Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.


BELLA POV

'HOLY SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS. ROSE! OFF THE KITCHEN TABLE!'

Alice's petite voice thundered up the stairs, shortly followed by her sharp footsteps on the wooden floor. Apparently, Rose was continuing on her I've-recently-come-to-terms-with-my-daddy-issues bender on the oak kitchen table that Alice had bought last Christmas.

I rolled over and cracked open an eye to glance across at my yellow truck clock; possibly the greatest masterpiece ever made, and discovered it was 9.30am.

Shit.

I flipped out of my covers to see Alice's inky black hair round the corner into my room.

'Bellaaaaaaaaaaaaa' she whined, flopping onto my bed dramatically, 'Sex on the kitchen table. We EAT on that thing. EAT. And I love Rose, but I don't appreciate any of the vagina eating I just had to witness.'

Wow.

I couldn't really muster a reasonable response in my current, bed-haired state, so instead, I offered Alice what I hoped to be an apologetic smile, and made a speedy exit to the bathroom.

Despite my love of Rose and all her cute quirks, she was easily the sluttiest girl I knew. She went through men with more conviction than a fat man in a candy shop. The Rampage, as Rose had titled it, was supposed to be 'A womanly experience of body, nature and language, discovering yourself and others, and selflessly giving to those of equal attractiveness,' but we also knew that it was the result of many years of a daddy complex. Rose's recent daddy issues stemmed from the man's death. While this gave Rose an inheritance that would permanently ensure she was wealthy for the rest of her life, her unresolved father complex spiralled into a further boy-toy stage. And the one downstairs apparently had good stamina, judging by the noise.

As I stepped out of the shower, I quickly glanced at my fairly average reflection. Not too short, not too tall, fairly pale and all-brown features. I resigned myself to the fact that no amount of staring in the mirror was going to morph me into something beautiful.

I strolled through the door towards my bedroom which still held the pixie; she had relocated from my bed to the floor where she was rolling around as if she was in some form of torturous pain.

'The sweet, sweet kitchen table. How will I ever eat souvlaki on that thing again without picturing Rose naked?' she cried.

"You know she's just searching for liberation." I countered, trying to find out where I placed my lecture slides.

"Liberation and leg-spreading are two different things." Alice retorted. "I have no problem if she wants to be free, but free across the kitchen table crosses the line. Nakedness is a safety hazard in this house; the floors will break under all this thrusting."

She was right too. Our house was adorable and homey, but definitely ancient.

"… she has the most insatiable appetite for the male species that I have ever witnessed. I don't know whether to be horrified or impressed." She sighed, kicking her feet over the beds railing and stalking across to her own room. She returned seconds later with a black pair of heels and some mascara, shuffling over to the mirror to begin applying a thick coat of black to her lashes.

'Oh Bella,' she sighed in reluctance, 'I fear I will have to give it away to a kinder, more sexually-restrained household.'

I chuckled as I found my favourite pair of jeans and shoved my legs into them. 'Not all of us are dealing with the death of a father', I reminded her.

'Yes, but when my Nan died I didn't honour the death with a casual fuck.' She snorted at the concept.

I began the search for a presentable top. This turned out to be a somewhat difficult adventure, considering my wardrobe was almost as chaotic as the aftermath of Hiroshima.

Alice strolled out onto my balcony and covered her small frame in a woollen blanket, distracting herself by picking up the romance novel I had started last night, and flipping through the opening pages.

'You read such trash, Bella' she remarked.

'At least I don't do trash' I mumbled in reference to the increasingly noisy sounds coming from downstairs.

'What?'

'They aren't trashy', I defended, grabbing the book from her and shoving it in my calico bag. 'Would you prefer me to defile your kitchen table instead?'

Alice hmphed and sat in silence. Instead, she picked up a copy of CLEO and started flipping through the pages.

The 'trash' irony wasn't lost on me.

Alice, Rose and I had lived in this house in Georgetown for the past year, ever since meeting on campus accommodation in our first year of uni. The house was cute; sort of a mix between a terrace and a cottage, with a large, cascading vine creeping from my balcony, around the side of the house, towards the front door. It was homey, and I loved it. It was scattered with books and ancient relics Alice had found at a nearby thrift store. Apart from an ongoing stream of delicious men, Rose hadn't contributed much to the place; but despite her irresponsible sex habits, we loved her all the same.

It's not like we could blame the men either. At six foot two, Rose was a glorious blonde goddess with the body of a Brazilian model. All legs and breasts, paired with her understanding of cars and football, she was every man's temptress. The fact that she was studying a degree that gave her a profound knowledge of the male body didn't help this sexual fascination she drew from males.

Alice attracted the same sort of attention. Despite her tiny frame, her vibrant personality and her unusually violet eyes captured the attention of every male who wasn't looking at Rose.

And I was gloriously average.

I forced myself away from the torture of the mirror and grabbed my undergrad chem textbook. I was going to be late for class on my first day, but I figured it was better to actually make an attempt to show up than to make none at all. I was possibly the most undisciplined uni student ever. God only knows how I had passed first year bio-chem.

I waved goodbye to Alice and made my way to the stairs, before the realisation of what still may be down there snapped into mind. Backtracking, I headed for the balcony, grabbed some of the lattice and parts of the vine, and swung myself over. Alice, who was used to this routine, but nevertheless horrified by it, crinkled her nose in disgust and made some apologetic remark regarding my lack of feminine grace, before trotting off the balcony.

I hit the ground and turned left, grabbing my ipod and being greeted with the sweet sounds of Gypsy and the Cat. It was an early autumn day, and patches of clouds scattered the sky. Puddles lined the road, and tall trees were losing their leaves in a battle of gravity. The earth was all oranges and greys.

It was heavenly.

I walked to the corner, turning right at the big tree, before making my way up Colgate Avenue. The University of Washington shaped itself against the horizon. I glanced at my watch; reading 9.55. Shit. At this rate, the lecturer was going to know my name better than the keen kids in the lecture. God, how I hated those keen kids.

New Year's Resolution: start setting alarms.

I walked across the Eastern Oval, found building B110 and burst through the door.

10.11.

Not totally terrible.

I trudged up the aisle and found a seat near the edge. The girl next to me began whispering something about eating a tuna sandwich, and I recollected my bag, textbook and promptly changed seats.

Fish is disgusting.

Making my way further towards the back of the lecture theatre, I finally slid into a spare seat. Satisfied, I pulled out my notebook and a black pen and began to tune in to the lecturers gravelled voice. Dr Anderson was droning on about some form of particle and some form of reactant, and kept glancing expectantly into the crowd, probing for answers.

A deafening silence greeted these questions, but as I saw a hand rise, it became apparent that Keen Kid Number 1 had claimed his spot in the Keen Kid Club of 2013. I promptly pushed KKN1 to that top of my things-I-really-hate-to-deal-with-in-a-chem-lecture as he began giving an in depth explanation of what the lecturer had just said, with added comments that could have only been gathered from additional research.

I sighed. God, I needed a coffee.


EDWARD POV

Sitting in the middle of my chem lecture, I craned my neck to see her.

Brown hair bouncing freely across her back as she looked for another seat:

She was beautiful.

Fuck Jessica for trying to chat about tuna sandwiches as if it was a normal conversational topic.

As a second year med student, I'd chosen chem to be a relatively easy elective. Unfortunately for me, it wasn't relatively interesting, and Jessica had latched onto me like a freaking periwinkle, but it gave me the credit I needed and gave me a subject that wasn't as intense as medicinal physics.

I turned towards the front because I'm pretty sure the guy behind me thought I was checking him out, and began to write down what Dr. Anderson was dictating about radioactive particles.

I'd recently moved into my own apartment only minutes from the University, situated above my favourite bar: The Froggy Bottom Pub. The bar owner, Emmett, lived in the other upstairs unit across the hall. Despite his brawly and huge figure, he was a genuinely nice guy who I clicked with fairly well. Jasper, my other best friend, still enjoyed the noise and girls he got on campus and was living in Fulbright Hall. I'd introduced the two a few times and they'd seemed to like each other, which was surprising considering Emmett's tough, front-row exterior and Jasper's somewhat feminine understanding of music and the soul (Jasper was majoring in arts/ music and basically lived off money from gigs in order to support himself through uni).

The silence that radiated throughout the lecture hall once again brought to my attention that no one in this class was going to answer Dr Anderson's questions.

I cringed as I raised my hand and rattled off something that sounded similar to what he had just been chatting about, before slouching in my seat. Dr Anderson smiled encouragingly, as if he hoped I'd have more to say, but I'd already answered 3 questions this morning and I didn't want to make this a regular thing. I turned my attention back to the lecture notes I'd printed off and scrawled something on the side about particles.

Jessica leaned over, and I was greeted with a massive amount of perfume that would actually shrink an erection if she ever managed to give me one.

'Eddie, I don't get it.' I looked over and saw her pouting and pushing her breasts together at the same time. In fact, she almost looked like the fish she had been talking about eating minutes before.

Fish was disgusting.

So was the nickname Eddie.

'Ah, well, just… I'll explain it at the end of the lecture?' I questioned, hoping her social agenda would possibly stop me from having to go through this embarrassing debacle.

'That would be fantastic! Maybe we can go to the Coffee House?'

How on earth did my feeble attempts to reject Jessica just turn into an almost-date?

I tried to smile, though I'm pretty sure it came out as some sort of pathetic whimpering. Sort of like a mouse almost about to be eaten by a lion; an appropriate image of how I felt in regards to Jessica's advances.

The lecture ended more quickly than I'd hoped, and Jessica thrust out her arm, invaded my personal space and yanked me in the direction of the Coffee House. In her efforts to be annoying, she'd also made me push over a girl making her way out the front doors, and hadn't even given me a second to see a) who it was, or b) if they were physically damaged as a result. I swivelled my head to try and see through the crowd, but instead saw a sea of faces walking in the direction I was currently being hauled in.

I sighed and allowed myself to be pulled through the crowd by Jessica's clingy and grabby hands.

Fuck my life.

As we rounded the corner into the Coffee House, I began to wish that the brunette was the one clinging at my wrists instead. Or anywhere else. Either way, I was sure it would've been a clinging that I wouldn't have minded.

Jessica swiftly re-demanded my attention by practically pushing me into a chair near the window, and rearranging herself on my lap.

'Eddie, what coffee would you like to order?'

The girl was practically raping me as if it was a socially acceptable custom in modern day society.

I muttered something along the lines of 'espresso, black', and in an effort to stop her from squashing my legs, propelled her upwards.

Unfortunately, In my eagerness to save my dignity, I may have propelled her slightly too far.

Jessica tumbled to the side and flew into a girl that had just previously received a scalding hot coffee from the counter.

'HOLY FUCK' the girl cursed.

I couldn't see her, but as I peeked over Jessica's shoulder I let out a few expletives myself.

The brunette from class was sprawled across the floor with some form of coffee coating her previously white shirt. She had the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen, and they were currently glaring daggers in my general direction. Her nose rose to a delicate point, while her lips looked like something from an x-rated nursery rhyme: with a sharp upper lip and a deliciously full bottom one. A black bra peeked through from underneath the now stained shirt, and I had to remind myself that this was clearly not the right train of thought for my brain to be going on right now.

I stepped around Jessica and grabbed some napkins, bending down to try and clean the mess, before offering brown eyes a hand. She huffed furiously and pushed it away, muttering something along the lines of 'As if I need any more of your "help"' before she picked herself up off the floor.

I handed over a napkin and tried to turn on what little charm I had left in me.

Instead, I accidently grazed her breast.

And now I looked like a seedy and horny motherfucker.

'Let me buy you another coffee,' I apologised, hoping she'd smile and possibly accept a marriage proposal.

'I don't think your 'girlfriend' would like that very much,' she grumbled, rolling her brown eyes as if relationships disgusted her, and gesturing towards Jessica-who had happily arranged herself in a suggestive pose at our previous table.

'She's not my… girlfriend' I began to utter, but she had already stalked off to the bathroom.

I clucked my tongue in annoyance. Jessica, I decided, was clearly the problem with everything that had gone wrong this morning. I walked up to the counter, and asked them to remake whatever the brunette had ordered- which turned out to be a caramel mocha. I left the change, scrawled a quick 'sorry' on the environmental cup, and muttered goodbye to Jessica who was still eagerly awaiting my return at her window-seat table.

I shrugged into my jacket as the autumn air hit my face, and turned left to go towards the library.

I wanted brown eyes.


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