A/N:

Has anybody seen the pics or live streams of Rob at Cannes Filmfestival? I'm so proud of the amazing reviews The Rover got! I can't wait to see it myself!

I have decided on a posting schedule. It'll be two times a week. The exact days will differ, since it will depend on how much homework I have to do. Gotta love school.

This chapter is still unbeta'ed, I have been looking for a beta but there aren't many beta's active and it's hard to find someone who is.

Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer, only this plot is mine ;)

Chapter 3

BPOV

A cold washcloth was pressed against my forehead. I heard mumbling in the background, and at the same time my head started pounding immensely. I felt like I drank an entire bottle of vodka – not that I knew what that feels like – this is just what I imagined it to be like.

I pried my eyes open and I came face-to-face with a skeleton. As much as I hated blood, I could handle pretty much everything else. That's why I didn't even bat an eye.

"Bella!" An all too familiar voice exclaimed.

I palmed my forehead.

I didn't want to ask the most obvious question that everyone in a TV-series or movie asks, but I couldn't remember vividly, so I did it anyways.

"What happened?" The lights overhead looked like flames coming from the ceiling. Damn, headache.

I was lying on a too hard stretcher and I had to get my limbs working properly before I could sit up. I grabbed the wet washcloth from my forehead and laid it onto the cabinet next to the stretcher.

Edward sat down in a chair next to the stretcher and took my hand. I was only wearing my hoodie and jeans right now, while I used to be wearing a top, two hoodies, my jacket, mittens and my beanie. Strangely, I wasn't cold. The heater must've never broken in this building. The only things situated in this building were the nurse's office and some storage rooms. According to the teachers and parents it was a too long walk for the students from the larger buildings to have to do that to reach their classes.

"Guess what," Edward said, his lopsided grin appearing.

"Did I faint again?" He nodded.

"What was the cause this time? A cat falling from a tree, someone dropping his book or did you move your chair unexpectedly?"

Did I mention I faint a lot? Well, I do.

"Neither," he chuckled. "Just a little blood," he continued.

I hated whenever I fainted. It would bring me unasked attention. I hated attention in general, but unasked attention was even worse.

"Come on, baby. The nurse said you could leave whenever you felt okay to do so. I'll drive you home," his caring and soothing self coming to peek out of its outer shell again.

The nurse I didn't even know the name of turned her head around the corner of her office.

"Bella, Edward will take you home,"

Thanks captain obvious, but he'd already told me that.

"You can take Tylenol for that nasty headache. Luckily Edward managed to grab you in the midst of your fall or you would've had to go to the emergency room," the nurse informed me. She was trying to make me worry less, but she didn't accomplish so well.

"Thanks?" for some sort of reason I made it sound like a question.

Edward lightly pulled on my arm, motioning for me to try to stand on both legs again. He gave me the pile of clothes which were nicely folded – OCD much? I chastely put them on and Edward put the beanie on my head, pushing some hair out of my face.

My legs were a bit wobbly, so I threw my arm around Edward's mid-section and he supported a part of my weight while walking out of the nurse's office.

"I could just stay at school, you know. I'm not an invalid," I breathed through my headache. It was actually getting worse.

"If you want to go to PE, be my guest. I'm not the one who just fainted. I believe coach Clapp said we were going to play volleyball," Edward raised an eyebrow at me, knowing how much I repelled volleyball and actually PE in general.

"Fine, take me home, sir,"

"Very well, madam,"

He opened the door and the cold from outside hit me in the face like a brick. A shiver ran through me.

Edward closed the door again before he put one arm behind my legs, the other supporting my back. And then I was in his arms. I snuggled close to his chest, not finding the power – or the will – to object to him carrying me. Like always, Edward had driven me to school, so we had no car trouble. With my head onto his chest, his heartbeat was loud, and oddly comforting. I breathed him in, enjoying the smell of boy and Edward. Nothing smelled like he did. I tried to snuggle even closer to his body, but I simply couldn't. All those damn layers of clothes were in the way. I craved his body warmth right now.

Way too soon we reached his car and he placed me in the passenger seat. He reached over me to the control panel and turned the heater on.

"I'm going to grab your stuff from your locker, okay? Just stay here, I'll be right back," he kissed my forehead I think, but I'm not even sure. I was too far gone already.

Before I knew it I was in Edwards arms again and I felt him reach to the side.

We must be home already.

We had a key hidden underneath a little flower pot so I guess that's what he was moving so much for.

"Fuck," he whisper-yelled. I heard the unmistakably sound of something falling to the floor and breaking. I could imagine the shards of pottery falling into the white snow.

He balanced me in one arm and on one leg, and soon we were enveloped by warmth again. He laid me down on the couch en began to take off my clothes – except for the hoodie and jeans, no worries. Soon, I felt a blanket pulled over me which I knew was my gran's. She'd made me this one when I was 12 and I had loved it ever since.

"Hey Charlie, I just brought Bella home."

"Yeah, she fainted so the nurse had me bring her home."

"No, I can just stay. How long until Renée or you get home?"

"I'll skip PE, no biggie. I told Mrs. Cope that I was bringing Bella home and that she needed a slip for PE and she passed me one too so I'm fine."

"Okay, thanks Charlie," I assumed he hung up.

I fell into a deep slumber after that.

~Stay~

The sounds of the sports channel on TV evaded my ears, and the pounding became more annoying.

When I opened my eyes I saw Edward in dad's recliner, a bag of potato chips in his hands.

He stuffed his mouth full once a minute, yes I checked.

I yawned once, which alerted Edward of the fact I was awake.

"Hey, sleepyhead," he mumbled through a mouth full of chips. Little parts were flying all over the place.

"There's some water and Tylenol," he pointed with a salty finger at the coffee table in front of me, where indeed was a glass with some tablets.

"Thanks," I grabbed the glass and a tablet and chugged it down.

Edward was watching baseball, a sport he enjoyed immensely but couldn't play himself after a shoulder injury. That happened when we were fifteen and he was devastated.

"How's your head?" he asked, a concerned frown appearing between his eyebrows. I stood up from the couch and pulled the blanket behind me. I grabbed the bag of chips from Edward's hands and he exclaimed a "Hey!" before I plopped down on his lap instead.

I pulled the blanket over the both of us and snuggled deep into his chest. I let out an inaudibly sigh.

Way better without all those layers of clothes.

Edward and I had always been the cuddle type, even though we were just friends, but I found myself more often wanting to cuddle with him. His arms came around me and he leaned his head on top of mine.

We sat like that for a while, before he grabbed the remote and turned the TV off.

"Hey, Bella," he broke the comfortable silence and lifted his head from mine.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Do you still want to study creative writing in college?"

"Of course I do. Why?" I raised my head from his chest and looked him in the eye.

"I was just thinking –" Edward started, but I interrupted him.

"Did it hurt?" He grinned and pinched my leg underneath the blanket.

"Auch! Edward!"

"What? You're mentally hurting me so I hurt you physically, it's only fair,"

"Very funny. Now, continue,"

"Right. I was just wondering if, you know, I was just wondering which school you want to go to."

I was actually quite sad to hear he didn't assume we were going to the same school together.

We'd always had that as a plan.

Now, why isn't he looking at me?

He wasn't, he was looking everywhere except at me. His fingers were playing with the hem of the quilt. I grabbed his hand in order to get his attention up to my face.

"I don't care where I'm going, okay? This may sound sappy, but I'm going wherever you are. I don't want to be without my best friend," I grabbed his hand and held it to my cheek.

"Okay," he breathed but I saw something flash across his features, something I didn't recognize. He pulled my head to his chest again and started playing with my fingers.

I couldn't help but feel like our relationship was changing. We weren't pulling away from each other, but we weren't getting closer per se either.

That was the last day everything had been normal for a long time.

My parents came home and asked if everything was okay with me and if Edward wanted to stay for dinner. He politely declined and left.

I didn't hear from him that day anymore, whereas we'd normally chat or text at night.

Instead, I sat with my parents and brother and we watched a comedy. Except it wasn't funny at all, not for me at least. Emmett had tears in his eyes from laughing, but I couldn't even get a little honest smile on my face.

Before the movie was even over I had made my way upstairs and collapsed onto my bed, not waking up until my alarm went off.

I did my normal routine, except the doorbell didn't ring at the time it normally did. Edward was always on time, emphasis on always.

Emmett always left before me so he could pick up his girlfriend to give her a ride to school, but when Edward was a no-show I called Em and he picked me up regardless.

Both Em and Rosalie – Emmett's girlfriend – had no idea where Edward was, and when I arrived at school he wasn't there either. I called him and left messages on his voicemail, but he never returned any of my calls. For all I knew he could've driven off a cliff.

I called the Cullen household, but again, no one answered. That wasn't weird at all since Esme and Carlisle both had a fulltime job, but that meant Edward wasn't home either.

He returned to school two weeks later and in the meantime I hadn't heard a thing from him. The day he returned he hadn't come to pick me up, nor had he even acknowledged me when I walked toward him in the parking lot.

He shocked the hell out of me when he walked around the car to the passenger seat, opened the door, and helped a beautiful brown-haired girl from the car. She was shorter than I was and her hair was longer and shinier than mine, a heart-shaped face on top of her slender body. She grabbed his hand and entwined their fingers.

A permanent expression of shock was plastered onto my face, and I felt rejected. My best friend had dumbed me for a new girl. She was better than I was apparently, and she deserved to get a ride to school while I didn't.

I had seen that whenever he looked at me a scowl was etched into his face, something I wasn't used to with him.

When I approached him in the hallway – he was standing with the girl again – he turned his back to me.

The first time I could actually encounter him was in our biology class, where we were still lab partners.

In the two weeks Edward had been absent the heaters had been replaced, so our jackets, mittens and beanies could be left at home. That didn't stop Edward from wearing a beanie, covering his messy bronze hair. He was wearing a black leather jacket with black dr. marten's boots, a combination I had never seen him wear before.

"Do you feel too good to talk to me, or something?"

We were watching a documentary on the division of cells, which was explained in the book already so I didn't need it and I doubted Edward would since he'd always been good at biology.

"Some of us actually would like to pay attention. Don't judge me for not talking to you right now," he sneered at me.

I had no idea what I had done wrong. Ever since that day I fainted he'd been acting weird, not to mention he disappeared from the face of the earth for two whole weeks!

"Please enlighten me about what the fuck I did wrong. In my book I didn't do anything to deserve this treatment from you," I whispered angrily. I began to analyze everything I said that day, what I might have written in my book that could've set Edward off but I came up with nothing.

At that particular moment the bell decided to ring to indicate that class had finished. Edward shoved his stuff into his bag, threw it over his shoulder and practically ran out of the classroom. In the meantime I hadn't even managed to close my book.

After he'd left I managed to do it all, and when I exited the classroom I ran straight into someone. I recognized his scent immediately and I threw my arms around his waist.

"Hey, what's up, little sis?" Emmett rubbed my back with his hand.

"Can you take me home, please?" My eyes were misty, and I knew I was close to sobbing.

"Uh, sure, are you okay?" He pulled me back by my arms and looked at my face.

I nodded uncertainly. He didn't look convinced but he must've seen a reason to leave it alone. We went to Mr. Cope's office, she signed our slips, and we took off in Emmett's Jeep.

When I came home, I collapsed onto my bed and had a full out panic attack with hyperventilation and all. I fell asleep after and didn't wake up until I felt a heavy body next to mine. I hugged Emmett, and he told me that everything would be okay, whatever it might be.

I didn't believe him.

A/N:

It's a little angsty right now, but it will get worse before it gets better before it will get worse and better again ;P

I'm definitely planning on a HEA.

Please tell me what you think

~ X Nathalie