Chapter 15

Whispers. All day. Even more than usual. I pushed my hair behind my ear, sighing. It was break, and I was surrounded even more so than an average day. I just wanted to go and see Edward. I tried to peek my head over the shoulders of the crowd in front of me. It was a struggle, but I could eventually see Edward's gorgeous bronze head laughing at me. I remembered Yvonne's amazing sense of hearing.

"Stand up if you can hear me," I said, very quietly. No one around me seemed to notice. I looked over towards Edward to see the whole Cullen table standing up, laughing. Only the blonde one, Rosalie, was still sitting. She was frowning at the rest of them. I looked back to Edward to see him smiling.

"You can sit back down now, that was just a test," I whispered again. They sat down and continued like nothing had happened.

"Did you just say something?" I was snapped out of my gaze. Jennifer was looking at me intently.

"Uh, no," I replied.

"Well you haven't told us how you ended up dating the hottest guy in our year. Scratch that, in our school!" She flung her hands up in the air in exclamation. "I mean, he was interested in nobody. I even thought he was gay." She whispered the last part. There were a few snickers from the crowd.

"I can assure you, he isn't gay," I said, winking. "And I think Edward fell for me because of my, womanly charms." I ran my hand down my body, laughing. Everyone was laughing their heads off around me. I looked over to the Cullen table and Edward was laughing too. This pleased me, so I stood there grinning. I wasn't often the funny one.

"Womanly charms? Puh-lease," a voice came from the back. She pushed her way through the crowd and stood in front of me, one hand on her hip. Her pale blonde hair was swaying to and fro. She didn't look happy.

"I'm sorry," I said politely, "But who are you?"

This only seemed to anger her more.

"What?" She addressed the crowd. "I go on holiday for one month, and you forget about me? How could you! Especially you, Mike. I thought you would be exceptionally happy at my return." Her fingers ran up and down Mike's arm and he looked extremely uncomfortable. Jessica shot daggers at Lauren, who in return smiled sweetly at her.

She then turned to address me. "I am Lauren Mallory." She studied my face to see if there was any recognition. My face remained blank. "And you are?"

As if she didn't know. We both knew fine well that she knew who I was, she just didn't want me to feel wanted.

"Oh! How rude of me!" I scolded myself. "I'm Bella Swan, I'm new here."

"I gathered that." She waited for the giggles from the crowd to come, but they didn't. She started frowning again.

She cleared her throat and started on what must have been her next line of argument.

"How can you just waltz in here and pick up the hottest guy in school. Edward and I were just starting to connect, when you came along," she said snidely. "You know, he is only with you for your fame." She wanted to make me worry. It wasn't going to work.

"Wait, I didn't know you knew who I was," I pointed out. She glared at me. "And it's not for the fame, trust me on that. Edward is different than other guys." A few of the boys around me looked rather hurt. I gave them apologetic looks.

"Then tell me one reason why Edward would pick you over me. Go on, spill." She spat. I was really beginning to dislike Lauren.

"You want to know why?" I said, playing along.

"That's what I asked." I think she thought I was stupid.

I leaned off the chair I was standing against and towered over her in my heels.

"It's because Edward likes girls who have a nice personality and who are friendly to everyone." I smiled at her. "And from the five minutes I have been talking to you, I can already tell that that doesn't apply to you."

She recoiled away from me, as if I had slapped her.

"I'll prove that you aren't a nice person. That you are actually a self-centred, spoiled little bitch. You mark my words."

The crowd parted as she turned on her heels and walked quickly away, her heels clacking. Her words hurt me a little, as thought I was like that. I had never been spoken to like that before, and for that, I admired her. She didn't let anyone intimidate her. As I said before, you should never walk quickly in heels, as when she got to the door, she slid and fell. Everyone around me erupted into laughter again. I, however, ran over to help her, avoiding falling myself.

"Are you ok?" I said, worriedly. As much as I disliked the girl, I would never not help somebody up. Her eyes were filled with tears and she had a tiny cut on her leg. Blood was filling up around it. I stared as the blood formed a pool, then dripped over her leg. I picked her up quickly and said, "Quick, to the nurse's room."

"Let go of me." She yanked her arm away and looked at me once, before walking to the office. Everyone was staring at the spot Lauren had been. I looked towards Edward, to see if he would come and see me, but the Cullen table was empty. Only their trays of uneaten food remained, to show they had been there.

I didn't see Edward again until Biology. He smiled as I walked in the classroom and gave him a questioning look.

"Where did you go? Why did you leave," I whispered to him.

"Jasper started to feel, a bit unwell." Edward explained. "We had to take him home," he said dismissively.

"All of you had to take him home? Can he not get home by himself."

"Not when he was feeling like that. He nearly blacked out." Edward's eyes darkened.

"Why didn't you take him to the office or something? I'm sure that would have been fine."

"Trust me, that was the last place we should have taken him. He needed Carlisle. He was the only one who could help."

"I just don't understand why…" I began again.

"The blood, Bella!" Edward said, exasperated. "We could smell the blood."

My mouth formed an O. I felt so stupid for not realising the obvious. I looked back at Edward and saw his eyes were ravenous.

"Just remembering the smell, makes me want to lose control." His eyes fell down to my exposed neck. His eyes were a dirty yellow. They had been amber pools this morning but now the pool looked mixed with mud. He was hungry. I pulled a scarf out my bag and wrapped it around my neck.

"Bad Edward," I scolded. "No looking at my neck for you." I was teasing, but he seemed to take me seriously. He looked away from my neck and towards the front of the class, avoiding my eye. His jaw was tense as if he was clamping it shut.

"Maybe you should feed soon," I said softly as the teacher came in the class. He only nodded and kept his focus on the front. I huffed a little. I didn't like it when Edward didn't talk to me. This will be well talked about, I thought, dating for a day and we are already having a minor argument.

I decided not to let it bother me. He was just grumpy from the lack of food.

The class ended, and I got up to leave, not looking at Edward. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, spinning me round in the process.

I giggled. Edward was great when he was feeling better. He was smiling at me, but his face was still strained.

"I'm going to go home for last period, but I will be back to pick you up, ok?" he told me. "I want to show you something."

"You can show me it another time. I could get a lift home from Jess or something," I shrugged.

At that point Mike was walking past. "If you need a lift, Bella, I could drive you home. I'll take you anywhere, you name the place, we'll go." As always, he was far to eager.

"See, Mike can take me home," I said to Edward. I turned to Mike. "Thank you. I appreciate."

"We might not need your help, but we will see. Thanks for the offer." Edward was rather cold when talking to him. I gave him a questioning look but he shook it off.

"See you later, Bella." He took off out the classroom.

"Just you and me then," Mike said. "Off to gym."

I was talking to Jessica. We were standing in our gym clothes. She had followed my lead and went with shorts and a cool t-shirt. Today, I was wearing orange shorts and a black t-shirt with the Gryffindor badge on it. I was a huge fan of Harry Potter and I adored this top. I also had a hoodie with the deathly hallows symbol on it. Out of all my clothes, they had to be my absolute favourite.

Jessica was wearing black shorts which were a little bit longer than mine. She had a green one-up Super Mario Mushroom t-shirt on and had her hair tied back. My hair was left the way it was, as I couldn't do anything to control the wildness.

We were standing talking, when Lauren came out the changing room. She was wearing shorter shorts than me. They literally looked like her underwear, and they were black as well. She had a very tight white tank top on which didn't fit her at all. It didn't cover her stomach and her boobs were popping out over the top.

She looked like a hooker.

She stood there, stretching out her legs, showing off the slight tan she had. She had one hand on her hip again, and she was staring around the gym.

I was standing at the back of the gym as we were playing volley ball again. Everyone seemed to have learned their lesson with me and sports. Don't pass me the ball and protect me from hitting it. Sometimes I would just sidestep my way off the court to sit on the benches. This is what I done then. I watched as Mike got a face full of Lauren's ass when she jumped up to hit the ball. It was weird how high she could jump.

Soon it was done. I sighed with relief as I ran to the changing room, which was probably the only exercise I done all this class.

After school I waited in the parking lot for Edward. I didn't see him anywhere but I waited.

"Is he coming?" Mike walked up beside me.

"I don't think so." I was quite disappointed. He wanted to show me something, and I felt it would have been important to us. "Just give me a ride."

We walked over to his car. I forgot how much Mike liked to talk. He kept me up to date in everything that had happened to him. He had such a normal life, in some ways, I envied him.

I got in the car and belted up. I pulled out my phone and stared at the empty text box. I couldn't believe Edward didn't even text me to tell me he couldn't make it.

I sat back deflated.

*knock knock*

I turned to see Edward's face looking at me through the window. I started as he scared me half to death.

He opened the door.

"I can take it from here, Mike." I undid my belt and laughed. He grabbed my hand and whisked me out the car.

"Time for me to give you a surprise," he whispered.

A/N- two in the one night, I'm on fire! J