Edythe squared her shoulders. “If you want to do this first, that’s fine, too.”

I looked at her. I was obviously missing something. “Do this? Do what?”

She stared at me for a second, her eyes doubtful. Suddenly she threw her hands up. “You know, I really thought that when your mind was more similar to mine, I’d be able to hear it. I guess that’s never going to happen.”

“Sorry.”

She laughed, but there was an unhappy note in the sound. “Honestly, Beau.”

“Can you please give me a clue as to what we’re talking about?”

“You wanted us to be alone,” she said, like this was an explanation.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Because you had some things you wanted to say to me?” She braced her shoulders again, tensing like she was expecting something bad.

“Oh. Well, I guess there are things to say. I mean, there’s one important thing, but I wasn’t thinking about that.” Seeing how frustrated she was by whatever misunderstanding was happening, I was totally honest. “I wanted to be alone with you because… well, I didn’t want to be rude, but I also didn’t want to do this hunting thing in front of Eleanor,” I confessed. “I figured there was a good chance I would screw something up, and I don’t know Eleanor all that well yet, but I have a feeling she would find that pretty funny.”

Her eyes got wide. “You were afraid Eleanor would laugh at you? Really, that’s all?”

“Really. Your turn, Edythe. What did you think was happening?”

She hesitated. “I thought you were being a gentleman. I thought you preferred to yell at me alone rather than in front of my family.”

I froze up again. I wondered if that was going to happen every time I was surprised. It took me a second to thaw out.

“Yell at you?” I repeated. “Edythe—oh! You’re talking about all that stuff you were saying in the car, right? Sorry about that, I—”

“Sorry? What on earth are you apologizing for now, Beau Swan?”

She looked angry. Angry and so beautiful. I couldn’t guess why she was worked up. I shrugged. “I wanted to tell you then, but I couldn’t. I mean, I couldn’t even really concentrate—”

“Of course you couldn’t concentrate—”

“Edythe!” I crossed the space between us in one invisibly fast stride and put my hands on her shoulders. “You’ll never know what I’m thinking if you keep interrupting me.”

The anger on her face faded as she deliberately calmed herself. Then she nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “In the car—I wanted to tell you then that you didn’t need to apologize, I felt horrible that you were so sad. This isn’t your fault—”

She started to say something, so I put my finger over her lips.

“And it isn’t all bad,” I continued. “I’m… well, my head is still spinning and I know there are a million things to think about and I’m sad, of course, but I’m also good, Edythe. I’m always good when I’m with you.”

She stared at me for a long minute. Slowly, she raised her hand to pull my finger away from her mouth. I didn’t stop her.

“You aren’t angry at me for what I’ve done to you?” she asked quietly.

“Edythe, you saved my life! Again. Why would I be angry? Because of the way you saved it? What else could you have done?”

She exhaled, almost like she was mad again. “How can you…? Beau, you have to see that this is all my fault. I haven’t saved your life, I’ve taken it from you. Charlie—Renée—”

I put my finger over her mouth again, and then took a deep breath. “Yes. It’s hard, and it’s going to be hard for a long time. Maybe forever, right? But why would I put that on you? Joss is the one who… well, who killed me. You brought me back to life.”

She pushed my hand down. “If I hadn’t involved you in my world—”

I laughed, and she looked up at me like I’d lost my mind. “Edythe—if you hadn’t involved me in your world, Charlie and Renée would have lost me three months earlier.”

She stared, frowning. It was obvious she wasn’t accepting any of this.

“Do you remember what I said when you saved my life in Port Angeles? The second time, or third.” I barely did. The words were easier to bring back than the images. I knew it went something like this. “That you were messing with fate because my number was up? Well… if I had to die, Edythe… isn’t this the most amazing way to do it?”

A long minute passed while she stared at me, and then she shook her head. “Beau, you are amazing.”

“I guess I am now.”

“You always have been.”

I didn’t say anything, and my face gave me away. Or she was just that good. She knew my face so well, she spent so much time trying so hard to understand me, that she knew immediately when there was something I wasn’t saying.

“What is it, Beau?”

“Just… something Joss said.” I winced. Though it was hard to see things in my old memory, the dance studio was the most recent, the most vivid.

Edythe’s jaw got hard. “She said a lot of things,” she hissed.

“Oh.” Suddenly I wanted to punch something. But I also didn’t want to let go of Edythe to do that. “You saw the tape.”

Her face was totally white. Furious and agonized at the same time. “Yes, I saw the tape.”

“When? I didn’t hear—”

“Headphones.”

“I wish you hadn’t—”

She shook her head. “I had to. But forget that now. Which lie were you thinking of?” She spit the words through her teeth.

It took me a minute. “You didn’t want me to be a vampire.”

“No, I absolutely did not.”

“So that part wasn’t a lie. And you’ve been so upset.… I know you feel bad about Charlie and my mom, but I guess I’m worried that part of it is because, well, you didn’t expect to have me around very long, you weren’t planning for that—” Her mouth flew open so fast that I put my whole hand over it. “Because if that’s what it is, don’t worry. If you want me to go away after a while, I can. You can show me what to do so I won’t get either of us in trouble. I don’t expect you to put up with me forever. You didn’t choose this any more than I did. I want you to know that I’m aware of that.”

She waited for me to move my hand. I did it slowly. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what was next.

She growled softly and flashed her teeth at me—not in a smile.

“You’re lucky I didn’t bite you,” she said. “The next time you put your hand on my mouth to say something so completely idiotic—and insulting—I will.”

“Sorry.”

She closed her eyes. Her arms wrapped around my waist and she leaned her head against my chest. My arms wound around her automatically. She tilted her face up so that she could look at me.

“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Beau. This—having you with me, getting to keep you here—it’s like I’ve been granted every selfish wish I’ve ever had. But the price for everything I want was to take the exact same thing away from you. All of your life. I’m angry with myself, I’m disappointed in myself. And I wish so much that I could bring that tracker back to life so that I could kill her myself, over and over and over again.…

“The reason I didn’t want you to be a vampire wasn’t because you weren’t special enough—it was because you are too special and you deserve more. I wanted you to have what we all miss—a human life. But you have to know, if it were only about me, if there were no price for you to pay, then tonight would be the best night of my life. I’ve been staring forever in the face for a century, and tonight is the very first time it’s looked beautiful to me. Because of you.

“Don’t you ever again think that I don’t want you. I will always want you. I don’t deserve you, but I will always love you. Are we clear?”

It was obvious that she was being totally sincere. Truth echoed in every word.

A huge grin spread across my new face. “So that’s okay, then.”

She smiled back. “I’d say so.”

“That was the one important thing I wanted to say—just, I love you. I always will. I knew that from pretty early in. So, with that being how things are, I think we can work the rest out.”