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Chapter Eleven of Twenty-Nine

Bella's Point of View

"So," Alice Cullen drawled. She leaned over the isle in our history class, smiling. "You're back."

I shrugged. "I guess I am."

Her smile faded. "Um . . . I heard about . . . you know . . ."

"My leukemia," I finished, nodding. Don't think about this morning, I ordered myself, but the image of my hair on my pillow flashed anyway. I pushed it away. "Yeah, I figured you would have. Your dad is my doctor, after all. He's great, by the way."

"Well, we all think so," she agreed, referring to her family, but her smile hadn't returned. It was odd to see Alice not smiling – the little pixie always seemed to be grinning. "But that's not how I found out. Dad's not allowed to tell us things like that about his patients. Doctor-patient-confidentiality, ya know?"

I nodded. "That's comforting. But . . . but he told Edward."

Alice frowned. "He didn't tell Edward. Edward . . . snooped." And then, as if someone had called her name, her head whipped to the left, staring out the door it seemed. Her eyebrows pulled together. She stared for a moment before her expression lightened and she looked back over to me. I ignored her weird behavior. "He's not a stalker," she told me. "He's just . . . I mean, he really likes you, Bella."

"That's good," I said, "because I like him, too."

Alice smiled and opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted by Mrs. Hathaway entering the classroom with a pile of freshly-printed worksheets. "Okay, class," she began loudly, interrupting the conversations that the other students were holding as well, "the answers to this worksheet can be found on page one hundred seventy-three in your textbooks." A brown-haired boy raised his hand. "Let me guess, Finn. You don't have your book. That's just too bad – maybe you can share with a buddy, but I don't have any spares. Looks like you'll be having homework tonight. Anyway, you'll be working in silence for the first half an hour of class –" She was interrupted with groans and complaints being made by the class, but it didn't faze her. "– and then for the last ten minutes, I'll let you pretend to check your answers with a partner and ask questions while you really socialize and talk about who's dating who and who's fighting with who. Sound good?"

Some kids protested, saying that the partnered time should be more equal with the separate time, but Mrs. Hathaway ignored them. I thought she was being pretty cool for giving us free time during class.

As she began passing out the handouts, Alice looked back to me. "You're Edward's first girlfriend since . . ." she paused, thinking. "Since . . . hmm . . . oh! You're his first girlfriend since Tanya Denali when we lived in Alaska about two years ago. He broke her poor little heart . . . but that's okay, because she was mean and evil and only wanted Edward 'cause he bought her nice presents. He dumped her and hasn't liked anyone since . . . well, now he does, 'cause he likes you, a lot, but he hasn't since her. And it's really refreshing to see him so hung up over a girl, 'cause it's been so long, and we were all worried that he was gay now or something – which wouldn't be an issue but really, that'd be just weird –" She stopped suddenly, her eyes flashing as if she'd just remembered something, and she sucked in a breath. I laughed, but she pushed on. "It's just nice to see him with a nice, innocent, compassionate girl like you, Bella," she concluded. With that, she turned back in her seat to face forward just in time to snatch the papers out of the hands of the boy in front of her as he passed them back. She tossed them over her shoulder at the girl behind her, who failed to catch them, and I stifled a laugh when they went all over the floor.

When my mind caught up with what Alice had said, I gasped. She'd called me Edward's girlfriend. Girlfriend. His girlfriend! Had Edward referred to me as his girlfriend at home? Or maybe he'd just said 'my girl'. That's always cute, too. When guys refer to their girlfriends as their girl, I mean. My mind wandered, thinking of the wonderful feelings that being Edward's girlfriend had given me, when being smacked with the handouts that were being passed back my row woke me. I'd never heard Edward call me that with my own ears – maybe Alice had just assumed . . . I couldn't be sure until I had real confirmation from Edward himself.

I also realized that hearing that Edward had broken some girl's heart didn't worry me at all; he would never hurt me that way. That I was sure of.

The half an hour of silence passed quickly because I'd already covered this information in my school in Phoenix and therefore didn't need to look up the answers on the worksheet. I spent about twenty minutes of the silent time reliving my evening with Edward last night – how happy I was when he had held my hand, how glad I was when he kissed my temple, how safe I felt in his arms, and – oddly – how surprised I was that Charlie had let him stay so late. I hadn't been thinking of that last one last night.

"Alright, there's twelve minutes left," Mrs. Hathaway said from her desk at the front of the room. "Look, I'm even giving you two extra minutes of gossip time. I should be your favorite teacher."

Alice swung her legs over to the side so that she was facing me full-on, her paper already tucked into her binder and placed in her backpack. "Did you get finished?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

She grinned her normal wide-lipped smile. "Fantastic," she breathed. "So, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah, Edward's relationship with Tanya. Can you believe that he slept with her after she was always so demanding?"

My heart sank. He wasn't a virgin? I didn't know why, but that really disappointed me. "He . . . they slept together. As in . . . ya know . . . sex?"

Alice laughed. "Duh. I can't believe he did it. She was so disgusting. And another thing, she –"

"Um, Alice?" I interrupted. "Can we please not talk about Edward's past relationships?"

Alice stopped. "Of course, Bella, I'm sorry. I didn't think to realize that it would make you uncomfortable. I'm guessing you guys haven't had that awkward exes talk yet? You haven't mentioned your old flames to each other?"

"No," I said, blushing.

"Do you have any wild old flames, Bella?"

I laughed. "No way, Alice. Edward is the . . . the first crush I've ever had on anyone. I've never had a real . . . relationship."

Alice frowned. "Oh."

I looked away, staring out the window. "It's pathetic, I know. I'm sixteen years old and a sophomore in high school, and I've always been single."

"Well, you have my brother now," she said. "And no, it's not pathetic. It's refreshing to know a girl who hasn't jumped into bed with the first guy to flirt with her a little."

I hesitated. " . . . Thank you . . ."

She laughed, and the lunch bell rang. "C'mon. Edward wants you to sit with my family again at lunch. He's saving you a seat, he told me."

I looked up at her from my seat, smiling. "Okay."

…

"So, the weather's supposed to be nice tomorrow, I hear," Emmett said.

We were all sitting around the Cullens' usual table in the Forks High School cafeteria. Everyone had a tray of food in front of them, but like the first day of school, my tray was the only one that had been really touched. Emmett was tossing his apple back and forth between his hands, Rosalie was picking at a bowl of mac and cheese with a fork but had yet to raise any to her mouth, and Jasper was sharing a piece of pie with Alice. They were using one fork.

Edward had offered to buy my lunch today, but I'd packed my own lunch and had to eat my sandwich or it would to go waste. So I had to regretfully decline.

Jasper raised an eyebrow. "And where did you hear that from?"

"Our reliable weatherman," Rosalie added.

Alice rolled her eyes. "I think Emmett's point of bringing that point up was to tell Bella what we won't be in school tomorrow."

I looked up from my bag of chips. "None of you will be here? Why not?"

"When the weather's nice, we go camping with our parents," Emmett informed me.

"I'm sure there's some way we could get out of it this time," Edward said next to me. "It's rude of us to adopt Bella into our family and leave her while we go on outings."

"How do you expect us to get out of it, Edward?" Alice snapped. "It's not like we can just stop it from happening. We can't just . . . be normal."

"I'm not following," I interjected.

They ignored me. "Maybe Bella can come with us," Emmett suggested.

Edward's eyes snapped to Jasper and back to his brother. "You know that's impossible, Emmett."

"Maybe we wouldn't have to go hiking," Emmett snarled, leaning forward to place his palms on the table as he rose to a semi-crouch, his apple forgotten. "Maybe we could hang at our house for the day. Maybe Esme could make lunch and we could watch a movie instead."

"It's been too long since we've went hiking," Edward countered, his stance mirroring Emmett's exactly. Alice grabbed my hand and tugged me back a few steps, pushing us both behind Jasper. This argument was escalating quickly. They were attracting the attention of many students in the cafeteria, plus the teacher supervisors sitting by the trash cans. I saw two of them stand and begin to make their way over to us.

"Alice, they're going to get in trouble," I whispered.

She waved me off, watching her brothers. I peeked out around her arm to see Edward and Emmett arguing right in each other's faces now. They weren't touching, but I knew that it was only a matter of seconds before one of them threw a punch. A ways behind them, Rosalie stood, arms crossed, looking frustrated with her boyfriend.

I suddenly realized that I couldn't hear the words that Edward and Emmett were saying anymore. It didn't make sense; they were close enough that I should have been able to hear every word. I was confused . . . what was I missing here?

Just before one of the teachers reached them, Emmett backed away from Edward and kicked the chair that he had been sitting on. But instead of the chair screeching across the floor a few inches and coming to an abrupt halt like a human being would expect. No, it flew.

It flew so far and so fast that it left the ground.

It flew so far and so fast that it smashed into one of the large glass window that technically made up an entire wall of the school. An entire wall that smashed to pieces. And left a whole section of the wall of the Forks High cafeteria open.

It was inhuman. It was terrifying.

But I didn't have time to think about how Emmett was able to do it.

Everyone covered their ears as the crash echoed through the café. Girls screamed, boys hooted and hollered, and the entire Cullen clan stood motionless.

Everything was silent for a moment. And then all hell broke loose.

I shivered as the new hole in the wall allowed the cold air and rain to enter the cafeteria. The Cullens were all staring at the glass wall that was now in ruins. I was close to hyperventilating; I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, feel my pulse pounding in my breasts. I closed my eyes shut so tightly that I saw rainbow colors and opened them again. The damage was still there.

"Holy . . . crow," I whispered.

My voice seemed to snap the Cullens out of their panic.

Alice exhaled. "Well, it looks like we won't need an excuse for missing school tomorrow," she joked, but her normally light, teasing voice had been replaced with a shocked, worried, panicked tone. "I don't think there'll be school."

Edward rushed to my side, sliding one arm around my waist. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"I'm okay," I responded in a quiet voice.

The teacher finally regained his voice. "Oh, my God . . . um . . . Mr. Cullen . . . I-I'm going to n-need you . . . b-both of you . . . all of you to come with me." When none of the Cullens moved to follow, he turned around and yelled, "Now!" He backed away, staring at the damage, wide-eyed.

A moment later, I was alone.

…

"How did you not see that he would do that, Alice?" Carlisle Cullen snapped.

I was watching the scene unravel from six yards away. The Cullens, now including Carlisle and Esme Cullen, were all gathered outside of Principal Green's office, minus Emmett, who was inside with the principal himself. There was a huge group of students gathered around, watching them, but none of them seemed to care. I wanted to go to Edward because I had so many questions for him, but I stayed where I was. I wasn't with the large group of kids, though – I was separate from them, standing closer. I could hear their conversation very easily; they weren't trying to be discreet, although the group standing a ways behind me probably couldn't make out their words.

"What do you mean, how?" Alice countered her father. "I'm not perfect, Carlisle! He made the decision within a fraction of a second. I don't see everything! And even if I had, what could I have done? I was ten feet away! If anyone could have stopped him, it was Edward!"

Edward, who was sitting next to Jasper in the seats that occupied half of the hallway outside Mr. Green's office, shot up. "Me!" he yelled. "You wanted me to stop him? How was I supposed to do that? I was infuriated! You heard the ridiculous things he was suggesting! All of his proposals would put Bella in danger! I wasn't thinking, let alone listening to – to his – to his reasoning!" He stuttered, as if his last sentence hadn't been what he'd originally been planning to say. "You're the one who should have seen it, Alice! You should have been prepared for that!"

"I was a little busy shielding your reason for existing from harm, Edward!" his sister responded angrily. "You and Emmett were about to rip each other apart! Did you want her to see that? Were you even thinking of what would happen to her if you lost control of yourself, Edward? Your protective instincts would take over, and who knows what you'd do to her!"

Edward stared down at her, panting heavily, and said nothing.

"Carlisle," Esme said, tugging at her husband's arm, "we have an audience. Perhaps this conversation should wait until we arrive home. Obviously, there won't be any classes for a while." Classes had been dismissed until the cafeteria could be prepared – it wasn't safe for students to be in the cafeteria while an entire wall was out, and they had nowhere else for the kids to eat lunch. The classrooms, our principal had said, were for education only.

Carlisle Cullen turned, as if he had just noticed the teenagers watching his family curiously, nervously, and he sighed. "Okay," he announced to his family. "That's enough arguing. We'll speak at home. Everyone, wait in the car . . . erm, cars, and wait for Emmett. Let's go."

"Edward," Esme said, "I believe you owe a certain girl an explanation."

His eyes snapped over to me, and the anger that had been in them melted away. "Bella," he called, and motioned to me with one finger to come over to him. "Come here, sweetie." As usual, his term of endearment shot a thrill of happiness through me. I slowly felt myself begin to step forward, and Edward was getting closer to me. When I was within reach, he reached his hands out to grasp mine and pull me to his chest. "Are you sure you weren't hurt, Bella?"

"I'm sure," I echoed.

Edward sighed, and I felt his cool breath against my ear. "I'm sorry I allowed myself to get too caught up in my . . . disagreement with my brother. I shouldn't have let myself get so distracted with what he was . . ." He stopped, pursing his lips. ". . . suggesting."

"How, Edward?" I demanded in a whisper. "Edward, how did Emmett do that? What happened?"

Edward lifted his face from where he had tucked it in my neck, but his arms stayed wrapped around my waist tightly. "What do you mean, Bella?"

"I mean . . . what . . . what he did," I began, "wasn't human."

"That glass is over a hundred years old, Bella," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire world. "It hasn't been replaced since the town was built in . . . hmm, I believe it was 1902. Why do you think the teachers forbid anyone to lean against them? They're all so fragile. I'm sure even speaking to loudly while standing too close to one would send it crumbling."

"But . . . but Emmett," I insisted, twisting my hands in the front of his tightly-knit green and gray sweater. "He . . . h-he k-kicked it! He k-kicked that chair . . . and it flew . . . it went so far, Edward! How? It lifted off the ground, Edward!"

Edward looked down at me, a puzzled look crossing his face. "What do you mean, Bella? The chair didn't leave the ground. And, on another note, the school was built on not-flat ground. There's a little hill behind where Emmett's chair had been. The chair simply slid down the little peak and picked up velocity, and then it made contact with the frail glass wall . . . and the rest is history." He flashed a smile, leaning down to peck my cheek.

It didn't make sense. Well, maybe it did, but I knew what I had seen. I didn't believe Edward's explanation.

Suddenly, the door to the principal's office opened and Emmett trudged out. I turned to see him, just as the rest of the Cullen clan did. His expression was glum.

"I've got detention," he muttered.

"Serves you right," Rose snapped. She was looking everywhere but at her boyfriend.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" he exclaimed at her. "I wasn't thinking that it would –"

"Stop right there," Rosalie interrupted, her eyes wide and fuming. "That's enough of an explanation. You weren't thinking. Well, way to go, Emmett. Now we'll all have to leave another home, another life." With that, she turned on her heal and stomped off towards the corner of the parking lot that the Cullens always claimed for their own vehicles, mumbling a soft "I'll be in my car, Carlisle" as she passed her father.

The Cullens all watched her go, sadly, and Emmett shuffled his feet, staring at the ground. "Can we just go?" he demanded.

"Yes, I think it's time we went home," Esme decided. "Let's go. Everyone in the cars. And yes, Jasper, in the car that you arrived at school in."

"I drove Bella to school today," Edward stated.

Esme turned, smiling at me. "Okay. Drop Bella off, and come straight home," she stressed. "We have much to discuss as a family."

The ride home was quiet. It was as if neither one of us new how to punctuate the unexpectedly early end of the day. When we pulled into my driveway, Edward turned back to me, pressing his lips against my forehead and then a quick peck against my lips. It was as easy-going and worriless as our first kiss. "I'll call you later, okay?" We'd swapped numbers last night while watching a television show.

I nodded, agreeing, but also still calculating and processing Edward's story in my head. "Okay. I'll talk to you then."

Author's Note: Emmett! What's wrong with you? He's so clueless.

How many of you are mad at me for making Edward a non-virgin? To me, the whole thing where Edward's a 109-year-old virgin was kind of . . . out there. So I fixed it so that I liked it. I promise you that Edward and Tanya's history will NOT cause drama with the relationship between Edward and Bella. We know Edward refused Tanya, but was there really nothing there on his part? No attraction at all, nothing before Bella? I have no doubt that Bella is the first to touch his heart, but . . . I've always been curious as to what they would have been like together . . . ew, but don't worry. This is an Edward/Bella story. There will be no affair, there will be no kissing of the E/T kind, and there will be no dra – okay, wait. There might be drama, but not THAT kind of drama. Not E/T awkward-ex-drama. I WILL promise you that, at the very least.

Just in case anyone checks my facts about Forks, Washington's founding year, I'll clear this up. Yes, I'm aware that it was founded in 1945. Just to put that out there; I'm aware – it's not a mistake.

Thank you for reading! Let me know what you thought in a review. See you next chapter.