When Charlie came home, I could pretty much sense the curiosity burning from him. And I didn't blame him for whatever was going on in his mind. After all, I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a microwave dinner with an ice pack on my forehead. What wasn't wrong with that picture.

There were two things that made this situation particularly unusual.

A) I NEVER cook microwave dinners. I'm one who prefers the fun stuff that involves taste-testing and improvising. Frozen dinners were never my thing. I loved to cook. I taught myself how to cook through trial and error after tasting a few of my mother's recipes. Cooking was fun for me. Charlie knew that from the times that I had visited over multiple summers.

B) The ice pack wouldn't be such a big issue, my clumsiness would easily cause me a head injury. The interesting part was that I tied it to my head with a bandana. I never really used that much permanence with my methods of healing, generally only icing or massaging my injuries for ten minutes at most. My strapped-on ice pack made it clear that it wasn't leaving my forehead any time soon.

C) Generally I waited for Charlie to come home before serving dinner.

There was one easy explanation as to my behavior: Stupidity.

I was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

Why had I told Edward everything that I had told myself that I wouldn't tell anyone? Why had I trusted him? I still barely knew him. With my horrific luck, word would be spread in no time, my life would be over, and I would have to move back in with my mother, which didn't sound too bad at the particular moment, considering the fact that her and Phil were planning to move to Jacksonville. A completely knew place where no one would spoil my secret.

But then I would probably meet someone just like Edward who would somehow con me out of my story yet again and it would turn into an enless cycle of gossip and rumors about me being in love with a dead guy. Fun stuff.

The ice pack was due to me bashing my head on the kitchen counter over and over and over trying to knock some sense into myself. I should have known that it wouldn't work. It never does. It's just a habit that most people seemed to step into. I hadn't stopped the bashing until I couldn't remember why I was banging my head in the first place. Then I restarted when it had come back to me.

The lack of current mental awareness had led me to make the microwave dinner. I was in no health to be turning on burners and sticking my hand (mitted or not) into ovens. It just wouldn't have ended pretty.

As for the early dinner, well. Let's just say in my haste to leave Edward at lunch that afternoon, I hadn't completely finished my lunch. Generally that didn't do anything to me, but today, in all my nervousness, my appetite grew and I felt no need to wait for Charlie.

"What happened?" Charlie wondered, raising an eyebrow at me. He was no doctor, but he walked over to me and peeked under my ice-pack anyway. I wasn't used to this kind of fatherly protection. Only visiting each other over school vacations didn't exactly help you get that close, and sometimes things got awkward. So I was sort of touched by this small display of affection. "Do I even want to know?"

"Not particularly. It's not that exciting," I explained. "Don't worry. I wasn't completely careless. I made sure there was one for you, too. I just didn't want it to get cold before you got here." I gestured to the freezer and then laid my head on my arm.

"Thanks, Bells." He ducked his head into the freezer and pulled out the other microwave dinner and popped it in for two minutes.

I dismissed myself to go upstairs and do my homework.

When I was finished, I dug up the old photos of Jacob and I, thinking about the conversation Edward and I had.

Did fate have any control over Jacob's perferences to life over death? Maybe my mother was right and you really shouldn't marry the first guy you date, but I didn't believe her. So some god of fate or something had to do something to stop me from making a terrible mistake. Whatever the reason, maybe I wasn't supposed to be with Jacob...

But wasn't I supposed to figure that out for myself? I shouldn't have to have other people tell me the solutions to my problems. Why didn't anything make sense anymore?

What puzzled me most was how Edward's mind worked. Somehow, he had an answer for everything, but all of his answers sparked more questions. And why was he so interested in my pathetic little life, anyway. Oh. Right. Something about my pathetic little life being worse than his "for once" or something like that. EVERYONE had it worse than him. Why did he have to be the only one who attempted to care? Why couldn't I have met someone who would just say "I don't need you to tell me what's going on, just know that I'm here?"

It sounded like he meant it like that at the beginning, but when I told him, couldn't he just have been "oh, I'm sorry. Let me offer my condolenses" or something instead of trying to tell me that it was a good thing that the love of my life just died? That would be like coming to Jacob's funeral in Phoenix and saying "hey, sorry for your loss, but I guess you guys weren't meant for each other."

I thought about that for a while. Then I understood. Kind of. Edward suffered the loss of his parents. He'd had to hear other people's condolenses over and over until social services found a place for him and whisked him away. I'd had to hear others' condolenses and they didn't even care about me. They were just paying their respects to Jacob. He probably figured that I wouldn't want to hear too much pity from him.

And if I was being honest with myself, I truly didn't.

The next day, I sat at my usual picnic table. Edward didn't bug me at all and the sun actually tried to shine a little. I felt like I was going crazy when I realized that I thought the sun was a sign that things were going to get better. I was never that deep. Thoughtful and observant, maybe, but not symbolic. Forks was literally driving me crazy.

It took me by surprise to hear a voice come from behind me.

"Can I sit with you today?"

What surprised me more was that the voice was not Edward's.

I turned to see who the high-pitched melodic voice belonged to. The girl that met my gaze was not what I would have expected. She couldn't have possibly been much taller than five feet, if even that. Her dark hair was syled in short spikes pointing in every direction. Her pixie face glowed in friendliness as she looked down at me.

"Sure?" I allowed, the approval accidentally sounding like a question. I felt guilty, hoping that I didn't offend her with my reluctance.

"I'm Alice," she said, taking her seat on the bench across from me. "Edward's sister..."

"Oh, the one who says that every little thing you do somehow impacts the universe," I remembered. Alice giggled a little. "Why did he send you?"

"He didn't. I chose to come here. Sure, he was the one who told me where to find you, but he didn't send me to do anything," she explained. I could only imagine what Carlisle and Esme Cullen were like if not just one, but at least two of their kids were sensitive and charitable.

"Oh," was all I could say for about a minute. I was completely taken aback. Was curiosity and concern a genetic trait in this family? Then I remembered that Edward was adopted. "What brings you here, then?" I asked her.

"I realized that Edward had been spending a lot of time around you. I must admit I was pretty surprised that he did. I mean, my brother's not a complete jerk, but he doesn't exactly get around. I don't think he's attempted to make any sort of regular acquaintances since our parents took him in. I'm really happy for him though. It's great that he's stepping out of his little bubble," Alice started.

"So, you're coming to thank me for keeping him company?" I wondered, slightly confused. Alice giggled.

"No. Edward looked kind of upset last night, and when he didn't even look for you in the cafeteria today, I asked him why. He said that he was afraid that he might have upset you with some harsh judgement on an ex-boyfriend of yours," she told me. I couldn't tell if she was just watering down what she knew about my "ex-boyfriend" or if that was all that Edward had said about him - that he was my ex-boyfriend. Either way, I was glad she hadn't said any more. "I noticed that he had really been the only one talking to you, making an effort to get to know you. I figured you would probably be lonely, and probably interesting to get to know, considering you caught Edward's curiosity."

"Well...thanks?" I questioned again. Then something came to me. "Are you adopted, too?"

"Yeah. Our whole family is. Esme, our mother, can't have kids. We also have another adoptive brother, Emmett. And our cousins live with us, too. Rosalie and Jasper. Esme's sister couldn't take care of them anymore," Alice detailed.

So generosity may not have been genetic, but it was definitely spread around the family. The Cullens took in three kids to adopt as their own, and put the roof over their niece and nephew's heads. And that generosity was surely passed down, at least to Alice and Edward.

"I don't know what he said to you, or what your situation is, but I want to say that I'm sorry," she began, "I'm sorry for whatever you're going through, and if there's anything I can do to help, I'm here. I also apologize for Edward. He really didn't mean to say anything that might have offended you. He's really judgemental when it comes to certain scenarios. He's also kind of harsh when he expresses his opinions. But just because he believes something, he doesn't expect you to feel that way. He just wants to explain how he sees it, and also maybe help you see things from other perspectives. Sometimes his opinion helps, but it can hurt, too."

I paused for a minute, thinking about my behavior last night. Edward had just been trying to explain how he saw it. Maybe he thought that if he could show me a new way to look at my pain, it wouldn't hurt as much. I really should have appreciated that instead of marking his comments as judgement and just assuming that he was going to tell the whole town every detail of my pathetic love story gone wrong.

"Well, it wasn't him that I was angry at. I guess I was just mad at the situation that I was in. I was also kind of mad at myself a little, but I would have to go into extreme, painful detail for you to understand what I mean by that. Anyway, thanks. Maybe I'll sit with you guys tomorrow, I don't know. That is...if the rest of your siblings will let me. I don't know why, but you kind of make me hopeful. You're so cheery even when you're serious," I noted. Alice laughed a little.

"I get that all the time," she told me. Then the bell rang, marking the end of lunch.

"Well, I'd better go clear the air with your brother," I said, exusing myself.

"I hope I see you tomorrow," Alice expressed.

"Maybe you will."