Author's Note: I reread a lot of passages from Twilight to prepare for this chapter. You'll notice I pull direct quotes, often putting them in slightly different contexts based on my version of characters and events. I tried to stick fairly closely to chronological order, but I didn't get too hung up on it, so don't be surprised if there are a few inconsistences related to book/movie sequence.
Part 2.
I don't like your little games
Don't like your tilted stage
The role you made me play of the fool
No, I don't like you
I don't like your perfect crime
How you laugh when you lie
The next day, Bella conjures all of her courage before heading into the biology classroom, determined to persuade the teacher to put her somewhere anywhere else other than next to Edward. Entering the room, she quickly observes the empty desk where a repulsed Edward had sat the previous day. Her resolve dissolves in an instant, and she is flooded with relief that she can avoid confrontation for today.
And the next day. And the next. Until the week has passed, Friday has arrived, and still no sign of Edward. Each day, Bella watches the Cullen lunch table like a hawk, nervously anticipating Edward's arrival. Every new day brings empty chairs filled by the ghost of Edward.
And every day, the weight on Bella's shoulders lessens and the pit in her stomach grows smaller. Maybe it was all in her head. Maybe she imagined Edward's very existence.
But she is hit with the hard truth of reality when lunch time rolls around on Monday afternoon. She physically feels the breath knocked out of her lungs when, during her usual surveillance, she spots Edward sitting next to his four siblings, the group of them looking like a picturesque cafeteria Da Vinci painting.
"Bella, are you okay?" Angela whispers. Only she has noticed the sudden shift in Bella's demeanor, how Bella is clasping her clammy palms together anxiously. On the other side of what has become her typical lunch table, Jessica chats Mike's ear off about an upcoming dance. On her other side, Eric chats to anyone who will listen about his beach trip, once again.
"I'm –" Bella loses track of her thought when, mid-way through her planned response, I'm fine, Edward looks up, right at her, expectantly, as if he is waiting for an answer to Angela's question as well. It's uncanny and makes Bella feel like he's somehow able to eavesdrop on her from across the lunchroom.
"—fine." Bella finishes, looking boldly at Edward instead of Angela, almost in a challenge, a way to say to him: you can't intimidate me a second time. I am fine.
Edward looks away, but Bella swears she sees a small, smirk on his face.
Later, she does her best to waltz carefreely into her biology class. She'd devised a plan in her earlier English class. She hadn't been paying attention because they were popcorn reading Romeo and Juliet, something she'd studied back in her freshman year. The plan: appear nonchalant and uninterested when encountering Edward one-on-one for the first time in a week. She would give no outward appearance that he'd been her newfound obsession.
At first she is surprised to see an empty desk, thinking that her internal pep talk might've been overkill. She sits down, looking hesitantly at the door, waiting to see if Edward will appear.
Appear he does, just before the bell rings. They make eye contact and Edward walks over so gracefully it's as if he's gliding. She turns to look at him as he smoothly slides into the seat next to her. Up close, Edward is somehow even more breathtakingly beautiful. "Hot" wouldn't do his looks justice. It's unhuman how attractive he is to the point that it's addicting to look at him, and she can't seem to stop herself from staring.
He looks back at her with a polite and welcoming expression, the direct opposite of his vibe the week prior. His hands are folded tightly together on the top of the desk, though, betraying his façade of at ease pleasantry as he says, "Hello. I don't think we got the chance to introduce ourselves last week. Bella is it? I'm Edward. Welcome to Forks."
Bella responds nervously and reactively with the first unfiltered thought that enters her head. "How do you know my name is Bella?" The question comes off more accusatory and defensive than she intends it, but she genuinely is curious—she's had to correct everyone else multiple times to call her Bella, not Isabella, like Charlie's apparently been telling everyone in town.
Edward's marble forehand manages to furrow. "Your name is Bella, isn't it?"
"You're not supposed to answer a question with a question." Bella retorts stubbornly.
Their conversation is cut short by their teacher starting class, explaining today's lab. Thank god partner-work arrived on a day with the nicer Edward 2.0. They get along just fine at the start—she and Edward both show off their science knowledge; Bella, because she'd already done this lab last year, Edward, presumably because he's brilliant as he is good-looking.
Another weird, tense moment arrives between the two of them when their hands brush each other's as they pass the slide for the microscope. Edward's hand is freezing and sends a shock through her fingers all the way up her arm. She flinches reflexively, pulling her hand away from Edward's. Edward responds with a quick apology but no explanation, moving on to the next lab step without further comment. She sits next to him, mystified.
It is with this general confusion and curiosity that she questions him on something she'd noticed in her earlier round of staring at him when he'd arrived. Something that was different about him puzzled her, and she couldn't make sense of it no matter how many times she'd tried in the last several minutes.
"Did you get contacts?"
Edward looks up from the microscope with a questioning look on his face. "What do you mean, contacts?"
"Your eyes—" Bella replies, "I could swear they were different last week." In fact, Bella is confident that his piercing eyes were black the last time they'd met hers with fiery hatred beaming at her. Now, they are a warm honey gold, eyes you could get lost in.
"Oh. No. It's nothing." Edward shrugs, as if conveying nonchalance, but again, he is betrayed by his quick response, and how he was in a rush, eager to brush over yet another perplexing exchange between the two of them.
By the end of the class period, Edward is ready to attempt small talk with her again after they finished the lab in cooperative silence.
"So, Bella—not Isabella—why did you come to Forks?"
Bella is surprised by the return of the demanding interviewing she'd experienced on the first day with Jessica, Mike, and the others. She is surprised especially that Edward—who has been aloof at best and actively antagonistic at worst—is now, out of the blue, interested in knowing more about her. The direct questions also strikes a nerve in her. Not that Edward can know, but it reminds her of the reason—her troubled past—that she very much wants to keep private, especially from someone like Edward.
"It's not really an interested story. I lived with my mom in Arizona, and now I live here with my dad in cold, wet Forks." A note of glum enters her voice by the end of her evasive, vague backstory.
"But you don't seem happy about it?" Edward asks.
Feeling too seen by this strange person, Bella blurts out obstinately, "How I feel isn't really any of your business."
"Of course, my mistake. Am I wrong, though?" Edward replies, moving from a sincere sounding apology to an impish remark.
"Why do you even care?"
"You're not supposed to answer a question with a question, Bella, don't you remember?"
Bella in turn responds by ignoring him, physically turning away, pointedly looking at the clock waiting for the bell to ring.
She hears Edward chuckle as he addresses the back of her head. "Am I annoying you?"
She glowers but remains steady and doesn't give him the satisfaction of a response. She is spared by the bell ringing at that moment. She hopes to be the one to get away from Edward, but he beats her to the punch, gliding out of the classroom in the blink of an eye.
And just her luck, old tried and true Mike latches onto her on the way to gym, going on about how "that Cullen guy seemed much friendlier today, what was with that?"
"That Cullen guy" doesn't leave her thoughts for the rest of the day, try as she might to focus on something else, anything else. Her absentmindedness doesn't help her during a dangerous game of dodgeball, especially given she is already physically awkward. She precedes to be nailed multiple times throughout the rounds of volley, despite Mike's best efforts to guard her as her personal defensive guard. The hits barely register, though, as her thoughts go on and on.
What could explain Edward's complete 180 in his attitude toward her? All her life, Bella has gone by unnoticed. Here, she has already had to deal with the discomfort that came with being seen by the general student popular. Edward had only made it worse by not just seeing her, but by seeming to see and hate her instantaneously. Now, he is suddenly acting interested like the rest, with weirdly personal questions? The whiplash is too much for her already fried nerves.
For better or for worse, the biology class that afternoon sets a precedence for the next couple weeks. Edward continues to chat her up each class, until either one of them balks and evades answering the other's question. After that, they sit in tense silence until the class ends. At which point, Edward delivers civil parting words along the lines of, "Bye Bella, see you tomorrow," before speeding out of the class. Bella tries to pretend to herself that she isn't anticipating these meetings more and more each day as she and Edward share bits and pieces about themselves.
Edward is the only person at the school that intrigues Bella, the one that she is drawn to. This is a new feeling for her. She'd always been more of a loner herself, not one for making or keeping close friends. Besides her relationship with her mom, she didn't really spend much time with other people. She thrives in isolation, and something about Edward suggests he had that skill as well. Even now, though she is much newer to town than he is, Bella notices she has already been incorporated as an insider in a way that the Cullens are very much still outsiders. Perhaps it is this lone wolf commonality that brings them together.
Yet Bella is inclined to think that lab partners is the deepest their relationship will go due to the way that they both keep each other at an arm's length away, not willing to part with their closely held secrets. Bella can't help but be annoyed nearly every time she talks to Edward because, one way or another, he lies or maneuvers away from the topic at hand.
Like he refused to acknowledge how he knew her name, why his eyes changed color, or why he cared to know so much about Bella. A normal person would just come out with an explanation like he'd been listening to other people talk about her, he'd been asking around about her, he was too vain to admit he had contacts, and he also felt their connection and wanted to get to know her more.
Instead, he just evades and evades and evades, an impenetrable fortress of mystery. At first, a bit of intrigue was appealing, sexy even… but only to a certain point.
Now, Edward is becoming little more than the frustrating bane of her existence. More often than she is willing to admit, Bella daydreams of getting back at Edward for all of the torment he causes her. The old Bella would've pit pocketed him, snuck into his locker, or broken into his car by now—her preferred methods for lashing out. Hoping to not break Charlie's goodwill too soon, though, Bella tries her best to resist these urges. This is difficult, however, when too often it feels like Edward is playing games with her just for his own amusement.
Case in point: one day, she is backing out of her parking spot and almost hits a car driving behind her. What can she say, she's only had the truck for a little over a month, she's a beginner driver. Looking into her rear-view mirror, though, the sight of Edward laughing at her in the distance only rubs salt in the wound of her embarrassment.
Another, even icier parking lot scene, though, cements the paradoxical closeness and distance Bella feels from Edward, bringing their dual interest and anger toward each other to even higher heights.
Bella is inspecting the newly placed snow tires on her truck, fondly making note to thank Charlie later for the thoughtful, protective gift, when she looks up to see another vehicle sliding precariously toward her exact direction. Her eyes dart around surveying the scene in a panic-induced slow motion: a group of her friends are huddled for warmth a few cars away, just starting to look in her direction with horror, alerted by the loud screeching sound of the skidding tires. Edward and his siblings are even further across the parking lot, and as per usual, Edward is staring at her—also with a terrified look.
Next, she notices nothing, her vision going black as a solid force hits her from the side, knocking her to the ground. Her head smacks the pavement unpleasantly, but not with the force of the car collision like she'd been expecting. She opens her eyes with a groan, spotting two hands reaching out across her body, stopping the van just feet away from hitting her. The hands retract once the van is stopped, and a huge dent remains in their place.
Bella looks over, in total shock, at the person who belongs to the hands—Edward. Edward who had been across the parking lot seconds before the crash. Edward who somehow used his strength to stop the van from hitting them? Her head spins and she feels woozy.
She imagines herself submerged underwater, trying to swim to the surface, as she hears garbled voices above her. Edward asking her over and over if she is okay. Her friends crying out in concern for her and Tyler, the driver of the van. Other people call out for help.
"How did you get here? How did you do that?" Bella murmurs, managing to break the surface and get out a clear thought. She grimaces after at the effort, putting a hand gingerly to her growing, pounding headache.
"I was standing right next to you, Bella. I pushed you out of the way." Edward replies plainly as if stating the obvious, but his eyes briefly flash with annoyance prompted by her questioning.
"That's not true, Edward. You were over there across the parking lot." Bella insists, weakly pointing in the direction she'd seen him in earlier.
"You hit your head pretty hard." Edward says pointedly.
Maybe it's the typical frustration that comes from talking to Edward, or maybe her emotions are heightened from the terrifying crash and potential concussion-level head injury, but Bella has a small outburst. The volume of her voice rises as she accuses Edward, "You're lying! You're always lying to me. Why won't you just tell me what happened?"
"Sshh, sshh Bella. You're in a lot pain." Edward's cool hands find hers, squeezing gently in an attempt to soothe. "The ambulance is pulling up now, don't worry. You're going to be just fine."
"I'm not going with them until you tell me what's going on." Bella returns willfully.
Edward's eyes darken, and anger erupts across his face before disappearing suddenly, replaced with a smooth mask of forced pleasantness. "If you go with the paramedics, I will explain later." He bargains with her as if she is a toddler that can be appeased with a promise of a snack later in the day.
Bella considers insisting Edward swear to her so she can hold him accountable. Deep down, however, she knows he can't be trusted; therefore, any promise of his would be meaningless. Instead, as she gets loaded into the back of the ambulance, she gets Edward's attention by grabbing his hand. "You better." She threatens in whisper, hoping to convey the message that Edward shouldn't underestimate her.
Later on, not surprising to Bella, Edward gives her non-answers only when she approaches him after being checked over by none other than Edward's equally stone-cold handsome dad, Carlisle Cullen. They both grow frustrated.
"You owe me an explanation." Bella insists.
"I don't owe you anything, Bella. I saved your life. What more do you want from me?" Edward retorts.
"I want answers! I don't understand how you saved me."
"What do you think happened?" Edward asks inquisitively.
Bella tries to play back the events in her mind, wanting to carefully choose her words to describe what is otherwise a mind-boggling story. "You were nowhere near me when the van was on its way. Somehow you were able to not only get in front of me, but you had super strength to stop the van itself. We both should've been crushed, but we weren't."
There's a long pause before Edward replies firmly. "You don't know what you're talking about. You might be imagining things because of your head injury." He then adds the cherry on the top of insults, "No one would believe that story."
"Even I can barely believe it!" Bella says, dismay adding an edge to her voice. This brings a slightly softer, more sympathetic look to Edward's face.
"Why do you even care? Just let it go, Bella." Edward pleads.
Bella regains her resolve. Her voice is firm when she replies, "I'm not going to let it go, Edward."
Bella leaves the hospital that day with a new resolution. She will find answers. She will get back at Edward. To do this? She will break into the Cullen's house.