Chapter 4, Finally. I took quite a long hiatus. Chapter 5 will be up soon.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of the characters, Stephenie Meyer does.

I spent the next two weeks occupying myself with building my portfolio for my art school applications. I was planning on applying to The Academy of Art in San Francisco, The School of Visual Arts, and Parsons in New York. I was dying to get away from Forks these days. Ever since Jacob gave me the ring that day at the beach things have been going further downhill with us. We only spoke before class, at lunch, and we occasionally called each other. Basketball practice had started; it was the only thing that was keeping us from talking about our problems and I was glad.

What had kept me from going into a teenage heartbreak meltdown were my dreams with him. I dreamt about him almost every night and when I didn't, I dreamt of nothing. He was a constant reminder of the possibility of there being someone else who could love me and appreciate me. I couldn't let that go until I had found that someone, I just couldn't.

I was going to visit Alice this upcoming weekend; I couldn't wait to get away from Forks. It rained every single day since the picnic at the beach, not that I was surprised. It just made it twice as hard to find something to be happy about. Although I was going to be visiting Alice, I was not looking forward to today. I had two major tests to completely kill my Friday joy.

I arrived at school on time despite the massive raindrops that attacked my windshield at every minute. As I got out of the car I prayed that I wouldn't be so accident-prone today, that was the last thing I needed. I entered my Calculus class to find Jacob sitting in my seat.

"Fantastic" I muttered under my breath. He was talking to Angela when I walked through the door and when he saw me he tried to maintain his smile. I tried to act calm as I walked to my seat. I debated on whether or not I should smile, but before I knew it I was in front of him.

"Hey," I said slightly smiling to the both of them.

"Hey" Jacob replied as he looked at me, his gleeful expression slowly fading. Angela smiled at me but I guess she sensed the awkwardness because she quickly turned around.

"Listen," he said standing up, "I think we need to talk about um… things."

"Um, yeah" I agreed. Mr. Danho walked in just as I managed to give Jacob my reply. Jacob slowly moved past me allowing me to take my seat. As I sat down I watched him leave the classroom. He looked at me right before he reached the door and I quickly looked away. God, could this day get any worse?

I think I passed the Calculus and English tests, but I was pretty sure I had a pop quiz after lunch. Ugh, lunch. Jacob would surely seize the opportunity and I was not prepared. While I waited in the lunch line I tried to think of ways that I could successfully avoid the dreaded conversation or maybe even Jacob altogether. All my ideas were utterly absurd and absolutely hopeless. I would have to deal with it, I finally decided as I spotted Jacob at our usual table. I quickly tried to think of a few excuses before I reached the table but they were even more ridiculous than the others. Jacob was the only one at the table. Where the hell was everyone else? He stood up to greet me when I reached him. I guess he was going in for a peck but I couldn't be sure. Something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head slightly to get a better look.

I must be hallucinating. Yes. It was either that or this was a dream. It seemed so real though, I could've sworn that I was really awake. But if I was really awake, then why was he here? But as I strained my eyes to get a better view it wasn't him, but it might as well have been because he was gorgeous. He had messy brownish, blond hair and what appeared to be green eyes. I noticed he had a piece of paper in his hands. Holy shit.

"Bella, what's wrong with you?" Jacob interrupted my thoughts. I turned my head to him and then quickly sat down.

"Nothing, I-I just thought I forgot something at home," I managed to say quickly. I wanted to turn around and keep looking at him but I knew Jacob would get suspicious. "Where's everybody else?" I asked him looking around. To my left, I saw a bunch of girls looking towards the entrance of the cafeteria. Great.

"I don't know," he said slowly, "but maybe we should talk before they get here."

I started to pick at some of my fruit while I waited for him to start. I hoped that he wouldn't notice my sudden frantic behavior.

"Bella?" he said in a strange voice. I turned to face him, but he wasn't looking at me.

"Excuse me, are you Bella Swan?" Slowly, I turned around to meet the unfamiliar voice and there he was. He was more beautiful up close, much more. His striking green eyes were fixed on mine, making it impossible for me to reply. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jacob looking at me so I had to pull myself together. I had to say something.

"Er, uh… yeah. That's me." I managed to choke out. He started to smile as he put away the piece of paper in the back pocket of his jeans.

"Sweet. I thought you were going to give me the stink eye or something" he chuckled. I laughed with him, keeping eye contact. His cute laugh slowly died down as his attention diverted elsewhere. "Hey," he said as he extended his hand towards Jacob. "I'm Edward Cullen." He then offered to shake my hand. "Nice to meet you," he said meeting my gaze.

"Ah, you found her!" Jessica said coming out of nowhere, or so I thought.

"Yeah, it wasn't that hard" he said taking his seat across from us.

"I was just telling Edward about you in class. He's an artist too," she said, taking a seat next to Edward.

"I'm not that great," he said eyeing me, "I just do some doodles here and there."

"That's cool," I managed to choke out. I desperately wanted to keep looking at Edward but I decided to look down at my tray after a few seconds. I didn't want to creep him out. I then felt Jacob's hand over my knee. I just stared at my food, wondering where my appetite went.

" So…" Jessica started, "what did you do for fun in back in Seattle?"

So he was from Seattle… I wonder if Alice knew him. She would have told me about him though, how could any girl forget him? It seemed impossible to me. I dared to sneak a few glances at him, analyzing his face more closely trying to find a resemblance to the guy in my dreams. He was just as gorgeous and better than that, he was real, sitting directly in front of me and I was completely fascinated.

I had missed part of the conversation, too busy trying to not be so obviously awestruck.

"Ooh, there's funny movie coming out today," Jessica said looking at Edward. I swear I saw her bat her eyelashes at him. You have got to be kidding me. "We could go watch it, if you want," she continued. Unbelievable, she was already making a pass at him. As I tried to hide my reaction, waiting to hear Edward's response Jacob nudged me at my side. I had sort of forgot about him, how weirdly rude of me. Why was I so enchanted with Edward? I immediately looked down at the table and then up at Jacob. His expression was a bit annoyed but calm all the same.

"Bella I need to talk to you," he whispered pleadingly, looking into my eyes. I could see Edward and Jessica out of the corner of my eye, still in conversation. I swore I saw Edward look over at us but I couldn't be sure. I took Jacob's hand as I stood up from the table, motioning him to follow me. This needed to be taken care of now, my sudden obsession with Edward was getting out of control, I barely even knew him!

I tried to clear my head as we made our way to the courtyard. I stopped in front of the fence and turned around to meet Jacob's eyes. He broke the silence.

"Do you want to be with me?" he asked flatly.

"Why are you asking me this?" I responded after a few seconds. He looked at me like I was playing dumb. I looked around, trying to avoid looking at his face. How long could I keep avoiding the inevitable? I didn't know. I took a deep breath and looked at him.

"We were fine… we were fine until you gave me this," I said as I looked down at my left hand. "It's not like I didn't know that we were going to spend less time together because of basketball practice. Or that we were applying to different colleges," I said as I looked him, "but you made realize that we might not make it and tried to cover it up with a present."

He looked down at his shoes, "I thought you would appreciate it," he said reverting his eyes back to me. "You know how much I care about you and its not like I want to be away from you all the time. I don't know what else to say," he said quietly, looking at the field behind me.

I suddenly felt something in my throat as I stared up at his face. This was it; it was over. My so-called perfect relationship: done. Was I over-exaggerating? Why couldn't I just move past this like everyone else that was together seemed to be doing? I just couldn't bear to continue this only to be left heartbroken anyway. I'd rather get it over with now.

The tears came down my face as I walked past him, the lump in my throat throbbing, feeling like it could burst out of my mouth any second. I didn't look back as I made my way through the cafeteria and reached the girl's bathroom.

It was completely empty but I locked myself in a stall anyway. As I sat there crying I tried to convince myself that everything was going to be okay. I buried my face in my hands stared into the darkness. For a while I forgot everything, felt nothing, and I then felt myself calm down, the lump in my throat residing. I heard a few girls come in and I wondered how much time had passed. I pulled out my phone and realized I only had a few minutes before lunch ended. I didn't want to go back to cafeteria so I texted Jessica, asking her to bring my bag to class.

When I made it to Biology, people were just making their way into class. I rushed to my seat and took a deep breath. I looked out the window trying to avoid everyone, wondering where the hell Jessica was. Was she making out with Edward already?

"Bella?"

Oh my God. I turned my head slowly to confirm that it was indeed Edward standing there, calling my name. As soon as I saw his face I felt a strange tingle in my stomach. Butterflies?

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice taking a worried tone.

It took a couple of seconds for me to answer. What was going on today? It seemed I had gone through almost every emotion today.

"Yeah," I said, strangely without a crack in my voice. He kept his eyes fixed on me expecting another answer as he sat down in the seat next to me.

"Jessica asked me to give you this," he said as he handed me my bag, "she noticed we had the same class." He kept his eyes locked in on mine. "Are you sure you're all right?" he asked softly.

I stared into his eyes and found my answer. "I'll be fine," I whispered to him as Mr. Roberts started to address the class.