For his twelfth birthday, Edward asked for a t-square and a drawing compass. He'd wanted to design domed halls that could fit three orchestras and granite banks with secret passageways to impenetrable vaults. As he grew older, the well-behaved lines on the drafting board allowed him a sense of control, while stone and steel offered a sort of permanence. It was the one idea that his mother had supported, so Edward had followed it through to Cornell, and it might have been his life if the accident hadn't put an end to it.

So why was he looking at Light, Wind and Structure, Good City Form, and The Genius of the Place? Almost half of the texts on the floor beside the oak desk were old architecture books.

He leapt over the stairs to land with a thud on the ground floor of the cabin.

"What is this supposed to mean?" The pages flapped as he waved them in her face.

She'd been washing up at the sink, and when she turned, she surprised the hell out of him by poking him in the chest.

"You. Calm. Down," she said.

He took a step backward and heard the thwack as the textbook hit the floor.

"Now," she said. "Tell me what the problem is."

It took a moment to find his voice. She walked past him to get a hand towel, but he had the sense that she would wait for him all day.

"I don't understand why these are here." He picked up the book. "Did Carlisle tell you my life history or something?"

"Just a few things. That you liked architecture and music."

"And he told you about the accident."

"He did."

"And my talent." Was there anything Carlisle hadn't told her? "You think you have me figured out, and I don't know shit about you."

"Edward, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that I don't have much of anything figured out." She threaded the towel through the handle of a drawer. "Why are you upset? Is it really because I was told a few things about the person coming to live with me? I thought you'd like the piano and the books. If you don't, then ignore them."

It had not occurred to him that the piano was new here. He could see it now. Bat had brought it just days before he arrived. She thought his name. He had short cropped white hair, and he was tall and sinewy, all lean muscle and bony elbows. Isabella blinked; the image disappeared, and he saw himself in her mind.

"So I live here now?" he asked.

"Don't you?"

"I feel like a visitor."

"This is where you are." She shrugged. "How you feel about it is up to you."

"Nothing's up to me. Carlisle just decided for everyone."

"You chose to come here when you sent Esme through a window."

"I didn't know she'd get hurt. She'd have been fine if she hadn't wanted that stupid patio…" He'd heard her land in the yard, and wouldn't even have bothered to look if she hadn't moaned a low howl from below. Rebar spikes marked the area where the concrete was going to be poured, and two of the ridged barbs had torn through her – one in the chest and one in the thigh. Carlisle had had to lift her up and off of them. "She healed. It couldn't have killed her. And she was always in my face, wanting to talk, wanting attention."

"I would think you of all people would understand that."

Isabella was making it seem like he and Esme were the same, and he wasn't going to take that crap. He threw the book on the counter and took a step closer to her.

Stop.

Her thought surprised him. He was only going to yell at her, but almost immediately he could start to feel the now familiar tension in the air, and no amount of willing himself not to be afraid was going to work. He stepped back.

Breathe.

He didn't see the point, but he listened. In. Out. He took another deep breath. The terrible feeling in his gut started to fade a little, so he moved back again.

"Sit on the porch, and I'll come out," she said.

He backed up until he felt the door behind him, and he reached for the handle. The dark forest was unnervingly quiet. There were no birds, no squirrels out here. He sat on the steps and wondered if she thought he needed to calm down further or if she needed time for herself. He knew he didn't frighten her; that much was painfully obvious.

She brought the broom out with her, and neither of them said anything while she swept the floorboards. She was wearing another sundress, and if he could've put aside the way she made him cower, she could almost have been soft and slight. Her hair was down, and it fell over her shoulder. The pendant she always wore looked too heavy as it swung forward with each sweep of her arms and then fell back against her throat. She leaned the broom by the door and smoothed the dress down behind her as she sat next to him. Her knee pressed against his.

"What would you like to know about me?" she asked.

Her attention was focused on the feeling of her hands clasped together, but there was still an undercurrent of the danger he'd felt inside.

"How did you get that pendant?" he asked. It was a stupid question. He could think of a hundred things he would rather know, but he'd been staring at it, and the words had just come out.

She brought her hand up to her chest, and in her mind he saw dark red smeared across bronze. The scent of human blood was rich and sweet, and he wanted her memory to stop.

"Ask me something else," she said.

He couldn't focus for a moment. The blood was fading from her mind, but he knew he would need to hunt again soon.

"I don't know. Uh, have you ever lived in a city?"

"Several cities."

"Prague?" It was the only place she'd mentioned.

"I was only visiting."

"Name one that was your home," he said.

"Ur was my first. Before then, I didn't even know there were that many people in the world, or that so many could live on the banks of one river together. I was a few hundred years old, but I was still surprised at the pull of that much blood. The Sumerians had open air markets and great stone temples like square layer cakes, with each layer smaller than the one below. I had not yet seen the pyramids in Egypt, but I was already amazed at what people could do."

Reading her mind was like seeing a film. He watched men in bright woolen tunics with tassels and broad belts; they moved past Isabella in the night, unaware that she would be just the same when all of them were long dead.

Her eyes were shining with an excitement he'd not seen before. What had she been like long ago? Even now, just from the memory, she had the glow of a girl eager to take in the world. Her shoulders were white beneath the black straps of her cotton dress, and he wished that he was allowed to touch her. He'd been in a rage the only time he'd felt that neck, and then the fear had overtaken him, and he'd never even noticed what her skin was like beneath his hand.

She turned to him and smiled, and her knee pressed further against him. He noticed how much smaller it was than his. Deceptively delicate. She felt her feet against the ground, and she thought it helped her stay calm. He wanted to ask her what that meant, but to do so he would have to break the moment. Her attention turned to the sensation of their skin pressed together, and he felt her shift towards him a little more. He brought his hand down to his knee, and his fingers brushed against her. She was breathing, but he sure as hell wasn't going to. He realized again how quiet the woods were. She thought his touch was unintentional, which might've explained why he was still in one piece. Her attention turned to the sensation of his fingers, barely discernable through the cotton of her dress. A feather, she thought. He caught a hazy image, like a sketch, of her outstretched hands cradling a baby bird. It was just a flash, but he could see that her wrists were pink with life, blood moving beneath the thin surface of her skin.

It had to be thousands of years ago, and he turned to her in surprise.

"I should hunt," she said. "Now's a good time." She stood and brushed the dust off her dress.

He had no idea why the time was right, but he was always thirsty. "Let's go," he said. He wondered what she'd look like going in for the kill.

"I hunt alone."

In an instant, he felt the usual tightening in the back of his neck, and his foot pressed the step below him until the wood started to give way under the strain. If she noticed she didn't let on. There was nothing in her mind but the breeze and the moonlight on the trees.

"Why?" he asked.

"You've had enough answers tonight." She sounded distant, untouchable, and she didn't look at him.

"Right. Whatever."

She set off at a run, and he lost sight of her almost immediately, but he could read her mind for miles. She was feeling her damn feet hit the ground, and it gave him pretty much nothing to go on. What the hell was the matter with her?

He thought about going into the house and making do with music or reading or snooping around her room, but she was moving faster and farther away. Soon she was going to be too far even to read. He hadn't thought she would leave him so completely.

When he started to run, he told himself it was just so he could stay connected with her mind. He followed the trail of her thoughts through the trees for twenty miles until he caught up and had to stop for fear she'd catch his scent. There were coyotes nearby, and he could see her in the distance crouching low. Her thoughts had turned into a mantra of Calm, Be sweet, Bella, calm…and he found it eerily soothing. What was she doing? The coyotes were restless. They began howling, low and plaintive, and Isabella had gone completely still. Calm, settle, settle… Usually the hunt was guaranteed to invoke their primal nature, but with each passing moment she looked more like a girl hiding in the undergrowth. He had the sense that he could've picked her up and carried her off. Her thoughts were so weirdly docile and trancelike that he started to step towards her, but then she leapt on her prey, and he heard the yelp and the sounds of the other coyotes moving back.

Thank you for your life, she thought, and the moment was so intimate that he felt like the intruder he was. He pressed himself to the bark of a tree and hoped to God he could get back to the cabin without her knowing that he'd been here.

All the usual characters, settings, etc. are the property of S. Meyer. Original characters and plot are mine. No copyright infringement is intended. May not be reprinted without express written permission.