Chapter 7

Hey all, chapter 7 is up! And thank you so much to those of you who review. It gives me courage to continue. :)

All morning, Bella had been fine. Well… Mostly fine. She was still having a hard time shaking the weird feeling although it was better than the day prior and then on top of that, Angela had cornered her after class and grilled her a little bit about the situation with Edward this morning.

"So! Are you and Mr. Cullen finally a thing?" she asked, beaming. Her dark eyes were sparkling with visions of romance. Bella ducked and started grabbing at papers to hide her blush.

"No, we're not anything other than friendly coworkers," Bella retorted, a little harsher than she intended in her panic, but Angela was completely unbothered. Bella continued to move things around in her drawers so she didn't have to face Angela with her beet red face.

"Okay, if you say so," she smirked, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised and her fingers drumming on Bella's desk. Bella rolled her eyes.

"I do say so. I'm dating Mike… Edward drove me home last night because I…" Bella froze for a moment. She didn't want to give too much of her personal life out to a student. She finally picked her head up and looked toward Angela. "You know what? It doesn't matter why he drove me home. You really don't need to know anyway." Bella gave a small, satisfied smile, her not-as-perfectly-sculpted eyebrows raised toward Angela. Angela looked at her with horror.

"Ugh you're still dating Mike? And what the heck?! You're not going to tell me?!" She remarked. "That's not fair!"

"Yes, Ange. I'm dating Mike. And it's not really any of your business anyway." Bella chuckled; her face still pink. Angela groaned, her head falling back toward the chair she was sitting in and her arms splayed out in a huff.

"Fine. Don't tell me… But be warned, I'll be watching the two of you like a hawk tonight anyway," she smirked evilly. Angela had recently joined the swim team. Apparently, she'd really wanted to swim for the high school before but really didn't like the coach. Since he'd been replaced, she'd been excited to give it a go. She'd been swimming for a club team but really wanted something that she could show some school spirit. It would look good on her college applications.

"Aren't you wasting your lunch period?" Bella asked, trying to get rid of her. She usually loved Angela's company but today it was becoming too much for her. She was already feeling guilty about the excitement she had whenever Edward turned his attention toward her and she didn't need a high school student pointing it out.

"Ugh, I guess," she groaned but then glanced up at Bella with a glint of mischief. "I'll see you two tonight." And with that, she winked at Bella and walked out. Bella let out a deep breath she didn't realize she'd been holding and, for what felt like the millionth time this week, rested her head in her hands and took a few calming breaths. All too soon, she was interrupted by the distinct buzz of her phone. Jessica. She'd programmed a specific vibration to let her know when Jessica was texting her and it was going off now. Bella assumed she was texting her to ask where she was. And she was right. Ignoring the 14 texts from Mike, she responded to Jessica.

"Sorry, Ange held me up. I'm on my way!"

"See you soon!"

Bella had decided to forgive Jessica for yesterday's betrayal. Granted, Jessica didn't know Bella had been upset with her so it was just a decision Bella had made in her head, but it was a decision nonetheless. Jessica was human… Everyone makes mistakes, she couldn't fault her for that. How many times had Bella made someone uncomfortable without meaning to? She didn't know. And that alone made her feel the need to allow herself to forgive Jessica. She would forgive, but not forget. She wouldn't be sharing anything truly personal with her again… At least not until she felt like she could trust her.

"Finally! What did Angela want?" Jessica asked as soon as she opened the door for Bella. She let Bella close the door and walked over to her large desk to continue eating her salad. Edward sat in one of the student desks with his left foot resting on his opposite knee and casually glanced up. Bella gave him a quick half-smile before answering Jessica.

"Oh, she was just extra chatty after class is all. Nothing too exciting," Bella shrugged.

"Oh. Well I'm glad you finally made it! We're starting to plan our hike," Jessica stated excitedly.

"Our hike?" Bella asked, confused.

"Yeah! A couple weeks ago… or was it a week ago?... Anyway. Edward suggested we should go on a teacher's hike, the three of us! Remember?"

"Oh! Yeah. Are we really doing that?" Bella said with interest.

"Yeah, as long as you guys are up for it?" he asked. He looked a little unsure and Bella couldn't help but think her comment earlier had dampened his confidence. She felt guilty.

"Absolutely! I love hiking!" Jessica stated excitedly. Bella shot her a confused glance and noticed Jessica was staring flirtatiously at Edward and then it clicked. Oh, she's back to dating games again. Jessica was often so absorbed with wanting to make sure she was on the right track that she sometimes lost sight of what really mattered. She was 28 years old which meant, according to her, she should have a steady boyfriend or fiancé by now and the fact that she was single was killing her. Bella didn't like planning like that; It came off as too forced. She preferred things to happen more naturally and hey, if she ended up being 45 and not married, so long as she was happy, she didn't care.

"So what's the plan? Where are we going? What day are we going? And what time are we going?" Bella asked, the idea of planning something where they needed to meet up at a specific place and time where she may not know how to get there tickled her anxiety.

"Woah, slow down there, sharpshooter," Edward chuckled, his pearly white smile gleaming, green eyes twinkling. Bella found herself smiling at his ease and earnestness but brought herself back to reality with the notion that he was off limits and so was she. Her smile stayed plastered to her face but she looked down to hide her sudden mood shift. "We only just started talking about it! I think you mentioned a nice hike a while ago, right?"

"I did… It's a bit on the tougher side though and I don't know that it's the best place to start. I know I haven't gone on a hike in a while and might need to ease into it. Maybe we could do the bluffs trail this time and then try the tougher one another time?" She wasn't lying, she and Mike hadn't gone hiking in a while and she was likely going to be a bit rusty, but she also didn't want to embarrass her friend who she knew was not the avid outdoorsy type. The bluffs were basically flat, but it was beautiful to walk along the cliffside and see the ocean and be emersed in the wildlife. There were always ground squirrels running around and turkey vultures flying close by.

"Yeah, that sounds good! How about this weekend, maybe Saturday?" Edward looked excited and hopeful for the new adventure.

"That works for me! What time?" Jessica asked. Bella could see the relief in her face as she knew it wasn't going to be strenuous.

"Let's go a little earlier? Maybe 8? Err...9?" Edward corrected noticing the widening of Jessica's eyes at the mention of 8 am on a weekend.

"Yeah, 9 works for me," Jessica chuckled, trying to save face. Bella hadn't noticed Jessica trying this hard for his approval in a while. She was curious as to what was up.

"Bella?"

"Oh! Yeah, 9 should work for me too!" She was hoping Mike wouldn't try to invite himself along and was really praying that he had work or had something with Tom. He was not going to be elated aboout this news, especially since he was so upset about Edward driving her home last night. While she was pondering what Mike would think, she felt her phone buzz again and looked down to see his name light up her screen. She'd recently made sure the texts that showed up on her lock screen didn't have the actual text due to an incident that nearly killed her with embarrassment. A few weeks ago, Mike had texted her something ….sexual… and Bella's phone had been on the desk while she ate lunch with Jessica and Edward. Edward just happened to glance at it when he saw something move in his peripheral and he was able to see the text. He quickly looked away and Bella was able to see the pink of his cheeks before she checked her phone. Her face went blood red and she excused herself to go back to her classroom. Luckily it was almost time for class to start anyway, but she was so mortified that she made sure to change the settings not only for that but so the kids didn't somehow accidentally see something like that.

"Babe? Are you ignoring me?"

"Did I do something?"

"I love you so much, Babe!"

"Bella, are you okay?"

Those were just the most recent texts. There were about 20 others she hadn't even scrolled to yet.

"Hey, sorry.. I was busy in class and then Angela talked to me for a while. I was just able to scarf down food before we're about to start again."

She felt a sudden rush of frustration having to explain herself. She was at work. Yes, she had a lunch break but that didn't mean she had to text him during every free moment she had. She was frustrated she had to lie and put on a front just for the sake of avoiding an absurd confrontation. She hated lying and she definitely hated putting on a front for someone she was supposed to be able to share everything with. She wasn't sure where this sudden feeling of resentment came from, but it was starting to consume her.

"I love you!" he texted again. She didn't want to say it back right now, even with the quick text she'd created where she just had to hit the letters "ILY" for it to quickly spell it out when she wasn't feeling like it. She chose to ignore the text for now and face the consequences later.

"Hey! Umm.. are you alright? I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry but your mood seemed to sour a bit toward the end of lunch and… I just… wanted to check in," Edward finished lamely. He internally kicked himself. In his head it sounded a little less… Stupid. He had glanced over at her a few times toward the end of lunch while Jessica was asking him about his favorite movies and noticed she was frowning down at her phone for a while and seemed a little lost in thought. Her mood had changed from being excited about hiking to barely present in the room and he noticed she seemed to go into autopilot. They were stopped in the middle of the hallway in between their classrooms and he knew the students were going to start running through at any minute to make it to class on time, but he was really hoping to get a minute alone with her before then.

"Oh! Sorry, yeah. I'm okay! I think I'm just a little tired. Still not sleeping great." Lie. He could tell and he was a little crestfallen that she felt the need to fake her feelings. The smile she had on was weak and just there to appease him. He wasn't an idiot but he also knew he wasn't a close friend of hers yet and she probably didn't feel like spilling all her secrets to a coworker.

"Oh, bummer! And before I forget again, I made another CD for you. You can keep it, it's just some songs I thought are… relaxing. I'll give it to you after practice," he winked and smiled. He saw a glimmer of light return to her expression and he internally high fived himself.

"That's really nice of you! You know you don't have to do that though." She felt a little tickled by his thoughtfulness and felt a light weight lift off her shoulders. A very light weight.

"I know but I really like music so it's really fun for me to go through and listen to all the stuff I have." His smile was genuine and she felt the tingly feeling of excitement that always came with his attention.

"Thank you!"

And with that, the students started piling into the hallway to get to class. Bella was bumped by someone with an excessively large backpack and stumbled closer into Edward and he reached out to brace her in case she started to fall. She felt a thrill race through her at his almost embrace but quickly removed herself before she lost control of her own thoughts. She chuckled nervously, tucking her hair behind her ear as she backed off and apologized.

"I'll see you at practice," she said, with a nervous smile.

"See you there," he threw out finger guns and she laughed outright. It was the first genuine laugh he'd seen from her all day and that itself sent it's own thrill through him. She returned a half-hearted attempt at her own finger guns and turned toward her classroom with another laugh. Edward watched her walk away with a grin before heading to class. As he turned around, he saw Angela walk by with one of her friends and they were giggling incessantly.

"Hey Coach C!" she waved as she walked by, a mischievous smile on her face as she started giggling again with her friend. He waved and walked into class.

The rest of the day passed rapidly and swim practice was quickly approaching. Once the final class of the day ended, Bella took a deep breath and glanced again at her practice notes. She'd been a teacher for a couple years now and teaching high schoolers was no picnic, but teaching kids how to swim when she herself hadn't been in a pool in about a year made her anxious and insecure. As she was locking up her classroom, she spotted Edward across the way. He gave her a friendly smile and a wave and started walking over to her.

"You ready? Get your game face on, Swan! Let's go!" Edward teased, his eyes once again alight with excitement. Bella couldn't quite understand how he could be so excited and optimistic about everything. She was anxious and unsure about pretty much anything and it was a struggle sometimes to make sure she pushed herself out of her comfort zone every so often.

"As I'll ever be," she gave him a shrug and a nervous smile and they walked together toward the pool deck.

"It'll be great! For this first practice, I'll have you start off by giving people advice and tweaking strokes a bit during the set. I'm not going to make you lead anything yet, you'll be leading JV after, so I'll let you use this as a warmup. This is what I've planned so far," he handed her his notebook for her to look over. "I'll be telling everyone the set as we get to it but I'll leave this on the table for both of us to glance at during practice. Feel free to ask me any questions at any time! I figure we'll switch roles during JV and you'll lead, I'll tweak."

"Okay." He stopped walking and turned to her.

"You alright?" he asked, his eyes searching her face.

"Yeah! This is just new… I'll feel better once practice actually starts," she gave a somewhat reassuring half smile.

"It's always better once you get in the thick of it. Let me know if there's any issue and I'll try my best to help!"

"Thank you," she said with sincerity. They continued walking and when they reached the pool deck, he held the door open for her to enter first. She mumbled her thanks and shuffled inside trying to look confident. Kids were already on deck and some were stretching while others were goofing off.

"Alright, circle up," Edward shouted as they entered the deck. It made Bella jump a little bit as she wasn't expecting it and he gave her an apologetic, yet humored, smile. The team got up and circled the two coaches. "You all have 15 minutes to get in the pool. Angela, could you please lead stretches today? Once you're in, I'd like you to swim a 2-1-1 and then a 200 catchup. Make sure you're tapping thumbs and you're going slow to work on your pull. If I see you swimming straight freestyle during catchup, you're going to swim it again after practice before you leave." He had such an authoritative demeanor to him, Bella was in awe. She'd never actually seen him teach before so this was an entirely different side to him that she didn't know existed. She really hoped she didn't need to be quite so blunt with the JV group because she wasn't sure she could pull it off.

Edward dismissed the group and they circled up around Angela for stretches. The team talked quietly amongst themselves while they loosened up but they were all focused on what Angela was directing them to do. He'd picked a good person to lead stretches because she had a very methodical and organized routine and they all seemed to follow suit without a hitch.

"Good choice picking Angela," Bella stated quietly as he was setting up the table with his practice notes.

"Yeah, they all seem to respect her and she has a decent leadership quality about her. I might make her a captain. We'll see."

Once the 15 minutes were up, the team jumped in the pool in their respected lanes and started the warmup without question. They had gone over a few drills and warmups during their classroom practices so she wasn't too surprised that they understood what he wanted for warmup right away. She was, however, surprised that they were all in at the 15 minute mark.

"This won't last, I promise you that," Edward chuckled after Bella voiced her surprise. "They're nervous too. This is their first real practice with us as their new coaches and I'm sure they want to make a good impression and I'm sure they're nervous about our coaching styles. I'll give it about a week and I bet they'll be in late and goofing off before and probably during practice. It'll take a bit of time to get the routine set in stone."

"I hope it stays like this! It's nice not having to baby everyone to get in. The countdown thing can become more of a game than anything."

"Oh, I have ways to deal with that. Don't you worry, Miss Swan." And with that, he winked at her and walked toward the team, who were finishing up their warmup. Bella's eyes somehow found Angela's and she saw the girl wide eyed with a not-so-subtle smile on her face. She'd seen the wink. Bella rolled her eyes and stepped forward toward the "slower" lanes. She didn't feel overly comfortable working with the faster group yet. She was afraid she might tweak their stroke and make something worse.

By the end of Varsity practice, Bella was starting to gain some confidence in her tweaking talks with the kids and was feeling much more confident going into JV's practice. Some of the JV kids had started arriving as early as 30 minutes before their practice and were watching Varsity until it was their turn. At 15 minutes before practice, Bella had the group circle up and begin stretches utilizing one of the returning boys as a leader. He wasn't quite as organized as Angela had been, but it worked for what she wanted.

"Alright everyone, we're going to start with a 200 catchup, 100 kick, 100 pull, and then we'll get into drills after that. Today we're going to focus on Freestyle and Backstroke," Bella said, using her teacher voice as she tried to dissociate from her nerves.

By the end of practice, she was starting to feel pretty good about how it went. Yeah, it was a little on the easier side, but she wanted to start slow and really emphasize the technicalities before getting into the heavy sets. They ended up spending the first hour alone on drills for both freestyle and backstroke then moved into flip turns, spending about 15 minutes on freestyle and then 15 minutes on counting strokes into the wall before flipping over for their backstroke turns. The last 30 minutes was spent on backstroke dives. She figured they'd have time in other practices to work on dives off the blocks and chose to focus on backstroke since it was a bit tricky. Overall, she was really happy with how practice turned out. Edward was really helpful and would talk to individuals here and there to help with their stroke and would give her some encouraging smiles here and there. He seemed to be having a great time.

"I thought that went great!" he stated excitedly. "It was a well organized practice and I thought it was the perfect pace to start them off with. The dive progressions worked really well! I think I might actually steal that for a Varsity practice one of these days, otherwise the JV kids might have better dives than Varsity!" Bella was beaming. She was really pleased with how practice went but having that reassurance of how it went was really encouraging.

"Thank you! I felt pretty good about it. I figured I could plan out the week's practices over the weekend and tweak accordingly just so that I'm prepared. If they look like they don't need to work on their dives at the end anymore, I can change it to turns or finishes or something like that."

"Well, you're more organized than I am, that's for sure. You can definitely do that, just remember to take a break. You don't want to overwork yourself on your weekend or you might burnout."

"True. I'll figure it out. I'm just really happy it went so well!" Her brown eyes had a spark to them that Edward hadn't seen in about a week and he was really glad she had it back. Her cheeks were a little pink from the temperature drop and her smile was bright and wide. He was getting the impression this whole coaching thing might be really good for her.

They started walking to the parking lot and discussing different kids and their strokes and how interesting it was that some of the siblings on the team had a very similar stroke to each other, even though they were at different levels. He was really glad that it seemed like she actually liked it, because for a while now he was starting to feel like the only reason she was doing this was because he had quite literally begged her to.

"You're ready for mornings next week?" he asked. They were taking the first week off to ease the kids into morning practices but next week they were jumping right into it. It'd be alternating days of weights and pool in the mornings. Varsity would take Monday/Wednesday weights and Tuesday/Thursday/Friday pool while JV would take the opposite with Friday pool. They'd be split for the mornings and then they'd coach together in the afternoons.

"Yeah, I think so! 5:45 won't be so bad!" Bella was especially excited about weights practices because she'd be able to participate. Probably less so in the beginning while everyone was learning proper form and etiquette in the weight room, but once they were pretty solid, she'd be able to workout as well. "I might bug you a bit about weight room workouts just until I'm more confident in planning it out, but yeah! I'm excited!"

"Yeah, no problem. Let me know if you ever want a hand or anything and I'll swing by your room or something. Great job today, though!"

"Thank you for helping! You really made today easy. I'm sure you were thinking it, but I was definitely stressing all week for nothing."

"Anytime! And hey, new things are stressful! Who am I to judge?"

"Well I appreciate it. Have a great night! I'll see you tomorrow," she smiled as she hopped into her truck.

"Goodnight! Oh! Before I forget again… Here's the CD." He grabbed it out of his car and jogged it over to the driver's side of her truck and handed it to her.

"Oh, that's right! Thank you so much! I'll listen to it tonight," she smiled as she took the CD from him.

"Hope you like it! Goodnight!"

Bella was on cloud 9 as she drove home. Practice had gone much better than expected and she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders now that she'd been able to get the first pool practice out of the way. She could tell she'd still have some nerves going into future practices but knowing what to expect took away a lot of the pressure. As she pulled into her parking space, she saw Mike's truck sitting in one of the visitor spots. Immediately, her mood shifted and she was suddenly feeling edgy. She'd forgotten to text him after practice and figured it'd be fine to just do it when she got home, but looking at the 30 texts that awaited her response, she realized she'd been wrong. She sat in her car for about a minute before taking a deep breath, grabbing her things, and making her way to Mike's truck. She felt a strong pull to ignore the truck and just go inside in case he was asleep and maybe she could get away with saying she didn't see him there but decided that was a shitty thing to do and decided to walk over anyway.

"There you are! How come you're home so late? I've been here for hours!" Mike asked, incredulous.

"I had practice tonight. I told you about it…" She was trying to force down her frustration. Did he really just pick and choose what he wanted to hear when she spoke?

"I thought you'd be home like two hours ago?"

"No, I have 4 hours of practice. I have Varsity and then JV… I told you that." Bella's voice had a sharp edge to it. Mike's brow furrowed.

"Why are you doing two practices? Aren't you just the JV coach?"

"Technically we're co-coaches but I'm head on JV… but I like going to Varsity so I can learn from Edward and make sure I'm coaching in the same style he is… And even then, I'd still be home around this time. JV is the later practice."

"Oh. Well I thought you'd be here already. I'm like not going to see you anymore, am I?" he pouted. Bella fought the urge to roll her eyes and this time she failed. He was being almost aggressively needy today and she was sick and tired of it. He was ruining one of the better days she'd had in a long time and it was entirely because he wanted her to be at his every beck and call.

"You will but I'll be busy at practices on weeknights until about 8. So weeknights might be a little tight."

"But I'll be able to hangout with you on the weekends?"

"Well, yes… I… It just so happens that this Saturday, we're going hiking so I won't see you until later on Saturday and then Sunday… but yes, the weekends will be a good hangout time!"

"What? Who are you hiking with? I only get to see you during the weekends and you've already made plans?" He was starting to get whiny, not unlike a child.

"Jessica and Edward." Mike's eyes narrowed slightly and he went into broody mode. "Can we go inside? I'm freezing and I'd like to get some dinner." Mike nodded and they walked to her apartment in silence. She opened the door and walked to the kitchen to put her lunchbox down, then walked to her room to put her backpack down. When she turned around, Mike was there and he scooped her up in a massively tight hug before she had any time to react. His hands felt wrong. She didn't want them touching her and she either couldn't figure out why she didn't like it or she just didn't want to admit it to herself, but she turned and tried to push free from his embrace. It was hard because he was squeezing her so tight to him that there wasn't much room for her to move her arms.

"Mike, what are you doing?" she squeaked out, annoyed. Perhaps it was unfair of her to be so harsh. She essentially took on another job and was going to be out of commission for most of the week from now until summer. She knew that would be difficult on any relationship but she was so excited to start something new and scary that she hoped she'd really enjoy. He was starting to get really clingy and desperate.

"I just love you so much, I don't want you to leave me." Bella was starting to struggle because his constricting embrace was starting to become literally suffocating.

"Mike, I can't breathe." He slowly released her and she gasped in a deep breath. "What the hell?" She was perched on the edge of her bed glaring up at him. "I've found something I really enjoy and you're freaking out about me leaving you. Why can't you be happy that I'm doing something I really like? Why are you making this about you? I really need you to leave right now. I'm exhausted and I still have a few papers to grade. I haven't had dinner yet and I'd really just like to relax after a long day at work." She wasn't sure where it came from, maybe lack of sleep lately or maybe because he ruined her really good day. She wasn't sure but she needed him to leave before she really said something she was going to regret. He looked devastated and tears started welling up in his eyes.

"You're just spending a ton of time with this Edward guy and it makes me uncomfortable. He totally likes you."

"First of all, we're friends. Secondly, you can't know that. You've met him like 3 times. And even if he did like me, which he doesn't… Do I not have a say in what happens with my own relationships? If he likes me, does that just mean I'm automatically going to leave you for him? Do you really think I'm that easy?" She'd had this conversation with him a million times before, especially regarding Jake, and it never really ended well but she needed to voice how ridiculous he was being. Granted, there was some attraction there on her end, she would never cheat on him. No matter how much she might want out…

"I know that… but…"

"But what? You should stop assuming I'll leave you and let me make my own decisions, for once, about who I can hangout with. It's not fair. I don't have any friends anymore," she finished quietly. She had no one. No one except Mike.

"Babe, I'm sorry. I just really missed you all day. I'm sorry. I just love you so much and I missed you." He knew the tears would always make her feel guilty and he'd usually end up getting some kind of sympathetic reaction because of it but tonight, Bella was over it.

"I'm sorry. I just really need to get some stuff done. I didn't know you were coming over tonight and I just really need to get to sleep. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay? I'm sorry!" He nodded his head and made his way to the front door.

"I love you," he said desperately.

"Love you too," she responded quietly. It was incredible how much effort it really took to say it back. She didn't want to admit it yet but she didn't love him anymore. It'd likely been a long time since she did. But she felt entirely alone and he was the only person who really knew her since she hadn't really spoken to any of her friends for a couple years. He gave her a half smile and closed the door behind him as he left. She walked over, locked it, took a minute to collect her cool, and then went in search of something to eat. She absentmindedly opened the fridge, the cupboards, the drawers and couldn't find anything she wanted to eat. Giving up, she made her way into her room and pulled out the CD Edward had given her. She got ready for bed and laid down in bed. She pressed play on her CD player and the first song that came on was "Mustache Man" by Cake. She quickly skipped through a few songs just to see what was on it before returning to the first song. The whole CD was Cake and she smiled to herself. She knew the band fairly well and she liked them a lot. When Edward said relaxing songs, she assumed he meant something like elevator music or Pink Floyd or something in that range but Cake was perfect. It was fun and goofy and used more 'obscure' instruments that aren't typically used in today's music. It was music that typically lifted her spirits and the fact that he just instinctually gave her a CD of one of her favorite bands made her feel warm again. She felt like someone was able to connect with her for a moment and she wasn't entirely alone. Someone knew her, knew what she liked. For Bella, that was enough to end the day on a high and she drifted off to sleep with the dulcet tones of Cake playing in the background.