2

Oh Crap, This Can't Be Good

Every weekday morning, I get ready for school, asking myself the same questions. What's the point? I mean, we all get up in the morning and go on with our days like every moment doesn't bring us closer to an inevitable finale. And murder, suicide, old age, natural disaster, accident. It doesn't matter. Death is scary and it's sad and it's going to happen to everyone. Every single damn person.

And this idea of reincarnation? Yeah, sure, I guess we can all be born again into another body of some sort. It's possible. But it ends the same way again! We die! So what's the point? Whenever I tried to answer that question for myself, I drew a blank. A big, depressing blank.

I get that some people believe that death is worth it if you live your life to the fullest and all that jazz. Makes sense if you really think about it, after all. But what I don't understand is that friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, kids, grandkids, pets, etc. They're all going to leave. Be it before or after you, they will. Everyone leaves eventually. And it hurts. It hurts really badly when they do. Trust me, I know.

Depressing truth, isn't it? But it makes it worse to deny it. Trust me again, I've tried that, too.

The day my story begins started off especially bad. Something, a dream I couldn't remember, had me in a really bad mood. Every little thing pissed me off to the point that I almost punched a hole in my wall. Well, another one. Then, to make matters worse, I couldn't find my other glove. In order to prevent myself from seeing the death of anyone at school, I wore gym shoes, jeans, long sleeve shirts, and gloves every single day. On this particular day, my right glove must have decided to walk away because it wasn't where I usually put it.

"Mr. Puffer!" I screamed, searching through the piles of clothes on my floor. My fat black cat waddled into the room, his devious green eyes twinkling with some secret I'd never know. Sometimes I wondered if I'd really want to know what he was thinking, or if I was better off remaining ignorant. "Do you know where my glove is?" I asked. He looked at me like I was speaking a different language (which, I guess, to him, I was) and did what he usually did – stretched his back high into the air, sucked in a bunch of breath so he looked even fatter than he already was, and then fell over onto his side. Mr. Puffer had a tendency to puff up like a blow fish and then collapse. It was the only way he could get comfortable enough to take a nap. I giggled and scratched his tiny head, smiling softly as he purred and rubbed his face more firmly against my fingers. He was my only friend in the world, and that's the way it was going to stay.

"Bella! Get your ass down here!" my mom shouted. I sighed and slung my backpack over my shoulder. Looked like I was going to have to keep my hands in my pocket all day long. It wasn't like I could only wear one glove either, so I had to leave the other one at home, too. "Damn it, Isabella! Move your ass!" I walked through the apartment and out of the house without looking at her.

You see, something most people didn't know about me was that my mother and I did not get along. At all. To sum it up, that was because I wasn't the perfect daughter she always wanted. She knew about what I saw. She was the only one I ever told besides my father. And she hated me for it. She thought it meant there was something wrong with me. I mean, there was, but it would have been nice for her to accept it and maybe help me through it so I didn't feel so alone. Instead of judging me, she could have told me everything was going to be okay, maybe hug me like good mothers did when their daughters were going through a difficult time. But no, my mom thought making me feel like shit over something that I couldn't control was the only way to parent.

So, on top of the whole seeing people's deaths thing,I had a shitty home situation.

Anyways, I was in a really bad mood when I got to school. Not that anyone noticed. I didn't have any friends, because usually being in any type of relationship calls for some type of physical contact, be it hugging a best friend or kissing a boyfriend. It was the way of the world. So I decided it was a better idea to be a loner throughout my high school years. And honestly, I preferred it because I didn't have to explain anything to anyone. It was awesome.

I walked down the halls with my hands tucked into my pockets since I didn't have my gloves. Just like they did most days, people whispered about me, either not caring or too stupid to realize I knew what they were talking about. Since I didn't talk to anyone and I always rejected the –very few- guys that asked me out, rumors spread throughout the school that there was something wrong with me. Usually hearing them cracked me up. Everyone believed I was either on drugs, too violent to be accepted into society, mentally unstable, or had some other variety of personal issues. If they only knew …

But the tone in the halls was different. Instead of being hushed and mellow, it was loud and excited and gossipy. I ignored my curiosity and went to my locker to grab my books. But of course, the entire cheerleading squad (I called them the pod squad – clever, right?) had to have their meeting at the locker three away from mine, where the squad captain was applying her lip gloss in the mirror hanging on the inside of the door.

"T! Did you hear there's a new kid starting today?" one of the cheerleaders squealed, fighting with the others for their queen's attention.

"Of course I did, Lauren. It's my job to know these things," Tanya replied. "His name is Edward Cullen, and he's gorgeous. But remember, girls, he's mine." The rest of the pod squad started whispering amongst themselves as I looked at Tanya, shocked. She thought she could call dibs on a new kid? What a bitch. She caught me looking at her in the mirror and narrowed her made-up eyes. "Got a problem, freak?" I rolled my eyes at her 'cleverness' and closed my locker before I made my way to first period Chemistry class, where my already crappy day got worse.

As Mr. Banner was explaining the lab we were doing after the bell rang, there was a timid knock on the door. I kept my head tilted back against the wall, my eyes closed, as someone opened the door and said quietly, "Um, excuse me. I'm new here." I sighed. Figured the new talk of the school would be in my class.

"Ah, yes, Edward," Mr. Banner said. "Class, this is Edward. He'll be joining in the lab today so help him when he needs it. Edward, you can go have a seat over by Bella." I didn't stir at my name, though I was pissed that now I had to share the table I'd had all to myself for the first half of the year. "Bella, raise your hand, so Edward knows who you are." I lazily raised my hand into the air without opening my eyes, and ignored the sound of the chair on the other side of the table moving.

You may be asking yourself, could this poor girl's day get any worse?! But just wait for it. It will.

After another ten minutes of Mr. Banner explaining the lab that was easy enough for a toddler to do, she told us to partner up with the person at our table and get started. I sighed and opened my eyes to look at my new lab partner. He could be considered good looking, I guess. His hair was an odd bronze color, seemingly a bunch of different shades of red and brown all rolled into one seriously fucked up head of hair. It also looked like someone went at his head with a vacuum cleaner, causing all his hair to stick up wildly in a bed-head like way. His eyes were dark green, like emeralds or foliage or something that I couldn't name, but even I had to admit they were gorgeous. He was looking at me unsmilingly, his eyebrow raised. "You okay?" he asked me. I sighed again.

"I'm fine. But let's get this stupid lab over with. Do you get what we're supposed to do?" He laughed and leaned forward onto his elbows.

"Are you serious?" I stared at him. "I learned this crap freshman year. Easy." I hid my relief as we got started. "Hand me that beaker, would you?" he asked me. I was distracted with reading the questions we had to answer on the lab report, so I handed him the beaker without looking. But I had forgotten I wasn't wearing gloves, so when his fingers brushed mine, I was sucked into a vision of his death.

He was in a dark alley, breathing heavily, his vision blurry from tears. Tears? He was staring at two men, both in black clothes with hoods over their heads. One just smiled at him, while the other pointed a gun at his chest, his finger already on the trigger. Something attempted to pull his gaze down to the ground in front of him but he refused to look. What is that? I wondered, wishing he'd just look down. "Want me to kill you like I killed your friend?" the thug with the gun asked. Finally, he looked down to see a body strewn out across the nasty ground in front of him. The body was slender, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a blue shirt with a red stain spreading across the front. Long brown hair was covering the face of whoever it was, but it didn't matter. He knew who it was. So did I. It's me! I screamed in my head, trying to get him to look back down when he met thug one and thug two's smug looks again.

"Fine. Kill me. You've already taken the only thing I have to live for." With a vicious smile, thug one pulled the trigger on the gun. The bullet sped towards him and hit him square in the chest. I was sucked out of the vision and thrown back into my own body again.

I gasped and scrambled away from the table, almost tripping over my chair in my haste to get away from Edward. He stared at me, his expression confused as I backed up even farther until I ran into another table. I clutched at my chest and looked down, expecting to see a bullet hole or blood. But all I saw was my dark purple sweatshirt. I looked back up at my lab partner, my eyes filling with terrified tears, before I turned and sprinted out of the room.

"Bella? Isabella Swan!" I ignored Mr. Banner and ran into the bathroom, hoping he'd let me stay here for the rest of the semester. I couldn't get the image of my bloody, lifeless body out of my head. How was I supposed to face Edward again? I didn't know if he caused my death or just witnessed it, but I wasn't too keen on finding out for real.

I buried my head in my hands and bit my tongue to hold back the tears. I'd seen countless deaths, most of them gruesome and cruel. But I'd never seen my own. I mean, I knew I was going to die just like everyone else, but I'd always hoped it'd be in my sleep or something. I never imagined I'd be shot by a man in an alley with the new kid as the only person who knew what had happened. That was the last thing I'd ever consider. But this was one death I could –and would- prevent, even if it meant dropping out of school so I never had to see Edward's face again.

There was a soft knock on the door, and I lifted my head. I didn't understand why whoever it was didn't just come in –it was a public restroom, after all. I walked to the door and opened it slowly, but let it shut again when I saw that it was Edward at the door. Mr. Banner must have thought he'd done something to cause my mental breakdown, and, well, he sort of had. "Bella? What the hell just happened?" he asked me, pushing the door open a crack. I leaned my body against it and slid down so I was sitting down on the floor, holding my knees to my chest. "Bella." He pushed on the door, but it didn't budge with the weight of my body against it. I'm sure he could have forced it open if he'd wanted to, but instead I heard what sounded like him sitting down against the other side of the door, so the wood was the only thing separating our backs.

Edward didn't say anything for a couple minutes, and I worked to control my breathing. Once I did, I leaned my head back against the wood and closed my eyes as tight as I could. "Go away!" I finally shouted through the door, upset beyond comprehension. And it wasn't like anything he had to say would make it any better. I held my breath for his response.

"Not going to happen, partner," he said. "Not until you talk to me."

"I'm not coming out until you leave!" I said angrily.

"And I'm not leaving until you come out. Looks like we've come to an impasse." I sighed and opened my eyes, trying to come up with a plan. The door was the only way out of the bathroom; there wasn't a back door or any windows I could crawl through. And the bell was going to ring in twenty minutes, which meant the bathroom was going to fill up with girls trying to fix their make-up and gossip without the chance of being overheard. I definitely didn't want to be sitting on the floor when they flooded in.

While I tried to think of an escape plan, I stalled. "Why did Mr. Banner send you?" I asked. I heard him shifting his weight against the door, which pushed me a couple of inches forward.

"We're lab partners. He thought I might know what the hell's wrong with you." I gritted my teeth and stood up, whirling around so I could grab the door handle. I pulled it open quickly and got a weird sense of pleasure at watching Edward tip backwards into the bathroom until he was laying on his back, looking up at me.

"You don't care what's wrong with me. No one does." I leaned down and sat on my ankles so I was closer to him, and narrowed my eyes. "And trust me when I say, if I told you what was wrong with me, you'd run like hell." I stood back up and stepped over him so I could walk down the hall. Instead of going back to class, I went towards the doors leading out into the courtyard separating the science wing of the school from the other buildings. I ignored the sound of Edward cursing as he stood up and the sound of his footsteps as he ran to catch up with me. He spun around and stopped in front of me, expecting me to stop so I didn't run into him. Instead, I stepped passed him and kept walking.

"Try me!" he said, matching my pace. His voice was angry and demanding, but I acted like he wasn't even there. When he realized I had no intentions of answering, he wrapped his fingers around my arm and pulled me to a stop. "Damn it, Bella, tell me what the hell happened. I think I have a right to know." I ripped my arm out of his grasp and stepped away.

"Don't ever touch me again," I growled. He held his hands up.

"Fine, you have a problem with physical contact. I get it. I won't touch you. But you owe me an explanation."

"Whatever. I don't owe you anything," I replied. Considering you watched me get shot and apparently didn't do a damn thing about it, I added in my head.

"Yeah, I think you do. Tell me why you ran out of Chemistry like a bat out of hell." He crossed his arms over his chest and stared me down, his dark eyes filled with anger. I exhaled loudly and decided I'd give him half of the truth, just enough to push him away so he'd leave me alone.

"I ran," I said, mirroring his pose with my arms crossed over my chest, "because you touched me." He snorted and stepped closer to me.

"Oh please. That's a bullshit explanation and you know it. Why don't you try again and tell me the real reason." I gritted my teeth again and resisted the urge to punch him in the face. I was sure my bare knuckles against his jaw would not only hurt me, but show me the vision again.

"Don't hold your breath, because that's all the explanation you're getting from me." I walked passed him, being sure not to let any of my skin touch his. I was hoping that I'd never have to see that vision, ever again. I mean, what was the point of me seeing a vision of something that I wasn't going to let happen? Besides, I didn't need to see it again . . . I remembered every single little detail.

I remembered the cold air against his skin, the smell of garbage and cat pee from the alley, the vicious looks on the thugs faces. The outfit I'd been wearing as I laid, lifeless, on the ground in front of him. The shape and exact color of the blood stain on my shirt. The sound of the gun as thug one pulled the trigger, and the slight pressure I'd felt on his chest before the vision ended. I remembered it all, even if I wanted to forget and act like it had never even happened.

All I wanted to do was curl up on my bed and cuddle with Mr. Puffer. And I wanted to let go of the tears I'd been holding in since Edward's fingers had brushed mine.

I listened hard for the sound of his footsteps behind me, relief flooding through me when I realized he wasn't following me. Maybe he understood that there was no chance I was telling him anything. My relief was short lived, though, when I heard him run up behind me. "Aha! I got it. I know why you freaked out when I touched you." I skidded to a stop and looked at him. There was no way he knew. It wasn't something he could just guess, right? Then why was my heart beating so hard, and my hand shaking so much?

"Oh yeah?" I asked. He nodded and grinned, his eyes sparkling. "And why's that?"

"Because," he murmured, stepping closer. I tucked my hands in my pockets and waited. "It made it hard for you to ignore your intense physical attraction to me." I stared at him in shock. When I realized he was completely serious, I doubled over and laughed until my sides hurt.

"Oops, you caught me!" I said sarcastically, laughing again. I thought he'd get pissed off. Hell, I'd hoped he'd get pissed off. Maybe then he'd leave me alone. But he just smiled and winked at me.

"Well, now you have to tell me what the real reason is." I stopped laughing immediately and looked at him, shaking my head. His smile widened. "Come on! We had an agreement that if I could make you smile, you'd tell me." I raised my eyebrow.

"And when did I agree to this?" He winked at me again and shrugged.

"It was unspoken." I snorted and continued walking, not surprised when he matched my pace again. "Please, Bella? Just tell me! The curiosity will be the death of me." When I still didn't say anything, he continued. "And if I die, you'll have to do all of those hard chemistry labs by yourself." I giggled despite the irony of him talking about his death, and saw the sides of his lips pull up out of the corner of my eye. "Why won't you tell me?" I sighed and stopped, turning to face him. I leaned back against the wall.

"It's not that I won't, Edward. It's that I can't." His eyebrows pulled low over his eyes in confusion, and I tried to think of a way to explain it to him without telling him what I saw. "You see, I have this . . . condition. But if I told you about it, not only would you not believe me, you'd probably think I was crazy and lock me up." He opened his mouth to speak but I held up my hand to cut him off. "I know what you're going to say. But trust me. You wouldn't believe me. Bye, Edward."

"Wait, where are you going?" he asked as I walked towards the door.

"Ditching," I replied before I pulled open the door and left the school. He didn't follow me, and I was relieved. I may have told him too much already, but I just wanted him to drop it. I was hoping he'd forget all about it by the next time I saw him. I sighed yet again.

My life went from livable to a mess in the matter of a class period.

It took me twice as long to walk home as it usually did, because there was so much shit going through my head. I was determined to not let the vision happen, but every time I promised myself it wouldn't, the question 'what if it does?' went through my head. I had no control over it, like it wasn't even my own thoughts. Instead, I tried to think about the new rumors that were sure to spread through the school about me. I'd had a major cow in chemistry class, and then disappeared for the rest of the day . . . if it hadn't been me, and if I had anyone to talk to, I would have been gossiping about it, too.

My day from hell got worse when I got home, and realized my mom hadn't left for work yet. She was in the kitchen, talking to someone on the phone. I leaned against the wall and listened to her side of the conversation.

"Yeah, I've been thinking about it!" she said. "I don't know. We don't get along all that well, but I don't know if I want to send her away . . . No, she didn't." I knew she was talking about me. I just knew it. My stomach twisted into knots, and it felt like my heart jumped into my throat. I may not like my mother, but I did not want to be sent away. To anywhere. "Let me think about this, Phil." Phil? Who's Phil? "Yeah, I have to go. I'm already late for work." I heard her put the phone on the receiver and the legs of her chair scraped across the linoleum of the kitchen floor. To keep from getting caught, I spun around and darted silently out the front door. I hid around the side of the house until her car pulled away.

After I made myself something to eat and sat on the couch, I let my brain wander again. Who the hell was Phil? And why was he trying to get my mom to send me away? Did she hate me enough to actually go through with it? Besides the whole 'condition' thing I had, I wasn't a trouble maker. I got A's and B's in school, never got into fights, didn't smoke, drink or do drugs. I took care of my cat and did my own laundry. Aside from the fact that I was a weird loner chick, I was actually better behaved than most people my age. So why would my mom even consider sending me away?

"Because you're not perfect," I whispered to myself. Then, I buried my face in a couch pillow and cried, hugging Mr. Puffer to me when he jumped up onto my lap.

For the rest of the day, I sulked around my house, searching for my missing glove. I found it in one of Mr. Puffer's favorite hiding places: buried under the litter in his litter box. I made a face as I shook it out as best as I could, but I realized quickly that I'd have to wash it.

"Damn it, Mr. Puffer," I said, shaking my fingers at him. He looked up at me, puffed himself up, and then fell over. I giggled and scratched his head. As I did the laundry, I started thinking about Edward. He was an okay guy, I supposed, and definitely not ugly. But every time I thought of him, I thought of the vision, and had to push the thoughts out of my head before I started hyperventilating. "This sucks," I muttered to myself. Now I was partnered in Chemistry with the guy who may very well be the death of me . . . literally.

Chapter two! Already :D

I know I said I was going to post this before Monday, and I planned on posting it tomorrow night. But, turns out, I'm going out of town tonight to visit some family, and they don't have wifi at their house -hello, can you join this century, right? So here it is, a day earlier than I had originally intended. At least I'm keeping my promise :)

Thank you for reading, and I hope you liked it! R&R and all that fun stuff, because it makes me happy!