I turned on her.
"What do you want?" I asked coldly.
She cringed back slightly from my hostility. Her eyes turned bewildered, the expression that had haunted me...
"You owe me an explanation," she said in a small voice; her ivory face blanched. It was very hard to keep my voice harsh. "I saved your life - I don't owe you anything."
She flinched - it burned like acid to watch my words hurt her.
"You promised," she whispered.
"Bella, you hit your head, you don't know what you're talking about."
Her chin came up then. "There's nothing wrong with my head."
She was angry now, and that made it easier for me. I met her glare, making my face more unfriendly.
"What do you want from me, Bella?"
"I want to know the truth. I want to know why I'm lying for you."
What she wanted was only fair - it frustrated me to have to deny her.
"What do you think happened?" I nearly growled at her.
Her words poured out in a torrent. "All I know is that you weren't anywhere near me - Tyler didn't see you, either, so don't tell me I hit my head too hard. That van was going to crush us both - and it didn't, and your hands left dents in the side of it - and you left a dent in the other car, and you're not hurt at all - and the van should have smashed my legs, but you were holding it up..." Suddenly, she clenched her teeth together and her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.
I stared at her, my expression derisive, though what I really felt was awe; she had seen everything.
"You think I lifted a van off you?" I asked sarcastically.
She answered with one stiff nod.
My voice grew more mocking. "Nobody will believe that, you know."
She made an effort to control her anger. When she answered me, she spoke each word with slow deliberation. "I'm not going to tell anybody."
She meant it - I could see that in her eyes. Even furious and betrayed, she would keep my secret.
Why?
The shock of it ruined my carefully designed expression for half a second, and then I pulled myself together.
"Then why does it matter?" I asked, working to keep my voice severe.
"It matters to me," she said intensely. "I don't like to lie - so there'd better be a good reason why I'm doing it."
She was asking me to trust her. Just as I wanted her to trust me. But this was a line I could not cross.
My voice stayed callous. "Can't you just thank me and get it over with?" "Thank you," she said, and then she fumed silently, waiting.
"You're not going to let it go, are you?"
"No."
"In that case..." I couldn't tell her the truth if I wanted to...and I didn't want to. I'd rather she made up her own story than know what I was, because nothing could be worse than the truth - I was a living nightmare, straight from the pages of a horror novel. "I hope you enjoy disappointment."
We scowled at each other. It was odd how endearing her anger was. Like a furious kitten, soft and harmless, and so unaware of her own vulnerability.
She flushed pink and ground her teeth together again. "Why did you even bother?"
Her question wasn't one that I was expecting or prepared to answer. I lost my hold on the role I was playing. I felt the mask slip from my face, and I told her - this one time - the truth.
"I don't know."
I memorized her face one last time - it was still set in lines of anger, the blood not yet faded from her cheeks - and then I turned and walked away from her.
4. Visions
I went back to school. This was the right thing to do, the most inconspicuous way to behave.
By the end of the day, almost all the other students had returned to class, too. Just Tyler and Bella and a few others - who were probably using the accident as a chance to ditch - remained absent.
It shouldn't be so hard for me to do the right thing. But, all afternoon, I was gritting my teeth against the urge that had me yearning ditch, too - in order to go find the girl again.
Like a stalker. An obsessessed stalker. An obsessessed, vampire stalker.
School today was - somehow, impossibly - even more boring than it had seemed just a week ago. Coma-like. It was as if the color had drained from the bricks, the trees, the sky, the faces around me... I stared at the cracks in the walls.
There was another right thing I should be doing...that I was not. Of course, it was also a wrong thing. It all depended on the perspective from which you viewed it.
From the perspective of a Cullen - not just a vampire, but a Cullen, someone who belonged to a family, such a rare state in our world - the right thing to do would have gone something like this:
"I'm surprised to see you in class, Edward. I heard you were involved in that awful accident this morning."
"Yes, I was, Mr. Banner, but I was the lucky one." A friendly smile. "I didn't get hurt at all... I wish I could say the same for Tyler and Bella."
"How are they?"
"I think Tyler is fine...just some superficial scrapes from the windshield glass. I'm not sure about Bella, though." A worried frown. "She might have a concussion. I heard she was pretty incoherent for a while - seeing things even. I know the doctors were worried..."
That's how it should have gone. That's what I owed my family.
"I'm surprised to see you in class, Edward. I heard you were involved in that awful accident this morning."
"I wasn't hurt." No smile.
Mr. Banner shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable.
"Do you have any idea how Tyler Crowley and Bella Swan are? I heard there were some injuries..."