The names are not mine, the rest - is.

Flora and the Zephyrs

The water is like a fresh day, blinding in light. The heat drowns my body, running along my skin and away as I try to hold on, holding onto the wall. I don't feel like I was just lying in a pool of my own blood, and dirt. I don't feel like almost dying. My tummy shakes, and I wonder about the consequences. The world is too bright, and way too loud, so I stand directly under the head of the shower, hard sprays drenching my shivering form, and every time I think I can hear something I couldn't possibly hear, I turn my head to the side and let the water run along my ears.

The water is like a fresh day. And Edward is waiting for me.

After Edward and I agreed to spend the day together, I called my dad. He freaked out and told me Billy had called him. I told him I just wanted to make things better. I told him I wanted him to know I know it's my fault, and if he blames Jake, he shouldn't.

All of those things are true, but I was selfish. Most of all, I wanted to know if he knew anything about vampires. Look where that got me. Selfish.

I remember sitting around the campfire when I was younger as he and Harry told us stories. Most of them were boring but sometimes, sometimes they were scary and so deeply seeded into Billy and Jake's family, I would pretend they were real. I would tease Jacob, and he would play around, but I knew it creeped him out just as much as it did me. I don't know how I was going to like, just ask him.

Hey, Billy. Do you believe in vampires?

He looked sad, and I couldn't.

Before I left, I sat on Jacob's bed for twenty minutes wondering where he really was, before eventually just needing to get out of there. It's like I'm two halves of the same whole. After Billy came home in a wheelchair, that half stopped growing up. That part of me ran away and decided not to deal with it. This part, the me standing naked in Edward's shower, trying to hold onto my sanity, is trying to be free for all of those things. The fact that I drank Edward's blood today; that's the me now and I am only here because I needed it to survive.

Why didn't he just change me?

"Bella." Her voice sounds so close, like she's in the room with me. "Bella, it's Alice. Can I come in?"

"Um. Sure. Yeah." I don't move. I don't peak around the door to see. I just wait.

"How are you feeling?" She asks me, now standing outside the shower, like we're friends.

"Fine." I say.

"It's okay if you're not."

"What do you mean?" I ask, confused as to why she's in here with me at all.

"I know we haven't been the most welcoming. You're just one girl. In a house full of...strangers, practically." Vampires. A house full of vampires. "I'm sorry." Her voice is soft now though. Not like a feline, or a monster, protecting herself from a human. But soft, like silk.

"What for? I don't..." I feel like I'm freezing now, really freezing as I stand next to the hot stream of water running down the plughole.

"Edward likes you. Jasper likes you." She says, not at all explaining her apology. "I'm sorry I acted like such a bitch." Her voice rings out now, piercing my ears.

I want to tell her she wasn't a bitch. And she wasn't. But before I can, she opens the glass door to the shower.

I can't speak. I can't look anywhere but at her face as she looks right back at me.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't treat you as I should have, and I'm sorry you almost died."

"Okay." I nod, my arms up against my breasts, hands under my chin.

"I picked out some things for you to wear, seeing as you got all bloody and torn up." Alice is blunt. Sharp. I can tell she's used to being right about things, and right now, she actually looks sorry. I can see it in her body language, and the way she stands, she looks uncomfortable.

"Thank you." I say. Grateful.

"Alice. Is it supposed to feel like this?" My tummy shakes as I reposition myself in the tub so I don't slip.

"What do you feel?" She asks, completely unmoving from her previous stance.

"Everything." I tell her.

"Yes." Oh. Okay. "Bella, can I get you anything else?"

"Um." And I feel silly. "Do you shave?" I can feel the heat saturating my face as the words tumble out.

"No. I don't. There's no changing that." Oh. Okay. Yeah, I definitely feel silly. "I'll be right back." She says, and as she leaves, it's like watching her in slow motion. Like she's not even really moving but her body is across the room now, like she was just placed there, so she must be, still she's going so slow. And then she's no longer here. What just happened?

I step out, and grab a towel, it's white and fluffy, and feels like the softest thing I have ever felt in my life.

"Here." She's back, and I didn't even notice.

"How did you...?"

"What?"

"You were here. And then..."

She laughs. Laughs really loudly, and hands me a packet of unopened razors.

"I'm a vampire, silly." She says. Just. Like that. "Your clothes are hanging on the door."

"Thanks."

"Hey, Bella."

"Alice?"

"We're going to be great friends, you know." Before I can say anything in response, she's gone.

Alice is peculiar. She looks like a girl version of Edward. In my memory, she seemed so hostile when we first met at school. And in my room, she barely said anything to me at all. Yeah, she's kind of peculiar. Except, I hope she's right because I think I like her.

-o-

"Emmett reports he has been successful. She's transforming as we speak."

"I see. Thank you for telling me." I'd really rather not know this at all, and I fear it will weigh on me.

"Will you tell Bella?" My father asks, and how could I not? Is Bella supposed to just see her next time they're at school, at home in their dorm, and what... Oh, hey B, I'm a vampire now, look. That won't be fair for anyone.

"I think so." I don't want to lie to her. We're past any chance for secrets.

"Before your blood leaves her system, or after?" I don't answer because answering will only force more questions than I care to seek the answers to.

"Where do you want this?" Jasper appears at the door with a mattress.

"I'll leave you to it, son." Carlisle touches my arm before he leaves, and tells Jasper to make sure he gives us some privacy when we're settled.

The room next to mine has no carpet and no furniture. I have stacks of art, and some hanging on the walls, but nothing else. I tasked Jasper with getting us a bed. Bella will need to sleep.

"Where's the frame?"

"I'm only one vampire, oh special one." He mocks me, how playful he can remain after a morning of such chaos.

"Are you kidding me?" I'm not as playful. Relieved, yes. Nervous, yes.

"It's perfect." Alice says as she appears, looking very happy. "I have just the thing to go with it."

"How is she?" Since we got to the house, Bella insisted she needed some human time. Her words, not mine. Regardless, Alice wouldn't let me in the room, instructing me to get something suitable set up for when she's ready.

"Making herself presentable for you, dear brother." Alice twirls, all smiles, tip toeing as she reaches Jasper in order to kiss him. "Oh, and maybe you should fill her in on all the special parts of being one of us."

"What did she say to you?"

"She was just asking questions."

As I carry the mattress up the stairs and think about what Alice said, the thoughts of all the other things I want Bella and I to be doing, drain everything else of its immediacy.

I turn on the lights in the room and set the mattress against the wall in the centre.

"You won't be needing that." She flips the switch and the lights go back off. Alice walks over to the painting hanging above the bed and drops some fresh linen, and a box on top of it. The painting is one of my favourites by Waterhouse; Flora and the Zephyrs. I'm startled by how much Flora looks like Bella, and how I never thought about it before now. "I think Bella will like these." She says as she pulls fairy lights from the box and drapes them over the painting and attaches them to the wall either side.

"They're lovely." Her voice carries loud and sweet from by the door, and it's my favourite sound, beating out any other sound in the world. It used to be Bella's heartbeat, that which linked me to her blood, and the scent which I so often longed for. But not now. Not today. I turn to see her, Bella, brand new.

Her face is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Like Flora. But not at all. I am annihilated, glued to the ground as her smile grows, and her eyes catch the tiny lights.

"Have fun." Alice whispers as she leaves us.

"You didn't have to do this." A perfect mouth, she speaks from. "But it is lovely."

-o-

He smells like the only place I want to be. His tawny hair is sticking up and I want to run my fingers all the way through to the ends and back again. I imagine my hands at his neck and over his chest. I want to rest my head there and breathe him in.

He is the only place I want to be.

"You're beautiful." His words cover me in warm. The way he says them has me believing every single one.

"You're sexy." I search his face for something not okay. I want to say these things. I want to say everything I ever thought about him.

"How do you feel?" He asks.

"That's the last time you're allowed to ask me that." This is our day to do all the things we can't usually do, and we may only ever get one.

"Just answer me this once."

"I feel amazing." He smiles at my response, and looks down. Down at the bed. At his feet. At my hands. At my face. And back at the bed. "Alice gave me some of her clothes."

"She bought new ones while you were in the shower."

"Oh." I pull at my skirt.

"I like what you're wearing." He tells me. And I can't wait for him to take it all off.

"Do you want to sit?" He asks, and he seems nervous.

I walk over to him, and he holds out his hand for me to take.

I have no doubt about whether testing this is worth it. If for some reason, the effects of what he did have worn off already, I have no doubt that I would try anyway.

His hand is cold. Not like ice, but like cool air. Like the glass I felt before, pressed against my skin. My whole palm, in his whole palm. I close my eyes to feel it more, my awareness is so new and vivid.

When I open them, I see a painting above the bed. It's a piece we talked about in class at the beginning of the semester. John William Waterhouse. Submission runs rampant through his pictures. I like them. I like how he makes women, the lines, and circles, the blush, and the eyes.

"You like her?"

"I do."

"She reminds me of you."

"I like that."

He lowers us, and we sit on the edge of the bed, knees out, our bodies turned into one another.

He lets go of my hand and his fingers play at my wrist. I look up to see his soft eyes, they're like, melty, deep and comforting.

Slowly his fingers dance along my arm and up to my shoulder, the sheer sleeves of my top tickle my skin as he runs past them and into my hair.

"You feel nice." I tell him. His eyes go wide, he seems surprised.

"Bella, I want to try something..."

"Okay." My voice feels like barely a whisper as his face moves closer to mine, and I feel like I should repeat myself but I don't.

"Don't move..."

The air around me, moves us, keeps moving us as I try to stay still. The bed beneath me, inviting us. Edward's mouth, parted.

"Be very still..."

The sound of his need vibrates through me. The weight of this lust is heavy and sinking. Lift me, so lift me.

He's lifting me.

His lips to mine. Pressing themselves right to my heart.

He's lifting me.

My feet don't feel me. My hands don't hold me, I am lost to this kiss.

His hand in my hair, woven like flowers, soft flowers that smell free.

Harder. His lips are pressed harder now.

Breathe him in. I can't not.

Your wet mouth, I can't not.

I grip the front of his shirt and pull him closer. I want to be kissing him forever.

I want to be kissing him forever.

"Bella..." He seems breathless, though he doesn't need air.

"Don't stop." I beg.

He nods. And I pull. He presses. And I open. He kisses. And I love.

He kisses. Don't ever stop.

I would give anything.

Just don't ever stop.

AN:

The Boy kept quoting this chapter to me, teasing me. It was both embarrassing and adorable.

To see the awesome picture I found to go with this chapter, visit my blog samroseyfiction . wordpress . com
There are also images of Flora and the Zephyrs, if you want to check them out.

Oh, Lumina is up in the Poll of the Week at The Lemonade Stand, along with lots of great stories, so go and vote for your favourites! tehlemonadestand . net

So, how do you feel? I'd love you to come and leave a note, let met know.
Please and thank you!
samrosey.
XOXO