Hey, so heres the next chapter. R&R!

Pick up tray with both hands. Place change on tray. Do not drop change. Do not... drop...

Bella managed to transfer the coins and bills from her sweaty palm onto the side of her plastic lunch tray without overturning the whole thing. Se breathed a sigh of relief and smiled in triumph at the cafeteria lady. The woman looked like she was about to phone the school shrink.

Bella managed an apologetic smile and stepped aside.

"And then out of nowhere, my dad's like, 'If you don't get all A's and B's on your final report card you're not going to LA," Jasper babbled to her as he stepped up to the register. "I mean, how wrong is that? Me and the guys already booked the tickets."

As always, he was totally oblivious of Bella's extreme stress – all of which was caused by him. Bella pretty much lived not to do anything embarrassing in front of Jasper. As long as she didn't, she figured one day her fantasy of him waking up and realizing she was his one true love might actually come true. She knew it was a thin strand of logic, but still, she had to cling to something.

"Don't you think?" Jasper asked.

"What? Oh yeah," Bella replied, not really knowing what she was agreeing to.

"So then I'm like, I am so totally screwed. I mean, there's no way I can pull a C up to a B in calc. Garfield sucks, giving us that much homework," Jasper continued. He paid for his lunch, pocketed the change and picked up his tray with one hand. He clearly had no problem. "We're graduating in a month. Is he some kind of sadist?"

"You could just not do it," Bella suggested.

"We're you not listening to me? I have to get a B or no Cali this summer. I have to do it," Jasper told her as they started down the center aisle of the cafeteria. Bella glanced at him from the corner of her eye and smiled. As silly as it was, she loved the way he looked in this light. The platinum streaks in his wheat blonde hair seemed brighter, and the sun brought out the sharpness of his steely gray eyes. The way the shadows brought out...

"So will you?"

Bella stopped walking abruptly, and her soda almost slid off the edge of her tray. Luckily, Jasper caught it in time.

"Whoops. That was close," he said with a grin. There was a tiniest little chip in his front tooth from a rollerblading incident he had when he was nine. He always touched his tongue to it when he was concentrating really hard. It was totally adorable.

"Will I what?" Bella asked, balancing the tray against her hip. She nervously pulled her hair over her shoulder.

"Help me. With Calc. After school," Jasper said in a voice that made it perfectly clear he had said that already.

Bella had planned on finishing her book after school, she was at a very climatic part, but Jasper was looking at her with his big, hypnotizing eyes and she could never turn him down.

"Sure. Want to meet up in the library after school?" she said, tugging on her hair again.

Jasper grinned. "What would I do without you?"

I don't know, but right now you should kiss me, she thought. Then she blushed and turned, heading for their normal spot.

They always sat in the same place, right next to the huge glass windows and in the corner, away from prying ears. Bella's knees were quaking a bit after her recent space-out, and she couldn't have been more relieved when she slid safely into a chair. Unfortunately, the vibe at the table wasn't a happy one. Alice slumped in her seat like she had all week, listlessly toying with her food while Rosalie eyed her sadly. This had to stop. Bella had never seen her friend so depressed for so many days in a row. Usually, her and Mike would have kissed and made up by now – not that Bella wanted that to happen. She just wished she could figure out some other way to cheer Alice up.

"Hi, guys!" Bella chirped brightly.

"Hey." Alice's voice was barely a whisper.

"What's up?" Jasper asked, shaking his chocolate milk. He looked around at the girls hopefully, as he'd been doing all week. Bella knew he was waiting for them to all snap out of it already. Jasper was a good friend to them, but he knew nothing about the female mourning period after the end of an intense and long relationship.

"Nothing," Alice replied in another near whisper, staring out the window.

Jasper sighed, shrugged and grabbed a fry. Bella saw him look at Alice out of the corner of his eye, and she knew he was trying to figure out a way to make her happy again. This only made Bella love him more.

The door to the cafeteria opened, and Bella and Rosalie both looked up automatically, as anyone facing the door did when there was a latecomer. It was Lauren Mallory and she was wearing a very familiar green sweater. Bella's face prickled with heat, and she looked over at Rosalie. Instantly, she knew Rose had recognized it to. They had, after all, spent two hours in the hot, Christmas-time crowded mall helping Alice pick it out. And another half hour helping her select the perfect manly wrapping paper for it.

"Oh I don't believe this...," Rosalie snarled through gritted teeth.

"What?" Alice asked, turning around. Bella wouldn't have thought it possible, but Alice's skin actually grew sallower before her eyes. "Wait. Is that the-?"

"The sweater you bought Mike for Christmas?" Rosalie fumed, shaking her head.

Alice looked over at Mike's table, where he sat with the rest of his friends. There was Jacob Black, who wore his pants so low, you could see his entire ass, Tyler Crowley who did more drugs that TI, Quil Arteara who smoked like a chimney and never shaved, and then there was Embry Call, who constantly wore shirts with offensive language and graphics on them. Mike instantly locked eyes with Alice, as if he had some 'Alice-radar', then glanced over at Lauren, who was busy smiling and chatting with some of her friends near the door. He was out of his chair like a shot and walked right over to Alice's table.

"Alice," he said, his blue eyes pained.

"You gave her my sweater?" Alice asked in a thick voice.

"No. I swear. She must have taken it out of my dresser," Mike said. As if he cared about Alice's feelings. As if he actually had a conscience.

"She was in your room?" Alice half whimpered.

Mike pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and looked around at the others. "Alice, can we please talk for just a second?"

Alice remained quiet, and Bella's hopes rose that she was finally going to ignore Mike.

"Can we ... please?"

"Fine," Alice said, standing.

She and Mike walked to the other end of the cafeteria, near the vending machines.

"Unbelievable," Rosalie said, shaking her head so her blonde hair shook down her back like a waterfall. Bella looked at Rosalie in carefully hidden jealousy. She hated that Rosalie was so beautiful. With the blonde hair, and the blue eyes and the tall and curvy physique, the girl was a high class beauty. She tuned back in when Rose spoke again. "I can't believe she's actually talking to him."

She got up quietly and walked around the table, heading for the vending machines – about three feet from where Alice and Mike were now standing.

"Rosalie!" Bella hissed.

Rosalie turned around and shot her a wide eyed look, telling her to shut up. Bella deflated and turned back to her food. It wasn't like she was going to argue. Rosalie was going to do what Rosalie wanted to do anyway.

Over at the vending machines, Rosalie made a good show of pulling out some change and pretending like she was totally baffled by the myriad of candy choices. Meanwhile, Mike and Alice kept talking, to engrossed I their conversation to notice the eavesdropper. Finally, Rosalie aggressively punched in a number, grabbed her Twix bar, and stormed back to the table. She yanked out the chair and dropped into it with a huff.

"Okay, that guy should be a politician," Rosalie said. "He is all slime."

"Why? What's going on?" Jasper asked, finally buying in to the mini soap opera.

"First of all, he said he still cares about her and always will," Rosalie grumbled. "And that he'd never give the sweater she gave him to another girl."

"Well, that's good right?" Jasper asked, before chugging his chocolate milk.

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Then he told her she should move on. He thinks she's too good for him and she can do better," she whispered furiously.

Bella snorted. "Well, he's got that right."

"Yeah, but to him it's a total joke. He knew she was going to disagree which of course she did. 'I don't understand why your so hard on yourself. I love you, you know that,'" she said, doing a perfect imitation of Alice's bell-like voice. "He totally keeps her hanging. I swear I could just— Urgh!" she curled her hands into fists and grunted in frustration.

"Okay, okay. Calm down," Bella said, putting her hand over Rosalie's.

"She can't take him back," Rosalie said, shaking her head. "She can't be second to Lauren Skank-Ho Mallory. We need to stage an intervention. Threaten her with something."

Bella rolled an empty straw wrapper between her fingers and laughed. "Like what?"

"I don't know ... maybe we should tell her we won't be her friends anymore! Freeze her out," Rosalie announced. "Tough love, like in that DVD we watched in health class sophomore year."

"Um ... Alice isn't a crack addict," Bella pointed out.

"No. But she is a Mike addict," Rosalie shot back.

Bella's heart dropped. Rosalie couldn't be serious. At least, Bella hoped she wasn`t. Because usually, when Rosalie came up with a plan, she stuck to it. And she made everyone around her stick to it as well.

"We can't do that," Jasper said, crumpling up the empty milk container. "It's way too mean. And besides, none of us could actually go through with it.

Rosalie's face dropped and she slumped. "You're right. But we have to do something to make her realize she doesn't need this jackass," Rosalie said, glancing over at them. Bella saw Alice nod at something Mike was saying, and the very sight made her tense.

Bella shook her head. "Alice's way too good for him. If she goes back to him, it'll be a total disaster."

Jasper nodded, his mouth full of fries.

"Good, at least we all see it," Rosalie said, setting her jaw in a determined way. She pulled a leather boot clad foot up on the chair and rested her chin on her knee. "Now we just have to come up with a way to make her see it."

Short, but important.

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