Dissclaimer: I think it's pretty obvious I don't own Twilight. If I did I wouldn't be doing this.
A/N: Okay here's another chapter. I had to stop by my mom's office with her and I convinced her to let me type this chapter up! So yay for my mom. Anyway, updates will be random for the next couple of weeks. My computer will be at least looked at in about 2 weeks and then I might know more after that so I will let you know when I know more about my computer. But enough of my babble. Read!
Chapter 6
You know how sometimes, people bond over the weirdest things? Well, that's what happened with us. After the game of truth or dare, Emmett, Jasper, Rosalie, Alice, Edward and I were closer than Siamese twins… or Siamese sextuplets. Whatever. We had sort of paired off, yet we were a group at the same time. Rose and Emmett, Alice and Jasper, me and Edward. Even though it wasn't official, Rosalie and Emmett and Alice and Jasper were basically dating. It was only a matter of time before that happened. It really wasn't like that with me and Edward. He was my best guy friend and I was his best girl friend. Although I couldn't exactly deny it anymore, I had a thing for Edward. But it didn't change anything about us. I had had crushes before, not like this, but I did have them. I wouldn't even listen when Alice and Rose would tell me that it was obvious he felt the same way. It was just impossible for him to. We all ate at the same lunch table because Alice, Rose and I were kind enough to allow them to sit at our sacred table. It was the end of October and we were talking about Jake's upcoming Halloween party.
"Please let me dress you!" I heard Alice plead to Emmett and Jasper as I sat down.
"No way" said Jasper.
"Whatever it is she wants to dress you for, you should let her do it. Trust me; it's easier to just say yes now." I told them. I had experience with this matter. Alice all but dressed me for school everyday. "What is it she wants to dress you for anyway?"
"Jake's Halloween Party" said Emmett. Oh, I could see their point.
"Oooh, yeah. Completely disregard what I said before" I said with a laugh. I started to eat my pizza when I noticed there were only five of us sitting here. That was weird. Usually, Edward is either right behind me or already at the table when I get there. "So, where's Edward?"
Everyone just kind of looked at me.
"Well, we thought you would know." Said Rose.
"Why would I know?"
"Well because you two are always together so we just figured" said Emmett. They had a point. I almost always knew where Edward was, but not in a creepy stalker way, in a best friend way. I scanned the crowd for him. I saw a glint of bronze hair and I knew it was him.
"Oh, there he is! Talking to Lau—" I stopped. Lauren was the slut of the school. All she wanted was to get in every guy's pants and sadly enough, she usually got what she wanted. Lauren's back was to me and Edward was facing me. I could see the annoyance in his eyes as she talked to him. I started to laugh a little. Lauren's attention was diverted just as Edward and I made eye contact. I smiled as I saw relief fill his eyes. He mouthed the words "Help me" and I started laughing. I sighed, nodded and got up to go save him from the slut.
"So… I was thinking, I could, ya know, show you my dorm. I just got a new bed and it's so comfortable" I heard Lauren say trying to sound seductive and sexy. "You have to try it out." She was failing miserably.
"I… uh… well, you see…" Edward stammered, trying to figure out how to let her down gently. Lauren started to smile. Ew, she thought he liked her.
"Hey Edward! I was just seeing if you were going to come and sit down cause well one: your pizza's getting cold and 2: Alice wanted to go over plans." I said.
"Yes, I am… right now." Edward said quickly and started walking away. I was about to follow when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see a pissed off Lauren.
"Listen, Swan. Edward is mine so back off!" I started to laugh.
"Oh really? Then he wasn't just trying to let you down easily like the gentleman he is?"
"No. He was just shocked to know that I want him, that's all."
"Really, then why'd he leave so fast without even giving you an answer?" I said. I saw her face grow hotter with anger and it only added to my happiness. I then turned on my heel and walked back to the table.
It was the night of Jake's Halloween Party. On Halloween to be exact. Alice had convinced me to let her pick my costume, although I'm still not sure exactly why I agreed. Alice and Rose spent a while on my hair and make up before giving me my costume to change into. They had straightened the waves in my hair and given me dark eyes with a light red lipstick. They were going to change and get ready as I did. I walked into the bathroom to change. I saw a pirate costume hanging up, but it looked entirely too small for me to be wearing.
"Alice!" I called.
"Yes Bella?"
"I think you left your costume in here and have mine out there. This thing is way too small for me"
"I'm sure. Just put it on. It will fit I promise." Stupid little pixie always getting what she wanted. I took the costume off the hanger and slipped it on. It was a one piece costume. I had three quarter sleeves that were cut zigzagged, a little black leather vest, a gold belt to separate it, and a very short skirt part. There were leggings and knee high boots. The whole costume except for the boots and leggings were black and white vertically striped. I put the scarf in my hair as a head band and walked out of the room. Alice saw me and squealed before putting a necklace with coins on it around my neck. I looked like a slutty pirate. Wonderful. Alice was literally a pixie that night. She had a little light green, form fitting dress on with flowers on it and sparkles. She had a tiara in her hair and was carrying a wand. She also had light green boots to match it. Her make up was done beautifully and was sparkly. Rose was going as a devil. She had red pants on with a spaghetti strap top on that showed off her midsection a little bit and red horns in her hair. She also had a tail coming off the pants at her butt. She had bright red lipstick and her hair curled. They both looked great.
"Ready to go?" Rosalie asked me.
"As ready as I'll ever be." I said as the two of them giggled at me.
We made our way over to Jake's dorm. We walked in to see that they had moved the beds out to make room for the guests. We saw the boys over sitting on a couch.
"Hey boys" said Rosalie. The boys just sat there with their mouths wide open.
"What are you three supposed to be?" Jasper recovered first.
"Well, Rose is the devil, Bella's a pirate and I'm a pixie of course!" Alice said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And I had to admit, it was pretty obvious. By now Edward and Emmett had also recovered and I noticed what the boys were wearing. Jasper was wearing a simple baseball uniform with a baseball cap. Edward was wearing a football uniform with the marks under his eyes. Emmett, oh boy Emmett. He was dressed as Superman.
"Uh, Emmett?" Rose started to say.
"I'm sorry but there is no Emmett here. Just Superman" said Emmett with a crazy smile.
"Oh well, that's just too bad then. Cause I really wanted to dance with Emmett. But since he's not here. Oh well, and I really just dressed like this for him. But I guess I'll just leave then" said Rosalie as she turned away. Man this girl was good.
"Wait! Rose! I was just kidding, Emmett's here, just under the Superman!" Emmett called after Rose as he went to find her.
"So Alice… want to dance?" Jasper said with a smile.
"Of course! I can't refuse a man in uniform." Said Alice as they walked in the same direction as Emmett and Rosalie. Edward and I were now alone. Not that this is a new situation, just that I've never been alone with him wearing this short of a skirt.
"So, Alice dressed you I take it?" Edward asked.
"Yes… although I guess it could be worse" I said with a laugh. "But I wish the skirt was longer"
"I don't…" I heard Edward mumble, obviously so I wouldn't hear, although I probably heard wrong. "Yeah definitely I mean what if you're dancing and everyone can see your butt?"
"What? Why wouldn't people want to see my butt Edward? Plus you need to shake what your mama gave ya!" I said as his eyes grew wider, this was fun. "But, then again… my mama didn't give me much to work with… not that she had that much to spare… what?" Edward just sat there looking at me like I was crazy… hm maybe I was?
"You're talking about how big your butt is" he said.
"Yeah, I'm aware of that Edward. And I'm totally right, I have like the smallest butt in the world."
"No you don't have the smallest butt in the world, Bella" Edward said reassuringly.
"Yes, I do. Seriously! The whole back of my body is like a wall! No bumps or anything" I said back, as weird as it might seem, this is the kind of stuff I talked to Alice and Rosalie about and even weirder, it was normal to talk like this with Edward and the other boys.
"No you don't, Bella. You have a … very erm nice butt" Edward said uncomfortably.
"Okay Edward, name one person with a tinier butt than mine"
"Alice"
"That doesn't count cause everything about Alice is small!" I said a little loudly. Alice heard me.
"Hey!" she yelled.
"Love you!" I yelled back and she smiled and returned to her dancing. "Okay, so I have the second tiniest butt"
"I guess I can agree to that" Edward said with a laugh.
"I wish I had Rose's butt, it's pretty huge"
"What is with you girls and complimenting each other like that?" asked Edward.
"What do you mean" I was confused.
"Well, a girl can compliment another girl anytime, like telling her she looks hot or sexy, without anyone thinking she's a lesbian, but if a guy said something like that to another guy, well they'd think he's gay."
"Hmm, I guess that's true. Well…" I had a plan formulating… "I know one guy that wouldn't be… excuse me for a second" I walked away and tried to find Emmett in the crowd.
"Hey Emmett! Wanna embarrass Edward for me?" I asked him.
"Embarrass? Hell yes! What do you want me to do?"
I whispered my plan into his ear. Soon enough he was grinning ear to ear. He nodded and Rose and I stepped back to watch.
"Hey Edward!" Emmett screamed over the music "You look HOT tonight in that uniform!"
Rose and I burst out into laughter as we saw Edward's eyes widen. Not that many people took notice of what just happened but it was well worth it for the ones that did. Some of them didn't know Emmett and looked a little scared, the ones who did know Emmett, gave him a weird look and then just shook their heads and went back to business.
"Great job Emmett! Well I'm gonna go see if I can cool down Edward, he's gonna be pissed" I said as I walked away. I went back to the spot that Edward was when I left him to find that he wasn't there. I looked around and I saw him walk out the door.
I started to run after him, trying to think of why he would leave. He knew that if Emmett did it, it would definitely be a joke, so why was he running? I saw him go towards his dorm and close the door. I walked up to it knocked three times before opening the door. The only problem was that the door was locked. I sighed.
"Edward! Please unlock the door and let me in…" silence "I know you're in there I just saw you go in. Now please unlock the door. I just want to talk to you. It was a joke." Nothing. I waited a minute to let him think it over.
"Okay Edward, if you don't open this door in 30 seconds, I'm going to go steal Emmett's keys and come in anyways. So we can either do this the easy way or the hard way, personally, I prefer the easy way. It means less walking in these boots." Still silence. Why was he so angry? I started to count down from thirty.
"5… 4… 3… 2…" I was about to say one when I heard the lock click open. I turned the handle and let myself in.
"Edward? ...Are you okay?" I asked as I sat down on the edge of his bed. He was sitting cross legged at the top of the bed just staring at his comforter. "It was a joke, I'm sorry; I didn't think you would take it this way. Emmett didn't mean anything by it, everyone knows that Emmett's a big joker and kind of crazy anyway."
"Not everyone." Edward said still staring at his comforter "Not everyone knows him. I saw the faces of some of the people there. They looked at me like I was insane."
"Edward it will blow over by tomorrow"
"But what if it doesn't?" He looked up at me for the first time. It was then I could see the pain in his eyes.
"Edward… what's really the matter? I don't think it has anything to do with the joke." I said with concern. I had never seen so much pain in his eyes. He stayed silent and looked back down at the comforter. "Please… talk to me… you can trust me with whatever's bothering you." He took a deep breath and started talking.
"I never exactly told you the reason I decided to come here did I?" he asked as he looked up. I shook my head.
"Well, it was because of the humiliation I was suffering from back home. I had had a girlfriend, her name was Tanya. She seemed like the perfect girl, she was pretty, had okay grades, seemed to like animals, and she was head cheerleader. I was a jock and everyone had been pressuring me to ask her out. It wasn't that I didn't like her, I did, but I just was too nervous to do it at first. I finally asked her out and she was so excited. For a while everything seemed to be going perfectly. My parents seemed to like her and her parents loved me. The only problem happened after we had been dating for 6 months. When we were together, all she cared about was the physical stuff. She wanted to kiss and make out all the time. Then there were times when she'd try and go a lot farther than I wanted to. She even tried to get me to sleep with her a couple times. I had told her no from the start. That I didn't do that unless I felt I had something really, really special with that person. She didn't like that. After that I started to see the way she acted when I wasn't around. She was rude to people and she talked about me as though I was a possession or a prize she had won and no one could take it from her. Like I couldn't even take me from her. I would see her with the other jocks from all the other teams all the time. I didn't think she was cheating on me but I couldn't help but feel like something was off. I thought it was just me overreacting to something so small. I went on for another month thinking that I was just being stupid. When in reality I was being stupid for thinking I was being stupid. A couple days after our 7 month anniversary I caught her making out with the soccer captain. I couldn't believe she had done something like that and I broke it off right then and there. She didn't even make it look like it was his fault." He stopped and took another deep breath.
"That's when she told me she was a couple weeks pregnant" I just stared at him. Edward? Already a father? No way. There was absolutely no way.
"Now before you make an assumption, it isn't my child. I have never slept with anyone, I am a virgin. After hearing that I knew she had been cheating on me, it was the only explanation for what was happening. After that, I guess she expected me to get back together with her. But I just couldn't, even for the baby's sake. She told everyone that it was my child and that I broke up with her because I didn't want to deal with the responsibilities. I told people that it wasn't true but, no one would listen. I learned that the reason they didn't listen was because she had spread lies about my whole family. My father is a doctor at the hospital there and understands when people can't fully pay for treatment, so he helps them. She made it seem like he traded payment for lap dances or something and he taught me exactly how to manipulate a girl. She also turned my mother into a prostitute and my mother is absolutely no prostitute by any means. She humiliated us all. This happened at the end of the school year last year and my parents decided to send me off so that I wouldn't have to deal with Tanya or anyone. We took a long vacation this month to avoid people. My parents are actually returning tomorrow. I came back early for school." He finished.
I looked at him with nothing but sadness in my eyes. How could someone do that to Edward? He was such a nice person and so caring, why would anyone take advantage of that?
"Are you sure she wasn't just lying about the whole pregnancy thing?" I asked hopefully.
"I don't know. I haven't heard anything in the past 4 months. My parents are supposed to call me a little after they get home tomorrow. So, until then I know nothing about the scandals in Forks"
Wait… Forks?
"Did you say Forks?" he nodded "As in Forks, Washington?" he nodded again with a confused look on his face. "My father lives in Forks!"
"What?"
"Yeah, I was actually born there, but I moved to Phoenix with my mom when I was a baby. I used to visit him when I was younger during the summer." I said.
"Wow, who's your dad? Maybe I know him!"
"Charlie Swan, he's the police—"
"Chief" Edward finished for me. I guess he knew him.
"Wow, you know him. Who are your parents?"
"Carlisle and Esme Cullen"
"No way! Carlisle's your dad?"
"Yep" That was too weird. Carlisle had seen me way too many times before when I had been clumsy at my dad's house.
"Wow, I didn't know Carlisle had a son!"
"I didn't know Charlie had a daughter" we both started laughing. It was too weird. How could we both know each other's parents and yet not know each other.
"You know… we could call Charlie and see what's happening with Tanya." I said quietly.
He took a deep breath before answering.
"I think that's a good idea" he said. I picked up my phone and dialed Charlie's number. He picked up.
"Hey Bells! How are you doin' kid?" I heard my father's voice.
"Good dad, but um. I was wondering… do you know anything about a girl named Tanya there and something about her being pregnant?" I asked nervously and put it on speaker so Edward could hear. I put a finger up to my mouth to show him not to make a sound.
"Well yes, I mean there was a big scandal about it along with the Cullen family not too long ago but…" Charlie trailed off. "How did you know about Tanya… or anything that goes on here for that matter? I know I didn't tell you about her…"
"Well, I know someone here who used to live around there and we were talking about it and wanted to know what was up." Charlie hesitated.
"How much do you know exactly?"
"The whole story… and weirdly enough I probably know more about it than you do. I just need to know Dad, please." I looked at Edward. He looked like he was about to throw up from nervousness, he looked really scared too. I had to fight the urge to go over there and pull him into my arms and tell him everything was okay…
"Okay… well kid, what do you want to know?" Charlie surrendered.
"All I need to know is if she really was pregnant and what happened with everything since the Cullens left."
"How did you know the Cullens left?" Charlie asked.
"Not now Dad, just please… answer the question…"
"Well…" Charlie started…
(A/N: I was tempted to leave it there but since I don't know when updates will come… I will spare you the anxiety!)
"It turned out that she wasn't pregnant. She just said she was so that she could humiliate the Cullens' son, Edward, to get back together with her. Everyone who believed her feels horrible about it. When Carlisle and Esme get back it will be very awkward." Charlie sighed. "I can't believe she'd do something like that. I thought I knew Tanya better but, Edward was right to break it off. He probably knew she wasn't really pregnant. I heard he transferred somewhere because of the embarrassment"
I looked at Edward… he looked like he could kiss Charlie for delivering that news. He looked so relieved and just couldn't stop smiling.
"So, Bells… how did you know about all of this?" I hesitated. I didn't know if Edward wanted my dad to know that he was the one to tell me. I looked at Edward and he nodded.
"I actually met Carlisle and Esme's son here. Edward is one of my good friends now, and he was a little upset about something and it just turned into him telling me about it. He wanted to know what was going on."
"Oh…" said Charlie.
"Well, thanks Dad, but I really should go. Alice and Rosalie are dying to get me into another costume for tonight. Not that I actually want to do that… but you know them" I lied with a laugh at the end.
"Yes I do. Have fun kid. I'll talk to you soon."
"Yep, love you!"
"Love you too Bells" He hung up. I put my phone away and looked at Edward. Next thing I knew I was in a big bear hug.
"Thank you so much" he whispered in my ear, sending chills down my spine.
"For what?" I whispered back, not sure why I was whispering. He let go of me. That wasn't why I had asked that…
"Well, for believing me that it wasn't my child and that I wouldn't have abandoned it if it was. And for calling your dad about it. And for listening… I've been battling myself for so long about it, wondering if I did the right thing. It was nice to know that someone else thought the same as me and helped me figure it out… thank you." He said with my favorite crooked smile.
"Anytime, Edward." I said with a smile of my own. That night we became closer than ever, I knew I could tell him anything and he knew he could do the same. If it was possible, I liked him now more than I did before. More than any guy I had ever had a crush on, more than I had liked Sam. Maybe I could give him a chance… and maybe… just maybe… he wouldn't hurt me.
A/N: So, there it is. I made it nice and long for you to tide you over until I can try and fit in somehow another update. And even though I won't get them for a couple days or a week I don't really know, please review! Reviews make me happy and a happy writer makes for a better story and longer updates!!