XXX

I've just got home from school as usual, and I sit down at the computer to start my homework but I hesitate and flip to my bookmarks, with a guilty glance around the room as if someone might be watching me, I flick on the school facebook page. Yorkie has posted the front page of the school paper which has so far received no likes and no comments, some of the girls are posting stuff about some actor getting married to a singer called 'AKA Branches' or something and some of the boys including Emmett, I notice, are posting stuff about some boxing match (yech) although when I look at it more closely, Emmett's contribution turns out to be a link to a video of a cat sitting on a robot vacuum cleaner making jabs at a dog as it twirls past. Hmmm … Emmett likes cat videos? Somehow that doesn't surprise me.

I open up an essay and start working away when 'ding', the delightful sound of a PM distracts me. In the two seconds it takes for me to change to the facebook tab it'es amazing how much my heart rate can accelerate. My physiological response was correct though because there is a PM from Edward. Just as well, because there is nothing worse than getting all excited and it turns out to be just Lauren trying to check her answers.

"Walk home OK? No-one staring?"

A warm sensation spreads through my whole body at the same time as the firework idea goes off in my brain that Edward was thinking about me. That's a step towards romantically fantasizing about me, right? I just know that I'm grinning like an idiot while I reply "No, no stares. You were right, they were all looking at you". Actually, I did think a few people were watching me, at least at first, but when I made my solitary way across the carpark as usual, they stopped watching. I didn't even think about getting a lift home with Edward until I realized that obviously other people had been thinking about me getting a lift home and then I wondered if I should have been thinking about getting a lift home. By the time I had a good think about it and made up my mind that being unhappy about not getting a lift home would only spoil the pleasure of this morning's ride to school, I had walked all the way home. Nothing is a big distance in a town the size of Forks unless you are one of those families like the Cullens who live in massive properties quite a way out of town. It's quite alright for them to drive to school, of course.

I try to go back to concentrating on my essay but my treacherous mind goes instead straight into romantic fantasy mode. Maybe I'm going to find Edward standing outside the dance by himself. I don't know why he's doing that – in the old movies he'd be smoking but of course Edward, the son of a physician, doesn't smoke. Although I am also completely anti-smoking, I think I understand some of its popularity; at least people could give an illusion of doing something. I guess these days the equivalent is that he would be fiddling with his mobile phone but a teenager smoking meditatively appears infinitely more cool than a teenager doing something on their phone which turns out to be candy crush saga. Imagine James Dean on his motorbike, with his phone, taking a selfie for facebook. Nope doesn't work. Anyway, he's standing outside the dance looking at updates about the plight of refugees in Rwanda or something decent and I glide elegantly up to him in my highest heels and sexiest dress (this is a fantasy remember) and say "Nice night?" or "Hi Edward" or "Does your phone have fingerprint ID?" or something a bit more inspired that I'll think of later and Edward puts his phone away (the mark of a gentleman these days) and says ummm…he says… "Hi Bella" (also needs work later) and then I tell him "Edward, you know your mystery girl in the cupboard, the one who you told me had given you the love experience of your life?" (I read that in a book once but it doesn't seem to work so well in this fantasy, does it? Anyway…) "Yes, Bella?" he asks his voice trembling with hope, no wait, Edward's voice wouldn't tremble, his voice ringing with hope and expectation (more work later) and then I walk up to him and put my hand on his lapel and take a sniff of that fabulous Edward smell that I still can't get out of my head and …. ding.

What was that? Did fantasy Edward get a text message? No wait, I'm rudely ejected from my fantasy and back into real life. I'm so disoriented it's as if I've been asleep. Through my confusion, I realize that the noise was a PM from the real Edward.

I take a moment to shake my head and get the fantasy Edward out of my thoughts so that the real Edward can't see him and laugh. Not that he can of course but very occasionally I have this paranoid thought that everyone in the whole world is telepathic except for me and they are all secretly laughing at me.

"Do you feel up to sharing the attention again tomorrow morning?" reads the PM.

Oh my God, Edward is offering me a lift to school again tomorrow! Breathe, Bella breathe.

I step back into my fantasy of simultaneously confessing and seducing Edward outside the school dance and consciously rip it up from the inside. I don't want it to get in my way. I'm going to school with Edward again in the morning.

That's if I can calm down long enough to write a reply. I don't want to just say "Yes, please!" I need to answer something, but as I am discovering, I'm really crap at fantasizing dialogue. It's easy enough to talk to him when he's in front of me though. I try to imagine what I would have said if he'd asked me this at school. Finally I write: "Sure thing Sherlock. I'll be the one wearing the paper bag. Do you think anyone will notice?"

Now I can concentrate on my essay.

So sorry this took so long...