And See, She Flies

by LilyCullen1121

His purpose was survival. Hers was perfection. His goal was escape. Hers was independence. His secret was dark. Hers was complicated. His heart was scarred. Hers was bruised. When two people, the gangbanger and the princess, are thrown together by high school, though, they have no choice but to recognize themselves in each other.

5. Chapter 5

I am sorry beyond words for the delay. This past quarter at school has been crazy, but now that I'm on break, it'll get better. Thanks for sticking with me.

When last we saw Edward, he had been confronted outside a club by a gang member from his past life. Because of this, he has resolved to stay away from Bella to keep her safe.

Chapter Five

"What does she see in him?" Jasper asked suddenly, glaring at his APUSH book as if it had done him a personal wrong. "He's a jerk, he can't have a civil conversation to save his life, and he clearly doesn't respect her at all."

Bella panicked for a minute before Alice sighed in exasperation. "Jasper, come on. You don't know what goes on between them 'cause it's really none of your business. You could've asked her out at any point last year and you didn't." She shrugged. "Oh well. You blew it; now don't blame a guy who's more proactive than you are."

At that, Bella relaxed slightly. They were talking about Maria and Blair. Nothing to do with Bella, or what feelings she may or may not have about… about certain people. Hypothetically.

To hide the relief she was sure was painted all over her face, lest Jasper think she was glad that he wasn't with Maria, she put her own textbook aside, got up from the dining room table, and walked into the kitchen. "Anybody want anything?" she asked, although it was Alice's house. They had destroyed those boundaries in each others' homes long before they'd had time to be established. "And where's Riley?"

Alice shrugged. "Not here, obviously. I'm trying to get used to it, since he's going to be not here so often next year. He'll probably be one of those guys who never comes home from college. Can you pop some popcorn?" Bella nodded, going into the pantry to pull out a bag. "What about you, Jasper?" When he didn't answer her except for a shrug, she added, "Just so you know, pity parties are only sexy when girls have them."

"Bite me."

Bella glanced up, but Alice shrugged, hardly bothered. However, even she knew when it was time to change the subject. But, being Alice, she picked Bella's least favorite subject possible. "Bella, what do you want for your birthday?"

Bella slammed the microwave door and punched in the cook time for the popcorn with probably a little more force than was strictly necessary. "Why do you even still ask me? I'll tell you nothing, you'll ignore me, go buy me something way more expensive than necessary, and I'll pull a martyred face but love it anyway, like you knew I would. We do this every year."

Jasper cracked a smile. "You left out the part where she throws you a party that you don't want."

"Oh, God," Bella groaned, propping her elbows up on the counter and dropping her head into her hands. "Can you not, please?"

Alice did a very good job of pretending to be offended. "But I'm almost done planning it."

"Just as well, because her birthday's on Sunday."

Bella glared at Jasper. "You're not helping, redneck," she snapped, touching on his one pet peeve.

He balled up a piece of paper and threw it at her; it glanced off her forehead and landed on the floor. "Don't call the Southern boy a redneck. They're not synonyms," he growled at her, narrowing his eyes.

Alice again disregarded them, turning a page in her notebook. "The party itself is on Saturday. I was going to make it Friday, but the cake people were too backed up with orders, and anyway, Emmett and Rosalie wouldn't be able to come because of the football game that night. Can you grab a Pepsi?" she threw at Bella over her shoulder.

Bella reached into the fridge and extracted three cans, shutting the door just as the timer went off on the microwave. She went back to the table where they had all spread their study materials and deposited the sodas before returning for the popcorn. As she opened it, making her way back to the table through the buttery steam that erupted in her face as she did so, Jasper said, seemingly unable to help himself, "Seriously, though, what does she really see in him? You're girls."

Bella sighed as Alice groaned. "Jasper, get over her. God."

Bella added quietly, "Maybe if you stopped thinking about her, you'd notice that there are girls all over campus who think you're great. Take thirty seconds of your life to try and get to know one."

Alice snorted. "You're one to talk."

"I'm sorry?" Bella raised my eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be insulting. You and Edward."

Bella choked on the sip of Pepsi she'd just taken. Jasper sat up. "The new Cullen kid?" he clarified, interested.

"Yeah." Alice nodded. "He's her lab partner in chem. They've been talking a lot and stuff, and it really doesn't hurt that he's athletic and stoic and remarkably good-looking–"

"Why are we talking about this?" Bella sputtered, choosing to ignore the comment about his being good-looking. "We were talking about Jasper."

"Ah, but you see," Jasper said, extending his hand graciously, "we don't have to be talking about Jasper. This is interesting."

Again, Alice ignored them both. "I asked Rosalie about it, and she sees it too," she continued, and Bella avoided her eyes. "She really thinks he likes you."

Bella snorted. "I doubt that. I'm not… we wouldn't work together."

"Famous last words."

Bella put her pen down and crossed her arms on the table. "Alice, look. Just stop, okay? It's been what, a couple of weeks since me and Chris broke up? And I'm reasonably sure that Edward doesn't even like me."

"He didn't tell you to go to hell, even when given permission," Jasper pointed out. "That's something."

Both girls ignored him and Bella kept speaking to Alice. "I'll be lucky if we even wind up as friends, but he's told me that he plans on leaving as soon as possible. In case you forgot, he left the table last night just as soon as I joined the conversation. He wants nothing more to do with me than strictly necessary. So just leave it alone."

Alice's eyes flashed. "Why will you be lucky if you wind up as friends?"

Before Bella could groan, roll her eyes, ask Alice if she had a hearing impediment, or some combination thereof, her cell phone rang. She picked it up from where it sat on the table and glanced at the caller ID before flipping it open. "Hey, Markus."

"Turn on CAST," he said, referring to a locally broadcast radio station. "They're reviewing us."

"Ooh." Bella jumped up and crossed the kitchen to the radio sitting on the counter without disconnecting the call. After snapping it on and fiddling with the tuning for a moment, she found the review.

"…first set full of Bella's usual crackling energy," Tom the DJ was saying. Alice smiled at Bella. "Percussions were solid, it sounded like they were experimenting with a new bass drum sound."

"So that's good," Markus said through the phone. Bella shushed him and kept listening.

"But on the second set, while the instrumentals were still at the level of raw excellence we've come to expect from And See, something was bothering the lead singer."

Markus cussed into the phone, almost drowning out the rest of the review.

"… She wasn't as pitch-perfect as she'd been before, and a few of the songs lacked her typical passion–"

Bella snapped the radio off. "Markus, I'm sorry."

He took a couple of deep breaths, but she could tell that he was still irritated when he replied, "It's okay. Everybody has bad nights, right?" There was a pause, and he sounded more like himself when he said, "We just clean up, and we do better on Tuesday. I was just on the online store, and sales are up, anyway."

"Okay." Bella passed a hand before her eyes. "Listen, I'm kind of in the middle of homework, so…."

"Yeah. I should probably get started on that lab report for Physics." She heard some papers rustling in the background. "See you at rehearsal on Monday, okay?"

"Yeah." They hung up, and when Bella turned back to the table, Jasper had already returned to his textbook, but Alice was staring at her. "What?" Bella asked.

"So… Edward doesn't have any effect on you at all?" Alice asked, skeptically.

"No." Bella shrugged. "What has that got to do with anything?"

"Oh, nothing." Alice shuffled the notes in front of her. "Just that it seems like you got thrown off your game last night when you thought he'd blown you off. Which was right before we took the stage for the second set, in which you apparently had no crackling energy. That strikes me as effective, is all."

"Alice," her friend groaned. "When are you going to stop making a big deal out of this?"

"Once it stops being a big deal without my help," she retorted. "Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it's not there."

"Alice," Jasper intervened without looking up. "Drop it, okay? She doesn't want to talk about it."

She stared from him to Bella before huffing, "Fine. Live in your icy black pit of denial, then." She fluffed her hair over her shoulder. "But he's still invited to your birthday party."

Bella studied her. "Is there anything I could say to change your mind about having the party at all?"

Alice made a show of thinking hard for a moment before saying brightly, "No, actually."

Edward went for a run, following no real path through the Cullens' neighborhood. He told himself that it was because it was the last week of September, and the races would be starting soon, and he didn't want to lose his varsity spot. But he knew he was lying.

But the world was full of liars, wasn't it? Why should one more make any difference?

He just kept going, listening to the rhythm of his feet pounding the sidewalk mix with the thudding beat coming from his iPod, until it got dark enough for the streetlights to kick on. Only then did he head back to the Cullens' house, and the thoughts he'd been trying to outrun finally caught up with him.

So they were looking for him. But, he thought, moving into the street to give the sidewalk to a couple pushing a baby's stroller in the opposite direction, if James had guys like Peter looking, there was a pretty good chance….

He stopped at a corner and hammered the button for the crosswalk a couple of times. Of course, if they really wanted to track him down, they'd stake out the high school. But there were about two thousand people at Santa Inez; Edward had to stay until four every day for cross country; it wasn't like he was leaving at the usual, expected time. Yeah, he had a shot.

But the thing with Peter had freaked him out more than he was willing to admit. Carlisle was working the first night shift in the emergency room at his hospital, and since he was gone, Esme was paying more attention to Edward and Emmett. More than once, Edward had left the room when he'd felt her worried eyes on him. She didn't need the headache of his problems.

He managed to get into the house and up to his room without attracting anybody's attention; Emmett was watching the Angels beat the Red Sox on TV. Edward could hear Esme in the kitchen, but she didn't notice as he shut the front door and took the stairs two at a time.

He took a shower, ignoring the soreness that sometimes came from the tightening of the muscles beneath the scars, and flopped on his back onto the bed. He had a pile of homework that wasn't getting done, but he didn't care. And anyway, it wasn't like anyone expected anything from him. All his teachers would have seen his records, and Esme was just blinded by the success of her other foster case. Fine. As soon as she and Carlisle realized that they were wasting their time with Edward, he'd be gone. And all the better for them.

Still, he felt his gut twist at the thought of being back in the system – the thought of being away from here.

There was a rap on the door, and Emmett stuck his head in. "Dinner's almost ready."

"Okay." Edward didn't try and get up. "I'm not hungry."

He expected Emmett to shrug and back out, but he hesitated, even though Edward didn't look at him. "What're you doing?"

"Studying the ceiling." Edward still didn't turn his head.

Now Emmett took a step into the room, and Edward shut his eyes, wishing he'd go away. "Edward, what's going on?"

"Told you. Studying the ceiling. There's a slant in it, see?" Edward pointed. "I don't like the slant."

He heard the click of the door shutting and dropped his arm. Emmett sat himself down in the desk chair without invitation and said, "Talk to me."

Edward sighed. "About what? Sorry, but I don't do male bonding."

Emmett ignored that last part. "About why you keep avoiding all of us and looking over your shoulder since last night. Why you won't look at me right now, even though we're in the same room."

Just to prove a point, Edward turned to stare at him. "And I'm not looking over my shoulder."

Emmett met his stare evenly and allowed, "Not literally, maybe. But something's bugging you. You're worrying Esme."

"Yeah? She send you up here?"

Emmett shook his head without breaking eye contact. "She doesn't want to push you. But you're bothering her, so you're bothering me. And also, believe it or not, I'm worried about you too."

"Jesus," Edward muttered, looking out the window. He wasn't sure if he didn't prefer the way any of his previous foster families would've just ignored him. Out loud, he said, "Emmett, I'm fine. Okay?"

"Edward! Emmett! Dinner!" called Esme's voice from far away.

"We're coming in a minute," Emmett shouted back, but Edward stood up, more than happy to have the conversation end. Without looking back to see if Emmett was following, he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

"Edward," Emmett said behind him. Edward didn't slow down, and he didn't turn. "Listen. If you're in trouble, I can help you, or Carlisle could. You know that, right?"

He kept my eyes straight ahead as he replied, "No, you couldn't. All right? You got no idea what my life is. You don't need to be dealing with my issues. Just… finish high school. Go to college, get married, get a job, have kids. Do whatever it is you were going to do before I entered your life. My problems aren't yours."

Emmett laughed, and Edward could hear his frustration. "After I talked to you on the first day, I thought I'd gotten you to finally realize that you're one of us. But I guess not, huh? Something, God only knows what, happens and you shut us out again."

"I'm not like you," Edward hissed without looking back.

"Really? I've noticed." And he brushed past Edward down the hall so he was first down the stairs and into the dining room.

They ignored each other during dinner, and Esme pretended not to notice the tension, except to keep glancing between them. The only reason they could all pretend that everything was normal was that Emmett kept talking to her.

Life was like that, Edward thought bitterly. You ignored the shit and focused on the good stuff. But the shit never really went away just because you ignored it.

For the first time since Saguaro House, Edward woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, still panting from the old nightmare. For a few endless moments he frantically looked around the dark room, expecting to see her at any moment. When reality finally caught up with him, he lay back and threw his arm over my forehead. He was here. She wasn't. Okay.

He glanced at the digital alarm clock at the bedside. One twenty-four AM.

His throat felt so dry. He got up and opened the door, careful not to wake anybody. As quietly as he could, he crept down the stairs and into the kitchen. He filled a glass with water from the sink and threw it back. As he refilled the glass, he tried to keep the images from the nightmare from replaying in his head. He hoped he hadn't shouted out.

Edward didn't believe in dreams. They weren't real, they had nothing to do with his life. He had a foster mom when he was ten or eleven who swore up and down that her dreams predicted the future, and that Edward's were his subconscious trying to tell me secrets. He thought it was bullshit then, too. He knew what this dream was saying, and it wasn't a secret. Well, not for him, anyway.

He gulped the water and stared out the window onto the patio, its reddish sandstone facing bleached in the moonlight. The moon glinted off the water in the backyard pool. She would be… what, thirty-two now? Thirty-three? Did she still live with her mother, and did her mother still take foster children?

As he took the water back upstairs, he thought about trying to go back to sleep. He'd never been able to before once he had a nightmare, which might have had something to do with the fact that this one time, when he was fourteen and had woken up screaming from one, his foster father of the moment had taken his belt to him for waking him. It wasn't that Edward was scared of going back to sleep – he wasn't – he just didn't really want to run the risk of having another one, shouting something, and waking Emmett, whose room was right across the hall.

Edward sighed when he'd closed the door to his room, and flipped on the light. He pulled his chem book out of his backpack and started on the homework he'd skipped. Bella would be happy, he thought wryly. No real dropout would do homework at two in the morning.

"Edward! Rosalie!"

Edward got to school Monday morning right between the bell to end zero period and the bell to start first when he'd been ambushed by Rosalie and her friends, most of whom were the type to laugh all tinkly. It annoyed Edward during lunch every day, but Emmett was pretty much making Edward hang out with him and his friends, because he'd made it clear to him on the second day of school that he wasn't going to let Edward stay alone. And Edward avoided the Latinos with gang markings. He'd have fit in with them, he was sure, but it seemed like, given a second chance, even one he hadn't asked for, he might as well try and do better.

It was hard to remember that, though, as a group of cheerleaders all tried to talk to him at once. He was sure that Emmett had asked Rosalie to set him up with someone, completely ignoring the fact that Edward didn't date.

The bell signaling the end of zero period had just rung, and Alice had called to him and Rosalie. Edward turned, searching for her through the rush of people hurrying to class. When she made her way over to them, she was out of breath, but she had a light blue piece of paper in her hand. "Party!"

"Ooh." Rosalie took the paper from her and unfolded it. "I always forget how early Bella's birthday is."

"Yeah." Alice hitched her bag higher on her shoulder. "It's for you and Emmett and Edward. It's not a surprise party this year–"

"Thank God," Rosalie laughed. "Remember last year? But wait – you and Jasper are having it because she wants a party this year, right?"

Alice shrugged. "What fun would that be?"

Rosalie smiled like it was cute, but Edward privately wondered why you'd throw a party for someone who didn't want one. Then he realized something. "Wait, me too?"

"Yeah." Alice looked at me funny. "Why not?"

"I…" He hesitated. "I don't think Bella would want me there."

Rosalie sniffed. "Then she can turn you away at the door, then, can't she? You're coming. Deal with it."

"She wouldn't turn anyone back at the door," Edward argued, shaking my head. He silently added that her perfect reputation wasn't worth it.

"I'll let you argue with me later," said Rosalie as the bell rang. "Can I take this to show Emmett?" she asked Alice, waiting to tuck it into her bag.

Alice nodded and melted away into the crowd as the two of them headed for the science building. "Rosalie, you said 'again,'" Edward started, but before he could really ask the question, she nodded.

"Yeah. Bella really hates what she calls attention for attention's sake. She thinks her birthday is just another day, but that doesn't stop her from making big deals out of Alice's or Jasper's." They had reached the door to the bio classroom, and she nodded to him. "See you."

Bella was already in her seat when Edward walked into the chem room, and he wondered again how she managed to get all the way here from the student center at the front of campus so fast every morning. She smiled at him as he pulled out his stool, and he said, "Happy early birthday, I guess."

Immediately her smile turned to a look of chagrin. "Did Alice get you, then? With those invitations?"

"Yeah." He took my seat. "You don't want a party?"

Bella shrugged, but she was smiling. "I don't mind. I just wish she'd keep it small." As Edward pulled his homework from his bag, she looked at him more closely. "Are you okay? You look tired."

He forced a smile. He hadn't wanted to go back to sleep at all last night, so he'd just kept doing homework. He was now startlingly caught up. "Oh, you know me," he told her, well aware that she didn't, not at all. "Out late partying. Trashed a couple of cars, spray-painted some houses–"

"Burned some lawns," she added, smiling again.

Edward shook his head regretfully. "No. We didn't get that far. The cops tracked us down first."

"Darn."

"Yeah." People still say that? "Hey, I thought you guys did really good Friday night. Sorry I disappeared."

She shrugged. "Thanks. And don't worry about it." But as she looked forwards to take notes, Edward caught her smiling to herself, almost blushing.

Miss Somerset was halfway through the lecture before Edward realized that he'd just had a conversation with Bella Swan. A relatively light-hearted conversation with her. Almost like they were friends.

What the hell was he doing? Talking to her when people were looking for him, pretty effectively putting her in danger. God, he was so stupid. She might get hurt because of him.

He was going to ignore her at the end of class, but he just didn't want to be rude. When the bell rang, Edward found himself walking with her until the physio room. She waved as she ducked around the corner.

He couldn't go to her party, he realized. Somebody could be following him. And what sucked the most was that he would hurt her, because he'd just given her reason enough to think he would actually go. Whether or not she'd wanted that party, she'd have reason to believe that he'd effectively lied to her. Damn.

"Hi, Edward." He looked over his shoulder as the little LaRenee girl that Jasper liked caught up to him.

"Hey, Maria." Since they had Physio together, there really wasn't any way to avoid her, even if Edward really didn't want to talk to anyone right now. "How're you?"

She hugged her books to her chest. "Good. You okay? You look tired."

That was two people who'd noticed in less than an hour. Was it really that bad? "Yeah, I–"

"Maria."

They both looked up to see her boyfriend standing right outside their classroom door, ignoring how everyone kind of ducked around him. Edward glanced down at Maria just in time to see something change in her face, but before he could figure out what it was, she smiled brightly.

"Hi, Blair!"

"Who is this?" he asked her flatly, but his eyes were fixed on Edward, who stiffened. He recognized that voice. Not from Blair himself, but from other guys he'd known, especially in Tucson. Blair was wearing a jacket, so even when Edward reflexively checked his arms for tats, he couldn't see anything.

"Oh. Um–" Nervous, Maria looked up at them both. "This is Edward Masen. He's – he just has this next class with me." With a little jerk of her head, she motioned for Edward to go inside.

Okay. But Edward held Blair's eyes for one more second before opening the door.

As he edged around the room to get to his lab table, he decided not to tell Alice that he wasn't going to Bella's party yet – it'd make it more believable if "something came up" the night of.

"Hey, man." Emmett looked up when Edward sat down, and so did the girl sitting behind him, who he'd just been talking to. Edward thought he recognized her from the girls' varsity cross country team. "You got a cross country meet coming up!"

Emmett, apparently, had a hard time staying angry for long. Edward grinned, relieved that he was going to ignore their argument from last night. "Really?" he said, amused into sarcasm. "I had no idea."

"Neither did I." Emmett reached over to punch Edward's arm. "Is there a reason this is the first I'm hearing about it? There'd better be a good – Maria is crying," he interrupted himself sharply, his gaze fixing over Edward's shoulder towards the door. "Why is Maria crying?"

Maria ducked into the room, one of her hands rubbing furiously at her eyes. Emmett and Edward both watched her, the former concerned and the latter calculating, as she slipped into a seat at the back of the room.

"The Boyfriend was waiting for her at the door," Edward muttered. "I don't think he was happy to see me."

"Why?" Edward turned back to Emmett to find his eyes surprised. "What's he got against you?"

Edward shook his head. "Wasn't me personally. I think it was the fact that she was with a guy he didn't know. Or any guy, actually."

"Oh." Emmett paused, thinking. "Oh."

"Yeah."

When the bell went off an hour later, Edward waved Emmett back and caught up to Maria himself. "You okay?"

She looked up at him, and he noticed that her eyes weren't red or anything. "Yeah! Why?"

Edward shrugged. "You looked a little… sad or something when you walked into class. Was he bothering you?"

She laughed, and Edward was surprised at how easy it sounded. "That's what he asked me about you. Of course not. He's just really protective, and he wanted to make sure you weren't upsetting me. He's sweet like that."

Sweet. Right. "You sure?" Edward was pretty sure he shouldn't press it, but he couldn't help saying, "It looked like you were crying or something."

"Edward, I have allergies. See?" She reached into her bag and pulled out a thing of Sudafed. "I gotta go." She waved and disappeared down the stairs.

Emmett walked up behind Edward. "So what's up?"

"She wasn't crying," Edward told him. "They were allergies. And he wasn't messing with her, or she's one hell of an actress." He glanced sideways at Emmett. "I think you just might be biased against The Boyfriend 'cause Jasper's your friend."

"Hey." Emmett held his hands up. "You said she was with The Boyfriend like it was important. Not me. And you might want to ask yourself who gets nasal allergies in the city in September."

"Who carries around Sudafed they don't need? It's not like she needs to take it to school to cook meth." Edward retorted.

Riley came up behind them. "What about Sudafed?"

Emmett explained to him what just happened – or hadn't happened – as the three of them stopped at Riley's locker. He thought about it in silence as he put back his stuff for calculus and German.

"If it were me," he started slowly, "and I understand that it's not, because I wasn't there and didn't see for myself, but if it were, I wouldn't say anything yet. It's probably nothing, and if it is, talking about it is just causing unnecessary trouble."

"I agree," Edward said, and Riley looked quickly at him.

Emmett made a face, but nodded. "Fine. I don't like it, though." They all turned and walked towards the main part of campus. "Edward, you going to the football game on Friday?"

"Why?" Edward asked, and Emmett stared at him for a couple of seconds before he remembered. "Shit, Emmett, I'm sorry. I forgot. Are you starting?"

"Yeah." He shrugged and Riley laughed. "No big deal. So will you go?"

"You can sit with us," Riley offered.

"Uh." Edward started to say no, but then he remembered how Emmett wanted to go to the cross country meet. Still, he'd never been to a high school sports thing or anything, and he really didn't want to change that. Riley caught the reluctance on his face.

"Edward, it's not that big of a deal," he said. "Cheap food, and you get to do something that's not sit around the house or run, right? And anyway, I'm pretty sure Jasper and Alice and Bella will be there. They usually go."

"Bella will be there?" Edward asked sharply.

"Yep." Emmett smirked. "You want to go now, don't you? Rosalie told me about–"

"Emmett, no. Jesus. Anyway, I'll probably have homework." He started to walk away, thinking, as he did, that the last time he'd used that excuse had been to get out of making a drug run.

"It'll be Friday night, Edward," Riley reminded Edward, putting a hand on his arm to hold him in place. "You'll have all weekend."

"Why you doing this to me?" Edward demanded.

He expected Emmett to smile and make some sarcastic, happy comment, but instead, his face got serious. "Because we gotta keep forcing you into these things even if you don't want to be there, 'cause if we don't you'll probably sit in your emo corner until your eighteenth birthday, when you think you can just run out and take on the world alone."

He forced Edward to meet his eyes, and Edward heard the rest of the statement, repeated from Saturday night: If you're in trouble, I can help you.

"God, man, that's morbid," Riley said with raised eyebrows, and Edward had never been so happy to hear the sound of a bell in his life.

"Alice, you know I hate parties."

Alice slipped another bobby pin into Bella's hair. "That's not true."

Bella considered this and the said, "You're right. I don't mind parties when we're being paid to be there as entertainment. My own parties, however, I hate."

"Oh, come on." Alice tugged a lock of hair with more force than was warranted. "You can't just go and ruin all my fun. Your conscience would never permit it."

"And I'd think that your conscience would prohibit you from torturing your best friend," Bella retorted. "It's my birthday. Don't I have the right to refuse a party on my birthday?"

"No. Whatever gave you that idea?" Alice took a step back to examine Bella's hair, nodded to herself, and then reached for her makeup, ignoring Bella when she groaned. "With my very subtle subject-changing skills, I will now comment on the morning announcements. Is it just me, or are they being sillier than usual?"

Bella shrugged, causing Alice to grumble as the eyeliner she was holding perilously close to her face almost smeared. "Not really. It's just that Trish won the coin toss for reading them over the intercom, and she was gloating a little. A lot."

Bella saw Alice frown in the mirror. "I thought it was something like that. She sounded a little snarky."

"Really?" Bella whispered. "You can tell?"

"Yep."

Bella sighed, remembering what Cathy had asked her on registration day: "Is this what we're in for? A year-long rivalry between the president and the veep?"

"And by the way," Alice added, approaching her with a tube of lip gloss, "you shouldn't have skipped out on the football game."

Bella raised her eyebrows. "I had homework. And since I knew that I'd be losing a night of study tonight–"

"Edward was there."

Bella tried very hard to keep her expression blank. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, Emmett asked him to go. He and Riley sat with me and Jasper." Bella saw her shrug in the mirror. "Not that it matters to you, of course. After all, he has no effect on you."

Bella sighed loudly, choosing not to dignify that with a response, and Alice had a smug little smile on her face.

Riley ducked his head in Alice's door and grinned at Bella's martyred expression, but before he could say anything, Alice waved the lip gloss at him threateningly. "You! Out!"

He raised a hand. "Peace, little sister," he soothed. "People are starting to show up, and before I let them in I was wondering if you needed me to do anything last-minute."

She considered for a moment before shaking her head and saying, "No. Thanks, though. Now out."

"All right, all right. I'm going." And with a final smirk at Bella, he left, shutting the door behind him.

It was at least another twenty minutes until Alice declared Bella finished, and by then they could hear people arriving downstairs. As Bella rose and the two girls approached the door of Alice's room, a thought struck her, stopping me cold and knocking away her breath. "Alice?"

"Yeah?"

"What's your dad planning on doing for your seventeenth birthday?"

"Oh, Bee." Alice turned and pulled Bella into her arms, whispering, "Don't do this to yourself. Not tonight, okay? It's your birthday." Bella didn't answer, and Alice didn't release her. She continued, "But for what it's worth, I think Charlie would be pretty damn proud of you." She drew back and took Bella by the shoulders, forcing her to look into her eyes. "Now stop moping. Your dad wouldn't want you to mope during your party. Chin up, okay?"

"Right." Bella pulled a smile on. "Okay."

Alice scrutinized me and nodded. "Very convincing."

And Bella really tried. She even found herself, a couple of hours into the party (which was, of course, much bigger than she'd expected it to be), almost enjoying herself. But whenever she let her guard down, images of her dad's smile, the sound of his laugh, which she hadn't heard since she was twelve, crept into her mind. Jasper noticed, and Bella was sure Alice told him what was going on with her when she wasn't looking. She ignored them, and turned instead to greet Emmett and Rosalie.

"Bella!" Rosalie hugged her before handing her a little silver-wrapped package. Emmett followed suit, grinning broadly.

"Thanks, guys," Bella smiled, fighting the urge to sigh in exasperation. She was pretty sure she'd told Emmett, to his face, that she didn't want any gifts. Still, it was nice to be remembered.

"No problem," Emmett replied. "And this one's from Edward." He handed her another little bag.

"Oh," she said, surprised, as she stared at it.

"He picked it out himself," he added. "He didn't come, though – he said something came up." He grimaced, clearly not believing it.

"Oh," Bella repeated, and was saved having to come up with anything else to say by the appearance of Alice at her elbow.

"Hey, guys. Bella, let me take those." She lifted the presents out of her friend's arms and deposited on the table with the rest of the gifts. "Emmett, can you help me wheel the cake out?"

"Wheel it out?" Bella demanded, and Rosalie laughed.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Bella, look around." She gestured to the party, which not only had taken over her backyard but had overflown into the living room. "Did you think a small cake could feed this lot?"

Bella sighed, choosing to ignore Alice's attempt at British slang.

Ten minutes later, she was standing in front of a huge pastel blue-and-green cake topped with seventeen candles in Alice's backyard while about a hundred people sang "Happy Birthday." As she blew the flames out, she didn't make a wish. Instead, she asked a question that could never be answered. Charlie, your daughter is seventeen. How do you feel about that?

Silence – the same silence as always – was the only reply she got.

Around two in the morning, the last few stragglers left the party, and Jasper and Alice helped Bella carry her presents across the street to her house. She wondered, again, if the three of them would have gotten to be friends if their parents hadn't bought houses so close to each other. As they approached the house, Bella was surprised to see the bJamesh glow of the television through the curtains on the front window. "Renee's home?" she asked, surprised.

She unlocked the door and let them in, and they were greeted by the sounds of a rerun of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. "Mom?"

"Oh, hey, sugar," Renee smiled vaguely, glancing at them over the back of the sofa. The light from the television glinted off the glass and bottle in front of her on the coffee table. She didn't get up, and Bella noticed that she was wearing her bathrobe with her hair knotted up on top of her head. She'd been home for a while, then. "Martin called and cancelled, said he had the stomach flu, so I decided I'd just stay in tonight."

Jasper frowned. "Did you know we were having Bella's birthday party tonight?" They all knew it was a rhetorical question. It wasn't like she could have missed it – Alice didn't believe in quiet music.

Renee shrugged. "Yeah. But I didn't feel like hanging around a bunch of rowdy teenagers tonight. Happy birthday, though, sweetie."

Alice made a scathing noise and was about to say something; Jasper nudged her after Bella down the hallway. But she only lasted until Bella's room.

"Such bullshit!" she hissed as they set the presents down on the floor by Bella's bed. "She couldn't drag herself off her ass long enough to come to the cake-cutting?"

"Alice," Jasper and Bella murmured at the same time. Bella added, "Don't judge."

Alice opened her mouth to say something else, but just scowled again before hugging Bella. "Happy birthday, Bella." She ruffled her hair.

"Thanks," Bella smiled tiredly as Jasper hugged her too. "And thank you guys both for doing this for me."

"No problem." Jasper let go and ran a hand through his hair. "See you tomorrow – or I guess later today. Happy seventeenth, you old fart."

Bella laughed, and he grinned before the two of them left. She stretched her hands up over her head before grabbing her pajamas and heading for the shower.

When she reentered her room, wrestling my wet hair into one braid down my back, she turned on her computer and went on Facebook. She scrolled through the little 'happy birthday' posts that dotted her Timeline, smiling at each of them. She actually laughed out loud at the one from Jasper's older brother Danny, a junior at Pepperdine University: Congratulations, you're now another year closer to death. Before Bella logged off, she noticed that she had a message. She clicked on the little red speech bubble in the upper left-hand corner.

It was from Edward, sent about three hours ago.

Happy birthday, Bella. Sorry I missed your party. I hope the present makes up for it.

Intrigued, she slid from her desk chair to the floor and sorted through the pile of packages and gift cards until she came up with the little bag that Emmett had handed to her. She tossed out the tissue paper and peered in.

Sitting in the bag was a little stuffed otter. She wondered, briefly, how Edward had known that she liked otters, since she'd never told him, and then recalled the drawing that Alice had done for her that was taped to the cover of her chem notebook. He'd noticed it, and remembered. Bella's throat felt tight.

She returned to her chair and typed a reply: Thanks! It's so adorable. I'll name it Sammy. I really appreciate it. She hesitated, wanting to say something about it being okay that he hadn't come, but she couldn't come up with anything that didn't sound stupid. So instead she just concluded, I'll see you on Monday.

It had been a long couple of days, she reflected as she shut down her computer and crawled into bed, leaving Sammy on her night table. And so much longer because she really couldn't tell anyone about how hard it felt to be her sometimes. She missed her dad.

Before she knew it, she was crying, feeling her tears wet my pillow. He should be here. He should be giving her a lecture on responsibility as she came ever closer to adulthood, he should have been holding a camera as she blew out her candles tonight, he should be anywhere but six feet underground at Forest Lawn.

After allowing the tears to have their way for a time, Bella reached up and turned on her bedside lamp. She turned to her night table and picked up the one picture frame there – the one that held the last picture that had been taken of her and her dad. She stared at it for a minute, her eyes tracing his arms wrapped around her, the smile in his eyes, the glint of the badge that declared him a lieutenant with LAPD. He had always believed in her. He'd always been there.

"I love you, Daddy," she whispered, before tucking it, and her pain and grief, away again, hiding it like the rest of her secrets.

So in order to make up for the unforgivable delay, i'l try to post every other day for a while. :)