He handed me a couple of blankets before placing a duffle bag on his shoulder and grabbing the cooler. There was already a pile of wood arranged for a bonfire.

Answering my questioning look, he replied, “I stopped by earlier and got things ready.”

Once the fire was roaring he turned on a radio and grabbed a couple cans of beer out of the cooler.

“So, did you bring it?”

I’d almost forgotten that he’d asked me to bring the diary. It was stuffed into the only purse I owned. I wrenched it out of there and flung it at him which he caught despite the fact that my aim had been way off.

He held it up to his nose and inhaled deeply, his brows furrowed. When he finally met my eyes, they were so full of anger that I flinched away from him.

“What?” I croaked, completely baffled at his reaction.

“You weren’t fucking hallucinating, Bells. This thing is coated in a vampire’s scent. She was really in your room, going through your things, conversing with you. It was all real.”

I almost laughed at the indignant tone coming from him. He, himself, had pawed through the very same diary, but the rules of privacy just didn’t seem to apply to him. The smile on my faced died as what he’d really said sunk in. Alice had been in my room and I’d thrown her out.

“Tell me exactly what she said,” he demanded angrily.

“Why are you so mad?”

He stood up and tossed my diary into the fire, his eyes blazing dangerously. “Why? Because I was there when you had to be placed on some of the heaviest medication because the doctors were frightened you’d kill yourself. I watched you slowly fade away and then struggle to build yourself back up. I don’t want to see you have to suffer like that again.” His chest was heaving when he finished, his eyes still locked on my decimated diary.

 I wasn’t mad that he’d burned it, I’d been planning on doing it anyways, but permission would have been nice. The guy had real issues with boundaries.

I couldn’t help being touched by his anger on my behalf, though, and I happened to agree with his assessment. It was why I’d asked Alice to leave. Had I not been drunk, I probably wouldn’t have dared throw her out.