Chapter 4: Where Edward Wonders About FrostIron

"Olivia, I can faithfully assure you that your parents will be most perturbed when they see you."

"Oh, gee thanks Jarvis, because there was no way I'd ever figure that out on my own."

I took the towel Edward outstretched to me while he gave me an annoyed look. Lazily, I dried my arms and my legs, knowing that my clothes would have to be washed and dried all over again. And as for the rips in my skirt. . .well, I may have needed a new skirt. I gave Edward a pleading look, batting my eyelashes and sticking out my lower lip. "Promise not to tell them?" I whined cutely. "That you were playing hide-and-go-seek in the middle of the forest with your imaginary Avenger friends?" he began. "No. Of course not."

Despite the insult to my sanity, I smiled. "Thanks Edward," I said, truly grateful. "You're the best." He took the damp towel from me as he turned away, probably to attend to some other kind of business. "Yes, I know." He sighed. You have no idea how many secrets Edward keeps from my parents about me. If he wanted to blackmail me, he'd have enough things to hold over my head to keep me as a slave for life.

Edward paused in the doorway of my room. He glanced over his shoulder with the sort of smug look that meant that something had happened that made him one point ahead on the out-sarcasm-fest. "Oh, and Miss Olivia," he began. "Your. . .fan fiction? It needs a little work in the grammar and word choice department. Especially the. . .garden hose part."

I gasped, all the blood rushing to my face. I couldn't remember a time when I was more embarrassed in my life. I was as still as a statue, surprise and confusion filling my every vein. "You. . .you snooped!" I hissed accusingly. "You looked through my notebooks!" "Naturally that'd be the case, wouldn't it?" Edward asked boredly. "But no, not this time. I didn't have to, you left it out on your bed this morning."

Edward watched in plain amusement as I rushed to my bed, snatching up my notebooks filled with rated R fan fiction about the Avengers. "And may I ask, Miss Olivia—" "NO!" I yelled desperately as I gathered the notebooks in my arms. He went ahead as if I hadn't said anything in the first place. "What, exactly, is FrostIron?"

I threw my head back towards the ceiling with a groan.

0o0o0

We had only been away from the field for an hour, which meant that whatever had landed was long gone now. If I wanted to go back, I'd be too late. The aliens—or whatever had landed—was probably long gone now. I had chickened out on my one chance to check out what had happened, and now I just had to live with the consequences.

So far, choosing to get in the limo was my greatest regret in life.

I was sprawled out on my bed on my stomach, telling Jonesy and Emmy about my latest adventure with aliens. Jonesy believed my every word and was over-the-top excited about it. "Oh no," she had groaned. "That means there's an alien somewhere in the city now! Crap, what if they're invading! Livvie, we gotta do something!" I managed to convince my friend that there were not alien monsters invading New York City—this wasn't Tokyo.

Emmy didn't believe a word I said at first. Finally I had managed to get her to believe a little bit of it. But even then she was still shaky. "Are you sure you saw a person?" she asked. "Storms are really weird. When you have an overactive imagination—" "Hey!" I interrupted defensively, but she just talked over me. "They make you see things that aren't really there. It was probably just a plane."

But I know what I saw was no plane.

I had no proof, however, because I had made the choice of running instead of staying and investigating. I hated myself for doing that. But I couldn't go back and change the past, could I? Instead, I decided to focus on the future. What could I do now that would try and make tomorrow a better day than today?

Go back to the field and see what I could find, of course.

Now, whatever landed—be it alien or plane or whatever—probably wouldn't be there, but maybe something else would, something else that would qualify as proof. Maybe I could convince Edward to just drop me off at the bus stop.

Then I could walk across to the field and see what I could find before the bus came. Sure, I'd be a little late for school, but I figured it was worth it. With that plan set in my mind, I was tip-of-my-toes excited for tomorrow morning. Only problem was that tomorrow morning wasn't coming until. . .tomorrow morning. What was I supposed to do until then?

I was, by then anyway, bored out of my mind.

I quickly completely my homework and then moved on to studying. Once that was over, I quickly took to writing another chapter of lovely fan fiction—and took a special moment to hide it from other people's (*cough*Edward*cough*) prying eyes. Then I got on the computer and wasted the rest of my time on Tumblr and . All the while, I was texting my two best friends about random things.

It was a good afternoon indeed.

Time flew by. Before I knew it, it was dinnertime and Mom was ringing my phone as usual. I could almost recite word-for-word what she would say. "Hello?" I said, holding the phone to my ear with my eyes glued to the computer screen. "Olivia, sweetie hi, it's Mommy," she said, sounding extremely remorseful. I didn't bother to tell her not to refer to herself as Mommy, it never worked.

"Hey Mom," I said instead. "What's up?" "Something. . .something big came up all of a sudden and I don't think I'll be home in time for dinner tonight." She sighed. Of course she wouldn't, it was dinnertime now. Speaking of which. . .I got up, shut the top of my laptop and slid my feet into my flip-flops. "Don't worry about it, Mom," I said nonchalantly. "It's cool. I get it. Where's Dad?"

"Oh, you know he's in Chicago on that whole—" "Ohhhh okay." I interrupted, because if Mom got started it took her fifteen minutes before she stopped. "Well, as long as everything's going well with you guys—" "It is, it is," she interrupted happily. "Listen, sweetie, I promise I'll make it up to you, okay? We could go shopping or to the movies or something this weekend, alright?"

"Okay," I agreed. "Did you get home alright?" she asked next. "Yep," I said. "Look, Mom, I gotta go, okay? Love you, bye." Once she had told me that she loved me and that she was going to make it up to me—again—I hung up. She always says that she'll make it up to me. And usually, that only ends in two ways—one, she doesn't, two, she does and it turns out horribly for me but I fake happiness for her.

She really does feel bad about missing so much of my life.

0o0o0

We were having roast beef for dinner—"we" being Edward and I.

The dining room was absurdly huge, like the rest of the house. Our house was big enough to safely house about eleven people without even one of them seeing each other once throughout the day. But only four people lived inside; or, when you put some real thought into it, two. Considering the fact that my parents were hardly ever home and all.

I made small talk with Edward as I ate, not touching my vegetables and gobbling down my starches. The roast beef was good, sure, but it wasn't exactly my favorite. I didn't mind that my parents were absent, they almost always were. This was just another, everyday dinner for me. It would have been weirder if they were here, now that I thought about it.

After I was finished I went back upstairs and got back on the computer, searching Tumblr and having a ball until it got really late and I could barely keep my eyes open. When I checked the clock, I realized that it was one o'clock in the morning. I sighed. Typical of Edward not to come in and tell me about how late it had gotten.

No, that wasn't how he was. He wasn't the type of person to warn you about staying up late so you wouldn't be tired the next day. He didn't care if you stayed up all night, especially not if you had school the next day. No, tomorrow he'd be waking me up at the usual time, six o'clock, and shipping me off to school. He wouldn't even care if I went to sleep at five fifty-nine. . .in the morning.

I decided to call it a night. I logged off the internet, made some last finishing touches on my fan fiction, and then decided to take a shower. Most of the bedrooms had a private bathroom, including my room. After I was all washed up and clean and flower-y smelling, I changed into my pajamas, shut off my light, closed my curtains and climbed into bed.

It was when I was laying under the blankets, my head against the pillow and my breathing the only noise in the room, then I remembered. . .I had a plan for tomorrow. I'd be going back to the field, investigating the suspicious things that had happened after school today. I'd be searching intently for evidence, and I didn't even have to slightest clue as to what I would find.

I could find anything, really.

My heart began to do somersaults again and my stomach disappeared from my body all of a sudden. My head was spinning and I couldn't get the excited grin off of my face. Oh, and did I mention, I couldn't go to sleep? I mean, when you're tip-of-your-toes excited, how can you go to sleep?

Trick question, you can't.