The names are not mine, the rest - is.

Scary Stories

I was nine when I read my first comic book. It was really old, the colours were almost all worn out, and it smelled like turps. I used the pennies I had collected in my penguin shaped ceramic money box to buy it at a jumble sale, and it was the first really scary thing I had ever seen. For the longest time, I couldn't stop looking at the pages and pages of evil vampires, but I was especially intrigued by her face. I would take it out every night to see it - the look of shock growing on the face of the heroine, the subtle changes as she moved from the unknown to the absolutely terrified.

For Halloween one year, down at the Res, Seth and Jake dressed as vikings, they wore blonde wigs, and home made helmets, wielding plastics swords as they fought. I was fifteen that year, and went dressed as a vampire. A slutty vampire, but a vampire all the same.

But I was eighteen when I first met one. A vampire. Edward Cullen is a vampire. Or so he told me. Showed me. He tried to show me multiple times and I just... Edward is a vampire.

"Can you take me home please?"

"Bella."

"I'm okay. I just, it's been a long night, I want to go home, take a shower and get into bed." And pretend this is all just a nightmare. This is all just a nightmare.

I don't think I ever walked so fast, walking back to the car, I don't know which is safest - walking behind him, and risk him leading me somewhere else. Or in front, where I can't see him. Either way, when the ground gets rocky again, he makes me walk behind him.

A part of me thought it was so he could catch me if I fell - he still can't touch me, not unless I want to feel like I'm dying anyway.

But then the other part of me - you might say the normal part - was screaming at me to run. He tells me he's not like me. He's super strong and it's dangerous for us to be so close.

And he is...dangerous.

Looking at that comic book now, even older, is not so scary. I try to relate that fanged vampire with Edward. They're both pale, sure. But Edward doesn't have fangs. At least, I don't think so. He doesn't have black and white hair, he doesn't have red eyes. His eyes are like honey, like caramel, like all the soft brown leafy comfort of Autumn. Sometimes they're more like night, like dark and alone, I could lose myself in them, I could lose myself in him. He's not...scary. He's not dangerous. Is he? I mean, really. Would he hurt me? Does he want to...eat me? Suck my blood?

I don't think so. Edward burst into my bedroom and didn't suffocate me with the sheets I wrapped myself in to cover my shame and modesty. Surely seeing me naked would have pushed him over she edge...if there was an edge to begin with. He took me out to the meadow, it was beautiful, we were alone, like really alone and in the middle of nowhere. He didn't use his super hot, and maybe a little creepy, super powered strength to strangle me, have his way with me, whatever way that may be. He used it to warn me. He told me he was wrong for me, he told me, and tells me over and over, that we can't be together.

Dangerous? No. I don't believe it.

The comic taunts me still, the vampire and his stupid face. Not one bit scary now. The woman no longer looks scared either. She just looks...funny, theatrical. I rip the page out and throw the rest under my bed.

I need answers, I need my life to feel normal again. I need school and Nettie. I need a vampire.

I need Jasper.

-o-

"Where have you been?" Alice whispers in the dark.

"Why are you whispering?" The whole family can hear. If they choose to.

"It's polite."

"And interrogating me isn't. So leave." She forces her black lashes over her eyes, the very ones that hold the pity I don't want to see.

"You told her?"

"What do you think!"

"What did she say? How did she react?"

"You already know. So why are you asking?" She looks hurt, annoyed. "Unless... Dear sister, you can't see?"

"I can see just fine."

"Then tell me."

"She hasn't decided."

"But you see something. You see her..."

"I see her."

We sit for a long time. The world around me not so new, but the details are always gaining, always refreshing. There are always new things to see. A second look, or in my case, one hundred times over. One hundred times over I tried to read Bella. If only I could just read her. Her heart beat rapidly, thumping in her chest, screaming afraid. For her own good. She needed to be. Yet all I yearned for was to hold her and tell her I would never hurt her like I knew she was imagining.

All the while, thirsting for her, always thirsting for her. A trip. A fall. I wouldn't have to make the choice, I wouldn't have to decide. The blood rushing to the surface of a new cut. And I hate myself for it.

"You feel guilty." She is infuriating.

"About what exactly?"

"You crave her. In all the ways."

"What is your point, Alice? Do tell."

"You're allowed to be pissed off, Edward. Angry even. But go pick a fight with a mountain lion or something. Just not with me. Not now."

"Why? Why can't I? When I...if you had of... Just get out!"

"No."

"Then shut up."

Jasper appears at the door. Jasper appears to save his girl. As if he would ever need to. Not from me. Jasper appears to hand out the warning, a look between men. You are my brother but...

I get it.

"You think I should have seen this coming. You think I could have warned you."

"Why didn't you?"

"I only saw you. I knew about her, my head, in my head, but I saw you happy and... That's all I know. That's all I knew. Until it changed, and now, I'm as blind as you."

Jasper sits beside me. Earthed between them. I wish I was them. I wish I had that.

The void is altogether too much. If there were ever a time I wanted to live. It's now. If there were ever a time I wanted to die. It's now. The rushing madness, gripping tight to my skin, telling, yelling at me to go to her are too much, are too tight. I might explode tonight without her. I might not make the right decisions. I might not make this life without her.

"You have to go in tomorrow. Stay on campus. Both of you." Alice is far away. Alice is always searching someone's life.

"Why?"

"Bella has questions."

-o-

I told them I was leaving.

I told them in my best grownup you-can't-stop-me-since-you-don't-want-me-around-anyway voice. My dad looked sad, his face covered by his fluffy beard no longer seemed friendly and childlike - now just sad, deeply sad. My mom just left the room without a word.

Packing to go back to school was weird, almost like I was leaving for my first day again, everything seems so different now.

I am determined to talk with Jasper when I get back, I can think of nothing else, and I am determined to learn this, maybe see this from someone else's view, someone who doesn't have a vested interested. The thought of walking up to him, this stranger boy, this...other vampire. I have to remember all over again that I'm not dreaming a kind of crazy. I sit on my bed and collect it all over and over, the information, the facts of how this is now. My fingers wrap themselves in the covers, pulling the blanket into me, surrounding me. I could sleep. I could just sleep it all away and wake up when I know more, know how to be me, more. Because maybe I do know how to handle this, just not yet. I could. Just sleep.

Except...my dad is waiting, he's pacing, I hear him pacing and now and then he comes upstairs just to...hover.

Nope. I'm ready for this.

"Mom didn't want to see me off?"

He doesn't answer me right away and I know it's because he's choosing his words carefully, like, he doesn't want to hurt me with them. As if I would be.

"She went to work, Bells. Wanna stop by?"

As if we could. "I'm fine. A fight is probably unwise at this point, you know how she gets..."

He's not working right now and I worry he has too much time to wonder about things. I worry he isn't happy and as I watch him while he drives, I catastrophize the mess of a divorce, bedsit sized apartments, single occupancies and dirty socks. Mom is wound tight, and I sometimes think dad is just waiting, waiting for her to become completely unbalanced.

We pull up at school and I'm nervous, for all the wrong reasons, my tummy spins and spins.

"You'll call me...for anything. It doesn't matter if it's three in the morning, promise? I worry about you out here all alone...I'm just minutes away though, okay? Promise me?"

"Okay, dad. I'll be fine. Thank you for bringing me. And um...be good to each other, okay? Think about the dirty socks."

I leave and he's confused I think. Though he smiles like, it really doesn't matter what I say - I smile, he smiles.

I love my dad. And I think I just lost my nerve. The yellow-purple walls, and frames of strangers back home will do. The predictable faces of my mom that make my insides hurt, will do. Won't they?

Never. I just wish...I just wish Edward was here.

AN:

The Boy pre-reads, and leaves me cute notes in the margin. We're silly. And it's luff.
Next chapter: A week or so.

I teased this chapter on my blog on Monday. For more and to stay in the loop type thing that is Lumina and other wordy stuff I may write, subscribe/follow: samroseyfiction . wordpress . com

I also wrote an original one shot and donated it to SU4Katalina for our lovely Kroseph. For more info on how to donate and to get the compilation, go to: katalina . fandomcause . info

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samrosey. xo