Work of Art

Chapter 2

By the time morning rolled around, Carlisle had effectively quenched his thirst. Although even after the hunt, he remained within the confines of the trees. He wandered aimlessly letting his thoughts run rampant away from prying minds. He had a few guesses about his out of character urges but pushed them all away to the back of his mind.

If there was one thing that spending centuries with mental vampires taught him, it was how to control and conceal his thoughts. As the years went by he had found that the bounds of his control stretched beyond not desiring human blood. He placed visions of the forest at the forefront of his mind and buried thoughts of Nick back in unseen places.

So, when he returned into the house there was none the wiser. He had forcefully hidden all traces of his true aggravator.

By the time he arrived at work and walked through the hospital doors once more, the name Nick ceased to exist within his thoughts, that is until he saw her standing at the receptionist desk.

As if on cue, she turned her head towards the man and offered a small wave. Carlisle did his best to offer a wave in return then put his head down and power walked out of the room as fast as humanly possible.

Nick stared after him, slightly confused by his actions but shrugged and resumed talking with the two women behind the desk.

Smiling after her morning chat, she made her way to the waiting room wall that Carlisle vowed to avidly avoid unbeknownst to her.

Offering a smile to the worker at the coffee kiosk, she plopped her bag onto the ground and sat down beside it, rifling through the pockets to find her pencil.

After retrieving it, she pulled out her phone to view the inspiration she created. She had spent almost a week playing around on photoshop to determine the perfect layout of the underwater scene. She had settled on including a wide variety of sea creatures, a combination that would likely annoy her environmental teacher at school to no end.

Taking a step back from the wall, she looked at the vision of her sketches, having to squint against the bright hospital lights that illuminated the white primed wall.

With a sigh, she stepped back closer and began to tackle sketching a manatee. How she wished she had thought to bring a projector to trace the image. While slightly cheating in her book, it would make achieving the correct proportions so much easier. Summer was running out and she at least wanted to get started with the paint before school consumed the majority of her day.

While she worked, Carlisle paced his office. He had just set up his computer and arranged his desk to his liking when his pager buzzed for the first time. Placing on a passive mask, he stepped out the door and walked down the hall to the patient door.

"Hello," he greeted to an older couple in the room. He looked at the papers in his hand, rifling through the notes on the clipboard he picked up from the nurses station. "I see you're in for a potential break?"

The couple nodded as he approached the women sitting on the paper covered bed. Carlisle pulled out a chair and rolled it over in front of the women, sitting down to examine her ankle as marked in her chart.

She winced slightly as Carlisle tried to flex her foot and he apologized with a smile and handed them the paperwork needed to get x-rays to confirm the location of the break. He left the couple with another smile and the promise that radiology would be by soon.

His day went on much the same, looking over files in his office until he was needed to see a patient. As far as hospitals go, it was a rather slow day. There wasn't much action happening in Forks, which was probably ideal for his family, but left Carlisle alone with his thoughts much too often for his liking.

To be honest, he wasn't really sure what he was feeling. It was rather pathetic really, for someone of his age to be pining after the achievable. There was no one he could ever sentence an innocent to the life of immortality. And there was absolutely no way he'd drag a human into a nest of vampires, not that he even had any intent to do so, he constantly reminded himself.

It were these thoughts that surfaced at every free moment within his first day of work. By the time the end of his shift rolled around, he practically ran from the halls of the hospital to his car, making sure to take the long way to avoid the waiting room.

It was times like these he wished he didn't need to keep his inhuman abilities hidden. How he would have loved to speed out of the hospital in nothing but a vaguely human-shaped blur.

He resolved instead to speed home far too quickly on the narrow Forks streets. It wasn't as if he was purposefully kicking up dust behind him, rather he wanted to put as much distance between him and the hospital as fast as possible.

But alas, he surfaced to the conclusion of his lofty speeds too late as he saw flashing lights behind him. With a huff, he pulled over to the side of the street. They'd been in Forks for less than a week and he was already leaving quite the impression.

As the cop walked over to his window, Carlisle pinched the bridge of his nose briefly then reached into his glove box to retrieve his insurance and driver's license. After hearing a brief tap from the officer's knuckle on the window, Carlisle rolled it down and offered the man an apologetic smile.

"Afternoon," the cop greeted, far too cheerful for having just pulled someone over. If possible, the man looked almost excited. Carlisle's assumptions from the hospital were being validated once more, nothing ever happens in Forks, except for when his family is involved apparently.

"Afternoon," Carlisle finally greeted in return. "My apologies Officer," he looked at the man's jacket for a name tag, "Swan. I'm not used to these roads and I wasn't paying attention to my speed."

Officer Swan nodded in return. "Say, you're Dr. Cullen, aren't you?"

Carlisle offered an unsure smile. "That would be me. Word sure travels fast around here, doesn't it."

Officer Swan let a larger smile grace his face in return. "In a place like Forks, your business is everybody's business. I mean, what else are we supposed to do with ourselves around here." The man laughed then held out his hand.

Carlisle stared at him curiously for a moment before awkwardly turning and reaching out his window to shake it.

"Well," Officer Swan began, "seeing as this is your first offense I'll let you off the hook. But next time I won't be so easy on you." Officer Swan sent him a playful glare.

"Don't worry officer, there won't be a next time," Carlisle told the man as he started to walk away.

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder to Carlisle still sitting in his car. "I'll hold you to that!" he shouted back. He started to walk then paused and turned once more. "The name's Charlie by the way,"

"Carlisle," he shouted in return, then with a nod turned his ignition back on and continued on the drive home, all thoughts of Nick temporarily erased from his strange encounter with Charlie.

Never in his 300 years had he met an officer so friendly. He shook his head, clearing all thoughts as he pulled into his driveway and his three-story house loomed above. I guess the people in this town are just full of surprises, he finally conceded as he parked and opened the car door.