"You all right, Edward?" Dad stood in the doorway of my room, unsure if he should enter or leave me to my misery.

I shook my head, unsure if I wanted him to come in or be left to rot.

"Lose the game?"

I groaned. If only he knew what had been lost.

"Bella hates me."

He took that as an invitation to join me on the edge of my bed. "Didn't seem that way before you left. Something happen?"

That was the question of the century. What the hell had happened?

"I don't know, Dad. One minute, everything was fine. We were cuddling under a blanket and about to drink hot chocolate, and the next, she hated me. Hates me. I don't think it's going away."

Dad looked like he wanted to call my mom in for reinforcements. He wasn't great with the touchy-feely stuff unless he was picking out gifts. He always managed to get the gifts right.

"I think someone told her I have a girlfriend."

That was only thing I could fathom from her half of the conversation before she ran away. My half of the conversation had gone something like "Duh. What? I mean, duh."

"I thought she was your girlfriend."

"I kind of never asked her."

"Huh." He looked around again, probably hoping my mom would magically appear and save him from awkward father-son bonding. "So…"

I decided to spare him. "I don't know, Dad. I told two girls I had a girlfriend and I'd been in love with her for two years. Then I run into Bella, and she starts shrieking about me dating someone else, and I'm just…lost."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Dad threw his head back and let out a guffaw that shook the bed. He laughed so hard he had tears streaming down his face.

"Shit, Edward." He wheezed the words. "You're like some teen drama, a sitcom, and a behavioral study all in one. You haven't put this all together yet?"

"You're a terrible father, I hope you know. Where's Mom? She's so much better at this."

Dad almost rolled off the bed as his laughter grew louder. After a few more minutes, I started to get a little worried about him. He looked like he couldn't breathe. I couldn't decide if I should leave him for dead or call for my mother.

I figured calling Mom would kill two birds with one stone. She could save my father's life and then take over as chief counsel, since he sucked so horribly at it.

"Dad's dying!" I yelled down the stairs. "Take your time, though. He's choking 'cause he's laughing at me. He deserves to suffer a little bit."

Mom did take her time coming to check on us, and by the time she arrived, Dad had wiped his tears and looked properly sympathetic. He even had his hand on my shoulder, the big faker.

"What's going on up here?" Mom looked between us and narrowed her eyes.

Dad lost his shit again and had to leave the room. That meant I had to explain it all to Mom all over again. It hurt more the second time. To my mother's credit, she was better at biting the inside of her lip than Dad was. Oh, but she was amused.

"You don't see what's happened here? I thought you were smart, Edward."

"I'm pretty smart until it comes to her," I admitted.

"Well, your track record certainly supports that hypothesis. You never told her you'd been crushing on her for two years. Then these girls talk about the girlfriend you've been crazy about since before you and Bella actually met. What's she supposed to think, Edward? Why would she deduct that girl is her? As far as she knows, you've known her since August."

Slowly—so slowly it should have embarrassed me—the facts came together. Son of a bitch. Bella really thought I was in love with someone else. Well, that was easy to fix.

In theory.