Author's Note: Hey everyone! Sorry this took so long to get out. I'd blame it on perfectionism, but mostly it was just me being too picky (or neurotic) for my own good. If you celebrate the Holidays, I wish you a wonderful time with family, pets, and other loved ones in your life. Also happy writing to all you fellow writers and/or rpers as the nights grow longer and colder. Remember, most importantly, to love yourself on the hard days, too. With love, B.R.
P.S: I'm not entirely sold on this chapter name, so if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them in a comment or P.M. Thank you for reading~
Chapter Seven: The Golden Onion
Mr. Molina was walking around the classroom, inspecting one of the microscopes that had been placed at every table. The class was abuzz with conversation, but none of it I could have eavesdropped if I tried.
Edward was sitting in his usual chair, staring out the window beside him. Enamored by something beyond the half-wall of glass.
Breathe, you can do this, I reassured, my mother's soothing voice trailing through my head. She was right, of course.
I could do this.
With an easy exhale, I moved to join him.
Each tremor of vibration simmered through my skin. Starting with the rush of sensation that burst with each quiet step on the linoleum, to the rattled scraping of the legs as I pulled my chair out; culminating in a faint hum against my palms as I touched the surface of our lab desk.
Was I always this sensitive to touch?
The table was cold and warm; Invitingly frozen. Goosebumps prickled over my skin.
Regardless of how hard I'd tried to make as little disturbance as possible, my arrival still made noise, and my heart throbbed restlessly because of it. Alert to any and every change that might preface the moment when Edward finally turned around.
A snared flight that left me breathless, as Edward kept staring out the window.
Perhaps he was admiring that great gray ceiling holding us in? Or how the raindrops streamed like tadpoles along the glass?
Cautiously, I glanced outside to try and see what he was staring at. Branches waved in the breeze, and a few blackbirds zoomed across the sky, but otherwise, it was just the same line of trees marking the edge of the woods.
With no sign that Edward noticed I was here, I couldn't stop myself from staring at him. Memorizing all his little gestures and mannerisms. From the soundless tapping of his fingers against the table to the weight he carried in his shoulders. Even how wispy strands of hair waxed and waned in the breeze from Mr. Molina's table fan.
How long would it be until he looked at me?
Given the intensity of that look outside the cafeteria, I'd assumed Edward would be waiting for me. That his head would be set to the door, intent on snapping his eyes onto mine the moment I crossed the threshold. Clearly, I was mistaken.
Had I imagined the whole thing?
Why couldn't I just ask like a normal person? Why did I feel the need to wait until he brought it up? Ugh.
Say something, Edward!
With a sting of bitterness prickling my selfish heart - another coarse splinter I lacked the needle to pluck - Edward kept staring through the glass. Unobservant, or simply immune, to whatever magnetism drew me to him.
Yet, the wait was agonizing. So much so that I was struck by the urge to pull my heavy Biology book out of my backpack, raise it in the air, and haphazardly drop it on the table.
The only thing that really stopped me, outside of the obvious dread that doing so would get the whole class to look my way (or I'd inadvertently break the microscope), was the recognition that I could have misjudged him.
Edward might have been so melancholy about something completely unrelated to me. In fact, our shared gaze could have been entirely coincidental.
He probably just held eye contact out of pity, I scolded. To him, I could be that 'weird staring guy' he placated so I left him alone.
Great. He was probably ignoring me on purpose.
Why the hell did I care?
Just pretend he's not here, I urged myself again. Pathetically trying to focus on other things in the room.
Like why class hadn't started yet.
The voices of other students reminded me of a hornet's nest. Buzzing somewhere in the distance in a language I didn't care enough about to decipher.
Sometimes I heard laughter or groaning, books sliding open or closing, and chairs pulled out and pushed back in, but my ears were only attuned to whatever sound that Edward might make. Resonating, like a struck tuning fork, in vibration no one else seemed to notice.
No matter what I did, my head kept turning back to him.
Held captive by the way Edward's pointer finger faintly tapped a steady beat against his jaw.
I couldn't move until his head began to turn.
Which was when I, comically, shoved my hands in my backpack. Pathetically pretending that I hadn't just been staring at him by avoiding any and all chance of meeting his gaze now.
Unfortunately, this made my bag huff disgruntledly in a quiet, ghastly, fart-like sound that made several people glance my way.
Wow. Smooth.
Pretending that didn't happen, I started rifling my fingers in the bottom of my bag until I grasped a small handful of pens just to try and erase the memory of that noise from the air.
If Edward saw through my bullshit, he didn't laugh or say anything. Just withdrew his Biology textbook from his expensive-looking messenger bag and began turning the pages to the current chapter.
With our teacher chattering away a few tables behind us, I followed suit. Tugging a notebook from my backpack and flipped it open.
A blank page was found, followed by the uncapping of an extra fine-point pen, which was what made Edward's head finally turn those last few inches toward me and stay there.
How was it, with all the noise going on around us, that the cap clicking onto the back of my pen had been what finally snapped him out of his thoughts?
I didn't have time to wonder, though, because Edward did the unthinkable and started sliding his chair closer to mine.
I froze; paralyzed.
What the hell was he doing!?
Stunned by how his chair moved closer and closer until he was only two or three inches from mine, I couldn't say a damn thing!
Look away, look away! Don't look at him!
My eyes shot straight ahead; at the nape of Lee Stephen's acne-riddled neck!
Ordinarily, I might pity the guy for not having the ability or willingness to eradicate that one, beaming, white head staring at me like a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater.
Today? That ghastly button held me steady. As, without needing to turn my head, I knew Edward was still staring at me.
That all-too-familiar tickle of being watched faintly burned my cheek like little kisses. Feathered along my ear and jawline; Traveling down to the nape of my neck, my shoulder, and back up again.
Wasn't this what I wanted!? Why couldn't I look at him?!
Gods! He was leaning in more!
Say something!
Despite all the ire in me and the demanding curiosity to know what was on his mind, I couldn't bring myself to turn my head.
As if the blood tap dancing in my fickle heart would gush out into the void between my organs if our eyes met while his face loomed - so unbearably close - to my own.
Gods, his smell was everywhere. Sweet, spicy, and earthy. Divinely indescribable. It overwhelmed me, and still, I wasn't satisfied.
Oh, to turn my head and bury my nose in the nape of his neck. It would be so easy to tilt my head into him that I found myself imagining it. Even biting down on the secret side of my lip in a feeble attempt at curbing another fantasy I was too chicken to act on.
Edward practically leaned over my shoulder, now. Hovering his mouth beside my ear.
Carefully, I tilted my head to force my hair to fall over my face. Grateful that I'd kept it long, as I hoped the curtain would save me from his scent.
It didn't, but at least the imaginary burn subsided a little.
Did Edward not realize he tortured me?
How my heart rapidly danced at this closeness? How shaky my breath had become?
What was so interesting about my face?
If he was trying to intimidate me, it was working!
My tongue felt numb and swollen; too nervous to say a damn thing.
Occasionally, I felt a hint of air brush against the outer curve of my ear, but that could have easily been the fan on Mr. Molina's desk. Pushing air through the room in such a faint way that, eventually, it brushed past my face?
It was either that or Edward's breath was cold – which was ridiculous.
If it had been anyone else breathing on my neck, I'd have been thoroughly repulsed.
Don't move. Don't stare. Don't move. Don't stare, I repeated in my head like a mantra.
Why didn't he move?! Was he waiting for me to look at him?
Turning my head to peek through the veil of my hair, Edward's eyes lit up, and I instantly looked back down. Too apprehensive of seeing that warmth turn back into hate to hold his gaze for longer than one or two seconds.
Gods! What the hell's wrong with me…
Despite how I felt his gaze on me, or how close he came to pressing into my shoulder, Edward didn't say anything. Not one word, or greeting, nor even a nod, so I said nothing back.
After all, with how he'd acted last Monday, why should I be the one to break the ice?
So, contrary to how my body sang for him, I had to pretend otherwise.
There was, after all, no way a boy like Edward Cullen - even if he was into guys - would be interested in me.
Desperate to keep up the charade that his closeness meant nothing to me, I started to scribble in my notebook. Marking with no real rhyme or reason just shapes I knew and enjoyed. It had worked to calm me down and shut out the world more times than I could count. Surely, shutting out the world could save me now.
Today it was mountain wildflowers. White clusters of tiny Yarrow blossoms began to emerge on the page. I watched my hand like it had a mind of its own; possessed, like a Ouija board's planchette. Comforted by the long stalks of Lupine which bloomed into being before my eyes.
After a few minutes, I even started to relax. Pushing Edward's proximity from my mind. Pretending that his intoxicating scent was nothing more than plants, flowers, or pollen in the breeze. As harmless as the grass beneath my fingers.
I almost forgot he was there – until he spoke.
His rich, velvet, voice brushed my cheekbone; just as captivating as it had been in my dreams. Dark, sweet, and enveloping.
"Hello," Edward pleasantly began.
Too pleasantly, in fact, as my stomach tangled into knots from that one little word.
He was bitter chocolate on the tongue. Melting in my ear and rippling down my spine. I had the strangest urge to shudder that - for the life of me - I had no idea how I quelled.
"I didn't get a chance to introduce myself, I'm Edward Cullen?"
My fascination with Edward's delightful voice ended once my brain registered his lame excuse.
Didn't get a chance? He had the whole class to say something!
"You're Beau?" He added when I didn't answer.
The question was so stupid, that I barely answered him. "Um. Yeah."
Edward kept staring at me like he was expecting me to add to the conversation, but I ignored him.
My body could only begin to relax once he went back to staring at my work.
My arm kept moving, like some kind of lifeline. I was actually aware of how my muscles flexed and released with each soft stroke of my pen. The sound of every swish whispering against the page held me centered.
"Are you drawing this for someone?" Edward asked, craning his perfectly sculpted jawline toward me. His mouth lingered no more than four inches from my cheek.
"Beau?" His voice felt so good that I had to imagine stabbing him over and over with a sharpened pencil to steal the power he had over me.
With every question I felt lassoed; magnetically pulled. Whittling down my resistance with every passing look or second.
He was waiting. A fact I both loved and abhorred. He deserved to wait forever and fret over every silly thing he said it did like I had. And yet, his attention was something I wanted, ashamed as I was to still be a slave to it, and the only way to get more was to say something.
Damn him. No, no, damn myself.
Robbed of the capacity to further resist his insatiable charm by my own rampant whim, I turned my head to face him.
Invariably losing myself in his rich, warm, eyes. Transfixed by the disturbance the confusion on his face awoke in me.
Edward furrowed his brow– like he was wondering whether I was mentally challenged – and, somehow, the idea of being seen as dumb rattled me out of the spell.
Too much, unfortunately.
"Why do you care?" I accused, as politely as I could stand to be. Hiding my want behind a wall of righteous anger.
Edward craned his head to one side. A sly sort of smile curled the edge of his mouth. "Most guys don't scribble Yarrow and Lupine flowers in their notebooks."
How did he know?! Did Edward garden after school? My mouth scowled into a hard squiggly line.
Edward kept looking at me for an answer and I sighed to myself.
"My mom likes them," I partially lied. Simply to avoid the worst of the bullying if it could possibly be helped.
This was usually the part where someone laughed or snorted. Teasing 'sissy Beau' for being too attached to his mommy.
I girded myself, waiting for that dreaded snicker, comment, or laugh to be over with.
A tease that never came, as Edward's gaze rescinded to the page with unexpected gentleness. Sweetly admiring my feeble attempts at capturing a meadow in my head. "She has good taste, then."
Uncertain what to say to that, I kept adding shading to the inside of the Lupine petals. Wholly ignorant to the fact - would later hit me like a brick - that Edward had dodged my question.
Occasionally, I glanced at him, but to my relief, his irises remained glued to the page.
"Yeah, she does," I finally added, unwilling to allow our conversation to evaporate.
"Is she a lot like you?" Edward asked, his curiosity flicking from my notebook to my face.
"Why do you ask?" I held his gaze, only half-heartedly glancing at my doodle now.
"I want to know more about you," Edward answered so directly it unnerved me. "And I know your mother is a large part of that."
Why did he want to know me? Surely, there were more interesting things he could talk about?
Wait a second...
"How do you know that?" I asked, indignantly.
He chuckled at me, so softly I barely heard it. "Just answer the question."
"Not until you answer mine," I demanded, forgoing my doodle completely to bore my eyes into his.
Edward playfully sighed. "I overheard someone say you moved here to escape your mother, and I suppose I'm wondering what was so terrible about living with her?"
"What!" I hissed under my breath. Offended at the idea of anyone badmouthing my mom. "Who said that?"
"Is it true?" Edward dodged, arching a brow.
"No" – I practically hissed – "living in Phoenix was great."
"Then why did you move to the wettest place in the continental U.S.? Do you enjoy being miserable?"
"I'm not miserable here," I lied, more hoping than knowing Edward believed me.
"Oh, really?" Edward began to retort, but Mr. Molina unknowingly ended our conversation by clearing his throat to start class.
Damn it. I'd have to demand answers from him later.
With a sigh, I turned my head to look at Mr. Molina as he began to explain our assignment. Turning several pages past my messily drawn flowers to take notes because the sight of them irritated me, now.
"I want each lab team to study and label each slide of onion root tip cells into the correct phases of mitosis," Mr. Molina paused to open a white box that matched the one left at each table. Showing us the numbered slides and how to insert them into our microscopes.
As he continued on, it became clear that we weren't allowed to use our books, and in twenty minutes Mr. Molina would be coming around to collect our worksheets whether we were finished or not.
"The fastest team to successfully complete this assignment," Mr. Molina held up something that looked like a golden, spray-painted, ball against his chest. "Will win this year's golden onion."
My face sank.
Mr. Molina looked so happy and excited about his brilliance in trophy choices that I couldn't bear not to send him a pitiful smile of encouragement. He was trying so hard to be cool that it hurt my soul to witness. Why did he think a bunch of high schoolers would want to win a spray-painted onion, anyway? Who wanted to explain that trophy to people?
While Mr. Molina was friendly, fun, and way more interesting to listen to than most of the faculty here, did he not realize this was lame?
Surprise skewered me as I realized, suddenly, that some of the other students seemed to be pretty excited about this challenge. Mike even hooted from his seat at the back of the classroom!
Why was everyone cheering? Was it just for Mr. Molina's benefit?
That had to be it, I wagered to myself, feigning as much enthusiasm as I could stomach as Mr. Molina walked down the aisle to distribute our worksheets.
For a moment, I wondered if Edward thought winning this onion was cool. Would it make him happy if I gave it to him?
Curiously, I turned to him, but Edward didn't look any more excited about being here than he had been before.
"Your time starts…" Mr. Molina hovered on the precipice, studying the clock until the second hand touched the twelve. "Now!"
The room burst with conversation all around us, yet the space between Edward and I was stifling.
Just when the silence became unbearable, Edward spoke: "Would you care to go first?"
Peeking through the slender veil of my dark brown hair, Edward cast me an unnervingly crooked little half-smile. It was so alluring it unsettled me. So devilish in nature that I could only stare at him like an idiot.
"Or I could start? If you like."
His smile slowly began to fade, like he was wondering if I was mentally challenged again…
"No," I insisted; boiling at the thought. "I can go."
Somehow desperate to prove to Edward that I wasn't stupid or incompetent, a need to show off caused me to take control of the microscope. Hastily, and without any courtesy, I snapped the first slide into place and adjusted the objective zoom to 40x before he could do it for me. I'd done this lab before, although it wasn't quite the same as being home-schooled (since I didn't have a microscope with slides, only images on paper to decipher), just a few weeks ago. The process of Mitosis was still fresh in my mind, but Edward didn't need to know that.
Pressing my face to the microscope, my assessment was complete in seconds. "Prophase."
"Do you mind if I double-check?" Edward teased in his voice like melted honey.
"No," I started to say as I felt my stomach lurch again. Struck by how close his sculpted hand came to mine as he pulled the microscope his way. He had to lean forward to peer through the microscope, though, and I found myself staring at his tousled hair. Watching the way it seemed to glisten with its own vivacity under the fluorescent lights above.
Unerringly, I stared too much. Drinking in everything I could glean. He was simply too attractive to me. Even down to the subtle hint of hair along his neck that I had the strangest desire to touch…
Which, thankfully, I was able to resist. For now.
Unfortunately, we had both been reaching for the microscope, barely watching the device in question. So, as Edward started to turn the microscope back to me, our fingers brushed against each other.
Resulting in a small, audible, gasp that shuddered from my lips in a breathless moan.
Fuck!
A sound Edward had clearly heard since his pupils dilated the instant it broke from my lungs; swelling with ungodly alertness.
When I touched his hand, it stung, and zapped, as if an electric current passed between us. Throttling all over my body in an uproar of pleasurable tingles.
Sometimes, the human body worked as it should – other times? It decided to prank you with the worst timing in the world with very little provocation.
Please, Gods, tell me I didn't just pop an awkward boner under our lab desk. The noise had been embarrassing enough!
Eager to assure myself that I had nothing to fear, as I was fully tucked into our table and that part of my anatomy was hidden from the direct view of everyone, I pretended to adjust in my seat. Slowly easing myself into a hasty wiggle just to make sure, relief exhaled quietly from my lips. I was fine.
"Sorry," Edward muttered, withdrawing his hand with such stoicism that it seemed obvious I'd repulsed him.
Just as disinterested, he bent down to look through the microscope. After a short moment, he pulled back.
"Prophase," he agreed with another crooked half-smile that made my toes curl.
What was with that smirk? Didn't I irritate him?
"Like I said," I teased him back. Watching as he swished his expensive-looking pen to write the answer on our lab sheet. He wrote with such flourishing penmanship that I felt the urge to never write again.
Writing had never felt like a flaw to me before, but everything I believed I excelled at seemed so obsolete when compared with him. I may as well have written in yellow crayons from kindergarten.
It haunted me – how badly I wanted to hide my flaws from him.
Saying nothing, like an idiot, Edward took the initiative to swap the first slide out for the second one and gazed through the microscope.
"Anaphase," Edward told me, writing it down on the paper as he spoke, and I found myself needing to win this competition. And push his buttons a little in the process.
"Mind if I check?"
Edward smirked at me. When I didn't reach for the microscope, though, he turned it gently toward me and slid his glorious hands away from the device entirely. It seemed we were both being extra careful not to risk touching each other again.
"Be my guest," he hummed.
Leaning forward, I curiously perused the slide with the most fleeting glance I could manage with certainty before leaning back again.
Disappointment bubbled up inside me. "Anaphase…"
"Like I said," Edward boasted in retort, practically giving me a courtly bow in jest from the way he cheekily grinned at me.
Unable to look away from his eyes, even as it irritated me to the bone to be teased, I scowled. "Slide three?"
The words fell from me with slightly more ease than before, but it was still incredibly difficult to speak around this man. He was so much more attractive than myself – it made me nervous.
Edward slid the third slide under the microscope and my dark brown eyes slipped back to his beautifully long fingers.
Why did I still want to touch his hand so badly? I knew it might shock us again, like an electric fence, but that wasn't the real reason I was trying to keep my hands in my lap.
It occurred to me, with a sickening flutter in my abdomen, that if Edward wasn't into guys, then any further touch would gross him out.
Why I even cared was beyond me.
"Interphase," Edward muttered about the latest slide, and at this point, I just nodded. "Would you like to double-check again?"
"No. I believe you," I murmured back, dryly. Studying Edward's hand as he wrote 'interphase' down in the blank space beside 'slide three'.
We were finished long before anyone else was close. Mike and his partner kept comparing two of the slides again and again, while another group had their book open underneath their table. With nothing else to distract me from his face, I absorbed it. Struggling against my nerves to think of something to say or do, but Mr. Molina spoke before I could.
Seeing that we weren't working any longer, Mr. Molina had gotten up from his desk and approached our table. I watched as he glanced over my shoulder to peruse our completed lab and then stared more intently to check our answers. Finally, he shrewdly gazed at Edward and playfully shook his head.
"Edward, don't you think that Beau should have been given a chance to look through the microscope?"
Edward looked at me with soft eyes, then glanced back at our teacher. An almost devious smile on his face. "Beau identified three of the slides, actually."
Why had his eyes softened toward me? What sparked that easy gentleness? Perhaps it wouldn't have been so strange to me, had his hand not still been a fist under the table.
Mr. Molina was still looking at me, though, so I turned my face to meet his gaze.
His expression was sorely, albeit playfully, skeptical. "Have you done this lab before?"
A sheepish smile flushed my face into a reddish hue. "Yeah."
"Well," Mr. Molina began after a pause. "I suppose it's good that you two are partners, then. Gives' the other students a chance to learn for themselves," he teased, mumbling under his breath bemusedly as he walked back to his desk, grabbed the golden onion, and tossed it in the air a few times like a baseball.
"Class! May I have your attention please?!" Mr. Molina enthusiastically exclaimed, with all the gusto of a waiter about to sing a customer the birthday song.
Oh God. No, I begged with every muscle in my face – not that it deterred him.
The entire class hushed to a halt – everyone looking at Mr. Molina.
Who was standing right next to me.
Peeking at Edward, he was grinning at me like a Cheshire cat.
Figures he would love all this attention, I groaned to myself. Or he just liked watching me squirm.
"Could you please give Edward and Beau a round of applause" – no-no-no-no-no- people were starting to clap! – "As the winners of this year's…"
The level of glee and pride that contorted Mr. Molina's face made no logical sense to me. Was the 'golden onion' that big of a deal to him?
Great. Now I wanted to accept it, just to not break my teacher's heart. He looked like a guest speaker about to give Edward and I the Oscar for 'best supporting actors'.
"Golden Onion."
Mr. Molina comically squeezed the golden onion against his heart in an embrace, then held it out to me. Probably just because I was closer, but it felt like he was giving me special treatment in front of the whole class.
Gods. Everyone was staring. I just wanted to melt through the floor.
When Edward kept sitting there, leaning into our table like a blooming peacock, I took the onion. Even held it awkwardly in the air with as 'eager' an expression of 'yay' as I could possibly fake (for Mr. Molina's benefit) before I set it down on the table.
The class around us whooped in glorious applause. Mike's voice, unsurprisingly, was the loudest. Maybe Mike just liked whooping, though…
Just as quickly, the excitement was over, and our teacher sauntered off to go help other students with the assignment.
I couldn't decide which was worse: being gawked at by the entire class...or the way Edward kept staring at me. Intrigued and amused.
If the movie Mystery Men had resonated anything within me right now, it was how the Invisible Boy couldn't disappear while anyone was watching him.
There were simply too many eyes on me, even now, to be able to vanish. Even so, I desperately wanted to evaporate. Focus on anything else than all the eyes curiously staring into the back of my head. Ridiculous as it was, somehow I believed I could feel their gazes like a physical heat; piercing beyond my skin to my soul.
I had to shut them out. Focus on one thing. Anything. Any positive thing.
An Edward thing, I realized – as though some unspoken magnetism pulled my attention back to him.
Still, my focus was torn. Stuck between his face and the whites of his knuckles all splayed out over his fists. If I didn't do something to distract myself, then I was going to reach out, touch him, and risk being labeled a creep forever.
Edward, fully aware that I was staring at him, cockily smiled at me. "I take it you don't like being the center of attention?"
I laughed so hard it burned my throat. "That obvious, huh?"
Edward reached out to softly twirl the golden onion between us, thoughtfully, in his perfect fingers.
"Just a little bit," he needled, sheepishly raising his free hand to pinch his fingers together for emphasis.
Great. Now he was mocking me.
Anxious to get back at him, somehow, I considered everything I knew of Edward and his family. In my limited experience, I noticed that he had zero friends he hung out with outside of his family. He never seemed to talk to anyone unless classwork demanded it. Until now, that is.
So, I said: "I guess we have that in common?"
Edward was silent for a moment. His smirk softened to a thoughtful purse as his fingers kept twirling that onion round and round on its axis. "It's too much drama, trying to be in the spotlight all the time."
I was about to agree with him, but Edward continued talking: "Tis easier to erm...perpetually exist, in the background."
Why did he single those words out on purpose?
In the back of my head, a ghost of a bell began to chime. An alert of familiarity, not unlike the sound of a treasure chest being found in a video game. A sign of something important – but, like the footsteps in my room, I forced myself to disregard it as another unexplained coincidence.
The spark in his face – like he was waiting for something – did nothing to alleviate my uncertainty. It was so close to Twilight's username, so near to something Edward couldn't possibly know about, and yet he kept staring at me. Like he was waiting for something secret to click in my brain.
Edward couldn't be Twilight, though, right? There was just no way – why would he ever want me? Still, the choice in phrasing was too close to be coincidence. There had to be some reason he chose those words, right?
In trying to decipher the look on Edward's face, my mouth opened, then closed, and opened again. Like a damn goldfish.
Edward's eyebrows were furrowing, now, like he was wondering if I was stupid again.
"I'd rather disappear," I said as a joke to deflect the situation. Even offering a dry breath of a laugh before I half-smiled at him.
For whatever reason, Edward's perfect face contorted into something strangely ominous.
None of the muscles in his face seemed to move as he leaned in close to me, parted his distracting mouth, and salaciously warned:
"Careful. I could help with that," before he laughed, velvet voice dancing in my head, and smirked at me.
Oh? Was this the game we were playing? Well. I could banter back at him!
A still, small, tendril of shadow from my subconscious warned that there was a deeper reason that Edward used the word: perpetually. Poking and prodding from every angle with the strangest urge to use 'purgatory' in a sentence and see if his eyes lit up with some kind of awareness.
My Twilight and I had spoken of purgatory last night when I'd asked him about the meaning behind his username.
Was the 'E' I had been talking to online the same 'E' I sat next to now? In class? Surely it was a stretch – a rubber band about to snap – to even pretend the two could be the same person.
After all, 'E' told me he was ugly – uglier than I could ever imagine – in our text messages last night, and Edward couldn't possibly be ugly.
Unless he meant his soul.
Egged on by my own subconscious, demanding me to carve out the truth from the heart of this matter, I struggled to find anything that could work.
With an arid smirk, I finally thought of something, and sarcastically scoffed to push the words right out of my mouth: "Not sure your family would welcome me at the, uhm, purgatory table."
Gods. That was lame.
Edward's expression – which I watched like a hawk – answered with a kind of bemused exasperation. Coupled with the shrugged shoulders of confusion, it only served to make me feel that much more stupid.
Why did I listen to my gut? Was I dumb?
With a shake of his head, Edward laughed, and I loathed how something so wonderful could make me feel so utterly pathetic.
"Who said anything about joining a table? There are many ways to disappear these days, Beau."
Fueled by aggravation at being – in any way – teased beyond my threshold, I practically snarled at him in my bitterness. Answering, nay lashing out, before the thought had time to ruminate.
"Oh, like skipping school?"
Caught by how I wasn't going to let that go, Edward's teasing demeanor reeled back a bit. His smile melted into a state that was more diverted than actively pernicious.
"Like that, for instance," he agreed, and my antagonism began to settle. "Although, that was less disappearing…and more of an emergency."
With that, Edward smirked wickedly and took the onion from the table. He turned it a few times in his palm to investigate every mark or flaw, before he looked back to me. Mischief still on his mouth. "Besides, I came back."
Feeling like asking about the emergency would be prying into something that wasn't my business, I bit down on my tongue.
"Why did you come back, anyway? You seemed pretty hellbent on transferring to home school."
And getting away from me, I wanted to add – and perhaps my eyes burned that question into him more readily than I could say.
Edward didn't immediately answer. Just set the onion back down on the table between us; letting his gaze linger on the window again. He spent almost twenty seconds averted, seemingly watching the rain fall down the glass before he turned his head back to me. Directing the full force of his beautiful eyes into my soul.
"Something called me back," he answered cryptically.
What did that mean?!
Thinking about how Edward had acted in the office after school last Monday, obsessed by his desperation to not be in class with me, I blurted out:
"You must be miserable here, then." Since, obviously he was stuck with me, now.
"It's not so bad," Edward teased, with a knowing look that would be the death of me. "My family's here, it rains all the time, and if you're in the right spot, Forks has these 'moments of twilight' that feel like they could last perpetually."
What the hell? Was he trying to be poetic or something? Is this what counts as flirting in Alaska? Why did that come up in conversation—
The knowing look on Edward's face began to gnarl into something I could only describe as the unmistakable smirk of a man who knew something worthy of blackmail and decided that now was the time to cash in his chips.
Glowering at him, as if a nasty glare could possibly wipe the delight in teasing me from his face, I strained for any and every possible way that Edward could have figured out my secret. Short of stealing my phone out of my backpack or breaking into my ro-
Wait… Had Edward been the one who snuck into my room last night?!
Suddenly – with dark delight contorting Edward's face into something deliciously wicked – my eyes bulged like a damn owl.
He had! That bastard! He snuck into my room!
What else could explain that look on his face?!
"Moments of twilight?" I repeated, in exasperation.
Edward simply hummed a response. Still goading me with that devious little smirk.
I wanted to spit in his face! To yell at him and demand answers; but, all that sputtered from me was a low, raspy, expletive that hissed passed my teeth. Crackling against my teeth like invisible, flyaway, embers in a fireplace.
I couldn't make sense of why Edward would break into my room. Had I bothered him that much!? Didn't he have better things to do with his time?!
Try as I might to convince myself that Edward didn't know anything, that he was messing with me, trying to get a rise out of me, I couldn't think of any logical reason he would know about my Twilight unless –
Unless Edward was Twilight.
Oh No…
All the color began to drain from my face. My skin felt cold and clammy; sticking against the table.
No; No! He couldn't be, I desperately tried to convince myself.
Yet, the likelihood of 'E' being 'Edward' was so glaringly loud that sirens cawed unendingly in my head. Declaring from the heavens, like murderous crows, that: not only was Edward my E – he probably pretended to like me out of spite, or boredom.
There was no way, I countered to no one but myself in an unshakable grasp of low self-esteem.
In what world could Edward yearn for me?
It made no sense…for him to want me.
How silly I was - to playfully titter the idea of Tyler or Lauren making an online account to mess with me when a far more clever, ruthless, option had been ever on the precipice. Right in front of my damn nose!
God, I was so stupid!
My hands tightened into fists, defensively.
If Edward thought he could make a joke out of me, he had another thing coming!
Thus, like any person unwilling to acknowledge the truth, I scoffed with more exaggeration than the gesture needed. Using every ounce of acting talent I had to pretend I was oblivious.
"Wow," I murmured dryly. "Are you really talking about the weather?"
Irritation washed the devilry right off Edward's face. To say I was elated was an understatement. Somehow, I'd befuddled him and I relished the tiny victory; nestling it against my damaged heart like a dragon hoarding gold coins.
Go ahead, I challenged, through glare alone. Tease me. I dare you.
"Yeah…" Edward awkwardly withdrew, retreating into his chair at the other end of our lab table. No doubt to plan his next move. "I guess I am."
The animation of Edward's expression confused me almost as much as I'd baffled him. One second, Edward was grinning with delicious, wicked, malice. The next? He seemed almost…wounded.
Not only had he retreated, leaning back into his side of the table, Edward's shoulders recoiled into himself. Like I had somehow hurt him.
What the hell?
If I was right and Edward had made an online account, spent hours texting me long into the night, then snuck into my room once he knew I was asleep - just to mess with me - then why was he hurt?
Why the hell did I care?!
Any person who broke into another guy's room while they slept deserved to be hurt, didn't they?
There was a faint, stark, gloss which began to pepper his eyes now. He blinked, then abruptly turned away, staring down at his hands – which had tightened so hard into themselves that I felt a distinct spear of remorse pierce the surface of my ire.
What if Edward did like me and he was too afraid of his family's rejection to show it in public?
I didn't want to accept that possibility, but the evidence sang otherwise. Enough that I couldn't immediately disregard it.
Fine. If Edward did want me – and care about me – then I was going to make him show it in some way. In any way I could think of, that wouldn't reveal our discourse to the whole school in the process.
Calmer now, I tried to numb the anger from my tone. Cooling it to as gentle a voice as I could give while the betrayal of the moment still crashed against my chest.
"Yeah. Well. I don't really like the rain," I spoke and his head turned, glistening eyes pouring into mine with all the needy desperation that I'd earlier wished for; unable to resist the call for mercy, to end his suffering. "Any cold, wet, thing."
There, I assured myself. I brought up my stupid poem. If Edward was Twilight, then he had this chance to acknowledge it. The hummingbird in my chest could scarcely contain itself; a riot of tattered struggling against the bars of its cage, as if Edward could hear its song and answer me.
He was calculating, now. His smile fainted into a soft line. Pursing gently with unease, hesitating.
Was he too afraid to tell me? Would I go home to find he'd blocked my number and unfriended me online?
Was Edward really that scared of people knowing about us?
In trepidation, my fingers mirrored his. Hardening into a fist against the table.
Please, I silently begged, sorely tempted to reach out and touch his hand for encouragement. But, that would spread rumors like wildfire, public as we were, surrounded by everyone. A fire neither of us were prepared to deal with.
The ball was in his court, loathe as I was to surrender it without a safety net.
As I watched him, inexplicably tortured by the wait, Edward's fine eyes consumed my soul. Almost narrowing; piercing my heart with an unreadable blend between want and disgust.
I couldn't tell if he was scared, pissed, or out for blood.
Until he laughed. A brief, melodic, velvet sound that fell into my ears and skewered me. Completely contradictory to the fiery passion of the previous moment.
The whiplash left me woozy; Enamored, stunned, that he was giggling.
Was that all the answer he meant to give?! Was this a joke?! My palms seared from the bite of my fingernails nipping at my flesh.
"Well," Edward finally answered, laughter having bloomed a delectable shade of mirth to his perfect lips. He had more to say, it burned in his eyes, but he tortured me by waiting.
My heart leapt, soared, and danced wildly beneath the stars in a state of rapture. A kettle about to burst with joy, if only that warmth led to a confession.
He seemed to have made up his mind to answer me, the question was only how. Would he tell me outright? Would I have to follow him after class so we could talk alone?
If Edward didn't know anything, he knew enough to be a liability and I needed to know how. Even if I had to follow him around and demand the truth unceasingly.
His beautiful lips parted, his glossy eyes wet with fear and yearning, and all other sounds in the room emptied away to nothingness.
"The blistering sun is rarely sweet," Edward spoke the words; one cheesy line from the ridiculous poem I'd written on my profile page. A poem made just for him.
Edward was Twilight. He may as well have written the truth in blood. Yet, still, I asked for more.
"Twilight?" I entreated, softly. Hastily combing strands of my brown hair into a thin veil, as it could possibly hide the flush of heat consuming my face from being seen by the tables behind us.
The smirk returned to his mouth, curling my toes in my shoes.
"Yes," he answered firmly. Nodding once, almost militantly, to destroy any lingering embers of doubt.
The gasp that left my lips almost sucked the wind from my lungs. Like falling from a tree, a beat against the ground, then slipping into a warm bath.
A lurch, like novocaine.
Edward's mischief evaporated into worry at the sound. His eyes were remorseful, glistening with something too akin to shame as his voice dimmed to a whisper:
"Forgive me for how I've gone about this," he entreated. "I'm not used to making friends, anymore."
Deftly as the air had left my body, heat ruptured to replace it. Wheels of burning coal that sizzled with every breath; stifling, bewildering, ecstasy shot through my veins.
I couldn't understand it, and I couldn't care less about why since it no longer mattered to me.
It didn't matter if he could only call me a friend in public. Edward wanted me.
To think, I'd been so blind and oblivious to the want in his beautiful eyes.
Warm, dazzling, eyes that…until now, had never gleamed so vibrantly. Lit up from the very instant my face began to burn red or pink, so belligerently.
My mouth kept opening and closing, elated and stunned. As though my breath were given and stolen in a flurry of incandescent thoughts.
Why did he have to tell me now? Why couldn't he have told me after school? Somewhere alone – where I could kiss him. Hold him in my arms, touch his hand, and never let go.
Unable to bear the distance between us, I stretched my hand toward his, only to watch him recoil his hand beneath the table.
Was a caress really too much for him? Did he not want me?! He seemed happy enough to be near me three seconds ago!
You're rushing him, Beau!
Edward wasn't ready for his family to know, I reminded myself. That, or he just didn't want to touch me right now. I couldn't be sure what his feelings were, only that for some reason he looked annoyed at the sight of my fingers sliding across the table.
Neither of us spoke, myself for being stunned, until Mr. Molina got up to collect the other worksheets and the sound of his steps helped me collect myself.
We only had a little time left, it seemed. A whole weekend apart, now that I had him, seemed insurmountably barren.
So, with class about to end, I stared into Edward's dark eyes. Wanting to say anything I could think of to keep him from running out the door once the bell rang.
A thousand questions on my mind, tangled as spaghetti, that it left me silent.
Was he tangled, too? I wondered, as outside of warm eyes and honeyed smiles Edward didn't say anything either. Yet, his fingers gingerly tapped on our desk like he was waiting for the right moment to say something.
Soft percussion vibrating through the surface reminded me of spider legs dancing on her web. Tap, tap, tap, soundless little bounces only other spiders could interpret with pleasure. Just as I began to imagine what those titillating fingers might feel like against my skin, the golden onion started to slide toward the edge of the table.
Although I reached to save it, Edward was faster. With barely a blink he held it in his palm, rumbling an endearing sound I couldn't bear to leave unreciprocated.
Chuckling with him felt wondrously alien; A rogue wave crashing away from the shore, yet right somehow.
Gods I may have even giggled, but he didn't mock the sound. Only a few seconds had gone by, but I was sure that the tips of my ears were pink and my inability to stop smiling probably made my mouth look incurably goofy.
Why did he like me? I was a dork.
"Here, you take it," Edward bid me, holding out the painted sphere, palm up, like old biblical paintings of Eve offering Adam the forbidden fruit. Figures, in our layers of problems, that I'd be given a Shrek onion.
I laughed at the thought, unwilling to accept how silly I really was for as long as I could help it.
It was funny, how I'd despised the idea of keeping this stupid trophy mere moments ago, and it was all I wanted, now.
The thought of holding something he had touched and taking it home with me overpowered my displeasure.
"Alright, if you don't want it," I acquiesced with a wry smile, staring down at the silly prize. Delightedly appalled at the change of attitude inside me.
Stretching out my hand to take it, to have an excuse to touch Edward's long, beautiful fingers, my heart seemed to burst from its cage – only to falter as Edward reeled his fingers back at the last moment.
Was it really necessary to avoid any and all skin contact?
Disappointment replaced my exuberance, but still: I held the onion near my chest. Spinning it lightly, like a baseball, to soak in every speck of Edward's lingering essence into the palm of my hand.
The way you rubbed in a kiss to hide it in your skin and save it. A pressed flower in a diary only truly known to myself. A secret exchange of affection that the world around us wouldn't understand.
Already planning the ways I could *lose* my pen to have another chance to touch him indirectly, I stared down at the shimmering vegetable, admiring how the fluorescent lights above glistened along the surface.
"Will you do me a favor, Beau?" Edward interrupted my thoughts, pulling my eyes back to his.
Anything, I answered with my soul, but still I spoke to seem inconspicuous. We had to hide from his family, for now, if his text messages had been truthful last night, I reminded myself. The second of a dozen times.
"Sure."
The sugar in his smile could have melted the polar ice caps. Was he really so happy about me?
"Will you call me tonight?" Edward asked, apprehensively glancing away at someone or something. I didn't turn around to check, loath to miss a moment of his face. "When you're alone?"
I nodded once and his eyes glistened with mirth.
"Yeah. Later," I assured; like I wasn't already planning on doing so the second I got home.
Cautiously, anxiously, he looked around the classroom again before he added: "About the assignments I missed."
Right.
Two could play this game, especially since I didn't really want the whole school to gossip about my love life any more than they already were.
"Yeah," I nodded, for good measure. "I can help you catch up. And stuff."
Wow. I should win an award for terrible acting.
Edward chuckled, graciously, and leaned onto one elbow against the table. "Good. I've been gone far too long. I hope you have the patience to tolerate me."
Laced in his teasing banter was a question, and I found myself staring at his hand. Wishing I could clasp his fingers and squeeze as I answered it:
"We'll see," I teased with a smile that curled to match his earlier smirking. Well, I tried to, but I probably looked more like Dopey from Snow White trying to flirt…
"Til then," Edward promised with a subtle wink that didn't tug at the rest of his face like mine would.
"Til' then," I nearly whispered in agreement. Spinning the golden onion in my fingers absentmindedly as I studied Edward's smile. His mouth wasn't painted with empty charm like it had been in the office for Ms. Cope. It was gleaming, secure in an easy happiness, and I soaked him in for as long as I had.
Once the bell rang, Edward outstretched his fingers in a brisk wave, slung his bag over his shoulder, and swiftly disappeared out the door. Leaving me numb, frozen, and sorely throbbing in my chest from the loss of his presence.
I wasn't alone for very long, but what time I had to myself was spent admiring the painted thing in my hands. Enamored by the places his fingertips had held it earlier, indirectly pressing my own into these little nooks held only by my fading memory.
There was something about this onion that held my attention. Be it the way the glittery spray paint shimmered under the light, how the paint seemed to bury all the onion's imperfections in the skin from (what I imagined to be) several coats of layering.
It was such a funny feeling; like a tug, a gnaw, in my gut that something was important about this thing. My mind swam against the current as I spun the onion slowly in my hands.
A little voice from my subconscious whispering: remember, remember, remember.
I couldn't understand why it felt so urgent to remember something, to focus on something. It was like my very bones were crying out, warning me of trouble, that something about my dearest Edward was wrong.
Looking back, I think I struggled to accept the truth because I wanted to be with him so much that I was willing to overlook the strangeness. To overlook the danger to my life in pursuit of something bigger than the loneliness I had gotten used to.
The reasons were too numerous and convoluted to avidly name them, much less recognize them, but only after Edward left me alone with our stupid prize did I realize what was so amiss with that onion.
Edward's eyes were the exact same color…
Gold, metallic; luminous.
And just as I had this morning, with the scratches in my truck's door handle, I put it from my mind. Even going so far as to stuff the onion in my backpack so I wouldn't obsess over the detail until I had more time to devote to it.
Edward had to be wearing custom-ordered contact lenses. What other alternative was there?