Crossing the Line
Chapter One: Wrecking Ball
The first time I saw him, on my first day of Junior year in my new school, I wasn't impressed - I couldn't understand why Jessica was talking about him as if he were some Adonis who was deserving of the many women who dropped to their knees in hopes that he might glance in their direction. Which he hardly ever did.
His hair was a pathetic mess, literally looking like nothing more than an abundance of knots and filth in fiery red and dirty brown tones. His eyes were green, which I suppose is unique, but they were so un-remarkably dull in their darkness that they did nothing for his face. His lips were puffy and grossly chapped - so terribly dry that I could see the crusted lines that indented them as they moved quickly with undoubtedly obnoxious words from my place across the room. His skin appeared to be in equal desperation for moisture, and was blotched with fifty different shades of red.
I do recall my mother saying to me - at some point in my life - that it's not good to 'judge a book by it's cover', so I dug deeper, looking for something in his character or accomplishments that would make him so desirable to all these people.
According to various reliable sources, he wasn't particularly smart, with an estimated GPA of 2.6 that probably wasn't even due to his own intelligence. The latter information I learned from a girl named Angela Weber who I'd met in Algebra II last period, when she'd gushed over her interactions with him - all of which involving him asking her for answers on something in one class or another.
Mike, who had sat on my other side in Algebra II, informed me that, though he had been on the school's football and baseball teams since freshman year, he was an average athlete at best. And I might have passed his words off as bitter jealousy just from the distaste he spoke of him with, but Tyler, who I'd met in my Spanish class first period, had said something similar. So that was out, too.
And with a name like Edward . . . It just didn't make any sense.
How had this insignificant, hardly attractive, annoyingly loud and obnoxious, mediocre-at-best athlete and apparently simple-minded boy managed to get the entire female population of Forks Academy quivering in his wake?
My school back in Arizona held boys twice as attractive as him on the lowest level of the totem pole of the social hierarchy that rules most schools.
"The one in the green shirt?" I'd clarified, doubting that this could be the boy who I'd heard whispers of all day - well, the whole two periods before I'd had the complete displeasure of laying my eyes on him.
Jessica's confirmation came with distracted eyes and a yearning voice. And she wasn't the only one looking. Taking a quick glance around the gymnasium - wondering where the hell the teacher was since the bell had rung nearly ten minutes ago - I'd noticed that almost everyone was looking at him.
At Edward Masen.
My eyes rolled of their own accord.
These people were either partially blind or just plain stupid, because this boy was entirely resistable, undesirable, and really just unnecessary.
And when I glanced over at him, the phrase 'what the hell is he doing?' ran through my head. And 'why is he running over here?' followed it.
"Give it to me, baby!" he called mockingly to his friends, looking back at them as he ran towards me, making a complete ass out of himself.
I wanted to drop my head into my hands. Who says shit like that? It takes a special kind of idiot -
I really should have dropped my head into my hands, cause in the next second, while I was busy scowling at unremarkable Edward, a hard object collided with my face with so much force that I slid back off the edge of the bleacher, falling into the space between the row I'd been sitting on and the row above.
When my ears finally stopped ringing, I picked up on two sounds.
The second was the frantic voices of the girls crowded around me, asking me if I was okay and if I wanted to go to the nurse.
The first? Laughter.
Chuckling.
It was him - Edward.
My eyes snapped open to glare at his unsightly face. "What the fuck are you laughing at?" I'd spat at him, ignoring the shocked gasps of the girls around me.
"Sorry." The word was entirely insincere.
"You look it."
"Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch." His eyes rolled. "It was an accident," he drawled before turning back around and walking back towards his friend, tossing the soccer ball that had collided with my face into the air as he went.
He was such a fucking asshole.
Jessica's voice interrupted my internal damnation of his arguably non-existent soul. "Do you want me to take you to the nurse?"
I shot her a dirty look as an answer.
It was then that the teacher finally decided to show up. "You have the permission to address me as General Arson." Is every single person in this school fucked up in the head? "Alright, Privates. Let's get you organized into squads." 'General' Arson then proceeded to perform a head count of everyone in the room, and split us up into groups of four.
How did I end up in a group with that asshole and his two goonies, Emmett and Jasper?
The world was out to get me.
"Look who it is," the asshole smirked as I walked over to our designated spot. All three of them were already seated. "Isabella Swan, is it?"
Skin crawling, I plopped down on the ground as far away from him as I could get without making a scene.
"See that guys? She's ignoring me." He ignored my glare, instead choosing to continue antagonizing me, saying, "Isn't that rude?"
They nod their heads, guffawing as my blood pressure spiked with irritation. "And talking about people as if they can't hear you isn't rude?" I asked.
When he rolled his eyes for the second time, I imagined pouncing on him, pushing my fingers into his eye sockets, and pulling his eyeballs right out of his head.
Nobody had ever infuriated me the way that he managed to do in my entire life. And I've only actually known him for a total of twenty minutes.
"Do you always behave like a child?" I asked him, "Or is this only for my benefit?"
"She's feisty," the bulky one, Emmett, remarked, nudging the asshole with his elbow.
"She's sitting right here." I was absolutely boiling. All I wanted to do was get as far away from these boys - him, especially - as quickly as possible.
The asshole started flapping his puffy, crinkly lips again. "She kinda cute when she's angry."
'I'm going to kill him,' I'd thought to myself, searching the room for something that would take my mind of my current issue.
The eyes of every girl in the room were pointed at the corner we were sitting in. Some girls had their eyes locked on the boys. Most of them were trained on him though, as unbelievable as it was. Other girls looked at me with green eyes, clearly wishing that they had been offered my position.
I would have gladly traded places with any one of them.
When the General Arson started talking again, I sighed in relief. "We're gonna run through some warm-ups. Partner up with one member of your squad and then go over and stand at attention on the blue line."
How did I know that I'd end up being paired with the asshole himself?
. . . came in like a wrecking ball . . .
. . . never hit so hard . . .
. . . all you ever did was wreck me . . .
. . . yeah, you, you wreck me . . .
A/N: Just something to keep me writing whenever I get stuck on my other fics. It's not a big priority at the moment, so updates will come slow.
This will probably end up being more of a drabble-type fic.
And, just saying - this Edward is actually based off of someone I know. Chapped lips and all.
As always, leave me your thoughts!
~ Madison ~
