Chapter 3

"There you are! I was starting to worry about you." Alice was leaning against the outside wall of the cafeteria just across from my car when I came out of the doors. God she's gorgeous, I thought. Just the way her flowing silk blue skirt rides up her slender leg ask she walks towards me was driving me crazy. The fact one of her black bra straps had slid down her arm and was showing from under the sleeve of her black woollen top was about to push me over the top when she finally reached me and I was forced to shift my gaze to her face.

"I um… I had to get… something. Apple! An apple, that's what I had to get." She laughed under her breath as I tried to remember exactly what I'd be trying to do. She took great pleasure in the effect she had on me and never once did she do anything that might help me to concentrate.

"Well I was starting to think you'd stood me up." By now her face was about 2 inches from mine and her body was slowly pressing me back against the wall of the building. Her hands had roped their way around my neck and were acting as a lasso that bound us together. When I made no attempt to move away, she moved her lips to my ear and started whispering.

"You know we could really get into trouble for being this close on school grounds… you wouldn't want me to get into trouble now would you?" she started to gently bite my earlobes when I finally couldn't take it anymore and a shudder of pleasure rushed down my spine. I was about to grab her right there outside school when she pulled away from me, winked and walked away to my car, leaving me breathing heavily against the wall. Another of her gifts was to know exactly when I was at breaking point. What she didn't know is that what was working in her favour the most were the images that ran through her mind. Trying to keep myself under control when I could see exactly what she wanted from me was too hard for me to do.

"You're a bitch you know that?" I said smiling as I tried to catch my breath.

"I know. And you love me for it." Alice said as she slid into the passenger seat. "Now you coming or not?"

"Where are we anyway?" She asked exasperatedly for about the fifth time during the journey. We'd been driving for about an hour when we finally pulled into the parking lot. Well it wasn't really a parking lot, more of a square of clay coloured dirt on the side of a back road.

"I used to come here as a child and I thought you might like to see it." I got out of the car, waiting for Alice to join me, knowing perfectly well she was too curious to not join me. And sure enough, she got out of the car and took my hand, sending a signal for me to lead the way.

I knew it was going to take us about 15 mins to get there so as we walked I thought I'd tell her about why I came here in the first place.

"When I was a child, my parents and I were very into nature and going for long walks in the countryside. We'd go everywhere we could. It never bothered us if it was raining or snowing or sun shine. We'd go no matter what the weather. I used to enjoy how the landscape changed with the seasons, how the colours would change without being told how to do so. Green to yellow to red to brown. It used to amaze me…" it took me a few moments to realise I had stopped talking and that Alice was still looking at me expectedly.

"What happened? I've never known you to go on hikes before. In fact you've never mentioned your parents before." Her voice was soft and soothing and I squeezed the hand that was clasping mine as a way of trying to say thank you for her just being with me.

"That's because a few years ago, before I joined Forks High, they both died hiking in the Grand Canyon. I was with my grandmother at the time otherwise I would have been with them. They didn't want to take the normal route down so they tried to pick their own way down the cliff face. My father slipped and fell and because they were tied together, my mother wasn't far behind him. They were found a few days later." This time when I went quiet, it was because I didn't want to talk about it anymore, and some how she knew that and didn't ask anymore.

"I never knew … Ed I'm so sorry. But hey, look at it this way. What happened then meant that you found your way here. You found your way to Esme, your family now… and to me." The hesitation in her voice let me know how tentative she was about bringing herself into it. The slight flush in her cheeks and the tears that were beginning to accumulate in her eyes said everything about how much my story had touched her. And for that I loved her even more. With her naturally red hair, deep green eyes, slight collection of freckles in a bridge over her button nose and the fullness of her pink lips, she was everything I could want.

I turned to her and brought my hand to her beating heart. Her eyes flitted to mine, big and black rimmed like a deer caught in headlights. "That's what gets me through the day Alice. Knowing that even though then it felt like the end of the world, it brought me to you."

Her face flushed again and she shifted her eyes from my face, showing the shy side of her that very few even knew existed.

"So how did you find… where ever it is we're going?" She cleared her throat and kept walking, leading me with the hard clamp she still had on my hand. I smiled to myself, not just because of how cute she was when she was shy but also because I knew for a fact she had no idea which was she was going.

"Well, after the funeral, I wasn't in the best of minds and I ran away from my grandmother's. She'd agreed to take me in but we never really connected so I decided to leave. I had some money my parents had left me and I got the first plane I could to anywhere in the world. The cheapest plane available was a one way to Forks. So I took it.

When I got off the plane I still didn't have anywhere to go so I started walking. I walked long into the night, long after it had gone dark until I simply couldn't walk anymore where I collapsed into sleep. I don't remember if I dreamed or not but it was not a comfortable sleep.

When I awoke, it was cold. Very cold. Not at all like it is today. Mist hung around me and trailed its way around the trees like a gigantic snake. I couldn't move very well so I lay there and waited for the sun to come up so I could try and see where I was. It didn't take long actually. I was surprised just how quickly it did brighten up but I didn't think much of it at the time. The sun breams rid the forest of the mist and with it brought warmth that breathed into my body, giving me the ability to move again.

I stood up and looked around me. And do you know what I saw?"

"What?" Alice's face was full of curiosity and longing as we trailed to a stop and I pulled her closer to me. She was so adorable when she was impatient and I wanted nothing more than to never let her go. But I knew I had to show her.

"What did you see Edward?" she almost whispered.

I reached out to the vines that hung tightly in front of us, just like I knew they would be before we even set out. Pulling them back with the clasp of my hand while still keeping a close grip on Alice, I leaned in and whispered to her,

"I saw this."