If I thought Rose was going to take this well, I was incorrect, profoundly incorrect. I'm not prepared for the look on her face when she turns around. Shock is not the word. Something like repulsion would be more fitting. She doesn't say anything for what seems like ages. She just sits there, DVD in hand, and glares at me.

"What?" she says, through gritted teeth. It's barely audible, a whisper.

"I'm pregnant."

"Whose…?"

"It's Edwards," I say, staring at the floor.

She looks at me though a gap in her fingers.

"How pregnant are you?"

"Eight and a half weeks."

"And you didn't tell me?!"

"Well can you blame me?" I say. "Look at your reaction."

"But Bella, you're not even with Edward, you don't even love him like that. You're not in love, either of you!"

The words sting. Didn't she think I already knew that? And didn't she think I wished it was different?

"I do know that," I say, quietly. "But it's happened now, and we're decided we're keeping the baby."

"What?" says Rose, half laughing, half crying. I retreat further back into the sofa.

"But you can't," she says, "that's ludicrous; you can't have that baby, not like this."

"Who says?" I say, crying now. "Why is that so wrong? We're both adults, this is not some teenage pregnancy. If I was to opt out of having this baby then I'd be opting out of life, choosing the easy way out, can't you see?"

Rose wipes her face, which is suddenly filled with tough determination.

"Look," she says, coming to sit beside me. "We have options; let's think about this. Because this isn't about Edward, or the baby, it's not even a baby yet, Bella, that's what Paul told me when I had my abortion and he was right, it was just a cluster of cells, the only person this is about is you. You have to be selfish."

"But I am being selfish, I want to keep it."

"You don't mean that."

"I do!"

I can't believe I'm hearing this. I know this is a shock and that I'm an idiot for letting it happen but what happened to my friend just giving me a hug, asking all those questions you're meant to ask when someone tells you they're pregnant?

"I'll come with you to the doctor's tomorrow," says Rose, decisively. "I'll call in sick, we'll sort this out. I've been through it too remember, so I know how it feels, I'll know what to say…"

"No," I say, standing up. And it feels like I've never meant anything more in my life. "No! You don't know what to say. I'm not going to the doctor's, I've already been and that was to get my due date. December 14th if you're interested, put it in your diary. I'm not having an abortion, Rose, I'm keeping the baby, we're keeping the baby."

I walk out. I slam the door shut.

I am lying next to Edward, my belly against the curve of his back, the faint buzz of a dawn flight outside. After the row with Rose yesterday, the atmosphere in the house was frosty to say the least so that evening I came here, to Edward's place.

It been over a week since the row in Aro's and I was worried how I might be received.

I needn't have been.

When Edward opened the door, wearing his dressing gown I have never felt so welcome, or wanted to hug him so much in my life.

"Hello, you," he said, arms crossed, head leaning against the doorframe as if he was expecting me. "Come on in."

He leads me through his narrow, bright hallway. Edward's downstairs is open plan. The lounge is cosy in it make-do-ness. Two stripy sofas covered in dark grey throws, a huge black and white circular rug and a bobbly green swivel chair that he always does his marking on. Today there's a huge pile of marking on the sofa that he's obviously just put to one side. He moved it, putting on the coffee table along with the TV remote control. Then he pressed down on my shoulders, sitting me on the sofa, and went into the kitchen to make coffee.

It's a man's kitchen, a dazzling array of unnecessary gadgets, juicer, pasta maker, ice cream maker, DeLonghi coffee maker that weighs a tonne.

Edward handed me a cup of coffee. "So," he said, "what owes me this pleasure?"

That was it, I was off. I poured out all the details of the showdown with Rose and the more I said it aloud the more unbelievable it felt.

"I'm sorry for being such a bitch last week," I said, shamefacedly, when I'd off loaded. "Not to mention blabbing to Rose. You must hate me."

"Yeah, can't stand you, hate your guts," Edward said, totally dead pan. "You were a bitch from hell, but we'll blame it on the hormones, shall we?"

It must have been one a.m. before we went to bed. I was still pretty shook up about Rose, and Edward was as confused as I was. "Are you sure that's what she said?" he said. "I know Rose can be unpredictable but that's just weird."

"I know, I don't understand it either. It was like me being pregnant was a personal attack. Like something I'd done wrong. I mean, I know I can't get drunk like we used to, but I'm still me, aren't I? I'm still the person she's been friends with for more than a decade."

Edward gave me a hug. It felt like he could squeeze the air right out of me.

"It will be alright, you know, all this," he said, staring straight ahead, with that certainty he has about everything. "I know it doesn't seem like it now, but it will."

"And Rose?" I asked tentatively, as we walked up the stairs to bed.

"She'll some around." Edward yawned. "And if she doesn't, we'll kick her ass."

I smiled but at the back of my mind I was still worried. How could I confide in her about anything now? And what if everyone, even Alice, reacted as badly? What if I was utterly deluded and keeping this baby was the worst, most irresponsible idea in the world?

"All a baby needs is love," Edward said. I play those words in my head again and again. "All a child needs is to feel wanted." And I want this baby. If I don't, why do I wake up, my heart in my mouth with every twinge, petrified this is the start of losing it? The fact is, I think to myself as I lay here, if I was to lose this baby now, we wouldn't try for another. Not like real couples.

It is one thing to have an accident and make the best of a less than ideal situation but quiet another to make something happen again that should never have happened in the first place.

This unborn child that already has fingers and toes and maybe my curviness and Edward's long legs is a fluke, it slipped through the net. And so, if fate decided it wasn't meant to be then it would be heart-breaking, but we'd have to accept it. Why did the thought of this terrify me so much?

Edward is sleeping but I can't, my mind won't let me. I know it must be almost morning because I can just about make out shapes in his familiar room in the emerging light and the photograph on his bedside table, the one in the red frame that's never meant much before, is staring right back at me now, making my mind race.

Me, Edward, Rose and Alice sitting on a bench at La Push last summer. Edward and I had been hopping into each other's bed when the fancy took us for three months by then. How many times have I looked at this picture? And it never stirred much more than nostalgia before. But now the body language says it all. Me, feet tucked up by my ass, my head on Edward's shoulder but what's he doing? Ruffling my hair. Not a spark of sexual tension between us.

That didn't stop me getting carried away though. It didn't stop me thinking that I might be even falling in love with Edward, that he might, even, be falling for me.

I still cringe when I think of what happened a few hours after the photo was taken. We'd been to the bar that night, then walked home, arm in arm. I crawled in bed next to him.

"Edward, we've been doing this weird on/off thing for some time now," I said, my heart pounding. "Maybe we should, you know, make a go of it. Go out with each other, like properly." After a long pause in which I wondered whether he might be about to express his undying love for me, he just turned over the other way.

"Bella, you're drunk," he said flatly. "We're soul-mates, something special, something really good. Let's not spoil it."

What an idiot! What an absolute bastard! So, I open myself up, put myself on the line and he makes me feel so small I could disappear up his ass, along with his own head. Well fuck you, I thought. But I didn't say anything, I was too mortified.

But he was right of course. Thank god somebody saw sense. Looking at us, I cannot believe I did that. I didn't fancy Edward as much as he didn't fancy me, not really, not in the right way. It was all just wishful thinking.

And the hard fact to swallow is, if I hadn't screwed it up with Jacob, I would probably never have even been there, I would never have made an ass of myself, I would never have carried on having 'no-strings' sex with Edward and I certainly wouldn't be pregnant with his baby!

Under Edward's duvet, I can feel that he's had got an erection. Ordinarily, that's to say pre-baby, this would have meant one thing to me, a quickie, sleepy, hungover sex that would have left me with the smug feeling that I really was a thoroughly modern girl. I occasionally slept with my male best friend and we were cool with it.

Today though, it's an unwelcome pressure and I feel my body stiffen as he eases closer. He takes a sleepy breath in as he breathes out, he kneads the inside of my thigh with his knee, trying to gently prize me open. I resist. I can't do this. My head's too muddled and weighed down. Where sex before was like an added extra, now it is loaded with meaning. It is as if the lightness had been shot out of it, leaving it withering to the floor like a deflated balloon.

Edward puts his arm around me.

"Morning," he murmurs, then kisses my head, then slips his hand between my legs.

I gently remove it.

"Edward," I say, pushing him gently off me, trying not to sound too annoyed. "Edward, look… I can't, I'm sorry."

He rolls onto his back and for what seems like forever he doesn't say anything.

When he speaks again, he sounds almost sad.

"It's different now, isn't it?" he says.

"Yes," I say. "I guess it is."

He reaches for my hand, strokes it for a second or two and then turns onto his side. "Come on," he says, pressing his warm, long body against me. "Let's just have a cuddle."

We must have eventually drifted off, because when I wake up again, it's 7.10 a.m. and Edward isn't in the bed. I sit up and hear the shower going.

I like waking up in Edward's flat. Like everything in his life, his car, his beloved books, his friends, he got it a long time ago, nurtured it, tended it lovingly and it's served him well in return.

Edward has always had to look after things, because he's never known when anything new or better will come along. He was fifteen when his alky waster of a dad walked out, leaving only his mum's income from her part time job as a school nurse to support the family, and so he and his sister Leah never got much.

Edward walks back into the bedroom, still dripping wet, wearing nothing but a teeny towel. He pulls open the curtains to reveal yet another grey May day, and stands in front of his mirror, examining his stubble. He lifts up one arm at a time, spraying deodorant flamboyantly.

I look at him now, his back to me, in just his boxers shorts, putting on his shirt. He certainly not Adonis, but there is something, I don't know, generically pleasant about him. He is nicely proportioned, long of leg, a regal neck, nice strong back and lean arms. Across his shoulders he has a scattering of freckles.

Yes, Edward, the father of my baby, is a nice-looking man. But still, my feelings for him come from my head and my heart, not from my loins like they should.

Edward is wearing the standard teacher outfit now, and he's putting on some hideous tie. It's maroon and worrying paisley.

"What's that tie you're wearing?" I say.

"What tie?"

"The one you're wearing."

"What's wrong with it?"

"What's right with it?"

"It's a standard tie."

"Exactly."

"So, what's it to you?"

"Nothing, I'm just bring your attention to it."

"Right," he says, flaring his nostrils.

"Right," I say, stifling a giggle.

He walks to the door, opens it and stands there for a second.

"What are you now, my girlfriend?" he says eventually. I hear him chuckle to himself as he closes the door.

I'm almost at work when Alice calls.

"Hi" she says.

"Hi."

"It's me."

"I know."

She pauses. I know this is because she's giving me a chance to tell her something, she knows I'm being weird. You can't hide anything from Alice, she'll sniff you out in seconds. I wish I could tell her. God, I'm dying to tell her, she's my best friend! But I know Edward would never forgive me. Telling Rose was a huge mistake, I just had to tell someone, and she happened to be there. The fact is that once Alice, indeed anyone knows, there will be months of nudging and winking and 'so when are you getting married?' and we certainly don't need that to start right now.

"Uhmm, I'm just calling because it's only eight days till my birthday, as you know, and I am trying to organize what theme to have."

"Right," I say.

Another pause.

"Can I run through the options with you?"

"Uhmm yes, it's just…"

"Bella?"

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yes I'm fine, I'm just on way to work that's all. I can't really talk."

"Oh right. You just sound weird that's all."

"Do I?"

"Yeah, like you're not telling me something."

I swallow hard.

"No, it's nothing. Honestly, nothing's happened," I say, immediately regretting saying 'nothing's happened' since she'll now so know something has.

My friends just turned against me and I'm pregnant by my best friend, that's all.

When I walk into reception, Jess doesn't say anything, she doesn't even look at me. She just tears a note from the pad on her desk, her hair swinging, and hands it to me with a closed-off look of smug importance on her face.

It reads: Jacob rang. Can you meet him for lunch today? It would make his week if you could. Call him.

And because I'm about to interview a woman who hijacked her lover's honeymoon and not only that but got pregnant on it, I think what the hell, it's just lunch with an ex. I get to my desk and I dial the number.