Disclaimer: As much as I beg and ask the tooth fairy, I don't own twilight. –dies a lil inside-
This class was probably the most painful class he had ever sat through.
It wasn't bad enough that he was forced to take this class for his requirement, that all the material was something he covered in 9th grade science with different words, it was incredibly dull, and the first thing in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, oh no. That wasn't enough.
She was in this class.
He'd given her the name "leggy brunette" because of course he didn't know her real name. She was in two of his classes, the lecture parts of them, so he couldn't covertly find out her name in the discussion section. She always sat towards the front of the class, where he sat towards the back, and in each of these classes he damned himself for not sitting closer to her on the first day. Everyone knew that the seats you sat in for the first two weeks of lessons became as good as assigned seats, unless you arrived late and someone took your seat.
Edward Masen was never late.
The stadium seating of the class had swiveling chairs, and he watched as she gently moved side to side while she attempted to stay awake. Occasionally turning to the blonde who sat next to her and making a remark. He could have sworn he met that blonde before, but whenever he tried to think of her name and how they met, he came up with nothing.
The blonde said something funny, causing leggy brunette to giggle behind her hand, he was always thankful when he saw leggy brunette with the blonde, because she always made leggy brunette laugh. That was a good thing.
Edward forced himself to look away from the pair, focusing his attention on the woman in the front, telling the students the difference between sedimentary, ingenious and metamorphic rock. As if the differences weren't incredibly obvious. He couldn't believe that people actually struggled with geology 105. The teacher occasionally whipped out interesting stories about when she lived in Antarctica for a few months, and of course there were the occasionally good movies about volcanoes and the like. But for the most part, it was her trying to explain how rocks were made, to a bunch of dumb freshman too hung over to pay attention.
At least they were going on a hike this weekend, which should be interesting.
He'd been living on campus for a grand total of a month, and already he was bored out of his mind. Freshman weren't allowed to have cars, and his senior cousin often needed his car for work. Thus far he spent his weekends in his dorm with his roommate Jacob, or in his cousin's apartment, two blocks from campus. If you didn't like to party, then your weekends were forfeit.
I guess I could always take the bus to the mall… Edward shrugged, beginning to take some notes, to take his mind off of leggy brunette, and the surprisingly dull life he led in college.
It wasn't like Edward didn't have friends; he had his cousin Carlisle, and his ever present girlfriend Esme. In a way they didn't really count, because Carlisle was family and Esme might as well be married to him. He got along with his roommate, now anyways. At first they clashed, but after a 4 am fire drill when they ended up talking rather then glaring at each other, they became decent friends. Of course there was Emmett and Jasper, the boys who lived across the hall from them. The pair of sophomores took it upon themselves to tutor all the young male freshman in their hall in the way of college life, which in the end meant hanging out with the only two freshmen on the floor and playing guitar hero until 3 in the morning.
"I shall end the lesson here, remember to bring your consent forms to the buses, if you don't then you won't get to go to the gorges! They're beautiful and they've been called the grand canyon of the northeast!" The teacher tried to shout over the sounds of a hundred students packing up their belongings. Edward tried to time his packing up so that he could conveniently meet leggy blond on the steps heading to the back of the class, but of course, Lauren and Jessica were in his way once again.
"Hi Eddie!" Lauren all but shouted at him. Edward grimaced at the nickname, he wasn't a grease covered mechanic who had a severe case of plumber's crack, so he wasn't 'Eddie.'
"Hi, I've got to go." He said as he brushed past the pair, only in time to see the long brown hair swish out of the classroom. Edward sighed and rolled his eyes, of course, Jessica and Lauren were right behind him.
"How about we walk with you?" Jessica said, trying to bat her eyelashes, or maybe she was fighting back a seizure.
"Nah, I need to focus, I have a test and I don't want to forget what I studied, bye!" without another word, Edward slipped between the mob of people heading towards the entrance to the building. He stepped outside into the cool fall air, looking around the campus for the elusive girl. She always managed to disappear right after class, giving him no way to actually talk to her.
Edward hiked the backpack higher on his shoulder, wandering over to the café in the basement of the chapel, sitting on the steps to eat as he watched the people wander across the quad. The people in groups and the people running to class or leisurely walking with their headphones on, it took him to notice that the half of the sandwich on his lap suddenly disappeared. He glared at the giant sophomore who sat next to him.
"I was eating that."
"No you weren't it was on your lap. I'm giving it the attention it deserves; you should love your food more." Emmett said with a booming laugh, before decimating the sandwich.
Edward fought the urge to punch the older man, instead he ran his fingers through his bronze hair, clenching his teeth. "What are you doing? Don't you have class across campus or something?"
"It's canceled," Emmett said with a full mouth, smirking when Edward winced, "besides I was dying to find out if you talked to her today."
Edward shifted his gaze away from Emmett to look towards one of the "abstract" statues that was beside the chapel.
"Seriously dude, you have got to get on that, or you're gunna be lusting after the same girl for your entire freshman year."
"Like you lusted after Rosalie?" Edward had heard Jasper tease Emmett about it countless times, but he never met the elusive Rosalie.
Emmett frowned down at Edward, "Dude, Rosalie is a babe, even you'd want her if you saw her." He shrugged, allowing his usual smirk to return to his face. "Besides, at least I made the effort to talk to her and find out her name, we hung out sometimes too. Had a project together…" Emmett trailed off, lost in the memories.
Edward knew that continuing down this line of conversation would reveal how little he knew about Rosalie, so he just stood up, brushing the crumbs off his pants. "I've got to go, dinner at haven?"
"Dinner at haven." Emmett agreed, "I'll get Jasper and Jacob to go there too, oh and Ed?" Emmett called after Edward's retreating back, to humor him Edward turned around and gave Emmett his best disgruntled face.
"Next time get roast beef, I'm not a fan of ham." Emmett ran off before Edward could get to him. Chuckling, Edward walked towards his next class.
XXXXXXXX
Three classes and one more hour of mooning over leggy brunette later, Edward stepped into his dorm and all but flung his bag onto his chair across the room.
"I think I might have to go Bells, yeah. My roommate just walked in." Jacob said from where he sat at his desk, homework strewn everywhere, while he sat with his cellphone tucked between his ear and (massive) shoulder, and he meticulously played Tetris on his laptop. Edward had often overheard Jacob's side of the conversation with the mysterious "Bells." The childhood friend of Jacob's who also got a large grant to travel across the country to come to Syracuse University. Jacob was constantly on the phone with her, but she had yet to hang out with Jacob… at least with Edward around.
He booted up his laptop as he quickly organized his desk as he listened to Jacob saying goodbye to his friend. Edward was sure that Jacob had a massive crush on Bells before, but never really made the effort to date her. Then Jacob's ex appeared on the scene, some girl who really loved cars as much as Jacob did. Now Jacob seemed to only love Bells like a sister.
"Sure sure, if you didn't… oh please… maybe if you weren't so shy… well if you aren't gunna make the effort to come to my side of the campus why should I go to yours? … be like that…" He let out a loud laugh, "Okay this weekend then. Guitar hero, movie-athon whatever, we will toss a coin to see who goes where… buhbye…Tell Charlie I say hi." With that Jacob snapped his phone shut and pivoted to look at Edward. "Bells might be coming up to hang out with us this weekend."
Edward looked over to his obviously happy roommate "What does she live on the other side of the dome or something?"
"Worse, she lives on the mount." Edward winced, the mount was a hill that overlooked the large campus of Syracuse, it had two major dorms on it, and in order to get to those dorms, one had to walk up 135 steps. It was a pain to do, especially when someone got up there already. Their own dorm was across the campus from the mount, and had its own hill to climb up.
"It could be worse."
"How so?"
"We could live on the mount."
Jacob laughed in agreement. Nodding his head as Emmett poked his had through the doorway. "Whats so funny?" He asked as Jasper slipped into the room behind him.
"We're happy we don't live on the mount." Jacob responded as he slipped on his sneakers.
"Hey don't bash it til you've tried it, I lived up there last semester" Jasper said, his southern drawl slipped into his voice.
"We should go, before all the food is gone." Emmett chimed in, gesturing towards the door.
The four of them walked towards the Shaw dining hall, Jacob citing that he was tired of Haven. They avoided all the grandstanding frats as they walked along the main road and into the busiest dining hall. While none of the dining halls were on campus, Shaw was the closest, leading many students to eat there instead of elsewhere.
The four of them sat in a booth, eating and joking. Emmett and Jacob had returned from getting their third tray of food when the boys suddenly heard a horrible noise disturbing their meal.
"Hi guys!" They turned to see the source of the voice, Lauren and Jessica stood nearby with trays with small salads on it and cups of water, "fancy seeing you boys here!"
None of them could really respond before the pair stepped closer to the booth, trapping the boys in their seats. "We wanted to invite you all to the party at Kappa Kappa Gamma Friday night!" Jessica said in a chipper voice that made jasper wince.
"Oh they can't go," a melodic voice said behind Edward; he shifted in his chair to see leggy brunette and blonde behind him. Right behind him, within touching distance. Edward froze.
"Hey stranger!" Jacob half shouted at the same time that Emmett's face lit up.
"What do you mean they can't come?" Lauren put on her best bitch face as she too turned to gorgeous leggy brunette.
"They have better things to do. Now go along before you give them STDs too," the blonde said, as the brunette made 'scoot along' motions to the pair.
The girls stomped off as the brunette and blonde took their places.
"Hey Rosalie! What have you been up to?" Emmett said happily to the blonde. Suddenly Edward realized where he had seen her before, the plethora of pictures on facebook that Emmett would force him to look through when he was drunk.
"Not too much, we were just grabbing some food before going along to meet up with our professor. I'm going to try to get out of this hike on Saturday. Some freaks actually want to go," she said, casting a glare at her friend.
"What? It should be nice!" Leggy brunette said defiantly.
"You're going to fall off a cliff," Jacob stated as if it already happened.
"Yeah but your friend will go to take pictures of me making a fool of myself, wont you?" the gorgeous leggy brunette turned to Edward and smiled. Already in shock at the surprise meeting, Edward did his best to be coherent.
"Uh. Yes?" he offered.
"Good! Then I shall walk with you!" She smiled and turned to Jacob. "We got to go, bye Jake."
As soon as they appeared they were gone, with Rosalie throwing one last wave over her shoulder at Emmett.
Edward shifted to look at Jacob. "How do you know her?"
"Who?" Jacob said with a confused face.
"The brunette?" Edward offered.
"Is she leggy brunette?" Emmett practically shouted after he came out of his Rosalie induced stupor causing the small blush on Edward's face to grow.
Jasper had a confused look on his face when he turned to Emmett "Leggy brunette?"
"Yeah, you know the brunette that Edward is always going on about." Emmett returned, while Edward suddenly felt the strong urge to hurt his good friend.
"Dude, you've met Bella." Jacob said, "She's been in our dorm, at least three times... or maybe you weren't around..."
Leggy brunette has been in my dorm? Edward was pretty sure he was going into shock.
"I've never talked to her before, trust me, I would have remembered." In response to Edward's claim, Jacob shrugged.
"Why is Bella hanging out with Rosalie? From what you've said to us about her, she isn't really the hang out with Rosalie type." Jasper offered.
Jacob shrugged "I think Rosalie is her RA or something, she mentions her sometimes." As if a sudden revelation crossed his mind, a smile lit up his face and he turned to Edward. "Dude, you're totally crushing on a girl I used to go skinny dipping with."
Jasper and Emmett burst out laughing at the look of shock on Edward's face.
Thursday passed in a haze for Edward. He went to his usual classes, ate his usual meals, and talked to the same people, all while fantazing ways to meet Bella now that he had a way to meet her face to face more often.
It wasn't until almost 1 in the morning that a thought occurred to him.
"Jacob?" The lights were off in the dorm, both of them had an 8 o'clock class, and for once they went to bed early.
"Yeah?" He could hear Jacob gruffly respond in the dark.
"If I started dating Bella, would you be pissed?" Jacob's laughter echoed through the room in response.
"Man, if you can date her, more power to ya. She has this way of second guessing herself until she convinces herself that no one would ever want to date her."
"Why would she do that? She's gorgeous and funny and smart…" All of this Edward learned from a distance in class, when she would respond to the teacher and joke with her friends.
"Yeah, but she used to go to a high school where everyone ignored her, then she moved in with her dad and practically every guy in Forks lusted after her, but she had no clue."
"I'm assuming you're included in this?"
"For awhile, then I realized that I was just crazy about her cus she was so awesome and that dating her would be like… dating my sister or something. After that I got over her pretty quick." Edward could hear Jacob shifting in the dark, and heavy steps, suddenly the end of his mattress dipped slightly. Edward quickly sat up and moved away slightly, looking at the part of Jacob that the streetlamp cast light on.
"But since she is my pseudo sister, I have to tell you. Break her heart and I'll break you. Okay?"
"Okay." Jacob smiled and nodded at Edward's response. He got up and returned to his own bed.
"Night, and if you dream of Bella, keep it to yourself."
"Night." Edward pulled the blanket around his shoulders, suddenly very thankful that he never slept talked.
The next morning bright and early, Edward slid into his seat and set his coffee down on the table, he pulled his bag into his lap so he could find his notebook for the class when the same melodious voice spoke from over his head.
"Rosalie is pretending to be sick, and since you appear to be a friend of Jacob's, do you mind if I sit with you?" Edward shifted his gaze up to the beautiful girl, blushing at him, with her books clutched to her chest and a shy smile on her face.
"Why not?" Edward said, surprised at how confident his own voice sounded.
Get a grip on yourself Masen! It's just a girl!
"So," Edward ventured as she put her bag on the chair next to her and took a sip from her iced coffee, "Jacob says that you guys go way back."
"Way way back, I'm guessing you're Edward, the roomie from Chicago right?" Edward's eyes widened She knows my name!
"Yes! How'd you know?"
"Well, no offense, but compared to the other guy at your table, you're obviously not a body builder, and you don't have a southern accent. Those things clued me in." A shy smile spread across her face, "Also Rosalie knows the other two guys."
"Ah, so she is that Rosalie?"
She nodded, opening her mouth to respond when the iced coffee she was trying to put on the desk fell in her lap instead. Edward stood up to help her at the same that she jumped up in shock, causing their heads to collide.
Clutching her head and blushing, Bella looked up at Edward and quickly said, "I gotta go change." With that she turned heel and ran, leaving her bag in the chair that was next to her.
Edward looked around at the mini war zone that was just created, the contents of his bag spilled out on the floor dangerously close to the puddle of coffee, still being dripped upon from her cup balancing on the edge of the desk. Edward stooped down and shoved all his stuff into his own bag before grabbing Bella's.
As he ran up the stairs, he pulled out his cell and hit one of the speed dials.
"Jacob? I swear I'm not creepy, but where does Bella live exactly?"
A/N: -Leaps onto writing scene- What'd you guys think? I'm not 100 happy with the 3rd POV. It will stay Edward's POV though, unless I decide to write from Emmett's, Jasper's or Jacob's POV. Many thanks to the several people who helped beta this for me (notably Derek, Britt and Laura) and if anyone is interested in co-writing with me, just send me an email.
In the books Edward says he got accepted into Syracuse university, which of course made me all gooey on the inside but not as gooey as the most beautiful person in the world supposedly being from my hometown. Granted it was also where she was raped and turned into a vampire but… yeah. Anyways, whenever I reread that I always think about what would happen if the twilight people came to my overly preppy school.
Constructive criticism welcomed, flames laughed at, reviews appreciate so on and so forth.
(The class they have together is in Heroy Geology Building, just in case anyone is wondering.)