Hurriedly flew her pencil over the notebook next to her laptop. For the past seven days, she'd forgotten all about her homework and now, looking at her schedule, she realised she'd lost her lead of two weeks. It wouldn't really matter if not for the fact that her family would arrive tomorrow, which meant that they would be thoroughly disappointed if they found out she'd let her schoolwork slip. Never mind the endless teasing she would get from Emmett's end.
Blowing an escaped lock of hair out of her face, she stared at the gardens longingly. Today more than ever they seemed to invite them, as if the flowers had gotten more colourful and the sun brighter. With the corners of her mouth hanging low, she turned back to the chemistry she had laying in front of her.
When she finished the last of her exercises, she walked across the room, grabbing the case of her violin and opening the locks. She'd barely touched the violin her parents had given her almost a month ago already and she knew would die of embarrassment once Edward got here and she hadn't even worked in the strings.
Letting out a soft sigh, she placed the violin on her shoulder and rested her chin on the stand. Not a second later the first couple of notes of Beethoven's Sonata No. 9 echoed throughout the room. It was a piece of which she could dream the music, but with which she'd been struggling with for a long time. It didn't really surprise her that after not really practising for almost a month, that the piece sounded even more horrible from her strings than it usually did, but it did frustrate.
She looked up as she noticed the door to Demetri's room open, only for Alec to be revealed. Feeling her mood drop even further, she stared at the young vampire for a moment, wondering why on earth he was here. When she'd been staring at him for a good moment and he'd still said nothing, she let out an exasperated sigh. "What is that you want?"
"No need to be rude, sunshine," Alec grinned, a smug smirk appearing on his mouth. He pretended to observe Demetri's room as if he hadn't been there a million times before already, before his eyes landed on Cecilia's figure again. "Just wondering where that awful whining was coming from. I should have known of course."
Cecilia rolled her eyes, lowering the violin from her shoulder. She knew she wasn't in her best form, but hearing Alec tease her about it didn't do much to better her temper. "Why don't you shut up and let me practise then, huh?"
"All the practice in the world isn't going to make that better, you just suck," Alec countered.
Cecilia observed the glint of fun in his eyes and she bit on the inside of her lip to prevent a particularly nasty comment from slipping out. "You suck," she said, placing the violin on her shoulder again. "Now go away."
"No, I think I will enjoy the show from right here," he said as he plopped on one of the setteés loudly. He was wearing an amused expression on his face, one the complete and total opposite of Cecilia's.
She rolled her eyes and turned her back on the vampire. She didn't think she could bring up the concentration to actually practice with the vampire's piercing eyes burning holes in the small of her back, but soon enough, the music flowed through the room again. Cecilia even thought she could manage one particular nasty piece of the music, but as soon as she hit the strings wrong and Alec burst out laughing, she knew she was done for the day.
With a facial expression that predicted nothing other than a thunderstorm, she turned around. She was able to hold her tongue for a total count of two seconds, but then she exploded. Laying the violin carefully on the bed, she grabbed a heavy book from her nightstand and walked to Alec with it raised high in her hand. With a satisfying blow, it hit the said vampire in the head. Cecilia almost deemed the incredulous expression on his face worth all of the drama and soon she was the one laughing, while Alec stared at her as if she'd just insulted his great grandmother.
"That actually hurt," Alec muttered, gently rubbing the skin of his forehead.
Cecilia knew that if he hadn't been a vampire he would've had to walk with an angry bruise on his forehead for the coming couple of days, but faith just didn't grant her that pleasure. She smiled smugly. "It couldn't have been a better shot," she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "You're a vampire and you let yourself be hit in the head by a mortal? I'd simply die of embarrassment."
"You would like that, wouldn't you? Me dying of embarrassment right now?" Alec said, dropping his hand from his forehead. He looked at her with his eyebrows raised high. "You only took me off guard because I was already dying of laughter from that awful screeching of yours, as if that headache wasn't enough already.
"Out," Cecilia screamed, pointing an aggressive finger towards the door. The wild lock fell in front of her face again and she brushed it behind her ear rather harshly. "Get out, right now."
Alec held up his hands in surrender, looking like an innocent angel. He pushed himself off the setteé and much to Cecilia's pleasure, actually walked out of the doors without saying another word. A tired sigh escaped her mouth and she let her shoulders hang in defeat. She knew she wasn't actually as bad as Alec was making her out to be, but when she looked at the beautiful violin laying on the bed, she suddenly felt the urge to put it away and to never look at it again.
Once she'd buried the violin in its casket far away in the walk-in closet she shared with Demetri, she took her place on the desk again. Forcing herself to focus on the screen in front of her with physics instead of the tempting gardens, she began on a new set of problems. Out of all her subjects, she hated physics the most. It turned her brain into pulp, but too bad for her she'd been putting off physics the longest, the exercises only growing over time.
She'd managed to solve five problems when she felt two strong hands land on her shoulders. The coldness seeped right through the fabric of her clothes and a pleasant shiver crawled down her spine. She leaned back into Demetri's stomach, closing her eyes and rubbing her cheeks for a moment.
"You should take a break," he said, his voice sounding ever so nice. It was as if he had the voice of a fallen angel.
She turned around, his hands falling from her shoulder and her eyes focused on his. Taking a short moment to take in his appearance, she smiled. He was wearing his black Guard clothes, except for his cloak, which formed a sharp contrast with the way his skin glittered as it reflected the sunlight. Forcing herself back to reality, she motioned to her schoolwork. "I really need to catch up. I've let it slip for weeks now."
"You've been busy for the last couple of hours now," he countered, looking at her sceptically. "I've heard it's good to take a break every now and then, increases your focus apparently. Walk with me in the gardens?"
"Well," Cecilia muttered. She stared at her unfinished schoolwork for a moment, before a smile crept on her face and she grabbed Demetri's extended hand, butterflies fluttering wildly in her stomach. "If you put it that way."
She walked with him to the gardens eagerly, enjoying the sweet smell of spring as soon as she was outside. It was the complete opposite of Alaska, where the sun only shone every now and then, but never really strong enough to warm you up. For that matter, she would pick Italy over Alaska every day.
"Are you excited for your family to visit?" Demetri asked, catching her off guard.
She felt guilty for not having spent much thought on her family visiting her, but every time it crossed her mind it gave her a headache. She knew how much Aro wanted certain members of her family to join the Volturi and how much he wanted to get rid of the rest of her family and all she could hope for was that in the coming few days he wouldn't have too many dirty tricks on his leave. She'd rather have her family stay in Alaska, for her to return to once she was actually turned and no harm could be done.
Of course, she couldn't tell Demetri that, so she only looked at him and smiled excitedly. "Yes, I am," she replied. "I've missed them so much. This is the first time I've ever been separated from all of them and straight away for such a long time."
"I can only imagine how hard that is," he replied. She observed the way he stared in the distance absentmindedly, as if he was back in the ages.
"Do you remember your family?" she asked curiously. She knew from most of her family members that they didn't remember too much of their mortal life, the memories washed away both from the turning and the years that had passed. It was one of the things she feared the most, losing her memories.
"Not really, to be honest," Demetri said, shrugging. "I think I had an older sister, or maybe she was younger. I can't even remember her name."
The silence that hung between them for a while was a thick and heavy one. Cecilia stared at one of the cherry blossom trees, wondering what the tree had seen in all the years of its existence. "That's what I'm most afraid off, you know," Cecilia said. She tried to phrase it airily, as if it was something it had only just crossed her mind, but it sounded nowhere close to what she'd wanted. "That I will lose memories of my childhood."
"You will make new memories, though," Demetri replied, giving her hand a soft squeeze.
She huffed, the ghost of a smile coming to her lips. "That's what Jasper said as well."