“So Bella, what brings you to Braxwell?” Carlisle asked politely as I positioned myself on a nearby large white faux suede couch.

“I moved to Forks, and I sent myself here,” I decided to get that cleared up right away – no one was forcing me to do anything in my family, so I’d done it for them.

“I see,” the doctor swept a stray hair back into place as he took a seat in an armchair across from me. Edward took a spot on my couch a respectful distance away.

“Edward,” Carlisle asked after an awkward few seconds of silence, “Might I ask why you’ve brought Bella to meet Esme and I?” Esme poked her head out of the kitchen and smiled; I smelled cookies from her direction, and smiled back. As I brought my head over to look at Edward in wait of his response, I saw a smile flit across Carlisle’s face: a wry, almost conspiratorial smile. What was that supposed to mean? Was I just overanalyzing everything because I was nervous?

“Well,” Edward inclined his head towards me with a shy grin, “Isn’t it acceptable these days for a young man to bring his girlfriend over to his house to meet his parents?”

What on Earth was he talking about? I barely knew him, and he was calling me his girlfriend? Not that I didn’t object; he was gorgeous, but way out of my league… So why would he even bother?

His father was stern almost at once, and I was turning redder by the second. “Edward, are you sure you can handle a girlfriend right now? Are you sure you’ll be able to keep up with your studies? After all, you have to set a good example for your peers.” The speech was quite viable, but the way he’d said it had me wondering; the words sounded like code for something else the way he was enunciating them.

Edward was the picture of innocence as he replied, leaning forward, “Of course Father, of course. You know me, everything’s up here-,” he tapped his head for emphasis, “-I’m certain I’ll do fine. In fact, I’ll even ask Alice… ask Alice to tutor me if I’m having trouble. I just can’t let Bella go; she’s definitely one of a kind.”