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Chapter 2

22 September 2011

The tree-house was built by Dr Cullen when his twins were six years old. It cuddles between two trunks, about ten feet above the ground. Shingled roof, little windows. Even a chimney. It's freaking adorable.

A year junior to the Cullen twins, I used to sit in our backyard and listen to the sound of sawing and hammering. He built it smack-dab in the middle of the stretch of woods separating our properties. Mom kept saying she'd talk to Mrs. Cullen, ask if I could play there, too, but I can't remember if she ever did.

I mean, knowing her, she definitely did, but knowing me, I'm not surprised it never happened.

I wonder what she'd think if she knew I'm doing what she wanted, only twelve years later.

Wrapping my coat closer around me, I spin slowly on my heel. Edward's late, and I'm super bored. I'd climb up into the tree house, but he has the key.

Most people might think a padlock on a tree house is overkill, but most people don't have hundreds of dollars worth of collectibles in theirs. That kind of stuff needs to be on lock down.

I'm jumping up and down to keep warm when I hear snapping twigs and shoes shuffling through leaves. Turning around, I see Edward trudging toward me. His hair is still slightly damp from showering after practice, a darker shade of brown than his normal bronze. He smiles as soon as our eyes meet.

"I made coffee," he says, pulling a thermos out of his bag as he walks.

I consider that, but then decide, "You're still late."

"Sorry. Coach was insane today."

"Oh." I consider that too. I concede. Coach really is a nutjob sometimes. "That sucks. I made cookies."

His eyes light up, impossibly happy. "What kind?"

"Just snickerdoodles."

He pumps his fist.

"Oh my god, you're such a dork."

"What? They're my favorite."

"You say that about all the cookies I make you, though."

"Well, maybe I like all the cookies you make me."

"You would," I mutter, and he laughs. I swear, Edward eats more than anyone I know.

Not that that's saying a lot.

"Shall we?" I wave my hand at the ladder.

"Of course," he says, digging the key out of his pocket.

He hands me his bag, climbing up first so he can open the trapdoor. I pass the bags and the coffee up to him, and then hurry up the ladder once he's heaved himself inside.

We settle into our seats. Edward reaches over and turns on the space heater while I set out our snacks. He shoves most of an entire cookie into his mouth. I wrinkle my lip.

"Gross."

He swallows and reaches for another. "What? I'm hungry. I need the sugar." Grabbing his bag and rifling through it, he says, "I think we should take a trip into Port Angeles this weekend."

I raise an eyebrow at his subject change, but don't comment on it. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Portal is going to go bankrupt unless we start buying from them more."

"We are their only customers."

"Right," he laughs as he pulls out one of his Sandman volumes – his favorite. "Which is why we should go."

"But we went last week," I say. Not so much as a protest, but more as a question. Portal Comics being the only comic book shop close by means we go there as often as possible, but that doesn't really mean much. With Edward's busy social life, it's sometimes difficult for him to slip away from his friends. Taking weekly trips into Port Angeles would be difficult to explain, so we usually only manage once a month.

When we do go, we take our separate cars, and we don't leave at the same time. Edward constantly complains about it, but I don't want to risk anyone seeing us. I know he doesn't either.

He shrugs at my statement, but doesn't look up.

"But… I mean, aren't you hanging out with Emmett? You're always watching some game."

He chuckles, but continues reading. "Yeah, but he's hanging out with Rosalie, and the game's not until Sunday."

Now I'm thinking about him staring at Rosalie's ass in gym. Blech.

"So, d'you wanna go?" he asks, oblivious.

"Uhm… yeah?" I take a bite of a cookie to see if that helps settle my mind at all. It doesn't. Him looking up at me with a raised eyebrow does, though. "I mean. Okay. Fine. If you want."

This is a little weird. Why is he being weird?

He smiles. "Great. I'll pick you up at nine."

I choke on my cookie. Gasping, I cover my mouth and cough, eyes watering.

"Whoa," he says, reaching his arm out. "You okay?"

I continue coughing, hoping crumbs won't come flying out of my mouth. "Wh— why are you picking me up?"

He sighs, putting his book to the side. "Because we're not going in separate cars to go to the same place. It's stupid, and environmentally unstable."

"Unsustainable," I correct him, by reflex, taking a careful sip of coffee after he gives me a deadpan face.

"We're taking my car," he says. "Together. I dunno, we'll have lunch or something. Go see a movie?"

I stare at him. "What?"

"I thought we could like… hang out." He shrugs. Again, I stare.

"But what if someone sees us?"

"So?"

"What do you mean, 'so'?" Has he lost his mind?

"So… I don't care." He flips his hands out in a casual gesture.

I'm anything but casual. "Yes, you do."

He laughs. "I really don't. I don't give a shit. I'm allowed to hang out with you."

"But they'll ask questions."

"So?" he says again, openly laughing at me now. "Seriously, Bella, I don't care any more. So they'll ask questions. We'll tell them we're friends. End of story."

I gape at him. "End of story? It won't be end of story. Edward Cullen doesn't hang out with Bella Swan without that causing a— a ruckus."

He snorts. "A ruckus? Oh my."

I throw my half-eaten cookie at him. "I'm serious!"

He stares at me, wide-eyed, both amused and incredulous. "What was that for?"

"I don't… I don't want a ruckus. I like not being a ruckus."

He's painfully aware of this. His expression seems to freeze for a second, only to slip away like it wasn't there at all. I can see the disappointment on his face as he looks down, picking the cookie out of his lap.

Immediately, I feel terrible. All Edward wants to do is hang out with me, in public. Like real friends do.

But I can't, because I like not being noticed. I like not having people look at me. And if we hang out in public, and someone sees us, they'll notice. They'll start talking, and they'll stare at me at school, and I don't want that. I don't know how to deal with that.

"I'm sorry," I mumble, guilt settling in my gut, squirming and heavy. "It's not that I don't want to hang out. I just…" I trail off, ending with a shrug instead.

He shakes his head. "No, I know. It's fine."

We both know it isn't.

"Look, Bella," he says after a pause, choosing his words carefully. "I haven't heard of anyone making plans to go to Port Angeles this weekend, if that makes you feel better. And we'll stay away from the popular hang-outs. We'll go to lunch, go to the comic book store, and then… I don't know. We'll think of something to do."

I look up at him. He just looks back, his eyes open and honest.

This is weird.

"Why are you suddenly so okay with this?" I say. "You don't want people knowing about this stuff any more than I do." I wave my hand around, indicating our shared collection. For two years we've kept our comic books and collectibles here in the tree house — my secret haven, and his secret hideaway. Keeping it secret is one of the cornerstones of our entire friendship, and now he's going to act like it suddenly doesn't matter?

He glances off to the side for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Well, maybe I decided I don't care any more."

I narrow my eyes. "Bullshit."

"It's not! I swear to god, it's not."

"Why are you lying? Did you do something? Are you in trouble or something?"

He looks at me like I've lost my mind. "No."

"Then what the crap!"

"God, why are you being so difficult?" he exclaims, throwing his hands out. "I want to hang out with you in a place that isn't cold, cramped, and smelly! Is that really so hard to believe?"

I clamp my lips together. My instinctive answer is 'yes' but something tells me he won't like that.

I try to wait him out. Several seconds pass, and all he does is stare at me like he knows what I'm doing and he's not going to take my shit. I reluctantly mutter, "No."

"Okay then."

Another moment of silence passes, and still he's just staring at me. I throw up my hands.

"Fine. We'll go."

"Together. In my car," he says quickly, as if to close off all my loopholes.

I roll my eyes. "Fine."

His face immediately lights up with one of his stupidly perfect smiles. My guilt squirms uncomfortably when I wonder how believable he'd find it if I came down with a sudden case of stomach flu on Friday night.

He picks his book back up, snagging another cookie as he continues reading where he left off. I hide my nervousness until he gets too absorbed in his comic to pay attention to me. I grab a random copy and pretend to be reading too, robotically turning the page every now and then.

God, what if someone sees us? If Rosalie, Jessica, and Lauren can gossip about Edward simply for looking at her… What would they do if they saw him with me? Me, geeky loner Bella, who needs reading-glasses and wears flannel shirts basically all the time. Captain of the freaking chess club.

And him, Edward, basketball star, with the perfect hair and shoulders and tallness. The guy everyone loves.

People would think he's trying to win a bet.

The thoughts continue to swirl in my mind, round and round, until Edward's phone vibrates an hour later.

He glances at it. "Dinner," he says, sighing.

"Yeah, I should probably get back too, before Mom gets worried."

We start packing up our things. I'm reconsidering my idea to not tell him about the locker room gossip. If he knew, maybe he'd be so horrified he'd see my side of the situation and cancel our plans.

"So…" I say, pushing the last cookie towards him. "I heard something interesting today."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmhm." I try my best to look and sound nonchalant. "In the girls' locker room."

He looks up, eyebrows raised. "Oh? Please tell me it had something to do with bras."

"What? No."

"No? Not really?"

"Jesus, no."

"Oh. That's disappointing," he says, frowning.

I shake my head, closing my eyes. "No, it— it was actually about you."

He goes completely still. "Me?"

"Yeah. Lauren, Jessica, and Rosalie were talking about you." I study his face; this doesn't garner a reaction. At least not one I can see.

"What were they saying?"

"Well, they said that during Gym, you'd been… staring."

"Staring?" He suddenly looks a little worried. Oh god, was he staring? My heart sinks. I wish I hadn't brought it up.

"Yeah. At Rosalie."

He blinks quickly. "I stared at Rosalie?"

"Apparently."

"What does that mean?"

I shrug, although I really do think he should know what it means. "They seemed to think it meant that you maybe… I don't know, that you have some kind of interest in h-her."

His chin dips down as he stares at me. "Interest?"

"Yes. Interest. In Rosalie, and her, uhm, gym-shorts."

"Gym-shorts," he says, looking like he doesn't actually understand a word I'm saying.

"They think you were staring at her ass! They think you like her. Like-her like-her."

His forehead wrinkles and his chin squishes, mouth curling down at the ends. "I don't like-her like-her! I barely like her at all."

"But you were staring at her."

"No, I wasn't."

"You weren't?"

"No, of course not," he says, shuddering. "Ugh, god. Gross. Why would you tell me that? I'm going to have nightmares," he mumbles at his cookie, like an afterthought.

I suddenly want to tell Rosalie to suck it.

"Sorry." I'm not sorry.

"God, why would she think that? She's Emmett's girlfriend."

"Please. Rosalie thinks she's so hot everyone has a crush on her."

"Well, she's not." He says is flippantly, but he won't look at me when he says it, like he's embarrassed. But then, so would I be if he told me I'd been caught staring at someone's ass.

Actually, I might die.

"Okay," I say, not looking at him either in the hopes of not embarrassing him further.

We continue packing, with only the hum of the space-heater filling the quietness. When he's zipped up his bag, I can feel him looking at me. He doesn't speak until I'm done.

"So you're telling me girls never talk about bras in locker rooms?" He grins, his eyes warm as he watches me.

I snort, shaking my head. "Maybe, I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? Of course you know."

"Well, if they do, they don't talk about them with me."

I mean it as a joke, but his grin slips a little. He's always more sensitive about my lack of friends than I am. I wish I could take the words back, so he wouldn't have to feel sad.

"I see a lot of bras, though," I say, hoping it'll cheer him up.

His smile brightens again, so I guess it works. "I bet you do."

I laugh with a small sigh. "Well. Anyway…"

"Yeah," he says. "We better get going. Turn off the heater?"

"Sure," I say, getting to my knees as he shuffles over and opens the door. He climbs through the hole, but pauses with his head still inside. I turn to him and raise an eyebrow. For a moment, he looks like he doesn't know whether he should speak or not. He keeps his gaze on my shoulder.

"And… just so you know – they were only half-right. I was staring, but not at Rosalie."

My eyebrow goes a little higher. I don't understand.

His lips open and close for a couple of seconds, before he takes a small breath.

"I happen to think you look very nice in your gym-shorts."

The words have barely left his mouth before he's disappearing from sight, climbing down to the ground.

I stare at the air where his face was, hearing his words over and over in my mind, but unable to fully grasp their meaning.

I look nice in my gym-shorts?

I clumsily make my way down the ladder, eyes wide open, heart beating furiously.

He's already gone by the time I put my feet on the ground.

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