A/N: just to let you know, this is pretty much the exact same as chapter fourteen, but EPOV. so if that kind of thing irritates you, you can most likely just skip it and wait for sixteen. but it's nice to understand why edward's so weird and why bella thinks he hates her so much. enjoy, loves.

EPOV

I wasn't sure what led me up the side of Bella's house and into her bedroom. I'm fairly sure that I sat in the warmth of my Volvo for ages, trying to decide whether or not it was a good idea to try and climb through her window. I generally liked to make lists, sort of like I had when I was trying to figure out what Carlisle needed to tell Em and I so badly, so I used the same method as the rain catapulted from the sky towards the roof of my car. I made a list of pros and cons, the 'con' list much, much more lengthy than the pros. If I scaled the side of Bella's house, I could die. I could slip on the wetness of the siding and fall to my death. The tree that stretched from the ground outside the window that I assumed to be hers—which would be my best method of reaching the second story—swayed wildly in the wind, further proving my point. Another thing was that her father could catch me. I eyed the purple curtains that framed the window I guessed belonged to Bella, considering if Chief Swan would ever have such feminine curtains. Still, he could hear me, and he could also arrest me on the spot with no questions asked. I thumped my head against my steering wheel. Why did I even come there? It was stupid, and thoughtless. Not to mention the unreasonable hour. But Bella seemed to be awake, as a thick beam of light reflected on the wet grass from her window.

In truth, I couldn't get her out of my head. It drove me crazy just thinking about it. Bella was fucking weird, and I knew that I shouldn't like her. I generally didn't go for girls like her, but I didn't really date enough to have a specific type. My 'type' was easy, quiet, and submissive, further proving the fact that I was an asshole. But it was strange. Today was technically Saturday, and I'd only known her since Monday. Not that knowing anyone for a short amount of time held me back from asking for someone's phone number, or, say, a sexual favor, but this was different. That first day in the courtyard, I had been utterly turned off by Bella Swan. She was spastic, and possibly crazy. She mumbled on and on about fucking Arizona and her damned chinchilla that I was determined that we'd never be friends. I wondered how Alice put up with her, and also considered how I could avoid her as long as she was friends with my sister. Alice seemed to like her pretty well, despite the fact that she was clumsy and slightly insane, and I couldn't understand why. But now…I was sitting outside of her fucking house, trying to figure out how to get into her bedroom. What had changed in me? It wasn't my father getting sick, because I'd already known about that before school even started. It wasn't as result of my attempts in growing the fuck up, I was fairly sure. But that night when Bella sat in Emmett's bedroom, blushing and blubbering in haste to defend herself, something kind of sparked in my chest.

Bella needed protecting. She was a mess all by herself, and she was able to recoup whenever I stood up for her. Bella was decent. She was fucking weird, but she was decent. Maybe it wasn't Bella that had the problem all along, even though she was sort of socially retarded. Maybe it was me. She had sat there, on the bench at the end of Emmett's bed, stuttering and blushing and trying to defend her personality against me. I was being a dick to her, and she couldn't even fucking properly stick up for herself. It made me feel filthy with guilt. Since that night that I sat with her in the hallway, her smile had infiltrated my brain. It felt weird that it had happened only twenty-four hours ago, but something inside of me had flipped completely. It felt sort of irrevocable.

Bella's smiling brown eyes led me up that slippery damn tree to her window. It took me a good ten minutes to get up it, after falling twice and scraping my palm. She had been furious, like nothing I'd ever seen from Alice or Rosalie, and for short minute I was legitimately afraid of her. All of her shyness had suddenly disappeared as I sat there, rain-soaked on her floor, and I loved it. She practically vibrated with anger, her thick, dark hair wild against my white t-shirt. It made me kind of happy to see her still wearing it on her delicate frame, but it shouldn't have. Bella still knew me as Dickward, the guy who laughed at her expense and only stood up for her when she was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

I gazed at her as her bones ignited with unadulterated fury, and I decided something. Bella was amazing. She just was. I couldn't understand her, or even myself, and I liked how my sudden admiration and mild affection was unexplainable. Her chest heaved beneath the thin cotton of my v-neck, and her fists were clenched at her sides.

"Edward!" she'd exclaimed as loud as the night would allow her. "What the hell are you doing here?" Her face was beat red, but for once not with a blush. Her eyes were wide and dangerous. I almost opened my mouth to speak, probably to say something sarcastic to disguise my chagrin that I'd even tried to climb into her room in the middle of the night. But before I could move, Bella took a sharp kick to my shoulder, a jolt of pain shooting through my body on impact.

"Ow!" I squealed, clutching my shoulder in agony. She hushed me, slamming the window shut and hissing something about waking her father up. "You didn't have to fucking kick me, Swan," I spat as my shoulder throbbed beneath my fingers.

"Well you didn't have to fucking break into my house in the middle of the fucking night!" she shot back, my eyes widening. Her nervousness hadn't yet taken over her ferocity, and I wished that it would last for at least a little while. It was satisfying to me to see Bella hold her own. I liked protecting her, but it was refreshing to see her protect herself. Even if it was against me.

I apologized quickly, surprised when her face calmed down and she handed me a towel to dry my hair. I could still sense her anger, but she was trying to pull it together and be at least a bit courteous. I hadn't known that she'd react this way. I had knocked at her window to forewarn her of my entry, but perhaps she hadn't heard it over the storm. I attempted to explain that I had simply come because I was bored, gracefully omitting the junk about the cookies and trying to sleep and the fact that her fucking chocolate brown eyes stared at me in my mind relentlessly. She smiled, handing me some dry clothes to change into. She was so fucking gracious.

I gave her a salute with the dry socks she gave me, grabbing the doorknob to go find a hall bathroom to change in.

"Charlie will hear!" she yelped, grabbing my elbow and stopping me dead in my tracks. I tensed at her warm grip, stunned with her sudden exclamation. She pulled back immediately, probably thinking that I didn't want her to touch me, and pointed me towards a nook beside her closet that I could change in. As soon as she withdrew, I missed the warmth of her palm on my arm. It was borderline psycho, but her hand was so fucking soft and I was so fucking cold.

I smirked as she eyed the alcove I was to change in carefully. Did Bella want a chance to see me naked? All she had to do was ask. But she turned her little head, trying to give me some privacy. It was innocent, and it was stupid, but it was so damned cute.

I pulled on the too-short gray sweatpants she had given me, my elbow knocking into a narrow bookshelf that was tucked into the alcove, knocking a dilapidated copy of Wuthering Heights to the floor with a clatter.

"Ouch, shit," I cursed, reaching down to retrieve it. Great. My shoulder was still pounding from Bella's kick, and now my funny bone was throbbing as well. Bella's eyes snapped to my face, biting her bottom lip, a flush of pink washing over her cheekbones. What was she nervous about now? Where had all of her sudden confidence gone?

"Sorry," I apologized lamely, shoving the book back onto the shelf. As I stepped into the light, I realized what she was blushing about. Little, innocent Bella's eyes were dragging over my torso, her lids drooping as she flicked her tongue over her lips. I leered at her, waiting for her to notice that I was finished changing and was simply standing there waiting for her to say something. She noticed that I was watching her now, and she stiffened.

"I-it's okay," she stammered, her voice edgy with panic. I had to smile.

She asked me again why I had come to her, and I felt stupid for not having an answer. I figured I'd relieve her tension by slipping on the flannel shirt she'd provided me with, and her shoulders relaxed as I struggled with the buttons.

"Your hair is a mess," she proclaimed as I examined the walls of her tiny bedroom. The walls were a soothing teal, with little paper doll chains strung from her ceiling.

"Well then fix it," I challenged with a mocking grin.

I wondered if she actually would. I was sort of testing her, trying to see if her intense glory from before when she'd kicked me was left over. I sat on the edge of her bed as her eyes widened. To my immense surprise, she rose up in front of me on her knees, raking her fingers through my dangled hair with care. Her boobs were at eye-level, and I struggled to keep my eyes away from them. No doubt she'd get all awkward again if she caught me staring at her tits. She smiled as she brushed my hair back, using her little pinky finger to part it on the side as her palm smoothed it into order. She smelled like strawberries mixed with the same laundry detergent that Esme used, undoubtedly because she was still wearing my shirt.

"A side part, Swan?" I asked. "You're taking away any of the small amount of manhood that I have. And you're not even cowering in fear yet. I'm impressed." She smacked my head lightly as she continued to smooth my hair. It felt fucking amazing.

"I'm trying to get over that," she sighed as she smoothed a stray hair away from my eyes. I laughed, feeling giddy with her proximity. It made me want to smack myself.

"What, your constant terror?" I challenged. "This little bubble of insecurity that seems to follow you around at all times?" She smirked at me, leaning back on her heels to inspect her work.

"Yeah, I guess. I don't know why I'm petrified all the time." She sounded so sad, and I wanted to apologize for even bringing it up.

"I honestly don't, either. You seriously have absolutely no reason to feel the need to shit your pants whenever Rose is around."

"Try the fact that she's ridiculously beautiful?" Bella said with an edge of bitterness. "If you haven't noticed, I am pretty much the spokesmodel for the plain."

"Well, a spokesmodel would probably have to be better-spoken than you, Bell," I chuckled. "But I can't understand why you freeze up all the time. I mean, you have nothing to worry about. You're gorgeous." I clamped my lips together, a wave of embarrassment washing over me. I wasn't sure if I'd crossed the line. Most girls liked to hear that boys thought they were pretty, but Bella wasn't like most girls.

"You don't have to lie to make me feel better," she muttered, her eyes turning glassy with tears. I wasn't sure why my compliment was stirring up such emotion.

"I'm not trying to placate you, Bella. I mean it." I promised.

"Then why did you hesitate when you told me?" she asked, meeting my eyes. I inhaled sharply, trying to decided whether or not I should answer honestly. In truth, my answer was a major discerning factor in any sort of future communication I wanted to have with Bella. I wanted to tell her how weird she was, and how confused I was, but I wondered if it would make her cry. There was too much crying in my life already as it was, so I couldn't handle Bella tearing up on me.

"Because I'm walking on a very thin line, Bella," I confessed. "I can't decide whether it would be best to like you or hate you. It's very confusing to me." My jaw locked as the truth slipped from my tongue. "I don't know whether I should stay away from you or protect you. I'm an asshole, Bella. I pretty much suck. You don't want to be friends with someone like me." Her face grew sad as I spat reality into her face, but I had to put it all out there. "You don't fucking know what my life is like. You don't know all the things that I've done, you don't want to be around me."

"I do, though. I want to get to know you," she said with sureness coating her voice. "I don't need you to protect me, Edward."

She was wrong. She did need me. Tonight she had been confident, strong. I was amazed at the glory that almost exuded from her as the adrenaline almost visibly rushed through her veins. She was strong, and she was threatening. But how could I know if she'd be the same way on Monday in the cafeteria if Rose made her the target of her hazing? How could I be sure that she would stand up for herself?

"I have to," I spat gruffly. "You're just so fucking delicate, Bella. You don't know how to speak up for yourself. You have a complete lack of proper fierceness. Think about it, if I never protected you, you would just be blood on the soles of Jessica Stanley's tennis shoes. Rose would have already wiped the floor with you."

"I don't need you, Edward Cullen," she swore, her chin quivering. She was lying, and she knew it. She looked pitiful in the dim light of her lamp, and I wanted to hold her. But I couldn't. She didn't know me that way, and I was attacking her.

"Should I leave?" I asked her after she fell silent. She paused, her brow furrowing in thought. Bella's expression was one of shame, and I couldn't understand why. I was the one who had called her out on her insecurities; I was the one who had accused her of being weak. I was the douche bag, not her.

"Don't go," she whispered. My heart inflated with air, my chest tightening as I looked into the brown eyes that were etched into the cells of my brain. With hesitation, I placed a hand on her right knee. Her eyes stayed focused on mine, her breath even.

"I'm sorry I'm such a dick, Bella. You don't deserve any of that."

"I want you around, Edward," she promised, her voice strong. A tear snuck from beneath her eyelid and sprinted down her pale cheek. "You're an asshole, there's no doubt about it. But I don't care. I don't want you to stay away from me because you think I'm too good for you, because that is completely untrue. And I don't want you to stay close just because you think that I need your help. I don't want you to treat me like you do, like you don't care, like I'm a weight chained to your ankle. Because it fucking kills me, Edward. Because I know that you're perfect, and I can't take it when you act like you hate me."

She was wrong. I was horrible. I disrespected my dying father and let Lauren Mallory suck me off every day for two years and I was a terrible fucking person. But her jaw was set, and her eyes were so certain, and my weird fucking chinchilla rain stick Bella was so fucking beautiful that I knew what I wanted to do next beyond a shadow of a doubt. I met her eyes, and something within them told me that what I wanted was okay. So very gently, and very slowly so she'd have time to protest if I'd read her eyes wrong, I pulled in close to her.

"I don't hate you, Bella," I whispered earnestly. "I can't hate you, no matter how hard I try." She licked her pink lips as her eyes fluttered closed. So I kissed her. I kissed her like I'd never kissed any girl before. I was careful and I was scared. I took her hip in my right hand, my left still clasped on her knee, and I thought about how if she was Jessica Stanley or some other slut, I'd be pulling her hair and biting her lips off. But she was Bella, and she was delicate. So I kissed her as gently as I knew how, her lips parting beneath mine. I pulled back slightly, meeting her gaze.

"And you look good in my shirt," I smirked, closing the space between us again before she could stammer out a very Bella-like excuse.

A/N: yayyyy! and ps 'bella', i am definitely a girl. ha. so that makes referring to bella's chest as 'tits' a little awkward..but all for the sake of fanfic, right? i am as feminine as they come. i just cuss like a boy :)
you guys fucking rock. i wish i could bake you all a pie.