By the time everyone got home, Edward and I were both showered, had eaten and were now sitting on the couch together, watching TV.

"You kids have fun?" Phil whispered, taking a sleeping Dot from my mom.

"Yeah, it was okay. We just watched TV and ordered pizza." I reached over and pinched Edwards thigh when no one was looking. His whole body was tense and I knew that Phil or Mom would catch on and think something was up.

The light pinch worked because Edward glanced over at me and instantly relaxed his body.

"Are you two going to stay up longer?" My mom asked. "I think Phil and I are going to put Dot to bed and then go ourselves."

I shrugged and looked at Edward. "Yeah. I think we'll go to bed. I'm pretty sleepy."

I leaned forward to get the remote and turned the TV off.

We stood up and headed upstairs behind my parents.

0-0

"How do you feel?" Edward asked once we got up to my room. "Are you sore?"

"No," I said, taking a minute to asses how I felt. "Well, actually a little I guess. Just achy."

"I'm sorry," he apologized.

I rolled my eyes. "Edward, I knew it would hurt. I'll just pop a couple of Motrin and I'll be fine."

Edward climbed into bed while I took the pills. I got in after him and immediately went to snuggle into his side.

The next morning I woke late and saw that Edward had already gotten up.

Going downstairs, I found Edward sitting on the couch with Dot.

"Where's Mom?" I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"She went to the grocery store and asked if I could watch Dot for her."

I went over to the couch and sat down next to them, reaching for Dot.

She instantly started to fuss.

Pouting, I instead reached for the remote.

That was the thing. Dot loved Edward. I was pretty sure that if she was old enough to have crushes on guys, she would be fighting me for Edward.

If he was in the room and she saw him, her face would light up and she would start reaching for him.

Mom and Phil thought it was really cute. Edward was a little embarrassed by it.

I was a little embarrassed by the fact that it made me feel a little jealous and possessive of the attention he would give her.

I knew it was completely irrational and my mom would tease me about it.

But still, weren't there other boys her age for her ogle?

0-0

The next day was Sunday, the day we were going back to Forks.

We had to go back to school on Monday, but with the knowledge that it was the final semester of high school, I wasn't dreading it too much.

"Oh, honey. I'm going to miss you!" My mom said, hugging me tight and kissing my cheek.

She had already given Edward the same treatment.

"Are you going to come out for Spring Break?"

"I don't know. I'll see. Maybe you could come out to Forks?" I asked, knowing well that she wouldn't. She hadn't been in years and I knew that my graduation in June would be the only thing to bring her back.

"Of course, Bella," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "You better get going. Have a safe flight and call me when you get back!"

"Okay, Mom," I replied.

We did one last round of goodbyes before heading out to wait for our plane.

"Did you have fun?" I asked Edward as we waited for our plane to take off.

"I did," he nodded, grabbing my hand. "Too bad we have to go back now to the real world."

0-0

School started to pick up when we went back the next day, which really sucked for me because I had a horrible case of Senioritis.

I found myself so busy studying and doing homework that I hardly got to see Edward outside of school.

We even skipped out on Valentines day, deciding that it wasn't really a big deal and we could celebrate it another day. Edward did surprise me with a box of my favorite chocolates, though.

What bothered me the most though, was that we had only had sex a few times since Florida.

I was starting to think that maybe he didn't actually want me.

I just wasn't sure how to bring it up to him.

Edward was too nice to ever say anything that he thought would hurt my feelings and he liked to avoid confrontation unless it was completely necessary.

So it was up to me.

We were at his house, making out on his bed.

Both his parents were gone, Carlisle was at work and Esme was with friends.

We had a guaranteed couple of hours alone.

I pushed Edward onto his back so I was half on top of him and reached down to the zipper of his jeans with the hand that wasn't supporting me.

Around now was the time that he would stop me and say we had to get back to studying.

So I wasn't too surprised when he grabbed my by the wrist to stop me.

"Bella, we should be doing homework."

"Ugh!" I groaned, rolling off of him and sitting, swinging my legs over the side of his bed.

"What's wrong?" Edward asked.

I turned my head and shot him a dirty look. That look faltered though when I saw how honestly confused he looked.

"Are you kidding me right now?" I asked, running a hand through my hair.

"No?" he asked, making it sound like a question.

"Sex, Edward. Sex. We've barely had any since the first time. Is it...did you change your mind? Do you not want me?"

I cringed at how insecure I sounded.

"Of course I do, Bella. Come on. I love you and I'm a guy. I think about it a lot," he laughed, sitting up.

"Then what is it?" I still couldn't figure out why he would always stop us before we got anywhere.

"It's dumb, I guess. I thought you weren't enjoying it and you did it just for my sake. I mean...I know you don't come."

I didn't know what to say to that.

It was true, he never had made me come during sex and sure, I wish it would happen but I figured it would...come eventually. I didn't know how to tell him what I wanted. What I needed.

I had thought of asking Victoria about it, or maybe Angela, but even the idea of asking them made me uncomfortable.

"It is good for me, Edward. It feels good and I like being that close to you.

"What if we just tried different things?" I suggested.

"Different things?"

"You know...positions." I felt my face flush and brought my head to my hands.

Edward was silent for a minute and I was about to tell him to forget it.

"Okay."

"Okay?" I asked, clarifying.

"Let's try different things."

I smiled and crawled back on the bed so I was on top of Edward.

Our clothes were pulled off quickly and with just as much speed, we got under the covers, still in our underwear, but those were quickly shed as well.

He was kissing me gently all over from my lips down to my neck and back and his hand snaked between us and slipped into my underwear to rub my clit and sink a finger into me.

I squirmed and gasped under his actions, but it still just wasn't enough.

Reaching down, I tugged on his boxers, hinting at him to take them off as I followed suit.

He grabbed a condom from his nightstand and rolled it on.

Then we were naked and he was hard and right there.

With one thrust of his hips he was in me.

"Fuck," he muttered.

I loved that he only swore when we were like this.

After giving himself a minute to adjust, he slowly started rocking his hips into mine, not really pulling out, but just pressing every so slightly deeper into me.

Unlike any of the previous times, where my feet sat firmly planted on the bed, I tilted my hips up and wrapped my legs around his waist, ocking my ankles together.

His thrusts faltered, but didn't stop as he acclimated to this new position.

I bit my lip to stop myself from crying out. I was so, so close.

I needed more.

Feeling brave, or maybe just incredibly horny, I grabbed Edwards face in both my hands and pulled it down to mine to kiss.

When I was sure he wasn't going to stop kissing me, I trailed one of my hands down his spine and around his hip until it was between us.

I was nervous about touching myself in front of him, but I hoped he was too caught up in what he was doing to notice.

I let out a low groan when I touched my clit. Edward broke the kiss and looked down, seeing my hand and what it was doing.

"God, you're touching yourself?" he asked. His sounded almost like he was in awe.
Instead of answering, I let out a quiet whimper.

"Are you close?"

I nodded my head frantically.

My orgasm hit me fast and hard.

When I came down from it, I noticed that Edward had stopped his movements, my legs were so tightly wrapped around him.

I loosened my grip on him and after he thrust a couple more times he came in me with a low groan.

He rolled off of me and we both silently lay there, trying to catch our breath.

"Better?" finally asked, turning to look at me.

"Better."

0-0

Besides school being somewhat stressful, everything was going good.

Until one day in the middle of March when people started talking about their college acceptance letters.

Every day I would come home and check the mail to see if I had gotten mine.

I wasn't really holding my breath about getting accepted to any of the schools.

Charlie told me that we would figure something out if need be.

I kept my worrying to myself, though. Victoria and James hadn't applied anywhere, deciding instead to work their way through community college; they were unsure if college was really for them.

Whenever I brought acceptance letters up to Edward, he would always just shrug it off.

My first rejection letter came from University of Oregon.

But I was accepted to Oregon State, University of Washington and Washington State.

I was offered a partial scholarship to attend University of Washington, but it would still be a stretch to afford it.

I didn't know what to do.

Everything really felt like it was falling apart when I went to dinner at Edwards house.

I hadn't seen his parents in a couple weeks, since they were never home when I was over, so when Edward asked me to stay for dinner, I agreed.

"Oh, Bella. Aren't you just so proud of Edward?" Esme asked when we were sitting down to eat.

"Um, yeah," I said, unsure of why she was asking me that.

"Mom," Edward said in a low voice.

"Hush, Edward. You should be proud. You're going to Stanford!" She beamed at her son, completely oblivious to my confusion.

Carlisle, picking up that I had no clue what was going on gave me an apologetic smile and then distracted Esme with a question about her volunteer work.

I sat in silence.

Stanford?

What did Esme mean?

Edward was accepted to Stanford and intended to go without even telling me about it?

I suddenly felt sick.

"Excuse me, I just need to go to the restroom," I bolted out of my seat before Esme could ask what was wrong.

"Bella, wait!" Edward ran after me as I dashed up the stairs and into his bathroom. I locked the door behind me.

"I'm sorry!" he called through the door. "I'm an idiot. Please open the door."

I stayed silent and sat down on the toilet lid.

"Don't ignore me, please. I know you're in there. I'm so sorry."

I dropped my head in my hands and sniffed. I didn't want to cry. Not here, at least.

"Go away, please," I said. "I just want to go home."

"I drove you," he pointed out.

"Well...I'll walk home."

"Just talk to me, please?" he begged.

"What? Like you talked to me?" I shot back.

"Open the door."

I groaned and stood up. I knew I'd have to leave the bathroom eventually. Might as well get it over with.

When I opened the door and peeked out, Edward started to apologize again.

"Can we talk? Tell me what happened," I said, walking toward his room.

After I sat down on the couch, Edward shut the door behind him and went to sit down next to me.

"How long have you known?" I asked.

"A few weeks," he looked down at his lap. "I should have told you."

"Yeah, you should have. I've been talking about college ever since I started getting letters."

"I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't think I would get into Stanford and then I did...I just knew that's where I wanted to go."

"And you didn't think I deserved to know? What, I was supposed to play out the last few months of school all happy and ignorant that you would be going to a different state at the end of summer?"

"That's not it at all. I don't know why I didn't tell you. I hate that you had to hear it from my mom and you were caught off guard like that. Tell me how to make it right," he begged.

I didn't know what to tell him. I supposed part of this was my fault. I knew that he would be going to college. I knew the schools he applied to. I just didn't think that he would accept admittance at a school without even talking to me about it first. Did I even matter?

"What's going to happen to us after high school?"

"What?" Edward asked, sounding confused. "Nothing. I mean, it's still you and me. Always."

"But how?" I asked. "I didn't apply to schools in California."

"We can visit each other. Not just during holidays, but long weekends. Texts, emails, anything."

"Edward, you know I can't afford to just fly down to California. I can hardly afford college as it is." I started to feel like I was going to cry again. Everything felt so hopeless.

"We can make this work. I don't want to be like those couples in high school that know there's an end to their relationship and just wait it out until we have to part ways. You mean so much to me."

"I obviously don't mean enough to you to keep you here." As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to take them back. I don't really believe what I had just said. I knew he loved me. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"No, I deserve it, I guess." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I really messed this up, didn't I?"

I laughed humorlessly, feeling a few tears slip out of my eyes.

"Hey, don't cry." Edward scooted closer to me, wrapping his arm around me. I let my head fall onto his shoulder.

"Everything is gonna work out, okay? We'll figure this out."

I just wished I could truly believe him.

A little bit of trouble, but a lot of high school couples face that as well.

Story is winding down. Leave a review and let me know what you think.

See you next time!