Thanks for the positive feedback, it means a lot! Hopefully this chapter keeps things moving forward (in every area). Bella isn't done investigating vampires, and—despite the difficulties inherent in discussing vampires with a human—Edward is enjoying himself. Google "accommodation and assimilation" if you want to read some interesting information about how humans process information, and please leave a review if you like or dislike anything in this chapter or have anything else to say!

On Friday night, I was committed to helping the Cullens keep their secrets and coexist with the human world. When I woke up on Saturday morning after a fitful night of blood and mayhem, I thought that I should gather as much information and proof as I could and approach the nearest FBI office, which the internet told me was in Paulsbo. I wrote and rewrote a speech in my head, trying to frame the issue in a way that didn't make me sound completely unhinged—but who would believe me? I didn't entirely believe myself. I didn't go to the farmer's market, too afraid to run into any of Edward's family—I could live on pasta and frozen veggies for a few weeks, if the other option was fraternizing with vampires.

I spent Saturday afternoon and evening coming up with ways to convince Charlie to move anywhere else (my preference was Alaska) in the next twenty-four hours. That lasted until I remembered what Edward had said about other covens. I briefly considered forging a transcript to get into a Scandinavian university, but ultimately acknowledged that I had no way of doing that.

By Sunday afternoon I was considering how possible it would be to just ignore the existence of the Cullens for the rest of my time in Forks. Transfer out of Biology for the year, studiously avoid eye contact or interaction, stay away from the hospital, never go into town again. That reminded me of Jacob and how he'd warned me about the Cullens. I almost called to apologize for doubting him, but the problem was that I didn't know how much he actually knew, and I couldn't risk telling him more than he should know. Besides, it wasn't like he'd reached out to apologize for being rude. I knew that was petty of me, but I was too busy to care.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. I went through my morning routine in a daze, still trying to reconcile everything I had ever known with this new information. By the time I made it to school, I still wasn't sure what I wanted to ask first, let alone how to live in a world that also included vampires.

I suffered through my morning classes, turning in all the homework that I'd done between soul-searching and panicking and half-listening to the teachers as they discussed upcoming assignments and topics of learning. I spent half of Gov wondering what vampire governments looked like and how they functioned and most of Spanish thinking about the traditional weaknesses that vampires were supposed to have. By the time I was headed toward the cafeteria, I had devised a rudimentary plan to test Edward—I didn't entirely trust him to be honest about weaknesses, but after my unfriendly encounter on Friday I definitely wanted to know if there were any ways that I could protect myself.

"Bella!"

Startled out of my train of thought, I looked over my shoulder to see Jessica hurrying to catch up with me. "Hey."

"You have to tell me about Friday night," she said, seeming ready to burst with curiosity. "What did you do? What was it like?"

I blinked, taken aback. I hadn't thought of what I was going to tell Jessica. "Um, I… well, I…"

"C'mon!" she squealed, dragging me into the cafeteria. "How did it go? Was it a date?"

"No, no!" I protested. "It wasn't a date. It was fine. He had tickets to see The Merchant of Venice and his, um, brother, um, bailed on him." It was the least convincing lie I'd ever told, but Jessica wasn't looking for deception.

"Ooh! Isn't that Shakespeare? Romantic."

"Not really." I grimaced as I stacked a veggie wrap onto my plate. "It's about a Jewish moneylender who's been cast out of his community but is also still persecuted by the Christian population of Venice. Oh, and he wants to cut a pound of flesh off another guy."

Jessica held her hands up. "Okay, I take it back. But did you have fun?"

"It was… interesting," I said, adding an apple.

"Bella, you're the most laid-back person I know," she complained with a smile. "If anyone else had been on a date with Edward Cullen—"

"It wasn't a date!" I interrupted, a little too quickly. "We just talked."

"Did you want it to be a date?" Jessica asked as we walked to our regular table.

I thought about it and—to my shame—found myself blushing. "Um, I'm not really… into… dating."

"That's not a no," she pointed out, but dropped the subject as we sat down.

I wasn't sure how to pay attention to Biology while sitting only inches away from someone who was a vampire with answers to so many questions that I hadn't figured out how to ask yet. Fortunately Mr. Banner announced that we would be watching a movie and—as irresponsible as it was—I gratefully took the opportunity to tune out.

As we filed out of the classroom, I caught Edward's gaze (a risky proposition, given my previous reactions to making eye contact with him). "When?"

"After school," he said. "I'll meet you at your car."

I nodded, my mouth dry as I headed toward Gym, which—I hoped—would either last a century or be over in the blink of an eye.

Fifty-five minutes (and one embarrassing basketball game) later, I was limping out to my truck, which I'd parked on the far side of the school. The lot was empty (thanks to my long trip through the locker room and out of the school) and Edward was nowhere in sight, which was either relieving or concerning. I slung my bags through the door and hauled myself in the driver's seat, wondering how long I should wait for him before driving away.

I didn't have to wonder for long; the silver Volvo he always drove pulled up smoothly beside my truck and he emerged from the back. Surprised, I looked down into the car, which was being driven by Rosalie. She held my gaze coolly for a moment, then looked away. I felt decidedly snubbed.

Edward tapped the passenger window and I leaned over and unlocked the door. He climbed smoothly in as the Volvo pulled away.

We sat in awkward silence for a moment, then he looked over at me, brow furrowed. "You have more questions?"

"Yeah, I do. But would you mind—could we do this at my house?"

He looked uncertain. "I suppose. Why?"

"I didn't eat much at lunch and I'm hungry," I said. It was part of the truth; I'd picked at my veggie wrap, too busy thinking to eat.

He blinked, seeming surprised. "Oh. Of course. But couldn't I take you out to a restaurant?"

I was definitely blushing. "That would look too much like a date." Forks was a very small town, after all.

"Oh. Of course."

"Great." As I started the truck and began to pull out of the parking lot, I looked over at him, determined not to waste any of our time together.

As we drove, I asked questions like "what about the vampire governments?" and he described the great covens around the world that enforced a single rule: stay secret. The most powerful coven, I learned, were called "The Volturi." It sounded suitably ominous for a millennia-old group of powerful vampires. When I asked what kind of things went into keeping secret, he hedged for a minute before listing creators' responsibility for their creations, inconspicuous consumption, keeping out of the sunlight, a ban on vampire wars, and age limits.

"So you do have to keep out of the sunlight?" I felt hopeful about my proposed experiments.

"It makes us more conspicuous than we're supposed to be."

"Oh." I tried to remember the other things he had said. "How are vampires created?"

He looked at me like he wasn't sure I was ready to hear the answer. "If you've been… attacked… by a vampire, you might become one. But only a small percentage do; most just die."

"But you said that Carlisle turned you on purpose?"

"Yes, that's the other way. But it's hard to stop once you've started, so there's no guarantee there, either." He thought I wasn't looking and his golden eyes softened. "Carlisle is the strongest man I know."

I shivered and filed the information away. "What about the vampire wars? If the… Volturi—" I pronounced the unfamiliar word carefully "—don't care about who dies, why are those illegal?"

"They draw attention," he said, looking into the distance. "The people who wage them… they're indiscriminate about collateral damage. And vampire armies are built of newborns, who are incredibly strong, but undisciplined and violent. The death tolls become untenably high."

I shuddered, but before I could ask another question the empty driveway loomed ahead. I parked, climbed out with my bag, and unlocked the front door.

Edward came in behind me and I made a mental checkmark on the list of possible vampiric attributes that I was investigating. He can come in without being invited.

I slung my bag over a kitchen chair and started the process of making pasta, being sure to put lots of garlic in the butter-and-broccoli sauce. He didn't so much as twitch. Garlic doesn't seem to bother him at all. As I was putting the pasta back in the cupboard I let the box fall, scattering a handful of pasta curls across the floor. I apologized and swept them up when he didn't immediately start obsessively counting them. Okay, that one was a long shot.

"If vampires are real, is there anything else out there?" I asked, stirring the sauce. I looked over at where Edward was standing and was momentarily struck by the image of this boy—almost too perfect to exist—casually leaning against my kitchen table.

"Werewolves."

I burst out laughing. Vampires might be explainable by science—some kind of parasitic or symbiotic virus, perpetuating through saliva-to-blood contact—but the idea of something that transformed from man to animal was too much for me. "You're shitting me."

He made a face. "No. They're rare and hunted; in beast form, they have no control or higher reason. They're dangerous to themselves and everyone else."

I stared at him, almost forgetting about the meal I was assembling. "No way."

"You just found out that vampires are real and you're prepared to deny the existence of anything else?" He sounded amused, and I paused to reconsider.

"I guess not." I stirred the pasta sauce before it burned, strained the pasta, and combined the two. "Do you want any?" I thought about what I had said just after I spoke and blushed. "I mean—um."

He smiled, kindly. "It smells delicious," he said, "but no. Eating human food is an exercise in frustration at the best."

"Of course." I scooped a bowlful and started eating. Although I had eaten a veggie wrap at lunch, I was oddly hungry. He looked like he was going to say something, but then he didn't. I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"You look like you're enjoying that," he said, sounding a little wistful. "I… miss food, sometimes."

Somehow, as irrational as it probably was, that comment humanized him even more than saying that he hoped to be good. I stopped seeing him as a maybe-monstrous Adonis and saw him as a teenager whose life had been changed beyond recognition by forces outside of his control. "What else do you miss?"

"Sleep," he answered immediately. "Having all the time in the world is blissful for a decade, but then you miss being able to stop, even if only for a few hours."

I thought about never being able to sleep again, and couldn't quite hide the horror on my face. "How do you rest? Recharge? Isn't sleep an important part of processing and storing information?"

"Physically, we have no need for it," he said, as I scarfed down the last of my pasta. "Our brains move faster than we do."

"Sounds exhausting," I said, rinsing my bowl out in the sink. I washed the fork and dried it off. "The silverware drawer is right next to you—could you?"

He took the fork and put it away solemnly and I ticked another checkmark. Those are real silver, and he seems fine. That left only two things on my list; holy symbols, and fire. I didn't have the former and it would be both obvious and rude to try and set him on fire, so I had to be done.

"I noticed," he said, suddenly, "but I didn't want to be rude. We don't have most of the traditional weaknesses."

"Most?" I said, blushing furiously over being caught.

"If you surprise a vampire with fire, you might get the upper hand. We're also vulnerable to other vampires and werewolves. Other than that…" he shrugged. "Maybe direct-energy weapons, if they ever become popular."

"Sorry." I didn't want to admit out loud that I hadn't trusted him to be forthcoming.

"Don't be," he said. "I'm impressed that you fit so many tests into such a short period of time."

I was still blushing. "I, um, thank you."

He smiled and looked down. "You're welcome."

I wanted to continue the conversation, but I couldn't think of what to say. I didn't have any more immediate questions about vampires, but teenager-y questions like "do you want to do homework together?" didn't seem appropriate either—and it wasn't like I'd ever been good at those to begin with.

He solved my dilemma for me by looking toward the door. "I think your dad will be home soon. Do you want me to stay and meet him, or should I leave?"

I was immediately flustered. Charlie liked the Cullens, but I didn't know how he'd react to an unexpected boy in the kitchen. And how could I keep the secret about vampires with both of them in the same room? "You shoukd probably go," I decided. "Do you need a ride home?"

"No, no, I'll walk," he said, and I realized that I had no idea where he lived. It could be the next street over, for all I knew. "If you have more questions, perhaps you would sit with me at lunch tomorrow?"

It was an oddly formal request, and I blushed again. "I—I don't think Rosalie likes me very much."

He flashed a grin. "With me, not with Rosalie."

"Oh! Then, maybe."

"I'll see you at school," he said, breezily, before letting himself out the front door.

I stood in the kitchen, hands over my face, trying not to smile like an idiot. What's wrong with you? I scolded myself. You should still be frightened. The FBI should be looking pretty good to you right about now.

Somehow, though, I couldn't bring myself to believe that Edward Cullen would hurt me. He seemed too sincere—too earnest. There might be danger in the world, but he wasn't it.

My thoughts were interrupted by the door. I whirled to see Charlie, looking glum.

"Hi, dad, you're home early."

"We lost the trail," he said, hanging up his coat wearily. "Ranger said it'll be a miracle if we pick it up again. Thought I'd come home and get ready for the assembly tomorrow."

"Do you want a focus group?" I asked, crossing my fingers behind my back and hoping that he'd say no.

"No, Bells, I'll do all right on my own. You hungry?"

"I ate already."

"I'll order takeout, then." He slumped onto the couch, looking old beyond his years. I battled the urge to go over and hug him.

"I'll be in my room," I said, and fled upstairs.

I vowed to be responsible for the rest of the evening. I cleaned the bathroom, and did laundry, both of which should have happened over the weekend but hadn't due to my preoccupation. I did my homework (even the Trig) and tried to keep my mind off of vampires. By the time I was finished with my Biology textbook I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open.

I hope I think of more questions before lunch tomorrow, I thought, just before my head hit the pillow.