The next day I woke up early and therefore got to school in a likewise fashion. I always walked to school - it was about a mile away, but I liked walking through the city in the early morning especially with my umbrella in the rain - plus, walking woke me up, and I didn't have to take a bus. I detested buses. And of course, since I didn't have a job, I didn't have a car.

School passed by uneventfully - except for the fact that Matthew Black was not in school. I hated that I noticed that - had I really remained that attuned to him for all this time?

The day went by in its usual blur, but I had to stay late to work on my History project.

I was one of the last people to leave the school - outside, the campus seemed completely deserted.

I had just taken a few steps onto the departing sidewalk when he, seemingly materializing out of thin air, stepped out from behind a tree and into my path.

I froze for a second and my breath caught in shock. Out of all the people that could have stepped out from behind that tree, he'd have been the very last one on my 'expected' list.

Before I could help myself I'd looked him over, only to instantly regret it. I hadn't allowed myself to fully look at him since the Dairy Freeze episode; now I was struck again by his impossible good looks.

My heart ached somewhere deep in my chest.

I ignored it.

What was he doing here anyway? He hadn't been in school all day...

I regained my composure and continued on my walk, closing the distance between us and pretending that I hadn't seen him.

As I got closer, he took a pointed step in my direction. His face was unreadable; his expression cloudy. I didn't let myself look too closely or too long at any specific part of him.

I had to remind myself that I didn't care about him.

And remind myself again.

I was being stupid, immature; absolutely ridiculous. I didn't care about this boy. He meant nothing to me.

"Paige," he started hoarsely as I closed in on a distance about five feet away from him.

I stopped. I'd never heard his voice come out with such a rough edge to it before. It was - as much as I hated to mentally acknowledge it - extremely sexy. But I absolutely refused to acknowledge, mentally or otherwise, the depth and intensity seemingly ringing from the single syllable. I didn't want to think about what that could mean. I wouldn't think about it. I wouldn't care. I didn't care.

"What do you want, Matthew?" I asked scathingly, glaring at the tree.

I didn't care. I didn't care. I didn't care, I didn't care, I didn't care, I didn't care...

He cleared his throat in an obvious attempt to catch my eye. What could he possibly want?

I succumbed to my curiosity and sought his gaze.

It was a mistake; his eyes were smoldering, burning and boring their way into mine.

The intensity and passion contained within that look should have been impossible.

"Paige, enough of this." His voice was low and urgent, its passionate ferocity nearly matching that in his eyes. I was caught off guard and so against my will, I was mesmerized.

I couldn't think or respond. Having him at such a close proximity after not seeing him in so long... I'd forgotten how - amazing - he was. His low, coarse, and musically masculine voice; his dark, rich, beautiful skin; his curly mop of bronze-colored hair, his warm aura; his deep, mystery-holding eyes; his severe cheekbones; his muscles; the literal heat emanating from him... No. No! I didn't care! I was certainly not about to be drawn in by his physical appearance again. It had been such a huge mistake last time - and I'd been cast as the idiot in the scenario.

I hated feeling the fool.

He didn't like me, and I was stupid! I didn't like him, for crying out loud!

"I'm sick of this - this hating each other," he continued.

"And what exactly do you mean by that?" I asked scornfully, my eyes narrowing into accusatory, distrusting slits.

"I don't care anymore," he continued, his voice becoming hollower, jerkier, and slightly more bitter, "I mean, I do, and my reasons were real, but - I don't care about the other things. I'm selfish. Too selfish. I want - us - to be - er - friends. No. More than friends. But I can't make you. You shouldn't. But I want to - so, so badly. If you... want."

My breath, as well as all inward functions and thoughts my body contained or was host to, froze.

"I don't understand," I started cautiously, trying to muster up as much hostility as possible, "We hate each other. I thought we agreed; at the beginning of the school year I was being nice to you, and you, for some odd reason, felt the need to do the same for me," and strung me along and made me actually put myself out there and actually believe that you felt for me - you had me falling completely for you until - "Until you changed your mind and decided that I wasn't worth it - or something like that. You hate me, remember?"

He winced.

"No. I don't hate you. Quite the opposite."

I was taken aback; instantly surprise, anger, confusion, and - though I hated it - hope, threatened to barge through my carefully controlled heart walls.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my acrimony and resentment becoming more evident in my tone with every word I spoke. It had been a long time since I'd felt like this; since I'd felt so raw and emotional. I absolutely loathed it.

He exhaled slowly in obvious frustration.

"Well, I'm sorry if I am too unintelligent to understand what you mean," I started tightly, my pique flaring up again, "but-"

"I lied. Paige, I lied through my teeth. And I got mad, and lied some more. I - I feel more strongly about you than I do about any other human - unquestionably."

He sighed, this time quickly and tensely.

My heart throbbed, and a flood of unnamed, unrecognizable, and unacknowledged emotions pummeled and rushed over my heart wall, reducing it to a pitiful and non-re-constructable heap of heart-pieces.

I was distraught, appalled, stunned, confused, hurt, dizzy, angry, jubilant, overwhelmed, hopeful, wary, indignant, irritated, depressed, and so much more - and all at once. And I was upset for feeling all these things on top of it all - I mean, it wasn't as if we'd even had a real relationship. We'd been friends. I'd let my imagination get the better of me.

So basically; I was an instantaneous mess.

The emotions must shown - at least a little - on my face, for Matthew's became concerned.

"Paige?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing in concern.

I closed my eyes - I didn't want him to see what I was feeling, and my eyes - as they say - were the 'gateways to my soul' ; at any rate, there was where my control and disguise were weakest.

"So," I started slowly, trying to sort out my scrambled brain, "You lied. So. So, what does that mean exactly? Why did you lie, if that's how you felt?" despite my lack of emotional restraint and waterfall of emotion, I was not ready to accept his story. I still had control over my thoughts at least.

"It's complicated," he said softly. I could feel the edges of his breath trace my face. He was standing very close to me; I could almost see his deep eyes staring at my eyelids, trying to get me to open the betrayers and tell him what I was thinking.

But why would he care?

Was he telling the truth?

"But wait," I continued, "What do you mean you feel more strongly about me than about any other - human?"

I didn't really care about the answer. The question - the only one that mattered in the entire world at that moment, really - was reverberating into every corner of my mind. Did he mean it?

I didn't want to dare to hope - it would only be setting myself up for future disappointment, disappointment that I knew I couldn't take. I absolutely detested feeling like an emotional wreck - as I did at that very moment - I couldn't imagine what I'd end up like if I put myself out there again and found he'd been lying. But why would he lie? For sex? That seemed unlikely; he hadn't made any advances in the past, and I wasn't the type of girl to advertise myself in that way - and there were other girls in school - probably most of the girls in school - who would have slept with him, no questions asked, and been delighted that they'd once slept with such an amazing guy. Plus, why would he go after me, after we'd had that row? It made no sense.

Maybe he was into the hard-to-get girls. But I hadn't been hard-to-get until he'd broken up - so to speak - with me.

So what other reason would he have to be lying?

I still hadn't ever really gotten the spiteful-just-to-be-spiteful vibe from him, so it didn't seem very possible that he would be doing this just to mess with me, and embarrass and/or hurt me later.

"I meant just that. And it's all related," he answered, his words rushed - either in relief or embarrassment.

"You're not making any sense," I told him, my eyes flying open in frustration.

"I know," he said apologetically. His moods seemed to be changing alarmingly swiftly, but (if it was possibly to have more than one mood at once) they all seemed to float on top of the intensity, of hope, and of near giddiness.

"It's just that it feels great to be finally be getting this out in the open - and wretched - but that's besides the point. Paige, I know we have only known each other for a few months - but - I have a confession to make," he didn't wait for me to ask what it was, "I - well, it's complicated. But - alright, this isn't working. Let me start from the beginning. Well, actually, for me to start there, it's necessary for me to begin at the middle.," he laughed, still tense, and looked around nervously. After becoming apparently sufficiently reassured that we were not being overheard, he continued, leading me in a resumption of my former exit of campus, "Well, you know when the bleachers collapsed?"

"Yes, of course," I responded tightly. Truthfully, since the Dairy Freeze episode, it had been all I could do not to think about Matthew at all, much less about the episode in which he'd saved me under impossible circumstances.

All my questions about what sort of being he was had been forgotten. Now they resurfaced.

I was not impressed by his banter, though it's babbling quality forced me to trust him a little more.

"Well, you saw me - er - save you under improbable circumstances. And you guessed that I wasn't human. Correctly. Mostly correctly, anyway."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

My former flood of emotions that had been halfway through running their course suddenly stopped and disappeared. I didn't care about much else - I was immediately consumed by my old obsessive desire to know what exactly Matthew was. Was he about to tell me?

"I mean what I said; you were correct," he lowered his voice's volume, "I am part human. About a quarter of me is human."

My heart was thumping extremely loudly now. I was without doubt in the presence of some sort of otherworldly creature. I remembered the impossible speed and strength deployed in his effort to save me. Images and names of the most popular fictional species flashed through my head; zombie, superhero, vampire, alien, ghost, mermaid, dragon, werewolf, fairy - I mean everything popped into my thoughts.

He pulled me aside, into a thicket of trees near the road.

"I'm not - I can't tell you everything. If I did, it would mean you either losing your life or your soul. And I will not let that happen."

I waited, my heart thudding more painfully as he stared at me, gauging my reaction to his every word.

"But I figure I have a right to tell you the other side of me. I mean, everyone else can tell their - but I'll get to that. Okay, I won't blame you for freaking out over this but - I'm a - well - shape shifter."

I blinked. Shape shifter? That didn't explain anything - not the speed, strength - nothing. Had all those qualities come from his unmentionable side? Why hadn't he turned into some kind of animal when he needed to save me, then? I'd seen him save me the entire time - he hadn't changed form.

Was the slight disappointment I felt completely out of line? I should have been relieved that it wasn't something weirder. That he wasn't something weirder.

"I shape-shift into a a wolf. I'm also known as a werewolf."

He was all-but whispering his torrent of words now.

I didn't think it was possible for one's heart to beat as fast as mine suddenly was.

"That gives me some of the qualities you know I have. Or at least, contributes to it. I'm - a rather special werewolf though. Most werewolves are impossibly and inhumanly strong - I am stronger than them. Sense of smell, of sight - mine's the best. And the speed - well, it partially comes from my - er - wolf side. None of that really matters, but that you know that because of these things, I am dangerous," He closed his eyes and tilted his head back slightly in apparent anguish, his tone practically soft moaning now, "You have to be properly warned. I can't even tell you how dangerous - " He snapped his eyes open and his penetrating, secret-containing gaze back to my own. "But my point, the one I'm getting to - is that - that first day - when I saw your face... well, ugh, this is hard to explain."

He groaned, ran his fingers through his hair, and gave me an apologetic, lopsided, and sheepish grin. I stared back at him, my face not letting anything show. I didn't say anything - I had nothing to say. It all seemed impossible... yet I remembered how impossible his saving me had been. He had to be telling the truth.

"Alright, I'm just going to get this all out of the way, overwhelming though it undoubtedly will be for you. I know I'm not making much sense; I'm just - so thrilled to be - well, talking to you again. And now that I've started - I want to tell you everything. God! It's never been so difficult to get what I want to say said. Okay. Well, werewolves - well - it's a - there's a wolf thing. Call it werewolf instinct if you want. But it's when a werewolf makes eye contact with their soul mate - the one they're 'designed for' - and they know that the person is their other half, life partner - instantaneously. And I - well - when I looked at your face - I came as close to imprinting - to this, er, instinctive wolf thing - as Carlisle - as - er - some people - thinks is possible, my being the unique combination of mythical creatures that I am. But the more important issue is that when I caught your scent - well you're my - what they call singer too. And that's bad. You don't want to be somebody's singer. It just means that it makes the - being - desperately want to kill you. So basically; part of me wants to kill you. Badly. And the other part knows you are supposed to be my soul mate."

He reached out his hands, as if to grip my shoulders with, but let them drop instead. He watched my face anxiously.

"It's why I wanted you to stay away from me, and me you - to protect you!" he inserted quickly, "But now my desire to be with you has won out and-"

I shuddered once, instinctively, and his expression hardened. He stopped talking.

I was overwhelmed.