Aria's Twilight

it starts with goodbye

Aria's pov

When I woke up in the morning, something felt off. It was feeling in my gut that made me feel anxious and It didn't help my outlook that Edward's face was smooth and remote as he kissed my forehead quickly and ducked out my window. I was afraid of the time I'd spent unconscious, afraid that he might have been thinking about right and wrong again while he watched me sleep. The anxiety seemed to build into an intense headache.

When I was ready to leave it was a shock to see that Edward wasn't waiting for me outside. He hated whenever I had to ride with Bella as he didn't trust her truck to safely bring me anywhere. The only time he would let me ride in it was on the days he couldn't come to school because of the sun.

Bella came down the stairs and my eyes flickered straight to her injured arm before spotting the dark circles under her eyes and a flash of guilt tugged at me but I brushed it aside as we quietly left the house and headed towards the school.

Edward was waiting for me at school, but his face was still wrong. There was something buried in his eyes that I couldn't be sure of and it scared me. I didn't want to bring up last night, but I wasn't sure if avoiding the subject would be worse.

He opened my door for me.

"How do you feel?"

"I'm fine." before I could answer Bella did instead and I could see Edward clench his jaw in irritation.

I didn't say anything as we walked in silence, he shortening his stride to match mine and so did Bella. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but most of those questions would have to wait, because they were for Alice.

How was Jasper this morning? What had they said when I was gone? What had Rosalie said? And most importantly, what could she see happening now in her strange, imperfect visions of the future? Could she guess what Edward was thinking, why he was so gloomy? Was there a foundation for the tenuous, instinctive fears that I couldn't seem to shake?

The morning passed slowly. I was impatient to see Alice, though I wouldn't be able to really talk to her with Edward there. Edward remained aloof. Occasionally he would ask about how I was feeling and in even rarer moments he would ask about Bella's arm, and I would lie each time.

Alice usually beat us to lunch; she didn't have to keep pace with a sloth like me. But she wasn't at the table, waiting with a tray of food she wouldn't eat.

Edward didn't say anything about her absence. I wondered to myself if her class was running late until I saw Conner and Ben, who were in her fourth hour French class.

"Where's Alice?" I asked Edward anxiously.

He looked at the granola bar he was slowly pulverizing between his fingertips while he answered. "She's with Jasper."

"Is he okay?"

"He's gone away for a while."

"What? Where?"

Edward shrugged. "Nowhere in particular."

"And Alice, too," I said with quiet desperation. Of course, if Jasper needed her, she would go.

"Yes. She'll be gone for a while. She was trying to convince him to go to Denali."

Denali was where the one other band of unique vampires good ones like the Cullens lived.

I'd heard of them now and again. Edward had run to them last winter before my arrival but right after Bella and her blood had made Forks difficult for him. Laurent, the most civilized member of James's little coven, had gone there rather than siding with James against the Cullens. It made sense for Alice to encourage Jasper to go there.