Disclaimer: Same as chapter 1.

Note: I am having a hard time naming the next couple of chapters. I might go an edit them later, but I'm uploading them without a title because I won't have internet access for a couple of weeks after today.

Chapter 9

Late October

Rian sat at the table with her friends, lunches were very long lately. The red-head was usually quiet and only listened to portions of the condescending conversation between the blond bimbos and the others at the table. Her mind was usually elsewhere, on either the meetings with Carlisle or with the golden eyed man that has captured her mind.

Since the first time she had meet Carlisle, Rian had relaxed considerably around him. He was nothing like she imagined, he had a calming aura around her. She didn't feel threatened around him, not that she felt threatened around Emmett or Alice either. By the third public meeting, Rian was comfortable enough with the man to finally talk about a more private setting. Apparently the Cullen's had built a small private office for Carlisle on the edge of their vast property line, specifically for this purpose. This was the first time she had an inkling of how much money this family possessed. She knew the family had enough money to buy several nice cars, with Carlisle being a doctor, but she didn't realize they could just spend money on building new houses whenever they wanted. It was slightly impressive; although if you were a four hundred (or something?) year old vampire that didn't die, you might save up money over the years too.

By mid-October she had several private sessions with Carlisle in which they talked about generic things such as when the nightmares started and her childhood and such. Her last two sessions had been different. She had begun to talk more about the details of her dreams.

She had felt awkward of discussion details, though. She had been reluctant to describe the pain that she felt whenever she was bitten in the dreams or how it still stung whenever she was woken up from the nightmare. But Carlisle pressed her for the details and of course looked taken aback when she described the searing sensation that rippled through her bloodstream.

While Rian was curious about his reaction, wondering if a vampire's bite did in fact sting, but she wasn't sure if she was ready for the answer. She wasn't sure if she was ready to know the truth about the secrets of the vampire world. So Rian just ignored his reaction, and her burning questions, and continued to tell her stories.

They talked all about her episode that led to her hospitalization the previous year and how she didn't remember the nightmare or the events of that night after she had woken up.

Then finally the session ended with briefly talking about her realization that vampires were a reality, which included a G-rated description of how she met Emmett. She was sure Carlisle might know that they had slept together because he did pressure her for details. It was either that or the fact they were running out of time. Her father had been expecting her back home at a certain time. They had talked about how comfortable she had been with Emmett in the beginning and how her mood changed when finding out he was a vampire.

Her current thoughts were trapped in Carlisle's last question for her: "I want you to take a few days to really think about why you are so scared of Emmett now when you were comfortable enough with him when you thought he was just a hallucination." Her first thought had been 'Because he's a vampire and can kill me whenever he desired.' But the next day she realized this wasn't true. In her visions and nightmares, she had experienced death many, many times. She had felt the pain that accompanied a vampire's bite and the slow decent into darkness. It wasn't death and the pain that scared her. But her answer still eluded her.

Half the day had passed by the time she realized she hadn't paid much attention to her classes or her friends. She wasn't even sure if she eat much at lunch and she couldn't recall anything anyone had said during her only free period.

It was art and she was just staring blankly at the white canvas in front of her, she was supposed to start painting the bowl of fruit in the center of the room. It was a typical art assignment that she had done many times before, maybe this was part of the reason she didn't find inspiration in the bright colors of the fruit.

"Hey, what's up with you lately?" Winter's voice was laced with annoyance. Rian knew her absence lately had been irritating her friend.

"Sorry. Just trying to…" She couldn't exactly say 'wrap my head around the obvious existence of vampires in the school' now could see. "I'm still having a little trouble distinguishing between what's real and what's not."

Winter raised her brush to the canvas, a thick glob of blood red paint spreading across it. Rian turned her attention back to her canvas and began to apply a thick layer of her own paint to the canvas. Anger was clearly boiling inside Winter because of Rian, but she couldn't bring herself to care about Winter's very hormonal teenager feeling at the moment.

"Well," the spite was clear in her voice, but quickly faded from it when she realized she finally had Rian's attention. "Wanna come over tomorrow?"

Rian had almost forgotten that it was nearly Friday, the end of the week. It had been several weeks since she spent any time outside of school with her friends; Rian had been so busy with appointments and her thoughts that she didn't have much time for anything other than homework and sleep. "Umm…" She mentally went over her plans for the weekend, her next session with Carlisle wasn't until Monday and she couldn't remember if she had any family obligations. "Sure. I'll have to check with my dad first."

Winter accepted this answer and quickly jumped into meaningless chatting, mostly about her and Aiden's relationship problems. One of their problems was about the fact that Winter wasn't sure if she was ready to move to the next step (intercourse, something she couldn't even say out loud) or not. This lead Rian to think about her own experience and began to wonder if she had known it wasn't a hallucination if she would have actually slept with Emmett or not. But as she thought of the forest floor, she knew she didn't regret the actions she took part in.