Chapter 12 – 20 Questions… AGAIN!
Bella's POV
To say that I wasn't looking forwards to going home would be an understatement. To understand this, though, you have to look at it from the perspective of my family.
Firstly, there had been a human in my car. A human who they all knew I could barely stand to be around because of how appealing his blood was. And, of course, once they knew he had been in my car, they would come to the reasonable conclusion: that he was dead. Especially because he wasn't still in my car, for me to prove that he was still alive. Coming to this conclusion, they would also believe that I had killed him because I couldn't control myself. Which would mean that I had, so to speak, fallen off the wagon. Which would give Rosalie a chance to gloat because then my record would be far less clean than hers. As it was, my record was perfect – I had never, ever killed a human.
If and when I managed to convince them that I hadn't killed Edward… well, that part I was looking forwards to even less than trying to convince them in the first place. It would probably be easier to have dealt with actually killing him. Because my family was very involved (or tried to be very involved) in my social life. Social life being my love life. My non-existent love life. And, as I sat numbly in my car, driving home, I realized that I was falling in love with Edward. I had tried to run from it, avoid it, and ignore it, but it hadn't worked. Any of it. I was completely and irrevocably in love with Edward Mason. As soon as I realized it, I knew that my family would realize it. Alice and Jasper, the formidable couple, would be able to see it immediately – Jasper with his extra senses and Alice with her seeing the future.
Immediately I tried to discard that thought. Alice wouldn't be able to see anything because nothing would happen. Jasper was unavoidable, but Alice wasn't. I wouldn't act on what I felt for Edward, and therefore nothing would happen. Deciding this made me feel exponentially better in some ways, but there was also a feeling deep in my stomach that somehow felt worse. I won't be able to hurt him now, I tried to convince myself. My psyche wasn't buying it, however.
By this time I was just outside of the driveway to our house. I punched the gas and accelerated down the long, winding path through the woods to the house. The brakes of my car screeched as I slid to a halt outside the garage. I could practically hear Rosalie fuming, even before she started screaming.
"IF YOU RUIN THOSE TIRES AGAIN, I WILL NOT REPLACE THEM FOR YOU THIS TIME!" She shrieked from inside the garage. I could hear Emmett laughing, his laughter booming low and loud.
Instead of respond, I sat in my car. After a minute, Alice came outside to see what was taking so long. As soon as she opened the passenger side door, it hit her. Quite literally, actually. A breeze from outside swept into the interior of my car, bounced off the window next to me, and returned through the open door – right past Alice. It carried with it the scent of human, so strong Alice's eyes turned black. I could only imagine what my own eyes must have looked like.
Alice's mouth fell open in shock once she realized what she was smelling. I smiled sheepishly, which didn't help anything at all.
"Bella…" she hissed quietly and quite terrifyingly, "Who was in your car?" When I didn't answer, she took a tentative sniff. Suddenly, she gasped.
"It was that boy Edward, wasn't it?!" It was barely even a question, the way she said it. Before I knew what was happening, tiny Alice was dragging me out of my car and up the pathway to the house, yelling at me the entire time.
"Isabella Marie Swan Cullen, how could you? How could you make the stupid, stupid, stupid decision to have a human ride in your car, especially one who you knew you could barely even be around with out killing, and-" As it dawned on her, she froze. We were in the middle of the living room, with our confused looking family drifting in to see what was happening.
"You didn't kill him, did you?" Her voice was quiet now, but there was an edge to it. She didn't know if I had, and probably doubted that I hadn't.
"No!" I exclaimed, throwing myself down on the couch. Esme made a move to stop me from hitting the couch so hard, and then sighed.
"Honey, don't sit down so hard. We just replaced the last couch that you broke…" she reminded me gently.
"Esme!" Alice cried. "There are more important matters at hand then broken couches! Are you sure you didn't kill him, Bella?"
"Yes!" I half snarled. Alice looked surprised.
"Oh. You did kill him?"
I rolled my eyes dramatically. "No, I didn't kill him. Yes, I'm sure I didn't kill him." By this time everybody else had entered the room. Emmett was the first to speak.
"Who?" he asked innocently.
"No one!" I snarled at the same time as Alice said, "Edward."
"Oh… he was the one she's been mooning over ever since she came back from Alaska, isn't he?" Rosalie said as she wiped oil off of her hands onto an old rag. If it was possible for me to blush, my face would have been as red as a fire truck.
"Yes!" Alice, Jasper, and Emmett exclaimed simultaneously.
"S'not true," I mumbled in protest, avoiding looking at any of them.
"He's not the one that you've been mooning over?" Esme asked innocently.
"I haven't been mooning over anybody," I moaned. Once again, my entire family snorted simultaneously. Even Carlisle and Esme! They were supposed to be the non-judgmental ones!
"So…" Emmett started, "Did anything happen? Between you two, you know…" I was absolutely certain that I was about to die from embarrassment.
"Nothing happened!" This was what I had been praying that I could avoid. Of course, my prayers had been in vain.
"Well, how did it all come about?" To my shock, it was Esme who was posing the questions now. And she sounded genuinely curious, too.
"He needed a ride!" I explained. It sounded more like protests, though. Alice laughed. At me.
"He did not and you know it. He could have gotten a ride with his friends just as easily."
I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Emmett laughed heartily as I buried my head in my hands.
"So, why did you, then?" Rosalie asked, curious despite herself.
"I don't know…" I moaned forlornly.
"Yeah, I can tell," Jasper groaned. "Your confusion is drowning me."
"Sorry," I apologized offhandedly. Jasper just shook his head and rubbed his temples. Alice patted his knee and then turned back to me.
"So, you didn't kill him and nothing happened. What did you do?"
"We talked!" I exclaimed, completely exasperated.
"That's all?" Emmett asked scornfully.
"Yes, that's all. Really."
"What did you talk about?" Esme asked sweetly, a huge contrast to Emmett's question. Immediately, I started to feel uncomfortable. Jasper could tell and easily guessed what we had been talking about.
"Oh, no," he half gasped, half moaned.
"What?" Alice, Emmett, and Rosalie asked simultaneously. What were they, the Brady Bunch? Where had this sudden speaking in unison thing come from?
"Why the hell would you talk about that?" Jasper groaned, ignoring everybody else. "I mean, really. Of all the possible topics…"
"It wasn't like I was the one that brought it up! After I saved him… he really wanted to know!"
"Well, you know it probably would have helped if you hadn't offered to give him a ride home!"
"He would have just found another time to ask, probably in a place far less convienant."
"What did they talk about?!" Alice shouted, interrupting Jasper and I. I turned to glare at her.
"He wanted to know what I was!" I shouted back. Silence descended over the room. By this time I was standing, having jumped to my feet when I was arguing with Jasper. My hands were balled in tight fists and I wanted to hit something.
"Well, did you tell him?" Carlisle's voice came, breaking through my haze of anger.
"No," I groaned, throwing myself back down on the couch. Esme flinched again. "I told him that I would, but I just couldn't. I couldn't do it, and so he tried to guess. But he didn't… he couldn't guess what… No, he doesn't know."
The room heaved a collective sigh and the tension seeped out.
"So you aren't going to tell him?" Emmett asked casually.
"No. Not unless he guesses it. I don't think that I could deny it, if he managed to."
"Ah, he won't guess," Rosalie said with a wave of her hand.
"Don't be so sure," Alice contradicted her darkly.
"He'll guess?" I was completely shocked. Alice shrugged.
"Probably not. But there's always that chance…"
I rolled my eyes and stood up.
"If it isn't likely, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to my room."
With those parting words to my family, I trudged upstairs, slower than a human usually walks, to go moon over Edward Mason alone in my room.
A/N: Okay, so I know that this chapter was purdy crappy… but I really needed to get that in there. Just so… yeah.
On another note…. Happy 4th of July! Consider this my present to you for… um… the courage of our forefathers and freedom in general. Yup!
Hm… if this weather persists, you can probably expect more chapters soon… yesterday it rained all day long and there was thunderstorms and such… very terrifying indeed! But it didn't make me feel bad about sitting on the computer all day long because there was, like, nothing else AT ALL to do except watch Brokeback Mountain (which I did). So today is all loverly and CLOUDY but not raining… typical Bellingham weather… very unfortunate indeed. I went to my sisters softball game and me and her friend did a rain dance, which worked, so then we did an anti-rain dance which didn't work and then… the thunder and lightning started! It was TERRIFYING! The lightning was effing HUGE!! It lit up the sky like some kind of fricking ATOM BOMB! Anyways… so, everybody in those parts of the country that actually get good weather in the summertime, be glad! It could always be worse! Oh… which reminds me… at the softball game my sister's friend gave me the numbers to the… da da da daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Rejection Hotline
Bad Breath Notification Hotline
It Could Always Be Worse Hotline
They are hilarious!! Review if you want the numbers!! You could always use them on that creep that won't leave you alone and keeps on asking for your phone number but you're too nice to tell them to leave you alone… yes, a very useful thing indeed!