Edward is the most dangerous of all of us. Because he’s young, Carlisle told me once. When he thinks something, he just acts on it. The way the brain works when you’re a seventeen-year-old boy means that certain things just happen.
He chuckled and added, “I’d like to figure out what the vampire equivalent of adrenaline is.”
Adrenaline or whatever you’d like to call it, it’s what happens to Edward. Why one second I was sitting next to him at the piano, and the next, my bottom was on the floor, with the bench exploding into pieces as it slammed into the wall.
Usually, Edward’s M.O. was just to get up, close the piano, and leave. He liked me listening to him, I thought, at least until I thought the wrong thing; until I started imagining him with his mother as a boy. But this time, he lost it.
The next sweep of his arm took with it all the music—it hadn’t been nocturnes today, it was some concerto that he was trying to teach himself and so for the first time in a long time, he’d been using music. Calm, serene, playing something new.
At least, calm and serene until I sat down next to him and started imagining his mother again.
Edward threw me with enough force that it hurt, and I sat there, stunned, staring at him as he panted.
Esme started crying.
Jasper punched Edward so hard that his face literally began to shatter. Which of course got Carlisle upset, and then he was in the middle of it, too, pushing on Jasper’s chest and Edward’s so that they separated, snarling.
I sat on the floor, wondering what I’d done.
“Don’t think about that!” Edward answered, and he spat. “Just stop, Freak.”
“Stop what?” I asked.
“Just…stop!” Then he stalked off to his room again.
The door didn’t slam.
Jasper knelt down and pulled me into his arms, running his hands through my hair, such as it is. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?” When I shook my head, he turned to Carlisle. “You need to learn to control him.”
Carlisle took a deep breath and exhaled, like humans do. He has habits like that.
“It isn’t my intention to control him, Jasper,” he said.
Jasper frowned, but Carlisle simply crossed the distance between us and patted me on the shoulder.
“You’re all right?” he asked.
I nodded.
He turned toward the stairs, sighing. “I should go figure out what happened.”
“Leave me alone,” Edward called, and Carlisle looked despondent, but turned away.
I never did figure out what it was exactly that set Edward off so badly in my vision.
But when I saw him get out the sheet music that day, I did decide not to bother sitting down.