Chapter 12

"One Step Forward, Two leaps Back"

Bella's POV

I waited and just as I was sure his lips were about to make contact with mine, a booming voice filled the room, and Edward and I jumped apart. I turned to see Emmett staring at us, ruining this moment for us. I glared at him.

"Oh my bad I didn't know…" He looked between us trying to figure out what was going on. He smirked. "I am just going to grab a water." He went to the fridge got a water, then headed back to his room. He was tip toeing like an idiot. "Then head back into my room and not come back, so you can get back to it love birds." He snickered disappearing back into his room. I rolled my eyes sighing hard as the red rose to my face. I looked at Edward embarrassed for some unknown reason. He looked irritated, but quickly replaced the irritation with humor. He was smirking at me and I felt my heart pound. He started to get up from the couch and I was feeling really rejected. He had changed his mind. He must of saw the emotion in my eyes, because he leaned down and whispered in my ear.

"I want to kiss your lips, but I think our first time should be more romantic." His lips grazed my ear lob sending goose bumps over my body and a good shiver down my spine. He left me sitting on the couch dazzled.

When I came back to reality I realized what had just about happened. Edward had almost kissed me, my body shivered as goose bumps rose on my skin. It was the single best moment of my life, which in truth made me feel stupid. Who gets in such a tizzy over a almost kiss? Oh that is right me the definition of virginal. I stumbled to my room feeling let down, since I was so worked up for the anticipation of that kiss. Now I could only imagine what his lips felt like on mine. Though he did say it wasn't romantic enough, did that mean that he planned on setting something romantic up? I was vaguely aware of Alice and Rose as I entered our shared room and fell on my bed face first.

"What's wrong with you?" Rose snorted at me. I didn't even raise my head to answer her, I just mumbled into my bed.

"Nada." I felt the weight on my bed shift, so I hesitantly raised my head to peek at who was on my bed. Alice was sitting on the edge of my bed with a friendly smile.

"Bella is there anything you want to talk about." She stated it more then asked. I sighed and rolled over propping myself up on my elbow.

I contemplated on weather or not it was a good idea to speak my thoughts and actions aloud. I sure didn't have any experience in the boy department, but I was sure the two of them did. I took a deep breath before I spoke. Alice was sitting patiently and Rose was looking at a magazine looking really uninterested.

"Ok, but you have to swear to keep your mouths shut." I said eyeing Alice and Rose. Alice smiled and nodded her head in excitement and anticipation. Rose sat her magazine down and suddenly looked practically interested. I took that as their vows of silence.

"I-like-Edward." I said, but knew they couldn't understand the intensity of that like. Neither of them looked surprised, I had to admit I was a little confused.

"Bella, that isn't really a secret." Alice said smirking at me. I huffed.

"Well fine if I am that transparent, then why do you need to know what is wrong?" I asked not sure why I was so agitated.

"Sorry." Alice apologized even though my behavior was stupid, she was still supportive. "Even though we knew that you liked him, we can't see the future or the past so we do not know what is actually wrong." She placed a hand on my forearm telling me she was here, no matter what it was. I sighed happily, but sadly at the same time. I was so happy that Alice was quickly becoming such a close friend, but was sad, because it reminded me of Angela. My best friend, whom thought I was dead.

"Edward and I almost kissed." I said quickly and quietly. Now Rose joined Alice on the edge of my bed.

"What do you mean almost?" She asked sounding kind of excited.

"As in he was about to kiss me, but we got interrupted." I shrugged feeling the crimson color my cheeks.

"Wait you have to give us every detail." Alice said getting a little too excited. She was almost bouncing up and down. I sighed rolling my eyes, but began giving them a play by play.

"Well we were sitting on the couch and we had this silent moment and as he leaned in to kiss me, I mumbled something about it being against the rules. He quoted the old 'rules were made to be broken' saying." I moved my hands around and raised my eyebrows as I spoke. "So I closed my eyes and I could feel his breath on my mouth," my mouth watered at the memory. "but just as his lips were about to connect with mine…" I paused for dramatic effect, because the climax that was suppose to be a kiss didn't happen.

"Well what happened?" Alice asked leaning towards me, with Rose right by her side.

I let the annoyance I felt for our interruption color my tone. "Emmett." One word was all they needed and they both said "oh" at the same time.

"That boy does have impeccable timing." Alice said rolling her eyes, I had to agree. Rose didn't comment, she was smirking and looked like she was somewhere else.

"What are you so smiley about?" I asked her hoping to get the attention off mine and Edward's almost perfect moment.

"Since you asked." She smiled tossing her perfect blond hair over her shoulder. "Emmett and I totally made out last night." She smirked excited.

"Seriously, you and Emmett?" I asked laughing.

"I knew it." Alice chimed smiling at her. Rose gave us her play by play of her rather raunchy make out session with Emmett, then when she finished we looked at Alice suspicious.

"What?" She asked innocently.

"There is nothing you want to tell us about a tall, blonde, first lieutenant?" Rose asked running her hands through her hair dramatically. Our question was answered as Alice's perfect cheeks flushed with the slightest amount of color.

"That is what I thought." Rose teased poking her flushed cheek.

"Nothing happened." She said smiling and glowing like a firefly. "We just talked, but it was intense. It is like I don't ever know how I survived without him? How I could feel so connected to someone I have known for such a short amount of time? I already know I want to spend my life with him, I can see our future so clear, as if I had a crystal ball. I don't know how to explain it." The look on her face said it all she was so in love with him so much that it hurt, because for them it was also against the rules.

"Well it looks like I am not the only one breaking the rules." I said smiling at her. She looked up at me and her expression turned to one of determination.

"We have to figure out a way to change the rules, we have to make sure we can be with the ones we love." Alice's voice was so even and so serous, you couldn't help, but believe she would make it happen. Though the word love stuck in my head and I wondered if that was what I felt for Edward. I knew it was crazy to even think that, because it was far to soon to know. I decided to push that side for later review.

We spent a few more hours into the late night giggling like school girls and gossiping about the guys in our lives. Something happened during the night, somehow we all became closer. Rose didn't seem to have any problem with me anymore, it was like she let down her mask and was letting us in. We were now seeing the real Rose, the kind hearted, loving Rose. I hoped when the morning sun rose I would still feel connected to them.

Edward's POV

I could of killed Emmett and hugged at the same time for ruining my moment with Bella. I wanted to kiss her perfect pout so bad, but I knew it wasn't the right time. We had so much to figure out before we broke the rules. For one I needed to know what the consequences were, because if it would hurt Bella, then I couldn't allow that. I felt the urge, no the need, to protect her. It was like my life was suddenly revolving around this beautiful brown eyed girl. She was in ever thought, she consumed me completely. She was the one thing I never knew I was missing. It took everything I had to pull myself away from her and got to my room. As I shut the door behind me I let out the breath I had been holding in, my eyes were closed tight. When I opened them the first thing I saw Emmett looking very amused and smug, then there was Jasper looking confused, but all knowing at the same time.

"So." Emmett said wiggling his eyebrows at me and chuckling.

"So what?" I said walking casually over to my bed.

"You and Bella, huh?" He was trying to pull information from me, but I didn't want to talk about Bella with him. What I felt for Bella couldn't be explained and even if it could he would just tease me. "Come on I saw you two, you have to give us something." Emmett whined. For such a big guy he could be such a baby sometimes. He soon realized I wasn't giving him anything.

"Fine." He said crossing his arms, then his expression turned idealistic. Like a light bulb clicking with the word Iidea/I wrote across it into his brain. "Since you won't tell me about Bella I guess I can't tell you about a certain blonde and myself." He said pretending not to be too excited to tell us. Jasper chuckled and I smirked, because although I didn't care to hear about him and Rose, I had a plan.

"You and Jasper, huh. Not my thing, but more power to you." I said nonchalant. His expression turned to shock and unbelieving. Jasper gave me a warning glance I just winked at him. I guess he didn't like me referring to him as Emmett's secret lover, but it was kind of funny.

"Not Jasper, I was talking about Rose." He rolled his eyes as if I really didn't know that.

"What about her?" Jasper asked playing along in my trick. Emmett's face broke out into a huge smile and lust colored his eyes.

He suddenly went into way too much detail about his escapades with Rosalie and honestly I wanted to slap him. We really didn't need to hear about him getting to second base and what not. I started to tune him out, not needing to know what color her bra was. Though I was amused that it was so easy to distract him from his own game.

I wanted to talk to Jasper about Alice to see how things had gone, but I knew he wouldn't want Emmett in his business. He seemed like a private kind of guy and plus we were on the verge of breaking rules and we didn't need to let everyone know about that.

I waited very impatiently for Emmett of fall asleep so I could ask Jasper the one question that was haunting me.

"Jazz you awake?" I whispered into the dark of our room. I knew Emmett was sleeping, because like every other night he was snoring like a bear.

"I am now, what is up?" I could hear him moving on his bed, probably turning towards me, but it was far too dark in our room to see.

"What would be the consequences of breaking the rule?" I didn't have to speak the rule, he knew which one I was talking about.

"We don't really get consequences for all the rules on paper and I haven't heard of anyone breaking it. I know they would separate us and there would be demotions." He sighed his words lowered over the being separated part. I could tell by his tone that was the only consequence that mattered to him, because like I never wanted to be parted from Bella, he didn't want to be parted from Alice. We didn't speak any more words, he had said enough to keep both of our minds busy for the night.

The next morning was a little emotional, well actually more like devastating. As we sat in the lounge eating breakfast the news was playing and one of the headline pieces caught our attention.

The man on the news spoke all professional like. "We were following a story a few weeks ago that was surrounded around finding Isabella Swan." Bella turned in her chair as her head snapped up to look at the television. "Well her family and friends received unfortunate news yesterday as her remains were found in the rubble of a fire. Apparently an abandoned house caught on fire and Isabella was inside. The reason for the fire or for why the girl was inside is unknown at this time. The local police department said there is a pending investigation, the family denied to give a statement. The funeral will be on Saturday at two in the afternoon, the family has asked that gifts and donations be sent to Forks Police Department."

The room was dead silent except for the sound coming from the television screen, my eyes were locked on Bella's beautiful face. I was waiting for the tears to over flow her brown eyes and roll down her perfect face, but they didn't come. It was like she was in some sort of shock not moving, no emotion. She simply and quietly turned back to her food. She played with the food on her plate not eating, obviously somewhere else. I made eye contact with everyone and all their expressions showed concern for Bella. She did not speak she did not look up from her food. She had shut down, again. Her lip trembled a little, but she bit it forcing herself to hold all emotion in. I wanted to pull her into my arms and tell her everything was going to be alright. I wanted to kiss whatever emotion away that was trapped inside her, I just wanted to sooth her. Carlisle entered the room wondering why everyone wasn't out in the practice yard, so I did nothing. I was a coward, afraid of breaking some stupid rules. Wanting nothing more then to be with her, but to afraid to be separated from her.