A/N: So, I just found out my son got a high school placement (high school in Sydney is 7th - 12th grade) in an Autism Unit at an awesome new school. I am so deliriously happy and relieved that I thought I'd be really generous and update super early. I did finish another chapter, as well.
Geez, people, talk about a fray of emotions from last chapter. Some of you were pissed - you were meant to be - but sheesh some of you tore me a new one. Fun fact: I am not one of those authors who will chuck a hissy and rally my minions (I don't have any) if I get a review that is anything less than glowing praise. So, really, don't feel you can't express your opinions openly. You can. I actually admire people who'll let me know their thoughts while signed in. I will only be "clever" if you troll me for the sake of it, like my special little stan *waves*. Just going to add, Bella is not feeling victimised by Edward. She knows he's a shit who likes to take the piss. If it bothered her that much she wouldn't agree to any of it. As for angst. Okay since it's me, I'm going to say it's 98% angst-free. Am I even coherent right now? I'm pretty hyper. Anyway, it's all subjective, you don't have to like it, and I'm cool.
BTW, Kim (my beta) is so going to hate me. Sorry, doll! I'm just so happy! Also, happy birthday to StarryEyedWriter8.
I'm gonna shut up now.
18+ content ahead. Still falls under the M rating, so all good.
Hoodwinked
Chapter 7.
It's all over.
I can't go to the farewell now. It's out of the question. Edward has completely humiliated me, and Jessica will never let me live it down. Both her and Mike will spend the entire night making sure everyone knows about it while laughing at me behind my back.
Who am I kidding? No doubt everyone already knows. By now it would have been screen-shotted and passed through every person in the year three times over.
Okay, what I said to Edward was incredibly insensitive, but it wasn't deliberate. He didn't have to resort to this. I don't deserve it.
But then maybe I do...
Alice texts just before midday.
Hey, babe, want to go for lunch with me and Jas? Edward's in.
What? I reply, filling with sudden confusion. Didn't you see what Edward tagged me in? He outed me.
I thought about removing the tag but there was no point. Edward's mutual friends with enough people that it still would have spread like wildfire.
Huh?
He tagged me on Facebook telling everyone it's all a lie.
Where? I don't see anything. Alice replies a few minutes later; I suspect she was checking herself.
Maybe he removed it… I speculate. Not that it matters anymore.
I didn't see anything. When did he post this?
This morning.
Did you have a fight?
Yeah.
So he outed you?
Yeah.
Oh geez. Hang on. I'm going to ask him.
She calls back only moments later sounding frustrated and impatient. "He says he deleted it immediately after posting."
"He wasn't quick enough. I still saw it, and if I saw it, then other people must have as well..." I mumble.
"He tagged you in it, though, so you would have got the notification. God he's an arse," she snaps.
"Yeah, I don't know," I mutter.
"Seriously, he does stupid shit without thinking. Bloody child!"
"So do I..."
"You're defending him?" she puts to me dubiously. "What were you doing up so early? He mows at the crack of dawn!"
"My mother dragged me out of bed." I don't tell her why.
"What did you fight about?" She sighs heavily over the receiver.
"He called me a daddy's little girl, so I called him a mummy's little boy without thinking."
"Oh...Bells," she releases a second drawn out breath, "surely he knew you didn't mean it."
"I've been acting really...self-conscious, and I'm taking it out on him. He's getting annoyed at me. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, and he won't stop tormenting me!" I'm frustrated but not at the shithead next door. It's not as if I don't know what he's like. I've known for eighteen years.
"He just needs to be a bit more empathetic—you're an arsehole, Edward!" she breaks off to shout at him.
He mumbles something back, but I can't make it out. His voice sounds like its back to its usual smartarse pitch, though.
"Everyone would have seen it by now, Alice. There's no point!"
"I didn't see anything, and I haven't heard anything, either. That early on a Saturday? You two would have been the only ones awake," she reasons and her confidence allows me to hope.
"I don't know..." The idea of one person knowing churns my stomach, but with social media it's never just one person.
"Want me to hunt around and see if anyone knows anything?" she offers.
"Yeah...I don't know. I guess..."
She sighs again, over dramatizing it this time. "Okay, give me half an hour."
Hey, sorry, snotface. I'm a prick. I admit it. Edward messages me almost the second Alice hangs up.
You are!
Come and have a joint with me in the tree-house.
What? My father will kill me. I reply.
So we both die. Just get your small tits over here and let me make it up to you.
Fine! Give me 5.
I'm still wearing my nightie. I tear it off, hastily fumble to strap on my bra before pulling on a pair of denim shorts and a singlet top. I'm not going anywhere without brushing my teeth, and when I finally leave the house to head next door, closer to ten minutes have passed.
That's when I hear it, the sound of Mr Cullen's loud, belligerent voice. He's yelling at Edward, and I arrive just in time to see him shove Edward up against the door of the garage and slap his face.
I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth on impulse as I quickly duck back behind the shadows of my parents' house. I continue to watch, though, ashamedly, while my heart absolutely aches. Edward is completely submissive. He only stands, his head bowed, as his father continues to shove and yank at him.
"Answer me!" Mr Cullen repeatedly demands, but Edward remains silent. His father obviously treats his silence as a retaliation, though, because when he replies it's with the back of his band.
Edward's head is knocked sideways, but in silence, he straightens back up, shoves both fists in the pockets of his jeans and looks up to meet his father's gaze. He's bleeding and there is something defiant in his eyes; even from twenty feet away it's obvious, but still he doesn't speak a word.
"I'm getting sick and tired of your shit!" his father snaps, turning and heading down the driveway to his car that's parked by the side of the road.
At the same time, Edward pushes off the garage door and makes his way to the side of the house toward the rear yard; I race back inside.
"Sweetie, are you okay?" My mother asks after I slam the front door behind me in my rush; she heard too.
"Where are the Band-Aids?" I blurt without stopping as I make my way into the kitchen.
"Hang on," she says softly, the alarm in her eyes calming before she disappears behind her bedroom door. She emerges again a few moments later with several strips in her hands. "Go and take care of him."
I nod and break into a small smile, but my heart is hammering and I'm unsure of what emotion I'm feeling much less portraying.
Are you okay? I text Edward before I leave. I'm not sure if he'll even want me around him right now, and I'm not about to assume.
Are you coming or what? He immediately replies, and even by text it's obvious he's very off.
I find him leaning up against the gum tree at the very rear of the property. His head's lowered, his foot propped and resting against the trunk, while both hands are still deep in the pockets of his jeans. His entire posture is screaming in pain, though, and I immediately pause.
He spots me before I can make my presence known, and the moment his eyes meet mine I realise he's crying.
"Are you okay?" I whisper as one arm subconsciously reaches out to him.
"I'm fine," he answers quietly, inhaling sharply and removing a hand from his jeans to wipe his eyes clumsily. In doing so he smudges the blood that's still trickling from the cut below his left eyebrow. "After you." He motions to the rungs nailed into the truck leading to the timber tree house he built with his father when he was young.
Without a word I scale the seven steps and pull myself inside. It's been years since I've been up here, but everything looks and smells exactly the same. For a moment I stare up at the crude painting Alice decorated on the west-facing wall when we were kids. Me, her and Edward all holding hands and smiling; our names written above each stick figure.
It was in here where I spent most of my summers; where I consoled Alice for hours after her mother died; and where I had my first kiss. With Edward of course. He was ten and I was eight.
Edward and Alice... My entire childhood is filled with memories of them; in fact, I don't have a single memory that doesn't include one of them.
In silence Edward sits beside me, but his silence, his pain, is palpable.
"Hey..." I murmur, and without another word I wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him to me.
It takes him a few moments to respond before he—almost hesitantly—encircles his arms around my waist and drops his face to my shoulder.
For the longest time we sit like this, without words, while Edward's shuddering breath washes over me as he attempts to pull himself together. I don't let him go, I can't, and for the first time in too many years I realise that I feel just as protective of him as I always have of Alice.
"What was he angry about this time?" I eventually break the silence softly against his ear.
He half laughs bitterly. "Me. Just the sight of me pisses him off."
I squeeze him tighter to me, and he does the same before he inevitably pulls back.
"Fuck him..." he mutters, wiping his eyes in frustration this time.
"Come here for a sec..." Opening one of the Band-Aids I'm still clutching in my hand, I peel off the straps and smooth it carefully over his cut skin. "There," I say, when I'm done, meeting Edward's gaze; this is when I realise he's staring at me. "What...?"
"Bella...?" His voice is rustic, his eyes serious, and he moves closer to me, only slightly as if he's about to kiss me but immediately hesitates. "We'll just say someone hacked me."
"...What?" I utter vacantly, my eyes zeroing in on his lips before I quickly pull them back to his gaze.
"About the post. If anyone's read it we'll say someone hacked me."
"Oh..." I mumble. "Yeah...okay..."
"Shit, I'm sorry. Sometimes I do stupid, impulsive shit," he says, sounding frustrated at himself.
"No...I deserved it," I reply, and I'm back to struggling to make eye contact with him.
"You deserved it?" he echoes dubiously. "Seriously, snotface, is that what you think?"
"We're back to snotface," I say wryly, breaking into a small smile while his turns broad.
"You'll always be snotface to me," he teases me, clamping my nose between his second and third fingers.
I shove him back and for a moment we laugh together like we once did. When we were as close as I was with Alice; before he became just her annoying older brother. It's a single moment in time that's broken way too soon, before Edward's pulling out his secret stash of cannabis from a loose floorboard in the treehouse.
"My father will shoot you, just so you know," I fill him in lightly as he sprinkles the plant delicately within the small filtered paper and rolls it.
He grins to himself, his breath shooting quickly from his nose, but continues preparing the joint in a way that suggests he's been doing it for a while.
"Ladies first," he says, handing me the finished result.
I take it from him, bringing it to my nose and inhaling in its musky spice as he begins on the second one. When he's done, he pulls out a lighter, and placing the rolled herb between my lips, he lights it.
I take one breath in and immediately erupt into a fit of coughing. Edward, of course, laughs.
"Relax your throat when you inhale. You're tensing," he instructs me, patting my back as I lean forward in an attempt to catch my breath. "Try again." He hands me a bottle of water.
My second attempt isn't much better, but by the fifth and sixth round I start to get the hang of it without asphyxiating.
"Bloody hell," I say, clearing the remaining restriction from my throat, and just as I'm beginning to feel the effects of the cannabis filter through me.
Edward smiles to himself, before fixing his attention on his own.
I watch as he lights it and draws it back with ease; holding it in his lungs for a few moments before exhaling it through his nose.
Stretching out his legs, he eases his back against the wall of the tree house and takes another deep pull. This time when he exhales it's accompanied by a long, languid groan. "God..." he utters softly, closing his eyes and leaning his head back as a drunken smile tugs on his lips. "This shit is better than sex."
"That's actually pretty concerning," I say lightly, leaning against the wall beside him.
He turns to glance at me, his smile becoming toothy, before opening his arm and offering it to me. I take it, and rest my head against his chest, listening to the whoosh of his lungs as he continues to draw the smoke in. "I told you I can help you out there," he teases me against my ear.
I nudge him playfully. "You said I'd never want to see them again—the person I lost it to," I remind him. "I can't not see you again."
"You're getting attached to me, aren't you?" he says, chuckling beneath his breath as he exhales.
"I've known you all my life. Of course I'm attached to you," I reply, taking a quick puff and coughing lightly against the smoke in my throat.
"We'll have to make sure it's not a disaster then," he muses, tensing in anticipation for the elbow I force into his ribs.
"Shut up. It's not going to happen."
He laughs again before it turns into a husky moan as another billow of smoke releases lazily from his nostrils.
"Hey," he pipes up a moment later, tugging a strand of my hair with the same hand he has curved around my neck, "I'm really am sorry about that post. I can be a real prick sometimes."
"It's all right," I say with a sigh, becoming distracted. "But..."
"But...?"
"You don't really think I'm ugly and bucked-tooth, do you?"
He groans again but this time in a completely different context. "Bella, ninety-nine percent of everything I say in anger is bullshit. You're beautiful, you know you're beautiful, so knock that shit off."
I pause for a moment, not sure I heard him correctly as a secretive smile pulls on my lips. "I must have done something right for Edward Cullen to call me beautiful."
"You know me, I say it the way it is." He shrugs, bringing the joint to his lips again.
"No, you don't. You torment me relentlessly," I counter, running my fingers down the cotton material of his shirt and over his ribs.
He jolts and grabs my hand. "Stop that." Then drawing in the last of the cannabis into his lungs, he leans forward—taking me with him—and stubs out the butt with his shoe. "You done?" he asks, turning to me after he settles us both back against the wall.
"Yeah," I say, handing it to him.
He sits himself upright this time, stubbing it out before reaching for the esky in the corner of the space. Pulling the lid off, he grabs a large bag of Doritos from within and tears it open. Then after taking a handful and shoving them in his mouth he offers the bag to me. I take several as Edward once more leans us back.
"Why aren't we laughing?" I ask after swallowing and plunging my hand in the packet for more.
"It was Indica. I don't smoke to get high, but to mellow. You feeling chill?"
"Hmm...pretty chill. I think I'll just stay here all night..."
He laughs again half beneath his breath, while the rocking motion of it causes a wave of fatigue to wash over me. It's me who moans this time before crunching on the corn chips in my hand.
"So, what's going on, Bella?" he asks after a moment, dropping his lips to the top of my head.
"Hmm...HSC, you and Alice. Not much else..." I close my eyes and focus on the steady beat of his heart.
"I meant, why are you so on edge around me? Last night you were okay, and this morning you were back to treating me like I was going to roofie you."
"You did roofie me—just now," I reply, laughing lightly to myself.
"You know what I mean," he says with a quite breath.
I sigh inevitably and half sit up so I can face him. I'm feeling so relaxed all of a sudden I'm no longer shy about looking him in the eye. "It's cause...you're right about me..."
A brazen smirk immediately pulls askew on his face. "Of course I am."
I immediately whack him as that familiar frustration builds in my chest again. "I'm serious. I have no idea what I'm doing, and you do, and you keep making me conscious of it."
"Bella, you are aware that I'm no gigolo, right?" He reaches out and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear as his smile turns warm, and maybe a little teasing. "I was only a year younger than you when I lost my virginity."
"You were?" I'm pretty surprised. Okay, maybe a little gobsmacked.
He shrugs. "Yeah. Half-way through Year 11. I was probably the last out of my group."
"...But..."
"But...?"
"You're...you."
He scoffs. "I might be me, but I still have standards. I wasn't just going to stick my dick in anything."
"Even girls whose last name you don't know?" I raise a contradictory brow.
"Yeah, but she was hot," he says, and I roll me eyes.
"You said you never wanted to see her again, though."
"I don't." He shrugs his shoulder. "I completely missed and then came all over her."
"Um—that was more than I needed to know!" I blurt, repulsed but oddly curious at the same time. "But...what do you mean by missed?"
He breaks into a small grin completely at my expense again. "Think about it."
I open my mouth to reply even as my mind drifts with multiple scenarios. "Oh..."
"You think it's like magnets and they just come magically together?"
"I have no idea," I mutter, "but it doesn't sound like it'd be much fun..." Despite Alice's tales.
"It's fun," he contradicts me, his smile resurfacing again.
"For guys, maybe. No chance of you getting knocked up."
"I haven't knocked up anyone yet."
"Yet."
"You have heard of birth control, right?"
"Of course I have." I huff, because he's all but laughing at me again. "But nothing's full proof."
"Being a virgin is."
"Exactly," I emphasise my point.
"Is that what you're scared of?" He tilts his head in contemplation. "Getting knocked up?"
"I witnessed my mother give birth. I'm traumatised for life." She had a home birth, in an inflatable pool in the living room. My brother was ten pounds. I still have nightmares.
"Yeah, we heard her screaming from over here." He chuckles before leaning toward me. "I promise I won't knock you up," he whispers in my ear.
"Would you give it up?—we're not having sex!"
"Hmm...you say that now..."
I shush him, and relaxing against him I grab another handful of chips.
"It's not just 'cause you're self-conscious," he pipes up after a moment, while I glance at him blankly.
"Huh?"
"You were okay last night until I kissed you," he points out. "Then you got all shy and hostile."
I pause for a moment to recall it before groaning softly to myself. "Because it's...you. I never expected to ever kiss you the way we're pretending to. It's messing with my head."
"You worried you're going to fall in love with me?" he says lightly.
I only huff with impatience and elbow him again; he's anticipating me this time.
"I'm kidding." He chuckles.
"Do you want me to fall in love with you?" I meant it to be some kind of threat but of course it came out all wrong.
"Hm...it'd be interesting," he says simply.
"What if you fall in love with me?" I arch a brow and he snorts.
"No chance."
"You're an arsehole."
He laughs, and I'm suddenly finding it hard to hold off my own.
"So, you don't want to kiss me anymore, is that it?" he asks after a moment, his voice dropping almost seriously.
"No...I... Well, it's a part of the plan isn't it," I decide to go with.
"It is. I think you just have to get used to it."
"Probably..." I mumble, feeling my cheeks flush and my heart skip at the mere idea of it.
"Wanna practice?" he puts to me casually.
I release my breath heavily and shrug in resignation. "Sure."
"Alrighty," he jokes, pulling us both upright again before attempting to wrangle something out of the front picket of his jeans.
"What..." I begin before I realise it's a breath freshener.
"Open," he instructs me, pumping two squirts of the mint flavoured spray in my mouth when I do. Then after using it on himself, he places it to the side, beside the near empty bag of Doritos, and turns back to me. "You ready?"
"I'm ready," I answer, smiling wryly to myself while my insides suddenly squirm.
He leans toward me when I reach out and clamp my hand to his mouth. "And for the record, I do know how to kiss. It's just because I'm kissing you that's throwing me off."
"If you say so," he mocks me, and just like that Alice's annoying older brother is back.
"Shut up!" I protest.
"You shut up—and open your mouth."
"Don't shove your tongue in!" I warn him.
"Why not?"
"Because it's gross!"
"You are such a virgin..." He smirks.
"I'll make a deal with you," I suddenly propose, pulling slightly back from him.
"What deal?" he asks cynically.
"If you can make it to the formal without saying either snotface or virgin, I'll let you...take care of it..."
His eyes immediately widen in obvious surprise, before as if snapping himself out of it, he appears to dismiss me. "Bullshit, and that's completely cock-teasing, by the way."
"Don't call me that!" I snap a little too passionately.
"...Don't call you what?"
"A cock tease. That's what that arsehole Mike Newton said before he dumped me."
"He called you a cock tease?" he demands as his face steadily darkens.
"And a frigid bitch," I say bitterly.
"I'm gonna beat the shit out of him," he promises, his voice dropping lowly.
"You are not."
"You'd better make sure he doesn't find himself in the same room as me then." I suddenly realise he's serious. Totally serious.
"You'd fight for my honour, would you?" I tease him.
"Of course I would." He glances up and catches my gaze again, his eyes narrowing. "I'm shoving in the tongue now, too."
"Why?"
"Because you made a promise you can't keep."
"Who says I can't keep it?" I challenge him, and in return he quirks a completely unconvinced brow.
"You would honestly give your virginity to me if I stop calling you two names?"
"I don't think you can, and if you do, then..." I shrug, "I probably should get it out of the way with someone who'll look after me."
"All right then..." he accepts my terms as a broad smile pulls slowly across his face. "You're on."
"Fine," I say simply just as a fire is lit in my belly. The formal is a week away today. Seven days.
"What do I get if you renege?" he questions.
"I'm not going to renege."
"Still, I need a guarantee."
I huff and consider it for a moment, but come up empty. "What do you want?"
He appears to contemplate it for a moment before he inevitably smirks again. "Six more months as your boyfriend."
A/N: Thank you all for reading, and reviews get a spoiler :)
