Iridescence | Edward x OC

10

Edward hummed, thinking through this. He couldn't quite tell whether she was telling the truth or not, but everything she had said so far seemed to add up.

"Why can't I read your mind?" He asked suddenly, eager to finally figure this one out.

Aris sighed, wishing she could tell him the truth as she knew it must be very worrying for him that his gift wasn't working.

"I'm sorry Edward, but I don't have an answer for that either. Another genetic deficiency perhaps?" She shrugged.

Edward looked at her suspiciously, not quite buying it.

"Alice and Jasper's gifts don't work on you either-"

"Wait, Alice and Jasper have gifts?" She asked suddenly.

"Yeah. Alice can see the future, and Jasper can manipulate emotions. Did theirs never give you headaches like mine?" He asked curiously.

She shook her head, causing his eyebrows to furrow in confusion.

"Okay, well now that you know about me, stop trying to look into my mind, because that shit hurts." She grumbled, causing him to chuckle and nod.

His face quickly went serious again though as he thought of another question.

"How come you never told me, or any of my siblings, that you knew about us?" He questioned.

Aris internally started to panic, not prepared for this question. She obviously couldn't tell him the truth, that being that she didn't want them to somehow find out about her secret, but she also didn't have a lie tucked up her sleeve.

"Just fucking with you guys. I wanted to see how long it took you to find out." Her lie was absolutely pathetic, and she knew it too.

Edward didn't believe it for one second, but he decided to let it go for now, deciding that he had gotten enough 'truth' out of her for one day.

"I'll get it out of you one day Shields, but as for now, I'm glad there's finally some clear air between us." He smiled.

Aris sighed in relief, grateful that she'd at least have a small amount of time to come up with a better lie.

"However," Edward continued, a smug smile playing on his face, "I think I'll leave it up to you to tell my dear siblings about this. I'd hate to be the one to break the news to poor Alice and Rosalie that you had been lying to them this whole time." A small pout played on his lips, and it took all of Aris's self control not to smack it off his face.

"In my defense," she snapped, "you were all technically lying to me this whole time too, not telling me about you all being vampires."

Edward's mouth pressed into a firm line.

"Touché." He mumbled, causing Aris to smile triumphantly.

-

Telling the Cullen's that she knew about their secret had gone better than she expected, though they all of course asked her the same dreadful question that Edward had, that being why hadn't she told them sooner.

She gave them all a similar answer that she had given Edward, though to make it more believable, she added that she just "didn't know how to approach the subject" and she "didn't wanna make them uncomfortable".

None of them had fallen for it, except for maybe Emmett, but like Edward, they all pushed it aside, agreeing to let Aris come to them with the truth on her own terms.

Now that Aris had finally cleared some air with them all, she could focus more on the one thing about Edward that had been bugging her to no end.

Why he hated her so much that night they met.

She knew that it was obviously a very personal subject, as now they had known each other for several months and he still had yet to even bring it up on his own terms, so she knew that there was going to have to be a bit of convincing on her end.

It was going to take more than convincing though, and she knew it too.

It was going to take trust.

She was going to need to gain Edward Cullen's trust if she was even going to have a shot at getting him to tell her, and that in itself meant she was going to need to stop arguing, and start to become his friend.

Just the sheer idea of that made her want to bash her head through a concrete wall, but she knew there was no other way she was going to figure this out.

Like Edward, she wished that she could just let it go, but it was like a nagging itch at the back of her head that was absolutely desperate to be scratched, and no amount of time would lessen that need.

Aris groaned, flopping down on her bed with a notebook and pen in hand.

Even if it meant staying up all night long planning ways to gain Edward's trust, she knew that it would be worth it for when she finally found out his secret.

And she would find out, no matter what it took.