A/N: The next few chapters might come up a bit slowly, bear with me, because I have finals next week…six of them. This is what I get for taking 18 hours this semester…ugh, I'm not excited. Thus is the plight of the college student. God, I ramble a lot, I wonder if it's a disease. I should look into that. Anywho, thanks for the favorites, reviews, etc!
"You're eyes are darker, you should've gone hunting with the rest of them," Amanda pointed out while flipping through channels on the television in the living room. "I'm fine, someone has to be here to make sure Alice doesn't make Bella do anything too farfetched or torturous," I said, more entertained by watching her than whatever was on the TV, even if I could only see the side of her face from my angle beside her on the couch. Alice was responsible for keeping Bella occupied and not letting her run away to La Push where Edward was afraid the wolves would hurt her, accidentally or not. Not that it mattered; Bella didn't seem to have a problem finding scrapes to get into no matter where she went.
"It's so noble of you to try and keep Bella from being Alice's human Barbie," she laughed, turning the TV off. "Edward bribed me with a motorcycle," I explained. The thought of the glorious motorcycle in the garage made me roll my sweater sleeves up in anticipation. She laughed at me and rolled her eyes. Esme glided through the door and seemed surprised to see Amanda. I smelled some kind of food, I didn't care enough to try and identify it. Deep down I'm remarkably lazy.
"Amanda!" she greeted, "It's lovely to see you! I have Italian food, help yourself." "Thank you," Amanda said, but added in an afterthought, "Where'd you get that around here?" "Port Angeles," Esme answered, setting the bags down on the counter. "Jasper can show you where the plates are if you're hungry now, or later," she said, meandering off, probably to work on one of her remodeling projects. Right, I should have thought of that, I'm always a bad host. One of the curses of being a loner.
"Okay, thanks," Amanda said, giving me an odd look after Esme left. "What?" I asked, unsure of what I did to deserve it. "I dunno. You were looking at me like I'm crazy, so I reciprocated." "You are crazy," I reminded her. "True, but it's old news," she retorted, "as if you're the pinnacle of normality anyway." I shrugged, admitting she had a point.
She picked up a stray piece of paper lying on the coffee table, found a pencil and began to doodle. She turned the sheet over and burst into laughter. "Emmett sucks at tic tac toe," she laughed, recognizing my brother's sloppy scrawl. I laughed with her and pointed out that he had been playing with Alice. She continued to doodle. I couldn't pick out anything particular, just intricate webs of connecting lines.
She absentmindedly leaned back against me and I instinctively wrapped my arm around her waist. I wasn't sure what prompted me to do that, I didn't seem to know why I did a lot of things around her, and it was bothering me less and less. She wasn't bothered by my touch, which still took me off guard a bit.
"What happened to your arm?" she asked suddenly, breaking out of her daze and lightly tracing her finger over one of the many crescent shaped marks on my forearm. "You can see that?" I asked, astounded. The only scar really visible to humans was the one above my eyebrow, no one had ever noticed the plethora of others before. But I usually did wear long sleeves, just in case. I wasn't sure how to make up an adequate story to account for so many scars…maybe having a glass door dropped on me.
"Barely, it's faint, but the light caught it just right and it sparkled. Sparkly things catch my attention," she elaborated to my amusement. "I thought I told you about my…involvement with so many young vampires," I said in a more serious tone. "They did all this?" she asked, gesturing to my arm, to which I nodded. "Our venom is the only thing that leaves a scar, newborns lack fighting skill and go for the obvious attack, biting anywhere they can. It's not really a big deal to most vampires, a fledgling vampire is highly unlikely to attack an older one who can control himself and rationally fight back. Unless you're responsible for training them to become those seasoned fighters," I explained, not afraid of frightening her this time.
"Did it hurt?" she asked after a bit of silence, I supposed she was thinking about my explanation. "It burned like hell," I admitted. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "Don't be, it doesn't matter anymore," I said, moving her hair out of her eyes. "Having so many scars is rather useful," I began, trying to lighten the mood, "Other vampires are extremely intimidated and for the most part leave me alone. It's really the only upside I can think of to having these imperfections. It worked to my advantage in the long run."
"They're not imperfections," she argued, "without them you wouldn't be you and in the long run my life would be excessively less meaningful and lonely." Alice and Bella barged in before I could say anything, not that it mattered because I never could have had a worthy reply to that. I might have been able to come up with something if I dwelled on it for the next few years.
"Amanda!" Alice chirped, not at all surprised by her presence. Bella greeted her also, and made her way upstairs to put the bags she was carrying in Alice's room. I hoped I still got the motorcycle in spite of the fact that Alice had dragged her out to shop. Once Bella was out of earshot, Alice asked, "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" "I'm fine," she answered. I don't think Alice was convinced, but knew Amanda well enough not to press the matter. "Your aunt's in Port Angeles and doesn't intend on returning tonight, you did a good job of scaring her off, you hellion," Alice laughed, earning a grin from Amanda. "Your grandmother is returning at roughly 9 tonight, you should call her and tell her you're staying over here for the weekend," Alice continued.
"I am?" she asked, confused by Alice's foresight. "Yes, you are, and you'll thank me for it. Lillian won't mind, she'll be glad for you to have a distraction. Besides, if you leave no one will hold Bella down while I give her a pedicure, Jasper wants his motorcycle too badly and Esme is too wholesome to support forced beautifying," Alice continued, talking a mile a minute. "Okay then, apparently my mind's made up, even though I didn't know it," Amanda agreed, slightly eyeing Alice with suspicion. "That's the spirit!" Alice said with enthusiasm as she dashed upstairs, probably plotting on how to bend Bella to cooperate with her.
"You should eat," I said, suddenly remembering she hadn't eaten anything since much earlier that morning. "I'm fine," she said, going back to her doodle. "But it's Italian! Ethnic food in Forks!" I said trying to persuade her. "Tempting, but no," she said, smirking at my attempt. "Please?" I asked, "It would make me feel better." When all else fails, I'm not above resorting to using guilt. "Ugh, fine then, but only because it's a cultural experience," she agreed.
"It's for your own good anyway," I went on as I searched for the cupboard the dishes were in, "if your blood sugar dropped too low and you passed out, I might not be able to hold Alice back from…I don't know…painting your nails or something, or rigorously applying eyeshadow." "How horrifying," she said as she made her way to the kitchen and sat on one of the barstools by the island. I finally found the dishes, I could count on one hand the number of times they'd been used. Another one of our props. I found silverware with much less difficulty and put the dining utensils in front of her so she could help herself.
I sat on the barstool opposite the island from her. "I can't eat if you stare at me," she pointed out, twirling a noodle around with her fork. "That looks good," I said, averting my gaze to the open box of takeout food containing some sort of pasta. It smelled good, which surprised me, food had lost its appeal to me quite a long time ago. I gingerly picked up a single noodle and slurped it up. "Although not as good as it looks," I concluded after I chewed and swallowed.
"You can eat?" Amanda asked, clearly shocked by my display. "I can but I don't, it doesn't have any advantage for me. A lot of food also looks and smells much more grotesque if you have heightened senses." I distracted myself from watching her by studying a blueprint Esme had left on the counter. "You can leave, you know," she said, "I don't want you to feel like you have to be with me constantly, I'm probably starting to annoy you." "It would be impossible for you to annoy me," I said, "Besides, I can better keep you…tranquil by being close. It's a lot stronger that way."
"I can handle it if you want to go off and do something that could be actually interesting," she argued. "You're more interesting than you can possibly know," I said truthfully and vaguely at once. She dropped the subject and continued eating. While she did so, I put the food up in the refrigerator so Bella wouldn't get food poisoning when she ate it later. Our refrigerator was fully stocked, I wondered idly how much food we had wasted over the years by holding up our little charade of normalcy.
Amanda scraped what she didn't eat off her plate into the trash and brought the dish to the sink where she began to rinse it off. "Don't bother with that," I said, "just throw it away." "What?" she asked like I had just started speaking in tongues. "No one will ever use it again, save you or Bella, throwing it away is easier than bothering to clean something that has no purpose," I clarified. She shrugged and dropped the soiled plate and fork into the trash.
"That was surprisingly liberating," she said, "I might take up destroying perfectly good dinnerware as a hobby." "There's a dozen boxes of it in the attic, help yourself," I muttered a bit more grimly than I meant to. "You okay? My questions earlier didn't bother you, did they?" she asked, eyeing me with concern. "No, no," I began, "it's not you, Bella's worried about something and it's making me nervous." Bella's anxiety practically reverberated off the walls, threatening to drive me insane.
"It's really annoying, isn't it? Being able to pick up on everything like that," she asked. "Incredibly," I agreed, "But it does have advantages." "To brood so much you're surprisingly optimistic," Amanda laughed. I laughed at her observation, "I do enjoy a good brood now and then." "It's rubbed off on me," she continued, "one day in class last week I found myself crossing my arms, cocking my head to the side and staring like you do when you go into brooding mode." "I'm sure you looked remarkably intelligent, and not to mention suave," I pointed out.
"Oh, Amandaaaaa!" Alice declared from the bottom of the stairs, appearing quite literally out of nowhere. She motioned enthusiastically for Amanda to follow her upstairs, probably wanting to torture her alongside of Bella. "But!" she whined, cowering behind me. "Please!! Bella doesn't like this one dress and I want to see how it looks on you! I thought you liked me!" Alice continued, acting hurt to get her way. "Alice!!" Amanda whined again. "Alice," I said in a warning tone. "Alice?" Bella called from upstairs. "Fine, I know when I'm not wanted," she sulked, "But would you at least come look at it?" "If you promise I don't have to play dress up," Amanda said, still skeptical. "Yay, I promise!" she triumphed, pushing me out of the way and pulling Amanda up the stairs.
I followed them for no real reason. Partly to make sure Alice kept her word and partly because whatever transpired was bound to be extremely entertaining. "No boys allowed!" Alice declared, slamming the door in my face. "Out of all of you, you're the only vampire who actually worries me," I heard Amanda tell Alice. I chuckled slightly and went into my own room to entertain myself. I opened the window to let the night breeze in; I had always liked how night smelled. I stared out into the darkness and halfway listened to the protesting going on in the next room.
I was impressed, Amanda could hold her own. Bella usually conceded to Alice's whims out of guilt, but not Amanda. I was so proud. Both Alice and Amanda suddenly burst into laughter, most likely at something Bella did, I could only imagine what. I heard Alice shoo Amanda away, telling her to make sure and tell me she kept her promise and reminded her to call her grandmother.
I glanced back at the doorway just in time to watch Amanda enter, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "Was it really that bad?" I asked, amused at her expression. "Not too bad, she didn't make me play dress up, I'm sure you already heard that. She just has so much energy, if only it could be channeled for good," she said, sitting down on the bed, "By the way, she said you got you a shirt or something. I wasn't really listening."
I nodded and shut the window, realizing that half the people in the room were capable of getting cold. "That was nice of her, I wouldn't know what to do if I had to dress myself," I teased. "She got a pink button down number for Emmett," Amanda smirked, "Even I don't see that happening, I don't know what she's thinking." "Forty eight seconds!" Alice reminded Amanda from the next room. I handed her my cell phone and busied myself by putting books back on the shelf that had been strewn around the room for a few months. One day I should make an endeavor to be neater.
I tried not to listen in on her conversation, it would have irked me to no end to have someone hovering over my every move, but I couldn't help but pick up a bit of it. Apparently, "Jasper's sister invited me to stay over, and his mom's here and doesn't mind." I didn't remember it exactly panning out like that, but whatever she needed to say, I supposed.
"Well that went smoothly," she said, snapping the phone shut, "And I loved how you were trying not to listen." "I didn't want to be rude, after all, it's been at least thirty minutes since I opened a door for you or anything of the like," I said, mocking her dislike of my good manners. "How ever have you survived?" she sneered, tossing a book at me that I had left on the bed. I caught it with ease and put it in its proper place. Or at least in the general area of its proper place, organization isn't my forte.
"Looks like you're stuck with me for the next few days," she said, "Try to contain your distress." "I make no promises," I said, flopping loudly and ungracefully down on the bed next to her. We were silent a moment as I listened to her breathing and her thoughts were away in places I'd like to see.
"It's quiet around here without Emmett," she remarked. "Especially when both Emmett and Rosalie are gone," I smirked. "EW!" she exclaimed, burying her face in her hands, "that's a mental image I never needed!!!!!!" "Me neither, I couldn't stand to be around them for the better part of a decade," I agreed, "I think that was after one of the several times they got married, but I could be wrong. I tried to block it from my memory."
She made an exasperated noise and dropped her head onto her knees. "No more, please no more!!" she begged. "Only if you do something for me," I said, prepared to bargain. "Anything!" she said overdramatically, looking up to apprehensively meet my gaze. "Don't freak out," I said quietly right before I leaned in and kissed her.
Oooh, another cliffhanger! I'm so evil! :D