Heeeeeey! So this was an O/S that I submitted for the Fandom for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. If anyone remembers, I did submit an O/S for this before in 2011 (Cookie Snatcher). And yeah, it's a late upload.

This is something a little different than most of the one-shots I've done. One, I wrote this when I was in one of my moods. Two, I have no idea how many references I've made to my real world experiences. And three, when I originally wrote this, I never thought that I'd ever be uploading on FF.

So enjoy!

Edward's piercing green eyes glare directly into my brown eyes as I fight to hide my intimidation. His lips are pursed. That's not good. All that's missing is his hands clenched into fists to confirm how angry he is at me.

"Dammit Isabella! What do you want from me?" he demands. His hands are hidden in the pocket of his jeans. I can't see them, but I can tell he's hiding the one action that he doesn't want me to see.

For the past couple of years, Edward rarely called me by my full name. He usually calls me Bella, along with all my other friends. There are only two reasons when he doesn't. One, he's about to tell me something that will shock me. Or two, he'll shout something mean to my face like he used to do in the early months since we first met in middle school.

The early months.

I miss them. At least yelling at each other over stupid things is better than what is happening now.

I know what I want. I've been wanting this ever since I moved from Phoenix and back to my hometown in Forks.

"I want you to tell me what changed," I answer softly, keeping my voice as steady as I can. I'm afraid that he'll raise his voice again if I speak any louder.

Edward gives me a laugh, one that sounds bitter and full of resentment. His eyes are still fixed intently on me, but his hands are no longer in his pockets. They are at his sides, clenched into fists.

I gulp.

I'm pushing the boundaries.

But I have to know. I have to know why his feelings changed. I have to know why his on-and-off attitude is manipulating with my heart. I gave him my heart, like he wanted. And just like that, he doesn't.

"You want to know what changed?" One of Edward's hands reaches behind his head to rub the strands of his messy bronze hair. "What makes you think you deserve that explanation?"

The intimidation is gone. Now it's replaced with a bit of fear. I struggle to keep my breathing at a normal pace. This isn't him. This isn't the Edward I've fallen in love with six months ago. This isn't the carefree boy that I've known for the past five years.

I hid the hurt he inflicted upon me since we met. At first, it didn't bother me as much. All it was is simple teasing and I could easily distract myself from all the things he would try to say to get a rise out of me. But as I got older, that wasn't the case. There were ways that he was able to hurt me even more.

His depression over not being good enough for Carmen, who he had a huge crush on at the time.

His dominance that forced me to comply over a mutual breakup. It was the one time where our feelings matched up in the right time.

His moments of telling me how much he missed me when I was in Phoenix after I moved away from Forks in the eighth grade.

His vulnerability of confessing his love for me in July. I was too much of a coward and afraid to tell him that I didn't love him back.

Those were the memories that hit me the most. But after I moved back to Forks, I truly began to realize what our friendship meant to me. He may have been a pompous ass at first, but somewhere along the way, we became friends, which was something that I thought we could never be. Masking my emotional pain affected me, and at this moment when Edward became a person that's a stranger to me, I snap.

"You really are an idiot," I say through gritted teeth. "If I really meant a lot to you, then you'd tell me what's bothering you. That's the you I know. You would tell me what's on your mind. You would let me support you as much as I could. You-"

"That was the old me," he interjects. "I'm a better person now."

I raise my eyebrow. remembering something that he used to say about himself. I'm a jerk Bella. I don't deserve anyone.

"So you don't think of yourself as a bad person anymore?"

"I-"

"You stopped thinking of yourself as a jerk, a douche, a failure in life, and all the bad things you told me about yourself? You aren't bothered that there are some people out there that still think of you as a player?" I think of Emmett, who was unsure about Edward after I confided about my feelings for him. Emmett still remembered Edward's reputation as a player back in middle school.

Edward goes silence. I've hit a nerve.

"Did you forget who helped you when you were hung up on Carmen? Did you forget who told you that there are people that care about you? Did you forget who was there for you when you weren't your usual self? Did you forget who accepted all your flaws, which everyone else couldn't handle? Did you forget who never doubted you, even for a second? Did you forget who you said 'I love you' to?"

Edward is still silent. The roles are reversed. Now I am the one who yells and he is the one who is intimidated. Cat and mouse. That's what our friendship was always like.

When he doesn't speak, I continue on. "I tried to be a good friend to you after we broke up. God, all I wanted to do after our breakup is punch you in the gut and take back every good thing I said about you. Even though it worked, our friendship hasn't been the same since I moved back. There was some sort of tension that kept us apart. I wish I could make that tension disappear, but I can't. It's confusing. You're confusing. I stopped liking you while I was in Phoenix, but seeing you again in person two years later... I didn't know how to deal with the familiar feelings of attraction towards you."

His eyes melt. They are still glued to me, but at least it doesn't hold the glare from earlier.

I stare into those eyes. He hasn't said a word to me since I started my rant. A part of me believes that there is something important he wants to say to me.

"Bella..." He said Bella. Not Isabella. He calls me Bella in his vulnerable moments. Right now, I recognize this Edward. He isn't the stranger I feared earlier. He is the Edward that would make me feel stupid when he had those miracle moments of doing something intelligent.

"I hate this." My voice goes into a gentler tone. My mouth feels slightly dry from that long speech. "I hate that you toy with my feelings."

"I don't toy with your feelings," he protests.

I grimace, shaking my head. How can he be so dense? "Yeah you do. You would make me laugh one minute, then pity in the next. You can make me happy, and then you can quickly make me sad. You always make me feel a lot of emotions. I hate it because it's one of the things that confuses my feelings for you. It makes me have a hard thinking about what you do to me."

He sighs. "What do you want from me?" He's repeating the same question. This time, he's asking it in a way that I'm brave enough to respond to.

"I want you to tell me the truth." I take a deep breath. "Tell me why you had to get Emmett to tell me you have a girlfriend when you could have just told it to my face. Tell me why you can't stop playing games with me. Tell me why you stopped loving me after you kept chasing after me throughout all my time in Phoenix. Tell me why you've been keeping secrets from me since I moved back. Tell me what changed."

He rubs the back of his head. He's nervous. I can anticipate an honest response from him when he's nervous. Or at least that was when he still told me about his life.

"It's heard," he begins. "I don't know where to start."

"It's okay. Just say what's on your mind. I won't judge." It's true. He knows that I don't judge things harshly. He should remember that I'm that girl that looks at the positive before the negative.

"I..." He clears his throat. "I'm sorry." He stares at me sheepishly. "I'm sorry that you feel this way. I didn't see how you were hurt when I didn't tell you about my girlfriend."

"It's the same girl, isn't it?" I bite my lip. "Emmett told me that you knew your girlfriend since you were three. I remember that was the same thing you said about an ex-girlfriend before."

"Which one?"

"The one from Chicago. The one that broke up with you because she couldn't handle long-distance relationships."

"Yeah that one. We got back together."

My eyes focus on the ground. "Why? Why set yourself to face the heartbreak again? She hurt you once. She could do it again."

"It wasn't my choice."

My eyes go wide."What do you mean? You always have choices in life."

He shakes his head. "She knows something that could destroy my social life if she told my friends. If I didn't get back together with her, she'd expose my secret on Facebook."

"What makes this a secret that you could lose what you have of a social life?"

"Uh..." He hesitates for a moment. I swear his face is going red. "You know how I'm like those boys that have crazy hormones?"

I nod. He revealed that side to me when we were in our relationship. That side of him shocked me at first, but I got used to it. That was how determined I was to make our long relationship work.

"She didn't like that. But I kept doing it, all because of my stupid boy hormones. I wish I was able to control myself... she wouldn't have used that as a threat when she saw it was a mistake to break up with me. Damn..." He hits the bark of the nearest tree with one of his fists. "I'm so stupid. Now I can't break up with her without ruining my life. She messed up my chance of being with the girl I'm really interested in."

My heart sinks. It's true. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. I'll be walking away with a heart broken even further when this is all over. I'm 99% sure of it. If he was interested in someone, it isn't me.

I knew it. What reason could he have been interested in a girl like me? Isabella Swan: clumsy, bookworm extraordinare.

"Who's this girl?" I end up asking. I have to know. A name would be able to answer this unresolved question. "Whoever she is, you should be fighting for her instead of your girlfriend."

He moves his hand away from the tree, leaning away from it and walking toward me until he is inches away from my face. I can feel it, the sparks that I tried to deny before. Even it he is unaffected of the sparks now, the sparks affect me now. It was how it was supposed to anyway. After all, it was what I felt the last time we spoke to each other in person.

He takes a small step forward. "You." He lightly brushes my shoulder with the palm of his hand before settling back against his side. "It's always been you."

"I... don't understand." I'm at a loss for words. I hardly know what I should say next.

"Silly Bella." He lifts the hand that touched my shoulder to cup my right cheek. "Did you actually believe I stopped loving you?"

I nod, which was more of a jerky up and down motion of my head. "You made it sound so believable." I remember his words: I'm sorry, but I'm interested in you anymore.

"Bella, you mean everything to me. I meant what I said that night in July. I care about you. I hated when you tell me of the people that hurt you. It makes me want to kill them for even wanting to hurt you in the first place." He brings his other hand up to rest on my untouched shoulder. "You're my savior. You saved me when I thought I didn't belong in this world. You gave my hope when I thought I lost it."

My eyes brim with tears.

"I never wanted to hurt you," he continues. "I should have fought harder when we were still together. I shouldn't have let the thought of everyone's opinion make me afraid to be with you. I'm still fighting for you. I hope you haven't given up on me. I love you Bella." He winds his arms around my waist and pulls me to his chest. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I lift my head from his chest and look at him. My mouth curves upward. I manage to truly smile for Edward for the first time since I returned to Forks. A few tears fall from my eyes as they slowly cascade down my cheek.

"I've never given up on you," I tell him softly. "No matter how many times my friends say to stay away from you, I didn't. You're still my idiot." He chuckles at the sound of my old nickname for him. "I wish it didn't take me so long to realize that I love you back."

I bury my face back into his shirt, allowing more of the tears to fall. I'm not afraid to cry in front of Edward. I need some way to release the built up emotions that had been conflicting me for this long. This is where I belong. It feels right to be in Edward's arms. What would have felt weird before now comforts me. After everything he put me through, it all led to this moment, a moment I've dreamed of happening for the last several months.

I see it now. Edward was never playing with my heart. My doubts, insecurities, and fears are the reason why I felt that way. I'm the one that kept letting myself get hurt. If I wasn't dense with my feelings for boys, I would have been with Edward a long time ago.

I lift my head up. He doesn't cry, but I feel his heart beat faster than normal against his chest. He gazes at me with pure love in his eyes. He really does love me. Why did I ever doubt him?

"What happens now?" I ask. Even though I found out that he still loves me, there is still his girlfriend to think about. I don't want to be that girl that Edward starts an affair with. I shudder at the thought of being a mistress. Ugh, not a good term to think of myself as.

He combs his fingers between the long strands of my brown hair. "I don't know. But I do have to find some way to break up with Lauren without letting her destroy my life."

I nod. Lauren is her name.

"I mean it Bella. I want to be with you. I want to make this right."

"You will." I know he will. He's capable of doing so much.

"But how..."

"I don't know," he says sheepishly. "But I'll figure it out. I promise."

I promise. He's promised me so much in the past. Even though he came through with most of his promises, he had not kept his promise of never hurting me.

But he has changed. Edward seems honest about his response, and by the intense way he's looking at me, I know he really means it.

"Okay," I tell him.

"Good." He kisses me on my forehead. "I really do love you, you know."

I nod. He can say that to me a million times and I'll believe him each and every time.

"I love you too." It feels as if a weight was lifted off my chest. These were words that I wanted to say for so long, and I'm relieved that I can say them so freely without the thought of Does he feel the same way? plaguing my mind.

We stand there smiling at each other for a while, wrapped in each other's arms, treasuring the moment that's shared between us. I don't want to let go, and neither does he.

I don't have to though.

For the first time, I'm sure that he's truly mine.

So... how was it? Yeah, I'm a bit rusty since I haven't done an O/S in a long while. I'm really busy lately I'm a junior now & teachers just love to torture us w/ hw every single day. I haven't got a lot of free time in my hands, especially since a majority of my classes is preparing me for the health field. I mean, I still want to be an author, but I kind of want a career to go along with being an author that can be easier to find.

I promise ya'll that this will be a two-shot this time around. But don't trust me for part 2 to come immediately. I'm a busy girl you know. I'll try to upload part 2 as soon as possible, & I promise that it will leave a real HEA. Seriously.

~ AA