CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ᴡɪʟʟɪᴀᴍ

I met with Alice the day after too, this time in the fading light of another dim evening. In the back of my mind, as she told me of the wild things of our world, the image of her face, sparkling beneath the sunlight was engrained. It had taken me two minutes after revealing my normal skin for me to get embarrassed enough about my interest and gender words for me to leave.

"Knowing everything makes me feel stupid," I said, leaning back against the tree.

I let my head tip, eyes staring up at the dark clouds that were outlined behind the leaves of the trees. It would quickly become our spot, I knew. Alice's eyes were on the side of my face.

Alice chuckled, her voice light and airy. "Why?"

"Because If I hadn't been so scared of everything, I would have told you. Then everything could have been avoided," I said.

She shuffled forward, nudging my arm so I'd look at her.

"What happened?" She asked.

I shook my head. "What do you mean?"

"To stop you from trusting?" She smiled. I looked away again.

"A few things."

A few torturous memories that I couldn't afford to bring up. Not for my own sake. The memory of Thomas and his brother hurt enough to make me bite my tongue.

I shook my head a second time. "Another day."

Alice nodded in understanding. I was thankful when she turned the conversation away and toward herself.

"I don't remember anything from before I was turned. I don't even know how it happened," she said, eyes staring off. "Sometimes, I think people pity me, for not remembering anything human. But then I hear things that make me realise that maybe it was a blessing."

I could think of nothing better than forgetting all of my past life. Of all the good and bad. It wouldn't have chased me to the present, forced me for speaking out.

"At least I don't have anything human to compare my vampire life with," she said, speaking my thoughts.

"Yeah, that would be nice. I find myself comparing all too often," I said, letting a small smile peak out from my lips. "Why do you think you don't remember?"

Alice shrugged, standing to her feet so she could wander round in circles in front of my feet. "I don't know. I don't imagine I ever will."

"Maybe that's why you're so bubbly."

I smiled, but Alice stopped still, a frown on her face. Her happy personality had disappeared at the very topic of it.

"It's strange. Everything feels normal to me. Like I have a real family. We even play baseball as a family on weekends," she said. "It's like I am normal. I don't remember anything. I'm just a human with heightened senses and a gift of looking toward the future."

I could tell the thought pained her more than anything else. She'd never looked so sullen, not even in my mean company the first time she'd approached me in the forest. So I took to her side again, my eyebrows raised playfully as she lead us back toward the tree. She lay down, head resting against the mossy trunk while I lay flat against the floor, head raised to the sky.

"Baseball?"

Alice let out a laugh, her face creasing with a smile. "On the green when there's a storm. Then no one can hear us when we hit the ball," she said. "We're playing a game this weekend, so if you hear something loud that isn't thunder, you know what it is."

I turned onto my side, head resting against my arm so I could look up to her. She finally met my gaze.

"You're all quite impressive," I said. "You've lived as vampires. I've wasted the best part of one hundred years wishing to be human."

I sighed. Being with Alice showed me so much, of the things I'd missed in my wasted time. It made me want to trust. To tell Bella, even- she was my only friend here, and she'd trusted Edward with his secret. I glanced up again to Alice. She was motionless again, eyes glassy as she looked at me. A vision.

She suddenly gasped, her eyes wide with humour, "No, you can't do it that way," she shouted, suddenly gripping my wrist.

"What?"

"You're going to tell Bella," she exclaimed. "Don't tell her that way."

"You saw that?" I asked.

"I saw it happen. She takes it well but Edward doesn't," Alice said.

"Well how else can I tell her?"

"Don't give Edward time to intercept it."

I couldn't help myself from rolling my eyes. "What, so I just turn up and tell her while he's there?"

Alice nodded seriously. "Edward won't be happy. But he'll see that Bella trusts you," she said. "He's taking her to the game on Saturday."

We shared a look. Alice knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You won't stop me?" I asked.

She grinned. "I wouldn't dream of it."

"Good," I whispered, leaning back against the mossy ground. "Good."

Alice followed me in lying down, side by side. A smirk was on her face- I almost asked about it.

"You'll never guess where Edward's taking Bella," Alice said, voice suddenly excited.

"Where?"

She rolled her eyes playfully at my lack of a guess. "He's taking her to meet the family."

My eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"Yeah," she said quietly, head shuffling against the grass. "I'll have to leave soon."

"How long?"

"Half an hour."

I smiled up at her, a streak of black hair and pale skin meeting the corner of my vision.

"Let me ask you something, since you don't have to leave yet," I said, hearing her him out.

"Okay."

"What are they like- your family?"

She smiled at the thought of them, as I'd noticed her do once or twice before. "There's lots about them. They're complex and beautiful people. What would you like to know?"

"How did you all find each other?"

Alice was grinning now, rosy lips stretching across her flawless skin.

"I think it was meant to be. Carlisle was the first. He turned Edward. He was dying of the Spanish flu and couldn't be saved, so he gave him extra life. Esme was next. She fell from a cliff and somehow her heart was still beating," she said.

The love in her voice was undeniable. These people were as much her family as any natural born human one. It filled me with a strange sense of warmth to see someone so adoring.

"Carlisle brought Rosalie to the family, and soon after she found Emmett while hunting. He'd been attacked by a bear. She carried him a hundred miles so Carlisle could save him."

I was surprised, to say the least, about Rosalie's story. Of all I'd seen of her, which was limited, had lead me to believe she was nothing but shallow and one-minded. But I couldn't begin to believe how difficult that journey must have been- carrying a bleeding out human for miles upon miles.

"She must really love him," I said.

Alice nodded fondly. "It took her a while to feel as strongly about him as she does now."

"And you and Jasper?"

"Jasper was from another family. He wandered off on his own after becoming depressed," she said, I watched her face as she continued. "I had a vision once. It was of Carlisle and his family. I saw myself with them. I was happy. And I saw Jasper there too. So I found him, and we made our way to the Cullens together."

"It really was meant to be," I said, and Alice smile affectionately. But there was one question I couldn't help but ask. "Are you and Jasper...?"

She smirked, shaking her head and answering swiftly. "No, nothing like that. I was born to be his sister."

I turned away, suppressing the rest of my curiosity. I couldn't deny that I'd thought of them all more than once, about their stories and struggles. Often, I'd wondered about how similar they were to my own, or if they were completely different.

"Do they have gifts like you?"

"So many questions. I think it's only fair that I get to ask you some," she said, eyebrow curling. I paused, before finally giving in with a sigh and a nod of my head. "Good. How did you... you know, get turned?"

I sucked in a sharp, unneeded breath. I'd never rid myself of the humanly habit. Such a stinging subject to start with. But Alice looked down at me with curious eyes, matching the same intrigue that I'd felt moments before. It was only fair that I'd answer.

"It was 1898. My friend Thomas had a brother, William. He's always loved me. Not in the nice way though," I said. Alice listed intently. "William was two years old than the both of us. I was fifteen when he disappeared. At the time, I told no one, but it was the evening that I'd rejected his invitation to join him at one of his society balls as a date, that he didn't return home. I felt awful."

I could still remember the look on his face. It had been blocked from my memory for so long, but the mere utterance of his name had brought it all flooding back to the top of my brain.

"He'd stormed out, not bothering to wait for Thomas before he set off on his way home. He never returned," I said quietly. "Not until I was eighteen. I was home alone. There was a knock on my door."

"I knew it was him before he'd even looked up from beneath his flat cap. William used to wear these big coats, with a cross sewn under the collar. But I couldn't see his face, he was perfectly still, hidden beneath his hat. I didn't need a reason to be scared," I shut my eyes, the darkness making it all the more clearer. "Then he looked up at me, and his eyes were a flaming red, the colour of blood. He smirked, and told me it was my fault he'd disappeared."

I felt a hand on my own, griping my fingers in hers. Alice smiled at me encouragingly. There was empathy in her eyes.

"But he said he'd forgive me. That he wanted to be with me forever. That he deserved me, that he wanted me," I stuttered out. "Then he jumped. The next thing I knew, I was waking up, feeling much lighter than I ever hand, with an insatiable craving for blood. William had left me bleeding out, believing he'd gone too far and killed me instead of turning me."

I finished my story, staring up at the stormy sky above. I was craving rain, to wash away the words from my skin, as if it would remove the pain of the memories with the caressing touch of its water droplets. But instead of water, I felt Alice's touch tighten on my skin.

"Thank you for telling me," she said.

I turned into my side so I could look at her. "Thank you for listening. I've never said it out loud before."

"I can't imagine what it was like to go through that alone."

"It was difficult."

"I suppose I should answer my question now," she said, smiling comfortingly. I was thankful for the change in subject. "I think you've more than deserved it."

"They have gifts like you?"

Alice shook her head. "Not all of us. Edward can obviously read thoughts. I can see the possibilities of events not yet happened. But I think Jasper's is the most interesting," she said.

"More interesting that seeing the future," I grinned.

"He can manipulate feelings," Alice stated.

"How does that work?"

"If you're feeling anxious, he can calm you. Sometimes you don't even realise when he's doing it. Jasper always says it's not very useful, but you'd be surprised. Imagine all the conflict he could prevent just by calming the raging anger of a room," she said, the respect for him clearly showing.

Alice brushed herself off, standing to her feet and looking down at me. "I have to go now. But that you for being so honest."

It'd felt like days since I'd seen Bella, when in reality in was no more than a few.

It was Charlie who opened the door to me, staring down with furrowed brows and straight lips. He paused momentarily, as if he never got visitors, before he finally asked my name.

"Elide," I replied. "Bella's friend."

His eyes brightened slightly. "Oh, of course. Come on in Elide. It's good to see you. Go wait in the living room, I'll shout Bella down for you."

He bellowed her name up the stairs and seconds later, I heard shuffling, a door squeaking open and footsteps barrelling down the stairs. Bella's head popped around the doorframe, an obvious blush in her cheeks.

"Sorry, want to come up?"

I followed her to her room, looking around as I sat myself on the edge of her bed, Bella sitting on the chair by her desk.

"How was Seattle?" I asked.

Her eyes widened, lips flustering. "Didn't I tell you? Edward cancelled."

I raised a brow, not letting her think for a second that I believed her lie. She sighed, slouching in her seat.

"We never made it," she said.

I chuckled, smirking, but Bella shook her head, her cheeks darkening by ten shades. "It's not like that," she said, but I still wasn't convinced. "Really, it's not."

"So if it wasn't like that," I said. "What did you do?"

"We went hiking."

"Hiking?"

"Yes. To a meadow, by his house," she said, before pausing in thought, debating whether to tell me something or not. "Then he took me to meet his family."

"No way!"

She nodded, biting her lip as she tried to hide her smirk.

"What was it like?"

"Awkward. But it was nice. Mr and Mrs Cullen were amazing."

"Rosalie?" I knew it would be her that would be the problem. Bella just shrugged, looking away.

Seeing Bella looking so excited over the fact she'd knowingly visited a house full of vampires made me happy. It would be all the more easier to drop my own secret into her lap without a worry. It was just an added plus that it would be in the company of Edward and his family.

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