Crystal Clear

Chapter 1

To Keep or Not to Keep

You couldn't call Alice mean, thought Bella sourly, not by a long shot. She scowled at the bed and crossed her arms forebodingly. You couldn't call Alice frugal or miserly or spendthrifty all tantamount to the same definition as mean, unless you wanted to label youself a liar/Cullen hater which Bella was certainly not. The Cullen hater part, a bit, maybe. But not pertaining to Alice.

You also couldn't call Alice Cullen mean, when you were in fact, a friend of her's. Though, reflected Bella, Alice was being mean (in a totally different way) by not being mean. This made total sense to Bella's wounded sense of boundaries and compared against her list of what recently made friends just must not do, won by a huge gap. She knew Alice was rich, but this just was...

"Bella!" squealed Alice, coming into view and pausing with a hand on the door-knob. "There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you! Charlie let me in earlier when I told him I'd come to see you and-"

"What," cut in Bella menacingly, waving a hand at the bed and failing miserably to look intimidating, "is the meaning of this?" She pointed a finger in accusation at the bed where piles of dresses lay, indifferent to her glares and muttered threats of extermination, mocking her with their continued presence and acting ignorant of her evident annoyance. Her ire rose at seeing them still there and she cast them another fulminating glare. I'm onto you, clothes.

Burn in hell, you pieces of leg-baring molestation-inviting ridiculously tiny yet even more ridiculously expensive trash...

Alice looked at the clothes, then back at Bella, eyes wide in anxiety. "Do you...do you not like them?" she asked uncertainly, biting her lip and managing to look even more cute and pixie-like than usual. She drooped immediatley, hanging her head, lips threatening to pout. Bella sighed and pinched her nose, reminding herself that one did not ought to give in to pouts, sweet looks, uncertain dark eyes turned on you like a week old puppy looking for reassurance or like a deer's wide orbs caught in the headlights-

Damn.

NO, Alice. No, I do not like them. In fact, the sooner you get them out of my sight, the faster I will feel better. Return them if you must, just please get them out of my sight before I start contemplating the pros of an 'accidental' fire.

Bella sighed.

"No Alice," she said, pinching her nose harder, "it's not that I don't like them."

"Oh!" Alice perked up, sure now that Bella in no way hated the clothes. "Then..."

"Just, how long have you known me?" Bella asked skeptically, planting her hands on her hips.

Alice cocked her head. "Two weeks?" she said doubtfully.

Bella shook her head and exhaled. "And you think that's enough time for you to start buying me stuff?" she asked carefully, waving a hand at the offending garments.

Alice looked affronted. "Bella! I buy stuff for all my friends! I knew we'd be good friends from the first day we met!" Her eyes gleamed.

Her friend threw her an unreadable glance. "And how expensive is the stuff you buy your friends?"

The Cullens never blushed but Alice seemed to come close to it. "Um..not much?" she squeaked out, a tiny apologetic tilt at the corner of her mouth giving absolutely no credence to her assurance. She moved over to the bed and picked up a deep green silk sheath dress, holdng it up critically. "It's just, when I saw these things, I just knew you'd do them absolute justice!" She continued to prattle on about the merits of green and the colour it would bring out in Bella's face and so on and so forth. Bella, who in two weeks had quite gotten the measure of her friend, (never take her near a sale, or a mall, or near clothes for that fact) tuned her out and simply watched Alice's animated face, a fond smile breaking through her normally reserved expression.

She knew Alice was impulsive. Just a few days before she'd nearly gotten herself into an unimaginable amout of trouble by remarking on the beauty of a pendant she saw hanging in a store window. To say she was surprised and dismayed to find a tiny box, ribboned and gift-wrapped awaiting her at home would be a total understatement. She'd made Alice return it first thing, how much ever she had badly wanted to keep it . For the sake of her sanity, she had also never asked Alice how much it'd cost.

Though this was a first, and she had no idea how Alice even knew her measurements, Bella resigned herself to probably having to accept them. Alice had been devastated when the pendant had had to be returned and Bella wasn't sure she could face that situation again. She'd just have to make up by returning the favour to Alice some way or another. Calling the tiny pixish Cullen a force of nature and a whirlwind was stating the truth. She could be quite stubborn when needed.

Exagerated throat clearing caught her attention. Turning to the door, Bella saw a quite unwanted sight and her mouth tightened. Here was the bit of Cullen hating she had mentioned.

Enter the dragon.

Edward Cullen leaned causually against the door frame, eyeing the room with interest. Thrusting his hands in the pockets of dark jeans moulded to powerful thighs, he whistled. "A veritable windfall, eh, Swan?" he said lazily, grinning at Bella. His spiked auburn hair stood swept back from his forehead today, allowing her to see the brightness of his amber eyes. He was out for mischief sure as Forks was of rain.

Bella's brown eyes widened then narrowed, hot fire burning its way along her cheekbones. If he was insinuating what she thought he was...

Edward winced slightly, staring at her in surprised amusement. Looking at his sister, who'd turned around to see what was happening, he cocked an eyebrow. "Getting rid of your cast-offs, Al?" he asked mildly.

Alice flounced over and hit him in the chest, pouting. Bella would have sworn it was a playful hit wihout any seemingly hurtful intent behind it but Edward seemed taken off balance for a second. Putting a hand on the door frame to steady himself, he frowned down at Alice. An unspoken exchange passed between brother and sister.

"Don't be silly Edide!" Alice said gaily. Edwar's face darkened at the nickname but he said nothing. "When I saw these, I just knew they were meant for Bella! So I got them. Don't you think they'd look good on her too?"

It was like dropping bait in front of a hungry starving animal.

Edward turned slowly, amber eyes finding and focusing in on their target. As Bella's horrified gaze met his, a smirk twisted his lips and his eyes dropped from her's.

Lower.

If she could have burst into flames from embarassment and righteous fury, Bella would have tuned into a lighthouse beacon for ships off a coast. She wondered what Alice would do if Bella commited serious assault on a family member. She wondered how loud he'd scream if she kicked him where it hurt.

"Yes," Edward murmured, eyes lifting from what had been a blatent and obviously pointed apprisal of her assets. He took the green dress from Alice's unresisting hands and held it up, turning to regard Bella again critically. "It wiould bring out the colour in her face..."

Bella's jaw dropped. Oh no he didn't! Had he been evesdropping as well? That god-damned freaking a-hole insinuating stuff like he did, and dropping in uninvited wherever he wasn't wanted! Which brought her to...

"What are you doing here?" she asked him bluntly, surpressing the urge to clobber him over the head with something, preferably a large blunt instrument of godlike proportions. Breathe Bella, breathe. Don't give up now. You were doing so good.

If anything, Edward's smile only grew wider.

"Mother sent me," he said, speaking to Alice now. "She wanted you to come home early. We have...visitors." His eyes shuttered as he said the last word and Bella wondered exactly who they were. The Cullens were a largly mysterious family. She'd learnt that when she'd moved to Forks some few months ago. All she'd heard anywhere were tales and rumours about the richest family in town and musings and speculations about their looks and obvious wealth. Some said they were famous movie stars. Others that they were a Russian family immigrated to avid the secret Police. They'd after all only moved to Forks a few years before Bella herself. Rumours were ofcourse, born of fact. The Cullen chldren were beautiful. No other word did them justice. All four of them were adopted, Alice and Edward living with their adoptive parents, Esme and Carlisle Cullen. The other two had moved out and were living elsewhere. Bella had been a bit miffed that every girl her age's topic of conversation seemed to revolve solely around what Edward Cullen had done that day. What he'd worn that day, what he'd said and god forbid, what he'd ate. He was plainly, the baddest boy in town with girls on his arm changing every other day. What a total playboy.

She had resolved to hate him befor she ever met him. Meeting him had only compounded her initial vague dislike. He seemed to have an innate talent for infuriating her and driving her up a wall. Worse, he seemed to actually enjoy her reactions. Unfortunately for Bella, Alice had singled her out as potential best friend material, leaving her the envy and focus of jealous hatred of every other teenage girl at Forks high school. This also meant Bella had to suffer Edward's compay a lot more. Oh, Joy.

She was brought up short as Alice shot an intense look at Edward. Edward nodded. Alice's eyes brightened. She whirled around and hurried to Bella. "I'll call you later," she said, hugging Bella lightly and pressing a kiss to her cheek. Bella nodded, slightly dazed and watched as Alice sped out the door, Edward following at a more sedate pace. Well, there went her plan of convincing Alice to at least take back some of the clothes, if not all.

Edward checked, a curious look passing across his face. He turned and scanned the room.

Bella was immediately wary. "What is is?" she shot out, arms crossing across her chest defensively. Try that again and I'll hand you some soprano-wanted classifieds after I'm done with you.

His eyes crinkled at the corner. He motioned at a low stool standing next to her bed, a glass of water and some pills resting on to it. "That looks suitably heavy and blunt, Bella. Don't hurt yourself lifting it."

The next moment he was gone, leaving Bella to pick up her jaw of the floor again, wondering how exactly it was that he seemed so astute sometimes as to pick up on the exact words she used in her thoughts. Skilled at reading, he was. Maybe he's a mindreader, she thought and immediatly smacked herself mentally. Dummy! Your seventeen, not seven.

Edward's low laugh carried all the way up to her second story bedroom, before the roar of a Maserati cut it off.

A/N: Like? Hate? Tell me if I should continue. I have nerves now. R&R!