So I wasn't expecting to get as many reviews as I did but thank you so much! I hope this chapter kind of makes up for the boringness of last chapter. At least there's Edward in this one—oops, I've spoiled it.
ALSO: My Brand of Heroin has been nominated at www(dot)twilightawards(dot)this-paradise(dot)com for Best Angst! Whoever nominated me you rock like there's no tomorrow. I've seen who I'm up against so it's kind of a lost cause but if you liked MBoH, I would majorly love it if you would vote for me! : ) Thanks!
The rain lessened fractionally on my second night in Forks so I managed to get a little more sleep than the previous night. Once again, Charlie was already gone to the police station before I was up so I was greeted to an empty kitchen when I came downstairs. I couldn't blame him. Before I arrived two days ago, Charlie's life was—is—at the station. It was his family.
I found myself, as I drove to school, wondering if this was what it was going to be like for the next two years. It was already feeling redundant and it was only the second day. Is that normal?
Alice was there in second period, already sitting. I tried to mask my surprise when she greeted me wholeheartedly as I sat down. I wasn't expecting to still hold her interest as a friend but I was glad because I enjoyed Alice's company, along with Jasper and Emmett… I wasn't sure what to think about Rosalie at that point.
"Hey, Bella!" she said brightly.
"Hey, Alice." Alice got right down to business.
"Bella, I need to know something very important that I stupidly forgot to ask yesterday. This is serious and I need you to think hard about it," Alice said with wide eyes.
I grew worried, naturally. "What is it?"
"Do… you like to shop?" she said slowly and emphasized. I felt my upper lip slowly curl over my lip in disgust. There just had to be a catch, didn't there?
"Um…" Alice saw my look of distaste and squinted her eyes. "Not-not really, Alice, sorry."
Alice chewed this over for a moment and then she shrugged her dainty little shoulders. "That's all right, you'll learn to love it." I almost laughed until I saw the serious look on her face. Oh God…
Lunch came and I was once again sitting with my four newly acquired friends. They seemed to welcome me into the their group quickly, as if I hadn't just met them yesterday. I had learned that my assumption was correct with Rosalie and Jasper. They were twins and lived a couple minutes away from me. While Alice and Emmett were cousins but they bickered like siblings. They practically were brother and sister because they lived in the same house. Emmett's parents adopted Alice after her parents—Emmett's aunt and uncle—were killed in a car crash when she was four. They also didn't live to far away from me.
"Rose, I'm thinking a shopping trip is in order for after school," Alice said excitedly.
"Sounds good," Rosalie replied. I looked away as they planned their shopping trip. Even though I didn't like shopping, I felt the pang of hurt over not being included. I guess I was just a friend in school.
"And it's a Friday so we can have a sleepover…" Alice's squealing voice was tuned out as my eyes landed on a table a little way over, near the back of the cafeteria. There was only one occupant and I had a clear view of the person.
He was striking. The only colour I could place with his hair was bronze as it shone under the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. His bronze head was bent down, over his tray of food so it wasn't necessarily his looks that were capturing me but I could already tell that he was painfully good looking.
I groaned quietly as he lifted his head up. Good looking seemed like such a ridiculous understatement. His face alone held so many emotions and expressions it was difficult to grasp. His eye colour was unclear from my position but the two orbs seemed to study his surroundings, though in a bored manner, as if this was something he did every day and was growing tired of doing.
My thoughts wondered why he was sitting by himself. Surely he had girls left and right wanting him, did he not even have a guy friend? Yet there he sat, completely solitary. Did he choose this? My thoughts centered around this stranger as Alice brought me back from my staring.
"Bella?"
"Hm?" I turned to Alice.
"I asked, what kind of restaurant do you want to go to tonight? You pick," Alice chirped.
My brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"
She sighed, exasperated. I was still in a sort of daze. Half of my mind was still on the bronze haired boy and the other was wondering why I was going to a restaurant tonight. "Well, there's an Italian restaurant we can go to. Do you like Italian?" I nodded mutely. "Good, that's decided."
"Wait, why am I going to a restaurant tonight?" I voiced.
"Honey, if you think you'll be able to shop with me and not get tired and hungry you've got a rude awakening coming," Alice giggled.
"It's true," Rosalie hummed.
"Oh." So I should be terrified. Not only for Alice's shopping strategies but… Rosalie would be there. Did she like me yet? I shrugged the thought off and my eyes unconsciously shifted back to the lone god sitting tables away. Alice caught me looking that time and I saw her smirk out of the corner of my eye. I gathered up my dignity and asked the question, close to her ear so the others couldn't overhear. "Who is that?" There was no need for me to gesture to whom I was wondering about.
Alice smirk bloomed into a full out smile and she, thankfully, made sure I was the only one to hear. "That's Edward Masen." The smirk was back. I scowled and made a motion for her to elaborate. I didn't know what was coming over me but it couldn't be natural, could it?
"Well, what?" Alice shrugged. "No one knows much about him. He doesn't talk to many people. He's maybe said five words to me in passing—he was in my English class last year. Gosh, that was a bad year. Mr. MacDonald was so boring, I didn't learn a thing and my hair—"
"Alice!" I barked, irritated.
"Right, sorry. Um… he moved here two years ago…? Sorry, that's all I've got." I nodded my head absentmindedly. Alice returned to her conversation about shopping with Rosalie that I was apparently attending tonight and I returned to looking at… Edward. I liked that name. I made sure to look away every once and a while as to not look like a complete stalker but it was difficult for my attention to stay grounded at the table I was sitting at when the words being spoken were either centered around clothes or, in the boys' case, some sports game that happened last night.
When I looked up again to his table he was looking at me. Curiosity was evident on his face. I remembered that he hadn't been present in school on my first day when I was spotlighted—it had died down marginally today—so of course he'd be merely wondering what I was doing here, right? Something registered with him and then another expression flashed across his face. That was all I could take; his stare was too intense. It felt like he was able to dissect me, picking apart all of my thoughts, my emotions, everything. I was flushing a fierce blush when I returned my attention back to our table but by that time the bell had rung for the end of lunch.
Edward, I noticed, remained sitting as I stood up with my tray piled with garbage--mostly Emmett's as he inconspicuously moved most of his trash onto my tray during lunch while I humoured him in pretending I didn't notice. He took his time gathering his things, at a leisurely pace. My time for studying him was up, though, much to my displeasure, as the five of us filed out of the cafeteria to our respective classrooms.
I trudged to biology, dreading the next hour that I would spend with Mike. He didn't let me down when I entered the classroom and he was sat waiting for me with his ever overly eager greeting. I sat down, mumbling an acknowledgement as I tried to busy myself. Unfortunately, I didn't have any homework to catch on so I tried to make my doodling look like it was holding my absolute attention to hopefully ward of Mike. Why wasn't the bell ringing??
A throat was cleared from my left and I knew it wasn't Mike. I looked up and my mouth just about dropped but I closed it in time for no one to notice. Edward is in my class. But why was he standing by Mike? Edward raised his eyebrows at him and Mike let out a groan of frustration. No words were exchanged so I was completely confused.
Mike gathered his belongings dramatically, mumbling unfinished sentences like 'Masen' and '…usually gone longer.'
My face still held confusion as I watched Mike go scurry over to Jessica's table and sit beside her where she had formally been alone today and the day before. Was that why she was giving me the death glare? Mike had come to sit with me instead of his usual seat. That only made him more annoying and I glowered in his direction.
The sound, though minimal, of Edward sitting down beside me brought me back and caught my full attention. Now that I had a perfect view of him, I noticed just how defined his features were. He had a sharp jaw line and prominent cheekbones but my eyes kept returning to his hair with the unordinary but beautiful colour. As he moved around in his seat, bringing a notebook onto the top of the lab table I saw his muscles flex in his arms thanks to the black long sleeved t-shirt he wore with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
My ogling went on for only seconds, though it seemed like hours, as Edward turned to me. I blushed, wondering if he realized that I was blatantly staring at him but the thoughts came to an abrupt stop when I saw his eyes. They were a brilliant emerald green that I felt hypnotized to. He opened his mouth and I held my breath as I waited to hear the sound of his voice.
"Hello, I'm Edward." I was not disappointed. I was baffled for a second by his musical voice that I didn't say anything right away. He took it upon himself to finish the introductions. "You must be Bella."
I blushed again at hearing him say my name—wait. "Ye—how did you know my name? I mean, to call me Bella."
His eyes shifted over to Mike. "Your friend, Mike, has been very vocal about your… relationship with him to anyone who's willing to bend an ear… or unwilling." He arched an eyebrow, as if waiting for me to contradict what he stated. I couldn't even form words. I tried to resist gagging and I sharply turned to where Mike was staring straight ahead and glared at the side of his face. Not a second later, he turned to me and saw me seething. His eyes widened and he turned back to the front of the class. Oh, he definitely knew I knew.
"We're not really—" I tried. I tried setting Edward straight for reasons that were unknown to me. It was either that I felt the strong need to squash any rumour going around that Mike and I were an item—and it was only my second day! Come on!—or I felt the possibly as strong as need to make sure Edward in particular knew that there really was no 'relationship' with Mike. I don't know. Forks would surely drive me to the brink of insanity.
He cut me off. "Hey, it's fine. I'm not judging," he said but I could see the smile he was suppressing which mad me narrow my eyes. I made a noise that sounded a lot like a growl and the corners of his mouth only twitched more in amusement.
I hate Forks.
"I hate Forks!" I announced as Alice met up with me outside of school after last period. I had been bottling it up for two periods and was in dire need for a good rant. I didn't even care that the statement might be offending to her since she, obviously, lived in Forks for her entire life.
Alice only looked amused, though. "And why is that?"
"It's only my second day here and already the entire school probably thinks I'm some easy floozy or… something like that—I don't know! Have you heard what Mike's been saying? Has it spread?" I asked desperately. I didn't let her talk. "And Edward probably think I'm some lunatic… honestly, growling?" I was talking to myself now, mumbling nonsense but Alice heard every word I said.
"First of all, yes, I've heard and no one believes it." My look of horror turned to relief.
"How come?"
"'Cause it's Mike," she said, like a two year old would have known that. Her face then lit up. "Second of all… Edward, you say?"
I groaned. "Never mind, I was just… acting like a fool. But that doesn't give him the right to… he pretended to believe that!" I cried indignantly. None of what I was saying probably made sense but I was irked. Stupid Edward had intentionally pissed me off. Maybe that's why he had no friends; his head's too big to let anyone close to him, the egotistical jerk. All the while that I was trying to think of reasons to dislike Edward—believe me, it's hard when you you're trying to hate a face like his—Alice was staring at me. We had reached Rosalie in the parking lot.
"Ooookay," Alice finally spoke after I had finally shut up. She turned to Rosalie. "Bella is officially out of commission. I'm going to drive with her to her house so she can drop her stuff off in case she, I don't know, forgets to drive while the car is in motion. You follow us there and then we'll go to Port Angeles?"
Rosalie nodded and slid smoothly into her red BMW. The boys had already left in Emmett's jeep.
"Thanks, Alice," I said sarcastically but she ignored me and skipped around to the passenger door. She hopped up into the cab and waited for me to scramble in.
"Come on, Come on," she urged as we drove to my house. "Can't this thing go any faster?" she asked as she rapped her knuckles on the dashboard. "We're wasting valuable shopping my time.
I rolled my eyes but my smile gave me away. "No, Alice, this thing doesn't go any faster."
She huffed. "Don't think I've forgotten about Edward," Alice muttered.
My truck slowed as I heard this and Rosalie's car horn from behind me had to alert me to just how slow I was going. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, pressing more on the gas.
She looked at me slyly from the corner of her eye, "Just… keep it in mind." I grumbled under my breath; tonight would be a long night.
When we arrived at my house, Rosalie was right behind us. She stepped out of her car and slammed the door shut. "Could you drive any slower?" she asked bitterly.
I decided to ignore that and dashed inside to chuck my book bag into my room, packed an overnight bag and called Charlie to ask permission to stay the night at Alice's. He consented.
I walked back outside to see Rosalie and Alice leaning against the convertible, waiting for me. Alice's face lit up like Christmas lights when she saw that I was ready and she pushed me along when she noticed that I wasn't moving with quite the same enthusiasm as her… then again, Rosalie really wasn't either but I think that might've been because I was tagging along on this trip.
We arrived in Port Angeles in a little under an hour and headed right to the mall. Apparently, shopping came before food.
Overall, it was a terrifying ordeal. I did manage to get the warmer clothes I had wanted… along with half a dozen other outfits forced upon me by Alice. When I refused to pay for an outfit by the third one, she started paying for them. The only reason I couldn't stop her from paying was because she got Rosalie to hold me back.
On the bright side of the trip, Rosalie was almost, sort of, kind of warming up to me. I don't know what did it. Maybe because it was just us girls or that we were out of the school environment but whatever I was doing or saying… it was working. I could only hope that the sleepover would further progress Rosalie's better attitude towards me.
We went back to Alice's house for the sleepover where we stayed up to the early hours of the morning. I told them a little more about me and they reciprocated the act. Alice's interrogating on the Edward subject didn't last too long; I made sure of it. But she was sure that deep down I was harbouring feelings for him. I simply scoffed at whatever they said about it... yes, even Rosalie joined in on the tactics.
We lost Rosalie for half the night, though, due to Emmett's presence in the house. Even I was a bit annoyed at this because Rosalie was actually okay to be around when she wasn't so icy but not as annoyed as Alice. But then again, Rosalie and I would have had the same problem if we had gone to Rosalie's house instead where Jasper was.
I thanked God it was Friday because we wouldn't be getting up until the afternoon the next day.
It's been a couple days since I posted the first chapter…I was hoping I could update earlier but my Internet wasn't working (age old excuse, eh? but it's true) and by the time it was working… I wasn't aloud on it because my parents have ganged up on me. So unfair. I hope to get at least the same amount of reviews as last chapter, it would mean a lot if you could review and tell me your thoughts. Thanks again!
blinding.rainbows