A/N: Hello all! I decided to participate in FAGE 007! So shall we get this party started? Anne.. I hope you like it!

Title: Life's Little Lessons

Written for: TwiAddictAnne

Written By: WitchyVampireGirl

Rating: M

Summary: It is said that you should always learn new things. For Edward, some of the best things he learned were about Bella.

Prompt used: Picture of Edward giving Bella a piggyback ride and Secrets by OneRepublic

If you would like to see all the stories that are a part of this exchange visit the facebook group: Fanficaholics Anon: Where Obsession Never Sleeps, or add the C2 to get all the stories direct to your inbox.

community / FAGE-007 / 93625 (just add this to the FF web address)

EPOV

The first time I met Bella, we were freshman in high school. It was also the year I learned that a girl could end up being your best friend.

We'd both been accepted to River Valley Academy, a school for students who had an interest and aptitude for math and sciences. Basically it was a school for geeks. It was some experiment the school district was doing to encourage us toward career fields that were heavily dependent on sciences and math. I was sitting in my cell biology class, dreading finding out who I'd get as a lab partner, when she breezed into the room. She was unlike any other girl I'd ever seen. Hell, she was different from any girl in the school.

Whereas most of the girls had that slightly geeky look about them; shy, plain clothes, glasses, hair brushed but never really styled. Bella was funky squared. Her brown hair had both green and blue streaks, her lip was pierced, and she had so much jewelry on I wasn't sure how she kept herself upright. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Maybe she sensed I was looking at her, but she zeroed in on me and smiled.

I was bewildered. I had little experience with girls. I was still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that girls could be pretty and that they no longer had cooties. I think I smiled back, but I don't really know. With a hint of dread and a bit of excitement, I watched as she made her way over to the empty chair next to me and plopped herself down.

"Hey," she stated, her gum snapping crisply. "Bella Swan and you are?"

"Umm… Ed-Edward Cullen," I managed to stutter out while wishing a huge black hole would open up and swallow me alive.

Her plump lips widened into a smile that both aroused and terrified me. "Well, nice to meet you Ed-Edward Cullen."

My face flamed at her mocking tone. I whipped my body around to face the front of the class hoping she'd forget about me. The rhythmic snapping of her gum seemed to echo in the noisy room. Even without looking I could feel her gaze on me. I wanted to run a hand over my body looking for anything out of place, but I was paralyzed by fear. With just a few words, Bella had completely unnerved me.

Before any more words could be spoken, our teacher, Mr. Banner began speaking. Closing my eyes in relief, I hyper focused all my attention on taking meticulous notes. Being the first day, I was banking on there being no lab we'd need to do therefore allowing me to ignore the terrifying, but quirky girl beside me who was using a Hello Kitty pencil to take notes.

When the bell rang at the end of class, it scared me so much that I jumped, dumping my shit all over the floor. A muttered curse flew from my mouth as I bent to retrieve everything. But Bella was already there, holding my notebook in her hands studying my doodles that littered the cover.

"You into Minecraft?"

I was stunned stupid.

"Huh?" was the only brilliant response I could come up with.

She turned the notebook over to show me the cover where she was pointing to a Minecraft sword I had drawn.

"It's a good sword. I see you have an Enderman on here too. All really cool."

The fact that she not only found my drawings cool, but knew what they were, well, I thought it was cool.

"Thanks," I finally muttered. I took my things from her outstretched hands and stuffed them into my backpack. I tried to turn to leave. Even with her possessing some knowledge about Minecraft, the burn from my earlier embarrassment was still too fresh to me and I wanted to get away from her.

I was stopped when her warm hand landed on my arm. Scorching warmth and sizzling electricity buzzed throughout my body. It freaked the hell out of me. I wondered if she was a mutant and her power was the ability to fry someone's insides with one touch.

"Sorry about earlier," she murmured. Glancing at her eyes, I saw that they were filled with honesty and truth. "I didn't mean to make fun of you. It wasn't my intention. When I get nervous, my mouth speaks before my filter can kick in. No harm, no foul?" Deep brown eyes bored into mine.

My brain was fried, stuck on the feeling of her skin on mine and still trying to compute if she was a weird version of Rogue or not. So I did the only thing a nervous boy confronted by a very self-assured girl could do, I agreed.

"Sure. No harm, no foul."

Her smile blinded me and I couldn't help but give her one in return.

From that moment on, Bella Swan became my best friend. She melded in well with me and my other best friend, Ben Cheney. The more I think about it, the more I wondered if she scared and confused him as much as she did me. Did he go along with everything in fear she'd kick his ass? I guess it didn't really matter as we became a weird trio of friends.

Nights and weekends found us online either playing Minecraft or once we realized Bella loved it, Halo. It wasn't unusual for us to stay up late trying to complete a mission. Nothing and no one existed outside our little group. Gone were the feelings that Bella was scary. She became as comfy and as familiar to me as my favorite pair of sweatpants. Her eclectic style wasn't intimidating, it was cool and interesting. Each day was a new adventure into what would Bella be wearing.

I learned that she loved chocolate ice cream when she was ragging it, but otherwise hated it. She'd chew her lip when she was concentrating on a test, but flick her lip ring when nervous. She changed her hair colors every six weeks like clockwork. She never wore a matched pair of Converse and would make her Mom drive as far as 150 miles to get a pair she found on-line. She was the first one of us to try weed and then coaxed us into trying it.

At school, she was smart, driven and focused. She had goals which made her seem more put together than either Ben or myself. She loved a good action flick over a rom-com and swore like a sailor when she was pissed. She called her parents by their first name and loved to call my parents Essie and Doc.

She was there when I broke my arm falling out of the tree in my backyard and decorated my cast with her own unique doodles. We swapped music constantly. It wasn't odd for us to sneak new playlists on the other's iPod. When we both failed a stats test because we spent the night before playing video games, we made plans to run away to join a circus so sure we'd never get into college. We made it only five miles before her Dad found us hitchhiking. We were both grounded for a week.

Yeah, Bella Swan was my best friend and I thought nothing would ever change that.

A/N: Thanks you too Dawn for pre-reading this and loving it from the start and Pixiekat who worked her ass off to make it shine. Love you ladies! Soo.. here is the start of it! There are 5 chapters and then a Epilogue and the whole story will be posted in its entirely today. Please go check out all the other amazing stories and for my darling recipient.. I hope you like my interpretation of your prompts! See ya soon! Now.. give me some love!