Hungry Eyes

There is someone sitting in my seat in Biology. Both seats are occupied, as a matter of fact. By Tyler Crowley, and a girl whose name I don't know yet, with a microscope on the table between them. Today is mitosis day. I just stand inside the doorway to the classroom, blocking traffic and staring stupidly. Now where am I supposed to sit?

I scan the room, looking for an empty seat, wondering why Tyler and that girl have moved in on my table. That has to leave two unoccupied chairs hanging around somewhere or other.

And then I see him. He's sitting way in the back, in the last row, in the seat next to the window. Still so beautiful it makes my chest hurt. Just like last time, our eyes meet for a split second. Just like last time, he jerks his gaze violently away, and stares out the window. It's open a crack, actually a little more than a crack, and the only explanation I can think of for him to put himself in front of that cold, rainy draft is …. that I stink.

What is his problem?

The scraping of chairs and the scuffling around of books and backpacks is swirling in my ears, and I can feel the rims of my eyes getting red. I don't see Mr. Molina until he's right beside me.

"Isabella, I'm having you sit over here from now on." And he sort of guides me to the one empty place left, in the front row, right by the door. Catty-corner and the farthest possible spot away from Edward's seat in the whole room. I can hear a little current of murmuring and snickering going on. I'm not the only one who "gets" the diagram that has been drawn here.

Mr. Molina is looking at me in a warning kind of way, like he's already had it with students and seat assignments. "You're not going to give me any trouble about this, are you Isabella?"

"No, no. I'm not." I'm too dazed to object.

I sit down in my new seat, next to Lauren Mallory, and the microscope she and I will be sharing. The tan does look good on her. It contrasts with her hair. But in Forks it's pretty obvious that she must have gone to lie in an ultraviolet coffin over the weekend to get it.

"Douche bag."

What?

"Not you. Edward fucking Cullen." Maybe if she controlled her language just a little bit, people wouldn't say such nasty things about her. Or then again, they might think she was easy to pick on.

"Thinks he's God's gift. Even the teachers make us play musical chairs just on his say-so."

I can't stop myself from asking, "What did he say?"

Mr. Molina is passing out slides to go with the microscopes, so Lauren has to whisper.

"He has to sit next to the window," rolling her eyes and making finger quotes at the words has to, "otherwise he might get an afflack attack."

All I can think of is ducks.

"I don't know," Lauren explains, "some kind of allergy thing."

Anaphylaxis? Who is he kidding? Stop my breathing and slit my throat …!

"He got his doctor dad to write a note. I can't believe Molina went for it."

Luckily, Mr. Molina is by now halfway to the back of the room, explaining the lab. We are supposed to look at each slide, and identify which stage of mitosis the cell is in on each one. The first pair of partners to identify all of the slides correctly will get the big golden onion on Mr. Molina's desk. This is supposed to be cute because the cells we're looking at are onion root tip cells, which, when the root is growing, divide very rapidly, and you can get plenty of samples of every stage of mitosis from them.

I've already done this lab in Phoenix, freshman year, with whitefish blastula. With Edward back, and apparently determined to escalate his campaign of humiliation against me, bored and in tears suddenly seems like a real possibility.

What does he want from me?

I try with everything I have not to get depressed. That pretty much leaves angry as the only other option. Sitting in the front here I don't have to look at him, EVER. Good. He, on the other hand, sitting in the back, has hardly any choice but to see me for the whole class. Hah! So there! Hope I'm a needle in your eye! My invisible spirit self turns around and sticks out my tongue at him, just for good measure.

I glance over at Lauren, as she puts the first slide on, She seems like a pretty blunt person. Of course, what I am about to ask her is pretty stupid. Social suicide, actually. But at this point I hardly feel like I have anything left to lose.

"I think it's anaphase," she says, after squinting into the eyepiece. "Does that look like anaphase to you?" I look at her. She's actually asking me. That decides me. I ask her.

"Do I stink?"

She does a double take worthy of Loony Tunes. Then she glances back at Edward – NO, don't look at him, ah Jesus Christ! – and then back at me. She actually sniffs at the side of my neck, and wrinkles her nose a little bit, then shakes her head.

"He's just a dumbass."

There she is. Her eyes widen. From the back of the room I see every detail of her brown irises – the delicate, almost ebony radial striations, the rich hints of mahogany in the rings of annular fibers – as her pupils dilate ever so slightly, her eyelids flown back.

The moment is past, literally, in the blink of an eye, as we both look away. Once again, we have taken each other by surprise. At least she is not standing in front of that stupid fan. And her lip has long since healed. Her lip that was so nearly both of our undoing. Nearly made the evening news.

Unbelievable tragedy rocks Forks High School today, leaving 21 students and one teacher dead, in what appears to be the most horrific case of animal attack ever on record.

Yes. I was ready to plow through all of them, just to get her to myself right then and there. Only Alice jumping into my head had stopped me.

Edward, NO! You CAN'T!

And she had shown me what she saw. The parents hysterical with grief. Carlisle and Esme too: for what had I done? And what had I become? The search parties, fruitlessly combing the surrounding forests for the only two members of the class not identified among the bodies. And myself, deep in the mountains of Idaho, huddling possessively over the tattered remains, until they began to stink.

As I did that morning, I cling again with all my might to Alice's vision. My pathetic and disgusting self, groveling and hoarding over a disintegrating bit of carrion. The medics puking and fainting. The parents' wails. Alice had recruited Jasper to flood it through and through, with the nausea, the horror, and the crushing, inconsolable loss. I cling to that, as well.

Her heart beats, a little bit too fast. Her breath sighs, softly, into and out of her chest. Her clothing rustles. Her chair creaks. Her eyelashes whisper like butterfly wings against her cheek. And her blood. Her blood. Her blood. Her blood. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Her blood. Her blood. Her blood. So sweet. So perfect. So right. Just for me. Just for me.

Just for me.

Edward, NO! You CAN'T!

Consequences!

Alice sends me shadows of things worse than moving. Visitors from Italy. Our family broken, too …

Consequences.

I keep my nose pointed out the window every moment that I can. Between the cool air bringing in the resin of the distant pines, and the fan at the back of the room blowing past me toward the front, I have contrived to be firmly upwind of that one infernal seat. It helps a little. When I absolutely have to face front (the teacher does glance at me from time to time) I hold my breath, and hate that girl. Yes, I hate her with a fervent passion. Why did she have to be born? Or if she simply had to be born, why couldn't she just stay in Phoenix where she belonged, where her path and mine would never, ever cross?

And, as if God himself has appointed her my personal nemesis, her mind is closed to me. I cannot hear a single thought. Not even a whisper.