Like Shakespeare
Annaleise Marie

Summary: The usual suspects are part of the Shakespeare Society, an informal group that meets after school each week to discuss the bearded bard's greatest works. When Bella Swan joins the group, she unintentionally dishes out a heaping serving of turmoil over her interpretation of "Romeo and Juliet". With the group split in two, bitterly arguing, what happens when Bella and Edward find themselves in love—on opposing sides? [AU/AH, canon pairings, lemons, no death]

Chapter One: The First Rumblings of Discontent

AN: First, so as to avoid any nasty accusations, yes, this story is based off of a post on Tumblr, originally by the user sarah531. So yes, I am borrowing the plot. Of course you probably also know that I'm borrowing the characters from Stephanie Meyer. So basically none of this is mine and I'm just playing around.

I will be using rotating POVs in this story, but unlike some of my past works I will be trying to limit it to one POV per chapter.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! See you in the endnote!

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EPOV

I leaned my chair back on two legs, hooking my ankles around the legs of the table to keep myself from falling over. My worn copy of Romeo and Juliet was laying on the table, the worn and cracked binding keeping it open but also allowing a few loose pages to wriggle free, jutting out of the book at odd little angles. The copy wasn't well-worn from love. In fact, Romeo and Juliet was probably as far from my favorite play as you could get. But I had a habit of bending paperbacks back onto themselves so that I was only looking at one page at a time, so one reading generally made my copies ancient. It drove my sister, Alice, crazy and after the third time I had to replace her copy of Much Ado About Nothing—because I did replace books I destroyed—she banned me from her collection. And since my brother Emmett's collection was actually his girlfriend Rose's—because make no mistake, Emmett may do anything for Rose, including read, but the big goofball has never bought a book in his life—that left me investing in my own copy of this horror-show from the get-go.

I hated this play, but thank god we'd be finished with it and moving on after today.

The thought made me check my watch. I had shown up a bit early, so no one was late yet, but I was still getting tired of waiting. The Shakespeare Society had been Alice and Rose's idea. It was pretty much a book club, but if you couldn't have guessed, it's focused solely on Shakespeare. Not a wildly popular subject amongst the high school population of Forks, the group consisted of Alice, Rose, and me. Sure, Jasper and Emmett were presumably members, but everyone knows that Alice and Rose pretty much dragged them into it by the balls. Occasionally Angela Weber would show up, and as much as I liked Angela I dreaded those days because she would bring Jessica Stanley with her. Jessica Stanley was apparently hard-up and none too subtle about it. Which was fine, I guess, but I was the only single guy in the group and she wasn't my type at all.

Of course, she only showed up weeks that we were discussing a romance, and unfortunately that meant I would be subjected to her this week.

Sure enough, a few minutes later the door opened and I looked up to see Angela and Jessica enter the library. Their eyes scanned the library and found me after a moment. Jessica lifted her hand to wave and I settled on a nod of acknowledgement and what I hoped didn't look too much like a grimace. They came over and sat down, Jessica scooting a little closer than I felt was actually necessary. She opened her mouth to say something but I was spared having to make polite conversation with her when the door opened again and Rosalie and Jasper Hale came in.

"Sorry we're late." Rose seemed to be speaking directly to Jessica, pulling her focus from me. I wanted to hug her. "We had to go by the house and pick up my copy of the play. Alice and Emmett aren't here?"

"Just us." I said, trying to keep my voice light.

Rose pulled out her phone, checking for messages. "Well, I'm sure they'll be here soon. Should we go ahead and start?"

"I don't actually like, have a copy of the book. But I've seen the movie about a bazillion times." Jessica smiled that toothy grin at me. The girl had way too many teeth, and they were an unnatural white. We're talking the kind of white that only results from over-bleaching. I wanted to shield my eyes.

"Which movie?" Rose asked suspiciously.

Jasper leaned forward in his chair, nearly giddy at the prospect of Jessica's answer. If it was the version I was sure it was going to be…

"The Leonardo DiCaprio version." Jessica quirked her eyebrow. "Duh." I swear, she actually said that. "What other version would I be talking about?"

"Any reputable one, really." Rose left it at that, to Jasper's obvious disappointment.

"To be fair, that version did really well at the box office." Angela looked incredibly uncomfortable and I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. I mean, she did bring Jessica here in the first place.

Rose frowned. "So did Talleadega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby. People will watch any sort of trash."

Thankfully the door opened again at that minute and Emmett and Alice came in, a whirlwind of sibling bickering.

"—don't know why you can't just admit it." Emmett's tone was teasing, as usual, but his cheeks were flushed, a sure sign that he was irritated.

"I would have no problem admitting it if it were true." Alice's voice was crisp and invited no argument.

"Admit what?" Rose asked.

"That I'm mom's favorite." This was always Emmett's explanation as to what they were arguing about, and let me tell you, it's never the truth. Jasper stood up and kissed Alice on the forehead before pulling her chair out for her. "Darlin'," he acknowledged her in that goofy Texan twang of his.

The door opened again and this time we all looked around, puzzled. A girl with long, wavy brown hair and pale skin froze in the doorway as we all stared at her. We met at five on Fridays in the school library. No one was ever here besides us.

"Hey." Her voice was quiet and she cleared her throat. When she spoke again it was louder but still hesitant. "Is this the Shakespeare Society?"

"Of course." Alice was the one who answered, which was probably good since most of us weren't good with new people and always seemed to manage to scare them. "Were you wanting to join in this week?"

"Yeah. Romeo and Juliet, right?" The girl finally moved from the doorway, heading straight for the empty seat next to me. She set down a copy of the play that was almost as worn as mine and pulled out her chair before speaking again. "I'm Bella Swan, by the way."

"Oh yeah, Chief Swan's daughter," Alice said with a smile.

Jasper frowned. "I didn't know Chief Swan had a daughter."

"She just moved here. Used to only spend the summers with him," I supplied before I could stop myself.

"Why do you even know that?" Rose raised her eyebrows at me.

"She lives next door, nosy." Emmett nudged Rose playfully and she glared at him.

A look of recognition fell over Bella's face. "Right, you're the Cullens. You guys were usually on vacation while I was visiting. I didn't recognize you at first."

"Excuse me," Jessica interrupted sharply, clearly upset at someone else being the focus of attention. "Aren't we here to discuss the book?"

"It's a play." Rosalie was speaking through gritted teeth. She was possibly the only person who had less patience for Jessica than I did.

Jessica grabbed my copy and held it up, smirking. "Book." I didn't think she'd be smirking like that if she noticed the way Emmett's hand went to Rose's, keeping it pinned to the table. "Anyway, I'm particularly interested in hearing what Edward thinks."

"Bet you are," Rose mumbled.

Jessica ignored her, turning in her seat to lean closer to me, her breasts grazing my arm. "Didn't you think it was romantic?"

I had to work for a moment to unlock my jaw. "Actually, I hate this freaking play."

"Better luck next time, Jess." Emmett grinned at her.

"How can anyone hate this play?"

At first I though that must have come from Jessica, but much to my surprise it was Bella who had spoken up.

"I mean, the plot is timeless. Two people who are told not to be together fall in love and go to the ends of the earth to be together. It's about the enduring nature of love, and the idea that love is the most important thing of all, and that when you find it you have to do anything necessary to keep it." Bella's cheeks were flushed by the end of her rant, her eyes dancing.

"Please, it's a cautionary tale about the stupidity of youth and shallow lust," Rosalie countered.

"It's a beautiful tragedy about poisonous hatred conquered by love." Alice nearly stood up she was so invested in her interpretation. "I mean, you've got these two families stuck in a blood feud, and ordinarily that seeps through generations and self-perpetuates an endless cycle of violence and death, but in the midst of that, these two kids find love and decide to be together no matter what."

"By killing themselves." Emmett finished, smirking. "Great plan."

"Well, the plan wasn't actually for either of them to die, in all fairness." No matter the subject, Angela couldn't seem to help playing the devil's advocate. She should get in all fairness tattooed across her forehead.

"But that just furthers my point about the stupidity of youth!" Rosalie did stand up at this.

Angela raised her hands in surrender. "And I don't disagree with you."

"You don't?" Jessica all but screeched.

I had finally had enough. "Why would she?! This is the biggest load of crap I've ever read in my life!"

Jessica looked like I had smacked her in the face. When she spoke there was a slight waver in her voice. "If you're so jaded that you can't imagine ever loving anyone enough to find living without them unbearable, then I don't think we have a future, Edward Cullen."

"What?!" I gaped at her. Across the table Emmett was slowly but surely losing his shit, collapsing into a laughing mess. "We're not together! We've never been a thing, and I don't want us to be a thing. Christ, Jessica, I knew you were desperate but I didn't know you were delusional."

Jessica stood up dramatically, almost knocking over her chair in the process, and stalked out of the library in a huff. Alice sighed and went after her, too caring for her own good, in my opinion. After a moment Jasper muttered something about never getting laid again if he didn't agree with her and followed them out.

There was silence for a moment and then Emmett spoke. "So there's a pretty fantastic anal sex joke." He laughed when we all just looked at him confused. "Yeah, Mercutio tells Romeo, 'Oh, that she were an open arse, and thou a poperin pear.'" He pronounced poperin, pop-her-in, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Rose groaned and stood up, shaking her head. "And on that note, I'm leaving."

"Wait, babe!" Emmett hurried after her. "I think I'm finally starting to get this Shakespeare thing!"

"So if that's it for today, I should be heading home," Angela said quietly. "Jessica will probably be blowing up my phone about this. You were a little harsh, Edward."

I didn't answer her and a few seconds later she was gone, leaving Bella and I sitting in uncomfortable silence.

She cleared her throat awkwardly. "So, this wasn't exactly what I expected. Are all of your meetings this eventful?"

I laughed. "Please, you started it."

"I just disagreed with you; you're the one who lost it completely on your girlfriend."

I sputtered indignantly. "Were you not listening? I said we're not together. We've never—" I broke off my rant when I saw she was smiling at me. "You're making fun of me."

She laughed. "I'm sorry, it's just all really funny." She stood up and started gathering her stuff. "Anyway, it was nice to finally meet you, Edward Cullen. I think you'll be an interesting person to live next door to."

"Same to you." I watched her as she left, a small smile still on her face, probably still at my expense. For some reason, it didn't bother me. If it made her face light up like that, she could just keep right on laughing.

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AN: Welp, here's the introductory chapter, anyway. Thoughts, comments? I love, love, love hearing from readers, like, I don't think you have any idea how much. Also, I try to reply to all reviews.

What do you think of Romeo and Juliet? Romantic tragedy or cautionary tale?

See you next chapter!