And now, when merry winds do blow,
And rain makes trees look fresh,
An overpowering staleness holds
This mortal flesh.

Though well I love to feel the rain,
And be by winds well blown --
The mystery of mortal life
Doth press me down.

And, in this mood, come now what will,
Shine Rainbow, Cuckoo call;
There is no thing in Heaven or Earth
Can lift my soul.

 

The Dark Hour, William Henry Davies

 

~dreams~

 

* Here’s the dress if anyone is interested: http://www.unique-vintage.com/stop-staring-style-brownpink-plaid-wiggle-dress-p-3286.html

********

 

            By the time we reached the house, Rosalie had been keeping up a constant growling rumble low in her throat for the past few minutes. It was getting on everyone’s nerves, even Emmett’s and he usually enjoys it when she growls. As it was, it was not a conducive environment to an adult conversation, so when I opened the door only to see Carlisle sitting on the living room couch next to Esme, I cringed.

            A small hand settled on my shoulder for a fraction of a second, indicating everything would be all right. It could only have been Alice. Carlisle, sensing our presence, or possibly hearing the door, stood and looked at us, Esme following suit.

            “Edward, Alice called me after lunch. She said you’d need to talk. She did not say about what.” With that statement, Carlisle made his way to the family meeting table in the dining room. The entire family followed, Rosalie still rumbling.

            My nerves were already strung taut and I knew this meeting was going to be unpleasant. I did not think I could control myself if Rosalie said anything as inappropriate as she had earlier today. And I knew Esme wanted me to heal, to get over what had happened – she would support moving. But I just can’t.

            Once the family was settled around the dining room table; Carlisle at the head, Esme the foot, and the ‘children’ in the middle, Carlisle spoke.

            “Edward, what is wrong?”

            Trying my hardest not to sigh, I glared at the cherry wood table. As was my habit in difficult situations, I rubbed clockwise circles on my temples, trying to figure out how to word the events of today.

            Just as I opened my mouth to say… something, a higher and more malicious voice spoke up.

            “Edward’s precious Isabella Swan is the new girl. She looks exactly like the one Edward murdered in New Orleans. Even her name is identical.”

            Esme gasped sharply, her hands going to her mouth as she rushed to my side. Carlisle, I turned to see, was shocked speechless. Jasper and Alice were glaring at Rosalie. She had used the forbidden ‘m’ word. Emmett shook his head and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. On principle, I disagreed with whatever usually came out of Rosalie’s mouth but not today. I never understood why Carlisle, with Esme’s and Alice’s support, had forbidden anyone to say I had murdered the girl. Because it was just the truth. Keeping the word out of conversation did not make my guilt any less there.

            Rosalie shifted but the expression on her face stayed the same. She was uncomfortable under the stares from, now not only Alice and Jasper, but Esme and Carlisle as well. They had registered what she’d said but it had not clicked for a moment. Now that it had, Rosalie would be under fire. I could not bring myself to care.

            Finally, Carlisle brought his face back towards me but I jumped right in before he could even suggest what I knew he was going to suggest.

            “I am not forcing this family to move. I was prepared. Her scent is exactly the same as the other girl’s but I have been slightly desensitized because I have been wearing her bracelet, remember?”

            Carlisle winced in the knowledge that I had been ‘needlessly making myself suffer’ by wearing such a thing but nodded in acceptance anyway.

            I continued. “In addition, my guilt will not allow me to take her life away from her a second time. Even if she is not the same person.”

            The room was silent as it sunk in that I would not be leaving. Carlisle and Esme nodded in reluctant acceptance, while Jasper, Alice, and Emmett just shrugged to indicate their prior knowledge of this. Rosalie snorted in angry hate as she jerked out of her seat, the chair flying back violently into the wall behind her. She growled one last, giant roar as she stalked out of the room, looking for all the world like a tiger on the prowl.

            Esme’s faced turned stern as she demurely stood from her own chair, smoothing her shirt down like a soldier preparing to go to war. That girl needs a serious attitude adjustment. She smiled sweetly at me and brushed her fingers gently through my hair before she marched out of the room, right on Rosalie’s tail. I knew it was futile to object to the words she would have with Rosalie so I said nothing. Besides, I had no wish to spare the self-proclaimed world beauty any trouble.

            I nodded to the room in general then as an uncomfortable silence descended, before I followed Esme and Rosalie out the door. It was definitely time for my slow, depressing playlist. I hooked my iPod up to its dock and collapsed onto my black leather couch for one. I knew it would do no good in the long run but at least, while I was blasting Wolfsheim’s Upstairs, he would leave me alone.  

***

Bella

 

            ~ Her steps echoed along the quiet, deserted street as she made her way home. Nervousness invaded her senses as she glanced into every dark alley she passed. Her father would be furious at her when she got home. Her arms tightened around the books she held to her chest as that thought filtered through her brain. She knew she shouldn’t have stayed at the bookstore until night fell but it was like entering a sanctuary when she stepped foot into one of the establishments. She simply lost all sense of time.

            The wind kicked up, making her shiver in her pink and brown plaid wiggle dress*, the oversized pleats at the bottom fluttering in the breeze. Damn her mother for insisting she wear such ridiculous clothes! She’d prefer a pair of pants and a man’s button shirt. Comfortable, but most importantly, warm.

            The hair on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end, her instincts telling her that she was being watched. Hunted, reverberated inside her head.

            “Nonsense.” Her steps quickened however as she threw a cautious glance over her shoulder. She faltered and her eyes widened in - ~

            I bolted upright in my bed, chest heaving with every one of my deep breathes. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I’d woken the way I had. There had been no fear in my dream, no danger. What I’d seen behind her… No, it was me in that dream… made me feel… concerned, but not in anyway afraid. A niggling feeling that I recognized… whatever it was my dream-self had seen behind her would not leave me alone, but every time I tried to chase the memory down, it would flit away into nothingness.

            Moments passed where I flipped through my mind, scouring every memory I have ever had trying to come up with an explanation as to why everything seemed so familiar when I know I have never even been to New Orleans. And how the hell do I know it was New Orleans? Finally, my breath calmed enough for me to become aware of a new sensation. Warm, viscous liquid was running down the right side of my neck.

            Scrunching my eyes in confusion, I leaned over and flicked on the bed-side lamp, my eyes scanning the bed, the ceiling, and the wall. No leaks, which I was definitely grateful for in theory but in practice, it freaked me out a little that it wasn’t the explanation for what was on dripping down my neck. I reached up slowly, full of trepidation, and ran my fingers through the fluid.

            When my fingers were in my line of vision, I gasped in surprised dismay. I jumped off my bed and ran to the bathroom off the hall, throwing the switch. Light flooded the small room as I made it to the mirror, my eyes zeroing in on the blood making its sluggish way down my neck, to pool in my clavicle. There was a pause as the knowledge that I was bleeding profusely sunk in before my eyes jerked up to the wound tearing my flesh apart.

            At first, I thought I was seeing things. The wound was jagged, stark, covered in the thickness of blood but the shape was obvious. It was an impression of a set of human teeth. A shocked breath escaped me and I stood there, staring before common sense kicked in and I rushed around the little bathroom, gathering a washcloth and wetting it under the sink faucet. I swiped it across the wound repeatedly, scrubbing hard. Remarkably, no pain radiated from the gash. Finally, after minutes of cleansing, I pulled the cloth back and took another, more tentative peak at the juncture that connected neck to shoulder.

            Eyes wide in disbelief, I pulled my hair farther back and leaned in close to the mirror. There was nothing there. No wound, no blood. I glanced down at the rag, looking for blood but there was nothing. I dropped the cloth into the sink and slumped back against the opposite wall, perplexed and, I’d admit only in the privacy of my own mind – frightened.

            I stayed in that position, numb and immobile, until the light of day dawned and movement down the hall jerked me out of my stupor.

***

 

Edward

 

            I was surprised that Carlisle had left me alone as long as he had. It was a new day, the light lengthening across my bedroom floor, the sky turning a golden pink. He finally showed at my door when I was donning my last piece of clothing for the new school day. I slipped on my leather jacket before turning to him and just… stared.

            Carlisle stared right back, his golden eyes shining with concern. His thoughts buzzed around inside his head at a million phrases per second, all of which I ignored. I know he meant well and I know he would not push anything. Finally, after an eternity of seconds, he inclined his head in acceptance, turned, and left for work. For a man with no empathic or mind reading abilities, Carlisle was quite perceptive.

            I grabbed my rucksack, shoved my iPod into my jacket pocket, palmed my keys and then descended the stairs, to the relief of the rest of my siblings (sans, of course, Rosalie). Esme gravitated towards me immediately after I stepped off the last stair, her arms extended for a maternal hug. Never one to upset her, I allowed her to envelop me in her warm embrace, refusing to acknowledge that instead of my mother figure, it was I who was clinging.

            Released once more to continue on to the car, I was unsurprised to see Alice lingering in the doorway, her eyes brimming over with compassion and concern. I cast a small smile her way, the gesture surprisingly easy now. Hell, breathing was surprisingly easy now, despite the fact that I do not need to. I had no doubt that it had everything to do with my new Isabella. I did not know what to make of that, so I shoved the thought to the farthest shelf in my brain, determined to just enjoy this phenomenon while it lasted.

            A slight skip to my step, one that did not go unnoticed by any of my siblings, brought me to the driver’s side door of my Volvo. I read the relief in Alice’s, Jasper’s, and Emmett’s mind but it was Rosalie’s thoughts that caught and held my attention. Rather, it was her lack of thoughts. Her mind was like an empty vault, airy and echoing with nothing more substantial than that.

            While a shallow Rosalie was by far nothing new to me, it was concerning when her brain held absolutely nothing. The entire way to school, I attempted to catch something, anything floating about in her psyche to give me a clue as to what sort of trouble she was brewing in that poisonous mind of hers. Not a thing to be found. This was worrying. It was common knowledge that when Rosalie did not get her way, she could be vile and unpleasant. Well, even more vile and unpleasant than her normal personality at any rate. Which was saying a whole hell of a lot.

            I needed to be on the lookout today. She was hatching some scheme, one I would not like, and I was not about to let her implement it. My hands tightened around the steering wheel, my knuckles turning whiter than white, and I concentrated all of my concern and fury at Rosalie into one big ball. Then I shot the ball at Jasper like a pool shark taking a bank shot. His eyes widened slightly before settling back into their original size and darting at the back of Rosalie’s head. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror and I nodded once. Jasper thinned his lips and shot an Affirmative into my mind.

            Once at school, we went our separate ways to class. Before I entered the building, I looked around, my eyes spotting Bella’s noisy, geriatric truck at the end of the parking lot. I took a tentative sniff and was disappointed to note that any exhaust smell from her truck was long gone – she was already in her first class. I would not get to greet her this morning. I sighed softly and continued on to my first class.

***

 

Bella

 

            My eyes could barely keep open as the morning progressed, the dream I’d had creeping up on me like an evening fog whenever they fell closed.

 

***

 

Edward

 

            Rosalie had not made a move as yet, which was both a relief and a curse. I just wanted her to attempt whatever it was she was attempting to do so that this tension within my shoulders could ease. I had more important things to worry about now, than Rosalie and her childish whims.  Fragile, self-endangering Bella for instance.

            As I walked through the breezeway to my next class, I spotted Mike approaching Bella like a snake to baby duck. His thoughts, impure and juvenile, infuriated me beyond all reason and I sped my pace. I was going in the complete opposite direction that I needed to get to class but protecting Bella from oversexed, hormonal man-children was more important. If I had not been distracted by Bella’s apparent uneasiness when it came to the clueless boy, I would have found it funny comparing a harmless little human to a predator.

            I calculated the distance between Bella and me and the distance between her and the boy. I would only make it in time if I used slightly more than normal human speed to approach. Which I did, only slightly guiltily.

            Damn! It resounded through my mind like it had been said by a thousand people, instead of one very disappointed child. It was amazing. Despite myself, I was actually a little impressed that the previous limp rag that was Mike Newton was capable of such emotion.

            I smiled down into Bella’s velvety brown eyes and murmured, in what I would later deny was a shy manner, “Hello.”

            She glanced up at me, relief plain on her face and smiled brilliantly. “Hello.”

            An awkward silence descended as the two of us floundered for something to say. At least, I thought to myself, there are no more images of a dead Bella speaking to me. Yet. I pushed that thought aside as I finally asked, “Walk you to class?”

            She blushed radiantly and nodded her head, eyes sparkling with pleasure. Pleased as punch Emmett would say. But then again, Emmett was a closet dork. As we started down the hall, I quickly grabbed her book bag, swinging it onto my back beside my own.

 

 

***

 

Bella

 

            As we walked down the hall, I could not help but revisit the feeling I’d had yesterday that I’ve met Edward before. But again, had I met someone as ethereally beautiful as Edward, I would not have forgotten. It must just be déjà vu or something. Lost in my thoughts, it took me a while to realize that Edward was staring at me, a slight puzzled grin across his face. It was like he was trying to piece together a mystery, like I was someone he was trying to read but desperately couldn’t. Which was strange, being as my mother always called me her ‘open book’. But I liked the look on him. It made him seem more human, more reachable for us mere mortals to touch.

And here I go again with the angel bit. I groaned to myself. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to end up wearing all black, smoking a cigarette through a six inch holder, playing the bongos, and reciting pathetically pathetic odes about angels and men. Ugh. I hate beatniks.

Edward quirked his lips farther up at my snort and embarrassment flooded my system. However, before any blushing could actually occur, something about his eyes caught mine and I was pulled through a dark tunnel, landing back into my dream once more. It was the epitome of bête noir. I almost expected Dick Tracy to show up. And he did, sort of.

First, I saw a pair of eyes. Haunted, scared, sad sadsadsadsadsad eyes. They wanted to cry. I knew it from the pinched corners, the grooves etched into the skin surrounding the orbs. I knew it from the eerie, dry sobs that echoed throughout the corridor of my dream. And it was a corridor. Just me, the pair of (familiar) floating eyes, and darkness. Darkness so complete that I should have felt scared. But those eyes. Those eyes. They were there and they were sad and all I wanted to do was comfort them as they were comforting me.

Then I was jerked along as the scene changed. A group of people in the distance, on the very same street my dream self had traversed just last night, were gathered about something on a park bench near the road. I was drawn inexorably forward, as if some invisible chain bound me and was being reeled in.

Slowly, oh so slowly, I made my way past unknownfamiliar territory, my eyes sweeping the night in an attempt to stave an impending dread. I dropped my head when the scenery became dominated by the group of men, wearing trenches and fedoras. I wished it hadn’t when I spotted speckles of blood shining up at me almost accusingly from the brick.

I could hear concerned whispering, angry cursing, that poor poor girl’s and if she’d been my girl she’d never have walked alone’s. Curiosity, they say, killed the cat. So I sighed and looked up; right into my very own, very dead, face.

I gasped, I froze, I –

“Bella!”     

 

***

Edward

 

            My grip was tight on Bella’s arms as she came out of whatever trance or daze she’d been in. In the peripheral of my mind, I realized that she would have bruises from my unrestrained strength but at the moment, I could focus on nothing other than the pallor of her skin, easily a hundred times lighter than her original coloring, which easily equals not good.

            Her eyes were wide and spooked, seeing something that was not there for others to see. Her respiratory system was overworking itself, trying to compensate for whatever fright had come upon her.

            “Damn it!” I wanted to read her mind so badly, to know what was haunting her. I wanted to be able to chase off the monster. But even if I could pluck it from her mind, there would be nothing I could do except to be there for her. And that is what I intended to do when she snapped out of her terror.

            I tried one more time to pull her out of it with a nearly shouted, “Bella!”

            Her eyes snapped close once, twice and then they focused onto me. Her breathing, still labored, caressed my face, the sweet scent making my still heart want to jumpstart itself into a million bests per second. I ignored the want this instilled in me, wanting to comfort Bella more than wanting her return my inappropriate affections.

            As her chest slowly returned to normal breathing capacity, I smiled comfortingly I hoped and whispered, “Welcome back to reality.”

            Her lips twitched into a nervous smile. Looking into her eyes told me she was not going to speak about this… episode. Not right here, in the middle of a school hallway with immature children jostling us left and right. I also knew that she was not going to tell me about it anytime soon. I did not blame her. We only met yesterday; it would be strange if she felt the need to share something so obviously personal, so obviously deep, with me. It did not mean that I did not want her to in any case, however. But I could wait.

            We started walking again and all too soon, acquired the sight of her classroom door. I slowed the pace of our walking as we approached, probing Bella’s eyes for a hint of whatever that was back there. But she was good. Her eyes were already shuttered, those feelings, that dream, put into a box and locked away.

            As we parted ways, wordless but somehow comfortable, I swiped my thumb quickly across her cheek and rubbed softly at the corner of her lips. An indulgence that I would not partake of again but one I knew I had to have stored in my memory. And where the hell is my guilt? Pain? My self-disgust? I am fucking monster!

            I pushed those thoughts aside, not wanting them to shine through my eyes as I smiled a wan smile and headed in the opposite direction. My eyes never left Bella’s until she entered her class, walking backwards just as I was. She promptly bumped into the coat rack, dropped her bag and disappeared behind the door as she fell on her ass.

            I laughed long and hard. Even through the wall I could feel Bella’s playful glare.      

 

***

Bella

 

            All throughout the last of my morning classes, I drifted in a sea of tired anxiety. And curiosity. When Edward had so sweetly run his thumb along my cheek, I’d caught a glimpse of something very interesting on his wrist. At the time, I was too busy melting into a pile of Bella colored goo to make any notice of it but now, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. He was wearing a bracelet – silver, fairly thin, with a name plat on top of his wrist and the rest made up of very delicate looking chain links. An ID bracelet. Something I’ve never seen outside of quaint, wholesome television shows from the ‘50s. And it was decidedly feminine. And, once again when it came to Edward, familiar.

            It looked like it belonged on his wrist and yet not. It felt like it belonged on mine. I sighed, turning my half-hazard attention away from the teacher and his ramblings on whatever of whatever and onto my own wrist. I turned it this way and that, watching in fascination as a facsimile of the bracelet, in ghost form, appeared. Like it belonged there, had been there before.

            My eyes slid shut stealthily, taking me by surprise. But I was tired; I didn’t have the energy to open them. So I allowed myself to drift into the dream. At least this way, when I didn’t fight it, the transition was not so jarring. Accepting it did not result in my feeling as if I was being torn away from another dream, this one more modern and real but somehow so, sososososososo wrong. And I couldn’t reconcile with myself why my life felt wrong and why the one in my dream world, the one in which I am DEAD, feels somehow right and yet… also wrong.

            I shake those thoughts from my mind, not in the mood for existentialism, and focus on what my brain wants to tell me now… I really wish I’d been on speaking terms with existentialism, I really do. Because now, I’m lying in my coffin. My parents, no one familiar to me a yet familiar, stand at the door to the hall, accepting condolences. This is somehow harder to watch than staring down at my pale, lifeless face. So I turn my attention back to my still body, examining it like a bug under a microscope.

            My eyes slipped over my left wrist, where they catch upon an even lighter strip of skin. Hard to do, since in the dream my skin is just as pale as when in real life, but spot it I do. A thin line around my wrist that had not been touched by the sun. A thin line exactly the shape and size of the bracelet on Edward’s wrist.

            I pondered the meanings, what my dreams were trying to tell me, as I examined the rest of the body. I hiccoughed in confusion and no little fear as I noticed what I had not in the previous scene. My neck, right at the juncture to the shoulder, bitten. An indentation of a pair of perfect human teeth resided there. I could see every single one of the teeth, count them and know that this person was very healthy indeed. This thought was the one to inform me that I was going into shock.

            I was jerked out of my musings as the bell rang, indicating class change. Which meant lunch. I packed my things methodically, not even paying attention to what I was doing. I couldn’t help but make the most bizarre connection between my dead body, the blood, and the teeth marks. It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd!.. it’s the only thing that makes sense.

            Vampire.

            It’s not as if I’ve avoided reading books with vampires in them. No, I enjoyed Dracula. I never really watched or read anything modern however, so I can’t fathom why I would be dreaming about being killed by a vampire. One who didn’t have fangs because weren’t the stereotypical vampire bites just two little puncture wounds from very long incisors? Even I knew that. It was ridiculous, is what it was.

            Almost as ridiculous as my inability to stop thinking about the dead face that other me. Cold, lifeless, wrong. I rubbed my left wrist, as vision after vision of my mortal flesh passed before my eyes. And somehow that felt wrong too. It amazed me that being mortal, trudging to an inexorable end like all humans do, felt wrong. And mixed in with all these thoughts: mortal flesh, decomposition, familiar but not familiar, blue andsocoldcoldcoldcold was vampire.

            Lunch passed but I barely even noticed. Mike made a stupid joke and pass at me and I bit his head off, the urge to growl – low and menacing, like an animal not a human facsimile – not leaving me anytime soon. Then, Biology and the concerned looks from Edward. He took my notes for me, aware I was too far gone to do anything myself at that time. We parted ways before last class, Edward passing his cell number to me in hopes that I’d call if I needed anything. I took it.

            This fog I was in was going to last a while, I knew. After school, I drifted towards the girl’s room, not wanting to drive in my impaired state. All I could think about, all that whirled around in my brain was that my skin felt wrong. Too warm, too soft, too vulnerable. Just a touch too pink, this mortal flesh of mine. Mortal flesh. It was wrong. I didn’t know why but it was so damn wrong!           

 

***

Edward

 

            Concern for Bella washed over me like a tidal wave. Only more like a molasses wave. Sticky, slow, unwilling and unable to move off. She was in her own world, a scary world that wouldn’t leave her alone. I swore I would protect her but how do I go about protecting her from her own imagination? I wanted to stay, watch Bella get into her truck and head home. I wanted to follow in my Volvo, make sure she didn’t crash and burn in that bucket of screws and nails on wheels. She would too, not paying attention to the real world as she seemed incapable of at the moment.

            Alice mentioned that she’d seen Bella enter the girl’s room, book in hand, obviously knowing she was unable to drive heavy machinery right then. I was relieved and disappointed at the same time. I’d wanted to see her once more before home.

            “Come along Edward. She’ll be fine. Get in, let’s go home. It wouldn’t help your cause any if she started to think you were stalking her.”

            Jasper’s soft country twang was right. I was enough of a creep. I didn’t need to start stalking her too. I nodded reluctantly and hopped into the driver’s seat. “Anything Alice?”

            She looked distracted, perturbed, as she searched for anything pertaining to Bella’s future. “Nothing. I just don’t understand. I’ve never had this kind of trouble before. I usually see at least a glimpse of something. But Bella’s a blank canvas, Edward. It’s like she doesn’t even really exist.”

            A chill went down my spine at that. It was absurd of course, but as personally invested as I was in the survival of this girl, it was devastating. Alice sees everything. It was really bothering me that she couldn’t see Bella. At all.

 

***

Alice

 

            It was at moments like this that I wish my mental ability to multitask was an available option with my precognitive abilities.

My Spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.

‘A fathomless and boundless deep,
There we wander, there we weep;
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.

Broken Love, William Blake

 

*nudge (n-oo-dge )- idiot, downer

 

********

 

I could smell her from fifty feet away. The beautiful, exotic, exquisitely painful odor wafting from the door to my next class informed me of the ordeal to come. Before entering, I stopped to check myself, make sure everything was under tight wraps. It was all well and good convincing myself that after The Incident, I had absolute control but it was entirely another thing to actually be confronted with the same decadent scent in such a short time and not react. I took one more deep breath just as the late bell rang.

I felt the burn and I relished it, but I did not feel the need to spring. Just the thought made me cringe in shame and self-loathing. A small quirk of my lip displayed my satisfaction at that thought as I walked into the room. And there she was. The perpetually empty seat next to me was now hers.

As I made my way down the aisle, I heard Mike Newton’s puerile thoughts. Stupid Cullen. He gets to sit next to the hottest girl in school. I hope she doesn’t start dating him. A flash of amusement flitted across my face before I stamped down on it, not wanting to encourage Newton into trying some sort of friendship ritual that would get him close to… he searched the minds of the children around him, searching for the girl’s name.

Isabella… no, Bella. She prefers Bella, so use that when you ask her out, you dill hole! Yorkie.

I stumbled, but recovered myself before any human eye could see me. I was right. Her name was Isabella. Bella. It was perfect for her. And it was another testament to the fact that this was my sentence.

She glanced up at me briefly as I lowered myself to the stool and then cast her attention once again upon her… doodling. Nice to know I rated lower than a bunch of squiggles.

That thought, slightly bitter as it was, caught me up short. There was no reason under the sun that Bella should ever think of me in any positive light. There was no reason at all that I should want her to. If not for her ‘40s doppelganger, she would have been dead. And that gives me no right to ask for her attentions. Whatever attentions I apparently wanted.

Mr. Banner called the class to order shortly after I settled my non-essential materials in front of me and then continued to lecture on something that was probably important. I did not pay attention, finding it more important to scan the minds of the children in the room, as I stared at Bella. I needed information on Bella and, just as her predecessor’s mind was, this Bella was closed to me.

Clumsy… how can he like THAT?!... I’ll be her knight in white armor… She’s going to kill herself, or worse, someone ELSE, if she keeps that up.

Visions flashed through my mind of Bella in her class before lunch – gym. She was a danger. I decided, then and there, that I would make sure nothing happened to her. I couldn’t save the other one, but this one I could. And I would. I sighed as the vapid thoughts turned down more queasy inducing paths. I withdrew quickly and turned my gaze to my new lab partner. She was busy tapping her pen against her notebook, her eyes wandering the room, flitting from person to person; almost as if she was in another world.

As I leaned toward her, intending to comment on her lack of enthusiasm (with intent to start up a conversation, then friendship so that my protecting her would not look weird), her eyes flew to mine. Her wide fringe of lashes widened slightly, making her eyes resemble the eyes of the doe I had killed the night before and suddenly, it was not this Bella looking up at me.

Cold and empty eyes, once a vibrant and velvety brown, stared up at me accusingly. Her skin, already paler than most humans, now the color of new fallen snow. The temperature the same. Her face was slack, no evidence of the concern she had displayed for a stranger decorating it. Her lips… ah, those lips that even in his bloodlust he had noticed. No longer lush and blushing, but only cold and blue. Her hair, tangled from his hands’ grip, splayed about her head. And even in death, she was hauntingly beautiful.

I jerked out of the reminiscence violently, my hands sending my books flying. Mr. Banner stopped lecturing and looked up at me, the class following suit. Bella’s brow wrinkled in that same way the other one’s had and she formed the exact same concerned question, “Are you all right?”

‘And even in death, she was hauntingly beautiful.’ Death is not fucking beautiful! I can’t believe I thought that. I really must have been distraught because I had not even remembered until this very moment that I thought that most vile of thoughts. I closed my eyes and took a deep, deep breath, held it, and then released it slowly.

Opening my eyes, I turned to Bella and smiled, saying, “I’m fine. Thank you.” I turned back to the teacher. “Really, sir. I’m fine. Sorry about the disturbance. I had a bad memory flash.”

Mr. Banner nodded hesitantly and turned back to the board. The students slowly turned back as well, with thoughts of freak, unnatural, and that ought to scare her off! floating through my mind. The only one who did not dismiss me so readily was Bella, her eyes still concerned.

I tried to smile but it felt more like a grimace and by the increase in Bella’s concern, I knew it was. Her hand started to raise and I stopped breathing, watching in what felt like slow motion as her appendage continued up, only to land gently onto my shoulder. She leaned farther into me and my breath hitched, pulling in a brief waft of her heavenly scent. I could have sworn my heart, dead for all these years, actually stuttered.

A strange feeling started to spread throughout my body. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. If I still had active sweat glands, I would bet my entire savings account that they would have been perspiring. My first thought was that it was an added layer of guilt and shame but I felt too… fuzzy. Those two feelings had been my bedfellows for longer than I would care to admit, making this new feeling harder to define. Somehow it was scary and… exhilarating all at the same time.

A true, genuine smile fought past my stiff lips as I stared intensely into Bella’s fathomless eyes. It was wrong. It was stupid. It was… very wrong. But at the moment, I could not care.

This new feeling was lovely. And for once, it was nice not wallowing in a bottomless pit of despair.

***

 

Bella

 

            Heaven almighty, but he was an angel sent from God to make my stay in Forks more tolerable! Don’t stare like a complete nudge*, Bella! The thought of this Adonis thinking me a nudge gave me the strength to shift my gaze back down to my notebook, as if he was a mere curiosity that I’d had my fill of and not something so beautiful that it hurt my eyes to look at.

            Mr. Banner started the class and, as I had already covered this section in my Honors Bio class sophomore year, I allowed my mind to drift. It’s not like I didn’t like the green. Green was great, in appropriate doses. And if it wasn’t saturated in an overabundance of rain. And didn’t she know that Cullen boy from somewhere?

            Startled, Bella examined that thought. It was impossible to have known… was his name Edward?... and then to forget him. No one would ever forget a face like that, with those extraordinary eyes. She resisted the urge to turn her head and stare.

A) It would be rude and 2) it would cause my mortifying blush and then a whole chain reaction and it just wouldn’t be good for anybody. I shook my head to rid myself of that unhelpful thought and, just as I was about to force myself back into non-Edward mind wanderings, I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. The prickle begotten when one was being stared at rather intensely. I sighed in consternation. Sometimes, and at the risk of sounding like a normal seventeen year old, being the new kid sucked.

            On the off chance that it was the incredibly gorgeous man next to me, I cast my eyes to the side, glancing at him peripherally. My breath stopped momentarily and then jump started into overdrive. He and his incredible eyes were gazing into me like his world depended on it. It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant thought. Just then, he leaned imperceptibly closer, gaining ground every second.

            My eyes, never really under my control, flew to his face and widened slightly in surprised pleasure – He was going to speak to me! – and I watched his mouth start to form a word. What that word was, I never found out.

            His body, already on edge, went rigid. He went totally still and his eyes unfocused, witnessing a scene none of the rest of us would ever know. It should have been eerie, watching him in the throes of some past horror, as still as stone as he was, but I only found it fascinating. I had never seen a person sit so still before, so silent and quiet. It was… relaxing.

            That is, until Edward jerked, his hand catching the books in front of him and giving them a one-way ticket into the wall ten feet away. Everyone, excluding me, jumped at the unexpected sound. I don’t know why it hadn’t affected me in the same way, but I was calmer. And concerned. Edward had a look on his face that I was hard-pressed to call anything other than… self-loathing? Shame? Guilt? All these and more, emotions I was starting to think I could never grasp flitted across his face at rapid speeds.

            I scrunched my eyes in concern and asked, “Are you all right?”

Edward closed his eyes, cutting me off from the haunted look that had begun to creep into them, took a deep breath and let it out before opening them once more. He glanced at me and said, in what I would later recall in less stressful times as velvety tones, “I’m fine. Thank you.”

He then turned back to the teacher. “Really, sir. I’m fine. Sorry about the disturbance. I had a bad memory flash.”

I watched in disbelief as the rest of the class, Mr. Banner included, quickly turned back to their activities. Couldn’t they see that was a lie? I sighed as I remembered all the observations I had done of the masses when I was in my little corner of the world, unnoticed and happy. I snorted derisively snorted, internally. Of course not Bella. People see, and hear, what they want to. If it doesn’t fit in to their prescribed little world, then it simply does not exist.

I was still gazing in concern at Edward and when he noticed I had not turned so callously away as the others had, he attempted a smile. It wasn’t convincing me he was fine so much as it was making it look as if he needed a laxative. Or got kicked in the man dangles by a steel-toed boot. Either way, it projected his misery as easily to me as if he were the satellite T.V. and I the viewer.

Being the soft-heart I was (overly soft according to some, but I dismissed them), I raised my hand, Edward watching it with… bated breath… the whole way. As if he was watching an anomaly, an aberration of nature. My hand settled onto his shoulder, rock hard and solid, and I rubbed so slightly my hand didn’t even seem to move. I leaned in slightly, wanting this to be a more private conversation, as I noticed the Newton boy watching me interestedly. A soft ‘fugh’ indicated Edward's skip of breath and, despite the serious situation; I felt a thrill shoot through me.

I was about to inquire further into Edward’s uneasiness when a blinding smile slowly emerged. I watched, enthralled, as it seemed to fight through some kind of barrier, like it was a warrior of light struggling to get through an army of darkness. It was then that I knew I was irrevocably, eternally in love.

***

 

            The bell rang, jerking me out of my stare-fest with Bella. I swallowed nervously – why am I nervous? – and cleared my throat. Well, if I wanted to be her guardian angel, now was the best time to get an in with her.

            I stuck out my hand, momentarily forgetting the icy-coolness of my skin, and said, “Edward Cullen. Bella Swan, right?”

            Bella blinked, clearing a look from her eyes that sent a foreign thrill down my chest and to my -! My eyes widened slightly before I refocused on Bella, filing that criminal emotion away until after school to deal with. Eventually, after what seemed like eons, Bella lifted her hand from my shoulder and shook mine and the space where her hand had rested on my body suddenly felt cold and bereft. Her tiny, delicate hands sent another thrill through me and I felt shame follow closely on its heals.

            I should not be getting sexually excited by a woman-child whose exact replica I had so mercilessly ravaged. It was sick and wrong. Before I could follow down that path once again, she spoke.

            “How did you know I prefer Bella?”

            I flicked my eyes to the side as my brain froze every time I looked into the dark eyes. They landed on Newton as he lingered impatiently at the door, glaring in my direction. An idea popped into my head.

            “Word spreads of the utter discontent voiced by new avatars in the student body.”

            Her lips twitched and I knew she was trying not to laugh at my utterly ridiculous statement, true though it was.

            She finally let out a tinkling laugh so beautiful, it overshadowed any vampire sound. “Poet, are we?” A slight blush flushed her cheeks after she voiced that thought and I couldn’t help but watch it avidly, utterly mesmerized.

            Before I knew it, the words slipped out. “Only around you.” Shock rippled through my body and I noticed it was mirrored in Bella’s lovely eyes.

            What the hell was that, you prick? You’re supposed to be a guardian, not Casanova-in-training!

            My flickered back and forth quickly, before once again settling onto Bella’s face. Her blush had returned full force, strengthening her wonderful aroma and triggering my salivary glands. Venom pooled thickly inside my mouth, but strangely, the only monster to butt its ugly head was the one called Desire. But I would not allow it. The killer does not get to be the beau. Not once, in any of the movies, does he win… and he shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.

            I coughed, to give my unease a physical action, and whispered, “We should get going or we’ll be late to our last periods.” Out of my peripheral, I saw Bella nod jerkily, her cheeks flaming an even brighter red. Not wanting to jeopardize the relationship that would allow me to take care of her, I asked, “Would you like me to show you to your next class?”

            Her innocent eyes darted up and then back down to her materials as she gathered them up. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

            I could not answer with anything other than a small smile. My guilt was coming back, with a vengeance, and now all I saw when I looked at her was the dead girl’s face, staring accusingly into mine. When Bella’s lips moved to speak, I heard hard edges and sharp points. “You kill me and then you lust after me! Perverted monster!”

            I flinched involuntarily and Bella noticed. She eyed me with a look I could not decipher and asked, once again, “Are you sure you’re all right?”

            I nodded my head. I was pretty sure she was starting to think I was a little insane. Hell, I was starting to think the exact same thing. What else was I supposed to think when a dead woman was talking to me? The rest of the walk continued in awkward silence, Bella watching her feet instead of me or in front of her.

            I did not really know what to do. Seeing her face and hearing her voice, along with my apparent attraction to her, was part of my long overdue penance, and I would gladly pay it. But should I really involve myself in her life? I was a vile creature of darkness, not fit to even be in her presence.

            Then again, there was this need inside of me, burning hot and bright, to make sure she did not cause herself harm. Surely, making her stay safe was an acceptable way to pay for my sins? I could not keep the other one safe, but I could try with this one. All my internal arguing kept me occupied until we reached Bella’s last class, AP English Literature. She was smart, I could not help smirking.

            Bella turned her head to me and smiled shyly. “Thanks.” I nodded once more – it seemed it was all I could do around her – and started to walk away. I turned around, walking backwards to watch as she entered the room. She glanced back, once, and I waved slightly. A blush caressed her face, making her lovelier than she already was. Her head whipped forward just in time for her to walk into a desk. I couldn’t help it. I let out a short bark of laughter before turning and proceeding to my American History class. I was certain Bella was glaring at me and it… amused me. Something was happening here and I am not sure it was a good thing. I should not be feeling light and airy. I should not.

            It wasn’t until right before the bell rang, to release the denizens of the school, that I realized Bella had not reacted to the cold of my skin. Curious.

***

 

            The car ride home was tense. Tenser than it ever had been before. Emmett had never sided against Rose in the many decades that they’d been together. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that Rosalie blamed me for this most recent split in the family. Of course, she blamed me for everything. She could not understand why I had to mourn the death of Isabella for so long and so hard. She may not be a human blood-drinker but that does not mean she had any soft feelings for them, her past murders could attest to that.

            To be fair, they had raped her and left her for dead. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and heard the plastic groan beneath my hands. I would not let her off like that. Unlike the rest of the family, I had no idea why Rosalie did not drink human blood. To her, they were expendable, irritating, not worth grieving over for decades.

I had a theory, however. Rosalie was a social creature. She liked to interact with many people. And she was vain. The life of a human blood-drinker was not conducive to being able to get along with more than just your mate and it was not a lifestyle that supported vast amounts of clothing and mirrors. Rosalie needed those to survive.

Esme and Carlisle would tell me I was being too harsh on Rosalie if they knew my most inner thoughts. But I was a mind reader. I was the only one in the family, with the exception – perhaps – of Jasper, who knew everything about Rosalie’s feelings.

I was sorry, for Emmett’s sake, for this situation. I hated being the vector of family splits, but this I will not budge on. I will be Bella’s protector; I will take care of her, as I could not do for her predecessor. Rosalie will have to deal, but for the time being, things were not going to be pleasant.

As I pulled into our drive, my thoughts drifted back to that delicate little thing. This one will be able to grow up, have children and a fulfilled life. This one will not end up a vampire’s meal. This one, I will not have a reason to wish I could weep bitter tears for my sins.   

New Orleans, 1940

It was unexpected. I was young. Too young to be able to resist such temptation. I could keep saying that, over and over. I could keep the repetition up, but it didn’t help. Her face. Her lovely, pale, young face didn’t disappear. It stayed there, staring up at me, my teeth marks on her neck and what was left of her blood trickling out of the wound.

I could hear my family behind me - their gasps of shock and pain - their sympathy. I didn’t want their sympathy. I didn’t deserve it. I wanted to mention that little tidbit as Carlisle crouched down next to the lifeless body, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. I was frozen in my self-loathing, my disgust for the very being I was. Stuck in this sickly skin, the skin of a murderer.

There was nothing Carlisle could do for her. “Perhaps, if we’d gotten here sooner…”

I emitted a dark growl, my pain and anger unleashing itself in a most unworthy direction. I glared at Emmet, my crimson eyes glowing eerily in the night.

“And force her into a life like this? A life consisting of the perpetual, raging need for blood? And then eternal purgatory when she finally loses the iron grip on her will and takes an unsuspecting human’s life?” I barked out a laugh, watching bitterly as the sound made my family flinch, especially Jasper; my stalwart, emotionally delicate, supportive brother.

I shook my head and stated the unthinkable, even as my shame spread through me like wildfire. “She’s better off dead than living this half-life…” My voice caught on a sob that could not escape my throat. “I did not know her. I could not read her-“ My family's shocked gasps escaped as I said this, but I continued as if they’d never spoken. It needed to be said.

“But I know that she was too beautiful to be tainted by my devilish flesh. I had no right to touch, either to drain her or even to help her across the street.”

“Edward!” Esme’s distraught cry pained me, but it was the truth. Even if those I had killed all those years ago had been innocents and not human monsters, this innocent angel would still have been the one least deserving of this fate.

Carlisle raised his bowed head. “We need to alert the authorities. I don’t want this child to be defiled in any way if she is left here to…”

I heard Alice as she nodded. She took off at a run to the nearest phone. Carlisle cleaned her wound and started to pick the girl up, out of the main thoroughfare.

The rest of the family and I followed Carlisle as he took the girl to the bench in a park nearby, Jasper right behind me with his hand on my shoulder, sending me waves of calm. I wanted to shrug him off, scream that that was not a gift I deserved, but I would not hurt my brother, nor my favorite sister, in that way. I would allow him to think his contribution was helping me, rather than creating more pain in my heart.

I knelt by the beautiful girl who, I had no doubt, was now a beautiful angel in flowing white. Masochistic as I was, I took her delicate hand in mine and placed a kiss in the middle of her palm.

My head bowed, I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I stayed that way, my family standing back to allow me to mourn the unfortunate demise of this lovely girl. I would forever remember her face - delicate pointed chin, lush pink lips with the lower adorably plump, Snow White skin, and sable hair, curly and long.

“The police come, my son.”

I nodded, about to get up and leave, when I felt a cold piece of metal lying gently against my forehead. I lifted my gaze to the woman-child’s wrist where I spotted a silver bracelet. It must have been tucked beneath the cuff of her dress and knocked loose when I’d moved. I unclasped it, feeling the lowest of the low, but knowing I needed something tangible to flagellate myself with. The family said nothing, knowing they would be unable to dissuade me.

“Edward! It’s time to go.”

I snapped out of my memory of approximately 60 years ago and back into the present, my thumb caressing the name on the silver bracelet. I nodded and sighed as I got ready for my third year, now as a junior, at Forks High. As I walked out the door, I snapped Isabella Swan’s bracelet onto my wrist, where it had resided for the past half-century or so, and steeled myself for the looks, thoughts, and feelings of every hormonal pre-teen and teen in the town.

                          





Click picture to get wallpaper size.

Not my first wallpapers ever, but certainly my first Twilight wallpapers. Very simple and basic. I'd just had a thought about how vampires can't cry and this phrase begged to be paired with a Cullen. They're not really professional-looking but that's because I'm still learning.

Please comment if taken and used. 

A.N.Sorry for the pathetic attempt but I wanted to contribute and this is the crap that spewed forth.

What do you say? Dinner, baby?

Jack shook his head in frustration. Yeah, that'll catch the guy. Sound sleazy. He threw the bouncy bal at the wall again. It hit with a smack! and ricocheted back towards Jack. The colonel caught it automatically, his mind still on the problem of asking one Dr. Daniel 'Don't Tell Me What to Do' Jackson out on a date.

Hey... baby! How's about we get down and dirty? Jack sighed and dropped his head into his hands, the bouncy ball pushing into his left eyeball.

"Smooth, Jack. Very smooth. And what's with your damn fixation on calling Daniel baby?"

"You like to call me baby, Jack?"

Jack whirled around, shock spreading across his face. There, just behind Jack, stood Daniel, a smirk spreading across his face. The archaeologist's eyes twinkled as he said, "I hope it's not because you think I should still be in diapers."

Jack just stared. Daniel pushed off from the door and walked slowly towards his team leader. "But from the blush creeping across your face, I'd say it was the sexy baby. Am I right? Baby."

Daniel kicked the door shut.

You read the title but just in case you didn't know what it meant - say no to a ballot called Proposition 8, a ballot that will essentially write into the Constitution discrimination against a certain group of people. Now, I'm not a political science anything here, but wasn't the Constitution written to GIVE people rights, not to take them away? Pretty soon, there will be people campaigning to have women out of the workplace if we let this abomination of a ballot to pass. Then soon after that, blacks and asians will find their freedoms reduced and before we know it, America will have become the Third Reich. Attractive thought, no?

Proposition 8 is just another way for people to bully others into living the way they see fit. Because the supporters of Prop. 8 are afraid of people finding happiness in ways they can't fathom, they want to shit on their parade and effectively make homosexuals second class citizens. I ask you, what harm does gay marriage bring to the world? What harm does it bring to happily married heterosexual couples? I can't see the connection. So, what, two men get married - how does that affect the man and wife down the street? 

Gay marriage can not, in any way, affect another person's marriage, so why are these people trying to take this right away from homosexuals? I'll tell you why. Because they are narrow-minded bigots who aren't happy in their own lives so they decided, "Hey, let's go make someone else unhappy! Let's target the gays!" 

Homosexuals are just as human as heterosexuals. They have the right to love, to live, to marry. And for all those saying that homosexual marriage will ruin society as we know it, well, you're just an idiot. Gay marriage will not bring down the straight marriages, will not eradicate straight marriage, and it sure as hell won't corrupt anybody. In fact, gay marriage could help our world as we know it. There are too many people in this world. Our land is not expansive enough to feed everybody that exists. Gay couples can't really have children but they can adopt, which would solve another problem we have. Too many children with no family or home, who grow up in the system and sometimes become criminals. These children could just as well be adopted by the gays - married or not - and grow up in a loving environment and not become criminals. 

But I digress. The point of this entry is to encourage all those fair minded people out there to not allow narrow-minded ones to take away a person's rights. 

Say NO to Proposition 8.   

Go Miss Maverick!

Anyone know the history and origin of the word maverick?

I don't think it's irrelevant to the minds of today, I just think people are more interested in something that can give them a longer sense of enjoyment. Plus, they don't generally examine poetry in middle/high school unless it's a specialized course that students elect to take. I just don't think people are aware of how powerful a poem can be because they aren't really exposed to it or haven't been on a regular basis.