*Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight
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With the jewelry gone, my backpack feels lighter. As we walk through the halls, I smile every time I see Alice's earrings sway—they're long enough to sway—and every time I see the gleam of Rosalie's bracelet when she brings her hand up to her collar, an action she's been repeating all morning.
We've had two Jasper sightings already, one outside with his hat on and one inside with hat hair as he held his hat in his hands. He didn't try to fluff it out or anything, just left it matted against his head.
Rosalie closes her locker without a sound. "Yours next, Bella?"
"Yeah," I say and we head that way. I don't really need anything from my locker, but the other day there was a note in it, so I can't pass up the chance to check if there's one in there again. I think my crush on Edward may be reaching levels that surpass the extremes of Alice's crush on Jasper.
The journey to my locker brings about another Jasper sighting where he doesn't acknowledge our existence. I don't know if this bothers Alice, or if it's just expected. There could be someone else around that may have a crush on her that she's not noticing. I look around, but I can't pinpoint anybody. My crush on Edward Cullen didn't start until he acknowledged me at the party, but then again, he already had a crush on me. Am I the Jasper in this situation? If Alice just talks to Jasper, maybe it will open his eyes.
We pass by Angela and Ben walking hand and hand through the halls. Back when I had a boyfriend, we didn't walk around holding hands. I never wanted to, but they look so content, and I know now how nice it feels to hold Edward's hand. I have to pull my vision away to stop myself from staring at them.
My locker is empty. Well, it's not empty. It has a few things in it, but nothing new. I brush off my disappointment as I close the door. I'm being greedy. I should put a note in his locker, but he probably gets so many that he wouldn't even notice it.
Alice spins my lock once the door is closed, scrambling the combination, so someone can't walk by and open it. "Seems McCarty is taking us up on our hang-out-anytime offer. Don't worry, Rose. You don't have to say anything. I've got this."
I look up and see both Edward and Emmett heading our way. Edward's hood is up, but as he gets closer, he pulls it down. We get locked in a stare as he keeps moving toward me. For a moment, it's as if nothing else exists but the two of us. It'll feel like a bucket of ice water thrown on me, if anyone stops him. I've definitely surpassed Alice's crush levels as I study him: his walk, his loose-fitting jeans, and the skater shoes he's been wearing all week. Rosalie's sharp intake of air breaks me from my stupor.
"It'll be okay," I say to her. "Alice is right. You don't have to talk to Emmett, not if you don't want to. He has a crush. He's not trying to crack you."
She takes a few deep breaths. "Yeah, you're right. I'm good. How 'bout you?"
She's referring to Cullen and my crush on him. I love that we're acknowledging it now. "I'll manage," I say, but when he's in front of me, I go mute. What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to do?
"Hi, guys," Alice says, standing taller and moving to stand right in front of them. She appears the boldest of our trio, albeit, if Jasper were with them, it'd be a different story, but I'm grateful for her lead. Edward and I at school is new territory. I don't know if this is the next step in the relationship we're building, or if it's just Emmett liking Rosalie and taking Alice up on her offer to hang out.
"Hey." Emmett messes with the straps on his backpack.
Alice nudges me. "Look who's here," she says.
If Edward didn't already know I like him, he'd be getting a pretty big hint right now.
Edward smiles at me, but then he says to Alice, "Cool earrings."
"I know, right?" She moves her hair and tilts her head, giving him a better view. "Bella made them."
"Really?" Emmett asks, gaze zeroing in on her ears.
Rosalie extends her arm out. "She made this too."
Emmett eyes the piece in bewilderment. "Can you make me one?"
I shrug as a smile tugs at my lips at his request. It's a first for me, except for my mom's request for jewelry to sell, but that doesn't count. "Sure, let me see your wrist."
He holds his arm out, and I try to measure it with my hands and commit the measurement to memory.
"Geez, McCarty," Alice says. "I bet one of your wrists is bigger than both of mine."
As Alice presses her wrists together and compares them with Emmett's, Edward fiddles with the lock on my locker. "What's your combination?"
I lean against the locker next to mine and ask him, "Why?"
"I don't know." He smirks. "You gonna tell me?"
I laugh and push my fingers through my hair. "Seven—"
"Hey, Cullen," a female voice interrupts us.
Edward smacks his head against my locker twice.
"Hi, Heidi," Emmett says to our interrupter and looks to Edward and says, "Dude, don't be rude."
"Hey," Edward says with just a tilt of his head as if he's throwing the word over his shoulder, but he's still looking at me. His tone softens as he asks, "What's the rest?"
"So, Cullen," Heidi says, not acknowledging the rest of us. "Are you going to Jessica's this weekend?"
As Emmett says, "No, we're not going to make it to that," I try to ignore Heidi as well and tell Edward, "Thirty-four, sixteen."
"What are you doing instead?" she asks, directing her question to the back of Edward's head.
"For real?" Rosalie asks. "What's your deal? Do you not see us talking to him? Isn't there a girl code or something that says do not talk to Cullen if another girl is already talking to him?"
"I don't know, is there?" Heidi asks, bringing her hand up to grip her opposite arm. Her suntanned skin is the color mine was expected to be when I moved here from Phoenix. How someone managed such a tan in Forks, I don't know.
Edward is quick to nod as he looks at her for the first time since she approached, and says, "Yeah, I think so, but it also says don't talk to him at all, so …"
Her lips part in a horrified expression. "Okay, well, I didn't come over here to talk you anyway." She turns her shoulders, so she's facing me. "Bella, can I talk to you?"
"Oh, um." I'm taken aback for a moment. I don't want to talk to her, and I don't want to leave Edward, either.
"It'll just take a second," she says.
"Yeah, sure," I give Edward a glance, hoping he can read the apology in my smile and the annoyance in my eyes, but he looks away. His lips set into a straight line. My stomach tightens as I follow Heidi several feet down the hall. I have every intention of making this fast and getting back to my locker.
"Sorry about all that," she says. "I really did want to talk to you, but then he was just there, and I've never had the chance to talk to him before. I was pathetic, wasn't I? Be honest. Was I pathetic?"
"Yeah, kinda," I say because she asked me to be honest, but I could have been even more truthful and told her that I've seen and heard worse. Her attempt at talking to him was fairly mild. I can't be mad at her for greeting him and asking about his weekend plans, but it's hard not to lump her with my view of so many other girls in this school.
"I don't know why I did that." She laughs, but it tapers off awkwardly when I don't join in. "I'm not even going to Jessica's. I have a date, but it was the only thing I could think to say."
I'm laughing now with a scoff thrown in as I think about what Edward's said about these girls not actually liking him. "Wow. Okay, well, I need to get back. What'd you need?"
I'm trying to be nice, but my patience is running out. Edward Cullen is hanging out with my friends at my locker. I should be over there.
"It's just that none of my friends are in our English class, and we're supposed to choose partners for the next project, so I thought—"
"That I don't have any friends in that class, either," I say before she can say it herself.
She wrings her hands together. "Yeah, did you already have a partner in mind?"
"No," I say.
"Will you be my partner? Please? I'll do anything." Her face is pouty. "I'll beg."
"No, don't," I say when she starts lowering to her knees. "Get up. I'll be your partner."
She takes a deep breath and stands back up. "Great, okay. Well, see you in English."
"Bye," I say and go back to my locker, but Emmett and Edward are gone.
"That was weird. What'd she want?" Alice asks.
"A partner for that English project," I say, but my focus is on Edward's absence. The space he occupied in front of my locker is now occupied by Alice and Rosalie, but I still see it as if it were a gaping hole of where he used to be, but my friends continue on as if he'd never been here at all.
"Oh, we have to do that too," Alice says to Rose. "You're my partner, right? You didn't mean it last time when you said you weren't working with me again."
Rosalie laughs and fiddles with her bracelet. "We'll see, Alice. We'll see. You are impossible to work with."
Alice looks at me, and I don't know how I look to cause the worry on her face. "Are you all right?" she asks.
"Yeah, fine," I say, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling. "Did something happen while I was gone."
Alice looks at the ground and shrugs.
"Alice, what?" I ask.
She sighs and lifts her head. The earrings I gave her dangle near the back of her jawline. "It's just … Are you sure there's no one else you could like because I'm pretty sure the only way he's going to talk to any of us is if we don't have a thing for him? I mean … you can pretend you don't, but I don't want you to get friend zoned, either."
"Oh, thanks." I turn to Rose. "But what happened?"
"Well, you left and then Cullen pointed at Emmett and said he quits and not to make him hang out in the halls anymore before he walked off," Rose says.
"Okay," I say and nod. "Emmett left too?"
Rosalie looks away like she can't talk about Emmett any more than she already has, but Alice says, "Yeah, he said to tell you bye, though."
The bell rings, and I walk with discontented steps to class. It was amazing having Edward there, but then he just left, just like that. I check my phone before I get to class in case he sent me something after he took off, but he didn't.
In English, Tanya, Zafrina, and Siobhan convince the teacher to let them work in a group of three, and I'm way more annoyed about it than I should be because who do they think they are? Heidi switches seats, so she's sitting next to me. The desk legs screech against the floor as she pushes it flush against mine. I'd thought I'd been getting better at being close to people, but having her sitting so close beside me has me feeling like the walls are caving in.
She's brainstorming ideas for our project. Compared to the trio with their constant schemes, Heidi doesn't seem so bad, but now when I think about it, it doesn't matter what she said to Edward, her motives were the same as everyone else's.
"Hey, Bella. You okay?" Heidi asks.
I shake out of my daze as I realize my gaze is locked on the back of the blonde one's head. "I'm fantastic," I say, but when she smiles at my words, I'm pretty sure she didn't catch my sarcasm.
"Sorry about earlier. I didn't know you were friends with Cullen. Are you friends with him? Or are you just trying to… you know?"
The thought of that being why I was speaking to Edward is vile. "We're friends, yeah. I would never …" I want to say I'd never try to crack him, but in their reality, if they knew about Edward and me, they'd think that I'd done it—achieved this impossible feat that so many have set out on. "He doesn't like that, you know? This cracking game… It's harassment."
She sets her pencil down in a perfect horizontal line on the center of her paper. "I never thought about it like that. Should I apologize?"
"No," I say, softening my tone. "I think you should just leave him alone."
"Okay. No problem. I'll leave him alone." She lifts her pencil and slides her paper my way. "Do you like any of my ideas?"
I take her pencil and circle one.
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Standing outside of our English class, Heidi and I exchange phone numbers and email addresses. "Can I take a picture of you to save with your number?" she asks.
"No, I'd rather not," I say, because it's an odd custom, and although I hate my picture being taken in general, this girl is not my friend. She doesn't need my picture.
"Okay, that's fine. I'll text you, and we can talk about our outline. Maybe we can meet at the library one night."
"Maybe," I say then think, Or maybe not. "Let's see what we can get done in class first."
Rosalie calls my name, and I give Heidi a hasty goodbye.
"Thanks for the save," I say as I fall into step beside her.
"Yeah, sure, anytime." Rose looks around before leaning in closer and whispers, "Hey, when you and Alice come over, could you come over earlier, maybe like a half an hour before she plans to get there? I need to talk to you about something."
"I can do that," I say, trying to judge her frame of mind. She looks nervous, but I have no idea why. "What's going on?"
"It's nothing bad. I just want to ask you about a few things."
"Okay, then I'll be there early."
Rose gives me a tight-lipped smile, and says, "Awesome. See you later."
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By lunch, I haven't seen nor heard from Edward and Alice is enjoying the attention of being asked about her Cullen friendship a little too much for my liking.
"I don't get why everyone's asking you about him," Rosalie says as she pulls the crust off her veggie sandwich. "Bella and I were there too."
I'm listening to them. I am—even if I'm not a part of their conversation. Emmett's in the lunch line, and Edward's not with him. I don't expect him to be, but wherever Emmett heads next is probably where Edward is. I wonder if this is how the cracking girls track him. The last thing I want is to be like them, but as I watch Emmett, I consider following him.
Alice says, "I may be shorter than you two, but I have a large presence."
"Or huge earrings." Rosalie scoffs. "Oh, sorry, Bella."
I hear her, but my attention is focused on Emmett as he reaches the front of the line. I need to see if he's getting one meal or two. He's big enough to eat two himself, but if he gets two, one might be for Edward and then, I might just follow him.
"Bella," Rosalie says, raising her voice and breaking my focus from Emmett, but just before I turn, I catch sight of a lunch tray in each of his hands.
"The earrings, right. Yeah, I know they're big. It's fine. They're not as big as the ones she likes, so there's that too."
Alice touches the wire leaves. "That is not true. I love them."
"Okay, but next time I'll make you bigger ones." She perks up at that, but instead of talking about what she might like, I ask, "What have you been saying to people when they ask you about, you know, him."
"Oh." Alice sets down the homemade cookie she'd just pulled out of a reusable container. "If being friends with McCarty means Cullen will be around and possibly be our friend too, I feel like I've basically signed a non-disclosure agreement. When they ask, I give them a look like this …" She tilts her head to the side and lifts a brow. "And then I walk away, or if I'm in class, I say, 'No comment.' I hope you ladies agree and do the same."
Rosalie dabs at her mouth with a napkin in the way Edward told me Emmett's observed. "That's fine. I don't plan on talking about him, but really, Al, I'm pretty sure they aren't going to be hanging out with us."
"Always such a downer." Alice breaks her cookie in half, takes a bite, and chews it before asking me, "You agree, right?"
"Yeah, of course," I say, because apparently, I'm a pro at keeping things to myself.
As Emmett leaves the cafeteria, I almost get up to follow him, but then I don't. He didn't look our way once, and I'm feeling significantly avoided. I haven't seen Edward since this morning in any of the places I've come to expect to see at least a glimpse of him between classes. It has me wondering if he didn't leave because of Heidi, but because I talked to her. He should know by now that I'm nothing like the girls he deals with at school, but if he's questioning that, I need to talk to him. I get out my phone and hold it under the lunch table. I find the log of texts I've shared with Edward and add another message. Can I talk to you?
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Author's Note:
Hi, thanks for reading and being understanding with me skipping a week.
Chapter 11 will be up next Wednesday and a teaser will be up on Facebook on Monday: Mylissa Denicks.
So much thanks to sri ffn and YourVixen for prereading and dazzled eyes22 for betaing. I appreciate you all so much!
For those interested in the Babies at the Border Compilation, if you haven't submitted your donation reciept, Friday is the last day to get that in. I'm actually going to go do that right after I post this!
~M