Chapter Nine
Invitations and Plans
DPOV
We arrived late this morning, so when we were out of the car we said goodbye and we each ran in the direction of our first hour class. When I stepped into the classroom the bell rang and Mr. Banner looked at me weirdly since I was breathing hard and my hair was probably messed up because of the wind. I grinned at him and he only shook his head telling me to go and take my seat.
"Yes sir." After that class the rest of my morning classes went by fast and pretty soon it was time for lunch. I guess that my morning classes had gone by so fast because I hadn't been paying attention. When it came time for lunch I went to my locker and shoved my books in so that I could go eat something. When I closed my locker door I was surprised to see Jessica waiting there.
"Hey Jess, what's up." She smiled at me and it seemed like she was sure of something.
"Do you mind if I walk with you to lunch?"
"Of course not," We started walking towards the lunch room and when we went through the double doors she started talking again.
"Did you know that the girls' choice spring dance is this Friday?" Oh, no please not another one. My whole morning had been like that, a lot of girls kept asking me and I've turned all of them down. I really had no interest in going. "We don't have school for the rest of the week after today. Well getting to the point anyway, would you like to go to the dance with me?" I scratched the back of my neck, something that I always did when I was going to let a girl down.
"Jess I'm sorry, I'm going to Arizona… today, after school, and I'm coming back Saturday." She looked dejected but then I thought of something. "But I heard that Mike was interested in going to the dance. Why don't you ask him?" She thought about for a minute and then smiled.
"Yeah, that's a good idea." She smiled one more time before heading towards the lunch line with me behind her. When I had lunch I went to sit right besides Bella who looked like she was deep in thought. She was looking up at the ceiling with a far away look on her face. Her eyelids looked as if they were going to drop at any minute. She was blinking repeatedly to try and keep her eyes open.
"Are you okay?" She jumped a little and turned to look at me.
"What?" She asked as she rubbed her right eye and then yawned.
"Are you okay, you look sleepy?" She shook her head and blinked a few times.
"Yeah I am," And as if to prove her point she yawned again. "I haven't been sleeping well since Friday." She finished with another yawn.
"Why?" She opened her mouth but then shut it.
"I'm worried about dad. He cancelled our plans and I've been just curious as to why. He seemed pretty excited about coming to visit us and then just to cancel on us. It doesn't make sense to me."
"Well you know that he's always been busy. It's not surprising at all. Work always comes first before," I was going us but thought better about it. "Everything else." I felt her head on my shoulder and I knew she knew that I changed what I was going to say. It felt nice and comforting but to change the way our mood had gone I mentioned my idea about visiting my mom.
"That sounds nice." I knew she was going to like it so I smiled.
"Yeah, it would be nice for a change in weather and you would get to see you know who." I mentioned as poked her side with my elbow while wiggling my eyebrows. She sat up and ran a hand through her hair.
"Derrick, please, we were having a nice conversation." I smiled apologetically.
"So do you want to go and give my mom a surprise?" She thought about it for a moment and than it seemed as if she got a better idea.
"Actually would you mind if I went to see dad and you went to Arizona?" I sighed.
"Bella, I would really like it if we stayed together." I didn't want to think about her being alone while my dad works.
"I really, really, want to check on dad. I promise that's the only thing I'll do." She begged.
"I don't care what you do Bella, I just don't want you to feel lonely. It's a trip so that you can have fun not so that you bore yourself to death. You know that when my dad has work he's immersed in it." She looked at me with a puppy dog look. I shut my eyes tight and then opened them again to see her with the same expression. "Fine."
"I knew you would crack." She said and wrapped her arms around my neck.
"I really like your hugs Bella but I'm hungry." She unwrapped her arms from me and took a drink of her lemonade. "Aren't you going to eat anything?"
"Not hungry." She said and I noticed that she sounded distracted because she was putting her earphones on.
"Not healthy Bella, besides if you eat you might get some energy." She pointed to her ear and mouthed 'can't hear you'. I rolled my eyes and started eating. I noticed she looked in front of her and saw Mike with a Red Bull in front of him.
"Hey Mike." He turned surprised and smiled.
"Yeah?"
"I'll give you five bucks for that Red Bull." She said and smiled. I noticed how he's smiled faded but he nodded anyways. Bella took five dollars and gave them to him. She took the Red Bull and put it right in front of my face.
"See, now I'll have energy." I hit my forehead with the heel of my palm.
"That's not what I meant about energy at all Bella." She just opened it and took a swing of it.
"This thing is good, why had I never bought it before." She asked herself and then took another swing. Pretty soon she had finished it and was singing to herself. I was having a hard time controlling my smile. I had to feed her more of those.
BPOV
When lunch was over I was practically skipping towards Biology with Mike right besides me. We made it inside and he followed me to my seat. I noticed that Edward was sitting there already like always. Mike had been hanging around my seat before class started lately and it was nice talking to him…when he wasn't implying anything between us.
"You look hyper."
"I think it was the Red Bull. It really works, I feel like I have more energy." He grabbed my pencil from the desk and started playing with it.
"Do you know about the girls' choice spring dance?"
"Yeah, I heard some girls talking about it." They were actually gossiping and asking each other who they were going to ask. Most of them were talking about taking Derrick but I knew he was going to turn all of them down.
"I was wondering if you… well, if you wanted to ask me to it." I ran a hand through my hair and I was so glad that Mike was looking at the ground and that he couldn't see my expression.
"Why don't you ask Jessica?"
"Why, did you already invite someone else?" He asked and I noticed that his eyes went right to Edward. I could see from the corner of my eye that Edward was looking at me. I looked down at the table and just as I was planning my face was covered and I couldn't see Edward.
"I'm not going to the dance at all Mike. I'm going to Washington D.C. right after school and I'm coming back Saturday." I felt bad when I saw how dejected he looked.
"Can't you go some other time?" His tone of voice made me forget about feeling bad.
"I'm sorry, I can't." I answered harsher than I wanted. When I saw that he wasn't moving I added, "You should go to your seat." Sometimes Mike made me dislike him a lot. It just peeved me that he was so controlling, that it seemed that we were going out or something. I clenched my fists but then unclenched them when I noticed that my rings were hurting me. I put my elbows on the table and then I set both of my hands on my hair and left them there for a while but then got them off because I had been pulling it.
I sat straight up again and let a breath out. I turned to look at the clock to see if time had gone by but wasn't surprised when I noticed that we hadn't been in class even for five minutes. I was going to look straight ahead but focused on Edward's face when I saw that he was looking at me. I turned straight ahead again. I could still see from the corner of my eye that he was looking at me.
"Mr. Cullen?" I heard Mr. Banner ask and noticed how Edward turned to answer a question I hadn't heard. I opened my book and focused on the lesson before he called on me and I didn't know the right answer. When I came to the page I followed along and tried really, really hard to ignore Edward for the rest of the period.
When the bell rang I shut my book and got my things ready so that I could head to gym when I heard Edward's voice.
"Bella," I wondered why his voice sounded so familiar even though I hadn't heard it for the past month. I took a deep breath before I turned to face him.
"What, are you talking to me again?" His lips twitched and I couldn't help but narrow my eyes at him.
"Not really." I turned to look at the desk.
"Then what do you want, to be friends or something?" I asked as I turned back to him.
"No. It wouldn't be very smart of you to be friends with me." I sighed angrily; he was making no sense at all. "I know I'm being very rude, but trust me, its better this way." Suddenly I felt very tired again so I closed my eyes. I sighed and opened them again.
"I don't know what you mean." I picked my books up and made my way out of the classroom and to my last hour class.
DPOV
I was glad as soon as the bell rang signaling the end of my last hour class. I was tired of girls asking me out to the dance, if I said no to the first twenty don't you think that they would have already figured out that I'm going to say no to the others. Well they haven't, not yet anyway. I literally wanted to run to the car and lock the doors so that I could stop hearing the same question again and again.
I was going to make a run for it as soon as I made it out of the classroom but an arm was blocking my exit. The person that appeared in front of me left me almost grimacing but I stopped myself from being rude.
"Derrick-" Lauren started but I interrupted her.
"Lauren if you're going to ask me to the dance you're-"
"No, Derrick I wasn't going to ask you to the dance." I felt relief and I started walking again before she grabbed my arm. I turned around to tell her to let me go but wasn't able to speak because of her mouth…that was right against mine. It took me a moment to react but when I did I grabbed her from the forearms and separated her away from me.
"If you want some more call me." She winked but not before pecking my lips again. I was totally and completely frozen in place. When she moved I noticed that Lily was right by the door of the classroom and she looked pissed. For some unknown reason I felt like I had to tell her that there was nothing between Lauren and me.
I just wiped my mouth though and turned around and left towards the car where I knew it would be safe.
BPOV
I came out of the gym building with an icepack on my forehead. I knew that she had done it on purpose but I didn't know why. Ah, my head was hurting so bad. I was so going to get back at her. Right now though, I really wanted to get to the car so that I could go home and take some Tylenol. I was walking to the car when I noticed a figure by it, I stopped in my tracks but when I recognized Eric's figure I kept walking.
"Hey, Eric," I knew he was going to ask about the ice pack so I distracted him. "What would you like?" I stood right in front of him and focused on keeping a face that wouldn't show how much pain I was in.
"Well, I was wondering if, if you wanted to go to the spring dance with me?" I liked Eric he was nice, and he didn't make it seem as if we were going out or something like you know who. I smiled apologetically at him.
"I'm sorry, I'm going to Washington D.C. and I'm coming back till Saturday."
"Oh, okay, maybe some other time."
"Yeah," As soon as the word was out of my mouth I regretted it. I didn't want him to take that too seriously. He turned around and I looked after him. I was going to look around for Derrick but then I saw Edward walking right by the back of my car trying to hold back a smile.
I wanted to narrow my eyes at him but my head hurt too much to do that. I rested my arm on the car and then my head on top of it. It seemed that when my head was still it didn't hurt as much.
"Bella, let's go." I looked up to find Derrick with a weird look on his face. My head hurt worst then before because of the sudden movement so I put the ice pack to my head again.
"Don't ask." I said as I noticed that he was going to ask about the ice pack. He only shrugged and as soon as I had the doors open we got in.
"What happened?" I turned to him and glared.
"I thought I told you not to ask." He just looked at me waiting for an answer.
"Jennifer Ford, happened, she hit me with a tennis racket."
"That kind of rhymed." He said surprised and then shook his head. "Why?" He asked and I noticed that he was now mad.
"I don't know, but she said it was accidental so everyone believed her."
"It wasn't was it?" I shook my head.
"Not unless accidental is now considered on purpose." I said as I put my seat belt on with my head against my seat.
"Do you want me to drive?"
"I've gots it." He laughed and I turned to look at him.
"I think that affected you a little more than what it should have."
"I've already lost my mind." I turned the car on and started to make my way out of the parking lot until Edward pulled in front of me to wait for Lily. She was just coming out of the building with the rest of her siblings I noticed that she looked mad. Alice was right by her telling her something to calm her down probably. I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed a line forming behind me with Tyler right behind.
He was waving but I decided to ignore him. My headache wasn't helping my mood at all. I heard Derrick opening the glove compartment so I stared at what he was doing; anything to ignore the person who was right in front of me.
"Here," Derrick said as he held two pills in his hand. I took them from him and then he pulled a water bottle from the cup holder. I dropped the two pills in and then took a drink of water to swallow them. I heard a knock by the side on my window and jumped. Derrick just laughed. I punched him on the arm.
I looked and noticed Tyler with a huge smile across his face. I rolled down the window and found that the cold wind helped with my headache.
"I just wanted to ask you a question while were stuck here." Well he got straight to the point.
"What is it?" I was afraid to ask.
"Will you ask me to the spring dance?"
"Sorry, Tyler, I'm not going to be in town." I said harsher than I had intended. See the headache wasn't helping my mood at all.
"Oh, Mike told me that."
"Then why did you-" I started to say but he cut me off. Now my anger wasn't just because of the headache, it was because of his stubbornness too.
"I just wanted to see if you were just letting him down easy, but hey, no worries, we've still got prom." He grinned and then ran back to his car. I was absolutely fuming by now. I just heard Derrick laughing right besides me, I looked right in front of me and Edward was shaking from laughter too, he was looking straight at me.
I put the car in reverse and pulled my butt up from my seat to look behind me so that when I backed up I wouldn't hit Tyler's Sentra. Then I changed the car to drive and pulled out carefully from in-between Tyler and Edward without hitting their cars. When I was free I stepped on the gas and got out of the school's parking lot calling him the worst possible names I could come up with.
Did you guys catch why Mike was sort of happy when Bella asked him for the Red Bull? He was actually thinking that she was going to ask him to the spring dance. I have a question for you; my faithful readers… are my chapters too long? Maybe I should cut some things off huh? I guess I'll have to think about that.
