Edward In PE

Chapter 5: Alice
Runs Track

“It’s a pity that all that dress material is going to waste,” I said glumly, staring through the windshield of the Volvo at the beads of water rolling across it. The windshield wipers swiped the glass with a rubbery thwick-thudd, thwick-thudd. “Do you know how hard it is to find satin of that quality outside of Hong Kong?” Edward’s jaw tightened.

“You know what will happen if we attend,” he muttered darkly, as the car hydroplaned. I swore under my breath, cursing my pre-cognition. I focused my “sight” on prom night once again, re-examining the vision that had originally caused Edward’s “tennis-ball” incident. To my chagrin, nothing had changed in two days. There were still just three possible outcomes that could take place if Edward and Bella were to attend senior prom.

Future #1: If Bella wore the four-inch strappy heels I’d bought her, she’d break an ankle dancing. During an open-reduction-internal-fixation surgery in the hours following, a blood clot would form, travel directly to her brain, and cause a stroke that would leave her both mentally retarded and partially paralyzed. Not a great way to spend eternity as a vampire.

Future #2: If Bella wore the cute little ballet flats I’d bought her, one of them would slip off partway through the evening. She’d step on a rusty nail, causing a necrotic bone infection. Her left foot would require an amputation, leaving her dependant on a prosthetic limb. Also not a great way to spend eternity as a vampire.

Future #3: If Bella wore shoes with a medium heel, a chance encounter with a stranger in the shoe store would set off a chain of events that would ultimately result in a train derailing in China, killing over a hundred people. Worse…I would somehow end up as prom queen (as a result of the fake essay Edward entered into the contest under my name. His idea of a joke). Fine for Bella’s new undead life, but not great for the struggling Chinese transport system. Or my dignity.

Once Edward realized the scope of his precarious prom possibilities, he’d given Bella an ironclad promise that they would do something special that weekend that didn’t involve formal wear or decorated gyms. Bella was unreasonably relieved.

I didn’t think his decision was fair to me. I only got to unveil Bella’s beauty so often, and heaven knew, there were plenty of shoes she hadn’t tried on…

“No more shoes, Alice,” he said warily, reading my thoughts. “I’ve made up my mind. We’re not going.”

Rats, I thought. With the finality of his words, the three prom scenarios vanished from my mind, leaving a nice (albeit less exciting) vision of Bella in her room alone, doing homework. How completely unlike a ball, I thought. What a pity. They dance so well. Edward shook his head at me and leaned back in the seat of the car, steering with one finger. His expression was a mixture of amusement and thoughtfulness.

“Look on the bright side,” he said. “At least you have the satisfaction of knowing that Mike and Jessica will have a good time at prom. I’ve been meaning to thank you for your participation in my little scheme to hook them up.”

“You and your interference in the affairs of mankind,” I said, still annoyed that my prom plans had plummeted. “A year ago humans bored you. You used to scoff at my interest in their little daily dramas and love triangles. Now look at you. A regular twenty-first century Emma Woodhouse.” Edward shrugged.

“Mike needed a beauty to rescue. Jessica needed to be the heroine instead of a side character stuck in a sub-plot. I needed entertainment. Orchestrating all that was rather fascinating.”

“Roughly translated—you like playing God,” I accused. Edward pondered that thought for a moment.

“Perhaps I do. Which reminds me…”

“Yes?”

“You know that twenty million dollars I stuck in Starbucks stock a month ago?”

“You mean the twenty million that’s somehow managed to grow to fifty million in record time, thanks to me?”

“Yeah. That twenty million.”

“What about it?”

“How’s it going to do if we keep it in this week?”

“I’ll check.” I closed my eyes. Several vivid images flashed across my mind. Edward drew in a sharp breath.

“Ouch. Who could foresee that McLattes would be such an international hit?”

“Starbucks is seriously going to make people pay to use their Wi-Fi next year?” I shook my head. “That’s just corporate greed. Don’t they realize that that will cost them their college market share?” Edward tilted his head to one side.

“I dunno. I still like the company. Sure, it’s not clear whether the majority of their coffee is fair-trade, but at least they give their part-time employees health-care benefits. That’s got to count for something in today’s economy.” I groaned.

“I’m not going to get into the universal healthcare debate with you again,” I said swiftly. “Nor will I discuss the exploitation of third-world farmers. I don’t need visions of the future to see that those discussions will just get us both mad.”

“I can accept that,” Edward said, laughing. “All right. If Carmel Macchiatos are going to fail in next year’s economy, what’s going up?” I concentrated. As if by magic, images of iPhones, MacBooks, and iPod Touch devices swirled through my brain.

“Good enough?” I asked. Edward nodded. I slipped a prototype half-pound, five millimeter thick, titanium notebook computer from my backpack. Emmett and Jasper had built the thing in the VBC one summer afternoon when they were really bored. (The “Vampire Bat Cave” was what we called the lovely basement in our house where we kept all our illicit stuff. It was entirely inaccessible to anyone who wasn’t a vampire, since you had to uproot a tree in order to get into the secret entrance). I’d had a vision of the technical specs of a laptop from 2018, written engineering notes down, and given my brothers a week to make it. They rose to the challenge. The comp was waterproof, even when submerged at a depth of two hundred feet—not that I did much underwater browsing. It contained fifty gigabytes of RAM, a hundred terabytes of ROM, a fifty GHz Intel dual processor, and a high-def archive of every movie ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It also hijacked a cool satellite signal that enabled excellent wireless Internet anywhere in the world…including the Gobi desert (I knew from experience). It had access to more secret government files than the CIA, FBI and Interpol put together. To top it all off, when charged for one hour, the battery lasted two years before it needed to be charged again. Unfortunately, it was cleverly disguised as a battered copy of Windows ‘98 for Dummies. Emmett’s idea of a joke. I opened the lid.

“Password?” the computer asked audibly.

“Rotate-left, left-up, right-down, middle-left, right-down, right-down, middle-left, middle-left, right-down, top-right, top-right, right-up, middle-right, middle-right, right-down, right-down, middle-right, right-up, top-right, top-right, left-down, rotate-right,” I recited. My computer buzzed to life.

“Dedmore Fish?” Edward exclaimed, staring at me in disbelief. “Your password is Dedmore Fish? What is this? 1985?” I laughed. In the early eighties, a toy known as the Rubik’s Cube hit the market, driving millions of teenagers crazy as they spent tear-filled hours attempting to solve the darn thing. Jasper was practically pulling his hair out, overwhelmed with all the waves of frustration and obsession that bombarded him from every direction. When the fad reached its peak, he could take it no more. Desperate to rid the nation of its emotional crisis, he developed a series of algorithms which, when done in order, would invariably solve the cube. He published the solution under the pseudonym “Denny Dedmore” (the play on words of “dead more” being his idea of a joke. He originally had planned on calling himself Denny Dedman, but Carlisle thought it was too obvious). The final twenty-two steps of the puzzle were a complicated series of twists we called the “Dedmore Fish.” The book sold millions of copies and became an international hit overnight. Since we didn’t need any more money, we searched through the phone books and found a guy in Portland who actually was named Denny Dedmore. We diverted all funds from the book sales to his bank account and he ended up living like a king, hailed by mathematicians everywhere as a technical genius. It was an interesting decade for our family.

“Back off,” I said. “I loved the eighties.”

“The clothes we wore…” Edward’s eyes crinkled in the corners as he winced and shuddered.

“Oh, they’re coming back, and you will wear them. Believe me, I know. I’ve seen your future and it involves skinny jeans.”

“Ugh,” he said, thoroughly disgusted. I grinned as I pulled up an e-trade site and logged on. Within five minutes, I’d liquidated Edward’s coffee stock and bought twenty million dollars worth of Apple shares.
“Whatcha wanna do with the leftover thirty million?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. We’ve done the Amnesty International thing four times this week.”

“We could always start a bizarre college scholarship,” I suggested. Edward laughed.

“From the anonymous donors at Pacific Northwest Trust? Sure. Why not?” I pulled a map of the United States from the glove compartment. I closed my eyes and pointed to a random spot. When I opened them, I found that my finger had landed on Kalamazoo, Michigan.

“How ‘bout we set up a fund that pays for four years of college for any student currently enrolled in the Kalamazoo school system? Regardless of grades?” Edward chuckled.

“Kalamazoo is a funny name for a town. Make it so.” My fingers were still flying across the keypad, sending emails and setting up mutual funds as Edward parked the silver car. I completed the transactions by the time we reached the front door, where Bella was waiting for us. I looked a week ahead, saw the NBC news coverage of our philanthropic deed and gave Edward a thumbs-up.

“Done,” I said. Edward gave me a nonchalant high-five. Bella eyed us apprehensively.

“What have the two of you been up to?” she asked suspiciously.

“Playing God,” I said lightly, shutting Windows ‘98 for Dummies with a snap. “It’s something your boyfriend likes to do for fun from time to time.” Edward shot me a disapproving look. Bella raised her eyebrows.

“Should I ask?”

“We were just amusing ourselves in the car,” Edward said quickly. “Don’t worry about it, love. Let’s go to class.” The two of them walked down the hall together, leaving me alone in a hall of delicious mortals.

Great. I thought. It’s going to be one of those days. Everyone smells like food. I left my raincoat and backpack in my locker, grabbed my books and headed to English.

I passed Mike and Jessica on the way to class. Jess was hobbling along on crutches, playing up the injury that I knew would be completely healed in a week’s time. I avoided Tyler’s mournful gaze as I took a seat out of reach of Lauren’s hateful green eyes.

When lecture began, I opened my notebook and pretended to pay attention, allowing my note-taking to act as a cover so I could tune out the present.

I let my mind wander to Italy, sifting through the wispy strands the future until I caught a few threads of Volterra, three hours from the present. I could see that Aro was fully conscious that something was rotten in the state of Washington…particularly in Seattle…but that he’d still made no move to send the guard.

Good. We’re still safe, at least for a while, I thought.

Next, I pulled my consciousness to the killings in Seattle. Visions of carnage floated into view. The murders were escalating. Within seven days, the death toll would be over thirty. I shuddered. Still, I couldn’t see any of the attacks reaching outside the city.

Mildly reassured, I tried to follow Victoria’s future and was surprised to find that I couldn’t see her at all. I frowned, trying again.

Nothing.

I opened my eyes and thought through the possibilities. Only three plausible explanations came to mind.

One, she was on Quileute land, in proximity to the mangy stink dogs, rendering her unseen. Two, she had somehow been killed. I didn’t think that likely. Three, she’d figured out a way to hide herself from me. Unlikely, but it had happened before. In 1972, Jasper realized that by rapidly changing his intentions he could keep his future from crystallizing, avoiding my sight. It took a lot of concentration, and whenever Edward tried the trick he got a migraine, but it did work. I pondered the idea. If Victoria had figured it out, it would explain her invisibility. But how was it possible? We’d only met once, and I’d never revealed my gift to her.
Puzzled, I moved on to Bella’s future, five years down the road. There were thousands of different scenarios that came to my mind. They were hazy and dreamlike…like looking at vague reflections in a pool. Nothing was concrete. However, from what I could gather, after careful scrutiny, it seemed that out of the most formed and most likely of her futures, she had six in which she was dead. In one of the futures in which she was not dead, she was a graduate student at the University of Alaska, working on her master’s degree in English Literature. In another not-dead scenario, she was working on a creative writing degree at Dartmouth. In the remaining seven visions that were clear enough to examine, she was a vampire. I examined those seven visions carefully. Bella hunting tigers. Bella kissing Edward. Bella shopping with me. Bella as a red-eyed murderer, killing Mike Newton. Bella reading a book on Van Helsing. Bella as a pregnant vampire joining the army. My eyes flew open and I laughed out loud. Mr. Berty looked up in surprise. I pretended to cough and wheeze a little, to cover up my giggling. Pregnant vampire Bella joins the army? I thought, amused more than I should have been.

“Ridiculous. Impossible,” Edward hissed angrily from several seats away, making no eye contact with me. Apparently, he was monitoring my thoughts again.

Improbable, I corrected. But I’ve seen it, so that must mean that there’s a way that it could happen.

“Not a chance. Not a freaking chance.”

I suppose that if she slept with Jake before you bit her but felt guilty about betraying you, she could run away with a guilt complex… A feral growl emitted from somewhere low in Edward’s chest.

“Not possible!”

So it’s possible for a vampire to be pregnant for all eternity with a werewolf’s baby. Very interesting. But how would that affect… Edward interrupted before I could carry that train of thought any farther.
“Forget the five-year possibilities. Can you make yourself practical and see if she even lives through the next month?” His voice was quieter than a whisper—spoken in frequencies that only dogs and bats would be able to hear. I smiled. We were good at our private conversations. It’d gotten easier since our three siblings had graduated…no chance of being overheard anymore. I closed my eyes and hit the re-wind button in my mind, flying backward through time till I arrived precisely two weeks from the present. I saw Bella on the phone in Charlie’s dated yellow kitchen. She was ordering tickets to the Hanson concert in Tacoma as a graduation present for me. Excellent. Bella knew how much I loved Hanson—one of the lead singers bore a striking resemblance to my husband.

Jasper…I thought. Suddenly, all my thoughts were bent on him. I saw him hiding behind a dumpster in an alleyway in Texas, near the Mexico border, still as a statue. He let the shadows shield him from the daylight. He was waiting for something. Something or someone.

Try as I might, I could see nothing else pertaining to Jasper. I leaned back in my chair, perplexed.

Why would Jasper be going to Mexico? I thought back to his former life with Maria. A pang of irrational jealousy hit me. I knew that his ongoing attachment to the monster that had created him was different from the unconditional love and devotion that he felt for me, but she was still a part of him somehow, a part of him I’d never touch. One of the curses of my gift was that being omnipresent in the future made the past (Jasper’s past in particular) that much more of a mystery from me—a mystery that drove me insane. Was he planning on going back? Would he spill human blood once again? Would he revert to his former ways, becoming a killing machine once again? If not, what was he doing down there?

I spent the rest of my afternoon in worry. I barely registered Angela’s soft talk of graduation plans or Bella’s complaints about her calculus exam. Thoughts of Jasper overwhelmed me.

“Alice? What’s wrong?” Bella asked, as I emptied my untouched tray of food into the trashcan when we finished “eating.” She linked her arm with mine as we walked to the locker room together. I swallowed the venom that welled in my mouth as she drew close to me. As far as food went, Bella smelled as decadent as a chocolate fudge sundae. To me, she was mouth-wateringly sweet and very tempting, but resistible somehow. A treat, rather than actual sustenance. I couldn’t imagine how Edward handled his cravings.

“I’m worried about Jasper,” I admitted. “I’ve been seeing things in his near future that bother me.”

“Are you going to talk to him about it?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.”

“Why wouldn’t you? You love each other so much. If there’s a problem you should talk through it.” I hesitated.

“I know. I love him but…well…true love is complicated.”

“Tell me about it.” She laughed, knowingly. Suddenly—abruptly—her future disappeared. I gasped.

“What?” she exclaimed, surprised.

“I can’t see you.” I glared at her, as I comprehended the ramifications. Her eyes widened, then her face went from white to red. Muttering under her breath, she spun away from me and pushed her way into the locker room. I hurried after her.

“You’re not going to La Push after school Bells,” I growled, my hand clamping around her wrist. “You know Edward wouldn’t like it. It’s not safe. We won’t let you put yourself in that kind of danger.” She yanked her wrist away angrily, her eyes on the floor.

“I need to check on Jake. I can’t leave things the way they are with him.”

“What part of ‘no werewolves’ don’t you understand?”

“I owe him an explanation, Alice. He’s hurting!”

“Edward will find a way to prevent this.”

“My God! Sometimes I can’t stand you two!” She stamped her foot.

“Haven’t you ever heard of minding your own business?”

“Easier said than done. Besides, you are our business,” I said fiercely. Bella stared at the floor, her lips pursed. I sighed and started over.

“Try to see it from our perspective. You matter to us more than all the rest of the humans in the world put together. We’re terrified of losing you. With that in mind, you have to remember that you’re a gaping blind spot in Edward’s field of vision. Don’t you know what it does to us when you go disappearing from mine as well?”

“Big deal. So the all-knowing duo can’t monitor my every move. Get over it.” I put my fingertips under her chin, forcing her to meet my eye.

“Bella…we love you.”

“That doesn’t give you right to try control how I live my life or who I’m friends with.”

“We’re trying to do what’s best for you!”

“You’re trying to play God,” she said through clenched teeth, crossing her arms. I winced, remembering my words from earlier. Her face was red and her eyes were glistening. The smell of her blood warming was delicious. I grimaced, looking forward to the day that she would smell less like a snack and more like a sister. I sighed and put my arm around her.

“Come on Bella. Let’s drop this. We’ve got to get to class.” She nodded, disgruntled. We changed our clothes in silence and headed outside.
The rain had stopped at about noon, leaving the outdoor track covered in dull puddles that reflected the gray of the sky. It was unusually warm for early May, and the morning rain had left the air damp and muggy. I prepared myself for an hour of utter drudgery. I hated gym. Being a vampire in PE was like working at Taco Bell after earning a master’s degree in culinary arts.

Carlisle insisted that we strive make ourselves appear as normal as possible in gym. We had to splash our faces with water to make it appear that we sweat. We had to avoid physical contact so that other students wouldn’t feel how hard our skin was. We had to stage strategic trips and stumbles to avoid the interest of collegiate sports recruiters. Rules, rules, rules.

Of course, there was good cause for the rules. We used to derive a smug satisfaction from our superior physical performance in athletics. It all changed in 1964, however, when Emmett qualified for the Summer Olympics after beating Ludvik Danek’s world record for the discus throw. The Volturi threatened to intervene if he didn’t get himself “injured” and stay out of the public eye. Carlisle had to come up with bogus x-rays to convince the athletic trainers that his scapula had been fractured. It was all pretty lame. Since then, there was an unspoken agreement among all Cullens that when it came to sports we needed to keep a low profile and refrain from showing off. In other words: no fun allowed.

Granted, I had to admit that gym had been more interesting than usual in the last few days—what with all the incidents involving balls—but still…

“All right everyone! Please stop talking!” Coach Clapp yelled. The students ignored him. Exasperated, he blew his whistle.

“SILENCE!!!” he bellowed. Immediately, the class shut up. He began pacing.

“Today, as most of you know, we are beginning the track unit of our curriculum!” His announcement was met with a series of excited shouts and defeated groans. Bella bit her lip, apprehensive.

“To warm up, we will begin with a hundred jumping jacks, fifty push-ups, and fifty sit-ups. Everyone together...begin!” I began jumping, keeping easy rhythm.

“One…two…three…four…” our class counted out loud.

“Sis…you should have worn a baggier shirt,” Edward whispered, again, in a pitch that no human could have heard.

Huh? I thought.

“There is a particular part of the human female anatomy that is supposed to bounce up and down with this sort of kinesthetic movement. I know that sports bra technology has improved significantly this century, but no spandex device could be that good.” I frowned, puzzled.

Edward…why are you checking out my breasts?

“I’m not. Tyler Crowley is. His thoughts are practically shouting about them.”

DAMMIT. I thought. I could hear Edward chuckling softly. I shot a glance sideways, towards Tyler. He was, indeed, staring at my chest. I stopped jumping and bent down to tie my shoe, removing myself from his line of sight. When I stood, I backed up a foot or two, making it so that Tyler would have to physically look over his shoulder in order to watch me. I resumed the jumping jacks.

“Thirty-one! Thirty-two! Thirty-three!” the class yelled.
You know, while we’re discussing crazy teenage hormones, I think Jessica’s checking out your butt.

“Half of the pathetic human girls in this class are checking out my butt,” he whispered lightly.

Don’t let it go to your head.

“Awww…but I was going to use my powers of gorgeousness to break all manners of hearts in a two-week stint as a man-whore.”

Edward…the hundred-and-six-year-old prude who hasn’t even made it to second base… suddenly becoming a man-whore? Right.

“How would you know whether I’d reached second base?”

Oh puh-leeze. Bella’s been planning to seduce you, ever since you came back. Believe me, I’d see it if one of her plans were to actually succeed.

“You know…there’s certain parts of my life that you don’t really have to keep tabs on.”

There are certain parts of my mind that I prefer you stay out of. Yet here we are, having this conversation.

“Fifty-eight! Fifty-nine! Sixty!”

“Not fair, Alice. You know that you have an easier time shutting my future out than I have of shutting your thoughts out.”

That’s cause all I have to do to shut you out is to get an annoying song stuck in my head.

“Not this again...”

Cause I like big BUTTS and I cannot lie! You other brothers can’t deny! That when a girl walks in with an itty-bitty-waist and a round thing in your face you get…

“Point taken. You can stop that now…”

SPRUNG! Wanna pull out your tough. Cause you notice that butt was stuffed. Deep in those jeans she’s wearing, I’m hooked and I can’t stop staring!

“ALICE! CAN IT!”

“Eighty-two! Eighty-three! Eighty-four!” the class counted.

Oh baby I wanna get with you. And take your picture! My homeboys tried to warn me. But that butt you got makes me so…

“I am officially logging off of your neural networks. Edward out.”

“Ninety-eight! Ninety-nine! One hundred! Everyone down! Push-ups! Real ones. If your strength gives, you can go down to your knees, but I want everyone to do them correctly! Butts down. Bodies flat. Begin!”

As I lithely stretched my body into a plank and began my push-ups, I flipped through different pages of the future. The farther out I tried to see, the more possible futures appeared. So many choices that people hadn’t made yet; so many options people were weighing in their minds. Ambivalence really was the thing that shot my powers in the foot. Weaving through multiple realities was overwhelming looking even two weeks out…three weeks out. Nothing I saw that was more than a year out was really all that certain. Looking ten years into the future was a real headache; it was like reaching for the stars and finding only bright nebulous clouds. I backed the train up, closer to the present, finding the vivid futures that were the most nearly formed. I stopped, as if hitting a pause button, when I arrived at Edward’s honeymoon.

This looks entertaining. Should I get some popcorn?

“Vampires don’t eat popcorn. Stay out of that part of my future.”

I’ll stay out of your honeymoon if you quit putting me on Bella-watch, I thought. Edward growled.

“You irk me. How can someone so tiny be so annoying?”

This is all beyond ridiculous. If you’d hurry up and stop torturing yourself and just turn her into a vampire, we all could stop worrying about her safety. And you’d finally get laid. The sexual tension between you two is maddening. Just do it and get it over with.

“Don’t rush me, Alice. If you rush a miracle, you get rotten miracles.”

Making it to second base is a miracle?

Our bantering went on through the crunches. When we were done, Coach Clapp blew his whistle and had us line up at the beginning of the track.
“Today, you will be running two miles. Seven times around the track is one mile. For those of you who can’t do third grade math, this means that you will be running fourteen laps.” Eric raised his hand. “Yes, Mr. Yorkie?” Coach Clapp said.

“I have asthma. May I be excused?”

“Do you have a doctor’s note?”

“No.”

“What is my policy on being excused from class?” Eric hung his head. His glasses slid down, nearly to the end of his oily nose.

“I need a doctor’s note.”

“In that case, I think that you will be running today! Anyone else have an
excuse?”

“Yeah. I think I’m going to die,” Bella whispered to me. “Why would I want to run? I don’t even like to walk.”

“NO TALKING!” Coach Clapp yelled. “Everyone at the start line. Keep track of how many laps you’ve done. Now, I know that some of you run 10k’s every weekend and are in the best shape of your lives.” Tyler and Mike high-fived each other. “I know that some of you are lazy couch potatoes who never increase their heart rates if you can help it.” Erick Yorkie shifted from one foot to the other. “I don’t care what level you are, my expectations are the same for all of you. Run as far and as fast as you are possibly able to. If you get to the point that you cannot go on any farther, you can walk. As soon as you are able to resume running, I want you to start running again. Remember to breathe in through your noses and out through your mouths. Breathe in from your diaphragm to prevent side stitches. Those who finish first will stay at the finish line and cheer in those who are slower. Be there for your classmates! Encourage them! Give them the strength to finish. Are you ready?”

“YES!” cried the NVB, as Bella moaned something that sounded vaguely like “I think I feel sick.”

“On your mark…get set…” he blew his whistle and we took off.

Of course, I could have completed the two miles in minutes…nay…seconds. However, that would have been rather counter-productive to the whole hiding-my-secrete-vampiry-identities bit. So I began the fake race…in dreadfully slow motion.

The trick was that neither Edward nor I could come in first. That’d look suspicious. Even if we came in second or third, we’d look too fast. Neither of us played varsity sports (Carlisle’s rule). To outdo the in-season athletes would be suspicious. So Edward picked a spot in the crowd that was halfway between Tyler and Morgan. I pulled right up by his side. Lap by lap, one of us would pull inches ahead of the other, only to be passed again. When we got too close to passing Tyler, we’d fall back to the point that we were even with Morgan, and then we’d begin the little cycle again. We crossed the finish line together after about seventeen minutes. Respectable, but still believable paces. I stumbled a bit as I slowed to a stop, pretending to catch my breath.

What a farce, I thought. I made my way to the drinking fountain, where I faked sipping at the water, splashing it over my face and through my hair.
I cheered wildly as David Greenman, Angela Webber, and Ben Cheney crossed the finish line in a pack. Several other students passed, and we congratulated them as they went.

“Hurry up! GO GO GO!” Coach Clapp yelled over his megaphone. “I don’t want to see any slackers!” Ten minutes later, Jessica and Lauren crossed the finish line. Another three minutes later Eric crossed the line, puffing on his inhaler. Finally, at long last, Bella rounded the last bend of the track at a slow, clumsy jog. She looked miserable. “Come on everyone! Cheer her in to the finish!” Coach Clapp called. The class yelled and screamed at her to hurry up. Embarrassed she picked up the pace, pulling herself across the line. Mike Newton clapped her on the back, awkwardly trying to give her a hug she didn’t quite return.

“Great job everyone!” Coach Clapp called. “All right. Everyone grab the hand of the person closest to them.” I searched out for Edward, but he’d already taken Bella’s hand, snatching it out of Mike’s. Tyler reached for mine. I looked desperately for another partner, but everyone around us seemed to have found someone. Why hadn’t I seen this coming? Coach Clapp must be pulling something on a whim.

“We’re going to practice taking each other’s heart rates!” he called. I want everyone to find your partner’s radial pulse. Palms up, elbows bent! Follow the line of your partner’s thumb down to the wrist and rest your index and middle fingers in the groove just inside the bone. Do not use your thumb, as that has a pulse of its own. We will count for fifteen seconds, on my mark. Multiply that number by four, and you will have your number of heartbeats per minute. Are you ready?

A clear, solid, forceful vision abruptly came to my mind. I watched Tyler check my pulse. In the vision, he became concerned when he found my skin ice-cold after running two miles on an unusually warm day. I saw his confusion grow to alarm when he found no pulse. While any other classmate might dismiss this as a fluke, Tyler had played varsity sports enough to know precisely where to look and was concerned enough about me to raise a stink. I watched in horror as the gym teacher pulled out his stethoscope and blood pressure cuff to check my vitals. The vision ended as suddenly as it had started.

I opened my eyes, alarmed. This was not good. Would this end here, with a suspicious gym teacher, or would he consult the school nurse? No nurse could be fooled. I thought quickly, trying desperately to think of a way out.
I saw Eric puff on his inhaler and got an idea. I collapsed to the ground.

“Alice?” Tyler said.

I clutched my throat and began wheezing heavily, pulling the oxygen I didn’t need into my lungs in strangled bursts. I rolled myself up, put my head between my knees and tried to constrict my airway as much as I could.

“I…can’t…breathe…” I gasped. The class broke rank and stared at me, astounded.

“Ms. Cullen!” Coach Clapp cried, striding over to me. “Are you all right?”
“Asthma! Can’t breathe…forgot…inhaler…” I wheezed again, loudly this time, for good measure.

“I didn’t know you had asthma,” Tyler said, scratching his head.

“Exercise…induced…help!” Coach Clapp felt my hands, which were still wet from the drinking fountain.

“My God! You’re breaking out in a cold sweat,” he said. The class was murmuring in concern. Jessica began whispering to people around her, standing on tiptoe, hopping a little, trying to get a better view. Her cell phone would have a field day with this one. Eric Yorkie, however, was not going to miss this chance to be a noble, valiant boy.

“Alice!” he cried, running over. He kneeled down next to me, shaking me his blue plastic device. “Here,” he said, putting it in my hand. I grabbed the inhaler and took a puff of Ventolin. The droplets of albuterol misted through my lungs, tasting mildly repulsive. Human chemicals. Gross. I don’t think I’ve been forced to take human medicine since 1968 when I faked a low-back injury to avoid a field trip on a sunny day, I thought. I took one more puff, just for show. I held my breath, looked around, and exhaled.

“Thanks Eric. I’m fine now. I think you saved my life.” The chess-nerd virtually puffed with pride. Tyler looked a little miffed.

“Do you want me to take you to the nurse’s office?” Eric offered, smiling widely. I noticed that one of his pimples had burst sometime during his run. Ew.

“It’s okay Yorkie, I’ll take her,” Tyler said, stepping closer to me.
“No, really, I’ll do it. I’m the one who knows a thing or two about asthma.”
“But I was her pulse partner. I should take her!”

“Excuse me boys,” a velvety voice said, from behind me. “If you don’t mind, she is my sister. I’ll take her.” I turned my head and accepted Edward’s hand, grateful for the escape. We headed back into the building together.

“Asthma?” he said softly, golden eyes twinkling. “Seriously?” I wheezed. He laughed, a hearty, lively sound. “I had to intervene. If you could only have heard what those two were thinking.” I grimaced.

“Actually, I think that for once, I’d prefer it if you left me in the dark. Sometime there’s such a thing as too much information.”

“Perhaps you’re right sis. Perhaps you’re right.”

Rosalie and I sat cross-legged on the thin industrial-grey carpet of my small hospital office, gingerly sorting through a pile of resumes that threatened to topple like a stack of Jenga blocks. I pulled one off the top, careful to avoid an avalanche, and skimmed the first page.

Name: Al V. Olee

Purpose: To obtain a five-year surgical residency at a small community hospital under an attending physician with an excellent reputation in cardiothoracic sugary.

Education: Valedictorian at the University of Michigan, BS in Biomedical Sciences, 2000. Graduated from John Hopkin’s MD program in May of 2004. Internship in Cardiothoracic Sugary at St. Germain’s Hospital.

Research Project: The effectiveness of the ICF model in predicting outcomes and prognosis in patients with migrainous vertigo: a retrospective study.

With a sigh, I tossed the entire application into the “rejected” pile, growling with discontent. A hibernating grizzly woken by the sound of Emmett loudly singing You Are My Sunshine would have been less annoyed. “Cardiothoracic sugary?” I muttered in disbelief.

“Another typo?” Rosalie asked, wickedly amused.

“This applicant has gone to college for eight years to specialize in sugary,” I said, in a disgusted voice. “Sugary! As in ‘sugary doughnuts.’”

“Too bad there aren’t any Krispy Kreme shops near Forks—we could forward them his application.” Rosalie laughed disdainfully, tossing her shimmering hair over her shoulder. “Look on the bright side: at least it’s better than this one.” Her gold eyes sparkled behind their long black lashes as she held a stapled document up. “This applicant’s special talents include ‘good manners in bed.’ I hope she meant to say ‘good bedside manners,’ otherwise she must have misread the job description. How dim-witted.”

“What’s so hard about making sure that your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are in order before you lick your stamp? Or that your materials look professional?” I complained, making a face at a resume that was printed on fluorescent green Kermit the Frog stationary before tossing it aside. “Seriously? Do they think this will honestly get my attention in a positive way?”

My blonde daughter was diligently helping me to pick out twenty lucky candidates (out of the whopping hundred and eighty six applicants) whom I would interview for the five positions that I had open for surgical residents. I’d been back from the big hospital in “L.A.” for a total of two weeks, and already the line was forming—apparently news traveled fast in the land of rain and muck.

It wasn’t surprising, really. Although I tried to keep a low profile, my reputation as a surgeon paralleled my reputation as a mentor and instructor. Within hours of my calls to Washington State University and Howard University (the two medical schools affiliated with Forks Community Hospital) notifying them that I needed residents, word traveled throughout the medical community on a national level. Within two days, the mail started pouring in, each candidate more qualified (or more numbskulled) than the last. It was a bit overwhelming. Even with my speed-reading abilities, choosing the best of them wasn’t easy.

Fortunately, Rosalie had graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University’s MD program and knew enough about the health professions to know what to look for in a developing surgeon. I loved having Rosalie at the hospital with me. I’d learned long ago that beneath her hard and oftentimes callous exterior lay a very different sort of person; one who was compassionate and very much in touch with her human side. Though it often intimidated those around her, her stubborn and tenacious attitude was valuable when it came to saving lives. Only when exposed to those who were in desperate need did that caring persona surface. Like Edward, she had a natural drive to help the helpless (which was her reasoning behind going to medical school in the first place), but unlike Edward, she handled her thirst in the hospital environment well enough that she actually completed her medical school internship and residency without even coming close to killing anyone. She’d been well on the path to becoming an excellent doctor when a mandatory rotation in the neo-natal unit broke her heart and stopped her medical profession in its tracks. Nevertheless, she often proved a valuable asset to my medical profession, and was constantly perusing journal articles, keeping me in the loop on all the latest procedures.

The hospital had not done well in my absence. My reputation as a surgeon had previously brought in patients from far and wide, even from out of state, for elective procedures as simple as rotator cuff repairs and lumbar laminectomies. During my previous employment at the hospital, one operating room was exclusively mine, to do scheduled surgeries in. The other OR was for the rest of the surgeons to use in the cases of emergency operations (which, to be honest, were a rarity in Forks). Since my departure, the flux of voluntary operations had come to a violent halt, costing the hospital millions of dollars in revenue, as not only one, but two ORs went unused for days on end. To make matters worse, shortly after my departure, three of hospital’s best attending physicians were offered teaching jobs at a medical school in Grenada. When told that they could make more money drinking Pina Coladas on the beach every evening, they left the cloudy land of Seasonal Affective Disorder faster than you could say “Vitamin D.” With the loss of half of their doctors, the hospital’s finances were going down the tubes. My decision to move back to Washington had been the cause of much rejoicing: it saved the HR department from having pink-slip fifty employees.

Knock-knock. The sound at my office’s door brought me out of my reverie.

“Come in,” Rosalie called softly.

The door burst open and an enormous vampire flounced in. He was wearing a faded red baseball cap, a goofy grin, and a black tee-shirt that appeared to be eight sizes to small.

“Hi Emmett,” I said, smiling at my boisterous ox of son. “What are you doing up here?”

“I came to deliver a message to Rosalie from…me!” he said broadly. She looked up, pleased to see him, but perplexed at his unannounced arrival. He cleared his throat. “The message is this: I love my wife! I love her! So much, in fact, that I had to bring her something special so she could remember just how much!” He thrust a bundle of obnoxiously neon orange and pink long-stemmed Gerber Daisies at her. The blinding, clashing colors glared up at her. She pressed her lips together and took them.

“Um, thanks honey,” she said, bemused. Her expression plainly said my husband is ridiculous. Cute, but ridiculous. I’m a sucker for cute and ridiculous. “That was really thoughtful. What’s the occasion?”

“Occasion? Bah. I don’t need no occasion.” He waved his hand, his eyes twinkling. “I missed you, I missed you, so I came to kiss you!” With that, he puckered up and planted a big, wet smooch smack dab on her mouth, unapologetically wrapping her into a crushing embrace. She pulled away after a few minutes, giggling. It was then that I noticed that his that his tiny black t-shirt had the words “I Love My Phlebotomist” emblazoned across the front.

“Emmett,” I said incredulously, suppressing a grin. “Where on earth did you get that shirt?”

“From the Red Cross volunteers in the front lobby,” he said proudly. He turned around, displaying the back of the shirt, which said “Give Blood, Save Lives” on it, followed by the Red Cross logo. “They were selling them to raise money and awareness for hemophilia, so I donated five hundred bucks. Unfortunately, they were out of every size but small.”

“Try not to breathe,” I muttered. “You might bust out of it like the Hulk.” But I had to smile, despite myself.

“The Red Cross people were also trying to encourage everyone to go to the third floor and donate…they’re doing a blood drive today,” he said.

“How did you get out of that? Did you tell them that you were afraid of needles?” Rosalie asked slyly.

“Of course not!” he scoffed. He gave her a very serious look. “I have an ironclad excuse not to donate: I spent the majority of last summer in West Africa, hunting hyenas with you. I very well could be infected with West Nile. Also, we had a layover in London, where we 'ate' 'beef.' We’re potential carriers of Mad Cow Disease. It wouldn’t be very conscientious of me if I went around contaminating the masses with prions now, would it?”

“Not very conscientious at all,” I agreed wholeheartedly, with a completely straight face.

Rosalie smirked. “I take that you managed to resist the temptation of the bag-o-blood buffet this time?” She arched one perfect eyebrow. “It wasn’t that long ago that you and Jasper raided the University of Portland’s blood drive, pretending to be candy stripers.”

Emmett took her hands and leaned in, touching the tip of his nose to hers. “No candy striping today, hun. These good-looking eyes are still gold.” And indeed they were. He grinned brightly, his dimples deepening. Rosalie practically melted.

At that moment, my cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. Edward.

“Hello?” I said, flipping it open.

“Bzzzzz hssssshe isssaaaaaaa pssssss.”

I frowned. “Edward…I can’t hear you at all. Speak up.”

“Bzzzz hsssshe isssssaaaa psssssss.”

“That was no better. One of us must be in a dead zone.”

“Don’t you mean undead zone,” Emmett said in a knowing voice, wagging a finger. “We’re only mostly dead, you know. Mostly dead means slightly alive.” Rosalie rolled her eyes. I put my finger to my lips, silently telling him to shut his yap.

“Bzzz hsssssshe issssaaaaa pssssss,” Edward said, this time more urgently. I ignored Emmett and walked over to the window, scrunching as close to the glass as I could get.

“This should be a little better,” I said. “The equipment in this building causes a lot of interference. I can never get a clear signal in here.”

“Can you hear me now?” Edward asked.

“Yes, but you’ll have to speak clearly and slow down. There’s lots of static. What’s up?”

“Erm…” he paused awkwardly. The next sentence came out in a rush. “There’s been an accident at school and it was our fault.”

I took a deep, although unnecessary breath, trying to remain calm. “Please tell me this wasn’t in gym again.”

There was an uncomfortable silence at the other end of the line.

“Well?” I implored.

“So Alice and I are in gym right now…” he began. I sighed.

“What is it this time?” I asked, dreading what was coming. “Another broken windshield? Spraining people’s ankles on purpose to get them to go to the prom together?”

Edward hesitated, and then spoke sheepishly. “Contact lenses.”

“Come again?”

“You know how that representative from Acuvue came to the hospital with samples of colored contacts last week? The day we were up to get Jessica’s ankle checked out?”

“Uh…yes…”

“Well, during all the ballroom dancing stuff that was going on that day, I caught Jessica thinking about how weird and creepy Alice’s eyes were. I got a little paranoid and started wishing there was something I could do to look more human. When the rep offered me a thirty-day trial of disposable lenses, it seemed like a great idea. I figured that, for the sake of blending in better, I’d should at least try the contacts…I mean, they were free and all.”

“Edward! We’re billionaires. Why would you try something like that just because it was free?”

“Because they actually look peculiarly nice. I tried the blue ones. When you put blue contacts over yellow eyes, they turn green. They’re almost back to the color they were when I was human. I think Bella likes them. She even said they was sexy.” I clenched my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut.

“What does any of this have to do with the accident?”

“I’m getting there, Carlisle. Do you remember Lauren Mallory, from when you taught sex-ed last year?”

“The blonde girl who thought she was pregnant and was worried about ruining her figure?”

“Yes! That’s the one.”

“What about her?”

“Today she somehow got it into her messed up head that I was in love with her, as absurd as that sounds. The girl is utterly delusional.”

“This has to do with your contact lenses how?”

“You see, the lenses were the culprit of this whole incident. Acuvue’s contacts are hydrophilic and the pH of my venomous tears must have been incompatible with them, because my eyes have been dreadfully irritated all day long. Absurdly itchy, in fact. Long story short, Lauren thought that I was winking at her when all I was trying to do was to adjust one of my contacts. She jumped to the conclusion that I was flirting with her! She then decided that the best course of getting me to go out with her would be to literally take out her competition by whacking poor Bella in the knee with her hockey stick.”

“So Bella’s hurt again?” I said with a sigh. “Does she need treatment?” The girl’s already thick file had tripled in size over the course of our absence. Stupid reckless motorcycle rider…

“Relax dad. Bella’s fine. It’s Lauren who’s not. Alice saw that the blow would result in a torn ACL, MCL, and lateral meniscus, which would put Bella in crutches for months. She went all avenging angel and rammed into Lauren from the side. I think she ruptured Lauren’s spleen.”

I gasped. “Edward! A ruptured spleen is serious!”

“I know! Why do you think I’m calling you?”

“Has the gym teacher checked her out?”

“He examined her and found eleven out of ten pain in her shoulder that was diffuse and hard to locate. That by itself is a red flag...only referred pain from viscera presents that way. It was not affected by motion or resisted strength tests, and the MOI was a blow to her left side, bruising her eleventh and twelfth ribs. I saw the bruising because she was wearing this ridiculous crop top. I was reading her thoughts, and nowhere in them did she describe her pain as dull, achy, sharp, shooting, throbbing, or in any other terms that would indicate that her injury was musculoskeletal, nervous, or vascular in origin.”

“Edward, if her spleen is ruptured, she needs surgery now. But I don’t want any false alarms. This isn’t the first time you and Alice have injured humans in gym class and it probably won’t be the last. I know you feel bad about the New Jersey rugby incident of nineteen seventy-four, but you can’t let that make you live in fear for the rest of your life. Are you sure it’s her spleen?”

“Yes! I’m certain! The Kehr’s sign is positive.”

“Has Alice had any visions that would indicate how this is going to turn out?”

“Not yet, but I don’t need Alice to check the prognosis. I’m a hundred percent certain my diagnosis is correct. She requires medical attention quickly, or she may die.” Something about the urgency in Edward’s voice made me trust his judgment.

“What can I do?” I asked quickly.

“Go ahead and book the OR, Dad, and send an ambulance immediately.” Emmett, who had heard every word of the conversation, was already on the phone with the paramedics, and I could hear the sirens blaring as they left the hospital, and the dispatchers announcing the incoming emergency over the ER loudspeakers. Off in the distance, I heard the sound of nurses scrambling to prep a treatment room.

“Consider it done. But Edward…it’s been decades since you went to medical school. Are you certain it’s not just her supraspinatus or something?”

“Yes. I’m positive.”

“How come Coach Clapp didn’t call 911?”

“The gym teacher is an imbecile,” he said darkly. “Please hurry. I don’t want another murder to be on our hands.”

“I’ll see you soon,” I said. I snapped my phone shut and ran out of the office, leaving Emmett and Rosalie behind.

I got to the ambulance bay just as the paramedics were arriving, a yellow gown covering my clothing, hands gloved. The rubber of the ambulance tires squealed on the asphalt, and the flashing lights blinded me momentarily. The doors opened, and Alice and Edward hopped out, followed by the medics, who were transferring the backboard onto the gurney. Lauren lay unconscious, breathing from a portable tank of O2. There was extensive bruising around her belly. I felt her abdomen and found it to be rigid. Not good.

“Report,” I said, nodding to the paramedics, as we wheeled Lauren to the ER. They recited a medical history back to me that was virtually identical to what Edward told me on the phone, minus the bits about mind-reading and contact lenses. They informed me that they’d called the girl’s parents, but couldn’t reach them, and that half of the gym class would probably be in the waiting room soon. Edward and Alice ran alongside me and I began questioning them in swift, high tones, inaudible to the humans. We made no eye contact, and to the casual observer, it would have appeared that I was simply praying for my patient under my breath (which wasn’t all that unusual for me).

“Alice…what’s the prognosis?” I asked.

“Bad. Very bad.”

“Will she die if we don’t operate?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“What will happen if I do a splenectomy?”

“Your two surgical techs and nurses do not have the expertise necessary to tie the splenogastric arteries while you remove the spleen. She’ll bleed to death.” I looked at her, impressed.

“Since when have you been fluent in medical terminology?” I asked, wondering if she’d been spending her recent nighttime hours watching old DVDs of ER, back when George Clooney was still on the show and it was still worth viewing.

“I just saw a vision of her death certificate, that’s all.”

“Ah. Well, what will happen if I recruit Dr. Snow and her team to help?” I asked.

Alice closed her eyes. “Dr. Snow’s water just broke. Her two residents are delivering her baby, and her five interns are observing, since they need to watch a live birth to fulfill their educational requirements.”

Fabulous. Just what this hospital needs during a physician shortage: a maternity leave, I thought. I looked at Alice. “What will happen if I recruit a resident from another surgeon to scrub it?”

“None available. Two are scrubbing in on a CABG, and the other three are with patients, doing consults.” I clenched my fist, wishing I could move to Grenada.

We arrived at the ER, where the paramedics transferred Lauren onto a treatment table. My nurses busied around me, attaching the girl to bags of saline and vasoconstrictors. I asked one of them to hand me a syringe with a four inch needle, which she promptly did. I jabbed the tip through Lauren’s linea alba, one inch above her umbilicus, and pressed through until I felt a sudden decrease in tissue resistance. I pulled back on the syringe, drawing fluid from her abdominal cavity.

Blood.

Though the red fluid was inside the syringe, I heard Edward and Alice immediately stop breathing. I glanced over and saw that both of them had strained expressions.

“She’s bleeding internally,” I told the head nurse. “There’s no time for a CT to confirm the provisional diagnosis. We’ll have to operate immediately. She’ll need a blood transfusions and the fluid in her abdomen will need to be drained to keep the increased pressure from damaging her other organs. ”

“Prepare to transfer to the OR,” she told the other nurses. I bolted into the hall, beckoning for Alice and Edward to follow me. Once in a quiet corner, out of earshot of the nurses, I looked intensely at both of them.

“Are there any surgeries that I could perform that would save her life?” I asked.

“No. She’ll die no matter what you do,” Alice said. I looked deep into her eyes, troubled, then looked at Edward.

Is she a good person? I thought at him.

His fake green eyes crinkled at the corners, confused, and I could tell that he was probing my mind, trying to get to the intention behind the question. “No, Carlisle. She’s not. She’s selfish and betrays her closest friends on a whim. She cheats, she lies, and she’s altogether loyal to no one.” His glance grew wary. “Why do you ask?”

Has she put her faith in God?

Edward gave me a cynical, disparaging look. “You know I don’t believe in all that grace stuff,” he muttered darkly. “Sin demands atonement…restitution, and no one can make things right but the sinner himself.”

Love covers a multitude of evils. Only by grace…

“Grace!” Edward’s expression grew troubled. “Letting people who do wrong off the hook, just because they say a prayer? How is that fair, Carlisle?”

“I’m not asking whether you believe. I want to know if she does.” Edward was silent for a moment, pondering my statement.

“No,” he said finally, still frowning. “She does not believe.” My heart sank and my thoughts raced desperately.

My struggle with my faith had begun early on, when I was the teenage son of a zealous preacher whose quest to rid the world of witches, werewolves, and vampires was propelled more by a fear of the unknown than by love of his God. How could hateful behavior that sought out death and destruction be something that I was supposed to admire? Years later, when I became a doctor, a whole new set of issues came my way, as I faced the problem of pain and suffering—finding it hard to believe that God was good when I was telling the eighteen year old victim of a drunk driver that he will never walk again, or explaining to the loving mother of three young children that her breast cancer is terminal. I’d seen family members pray for my patients to be divinely healed hundred of times, and I’d watched them die regardless. I’d seen the lives of newborn babies snuffed out like the light of a candle, minutes after their births, and watched their mother cry out in anguish. It seemed so senseless, so meaningless.

Yet, despite all this, I could not deny the existence of God nor his hand on my life. Each time, in over three hundred years, that I’d tried to turn my back on him, I found nowhere else to go. As so many saw our undead existence as damnation, I found in it my higher purpose, a unique gift from God to improve this world I inhabited. With such purpose came an equally high temptation to stray, but through His grace I'd found the strength to fight the lure of evil, the lure of the blood all around me. So many times I'd argued with Edward over God's grace and forgiveness, unable to convince him that there could be more for him, and that he was anything but damned. I lived each day hoping and praying that I would hear “Well done, my good and faithful servant; in you I am well pleased.” If only all my children could join me in that belief, and understand that to whom much is given, much is required.

If salvation through grace was possible for me, it was possible for this poor, wretched girl before me. But would she die before she had the opportunity to accept it? Prior to this afternoon, she had the entire rest of her life to repent—plenty of time to change. If she died right now how, she would be damned, and my family would be partially to blame.

“I’ve seen her mind; she deserves to be damned,” Edward said indifferently, in response to my thoughts. I looked at him sharply.

“So do you, and so do I,” I said quietly. “But we are not gods. It is not up to us to decide who deserves to die.” Edward fell silent.

“What she deserves doesn’t matter,” said Alice said in a practical voice, cutting through the theological musings. “She’s out of time.”

“There’s no way to buy her more time then?” I asked despondently.

“Well, there is one way,” Alice said, in a knowing tone.

“But you won’t like it,” Edward said, reading her mind.

“Well?”

“You could always change her,” Alice said.

I frowned. “You're right; I don't like it."

"You're not the only one," Edward muttered. I gave him a sideways glance.

"Even so, it is worth considering, if it’s the only way to save her.” He knew that I was referring to more than just physically.

"She'll be a very...er...colorful addition to our family," Alice said. "She'll certainly keep us on our toes. I will make life very interesting."

"If by'interesting' you mean 'a walking nightmare'," Edward said, giving Alice a look that said you can't be serious.

“But think of it! Two new sisters in one year!” Alice countered brightly. “The girls will outnumber the guys for once and two of them will be newborns! You know what that means?”

“That we’ll have our hands full trying to prevent a massacre,” Edward muttered.

“Yeah, that too, but more importantly, two of the girls in our family will be stronger than Emmett! How fun. It will totally tip things in our favor in guys versus girls tug-of-war.”

“But we already have a self-absorbed, shallow, pigheaded, perpetually eighteen-year-old blonde in our family,” Edward said, scowling. “Do we really need another one?”

“Edward!” I said, shocked.

“Look on the bright side,” Alice countered. “I mean…if anything ever happens to Rosalie, we’ll have a spare.”

“This is no time for joking!” I said fiercely. “Her soul hangs in the balance!”

Edward shrugged. Apparently, now that her death looked certain, he wasn’t about to mourn. “She’s chosen her own path.”

“But we hold the power to allow her to turn from it!” We stared at each other defiantly.

“You don’t want to change her, Carlisle,” Edward said, with a voice that held the softness and firmness of velvet covered brick. “I can see it in your mind. Your very being recoils from having to make that sort of choice again. Do you really want another Rosalie on your conscience?” My unbeating heart sank. Changing Edward had been a reasonably good decision, and changing Esme had been the best decision I’d ever made. But Rosalie resented the undead life, and if I could go back, I’m not sure if I would have done such a thing against her will. Could this new daughter conform to our self-sacrificing ways or would she become another mad terror like Victoria? Could saving this one life cost dozens of others? The hallway whizzed around us, and though there was noise all around us, the world seemed to tunnel in, as though we were the only people in existence. The sound of Lauren’s heart thudded at me from the other wing of the hospital, its importance holding my attention over all other sounds.

Lubb-dubb. Lubb-dubb. Lubb-dubb. I could her that her diastolic blood pressure was getting dangerously low. Her time was running short.

Lubb-dubb. Lubb-dubb. Lubb-dubb. I imagined her mother and father standing over her grave, tears in their eyes, wondering if the doctor had told the truth when he said “We did everything we could.”

Lubb-dubb. Lubb-dubb. Lubb-dubb. I began to pray, as off in the distance I heard the gurney push its way through heavy doors with the circular windows. Heavenly Father, please give us another way. Make a way where there is no way, I prayed.

At that moment, Alice’s eyes unfocused. For a split second, she stopped walking, as though she was having an absence seizure. Edward drew in a sharp breath.

“Alice…what do you see?” I asked. “Is there another choice?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her gold eyes meeting mine, filled with awe.

“But that can’t be right.” Edward said shakily.

“It will work...she will live. Better than that…when it’s all over, she’ll live differently,” Alice breathed.

“But I can’t do that!” Edward cried angrily. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“But you can do it. I’ve seen the outcomes, and if you do it, she’ll live.”

I interrupted, my voice patient, despite my frustration. “I know you’re both omniscient and all, but you’ve left me in the dark. Would you be so kind as to explain what you both see?” The two of them communicated so intimately that they sometimes forgot that no one else could hear their private conversations.

“There’s a way to save her without changing her,” Alice said simply.

“How?” I asked.

“If Edward participates in the surgery, he can suture the broken vessels while you remove her spleen,” she said happily.

“But I’ve never performed surgery before!” Edward protested. “All that blood? Are you crazy? I don’t have that sort of self control.”

“You’ve spent how long resisting la tua catante with more success than anyone in vampire history and what you’re worried about now is your self control?” Alice asked, in polite tone, subtly laced with mocking irony.

Edward’s perfect face was anxious. “I resist Bella because I love her. I have no such attachment to this girl. How can I know that I won’t slip up?”

“Because I’ve seen it,” Alice said, with a sense of finality.

“Your visions aren’t perfect,” Edward retorted, and Alice stuck her tongue out at him.

“That’s correct, son, but really, what do we have to lose?” I pleaded. “If you fail, she dies. If we do nothing, she dies. But if you succeed, she’ll live. It really is our best chance.”

“But…” Edward’s green eyes darted back and forth as he tried to think of a way out of this. “Don’t you think that you’d rather have Rosalie scrub in than me? I mean…she went to medical school too.”

“If Rosalie does the surgery, she’ll die,” Alice replied. She then glanced up, giving her statement another thought. "Well, I see nine possible futures in which Rosalie does the surgery and she dies. I see one in which she lives, but Rosalie 'accidentally' removes her uterus as well as her spleen."

"That's good enough for me," Edward said eagerly. "The girl should never be allowed to reproduce anyways. That's probably the best way to go."

"Don't be ridiculous," Alice said, rolling her eyes. "You know it has to be you.”

“But…”

“Don’t argue. Go scrub up,” I commanded. “And take those idiotic contacts out if they’re irritating your eyes. I want your vision to be perfect in there.” For a moment, he looked like he was going to protest. “Now,” I said quietly, with a tone of calm assertion. "Go." He clenched his jaw, gave me a funny look, and then ran to the surgical locker room.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Fifteen minutes later, my bescrubbed team was assembled under the glare of the overhead lights in the spotless, ugly, green-tiled room. The blue paper sheets of the sterile field were draped over my patient; her abdomen was swathed with betadine, and the anesthesiologist had Lauren’s vitals under control. Her left arm had been draped over her right shoulder, to get it out of the way, a bolster under her left hip and ribcage to tilt into a semi-sidelying position.

“I’m ready Carlisle,” a low, satiny voice whispered behind me. I moved a foot to the left, and Edward slid against the operating table, quite close to me. I felt a stab of guilt for what I was putting my son through.

Many people are under the impression that the draw and desire that vampires feel for human blood is akin to the draw a human might feel towards chocolate cheesecake or perhaps a potential mate whom they are lusting after. This is, of course, entirely wrong. When exposed to flowing blood, the burning pain that a vampire feels in his throat is as painful as a third degree burn. The blistering, feverish discomfort cries out to be quenched. To one unaccustomed to resisting, it is utter torment.

I’d spent three hundred years constantly around human blood, and it hardly affected me any longer. Sure, the fragrance was mouthwatering, but it didn’t drive me mad. Edward, however, up until a year ago, was unable to bear it. It was the reason he never pursued a career in medicine, even though he had a strong desire to help people and openly emulated my profession. I knew that simply being around Bella had helped to desensitize him (he was able to resist devouring Tyler Crowley a year earlier when he was bleeding in this very hospital because, as he told me later, “his blood had nothing on Bella’s"). Yet…his exposure to flowing human blood other than hers had been terribly limited. Was I causing him unnecessary pain?

Edward knew how to do surgery…in a strictly textbook fashion. His knowledge of anatomy was impeccable. His hand was steady. I had confidence that he could do the procedure. But how he would respond to it was another thing all together.

Please God…help my son. Give him strength.

I greeted my surgical staff, introduced Edward as a resident from another hospital that was scrubbing in (they didn’t recognize him behind his goggles and mask) and asked them to call him Dr. Olson.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

I glanced at Lauren’s monitors. Heart rhythm normal. SpO2 98. Sixty beats per minute. A nasogastric tube was inserted and a large gague IV was dripping ketadine into her right brachial artery. I asked the nurse who was recording the procedure to begin taking dictation.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

“Splitting the rectus abdominis vertically, one centimeter left of midline,” I said, as I made the first incision through the plastic of the sterile field. I sliced down, from her xiphoid process to the level of her umbilicus. Blood began to well, filling the OR with its delicious aroma. Automatically, my vision sharpened, my hearing became more sensitive, and I felt more alert. The hunter impulse had, long ago for me, turned into an asset. Edward, on the other hand, was no longer breathing.

“Suction,” I said, nodding to my tech. She began collecting the blood for autotransfusion. Once enough blood was out of the way, my surgical nurse used a set of spreader bars to let us see what was left of Lauren’s spleen.

It was bad. The entire structure was ripped along its peduncle, and its smooth lateral surface was swollen and damaged, obviously torn. One of the small splenogastric arteries was completely severed.

Edward immediately reached in and clasped the peduncle in his left hand, stopping the flow from the splenic artery.

“May we continue?” I asked the anesthesiologist, checking the monitors for change in blood pressure. He nodded. Edward then used his right hand to push her stomach and colon out of the way.

“Blunt scissors,” I said. My tech handed me a pair. As I cut a hole in the splenogastric ligament, Edward proceeded to ligate the peduncle. Once his left hand was free, he cut through the peritoneum and passed a hemostat below it.

“Dr. Olson, please clamp, sever, and tie the splenogastric arteries,” I said, handing Edward a set of forceps. “Avoid the stomach wall.” Edward nodded, still not breathing, and proceeded to do as I’d requested. “Time to remove the spleen,” I said to my techs. The first handed me a set of surgical scissors. I reached past Edward, rotated the organ, cut the ligaments that connected it to the left kidney and large intestine.

“Are those sutures completed Dr. Olson?” I asked. Edward nodded. “Good. As soon as I cut this away from the pancreas, I need you to begin suturing the vessels. Understood?”

“Aye.”

“Excellent. Removing the spleen.” I made the final cut and plopped the organ into a metal pan that a nurse was holding out for me.

“SCORE!!” came a muffled soprano voice cried from above. Muffled to Edward and I, that is, but entirely inaudible to anyone else in the room. Soundproof glass. Almost. I glanced up.

Emmett and Alice were in the viewing galley up above. The first was groaning in defeat, while the later was doing a victory dance. I watched as a wad of cash passed from Emmett’s hands to Alice’s.

“I knew he could do it! I knew he could do it!” Alice said smugly. Emmett sulked and slumped in the bleachers. Alice poked him in the shoulder. “In fact, I told you he could do it. I told you I saw him do it. But did you believe me? Noooooo.”

"Your visions aren't perfect!" Emmett said.

"Pretty close, though," Alice argued.

“When will I learn that betting against you is stupid?” Emmett grumbled.

“Christmas Day, 2064," Alice replied. Emmett swore violently. I tilted my head and directed my thoughts to Edward.

How long have massive monkey and mini monkey been hanging around up there? Edward rolled his eyes.

“Since the very beginning. Emmett thought watching me devour Lauren would be highly entertaining and was convinced that I couldn’t make it. Alice saw that I could do it and saw it as a chance to make a quick buck.” His voice was too high and quick for the nurses to hear.

But our family shares one giant checking account!

“True, but entirely beside the point,” Edward said. “It’s the shame associated with handing that much cash over that really matters.” I sighed.

Don’t they know that the viewing galley is for licensed physicians only?

“Yep.”

They don’t care, do they?

“Nope.”

“Fantastic,” I muttered under my breath, turning my attention back to the surgery. Edward had already finished suturing the splenic artery shut and was quickly doing what no human would have been able to do: he was actually tying off the dozens of tiny, impossible to find diaphragmatic arteries, the ones that we usually just cauterized. Why are you doing that? I asked silently.

“Any time you cauterize tissue, you carry a risk of burning the surrounding viable tissue,” Edward said mildly. “By tying them off, I minimize risk to the patient. If I am going to do this, I’m going to do it right.”

The rest of the operation went by with textbook perfection. We sopped up the remainder of the blood with sterile sponges. My nurse released the clamps, and we sutured her abdomen up. I was careful to align the tissue to leave minimal scarring. I finished dictating the remainder of the surgery, and that was that.

“Excellent job team,” I said to my techs and nurses, who were clearing the area, taking off the blue drapes, and readying my patients for transfer to a private room in the post-surgical unit. The anesthesiologist was weaning her medications and I could tell that within forty-five minutes, she would be groggily awaking and asking for morphine. “Can everyone give a round of applause to Dr. Olson, and thank him for filling in?” a smattering of thanks filled the room and Edward uncomfortably waved.

“I’m going to…er…go get cleaned up,” he said. His tone was thoughtful.

“I’ll join you.” We discarded our gloves, masks, goggles, head coverings, shoe booties, and made our way to the surgical locker room. Edward couldn’t get out of the bloody clothes quickly enough. He stripped the blue v-neck from his sculpted marble form faster than you could say pica-related hematophagy. He tossed the scrubs in the laundry bin, and we jumped in adjacent showers, careful to wash away any trace of the red fluid…for Jasper’s sake. It was past four by this time, and my shift was ending. I knew we’d be headed back to the mansion soon. When we were back in our street clothes, we exited together. I smiled at Edward.

“I always knew this day would come. You just performed surgery. Do you feel like a real doctor now?” Edward gave me a crooked grin, his eyes (which were now thankfully back to their normal gold color) sparkling.

“It was…tolerable,” he said, with a sense of self-satisfaction. “Far more bearable than I would have ever believed, though holding my breath for that long was becoming quite uncomfortable.”

“So are you going to pursue a career in surgery, now that we know that you can do it?” He gave a short laugh.

“I know that I can drink some of Bella’s blood but then stop. That doesn’t mean I’m going to make a habit out of it. Sorry Dad. It’s been real. It’s been fun. But it hasn’t been real fun.”

“I can accept that,” I said, careful to hide my disappointment. We made our way to the family lounge, where Alice, Emmett, Bella, Rosalie, and about half the student body of Forks High School were sitting. The first four looked somewhat bored (Bella was beginning to adopt the Cullen ways already) while the rest looked anxious. Jessica Stanley ran up to me, accompanied by Eric Yorkie.

“How is she?” Jessica asked, fidgeting nervously.

“Are you a relative?” I asked. Jessica shook her head.

“I’m her best friend.” I nodded once, and then glanced at Yorkie.

“You’re not a relative either.” I was a statement, not a question. He stuck out his chest proudly.

“I’m her boyfriend. We’re going to prom together.” I nodded a second time.

“Surgery went well. She’s going to be just fine. She’s going to be transferred to a room on the second floor.”

“What was wrong with her?” Jessica asked eagerly, her eyes lighting up for some unknown reason. I shook my head.

“I’m sorry, Miss Stanley, but I’m not allowed to disclose that information. HIPPA laws.”

“Oh. Right.” Jessica looked disappointed as she slunk back to her chair and began rapidly repeating everything she knew to Mike Newton. I cocked my head at my family motioning for them to follow me. Once we were in the hall, Bella threw her arms around Edward kissing him quickly.

“That was very heroic, what you did to day,” she said dreamily. “I’m so proud of you.”

“It should have been me,” Rosalie muttered, discontented. “Who’s the one who actually did their medical school residency? Who’s the one who’s never drank human blood? Oh…that’s me. But did I get asked to scrub in? No…I got to spend the entire afternoon sorting resumes!”

“Minus the half hour you spent with me in the on-call room,” Emmett reminded her.

“Sorry sis, but I didn’t have any funky visions of you stepping in and saving Lauren’s life,” Alice said. "Mostly visions of you killing her or spaying her like a cat." Rosalie just grumbled.

“I can’t believe you bet against Alice,” I said to Emmett, glancing back at him. “She can see the future!”

“Yeah, but, we were dealing with Edward around lotsa blood. The odds still didn’t seem good for her.”

“You doubt his strength of will?”

“I only know that I wouldn’t have been able to succeed,” Emmett said, shrugging.

“That’s ‘cause you’re a doofus,” Alice replied. It was then that I noticed that Alice was wearing a black t-shirt that looked about eight sizes too large for her. It came down to her knees, and could have been a dress, it she had a belt for it. Blazed across the front, in pink letters were the words

I LOVE BOOBS

“Alice,” I said incredulously, with a faint sense of deja vu, “where on earth did you get that t-shirt?”

“From the American Cancer Society volunteers in the cafeteria,” she said proudly. “I went and bought it while you and Edward were in the shower. They were selling these to raise money and awareness for breast cancer!” She turned her back to me, and I could see that the pink ribbon symbol shone brightly across the back. She spun back around with a mildly disappointed look on her face. “I donated five hundred bucks. Unfortunately, they were out of my size, so I had to settle for the only size they had left, which was extra-extra large.”

“You’re swimming in that thing,” I laughed. I was glad it was Alice wearing the shirt and not Bella, who probably would have tripped over the hem and required stitches.

“You and Emmett should trade shirts,” Bella said to Alice, stating the obvious. Emmett’s eyes lit up like a light saber at a Star Wars convention.

“Oh! Can we?” he asked eagerly. “Your shirt is way awesomer than mine!”

“Only if you love boobs more than your phlebotomist,” she said in a very serious tone.

“Sweeeet.” Faster than any human eye could have seen, the shirts were switched. Edward and Bella were so absorbed in each other that they were utterly ignoring the entire exchange. Emmett began strutting his stuff, trying to catch the reflection of the pink words in the glass of every window we passed on the way out the building.

Rosalie gave a wry smile. “Really sophisticated, Em,” she said. He caught her in his arm and kissed her.

“The only boobs I love are yours, babe.”

Eric Participates in Throwing Sports

“Hey? What are friends for?” Cordelia Chase said offhandedly, shrugging her shoulders.

“If you ask me, they’re for knocking you up and leaving you high and dry,” an offscreen voice replied dryly. The staff of Angel Investigations looked up, stunned to see a familiar blonde woman bursting through the front door of the Hyperion Hotel, her hand moving tenderly over her bulging abdomen.

Ben Cheney (who was sitting in the green pleather hospital chair next to me) gasped. I chuckled, more entertained by Ben’s reaction than by the actual show. I’d seen the series dozens of times and could quote every script, so nothing surprised me any more. Ben however, who was a newbie to this particular fandom, looked like he’d been run over by a cement truck.

“Let me get this straight. Darla…is pregnant. With Angel’s vampire spawn?” Ben’s voice cracked on the word spawn.

“She sure is!” I said. Ben’s almond-shaped eyes widened and he leapt from his seat to point at the TV.

“What in the blazes of hellmouth??” The spring to his feet would have been dramatic—graceful even—if it hadn’t been for one-pound bag of peanut M&M’s sitting in his lap. (The candies had originally been purchased as a get-well-soon present for Lauren, but due to her unconsciousness, they had somehow turned into our breakfast.) The yellow bag slid to the floor, causing a click-click-click-click-click sound as a plethora of multicolored ovals erupted from the bag. They bounced and rolled hyperactively as they hit the floor.

“Good one, Cheney.” Mike asked in a grouchy voice from his slumped position in his chair. “Did they teach you that move in Kung Fu class?” He wasn’t happy about missing his morning jog with Tyler and Connor to visit Lauren, whom he wasn’t a huge fan of. Little Ben scowled as he scrambled to scoop up the stray candies from the hospital floor. Once he’d recovered the majority of them, he poured them back into the bag, mixing them with the clean ones, muttering something that sounded vaguely like “five second rule.”

MRSA-flavored candy. Yech. So much for breakfast. It didn’t matter though; I’d already consumed at least five handfuls and was feeling as jittery as a Jawa from all the sugar. I glanced up at the clock. It was 7:15 AM. Twenty minutes before we’d have to leave to get to school on time.

We’d been here since 5:30 and Lauren still hadn’t woken up, even when we’d shaken her and dumped a glass of water on her head. When we asked the nurse why we couldn’t rouse her, she informed us that Lauren had gained consciousness the evening before, but she’d kept pushing the PCA button to administer herself more morphine, which had probably knocked her out again. I turned my attention from my new girlfriend back to Ben, whose response to the retarded-yet-brilliant show had turned from shock to denial.

“This episode must have been made as an April Fools day joke,” Ben said in a disbelieving voice. “It’s impossible that this is the real story. Impossible! I mean…isn’t Darla dead?”

“Nothing’s impossible in the Buffyverse,” I said with a shrug.

I’d watched so much of the damn show that I’d gotten used to the fact that the story arcs were absurd… In fact, I’d learned to embrace the series’ farcical nature. Ben was still on his first time through though…a Buffy virgin, and had much to learn if he was going to become a vampire expert like me. He’d been coming to my house after school every day to watch the boxed DVD sets with me (much to Angela’s chagrin) and was utterly hooked. Unfortunately, where we were in the series was three seasons behind where this early morning WB syndicated episode was. As far as Ben knew, Buffy and Angel were still discovering their profound love for each other despite the fact that he was a vampire and she was a human, and to top it all off, they were dealing with the repercussions of her forcing him to drink her blood to save his life. In Ben’s mind, Buffy and Angel’s love was an unstoppable force of nature. Too bad he’s going to dump her for her own good and leave town in the next episode…

“But everyone knows that vampires can’t have kids!” he cried indignantly. The dawning realization that they could apparently ripped the fabric of his universe to pieces.

“Shut up, you whippersnapper-feathered-knot-heads!” shrilled Lauren’s roommate, from the other side of the thin curtain that separated the two halves of the room. She was a ninety-two year old woman who’d been diagnosed with dementia, incontinence, and a bad attitude, among other thing.

“I’m sorry!” Ben called.

“I know you’re sorry, you boggy-bottomed beetle-brain. I didn’t ask for a character reference!” she screamed. Ben ducked his head, as I howled with laughter.

“So about that pregnancy,” Ben said, in a quieter voice, ignoring the mirthful tears streaming down my cheeks. Mike rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. It was moments like this, when Ben and I were talking shop about our love for science fiction and fantasy that Mike Newton usually wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He would have gotten up and walked out if it wasn’t for the fact that he was our ride to school.

“No one ever said that vamps can’t have kids,” I explained. “Just because it’s never been done before doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. I mean…look at Angel. Vampires aren’t supposed to have souls, and yet, throw in a gypsy curse, and badda-bing, badda-boom, you have a vampire with a soul.” Ben was still reeling, trying to wrap his mind around the concept.

“So what’s her baby going to be?” he asked in a resigned voice, once he realized that this wasn’t a joke. “A vampire with half a soul? What kind of a creature has half a soul? I mean…when it dies, will it half go to heaven?” I had to think about it for a minute.

“Um…” this part of the series had always been confusing for even a Wikipedia Buffy article writer like myself. “I think Connor—that’s the baby—is human. Well…a superhuman of sorts. He’s strong and agile and heals quickly like a vamp…but he doesn’t really need to drink blood. Oh…and he has a soul. I guess would make him kinda like a half-vamp. I’m not sure if he’s immortal though…”

Ben scrunched his straight, black eyebrows quizzically at me. “A vampire with no soul gets groiny with the vampire with a soul and they make super-human half-vamp? What kind of sense is that supposed to make?”

I shrugged noncommittally. “Who knows? Pretty far-fetched and wild by my standards, but, hey…whatever Joss Whedon wants to write is fine by me. I think he’s a genius. Totally off his rocker…but a genius. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love it.” Mike, who was utterly bored—if not needing a psych consult—from listening to our vampire nerd-fest, began amusing himself by tossing peanut M&M’s into the air one at a time and catching them in his mouth. One must have gone down the wrong pipe, for he began coughing uncontrollably for a few seconds. Ben paid no notice.

“So this is what we get…is it? Pregnant vampire Darla joins the Scooby Gang? What’s next? Are they going to encounter the Loch Ness Monster?”

“Er…Wrong show. The Scooby Gang in on Buffy. This is Angel. We’re in L.A. now. Whole different world.”

“I can’t believe that you guys watch this crap—the show’s ghastly.” Mike complained, squinting at the label on the peanut M&M bag where it read WARNING! THIS PRODUCT MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS. Bored, he snatched a crossword puzzle book from old-demented-lady’s dresser and began to finish off what she hadn’t filled in. She must have fallen back to sleep, for she didn’t screech at him.

Ben ignored Mike’s rude disinterest and pressed on. “This isn’t going to be graphic…is it? It better not be like the birth scene we had to watch in sex-ed with Coach Clapp.”

“Definitely not.” I cleared my throat, ready to explain what little anatomy I knew. “See, because the baby is humanish and she’s a vampire, it’s not really compatible with her body. Therefore, she won’t be able to deliver it… the normal way.”

Ben had to think about that for a second. “So what’s Angel going to do? Bite her uterus to get it out?”

“Ew! No! Are you crazy?” I stared at him in horror, stunned that he even knew the word uterus. The idea was revolting. “As a screenwriter, even Joss Whedon had his limits when it comes to weirdness. What kind of person would want write…much less watch a daddy vampire doing a C-section with his teeth?” I rolled my eyes. “Be realistic here. If I remember correctly, Darla stakes herself through the heart to save it.”

“I’m surrounded by dorks,” Mike complained, rubbing his face with his hands. “I wish Tyler and Conner had come.”

“Why would they?” Ben asked. “Lauren’s dated and dumped each of them more than once within the last year.”

“Oh,” Mike said, looking startled. Unable to think of anything else to say, he returned his crossword puzzle. I was as surprised by Ben’s news as Mike. When did Lauren date Connor and Tyler in the last year? I wondered. So much for the Noble Valiant Boys sharing our victories with one another. The last time I knew that she had a boyfriend, she went to prom with Connor…but that was almost a year ago! They broke up right after prom! I began to have doubts as to my true love’s chastity.

“Guys! Look!” Ben said eagerly, turning his mind from vampires for the first time that morning. “I think she’s waking up.” The three of us rushed to her side. Lauren’s eyelids fluttered and she groaned slightly.

“Edward?” she whispered, disoriented.

“Er…no,” I said uncomfortably. Why isn’t she asking for me? “Edward’s not here. It’s me! Your boyfriend.”

“Oh! Sorry. Hi Conner,” she said in a dreamy voice.

“Er…no. That’s Angel’s superhuman son,” I said patiently. She must have overheard our conversation. A confused look crossed her sleepy face.

“Angels don’t appear to me,” she murmured. “I sleep around too much and have incurred the wrath of God.”

“Er…” my face reddened at that statement. Sleep around? Who does she sleep with? She and I hadn’t even kissed yet! Could it be wishful thinking? My hopes rose.

It was only yesterday that she asked me to the prom, pretty much sealing our destinies together, making her the beauty that I needed to rescue, in the heroic story of my life as a Noble Valiant Boy. I backpedaled mentally. Okay…so she didn’t ask me to prom. But she almost did. Sort of did. And by “sort of did,” I meant that Jessica told me, who heard from Mike, who heard from Lauren herself, that Lauren agreed to go to prom with me after Edward suggested that the six of us go together as a group together to cheer Jessica up, since she was all bummed that she wouldn’t be able to dance with her sprained ankle. Same thing. It made Lauren my steady girlfriend, which made us madly in love…right? I squinted at her face, which had drool running down the side of it. Funny, without all that makeup she usually wears, she’s not really all that pretty. After all those years of fantasizing about falling in love, it was quite anticlimactic now that I actually was in love. So this is love…mm mmm mmm mmmmmmm…so this is love…

“I only make out with Connor behind Jessica’s back to get a thrill out of doing something forbidden,” Lauren slurred suddenly. “He’s pretty sexy, but all testosterone and no brains.” Now it was my turn to have my jaw drop. Connor helped her cheat? So much for being noble and valiant!

“Um…I don’t think Lauren’s a Buffy fan. I think she’s talking about the real Connor…Jessica Stanley’s boyfriend. I mean…well…he was. I think it’s over now…” Ben said awkwardly.

“It is over,” Mike confirmed in a strong voice, protective. “Stupid cheating bastard didn’t deserve her. She deserves a real man, who will treat her with dignity and respect. Hmmph.” I gave him a funny look. Were Mike and Jessica back together? That was fast…must have been a “rebound.”

“Who are you?” Lauren asked suddenly, looking up at me with interest. Her eyes were very shiny. “I don’t think I know you. You’re cute.” I scratched my head.

“Do you think she has amnesia?” I asked Ben and Mike. Mike grinned.

“She had a ruptured spleen, not a brain injury, you doofus,” he said. His eyes twinkled. “I do believe that she’s high though. Some pain medications remove inhibitions. People say all sorts of stuff on them that they regret saying later.”

“Nonsense! I feel fine…no regrets. No regrets ever,” she murmured, her eyes closing again. She gripped my hand for a second, thoughtfully, before sitting up slightly. “Kiss me, you fool,” she blurted out. “My lips are dripping with desire.” Her eyes opened, and she looked me right in the eye, though her gaze was a bit unfocused. I blinked twice.

I’d never kissed a girl in my life. Well, I had online once, in World of Warcraft…okay, several times in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons…and once in the Lord of The Rings MMPORPG (but when that happened I was playing a female elven character, so that one really didn’t count). But never in real life. A shock of apprehension washed over me, and my palms felt suddenly cold.

Am I ready for this? I wondered. Your first kiss with someone should be a precious gift…a magical, heroic, epic moment. I don’t want to waste the first kiss of my eighteen years on someone who’s not going to remember her end of it because she’s high…

Lauren’s hand was tugging my face closer. “Kiss me! Now!” her long, acrylic nails tangled in my greasy hair. At once my resolve failed.

What the heck. It’s now or never. Seize the day? Right? I thought back to my treehouse conversation with Tyler and Mike. I need a beauty to pursue and fight for! That’s why I’m here this blasted early in the morning!

Taking a deep breath, I leaned down and kissed Lauren lightly on the lips, tenderly stroking her cheek. Drool smeared beneath my fingers.

It was…not what I expected it to be.

Um…okay…why don’t I feel anything? No emotion. No love. No tingles. No rush. It’s like I’m kissing my sister. Actually…I take that back. I love my sister. This feels like I’m kissing an inanimate object. There’s no chemistry here. I must be broken! I thought about it for a second, my lips still pressed to hers.

Wait! Aren’t guys supposed to stick their tongues in girl’s mouths when they kiss them? I’ll try that! Maybe it will help. I turned my mouth to the side and French kissed her. Our tongues touched. Ew. This is actually kinda gross. It’s so…slimy. I pulled myself back, underwhelmed and confused by my anticlimactic reaction. Ben and Mike were catcalling.

“Go Eric!” Mike said, punching me in the shoulder.

“Ow!” I yelped.

“Sorry.”

Lauren sighed, her eyes rolling back in their sockets. “You don’t kiss as good as Connor or Tyler. Or even as good as David Greenman or Robin McKenzie.” I stared at her, revolted. The girl is a whore! I thought. She opened her eyes, blinking rapidly. She squeezed my hand tighter. “I made out with each of those guys within a two week time span. None of them knew about any of the others. I kissed them with stolen lipstick too!”

“Wow…that’s a little too much information,” I said, repelled. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards her face once again.

“I’ll grace your lips with mine once more, so you have something to remember me by,” she whispered in a barely coherent voice, her glassy green eyes looking rather unhealthy.

“Er…no thank you,” I said, backing away. She might give me oral herpes! I thought. Or mono! Ew.

“I’m going to die because you rejected me,” she said loudly, her eyes bulging. “Don’t reject me Eric! Don’t!”

“Erm…whatever. I…well…I think I can do better. I don’t really want to date you any more,” I said, picking up my backpack and turning towards the door. “Let’s go boys.”

“You’re breaking up with me??” Lauren gasped, wild-eyed. She clutched her heart with her hand. “But…Eric! Why? Don’t you care for me at all?”

“Were we ever really going out in the first place?” I asked. The truth of the statement hit me. We never really were in love. It was all a lie.

“Oh! Yorkie!” she screamed.

“Shut up!” the lady across the room screamed. However, we barely registered her screams…for at that moment, Lauren’s skin began to look very blotchy. Her breathing became labored, and it appeared that she couldn’t breathe. The monitors that she was hooked up to began to beep, as her heart rate jumped from fifty-eight beats per minute to ninety-eight.

“What’s wrong with her?” I yelled, alarmed. Oh my god! Oh my god! She said that she was going to die from my rejection…and now she’s dying!

“I…can’t…breathe…” she wheezed, her eyes bugging.

To my surprise, Carlisle Cullen instantly flew into the room, followed by Edward and Alice. That was quick. Carlisle must have been nearby. But what are Edward and Alice doing here? I wondered.

“We got here to tell you as fast as we could,” Alice was saying to her father in a low, quick tone, fishing through a tiny, pink, patent leather purse and pulling out what appeared to be an unlabeled syringe with a black cover on its tip. She ignored our presence entirely. “We tried to call you on your cell phone, but you weren’t answering it.”

“I never can get a signal in here,” he muttered. “Stupid building…”

“What are youand Alice doing here?” I asked Edward, confused. “Shouldn’t you be on your way to school?”

I may as well have been mute, for Edward didn’t even bother to make eye contact with me. Instead, he took the syringe from his sister, flicked off the cap, and plunged it directly into Lauren’s outer right thigh, right through her hospital gown.

“Hey! Why’d you do that? What’s going on?” I demanded. Carlisle ignored me, whizzing out of the room and returning moments later with a ventilator. He handed a plastic object to Edward.

“I need to set up the machine,” he said to his son. “Can you intubate her?” Edward stared at him like he was crazy. His expression was first stunned, then amused.

“Dad? I know we were up really late last night and you must be tired, but this is just bad clinical judgment. Did you skip your morning coffee or something?”

“Edward! This is an emergency!” Carlisle snapped. Edward raised his eyebrows.

“I’m a mere seventeen-year-old kid. How on earth would I know how to insert a breathing tube down a patient’s throat?” he glanced meaningfully at Ben, Mike and I.

“Oh…right,” Carlisle said apologetically. “I meant…can you…er…get a nurse in here who can help intubate her?” he was plugging the ventilator into the wall, his fingers flying across its buttons. Edward nodded once and flew from the room, returning moments later with a nurse, who began to attempt to shove the tube down Lauren’s throat.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“Anaphylaxis!” Carlisle said in a harried voice.

“In English, please,” Mike said, annoyed.

“Severe allergic reaction to something. She can’t breathe because her airway is closed.”

“It’s not going in!” the nurse cried frantically. “Her throat’s too swollen. You’ll need to get one of the residents to do a tracheostomy!”

“None of the residents are available,” Carlisle said through gritted teeth. “Stupid staffing shortage. Edward! Make the incision!”

Why on earth does Carlisle keep asking Edward to do medical procedures?

“Why on earth do you keep asking me to do medical procedures?” Edward asked Carlisle in an innocent voice, repeating my silent question. “I’m just a kid!”

“Er…right. Nurse Kaltenborn! Finish setting up the machine. I need to get a trach tube in…now!”

“What does all that mean?” Mike asked.

“I need to cut a open her trachea below her voice box to insert a tube, so that she can breathe!” Carlisle said quickly.

“I’m…uh…going to leave now,” Alice said suddenly. “No sticking around to watch someone’s throat get slit. Ew.” She’s the reason Lauren’s here in the first place! Shouldn’t she be more worried about her? I gave her a funny look, and she shrugged. “I faint at the sight of blood.” Edward smirked

“I think I’m going to leave as well,” he said quickly. “Blood grosses me out as well. Can’t stand being around the stuff.” He waved nonchalantly to Carlisle. “Have fun saving lives Dad! I think you can handle this one on your own. We’re off to school…don’t want to be late!” Carlisle began muttering things under his breath. I didn’t understand a word he was saying, but something must have registered with Edward, for the handsome young man surpressed a smile.

“Come on boys, we’ve gotta get out of here. They’re about to do surgery.” He and Alice steered the three of us out of the room and shut the door behind him.

“Don’t worry about her though,” Alice said brightly. “She’s going to be fine. Well…the lack of oxygen to her brain will leave her mildly mentally retarded…but all together, she’s coming through the situation just fine.”

“May leave her mentally retarded,” Edward corrected pointedly. “We don’t know the outcome yet…remember?”

“Oh yeah.” She nodded vigorously. “She may become mentally retarded. Sorry.”

“So what was going on in there?” I asked. Alice and Edward seemed to have a much better grasp of what was going on than I did.

“Lauren’s severely allergic to peanuts,” Edward explained.

“She is?” Mike asked surprised. “I didn’t know that!”

“Neither did I,” I said. Weird. She’s my girlfriend…or was…did we break up? Anyways, there’s so much that she and I didn’t know about each other, even if we did start out as friends first.

“Yeah. If she eats anything with even the slightest trace of peanuts in it…even peanut oil, her throat will swell up. The only thing is…how on earth did she get her hands on peanuts? Carlisle said that she hadn’t eaten anything since the surgery. It’s so weird.” I gulped. Oh my god! It was when I kissed her! Some of the peanut M&M’s must have been stuck in my teeth and gotten into her mouth!

“How did you know about the allergy?” I asked suspiciously. Edward shrugged.

“It came up in conversation once,” he said smoothly. I narrowed my eyes.

“You’ve never dated her…have you?” How many guys has this girl gone through! Edward made a horrified face.

“Oh God no. Her thoughts give new meaning to the term ‘venomous’. Besides, blondes aren’t my type.”

“So what were you doing here anyways, this early in the morning?”

“Delivering her purse,” Alice said easily. “I grabbed it from the locker room yesterday so that I could give her ID and insurance card to the ambulance crew. I accidentally took it home last night though, and wanted to make sure that she had it, so that if her parents called on her cell phone, they’d be able to reach her.”

“But…how did you know what was happening? And why were you rushing in like that? And Alice…how did you know the combination to Lauren’s gym locker?”

“Um…” Alice faltered.

“Hey look over there!” Edward said suddenly, before I could finish asking questions pointing up at a TV in the corner of the room. “It’s that episode of Angel where Darla comes back pregnant!” He laughed out loud. “Man, that story arc was kooky. Who would have expected that a vampire could father a super-human mutant?”

“At least he had the sense to stop having sex with humans,” Alice said, pointedly. “That never turned out well for him.” Edward glared at her, though I couldn’t figure out why.

“You guys watch Buffy?” Ben said, awed. His eyes were shining. Alice grinned at him.

“We love vampire shows,” she said. Edward chuckled.

“That we do. That we do,” he admitted. Mike moaned as the four of us launched into an animated discussion of the pros and cons of holy water versus wooden stake versus decapitation as we made our ways to our cars.

By the time lunch rolled around it seemed that the whole school knew about my kiss of near-death.

“Eric, is it true that you almost killed Lauren by kissing her?” Jessica asked, bobbing up and down in her seat next to Mike. She had the crazed look of a girl who was dying to start a rumor.

“Er…yeah. Apparently, if someone who has a peanut allergy kisses someone who has eaten peanuts, it can kill them.”

“Lauren kissed you?” Jessica asked loudly. The attention of the entire lunch table was on me.

“Well…no. I kissed her. But only after she asked…no…begged me to.” Squeals and shrieks erupted from the females at the table.

“Was it everything you thought it would be?” Jessica asked. I cringed, before shaking my head.

“Erm…no, actually. There was no chemistry there. It was actually kinda gross. Plus, she said that I wasn’t as good of a kisser as Connor, Tyler, David, or Robin, all of whom she was apparently making out with at the same within a two week time period.” Jessica gasped.

“Holy crow…” Jessica’s voice trailed off and the entire lunch table went completely silent.

“She was high on morphine,” I said quickly. “I’m sure that she was just making it up.” My listeners didn’t seem convinced.

“When was the last time you kissed Lauren?” Tyler asked Connor suspiciously.

“Er…yesterday,” Connor said.

“I kissed her four days ago, at a party,” Tyler said, realization dawning on his face. At once, the table burst into a new discussion, trying to figure out who’d been cheating on who with Lauren. I screwed my eyes shut and fell silent, focusing on my sandwich. That’s when I overheard Bella and Edward were speaking to one another in low, hushed voices.

“For the last time, Edward! We can’t get married! We’re only eighteen, for crying out loud!” Bella said indignantly.

“But we’re in love! People get married when they’re in love and financially secure. Thanks to Alice, we have more money than anyone else in the world, and we’re definitely in love, so it only makes sense.”

“Everyone will think I’m pregnant!”

“No they won’t!”

“Yes they will! Only pregnant girls get married that young.”

“Well, you’re obviously not pregnant, since vampires can’t have kids.”

Vampires?? I thought. I wondered what the heck Edward and Bella were talking about. Are they part of some kinda role-playing game?

“Rosalie and Emmett’s characters got married in game just last week, and no one ever once asked them if they were pregnant,” Edward said quickly. “I just think that it’s just your character’s fear of commitment that’s making her hold out!”

“That’s not true! If your character hadn’t…wait…what?” Bella said, confused.

“Fine. Forget I asked about marriage. Just focus on upping your experience points and finding the portal to Pylea,” Edward said.

“Erm. Uh. What are you talking about?” she said, confused.

I took the bait. I couldn’t help it. I whirled to face them.

“Edward! I knew you were a Buffy fan, but I didn’t know that you were that much of a Buffy fan!”

“Huh?” Bella said, her wide brown eyes squinting with confusion.

“You two actually play the Buffy RPG!!” I was wild with excitement. I’d wanted to play the game for months, but had been unable to find anyone to play it with…which was the whole point of hooking Ben into watching the show with me.

“We play the…what?” Bella said, acting like she had no idea what we were talking about.

“My love,” Edward said, nuzzling his neck with her nose. “You don’t have to hide the fact that we’re gamers from Eric. I know you think it’s nerdy…but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Oh,” she said, looking from Edward to me and back again. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then promptly shut it.

“What game is it?” I asked Edward eagerly.

“We play online in a text-based MUD,” Edward said in his smooth voice. “We play a coven of vampires who have superpowers. My character can read minds and Alice’s has visions of the future. Carlisle’s character has magical healing powers, and Bella plays the helpless damsel in distress. You get the idea. All the typical Buffyverse vampire weaknesses and strengths apply. There’s a group of vampire-slayers who we fight. Emmett makes up all the quests. It’s very addictive. My whole family is often awake way after midnight.” He said this statement quickly, without a second’s hesitation. Bella was giving him a look that said you can’t be serious.

“Can I play with you?” I breathed in awe. Edward looked uncomfortable.

“You’ll…er…have to ask Emmett,” he said quickly. “Emmett’s really picky about who he lets into our guild. One bad plotline and the whole game is a loss, you know.”

“You don’t have to worry…I’ve been playing RPGs since I was about five. There’s probably a thing or two I can teach Emmett!” I said, enthused. The whole Cullen clan is made up of gamer-nerds like me! I couldn’t get over the coolness of the fact. “Can I have Emmett’s phone number? Or email? I’d love to chat with him about plotlines and ideas for quests…”

“Actually,” Alice said, jumping into the conversation, her eyes suddenly twinkling with merriment. “Emmett’s going to be here at school today.”

“He is??”

“Yeah! See…he’s majoring in Teaching—with an emphasis in Phys. Ed.—at Dartmouth. He’s also on the Track and Field team there as well. His specialty is the shot put and the discus throw. Anyways, since he’s home on Summer Break, he offered to help Coach Clapp teach this part of the curriculum. You can ask him when you see him in gym next hour!” With that statement from her, Edward just about doubled over, breathless with laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Bella and I demanded in unison.

“Nothing,” Edward said quickly, his golden eyes twinkling.

“Nothing at all,” Alice said with a grin.

“I’m going to get going now then!” I said with excitement. “If I get changed now, it will give me some time to talk to Emmett before gym even starts!”

“Go for it!” Edward said in a voice that was somehow smug. “Emmett’s in the gym right now. He’d love to talk to you about the RPG.” I quickly got up from the table and made my way for the locker rooms.

This is going to be so awesome! I thought to myself.

Ten minutes later, I found Emmett out on the outdoor track, making a huge circle around a baseball plate with chalk powder.

“Hey Emmett!” I said, approaching him excitedly. His massive, six-foot-six-inch frame towered over me and his muscles bulged ominously. I gulped.

“What is it, Yorkie?” he asked in a disinterested voice.

“Edward and Alice told me why you and your family stays up all night, every night.”

“They did, now, did they?” he abruptly turned from what he was doing, giving me a curious look.

“Yeah! I think it’s cool! I can’t believe that your whole family loves online games.”

“Jasper and I do put a lot of thought into the games we design,” he admitted.

“Anyways…I was wondering if I might join your coven!” At the word coven, he dropped the stack of cones.

“You know our secret?” he gasped, utterly taken aback.

“Yeah! Edward let it slip at lunch and told me to ask you about it.” Emmett peered at me with a stony look on his face.

“You know what we are.” It wasn’t a question…if felt more like he’d been sentenced to death.

“Yeah! You’re vampires. I think it’s awesome!” Emmett was frozen solid, still as stone. He had an odd expression on his face, as though he was calculating something. “I’ve been playing online RPGs for years…and before that, I did Dungeons and Dragons with paper and pencil. I could totally help you plan battles and strategize ways to outsmart the vampire slayers.” Suddenly Emmett stared at me, puzzled.

“Vampire slayers?” his expression was lightening. He looked less angry.

“You know…in the game!”

“The game…” Emmett looked like he was trying to put two and two together.

“The vampire versus slayer game that you and your family play online every night!”

“The vampy…what…” Emmett’s head suddenly shot up and he narrowed his eyes. I looked to see what he was looking at, and saw Edward, Bella, and Alice sitting in the bleachers, watching our interaction with interest. They waved at Emmett. He growled.

“No! You can’t join our coven!” he snapped at me. My heart sank.

“But…why? I’d be a good asset to your team!”

“Because…er…well…”

“Yes?” I pried.

“Well…” he paused, as if trying to think of a good excuse. “Because just a few days ago, you had the audacity to ask my wife to prom!” he snapped. I took a step back and stared at Emmett.

“Huh?”

“Rosalie! You asked her to prom! Idiot!” I squinted at him.

“You and Rosalie aren’t married,” I said. “At least…I’m sure I would have heard about a wedding, if there was one…”

“Er…” he seemed to be thinking very quickly. “We’re…er…um…married in the game.”

“OH.” Now it all made sense. “Well…I’m sorry about that! I didn’t know about your online involvement with your adopted sister at the time.” Emmett growled again.

“Either way, you’re not allowed to join. Now butt out.”

“Please? Come on! I’ve seen every episode of each show at least six times! I’ve downloaded and memorized all the scripts! I’ve even started my own website called An Expert’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. It has weapons profiles of all sorts of wooden stakes and battle axes for decapitations and everything!” For a moment Emmett looked like he was about to crack up, before he composed his face again and gave me a hard look.

“Our initiation process is very painful. I doubt you have the strength or resolve to survive. And also, we have this Manifesto that we’ve written of all of our rules that you’d have to memorize. If you break one of them…or even think of breaking one of them, we kick you out. No if, ands or butts. Sorry, but I don’t think you have what it takes.”

“Give me a try. Please?” I begged. Emmett surpressed a smile, his shoulders shaking a little, before answering me in as surly of a tone as he could muster.

“No. Absolutely not. That’s my final answer. You may not join our gaming community!” he turned back to setting up for gym.

This conversation is not over…not over…not over. I told myself silently. I will ask Emmett again, and again, every chance I get today! He will let me play the game. He has to let me play.

Coach Clapp blew his whistle, signaling the start of class.

“Good afternoon!” he announced. “Today, we are starting the throwing section of our track and field curriculum. For the first half hour of class, we will be working on the discus throw. After that is done, we will be doing shot-put. Emmett Cullen, who has kindly volunteered his summer vacation time to help me teach, will be leading the guys in their activities, while I lead the girls in their activities.

“Why are you splitting up the guys and the girls?” Mike asked, holding Jessica’s hand protectively.

“The guys throw a three pound nine ounce discus, while the girls throw a two-point-two pound one,” he explained. “The guys shot putt ball is twelve pounds, while the girls’ is four pounds.”

“I can throw a twelve pound shot put no problem,” Alice muttered. Edward smiled and jabbed her in the ribs.

“Asthmatic,” he taunted. She stuck her tongue out at him.

The two throwing activities were very similar, but they seemed to have different techniques. From the center of the circle, we had to launch the heavy objects away from our bodies as far as they’d go. The goal was to cross the line, and get them out of the circle. Emmett was explaining the dangers of using the overhand method and pitching the shot-putt ball like a baseball. Something about rotator cuff tears that I didn’t understand. He also explained the different ways to add spin to the discus or launch forces to the shot-put. All in all, it looked like it was going to be an easy gym class.

No running, no asthma attacks, no one whacking each other with hockey sticks. Most of class today is going to consist of waiting in line for my turn. I can handle that!

When it was my turn to throw the discus, Emmett came up next to me.

“Now Yorkie,” he said, placing my hand on the heavy disc. “You’re going to want to hold this like this, with your index finger up around the edge.” He pointed to the outer edges of the circle.

“See that arc?” I looked up and saw that there was a line where about sixty degrees of the radius of the circle was orange instead of white.

“Yeah.”

“When you throw the disc, you need to make sure that it lands somewhere in the orange range. Your goal is to make it as far as you can past the edge of the circle, but within the orange arc.”

“Speaking of arcs...story arcs that is…please give me a chance here! I’ve dreamt for years of finding a group of fans this die hard. I really…really could help you out with developing some storylines for quests…plots…stuff…” Emmett glared at me.

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” he roared. I cowered back.

“Nothing! Nothing…sorry I asked.” Emmett gave me a hard look.

“You are not allowed to pester me with questions about some stupid TV show while we are playing sports. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” I said meekly.

“Good. Now, when you throw the disc, you’ll want to start facing away from the orange part of the circle. You’ll spin one and a half times to gain momentum before releasing the disc.

“But you see…I wrote this really great fanfic this one time about what it’d be like if there were vampires here in Forks! It would be a great story to role-play out! I mean…could you imagine what it would be like to have demon hunters up here? In a rural, mountainous country instead of a city or a suburb?” Emmett was clenching and unclenching his fists, glaring…for some reason…at Edward, who appeared to be enjoying himself.

“There aren’t vampires in Forks!” Emmett snapped. “Get your head in the game!”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do…”

“THIS GAME!” he bellowed, pointing to the disc.

“Oh. Right.”

“Kay. Now…you get a total of six throws, and the best of your six is marked. I measure your distance from the line itself to where the disc lands. At the end of the session, I’ll compare the distance of your throw to the distance of your classmates. The most important thing to make sure of is that you don’t bring your hand back overhead like this,” he twisted his hand back, as if he was trying to touch the back of his head. “If you do, the weight of the disc could dislocate your shoulder.”

“I think I got it. Turn one and a half times and throw the disc. Great.”

The other ten guys in my gym class were sitting on the grass, bored, waiting for their turns to start. Mike, Tyler, and Connor were playing with blades of grass, while Ben looked like he was about to fall asleep.

“You may begin,” Emmett said, gesturing.

My first throw didn’t go so far. In fact…it landed on my foot.

“Yeow!!” I screamed.

“You’re supposed to throw it, not drop it,” Emmett said in an impatient voice.

“I’ll do better this time…I swear!” I said. Maybe if Emmett sees my skilz with the heavy Frisbee thing, he’ll let me join! I whirled twice and released the disc. This time it went about five feet total…past the edge of the perimeter. Unfortunately, it was in precisely the wrong direction. Howls of laughter came from the guys. The pressure of it made it hard to breathe. I puffed on my inhaler and picked up another disc.

“Come on Yorkie! Give it a real whirl!” Emmett said, in his best coaching voice. The disc twisted my wrist at the last second, and I dropped it.

“Gah!” I rubbed my wrist, hoping it wasn’t sprained. Emmett sighed.

“Let me demonstrate how this is supposed to be done,” he said. He motioned for me to back up to where the other guys were standing. He faced us, gracefully twirled one and a half turns, and launched the discus.

It spun in the air, practically floating from his hand, and landed about thirty feet past the line, dead center down the middle of the sixty-degree arc. The rest of the boys in the class applauded.

“Well done!” called Connor, who had always idolized Emmett. Emmett grinned, pleased with himself, and took a bow.

“Now…a lot of beginners have difficulty mastering the one and a half turn spin, because it makes them dizzy and offsets their throw. If you’d like to try an easier technique, you can jump forward a step to gain your momentum before launching the discus. It’s not as powerful, and you won’t achieve as much distance, but it’s easier to do accurately.”

I tried his technique for the four remaining throws. The good news was that I didn’t injure myself. The bad news was that not one of the throws crossed the orange line.

After each of the boys finished their throws (Tyler’s disc went the farthest), we traded places with the girls and took our places for the shot-put.

It wasn’t that much different than the discus throw. The circle was slightly smaller, but the technique was the same: spin or step to gain momentum before launching the ball forward. The only real difference was the handling of the ball. Emmett demonstrated the correct form, which was to hold the ball at your neck before shoving it forward. He warned us, again, that attempting to throw the shot-put like a baseball could easily dislocate your shoulder.

I stood farther back in line, hoping that, perhaps if he had some time to cool down, that Emmett would finally be calm enough to see reason. He has to let me join. He just has to! I’m the ultimate nerd. You can’t exclude the ultimate nerd from the ultimately nerdy activity! It’s immoral!

When it was finally my turn to do the shot put, I picked up the ball, determined to demonstrate my manliness to Emmett. It didn’t go so well. The ball slipped through my fingers as I attempted to launch it and hit my knee.

“Mmmrrrraaaahhh!” I screeched.

“Yorkie! Get a grip on yourself.” I sighed and attempted the second shot. Just as I got my hands up overhead, the ball rolled back, hitting me in my face.

“OW! My eye!” I cried.

“For heaven’s sake! Let me show you how this is done,” Emmett said with a scowl. The other boys cheered as he took his place next to me. He placed his hands over mine on the ball. They were freezing. A shiver ran down my spine.

“Why are your hands so cold?” I asked. He didn’t answer.

“All right. Now, Yorkie. I’m going to help guide your hands so that you don’t hurt yourself again. Are you ready?”

“Erm…I guess.”

“All right. See where my feet are lined up?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now together. One,” he gave the ball a little lift from the shoulder and brought it back down.

“Two,” we stepped forward together, gaining momentum.

“Thr—“

“I’ve written an index of all of the creatures and characters— demons, humans, and creatures from other dimensions— who exist in the Buffyverse. It’s yours if you just let me play!”

“ARRRRGGGHHH!!” Emmett’s temper flared, and he shoved forward, in perfect sync with my effort. To my surprise, the shot-put sailed high overhead. We looked up and saw it silhouetted against the cloudy sky. Up, up, up it went. It seemed like it would never come down. There was a murmuring from the boys behind me…gasps of disbelief…

THUNK. PLOP.

Silence.

“Coach Clapp!” Bella screamed. The ball had hit Coach Clapp, who’d had his backs to us boys, right smack dab in the rear end, knocking him to the ground.

“Not again,” Edward groaned as he sprinted across the field. The rest of the class followed.

“Coach!” Edward said quietly, as he leaned down. “Are you all right? Talk to me!”

“What on earth just happened there?” Coach Clapp said, rolling to his side and rubbing his rear end.

“Eric Yorkie’s shot-put went over eighty feet,” Emmett said proudly.

“Oh come on!” I said, scoffing. “That wasn’t my shot. Emmett was showing me how to do it, and we launched it together. That was both of our strength combined…which was mostly Emmett’s strength.” Emmett shook his head.

“No Yorkie! I was just guiding the direction of your force. You actually put all the strength behind it. That’s some arm you have.” The whole class was staring at me with a sense of wonder. A buzz of gossip and whispers of awe went up from the group.

I…I did that?

“You did that Eric!” Edward said confidently. “I was watching closely. Emmett’s right. You’re a natural at this! A real athlete!”

I…I am?

“You are!” Mike said, nodding vigorously. “I saw it too! I swear! Emmett really didn’t have anything to do with it!” Before I knew what was happening, Tyler, Connor, David, Robin, and every other guy in the class was swearing up and down that they saw me launch the shot put with very little help from Emmett. It had to be true.

I’m strong! I’m a natural athlete!

“Not everyone has natural strength and talent like that, Yorkie,” Emmett said in a soft voice. “I’d suggest that you spend less time in role-playing-games and more time developing your aptitude for throwing sports.” He punched me in the shoulder.

“Ow!”

“Sorry.”

“Um…can someone help me up please?” Coach Clapp asked.

Tyler Swims Breaststroke

The great thing about living in a small town is that everyone knows everyone. There’s a feeling of intimacy here that fosters a sense of belonging. You walk down the street and everybody asks how your grandma is doing. You know who your neighbors are. If there’s an event and you hear about it, you’re invited. Your life is a thread in the interwoven fabric of the community.

The awful thing, however, about living in a small town, is that everyone knows everyone’s business. There’s a lack of privacy that fosters a sense of being watched. You walk down the street and everyone asks if what your grandma said about your love life is really true. Your neighbors spy on you. If you plan for a small get together with two or three friends, eighty people show up. Your secrets don’t stay secret for very long, not if any of the town busybodies have anything to say about it.

In general, I try not to get involved with that kind of crap. It’s disgusting really, that people have nothing better to do than to talk about each other. I try not to listen. But still…you hear.

Today’s lunchroom conversation was no exception to the rule. I tried to tune out the sawing of the rumor mill, but without earplugs, it was hard to do.

According to reliable sources, Mrs. Cope had spent the last three months in a secret Internet relationship with a person whom she’d thought was a much younger, very handsome man. When her husband found out, he’d left her. Meanwhile, Mr. Banner had spent the last three months in a secret Internet relationship with a person whom he’d thought was a much younger, very beautiful woman. When his wife found out, she’d left him. When all was said and done, however, it turned out that Mr. Banner and Mrs. Cope had actually been in a secret Internet relationship with each other. They were more surprised than pleased.

In unrelated news, Lauren’s reputation had—in one day—gone from appealing to appalling. The “Vote for Me” fliers of herself that she’d posted all over the school were now grafittied with every synonym of the word “slut” available in the languages of English, Spanish, and Swahili (thanks to an African sophomore exchange student who had taught his friends some of the more colorful phrases of his native tongue). Meanwhile, for the first time in Eric’s life, girls who’d never before given him the time of day were batting their eyelashes at him, fascinated by his every joke. He was now known as a hidden gem whose kisses were simply “to die for,” as well as an athlete whose hidden prowess had earned him the nickname “diamond in the rough.” He’d managed to snag a date to the prom with Katie, who was hanging on his every dorky vampire speech and lame RPG story like they were the most fascinating things in the world. Rumor had it that their first date had been to the renaissance fair, where he’d convinced her that going to prom in medieval gear was a great idea. How bizarre.

Speaking of prom, the votes were in. By an overwhelming majority vote, “Bengela,” the shyest and most mismatched-looking couple ever to grace Forks with their odd presence, had been elected prom queen and king. To the surprise of many, some collaboration of anonymous donors known as the Pacific Northwest Trust had contributed a special prize for the winners: A $130.00 gift card to Sassy Kat Salon, for Angela’s manicure, pedicure and updo; a $150.00 gift card to Western Tuxedo Rentals, for Ben to get dressed to the nines; a $140.00 gift card for Reggie’s Limousine Services; and a $50.00 gift card to Bella Italia. The student body was stunned. Our school was so small and unheard of that it was rare for us to receive grant money for even normal things like textbooks and curriculum planning. To receive money for a prom court prize was just plain strange.

Ben and Angela weren’t the only lovebirds nesting in the tree, though. “Messica” was apparently back on. Mike Newton’s lovesick heart had done the quickest one-eighty I’d ever observed in my life. In less than a week, he’d gone from mooning over Bella Swan to being crazy in love with Jessica Stanley. Everywhere she went, he valiantly and nobly opened doors for her as she hobbled through on her crutches, and every day she smiled radiantly at him, looking like she was going to swoon. It seemed that the sprained ankle Alice caused was a blessing in disguise.

Alice. Another person caught up in the strange turn of events. In the past week, she’d somehow gone from being on the fringe of the social scene to at the very heart of it. The party she and Bella were throwing looked like it was going to be the event of the century. I just couldn’t understand it. I mean…everyone knew that Alice was an absolute dunce when it came to technology, she carried around a tattered copy of Windows 98 for Dummies wherever she went, for crying out loud! Suddenly, she was asking for everyone’s play lists and talking about mixing music. The fact that she was—for the first time in her life—able to plan parties was only slightly less weird than the fact that Bella, who was so reserved that she made Angela look outgoing, was helping to plan it.

Bella. Sigh. For the second year in a row, I would not be going to prom with Bella Swan. I’d asked her this morning, thinking that maybe…just maybe…she’d feel bad about the fiasco that was last year. Maybe…just maybe…she was still mad at Edward for whatever it was that she was mad at him about last week. So I’d worked up the courage and asked.

Her response?

“Prom. As in dance. I uh—have to go somewhere. To Jacksonville. Yeah.”

I’d stared at her in disbelief. It was Seattle all over again.

“Can’t you go another weekend?” I’d asked.

“Non-refundable tickets!” she’d blurted out. “Sorry. Edward said that we have to use up the vouchers before they expire, so it’s this weekend or nothing.”

Double-sigh. The most desirable catch in school was not going to prom with me, but on a romantic beach trip with Edward Cullen. I grimaced, remembering his rude words from last year as I showed up at her house with a corsage the night of the prom. She’d promised, after all, and I’d expected to end our special evening with a kiss, and possibly a whole lot more.

“Hello, Tyler. This is Edward Cullen. I’m sorry if there’s been some kind of miscommunication but Bella is unavailable tonight. To be perfectly honest, she’ll be unavailable every night, as far as anyone besides myself is concerned. No offense. And I’m sorry about your evening.”

The words had shocked the living daylights out of me. When she couldn’t go to the Sadie Hawkins dance junior year, she’d promised to go to prom with me. Hadn’t she? Or did I we have some sort of a miscommunication there? She must have forgotten, with Cullen dripping all over her. Didn’t she realize that I’d been dreaming of ways to make the night special for her for months? Ever since the incident with the van, when I’d first taken notice of her, when I’d first realized how beautiful she was, I’d dreamed of holding her in my arms and never letting her go.

So much for that idea, I thought grimly. I picked gingerly at my sandwich, watching the object of my infatuation, whom I’d never really gotten over, chat animatedly with Alice; two seats down from me. They looked so similar to one another, with their slight frames, pale skin, and bright eyes. The way their eyes held each other’s secrets…it seemed more like they were sisters than best friends.

I sourly recalled the fact that not only Bella, but Alice had turned me down for prom this year. After Bella’s no-thank-you, I’d asked Alice, figuring that if I got close to Bella’s best friend, it might help me get close to the brunette herself. The plan backfired something fierce. That evening, I got eight phone calls from various aunts who’d wanted to know if it was really true that Alice Cullen had told me that she’d rather go to prom with “an incontinent, rabid, one-eyed possum named Larry.”

At least I get to see both of them in swimsuits today, I reminded myself, trying to cheer myself up. I grinned to myself. After a week of gym being replaced by study halls, due to Coach Clapp’s pelvic fracture, PE was back on. The principle hadn’t been able to find a substitute teacher…apparently the rumor was making its way around the subbing community that the class was cursed. The overweight gym teacher was having a difficult time walking, and an even more difficult time sitting, so he’d decided to forget about the track and field curriculum, which kept getting canceled for rain anyways, and teach class in the pool, where the buoyancy of the water would make it easier for him to get by.

I wonder what kind of swimsuit Bella brought… I let my eyes wander over her t-shirt and comfy-jean clad body and tried to imagine her in a bikini. The fantasy grew hotter as I imagined myself with her on some Florida beach, the sun streaming down on warm skin as we sunned ourselves. I imagined her curling up next to me...smiling…reaching for me. What a babe, I thought. I should keep trying. Maybe the concept of Tyella is not a lost cause. Tyella. Mmmm. I like the sound of it. Tyella, Tyella, Tyella. We could name one of our kids that someday.

Suddenly, without warning, I heard a huge crashing sound as something hit my chair. I felt a sharp splash of burning pain, as something hot and wet spread across the front of my shirt and the top of my pants.

“YEOWWWWWW!!!!” I screeched.

“Oh Tyler! I’m so terribly sorry!” Edward gasped. I looked down to see him sprawled on the floor, on his butt, looking stunned and slightly embarrassed. In his hands, he clutched a light green plastic lunch tray, on which there was, or rather, had been, a large bowl of steaming chili. The chili was now totally and completely covering most of my shirt and a good portion of my pants. Strangely enough, not one drop of the soup had gotten on him. There was a moment of silence, before the lunch table erupted in laughter. No one laughed louder than Alice, whose bell-like peals rang so loud that I was surprised that she didn’t shatter one of my contact lenses with her vibrato. For some reason though, Bella just rolled her eyes, giving Alice a look that said give me a break.

Edward ducked his head and scrambled to his feet in a move so smooth that it would’ve made Patrick Swayze jealous. He handed me a napkin that was way too small to clean up the mess. “I can’t believe that I did that!” he gushed. “My foot totally just slipped. How clumsy of me. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I lied, ignoring the throbbing pain of the bruise that was forming on my shin, and wiping the ground beef and kidney beans from my thighs. “I’m okay. Just wet and smelly.”

“Maybe you should go get changed into your gym clothes,” he suggested in an overly concerned, velvety voice.

“I didn’t bring anything other than my swimsuit and towel,” I muttered. Like I was going to parade around in swim trunks for the rest of the day.

“Wow…that’s rough,” Edward said with a frown, rubbing the back of his head. Though his tone was polite, I could have sworn that he was mocking me with his eyes. I looked close at his eyes and shuddered. They’d always given me the creeps.

From across the table, Bella gave him a withering look.

“Hey Ty,” Connor called, from four seats away, “Don’t worry about it. I have an extra change of clothes in my gym bag. They’re a little sweaty from the jog I did with Mike this morning, but it’s probably better than smelling like the lunch lady.” I gave him a wry grin. He grinned back, before shooting me a sympathetic look. We’d been commiserating together all morning over the fact that we’d been played like fools. Though neither of us had really been all that interested in more than the physical with Lauren, the fact that she’d cheated on both of us not only with each other but with Eric left us each feeling used and wronged.

“Thanks Connor,” I said lamely. “But lunch is half over anyways. No point in changing for just fifteen minutes. I suppose I’ll just have to deal with it till PE.”

“I really can’t express how sorry I am,” Edward reiterated, wiping at the chili on my shirt with a napkin he swiped from Ben Cheney, which only really succeeded in smearing the orangish-brown goo around. Though his expression was concerned, his eyes appeared to be somewhat amused. “I’m such a klutz sometimes!”

“Riiiiiiiiiiiight…and Eric and I are Olympic level athletes,” Bella muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” I asked her, not understanding.

“Nothing.”

For the rest of the lunch hour I listened miserably as Edward and Bella planned their trip to Florida, getting the distinct impression that Edward was trying to give off a subliminal back off…she’s mine message to any male within earshot. Surprisingly, Bella, who usually listened raptly to whatever Edward had to say, was extremely distracted. She barely seemed to hear a word he was saying. Instead, she kept glancing at Alice with curious eyes, as though waiting for Alice to reveal some important information to her.

Alice, however, kept talking to Jessica, asking for her input on whether a fog machine and laser projector were a good idea for the party or if they would seem over the top, since they had already ordered black lights. Jessica (who seemed stunned that Alice was actually talking to her) was enthusiastically in favor of the lasers.

The soup crept into my underwear, little by little, and with a start, I realized that the chili was hot in more ways than one.

“Did you add Tabasco sauce to your chili?” I whispered to Edward.

“Um…yeah. I like things hot.” He frowned. “Why? Are you okay?”

“I…er…gotta go…now,” I said abruptly, as the burn intensified. Jumping up, no longer able to tolerate the discomfort, I made a dash for the locker room, much to the astonishment of my peers.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could swear that I saw Edward Cullen shaking with laughter.

Once alone, I stripped out of my clothing as quickly as I could and jumped in the shower. The cold water provided instant relief from the burning sting. I rinsed out my clothes under the stream of water and scrubbed them with soap, hoping to get most of the chili out. With a sigh, I realized that the orange would never actually come out of my white t-shirt or khaki pants. There would forever be a blotch on my crotch. Irritated, I threw the entire outfit away. I liked those pants too, I thought. Had to go all the way to Seattle to buy them at The Gap. Oh well. At least Mike has something for me to change into.

By the time I got myself cleaned up and had donned my trunks and grabbed my goggles, the rest of the boys were getting changed for gym. I followed them out into the pool area. Once in the steamy, brown-tiled room, I smiled. All of my troubles disappeared and I remember exactly why I loved this part of the year.

Jessica Stanley was dressed in string bikini so skimpy that I wasn’t exactly sure how it stayed on. Her boobs were practically falling out of the hot-pink contraption. Mike smacked the back of my head has he passed, and I turned my eyes to some of the other eye-candy in the room. Man…these girls have sure grown up since freshman year…

Katie was also in a two-piece, with a halter top that left very little to the imagination. Alice Cullen was in some kind of a black triangle-top get up, and Morgan’s was a one-piece with the sides cut out and a tie in the back. A few had jumped in the water and discovered that it was too cold, so now they were standing on the deck shivering, suffering, to my delight, from severe cases of hard nipplitis.

Stop looking. Can’t get caught looking. I chided myself. I afforded myself one more peek before reluctantly averting my , I was a red-blooded, hormone-filled, eighteen-year-old guy. Sure I was visually oriented. And sure, as a popular jock, I’d dated my fair share of the girls in the room. But that didn’t mean that I was a leering fool. I’d always been known as a respectable sort of guy…a gentleman. No point in ruining that reputation three weeks before graduation. There were far too many people whose reputations were doing bizarre things lately and I didn’t want to join their ranks.

“Ahhh…welcome to paradise,” Connor said, elbowing me in the ribs. “This is as good as Christmas morning.”

I sighed. He was—without apology and without trying to hide his interest—wolf-whistling at every other girl who walked into the pool area. I ignored him, trying to remember the core values the Noble Valiant Boys. Honor. Chivalry. Respect. Bravery. Honor. Chivalry. Respect. Bravery.

“Check out those knockers!” Connor said, pointing at Whitney, who was walking self-consciously out of the women’s locker room. All the honorable thoughts disappeared as my eyes involuntarily peeked, and I gritted my teeth angrily. “It must be dark in here – the only place you’ll find more headlights is at the drive-in.” He resembled a dog hanging his head out a car window as he checked out every one of the shivering women.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you that staring is rude?” I asked Connor, exasperated.

“I’m just admiring the beauty of God’s creation,” he said with a shrug. “They’re easy on the eyes. Except that Bella’s suit is a disappointment. Man! It shows nothing.” I glanced up at the pretty brunette. Sure enough, she was dressed modestly, in a solid, royal blue tank. However, despite its modest design, it was the most of her skin I’d ever seen, and it made my blood run warmer.

“It’s no string bikini,” I admitted. “But it is nice to see her legs.” I tilted my head to the side, allowing my gaze to linger on her soft curves. Damn. That girl would look hot in just about anything. I wonder if she’s taking a real swimsuit to Florida with her.

Connor’s brow furrowed, as he analyzed her figure. “It may cover up too much of her body, but at least it’s v-cut.”

“True that,” I said, guiltily taking a closer look. The suit did provide a slight glimpse at some cleavage. I admired her body for the briefest second longer before glancing away. Out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn that Edward was glowering at me. Did he see me checking his girlfriend out? I wondered. How could he have? I only glanced at her for a second.

“Attention class!” Coach Clapp called loudly, from his spot in the shallow end, where he had his arms draped over a red life-saving buoy. “Everyone in the pool!”

“But it’s so cold!” Jessica complained. I coughed to cover up a laugh. Anyone who looked could see that she was cold.

“That’s why we’re going to warm up!” Coach Clapp said. “Everyone jump in. Five laps to warm up. Any stroke of your choice. When you’re finished, exit the pool and stand at the shallow end. If you get done early, cheer the rest of your classmates to the finish. Begin!” He blew his whistle, and with a splash, body after body entered the pool. The icy water hit my skin and immediately chilled me to the core. Why was it that cold water affected the girls so…alertly…but did the opposite to guys? I hiked up my suddenly roomy suit and began swimming as quickly as possible, trying to get myself warm. I was relieved to be in the water, away from Connor’s lewd comments. I’d much rather think my dirty thoughts to myself than to voice them and risk sounding like a prick. The lap time also allowed me a chance to check out the beauties in motion, through my goggles. Nice.

Connor, Mike, and I finished our laps first (it wasn’t our fault, being the biggest and the strongest) so we each stood at the edge together in a small huddle. Edward and Alice finished next, and came up behind us.

“Hi!” I said, giving a friendly at the tiny girl. “I like your swimsuit. It’s really pretty. We’re planning a La Push trip next weekend. You should come.” Get close to the friend…get close to the girl. To my dismay, she ignored me. She was staring off into space with a blank look on her face, acting like she hadn’t heard me at all. Well that’s rude. I was just trying to be nice. I sat on the edge of the pool so that I wouldn’t have to look at her, and dangled my feet over the edge, bored.

When the slowest swimmers, Bella Swan and Eric Yorkie—apparently his “Diamond in the Rough” skills didn’t sparkle in the pool—had exited the frigid waters, Coach Clapp blew his whistle, from his place in the shallow end, draped over his red buoy.

“Now that you’re all warmed up and ready for action, we can get started. Can anyone tell me the four main strokes used in swimming competitions?”

Angela raised her hand. I noticed that she was wearing a red one piece. Baywatch…nice. I’d seen the old reruns in syndication on TNT. Except that she’s too tall. Oh well. Still nice.

“Yes? Ms. Weber?”

“Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Butterfly,” she said confidently.

“That is correct!” Coach Clapp said with a smile. “Out of those four strokes, which one consumes the most energy?”

“Butterfly, sir,” Angela said confidently. Her usually soft voice carried as it bounced off of the ceramic tile that covered every square inch of the room. Of course she knew. Angela spent every summer teaching swim classes and life guarding at a camp for disabled children.

“That’s correct as well. Now, Ms. Weber, can you tell the class which stroke consumes the least energy? In other words, which stroke can be used as a lifesaving stroke?”

“The breaststroke,” Angela replied a little too loudly. At the words breast and stroke, Connor broke out into quiet laughter beside me. His immature chuckles set of a chain reaction, and before I knew what was happening, the entire class was cracking up. Angela looked mortified.

“I see a few breasts I’d like to stroke,” Connor whispered. He glanced to the where Bella Swan stood with her arms crossed, which, unfortunately for her and fortunately for Connor, pushed a certain part of her anatomy slightly up and slightly together. My eyes widened at how nice they looked, and I was tempted to let my eyes stay where they were, but I glanced away quickly, berating myself for not being able to control my thoughts. I glared at Connor, annoyed by his social inappropriateness. This was just plain immature. If his eyes were wandering that much, God only knew where his thoughts were going.

“Quit being a pervert,” I whispered to him.

“My God. The things I’d do with Bella if I could get her alone,” he whispered back, chuckling.

BANG! SPLOOSH!

Without warning, there was the sound of skin squeaking against wet tile, followed by a crashing sound. I looked down and saw that Connor was no longer standing next to me, but had somehow ended up in the middle of the pool. He surfaced, sputtering. Surprised, I saw that Edward was, for the second time today, next to me on his bottom, with a stunned and slightly embarrassed expression on his face. The females in the class were giggling uncontrollably.

“Man! I’m so uncoordinated today! My foot hit a wet patch and I slipped,” he explained...not quite apologetically...before jumping gracefully back to his feet. He didn't look uncoordinated in the least. “Gosh. I’m sorry Connor. I didn’t mean to knock you in.” The class sniggered. From directly behind me, Alice’s laughter was so musical that it was almost inhuman. Bella on the other hand sighed, burying her face in her hands. I’d be embarrassed too, if I was dating someone that clumsy, I thought. Man. Cullen is a klutz!

“Are you okay?” I asked Edward. As he stood up, I was shocked to see that some of the tile had cracked, where he landed. He must have some major bruising going on, I thought. He won’t be able to sit down for a week!

“Um…I’m fine!” he glanced at the floor mildly. “That tile must be really cheap. Weird.”

Conner moaned as he climbed out of the pool. There was a gigantic bruise forming on the back of his thigh. He must have banged himself up as he fell in.

“Ow…” he complained. He glared at Edward. “Watch where you’re slipping next time!” He rubbed his leg, but didn’t complain about it. A lesser man would probably have asked if he could leave class, but he kept his mouth shut. Connor had always been the “suffer in silence” type.

“Sorry,” Edward muttered sheepishly, but shifted so he was blocking Connor and my view of Bella. Alice’s grin was so wide that I wondered if her cheeks hurt.

Coach Clapp cleared his throat. “No more interruptions! We are not here to slip, trip, or knock each other around. We are here to swim. Is that understood?”

“Yes Coach Clapp,” the class mumbled.

“Now, because I am unable to do this stroke properly, due to my recent injury, I have recruited Emmett Cullen to help me teach this class. Emmett? Where are you?”

“Right here,” Emmett’s booming voice said. He strode out of the equipment closet, carrying a stack of kickboards. Several of the girls in the class gasped, while several of the guys stifled laughs.

Emmett was wearing a yellow Speedo.

Of course, laughing at a two-hundred and sixty pound mass of muscle covering a six-foot-five frame is probably not the world’s best idea. However, I had to admit that if anyone could pull off that fashion faux pas, it was probably Emmett.

“Why is it that Speedo makes the world’s most modest girl’s suits but the world’s most immodest guy’s suits?” Connor asked me in a low voice. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“They make suits that are practical for swimming in,” I retorted. “Shut your yap.”

“Hey Angela! I think you’re finally going to get to do that school newspaper story on Speedo padding on the swim team,” Jessica giggled. The tall girl ducked her head and winced in embarrassment when Emmett shook his head, as if denying Jessica’s accusation. How’d he hear that?

“Did you pack Emmett’s gym bag this morning?” Bella asked Alice suspiciously.

“Um…yeah. I thought it might be funny. And it is.” The petite girl giggled. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.” Bella surpressed a smile as her eyes wandering over her boyfriend for a moment. “You could have packed Edward’s too you know,” she said, blushing furiously.

“Never would have gotten away with it. He sees everything I see…remember?”

“And it’s a good thing too. Otherwise, I would have been the butt of far more pranks over the years,” Edward said, patting his sister on top of the head. “How can someone so tiny be so annoying?” Despite his sarcasm, and despite what sounded like a compliment from Beautiful Bella, he did look very relieved at the fact that he was not clad like his brother.

Emmett, not looking the least bit ashamed of his revealing swimsuit, jumped up onto the diving board and did a perfect double-somersault-pike-twist dive in to the water.

“Swoon,” Jessica breathed, in awe, her brown eyes growing wide. “Oh swoon!”

“I want one,” Ashley Beckman sighed.

“Show-off,” Mike muttered, glaring in Emmett’s direction.

“Brilliant game-master,” Eric sighed wistfully.

“Now, watch closely,” Coach Clapp said, as Emmett began to swim. “Many people do the breaststroke entirely wrong, and as a result, there isn’t enough force to propel the swimmers to the finish line.”

“I never had trouble finishing,” Connor snickered.

There was a good deal of inappropriate giggling at that comment, but Coach Clapp ignored it. “The biggest problem with the breaststroke is that people have a tendency to bring their hands all the way down to their sides. Emmett will demonstrate the wrong way to move your arms.” At that cue, Emmett’s arms moved fluidly and gracefully through the water, from above his head to down by his sides. The motion looked powerful. I didn’t see what was wrong with it.

“Looks fine to me,” Bella said, perplexed. “I don’t see what’s wrong with it.” Great minds think alike.

“Very fine,” Morgan said. She sounded like she was hyperventilating.

“Very fine indeed,” Jessica breathed in agreement. “Oh my wow. Can you say…whoa?”

“How about ‘glutes’?” Ashley sighed.

“Show-off,” Mike mumbled again.

“What Emmett is doing right now wastes a good deal of energy,” Coach Clapp explained. “Because this is a lifesaving stroke, you want to conserve as much energy as possible so that you can keep swimming for as long as it takes to make it to safety or to endure in a longer race. What you actually want to do is to keep your hands out in front of you, sculling the water with small, circular movements, like this,” he pulled his hands overhead and took them through the looping motions. “Watch Emmett do it.” The enormous, dark-haired alumnus began to move his hands swiftly through the water, and his pace quickly increased.. He was obviously well practiced.

“See? Much faster!” Coach Clapp said. “Do the motion with me!” He brought his hands together and up overhead, before bringing them down to the level of his chin, then bringing them back up again. It reminded me of the wax-on, wax-off from the old Karate Kid movies.

“Niiiiiiice…” Connor whispered to me, glancing towards Jessica, nudging me. The arm motions were causing a certain part of her anatomy to bounce. Mike shot him a dark look.

“The second mistake that people often do wrong when doing the breaststroke is that they spread their legs too far apart.” Coach Clapp said. I couldn’t help myself. I had to laugh at that one. The laughter was contagious. One by one, every student in the class began to crack up. Even Connor couldn’t top that line.

Again, Coach Clapp ignored us. “The correct technique is to bring your heels up to your butt, before kicking down and around. You’ll want to keep your knees as close together as possible.”

“I thought this was gym, not abstinence-based sex-ed,” Connor whispered to me. “Next he’ll have us putting condoms on bananas.” I shook my head, unable to stop myself from sniggering.

“Emmett, first demonstrate the right way to do this kick,” Coach Clapp said. Emmett did so. I frowned, unable to figure out exactly how he got his hips to rotate that much. Heels to the butt, heels-out, down and around. “Now Emmett, show them the wrong way to do it.” The second technique actually looked more comfortable to do, as his legs opened and closed like a pair of scissors. He looked mildly like a frog. “Kicking this way causes excess drag in the water. Don’t make the same mistake! Remember, you don’t want to exhaust your energy all at once. You’ll go faster if you do it wrong…at first, but it will make you too tired, and ultimately, you won’t last. You want to shoot through the water, straight and long, like a torpedo.”

The word straight and long caused another burst of immature laughter from the class.

“Come on Emmett! Show them! Straight and long!” Coach Clapp called.

“Please! Do show us!” Jessica whispered. Mike looked annoyed.

Emmett corrected his stroke, and began swimming properly, taking one deep breath with every stroke. Strangely enough, even through he kept bobbing his head up each time his arms sculled, he didn’t seem to be taking much of a breath. Huh. I wondered how he’d gotten so good at swimming. He hadn’t been on Forks swim team, and at Dartmouth, according to what Coach Clapp had said during the last gym class, when we did the discus throw, he was in track and field. I wondered how he avoided sinking like a rock, since he was solid muscle, with no fat to help him stay buoyant.

“All right everyone! Into the pool! Let’s get started! Now that you know how to do it properly, we’re going to practice. Faster swimmers, get into the far right hand lane. Slower swimmers, get into the far left hand. Medium swimmers in the middle. If you’re somewhere between fast and medium or slow and medium, get in one of the other two lanes, slow on the right, fast on the left.” The class sorted themselves. Eric, strangely enough, after all his displays of strength the previous week, put himself in the far right and smiled at Bella. Looking as though she was one of the few girls in the class who was not infatuated with Eric Yorkie, she chose the middle lane. Edward stayed with her. Not wanting to look overconfident by choosing the land on the far left, I chose the lane between the middle and the left. Connor and Mike, on the other hand, went to the far left.

“Begin!” Coach Clapp called. I pulled my goggles down over my eyes and jumped into the water.

Swimming was easy for me. Just another form of cardio. Forks Middle School used to have open swim every summer, and since it essentially equaled free baby-sitting, Mike, Eric, Connor, and I used to swim every afternoon. All summer long, while our moms got together to drink tea or crochet or do whatever it is that moms do when they get together, we were at the pool. I liked being in the water. It felt natural. Like I was a fish.

I glanced through my goggles, and under the water, saw Bella Swan swimming in the neighboring lane. Knowing that no one would see me do it, I checked her out as she passed me. Nice. Her body was so slender and willowy that it captured my attention in an instant. I appreciated the fact that didn’t have that overdeveloped athletic look that so many girls worked so hard to achieve. Instead, there was something natural about her soft curves and slim lines.

I wouldn’t mind seeing this again, I thought to myself. I wonder if I can convince her to go to La Push with us next week. I’ll let her know that it will be sunny, so she should bring something she could tan in. Maybe she has a “sunning” swimsuit that shows more than this darn thing. The “beach with Bella” fantasy returned and I found myself swimming on autopilot, lost in the idea that one of these days, she’d just have to come to her senses and dump Edward Cullen.

She’s so beautiful…she could be mine.

WHACK

Suddenly, something hard hit my head with such intensity that it felt like I’d swum full speed, head first, into a brick wall. I felt the impact first, then a rush of pain. What’s happening to me? I wondered. I felt my body sinking…sinking…and then everything went black.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

The next thing I knew, I felt a pair of soft lips pressed against mine. I felt someone blowing air into my lungs. It was the oddest sensation.

“He’s still not breathing on his own!” Angela said, in a panicked voice above me. I felt a pair of icy cold hands on my chest, and then a crushing pressure against my ribs.

“One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twenty-one-twenty-two-twenty-three-twenty-four-twenty-five-twenty-six-twenty-seven-twenty-eight-twenty-nine-thirty!” A deep voice counted, and I felt the compressions as something squashed my ribs, flattening my spine against the cold, hard tile over and over.

Angela’s lips met mine once again, and I felt the air from her lungs entering mine. The sensation of air going down my throat made me choke, and I quickly sat up, coughing violently.

“He’s okay!” Angela said, relieved. I sputtered, drawing in deep, choking breaths, which expelled a mouthful of water from my lungs. The coughing hurt my ribs.

“Ow,” I said, rubbing my sternum. It felt like it’d been run over by a cement truck. “What the heck?” I looked up to see Emmett and Angela staring down at me with concern in their eyes. The rest of the class was gathered around, murmuring, except for Edward, who was sitting up on the bleachers, holding an ice pack to his head. He was surrounded by a group of girls who all looked very concerned about him, much to Bella’s dislike.

“Ungh…what happened?” I asked blearily.

“You and Edward collided,” Angela explained softly. You were each swimming too close to the center of your lane…so when you should have passed each other, you banged skulls instead. He complained of nothing but a bruise on his head when he came out, but you lost consciousness. Emmett pulled you out. You weren’t breathing.”

“I started rescue breathing,” Emmett explained, staring at my neck with an odd expression on his face, as if trying to see if my pulse was still going. I realized his eyes were as weird as Edward’s and shivered. “But…uh…was having a hard time with it. Cause…well…you know…well…”

“Wait…you…did mouth-to-mouth on me?” I said, horrified. Several girls giggled. Great. Just great. Before noon tomorrow, all eight of my aunts are going to be talking about how I kissed Emmett Cullen. Ugh.

“Well, I started to, but then it was weird, cause…” Emmett swallowed hard. Edward was smirking from his place on the bleachers as he moved the ice pack to a different part of his head.

“Mouth-to-mouth can be really weird if you’ve never had to do it before,” Angela offered in a sympathetic tone. “Especially on someone of the same gender. It was uncomfortable for me the first few times I did it, but I got over it, knowing that it was to save lives.”

“Oh! Yes! That’s it! That’s totally it!” Emmett said, nodding vigorously. “I mean…not to sound homophobic or anything…but you know.” He shrugged.

“No offense taken,” I said, grateful that I’d been unconscious for whatever contact had occurred between me and the ginormous swimmer/track and field star/whatever. Swapping spit with a dude. Sick. I wiped my mouth as if it were covered in poison.

“Emmett Cullen can do mouth-to-mouth on me any time,” some girl said in a low voice behind me, which was followed by some muted giggles and murmurs of assent.

“Anyways, I saw that Emmett looked uncomfortable with the rescue breathing, so I told him to do the chest compressions while I did the mouth-to-mouth,” Angela said, checking me over, frowning at the bruises that were starting to form on my chest. “Research shows that two-man CPR has a better survival rate than one-man.”

“You look like you’re going to be fine now,” Coach Clapp said to me in a relieved voice. “For a second, I thought we might lose you.”

“I think you need to go to the ER though,” Angela said in a worried voice. “You may have a concussion.”

“Shouldn’t Edward go to the ER too?” Bella asked pointedly, in a cross voice. “He could just as easily have a concussion.”

“Naw. I’m fine,” Edward said, standing quickly and tossing the ice pack aside. “No concussion here. Just a little bump.”

“I think I’m fine too, my ribs hurt more than my head,” I said, jumping to my feet as well. What a weird day. But as I straightened up, I felt my vision speckle and tunnel in, and for the second time that day, blackness took over.

The next thing I knew, I found myself in a strange, semi-conscious state, unable to tell what was reality and what were dreams. I heard the faint sounds of voices speaking around me, but it sounded like I was underwater. Was I back in the pool? There was a pricking on the back of my hand. My head was swimming, and I found myself unwilling to open my eyelids.

Where am I? I wondered. I tried very hard, through the fuzziness, to identify the voices around me. With difficulty, I was able to make one out.

“—Should have known better than to attempt mouth-to-mouth on a human! What were you thinking Emmett? How could that possibly have been a responsible idea?” I recognized the voice: Dr. Cullen. He’d spoken at our school before on various occasions, and his musical, harmonious voice was hard to forget. Am I in the hospital? I wondered.

“I’m sorry! I totally thought I’d be able to do it,” Emmett’s voice said helplessly. “I wanted to be strong enough to do it! But then, when I saw that he had no pulse…it got me thinking about blood. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about blood. And the thought of blood was driving me crazy!” Huh. Emmett is afraid of blood. I thought to myself. He didn’t want to do mouth to mouth, and maybe it was because he was afraid that I’d cough up blood. That would have been gross. But why would he have tried to make up the fact that he was homophobic before if it was really because he as an aversion to blood? Nothing wrong with being squeamish around injured people...but why would you lie about something like that? I imagined Emmett fainting at the sight of blood. Man...he's huge. If anyone could crack the tile by falling on it, it would be him.Suddenly I wondered if Emmett was gay. Okay…that’s just really creepy.

“You could have killed him! In front of everyone!” Dr. Cullen said in an anxious voice. “Do you know what that would have done to our family?” This is strange. Emmett was only trying to save my life. Just because he’s not as accomplished lifeguard as Angela is no reason to treat him like a murderer…

“Why are you yelling at me?” Emmett said defensively. “At least I was trying to preserve human life. Edward was the one who kept slipping, tripping, and having klutzy accidents all day long!”

“Edward!” Dr. Cullen said, shocked. Well that’s just rude, I thought. Yelling at your kid because he’s not graceful. Bella took a spill now and then – it was actually kind of cute.

“It’s not my fault that I kept getting distracted,” Edward growled. “Those boorish, brainless, human dolts kept thinking inappropriate things about my future wife!”

Huh? My thoughts suddenly grew clearer and I listened with keen interest.

“But I thought Bella turned down your marriage proposal…” Emmett countered.

Huh???

“Yeah, but Alice is positive that she’ll change her mind. In fact, she was so sure of it that she already booked Pastor Weber to do the wedding in August.”

HUH?!?!?! None of this made any sense. What in the world?

“Alice is almost as presumptuous as you’re overprotective and ridiculous!” Emmett said through gritted teeth. “You could have killed him with that collision of yours!”

Okay…this really doesn’t make sense.

“Guys shouldn’t be oogling at Bella like she’s something to eat,” Edward said emphatically.

“I find the fact that you are saying that statement very ironic,” Emmett said, amused.

“She’s an eternal being who deserves love and respect.”

“Eternal? Eh? So you’ve given in then?” Emmett sounded triumphant.

“Well…no. But we’re trying to work out a compromise…”

Could there be trouble between them? My mind drifted to a sunny beach, but every time I tried to imagine Bella in a bikini, my head ached.

“Enough you two! Emmett…you’re going to tell Coach Clapp that you’ve gotten all the volunteer hours you need for your college program. Edward, I am writing a note to the principle excusing you and Alice from gym for the rest of the year due to medical problems!” Dr. Cullen said. “Her ‘asthma’ and your ‘concussion’ are going to be perfect excuses to get both of you out of the semester early. I can’t have any more sprained ankles or broken windshields or ruptured spleens or concussions! This is beyond ridiculous!”

“But Dad! I have to stay in gym! What if something happens to Bella and I’m not there to protect her? Don’t you get how anxious I get when I’m away from her? Humans are so fragile! Just look at how many of them have been injured this week!”

The music in Dr. Cullen’s voice turned dark. “Every incident in gym has been caused by you and Alice! You’re the ones she needs protection from!”

This conversation is so weird, I thought to myself. Am I still dreaming? Did I just hear that Edward proposed to Bella and she said no but Alice already is planning the wedding? They’re not even out of high school yet! And Emmett’s afraid of something? I have to be dreaming.

“I’m not dropping out, Dad. Something terrible must be about to happen tomorrow. Alice said that the entire gym hour was blacked out of her vision! She couldn't see a thing about tomorrow's class! She—oh crud. I wasn’t paying attention. He’s coming to….we’ve got damage control to do unless we want to end up as ash.”

Ashes? I wondered, spinning into consciousness.

“Tyler? Are you awake?” A soft voice said, as a cold hand shook my shoulder. I felt my eyes open and looked around, disoriented. I blinked twice. Dr. Cullen was standing over me. Edward and Emmett were nowhere to be seen.

“Were Emmett and Edward just here?” I asked stupidly.

“Um…no.” Dr. Cullen gave me a worried look with his eyes that were just as creepy as Emmett’s. “They haven’t been up to see you at all today. Why do you ask?”

“I just heard their voices!” I insisted, but the details of their conversation had already started to fade. “They were talking about the weirdest things…”

Dr. Cullen gave me a look like I was crazy, and shook his head. “No Tyler. You’ve been alone and unconscious here for the last two hours. You hit your head really hard in gym. You have a concussion, and you were in a lot of pain, so we had to give you some Vicodin. You’re probably feeling pretty loopy.”

“I didn’t know Vicodin was a hallucinogenic,” I said, letting my head sink back into the lumpy hospital pillow.

“Everyone responds differently,” Dr. Cullen said with a nonchalant shrug. “Your x-rays showed that your skull is still intact, though Emmett cracked your ribs when he was doing CPR. We’ve had you on a few different pain killers. You could be reacting strongly to one or more of them.”

“I have broken ribs?” I asked weakly.

“Just three. That happens all the time with CPR,” he said quickly.

“Oh. When will I get to go home?”

“I’m going to keep you here overnight for observation,” Dr. Cullen said, and a rush of déjà vu swept through me, and flashbacks to the day I almost killed Bella Swan rushed through my mind. “The CT scan showed no sign of bleeding on the brain, but he fact that you blacked out for so long was concerning. How do you feel now?”

“Weird,” I admitted, with a laugh. “I can’t believe that I was dreaming about Edward proposing to Bella. How far out is that?”

Dr. Cullen reached for my arm and gave me a shot of something. “Sleep now,” he said softly. “In the morning you won’t be able to remember anything.”

“Um…okay,” I mumbled, feeling my consciousness slip away as the drug began to take effect. My head felt very heavy, and it became very hard to think. I stared at the pale doctor and blurted out the first thing I could think of.

“Dr. Cullen, you shouldn’t wear that much Max Factor Pancake foundation makeup with pink lipstick. It looks pretty bad on you. And you’re using way too much hair gel. It’s just not flattering. I thought you ought to know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said in a slightly amused voice.

“All right doc. Good bye. Thanks for all the fish.” I was starting to feel very sleepy. Very very sleepy.

“Rest well, Tyler. Rest well,” Dr. Cullen said.

Angela Runs Cross Country

“How much is this gift card for?” I asked, interrupted by the Here Comes the Bride door chime as we walked into tuxedo shop.

“A hundred and fifty bucks. That should be plenty; we should be in and out of here in about ten minutes,” Ben said with a grin.

This time last year, Ben had escorted me to the Prom in dress pants, a white shirt, and a thin black tie. Simple, but handsome. Much nicer than the baggy dark blue jeans with a hole in the knee, blue baseball cap, and black Trogdor the Burninator t-shirt that he wore now. He still looked cute. Nerdy, but cute.

From the moment we walked into Western Tuxedo however, the attentive, gray-haired salesman bombarded Ben with questions about cummerbunds, vests, pocket handkerchiefs, top-hats, suspenders, cuff-links, etc, etc, etc.

“I just want a normal tuxedo,” Ben explained warily, shifting his weight back and forth like he always did when he was out of his element, looking a bit like a buoy, bobbing in the waves in the ocean. “You know…black pants. Black jacket. White shirt. A tie.” I stifled a laugh. He was trying to recreate last year’s outfit. Why can’t girls get away with wearing the same thing two years in a row? I wondered.

We’d just spent two hours at the only major department store in Port Angeles while I tried on dress after dress looking for something new and stylish for the Prom. Ben hadn’t been much help. He’d had his nose stuck in a comic book the whole time.

When I pressed him on one dress that I really liked, he’d rubbed his hand through his hair sheepishly. “To be honest, Ang, you kinda look like a Shadowhunter bride whose skirt got attacked by a Ravener demon halfway through her wedding.” He cringed, peering over the top of his glasses, which had slid down to the end of his nose. The round, wire-rim spectacles made his brown, almond-shaped eyes look twice their size and twice as beautiful.

It was hard to be mad at him when he looked at me like that.

I’d settled on the classic ‘little black dress,’ happy that I had the money to cover it and the shoes. The bizarre prom court gift from the Pacific Northwest Trust had included a gift certificate for everything except a prom dress. I'd considered going to GoodWill, and looking for something used, when the funds had serendipitously come in.

“What color do you want the tie? Is it a bow tie or a straight tie? Do you want a matching vest?” the over-zealous salesman asked with the enthusiasm of chipmunk on espresso.

“Um..black for the tie. And…straight, I think. And whatever with the vest.”

“Tails on the jacket or straight bottomed? Three buttoned jacket or two? And what sort of material would you like? Silky? Matte?”

“Actually, what I’d really like is a velvet, powder-blue number, with bell-bottoms. Preferably with a ruffled pink shirt,” he said in a very serious voice.

The salesman’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree about to trip a circuit breaker.

“I have one of those!” he said excitedly. “I knew they’d make a comeback! Is that what you really want?”

Ben was cracking up. “Dude. I don’t care.”

“Thank you sir. I’ll meet you in the third dressing room in five minutes with some options, including the blue suit. Have a look around in the meantime, and if you see anything that strikes your fancy, pick it up. I’ll find it for you in your size.”

We wandered past a row of yellow, purple, and green zoot suits, which were apparently all the rage with the swing-dancing crowd, followed by a row of pure white tuxes, which my dad had told me were very popular with African American men (the color would have looked terrible against Ben’s golden skin). We came to the dressing room without seeing anything of real interest.

There were three tuxes in the dressing room already, waiting for Ben, including the ridiculous power-blue number.

“I’ll be right back!” Ben said, ducking into the curtained cubicle.

I figured that while I was waiting for him, I might as well take a look around, to see if there was anything I wanted to add to his dressing rack, so I wandered through the less silly sections, and tried to find something nice. Since I was going to be in a classy little black dress, anything that wasn’t powder blue would work. Suddenly, I stopped, when I heard a beautiful voice.

“This is positively asinine, sis. I look like a carved penguin.” The guy’s voice was soft yet sharp, like a silk wrapped knife. The voice came from the other side of the rack I was wandering past. I stopped, fingering a gorgeous tux that looked like it was straight out of a James Bond movie, telling myself I was shopping. Truthfully, I was eavesdropping. The voice was familiar, and frankly, heavenly.

“But penguins are in!” an exasperated female voice said.

“Oh really?” the male voice said, in a tone that said You've got to be kidding me. “Where? Antarctica?”

The girl sighed. “Okay. So maybe penguins aren’t ‘in’ yet. But they will be all the rage in the next couple of years. See, they’re making this documentary called March of the Penguins, that’s going to come out next year. It’s going to make penguins very popular, you’ll see. They’ll be everywhere. Stuffed animals...key chains...coffee mugs...animated kids films with strong environmentalist messages and Brittney Murphy singing cover songs from Queen... ”

Penguins? Ick.

“You’ve got be kidding. Will they be on the menu, too?” the first voice asked pointedly.

The female voice had an audible note of confusion in it. “Menu? What the heck?”

“Bella suggested that we move to Antarctica, to avoid any messy mistakes when she’s going those red-eyed sleepless nights. But whatever. Admit it…I look ridiculous in this thing.”

Bella? I recognized the two voices in that instant, with a start. It’s Alice and Edward Cullen. At school they usually speak in such careful, reserved, polite tones. Here, they’re teasing one another playfully—totally at ease. What was all that about living in Antarctica? Huh?

“Nonsense. You look fantabuliscious and you know it.”

“Not as gorgeous as the bride is going to look…we’ve both seen how she looks in that dress…vibrant…heartbreakingly beautiful…alive.” Edward spoke again, his voice thick as wool, sweet as honey, a study in contrasts. It was filled with sadness and happiness; hope and dread; triumph and defeat.

Bride?

Alice shrieked, and the distinctive sound of leather hitting silk hinted that she was whacking Edward with her purse. “You weren’t supposed to peek! Darn it all! I’m going to have to get the dress redesigned and come up with a new hairstyle! Darn it! Why do guys always have to peek? You know it’s bad luck.”

Bad luck? I must have missed something.

“Darn it? Don’t you mean ‘damn it’?” Edward asked sardonically.

“I gave up swearing for Lent two months ago and never picked it back up again.”

He turned incredulous. “Since when do you celebrate Lent? I thought Carlisle was the only one in the family who did that.”

“Since I found out about the fantastic Friday Fish Fries at Saint Mary’s Cathedral, of course,” she said in a half-serious tone.

Edward groaned. “Since when to we ‘vegetarians’ eat fried fish? Give me a break.”

I never knew they were vegetarians. That would explain why they never eat the cafeteria food.

A low hissing replaced their conversation, and I felt guilty for eavesdropping. I stepped out from behind the rack of clothes and found their eyes fixed on me, as if they’d been expecting me. Both were standing entirely still.

Edward was dressed to the nines in shiny patent leather shoes, silky black pants with a strip of glossy material running down the outside edge of each leg. He was wearing a coat with tails that would have made Ben look very silly, but on him it was stunning. A black bow tie smartly finished the look. The tux looked as though it were lifted from another era. The nineteen-twenties perhaps?

“Um…hi,” I said, waving to the two of them. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I didn’t see you come in,” Alice said at exactly the same time as Edward said, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“What are you getting a tux for?” I asked curiously. “Did you change your mind about going to prom?” Bella had told me that they’d been planning on skipping prom to see her mom in Florida, and that the tickets were non-refundable.

“No,” Edward said, after a long moment of standing frozen, like a deer in the headlights. “Um…we’re still going to Florida.”

I frowned. “Then what’s up with the tux?”

There was an extended pause, during which Edward and Alice went as still as statues.

“I’m sorry, it’s really none of my business,” I mumbled, feeling awkward. I noticed a bit of lint on Edward’s sleeve, and he immediately flicked it away. “Just so you know, you do look great, Edward.”

Finally, Edward swallowed and spoke again.

“I’m standing up in a wedding in August,” he said smoothly, apparently recovering whatever it was that had surprised him before.

“So am I!” Alice said brightly. “I’m going to be the maid of honor!”

“Let me guess…Emmett and Rosalie are getting married?” I couldn’t think of anyone else in Forks who could be considering marriage. Edward and Alice glanced at each other.

“I um…we…we’re not actually supposed to say anything about it for another three weeks,” Edward said uncomfortably.

“It’s all very top-secret,” Alice murmured.

“Please, don’t mention it to a soul,” Edward pleaded.

“Uh…okay, I guess,” I said in a mildly confused voice. “Three weeks, Huh.” All of the sudden, it clicked, and I gasped, eyes narrowing at Edward. “Wait a minute. Is this the August wedding that my dad’s doing?” He’d given me the two hundred dollars that the couple had paid in advance to buy my dress for Prom. The payment had come at the most perfect timing.

“Um…yeah,” Edward said, a little lamely.

“He wouldn’t breathe a word to me about who it was! Wow! I can’t believe Emmett and Rose are tying the knot! They’re both so young.”

Alice surpressed a smile. “Yeah. But you know what they say…you only live once.”

“And Rose and Emmett know they’ll only get to get married once,” Edward added, nodding vigorously.

“And life is so short and fragile,” Alice added, looking amused.

“So, surely, they must make every day count. I mean…it’s not like they’ve got all of eternity or anything.” Edward said, laughing.

My head bobbed between them like I was watching a ping pong match. “But…” I was confused. “What about college?”

“People can go to college while married,” Edward said sharply, suddenly defensive. “Dartmouth has married housing.”

“Finances?” I asked in a small voice.

“They’ll scrape by. Sure, they’ll struggle financially, but all young newlyweds do,” Alice assured me, with a wave of her hand.

Gosh, I wonder if they’re planning kids…could she be pregnant? I wondered.

“Luckily, they aren’t planning on having kids any time soon,” Edward said lightly with a shrug.

“In fact, they’re on a very good birth control plan,” Alice interjected, grinning.

My mouth fell open when they answered my unspoken question, but I was saved from my embarrassment by a voice behind me.

“Heya Angela! Whatcha think of this?” Ben called, from behind me. He walked forward, wearing what looked like a charcoal gray suit. It looked nice, more dressed up than I was used to seeing him. However, next to Edward’s bow tie and tails, he looked positively casual.

“It’s…okay,” I said in a voice that plainly said that it didn’t really do anything for me.

“Drat. I was hoping we’d be able to get the first one I tried on and get out of here.”

“Go try something dressier,” I suggested.

“All right.”

When I turned my attention back to the Cullens, I was surprised to see that Edward had disappeared, leaving Alice standing there alone.

“He went to change,” she said, jabbing a thumb towards the men’s dressing room. Her eyes had gone distant and she looked worried, distracted…impatient even.

“Oh.”

“We’ve gotta get going,” she said in a dark voice, her mood abruptly sullen. She stared out the window. “It’s getting dark fast. Pretty soon I won’t be able to see a thing.”

“I thought that’s why they put headlights on cars,” I laughed. I never would have dreamed of Alice or Edward being afraid of driving in the dark.

“Never mind,” she said, before becoming very quiet, and suddenly standing a little too still.

“What’s up with all the secrecy?” I asked trying to break her out of her weird funk. “I mean, sure, people getting married at nineteen isn’t all that common any more, but it’s not like they’re still in high school or anything.”

Alice didn’t answer, but just kept staring out the window, as if all her hopes, dreams, and plans for the future had been stolen away, with a dejected expression of intense loss.

Presently, Edward reappeared, dressed in dark blue jeans and a white button-up shirt. Expressionless, he nodded toward Alice and joined her side.

“Farewell Angela,” he said to me softly. He leaned closer to me, his dark gold eyes luminous. We were almost exactly the same height, and our eyes were only inches apart. His cologne was exquisite. I wondered where he’d bought it, and if it’d smell as good on Ben.

“Later,” I whispered, suddenly a bit afraid, though I didn’t know why. I felt my pulse racing.

“Please don’t tell anyone…especially not Bella…okay?” he said with a soft, pleasant pleading.

“Sure,” I said, finding it very difficult to breathe. He’s standing too close! I instinctively took a step back. He nodded once, as if approving, staring at me with a peculiar intensity.

“Ta-da!” Ben yelled from behind, jerking me away from Edward’s unnerving gaze. I whirled around to see him dressed in the powder blue, bell-bottomed, high-waisted velvet suit. The pink ruffles of the shirt made him look like an extra from That 70’s Show. The awkward silence hanging between Edward, Alice, and me disappeared, as they burst out laughing; Edward’s laugh deep and mirthful, Alice’s pealing like a church bell.

“That suit!” Alice gasped, cracking up. “Edward! Do you remember…”

“Eleazar’s wedding,” Edward said between chuckles. “Of course! I swear--all the groomsmen wore those and thought they were so cool. You told them that they’d look back on those pictures one day and cringe.”

“They didn’t believe me, of course,” Alice said smugly.

“What are you guys talking about?” Ben asked, strutting his stuff and pretending to be cool in front of the mirror.

“Sorry,” Edward said, as if he realized that it is, of course, quite rude to share inside jokes in front of people who aren’t in the know. “Alice and I have this older cousin, up in Alaska. A few um…years…ago, he got married and made all his groomsmen wear that exact outfit. Alice tried to point out how silly the idea was, but they all thought they looked great.”

“You’re kidding me,” I said, looking at the revolting suit as though it were a piece of moldy cheese. “People voluntarily wore that? And not as a joke?”

“I kid you not,” Alice said, grinning. “Even the bride thought those suits were hot.”

“Your relatives have very odd tastes in clothing,” I commented in as neutral of a voice as I could manage.

“They live in a very isolated part of Alaska,” Edward said, as if that excused poor fashion. “They’re not into much besides hunting.”

“Do they fish?” I asked. Dad had taken me fishing in Alaska twice when I was a kid. It'd been fun.

“No,” Edward said, looking very amused at the idea of his backwoods cousins fishing. “They’re vegetarians.”

I stared at him, but then decided to leave the subject of his herbivorous, hick, hunting relatives alone.

“So I take it this isn’t the one?” Ben said, a mock pout on his face, splaying his hands out across the velvet material.

“It’s…different,” I said, mimicking the same thing he’d said when I’d been choosing my dress. I put quote marks in the air with my fingers as I said the word ‘different.’

“Hey! ‘Different’, ‘interesting’, and ‘unexpected’ are all appropriate, neutral adjectives that managed to accurately describe your hideous prom dress choices without insulting them. Of course, those words also could accurately describe the Star Wars Holiday Special, and that was, as everyone knows, embarrassingly awful.” He made a face. “Half that movie was in Wookese, and there weren’t even subtitles.”

“My dress has nothing to do with Star Wars,” I sputtered, rolling my eyes. I had no idea what the Holiday Special was and hoped to remain in the dark.

“Everything in life has something to do with Star Wars,” Edward said, matter-of-factly, to Ben's delight. Ben held his hand out, and Edward gave him a fist bump. Ben promptly winced shook his hand like it hurt. Serves him right.

“Too bad you don’t have the matching platform shoes,” I said. “Then I could have gotten the heels I’d wanted.”

"Right...and towered right over me, Ang. We would’ve looked like Fezzik and Vizzini next to each other. You would’ve used me as an armrest.”

“I’d never do that,” I insisted, not bothering to ask which Star Wars characters Fezzik and Vizzini were.

“We need to go,” Edward said suddenly, glancing up at the door with a concerned look on his face.

“Definitely,” Alice agreed, seeming to remember that she was worried about something before. “It’s gotten really dark out. Try the Armani, Ben,” she said on her way out. “I think Angela will like it.”

“Take care Ben…Angela,” Edward said, nodding to each of us. “And good luck with Prom.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly, staring after them as they whisked out the door, graceful as the wind. The door’s bell chimed as it shut behind them. A few minutes later, we saw the Volvo pull away at about a hundred miles an hour.

“You know…they’re kinda…well…weird,” Ben said to me, the moment they were gone.

I glanced over at him, eyeing his powder blue suit critically. “You know what my dad always says in his sermons about taking the plank out of your own eye before picking the speck out of someone else’s?

He laughed, pirouetting around in the idiotic outfit. “Touché. I’ll change.”

As Ben turned to head to the dressing rooms, I noticed two extremely tall, dark, and handsome men enter the shop. They looked very much alike, like brothers, and vaguely familiar. I tried to remember where I’d met them before. They sauntered up to the counter, where the salesman was standing.

“Hello,” said the first man. He sniffed the air, and then made a disgusted face. “Man it stinks in here. Smells like Ben-Gay.”

“I don’t smell anything,” the salesman said, perplexed. I inhaled deeply through my nose. The store smelled fine.

“Doesn’t matter,” the man said, shrugging. “Anyways, my name is Sam Uley. I bought my suit for my wedding here, and was wondering if the alterations are done.”

I suddenly placed the groom’s companion. That’s Bella’s friend Jake from the Indian reservation, I realized. The one we were supposed to go out with the day Ben and I had the flu!

“My goodness! You two are tall!” The salesman breathed. I groaned.

“Uh…yep,” Sam said, looking mildly embarrassed that the clerk was stating the obvious.

“I mean…you guys are really tall!”

“We know,” Jake said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like we never figured it out.”

“You guys are two tall glasses of water, aren’t you?”

“I guess we are,” Sam said. He started fidgeting with his car keys impatiently.

“How tall are you?” the salesman asked, amazed.

“Jake is six-foot-seven, and I’m six-foot-eight,” Sam said in a frustrated voice, glancing behind the counter. “Can I get my suit?”

“How did you get so tall?” I stifled a smirk. If only I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me!

“We drank milk when we were kids,” Jake said wearily, agitated now. “Look. We’re kinda in a hurry, so…”

“Do you play basketball?” the salesman asked suddenly.

“No! God! I hate basketball! Why does everyone ask us that?” Jake grumbled.

“I bet you kids could get some great college scholarships of you tried out for Division One!”

“No. We’re only into running,” Sam said, frustrated.

“Running is part of basketball,” the salesman said hopefully.

“My TUX, please!” Sam growled, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

The salesman’s eyes bugged. “Right away sir,” he muttered, disappearing into the back room with Sam, leaving Jake half-amused, half-irritated at the counter.

“I get that too, you know,” I commented. Startled, he glanced over at me, his eyes narrowing, trying to place where he’d met me before. I continued. “I’m terrible at basketball. I’m better at photography, swimming, and working with kids. Yet everyone assumes that just because I’m tall, I should play basketball…or at least volleyball.”

There was something inviting and warm about Jake’s dark eyes. They made me want to give him a hug. “Do I know you from somewhere?” he blurted out. “Wait, you’re Bella’s friend…from that day at the beach?”

I stuck out my hand, giving him a friendly smile. “Angela Weber. Nice to meet you again.”

He shook it firmly, with just enough pressure. “Jacob Black. My pleasure.” His hand was unusually hot…burning, as though he had a fever. I pulled mine away quickly.

“Have you seen Bella much lately?” I asked. “For the last couple of months, every time I tried to get together with her it seemed like she had plans with you. Now she’s grounded, and I never see her outside of school.”

“Grounded. Yeah. Whatever. More like her time’s been monopolized by her possessive boyfriend.” A pained look crossed his face, which turned into a scowl. “No point in trying now. She spends every second of every day with him.”

I nodded knowingly, and was glad that Edward and Alice had left before Jake showed up. This could have been awkward if Bella’s rival love interests had run into each other here.

“She must miss you,” I said sympathetically. “I know you two got really close over the last couple of months.”

Jake grunted.

“She told me that you don’t return her phone calls, and that it makes her sad,” I offered. This was true. Bella had mentioned it to me one time, when Edward was out of town on a camping trip with his parents one sunny Friday afternoon.

“Really?” his eyes lighted, and he looked a little hopeful.

I nodded. "You should try to see her as soon as you can. I think she'd be glad of it."

"Wow," Jake said pensively. I suddenly felt shy and a little embarrassed. I didn’t know what else to say to him. Jake didn’t have anything to say either. We stood there in silence for another minute.

“Okay Ang! Third time’s a charm!” Ben said, as he strolled into the lobby area. My breath caught in my throat. He was wearing one of those tuxes that were popular in the nineties, complete with tails, black cummerbund, and a bow tie. Sharp pleats framed the buttons of his shirt, and when he put his hands in his pockets, his jacket opened, revealing a black pair of suspenders.

“Very nice,” I said, oogling a little.

“It does look very classy,” Jake agreed.

“Whether it’s the best or not, I’m tired of shopping, so let’s get out of here,” Ben said. He glanced at his watch. “I want to make it home by seven. Eric and Austin wanted to play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit.”

“Meh, Lord of the Rings,” Jake said with a snort.

“What?” Ben squawked, visibly upset that Jake didn’t worship the ground that Hobbits walked on.

“The second movie was so fake,” Jake continued. “Those giant wolves looked all wrong. Their faces were all squished and their tails looked kinda stubby. If I were a giant wolf, it’d piss me off if people thought I was that ugly.”

“They did look a little off from the way I imagined them from the book,” Ben allowed. “But that’s no reason to hate the movie. I mean…the action and the stunts were amazing!”

“I love you Ben,” I said, grinning, putting my arm around him. “Even if you are a bit of a nerd.”

_______________________________________________________________________

The next morning I woke to the home phone in the kitchen ringing noisily. Groggily, I glanced at my digital alarm clock. Five-fifteen. Who in the world could be calling this early? I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stumbled to the kitchen. Hopefully the ringing wouldn’t wake my parents or the twins.

I answered the phone on the fourth ring. “Hello?” I said hoarsely.

“Good morning, Angela!” Jessica Stanley’s bubbly voice sang, with far more cheer than I felt like anyone had a right to at this awful hour.

“It’s five in the morning,” I complained. “Why are you calling? The sun’s not even up yet!”

She chuckled. “You were on my list of people to call on the phone tree.”

“The what?” I asked blearily.

“You know…it’s the school’s way of getting news through the whole student body if there’s an announcement that needs to be made outside of school hours.”

“Oh. Am I supposed to call anyone?”

“Um…don’t you have a copy of the phone tree list?”

“I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“Hmph. Well, according to this copy, it looks like you’re supposed to call Lisa Yarst and Ted Zelmer…that’s it.”

“Dang,” I said with a yawn, leaning against the wall for support. I was dying to get back to bed. “I don’t even have their numbers.”

“If you want me to call them instead, I think I’m more awake than you,” she chirped happily.

“Thanks,” I said gratefully. “I owe you for that. I need more sleep.”

“Not a problem.”

“Right. See you at school.”

“WAIT!!!” she screamed into the phone, causing me to jump like a kernel of popcorn in a microwavable bag.

“What?” I said, mildly chagrined.

“Don’t you want to know what the news is?” she asked.

“Oh. Right.” I examined my pajama top, smoothing the wrinkles. “Sorry. I’m really not with it before six, I guess.”

“You’ll never guess what happened,” she said, in her favorite juicy-gossip voice. “The pool sessions are canceled.”

“What???” I said, squinting. My contacts weren’t in yet and my vision was blurry, which always made it hard for me to concentrate, for some reason. “Was it because of Tyler’s accident with Edward?”

“No!” she squealed. “The pool is contaminated!” She paused dramatically. “Someone…no one knows who…but SOMEONE…”

“Yes?”

“Pooped in the pool!”

My position changed from leaning against the wall to sitting on the floor, as my legs lost strength beneath me and I slid down. “You’re kidding. Right?”

“I’m dead serious! The night janitor found the turd last night and confirmed that it was not a Baby Ruth bar. No one knows whether it’s a senior class prank or if someone did it during class. But either way, it doesn’t look like the guys will be oogling us in our swimsuits any more.”

“Oh no!” I said melodramatically, holding the back of my hand to my forehead. “No guys staring inappropriately! Woe to us! What are we going to do?”

“Tell me about it!” Jessica said in an exasperated voice. I wondered if she’d picked up on my sarcasm. “I mean…I spent sixty bucks on my new swimsuit! It makes my boobs look great!”

I pressed my lips together, politely resisting the urge to let her know that her boobs actually had looked close to falling out of the suit and that I’d worried about the top half coming untied during the whole hour.

“I don’t think it happened during our class,” I mumbled, trying hard to keep my eyes open.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“Because everyone was out of the pool after the incident with Tyler, and no one saw any taper-tailed brown-trout then, did they?”

Jessica snickered. “No one was paying attention to the water. How do you know that it wasn’t Tyler or Edward who freaked out and dropped the load in the water?”

Somehow, Edward Cullen pooping in the pool just seemed like an impossibility, though I couldn't exactly say why. “I don’t know,” I said, leaning my head back and closing my eyes.

“Well, anyway, there will be more time to speculate later. I’ve gotta make more calls after you. The most important thing for you to know is that we’re going to be running cross-country on the trails behind the school. It’s going to be cool out today, so Coach Clapp said to bring sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt so that you don’t get too chilled. Bring good running shoes too. Okay?”

“Great. Go make those other phone calls, Jess.”

“I will!” she said, a little too loudly and a little too cheerfully. I knew gossip was her favorite thing in the world, but this seemed a little extreme. “See ya at school.”

As I hung up, I had to laugh as I passed the fridge. Stuck to the front of it, with a magnet, was my dad’s Bible verse of the day. This one seemed particularly fitting.

Proverbs 27:14 “A loud greeting early in the morning is the same as a curse.”

Smiling to myself, I rolled back into bed, glad that my alarm wouldn’t go off for another hour and a half.

At lunch, I took my usual place at one of the long lunch tables with Jessica, Mike, Ben, Edward, Alice, Eric, Katie, Connor, and Bella. It was roomier than usual, since Tyler and Lauren were both still in the hospital.

“So how was dress shopping?” Jessica asked me, after we’d spent some time speculating about the poop-in-the-pool situation. “Did you find anything you wanted?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Classic little black dress.

“Those never go out of style,” Alice commented brightly. “Why, I have this vintage dress from the nineteen-seventies that I still wear to special occasions!”

“I just got my tux,” Mike said, flicking the top of his Mountain Dew bottle around. “I decided to go with a white coat and black pants.”

“It looks so sexy on you,” Jessica purred.

“I picked up mine yesterday,” Ben said, between bites of Sun Chips, “after Angela got her dress.”

“I had a great time at prom last year,” Edward said wistfully, leaning the chin of his beautiful, pale face in his slender fingers of his right hand. His elbow rested on the table, next to his untouched food. He sighed, and like the day before, I noticed that even his sighing contained a softness covering some kind of heaviness.

“I had a great time too!” Alice said. “I had such a good time dolling Bella up!”

“And she looked awesome.” Edward squeezed Bella’s hand. “I don’t think anyone can ever forget their first prom with their first love.” He kissed the back of her hand. She blushed.

Bella’s his first girlfriend? I thought, surprised. He was so handsome that the information was a bit shocking. He could probably have anyone he wanted. Then again, so could Bella. The boys at Forks High never seemed to stop watching her.

“Speaking of tux shops, you’d never guess who we ran into yesterday,” Ben said to Bella.

“Who?” she asked, rubbing the back of Edward’s hand against her cheek.

“That tall friend of yours from the Indian reservation! You know…the one we were supposed to go on that group date with, back when Angela and I got the flu?”

Both Bella and Edward froze. Alice visibly tensed up. Bella let go of Edward’s hand, then blinked a few times, unnerved.

“You saw Jake yesterday?” she asked edgily. Her brown eyes dodged back and forth. Edward’s eyes bored into her, as if he were trying very hard to read her expression. I ducked my head, feeling very sorry for Bella.

“Yeah,” Ben said, laughing. “He was at the tux shop where his friend Sam—who’s apparently engaged—was getting alterations done for his wedding.” He frowned, making a face of distaste. “Jake had some really whacked out ideas about how the giant wolves in Lord of the Rings looked all wrong, but other than that, he’s a cool guy.”

“He was very nice,” I said, carefully watching both Bella and Edward’s reactions, trying to figure out if I should guard the conversation from going in a certain direction.

“We should plan another group thing with the kids from the reservation again,” Ben said enthusiastically. “Since the group thing to the movies didn’t work out. Do you remember that night?”

“I’ll never forget that night,” Bella said distantly. “That was the night that Jake…” she faltered, her voice trailing off.

“Anyways, Jake and Sam seemed really cool. I’d like to get to know them better,” Ben jumped in, preventing her from having to explain what had happened with Jake the night we couldn’t make it to the movie.

“They are cool,” Bella said softly. “I’ve known the Blacks since I was in diapers. Jake’s pretty much family.”

Edward’s jaw clenched when she said Jake’s name. Obviously, he was uncomfortable with Bella’s familiarity with Jake, and I realized that if the conversation continued, Ben would undoubtedly mention seeing Edward at the tux shop, too. That would be bad. I quickly jumped into the conversation.

“So, Edward! While all the rest of us are going to Prom, you’re going to be enjoying the sunny weather down in Jacksonville, right?”

He shot me a grateful look, as though I’d just rescued him from instant death, before launching into all sorts of minutia about his and Bella’s trip. He seemed very nervous; talking so fast that no one else could get a word in edgewise. Halfway through his monologue, I glanced over at Alice, who looked even paler than usual (if that was possible). She had her head slumped in her hands as if she had a headache.

“Do you need an Advil or something?” I asked her quietly, reaching for my purse.

“Ugh. No.” She shook her small head, her spiky black hair swishing. “I’ll be okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. It’s a tension headache.”

“Not a migraine then?” I asked, concerned.

“Well, my vision seems a little blurry, but I’ve had these before. Stress from finals…you know. It’ll pass.”

Curious about Jake and Bella, I tried to figure out a good place to talk to her alone. I’d always gotten the impression that things were platonic between them, so I couldn’t figure out why there was such tension between Edward and Jacob. Unless Edward was jealous of the time Bella spent with this other guy—this really tall, really good looking guy with a really great personality—and felt threatened by him, there was no need for this kind of awkwardness. Something else must be up. I decided that the girl’s locker room would probably be my safest bet to bring the topic up without Edward listening in

Feeling shy, I approached Bella cautiously. She was standing in front of the mirror, pulling her long brown hair into a ponytail. “Sorry about Ben bringing up Jake at the lunch table,” I said apologetically. “I could tell that that was awkward.”

Bella sighed and bent down to tie her tennis shoe. “Don’t worry about it, Ang. It wasn’t your fault.”

“If you ever need someone to talk to about it, you know I’m here for you,” I offered.

She nodded. “Thanks, but I don’t know how much you’d really understand.”

“That’s not the point,” I said sympathetically. “The point is that I’ll listen.”

She smiled softly, and squeezed my hand. “Thanks. I may have to take you up on that.” Together, the two of us walked out to where the trails into the woods behind campus began. The rest of the class had already gathered and were stretching and talking.

Coach Clapp sat in a golf cart, atop a tall cushion. Emmett Cullen stood, clipboard in hand, next to him. Emmett had a whistle around his neck, his long white tracksuit giving his pale skin a little more color than usual.

“Good afternoon class!” Coach Clapp said. The chatter slowed, like a freight train coming to a stop.

“Today’s work-out session is simple. To my left, you see an entrance to one of the trails that winds through the school property. The trail is a two-and-a-half-mile loop, if you stay on the main trail. Please watch the signs. If you see a fork in the path, follow the blue marker. The other colored markers will take you onto trails that do not lead back to the school. If you take a wrong path, you may end up in the woods for longer than you may like. You have the entire hour to finish the loop. You may run or jog, but please refrain from walking. If you finish in less time, you can hit the showers and have some free time before your next class. Any questions?”

It was pretty obvious what Coach Clapp was doing. In the absence of the ability to walk or properly referee any sport, he was picking an activity that required minimal supervision. No one asked any questions; the prospects of getting out early cheered the class, most of whom had senioritis something fierce.

“Emmett will start the run. I doubt that anyone in this class will be able to pass him.” Emmett waved cheerily, dimples deepening. “Try to stay within sight of the students ahead of you so that no one gets lost. Begin!” Coach Clapp yelled. Emmett took off into the dark, mossy forest, followed by Mike and Connor. The rest of the class took off in a pack. I stuck close to Bella, hoping for a chance to talk to her more. Her pace was slow, but I didn’t mind. It would give us more time together. Struggling to find something that would take her mind off of the Jacob/Edward thing, I brought up something totally unrelated.

“Ben and I were hiking last weekend, and we thought we saw another giant bear thing,” I said. We’d been out for a picnic just south of First Beach in La Push, when we’d noticed the animal standing about fifty yards away from us. I’d never been so scared in my life! It was all I could do to keep from screaming. Before I could really make out its appearance, it’d vanished, like it was sorry it intruded on our picnic. It was the oddest thing.”

Bella’s head snapped up. “What color was the wolf?” she asked suddenly.

“Huh? Um…black I think. Why do you ask?” I frowned as we jogged. “And what makes you think it was a wolf? It looked way too big to be a wolf. I was thinking that it must be a grizzly.”

“Sorry.” Her forehead furrowed, tiny creases forming between her eyebrows. “My dad’s on the team of people who’ve been trying to track them down. So many people have disappeared, you know.”

I nodded. “So there’s more than one of them?” I asked.

She grimaced. “It looks like there’s a whole pack of them. At least five, maybe more.” She was breathing hard, having a hard time talking as we ran. I was in better shape, from the swimming, and was probably keeping too quick a pace for her. I consciously slowed down.

“Are they different colors?” I asked curiously. “I thought that grizzlies were just light brown. Or did your dad say that they are some kind of giant wolf?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “But I’m not too worried about Charlie. He can take care of himself.”

We jogged for a while in comfortable silence, following the blue markers. The rest of the class was ahead of us a ways, and our voices were the only ones I could hear. After a few minutes, I talked a bit about Prom, while she talked a bit about her upcoming trip with Edward. I loved the way her eyes sparkled as she said his name. It was clear that what they had was real and true. It resonated with me, and I thought of Ben.

As we ran, the trail sloped up the hill. I didn’t notice at first--but the more times Bella stumbled, I realized the trail had become more and more littered with branches and rocks. It didn’t look like anyone had run this way in a long time. Suddenly, I stopped running and looked around me. Bella did likewise.

“Angela?” she asked, suddenly afraid. “Where are we?” I looked far ahead of us on the path, and could neither see nor hear any of our classmates. I glanced around wildly.

“I think we must have taken a wrong turn,” I said, ducking under a branch that was too low for my six-foot frame to fit under.

“Crap. We must have missed a sign somewhere. We’ll need to turn around, I guess,” Bella said.

I spun around, but nothing looked familiar. “Um…we are officially lost,” I said, heart sinking. I didn’t want to be late for my next class, and at this rate it looked like we were going to miss it all together.

“I hate being lost in the woods,” Bella muttered. My mind flashed back to that terrible day the previous fall that she’d been lost in the woods for hours on end, while the whole town was out looking for her with flashlights—the day the Cullens left.

“I do too,” I said. “You never know what you’ll encounter out he—“ I didn’t have time to finish the sentence, however, because at that moment, something happened that I never would have expected, even in my wildest dreams. A pair of shiny black eyes the size of baseballs poked out of a huge fern right next to Bella.

I gasped in horror. I backed away from the monster step by step, my heart thudding, adrenaline rushing, and found myself banging the back of my head against the branch I’d just ducked under. Ears ringing, head throbbing, I stumbled to my knees.

“Are you okay?” Bella asked, reaching down to help me up.

“What is t-t-that? I stammered.

“What?” Bella asked.

“That huge animal,” I whispered, hand shaking, pointing at the beast that was standing just behind her.

“A rodent of unusual size?” she grinned, trying to pull me to my feet. “I don’t believe they exist.”

“Bella…look behind you,” I whispered, feeling faint. She whipped her head around, her ponytail hitting me in the face.

The creature was beautiful and terrible. I’d always pictured wolves as being the size of dogs. This one was as tall as me, and at least seven feet long. It had long, shaggy, reddish-brown fur. Its eyes were huge and pitch black, like liquid globes of intelligence...but…my, what big teeth you have.

Seized with fear and unable to move, I froze in my spot, sorry that I was going to be eaten alive without a chance to tell the twins how much I really loved them. I prayed that we’d make it out of this situation alive.

Bella, on the other hand, reacted to the beast in exactly the opposite manner. Slack-jawed and slightly awed, showing no fear—only fascination—she slowly approached it. Her steps were careful, and her hands shook as she advanced, though the shaking appeared to be out of excitement, rather than terror.

“What are you doing?” I cried. “Get back here! It could hurt you!”

“No it won’t,” she said softly. “I’m positive of that.” She sounded actually happy to see the beast! Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought and this is all a really bad dream, I hoped.

“Hello there,” Bella said softly to the thing.

My goodness! I thought, heart pounding furiously. This girl’s instincts are entirely backwards! Why isn’t she screaming in terror? Doesn’t she have any fight-or-flight response at all? Before I could yell at her to get back, Bella was standing nose to nose with the creature, mere inches away from its face.

“It’s good to see you,” she breathed.

The creature let out a small whimper and lowered its bottom to the ground, sitting on its haunches. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth, content and seemingly pleased at the attention she was giving it.

“Bella!” I screamed. “Get back from that thing!”

Ignoring my plea, she actually reached out and stroked the beast. She petted the fur on the top of its head, between its pointed ears, as though it was her pet dog. “You’re sort of beautiful, you know?” she said to it, smiling. The thing jumped up in excitement, pawing the ground and wagging its bushy tail wildly. It let out a small howl, and Bella giggled.

“You didn’t have anything to do with the pool, did you?” she asked.

“BELLA! GET BACK!” a seething voice said, from behind us. I whirled around and was stunned to see Edward standing there, shock and revulsion written across his face.

“Edward? How did you find us?” I wondered out loud, though the adrenaline pulsing through my arteries couldn’t care less. I worried now that Edward might get eaten alive along with us.

Edward ignored me and (not unkindly) shoved Bella out of the way of the beast and stood to face it head on. It snarled at him, revealing long, pointy fangs.

“Go home,” Edward yelled. “You don’t belong here. You’re over the line!” I’d never seen Edward like this before. He looked positively inhuman in his wrath. He was shaking head to toe, but not from fear (like I was), or excitement (like Bella had been), but with pure, unbridled anger.

The enormous wolf-thing crouched, as though ready to spring at Edward. He stood his ground, crouching in a similar manner, as though he meant to fight the thing.

“Stop it!” Bella cried, standing between her boyfriend and the russet-colored monster. “Don’t hurt him! Please!” Why is she trying to reason with an animal? I wondered to myself. The animal must have responded to her in some way, however, because it broke out of its stance and eyed her sadly. It reminded me of the way King Kong used to act towards that annoying screaming blonde woman in the nineteen-thirties film: intrigued, even adoring, yet confused and frustrated.

“Go, NOW,” Edward growled.

“Please go home,” Bella begged. To my surprised, the creature turned and ran from us. About thirty yards away, it glanced over its shoulder, gave a long howl, and then it was gone.

Finally able to breathe normally again, I leaned against a tree, my legs no longer able to adequately support me.

“Are you girls all right?” Edward asked, his troubled eyes filled with concern.

Bella glared at him. “What do you think you were doing? Trying to provoke him like that? He wasn’t going to hurt us!”

“Bella!” I shrieked, bordering on hysterics. “We just encountered one of those…things…that’s been killing off the hikers, and instead of staying perfectly still or running away, you tried to pet it! What’s wrong with you?” I was hyperventilating now.

“What is wrong with you?” Edward asked her, looking more upset than before. “You could have been killed!”

“I was just...I just needed to…I mean, I was curious,” Bella stammered. Her face was red, and her eyes were filling with tears.

Edward peered at her, first with exasperation, then with tenderness. “Come on girls. Let’s get back to school. Are you okay Angela?”

I nodded. “Just shook up.”

“Let’s go then.”

The rest of the run was completely silent. Edward led us back onto the loop trail that we’d gotten away from, and from there we jogged smoothly back with no other complications other than Bella tripping over roots and occasional stones. I spent the time pondering over what had just taken place. Though the encounter was frightening, I couldn’t help but feel as though Bella was right about the wolf. It hadn’t snapped, threatened, growled, or even bared its teeth until Edward arrived and started yelling at it. I couldn’t blame Edward for his actions—if I’d caught Ben trying to pet some grizzly bear or moose, I’d probably yell at the animal to get away as well. But why had it left us alone? Was it just curious, rather than after a meal?

We broke through the forest to find Emmett and Ben standing next to the golf cart, next to Connor, who was on the ground, moaning. Coach Clapp was snoring loudly in the driver’s seat, drool running out of the corner of his mouth.

“Angela, you’re safe!” Ben said, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I was so worried.”

“Are you guys okay?” Emmett asked, his eyes darting from me, to Edward, to Bella.

Bella glared at her boyfriend. “Yes, we’re FINE,” she snarled.

An uncomfortable silence fell between us. Connor groaned, and I noticed some bruises on his face. It looked like a black eye was forming. “What happened to you? Did you fall, Connor?” I asked. I’d never been close to Connor, but I hated to see anyone I knew suffer.

“Connor thought it would be funny to rearrange some of the trail markers. That’s why you got lost,” Edward said angrily, his eyes flashing at the jock, who was miserably clutching his stomach…the wind knocked out of him. “When I heard him bragging about what he’d done, I knew that you two could be in trouble, so I ran back to look for you.”

“You didn’t punch him…did you?” Bella gasped, staring at the Connor’s puffy lip and swollen eye.

“No, but I wanted to,” Edward said, clenching his fist. Connor cowered behind Emmett. “Ben beat me to it.”

I looked down at the tousled mop of jet-black hair pressed against my shoulder. “Ben?”

He looked up at me with eyes that burned so hot they could melt glass. “He put you in danger, Ang. I couldn’t stop thinking about you getting hurt! And…well…”

Emmett laughed. “Ben flew at Connor like a Ninja! He had him flat on the ground before I could say hi-ya, and let me tell you, that’s fast!”

My Ben hit Connor? He took on a guy twice his size for me? I bent down to reach his ear. “You’re a fool, taking on a guy that big, but I love you.” I kissed his ear, then leaned back to see red coloring his cheeks.

“It took three of us to pull him off,” Edward added, putting his arm protectively around Bella. “I think Newton might have gotten a black eye in the tussle, too.” Edward grinned happily as he mentioned Mike. I’d never understood why Edward felt threatened by Mike Newton; it was obvious who Bella wanted.

Bella hit Edward in the stomach, and then cringed, holding her hand to her chest. “Ow. I’m…um…going to get changed,” she said, her tone biting.

Emmett chuckled. “Alice says you’ll get changed soon, Bella, so cheer up.”

Edward glared at him, and for the thousandth time, I felt like I was left out of some inside joke…a feeling I often got around Ben, Austin, and Eric when they were talking X-Men.

It was at that moment that I realized that it was because of Emmett that I’d have a dress for the prom. I knew that Alice and Edward had said that the engagement was secret, but I felt like I had to thank him, somehow.

“Hey Bella? I need to stop over and check something out with Emmett. I’ll meet you back in the locker room. Okay?”

“Sure.” She waved goodbye, and then began her trudge back to the school.

Tucking my hair behind my ear, I approached Emmett and the unconsciously salivating coach.

“Heya Emmett,” I said.

Emmett looked up, surprised that I was talking to him.

“What’s up, Angela?” he said, giving me a huge grin, displaying pearly white, very shiny looking teeth. I stepped back, surprised. I’d never been this close to Emmett before; he was almost as big as Sam and Jake. If only I could slip some of whatever made them grow so much into Ben’s Diet Coke

“I know this is all supposed to be top-secret and everything, but I wanted to thank you and Rosalie from the bottom of my heart for paying my dad in advance for the wedding.”

He waved his hand. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “Though technically it was Alice who wrote the check to him.”

“I was able to use the two-hundred bucks to get a dress and shoes for prom,” I explained. “I couldn’t have afforded it if you hadn’t paid for the wedding.”

He beamed at me. “Always happy to help good people fall in love,” he chuckled.

“Congratulations on your engagement,” I said. “I’ll make sure to keep it a secret. I know my dad isn’t spreading it around.”

“My engagement?” he said, bewildered. “I think you’ve got it wrong. Rosalie and I aren’t getting married in August. Bella and Edward are the ones who wanted—“

“Who wanted the wedding to be in August,” Edward interrupted, appearing out of nowhere. “But you two lovebirds can’t bear to wait any longer, and have been trying to move it up to July. I’m sorry, big brother, but that’s just not going to work. You know that Alice won’t have time to get the bridesmaids dresses ordered if we have it that early.”

“I—huh?” Emmett said, clearly perplexed, scratching his head.

“Rosalie will look stunning in a wedding dress, of course, as always,” Edward said, talking entirely too fast. “But enough about that. You’d never guess this Em! Angela and Bella almost got attacked by this giant wolf in the woods!” His tone turned ominous at the word ‘wolf.’

“No way!” Emmett said, his eyes narrowing at his brother, but going along with his conversation. “How big was it?”

“THIS big!” Edward said, holding his hands wide apart, like a fisherman bragging about his latest catch. Now he seemed to be joking about the monster we’d encountered. Wasn’t he afraid of anything?

The conversation didn’t look like it was going to get back to the wedding stuff (which I’d promised to keep secret anyway), so I excused myself and walked back to the locker rooms, wishing that I had a clue as to what the heck was going on.

Just another day in Forks, I thought wryly.