A/N:

So you think Edward remains mysterious, huh? Well, Bella does, too ;-)

Title: The Perfect Partner Program

Author: MarieCarro

Beta: EdwardsFirstKiss

Pre-reader: brwneyedgrl01

Genre: Angst/Hurt&Comfort/Romance

Rating: NC-17

Summary: The summer of 2005 was the summer that changed Bella Swan's life forever. Sent to Ohio by her mother to attend a school for debutante girls not quite up to par, she meets Edward Masen, an apprentice. But is that really all he is? AH

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter Word Count: 2, 966

CHAPTER 6 THOUGHTS AND LOST SHOES

I woke up to an annoying banging on my door and cracked one eye open to see what was going on, but when the bright light in the room invaded my corneas, I groaned and rolled over to the other side of the bed.

"Don't you dare to go back to sleep!" Leah's voice threatened through the door. "I'm starving, and I need breakfast pronto."

"So go downstairs by yourself!" I yelled back. I wasn't in the mood for breakfast, only more sleep; especially since it had been so difficult to fall asleep. I had tossed and turned the entire night, and my brain had refused to shut up for a minute and stop analyzing every word Edward had said to me.

Questions kept popping up, like; does he really think I'm beautiful? Was he hinting at something when he asked if I had a boyfriend? Why would he be interested in me? He was college age, and I had just ended my sophomore year of High School. Didn't he think I was just a silly little girl?

"If you don't open the door in thirty seconds, I will pick the lock and douse you with ice-water," Leah continued.

I huffed. "I'd like to see you try," I mumbled to myself and ignored her.

I should have known Leah wasn't the kind of person who made empty threats, and barely a minute later, she had the door open and strode toward the bathroom.

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed in shock and sat up, and when Leah came back with a glass filled with what I assumed was ice-cold water, I flew out of the bed as fast as I could.

Leah smirked, and I narrowed my eyes at her.

"You're quite sadistic, aren't you?"

"Only when necessary," she replied and placed the glass on my nightstand. "Now, come on, get your ass moving. I need food." She sat down in one of my chairs and crossed her arms to wait for me.

I shook my head in irritation, but I was already up, so I did as she told me and got dressed.

Leah and I were the only two girls at the school who didn't get up two hours earlier in the morning in order to look morning dew fresh at breakfast, and that had caused us to become outsiders. Not that either of us minded, but it made it easier that we were two, and I knew that was the real reason why Leah didn't want to go downstairs by herself.

The other girls could be downright vicious with their comments and we were each other's protectors.

Once I had pulled on clothes that weren't bad per se, simply not the standard of the other girls, and dragged a brush through my hair a few times, I gestured for Leah that we could get moving.

"Damn, have you slept at all?" she asked me when she got a proper look at me. "The rings under your eyes are dark, girl!"

I chuckled. "I can safely say I've had better nights." A yawn escaped me, and it caused Leah to laugh. "My brain didn't want to shut up, and I blame you."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Me? What did I do?"

"You made me think about my conversation with Edward and your absurd statement on how I have fallen for him. It was impossible to stop thinking about it."

"That right there is why my statement wasn't absurd," she replied and pointed at me. "If there hadn't been any truth to it, you would have laughed it off and then nothing, but instead it kept you up and unable to sleep."

"You sound like a shrink. Maybe you should give up Selective Utopia and go into psychology instead," I told her with an exaggerated eye roll.

"Whatever, you'll accept the truth eventually," she said as we entered the dining room.

We didn't eat in the ballroom like we had that first day because it was only for special occasions such as charity dinners and parties. The dining room was much more low-key, but still equally beautiful. The architecture was the same throughout the castle, but the dining room was smaller and only had one large round table in the center that seated exactly fifteen people.

Against one wall was the buffet table, and a beverage station was facing the floor-to-ceiling windows. In a way, it reminded me of a hotel, albeit a very high-end one.

The food offered on the buffet was of the best quality, but no greasy bacon, scrambled eggs, or waffles were in sight. It was mostly cold cuts and fresh fruit, and while I had thought it to be lacking the first morning, I soon noticed how filling the food actually was.

Leah and I chose to sit as far away as possible from Bree and Charlotte who had inevitably become our sworn enemies. Neither of us could stand them, and we thought it was best to just keep out of their way as much as possible.

I wasn't here for drama, and Leah couldn't care less what they thought of her. It was their words that were the most unpleasant after all.

I went to the beverage station to fix myself a cup of coffee; I'd quickly gotten used to the taste, and now strangely enjoyed it. As I poured the dark liquid into my cup, movement outside the window caught my eye. When I turned my attention to it, I saw that it was Edward trimming the bushes just outside the window.

Almost as if he could feel my eyes on him, he turned to look at me, and when our eyes met, he smiled and gave me a small wave. I returned both the smile and wave and then walked back to my seat. What I hadn't expected to see there were two girls who had opted to sit closer to Leah and me instead of the empty seats next to the Princesses on the opposite side.

I sat back down, and Jessica and Tanya smiled at me.

"Good morning, Bella," Jessica greeted me pleasantly, and I exchanged a look with Leah to see if this was a joke. She only gave me a shrug in response.

"Uh, morning, Jessica."

It didn't take long for both Leah and me to understand that Jessica and Tanya didn't have an ulterior motive when they sat down with us. I found out that Jessica was actually a very nice girl. She was my age, and lived for gossip but never started it herself. She was too afraid to hurt anyone's feelings if it turned out to be false.

"I mean I know technically spreading something isn't much better, but if I don't know the person, it's not like I can just go up to them and ask if it's true, right? Like, seriously, it doesn't work that way, and if I don't start the rumors, then I'm not the real bad guy either, right?"

She was also very chatty. Nice, but she seriously needed to shut up on occasion.

Tanya was very reserved. Her manners made it obvious she was used to following the correct etiquette, but unlike Princesses 1 and 2, she was much more humble and didn't push her views or opinions on anyone.

She told us she had a boyfriend back home, who she missed terribly. Her parents didn't accept him because he was a so-called regular-Joe with average grades, average looks, and an average family. It didn't matter to them that he made their daughter happy.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Tanya asked in a whisper.

All of us nodded. Not one of us had any connections to the people she knew in San Antonio, so the likelihood of them finding out was slim to none.

"Ryan and I are planning to elope on my eighteenth birthday in November. We don't care what our parents think. We know we're right for each other."

I didn't argue with her. I thought getting married at eighteen was too young, but I didn't know what her relationship with her boyfriend was like, so I didn't have a right to judge. I thoughtfully studied the three girls around me and then smiled.

"I already know Leah's not here willingly, but what about you two?" I asked them, and they smiled back at me.

"Technically, I didn't put up a fight when my parents said they wanted me to apply for the program," Tanya admitted. "But it was only to appease them and get them off my back about Ryan for a while. They won't know what hit them when we wave the marriage certificate in their faces."

"And you, Jess?"

She shrugged over-dramatically. "Isn't it obvious? My dad doesn't t think I act like a real lady. He thinks I'm too loud."

I shook my head and chuckled before raising my cup of coffee in a toast. "Parents," I said, and the other girls joined me and clinked their own cups with mine in agreement.

A throat cleared on the opposite side of the table, and when we looked over, I saw Bree glaring at me with narrowed eyes.

"Can I help you with anything?" I asked her, instantly annoyed by her glare. I hadn't done anything to her this morning except for being in the same room, so whatever had crawled up her ass now wasn't my fault.

"Yeah, tell me something," she said and tilted her head to the side. "What can a guy like that possibly see in someone like you?" Her tone was venomous, and she nodded toward the windows behind me.

I automatically turned around to see what she was talking about, and all I could see was Edward still working with the bushes, but then, as if on cue, he turned his head my way, saw that I was looking, and smiled widely again.

Bree made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, and I gave my attention back to her with a shrug. I knew that the more aloof I acted, the more it would get under her skin, and I enjoyed putting her in her place too much to take the high road.

"What does it matter to you?" I asked with a sugar-sweet smile to spite her even more.

"It doesn't," she retorted too quickly with fiery eyes, and I immediately knew what she was so upset about. She was jealous.

"Really?" I pressed a bit more, but then I felt bad. It wasn't easy to have a crush on a guy who gave all his attention to another girl, but there were millions of other ways to go about it than the way Bree had chosen. "Forget it," I said, finished my coffee and stood up to leave when Mrs. Cullen breezed into the room.

"Perfect, all of you are here. I can tell you the plans for the day then."

I sat back down in my chair since I knew I wouldn't be able to leave until Mrs. Cullen had told us the plans that made her so excited.

"Today you will have your first dance class, and since it is the first, we wanted to make it special, and that's why we invited the instructors and their students from Columbus Dance Centre to participate in your lesson today," she said. "They will teach you to dance the Waltz and Foxtrot, so I suggest all of you go up to your rooms and find a pair of heels you feel comfortable dancing in."

I held my groan. I hated ballroom dancing, but I knew I didn't have a choice. I had already pushed my luck by ditching the riding lesson. If I ditched dancing as well, Mrs. Cullen would call my parents, no doubt.

All of us scrambled to get our things together, and as I passed Bree on my way to the stairs, I ignored the lethal glare she gave me. She wasn't worth the energy, and I wasn't going to give in to her harassment.

If Edward was the reason she was grinding her teeth at me, then there wasn't much I could do about it. What Edward did or felt wasn't in my control. But I was contemplating telling him that Bree had a crush so he could either ask her out or let her down gently. However, I wasn't sure if that would be viewed as being mean.

I waved to Leah when we parted by my room, and threw myself backward on my bed just to take a moment to breathe and try to clear my thoughts away from Bree's immaturity and Edward's possible interest.

These weren't things I had wanted to happen here. All I had wanted was to let the summer pass uneventfully, take the lessons that were required of me while still remaining myself, and then return home and let everything fall into place.

It appeared that whatever controlled our lives had other plans for me.

Maybe I would be better off if I stopped fighting it and just allowed it to happen. What if I took after Tanya and simply did everything that was asked of me just to appease everyone? Maybe it would give me the space I needed to quietly plot for the future I wanted.

I scoffed at the thought. No, the future I wanted would be so far out of my reach if I did everything Renée wanted because she would make sure in one way or another that I wouldn't ever be able to enlist in the military.

I rolled over on my side and saw my nightstand clock say that I had already wasted fifteen minutes, and I was now running late. I groaned and sprang into motion to search for the dance heels I knew Renée had packed into my bag, but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn't find them anywhere.

I stood up and looked around the room in case I had unpacked them earlier and placed them somewhere only to forget where, but I couldn't see them anywhere. I glanced at the clock again, and now I was really late.

Damn it!

I dropped to my knees and crawled around on all fours to look everywhere I could think of, but just as I was about to give up, I found them. They were underneath my bed, but not in such a way like they could have accidentally been pushed under it. It looked like they had been thrown under there, and I even had to push myself under the frame on my stomach to reach them.

I really wanted to know how the hell they ended up there, but I didn't have the time for that. The only thing I could do was hurriedly change out of my jeans into clothes more suited for dancing and then grab the shoes and run as fast as I could down to the studio.

When I got there, I was a panting, red-faced mess, and it wouldn't have bothered me if it wasn't for all the people standing in the studio who I'd never met before.

It was obvious by the young boys' bodies and posture that they were all dancers, and I understood that they weren't just here to participate in our lesson. They were here to be our dance partners.

The male instructor frowned in confusion when he saw me. "What is this?" he asked out loud and looked at Ms. Hale and Mrs. Cullen who were standing in the corner. "A fifteenth girl? I was told there were only fourteen. I have only brought fourteen boys with me and everyone's already paired up!"

I looked around the room, and sure enough, each and every one already had a dance partner, and I was left standing like a fool in the doorway. My face burned even brighter, but not out of exertion.

Mrs. Cullen strode forward. "That is impossible. I made the call myself, and I specifically asked for fifteen dancers. What are we going to do now?" She looked absolutely distraught as she turned to me, but then something behind me caught her eye, and the light in her eyes turned cautiously hopeful. "Ah, Mr. Masen's here with the sound system," she said.

I turned around and saw Edward approaching with a pair of speakers on a handcart, and I stepped to the side to let him in. He unloaded the speakers where he was told and then turned to leave again when Mrs. Cullen stopped him.

"Mr. Masen, if it's alright, I was wondering, do you dance?"

He blinked at her in shock. "Um … not since my prom. Why?"

She sighed. "It appears we're one dancer short and Miss Swan doesn't have a partner."

Edward glanced at me for a moment, and he looked like he wanted to say yes, but then an apologetic expression washed over his face. "I would love to help, but I have promised Francis to continue around the garden today and—"

Mrs. Cullen interrupted by waving him away. "I will speak with Francis. He will understand. Besides, Miss Swan needs you more." She gently pushed him in my direction, and he laughed incredulously.

"Well, count me in then, I guess," he said, and when our eyes met, it was my turn to look apologetic.

'Sorry,' I mouthed and shrugged.

He leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Don't worry. I would bet myarm dancing with you is a hell of a lot more fun than shuffling shit over flowers."

A/N:

Do you have any thoughts about the shoes? Why were they 'thrown' under the bed? Who was in her room, and why?

Give me your theories!

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Next chapter will be on Monday … However, if you play nice, I just might let a chapter slip in earlier xD