Shine

Discussions of Differences

Half an hour later I'd wrangled my way onto my stomach—after Edward had obligingly adjusted the blanket so I wouldn't be lying directly on the rough carbuncles of rock—and lay with my chin on my folded arms, smiling into the still, peaceful, and certainly not teeming micro-community in the tide pool below me. Edward adjusted too, to lie next to me in a similar position. Every now and then he chuckled, listening in I suppose.

I thought you tried to avoid listening to others' thoughts.

"I typically do, but with your seeming lack of aversion to it, and my interest, the habit has somewhat....slipped."

I smiled. No offense taken. I'll let you know if there's something I'd especially like to keep to myself. This tide pool wasn't particularly colorful—though there was a ruddy-brown-red sort of starfish fellow lurking down where I could barely even see him—like they were in movies and stories, but color wasn't everything. I liked watching the fluttering of the low, twirly seaweeds, the tentative reach of the globby things that curled in on themselves when you touched them and slowly reached out numerous fingers of their own when they determined it was safe again. I loved the way they striped fish that had gotten caught in the pool as the tide went back to sleep sometimes merely drifted, fins flashing beside them, and sometimes darted away in a blink, some unseen threat having frightened them away. I was tempted to suck the yogurt off strips of my chicken and drop it in for them to see if they'd eat it, but Aunt Clara had instilled into me from a young age that it was not polite—nor was it safe or kind—to feed wild animals, especially when you had not researched for yourself whether you were doing it with the right things and in the right way.

"You are very close with your aunt," Edward said, nearly half to himself. He seemed to rouse at my interest with his question. "It's enjoyable to experience—a lot of people our age seem to find far too much contention with their families."

My lips curled up at the edges. " 'Our age.' "

He tilted his head back to gaze up at the sky. "Yes. As peculiar as it may seem I often regard myself both as the age my body stopped within and the age my mind has reached. In some ways I cannot change, and still am nearly unchanged from who I was at seventeen. In others I have been forced to take on the maturity of years despite holding them in a mind caught in one place in its own timeline."

"That's got to be difficult."

"It is. However, it helps that we are all caught similarly. Carlisle and Esme—my mother—are also caught, since adults' minds change as they age too."

"Of course." A faint, warm breeze slithered across the stone and I was glad my hair rarely came across a breeze strong enough to get it as ensnared in my face and vision as white girls' hair did. Some of them claimed the wind to be the primary reason for their chopping off of their own previously long hair. I believed them.

Edward inhaled, still watching the sky. When he spoke his voice had become....uncertain. "There are other ways in which we are different."

My eyes rotated up to watch him, one eyebrow raised. He caught my bafflement, and lifted his chin toward the cracks in the clouds above. "Watch."

I looked to the clouds, just as perplexed as I had been before, and back to him. The sun then seeped through a thinner area of the clouds, and I jumped when I noticed quite a lot of it reflecting from the corner of my eye.

It was reflecting off of Edward. I sat hurriedly up onto my elbows and regarded him with surprise. His skin glimmered, like fine dew off a field. Not like ice though—the shine wasn't smooth. It was faceted, as skin should be, and that determination of mine that his skin shone properly amused me so much that I laughed, then had to cover my mouth with my hand, giggling. "I'm so sorry. I'm amusing myself and I don't really know how or why."