Helllllllllllo again everybody. Now I know what you're all thinking, 'EdwardxBella? What the fuck is going on?"
As you all should know by now, I hate Edward, but that doesn't mean that I can't grow to like him if he's written by me :P
This story is different to my others. This is going to be mushier, with definite 'nawwww!' possibilities. I am a romantic at heart, this is me showing it.
It's only going to be a short fanfic. It was going to be a one-shot, but I got convinced by Katrina, one of my bestfriends (she's in my favourite authors, look her up, she's amazing) that I should turn it into a short story type thingymabob. So thank her for the longer-than-one-chapter thing, and me for providing the story, 'cause I love reviews :P
Anyway, enough of my rambling that I'm sure you're all use to and accustom to by now and let's move on with the story shall we?
*And cue trade mark introduction line*
I hope you like it, this is; What's Next?
What's Next?
"Popcorn?" I asked as I flitted around my room, straightening and tidying things, shoving my ever-growing book collection in any nook or cranny I could find, as was my usual Sunday ritual, right down to my so-called best friend, Edward, sprawling across my bed watching me, as lazy as usual, trying to decide what he wanted to eat this time.
I sometimes suspected that he only put up with me for the free food that he always managed to stuff into that perfect mouth of his and down into his bottomless pit of a stomach.
Boys. I rolled my eyes.
"Nah," he replied, blowing off my suggestion. "Too salty."
I rolled my eyes again. We'd been at this guessing game for almost a half hour now. I was running out of edible items from my cupboards downstairs to suggest.
"Ummm," I hummed, racking my brain some more as my hands automatically straightened up a photo frame on my desk containing a picture of our whole group of friends—Rose and Jasper, the twins; Alice, bestfriend to Rose and I, girlfriend to Jasper, sister to Edward; Emmett, brother to Alice and Edward, boyfriend to Rose, bestfriend to everyone; and of course me and Edward, one in the same, the two singles in our group, the pair... but not the couple. I sighed again.
Edward, mistaking my sigh for something else—not that he'd have any idea as to what it was really about—shot up from his lounging position, face contorted in horror. "Please tell me that you still have other options of food. I mean, that can't be all you've got."
His eyes pleaded with me to reassure him otherwise. I couldn't help but laugh at him. He was such a drama queen.
I swooped down and picked up a shirt of his that he'd left at my house a couple of weeks ago off the floor and threw it at his face as I chuckled. His lips immediately curved up, smiling and joining my laughter just like always. My happiness was his happiness. And vice versa. It had always been the way.
"Of course I have more food than that, Cullen! But you're pushing it today. I don't know, what do you want?"
He grinned at my frustration with him, his trade-mark lopsided smile that he reserved only for those closest to him, and he shrugged.
"I don't know. I had popcorn last week, and cashews the week before that," he rambled, trying to make a decision. We had a ritual that every Sunday, after I'd finished my mini cleanathon, we'd just lay back on my bed for hours, eating the 'Food Of The Day' as we'd dubbed it, just relaxing with each other, sometimes talking, sometimes watching a movie, sometimes reading one of my many books together, or separately and just enjoying the other persons company, but no matter how much pleasure our Sunday afternoons always brought me, I often wondered if they were truly worth the pain and hassle of going through the ordeal of Edward choosing the Food Of The Day. The act always took so much energy out of me, and then after putting me through that, I'd be the one to go and actually get the food.
It was a selfish act and he knew it, and he loved to aggravate me, but he always made it up to me in the end... albeit not in the way I wished he would.
"Why don't we have strawberries?" I interrupted his tirade on food choices, grinning wickedly.
Edward's gaze narrowed and he looked at me with eyes full of defiance. "No."
I laughed again, earning the finger from him. All good natured fun; Edward hated strawberries. Loathed them. I don't know why, but he found something disturbingly wrong with the idea of a fruit with its seeds on the outside of it, instead of inside. He also hated how said seeds would get stuck between his teeth.
Me, I loved them.
"Anyway," he said, moving on. "I'm really in the mood for something sweet, and rich, and disgustingly unhealthy but very yummy."
My lips quirked. He seriously was a very strange boy. "Chocolate cake?" I'd made some just the other day actually.
He shook his head though, a pondering look taking over his features. "No, that's too mushy, I really feel like something, soft, yet crunchy, that will crumble, yet also melt in your mouth."
I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. I was normally the weird one out of the two of us, but when it came to food, Edward blew me out of the water.
I was about to make some smartass comment about him, when suddenly the answer hit me like a frying pan to the back of the head, and I knew exactly what he was craving.
He looked at me expectantly, recognizing my expression. I looked him straight in the eye, and said, in the most intense voice I could muster, "hot fudge cookies with dark and white choc-chips."
His expression was awed. "You, are a goddess." Both of our expressions were so serious, so absolutely intense that we both couldn't help it. I saw his lips twitch, felt mine doing the same, and then the next second we were both howling with laughter.
We were both so incredibly stupid, but I loved it. This was us, and only it when we were both together.
Once I was able to stand upright again, I walked over to the newly stacked DVD's I'd piled in one of the shelves of my bookcase and threw it on the bed for him. He knew how precious my books were to me, and how much I liked to keep them in good shape. So, that meant no chocolate fingerprints on any of my pages, thus leaving us with a movie to watch.
I left him in there, trusting his judgement on what a good movie was, as he sifted through the collection. But that didn't mean that I trusted him to stay there. I found that every chance he got, he liked to read through my Little Red Book, a notebook that I wrote everything in. Including feelings, and song lyrics. I always managed to stop him before he got to those more revealing sections of the notebook, the various quotes and short stories I'd accumulated over the years in the front of it always keeping him occupied until I returned or noticed what he was doing and snatched it away from him.
He just couldn't help himself. He knew that he knew more about me than anybody else in the entire world did, including my parents, but he also knew that there was a part of me, only a tiny part, yet also a huge part, that I kept hidden from him, and it drove him mad.
So, opting to leave him with as little time as possible to go rooting around in my newly cleaned bedroom in search of the newest hiding place I'd made for my Little Red Book, and skipping ahead to find some secret that I didn't want him to know, I hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen, locating cookies and piling them all onto a huge plate, accompanying that with two glasses of milk. I very carefully made my way up the stairs of my house, the old boards creaking beneath my weight. With my luck and clumsiness, I and Edward would be eating furry, carpet-cookies if I wasn't carefully. But, against all odds, I made it back to my room in one piece, and back to Edward, whose perfection was almost painful all the time.
I walked in to the site of his back, solid and muscular with broad shoulders, tense with concentration, and his mop of bronze hair atop his head, bent over something.
He was once again sprawled across my bed in amongst the DVD's.
And he was reading intently.
From my Little Red Book.
Half way through it.
Oh shit.
I stashed the cookies on the nearest flat surface I could find, placing the milk down probably a bit too forcefully in my rush, sloshing some of it over the sides.
Edward turned at the sound, spotting me and grinning wickedly, his unnaturally bright green eyes sparkling mischievously as he wiggled the book in his hands at me.
I glared at him, assessing the situation. Then I did the last thing he'd expect; I jumped at him. I landed on his back, pinning him to the bed on his stomach. I heard the air whoosh out of his lungs, providing me the opportunity I needed. I reached forward, intending to grab the book, but my hands found empty air as he snatched it away and twisted, so that he was now on his back, with me still splayed on top of him, book held high in the air above my head.
He grinned triumphantly down at me, snaking his left arm—the one not holding my book hostage—around my waist, pinning me to his chest, effectively stopping any more attempts at retrieving my book. My very precious book.
But it wasn't the arm that stopped me from struggling, it was the close proximity to Edward, the feel of his chest beneath me, that made me give in. I exhaled indignantly, angry at my own weakness.
Feeling me relax against him, Edward grinned again and looked up, continuing to read. I looked up to, worried as to what had his attention so, and let out a breath of relief when I saw it just seemed to be some list I'd wrote a while ago. Nothing to fear; no revealing information there.
"How do you always manage to find that thing? It seems no matter where I hide it, you always find it." I gave him a quizzical look, very interested in his response.
He looked down from his reading, giving me a wide grin, flashing perfect, white teeth, and said, "I'm just that amazing." When I raised my eyebrow, he added, "and you always seem to keep it close to the things that are precious to you. In this case it was behind that photo of all of us, and you did kinda reveal a bit of it when you repositioned it."
He smiled sheepishly.
I laughed at him, not able to be angry.
"So," he coughed, clearing his throat. "What's this then, Swan?"
"What?" I looked at him, not knowing what he meant.
He brought the book down to me, not close enough for me to reach, but enough for me to easily read from. I focussed on the words on the page, not immediately recognizing what the list was, before I started reading it, and started up my struggles again. I was wrong in my first assumption; it was something that I didn't want him to read.
"Whoa!" Edward laughed, tightening his grip around my waist and pinning me to him even harder.
"Edward, I'm serious, give me it now. If you don't give it back, I will never speak to you ever again!"
He chuckled, shaking his head and relinquishing the little book to me. I grabbed for it and hugged it to my chest protectively, sighing in relief.
I looked up at Edward sheepishly, embarrassed by my over-reaction. But, instead of seeing a smile on his face, I was met with confusion and mild hurt.
My brows furrowed at this. I didn't understand why he was suddenly upset.
"Edward," I said softly. "What is it? What's wrong?"
He looked at me again, straight into my 'chocolate coloured eyes' as he liked to describe them, and it felt as though he was searching my soul, looking for something. Finally, after what felt like hours, but could have only been a few seconds, he sighed and laid his head down on shoulder, his other arm worming its way around my waist as well so that he was hugging me to him.
I would have smiled like a fool at this obvious show of affection, if I wasn't so worried about his expression.
"Why didn't you mention this to me Bella?" he asked softly. His voice was soft, like he was thinking deeply.
"Tell you about what Edward?" I gripped his chin and lifted his face up so I could look at him. It was a big mistake. He was so close, so very close. His emerald eyes were smouldering at me, and his perfect, deep pink lips were only mere centimetres from my own.
I'd had the urge to kiss my best friend too many times over the previous years that I'd lost count, but it had never been this strong before. Hell, I probably would have done it right then and there, if not for the look deep in his green eyes that stopped me.
I needed to fix whatever was bothering him.
"Edward, it's a stupid list which I wrote ages ago. It doesn't even matter. I was bored, so I wrote a list of things that I wanted to do before I finished high school. But you know what? I didn't mention it, because I'd forgotten about it until you found it today. Which brings us back the whole situation about you rummaging through my stuff." I gave him a serious look and flicked his nose.
As I'd spoken, he'd started smiling again, but his eyes were still troubled. He caught my hand as I flicked him, yelping at the unexpected pain. He didn't let go though, instead he held onto it, tracing my veins and rubbing soothing circles into the back of it with his thumb.
"But it does mean something to you Bella," he whispered. "Otherwise you wouldn't have written it in the first place. You wouldn't have freaked out when I found it." He looked up at me, straight into my eyes again.
No one realises just how intimate it can be when someone looks directly into your eyes. It's as if the world stops, and it's just you and them. "You wouldn't be lying about what it really means to you, if it meant nothing at all."
I gasped softly. Edward could always tell when I was lying, but the thing that got me was, I hadn't realised that I was until he'd pointed it out.
"But it's all so stupid," I replied just as softly, casting my eyes down and away from his. It was embarrassing, having him find a to-do list of things I'd wanted to do before high school ended. All the things were so childish, but I knew that once I left high school, I wouldn't have the chance to do them again, and god, how I wanted to, just for once, do something that I wanted to do, for myself.
I looked at Edward out of the corner of my eye as I thought this, and sighed. That would be one thing that would get the chance to do.
I felt Edward's breath fan out across my cheek as he sighed as well. "Bella, nothing you write or say or do is ever stupid. Funny, I'll admit, like your clumsiness," he chuckled as I blushed, "but never stupid."
I looked up at him again, smiling. He always knew what to say.
I looked down at my Little Red Book, holding it in between us.
"Do them with me." I said all of a sudden.
Edward looked shocked at first, but it didn't take long for his face to break out into a grin. "Really?"
"Yes, of course! There's no one else in the world that I would rather complete my stupid little to-do list with then you, Edward." I jumped to my knees on my bed, still gripping his hand and looked at him excitedly.
Edward sat up to, his hands gripping my shoulders and holding me in place. I hadn't even been aware that I was bouncing on the spot.
"Tomorrow." He said, emerald eyes dancing. "Monday. We only have a couple of days left at high school. Tomorrow there are no more exams. There's the prom tomorrow night. No one will care if we go missing, they'll all be too busy anyway."
He reached down and gripped my hands—and the Little Red Book—and said, "we'll do it all tomorrow. Every single one."
I knew why he was so excited. I understood. Yet another piece of the Bella Puzzle to unlock for him, but I also knew that he was excited because I would get to do something that I wanted to, something I'd obviously been thinking about.
He was excited because I would finally get to achieve a few of my goals, live a few of my dreams. And he was even more excited that I wanted him to be there with me all the while.
In that moment, I loved Edward Cullen even more than I had ever before.
I hadn't thought it possible.
Edward and I retrieved the cookies and now warm milk from the bench I'd thrown them on and I lay down as he put on a movie.
As he joined me back on the bed, laying on what was known as 'his side', I mumbled, "one day, ten things to do, and two best friends to do them."
Edward looked over and smiled at me, given me my smirk, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I rested my head in the space between his neck and shoulder as I thought to myself...
... nine things to do before I finally tell Edward Cullen that I love him.
Sooooooo? What do y'all think bout it? I know it's different. That this Bella is sodifferent from my other Bella, but honestly, I hate stories that are similar. :P
So anywho, let me know what you think. Is anything annoying you? Any ideas you'd like me to incorporate? Any suggestions at all? Even negative feedback is good. In fact, I prefer it. But anyway, I hope you liked it, and I hope that you're looking forward to the next chapter. (: Love you all.
-Alarni. xx