's behalf. He held a hand out, but I ignored that and started again. 

You can't know that she wasn't thinking that, because you weren't here. Florida was a bad 

 

idea. 

He took the paper from underneath my hand. 

I wasn't about to send you off alone. With your luck, not even the black box would survive. 

That wasn't what I'd meant at all; I hadn't thought of going without him. I'd meant that we 
should have stayed here together. But I was sidetracked by his response, and a little miffed. 
Like I couldn't fly cross country without bringing the plane down. Very funny. 

So let's say my bad luck did crash the plane. What exactly were you going to do about it? 

Why is the plane crashing? 

He was trying to hide a smile now. 

The pilots are passed out drunk. 

Easy. I'd fly the plane. 

Of course. I pursed my lips and tried again. 

Both engines have exploded and we're falling in a death spiral toward the earth. 

I'd wait till we were close enough to the ground, get a good grip on you, kick out the wall, 
and jump. Then I'd run you back to the scene of the accident, and we'd stumble around like 
the two luckiest survivors in history. 

I stared at him wordlessly. 

"What?" he whispered. 

I shook my head in awe. "Nothing," I mouthed. 

I scrubbed out the disconcerting conversation and wrote one more line. 

You will tell me next time. 

I knew there would be a next time. The pattern would continue until someone lost. 

Edward stared into my eyes for a long moment. I wondered what my face looked like - it felt 
cold, so the blood hadn't returned to my cheeks. My eyelashes were still wet. 

He sighed and then nodded once. 

Thanks. 

The paper disappeared from under my hand. I looked up, blinking in surprise, just as Mr. 
Berty came down the aisle. 

 

"Is that something you'd like to share there, Mr. Cullen?" 

Edward looked up innocently and held out the sheet of paper on top of his folder. "My 
notes?" he asked, sounding confused. 

Mr. Berty scanned the notes - no doubt a perfect transcription of his lecture - and then 
walked away frowning. 

It was later, in Calculus - my one class without Edward - that I heard the gossip. 

"My money's on the big Indian," someone was saying. 

I peeked up to see that Tyler, Mike, Austin, and Ben had their heads bent together, deep in 
conversation. 

"Yeah," Mike whispered. "Did you see the size of that Jacob kid? I think he could take 
Cullen down." Mike sounded pleased by the idea. 

"I don't think so," Ben disagreed. "There's something about Edward. He's always so . . . 
confident. I have a feeling he can take care of himself." 

"I'm with Ben," Tyler agreed. "Besides, if that other kid messed Edward up, you know those 
big brothers of his would get involved." 

"Have you been down to La Push lately?" Mike asked. "Lauren and I went to the beach a 
couple of weeks ago, and believe me, Jacob's friends are all just as big as he is." 

"Huh," Tyler said. "Too bad it didn't turn into anything. Guess we'll never know how it 
would have turned out." 

"It didn't look over to me," Austin said. "Maybe we'll get to see." 

Mike grinned. "Anyone in the mood for a bet?" 

"Ten on Jacob," Austin said at once. 

"Ten on Cullen," Tyler chimed in. 

"Ten on Edward," Ben agreed. 

"Jacob," Mike said. 

"Hey, do you guys know what it was about?" Austin wondered. "That might affect the 
odds." 

"I can guess," Mike said, and then he shot a glance at me at the same time that Ben and Tyler 
did. 

 

From their expressions, none of them had realized I was in easy hearing distance. They all 
looked away quickly, shuffling the papers on their desks. 

"I still say Jacob," Mike muttered under his breath. 

 

4. NATURE 

I WAS HAVING A BAD WEEK. 

I knew that essentially nothing had changed. Okay, so Victoria had not given up, but had I 
ever dreamed for one moment that she had? Her reappearance had only confirmed what I'd 
already known. No reason for fresh panic. 

In theory. Not panicking was easier said than done. 

Graduation was only a few weeks away, but I wondered if it wasn't a little foolish to sit 
around, weak and tasty, waiting for the next disaster. It seemed too dangerous to be human - 
just begging for trouble. Someone like me shouldn't be human. Someone with my luck ought 
to be a little less helpless. 

But no one would listen to me. 

Carlisle had said, "There are seven of us, Bella. And with Alice on our side, I don't think 
Victoria's going to catch us off guard. I think it's important, for Charlie's sake, that we stick 
with the original plan." 

Esme had said, "We'd never allow anything to happen to you, sweetheart. You know that. 
Please don't be anxious." And then she'd kissed my forehead. 

Emmett had said, "I'm really glad Edward didn't kill you. Everything's so much more fun 
with you around." 

Rosalie had glared at him. 

Alice had rolled her eyes and said, "I'm offended. You're not honestly worried about this, are 
you?" 

"If it's no big deal, then why did Edward drag me to Florida?" I'd demanded. 

"Haven't you noticed yet, Bella, that Edward is just the teeniest bit prone to overreaction?" 

Jasper had silently erased all the panic and tension in my body with his curious talent of 
controlling emotional atmospheres. I'd felt reassured, and let them talk me out of my 
desperate pleading. 

Of course, that calm had worn off as soon as Edward and I had walked out of the room. 

So the consensus was that I was just supposed to forget that a deranged vampire was 
stalking me, intent on my death. Go about my business. 

I did try. And surprisingly, there were other things almost as stressful to dwell on besides my 
status on the endangered species list. . . . 

 

Because Edward's response had been the most frustrating of them all. 

"That's between you and Carlisle," he'd said. "Of course, you know that I'm willing to make 
it between you and me at any time that you wish. You know my condition." And he had 
smiled angelically. 

Ugh. I did know his condition. Edward had promised that he would change me himself 
whenever I wanted . . . just as long as I was married to him first. 

Sometimes I wondered if he was only pretending that he couldn't read my mind. How else 
had he struck upon the one condition that I would have trouble accepting? The one 
condition that would slow me down. 

All in all, a very bad week. And today was the worst day in it. 

It was always a bad day when Edward was away. Alice had foreseen nothing out of the 
ordinary this weekend, and so I'd insisted that he take the opportunity to go hunting with his 
brothers. I knew how it bored him to hunt the easy, nearby prey. 

"Go have fun," I'd told him. "Bag a few mountain lions for me." 

I would never admit to him how hard it was for me when he was gone - how it brought back 
the abandonment nightmares. If he knew that, it would make him feel horrible and he would 
be afraid to ever leave me, even for the most necessary reasons. It had been like that in the 
beginning, when he'd first returned from Italy. His golden eyes had turned black and he'd 
suffered from his thirst more than it was already necessary that he suffer. So I put on a brave 
face and all but kicked him out the door whenever Emmett and Jasper wanted to go. 

I think he saw through me, though. A little. This morning there had been a note left on my 
pillow: 

I'll be back so soon you won't have time to miss me. Look after my heart - I've left it with 
you. 

So now I had a big empty Saturday with nothing but my morning shift at Newton's Olympic 
Outfitters to distract me. And, of course, the oh-so-comforting promise from Alice. 

"I'm staying close to home to hunt. I'll only be fifteen minutes away if you need me. I'll keep 
an eye out for trouble." 

Translation: don't try anything funny just because Edward is gone. 

Alice was certainly just as capable of crippling my truck as Edward was. 

I tried to look on the bright side. After work, I had plans to help Angela with her 
announcements, so that would be a distraction. And Charlie was in an excellent mood due to 
Edward's absence, so I might as well enjoy that while it lasted. Alice would spend the night 

 

with me if I was pathetic enough to ask her to. And then tomorrow, Edward would be home. 
I would survive. 

Not wanting to be ridiculously early for work, I ate my breakfast slowly, one Cheerio at a 
time. Then, when I'd washed the dishes, I arranged the magnets on the fridge into a perfect 
line. Maybe I was developing obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

The last two magnets - round black utilitarian pieces that were my favorites because they 
could hold ten sheets of paper to the fridge without breaking a sweat - did not want to 
cooperate with my fixation. Their polarities were reversed; every time I tried to line the last 
one up, the other jumped out of place. 

For some reason - impending mania, perhaps - this really irritated me. Why couldn't they just 
play nice? Stupid with stubbornness, I kept shoving them together as if I was expecting them 
to suddenly give up. I could have flipped one over, but that felt like losing. Finally, 
exasperated at myself more than the magnets, I pulled them from the fridge and held them 
together with two hands. It took a little effort - they were strong enough to put up a fight - 
but I forced them to coexist side-by-side. 

"See," I said out loud - talking to inanimate objects, never a good sign - "That's not so 
horrible, is it?" 

I stood there like an idiot for a second, not quite able to admit that I wasn't having any 
lasting effect against scientific principles. Then, with a sigh, I put the magnets back on the 
fridge, a foot apart. 

"There's no need to be so inflexible," I muttere