ABSOLUTELY (STORY OF A GIRL)

THERE ARE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF, and I was convinced they had become my entire personality. The denial was the easiest. On Monday morning, I woke up to Adam's alarm and drove my way out to Mora Ranger Station with a tupperware box of brownies Mrs. Stanley had brought over the day after the funeral. Adam hadn't really befriended any of his coworkers, so I didn't know them by name except for his boss, Stevens. He'd been the one to find the ridge Sam Uley had carried me from, collected Adam.

"Grace?" The man was tired, that much was obvious. The station was busier than I'd ever seen it, people tacking on informational flyers on what to do if you came across a bear. Two men in uniform were hunched over a table pouring over a large, old map, marking spots out with a pencil and a ruler.

"Hey. I have brownies." I hold up the tupperware like a white flag. Everyone stopped what they were doing, staring at me like I'd grown a second head. "Just figured you could use 'em. Um, be careful out there. Bye."

And then I drove to school, blasting No Doubt like nothing had ever changed. The anger I couldn't control. Everyone walked on eggshells around me at school, shocked to even see me there. It was irritating, watching them wait for me to break down in front of them. The school held a memorial service for Adam in the gym during first period. Principal Greene called my name out in front of everybody, asked me to step to the podium to say a few words. I took one look and stormed out of gym before I could blow up. It wasn't a great start to the day. But I didn't get really pissed off until I saw how vacant my sister was.

At the funeral, I thought she was in shock. Sad, even. I didn't really notice how she hadn't said a word. But at lunch, as we sat together at our usual table, and Mike broached the topic of Adam carefully like wading into dark water—my sister's indifference would shock me. "I really didn't think you'd come to school today, you know, it's totally fine if you're not ready."

"Adam's dead, Mike." I say flatly, and it's like the whole table collectively flinches. "Whether I show up to school or not, that doesn't change."

"Is it true you're the one who found him?" Jess stage whispered as if the words themselves horrified her.

"Jess!" Angela hissed, nudging her.

"What? She's fine. I mean she's obviously not, but she's not, you know." Jess subtly darted her eyes at Bella who sat across the table beside Mike.

"I climbed up on a big rock to try to find everybody else, I got too far out." I frown at how mechanically I was repeating these words now. "There was this huge thing there, down close to the Quillayute river. I couldn't get a good look at what it was but everyone thinks it's a bear. And it had torn him apart. I don't remember what happened after, I must've passed out. Sam Uley from the reservation carried me until he found other people, they brought a stretcher out or something. I woke up in the ambulance."

"There's been a lot of missing people down in Oregon." Angela tells me. "Hunters, hikers. Maybe the bear moved North."

"What, like a serial killer bear?" Mike snorted. "It was a freak one time thing."

"Bella you must've been so relieved when your sister came back from the woods." Angela steered the conversation away, delicate about it.

"Huh?" Bella blinked, out of it. I turned to her. "Oh, yeah. Very sad about Adam."

Except she didn't sound sad at all. She sounded like it had barely even registered in her mind that Adam had died. That he'd been torn to pieces. That I'd been the one to find my dead boyfriend's remains. Apparently I wasn't the only one shocked. "Bella?"

"Nice funeral." She mumbled in reply to Jess, pushing salad around on her plate.

I clenched my jaw, my eyes burning with tears. My friends noticed. "Gracie—"

"Fuck you." I snap at my sister, and she blinks at me, as if only then noticing I was even there. "Fuck you. Do you know how many nights I've stayed up looking after you? Do you know how many times I washed your fucking ass because you were a fucking vegetable? Did you even fucking notice I was there? No, fuck you. I'm done. I'm fucking done. I can't even—"

My hands shake with my sudden rage, standing up abruptly. My chair screeches loudly, and I don't care that the whole cafeteria's staring now. Jess grabs my wrist but I rip out of her hold easily, storming out the side door of the cafeteria. I'd seen how she'd reacted to my outburst. As if I hadn't even said a word. She just looked back down at her salad and kept pushing stuff around.

There were so many things I couldn't say to her in front of people. So many things I had been bottling up because she was my baby sister. Because it was my responsibility to take care of her. The rage I had been pushing down since Phoenix was threatening to overwhelm the physical limits of my body. I'd never known what seeing red meant until that moment, as I marched for the parking lot. Why couldn't she be there for me for once? Why couldn't she take care of me when I need her? I didn't have to do this anymore. Fuck this.

Charlie had heard about our argument from Mrs. Stanley by the time I got home from work. He didn't argue when I said I was moving into the cabin. He was sad, and I think guilty, torn between which daughter he had to take care of. But I was fine. My boyfriend was dead and I was fucking fine.

October turned into November, and then December. All my free time was spent on the cabin, which had become legally mine one abrupt November morning when the deed arrived in the post. Similarly, I got the car registration a few weeks later. Christopher Wexler moved in with his son in Los Angeles right before his wedding. I was invited, but I had school. Sam Wexler came back up to town at the end of November to pack up the house and hand it over to the real estate agency from Port Angeles, but I had a feeling it wasn't going to sell anytime soon. No one new really moved to a place like Forks. It was why the Cullens had been such an oddity.

It took time to accept what Sam Uley had done to Adam. Time to accept that a teenage boy had died, brutally, for the safety of a town who had no idea of his sacrifice. I struggled with the weight of that the most. That Adam was innocent. He didn't ask for this. He had no idea vampires had existed, because I had kept that a secret. I never told him to be careful in those woods. I never stopped him from taking that job. I knew what was out there, but I was a fool for believing the monsters would creep back into their shadows. According to Sam Uley and Billy Black, the woman kept coming back.

I wondered who she was. Uley called her 'the redhead', and there had been a few nights where I woke up in a panic, certain I had heard the Cullens call the woman who had hunted my sister a redhead before. But I wasn't sure now. Those memories were so distant, so hard to grasp. The Cullens would've known if she had been in the area. Alice would've seen it, would've refused to leave us unprotected. It was far more likely that this was just another nomadic vampire, slipping in and out of the area because the Cullens were now gone and they had nothing to fear. Forks was kind of the perfect habitat for those affected by sunlight.

I was scared of the wolves. I was scared of Uley, who had torn his fiancée Emily's entire left side to shreds in a fit of anger some months earlier when he'd first transformed. But I'd come to terms with the idea I would never be free of the supernatural. I was naive to think my problems would disappear with the Cullens. Vampires were everywhere, apparently even in places as sunny as Italy. The world would not be safer simply because I chose to shut them out.

That was how I fell into my routine. Fear was a great fuel to keep you from slipping away into the dark. In the daylight hours, during which I usually had company, I would renovate the cabin. Fix the Camaro. Make food for the guys at Mora Ranger Station and Charlie's Police station. I kept up work at Dowling's, brought them some kind of one pot meal every Saturday. My façade of being a high-functioning teenager worked. Eventually, people stopped walking one eggshells around poor little Gracie Swan who found her dead boyfriend torn apart in the woods.

At night, things were different. I was usually alone in the cabin, or I at least very much hoped I was. I slept on the couch most nights after struggling to stay awake as long as I could with multiple cups of instant coffee, a can of hairspray in one hand and my zippo in the other. I knew it was next to impossible for a human to kill a vampire, but I also knew fire was kind of my only hope. A part of me felt silly sleeping with my makeshift flamethrower. It seemed more like something to spook Frankenstein's monster away than the impossibly fast, supernaturally strong perfect killing machine that was potentially trying to get to my cabin. I should move back in with Charlie. I should get over my rage and disappointment for my twin sister, go back to town where there was a higher population density and it'd be harder to get away with murder. But the idea of risking Charlie and Bella if the vampire found my scent in the cabin made me steer clear.

Staying up those nights on guard brought on the bargaining. And the depression. I felt guilt. Alone, with all the lights on, I had nothing to distract me from my thoughts. And they always spun to the same terrible spiral. Did I love Adam? Or was I just traumatized by how I'd found him? He had died painfully, and he had died alone. Was he afraid? Did he suffer? I didn't miss him. Not in the same way Bella missed Edward. Not even close. I missed Rosalie and Emmett more than I missed Adam. I didn't deserve this cabin. This car. I was a parasite preying on the life of a boy who's only crime was to love me. He would've never become a ranger if it wasn't for me. He wouldn't need the extra money, because he wouldn't have tried to fix up his brother's cabin for us both. He wouldn't be trying to get into Washington State just to be with me. I'd let this go on too long. I'd been selfish. I'd enjoyed the comfort and security of having him, and I'd used him. Tried to make him something he was not.

And he'd died because of it.

I hadn't really gotten around to acceptance yet, beyond recognizing that Adam was really gone. Which brought me to my plans for that Saturday. It was the end of January now. The snow had finally melted away. Charlie had finally gotten rid of the Christmas tree we'd cut out of the forest together for his house. I'd finally moved the last of my things out from my former bedroom.

It was a regular, dismal day in Forks. The sky was a threatening shade of grey, as if the heavens would open at any given moment. I'd worn my new red jacket, a sturdier thing I suspected was actually a ski jacket that I'd gotten from the Newtons' store. My gloved hands were stuffed in the pockets, my breath coming out in puffs as I trudged my way through the mud in my caked rain boots.

Most of Forks Cemetery was divided into sprawling family lots, where generation upon generation of the old families were buried. Adam was buried alone, among the other outsiders who had moved here too late. Their rows were neater, along the edge where the forest encroached on the land. His gravestone was square and plain.

ADAM LEE WEXLER

12 APR 1986 - 16 OCT 2005

BELOVED SON, BROTHER & FRIEND.

Beloved son, brother and friend. Was this all he had ever been? Something about the gravestone made me mad. He'd been left here. Forgotten like a bad dream. His family had just upped and left and started over. Tied up all the loose ends like it was just nothing. I knew he'd never been close to his Dad or to Sam, but this hurt. There were no flowers in front of his grave. No candle burning in his memory. Where was Ed? What happened to Toby? I hadn't heard from them since the funeral. It was like no one cared anymore.

I set down the half-squashed bouquet I'd brought along in my backpack. Pink tulips, like the ones he usually got me. It was stupid. Adam didn't really like flowers, but I couldn't exactly leave a stack of video games out here. I felt stupid, standing here mad at other people instead of myself. It was so unfair. Why did I have to be the one to care about him? Why did I have to be the one to come here, to do this, to remember him?

A frigid breeze rustled past my shoulder. My hair flew into my numb face, and I pushed it back and held it there until the wind could change direction or stop. But that was when I heard it, over the whistle of the air—flaring guitars and drum snares. I whipped my head around, confused. I was alone here, wasn't I?

I turned to face the wind, feeling it bite at the tip of my nose. I zipped my jacket a little higher, stuffing my fists back into my pockets. The faint music kept going in and out with the unsteady whooshes of wind. I treaded carefully, curious now, distracted.

She sat around the corner, entirely hidden behind a lichen-covered statue of a man with a dog at his feet. Her skin was a familiar rich russet, golden and pretty even in the dismal weather. Dark, enviably silky hair fell in straight, perfect curtains down to just past her collarbone. Her long legs were folded up, supporting a big sketchbook where expert fingers rushed a thin snapped piece of charcoal. Her fingertips were stained a glossy black. The pretty Quileute girl had one white apple earphone in, the other hanging over her flannel jacket. I cocked my head, smiling with amusement. She was so into her drawing she hadn't even heard me squelching through the mud behind her. Cute. She wasn't even drawing a gravestone or a statue or anything. She was drawing a cat. Badly.

"The hind legs usually curve more, actually." I couldn't help myself. She turned back over her shoulder at me, completely unsurprised, expression expectant. Hmm. Maybe she had heard me. I pulled my right hand out of my pocket, fingers twirling in the direction of the page. "The faces aren't usually so flat, either. Unless it's a munchkin."

"What are you, the chief expert on cats?" Her voice was pleasantly husky.

"Okay, you can't judge me, you're spending your Saturday in a cemetery drawing cats." I snark back, lips twitching. She grumbles under her breath, yanking her earphone out and pushing herself upright to stand—she didn't notice she'd stained the pearly white wires. "This is creepy. You know this is creepy, right? Unless I'm not in on this being the new place for the cool kids to hang."

"You're not funny." Her expression was droll, trying to move past me while closing the sketchbook, but I caught her at the elbow. She whirled, incredulous, but I beat her to it.

"Please?" I smile, hoping it looked friendly. I gesture at the sketchbook. She frowns, and after a moment's hesitance, caves. I beam as I take the bulky A3 block from her along with the charcoal. I'd never really liked using charcoal. It was messy, it got under my nails and stained, I had a habit of snapping them. The thin shard felt too light in my grip, as if it were hollow. But despite the medium I knew damn well how to draw.

In my peripheral view, I could see her ire turn into awe as the unnerving sound of screeching scritch-scratching filled the air. My drawing was small, filling a corner she had left empty. By the time I was adding on whiskers she was looming over my shoulder, much taller than me. Taller even than Rosalie. "There you go."

"Huh." I didn't really know what to do with a 'huh', but she didn't seem annoyed anymore at least. "You actually kinda know what you're doing."

"Thank you." I light up, handing her sketchbook back to her along with the charcoal. Just as we both hold it, it snaps in two, and my smile falls. She laughs at the look of horror on my face. I laugh with her, a little nervous now.

"I'm Leah." Oh my god those dimples. They split Leah's whole face on either side of her small grin, entirely different from the tiny dots that poked through my cheeks. "Leah Clearwater."

"Harry's kid." I realize, eyebrows rising a little. Her brows furrow a little. "I'm Grace Swan."

"Oh, right, Charlie." She chuckled, eyes scanning me from boots to face. It was a very quick once-over, but it was enough to set off butterflies I hadn't felt in a long time in the pit of my stomach. Oh no. "Huh, you don't look like your Dad."

"It's just the hair."

"Is it bleached?"

"God no." I shudder, and she laughs lightly at my genuine disgust. "No, you're looking at the real deal. Full blooded blonde."

"Little Miss America, huh?" Her smile was crooked, head tilting just a little. "What brings you to my graveyard?"

"Your graveyard?" I raise my brows in disbelief.

"I staked my claim first, blondie." She drawled playfully. "Come on. You look like some kinda head cheerleader fantasy. There's no way you're here for the scenery."

I blushed. "Actually, I'm visiting my boyfriend."

Her eyes drifted over my shoulder, scanning rather obviously for a teenager. I didn't blame her mind for going there, this did seem like the kinda place two teenagers might meet up to hook up in the woods or something. A little morbid for my tastes, but fair enough. "I don't see him—oh. Oh."

"I'm surprised you didn't hear about it from your Dad." I chuckle, looking down at my mud-coated boots. I remembered Harry Clearwater's face that night. The look of horror when he finally made it out of the woods, saw me crying vacantly sat on the open back of the ambulance. I tried to shake that image out of my head.

"I did, my brain just kinda died there for a second. Sorry." She grimaced. "How're you holding up?"

"I'm visiting my dead boyfriend in the cemetery." I deadpan dryly. She laughs. I grin, shrugging. "It's good. I'm good. I'm fine."

"Yeah, no you're not." She snorts.

I roll my eyes. "I'm really—"

"Anyone who says they're fine are absolutely not fine." She cuts me right off, smile sad but not full of pity like everyone else.

"What're you doing here?" I change the topic, keeping my tone light.

Her face falls, and then she scrunches up her nose, wincing. "It's kinda stupid compared to your shit."

"Ooh, I love drama, gimme." I light up and she grins. "Let me guess. Breakup?"

"How'd you know?" She reared her head back, cutely sassy.

"There's been a lot of that going around." I tell her. "That and you kinda suck at trying to be emo so I can only assume it was family drama or a boyfriend. I like your Dad too much to want to guess family drama."

"My fiancée left me for my cousin." She tells me, surprising me. "They're engaged now. It took two months for something that took us four years."

"Yikes." I wince.

"Yeah, I know." She grumbled. "Sam's a piece of shit."

"Sam?" I blink. I only knew two Sams, one of them was married and way down in California. "Sam Uley?"

Her eyebrows furrow. "You're friends with Sam?"

I snorted. Was I friends with the werewolf who I caught viciously tearing apart my boyfriend? The man who would've burnt him or buried him, who knows what, and let me search ceaselessly for a dead boy I would never find? Maybe we would have looked for Adam for years. Maybe we would have lost our minds wondering what had happened to him, where he had gone, who had hurt him. Maybe I would spend the rest of my life hunting for a kidnapper, some kind of human trafficking ring or a serial killer and none of it would ever lead me to Adam. Would he have ever even cared? I didn't think I would ever be friends with Sam Uley. "No, but, for the record, I was totally team Emily before I saw how cute the ex is, now Sam's the dumbest man I've ever met."

Emily had brought lasagne over to apologize for what Sam had done. I hadn't accepted the apology, of course, because how could lasagne ever fix something like that? But she was too nice to be the one to be angry at. "I mean, Emily's still..."

"She's great." Leah sounded very bitter about that. "She is. Sam's the asshole."

"He is." I agree with the understatement of the century. "But you seem way more fun than your cousin for what it's worth."

"Not lately." She sighed, glum.

"Right. Hanging out in cemeteries." I look around us. And then I noticed, that for the first time in a good while, I felt good. Happy. Light. I wondered if this was the first time Leah had laughed in a while too. Maybe this was fate. "Come on, let's change that."

"What?" Leah frowned with confusion.

"You, me, a super sundae at Carver Café. Sound good? Great. I'm buying."

"It's literally freezing who wants ice cream in this weather?" She complained, but she was matching my stride as we walked back past Adam's gravestone.

"It's hot indoors." I shrug.

"You're insane." She rolled her eyes.

"So you don't want ice cream with the hot blonde cheerleader fantasy?"

"I never said you were a hot blonde."

"It was implied."

"No, no it really wasn't."

"Well now I'm implying it then."

"Oh my god."

Leah followed me to Carver Café in her old Bronco. I'd never seen the big beast on giant off-roading tires before, so I assumed she took it to Port Angeles for maintenance the way most people did to avoid Dowlings' exorbitant prices. I was shocked to hear that Jacob Black had fixed it up and upgraded it for off-roading because Leah used to like to go camping every weekend up in the mountains. "Jake? Jake did that?"

"Of course you know Jacob." She snorted as she pulled the door open and held it for me. It was odd how such little things could make me swoon. Okay, maybe I did like girls just a little bit, but that didn't mean that I didn't love Adam too. Pull it together. You can have your existential crisis at home. "...know everybody but me, that's insane. You don't know my brother too, do you?"

"Seth." I remember Charlie's rundown on the Clearwaters. Leah looks exasperated as we get to a booth. "No, no I haven't met Seth yet. I've only met your Dad. I mean, I've had enough of your mom's cooking to feel like I know her."

She laughs. "Fish fry? It's Charlie's favorite."

My heart twinged. The last time I'd smelled that fish fry, I was pregnant. How could it have already been almost a year? "I haven't tried it yet."

"Peanut butter fudge?"

I shook my head. "I'm allergic to peanuts—hi Cora."

"Gracie." Cora Jones had been serving our family since Bella and I were kids, and she knew absolutely everybody in town the very same way. "Hey Leah, didn't know you two were friends."

"I didn't know either." Leah jokes.

"Super sundae with two spoons and a slice of peach cobbler?" I ask hopefully, leaning forward on the table with my forearms.

"I'll warm it up the way you like it honey." She nods, not even bothering to write our order down. She turns to Leah. "Coffee with just a dash of milk?"

Leah nodded. "Thanks Cora."

"Make it two." I smile appreciatively at her.

"How have we never met yet?" I ask Leah as soon as Cora sweeps away, stripping out of my jacket.

"I've never seen you in La Push." She snorts.

"Well I've never seen you here either." I defend.

"Yes, you have, you totally have." She's so sure.

"I would've remembered you." I shake my head, and she leans back, raising both her brows at me. I flush scarlet. "Not like that, shut up."

'Are you gay?' she mouths at me, and I'm immediately panicked, terrified. She laughs. "Okay easy, you don't need to have a coronary, that was answer enough."

"I'm not." I flush deeper, and she gives me a look. "I'm not, I have—had a boyfriend."

"Yeah, so have I?" She says like it's obvious. I blink at her. "You do know you can like both, right?"

No. No that had not in fact occurred to me right until that moment. "Oh my god. You're...wow. I didn't think dumb blondes actually existed."

I'm ashamed to admit it took a minute for her joke to land. I threw my glove at her, and she dodged, laughing wildly at my delayed reaction.

Leah Clearwater was a breath of fresh air. She had just appeared out of nowhere in my life, and suddenly fixed my greatest crisis. I could like both. Of course I could like both. I knew I had a crush on Rosalie, I just didn't think it was anything beyond her supernatural beauty. It was almost impossible not to fawn over her like an idiot. It happened to everybody. I was no exception. What I hadn't accepted was that Rosalie was not the exception. Edward was still wrong, I still could like boys. I had just developed a very unfortunately timed crush on my new friend Leah Clearwater too.

It was impossible not to. The girl was so bitter, so snarky, so absolutely depressed — and yet somehow still so alive. There was something reckless about her. Something free, like she had absolutely nothing left to lose. It was a little addicting to be around.

By the time I got home, I knew it was time to slip back to denial again. I got out in front of the half-built porch deck I'd been spending the past two weeks on, slamming the driver side door to get it to stick. The rain had held all afternoon but I figured that wouldn't last forever. I made quick work of getting the new bottle of cheap Tequila out of the trunk.

That was how every night ended now. It was reckless. The alcohol helped me sleep without dreams, and I valued that over being alert enough to fight off a vampire. It had started off with just a few shots to keep the nightmares away. That had slowly progressed this past month, with no sightings of the redhead at last, to much heavier drinking. I still slept holding the hairspray and my lighter. I would wake up hungover, of course, but eggs and bacon and water throughout the day helped keep that at bay. I almost welcomed the constant headaches now. They made it easier to keep from thinking too much. I knew it was a coping mechanism I couldn't keep up forever, but for the first time in a long time, I had a new distraction.

My phone rang while I was working on dinner. Nothing dramatic, just some grilled cheeses on top of the wood burner in a griddle pan. I expected the nightly calls from Charlie. At least he still cared. "Hey Dad."

"Hey kiddo." He sounded tired. A case in Bogachiel was keeping him up. I only knew because that was why he couldn't make it up to the cabin like he promised to help build the deck with me. It was fine, I had assured him over and over again. The guys from Dowling's had been helping out. "What'cha do today?"

I resented Bella even for this. For taking Charlie from me. Bonding with my father felt more like a secret affair now, meeting up at Carver Café for dinner, sneaking over food to the station just for an excuse to see him. I missed living with him. I never thought I would until he was gone. "Good. I went to see Adam today."

"Gracie." He sighed. "You could've called me. I would've come with you."

"No, it's fine Dad. It was nice." I smile. "I think I'm gonna start seeing him more. Maybe it'll help with the sleep thing."

He'd tried to get me to go see Dr. Gerandy, but I refused. I liked to think I was on top of things. Besides, if I got any kind of professional help the whole town would hear it, and I'd never shake off my new status as the town basketcase. "You'll never guess who I met at the cemetery though."

"Graveyard." He corrects me reflexively, and I roll my eyes. "Not a Cullen?"

"No." I wondered why his mind went there first. "No, Leah Clearwater. We've been hanging out all day."

"Really?" He perked up. "Honey, that's great news. She's a good kid."

"Yeah, she seemed kinda down about the whole Sam thing." I explain and he hums, confirming what I already knew. "I dunno, maybe this will be good for us both, you know? I mean, it's always nice to make a new friend."

"I know she could use one. Harry and Sue have been real worried." Charlie explains. "Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Yeah?" I frown at the way he was dropping his voice.

"I'm thinking about talking to your sister." I didn't really know what he meant by that. "I can't stand it anymore, you know? It's not normal. She needs to go to Florida, be with your mother."

"She won't do it." I clench my jaw, forcing myself to relax. "You know she won't."

"It ain't normal, Gracie."

"How long did it take for you to get over Mom?" It was hitting below the belt, but he knew I had a point. He gruffed. "I'm not saying she's in the right, far from it. She's really, really messed up, Dad. But I know Bella. She's the most stubborn person I know. If she's not going, she's not going, and she's decided she'd rather be this empty shell of a human being than leave Forks."

"She's never even liked it here." Charlie argued.

"It's not about the town, Dad."

"I can't keep doing this, Gracie. I can't keep watching her-" He cut himself off with what sounded horribly similar to choking. He got his breath back. "I get it, kid. I get why you left. And I think it'd just be better if she was with your Mom or something. She'd know what to do. I just... I just see you, going through all of this, alone, and you're getting out of it, you're moving on, and she's just..."

"Dead."

I fell asleep at dawn like I usually did, under the false security of the safety of daylight. I was drunk, exhausted, and thinking of Leah Clearwater as my eyes finally fluttered shut. I thought of the sound of her raspy laugh, those lines that split her cheeks. How strong her arms looked, the way her collarbone jut out and stretched her pretty tan skin. I thought about her hilariously bad cat drawing, and how she'd been hanging out in a cemetery like some terrible attempt at being an emo kid. And for the first time in a long time, I didn't see body parts or golden eyes or my sister's expressionless face.

You know you can like both, right? Had it always just been that simple? I knew why I was too blind to see it, of course. I didn't want to be wrong. I didn't want Adam to be a lie. I wanted to prove Edward Cullen wrong. But most of all, I didn't want to have been ridiculously in love with my straight vampire best friend.