The Twilight Twenty-Five
thetwilight25 dot com
Prompt: Shattered
Main Character: Bella
Rating: M
Word Count: 499

Mum makes some ridiculous duck terrine thing for dinner. The joke's on her, though, because Edward is the only one who seems to like it. He demolishes his own serve and then finishes off mine, while she and Dad pick around the edges of their own meals.

"So, Edward." Dad takes a sip of his beer. "That fine piece of Japanese engineering out the front of my house belong to you?"

Edward laughs. "Yes, sir."

"Excellent." Dad rubs his hands together, feigning glee. "Now you can be Bella's chauffeur and I can have my Saturday arvos back."

"No worries. Happy to drive Jas– Bella anywhere."

Mum hides her grimace behind her wine glass. "Tell me, Edward. What subjects are you taking again?"

"English, Maths." He counts off his units on his fingers. "Physics, Chem., PDHPE, Music. But Music is accelerated, so I'm actually doing HSC stuff this year."

Instead of asking the obvious—What do you play?—Mum moves right on to asking about his plans for uni.

"I don't really know, yet." He scratches his neck. "Maybe mechanical engineering."

"Not going to follow in the old man's footsteps?" Dad asks.

"Nah." He chuckles. "I'm too squeamish."

Mum looks at Dad, eyebrows reaching for her hairline. "You know Edward's father?"

He tilts his head. "Dr. Cullen? Yeah, saw him Tuesday." He winks at Edward. "Tried to convince him to prescribe me a game of golf a week but he gave me bleedin' beta blockers instead."

"You should try being his kid." Edward sighs. "To get a day off school I basically have to be dying of bubonic plague or something."

Mum actually has the nerve to ask why Edward's not at Ted's and I kind of want to throw my glass through the nearest window. I visualise it: the water arcing out of the glass as it sails through the air, the smash, the shattered glass raining down onto the carpet.

"Mum!"

Edward squeezes my knee under the table. "I think when we moved here, Dad expected I would. But Mum was pretty insistent I go to a co-ed school."

"She doesn't think… well, that hormones could be a distraction?"

It would be great if a nice, big, bottomless hole could open up under my chair. Or under Mum's.

"Nah." Edward shrugs but his ears are pink. "She calls boys' schools a 'hotbed of systemic misogyny' or something. She reckons it's important we learn early that girls are just as smart and strong as we are."

"Too right." Dad offers me his knuckles and I roll my eyes but bump his fist anyway.

"I see."

"Like, Bella. She's heaps smarter than me." He leans over and gives my shoulder a squeeze. "And she's way stronger, too."

My mother sips her wine and says nothing, just looks at his hand on me. I slump in my chair, drawing my shoulders in.

Dad comes to my rescue, stacking our plates and getting to his feet. "Why don't you give Edward the grand tour?"

HSC = Higher School Certificate. It determines your ATAR (which then determines what you're eligible to do at uni), and English is the only compulsory subject.

Thanks for reading. Shell x