I am a semi-failure. I only got to answer about 90% of your reviews this week. Now that summer is coming to a close, I expect to have much more time to devote to you. Just know I read and love each and every word and memory you send me!

Chapter 10

"I got chills, they're multiplying."– John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, "You're the One that I Want", In the U.S. the single reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and on July 18 was certified Platinum for shipments exceeding 2 million copies.

We're driving down PCH and I don't care that I'm probably fired. The day, the setting, the guy is as perfect as Eddie Van Halen's guitar licks, and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it, bank account and work ethic be damned.

Besides being really hot and bedroom-poster worthy, I find I actually like him the more I spend time with him. He's smart and funny, creative and hard-working, kind and gentle. He literally helped an old lady cross the beach access road like a Boy Scout, for Christ's sake, when we were walking to his car. I'm still curious to know why the shift in his attitude towards me after all this time, but I'm not stupid enough to ruin any second of it with the list of questions piling up in my head like Barbara Walters.

And even though I try to not think about Rosalie while we're flying down the highway on this beautiful July day, figuring out just what the fuck he's still doing with her floats to the front of my mind against my will. I guess it's possible it's all for sex–Rosalie is absolutely gorgeous and men drool over her–but I really don't get that vibe from him.

And I know he's not in it for the stellar conversation, so I'm at a loss.

"I have to drop the equipment off at school, is that cool?" he asks as his hair bends in the breeze from the moving Jeep. "It's about a forty-minute drive, I should've asked you before I kidnapped you." He actually bumps my shoulder with his elbow and I want to faint he's acting so chummy.

Forty minutes? Almost a whole hour? Just me and him and my ability to pretend we're a picture-perfect couple even if it's harmful to my psyche and heart? "No problem." I tuck my list of questions to the back of my head and prop my feet on the dash.

I watch the ocean on my right as The Police play in the 8-track. "So if you're dropping off the equipment, does that mean you're done with the movie?"

"No, we have to edit, which takes much longer. Shooting is the easy part, now we have to put it together so it doesn't suck." He laughs, but I can tell he's half-serious when his hand combs through his hair nervously.

I wave a hand at him. "It's going to be great." I lean my head back on the seat and look at him, trying not to appear starry-eyed.

He peeks at me from over his Ray Bans. "Oh yeah? How do you know?"

Because you're perfect. "Because you're really serious about it. You won't half-ass it."

"Being serious about it doesn't mean I'm any good at it." The shifting of his eyes tells me he's a little unsure he should've admitted that, or at least that he admitted it to me.

I want to push him to open up to me but don't want him to clam up instead, regretful he's showed me this side to him. I think for a moment and turn a little in my seat. "Edward, do you think you have an interesting subject?"

"Yes."

"Do you think you have an interesting point of view?"

"Yes."

"Do you think the shots you took are visually appealing?"

At that, he nods emphatically. "Yes."

I shrug. "Then don't worry about it and trust your gut."

He doesn't say anything to that and I think the conversation is over as we lapse into silence and let the music fill the space. He clears his throat and when I look back to him, he's looking at me with those fierce, blue eyes. "Trusting your gut can be a scary proposition."

I swallow. "It doesn't have to be." My gut is telling me he's not talking about the movie, but I don't want to make a fool of myself, pining away for my step-sister's boyfriend thinking I even have a chance, so I stay on-topic.

"You know Charlie and I will be there when you debut it. Front row. I'll walk the red carpet as Charlie's date in a stunning gown."

"Why Charlie?"

I speak without thinking. "Because I don't have a fella."

"What about Jared?"

"Uh. I know he's your friend, but… he's nice, but I don't… I ended it," I stutter, a little guilty I'm talking about the guy I just broke up with to his buddy. "I don't know that we were anything more than two people that went out on a few dates."

"You don't have feelings for him?"

The only feeling I have right now is awkwardness at this conversation, but if Edward and I are going to be friends, this is what friends discuss, right? Even if he is a dude. "I don't, no. That makes me a jerk, doesn't it? Because I couldn't reciprocate?"

He laughs, a little smile creeping across his face as he rubs his chin. "No, it doesn't make you a jerk. But I'm surprised, girls like it when guys are into them."

A ladylike snort escapes me. "Trust me, no one is into me." I use air quotes like I've seen them do on TV.

Edward sighs as he flips his sunglasses back over his eyes. "You might be surprised."

UCLA is super cool. The campus is large and has a lot of green lawns with kids sitting around even though it's summer. There's a lot of frisbee tossing and a game with a little ball some surfer-type guys are kicking around that Edward tells me is a Hacky Sack. It looks like the kind of stupid thing the skateboarders would be into. I'll have to make sure to tell Ben about it.

We make our way to the Theater, Film and Television building, and I help Edward get the equipment out of the car and carry it up the walk. The room he takes me into is filled with black boxes of all shapes and sizes, and he signs a piece of paper with the student there after he checks out that all the equipment is okay. We then drop off his film with the processing lab, which will take his negative film and make it into a 'working print'.

After that's done, Edward starts making his way down the hall to the car, so I ask him to show me around some more.

"You want a tour?" he says, one eyebrow quirked.

"Sure. This is cool." I'm looking at some posters on the wall advertising student film showings, some plays, and a lot of flyers searching for actors.

"Hmm. Okay. Let's go to the editing bay." He leads me down a corridor and opens a door, turning the light on overhead. It's a completely windowless room, which makes sense in a film school I guess. There are a bunch of different stations set up with reels of film and instruments used to cut the film.

"You mean you have to cut and tape little pieces of film together to get a movie? One by one?"

He laughs and holds up a strip from the floor. "Yup. That's how the term 'on the cutting room floor' came about. It's literally cutting an actor or scene from a movie."

I take it from his outstretched hand and hold it up to the light like he did. It's hard to see the individual scenes, but it looks like the negatives that comes in the envelopes when Charlie gets his pictures back from the Fotomat. "Wow. This seems really… hard."

"It is, but our editor is really good, so hopefully that works out."

"Who tells him what you want?"

"Mostly Jared–" he pauses mid-sentence and looks at me, but I just smile, encouraging him. "Jared will tell him what shots he wants and what order, all that, I'll be there too, giving my two cents."

"I can't wait to see it."

He runs his hand through his hair. "I can show you something else I did, if you want."

My eyes go wide. "Yes! I'd love to see it." He smiles huge and takes me to another room, this one set up with chairs and screens. He goes to a wall and looks through a bunch of metal canisters, before slipping one out of place.

"This is something I shot last semester. It's just a four-minute short I did the cinematography on for another guy's project."

Edward expertly loops the film through a bunch of gears on a projector. "Someday, they say film is going to be replaced digitally. I don't buy it. They have video now, which is similar, but I can't see there never being any actual film."

Edward walks to the light switch. "Ready?" I nod enthusiastically and the lights go out. He starts the projector, and in front of me on a white screen, the movie starts.

It's a movie with no dialogue, just music, about a guy looking for his hat. It's very artsy and moody, all long shots of him walking down streets forlorn. I try to concentrate on the individual shots to recognize what Edward has done, but I get swept up in the story even though it's not really about much.

When it's over, Edward flips the light on and looks at me, waiting.

"That was really good," I say. "It was… beautiful and sad, which is weird because it was just about a guy who lost something. But I felt bad for him."

Edward beams. "Yeah? You liked it?" When I nod, he continues. "The fact that you felt anything at all speaks volumes."

"I tried to look at the cinematography, but I kind of got caught up in the story, sorry."

"No! That's perfect. You shouldn't really be able to focus on the technical if a movie is shot right. It should just make you feel." He looks so happy, I'm ecstatic that my praise brought this emotion out in him.

"Well, after seeing that, I know your surfing movie is going to be a huge success!"

He's still smiling as he unspools the film and tells me about a few other things he's worked on. I'm impressed that older students seek him out to work on their projects.

We leave the room and make our way back to the car, Edward talking the whole time about movies, what he wants to accomplish and about some ideas he has for things he'd like to produce as well. He's very animated as he talks, and it's a side of him I'm so happy he seems comfortable enough with me to let out. I get caught up in his enthusiasm and ask a bunch of questions while we drive away from the campus.

"Do you have something you need to get back for?"

Do you? I think about Rosalie sitting at the dinner table waiting for him. "I think tonight is pea soup night, so that's a definite no." He laughs, and starts driving towards Santa Monica. I know this is the perfect time to start asking some questions about the status of his relationship with my step-sister, but I really don't want to make him mad or uncomfortable, or cut this night short. I'm just setting myself up, I know, getting my hopes up that we'll continue to hang out, when the huge elephant in the room known as Rosalie's fat ass is sitting right there in the backseat.

"How does a falafel sound? There's a great place on the pier."

"Falafel?"

"Tell me you never had a falafel?"

"I never had a falafel."

"Blasphemy. We really need to start expanding your horizons when it comes to food."

"As soon as Renee came in the picture, I was done for." I laugh and follow him out of the Jeep.

He orders two falafel's and two Cokes which he insists on paying for, and leads me to a bench. "So, I don't really know much about your life before your dad married Renee."

I peel back the wrapping and look at the foreign food. Doesn't look too scary, it's certainly more appealing than Renee's soup. "Um…"

"I'm sorry, maybe you don't want to talk about it. With me, at least." Edward takes a bite and I pull away from watching his mouth move.

"No, it's okay. Just don't know that it's all that interesting. My mom died when I was six, and it was just Charlie and me. Then he met Renee and we moved into their house when they got married."

"I'm sorry about your mom. I know she died, I don't really know how though."

"She had cancer. I don't really remember a lot of it, they tried to shield me from it. I just thought she had a cold for a long time until they told me what was going on." Images of my mom flash in front of my eyes, errant memories and long-ago moments. "She used to sing to me, she'd sing when I'd start falling asleep and rub my back. I couldn't sleep until she did that. I remember her taking me to the big department store for lunch, where you'd have to wear a dress and a hat, and then we'd shop for whatever she needed. She always picked up something for Charlie… a tie, or socks. I remember them going out fancy at night and I'd just look at her in a long dress, thinking she was the prettiest mom anyone ever had." I shrug, lost in thought. "They seemed happy, from what I remember."

"It must've been tough… not having a mother." I nod and take a bite. "You get along with Renee?"

"I do. Renee is crazy, but she's harmless. She's nice to me, doesn't try to be my mom, but if I needed one, I guess I could go to her. She seems to make Charlie happy, so that's good enough for me." I'm waiting for the inevitable next question, about Rosalie and how that was getting an instant sister, but it never comes. Maybe he's afraid to bring her into this, too.

The air is dense with my past life, and I don't want to go down that sad, poor-me road. "Can I ask you something that's been bothering me for a long time?" I pull the wrap further away from my food and toy with a piece of lettuce.

Edward puts his food down and faces me fully. "Shoot."

"Is your stomach made of lead? Between Renee's food and this… thing I don't know how you manage to keep it down."

"I take it you're not impressed with your dinner."

"It's not a falafel, it's a feel-awful." Edward throws back his head in a bark of laughter before standing and grabbing my wrapper, throwing it in the trash next to us.

"Sorry about that. Let's get you something else."

"I'm fine."

"I insist. I can't make you go home and eat whatever is brewing there, so… what'll it be?" He throws out his own food after taking another bite.

"Can we just have something normal, like a slice?"

"We can." Edward holds out his hand to me like it's the most natural thing in the world, but while I'm staring at it, debating whether or not to grab it, he pulls back. "Uh, there's a good place a little further down." He turns and shoves his hands in his pockets.

It must've just been instinct, to help pull me up from the bench. My fingers are ghost-tingling, wishing they'd just moved instead of being freaked out. I get up and follow him, trying to think of something to say to remove the awkwardness. I come up short, so I just end up walking down the pier, admiring the sunset while he points out people doing tricks on roller skates.

He gets two slices of pepperoni at a stand and we walk to the railing, eating off the plates while leaning on the wood. "Now this," I say and bump his arm with my shoulder. "This is food."

He laughs, but it's not the barking laugh from before. "So what's your all-time favorite movie?" I ask, hoping to return to the ease between us we've had all afternoon.

"Hmmm." He takes a bite, basically inhaling the whole slice as he thinks. His knit-brow concentration look is very cute. "If I'm going off of pure style and genius in a film, probably A Clockwork Orange."

I oooh in agreement. "That's a great one." He looks pleased I know it.

"But if I had to pick something solely on enjoyment, then it's Corvette Summer." He nods and takes another bite.

"Corvette Summer?" I screech. "You've got to be joking. That's the worst film this year! Mark Hamill really picked a loser after Star Wars. You can't be serious."

Edward puts a hand over his heart. "You're mocking me? The girl that thought Ode to Billy Joe was the best romance ever?"

My head jerks back in surprise. "How do you know that?"

He shrugs. "You said it at dinner one night. You thought Robby Benson was hot. Which he isn't, by the way."

I'm stunned. Absolutely floored. "You remember that?"

He looks at me, then down to his paper plate as he folds it in half. "I remember everything you say." His eyes return to mine, which must be as large as my own paper plate. "What?"

"I… you never spoke to me. I thought you didn't listen to anything I said, like I was annoying or something."

He turns to face me, his hair blowing gently in the breeze and covering one eye. "I never thought you were annoying."

"Then why…" He steps closer to me, and I stop breathing. "Why were you always ignoring me?"

"Bella, I… I'm aware of everything you do, I listen to everything you say." My heart beats double time as Edward lifts his hand slowly and gently touches my cheek with the back of it, his fingers giving me goosebumps as they brush my skin. I watch his throat bob as he swallows.

I feel like he's going to kiss me. I keep my eyes on his, trying to read the expression on his face. His eyes move back and forth across mine, as I wait for him to do something so I can breathe again.

Instead, he steps away, and my cheek cries out for his touch to return. He looks out over the water. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah." My head is swimming and my throat is dry.

Fucking Rosalie.

I follow him to the Jeep and we drive silently away from the pier. I sigh, and try to not focus on what just almost happened, but it's hard. My heart's still beating super fast and the adrenaline from being touched by him is racing throughout my body trying to escape. I try to see if he's affected at all by what he did, and out of the corner of my eye I see him glancing at me a few times, swallowing, and opening his mouth like he wants to say something.

But nothing ever comes.

Eventually, we stop at a light and he starts reaching towards me. But his aim is the glove compartment. The 8-track we'd been listening to is over, so he flips it open to get another.

What he pulls out instead is the brush, covered in Rosalie's hair.

He looks at it like he's never seen it before.

And promptly tosses it out of the car.

PB Fun Fact #1: I've never had a falafel.

PB Fun Fact #2: The most excited I've ever seen my sister is the night Ode to Billy Joe finally appeared on the ABC Sunday Night Movie.

PB Fun Fact #3: If ever there was a day that I wasn't in school and my siblings were for some reason, my mom would take me to Bambergers department store (I had to wear a dress) and then we'd go over and have lunch at what I thought was the fanciest restaurant ever, The Magic Pan, where we'd get crepes. It was in the mall, so my perception of fancy was obviously skewed.

Thanks as always to my girls, LayAtHomeMom and CarrieZM. I will never throw you out of the car.