I do not own Twilight

Chapter Seven

Charlie dropped me off at school since my truck was still at the school parking lot. I was there quite early, so I sat in my truck and listened to some music.

There was a gentle tap on my window. Edward stood outside, impeccably dressed as usual; I could see his breath on the wind. How misleading since they don't need to breathe. His face was strange, I sensed something was wrong.

I didn't see his family anywhere, but I saw his Volvo...he came here alone?

I got out the truck.

'Everything ok Edward?' I asked casually.

'Aren't you even curious?' he said angrily

'Excuse me?'

'Don't you care how I got here so fast?'

I shrugged in reply. He grabbed my arm with a sudden speed and strength.

'Don't you care that I could hurt you?' he said with a ravaged sadness- pain lined his face, whilst shaking me a little bit.

'Edward you're hurting me now!' His grip was causing my wrist to bruise.

He stepped back, suddenly his face was afraid.

'Bella...' he sounded close to tears 'I'm sorry...I didn't mean to...'

He turned away, and turned to go.

'Edward! Wait...'

He stopped but didn't look back.

'I've caused you harm, you don't know who I am Bella...I'm a monster'

Gently, I put my hand on his face I pulled his face towards mine. His eyes closed at my touch, but he did not protest. His head came with my hand, as he let himself be turned towards me. I pulled back my sleeve and his eyes slid down to look at the bruise... we both watched as the purple bruise that he had caused disappeared before both our eyes. His mouth fell open as he looked into my eyes.

'I know more than you think Edward... you saved my life yesterday. You didn't have to; I didn't ask you to...that doesn't sound like a monster to me.'

I fluttered one of my hands against his cold cheek, and turned to get my bag, I knew he would have disappeared by the time I turned around again, and so I walked to class, as the parking lot was now filling up.

I didn't see him again until Lunch, where once again he was sat apart from his brothers and sisters, and beckoned me to sit with him. He already had a tray-full of food.

I sat down and looked at how much food he had.

'Is that all for you? I didn't know you were so enthusiastic about school lunches' he laughed quietly.

Suddenly he straightened up.

'I'll be right back...' he said quickly and shot up like a bullet. Was it something I said?

A few minutes later, Tyler sat down next to me.

'Hey Bella, I'm really sorry about-'

'Tyler!' I cut him off 'stop apologising!'

'Ok, ok, so...do you want to go to the spring dance with me?' Is he serious?!

'No thanks, Tyler, I'm in Seattle that weekend' I said exasperated.

'Oh I thought it was just an excuse not to go with Mike or Eric. O well, there's always Prom' and he got up jerkily, and went back to his table.

I stared incredulously after him.

I started mumbling darkly to myself. Prom. Prom! Who does he think he is? What a loser... Prom? I should go with Mike just to annoy him...I-

'So, what's in Seattle?' Edward jerked me out of my reverie.

I shrugged 'Shopping, A proper library, book stores, time to get away from the tiny lack of Privacy that is Forks' I selected an orange and proceeded to peal it.

'Need a ride?' he said looking intently at me.

'Are you going into Seattle to?' I asked.

'Not essentially, but maybe we could spend the day together...like...a date.'

I blushed. My femininity kicked in, a date...with me?

'Level with me here Edward...but why on earth would you want to go on a date with me?'

'What do you mean?'

'I'm as plain as the next girl...and you're...well you're you. And I'm getting the distinct impression that Blondie has got something against me' I jerked my head a Rosalie, who looked intently at me. I waved and smiled pleasantly, knowing full well she can hear everything I say.

'You could have anyone you want, I'm sure you could do better than me' I added.

'You obviously don't see yourself very clearly Bella, I think you're stunning. As did every male in the school, I think it's the first time they all thought collectively about one thing that wasn't sport related.' He laughed

'Huh.' Something in his tone made me think, I remembered the first conversation that I eavesdropped on, Edward mentioned he couldn't read me...did he mean minds? I mean how else would he know that?

'So would you like to? We could shop together?' I tried not to feel flattered at his hopeful tone.

'Sure why not, could be fun?' I smiled.

He stood up as the bell sounded, dumping the tray and the remaining food in the bin.

We walked together to biology, falling into that normal comfortable and friendly banter, Edward was laughing at one of my many boring anecdotes as we walked into class.

I don't think I've ever had as much fun in biology as I had today; we each had to do a body system in our pairs and research it, feeding back our knowledge to the class, so we could take notes on what other people found. Edward and I had the nervous system. We made our way down to the small Forks school Library, where they had a sad few computers, so Edward went off to find a few books.

I was already knowledgeable in the human anatomy, so I sat down at a table away from the rest of the class, and had written a few pages of notes by the time he returned.

'Why did you need me to get books if you already knew?' he accused half heartedly.

'I just wanted to impress you' I winked at him.

'You've succeeded,' he picked up my notes, 'you've even done a diagram of a nervous cell'

I did a mock bow.

'Anything else you want to add?' I offered him my pen.

'I think we'll be alright,' his mouth was twitching.

I nodded, and quickly skimmed my notes to check I hadn't missed anything.

I looked up to see he was watching me intently.

'How did you...heal so quickly?' he asked.

I was wondering when he would ask.

'We both have secrets evidently, Edward. Maybe we should save them for our date? When we have more time?' I said.

He nodded, 'your right of course, but I'm curious...'

I tapped the side of my nose, and winked at him, and gestured for us to go back to class.

Our information was the most detailed of course. Mr. Banner thought Edward had done the work which I was supremely pissed about.

'Humph, that Mr. Banner is a bit of a misogynist' I complained to Edward after class.

'You have no idea' he laughed.

He walked me to gym, and stopped outside the girls changing rooms.

'Thanks for a good class Edward' I said.

He smiled, it was slightly crooked- It made butterflies in my stomach go wild. He reached over carefully, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. My heart was pounding against my ribs.

'See you later' and he turned to go.

We were asked to get into teams of three to try different techniques of badminton, Angela and Jess immeadaelty pounced on me so they could talk about Edward.

'So does he like you like you? Jess asked adamantly.

'I don't know!'

'Has he asked you to Spring Dance?'

'I'm out of town'

'What about Prom?'

'That's ages away'

And so it went on...

Angela eventually took pity on me, and asked Jess, 'I need to get a dress for Spring Dance. Jess, you wanna go up to Port Angeles and find one?'

'Sure, Bella you want to come?' Jess asked, surprising me, after the whole Mike thing, I doubt she'd be very into me. Then I guessed that Mike had asked her in the end.

I did need a new outfit for my date...

'Sure. Why not, I need some new clothes' I smiled.

'Cool, we'll go tomorrow then?' Angela said, confirming it with us.

'It's a date' Jess said happily.