Being friends—or more? They really needed to talk about that—with Edythe was better than Bella had imagined it would be. Texting had been fun and exciting, but real life was somehow better. It was also nerve-wracking as hell, but...still. Amazing.

They'd held hands. For two minutes! Edythe might have looked pained the entire time, but she didn't think that was her fault. And the smiley face on the scrap of paper...it was tucked into Bella's pocket now, and she would figure out somewhere to keep it when she made it home.

So: Edythe was still weird—she didn't eat, and was either shockingly nervous about being physical with a girl, or...dealing with something. That first day in biology came to mind—all the anger in her eyes.

There was an answer to all of her strangeness, just out of Bella's reach.

For probably the first time since she'd moved to Forks, Bella found herself smiling as she walked to the gym with Mike.

He started out their conversation well enough. "Nice of Edythe to join us for lunch."

"It was," she agreed. "I'm really happy we're becoming friends." And more.

"It's kind of surprising to see a Cullen branching out. "

Ugh. The way people said the Cullen name was more than a little irritating. She sighed. Maybe she could do a little more damage control...make them seem more...human.

"I don't know much of their history, but I can't imagine moving to a new place being easy. Especially since they all lost their parents." True and sympathetic—and completely normal .

Mike only hummed in response. "Jessica asked me to the dance." He was apparently done talking about the Cullens.

"Wow, that's great!" She said immediately. She knew that Jess had split off from the group with that in mind, and she was happy to see a potential relationship blooming. "You two seem so well-matched!"

He frowned, apparently not expecting this. "Oh."

"I mean, Jess is great. She's really fun! And you two were the first people to befriend me when I moved here."

He didn't answer, still looking a little irritated.

Which meant she was starting to feel a little irritated herself. "You two both like the beach," she suggested. They both had longingly talked about California beaches and eagerness to go out to La Push at lunch that day.

"Who doesn't?" He muttered, almost too quiet to hear.

She decided to pretend she hadn't heard him. "What color do you like? I'll make sure to keep it in mind when we go dress shopping."

He sighed. "Well, I told her I'd have to think about it."

Damn it ! Bella huffed. She was certain it had something to do with her, and honestly, it wasn't fair to Jessica. "Why?" She demanded tersely.

His frown deepened. "I thought you might want to ask me."

"Wow." She was actually a little surprised at how...stupid this was. "Honestly, I don't even know what to say." Not to Mike, who obviously wasn't listening anyway. She did have an idea of what she would say to Jess, who deserved better than a boyfriend who was interested in someone else, but not even man enough to be honest with her about it.

Her good mood was somewhat ruined, but gym probably would have done that anyway. At least they were only doing strength training today—push-ups were a lot less embarrassing than basketball.

Mike tried to set up near her, but she managed to find a single spot between two girls she'd never spoken to before. They wiggled their mats away slightly, but she tried not to take it personally. She'd probably hit one of them in the head with a ball at some point. Embarrassing. Anyway, she'd take their disparagement right now—Mike was on her shit list, and she didn't mind if he knew it.

There was peace in a good workout. Luckily, Bella wasn't so clumsy that she'd hurt herself (or anyone else, for that matter) while doing push-ups. And Coach Clapp didn't mind what pace they set for themselves, so she didn't strain herself and went for steady and consistent.

Her abs were still burning when the final bell rang, so she took her time changing. And...part of her hoped that Mike would be too impatient to wait for her outside.

No such luck.

"What?" She snapped as she shoved past him toward the parking lot.

"Why are you mad?" He demanded. "Shouldn't you be flattered?"

Ugh, speed walking wasn't getting her away fast enough. "Okay, first of all, I'm not going to the dance, just like I said at lunch! And second, I would never treat a friend like that. Jess likes you! There's no way in hell I would get in the way of that."

Mike opened his mouth to protest, but she wasn't done.

"And before you misunderstand me, I want to make it clear that I only ever saw you as a friend."

That brought him up short. "Seriously?"

"Seriously." So maybe she had known what to say. She kept walking, leaving him standing in the middle of the lot.

"That was brutal," someone commented.

It caught her off guard. "Holy crow," she exclaimed, stumbling slightly.

A cool hand grabbed her arm before she could fall.

She glanced up at the owner of the voice and was surprised to see..."Emmett?" Somehow, she hadn't expected for him to be the next Cullen to speak to her. Not that she could imagine it with any of them, but...Emmett was very different than Edythe and Dr. Cullen. She could tell that, already, just from his facial expression.

"Hi," he said, smiling at her cheerfully. "I'm surprised you know my name."

She did feel a bit flustered, but she tried to play it off. "I think everyone knows your name."

"Sure," he said, but he was obviously amused. "So does Edythe talk about me much?" He had a very friendly grin, but something about it was unsettling, too.

She tried not to let that show, either. "Um, not really."

"Ouch."

"Oh, don't take it like that," she hurried to say, wondering if she'd honestly offended him. She was incredibly mindful of the fact that this was the first time she'd started speaking to a family member of Edythe's since they'd become...involved. "We just haven't talked much at all about family. I'm still trying to solve the mystery, honestly."

That made Emmett laugh. "I see why she doesn't want to kill you anymore."

"What?" The word escaped her before she could stop it. Kill her?

"Oh, you didn't know?" He smiled at her genially, but there was this look in his eyes...he'd known that she hadn't known.

And if she hadn't remembered the anger in Edythe's eyes or the way she'd frozen up and assigned it to some supernatural property earlier, she would have been way more freaked out. Not that she wasn't freaked, just...it could have been more of a surprise.

Still. Emmett wasn't being very nice about it.

"Is that a threat? Seems like a weird choice, threatening the police chief's daughter." Maybe this was a little too much bravado. No need for him to know that, though.

Emmett spread his hands slowly. "No threat. I just thought you should know."

Bella stared at him, not really sure how to take any of this.

His face was inscrutable now, just a smooth smile under dark circles.

Dr. Cullen was in on the secret, and so was Emmett. In fact, it was probably the whole family, all with the same weirdness. She thought about how strong he'd been, holding her up with one arm when she'd nearly fallen. Maybe it wasn't that shocking—it wasn't like she was all that heavy, but...still. Her weight was combined with her thick raincoat and her book-filled backpack. She wasn't exactly light, either. And he had the same eyes as Edythe, too, just barely a golden brown, almost totally black. Not as dark as Edythe's the first day in biology, but close.

A thought occurred to her. "Uh, are you hangry right now?"

It had not occurred to Emmett, obviously. "What?" His smile was gone and now he stared at her with a perplexed expression.

"It just seems like you guys do really weird, almost mean things when your eyes are dark," she said.

He frowned. "You should let this go."

"I think you know I won't."

"Yeah." He smile again. "You're keeping things interesting. Don't stop on my account." Then he gave a little wave, and walked away.

The Cullens just kept getting weirder.

Bella sighed and continued walking toward her truck. She herself was getting a little hangry. The food she'd "shared" with Edythe had burned through her after gym and she was ready for the snack at home. Not to mention a family of supernatural beings had apparently considered killing her, and Mike, her so-called friend, was being a dick…

Yeah, she wanted some food. Damn, why didn't she keep any in her truck?

She was only about ten feet from her truck when Edythe caught up to her.

"Hey, wait—"

Bella couldn't help it—she laughed.

"What's funny?" Edythe asked, smiling a little.

"You're just the third person to accost me in the parking lot today," she said.

"Oh." She looked a little nervous. "We can talk later..."

"No, you're okay. I actually want to talk to you. And Emmett was weird, but fine."

"I...came to talk about that, actually," she hedged. She looked down at her shoes.

"The whole killing me thing?" Bella brushed by her to unlock her truck. She tossed her backpack into the passenger seat and looked back at Edythe. Maybe she was a little irritated with Edythe, too.

She looked stricken. "Um...he's been upset about that since lunch."

She hummed in response. He was upset, and he wasn't even the one who almost died. "I'm curious. What was the plan?"

"Get you alone, maybe the woods." She twister a lick of hair around her finger. "But I said no. That I would stick things out."

"How is that working for you?"

Edythe looked at her through her lashes. "Pretty well, I think."

Bella laughed a little. "You could have just passed me a note that said 'get out of my school.'"

"What?"

So no memes for Edythe. "Never mind. Anyway, this is…weird. I need some time to process it." She felt that was a pretty fair thing to ask, given that Edythe had discussed killing her with at least one person. She wasn't exactly upset—well, she was , but not so much that she wanted to cut Edythe off.

Actually, she suspected that had been Emmett's motivation. For whatever reason, Edythe's family didn't want the two of them getting close. Somehow, she was pretty sure it wasn't the gay thing. It was probably whatever made them think about killing her in the first place, which she could not stop thinking about. Fuck.

"You're not scared," Edythe commented, sounding curious herself.

"Do you want to kill me now?"

"No!" she exclaimed immediately.

"So I'm not scared," Bella said, smiling. And it had the added benefit of making her feel better, so there was that. It was all apparently part of the mystery. Maybe Emmett had meant to scare her off, but instead she was just...more interested.

"I'll text you later." She climbed up into the truck and shut the door. Then, laughing to herself a little, she rolled down her window. "Oh, and would you make sure Emmett eats whatever it is you eat tonight? He seems a little cranky."

Edythe blinked at her, and for a moment, Bella was too flustered to think about…any of it. Sometimes, it caught her off guard just how beautiful Edythe was.

"Holy crow," she muttered again.

Edythe made a face and said something, but it took her a moment to process it.

The world slowly filled with sound again. "What?"

"Why do you say that?" Edythe was smiling crookedly now.

She could feel her face burning, but she tried to stay cool. Edythe didn't need to know how useless she was when it came to pretty girls. "Why do I say what?"

"Holy crow?"

"Oh, it's uh…a combination of 'crap' and 'cow.' I got in the habit when I was younger and it…feels better than 'holy shit'? Sometimes, anyway."

Edythe laughed. "Okay. That's adorable. Holy crow," she muttered to herself. "I will make sure Emmett eats."

"Great. I'll see you later." Adorable. She resisted the urge to slam her head forward onto the steering wheel. "Adorable" was not a bad thing, even if it wasn't exactly how she wanted Edythe to see her. Whatever. Fine. There was no need to lose her cool.

She waved as Bella cranked the window back up. It wasn't raining exactly, but it was starting to mist unpleasantly. She sighed. The Phoenix heat would have been welcome just about now. She did her best thinking when sunning…

Oh well. Her desk at home would have to do.

Because she did actually care about how well she did in school, Bella did her homework first. It didn't take her long, though. For the most part, the Phoenix curriculum had been more difficult than Forks, and she breezed through most of it.

Her mind kept going back and forth between the conversation with Emmett and Jessica's weirdness, though, which provided a little too much of a distraction for her to successfully finish her math homework.

Maybe she just needed a break.

Edythe—or Emmett, for that matter—wasn't going to give her any more information—at least not on purpose.

But Jessica might.

She grabbed her phone and tapped out a quick message. "Hey, I know we got cut off from talking in Spanish this morning, but I wanted to know what u were going to say about Edythe."

While waiting for an answer, she returned to her last few math problems. Math was probably the one subject she hadn't grasped all that well in Phoenix, and Forks was no different. At least this was stuff she'd covered before, so she was faring a bit better, but still…

Her phone buzzed with a text from Jess. "O. I ws just gonna tell u I ran into her at MM. No big. E mentioned u."

That made her smile. Edythe talked about her to Jessica...probably not in much detail, but she'd come up.

Wait, how had she come up?

"What did she say?" she sent back.

She got a response back before she could finish her next problem. "Just that she wanted to talk to u ab hw. Plus she said u 2 have been texting. i ws gonna ask u ab it."

Ah...It was weird. This morning, Jess had seemed on the verge of grilling Bella about what she knew of the Cullens, but now she was acting completely disinterested.

She wouldn't confront her yet. Maybe she could sweeten the pot a bit? "Oh yeah. I think we're kind of friends now lol."

Bella finished her final math problem and still hadn't gotten a text back from Jessica, which was weird. The first day of school, she'd been so envious and curious about the Cullens, and now it was like she didn't even care.

Maybe it was Mike getting her down? But no, she'd stopped pressing in Spanish, before Mike had been a total tool.

Weird.

Still, wanting to give Jess a chance, in case she was just busy or something, she decided to distract herself with her own investigation. She ripped a piece of notebook paper out and wrote down everything she knew so far. The list was…longer than she'd expected.

-Immortal
-Changing eye colors
-Don't eat human food
-Don't age?
-Super speed
-potentially invincible (can withstand car crash?)
-super strength (probably)
-cold
-wanted to kill me for some reason
-not very comfortable being touched, but seems to want touch, too?

She frowned at the list. There was something here, between the lines…

Her phone buzzed again. "Im glad," Jess had responded.

Okay, something was up.

"Jess, is something wrong?" she sent. She knew her friend was probably upset about Mike, but that couldn't be all of it.

Now her response was instant. "No, nothing is wrong," came through first, and then, "y".

"Ur just being kind of distant :/ Plus Mike told me ab what he said to you…" Bella replied.

Jess didn't respond for several moments, so she returned her attention to the list.

She thought about the Cullens as a unit, too. She'd only ever interacted with Emmett and Dr. Cullen, but they'd still had tells. Plus, they lived as a family even though…most of them at least…weren't related. They might have been adopted, but they were all strangely close in age...surely that meant something?

-Prefers a family
-Dark circles
-Pale
-beautiful

The last few items weren't really anything unusual, but they still gave her something to chew on.

Jessica finally responded with two texts. "Mike is...Mike," and "sorry b. just thinking through things."

"What things?" she muttered aloud. She glanced at the clock—she needed to get dinner started...but she wasn't really in the mood to cook, so she decided she'd just make a salad and some spaghetti. She didn't text as she walked down the stairs, though she was itching to respond—with her lack of grace, she'd be more likely to take a tumble than successfully send a message.

Once in the kitchen, she was finally free to send her response. "ab me? or mike?"

The water was boiling before Jessica answered, "Uh, yeah, both I guess." She followed it up with another text before Bella had a chance to respond. "are u doing anything right now?"

"just finishing dinner," she typed while idling stirring the spaghetti.

"When will u be free?" came back.

She glanced at the timer on the stove. "Um...ten minutes?" If she could make the fastest salad she'd ever made before…She grabbed a knife and cutting board. It would be good practice, she reasoned with herself, though for what, she wasn't actually sure.

Her phone buzzed after she finished chopping a bed of lettuce. "Ok, can u pick me up?" Jess had sent.

"Of course. I'll leave asap." If she kept up this rate, she might actually be able to leave in less than ten minutes. She just needed tomatoes and a note for Charlie…

"C u soon," Jess sent.

Okay. Soon.

A/N: This was originally going to be longer, but then I was suddenly at 3000 words and I realized I needed to stop! So it looks like there will probably be two more chapters for this part of the story!

Comments and reviews make me write faster :)