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This was the time of day when I wished I were able to sleep.

　　High school.

　　Or was purgatory the right word? If there was any way to atone for my sins, thisought to count toward the tally in some measure. The tedium was not something I grewused to; every day seemed more impossibly monotonous than the last.

　　I suppose this was my form of sleep—if sleep was defined as the inert statebetween active periods.

　　I stared at the cracks running  sevens jeans  through the plaster in the far corner of the cafeteria,imagining patterns into them that were not there. It was one way to tune out the voicesthat babbled like the gush of a river inside my head.

　　Several hundred of these voices I ignored out of boredom.

　　When it came to the human mind, I’d heard it all before and then some. Today,all thoughts were consumed with the trivial drama of a new addition to the small studentbody here. It took so little to work them all up. I’d seen the new face repeated in thoughtafter thought from every angle. Just an ordinary human girl. The excitement over herarrival was tiresomely predictable—like flashing a  manolo blahnik onlineshiny object at a child. Half thesheep-like males were already imagining themselves in love with her, just because shewas something new to look at. I tried harder to tune them out.

　　Only four voices did I block out of courtesy rather than distaste: my family, mytwo brothers and two sisters, who were so used to the lack of privacy in my presence thatthey rarely gave it a thought. I gave them what privacy I could. I tried not to listen if Icould help it.

　　Try as I may, still…I knew.

　　Rosalie was thinking, as usual, about herself. She’d caught sight of her profile inthe reflection off someone’s glasses, and she was mulling over her own perfection.

　　Rosalie’s mind was a shallow pool with few surprises.

　　  Emmett was fuming over a wrestling match he’d lost to Jasper during the night. Itwould take all his limited patience to make it to the end of the school day to orchestrate arematch. I never really felt intrusive hearing Emmett’s thoughts, because he neverthought one thing that he would not say aloud or put into action. Perhaps I only feltguilty reading the others’ minds because I knew there were things there that theywouldn’t want me to know. If Rosalie’s mind was a shallow pool, then Emmett’s was alake with no shadows, glass clear.

　　And Jasper was…suffering. I suppressed a sigh.

　　Edward. Alice called my name in her head, and had my attention at once.

　　It was just the same as having my name called aloud. I was glad my given namehad fallen out of style lately—it had been annoying; anytime anyone thought of anyEdward, my head would turn automatically…My head didn’t turn now. Alice and I were good at these private conversations.

　　It was rare that anyone caught us. I kept my eyes on the lines in the plaster.

　　How is he holding up? she asked me.

　　I frowned, just a small change in the set of my mouth. Nothing that would tip theothers off. I could easily be frowning out of boredom.

　　Alice’s mental tone was mens womens jeansalarmed now, and I saw in her mind that she waswatching Jasper in her peripheral vision. Is there any danger? She searched ahead, intothe immediate future, skimming through visions of monotony for the source behind myfrown.

　　I turned my head slowly to the left, as if looking at the bricks of the wall, sighed,and then to the right, back to the cracks in the ceiling. Only Alice knew I was shakingmy head.