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That was interesting. When Shelly Cope's pulse quickened, it was because she found me physically attractive, not because she was frightened. I was used to that around human females...yet I hadn't considered that explanation for Bella's racing heart. I rather liked that. Too much, in fact. I smiled, and Mrs. Cope's breathing got louder.
"Bella has gym next hour, and I don't think she feels well enough. Actually, I was thinking I should take her home now. Do you think you could excuse her from class?" I stared into her depthless eyes, enjoying the havoc that this wreaked on her thought processes. Was it possible that Bella...?
Mrs. Cope had to swallow loudly before she answered. "Do you need to be excused, too, Edward?"
"No, I have Mrs. Goff, she won't mind."
I wasn't paying much attention to her now. I was exploring this new possibility. Hmm. I'd like to believe that Bella found me attractive like other humans did, but when did Bella ever have the same reactions as other humans? I shouldn't get my hopes up.
"Okay, it's all taken care of. You feel better, Bella."
Bella nodded weakly - overacting a bit.
"Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you again?" I asked, amused by her poor theatrics. I knew she would want to walk - she wouldn't want to be weak. "I'll walk," she said.
Right again. I was getting better at this.
She got up, hesitating for a moment as if to check her balance. I held the door for her, and we walked out into the rain.
I watched her as she lifted her face to the light rain with her eyes closed, a slight smile on her lips. What was she thinking? Something about this action seemed off, and I quickly realized why the posture looked unfamiliar to me. Normal human girls wouldn't raise their faces to the drizzle that way; normal human girls usually wore makeup, even here in this wet place.
Bella never wore makeup, nor should she. The cosmetics industry made billions of dollars a year from women who were trying to attain skin like hers.
"Thanks," she said, smiling at me now. "It's worth getting sick to miss Gym."
I stared across the campus, wondering how to prolong my time with her.
"Anytime," I said.
"So are you going? This Saturday, I mean?" She sounded hopeful.
Ah, her hope was soothing. She wanted me with her, not Mike Newton. And I wanted to say yes. But there were many things to consider. For one, the sun would be shining this Saturday...
"Where are you all going, exactly?" I tried to keep my voice nonchalant, as if it didn't matter much. Mike had said beach, though. Not much chance of avoiding sunlight there.
"Down to La Push, to First Beach."
Damn. Well, it was impossible, then.
Anyway, Emmett would be irritated if I cancelled our plans.
I glanced down at her, smiling wryly. "I really don't think I was invited." She sighed, already resigned. "I just invited you."
"Let's you and I not push poor Mike any further this week. We don't want him to snap." I thought about snapping poor Mike myself, and enjoyed the mental picture intensely.
"Mike-schmike," she said, dismissive again. I smiled widely.
And then she started to walk away from me.
Without thinking about my action, I reached out and caught her by the back of her rain jacket. She jerked to a stop.
"Where do you think you're going?" I was almost angry that she was leaving me.
I hadn't had enough time with her. She couldn't go, not yet.
"I'm going home," she said, baffled as to why this should upset me.
"Didn't you hear me promise to take you safely home? Do you think I'm going to let you drive in your condition?" I knew she wouldn't like that - my implication of weakness on her part. But I needed to practice for the Seattle trip, anyway. See if I could handle her proximity in an enclosed space. This was a much shorter journey.
"What condition?" she demanded. "And what about my truck?"
"I'll have Alice drop it off after school." I pulled her back to my car carefully, as I now knew that walking forward was challenging enough for her.
"Let go!" she said, twisting sideways and nearly tripping. I held one hand out to catch her, but she righted herself before it was necessary. I shouldn't be looking for excuses to touch her. That started me thinking about Ms. Cope's reaction to me, but I filed it away for later. There was much to be considered on that front.
I let her go beside the car, and she stumbled into the door. I would have to be even more careful, to take into account her poor balance...
"You are so pushy!"
"It's open."
I got in on my side and started the car. She held her body rigidly, still outside, though the rain had picked up and I knew she didn't like the cold and wet. Water was soaking through her thick hair, darkening it to near black.
"I am perfectly capable of driving myself home!"
Of course she was - I just wasn't capable of letting her go.
I rolled her window down and leaned toward her. "Get in, Bella."
Her eyes narrowed, and I guessed that she was debating whether or not to make a run for it.
"I'll just drag you back," I promised, enjoying the chagrin on her face when she realized I meant it.
Her chin stiffly in the air, she opened her door and climbed in. Her hair dripped on the leather and her boots squeaked against each other.
"This is completely unnecessary," she said coldly. I thought she looked embarrassed under the pique.
I just turned up the heater so she wouldn't be uncomfortable, and set the music to a nice background level. I drove out toward the exit, watching her from the corner of my eye. Her lower lip was jutting out stubbornly. I stared at this, examining how it made me feel... thinking of the secretary's reaction again...
Suddenly she looked at the stereo and smiled, her eyes widening. "Clair de Lune?" she asked.
A fan of the classics? "You know Debussy?"
"Not well," she said. "My mother plays a lot of classical music around the house - I only know my favorites."
"It's one of my favorites, too." I stared at the rain, considering that. I actually had something in common with the girl. I'd begun to think that we were opposites in every way.
She seemed more relaxed now, staring at the rain like me, with unseeing eyes. I used her momentary distraction to experiment with breathing.
I inhaled carefully through my nose.
Potent.
I clutched the steering wheel tighter. The rain made her smell better. I wouldn't have thought that was possible. Stupidly, I was suddenly imaging how she would taste. I tried to swallow against the burn in my throat, to think of something else.
"What is your mother like?" I asked as a distraction.
Bella smiled. "She looks a lot like me, but she's prettier."
I doubted that.
"I have too much Charlie in me," she went on. "She's more outgoing than I am, and braver."
I doubted that, too.
"She's irresponsible and slightly eccentric, and she's a very unpredictable cook. She's my best friend." Her voice had turned melancholy; her forehead creased.
Again, she sounded more like parent than child.
I stopped in front of her house, wondering too late if I was supposed to know where she lived. No, this wouldn't be suspicious in such a small town, with her father a public figure...
"How old are you, Bella?" She must be older than her peers. Perhaps she'd been late to start school, or been held back...that wasn't likely, though.
"I'm seventeen," she answered.
"You don't seem seventeen."
She laughed.
"What?"
"My mom always says I was born thirty-five years old and that I get more middleaged every year." She laughed again, and then sighed. "Well, someone has to be the adult."
This clarified things for me. I could see it now...how the irresponsible mother helped explain Bella's maturity. She'd had to grow up early, to become the caretaker. That's why she didn't like being cared for - she felt it was her job.
"You don't seem much like a junior in high school yourself," she said, pulling me from my reverie.
I grimaced. For everything I perceived about her, she perceived too much in return. I changed the subject.
"So why did your mother marry Phil?"
She hesitated a minute before answering. "My mother...she's very young for her age. I think Phil makes her feel even younger. At any rate, she's crazy about him." She shook her head indulgently.
"Do you approve?" I wondered.
"Does it matter?" she asked. "I want her to be happy...and he is who she wants." The unselfishness of her comment would have shocked me, except that it fit in all too well with what I'd learned of her character.
"That's very generous...I wonder."
"What?"
"Would she extend the same courtesy to you, do you think? No matter who your choice was?"
It was a foolish question, and I could not keep my voice casual while I asked it.
How stupid to even consider someone approving of me for their daughter. How stupid to even think of Bella choosing me.
"I-I think so," she stuttered, reacting in some way to my gaze. Fear...or attraction?
"But she's the parent, after all. It's a little bit different," she finished. I smiled wryly. "No one too scary then."
She grinned at me. "What do you mean by scary? Multiple facial piercings and extensive tattoos?"
"That's one definition, I suppose." A very nonthreatening definition, to my mind. "What's your definition?"
She always asked the wrong questions. Or exactly the right questions, maybe. The ones I didn't want to answer, at any rate.
"Do you think that I could be scary?" I asked her, trying to smile a little. She thought it through before answering me in a serious voice. "Hmm...I think you could be, if you wanted to."
I was serious, too. "Are you frightened of me now?"
She answered at once, not thinking this one through. "No."
I smiled more easily. I did not think she was entirely telling the truth, but nor was she truly lying. She wasn't frightened enough to want to leave, at least. I wondered how she would feel if I told her she was having this discussion with a vampire. I cringed internally at her imagined reaction.
"So, now are you going to tell me about your family? It's got to be a much more interesting story than mine."
A more frightening one, at least.
"What do you want to know?" I asked cautiously.
"The Cullens adopted you?"
"Yes."
She hesitated, then spoke in a small voice. "What happened to your parents?" This wasn't so hard; I wasn't even having to lie to her. "They died a very long time ago."
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, clearly worried about having hurt me.
She was worried about me.
"I don't really remember them that clearly," I assured her. "Carlisle and Esme have been my parents for a long time now."
"And you love them," she deduced.
I smiled. "Yes. I couldn't imagine two better people."
"You're very lucky."
"I know I am." In that one circumstance, the matter of parents, my luck could not be denied.
"And your brother and sisters?"
If I let her push for too many details, I would have to lie. I glanced at the clock, disheartened that my time with her was up.
"My brother and sister, and Jasper and Rosalie for that matter, are going to be quite upset if they have to stand in the rain waiting for me."
"Oh, sorry, I guess you have to go."
She didn't move. She didn't want our time to be up, either. I liked that very, very much.
"And you probably want your truck back before Chief Swan gets home, so you don't have to tell him about the Biology incident." I grinned at the memory of her embarrassment in my arms.
"I'm sure he's already heard. There are no secrets in Forks." She said the name of the town with distinct distaste.
I laughed at her words. No secrets, indeed. "Have fun at the beach." I glanced at the pouring rain, knowing it would not last, and wishing more strongly than usual that it could. "Good weather for sunbathing." Well, it would be by Saturday. She would enjoy that.
"Won't I see you tomorrow?"
The worry in her tone pleased me.
"No. Emmett and I are starting the weekend early." I was mad at myself now for having made the plans. I could break them...but there was no such thing as too much hunting at this point, and my family was going to be concerned enough about my behavior without me revealing how obsessive I was turning.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, not sounded happy with my revelation.
Good.
"We're going to be hiking in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, just south of Rainier."
Emmett was eager for bear season.
"Oh, well, have fun," she said halfheartedly. Her lack of enthusiasm pleased me again.
As I stared at her, I began to feel almost agonized at the thought of saying even a temporary goodbye. She was just so soft and vulnerable. It seemed foolhardy to let her out of my sight, where anything could happen to her. And yet, the worst things that could happen to her would result from being with me.
"Will you do something for me this weekend?" I asked seriously.
She nodded, her eyes wide and bewildered by my intensity.
Keep it light.
"Don't be offended, but you seem to be one of those people who just attract accidents like a magnet. So...try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or anything, all right?"
I smiled ruefully at her, hoping she couldn't see the sadness in my eyes. How much I wished that she wasn't so much better off away from me, no matter what might happen to her there.
Run, Bella, run. I love you too much, for your good or mine.
She was offended by my teasing. She glared at me. "I'll see what I can do," she snapped, jumping out into the rain and slamming the door as hard as she could behind her.
Just like an angry kitten that believes it's a tiger.
I curled my hand around the key I'd just picked from her jacket pocket, and smiled as I drove away.
