Radio Romance, Chapter 1
Meanwhile I'll hide my head
Here in this paper bag
Cause if I can't see you
Then you can't see me
And it'll be okay
Fly little bee away
To where there's no more rain
And I can be me
- Anna Nalick, "Paper Bag"
Some days it just sucked to be me.
That's not to say that I have such a banal existence or anything - I'm not so painfully shy that I can't carry on a conversation with a boy, I'm not clumsy to the extent of not being able to walk like a normal person, and I'm not so empty-headed that I don't make good grades. I am shy, I do tend to fall on the clumsy side, and I make straight A's. All that aside, like I said, some days it just really sucks to be me.
The new boy at Forks High - Jasper Whitlock - was completely, totally, and utterly gorgeous. He was almost (almost, but not quite) as beautiful as his twin sister, Rosalie. They both had this really shiny, curly blonde hair. I had never seen that shade of blonde before, and I was completely convinced that it was a bottle job. Only, my friend Alice pointed out, why would a guy go to a salon and get his hair colored to match his sister's? That didn't make sense. Plus, as Alice's brother Edward pointed out, it was a move that would get him immediately ejected from the "man club."
Alice and Edward and I had been friends from the moment they'd moved to Forks in the middle of second grade. I hadn't had many friends at the time, and my parents had been so worried about me that they told me later they'd actually been considering home schooling me. Then Dr. Cullen had moved into the huge house on the edge of town, bringing with him his wife and twins. Alice's first day had been hard on her, and I remembered distinctly how the catty clique (friends since Kindergarten - Lauren Mallory, Jessica Stanley, and Angela Weber) had treated her. Alice was small for her age, and they had made fun of that immediately. They had called her an oompa loompa, asked her when Willy Wonka was coming to save her from the vermicious knids, and if she got to ride on that big boat that made everybody want to throw up. Stupid insults, but hey, we were all seven or eight years old at the time. Anyway, Alice was totally sensitive about her height, and she'd immediately burst into tears - which was a bad thing to do in front of Lauren Mallory, since she ate that shit up with a spoon. I remember watching from the swings as Lauren pushed Alice, and before I had time to think about what I was doing, I had run over and pushed Lauren back.
Alice and I had been inseparable ever since.
It didn't matter to either of us that Lauren made up all kinds of shit about us and spread it to anyone who would listen to her word vomit. It didn't matter because we didn't care. We did everything together - bathroom, lunch, schoolwork, you name it. Our parents seemed to feel like we belonged together too, since they signed us up for all of the same things (t-ball, which I sucked at; dance lessons, which I sucked even worse at; music lessons, which I… surprisingly didn't suck too hard at).
When we started music lessons in fourth grade, that's when Alice's twin brother, Edward, had really entered the picture. For me, anyway. I don't really remember seeing him around much before that, to be honest. And that wasn't saying a lot, since my parents have told me that I didn't have much interest in anything unless Alice did, too. Edward was an awkward kid, really tall and thin and gangly, with lots of skin problems really early. I remember that on more than one occasion when staying the night with Alice, I'd overheard him crying to his mom about the kids calling him "pizza face." I'd felt bad for him, but that was the extent of my exposure to him. You know, except during the music lessons. Alice had opted to try and learn some wind instrument, like the piccolo, which is oddly appropriate in retrospect. She's a little pixie of a girl, and she has this beautiful high-pitched tinkling voice, and the piccolo is the perfect size and sound for her. I chose to try and learn the piano, but the music teacher only had one hour open, and that was the hour right after Edward's lesson. She came to his house and they used his parents' baby grand piano, so when my parents signed me up, they decided I should just have my lessons after Edward at the Cullens' home.
It turned out that either Edward had an eidetic memory or he was just, like, the most gifted piano player ever in this stupid stinking town. Normally I wouldn't begrudge anyone such a beautiful gift, but have you ever gone into a lesson after hearing someone before you perform flawlessly? Do you know what kind of effects that had on my tiny ten-year-old self-esteem? I'll be suffering the aftershocks for years, I'm sure. Especially since after so many years of lessons, I can still barely manage chopsticks.
Anyway, before I get way off topic - Edward. I don't know why, but some time around sixth grade, he started hanging around us a lot more. His acne was just as bad as it had ever been, but Alice had confessed to me that their father had spoken to a dermatologist in Chicago who had agreed to see and treat Edward. I never mentioned it to him, even though I'm sure he knew that I knew, and I made sure to never comment on the condition of his skin. In return, he never commented on my frizzy hair or the way I walked all pigeon-toed, or any of the other myriad things a pre-teen girl obsesses about that affects her appearance.
And if I had to admit it, I started to actually like the kid. I mean, he was no Alice, and they couldn't have been more different. She had jet black hair that she liked to keep super short, and in the last six months, she'd started experimenting with it and spiking it, among other things (I blame her obsession with Bravo - watching Tabatha's Salon Takeover and Shear Genius is bound to ruin anyone for ordinary hair, right?). Edward had longer bronze-colored locks that had a slight curl to them. He caught some crap from the jock assholes for having longer hair than his sister, and I remembered the precise day that I started to think of him as a good friend: Tyler Crowley had called Alice a dyke in the boys' locker room, and then asked if I was her butch girlfriend. Edward had subsequently punched him so hard that he'd broken Tyler's nose.
I think I fell a little bit in love with Edward Cullen that day.
All I knew was that, after that day, I no longer minded hanging out with Edward when Alice was otherwise occupied (which was a lot, going into our eighth grade year, as the boys in our school seemed to start appealing to her). As far as the kids in our class, Alice, Edward, and I were towards the younger end of the spectrum. For whatever reason, Carlisle and Esme Cullen didn't mind letting their thirteen year old daughter go on dates, as long as one of them was chaperoning. My parents would die before they let me date so young - especially my mother, Renée. She'd gotten pregnant with me when she was seventeen, and that meant that she'd been stuck here in Forks so long as it took to raise me. It hadn't been all bad for her, though - she and my dad, Charlie, were totally in love. Like, to the point that it sometimes made me sick. During the times when Alice was out on a date, Edward and I would either hang out at my house (where he'd watch sports with my Dad while I read), or we'd hang out at his house with whichever parent hadn't drawn the short straw. Usually his mom was the one who wound up staying home, which I freaking loved, since she was the best cook I'd ever had the good fortune to know. My mother was an experimental cook, at best. I'm sure that to this day, Esme thinks that my parents never feed me, since I eat like a pig whenever she cooks anything.
When we hit ninth grade, Edward's skin finally cleared up. Alice constantly complained that he had better skin than she did, and really, where was the justice in that? But her parents wouldn't send her to his specialist no matter how much she begged or pleaded, and I even caught her stealing some of his medicated creams one night when I slept over. I didn't tell their parents, but the next day they wondered why Alice's face looked like she'd scrubbed it with sandpaper and finished off the job with brillo pads. Edward of course knew what had happened, and he'd laughed his ass off over it, trying to explain to his hysterical sister that the creams were formulated specifically for his skin type and whatever else that we couldn't hear because Alice's crying was too damned loud to hear ourselves even think.
Right about that same time, Alice had convinced me to start going to a salon in Port Angeles with her. Our parents would drive us out there once a month (I shit you not, Alice doesn't screw around when it comes to aesthetics, or whatever the hell she calls it). I bought some goo that made my hair stop looking as though I'd just shoved a fork into an electrical socket (hey, ever heard of that Hermione chick from the Harry Potter books? You want bushy hair? She might have been super smart or whatever, but I bet my frizzy hair coulda kicked her frizzy hair's ass), and Alice bought… whatever coincided with the fad she was into at the time. Seriously, you think I'm kidding, but she even talked about putting semen in her hair once when she'd read somewhere that it made it shinier. SEMEN. I'm SO not kidding.
And so you know our history. The Three Amigos: Edward, Alice, and Bella. We'd made it to our Junior year of High School relatively unscathed, though wiser for the wear of what we'd already gone through together. Enter Jasper and Rosalie. Funny story about them: according the the gossip, their mother was some kind of feminist attorney, and when she'd had the kids, she'd decided to let Rosalie keep her last name, which was her maiden name, and give Jasper his father's last name. That seemed so odd to me; a set of twins with different last names? And why get married at all if you were just going to keep your maiden name anyway?
Alice had fallen in love upon first sight of Jasper's blonde head. I teased her mercilessly, but her usual blush when it came to boys was conspicuously absent. Usually I wasn't worried about Alice and the guys that she had her fleeting fixations with, but this one seemed different. I don't know why, but Alice's over-the-moon look bothered me. Maybe it was the fact that, for the first time that I could remember, Edward and I were sitting at the lunch table alone.
"So," I began, clearing my throat. Edward glanced up as he unwrapped his peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Usually I would make fun of him for using grape jelly instead of strawberry, but this time I held my tongue.
"So what?" He asked.
"So… have you seen the new kids?" I dipped a french fry in ketchup and shoved it into my mouth a little rougher than was probably necessary. Edward's eyebrows shot up.
"I haven't seen them yet, but you know this school, the gossip mill's always turning. Is the girl really a supermodel?"
"She looks like she could be," I grumbled.
"I have to ask, Bella," he said, giving me a pointed look. "Why all the hostility? What could they have possibly done to you in the scant-" he glanced at the silver watch that he'd worn on his left wrist since eighth grade. "-two hours that they've been here?"
"Alice is completely in love with the boy," I blurted. I felt my cheeks heating up. Edward snorted, something that never failed to make me smile, too, no matter how bad I felt.
"Has she even spoken to him yet?"
"I don't think so," I admitted, playing with the straw in my soda. The cafeteria didn't supply straws, and I didn't like drinking anything without one, so I had a stash of them in my locker.
"Then how can she know that she's in love?"
"She claims it's love at first sight. How can anyone believe in that crap?" He gave me a strange look before shaking his head a little.
He cleared his throat. "I believe in it."
"You do?" I frowned. Maybe I didn't know Edward as well as I thought I did. "I never had you pegged as a romantic. What gives? Have you always believed in it, or is this a new thing?" As far as I knew, Alice had always believed in it. (Alice believed in lots of stupid crap that I didn't believe in - like sometimes she had this eerie way of predicting things that happened, and she'd claim she was psychic. Whatever. I didn't believe in psychics. In my head they were right up there with vampires and werewolves.) I'd never thought it was a bad thing until now, because she'd never claimed it had happened to her before today. Anything that took my best friend away from me was the enemy, with a capital E.
"It's not really something new," he clarified, taking a bite of his sandwich. I sighed and shoved three fries into my mouth, stuffing it full so I wouldn't say anything I'd regret later. I did that a lot - spewed word vomit and then groveled later. I was lucky that neither Alice nor Edward were grudge holders. "So why are you so upset about Alice supposedly being in love?"
"I'm not really," I lied, knowing that he could see right through me. He always did. He frowned.
"Do you like this guy too, or something?"
"Oh, God, no," I said, holding my hands up. He looked relieved, for some reason. I could sort of relate. Edward and I were BFFs, but only insomuch as he never gushed about girls and I never talked about boys. It was like, an unspoken rule, or something. "I mean, not that he's not pretty, but still. No."
"Pretty?" He laughed and reached for his milk. Edward was weird about sugar; ever since his skin had cleared up, he'd stayed away from it. Even the jelly on his sandwich was sugar-free. Me? I had a love-hate relationship with sugar. I loved sugar, but it hated me, the bastard. It gave me heart palpitations if I had too much, and like any other person in the world, it sometimes caused me to break out or gain weight. (I was convinced sugar was a man, until I told Edward my theory and he'd pointed out that basically what I was saying was that I was ingesting man-bits every time I had sugar. I never brought it up to him again.) "Boys don't like being called pretty, Bella. They prefer terms like handsome, hot, sexy - even cute would do, compared to pretty."
"But I think you're pretty," I protested, shrugging. His eyes narrowed just a little bit, and his sandwich froze halfway to his lips.
"You do?"
"Yeah. See? It's not an insult at all. It's a double standard, is what it is." He was still giving me that odd look that made my stomach feel funny. I squirmed a little bit in my chair, wishing he'd say something and break the suddenly uncomfortable silence. After a few more seconds, he coughed and shook his head before taking a bite of his sandwich.
"You know Alice. It'll pass."
"I don't think it will this time," I said, feeling my forehead wrinkle as I frowned. Damn it, that was the last thing I needed - frown lines! I rubbed my fingertips against my forehead, feeling for the wrinkles that I just knew were there, and Edward laughed. "What?" I demanded, wondering if he could see the lines already.
"You just smeared ketchup all over your forehead." He handed me one of the napkins he'd brought in his lunch. Edward was a little bit OCD, in case you hadn't noticed already. He always made his own lunches to bring from home every day, even though his mom offered to do it for him. He claimed he did it to control his sugar intake, but I knew that he secretly didn't like the idea of someone else touching his food. He cut the sandwich into precise halves, after removing the crusts, which always had to be removed before he could put the sandwich together. He had to have a ratio of exactly two tablespoons of peanut butter to four tablespoons of jelly (We'd discussed this before. I was a huge fan of the jelly to peanut butter ratio he employed, and he'd explained his sandwich making in more detail than I really needed as he'd made me a sandwich once). He also cut his own carrot sticks and celery stalks, since they had to be washed a certain way before he would eat them. It was really weird, because he wasn't OCD about anything except for food. I think sometimes his mom wished he was OCD about cleaning, because I had never seen his room when it didn't look like a nuclear bomb had gone off in there.
I wiped my forehead with the napkin, not really caring if there was ketchup on it or not. I was not only involved in a love-hate relationship with sugar, I was also in love with ketchup. I ate it on practically everything - which was not necessarily a good thing considering that most of the time I usually wound up wearing the stuff. Alice had lent me some designer dress to wear to a school dance once, and while I was there I'd gotten hungry and Edward had bought me a hot dog. Well, everyone knows you can't eat hot dogs without ketchup (it's like, illegal, or something - look it up), and Alice went apoplectic. All I remember is her breathing through the brown paper bag that someone got for her, and mumbling something about some guy named Zac Posen. Needless to say, I haven't been allowed to borrow clothes from her since then.
"Did I get it?" I asked him, trying to look at my own forehead. He snorted again, and I laughed. I crumpled up the napkin and threw it at him, and he jumped when it came a little too close to his open Tupperware container of carrot sticks.
"You got it."
Suddenly Alice flopped down in the seat next to me, which wouldn't have been so bad if the blonde-haired pretty boy hadn't taken the seat on her other side. She smiled at me, and I swear I tried to smile back, but I don't know if it worked or not because Edward gave me a really weird look, and he usually only did that if he knew I was faking shit.
Which I did a lot, actually. Because I avoid confrontations like the freaking plague.
"Hey, guys," she said, sounding out of breath. I arched an eyebrow in question at Edward. What had she been doing that she was so out of breath? He arched an eyebrow right back at me, as if to say, "I know, right?" …or else he was just playing that mirror game that we played sometimes. No, I preferred to think that he could read my mind and agree with me. "This is Jasper Whitlock. He's new here. Jasper, this is my twin brother Edward, and our best friend, Bella Swan."
"Cool. It's nice to meet you guys. Alice has been really great today, volunteering to show me around the school and everything." It was Edward's turn to raise his eyebrows, which he did. Really high. So high that they nearly disappeared into his hairline, in fact.
"Alice has been showing you around?"
"Yeah, she's been great," Jasper repeated. I looked sideways at Alice, who definitely was not meeting my eyes.
"Quite the little joiner today, aren't we, Alice?" I asked, trying to goad her into talking. She straightened her back a little as she unwrapped her sandwich. Alice let their mom make her lunch for her, so Esme always snuck some kind of sugary treat into the bag as a thank-you. Alice didn't eat a whole lot of sugar, so usually I was the one who reaped the benefits of Esme's motherly compensation. It was a win-win situation: Esme got to feel like a mom, and I got a sugar high from whatever she packed.
"Lauren was going to volunteer to show him around if I didn't," she said, almost in an aside to me. I blinked. Ah, so she'd swept in and made the kill first! If Lauren had gotten her claws into Jasper, he probably would never have spoken to any of us. It was another rule of the jungle here at Forks high: the artsy kids (my group, though how anyone could call me artsy is beyond me) never mixed with the jocks (Lauren, Angela, and Jessica were all cheerleaders). If Alice wanted a chance to get to know the golden-haired god (as she'd called him earlier), then this was the only way she was going to be able to do it.
"Props," I said, taking a huge bite of my cheeseburger. She nodded and looked all self-satisfied and stuff. Edward snorted at us.
"So, you have a sister?" Edward asked politely. Jasper nodded.
"Yeah, her name's Rosalie. She's two and a half minutes older than me, and she never lets me forget it."
"Tell me about it." Edward frowned at Alice, and Jasper grinned.
"Alice is the older twin?"
"By seven minutes."
"You totally have bragging rights, then," Jasper said, looking at Alice. I took a drink of my sugar-laden soda and said nothing. I knew Edward hated that shit. He didn't like the whole "little brother" teasing thing, so I never did it. Alice tortured him enough with it, and they'd been in tons of fights over it. The way he was looking at Jasper was enough to tell me that he'd gotten off on the wrong foot with that comment.
"So where is Rosalie now?" I asked, trying to force some conversation and allow Edward to cool down a little bit. Sometimes I thought my best friend was a bit of a ticking time bomb… like I said, he wasn't a grudge holder, but that didn't mean that he couldn't be an ass to deal with when he wanted to be.
"I think she's hanging out with the cheerleaders. She was on the squad at our old school, so I'm sure she's found them by now." Alice and I exchanged meaningful looks. If Rosalie really had sought out the cheerleaders, it was only a matter of time before she'd find out that we were the less-than-desirable crowd… which meant that at some point, she might try to extract her brother from our group. "So, Edward, Alice tells me that you play the piano. Does that mean you're in band?"
"Yes," Edward affirmed, looking less ready to kill him. "Why, do you play?"
"Not piano. I play saxophone."
"Really well, too," Alice gushed, giving Jasper goo-goo eyes. I rolled my eyes and waited for Edward to do the same, but he actually looked interested. Traitor!
"How long have you been playing?"
"About three years. I got a late start."
"Are you going to be in class today?"
"Yeah, I have band right after lunch."
"Me, too." At this point, I began ignoring them. I chose instead to concentrate on seeing how many packets of ketchup I could justifiably consume with the small amount of fries that were on my tray. I reached a personal best when I managed to squirt two entire packets onto one long fry. I shoved it in my mouth and glanced up, suddenly realizing that the table had gone quiet. Everyone was staring at me.
"God, Bella, can you be any grosser?" Alice shrieked. I frowned as I chewed. She'd never said anything to me before about my ketchup habit. I glanced at Edward, who was biting down on his lip and trying to hide a smile. Jasper nodded at me.
"What's your record for ketchup packets eaten in one 30 minute lunch period?" I chewed slowly, wondering if he was making fun of me, but when his expression stayed completely serious, I swallowed my food so I could answer.
"Sixty three."
"Seriously? Do they let you take that many from the line?"
"No. Alice and Edward both grabbed a couple of handfuls for me, and I brought some with me, too."
"No shit." He gave me an appraising look, and then squirted ketchup onto his own tray. "My record is nothing compared to yours."
"What's yours?" I asked, surprised.
"Twenty two."
"You're seriously behind," Edward said, spearing a slice of some kind of fruit he'd brought. "We'll have to help you set a new record - though I doubt anyone could beat our Bella over here - not when it comes to ketchup consumption, anyway." I felt my cheeks warm. Our Bella? Where in the hell had that come from? And why did it make my insides feel all… tingly?
"Did you guys open the packets for her?"
"We opened them and squirted them out," Alice confirmed, taking a very, very small bite off of the corner of her slice of pizza.
"She wouldn't have had enough time to eat the ketchup if we hadn't."
"Was it like, a full-on school event? Did you race someone else?" He asked, looking at me. I shook my head.
"No, it was just something we did one day here at the table."
"This table?" he asked, pointing to the item in question. I nodded.
"This has been our table since freshman year," Edward explained, nodding.
"Does anyone else ever sit with you guys?" Jasper asked. Alice suddenly choked on the bit she'd just taken, and I have to say I took great pleasure in smacking her back for her.
"Ow! Damn, Bella, are you trying to kill me?" She demanded, her face red.
"No, you were doing a pretty good job of that on your own," I said, bewildered. Edward snorted with laughter and Jasper chuckled, too, which only made Alice look angrier.
"Something tells me that you two are never bored with her around."
"If you only knew…" Edward said, shaking his head. Great, so now I was the joke of the group? Ugh. Could this day get any worse?
"Hi there." Oh my God, I had to ask, didn't I? Edward, Alice, Jasper and I all looked up to see Jessica Stanley standing over us, grinning like the airhead she truly was. Why was she in her cheerleading uniform on a school day? And why did she look so smug? And why was I asking myself so damned many 'why' questions?
"Hello," Jasper said politely, since the rest of us knew Jerk-sica too well to respond with anything other than the bird.
"You must be Jasper, right?" She held out her hand, and he shook it. I could hear Edward wince, and I knew that later Alice and I would be subjected to another lecture on how many germs Jerksica carried around on those hands, because God himself only knew where those hands had been. (Edward had walked in on her giving one of the basketball players a hand job in the locker room, and he claimed that he hadn't seen her wash her hands since that day - who knew what diseases could be festering on that death trap she called a hand?)
"Guilty as charged." I glanced over at Alice, who looked furious. As furious as a little pixie can look, anyway. "And you are?"
"I'm surprised you don't already know," she said, her grin widening as she glanced at each of us. "My name is Jessica Stanley. I'm the co-captain of the cheerleading squad. Your sister actually tried out this morning."
"That's cool. So is there something you wanted? Because as you can see-" he gestured around the table - "Rosalie isn't here."
"I just wanted to invite you to come have lunch with us over at the cool table." She pointed to a table on the opposite side of the lunch room. Jasper didn't even blink.
"The cool table?" He laughed, and the three of us exchanged wary glances. "Are you for real? Who actually even says that anymore?"
"I think you'll find that there are certain cliques in this school that are undesirable to be a part of, and you're sitting with one right now." Jasper looked at each of us in turn, and we tried not to fidget under his gaze. He turned back to Jessica with a lazy smile on his face.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can decide for myself who's undesirable and who's not." To emphasize his point, he reached out and traced the back of Alice's hand with his fingertip. If she didn't have 206 bones in her body holding her together, I'm pretty sure she would've melted into a puddle of goo. Jessica's face turned red, which was not a good color on her.
"Fine." She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a smug grin. "But I'm sure that after today, you'll want to sit with us, so the offer still stands." She stomped off, and I grinned at Edward, who was smirking at me.
"You don't have to sit with us if you don't want to," Alice offered, her voice breaking. Jasper gave her the same lazy-looking smile he'd just given Jessica, but this time it reached his eyes.
"I know. I want to. Besides, I don't think she's going to be so happy after today. She seems like a -"
"Bitch?" Alice supplied, perking up a little. Jasper laughed.
"Well, you said it, not me. But yeah, and Rose is used to being the Queen Bee wherever we go - she won't put up with it for long."
"Is that your backwards way of calling your sister a bitch?" I asked, dipping my finger in the leftover ketchup and bringing it to my mouth. He laughed.
"I guess it is. Rose can be sweet, though. As long as you don't push her buttons."
"Well it looks like Jerksica has her hooks in her for today, anyway," I said, pointing over at the "popular" table. Everyone turned and looked. "God, not everyone at once!" I yelped.
Rosalie was sitting between Jessica and Lauren, but by the looks of things, she wasn't happy. Her lips were pressed so tightly together that they were turning white. Lauren and Jessica didn't seem to notice and kept laughing and talking across her. It looked like Angela was trying to talk to Rosalie, but every time she opened her mouth, one of the wonder boobs interrupted her. I could never figure out why Angela hung with them anyway. I mean, I understand that everyone wants acceptance, but why put yourself in the company of people who would just as soon tear you down as say hello to you? Voluntarily, I mean?
"I know that look," Jasper said, turning back to his tray full of half-eaten food. "I'd say they have about a minute and a half before she goes Godzilla on them."
"I hope she's like the hand of God," I muttered. "Bitch slaps them down, and stuff." Edward snort-laughed again as he packed up the garbage from his lunch in the disposable plastic bag he'd brought.
"Oh, she'll crush Tokyo," Jasper assured me, laughing. "And I hope you guys won't mind if she eats with us tomorrow. I have a feeling she won't want to go back to their table." I glanced at Alice, who looked way too self-satisfied and happy for her own damned good, and then I glanced at Edward. Once again his mad mind-reading skillz were in effect, because he shot my amazed look right back at me. Not only had Jasper stood up to Jerksica, he was also actually going to keep hanging with us! I wondered how long it would take as a social pariah to break him and make him want to hang with the jerky jock crowd.
It was right as the bell rang signaling the end of lunch that Rosezilla finally reached her breaking point. Unfortunately, we didn't get to hang around and watch the scene, since Edward and I had Biology together. It was on the other side of the school, and we both still had to get to our lockers to get our books before heading over there. Not that our school was huge or anything - we just had a tendency to walk slow. I believe my parents had once called it "ambling."
"So he seems pretty nice," Edward hedged, withdrawing his textbook from his locker.
"I guess. I wonder what his sister is like." I tucked a pencil behind my ear and reached into my locker.
"She was telling Lauren and Jerksica where to go when we were leaving the cafeteria," he offered, shrugging. I smiled at him. He and I had come up with the name Jerksica once when Alice had been on a date, and it was something that only he and I ever used. I had fond memories of the night we'd come up with it - bonding over a Hawaiian pizza (which I could never order with Alice, since she was allergic to pineapple) and a really bad day. "So she can't be all bad."
"Yeah, but remember he also called her a bitch," I pointed out, slamming the locker shut. He took a few steps, then waited for me to catch up to him. "So is her personality going to be like sandpaper, or what?"
"I guess we'll find out tomorrow."
"Enough social crap for one day," I said, waving a hand dismissively. "What did you think of the bio homework?"
"Exactly what you thought of it."
"Too easy?"
"Yes."
"Trix are for kids?"
"Silly rabbit," he said, laughing. I smiled and followed him into the classroom, heading for our table. Naturally when we'd found out we were in the same Biology class, we'd declared that we were going to be lab partners, and had staked our claim on a table in the back of the room. Of course, our Bio teacher had had other ideas, and had split us up. He paired Edward with Amy McIntyre, a redhead and captain of the chess club. He'd paired me with tech geek Eric Yorkie, who seemed to think that because we were both social outcasts he was allowed to put his hands on my butt (among other places). After I had accidentally knocked the dissected frog into his lap and accidentally pushed the pile of elephant dung onto him, he'd asked Mr. Banner to switch partners. Of course, by that time Edward was pretty accident prone too (he'd actually managed to dissect the frog, and then knock the tray of extracted organs onto Amy… which I had to buy him a burger for, since technically we weren't supposed to remove the organs. But Edward never half-assed anything), and no one else would volunteer to pair up with either of us. Mr. Banner spent the better part of his classes being pissed at us, but since we had the highest grades in the class, there wasn't really a whole hell of a lot that he could do - other than assign us craploads of extra work. Which we, of course, didn't even really mind.
We spent the entire class listening to Banner lecture and playing tic-tac-toe on a blank page in my notebook (Edward would die before I besmirched a blank page in one of his notebooks. Like his parents couldn't afford to buy him a zillion more). By the end of the class, we were dead even in number of games won. We grabbed our stuff and headed down the hallway together. In a few minutes, we'd be facing each other in P.E. Our school was so antiquated socially that the boys and girls had separate gym classes. They even had separate gymnasiums. This week marked the one week of the year that we got to mingle, which was hell week for me.
It was dodge ball week. Girls against boys. Right, like that's fair, considering the pansy girls I have class with. It'd be different if there were members of the girl's basketball team, or the powder puff team (girls' football) - but my class was full of girls from the chess team, concert choir, and academic clubs. Not that I had anything against those girls, but come on, when it came to sports, I already had trouble - why couldn't I have some tall basketball players to hide behind?
The entire locker room was atwitter. I swear, it was as if these girls had never seen boys before! And what was so freaking exciting that they were giggling like that, anyway? I concluded that they were probably talking about Jasper, and resolved to ignore them. Right about that time, the door to the locker room blew open, and in walked Rosalie, flanked by Thing 1 and Thing 2. I stared at Rosalie until she turned and caught me, at which point I quickly turned my attention back to my untied sneaker.
I caught flack on a regular basis for wearing my Chuck Taylors, but I couldn't help it. I wasn't about to go home and ask my parents to spend $40 on another pair of shoes just to use for gym when I had a perfectly functional pair. Edward always teased me about them because they were bright yellow, but like I told him, the heart wants what the heart wants. (And after I tell him this, I always make sure to point out that Alice has a pair of bright pink Chucks. Then he reminds me that pink is her favorite color, and I tell him I know because it looks like her room has been hosed down in Pepto Bismol.)
I ignored the way my cheeks felt flushed, because I was totally about to make a fool of myself in front of the new girl. I could care less what the stupid hags with her thought of me - I already knew exactly what they thought of me. So did the rest of the school, since Lauren had written her thoughts on the inside of every one of the girls' bathroom stalls in the school. (Really, every stall in every bathroom. Who the hell had that kind of time? At least she was dedicated in her loathing of me. I couldn't really be bothered to exert that much effort on my campaign against her. Plus she did a really good job of being a foul-mouthed slut all on her own, so she really didn't need too much help from me anyway.)
I followed some of the other girls out into the gym, waving at Edward as I took my spot on the opposite side of the room. He gave me a sympathetic smile before turning back to the guy next to him… who just happened to be Jasper. Sheesh, now all we needed was to have Alice here, and everyone would witness my humiliation! I stood off to one side by myself, wrapping my arms around my chest and trying to ignore how lonely it felt to be without Edward or Alice by my side. With either one of them I felt cared for, protected, and damn near content. So long as we stuck together, nothing else (and no one else) mattered.
I watched as the gym teachers conferred in the middle of the room. A movement to my left caught my eye, and I turned just in time to see Rosalie enter the gym, flanked on either side by a hooker-face. She looked so out of place with them. She carried herself with dignity and grace, her hair was perfectly coiffed, she had flawless skin, and she looked amazing in her gym uniform (a gray t-shirt with the school's name and a pair of blue shorts). Jessica and Lauren just paled in comparison. I wondered if Rosalie did that often - purposely put herself in the company of those uglier than her so she would appear that much more beautiful by comparison. I shrugged to myself and found Edward across the gym, aggravated a little bit by the fact that he seemed to be doing the same thing I'd just been doing - staring at Rosalie.
The teachers proceeded to split each class into two smaller groups, each of which was a team. When they blew the whistle, the first black and white death bringers would be hurled across the room. I was not looking forward to this. On one side of the gym was a mixture of one fourth of the boys (which included Edward) and one fourth of the girls (which included Lauren and Jessica), and on the other side of the gym was another one fourth of the girls (which sadly included me - but also Rosalie), and one fourth of the boys (which interestingly enough included Jasper).
"You ready for some dodge ball?" Jasper asked, moving to stand next to me. I blinked. Most of the kids in school stayed as far away as they could from me during gym class. He was a little too close for his own safety.
"Why are you so close?" I blurted. He laughed.
"Edward told me you're not so good at sports. So I volunteered to help you."
"I'm not so sure that's a good idea," I said, shaking my head. "It's not that I don't appreciate the thought, but in this class it's like I have a bullseye on my chest… and my back… and my head, for that matter." He laughed again.
"I don't mind. I'm not too bad at this game, I'll do what I can, though I don't promise any miracles."
"It's your funeral," I muttered. He laughed again and one of the teachers blew a whistle. Whatever Edward had told Jasper, it obviously hadn't prepared him for the gravity of the situation. Everyone in the entire stinking school knew about my lack of coordination when it came to sports, and I was an easy target for anyone who could throw a ball with any measurable amount of accuracy… which was everyone in the Junior class of Forks high. You know, except for me. As soon as the whistle sounded, everyone on the opposite side of the gym (except for Edward) aimed right at me… which meant that they aimed right at Jasper, too, since he was standing in front of me. Usually I closed my eyes and took the first hit like a champ, just so I could be excused from the game, but this time Jasper prevented that.
I watched as Jasper caught ball after ball after ball and lobbed them back across the gym. After watching him for a few minutes, I felt like I'd picked up on his rhythm, and I actually managed to catch a ball myself - much to the surprise of my teammates… and myself, to be honest. I threw it and watched with no small amount of satisfaction as it smacked Mike "I've-stuck-my-penis-in-more-orifices-than-you-can-imagine-and-it's-probably-going-to-fall-off-before-I-turn-20" Newton right in the face. No one was more surprised than I was - except maybe for Mike. Heh.
Jasper turned around and gave me a quick high five before turning his attention back to the onslaught of rubber balls. I managed to catch three more before I realized that Rosalie was standing right next to me, and was slowly inching in front of me so that she was standing right next to her brother. It felt like I was watching what was going on through someone else's eyes, because I had never lasted so long in anything in P.E. before. I watched as the other side dwindled down to Lauren, Jessica, and Edward, and then it was them against me, Jasper, and Rosalie. To say I was surprised would have been the understatement of the century. I suppose it was inevitable that I would get knocked out sooner rather than later, but just as the ball came soaring towards me, Jasper jumped in front of me and took the bullet for me. I stared in utter shock as he high-fived his sister and swatted me once on the butt.
"Kick some bitchy cheerleader ass, Bella." If Alice hadn't already staked her claim on him, I swear to God I would've been all over him like white on rice. Like a cheap suit. Like… okay, you get the point. I turned to see how his sister would address the situation, but she didn't look at me. Instead she narrowed her eyes at the opposing team and took up a defensive stance. I watched as she caught two balls that were lobbed at her by the bitches across the room, and then hurled them back - hard. The first one happened to catch Lauren's hand, which was anticlimactic for me, but the second ball didn't disappoint. Jessica caught it exactly as I had so many times before - right in the nose. The eliminated team members behind me tittered until it became full-blown laughter. I looked at Rosalie, who was nodding her head and smirking at the girl who looked like she might actually need a nose job to get her face back to normal. Blood started to gush everywhere, and before I realized what had happened, I passed out.
