The sun was hot on my skin, too bright as it bounced off the white concrete and blinded me. I felt dangerously exposed. More fiercely than I would have dreamed I was capable of, I wished for the green, protective forest of Forks . . . of home.

For a second I was just a kid – a kid who had lived all of his life in the same tiny town. Just a child. Because I knew I would have to live a lot more, suffer a lot more, to ever understand the searing agony in Edward’s eyes.

You held out your hand, and I took it without stopping to make sense of what I was doing. For the first time in almost a century, I felt hope.

Would you please tell me what you are thinking? Before I go mad?

...the way a man might hesitate before he kissed a woman, to gauge her reaction, to see how he would be received. Perhaps he would hesitate to prolong the moment, that ideal moment of anticipation, sometimes better than kiss itself.

Sell stupid somewhere else--there's nothing better than that face!

I, the soul called Wanderer, love you, human Ian. And that will never change, no matter what I might become.