"I'll pay."

Edward looked at me. "I can't let you do that."

I already had my wallet out. "No, really, I was the one that ran it into a ditch. I should at least be able to pay for it, right?" I took out the two fifty dollar bills my dad had lent me for tonight. "Here."

He pushed them back towards me. "Bella, it's okay."

When he said my name—how his lips shaped the sound of each letter—it made me get butterflies in my stomach. I recovered and then shook my head. "Seriously. Just take the money. That should cover, like, half of it right?"

"Um." Edward stared at his feet. "It's two thousand."

"Holy shit," I said aloud. "Two thousand?"

"For parts and repairs..." He nodded. "Yeah. Two thousand."

My God.

"I can, um..." I stuffed the hundred dollars back in my wallet, because obviously it wasn't going to help. "I can get a loan from my dad. Or maybe I could get a job. That'd be good because—"

"Bella," he said, and something inside me fluttered again. "It's okay. I got it."

"But Alice's Porsche just got stolen and I don't want your parents to have to pay for all those car troubles that were all mostly all my fault and—"

"Really."

I blinked twice and drummed my fingers along the counter. We were standing at the mechanic's office, and the clerk was looking at us, annoyed, impatient. We'd been talking and arguing about who was going to pay for the repairs.

"So." The clerk popped her bubblegum. "Are you gonna pay or do you wanna have it towed back, too?"

"We're gonna pay," Edward told her, and I noticed that she was completely and obviously checking him out. He hardly seemed to see that—or maybe he just simply didn't care because he had bigger problems—because he took his Visa out from his wallet and then turned back to me.

"I'm so sorry," I said for the billionth or so time this night. "I'm really, really sorry. I mean, it was just, the cat was there, and I didn't want to, you know, run it over or anything, so, I just turned, but I didn't see the ditch, and then we were in a ditch anyways, and I'm just really really REALLY sorry." And then, "Really."

"It's fine, really, Bella. Accidents happen."

I sighed, frustrated (but with the butterflies in my stomach), turned around and leaned on the counter. But two thousand dollar mistakes only happen to people like me.

***

"You WHAT?"

I pulled the phone away from my ear, afraid that Alice had just permanently damaged my eardrum. "I crashed his car," I said again, this time more quietly than the last.

"BELLA! How do these things even happen to you? I mean, one minute you're acting all confidently, and the next it's like BAM!" I pulled it away again. There went my other ear. "Something goes wrong! Maybe you just shouldn't act confident. Maybe you should just be yourself and if we're lucky nothing will go wrong."

I snorted at that and flipped over to lie on my back. "Be myself, Alice? Really? When there are Rosalie's roaming the Earth with blonde hair and blue eyes and designer clothes and big chests? You honestly tell me to be myself? That's the best advice you can come up with right now?"

I heard her sigh. "Well they haven't found my car yet, Bella, so what do you want me to say?"

"I don't know." I stared at the ceiling. After Edward and I had left the mechanic place, I had to call my dad to come pick us up, since his dad was working at the hospital and his mom vacationing in Las Vegas. Which hadn't gone very well, to say the least.

"So," Charlie had said while we both piled into the backseat. I wasn't sure if it would've been rude to sit in the front, and leave Edward in the back, so I made some lame excuse about not being tall enough to sit in a seat with an airbag (this received a questionable look from Charlie) and buckled up. "How was the evening?"

Not sure if this was rhetorical or not—did he really need to ask that question, given where we were?—I ignored him completely and glared at the seat in front of me.

"How was the evening?" he repeated.

"It was fine, sir," Edward replied flatly.

And that had been the end of conversation the whole car ride home. We sat in total silence—besides the faint buzzing of acoustic guitar playing on the radio. And when we'd dropped Edward off, I didn't want to walk him to the door, because wasn't that sort of a guy thing? And, judging by the way he looked at Rosalie sometimes, Edward didn't like it when girls did guy things.

So he'd gotten out of the car, and I waved awkwardly, and then he was gone.

"Anyways—" Alice paused. "Hold on. My other line is beeping."

I sighed. "Okay, whatever."

She didn't respond for a while. In fact, I think it was thirty minutes of my just laying on my bed until she came back on. "Um, Bella? I have to let you go. That's Jasper."

"Okay, whatever."

"I'll see you at school Monday."

"Okay, whatever."

"But, um, will you be all right?"

"I—"

"Good! I'll see you Monday!"

Click.

***

How the hell the entire school found out about the driving incident is beyond me. But as soon as I walked in the doors Monday morning, people started coming up to me, asking me if I okay. When I assured them I was fine, thanks, and why wouldn't I be? they just replied that they heard about The Accident.

And that was how they said it. As if it was capitalized.

And, oh God, Edward avoided me up until the block we got for working on our project. He didn't say one word to me after that damn cat decided it was okay to prance in front of his shiny silver Volvo.

"So." Edward tapped his pencil on his desk awkwardly. Now that I thought about it, basically everything Edward did around me lately was awkward. "Should we compare biodegradable results to something like a plastic diaper?"

Huh?

"Yeah." I nodded. "Sounds like a plan. I'll get the diapers."

And, naturally, Rosalie had to walk by as soon as I said that. She snickered. "I always knew you had problems, Bella."

I clenched my jaw. There was no way I was getting into a fight with Rosalie. Not now. Not in front of Edward. If she wanted to take this out after school—

Who was I kidding?

"Just ignore her."

I blinked and looked up from my desktop, thinking it was someone like Alice who had just said that to me. But Alice wasn't there. Only Edward.

"What?" I said. Did he just tell me to ignore Rosalie?

"Just ignore her comments," he said. "They're really immature anyways."

Immature? Ohmigod. He just called Rosalie immature. Did he want to go to the MB with an immature girl? No. That would be stupid. So did that mean—could that mean—he possibly didn't like Rosalie? Anymore? Or was he just saying that to make me not feel like such a loser?

The latter, probably.

"Oh," I said. "Yeah—it's not worth it."

And that was what I thought. Until lunch came around.

***

Rosalie could insult me. I didn't care. Really, I didn't. Okay, maybe really, really, deep down I did care, but that was a small part of me. But the one thing I would not tolerate with Rosalie was insulting my friends.

She called Jessica a pig. This, I may add, is totally unfair. Jessica is skinner than me and Alice, I think. It wasn't her fault that that day at lunch the cafeteria was selling cupcakes. Jessica was addicted to cupcakes like a smoker is to nicotine. And, I mean, come on—so she bought four cupcakes—like Rosalie hadn't ever indulged in something other than Diet Coke?

So, when she called Jessica a pig, and then made a few, "Oink oinks," I was pissed. Really pissed. She'd done a lot to me. I let that go. But I was not—I repeat not­—going to let this go.

Therefore I did something I normally wouldn't do. I stood up, out of my seat, before Rosalie could leave from calling Jessica a pig. My chair squeaked backwards, making a scraping noise against the floor, and it seemed like everyone turned to look.

And when Rosalie turned around to see what the hell I was doing I picked up one of the cupcakes and shoved it in her face.

And, I'll admit it, it felt good. Oh, it felt really good, seeing that chocolate icing cover her perfectly made-up face. At least it did until she poured her Diet Coke over my head.

I swear, nobody was saying anything, nobody was breathing, when this was happening. Not even me. My heart was stopped in my chest.

"Bitch," she muttered.

That was when Jessica stood up and hurled another cupcake in her direction. Unfortunately, she ducked in time and it hit one of the eighty-pound girls that follow her around everywhere. And then that girl threw her spaghetti and meatballs at Jessica. And then Alice got into it too, and, before I knew what was happening, the whole cafeteria was throwing food at each other, and people were screaming, and the principal was coming in, trying to calm everybody down, which didn't work at all.

Eventually, though, everyone did calm down, and Rosalie and I got sent to the principal's office, our clothes dripping with Monday's meatloaf surprise.

A/N: Holy crap, guys, I feel so bad for not updating in, like, months. And I know I've said that before but I seriously do. I'm trying to update, I am, but this year I'm being swamped with homework and sports and all that stuff you guys probably have, too.

Blaaaaah.