Back to the Start

Disclaimer: all characters and copyright belong to SM.

Complications

Bella lingered outside biology class, hesitant to go in. Even though Charlie had made it clear to Edward's parents that they were not going to tolerate his behavior, she still felt uneasy. She hoped he would listen to them, though nothing else seemed to have put him off so far – not even when she made a public spectacle of herself by spraying soda in his face in the cafeteria.

Finally plucking up the courage to walk inside, Bella felt like all eyes were on her as she slowly made her way to her usual seat. Edward was already there before her. He didn't smile or even acknowledge her as she sat down. Bella felt a semblance of relief. If he had gone back to ignoring her, she could live with that.

Mr. Banner backed into the room then – what superb timing the man had – pulling a tall metal frame on wheels that held a heavy, outdated TV and DVD player. So, it was going to be a movie day – Bella could feel the lift in the class atmosphere already.

Mr. Banner slipped the disc into the slot of the DVD player and walked to the wall to turn off the lights.

And then, as the room went black, Bella became suddenly hyperaware that Edward was sitting less than an inch from her. When had he moved? He had angled his chair so that he was slightly facing her. Bella didn't know what to do. She felt intimidated and awkward. A crazy impulse to run screaming out of the room had to be quickly suppressed.

Instead, Bella moved her chair slightly, leaning away from Edward to put more space between them. She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, her hands balling into fists. She felt like she was losing her mind.

The opening credits began, lighting the room by a token amount. Her eyes, of their own accord, flickered to his. To her astonishment he seemed to have moved closer without her being aware of it. The gap she had created between them had narrowed. He grinned at her, his eyes managing to smolder, even in the dark.

Bella looked away before she could start hyperventilating with fear. It was absolutely ridiculous that he managed to make her feel so uncomfortable. She refused to let him get to her. Jutting out her chin, she did her best to ignore him, focusing on the movie.

Even so, the hour seemed very long. Bella tried to concentrate on the movie – she didn't even know what subject it was on. She tried unsuccessfully to relax, but the tension originating from his closeness never slackened. It was like mental torture. The overpowering urge to run from the room refused to fade, making Bella crush her fists safely against her ribs until her fingers were aching with the effort to hold herself together.

Bella breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Banner flicked the lights back on at the end of class. She stretched her arms out in front of her, flexing her stiff fingers. She heard Edward chuckle beside her, almost as if he was getting a kick out of her reaction. She turned and shot him a glare.

"Well, that was interesting." He murmured. His voice was dark and his eyes cautious.

Bella didn't gift him with a response. Instead, she grabbed her bag and hurried from the room, trying to catch up with Mike who was in her next class.

"You okay, Bella?" Mike asked in concern. "You look kinda peaky."

"It's gym." Bell said as an excuse. "You know how much I suck at games."

"Don't worry, Bella. I've got your back." Mike said with a reassuring smile.

"Thanks." Bella managed a weak smile in return.

Bella walked into the gym, lightheaded and wobbly. She drifted to the locker room, changing in a trancelike state, only vaguely aware that there were other people surrounding her. She couldn't get what had happened in biology out of her mind. It had been the worst form of torture.

The problem was, she couldn't tell anyone about it. What would she say? Edward hadn't technically done anything except sit beside her as they watched the dumb movie. He hadn't directly spoken to her or tried to engage her in conversation. She began to worry that the stress was getting to her so badly that she was imagining things.

Reality didn't set back in until Bella was handed a racket. It wasn't heavy, yet it felt very unsafe in her hand. She could see the other kids in her class eyeing her furtively. Coach Clapp ordered them all to pair up into teams.

Mercifully, Mike decided to be chivalrous. He came to stand beside her.

"Do you want to be a team?"

"Thanks, Mike – you don't have to do this, you know." Bella grimaced apologetically.

"Your aim can't be that bad." Mike teased. "I mean you managed to get the soda right in Cullens face. Nice work by the way."

Sometimes it was so easy to like Mike. Bella found herself smiling genuinely for the first time that day.

Still, gym didn't go smoothly. Bella somehow managed to hit herself in the head with her own racket and clip Mike's shoulder on the same swing. She spent the rest of the hour in the back corner of the court, the racket held safely behind her back. Despite being handicapped by having her as a partner, Mike was pretty good, he won three games out of four singlehandedly. He gave her an unearned high-five when the coach blew the final whistle ending class.

"So," he said as they walked off the court.

"So what?"

"You definitely don't like Cullen?"

"No." Bella said stiffly, hating to be reminded of Edward. Her previous affection for Mike's chivalrous act disappeared. "If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about him."

"Its just that Jessica said…" Mike hesitated.

"Whatever Jessica said, it isn't true." Bella snapped, internally cursing Jessica to the fiery pits of Hades.

"Okay, peace!" Mike held up his hands to ward off her budding anger. "It's just I think it's a good thing that you don't like him. I mean…he looks at you like…like you're something to eat."

Bella felt hysteria beginning to bubble up in her throat. Mike's apt description of the way Edward stared at her brought Jacob's stories about the cold ones to the forefront of her mind. She muttered a hasty goodbye to Mike, quickly fleeing to the locker room before the thought had time to take shape in her head.

Bella dressed quickly, something stronger than nausea battering recklessly against the walls of her stomach, it was dread. She wondered if she would encounter Edward again before she managed to get to her truck. What about his family? Would they intervene now that they knew? Or were they complicit with his actions? She thought of his sister, the once called Alice, who she so often caught glancing her way. Bella definitely believed that she supported her brother, he was most often in her company, more so than the others.

By the time Bella walked out of the gym, she felt a real wave of terror. She kept her head down, moving as fast as humanely possible as she headed directly to the parking lot. She wished that Jacob would make one of his sudden appearances. The terror always abated when he was close, his presence gave her courage, which she was seriously lacking right now.

All her fears were confirmed when she saw Edward waiting, leaning casually against the side of her truck. His face looked untroubled as he watched her approach.

Bella stopped a few yards away to the sound of her heart pounding loudly in her ears. Blood rushed to her face, making it appear as if she was blushing. She cursed her traitorous skin.

"Get away from my truck!" She warned.

"Are you still angry?" Edward asked curiously.

"Definitely. Didn't your parents tell you to stay away from me?"

Edward sighed. "Will you forgive me if I apologize?"

"Maybe…if you mean it. And if you promise to leave me alone from now on." Bella insisted.

Edward's eyes were suddenly shrewd. "How about if I mean it, and I agree to keep my distance…at least for a while?" He countered her conditions.

"Not good enough!"

"I'm sorry if I upset you, Bella." Edward's eyes burned with sincerity for a protracted moment. "That was never my intention."

"It doesn't matter what your intentions were – your behavior showed the opposite." Bella rebuffed his attempt to make peace. "Just stay out of my way and we'll be good."

Edward stared at her, measuring her reactions to him with his eyes. "I never meant to frighten you, Bella."

"You didn't frighten me." Bella lied, not wanting to give him the satisfaction that he had any affect on her at all. He didn't buy it.

"I apologize once again for scaring you." Edward persisted with a slight smile, but then all evidence of humor disappeared. "Its just the thought of you feeling that way…" He paused, taking a deep breath as if trying to summon up the right words that would convince her to change her mind. "I know you felt it, Bella."

"What?"

"In biology. You felt the electricity between us. I saw your face. You were just as affected by me as I am by you. You can continue to deny it as much as you want, but it's there, and getting harder to resist."

Bella kept her expression firmly under control. Her face giving nothing away.

Edward continued to stare at her, the silence deepening. He drew closer, gazing unrelentingly into her eyes. It wasn't until her head started to swim that she realized she wasn't breathing. She drew in a ragged breath, breaking the stillness.

"Edward, we're all waiting for you."

Bella snapped out of her torpor to find the blonde ice princess-the one called Rosalie- claiming her brother's attention.

Edward frowned. "We'll finish this discussion another time, Bella." His voice was low, rough, his eyes still on her face.

"Edward." Rosalie prompted again impatiently.

"I'm coming." Edward gave his sister a sour glance. "Goodbye, Bella."

Bella said nothing as she watched him go, her heart beat finally slowing down with relief when he got in his car and drove away with his family.

That night Edward starred in her nightmares, as usual. It was only when the red brown wolf showed up in her dreams that Edward disappeared. She tossed and turned restlessly, waking often, staring around the darkened room, feeling the same sense of being watched that always haunted her in her bedroom. It was only in the early hours of the morning that she sank into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

When she woke, she was still tired, but edgy as well. She pulled on her brown turtleneck and the inescapable jeans. Breakfast was the usual quiet event she expected. Charlie fried eggs for himself, she stuck with her bowl of cereal.

As Charlie took his empty plate to the sink, he glanced over his shoulder at Bella, concerned by the peaky look on her face. "Are you feeling aright, kiddo?"

"I'm just a bit tired."

"Didn't you sleep well?"

"Not really." Bella grimaced, wishing he hadn't brought it up, the remnants of her nightmare hadn't completely faded yet.

Charlie squeezed some dish soap onto his plate and swirled it around with the brush. "If you're not feeling that great, maybe you should stay home from school today. I'll call in for you."

Wow, she must look bad if he was suggesting taking a sick day, Bella thought to herself. She considered his offer for a moment, then rejected it.

"I'll be fine, Dad." She said with a weak smile. There was no way she was going to let Edward Cullen run her out of school.

"Okay, if, you're sure." Charlie said no more and went back to washing the dishes.

Bella managed to get through most of the school day without incident. She made sure she was always surrounded by others. She sat with her usual group of friends at lunch, while Edward sat with his family. Neither of them looked, or acknowledged each other.

It seemed for the moment he was keeping his word.

It was biology which proved to be the complication. Mr. Banner entered the room, dragging the audiovisual frame again. As the teacher approached the light switch, Bella made sure to slide her chair further away from Edward's to create some distance. It didn't help. As soon as the room was dark, she felt the same tortuous undercurrent of uneasiness as she had felt the previous day. Edward had referred to it like some electric spark, for Bella it was more like a spark of dread.

The same urge to run from the room was overwhelming. Bella leaned forward, resting her chin on her folded arms, gripping the table's edge as she fought to ignore the irrational urge to flee. She didn't look at Edward, afraid that if he was looking at her, she would unravel completely. She sincerely tried to watch the movie, but at the end of the hour she had no idea what she had just seen. She sighed in relief when Mr. Banner turned the lights on, finally glancing at Edward, his eyes unfathomable.

This time he rose first, quickly exiting the room ahead of her. Bella caught a glimpse of his sister, Alice, waiting in the hallway for him. Alice was shorter than Edward's other sister, Rosalie. She was pixie-like, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction. Bella saw Alice dart a glance into the lab, smiling sweetly when she found Bella looking in her direction. Then she put her hand on her brother's arm and the two of them disappeared out of sight.

Thankfully gym passed quickly as Bella watched Mike's one-man badminton show. He didn't speak much this time, for which Bella was grateful. She didn't want a repeat of their conversation from yesterday.

She hurried to change afterwards, still ill at ease, knowing the faster she moved, the sooner she could get to her truck. The pressure made her more clumsy than usual, but eventually she made it to the door, then out into the parking lot to her truck.

This time it wasn't Edward leaning casually against the side of her truck, it was Jacob. As soon as she caught sight of him, her solemn expression naturally gravitated toward a smile. He ran over to meet her, his own smile as wide as hers.

"Seeing as we have a study session planned for this afternoon, I thought I'd come over a little earlier and meet you here – plus I had to pick up my dad's meds again." He held up a paper bag as proof.

"It's good to see you, Jake." Bella felt the tightness in her chest ease. His solid presence always made her feel better. "Come on. Let's go. I've had enough of this place for one week."

"Are you okay, Bella, honey?" Jacob asked in concern.

"I am now that you're here." Bella said honestly as she fell into step beside him.

In the distance, she saw Edward standing next to his silver Volvo. His expression was a mixture of frustration and defiance when he spotted Jacob next to her. Then he swiftly climbed into the car, revved the engine, making the tires squeal against the wet pavement, and within seconds disappeared out of sight.

A/N-thanks for reading!