I don't own twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and the plot of my story.
Author's Note at the end
He steps into the platform and watches as his opponent does. He thinks of debate the same way a professional football player thinks of football. He looks his opponent up and down. Any other time, one might think he was being sleazy. Not him, he is measuring his competitor. She seems mousy from what he has seen in class so far. She rarely speaks and has yet to debate anyone even though they have had 10 sessions so far.
She is taller than average with long brown hair and brown eyes covered with glasses. She stands tall before him and watches him the same way he just did. Whatever she finds causes a hint of a smile to grace her lips as she turns to the mediator and tells him that they are ready.
That puts him on edge as he never allows anyone to answer for him, not even his parents.
"I am ready," he tells the mediator.
She turns towards him with a smirk on her face as she says, "I thought we already established that."
That is the moment he realizes that he underestimated the woman in front of him. Over the next couple of minutes, it's a battle as both of them give it their best. Throughout their entire debate, they are toe to toe. If he moves a mile, she moves two and vice-versa. In the end, the timer rings signaling the end of the session before either of them wins. It's a tie.
She walks toward him and thrusts her hands for him to shake.
He shakes her hand and she tells him, "You weren't so bad. I like good competition," then turns around and leaves. Over the rest of the semester, they go toe to toe many times with both of them either having a tie or one of them winning only for the other to win the next time.
At the end of the semester, he asks her intrigued, "what is your major?"
"I am a freshman, still undecided but I think I will choose Landscape Architecture."
A couple of weeks into the next semester, he is sitting in a café eating a cake, when the overhead bell rings. He looks up and finds Bella coming in shivering from the cold. She moves her head in his direction and their eyes lock. At that moment, it was as if the world ceased to exist and there was only them. Bella starts walking towards him.
He doesn't know why but for the first time since meeting her he realizes how much beautiful she is. He gets up before she reaches him and pulls out her chair to sit. Once on it, he pushes the chair into its place and goes to sit opposite her.
"You didn't have to do that," she tells him as she uses some of the tissue paper on the table between them to pat herself dry.
"I wanted to. How are you doing?"
"How I am doing?" she wonders out loud as she continues patting herself dry, "At the moment drenched but aside from that I am perfect," she tells him smiling as they both giggle at her drenched comment.
Edward is shocked at the fact that he just giggled and has half a mind to put his hand in front of his mouth as if that would do anything. He busies himself ordering her a coffee as she pats the sleeves of her leather jacket.
She tells him that she is here to meet her roommate and after twenty minutes of chatting about anything and everything under the sun, he gets up and goes to his lecture.
Slowly they build a routine in which they meet every day for twenty minutes between classes. This is the only time they can meet with their schedules. They tried to find a time when they would meet for longer but their schedules won't allow it.
As they become friends Edward realizes that the uptight and stiff attitude she had is what she jokingly calls "The initiation period bitch".
"If you pass through my initial tests then I show you the real me," she tells him one day as they sit together each of them sipping a drink. Turns out that rain or sunshine Bella only drinks ice coffee. If she drinks tea, it's hot. Coffee on the other hand is always ice, hence her mug making a jiggling sound as she shakes it around.
"And what does your initiation period entail?" Edward asks leaning forward enthralled by everything she says and does.
"Not a lot actually. I ask people questions and see what their answers are, I observe their behavior and I see what my gut tells me."
"And what does your gut tell you?" he asks her seriously.
"That it's hungry."
They both burst out in laughter at her cheeky reply.
"Okay then let's get it fed before it claws its way out and eats me," he jokingly says. He signals to the waiter to come to the table and then he goes to order food.
"You do know that I can't eat all of that, right?" she asks him after the waiter leaves.
"I know. The rest is for me."
"Don't you have a class to get to?" she asks him.
"This is the surprise I was talking about before you decided to explain your initial test to me. My professor canceled his next lecture. So for the next hour, I am all yours."
She claps her hand in excitement and tells him, "Great then you will meet my roommate Rose," she pauses for a moment then lights up and says, "Speak of the devil and she shall arrive."
She starts to wave to a person behind him while saying, "she is worse than me. So I apologize for anything she says in advance."
Edwards waves her off when he hears a voice that causes him to freeze, "Couldn't you have dragged a chair for me?"
Bella not noticing his expression tells him, "The entitlement train has reached its destination,"
"I heard that bitch."
"You were supposed to," Bella replies her eyes twinkling as she looked at him and smiled at him.
This is what unfreezes Edward. He should have gotten up earlier. Now she will know. Rosalie will poison Bella against him, and he won't be able to do anything aside from watching from afar.
He gets up and then Rosalie sees him, "Edward?"
He nods at her as he mutters her name then turns to Bella and tells her, "I am sorry, but I have to go."
Hey everyone,
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
I know that I typically update every five or less and it has been a week, but honestly, things have been disappointing lately with this story.
I went from having multiple favs, follows, and reviews to having no increase in the number of favs, and follows, and a small number of reviews that half of which were written by my friends.
If you have any ideas about why this is happening or you have any constructive criticism that could help please let me know.
Until my next update,
Stay Safe