Hello! Me again with an update! So here is the next chapter, sorry for the wait but I'm soooo busy now a days. Thanks for all my wonderful reviews and I'm really sorry to dolphin231 I didn't see the last part of your review asking me not pm back! So don't worry I'll be more careful next time. Alright well on with the story…enjoy.

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Now more than ever I was feeling confused about my relationship with both James and Edward. James was the easy choice; he was more like me, he didn't judge me, and most of all he had not freaked out when I told him that I had practically killed someone. He was simple, I didn't have to think to be with him.

On the other hand there was Edward. He was everything a girl dreamed about, yes even me. He was handsome, smart, and apparently wanted to be my friend because for some incomprehensible reason he liked me as a person. But he didn't know anything about the real me. He didn't know anything about the drug addict me or the me that always got in trouble, and that did bad things.

No that was the old me. I tried to tell myself.

And now I was forced to make a choice, the tabloids had made it sound there was some fight for my attention: two potential suitors that both wanted to gain me as a girlfriend. And there was the other side of that article, the one that said I was a pothead, which wasn't that bad compared to the worse things I did.

My dad had absolutely freaked when he had read the article, I had told him that I was just holding the "cigarette" for James, and after some more convincing he gave in and decided to file a complaint against the tabloid that had taken that picture and written the article. But even though I had the White House convinced that I was innocent, school was a whole different story.

I saw the little freshmen looking at me out of the corner of their eyes, trying to steal a glance at the girl who smoked weed. The seniors and juniors mostly just gave me high fives. Emmett had informed me that my "Street Cred" had gone considerably up, he had heard a bunch of upperclassmen talking about how they wanted to smoke with the president's daughter, I just rolled my eyes. They probably wouldn't even remember me in a week, they would already be on the next high school scandal, some student would be sleeping with a teacher or whatever.

"Oh don't worry about them, Bells." Emmett said glaring over at a sophomore that had stopped in front of our lunch table to stare at me, and Edward, who now had a pretty bad black eye.

"Yah I know." I sighed going back to playing with my food.

Edward and I were talking but it was very strained, I felt like we were walking on eggshells around each other and the stares and comments from both the student population and our own group of friend was not helping.

"He's not here." Edward said roughly through his cut lip.

"What?"

"James, he's not here, he hasn't been here and he probably won't be back for a while so you can stop looking for him." Edward was always angry when I tried to look for James, I just glared at him.

For some unknown reason James had gone missing, he was just gone. There were crazy rumors that he had killed himself, or that he had moved to California to be a drug dealer and then there were others that were even crazier like he ran away with Chloe. We hadn't seen or heard from Chloe in a long time, her parents were away in Europe visiting their house in Paris so we had no way of contacting them to ask them where Chloe was. We had all agreed that she was probably just visiting them in Paris maybe taking a little break; we just couldn't understand why she hadn't said anything to us.

"Do you need help carrying your books?" I asked Edward as the bell rang and we headed to Bio.

"I got punched in the eye, I didn't break my arms." He replied coldly.

"What is your problem?" I asked him. He stopped when I stepped in front of him blocking his way; the hallway was already deserted because we were going at a ridiculously slow pace.

"Forget it." He muttered. He was a whole head taller than me but I still tried to look intimidating.

"No! What is it? I want to know what's got your panties in a bunch!" He looked down at me, straight into my eyes. I felt a chill run through my spin, and I wasn't even cold. Even with his black eye and busted lip he looked like a god, in fact it was almost like his eye and lip added to his hotness.

"Do you think we could talk after school today?" he asked running a hand through his hair.

"Yeah sure, where?"

"I'll just come over your house after soccer practice okay?" I nodded my head. At least maybe we could sort this whole thing out.

"Good." We walked into Biology and took our seat halfway to the back. Mr. Banner didn't even bother to ask us why we were late. He really hated his job.

We didn't really talk through class unless it was small conversation about what the homework was or if I was doing a problem right.

Gym was a nightmare mostly because Mike was in it. You would think that if you told a guy basically that you never wanted to see him again, that he would be at least a little mad. But no not Mike, Mike was just as happy as ever. He would continuously come up during class and talk to me or ask to be on my team until I gave in and told him we would hang out sometime.

"Sure thing Mike, I'll talk to you later." I gave him a curt nod and then headed for my locker.

"Hey so I'll just come over to your house after practice."

"Jesus, you scared me!" I jumped when Edward appeared out of know where.

"Sorry."

"It's fine." I closed my locker door and slung my bag over my shoulder.

"So I'll catch up with you later." We said our good byes and I headed home.

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EPOV:

"Hey good job man." I slapped David on the back as we headed back into the changing rooms after practice; I hopped into the showers quickly before heading over to Bella's house. I needed a little bit of time to get my thoughts in order.

I knew that I was going to tell her how I felt I just had to run my little speech through my head a couple more times before I had to give it live. I had never felt this way about a girl before, even Tanya had not had this affect on me. I knew I wasn't ready for love, but I did know that I liked Bella a lot. I hoped that she shared those feelings too. There was no way that she didn't feel the intensity between us, sometimes, it was baffling.

I shut off the water and dried off. Her house was kind of hard to miss so I pulled into the long winding driveway in the back that was reserved for visitors, pulling out my wallet with my special pass I noticed that I didn't have it with me.

"Shit!" I could have sworn I had had it with me before practice. I heard someone clear there throat and looked up to see the security guard who had apparently heard me swear.

"Sorry I seemed to have miss placed my pass." I informed him.

"No pass, no entrance." He said in a clear and aggressive voice.

"Oh come one! Don't you recognize me? I'm the Vice President's son." I gave him my award winning smile hoping to jog his memory. He looked at me and then squinted up his eyes as if he was trying to remember a hard math problem. Suddenly a big smile graced his face and I relaxed a little.

"Oh yeah! You're the one that got in a fight for Bella, right? That's why you have a black eye!" he seemed proud of himself for making the connection. Great now I was known as the guy pining for Bella's attention and apparently failing, thanks to this black eye.

"Yeah that's me." If it got me in I would agree with him that I was the clown on the cereal box. His smile got bigger and he pressed the button opening the gates. "Thanks!"

"I hope you win!" he called after me. At least I knew he wanted me to win Bella's heart instead of James, though I knew she didn't like him…right? Oh no! What if she DID like him? Why was I here? This was a stupid idea, I should just-

"Edward!" Bella's musical voice broke me out of my trance.

Bella met me in the front hall looking not so great, she had huge circles under her eyes and skin was blindingly white, she also seemed to be getting skinnier and skinnier as the days went on. She gave me a weak smile and a hug. At least she smelled great.

"Hey."

"Hi." I said back.

"So you wanted to talk?" she asked taking another step back.

"Yeah, can we do it somewhere a little more private?" I asked looking around at the huge room. there were probably about 76 different spies just listening in on us as we stood here. She chuckled.

"Sure." She led me up some stairs and down a long hallway. "This is my room." I took a deep breath as we stopped in front of a door. I felt a little nervous, I mean I had been in lots of girls bedrooms don't get me wrong, but it was just the fact that it was Bella's room and I didn't know what to expect. She opened the door and pulled me in by my hand.

Her room was plain, nothing spectacular. It was a light blue and had a few pieces of furniture. I took a breath and relaxed. I was in.

"So what did you want to talk about?" she took a seat on the couch and I closed the door behind me and went to join her. We were sitting a little far apart but not too much for it to be awkward.

"So that security guard was nice." I chickened out, I was scared I would scare her away if I started telling her how much I liked her. She looked a little confused but smiled anyway.

"Yeah, Phil is great. So did you just want to talk about Phil?"

"No, I really came here to talk about us but I feel a little nervous so I want to make small talk first." GIRL ALERT! I was officially a girl. Why had I just told her that? She let out a little laugh and I cringed.

"We can talk about random stuff for a while... if you like." I relaxed and nodded. We talked about a lot of random stuff, including the school gossip, our friends, and just strange things that I had never been able to talk about with Tanya before.

"Oh my God it's already 9 o' clock!" she had pulled out her cell phone to show me a picture she had taken of Mr. Banner during class one day when she had noticed how long he had been talking for.

"Wow." Was all I said.

"Edward do you feel comfortable now?" she asked looking into my eyes.

"Yes, what I really came here to talk about was us."

"What about us?"

"Well I just wanted to know where we stood." She looked down at her hands and tucked her feet in under her.

"I don't know, we're friends right?" She looked up at me with a weary smile. I tried my best to give her one back.

"Yes we are, but do you ever feel like we could be more?" Her eyes got wider. And I took another breath to steady myself.

"What do you mean, like as in us being more than friends? Like what….?"

"Bella I don't know how to say this. I'm just going to go out on a limb and blurt it out." She gave me a little nod. "I like you Bella, I like you a lot, and I mean as more than a friend, though I like you as a friend to. I just feel really attracted to you and…all I'm trying to say is that I like you as more than a friend." Wow repeat much Edward? It got real quiet and I just sat there waiting for her to say something, anything! All I could here was my breathing and her faint intakes of air.

"Bella?"

"Edward," she stopped and swallowed, "I like you too." At that moment I felt like the happiest man in the whole planet, and couldn't keep that stupid grin off my face.

We both started to lean in towards each other, our lips met half way. As soon as we made contact it was like a fire was lit. It started off low but built in intensity. I licked her bottom lip and she opened up letting me slip my tongue in, we kissed for a little and then I pulled back. That was the best kiss I had ever had!

"Wow" we both breathed. We caught our breaths and then I stood up.

"I know we just had an amazing kiss but I really need to go if I don't want to have Alice send out a search team for me."

"I understand, it's getting late anyway." She stood up to and gave me a peck before I left.

BPOV:

I felt like I was walking on air. Did Edward really like me that way? He had to, that kiss was amazing. I had been kissed before but never like that! The chemistry between us was undeniable, and I knew that I had to be the luckiest girl in the world at this moment.

I was still a little shaken with excitement and decided that a shower was in order. I slipped out of my worn clothes and stepped into the scolding hot water, I just stood there for a while. I knew I needed to move because I couldn't feel my body anymore and that was never a good sign.

I washed my hair thoroughly and shaved my legs. I loved that "just clean" feeling, like a fresh start. I seemed to have already messed up my fresh start at this school, but I maybe now with Edward I could get back on track.

Once I was satisfied that I was clean enough I turned off the precious water and grabbed a fluffy towel, it smelled like lilac. The bathroom was still nice and hot from the steam, I loved that feeling, almost like a sauna. I wiped the fog off the mirror and pulled out my little bag full of toiletries. It took a minute to untangle my snarled hair but then it was smooth as butter and shinny! I cleaned my face and lotioned. I hadn't felt this good in weeks I could already feel my stress level going down. All that was missing was the scented candles and the ocean soundtrack in the background. My hair was almost dry when I was finally done, but instead of putting it up into a pony tail I left it down.

I made my way back into my room to get dressed when I stopped dead in my tracks. Someone, a man was standing in my room and they were not supposed to be there.

"How did you get in?"I asked in a slightly shaky voice, not because I was scared of him but because of the way he looked.

His clothes was soaked in red liquid, was it blood? I couldn't tell. His hair was all over the place and matted down with sweat. His face was stained with dried dirt and you could easily make out the traces of dried tears and sweat that had run down. He had small cuts all over, and his clothes were pretty sliced up too. What had he been doing, had he gotten into another fight?

I met his eyes and shivered, there was a crazed frantic look in them, for a second he looked as if he were pleading with me but in a flash they were back to a frenzied stare.

To answer my question he simply lifted up the pass that Edward had been missing earlier today, so that's where it went.

"How did you get that?" It was a stupid question but it was all I could think to say, I didn't think "Why do you look like a psycho?" Would go over to well.

He sneered a little laugh that was humorless and flat. "I stole it." His voice was broken and hoarse, like he had been screaming or crying.

Well so much for my stress level going down, it was rocket high right now. Somehow I also felt that my getting on tack was about to be put on the back burner. I shifted my balance to my other foot and looked down at my feet, I needed an explanation, no one just waltzes into my room at an ungodly hour looking like this without an explanation.

So I worked up my nerve and ask in a cold dead voice, "What are you doing here James?"

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What did you think? A bit of a cliffy at the end for you to wonder about. Please review!