Chapter 4

Lunch

BPOV

I met Alice in the queue in the cafeteria for lunch. She was with Jasper and his friend, a guy named Tyler Crowley who was also on the basketball team. Jasper grinned at me and Alice grabbed my arm.

"Edward's sitting with us at lunch." She whispered excitedly – out of earshot of Jasper who was listening to Tyler Crowley going on about some basketball game.

I raised an eyebrow at her and shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly, "And?" I asked.

"And I can finally get to talk to him!"

I shook my head at her and started selecting my lunch from the counter. Although I was acting indifferent, I was actually kind of excited that Edward would be sitting at our table and also a little nervous. My stomach started fluttering and I slightly lost my appetite.

We went to sit down at our usual table to find Jessica Stanley and Tanya Denali sitting there. They were in a few of my classes and although they didn't speak to me, they sometimes spoke to Alice and Jasper and had invited us to a few of their parties. They had never sat with us before though, and it was easy to guess why they suddenly wanted to today. I rolled my eyes at such blatant desperation.

"Hey Tanya, hey Jess," Alice said, her eyebrows slightly raised, "what are you two doing here?"

"Oh, we just wanted to make Rosalie and Jasper's cousin feel a little more welcome." Tanya replied cheerfully.

"Oh, ok." Alice said uncertainly.

We sat down and started eating; making awkward conversation that none of us was really paying attention to, constantly darting our eyes to the cafeteria doors to see if a certain guy was coming through them. Jasper and Tyler were still talking basketball, completely oblivious to us and our strained conversation.

EPOV

I took my time getting to the cafeteria. I had already put off going in there long enough by sitting in my car for a bit, listening to a CD and my stomach was growling now; reminding me I hadn't had any breakfast. The cafeteria would be the worst place, I knew. Nearly everyone in the whole school would be there and they would be able to stare at me all they wanted.

I groaned.

I walked through the halls slowly, taking my time to reach the green doors to the cafeteria. On my way there though, I nearly wanted to jump some huge guy who I thought – at first glance – was attacking Rose. On closer inspection I noticed that he was actually making out with her, his lips attacking her hungrily against the lockers. They didn't even notice me walking past, as they were so engrossed in their make out session. I grimaced. That was definitely a sight I regretted seeing. I reached the cafeteria door and took a deep breath before I pushed it open and walked inside.

It was worse than I expected. The whole cafeteria actually went silent for a second, like in a damn movie. I could feel the stares all around me now and there was nowhere to look; no way to ignore them. To my horror, I felt me face heat up and I knew I was probably going red.

Shit.

I hated blushing; it made me feel like a fucking girl. I quickly picked something of the counter, paid for it and started searching through the rows of eyes to look for Jasper's table.

I finally saw him and hurried over, relieved, and sat down across from him.

He was grinning at me, "Dude, why are you all red?"

I glared at him. "I don't know," I mumbled.

I looked down at my food and started eating when I heard someone clear their throat. I looked up to see a small girl, with short, black, spiky hair, wide grey eyes and a pixie – like face with a small button nose, glaring at Jasper. I recognised her as Jazz's girlfriend; she had been at their house one weekend I had stayed over.

"Jasper you're being very rude you know," she said, "I'm sure Edward would like to be introduced to the people he's sitting with."

Her words caused me to look around the table and I stifled a groan. Sitting at the end of the table was none other than Tanya Denali and Jessica Stanley.

These girls were desperation personified.

"Oh yeah," Jasper mumbled, "Ed, this is Tyler," he pointed to the only other guy sitting at the table, who nodded at me. I nodded back at him.

"This is Alice," he pointed to his girlfriend, and she smiled at me sweetly.

"I think we've met before right?" she asked me.

"Yeah, we have." I said, smiling back at her.

"That's Jessica and Tanya," Jazz pointed at them and Tanya flashed me that flirty smile again, while Jessica waved, "hey Edward." She said dreamily.

"And that's Bella." He pointed to a girl who was sitting next to Alice.

I hadn't taken notice of her because I had been too busy being annoyed at seeing Jessica and Tanya here, but it was Isabella Swan; or 'Bella' as Jazz had called her, the girl from my biology class. She had been looking down at her food, her hair covering her face again and when Jasper said her name she looked up at me quickly – bright red – and smiled shyly. Then she looked down again and starting picking at her food.

Rosalie strutted over to our table, eyebrows raised; the huge guy she had been making out with behind her, grinning contentedly with her lip-gloss still smeared on his lips.

"Jess? Tan? Why are you at this table?" her blue eyes scanned the table and she rolled her eyes when she saw me.

"Oh, I should have guessed." She said sitting down, the guy sitting next to her.

"Hey, Alice. Hey, Bella." She said to Alice and Isa – Bella. "Jazz. Tyler. Edward. Oh Yeah, Edward, this is Emmett." She pointed to the big guy, her boyfriend, I guessed and he grinned widely at me.

"Sup' man." He said and I grinned back at him.

It was hard not to, the guy was bulky, built like a serious weightlifter and he was also tall. At first glance he even looked intimidating, but yet he had dark curly hair and a wide, cheerful grin and, as he grinned broadly at me, I could see dimples in his cheeks.

Come on, how could anyone with dimples be seen as intimidating?

Everyone at the table started making pleasant conversation and I was glad that I was finally not the centre of attention anymore. Bella was still hiding in her hair but she laughed at the right places in the conversation and occasionally lifted her head up to look at Alice – or to glance at me.

"So, Edward, how are you liking your first day at Fork's High?" Alice asked me.

All the heads at the table – except Bella's – turned to look at me. I grimaced internally.

Thanks a lot Alice.

"It's ok I guess." I said with a shrug, "a lot smaller than my other school though, I mean everyone knows everyone here and in my old school I swear I saw someone I'd never seen before every day."

Tanya laughed at this, a little too enthusiastically, even though it wasn't supposed to be funny. I caught Rosalie glaring at her for a quick second before she shook her head minutely and continued eating.

"Do you miss your old school Edward?" Tanya asked, gazing intently in my eyes.

"Well, it's not really the school I miss," I answered, "just my friends."

"Awww," Tanya said, "don't worry, you'll make tons more friends here." She winked at me and smiled.

"How comes you had to move here anyway dude?" Emmett asked. And I saw Rosalie dig her elbow into his side. "Ow! What the fuck Rose!" he cried leaning over in pain.

"God, you're so slow sometimes Emmett." Rose mumbled.

"Well...I err...." I began, but Rosalie interrupted,

"You don't have to tell them Edward." She said.

The table was in an awkward silence as nobody knew what to say. Emmett still rubbed his side.

Tanya broke the silence, "Is there anyone you especially miss back in Seattle Edward?" she asked.

This was a not so subtle way of finding out if I had a girlfriend back home. I rolled my eyes internally. She was looking at me with her sharp green eyes. Jessica was looking at me expectantly, obviously eager to hear my answer. And I even thought I saw Bella peek up at me for a second.

"Only my mom." I said, fighting hard to not let my thoughts drift back to her.

That was a good enough answer for Tanya and she nodded slowly, a smirk playing on her lips.

There were a few more questions for me and I answered each one cheerfully enough but I was getting tired of them. Jazz seemed to sense this – he was good at that – and changed the subject.

"My mom and dad are going away for a 'romantic weekend' this Friday and they won't be back till Monday. How about we have a little get-together at our house? Just the people at this table though, and maybe a few others but I don't want it to turn into a party, my parents would freak if they found out."

Everyone agreed to it and said they would be there on Friday. The bell went and we all got up from the table to head to our next class.