BPOV

Edward's excited fingers stilled between my legs, but he pulled me possessively closer. His body grew taut for a moment, and in the now chilling darkness, I could somewhat see a look of controlled devastation in his features.

But the expression vanished as soon as it appeared, and he stiffly stepped away to face Alice, the girl I would be sending to Hades in the morning.

I shot her a glare worthy of the wickedest witch, but she was directing her own glare at Edward.

Alice stood with an arrogantly cocked brow and with her hands on her hips. The little devil seemed positively murderous, and I couldn't begin to understand the reason for her animosity towards her own twin.

Well, her reason didn't matter once Edward gently stepped away from me. His warm lips pressed against my forehead, and as I blissfully drowned in blossoming feelings of déjà vu, he walked off into the crowd around the corner.

Alice melted back into herself and pulled me in for a hug. "It just wasn't time for all that, Bells. Not yet," she whispered.

I didn't talk to her for the rest of the night even as she helped me change back into Jasper in her vacant dorm room, or as I cried on her shoulder after looking in the mirror and seeing a man. I didn't speak to her on my way out her door and onto the shadowy campus. My lips remained sealed even as I slipped into Damen Hall.

They did not remain sealed, however, when I opened my dorm room to find Edward glowering down at me from my own bed.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Relax," Edward snapped. "Despite what you think, I don't want you dead."

I was looking determinedly at the floor. He could not see my red eyes. I would not allow it.

I heard him chuckle darkly and say, "You scream like a girl."

I remained silent.

"Want a chocolate bar?"

My head snapped up.

"You look like you need it," Edward said.

Grasping the ladder, I climbed up onto my bed and sat beside him. We both leaned our backs against the wall and remained silent for a while, just thinking. Then he wordlessly handed me a Snickers and roughly bit a chunk out of his own bar.

I didn't know where to go from here. I went to that club hoping to let off some steam. Alice said Edward was usually there but that he would ignore me.

She'd been wrong. Clearly.

And if she was wrong about that, what right did she possess to pull him away from me? She may as well have wedged her little form between us and shoved us in opposite directions.

But Edward showed an interest in me!

In Bella.

And now I was stuck here with a ridiculous amount of chocolate scattered atop my bed and a pissed off Edward, whom I couldn't even touch.

I glanced at him to see that he was peering intently into my face.

He leaned forward slightly.

Then he scowled, turning his head away.

"Are you okay, Edward?" I asked.

He sighed and lay down with his feet on my pillow. Somehow I knew that was deliberate.

Looking up at me though, his face was soft and distant. I met his gaze, and my heart calmed a bit. The internal turmoil that had spilled forth through my tears just minutes ago began to dissipate.

I don't know how long Edward and I just remained there, gazing at each other near the stucco ceiling, but something inside me hoped that he was looking at Jasper—but seeing Bella.

Twenty minutes later

"I hate purple-painted cats," Edward said, his voice whisper-soft. "They creep me out."

"I can't stand bloody beef," I added.

We had been listing irrelevant likes, dislikes, tendencies, and random shit for a while now. I think it all started when Edward told me that brown eyes look like spheres of shit, and I replied that green ones must be diseased excrement.

Edward nodded in understanding of my most recent statement. We began to list things off in rapid succession. "Vampires make me think of weird mustaches and erectile dysfunction."

"The wooly mammoth looks like my granny in her self-knitted body suit."

Edward smiled and my heart leapt. "Mike Newton looks like a brontosaurus with explosive acne issues."

I glanced at Edward, who was still lying across my bed. His eyes glowed a bit more, and the sadness I had noticed when I entered our room had begun retreating. Edward Cullen was clearly a haunted man. Was he so upset tonight because Alice tore Bella and him apart? Was he looking for a quick fuck with me? The thought upset me, and I shoved it from my mind. I chose to kiss him. And I could not regret my actions.

But what about Tanya? Her existence had completely flitted from my memory.

"Edward?"

"Yeah?" he asked, curious why I had deviated from our game.

"What's up with you and that ska—Tanya?"

His eyebrow arched, and his eyes speared through me. "Why?" he asked.

"Alice has been wondering, and well—I want to know if I should think twice before coming back to our room early some weekend night." I swallowed, waiting for his answer like a convict before the hangman's noose awaits the order to grace death's stage.

Edward smiled darkly. "I believe your second excuse. The first one lacks authenticity."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because Alice doesn't care who I'm with or what I'm doing, for that matter." He chuckled. "But yeah, it was never right between me and Tanya. I broke it off."

That horrible, uneasy silence spread between us again as it often did, so I said, "Mickey Mouse has a voice that makes me wonder who kneed him in the balls."

"Donald Duck wore a towel out of the shower but never any pants."

I laughed. "Piss reminds my sister of apple juice. So she never drinks it—er, both piss and apple juice."

Edward was quiet for a moment. But he finally asked, "How is Isabella?"

The words were whisper-soft, and maybe I was being fanciful, but I thought his tongue was caressing my name like it would whipped cream. I realized I loved hearing him pronounce it in his deep, velvety voice. It reminded me of winter and chocolate and warm flames. It made the muscles of my thighs clench, and a tingling spread through my core at the thought of jumping into his arms—right now.

I pulled myself together and answered, "She's well. Called me yesterday."

He nodded casually. "Does she give you a lot of grief—you know, with boyfriends and such?"

I smiled. "No, she hasn't dated anyone in a while."

I could see he was struggling not to appear shocked, and I was flattered at the blatant fire of joy shining in his eyes. "How? Dude, I remember what she looks like. She, uh, she—."

I helped him out, and fished for some information while I was at it. "Yeah, don't sweat it. I know she seems the slutty type, right?"

He sat up. "What? What the hell is wrong with you? She looks perfect."

"For whom?"

He opened his mouth, but no sounds were emitted, and after a moment, Edward shrugged by way of reply and leaned back once more. "No idea," he said.

Confused, I looked away and stared at the burgundy wall on the other side of the room. "Janice Dickinson looks like Barney."

"Regis must fart like a madman."

"Newton says rap music is the sound of the devil," I said.

"Jessica fucked Newton two years ago. They say she defined his sexuality."

"TMZ must be part of a government conspiracy to poison our youth."

He nodded. "I think small breasts are sexy."

"Fast cars make me wet."

Edward gave me the "WTF" look.

"In a purely masculine way of course," I hastily added.

He hopped down to head for his own bed. "Whatever, Swan, let's call it a night before you beg to see my Aston."

Teachers clearly did not understand the brilliance that is Jasper Swan.

Especially biology teachers with a surplus of rats just waiting to be slit open.

I finished dissecting my rat properly fifteen minutes into class, yet Dr. Banner refused to allow me another one of a different sex for further experimentation. That left me with few options for the next forty minutes.

I poked the tiny spleen and cocked my head in thought. Then I flicked a chunk of flesh at Mike.

He picked it up and winked at me.

Freaked out and glancing swiftly at Edward's assigned table right in front of my own, I noticed he was done with the assignment as well. Oh, thank fuck. This could be interesting. I lifted the severed rat tail from my tray and nudged his shoulder.

Turning, he raised a brow. His emerald eyes gazed at me steadily, and I shivered at my core. I imagined running my hands through that silky mess of hair, which I stared at every night from atop my bed while he slept, unaware of my fixation, and unaware that the extra towels and bottled water were deliberately placed beside his desk each night for him—by the roommate who knew that he woke up panting at 4:03 a.m. every morning from some demon that chased his heels. He woke with sweat running down his chest and nightmares chilling his bones.

He woke like a man possessed. His eyes flashed and his muscles flexed as if preparing to fight. Those possessive arms had ensnared me just a few days ago, and I longed to return to his sexual cage. I wanted to lick his wounds and rub his aches.

He didn't need a band-aid to cover him. I would cover him if he asked. I'd cover that sensual, smoldering body like a kitten—digging in my claws and rubbing myself over my property.

This week we had been more cordial than ever before. The distance was painful but the politeness was refreshing. He didn't go so far as to smile warmly at me, but he did nod in acknowledgment when we passed each other in the halls. Progress is progress. And I would take whatever I could get from this man. He disliked Jasper. Not Bella.

And that made my heart sing.

"Swan, did you devour the rest of your rat?" he asked me now.

"No, pretty boy, I mangled it with a scalpel and a couple tweezers."

Cullen simply shook his head in amusement and moved to turn around.

"Wait," I hissed. I waved the tail and motioned towards Dr. Banner, who was standing with his back a few feet away from Edward and peering at Jessica's bloody lump of flesh and fur—er, her rat that is, not herself.

Edward smirked and leaned against his table to face me. "You sure?" he asked. When I nodded, he laughed lightly. "It's your academic funeral."

He grabbed the tail and pulled a tendon so that the wormy-looking tail curled. He curled and uncurled the dang thing for a couple minutes until I got angry with impatience. Finally, he dropped it—with an endearing flourish— into Banner's lab coat pocket.

Jessica saw the little exchange and looked a bit horrified—ironic, considering the roadkill laying in front of her.

Banner moved to face the class and adjusted his monocle above his twisty French moustache. What century was he from, and who the hell told him he was French? Banner is so not pronounced "Bann-ey."

"Alright," he said after a small cough. "If you have yet to take out and examine the heart, I advise you to work faster lest you wish to fail today's assignment, then tomorrow's exam, and indirectly your entire life's mission."

"What the hell does he know about my life's mission?" Mike muttered behind me. "Since when was finding a hot piece of man ass something he achieved?"

I swallowed my tongue at that and Edward shot me a look. His attention was clearly focused on Banner.

Banner continued, "Now, I will write a small guideline for you on the board, so you are all aware"—he was reaching into his pocket—"of the pace I expect—MOTHERFUCKER'S KNICKERS!"

He threw the tail at a girl and fled the room.

"It's alive!" she screamed. "It's fucking ALIVE!"

Jessica took cover under a table and knocked her rat to the floor on her way there. A girl named Angela took out her Bible. As for Mike, he took the chaotic moment as license to literally lick his rat's ass.

I turned to see that Edward was on the floor with laughter.

Suffice it to say that my side felt like it was splitting for ten minutes. And the pride didn't dissipate for a few minutes after that.

A few minutes after that:

"Who's rat tail was in Dr. Banner's pocket?"

I shot a furtive glance at Edward, my accomplice for all ratty intents and purposes.

Principal Cullen looked pissed. Banner didn't look any better. His face was a beautiful shade of puce because honestly, what kind of research scientist shrieks at a severed limb?

Carlisle glared at the room at large. He had eight suspects and five minutes before next period.

Distractions….distractions….

"Sir," Edward said, raising his hand after a long silence had almost swallowed the room whole.

What? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. DON'T RAT ME OUT. DON'T RAT ME OUT. IT WAS JUST A RAT TAIL!

"Yes, Edward?"

"Perhaps you should simply check to see which tray is missing a tail?"

No fucking way! But I told him about my car fetish and everything!

Carlisle smiled at him and began making his way around the room. He glanced at a couple trays and covered his mouth at the stench emanating from the trash bag he passed. He was about to reach Jessica when the bell rang.

"Wait!" he bellowed to the class just as I prepared to make a run for it. "Leave your trays."

I felt lightheaded.

Outside the lab, I cornered Edward on his way to third period. But he didn't let me get a word in edgewise.

"You'll be fine," he said. "Did you not see the stew Jessica made from her rat? Or the chopped up tail Mike dumped into the trash after a minute with the scalpel? Everyone was mutilating those rats. No one will get in trouble. Just thank the lord none of those people are headed to medical school."

With a roll of the eyes, he loped off.

I still felt queasy. And it wasn't from Newton's passing comment of "I'll take the fall if you fall to your knees."

I headed to history with a knot in my stomach and dreaded sitting next to Alice. We had no assigned seating there, and I knew she would push me to talk today although she'd given me my space since Friday night.

I steeled myself before walking into the small but cozy lecture hall where we history lectures took place every other week. Esme was preparing the PowerPoint presentation at the head of the hall, and I dropped into a seat near the back row, feeling panicky and upset. The air conditioning was making me shiver under my thin shirt, and as I considered buying a school sweatshirt that I could wear to classes, I smoothed the collar of my uniform nervously.

"So who did it?" Alice asked without preamble after popping out of absolutely nowhere.

My head hurt, and I couldn't understand a thing anymore. "Huh?"

"Banner ran by my lab fifteen minutes ago. He was shrieking about serpents, and get this," Alice said, leaning forward. "He tore off his shirt and tossed it onto my Bunsen burner."

"Whoah," I said, reeling.

"Yeah, but the most disturbing fact of all has yet to be revealed, my dear Jasper," she said.

She paused for effect before saying, "He has a tattoo of a hippogriff mating with a unicorn on his left peck."

Mariah jumped into our conversation from behind our seats. "Alice, you have to do some damage control or your father will expel whoever did it."

Alice scoffed. "Why should I?"

I must have looked guilty because Maria pointed at me.

"No!" Alice whispered. "You?"

"And Edward," I mumbled.

"What do you mean?"

"I was the mastermind and he just got his hands dirty."

Maria giggled, and her eyebrows waggled in a gesture I found extremely annoying considering her next words. "I wouldn't mind if he got his hands a little down and dirty with me. . . If you know what I mean."

Alice and I must have appeared outraged because Maria turned bright red and slinked down further into her seat. I considered apologizing for my venomous expression, but I couldn't bring myself to feel even remotely remorseful. To add to my list of situations with fodder for disaster: swim team practice began today as did the first meeting of the school's official drama club, The Palooza. I did not pretend to understand the meaning behind such a name—and Jasper claimed he didn't either, so—yeah.

When the bell signaling lunch finally broke through the daze in my brain, I bolted out of my seat like a frightened colt and gave Alice the "Holy-SHEEYAT-I-Have-to Pretend-I-can Act-Except-that-would-Mean-that-I-can-and-would-Therefore-not-Need-to-Pretend" look.

Alice easily understood.

"Breathe! I have an . . . um . . . interesting feeling about your club meeting. Begone with you! Be Jasper the Great!" Her arms arced through the air with pomp and flair. It seemed as though her gesticulations were growing more ridiculous by the day. Just last week, she clapped her hands three times before she gave the librarian the finger instead of a handshake.

"Cease and desist thy knocking, you mongrel. Thou shalt not enter the Chamber of Doom whilst lacking proper invitation."

I had no tangible invitation, so I stared at the guy with his horribly affected Scottish accent until he huffed and let me in.

"You're no fun, Jaz. Where the hell is your drama spirit?"

I sighed dramatically. "It's over the rainbow."

He thumped my back painfully hard and resumed the Scotsman act. "That's m'boy!"

Walking into the theatre, I was stunned at how different it looked without a scene set up on stage. Everything was bare but thrumming with energy. I recognized the place from the number of times I watched Jasper perform here over the previous three years.

The theatre was owned by Coldridge, but it was located across the street from the perimeter of campus on Bailey Drive.

I couldn't believe I was about to do this. Or be a part of this. The Palooza was the best drama club at Coldridge, far outranking the other two. Jasper had joined all three existing organizations, but I refused to do that. One was enough and after joining the swim team, it wouldn't be odd that "Jasper" chose to lighten his acting load for the year.

But no one would believe that Jasper Hale, the self-titled Kick-Ass Drama King Extraordinaire, had fully given up on acting. Heck, even Principal Cullen would find that suspicious. Then I'd be getting weirder looks than normal, and in no time flat, I would be flying out of Coldridge ass-first, which while unlikely, would be very uncomfortable.

"Where the hell are my actors?" a gruff British voice cut through the din of the immense room.

Everyone quieted as a thirtyish-looking man with dirty blond hair and a pipe in his mouth appeared on stage.

Ah, this must be Sam-I-Am. Or "the slave-driver" as he was more commonly known in these circles.

"Get over here! Actors to my right and stagehands to my left," he called as a puff of black smoke billowed from his mouth.

After we were all settled in seats before him the way he instructed, Sam patted his stomach and spoke. "This fall, we shall be reenacting a play which has not been allowed the privilege—no, its natural RIGHT—to see the light of stage. This play will blow all else out of the FUCKING WATER. No more Troy or Romeo and Pansy-Ass Juliet. NO! We are finally entering the era of modern man. We are THE FUTURE. We will be doing the play—wait for it!" he said while crouching a bit and opening his arms.

His eyes gleamed and he puffed on the pipe, choked for a moment, and proclaimed, "MY PRIDE AND HER PREJUDICE."

I really wanted to know what this man was smoking, so I could petition the courts to ban it from the country.

After reading the excerpt from the script I would have to memorize for auditions to play Mr. Darcy—because that would be expected of me—I knew I could do this. Not because I suddenly gained confidence in my stage skills, but because Sam wrote a script for the first time this year. Now—oddity I could do.

Excerpt of the Excerpt from MY PRIDE AND HER PREJUDICE by Sam-I-Am Uley:

Jane: (fans her bosom with a peacock feather) But Mr. Darcy, this is highly irregular.

Mr. Darcy: No, Jane, it is about time you and Lizzy got freaky with me.

"Just kidding!" Sam called as we all flipped through the ten page excerpt he distributed two minutes ago. "That is not what we will be working with."

Fuck my life. No, fuck Darcy. He got my hopes up.

I heard breathy sounds of relief and a faint "I'm gonna wax his ass" from the students around me.

The man continued, "Instead, the real script shall remain top secret until a point in time which I deem worthy. We will not have a repeat of last year's hellish shenanigans. No one will leak this script. But, this excerpt you may share with whomever you choose. It makes me smile."

Then he left. Just like that. The bastard.

EPOV:

I stretched my legs and turned a page, which detailed a rather anachronistic threesome. That Sam dude was demented.

So maybe this acting thing would be interesting.

After classes ended that day and an hour before swim team practice:

I ran a hand through my unruly hair and cursed softly when I spotted Tanya headed towards me across the courtyard. Her eyes were focused and calculating.

Panicking, I dashed into the girl's dormitory nearby when Tanya turned to say something over her shoulder to a friend.

I ran up to Alice's room while hoping no R.A. was around to expel me from the building. When I tried the knob to her room, it turned and I stepped into the empty common room with alacrity. I exhaled in relief and sank down into the couch.

After a moment, I realized that water was running from a shower nearby. Fervently hoping it was Alice, who could tell me when it would be best to escape, I rose and entered her room, which connected to her private bathroom. Unfortunately, I had to share one with Jasper—although he was rarely in there, I had to admit.

I peeked inside and called out, "Alice?"