A/N: I do not own any of the Twilight Characters or the Book or anything really! I hope you enjoy this chapter, I hope it doesn't let you down, I hope it exceeds your expectations. I also hope that you will stick with me through thick and thin.

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The next few mornings I woke up in the same mood that I had gone to sleep in. Despite the nightmares, I was still flying high from our almost kiss that had happened two nights ago. The way Edward's eyes locked on mine and wouldn't let go. The way Edward's hands rested ever so gently on my upper arms, almost as if he were afraid that holding on to me to tightly would break me. The way my heart fluttered when I thought about what might come next.

"Bella! You awake?"

"Yeah…?"

"Good." Charlie said as he gingerly entered my room, as if he was afraid of what he might see when he entered. What, was he afraid I was naked?

"I'm not naked Charlie."

He coughed, "Huh huh, I know that! I just wanted to come in and remind you that you meet with Dr. Carlisle today."

"Like I could forget." I said, rolling my eyes.

"Alright, well, that's it. Have a good day at school." He just stood there lingering by the door.

"Is there something else Charlie?"

He just stood there, looking about as comfortable as if he were resting his hand on a hot burner.

"You can say it, whatever it is."

"I just, well, I wanted to talk to you about Edward. How long have you been seeing this kid?"

"Since the day I got here…"

"Bella, don't get smart with me, I mean in a, uh, ::cough:: intimate way."

"Gross, Charlie! It's not like we're having sex!"

"Oh well," he blushed, "That's good, that's good. I just, I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything because he's pushing you to. If he tries anything, you just, you let me know."

I started to blush, if I would have known that this is why Charlie was so eager to wake me up, I would have faked being sick.

" Charlie, don't worry. I got it under control."

"Do you, do you really Bella? Do you, uh, um, do you know, ::cough:: um, what kind of, uhhhhh, protection is out there?"

"OH MY GOD!!!! Charlie!"

"Well, I don't know if you've had this talk with your mother, and I just wanted you to be prepared!"

"We just had our first date, okay! And Mom had the sex talk with me, however, for her it was more an Abstinence talk."

"Abstinence," he laughed, "Abstinence. That's funny. I heard about abstinence…I heard that abstinence makes the church grow fondlers." He laughed at his own joke.

"Well don't worry, Charlie, I have it all under control."

"Alright. Well, I have to get to work. Don't be late for school!"

"No worries!"

Charlie left and that's when the laughing started. First it was a tiny giggle that escaped from my lips, but before I knew it I was giving myself a stomach ache from laughing so hard. When the tears finally started slipping down my face I decided it was time to get ready for school.

However, today something was different. I was a girl who may or may not have a boyfriend. I mean, sure, I went out on a date, but does that even make him my boyfriend? Or are we just a boy and a girl who date? Should I expect him to sit with me at lunch? Is he going to expect me to sit with him at lunch? Will people look at us different? Will we look different? Will people be able to tell, just by looking at us, that we almost kissed on my front porch? Should I dress up more than normal?

I was well on my way to a panic attack when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me." Edward's voice came like velvet over the phone line.

"Hi." I responded shyly.

"I was wondering if I could, uh, give you a ride to school today?" A smile played across my lips, until I remembered what Charlie told me earlier.

"I have to talk with your dad today."

"Oh."

"Tomorrow?"

"I could wait."

"Um…"

"Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"I had a great time the other night."

"Me too, Edward."

"Don't worry about today, I'll drive you tomorrow. Okay?"

"Thank you."

We disconnected and I finished getting ready. I decided on jeans and a hoodie, but I chose to leave my hair down, rather than in a ponytail.

When I got to school Edward was standing there waiting for me. He was leaning against his Volvo and just watching me. I felt self-conscious the entire time I was walking towards him, that is, until I got over there and he reached for my hand. I placed mine in his and smiled at how effortless it was to let someone in.

As we walked up to the school people kept on turning to look. I don't know if it was because Edward and I were holding hands, or because maybe I was smiling. But whatever it was, it made us the center of attention. Normally this would have bothered the crap out of me, but with Edward by my side, I was content.

The rest of the day passed in rather the same way. Everyone staring, no one speaking. By lunch I started to wonder if maybe one of us had grown an extra head. But when I sat down next to The Pixie at lunch I found out why everyone had been staring.

"Omigod! So you two are THE talk of the school. The school psycho and the School psyche's son! It's great. You can't walk down the hall without hearing someone talk about you two. Which of course does wonders for my social standing because here I am sitting next to you two. Maybe you guys could kiss, draw more attention to us!"

I blushed. If it had been me in The Pixie's place I would have been mortified, but she looked at it as the most amazing gift ever!

"Alice, layoff."

"Okay, Mr. Grouchy-pants!"

I just rolled my eyes and continued to stare at the food in front of me. How it got there I wasn't quite sure, because I didn't get it.

"Oh, I got those for you; I usually get the food for everyone at the table. And Edward told me you were a veggie-tarian so I decided to get you as many vegetables as you can find in the Forks High cafeteria."

I just smiled and began to nibble on a carrot. It wasn't until now that I decided to look around the table we were sitting at. To my left was Edward, and to my right was The Pixie. Next to The Pixie was The Creeper, and across from Edward and I were The Bear and The Supermodel. It was now that I realized that The Supermodel was staring at me. It wasn't a quizzical staring, like most of Forks High, or a pleasant staring like The Pixie was prone to do. No, she was glaring at me, and the longer I stared at her, the more intense her glare became. I quickly turned me gaze back to my veggies and didn't lift it for the rest of lunch.

Again, Edward escorted me to class and then left me to endure the stares of all the students by myself. It was now that I wished I had at least one class with Edward. But I made my best attempt to ignore the stares and the whispers. The longer I tried to ignore them, the louder they got. But then I just tried harder to ignore them. It wasn't until the teacher was standing right in front of me that I even noticed he was talking to me.

"Ms. Swan?"

"S-sorry?"

"I said, can you please tell the class what the Greek word deca means, and how it is used in the English language."

"D-d-d-deca?"

"Yes, Ms. Swan, deca."

"Uh, I'm sorry, I don't know."

"Can anyone help Ms. Swan?"

"Deca is the greek translation of 10 and it is more commonly heard in reference to geometric shapes, such as the decagram, a shape with ten sides."

"Very good Lauren."

I laid my head on the top of the desk to try and sooth the burning that was coming to my face. I knew what deca meant. I don't know why I couldn't remember. I was learning about this at my old school. It was a homework assignment. We had to name all of the geometric shapes by their correct names, not just square and rectangle. We had to classify them by parallelogram or prism.

It hits me then why I couldn't remember, or moreover, why I chose to not to remember. I was working on the assignment when mom and Phil were out to dinner, on that night.

Before I can reminisce anymore about the good ole' days, the bell rings and I'm shuttled off to another class. And by the time I get to see The Shrink, mom and Phil are completely gone from my memory. It probably didn't help that Edward walked me to my appointment. I could have sworn that The Shrink's assistant was going to have an aneurism when she saw Edward and I walk into the office holding hands. But I quickly said good bye and probably saved the life of The Shrink's secretary.

I knocked on the door and then walked in. The Shrink was sitting at his desk, he was smiling, and he was staring at me with a knowing expression.

"Welcome Bella."

"Hi."

"So how are you today?"

"Good…"

"Do anything fun over the weekend?"

"I showered."

"That's certainly, uh, fun. How was your Friday?"

"Good…?"

He just looked at me.

"How was your Friday, Carlisle?"

"It was good…quiet up at the house, but good."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah…" He looked at me again.

I realized by now that Carlisle must have known about my date with Edward. But I was not up to discussing it with his father, even if he was my shrink! I decided then that I would play the same game as Carlisle; if he was going to asking leading questions, then I wasn't gonna give him shit!

"So, what do you think of the weather we're having? Pretty nice, huh?"

"I would definitely say that it is a finer day than most. But please, continue to tell me about your weekend? Besides your shower, did you do anything…entertaining?"

"No…but I could tell you an entertaining story. So this morning I was in bed waking up when Charlie came in."

"Wow…"

"Yeah, no really, listen…so I'm in my room, and I'm lying there. I'm actually quite content because I had a rather nice weekend."

"Oh yeah, what did you do?"

"Nothing! Now please, stop interrupting," I said to him indignantly. "So I'm lying there content, and Charlie walks in. Well really, he meandered in. I think he was afraid I was naked."

"Bella…"

"But I wasn't…for once."

"Bella…"

"Anywho. So Charlie comes in and he starts telling me about all the things I have to do today, and I'm just sitting there thinking, 'Yes, yes, I know, I know. Couldn't forget if I died.' Speaking of death, do you think you forget stuff after you're dead?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, that's beside the point. So he's telling me about everything I need to do today; and then he starts to leave. But then he stops and just stands there. And I'm thinking, well, I wasn't really thinking. I was just sort of lying there. Then he turns to me and starts asking me if I know about protection."

"Protection?" The Shrink asked, looking sort of worried. "Like car insurance?"

"No, like…you know…" I whispered, "protection."

The Shrink turned bright red. "Oh…"

"Yeah." I said, looking completely innocent.

"So, why was Charlie asking you about protection?"

"I don't know," I started to pretend to cry, "I was just in my room and then Charlie came into my room and started talking about condoms and birth control, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor…" I stopped, "Oh, that sounds kind of dirty, let me clarify…"

"No you really don't have to…"

"No, but I want to! You see, I was on the floor because I was laughing so hard. You wanna know why I was laughing so hard?"

"I don't know, do i?"

"Yes!"

"Okay…"

"I was laughing so hard because Charlie told me the most ridiculous joke. It goes like this…'Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers.'" I started to hysterically laugh. "Get it! Abstinence, fondlers!"

The Shrink just sat there looking at me.

"Wow…look at the time…it's time to go, well, I'll see you later Carlisle!" I said as I grabbed my stuff and headed out of the room. When I stepped out the door The Shrink's secretary was just standing there looking at me. I couldn't tell if she could hear anything going on in the room, but she looked half-way between amused and mortified.

"Bella!" The Shrink called as he stepped out of his office. "Tell Charlie he doesn't need to worry, I had the talk with Edward too!"

I blushed bright red, turned on my heel and practically ran out of the room. And I thought I had done a good job of averting the subject.

I continued to run down the hall, as if I could outrun my embarrassment. I was running through the front doors when I collided into an extremely hard body. I myself crumpled against the human wall and fell to the ground. The person, who I had yet to look at reached down, wrapped their fingers around my upper arms and pulled me to my feet. There was something familiar about their grasp that made cringe and try to scramble away.

It was Psycho One; though you wouldn't be able to tell so by looking at him. He had his hair covered by a baseball cap and was dressed like the average American high school senior. He turned his face towards me and my eyes were immediately drawn, as always, to the four faint scratches carved into the side of his face. After I took in his scars I looked to his eyes. They were looking at me, but not really looking at me. They were trained on my face but I felt like he couldn't actually see me. His eyes were blood shot and yellow, and I swear they were pulsing with insanity.

"Miss me?"

His face twisted into the most gruesome smile I had ever seen. It was easy to say that Jack Nicholson had nothing on The Psycho's smile.

"I can't stay, I just wanted you to know I'm still here. And yes, I am still watching."

He peered at me then and released one of my arms. I heard him dig into his back pocket and felt him press a piece of paper into my hand. After I grabbed onto the paper I felt him release my other arm. Before I knew what was happening his hand had cut across my cheek and my face was on fire. I stumbled to the ground and clutched at my face, trying to use my own cool hand to sooth the burning. Tears were streaming from my eye when I remembered the paper that The Psycho had placed in my hand. It was laying next to me face down in a mud puddle. I grabbed it and wiped the mud off on my jeans. The picture took my breath away.

It was a picture of Edward and me coming out of the Italian restaurant on Friday night. Edward's hand was wrapped around my waist and his face would have been turned towards me if it hadn't been cut out of the picture. Scratched into the bottom of the picture was the word 'Mine', and reading it sent a chill down my spine.

I turned the picture over just to see if there was anything on the back of the picture. I gasped as the picture fell from my grasp. There scrawled on the back of the picture were the words, 'I'm still here.'

Tears started to fall even more rapidly down my face and I couldn't find the strength to pull myself up from the ground. My hands were shaking and my eyes were so clouded that I couldn't make out the shape slowly approaching me. I knew it wasn't The Psycho so I knew I was safe, but I didn't know if I should be mortified or not.

"Bella? Are you alright?"

I recognized the voice of The Shrink and as he took a knee next to me I scrambled towards him and my hands tried to find purchase on his shirt. I pulled myself towards him and began to sob into his button-down shirt. As his arms pulled around me I started to cry harder, which I didn't know was possible, but I did.

"Why? Why won't he leave me alone? Why won't he just leave me alone?" I continued to say these few words as The Shrink pulled out his phone and placed a call.

It was until Charlie pulled up in the cruiser and ran towards us that I started to try stopping the tears from pouring down my face. He came up, saw me in The Shrinks arms crying and started to pace uncomfortably. He looked uneasy and I knew it was because I was crying, but that didn't make it any easier to stop.

At some point I pulled myself together enough for Charlie and The Shrink to escort me to the car. Sometime during this process a man in a uniform had came and taken the mutilated picture and placed in a plastic evidence bag. He handed it to Charlie after Charlie had placed me in car.

Charlie stared at it for a few moments before shoving it back on the officer and exclaiming, "Why the hell can't we find this damn guy?!?" He slammed my door shut and then walked over and got into the car.

I tuned the rest the drive out and even the walk to my room. All I wanted to do was climb into to my bed and close my eyes.

Just close my eyes.

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