Chapter 7, in which Bella shows up at Edward's track meet
Saturday morning I was up early and down to the Forks High track for a meet. As I warmed up, I tried to keep my mind sharply focused on the race, instead of wandering off every two minutes to contemplate Bella's sleeping at my house that night.
My first event, the 110-meter hurdles, was coming up shortly when I glanced out over the spectators and caught a pair of brown eyes fixed on me. I looked away quickly as a wave of delight washed over me. Bella was here. What was she doing here? Did she know I was here? Did she come to see me? I looked back over at her, smiling, but my smile was frozen with horror when I realized that she was standing next to that same guy who had dropped her off at school that morning. The "mechanic." Jacob.
Fuckety shit fuck. I felt embarrassed about how excited I had been. Edward, you dumbfuck, she's not here to admire you. Who was she here to see? I glanced around and noticed a couple of Quileute guys warming up. This was officially a dual meet with Port Townsend, but the runners from the Quileute Tribal School were invited as well, since their school was so tiny. So she was probably here to see one of them. At least Jacob's not running, I thought with some small taste of relief.
But why, why does that guy get to be with Bella? I knew she had been to his house. He's also been to hers, presumably. Friend of the family. I wondered if he had seen her room. I looked over at them again. He was pretty tall and well-built, bulkier than me, but he kind of did have a baby face. How old was he? I felt pissed off. I needed to focus, get all this out of my head. I was supposed to be racing in a few minutes. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, willing myself to think about something else, anything but that. I changed into my spikes and started in on my practice passes. I knocked down a couple of hurdles on the first couple of passes, but by the time I got to the tenth practice pass I was focused.
We got into our crouching start positions and I was off with the gun. As I sprinted, my mind flashed back to Jacob and I felt a burst of rage. I knocked over one of my hurdles but felt so energized by the angry feeling that I seemed to make up the lost seconds and finished first with a good time. I gradually slowed to a halt and bent forward with my hands on my thighs to catch my breath.
"Edward!" She had left the spot where she had been standing and was calling to me from the sidelines nearby. I walked over to her. "Hey, Bella," I smiled. I wasn't angry at her. One look at her pretty face melted all my hostile feelings.
"I didn't know you ran track," she said.
"Oh, yeah. I took a break from it when we first moved here, but I started again this year. I did it in junior high and in my first couple years of high school."
"When did you move here?"
"January."
"Oh, I thought you had been here longer. Where did you last go to high school?"
"Bishop O'Dea. It's an all-boys school in Seattle."
"All-boys," she said, thoughtfully.
"Before that I was in Chicago."
"Right." She sounded like she already knew that.
"Hey, Bella, there you are." My nemesis strolled up. He was looking at me as he placed his hand possessively on the back of Bella's neck, kneading her nape slightly. "I wasn't sure where you had got to."
Bella shrugged her shoulders and he took his hand away. That was good. "Oh, Jacob, this is Edward. Edward, Jacob."
"Hey man," Jacob nodded at me, wearing a poker face and sounding vaguely bored.
"Hey," I responded, unsmiling.
He turned away. "So, Bella, we're gonna take Seth out for burgers. Ready?"
Her eyes flashed to me. She looked uncertain.
"I have to go. I have a couple more events," I told her, automatically trying to make her feel comfortable.
"Oh. OK. Good luck," she said.
"Thanks." They started to walk off. After a minute she came back.
"But I'll see you tonight, right? Did Alice tell you I'm sleeping over?"
"Yeah, I heard. OK."
"OK." She turned and hurried off. I headed back towards the warm-up area. I looked back at her and she turned her head to look back at me over her shoulder at the same time before she disappeared towards the parking lot.
I was kind of glad she was leaving. I was pretty sure my next race was going to be an unfocused mess.