Hi! I've been working on this fic for four years, but more often than not, it's been on the back burner while I worked on other things. It's nearly completely written, 20 chapters and about 170,000 words, and is currently being beta read and edited. I don't know how often I'll be able to update, but I'm hoping for every other weekend. Life is just a bit too hectic right now for more often. It was important to me to publish it today, because today is the 97th anniversary of the 19th amendment going into effect, giving American women the right to vote, which you'll see the significance of as the story progresses. Stepping from Shadows will be the first part of a two part fic, but the second half hasn't been started at all, and I honestly don't know when I'll be able to. I believe it can stand alone, but a secondary story line will be open ended if I can't get part two finished. The title comes from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott."

A huge thank you to everyone who over the years has helped make this fic happen, from those on A Different Forest who've offered their expertise on details, to the multitude of betas who've read a chapter or chapters from way back with Project Team Beta, to all those who've volunteered to help me since then. You're all stars! An especially loud shout out to Raum for her years-literally, years-of support and encouragement.

It's been a long time since I posted a Twilight fic, so I'm out of touch. If anyone knows of any fic rec'ing sites where I can post teasers for the next chapter, please let me know.

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I originally listed this as Edward/Bella, but I've changed that to OC. I didn't list that originally because, apart from being a girl and the family history I created for her, Gray's history is canon Edward's. But because I changed her name, I think that would be best.

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Disclaimer - All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.

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But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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STEPPING FROM SHADOWS

Chapter One

"How's it going over there?" Edward asked, referring to the jigsaw puzzle his best friend promised would be a couple of motorcycles when he finished with them. Edward shook his head. He knew his friend was a born mechanic and could take apart anything and put it back together, but the old bikes they'd picked up had hardly qualified as motorcycles when he'd started on them, and Edward was afraid Jake had met his match in the broken-down old relics. The bikes had been but put out with the garbage after all, and even Jake couldn't work miracles.

"You just let me worry about mine, and I'll let you worry about yours." Jake's back was to him, but Edward could hear the smirk in his friend's voice. "Make yourself useful back there. Hand me a socket wrench."

Edward looked up from his laptop, his fingers paused mid-word. "A what?"

"Oh, God. You're useless. You're sure you're a guy, right? Tell me again why I let you hang around with me?"

Edward grinned and smacked his friend in the back of the head with a beat up, paperback copy of The Catcher in the Rye. "Because otherwise you'd have to write your own damn English papers. And you'd fail."

Rubbing his head exaggeratedly, Jake laughed. "Right. Knew there was a reason." He grabbed the needed socket wrench. "So, how's the paper coming?"

Edward typed one more sentence and hit save. "You just finished."

"Cool. How'd I do?"

"Maybe a B minus, if your teacher is in a good mood."

"What? Couldn't get me an A?"

"Oh, I could. But who'd believe it?"

"Smart ass."

"Oh, hey. Did I tell'ya? We're getting new kids at school after Easter," Edward said as took the flash drive out of a USB port. "You did at least read the Cliff notes in case she asks you a question, right?"

"Sure, sure. Thanks, man. I owe you one."

"You owe me a couple dozen," Edward responded, pointing to the bikes. "Just get those fixed up, and we'll call it even."

"Shit! Fuck! Dammit!" A wrench landed with a sharp clang on the cement floor as Jake swore loudly, clutching his right hand in his left and cradling it against his chest.

Edward jumped up. "What happened? You okay?"

"Goddammit!"

"Let me see."

Edward took his friend's injured hand. As he'd known it would, Jacob's hand felt like he was running a high fever. However, while it was not a surprise, the hot temperature of his friend's skin was still a shock. There was some rare genetic thing that made Jake's body temperature run high—like, very high. High enough to be uncomfortable to the touch. He would outgrow in time, his father had told him. Jake's father'd had it at their age, too. Edward didn't pretend to understand it.

The cut looked bad. Blood was dripping from Jake's palm down his forearm, and Edward felt the room start to spin. He never had been able to stand the sight of blood—something that embarrassed him to no end.

Knowing his friend's reaction to the sight of blood, Jake tried to pull his bleeding hand back. "Last thing we need is you passed out on the floor."

"I'm not going to pass out, dumbass. Puke, maybe. Jake, this looks bad. I think you need to have this looked at. We should get your dad. I think you're gonna need stitches."

"Nah," Jake said, grabbing a clean kitchen towel from the clothes line and wrapping it around his hand. "We're made of tougher stuff than you palefaces."

"Jake—"

"Don't make a big deal about it." Jake pulled the towel away. "Look. See? It's stopped bleeding already."

Unbelievably, it had. But Edward was still doubtful. Bleeding or not, the cut looked bad—an angry, jagged red line across Jake's palm.

"You'n Charlie are coming for Easter dinner, right?" Jake asked, changing the subject.

His mind still on the cut on Jake's hand, Edward answered, "'Course." A moment later, putting his laptop in his backpack as an excuse to not have to look at Jake, he asked hesitantly, "Leah around?"

Jacob grabbed an old bed sheet he kept in the shed to wipe grease off his hands while he was working and tore a piece of fabric from a still-clean corner to wrap around his injured hand. He glanced at Edward out of the corner of his eye before turning away and resuming his work on the bikes. "You're not still after Leah, are you? I thought you got that idea out of your head. Dude, you gotta let it go. It ain't happening."

Keeping his eyes averted, Edward shrugged. His unrequited crush on the daughter of one of his father's closest friends was as much of a source of embarrassment to him as his reaction to the sight of blood. Edward had once believed Leah Clearwater to be his one-and-only, the love of his life, the only girl in the world for him—but he'd been all of twelve years old at the time, and he'd gotten over it quickly enough once school had started back up in September and all of Lauren Mallory's shirts had seemed to have shrunk over the summer.

Leah hadn't been interested then, and she wasn't interested now, not even after having had her heart broken by her jerk of an ex-boyfriend.

His friend sighed. "You could get any girl you wanted—except one—and that's the one you decide you want."

"If I could get any girl I wanted, I promise you, I wouldn't be spending my Friday afternoon with you, in a garage, doing your homework."

As was so often the case in the Pacific Northwest, the sky above was dark and ominous. It had started drizzling by the time Edward left Jake's to meet up with his father for dinner, but the real rain promised in those thick, grey clouds wouldn't arrive until later—or so promised the weatherman.

Edward was running late, but as he pulled into the parking lot at Pacific Pizza, he noticed his dad's patrol car wasn't there yet. He glanced up at the sky as he pulled the key from the ignition. By the look of things, he didn't think the chances of the real rain holding off as long as the forecaster had said were very good. Inside the restaurant, one of his classmates was working behind the counter, and she smiled at him as he entered.

"Hey, Edward. Meeting your dad?"

"Hey, Katie. Yeah, he should be here soon." As Edward opened the cooler to grab himself a can of Sprite, he remembered Jake's words from earlier. Katie had smiled at him when he came in. . . .

Jake's right. This thing for Leah's fucking embarrassing—wanting a girl who clearly couldn't care less if she ever saw me again. I don't think Katie's seeing anyone. I wonder if she's got a date for prom?

Edward slid the cooler door shut, debating with himself. Katie Marshall was cute, he thought, though he'd never considered her as anything more than the girl who lived around the corner. She had straight red hair that she'd worn the same way—cut to her chin and pulled back from her face with a headband—since they were children. There was a scattering of freckles across her nose, and she had bright blue eyes that crinkled prettily when she laughed. One of the tallest girls in their class, she had a slim, athletic build, which had gotten her a spot on the varsity girls' basketball team in their freshman year. He wondered why he'd never noticed how pretty she was.

The door opened behind him, and Edward turned, expecting to see his dad, but rather than his father, he saw that another classmate of his had come in. He also saw that the smile Katie gave him wasn't the same smile he himself had gotten. Edward sighed. So much for that idea.

So, Eric Yorkie and Katie Marshall . . . They were a rather odd couple, Edward thought—Katie was athletic and Eric was, well, something of a geek. A reporter for the school paper, Eric wore dress shirts and ties with his jeans and sneakers. But he was a good guy, and the way they were making doe-eyes at each other, Katie looked on top of the world. They smiled goofy smiles as they whispered between themselves, and Edward chose a booth where the seat cushions weren't as badly torn as the rest and sat facing the parking lot. He told himself he was being polite—trying to give Katie and Eric some privacy while they talked—but in reality, he knew he didn't feel up to seeing the two of them so obviously into each other. Not when the girl he wanted to smile at him like Katie smiled at Eric didn't give a flying fuck about him.

While he waited for his father, Edward mentally ran through all the girls at school who he was at least reasonably sure he hadn't heard any of the guys say they'd planned to ask to prom. There was no one at school he was remotely interested in—but it was just prom, just one night. He wasn't the most popular guy at school by any means, but he had plenty of friends. He was athletic—by far the best cross country runner in the county, even as only a junior. He was tall and not too bad looking. It was only prom, only one night; he had to be able to find someone to go with, he told himself. He was smart and funny. . . .

Fuck, isn't that what girls always say when they try to let you down easy? You're smart and funny, but I just don't like you like that.

Edward's mind wandered back to Leah, and he berated himself. It was time to stop thinking about Leah.

Ben's asking Angela—well, assuming he doesn't chicken out, but she's off limits regardless. Mike said he's asking Jessica. Edward shivered. Jessica would be a NO even if Mike hadn't said he wanted to ask her. Edward had gone out with Jessica Stanley for a month at the beginning of their sophomore year, and she'd already been talking about going to the same college so they could be together always. He hoped Mike knew what he was getting himself into.

Edward looked out the window into the parking lot. His father's patrol car was still nowhere to be seen, and he glanced down at his watch. He should've been there by then.

Behind him, Katie and Eric continued to talk quietly, and every once in a while, he could hear the way Katie laughed at something Eric had said. There was something thrilling about hearing a girl laugh like that at something you'd said, Edward thought. He had to accept that, as much as he wanted it, he would never hear Leah laugh like that. Not at something he'd said, anyway.

Lauren? No. God, no. Tight shirts or not—just, no. June Richardson? I could ask her maybe. Or Samantha Wells? No, Lee said he wants to ask her. June's kind of cute.

As Edward stared blankly into the parking lot mentally run through girls at school he didn't think had been asked to prom yet, his father's patrol car pulled in, and tension Edward hadn't wanted to acknowledge eased from his shoulders. He supposed that was something every cop's kid felt when their parent was running late leaving work—had his father been an accountant or a lawyer, he'd have just assumed he'd gotten tied up. But Edward's father was the Chief of Police, and even in a small town like Forks, Washington, there was always that small, nagging thought in the back of his head whenever his father was late, whether he consciously acknowledged it or not.

What if something's happened? What if…?

His father saw him sitting by the window as he crossed the parking lot and nodded his head at him. Edward had seen the expression on his father's face before—not often, thankfully, but enough times to recognize it. It had been a bad day at the office, and when the office was the police station, a bad day didn't mean a few rude customers or a losing out on a bid. When your father was a cop, you didn't ask about the bad days. Edward knew his father would tell him as much as he could—meaning, as much as would be on tonight's news or in tomorrow's paper—in his own time.

As his father removed his coat and sat across from him, Edward saw how pale and worn out he looked. It had been a particularly bad day. His father looked older than he had when he'd seen him briefly that morning. His eyes were tired, sad. Edward knew those eyes; they'd seen too much today.

"You order yet?" his father asked.

"No, I waited. I've only been here a few minutes myself," he answered, playing down the length of time he'd been waiting. He took a drink of his soda, fidgeted, and said, "I was just thinking about asking someone to prom, actually." Edward knew his father knew all about his unrequited crush on Leah, though he never mentioned it.

His father met his eyes for a moment before looking away. "Yeah? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Who'd you have in mind?"

"No idea."

Edward set his empty can of Sprite down, and he and his father went up to the counter to place their orders. Katie pulled herself away from Eric, but her smile—the smile that was all for Eric—never left her face, and her blue eyes returned to his frequently.

It was a normal Friday night, totally mundane in every way. The day had been uneventful, the same as any other day, and the evening would be the same as any other evening. When they got home, they'd probably put a game on. Or maybe they'd have a game of pool. Nothing ever happened in Forks.

All that changed as Edward happened to glance out the window as they were sitting back down, and in one single instant the world shifted beneath his feet. Standing beside a black Mercedes with windows so darkly tinted they were nearly as black as the car was the most beautiful girl Edward had ever seen. Spellbound, he was frozen as he was the moment his eyes landed on her—half sitting, half standing. He could feel the air rush from his lungs. He could hear himself saying, "Ho—ly fuck," pronouncing it as three separate words. She had dark hair and very pale skin. She was wearing a simple white shirt under a light blue raincoat. It was still drizzling, and as she stood at the back of the car and looked around the parking lot, she pulled her hood over her head and turned toward a woman whose face Edward couldn't see, who'd come around from the other side of the car and joined her.

Edward wished the girl would turn back, but with her face being hidden from his view, the world returned to normal. Whatever spell she had cast on him was broken, and he sat down heavily. His father looked at him sternly—Edward never swore in front of his father.

"Sorry," he said. "But did you see her? God, she's—" As his father turned to look, Edward exclaimed, panicked, "Don't look!"

"Girl in the blue raincoat? She's coming in," his father said as Katie set his coffee in front of him without saying a word. She was no longer smiling.

"Dad!"

His father laughed at him the way all parents laugh at embarrassed teenagers—the laugh that said they wouldn't want to be a teenager again for all the money in the world.

"She can't hear me from the parking lot, you know."

Katie looked toward the parking lot, rolling her eyes. Eric was at the counter, and he was looking toward the parking lot, too, his eyes wide. Looking at him, Edward knew why Katie's smile had fallen. Eric had seen the girl, too.

Behind him, Edward heard the door open. He felt his heart beat faster until it felt like it was throwing itself against his rib cage. His palms felt sweaty, and he wiped them on his thighs. He couldn't remember ever reacting like this to a girl before—not, of course, that he'd ever seen a girl that beautiful before. Girls who looked like that belonged in New York or L.A., in movies or in magazines. They did not show up in places like Forks.

At least, they sure as hell never had before.

The noise level in the room dropped as every conversation stopped abruptly. Eric and he were not the only ones to notice the newcomers.

Steeling his nerves, Edward glanced over his shoulder toward the counter. He could see the back of the light blue raincoat, the hood still raised. The girl was wearing dark blue jeans and black boots that came to her knees. He couldn't make out a shape because of the raincoat, but a girl that beautiful had to have a body to match.

Christ, he wished she'd turn around.

Beside the girl stood the other woman, whose face Edward could now see in profile. She was taller, older—a sister or an aunt, perhaps. Her hair was long like the girl's, but a lighter shade. She was also stunningly beautiful—though not as beautiful as the girl. No one could be as beautiful as the girl, in Edward's opinion.

The woman was speaking to Katie, who looked as mesmerized as Edward felt. At least, Edward consoled himself, his mouth wasn't hanging open like Eric's was—but that could possibly be because Eric could see the girl's face, and he couldn't. The woman's voice floated across the room like music. Though he couldn't hear her clearly enough to make out what she was saying, Edward could tell it was the type of voice that belonged on stage reciting Shakespeare.

Then the girl turned.

With her hood still raised, Edward could only see a sliver of her face, but that was enough to stop the world from spinning. The girl raised her hands to her head. She hesitated, as if she might lower them again, but then she slowly pushed her hood down.

Edward's mouth went dry; she was looking directly at him. Some part of his mind was telling him to look away, to play it cool—to not do something to completely humiliate himself—but his body didn't respond. He was unable to move a muscle. This was how a small animal felt, cowering in front of a much larger and more powerful predator, Edward thought. But no sooner had the thought passed through his mind than he realized the girl wasn't moving either. She was as perfectly still as a statue. Her arms were still raised, her hands still on the hood of her raincoat.

She looked confused, he thought, as she stared at him. Her eyebrows were drawn together, her forehead creased as if she was considering some difficult question. She looked worried.

The woman she was with touched her arm, and the girl turned away from him. Her eyes were only away from him for a moment before returning, but the short respite from the intensity of the girl's gaze had been enough for Edward's mind to clear, and he could see beyond her beauty. He noticed how very tired she looked. Even from where he sat, Edward could see dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept well, if at all, the night before. Or possibly several nights before, he suspected. He noticed that her skin wasn't just fair, it was ghostly pale—pasty, even. Had she'd been sick and not yet fully recovered? Edward saw her lips move—she had full, deep pink lips in contrast to the fairness of her skin—but she spoke too softly for her voice to carry to where he sat.

"They'll be ready in a few minutes, Mrs. Cullen," Edward heard Katie say.

"Thank you," the woman responded, smiling kindly and returning a wallet to her purse.

The woman turned toward Edward, but unlike the girl, she did not look directly at him. Both she and the girl had the same fair skin, and Edward noticed the woman had the same circles under her eyes as the girl. Both were indescribably beautiful, but that was where the similarities ended. Their faces bore no resemblance other than their remarkably fair skin and tired eyes.

Edward sat facing forward. His stomach was twisting itself into knots.

A few minutes. They'll only be here for a few minutes. She'll only be here for a few minutes. And then she'll leave. She'll put her hood back up, get back into her car, and drive away.

And I'll never see her again.

He stared hard at the Formica table top, trying to resist the urge to turn around so he could see the girl for as long as possible, even if it would just be a few minutes more.

"Mrs. Cullen?" his father asked.

Edward inhaled sharply and looked at his father, his eyes wide with disbelief. From behind him, the girl and the woman had approached the table where he and his father sat.

"Yes?" the woman responded, her surprise evident as she stopped at their table, her eyes quickly darting to the girl beside her. But the girl was looking directly at him. Edward now knew how a deer felt when it darted out of the woods onto the highway and the headlights of an oncoming 18-wheeler paralyzed it where it stood.

"Welcome to Forks, ma'am. Chief Swan, Forks Police Department. I hope you and your family are settling in well?"

The girl's eyes slid from Edward to his father, the confusion apparent on her face deepening.

Wishing he could crawl into a hole and disappear, Edward slid low in his seat. What the hell was his father doing? Since when was he the fucking head of the Forks Welcoming Committee?

"Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, thank you, Chief Swan. That's, that's very kind of you. Yes, I'm sure we'll all be very happy here." The woman, Mrs. Cullen, turned toward the girl beside her. "Isn't that so, Gray?"

Gray, Edward thought to himself. Her name is Gray. He couldn't for the life of him think of a less appropriate name for such a radiantly beautiful girl.

"My daughter, Gray," Mrs. Cullen said to his father by way of an introduction. "Gray is a junior. She and her sister and cousin will begin school after Spring Break."

"My son Edward here is a junior as well."

Edward gaped at his father helplessly.

Say something, stupid! You need to say something! Hello. Say hello. Turning to the girl, Edward opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He could feel his face heat up. What kind of moron are you? Say something!

Fuck, she's going to my school! She's one of the new kids everyone's been talking about all week!

He tried again to speak, but again he failed.

It was some slight consolation to him that the girl looked as much at loss as he was. She looked like she had no idea what she was supposed to say or do; if Edward felt like a deer in headlights, the girl looked like a fish out of water. The idea he'd had a moment ago when he thought her pallid complexion may be due to her having been ill and not fully recovered strengthened. She looked like she felt sick.

And scared. For some reason, the girl—Gray—looked scared.

Yeah, probably because you keep staring at her. Christ, you must look like some kind of fucking creepy stalker.

Edward forced his eyes away from the girl, from Gray. Gray. What kind of name is that for an angel? He turned his attention to the parking lot. The rain had stopped.

He could see Gray's reflection in the window. Her eyes were boring into the back of his head so intently she could have been trying to see inside him.

Abruptly, she walked to the booth next to theirs, sitting so that she was facing him.

He sighed. You dumbass. She's new in town and about to start at your school. You're introduced to her, and rather than say hello like a normal human being, you turn your head away. Smooth. Could you possibly have been any bigger of a jackass?

Mentally berating himself, Edward lowered his head, and peeked at Gray out of the corner of his eye—surreptitiously, he hoped. She had her eyes closed tightly. Her hands were steepled in front of her face, her index fingers pressed firmly against the bridge of her nose. A moment later, she pressed her fingertips forcefully to her forehead, moving them in a circular motion, as if trying to massage away a headache.

Her mother leaned across the table to her, and Edward assumed she whispered something to her, because Gray shook her head as if answering no. It had surprised Edward that the woman had introduced Gray as her daughter. There was no way she was old enough to have a daughter their age.

As Gray again shifted position—opening her hands and resting her forehead against her palms, her fingers weaving into her hair—Edward wondered if she suffered from migraines.

Gray lowered her hands and pressed her fingertips against her forehead. Edward could see her eyes watching him closely through her fingers.

So quickly it startled him, she sat up straighter and lowered her hands, looking everywhere but at him.

Keeping her eyes averted, she pulled a phone from her coat pocket, moving unusually slowly. She shook her head, and her eyes closed for a brief moment. She looked annoyed, and Edward again saw her lips move as her thumbs slid over the screen of her phone, but just as before, although he sat only roughly six feet from her, he couldn't hear even a whisper of her voice, not the slightest sound.

"So, what'd you and Jake get up to this afternoon?"

"What?" Edward asked, pulled from his thoughts.

His father repeated his question as he sipped his coffee.

"Jake was working on the—"

Edward caught himself just in time. He'd been so wrapped up in thinking about Gray that he'd almost blown it big time. If his father ever found out about the bikes Jake was fixing up, he'd go apeshit. Not too much could truly send his father into a rage, but learning about those bikes would do it. He felt guilty going behind his father's back, but he couldn't help himself. The thought of speeding down the highway on his bike was like a drug he couldn't resist.

Besides, he consoled himself, in spite of Jake's confidence, he wasn't at all sure his friend was up to the challenge. Not that he'd ever admit it to Jake, but in spite of the progress he swore he was making, Edward wasn't sure the bikes would ever be anything more than motorcycle-shaped piles of scrap metal.

"We were just hanging out in the back, in the garage. Jake's been fixing up the Rabbit," Edward said, referring to the old Volkswagen Rabbit his best friend had been working on since before he'd had a license to drive it. "He got a couple parts from this place down in Hoquiam he was all excited about." That part, at least, was true.

Edward's attention was pulled back to Gray when she slid out of the booth, walking to the cooler and getting a can of soda for herself. She drank Sprite as well, he noticed. She opened the can and raised it to her lips, but something about the action looked wrong, he thought, although he couldn't put his finger on what it was. Setting the can down, her eyes fell to the tabletop.

Soon, Katie brought their dinners out. "Here we are," she said as she set their plates down. "Another coffee, Chief Swan?"

"Please, Katie."

Katie's eyes darted to Gray and her mother at the next booth before returning to Edward, her eyebrow arching questioningly before she returned to the kitchen, a teasing smirk on her lips.

Edward's eyes flickered repeatedly back to Gray, but she was looking out the window, down at the table, at her phone, anywhere but toward him. He felt the loss of those eyes on him as if something had been ripped away from inside him.

As he raised his fork to his mouth, those tired-looking eyes fixed on him once again which such intensity, it startled him. Although her face was angled toward the swinging door to the kitchen directly across from their booth, she was undeniably watching at him out of the corner of her eye. A chill run up Edward's spine—she wasn't just looking at him, there was so much concentration in her face it was as if she were studying him—and his hand dropped.

Lasagna fell off his fork and landed on his leg.

In an instant, Edward felt his face flame with embarrassment. He wanted to crawl under the table and hide. So much for not doing anything to humiliate myself.

He knew she'd been looking at him, knew it was too much too hope for that she might not have seen, but Edward risked a glance at her anyway. While Gray was looking up at the ceiling, seemingly fascinated by the dozens of brightly colored plastic Easter eggs hanging by ribbons, the corners of her lips twitched.

Glad I amuse you, Edward thought to himself, but no sooner had he thought it than he realized it was true. Some of the weariness looked to have left her eyes as they crinkled in amusement, and if he was in any way responsible for that, he was glad for it. Of course, he wished it had been something witty and clever he'd said that had caused those eyes to crinkle and those lips to want to smile. . . .

The swinging door was pushed open a moment later, and a man exited the kitchen carrying a stack of six pizzas, which he set down on the counter next to Katie. On their feet the moment the door opened, Gray and her mother were already approaching the counter, her mother pulling her wallet out once again to pay for the can of Sprite.

Keeping his head down, pushing the food around on his plate with his fork, Edward's eyes followed Gray as she took three of the pies and followed her mother out the door without a glance back toward him.

He watched her put the pizzas in the backseat. He watched her until she slipped into the passenger seat and pulled the door closed. Turning from the window, he stared down at his plate, and his lips curved into a smile.

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Author's note:

Pacific Pizza is a real place in Forks. I've never been to Forks, but there are dozens of reviews for the place online, and several reviewers on different sites commented that the seat cushions in every booth were torn.