A/N: I am so into this story it isn't even funny. I've even written half of the next chapter already, which I assure you will be WAY longer than this one. I'll be posting what I listened to while writing this chapter below. The lyrics don't necessarily have to connect with the chapter... but yeah. Oh, and if anybody can think of a better summary for this story, please tell me.

DISCLAIMER: The title I just changed my story to is a song by Broken Social Scene, a band you should really listen to. I don't own the Twilight characters either.

After that unexpected night, Bella became a permanent fixture in my head. Every step I took, I saw the smirk that would play up her face every time I said something she disliked. I didn't bloody want it; I hated the way she was spreading through my thoughts like the plague. I hated her for doing this to me.

This was all Alice's fault, and she understood it since both Bella and I had given her a lecture on how she could never do that again. As usual, she didn't seem to care, just bobbing her head up and down but never meaning it. It didn't help that Bella kept appearing at the most incidental places after our rendezvous. My favorite cinema downtown, the bookshop… it was like everywhere I turned I saw her. We would always exchange little hellos and how are you's, giving each other the same unbelieving look before turning back to whatever we were originally doing.

It was driving me insane.

That night, when I had been in the restaurant with her, my eyes kept darting back to the most insignificant things she would do- these were the things my brain would repeatedly recapitulate in the darkest hours of the night. I didn't miss the way her eyes had softened when our eyes had interlocked that night, didn't miss the way she momentarily lapsed when I shot her my crooked little half smile- that was the worst memory. Knowing that I had actually succeeded in dazzling her. I had… enjoyed it. And hated it. Damn it, that girl was fucking unraveling me without even trying.

"Edward?" I froze in horror, shutting my eyes for and couting till three before I finally turned my entire body to the girl behind me. Speak of the devil, and the devil shall come. A bandage was wrapped around her head, her brown hair up in a messy bun. Her fingers were tugging on her leather jacket, despite the fact that I could still see the red streaks on her white cotton shirt. She had been in the hospital. I tried to keep the curiosity out, because I didn't want to know.

"You," The world slowly unfolded out of my mouth, and I returned her equally shocked stare. What in the seven layers of hell was she doing here? This bar was far too dingy for a girl like her, and it was the middle of the bloody afternoon. The beer provided a facade, although tasted like shit, at least to me, but I couldn't bear being cooped up in that house with Alice's thoughts screaming at me, along with Rosalie and Emmett's constant bickering. I couldn't think there. This was supposed to be my spot- my safe haven.

I looked up at the small human girl who was standing above me, fury on her face. If she had been another girl, I would have assumed that she was stalking me, an unlikely thought since it was Bella I was talking about. I imagined the look on her face if I dared say that out loud. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…

Damn it, why couldn't I seem to read her mind?

"My name is Bella. And what are you doing here?" She spat in contempt, echoing the very question I was asking myself. I chuckled darkly under my breath; she raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

"I was about to ask you the very same thing."

She stared at me, her eyes flashing dangerously. I mirrored her stare. I had played this game before. She wanted to see who would be the first to submit defeat. For a few minutes, we let our eyes speak, both refusing to break contact with each other. Eventually, she blinked, turning her gaze elsewhere yet still looking pissed off. I smirked to myself in triumph as she folded her arms. Then she turned wary, her body visibly sagging in exhaustion when she signaled for the bartender.

Why? I nearly asked her aloud, the word already halfway through my mouth when I realized that she would just be the complete bitch like she usually was and shoot me another unearned glare.

"A screwdriver please, and keep them coming." I winced at the pain in her voice. She buried her face in her hands, a hoarse sob making its way out from beneath her throat.

"Are you okay?" I couldn't keep the damn concern from seeping through my usual hard voice. She just sobbed again, and I sighed.

Why me? Why me?

"Bella, do you want to go home? I'll take you." She looked up sharply and shot me the mother of all glares through her tear ridden eyes. Had to give her credit, her glares almost matched up with Rosalie's.

"No." She downed half the contents of her drink in one swift movement before staring into space, her usually warm brown eyes now sparkling with silent distress. I just gazed at her, thankful I wasn't able to feel the pain like Jasper would. I didn't ask her anything, just sat there, clutching my beer tightly with unspoken questions.

"It's because of me." Her voice cracked.

She bit back a sob and downed the rest of her drink, her eyes still unwavering from its position. I wanted to ask her what she was talking about, deciding the better of it. She didn't even seem to be looking at me, so there really wasn't any point.

"Edward." Her chair swiveled to look at me. "What do you do when your mother is unconscious in a hospital because of you?" She was fully crying now, her body quivering uncontrollably, the tears smudging her makeup as it made its way down her pale cheeks.

Shit. I was crap at comforting people, especially in this state. I just stared at her feeling desperate while her sobs gradually progressed to heartbreaking wails. The bartender glanced at me, sending me a look that I should say something- anything to her. The words still failed me, so I just wrapped an arm around her warm shoulders, let her head rest in the crook of my neck and wrapped my other arm beneath her legs, sweeping her entire body up into mine.

She didn't protest, sobbing into my shirt while I laid her in the car and set her down in the passenger seat. Her eyes were starting to swell, already red and puffy.

"Bella, where do you live?" I asked her urgently, my heart dropping when she didn't answer. It was useless. She was stuck in her own world. I drove her back to our house , assuming the same position to get her out of the car and onto my couch.

She snapped out of it then, her sobs gradually quieting down into utter silence. Her tired eyes swept across the grandeur of my excessively decorated house, widening occasionally until they landed on me.

"You took care of me." It wasn't a question. It was a statement. I simply nodded, running my hands through my hair- a bad habit I had subconsciously picked up from Jasper.

"What… happened?" Her eyes clouded over with pain at my question. She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath like she was trying to recompose herself before fixing her gaze back to me. This was hard for her, but who could blame her? I myself could not drive out the memory of my mother lying helplessly on the white hospital bed, and that had happened more than a century ago.

"She was here, on a visit. We were in the car and… I was driving. I was so excited to tell her about how everything's been going… then there was a loud crash before everything went black. " She rasped in a sad voice. I swore that if I ever found the driver of that other car he would die in the slowest, most excrutiatingly painful way possible. I would see to that.

I was interrupted by a sudden warmth pressing against my palm, and I looked down to find her hand curled in mine. Out of nowhere, the unwanted electricity I felt when I was with her in the restaurant shot through my body. I didn't know what it signified or why the hell it was there, it just… was. She, on the other hand, wasn't, her eyes gazing at something only she could see.

Still, I couldn't deny the fact that her hand was there.

Clutched in mine.

At that precise moment, I felt like I was actually sincerely loved by someone, the warmth sending foreign feelings through my body that I shouldn't be thinking of. She was dangerous, she was forbidden, and therefore I did the only thing I was capable of doing- I unfurled my hand from the wreck beside me and dropped it on my lap.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm going home now." She whimpered, sending little aches through the place where my heart was supposed to be when she stood up. She let her gaze linger on mine for a minute too long, her scent hitting me harder than the best perfume in the world. I gritted my teeth together using all the resistance I had to keep myself from jumping on her as I watched her retreating from me, her hair swaying gently with each step she took.

When she left, I sighed and my head found the soft fabric behind me. No doubt I would regret that gesture later, however kind I intended it to be. She had revealed something personal to me, someone she barely knew nor did she like. I couldn't say how I felt about that, because she left me so fucking confused with everything I assumed I once knew. She was a wreck, a delicate imbalance of a hundred different emotions thrown together in a single, quixotic, outspoken human girl, yet she made me feel a frustration that nobody had ever made me feel before.

A frustration growing so rapidly that I wanted to scream, or drown myself in music that was entirely too loud. I could only wish that there was a drug that would make me forget about thinking so hard for awhile. I wondered briefly how she was doing now, was she okay? Of course, then my hands betrayed me for the phonebook.

She finally opened her door after I rang her doorbell twice. In contrary, she looked worse than she did earlier. Her hair was a complete mess, red already soaking through her bandage. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips were practically as white as skin. She stiffened when she saw me, greeting me with a scowl.

Even in this state she managed to show me how much she disliked me. How endearing.

"Not going to let me in?"

She replied me by carelessly flinging out an arm in the direction of her apartment, already walking in. I followed in suit, smiling slightly at the neatness of it. I wouldn't have been surprised if even the germs were afraid to enter this place.

"You're a mess." I told her once I settled on the couch.

She threw me a pointed look. "Is it that obvious?"

"Look... it isn't your fault, Bella. The driver was probably out of it or something." I said fiercely, imagining the way I would throttle the person's neck when I found him.

"If anything happens to her…" Her voice faltered nervously. I shook my head, angry that she would even think that way. I was no optimist, but sometimes that shit actually worked in these situations.

"She'll be fine." I retorted harshly.

"You're right. You're right." She whispered inaudibly, her eyes searching my face in a way that made me think that she knew… No. She couldn't. To her, I was just another boy, plus she was buried too deep in her own problems to notice anything. I was just being the paranoid ass that I was, making a big deal of every damn thing.

I listened to:
The Bleeding Heart Show- The New Pornographers
Closer- Kings Of Leon

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