Do you ever want to feel sad? Today I just felt like being sad, so I read a sad book and watched a sad movie and now I'm happy being sad. No? Just me? Okay.

Dark Night Blues- Blind Willie McTell

Agnes- Glass Animals

An uneasy peace persisted, though not for lack of me trying. It was just a routine we fell into, and not a second passed without me thinking about whether or not it was a good thing. Routines meant structure and stability, and I was going to be yanking that away from him in just over a month.

And he just wouldn't let me apologize. It was like it was a taboo subject, something to be brushed off and ignored rather than talking it through together. It was something I had thought I had grown used to- he was closed off and private by nature, by conditioning. It had been comfort enough to know that he spoke about those things to others, whether it was his therapist or Alice, or even Carlisle and Emmett once.

But all of those networks of support had been cut off.

He didn't have Alice anymore. It would be months before she was capable of having a conversation of any depth, and that would have to be carried out on the phone. And none of this was anything he could discuss with a therapist. What would he say? My vampire girlfriend ripped the head off of my rapist right in front of me, then bit my twin sister so I got to watch her scream in pure torture for a day before she was permanently torn away from me?

Yes, that was sure to go down well. He'd be committed faster than Alice had been, and breaking him out of a mental institution simply wasn't high on my to-do list.

So that essentially left me and our family as the only people he could talk to, but he just wasn't. Each night, when I tried to speak, to apologize, he crushed me to him so my words were silenced as my mouth pressed into his chest, his collarbone, his throat. The enveloping warmth of his arms around me and the depth of his eyes as he stared into mine made all other thoughts and worries slip through my mind. Trying to gather them back was like catching smoke with my bare hands.

Every night, we spent tangled around each other long after even he fell asleep. I had to force myself to pull away, extricating myself long enough only to slip the duvet between us and preserve his heat from the leeching cold of my skin.

Edward wasn't prone to the fitful sleep patterns that Alice had been. She would toss and turn in her sleep, muttering random words that lent insight into the colorful contents of her dreams. Edward was always rather solid, still and peaceful. It was just a few hours in which his face softened from the hard lines and tight expression he sported like a suit of armor, and I got to see the peaceful boy beneath. For just a bit of it, his lashes fluttered like butterfly wings racing through a dreamscape, or wading through a morass of detritus that was only obvious in the subtle puckering of the wrinkle between his brows.

When he woke in the morning, he looked contemplative but otherwise unreadable. Before I could ask him anything, much less apologize, he turned to me with a blank, straight smile and ask me what I was thinking.

"The pros and cons of mandatory minimum sentencing," I answered after the slightest of hesitation. Edward chuckled, whatever pensive mood he had been in dissipating as he asked for my opinion on the subject while he dressed for school and stuffed some papers in his backpack.

The next morning, I was just as cowardly when faced with the same question.

"I read one of your books last night," I told him honestly, plucking up the paperback I had left on the bedside table. He asked me what I thought about it, seeming genuinely curious. "I'd like to go to Savannah someday," I sighed, looking at the cover and thinking of a future in which that would ever be feasibly possible.

"Y-you've n-never been?" he asked, surprised.

"No, we typically stay away from the southern half of the country. It's too sunny, and the climate too mild for us to stay inconspicuous. But I'd still like to see the sights one day. The Mercer House, the Bonaventure Cemetery…"

"The s-s-statue on the c-cover is s-still there, isn't it?" he asked. I nodded, and we discussed the plot and intricacies of a true crime novel written as though it was fiction while he got up and ready for school. I slipped through the window and retrieved my car from the usual hidden alcove of shrubbery that I always stashed it behind, and when I came back, Edward was reading through the notes I had carefully detailed for the first scene in Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet over a bowl of mushy gruel that passed for cereal.

"The w-way y-you write m-makes it so clear," he commented.

I shrugged. "It loses the poetry of it."

His mouth twisted into a mock-grimace. "Y-you think this is p-poetic?"

"Of course," I said, surprised by the venom in his voice. "Star-crossed lovers, doomed by time and the overwhelming nature of youth, finding comfort only in seeking to be reunited with the other in death. It's terribly romantic, isn't it?"

He sat quietly, spoon in his hand with cereal long forgotten. The wrinkle in his brow told me he was thinking deeply about his next words.

"N-now… ignoring th-the r-rest of the play," he started, crooking a brow up expectantly. I nodded, playing along. "And th-the f-fact that he knew Juliet f-for a handful of d-days, j-just in this one s-s-scene w-we w-were assigned to read, Romeo is t-talking about how h-he's in l-love with another g-girl, and calls her th-the m-most b-beautiful woman of all."

I stared at him, waiting for him to continue, but he didn't.

"What?" Edward asked.

"Oh. You're finished?" I wondered, trying to follow his train of thought.

"That wasn't enough?"

I laughed, actually throwing my head back at the idea that was he said was proof of anything at all. "You're being very practical this morning, aren't you?"

"What's th-that s-s-supposed to mean?"

"You realize, of course, that I fell in love with you far quicker than 'a handful of days'?" I challenged. He opened his mouth as if to respond, but I continued. "And on the note of beauty… well, for one, he hadn't met Juliet yet. And for another, you can't tell me you never had a crush, never noticed the attractiveness of another girl."

"I didn't."

I rolled my eyes. "Please."

The levity dissipated immediately as he stared at me, his eyes like smoldering emerald burnishing the refraction of a thousand specks of lovely light. I reflexively swallowed.

"I d-didn't. There's b-been n-no one but you," he murmured, his voice simultaneously soft and forceful.

I nodded, but the intensity of his gaze was too much. I looked away, picking at the corner of my discarded notebook until it ripped into microscopic confetti.

It was as close to a real conversation I was going to get, but it was still a small, profound comfort. If he wasn't going to let me apologize, this was still reassuring to hear. It seemed impossible for there to have been no one before, no childhood crushes or kisses shared under the monkey bars.

But Edward's childhood had been far from normal or stable, and I supposed it would make sense for there to not have been another little girl, hair in pig tails and a juice stain on her dress, shyly pressing her lips to a young Edward's cheek.

I rolled a scrap of paper between my thumb and index finger and flicked it away, trying to distract myself from the rage.

That had been stolen from him. If I had thought that I was taking something from him, by robbing him of a future of having children and growing old, nothing was comparable to what they had done.

Edward rinsed his bowl in the sink and rifled through his backpack. I recalled sinking my teeth into James's neck. Edward dashed upstairs to brush his teeth again. I tasted the souring memory of his venom on my tongue. Edward opened the front door for me and his fingers brushed my elbow as I remembered twisting James's head from his body and the sound of screaming metal and a final desperate cry.

And I had let him witness it all. Alice lay dying, venom desperately trying to compete with her blood loss and losing as it seeped from the ripping wound in her abdomen, and I had occupied myself with relishing each twist of James's limbs from his body as if I was putting on a show.

We were a warped pairing, and it was only too clear the degree to which he was too good for me.

"What d-do you want t-to l-listen to?" he asked attentively. I shrugged, and he picked a Beatles CD that he hummed along to pleasantly while gazing out the window. My palm itched as I fought the impulse to reach out and twine our hands together- would that be overstepping now? The rambling line of my thoughts was stopped in just a second when he reached across the center console and grasped my hand in his. It was as if the warmth of his touch drove every negative thought away, at least for a moment.

I wrote with my left hand in History, and in Spanish we got to work in pairs to review vocabulary. We leaned into each other, our chairs angled as close together as possible and his fingers drawing patterns on my knees as I quizzed him on words he had learned the year before. It was honestly unfair how excellent he was at it- it had to be a connection with music, because his accent was almost flawless and he remembered almost everything while other students stumbled through the assignment. Even Mrs. Goff seemed impressed, and I couldn't help but notice the fond smile she gave him as she walked about the room.

Edward went off to Physics while I daydreamed through Calculus. I occupied myself with doodling random equations that mapped out the beating rhythm of Edward's heart in various states- asleep or calm, excited or angry, they all had different and distinct flavors. By the end of the hour, my page resembled the workings of some kind of deranged stalker mathematician, and I quickly tore it out and tossed it in the bin on my way out.

Edward wasn't waiting for me outside as he had done every other day, so I walked off in the direction of Building 2, trying to sort through the cacophony of pounding hearts slapping wet blood that seeped into every corner of the air.

I almost tripped over myself when I spotted him, casually standing outside his classroom pleasantly talking to, of all people, Jessica Stanley. She had her review packet out and folded over to the page with the algebra review, and Edward grabbed his own from the folder in his bag to show her what he had written. Jessica seemed unsure but his was, of course, the right answer; we had done it together the night before.

"Thanks so much, Edward!" Jessica said brightly, scribbling down the steps before beaming up at him with uncharacteristically characteristic enthusiasm. She stuffed her pen and notebook in her backpack and twirled on her heel to race off to lunch, but paused and tripped forward when he toe caught her other shoe, stumbling right into me. I grasped her by the elbow and steadied her, her smile faltering. "Thanks, Bella," she said, softly and with hesitation.

"No problem, Jess," I said. I quickly removed my hand from her skin and took a step back. "Did you have a good summer?"

"It was alright," she said with a shrug, regaining her normal bubbliness. "I ended up going to California! It was really cool, we saw the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz and that street with all the hippies!"

"Haight-Ashbury?"

"That's right!" she said, enthusiastically nodding.

"That sounds nice," I agreed. Edward had seemingly been organizing his folder and notebook, but had stashed it back in his bag and stepped over to us. He slung his arm over my shoulder, and Jessica's eyes flickered up to him before looking back to me.

"So, how was your camping trip?" she asked suddenly, her stare fixed somewhere between the two of us so resolutely I almost turned to see if someone was standing behind us.

I blinked. "What?"

"The one that Edward was taking with your family? To Montana, right?"

"Oh, right," I stammered, looking up to Edward to see a warm and gentle flush creep its way up the curve of his neck.

"It's was v-very n-nice, thank you f-for asking, Jessica," he said politely, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. That trip had been beyond terrifying culminated in much more than nice, especially once I realized that Edward had indeed been thinking about sex.

"I'm gonna go, I guess," she said, her smile seeming forced and distracting me from the rabbit hole of fantasies I found myself falling through. "If… if you want, you can sit with us, you know?"

"Th-thank y-you f-for the offer," Edward said quickly. She took his subtle rejection in stride and with a mumbled good-bye, followed the rest of the stream of students into the cafeteria.

"What was all that about?" I asked, looking up at him. Edward's hand trailed down to the small of my back, and he pressed us forward and led me into the cafeteria as well.

"What w-was what about?" he asked evasively.

"Everything just now, with Jess?"

He shrugged noncommittally and led us right past the table that Jessica was sitting at with Angela, Lauren, and Ashley Dowling. "We w-were t-talking about our Calc h-homework in Physics. Sh-she hasn't f-finished it yet, and it's d-due t-tomorrow, s-s-so I g-gave her s-some of the answers."

"I didn't know you two were friends," I murmured. I pulled out my own lunch from my bag and set it up in front of me, pretending to pick at the potato chips while Edward ate the wrap Esme had packed for him. The salt dust coated my fingertips, and I wiped it absentmindedly on the sleeve of my shirt.

"We're not f-friends," he said, shaking his head. "I was j-just t-trying to help."

He was looking down at his food, his expression unreadable and eyes guarded as I studied his face. I watched as he sipped at his water bottle and picked the pickles from the wrap and wrapped them into a napkin.

There was more to it than him being helpful. Edward went out of his way to avoid speaking to pretty much everyone outside of our family, and I didn't think he would ever willingly help Jessica, who had been so cruel to both of us before.

I was always a step behind. Edward and Alice had shared their secret language with knowing glances and secretive stares and cryptic comments. And after Alice stumbled through the woods, dripping in blood and screaming about red-eyed monsters, I knew there was something more I was missing.

Patience, as Rose so often pointed out, had never been my strong-suit, but I resolved to bite my tongue and instead pluck a discarded pickle from Edward's side of the table.

"Since when do you not like pickles?" I asked curiously.

"J-just n-not in the m-mood for it right n-now, I guess," he said with another shrug.

"That's so interesting," I said.

Edward's cocked a brow and one side of his lips tugged up in a sarcastic smile. "Me n-not w-wanting pickles is interesting?"

"Besides the fact that I think pretty much everything you do is interesting," I started, drawing a very alluring but mild blush. "I don't really relate to the food taste changes and trends thing."

"It's not the sort of thing where one day you want a deer, the next a bear?" he whispered. His eyes darted around us to make sure no one was listening, but he seemed genuinely curious.

That was still odd to me. A human, fully aware and not at all disgusted. I didn't think I would ever adjust.

"None of it is particularly enticing, so… no, definitely not," I laughed. I slid my own carefully packed food over to Edward, and he picked up the slices of apples and bit one thoughtfully.

"I thought p-predators w-were better, though?" he asked curiously.

"Sure. It's all relative, though. Even the biggest, toughest predator isn't…" I chewed on my bottom lip, searching for words that could accurately depict the tastes. "It's rather like what I imagine it would be like drinking plain broth every day, if I had to compare. You smell it and, if you're hungry enough, you figure it'll do just fine. But it's not the most satisfying, or the best tasting."

"S-s-so what is the b-best tasting?"

"Humans, of course!" I said. As if to prove my point, I inhaled deeply. Hundreds of unique scents flooded my senses, dragging venom into my mouth instinctually. Each one told a different story- who was nervous, sweating, excited, hungry, menstruating, relaxed, in lust. Hundreds of scents, some sweeter, some more floral, and all equally mouthwatering. I could taste them all, coating my tongue and burning into my throat.

I exhaled with a sigh and a smile, releasing them all back into the air.

"Why d-do y-you do that?" he asked. His brows were furrowed, and he seemed almost upset by something. The venom in my mouth automatically dried and dissipated.

"None of them are in danger," I said, immediately sober and shrinking back into my seat. "I would never hurt anyone, Edward. I never have." It felt like a lie. Even if I didn't drink from that girl, the one who laid bleeding in front of me all those years ago in Tuscany, the fact that I was even tempted was shameful in and of itself. And hurt… it doesn't have to be directly physical, or just murder. I had taken Rose's life for myself, and now Alice.

And it seemed like I couldn't stop hurting Edward.

"I know that," he said, shaking his head. He pushed his food aside and swallowed thickly. He rubbed the side of his face, right where coarse hair was just beginning to grow in along his jaw, then his hand came up so his long fingers were pinching at the bridge of his nose.

We were both quiet for a few minutes, and I silently collected the discarded food and packed it away while I waited. It felt better to have something to busy myself with, and channel my nervous energy somewhere. I could even hear Ashley Dowling whisper not-so-softly to Lauren that we both looked tense. I could only imagine how we seemed to outsiders, those who couldn't see Edward's foot hooked around my ankle under the table, or the way his eyes occasionally flickered over to my lips.

"Isn't it p-painful f-for you?" he finally asked.

"What?"

"Being around s-s-so many," he said, his hand sweeping across the cafeteria quickly. "D-doesn't it burn?"

"I guess, yeah," I said, pursing my lips. I wasn't too thirsty, I had hunted just before leaving Alaska. I knew I could spend the next eight hours in a surgery with warm blood coating my hands and come out of it with golden eyes and a smile. My throat burned, but it was there as a constant and comforting companion, not as an impulse I was even tempted to act on. "But it's a fact of existence. Like, I don't know, period cramps. Nothing a girl can do to avoid those, but they have to go on with their day anyways and act like they're okay."

"But y-you can avoid it!" he exclaimed, slightly too loud and drawing the curious comments of the table of sophomores sitting nearest to us.

"I don't know what you mean?" I asked in confusion, purposefully quieter. He seemed to get the message being he slumped down and continued in a lower pitch.

"I m-mean… you d-don't have to be in p-pain, Bella. You d-don't have to s-s-subject y-yourself to it!"

"And what do you propose I do, Edward?" I snapped. "Go live in the woods for the rest of my existence? Hold my breath?"

His mouth popped open and eyes darted up to meet mine in a look of shock. The tension dissipated immediately with the venom in my words, and we both simultaneously slouched back. I couldn't believe I had spoken to him like that, in a tone reserved mainly for Emmett when he got on my nerves. Edward reached for my hand the same time I did his, and we shared apologetic smiles.

"I'm s-s-sorry," he murmured.

"Me too," I whispered. "I don't mean to discount your concerns-"

"I should t-trust y-you," he interrupted. "Y-you're telling me y-you're f-fine, I need to b-believe y-you."

"Trust doesn't come easy, I understand," I promise. "Especially after all I've done. What happened to Alice, why wou-"

"Bella, p-please," he cut me off again, his jaw clenched as his fingers dug into my hand so tightly that the skin around his cuticles whitened. "Don't."

"Please just let me apolo-"

"Bella," he whispered in a pleading cry. "Please, not here."

I looked around. It was so easy to be drawn into a bubble with him, so much so that the rest of the world fell aside, but the cafeteria full of students was, in fact, still there, and they were gossiping and staring and wondering at what had Bella Cullen so wound up. It didn't take a lot to imagine why. I knew how I looked from the outside, my shoulders tight as I leaned over the table with wild desperation coloring my every expression and move. I was being too emotive, and when the careful façade of humanity slipped, my otherness became too apparent to not draw comments. I had only allowed it to happen once before, when I had demanded that Lauren and Jessica lay off of Edward all those months ago, but now I certainly didn't have a good reason to allow this consumption for all to see.

The mask returned. I let my expression slacken and my posture relax, burying all the tension od unshed apologies that wrought its way through my stomach and buried itself in the cold veins of my unbeating heart. Edward matched my change, and after I extracted a hesitant promise of explanation for "Later", we returned to a comfortable silence for the rest of the lunch period. Edward finished off a container of carrots with his fingers safely entwined through mine, and though we parted for fifth period, he returned to me and held my hand in his as we sat beside each other while our class stumbled through that inane popcorn-reading exercise where one person reads a paragraph, and another the next, and so on. It was usually tolerable with the exception of Shakespeare, where the prose lost all poetry and meaning.

Beth Daws was reading, trying to get through Montague's reflection on his son's melancholia, but she paused nervously near the end.

"Portentous," I whispered, trying to help before she mangled the word and earned a correction in front of the entire class. "It means menacing."

Beth smiled at me gratefully and continued, and breathed a sigh of relief when Nicholas Laghari picked up at Benvolio's line. And so we skipped through the room, and I studied the clock while Edward's finger traced along the line in my palm, leaving a trail of fire in its caressing wake.

"Bella? Your turn," Mr. Mason called out, snapping me out of my revelry. Sitting on my left was Austin, looking at me expectantly. I huffed softly, not at a pitch anyone could hear, but Edward seemed to sense. Based on the words Austin spoke, I knew exactly where we were. I looked down at my open textbook needlessly, the words spilling from my memory where they had been engrained since I had first read them at the height of Elizabethan theater.

"Why, such is love's transgression," I sighed, shaking my head and taking on all of Romeo's burdens of unrequited love on my own shoulders. The meaning behind every word coursed through my body, feeding on the tension of rebuffed apologies and advances that Edward was willfully ignoring.

"Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,

Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed

With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown

Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs —

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;

Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears.

What is it else? A madness most discreet,

A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

...

Farewell, my coz."

The room was quiet but for the constant and comforting chorus of hearts beating and steady breaths. I hadn't realized Edward's hand had come to curl around mine, and he squeezed it softly when I looked over at him. As if to break the silence, he willingly followed with Benvolio's quick reply, letting Angela continue with Romeo's snorting response, though her recitation was a little wooden.

It was once we were safely ensconced back in the secluded privacy of the Swan kitchen sans the Chief, with Edward casually eating a peanut butter sandwich over an open Romeo and Juliet text, that our unspoken agreement of silence broke.

"Can I t-talk t-to Alice?" he asked shyly, not looking up from the brown mush of food on the paper towel in front of him.

I shook my head, frowning and finding myself unable to meet his eyes. "Not yet."

It was immediate. I could smell the salt of tears, the increased pulse of anxiety and worry radiating into the warm kitchen, making the air feel thick and heavy.

"Why not?" he asked, his voice shaking so slightly he might not have even noticed it. I could pace his breaths to the very count, and it seemed like he was trying to control himself.

"She's… not capable of having a conversation like that yet.

"But y-you s-s-said she r-remembers me, right?" he asked desperately. "That she s-s-still l-loves me?"

"Oh, Edward, who could forget you? Who couldn't love you?" I exclaimed, finally looking up to meet his withering glare. He rolled his eyes and looked away willingly, out the window into the darkening woods at the side of the house. I studied his profile in the meanwhile, not missing the gleam of tears unshed in his eyes. It was a laughable idea that anyone could have forgotten him, even in the fading memories after the change, and especially not in a twin whose entire life had been so closely entwined with his. She couldn't have forgotten him, even if she wanted to. And why would she even want to? Of course not. Another laughable idea.

"Why isn't sh-she c-capable of having a c-conversation?" he asked

I sighed. "It's just our nature. Alice is well, and safe, but all she can focus on for more than a few minutes at a time is thirst, and the inevitable hunt that follows. She's going to deplete the wildlife population so much that our cousins will have to run to Canada for a snack," I joked, drawing not the smile I desired but a deepened frown.

"Why is she l-like that, b-but y-you're like this?" he asked, waving a hand between us as if to emphasize our proximity.

"I'm older," I shrugged. "And it's a facet of my gift, anyways. Everyone is out of control when they're young and driven by thirst. It's like being starving every second of every day, no matter how often you feed. There's a reason we call it the newborn stage, after all."

"Everyone?"

"Carlisle was another exception, but yes, everyone else. Emmett, Rose, Esme. Everyone," I conformed.

"S-s-so Alice? She's… she j-just hunts, all d-day long?"

"And all night long, pretty much. We were able to sit inside for a few minutes, just before I left. Tanya, Kate, and Irina were entertaining her, or at least trying to. But she was distracted by something, and tore out of the house. It damn near gave us all heart attacks, the way she ran. But it was just because she needed to hunt."

"You c-can't g-get heart attacks," he snorted.

"For the purposes of the metaphor," I responded in kind. He didn't need to know that I felt like I was in a permanent state of cardiac arrest pretty much any time I was around him. I knew I would have gotten some kind of arrhythmia just from the way he looked at me, green eyes ablaze and fingers pulling through his hair in misplaced anger.

It seemed to collapse in on itself, folding like a house of cards and breaking the dam that had been holding back a deep sorrow. Tears sprung from his eyes at last and spilled down his cheeks in tracks of burning salt.

"I m-miss her," he sniffed. I was out of my seat and crouching at him side in a second, his hands enclosing around mine.

"I know," I said, swallowing back my own sadness so as to not displace his. "I do, too. But she'll come back to us."

"It won't ever b-be the s-s-same again," he cried.

"Maybe it'll be better?" I offered weakly. He looked at me with an expression of total desperation, searching for anything to hold on to. I tried to explain. "She knows now. Because she's a part of it, she can be in your life for as long as you want. It won't be like it would have. If you chose to stay with me, I would have had to move on eventually. We would have had to break away from all human ties before it became obvious that I wasn't getting any older, nor you if you decide to have me change you, when the time comes. But this way, you won't have to lose her like that, so permanently."

"But she's n-not the s-s-same!"

"In some ways, no. But in most of them, she will be," I promised. He didn't seem comforted in the least, not even when his arms came to wrap around me and I held him as his body shook with sobs, his tears seeping into cotton fabric of my shoulder. My heart was splitting open, desperate to believe what I said about a bright side, a silver lining of being able to keep Alice forever, but unable to see past the selfishness of the decision. What other choice did I have? James's venom was in her, pulsating through just fast enough to torture her through an exceedingly long change. Should I have snapped her neck and put her out of her misery? Could I have?

The afternoon dragged on just like that, with Edward slumped in my arms, finally letting himself cry and truly mourn for the sister he had lost and the life that was taken from us. By the time Charlie had come home, the tears had dried, but Charlie was observant enough to feel the tension in the air, or at least he could see the redness that lined Edward's eyes and the strife written clear across my face as I brushed the at the soft bronze hair at the nape of his neck that was dampened with sweat. Charlie mumbled about ordering a pizza, and retreated to the living room with a college football game of teams on the other side of the country.

When I excused myself to return home, Edward couldn't seem to meet my eyes. I kissed him on the corner of his mouth, and he didn't turn his head to catch my lips the way he normally did.

I thought I would burst into tears just then, but I collected the shards of my broken heart and returned back to my car. I could feel her everywhere. Her scent still lingered, citrusy and clean with delicate notes of something floral, like jasmine, so sweet and pure, just like Alice. The radio came on the second I turned the key in the ignition, an upbeat top-40s tune that would have had her dancing in her seat immediately playing over the speakers.

It was all wrong, and by the time I returned from leaving my car behind the bushes a few blocks over, Edward was in Alice's room, curled up in her bed and fallen into a deep sleep of exhaustion. I lingered at the window. Should I go in? Would he want me there? My resolve wavered, and I decided to give in to my own desires and slide the window open. I slipped in and closed it behind me, perching at the edge of the bed. I tucked Alice's comforter around him and touched the messy tangles of his hair cautiously. Right beside his head was a single dark, short strand, still laying on her pillow as if she had only gotten up that morning.

I thought everything had changed. Edward had promised to let me apologize later, but the issue had been tabled by his grief. In the warm, muted morning light, I figured I would have to face the jury and let him decide my fate. Instead, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, padded to the bathroom, and by the time he came back, he had apparently elected to continue his routine of passivity and a noncommittal question about what I was thinking.

In actuality, I was thinking about what I was always thinking about: I fucked up. Edward, I am so sorry I fucked up so badly. I got ahead of myself. I thought I could protect you, I thought I could protect Alice, and I was too careless and weak to follow through on my promise. When I think about Victoria taking you, holding you… What she could have done… And what did happen to Alice. I should have known. I should have been able to shield you from him. And I should have been able to save Alice. I wish I could apologize for killing someone, but I can't. I am sorry I did it right in front of you, though. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm sorry I failed you. I'm sorry you had to see Alice die, and listen to her screams. I'm sorry that I did something that caused you to cry. I'm sorry that I failed you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

What came out was far more mediocre.

"I was listening to the weather report on the radio when Charlie got up. Apparently we're in for some sunny weather this weekend!"

"Oh, d-do we have any p-plans?" Edward asked, as if nothing was horribly wrong about anything. As if he didn't spend hours the day before gasping for breath over his sobs, clutching at my arms and crying for the sister I had taken from him.

"Do you want us to?" I replied, and we fell into an easy discussion about whether to go to the meadow or our little swimming river again while he ate breakfast

I had missed something monumental in my absence, something which no one else had filled me in on but I found out only when Edward casually mentioned needing to go to Port Angeles that afternoon while I drove us to school.

He was still in therapy.

I should have realized. I didn't know why I had been operating under the assumption that he had stopped- as if Charlie would have allowed it anyways. He must have been the one driving Edward up to Port Angeles for his sessions, since Edward hadn't bothered to take his driving test yet. It was Alice who would have been the one to push him to do it, to drill him on practice questions and drag him along to the police station for the exam.

I felt that same emptiness in Port Angeles. The sun was hidden behind a blanket of grey cloud coverage, so I pulled into a parking lot a few blocks away from the familiar office building. I stepped out and looked around, and it seemed like she was everywhere. I could see her shadow in the frosted glass of the second-hand jewelry store, the ghost of her hand running through silky fabrics in the boutique across the street.

I almost ran back to my car, and when I rested my hands on the wheel, they were shaking.