..::.. Chapter 10 - Middle School ..::..

Younger - Middle school

The Cullen family is visiting next door. Classes ended, and that means middle school is next. Mom dreads summer days. She says I'm around the house more and I drive her nuts.

She's in curls and doing five hundred things in the kitchen, or so she says. I only see her doing one: the potato salad with her big pink curlers around her hair. Someone's wedding is today, and I have to wear that ugly dress she made me.

I slam the door from the back and hear her yelling again to stop slamming the damned door.

I see uncle Emmett and Edward in the yard. I smile instantly and hop over to watch.

His uncle is in his twenties, and if you ask me, he's a hunk. I lean on a hand, watch and sigh. Alice would be so disgusted with me. She hates when I stare too much. But look at him! His big arms and tanned skin. I love when he takes his shirt off and leaves the wife beater on, tucked inside his slacks and belt. That gold chain bright around his neck, hair slicked back. You can tell he smells nice.

He play fights with Edward every time he comes by. I've learned a few moves myself. I'd sneak into his yard and sit and watch uncle Emmett smack him around. I'd laugh hard. Edward's face would go beet red, just like it is now. But I didn't think anything of Emmett then. Now, it's like my eyes opened up from blindness. He's… dreamy.

"Gotta toughen up, Bud," he says to Edward who's in a headlock. Edward's anger won't let him think straight. He charges at him with all his strength and loses focus. That's what Emmett says after diving out of his way.

I wish he'd ask me to try that move again. I wouldn't mind getting close, but I would just about die, too.

He finishes Edward off with a push that sends him to the ground.

"Edward!" There goes his mom, and there goes uncle Emmett chuckling his way back into the house.

"Hey, where's Alice?" I shout over the fence. I watch him roll around catching his breath.

"How the hell should I know?"

"Well, you live together," I argue. He finds his feet, he looks chagrined.

"Probably getting dressed, fucking curling her hair. Who knows?" My shoulders drop. Her dress will definitely be nicer than mine. It always is. The Cullen's are 'loaded,' as people whisper around town. Her daddy gets her so many gifts.

"You wearing a dress?" Edward asks me. I roll my eyes. He smiles funny. "You should. You'll actually look like a girl for once."

I flip him off close to my chest so Mom won't see if she's watching.

"You love me, Bella. You'd wear it for me," he says.

I scoff. I'd wear it for his uncle Emmett, but I ain't telling him that.

Uncle Jasper swings open the screen door and steps out. "Well, you heard your yappin' mother. Get inside," he says, lighting a cigarette. Then he looks over at me.

I never did feel comfortable around him. I let go of the fence and play with the rose bush. I watch Edward make that gesture and uncle Jasper never fails to let him take the cigarette for as long as he can. He puffs once, twice, coughs, and gives it back. He goes inside the house.

"Isabella!" I look back. My mom this time. Except now, I tense. Not because of her yelling—I'm used to that—but it's knowing she'll come out here to fetch me and see one of the uncles. She doesn't like them. Hates the sight of them. Says they're vile and dangerous. She says this only when she's in the house and whispering. Dad always brushes her off. He doesn't say much, but she reprimands me if she sees me near them.

I look over at uncle Jasper and then at our door. I charge through the lawn quickly, but it's too late. Mom barges out and reaches for her bra pinned to a clothesline. She slaps my bum.

"Go put your dress on, we're gonna be late!"

But her voice always gets caught. I wait for it. I watch her hands go to cover her slip she wears underneath her robe. Her eyes go big looking across the yard. And his lips curl up just like Edward's when he's planning something fierce against me. That fierce always ends up hurting.

This time, she slams the door.

I get so mad, piping hot. Nobody makes my mom mad but me.

I'm angry all through the ceremony and the ride to the reception. I sit in the back of the car staring at the back of Dad's head wishing I could yell at him to defend her. Especially when uncle Jasper catches her arm and pulls her to the dance floor.

My red-faced mother in diamond earrings and a gown to match her complexion is forced to wrap her arm around his neck. He whispers things, soft things that make her dark feathered hair move by her ear. Her eyes flutter.

I hate it.

But the moment I feel fingertips underneath my hair and green eyes staring back at me, I know. I know what she feels.

Turns out, my dress was nicer than Alice's. So much so, everyone stared far too much, for far too long. So much so, Edward won't stop touching me every chance he gets. Now his touch shoots up my spine making my eyes flutter, too.

These butterflies in my stomach, but I don't show it. He gets me punch from the punch bowl. He grabs my hand and doesn't let go for all his cousins to see. And then he looks at me. We're by the bathroom where I had to go, and he waited outside the door.

He waited? My brows furrow.

What does he want?

Why is he being so weird?

I try to ask but he leans in, and he kisses me. And I'm slowly letting my eyes close, slowly puckering up to him. We pull apart and he comes right back for another.

I'm slowly thinking, who cares about uncle Emmett?

Then, the next school year, I'm invisible to him.

. .