Chapter 17:
Hermione's second day of school started with Chemistry, then she had Biology followed by Physics just before the break, after which she had Latin and then Literature. She was pretty sure Tuesday was going to be the most stressful day of the entire week, what with all her heavy subjects rolling in one after the other.
Despite the sciences that she had all through the morning, it was Latin that she feared the most. That was her only class with Edward alone; and while she had spent one-on-one time with every other Cullen, Edward was the only one she had never really spoken to and after the tiny incident of last morning, she wasn't sure of how she felt about spending time alone with him now. The whole thing had somehow felt too intimate to her and she was well aware of there being no love lost between his girlfriend and herself, she had, after all, just yesterday spoken to her without any form of hostility. All that was beside the point though, for however she felt about Bella and Edward, she wasn't a homewrecker and she wouldn't do anything that might cause a rift between any couple.
Decision made and a rough plan vaguely formed in her mind about how to tackle the day's seating, she popped in at the Cullen residence again. Handing Teddy over to Rosalie and kissing him on his forehead, she climbed in the backseat of the Volvo.
Once at school, Jasper walked with her to their class and they sat together, both lost in their chats until the teacher came in and started teaching. Hermione's innate perfect student would never allow her to talk during a class.
After Chemistry, Jasper dropped her at Biology and made way towards his own Social Studies class that he shared with Alice. Hermione walked in the lab smiling and looked around at the occupied seats. She saw Edward near the window looking right back at her. She gave him a friendly smile but made her way to the opposite row of benches and took up the first bench there. Bella soon walked in with a few others, and made a bee-line for Edward's desk while the other students dispersed all around the class.
Angela, the same bespectacled girl that sat with her in Physics smiled at her and took the spot beside Hermione. Hermione smiled back in greeting too and the teacher got in, cutting their talk even before it had begun!
Soon after the end of the class bell rung and Hermione walked to her Physics class with Angela. Having the same partner for two subjects might work, she thought shrugging as she answered all of Angela's curious questions with as few lies as she could.
"So, are you a new adoptee of the Cullens?" Angela asked with a slight grimace, wondering if assuaging her and her friends' curiosity with such a personal question on the first time she spoke to Hermione was a good idea or not.
"Oh, no. No, I am not. They are sort of like family friends though," Hermione answered. She knew she was absolute bollocks at lying so she rarely ever tried her hand at it.
"Oh.." Angela really wanted to probe more, more so because Jessica had goaded her into it but she didn't know how to continue.
Hermione, however, saw her fumbling and smiled, she had been through similar times after all. "Dr. Cullen's helping us with my aunt who's suffering from Cancer. I came along to help her with her grandson who also is my godson. Dr. Cullen has also gotten me interested in the medical field so I thought I'd finish my last year here and then move on to a medical college."
"Oh, so where's your godson now?"
"Do you know Rosalie Cullen?" Angela nodded. "She has volunteered to babysit him while I'm at school."
"Oh, that's sweet of her."
"It is," Hermione smiled fondly and they entered their class, taking their seats from the day before.
"You're lucky you haven't been swamped by all the curious kids yet." Hermione quirked her brow. "You're the only girl to ever mingle with the elusive Cullens. Well, there's Bella, of course, but even she took a few months and dating one of them to make her way into their folds, you on the other hand, entered the school on their arm right on your first day at Forks High. It's caused quite a stir."
"I know," Hermione conceded. "Just between you and me, I'm even followed into the washroom and have had strangers coming at me in the corridor all day yesterday asking me all sorts of questions without even giving out their names! I almost ran out the school, but thankfully I have at least one of them in all my classes except this one, so at least in the class I'm not disturbed."
"Hmm.. I understand what you mean. They just have this unapproachable aura around them, so everyone just stirs clear off them."
Hermione chuckled at Angela's perceptiveness and thought of the intricacies of the human mind that sensed danger even when it couldn't really identify it making the humans stay away from the vampires by instilling a curious fear about the vampires at their very subconscious levels. Marvels of our brains! she thought and then both girls switched their attention to the teacher as he started explaining all about Schrodinger's cat.
Tiredly, Hermione made her way to the cafeteria queuing up behind Alice and Jasper, both of whom looked to be waiting for her. Bella fell in line behind her with Edward by her side. Choosing their foods, the five of them sat at their table. "It's an art, the way you guys play with your food to make it look like you've eaten."
"We've had a lot of time to perfect it over the years," Jasper shrugged, chucking a cherry tomato on Edward's head.
Hermione giggled at that. "Remind me to keep you away from Weasley lunches. They waste enough food by themselves without you to add to the wastage."
"Oh yeah, we saw that when we had gone there to pick Andromeda up."
Laughing, Alice shared her views of the boisterous family's lunches making Hermione a little homesick with longing. Jasper scrunched his face and gave her a good hard look before she finally shook her head and brought herself out of her reverie.
The bell rang and Edward asked her to tag along with him to their Latin class, so Hermione followed him, both making small talk till they reached the class. Just outside its door though, Hermione halted and looked all around her.
"What happened?"
"Uhm.. I needed some water. Is there a water fountain close by?"
Edward pointed her to the closest water station, "Be back quick, the teacher will be here soon."
Nodding, Hermione dashed off towards the small silver basin and gulped in a few draughts of water. Thinking enough time had lapsed, and not wanting to be late for her first Latin class, she ran back to the class. She knew from her observations of the vampires that they all preferred to sit by the windows, probably for the scent-free fresh air she had deduced but wasn't sure. Anyway, she was sure Edward would again be by the row near the window, so she spun on her heels and took the last bench in the first row, the one furthest from the window. She was pretty sure she'd dodged him and therefore avoided all calamity of yesterday's repeat. She knew she only had to stick it for this one class, she'd seen a pattern with the teachers here that they didn't allow for a change of place in the middle of the year, so if she could sail through this one class, she was set. She hated sitting in the last bench, but it was a price she was willing to pay to keep her new friendships intact.
"Why are you suffocating in a corner here when we could be sitting by the nice breezy windows?" Edward queried in annoyance, plopping himself ungracefully in the seat beside Hermione. Well, as ungracefully as a vampire possibly could, that is.
"Did it occur to you that I may not want to sit with you?" Hermione asked equally annoyed. What was the point of all her planning if it was going to backfire anyway?
That stopped him. "Why so ever not? You sat with my siblings and Bella, it only seems fair that we share our bench in this class."
"I'm friends with your siblings and Bella asked me to sit with her."
"You don't think we are friends?" Now, he was confused. After all his pining and confusion, she didn't even consider him a friend? That hurt.
"No, I.." Hermione trailed off, hating herself for being unable to lie.
"You know I can hear your heart beating faster when you try to gamble, right?"
"Okay, fine, I may consider you a friend but I didn't want to sit with you."
"Why?"
"I.. I don't want to say. Look, can we not do this? Just.. just go back to your place and let me sit by myself."
"Sorry, but I can't," he shrugged eloquently.
"What do you mean you can't?" Now, she was getting really angry.
"The teacher's here. We're stuck."
"The…" Hermione looked at the front of the class and sat shocked. She'd missed the teacher coming in and starting the day's work! Damn, that never happened to her! "That's why I hate last benches!" she muttered under her breath, pulling out her book and pen case from her bag and beginning her note taking.
Somewhere in the middle of class when the teacher had turned to look at the board to write something or the other on it, Edward passed a half-foot-long white cased box to Hermione.
Hermione eyed the chocolate sitting innocently in the middle of their desk and then turned to Edward. "They come in a zillion different flavors, I thought you might like to give them all a try before you decide your favorite."
Hermione narrowed her gaze at Edward warningly, but the slight twitch in her lips gave her true feelings away. "Just do me a favor, eat it at home."
And her twitch was gone to be replaced by a scowl. "How could you even think I'd eat in the middle of a class?"
Edward knew then that he was caught between the fire and someplace scalding. He could either let her think that he thought so little of her or he could tell her the true reason for his request and then stand by as she thought of him as a swine of the first waters. He decided to change the topic entirely.
"You have a way of saying thanks that makes it feel like 'drop dead'."
He had expected her to say the normal line 'it's an art' but of course, she never did anything he thought she would.
So she turned to face him, full on, on gave a cheery smile that immediately set him on edge and she said, "Why would I bother to do that to you?"
In all his long years of vampire life, not once had anyone ever called him dead to his face. And he found he liked her cheeky, yet honest humor.
Shaking his head to curb the laughter that was forming in his chest, he said, "You know, I've never laughed so much before you."
"Glad I can fill up the position of a clown for you."
"Oh, you do much more than that, Sweetheart," Edward said without thought and then immediately cursed himself, wishing for nothing more than to take the words back.
They both stayed quiet after that and unsurprisingly enough, he saw Hermione sprint out of the class as if the hounds of hell were on her trail. I really need to mind my mouth!
Edward swiftly followed her out the door but took a whole other direction from her Literature class, for more reasons than one…
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Hermione couldn't get out of his car soon enough and the minute she was out, she flew over to collect Teddy, citing some crappy reason for leaving so quickly and she cracked away.
He knew it was the lull before the storm when all of his family kept pining him down with calculated, careful looks and finally when Bella left, the chips all fell!