Hey guys, I'm back! Sorry this chapter took so long to write, time got away from me. *insert various excuses here*

So this chapter is entirely from Edward's point of view, just for something different. I wanted to give his feelings a little light. This chapter is more of a beginning chapter leading to something bigger in a couple chapters time, so bear with me and the guys as I create the build up.

As always, thank you to all the exceedingly lovely people who reviewed, favourited and followed – having that little email pop up on my phone truly makes my day :)

Disclaimer: If I owned the rights to Twilight, I wouldn't be sitting on the floor at school, typing this right now, but yeah.

Enjoy!

Chapter Seven

EPOV

I have a secret. A big one. And it's eating at me.

All I want to do is talk about it to someone- scratch that, all I want to do is talk to Jasper about it. But he is the last person who can know.

It's maddening, to be honest.

Right now I should be studying, but my mind is wandering elsewhere and I've given up trying to concentrate on the words on the paper in front of me.

"Jasper! Fucking quit it!" He looks up from the page he was drawing on, startled.

"Huh?"

"You're tapping your fucking foot again! I can't concentrate, and it's pissing me off!" exasperated, I run my fingers through my hair. I'm not really pissed at him, his foot tapping was just a small outlet for my pent up frustration. Jasper just stared at me like a puppy that has been yelled at for something it doesn't understand. He mumbles a 'sorry', tucking his feet under his chair and continues drawing.

I don't know what was wrong with me lately. My mind has been wandering, I can't concentrate on anything and it's annoying the hell out of me. I keep going in circles imagining the scenarios in which I tell him. Some end well - most don't. Most end with Jasper never speaking to me again, or perhaps worst still, him pretending nothing has changed and acting differently with me. I find myself lying awake at night contemplating the pros and cons, making a mental list rife with tally marks on either side, on whether or not to burden him with my problems. Almost every rational part of me says 'no keep your damn mouth shut he has enough of his own shit to worry about without you adding to it', but then the less rational, more selfish part pipes up and says 'tell him tell him you'll never know if you don't plus Jasper would kick your ass if he knew you were hiding something from him because you think he couldn't hack it'.

Every night I'm subjected to this internal banter between the two opposing parts of my psyche, feeling like a helpless spectator forced to listen to each side war it out until it gets to about 2:30am and I want to cry and tear my hair out in frustration because I just want to sleep and the battle in my head wont shut the fuck up.

"Edward, It's time to go." Jasper brings me out of my thoughts and alerts me to the fact that I haven't done anything remotely productive in the fifty-minute study period and its now home time. There's little emotion in Jasper's voice, something that usually only happens when someone has snapped at him. Then it occurs to me that I did exactly that not five minutes ago. Fuck. Without making eye contact he stands up to gathers his things, tells me he'll meet me at the car and walks out the double doors without looking back.

"Goddamn, I'm an ass." I mumble under my breath, as I shove my books into my bag and hurry after him. I have to work on venting my frustrations more constructively. Maybe I should buy a punching bag, I wonder as Mike Newton walks past me as if on cue. He'll do.

When I got to the parking lot, Jasper was leaning against the hood of my Volvo, head down with hands in his pockets. I stopped in front of him, but he didn't look at me.

"Jasper, I'm sorry. I… I didn't mean to snap at you, I'm just, I dunno, frustrated." I ran a hand through my hair and sighed.

Jasper finally glanced up at me and smirked, "I know you didn't mean it, I was just waiting to see how long before you'd apologize. Now c'mon and open your car so I can get my stuff."

"Jerk." I fished my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the doors while rolling my eyes.

"Bitch." Jasper threw back, sniggering as he grabbed his jacket and helmet from my passenger seat.

I climbed into the driver's seat, giving myself a second longer than was appropriate to watch Jasper shrug on his leather jacket, before turning on the ignition of my car. I hit the button on the console to wind down the passenger window and call through the car, "Meet you at mine?"

"Sure thing, try to keep up Eddie boy." He smirked, before pulling his helmet over his face and mounting the bike. He revved the engine twice and took off before I had a chance to realise I should be leaving too, lest he give me shit for falling too far behind.

I followed far enough behind Jasper down the main road that he could still brag about being in front, but close enough that I could catch up if I wanted to. Though I had to admit to myself that were I to catch up to him he'd most likely take off and leave me for dead. Jasper's bike was seriously fast, and I knew that was what he loved about it, consistently sitting exactly 4mph over the speed limit, just so he was faster than the other traffic. Sometimes I worried that his bike would be the death of him. It wasn't that he wasn't skilled enough to control it, or stupid enough to be reckless, but I knew that he was always itching to let loose and take the vehicle to it's limits. That sort of desire could be dangerous.

I found my mind drifting as I followed the familiar road home. I started to think about how I could tell him, or whether I even should. I know Jasper would hate knowing that I'd been hiding something from him. Ever since I came out to him, I'd always tried to be an open book. I didn't like secrets, and now I was the one keeping them.

God things were messed up.

"Boys, dinner's ready!"

Hearing my mum call from the kitchen, Jasper and I paused the video game we were playing and hurried downstairs, following the delicious aroma of my mother's cooking.

Taking a seat at the dining table, I dug in immediately, my mouth watering in anticipation. I hadn't eaten since this morning and I really did love mum's cooking.

"Well, it's nice to see that someone has still maintained their manners." Mum said, laughing as she took her seat at the end of the table, referring, of course, to Jasper, who sat with his hands neatly folded in front of him as he waited for my parents to take their seats. He did this every time he ate here. It started out purely as a show of respect to my Mother and Father, but now I knew it was more to spite me, because he knew it made me look bad. It would have been annoyed me, if I hadn't met his Mother the summer after we met. Mary Whitlock was as old fashioned as a modern businesswoman could manage, and had raised her son to be the perfect southern gentleman. So much so, that it had taken four months, and constant telling from my parents for him stop referring to them as 'Sir' and 'Ma'am'. So as much as it amused my Mother, and irked me, I knew that it simply went against Jasper's upbringing to be as laid back as I was in my own home.

"Shame that can't be said for Edward. I can't help feeling we went wrong somewhere Esme." My Father chuckled as he sat at the head of the table and started filling his plate.

"Not my fault Mum's food is too good to wait. I just don't have the willpower he does." I gave my Mum a cheesy grin and she shook her head and laughed. Jasper had finally started to eat and I was glad that he had quickly grown accustom to the banter between my family. It had taken him a little while to settle in here, but now he regarded my house a second home, a fact of which I knew my parents were glad. They both had a natural paternal instinct, and took it upon themselves to look out for Jasper, since his own mother was so far away.

After finishing dinner and the inane conversion about each other's day that went with it, Jasper and I bid my parents goodnight and headed back upstairs for the night.

"Ya'know, I don't think we've every stayed on one topic during a dinner conversation." Jasper wondered aloud as he sat himself on the bed, ready to resume the game.

"Well, yeah, that's 'cause Alice isn't here, she never lets us stay on one topic." Jasper chuckled and agreed. Alice had decided to stay at a friends place for the weekend, much to my relief. It meant we weren't in danger of being annoyed by my younger sister, who I'm fairly sure liked Jasper just a little too much. The less time she spent around him, the better.

Oh god. I need to stop thinking like that. I'm getting jealous of my own sister for crying out loud.

Ten minutes into our resumed game, Jasper spoke, eyes still fixed forward on the tv, "Hey Edward?"

"Yeah, Jazz?"

"What was up with you today? It's not really like you to be so, I dunno, stressed looking."

I sighed but didn't respond. I didn't how to explain that he was my problem. His entire existence caused me such grief, and I didn't know how I was going to carry on pretending.

Pretending not to be utterly, and completely in love with him.

When I didn't supply a reason, Jasper paused the game and turned to me with a serious look in his eye, the kind of look that said 'don't bullshit me', and I knew I was in trouble. "Seriously Ed, talk to me."

"It's nothing, I was just tired and frustrated with my history paper," I lied, un-pausing our game, despite the fact Jasper had set down his controller on the bed. I was being stubborn and I knew it.

"Then let me help you with it, you know I'm good at history," he offered, ignoring the fact that my eyes still hadn't left the screen, where I was pretending to be severely concentrated on hunting down an enemy I'd killed multiple times before.

"It's okay, I figured it out." I said with a certain finality, trying to end this particular conversation. Jasper clearly didn't notice the hint, or if he did he kept on driving right past it.

"Ed, c'mon, it's me. If there's something going on in that crazy head of yours, you can talk to me about it."

Some restraint inside of me must have snapped with his words, because I threw down my controller, oblivious to the GAME OVER that it caused on the screen. "No, Jasper, I can't okay. I can't fucking talk to you, of all people. I wish I could, but I can't. To be honest, it's making it worst just talking about talking to you. This is just one thing I can't tell okay? That just the way it is."

Jasper visibly recoiled at my words, and I realised then that my voice had risen at more than I'd meant it to. I'd practically shouted at him. I immediately regretted it, but that didn't stop the wide-eyed look of shock on my best friend's face. Jasper hated confrontation, I knew that, and I'd yelled at him.

"E-edward, I… I'm sorry, I'm really sorry…" he apologized, despite not having done a thing wrong, his eyes falling to his hands in his lap.

"No, fuck! Jasper, I didn't mean it like that- I meant, fuck- I didn't-" I fumbled to fix the mess I'd just caused, tripped over my words in attempt to explain myself.

"It's okay, I-I get it, you don't need me to deal with whatever's going on, I was just tryna help," Jasper's voice was shaking slightly and I started to worry that I'd done more damage than I'd immediately thought, "I-I'm just gonna go take a shower."

And with that he disappeared into my bathroom, the watery redness of his blue eyes evident even in the low light of the bedroom.

I made him cry. I fucking made him cry.

The thought broke my heart clean in two, each piece decaying more as I pictured his face when I'd yelled at him. He looked scared.

What the fuck is wrong with you Cullen!?

I fist my hands my hands in my hair and pull, attempting I guess to punish myself for being such a moron. Why the fuck couldn't I just man up and tell him how I felt? That when I look at him I don't see anything else? That when I think about him I can't help but smile, no matter how shit of day I'm having? How hard would be to admit to him that when he smiles that wide, dimpled grin of his, it warms me right to my soul? That the sound of his laugh is so pure and beautiful that I could go the rest of my life without hearing another sound and be perfectly content?

But I know perfectly well why I don't tell him.

Because I'm even more selfish and cowardly than I seem. I don't tell him because if he decided he didn't want to be around me as much, I wouldn't be able to handle it. I wouldn't be able to handle him treating me differently, regarding me in a different light. Not longer just his best friend, all of a sudden his gay best friend who wants to get in his pants. I don't tell him because I don't want him to act differently around me. I'm selfish enough to not want to lose the innocent touches, the accidental brushing of skin that makes me feel as I've been struck by lightening in the best possible way. The way he curls into my embrace when the demons in his head get to be too much.

I'm honest enough to admit, at least to myself, that I don't want things to change between us, purely because of how will affect me.

Selfish, but honest. I guess that's something.

I feel the pin pricks of tears forming behind my eyes as I lie on the bed staring at the ceiling. Stupid stupid stupid. Why did I have to yell? Of all the things I could've done, why did I have to raise my voice?

I hear the shower shut off in the next room and a few minutes later and the door opens, producing a stream of light into my mostly dark room, like a lighthouse beacon shedding light on the sinking ship of my inner consciousness. I turned my head to selfishly to behold the sight that was Jasper after a shower; damp golden curls falling over his face; a light sheen on his neck from the steamy room; and, much to my dismay, sad, bloodshot eyes.

I needed to fix this, my own feelings be damned. All that mattered to me right in that moment was to make sure he was okay. It was the least I could do.

Just a friendly reminder guys, as much as I try to write, I am in my last ten weeks before my final exams for my senior yeah of high school *cries*, so I'm trying to be a good student and actually get some assignments in on time. Sigh.
So updates may be slightly few and far between, but I will do my very very best to get chapters written and posted with some regularity. Fingers crossed.

Reviews will make me feel guilty enough to make me write more ;) hint hint