Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or Facebook. I do have a copy of Twilight and a Facebook page, though.

AN: Hi, sorry this took a while. I have no excuse either.
I wrote this whole chapter at school. Mostly in Spanish and History. And a little in Biology.

So our favorite Edward is back in this chapter. So is Tanya...

I have the next chapter all planned out, so hopefully it'll be out soon.

I would have posted this yesterday, but FF wouldn't let me… It's depressing.


Chapter 9 song: Get Back- Demi Lovato
If you've heard the song, you'll know why... this whole chapter was like stolen from those lyrics. Ha.


Sink or Swim
Chapter 9: Get Back

Previously on Sink or Swim:
Then, for the next twenty minutes, I just chilled with Jacob Black and his friends at the mall food court.

It was the first night in about a month I didn't think about Edward once.

--

It was the end of January, and I'd been working at the bookstore for a little over a month now. I was enjoying it a lot. It was getting me a lot of discounts, so that was a nice little perk.

I was working every weekend and sometimes after school. Every once in a while Jacob would randomly come see me there, claiming he needed a new book and this was the closest bookstore that had it. I, of course, didn't believe that for a second, but he still always bought one.

I'm pretty sure he just knew I needed someone to talk to, because I'd told him about all my Edward problems. I'm not sure why, but it was easier to talk to Jacob than it was to talk to Alice about Edward, if I wanted or needed to talk at all. Normally I just needed someone to vent my frustrations with Tanya to, though.

It wasn't exactly by choice that he found out about my Edward and Tanya problems, but he just happened to be there the day I first saw Edward since our little falling out at Tyler's party.

It was my first Saturday working, the day after I met up with Jake in the food court, and I was sitting behind my reference counter, doing my homework, which was frowned upon, but not forbidden. I had finished two pages of an English paper but I needed to sharpen my pencil, again. I turned around my swivel chair and rolled over to the sharpener, put the pencil in and waited for it to sharpen.

"Excuse me?" I heard a girl say behind me.

"Just once second," I took my pencil out and it looked sharp enough, so I swiveled around again and rolled back to my desk.

I looked up at the customer, "Hi." I said in my friendly customer help smile, but it faltered a bit when I saw who was standing on the other side. "Um… what can I help you with?" I asked the strawberry blonde.

"Um… I'm looking for a book." She said a bit uncomfortably. Well, obviously, I thought. That's why you're at the bookstore! "The thing is, I don't remember what it's called."

"Okay, how about you just tell me about it. Maybe I'll recognize it."

Tanya started to explain the plot to me and I did recognized it. I told her the name and she told me that was it and asked where she could find it.

As I was typing the book name into the computer, I heard him. Edward.

"Hey Tanya, did you find it?"

"She's looking for it for me."

I found what I was looking for then and looked up to tell her the information. When I saw Edward, for the first time in weeks, he was just looking at me, and I tried to avoid his gaze. So, I looked at Tanya.

"We don't have it in," I said to her, "But I could order it and give you a call when it comes in, if you want."

"Oh, um, yeah. Sure. You can do that."

"Okay. Give me your phone number and we'll call you when it comes in."

She gave me the information I asked for and entered it into the computer and told her to expect a call from us in about a week. She thanked me and started to talk away from me, but Edward stayed right where he was, still looking at me.

"Um, can I help you?" I asked, uncomfortable, as he looked at me.

"Bella, I want to talk to you."

"I'm working." I said in a not-so-friendly voice.

"Bella, please."

"Edward, no. I don't want to talk. I can't talk."

"When you're done working, then? Please. Five minutes. That's all I ask."

I thought about it. Five minutes couldn't hurt, right?

I sighed, "Sure. Five minutes." I said sternly, "That's all you get. I'll be done in an hour. Meet me in the food court."

"Thank you." He said, relief evident in his voice and on his face. I expected him to leave then, but he still hadn't moved.

"Edward?"

"Hm?"

"Tanya." I said, pointing to her, who was standing over by the doors waiting for him.

"What about her?"

"She's watching us."

"So let her watch." He shrugged.

"Edward, I think you should-"

"BELLA!" I heard a very different male voice shout in greeting towards me.

"Jacob." I said with a smile. "How it going? What are you doing here?"

"It's good." He said, "I needed a book. I forgot to get one when I was here yesterday. You busy?" He nodded his head towards Edward. He probably thought he was just a regular customer.

"No, me and Edward are just finishing up here." I turned to Edward, "You can go now."

"Um, okay. See ya later, Bells."

I gave him a half-hearted wave goodbye as he walked away from me.

"So," Jake said when he was out of hearing range, "that was Edward?"

"Yep." Wait. Hold on. "Wait, how do you know about Edward."

"Um, you kind of mentioned him at the club."

"Really? I don't remember that."

"Well, you were a little distracted." He winked.

"By what? Your charm?" I said sarcastically. "Anyways, yes. That was Edward."

"And the blonde? That was… who?"

"Tanya. His girlfriend."

"Wow, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure I can say the same thing in a hour though." Jake raised his eyebrows in confusion. I sighed, "Edward wants to 'talk'"

"To you?" He seemed surprised.

"So it would seem."

"About what?"

"No idea."

--

So there I was, an hour later, making my way to the food court. To meet Edward. When I got there, I saw he was there already, by himself.

I went over and sat across from him at the table.

"Where's Tanya." I asked.

"I don't know. I think she said something about shoes, and I know how girls are when it comes to shoe shopping."

"Oh. So… you wanted to talk?"

"Yeah. I just wanted to... I don't now, see if you were alright, I guess."

"Well, I'm just fine. And you couldn't have asked me that at the bookstore."

"If you remember, you wouldn't talk to me there."

"Edward, I don't have time for this."

"Bells, I just… I just wanted to… catch up or… something." He finished lamely.

"Life. You wanted to talk about life?"

"Yeah. I mean, you're working at the bookstore now. That's new."

"And you're dating Tanya. That's not."

"Bella, please don't do this."

"I'm not doing anything, Edward. Just talking about life, like you wanted."

"You really shouldn't be mad at me, Bella. I should be mad at you! I mean, using me! All I did was not tell you about Tanya, and really, we'd only been dating a few weeks when you found out. Most of that time she wasn't my girlfriend. We'd only gone out a few times."

"But you still never told me about her!"

"That's because I mentioned you and I used to date and she freaked. She wouldn't let me see you if she knew it was you I was seeing."

"Edward, that's stupid. If she doesn't let you have other friends, then you should really dump her."

"That's not it though. It just you she doesn't let me see."

"That makes me feel good."

"You don't know the whole story, though, Bella."

"Then enlighten me."

"Okay. I will." He paused for a minutes, figuring out where to start. "She was one of the first people I became friends with when I moved to Seattle. I happened to tell you about you and then I would mention you once in a while, but I eventually stopped. Then a few months ago, I randomly brought you up again and she found out that I actually saw you, like, in person and she got mad. She claimed she just didn't want me getting hurt again by seeing you. But I later discovered it was that she was just jealous that I had seen you. She thought that I'd, like, fall in love with you again or something."

"And you couldn't just tell me this because…?"

"I don't know, Bella. It was a mistake. I know that now."

"So if she already knew me at the mall that one time, why did she say that you never mentioned me before? It certainly seems like you had."

"I don't know for sure on that one."

"I might have an idea," I said to him and he looked at me, waiting for me to continue, "I know girls like Parker. They want it to be about them all the time; they don't want other girls coming before them. She said you'd never mentioned me so that I'd think that I wasn't important enough to be in your life."

He just looked at me for a moment, "I hope you know that's not true. That last part. About you not being in my life."

"Is it?"

"Yes, Bella. Yes. I wouldn't be here, talking to you right now, if you weren't so important to me. It's completely opposite of that, actually. I really, really want you back in my life, Bella."

"You really want that?" Like he didn't just say that, Bella!

"Yes. I miss you, Bella. I want to be friends again. Please, Bella."

He missed me? Did I miss him? Well yeah, that's no secret but all we ever did was fight and we'd just do it again. But then again, we always used to fight when we were dating. Of course, that was stupid junior high stuff.

I shrugged, "I guess so."

He smiled, "Really?"

"Yeah. We'll try this whole 'friends' thing one more time. However, it's only going to work if we honest with each other. No lies, no secrets, just honestly."

"I agree," he said, "I, however, don't think we have to share everything. I mean, what do you care what I eat after swim practice?"

"Well, you do have to eat enough so you don't, like, pass out or something. Haven't you heard how much Phelps eats a day?"

"Well yeah, but he's also a druggie and when you do drugs, you get hungry."

"But he did that one time."

He scoffed, "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Yes, I do." I defended myself, "I trust him when he says he only did it once."

"No one can only do that stuff once, though, Bella."

"And how would you know?"

"Studies show that people usually have-"

"Yeah, usually."

He sighed, "Whatever, Bella. That's old news."

And it was. It just showed how long it had been since we actually talked to each other.

--

That was a month ago, and Edward and I haven't really seen much of each other, but we have been in touch, mostly through Facebook.

By doing that, people could see that we were talking. That made one people, who goes by the name of Tanya, not very happy. And she didn't try to hide it, either.

I'd see messages to Edward that said stuff like, Stop talking to her or I told you not to talk to her anymore, Eddie. Eddie? Really?

I wasn't friends with her on Facebook, so I couldn't see how he was responding, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to know.

I honestly don't know what he saw in her and why he was still with her, but I wasn't going to ask him, it wouldn't end well and I knew it. So, I tried my best to ignore it, and it seems like he was too.

I would be lying if I didn't say that I wanted to see more of Edward. Even though we would chat online every few days, I wanted to see him in person. I wanted to automatically know it would be him on the phone when it rang. Since it was getting to the end of boys swim season, I'd been seeing his name and face in the paper when it would talk about the sectionals and I would get this feeling in my gut that made me want to see him.

I was slowly started to realize that I wanted Edward back. And not just as a friend, either. I was determined to either make those feelings go away, which I knew they wouldn't, or I needed to figure out a way to get back with him. I just didn't think there was anyway to do that. At least not while he was with Tanya.


Sooo if you read that second to last paragraph at all you'll know why I picked the song I did for this chapter. Ha. That song did like totally inspire me on this chapter.

If all goes as planned, the next chapter will be called "Boyfriend"… just a heads up and a little spoiler for y'all.

Soooo, I think you should hit the little button down there and leave me a review now. :)

I don't want to be one of those authors begging for reviews, so I won't be... I'm just saying that I have 52 of you on alert for this story (they might be more on author alert...) but I'm still only getting like six reviews. Can I get some more this time? I'm only asking on this one chapter.

Soo, yeah. You know what to do!