After hanging up with Peter's mother, I drop my cell in my lap. I let my head fall back on the seat—hard—and try not to beat it against the headrest repeatedly.

She told me not to come to the hospital. I know in her deluded insane mind, she was blaming his injury on me. "It was your little play rehearsals he was headed to," she said in her whiny-ass voice.

To put it mildly, she and I don't get along. She says I'm holding Peter back, I say she's filling his head full of bullshit, so we agree to disagree.

She informed me that he'll be missing school until his sprain heals completely. I wanted to remind her it was just a sprain; it wasn't like his ankle was detached and dangling from his leg. But if she wants to have him home schooled, more power to her. She claimed it would be too exhausting on him to trudge back and forth down the halls to his classes on crutches and heaven forbid if it swelled anymore.

I shake my head in disgust and glance over at the file stuffed with my screenplay materials over on the passenger seat.

Then I think of Edward Cullen.

I'm still in shock over that situation. I seriously don't know what to think. I mean, Edward Cullen? He is... he's just... he won't... he might...

I just don't know about him.

Well, I do know a little.

His best friend is Emmett McCarty, whose nickname is 'Bear'. Emmett dates this very pretty girl named Rosalie who I swear is into roller derby or wrestling or something—she has the whole badass persona and she scares me.

I know his parents are loaded—like old–time–money loaded, the–richest–people–in–town loaded. You really couldn't tell it by looking at Edward until you see his car. I know it's some old model hot rod and it's been restored to mint condition, and I've heard some comments that it's super-fast. Supposedly, he races it against other cars for slips or something, and he's never lost.

Then I realize most of what I know about Edward is hearsay, except for the money part and that his dad is some bigwig at the hospital.

I've heard he doesn't even have to show up for his classes or do any of his assignments, yet he still passes.

I've heard he's a member of like fight club type thing and he beats people up for pure fun.

I've heard he's this insatiable sex monster with a big dick that will and does screw anyone that's willing and even a few that weren't.

I've heard he drinks all the time and even smokes pot.

I've heard he's been to jail, not juvenile detention, but actual J-A-I-L.

And knowing all this I'm supposed to put my fate in his hands? I don't think so.

I pull in my driveway and even through the sudden downpour of rain, I notice Edward's already parked at the curb waiting on me.

He's early.

I guess that's a plus for him, a small one anyway.

I glance in the backseat for my umbrella, but can't find it. I stuff all my things in my bag and open the door to make a run for the porch.

As I'm unlocking the front door, I see him jump out of his car and run toward me.

"Fuck this rain! I can't wait to get out of this mother fuckin' wet town. I swear…"

He almost runs into me as he curses the weather.

"You do realize it's always rained a lot in the Olympic Peninsula right? This isn't some new occurrence to complaining about."

Our eyes catch and he smiles at me. A really big smile and then suddenly he's staring and smiling and smiling and staring and he has this look in his eyes that I don't understand.

But I can't look away.

"You're not crying anymore," he says in an almost whisper but I don't know if he's stating a fact or asking a question, yet it's almost like he cares. Almost.

It freaks me out a little.

I peel my eyes away and open the door.

"Follow me." I say with a quick shake of my head.

I lead him to my room. My parents aren't home from work yet but my brother Jacob is next door. He'll come home as soon as he sees my car in the driveway.

I throw my bag down on my bed and pull out all the play stuff. I have the book the screenplay was written off of and a couple of copies of the play itself. I get a pen and a highlighter so I can show Edward what he needs to memorize.

When I look up he's still standing in my open doorway with a blank look on his face.

"Edward?"

"Are you parents home?"

I shake my head.

"And this is your room?"

"Yes." I answer with a drag. I don't understand his hesitation.

"And you want me to come in there… with you?" He slowly smiles this devilish smile.

I want to throw something at him. He's thinking about sex. What a jerk.

"You can't be serious. Get this straight, Edward Cullen. We're speaking only because you've been assigned the responsibility of the part of Lord Robert Dudley's understudy. That's it and if I can figure out a way, you won't have that responsibility for long. Nothing has, nor anything will ever happen between you and I. We are not even friends. Got it?"

He slowly struts into my room, unfazed and seemingly having ignored everything I just said.

"I can't believe I'm in your room." He takes a deep breath through his nose, "It smells so good in here." He closes his eyes and breathes in again. "Even better than I imagined."

I want to tell him to stop, but I'm in shock. Again. "What?" Surely he just did not admit to imagining being in my room. No way.

"It's nothing." He grabs the chair from my desk and pulls it over to face me sitting on my bed.

But he doesn't sit down like a normal person. Oh no, not him. He spins the chair and straddles it backward. His long legs bent on each side of my white chair.

I'm still gaping at him.

He crosses his arms along the top of the back of the chair and rests his chin on the back of his hand.

He starts grinning at me again and evidently I'm too far gone in a trance of stupor to snap out of it.

"Let's get started, boss," he says with a wink. "What's first?"

But I don't answer because his proximity is so close. Close enough that for the first time I notice the small bump in his what I thought was perfect nose and the tiny silver scar above his left eyebrow.

I can see the stubble that's barely visible along his jaw, I wonder if it's soft and new like Peter's or if it's hard and scratchy like he's been shaving for years.

I catch all the different hues of his hair and it looks to be so silky. And then his eyebrows…they match the color of his hair and they're a little on the wild side. I imagine rubbing over them and taming them with the pad of my thumbs.

My eyes venture down to meet his own. I never noticed how green his are and how the greenness fades into blues around the edges of his irises. I've never seen more depth and more beauty in a person's eyes before. I find myself getting lost.

And enjoying it.

I stare so intently, my vision loses focus.

I blink a few times and glance down at the floor and then back up to his face.

He's still looking at me, looking in my eyes the same way I was looking at him.

I feel like the room is rocking and I can't find anything steady to hold on to. There's an unfamiliar charge zipping through the air. It's making me anxious.

Suddenly I wonder if he's dazzling me? Has Edward perfected some Jedi mind trick or something? Is this the way he gets into girls' pants?

If so, he's due for a rude awakening.

"What did you do to Peter?" My voice is a little shaky and quieter than I would like it to be, but I want to know.

His eyes narrow and his lips tighten. "Not near what he deserved."

Neither of us has moved much, nor has the mood shifted. The tension is still electric within the room. It's swirling around us like a funnel cloud, but I'm not sure where one emotion begins and the other ends.

"Tell me." I want it to sound like a command, but to my ears it's more like a plea, so not what I was going for.

"You should ask him. I bet he'd loved to tell you that story." He shakes his head at me, and then the corner of his lips curl up again.

"What?"

"Your eyes..." he trails off leaving me wanting to scoot closer to listen to what he might say.

"What about them?"

"So beautiful," he says those two words and I can't decide if I want to call his bullshit or wrap my arms around his neck.

"Holy Shit! Bella, why is Edward Cullen in your room?" Jacob loudly slaps the half open door with his hand. I jump so far away from Edward, I almost fall of the end of the bed.

"Jacob, watch your mouth!" I cover my face with my hands.

"You are Edward Cullen right? I mean I'd know that car anywhere. I swear, man, I dream about that car."

I die. A thousand times, I die. "Jacob Swan! I'm sorry, Edward, meet the spawn of Satan himself, my brother Jacob."

Edward stands and walks over to shake Jacob's hand.

"Hot damn, my friends are never going to believe I shook your hand!" I can't help but giggle at the look on Jacob's face. I even glance down to the floor to make sure he didn't crap his pants.

"You sure know how to toot my whistle kid, you wanna go out and look at my car? I'll even let you sit behind the wheel." Edward slings his arm around Jacob's shoulder and they start to walk outside. Jacob is speechless—that's a first. Edward seems to be adept at making people forget how to speak.

"Hurry up! We have work to do, Edward, and Jacob, watch your language!" I yell before they shut the front door.

Then I sit there alone in my room and wonder what in the hell just happened between Edward and I.

I walk over to the window and watch them next to Edward's car. Jacob is in his own personal heaven, and thank goodness Edward is being a good sport about it.

Edward opens the door and Jacob slides in behind the wheel. Jacob must have said something funny because Edward practically doubles over in laughter.

It's nice watching them get along. I don't get to see this type of thing usually because Peter can't stand Jacob and Jacob pretty much hates Peter.

I lean against the windowsill and cross my arms. Edward bends down into the open door and the sound of a loud engine filters in through my shut window.

I see the driver's side window going down and then Edward shuts the door with Jacob still sitting in the running car.

My window rattles when the engine revs a couple of times and a little black smoke puffs out the rear of the car.

Edward looks up at the house and sees me watching him through the window.

Our eyes catch for the briefest of moments.

I feel a lump forming in the depths of my throat when he bends back down to talk to Jacob.

I'm going to have to thank Edward a hundred times for this.

The car shuts off and not long after they come back in the house. I listen as Jacob slams the door of his room, probably to play his video games.

I'm still looking out the window when Edward's footsteps enter my room. "Thank you for that. Jacob's had a rough time of it lately. I haven't seen him that happy in a while." I admit.

My white chair shifts a tad when Edward plops down in it.

"Can I ask why?"

I nod, "About four weeks ago his best friend passed away from cancer. He was thirteen, the same age as Jacob. Gah, they were so close. Seth just…he got sick one day and went to the doctor and the next thing we know, he's dying. Jacob never left his side. I still don't think he's dealt with the grief and I'm afraid, one day he's just going to break, you know?"

I turn to look at Edward and he's looking out of my door, towards Jacob's room and nodding.

"So thank you. I'm pretty sure you just made his year. Who knew that Edward Cullen was his hero?"

Edward huffs, "He's got low standards. You should talk to him about that."

I laugh and walk over to my bed to pick up his copy. "Moving on, what do you know about Queen Elizabeth the first?"

"She was the first queen?" Edward's eyebrows rise as he asks.

"Seriously?"

He shrugs. "What do I need to know about her anyway?"

Here's where I try to hide my smile. He still has no clue what he's in for.

"Have you ever heard of the Elizabethan era? Or what about The Golden Age of English history?"

Edward cringes and shakes his head. "I'm not much into history, English or otherwise. Nope, not at all."

If I had a desk within my reach, I would smack my forehead against it. "Have you ever watched The Tudors on HBO?" I ask, grasping at straws.

"A couple of times."

"When the show started, do you remember Anne Boleyn? And how she had a baby that was a daughter instead of a son and King Henry was upset and later on Anne ended up getting decapitated?"

Edward nods but I'm afraid I've already lost him.

"Well, her daughter was Elizabeth, who one day became one of the most powerful women in the world. Her childhood, her upbringing, her rule, her life—it really is an amazing story, but I'll stop boring you now. What you do need to know and understand, is that she never married. Here's this woman in a time when women should be seen and not heard, come to rule, change the world and the entire time everyone was encouraging her, telling her to get married. But who could she trust? This play is a romanticized version of her rule and how lonely she might have been. How maybe she really did love someone, but chose her country first. How at night, when the entire castle was quiet, and she was alone in her big four-poster bed, that maybe she cried sad tears of longing. Maybe she desired for someone to warm her side, or maybe she dreamed of a house full of children, but instead she died alone. Supposedly she even died a virgin a few months shy of seventy years old."

I stop talking and realize that Edward is hanging on my ever word, and there were a lot of them.

So I hand him the play, The Lonely Reign of Queen Elizabeth the First.

He looks down at the paper and then back up at me.

"Wow. I never..." He swallows hard, "You make it sound very interesting, but why do I need to know all this?"

"You are going to study and read the part of Lord Robert Dudley. He was a childhood friend of hers, and was the master of her horses. He and Elizabeth were even prisoners together in a tower for a while. But there was all this scandal around them. She loved him but he was a commoner and..." I can't keep the excitement out of my voice as I talk about it.

I notice that Edward's face has been drained of all its color.

"Are you okay?"

He practically throws the play back at me.

"No, that won't work. I can't. You'll have to find something else for me to do." He stands up and shakes his head.

I stand and thrust the play back at him. "You have to. Peter was the lead man playing Dudley's part and we all know how that turned out. This is what I need from you, Edward."

"No, Bella, I can't." He emphasizes each word and I swear there are flames in his eyes.

"Why? Stage fright? We can work on that..."

He laughs this cynical laugh. "I don't give a shit about being on stage Bella; that's nothing. I wish it was that simple. You just don't understand."

I tighten my hold on the paper in my hands, almost crumbling it into a ball. "Make me understand, Edward."

He puts his hands on his hips. "If I don't cooperate with you, I get kicked out of school. If I get kicked out of school, I don't graduate and I lose my inheritance...my car. I need that car Bella, that's my ticket out of here. Please, just..."

The look on his face...

I just want to fix it all for him, but I can't. I simply need for him to learn his part. "I'm sorry, Edward. I need you to fill in for Peter."

Edward's head falls forward and I hear him take a deep breath.

"Bella, I'm sorry, but I can't do that. I can't... I can't read."

"A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in." ~ Frederick The Great