CHAPTER 4

BACK TO DECEMBER…

Finally, say hello to Edward and Emmett! Hope you like this chapter, and do read my other Twilight fanfiction "Lost & Found".

EPOV

I sat on the black leather recliner in my room listening to Tchaikovsky's ballet compositions playing in Alice's room while she practiced in the ballet room for her next performance.

Dad wanted to get the room soundproofed but I had objected saying that it won't be that disturbing. It was peaceful, though I preferred Debussy or Beethoven to Tchaikovsky, it wasn't too bad either, considering that in Alice's every show, we had to tolerate the ballet music, so might as well get to used to it.

"Hey, Eddie boy, what you doing?" Emmett, my older brother said bursting into my room.

"Can't you ever knock?" I said closing my journal. Okay, no, I don't write, I used to, in college and while I was a geeky, shy high schooler. The navy leather bound sheet of recycled appear was the only thing I could talk to. Well, apart from my family. But it wasn't the same thing, Esme would always offer to solve the problem for me, or would try to keep me away from solving them the hard way. I wasn't bad, I didn't hate it. Except that I was always a rebel, but more like the boiling on the inside than letting it show types.

"What were you doing? Writing your diary?' Emmett asked wrinkling a nose at the closed leather journal. "What are you, a thirteen-year old chick?"

My face turned a dark shade of beetroot, "no!" I denied too defensively, "I was just reading the old entries," I explained.

For some reason this piqued his interest and before I could realize what was happening Emmett grabbed the journal off the table and flipped it open, I tried to make a grab for it before he could read it, but he put the book behind him.

"Emmett, give it back!" I said.

"Oh, come on, girly, just one page," Emmett said trying to read a random page.

"No, that's violating privacy," I said.

"Ooh, really?" he said making a face at me, "wait a second, I'm family. There's no hiding you dirty little secrets from me, Eddie boy!"

"No, Emmett, give it back!"

"Let me read it or I'll tell Alice, and then you can see for yourself what'll happen then," he threatened with an amused smile on his face.

"True, all models are bird-brained," I scowled sitting down on the chair. "But I get to decide what you can read."

"Oh, no! No! You don't get to negotiate," he said.

"That's unfair," I complained like I was ten again.

"Unfair, huh, wait until I call Alice," he said and started to call her. If Alice found out, I'd be good as dead, she won't stop until she knew everything inside out and what's more this was just one of the dozen journals I kept hidden, Emmett would read page, but Alice, she would dig them all out, even if I hid them in Tartarus.

"No, don't call her, you can read whatever you feel like, but just one page, okay," I said, "not a word one!"

And with this, Emmett sat down on my bed and started reading a page while I counted seconds as they passed, wondering which page he was reading. Not really caring about my secret being revealed but worrying over the fact that she won't be my secret any more…

I tapped my feet nervously, as my eyes drifted from the leather cover of the journal to Emmett's face, piqued with interest, and something different. Something that wasn't voyeurism, but concern. What was he reading?

It was almost thirty minutes by the time Emmett finished reading. I was surprised at his reading speed, was he really that slow or was he trying to read more than what I'd allowed him to read.

Emmett looked up from the book, his expression unreadable, and he just said three words, "tell me everything." It was not in his usual interfering 'tell me' but one of a brother who wanted to know what had really happened. I wondered if I was ready to tell him. Ready to tell anyone whose name wasn't Edward Cullen?

"Edward," he stressed, "tell me whatever happened."

"I'm not sure, Emmett, if I want to tell you everything, please understand," I said choosing every word carefully trying not to offend him.

"No excuses, you have to tell me, and if you don't tell me," he said, and I raised my eyebrows expecting the other condition. "I'm not giving you that option." He finished.

"Okay," I said at last, "but you can't tell this to anyone. No one. This is between us."

"Okay, shoot!"

Flashback:

College (December 2003)

I was wandering around the campus, doing perfectly nothing, with just my new DSLR camera and a pocket sketchbook I was roaming around, hoping to take a good photograph or two, for extra credit, though I didn't need it. But I liked photography, so anyway I had decided to take the classes for the fun of it.

It was close to twilight, the faint pink sky turning a purple grey, a beautiful color, but I had taken one too many shots of it, I was looking for something. Like that ancient oak tree behind the dorm, whose branches crept up to my second-floor window and cast eerie shadows at night time. In my freshman year, I often woke up at nights and couldn't go back to sleep, at that time I used to stare at the branches trying to make a pattern. Or during the finals week when sleep was the last thought on my mind, but first thing on body's priority list, I would stare at it, in the morning light, in afternoon, I had seen that tree for three years now, and still I knew there was more to it than the peeling bark and creepy branches.

I sat down on the grass, the earth was cold and hard and it was reaching me through the thin dry sheet of grass. It was soon going to start snowing and the grass I was sitting on was nowhere going to be seen, it would just disappear beneath, reminding me of Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind'.

"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

And that was when I saw her, sitting under a tree with her backpack lying next to her, leaning against the feet of a bench, her head tilted up, eyes probably closed. And I knew what my subject was going to be. I waited patiently for her to shift, as I clicked away her every movement, like a stalker, though I tired not to think of myself as a creepy stalker, but more like an artist who had finally found his muse.

Oh, she wasn't just beautiful, that would be insulting her, but she was a goddess, in every way. The way she hugged her knees to her chest, I wondered if she was cold, one hand absentmindedly lay on a thick book, she must be one of the medical students, I decided. Her other hand was now tangled in her dark brown hair, combing through the silky strands. I wondered why I hadn't seen her before today. Was she a freshman? But she seemed a bit old for a freshman, sophomore?

I clicked away the most beautiful pictures in the history of photography, and my muse, a girl who wasn't even aware of the fact. That's how masterpieces are made. In dim twilight, under the shadow of a huge oak, a mystery muse, I thought as I went through the pictures. I must show it to the girl rather than be sued for being a peeping-Tom!

I looked up, only to find her gone. There was no sign of her being there, even if for the last fifteen minutes I'd photographed her, I looked around, looking for a walking figure, but there was nothing, in the evening light dimming by the minute she had all but vanished, like that in thin air. Poof!

In my utter disappointment I went through the photos again, wondering if any of them had her face, but all of them were side-profiles, all against the horizon and her elegant movements.

Knowing that I wasn't going to find her again, I walked off to my dorm.

So, no Bella in this part, and yeah weird, Edward keeps a diary. Next chapter is all about how Edward and his girlfriend first met!

P.S. Read and review, because I love them, thanks a lot to Esme Nicole Cullen and MissMartha. Love your reviews, and everyone who reads my stories. Thanks a ton.