenging her to explain what she meant.

She took one unnecessary breath. "We didn't want to tell you, not at first, but there's a problem with Bella."

"What problem? Is it about what she saw? She hasn't told anyone yet, you know that. And she won't tell anybody."

"We know," Rosalie continued. "At least not until she has something else. It would be our word against hers and as what she saw is quite impossible, nobody would believe her.

"No, it's something else. It's Bella herself."

I furrowed my brows, confused. I felt a headache coming that had nothing to do with my healing concussion.

"What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing wrong, per se."

I wanted to scream when Rosalie paused once again. Why didn't she just tell me?

"What. Is. Wrong. With. Her?" I asked once again from behind clenched teeth.

"Her scent," she finally said.

"Her scent?" I repeated, incredulous.

Jasper pushed himself away from the wall and walked to sit next to Alice.

"You know how every person smells differently to a vampire," he started slowly.

Vampire 101. I had had the lecture before.

I simply nodded.

"Some people do smell more appealing than others, and sometimes there's a person that smells extremely alluring, practically irresistible."

I few things made click in my head and some loosely connected puzzle pieces fell into place. How Emmett had reacted when I had invited her over. How Esme had acted the first day Bella had been here. How Jasper was never around when she came. Small things I hadn't paid too close attention to before.

And, of course, her delightful smell which even I, who was not a vampire, found very attractive.

"She is one of those who smell so good to you?" I asked quietly, already knowing their answer.

Rosalie nodded. "So far, we've been able to resist. But it's ... painful. You know that deep down we are monsters, driven by our instincts. We may deny this part of us, but the thirst, the need is always there, as much as we want to deny it. And having her around ... "

Having her around here, in our house, might prove to be too much. One of my family might lose control.

"Then I won't invite her over again," I said, offering the simplest solution. I could live with seeing her only at school or at other places away from my home.

"This won't work," Alice spoke up. She had been quiet so far, just watching me. "I'm so sorry, Edward, but I have seen her future. And there's no doubt. If Bella and you are getting together, she will be killed by a vampire. I don't know who it will be and when, but every time I look for her future, she is dead."

"No!" I cried jumping off my seat, toppling the chair over.

Belly couldn't die. She. Could. Not. Die.

"You are wrong!" I exclaimed. "She can't die. Not by one of you. You are too good at this. There hasn't been a slip up in twenty years. Here, look at me. I've been around every single day for the last seventeen years, a meal ready-to-eat, and none of you even thought about taking a bite."

Jasper raised one hand, obviously wanting to point out that most certainly he at least had had some thoughts. Everybody ignored him.

"Edward," Alice said again. "I have looked and looked and looked, and there hasn't been one scenario where she doesn't die."

"You've been wrong before," I yelled at her accusingly.

"Yes," she admitted, her eyes downcast. "But never about something so important."

"Edward," Jasper intervened. "You have to understand how irresistible her scent is to us. I would leave if it's what I have to do to keep her safe, but Alice doesn't see who is killing her, and even though I'm the prime candidate, it might be one of the others. So the only solution would be for us all to leave."

"Leave here?" I asked, shocked.

Even though I had been thinking that this conference might be about us leaving Forks, now that the words had fallen, I couldn't comprehend the thought. It was as if all oxygen had left the air surrounding me and breathing became difficult for me. I felt dizzy, swaying where I was standing.

A cold, strong arm found my shoulders and led me to another chair, forcing me to sit down. I had no idea who aided me.

"We are not going to leave," Carlisle now spoke up and my eyes flashed to his face.

"No?" I asked confused. Hadn't Jasper just told me that we had to go away. What was it now?

He sighed. "We had already decided that we would leave, when Alice checked for Bella's future again. We expected her to be safe after the decision was made, but instead she saw that Bella will still die."

"Bella will still die?" I sounded like a damn parrot.

Distantly I noticed that my family had made the decision to move away from here without even asking me what I thought about it, but for some reason I couldn't care. This was about Bella, not me.

"Yes. Again, too many variables to be sure how, but she will not be alive come summer."

Suddenly, my anger evaporated. Bella would die. She would be dead in less than half a year. And it would be my fault, for I had drawn her into this madness. Sometimes I hated my family. Why couldn't I just live with some normal people? Why did it have to be a bunch of fucking vampires?

Pleadingly I looked up, searching the sympathetic faces of my family for an answer.

"What can I do?" I asked, sounding hollow even to my own ears.

"Stay away from her," Rosalie said, her eyes full with compassion.

Stay away from her? Anything but that! How could I stay away from her, when I just had found her?

"Edward, I know you feel a lot for her," Esme finally spoke up, her voice soft and gentle. "And this will be so hard for you. But you need to do this, for her sake."

"How does me staying away from her, but us staying in Forks ensure her safety? I don't understand." I looked up pleadingly.

"We don't know," Esme admitted. "We only know that if we stay too close to her, she will be killed by a vampire. If we leave, her death will be caused by something else. You already saved her once, so maybe if we watch her from afar, we can save her without putting her in danger by us. It will be a dangerous balancing act."

I slowly nodded. If staying away from her ensured she would live then I would do it. I could do that. I had to do it.

"Alice?" I asked, my voice harsh. "Will she stay alive, if I leave her alone?"

I needed to know.

"I'm sorry, but until you've made the decision - I mean really made it - the future won't change, and I won't see it. You aren't decided yet."

If I haven't cursed Alice's strange gift so far, I did so now.

"I need to think about it," I said in a whisper.

I got up and turned away from my family. From the people I still love, even though, right now, they were destroying my future.