Chapter 11: Happy Apple Poison

Disclaimer: All of the plot lines and characters from Twilight are Stephenie Meyer's.


"You sure you're ready?"

Bella sighed and nodded again to her step brother. "I'm sure."

She'd missed three days of school since the day she'd taken a pair of scissors to her hair. Natalie had graciously helped her turn the choppy mess into a short but stylish cut that appeared to have been an intentional move. Bella was surprised to find that she liked her new style more than her old one, and was grateful that her attempts at destroying her hair had, conversely, improved it.

She let James drive her old car to school, giving her more time to smoke a few cigarettes in silence in preparation for facing the multitude of curious classmates. Of course, none of them knew what she had really been doing, but they were sure to at least inquire, and she really didn't feel up to making excuses for her absence.

Ash had called her exactly fourteen times since she'd escaped his house, and Bella had ignored each and every one. She couldn't find it in her to care about anything he could possibly have to say, although, despite everything, he did open the floodgates to her memory for her. She wasn't quite sure if this was something to be grateful for--at times, she did prefer the quiet numbness of not remembering, but she was never going to end her destructive tendencies if she didn't know why they were there in the first place. This was not to say that she was better, far from it, actually--but she knew now that she couldn't keep starving and cutting and drinking her problems away. Getting to the point where this was possible wasn't going to be easy, but she'd grudgingly and mentally decided to try.

James never interrupted her musing as they reached the entrance to the school and went their separate ways. She was pretty sure he was scared of her; she'd be scared of James, too, if she'd found him in the state she'd been in. It wasn't that he didn't know what to say to her, rather it was that he was terrified of pushing her over the edge again. She'd have to do something about that. She was fragile, this was true, but she wasn't going to keel over at the slightest bit of conversation.

"Bella!" came an overly exuberant voice from next to her locker. She spun the numbers to the combination without looking up, hoping that Jessica would get the hint and go away. Instead, she seemed to think that Bella had simply not heard her, and tugged slightly on her arm to get her attention. She winced visibly, still sore from Ash.

"Bella?" asked Jessica, who Bella now noticed was flanked by Lauren and Angela, "Are you okay?"

"Fine," she snapped, grimacing and holding her arm, which was currently being gawked at by all three of the girls.

"Oh," Jessica replied, nonplussed, "Where have you been?"

"Skipping."

"Well, duh, but why?"

"I didn't feel like coming to school and dealing with all of the imbeciles here," she forced out through gritted teeth, hoping Jessica would get the hint that she was one of them. Instead, the peppy teenager just laughed and invited her to some beach thing that "everyone is going to".

"I'll think about it," she said, effectively ending the conversation--finally. Jessica and her cronies skipped off merrily, or so it seemed to Bella in her bitter mindset. Angela, however, stopped without the other two noticing and doubled back shyly.

"Jessica's kind of... insensitive, sometimes," she remarked quietly, "I hope you're okay." And then she turned around to rejoin them. Huh, thought Bella, maybe at least one of them isn't so bad.

She finished grabbing her books and slammed the locker shut, whirling around and colliding with something cold and hard that sent her flying to the floor, her books flying away from her. She glared at them, willing the books to somehow organize and pick themselves up, but they remained mockingly scattered across the tile.

"I'm so sorry," came a smooth voice from above her. Edward Cullen was picking up her books for her while she was crumpled on the floor clutching her sore arm to her stomach. How wonderfully embarrassing. He helped her up gently, taking special care to avoid touching the arm which had been irritated by Jessica and then attacked by the floor.

"My fault," said Bella. She turned around to walk to homeroom, but realized Edward was still holding her books for her.

"I can carry them for you," he offered.

"I'm not disabled," she retorted, grabbing them back too quickly from his marble arms. It was a bad move. Her traitorous arm gave out from under her, making way for her books to spill on the floor for the second time in two minutes, but Edward somehow caught them all before they hit and sent her a reproving glance.

"I can carry them for you," he repeated with a tone of finality.

She nodded briefly. "Anything exciting happen while I was gone?" she asked sarcastically as they made their way through the hall.

Edward rolled his eyes. "If you consider them announcing the girls' choice dance exciting, then yes."

"So you're, what, talking to me now?"

He glanced over at her warily. "I'd like to try to be... friends. Even though it really isn't the best idea."

Bella snorted. "You have no idea," she agreed, before processing what he'd said, "Wait, what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that it would be best for you to stay away from me, but... I'm tired of trying to stay away from you."

"Oh."

"Oh?"

"It's just, that doesn't make any sense."

Edward stared at her strangely. "And what does that mean?"

"It means, I'm the one it would be best to stay away from. Not the other way around."

"Really?" he inquired disbelievingly.

"I mean it," she said forcefully, "I'm not a good friend."

"Neither am I."

"Good."

"Good."

"So..." Bella trailed off, confused about which direction this conversation was heading.

"Why don't we just agree to be the bad friends we both believe we are to each other, and go from there?"

"Right. Okay."

Edward stopped and held out her books for her. She looked around in surprise, having been too absorbed by her companion to pay attention to the fact that they'd reached their destination. She accepted them carefully, watching Edward flash her his crooked grin and walk back the way they came without another word.


Alice Cullen somehow materialized outside of Bella's first period class seconds after the bell rang. Before she'd even had time to leave her desk, Alice swept up her books in one arm and linked the other with Bella's non-injured one.

"Come, now," she ordered, "French class waits for no man!"

"Thanks," Bella replied, "But I really--"

"Shut up, Bella. I'm carrying your books and that's that." Alice had a way of putting her foot down cheerfully. "I thought you hurt your ankle, not your arm."

She grimaced in response. "My arm got worse as my ankle got better."

"Oh. Love your hair, by the way."

"Thanks. Aren't you gonna be late for your next class?"

Alice just smiled conspiratorially. "I have my ways."

And apparently she did. She magically re-appeared at the end of every class in Bella's morning block, only leaving her side to join her family once they'd reached the cafeteria. Bella noticed with chagrin that their bronze haired fifth wheel was absent, which was odd, considering he'd been here before homeroom. She put her rather inappropriate disappointment out of her mind and strolled up to the lunch line to see if there was anything mildly appetizing today, hoping that there wasn't. Getting something to eat would be the good, healthy, new-and-improved-Bella thing to do, but she couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't just come back up before Biology. And that would be a very old-Bella thing to do. Granted, there hadn't been much difference between new-Bella and old-Bella just yet, but she didn't want to start off on the wrong foot. In fact, she was sort of terrified to place herself in any uncomfortable situation because she didn't want to fall back into her old routine and feel helpless to escape it.

Mike Newton interrupted her rather fucked-up musing by calling her name as she reached the line. "What's up, Mike?" she asked with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

"Not much," he replied, looking over his shoulder and glancing at his watch in rapid succession. He seemed nervous. This couldn't be good.

"Is there something you wanted to say?"

"No! I mean, yes." He sighed, seeming to have given himself over to whatever embarrassment lie waiting for him. "It's just... you know, the dance is coming up, and I wanted to know if you'd go with me."

He peeked at her self-consciously. She paused cruelly, making him wonder. It almost made her feel better. "I thought it was a girls' choice dance?"

"It is," he said quickly, "Jessica already asked me."

"You should tell her yes," she told him lazily while examining her nails, which were currently a loud shade of purple.

Mike's face fell. Okay, time to stop being a bitch. "I'm gonna be in Seattle that day," she said, giving him the first excuse she could come up with.

"Oh. Can't you go any other weekend?"

"Sorry," came a voice from next to them. Bella's eyes snapped to Edward, who was suddenly leaning on the wall beside them. She hadn't seen him there a second ago. How did he do that?

"For what?" asked Mike, insulting Edward with his tone.

"Bella and I already have plans that day. Better luck next time. Coming, Bella?"

She nodded and followed him to a different table than the one his family was seated at, suspicious but grateful for the interruption. "You're welcome," he told her smugly.

"Thank you," she retorted, grabbing his lemonade off of the tray and taking a long sip.

"And how do you know I wasn't planning on drinking that myself?" His voice was amused.

Bella snorted. "Please," she told him, "You don't eat food. At least, not in front of other people." She expected him to be angry at this statement as he'd been before when she'd pointed out the more peculiar aspects of his behavior, but he didn't seem to mind the observation.

"Neither do you."

"That's different."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I have a theory."

"Oh, really?" He was interested now. "And what would that be?"

"Okay, so I had this friend Matt back in Phoenix. Real big jock, kinda cocky, but he knew the best dealers so I kept him around." Edward's eyes narrowed. "He knew them because he wanted to go to some Ivy League school, I don't remember which one, but coming from his neighborhood, he obviously could only go if he got an amazing football scholarship. The problem there is, Matt was pretty good, but our school had a really shitty team, and I do mean that. We never had enough funding to get a good coach, and I think we won, like, two games in my entire high school career there."

"So he started taking steroids to get noticed."

"Very perceptive, Edward," she congratulated him sarcastically, "And he did. He got really fucking good, only it started doing weird stuff to him. Like, we'd be watching TV and he'd go to change the channel and accidentally break my freaking remote. And his face started getting all weird and almost disfigured."

"And this immediately reminds you of me."

Bella laughed. "Not exactly. But it would make sense if you were on a different kind of steroid than Matt was; one that makes you super fast and changes the colors of your eyes and cancels out hunger. You know, instead of making you ugly and buff."

"Seriously?" he asked incredulously, "That's your theory? That my family is a bunch of druggies?"

"It's better than radioactive spiders," she said defensively.

Edward laughed. "That it is. So what ever happened to your friend?"

"Matt? Oh, he got into the university he wanted to, but they tested him and threw him out two weeks into the pre-season. And by that time he couldn't just stop, and it got worse and worse until he OD'ed a few months later."

"He died?"

"Yeah, steroids are scary shit. I haven't done any since it happened. You seem to be handling it rather well, though."

"I'm not--" Edward began before processing her response, "You used to do steroids?"

"Once. I'm kind of a try-it-before-you-knock-it girl."

"That's extremely stupid."

Bella shrugged. "You try growing up in Phoenix."

"What all have you done?" he asked curiously.

"Let's see," she began, "Weed, obviously, and cocaine, heroin, LSD, nitrus oxide, codine--"

"Cocaine? Heroin? LSD?"

"Oh, I'm not stupid, I stop doing the hard drugs before I can get addicted."

Edward looked utterly perplexed. "Why?"

"Because addiction is a bitch?"

"No," he corrected himself, "I mean, why did you start in the first place?"

"Why does anyone do drugs?" she asked rhetorically, "Because I was bored, or I didn't want to think about something. Don't worry, I've been a good little girl since I came to Forks. I mostly just drink now."

Edward raised his eyebrows, but he seemed more fascinated by her than disapproving. "So, we have plans on Saturday?" she teased him, smoothly changing the subject.

He grinned. "If you want to."

"I don't think I'm busy," she told him casually.

"Of course, I don't have any heroin," he teased her back, "so it won't be too much fun for you, but maybe I can spare some of my family's special steroids."

"So you admit it!"

"What I admit, Bella," he said quietly, "Is that steroids are probably better than the alternative."

"Whatever," she replied, scooping up her books before he had a chance to as the bell rang, "You can stop trying to scare me off now."

"I wish it would work," he sighed, following her to class.

"You know, I know I'm a lot different than most of the people in this school, but if you don't want to be friends with me that badly, you can just say so."

"It's not that, you know it's not that," he said, running his hand through his sleek hair in frustration, "I just worry that it won't be good for you."

"Well, stop worrying, partner," she ordered him as they reached the classroom and sat down in their respective seats, "Let's just be the bad friends we both believe we are to each other, and go from there."


There was a car waiting outside the front of the school when Bella emerged from the daily torture that was gym class. She knew before even looking who it was.

Ash jumped out of the car and ran over to where she was swiftly walking away. "Wait, Bella," he called as he reached her, "Let me explain."

She didn't turn around. He grabbed her shoulder and she shook him off so violently that he staggered back. "What the fuck," she asked him, deadly calm, "do you think you are doing?"

"Bringing you your phone, giving you a ride to work, and apologizing?" His eyes pleaded with her. She was silent, and he took that as an opportunity to continue. "Please, Bella, you have to know that I never meant for that to happen. I'm so sorry. I had too much to drink, and--"

"Please don't make excuses."

"Bella--"

He didn't get to finish his sentence because a steel fist collided with his face. "Edward!" she scolded him, but he wouldn't look at her. His eyes were full of pure, unadulterated rage and they were fixed on the victim who was clutching the side of his face. He bent over and whispered to him so quietly she wasn't sure if she imagined it. "You ever touch her again," he said, "And I will break more than your jaw. You are to quit your job and never speak of this to anyone."

And then he leaned up and said, "Want a ride to work?"


Author's Note:

Hey, there! Sorry 'bout the wait.

Reviews are better than Edward and Bella finally getting somewhere.