After our shopping trip to Port Angeles, Angela and I had set up a weekly "date" so as not to fall out of touch during the summer. Every Thursday, we'd go to Port Angeles to see a movie, au we'd hang out at Angela's au my place and order pizza au do something else. One weekend, we even went to Seattle with Edward, Alice and Jasper to visit Rosalie and Emmett and look at their new apartment.

"Do wewe want to see a movie, au head over to Bella Rosa and just hang?" Angela asked one siku as we were walking down East First Street.

"Is there anything good playing that we haven't already seen?" I wondered. We paused in front of the movie theater and looked at the posters.

"Well, there's Rugrats." Angela giggled.

"I have been dying to see that." I rolled my eyes. "Chuckie's just soooo cute!"

Angela laughed, surveying the other movie posters.

"According to Ben, 2 Fast 2 Furious is, and I quote "the greatest movie ever made". Of course, he alisema that about the first one, too."

"Two hours watching cars? No thank you." I frowned.

"Oh thank God!" Angela laughed again, looped her arm through mine and pulled me along down the street. "Coffee and gossip it is."

We got to the coffee duka and I sat down at our regular meza, jedwali while Angela went to get our coffees and something sugary. We had quickly become regulars at Bella Rosa, since the coffee was the best in town, and they always had something tasty as well. Today, Angela opted for strawberry pies.

"I just couldn't resist them." She put a cup and a plate down in front of me and I took a sip of the coffee.

"They look delicious." I assured her.

"What are wewe doing tomorrow?" She asked after she had sat down opposite me.

"I think we're going in to town to watch the parade – Alice apparently has a thing for it – and then we're going to Tillicum Park to watch the fireworks." The inayofuata siku was Fourth of July, and Forks had already started buzzing with the annual old fashioned Fourth of July celebration.

"Maybe we could go to the park together?" Angela suggested, and I quickly agreed.

"That would be fun." Edward and I had been on a double tarehe with Angela and Ben the awali weekend, and we'd had a blast.

"My parents are taking the twins to Seattle tomorrow to watch the big fireworks there, and they won't be nyumbani until Saturday." Angela said, looking at her coffee as she stirred it.

"They are?" I could sense that there was something she wanted to talk about, but I didn't want to push, so I just waited for her to continue.

"I was thinking about maybe asking Ben to stay over." She blushed a little as she alisema this.

"Oh, I see." I wondered how to phrase my question. "And wewe haven't… before, I mean?"

"No." She shook her head. "And I'm pretty sure that he hasn't either, so I'm a little nervous."

"That's perfectly normal." I assured her.

"I know, right?" She sighed. "I just don't know how to bring it up."

"Why don't wewe just ask him to stay over, and see how things unfold? I mean, it's not the end of the world if nothing happens, wewe don't have to rush anything."

"You're right." She smiled and nodded. "You always know what to say to make me comfortable, why is that?"

"That's what Marafiki are for, right?"

"So, speaking of… what we actually haven't mentioned, how's Edward?"

"Good. I'm going over there when we get back." Since I didn't have to work the inayofuata day, I was staying at his house that night.

"Then we'd better hurry, don't want to keep him waiting." She smirked at me.

"No, that's not what I meant." I hurried to add. "He knows I'll be late, it's not a problem."

"You do realize wewe have the perfect boyfriend, right?"

"The thought has occurred to me." I smiled to myself. "But yours isn't half bad either."

"He'll do for now." She joked. "I'm actually still amazed that he asked me to prom in the first place."

"Why? You're pretty, nice and funny. Why wouldn't he want to be with you?"

"Stop. You're going to make me blush."

We continued gossiping about our boyfriends until we ran out of coffee.

xxxxx

"We're going to miss it!" Alice complained at twenty past ten the following morning.

"No, we're not." Rosalie assured her, checking her make up in the mirror one last time. "And if you're so gung-ho about it, just leave already. We'll take the Jeep."

Emmett and Rosalie had come up to Forks for the Fourth of July celebrations, and Rose, Alice and I were just about to head out the door. The guys were waiting outside with Carlisle and Esme.

"There. Perfect." Rosalie concluded. Alice sighed in relief.

"Finally. Let's go." She led the way downstairs and out the front door, and we quickly divided ourselves into the cars.

We did not miss the parade, despite Alice's fears; we got there just in time.

"See? I told you." Rosalie muttered, and Alice stuck her tongue out.

I spotted Angela and Ben a few feet away and left the others to go and say hi to them.

"Hi Bella." Angela greeted as soon as she spotted us, giving me a quick thumbs up. She had apparently been successful in asking Ben to stay over that night.

"Hi Ang, Ben."

"Hi Bella." Ben replied.

"So, should we just meet up at the park later?"I asked. "We're going to order pizza before we head into town for the fireworks, if wewe feel like coming over."

Angela gave Ben a questioning look, and he nodded.

"That sounds good."

"Sure, that would be fun." Angela said. "What time?"

"Around six?" I suggested.

"Sounds great, we'll be there."

"OK, I'm going to get back to the others. See wewe guys later." I waved and walked back to where the Cullens were standing.

"How're Ben and Angela?" Edward asked as I rejoined them.

"Good, I invited them for pizza tonight before the fireworks, I hope that's OK."

"Of course." He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I turned in his embrace so that I could watch the parade, leaning my head back against his chest.

xxxxx

"Wow. Pretty." I mumbled as green sparkles spread across the sky.

We had brought a couple of blankets with us to the park, and everyone were sitting au lying on them. I was lying down with my head on Edward's chest, the two of us making a T on the ground. To our right, Angela and Ben were sitting on their blanket, and to our left, Alice and Jasper were curled up on theirs.

The park was full of people; young couples on dates, groups of teenagers, families with children, old retired couples holding hands. The fireworks had just started, and the sky was exploding with sparks of different colors.

"They've been lucky with the weather." Edward noted. "Last mwaka it was so cloudy, wewe could hardly even see the fireworks."

"It really is a starry night." I gazed at the tiny, sparkling dots far, far above us. "Is that Ursa Major?"

He looked where I pointed.

"Yeah."

"It's the only one I can find." Suddenly, a bright light crossed the sky well away from where the fireworks were exploding.

"Did wewe see that? A shooting star." He pointed at the sky where it had disappeared. "Make a wish."

I closed my eyes and wished that the night would never end.

"Did wewe make a wish?" I asked when I opened my eyes again.

"I don't need to."

xxxxx

I waited anxiously outside Newton's Olympic Outfitters after work the following Monday. Edward was ten dakika late, and wasn't answering his cell phone. When he finally pulled into the parking lot, I let out a sigh of relief.

"Sorry I'm late." He mumbled when I got into the car. "Got stuck at the hospital."

"That's OK." I studied his face, and noticed that he looked very tense. "Is something wrong?"

"No, everything's fine." He replied, but the answer came a little too quickly to be assuring. "Just tired."

I frowned, but didn't push it. I was sure that there was something bothering him, but apparently he didn't want to talk about it at the moment. I had no doubt that he'd tell me what was wrong eventually.

He dropped me off at Charlie's, and grabbed my hand before I got out of the car.

"You're coming over after dinner?" He asked, an underlying tone of something in his voice. Desperation?

"Of course." I replied, leaning over to give him a quick goodbye kiss, but he pulled me closer and didn't let me go for several minutes.

"See wewe later." He mumbled as he pulled away from me, and I got out of the car. I watched as he drove down the street, and wondered what had gotten into him. It was almost like he thought he would never see me again.

xxxxx

Edward's mood didn't change as the week progressed, and kwa my Thursday night "date" with Angela, it was starting to really bug me. I had even tried to talk to Alice about it, but she just shrugged it off, saying that she hadn't noticed anything different about him. Which hadn't really done anything to calm me down, since she had been uigizaji very evasive, quickly moving on to a different topic.

Since Charlie was spending the evening watching a game at Billy's, Angela and I decided to order Mexican and watch a movie at my place. She knocked on the door at eight.

"Hey, come on in." I said, stepping aside to let her in.

"I've got Steel Magnolias." She held up the DVD.

"That always makes me cry." I walked ahead of her into the living room.

"Me too."

We ordered the food, and when I had hung up the phone, I gave Angela a demanding look.

"So? How did it go?" I knew she realized what I was referring to when she blushed.

"It went… OK. I think." She frowned. "I don't really have anything to compare it to, but it was really nice."

"I'm glad." I was happy that Angela was happy, she definitely deserved it.

"What was it like for you, the first time I mean? wewe don't have to answer if wewe don't want to."

"It was really nice. Very romantic." I remembered the siku in the clearing. "He took me to this place in the woods, an amazing meadow covered in wild flowers."

"You were outside?" Angela's eyes widened.

"Nobody ever comes there; it's pretty far from the trails." I explained.

"But still."

"I know. But we hadn't really planned it, au anything, it just sort of happened."

"Did it hurt? I thought it did."

"At first, but it didn't last that long." I remembered the brief but piercing pain. "And after that… it's definitely worth it."

"Yeah." She looked at me for a moment. "Are wewe OK?"

One of the things that I liked the most about Angela was that she knew me well enough to know when something was bothering me even if I didn't say anything. Like now. Another thing was that I knew that she wouldn't push if I alisema that it was nothing, au that I didn't want to talk about it. But I realized that I did.

"I don't know." I sighed. "Something's up with Edward, but he won't talk about it, he insists that everything is fine."

"How do wewe mean "up with" him?"

"Well, he was late picking me up from work on Monday, and when he got there he was… just different, I guess." I couldn't put my finger on what it was that really bothered me. "And all week, he's been really intense whenever we're together."

"More intense than usual?" Angela raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't have thought that was possible."

So it wasn't just Renée that had noticed that, then.

"But at the same time, he can't seem to really relax around me either." I continued. "It's like he's always on edge au something. Half the time I get the feeling that he's about to say something, but then he changes his mind. And every time we say goodbye, I almost get the feeling that he's afraid he'll never see me again au something."

"That does sound weird."

"I know." I sighed again. "Alice says that she hasn't noticed anything, so maybe I'm just imagining things. Overreacting."

"If you're really worried, I think wewe should talk to him about it."

I had thought about that, about simply confronting him. The only thing stopping me was the fact that I was worried that I wouldn't like what I would hear. My internal coward had won, and I had kept my mouth shut about my worries.

"I probably should." I said, grimacing a little.

"Or maybe it's just a very long mood swing." Angela suggested, sensing that I didn't really like her initial idea. "I mean, he's been extremely happy every since wewe got together, it was bound to end at some point, right? The honeymoon-phase of your relationship is over, and this is just his usual not-in-a-new-relationship behavior."

I supposed that could be it, but it was just… I sighed, and mentally decided to let it go.

Things did get a little better over the inayofuata couple of weeks. Edward was still very intense whenever we alisema goodbye, but that was actually really nice. He seemed zaidi relaxed when we were together, even though I still sometimes got the feeling that he wanted to say something but changed his mind at the last minute.

On the Friday before our very last week of the summer holidays, he picked me up from work as usual. Once again I got the feeling that something was wrong when I got into the car, but he didn't say anything.

"Can I come in for a moment?" He asked as we pulled up outside my house.

I frowned at this, since our usual Friday routine was that he dropped me off so I could make chajio, chakula cha jioni and spend some time with Charlie, and then I would go over to the Cullens' for the rest of the night. I immediately got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Sure." I managed to sound casual and led the way into the house.

I went into the jikoni to check on the meat I was planning to cook for chajio, chakula cha jioni that night, and he followed me, leaning against the jikoni counter.

"There's something that I need to talk to wewe about." He started, and I felt my moyo drop into my feet.

"What's up?" I didn't recognize the cheerful tone in my voice, and didn't know where it had come from.

"We're leaving."