Chapter 5

Edward's POV

I'd just stepped out of a very refreshing shower and was on my way into the kitchen to grab a fresh cup of coffee when the door swung open and in walked the shrew herself.

"Oh...Oh God! I'm sorry...I didn't...know..." Bella's face turned bright red as she stood there biting those soft, plump lips as she'd just walked in to find me in nothing but a white cotton towel.

I don't know whether she was expecting me to run off and make myself decent while she was turned in the other direction, but she would be sadly mistaken. I loved watching her blush and get embarrassed like that. So, instead I walked over to the kitchen door and propped myself against it.

"I was just coming to take..."She kept her back to me and gestured blindly behind her.

The walking mop came scuttling over and slid straight into her ankles. She crouched down and scooped him up and started to make fucking cooing noises at it. The dog responded by licking up the left side of her face causing her to giggle. Lucky bastard.

"You do know he licks his balls with that tongue?" I couldn't help it. The perfect opportunity to increase that blush of hers had just conveniently landed in my lap and I had to take the bait.

"Yeah, a skill I'm sure you wish you could master too!" She smirked with not a shades difference to her already blooming color.

When the fuck did Isabella Swan get feisty? I'd definitely miss that one and I definitely wanted to explore those possibilities.

Wait! What the fuck was I thinking? I didn't want to go there; then spend the rest of the night in pain from the memories.

It started the morning after the best night of my life. After I dropped her back off at her place my mind suddenly filled with a million and one worries and raced in just as many different directions.

I was worried that she'd think I'd been no good, even though she'd assured me otherwise.

I worried that she'd look at me differently and not in a good way

I worried that I couldn't give her everything that she deserved

I worried that things would change when we left for college.

But mostly I worried that something must wrong with me. Why I couldn't just say those simple yet powerful three little words to her? After everything we'd been through and shared and yet they always got stuck in my throat. She deserved to be told every moment of everyday that someone loved her. I should have been able to tell her that I did.

I tried to distance myself from her, hoping the time out would bring me some kind of clarity. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that shit, but it didn't work. While I was having my fifth of a life crisis I failed to see the true distance I'd put between us. I'd hurt her and I couldn't blame her for dumping my sorry ass.

I was a prick and she deserved so much better.

The day after Mallory held a party and I got dragged along by Emmett.

Her parties were notorious for underage drinking and getting busted up by the fuzz.

I really didn't want to be there but after a shot of tequila had been shoved under my nose I couldn't find it in me to care. I'd found my escape from the pain for the night. At least until my dreams bestowed themselves upon me when I could evade sleep no longer. After my sixth Jose Cuervo, I couldn't even remember my own name. I'd crashed in a chair to get my head down when I was disturbed by a very warm but very wrong pair of lips attaching themselves to mine. When I realized what was happening it was already too late. I heard the click of the button and witnessed the flash that left me disorientated.

I'd tried to talk to Bella and tell her how much she meant to me and we had at least begun speaking to each other again. That was until a set of very compromising pictures from Lauren's party started to circulate the quad.

From an outsiders point of view it would have looked a lot like I was making out with the spawn of the devil herself. And from the angle of the camera, there was no way you could see that I wasn't kissing her back.

She took great pride in making sure Bella got to see it and that ruined any chance I had left at getting her back.

That wasn't the worst of it either.

She seemed to make it her own personal mission to taunt and pick on Bella; bragging how not even twenty four hours after being dumped by her, that I'd supposedly gone seeking comfort from Lauren.

The only thing I'd ever go to Lauren Mallory for like that would be if I wanted to catch something nasty. I wouldn't even go there if she were the last woman on earth!

Not long after that though, a photo of me at the age of thirteen started to get passed around the halls off our high school. I was wearing a pair of Spiderman Pajamas and a very think set pair of glasses that I had hated with a fiery passion. I'd badgered and badgered the eye doctor to let me have contacts. When he finally conceded I'd thrown the putrid plastic frames in the trash before even leaving his office. That photo was the single most supreme embarrassment of my life and it had been plastered on lockers and doors all over the place. I was beyond humiliated. It was so bad at one point that I begged my mother to let me stay home but she told me I couldn't afford to miss my schooling.

I'd turned around from my own locker one day having cringed at the fresh picture I'd found there on my arrival, to find Bella stood across the corridor with my sister Alice and they were both laughing like hyenas.

I figured she'd want to make herself feel better after all that shit from Lauren but this was below the belt...Especially for her. She wasn't my sweet, caring best friend and girlfriend. Now she was some evil shrew that had managed to ruin my life. That had been the very first time I'd ever put Bella and the word 'bitch' into the same sentence.

I shook my head trying to regain some kind of focus again so I could try again to taunt her ass, only to find her gone.

Oh.

I made my coffee like planned and dressed for the day; opting for my long sleeved v-neck blue sweater and a pair of dark jeans. I spent a while toying with my hair; pulling at little strands here and there until I had a somewhat even look of unruliness. I never took this long over my hair or how I looked but after I'd smoothed my sweater down for the fourth time in ten minutes I got pissed off with myself. I didn't care how she thought I looked.

The time seemed to drag on for ever while she was gone with the dog.

I tried to watch TV but kept looking round to the door. I tried to make myself breakfast but I wasn't really all that hungry. I settled on sitting down at my piano and working on a new composition that had been floating around in my head. I got so lost in it that I didn't even realize that Humphrey had curled up by my feet and been soothed to sleep with the simple yet enchanting melody that seemed to be writing itself; as if I was just a host for the music to pass through.

Why was the mop back? I turned my head to the floor and he was definitely there. I stopped playing and looked around to see Bella so I could tease her but she was nowhere to be found.

Fucking figures.

I felt put out that I hadn't had the chance to make her blush again but shrugged my shoulders and turned once again to my music. The melody changed along with my mood. It now sounded bitter and disgruntled.

"Would it really have killed the bitch to say hi?" I asked as I turned back to my reliable listener.

He growled at my choice of words.

"Fucking traitor," I huffed before rambling on again. "I mean she flipped at me yesterday when I was short with her. You'd think she'd want to set an example for me; to teach me some manners or some shit like that, right?"

The dog got up looking annoyed and took himself into Alice's room.

I decided I would go over to her place later and set her straight-Practice what you preach and all that crap.

Yeah I would go over there and tell her what I think of her obnoxious, pretentious bitchy, but still hot, little ass. I'd take Humphrey too so she'd not need to take him out later giving me another night away from her.

It was only noon though and way too early for his evening walk so I sat and watched the clock tick by.

Three hundred and sixty minutes later I was pulling on my heavy pea coat and dragging the dog behind me.

I'd been through Alice's list of phone numbers and found Bella's near the top of the list. I'd called information and attained her address so I knew where I was going.

I stood in front of her door for a good ten minutes before I plucked up the courage to knock.

The door opened to a very shocked Bella. Standing there in a pair of checkered Pajama pants with the bottom of them tucked into her socks and a grey jersey sweater. She had her hair pulled up into a half assed pony and had a firm grasp of a bottle of Bud.

"Very attractive!" I quipped before she even had a chance to say anything.

Her response was to shut the door in my face.

I threw my head back in frustration and knocked again.

She opened it and I couldn't keep my mouth from running away with me. "I mean it. You could start a new trend." I chuckled as I looked down at the white tube socks hoisted over the leg holes of her pants.

And again she shut the door in my face.

If she remembered nothing else about me, she should have at least remembered my persistence.

I knocked again.

"Fuck off Cullen; I'm not in the mood!" She shouted through the partition between us.

"I'm sorry ok. I just wanted to stop by to tell you something."

The door opened and she stood there glaring at me with her hand on her hip.

"Shoot."

Don't fucking temp me.

"Okay, but can I ask you one more thing first?" I pleaded, still needing to fill my quota of tormenting her.

"If this involves my socks do I get to punch you?"

I couldn't tell if she was being serious or not.

"Sure." I took the chance. "Why are you dressed for bed when it's only six thirty in the evening?" I risked a glance at her socks again and stifled the booming laughter that wanted to escape me.

"It's Sunday." She answered like I should know what that meant. When my face reminded puzzled she sighed and carried on. "Sunday night is..."

I remembered. "...Movie night," I finished.

"Yeah." She put the bottle to her lips and pulled deeply from it, taunting my ass with the way she licked her lips after she was done. "You said you had something to tell me?" she reminded me.

"Oh, yeah. Wait, why is it so cold in here? You so broke you can't afford the heating bill." It felt like an ice box.

"Yeah, you're fucking hysterical aren't cha? No smart ass. My system keeps playing up and I'm waiting for the landlord to get off his lazy, fat ass and send someone up to fix it! Besides...It's not that cold."

"Bella, it's freezing! How long has it been like this?" I asked, suddenly filling with concern for her.

"A little over a month," she shrugged. "It's no big deal." She added as she wrapped her arms around herself in an aid to get warm. I suddenly felt bad for standing here, letting the little bit of precious heat she had left out the door.

I noticed her teeth chattering and all sense of the wench I hated went out the window for the moment.

"Go grab some stuff you're coming back to Alice's place with me." I gestured towards one of the rooms that led off from her sitting room.

"Yeah like that's going to happen!" She laughed at me.

Bad move, Swan.

I did say I was persistent right?