Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight


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Baseball. Edward Cullen played baseball, and apparently, my dad has gone to a few of his games. I'm at the kitchen table wearing Edward's hoody as I look through last year's yearbook. There are other pictures of him throughout. I imagine he must have had photographers following him around school as if they were paparazzi. No one should be featured in one book this much. We have an entire student body, who could have been included, but this just shows how obsessed we are with one guy. I started flipping through my yearbook to figure out what games my dad was talking about, but now I can't stop looking at it.

My dad takes the empty cereal bowl I've left beside me on the table. "Sorry," I say as he takes it to the sink.

"It's okay." He turns on the faucet. "I was your age once. I remember how it is the first time you get all lovesick."

I keep my eyes on the yearbook, seeing Edward's hair at various lengths and his face from different angles. I'm not sure what to say. I know my dad was young once, but he doesn't talk about it much, so it's hard to imagine him at my age.

"You ever taking that thing off?" he asks, eyes set on Edward's hoody.

I unzip it and put it on the back of the chair. "Yes." I could wear it to school. That would be telling, but I won't do that to him. I wonder what would happen if I did though. How would he react? How would everyone else? Really, what would he do if I did?

My dad grabs a small padded envelope off the counter and tosses it on the table. "This came for you. What did you order anyway?"

I grab the envelope, rip it open, and pull out the tiny item. Before examining it the way I'd like to, I hand it to my dad, so I can get out the last bit of cash I own. When he let me use his credit card, I didn't have the right change to pay him back, and he wanted me to wait until I did. Now, change is all I seem to have.

His brows scrunch. "It's an eyeball." He glances at me. "Are you kidding me? Inside joke or something?"

"Maybe," I say. It may be an inside thing, but Edward's eye drawings aren't really funny, especially when they're surrounded by the flower design I made on my necklace. I'd really like to create his way of combining the two in my own way but making an eye out of wires wouldn't look as nice as one that is marble. Now that it's here, I just need to make it. I hope I can get it to look right, and then decide what to put it on.

He gives the marble eye back to me, while I slide a few dollars and a bunch of change his way. As he gathers up the money, I thank him repeatedly until he tells me to stop it.

Before I leave, I look back at Edward's hoody one last time, wondering how long he'll let me keep it, and hoping that wearing it so much has left his smell on me.

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The bell will ring any second now, signaling the start of class. I watch Tanya and her friends, waiting for some news as to what Tanya has to say about her evening at the Cullens', but their chatter is restricted to Siobhan's birthday party. The couples' theme has stuck, and the guest list is very exclusive. It is not the kind of insider information I'd like to have.

Heidi scoots her chair closer to mine and nudges me with her elbow. "He wasn't there," she says in a whisper.

I give her the best confused face I can manage. "Who? Where? What are you talking about?"

"Cullen." She taps her pen against her teeth, looking at me like I'm not fooling anyone. "It's okay. Everyone's been wondering." She leans toward my ear, and my body, that's known to lean the opposite way in these situations, moves toward her.

"He supposedly was out with someone." She points upward as if asking me to wait a moment as she thinks. "I bet Jasper introduced them. They've been hanging out. Have you noticed? He's super cute – Jasper, not Cullen. Cullen is cute too, but I mean Jasper. Maybe I should talk to him."

"No," I say, but I can't think of a single reason that I can give her as to why. I turn on my best gossiping voice as I say, "You know who's really cute? Tyler. You'd look great together, and you know what, I owe him a dollar." I grab my wallet from my bag. "You could pay him back for me and see if you feel a spark or something." I have to go through the tiny zipper compartment and count out a dollar's worth of change.

She takes it, sliding it off my desk and into her hand. "I've got this." She gives me a wink just as class begins.

I really am getting better at this friend thing.

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Lunch has become so much more as Alice and Rosalie eagerly await Jasper and Emmett's latest antics, but of course, Edward never steps foot in the cafeteria. When Jasper and Emmett walk over to our table, grab chairs, and flip them around so they can sit on them backwards, I can't say that I'm not envious. Despite getting dates, kisses, late night phone calls, and intimate moments, I still want the butterflies of the one-time Edward tried to talk to me at school. I want the excitement of wondering what he might say or do.

"What's for lunch?" Emmett asks as he grabs my lunch bag. He pulls out my apple and hands it to me as if it's a gift he got me.

"Thanks." I take the rest of my lunch back.

Jasper takes a deep breath, but he's staring at the table. I look at Alice and tilt my head Jasper's way, but her eyes go wide as she shakes her head.

I'd kick her under the table, but my legs aren't long enough. "Hey, Jasper, how are you?"

"Um…pretty good." He nods as if he's trying to convince himself. "We're skating tonight, so if you happen to be there, I guess we'll see you."

"Yeah?" I ask, looking at Alice who gives the slightest of nods. "We'll probably be there."

He smiles. "Maybe we can hang out at my house again after…or not. Whatever's cool."

I look over at the two girls that really like these guys, but they are offering nothing to this conversation. "Yeah, maybe."

When Jasper and Emmett head to the lunch line, I look at my two friends. "Lame. You're both lame."

Alice gasps. "That's not fair. This is hard and Rose has her Alec thing. I'll try to talk to him tonight though. Promise, okay?"

I look at Rose, feeling a tightening in my chest, not knowing what to make of this. "Are you coming with us then? I already told," I lower my voice, "Edward, that you're single. I'm sure Emmett knows. Do I need to take it back?"

Rose looks toward the lunch line. "No, it's not a big deal. He wants to talk, and I told him I'd think about it, but I don't know what I'm going to do yet."

I push it down and try to let it go, but as much as I trust her, I know she was really into Alec for a long time. I can't help wishing I'd never said anything about her being single.

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I stop at my locker way-too-slowly, so I can see Edward. I haven't seen him all day. He's down the hall and dressed in a black hoody that I've never seen before. His eyes are on me, and I'm caught staring at him, paying no mind to my locker. I smile. He smiles back. It's a fleeting moment before his name is called from somewhere behind him and then he's ducking into a random classroom while holding a folder in front of his face. It's definitely not his next class. I hear his name called again as the door shuts behind him. Whatever her name is, I think it's Jane, she has a camera around her neck. I guess I get to see the yearbook paparazzi in action. Jasper approaches, tapping her on the shoulder with a mischievous smile. I'm amused as I stand back and watch, but I want to go over there and get this girl to leave him alone myself.

"So, you think I'm cute," Tyler says as he leans back against the locker beside mine and pulls his hat off, as if he's prepared for me to scold him.

"I didn't…" I stop myself because I did in fact say that. "That's not what I meant. I was trying to set you up with someone."

"Heidi? Really, Bella?" he asks with a pout.

I can't help but laugh as I say, "Well, I don't see why not." She may be a little high maintenance, but she'd make for a better girlfriend than Lauren, who breaks up with him every five minutes. Who could be happy with that?

"Bro, what the hell?" Mike says and pushes on Tyler's shoulder. Mike looks at me, but it's not in any kind of greeting or the flirting I'm used to getting from him.

Tyler crosses his arms and straightens his posture. "What did I do?"

"You know," Mike says with a nod my way. "Hey, Bella," he says before glaring at Tyler.

I say, "Hey," with a wave, but he's not listening or looking at me. What's his deal today?

I look past them because they are wasting my time and ruining the reason that I was standing here in the first place. I don't want to be on this side of the hall with these two and whatever it is they're secretly communicating. I want to be down the hall, guarding Edward from his fans, but no, Jasper's doing it while I'm stuck here…except I'm not. I walk away without a word, leaving Mike and Tyler to their vague sentences, glares, and hand gestures.

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I see his dirt bike blocking my truck before I see him, all tall and long hair blowing around before he ties it back. I look around the parking lot, needing an escape, a buffer, or anything. Edward's car is gone. I catch sight of Alice's car as she turns out of the school parking lot, and I know Rose is in the front seat. Jasper and Emmett are a few spaces away, looking at Jake, but as much as I hope they will, they don't look my way. Even if they did, they don't know the plight I'm in. They get in the Jeep, and it feels like I've depleted all my options. I look around for someone, anyone. Where's Heidi when I need her? Tyler? Hell, I'd settle for Mike Newton, but no one's around to save me.

I take a deep breath and walk to my truck. One step in front of the other, but the trek isn't long enough. I kick the front tire on his bike. "Finally fixed it?"

"Well, it was fixed." Jake laughs. "You just broke it."

"My bad." I don't look at him as I ask, "Why are you here?"

"I forgot to give this back." A pair of pink fuzzy dice are shoved into my line of sight.

I laugh at how ridiculous the object is, but I shake my head. "Not mine. You keep it."

"I know," he says with a sadness I haven't heard much of through all of his anger. "I tried, but I can't. Can you please just take it?"

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Jake's head wouldn't stop shaking as he watched me buy the fuzzy pair of dice and even still, as I hung them over his rearview mirror, but he was smiling through his protest.

"Bella." He laughed and covered his eyes. "I can't even look at it. It's so corny."

I reached up and adjusted the new décor. "Jake, c'mon now. You're the corniest person I know."

He uncovered his eyes. "What's with the insults?" His face and voice both showed mock offense.

"Oh, don't act like I hurt your feelings. Leah says way worse, and you don't mind at all."

He slapped his chest and kept his hand there. "That's because Leah hates me, and there's nothing that I can do about it. With you though, I can't take this. I thought there was love here."

I pinched the corner of the dice. "Dude, I just bought you these. How much more love do you need?"

He dropped his smile at the same time that he dropped his hand. "It's all good, Bella."

"But?" I asked because his seriousness was not normal. It did something to me, making me feel dark when everything with him always felt so light.

He pressed his lips into a thin line and exhaled an audible breath through his nose. "But…do you ever think about us being…more?" His voice bobbed as he swallowed. "We kind of are already, right? Me and you."

He was asking too many questions. I was stuck on the first one, trying to remember if I ever really had thought about it.

With the answer to his first question being, not really, no, I was thrown off on what to make of the second question. Were we already more? He had become by far the best friend I'd ever had. Alice was great. I loved having her in my life, but on a deeper level, we didn't tend to connect. With Jake, maybe we did. Over the course of the first year I'd lived in Forks, our friendship went from awkward acquaintances to him being the one person I was most comfortable being around. It was probably a natural progression to be more than friends, and we would have been a lot sooner if my shortcomings weren't involved, but could I be a girlfriend? Did I want to be his girlfriend? The answer to that question was an easy yeah.

"Never mind." He pulled his seatbelt on. "Forget I said anything. I'm hungry. Are you hungry? Let's go eat."

"No, wait. I'm just thinking, okay?" I pulled on the metal buckle on my own seatbelt, but I didn't put it on. I slid the buckle up and down. Maybe I could ignore teasing from our friends, but if Jake thought there was something here, there was no pretending I didn't know that.

"Okay," he said and pushed his keys into the ignition, but he didn't turn them.

"I've never really thought about it," I admitted because honesty was probably a good basis to start anything, but the way his eyes fell made my heart heavy. "In terms of labels and all that."

He sat there, waiting with all that patience he'd always had for me, as I twisted my thoughts around until I could find something coherent to say. I didn't want to hurt him with my inability to be normal. I didn't know the first thing about being a girlfriend, but it made the most sense for me to be his.

"We're just us," I said. "You're right, though. We've been getting closer for a while, so if you want to throw a label on it, go ahead. Words aren't going to change anything, really. We'll still be us."

Jake took a deep breath. "Okay. Yeah." He released his seatbelt, turned toward me and reached for my hands. "I should probably kiss you now."

My mouth started to fall open, but I snapped it closed. If we were going to do this, we'd still be us, but there was a physical aspect that would change. I hadn't thought about that, but it was absolutely something I would need to get used to if I was going to be his girlfriend. I was his girlfriend. "Yeah, you probably should."

The few times I'd been kissed before in my attempts at dating back in Phoenix, they'd just sort of done it, and I just went with it the best I could. With Jake, it felt like a conscious decision. It might have been his idea, but I was ready to go through with it.

I closed my eyes and waited. When it finally happened, I didn't die. I didn't get sick or even flinch. It was Jake, and whether I meant us to or not, somewhere along the line, we became an us.

I opened my eyes to find him looking at me with a cheesy grin. "So corny," I muttered under my breath.

"Yeah, yeah, let's go eat something," he said, fastening his seatbelt before turning the car on.

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I take the stupid dice. "Fine, okay, fine. I'll take them. Now, will you please move your bike?"

"Whatever, Bella." He gets on the bike and drives off. The rumble of the engine can be heard long after he's out of sight. I can't get out of here fast enough, so I throw the dice onto the passenger seat and go home.

There's a box in my closet filled with way too much stuff. I should probably burn it all or throw it out, but I can't bring myself to do it. Nothing in the box is a reminder of a relationship gone wrong. Everything in there is a reminder of a friendship that should have been lifelong. I hate that. I hate that so much. I don't get that box out and open the lid because these fuzzy dice that led to where we are now don't belong in there. I get out of the car, dice in hand, walk to the end of the driveway, and lift a different lid. Luckily, the trash service hasn't been by yet.

Once inside, I lay down with Edward's hoody as I try to remember who I am now. I'm not the same girl who spent her weekends with her best friend at the beach. I'm not the same girl who broke his heart. I may not know exactly who I am now, but I have a better idea of the things I want.

When my phone rings, I look at the screen and smile before I answer. "Hey."

"Hey," Edward says. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I say, still smiling. "It was a weird day."

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah, you have paparazzi. I saw them today. I was looking at last year's yearbook this morning, and it's all you."

He groans. "I know. Let's join yearbook and fix the next one."

"Okay," I say with a laugh. "I'm in, but how do we join, and how do I still get a copy that mostly has you in it?"

"No clue, but we can make our own yearbook." He laughs. "You going to the skate park?"

"I'm pretty sure I am. Yeah."

"Then I'll see you later tonight?" he asks.

"Hope so." I look down at his hoody. I should probably bring it, but do I want to give it back? No, not really.

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Author's note: Thanks everyone for sticking with me! Spring Break is coming up for me in two weeks, and I'm hoping to get so much written in that time.

Thanks YourVixen for prereading and dazzled eyes22 for betaing! You both have such great ideas for bettering this story.

Thanks everyone for all your reviews. We're so close to reaching 1000. That'll be a first for me if we do! I love reading all your thoughts. I hope to have more posted soon.