Jessica had drifted to the jewelry counter and we were alone.
"Yes?" She held her leg out, twisting her ankle to get a better view of the her ankle.
I chickened out. "I like those. " v"I think I'll get them—though they'll never match anything but the pink dress I'm buying for this dance," she mused.
"Yeah, you'll have to wear that dress for the rest of your life!" I exclaimed. But the joke was lost on her. "Oh, go ahead and buy them—they're on sale," I encouraged. She smiled, putting the lid back on a box that contained the more practical-looking off-white shoes that she would have chosen if I hadn't inspired her to be so balls-out nasty.
I tried again. "Um, Angela... " She looked up curiously. "Is it normal for the... Cullens"—I kept my eyes on the shoes so she couldn't see into my soul—"to be out of school a lot?" I failed miserably in my attempt to sound nonchalant. The fact that I brought up the Cullens immediately after convincing her to buy pink shoes must have totally given away that I was thinking about Fredward the whole time.
"Yes, when the weather is good they go backpacking all the time—even the doctor. They're all real outdoorsy. They like to swim the seas and climb mountains, if you know-know what I'm saying." She winked. I was beginning to really like Angela. She was in the top percentile of acceptable people I had met in Forks, the small elite group that didn't make me want to jump off a building and into a dumpster.
"Oh." I let the subject drop as Jessica returned to show us the rhinestone jewelry she'd found to match her silver shoes. "Oh." I said, in response to the jewelry, and the way her idea of matching was two things being the same color.
We planned to go to dinner at a little Italian restaurant on the boardwalk, but the dress shopping hadn't taken as long as we'd expected, so, honestly, we weren't even really that hungry yet. Jess and Angela were going to take their clothes, shoes, and jewelry back to the car and then walk down to the bay. I told them I would meet them at the restaurant in an hour—I wanted to look for a bookstore where I could find books on vampires. I didn't tell them that, of course, as I realized it would sound a little bit strange, and they'd probably want to know more about it. They were both willing to come with me to the bookstore, but I encouraged them to go

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Chapter 8

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