WARNING: This chapter does contain language some may find offensive. It is said by a character who is intended to sound cruel and ignorant. If anyone finds the language unnecessary and has a way to get the same message across without the word 'retarded', please let me know.

After a morning of two tests and a grueling lecture on Feudalism, I was more than ready to spend my lunch hour with Bella. My pace was quicker than my standard casual saunter, knowing the sooner I got to the cafeteria, the sooner I would see her. To my immense displeasure, it was Lauren standing where Bella and I typically met up outside of the cafeteria. Before I could pretend like I forgot something in class and turn around, she called my name and waved me down. "Hey!"

"Hey," I replied with a lot less enthusiasm.

Despite the fact that she initiated the conversation, she looked at me expectantly while twisting her hair in her hand. "…Yes?" I prompted after a few beats of silence.

"You have something you wanted to ask me," she hinted in a voice she probably thought was alluring.

"Um…" I couldn't imagine that I would ever want to ask her anything.

"Don't you want to know if I'm going to your sister's party?"

Not necessarily. "Uh."

"I am!" she stepped forward and, against my best wishes, smoothed down the collar of my shirt, "and I have you to thank for getting me an invite."

I did absolutely nothing to get her invited to that party, and frankly, I would take it back if I could.

"Yeah, sure," I said, forcing kindness into my tone, "Alice has been working nonstop on it; it's going to be a good one." In fact, Alice had everyone in our household working nonstop. Esme even asked me to cancel my Sunday plans with Bella so I could help Emmett and Jasper hang fairy lights and string lights of Edison bulbs all over the property in preparation. According to Esme, family needs come before girlfriends, no matter how trivial those needs are.

"Ohmygod, I know!" Lauren practically squealed. "She's been posting these little sneak peeks online all weekend! Is Hasen really doing her cake?"

I had literally no idea, which was great because I was ready for the conversation to be over. "We'll find out at the party," I gave her a curt goodbye nod, "See you there."

"Edward, wait." Lauren latched onto my sleeve and pulled me towards her. We were almost eye-to-eye; I never noticed how tall she was. "There was actually something else I wanted to talk to you about."

I glanced down where she was still gripping my shirt and she let go. "What's up?"

"You have to promise not to get mad," she prefaced, which meant whatever she was about to say was going to make me mad. All I could offer as a response was a noncommittal nod.

"So, we did a little research this weekend… on mutism."

The blood drained from my face. "Why would you do that?" Of course, I already knew why. I had done the very same thing when I first met Bella. They wanted to know what made her the way she was. But they weren't going to end up at the same conclusion I did, they were going to be cruel with their findings. I could just picture them now, sitting around their computer, weaving together horrible stories to tell everyone about my Bella.

"To protect you, silly," she said, like it was obvious. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, "And you're lucky we did. Turns out mute people are, like, seriously disturbed."

Never in my life was I more devastated to be right.

"From what we read, most people are mute because they suffer from, like, this social anxiety that's so severe that they can't even bring themselves to talk in public. She gets so stressed out just by being around other people that she can't even speak! Crazy, right? Oops!" She covered her mouth with her hand. "Probably don't want to say that word around Bella," she dropped her voice into a whisper, "might set her off."

There were no words. Could she not hear how absurd she sounded?

Apparently not, because she kept talking. "And, get this, Jessica remembered that Bella didn't eat that day at lunch with the rest of us, right? And Angela said that Bella didn't eat when she had lunch with you, either."

"Angela was with you?" I interrupted. Her being there felt like a betrayal, somehow.

"Yeah," Lauren confirmed quickly before continuing, "We asked Betty Olaya—this girl in Bella's class—if she ever saw her eat, and Betty said no! Not on the day when their teacher brought in pizza for class or any morning when their homeroom teacher brings them donuts..."

By the time I thought to lie and say Bella had dietary restrictions, Lauren had already bulldozed ahead.

"So, we looked it up and it's, like, a thing that some of these people can't eat in public! And we found a whole list of things these people can't do. Like, Betty was confident that she never saw Bella use the bathroom—,"

"Oh, thank god someone's monitoring that," I seethed while Lauren prattled on.

"—and that was on the list, too! Using the bathroom in public! She's so freaked all the time she can't even bring herself to pee at school!"

"I've seen her do all of those things, Lauren." I rolled my eyes at her smirk, "You know what I mean."

"Well, she's comfortable around you. Maybe you don't count in her messed-up, little head."

"Hey!"

"What?" Her face contorted into an expression I had never seen on her before, and I realized she was trying to be sympathetic. "I'm trying to watch out for you, Edward."

"What is there to watch out for? She's quiet and shy and keeps to herself. None of those things are exactly red flags."

Lauren crossed her arms in front of her, "You say that now, but wait until the day she gets tossed into the loony bin because the stress of it all causes her to snap and start killing everyone."

"That is not that at all something that happens to people with social anxiety."

"You don't know that."

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and my forefinger, "Look. I don't care. Even if Bella had anxiety that affected her that much, it would still be my choice to be with her and none of your business."

She surprised me by laughing. "Wow, really you're willing to look past anything for a pretty face, huh?"

I dropped my hand. "Maybe if you took the time to be nice to her, you would see all the reasons I like being with her other than her pretty face."

"Oh, like Angela?"

Her amused tone made me reluctant to respond.

"You know, Angela's just being nice to Bella so she stays on your good side for when you inevitably dump her."

I knew she was lying, but I bit back my rebuttal. Lauren enjoyed pushing buttons, and I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she knew exactly which of my buttons to push.

She stepped a bit closer, "I know something's off about that girl. And the fact that you're getting so defensive about it, makes me think that you know that, too."

"She can't speak," I tried to make my voice sound as firm as possible, "That's it. Now, drop it and leave her alone."

"If you say so," Lauren sang as a blithe dismissal. With another flip of her hair and an icy smile, Lauren spun on her heel and was off into the courtyard.

Fuming, I turned in the opposite direction. I scanned the crowded hallway for Bella but didn't see her yet.

I wanted to ignore what Lauren had said about Bella, but I knew that I couldn't. All of the little oddities Lauren noticed were directly related to Bella being a mermaid. The fact that Lauren could pick them out meant that others could, too. It was only a matter of time until someone noticed her aversion to water mixed up with everything else about her and jumped to the correct conclusion.

I wanted to groan—this was all my fault.

If I had known our relationship would bring so many scrutinizing eyes onto Bella, I would have never gone public with her. We could stage a breakup, but that would give us more lies than we already knew what to do with. Besides, I liked being with Bella in public. I wasn't willing to give up our lunches and coffee shop afternoons together.

Perhaps I could convince Bella to fake a bit more humanness while so many eyes were on her. Pretend to eat, stage a bathroom break every now and then. At least until the gossip moved on to something else.

I scanned the halls for her, wondering how she would react. I didn't want to tell her about Lauren's suspicions directly—that would only hurt her feelings. She panicked at the mere thought that Angela might not like her when Jessica and Lauren taunted her that day at lunch. I didn't want to tell her that there were people at school actively conspiring against her. No, for her protection, it was best to keep it vague and steer her in the right direction.

Finally, I spotted her, and every thought and worry seemed to melt out of my head and was replaced with complete awe. Only Bella could turn the simple act of walking into art. The hem of her sundress brushing against her shapely legs. The end of her silky ponytail swishing between her shoulders. She even managed to make tripping on her own flip flops—not once, but twice—into a thing a beauty.

"You look pretty today," I smiled when she was close enough to hear me.

"You say that every day," she signed.

I laced my fingers through hers, "It's true every day."

She could hide her smile by biting her cheek and the glint in her eyes with an eye roll, but she couldn't hide the lovely blush that colored her cheeks.

Hand-in-hand, we walked into the cafeteria. As we stood in the lunch line, I asked her about her day. Bella pulled out a small notebook and wrote out a bullet point list which I read over her head, commenting on all the appropriate things to comment on.

When it was almost our turn to order, I handed her a tray before taking one for myself. She looked askance at it and tried to hand it back to me, but I didn't accept it. She tried stacking hers onto the one in my hands, but I put my thumbs in the way so it wouldn't stack. Then, she jabbed it into my side repeatedly, trying to annoy me into taking it from her, but I ignored it. Finally, she out-witted me by simply putting it back on the stack of trays herself.

"Don't you want lunch?" I tried to offer her another tray.

She knew better now and didn't accept it.

"Please?"

She shook her head.

"Trust me, Bella, you need to eat lunch today."

She crossed her arms and stuck her nose up in the air, marking the end of her participation in the conversation. Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes, I took matters into my own hands. Under Bella's scrutiny, I ordered two sandwiches and the largest order of fries. She looked at the larger meal with an amused sparkle in her eyes, which immediately vanished when I kissed her temple and announced, "One of them is for you."

As she followed me to our new table in the corner of the cafeteria, she made it clear that she wasn't pleased. The second we were seated and mostly out of earshot of anyone else, I explained my peace in a low voice. "Bella, I'm not going to make you eat any of this, but you need to start pretending. People are paying more attention to you—to both of us—and we shouldn't give them anything more to talk about than they already do."

She ducked her head between her shoulders, and I realized that could be taken in two ways.

"Hey," I ran my fingers down the length of her ponytail. "I'm sorry; I don't mean it like that. I don't want a group of people coming together and figuring at what you are, that's all. So, the less they have to say about you about, the better." When she didn't look up, I kissed the sweet spot under her ear. "It doesn't matter what people say about you, baby. Nothing is going to change the way I feel about you."

Very tentatively, she reached out towards the tray and took a fry. Pleased that she was willing to play along, I smiled and took a few of my own. Unsure of what to do with the fry in her hand, Bella dropped it on the floor. I frowned down at it—we would have to come up with a better system. I looked around, hoping an idea would pop out at me. Smarter than me in every way, Bella had the exact same thought and a solution to go with it. She grabbed a napkin from the table and placed it on her lap. The next fry she pretended to eat ended up hidden in the napkin.

"Have you ever tried eating people food?" I asked in that same, low voice.

She grimaced and held up one finger.

"When?"

She took her notebook out of her bag again and started writing. It was when I was living with my mother and sisters. Their victims—she drew an angry face next to the word—were eating outside when they were lured into the water. I tried to eat what they left on the beach.

"What was it?"

She tapped her pencil on the table a few times. Ham? She guessed.

I wasn't sure why her answer tickled me, but it did. "What happened?" I asked when my chuckles dissipated.

She signed something that I didn't recognize. When she saw that I didn't understand, she tried again, taking a few fries, bringing them to her mouth, and shot her hands out in front of her while tossing the food on the table.

I didn't need any more visual examples. "Yikes," I muttered.

She held up both hands and flicked her forefinger against her thumb. Awful.

"Sounds like it," I sympathized. "Can you literally only raw fish, or do you think it could be cooked? At what point would it become human food and make you sick?"

I don't know. I really don't want to test it out.

"Not at all? What if their picnic food was spoiled? Or you happened to be allergic to that one food?" The possibility that Bella could actually eat human food intrigued me. It would be one less thing that we would have to worry about. "We could try a few seafood restaurants and you can order something plain. Maybe add a few spices eventually, see what you can tolerate."

She frowned. "No thank you."

"Don't you want to try human food?" I gestured to our lunch tray with a steaming pile of fries and two grilled cheese sandwiches. "Aren't you curious at all?"

She lifted the bread off of the cheese, gave it a little sniff, and slammed the bread back on, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head.

I looked down at the tray, "Well, maybe school food isn't the best place to start… I know! We'll start with cooked oysters! Those are your…"

Suddenly, Bella's hand was over my mouth, stopping my train of thought. She moved her hand down to my chin and pulled my mouth to hers. The kiss was more open than I expected for a public display of affection, but it suited me just fine.

When she pulled back, she angled my chin down so I was looking at her notebook. Still dizzy from the kiss, it took me a few seconds to decipher the words on the page: I am happy hunting in the ocean.

Message received. No pushing human food.

"I'm sorry," I draped my arm across her shoulders. There were other ways that we could get Lauren and everyone off our backs without risking Bella's wellness. She shrugged to say it was okay and grabbed a few fries to hide in her napkin. I took a few as well.

"What is it about hunting that you enjoy?"

I don't know. I like finding new flavors and providing for myself. I guess you could equate it to people who enjoy cooking as a hobby.

"Fair enough," I chuckled. "How do you eat fish in the ocean?" Surely, she couldn't take the time to fillet the raw fish into pretty sashimi cuts while she was swimming. I pictured her biting into a whole fish Gollum-style with his creepy voice whispering, "raw and wiggling". For the first time, my mental image of her was less than attractive.

She held up her thumb and pointer finger, showing a small distance, and motioned popping that small distance into her mouth.

Oh. She ate little fish in one bite. People did that all the time with anchovies and shrimp and things. I could handle that.

"What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?"

Angler fish.

My eyebrows shot up, "Those weird guys with all the teeth and light on their head? Gross."

Those are the females. I ate a male. They're teeny. She drew a little diagram on the side of the page for me.

"Was it any good?"

She squeezed her entire face and shook her head quickly; I laughed.

"I can't believe you can go that far down. You know people spend their lives training to dive into the depth of the ocean, and you just casually swim down there for a quick lunch. That's incredible."

She beamed proudly.

I let the hand on her shoulder trail down her arm, "You're the coolest person I know. And the weirdest." She smiled and leaned against my side. "And the bravest. And you know what? Also, the hottest." I felt her shake with her silent laughter that had become so endearing to me.

oOo

For the rest of the week, Bella's name was a constant buzzing in my ear. Usually, I didn't mind that she occupied my every waking thought, but hearing her name in the whispers of everyone around me was different.

Apparently, before I showed up and mucked everything up, Bella was able to fly under the radar for the most part. But Lauren wasn't going to allow that anymore. She spread the news that Bella was mute far and wide. Most people were shocked to discover there was a mute girl in attendance, wrongly thinking the coursework would be too advanced for such a person. Very few were relieved that was a reason for the strange girl's seclusion—as if Bella's mutism was a good excuse for everyone to avoid her.

No matter what they thought of the news of the mute girl, everyone agreed on one thing: they couldn't believe that she was in a relationship. Especially with the new kid. For the most part, our relationship was spun in a nice way. Well, nice to them, I supposed. Behind my back were nearly constant coos about the poor, orphan boy falling for the small, damaged girl. They talked about us like we were the main characters of some tragic Brontes novel.

It was annoying.

Not nearly as annoying as the warnings that came along with them, to look for any odd behavior coming from Bella. Lauren warned everyone that Bella's silence could be only a symptom of something greater.

If Bella had caught wind of the rumors, she said nothing about it. And since she said nothing, I didn't bring it up, either. I could tell that she was already getting annoyed with the human performances I suggested, but I encouraged her to continue, promising that it will all be worth it eventually. I just hoped that I was right.

One afternoon, I waited for Bella outside of the school to take her to the coffee shop we still frequented after school to do homework with Ben and Angela. It usually took her a bit longer to leave than the rest of her classmates, so I often stared into an empty building until she eventually showed up.

While I mindlessly clicked around on my phone, I felt a presence behind me, too close to be a casual stranger. As I debated whether I wanted to ignore them or indulge them by turning around, they tapped on my shoulder. Figuring it was either Lauren or Jessica appearing to annoy me, I suppressed a sigh. When I turned around, it turned out to be the dude with dreadlocks that harassed Bella by the pool.

"Edward Cullen, right?" he asked.

"…Yes?" I responded hesitantly.

He placed his hand on his chest, "Laurent."

I was grateful for the reminder until I remembered I wanted nothing to do with this guy. "What do you want?"

"That's not a nice way to start a conversation."

I sarcastically layered on a thick coating of charm, "What do you want?"

He glanced around, casually, "Just wondering what you're doing standing out here all alone in front of an empty building."

I looked him up and down, trying to figure out his angle. When I found none, I nodded towards the door, "I'm waiting for my girlfriend."

"Ah, yes. People are saying that you have become involved with one Isabella Swan." He quirked an eyebrow at me. "Lucky guy."

Hearing him speak her name put me immediately on edge.

"How did you get her to talk to you?" he asked.

I scowled. "I didn't get her to talk to me. She wanted to talk to me. There's a difference."

He chuckled, "No need to get defensive. I'm merely impressed, is all. Better men than you have tried and failed."

That didn't surprise me. Bella was gorgeous; there was no doubt she caught the eye of others besides me. I was lucky everyone at this school was too self-absorbed to take the two extra seconds to get to know her, or she would have been snatched up long before I arrived.

"It all makes sense now, knowing her condition." He said the word like an oath.

I stood a bit straighter and glared down at him, daring to keep talking about her. It suddenly dawned on me that there was nothing I could do if he did keep talking.

As if he could see right past my menacing stance that was no more than a bluff, he smiled. "She never said yes to anyone. Now, I see that she never can. Of course… that means she can never say no, either," he laughed.

The casual tone of his statement along with the curl of his lip made the hairs on my arm stand straight. I had the sudden urge to find Bella; I needed to see her with my own eyes that very second.

Carelessly brushing past him, I barged back into the school. There was no one around to worry about, so took off into a run down the hall where her last class of the day was held.

When I was around the corner of the classroom, I heard a male voice. "… used to think you were retarded or something. But seeing you with Cullen, knowing there's something up there that goes with that body, I wanted to formally put my name in as a contender."

I stepped around the corner. It wasn't surprising to see who the voice belonged to, Laurent's idiot partner-in-crime: the guy with the douchebag ponytail. He leaned against the doorframe, with his leg stretched across, propped up on the other side, blocking whoever was inside the classroom from getting out.

When the person inside didn't respond—confirming my suspicions—Ponytail stood upright. His casual demeanor was quickly replaced with his natural, aggressive one. He leaned down and reached into the room. "Do you understand that I'm fucking talking to you?"

That was more than enough, "Hey!" I stepped up right behind him.

Just as I feared, he had Bella trapped. He sent his friend to distract me so he could take his chance with her. He wasn't doing a good job at it. One hand gripped tightly on her upper arm with the other placed under her chin, forcing her to look at him, was not the best way to a girl's heart.

Thankfully, he dropped his hands the second I made myself known. He leaned back against the doorframe, and the fake easygoing persona had returned. "Cullen. Right?" he asked, like he didn't already know.

I ignored him completely. "Are you ready to go, Bella?"

Still in the classroom, she nodded eagerly. I gave Ponytail a pointed look and he stepped out of the doorframe and let Bella leave. As she passed, he brushed her arm with the back of his knuckle, "Remember what we talked about, Bel-la." The way he dragged out her name made my skin crawl.

Bella scurried out of the room and tucked herself into my side. I wrapped a protective arm around her and pulled her back around the corner.

It seemed that Lauren's rumors had spread to all the walks of life at the school. I wasn't only going to have to watch out for unwanted eyes on Bella, but unwanted hands as well.

"Are you alright?" I whispered into her hair when we were far enough away from that creep.

It took her a few seconds, but she did eventually nod.

I gave her temple a kiss and her waist a squeeze. "Has that guy ever tried something like that with you before?"

To my immense relief, she shook her head.

"Next time he talks to you, tell him to get lost so he'll drown in the ocean." She could say the same thing to Lauren while she was at it. Bella playfully smacked my chest. I almost wished I wasn't joking.

As we walked out to the parking lot, I kept glancing down at Bella, looking out for a quivering lip or tear-stained cheeks. Any reaction to the harassment she just endured. But she was stone-faced and stoic.

I didn't like it.

Even though I was the cause, Bella was clearly taking the brunt of derision. The gossip forcing her to play up her human façade. The rumors spreading about her mental health. The creeps of the world rearing their ugly heads to take advantage of her.

I knew Bella would be able to handle herself. She already endured several months at a new school as an entirely different species completely alone. When she was the subject of Lauren and Jessica's ridicule, it was me who needed to retreat from the table—not her. Just now, she walked away from Douchebag Ponytail with her head held high.

Bella was brave.

Possibly too brave.

What scared me was that eventually it might be too much, and she might crack. And knowing I did that to her would cause me to break, too. I needed to figure out a way to help bear the load, but I had no idea how.

For the time being, I at least knew how to make her smile.

We were all alone on the dirt path to the ancillary parking lot, so I easily swung her up into my arms. Now that her face was closer to mine, I was able to pepper her cheek with kisses. It worked; she smiled. Trying to reign in the sounds of surprise and delight, she frantically kicked her feet, almost losing a flip flop. I pressed my lips to her ear and whispered, "Why don't you and I ditch the coffee shop today and find someplace where we can be alone. Would you like that?"

I couldn't help but laugh at her overly empathic nod.

She pressed her mouth against my shoulder to stop the squeal from erupting when I took off running down the path.