AN: Some definitions for you:
skive: skip school
chippy tea: THE best night of the week. Fish and chips dinner from the chip shop. (I'm sure you all know what that is but just in case - chips are fries.)
Nineteen.
I wake up with a sore head and rocks in my ribcage. It's only just 6 but the memory of last night has travelled in with the first rays of sunshine, and I can't go back to sleep.
Rose is snoring like a content cat beside me, her ash-blonde hair dyed within an inch of white is a tangled web over her face. She won't make it to school, half a bottle of Malibu has stolen her ability to move without groaning or to string two sentences together.
I'm on one too many warnings from Cope, so I have no excuses good enough to skive. Cullen revealing himself to be a Class A dickhead won't cut it.
I catch the earlier bus and get to Elmwood before anyone else.
Except Cullen.
He's leaning up against the school gates, bag at his feet. He straightens as soon as he sees me, but has the common sense not to get any closer. I breeze past him as if I'm filled with nothing but air.
He starts to say my name, but my response is sharp enough to cut off a syllable. "Don't."
He listens until first break when he's waiting for me outside Cope's. I stop beside him.
"I don't know what you are going to say, but nothing makes what happened last night okay." He looks tired, his skin pale, eyes shadowed, blinking with nerves, I almost want to ask if he's okay.
"I know that but give me a chance."
"Not today, sweetheart." I smile but it's lemon and limes.
He leaves me alone at lunch, giving up the company of his new friends, my friends, for me. Sam tells me I should talk to him. Hear him out. Angie doesn't say anything but she glances over to his solitary figure more than once, eyes creasing with the effort of sticking with me and my guns.
He gravitates towards me as much as he can, but stays at the outer edge like Neptune. I pretend it's too far to notice. I do notice everyone is whispering about the change in our atmosphere. I hate that as much as not talking to Cullen.
The end of the day can't come soon enough. I'm off campus before the bell has finished ringing. I seek out Mum's company when I get home. Her chatter fills the space my mind wants to flood with anxiety. We curl up on the settee and watch Neighbours. It would be nice if everything else wasn't so messed up.
"Do you fancy a chippy tea?" she asks. "Or I've got a couple of microwave meals in the freezer. Chicken korma I think."
I cringe at the thought of the beige slop. "Chippy is good. You want me to go?"
"No, you stay here and get the plates out. I won't be long." She gets her purse and coat, sliding a couple of letters off the table into her pocket. "Fish, chips, mushy peas?"
"Yeah, usual. Don't forget ketchup, too."
"I won't," she says as she disappears out the door, and we could almost be a functioning family.
Only then I hear her talking to someone outside. The blood in my veins shudders to a stop, I'm already scrambling up to disappear into my room, but then the shape and texture of the other voice sends it speeding back up.
"Bella?" Mum appears back through the door. "There's a young man out here asking for you." She winks and pulls a face that's a totally inappropriate reaction to a 17 year old boy. "Shall I invite him in?"
I want to say no, but then she will want to know everything—a different everything to the one she thinks she knows now. I've got to give him credit for his bravery in talking to my mother in all her permed, lycra and overbearing glory.
"Yeah," I say. The relief it wasn't Marcus makes me glad that someone has taken the decision to finally talk to Cullen out of my hands.
AN: You guys are better than buttered bread. x This chapter is unbeta'd as I was so slow writing it. All cock ups are mine.