The Learning Curve: Chapter 68

Edward's House

I stopped at the door to my truck as my emotions made a swift transition from annoyance to loneliness and misery. I didn't want it to be like this with Edward.

I went back into the house and up the stairs. Edward was right where I left him, staring into space until he heard the creak of the floorboard outside his room under my feet.

He turned to me with an inscrutable expression, waiting for me to speak.

"I'm sorry," I said lamely. I didn't know how to articulate the source of my frustration.

"Will you tell me why you're so upset?" he asked, not harshly, but without any sign of forgiveness, either.

I let out a breath. "I guess I just...I want you, Edward. All the time. And before you, sex sounded painful and scary and awkward, but I feel like it would be so right with you. I'm actually excited for it now. And it's like you don't feel the same."

"Bella, of course I do. Can you really think I don't want you after all we've done? I just don't want to rush it, Bella. I want us both to be doing it for all the right reasons."

"My reasons sound right to me," I argued, daring to approach him. "And there kind of is a rush. We might not have much more time together."

Edward's brow furrowed as though he really didn't realize what our constraints were. "What are you talking about?"

I sighed. "College, Edward. I don't think you realize that there's a good chance you'll get into these great schools we're applying to and I won't."

Edward stared at me. "Bella...I have no intention of going anywhere without you."

My heart skipped a beat. "But Edward...if you get into a school like Dartmouth, you have to go. You can't go to stay and go to state school just for me."

There was a hint of vulnerability in his eyes when he responded. "Why not?"

I irrationally felt like crying again. "Because you're too smart and amazing to stay just for me. You're supposed to become this genius doctor and if I held you back...if you ever regretted staying for me, it would kill me."

Edward stood, suddenly intent, and he held me in place with his hands on my upper arms. "But Bella, I want to go to college with you. I don't care where."

"Really? But...what if you change your mind someday?" I asked, still uncertain. It seemed too much to fathom that I could hold Edward until September, let alone for years to come.

"I don't think I will, but even if I do, I know I won't regret anything."

He sounded so sure, but I couldn't be. "How do you know?"

Edward looked at me steadily. "How do you know that you won't regret having sex with me?"

Staring into his eyes, I knew the answer - I knew without a doubt – and I realized it was what he'd needed to hear all along.

"Because I love you."

A/N: Mixed reactions to the last chapter - their first fight and you're already taking sides, tsk tsk.