*All characters are property of Stephanie Meyer

An Interaction Six Weeks Overdue

I wished I could shoot daggers from my eyes. How awesome would that be? Summoning blades from the anger and resentment deep in your core and then, thrusting them in well-placed throws from your pupils—oh, yeah that sounds good right about now. Edward stood just feet in front of me, the corners of his mouth twisted upward in the faintest hint of that oh-so-annoyingly-charming smile of his.

"There is no need for you to redo the lab, Bella. Honestly, I've already done it. I have no qualms about attaching your name at the top," Edward stared at me as if he expected me to accept his stupid little offer.

"That's cheating, and I don't do cheating, Edward. Let's just do this lab and get this over with," I all but snarled back.

I had had a wicked flu the day that I had a Biology lab. I was spewing chunks so bad I had no choice but to call Charlie and ask him to come home. Downright embarrassing. It is my firm belief that the individual should suffer in silence. Sort of like the old Kennedy saying that there's no need to "hang your dirty laundry in public." So, here I was afterschool on a Friday in my Biology room, arguing with Edward because there was no way I was going to accept his charity. Eventually he caved, not that I'm surprised. Really, it should have been a non-issue.

I stared at the specimen in front of me, lying on its back, its feet and arms pinned to the dissection board. I'm sorry, my little furry friend, I thought to myself before picking up the scalpel. Edward took this as hesitation, "Do you want me to do it?"

"No, Edward," I shot back, plunging the scalpel's blade deep into the belly of the furry beast. "I've got it." I finished drawing the blade up the midline of the specimen, cleanly cutting it. Edward expertly pinned the flaps of skin to the tray, and I found myself looking at the exposed innards of the poor creature.

"What exactly are we dissecting again? I wasn't really paying attention," I confess.

"The Pacific Wompossum," Edward recited.

"A Wompossum?"

"You were not paying attention in the slightest were you?" I noticed Edward turn to look at me from the corner of my eye, but I refused to meet his gaze. Instead, I focused my attention on the mess of pale pink on the dissection tray when I answered, "I already told you I wasn't."

"A Wompossum," Edward adopted a didactic tone, much as if he were a stuffy college professor instead of the strange-aura-glowing-around-a-toned-god-like-teenager that he was. "Is simply a small marsupial that evolved as a hybrid between the common wombat and the American possum," he concluded.

Wompossum! Ridiculous! Edward softened his voice when he asked, "What are you thinking about Bella?"

"The name. Wompossum, is just, um," I paused trying to come up with the right adjective.

"Absurd?" Edward filled in.

"Yeah."

I worked on diagramming the tangled organs of the Wompossum in silence. Dear Lord! The awkwardness was palpable.

"You know," Edward broke the silence a few minutes later. "The official rodent of Forks is the Wompossum."

Um, alright. I'll file that piece of trivia away in the not-particularly-useful-and-rather-odd part of my brain. Wait a minute, since when did Forks have an official rodent let alone an official animal? I stole a peek at Edward who was leaning over an immaculate drawing of the Wompossum's small intestine. Why does he always have to be good at everything?

"Bella, are you finished with the intestinal tract? I want to start sketching the heart and lungs." I just nodded, noticing the way he deftly maneuvered the squishy mess out of the animal and onto the dissection tray.

"I don't get it," I declared, turning to face Edward.

He looked up in mock surprise, "Do you mean to say you weren't paying attention when we discussed the organs of the body?"

I grunted in frustration, "I'm not talking about the dissection of the…Wompossom, Edward." I couldn't even get over how ridiculous that name was—Wom-po-ssum…never gets old. Edward waited politely until I pulled my thoughts away from the absurdity of the creature's name and toward what I really wanted to talk about.

"Why are you talking to me," my voice wavers as I say it.

"We have to do this lab, together."

"No, I mean, you haven't spoken to me, let alone looked my way, in six weeks. Why now?"

"You are a…very interesting woman, Bella. I apologize for my behavior before, but I would like to know you better, if that's okay," He stared at me questioningly. I glared back at him, trying not to let him know how much he'd thrown me by calling me a woman.

"No, it's not okay," I replied hotly. "You can't have something for nothing Edward. I need to know some things about you before I give you any more details about my 'interesting' self."

He nodded his head once conceding, "Fine, one question for another."

"What are you?" I blurted out without thinking. I saw the thin film of light around him quiver as if agitated. His curled his hands into fists, his dead eyes bore into mine. There was a look of absolute loathing on his face.

"What do you think I am?"

"I don't know," I whispered, suddenly afraid of him.

"Any guesses?" he spat back at me.

"Zombie?" I asked half-heartedly trying desperately to lighten the mood.

"No," Edward said it with the hint of a smile.

I plugged ahead, "Werewolf?"

"Not even close."

"Vampire?" I asked, smiling completely now.

Edward erased all traces of the playfulness that had been in his face a moment earlier, "Not in the strict definition of the word."

I dropped it, knowing that I had struck a nerve somehow. We both went back to our work in silence. It was only after we had finished the lab and were cleaning up that I dared to speak to him again.

"Hey Edward, you still have one question to ask, you know?"

He pursed his lips into a tight smile, "I think I'll save mine."

I nodded twice—the second time by accident a minute later. Could I be any more dork-ish? We parted ways at the student landing lot, after walking there in complete silence. I got into my hover car, not even responding to the obnoxiously loud revving of its ancient engine. Try as I might, I could not stop thinking of him. Of Edward; of the way he had stared at me almost in sorrow when I had guessed vampire; of his deep, unfathomable, eyes, bleak and dead as always; of how I had felt a shiver shoot up my spine when he had called me a woman.

Sorry for the bridge chapter before I get on to trying to tell you what the Cullens actually are in my version of the story. There is going to have to be one other bridge chapter between now and when you all find out. Sorry! But I recently re-watched Twilight and was struck by how badly these two crucial scenes were done, so of course I had to rewrite them in my fanfic. Please, please review and tell me what you think. Do you think that Edward and Bella's relationship should start picking up speed, or should I come at it from a different angle?

Thanks for being so patient with me, I've had a pretty hectic couple of weeks but I have a chapter on the back-burner to be released this weekend!