A/N:

Thank you for all your reviews and putting me in your alerts. Most importantly, thank you to my beta Lady Gywndenn.

Chapter 5

A day once dawned, and it was beautiful

A day once dawned from the ground

Then the night she fell

And the air was beautiful

The night she fell all around.

So look see the days

The endless coloured ways

And go play the game that you learnt

From the morning.

From The Morning – Nick Drake

That evening Bella took Mrs. Cope's advice and decided to create some paintings for her to sell. She took an inventory of her supplies and made a list of what she needed. She was low on paints, a few of her brushes needed to be replaced and she couldn't paint until she got some canvas.

Bella vowed that after the long weekend she would attempt to have a completed painting every two weeks.

She spent the rest of the night on the couch sketching Leah and Seth while they watched a movie. She got frustrated with herself attempting to draw them. She was good at still life but when it came to portraits Bella could only dream to replicate the image of the boy and girl that hung in the Midland Gallery.

Alice never showed up that night, but it was just as well. Bella really threw in a monkey wrench to their group by defending Edward and she hoped it would blow over before Jacob's party tomorrow night.

It was six in the morning when Alice unceremoniously woke Bella up by bouncing on the bed.

"How did you get in here?" she asked, still attempting to sleep

"Sliding back door."

"I locked it last night."

"Bella, the door's ancient. All you have to do is lift and slide. Now get up!" She shook the bed some more.

"Can you please stop that? I'm still sleeping," she mumbled into her pillow.

"Nope. We need to talk."

"If it's about yesterday, I already apologized."

"I know, but Jasper and I had to calm Jessica and Lauren down. Thank heaven Rose was there, or they would have never left us alone. What was with you? I've never known you to be snippy with them."

Bella got up, trying to get back to sleep was pointless. She sat up and leaned against the headboard. "Alice, I'm sorry. I really am. But they were being 'snippy' themselves," she made sure to use air quotes.

Alice never swore. She was raised in a strict Roman Catholic household, the youngest out of seven brothers and sisters that have all moved out years ago. Although she was now an atheist, she never used the Lord's name in vain nor did she use swear words that were not prime time friendly.

"That's only because you shared more words with Edward then they did." Alice trailed off for a moment. "Come to think of it, I don't think he uttered more than 'hi kids' to them."

"That explains a lot," Bella muttered.

"So what did you guys talk about?"

Bella laughed and threw a pillow at her, "I don't think so! You're first. When the hell did you start going out with Jasper?"

"When he asked me to prom," Alice answered shyly.

Bella feigned hurt, "We had talked a lot after that, why didn't you tell me? I know that it was inevitable and all…" She couldn't believe that Alice was able to keep that to herself for this long.

"Sorry, but we kept it from everyone. For the first little bit even Rose didn't know. That last thing we wanted to hear from everyone was 'finally' or 'about time'."

"Well it is!"

"I know. Right?" Alice flopped down on the bed laughed. "Come on get up and make me breakfast, I need to get to bed soon."

"You were up all night with Jasper?"

"That's why I'm here. I told my parents I would be sleeping here and I cannot tell a lie. So make me breakfast. That way I can have a carb crash and get to sleep. I'll give you full disclosure when you make me those pancakes with the apple cinnamon sauce."

"Do I really want to know everything?"

"Whether you do or not I'm still telling. I need someone to tell. Like I would tell Jessica and Lauren about me and Jasper," she said more to herself than to Bella. "And Rose is his sister. That talk would be just too awkward."

Alice was still rambling when Bella got out of bed and pulled her up by the wrist, "Come on."

They were sitting down to breakfast on the front porch. Half way through their more adult conversation in the kitchen the kids came downstairs. They spoke in code while Bella made pancakes for them. Eventually Sue came downstairs and took over for Bella.

"I don't get it. How can you technically still be a virgin? You weren't just fooling around or being heavy with him. You had sex with him!"

Bella had already polished of her plate of pancakes and was idly fixing her sketches of Leah and Seth from last night.

"Bella, will you keep it down," Alice shushed her, covering her mouth full of food, "This town is like big brother." Alice raised her index finger to indicate she needed a moment and took a drink of juice before she continued, "First of all made love not sex, secondly the answer is yes. When we get married it won't count. He will still be my first and only."

"Married!"

"Will you shut up?" Alice slapped her playfully.

"Don't you think it's a little premature for marriage?" Bella asked, finally lowering her voice.

Alice took another big bite of her pancakes before she answered, "We've known each other since we were two. Jasper's been one of my best friends since day one. He knows me, and accepts me for who I am: all my hang ups and idiosyncrasies, my crazy religious family and my obsession for shoes. I love him and I know he loves me, possibly even more. We work well together, his strengths are my weakness and vice versa."

"I'm sold Alice. And I'm officially envious."

Bella was happy for her friend, but Alice grew up in a very sheltered world. It was just this spring that her parents finally relented and allowed her to date. Bella was allowed to date since grade school. Her mother never opposed the idea of her dating and now here was Alice and in less then two months she not only had a boyfriend, but she had her first and possibly her last love in her life!

"What about Edward?" Alice asked, bringing Bella out of her inner rant.

"What about Edward?" she retorted, and instantly regretting her tone. She sighed and continued dejectedly, "He's my new next-door neighbor that watches Leah and Seth once in a while."

"What's he like?" Alice prodded.

"He's nice, I guess." Bella thought back to this morning and smiled," A little cocky, but overall okay. I don't really know him that well."

She looked up and found Alice wagging her eyebrows at her, "Cocky?"

"Get you're head out of the gutter Alice," Bella laughed.

"Aren't you the least bit attracted to him?"

Bella focused all her attention to her sketchbook and on re-drawing the flower motif on Leah's shirt, "What's there not to be attracted by? I'm just not his type. Who's to say that I won't get a 'hey kid' like Jessica and Lauren did."

"So what's his type then?" Alice asked.

The girl was relentless. She just threw question after question until she was able to paint her own picture of the situation so to speak, before she offered to help. Anyone else would find Alice prying, but Bella was used to it and sometimes had a difficulty in keeping certain things back because she answered automatically.

"Soft, curvaceous, beautiful, experienced women." Bella couldn't help to describe what she saw yesterday. "Alice, You've seen the portraits."

"That doesn't mean anything," Alice waved her hand and tried to make light of Bella's miserable response.

"Sure it does. I never paint anything that I don't find appealing or interesting."

"Well you're beautiful."

"Pretty? Maybe. But, beautiful? No. Thanks though."

Alice rolled her eyes at her and went on to Bella's other qualities, "You're experienced."

"Alice you have a boy friend. You're already ahead of the game. I'm still on the starting line," Alice was about to interrupt her, but Bella continued knowing what her argument would be, "Just because I gave useful sex and relationship advice to my friends back New York means nothing. I'm still a virgin. The closest I ever came to kissing a guy was with Jacob when I was nine and it didn't count because it felt like I got my face licked by a dog."

Bella abruptly threw down her sketchbook out of frustration. She couldn't find a relationship and she couldn't draw people. This had to have some sort of connection. Maybe she couldn't relate to people and guys picked up on it, she said to herself. "Listen to myself, I sound pathetic. Can't even get someone to fall in love with me because I fall into the 'friend zone' or worse still, the 'forever damned kid sister zone'."

"You'll get there. Actually, he'll get here," Alice said staring towards the driveway.

When Bella looked up she saw Edward and his grandmother, Mrs. Cullen coming up the front walkway. She cast her negative thoughts aside and waved to them.

"We'll I'm heading off to bed. Goodnight Mrs. Cullen," Alice said getting up with their plates and went inside.

"Goodnight Alice? Hello, Bella," Mrs. Cullen gave Bella a curious look when Alice left.

"She'd been up all night," Bella replied.

She chuckled and shook her head.

"It's nice seeing you again, Mrs. Cullen," Bella got up and gave her a hug.

The first summer after her parents divorce, Bella spent most of her time at Mrs. Cullen's home while her dad worked. If she wasn't with Alice, she was in kitchen with Mrs. Cullen baking cookies as she comforted her through her hard time. She viewed her like an adoptive grandmother since she never had grandparents of her own. She knew as much about Bella's situation as Sue did, even more so because she was around when her parents started fighting, and often invited Bella to help her walk the dog when she was forced to wait on the front porch until the yelling had finished.

"I really missed you dear. How are things back in New York?"

"Same old," Bella replied sadly.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It doesn't matter anymore, it's all over."

"So I heard. Columbia bound, like Edward here," she said with a smile.

"Yes ma'am." Bella looked over to Edward and gave him a smile as he looked on in confusion.

"Is Sue inside with the kids?"

"Yeah, go on in," Bella pointed to the door, "She's in the kitchen."

Mrs. Cullen went inside and Edward stayed behind on the front porch with Bella.

"What was that about?" he asked.

"You don't want to know. It's a long story and a little embarrassing on my part."

"Really?" he asked sitting down beside her, "If I'd ask you nicely would you tell me," he coaxed.

Bella shook her head and picked up her sketchbook. Her mother's extracurricular activities were the last thing she wanted to discuss with Edward. Fortunately, he got the message and quickly changed the subject.

"So, I didn't think of you as an earlier riser."

Bella didn't play into his comment. She knew he was trying to bring up yesterday. "Where are you off to?"

"Portland," He groaned, "My grandmother wants to go shopping."

"Do you think your truck can make it?"

"No. That's why I'm taking her car."

Bella started to laugh, "I don't think I can picture you in a K-car."

He replied with a grumble and his reaction only caused Bella to laugh harder.

"Anyway," he said changing the subject once more, "There's a an Art Supply warehouse in Portland.

"Harper's. Yeah, I know it."

"Well, I'm heading down there. Do you need anything?"

Bella gave him a puzzled look, until she realized he was being sincere. She had a feeling he was a least a nice guy, but the few games he already played with her in the span of twenty-four hours didn't make her believe that he had the potential of being that thoughtful.

"Only if you don't mind." She was going to order her things on line, but this would be a lot faster.

"I wouldn't be asking otherwise," he smirked and reverting back to the person that Bella was more familiar with.

Bella turned to the back of her sketchbook and tore out a piece of paper with a very detailed list she'd written last night and passed it to him.

He stared at this list, surprised, "That was fast."

"I was going to place an order online this afternoon," she explained.

He laughed at the timing.

"If you can wait a minute, I'll get you some cash," she said and attempted to get up.

Edward motioned her to sit back down, "Just pay me when I get back."

"Sure."

A small lull developed in their conversation. Instead of trying to keep their conversation going, Bella went back to sketching in her book. She caught Edward staring at her from the corner of her eye a few times.

When she looked up again, she was startled to find him hovering over her trying to get a glimpse of what she was drawing.

"Can I look through it?" he asked pointing to her sketchbook.

She quietly passed her book over to him. He examined the pages from back to front as she examined her pencil, nervous to hear his critique.

"Yikes."

Her head shot up. "Yikes?" Bella should have been insulted by his 'constructive criticism', but instead grinned at his remark.

He was looking at her drawings and didn't notice her facial expression. "I'm mean they're good… It's just… Well, the image is good, but it looks cold and…" he said apologetically.

She waved her hand in passing, "I know they're bad. I'm not that great at portraits in the first place. She laughed, "You said yikes. What next? Gosh, darn it?"

He tried to glare at her, but he couldn't hide the humour in his eyes. "I blame that on your step-mother," he said pointedly, "If you look at it my way, my swearing has taken I turn for the worse since I arrived."

He flipped a back a few pages to her earlier drawings in the year. This time she studied his reaction when he looked at her landscape drawings. A smile crept on her lips when his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Wow these are… incredible."

"Yeah?"

"I mean it. The landscape… I've never seen composition like that. It's very unique, very deviant." He looked up and grinned, "I didn't realize you had something like this in you."

"What did you think then?" she asked purposely to find out what he thought of her.

"You know, safe, conservative, traditional, stoic."

" No, I don't know," she muttered back. Edward's assumption of her art work was like a stab to heart and made her believe that his first opinion to her art work passed on to her character.

Edward looked up at her and found her frowning. "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I was completely wrong," he said looking up at her. Bella eyes caught his and gasped inwardly. There was a glint in his eyes like he was looking at her differently, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared when Edward looked back to her book and flipped the page.

He continued, with enthusiasm and all of his pretense was gone, "You're not afraid of the boundaries a page provides. It looks as though you're looking through a window and you begin to believe that the closer you get more will be revealed."

Bella peeked over his shoulder and saw that he was looking at drawing that Bella made when she was in Midland this past spring. It was a drawing of a large treetop as the foreground and obscuring the view of a fenced in field and a barn off in the distance. The tree had only begun budding so, what was meant to be hidden peeked through the branches of the tree.

"That was the view from my old room," she replied with nostalgia.

He flipped to the next page and studied a pastel drawing of the river. Bella remembered that day clearly it was unbelievably sunny that day and the sun reflected off the water in every which way.

"How do you capture the light like that," Edward mused.

Bella shrugged, "I just draw what I see and I always obsess about how light plays with shadows."

"I'm impressed," Edward stated when he finished going through her sketchbook.

"Thanks, but it nothing that spectacular. The only reason I managed to master landscapes and still life was to avoid drawing portraits. They never turn out the way I see them and after a few tries I go back to what I know." She felt self conscious telling him this. Bella knew very well that Edward didn't have any problems with what he painted.

He looked back to her latest sketch and studied it for a moment. "I know what your problem is and it's easy to fix."

"Care to enlighten me," Bella quipped when he didn't expand on what he said.

He murmured, "If that's what you want," insinuating something else.

Edward was reverting back to his teasing self and it annoyed Bella.

"Never mind," she spat and reached for her sketchbook, but he pulled it away from her and took hold of her wrist.

Bella froze and tried to figure out what he was doing. She didn't resist as he slowly turned her hand over to reveal her palm and started tracing her lifelines. She stared at him when he intensely studied her hand. She felt naked and revealed because of that simple act, but she didn't want to pull away. She didn't want to break this mini intimate moment she had with him.

"Your drawings are great," he began, "Your fine details and your use of light are incredible. But you've conditioned yourself to draw the outside shape in the space, which is good. It's just that the human body shouldn't be looked at that way. You need to look at what's beneath the skin. Flex your hand," he instructed, "See the way your muscle move beneath."

Bella nodded and studied her hand. Edward finally let go of her and took the pencil out of her other one and flipped to a blank page in her sketchbook. She wished he could have kept his hand on hers.

"Don't move your hand," he said and started to draw in her book. "Think DaVinci when it comes to portraits. He learned the human form by studying cadavers, and it helped him excel."

He started to draw a series of lines and circles on the page. To Bella it resembled nothing.

"Start with the skeleton and pay attention to where the joints are," he said pointing to the circles that were supposed to represent the joints of her hand. "Then focus on where the tendons and muscles are."

Edward hand was furiously moving around the page as he added in more lines and squiggles with the pencil. Bella was beginning to doubt that he was able to draw because the just made a mess of the page with various scribbles.

"Don't forget about the veins and fatty tissue and finally," he said as his hand slowed down and began methodically connecting all the scribbles with smooth even strokes, "Add the skin and its texture, when you do that the shading falls into place."

By the time he finished explaining the process of how to draw a hand, he was handing Bella back her sketchbook with all the bumps and squiggles connected and depicting a life like image of hers on the page. It was far and away from the painting that she has seen yesterday, but it was really impressive in itself. The Dali-esque style made it very appealing to her.

Bella was lost in thought from comparing her hand to the image on the paper when he spoke, "There are only two rules for you to remember, Bella."

The mention of her name brought her back and looked at him in amazement by what he produced in a matter of seconds.

When drawing remember that you're trying to capture a moment in time not freeze it," he said softly, " And humans and animals move internally as opposed to everything else that moves externally."

Bella nodded and took the advice to heart, but with some doubt, "It sounds easier than it looks."

"Trust it me, it's not that hard. You'll get the hang of it. Just keep drawing your hand. I'm sure it won't take you more than a few tries."

Mrs. Cullen stepped out on the front porch with Sue before Bella had a chance to thank him for the art lesson.

"You ready to go Edward?" Mrs. Cullen asked.

"Yup," he replied without any reservation. Although Bella knew that he wasn't interested in driving the hour and a half to Portland, he was trying to be a good grandson by appeasing her.

Mrs. Cullen said her goodbyes and made her way to her car that was parked on her driveway.

"I guess I'll see you later," he said, not making a move to leave.

"Yeah. Oh and thanks."

"My pleasure," Edward grinned and slowly made his way across the lawn to his grandmother's K-car. He looked back at Bella a few times before Mrs. Cullen called out to him to hurry up.

Bella got up from her spot to go inside, but Sue was blocking her way.

"I knew you'd like him. And I knew he'd like you," she said smiling mischievously.

Bella shook her head, "he was just being neighborly."

"Neighborly my ass."

"You just lost a dollar to the swear jar," Bella laughed.

A/N:

What did you think? Let me know. I love hearing from you and I'll send out teasers and info about the story to those who review

Yes, the 'I'm still technically a virgin' does exist. I've witnessed it myself among highschool friends. And yes, I went to Catholic school and I should add that it was an all girls school. Don't feel too bad, there were plenty of boys (that drove) waiting around for us after school.

Poor Bella, Edward's behaviour is giving the poor girl whiplash insofar, it's giving me whiplash. Yikes!

I wonder what's going on with him that causes him to be that way towards Bella? ;P Does he even find her attractive?

I was planning to throw in Jacob's party in this chapter, but I didn't want to make it too long.

See ya at the party in the next chapter.

iv