Discalimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer. Nor am I George Lucas, Terry Gilliam, Joss Whedon, Jim Henson, Walt Disney, Shakespeare, Chaucer, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Hemmingway, Emily Dickison, Jane Austen or any other of the authors, screenwriters or directors that are affiliated with anything that I may have mentioned in this chapter. If I was I wouldn't be writing Twilight fan fiction.


Chapter 8

The Long Ride Home

My relationship with Edward carried on in much the same vain for several weeks. Whenever Alice and Jasper would spend an evening together Edward and I would take refuge with each other.

It was always the same. We'd get together and watch one movie or another. It had become some sort of challenge for us to find some great movie that the other hadn't seen. I hadn't seen Willow. Edward hadn't seen Time Bandits. Despite the fact that I was a huge fan of the series, I had never seen the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. Edward had loved Labyrinth when he was a kid, but he had never seen The Dark Crystal.

We watched the old horrible Batman movies together. One day we watched all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. We even dug up old Disney movies like Pinocchio and The Aristocats that we hadn't seen since we were kids.

After a month Edward and I had a solid friendship. I had to admit, I was happy. I had more than I had ever imagined having with Edward. In truth, I had never thought, even for a second, that he would want to be around me.

We had fun together. We laughed together, not at me. Most of the time, anyway.

The problem was, I never saw the possibility for something more. I looked, I searched for the possibility, but I couldn't seem to find one. As far as I could tell, Edward and I were never going to be anything more than friends.

I thought that it was something that I could deal with. I enjoyed being around Edward, so I why couldn't I be happy with just that? I was falling for Edward more and more with each passing day. His eyes, his smile, the fact that he was a total gentleman. There were times that I thought I had imagined him, Edward was so perfect. My feelings for him were becoming uncontainable.

My desperate love for Edward lead to a lot of moping, which irritated Alice to no end. Whenever I wasn't with Edward I tended to sulk around the house. Alice said that I had to take the initiative. She was constantly reminding me that Edward was just as shy as I was. She was always telling me that I had a chance, but I didn't believe her.

To my horror Alice had asked Jasper if Edward had ever talked about me. Jasper had said that Edward's comments about me never seemed more than platonic, but he couldn't really tell. Edward just wasn't the type of guy who talks about girls with other guys. Now I had to suffer Jasper's apologetic looks on top of my grim belief that I would spend the rest of my life in love with someone who never thought of me as anything more than a friend.

********

"Antsy, Bella?" Edward's velvety voice broke me out of my daydream.

I blushed and looked at my knees. I tended to bounce. It seemed impossible for me to keep perfectly still. I was always drumming my fingers or bouncing my feet around.

"We've been driving for over an hour," I said blandly, hoping that Edward would be too focused on the road to notice my face's change in color. "Of course I'm antsy."

Edward laughed. When he used to laugh it was always a little harsh. The jokes that he used to make at my expense always came with a biting edge and felt condescending. Now his laugh was always soft and musical. His teasing more gentle and friendly. There was nothing that could make me shiver like the sound of Edward's laughter.

I was currently trapped in what I had named 'my own personal hell.' I was locked in a small metal box for an unknown amount of time with Edward.

To me Spring Break had never been anything more than a week without school. Most college kids would go off and party, but that kind of thing would never be for me. But I had never considered my week of freedom as an option to go and visit my parents.

I found out that every Spring Break Rose, Jasper and Edward would all carpool back to Forks to see their families. Alice had not so subtly suggested to me that, maybe, I should do the same. Apparently I never spent enough time with my dad. As I had guessed she would, a week after I had decided to go home Alice had begun complaining about being alone in the apartment for a week. I didn't understand why she couldn't have just asked me, but I guess she didn't want me to feel pressured. I would have said yes anyway.

Rosalie was taking Emmett home to meet her parents, so it seemed like the best time for Alice to meet Mr. and Mrs. Hale as well. Alice would be staying at my house, but she was going straight to Jasper's house as soon as she arrived in Forks.

Due to this detour and the fact that we all couldn't fit in one car, Edward and I were exiled together in his silver Volvo. I was alone in a car with Edward. My mind was trying hard not to think of all of the things that could happen. I tended to let my imagination get away from me when it came to Edward.

I drummed my fingers against my knees. Conversation was still not the easiest thing to come by for Edward and I. After being in the car for over an hour we had only succeeded in talking for roughly five minuets. Yes, I timed our conversations.

I went through topics in my head. All Edward and I ever seemed to talk about was movies. It had begun to feel like watching movies was all I ever did. What else did I do? I read. Edward read, I remembered his overflowing bookshelf.

"So," I began, "books."

Edward made a face at the road. I didn't blame him. I hadn't really asked a question or made a statement. I had just said a noun.

"Books?"

"That was my attempt to start a conversation with you," I said blandly.

Edward smiled. "Oh, books. What about them?"

"What do you like to read?" A very general question. One, I hoped, that could not be answered easily.

Edward shrugged. "Lots of stuff."

"Could you be a little more vague?" I asked.

"Shakespeare, Chaucer, Orwell, Bradbury, Twain, Poe, Hemmingway. Lots of stuff. I like Arthur Conan Doyle and Lloyd Alexander. Isaac Asmiov is pretty good. David Eddings. Robert Jordan. Stephen King. I don't know." He shrugged again.

"You like horror?" I asked.

Edward shrugged again. "It's okay, but I was referring to The Dark Tower series. It's more Sci-Fi/fantasy."

"Oh, I think I've heard of that."

"So what about you, what do you read?"

"Aside for what you mentioned? Austen, Bronte, Dickinson. The usual suspects for a female English major."

"What are you going to do with that anyway?"

"What?" His question made absolutely no sense.

"You're majoring in English. What exactly do you plan to do with that? You're not going to make a whole lot of money writing ten page essays on Anna Karenina."

To be honest, I had never really thought about. "What are you going to do with a History major?" I swung back. The fact that I didn't have an answer to Edward's question made me nervous. "Essay's on the Incas?"

"I want to be a History teacher," he answered without even thinking.

"Teach?" I vaguely remembered Charlie saying something about Edward wanting to be a teacher.

"Yeah, high school. I was never really fond of any of my history teachers. They always just recited the book; they didn't seem to have any love for what was going on. I always thought that I could do a better job, so I decided I would."

The idea of Edward as a teacher made me smile. He had always reminded me a bit of one of my geeky math teachers from back in Phoenix. He was the kind of teacher that you would have liked to hang out with even if you hated the subject.

Edward looked at me for a moment before turning back to the road. "I always though that you should do it to." I would have thought he was joking if his voice hadn't been so serious.

"Teach?" I asked again. "Me?

"Sure. You've got a great personality. You're very easy to like and you're really smart."

"Me? Are you sure that we are talking about the same person. I'm the girl who blushes a lot and trips over everything."

Edward smiled at the road. "All the same, you'd make a great teacher."

Edward hadn't needed to ask for directions to my father's house. Everybody knew where the chief lived. I hadn't even realized that we had arrived until Edward stopped the car.

I resisted getting out of the car. Our time together, which had seemed so long and daunting at the beginning of our journey, had ended far too soon.

When I didn't immediately move from the car Edward smiled at me. It was not the usual smile. There was something else lingering in the back of his eyes. He spoke in a voice so similar and yet so different than the one I was used to. "Don't worry. I'll see you tomorrow."

These words reassured me. I had feared that it would be a week before Edward and I would be together again. But Edward planned to spend time with me. Well, we were supposed to be friends.

I sneered to myself as I thought that horrible word and got out of the car

********

"So, you came down with Edward Cullen?" I could hear the real question in Charlie's voice, but was not about to answer it.

"Yeah, Alice drove with the Hales. She'll be here around ten." I had already told my father all of this on the phone and when he got home from work. Charlie was no longer interested in Alice, though. All he seemed to be curious about was my relationship with Edward.

I had arrived home before Charlie had gotten home from work, so Edward had been spared the awkward small talk with my father, but I had this horrible feeling that it was going to happen one way or another whether I liked it or not. It isn't as if Edward is your boyfriend, I told myself. He's just some guy that you're friends with. What does it matter if he talks to your dad?

I got up to clear the dishes from the table.

"Bella, don't do that."

Charlie felt guilty. The poor man couldn't cook to save his life, so I had taken on the job of feeding my father during my summer and winter breaks. Upon my arrival I had immediately began to cook dinner, falling back into my usual habits. Charlie had always had a problem with me taking care of him.

"I'm just putting them in the sink," I told him. "I cook, you clean." That was the only arrangement that would my dad and I would ever agree on even though I ended up doing the dishes eighty percent of the time anyway.

"So, any plans after school?" Charlie was always asking me this question.

I tipped the dishes into the sink. "Well, Edward spent an hour today trying to convince me to get a teaching credential."

"Really?" I smirked at my father's attempt to keep an even tone whenever Edward's name was mentioned.

"Yeah," I said casually. "Edward was talking about how he wanted to come back to his old high school and teach. He said that I should do the same."

Charlie groaned as he stood up from the table. "Well, I'd love to have you here, Bells. That school could use some new faces as far as teachers go. I think it might not be a bad thing for you to consider." Charlie deposited himself in front of the television and switched on the basketball game.

I pondered my dad's idea. I liked the idea of becoming a teacher, but only because that's what Edward wanted to do. I tried to imagine working with him. Seeing him everyday. Laughing at all the young girls who were sure to have crushes on him.

I smiled to myself. I loved to imagine a future with Edward in it. But, sadly, even in my imagination Edward and I stayed the same distance apart as we currently were. My own mind couldn't construct a realistic future with Edward as anything more than a friend.

********

"So, how was it?" Alice had gotten back to my house at nearly eleven o'clock. Charlie had been passed out on the couch when she arrived from the Hale's house.

"Jasper's parents are so great!" Alice squeaked as she unpacked her clothes into a drawer that I had emptied for her. "They really like me. It was all just so wonderful." Alice was full of vague information that night.

I settled under my covers while Alice pranced around my tiny bedroom. Alice froze in the center of my room and turned to me, a smile on her face. "So," she said casually, sitting down on my bed. "How was your trip down here?"

I fiddled with a button on my comforter. "It was fine."

Alice gently smacked my knee. "Now Bella, you that's not what I want to hear. I want details. Everything that was spoken. I want to know what Edward smiled at and what he laughed at. And don't tell me that you can't remember because I know you better than that. I know for a fact that you could replay your conversation better than a video camera screwed to the dashboard."

I gave Alice an embarrassed smile before diving in. I told her everything, every tiny little thing that had passed between Edward and I in the car. Alice seemed quite interested in my perceived change in Edward's voice before I had gotten out of the car.

"What did it sound like? Regretful? Longing? Love?"

I sighed. "I really don't know. All I can say is that his voice sounded different, somehow."

Alice rearranged herself on my bed. "Bella, I need to you tell me exactly what he said and what it was in response to. Be specific." Her voice was serious. It sounded more like we were discussing the national debt, or world hunger, not the finer points of Edward's change in vocal tone.

I thought for a minuet. "I didn't get out of the car right away. I was afraid that I wouldn't see him until we leave. He smiled at me and said, 'Don't worry. I'll see you tomorrow.' It was like he could read my mind."

"Well," Alice rolled her eyes. "One thing I can tell you for sure is that Edward cannot read your mind. If he could it would save us a lot of trouble. Now, how did he say this? Was there a joking edge to his voice, like he was teasing you?"

I shook my head. "No. It was soft and sweet. Gentler than I've ever heard before. Maybe a bit more intense? I don't know." I shrugged.

"Intense?" Alice perked up. "That's definitely good. We like intensity. Now, where were his eyes when he said this?"

"Looking at me. I don't know." I tossed my head back on my pillow, exasperated by our talk. "Alice you are reading way too much into this simple little conversation."

Alice shook her head. "You're reading, I'm interpreting. Now, what about the emotions in his eyes? C'mon Bella. This is important."

I threw a pillow over my head to shut out the sound of Alice's voice.


Okay, so I got a lot of geek out in the beginning of this chapter. I haven't read most of the things that Edward or Bella mentioned, but I want to. Some of them are my favorites, but a few of them are on my summer reading list.

If you haven't seen Time Bandits, The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth I would suggest seeing them. Really good movies.I got a kick out of those of you who got excited when I mentioned Willow. I've loved that movie since I was tiny and I wanted to encourage more people to watch it.

So when I let one of my friends read this she thought that in this chapter Alice sounded like her. Many of my other friends have commented to the same affect on my other stories. I must admit that, yes, Andrea tends to be my Alice inspiration. There, I said it.

So we get more of Charlie cuz I luvs him. He makes me smile. Next time we get to have some fun out in Port Angeles, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading! :)