Characters belong to SMeyer. Inspiration comes from the Twilight saga and Patrick Sean Smith. Creativity is mine.


Let's rearrange
I wish you were a stranger I could disengage
Just say that we agree and then never change
Soften a bit until we all just get along

over my head (cable car) - the fray

Chapter Ten: Holding On In A New Direction

I wasn't sure exactly what woke me, but as I squinted my eyes open a smidge, I was assaulted by an unforgivably bright beam of sun and immediately I closed them again. My head pounded angrily with an intense pain that reverberated out from my temples and my stomach twisted sickly. It was like a vice was slowly squeezing my brain into a pancake.

I swallowed back the watery taste of nausea and scrubbed my hands against my face. My mouth and tongue felt thick and pasty and my muscles protested as I attempted to straighten my limbs . I wondered if I was in a hospital bed, mangled and disfigured from a horrible accident. It certainly seemed feasible. I felt like I'd gotten into a fight with a Mack truck and lost. I wondered what Charlie would say when he found out his daughter had managed to get herself maimed on her first night of independence. I wondered if I was recognizable in my current state of near-death. Had I been carrying ID or would Charlie have to be called in to identify this mass of putty as his daughter?

With my eyes still scrunched shut against the offending rays of sun, I felt around for an extra pillow or piece of blanket to cover my head. I thought maybe I could just sleep through the pain. My hands groped around blindly for the familiar feeling of bedding fabric, but instead found something warm and hairy and unexpected. My eyes flew open and I shot up into a sitting position, clutching my arms around my surprisingly naked body in horror as my head spun. My face flamed and I thought I might be sick, but I took a deep steadying breath and forced myself to look over. A cold finger of fear danced it's way up my spine.

Beside me lay Edward Cullen, flat on his back with one arm hanging limply off the side of the bed and the other tossed across his bare chest. His hair stuck out in a million different directions, some strands flopped down over his forehead. His lips were just barely parted, allowing him to breathe noisily and revealing a sliver of white teeth. The thin sheet wrapped around his legs left very little to the imagination, dipping down below his hipbones to reveal a deep V leading to his groin. As I watched, terrified and awe-struck, he shifted and the sheet fell away altogether. I clamped my hand over my mouth and held my breath, steeling myself against a hundred different awful and humiliating sensations.

Feeling unfathomably embarrassed, I tore my eyes away and forced them to the other side of the room, silently wishing I could somehow be magically transported there. Staring at the carpet, my attention was drawn to a small white pair of female underwear near the end of the bed. My underwear.

Oh no. No, no, no.

Why I hadn't immediately connected the fact that we were both completely naked in his bed with the only viable explanation was beyond me. I was a smart girl. This conclusion should have been immediately apparent. I had been aware that I was naked as soon as I'd opened my eyes. Obviously my clothes had to be somewhere that didn't include 'on my body'. Somehow, actually seeing them on the floor of Edward Cullen's bedroom in the Phi Chi Kappa house jumpstarted my foggy brain.

Oh. No.

It started off as a vivid movie-like memory then quickly faded into fuzzy flashes. I remembered being tricked into pending my evening at a frat house when I'd wanted nothing more than a quiet night in the dorm. I remembered Emmett challenging me to a game of beer-pong and my fierce determination to show Alice that college-Bella could be fun and carefree. I remembered watching Edward move across the backyard, through the crowd of spectators, and offering to explain to me the rules I already knew. I remembered his eyes being unnaturally green and then him leaving. I remembered losing, terribly, and drinking cup after cup of lukewarm beer. I remembered Alice and her excitement over Jasper. Then things got increasingly unclear and difficult to decipher.

I knew Rosalie was a bitch, but I couldn't exactly remember what she'd done to make this noteworthy.

There'd been giggling. Far too much giggling. And the fact that it felt like a bed of mold had grown on my tongue told me there was liquor. Probably far too much of that as well.

There were some flickers of a bathroom and a bottle of water. I wasn't sure. One thing was for certain, though. Somehow I'd managed to stumble upstairs, into Edward's bed and out of my clothing. It had apparently been quite a spill because I'd taken him down with me.

Any concrete coherence ended there. The remaining memories were just pinpricks of insight. Edward's lips on mine. My hands pressed against his chest. His tongue sliding across my jaw. My fingers twisted in his hair. His eyes staring into mine. My back arched, pressing my hips into his.

Oh. My. God.

I sat there surrounded by sheets and shame. I had gone overboard in my quest to prove myself and the repercussions would be great. As the pieces of last night shifted like a kaleidoscope, offering me different glimpses into the past few hours, I was becoming increasingly aware and embarrassed by my behavior. I'd been forward in my advances, to say the least. It had been like I was on a mission, tackling the situation in the same way I'd tackle a paper or an exam.

But, if I was being honest with myself, I hadn't only done it for Alice. I hadn't only done it to make some kind of grand statement. I had wanted it. Edward was gorgeous and he was cool and, in the strange alternate universe we had some how fallen into, he found me cute. I knew relatively nothing about him and the things I did know should have been enough to deter my attractions, but here I was. In Edward's bed. Naked.

I leapt off of the bed, thoughtlessly forgetting about the sleeping creature next to me. The movement of the mattress as I removed my weight achieved what I had carefully avoided for the past ten minutes - waking Edward. I froze in place, like a deer in headlights, as his body shifted. He groaned and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, following the motion with a stretch and a noisy yawn. Relief broke me out of my trance as he hiked the white bed sheet back up over his hips and, reminded of my own nakedness, I began frantically searching for my clothes. Grabbing my pair of underwear, I pulled them on as fast as physically possible then turned my back to the bed. I crouched down searching for the rest of last night's outfit as my heart sprinted in my panic-stricken and oh-so very bare chest.

A sleepy voice behind me caused every hair on my body to prick up.

"Well, good morning."