Characters owned by Stephenie Meyer
I'll check this tomorrow. It's 2.30 am. Yawn.
Like Is A Good Starting Point
I know I stand in line until you think you have the time to spend an evening with me
Bella Swan is popular, there's no doubt about it. There's no reason she should even notice me, with all the guys hanging around her like they do. When she turned up on her first day, I honestly thought "Well, she's nothing special", although now I could cringe at the memory of my dismissal. She has long hair - so do all the girls. She's very pale - here we're all pale. She's skinny - a lot of the girls are skinny, and to be honest, it's not my preference. I'd like to give her a big bowl of pasta, amongst other things. She could suck spaghetti up off my abdomen, and then... I'd better stop with the lurid fantasies. It's not like anyone in school could possibly read my mind, but God knows what sort of stupid slack-jawed expression I've got on my face right now. Clean your act up, Cullen.
I was busy ignoring her for as long as I could after my initial assessment, which was "vapid, ordinary, dull". I caught her staring at me in the lunchroom though, and presumed she was checking everybody out, one by one. There would be a race to get to her, I knew that, but I wasn't going to be at the starting line. I don't ask girls out. Anyway, it looked like Newton and Crowley would be the first contenders, from the way they were hovering over her.
Then it turned out she was in my biology class, and good old Banner put her next to me. She was shyer than I expected, after the blatant staring at lunch. She put her head down and let her hair fall over her eyes, which as I understand it, is classic girl body-language for either "You're kind of interesting" or "Don't speak to me, can't you see I don't even want to look at you?" I don't speak girl well enough to know which it was.
Anyway, as predicted, she dated Newton first. They went to the movies. From the utter lack of braggage that came out of his mouth the next day, I gather nothing had happened. They certainly weren't smirking secretly at one another as though they had made out.
Then Crowley apparently asked her somewhere, and the same thing happened. Or didn't happen. No hand-holding, no surreptitious looks, no touching.
After that, she seemed to just accept group invitations. Parties, gangs getting together to see bands, that sort of thing. I'm not in any of the gangs, I'm clique-free, so I wasn't in on any of it. She and I had to partner one another for an hour of Bannerhell twice a week though, and I couldn't work her out at all.
She'd been in an extension class in her previous school, so she was bright, and I'm the top student, so that must have been why Banny put us together - he'd thought she could keep up with me. Well, she certainly could and the two of us realized it after about week three. We got on very well, biologically speaking. Ha! Other than that we couldn't seem to talk. I tried once or twice but my conversational overtures were so lame she never seemed interested in talking back to me. I saw her chatting away with other people, and reports started to filter back that she was funny and engaging and cool but not too cool, and apparently she was everybody's favorite flavor of the month. I started to become intrigued and I just couldn't see why she and I couldn't talk. Everything was awkward, everything was weird, and my sister was trying to give me love advice.
"Look, I'll speak to her, and get to know her, and I'll tell her you don't have three heads," Alice said.
"Obviously I don't have three heads, Alice," I snorted. "And why would you tell her anything?"
"I know a crush when I see one. You are stricken with loving feelings hampered by romantic ineptitude, Edward, but I will be your savior," she answered.
"Leave me alone, and leave her alone. You can't make friends with someone with an ulterior motive like that. It's insincere and monstrous," I told her.
"Okay, I'll make friends with her just for myself and you can go on floundering. Enjoy being Lonely Guy."
Then there was some party at someone's place and I wasn't actually invited but Alice was and I tagged along, and there was Bella squished on a couch next to yet another guy gazing at her looking like the moon shone out of her eyeballs and I just though "Okay, Cullen, why bother? Why fucking bother?"
I went outside for a smoke and I was standing on the porch contemplating leaving when a voice beside me said, "Those things will kill you."
It was her. I'd heard her often enough in class, right next to me, this close.
"What things?" I asked.
"Those things, you dope," she said, indicating my cigarette. "You know what they do to you, don't you? They constrict your blood vessels, for a start, which interrupts the flow of oxygen and nutrition around your body, they - "
"Thank you for your edification, Dr Swan. I shall cease forthwith," I said, and stubbed the offending item out on the porch rail. "What are you doing out here?"
"Oh, it was just getting a bit close back there, you know what I mean?" she answered with a sigh. "I don't know what it is about this town. Back where I came from, I was just one of the kids. Here, it's like I've taken Jessica Alba pills. All the guys are all over me. I can't take a step anywhere without some fool tripping over his own eagerness to make a fuss of me. It was fun for about a day, but I'm really over it now."
"Mmm," I nodded, sympathetically. If she thought anyone displaying an interest in her was a fool, I was keeping my mouth shut before I blurted something I'd regret, like asking if she wanted to go roll around kissing in the back of my car. Nope, I wasn't going to say it.
"Do you know, you're practically the only guy in school who hasn't hit on me?" she continued.
It was quite dark out there, and I frowned, turning to look at her. "You're safe with me," I assured her, the word "Liar" being screamed out somewhere in my brain accompanied by a snigger, because I was coming up with an idea. I could suggest a totally platonic friendship. What I could possibly hope to gain from it was... her trust? And then...?
And if we go someplace to dance I know that there's a chance you won't be leaving with me
"Let's be friends. You and me. You wanna get out of here? We could go to a club and listen to some music if you like, to christen our friendship," I offered, and to my surprise she nodded.
"Yeah, that would be kind of nice," she said. My lucky night. Don't blow it, Cullen.
I took a huge gamble, really. We could either go somewhere I knew she'd already been, because the school grapevine is so reliable that I know practically every time she'd ever sneezed, never mind where people have taken her. Or we could go the a hole-in-the-wall place I know about where no-one from school would dream of going. I picked the latter.
It's a swing club, and it's deeply uncool because they play old-time, big band stuff. There are twelve players in the band, and they're all over a hundred years old. The singer is an old trout who I reckon probably saw off her centenary twenty or thirty years ago. They have brass and a rhythm section and they play classics from the thirties and they're brilliant.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Bella asked, looking around and seeing we were the youngest people in there. The venue isn't even licensed because obviously, all the old folks can't mix alcohol with the cocktails of pills they're all on for their age-related ailments.
"Is this okay?" I asked, feeling a little anxious now, wondering if I'd done something far too left-field, but she shook her head. The band were bobbing their silver heads and getting down with their ancient bad selves, and dear old Irina, the vocalist, had coughed the cobwebs out of her throat and was in fine voice, sounding like a crackly AM radio all by herself.
"This is awesome!" Bella enthused.
"Really?" I asked. "Would you like to dance?"
"Oh, God, I am the crappest, most graceless dancer you could meet in a month of Sundays, but I'll give it a go," Bella grinned, and we danced. Well, I danced. She was hopeless, but I held on to her, in a platonic way, and pulled her around the dance floor with me, dodging the old biddies who were partnering each other because I guess once you get to their age there's a shortage of men. We were gazed at fondly by many a pair of eyes as I carefully swung my partner without ever actually letting her go, because I didn't want her to sail off and knock somebody over. Bella's hair swung out around her like a pennant and she was smiling, really smiling, mouth wide as we spun around and her hands clutched at my shoulders.
I took her back back to the table, telling her that I needed the bathroom, and I was only gone a minute or two, but Christ! when I got back, some other person under the age of thirty had turned up and was standing at the table talking to her. I didn't fucking believe it. She was smiling at the creep!
"Oh, hey Edward, it's such a coincidence, but this is my oldest friend - Jacob. He and I used to play together when we were little kids. Fancy him knowing about this place too, huh? Jake, this is Edward."
"Yep, I know Edward," Jake said, eying me doubtfully. He looked like he wanted to be a lot more than friends with Bella. He looked like he knew I did, too.
Jacob sat down, which I could have done without, and I was excluded from the conversation as he engaged Bella in some crap talk about his sisters. He was so obvious I couldn't believe she was letting him do this to me and that she couldn't see right through it. And then after only a couple more numbers Irina announced that the show was over. It was only ten-thirty.
"Hey, Bells, I'm off. I'll run you home if you like," he suggested. "I'm going past your place anyway."
And afterwards we drop into a quiet little place and have a drink or two
He was three times my size, but I was about to hit him.
"No," Bella exclaimed. "I'm not ready to go home yet! The night is young!"
Oh, yeah, baby! Don't blow it, Cullen. She might have an unfounded objection to you punching her oldest friend. "We could go on somewhere else. Would you like to get a drink?" I offered cautiously.
She just couldn't wipe the smile off her face, it seemed. "Duh, yeah!" she answered. "This is the best night I've had since I arrived here. Take me somewhere else, Edward. I love being with you, and I'm not going home before midnight."
She said goodnight to Jacob with a kiss on the cheek, and he saw me darkly calculating the amount of affection in it. Still, he turned and went, to my relief.
Strictly speaking, neither Bella nor I are legally allowed to drink in a bar. However I have a few contacts, and I knew somewhere we could go which would be quiet, discreet and comfortable, and they'd sling us a couple of beers. It's another club I know where the front is an ordinary bar, but through some curtains and down a hall and through another door is a little room I'm allowed access to where the owner will serve me alcohol, on one condition. He has an old piano, and I've been playing since I was five, which is twelve years now, and he'll give me beer for songs. It's a sweet deal. I'm trained in classical music and he was at a concert once I was performing in with his granddaughter. I was mucking around doing the wrong thing, which I sometimes do, and I started playing tango. Pablo rushed over and started on at me effusively, explaining that he was from Buenos Aires and he played the bandoneón, the small squeezebox used for tango music, and asking if I would play with him sometime. It was the start of something beautiful. I go down there once a fortnight or so, and he brings me beer or sangria and we play for a couple of hours, somethings with cronies of his, sometimes just the two of us, and his wife Carmen comes and listens and wipes tears from her eyes. My parents know I do this, and they more or less turn a blind eye, as long as I'm not driving. They even give me a twenty for the cab home.
I took Bella in there, and her eyes lit up seeing the place. Everything is faded and red in the little room - it's called El Corazón Rojo. The furniture is old and falling apart, there are no overhead lights, only lamps on the three or four tables, and they have red lampshades. It's tiny and eclectic and I imagine if any of us were aware of anything in the womb, this is what it would look like, except for the tables and chairs, of course. The walls have red velvet curtains instead of paint or wallpaper - the whole place feels warm and bloody and perfectly suited to the passion of tango. But tonight I wasn't there to play. There was music being piped through the little speakers mounted on the walls. A couple of Pablo's friends were there playing cards, and Bella and I sat down and were served with a pitcher of sangria by a beaming Carmen without even having to ask.
"Jesus, Edward, you're a surprise. First that fabulous band, and now this place. I'm so glad I agreed to come with you," Bella said, and her appreciation was all the thanks I needed. It loosened my tongue, and I found us chatting about music, then we wandered to films and books and a couple of hours passed without us even noticing. I did notice the fathomless depths of her beautiful eyes though, and the porcelain translucence of her skin, and the cadenza of her laughter, and the adroitness of her wit, and the giddying breadth of her vocabulary and the scope of her intellect, and I was drunk. More than drunk.
"Edward, I am thoroughly enjoying myself. God, I love being friends with you!" she informed me, slightly slurring and reaching over the tiny table between us to take my hand.
And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you
"You've got no idea what a change it is to not have someone crapping on about my eyes or my skin or whatever stupid cliche comes to mind. Guys are all so uninventive - but you, you're different. You don't say that stuff."
"Well, I was going to tell you that I love you, but I guess I won't then," I said, trying to make it sound like a joke, but desperate to see her reaction.
She shrugged. "It's fine if you love me Edward. Maybe I'll love you too. Who knows? Where's the bathroom?" She stood up and instantly swayed. "Fuck, was there alcohol in that raspberry cordial?"
My heart, which was just about to start singing, suddenly swooped. She didn't mean what she'd just said. She was off her head, and I was a prick. I'd worked out a seduction program, which on reflection now sounded downright nasty, to take her out and pretend I had no romantic interest in her and then, I don't know what next because I hadn't worked out the next bit, but by mistake I got her drunk. She was obviously not used to alcohol, and I had figured she'd know sangria is made of wine! But then, I hadn't actually ordered, Carmen just brought us the drink, and Bella was chucking it back pretty quickly. As soon as we finished the first jug Carmen had materialized with another one.
"Oh, Bella, yes, it's alcoholic - I'm really sorry, I thought you knew - do you need me to come to the bathroom with you? Are you going to be sick?" I asked.
"Yes," she mumbled miserably, and I took her down the hall. She barely made it to the ladies' rest room before she threw up, and I was holding her hair back and apologizing seventeen hundred times in between silently cursing myself. I am a deplorable dickhead. I am a reprehensible defiler of innocence and betrayer of trust. Poor Bella slumped to the floor, curled around the toilet and I feebly mopped her forehead with a paper hand towel that I'd dampened, and offered to get her some iced water.
"Don't leave me," she moaned, so I stayed and she vomited again and from what I could see, it was all raspberry cordial. No solids. Isn't there a law that says no matter what you've eaten you vomit diced carrots?
"Did you have any dinner?" I asked her and she shook her head.
"Christ, Bella, you've got to look after yourself," I muttered and she said her father wasn't home so she couldn't be bothered cooking and then she thought she'd have toast and then she was getting ready to go out and she just forgot. We sat for a while, she had her eyes closed and we were in a sort of awkward half-hug there on the floor, and after ten minutes she hadn't thrown up again.
"Do you think you could eat now?" I asked her.
She gave a weak laugh. "Do they serve food in the toilet here?" she asked.
God, Edward, you fool. "No, I mean if you're feeling a bit better do you want to get something simple? Pasta maybe? Or shall I take you straight home?" Not straight home, please, please.
She sat up, pushing her hair back and frowning. "Thank heavens you're my friend and not a potential boyfriend and this wasn't a date," she said, cutting me slightly. "Because I would have felt really mortified. It's nice that I can vomit in front of you."
"Yes, very nice. I'd like to say feel free to do it any time, but I can't. Let's get something into you," I responded, and then hoped like hell she didn't pick up on the ridiculous double entendre I'd just unwittingly dropped into the reverberation chamber of the bathroom.
"I'll clean up a bit, okay? Wait for me outside," she said, getting to her feet. I stood in the hall drumming my heels against the skirting board, hands in pockets, waiting until she emerged with tendrils of damp hair curling around her face.
I can see it in your eyes that you despise the same old lines you heard the night before
"Well, that's an improvement. You don't have that I-just-hurled look any more," I told her, hoping to ease the situation in case she was embarrassed. She chuckled at me and actually took my hand. Don't blow it, Cullen.
The kitchen was closed where we were so we wandered down the street a bit and stopped in at a diner where I bought her a plate of fries. She wanted mayonnaise on them.
"You'll be sick again," I warned her, disgusted. "I may not be willing to help you out again this time, when I know what's caused it." She waved several creamy-tipped fries right under my nose, laughing. She was clearly feeling a lot better.
"I like you, Cullen. You're no bullshit, you know that? You're not full of dumb compliments, trying to pick me up. You're nice."
And though it's just a line to you for me it's true and never felt so right before
And where do nice guys finish? We all know the answer to that one. I wanted to tell her that she's beautiful and rare, and I would be so utterly sincere saying it, but not only does she not want to hear it, I get the feeling our newfound friendship would disintegrate, and she'd take herself away from me without looking back.
So, no compliments. Not the kind of things I've heard girls say to one another, anyway, like "Your tits look totally hot in that top," or "You have such long eyelashes." She seemed to like humor that was very gently deprecating. I can do deprecating. It was going to kill me not to be honest, but I'd have to watch my tongue.
"Home now, Cinderella?" I asked when she finished the plate of food and she nodded, mouth full, grinning at me. I'd do anything to have her grin at me, even if it meant lying and acting like a fool. Over the last couple of weeks I'd noticed she didn't seem to want to have much at all to do with any male students, but she could smile at me. I'd take friendship. For now. Until I fucking exploded, or fell apart into a million frustrated, dishonest, nice pieces.
We got a cab, and I dropped her off and and she leaned over and brushed a little kiss to my cheek before she got out. I'd take friendship, for now.
I practice every day to find some clever lines to say to make the meaning come through
And of course, Alice, human piranha, was still up when I got home, and wanted to play twenty questions.
"Did you leave the party with Bella? Where did you go? What did you do? What happened?"
She was relentless, and wouldn't take short answers. It was nearly one, and I was tired, and to be perfectly honest, I had an appointment with my hand. Yes, I am that awful. A girl falls to her knees and vomits in front of me, and it goes into the spank bank. Hey - she was on her knees!
"Alice, leave me alone. I spend half my life telling you to leave me alone! Pick on someone your own size! Oh, hang on - that would mean you'd have to hang around at the gates of a primary school," I said and she snorted at me.
"You just spent hours with the object of your affections. Did you kiss her?" she demanded, undaunted.
"No, I did not, because I am not a dirtbag. I respect her," I said.
"Hmm?" Alice asked, one syllable, no vowels. She was onto me.
"All right, no I didn't because Bella is not interested in me in that way," I admitted sorrowfully.
"You need help, Edward. You're lucky you've got me. I'll give you some gems that no girl could resist, and then Bella will be yours," she smiled smugly.
"She doesn't like compliments," I said.
"All girls like compliments!" Alice stated.
"No, she's mistrustful of them. She thinks men use them as a means to an end. Whispering sweet nothings isn't going to work," I said, very tiredly. I wanted to go.
"Compliments and sweet nothings aren't quite the same thing. Leave it with me," Alice mused, finally wandering off to her own room. She is a steamroller, and searching through my memory I can't come up with a single instance when Alice hasn't gotten exactly what she's wanted. But then, Alice has only had our family to contend with before. She hasn't been up against Bella's calibre. I'm not sure what Bella's calibre is, but I think I am about to become a pawn, in a game which hopefully will have two winners.
"I've got a plan," Alice said the next morning as I drove us both to school.
"I can't wait to hear it," I told her, truthfully.
"No compliments," Alice said, as if she was delivering the cure for AIDS. "Just try and be a friend to her, and try and be a bit snarky and amusing. She'll like that."
"Jesus, is that all you've got? I already figured all that for myself!" I yelped at her.
It seemed Bella and I had reached a turning point in our relationship after what was half a debacle, half a raging success on Saturday night because she wanted to sit with me at lunch, and we had no trouble at all chatting. I tried my damnedest to be interesting and witty in an unforced, casual way, as if I was actually a funny person in real life, and Alice sat there looking like the whole thing was her idea. Bella laughed and smirked and giggled for an hour and invited me to a party on the weekend.
"See?" Alice mouthed at me.
"I promise I'll eat first. Why don't we have dinner together?" Bella suggested, and Alice's grin was on high beam but it was all so wrong because anyone would think Bella was asking me out, but I knew she wasn't. Well, she was, but she wasn't.
And then this going-out-while-not-going-out carry-on set in for weeks. It was accepted that Bella and I turned up places together, but weren't exactly dating. There was no kissing, no flirting, no hand-holding, no displays of affection public or private. It was all best friends forever. We'd arrive somewhere and she'd wander off and socialize and I'd stand around and listen to meaningless yabber from other people that I had no interest in, and then we'd leave together. It was as though she was using me as a shield to keep guys way from her. I started to resent it, but then the time we did actually spend together was great. We got on achingly well. Aching for me, anyway. She treated me like a girl. She even talked about her period, which on the one hand was too much information, and on the other hand was important, and was stuff I needed to know. She told me everything, or it felt that way. She was unguarded. I was coming undone and it couldn't last.
Then I think I'll wait until the evening gets late and I'm alone with you
"Well?" Alice asked, six weeks later. Bella and I were spending two or three evenings a week together.
"Nothing doing. Nothing. Thanks for your input," I said sarcastically, and I was ready to take matters into my own hands. Actually, I was doing that night after night. What I mean is, something had to change.
I decided I'd take her back to El Corazón Rojo and blow my chances forever and ever by telling her how I felt. And then I'd leave town right after she looked at me pityingly and shook her head and said "I thought you were different."
"Hey, Edward, my friend Jacob is having a party at the beach on Saturday night - shall we both go?" Bella asked, and her friend Jacob was the guy I wanted to punch, even if I had to stand on a stool to reach his face, he was so tall.
"Sure. Beach party. Sounds excellent," I said, dully. "I'll bring my snorkel."
Woo-hoo. Stupid Jacob and his stupid friends apparently didn't own shirts, or full-length jeans. They paraded around in shorts looking like they took steroids and did five thousand sit-ups before breakfast. I hated them all, and Bella ran up to them and actually kissed each one of them on their hair-free cheeks, making me conscious I hadn't shaved in two days. Oh joy. At least there was food and Bella ate some of it, cheeks bulging like a chipmunk's with bread roll and chicken and her eternally returning mayonnaise. God, she was cute. God, I was fucked. She had a beer. I had a beer. They lit a fire and I watched her, and Jacob watched her and I watched him watch her and he watched me watch her.
She sat with him, his arm around her shoulders and her head on his shoulder, smiling dreamily, and they murmured to each other, his eyes on me. The flames threw shadows, the sparks danced, and he and I were engaged in an age-old stand-off, two alpha males wanting the same female. These days though, the female has the ultimate say. She probably always did. She was sitting there in the circle of his arm and I couldn't do a thing about it.
But then Bella stood up! She walked over to me!
"Hey, Edward, shall we go somewhere else?" she asked and inside I was gloating although I like to think that I maintained a cool exterior.
"Yeah - the tango bar?" I asked her. She nodded happily, looping her hand through my arm. I chanced a look back at Jacob who I expected would be glowering poisonously, but to my surprise he looked speculative. I wondered what the hell she'd been saying to him.
I was okay to drive, so we took my car into town.
Pablo was there tonight with about twenty of his mates, he greeted me with a kiss to each cheek, and Bella too, and Carmen brought us a jug of barf juice. "Careful, now," I said to Bella, who poked me in the ribs, and then Pablo wanted to play.
We started off, and Bella was stunned up to her eyeballs because I hadn't exactly told her, but Carmen handed her some maracas and they're not a tango instrument but Bella got right into it all and shook them vigorously. All shaker instruments are trickier than you'd expect, but she didn't do too badly, and Pablo's mate Pedro was there with his violin and it was the sort of night I used to have before I met Bella - all beer and music and camaraderie, despite the huge age difference between me and the other players. Only tonight Bella was there, and it was better than ever.
"How could you not happen to mention that you're a musical genius?" she hissed at me in a break between songs, and I shrugged.
"It never really came up. You didn't ask," I replied, and Pablo and Carmen were looking at us with twinkles and gladness, although I was going to have to break the news later that no, Eduardo doesn't have a lovely girlfriend finally, after all this time, it's not like that.
We were there for a couple of hours I guess, and then I told Pablo that I should be getting along, although he'd happily play all night. Thing was, I could already see through the window that the first hints of morning were tinting the sky, and I'd better get my platonic friend home. She knew about the raspberry cordial now, of course, and she didn't appear to be wobbly, but I am never, ever doing that to her again.
Everybody kissed Bella with enthusiasm, and she responded in kind, which stung. They all urged her to come back soon and she agreed fervently that she would, and we left my car there and climbed into a cab.
The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red and all the night's so blue
"Can I talk to you?" she said at her house, and I said, "Uh, yes?", looking towards the meter.
"Will you come in?" she asked.
Oh, fuck. This was it. I felt like I'd just taken a blow to the solar plexus. She was going to say we couldn't be friends, it wasn't working, she'd seen me staring at her, Jacob told her I was staring, it was all over, I'm a dumb boy just like all the other dumb boys and she didn't want me around.
"Is your Dad home?" I managed, after paying the cab driver. Maybe I should tell him to wait. I'm going to need to be driven to hospital soon suffering a terminal wound to the heart.
"Not until the morning," she answered over her shoulder, opening the front door. I followed her in, glumly, not expecting to get out intact.
"Beer?" she asked, and I might as well. Might as well be numb for the fall of the axe.
She curled up at the other end of the couch, away from me.
"Um," she said. "Um."
"Um," I said back to her.
"Well, Edward, um. I haven't wanted a boyfriend. And you've been a lovely friend to me, and I really, really appreciate it. I don't want to muck things up between us. I know this is going to be unwelcome, but I'm just going to burst if I don't say anything. So I'm going to just put it out there, and then you can tell me I'm stupid, and then that'll ease the tension a bit, and then things will be fine, right?" she said.
I had no idea what she's talking about. Is this how you dump a not-boyfriend? I wanted to text Alice and ask her to translate.
Bella inched closer. Huh?
"The thing is, Edward. Um," she said, and she was reddening to a spectacular degree. At least she was embarrassed to dump me.
"What is the thing?" I said, morosely.
"Um. Well, you're not like the others, you haven't been after me from day one and it's been a relief and I've grown to really trust you, and I feel so safe and happy with you and I guess I let my guard down and I've come to realize that you're exactly - well - " she stopped.
I'm exactly what? She moved again, towards me, fidgeting with her hair. I could just smell a faint scent from it. "We get on so well, I love being with you and talking to you, and your sense of humor, and maybe this is all one-way, probably it is, but - " and she kissed me very lightly on the lips.
She kissed me. I sat back stunned.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Bella whispered, horrified at my reaction.
"What are you doing?" I asked her, not wanting to be broken.
"I'm sorry," she said again, trying to scoot back to the other end of the couch. I grabbed her shoulders. She couldn't get away.
"What did you do that for?" I asked, my lips still feeling the softness of hers, the imprint.
"I just - " she said, and I was more or less staring at her with my mouth open doing a goldfish impersonation, awaiting an explanation, and then she did it again. Her own mouth was open, her lips came into contact with mine and both our mouths were already moving as if we were talking silently, and I closed my eyes seeing red flashes on the insides of my eyelids, feeling a tentative rapture at the edges trying to build into an earthquake. We kissed - really, really kissed.
I've done this a lot before, I'm very experienced in the kissing department, thanks to plenty of forward and bold music students I've met over the last couple of years, but kissing Bella was nothing like it was with those other girls. She was shy and eager at the same time, she slid her mouth all over mine, she kept pulling back and then coming at me again and it was delicious and teasing and fulfilling. I couldn't quite get a grip on her, she was controlling the whole event, she slipped her tongue into my mouth and probed wetly and enticed my tongue out to play and then swirled around it with hers. I had never been kissed like this before. I broke the contact to stare at her. I had to warn her not to play with me. If she kept this up, she would have me for life.
And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you
"What are you doing?" I asked her again, my voice catching.
"I really like you," she whispered. "Is this okay? You have to tell me. You can't just kiss me back, and then maybe tomorrow act like nothing's happened. Please, Edward. This means something. Does it mean something?"
The air was lightening around us. Morning was definitely on its way. There was a bit of pale blue around, and her complexion looked unearthly. Her dark eyes were darker than ever.
Don't blow this, Cullen.
"I love you," I said, blowing it entirely.
Her head ducked. Her hair hung heavily. I couldn't read her face because I couldn't see it.
"Fuck, Edward, I just told you I like you. Like. Way to ruin the moment," her voice came, and I couldn't bear it. I took her chin gently and pulled her face up to me. She wasn't smiling. I was going to need that hospital visit after all because I'd just served up my heart to Isabella Swan on a plate and it wasn't in my chest any more and it had just been cut up.
"Like," she said again. "Can we use that as a starting point, and progress from there?"
Hands around my neck, she pulled my face to hers, and the spectacular kissing started again. Apparently, I hadn't blown it. My heart was still whole and like is a good starting point. We'll progress from there.
.
.
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Something Stupid lyrics by C Carson Parks
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