So many people to thank, so little time. I had the honor of being recommended on the amazingly hilarious Twigasm Podcast by the lovely ninapolitan. Also, the ladies at the Fictionators blog gave 'Bare' a beautiful, glowing recommendation. 'Bare' has also made it to the final round of the Indie Awards, which end today, I believe. If you haven't voted for your favorite fic, shame on you!

Thanks to the many story alerts/favorites and reviews. They make me smile, although I am no bueno at replying. The lovely gals on the Twilighted thread make me smile. My four - FOUR - betas are the world's greatest.

Disclaimer: Stella say not mine. Stephenie say all hers.

The Tragedies of Chemistry

Then you are humming, thrumming, coming inside – compliant but not complacent, sated but not satiated.

"Bella?"

Bella screeched and nearly jumped out of her skin as the seraphim face of Rosalie Hale appeared in the open window of Bella's truck. She had been sitting in the Cullen's driveway for almost five minutes, reading and rereading the words she had scratched shakily in the red notebook, revenge and longing.

"Lord, child, you will wake the dead with that caterwaul. Why are you dawdling out there? Come on in!" Rosalie opened the truck door for Bella, who scrabbled around in the passenger seat for the brightly wrapped present for Edward.

"Sorry," Bella said with a laugh. "Just… thinking. I hope I'm not late."

Rosalie shook her head, brushing hair out of Bella's eyes. "You look real pretty, Bella. That's a nice color for you, that deep green."

Bella colored, always embarrassed and incredulous when Rosalie sent sweet words her way.

Rosalie laughed at her blush. "Now you look like Christmas," she giggled, pointing to Bella's red cheeks, complementing the verdant dress.

"Oh, funny," Bella huffed with a grin, following Rosalie inside the house. It was decorated with banners and balloons, and a huge white cake was sitting in the front dining room.

"Bella!"

She turned to the tune of clacking heels and met thin arms around her waist. "Hi, Alice," she laughed. She shoved a bag decorated with cakes and balloons in Alice's direction. "This is for Edward."

Alice grabbed the package and looped her arm through Bella's. "Everyone's in the kitchen. We were just about to sit down for dinner, so you're right on time."

"Good," said Bella, watching Alice plop down the gift on a table already overflowing with brightly colored packages. "I was worried I was late. Charlie had me on the run around trying to find this special fish seasoning…"

"You came."

Bella looked up. The rest of the family was in the kitchen, filling their plates with food, buffet style. They all smiled at Bella, but she could only see Edward, who had uttered that sentence and stopped filling his plate with baked macaroni and cheese, serving spoon halfway to his plate.

"Of course I did," she said softly.

Edward moved towards her and Alice moved away, and for the second time in five minutes, she was scooped into a very exuberant hug. Admittedly, this hug did a bit more to her, with her face pressed against the warm, worn cotton of his blue oxford shirt, his heart beat bumping against her ear. When he drew away, she saw six identical smiles on the faces of the Cullens and Hales, but she could barely register that before Edward was pulling her towards the assembly line of food.

"Are you hungry?" he chattered, handing her a paper plate. "Esme cooked all of my favorite foods, but I didn't know if you did or didn't like any of this, so I asked Alice what your favorite food was, and she said you're a sucker for anything with mozzarella and tomato sauce, so I had Esme make something… I don't even know what it is, to be honest."

"Baked ziti," Esme told Bella, both of them sharing smiles over Edward's total lack of suave.

"Right, baked ziti. Is that okay?"

Bella put down her plate, and put her hands on Edward's shoulders. "Relax. Baked ziti sounds amazing; I haven't had that in years, and it was really sweet of you to think of me."

Edward exhaled. "I'm acting like a complete nutcase, aren't I?"

"Yes," Bella laughed. "But that's okay. I'm nervous too." She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow as she picked up her plate again. "By the way, happy birthday. Finally eighteen, hmmm?"

"Yeah," he chuckled, resuming making mountains of food on his plate. "Now I can be tried as an adult and buy cigarettes. Awesome."

"And buy porn," Bella reminded him, avoiding the eyes she felt on her face as soon as she said that.

After dinner, in which Bella had many dishes that she loved and didn't – macaroni and cheese with a cashew topping was delicious; sauerkraut and kielbasa made her want to hurl – they all settled in the living room, laughing and shoving and joking as Edward sat in the big chair with all his presents placed in front of him.

It was amusing, she remembered later, how eighteen-year-old men regress to toddlers when presented with brightly wrapped packages bought for the sole intent of making them happy.

Edward opened each with a smile she had rarely seen on his face. She wondered at that – she remembered Carlisle telling her how Edward didn't want to make himself feel any more ostracized than he already was. But as far as Bella knew, Edward's ostracisism was self-inflicted. He could be the most popular boy in school; he could have hordes of friends at his beck-and-call.

When Edward's fingers grazed the gift she brought for him, she leaned forward a little and listened to her heartbeat.

"And this is from Bella," Esme announced to the crowd of people and to Edward.

Bella held her breath as Edward's thin fingers pulled out the wads of tissue paper. He first took out their notebook, and she smiled shyly at him, knowing what was inside of it for his perusal. His eyes met hers across the living room, and he smiled at her, flashes of green underneath dark eyelashes. He set the notebook aside, and pulled out the rest.

"Bella," he breathed as her gift to him lay in his palms.

"I don't… I mean, I kind of went out on a limb, because you probably already have them, but I went to that art store in Port Angeles yesterday, and the lady said they were the best, and showed me some amazing paintings…"

"They're amazing," he said, still staring down at them. "Perfect. Thank you."

She had bought him Winsor & Newton Gouache paints. The woman in the shop said they were some of the most unique paints around, and the best brand she had on hand. She had no clue whether Edward painted with them or not, but she felt the need to stick to his need of colors. She had bought him the ten paint introductory set, and it had run her almost one hundred dollars, but she barely even thought about it as she paid.

It was ridiculous and it was cliché, but the way he was looking at her made going broke until payday worth it.

Much later, face scrubbed clean and her holey pajama pants on, Bella sat talking to Carlisle in their family room as Bella waited for Alice to shower.

He inquired about how she was liking it at Esme's Interiors, and laughed heartily when she told him how Esme had told off the rude woman from Seattle. She thanked him for dinner and was just about to ask him about the bias of La Push, when she heard her name being called by a gruff voice.

She turned, and Edward was standing in the doorway, their notebook in hand. His hair was standing on end like he had tugged on it way too hard, and she flushed, realizing immediately that he had read her words.

"Can I borrow you?" he asked.

You can have me, she thought but didn't say. She rose and bid Carlisle a good night, which he returned, sounding vaguely amused. She followed Edward up the stairs, trying not to watch his butt as he walked.

Trying and failing.

They turned into his room, and he shut the door behind them, the soft snick against the carpet ringing in her ears. She took a deep breath and looked up at him.

He looked furious.

"What in the hell are you playing at?"

Of all responses she considered, that was not one of them.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, the ire in his voice making her back stiffen involuntarily.

He shook the notebook in her face. "This! This – this… this!" He wrenched it open and flew to the page, reading a sentence. "You are flushed, embarrassment and desire, newness and nudity, strange foreign feelings that become familiar under fingers."

"It's… I just… I was just writing!" She was so angry and embarrassed she was nearly purple. He wasn't supposed to be angry; he was supposed to sweep her up in his overwhelming passion, press her against his soft mattress and kiss until she couldn't breathe but didn't want to if that meant giving up his carbon dioxide –

"Just writing," he repeated, like that was the heart of the matter. "Don't toy with me, Bella – "

"You started it!" she nearly shrieked. She grabbed the notebook out of his hands and flipped it open to the page of his octopus drawing. "What is that? Is that just drawing?"

"It's a – it's a metaphor! I thought you, with your words, would understand – "

"I'm supposed to interpret a metaphor out of a picture of an octopus performing oral sex on a woman?"

"Yes!"

"I told you I'm not the analytical type! I see a pornographic picture, I think porn! Explain it to me, then, mister artist! What was your metaphor?"

"It's… it's about consumption – being utterly, wholly, entirely consumed by something, by someone… and just… just wanting…"

"Wanting what?" she asked, watching him step towards her.

"Wanting what you can't have," he whispered. "An octopus obviously can't have a relationship with a human; they are much too different, completely different species… and…"

"Is that a caveat?" she asked, standing her ground, fists balled, the notebook forgotten on the floor between them. "I'm not afraid."

"Bella," he implored, also standing his ground. "I couldn't live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don't know how it's tortured me."

"With you," she said, desperate for him to understand something she didn't yet understand herself, "I feel infallible."

He stepped closer still, a hairsbreadth away. She could feel the warmth of his skin and longed to touch it against hers. "Nothing is infallible," he corrected her in a low voice, dangerous and pleading.

"I disagree."

He swallowed; she saw the bob of his Adam's apple against the smooth, pale throat. "You don't know anything."

Frustrated, she took a step back. "You, Edward Cullen, with your apparent wisdom, can tell me what I know? I don't think so." He didn't speak, she turned on her heel, desperate to leave.

"I killed my parents."

She stopped with her hand on the door. "What?"

She heard the bed sag, and when she turned, he was perched on the end, head in hands, Atlas defeated.

He spoke into his knees. "When I was seven, I was just learning that I could throw colors on a canvas and make them speak. I really liked the way candles looked while I was painting, the different shadows it cast – you know. I was using oil paints, and… I knocked over a candle into this big vat of blue paint, and it… it exploded. I was far enough away that the fire didn't touch me, but it touched the curtains… and suddenly, the whole house was…"

"Edward," she breathed, her heart scalded.

"It was late; I wasn't even supposed to be awake. My parents woke up, and I was teetering on the edge, this line of fire separating myself and the front door from my parents in the back of the apartment. I was screaming for them to come, but they just told me to run, to get out and save myself… so I did, and… I'm here. But they're not."

She sat down next to him, and he leaned into her, head into her chest, pain into her heart. She wrapped an arm around him, feeling for the best way to hold him – he was so much bigger than her – but he adjusted, and then they were on their backs, he curled up into her, and she was flying.

He breathed out heavily, the puff of air making its way through her thin tank top and onto the swell of her breast.

"Carlisle was there, at that hospital in Alaska," he said after a few moments of restful silence. "I was brought in for smoke inhalation as I waited for news on my parents – although I saw the death written on their faces as I ran from the apartment. He waited with me in my hospital room all night and all morning, and when the news came my parents had died, he held my hand and let me – let me cry…"

Her shirt felt mysteriously damp, and he sniffled once, but she ignored it, letting him have his dignity.

"Anyway, the next week was sort of a blur, because one day I was an orphan and the next I was Edward Cullen, instead of Masen."

"Why did you take Carlisle's name?" Bella wondered, smoothing down his wild hair that kept tickling her nose.

"I wanted to belong," he said. "He saved me, and gave me a sister and a brother… even though he was dealing with death of his wife, which had just happened – he has the biggest heart, and I wanted part of that."

"You are part of that," Bella insisted. "Everyone loves you so much."

His arm came to rest across her stomach; he yawned sleepily into her neck. "Everyone?"

With a shaky breath, she pressed her lips to his forehead.

She woke up the next morning slowly. Before she opened her eyes, she registered the sound of rain pounding against giant windows, and the sweet sound of a piano in the distance. She rolled over onto her back, comfortably swathed in heavy cotton sheets, her knees tangled up in the folds.

Then she sat up suddenly, her brain finally working out where she was. She drew the covers to her chest, looking around Edward's immaculate room. Shaking her head, she climbed out of the bed and padded down the hallway, searching for the source of the music.

She opened the door to Edward's studio, and he was there, hunched over his piano. His fingers pressed the keys in light strokes, and she watched him, shirtless and vulnerable, letting his secrets wash over her as last night came back to her in full force.

He was playing Yiruma's River Flows In You, achingly soft, afraid of happiness, hesitant to step forward. So she did, into the room, onto the bench. She leaned her head against his shoulder as he played, and it should have been uncomfortable, but being close to him never could be.

"Don't go away," he said as the song ended, turning to face her with eyes beseeching. "I feel like you're going to disappear."

"You're the one who left the bed," she countered, smiling. She wished she could remember what it felt like to sleep with him, if he had held her all night, or if he had turned away as soon as sleep overcame her.

"I didn't know how you would react," he said, returning her smile. "Waking up in a strange man's bed."

"You are not so strange. Don't flatter yourself."

He laughed.

"And besides," she continued. "There are worse things than waking up in a strange man's bed."

"For example?"

"Waking up in a strange man's bed alone."

The next time she woke up, several hours later, she didn't have to wonder if Edward had held onto her while she slept because she woke up in his arms.

When she left later that day, after Edward thanked her profusely for everything, a crisp white piece of paper was found in the front seat of her car.

Be safe.