Monday, January 24, 2005 A week had passed since the basketball game, and Forks had mostly settled back into its usual routine after that.
Rain, school, gossip, and the kind of sleepy small-town atmosphere that made every day blur into the next.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror that morning with a toothbrush hanging out of my mouth while staring at the marks carved into the doorframe behind me.
I had grown another inch.
I spat into the sink and squinted at the wood like maybe it would magically change if I looked hard enough.
“Seriously?” At least the growth had slowed down.
The first night had been insane, almost two full inches overnight, and I’d spent the next couple days wondering if I was about to wake up built like a cryptid and start scaring hikers in the woods behind my house.
Now it seemed steadier, almost controlled, which should’ve reassured me.
Instead, a small part of my brain immediately went, Only one inch?
I sighed and rubbed a hand down my face.
“I’m getting way too comfortable with this.” The weirdest part was that I really was getting used to it.
The extra height, the strength, the strange restless energy humming under my skin all the time.
It still scared me, but not as much as it probably should have.
That definitely felt like a bad sign.
… By the time I got to school, the parking lot was slick with mist and dotted with students hurrying toward the entrance under umbrellas.
The clouds hung low over Forks like always, turning the whole town gray and silver, but the second I stepped into biology, I could already feel something different in the room.
Tension.
Not loud or obvious, just subtle enough to sit in the back of your neck.
And sitting beside Bella Swan was none other than Edward Cullen.
Back from Alaska.
Or wherever emotionally conflicted vampires went when they needed to avoid committing homicide.
He looked exactly the same as before, pale, perfect, and vaguely miserable in a way that would probably make teenage girls start writing poetry.
Bella sat stiffly beside him while pretending to focus on the microscope slides, and Edward was very clearly trying to act normal.
The problem was that Edward Cullen approached normal human interaction the same way someone might approach diffusing a bomb.
Carefully.
Nervously.
And with the constant risk of catastrophic failure.
“Hello,” he said smoothly.
“I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself properly last week.
I’m Edward Cullen.” Bella blinked once.
“I know.” “…Right.” I immediately had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.
Edward gestured toward the microscope.
“Ladies first.” Wow.
Nothing says modern high school romance like sounding vaguely Victorian.
Bella looked caught between confusion and amusement.
“You were gone.” “Yes,” Edward said calmly.
“I was out of town for a few days.” And then came the awkward silence.
Not normal awkward silence either.
This one felt dense enough to physically trip over.
And knowing Bella, she’d definitely trip over it.
Bella leaned toward the microscope first, probably because someone had to save the conversation before it died completely.
“Prophase,” she muttered.
Edward leaned closer after her.
“May I?” She shifted slightly to let him look.
“It’s prophase,” he confirmed.
Bella raised an eyebrow.
“That’s what I said.” Okay, points for Bella.
It’s been so long since I read the books or watched the movie that I almost didn’t remember this scene.
Now if I only had some popcorn… Edward actually smiled faintly at that, though it still looked strange on him, like he wasn’t fully used to the expression.
Then, after a pause that lasted just a little too long, he asked, “So, are you enjoying the rain?” I nearly inhaled my own saliva.
The rain?
That was his move?
Bella looked just as confused as I felt.
“You’re asking me about the weather?” Edward somehow looked confused by himself too.
“I suppose I am.” Bella laughed nervously and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I don’t really like rain.
Or cold things in general.” Something flickered briefly across Edward’s face, amusement maybe, or irony.
Of course the immortal ice vampire liked the girl who hated cold weather.
“What?” Bella asked.
Edward glanced back toward the microscope.
“Anaphase.” Bella leaned closer.
“Mind if I check?” “Please.” A second later, she nodded.
“Anaphase.” “Like I said.” I leaned back in my chair and watched the whole thing unfold with growing disbelief.
Their conversations were bizarre because they somehow managed to swing between awkward flirting and cell division without warning, and the chemistry between them wasn’t romantic yet so much as intensely curious.
Edward looked fascinated by Bella in the same way someone might stare at a puzzle they couldn’t solve, while Bella looked caught between confusion and wanting to understand him anyway.
Honestly, from the outside, it was a little unsettling.
Especially because Edward still occasionally looked at her like he was trying very hard not to bite someone.
“If you dislike the rain so much,” Edward asked softly, “why move to Forks?” Bella looked back down at the microscope slide.
“It’s complicated.” “I’m sure I can keep up.” “My mom remarried.” Edward tilted his head slightly.
“And you don’t like her husband?” “No, Phil’s nice.” Bella adjusted the slide absentmindedly.
“It’s metaphase, by the way.” Edward didn’t even bother checking this time.
“I believe you.” I exhaled quietly through my nose.
Last week Edward had looked like he wanted to kill her.
Now he looked genuinely interested in her, which somehow felt even more dangerous.
And yeah, I knew the whole “frozen at seventeen mentally” explanation, but watching a technically hundred-year-old vampire stare at a teenage girl like she was the center of the universe still activated every protective instinct in my body.
… The bell finally rang, and Edward disappeared almost immediately afterward.
One second he was standing beside Bella, and the next he was already halfway out the door moving just slightly too fast for human eyes to comfortably track.
Bella stayed behind gathering her books slowly while staring toward the empty doorway.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and stopped beside her desk.
“You know,” I said casually, “most guys just panic and ignore a few texts.
Cullen went for the full dramatic vanishing act.” Bella laughed softly.
“Yeah.
He’s weird.” “Weird?” I repeated.
“Bella, the guy stared at you like you’d personally ruined his life, disappeared for an entire week, came back out of nowhere, and then opened with weather small talk.” She smiled despite herself.
“Okay, when you say it like that…” “It sounds insane?” “A little.” “A little?” I scoffed.
“I’m genuinely concerned he learned social interaction from documentaries.” That got a real laugh out of her, and honestly, it felt nice hearing it.
Bella smiled more when she relaxed, and when she smiled she stopped looking so isolated all the time.
“I just don’t understand him,” she admitted as we started walking into the hallway together.
“Trust me,” I said dryly, “I don’t think he understands himself either.” Which was probably the most accurate thing I’d said all day.
Students crowded around us as we moved through the hall, voices echoing off the lockers while rain tapped softly against the windows outside.
I noticed Bella glance once toward the far end of the corridor where Edward had disappeared, and there it was again, curiosity.
Honestly, I couldn’t blame her.
Edward Cullen had the supernatural charisma of a car crash.
Looking away took considerable effort.
And I’m saying this as a perfectly straight man, just imagine how it must be for girls.
“Careful,” I teased lightly.
“Keep staring at him like that and you might catch whatever mysterious Victorian disease he has.” Bella nudged my shoulder with hers.
“You’re never letting that joke go, are you?” “Absolutely not.
This town produces maybe three interesting events a year and Edward Cullen personally handed me this one.” She laughed again, and for a moment the heavy atmosphere hanging over Forks didn’t feel quite so oppressive.
… (Third Person POV) The Cullen house sat silent beneath the gray afternoon sky while pale winter light filtered through the massive glass walls and reflected softly across polished floors.
Edward leaned against the piano without touching it, his expression distant as he stared out toward the forest beyond the windows.
Bella Swan’s scent no longer overwhelmed him the way it had that first day, but the memory of it still lingered in the back of his throat like fire.
Worse than that, though, was the fact he found himself wanting to speak to her again.
That realization unsettled him more than the thirst.
Alice appeared first, practically gliding into the room with poorly hidden excitement dancing across her face.
“Well?” she asked brightly.
“How did our brave socialite handle his grand return to human conversation?” Edward sighed without looking at her.
“You already saw it.” “Yes, but hearing you admit it out loud is much more entertaining.” Emmett laughed from the couch.
“You really asked her about the weather?
Man, that’s so lame.” Edward closed his eyes briefly.
Rosalie smirked from her chair nearby.
“Honestly, after a century, I expected you to have better material.” “It was a conversation,” Edward muttered.
“It might as well have been a hostage negotiation,” Emmett corrected.
Jasper leaned casually against the wall, though his attention remained sharper than the others.
“You were nervous.” Edward shot him a flat look.
Jasper shrugged slightly.
“You practically flooded the room with tension, I could feel it all the way from the neighbouring classroom.” Alice grinned wider.
“And he smiled twice.” “Really?
But that never happens!” Emmett gasped dramatically.
Edward looked genuinely offended now.
“It wasn’t intentional.” Rosalie snorted softly.
“That somehow makes it worse.” For a moment, laughter softened the tension in the room.
Then Alice’s expression shifted.
Subtle, but immediate.
Edward noticed instantly.
“What is it?” Alice’s smile faded slowly.
“When Bella left class with Mike Newton…” She frowned slightly.
“I lost them again.” The mood in the room changed at once.
Jasper straightened from the wall while Rosalie lowered the magazine in her hands.
Edward’s expression hardened.
“Explain.” Alice stared distantly ahead, unfocused.
Normally the future flowed around her endlessly, thousands of branching possibilities unfolding with every decision people made.
Mike Newton, though, felt wrong in a way she still couldn’t explain.
Completely absent, like reality itself stopped wherever he stood.
“When he’s alone, I can’t see him at all,” Alice said quietly.
“But now it’s spreading.
Anyone close to him starts disappearing too.” Emmett’s grin faded.
“You mean Bella vanished from your visions just because she was near him?” “Only briefly,” Alice admitted.
“But yes.” Silence settled heavily across the room after that.
Edward’s thoughts sharpened immediately.
Mike Newton.
Human.
He should have been ordinary.
Except nothing about him felt ordinary anymore.
“He’s changing,” Alice whispered.
Edward looked back toward the rain-streaked windows thoughtfully, toward Forks High, toward Bella Swan, and toward the increasingly impossible human somehow standing at the center of everything.
For the first time in decades, uncertainty settled inside him like ice.
Not fear.
Not yet.
But close enough to make him uneasy.