EdwardPOV

"Well Edward, as a matter of fact, I'm starving."

She was smiling at me, expecting me to acknowledge her reference to my comment yesterday, but I ignored it. It wasn't a joke to me. It was a very real, very painful reminder of what might happen to her if my conscience faltered even for a moment. And the pain was literal, even now after having spent hours in her presence, the threat of the thirst bounded onward and upward with no promise of ceasing.

"Shall we?" I motioned her toward the empty side of the street, eager to get out of sight.

I was hyper-vigilant in my constant assessment of the environment. I knew it was dangerous to keep engaging with the human girl and I had tried, with vain attempts, to stop. The self-loathing that I felt after that first night in her room was unique. Unlike the guilt that accompanied my hunger pains, it was only nearly enough to stop me from going to her the second night. It wasn't until after the fourth morning, just before daybreak, that I was able to give the unknown emotion a label. It was shame.

Usually my seduction to the feminine form was less informed by such intricacies as personality or charm, not that I had much experience, but nevertheless, to actually know her was proving to be an unexpected complication. For two weeks I followed her through the small town, seeing her in the minds of those around her, hearing her words, watching her movements. And at night I stole into her bedroom, the one place that should have been her safe haven, but was more dangerous to her than the most treacherous corners of the earth.

"Sure." She agreed to my request in an easy tone, but her heart played a different song.

I cleared my throat, "Do I make you nervous?"

She hesitated, but I knew she would not lie. She rarely lied. And never for her own self-interest.

"It's not that you make me nervous," she said slowly as she toed at loose gravel, "I think it's more that you're –"

"—Scary." It wasn't my intention to feed her the words and I cringed the moment I realized what I had said, but thankfully she did not accept my suggestion.

"No. Not scary." She said it so resolutely than I nearly believed her, "Mysterious."

She laughed a little at the way she over-pronounced the word.

"Isn't that just a euphemism for scary?"

"No. If I meant scary, I would have said scary."

And this time I really did believe her. She said things so plainly that I had no other choice. I trailed alongside her, wanting desperately to fall into an easy stride.

"Would you like to eat at the diner?"

She paused to look up at me, her tawny-brown eyes sparkling with amusement despite the overcast skies. She seemed delighted at the question and I was so self-satisfied. How dare such an innocent girl be a menace on my self-control!

"You're actually asking nicely?" she mused, "Wow."

The self-satisfaction deflated in my posture and I regarded her benignly, noticing for the first time my own change in demeanor through her gentle teasing. It was never my intention to be rude to the girl, but I was still not convinced of what I expected from our interaction. I was sure that I didn't want to kill her, but not completely certain that I wouldn't. It was unfair to keep subjecting her to this secret game of Russian roulette without her consent, and then to be rude to her on top of it? The shame returned two-fold.

"I can be… Abrupt." I explained," It's a natural evolution of my behavior as an unconditioned reflex response to my environment."

"Science as an explanation for rudeness, huh? I've never heard that one before."

"I am sorry."

She brushed against me playfully with her shoulder, her ease at my side shocking me.

"I was kidding, Edward."

"Oh."

She laughed again. I clenched my teeth to keep from demanding why. It seemed that being with her was merely an exercise of one form of discipline over another. If I was not fighting with every ounce of self-determination I had not to feed on her, then I was holding back the barrage of questions that I was desperate to ask. After years of willing the fates for a few moments of silence in my mind, I found myself wanting to be able to hear someone now more than ever.

"The diner sounds great."

"Okay," I responded lamely.

We reached the diner quickly, as the main street and the high school were more or less the same block of buildings, and I reached forward to open the door for her. She swept past me and her scent invaded my senses with a new cruelty. May as well get used to it. You must be more of a masochist than you thought.

"Hey Nadine!"

The girl's voice chimed into the air synchronizing nicely with the bell that hung against the door. The waitress that I knew from my first visit to the diner was standing at the counter with her back to us. She wasn't here yesterday, I thought, she must have Tuesdays off.

"Gimme a sec, Bells. I'm just gonna get this order into the kitchen."

The waitress spoke to the girl without turning around. Had I not been privy to her daily schedule, I still would have assumed that she was a regular here. The easy way that the woman spoke to the girl, coupled with the fact that she knew the sound of her voice would lend itself to the idea that the two had an easy camaraderie. I never bothered with the thoughts of the waitress when I watched their near-daily meals, her father was a much more keen observer.

"No problem, Nadine. We're eating here, we'll seat ourselves…"

"Oh!" the woman exclaimed, turning around, "Hey Char---Hello."

I pretended not to see the beseeching look that the girl gave the woman behind the counter, apparently the familiarity was also friendship. I heard the thoughts of the woman and was again surprised by the charity of them. Ignoring the girl's silent pleas, she wiped her hands on the apron tied at her waist.

"Are you going to introduce me to your friend, Bella?"

The woman remembered me from the afternoon two weeks ago, but she pretended not to solely for the purpose of embarrassing the girl. It wasn't at all malicious. In fact, it was quite friendly. I worried briefly that she might reach out to shake my hand, but instead I felt insistent pushing at the middle of my back, navigating me forward.

"Nadine this is Edward. Edward this is Nadine."

I thankfully pretended to stumble toward a table in the back while lifting a hand in greeting; I didn't need to make any more bad first impressions.

"Hello Nadine." It came out a bit gruffer than I intended, but was polite enough.

I focused on the woman, trying to catch a few stray thoughts. It seemed that she considered the girl to be nice, a joy to her father and unfailingly kind, but melancholic. I saw still pictures flip through the woman's mind: the girl and her father sitting at the table in the corner, day after day, always in amicable silence. I knew the vision quite well, I had perched, hidden amongst the trees on the other side of the restaurant, listening and watching her nearly everyday last week. The woman wavered over a particular image of the girl sitting at the table by the window, staring out wistfully, wordlessly hoping for something that the woman could not fathom. The still image vanished a moment later and was replaced with the two of us sitting at the table by the window laughing and smiling, though we were still making our way to a booth in the back. She punctuated her thoughts with a poignant look at the two of us. She had high hopes for us, hopes that I felt were impossibly high. Apparently she thought it would be nice if Bella had a few more friends her age. Yes, of course, her own age…

"I'm kind of surprised to see you," she said after we settled into our seats, "I didn't think I would."

I plucked out two of the menus that sat at the end of the table, handing one to her before pretending to peruse the other for the sake of keeping up appearances.

"Oh? And why did you think that?"

I scanned over the list of items that I had memorized on my first visit to the diner, I already knew that I would be getting the meatloaf… again. Though whether or not I was actually going to eat any of it was undecided as of yet.

"Well, yesterday didn't go so well did it?"

"It didn't?" I retorted with a question of my own without thinking, but she was just so baffling.

She laughed, "Do you think it did?"

Yes, I thought it went brilliantly! I didn't EAT you! How much better could it have gone?!

"I'm not quite sure of how to answer that now."

She stared at me for a few moments with a straight face, waiting patiently for me to elaborate, but eventually her human patience failed her. She smiled at me, and something within me lurched pleasantly. It was an odd sensation, but it was happening with curious frequency. Whenever she smiled at me, or laughed, whenever she seemed the least bit interested in me. I could not remember the last time that someone had been so thoroughly amused at anything I could do or say. Shocked, awed, reverent, fearful? Yes. Amused? No, never.

"I always think that if I wait a little longer, eventually you'll be forced into answering. But you're very good at avoiding my questions."

She made the accusation as she spoke into her menu, already seeming to forget my curious behavior. It felt unfair for me to know so much, yet so little about her, but the brevity of my answers was a necessity.

The woman behind the counter came and left our table quickly enough, but not before giving the girl a look that, I'm sure, was not intended for my eyes. I looked to see if the girl had noticed my stolen intel and she was already staring at me with questioningly. The smirk on my face seemed to confirm her suspicions and she looked away immediately, pretending to be captivated by her place setting. The girl blushed; it was a delicate, pinky stain that looked as if it had been brushed, just barely, along her cheeks.

"You're easily embarrassed?" I questioned, wanting nothing more than for the blush to flourish and bloom to the flawless ivory of her décolleté.

She made a chirping sound of surprise and her head shot up from the tabletop. A strange reaction…

"Uh…"

"If her insinuations bother you, then I can assure you that you need not worry."

"Oh?" she said in mock surprise.

I shrugged.

"I only ask because it seemed to be a direct response to the suggestiveness of the woman. Girls your age seem easily embarrassed at the prospect of male attention."

"Girls my age?" she questioned, "You mean girls our age. You can't be more than a year older than me… 18 at the very oldest."

I shrugged, "Well, that's different."

"Different?" she challenged.

"Yes, I'm …"

"Older?"

"Yes, I --"

"So you're what 18? 19?"

"No, but --."

"No, you're older? Or no, you're younger."

"No, I'm 17, " I interjected quickly, angry at myself for my numerous missteps in conversation.

"So you're not older than me then. You're 17?"

"Yes. I'm 17, but…"

"But what?"

"I'm more… You're still…" I stuttered for words as I never had before. The light blush in her cheeks seemed to be deepening, yet I had reason to believe it may not be the exact type I desired.

"You're more… I'm still… What?" she demanded with narrow eyes.

"I'm more… mature."

Her jaw clenched in a way that screamed of female discontent.

"Well," she deadpanned, "you're just talking up a storm today. Please, keep going."

I continued without responding to her comment, sarcasm seemed not to need an answer. We sat in loaded silence, me not quite sure of what happened and her likely insulted as I had, for all intensive purposes, called her a child.

"I only meant," I attempted, wanting to be back in her good graces, "that I'm –"

"Trust me," she said, sighing, "you're going to want to stop. However you end that sentence is going to be bad… So let's just forget the part of this conversation where you called me idiot.

Idiot?! No, that's not at all what I was insinuating. In actuality, she was quite bright for her age. Overly perceptive, mature, honest…

"And yes, to answer your question," she moved on quickly, "I blush easily."

I kept my mouth shut, pleading with her silently to overlook my inadequacies with light banter.

She gave me a pointed look, "Well, one of us has to answer questions."

"I apologize."

The planes of her face softened immediately. I noted that her temperament changed direction like a flurry of snow carrying through the wind: Unpredictably.

"You don't have to ---"

"I mean to say, I apologize for the brevity of my answers. It was not my intention to be rude."

She toyed with the hem of her sleeve and I wanted so badly to reach forward to still her hands. She turned toward the window and followed the blurring form of a passing car.

"Can I ask you a question?"

I nodded my head, hanging on the precipice of her every word.

"Promise you'll answer?"

I nodded again, though her eyes were still trained on the scene outside.

"Why exactly are you here then?"

Wanting to please her, I prepared to answer succinctly, "I'm looking for old friends here in Forks. I—"

"No," she said softly, finally turning her attention back to me. "I don't mean here in Forks. I mean here," she motioned around the diner.

I shook my head, not understanding," You said the diner would be fine."

"Edward, I mean here with me."

The question was a tricky one, the answer even moreso. Perhaps evasion was best.

"I could ask you the same thing."

I expected a renewed frustration, but her expression didn't change, it was as if she knew that I would not answer.

"I don't know, actually. You're not all that nice to me," I opened my mouth to argue, but she put up a hand to stop me, "or my friends. You don't say much. You're evasive. All of that being said, I guess I'm just curious."

So that was it then. She was curious. That was the only thing that kept her here. Internally, I scowled.

"If you're so tormented at my behavior, then why subject yourself to the torture of my company?" I shot at her testily, irritated at my own weakness.

"Shouldn't I be the one who's offended here? You've made your opinion of me pretty clear. Though I don't know what I did to make you think so lowly of me."

"Have I?" When did I do that?

"You think I'm immature. Maybe even innocent and naïve?"

"No, Isabella! I don't!" I refuted her claims immediately.

"Really?" she quoted my own words to me in a dry tone, " 'If her insinuations bother you, then I can assure you that you need not worry,' that was you that said that, right?"

I was mortified. I was on my best behavior and still, I was alienating her.

"You misunderstand me, Isabella! I only meant that I would not be so forward as to make any unwanted advances! I swear it. I find you…" I was in a near panic trying to assure her that I was not an absolute cad.

"Really, Edward? You don't want someone more 'mature'."

Her teasing was back in full force, and it wasn't completely good-natured. In the back of my mind I noted that she had a penchant for using one's own words against them; I would be more careful in the future. If there was to be a future of any kind…

"No. I did not mean that you weren't mature. Only that I've had a rather trying past," I tried to keep the repugnance out my voice but it leeched out despite my effort, "On the contrary, I think you're quite mature. I --"

I made the realizations as I said the words. I had watched her for two weeks without confirming the facts of my own reconnaissance in my head. I knew that she cared for her father the way that a parent usually cared for his own child. She was nurturing and kind, understanding and unfailingly selfless. She did it all without complaint, without some self-imposed sense of importance, without any expectation of gratitude. I could count all of the many ways she was kind without an audience: The way she spoke of her friend Angela to her love interest Ben, the way she replaced the lines and spools in her Dad's fishing tackle, how she smiled to Mike and his advances despite her distaste. I don't know why that all mattered to me, but I suppose I realized that I wanted to care for her in some small way, just a fraction of the way she cared for everyone else. And yet while I knew exactly what I wanted to give her, I knew that it would never be possible, because I knew too well exactly what I wanted to take from her. All that I could give her now was some part of the truth.

"I find you captivating, Isabella." I finished breathlessly, "Absolutely, captivating."

"A meatloaf and a chicken sandwich."

Thankfully, the waitress interrupted us before I could confirm just how far my obsession with the girl had gone. She slid two plates between us with a huge grin on her face.

Lover's quarrel, she assessed silently, they'll get over it.

"Thank you, Nadine," the girl said abruptly.

"Thank you, Nadine," I mimicked.

"You kids enjoy…" she gave us one more knowing smile and then her thoughts were quickly overtaken by thoughts of a burning pie.

I like the woman. She seems to be on my side. What that meant, I had no idea.

Bella opened her mouth a few times, prepared to say something, but finally shook her head as she picked up a fork. It made me positively psychotic when she hesitated with her words, picking and choosing which thoughts were for my consumption and which were only for her.

I wrestled with the urge to flee as she studied my every action as I sat embarrassed at my own declarations of obsession. She was assessing me, I felt it in every flitting pass of her eyes, every millisecond of pursed lips, every beat of measured silence between us. I picked up my own fork and knife, even eating actual human food would be preferable to seeing her looks of distaste. You're an idiot, Edward. Who makes such declarations after so few meetings? And you insulted her! She hates you.

"I thought you were a vegetarian," she said accusingly.

Hesitant to look up at her, I picked at a sizeable morsel with my fork pausing only slightly before popping it into my mouth. I fought the urge to cringe as it slid down my throat in a thick mass of carnage.

"You assumed. You were wrong." I said dejectedly, my mood plummeting as I threw away any more attempts to be careful with my words, it was far too late now.

"Yeah, I guess that's true," though I wasn't looking at her I could her the smile in her voice.

Again, she was baffling me at every turn.

She grinned at me in a way I had never seen, and with a deeper blush than I had seen before, and my sprits climbed to heights I had never known, "I think I've made a lot of wrong assumptions about you, Edward."

She cocked her head to the side and shrugged in the most adorable way before turning back to her food. I followed suit, not caring if I had to retch up the entire plate of meatloaf if it meant a few more moments in her presence.

"Hmmm, that's interesting…" she commented after swallowing a bite of her sandwich.

I forced down a bit more of the meatloaf before responding, "What is?'

"I think that's the first time I've seen you smile, Edward."

I reached to my lips with my free hand and surely enough my stone lips were turned into a shape that I scarcely managed without forcing myself. I assume she saw the shock in my eyes as she laughed gaily.

"Wow, Edward. There may be hope for you yet…"

I knew not what the future held – Would I keep her for a few more days? A week? Two? It could not be much longer – but with just her 17 short years of experience I felt that maybe she had more wisdom in her than I had in all of my 80 odd years.

"I hope you're right, Bella. I hope you're right."

Her eyes lit up as I said her name the way she preferred for the first time and we continued with our line of questioning from the day before with gusto. As we spent the afternoon with our newly easy rapport I discovered that she was so flawlessly good it was evil: so gentle, so sincere, so innocent, that it was impossible. Impossible to believe that so pure a creature existed and so pure a creature that it was impossible not to want her.

She laid out her intricacies one by one and it was the most measured, most infuriating sort of unknowing seduction. It was with great reluctance that I announced our afternoon was over. I heard the thoughts of one of the secretaries from the police station as she walked in the door to pick up dinner; it meant there was only an hour before Chief Swan made his leave. I walked her back to her truck that afternoon knowing that the coming hours would be spent counting down the infinite seconds until I could steal into her bedroom that night.

I frowned at her truck as we approached it with slow steps. I hated the thing.

"Will I see you tomorrow?" she asked hopefully, shifting her weight nervously from foot to foot.

"I think so," I nodded, smiling I'm sure.

I helped her force open the door and she slid in without protest.

"Bye Edward. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Isabella."

She did not correct me as I shut the door and watched her drive off. I waited a few moments before running off to follow her, just to make sure she arrived home safely in the deathtrap. I knew I should have left her then, I almost wanted to leave her, if only to assure myself that my obsession was not so completely hopeless. Yet, I could not… Not yet.

I watched her from outside of her kitchen window as she whisked around the floor, cradling a phone in her shoulder. She was talking animatedly to someone, her smile just as bright and gay as any person's could be. I felt guilty, knowing that I was somehow betraying her trust to be watching her this way in her waking hours, so I turned on my heel and went into the forest.

I still had my mission. I had not forgotten it. And while Bella had taken over nearly every part of my mind, she had not taken over it all. Decades of conditioned discipline could not be undone in mere days.

As I ran through the trees the Edward that sat in the diner with the beautiful human girl fell away and Edward – the mercenary, the cold vampire, the killer – returned with renewed vigor.

A/N:

Yeah, the Bella in my story is a little sassy. She's still our shy, quiet, clumsy, nervous Bella… But since Edward is a little more clueless, we had to compensate somehow, right? Right.

I added a crapper of a summary for the story. It's not my intention to bamboozle you all, I swear! I'm just not good at summaries for stories. Strange, considering in real-life I'm a shorthand-fool. I, unfortunately, don't know how to walk that fine line between 'intriguing teaser' and 'hey guys! Spoiler alert!'

If you review, I promise the story will pick up in the next chapter. Thank you!