A/N:

Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns the plot and characters of Twilight, not to mention all the money it makes. I make nothing but fanfiction.

Chapter 4 – Open Book aka "You Make No Sense"

Scrabble night with Jasper and Emmet was fucking hilarious. We watched Beerfest and drank beer every time someone said 'beer'. We were very, very wasted by the end of the movie. Afterwards, Rosalie and Alice came over, and all of us got sufficiently stoned before starting an epic game of scrabble. We passed out at dawn and woke up the next day when the sun had gone down. I drove home that night feeling comfortable, buzzed and hung over all at the same time. Carlisle seemed pleased that I'd made friends, but I knew it was just about easing his guilty conscience for the move.

All week I didn't see her. I was starting to settle into the routine, getting comfortable with where I was. I appreciated on a better level the kind of fun guys like Jasper and Emmet had, and even Rosalie was warming up to me enough to not snap at me every time I opened my mouth. I'd gotten really good at tuning Alice out, though when I was drunk her conversations were infinitely more interesting.

In the complacency of it all, I almost forgot Bella Swan. I almost convinced myself she wasn't real, or that her unwarranted hatred towards me wasn't real. And it was easy to, until that Wednesday morning when, smoking with Jasper beside my car, waiting for the morning bell to ring us into school, a motorcycle came roaring into the parking lot.

And Bella Swan got off of it.

She was in her jeans again, a plain white tee, and an oversized brown leather jacket that clearly didn't belong to her. Her hair, which I'd only ever seen down before, was tied up into a messy knot, and she was breathtaking.

Fucking breathe, Cullen. Just remember to fucking breathe.

And I needed the reminder, because I couldn't look away. Which is probably why it took me so long to realize she wasn't alone. She had been sitting behind a copper-skinned guy with a ponytail. He was so tall that even sitting on his bike while she stood next to him he was nearly at eye-level with her. She was playing with the zipper of the jacket – probably his jacket – and talking to him, but I couldn't hear a thing over the idle roar of the bike. Beside me, Jasper stiffened.

The guy on the bike said something to her that made her frown, and she stuffed her hands into the pockets of the jacket and shrugged. He looked over her shoulder – directly at me. I hated him immediately. He was looking at me with a smug face, amusement playing the corners of his lips. Shaking his head, he turned back to Bella and said something that made her laugh. Then he went and did it.

Wrapping his long arm around her waist, he pulled her to him and reached up to capture her lips with his. She kissed him back, and I growled. Jasper hissed.

I watched, furious, as she wound her hands around the back of his neck, twisting her fingers in his ponytail to pull him closer, and he reached up to cup her chin and did the same. He moved her face aside and started kissing down her jaw, leaving open-mouthed kisses along her neck that made her tilt her head back and close her eyes. My palms were sweating buckets, and the ringing in my ears drowned out even the sound of the motorcycle.

His mouth curving against her throat in a smile, he finally pulled back, leaving one more soft kiss on a red spot - a fucking hickey of all things - under her right ear, and, with a last look at me, rode away.

"I didn't know Bella had a boyfriend," I choked, knowing I was failing miserably at keeping my voice neutral or calm.

She was staring after him, her hands back in the pockets of the jacket.

"That's not her boyfriend," Jasper replied in a steady even tone that was so serious and unfamiliar coming from him, I actually turned around and looked at him. His face, flat as his voice, was also unfamiliar. "That's Jacob Black."

Bella turned around and looked at me for a moment before she walked towards the buildings, leaving me behind.

***

I didn't go to the cafeteria that day for lunch. I stood outside my car and smoked. Facing Bella after finding my niche in this place without her was too disorienting. It was like jet-lag, only a hundred times worse. I'd never really been hated by anyone - even those who might have had a good reason to hate me. The thought of not only being hated for no reason, but of being hated that way by Bella, was too much.

That morning, Jasper had refused to speak a word about Jacob Black. Whoever he was, clearly none of Bella's friends liked him. When they had joined us earlier that morning, Jasper had simply told them that "Jacob dropped Bella off" and they had all found various poses of discomfort and quiet anger. Alice had been frighteningly silent.

Gym class was more of the same. Jasper and Emmet exchanged glances, sometimes whispering to one another with frowns on their faces while Jasper ran his fingers nervously through his hair, and it reminded me of the way Bella did it. How the hell did I know that? I'd seen her do it once. What was my deal? I was clearly obsessed.

The cafeteria, with all of them there, and Bella in that boy's jacket, it was too much. I preferred to be alone with my ugly thoughts.

Then the bell rang, and I didn't want to go to biology either. So what if I didn't go? A little ditching was healthy now and again.

I waited until the bell rang again before trudging to my calculus class. Just this one more class, then I could go home. Go home and not worry about facing Bella again until the next day. Or maybe she'd just disappear again.

Neither thought made me happy.

I sat through calculus in a daze, and knew I'd never be able to remember what was said in that class. When at last it was over, I had to keep myself from running to the parking lot. Of course, it was then that I realized I'd lost my keys.

I searched my pockets again and again, knowing it was unlikely I'd kept them there. I usually did, when I was out. But when I went to school, I left them in my bag, in the pouch with the side zipper. Where they currently were not.

"You all right, Edward?" I looked up to see Alice smiling weakly at me, her face more serious than usual. Bella had fucked everyone up.

"Yeah, I think I left my keys back in the class, though." She nodded, looking over to where Bella was having a furious discussion with Jasper.

Rather, Jasper was gesturing furiously while Bella stood, hands in pockets, and shrugged. She was staring at me again, and the hair on my arms stood. I rubbed my arms unconsciously, jogging back to the building to retrace my steps.

But even after the building had emptied out, and everyone had gone home, I found nothing. I was fuming, but I was tired. It had been a long day. It would just be fucking perfect if it ended with my keys gone, my cell phone in the car. I had no choice but to walk to the hospital and get Carlisle's key it seemed like, since my house key was on the same ring as the car keys. Fucking joy.

Dragging my feet back to the parking lot, I stared at the muddy grass and cursed my life. I cursed Bella Swan for confusing the living shit out of me and making me more uncomfortable than I ever remembered being in my life. I cursed Forks and everyone in it, the psychotic townsfolk that were like a spoof or something. I cursed Carlisle for being so wrapped up in his own little world that he thought moving here was a good idea. I cursed myself for letting Bella affect me. I cursed Jacob Black, too, though I wasn't sure what for. I just cursed him.

The sound of her clearing her throat was so sudden, so intrusive on this reverie, that I actually jumped.

"Jesus fucking hell!"

She giggled and shook her head. "Scary, am I?"

I eyed her in disbelief, leaning against the passenger door of my car, twirling my keys around her fingers. "Are those-?"

"Your keys? Yeah. Hey, I need a ride home."

I sputtered. Edward fucking Cullen, I actually fucking sputtered. "How did you-? When did you-? Why would you-?" Growling wordlessly, I snatched my keys out of her hand, and she gave me a mock-wounded look.

"Temper, much?"

I was grinding my teeth so hard I was in danger of cracking something in there. "Just get in the fucking car."

She slid into the passenger seat and cooed – actually fucking cooed – running her fingers over the leather. "Fancy."

I resisted another growl as I started the engine, fumbling with the music player so I could turn it down. I'd been listening to Godsmack, really fucking loud. She gave me a funny look but said nothing. "Where do you live?"

She told me, and I pulled out of the parking lot. What. The. Fuck. I was furious. I was nervous as hell. I was a fucking mess, and it was all because of this tiny little irresistibly sexy yet unbearably infuriating girl sitting beside me. What the fuck!

"So you wanna tell me why you stole my fucking keys?" I asked in my most civil tone after a minute in silence. Never mind how she stole them.

She shrugged. "I needed a ride home."

I snorted. "And it didn't occur to you to just ask?"

She looked at me in that funny way again. "I could have just asked," she said slowly. "But then you could have said no." I could have said no. But I didn't. I must be some sort of masochist. "You don't like me."

She said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, I turned to stare at her in disbelief. She rolled her eyes and held the steering wheel when I stared at her instead of the road too long, and I impatiently slapped her hand away, turning my eyes back to where I was going.

When I touched her skin, electricity shot up my arm, and I ground my teeth. What the fuck was going on here? Was this some strange yet vivid dream? Nothing made sense.

"You hate me!" I accused loudly, stupidly. What can you say to someone like Bella Swan that doesn't make you look like an idiot?

She was looking at me again. "You think I hate you?"

Was she serious? "Are you serious?"

She just looked.

"You've been nothing but rude to me – at best. You glare at me so much, it's a wonder your face doesn't stick that way. You went out of your way to get rid of me when we were assigned lab partners. You've never once gotten my name right." As I spoke, it sounded weak. Pathetic. I sounded like an idiot. It just made me angrier. "You just- you're not even…" What could I say?

She smiled to herself, like she was smiling at a personal joke I wasn't in on. "I can see why you'd believe that." Was she being sarcastic? Was she making fun of me? I didn't know with her. I never knew with her.

I clenched the steering wheel in my sweaty palms, and she only spoke to give me directions. When we pulled up outside her house, there were no cars in the driveway. I waited for her to get out of the car, but she sat beside me in silence, her hands in the pockets of the jacket again.

"I don't get you, Bella." Word vomit. Shut up. Shut up! "You're really doing a number on my mental health here. I can't read you at all." And I was usually so good at reading people.

She raised her eyebrows at this, and the smile grew a little wider. "Weird. My mom used to tell me I was like an open book. She said whatever I was feeling was so obvious in my face, you wouldn't ever need to try to figure me out."

Like that was supposed to help? I shook my head and sighed in frustration. "If you hate me, why did you get a ride with me? Why didn't you get a ride with Emmet or Rosalie or Jasper?"

She winced, then sighed and looked at me again. Her eyes were so brown, so deep. I wanted to get lost in them. Get lost in them? Jesus. I was a fucking pussy.

"You wanna drive me to school tomorrow?"

I blinked. "Huh?" Brilliant diction, Cullen. Truly.

"I said, do you wanna drive me to school tomorrow? I'm asking." She smiled a little, but didn't look away. "You can say no."

I stared at her, and for a moment, just a tiny little moment, I let my inner pussy go free. Her messy hair, damp from the rain and stringy in some places, was the perfect foil to her pale translucent skin. She had a small scar across one eyebrow and a small cluster of scars under her left ear that most people probably didn't see. Her lips were this perfect symmetrical shape, full and pink and so inviting. She had these long lashes that brushed the apples of her cheeks when she closed her eyes. I let myself get lost in her eyes. I reigned the inner pussy back in. "Sure."

She smiled then, and maybe it was the first time I saw her smile like that. Smile and mean it. "Thanks for the ride."

I sat in my car as she jogged through the rain to her house, and I was dazed and beyond reigning the inner pussy in. She had just dazzled me. I had been dazzled. Totally and hopelessly dazzled. Fuck.

Fucking fuck.

AN/

Random thought:

My spouse and I were talking a few days ago about 'mainstream music' and how regional it is. It hit me suddenly that my 'cool obscure' music tastes were only obscure HERE. and maybe in the US or Canada or Europe or wherever they weren't so obscure. It was kinda humbilng for me, because as much as I love music (we're a very musical family) I probably don't know a fraction as much as I want to. So if any of you feel like name-dropping a cool band or artist, please do.

/End 'Random thought.'