17. A Thursday
"No, let her do it. You're gonna eff it up." Tomas slid the paper away from Chris and pushed it in front of Bella. "We need a woman's touch."
Bella laughed, the good-natured thing that she was, and raised her eyebrows at the boys. "You want me to build it?" Her expression was fascinating— polite smile, playful eyes— friendly, I would call it. Pleasant. Did she truly enjoy the company of these mundane creatures, or was she pretending?
They insisted, so Bella organized the materials in front of her. To my dismay, we were working with another pair of lab partners— the adolescent males behind us, Chris and Tomas— to build a model of DNA using toothpicks and gumdrops. Our task was to assign a color to each kind of nucleotide, and then to construct a structure that followed the genotype Banner had given us.
She had left her hair up, leaving her lovely face unguarded against my scrutiny. Not that I was looking at her directly. I only studied her through the eyes of the buffoons seated across from us. I had been attempting to catalogue Bella's many expressions so that I could better fathom the workings of her mind, a project that would certainly take me months to complete, even with my careful observations.
Bella, on the other hand, was doing a phenomenal job pretending that I did not exist. She hadn't acknowledged me once, keeping her enchanting eyes hidden from my gaze and leaving me quite certain that she was still upset with the way I had spoken to her the day before. If I were a man, I would have apologized, but I am a monster, so I did not.
"Wait," Tomas said, pointing to a gumdrop and using the motion as an excuse to brush his fingers against Bella's, "This one should be yellow."
I let my glare settle on him. Tomas was harmless, but that didn't mean I couldn't despise him.
I watched through his eyes as Bella's forehead creased into my favorite little frown. I found the whole of her expression quite delightful— defensive, I decided.
"No…" She double-checked the genotype chart. "G pairs with C, and C is green."
"Yeah, stupid," Chris chimed in with a grin and a thump on Tomas' shoulder, "G pairs with C."
Chris was even less of a threat than Tomas. He was only half-present, counting down the minutes until he could return home to his PlayStation and his beloved Madden NFL. He simply relished insulting one of his buddies in front of a girl he was trying to impress.
"Right," Tomas laughed. "Just testing you, Bella."
Her grumpy frown turned contemplative— a look I had seen on her face several times before. I labeled it as confusion. Bella always wore the expression when a male of her species tried to engage her in flirtation.
I nearly smiled.
She impaled another gumdrop with a toothpick, making the gesture seem as elegant as a dance. How could someone's hands be so lovely? Bella's long fingers tapered down to slim tips, her skin stretched out like milk over rippling muscles and tendons. She moved with such grace that I had to fight to tear my eyes away. Michelangelo himself couldn't have carved something more artful.
"Do it. I'll give you a dollar," Tomas said. Chris had a gumdrop poised before his mouth as if he intended to eat the revolting, sugary thing.
"Gross. Don't do that," Bella chided. "Think of how many germs are on this desk."
The boys laughed. Her revulsion entertained them.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I flipped it open, careful to keep it where Banner couldn't see it.
It was Esme. R and E have returned home. She seems better. Please be civil.
I fought to keep my expression blank. The humans were scrutinizing my face. Rosalie and Emmett had spent the last day and a half in Italy, cooling off from our argument. I found myself wishing that they had chosen to stay a few more days.
"Is it a girl, Cullen?" Tomas asked with a flick of an eyebrow. He was internally more aware of Bella's opinion of his casual teasing than of my reaction. He wanted her to think he was cool.
"Yes," I said simply. Esme was female, after all.
Bella's head moved an inch. With a jolt, I felt her eyes on me for the first time all day. I met her gaze, helpless to do anything else in the face of her gravity, but she looked away again. My whole body responded— venom flooded my mouth and adrenaline lit up my limbs. I could feel her body temperature spike, radiating like a furnace against my own skin as a blush crept into her cheeks.
What was this expression written on her face? I studied her through Tomas's mind, wondering at the strange layers of human emotion. She blinked too many times— more than was necessary, surely— and went back to her task, studying the gumdrops with remarkable concentration. How curious. Was she… dismayed by my admission?
Dread and elation filled my gut in equal parts. The possibility of Bella Swan interested in me— me— as more than an annoyance, as more than a riddle to be solved—
I pushed the thoughts away. It was too weighty to ponder here, surrounded as I was by humans.
"It's my mother," I elaborated. The boys laughed heartily like I'd meant it as a joke, but I had said it for Bella, not for them.
Again, she blinked with abnormal frequency. Her teeth pressed into her pillowy bottom lip, and I swear the corner of her mouth pulled up. Amusement was my best guess, though that seemed too shallow of a description.
Banner strolled over at the sound of my group mates' guffaws. Well, well— Isabella doing all the work? Not that that's surprising or anything— "Gentlemen, Miss Swan," he nodded twice. "How's your DNA coming along?"
Tomas held out a hand in Bella's direction. "Amazing, obviously." He grinned wide. "Lucky for us, we have a genius on our team."
Bella rolled her lips in. Embarrassed.
"Right," Banner said, smiling warmly at her. "Well, Isabella, don't let these fellas get off scot-free. Mr. Cullen, why don't you take over for a bit? You can talk your group through the process. Make sure they understand."
Annoyance ate at me, but I pushed it down. "Sure." I spread my mouth in what I hoped was a smile appropriate for the situation.
Bella lifted the toothpick-gumdrop creation with care, placing it gingerly on my half of the table. Her heart beat faster, and I heard her swallow forcefully. I tried to put a word to this expression, but I couldn't find one that even partially encompassed it.
I was careful not to let our fingers touch as I took it from her. "Thank you," I said.
Satisfied, Banner moved on to the next group, leaving me to the task of pretending to explain protein synthesis to two Neanderthal boys who couldn't care less. Still, I spoke as I assembled base pair after base pair, lacing my words with as much patience as I could muster.
Bella watched my hands through lowered eyelashes. Her pulse flickered in her throat, a constant, aching reminder that she and I were as different as night and day.
After school, I let Alice and Jasper take the car home. I preferred to run for two reasons. Firstly, the longer I delayed my reunion with Rosalie, the better. I was still too angry to be civil, as Esme had requested. Second, I preferred to make sure Bella made it home without interference. I ran along the road, following at a distance. It was only when I heard her plop down on her bed with a soft sigh— relief, I decided— that I turned back towards my own home to face my sister.
Why was Bella so relieved to be home? Was it truly that difficult to be a human teenager amongst a whole swarm of other human teenagers? And why did I feel the same sort of thing— relief to be away from her? Relief to be out from under her too-sharp, too-seeing eyes?
Baffled, she left me. Baffled, indeed.
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