The next day dawned in shades of drowned gray. Forks wasn't built for sunlight; the town wore gloom the way some people wore expensive coats—comfortably, habitually, and with no intent of ever taking it off.
At school, whispers clung to the halls like mold. Someone had spread a rumor that the biology class would be dissecting fetal pigs this week. Normally I would celebrate. Today I was preoccupied. Edward was missing.
His empty chair sat beside mine, too still, too clean, like a gravestone that hadn't yet acquired moss. The teacher droned on about cellular respiration. Irony, considering my lab partner didn't participate in that particular hobby.
Halfway through class, the window beside me darkened. A shadow moved across it—fast, deliberate, predatory. Seconds later, the classroom door opened. Edward walked in.
No one noticed he was late. He had a talent for slipping through human perception like smoke. But he looked… different. Tenser. As if he'd spent the night wrestling with something intangible yet violent.
He took his seat beside me.
"You're early." I whispered.
"You're dangerous." he replied quietly, "That means I can't afford to be late."
I considered that a compliment.
The teacher handed out lab instructions, today's assignment was blood typing. The students around us erupted in complaints or excitement. I watched Edward stiffen, a small freeze, like a mannequin remembering it wasn't supposed to blink.
"Is this a problem?" I asked.
His jaw was clenched hard enough to crack enamel.
"It depends." he murmured. "Do you faint at the sight of blood?"
"No, I find it amusing. " I said. "Do you?"
He looked at me, silver eyes flickering with something sharp.
"Not faint," he said. "Something worse."
The assignment required partners to prick their fingers and compare reactions. Edward didn't move. His hand stayed flat on the table, clenched into a fist so tight his skin looked carved from marble.
"Let me guess," I said. "The borrowed life you mentioned, blood is the currency?"
His silence was answer and confession both.
I pricked my fingertip without hesitation. A bead of red welled up. Edward inhaled—barely, but noticeably. His posture tightened like a bowstring pulled too far.
"Don't." he said, voice low, almost pleading. "Please."
"That's the second time you've told me not to do something in two days." I said. "I should start a tally."
His eyes finally met mine. For the first time since I'd known him, he looked afraid—not for himself, but of himself.
"I'm trying to protect you." he whispered.
"Interesting." I tilted my head. "I thought vampires didn't fear losing what was already dead."
His throat worked once, a human gesture trapped in an inhuman body.
"Wednesday," he said, barely audible, "you don't understand the hunger."
I leaned closer, lowering my voice to a thread.
"Explain it to me."
He shut his eyes as if the world burned behind them. "Imagine craving breath the way you crave answers. Constantly. Desperately. And being trapped beside someone who makes it harder to resist."
"So, I'm oxygen?" I asked.
He opened his eyes.
"No." he said. "You're fire."
For a moment we sat in a stalemate made of glass—fragile, sharp-edged, ready to shatter.
Then, abruptly, he stood.
The teacher barely noticed. "Mr. Cullen? Feeling faint?"
His laugh was strangled. "Something like that. May I be excused?"
He left before the permission was fully granted. No one else cared. Only me.
The bell rang eventually, releasing the rest of us from the laboratory of human fragility. I followed Edward outside, where the sky was dripping and the air tasted metallic.
I found him behind the gym, pacing like a caged creature. His hands were clasped behind his neck, fingers digging into his skin.
"I'm not used to losing control." he said without turning. "Especially not in front of someone who seems determined to provoke it."
"I provoke everyone." I said. "You're not special."
"That's the problem." He turned, eyes bright with a silver hunger that wasn't fully masked. "You make me forget the rules that keep people alive."
"And yet," I said, stepping closer, "you haven't broken any."
"Not yet." he whispered.
Rain beaded on his hair, but his skin rejected the droplets, leaving him strangely untouched by the weather. The world refused to claim him.
"Edward," I said, "what is it like to die twice?"
He stared at me, stunned—not because the question was cruel, but because it was precise.
"The first death is a release," he said slowly. "The second is awareness. You wake and realize the world is gone but you remain. That loneliness is a kind of eternal suffocation."
I considered that. "Sounds inconvenient."
"It's unbearable."
"Then why stay?" I asked.
A long silence stretched between us, thin as a noose.
"Because," he said, "sometimes someone arrives who makes the unbearable feel… different."
"Different how?"
He looked away, expression unreadable.
"I haven't decided if it's salvation or disaster."
The rain thickened around us. A distant rumble of thunder rolled through the sky like something ancient turning over in its sleep.
Edward stepped back, putting space between us he didn't want but clearly needed.
"You should stay away from me." he said again.
"I won't." I replied.
His eyes closed briefly, as if bracing for impact.
"That's what I was afraid of."
As he walked off into the mist-drenched woods, moving with a speed just slower than impossible, I realized something unsettling:
I wasn't merely curious anymore. I was invested.
In my journal that night, I wrote: "Edward Cullen fears himself. I find that promising."
I smiled at the thought of getting him to possibly break. It would be interesting to watch. Maybe I'd die. Maybe I'd become a vampire. Either way, I'd be pleased.