EPOV

She sat alone. How had I never noticed her before? She was seated at the only table that was not entirely full… in fact, it was empty aside from her, and she was beautiful. Not a kind of beauty that would stand out in a crowd, but the kind of beauty that was under appreciated. Like an old painting that was taken for granted. She didn't eat much. She pushed around the salad on her plate indifferently, her sad eyes scanning over the rest of the cafeteria from time to time, lingering on each table as if she was reading its occupants body language like a book. When her eyes scanned across the table I was seated at, though, they darted away almost immediately.

I felt like a stalker.

I moved my eyes quickly down. Had she caught me looking at her? Probably. Slowly I brought my eyes back up until I could see her again. She was looking down at her salad, her bottom lip caught between her perfect teeth in a thoughtful pose.

"Edward!"

I snapped my eyes away from Bella and onto the source of distraction. Tanya's face contorted into a look of disbelief as she realized that I hadn't been listening to a word she had said.

"What?" I said blandly.

"Were you even listening?"

"No."

"I said… shit, I can't believe I'm going to say this again. I said I'm sorry," she rolled her eyes distastefully as she repeated the words.

"Oh," I said indifferently.

"Oh?" Her eyes narrowed as she regarded me incredulously. "I'm apologizing, and all you can say is Oh?"

I shrugged, shaking my head a little to further portray my lack of interest. I noticed then that the rest of the table had fallen silent and everyone else was listening to our conversation.

"Edward… I never apologize to anyone!" Tanya's perfectly manicured brow was pulled down in honest confusion over her wide eyes.

I chuckled, "Am I supposed to feel special?"

"I…" Her mouth hung open as she stared at me. "I can't believe like you're acting like this is so… so…" she searched for a word.

"Trivial," Irina suggested from the left of her.

"Trivial!" Tanya finished her sentence as if she had thought of it herself.

"Do you even know what that word means?" I stared back at her cavalierly.

"Don't change the subject," she snapped.

"Tanya, your apology isn't necessary, I'm over it."

"Over it?" She echoed, horrified. "Well, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means don't worry about it, Tanya. It's fine."

"Well you didn't seem fine Friday night when you stormed out of my house.."

"How was I supposed to react to my date making out with someone she didn't even want to invite to the party while I was off getting her drinks?" I cocked my head to the side in an almost cocky manner, feigning interest.

"Well… yeah. But.." she stammered. "I mean, we can work this out, right?"

I smirked a little, shaking my head, "Work what out?"

"Us!" She looked appalled at my lack of interest. "I thought we had something.."

"In the whole three hours you spent having me follow you around at your house, we had something?"

"No.. not just then. We've always had this… chemistry," she raised an eyebrow, relaxing into her seductress mode. "I know you've always been attracted to me."

Alice snorted somewhere to my right and Emmett let out a cough that sounded almost like a laugh.

Maybe Bella was right. What did I ever see in her?

I leaned forward, placing my palms on the table and meeting her eye contact.

"I told you, I'm over it."

Her eyebrow shot up again, but this time it was out of a vicious glare rather than her attempt at sweet-talking me. "Oh really? I find it hard to believe that you could be over a crush you've had for five years in just a matter of three days," she smirked.

"I met someone new," I shrugged, shocking myself with my own words.

"You…" she stopped short, her face contorting several times as she blinked furiously. "What?"

"I met someone else. My affections were ill placed before, it turns out."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't pretend to be so hurt. It's not as if my lack of interest in you is going to really set you back. You can, and have had every guy in this school that you want."

She was silent then for a moment before - "Who is she?"

"None of your business, Tanya."

"What's her name?" she insisted.

I was about to retort with a response as similarly unhelpful as my last when the bell rang, cutting me off. I knew she wasn't done with the subject, but it would be much easier to avoid in a classroom setting.

I stood up immediately, not giving her the chance to speak again. A sense of dread filled me as I realized what the next class period was.

Navy bean counting.

Super.

I found myself scanning the surging crowd of students for a glimpse of Bella as I made my way to my locker and then to Mr. Banner's classroom. I didn't see her until I stepped into the room. She was already in her seat, staring down at her table in silence.

"Take your seats please, you have another ten thousand beans to count out today for your lab tomorrow," Mr. Banner mumbled as students piled into the room one by one.

"Or fourteen thousand, if you're me." I rolled my eyes.

Tanya walked into the classroom just moments before the bell rang again and took a very stiff seat next to me, glaring at me out of the corner of her eye. I'm sure if Mr. Banner wasn't explaining that we were counting out jelly beans today instead of navy beans and the reasoning behind that, she would be talking my ear off in tones that would probably not have been very pleasant. Once Mr. Banner stopped talking, though, I knew there would be nothing left for me but to ignore her.

If only it would have been that easy.

"Who is she?" she hissed as Mr. Banner had waved us on to do our work and seated himself to grade some papers.

I locked my jaw and ignored her, standing up and gathering the beans and jars from the cabinet. I was so occupied with my frustrations toward Tanya that I accidentally bumped into another student on my way back from the cabinet.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't see you the-" I started impulsively, stopping short when I realized that it had been Bella who I had bumped into. "Sorry," I said again quickly.

She smiled shyly, meeting my eyes for the tiniest of seconds before walking around me and taking her seat. Other than that small smile, though, she barely even acknowledged me. I didn't exactly blame her for that. I had just admitted to not seeing her for the second time in the short amount of time I had known her.

Real smooth, Edward.

Cursing myself silently, I returned to my seat to find that Tanya had constructed an entire lecture in my 30 second absence.

"Honestly, Edward, there is no reason for you to be such a dick about this. I'm trying to be nice and pretend… I mean, I'm trying to show my interest in your new romantic… crush… thingy, and you're completely blowing me off!"

"Yeah, you would know all about blowing people off," I mumbled under my breath.

"Excuse me?" she said sharply.

"What?" I said, simulating confusion.

"Why are you being such a dick?" she repeated bitingly.

"Maybe I just pay attention to your preferences," I smirked as I said it, half-hoping she would catch my intended meaning. She didn't.

"What are you talking about?" she shook her head.

"I have to do our lab work now, Tanya, so if you wouldn't mind shutting up so that I can count in peace, that would be great."

"I'm not done-"

"Or maybe you would even like to contribute and help me out. This is your grade too, you know.."

"No, Edward. We aren't done with this con-"

"Is that a split end?" I said sarcastically.

"Where?" Concern shot across her face as she began studiously observing the ends of her perfectly groomed hair.

I smirked to myself as I turned my attention away from Tanya. That should buy me at least three thousand beans worth of time.

A light chuckle from behind me prompted me to turn my head slightly and seek out the source. Bella ducked her head down and pretended to be very focused on counting a moment too late. I had seen her watching me. For some reason, I had a very different reaction than the way one would normally react to being eavesdropped upon. I was happy. It meant that she wasn't completely ignoring me. She was… interested, at least.

I shook my head a little and glance back at Tanya who was picking apart individual strands of her hair and examining them intently, a frown covering her face.

Triumphantly, I began counting beans.

----

I just barely managed to finish counting out the jelly beans before the bell signaled the end of class period. Bella was out the door before I had even grabbed my books. Tanya was right behind me, taking advantage of the bell to try to start up a new conversation.

"Hey, what are you doing this Friday?" she started, jogging a little to keep up with my long strides.

"I'm busy."

"Doing what?"

I ignored her.

"Are you going to be hanging out with this girl?"

I ignored her again.

"Who is she? Come on, tell me."

"Why do you want to know?" I huffed angrily, turning out of the doorway toward my locker.

"Because…" she shook her head as if that were all the justification necessary.

"It doesn't matter."

"You like her, though, so she obviously matters at least a little bit."

"Did I say that I liked her?"

"Well… you implied it," she reasoned.

"I implied that I met someone that I liked better than you. At this point, most of the student population fits that category," I snapped, my aggravation starting to cause an unnecessary temper.

"I thought you said you were over it!" she mocked.

"I am. That doesn't mean I have to be happy about it." I quickly put the combination into my locker and opened it so that the door was positioned between Tanya's head and my own. I gathered the books for my next class and shut the door to find a nearly furious looking Tanya.

"Don't frown so much, it causes premature age lines," I suggested, turning and walking away from her, intent on taking the long way to class if it meant avoiding Tanya.

"Ugh!" I heard her exclaim behind me before the steady noise of her heels vanished among the noise in the hallway.

I didn't have anymore classes with Tanya before the end of the day, so if I was lucky, I could just avoid her.

As interested as I may have been in the calculus lesson that afternoon, I couldn't have focused on it if I wanted to. For some reason, all I could think about was Bella.

What I said to Tanya earlier kept playing through my mind.

My affections were ill-placed before, it turns out.

And what of my affections now? Were they existent at all? If so, were they directed towards Bella? How could I like her after meeting her once? That could barely have been enough to determine who she was and what kind of a friend she would be. I didn't know anything about this Isabella Swan except for that she was the police chiefs daughter, she worked at the library, she was an overcautious driver, she had trouble maneuvering a flat surface with her feet, she blushed often, she was very observant…

…and apparently I was more observant than I thought I was as well.

In my experience, though, I only ever paid attention to things if I found them particularly interesting. This calculus lesson, for example, was not very interesting at all to me, which resulted in me daydreaming about conflicting topics. Did that mean that I was… interested in Bella Swan?

Of course not. That's absurd.

But I realized as I walked back to my locker after I had neglected to take a single note through the last two classes of the day that I would never be able to determine how I felt toward Bella Swan until I interacted with her again. I had no idea if she would go for that, though. I didn't know how open she was toward caffeine at all, let alone another correspondence with me. I was not going to be as vain as to believe that she would automatically be swooning for the opportunity to have coffee with me. She was very unpredictable in that way. She was very unlike the rest of the girls in the school. Maybe that in itself was what drew me to her.

It would be nearly impossible to catch her to ask her to have coffee with me, though. She was very stealthy in the hallways. She never made herself easily accessible.

"I'll just pick up my own set of house keys Monday after school. I have to work until 6, then." She had explained to Charlie after asking for his house key. I would go visit her at the Library.

"I am such a creeper," I mumbled to myself as I walked out into the parking lot, scanning the crowd for Alice and forcing myself not to look for Bella at the same time. Alice was just getting into her bright yellow Porsche when I spotted her. It was hard to miss that thing. It stood out quite vividly among the rusted hand-me-down vehicles that most students of Forks High owned. Alice was giving me a ride to the auto-shop where I would be picking up the contents of my late Volvo. We had full coverage, so Carlisle planned on taking me to find a new one as soon as we came back from this weeks planned camping trip.

Luckily for me, they weren't mad at me for totaling my car. I had a relatively clean record when it came to driving. A few speeding tickets here and there, but nothing drastic. Alice promised them that I hadn't been drinking, making her the second person to lie on my behalf in the span of one night. Esme was too relieved that I was alive after I told her about the damage to be angry with me. It was a simple case of hydroplaning. No questions asked.

"Ready?" Alice chirped as I slid into the passenger seat of her car.

"Sure," I mumbled indifferently, reaching for the seatbelt. Alice sped out of the parking lot at dangerous speeds. It didn't shock me. Both Alice and myself had always had a tendency to speed behind the wheel of a vehicle, and until now, I hadn't been uncomfortable with it.

"You're going a little fast, don't you think?" I commented.

"Oh please. One accident and suddenly you're an advocate for safe driving?" she rolled her eyes.

I didn't respond.

"Besides," she continued. "It's not speed that kills you. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's the real killer.."

"Where the hell did you hear that?" I shook my head in amazement at my overzealous and crazy sibling.

"I don't remember. I read it online somewhere…" she shrugged. "Now, what auto-shop is your car at? Or, sorry… your ex-car?"

"That's not funny. It's the one on Main Street," I directed, not remembering the name exactly, though I remembered it was an over used male name.

"Al's?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Kay," she sighed. "Oh! I like this song!"

She cranked the music up to an almost deafening volume and danced, or rather, wiggled hazardously in her seat while the vehicle weaved slightly around on the road as she sang , "Just dance, gunna be okay, da-da-doo-doo-mmm, just dance, spin that record babe…"

It amazed me that she had went her entire life without a ticket. Somehow, even with distractions like music and putting on makeup in her mirror, she always saw the cops before they saw her. It was one of the many things about Alice that completely baffled me.

"Thanks," I said loudly, forcing my voice over the steady beat of the music as we pulled into the parking lot of Al's Auto-Shop.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Get out. Jasper's parents are out of town and I'm late. I was supposed to meet him there to hang out right after school," she said anxiously, throwing my backpack towards me as I climbed out of the car.

"Use a condom," I smirked.

"Can I borrow one? God knows you never use yours."

"Shut up," I grumbled, annoyed that she always came back with a better comment when I was trying to make fun of her. I might be able to make fun of her height, but she never missed a jab at my virginity. Thankfully, though, she never mentioned it in school. I would never live it down if Tanya or Rosalie or any of my other friends found out that Edward Cullen was a virgin.

I rolled my eyes as I slammed the door shut and watched her speed away.

It wasn't as if I hadn't had plenty of opportunities to have sex, I just never liked any of the girls enough to go through all the trouble of finding privacy and providing precautions. Plus, most of the girls I had dated would have laughed their asses off if they found out that I was a virgin. No one expected it of me for some reason. It was a hard façade to maintain. Most of the time when anyone started up a conversation about sex around me, I just had to pretend like I knew what they were talking about from experience rather than from listening to their endless stories. If that got out, I would be chastised endlessly until the end of my life.

I shook my head, dispelling the irritating thoughts as I turned toward the main building and made my way to the glass door. An irritating bell chimed overhead as I entered, beckoning a large, balding man to come to the front desk. A cloud of smoke dispersing through the air around him suggested that I had just interrupted a cigarette break.

"Can I help you?" he said unenthusiastically, his tone alluded to a very low level of patience and a very high anxiety level. Probably from tobacco cravings, I decided.

"Yeah, I'm here to pick up the contents of the 2005 Volvo.." I replied.

"Oh, right. One sec.." he disappeared into a door and returned a moment later carrying a cardboard box. He set it on the table without any consideration for any fragile contents and produced a piece of paper from beneath the counter.

"Sign here, and here," he directed, handing me a pen which's cap I noticed appeared to be thoroughly chewed on.

Gulping down my discomfort, I signed the paper quickly and returned the pen to the man.

"Have a nice day, Mr. Cullen, and thank you for choosing Al's," he grumbled mechanically before turning and disappearing into the back room again, issuing a single smokers cough as he did so.

Grimacing, I grabbed the box and walked out of the shop. I opened it quickly to fish out my cell phone. I pulled the extra battery that I had brought from home out of my pocket and replaced the dead one, feeling an odd sense of completion as the phone lit up. I scrolled mindlessly through several texts from Tanya and a few from Esme and Alice before pocketing it and setting off down the street towards the library.

I didn't even bother looking at what else was in the box. The only thing I needed right now was my phone. Esme was going to call me on her way home and pick me up from wherever I was at the time. Alice had agreed to take me to the auto-shop, but she was adamant that she had other plans that would not allow her to bring me home. I knew now that those plans most likely involved having sex with Jasper. I cringed internally at the thought. She wasn't much younger, and she was technically my cousin, but still, for all intents and purposes, she was my younger sister. Her mom and dad, my aunt and uncle, were in a car accident when she was only one month old and Esme and Carlisle, being the compassionate people they were, took her in with no question. Alice had grown up calling them mom and dad because, to her, they were the only family she had ever gotten the chance to know. We were only born eight and a half months apart, so we started school at the same time and were in the same grade, but it was still uncomfortable for me to think about her having sex. Jasper was one of my best friends before she started dating him, though, so I knew she was safe with him. She loved him and he loved her, which was the best scenario I could think of. There was no doubt in my mind that it wouldn't be too long after graduation when Jasper would propose to her. It was a forgone conclusion at this point. They were inseparable. There wasn't a fight in the world that they couldn't solve through sex or simple conversation and negotiation.

Compared to Alice, I was pretty damn slow. I was a nearly nineteen year old virgin who hadn't had a girlfriend longer than 5 months that wasn't cheating on me and she was an eighteen year old beauty with a boyfriend that adored her and her entire life planned out already. Me, I didn't even know what I wanted to study in college, let alone where I wanted to go. And now, as if I couldn't get more pathetic, I was practically stalking a girl that I was certain wanted nothing to do with me.

I was shocked to realize that I had already walked the 5 block distance to the library and I now stood facing its brick archway and large glass doors.

Knowing that if I waited another minute I would most likely chicken out, I gulped down my uncertainty and took several steps forward, pressing the metal bar and opening the door. The air was cool and crisp inside the library. It had the comforting scent of new books and a slight hint of windex. There didn't appear to be anyone else there at the moment. I didn't see anyone at the counter, either. Slowly, I made my way to the first row of books and pretended to browse through them as I waited for some sign of Bella.

The sign I was looking for came sooner than I expected.

I had only been standing in the aisle for about 12 seconds when Bella came around the corner, her attention focused on several books in her hands. She pointed her index finger absently as she read the labels on the shelves before sliding one of the books back into place.

"Oh!" she gasped as she noticed me standing several paces away from her.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," I apologized quickly.

"No it's fine… what are you doing here?" she bit her lip, confusion crossing her face.

"Oh, you know… looking for a book…" Coward, I thought bitingly toward myself.

"… Really? Are you sure that's what you're doing here?" she said, more confusion tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Well… isn't that what you normally do at a library?" I defended myself weakly.

"Usually… but I really don't think you're here for books," she accused politely.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

She chuckled once, her gaze falling to the ground for a brief moment before she replied, "We're in the pregnancy and home birth aisle."

I jerked my head to the side and scanned across several books about lamaz before scowling angrily to myself. Plot foiled.

"So maybe I'm not here looking for books."

"I figured as much," she said softly, still looking down.

"So… maybe I was here looking for you."

"Why?"

"To thank you… again. And to apologize. And… I don't know. I'm without a vehicle and I just picked up the stuff from my Volvo and I'm waiting for a ride and… I guess I was bored, maybe." I felt like such an idiot. Nothing was coming out right, I was making a huge fool out of myself. Why was I so nervous to talk to her, suddenly. Who was she to intimidate Edward Cullen? She wasn't that special…

But I knew that I was lying to myself. She was special. That's why I was rambling on like an incoherent fool. She was different and for some reason, I liked her.

"You don't need to thank me, or apologize. It's fine, really," she bit down on her lip again.

"I was also… wondering…" I stammered. "If maybe you would like to have coffee sometime. My treat. Really, it's the least I can do."

She gulped. Her eyes slowly rose up until they met mine again. I felt my knees weaken. "Coffee?" she echoed incredulously.

"Yeah… that is, if you drink coffee."

"I.. yeah, sometimes," she admitted.

"Great, we'll go get coffee then," I nodded lamely.

"When?" she shook her head.

"Oh… when do you get off of work?"

"Not until 6."

"Oh, well, probably not today then," I frowned. "Oh, hang on a second." I dug into my pocket for my vibrating cell phone.

"Hello?" I said quietly, remembering that I was in a library where silence was appreciated.

"Hey, good, you got your phone on," Esme's voice sounded on the other end. "Where are you at right now, I'm almost into town."

"Oh, I'm… uh, at the library."

"The library?" she asked in near disbelief. Esme and Carlisle had never denied us books. They purchased Alice and I whatever books we could have wanted without question, so it was no mystery why Esme was so shocked that I was in a library.

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'll be there in two minutes…" And then the line fell silent. I pocketed the phone and looked back up to see that Bella had put the last of the books away on the shelf as I had been otherwise occupied.

"I've got to go," I supplied.

"Oh," she nodded her head once very slowly. "Okay.."

"So… I'll, uh.. I'll see you in school," I shrugged, edging around her and making my way back towards the door.

"Bye," she said quietly.

I turned to make a dash for the exit and ran straight into a bookcase. Thankfully, the bookcase was sturdy enough to not come crashing down. The box of things from my Volvo that I was still holding, however, fell to the ground. The cardboard gave away on impact, leaving the box wide open and the contents scattered haphazardly around the pregnancy and home birth aisle.

"Damn it," I muttered, kneeling down to collect everything back into the box, more embarrassed now than I ever remembered being.

Bella didn't laugh at me. She knelt down beside me and helped me pick up the mess of papers and random objects and put them back into the box.

"Thanks," I said, standing back up and tucking the box securely under my arm.

"No problem," she nodded.

"Bye," I said again, turning with much more caution to make my way towards the exit.

"Bye," I heard her echo behind me.

I felt like the worlds biggest idiot as I exited the library.

"Isn't that what you normally do at the library?" I repeated my earlier words sarcastically to myself as I walked towards Esme's Buick. "Idiot."

"Hey baby," my mother smiled lovingly at me as I slid into the car. As pathetic as it sounded, it was always a comfort to know that no matter how big a fool I made of myself, my mom would always be there for me. Although I was old enough now that she really should not be calling me "baby" anymore…

"Hey," I said glumly, slamming the door and buckling my seatbelt.

"What were you doing at the library?" she asked casually as she pulled away from the curb and out onto the road.

"I was talking to a friend…" I said hesitantly.

I could tell by her sudden frown that she was thinking the same thing I was. Yeah right, Edward, you don't have friends that are smart enough or desperate enough to go to the library.

"What friend?"

"Well… I don't know if you would call her a friend," I admitted.

"Oh! Her!" Esme grinned, shooting me a glance.

"She was the one that I got in the accident with.." I explained.

"Oh, that's why that truck out front looked familiar!" she exclaimed to herself.

"Yeah, I just… asked her to have coffee or something as an apology."

"An apology, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure that's all this coffee date is?" Esme smirked knowingly.

"It's not a date, really… and yes.." I insisted.

"You sure did have quite the red face when you stumbled out of that library," she shrugged, the smile still in tact on her face.

Curse parents and their super sensitive powers of knowing. I could never lie convincingly enough to Esme. Alice had it down to a science, but my mom always caught my slight gestures that gave away any hint of dishonesty.

In instances like this… She even seemed to know more about me than I did. She could sense what I had yet to admit to myself. She knew that I liked Isabella Swan in ways that I was unfamiliar with and possibly even a little bit afraid of.

Mothers always knew.

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