Bella's POV:
"What are you going to do?" I asked when Alice grabbed the letter out of my hand.
"I'm going to ask Jazz to give it to him. He'll read it if he thinks it's from Jasper." She said confidently.
"That won't work. He's going to recognize my handwriting." I pointed to the outside of the envelope.
"Oh, quit being so paranoid. He'll know who it's from when he reads 'Love, Bella'." She said with a sigh. I glanced around the hallway nervously and spotted Jasper and Edward walking down the hallway.
"Quick, put that away!" I said nervously.
"Wait, I've got a better idea." Alice said in her evil plan voice.
"Wha…ouch!" She shoved me hard in the shoulder and I stumbled backward, predictably.
Then it happened. Two strong arms wrapped around my body while my head was filled with the perfect combination of mint and cigarettes. My blood boiled in my ears while I said something but I was far too distracted to know what.
It all ended too soon when Jasper started pulling him away, down the hall.
Alice winked at me and gave me a thumbs-up before heading off to her first class.
I was hardly aware of what was going on around me. My body was humming from its recent Edward-contact high. I was jittery all day, especially at lunch, where I got to pass the time staring at the back of his head. Alice gave me the subtlest of winks when I caught her eye and I gave her a nervous smile back.
Edward didn't seem any different than he had this morning. He still looked sullen and dejected. The only difference was that he was shooting furious looks at Jasper specifically, rather than at everyone near him. I decided that there wasn't any chance he had read my letter yet. His eyes were still rather glassy and his backpack lay forgotten on the floor at his feet. I couldn't stop myself from thinking that if he had already read my letter his reaction was not what I had been hoping for. The irrational and romantic part of my brain expected him to run to me and kiss me desperately once he read it. Unfortunately, the somewhat realistic part of my mind, the part that spoke in Alice's voice, told me not to expect him to be so easily forgiving or forgetful.
I won't pretend that wasn't a crushing blow when I walked into Biology and saw Edward sitting at his table in the front. He looked up at me when I walked pass and I felt my heart skip a beat. His eyes were not harsh neither was the smile on his face. The first time he'd sat there, he'd smiled at me in an evil, victorious way. This time, his expression was kind, even sweet. I returned it shyly before shuffling past him to alone at the back of the room. Edward reached into his backpack and took out his book, then let it fall to the floor again. I saw the envelop sticking out from the side and saw that it was still sealed.
Just be patient…
Edward's POV:
Lunch was fucking weird. I was glaring at Jasper. Jasper was staring at Alice with his eyebrows furrowed. Emmet was trying to get me to look at him. I knew he was eager to know about my night with Jessica. Rosalie was looking confusedly from Jasper to Alice. And Alice seemed completely oblivious to everything going on around her.
She sat between me and Jasper, munching merrily on her French fries, a perfectly content smile on her face.
"Did I miss something?" Emmet finally asked after twenty minutes of tense silence.
"That's usually a safe assumption." Jasper said without taking his eyes off Alice.
"What the hell is on going with you two? Did you have a fight?" Rosalie asked Jasper and Alice.
"I don't think so. Did we, Jazz?" Alice asked, flashing Jasper a charming, innocent look.
"Not yet." Jasper answered with a scowl. Alice let out a nervous little chuckle.
"Well, what the hell's up your ass?" Emmet shot at me.
"Um…hangover." I mumbled. I saw Jasper roll his eyes.
"Things didn't go well with Jessica did they?" Emmet asked. I glared at him.
"Jessica?" Alice spluttered around her mouth full of French fries.
"Momentary lapse in judgment." I said acidly.
"Eww, Edward. I don't even want to sit with you anymore." Rosalie said disgustedly.
"Relax, we didn't sleep together." I explained. Alice let out a huge relieved sigh. Jasper and I eyed her skeptically.
"What?" She asked defensively once she could no longer pretend that we weren't staring at her.
"Why do you care who Edward sleeps with?" Jasper asked her before I could even open my mouth.
"I don't." She answered with a weird head shake. She seemed somewhat nervous for no apparent reason.
"Uh, huh…" Jasper said in his creepy all-knowing tone. He could read Alice like a fucking open book and I could tell that the rest of us had missed the memo of what the fuck was going on.
Alice turned her head and met Jasper's calculating gaze with her I'm-not-saying-anything face. It was like they were having an entire conversation without saying anything. Emmet, Rosalie, and I watched this silent exchange until the private manner of it overwhelmed the rest of us and we invented lame excuses to leave the cafeteria long before the bell actually rang. I left Rosalie and Emmet making out against the hallway wall to go smoke before class.
I couldn't help myself when Bella walked into class. I looked up and half-smiled at her. Big fucking mistake; I was acutely aware of her eyes boring into the back of my head for the rest of class. I was getting pretty fucking uncomfortable about it too. I walked quickly out of the room at the end of class, eager to get home and away from everyone and their fucking prying eyes.
I had to face the fact that I hadn't made any fucking progress with my get-over-Bella plan. The brief contact we'd had at school left me thirsty for more but I was still angry with her. I'd have to hold onto that and not let the insatiable longing for her get the better of me.
Apparently fate had other fucking ideas.
"I do not want to live my life without you. Please, one more chance, Bella." I looked up from the letter at Jasper in disbelief. He didn't say anything. "What the fuck is that suppose to mean?" I bellowed at him.
"I think it means she doesn't want to live with you and she wants you to give her another chance." He said dully.
"Thanks a whole fuck load for that but believe it or not, I figured that much out for myself." I said sharply.
"Easy, tiger." He said while holding up his hands in mock defense. "Maybe you should talk to her."
"Talk to her, after all that shit she did to me?" I asked incredulously.
"Well you obviously want to otherwise you wouldn't give a flying fuck about that letter." Jasper said patiently. I growled. "Listen, Eddie." He continued, leaning back on the couch and rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm not supposed to tell you but sometimes it's better if I don't do everything Alice tells me."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I know what happened at the party. I know what Bella isn't telling you." He stated calmly.
"How do you know? Did Bella tell you?" I asked fucking confused.
"No. Bella told Alice. I bugged the shit out of Alice until she finally folded and told me everything." He said with a rather satisfied grin.
"They're talking again?"
"Just recently; Bella asked Alice for help with you." Jasper said with a roll of his eyes. "Girl shit, you know."
I snorted while finally sitting in a chair across from Jasper and leaning forward. "So what do you know that I don't."
I heard Bella stop walking a few feet behind me. She shifted her weight uncomfortably, evidently waiting for me to speak first. I continued to stare out at the sun setting behind the mountains.
"It wasn't your fault." I finally said quietly.
"I can't believe Alice told you." Bella said angrily after a moment.
"Jasper told me and I'm glad he did." I said evenly.
"I wanted to tell you everything, to explain…"
"I think I understand. It's not that complicated." I interrupted. "It was good of you to go to her parents. That must have been hard."
"I should have done it a long time ago." She said softly.
"The point is you did it. It was a good thing to do."
"I just wanted them to know the truth of what had happened. Apparently she never told them about the party or the drugs before she killed…" She stopped short with a heavy breath. "I'm sorry, Edward. I shouldn't be talking about…"
"It's fine." I interrupted again, a bit forcefully. "I didn't ask you out here to talk about that, anyway."
"You didn't?" She asked.
"No. I want to talk about that fucking letter." My tone was harsher than I had wanted.
"I had a feeling you might." She said with a heavy sigh.
"Yeah, well it left me with some unanswered questions."
"Fire away. I'll answer anything." She said.
"Why don't you want to live your life without me?" I knew what she would say but I had to hear it before I could ever believe it.
"Will you look at me when I say this." She begged.
I turned around slowly and lifted my eyes to her face and was surprised to find that she wasn't fucking crying. Her eyes were determined and she held my gaze steadily.
"I love you. That being said, I could probably move on and get over you some day. Even be decently happy with someone else, but I don't even want to try. You are the only man I want to kiss, and make love to and wake up next to every single day for the rest of my life. Nothing else will ever compare to the way I feel when I'm with you so there's no point in looking anywhere else. You are it for me. That's what I meant in the letter." She said this with no hesitation, her words dripping with conviction.
I swallowed heavily before I could speak again. "Give me one good reason why I should believe anything that comes out of your fucking mouth."
She shrugged. "You shouldn't. I have lied to you and hurt you and now the only thing I can hope for is that some of that faith that you had in my love for you is still there. You were convinced I loved you even though I never said it and you couldn't have been more right. So I'll just keep showing you how much I love you until I earn that trust back; if you'll let me, of course." She finished and her eyes finally betrayed how hard this was for her, but she managed to hold back her tears.
"You want me to have faith in you again when you had none in me?" I asked incredulously, quirking my eyebrow at her.
"Yes?" She answered in an uncertain voice. I snorted in disbelief. "I'm prepared to gravel."
"Hmm, I don't care much for graveling." I mused.
"Then, what can I do?"
"I don't know, Bella. Love isn't something easy to prove." I kicked the rocks on the ground with my feet, turning as I went. I could see her wheels turning, conjuring up a scheme. Then she started taking off her shoes. "What are you doing?" I asked as she began to unbutton her shirt.
"A big gesture. A leap of faith." Bella said with her all too familiar, dazzling smile.
"I really don't think this relationship can be salvaged just with sexual favors." I said seriously. She threw her left shoe at me.
"I just don't want my clothes to get wet."
"Wet?" She nodded her head toward the edge of the cliff. "Are you insane?"
"Maybe, but are you really going to deny the woman that will willingly jump off the side of a cliff into sixty degree water just to prove her love for you?" She asked, giggling at the shocked look on my face.
"How the fuck does you jumping off a cliff prove anything?" I asked as she stripped off her jeans, leaving her in nothing but her sexy black panties and bra.
"It's symbolic, it's romantic." She said as she began to walk toward me.
"It's stupid and dangerous." I countered.
"So is love sometimes. Edward Cullen," She began, reaching out and holding my hands firmly in her much smaller ones, "I love you and I am going to leap off of this cliff with the faith that you'll follow me because you still love me too."
"Bella, don't…" She dropped my hands and darted around me before I could say another word. "Bella!" I screamed as she reached the edge and flung her-self into the open air. I rushed to the side, just in time to see her crash and submerge into the chilly water below. She made a delicate little splash and I held my breath until I saw her head bob to the surface.
Bella's POV:
Ok, that may have been a bit too impulsive but damn if it didn't feel amazing. The freedom of falling, the wind whipping my hair up and out of my face; letting go of all past mistakes and not thinking for once. Even the icy water was a relief, because it was different.
It pierced my skin with the pain of a thousand needle pricks. It sucked the air out of my lungs and numbed my brain. I at last reached the surface and gulped desperately at the savior oxygen, before swimming to the edge and looking up into the face of my angel.
"You're out of your fucking mind." The angel was mad. Edward handed me my clothes and after I shakily pulled them on, he wrapped his arms around me and moved me up a trail I'd never noticed before and back to the highway.
"That felt wonderful." I said, breathless with exertion, leaning gratefully into Edward's warmth.
"Fuck, Bella." Edward extracted one arm from around me and opened his car, rummaged around in the back before pulling out a sweatshirt and thrusting it into my arms. I pulled it over my head and the next moment Edward's arms were holding me again. He kissed my dripping wet hair. I buried my head into his chest. "I hope you don't have hypothermia for prom." He whispered.