Firestarter

Thanks my wonderful readers. Here's your reward for those kind reviews.

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Bella kept her eyes adverted from the Cullen's table and bought herself a soda. She and her friends sat at their table and the others continued on with their discussion of snowball fights.

Bella felt nauseous. Even Mike and Jessica noticed and they asked her if she was alright.

She shrugged off their concerns. She considered skipping biology and heading home, but she couldn't do that every day. She summoned her courage and glanced over at the Cullen table.

They weren't looking at her, Emmett was shaking his head and getting snow all over his brothers and sisters. They were all laughing except for Rosalie who was cringing as she brushed the ice out of her hair. They looked different. Their faces were flushed, possibly from the snowball fight, the circles under their eyes were less pronounced, but there was something else.

"Bella, what are you staring at?" Jessica asked. Edward's eyes flickered over to her and she dropped her gaze instantly. She was sure though, that he didn't look angry, merely curious.

"Edward Cullen is staring at you." Jessica giggled.

"He doesn't look angry, does he?" she asked, wondering if his curious expression had shifted to hate while she avoided looking at him.

"No. Why?" Jessica's curiosity was palpable.

"He seemed a little…acrimonious the last time we met." Bella hoped the large word would turn off the girl. She was in no condition to gossip.

She wasn't disappointed, "Acro-what?"

"Never mind. It's not important." Bella forced herself not to stare at the boy. It was ludicrous for her to care now that she was sure he wasn't angry with her.

"He's still staring at you." Jessica piped in.

"Stop looking at him." Bella demanded.

For the rest of lunch Bella forced herself not to look at him. Since he wasn't angry, she would go to Biology. Her stomach twisted into knots. And if he glares at me, I'll get Charlie to force the secretary to change my class.

She knew it was an empty threat. She wouldn't put her father in danger like that, but it did calm her down to know she had a possible out.

The bell rang and the teenagers filed out. They all let out a simultaneous groan as they realized the snow had turned into rain. Bella smiled and pulled her hood up. She headed towards the biology room and sat down. Her notebook was out and before she realized it she was drawing a sketch of the scene she had just witnessed. She tried to make Rosalie's disgust and Emmett's wide grin seem realistic. Alice had a lunch tray in her dainty little hands to protect herself, her expression was smug. Jasper's face was still tight, but he looked much happier than Bella had ever seen him.

Edward Cullen pulled out his chair and Bella had to go back and redo Jasper's nose when her hand slipped. She realized he may be looking over her shoulder, and not be at all appreciative that she was spying on him, so she shut her notebook. She almost blushed with chagrin as she realized she would be finishing it tonight whether Edward got angry with her or not. She liked remembering the happy face he'd worn.

"Hello." said a quiet, musical voice.

Bella looked up, and found Edward Cullen looking at her. He was sitting as far away as his chair allowed, but it was angled towards her.

"I'm Edward Cullen. I didn't get a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bella Swan."

Bella wondered why he wasn't glaring at her, or telling her not to draw pictures of people without permission.

"I must be," she answered, but something seemed off about his greeting, "How did you know my name?"

"Oh I think everyone knows you." he grinned.

Bella grimaced. "No," she persisted, "Why did you call me Bella?"

"Do you prefer Isabella?" he asked, one perfect eyebrow lifting up curiously.

"No, I prefer Bella. It's just that everyone else has called me Isabella when they first talked to me." she wondered if he'd heard others call her by her favoured nickname, but that seemed unlikely given the fact that he wasn't even at school.

"Oh." he let it drop.

She looked away, back to her notebook. Mr. Banner started class and Bella tried to pay close attention to the assignment they were going to be doing. It seemed simple enough. They had to put the slides of onion root cells in order of the phases of mitosis. They would be working with lab partners. Bella felt herself tense up as she realized she would have to talk to Edward again. It would be rude not to.

"Ladies first, partner." Bella jerked up, staring at him stupidly. She flushed and took the slide in his hand and put it underneath the microscope. She adjusted it to 40X and then assessed it.

"Prophase." she said and began to remove the slide.

"Do you mind if I look?" Edward asked and grabbed her arm to stop her. She jerked back. His hands were so cold. She looked up at him for a second and then slid the microscope over to him. He seemed to be internally berating himself and Bella felt suspicion creep into her expression. She wiped it off as quickly as she could. His hands were cold, but that wasn't why she'd jerked her hand away. She'd felt the strangest shock as if he was covered in static electricity. It felt…nice.

He grabbed the second slide and examined it, "Anaphase," he murmured and began to take out the slide.

Bella reached for the microscope herself and asked, "May I?" she gave him her sweetest smile and for a moment it appeared as if Edward was not breathing. He shook his head slightly and pushed the microscope over to her. She glanced at it and nodded. He was right. "Next," she held out her hand for the next slide. He handed it to her. Was she paranoid if she thought he was purposely not touching her? She took a fleeting look, "Interphase." she passed him the microscope before he could ask for it and he glanced at it. He nodded and wrote down the answer.

They were finished with plenty of time to spare. Bella began to pull out her notebook to finish her drawing, Edward or no Edward, she hated leaving her work incomplete, when she noticed the thing that had been bothering her since lunch, "Did you get contacts?" her notebook was forgotten as she stared at the strangest eyes she'd ever seen. They were light brown, almost honey-like or perhaps like the gemstone, topaz. One thing was for sure, they were not at all like the angry, black eyes he'd had the week before.

"No." he answered, that curiously frustrated expression appearing on his face.

"I thought there was something different about your eyes." his face seemed to freeze up, but then he shrugged and looked down.

Mr. Banner walked over to them, wondering why they weren't working. He peered over their shoulders and read the answers. "So Edward," he began, his tone faintly annoyed, "didn't you think Isabella should have had a chance with the microscope?"

"Bella." Edward corrected him, and Bella smiled as she covered her face with her hair. "She identified three of the five actually."

Mr. Banner looked at her, his expression sceptical, "Have you done this lab before?"

"Not with an onion root." she answered, still hiding.

"Whitefish blastula?" she nodded and began twirling her hair around her fingers again.

He pondered this for a moment, "Were you in an advanced placement program in France?"

"Uh, yeah, kind of." she stuttered out. It seemed rude to tell the junior science teacher that she had completed college level science in France.

"Well then, I suppose it's a good thing you two are lab partners." he mumbled something else and walked away.

Bella went to open her notebook again when Edward asked, "It's too bad about the snow, isn't it?" Paranoia swept over her again and she wondered if he was forcing himself to make small talk with her.

"Not really," she answered, pulling it open to a blank page. She hesitantly began a sketch of Jessica and Mike, talking excitedly about something. She wanted to talk to him, but she still couldn't get the image of his angry eyes out of her head.

"You don't like the cold." he stated, insistent enough that she found herself answering.

"Or the wet."

"Forks must be a difficult place for you to live, " he mused.

"You have no idea." she muttered darkly.

He seemed unnecessarily interested by her statement. "Why did you move here then?"

No one had asked her that. She flashed back to that stupid boy and his car. People had started asking questions and Charlie had decided it was time to move. "It's…complicated." How could she tell the boy sitting next to her that she was the most dangerous girl ever born? How could she explain that if he upset her, he might end up dead?

"I think I can keep up." he insisted.

She made the mistake of looking at his eyes and told the truth, or at least the believable part, "My dad, Charlie, he always wanted to move to a small town. He and my mom, Renee were going to move out of the city when they had a little more money, but after she died…" she trailed off after this, realizing that no one else in town knew that her mother was dead. She berated herself for telling this vital and private information to a boy she'd just met.

"I'm sorry." Edward said, apparently mistaking her internal anger as grief, and not being completely wrong. "When did that happen, if you don't mind my asking?"

She found to her disbelief that she didn't mind. His concern seemed genuine. "It was quite a while ago, just before I turned three. I don't really remember her, although I do recall her playing the piano and drawing. She was an art major in Stanford." she checked Edward's expression, wondering if she was boring him, but his face was still fascinated.

"Charlie says I look like her," her expression turned wistful, "I kind of wish I didn't. He loved her so much that he has a hard time looking at me sometimes. It hurts him that he couldn't save her."

Edward nodded, still transfixed. "So, he asked you if you wanted to move to a small town?"

"No. I asked him." the frustration on his face was palpable, so she explained, "He never really liked Paris. It was too loud and bright for him. Frankly, Forks is so dark by comparison it's like a setting for a horror film." Edward chuckled a bit too loudly at her rant and she continued on a different note, "He's always been so impulsive. I have to deal with a lot of things around the house because he just gets so involved in work. I don't mind. He's a lawyer, a decent one at that. And I can take care of myself." she said this with strong conviction, remembering all the times her teachers had asked why they had such a hard time getting a hold of her father. There were a few times she'd almost ended up in foster care because he had stayed out later than he should have. Bella hated remembering things like that. She wished she could forget things as easily as other people seemed to.

"So, he's happy here?" Edward asked and Bella nodded, "Are you happy?"

Her face fell before she could stop it, "No. I guess not, but Charlie deserves to be happy for once. And if that means living in Forks-" she grimaced slightly, "then I can tough it out for a few years, until I go to college."

"That doesn't seem fair." he answered.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you? Life isn't fair."

He nodded, "I believe I have heard that somewhere."

"So that's it." she insisted.

He leaned in closer, "You put on a good show, but I'd be willing to bet that you're suffering more than you let on."

She resisted the urge to stick out her tongue.

"Am I wrong?" his tone was faintly mocking and Bella regretted talking to him, or at least, she told herself that she did.

"I didn't think so."

"What does it matter to you?" she asked, having had enough of his enigmatic words.

"That's a very good question." he answered and Bella realized that was all she would get out of him.

She pulled out the picture, but felt too distracted by her reckless blathering to concentrate.

"Am I annoying you?" he asked, still mocking.

Bella made the mistake of looking at his eyes, and told the truth, "No, not really. I'm more annoyed at myself. I usually don't give out my life story to people I just met." she shook her head, "And of course, there's the fact that I'm so easy to read."

"On the contrary, I find you very difficult to read." despite everything she'd told him and everything he'd guessed, he sounded like he meant it.

"You must be a good reader then."

"Usually." he replied, flashing a set of ultra white teeth.

Mr. Banner called the class to order and she turned with relief to listen to him. Edward seemed to tense up as she moved. His face became angry again. He leaned away from her and took off quickly when the bell rang.

Mike raced to her side and picked up her books. She imagined him with a wagging tail, and the picture was so funny she knew she would have to draw it to get it out of her head. "That was awful. They all looked exactly the same, you're lucky you had Cullen for a partner."

Bella felt annoyance leak into her expression, but quickly squashed it, "I thought it was pretty easy, but I've done that lab before." she added.

"Cullen seemed friendly enough today." Mike didn't seem pleased by this.

"I suppose so. I wonder what was with him last Monday?" she tried to sound indifferent.

She couldn't concentrate on Mike's chattering on the way to gym. P.E. had never held much interest to her and she didn't play as well as she could have. People were starting to realize that she was nothing special athletic-wise, but they still insisted on having her on their team. The least she could do was to stay out of the way of the natural athletes.

She was happy to leave the gym and headed out to her truck. She reminded herself that she had yet to fix the engine and put that on the top of her to-do list. She turned the heater on full blast and held her hands up to it. She shivered and looked around to make sure the way was clear. That's when she noticed the still, white figure of Edward Cullen leaning up against his Volvo. He was staring intently in her direction and she flushed bright crimson. She pulled out, and almost destroyed a rusty Toyota Corolla in her haste. She stomped on the brakes, shocked at her own recklessness. She gave the parking lot another long look and then drove out more carefully than was strictly necessary. Out of the corner of her eye, she could swear she saw Edward Cullen laughing.

-

Okay, I have a nasty case of the hiccups and I'm starting to hate my cat. He kept climbing onto the table trying to eat my dinner.

You might have noticed that I'm keeping Bella's talents a secret. I've always been told that actions speak louder than words…although technically since this is a fanfic it's still just words…you get what I mean. So I'm going to be showing you her abilities rather than telling you straight up what she's capable of.

That explanation as to why they moved to Forks was designed so that Bella appeared selfless. In "Midnight Sun" that was one of the reasons that Edward fell in love with her and I wanted to make that apparent.

I hope you enjoyed this and stay tuned for my next update.