Hey all, chapter 3 is up!

Responding to Dark Wolf of Death: It's super crappy that Jessica doesn't say anything or dig deeper into Bella's life. This is actually one part of the story that's a true event. I had two best friends who would never press me when I was in a fog or seeming down and I heard them say something to the likes of "she usually gets over it on her own, we just give her space." Honestly, I personally didn't really like talking about my problems and I'm one of those shove it down deep kindsa gals even though I know it's not healthy, so that was more of what I preferred at the time but I think deep down it would have been nice to have someone help me out. It's also one of those smile and fake it til you make it scenarios where even if Jessica asked her if something was wrong, Bella would smile as bright as she could and say that she's great. She doesn't like to open up to people, it feels like a burden. I'll try to do a better job of portraying that side of her! Thank you for your comment!

Stephenie Meyer created Twilight and its characters.

"Hey Babe," Mike said, walking into Bella's classroom with a steaming cup.

"Oh, hey… I didn't realize you'd be coming. What's up?" Bella was in the middle of prepping for her next class and kids were already starting to file in.

"I brought you a coffee since it's so chilly today," he exclaimed, his blue eyes sparkling excitedly.

"Oh, wow! Thank you. That was really sweet of you." She took the coffee from him and set it on her desk. She would probably give it to her TA, Angela, when she came in. Bella never drank coffee and Mike would bring it to her at least once a month. She'd told him at least fifteen times that she didn't drink it, but he continued to bring it to her. She'd even tried suggesting different types of drinks he could bring her instead, but he continued with the coffee. At a certain point, she just gave up trying to convince him otherwise. She'd never been into coffee and didn't know how or where he got the idea that she loved it.

Mike leaned in as Bella was turning back around and gave her a big kiss in front of the whole class. She quickly broke away as the students all let out a resounding "ooooooOoooooh" and her face turned beet red. She really hated PDA and especially hated it in front of her students.

"Thanks, Mike. I'll see you later, okay?" she said quietly, walking him to the door.

"Yeah, okay! Love you!" he said loudly.

"Love you too… Bye" she said, forcing a big smile. She turned around and faced her smirking students.

"Miss Swan's got a boyfriend," a couple of them chanted. Bella shook her head and asked them to quiet down so they could start class.

"Hey, Ange. There's a cup of coffee on my desk if you want it!" Angela looked up eagerly and grabbed the coffee off the desk.

"You sure you don't want it?"

"I don't like coffee," she chuckled. "Have at it!"

"Thanks, Miss Swan!"

"Hey, you going to Jess' room for lunch?" Bella's phone buzzed just as class was ending. Now that they were eating lunch together all the time, Jessica, Bella, and Edward had exchanged numbers.

"Yeah, you?"

"Yeah! I want to hear all about how amazing you think Pink Floyd is!"

"Haha, I don't know…"

"Oh no way. Don't tell me you didn't like them?"

"And who are yoooou texting?" Angela asked, smirking.

"Wh-what?" Bella replied, her smile faltering. Kids had been filing out quickly to get to lunch and she hadn't noticed that Angela was still hanging back.

"Who are you texting that's making you smile that wide?" she asked again, a twinkle in her eye. She was walking backward toward the door. "I'm fairly certain it isn't your boyfriend… You're not usually smiling like that when you're talking to him." Bella was shocked. Her mouth hung open a bit while she thought of something to say. "Not that it's any of my business, because it's not… but there's definitely a lot of us shipping you and Mr. Cullen. I'm just saying," she winked as she tossed her empty coffee cup into the trash and left the room. Bella face felt hot and she stood frozen at her desk for a solid minute trying to process what had just happened. Sure, she'd noticed how easy it was talking to Edward, but she was dating Mike. She wasn't into Edward like that… they were just friends. She was dating Mike.

"What. The hell. Just happened?" Bella said out loud to her empty classroom. She shook herself out of her shock, running her hands through her hair to calm herself and then gathered her things, making her way to Jessica's classroom. Jessica and Edward were already in there talking as she walked in.

"There she is," Jessica stated. "Finally! What took you so long?"

"Um… Angela just had a couple questions for me is all," Bella lied. Well… It wasn't technically a lie.

"Okay. I have to ask. Did you really not like the Pink Floyd CD?" Edward asked, trying to mask his disappointment.

"I don't know…." She said, trying to put on her best thoughtful impression. Edward stared at her, mouth agape. "Okay, I'm just messing with you. I actually really loved it! Thank you so much! You were right about how relaxing some of those songs could be. I fell asleep in the middle of Comfortably Numb and then woke up to Money this morning. You're right! Money is really fun!"

"How much sleep did you get?" he asked incredulous.

"Oh, the CD was on repeat, so it played all night."

"Oh, good. I thought you'd only gotten like 2 hours of sleep or something."

"It's been known to happen," Jessica said, raising her left eyebrow and turning toward Bella.

"What?! How do you even function off that little sleep? You don't even drink coffee!" Edward exclaimed. This took Bella a little by surprise that he'd recognized that she didn't drink coffee. He'd noticed that in the few short weeks they'd known each other, and Mike couldn't figure it out after 4 years of dating.

"I'm actually quite effective off 3ish hours of sleep so long as it's not too many weeks in a row," Bella remarked.

"Too many... My god. What's the longest you've gone off just 3 hours of sleep a night?"

"I mean… At one point in college, I was taking 18 units, working part time, and volunteering on my weekends. So, I guess at least one quarter of college? Although that was a rough quarter. My grades suffered a little bit that round, but I still passed!" Edward looked at her like she was crazy.

"That's too long. I hope you don't do that anymore?"

"Not often!"

"She does it at least a couple times a month," Jessica answered. Bella's eyes shot over to Jessica.

"How do you know that?" Bella questioned.

"Bella. All the concealer in the world won't hide those dark circles," both she and Bella laughed.

"Dang. Busted! Alright, well I guess a couple times a month then!"

"Why would you do that to yourself?" Edward asked. Bella took a second to answer. She didn't really know why she did it, and she hadn't really thought about it until now, but she guessed it might have something to do with control. It was one thing she could choose to do. In the past, she'd had some somewhat self-destructive habits and assumed she'd just picked up another one. She'd lie awake at night reading or on her phone, look at the clock, and tell herself 'one more chapter' or 'just 5 more minutes' and would sometimes stay awake until midnight or later even though she had work the next morning.

"I guess sometimes I just lose track of time." Again, it wasn't technically a lie.

"Maybe you should set an alarm at night to remind you what time it is, so you don't stay awake too late?"

"That's a good idea!" She would try it but it likely wouldn't work.

"I know!" he smirked. "So, you liked Pink Floyd. Have you listened to the classical CD yet?"

"Not yet, I just put the Pink Floyd one on before bed last night. I honestly need to listen to Pink Floyd again though, I think I only heard about 3 songs."

"Okay, yes. Listen to Pink Floyd again, then listen to the classical CD and let me know what you think of that!"

"Okay!"

"Since we're on the subject of music, do you play any instruments?" Jessica asked Edward. "You've got to." Edward chuckled.

"Well, yeah… I guess I play a few. Uh let's see… I play guitar – electric and acoustic, I learned violin once – to my sister's chagrin," he smirked. Bella frowned slightly at the guitar comment. Was he someone who desperately needed to play guitar in front of others like Mike? "I learned how to play the mandolin – again, to my sister's disappointment. I tried French horn but wasn't great at it… And I play piano." Bella's ears perked up at piano.

"To your sister's chagrin and disappointment?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah. She was taking lessons on how to learn violin and I picked it up after a few hours and then she got a mandolin for her birthday one year and brought it along on a family road trip. I picked it up about an hour after we left the house. She didn't talk to me the whole first half of our vacation!" he laughed. "She finally forgave me after I bought her some snacks at the gas station."

"Oh, you're one of those people who's good at everything then?" Jessica shook her head.

"I wouldn't say that. I haven't played anything in a really long time. I used to be really good at piano but it's probably been about 10 years since I've played anything."

"I feel like with that statement we need proof. You've got to play us something on the piano."

"What? Why?" he asked.

"Why not? We have a music room here. We should crash the class one of these days!"

"I-I don't know," he chuckled, feeling awkward now. He didn't really want them to make him play. He used to be really good, but he really hadn't played in a long time and he was likely really rusty.

"It'd be a nice change from our routine! It'll be exciting!" Bella exclaimed.

"I don't know…"

"Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaase?" both girls begged. Edward laughed.

"Alright, alright. One of these days I'll play the piano for you guys," he said, holding his hands up in defeat. The girls cheered and gave each other a high five.

"Excellent!" Jessica exclaimed. Bella's phone buzzed and she saw she had 15 unread texts. Two were from her mom and the rest were from Mike. She quickly glanced over the ones from her mom just to make sure it wasn't an emergency and then scrolled through Mike's, barely reading his. She shook her head minutely and allowed herself a quick eye roll. It was just the same messages he sent every. Single. Day. She responded to his texts first just to get it out of the way.

"Hey Babe, thanks for the coffee today. Day's good, you? I love you too."

Her mom had asked if she and Mike wanted to come over for dinner on Saturday since it'd been a while since she'd seen them. It'd only been about 2 weeks since Bella had been over, but she was right, Bella felt like she needed to visit her mom more often.

"Hey mom! That sounds fun! I'll ask Mike if he's able to make it but I'll definitely be there! Love you"

Saturday night rolled around and Mike and Bella were pulling into the driveway of Bella's parents house. Now that she was living on her own, she could appreciate coming home every so often. When she used to live at home, her mom could be hard on her and she was often in charge of helping take her father to doctors appointments and caring for him while her mom was at work. Usually any help she offered or was voluntold to do, there was a hidden errand to go along with it so she learned to expect to do multiple things whenever her mom asked for one. This often made her not want to help out. Her mom was the Director of Nursing at the local hospital and was often working 12-14 hour days. Bella knew her mom worked hard to provide for the family since her father wasn't able to, but Bella had been helping out since she was about 9 years old and often felt that she was missing out on things. When she was 9, she found out that her dad had petit mal seizures when she walked in on her father during an episode and once she was aware of it, her mom set her in charge of letting her know whenever her father had a seizure. He also had a bad short-term memory and would get upset when he thought about what he wasn't able to do. Since he had seizures, his doctors told him he couldn't drive. Since he had a bad short-term memory, he wasn't able to go on long walks outside because he would forget how to get back home. There were some days that he would be deep in thought and then ask Bella why he couldn't do something and then he would get angry and start yelling at her about how unfair it was. She felt bad for him because he had no freedom to leave the house whenever he wanted and he always seemed like an angry person because of it.

When she was younger, Bella was allowed to bring home friends after school or she could go to their house so long as she would let her mother know. Sometimes if she brought friends home from school, if it got a little too loud while they were playing, her father would yell at her. He'd call to her in a sneering, sing-song voice, 'Oh Bella, could you come here please? I need to talk to you!' She would slink into her parents room and he would shut the door and yell at her about having friends over. Usually loud enough for her friends to hear. Since he had short term memory loss, he thought he was catching her doing something bad and would threaten to call her mom. Often times, Bella would yell back at him to do it because she knew it was okay and then he'd call her mom and when he realized he was wrong, he'd just get mad at Bella for having loud friends. Sometimes he would get so mad he'd start yelling at her and back her into a corner and would get into her face. Sometimes she would yell back at him and tell him to get out of her face and if he didn't she'd push him away to leave the room but if she did that, then he'd get even more upset. One time he actually grabbed her by the throat. Not long enough to hurt her but it was something that she knew most parents wouldn't do to their children. She never told her mom about that particular incident. All of this happened between 4th and 8th grade. He settled down a lot more once she got older, which also could have been due to his medication changing, but these interactions caused her to have a strained relationship with her father.

Her mom worked hard before her father, Charlie, got sick but since then she'd been working even harder. Sometimes if her mom had a particularly rough day at work, she would take it out on Bella. If Bella made dinner, which she did every night, but didn't put the dishes away soon enough, her mom would tell her that she was lazy and then give her a 45-minute lecture on how she 'never does anything in this house' and if Bella tried to stand up for herself, her mom would get mad at her for backtalking. Even if she was just listing out the things she did to help out. If she lagged on taking the trash out, her mom would tell her that she never helped out around the house, even though she would make dinner daily after swim practices, clean up the dishes, take out the trash, watch her dad, often make him lunch, do her homework, she kept her room mostly clean and she'd clean the bathroom every couple weeks. She felt like she was never doing anything good enough or up to standard in that house and she'd often feel anxious or stressed about it. If she ever expressed any of this to her mom, Renee, she'd steam roll over her and tell her all the things she should be doing better. She stopped telling her mom how she was feeling as she had learned that no matter what, it didn't matter. It wasn't important and she wouldn't be heard.

Sometimes her mom would give her the silent treatment and that was worse than any lecture because she knew either a lecture or a blow up was coming but she didn't know when. Sometimes if she would make something for her mom or do something extra it would soften the blow up but sometimes she was just so damn tired she didn't have the energy to add more things onto her plate and instead she'd get another lecture or they'd have a fight about how she's not doing anything right.

Her childhood wasn't entirely terrible though, there were many good memories and laughs. They would take at least one vacation a year and they'd usually have a good time and they had many good days at home as well, but there were enough of the bad ones to leave Bella a little jaded.

Everything settled down once she moved out after college. After about 2 years of not living in the same house with her parents, she finally started to get a sense of peace and freedom. She would still help Renee with Charlie, but it was farther and fewer between these days. Her mother was able to hire a home health nurse who would come a few times a week to make sure he was doing alright and her grandma would come over to help sometimes too. So with 2 years of separation and only visiting for a few hours as needed, she was able to get some confidence for what felt like the first time in her life. This allowed her relationship with her parents to repair itself a bit.

Renee greeted Bella and Mike excitedly and told them to come in to say hello to Charlie who was sitting in the living room watching the news. While Mike and Bella were greeting Charlie, a timer went off and Renee flitted into the kitchen.

"Hey dad, how's it going?" Bella asked loudly. Charlie was also starting to lose some range on his hearing so he had hearing aids in but sometimes it still took him a moment to process what was being said.

"It's good! You know, just sitting here watching the news," he said cheerily. Bella smiled. He was having a good day today.

"That sounds fun! Anything exciting?" Charlie looked at her with a look of 'yeah right.'

"It's just all politics. Everything is politics," he said a little grumpily.

"Dinner's ready!" Renee yelled from the kitchen. Bella and Mike were happy with the subject change and informed Charlie of dinner then made their way into the kitchen. They had a nice dinner together, bringing up happy memories and talking about embarrassing stories. Renee and Charlie adored Mike and talked to him as if he were their son. This both excited and displeased Bella. She was glad her parents liked her boyfriend and the fact that they'd gotten so close was an added bonus but she would feel guilty that she didn't love him as much as they all thought she did. She figured she was just going through a phase or that she really was just moody and that she'd love him like she was supposed to eventually.

At around 9 o'clock, after helping Renee with the dishes, Mike got a text and whispered to Bella that he had to go.

"Hey mom, it's getting pretty late, we're going to head out."

"Okay! Thank you both so much for coming over! You make your old mom happy!" she said cheerily. "Don't forget to say goodbye to your father! And take some cookies for the road!"

"Will do! Thank you so much, mom! This was really fun!"

"Thanks for having us, Mrs. Swan!" Mike said, giving Renee a huge hug. Renee was absolutely thrilled.

"Are you working the late shift tonight? I didn't realize…" Bella asked once they got into the car.

"No, one of my friends invited us over for a bit!"

"Oh…" Bella said, disappointed. She didn't really like hanging out with his friends because they would always smoke pot and she hated the smell of it. They usually smoked it outside, luckily, but she still hated babysitting a bunch of adult men.

"It'll be short, I promise!" he said, giving her a huge grin.

Mike pulled into the driveway of a house Bella didn't recognize.

"Whose house are we going to?" she asked, getting out of the car.

"Paul's! I don't think you've met him yet," he said, walking up to the front door and knocking. A tall, lanky man opened the door and ushered them in. The second Bella stepped inside the house, she wanted to bolt right back out. It looked like a crack house inside. Walls had holes in them and paint was peeling everywhere, there was minimal furniture and what they did have looked like it'd been run through a monster truck mud course. They walked into the living room and there were 5 men sitting on the couch and chairs watching South Park. Mike was talking to who she imagined was Paul and she was trying to stay close to him until he turned to her and said, "Hey, stay here for a minute. Paul's going to show me some of his new stuff." It took Bella about 20 seconds to figure out that Paul wasn't exactly a 'friend' so much as he was Mike's drug dealer. Mike had brought her to his drug dealer's house and he was going to leave her and go check out whatever the fuck new stuff Paul had in one of the back rooms.

Before she could respond, Mike was already gone and she was stuck in the living room with 5 strange men who all looked like they were high as a kite on whatever. Bella moved farther away from the men and hung out by herself in the kitchen. She didn't know how long Mike was going to be and she didn't want to seem like she was afraid of anyone because she didn't want them to feel like she was judging them so she stayed in the kitchen.

"Hey gorgeous. Who are you waiting on?" Bella snapped her head up. All 5 guys were now staring at her. She could feel her heartbeat rising and her breath started to pick up a bit.

"I'm just waiting for my boyfriend," she stated firmly, just in case any of them thought she was single.

"Oh, he might be a while, you want to wait on the couch with us?" One of the guys winked at her. She felt her body stiffen.

"Oh, no thanks. I've been sitting all day, I'd rather stand. Thanks though!" she smiled, unsure how much of it looked genuine.

"Well if you change your mind…" one of the men wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

"Thanks," she smiled again.

"You want a hit?" another one asked.

"No, I'm okay, thanks though," her smile fading.

"You sure? It's good stuff. Your boyfriend is probably getting some of it now."

"I'm super sure, thank you!" she said, realizing what he was talking about was a white powder instead of weed, like she thought.

Mike ended up taking about 15 minutes and as soon as he emerged from the hallway, Bella finally let out a sigh of relief and widened her eyes at him pointedly.

"Alright, well thanks, Paul! I'll see you guys later!" he said, waving to everyone as they made their way to the door. Once they were inside the car, Bella finally lost it.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she exclaimed. Mike turned to her looking confused. "You brought me to your drug dealer's house? And left me alone so you could buy drugs?!" Mike had the audacity to look shocked. "Don't ever take me on one of your drug runs again."

"Jesus, Bella. Calm down. I told you it would be fast. You should have just waited in the car."

"YOU TOLD ME TO WAIT THERE! I thought you'd only be a couple minutes. You took 15! Did you buy cocaine?!"

"Woah! What? Why are you asking if I bought cocaine?"

"Those guys in the living room offered me some and said you were probably getting some."

"I bought weed. I don't know what those guys had!" Bella calmed down a bit hearing that he hadn't bought cocaine.

"Jesus. Okay. But please don't ever take me on one of those again."

"Yeah, okay! No problem baby! Hey, when we get back to your place though, I want to try something. Paul said he takes a few hits and then has his girl go down on him and it's amazing. I want to try that with you!" Bella's temper came back in a rage and she had to take a few deep breaths before she could answer him.

"Mike, I'm really tired. I think when you drop me off I'm just going to go to bed, okay?"

"Oh, bummer. Alright, maybe tomorrow then!"

"We'll see," she murmured knowing full well that sure as shit wasn't going to happen.

After she got back home, she went to her room and turned on her borrowed Pink Floyd CD. She hadn't given it back yet and Edward hadn't asked. She knew she should probably burn it and return the CD but she kept forgetting until it was late and then would push it off. He did say she could borrow it for as long as she wanted... Although she didn't want to take advantage of his generosity. She figured tomorrow she'd burn it and give it back on Monday. After about 20 minutes, she was finally feeling better and starting to drift off to sleep.