 knocking, like he'd been standing right behind it. 

"Hey, Bella!" he said, surprised. 

"Hi, Ben. Er, is Angela here?" I wondered if Angela had forgotten our plans, and cringed at 
the thought of going home early. 

"Sure," Ben said just as Angela called, "Bella!" and appeared at the top of the stairs. 

Ben peered around me as we both heard the sound of a car on the road; the sound didn't 
scare me - this engine stuttered to a stop, followed by the loud pop of a backfire. Nothing 
like the purr of the Volvo. This must be the visitor Ben had been waiting for. 

"Austin's here," Ben said as Angela reached his side. 

A horn honked on the street. 

"I'll see you later," Ben promised. "Miss you already." 

He threw his arm around Angela's neck and pulled her face down to his height so that he 

 

could kiss her enthusiastically. After a second of this, Austin honked again. 

"'Bye, Ang! Love you!" Ben shouted as he dashed past me. 

Angela swayed, her face slightly pink, then recovered herself and waved until Ben and 
Austin were out of sight. Then she turned to me and grinned ruefully. 

"Thank you for doing this, Bella," she said. "From the bottom of my heart. Not only are you 
saving my hands from permanent injury, you also just spared me two long hours of a 
plot-less, badly dubbed martial arts film." She sighed in relief. 

"Happy to be of service." I was feeling a bit less panicked, able to breathe a little more 
evenly. It felt so ordinary here. Angela's easy human dramas were oddly reassuring. It was 
nice to know that life was normal somewhere . 

I followed Angela up the stairs to her room. She kicked toys out of the way as she went. The 
house was unusually quiet. 

"Where's your family?" 

"My parents took the twins to a birthday party in Port Angeles. I can't believe you're really 
going to help me with this. Ben's pretending he has tendonitis." She made a face. 

"I don't mind at all," I said, and then I walked into Angela's room and saw the stacks of 
waiting envelopes. 

"Oh!" I gasped. Angela turned to look at me, apologies in her eyes. I could see why she'd 
been putting this off, and why Ben had weaseled out. 

"I thought you were exaggerating," I admitted. 

"I wish. Are you sure you want to do this?" 

"Put me to work. I've got all day." 

Angela divided a pile in half and put her mother's address book between us on her desk. For 
a while we concentrated, and there was just the sound of our pens scratching quietly across 
the paper. 

"What's Edward doing tonight?" she asked after a few minutes. 

My pen dug into the envelope I was working on. "Emmet's home for the weekend. They're 
supposed to be hiking." 

"You say that like you're not sure." 

I shrugged. 

 

"You're lucky Edward has his brothers for all the hiking and camping. I don't know what I'd 
do if Ben didn't have Austin for the guy stuff." 

"Yeah, the outdoors thing is not really for me. And there's no way I'd ever be able to keep 
up." 

Angela laughed. "I prefer the indoors myself." 

She focused on her pile for a minute. I wrote out four more addresses. There was never any 
pressure to fill a pause with meaningless chatter around Angela. Like Charlie, she was 
comfortable with silence. 

But, like Charlie, she was also too observant sometimes. 

"Is something wrong?" she asked in a low voice now. "You seem . . . anxious." 

I smiled sheepishly. "Is it that obvious?" 

"Not really." 

She was probably lying to make me feel better. 

"You don't have to talk about it unless you want to," she assured me. "I'll listen if you think it 
will help." 

I was about to say thanks, but no thanks . After all, there were just too many secrets I was 
bound to keep. I really couldn't discuss my problems with someone human. That was against 
the rules. 

And yet, with a strange, sudden intensity, that's exactly what I wanted. I wanted to talk to a 
normal human girlfriend. I wanted to moan a little bit, like any other teenage girl. I wanted 
my problems to be that simple. It would also be nice to have someone outside the whole 
vampire-werewolf mess to put things in perspective. Someone unbiased. 

"I'll mind my own business," Angela promised, smiling down at the address she was working 
on. 

"No," I said. "You're right. I am anxious. It's . . . it's Edward." 

"What's wrong?" 

It was so easy to talk to Angela. When she asked a question like that, I could tell that she 
wasn't just morbidly curious or looking for gossip, like Jessica would have been. She cared 
that I was upset. 

"Oh, he's mad at me." 

"That's hard to imagine," she said. "What's he mad about?" 

 

I sighed. "Do you remember Jacob Black?" 

"Ah," she said. 

"Yeah." 

"He's jealous." 

"No, not jealous . . ." I should have kept my mouth shut. There was no way to explain this 
right. But I wanted to keep talking anyway. I hadn't realized I was so starved for human 
conversation. "Edward thinks Jacob is . . . a bad influence, I guess. Sort of . . . dangerous. 
You know how much trouble I got in a few months back. . . . It's all ridiculous, though." 

I was surprised to see Angela shaking her head. 

"What?" I asked. 

"Bella, I've seen how Jacob Black looks at you. I'd bet the real problem is jealousy." 

"It's not like that with Jacob." 

"For you, maybe. But for Jacob . . ." 

I frowned. "Jacob knows how I feel. I've told him everything." 

"Edward's only human, Bella. He's going to react like any other boy." 

I grimaced. I didn't have a response to that. 

She patted my hand. "He'll get over it." 

"I hope so. Jake's going through kind of a tough time. He needs me." 

"You and Jacob are pretty close, aren't you?" 

"Like family," I agreed. 

"And Edward doesn't like him. . . . That must be hard. I wonder how Ben would handle 
that?" she mused. 

I half-smiled. "Probably just like any other boy." 

She grinned. "Probably." 

Then she changed the subject. Angela wasn't one to pry, and she seemed to sense I wouldn't 
- couldn't - say any more. 

"I got my dorm assignment yesterday. The farthest building from campus, naturally." 

 

"Does Ben know where he's staying yet?" 

"The closest dorm to campus. He's got all the luck. How about you? Did you decide where 
you're going?" 

I stared down, concentrating on the clumsy scrawl of my handwriting. For a second I was 
distracted by the thought of Angela and Ben at the University of Washington. They would 
be off to Seattle in just a few months. Would it be safe then? Would the wild young vampire 
menace have moved elsewhere? Would there be a new place by then, some other city 
flinching from horror-movie headlines? 

Would those new headlines be my fault? 

I tried to shake it off and answered her question a beat late. "Alaska, I think. The university 
there in Juneau." 

I could hear the surprise in her voice. "Alaska? Oh. Really? I mean, that's great. I just figured 
you'd go somewhere . . . warmer." 

I laughed a little, still staring at the envelope. "Yeah. Forks has really changed my 
perspective on life." 

"And Edward?" 

Though his name set butterflies fluttering in my stomach, I looked up and grinned at her. 
"Alaska's not too cold for Edward, either." 

She grinned back. "Of course not." And then she sighed. "It's so far. You won't be able to 
come home very often. I'll miss you. Will you e-mail me?" 

A swell of quiet sadness crashed over me; maybe it was a mistake to get closer to Angela 
now. But wouldn't it be sadder still to miss out on these last chances? I shook off the 
unhappy thoughts, so that I could answer her teasingly. 

"If I can type again after this." I nodded toward the stack of envelopes I'd done. 

We laughed, and it was easy then to chat cheerfully about classes and majors while we 
finished the rest - all I had to do was not think about it. Anyway, there were more urgent 
things to worry about today. 

I helped her put the stamps on, too. I was afraid to leave. 

"How's your hand?" she asked. 

I flexed my fingers. "I think I'll recover the full use of it . . . someday." 

The door banged downstairs, and we both looked up. 

 

"Ang?" Ben called. 

I tried to smile, but my lips trembled. "I guess that's my cue to leave." 

"You don't have to go. Though he's probably going to describe the movie for me . . . in 
detail." 

"Charlie will be wondering where I am anyway." 

"Thanks for helping me." 

"I had a good time, actually. We should do something like this again. It was nice to have 
some girl time." 

"Definitely." 

There was a light knock on the bedroom door. 

"Come in, Ben," Angela said. 

I got up and stretched. 

"Hey, Bella! You survived," Ben greeted me quickly before going to take my place by 
Angela. He eyed our work. "Nice job. Too bad there's nothing left to do, I would have . . ." 
He let the thought trail off, and then restarted excitedly. "Ang, I can't believe you missed this 
one! It was awesome. There was this final fight sequence - the choreography was 
unbelievable! This one guy - well, you're going to have to see it to know what I'm talking 
about -" 

Angela rolled her eyes at me. 

"See you at school," I said with a nervous laugh. 

She sighed. "See you." 

I was jumpy on the way out to my truck, but the street was empty. I spent the whole drive 
glancing anxiously in all my mirrors, but there was never any sign of the silver car. 

His car was not in front of the house, either, though that meant little. 

"Bella?" Charlie called when I opened the front door. 

"Hey, Dad." 

I found him in the living room, in front of the TV. 

"So, how was your day?" 

 

"Good," I said. Might as well tell him everything - he'd hear it from Billy soon enough. 
Besides, it would make him happy. "They didn't need 