Old soul

INVITATIONS

In Talia's dream, it was very dark, and the smallest amount of light seemed to be coming from Jasper's skin. The only thing visible was his retreating figure, leaving her in the darkness. No matter how fast she ran, she couldn't catch up to him; no matter how loud she shouted his name, he didn't dare spare her a glance over his shoulder. Troubled, Natalia opened her eyes and couldn't bring herself to the near brink of sleep for the rest of the night, she couldn't sleep again for what seemed like a really long time. After that, he appeared in her dreams nearly every night, but mostly on the periphery, hardly within reach of her.

The month following the accident was uneasy, tense and mostly embarrassing. Luckily for Talia, however very unlucky for Bella, she wasn't the complete centre of attention. She was constantly praised for her efforts to help Bella, instead of asking how she was - one of the main reasons Natalia was set on leaving school and spending the rest of the day at home, away from the chattering noises of everyone. Bella, on the other hand was being completely smothered by Tyler Crowley. He was non-stop trying to make ammends with her, all day, everytime he saw her.

As they sat in the cafeteria at lunch, Talia couldn't help but feel defeated - her request to go home was denied. She sat there, at their now-crowded table, her gaze constantly flickering between everyone who sat around her. Mike and Eric seemed to be even less friendly towards Tyler than they were to eachother. No one from their group seemed to be worried about Edward, which Bella thought to quickly intervene and explain he had saved the two of them - making sure to glare at Tyler as she mentioned Talia's name to him. One thing that confused both girls was how Jessica, Mike, Eric and everyone had always commented they hadn't even seen Edward until the van was pulled away.

Talia wondered to herself as everyone around her continued chattering how no one else had seen him running as fast as humanly possible across the parking lot to get to Bella. She also realised she was concentrating on a tiny detail that didn't even sum up to the fact that if he were any later then both her and Bella would have been crushed. How daunting.

Edward was never surrounded by crowds of curious bystanders eager for his firsthand account. People avoided him as usual, from what Natalia could tell based on Jessica's rants about the poor boy. The Cullens and the Hales sat at the same table as always, not eating, talking only amoung themselves. Most of them, except Edward and Noah glanced Talia's way, eyes flickering between eachother and her every so often when she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings.

When Jasper sat next to her in lessons, his seat only mere inches away, he seemed to pay more attention to her than his work. Only now and then, would he actually take his eyes off of her and write something down. One conclusion Natalia managed to come to after thinking about the way Bella ignored all mentions of Edward whenever Talia asked her about him, was that she thought he didn't want to have saved them. It was written all over her face and the way she spoke about the accident made it perfectly clear. Talia wanted to talk to Edwatd about it, ask him why Bella would think that, but she thought better than to ask questions which shouldn't own her concern in the first place. Despite not knowing the Cullen boy personally, she held alot of gratitude for him - he basically saved her when she tried to save Bella after all.

Natalia Black abandoned all parts of her plan to not ask Edward about Bella's problem with him, she knew Bella would flip at her if she found out, but it was all in good nature. The girl took her usual seat beside him in Religious Studies and smiled at him, he looked across at her, confusion spreading across his placid features. She had reminded herself that Jasper was sitting infront of her and could possibly hear her talking before ignoring that thought and paying attention to the teacher's presentation for the time being.

Edward stared ahead of himself, occasionally blinking so he didn't look so strange to anyone looking his way and used his ability. He wanted to look into Talia's mind and find out why she was slightly nervous - Edward had gotten a small ounce of information of what she was feeling from a reluctant Jasper before she had came into the classroom.