Chapter 2
I spend the entire day looking for her, but the only human faces I saw at the end of the day were those of Alice and Emmett, as they came to get me out of the water. If my skin would have been able to shrivel in water, I would have looked like an old man by the time we got back to Esme Island. Excited and confused I told them about my encounter under the sea. Alice raised her eyebrows.
"The only thing I saw was that you would have been swimming around the ocean for the whole night. So you probably wouldn't have found her."
"But you didn't see me meeting her?" Alive shook her head remorseful. "I was really concentrating on getting that shark, you know?" Jasper watched me carefully. "I have never gotten feelings like this from you." Esme stepped behind us, putting her hands on my shoulders. "What do you mean Jasper?" She asked gently. Jasper shrugged. "He has never been so much into something like this. I mean Edward gets excited when he is hunting, he's happy when he makes his family happy and he is turned off when something dangerous approaches. But never like this. It is as if all of these feelings are trying to win him over at ones, but they are so much stronger than they ever were. I wonder…"
"Wonder what?" Rosalie demanded looking from Jasper to myself suspiciously. Jasper grinned his innocent grin. "So was she pretty, Edward?"
Rosalie hissed at him: "For all we know she was our dumb brother's hallucination and nothing more." Alice smiled: "No I actually think Jasper is right. I can't wait to meet her! Oh" Her smile faded. "You're not going to find her tomorrow either, though. Can't you look any harder?" Alice's sudden excitement didn't actually thrill me and neither did the prediction she just gave me. I really didn't feel like talking anymore and softly took Esme's hands from shoulders, strolling of to the other side of the island. I needed a place to think and be by myself. Behind me I could still hear my family arguing about my strange collide. "He hasn't even fed after all!" Alice said in a quiet voice. I could hear Emmett laugh in disbelieve. "Thanks for sharing, Alice." I mumbled, sure she would hear. "Damn that girl must have been hot." Emmett chuckled. I could hear Rosalie giving him a snarl. Jealous little Rosalie. But the most important questions were still open. Who was she. What was she. A vampire? She could hardly be human, diving so deep under water, hitting me with that strange tool so hard and disappearing in seconds. So she probably was a vampire. Living here, at Esme Island, maybe? Was there a family, a coven? Or was she a loner, a stray, wandering the earth, looking for somebody worth staying. My thoughts were drifting off as I involuntarily imagined me to be that person she was looking for. I had never seen a face so pretty so perfect. Full lips and bright eyes. Just to imagine those eyes looking at someone, not filled with disgust and hate, but in a positive way. These eyes looking at me that way. I had reached the end of Esme Island, the part where the beach was sprinkled with stones and rocks. I started climbing on of the bigger ones, balancing like on a rope, walking further along the rocks, that lead into the ocean, like a stony bridge, ending on a big, flat stone. This was where I sat down to think. I can think forever. Other people think about something for a minute, or an hour, or if it is important, for a day maybe. I could think about one thing for weeks, month, for years if I had to. There had just never been anything interesting enough to think about this badly. I hadn't even noticed the sun going down and up again. My hunger was controllable and since Alice had already seen me not finding the girl I could just as well stay here and keep on thinking for a while. A fresh morning breathe tousled my hair and tiny waves started to come and splash against my rock. As the wind grew stronger the waves did, and then all of a sudden my face was wet of a huge wave that must have hit me while I was deep in thoughts. I shook my head and felt the tiniest bit like waking up. Of course I knew I wasn't. I hadn't slept in some decades, but while I was shaking my head to get the salty wetness out off my hair I saw my daydream come to live, right in front of me, for there she was, right below my rock. She was holding herself up on a smaller rock on her elbows, her body covered in water, watching me carefully. "He is pretty." She thought and I felt like I should be blushing. "But still a monster." With this she turned to dive away again. "Stop! Wait!" I yelled and her head swung around again, looking nervous and a little bit frightened. I cursed myself in my head, for I could think of nothing –nothing to say to her. Nothing to say to make her stay. I could only sit there and stare into her deep green eyes. I was actually drowning in them now. As I saw that she was turning to leave again I said the first thing that got to my mind, just to gave me a mental slap in the face seconds later: "I think you are very pretty, too." I yelled. Didn't say it, didn't whisper or mumble it, no I YELLED it. Even from this place at the island I could hear Emmett's roaring laughter. And so could she. Before I could get myself out off her mystic eyes she was gone, taking parts of me with her. Parts of me I didn't even know I had had.