Bella POV.
I arrived at school early the following day, having left early to avoid the treacherous snow that coated the roads. I knew my truck would survive any accidents that happened to befall it today, but I wasn't so sure I was so indestructible. I sat with the heater going, completely unaware of the curious glances I was getting as the car park filled up. Suddenly the engine gave one last great wheeze...and died.
"Great. Just, great." I grumbled as I slipped out the cab into the icy air. I slipped again when I saw Jacob standing right next to me. Curse those supernatural creatures and their amazing ways of moving.
"Hey Bella. Everything alright?" he asked as he grabbed my arm to stop me from sliding onto the ice. I regained my footing before answering.
"I think it died."
"You think?" he grinned.
"Alright, I know it died."
Jacob shook his head, "Bella, Bella, Bella. You really should have learnt by now that heaters aren't made for cold weather. Certainly not in old trucks."
I laughed, I couldn't help it. "You of all people should know I'm not a car person. Let alone an old car person." We both laughed at that, and then the mood became serious again.
"So, what are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming to school this week?" I asked him as I made my way to my first class. He tagged along in his great loping stride. I felt like a midget next to him, and apparently I wasn't the only one to think so - everyone was looking at us.
"Just came by to drop something by at the office. Thought I'd see whether the bloodsucker was up to anything interesting as well."
At the mention of Edward's nickname I felt sick. I'd almost forgotten the previous night's events in Jacob's presence. Jacob was just , so, happy.
"Uh, okay."
"Everything alright between you two?"
Was I really that easy to decipher?
"Sure, sure. I'm just tired." I gave a weak grin, and by the expression on his face I knew that he didn't believe me.
"Anyway, I should be going," he stopped and grinned. "I'll see you around."
"See you, Jake." I turned to wave as I headed off to my next class and clumsily stumbled into Angela.
"Hi Bella. How are you?" I turned to apologize and glanced at the Edward's normal table at the cafeteria. Completely empty. My heart sank, again.
"Oh, sorry Angela. I'm good, just tired. All this homework, you know?"
She nodded, "I agree. I was up until 2 this morning finishing off that Biology report."
I didn't know what to say in response, so I weakly nodded. We walked to English in silence, and the second I entered the room, I knew something was different. Edward wasn't there.
Making it through the day was absolute torture. I couldn't think straight, and my teachers all seemed to think that I'd lapsed back into my dreamless state that had tortured me at the beginning of the previous year. They'd call on me for questions and I didn't have a clue what the answer was. Jessica and Lauren responded with dark sniggers when I'm mumbled that I didn't know and I resisted the urge to throw something at them on my way out. As I made my way to my truck, I ran into Mike. Honestly, how worse could this day get?
"Hi Bella," he grinned cheerfully- or I should say, tried to - since anyone could see the discontent that was plastered across his face.
"Oh. Hi Mike." I replied, picking up my pace to get to my truck faster.
"No Cullen today?"
"Nope."
"What happened? Did he die or something?" he sniggered like it was some great joke. I had sudden envisions of myself whacking him over his useless head with my books, but decided against it. Edward wouldn't like it. Then I stopped myself. Did it really matter what Edward thought, anymore? Especially when he couldn't make an effort to be friends with me when I was friends with Jacob. I pursed my lips and kept walking, trying to lose myself in happier thoughts.
It didn't work.
"So, I was wondering, would you li-"
I cut him off before he could launch into one of his great year long suggestions that made me feel so bad to turn down.
"No Mike. Listen - I'm not interested. I'm sorry, this is going to sound incredibly rude, but..just leave me alone, alright?"
He looked at me like I was some loony, which I probably was, I just didn't know it yet. He glared at me before stomping off in the other direction and I heaved a great sigh of relief to be finally free of it all.
Charlie was in the kitchen, attempting to cook, when I arrived home.
"Hey Bells," he smiled, then kept on stirring the noodles. At least, they looked like noodles from where I was standing.
"Hi Dad. How was your day?" I dropped my bag at the stairs again before entering the kitchen completely.
"Good, good. Not much work going on though. How was yours?"
"Fine," I sighed, but I don't think it was convincing. At all.
"Really?" he murmured, probably afraid I was going into one of my phases again when I became unresponsive and shut myself away from the world.
"Sure, I mean it. Just had a tough day at school."
"Where's your friend?"
"Jacob?" I asked, a small feeling of happiness lighting my heart like fire. I was so glad we'd finally been able to get over that whole "issue" between the vampires and werewolves. At least with Jacob. None of the Cullens were happy about it. Especially not Edward. I felt a familiar pang of unease cross my chest and I slowly crossed my arms tightly across it, to not draw attention to it.
"No. Edward, that's his name? That lying, stupid, mean faced trashload of rubbish that practically tore you in part and then made you drop everything to go back to him a few weeks ago."
Whoops. Looked like Charlie still had a sore spot about that. It was so long ago that I'd almost put it behind me. Almost.
"He's going camping today," I paused, trying to reorganise my words so they didn't sound like gibberish, "with his family. You know how they're always going out on mountain expeditions."
He huffed before dishing up.
"I hate him. Always will. Carlisle the best thing that happened to this town in a long time, and Alice is delightful, but that ignorant son of his makes me so mad." I glanced up worriedly as his voice became rough and he clenched his hands into tight fists.
"Dad. It's alright - I told you before, it was a misunderstanding."
"Yeah, that's what he said, wasn't it?"
"No. He explained it all - actually, Alice did most the explaining." I yawned, hoping to sneak away to my room.
"I've got heaps of homework tonight Dad, and I've already eaten. He looked over in surprise at the change of topic. Normally I didn't let it go down without a fight.
"Alright Bells. Just, be careful around him. You know I love you."
"Night Dad," I smiled and gave him a quick hug before barrelling off upstairs to curl up in bed and deal with the unbearable pain that was ripping itself through my chest.