A/N: Hey everyone! *waves* Sorry for the delay. This chapter was very hard to write. I had to scrape it all off twice before it felt right. So I hope you enjoy!

Chapter-19: Take A Chance on Me

EPOV

I stood just beyond the entrance to the hospital cafeteria as I watched her.

Bella.

My human.

She had a pair of earphones in as she moved her head a little to the rhythm of whatever music was playing. It would've been a normal sight for me because I've seen teenagers do that countless of times. But somehow, I felt intrigued this time. Maybe it was because she's the teenager this time?

Whatever the reason, I wanted to see the music she had on her playlist. I wanted to know which song she's listening to as she smiled down at the table in front of her. Most of all, I wanted to be able to walk up to her, take a seat beside her and pluck one earphone out of her ear and listen to what she's listening, like a boyfriend—a real one.

Shit! A real one? Really, Masen? I scolded myself. A real one will be a human one, not a monster like you.

I pushed away the insecurities and started making my way to where she sat alone at one of the tables.

As I approached her, she didn't look away from where she had her eyes trained on—which happened to be an apple. She twirled the fruit in her hand and kept her head down, probably still lost in the music she loved.

Just as I reached her, her hand slipped and the apple tumbled down from the table edge toward the ground.

One thing I liked about being a vampire was our reflexes. Those reflexes kicked in when I saw the apple falling and I caught it in my hands, not realizing that I was being quicker than human eyes could perceive.

A gasp alerted me to my audience. I looked away from my hand to see Bella staring at the apple in my hands with her lips parted just a little bit. I grinned and held the apple up for her to see.

She blinked and then yanked the earphones out before shoving them in her jeans pocket. "You're here!"

The sound of her beating heart made me smile and I raised a questioning eyebrow at her. "I said that I'll be here, didn't I? I thrive to be a man of my word, Ms. Swan, and I look forward to demonstrate that to you … if you give me a chance."

"A man of your word, huh?" she asked, mimicking my eyebrow hitch from moments before.

I nodded. "Never said anything about human though," I answered before motioning for her to follow me.

"Where're we going?"

"I figured that we have some things to talk about and thought that you'd like to do it in a more private setting?" My words came out sounding more like a question. When the uncertainty still lingered in her eyes, I decided to offer her an out. "We can talk here if you need to be back to work soon ..."

She hesitated for just a second before straightening her shoulders and standing up beside me. "I've got the day off actually," she said. "Let's go."

Will I ever stop being astounded by this girl's bravery? I wondered as I led the way out of the hospital.

~*~*~*RoALS*~*~*~

I had planned on taking her to Port Angeles to get her lunch, but the memory of the woman following us the last time we were there made me reconsider. So I decided to take a little detour just to check a theory.

BPOV

We both sat in silence as Edward drove us toward the other end of the town—both of us apparently lost in our thoughts.

He didn't stop until we reached the trees that lined the edge of the town. There, in the middle of nowhere, he stopped the car.

I tried to keep my voice calm as I asked, "We're stopping here?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Is this okay?"

I felt his eyes on me as I shrugged, hoping to be all nonchalant. "You did confess about murdering people so …" I left the rest of the sentence unfinished, just to see what he was doing.

"Shit!" I heard him curse under his breath. "I'm fucking this up already," he said before meeting my eyes. "I was trying to see if you would get scared or not. I have a morbid sense of humor. Sorry," he admitted, looking a little embarrassed.

"And here I thought you didn't have a sense of humor at all—morbid or otherwise." My remark made him frown.

He looked down at his hands that were holding the steering wheel in a death grip and said in a voice so low that I had to strain my ears to catch his words. "Bella, I know I've told you that I've been around for a long time," he said. "But this thing between us is every bit new to me as it can be."

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Just that I've never done this thing before," he said as he gestured between the two of us.

"This thing? You mean dating?" I asked for clarification.

"Yeah, not when I was a human and definitely after I was turned," he replied. "I had never found someone who made me want to have this … until now."

My heart clenched at his confession and I reached for his hand. I ghosted my hand on top of his before taking it in mine and then I said, "This is a first for me too. So we'll figure this out together."

His eyes snapped back to mine as he asked, "Is there a chance of figuring this out?"

"There might be," I told him. "Now how about we go somewhere else and have that talk?"

"Do you have some place in mind?" he asked with a smile curling his lips upward.

"I think so."

~*~*~*RoALS*~*~*~

I exhaled deeply as I stepped out of the pathway and took in the beauty surrounding us. I made a mental note to thank Mrs. Goff when I saw her the next day for telling me about this place.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" I asked as I turned my head to the side to look at Edward.

He had gone completely silent the moment we reached the clearing. There, standing in the middle of the meadow-like clearing with his face turned toward the sun, he looked like a statue.

"Edward?"

The sound of his name seemed to snap him out of whatever trance he was in as he looked at me with shock coloring his features. "How do you know about this place?"

His question made me wonder why he was so troubled about it.

I answered him anyway. "Mrs. Goff, the lady who owns the bookstore, told me about this place. She said she had found it when she was out exploring the town with her husband after they had first arrived in Forks."

A startled laughter escaped him as he shook his head in what seemed like disbelief. I walked over to stand in front of him and asked in confusion, "What is it?"

His smile was just a little strained as he took my hand in his. "Are you ready for another horror story?"

~*~*~*RoALS*~*~*~

"Wow," I exclaim quietly, thankful for the fallen tree trunk Edward made me sit down upon. "So let me get this straight, your sister is a psychic? For real?"

"Yes," he confirmed with a nod of his head. "And Jasper's an empath."

"Her husband?" I asked, feeling more than a little befuddled with all the information he had given me in the past half hour or so.

"Husband or boyfriend, depending on our back story at the time," he answered.

I frowned, and he cleared my confusion before I could even voice it. "In simpler words, Jasper is Alice's mate."

"Mate," I repeated, testing the word on my tongue for a moment.

His eyes were trained on mine as he said, "Yes, vampires don't break up or get divorces. When we mate, we're mated for the rest of our existence."

Something in his eyes made me avert mine and I looked down at the wildflowers growing in the clearing we're in. After a quiet moment, I asked him, still trying to wrap my head around all he's told me. "So your sister, Alice, can see the future and she saw us in here? In this place? Together?"

One side of lips tilted upwards, as he responded to me, "When you put it like that, it's very hard to believe it, I know."

I snorted. "That's one way to put it." Then I schooled my features into a more serious one and asked the question that's been bugging me since he started talking about his gifted sister. "What is your gift? What do you do?"

The trace of smile was gone in an instant as he looked away from me. I was beginning to think that he wasn't going to answer me when he started talking. "I can dive into your mind and find your deepest and darkest secret."

I gasped at his revelation, and he turned back to face me before continuing. "… as long as you're thinking of those secrets. I can read people's minds, Bella. "

His admission made me wonder what he might've heard when I was near him. I didn't know if I should be mortified or horrified. My fears must've been apparent on my face because he quickly said, "I can't read your thoughts though. I'm not that good of a mind reader, I guess."

"Or maybe my mind isn't very nice place to be," I blurted out at random.

Immediately his stance changed. He took a few steps closer to me and crouched down in front of me. Taking my face in his hand, he made me meet his blazing green eyes. "Or maybe I'm not worthy of hearing your thoughts," he said to me before averting his eyes from mine.

I reached out and held his hand, keeping it clasped in mine. "Hey," I called. When he didn't look at me, I tried again. "Edward, look at me."

This time he complied with my request and turned his gaze to me. "Tell me what you see when you look at me," I asked him, wanting to make him understand.

He stayed silent for a moment before reaching out and placing a hand on my heart. "Your eyes tell me that you're determined to see whatever this is through," he started. "But your heart, it's telling me something else."

Shocked at his words, I asked in a shaky voice, "What do you mean?"

With his eyes focused on the spot where his hand resided right over my heart, he clarified, "It's beating so fast … faster than your usual heartbeat. That's a symptom of fear, isn't it? You're afraid of me." His last sentence came out as a statement, not a question.

I inhaled sharply and then nodded. I had promised myself that I'd be completely honest with him so I was going to give him my honesty. "Yes and no," I responded at last. "You don't scare me, Edward. I know that you'll not hurt me."

His eyebrows pulled upwards in a silent question, and I shrugged. "If you were gonna hurt me, I think you'd have done so by now," I told him. "It's not like you didn't have any opportunities."

His lips quivered in a suppressed laugh before he frowned. "You said that I don't scare you. So does that mean that you are afraid of something?"

"Yes," I replied, closing my eyes for a moment and hoping that I was doing the right thing by confessing this to him. When I opened my eyes, the sight of his face was so full of confusion and heartbreak that it made me feel like my heart was breaking all over again. Swallowing the lump that had formed in the back of my throat, I continued. "I'm afraid of what might happen to my heart if I leave it open to possibilities."

For a moment, we're both silent, and the only sound that reached us is the sound of a stream flowing nearby … that and the sound of my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. Finally, Edward curled his fingers a little—a gesture that made me wonder if he was wishing for my heart right at that moment.

Then he grinned, that lopsided grin of his that indicated that he was going to be a smartass. "That's quite a predicament you've got yourself in," he said with the smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Yes," I said firmly. "That's why I thought we need to have this talk."

EPOV

I prepared myself for the worst because the way she looked down at the ground, it felt … ultimate.

She was silent for a long moment and when she spoke, her voice was quiet. "Edward, thank you."

What? I didn't expect her to say that!

"For what?" I asked, feeling beyond confused about her reaction.

"For telling me everything," she replied. "For letting me know the real you."

I tried to make sense of what she was telling me as I asked, "So it's all too much for you, isn't it?"

She bit her lip and looked down—her eyes focused on one of the wildflowers lying at her feet. After a few moments she looked up and very slowly shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I realize that you might not be the perfect guy to date out there, and the mind reading is pretty unnerving if you think about it … not to mention that you confessed to murdering people, but …"

But? I like the idea of a 'but' in there, I thought eagerly.

"But?" I prompted her.

She didn't hesitate to answer this time. "But I think everyone deserves a second chance. So I think that if you agree to try to control a few urges, we might give this dating thing another shot."

I didn't say anything, letting her get her words out first. She said again, "I'm not trying to change who you are, Edward, because no matter who you are, I liked that person when we first met. But I have issues … two of them actually … that I need you to work on."

"Issues?" I repeated. "I'd be surprised if you didn't have them."

Her mouth lifted up in a slight smile and she continued talking. "First is the bit about killing people. You said that you can live on other resources?"

I nodded, already having figured that would've been one of the issues. "Blood bags," I supplied.

"Yes, well, I don't like the thought of you killing people. So I'll request you to refrain from killing them and use safer options instead."

"Alright," I agreed. "What else?"

"I hate the fact that you lied to me," she said all of a sudden, making me regret yet again the stupid as fuck stunt I had pulled. I opened my mouth to apologize again, but she held a hand up to stop me. "I know that you're sorry. You've told me that already."

"Then …"

She gave me a small smile as she said, "Just promise me that you'll never do it again. And know that I'm strong enough to make my own decisions. Tell me that you'll keep that in mind please."

This time, when I told her the words, I meant them. "I promise."

She smiled and stood up from her perch on the fallen tree. "Well then, Mr. Masen," she said, walking up to me. "I guess that means that we're dating?"

I didn't bother to answer her as I pulled her in my arms and kissed her lips softly, relieved to have this chance to get my girl.

Bella laughed as she kissed me back, and the sound of her giggles made me realize that controlling these urges as she called them is a small price to pay to have my human with me.

A/N: She's giving him another chance. :)

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Song rec for this chapter: Okay by Backhouse Mike ft. Elizabeth Gillies,

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Take care.

Ann