..::.. Chapter 13 - Get Angry ..::..

Younger - Middle school, continuation

There's a shaking fear in my stomach. The one that's so strong I can barely function. This is how I feel every time math class comes around. I want to cry.

Jane is a bully. I haven't told Mom. I haven't told anybody. But her stares and snickers my way paralyze me. I'm stuck to my desk. The teacher sees but doesn't seem to do anything about it. No one does.

I'm alone.

Alice is in advanced math. She's the only friend I have, but she's far away.

They bully her, too, but never to her face. I'm the friend, so I'm the second choice.

My head spins. I lay it on my arm. My puffy coat works as a pillow. I never take it off. It's hard to sleep at night when all you can think of is going back to school to deal with mean girls. I don't know why, I haven't done anything to make them mad.

From my comfy elbow, I see Ben turn to me. He looks up at the clan, then he looks back at me. It's weird. He's popular. People like him a lot. He's tough, athletic, and punches kids in the nose when they start lunchroom fights with him. What they don't know is he's sweet as toffee inside. He shares his notes when I forget my notebook. He passes over a pencil wordlessly when I can't find mine in my backpack.

He does his homework. I copy the sheet before he hands it in when I don't do mine. He watches me while I scribble the answers. He never judges. And when it's extra cold out, and snow is on the ground, my legs comfortably nestle under his long warm ones during class. He doesn't mind.

I like him.

But that's just it. If I like him, it means I get enemies. He tells me through his teeth to go pounce on them or he will. I shake my head at him. He can't hit girls.

"But you can, Bella," he says.

Then, I turn my head to my right and wait for it. Every day, after the bell rings, I watch Edward pass by the door on his way to his class. He's always late.

At first, he didn't notice me. He'd pass by and never looked in. But that one day, the clan said something to me while the teacher stepped out, and the desk scraped the floor when Ben stood to stare them down, Edward looked. Now he always looks in.

They said something about Dad. Something awful. I was confused. What did Dad's job have anything to do with this?

I asked Mom when I got home, and she sighed heavily with sudden tears in her eyes. She said I'd always be around people and gossip, that Dad's work is tough and requires a lot of extra work. Being friends with the Cullen's isn't always easy.

I realized then, that I'm ridiculed for what Dad does everyday.

It's embarrassing. I get home, and I fight again with Mom. I yell at her when the badgering from others only gets worse. She shouts across the yard as I take off on my bike this time. I don't care.

I don't want this life. I didn't ask for it.

I speed across the neighborhood and find that bodega everyone goes to to buy candy and drinks. An alley beside it has a basketball court. Kids hang out before the streetlights go on. Then they all trail back home every night. I never get to come. I'm not allowed to on school nights.

I stop at the fence and try to breathe it out. Maybe wipe at tears. But I do it fast before anyone notices.

I hear laughing and snap my head to my right. My blood gets pumping, anxiety shoots through my bones thinking it's the clan again.

They aren't looking at me, and they're definitely not as prim and preppy as the girls in math class. One of them sucks on a cigarette, the other wears deep, red lipstick.

"Bella?"

I jump. I look up. The fence is between us, but sure enough, it's Edward. I can't speak.

"What are you doing here?" he asks. He comes close and sees my eyes. "Someone bothering you?" He looks around. "Tell me who, I'll kick their ass."

It's been two summers, and now he talks to me? I roll my eyes.

"Nobody. It's nothing…" I pause, "like you care."

He watches me. The girls look over. Suddenly everyone is looking over. At me? No, at Edward. Anything he does people follow. I grow red, still. I kick the bike pedal to escape.

"Is it those girls? In your class?"

I don't answer.

"You scared of them?" He insists. I cut my eyes to his.

"No," I bite. I also lie. What do you do when everyone hates you? It's terrifying.

"They're just jealous because you're pretty," he says, before he takes a puff of his cigarette. He looks older. Taller. But I've been invisible to him.

I look into his eyes. They look right back.

"You're prettier than all of them. You know that, right?" he says again. He gets close and hooks his fingers through the metal links.

I gawk.

I snap out of it and pedal away. He finds the exit to the cage and comes running.

"Hey!"

"Leave me alone," I say.

I'm jostled. The bike halts. He grabs the seat, my ass a mere inch away. I stagger and jump off when I lose balance. The bike tumbles to the ground.

"What the hell!" I yell. I push at him.

He pushes back. It's so hard I almost fall over.

My breathing is all off. The sunset is a glow over his eyes, they sparkle.

But I see red.

His family. My dad. They've all brought me trouble. Him. Ignoring me. He kissed me once, then I'm invisible? Girls talk about boys; they ask who's your first? I can't tell them, no one, that it was a boy we all hate and are scared of. A boy I stare at now and just see red.

I swing back my fist and punch him. He closed his eyes, like he waited for it.

I stand back. I'm panting. He turns his cheek and looks at me.

He says, "Good. Now harder." His fingers beckon for me to try again. I take a step back. He grabs my fist and pulls me hard toward him. "Like this. Follow through when you punch. Don't pop it; push, like there's something behind me you're trying to get to." He curls my fingers in a harder fist. He points at his cheek.

"Do it again," he says.

I shake my head. He's crazy. He's different, and he's crazy. Uncle Emmett has shown him everything.

My heart starts pumping out of fear now. I reach for the bike to run away, but he stops me.

I hiss. I let go of the handlebars to reach back at my hair where he grips it.

"Edward!" I shout. He has me firmly by the crown of my head.

"When they come at you, you take them like this." He tugs a little. "You feel that?" He wraps an arm around my chest, his mouth by my ear.

Tears spill down my cheeks.

"You cry later. Not now, Bella, later. Kick my ass first." He shakes me. "Get angry."

I am. I'm getting really pissed.

I elbow him in the rib and stomp on his foot with all my might. He groans and loses his grip. I shake him off.

His eyes kind of grow big before I punch him again. This time, a fire in me. I see that spot behind him, and I aim for that. His head snaps back. I make a fist again. He stops it with a palm. He grabs me and pulls my arms behind my back. I struggle.

He smirks a little, looking down at me. I'm pathetically trying to pull away. He spits on the ground to his left. Blood goes flying out of his lips.

"Good. Just like that," he says. I'm breathing hard. Every puff through my flared nostrils. We stare at one another.

Woots and hollering. The girls were watching. They clap where they sit. "Yeah! Kick his ass!" one of them says.

I push him away. I'm on my bike and pedaling away with all my strength.

Then, when I'm in class and Ben's eyes are angry again, I know it's a different day. It feels different.

The teacher is at his desk. The class is doing a test, and the girls are writing notes on paper they rumple up and throw my way. Ben is the one who reads them. I get that fire in me again when I catch a word over his shoulder.

Criminal.

I stand on my chair and then my desk. Everyone looks up as I make my way down the line of tabletops. It's quick. I never slip.

I swing back and punch one on her lip from above. I have the other's pretty hair mopping the class floor in no time. She screams and thrashes. Her skirt goes up to her waist. The roar of the classroom booms, but I don't hear them. I hear a swish, swish, swish in my ears and her screams as I make my way out to the hallway, her thick blonde locks in my fist.

One hop over her waist and I have her pinned. I don't stop until someone pulls me off. Crowds of people are all around.

"You don't say shit about my father, you bitch!" I scream.

The teacher grabs me and takes me away, concern in his eyes as he pats my back softly. A good student never reacts this way.

Then, I go home and cry my eyes out. I guess silent anger really is the explosive and the deadly kind. That's what Mom says as she hugs me.

All I remember are Edward's eyes, him standing down the hallway, witnessing everything. Knowing I definitely went farther than what he taught me.

I did too much.

The next day, Vick and Bree in red lips let me sit at their lunch table, because all anyone can do is stare.

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