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ChapterThree

Tyler and I headed back out into the roasting afternoon heat. The hot air on the sidewalk was rippling in a shimmering layer just off the concrete. The grass looked a faded, washed out green under the intense sunlight.

I trailed along as Tyler showed me the ins and outs of the campus, the two of us making our way from one air conditioned shaded oasis to another. It was a beautiful campus, with the focal point being the original section of the university where red brick buildings surrounded an enormous reflecting pond.

The pond was built using white painted concrete and was shaped like a amphitheater. The steps and the surrounding lawns all sloped down toward the giant fountain in the center of the pond. Students littered the lawn, reading, listening to music or just enjoying the feeling of the sun on their skin.

Palm trees and live oaks were planted next to the encircling sidewalks, providing some shade from the unrelenting heat. Statues and islands of vegetation helped to break up the open spaces and lent some visual interest to the shimmering expanses of concrete, brick and grass.

Our last stop was the student union in the center of campus. Tyler was headed there to meet up with some friends that had texted him while we were walking. I decided to go along because I was starving and I wanted get a bite to eat.

I had been in the union once before, when I took the orientation tour a couple weeks before. But even then, it was still a stunning building. The towering atrium was breathtaking in the light of the late afternoon. Reflected sunlight glittered off the chrome and the white tiles and the giant Pegasus logo in the center of the floor.

"Close your mouth Cullen, you'll catch flies," Tyler laughed while punching me in the arm.

"Whatever, it's a cool building," I tried to play him off.

"Hey," Tyler pointed across the room at a group of students, "I'm gonna go meet up with my friends over there. Wanna meet them?"

"Nah," I shook my head, "I'm beat and I'm hungry. I'm just gonna grab a bite and head back to the room."

"Alright," Tyler said over his shoulder as he walked away, "I'll see you later man."

I looked around at my choices and settled on a nice steak burrito. I had just gotten to the counter and started giving my order to the line worker when I heard a startled gasp behind me. I turned to look, only to be confronted by one of the smallest and angriest persons I had ever seen in my life.

She stood maybe four foot ten, had elfin features and a cloud of spiky black hair. The cloud did not just stop at her hair. I swear I could see a cartoonish black thunderstorm of anger just above her head. I could tell from the glare on her face that I was about to be in deep trouble.

Behind her I saw the rapidly retreating back of another girl. I caught a glimpse of long mahogany hair but her face was obscured and I could see that she had her hand raised to cover her mouth. She was obviously upset by both the speed she was leaving, and the hunched set of her shoulders.

My attention was quickly drawn back to the short ball of angry elf in front of me when she hauled off and slapped me across the face.

"Owww!" I yelled, "what the hell was that for?"

"You son of a bitch," she started growling at me. "You said you were going to Gainesville, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Gainesville?" I said, confused, all the while trying to shake off the ringing in my left ear, "I'm sorry lady, but I have never set eyes on you before and I have no idea what you are talking about." At this point I was pissed as hell. I saw the line worker staring at us. I could tell she was trying to figure out if she needed to call the authorities.

I held up my hand indicating I needed a minute. I turned back to the tiny ball of fury in front of me, "Now start talking before I have the campus police arrest your ass for assaulting me."

"Don't you play dumb with me Tony," she hissed. "You know goddamn well what I'm talking about. You know she has a restraining order against you." My mouth dropped open. Restraining order? What the hell was she talking about? She stuck a finger in my face, "If there is anyone that will be calling campus police it's going to be me."

"Look, my name isn't Tony, it's Edward," I half yelled at her as I batted her finger away. "And I don't know a single damned thing about a restraining order." At this point I reached for my wallet in my back pocket and pulled it out. "Look," I said, pointing at my driver's license, "my name is Edward Cullen." She reached out to grab the wallet to hold it steady while she glared at it, daring it to say something else.

I reached down and grabbed her by the hand holding my wallet. "Now you and I are going to sit down and talk, and you are going to tell me what is going on." She glared at our joined hands, before yanking hers free. "I don't want to walk around campus in constant fear of having random women come up and slap me," I growled.

I turned to the line worker and told her everything was fine. She turned my assailant who also nodded in the affirmative.

I stalked over to the nearest booth and slid in. I was relieved to see that the young woman had followed me. But she did not sit down. She just stood there, staring at me with her head cocked to the side, examining me like I was some puzzle she had yet to solve. It seemed like forever before she finally shook her head, as if she was clearing out some mental cobwebs, and slid into the opposite bench.

She looked down, placed both hands on the table and tightly interlaced her fingers. It was as if she no longer trusted her hands. She glanced back up at me and studied my eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, with a note of wonder in her voice. "I can see the difference now." She cocked her head and examined me again, "but the likeness is absolutely uncanny. You look just like him."

"Explain."

"You saw that girl I was with?" she asked. I nodded. "We went to school with this guy, Tony, down in Miami. She used to date him."

"What has that got to do with me?"

"You have to understand, when they broke up... well, it wasn't pretty." She glanced down and to the side, like she was recalling something unpleasant. "Tony got pretty mean about the whole thing. They had, like, this huge fight," she paused, searching for words, "and, well, it got pretty physical."

I felt my hand tensing up into a fist and felt the heat rise on the back of my neck in reaction to the direction the story was going. The girl noticed and quickly placed her hand over mine in a calming gesture.

She shook her head, as if to deny the memory and to discourage my reaction, "It ended up with my friend going to the hospital." She removed her hand and leaned back. "That's why there is a restraining order and that's why I reacted like I did."

She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye again, "I'm so, so sorry hitting you." She shook her head again, "But I was the one that was there for her to pick up the pieces, and I'm just so damned angry at that son of a bitch. And there you were, looking just like him, like you didn't have a care in the world."

I ran my fingers through my hair, "Okay, I get why you slapped me." I had not missed the bit about the hospital and the back of my neck started getting hotter. I paused, "Honestly I think I would have done worse. But I still don't understand, why me?"

She pulled out her iPhone. "Look," she said as she started flicking through photos. She pulled up what looked like a prom photo and zoomed in on the face of one of the guys in the background. She shoved the phone under my nose, "this guy, right here, that's Tony."

The blood must have drained from my face pretty quickly, because the next thing I remembered was Alice rushing around the table.

"Omygosh, omygosh, are you ok?"

I was stunned. That was me in the photo. There I was in all the phone's pixelated glory wearing a tux I had never rented, with a carnation I had never smelled, with my arms around a pretty girl I had never seen.