Previously…

What's happening? Twitter asked me innocently. I tapped the touchpad a few times as I thought, and then I typed: Met an obsessive compulsive hottie today and I didn't get squished on Jazzman's bike. An especially shitty day. Happy birthday to me.

Then, I put my phone on silent and switched off the main light before huddling down under the duvet. I did have homework, but I wasn't in the mood to do it. If I gave the teachers some spiel about not having enough time, or being in hospital, or whatever, then they didn't bother me about it.

I supposed having a terminal disease did have its advantages. There were very few of them, though.

"Argument is the worst sort of conversation."- anonymous

"Everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart, so that better things can fall together." – Marilyn Monroe

Taking Chances

Chapter 4 – Wishes That Are Downright Impossible

Edward POV

I didn't tell Alice and Rose about bumping into Bella, Emmett and Jasper. I didn't tell Mom and Dad that I hated the therapist almost as much as I hated this stupid town. I didn't sleep much that night either, my dreams plagued by images of Bella glaring at me and telling me that I didn't belong here.

After homeroom the next morning, I slouched to English hoping that Mr Berty would spend the whole lesson talking at us so that I could zone out and only pretend to listen. About half the class was there when I got to the room. Again, people stared as I made my way to my seat and it made me uncomfortable; how long would it take for the novelty of new students to wear off? Jess shot me a smile that I supposed was meant to be reassuring but it just looked creepy.

I started to set up the things on my desk as I waited for Mr Berty to come in, but stopped and looked up when another hush came over the class. I saw that everyone's gazes were trained on someone else, their heads together as they whispered. I glanced over to see Isabella Swan weaving her way through the desks, her eyes trained on the carpet and her cheeks red. Oh, and she was headed straight for me.

She stopped abruptly right in front of me, and looked up. Her eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth turned down. She just stood there for a moment, and then sighed and resignedly sat in the seat beside me. Was this why my seat had been empty the day before? Where had she been the day before? Because she had definitely been at lunch.

I didn't say anything, and I didn't expect her to say anything either just like in Biology the day before, but then she cleared her throat nervously.

I looked over at her.

"Um… I'm sorry… about yesterday," she said very quietly. Her eyes stared unseeingly at the desktop. "I was having a bit of a shitty day…"

I was so surprised that she had spoken that I just blinked at her for a few moments. Then I turned my head so that I wasn't staring at her and muttered, "It's okay."

She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and said, "Uh… I'm Bella."

"I know," I said stupidly.

"Oh." Bella looked a few desks ahead of us at Jessica. "Yeah, Jess likes to give the 'one-oh-one'." She did finger quotes as she said 'one-oh-one' but I couldn't work out why.

I scuffed my shoe against the floor nervously before saying, "Oh, I'm Edward Cullen."

She snorted. "I know."

"Oh."

There was a pause and then Bella started to pull her things out of her bag. Once she had dumped them all on the desk she turned back to me. "So where'd you move from?"

"Chicago," I replied blandly, trying not to think about it there.

"Why'd you move?" she wondered casually.

That was the one question I'd been hoping she wouldn't ask. I wasn't about to tell a stranger that, no matter how pretty the stranger was. I shrugged. "Fresh start, I guess."

"Oh." She looked away again. "Yeah, I've done that." There was something in her tone that I couldn't quite pinpoint. Regret, maybe? Sadness? Again, I wondered what this beautiful enigma of a girl had to be sad about.

I stared at her downcast face for a moment too long. I noticed the bags under her eyes. "Are you okay?" The question just slipped out.

She looked up in alarm. "Yes," she said, too fast. "Why?"

"You look tired," I answered, though that was really only a tiny bit of what I had noticed.

"Oh. I… uh… I didn't sleep well last night," she admitted.

I wondered if she had been thinking about me like I had been thinking about her.

I was about to ask why she hadn't slept well, but then the door opened and Mr Berty came in to start the class. I wasn't sure but I could've sworn that out of the corner of my eye I saw Bella sink back into her chair with relief.

Unfortunately, today's lesson was another class discussion. It didn't matter as much as it had at the start of the lesson because I was now very awake; and very aware of the girl sat beside me. Mr Berty says that the discussion today will be about the book the class were all asked to read for extra credit. He brought a copy to my desk, saying that he understood if I hadn't read it because it wasn't a very well-known book, and nor was it on the syllabus. But when I looked down at the book, I was surprised. It was Sick Girl by Amy Silverstein. Tanya had come across a copy at a yard sale once a few years back. She had read it and immediately demanded that I did too. I reluctantly gave in and started to read her 'morbid, girly crap'. But I had been pleasantly surprised. Yes, the woman's memoirs of her heart transplant and the occurrences that followed were upsetting but the writing was very good and the feelings it evoked were… well, completely emasculating, to be honest.

Mr Berty was not the only one surprised when I muttered that I had read it; Bella's eyes shot to my face, her eyebrows raised in astonishment. Once the teacher had returned to the front to begin the discussion, I looked back over at Bella. "What?" I whispered, a little offended by her staring.

She blushed and looked down; she wasn't really one for eye contact. "Nothing. I just… I didn't expect…"

I nodded. "Yeah. I know."

"So," Mr Berty started then, "we'll begin with the obvious. This book is made up of the memoirs of a woman who had to have a heart transplant. She, as all other people in her situation, was given the choice of having it, obviously. Had she not accepted, the most likely ending would have been that she would have died much earlier than she did; but she would possibly have lived a much higher quality life as she would not have had to give up all that she did. My question to you is – what would you have done?"

Jessica raised her hand. "But isn't this more situation ethics?" she asked once he had called on her.

Mr Berty shrugged. "A little, I suppose, but it all ties in with the book."

She sighed and slouched back in her chair, mumbling, "If I wanted to debate then I would have taken situation ethics."

I rolled my eyes and heard Bella give an aggravated sigh beside me. The right side of my lips twitched at our unacknowledged identical opinions.

"Miss Swan."

I glanced up when I heard Bella's name called.

"What are your views on this subject?" Mr Berty asked. "Let's put you in Miss Silverstein's position; would you have the operation or not?"

She didn't leave a beat before her answer. "No."

A lot of people sat in front of us turned to look at Bella with curious eyes. I also turned to stare at her.

"Why not?" Mr Berty wondered.

She replied with a question of her own. "Surely it's much better to have a shorter life that you can enjoy to its full potential than a longer life that's just going to make you miserable?" Her voice was fierce, almost as though she had had this argument a hundred times before.

"Surely it's much better to live a longer life to its full potential?" Even more people turned to stare when I spoke up to argue with her.

"The longer life's full potential wouldn't be as good as the shorter life's full potential," she pointed out, turning her attention directly to me. "Why spend years and years unable to do anything? Surely it's better to have a shorter, but more enjoyable, life. You could do all of the things you've always wanted to."

"Not all of them," I corrected. "Say you wanted to travel the world, or have five kids. You wouldn't have the time to do that because you'd die."

Bella's eyes sparkled with something, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. Anger, maybe? "You would make time before you die."

I scoffed. "You can't control when you die, Isabella."

"You would. I think you would. If you really, really, truly wanted to stay alive then your subconscious would keep you fighting until you'd held out for the one thing you wanted to see."

"How would you know?" I demanded. "You've never experienced anything like that. You can't even try to make these decisions until you've been through, or are going through, something like that."

Bella suddenly shot to her feet, knocking her chair over. "Fuck you, Cullen!" she shrieked. "Fuck you and your fucking stupid opinions." Then, she bent over and vindictively pushed my carefully-stacked books over before storming out of the room, leaving all of her things behind.

The rest of the class, who had watched our debate escalate, stared after her as she left. Mr Berty watched too, but surprisingly didn't go after her, call her back or say anything. He just let her go.

I sat there, silent and shell-shocked.

Bella didn't come back for the rest of the lesson.

#x#

"Edward?" Angela asked quietly in food tech.

I looked up at her, surprised that she had spoken. She tucked a strand of her honey-coloured hair behind her ear without looking my way. I looked back down at my book, continuing to write out the properties of eggs. "Yeah?"

"Are you going to the party?"

"What party?"

"Um… Tyler Crowley's parents are out of town so he's having a house party. Week on Friday. Open house and all that. I think most of the school are going."

The moment that the words 'house party' slipped past her lips, my hand clenched around my pen, squeezing it so hard that I was lucky that it didn't snap. The last house party I had attended had been the reason why I was here. The last house party I had been at had changed my life. I desperately wished that I could go back in time and change everything that had happened that night.

I took a deep breath to calm myself before saying, "No. Why?"

Angela shrugged. "Well, Alice was talking about it at break and um…" She blushed abruptly.

I smiled and added 'binding' to my bulleted list. "And?"

She sighed and then she started speaking so fast and quiet that I had to strain my ears to hear. "Well, I really like Tyler's best friend – Ben – but he doesn't pay me any attention. Alice said that the best way to get a guy is to make them jealous so she suggested that I ask you to go with me so that Ben might see and presume stuff. It's a stupid idea, I know, but I thought that there was no harm in asking. I understand why you don't want to, I…"

"Angela," I cut her off. "It's fine, don't worry about it. I would do that for you but…" I hesitated. "Well, I don't do house parties. Not really my scene." I was a little angry that Alice had suggested this; she knew what had happened and she should have known that there was no way in hell I'd ever be going to another party like that in my life.

She nodded, like she understood.

We were quiet for a while, copying the theory like good students, but then Angela piped up again; she was in an unusually chatty mood, I supposed. "What's this I hear about you getting Bella Swan to walk out of English this morning?"

I blinked at her. "You heard about that?"

"Yup. Everyone has."

"Oh." I rubbed the back of my neck nervously. My eyes raked over my writing to check that there were no misshapen 'o's or something before I said, "Um… I don't really know what happened. I said something and she just… freaked out. She's a bit weird."

Angela – who, I had gathered, clearly didn't like to be cruel about anyone however weird they were – bit her lip and said, "Maybe she's going through a tough time at home?"

"Maybe," I agreed. "Or maybe she's just a little bit special?" I grinned.

"Edward Cullen!" Angela mock-scolded.

I was about to make a smart-ass comment in return when Miss Stoke called our names and told us to be quiet. I went back to copying out the intolerably boring text, but my mind was no longer on the many properties of eggs. It was too busy wishing that Isabella Swan would notice me as more than 'the new kid' and perhaps even warm up to my efforts to befriend her. In fact, my lust-struck mind was so busy thinking about her that I barely even noticed that one of my 'o's had a flat top rather than a perfectly round one… and, when I did notice, I didn't give a damn.

#x#

"What the hell, Alice?" I demanded in a whisper as I sat down next to her in the cafeteria. "You know I don't do fucking house parties!"

Alice glanced up at me, shell-shocked. "What?"

"You got Angela to ask me to Tyler's party!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did! She told me!"

Alice gritted her teeth. "I didn't say she should ask you. I said 'you should ask another guy that you know. Like Mike Newton, or Edward.' I didn't specifically say that she should ask you."

I snorted. "Well, she clearly took it a little too literally," I snapped.

"Edward, I'm so sorry. I wouldn't ever suggest that, you know that," she said quietly, her eyes downcast, her long spidery black lashes brushing her cheek. Then she pouted. "I'm a little annoyed that you think I would, actually."

'Annoyed' was really 'hurt' in Alice language, I had come to learn.

I stared at her face for a long moment.

She looked up at me, her blue eyes wide and blinking. "She was close to me too," she whispered. "I can't imagine… what it was like for you to be there. You should know me better than that, Edward. I hate that night as much as you do. I wish I had never said anything." She let her head fall into her hands and I saw a tiny, translucent tear slip down her cheek.

I instantly felt guilty for accusing her of anything. Alice wouldn't hurt me like that, I knew she wouldn't. She was right; Tanya had been very close to Alice. Almost as close as she had been to me. Alice and I were pretty close too. We still were. I should have known that she wouldn't have dropped me in it like that. I should have known that she wouldn't ever, ever make me relive my worst nightmare.

"I'm sorry, Al," I murmured. "I know you wouldn't do that. I was just… I just… freaked out, I guess."

She hurriedly wiped at her damp eyes, careful not to smudge her eyeliner, and smiled slightly at me. "I know."

Just then, Jessica dropped her tray down opposite us with a clatter and Rose placed her own tray neatly beside hers. "What's up guys?" Jess asked cheerily, waving her arms around in an annoyingly exuberant way. Her bright yellow nail polish glinted in the sunlight and, for some reason, the happy colour pissed me off. "You both look like someone's died!" Her voice was happy too, even though she was talking about people dying. Little did she know…

"Nothing," Alice replied. She turned to her tray and twirled her little fork in her teriyaki noodles.

Jessica started talking about some kind of dance that was coming up and I turned my attention to my lunch. I bypassed the mac and cheese and picked up the orange, starting to peel it. I wasn't particularly hungry, and I didn't even like oranges, but I did like the challenge they presented in trying to get the entire shell off in one piece. I peeled it away carefully, slowly. When I had almost finished, though, I felt eyes on me. Automatically, I looked over my shoulder at Bella's table.

It was not Bella who was staring at me, though.

In fact, Bella wasn't even there.

Jasper was staring right at me. No, he was glaring. So was Emmett. They didn't look away when I caught them, just glowered some more. I began to feel a little intimidated. I wondered if this was some kind of match; the guy who can glare for the longest time gets to fuck the pretty brunette. So, of course, I glared back.

I don't know how long our little glaring match went on for, but Jasper pulled away when his cell phone rang. He answered it, said a few brief words and then leaned over to say something to Emmett. Emmett nodded, and they both stood up. Now that it seemed safe to look away, I turned back to my orange and started to peel off the last bit.

But just as I was getting close to the end, someone walked past me, their heavy book-filled bag bumping my elbow and making me tear halfway along the peel. I exhaled in annoyance and looked up just in time to catch Jasper smirk over his shoulder before disappearing out of the cafeteria. I clenched my fists, forgetting that I had an orange in one of them, and the orange split, the juice spurting up at me. It dripped down my neck and all down my wrist. Even if I went and washed it off at that very second I would still be sticky for the rest of the day.

Was it even possible for this Jasper guy to piss me off any further? It was like some testosterone fuelled battle between us all of the fucking time. And I had only started this school yesterday. Heaven help me.

I spent the rest of the lunch hour using my knife to cut my torn orange peel into perfectly neat squares. It gave me a brilliant sense of satisfaction to look at the perfect squares and know that I had done that. Jess ate my mac and cheese until she asked if there were calories in cheese and pasta. I think Alice realised what an awful choice of friend she was in that second. I also think that Jess puked up her lunch in the toilet after we told her how many calories were in one little square of cheese.

Gross.

Butterflies started to gather in my stomach as I made my way to Biology. I hadn't seen Bella since that morning and I was worried about what she was going to say to me.

I hesitated outside of the door and gave myself a little pep talk, reminding myself that she had no right to be angry with me. It took a moment before I was ready to face her and tell her that I wasn't going to take anything back when she started on me. Then I went into the room.

I needn't have bothered with the pep talk, or the worry. Bella didn't show all lesson.

In some ways, it was a relief not to have to talk to her, or pretend that I didn't give a shit about what went through her head. Because, in all honesty, I did give a shit. I wanted to know why she had gotten so riled up at my comment. I wanted to know what made her so vicious and reclusive. I wanted to know her.

In other ways, it was frickin' annoying that she didn't turn up. I worried that she hadn't come because of me, which was probably true, and so then I was annoyed at myself for being mean to her. Not that I had. I had just voiced my opinion. But then I was even more annoyed at myself for being annoyed at myself because she was unnecessarily angry at me for something I had done wrong when I hadn't actually done anything wrong! And that didn't even make any sense in my head.

So much for convincing myself that she had no right to be angry with me.

To say that I didn't take in a word of anything that was taught in that lesson would have been the understatement of the century.

I was unsurprised when she didn't show in gym either. Emmett was there, though, and he sent me the stink-eye enough times for the both of them. Dick.

I wasn't good in gym, which was unusual for me. I shrugged it off, putting it down to distraction about the whole 'being annoyed at myself' thing, but there was a niggling feeling in the back of my mind suggesting that maybe it was because Bella wasn't there.

Which, by the way, was fucking ridiculous.

Alice and Rose both beat me back to the car today. They were each leaning up against opposite sides of the car, talking over the roof about something. Rose looked a little pissed off and Alice looked encouraging.

I walked right past them and got into the drivers' seat.

"…really good together," Alice was saying as she climbed in at the same time as Rose.

Rosalie snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure we'd look great together, Al. But my point still stands. There's no point dating a hot guy if he's an arrogant bastard."

I started the engine. "What are you going on about?"

For once, Rose spoke for Alice instead of the other way round. "Alice thinks that I should ask that douchebag McCarty to Tyler's party with me. Which is retarded. Not only is he a complete asshole, but you don't just ask guys to house parties."

"No," I agreed, shooting a blatent look at Alice in the rear view window.

She huffed, her big eyes narrowing into slits. "Come on! I apologised for that already!"

"I know," I muttered, falling back into my own thoughts as Alice tried to point out to Rose that the McCarty kid was the dark-haired, muscled ying to her blonde-haired, goddess-figured yang.

While they did that, I wished. I wished that I could tell Alice that I was only a moody bastard because it was easier to pretend to be angry than admit that I was hurt. I wished that it wasn't the people I loved that got the brunt of my moods. I wished that I had tried harder to prevent Tanya's murder.

But some wishes are just downright impossible.

~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~

Sorry about the length of this chapter. It's still long-ish but not as long as the others. I tried to make it longer, but it just didn't want to be :(

The book that they studied in English (Sick Girl by Amy Silverstein) DOES exist. I haven't read it but I found it on Amazon and it's basically a woman's memoirs about having a heart transplant. If the book is any different than I have mentioned (which it probably is) then I'm very sorry and if you've read it then please do let me know your opinion or whatever.

Also sorry about posting two days late, but I just came back from holiday and then I went to a party to celebrate getting our GCSE results last night… we got a little bit smashed… and, just because I know I'll be asked, I got 2 Bs, 8 As and an A*. The A* was NOT for English, disappointingly, but I did get an A in it. (And if you think that's good, one of my best friends got straight A*s… like in everything) Now I'm going to shut up about that because it's very embarrassing, especially when my mother's gushing to anyone that walks past… *cringe*

Rec of the week – For the Summer by camoozle. Just so awesome. It's full of adorableness and it's the PERFECT balance between fluff and story. A new addition to my list that should have been put there months ago. And did I mention that it's complete? :)

The next chapter takes us back to BPOV and you'll find out where she's vanished to. I will post this EITHER on Monday 6th September (the day I go back to school *sniff and cry* OR when we reach 200 reviews :) If we hit that overnight then I'll get writing and post tomorrow. So yeah :)

Please review!

Thanks

-Steph