*A.N. I know I've been a nasty writer and not updated for multiple months but iv been busy with exams and work and relationship, just life in general :/ but I've missed my writing and I found my writing pads a few days ago so I thought I'd write out a new chapter for you all, and hopefully have some new readers (fingers crossed :L) A new chapter is already in the process of being written so review away guys I'm back! :L xxxxx*
With ease and the suppleness of a large cat he stepped lithely towards me and opened the truck door as Emmett entered the garage and did the same for Rosalie. His eyes caught mine and made me forget myself, I forgot about Rosalie and Emmett. I never heard them speak to each other, in fact, I heard nothing but I saw his sweet smile stretch across his face and I felt blood race and pump into my cheeks as his hand took mine. I felt my spine twitch inwardly at the spark his arm around my waist was causing. He lifted me down the high step of the truck and I brushed my body against his, biting my lip without a thought. I knew he was breathing heavy, I could feel it warm and hot, smelling strongly and as sweetly as apple pie across my face; suddenly I was aware that I was doing the same.
My God what the fuck is he doing to me? I could feel my body reacting to the touch and scent of his and I wanted to be with him; my stomach was spinning and my minds pleas to pull myself away from his gaze were drifting into the background until he leaned in towards me just an inkling of a smile on his face.
I was saved as he himself had broken the spell because his small smile reminded me of the giant smirks he used to cast in my direction and I snapped out of it all.
With sadness in the centre of my chest I pushed him lightly away, pressing my petite hand into the centre of his chest lightly. I nodded my head politely in an acknowledgement of him then went round to the other side of the car with Rosalie. I couldn't be sure if I saw it – Edward probably only wanted me for sex, I mean let's not pretend here – but when I pushed him away from my body I thought I saw hurt in his eyes but it was so quickly covered that I couldn't be sure.
Every second I spent in the house in the next ten minutes was spent in wonderment that such a beauty of a home was created. I actually preferred it to the Cullen's mansion which had already shocked me in its magnificence – the walls were done in differently coloured varnished wood. Rather than chic and modern it was old and cosy vintage. Reds, browns, oranges and a genius touch of dark blues filled the home; even in the kitchen where the carpets had been replaced with wooden flooring was fitted perfectly. The staircases swirling carpet with flecks of all of the houses main colours was mesmerising, the wooden banister carved uniquely and varnished in such a way that it shone in the sort of dim lighting. Alice took me on a tour of the house and she somehow seemed to know that it only caused more glory to the home by letting me admire it in silence. She showed me the bottom rooms - one, shockingly enough Alice had forgotten to tell me, actually contained a state of the art swimming pool and hot tub. Alice announced in a rushed voice that we would be swimming tonight lots and I was glad I had brought a few swimming costumes in the off chance that we might swim in the lake.
Alice took me upstairs and showed me around the dully lit corridors which led to four bedrooms, a toilet, the balcony facing the lake and a games room. While she was at it she also told me how the rooms were to be laid out, she had went over it once already but felt the need to inform me again. Alice and Jasper had one room, Emmett and Rosalie another then Edward and I had the two others which had to share a toilet – the rest of their restrooms were en suite.
The whole place smelled as though people had been burning sweet incense in it for days but as far as I could tell, no one had been in this house for at least a few weeks. There was a water and ice machine connected to the pipes up stairs and I took what looked like a paper cylinder cup but actually had a plastic coating to get a drink.
My heart raced as I thought of being stuck up here with only my childhood bullies and their best friends as company but it was also accelerating so excitedly because I was thinking of spending time with Edward. I couldn't work out whether it was excitement at the idea of revenge or something else but I was going to put it down to revenge for now. No need to drag myself through another mental cycle.
"Alice, I still need to get my bags and stuff and if we're swimming then I need to get changed obviously so can we go back down to the garage to-" I had been walking towards the stairs when I said it and was cut off by my own gratitude that Edward was being a gentleman and bringing my bags up. I replaced what I was going to say with a thankyou and ignored Alice's sly troublemaking smile as I turned on my heel and followed the struggling Edward to my room. I turned to look for a staring Alice but there was no one. An awkward chill hit me; he opened my room door and put the bags in but turned so quickly to get out that I smacked straight into his chest. For a second our eyes connected; then he left the room and walked away.
I instantly locked the door and opened my suitcase. I knew he would go back downstairs, call it a sixth sense or something I don't know but I just knew I had time. I rifled through all of my things whilst trying to keep it all still in the suitcase. The last thing I wanted was the Cullens to walk in and see my stash. I pulled out a small blue plastic bag and then shoved the suitcase quickly under the bed before running across the hall into Edward's room.
I opened the door and continued in but had to do a double take at the room around me. It was so different to what I would expect from a captain of the football team; the most popular and gorgeous boy at school. The walls were a plain, blank white but the skirtings were jet black. Music notes and treble clefs had been stencilled onto the walls in the same colour of black. The carpet beneath my feet felt over an inch thick and was also a deep black. A black leather couch sat over in the corner of the room beside two big black bean bags. There was also a black plasma T.V. on the wall directly in front of his king sized bed which was the same colours as the rest of the room: black and white. But what really drew me in was the one corner of his room where his music was. An acoustic guitar in a dark pine colour, hundreds of C.D. racks with some of the disks being original. I flipped my fingers down the length of the racks but found myself curious about one which had been dropped to soft carpet below. It was in a little plastic casing, as were the others but it had no name on it unlike the others. It was odd because everything else was so perfectly ordered and arranged but that was out of place. I couldn't resist the urge and I slipped it under my zipper and tried to put the beautiful creation of Edward's room to the back of my mind as I searched the place for what I had come for. I had to open his suitcase and I tried, as I had with mine, to be careful.
I finally found them and evacuated the room after zipping the suitcase neatly back up and smiling at the amazing decor. I had my little blue bag left out for me and I locked the door. I made the adjustments as quickly as I could then replaced them where I found them. Here's hoping he uses them.
I changed into my teal and gold bikini and then stuck my clothes back on over it again; it turned out that Alice and Rosalie remembered to have their bikinis on underneath their clothes. I hadn't even been informed of the swimming pool. The boys were still to get changed, Alice said anyway, so I was taking her word for it. I had only just finished applying a little bit of make up by the time I heard the knock at the door. "Hey Bella, us guys are just getting changed into our trunks then coming downstairs to join use in the swimming pool, it's sort of a family tradition that girls go in the pool first after me throwing Alice in a few years ago..." he chuckled and I wondered how Alice managed to get her own way on this matter. It suited me though so I wasn't going to complain.
"Yeah sure I'm just going down," I opened the door to an empty hall and I wondered happily downstairs with my bright purple towel and little toiletries bag. I opened the door to the swimming pool and the girls were stripping down to their costumes and had their clothes piled up on the bench. I slipped in beside them and did the same. We chatted as normal girls would do before Rosalie turned the beat-box on. I watched her in wonderment as she slid gracefully into the pool; she was wearing a white one piece which joined beautifully in the middle; over it, she had a thin see through white long top over. Obviously it had been bought precisely for the swimming costume; it had a few gems at the top and went beautifully. I wished I looked like her but all I could think of when I was in a swimming costume was a fear that the boys would notice the small white lines on the back of my knees. They had been bad stretch marks but had faded over time and weight loss to little white lines.
I looked down at my pale body as Alice began to start talking again about unimportant things and then I looked to both of them. Either their tan was subtly fake or they were both just lucky enough to tan beautifully, naturally. I looked at my toned stomach and then looked to Alice's who's was soft but slim with ease and I envied her. She wore a little lime green bikini which accentuated the small cleavage that she had and the beaded tassels looked lovely too.
I found the bobble from my toiletries bag and put my hair into a messy bun, swimming was my forte and the lighting wasn't brilliant in here either so I needed to forget about myself conscience issues and show myself to be the spectacular swimmer that I was.
There was a diving board so as they talked and slipped casually into the pull I took to the few feet high board and did as I had been taught when I was first taken to practice by my worried mother.
4 years ago
Okay. This is it. I will make a change. I will show everyone. When I've finished my work here I'll go back to that place and I will bring them all down. Every last one of them, every name they called me I will re-pay every kick punch or cut - I will get them back. But first I have to face fears and I have to go in front of a bunch of people with a bathing costume on.
My mom walked awkwardly beside me after some fitness training with Phil the night before. It seemed she wasn't as physically healthy as she had thought so her muscles burned like hell.
Watching them was what gave me the idea. I thought of all the sports that I enjoyed, and trust me, that was a pretty limited number. I came to the conclusion that I had always enjoyed swimming but I was made fun of too much to enjoy it properly. Well I was in Phoenix now. No more Cullen's , Hales or Denali's. Only me and the kids in this area. I could just brave it for a few months and by the time I was back at school I would hopefully look alot better. It was logical and I was old enough and smart enough to deduce that the only way out of this bullying was to be someone else. I had seen some people who were heavier and they weren't bullied so I'd need to change the way I acted also. Swimming would be a way I could do both. I could lose weight and I would have time to think out and watch the traits of the girls in the popular groups which made them so popular.
My mom opened the door to the leisure suite and I walked to the counter and told them myself what I was looking for. My mom looked on in shock but I didn't care because I had to start being someone else at some point. So i was going to take command; they showed me to the pool and I got changed while my mom sat on the spectator bench and I walked straight over to the 2 foot high diving board at the deep end of the pool and just before I made a ridiculous attempt to dive I heard a deep male voice coming from behind me...
"Straighten up your arms, bend your knees, go head first otherwise you'll do a painful belly flop, that's it, ready, set, go!" I listened to the strange voice and I did my first ever dive a little of course but in the right direction if that makes sense. It turned out he would be my coach until I left Phoenix and the lessons he taught me helped me with weight loss and almost every other aspect in my life. He taught me to respect myself and to be sure in myself that I had talent, he taught me to forget bullies and he taught me how to live and have fun.
End Memory
Straighten your arms Bella. Bend your knees, "curve your spine", head first... I flung myself into a beautifully arced dive and was received by the cool water with a loud woosh. I lifted my head to see the shocked faces of Alice and Rosalie and then turned to the male voice had reminded me to curve my body. The three boys were standing in their trunks and I knew it had been Jasper who had told me to but I could only look at Edward's face. His eyes were on the floor and I could sense him purposefully ignoring me. I switched my eyes to Jasper's – I wasn't going to beg for his attention.
"You swim?" I asked casually.
"Oh yeah, been swimming for years, but my speciality is diving, not swimming." Jasper dove into the pool better than I had but as he swam over to me I noted his swimming was good but his technique wasn't nearly as good as mine. I liked the idea of being the best at something. I watched as the two boys did the same and I watched extra closely when Edward jumped into the pool... soon he would pay.
Jasper chatted to me about his diving club as Alice looked on with pride; he had come along way since he bet the illness of his childhood. As he turned in the light I could see the scars outlined from years of needles and operations across his body, he had been a very sick child and I felt a little guilty about my plan to pull apart his perfect friendship with others. I didn't plan to hurt him but I knew it would happen. I wish I could pull back and not go through with it but I couldn't and that was the simple truth of it. They had made me hate everything about myself, they had destroyed me and now I would repay them.
As the conversation died out I looked to see Edward awkwardly standing in-between Rosalie and Emmett who were laughing and smiling. He looked... tortured. Not his usual self; he had no one to show off of in front of and he didn't know what to do. His cruel mind was useless in this situation; it meant he was left with nothing to do, no one to torment.
I swam over to him in a soft breast stroke, I got to him and flipped backwards in the water. His eyebrows jumped in the air and his face turned back into his usual calm, cool persona. "You try," I giggled and he shook his head.
"Obviously I can do it, I'm just not immature enough to do it," He smirked jokingly at me but it only made me more set on hurting him.
"Go on, try it, bet I can do it more times than you without stopping." I smiled at him and batted my eyelashes a little; he shook his head then sighed.
"You're gonna get your ass beat... but you asked for it." We both took big deep breathes, stood side by side so our hips touched and then looked into each other's eyes. I don't think we planned on getting stuck staring at each other, I think we just glanced to say go... but it happened. "Bella... I."I knew he was going to compromise me so I just shouted go and tore my eyes from his.
We set of doing back flips and I did two, pretending to come up choking. Then watched the comical scene unfold, it was a shame I couldn't prank him in front of people he didn't know but this would have to do, he would never live it down.
His trunks had acted exactly as I planned. As his legs splayed shoulder length apart to do flips they split right down the middle letting his little 'man' fall out and as he flipped over move quite entertainingly about. I squealed with laughter and the other turned around to watch, all of them within seconds doubling up with giggles. Emmett in particular let out a bark of a laugh so loud I wondered if Edward would hear it during the under water flips. Edward managed a phenomenally funny 8 flips while we uncontrollably laughed at the sight of him.
Although it had to be said, that man was packing it down below, seriously.
Oblivious to this mishap as he had been too caught up in beating me Edward finished with a massive grin across his face which faltered as he took in everyone's expressions. "What are you all laughing at?" He demanded, wanting to be in on the joke. So I told him.
"Look down" I breathed in-between uncontrollable peals of laughter. His expression changed into one of confusion until he did as he said.
First the back of his ears burned a bright red then a flush spread up his neck and into his cheeks, clashing hilariously with his bronze hair, his hands snapped to his private parts and he waddled out of the pool as we all fell about laughing.
"Shut up," he hissed, mortified. "Fucking trunks." He cursed of into the distance as he ran to the swimming room door and slammed it closed behind him. I grinned satisfied, wishing it had been in a public pool.
"I wonder why they split like that," Alice said after the laughter had decreased to a quiet chuckle.
I shook my head in apparent wonderment. This was just the beginning. I would bring this boy to his knees and I would hurt the rest of them in the process but I didn't care. That one prank gave me such a rush of happiness and sense of fulfilment that there was no way I could pull back now. The things those people did to me was so cruel, so excruciatingly painful that I needed to hurt them for the sake of my sanity. It was like an illness, I couldn't stop myself from acting in this manner; if I didn't plan against him I may never get a chance to avenge my childhood... and I don't think I could cope with coming all this way, losing all the weight and fixing everything I could about myself just to chicken out of hurting them.
We swam around and raced across the pool – me winning every time of course –for another forty five minutes at least but Edward didnt return and I decided to pretend I cared about his feelings and embarrassment and to go upstairs and comfort him. I needed to make himbelieve I would never instigate practical jokes or any negative acts on his life. As I trudged upstairs drying my hair I decided to change into my clothes but before I reached my room I bumped into Edward leaving our shared toilet.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"I'm sorry about earlier, I shouldn't have laughed at you." His eyes bore into mine and I used my favourite tactic of pretending he was someone else, not the Edward I knew.
"Don't be. Everyone would laugh at something like that." He chewed the inside of his cheek and flicked a glance up and down my body; a fresh blush spread up his neck. I realised why he had gone red; I was speaking to him in the corridor partially naked and if I do say so myself looking pretty damn good.
"Yeah but I could see you were embarrassed... sorry." He seemed to be searching my face for any sign of trickery but I kept my face calm.
"That's, uh, really nice of you Bella. I would have faced the jokes and came back downstairs but I got caught up in a new creation of mine," his eyes flicked up and down me quickly again, "I had some new inspiration." I couldn't guarantee that he had meant me but I was sure that the glance he gave me was insinuating it. I flushed slightly, still pretending he wasn't Edward Cullen. He pondered for a moment then hesitantly spoke, "would you like to hear it?" I nodded so that clad only in my bikini I followed him into his room and stood behind him in his musical room as he seated himself at the piano.
"This room is so... not what I expected of you." I cursed myself inside for being so forward but he only nodded.
"Yes, not many people know how much I love my music, but I do. This room was decorated a good few years ago when I sort of became a recluse into the world of music. It's sort of like a sanctuary to me sometimes where I can focus on particular things and forget things I don't want to think about: such as my embarrassing escapade earlier." I stepped closer so I was almost touching my damp skin to his crisply ironed shirt. I gave an involuntary shiver and he turned looking quite startled. "I'm so rude, please excuse me," he stood from his piano stool and walked to the massive wardrobe pulling out a dressing gown, "while you listen to me play, since I stupidly demanded your time before you changed, you can wear this." I began to decline his offer but he handed it to me no matter my protests and I put it on, inhaling the beautiful scent of Edward as he seated himself at the stool once more. A few moments of silence followed before his hands hit the keys with such beauty that I leaned forward into him just slightly and touched his back while he played, I had involuntary came towards the source of such treasure, the sound the keys were making in unison and the harmonies he was playing formed a new tune I had never heard before but already was locked in my mind eternally. As my mid-drift touched into his back his head inclined towards me and I felt the urge to put my fingers through his mesmerizing hair, the scent of him intoxicating my mind.
His playing hit a crescendo thne quietened and I breathed his name softly with such utter shock of hearing such professional playing. The hairs at the nape of my neck stood up tears had gathered in my eyes; the sounds had been so moving.
"Wow."
He turned to look at me and took my hand in his.
"Bella, you inspired me." He stood up with no hesitation now and before I even knew what was happening his lips were on mines and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to react, I was petrified of him yet a the sensation of warm fire burning through the whole of my body told me not be afraid and to return his affections. I stood for a fraction of a second mind blocked.
Then suddenly it was all clear. I knew what I had to do. Everything would work now, everything would act completely to plan and I would hurt him so bad it would leave him reeling for years. I would make him love me and then I would break him. My attentions turned to the present and I thought of him as new Edward to make my following actions easier... His soft lips were so nice; nothing about Edward would repulse me except thoughts of my past with him. Now I could indulge in the pleasures of a beautiful man and rid myself of bitterness once and for all at the same time. I wanted to kiss Edward back and so now this solution meant I could, my lips meshed against his and I felt giddy with relief and attraction. I didn't know if it was just the idea of hurting Edward that made me so happy but right now I didn't care because all I wanted to do was to kiss him.
His tongue gently flicked against my lips and I opened my lips as answer. I felt tingles through my body and his dressing gown dropped down my back and off of my arms to the floor, his strong muscular arms encircled me and my hands did as they had begged me to do minutes previously and found themselves entangled in his breathtaking hair. Both of our breaths became ragged and laboured. Our lips parted and he pressed his forehead to mine. His fingers interwove themselves with mine now as the kiss broke off and everything about this felt so right. Edward felt so right in my arms and I knew I felt right in his.
But a thought at the back of my head needled at the perfection of the moment.
What if my happiness couldn't be attributed to my plan of destruction on his life? What if it was something more than this? What if Edward was something more than his past self? What if I was going to damage myself further in my plan for revenge?
Too late now. Far too late.
*A.N. I know it's a bit of a cliff hanger; not knowing whether she'll run from him or embrace him so REVIEW for me and I may solve the problem of my little cliff hanger sooner – I really shouldn't blackmail you to review but what can I say, I love to hear all your opinions ;) 3 xx*