Spring 2005

Bella had decided long ago that Forks was her own, personal hell on Earth. From the slick, wet pavement unsuitable for any klutz to the constant overcast that colored her skin in a bluish, sickly hue, the small town in the Pacific Northwest worked tirelessly to ensure her misery.

Then, the smallest glimmer of hope appeared. A sliver of a silver lining upon the oppressive clouds.

At the corner of Fork's small main street, a used bookstore announced its grand opening. Overnight, Bella's world expanded infinitely.

The shop was perfect. Paneled with dark wood and decorated with rare maps, the shop instantly teleported Bella far, far away from the dreary town of Forks. The familiar scent of old books was intertwined with a rich, sweet scent of butterscotch. Layered rugs in several shades of gold and multiple patterns covered the floor. More important than the unique décor and the inviting atmosphere, were the books. Thousands of them, each one beckoning to Bella. Some were high up in glass cases, others were stacked in piles on the floor because there was no room for them on the shelves. If she couldn't hear Mike muttering under his breath, she would have thought she died and went to heaven.

"You don't have to come with me, Mike," she said as he trudged behind her.

"I want to come with you," he assured her, wrapping his arm around her waist. "It's going to take—what? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes tops?"

Bella didn't respond. She could spend hours in a bookshop. Part of her hoped he would get bored and leave her behind like he did at the museum. She scanned the signs for the romance section until she remembered herself.

Bella no longer indulged in romance.

Nonetheless, she persisted. She wound through the shelves, pleased with the vast selection. She picked through the stacks, pulling out the titles she recognized from her various To Be Read lists and covers that caught her eye. She took something from each section. Too soon, she carried a stack that extended far past her control.

"You're really going to read all that?" Mike asked.

Bella had this exact conversation many times throughout her life. "Yes."

"How long is it going to take you?"

"Maybe a month." If Charlie continued to trap her at Mike's practices and hockey games, it would take even less time.

Mike scratched the back of his head. "I don't understand why you would read when you can be doing anything else. Don't we get enough reading from school?"

"Don't we get enough sports from gym?" Bella fired back, playfully.

However, Mike was not one for play fights. At the barest hint of defiance, he shut down, angrier than the subject ever warranted. "Okay, I'm ready to leave."

"I'm not." There was an entire second floor left to explore.

"Well, I'm your ride home. We're leaving or you can walk home."

"Then, I'll walk," Bella turned back to the shelves.

"If I make you walk home, Charlie will bite my head off," Mike said, taking her by the waist and pulling her towards the door.

It was a lie. Charlie would blame her for upsetting the infallible Mike—the golden boy who could do no wrong in his eyes. Still, Bella did not want to risk her father's ire.

"I have to at least pay!" Bella reminded him, recoiling from his touch.

"Fine," he released her. "Go pay."

"Fine."

"Wait." Mike caught her again and crushed his lips to hers. Her books fell to the floor. She panicked, but Mike's hands cupped her cheeks, pulling her closer. Bella kissed him back, dutifully, until he broke apart. His hand lowered to her hip, where he tucked his thumb into the pocket of her jeans. "You're beautiful."

Bella tried to smile. She wondered, not for the first time, if her appearance was the only thing he liked about her.

"I'll warm up the car." He kissed her again. "Meet you there."

"Okay."

Bella bent to gather her books. She restacked them in size order, hoping they would be easier to transport if they had a proper center of gravity. She followed the signs that led her to the register. Around a shelf of hand-painted cards and a pile of random Encyclopedias, Bella stopped dead in her tracks.

Edward stood at the register. His bronze hair was tucked under a beanie, but several unruly strands still hung in his eyes. A pen cap replaced the cigarette he usually held between his teeth as he annotated something in a book. The green T-shirt was tight on his chest and arms. His beauty was poison. It stopped her heart and impaired her mind.

They hadn't spoken since that day when Mike, Eric, and Tyler attempted to send her into anaphylactic shock. She took a step back, smacking her head against the corner of a wooden shelf. Golden eyes flickered in her direction, sparking a roaring flame inside her chest. He capped the pen with the lid still between his teeth, drawing Bella's attention to his perfect lips.

"I'm ready to check out," Bella whispered.

With a long, graceful sweep of his hand, he gestured for her to place her stack on the table.

The air between them was as thick as the fog outside. The few steps it took for her to reach him felt like she was climbing up a mountain. She had no idea which Edward she approached. Would he be the cruel, apathetic delinquent he played in Forks? She wished Mike was there. She knew how to pull out the Edward she preferred when he was present. It was easy to get him to insult her—he did it all the time. She had no idea if she could bring out the Edward she wanted on her own.

Nervously, she set the books on the edge of the counter. Too close to the edge, she realized, when they started to topple over. He caught them before she had a chance to react and pulled them across the surface.

He sorted them into three neat stacks. By price, she assumed, for nothing was marked. As she did on that fateful day in his music shop, Bella studied his face as he completed her transaction. Without the wire-rimmed glasses she was used to, other features stood out. His eyebrows, low-arched, the same odd color as his hair, gave him a serious look she'd never seen in Alaska. The way his eyelashes screened his irises when he looked down made him look sad. The lower crease of his eye had a lavender tint that should have made him look sick or tired, but only added to the sadness.

"The romance section is upstairs," he said in a low voice that wrapped around Bella's heart and squeezed.

"I found everything I need, thank you."

"My mistake." He peeked up at her through long eyelashes that nearly brushed against his cheek. "You look like a girl who likes to get lost in a romance."

Bella patted the closest stack of books. "Perhaps I prefer an idealist look on life. None the fluff and falsehoods found in romance."

He held up her selection from the philosophy section. "You're not going to find idealism in Locke, I can tell you that much."

"Is that so?"

"You'd be better off with Kant. Or Plato. Luckily, we're having a promotion." He reached under his desk and placed another worn paperback on her stack. "A free copy of The Republic with each purchase from the philosophy section."

Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Bella carefully picked up the book. The pages were yellowed, and the spine was cracked. "So, this is where you learned your upstanding morals?"

The corner of his lips quirked up into a half smile. It vanished immediately. As if he remembered he wasn't supposed to engage in the act of pleasure. "I read it once, long ago. I hoped it would remind me what it meant to be alive." he swallowed. "It didn't work."

"Did anything work?" she asked, curious, despite the warning that thrummed low in her heart.

"Poetry."

Bella meant to ask what he meant, but the way his lips shaped around the word stole the breath from her lungs.

Thankfully, he answered her unspoken question. "Whenever I want to feel human, I pick up a poem. I believe you can find the greatest spectrum of raw human emotion in poetry."

"I've heard emotion was best expressed through music."

He nodded. "Just another form of poetry."

Seemingly out of nowhere, there was a small, pocket-sized book on Bella's stack. There were already tabs sticking out of the side. Bella wondered if his annotations were in the margins. Her skin nearly caught fire at the thought.

"Another promotion. Free book of Chaucer with every purchase."

Bella narrowed her eyes. "You're going to get fired if you give away free merchandise all the time."

"Do you care for my well-being?"

"How could I?" she challenged. Her voice faltered at the end.

"Of course," he breathed. The smell of butterscotch enveloped her. He looked down at his hands, folded neatly on the counter. She just could make out his furrowed brow from under his loose strands of hair. "Bella, I…"

"Yes?" she encouraged.

Her hand moved to push the hair out of his face. She snatched it back to her side.

"Yes?" she repeated when he said nothing. A sad, desperate plea that caused his hands to tense as hers shook violently at her side.

Before she could start begging, an overpowering wave of cheap deodorant and pine washed over her. Bella wanted to cry out in misery as Mike crushed her to his side. "You checkin' out my girl?"

Edward did not look up as he packed her books into a lovely canvas tote bag. It had a watercolor painting of a pine tree on the front.

"It's okay," Mike's voice was nonchalant, but his grip tightened. "She's a pretty girl. I know I'd look."

"Mike…" Heat rushed to Bella's cheeks.

"It's a compliment, Baby," he shoved her forward, "Go ahead. Give her a nice, long look."

Edward's jaw tightened, yet he remained silent. He affixed a string of twine to the bag, then a sticker.

Unsatisfied with Edward's nonresponse, Mike grabbed her arm and spun her around. "Check her out from the back. It gets even better."

"Stop!" Bella demanded, wrenching her arm away.

"That will be twenty-four dollars," Edward said, low and even.

"Yeah, that's what I fuckin' thought." Mike clamped her back to his side. He shoved a wad of cash in Edward's direction.

Edward counted the money and handed three dollars back to Mike. His careful packing went to waste as Mike snatched the bag and shoved it into Bella's arms.

She turned to see which Edward she left behind, but he was no longer behind the register.

A mist of rain dotted the canvas bag, the drizzle so light, Bella couldn't hear it. The drops hit her skin. They clung to the fine hairs of her arms. She brushed away the water beads before they could cool the searing heat that still sweltered inside her from her odd encounter with Edward.

She had so little of him left, she had to hold onto what she could.

"What a creep," Mike muttered, dragging Bella along too quickly. She stumbled on the uneven bricks of the sidewalk. "He looks like he's overdue for another hit. I bet he's always drugged up on something."

"He didn't do anything wrong," Bella said. It was an understatement. He did everything right. Standing at the counter of the bookshop felt like she was back in Alaska, exchanging light jests and tense secrets. Mike ruined it.

"I don't get why Jess and Lauren like him so much. They act like he's a celebrity. He's not even that good-looking."

Bella said nothing, humored by Mike's obvious jealousy.

"It's a good thing you have taste," he tacked on, pulling Bella against him to press a wet kiss to her cheek.

Summer 2004

Bella blinked dreamily down at Edward.

The awkward charm and noble deeds of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy could no longer hold her attention while Edward was in the room. A trio of sisters had him pull down another guitar off the wall and give them a demonstration. Bella saw right through their ploy. Judging by the set of Edward's mouth, he saw through it, too. Lucky for all four of them, he was a good employee.

Just as he did for the other two guitars, he reached up to take it off the hooks. The hem of his shirt rose with his arms, revealing a strip of skin of his lower back. The girls inched closer. Bella leaned forward in her chair. Then, he cradled the neck of the guitar in his hand. Bella wondered what his gentle touch would feel like on her neck. As his long, graceful fingers plucked several cords to demonstrate the sound of the instrument, Bella wondered how his fingers would feel somewhere… else. She lost herself in that fantasy. She barely heard the girls ask for a fourth instrument and didn't even realize when the family left the store.

He was whispering her name against the skin beneath her ear when he called out her name in real life. Bella jolted up, straight.

"Edward?"

"Bella?" he repeated.

"Yes?" she squeaked. For one wild second, she worried she somehow projected her entire fantasy for him to see.

"Would you like to have a piano lesson with me?"

"What?"

"A piano lesson. I have the time blocked off for one and. Natalie Long keeps canceling her lesson. I figured I would ask you," his smile widened, "since you were so invested in my guitar lesson."

Bella flushed bright red.

She thought to refuse. Bella didn't have a knack for music. In fact, nothing came to her easily. She put in hours of effort to be average. There was nothing to do at a piano with Edward other than embarrass herself. Then, she thought of the little room in which he held his lessons. She peeked in once, just out of curiosity. It was dark and intimate, with sound-baffling curtains draped over the walls. The bench was small, as well. Their shoulders would brush; their thighs would touch.

Bella stood so quickly, spots danced across her vision. "Yes!"

"Great. Come on down."

Bella sat on the bench; breath held in anticipation. Edward joined her. He pulled a cardigan over his T-shirt and buttoned it all the way. It charmed her as much as his patterned socks did, peeking out from the hem of his trousers.

"How much do you know about music?" he began.

"I'm almost certain this is a piano."

"Excellent start."

She plucked the center key. "Middle C."

"Brilliant."

She folded her hands in her lap. "That's all I got."

He played a simple scale, listing off the notes as he hit them. He showed her where each note was placed on the sheet music before them.

"No piano is perfectly in tune," he continued. "This is a true B flat." He hummed a note, then pressed the key, displaying the slightest difference in sound. Bella gasped, impressed. "All keys are equally out of tune because…"

Bella prided herself on being a good student. She received perfect marks and was always a pleasure to have in class. This lesson, however, did not reflect her typical conduct towards education. She heard him speak in a voice like silk against satin, yet she could not make out any of the words. Not while his scent overpowered the room with warm spice and sweet butterscotch. Especially not when he reached for the lower keys and his sculpted arm brushed against her.

"Would you like to give it a try?" he asked. His tone implied it was not the first time he had asked the question.

She had no idea what he asked or what he was talking about. After a quick internal debate over what would be more embarrassing—doing something wrong or admitting she wasn't listening—Bella simply said, "Sure," and pressed her fingers to a random assortment of keys.

"No," Edward frowned. "Not quite."

She tried again.

"No…" he repeated, trying his best to remain polite. He was probably wondering if she was always this stupid.

"Perhaps you should just play something for me," Bella suggested, sitting on her hands. "I learn best through example."

"Any requests?"

"Clair de Lune."

He played the opening chords.

"Seriously?" she gasped. The suggestion was supposed to be a joke. She picked the first classical piece that popped into her mind—she didn't actually expect him to play it. "Without sheet music?"

He nodded.

"You're so good," she marveled. His fingers pressed the keys with precision and dexterity. "You should be playing in concert halls, not teaching lessons in Sitka."

"Thank you."

"When did you start playing?"

"A while ago."

The music picked up. The long, languid notes became quick and tight. Though she could barely follow them, Edward's graceful fingers hit every single cord.

"I was a quiet little boy. Shy. I sat in the back of the classroom and got perfect grades, but never said anything to anyone. It frightened my mother. She worried if I held everything in, I would inevitably snap. She placed me in sports, then behind an easel. Finally, she stuck me on a piano bench."

Bella grew up similarly. Instead of music, she turned to books for comfort.

"It worked, in a way. I played all the time. However, I still lived in my own head too much. I got through conversations with a subtle nod or shake of my head. For a very long time, music was the only way I actually said anything. Sometimes, it still is."

Bella understood exactly what he meant. How often did she let herself speak through her favorite characters?

Debussy's masterpiece concluded. Edward did not stop playing. The notes shifted into something unbearably sweet. It accompanied the beat of Bella's heart. Warmth spread through her veins like honey, then burst open like a peony, right in her middle.

"What is this?" Bella asked in the faintest whisper, unwilling to let any sound overpower the music.

"A lullaby."

"It's beautiful."

He nodded.

"Do you have a recording of it? Somewhere in the shop?"

"No," he said. "I'm afraid it's impossible to acquire."