A/N:

Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns the plot and characters of Twilight, not to mention all the money it makes. I make nothing but fanfiction.

Chapter 8 - "You Probably Have Better Places To Be"

Saturday night, Rosalie and I were forced into awkward conversation until we were eventually forgotten completely. Carlisle and Esme had more than just hit it off. They had fallen into animated conversation about their favourite books, movies and works of art as though they were long-lost friends. Rosalie and I had fallen silent and stared at our parents, sometimes with wonder, sometimes with disgust. At one point we exchanged a glance, and I could see so much of my own internal frustration and indecision about watching this mirrored in her own eyes that I smiled at her in support. She had apparently sensed it, too, and had smiled back, and a strange silent camaraderie was formed. Eventually, I gently reminded Carlisle that it was late, and we should go, and he looked abashed and ashamed as he hurriedly agreed, assuring and reassuring Esme that we'd had a wonderful time, and that her home was lovely, and Rosalie was a fine young lady.

I had rolled my eyes at that part, and Rosalie had grinned and promised to see me at school on Monday. Where we shall not speak of this night, I silently added.

Carlisle hummed to himself for the better part of the drive home, which I had to endure in the passenger seat of his Mercedes instead of in the driver's seat of my own car. "She's lovely, isn't she? And quite the cook."

Oh boy. Here it came. "Yeah, Dad. She seemed really nice."

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "If you like, we can have them over to dinner next week. Sort of return the favor."

I groaned internally. "Listen, Dad, why don't you take her out someplace instead? I mean, our house isn't even fully furnished yet, and neither one of us really cooks. Doesn't it just make more sense?"

Carlisle blinked at me in surprise before clearing his throat and shifting nervously in his seat. "Of course. Where would you like to go?"

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not going, obviously. And neither is Rosalie." Carlisle opened his mouth to speak, and I beat him to it. "She likes you, okay? Just ask her out already. She'll say yes, I guarantee it."

There was an emotion I couldn't quite place in Carlisle's face when he looked at me again. It reminded me of when my mother had first died, and Carlisle had looked at me as though unsure what to do with me now.

"I'm okay with it," I promised him. "I don't mind you dating her."

He swallowed and cleared his throat, turning back to the road. "Thanks, son." I thought I saw his eyes glisten, but of course it was just the light. Cullen men didn't fucking cry.

***

Sunday I was woken up by the buzzing of my phone. Who the fuck was calling me so early? I answered with a garbled sound that couldn't really be called a 'hello'.

"Jeez, Cullen, you're not Sleeping Beauty you know."

Bella! My mind reeled and tried to awaken my battered thoughts. I tried sitting up in bed, but that didn't help. "Bella?" Disoriented was one thing, but come on! You knew that part already!

"Yeah, Bella. You know what time it is?" She spoke slowly, like to a mentally incompetent child.

I checked my bedside clock. "Um. Noon?"

She chuckled. "Yeah, noon. Very good. Rough night?"

I rubbed my face in an attempt to clear my head. "Um, not so much. I guess it could've been worse."

She laughed. "So Esme didn't get drunk and throw herself at Rose in tears?"

I winced. Was that what I should have been looking for? And to think I had been merely worried about her interactions with my father. "No, no one got drunk, no one threw themselves anywhere and no one cried. I think she and Carlisle are going to see each other again."

She was quiet for a while, then, "Esme is a good person. Just known to get a little wild is all."

I nodded before realizing she couldn't see me. "Yeah, I guess I can understand that." I cleared my throat. I'd been meaning to ask, but there seemed to be no right way to bring it up with Rosalie. And yet, I was curious. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself to ask Bella, and the question came out in a rush. "Where's Rosalie's dad?"

Bella snorted. "Seattle. I'm surprised you haven't heard. It was quite the Forks scandal."

I frowned. "What happened?"

"Rosalie's dad is Howard Hale, the owner and president of Hale Tech."

Whoa. "That huge electronics conglomerate?"

"One and the same. Esme did some work for him and they ended up having an affair. He was already married with three kids, and when she got pregnant it was a huge deal covering it up. Esme promised to keep it out of the news so long as he supported his daughter and let her inherit from him. She's in his will and everything, so apparently she's setting up to strike it rich when he's dead. But she never sees him; they don't have contact at all. She says she gets all the benefits of a loaded dad without any of the hassle."

I absorbed this information. It sounded like more of those rumors, those hearsay things I had heard about Bella from Lauren, but Bella and Rosalie had been friends for so long, and Bella didn't spread gossip. It was so out of character I couldn't even picture her doing it. "So Esme Platt…"

"Was never married." Bella sighed, and I could almost hear her wondering whether to tell me more. "Listen," she finally spoke, and I frowned at the tone of her voice. "I'm only telling you this because your dad's getting involved with her. You repeat it and I'll end you, got that?"

"Sure," I muttered, skeptical.

"Rose says her mom really loved Howard Hale. That it broke her heart what he did and how he treated her. She says it's probably why Esme's never let anyone in. She doesn't want to get hurt again. You understand?"

I frowned. "Yeah, I understand."

She sighed. "Poor Rose, she's probably all sorts of fucked up about this."

I snorted. "This is the part where you tell me she's a little tough on the outside, but she's still a good person, and I should be nice to her, isn't it?"

She gave a snort of her own in response. "Fuck no! Rose is a raving bitch, and if anything, I'll need to ask her to be nice to you!" She gave a little giggle that made me smile. "Then again, it's why I love her so."

I laughed in wonder. "You are a strange girl. I don't know how your brain works."

She giggled again. "Good." There was a pause. "I'm sorry about ditching you like that Friday. No hard feelings, right?"

I smiled. "No hard feelings at all. Jasper was worried about you. I understand that."

She laughed nervously. So strange, hearing her nervous. "We're still on for Seattle then? We're thinking Friday we'll leave right after school. You'll come, right?"

"Of course." Too eager? "Sure, I got nothing else planned anyway."

"Hmm." She sighed then and her voice brightened. "So you'll come pick me up for school tomorrow?"

My heart fluttered. "You want me to?"

"Yeah." Her voice was surprised. "Well, I still don't have my car back anyway, so I could use a ride." Was she shy? Over-eager like I was?

"I'll pick you up," I reassured her. "Bring more of your CDs."

She laughed, a sound of relief and genuine delight. "I'll do that. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Sure thing."

"Bye, Edward."

That night she asked me again if I loved her, and the Bella of my dreams walked away towards the dark end of a tunnel. At its entrance, a man stood in the shadows, and she took his arm and walked away without looking back.

***

Monday morning I overslept. She was sitting on her porch when I arrived, frantic, mere minutes before the bell was due to ring at school. She had her hands in the pocket of her jacket – my jacket – and was staring intently at her sneakers. She looked up with a blank expression when I parked, and got up slowly, dragging her feet to my car as she continued to stare at her sneakers. When she got in the car, I peeled out of her driveway before she even got the door shut all the way.

"I'm so sorry, Bella. I know we're late. I overslept, and that almost never happens. Are you mad?" Of course, she's mad. She's Bella fucking Swan. She's furious. Oh God. She's going to shave my head. I whimpered – don't fucking judge me because Bella Swan would make you whimper, too, if she was mad at your sleeping ass – and glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She was staring at her lap, her hands still in her pockets. She shrugged, not looking up or acknowledging that I'd spoken with any other word or action.

I swallowed convulsively, terrified by her silence. Any minute now she was going to pull out a knife or a set of brass knuckles or something and I was gonna get it. Any minute now…

I nearly missed the entrance to the school parking in my panic. When I parked, the lawn was empty. Everyone was already in class. She sat silently beside me, and I realized she hadn't moved since she got in. "Bella?"

She looked up at me, almost like she was surprised I'd spoken to her.

"Are you okay?"

She blinked and dropped her gaze, looking at my chest instead of my eyes. She opened her mouth and closed it, shook her head and shrugged again. We sat in a long silence, me waiting for her to speak, her for who knew what reason. "I'm not someone you should spend time with, Edward."

Fuck. She knew I liked her. She still fucking hated me. She was going to kill me. I gaped at her and decided to play dumb. "I don't… think I really… I don't understand."

"I know, I just…" She bit her lip, still not looking at my eyes, and my heart surged with discomfort and panic. "I just can't help who I am."

I nodded. Maybe this wasn't about me. What a foreign thought… I had no idea what she was talking about, but the words escaped, "I like who you are." Shit. Did I just say that out loud?

She looked at me with wide shocked eyes, her mouth open in a little "O" shape of surprise and disbelief. She clapped her hands over it, and I saw there, just on the very tops of her cheeks, the most beautiful blush I'd ever seen on a human being. Her face turned rosy and her eyes sparkled, and I swallowed because dammit, she was dazzling me again, and I really wanted to just kiss her…

And I was leaning in and she had her hand over my lips all of a sudden, and her eyes were still wide and sparkling and she was still blushing, but she looked determined and angry and terrified, and I could feel her pulse through her fingers over my lips.

"Shut up! Just shut up! Because you don't know the first thing about me, and maybe I eat puppies for breakfast and spread small pox infected blankets around during my spare time, and you don't know, so how can you say that?"

She removed her hand from my mouth, blushing some more and looking at her hands in her lap, and I wanted to touch her or hold her or something, and make her happy, just a little bit if I could. But her blush deepened and then she was pushing her door open and walking briskly – she stumbled once and my entire body jerked in reaction, my fingers reaching out to catch her – and disappearing into the woods on the edge of the school grounds. I had a sudden feeling that I'd lost her somehow. Which was crazy. Because I never had her, and I couldn't follow her no matter how much I wanted to.

***

My day was grey, the haze everywhere. I dragged my feet from class to class, knowing that whatever brief respite of joy Bella had given me through her company was good and over now. Just when I started thinking we could be something. Just when I started thinking I had a chance. I sat at lunch with my shoulders drooping, my world tunnel visioned into the small space between my hands, resting on the table top the way Bella's hands always seemed to be. The thought just made me feel stupid. It made me feel like a joke. It made the inner pussy cry. Alice put her tiny white hand on mine, her fingers cold, and I looked up to see her sympathetic eyes. Jasper looked… smug. The bastard. I wanted to punch his face in suddenly. I wondered if it would make me feel better, but Alice's wide eyed stare held me back, her little hand weighing me down.

In biology class, Lauren turned around completely and faced me, her eyes darting nervously to Bella's empty seat and the door, her flirtatious smile wobbling uncertainly in the face of my dead demeanor. She had to take me by the arm and physically lead me to my next class, and I let her with as much life as I'd had doing anything else. And then the day was over, and I knew it was time to go home, but I couldn't bring myself out of the stupor enough to walk to my car. I stood by my locker until the halls were empty, then I sat down right there on the floor, not ready to face the thick scent of her all over the inside of my car.

"Edward?"

I looked up, astonished, to see her standing there. She was a vision, her hair dripping wet, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of the jacket that I gave her, an extension of myself. She was looking at me with puzzled eyes, her full lips at the mercy of her little white teeth, and her face flushed with something. Cold. Excitement. Exertion. Embarrassment. I should be the one that was embarrassed. I felt my own cheeks heating, and I knew I was blushing, too.

She blinked and looked away, making a stiff uncomfortable gesture with her shoulders. "I'm ready to go home now if you are."

Lifeline. Hope. Maybe even more. Maybe something special. I don't know what I felt, but the smile I gave her suddenly was easy, was natural, like I'd been waiting all day to hear her say those words. I nodded, standing up and pushing my own hands into my pockets to keep them from doing anything presumptuous or stupid. I walked by her to the car, and every step was joy and agony rolled into one. When we were both seated in my Volvo, her scent blasted at me in waves, her essence echoing around the space like a trapped sound wave. Bella. Bella. Bella. Fucking Bella. She was going to be the death of me, this small, fragile, crazy and dangerous little girl. No, not a little girl, not really. Woman. Almost full-grown. I maybe hadn't ever met someone like that before. I maybe wanted her because she was different like that. Dangerous, stupid and almost full-grown. Bella. Bella. Bella.

"I know I'm not perfect," she whispered once, quietly, staring at her hands folded in her lap, playing with the sleeves of my jacket. "I just can't keep trying and failing anymore." Almost like she was talking to herself. Almost like she was pretending I wasn't there. And maybe it was easier for her to talk to me that way, but at least she was talking to me. At least she didn't hate me. The thought of saying the wrong thing kept me from saying anything at all.

And then I was pulling up in her drive and my heart sank. No cruiser. But there was her truck. And there was a big black motorcycle. And there was a tall, smug-looking Jacob Black. Bella hissed beside me, chewing her lower lip, but not getting out of the car. I waited for her to say something. I waited for her to make the next move.

Jacob Black was watching her with raised eyebrows, his face looking smug, but his eyes flashing dangerously. The way he looked at her, like he was reading her mind and bored by what he found there, it made my skin crawl. I wanted to punch him in the teeth.

"Thanks for the ride, Edward," she whispered, and I turned to look at her, stunned. That was it? Just thanks and then going back to whatever the fuck she had up her ass before she invaded my car and my life? Before she sprayed her hair smell all over my fucking seats?

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I snapped, and my heart beat wildly as I realized that I really would lose her at this rate, even the little gaps of time we shared, everything would be gone, and she'd be out of my life like some passing infection.

She looked at me and her eyes were dead, empty, silent and deep. "What do you want me to say? My truck is fixed, and you're not stuck with me anymore. You don't have to inflict my company on your sorry self." She turned abruptly and was out of the car before I could blink, walking towards Jacob Black with her eyes on her feet, walking away from me.

She walked right into Jacob Black's waiting arms, and he scooped her up to plant a kiss on the corner of her mouth. She blushed but didn't smile back. "You haven't been to see me in too long, Bells. I had to drive up and get you myself." And he grinned at me.

"Bella!" I didn't even realize I'd gotten out of the car, but she was looking at me again, her eyes shocked, her face an animated sculpture of surprise. Jacob Black grinned wider as I came closer, placing his hand on the back of her neck, cupping it possessively as he played with the curly strands of hair there.

"You're the new kid, aren't you?"

I looked at him with annoyance. "Right. And you're Jacob Black."

He threw his head back and laughed, and Bella bit her lip and blushed some more. I suppressed a growl, because it should have been my hand on the back of her neck, stroking it tenderly instead of tightening my grip on it. "I guess my reputation precedes me, then. I assure you, most of it is untrue." He winked at me in an exaggerated gesture of familiarity and friendliness.

I stiffened and suppressed another growl. Something about this guy just rubbed me the wrong way. Natural enemies or some biological polarity. Something. He made my blood boil, and it took every ounce of willpower in my being to not throw myself at him in a fit of rage for touching her like that, like she was his, like everyone present knew it.

"So how do you like Forks so far, Edward?"

He wasn't seriously making small talk. "Fine. Some parts of it better than others."

He grinned, his teeth straight and white, and God I wanted to punch him. "I hope Bella here hasn't been giving you toohard a time. She can be feisty sometimes, see." He rubbed her neck possessively again and she ducked her head as though to shrug him off, though his hand remained firmly in place. "But once you get to know the right buttons, she can be sweet as a lamb." He grinned wider, pulling her closer so she was practically buried into his side.

I made a fist and ignored the ringing in my ears. My eyes stayed focused on Bella's face, her cheeks red and her big brown eyes looking at my shoes, and I silently begged her to do something, to say something, to deny Jacob Black the sick pleasure I knew he was gleaning from taunting me like this. She wouldn't meet my gaze. Maybe she couldn't.

With a last curt nod and a strangled sound that might have been a word of farewell, I turned on my heel and left, not looking back as I raced out of the driveway and put as much distance as I could between Bella and myself, as fast as my Volvo would take me from her, and away from Jacob Black's long copper fingers wrapped around her slender pale neck.

***

Chapter 8.5 - -

"Alice?"

"Hello?"

Her voice was confused on the phone, sort of dazed and caught off-guard. I cleared my throat nervously. "Hey, Alice, it's Edward. Bad time?"

"Oh!" There was a dull thud and a soft curse. "No, not a bad time. I just wasn't… you know." She laughed nervously, and I did the same. How did I manage to find these scenarios of perfect awkwardness?

"Well, I wanted to ask you something, if it's all right with you?" I made it sound like a question, hoping the shy uncertainty would win me some brownie points. Girls loved that shit, and Alice was a girl, so I saw no problem with my reasoning.

She clicked her tongue, sighing. "Is this about Bella again?"

I winced. That transparent, huh? Beautiful. "Sort of. It's mostly about Jacob Black?" I again made a question.

Alice hissed through her teeth. "Jesus, Edward, you trying to get yourself killed? Jasper would shoot you if he heard you talking about Black." She clicked her tongue again, and I waited patiently. "Why do you ask?"

I cleared my throat. To lie or not to lie? To lie, perchance to have it bite you in the ass? Aye, there's the rub. "He made an appearance today when I dropped Bella home. I get a… bad vibe off him. I don't know, it doesn't make sense that Jasper would look the other way on this shit and yet rip my head off for driving the girl to school." I stopped myself when I realized what I was saying, who I was saying it about and who I was saying it to. There was an awkward pause and I filled it with an embarrassed admittance. "It's not like I stick my tongue down her throat." Or ever will at this rate. Fucking smooth operator that I am.

The silence on Alice's end was deafening, though when I strained my ears I could hear her breathing pick up. "Well Black is… mostly harmless… I guess. I don't know, Edward, he and Bella have known each other since they were babies." I knew this already but said nothing. "He isn't good for Bella. He was very possessive about her, I guess. We weren't really friends when they were together, but Rosalie told me some of the story later. Like, Black's got an unhealthy obsession with her or something. Like if anyone tried to move in on her he'd lose his freaking mind."

I suppressed a snort. Sounded like Jasper to me. "So why doesn't Bella ditch him?"

Alice sighed. "I don't know. But I think Rosalie made it sound like she owes him something or… I don't know. I just don't know." And just like that I knew the conversation was over. I sighed into the phone, and Alice sighed back. "I'm sorry, Edward. But maybe you're going to have to figure the rest out on your own."

Yeah. Maybe I did.

***

For the next two days Bella didn't show up to school. Jasper and I sat in tense silence, avoiding looking at one another because fuck, one of us was going to get punched in the face and really fucking soon. At this point, we weren't really fooling each other, and from the looks on their faces and the awkward conversations at lunch, we weren't fooling anyone else either.

I skipped last period and went home early, too annoyed and angry and confused to put myself through calculus. I drove blindly, only able to focus a small part of my attention on what I was doing and secretly hoping for a fatal accident so I could just be done with it. This shit was getting old. As I pulled up to my empty garage, I was just congratulating myself on getting home without hurting myself or Jasper, when I spotted someone at the door, the sight of which just floored me.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

A shrug. "I figured you'd be at school for another hour or so."

"So that makes it okay for you to be here then, so long as no one is home?"

She gave me her bored half-smile and my heart rate picked up. "You want me to leave?"

I cursed myself and scrubbed my hand through my hair, because fuck, I didn't want her to leave. Because I fucking missed her, and I had wanted to see her, but she had left me high and dry and I was a man! Shit, men never took that fuckery. I said nothing.

When the silence stretched into uncomfortable, Bella sighed, producing a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, and it wasn't the jacket I'd given her. It was some hideous denim affair with large copper buttons, and it looked like shit, but she wore it like some fucking Gia Carangi reincarnation, and it looked hot and I hated that. I had wanted her to only look hot in my jacket. She lit up and offered me the pack without looking at me, and I tensely took a stick, letting her light it for me. "I'll go."

And she brushed past me and suddenly, there was a wave of Bella smell, and the oranges and flowers were all around me and everywhere and before I knew it I had her by the arms, and her back was pressed into my chest and my cigarette was burning a hole through my porch but I didn't care. Don't go. You always fucking go. Don't go.

I couldn't speak, and she didn't say anything either, and I couldn't see her face or her eyes and her hair hung over her shoulders, and I stared at the nape of her neck and wanted to nuzzle that spot because she should have been mine, but she was Jacob Black's or Jasper Whitlock's or anyone else's but not mine. Mine, not mine, mine, not mine. Mine. Mine.

"Stay."

She tensed in my grip, so I knew she heard me. "I can't just stay, Edward."

I swallowed. Total rejection. Absolute shut out. Releasing her like I'd been burned, I tried to backtrack, salvaging my wounded and humiliated pride. My ego hurt. "Fuck, Swan. Why would you stay? I'm sure you've got better places to be." Fucking smooth.

She turned around to look at me, her eyes wide but her mouth set. "Come with me. Let's go to Seattle. Phoenix. Chicago. Anywhere! Let's just go." My jaw moved. My throat was dry.

She smiled.

"But then again, maybe you've got better places to be, too." She shook her head, still smiling that disgusting half-smile and jogged off my porch to a little red motorcycle I hadn't noticed tucked beside a hedge. "Come get me for school tomorrow." Her voice was haughty, confident, and I knew I would obey. She threw a helmet on, kick started the thing and drove away, and I stood on my porch and let her. Because I would always be a fucking coward.