Bella:
Queeny tells me that to get Edward; I need to not-so-subtly show him how I feel. Apparently, according to Queeny, Edward is oblivious to reading signs in women. I personally hadn't noticed this, but Alice nods furiously in agreement.
At school, I drive myself once again and don't manage to catch Edward before school. Queeny said I needed to flirt with Edward, but I'm not sure how comfortable I feel doing that while he's still with Jessica. It seems like a bitchy move, to me.
"Where's Edward?" I ask Alice and Cowboy as I join them at lunch. I looked around the hall but I didn't see Jessica or Edward sat at their usual table.
"Hello, yes we're good, how are you?" Alice replies dryly. "He walked in here and asked to speak with Jessica, then they left."
"Ok," I nod, not liking to think of what they might be doing. I look up at Cowboy, who seems to be purposely not looking at me. Strange. "How are you today, Cowboy?" I ask him.
"I'm good, Miss Bella," he nods, still not looking at me.
"You seem…I don't know," I mumble.
"Yeah, you've been quieter. Like you're hiding something," Alice muses, in agreement with me.
"What? No, you must be mistakin' me," Cowboy quickly responds.
"Have you-" As I'm about to ask if he's told Edward anything, there's a screaming from outside.
"WHAT? IS IT FOR THAT SLUT, BELLA?" Jessica's voice screeches from outside. Um, what?
"Actually, you're the slut. Bella didn't sleep with someone while dating someone else," Edward's voice replies, slightly raised by still quite calm.
All of the cafeteria look a little in shock, and a lot of them direct their attention to the table I'm sat on. Or, more specifically, towards me. I feel like shouting out how I know as little as them. And I'm not a slut.
Edward walks in, momentarily pausing because of everyone's eyes on him, but then he quickly walks over and sits next to me.
"Are you alright?" I ask, giving Edward a tight hug. He looks like he needs it. At first he stiffens, though soon he tightly hugs me back.
"I'm fine, h-honestly. I was breaking u-up with her anyway," Edward shrugs. A small part of me, deep inside, squeals with joy at this new information. I sneak a glance at Alice, who's unashamedly grinning and giving me a thumbs up.
"It still must make you sad, though?" I offer; wanting to make sure he's ok. Just because I'm happy, it doesn't mean that he is.
"I'm good. Trust m-me," Edward smiles genuinely, looking happier than I've seen him in a while.
I trust him. Of course I do.
*******LLB*******
In the weeks following Edward's break up with Jessica, we once again become much closer. Though, every time a girl looks at him suggestively, I get a pang of jealousy. As the days pass Edward's stutter continually improves, but as his stutter improves girls notice him more.
That doesn't particularly help with the jealousy.
"I can do my damn maths homework! They've set us a whole frickin' exam paper, and I can't even do half of it!" I whine, throwing the paper down on the desk in biology.
"Where w-were you at lunch?" Edward asks, looking a little amused at my frustration.
"Trying to do this stupid maths!" I huff, slouching down in my seat.
"How a-about I h-help you?" Edward offers.
"Really? You'd do that!" I squeal, maybe a little too loudly.
"Of course," Edward smiles warmly.
When it's the end of the day I go over to the Cullen's house, so that Edward can help me with my maths homework. I'm incredibly thankful for his help, but also maybe a little nervous. This is going to be the first time Edward and I are truly alone together since we called things off.
I'm not sure how much self-restraint I have.
"You and Edward have a date?" Alice whisper-squeals to me as we're walking into her house.
"No, just maths revision," I whisper back, not wanting to get my hopes up.
"Yeah…" Alice trails off; "Just maths," Alice raises her eyebrows at me, and gives me a wink.
I nudge her away into the living room, with Cowboy, before following Edward up to his room. I stand by the door for a bit, a little awkward, though soon Edward gestures for me to sit next to him on his bed.
"So, um, wh-which q-questions, uh, are y-you struggling wi-with?" Edward stutters. He hasn't stuttered this bad in weeks.
"The…the simultaneous equations. I don't really understand them," I admit sheepishly, fishing the paper from my bag and turning to said question.
"Oh, I can help with those," Edward says, seemingly relaxing a little. I hope I don't make him nervous.
Edward gets another piece of paper, and begins to show me a simple method of how to work them out. The way he explains it makes things much easier to understand. He'd be a brilliant teacher if I didn't keep getting distracted by his eyes or the way he has to push up his glasses every so often.
"Bella?" Edward says, snapping me from my thoughts.
"Hmm? What?" I blurt distractedly. When Edward leans over to get another piece of paper his t-shirt rides up ever so slightly, giving me a glimpse of his stomach and abdomen.
"You seem d-distracted?" Edward queries. Oops. Maybe I wasn't so discrete with my staring.
"No, uh, not at all," I quickly tell him.
Edward nods in response, quickly going on to describe the next topic. I focus more this time, learning more about everything. He would make a brilliant teacher when he's older.
"Should w-we take a br-break?" Edward suggests.
"Sure," I nod, getting up and stretching a little.
"I'll get us some sn-snacks," Edward quickly excuses himself.
I take the time to wonder around his room, observing mostly his large collection of books. One whole wall is almost filled with books. I look through the titles, noting that there are only a couple that I haven't read. I guess a love of reading is something we share.
"Bella?" I quickly turn around and see Edward look at me, a small, crooked smile playing on his lips.
"Sorry. I got curious," I explain to him.
"Anything you haven't read?" Edward asks, knowing my love of reading.
"Only a couple of books," I tell him as he walks closer to me.
My breathing picks up, wanting nothing more than to kiss him right now. Suddenly, he stops walking, running a hand roughly through his hair. Looking torn, he hands me a drink, before sitting down on his bed and drinking his.
I rest the drink on a shelf, then slowly walk over and sit next to him. Carefully, I reach over and take his hand in mine, fully intending on confessing my feelings for him.
Completely surprising me, he turns to face me, and leans in towards me. Just as he's about to kiss me, I put my hand up on his lips and stop him. A look of shock registers on his face, and I briefly register the sound of his glass falling onto the floor. Water sprays up my leg and Edward's, but he ignores it as he gets up and begins pacing around the room.
"I th-thought…c-clearly I w-w…was wrong!" Edward says, looking close to tears.
"Edward, no…" I try to explain, but he cuts me off.
"Don't apologise! I'm the idiot! Just forget it happened, ok?" Edward pleads with me.
"Listen to me," I begin, standing up, "Ow, fuck!" I shout, accidentally standing on a piece of the fallen glass.
"Bella!" Edward exclaims, rushing over to me. Picking me up, he runs downstairs and into the living room where Alice, Cowboy, Esme and Carlisle are sitting.
"What has happened?" Esme asks, rushing over to us.
"I dropped my glass…Bella st-stood on it!" Edward rushes out in one breath.
"Let me take a look," Carlisle announces. I'm laid down on the sofa, but I protest.
"I'll get blood over everything!" I tell Esme.
"Don't worry, honey, the most important thing is making you better," Esme says calmly.
Carlisle begins investigating my wound, which continues to bleed. "I think you're going to need to go to hospital. There's still some glass in the wound and it would require higher pain medication than I'm allowed to keep."
"Seriously?" I whine, completely annoyed at where things between Edward and I have been left.
"Sorry, Bella," Carlisle says.
"I'll call your mum and dad," Esme tells me. She drives over to my parent's house to meet with them and take them up to the hospital, while I travel with Edward and Carlisle.
Soon I'm carried into the car by Edward, with Carlisle sat in the front driving. Edward looks completely uncomfortable, and I just want to explain to him why I stopped him from kissing me. I wanted to make sure that, unlike last time, we would be in a relationship, and I wanted to be sure of Edward's feelings. Now I think about it, I probably should I have said these things first, before rejecting Edward's advances.
Looking over at Edward, I try to show him my love for him and how I was only doing this for good reasons.
Once we arrive at the hospital, Carlisle's status gets me seen to quicker. Also, due to it being the early evening in a quiet town, there's not too many other people.
"Ah, Bella, so we meet again," Dr Uley jokes.
"Before the jokes begin, this was almost completely not my fault!" I tell him.
"Almost completely not your fault? How does that work?" Dr Uley chuckles.
"Edward dropped his glass, which I happened to forget, and I accidentally stood in it," I explain.
"Oooh, nasty," Dr Uley makes a face. He begins to inspect my wound, causing me to ever so often wince.
Later in the evening, when I'm made to just rest while they're looking at my X-ray (yes, I had to have an X-ray. They wanted to make sure there were no more shards of glass in my foot), it's just Edward and I alone in the hospital room.
"Edward, can I tell you what I was going to say before this happened?" I ask, a little bit nervously. I'm scared I've ruined everything between us.
"If y-you, um, w-want t-t-to," Edward mumbles, fiddling with the zip on his jacket.
"Can you look at me?" His eyes snap up to mine, thankfully. "I didn't stop you from kissing me because I didn't want to kiss you." Edward scoffs, rather loudly, at this, so I glare at him a bit. "I…I didn't want the same thing as last time to happen."
"You were the one who called it off though, remember," Edward comments, a mixture of upset and anger in his voice.
"Yes, and I've regretted that every day since it happened!" I blurt out, blushing at my own admission.
"Then why didn't you say anything?" Edward asks, looking dubiously at me.
"Because I told you I'd be waiting! As in, you should make the first move! But then you go off and date Jessica," I huff, getting angry myself.
"Are you going anywhere with this?" Edward replies, sounding bored.
"Maybe it was a good idea I stopped you from kissing me. Clearly you don't give a shit who's on the end of the lips you're kissing!" I shout, feeling tears of anger well in my eyes. I genuinely thought that Edward felt something for me.
Edward stalks towards me, standing next to the bed I'm stuck in. "You think I don't care? You think…you think these past few months, not being allowed to kiss you, hasn't been hard?" Edward asks rhetorically, not stopping long enough for me to answer. "I know you l-like me to. Jasper t-told me."
"Cowboy told you what?" I demand, pushing myself in a seated position.
"That…that y-you, uh, y-you, um, l-love me," Edward mumbles, suddenly losing the fiery passion he had just a minute ago.
"What? Why would he tell you!?" I feel so embarrassed, betrayed and upset right now. Not only does Edward confuse me, he now knows exactly how I feel. And doesn't seem to reciprocate my feelings.
"Don't be mad at him," Edward says.
"Don't worry, I'm not!" I fume, channelling all my mixed emotions into anger towards Edward.
"I love you," Edward blurts.
"I know you know I love you!" I huff, before it clicks what he said. "Wait…you what?" I gasp as the first few tears begin to fall. I'm not sure what I'm feeling right now.
"I love you too," Edward admits, gently brushing away my tears.
"How? Why?" I rush out, not thinking any coherent thought.
"You're beautiful, intelligent, the most welcoming person in Forks, a great kisser…need I go on?" Edward smiles looking, well, happier than I've ever seen him. Just like him, I start smiling. The tears ease off as everything sinks in.
"You love me?" I question, needing to certify it once more.
"As you love me," Edward replies, leaning closer to my face. I reach up to kiss him, to show that I'm not going to reject ever again. Running my fingers through his hair, I feel tears welling up in my eyes once again.
It's been too long since we've kissed. If I thought I missed it before, I was wrong. I can't think of anything that could stop me from kissing Edward.
"What's going on here?" A booming voice demands.
Ah, right. That would be a reason to stop kissing Edward.
My father.
A/N: What do you think!? What about Charlie's reaction? ;)
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Oh, also, my fanfic 100 Days has been nominated for Top Ten Completed Fics of November 2012 at www . twifanfictionrecs . com (remove spaces). If you've read it, I'd really appreciate it if you voted for it. Thank you :)