Chapter 11

I woke up warm and comfortable in my bed and, aside from the initial surprise of waking up someplace where I had definitely not fallen asleep, I wasn't too shocked by it. Which was odd. For me.

It was dark in my room and I rolled over to check the time. Midnight. I had slept for a while again.

And Edward had brought me home. I was sure of it.

I rose, stretching and yawning, and crossed the room to my window, craning my neck to look towards the front of the house. My truck was in the driveway. Of course.

Edward had taken care of everything.

Of course.

Absentmindedly, I ran my fingers through my hair, wincing as they encountered the tangles and bits of grass that my little nap by the river had created. A shower was definitely in order and I set of to take one immediately.

My time spent under the warm water was put to good use. I ran through everything that had happened between me and the Cullens today. Every word, glance, and silence was replayed in my mind with as much accuracy as I could muster. I spent a good deal of time trying to puzzle out Edward's reaction to the deer. And, more compellingly, the deer's reaction to Edward.

His family. His kind. Hunters.

It didn't fit. Nothing fit. Nothing at all.

I turned off the water and stepped carefully out of the shower, wrapping my hair in one towel and my body in another. Back in my bedroom, I pulled on some flannel boxers and a tank top, wrangling my hair into a damp bun, and flinging my wet towels into a corner, to be dealt with later. I had a mission now. If it took me all night... all week... all month. I would figure out Edward Cullen.

I settled myself into my desk chair and opened my laptop, proceeding to Google the first thing that came to mind.

"Cullen."

The search yielded thousands of results of course, so I tried again, more specifically this time.

"Edward Cullen."

Again, thousands, but none the one I wanted. Edward, my Edward, did not exist on the internet. Which seemed strange. Experimentally, I searched for my own name, and came up with a handful of links related to me. There was my MySpace, my Facebook, a blurb in a Phoenix paper about my writing a prize-winning essay back in middle school. I searched for Angela with similar results. And Ben. And Renee. But there was no Edward.

Odd.

I tried Alice.

Jasper.

Rosalie.

Emmett.

Nothing.

This was getting me nowhere.

"Carlisle Cullen."

I found his office hours, credentials, and a small picture. All linked through the hospital's website. But there was nothing else. And if he was such an amazing doctor...

Nothing.

I tried to trace his credentials.

Nothing.

I found the hospital he had last worked at in Alaska.

He existed nowhere on their site.

I looked up public record, trying to find out where his family had lived there.

He didn't exist.

This was frustrating.

And fucked up.

His family. His kind.

They didn't exist anywhere but in Forks, apparently.

And that just didn't make sense.

With a grunt of determination, I flicked on my desk lamp and snatched a blank sheet of paper from my printer.

If I couldn't find out about his family, then I would try to figure out "his kind."

One frustrating hour later, I had a rather messy list of traits compiled.

Cold skin

Shines in sunlight

Hunters

Gold eyes

Black eyes

Fast

Strong

Extremely attractive

Scares animals

I had sifted through every memory, thought, inkling. Everything in my brain that I had filed under the label of "Cullen."

And now I had a list.

And now I had to use it.

Just looking at it once it was completed had me wigging out a little bit. Because this was not anything I could see myself applying to anyone else I knew. I had never met anyone that cold before. I had never met anyone whose eyes changed from one impossible color to the next. And I'm not even going to think about the sparkling thing. Cause that shit's just confusing.

So, task completed, I dutifully opened Google once more, staring blankly at the screen for a few moments, allowing the blinking of the cursor in the search box to hypnotize me.

Once I did this, there was no going back.

I had known after the bike incident that Edward was different.

I had convinced myself that it didn't matter.

Was that true?

"Man up, Swan," I muttered to myself with a shake of my head. "You won't know what you're dealing with until you find out."

And so, I dove in.

At first, I tried searching for each trait individually. Some of them yielded similar results. Some of them did not. It was inconclusive. So I tried combining some of the more prominent ones.

Cold skin and sunlight brought me a handful of pages on Vitamin D defficiency.

Strong and fast brought me links of exercise regimens.

And then I combined the four.

And the results became much more singular.

I clicked on link after link, fully absorbing the content of each page before moving on to the next. I printed some of the more academic ones. I began using the "find" function in my browser to hunt for some of the additional traits on my list within each page. And they were all there. In one form or another, they were all there.

I didn't think about what it meant. I didn't give my rational mind time to catch up. I just continued to methodically research.

I visited roughly 29 websites in three hours.

I printed almost a full ream of information.

I didn't judge. I didn't qualify. I didn't think.

I just read.

And, when it was over, I was certain of one thing.

Edward Cullen was a vampire.

It's funny how much calmer I was after I was able to properly diagnose the boy I had fallen in love with. How much easier it was for me to breathe when I knew the reason he was the way he was.

I wondered how old he was.

I wondered how he had been changed.

I wondered who he used to be in comparison to who he was now.

I stood from my desk and moved to the center of the room, staring at my floor as the thoughts swirled through my mind.

Vampires were real.

Edward was a vampire.

How in the hell was this possible?!

And how the fuck was I believing it?!

And what the...

And then it hit me.

The shock settled in, and my initial peace was forgotten.

This was fucked up.

My knees buckled and I dropped gracelessly to the floor, curling up on my side and drawing the edges of my rug around me for protection.

I began to cry, giving in as short, wracking sobs worked their way from my body. I felt the tears slide down my face, tasted the bile in the back of my throat.

This wasn't fair.

It wasn't right.

It wasn't natural.

It wasn't possible.

And that thought stopped me.

I sat up too quickly, battling back the dizziness that swept over me from my sudden change in position.

It wasn't possible.

I was wrong.

I had to be wrong.

I'm so fucking stupid.

So gullible.

So...

A movement by my window caught my attention, and my eyes snapped towards it automatically.

The branches of the tree outside were moving. They were moving gently, yes, but they were moving. As though something had been in them.

I crossed to the window and peered out, squinting against the darkness.

The trees in the woods were perfectly still.

There was no wind.

Something had come in contact with my tree.

And I knew then what I had somehow always known.

It was him.

The streak of bronze I had seen in the woods all those days ago.

That had been him.

He had brought me home tonight, but he had stayed.

And he was still here, somewhere.

I opened my window, leaning out slightly and whispering in the direction of the woods.

"Edward," I said, "I know you're there. And we need to talk."

A/N: So? I think this was pretty weak. I'm having a hard time getting back into the story... but leaving it unfinished was bugging me. Tell me what you thought, please.