ALICE POV

"You should come over tonight, Bella," I offered. It was Thursday after school, and I was feeling particularly bored. Plus, I was sort of jittery in anxiousness for my date with Jasper the next day, and Rose was irritating me, so I settled for Bella.

"Um, yeah. Okay," she stammered. Why was she so nervous all the time? Her movements were so jerky, and it seriously made me uncomfortable. "Let me just call my dad first."

Bella was a perfect diversion. Edward and I were pretty much over our tension, save the incident where he ditched me at Rose's to make me ride home with the brother I was principally at odds with. But, like Rose, he was irritating the hell out of me. Since he found out about…the thing…he'd been really distant and pensive. I tried to put it behind me and accept it, but my attempts were pretty much pathetic. I smiled for everyone and let Jasper walk me to class for the first couple of days, but Edward was really starting to worry me. Em was doing well, and I was proud of him. But the whole Rose thing was going to have to stop, and soon. Maybe I'd make Bella help me plot against them later.

My house was a terrible place to be. Carlisle tried to be home a lot more often, and I assumed it was because of Edward. He made appearances every night at family dinner since Edward's blow up. For once, I was unhappy that my room was next to Carlisle's office. I heard the entire thing. I was asleep, trying to make it to the next morning, when I heard Edward sobbing. Again. I tried to block it out. I normally would have been eager to eavesdrop, but this time, it was so personal to Edward and I couldn't bear to intrude. I heard a few muffled sobs—despite the fact that my fingertips were lodged in my ears—where Edward hollered about Carlisle's extended absence during our childhood and Carlisle poorly attempted to defend himself. It appeared to have worked, though, because for the past couple of days, Carlisle disappeared up the stairs to the third floor after dinner for an hour or so before returning back to the first floor to his own bedroom. The thought made me smile. Edward deserved that.

So I almost beamed like a fool when Bella climbed into the backseat of the Volvo. Maybe she'd make the house a little more bearable. Apparently, she and Edward had worked out some carpooling thing, so we were driving her to and from school until she worked out her car situation. Edward came home after dropping her off that day, complaining about how Bella had practically begged for rides to and from school, but his eyes shifted uneasily as if he were somewhat twisting the story.
The tensions were relieving slightly at home now that Edward and Carlisle were making progress, but death still hung over us like an itch we couldn't scratch. Esme watched Carlisle carefully and Emmett censored his language around him. It was strange, and I knew Carlisle was uncomfortable that we were all trying to change to make him happy, but he never complained. He just smiled and commented on Esme's good cooking, once even taking my hand on the tabletop and giving it a reassuring squeeze. It made me want to cry.

"I made Swan sit in the back," I called to Edward as he approached my car door, thinking I'd pull it forward for him to climb behind me. Damned two-door. He frowned slightly before walking around the front of the car to let himself in.

"That was rude," he remarked as he slid into the front seat.

"What?" I asked, pulling out of the lot and wiggling my fingers at Jasper as we passed him.

"Bella could have sat up front, you know." He sounded almost angry. Weird.

"I don't mind," Bella piped up quickly, tensing up slightly and biting her lip. I glanced at her in the rear-view mirror with a cocked eyebrow before she settled down.

"From now on, Bella, whenever you ride home with us, you get the front seat. Got it?" Edward's voice was intense, and I couldn't understand why. He'd been acting like that towards her all day. All week, even. It was on the verge between antagonistic and protective, and I couldn't come up with any explanation. I could have sworn he almost hit Jessica Stanley in the face when she tried to sit next to him at lunch. Mike Newton threw a paper ball at the back of her head in chemistry and, in turn, Edward had knocked all of his shit to the floor. "Try it one more time, Newton," Edward had said menacingly. He hadn't had to finish his threat for Mike to know what he meant. But still, in the halls and on the quad, Edward laughed condescendingly at Bella's ineptness and even made a few rude comments about her at home, including the complaints about the carpool situation.

*

"Bella!" Emmett roared as our separate cars pulled into the garage almost simultaneously. "Welcome to El Casa de Cullen. Happy hour is from four to six!" I chuckled at his improper Spanish, stepping purposely on the back of his retreating sneaker and making him stumble on the gravel. He cheerfully flipped me the bird. Bella's eyes shifted in discomfort.

"Relax," I said, flicking her arm. "No one's gonna bite you." Edward laughed, jogging up to us after pulling his backpack from the trunk.

"I will!" he exclaimed, bending slightly to take a firm bite into Bella's upper arm. Her eyes widened, and Emmett howled.

"W-what was that?" Bella gasped, her nostrils flaring. Edward's teeth left a white little "O" shape on her pale flesh.

"I believe," Emmett choked between laughs, "that Edward just bit you." We all chuckled together, except Bella, of course, as she collected her bearings. I wouldn't be surprised if she never came back again. Sort of like my old boyfriend, Bryce. We Cullens were unquestionably quite outlandish.

Esme was pleased to see a new face when Bella walked through the door, scooping her up into a friendly hug. Bella seemed uncomfortable with almost any type of physical or social interaction. I wondered briefly is she had some sort of condition. But she managed to pat Esme on the back politely, smiling as well as she could manage. I rescued her from a nervous breakdown and led her up to my room before Esme could try and make her carry on conversation.

"This is my room," I said, hanging my purse over the back of my desk chair.

"Wow," Bella breathed, her eyes skimming from the floor to the ceiling. "This is your room?"

"That's what I just said," I snickered, flopping backwards onto my bed. The duvet made a satisfactory poofing sound as I landed. Bella blindly set her purse on my dresser, her eyes on the crystal chandelier hanging from the twelve-foot ceiling. Marginally missing the surface, her purse handle slipped from her grip, pulling her back into reality as her belongings scattered out on the floor.

"I'd help you clean all that up if I wasn't so tired," I sighed rudely, snapping open my phone as it buzzed softly in my hand. Jasper. I grinned impishly as I answered in the sexiest voice I could manage.

BELLA POV

He…he bit me. Who does that?

I was stumbling from the Volvo along the gravel path leading to the Cullens' front walk, and all Alice had said was some joke about how no one was going to bite me or something like that. And then Edward appeared out of nowhere, his perfect, white teeth making an unblemished ring of teeth marks on my upper arm. I'm still not sure if I'm fully recovered from that.

First of all, Edward's lips touched my skin. But the brief moment of excitement I felt was overshadowed by the sharpness and pain of Edward's canines. They all laughed like it was nothing as I stood there in a state of shock before Alice grabbed the crook of my arm, ushering me into the giant spread of a house that lay before us.

"So this is the Bella I've heard all about!" a woman that I assumed to be Mrs. Cullen exclaimed, wrapping me tightly in her arms and burying my face into her caramel-colored hair. My body tensed up infinitesimally, and I saw Edward wince from the corner of my eye.

"It's nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Cullen," I muttered politely, shoving my book sack against the wall next to Emmett's with my foot.

"Please, dear, call me Esme," she cooed, a giant, almost unnatural grin stretching from ear to ear.

"It keeps her feeling young," Emmett chuckled, leaning over me to peck his mother on the cheek. Alice—thank god for that woman—must have sensed my complete and utter distress, because she practically yanked me up the stairs and into her bedroom.

"This is my room," she chirped, throwing her large and expensive-looking purse over the back of a chair. My eyes fanned out over the expanse of the room. The entire first floor of the house I shared with Charlie could have fit inside, maybe even the second, too. My breath caught in my throat.

"Wow," I breathed. "This is your room?" I slowly moved towards the east wall to set my things down, my eyes still glued on the stretch of the ceiling. Alice laughed with an edge of condescension in her chuckle.

"That's what I just said," she said slowly as if I was mentally slow. I tried to take it all in, my attention almost broken from the sound of Alice plopping down on her enormous bed. I unhooked my purse from my shoulder, reaching out to set it on the edge of the dresser I could see from my peripheral vision, before a great clatter tore my eyes from the crystal chandelier that hung from the center of her ceiling.

"Oof!" I exclaimed as the contents of my purse spilled out over the dark wood of Alice's floor. I knelt hastily to clean it up, afraid that my ordinary belongings would ruin the perfection of Alice's bedroom. Alice exhaled noisily, unmoving.

"I'd help you clean all that up if I wasn't so tired," she said thoughtfully, snapping her phone open with one finger. She smiled wickedly then at what she saw, and I had no doubt that it was Jasper calling. Unless Jessica Stanley was calling with some hot piece of gossip, but Alice seemed to like the girl just as much as I did.

I decided to excuse myself once Alice lowered her voice considerably to speak to Jasper. It seemed as if she didn't really want me in the room while she flirted with him unabashedly, and quite honestly, I felt uncomfortable being in there while she did so. I closed her door shut with a quiet click, looking down the never-ending hallway to decide what I was supposed to do. I felt lonely all of the sudden—I was in a house surrounded by people I didn't know well, most of whom made me petrified, and Alice seemed more irritated than normal with me today. I'd only known the Cullens for all of four days, and I still wasn't sure why I'd decided that it was a good idea to call Charlie and ask if I could spend the night.

*

"On a school night?" he'd asked, curiosity thick in his gruff voice.

"Yeah, Dad," I explained tolerably, my eyes darting to Alice's expectant face. "Alice says I can borrow some clothes from her and things like that in the morning. Charlie harrumphed reluctantly, pausing for a moment to deliberate.

"Well, alright," he conceded. "But stay away from those older Cullen boys. I did my research, and it was the older boy caught with them drugs." He mumbled something unintelligible that sounded like, "Damn kids wasting my time with those damn drugs." I had to stifle a laugh.

"Alright Dad, I appreciate your concern." Alice cocked an eyebrow at me then, and I decided that it was time to get off the phone. Maybe it was because of peer pressure, or maybe it was because of the intense curiosity that I felt about Edward Cullen, but for some reason, I decided to climb into the back of the silver Volvo.

*

"Get lost, Swan?"

A smooth, silky voice interrupted the silence of the hallway, startling me. I bit into my lip with surprise as I whirled around to meet an all-too familiar pair of emerald green eyes. He leaned against the doorway of a room down the hall, a smirk on his full lips.

"N-no," I stammered, unable to tear my eyes away from his. "Alice is on the phone with Jasper, so I-,"

"No need for an explanation," he said, raising his hands to stop me. "I understand fully if you don't want to be in there during her little secret phone sex fest." I heard Emmett guffaw from beyond the threshold that Edward was leaning against. I managed a smile. Edward scratched his neck with two long fingers.

"You can chill with us, Bell," Emmett's voice called. Edward's eyebrows pulled together slightly for the quickest moment before he straightened out his expression, but it didn't escape my notice. Did he even want me to join them?

"Do you want me?" I spat out, wincing at my lack of a brain filter. Edward seemed to twist my words with his disgusting boy mind, and he snorted with his eyebrows raised.

"Isn't that a little premature, Swan?" His tone was faintly mocking, but his arms were so beautiful in his tight, dark green t-shirt that I forgot how to be offended.

"Stop stuttering and get your ass in here, woman," Emmett hollered. "Prepare to get thoroughly bitch-slapped at Halo!" I wasn't sure how to play Halo, but for some reason, my legs shifted forward and my feet led me into Emmett's bedroom behind Edward.

It was just as large as Alice's, almost identical, but it still didn't stop my sudden intake of breath. Edward leered, throwing himself into a red vinyl beanbag chair and picking up a controller.

"Nice digs," I said quietly, Emmett grinning in response.

"This is what a man's bedroom looks like, little Bell," he commented loudly, raising his hand to Edward for a high-five that wasn't returned.

"Shut up and play the fucking game," Edward mumbled as I sat awkwardly on a bench at the foot of Emmett's positively giant bed.

I sat there for what seemed to be a long time—closer to an hour or so. Emmett eventually passed out in his tacky vinyl beanbag, leaving Edward without a playing partner and the room eerie with silence. I counted to fifty before Edward finally turned to me, gathering his legs in his arms and resting his chin on his knees.

"Shit like this always happens to us," he said matter-of-factly, his eyebrows set in a hard line. His statement confused me.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, my intonation climbing a few octaves. I snapped my mouth shut with a violent blush. This was getting out of hand.

"You know what I mean. The awkward, 'so, nice weather, huh?' kind of thing." He sounded as if he was joking, but for some reason his face looked almost troubled.

"I guess it's because you don't really know me very well at all." I was kind of proud of myself for being able to respond to him without stuttering or visibly drooling. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to prevent my voice from cracking.

"Why is that, I wonder?" he asked rhetorically, his eyes smoldering. I cleared my throat. My palms were sweating uncontrollably.

"Maybe because you just met me? Like, not even a week ago?" My sentences came out as questions. My throat felt like I'd swallowed a bag of cotton balls.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked. I nodded in fear of what my voice would sound like after he did that thing with his eyes. "You need to calm the fuck down."

I hadn't been expecting that.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded, my eyes widening. He smirked.

"You need to calm the fuck down," he repeated, scratching his neck with fingernails that looked bitten down. "You like, freak out. All the time. Every time you're around someone that you don't know, you tense up and start stuttering and you look like you're having a seizure." My chest tightened. I wanted to cry, or run away, or be anywhere else but in front of Edward. I was already self-conscious about my social skills even without his help. My entire life, I'd always been dreadfully awkward and stuttery in front of people I didn't know well, and the object of my childish affection had just called me out on it.

"Well I'm sorry that it bothers you so much," I mustered, attempting to compose myself and failing miserably to exude any sense of confidence. Edward didn't look remorseful, or at least remotely apologetic. He looked amused.

"Don't get all defensive, little Bella," he sang. I opened my mouth to protest before he help up a long pointer finger, retrieving a buzzing cell phone from his pocket. "It's Esme," he remarked, wiggling the thin device in the air. "She wants us to come down for dinner."

"What, does she just text you to come down or something?" I snorted as Edward nudged Emmett awake.

"Yeah, actually," he replied with a grin. The Cullens were so…odd. Not that I wasn't.

We all marched down to dinner after Edward pounded continuously on Alice's door, yelling all sort of colorful expletives and exclamations until she finally emerged into the hallway. It smelled like Esme had made some sort of stir-fry, and my mouth began to water.

A tall, pale man was already sitting at the kitchen table with a wide smile on his face, sipping from a glass of water. I recognized him immediately as Carlisle, even though he had never been described to me before. Alice and Edward rarely spoke about him; I only knew his name from the remarks that they made to one another.

"Bella!" Esme acknowledged warmly as she placed a napkin on each plate. "This is my husband, Carlisle." She sat primly on the edge of an intricately carved wooden chair as we all took our seats.

"Very nice to meet you, Bella. I've heard a lot about you." Carlisle's smile grew wider, and a familiar blush crept onto my cheeks. He'd heard about me? It was probably because of Alice, but I sincerely hoped that maybe it was Edward who had spoken of me. I almost smacked myself in the midst of my brainless gushiness. The frustration I'd felt with him in Emmett's bedroom was slipping away swiftly, and I tried to cling to it in order to keep my sanity.

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Mr. Cullen," I mumbled dutifully, shooting him a lopsided grin.

"Please, call me Carlisle," he insisted, and I remembered how his own children called him by his first name. I nodded as I took a sip of water.

Dinner was…interesting. Esme served everyone, darting in and out of her seat like a hummingbird. It was the epitome of a traditional family dinner—everyone laughed and passed each other various utensils and condiments and kept up decent conversation. Everyone but Edward. He slumped in his seat, shoveling food in his mouth without a word. Carlisle watched him attentively throughout the entire meal, and every so often, there was a definite pause in the conversation as everyone shot each other somewhat meaningful glances. I felt lost, like I'd started watching a movie halfway through. Of course I wasn't willing to intrude, but curiosity was getting to me. Alice held her glowing cell phone below the table, obviously refusing to end her conversation with Jasper completely, glancing up every now in then to insert opinions on certain subject matters and to shoot Emmett pointed glances.

The Cullens had a secret. I just wasn't sure what it was, and I knew that I wasn't my right to know. So I continued to shovel food into my mouth without a word.

I nearly followed Edward up the set of stairs that led to the third floor after dinner. Alice has skipped off into her room, the phone already to her ear, and Emmett was in his stupid red beanbag playing Halo again, so I was kind of a loaner. It surprised me when Edward turned to me cautiously, a look of concern on his face for reasons that were beyond me.

"I'm sorry to be rude or whatever, but you probably shouldn't come up here with me right now," he said, his voice terse.

Of course. Of course he didn't want me in his bedroom, he barely knew me. And he probably only hung out with me before because Emmett had fallen asleep, and he knew that it would have been impolite to leave so abruptly. He seemed to read my mind.

"Not that I have some sort of objection to hanging out with you, just Carlisle and I sort of have a thing where he comes up to hang out for a while after dinner, that's all." Maybe he was lying so I'd leave him alone, but something in his face tightened almost painfully. He looked like he had at the dinner table, and I couldn't understand why. Food poisoning? He was a complete enigma.

"Okay," I muttered, backing away from him. "Sorry."

"Look," he started, "don't fucking apologize. I'll come talk to you after if you want. This is just important…to Carlisle. I'll see you later."

I nodded, the little bit of hope within me blooming as I absorbed his half-empty promise.

He did come, eventually. Alice eventually hung up the telephone and passed out on her bed, so Edward and I sat down in the hallway outside Carlisle's study and talked until the early hours of the morning. We talked about shallow things, like our favorite colors and best vacations, but it still made me happy to watch him explain the exact color of his childhood puppy's fur and the exquisite beauty of his sadness when he explained how the dog died.

"If you could go anywhere, where would you go?" he'd asked, his voice lazy with exhaustion. It was late, or early, depending on how you looked at it, and we had school in the morning. But he continued to ask me questions, so I continued to answer them.

"The moon," I answered seriously as he began to laugh at me. "I'm serious! How cool would that be? I heard that you can still see the footprints that Neil Armstrong left in the late sixties." He rolled his eyes.

"Your goals are admirable, Bella," he snorted, rubbing his eyes sleepily. I knew that it was time to turn in, but I was afraid that in the morning, when we were wearing regular clothes and went back to playing our normal roles, the comfort that he seemed to feel in my presence would fade away. It hurt just thinking about it, and made it that much harder to watch his retreating back climb the stairs to his bedroom that I would maybe never see.

That night, I dreamt of Edward Cullen.

APOV

I had no fucking clue why I'd suggested the idea that Bella wear my clothes to school Friday morning. Bella was a tiny thing, but she at least had height on her side. I was tiny as well, but I was damn short on top of it all. My jeans were above Bella's ankles, the borrowed jacket she wore drifting above her protruding hipbones. I struggled to avoid laughing at her, embarrassing her further.

"Alice," she whined, defeated, "this isn't going to work. I'll just have to wear the clothes I wore yesterday." I'd already made her try on at least twelve outfits in hope that something would work, her tired eyes growing more and more distant with every designer t-shirt that I threw at her. She looked as if she hadn't slept a wink. I wondered if I'd snored or something.

"There is absolutely no way that I'm letting you go to school two days in a row in the same, dirty outfit, Bella," I scoffed, shoving a discarded scarf into a drawer. My mind sifted over the alternatives as Bella twisted uncomfortably in the too-snug clothes.

An idea snuck into my head just then, and I shot out into the hallway and up the stairs without a word.

"Edward!" I hollered, pounding on his door. Bella could re-wear her jeans from yesterday, but my sweaters would be too small as well as Esme's. Emmett's clothes would swallow her whole, and I obviously would never ask Carlisle to lend the Weird Stranger Girl one of his cashmere pullovers. That left Edward.

"What do you want?" he hollered with a thick lacing of irritation. He cracked his door open slightly, peaking out one green eye that was identical to mine.

"Bella needs to borrow a shirt to wear," I answered, shrugging past him and into his bedroom without permission. Payback's a bitch.

He wiggled his eyebrows at me curiously as he followed me across his wooden floor to his dresser. I began clawing through them, trying to ignore the crumpled boxers and the poorly-hidden magazines that lined the bottom.

"Exactly what do you think you're doing?" he argued, nudging my hands away and slamming his drawer shut. "Why does Bella need one of my shirts? You seem to have plenty."

"Because I'm skinnier than her, moron. She can't squeeze into any of my shit." He frowned a bit as if my statement had made him unhappy. He turned back to the drawer, opening it with caution so I couldn't look at his sick little nudey mags and sliding out a plain, white v-neck t-shirt swiftly with his fingers.

"Here," he said grumpily, shoving the shirt into my arms. The corner of his mouth pulled up just the slightest bit in almost a sort of satisfied smile, before he furrowed his brow. "Just tell her not to get anything on it, or I'll be fucking pissed."

I laughed at him then, remembering how a majority of his under shirts had accidentally been dyed pink under the hand of Esme and her incapability of separating whites from colors.

"Whatever you say, Edward."

Bella had been way too happy to wear Edward's t-shirt, and as much as I tried to squeeze a confession that she liked him from her own lips, she just grinned and shook her head repeatedly. I knew she thought Edward was the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe that was saying too little—Bella thought that Edward was the best thing since limited edition Murakami Louis Vuitton platform stilettos. That was much more fitting. She'd gaped at him like a fool the first time she even saw him, and she watched him with admiration when he did stupid things like sneeze and chew and other weird shit like that.

I left it alone eventually, deciding to ask her again when she was upset or on her period or something that made her more vulnerable.

The drive to school was silent. Bella sat in the passenger seat and that seemed to satisfy Edward for some reason. He sat quietly behind us, reading the few chapters of Paradise Lost that we'd been assigned in English as Bella fussed at her thick, knotted hair in the little mirror on the visor. I decided to split the silence by turning on the radio. It was some old jazz station, and "Fly Me To The Moon" by Frank Sinatra was about halfway through. I reached to change the station, before Edward reached over the center console to swat my hand away.

"Edward, what the fuck?" I asked, trying to shoot him an angry glare and keep my eyes on the road at the same time.

"Don't change it," he said. "Bella likes the moon." Bella snickered quietly, and I looked to her with question inked all over my face. Her cheeks were a flaming red, and she was smiling at Edward in the mirror that she had been fixing her hair in. They seemed to be enjoying a private joke, or having a silent conversation, and it was fucking obnoxious.

"What are you guys getting all smiley about?" I asked with an edge of frustration. I was seriously going to wreck if I kept looking between Bella's face beside me and Edward's in the rearview mirror. Bella still had that stupid smirk and that stupid blush and Edward just smiled lazily.

"Nothing!" they both exclaimed simultaneously, and then collapsed in another secret fit of laughter that almost drove me off the edge.

"Fuck you guys," I sneered, parking the car and slamming my door shut while the engine continued to run.

I eventually had to ignore the whole situation in the Volvo when Bella stumbled into first hour, realizing that I'd have no one to talk to other than Eric Yorkie if I didn't attempt to relieve the tension I'd created. I'd just wait and ask about it, sticking with the pre-menstrual plot I'd constructed earlier.

"Promise you're not mad?" Bella had asked as I smiled at her with feigned tolerance.

"I promise," I lied, in a rush to put the whole thing behind me so I could talk about myself. "Anyway, Jasper is picking me up tonight around six thirty…"

I gushed on and on for the entire period in hushed whispers while Ms. Goff lectured with the notion that anyone in the class was remotely paying attention. Sparing no detail, I launched into a description of what I imagined that Jasper had planned for us, how I thought his lips might feel if we made it to first base, what I'd wear. Bella nodded and smiled and responded to my generally rhetorical questions with enthusiasm despite the fact that they weren't meant to be answered. For example, when I asked Bella what man in their right mind could resist skin-tight leather while contemplating outfit choices, Bella answered, "well, I'm sure some don't…I mean, certainly there are some animal activists who are opposed to the wearing of animal skins…" blah blah fucking blah. But she was a person to talk to and she wasn't related to me, so I kept pestering her with my excited squeals and anxious chattiness.

Lunch was different today. Neither Edward nor Bella spoke, or even made a sound at all. It was odd. Generally, at least one of them would somewhat participate in the conversation, even if it was a smart-ass remark from Edward or a stuttered, bumbling comment from Bella. But today, nothing. Tyler Crawley had invited Lauren Mallory to sit with us, and between her expectant glances towards Edward, they seemed to be pretty into each other. As Rose and Emmett droned on about the sucky weather and Angela and Ben planned their trip to Olympia during the coming weekend, I tried desperately to ignore the electricity between Edward and Bella. It made absolutely no sense. But I'd read enough magazines and watched enough chick flicks to know that there was something going on with them. Jasper was rubbing the back of my neck like usual, slumping down in his chair and grinding a toothpick between his teeth. But my eyes were focused on my brother, who was staring carefully at Bella as she stared back. What. The. Hell.

"What are you doing with Bella, Edward?" I whispered as I yanked him by his sleeve from the lunchroom. I'd have to hurry the inquisition before Bella caught up with us. I wouldn't make her walk alone to class while I annoyed Edward, because I knew she didn't have any other friends and also because I knew Edward wouldn't want to be an active participant in my questioning. So I'd have to make it snappy, and he was taking too long to answer. I elbowed him forcefully, trying to force an answer out of him.

"Violence is not the answer, sweet Alice," he said, wagging a finger in my face. I sneered and continued to drag him along the breezeway, blinking through the rain that was blowing underneath the overhang. Tugging him into the short alley between the cafeteria and the gym, I placed my hand on my hips and waited for an answer. The multiple air conditioning units buzzed and sputtered dramatically beside us.

"Spill," I ordered, tapping my foot impatiently.

"Nothing is going on between Bella and I. Just…chill," he yelled, dragging a deep breath in through his clenched teeth. He rubbed his temples with his fingers, his eyes pinched shut.

"It doesn't seem like nothing. What, do you think I'm ignorant or something? I have eyes, and ears. So stop lying to me and tell me the truth."

"You never seem to enjoy telling me the truth, so why should I?" he fired. He'd shot a nerve as I recalled his words that one night in the hallway. Why didn't you tell me? Edward had cried. You know I would tell you in a second. But you lied. You hid until my own father had to tell me he's fucking quitting on us. Blood stirred behind the skin of my face as I looked to my shiny gold flats in regret.

"I thought we got over that," I said softly.

"We did," he insisted. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up. But seriously, Alice, you need to leave me alone about the Bella thing. I probably shouldn't have stayed up all night talking to her, but I thought you were asleep. I won't do it anymore if it bothers you." My ears perked then, and I looked up from my shoes and into his eyes incredulously.

"You—you what?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"I said I'm sorry about hanging out with Bella last night. I didn't mean to steal your friend or whatever."

"I heard that, Edward. But what I wasn't aware of is that you spent, quote, 'all night' talking to Bella. That doesn't fucking sound like nothing." I narrowed my eyes as he shifted uncomfortably.

"Why are you getting mad all of the sudden? I thought that that was what you were bitching about," he said defensively, backing away from me slightly as I fumed.

"I was talking about the little exchange in the car this morning and the scene you two made at lunch today. I wasn't talking about any secret, midnight meetings that you allegedly held with her. I was sleeping, Edward, and you just fucking ratted yourself out." His mouth dropped open with an audible pop. The bell rang then, and his eyes shifted from my face to the sidewalk and then back again.

"Alice, I…I can explain, um.." He trailed off, knowing that he was defeated.

"I don't care who you talk to, Edward. Just don't be sneaky about it." Edward gaped, still unsure of what to do with himself, as I turned on my heel and stormed away.

I spent the majority of the day ignoring Edward. Maybe I was being too meddling, or overprotective or whatever, but it was frustrating to see—or feel, rather—the static of the intensity between my brother and Bella while they lied about it and avoided my questions. Edward decided to drive home after school, dropping Bella off with a small grin and a wave of his hand before finding the winding gravel road that led to our house. He hadn't tried to create conversation, so I decided to just let it mull over. I wasn't going to apologize due to my immense sense of pride, and I wasn't expecting anything from him.

Jasper came to pick me up, finally. Esme had finished trying to straighten the back of my ridiculously short hair and I'd slipped into the destroyed jeans that looked like I found them on the side of the road but really paid three hundred dollars for. I figured he'd like them, and the way that his eyes raked down my legs when I skipped down the staircase led to me to believe that my assumption was accurate. Esme managed to restrain herself from shaking Jasper's hand and taking a Polaroid by shutting herself behind her bedroom doors, and for that, I was thankful. I felt a Bella moment coming on as I tripped after Jasper along the gravel, somehow making it to the front seat of his red Audi unscathed.

He didn't speak much as he drove, only looking at me with the occasional crooked smile and fidgeting often with the volume of the music that was nearly blowing out his speakers. I sat in comfortable silence, which was sort of a rarity for me, just listening to him sing the words to a song I didn't know as the wind ripped through my meticulously-styled hair from the open window. Despite the serious jitters I'd felt leading up to our date of sorts, he made me feel completely at ease. I realized as he raced down the dark, rain-sodden streets of Washington, the damp air stirring his honey blonde hair around his lightly tanned cheeks, that I had nothing to be nervous about. I'd known the kid for my entire life, almost. I knew Jasper already. I'd had a crush on him for almost two years, even when he was dating that slut Jessica Stanley, but I tried to ignore that minor detail.

"So what made you decide that you wanted to take me out?" I blurted as he scrambled to turn the volume down in order to actually hear what I was saying.

"What?" he asked as the guitars and drumbeats faded into background noise. The atmosphere was different now, and I couldn't decide yet if it had been a good idea to interrupt to comfortable silence with chatter.

"I asked you why you decided to take me out," I repeated, my heart thumping unevenly as a result of my blatant question and his now undivided attention. His brow furrowed as he thought carefully.

"And I'm allowed to be completely honest?" he asked, a single pale eyebrow inching upward.

"That would be the best method," I laughed, kicking my feet up on the dashboard in feigned casualty.

"Well," he began, smiling his familiar crooked smile, "you've always been pretty damn hot, Cullen. Or beautiful, or whatever. Even when we were younger. I just never thought you were interested in the slightest." He flashed his white teeth as he pushed to needle on the speedometer to eighty.

"You mean it?" I squeaked, wrapping my arms around my shoulders. I wasn't keeping up the cool façade anymore, but I didn't care.

"Yeah, Al. I mean it," he laughed, his eyes flickering to mine and then away again. "Otherwise I would not be escorting your fine ass to Port Angeles on this fine Friday evening." I giggled at his forced formality.

"Where are we going, exactly?" I asked.

"Nope, sorry. Not telling." His lips wriggled against a stifled laugh. I folded my arms over my chest in stubbornness, soaking up the muted music and enough of Jasper Hale as I could for the remainder of the drive.