Chapter 24: Friendship


As the weeks progressed I took reticent steps in forming a friendship with Bella through letter exchanges. They were tucked in alongside her classes' notes, which I gathered using my gift, usually from Angela's mind, as she was a dedicated student. Each letter we exchanged caused me to become more enamoured with Bella. Her thoughts while at school never contained a complaint about Jamerica or the situation generally. She was forgiving to a fault, did not harbour a grudge, and was genuinely appreciative of what she was gaining. It caused me to wonder what she was thinking all of the time. Despite my curiosity, I refrained from her proximity, often having to remind myself how she was aware of me following her even when she had never seen me. Perhaps it was the Quileute heritage in her that caused her to be sensitive to my propinquity.

Much of what she wrote in her letters to me were interesting and engaging. To my surprise I came to discover that we shared a lot in common. All things considered, we were shockingly compatible. So few people had interested me in the last one hundred years that to find that quality in a teenager in Forks, Washington of all places seemed bizarre. It took me some time to accept that I enjoyed receiving her letters and even looked forward to them. Of course there were things she said that I disagreed with, but I was well versed of the fact that no two people agreed entirely.

An added puzzlement was that being in Bella's mind was like a balm to my soul. Her thoughts were focused on the task at hand. Most humans, but especially adolescent girls' minds, were an unpleasant place. The combination of enjoying her mind and finding her interesting was as likely as winning the lottery. It befuddled me tremendously, yet I was unwilling to lose our conversations.

One of the pleasant aspects of Bella's mind was that she rarely thought about me directly, except at lunch, and usually at the beginning of the lunch hour before she'd give her attention to Rosa. It took me seven days to realise that her thoughts of me had been intentional in order to test her hypothesis that I could read minds. Mind reading certainly did not lend to the conclusion of vampire, and given her own experiences of magic, I felt fairly certain that her knowing about this aspect of me would not risk our nature. It was nice to have someone outside of the family knowledgeable about my gift, so when she asked directly, I saw no harm in confirming it to her.

I knew about her body swapping, and she knew about my mind reading, but we carried on as if those things did not matter. It was the first time in my life when I felt a kindred spirit with someone who was not family. It was terrifying and wonderful in equal measure.

The challenging part was keeping my activities from Emmett and Rosalie. Certainly Alice was aware, and thus so was Jasper. I could not imagine Rosalie understanding and Emmett would tease me mercilessly. And I had no desire to inform Esme, as it would result in her hoping I had found my mate, nor Carlisle, who would be relentlessly curious.

Between Alice's retrieval of Bella's blood scent and my care for Bella's soul, I was able to tame my bloodlust of Bella's body to a reasonable level. It still was something that required hypervigalence, but at least it did not seem like I was going to murder a room full of children at any moment.

There was a part of me that wished to bring Bella, in Jamerica's body or not, home and introduce her to my family and do all the things I would have done in my era if we were courting. After considering the possibility, Alice must of seen something I had missed, as she told me, You must wait.

Alice had been oddly patient. I had to wonder if how the body swap impacting her visions, had caused her to be less pushy. Whatever the reason, it was welcomed.

Each day that passed my desire to publicly court Bella increased, and thus my fantasies of her. She was everything I had imagined desiring in a woman. It was an unattainable desire, and thus forced myself to be content at our budding friendship to leave it at that. Nevertheless, as the exchanges increased my intention to be an invisible friend turned into a wish for us to be true friends. Certainly I did not want her to know the truth of me, but the rest was enjoyable to share with another.