Dance of the Hours

I survived Edward's return to school. The girls all agree that he's a dumb-ass. The boys say he's a queer-ass. The Cullens have lived in Forks for two whole years, and still no one talks to them. Except for intrepid souls like Lauren, I guess, who got shot down. (I wonder what century Edward is living in, that it's illegal for a girl to ask a boy out?) The Cullens don't talk to anyone either, unless they absolutely have to. They're always together. It's like they're their own little clique – the wagons permanently in a circle. Everybody thinks it's because they think they're too good for the rest of us. I don't think so. I think it's something else. Something about a family like a jigsaw puzzle, put together from broken pieces. And maybe something about moving from place to place, too. Something that I would understand.

Edward is never alone. There's always one brother or sister with him, often more. Except in Biology class. There, he sits by himself in the corner, staring out the window. Probably wishing he were someplace else. Anywhere else, except this godforsaken place where everyone is thinking nasty things about him … if they think about him at all. I wouldn't have thought nasty things about him … if he'd given me half a chance.

When I come into Biology class, now, I keep my eyes on the floor right in front of my feet. Then on my chair, my desk, my books. Until I get settled and facing front. Then, I'm free. What is behind me is unimportant.

I am stalking the Swan girl.

No jury would convict me.

I do it purely in self-defense.

"But are you certain that this is a good idea?" Carlisle asks quietly. His mind shies away, but still, glimpses of memory flash through, of another time when I stalked humans. It was not in self-defense.

"What choice do I have?"

I am not afraid of Isabella Swan. But I cannot afford to be surprised by her. She cannot afford for me to be surprised by her. There must be no chance encounters, no forgetting myself in the shock of finding her in my path, as I turn a corner, or walk through a doorway. And so, I keep track of exactly where she is, and what she is doing, and, most importantly, where she is headed, at all times.

Carlisle remains deeply uncertain about the manner in which I am keeping her close. "You think to … inoculate yourself against her somehow? To build up a tolerance?" His mind flits through entire textbooks on immunology and endocrinology … downregulation of receptor sites in the presence of elevated concentrations of the allergen, or hormone.

But our bodies are not human flesh. We do not follow the patterns of mortal physiology ...

"I'm not exposing myself to her," I answer.

Just the opposite in fact. I lie hidden, peeping at her through the eyes and ears of her classmates. If only she knew.

"I'm just keeping track of her. That's all."

It's only fair. Hadn't her scent followed me? All the way to the frozen north, tickling my memory, haunting the eternal sleeplessness of my existence. Justice, and nothing more, then, that I have returned now, only to hunt her every step.

Carlisle's eyes soften. "You are determined, aren't you", he murmurs, "to vanquish this, somehow."

"Yes!" And my muted cry echoes in my chest, long after the sound waves have dissipated to silence.

Seven minutes to homeroom bell, and the lot of them are loitering outside the school again, with Tyler Crowley and his parents' green van. Though I and my siblings are still a few minutes from arriving, I freely borrow Jessica Stanley's sight and hearing to monitor Bella's movements. I would rather eavesdrop through the thin girl, Angela, but she is late today. Damn it.

It is a messy, messy radar. Not only Jessica's thoughts, but those of all the others in the group as well, hover and whine like gnats in the air, intruding on any observation I might strive to make. Only Bella's mind is silent. She is utterly still, like a fathomless well.

Jessica is speaking. She does that quite a bit.

"Did you guys hear what happened to Elliot Turner?"

"No, what?"

"He got suspended!"

"Elliot? What the hell?

Jessica continues. "He brought screwdrivers to school … in a HIP FLASK!"

Jessica's eyes show me Michael Newton, nearly doubled over with laughter. "Oh my God, what an idiot!"

The Crowley boy joins in. "Yeah, can't use a Fanta bottle like the rest of us!"

I hear their laughter through all their ears. Bella's voice is nowhere among them.

Newton offers his best imitation of Jon Heder in that bizarre comedy. "Freakin' idiot!"

More laughter.

Bella can barely be heard. "Is that the first time he's done this?"

"Who knows?"

"Who cares?"

Jessica sends a pitying glance at Bella, and my mind is completely filled by the blush that I see rising on her face.

The day that we left Alaska for Forks, Alice had predicted snow. Perfect cover for our travel. It was late January, and the morning twilight lasted for hours. I'd had nothing to do, nothing to think, and had sat in a snowdrift, watching the sky change from featureless black to milky white. The sun was to come up for the first time in two months. At that latitude and that time of year, sunrise is in the south, not the east. The blush that rose there was the exact color of Bella's cheeks right now.

"Edward! Pay attention!"

" F- !"

I have never said that word before.

My foot transfers from the accelerator to the brake barely in time to bring the car back to a speed at which it can just make the turn ahead without careening into the woods. The tires scream against the wet asphalt, and for a moment I truly fear that I will wreck this fine machine. Behind us in the jeep, Emmett lets out an entirely unnecessary war whoop, as we in the Volvo skid on the razor's edge of complete loss of control. Emmett and Rosalie fly past us, Emmett's fist and middle finger raised in an utterly puerile gesture, as I grind to a stop on the shoulder, choking on gouts of venom.

Alice puts her hand on my arm. She has stationed herself in permanent "shotgun" position, every day that we go to school. I should be grateful, but it only makes me even more violently out of sorts.

"It's all right, Edward. You're going to be okay, today."

But I am not "okay." All the while that I had been tracking Bella to avoid her, in fact I had been pushing the car faster and faster towards the school. Faster and faster towards her. The mindlessness of it terrifies me.

"Let's don't be late, brother," Jasper murmurs. "One less thing to explain."

I gun the motor, and close my mind to the group by the van. I know where she is. I know the likely route that she will take to her locker and her first class. I don't need to know anything more than that. I will park in the back lot, today; take the side doors in. We will not even pass in the hall.

Fourth period.

To get to my history class, I must pass right by that girl's locker. Of course she is there as I turn the corner into the corridor. I have been pig-headed today, expending a great deal of ingenuity to elude Rosalie's escort just this once, and now I am regretting it desperately.

Her locker is on the bottom row, and so she must crouch to put her books in and take them out. She looks so small there, curled in on herself like a little ball. She stops for a moment, hugging her knees, her head bowed on her crossed forearms.

What is this?

I hide behind the stream of other students passing in the hall, keeping pace with them but slower. I don't want to approach too closely. Her blood scent is completely filling not just my nose but my mouth as well, constricting my throat with the most excruciating thirst. I don't want her to see me. The black murder in my eyes burns me through and through with shame. I don't want her to see. The moment passes in an instant and she is up and away, hurrying to her next class.

Ashamed or not, the urge to leap upon her is almost insurmountable.

I returned at midnight, to spend an hour ransacking the administrative office and hacking the school data system for her records. All I found were grade reports and transcripts. She has moved many times. And managed to do very well in her classes. Is that a reason to hug her knees and sigh? The thoughts of her classmates are useless on this score. They know no more about her than I do.

Last class of the day.

Of course it has to be Biology. I want so much to skip it. But I cannot be truant for the entire rest of the year, so what is the point of skipping one class?

I wonder whether Bella will have perfect attendance this year.

I am not looking at her, but others are.

Boys.

Bella is not "hot" in the parlance of these children. Yet all of these louts fantasize, to one extent or another, about what might lie beneath her modest attire. A few of them stare at her face; which is rather sweetly formed, if I am honest. It is also seldom seen, since she has an entirely irritating habit of resting her cheek on one hand when she is writing – which causes her hair to fall like a curtain on one side, and hide everything from view.

There! She has done it again! Releasing an invisible cloud that tantalizes my nose and mouth with promises of ecstasy, even as it tortures my every inward part with aching fire. For the luxuriance of human hair is rooted in the blood, and even from across the room, with all the feng shui of fans and windows that I have contrived against it, the air of her still touches my throat, singing faint but true.

I stare out the window: holding my breath, listening to the raindrops as they patter against the pane, counting each one's fall; and wait for eternity to end.