Identity Crisis
By Narkness
CHAPTER FOUR
She-Males Don't Cry
The silence stung Edward's ears like jellyfish tentacles. It screamed in his ears, a shrill ear-splitting pain. He watched like an observer with wide-eyes as the boy slipped, and crashed forward. His legs were rooted firmly to the carpet, unable to move as Benjamin reached out to right himself. Edward could feel the unmistakable feeling of falling backwards, and his head met the ground with a thump, around the same time he registered the warm little hands in his pants.
His head was wiped clear of thought like a chalk board, as he stared dazedly at the boy above him. Benjamin's face was an inch or two from his, staring with the same dazed stunned look, with big brown doe eyes. They came to an understanding. Edward had been tackled by other boys before, in fact only minutes earlier, but never had he felt warm at their touch. Then again, he'd never had another boy's hands down his pants, but it was wrong, he knew, to be feeling electric hot arousal.
Something twitched and Edward blinked.
"Get. The. Hell. Off. Me." Edward listened to himself say, his face contorting to anger. Automatically, Edward brought his hands up, and forcefully pushed the smaller boy off him. A harsh shove. Benjamin looked just as stunned as Edward felt, and scrambled to his feet. The boy bolted for the bathroom, and the door slammed after him. The noise echoed, and ricocheted around the walls.
Edward, with shaky legs, stood and faced his friends. Emmett had a soppy half-grin on his face, as his brain struggled to keep up with the sudden events. Jasper's eyebrow was raised, looking sharper than the pair of them, proving that Jasper had just committed the entire scene to photographic memory. Edward would be questioned thoroughly at a later date.
No words could find themselves leaving Edward's breathless lips. No plausible excuses. Nothing to explain what his friends and himself had witnessed. He stood dumbfounded before his muddy friends, his mouth hanging uselessly and closing like a fish. His feet found the floor long before Edward's brain formed a sentence. He quickened his steps and was out the door and down the hall long before Jasper and Emmett realized.
Jasper turned to a shell-shocked Emmett, who had finally caught up. They too shared a knowing look, and sighed.
Edward was angry, but above all, he was afraid. His fear had absolutely nothing to do with the darkness of night around him, around the bench where he sat, looking to the forest. He'd been afraid of the dark when he was younger. Edward had felt fear, been afraid of people, but never of an emotion, a feeling.
Because, above all, he was not gay!
Edward Cullen, top cross-country runner and member of the baseball team, was not gay.
He had never, ever, ever expressed any form of interest in men and was the epitome of all things manly; just as long as those photos of him as a five-year old boy dressed as a girl never escaped the deep, dark recesses of his wardrobe. Edward Cullen was a known lady-killer; and now labeled a cheating-lady-killer if Lauren got her way.
He couldn't possibly be gay.
Edward was shocked and disturbed. He could understand being aroused if it was a girl's hands down his pants…but a boy? He should have yelled and shouted and throw the boy off him instantly. Hell, he should have stepped out of the way.
Why, why did Benjamin James choose now to come to this school, be set as his roommate and begin to burn all the walls he had so carefully build around himself, his persona? Edward was a man in both body and soul, and he would bury those desired feelings deeper than those photos, and scrub at his brain until only a thin residue was left.
A wolf howled in the distance.
Bella wanted to bash her head repeatedly against the stark, bleached tiles. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Bella had wanted to stay miserable and invisible, just a silent observer. Stupid clumsy feet. She was going to blow her entire cover! By some major fault, Bella had totally overlooked the mammoth possibility that her roommate would be attractive, or that boy's would still affect her brain cells so.
What had I expected? A nerdy, chubby boy with boundary issues and World of Warcraft? Bella knew it was going to be impossible to simply view them as asexual Barbie dolls. The possibility that her roommate would be sex on legs was so astronomically impossible, it made her head spin. Stuff like this only happens in really stupid, girly fanfiction.
And it really didn't help that her mind kept replaying the moment over and over, like a sick montage, as she twisted and fell. She cringed and fought back the memories of warm feelings, that electric shockof desire she'd felt, his warmth against her body, lips so close to hers, heavy warm breath, hooded eyes just like – Jake!
A door opened in her mind and Edward was replaced with a brown eyes and a muscular, tanned expanse of dark skin. Jake… As much as she'd tried to lock Jake away in the depths of her dark heart, Bella was too weak to be cold. Traitorous heart. Bella was a slave to her emotions and as far as she'd tried to distance herself from those issues, they followed her, stronger with each step. Stalking her.
Bella lay down on the floor beside the sink, curling up in the locked room, as sobs racked her body.
Hunger turned out to be more important than a shower, we learn so as a still-crusty muddy Edward trudges along back to his room from dinner. He is in fact so scared stiff that his fingers tremble as he twists the knob into his room…his now shared room. Edward breathed an uneasy sigh of relief at the sight of an empty bedroom. Nothing had a heartbeat. Good. He took off his crusty shoes by the door and rested them on the floor at the end of his bed. His eyes narrowed at the sight of food smears of Benjamin's side of the carpet.
His fingers jerked and his eye twitched. Edward knew exactly where the sponges were, and every ounce of his being ached to scrub that carpet until that patched turned white. Edward hated mess of any kind. He reached for the bathroom door-knob, and turned with little success. It didn't budge. This was a new development for him. Doors were always open for Edward Cullen.
Then, his heart stopped.
…
Well, not really.
Through the door, which did little to muffle the excellent acoustics in the bathroom, Edward heard little, hiccupping sobs. Having enough of awkward for the rest of his life, he turned on his heel as if nothing had happened, and strode down the hall with a towel in hand. He knocked on Jasper's door. It opened.
It was the shocking grin flashing Emmett's perfect pearly teeth and Jasper's eyebrow that told him Edward should prepare for the worst. He gulped, and made a run for the bathroom door. They tackled him to the floor before Edward could reach the one-meter mark.
Edward groaned. He was going to have the most spectacular carpet burn now.
Emmett sat on his back, and Jasper crouched in front of Edward. "Let the interrogation commence."
Around sometime that Bella presumed to be ten at night, she dragged her sad pathetic ass from the bathroom floor and crawled to the door, reaching up and unlatching the lock. But, first she pressed her ear against it. It was all clear, that was until "Like A Virgin"rung out loud and clear and she froze.
There was growling and shuffling, before the music ended and a short, sharp "Hello, Lauren," was bit out by Edward. Exiting the bathroom now would be admitting that Bella had sat on the floor crying for the past three hours. However, not exiting the bathroom would be admitting that she wanted to listen to Edward's conversation with Lauren.
She was torn between the two, before shoving her guilt deep and pressing her ear against the door with renewed vigor. Edward had quite conveniently turned his phone to loud-speaker. Bella could hear every word, not that much of it was coherent sentences.
"Cheating bastard! I hope you –" The screechy voice hurling abuse through the speaker was suddenly muffled, as though it had been silenced by a pillow. It was just muffled yells until a minute or two later. Edward spoke.
"Please, leave me alone Lauren. Go have your way with someone else. We're over, you made that clear." Edward sounded bitter, which made Bella's wimpy heart pound. It took a certain amount of care to feel bitter about something. The yell of 'cheating bastard' made her want to assault Edward, beside the obvious size difference. Bella refused to make an exception for a cheater. Once a cheater, always a cheater. "You dumped me, remember. That lovely little text? I H8 U. Its ova." He ground out, and a phone was slammed shut viciously and made a resounding 'thump' as it was thrown across the room.
There was no resulting sob, like a girl might. But instead, it was eerily quiet aside from Edward's heavy breathing and the blood rushing through Bella's eavesdropping ears. The phone rang again and Edward had leapt to his feet, grabbed the phone, and apparently, turned off his phone.
Her pathetic heart slammed against her ribcage. Dumped gutlessly. Bella knew how that felt. No one, not even a filthy cheater deserved that.
Poor Edwa- "Ahh!"
The door she was so fervently leaning against suddenly shifted and slipped away and she crashed into someone's shins. Bella looked up, Edward was glaring down at her. Shit. I am so caught. Her cheeks flooded with embarrassment, and she found little time to admire a freshly washed Edward Cullen.
"I wasn't ahh… listening to any of that, by the way." Bella blurted, jumping to her feet rather quickly. Idiot. She inwardly cringed the moment the words met her ears. Her voice was so full of pity. Edward was glaring at her with hardened, bitter, hurt green eyes.
"Stay. Away. From. Me." He growled, pushing her out of the bathroom, and slamming the door shut behind him.
Bella blinked.
This chapter is actually a little bit heavier than the others. What with plot and all, stepping on-to the scene. It couldn't be a story without plot, unless it is a slasher story…which it isn't. Sadly. LONGEST CHAPTER TO DATE. :) Proof I love you guys and my fantastic reviewers.
P.S I mean no offense with Edward's perspective of homosexuality. He's a seventeen year old male, that's his opinion.
Dedicated to Stacey, for putting up with my strange obsession and returning the love…for fanfiction. :)
