A/N: Thank you to the ones who reviewed!!! I got a little depressed because I think I lost all my regulars but decided I'm not gonna complain because I suppose that that's what you get for not uploading in three months... I meant to post this chapter yesterday but life got in the way, the sneaky bitch! I think updates will come every 10-14 days until classes start.

Anyway, I don't really like this chapter much. It's pretty much the same as the book, there wasn't much I could change and it was necessary for the plot so I had to keep it. But good news is that I already know how it ends. Yay! There's not gonna be any James or Victoria or Laurent but I think it's gonna be really good. The next few chapters will tell us more about Bella and Edward's lives and soon enough the promised turn of events will come.

Thank you to my bootylicious beta Katiushabb and stay tuned for our soon to come collaboration "Have you seen her?"

Ok, enough rambling, enjoy!!!

Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to the wonderful Stephanie Meyer *sigh*.

"Can I ask just one more?" I pleaded as Bella drove slowly down the quiet street. She didn't seem to be paying any attention to the road.

She sighed.

"One," she agreed. Her lips pressed together into a cautious line.

"Well… you said you knew I hadn't gone into the bookstore, and that I had gone south. I was just wondering how you knew that."

She looked away, deliberating.

"I thought we were past all evasiveness," I grumbled.

She almost smiled.

"Fine, then. I followed your scent." She looked at the road, giving me time to take that in. I couldn't think of an acceptable response to that, but I filed it away for later. I tried to refocus. I wasn't ready to let her be finished, now that she was finally explaining things.

"And then you didn't answer one of my first questions…" I stalled.

She looked at me with disapproval. "Which one?"

"How does it work – the hearing thing? How do you pinpoint one person? How wide is your range? Is it the same to everyone?"

"That's more than one," she pointed out. I simply looked at her, waiting.

"Some have better hearing than others, it's all about focus, really. We don't hear everything all the time, we can zoom in and out, depending on what we are looking for." She paused. "As long as we are familiar with someone's voice it's easier for us to track them down, tune the other voices out and focus on that one. And some voices are easier to locate, because of their tone or volume, for example Alice's." She smiled to herself.

"You, on the other hand, don't talk that much so even though I got to you quickly there wasn't much to hear." She smirked. "Which brings us back to you."

I sighed. How to begin?

"Aren't we past all the evasions now?" she reminded me softly, smiling.

I looked away from her face for the first time, trying to find words. I happened to notice the speedometer and smiled.

"What?" she asked.

"Your truck is really slow."

"I happen to like this truck, we have history," she sounded almost offended.

"Sorry, it's just, I think I could run faster." I laughed and she snickered.

"Enough of offending my precious truck," she snapped. "I'm still waiting for your latest theory.

I paused.

"I won't laugh," she promised.

"I'm more afraid you won't like what I have to say."

"Is it that bad?"

"Kind of, yeah."

She waited. I was looking down, so I couldn't see her expression.

"Go ahead." Her voice was calm.

"I…" I hesitated.

"What got you started – a book? A movie?" she probed.

"No – it was Saturday, at the beach." I risked a glance up at her face. She looked puzzled.

"I ran into the daughter of one of my father's patients —Jane Black," I continued. "We met at the hospital when her father was getting treated from an injury."

She still looked confused.

"Her dad is one of the Quileute elders." I watched her carefully. Her confused expression froze in place.

"We went for a walk —" I edited all my scheming out of the story "— and she was telling me some old legends. She told me one…" I hesitated.

"Go on," she said.

"About vampires." I realized I was whispering. I couldn't look at her face now. But I saw her knuckles tighten slightly on the wheel.

"And you immediately thought of me?" Still calm.

"No. She… mentioned your family."

She was silent, staring at the road.

I was worried suddenly, worried about protecting Jane.

"She just thought it was a silly superstition," I said quickly. "She didn't expect me to think anything of it." It didn't seem like enough; I had to confess. "It was my fault, I forced her to tell me."

"Why?"

"Taylor said something about you — he was trying to provoke me. And an older boy from the tribe

said your family didn't come to the reservation, only it sounded like he meant something different. So I got Jane alone and I tricked it out of her," I admitted.

She startled me by laughing. I glared up at her. She was laughing, but her eyes were fierce, staring ahead.

"Tricked her how?" she asked.

"I tried to, um, flirt, I guess."

"I'd like to have seen that." She chuckled darkly.

I looked out my window into the night.

"What did you do then?" she asked after a minute.

"I did some research on the subject on Carlisle's library."

"And did that convince you?" Her voice sounded barely interested. But her hands were clamped onto the steering wheel.

"No. Nothing fit. Most of it made no sense. And then…" I stopped.

"What?"

"Em made me realize it was all kind of silly and I finally decided it didn't matter," I whispered.

"It didn't matter?" Her tone made me look up — I had finally broken through her carefully composed mask. Her face was incredulous, with just a hint of the anger I'd feared.

"No," I said softly. "It doesn't matter to me what you are."

A hard, mocking edge entered her voice. "You don't care if I'm a monster? If I'm not human!" She looked as if she could burst into angry tears any moment, but she never did.

"No."

She was silent, staring straight ahead again. Her face was bleak and cold.

"You're angry," I sighed. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No," she said, but her tone was as sad and hard as her face. "I'd rather know what you're thinking — even if what you're thinking is insane."

"So I'm wrong again?" I challenged.

"That's not what I was referring to. 'It doesn't matter'!" she quoted, gritting her teeth together.

"I'm right?" I gasped.

"Does it matter?"

I took a deep breath.

"Not really." I paused. "But I am curious." My voice, at least, was composed.

She was suddenly resigned. "What are you curious about?"

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen," she answered promptly.

"And how long have you been seventeen?"

Her lips twitched as she stared at the road. "A while," she admitted at last.

"Okay." I smiled, pleased that she was still being honest with me. She stared down at me with watchful eyes, much as she had before, when she was worried about how I was doing. I smiled wider in encouragement, and she frowned.

"Don't laugh — but how can you come out during the daytime?" I said shyly.

She laughed anyway. "Myth."

"Burned by the sun?"

"Myth."

"Sleeping in coffins?"

"Myth." She hesitated for a moment, and a peculiar tone entered her voice. "I can't sleep."

It took me a minute to absorb that. "At all?"

"Never," she said, her voice nearly inaudible. She turned to look at me with a wistful expression. The golden eyes held mine, and I lost my train of thought. I stared at her until she looked away.

"You haven't asked me the most important question yet." Her voice was hard now, and when she looked at me again her eyes were cold.

I blinked, still dazed. "Which one is that?"

"You aren't concerned about my diet?" she asked sarcastically.

"Oh," I murmured, "that."

"Yes, that." Her voice was bleak. "Don't you want to know if I drink blood?"

I flinched. "Well, Jane said something about that."

"What did Jane say?" she asked flatly.

"She said you didn't… hunt people. She said your family wasn't supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals."

"She said we weren't dangerous?" Her voice was deeply skeptical.

"Not exactly. She said you weren't supposed to be dangerous. But the Quileutes still didn't want you on their land, just in case."

She looked forward, but I couldn't tell if she was watching the road or not.

"So was she right? About not hunting people?" I tried to keep my voice as even as possible.

"The Quileutes have a long memory," she whispered.

I took it as a confirmation.

"Don't let that make you complacent, though," she warned me. "They're right to keep their distance from us. We are still dangerous."

"I don't understand."

"We try," she explained slowly. "We're usually very good at what we do. Sometimes we make mistakes. Me, for example, allowing myself to be alone with you."

"This is a mistake?" I heard the sadness in my voice, but I didn't know if she could as well.

"A very dangerous one," she murmured.

We were both silent then. I watched the headlights twist with the curves of the road. I was aware of the time slipping away so quickly, and I was hideously afraid that I would never have another chance to be with her like this again — openly, the walls between us gone for once. Her words hinted at an end, and I recoiled from the idea, my hands turned into fists. I couldn't waste one minute I had with her.

"Tell me more," I asked desperately, not caring what she said, just so I could hear her voice again.

She looked at me quickly, startled by the change in my tone. "What more do you want to know?"

"Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people," I suggested, my voice still tinged with desperation, I fought against the grief that was trying to overpower me.

"I don't want to be a monster." Her voice was very low and sad.

"But animals aren't enough?"

She paused. "I can't be sure, of course, but I'd compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn't completely satiate the hunger — or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time." Her tone turned ominous. "Sometimes it's more difficult than others."

"Is it very difficult for you now?" I asked.

She sighed. "Yes."

"But you're not hungry now," I said confidently — stating, not asking.

"Why do you think that?"

"Your eyes. I told you I had a theory. I've noticed that people are more irritable when they're hungry."

She chuckled. "You are observant, aren't you?"

I didn't answer; I just listened to the sound of her laugh.

"Were you hunting this weekend, with Charlie?" I asked when it was quiet again.

"Yes." She paused for a second, as if deciding whether or not to say something. "I didn't want to leave, but it was necessary. It's a bit easier to be around you when I'm not thirsty."

"Why didn't you want to leave?"

"It makes me… anxious… to be away from you." Her eyes were gentle but intense, and they seemed to be making my bones turn soft. "It was a very long three days. I really got on Charlie's nerves." She smiled ruefully at me.

"Three days? Didn't you just get back today?"

"No, we got back Sunday."

"Then why weren't you in school?" I was frustrated as I thought of how much disappointment I had suffered because of her absence.

"Well, you asked if the sun hurt me, and it doesn't. But I can't go out in the sunlight — at least, not where anyone can see."

"Why?"

"I'll show you sometime," she promised.

I thought about it for a moment.

"You could have let me know," I decided.

She was puzzled. "But I knew you were safe."

"But I didn't know where you were. I —" I hesitated, looking out the window.

"What?"

"I didn't like it. Not seeing you. It makes me anxious, too."

She was quiet. I glanced at her, apprehensive, and saw that her expression was pained.

"Ah," she groaned quietly. "This is wrong."

I couldn't understand her response. "What did I say?"

"Don't you see, Edward? It's one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved." She turned her anguished eyes to the road, her words flowing almost too fast for me to understand. "I don't want to hear that you feel that way." Her voice was low but urgent and pained. Her words cut me. "It's wrong. It's not safe. I'm dangerous, Edward — please, grasp that."

"No." I tried very hard not to look like a sulky child.

"I'm serious," she growled.

"So am I. I told you, it doesn't matter what you are. It's too late."

Her voice whipped out, low and harsh. "Never say that."

I stared out at the road. We must be close now. I wanted to ask her how was it that she knew just how to get to our secluded house but I guess I already knew the answer.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, her voice still raw. I just shook my head, not sure if I could speak. I could feel her gaze on my face, but I kept my eyes forward.

"Are you upset?" She sounded appalled.

"No," I said, but my voice faltered.

I saw her reach toward me hesitantly with her right hand, but then she stopped and placed it slowly back on the steering wheel.

"I'm sorry." Her voice burned with regret. I knew she wasn't just apologizing for the words that had upset me.

The darkness slipped by us in silence.

"Will I see you tomorrow?" I demanded.

"Yes — I have a paper due, too." She smiled. "I'll save you a seat at lunch."

It was silly, after everything we'd been through tonight, how that little promise could put me in such a better mood and make me unable to speak.

We were in front of my house. The lights were on, my car in its place, everything utterly normal. It was like waking from a dream. She stopped the car, but I didn't move.

"Do you promise to be there tomorrow?"

"I promise."

I considered that for a moment, then nodded.

I hesitated, my hand on the door handle, trying to prolong the moment.

"Edward?" she asked in a different tone — serious, but hesitant.

"Yes?" I turned back to her quickly.

"Will you promise me something?"

"Yes," I said, and instantly regretted my unconditional agreement. What if she asked me to stay away from her? I couldn't keep that promise.

"Don't go into the woods alone."

I stared at her in blank confusion. "Why?"

She frowned, and her eyes were tight as she stared past me out the window.

"I'm not always the most dangerous thing out there. Let's leave it at that."

I shuddered slightly at the sudden bleakness in her voice, but I was relieved. This, at least, was an easy promise to honour. "Whatever you say."

"I'll see you tomorrow," she sighed, and I knew she wanted me to leave now.

"Tomorrow, then." I opened the door unwillingly.

"Edward?" I turned and she was leaning toward me.

"Sleep well," she said and leaned away.

I stepped out of the car giddily. I thought I heard her giggle, but the sound was too quiet for me to be certain.

She waited till I had reached the front door, and then I heard her engine loudly rev. I turned to watch the red truck disappear around the corner. I realized it was very cold.

A/N: Next up is Alice giving Edward the third degree, I think it will be a more upbeat chapter.

Please review! You know it makes me smile! *drops on her knees with her pout on and begs*.