The Dark Side of the Moon

7. Visions

Edward's POV

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 obsessed stalker. An obsessed, vampire stalker.

School today was-somehow, impossibly-even more boring than it had seemed just a week ago. Comalike.

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..."

I shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

Mr. Banner cleared his throat. "Er, right..." he said, my cold stare making his voice sound a bit strained.

He walked quickly back to the front of classroom and began his lecture.

It was the wrong thing to do. Unless you looked at it from a more obscure point of view. It just seemed so...so unchivalrous to slander the girl behind her back, especially when she was proving more trustworthy than I could have dreamed. She hadn't said anything to betray me, despite having good reason to do so. Would I betray her when she had done nothing but keep my secret?

I had a nearly identical conversation with Mrs. Goff-just in Spanish rather than in English-and Emmett gave me a long look.

I hope you have a good explanation for what happened today. Rose is on the warpath.

I rolled my eyes without looking at him.

I actually had come up with a perfectly sound explanation. Just suppose I hadn't done anything to stop the van from crushing the girl... I recoiled from that thought. But if she had been hit, if she'd been mangled and bleeding, the red fluid spilling, wasting on the blacktop, the scent of the fresh blood pulsing through the air ...

I shuddered again, but not just in horror. Part of me shivered in desire. No, I would not have been able to watch her bleed without exposing us all in a much more flagrant and shocking way.