This idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while and I kinda hope it makes up for the stories everyone liked that I took down

Face Down

Edward's POV:

"I just couldn't believe that she gave me a D-!" Jess exclaimed, "I mean I wrote the fucking thing, didn't I?" I leaned my head on my hand and closed my eyes, trying to drown out her whiny, obnoxious voice. "It took me forever, too." She continued, "I was up until like 11 finishing it, and she didn't even care." I felt the bench sink a little, and knew Bella had finally shown up. She leaned in to my ear, and I could smell her; it made me want to kiss her.

"She's still whining about that paper, huh?" I opened my eyes and nodded, smiling at her. She snorted, and dug into her pizza.

"And you have no idea how mean she is to me in class too. I mean, just the other day I was totally paying attention, and she still picked me to answer some bullshit made up question that I didn't even-"

"Jess," Bella cut her off, and I tried my hardest to cover my grin, "You plagiarized. You should have gotten an F and then been suspended. I'm sorry, girl, but you got so so lucky. Stop whining." Jessica's artificially green eyes went wide, and her French manicured nails gripped the table.

"You are a lying bitch, Bella. You just don't care because you aced the stupid thing." Bella rolled her eyes. "I'm going to the bathroom." She said, and turned to stare meaningfully at her pack of cronies. They picked up their purses dutifully, and followed her out. Even I could figure out that this was girl language for let's go talk about Bella in the bathroom. Bella knew it too. She sort of slumped over in her chair and picked a piece of pepperoni off her pizza in a slightly dejected way.

I frowned, and stood up; nobody, especially an airhead like Jess picked on my Bells. I felt the eyes of everyone sitting at our table, including Bella's, follow me as I walked to Jess's spot and picked up her pizza. I flipped it over and let it drizzle out so that the orange-colored grease coated her chair imperceptibly against the navy colored seat.

Bella giggled as I sat back down next to her and ate the piece of pizza. The rest of our friends laughed, too. Nobody really liked Jess except her little group of followers… and it really wasn't cool for her to be picking on my best friend. Well, actually it wasn't cool for her to be picking on the girl I was madly in love with, even if the feeling wasn't mutual.

The fact was, I'd been interested in Bella since she'd moved here in 6th grade. It turned to puppy love in 9th and now was full-blown, walk-on-cloud-nine in love in our senior year.

"I love you too Eddy-poo." Bella threw our inside joke at me. She laughed again as I popped the last piece of crust in my mouth. I leaned over and blew a greasy raspberry on her cheek. She squealed playfully, and put both hands on my chest, trying to push me away. I threw my arms around her, and pulled her closer as she laughed out loud, neither of us caring that we were making a spectacle.

Then someone coughed right behind me, and Bella's brown eyes flew open, going from that combination of light-heartedness and mischief that I loved, to raw fear. I felt her muscles go rigid, and I turned to see Jake standing right behind me; all 6 feet, 4 inches of him. I released her from my arms, stood up, and grinned at him even though my blood was boiling.

"What's up, man?" I held out my hand, and he took it, sliding his palm across mine in a way that showed he wasn't really mad, he just liked to see Bella jump. In some sick way, he loved to see fear on her face. It made him feel powerful, I guess. He punched me on the arm firmly, but not enough to hurt as he passed me, and sunk into my place on the bench, half dragging Bella into his lap.

"Nothing much, just trying to figure out why you're always hitting on my girlfriend." He said. His voice was light, but his eyes were dead serious. I pulled up a chair, coming up with an answer that would keep Bella completely out of harm's way as I carried it over. I hadn't missed how she'd gulped at his comment.

As it turned out, I didn't have to answer at all;

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Someone shrieked from the other end of the table. I sat down, and leaned back to watch my plan unravel. "Who the FUCK ate my pizza?" Her little herd stood watching her with wide eyes, and the whole cafeteria seemed to go quiet.

"Damn, Jess…" Mike stood up. I gave the guy credit; he wasn't all that smart but he had guts; being Jessica's boyfriend took a lot of kahunas. "It's just pizza. Here, I'll go get you another. Sit down, babe. Can you please try to relax? You're acting like a crazy person." Clearly he hadn't been around when I strategically placed the grease; well, either that or he was fed up with her shit, too.

Jess took a seat, and started whispering to her little group, their eyes landing on my Bella at intervals. I felt like I could kill her for trying to ostracize the one person who was truly like family to me.

Suddenly Jess stopped mid-gossip, and slid around a little on the seat, moving her butt back and forth, a puzzled look on her horse-face. I shifted in my seat, noticing that she was wearing a clean, light pink skirt. As her friends took notice that she wasn't leading the conversation anymore, she started to move around more in the chair, trying to figure out if she was imaging it.

She turned to one of her friends and whispered something, probably along the lines of Can you check and see if there's something on my butt? She leaned to one side, and the friend glanced as she was supposed to. Her gasp was audible from where I was sitting.

Bella's POV:

I heard a gasp come from Emily, and turned to look. The sound put an alarmed look on Jess's face, and I tried not to look too amused as she tilted to the left for a look. Her face went bright red, and I looked down at my food, pretending not to notice.

Some murmuring came from her end of the table, undoubtedly her and her friends trying to find the least-embarrassing solution to the situation.

I couldn't help myself, I glanced up for a look and saw Jessica's eyes searching hungrily for someone to blame. Her eyes fixed on me, and my stomach dropped; I felt like the gazelle that you always see on Animal Planet that was just picked out by the lioness as the weakest to attack.

She stood in anger, but made no other move towards me; I'd half-expected her to pounce across the table at me, the look was so deadly.

As always, to my rescue, Edward started laughing out loud, his eyes on Jessica.

"Jess, what the hell is on your ass?" He laughed, and all eyes, both guilty parties and not, landed on a particular greasy orange butt. "Oh gross," he pretended to gag, "Look, I don't know much about, you know, Mother Nature's gift to women, but that just can't be healthy." The entire table laughed, and I loved him just a little bit more, if that was possible. He'd saved me from her wrath, yet again.

A giant hand tightened around my shoulder, and I was reminded of the one thing it seemed Edward couldn't save me from. Jake was booming with laughter, and I could most feel it vibrating throughout my body, he was so close to me.

"Did you do that?" He asked, and I shook my head no, not sure what the right answer was...not sure that there was a right answer at all. He frowned, "Yes you did. Don't bullshit me." The fingers tightened a little from merely present and possessive, to threatening; just on the brink of pain. I felt my scalp tingle, and tried to make myself smaller. I glanced at Edward, but he wasn't paying attention.

"I honestly didn't, baby." My voice sounded small, but if I was bold, he just got madder. "I swear." The look on his face made me cringe, and I felt like I'd rather be the gazelle. He responded to the face by tightening his hold on my shoulder until I could feel the fingers digging into my flesh, and bruising it.

"You're a dirty fucking liar, now why don't you tell the truth to your boyfriend?" Jessica still had the whole table's attention, thankfully; they all laughed as her friends tried to hustle her out to safety from more mortification. Everyone except Edward.

"Yo, Jake…relax, man." I shut my eyes against the remark. It just made things worse when he intervened. The fingers got even tighter, and I resisted the urge to cry out. Jake's dark eyes turned on Edward.

"Why don't you mind your own business, man?" He said with hostility, "She's my girlfriend, right?" I send Edward a pleading glance, begging him to not say anything else. He looked pained, but gave in.

"Sure sure Jake, I was just saying…the kid bruises like an apple, you know?" He smiled at him, and Jake turned back to me.

"Now tell me the truth, Bell." I reached up my free hand and put it on his face as affectionately as I could manage with the pain shooting through my arm.

"Of course I did it, baby. You're so smart…you always know, don't you?" I smiled, and his fingers loosened a little. I finished the act by pressing my mouth to his, trying not to flinch when he put one arm around me, a hand roughing tangled in my hair, and stuck his tongue into my mouth, sweeping around greedily.

I heard Edward sigh somewhere to my left, and I felt like crying.