Twilight and all its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. My warped view of the story belongs to my imagination.
I have to give a special thanks to my beta, best friend and greatest roommate ever: perpetualfangirl. Also, I have a big thank you to everyone who read and favorited my story. I was almost certain when I posted last week that no one would read it so every time someone favorited my story it put a big smile on my face! It would put an even bigger smile on my face if you left a review.
10 points to anyone who can name the song and artist who inspired this chapter's title. Hint: He's a member of the Britpack.
Oh one final note: There's some lemony goodness in this chapter. I hope you enjoy it because the story is going to take a while before we see anymore lemons.
BPOV: I was running away. I had no idea where I was going. I just had to put as much space as possible between temptation and myself. I pressed my foot down harder on the gas pedal but my little Mini could only go so fast. Shit! I wished I was on the back of my Sportster, then I could truly fly away.
I had never been so tempted in my entire existence. My family's lifestyle had never been a problem for me before. From the day I learned what I was I vowed that I would never be weak like her. Surviving on animal blood had become so easy that I thought of it as natural to me. I thought I was immune to temptation. How could one mere teenage boy ruin all that I am? I did not even know his name. All I knew was that I wanted him. My desire for his blood was stronger than any sensation I had ever felt in all my 150 years. This was not me. This could not be me. I could not be her. I could not be Renee.
Thinking about Renee brought me back to my responsibilities. I glanced at the clock. I had been driving for exactly one hour, which gave me exactly one hour before Charlie would start searching for me. If I wanted to avoid troubling him, I had to turn around now. On the other hand, I could call him and explain. Charlie would understand. He would even pack everything up and follow me if I let him. Then I would never have to return to Forks and the unbearable temptation that lived there. I knew I should call him but I did not touch my phone. It felt like admitting defeat to confess to Charlie that I was every bit as weak as his wife. My pride could not countenance it.
I had to make a choice, either keep running or turn back. If I kept driving, I would have to call Charlie eventually. I could not allow him to worry over me. My relationship with Charlie was such that if I called him, I would tell him everything. If I told Charlie everything, he would tell Renee everything and she would conclude that I shared her weakness. The idea made me feel ill. If I turned back now, I could pretend everything was normal. I could avoid telling them anything . . . until I ripped the boy's throat out. I grimaced. If that came to pass, then I really would be Renee. I wanted to believe I was strong enough not to harm the boy but I was almost certain escaping from that damn biology class had taken up all my will power. I glanced at the clock again and made my decision. Cursing, I turned the car around a headed back to Forks. I just hoped my pride had not cost the boy his life.
I managed to make it home without killing anyone. This was largely due to the fact that I never saw the boy on my drive home and, since I did not know the boy's name, I certainly did not know where he lived. Then again it would not be difficult to find his home if I just followed his scent . . . which was the last thing I needed to be thinking. It truly was beneficial, especially for the boy, that I lived on the outside of Forks. I stepped through the front door to find Charlie and Renee waiting in the foyer.
"Hey, Bells!" Charlie said as he shot me a relieved look. I must have just made it home in time for him to leave for work.
"Hey, Baby! How was your day?" Renee asked excitedly. Inwardly, I cringed at the endearment. I was over a hundred years old, well beyond a baby by anyone but Renee's measure.
"Typical," I answered. Charlie frowned at my terse response. Renee seemed unruffled by my brusqueness and began drilling me with questions about my first day at Forks High. Before I could respond to any of the questions that had been fired at me, Charlie reminded us of his need to get to work. We both told Charlie good bye as he walked out the door.
"We should get going too" Renee said when she turned her attention back to me.
"Where are we going?" I asked slightly alarmed. It seemed Renee had already devised a plan and those never went well for me.
"Shopping in town. I am eager to get to know Forks," She answered. She was practically bouncing up in down in her excitement. Now I was greatly alarmed. Leave it to Renee to choose the very outing that I needed to avoid the most.
"How about we stay at home and talk? I thought you wanted to know all about my first day of school," I suggested. I knew it was a thin pretext but it was the first idea I could come up with. Renee seemed to be thrilled at my unexpected offer to open up to her. I thought I had won.
"We can talk while we shop," she replied which dashed all my hopes. "Unless . . ." Renee began. She cocked her head at me as she played with whatever thought had just entered her mind. "You are not worried that I will slip up again, are you? Bella, I promise the last time honestly was the last time. I can control myself, I know it. You and Charlie have to give me a chance," She pleaded. They were the same worn out lines she had been using since the moment I met her. Normally her empty promises pissed me off even if they still managed to work on Charlie. I only found her words mildly annoying today because I knew I was the deadlier threat to the quiet town of Forks at the moment.
"That is not the issue at all, Renee. It is just that after spending eight hours with its high school students, I have reached my limited of all things Forks related for the day," I explained in an attempt to placate her. I could tell from the way Renee looked at me that she was trying to decide if she could believe me. "We go shopping in Port Angeles" I suggested. Renee's whole face lit up and this time I knew I had succeeded.
"Great idea, baby!" She squealed while I ground my teeth at the endearment.
Hours later it was still a great idea. For once I felt grateful for Renee's desperate need to win me over. It made her more than willing to spend the entire evening in Port Angeles. Babysitting Renee proved to be a worthy distraction from the temptation calling to me from Forks. She kept my mind busy creating reasonable answers to all her questions on my first day of school during the drive. Once in Port Angeles it took all my concentration to keep Renee out of trouble.
Charlie and I had been sharing Renee-sitting duty since I proved myself able to resist feeding on humans. Charlie never made it mandatory for me to take on this responsibility for Renee but I knew he deserved a break and he only needed me to look after her during the short time he was away at work. Plus she had not slipped-up under my watch in decades, which is why I tried to continue my vigilance even when Charlie was home. He gave her entirely too much freedom but I never blamed him for the mishaps, though he blamed himself. Charlie was blinded by his love for Renee and he always acted out of this love. No, I could not blame Charlie. Instead, I held Renee responsible.
Renee had the self-control of a four year old, yet she insisted in getting involved with the human inhabitants wherever we lived. After two hundred plus years of this gypsy life, you would think she would be bored from acquainting herself with town after town. I knew I was sick of it and she a little had more than fifty years on me. Yet, Renee loved it. She seemed to thrive off of meeting new people and making friends who rarely thrived for long after meeting Renee. She had this misguided notion to make our family as normal as possible. She wanted to join book clubs and have dinner parties.
She would concoct the most ridiculous plans that almost always ended in disaster. Her most horrendous plan happened when she decided what our family needed was a child. I do not know why Renee keeps trying to turn people. She has only succeeded once. The little girl bleed to death before the turning was complete. Tragic as it was things would have been worse if Renee had managed to turn her. She should have never touched the girl. She should not have even thought about it.
While thinking about all of Renee's mistakes, I realized I had to talk to Charlie about the boy. I could not let him be my mistake. I was not like Renee who never seemed to look back. If I killed the boy, it would haunt for the rest of my existence. Charlie would know what I needed to do to avoid that end. I trusted him completely.
Renee and I made it home less than half an hour before Charlie was due home. Renee decided to start a home project so she was no longer the distraction I needed. My mind kept wandering back to the boy. I found myself wondering where he was at that exact moment. I imagined how easy it would be to track him down and . . . snap out of it, Bella! I was relieved when Charlie's police cruiser pulled up to the house. I rushed to meet him in the garage.
"Did Renee get into trouble?" Charlie asked as he got out of the cruiser. I immediately felt guilty for alarming him with my sudden appearance.
"No, she had a shockingly harmless evening," I answered with a self-deprecating smile at the fact that I was the one who had been flirting with trouble all day, "Actually I needed to talk to you about my day."
"Could this have anything to do with you cutting your last two classes?" He asked, sounding full of fatherly authority.
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"The people of Forks are all too eager to inform me about the mischief my teenage daughter gets into," Charlie explained as he gave me a conspiratorial wink.
I laughed and rolled my eyes. "We are really going to have to watch ourselves in this town."
"We are really going to have to watch Renee," Charlie added sobering up. He glanced askance at the door leading to the house. I knew immediately what he was wondering.
"She's decided all the rooms need to be repainted with 'cheerful' colors."
"That explains the smell," He said chuckling to himself. His adoration for Renee was written all over his face. It was difficult for me to understand how anyone could fall for Renee, let alone practical Charlie. "Well, she should be busy painting for awhile. Why don't you and I take a walk?" He suggested. Somehow he sensed my reluctance to spill my problems so close to Renee.
I flashed him an appreciative smile and we headed in to the surrounding woods. We began to walk in large circle around the house, neither of us wanting to leave Renee completely unsupervised. At first we walked silently as I tried in vain to figure out how to start this unorthodox conversation.
"You can start anytime you are ready," Charlie prompted teasingly.
"I just do not know how to begin," I explained sheepishly.
"What about telling me why you left school early?" He suggested. Leave it to Charlie to hit right in the center of the problem.
"Well, there was this boy in my biology class . . ."
"A boy?" Charlie asked intrigued.
"Not like that at all," I said rolling my eyes, "I was not interested in him as a mate. All I was interested in was his smell . . . his blood. Charlie, I have never NEVER wanted a human's blood like I wanted his. It took everything I had in me to leave the classroom without hurting him. The worst thing is I am still craving his blood. I have no clue what to do, how to handle this. I just feel so weak."
"You are not weak, Bella. Hell, sometimes I think you are stronger than Renee and I put together. What you are going through now is just your instincts finally catching up with you. Honestly, I expected this to happen a long time ago," Charlie replied and he put his arm around me in a comforting gesture. Relief flooded over me. Charlie's opinion was the only one that matter in my life. I do not think I could cope if I disappointed him. "As far as solving this problem goes, all you have to do is say the word and we are out of this town," he offered just as I knew he would.
I thought about us leaving for a moment but it did not sit well with me. It felt way too much like running away which was not me at all. Plus, I could not make myself a burden to Renee and Charlie. This was my problem and I did not want anyone else to have to pay for it.
"But we just moved here and Renee is obviously getting settled. I can not ask you to pack everything up and leave again," I tried to explain.
"Of course you can," Charlie said as he shrugged off my insecurities. "How often have you done just that for Renee? We owe you. Renee will understand. In fact, I think she will be pleased that for once we are not leaving because of something she did." He smiled at me but I could not find it in me to smile back. The thing I dreaded the most was for Renee to think this somehow made her and me the same.
I stopped walking and shrugged out of Charlie's embrace. I knew he would not be pleased with what I was about to say. "Charlie, I do not want Renee to know about any of this," I declared. I steeled myself and stared him straight in the eye.
"Bella . . ." he began with a sigh.
"Please," I cut in. I rarely asked him for anything. I hoped that fact made him realize how important this was to me.
"She will want to know why we have to move and I will not lie to her," he said, standing his ground but I expected this argument.
"Then we will not move. I think you are right. My history proves the strength of my self-control. Surely, it is strong enough to avoid the temptation of a teenage boy," I replied. I was hoping my voice gave away more confidence than I actually felt.
"You can not know that for sure and I will not have you put an innocent at risk just because you do not want Renee to know you are not impervious to temptation," Charlie countered. He had successfully cut through all my crap and gone straight to the heart of the matter.
"That is not what I am doing," I continued stubbornly. He did not seem to believe so I added, "Look, when I was out with Renee today I almost completely forgot about the boy. Obviously, he has not destroyed all of my self-control. I just have to become distracted enough that his scent loses its power over me."
"Perhaps . . . but I do not think you should be throwing yourself in the way of this temptation. You would just be gambling with this boy's life," Charlie said still unconvinced.
"Then I will stay away from the school, from the whole town of Forks until I am sure of my self-control again," I resolved. I could not give up on this issue.
"I think Renee will notice you are not going to school. She will want to know why." Charlie could be just as stubborn as me.
"I will keep up the appearance of going to school everyday and find somewhere else to be. I will drive to Port Angeles everyday if I have to. Please, just give me until the end of the week. If I am not strong enough to return to school by the end of the week, then I will tell Renee everything and we will leave. Please, Charlie have faith in me," I begged. This was my trump card. After his continued faith in Renee, regardless how many times she let him down, Charlie really could not deny me this when I had never let him down before.
"One week," He relented. "Please do not make me regret this."
"I promise I will not disappoint you. You promise you will not say anything to Renee," It was more of a question than a statement.
"I promise," Charlie gave in reluctantly.
EPOV: We were back in biology class. I couldn't concentrate on anything the teacher was saying because of my mingled fascination and rage toward Isabella. She was dressed like a slut with the top buttons of her blouse undone allowing for a teasing glimpse of the black bra she had on under it. Her skirt was practically nonexistent and showed off her perfect legs. It amazed me how someone so little could have legs that went on forever. Her fuck me heels drove me crazy with desire. When her eyes met mine, her hatred for me was a palpable thing and it made me despise her.
The bell rang which brought an end to my daily dose of torture. I leaned down for my bag and when I stood up the entire class seemed to have vanished. Only Isabella and I were left in the classroom. She stood blocking my way as she took her own sweet time packing up her things and completely ignored me. At that moment, all the rage I felt toward her crashed over me and I snapped.
"Why are you such a bitch?!" I demanded.
Isabella stared up at me looking shocked and disgusted by my audacity in speaking to her, which only fueled my anger. "I don't know maybe it is because I am forced to spend my day with revolting assholes like you," she answered snidely as she turned to leave. I grabbed her upper arm and wheeled back around to face me. She stumbled but caught herself right before she crashed into me. We stood less than an inch apart and glared at each other.
"You know nothing about me. You have no right to judge me. Anyway, who said you weren't revolting? Who would want a shallow slut like you anyway?" I snapped. As I spoke, Isabella kept trying to shrug out of my grasp but I just tightened my hold unwilling to release her. She went still when my words registered in her head.
"You don't want me?" She challenged practically purring. Isabella parted her full lips and struck a seductive pose which caused her breast to lightly press against my chest.
"No more than you want me," I growled. Then I kissed her hard and crushed her to me. I poured all the desire and anger that raged inside me into our kiss.
Isabella clung to my chest and kissed me back just as roughly. She nipped first at my lips and then my tongue as I thrust it between her lips to claim her mouth. Her hands slid into my hair so she could grasp fistfuls and pull slightly. My hands slid down her form, when they reached her hips I lifted her up. Her long legs immediately wrapped around my hips as I settled her on the edge of our lab table.
I broke the kiss then so I could search her face. I found exactly what I hoped for in her passion clouded eyes. Isabella could hate me forever as long as she burned for me the way I did for her. In frustration, she pulled my face back down to hers in a silent demand for my kiss. I let her have her way for a moment but then I broke the kiss to trail my lips down her neck. She let her head fall back to offer more which I took greedily.
Isabella's hands moved from my hair to run down chest and abdomen. They finally stopped at my waistband and began undoing my pants. At the same time, I shoved her skirt up to her waist. My hands ripped off her panties just as she freed my dick from my jeans. I grasped Isabella's hips and plunged my swollen dick into her hard. She cried out in pleasure or pain or some mixture of both. I wasn't sure which and I really didn't give a fuck either way.
At that crucial moment, my alarm clock sounded. I woke up from another erotic dream with a stream of expletives pouring from my mouth. After turning off my clock, I rolled over on my back to glare up at the ceiling as sexual frustration and self-disgust welled up inside me. I had been fucking Isabella stupid in my dreams every night after the first day I met her. I never knew it was possibly to viciously hate and desperately want the same person. Isabella represented everything I loathed. I should be disgusted by her. On some level she did disgust me but not enough to stop me from wanting to do unspeakable things to her body. I hated the power she held over me. No one had seen Isabella for the past three days, yet she still managed to torture me.
Emmett interrupted my brooding by pounding on my door and yelling "You have to stop jacking off, now! Mom said it's time to get up!" I could hear his booming laugh through the door. I rolled my eyes at his crude humor and began getting dressed.
I decided to choosing the lesser of two evils and caught a ride to school with Jasper and Alice instead of Emmett and Rosalie. Emmett and Jasper had been giving me hell since Monday. The entire school knew Isabella abandoned the rest of her classes right after spending an hour next to me. My brother and Jasper had decided I must be responsible for her continued absence and they thought it was hilarious to speculate on what I did to scare her away. Normally, I could laugh off their teasing but currently I had an extremely short fuse thanks to my already agitated state. Fortunately, Alice tempered Jasper's humor at my expense while Rosalie just seemed to make Emmett worse.
"I think we will see Isabella today," Alice said without preamble. At least I thought it was without preamble, I had been distracted before and couldn't be certain. Now she had my full attention.
"You think or you know?" Jasper asked.
"I just have a feeling . . ." She replied blushing.
"So you know," He stated with confidence. Their exchanged surprised me a little. I hadn't been completely certain Jasper knew about Alice's feelings. The fact that he took Alice seriously raised my respect for him, which he immediately destroyed by adding, "Looks like I won the bet! Emmett didn't think Isabella would get over whatever Edward did to her until next week." He started to laugh but Alice's glare shut him up. I desperately needed my own car.
I didn't know how to take Alice's news. I couldn't decide if seeing Isabella would make things better or worse. I wondered if I would have a opportunity to confront her about that first day. It seemed a little childish to bring up something that happened days ago but obviously I wasn't over it so maybe getting my chance to tell her off would help. I wondered if our second meeting would end like one of my dreams. I started to get a little too excited at that idea so I quickly moved on to another thought. Maybe Alice was wrong and I wouldn't see Isabella at all today. Maybe I would just catch a glimpse of her as she headed to the office to drop out of school. I didn't know which scenario I preferred the most. Well, I knew which one my dick preferred but it wasn't so obvious for the rest of me.
As I thought about this Jasper turned into the school parking lot. The students already at school seemed to have their attention fixated on one particular spot in the parking lot. Glancing at that spot, it became obvious what fascinated them so. Alice had been correct. Isabella was back.