One Stupid Thing

A/N: This story was originally begun as "You Have So Much To Learn." There were problems with it and I was trying to do too much at once. I decided to finish The Transfer and then take this in a little different direction so I am now pursuing the story that was on hiatus for soooooo long. There has also been a name change because of that new direction.

One Stupid Thing is told through flashbacks which will eventually meet up with the present time and the present situation. You'll get pieces of the puzzle as we go. I hope it's not confusing. Good luck!

No copyright infringement intended.

Preface

Thursday, April 21…Today

BPOV (26 years old)

I'd always given so much thought to every decision I'd ever made. I'd lived my life so carefully, putting so much forethought into every action, every plan. People around me, including my own parents, had plunged headlong into life-altering mistakes by being foolishly led by their hearts when their minds should have given valuable input. I'd always figured you should be able to plot and plan accordingly for the best results.

I would never have imagined I'd find myself in my current situation.

I knew that if I'd never gone to live in Forks in the first place, and certainly if I'd never returned there to make a career, I wouldn't be facing this life-altering event now. But as terrified as I was, as nervous as I felt, I couldn't bring myself to regret this decision. It was the right thing to do. Of that I was absolutely certain.

I pressed a somewhat sweaty palm against my stomach, trying to quell the roiling butterflies within. I felt the smooth, sleek fabric of my gown against my shaking fingertips.

I looked into the dark eyes of the smiling young man standing opposite me.

I was on the precipice of doing one stupid thing. One really stupid thing.

I held my breath.

And then I leapt.

Chapter 1: Cornerstone

August 27…8 months ago

BPOV (25 years old)

I walked in the door of Cullen's Bar and Grill and I could feel him before I even saw him. The sensation was nearly instantaneous. A low-level charge was humming right through me now, letting me know he was near before my eyes even found him in the crowd across the room.

Of course I'd known he'd be here, having finally moved back home, supposedly for good, if I was to trust the information on the grapevine. I hadn't seen him earlier, when he'd first moved back to Forks, because I'd been on vacation in Jacksonville this summer. But news travels fast, even when you're away on vacation on the other side of the country for three weeks.

That little static hum hadn't existed in the early days, of course, back when we first met. That would have been sick, or at the very least, creepy. And later, there came a time when it would have been slightly less creepy but embarrassingly wrong and borderline illegal. Thank God I hadn't felt it until later and it was certainly stronger in more recent years.

It had taken time to develop and in fact, I'm not even really sure when I first sensed the existence of that electrical charge. I just remember the feeling of surprise when I first noticed it and the overwhelming inappropriateness of it when I first realized it was there. But of course by then, it had already been there for a bit; I'd felt its familiarity even as I became truly aware of it for the first time.

Odd.

I'd just never noticed its arrival. It had sneaked up on me and settled in; making itself at home within me. It wouldn't leave either, though it sometimes lay dormant for months or even a whole year at a time, waiting to reawaken and recharge when next we met.

It had been at least a year since I'd seen him last…and since I'd felt that little electrical humming sensation. And it had been a little more than two years since I'd really talked to him….on the momentous occasion of his twenty-first birthday…momentous for several reasons and probably part of the reason he didn't return to Forks the following summer.

How does someone have that kind of effect on you without even trying? How does that happen when all you have between you is a well-worn, comfortable friendship and respectful attachment and nothing more? How do you fight against it and push it away because it is and always will be the wrong thing to feel for the wrong person?

I looked up and instantly spotted him across the room. It was the chaotic hair that drew my attention, naturally, a mix of near-metallics…coppers and bronze catching the play of light as he moved.

He was still himself, but he was so much more. He looked older, moved more gracefully and surely, and he seemed more confident and self-possessed. He was far more the man than the boy now; taller, filled-out in a muscular sort of way, broader in the shoulders which made him appear narrower in the hips, and he was still far more beautiful than any male had a right to be.

My face was carefully neutral as I made my way to the bar.

August 27…8 months ago

EPOV (23 years old)

I was helping out behind the bar again tonight, instead of camping out in the office getting paperwork done. It felt like old times whenever I got behind the bar.

I'd started working at Meyer's Bar and Grill during my freshman year attending the University of Washington in Seattle. My first job there had been as a part-time busboy in the restaurant section of the bar and grill when I was eighteen. It was a popular spot for the college crowd and they employed quite a few students.

I moved back home to Forks the following summer when school was out, but when I returned to Seattle for my sophomore year, at the age of nineteen, I was re-hired at Meyer's to bus tables once again. That had evolved rather quickly into waiting tables, where I'd made overly-decent tips, especially when waiting on the female population that frequented the place. For some reason they always seemed to wind up seated in my section.

The following summer, at the end of my junior year, when I turned twenty, I was back home in Forks once again but my job in Seattle was waiting for me in September when I returned as a senior. The owners of the place were happy to hire me back again and again, saying I was one of their most dependable, hard-working employees. They were great about arranging my schedule at work to fit my class schedule at UDub.

When I graduated at the end of my senior year and turned twenty-one a month afterward, I didn't head home for the summer. Partly due to extenuating circumstances on my twenty-first birthday, I decided to stay in Seattle and get my bartender's license.

I became one of the regular barkeeps, helping to put myself through two years of graduate school while working my way up in the hierarchy at Meyer's. Six months ago the regular assistant manager was in a bad automobile accident and was unable to return to work. I slowly began filling in for him, taking over some of the duties he'd had as assistant manager as well. I'd learned all the ropes at Meyer's, from the ground up. I'd been a busboy, waiter, bartender and assistant manager.

All that experience had put me in good stead for returning to the home front this summer and taking over for my brother, Emmett, in what had oddly enough become the family business.

Several years earlier, my mother's rather wealthy parents had passed away, leaving her a substantial inheritance that allowed her to buy the defunct Spoons-n-Forks diner and completely overhaul it and turn it into Cullen's Bar and Grill. Though the Spoons-n-Forks diner had been the favored hangout for kids back when I was in junior high and high school, the elderly owners had found it to be too much work and they were glad to finally sell the establishment and retire.

My mother hadn't started out as a restaurateur but her sudden wealth, combined with her interests in renovating and decorating and cooking and caring for people in a culinary fashion, led her rather lucratively in that direction. She managed the end result with Emmett's assistance when he finished his education and followed in her footsteps.

I hadn't planned on going in that direction myself, but after working at Meyer's for so long and with my newly earned MBA under my belt, I fell into the newly discovered family business as well and really enjoyed all aspects of it.

The overwhelming success of the Cullen's Bar and Grill in Forks had led to my mother deciding that there should maybe be a Cullen's in Port Angeles as well. Emmett had been primed for the start up of that business and so the already up-and-running Cullen's in Forks became my place of business. I had taken over for him nearly three weeks ago.

At the tender age of 23, I found myself running the most successful restaurant, bar and live entertainment venue in Forks. Not that there were very many to choose from… although Forks had grown up quite a bit in the past decade.

Most nights I only came out of the back office to make the rounds, see how things were running, chat with the patrons and trouble shoot problems. But Happy Hour at Cullen's Bar and Grill always got a little crazy and we were short-handed tonight, so I found myself behind the bar, doling out the drinks like old times, wondering when James was going to finally show up to tend bar.

I'd known James since we were kids. We'd gone to Forks Elementary School together. I think we first met back in fourth grade. He was the kid that was always in trouble, often for things he hadn't actually done, until later in junior high and high school, when he actually usually was the perpetrator of whatever mild misdeeds were attributed to him.

He wound up getting his act together toward the end of high school and getting an Associate's Degree at Forks Community College. He'd reliably worked a variety of jobs since then and had been working at Cullen's for the past two years.

I was in the middle of filling a drink order when I glanced toward the door as a few customers were walking out. A few more were headed inside when I was caught completely off guard. I had just uncapped four bottles of import beers and proceeded to knock one over, spilling beer everywhere. I was pissed off for reacting that way, but I couldn't really blame myself.

Ten years down the road and I still felt the same way whenever I saw her.

"Her" was Isabella "Heartbreak" Swan…Bella. Her name said it all. Always had, always would.

She was coming into the restaurant. Headed directly for the bar. Coming to mess with my mind and my life yet again.

And she didn't even know it.

In high school Emmett had dubbed her Isabella 'Heartbreak' Swan. I don't know exactly why he started calling her that, but I had come to see how apt that nickname was. Every time I saw her, as she would drift into my life and then back out again, I was left a little more heartbroken; my life in general was just a little bit more screwed up.

It had been going on for a decade now, I suddenly realized. Ten whole years! And though I sometimes wouldn't see her for months or even years in between, it always came back to her and the feelings I harbored for her. She was ruining me and she had ruined everyone else for me. No one would ever compare. And she wasn't even aware of it; I couldn't tell her because it would just scare her off and that was the last thing I wanted. I'd nearly tried to tell her two years ago and that had led to my self-imposed near-exile for the past two years.

I would take whatever I could get from her and I wouldn't over step my bounds.

I knew how cautiously, carefully and meticulously she had planned out her life…how she did everything, really…and I couldn't disrupt that. I knew I wasn't part of her plan. I didn't fit into those plans at all. She had strict parameters and I fell on the other side of her boundaries. We could be friends but that would be it. We could never be more. We could never be what I wanted; what I'd dreamed and imagined for a decade.

The whole thing started back when I was a thirteen year old student at Forks Junior High School. My memories of each and every encounter are still so vivid ten years later. I don't have her, I have no chance of ever having her, but the memories are what I do have. At least that counts for something, pathetic though that may be.

February 2…10 years ago

EPOV (13 years old, 8th grade)

I'd become a colossal fuck-up. The whole Cullen clan knew it. There was no good reason for me to be such a disaster, I just was. I was actually pretty smart but I was a smart screw-up.

I was the youngest of three.

My older brother, Emmett, an eighteen year old high school senior now, was smart and he was on the right track; the scholarship track. He was someone to be proud of. Shit, he had a roomful of sports and academic trophies to prove it.

Alice, just eighteen months and one grade younger than he, at sixteen, was smart as a whip and had her life all planned out. Even though she was only a junior in high school she was a first-rate organizer and planner, with her path mapped out ahead of her.

Then there was me, Edward, thirteen years old; smart and going nowhere rapidly. It had been pointed out to me by Emmett that I was on the dumbshit track.

It had all recently come to a seething boil within the family. My parents, Esme and Carlisle, were fighting about it. I think it was even taking a toll on their marriage. My mom always either had tears in her eyes or a nervous smile on her face. My dad's jaw was perpetually clenched in frustration. Alice was constantly rude to me because I was the focus these days, taking the spotlight off her. She couldn't take that and was no longer speaking to me at all. Emmett had finally had enough of it and had beaten the shit out of me two weeks ago. Once he did that, he had also lost the right to use his car for three weeks, so now he was even angrier because it was putting a crimp in his love life with Miss Rosalie Hale.

Fuck him.

What was my problem? I didn't even fucking know. I'd always loved school when I was younger. In September, when it was time to go back to school, I had always been the one who was creaming his jeans because I got to go buy new shit for school. Pencils and pens and folders and notepads. A new backpack to put it all in. Whoop-di-doo.

What had happened to me? I didn't even know, really.

By the end of seventh grade, I was headed in a new and reckless direction, and by the time first semester was over this year, I was a total loser. Just ask the family; they'd vouch.

My dad thought it had something to do with him putting in so many more hours at the hospital, since he'd been offered some kind of a loftier position. Chief-of-Something-Lofty. But lofty paid well. He was planning on having three kids in college soon, so his current loftiness came at a good time.

My mom thought my attitude had something to do with her going back to work after all these years. She'd been a stay-at-home mini-van driver until last year but the college bills were going to require two incomes. She had begun dabbling in home decorating and interior design and renovation again, like she had done before meeting and marrying my dad and raising kids and putting her own career on hold.

Emmett thought I was the way I was because I was the spoiled baby of the family. He thought I had been pampered and coddled though I seriously don't remember any preferential treatment. I think I usually got the shit end of the stick.

Alice thought my behavior had taken the turn it had simply because I got off on being an ass. She might have been closest, because I really don't know what my problem was. I'd never really been mistreated or ignored. I just didn't give a shit and didn't see why I should.

Whatever. School got boring. Skipping school got entertaining. A burning curiosity to dabble in a few minor illegal substances became intriguing. Being a colossal fuck-up became a delight.

Until last week.

Last week Daddy C put his foot down. And he put it down right up my ass. I had been given an ultimatum. Total turn around by the end of the school year, with decent grades that would put me on the college-bound track for high school, or I was being shipped off to some kind of Boot Camp for juvenile delinquents and other societal screw-ups for the entire summer.

Terrific. I could star in my own personal version of Holes.

I was also reminded by Daddy C that he, my father, was also a doctor. He explained he wouldn't hesitate to give me a breath test or take a urine sample to run a drug test if he had the slightest inkling that I had the slightest inclination to try anything illegal. He found my pack of smokes in my room and took me immediately to the cancer ward of the hospital to meet some of the patients who were battling lung cancer.

Fuck, that was just playing dirty pool. I threw the smokes out right at the hospital and we returned home with little discussion.

In addition to the ultimatum and the halt to all substance abuse, there would be a tutor; three times a week, at least two hours each day, until I showed some improvement academically, but probably continuing the entire semester..

Fucking stellar.

Like I needed assistance because I was slow-witted.

So today was day one of the tutorial program and I was waiting for the tutor now. Some sixteen-year-old high school kid from Forks High.

Daddy C had decided that if they had entrusted Emmett with my tutoring, he would probably kill me after about the first fifteen minutes. Alice wasn't a good choice either; a tutor had to actually talk to get their information across. Currently, Alice was only glaring at me and shooting me the finger when the parents weren't looking.

So tutoring arrangements had been made by a rather stricken and fed-up Mama C. She'd spoken with Mrs. Cope, the secretary in the office at FHS, and somehow they had come up with the student who would be the solution to our family's problems.

The doorbell rang while I was sitting there wondering just how bad the Holes Boot Camp situation could really be. My mom nervously got up to answer the door while I just sat there at the kitchen table, ready to show this geek who the fucking boss was, regarding my education, or the total debacle that was the current state of my education. I could hardly wait to see what kind of a pimply-faced geek they had made arrangements with. This was not going to go well. I figured I'd pretty much see to that. I had a definite negative attitude about this whole goddamned fucked up shitty idea.

I heard the door open, and then close. The were soft voices in the next room as my mom spoke with my geeky tutor and then footsteps across the hardwood floor. I looked up as my mom came into the room. She had a bright, hopeful smile plastered on her face. It didn't really reach her eyes though; the dam could burst and those tears could go at any moment. She was hopeful yet doubtful. I didn't blame her, she was probably right to doubt.

"Edward," she extended her arm, indicating the high school kid coming in behind her, as she moved to the side, "this is Isabella Swan, your tutor."

A/N: And so you have the cornerstone of their relationship: a meeting between a thirteen year-old boy and his sixteen year old tutor a decade ago. And they've met up again recently at a bar named Cullen's with some apparent history…or lack of history… And what's with that preface at the beginning of it all? Hmmm…wonder where this is headed…hopefully you'll keep reading. Let me know what you thought.