How My Life was Ruined in 14 Days by moon.witche

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5380400/1/

Summary: Bella has a plan. It's a detailed plan for her whole life. But in her quest
for perfection, she has skipped certain high school experiences. With graduation
fast approaching, Bella concocts a new plan – a plan to lose her virginity. BxE

Day 1: In which plans are changed.

I wasn't going to let it happen to me. Nope. I was not going to be like Andy
Stitzer. I had a plan.

My best friend by elimination, Jake, had shown up at my house last night and
made me watch that awful movie. Two unscheduled hours of my life wasted on
inane dialogue and unintelligent humour. Jake knew how I felt about about
sticking to my plan. Time is limited and it is important to make sure it is spent in
the best, most profitable ways. Jake knew I didn't like spontaneity, so when he
showed up at my house last night with a DVD and an insistent attitude, I waved
Bob, my Blackberry, in his face and told him we were not hanging out until
Sunday, which was the day and time we had agreed upon at the end of our last
scheduled "hanging out." Jake ignored me, walked right in, put on the movie, and
made himself comfortable on the couch.

Jake tried to pull me down on the couch with him, but I twisted away. If I was
going to sit through this movie, I would make the minutes count by multi-tasking.
I grabbed my homework before settling in next to him. To show him I did not
appreciate him messing with my schedule, I pouted through the entire movie. I
certainly did not laugh, not even when the movie was genuinely funny. I got less
homework done than planned, and then had to explain to my Dad what Jake was
grinning about when he came home halfway into the movie. Neither instance
filled me with warm feelings for Jake.

The moment the credits were rolling I shoved Jake out the door and sent him on
his way. He waved good-naturedly at me on his way to his car while I shouted
after him that our original Sunday plans were cancelled. He just laughed, and his
carefree attitude was annoying in the extreme. If I hadn't been best friends with
Jake since we were five, I would have seriously been considering re-evaluating
our friendship

I sighed in regret over the lost evening as I shut the door. Deciding that there
wasn't any point in doing homework now, I headed up stairs to get ready for bed.
The routine was comforting; I liked getting back into my schedule after the
disrupted evening. And there was something calming about brushing my teeth. It
was a necessary yet mindless process that left my brain free to do as it wished.

Tonight, it dwelled on that stupid movie.

Andy hadn't had a plan, and he'd wasted time. Wasted it until the very mention
of sex made him feel awkward and uncomfortable. I had a plan. A plan that
included graduating in a month, going to college, and getting a job that led to a
career that would bring me financial stability. I would meet someone acceptable
around the age of twenty-five. We would fall in love, get married at twenty-eight,

and start a family at thirty. But nowhere in this plan had I factored in sex. I
hadn't even thought of it. My plan was asexual.

And if I had learned anything from Andy it was that I needed to prepare for sex. I
would need some experience before meeting the keeper man at twenty-five. My
plan would need tweaking.

I grabbed Bob immediately when I entered my room and searched through the
following month. The last month of grade twelve was full but next Sunday was
now, thanks again to Jake, conspicuously empty. I took this as a sign. The Gods
of scheduling were smiling down on me, for once, and I was not about to waste a
prime opportunity. Drawing in a deep breath I punched in one small, three letter
word that would change my life.

And so, here I was, Monday morning, and I knew I had to get to work on my
plan. I had six days to convince a male to have sex with me, and no idea how to
go about doing it. That is, I didn't have any idea how to go about convincing him,
although I didn't really have any idea how to go about doing it either. A trip to
the bookstore would definitely need to be scheduled for this week.

I'd managed to shave off some time allotted to 'shower' and 'breakfast' and was
now in class fifteen minutes earlier than planned, staring a blank piece of paper in
my English binder. My favourite pen was in my hand, and I was excited to start a
list of acceptable males. But after two minutes of nibbling on the pencap, I was
still drawing a blank.

Sure, we had cute guys, and nice guys, and even the dangerous mystery guys,
but I didn't really want any of them to see me naked. And I certainly didn't want
to see any of them naked.

I shuddered at the thought of that. I'd never seen a man naked. I wasn't sure I
wanted to. Did you have to be naked to have sex? Going over everything
mechanical detail that I had about sex in my head, I was pretty sure one didn't
have to be naked. At the very least I wouldn't have to look at a guy's...well, at
his...his thing. I could just...stare at the ceiling until it was where it was supposed
to be.

Blushing furiously, I looked back down at the blank paper on my desk. The tip of
the fountain pen just sat on the page, the dot of blue ink slowly getting larger
and larger around it.

"Oh, just write !" I immediately regretted shouting at myself. It made me feel as
if the walls were judging me.

I made my pen form the first letter that sprang to mind. And then another and
another. But before I was five letters in, I found my hand furiously scratching out
the almost-name.

"Argh!" I scratched harder and harder until I ripped a hole in the page and ruined
the one beneath it as well. My face was burning at the idea of actually asking a
person, a human, to have sex with me. The idea of opening myself up to...I
mean, the idea of leaving myself vulnerable that way...to anyone...was
repugnant, and I had no idea how other girls did this. Repeatedly.

I slammed my binder shut as people started entering the room, taking their seats
and getting ready for class. My blush deepened as I immediately became sure
that at least one of them could read my thoughts. But they all just went about
their day as normal.

As class started I found myself looking around the room, staring at the faces of
everyone, wondering. Had they had sex? When had they had sex? Why had no
one ever approached me about sex? Did they know it wasn't in my plan? If I was
sure that certain people had had sex, and certain people had not, did everyone
know that I hadn't had sex? Could you just tell by looking at someone's face?

They probably could, because I could tell just from looking at Emmett McCarty's
face that he'd had sex. The cocky grin, the mischeivous eyes, the sureness with
which he carried himself. He had definitly had sex.

Oh God. Was Dad going to be able to tell that I'd engaged in fornication?

Calm down, Bella, you're getting ahead of yourself.

I didn't even have a list yet. I flipped to a new page in the binder. I was too hung
up on the sex equals naked thing. Instead, I needed to make a list of males with
whom I thought I could spend time. Ones that weren't obnoxious or idiotic.

For a brief second I contemplated writing down Jake's name but decided against
it. He was my only real friend, and I didn't want to mess that up. It was scary
enough that I wouldn't be able to put him in my luggage when I went off to
college in September.

Ben. Ben Cheney. He was intelligent and not ugly, and I'd actually seen him read
a book. His face didn't look like someone who'd had sex and that made me feel a
little more comfortable.

Who else?

I didn't talk to any of the guys at school. I didn't really talk to anyone at school.
They were all busy having fun and I was busy with my plan.

My mortification grew as I, alphabetically, pictured all of the males in my grade.
Most of these boys had known all my life, Forks didn't have many people come
and go, and I was absolutely freaking out at the merest thought of seeing them
undressed.

With each boy I rejected I became more determined to find someone to exercise
this anxiety with. I did not want to be like this when I met someone worth seeing
naked.

My mind was so consumed with thoughts of nudity that I didn't notice the bell
ring until Emmett knocked me on the head with his backpack on the way out. I
watched him as he exited the room. He had physics next, and Mr. Zegerchuck,
the teacher, was always late.

I made a split-second decision, grabbed my things and chased after Emmett,
hyperventilating a bit because I knew I was going to make myself late for
algebra. I'd never been late for a class since...well, since moving here. It was
going to be so embarrassing, but I had to do it. For the plan.

I caught up to Emmett just as he arrived outside the classroom. As I hoped, the
door was locked and the lights were off, Mr. Zegerchuck was nowhere to be seen,
and Emmett was leaning against the lockers talking with Jasper.

Jasper Whitlock was the most promiscuous person at Forks High. He was also
known to have the dirtiest mouth of anyone who'd lived in Forks in the past
seventeen years.

I hoped this would be a normal conversation for them, the type that I usually did
my best to avoid over-hearing. Today seemed absolutely essential that I hear
everything about sex that could come out of their mouths.

"-well, she pushed me against the wall and shoved her hand down my pants."
Jasper was just finishing a sentence that did seem to be about their favourite
subject. Thank god. Hopefully I wouldn't need to be too late to class.

"Yeah, but...Lauren? Really? Isn't she kind of over-used. I mean, you don't really
know whats been there before you."

Hmm, that was interesting. I thought guys liked a girl with experience. The idea
that they might like someone who wasn't quite as experienced, intrigued me.

"Well, I didn't plunge in bare." I almost turned around a left at that piece of
imagery. I wanted information, not nightmares. "And besides," Jasper seemed a
little defensive here. "Pussy is pussy, and I haven't noticed any lasting problems."
Huh.

I took in a deep breath, turned around and raced down the hall. I glanced into my
algebra class through the window in the door. They didn't appear to be too far
into the lesson.

With my books clutched to my chest, I opened the door and scurried to my seat,
doing my best to ignore the teacher's look of astonishment.

Once seated, I surreptitiously glanced around the room to make sure no one was
looking at me. Then I flipped back to that first page in my English binder and
stared at it. The blemish that took up two pages. The scratched out name that I
couldn't even bare to think.

He had definitely had sex. And he was handsome, and nice, and the only boy to
ever make me envy the other girls. The ones that went to dances, and flirted,
and threw away all of their opportunities for growth. And the thought of him
seeing me naked wasn't awful. Although, the thought of him naked was just
as...disrupting, as any other male. I hadn't thought that I could ask him. I
thought it would have to be someone just as virginal as I was. But, if what Jasper
had said was true then...

Underneath the hole in the page I wrote down the two, useful, pieces of
information I had gotten from Jasper.

1. Experience wasn't always preferred.

2. -Puss- It was just sex. One girl was just as good as the next.

As I stared at the piece of paper, I formed a plan. A good, workable plan.

And then, of course, class slowed to a crawl and I couldn't pay attention to a
single word that was said. All I could think about was my plan. The teacher could
have been reading us next week's exam answers, and I wouldn't have noticed,
because I was too caught up in planning how I would approach him in biology.

I spent the rest of algebra and all of English lit scribbling in my binder, trying to
come up with a note I could pass him. I wrote the note again and again and
again, but nothing seemed right. No note could encompass the dire need of the
situation while still keeping the no-nonsense, business arrangement feel that I
wanted this to have. But it wasn't exactly something I could just say in the
middle of class.

Eventually, Lit ended and I had to scramble to get all my books together to get
out of the classroom.

"Bella?" Ms. Yearwood's voice stopped me as I was about to exit the room.

"Yes?" I turned and looked at her, sure she had seen my notes and was going to
ask me what was going on. I'd have to tell her the truth, and she would have to
send me to the guidance counsellor. And the counsellor would insist I not do what
I was doing and then my whole plan would be ruined. And if my plan was ruined
then I would never have sex. And when I finally met the guy I could picture
myself marrying he wouldn't want me because I was nothing but an awkward
virgin who couldn't even think the word, let alone perform the act. My favourite
teacher was going to ruin the rest of my life and then -

I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. I didn't even know what
she wanted.

"Are you feeling all right, dear? You seem a little frazzled, more so than usual."

"Ah -no, not frazzled. I'm fine...just fine." She was staring right at me. I needed
this plan, she couldn't take it away from me.

I clutched my books tighter to me, protectively.

"Well, remember that you can always come and talk to me, if you need
someone."

I nodded emphatically.

"And, try to relax at lunch, ok?" She added.

My eyes widened and a light bulb went off in my head. Lunch! Of course, that
always came before biology, it was listed right there in Bob.

"Yes. Yes, of course. Oh, thank you Ms. Yearwood!" I ran out of the classroom
and sprinted down the hallways to the cafeteria, not bothering to stop at my
locker.

And so I found myself standing at the entrance to a room full of teenagers and
food, my hair a mess, my backpack hanging off my shoulders oddly, and all of my
books in my arms, staring at a table. At his table. I stood up straight, pushed my
shoulders back and marched with purpose over to where he was sitting.

"Hello, Edward."

Edward, with his ginger hair, green eyes, and wonderfully symmetrical face,
paused in his conversation with his sister, looked up at me and smiled in
greeting.

"Bella, hey. Did we have an assignment?"

I couldn't blame him for asking, I usually spent my lunch times in the library,
unless we had a biology assignment to finish.

As I took a moment to gather my thoughts, I nodded a greeting at his black-
haired twin.

"No, we didn't. But I did have something important that I needed to ask you." I
was proud that my voice was even and business-like. As if I were selling him
something.

"May I talk to you for a moment?" He nodded and stood from the table, following
me a short distance to an empty-ish portion of the cafeteria. I looked up into his
face for a moment. Could I actually do this? I knew the words I wanted to say to
him, but could I actually make myself say them?

The plan. I always had a plan and I knew this was a good one, I knew it was the
right thing to do. I had to get over this, I didn't want to be Andy Stitzer, who
could barely think the word 'sex' at the age of forty. I didn't want to die a virgin.
And that was that.

"I was wondering if you would like to have sex with me?" He made no physical
indication of his reaction to the question, so I carried on quickly. "I was just
looking through my schedule and saw that I had Sunday evening free, around
seven o'clock?"

"What?"

Day 2: In which Edward answers my questions.

"What?"

I stared at him, unsure if he wanted me to repeat myself or if he was expressing
his disbelief at my request. Either way, I didn't think I could ask again in such a
calm voice so I stared at him, working to keep the pleasant smile on my face.
And he stared right back at me. The moment stretched out until it seemed like I
would have to kick him in the shin to get a response.

"You...you want t-to, uh, to..." He blinked a lot as he spoke, his eyes clouded
with confusion and his forehead wrinkled in thought. I sighed and accepted the
fact that I would have to help him along.

"I want us to have sex. On Sunday. Around seven. I mean, I would say right at
seven, as I do have a schedule to keep, but I'm under the impression that these
sorts of things don't always happen right when you want them to. I've made sure
I have the whole evening free in case...uh, in case we fall asleep or something."
As proud as I was of myself for not stumbling too much or blushing, I did realise I
was yammering. But I couldn't seem to make myself stop.

"I compiled a list of acceptable males and you were at the top. If the situation is
not acceptable to you, then I will simply cross your name off and move to the
next one - "

"Bella!" He sounded slightly panicked. "Let's sit down for a moment, okay?" His
fingers wrapped around my upper arm and finally the blush that I had been
holding at bay crept up on my face and I had to look down at my feet. Edward
steered us over to an empty table and sat us down.

"So, what...uh, what brought this on?" His voice didn't sound mocking or angry or
amused. He sounded curious, so I let myself hope like I'd never hoped before.

"Well, I have this plan - " I started out but he interrupted me with loud laughter.

"Bella, everyone knows you have a plan. Mr. Banner is afraid to start class even a
minute late with you sitting in the second row staring at your Blackberry. Always
ready to blame him for messing up your entire life." I could still hear the laughter
in his voice, and I thought he was exaggerating a little. I mean, just because I
got a little...flustered last year when one of our classes let out late did not mean
that I would blow a gasket at everyone. I understood that some people didn't
have the same type of plan as I did.

"Right, well, I have recently become aware that I didn't plan
for...certain...growing-up...life...uh...experiences." The blush was getting worse
and I was losing my professionalism. I had to get it back quickly or there was no
way he was going to take me seriously.

"Look, if you're not interested I completely understand. I realise this isn't the
normal way these things happen, but it's how I've chosen to do this. I don't want
fuss, or emotional entanglements, those things just change things. All I want is to
get this one, little, milestone out of the way, so that it isn't glaringly in my way
later on in life." I took a deep breath and refused to meet his gaze. I didn't want
to see what he was thinking right then.

"If your answer is no, that's fine. I can move on to the next guy on my list, and
we can forget this ever happened." Edward didn't do or say anything to show that
he had heard. All he did was let go of my arm and stare at my face. I made
myself stare right back at him. He needed to think, to know, that this was what I
wanted and that I was not going to change my mind or back out.

Finally, after a full minute of staring at one another, Edward spoke quietly.

"Bella, can I think about this for a bit?"

I pursed my lips and my fingers twitched in aggravation. I needed an answer as
soon as possible. I needed to know if this was going to happen so I could start
preparing. What if I gave him time to think and then he decided to turn me down
on Wednesday? How would I find someone in time for Sunday if I only had
Thursday and Friday to look? I was sure other people made plans, even if those
plans were only to have fun on the weekend. I certainly hadn't invented the idea
of making commitments. But, it did seem a little unfair to demand an immediate
response.

I forced myself to relax and stop twitching.

"I can give you until tomorrow. Then, if your answer is no, I will need to start
looking for the next acceptable choice." I punctuated the end of my sentence with
a sharp nod.

Edward looked down at me for another moment and I couldn't help looking back,
straight into his eyes. I desperately needed some sort of hint at what he was
thinking. He kept his face neutral; I couldn't see any reaction at all. Even his
bewilderment from earlier had dissipated. He was controlled and calm as he sat
for a moment, searching my face.

Then he nodded at me, got up and walked back over to his sister, who had been
joined by Emmett at their lunch table.

I walked briskly out of the cafeteria without looking back. I didn't care whether or
not Edward was watching me, and I certainly didn't care what he was thinking
about me.

Yesterday afternoon had been rather anticlimactic after all the stress and worry of
the morning and lunch. We had a lecture in biology. Edward and I staunchly
ignored one another as we sat a foot apart from one another. And then I had
music, my favourite subject, which flew by.

And now I was sitting in my truck on Tuesday morning, stalling. Unable to tell
which possible outcome scared me the most. If Edward said no, I would never be
able to speak with him again. If he said yes, well, I wasn't sure I'd be able to
speak to him again in that instance either. What if everything went along

swimmingly until Sunday, and then when I took off my clothes he shuddered and
ran away?

My whole body jerked when the alarm on Bob went off.

"Crap." I rubbed my hand across my eyes and forced myself to calm down. There
was no way I could let Edward see me like this. He had to believe I was perfectly
at ease with the situation or he would never say yes. And, anyway, I was
perfectly at ease with the arrangement- it was the idea of rejection that had me
frazzled.

Forcing my nervousness as far down as it would go, I grabbed my backpack, got
out of my truck and headed toward the school. From my alarm I knew I had less
than one minute before the first bell rang. That was plenty of time to take an
indirect route to class, so I aimed for one of the side entrances and didn't stop at
my locker.

Class dragged on painfully. As much as I loved English, I was once again
overcome with the fear that someone could read my mind and would know that
all of my thoughts were focused on...well, other activities. Although looking
around at everyone, the blank looks on their faces made me wonder if everyone
else was thinking about sex too.

From what I knew about teenage males, which wasn't a whole lot, they probably
were. But I didn't understand how they did it. Sit around day after day
surrounded by other people and let themselves think about sex. How could they
not be embarrassed or nervous?

Tyler Crowley stood out among the other blank faces. His glazed over eyes, his
twitching legs. He was definitely picturing girls naked.

Oh God.

"Miss Swan, is there a problem?"

The entire class looked at me, hanging halfway out of my desk, collecting all my
pens and pencils that had been knocked over.

"No. Sorry." I grimaced at the teacher and picked everything up as fast as I
could.

A horrible thought had occurred to me. Was Tyler picturing me naked? Right
now? Had he ever pictured me naked? Had any of the males ever pictured me
naked?

Statistically speaking at least one of them must have. Probably while sitting in the
same room with me. While picturing other girls naked as well.

I was sure I was lacking compared to the other girls they were picturing.

As the morning wore on, my freak outs got worse and I grew progressively more
nervous about lunchtime. I wasn't sure what I would say or how I would
approach Edward. There was no way I could walk into the cafeteria, make eye
contact with the man I had propositioned and then walk towards him.

About halfway through lit I decided to chicken out.

The second the bell rang, signalling lunch. I sprinted down the hall toward the
bathroom, once again avoiding my locker, and crashed into the pepto bismol
coloured room.

"Oh, Bella. You startled me."

I groaned in frustration. Alice, Edward's twin sister, was in the bathroom. She
was standing in front of the stalls, covered head-to-toe in a plethora of oil paints.
The colours gave her jean overalls a rainbow feel. She was holding a cup of paint
in her hand and had a paintbrush tucked behind her ear.

"Hi Alice." I didn't know what else to say to her, so the two of us stared at each
other for a minute. The silence was almost deafening. I was overcome by the
same feeling of uneasiness that I always had around her. There was something in
her impish eyes and glowing smile that made me think she knew everything
about everyone.

She showed me that smile before sauntering past me and out the door, not
another word said.

As soon as she was gone I locked myself in a stall and spent the entire lunch
period reading the notes scribbled on the walls to distract myself from thinking
about him. All of the writing was insulting and seemed to have one word in
common. A word that the world seemed to be shouting at me as I stood there, as
if they had written it just for me, in this exact moment.

Slut.

It was everywhere. It seemed to be the only word the girls of this school knew.
I'd been in this bathroom hundreds of times before and never noticed it. But now
the bathroom was yelling it at me.

I dropped my uncomfortably heavy backpack on the floor, and pulled out Bob. I
stared at my calendar, at the word that I had put in on Sunday. Did that make
me a slut? Was I any better than the girls who threw themselves at every guy
they saw for no discernible reason?

Did Edward think I was a slut?

Of course he did. I'd randomly asked him to have sex with me. How could I ever
look at him again?

I'd have to see him sooner or later. Even if I skipped biology today, and I'd never
skipped a class before, I'd have to go eventually. We had our final finals coming-
I couldn't miss class for the entire last month of school.

Breathing seemed to get harder and harder. The air in the bathroom stall was
rank and I felt faint as the sharpie marks on the wall seemed to swirl around me
until all I could see was that word.

I reached behind me and unlocked the door I was leaning against, spilling out
into the main part of the bathroom. Rushing over to the sink I quickly splashed
handfuls of cold water on my face and tried to calm down. I had to put things in
perspective.

My life wouldn't really change all that much if Edward thought poorly of me.

It would mean I'd have to talk to Ben. In fact, Ben would probably be easier to
approach about this. I was sure Ben had never pictured me naked. There
wouldn't be anything to live up to.

I groaned as I looked up into the mirror. And then I froze. Behind my pale face
and sallow brown hair, there was writing.

I turned around and looked at the outside of the bathroom stalls. Alice had
painted something on them. She had painted it backwards and at such an angle
that it could be read in any of the three mirrors in the room.

I smiled as I turned back to the mirror and read the words again.

You are beautiful.

Scrawled out in bright red. Positioned purposely to be seen by everyone who
came in here.

Alice wanted everyone to read it, to believe it.

With that thought I grabbed my bag up off the ground and walked towards the
cafeteria.

It was just as loud and crowded as yesterday but I didn't notice. I only saw one
table and I marched over to it.

"Alice. Hi! Will Edward be joining you today; I have something I need to discuss
with him?" Alice looked up from the salad she was artistically arranging in front of
her.

"Edward? Oh, he's sitting over there with the boys." Alice gestured behind me
and I glanced over.

Oh no. Edward was sitting with Emmett and Jasper.

Was he, even now, telling them what a brazen hussy I was?

Was he telling them that he would be able to report back on seeing me naked?
Telling everyone how I compared to what they had been picturing?

"You're welcome to sit down if you like, he usually makes an appearance
sometime during lunch." Alice scooched so I could sit next to her.

"Nice salad," I said as I sat down. She was digging into her salad with a gusto I
wouldn't have thought her tiny frame capable of.

"Thanks." Alice mumbled around a mouthful of carrot and lettuce.

I felt a little ashamed to be eating a plain peanut butter and jam sandwich on
white bread.

We sat beside each other in comfortable silence enjoying our food. I liked that
Alice didn't demand conversation, she was happy living her own world, as was I.
Although her gaze did seem solely focused on the table she had gestured to
earlier. Not that mine wasn't. Her regard surprised me, though. I figured it wasn't
her brother who was keeping her attention.

"I'll see you later, Bella," Alice sighed out in a ragged voice, and got up from the
table abruptly. I looked over at the table and saw that someone else had joined
the boys. Rosalie, a beautiful girl from the class below us, had draped herself all
over Jasper.

She was sitting is his lap, her arms wrapped around him, and her lips were
bestowing kisses all along his neck. And yet, there was something about her that
made it clear that her attention wasn't on Jasper at all, and that Jasper knew it.

I watched their odd interaction until the bell rang. Rosalie and Jasper put on their
show while the other two boys pointedly ignored them. Perhaps this was normal
behaviour for Jasper? To have random girls come up to him and throw
themselves at him? He did seem to accept any opportunity that came along for
physical relations.

I watched them all leave on their way to class before it dawned on me that I had
to be in class as well, and that I hadn't gotten a chance to speak with Edward.
This meant that we would have to sit through all of biology with the dark cloud of
unfinished business between us. I hated unfinished business.

The biology room was on the other side of the school, and as we hadn't had any
homework yesterday, I couldn't put off stopping at my locker any longer. I had to
jog through the hallways.

The classroom was dark and smelled of formaldehyde, and everything seemed to
be situated sideways to every other classroom in the school. The room was wide
instead of long and the orientation made it feel small and crowded.

I walked in briskly, rushing to sit at my table. With Edward already sitting on his
side of the table, it was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life.

I sat, stiff as a board, on the stool without looking over at him, arranged my
binder and text book at perfectly square angles in front of me and then stared at
the front of the room.

Mr. Banner started the class right on time with a cursory glance in my direction. I
kept my eyes focused on him and made my hand take notes based on the words
that he was saying, yet all of my attention was aimed at Edward.

About halfway into class I heard a rustling come from beside me and as much as
I tried not to, I looked toward the sound.

Edward had passed me a note.

I had never made myself available to rejection before, and I didn't like the
sensation at all. Edward held all the power over my plan at the moment. I may
have decided I didn't care what he thought of me, but I still didn't like the idea of
him being in charge. My life was supposed to go according to my plan, and my
plan was that he said yes and we worked together to complete this stage of my
life.

I pursed my lips and sat up straighter. I pasted on my business face reached out
with a steady hand and took the little piece of paper.

The moment I flipped it over I heard more rustling. Glancing over revealed his
hand retreating from another note. I picked that one up and looked at it beside
the first note.

The first note held one simple word and I clutched it to my chest as I read the
second one. There was a sentence on the second one, a short sentence but I felt
the need to read it over and over again.

I looked back at the first note, unable to stop my smile as I re-read the "yes"
Edward had scrawled almost illegibly. To me it looked like the most beautiful
handwriting in the world. It was proof that my plan was a good idea, and it meant
that I wouldn't have to ask anyone else to have sex with me.

Especially not Ben. The thought of asking him made me shudder. He may have
been the safe option but sex was the very last thing on my mind when I looked at
him.

The second note was a little worrying and I looked up to Edward's face as I read
it for umpteenth time.

He was staring at me with a neutral expression. I stared back for a moment,
looked down and read the words one more time.

I have a stipulation.

I nodded hesitantly at him. I would accept his stipulation, for now anyway,
because I couldn't imagine asking anyone else. I wanted it to be Edward.

And I needed everything to be ready for Sunday. Who knew when I would next
be free for sex?

I smiled slightly as we went back to pretending to pay attention.

After that, class flew by. My day went back to normal. My week was scheduled
and all was right in the world.

I nearly skipped out to my truck at the end of the day.

"Bella!" I heard my name bellowed across the parking lot as my hand gripped the
door handle. Turning around, I could see Edward jogging across the cement in
my direction.

Now that everything was set for Sunday I found that all my anxiety towards
Edward had dispersed. He was the same as any other part of my schedule, like
cooking dinner or cleaning my room.

"Edward, I was just leaving." I smiled politely at him as he came to a stop in front
of me.

"You didn't want to talk or anything?" He sounded confused. And there was
something else in his voice. I couldn't figure out what it was but I didn't like it.

"No. Why would we need to talk?" As far as I was concerned, we would see each
other on Sunday at the appointed place and time.

Oh. We had to decide on a place. That made sense.

"I was going to suggest we meet at your place because my father is usually home
Sunday evenings and I don't want to do this with him in the house."

Edward stared at me without saying a word. I hoped this wasn't how all of our
conversations were going to go. He had an uncanny ability at forcing me to
ramble. And I didn't like rambling.

But my rambling wouldn't stop.

"Charlie wouldn't want to be there anyway. I'm sure he likes to be one of those
involved fathers, but not that involved. Also it's going to be hard enough to take
my clothes off in front of you, I'm sure it would be impossible in front of Charlie."

More staring and, possibly, the beginnings of a smile. He was laughing at me.

"I don't see what is so funny, I'm just trying to be practi-"

"Bella," He interrupted me. He was definitely smiling in a mocking manner now.

"I had a stipulation, remember?" He sounded so patronising. He was definitely
teasing me.

"Oh."I had forgotten about that. "Well, this is, for lack of a better word, a
business arrangement and I suppose it makes sense for you to have your say in
the agreement."

"Do you want to write up a contract?"

I glared at him and waited for the stipulation.

He gave me that infuriating smile again.

"I want us to go out on a date. Thursday night. Around seven o'clock."

I gaped at him. He couldn't do this to my schedule.

"That doesn't work for me." My tone made it clear that there would be no
argument on this subject.

"Really? The whole thing's off then. See ya around, Bella." Edward called the last
part over his shoulder as he started to walk away.

I had only a second to make a decision. As much as I hated changing my plans, I
could not go through another day like today.

I could not ask anyone else to have sex with me.

"Wait!"

Thankfully, he stopped. He turned toward me and raised his eyebrows, making it
clear that I would have to walk to him.

"Why can't we talk about this? I'm sure there's a time that works for both of us."
I sounded a little panicky and took some deep breaths as I pulled Bob out of my
bag.

"Well, we didn't talk about what date and time you decided on, so, no. No talking.
Thursday at seven or we call the whole thing off."

I looked at Bob's calendar. Sure, there wasn't anything too important, but it was
the principle of the thing. I didn't like changing my schedule. And I knew that
Edward was like the rest of the teenage population. Plan-less and fancy-free. He
didn't have a schedule to stick to. He was doing this to mock my schedule.

To mock my schedule was to mock me, and I bristled.

"What have you got on Thursday that's so important?"

"I have homework and violin practise and-"

"You play the violin?"

"Yes, I-Look, that's hardly the point."

He was making me so frustrated. Why didn't he get that I had plans, and that we
needed to talk about this and look over my schedule and compare and contrast
what could and what couldn't be dropped.

"This is why I stay out of relationships!" I growled at his smirking face. "They
interfere. I just want to do this one little thing on Sunday, and you're trying to
make it this big deal-"

"You're being a bit of a hypocrite aren't you? You can demand a time and place
but I can't?" He was still smirking. "I stand by what I said. We either go out,
Thursday evening at seven, or the whole thing is off and you can go ask the next
person on your list."

I sighed and looked around the parking lot. Alice was standing by Edward's car
looking in our direction. So were many other students.

And that was the crux of the problem. I didn't want to ask anyone else. I didn't
want anyone else to know at all.

"Fine. Thursday. Seven o'clock." I made the adjustments in Bob as I spoke.

"Wonderful." A glowing smile spread across Edward's face, and he no longer
looked mocking at all.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Bella."

And then he was gone. I made sure not to watch him walk away.

I walked slowly back to my truck thinking about my plans for the evening. Normal
plans of cooking dinner, homework, and a little indulgent web surfing. I had made
these plans before making this week all about Sunday. This week's plans were all
askew from the ultimate goal of the week. I needed sex plans. And as I had been
forced to change one night's plans in name of the Ultimate Goal, it made sense to
change more.

In less than a minute Bob was safely back in my bag and I was on the road to
Port Angeles and the book store.

I was just hoping they would have the book I wanted.

I plugged my flash-drive into the truck's stereo and it automatically picked up
where it had left off on Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor. I turned up the
volume and let the music take me all the way to Port Angeles.

It took me a little over an hour to get to the bookstore, twenty minutes before it
closed.

As I walked up to the main entrance, I decided that there was nothing, absolutely
nothing, to be embarrassed about. I would go in, grab a book about sex, pay,
and then leave.

Without making eye contact with anyone.

Ever again in my entire life.

The books on sex were surprisingly easy to find. It was a small bookstore that
sold candles and stones and a lot of books on spirituality and "finding yourself."
I'd been afraid that the whole trip would be a waste of gas and time. But
apparently these people thought you need sex, a lot of sex, to truly become
yourself.

Not only were the books easy to find, but there were a lot of them. After pulling
out and examining the covers of the first five books, the entire section started to
blur together. I started pulling out books at random, and not remembering the

ones I had already looked at and rejected. And I'm sure that man in the corner
was staring at me with lascivious thoughts. I could see it in his eyes.

Tearing my eyes away from him, I realised I had been holding a book called Lube
Jobs: A Woman's Guide to Great Maintenance Sex, for the past five minutes. I
shoved it back on the shelf, not even looking for a hole in the tightly packed
books.

Taking a step back my eye was caught by a mash of colours on the third row. It
looked familiar and safe. And I knew exactly what to expect from it.

I grabbed the last copy and bolted up to the cash desk, looking anywhere but at
another human being.

I ruffled through my bag more than necessary to find my wallet and kept my
eyes down as the chipper woman behind the desk rang up the sale. I was never
going to be able to come back here.

Back in the truck I took a cursory glance at the table of contents and found a few
chapters that were exactly what I was looking for.

Sex for Dummies was definitely going to be the best book I read this year.

Day 3: In Which Edward Drinks Orange Juice

Lunch time was fast becoming the milestone of my day. Before it, there was no
Edward. After, there was an abundance of Edward.

"Hi, Alice."

Alice was sitting alone at the same table as yesterday, pulling vegetable after
vegetable out of her bag and arranging them on the deep red plate in front of
her.

"Hey, Bella." She cast me a curious glance as I sat down beside her. "Are you
looking for Edward again?"

"What?" Had she noticed something? "Why would you ask that?"

"Well you didn't get a chance to talk to him yesterday, did you?" She didn't seem
to be implying anything.

"Right. Yes. I am waiting to have a word with Edward. Do you know where he is?"

"In line." Alice vaguely gestured toward the line of people paying for food and
then went back to arranging her vegetables.

"Why do you do that? Make your food all pretty before eating it?"

Alice's shoulders hunched and she visibly bristled.

"First of all, it's not pretty. Real art is never pretty. And secondly, I like the
colours and I like to make every part of my day inspiring." She turned her intense
stare on me and I flinched away. "The real question is, why don't you care what
your food looks like?"

"Because it all ends up in the same place anyway. It can serve its purpose easily
when it's plain looking. I'm not going to waste my time with it." I wasn't backing
down.

"Typical," She said in exasperation, then smiled at me and her eyes took on the
impish gleam I remembered from yesterday.

"It's a shame we don't have any classes together this year. Talking with you is so
amusing." Alice turned back to her food and began to devour her vegetables, her
ire from a moment ago seeming to have disappeared.

"Hey girls." My eyes widened in terror at Edward's smooth voice. How had he
gotten over here so fast? Why hadn't I been watching him? I still needed to
prepare what I was going to say.

Every glimpse I had gotten of him today had a section of the book flash in my
mind like warning light. Danger! Danger!

Except it said: "...one out of four Americans between the ages of 15 and 55 will
catch at

least one sexually transmitted disease (STD)."

I almost blurted it at him as he sat down across from Alice and me.

"Hi." I murmured as Alice made a noise of acknowledgement around the food in
her mouth.

Edward stared at me for a moment as he twisted the lid off of a Tropicana orange
juice bottle. "What brings you to the cafeteria for the third day in a row? The
books must be missing you."

He raised the bottle to his mouth and the world shifted into slow motion. I could
see the condensation on the bottle drip down to his fingers. A trickle of juice ran
down the corner of his mouth. And then his Adam's apple bobbed as he
swallowed.

"Uh...I-" My words stuck in my throat as I unabashedly stared at him.

He lowered the bottle, still in slow motion, and grinned at me.

I looked at the table and straightened my back.

"I was thinking about what you said yesterday in the parking lot." I said in an
even voice. "And I wanted to talk with you about it."

"If you back out, I back out." Edward glanced at his sister as he spoke so, of
course, did I. She didn't seem to be paying too much attention.

"I don't want to back out. I came to a realization after we parted ways." I pulled
out Bob as I spoke and laid him on the table between us.

Edward grinned at me again.

"Oh yeah? What kind of realization?" He took another sip of the juice. I stared at
Bob.

I stared and Bob and tried to ignore the way Edward's lips moved as he continued
swallowing his orange juice.

"I realized-" It galled me to say this. "I realized that you were right. In a way."

"Oh yeah?" He said with smugness dripping from his voice.

"Yes. Your accepting of my request," I spared a glance at Alice who was now
staring across the room. "Has changed my whole week. As such, a rescheduling
was in order. There are certain things one should be responsible about in these
matters. So, I need you to meet me, " Edward raised his eyebrows at me. "I
would appreciate it if you could meet me at my truck after school."

Edward stared at me for a moment. Was he suppressing a smile? I couldn't tell. I
looked down at Bob again and punched something in on Friday.

"Alice?" Edward's voice broke the silence.

Alice was still staring off into space. I followed her gaze and once again found her
staring at Jasper and Emmett.

"Alice!"

"What?" Alice jerked around to look at Edward in disgust.

"Here," He threw his keys at her. "I'm going somewhere with Bella after school.
You can drive yourself home."

I blushed as she gave us both meaningful glances.

"Fine, but you're not allowed to get mad if I crash and destroy your precious car.
You know I don't like to drive." Alice said, as she looked back toward the table
that was of such interest to her and scowled. Rosalie had just joined the boys at
the other table, and although her hand was stroking up and down Jasper's arm,
she was staring at Emmett.

Alice gave one last look toward the other table and then got up from our table
and walked away.

"Alice?" Edward stopped her with amusement in his voice.

"What?" She looked back in exasperation.

"The keys." He glanced down pointedly at the table.

She walked back and picked them up without looking at either one of us, then
walked out of the cafeteria with an odd sway in her step, as if she wasn't sure
where the ground was.

I looked back at Edward. He had begun to eat his lunch, a normal looking
sandwich, and I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

Was that weird? Should I be able to talk to the young, attractive male I was
going to have sex with? Talking isn't necessary for sex, so I pushed the worry to
the back of my mind.

Edward brought the bottle of juice to his mouth once more, tipped his head back,
and drank.

"I gotta go." I could hear him chuckle as I bolted toward the library.

Thankfully we watched a movie in biology, so I was able to completely ignore
Edward and take notes all class. They might have even made sense.

When I exited the school after music, my last class, he was already leaning
against my truck.

"Thank you for being on time." I nodded at him and hit the unlock button on my
keys.

"You're welcome. Where are we going?" I walked around to my door and
gestured at him to get in.

"Port Angeles. I made us an appointment." I glanced over at him as he got in.

I don't know why I was reluctant to tell him where we were going. It made
perfect sense to do this.

"How long are we going to be? I do have homework and I'm sure you do as well."
Edward said as he buckled his seatbelt and rested his backpack at his feet.

"I'm not sure. I don't think it will take too long." His jaw went slack and his
mouth hung open as he gaped at me. He was clearly mocking me. Again. "Oh,
shut up. I do know that I can't always plan the exact start and end of every
appointment. I know how to adjust my schedule accordingly."

Edward reached into his bag and pulled out another bottle of orange juice. I
tightened my grip on the steering wheel and stared forward.

This was going to be a long drive.

"So," Edward spoke after twenty minutes of silence. "You play the violin?"

I chanced a glance over at him to see the expression on his face. Finding only
curiosity I brought my eyes back to the road.

"Yes, for about seven years now."

"I've never seen you play."

"Well, I don't play while walking through the hallways at school."

"I've been to the orchestra performances at school, you aren't in those." I was
surprised he had noticed at all. Could he be as curious about me as I was about
him?

"No, I'm not. I take music comprehension at school but I take private violin
lessons in Port Angeles."

"Why the violin?" I looked over at him again when he asked this. He didn't sound
just curious any more, he sounded like he was on a mission.

"Because a good quality piano wouldn't fit in the house. Why all the questions?"

A wicked grin spread across his face.

"I'm just trying to figure you out."

"You've known me for ten years."

"Exactly. We've all known you for ten years, and all anyone says about you is
that you're the one with the plan."

I smiled brightly at that.

"But I figure, there's got to be more to you than that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, why don't you play your violin at school? Why do you play in the first
place? And private lessons in Port Angeles? That's got to be expensive. The gas
for this truck would have to be astronomical. And the truck itself, how did you
afford it? Why did you get it? You don't seem like a truck type of person to me."

Edward was hunched forward in his seat, staring at me intently, as if I were
specimen he were studying under a microscope.

"First off, the truck is practical. I do a lot of driving on wet, sometimes icy, roads.
A good truck made the most sense. And secondly, it's rude to ask people about
money."

"Well, it's rude to sit in silence with a person for an hour long drive." He smirked
at me as he spoke. Despite his words he leaned back in his seat and seemed to
give up on the interrogation.

I reached into the compartment beside my seat, pulled out a flashdrive and
plugged it into the radio. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel as I
remembered what I had last been listening to.

"Interesting choice in music." Edward's voice filled me with urgency. I tightened
my fingers on the steering wheel and pushed down on the gas pedal, desperate
to get this car ride over with.

"What language is that?"

I debated answering him. The whole point of the music had been to divert his
questioning.

"Can we just stay silent for the rest of the ride?"

"What are we doing here?" I looked over at Edward, surprised at the panic in his
voice.

"I told you; I made us an appointment." He slowly turned his head away from the
window until he was look straight at me.

"Bella, I agreed to have sex with you not-"

"Exactly. And if we're going to have sex the responsible thing to do," I pulled out
my Sex for Dummies book and shoved it toward his face. "Is get you tested." He
looked at me as if I were insane.

"Bella-"

"I would volunteer to get tested myself but there really is no point." I pointed at
myself. "Virgin, remember?"

I opened my door, swung my legs out of the car, and started toward the
entryway of the clinic.

"Bella, wait!" I heard his door slam shut and hit the lock key on my remote.

"I don't see what the big deal is Edward. I just want to make sure that this will be
healthy, for both of us."

"Bella, I really don't think we should go in there."

"Edward, you're being immature about this. It isn't as if they are going to cut
anything off."

I reached the front door and yanked it open.

"Hello there and welcome to Clallam County Family Planning." The sugary sweet
voice from behind the counter forced me to a halt. The doorknob was still in my
hand and my left foot was still on the pavement. I was unable to move, either
forwards or backwards.

There were two rows of peach, ergonomic chairs resting on a grey carpet and
surrounded by walls the colour of a lime.

The woman who had greeted me looked like an aspiring nun.

"Hello. I made an appoint- Uff." Edward bumped into me from behind and I
stumbled forward toward the woman I assumed was the receptionist. Edward's
arm snaked around my waist to steady me.

"Bella, I really don't think-"

"You must be Bella. Wonderful!" The receptionist's smile got even wider. Both
Edward and I stared at her. Her glossy eyes raked over both of us, lingering on
Edward's arm which was still around my waist.

"And Edward! What a pleseant surprise!" I turned my head to look at Edward. His
eyes were wide and panicked.

"You know her?" I asked as I felt his arm tighten convulsively.

"Yes," He sounded desperate and grasping. "So I would really like it if we could
leave. Now."

"Look, just because the receptionist is a busybody neighbour or whatever doesn't
mean we are not going to be responsible about this." I tried to march off to chairs
in the waiting area but something was stopping me.

"Ummm," Gesturing with my hands I looked down at his arm pointedly.

Edward let go and looked back toward the doors where we had come in. I stared
at the walls as I walked toward the chairs. The ugly colour was mostly covered by
posters that had pictures of fetus-babies with slogans like, "I'm Pro Choice…
Choose Abstinence or Choose Life!" Or, "Why not call it a "babyectomy?"

"Bella, I don't want to be here." Edward sat down next to me, glaring at me.

I glared right back.

The clinic might have an unsettling aura about it, but I needed the services it
could provide. It was the intelligent thing, the responsible thing to do in a
situation like ours.

"Edward, this place might be a little...weird but I want to know you are in perfect
health before you, well, before we," I blushed and went through a million
different ways to finish that sentence, each more embarrassing than the last.
"Well, you know."

Edward looked down. I followed his gaze and realized he was gripping the arm of
the chair tight enough to make his knuckles turn white.

"Bella, the most important- I mean, you shouldn't even be thinking about-"

But he was cut off by a smooth

"Edward, what are you doing here? Did you need something?"

"Bella, get up and leave." He leaned and whispered into my face.

"What?"

"Just go."

The panicked look on his face almost convinced me to do as he said but then I
turned around. The man walking toward us, the man who had spoken, looked so
happy and genuine that I couldn't imagine running away from him.

Edward stood up and made to run for the door, whether or not I followed him,
when a hand clapped down on his shoulder. He paled and froze.

I took in the newcomers white lab coat, blond hair, and immaculate clothes. That
all seemed normal and lived up to my expectations of a doctor.

It wasn't until I took a good look at the doctor's face that I started to have
misgivings. It looked awfully familiar, as if I had spent hours studying one similar.

"So, Edward, what are you doing here," The Doctor looked over at me. "And who
is this?"

"Dad, uh...I'm...uh. Well, we were just-"

Once when I was six years old, before I had my plan and understood what could
upset it, I tried to steal a chocolate bar from the local corner store. It seemed
very easy to slip it into my pocket and walk toward the exit without looking at the
person behind the counter. But just as I was stepping over the threshold a hand
came down on my shoulder and stopped me. I knew I had been caught. I had felt
a rushing sensation throughout my entire body and a wave of nausea had
overcome me.

I felt exactly the same way as I stared at the blonde Doctor. Like a child caught
stealing candy. Frozen and nauseous. I was glad I was sitting down.

I saw Edward take a deep breathe and visibly calmed himself, while my mind was
running a mile a minute.

The computer would say what the appointment was for. I had specified. All
Doctor Cullen would have to do is look and he would know that I wanted to have
sex with his son.

Edward and his father stared at one another.

"We were just leaving." An arm, presumably Edward's, gripped my elbow and
forced me out of my chair.

My walking abilities were ruined and I relied completely on Edward to steer me
out of there.

"Edward?" We both froze and turned toward the doctor in slow motion.

"Yes?"

Doctor Cullen looked back and forth between the two of us.

"I'll talk to you at home." He raised his eyebrows at us, pointedly. Edward gave a
stiff nod.

"Come on, Bella." Edward returned to dragging me out of the place. I stared back
at Dr. Cullen and stumbled over my own feet as we walked. It looked as if he was
suppressing a smile.

Edward stopped when we reached the parking lot and turned to look at me, still
gripping my arm.

"Bella, why did you bring me here?"

"I didn't know you're father worked here. How was I supposed to know? Why
didn't you say anything? That was the mortifying experience of my life!"

"Of your life? I'm going to have to talk with him when he gets home. I live with
the man you wanted to have test me for STDs." He was almost yelling at me. I
had never seen him angry before.

" Look, you've had sex before, right?" He paused a moment before nodding.
"Right, well, my book," I reached into my backpack and pulled out Sex for
Dummies and waved it around. "Says that one should always make sure both
partners are, you know, healthy." I stared at him, daring him to disagree with
me.

"Bella," He moved his hand from where it gripped my arm up to my chin and
tilted my head up to look at him. "The first thing you should have between two
people who are going to have sex is trust. So, I'm going to tell you that I am
perfectly healthy. No diseases of any kind. And you are going to trust me or we
aren't going to have sex."

His head was tilted down to me and his hand was holding my chin up so that I
had to stare at him. I reached up and ripped his hand away from me.

"Fine. I'll...trust you."

"Alright." He nodded and walked off toward the truck. "Then let's get out of here,
it creeps me out thinking of what my dad does for a living."

He didn't seem to notice or care that I had said I would trust him. I didn't trust
my father to wash the dishes after dinner.

The beep from disabling the car alarm reached my ears before I realized I'd
pulled my keys. Edward was in his seat and buckling his belt before I even
reached my door.

Edward fiddled with his bag for a minute as I sat in my seat and stared at him.
Nothing seemed to have changed for him.

"I-I said I trust you."

He looked over at me as he pulled something from his bag.

"I heard you."

And then he took a sip from his orange juice and I drove us home.

It wasn't until I was lying in bed alone later that night that it occurred to me that
Edward must trust me as well.

Day 4: In which more than one date is Ruined.

"So, where are we going tonight?"

"What? What do you mean?" Frustration was clear in his voice as he looked up at
me from his biology assignment.

"On our, you know, date." I whispered the last word while looking around to
make sure everyone else was working on their lab.

Sometime while lying in bed last night panic had set in. I didn't know where we
were going, how long we were going to be there, what I should wear. Worst of
all, I didn't know what we were going to talk about. There was no plan, no
outline. No guide for date conversation.

For one horrible minute around one in the morning I contemplated downloading
an illegal copy of Dating for Dummies. Instead, I went to my closet. My perfectly
organized closet quickly became a mountain of rejection on my bed. And, as I
had feared, there was nothing in there that resembled anything a teenager would
wear on a date.

"I thought we would go to Li's." Edward had looked back down at his biology work
and answered almost as an afterthought.

"The Chinese place?"

"Mmhmm." He was almost completely ignoring me now.

Now I really didn't know what to wear. The last time I had been to Li's I'd worn
my PJ pants and an old t-shirt. It had been in the middle of studying for the SATs
and my dad had dragged me out of the house. He thought five days was too long
to spend in my bedroom studying.

I had clothes for school, clothes for home, clothes for potential meetings and
interviews. I did not have date clothes, or even hang-out clothes.

I looked back over at Edward with the intention of gleaning more date
information from him. His forehead was creased and he was absent-mindedly
running his pen up and down the side of his face. It didn't look as if he had even
started the lab assignment that was due shortly.

"Do you need help?"

He looked over, stunned at the offer. I hadn't ever offered him my help before.

"I mean, I'm done with mine and you seem to be struggling. If you don't want
my help that's fine. I was just...just...you know, trying to be, uh...friendly." He
smiled at me and even though I'd seen the smile more than usual in the past few
days, it still caught me off guard.

"Sure, I could use some help."

He moved his books into the middle of the table and we scooted our stools in
towards each other. I looked over his work and discovered he had only been
stuck on one part. After I walked him through the problem, I expected him to
move his stool back to his side of the table. He didn't. I didn't move either, and
we were so close his arm brushed mine as he wrote in his lab notebook. Time
seemed to slow and everything came into sharper focus. I opened my mouth to
say something, and found I had no idea what I was going to say.

Then the bell rang. The bell and I had always been friends. We both stuck to a
schedule. But when it rang today, all it did was separate Edward and me, and I
hated that bell.

As soon as I was out in the hallway, I remembered my clothing problem. And
panic set in once again.

My room was a disaster. A hurricane had blown through, that was the only
explanation. There was no possible way that I had caused this destruction. If I let
myself entertain the idea that I had done this, I was sure the world would end.

The good news was, I was dressed in some odd combination of school clothes and
professional clothes that didn't quite make date clothes, but I was pretty sure
qualified as hang-out clothes.

Jeans and a nice shirt were better than a pencil skirt, right?

The bad news was I couldn't find Bob.

"Bob? Oh, Boooooooob?" We had never been separated before.

There was no other choice but to chuck all the clothing that was on my bed onto
the floor. And if he wasn't under that, then I would have to chuck all the clothing
that was on the desk onto the bed.

I started throwing things around.

"Bella?"

"What?" I growled at the voice that had come from the door before turning to see
Charlie looking bewildered.

"What's going on?" I was pretty sure he had never seen my room even slightly
messy before, and now it looked as if my closet had vomited and then exploded.

"I'm looking for Bob. I've misplaced him." This didn't help with the bewilderment.

"You've lost Bob?"

"No, I haven't lost him. He's in here," I madly gestured at the mess.
"Somewhere."

Charlie looked at me throwing things around for another minute.

"Why don't you just call him on the house phone?"

I paused before letting out a sound of frustration and stomping over to the phone
on my desk. Bob was speed dial one.

"Bella-"

"Shh. The ringer's off." We both stood perfectly still as I listened for the tell-tale
buzzing.

When I heard it coming from my bed I dived and felt my way to the source. It
was under my pillows.

"Oh, thank God." I said as I wrapped my fingers around him and brought him up
to my chin.

"Bella, what's going on?" Charlie sounded freaked out, as if he were afraid I was
hurt or sick.

"Well, Dad, I have a date." I had never said these words to anyone before and
they felt weird coming out of my mouth.

Charlie looked as if I had dropkicked him.

"What?" He said the word slowly, feeling out the letters, unsure if we were still
speaking the same language.

"I have a date. And he's supposed to be here in twenty minutes."

I stared at the mess for a moment before grudgingly admitting to myself that it
would have to stay that way until I got back. I hated coming back to a messy
room.

Charlie was blocking my way out of the room.

"Who are you going out with?" His tone was completely neutral and unreadable.

"Edward Cullen." Not that there was any other Edward in town, at least not one
who was my age.

He nodded at me as if in deep thought about my answer.

"Could I get around you?"

"Hmm?" He looked up at me from his pondering. "Oh, right."

He let me out into the hallway and just as I walked into the bathroom, I heard
the doorbell ring.

"He's early." I growled before looking back at Charlie who was still staring at me
as if I wasn't his daughter. "Can you go keep him busy for a few minutes?"

"Oh, right." He turned and walked down the stairs muttering to himself.

As I was playing around with doing something with my hair a horrible thought
occurred to me.

I had sent my father to talk with Edward Cullen, the boy who had agreed to have
sex with me on Sunday.

I immediately threw a clip into my hair and raced down the stairs faster than I
ever had. I caught a glimpse of them smiling at each other in understanding, and
noticed the end of a friendly handshake before they both looked up at me.

"Edward." I glowered at him for making me rush.

"Bella." He smiled at me.

"You're early."

"I thought you liked being early?"

"No, I like being on time."

"Well, if our date starts at seven then we have to leave now to make it on time."

"We're going to Li's. It's a five minute drive."

Edward looked at me, still smiling, and held open the front door.

"Just get in the car, Bella."

"Fine." I walked towards the door. "Goodnight, Dad." I growled as I passed him.

Charlie chuckled.

"Don't be out too late." Charlie called from the door.

"Don't worry, we won't be." I glared over at the still grinning Edward as we
walked across the lawn to his car. I didn't wait to see if he'd open my door for
me, I just got in.

Edward deftly slid into his seat, started the car and pulled out of the driveway all
in one fluid motion.

The drive was so short that the silence didn't have a chance to get
uncomfortable. We were there before I had to try to talk to him. Once we had
parked, it occurred to me again that we were going to be sitting at a table
together for at least two hours and were going to have to talk about something.

The restaurant was blue. Blue carpets, blue walls, blue chairs. The tables were
probably blue too, but you couldn't tell because they were covered in layers of
thin white plastic which gave the illusion of being a nice table cloth.

Edward was the first to speak. "I thought we could get the Dim Sum, that way we
could order more of a variety."

"That seems fine."

The waiter came over and took our order. He placed a piece of paper and a pencil
down on the table and then asked if we'd like anything to drink.

"Just water for me, thank you."

"I'll have a glass of orange juice." I gaped at Edward in disbelief.

"You're having orange juice? With Chinese food?" I looked at him in disbelief.

"Yeah. I like orange juice with everything." He looked me in the eye as he said
this. I blushed and grabbed the Dim Sum list.

"What do you want to eat?"

"I'm fine with anything, get whatever you want." I took him at his word and
started marking things off.

The waiter came and picked up the sheet of paper and dropped off our drinks,
then we were left alone for some time. I had thought that Edward would talk, the
date was his idea after all, but he just sat there staring at me as I grew more and
more nervous.

"So," I trailed off, leaving the air open for him to jump in with something.

Edward stared at me, the grin now mocking me.

"Uh, so, why did you want to have this date?"

His grin widened and he looked as if he had won a contest.

"Well, two reasons. One, I've never had sex with a girl I wasn't dating." My mind
tried to conjure up all the girls Edward had dated in the past but I could only
remember Tanya, who he 'dated' in fourth grade. Which really meant that she
had demanded he give her his lunch money for chocolate milk, and he had
surprise kissed her as she was getting off the slide.

"And, two, well, I realized that I don't know you. At all."

"What do you mean? We've known each other since we were seven years old."

"Exactly. We've gone to the same school for ten years, we live in a tiny town
where everyone knows everyone but I don't know you." He tilted his head as if
getting a different look at me would reveal more of me.

I was confused by this.

"You do know me. You said so yesterday. I'm the girl with the plan, there isn't
much more to me than that."

Edward's eyes widened."I disagree with that. I think there's a lot more to you. I
think you're a bit of a mystery."

"Uh...oh?" I didn't know what to say. I didn't think there was any more to me
than that. I had a plan, I was my plan.

The waiter started dropping off our food at that point and our conversation got
choppy.

"Yes. For example, where were you?" He expected me to know exactly what he
meant. I stared at him blankly as a round bamboo container with green leaves in
it was placed in front of me.

"Uh, I was at home. And then you picked me up. And then we came here." He
was the most confusing boy.

He took a sip of his juice before answering. I looked at the pseudo-table cloth.

"I mean before you lived here with your dad. Where did live? Why did you come
here? Where's your mother?"

I looked at him blankly for a moment, while struggling to push back the
uncomfortable memories associated with my mother.

"We live in a town where everyone knows everything about everyone. But no one
really knows what happened with your mother, or if you-"

"Stop." I needed him to stop talking about her.

Edward looked at me in surprise. I opened my mouth to explain, to say
something but nothing came out. My brain shut down and my mouth flubbed
around uselessly.

Then, without another word said, I got up and walked towards the exit.

"Bella, wait!" I felt Edward's hand wrap around my arm when I was halfway to
the entrance. He forced me around to look at him.

"Bella, please don't leave. We don't have to talk about it. I just- We can talk
about something else. Anything."

I relaxed my rigid stance and nodded at him. I had overreacted and it was
childish and stupid but I couldn't help it. I hadn't expected him to ask about that,
about her, and it had caught me off guard. As we walked back to our table I
made sure to look anywhere but at him. I noticed another couple in the
restaurant.

"Isn't that Rosalie and Emmett?" Edward looked over to where I was pointing.

"Yeah, it is." His words sounded like a long suffering sigh. "Isn't that great."

We sat and he picked his juice back up.

"Well, hasn't Rosalie been hanging all over Jasper this past week?"

Edward shrugged.

"Yes and no."

I looked at him in confusion.

"She has been being overly friendly with Jasper yes, but only because Emmett
turned her down two weeks ago when she asked him out. I don't know what
they're doing here now." He sighed again, "but it's not going to be good when-
Oh, shit."

"What?" I looked at him with concern.

"My sister's here." He nodded in the direction of the entrance. "This isn't going to
be pretty."

Alice was standing near the greeter's post looking around the dining area with
hawk eyes. There was an employee standing next to her, trying to find out what
she needed. Alice was ignoring her.

It didn't take Alice long to spot them. Once she did the rest of the world was
invisible to her. She didn't notice Edward and me. She marched right over to their
table, obviously on a mission.

"Hi." Her usually perky voice was low and menacing. And for someone as cute
and petite as she was, menacing was hard to pull off.

Emmett looked up at her in surprise for a moment, before a look of resignation
came over his face.

"Hello, Alice."

Rosalie ignored her.

"What's going on?" I whispered to Edward. He glanced over at me.

"Alice has a bit of, well, a thing for Emmett. And Emmett has a thing for Rosalie."
This didn't add up.

"I thought you said he turned Rosalie down?" We were both still staring at the
silent standoff happening four tables away as we whispered to each other.

"He did, because he thinks she needs to grow up a bit. Not because he doesn't
like her, but because he doesn't like her..." He paused as he searched around for
a word. "Her pattern."

And then we were quiet as Alice spoke.

"What are you doing here with her?" Alice pointed an accusing finger at Rosalie.

"We're on a date." Emmett closed his eyes as he answered.

Alice pursed her lips and her face went white.

"What pattern?" I leaned closer to Edward while keeping my eyes on the
unfolding drama.

"Well, Rosalie's kind of a love 'em and leave 'em type. She never really dates
anyone. She just sleeps with them. But Emmett completely threw her off when he
turned her down. So, she started attacking Jasper in front of him to make him
jealous."

"Oh." The goings-on in the cafeteria were starting to make a lot more sense now.

Just then, Emmett spoke again. "Look, Alice, I think you're a great girl but-"

Alice bristled.

"You think I'm great?" She shrieked the last word. "Well, as you seem to like
vapid, petty, dumb blonds, and I don't want to be in that oh-so-exclusive group,
you can take your opinion sho-."

"What did you just say?" Rosalie stood up and glared down at the much shorter
Alice.

"This is quite entertaining." I leaned closer to Edward and turned my head to
smile at him a bit.

"It is a little, but you won't have to deal with Alice later, when she's crying and
sobbing as if the world has ended." He sounded as if this happened a lot.

"You aren't worried? Rosalie looks as if she's out for blood."

"Rosalie? Hurt Alice?" He looked as if I'd told him Forks was a major metropolis.
"No. No, I'm not worried at all."

"Does she do this often?"

"Alice throws herself into things. She never does anything halfway, so when it
doesn't go right, well, she gets very upset."

"I called you," Alice was yelling now. "A vapid, petty, dumb blond who spreads
her legs for any male who looks at her."

Rosalie made an incomprehensible screeching noise, resembling what I imagined
a banshee would sound like. She then picked up her fruity drink and dumped it
on Alice's head.

"Oh no, a drink is on me. How will I ever get it off?" I'd never heard Alice be
sarcastic before but now it was dripping off her voice. "It's too bad you're not
intelligent enough to come up with a real insult." This seemed to be a signal to
Edward as he stood up and walked over to them.

Rosalie seemed to take this as a challenge.

"You short, jealous little bitch." The insult didn't seem to have the desired effect.

Alice laughed at her and restaurant employees started to surround them.

Sensing defeat, Rosalie pulled out the big guns.

"It's not my fault if Emmett knows you're not good enough for him."

And then many things all happened at once.

Emmett stood up from his chair trying to speak but was drowned out by the war
cry that erupted from Alice's mouth as she flung herself at Rosalie. The
restaurant employees surrounded the three of them and started yelling in
Chinese. Edward waded through the horde of bystanders and clamped his arms
around Alice. He then hauled her in the general direction of our table

"We're leaving. C'mon Bella." He spoke clearly and somehow I heard him over the
din of everything else.

I picked up my bag and noticed that Edward had already thrown some cash down
on the table.

As I walked toward the exit I looked over my shoulder to see Emmett with his
arms wrapped around a shaking Rosalie.

"Why did you come here?" Edward demanded of Alice. They were standing beside
his car, facing each other.

"Because I knew he was going to be here with her and I couldn't let it happen. He
doesn't want-"

"How do you know what Emmett wants or doesn't want? You don't even have the
guts to tell him, straight out, how you feel."

Edward seemed to hit a nerve with that one.

"Shut up." The words spit out of her mouth like venom.

Edward backed off and gave up on the argument.

"Get in the car, Alice. I'm taking you home. And don't you dare get any of
Rosalie's drink on my upholstery. It's bad enough it's all over me!"

Alice reached for the door in a huff and Edward grabbed her hand to stop her
from opening it, smudging some of said drink onto the handle.

"What, Edward? I'm doing what you told me to do."

"Get in the back. In case you didn't notice, Emmett and Rosalie aren't the only
people you interrupted tonight." Alice looked back at him.

I noticed Edward didn't tell her we were on a date. Did he not want her to know?
Did he think that I didn't want her to know? Did I want her to know?

If anything, this night had illustrated how weird and confusing dating was.
Simple, no-strings attached sex was looking more and more like the right way to
go.

Alice got in the backseat as Edward walked over to me.

"Sorry, about all this. It wasn't how I imagined this night would go."

Edward was standing less than a foot from me, looking down into my face.

"How did you imagine it would go?"

He shrugged in answer, as he dug his hands into his pockets and jingled his keys.
I was glad he hadn't really answered. I wasn't sure why I'd even asked the
question.

"I'm sorry it turned out so...unusual. Although, I bet it'll be a funny story in a
year or so."

Again I nodded. And then we stopped. We stopped talking and moving and
thinking. We stood there, looking at each other. And the world seemed to shrink
away and become insignificant.

I think I stepped forward, closer to him, so that I could feel him breathe.

"Bella," I adjusted my eyes so I could watch his lips as he spoke. They were
perfect.

"About Sunday, I don't think-" His words pulled me out of my daze.

"We should go." I looked down at the ground as I walked away from Edward. I
didn't want to see the look on his face.

Sunday was a done deal. I had gone on the date. He now owed me sex. I wasn't
going to let him back out of it. We got in the car; Alice was sulky and silent in the
back. I buckled my seatbelt for the five minute ride home.

This time, in the full silence of the car, those five minutes felt like an eternity.

Day 5: In Which Sex Invades My Every Waking Thought.

My plan was awful. And I didn't know how to fix it.

The plan began at age ten. Over the years, I had, of course, tweaked the plan
here and there. Some things had felt absolute when I was twelve and then
seemed ridiculous when I was fifteen.

But I'd never knowingly constructed a poor plan, and then done nothing to
change it.

Sex was ruining my life.

"Miss Swan?"

"Bob!" The Blackberry had clattered to ground when the teacher's voice startled
me out of my nightmare visions.

Mr. Zegerchuck was standing beside my desk looking down at me. Never had I
been on the receiving end of one of those stares. Slowly, I leaned down and
picked up Bob while keeping my eyes locked on the teacher's face.

"Miss Swan, keep your phone in your bag during class or I will have to keep it for
the rest of the day."

I shoved Bob into my bag without even checking if he had been hurt.

"Do you know the answer to what I asked you?"

"No, I wasn't paying attention." It hurt it even to think the words. I had never
been caught not paying attention. Never. My face flamed red as all the horrible
consequences played out in my head.

Was Mr. Zegerchuck going to phone Charlie? Was he going to hold this against
my grade? Would my name be scratched off the acceptance list at all my
favourite colleges?

I knew sex would mess everything up.

Of course nothing happened. Mr. Zegerchuck went back to the front of the room
and forgot about the whole incident. I should have been paying attention after
that, but I kept thinking about my flawed plan. Maybe I should call this whole sex
thing off. I could have sex...later. Now wasn't the best time in my schedule.

But if not now, when? What if no one at college was as...physically...appealing as
Edward? What if I was never appealing to another man? Who would want to see
me naked, anyway? I didn't like to see me naked.

When I was late for lit because I was thinking of Edward seeing me naked and
didn't notice the bell, I began to understand the rest of the student body. There
was no way they could worry about a schedule and college and life. Sex took up
too much time and worry for any of those things to be a blip on the radar.

I did my best to focus throughout lit, but it was difficult with my mind always
straying to nudity and other things.

I wasn't going to see Edward tomorrow. If we didn't see each other today, the
next time we saw each other would be right before we took off our clothes. We
needed a plan before that. And my bad plan could be fixed; it could work if
Edward would talk to me. But, of course, he was avoiding me.

At least, I thought he was. I'd never had someone avoid me before, so it was
possible that he was just busy or something. But I saw him abruptly turn down a
hallway away from me this morning. He wasn't in the cafeteria at lunch, nor was
anyone from the debacle last night. Not having any idea where else Edward
would go, I wandered the halls aimlessly.

Recently I'd gotten in the habit of looking at every person I passed, trying to
decide what their sexual status was. Whether I was at school, walking around
town, or peering into to other cars on the highway, I needed to know who was on
what side of the sexual experience line.

Most cases were easy to tell.

Like Tyler Crowley. He had obviously had sex. The way he looked at girls, the
way he talked to them.

Eric Yorkie on the other hand. Obviously no sex there. He was afraid to even look
at girls.

Then there were people like Jared. No matter how much I observed him, no
matter what angle I looked at him from, I couldn't be sure.

Some people were perplexing.

"How is it any different from what you do to girls?" Alice's voice interrupted my
aimlessness.

The sound was coming from the dead end hallway to the music room. I paused at
the corner to listen.

"Trust me, it's different." That was Jasper. I'd never seen Alice talk to Jasper.

He turned and began walking away from her. Alice grabbed his sleeve and
yanked him back.

"It isn't. I need something, you can provide it. I'm telling you up front what the
deal is. Not helping me makes you a hypocrite. You can't say you're not attracted
to me. You'll fuck around with anything." Her voice was high and desperate.

"I don't like being used-"

"Hypocrit-"

"To get someone else's attention. Twice."

Her shoulders slumped a little.

"I fool around, sure. But I don't use girls like that. Maybe I'm a jerk to them but I
always tell them the score. I don't fuck around to make others jealous." Jasper
held up his hands in quotation marks as he imitated Alice's voice. "I'm sick of
being used to get to Emmett."

Jasper stalked off down the hallway leaving Alice standing there.

I couldn't see her face but she continued to stare at him as he walked away.

The situation made me uncomfortable and, not wanting to talk to Alice, I hurried
in the other direction, toward the science wing.

I almost ran right into Rosalie and Emmett.

They were all smiles and giggles. I'd never seen Emmett like that before. Or
Rosalie. I wouldn't have believed it possible before that moment. Giddy. They
were giddy.

I didn't like looking at them. It felt dirty somehow and I tiptoed past them briskly,
all the while wondering what kind of sex they were having.

Argh, I needed to stop thinking about sex. Was something wrong with me?
Maybe, after I had sex I would think about it less because then I would know that
it was no big deal.

The biology room was at the other end of the hall and I stared at the ground,
avoiding looking at anyone. It was early but I went in and sat in my seat anyway,
hoping to catch Edward before class. Since there was no point wasting time just
sitting there, I pulled out Bob to look over my bad plan.

There was nothing I could do to fix it until I spoke with Edward. Was this what
being in a relationship was like? How could people stand not being able to make
plans without talking to someone else?

Was all this trouble worth it to see him naked? Edward had always looked so
different from the other boys. I couldn't put my finger on what it was precisely
about him. But I remembered our eighth grade sports day, the first time I really
saw him. It was during the long distance run.

Edward was taller than most of the other boys and he crossed the finish line miles
ahead of anyone else. He was smiling as he ran. The girls had done the same run
an hour or so before and I'd nearly died from it. Edward made it look easy. After
the run, he'd walked over to the table with the drinks, and chugged down a cup
of orange juice so fast it had spilled out the edges, framing the corner of his lips.

I had wanted to lick it off him more than anything.

And now, on Sunday, I was going to see all of him.

And he was going to see me. I didn't want the sight of me to frighten him off. Or
inspire feelings of disappointment. I wanted him to feel the same about my body.
I wanted him to want to lick orange juice off me.

I looked down at my chest. My breasts were on the small side. But, according to
my book, Although small breasts may not get much recognition when you cover
them with clothes, after you uncover them in front of a man, he probably won't
care about your cup size. So, I wasn't too worried about them.

I remembered reading somewhere that most guys preferred girls who
were...uh...bare...down there. But I couldn't get that image out of my head. The
one of Steve Carrell screaming in pain, his body twisted and contorted as
nonsense spewed from his mouth.

And that was just chest hair. How would it feel to have someone rip out hair that
had never felt the touch of another human before?

Not that my chest hair had.

Not that I had chest hair.

Ugh.

"Hey." I jumped up from my stool and heard it clatter to the ground as I stared
wild-eyed at Edward who had magically appeared beside me.

"Are you okay?" He leaned down and picked up my stool.

He looked at me with concern as I swung my head around looking at all the
people in the room. When did the bell ring? Where did all these people come
from?

Edward was still staring at me. I tried to grin at him, and sat down, pulling my
books out of my bag.

"Uhhh, yeah. I'm good. You?" My voice sounded a little high pitched and panicky.
I stared at my book and forced myself to relax.

"Good."

"How's Alice?"

"She'll be fine in a couple of days."

I thought of what I'd overheard with Jasper and wondered how well Edward knew
his twin sister. Would he be this calm about the situation if he knew the lengths
she was willing to go to?

Should I tell him? Was it my responsibility?

I remembered how he'd been avoiding me all day and decided that, no, it was not
my responsibility to keep tabs on his sister for him.

Dealing with people was so difficult. There was never any moral ambiguity when
dealing with Bob.

Class started then, and after some talking about what to expect on the final exam
we were instructed to study for the rest of the class. Perfect.

"Edward?"

I looked over at him incredulously. He had pulled out his books and was studying.
He was avoiding me while sitting right next to me.

"Yes?" He raised his eyebrows at me.

"As you made no objections when I brought up doing the...uh...deed, at your
place." That was a bit of a stretch as I had been babbling at the time and didn't
give him a chance to object. But he hadn't said anything. "So, I thought I would
arrive at your place around 6:45, which would give us time to, uh, get in the
mood. And then...proceed with...the main event."

I nodded my head and smiled at Edward.

"Well, do you care if my parents are there?"

"Your parents are going to be there? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" This is why
the plan was a disaster. Sex was not happening while his parents were in the
same building.

"I never said we would be alone. In fact I never agreed to do it at my place. I just
didn't contradict you." He was still looking down at his binder, avoiding my gaze.

"Why didn't you contradict me? If it was going to be a problem, and I knew in
advance I could have made other arrangements." I yanked Bob out of my binder.
Knowing this was a bad plan, I had keyed in some alternate ideas before we
settled on his place. "Now I don't know if we'll be able to get a motel room
reserved. I guess we could find an empty house somewhere in town. Or, do you
have a problem using my truck? I know where there's an empty field." Nothing
was stopping my plan.

"Bella, calm down. I made arrangements."

This statement was so outlandish I didn't know what to do with it. But he was
finally looking at me.

"You? ...made arrangements?"

Edward smiled.

"Yes, I'll pick you up at 6:30." He turned to his book and started reading.

"No."

"What?" He looked back at me.

"No."

"Are you backing out?" Edward sounded almost triumphant.

"No." I shook my head emphatically.

"No?"

"I don't want you to pick me up. Tell me where, I'll meet you there." I could not
imagine having sex with someone, anyone, and then being in a car with them
afterward. Or being in any normal situation with them afterward.

Graduation was around the corner. I was sure Edward and I were going two
different places in life. The plan was to have sex and then never see him again.
And for that to work, I would have to drive myself home.

And then skip every biology class after that.

It wasn't the best plan ever, but it was the way it had to be.

"I want to pick you up. It's stupid to take two cars for two people. Especially in
Forks. We could probably walk." He was using logic against me. I wasn't going to
let him win.

"This isn't a date."

"What?"

"This...appointment of ours. I don't expect you to be a gentleman."

He stared at me blankly.

"Bella have you really thought about-" The bell rang, interrupting him. He shook
his head a bit.

"I'll pick you up at 6:30." And then he was gone, and my binder was still sitting
on my desk.

How did he do that? He was so fast.

The rest of the afternoon went by as normal, and it wasn't until I was walking out
to my truck that it dawned on me that I still hadn't made a decision about
whether or not I should appear bare for Edward.

Although, as I said, it wasn't a special occasion or anything. It was a business
arrangement. An exchange. I got to have my virginity taken care of and
Edward...well, Edward got to have sex with a mildly attractive female.

Wasn't that what all high school boys wanted? Sex with someone who wasn't
ugly?

Either way, I didn't need to put any extra effort into it. Edward would perform
and we would both benefit.

And hopefully he would fall asleep and I could sneak away and walk home. The
whole car situation freaked me out. What would you say to someone you just had
inside you?

Thank you, come again?

Wait...not...it would just be better to avoid the whole confrontation.

Well, I wouldn't have to worry about it until Sunday. Saturday was going to be a
normal day, my last as a virgin.

Day 6: In Which I am a Golf Goddess

I hadn't set my alarm Friday night. I couldn't say why. I always set my alarm.
Maybe it was an experiment to see what would happen.

It didn't change much.

I was still awake at 7:30, but it felt peaceful instead of jarring. There was no
scrambling around to stop the annoying noise. No two minutes and twenty-three
seconds of bringing my thoughts out of a sleepy daze. My mind was quiet and
calm and sure.

Today was my last full day as a virgin.

I had only one plan. One thing to accomplish in preparation for tomorrow. And it
required a trip to Port Angeles.

Or maybe Seattle would be better.

After three minutes of lying in bed, I couldn't take it anymore. I went downstairs
for breakfast.

I was wearing faded pink PJ bottoms with penguins all of over them and an
oversized fluorescent green t-shirt that I think used to be my Aunt Sue's. It had
the words "Goddesses in Golf" blazoned across it in yellow. My hair was a mess,
and I really needed to use the bathroom. No one ever saw me looking like this.
My dad hardly ever saw me like this. So, it's no surprise I froze, deer-in-
headlights, in the kitchen doorway when I saw Charlie and Edward drinking coffee
at the table. Both of them chatting like old friends getting reacquainted.

"Morning." Charlie smiled at me as if everything was normal.

There was this split second, this moment in time where I knew I could have
bolted. I could've fled upstairs and locked my door before Edward turned his head
in my direction and saw me. In fact, in that split second, I screamed at my feet to
obey the thought. But I was stuck. And he saw me.

He looked me up and down, raised an eyebrow at my appearance and opened his
mouth to speak.

I cut him off. "Good morning, Edward. What are you doing here?"

What was he doing here anyway?

Edward closed his mouth abruptly and considered me a moment before replying.

"I wanted your help with something today, and I came over early to catch you
before you started in on your day."

I decided to make myself a cup of coffee instead of answering right away. The
truth was, I only had that one thing to do today in Port Angeles. It was the end of
the year so we had very little homework, and I wasn't going to pull out the violin
until after dinner. The house was clean, and I had banished Jake from my
presence this weekend.

I could do something with Edward. But, it felt somehow wrong. We had a good
deal right now. He got his date, tomorrow I got my sex. No one owed anything to
anyone. Helping him with something would change that. It would change the
dynamics.

I sat down beside Charlie and sipped at my coffee. Charlie was doing his best to
pretend to read the newspaper. Edward was sitting across from me, staring at
me.

"What do you need my help with?" I crossed my legs and did my best to look
serious. The outfit was awful and I wasn't going to let it lead the conversation.

"Alice's birthday is next weekend and I need to go to Port Angeles to buy her a
present but she stole the use of the car today. And," he glanced in Charlie's
direction, "I'm busy tomorrow."

"I thought you and Alice were twins?" In fact I knew they were.

"We are, but two years ago Alice decided that she needed to cultivate her own
separate identity and announced that her birthday would be three months before
mine. She wanted to be more of an individual."

Charlie snorted at this and I could see why. She did tend to stick out in a crowd.
At least she stuck out in the type of crowd that existed here in Forks. Edward and
I stared at each other across the table as I took a long drawn out sip of my
coffee.

"Fine. I was heading into Port Angeles today anyway." And now I somehow had
to excuse myself to change and get ready without drawing attention to what I
was wearing or giving him a chance to comment on it.

"Are you okay being left alone with Dad for a few minutes?"

"Why? Don't you want everyone to know what a Golf Goddess you are?"

Well that went well.

Choosing not to answer, I smiled at him and walked slowly out of the kitchen. As
soon as I was out of eyesight, I sprinted up to my room. I opened my closet and
forced myself not to think about what I was putting on. Thinking about it meant
deciding if this was a business trip or a casual trip. Instead I dressed as I would
for school.

I took ten minutes in the bathroom, grabbed Bob from my room and ran back
downstairs. There was something almost scary about leaving Charlie and Edward
alone together. I had nightmare visions of my dad plotting with him. Plotting
about what, I wasn't sure. But those two looked as if they were giving each other
a secret handshake whenever I saw them together.

"C'mon, let's go." I ducked my head into the kitchen to make sure Edward was
following me out. I heard him bid my father farewell.

We hopped in the truck quickly as it was raining lightly. I put Bob in his
customary cup holder and stored my bag in the back seat. I pulled out of the
driveway and headed toward the highway. Edward appeared to be content to
watch the scenery.

"So, is Alice the older twin then?" I was determined to not let awkward silence
happen.

Edward chuckled.

"No, actually. I think that's one of the reasons she moved her birthday ahead of
mine. She's never forgiven me for being older and taller. She blames me for her
short stature, claiming that I forced her to be born before she was fully
developed."

I could see the smile on his face when he talked about Alice. As much as she
irritated him, he clearly enjoyed her antics. I wondered what that life would have
been like. Having someone there, going through the same things as you, having
the same parents as you. What would it have been like to grow up with someone?

"What do you want to buy for Alice?" I figured changing the subject to shopping
was the easiest way to make the weird feeling disappear.

"Probably art supplies. She always appreciates those." Edward shrugged as he
answered. "Where do you have to go?"

I fought off the blush that threatened. "The drug store."

He chuckled. "You know, Bella, we have drugstores in Forks."

"I know." We drove on in silence after that, with him smiling out the window,
watching the trees in the rain.

I could hear the swish of the windshield wipers, the pitter-patter of the rain on
the roof, and his breathing. I could see Bob in his cup holder beneath the dash
and the clouds rolling by in the sky. I smiled at how comfortable it felt. Was that
why he was smiling? Was Edward comfortable here as well?

The drive felt shorter than it ever had before and I was almost sad to see Port
Angeles.

"So, I'll drop you off at the art store and we can meet up later?"

Edward turned away from the window and looked at me as he spoke. "Why don't
we stick together? Then you don't have to be driving back and forth."

"I don't mind coming to pick you up. I like driving."

"It's a waste of gas."

He had a good point.

"Fine."

Edward directed me to the art store and we walked in together. He immediately
started examining the brushes and tubes of paint. I wandered aimlessly. The
price of little pieces of wood with bristles on the end was ridiculous. No wonder
artists were starving.

Soon enough Edward walked up to the counter to pay for one pack of brushes,
two tiny tubes and one tub of paint.

"Why so big?"

Edward stared at for a moment in confusion before I gestured toward the tub.

"Oh, it's white paint. She goes through white more than anything."

"Do you ever get her anything else, or is always art supplies?"

"Art books, sometimes," Edward shrugged. "Alice is one of those people that
never wants anything, so you can only ever get her useful things." He paused,
tilted his head and stared at me for a moment. "You're probably the same way."

I shoved my hands in my pockets and ran my fingers along Bob's buttons while
Edward made his purchases. Why was he thinking about what type of gift I would
want? I didn't want any gifts.

And then it was off to the drugstore.

Once we were there, I picked up a basket and started wandering the aisles.
Edward walked off toward cold drinks. I found what I was looking for tucked away
at the back of the stationery aisle. Which struck me as the weirdest place to put
them, but what did I know? I didn't own a drugstore.

They were all in muti-colour boxes piled on top of one another. I hadn't realized
there were going to be so many choices. There were different brands, with
different slogans, and different purposes. What should I get?

I was hoping one would say, in big bold letters, "USE ME, NO BABY!" But none of
them said that. Instead they said things like, "Ultra Ribbed" and "Pleasuremax." I
didn't care about pleasure, I didn't care how it felt. I just didn't want to get
pregnant. My plan did not allow for a baby at this point. And as the father of my
sex partner worked at the only place one could go for an exam around here, I did
not want to have anything unexpected to deal with after the...event.

I decided to grab a couple of options. One "Tingle," one "Select," one "Ultra
Ribbed." I turned to walk toward the checkout, paused and grabbed "Magnum"
large condoms...just in case.

Standing in line behind a nosy old lady who kept raising her eyebrows at me, I
didn't notice when Edward got in line behind me.

"Hey, what are you getting?"

I jumped about a mile and turned to look at him.

"Jeez, Edward. You scared me."

He was holding a bottle of orange juice in his hand, of course, and a birthday
card.

"Shit, Bella!" He was staring down at my basket.

"What?"

"What do you mean, what? Why on earth are you buying four boxes of
condoms?" His body froze after he shouted that. The old lady in front of me was
looking back at us, her arms held out as she handed her money to the cashier.
The cashier stared at us for a brief second, flabbergasted. Then she started to
giggle.

"I wasn't sure which ones you preferred, or which worked the best, so I thought I
would get a variety."

He reached into the basket and pulled out a yellow box.

"Flavoured?" Edward had given up on attempting to remain inconspicuous and
was waving the box around.

"They're not flavoured." I had not picked up flavoured condoms.

"Well, what do you think this means?" He pointed to the banana on the box.

Apparently I had picked out flavoured.

"It's called Select. I didn't think that meant flavoured. I liked the name."

"Did it ever occur to you that I might have a condom?"

"Yes, it occurred to me, but I wanted to be prepared."

"Why didn't you just ask me? You don't seem to have a problem being bold about
these things."

Hmm, why hadn't I asked him? He was right, our appointment tomorrow was too
important to the rest of my plan for me to skirt the issue. But it hadn't even
occurred to me to ask him.

"Because you went about getting the place arranged without my input so I
wanted to do this without yours." That wasn't true at all but I hoped it would put
him off that line of questioning. I couldn't think of one reason why I wouldn't
have asked him about condoms. I just didn't.

"You're holding up the line." I said to the old lady in front of me who was still
staring.

She collected herself, paid and scurried out of the store. The clerk was obviously
repressing laughter as Edward and I paid for our goods. She looked as if she were
in pain.

We were both silent as we walked back to the car.

"Did you need anything else while we're here?" I asked as I started the car.

Edward stared at me a moment and then shook his head. "No, I'm good."

I nodded and started toward the highway, noticing that this silence was much
more awkward than the one we had enjoyed on the drive down.

"So," I started talking just to fill the empty space, "what type would you prefer to
use?" As we now have options, it only made sense to go with the best one.

Edward stared at me a moment before bursting into laughter.

"What?" I swivelled my head between him and the windshield, he hunched over
and appeared to be having trouble breathing he was laughing so hard.

"This is just," he paused for a moment to laugh some more and gestured at the
air in between us. "The most ridiculous situation."

"It is not." I didn't think he'd heard me, the words were so quiet and directed at
the windshield. He stopped laughing, though and turned to face me. I didn't want
to say anything else on the matter, and he seemed nearly willing to drop it as
well.

Nearly.

"Why don't you give them to me and I'll surprise you."

I didn't understand why being prepared prompted being teased. It never had
before.

"Fine." I reached into the backseat, keeping one hand on the wheel, and tossed
the bag at him. "Surprise me." My teeth grated over the words.

The rest of the drive happened in almost complete silence. Every now and then
Edward would glance over at me and chuckle and I would tighten my fingers
around the steering wheel.

As we passed the Welcome to Forks sign, I realized I had no idea where Edward
lived.

"Turn right at the stop sign." Had he read my mind?

Now that I thought about it, how had he known where I lived? It wasn't as if he
had ever been there before this morning.

Did he look me up?

Within five minutes we were at his house and Edward was unbuckling his
seatbelt.

"Are you going to hide those?" I nodded toward the condoms.

"I'll just throw them in my room quickly." He didn't seem worried about his
parents seeing them on the way to his room. But then how would he hide them?
Boys didn't have the luxury of purses to carry things.

"Oh, okay."

Why didn't he open the door? He was just sitting there. I had nothing else to say.
Was he going to say something? He was going to back out, wasn't he? I could see
it in his eyes. He didn't want to see me naked. Who would? I probably killed any
desirability I had when I shoved four boxes of condoms in his face.

What was it the book had said?

Everyone can find a partner, even a wonderful partner. If you've been unable to
find the right partner, you may just be going about it the wrong way.

Was I going about it the wrong way? How else does one go about it?

Edward sighed and shook his head.

"Why don't you come in for a bit?"

That wasn't what I was expecting at all.

"Uh, sure." What? I didn't want to go into his house. His family was in there. His
dad was probably in there. The dad who knew I wanted his son to defile my
virtue.

The door beside me appeared to open magically and my legs swung out to the
ground without permission from me. And then I was standing next to my truck
looking up at the most normal house I had ever seen. It probably had three
bedrooms, an office, and 1.5 bathrooms.

"C'mon." Edward's voice beckoned me towards the front door and for some
reason I listened.

"Alice!" Edward's voice boomed beside me as soon as the door was open.

"What?" Alice's voice rang out from what sounded like the basement.

"Stay where you are." Edward shouted back at her.

"Oh! You got my birthday present." Her tone was teasing, or as teasing as it
could be when shouting up a flight of stairs.

"Just stay there." He reiterated.

It had been so long since I had been to someone else's house, other than Jake's,
I was overcome with doubts and worries. Did I take my shoes off or leave them
on? If I took them off where did I put them? Edward tossed his into a closet
beside the front door, so I placed mine neatly outside of it and hoped that was
right.

"I'm just going to run up to my room, you wait here."

I had followed him into a hallway that connected all parts of the first floor of the
house. Edward jogged up the stairs beside the hallway and left me to peek
around the main level

I could hear someone moving about in the kitchen so I avoided the back of the
house. I didn't want to have to talk to either of his parents without him. There
was a small bathroom, and a dining room near the kitchen at the back of the
house. I stopped and stared at the living room. There were wide open windows, a
very comfortable looking window seat, a beautiful desk and a piano.

A grand piano.

I glanced over my shoulder and tiptoed toward the gorgeous instrument. It had
been so long since I'd touched a piano, and even then it was just the small one in
my middle school music room. I hadn't played anything.

The piano was open, the exposed keys tempting me play them.

I looked over my shoulder again. All clear. Before I could think better of it, I sat
on the bench and began to play.

My fingers were nimble from years of violin. Although I wasn't much of a pianist,
I knew the notes I was looking for. After stumbling through the opening and
playing through several mistakes, I could hear the song. It was different than
playing it on the violin—I could hear it better.

I softly sang the words as my fingers worked through the music. A noise startled
me, and the piano clanged.

"I'm sorry," I said automatically, turning to see Edward behind me. "It's such a
beautiful instrument, I should have asked permission…"

I moved to rise from the bench, but Edward approached in two quick steps and
put his hands on my shoulders. He gently pushed me back down before sitting
beside me. The bench was only but so big, and I could feel his thigh touch mine
as he started in on the harder part of "Heart and Soul."

I gulped at his proximity, but my heart was fluttering in excitement at the
opportunity to play with him. My fingers started in on melody.

"I didn't know you played."

"I'm full of surprises." He smiled at me. "I didn't know you could sing."

"I don't really. Just that one song."

Edward opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again but still didn't say
anything. The constant movement of his lips caught and held my attention. I
imagined them moving on me and had to force myself to look away. What would
he do with his lips tomorrow? What would I want him to do?

"What?" I asked, curious about what he was trying to say, and desperate to pull
my mind away from his lips.

"Well, I've never heard that song before. Where is it from?"

I flubbed my part of the song and couldn't get the rhythm back. It was a silly
song anyway.

"I'm sorry, you don't have to-"

"No, it's okay. My mom wrote the song. It was supposed to be her big break." I
sighed and looked down as I placed my hands in my lap and the music
disappeared. "One of many big breaks that she had planned. It's funny, isn't it?"

"What?" His voice was a whisper.

"How you can miss the things that were bad for you."

Edward reached his hand out to my chin to turn my face toward him. I didn't
want to look at him. I wasn't in control. This wasn't planned. I wasn't supposed to
tell him about her. But my face turned up, and I was sure he could see
everything.

"I don't want to be like her. I just like the song." I shook my head back and forth,
denying anything that he could see in my face. "I'm not like her."

"Bella, trust me," he placed his fingers on my chin and forced me to look at him.
"You are not like anyone else I've ever met. You're you" And then his hand
moved from my chin to the back of my neck and his other hand came up to my
shoulder. And then he was hugging me.

I sat there stiffly, my arms hanging loose at my side, unsure what to do. This
hadn't happened in so long. And he just held me, and then pulled back until his
face and mine were closer than two faces ever should be.

I was pretty sure he was going to kiss me. I had never kissed anyone before. I'd
forgotten to put it in my plan. But suddenly I wanted it more than anything. I
wanted him to make me forget. But I also didn't want him to kiss me. It wasn't
planned. It hadn't been agreed upon. Just sex. Not this, comfort-kissing-thing. I
didn't know what I would do with that, or what it would mean.

He moved his face even closer to mine. I sat there, beside the beautiful piano,
too terrified to move.

"Edward, are you going to introduce us?"

I'd heard that voice once before. It haunted my nightmares.

Edward sighed and leaned back. I was almost thankful to the voice for taking the
choice out of my hands. Almost.

"Dad. Yeah, sure." Edward stood and gestured toward me. "Bella this is my dad,
Dad, this is Bella. You've sort of met before."

"I remember," I whispered, as I looked anywhere but at Dr. Cullen's face.

"It's nice to meet you properly, Bella."

I could hear the smile in his voice and made myself look up at him. Apparently
smirking ran in the family. He was clearly remembering the last time we met and

thinking it was all a good joke. Turning my head to look at Edward, it was clear
the situation amused him. It was almost as if he had set this up.

"Well, I have to start dinner in twenty-eight minutes, so I'm going to head
home." Standing up from the piano bench I strode to the doorway, preparing
myself to pass Dr. Cullen. I straightened my back and pretended to take in every
detail of every knick-knack that was in the room so I didn't have to look him in
the face. Once had been enough.

"So, I'll see you tomorrow, Bella?"

Pausing, I looked back at Edward.

"I'll pick you up at 6:30?"

I turned back to Dr. Cullen. He was still smirking. He knew. He knew exactly what
Edward was talking about. And he didn't seem to care at all.

I nodded my head and ran to where I'd left my shoes. Edward walked slowly
toward the door, but I didn't want to deal with saying goodbye in close proximity.

"Thanks for letting me play your piano." And I ran out the door without even
tying my laces.

The Cullen men were weird.

Fortunately, the drive home was short and uneventful.

Unfortunately, Jake was sitting on my front steps when I pulled into the
driveway. We didn't have plans, and I couldn't fathom why he would be at my
house.

"Hey." I said as I climbed out of the truck and locked it up.

"Hey, where were you today?"

With anyone else this question would be innocent, normal even. But Jake knew
me. We'd been friends since I'd moved here to live with my dad. We'd been
forced together by our parents. He was there when I formed my plan, when
schedules became my way of doing things. He knew my schedule as well as I
knew it, and he knew that I was always home on Saturdays.

"I went to Port Angeles. I had to pick something up."

"Oh?" He looked surprised. Of course he was surprised. I should have been at
home practising my violin and doing homework, and planning next week's meals
so I could grocery shop tomorrow.

"Yes." There was nothing else I could say. I could not explain to him about the
sex plan. Even though Jake was always the one who wanted to break my plan,
who took pleasure in forcing me to do something that wasn't in my plan, I knew I
couldn't talk to him about this. He wouldn't understand.

"I brought a movie over."

I stared at him a moment and sighed.

"Alright, we can watch after dinner. Come in."

His eyes widened in surprise but he didn't say anything. I wasn't stupid though, I
knew he knew something was different.

Something was different. I had planned on violin and grocery lists after dinner.
But, somehow, I didn't mind watching a movie with Jake. I didn't feel like playing
any more music today.

Day 7: In which things change.

After Jake left last night I laid in my room for some time, staring at the ceiling.

Saturday had been different. I hadn't set my alarm. I'd gone out early, spent
time with someone I barely knew despite years of staring at him. Bought
condoms and played a piano.

Now it was Sunday morning, I wasn't out of bed yet and I was already behind
schedule. One day off my plan and everything got jumbled. There was so much to
do today before...well, before things changed.

I had to make a grocery list without examining the kitchen first because I had to
get the shopping done early. I had to do my homework, and practise the violin. I
had to get ready for tonight, and as I'd never gotten ready for sex before I didn't
know how long it was going to take.

And somewhere in all of that, I had to tell Charlie I was going out tonight.

How long should I tell him I would be out for? What if he gave me a curfew and it
wasn't enough time?

How long does it take for one to lose their virginity?

I sat up and pulled Bob off his charger to start planning my day. Groceries,
homework, violin, some research, getting ready, early dinner, and sex were all
written down with exact times. If I planned everything right I might even have
some time to read.

Sunday was going to go exactly as planned. And the plan was sex. It wouldn't be
hard to tell Charlie I had to go out. It was a part of the plan. We were eating
lunch together today. Tuna sandwiches. If I stuck to the plan, the plan would get
me through.

I got dressed in clothes fit for chores, ate my breakfast, and cleaned the kitchen
and living room. As soon as ten o'clock rolled around, I drove to the grocery
store, Bob in hand, grocery list for the next two weeks folded into a perfect
square in my pocket.

"So, I'm going to make dinner early tonight."

Charlie and I were sitting at the kitchen table.

"You don't have to make dinner tonight, Bella. Edward's taking you out isn't he?"

I almost spit my tuna sandwich all over Charlie at those words. "Excuse me?"

"Edward said yesterday that the two of you had plans tonight. Don't worry about
me at all. I can order a pizza."

I spluttered a bit. How early had Edward gotten here? What had he told Charlie?
What did Charlie think he was giving his blessing to?

This must have been one of the rare observant moments of his life because he
noticed my bewilderment and answered some questions before I could ask them.

"Look, Bella, I know that in normal cases a father would want to scare any boy
off with a shotgun, but," he paused and looked everywhere but at me, "but it
seems like this Edward is just what you need."

Charlie was a man of few words, and the last time I heard him say so many
words at once was when I had been given a week's worth of detention in grade
seven. I had yelled at the teacher for being late. To say I was freaked out was an
understatement.

"I thought you always wanted me to have a thing with Jake." Charlie's
encouragement was not part of the plan.

Charlie sighed. "I always encouraged Jake because he was the only one your age
that saw through your, uh, tough exterior and understood that you were a
person. But he never made any headway. In ten years. Edward gets under your
skin."

"Dad, I," I was going to tell him that Edward did not get under my skin, but he
interrupted before I could finish.

"Bella, you'll be graduating soon and I, well, I'm worried about you."

"Dad, you don't need to worry about me. I have my future all planned." I felt bad
that Charlie had wasted time worrying about my love life, of all things. It was
nice that he cared, but I had it under control.

"That is exactly why I worry," he mumbled toward his feet before looking back up
at me. "One day, something is going to go wrong."

Charlie didn't seem to understand. "Nothing is going to go wrong with my plan.
That's why I have a plan."

Charlie sighed and shook his head, getting up from the table.

I don't know why I said what I did next.

"Dad, tonight, Edward and I are-" Thankfully he interrupted me.

"Please. Bella. I know you're eighteen, and your mom and I were married at
nineteen and that certainly wasn't the first time we had-but I, well, I just don't
want to know." Charlie looked at me with wide eyes and an innocent expression,
then turned and hurried out of the kitchen.

I decided to put Charlie's warnings out of my mind. I loved my dad, I really did.
But he lived his life without a plan and he just didn't understand that mine was
sound. It was airtight. It was going to get me through life.

The afternoon was both the longest and shortest of my life. Every single task felt
like it took forever, but the clock seemed to be racing ahead to the appointed
time of pick up.

I was still bitter about that. I wanted to drive myself.

At five the alarm on Bob went off and I put down my book. It was time to get
ready for the evening.

I had rescheduled my morning shower. I figured if I waited until the last moment
to shave there would no chance of stubble. This presented more dilemmas
because I didn't know how much to shave. Below the knee, definitely. And under
the arms. But were you supposed to shave your thighs? I'd never bothered
before, but it hadn't mattered to anyone but me.

I shaved the thighs. And once I was there, I couldn't help thinking I should
continue shaving. If I knew Edward's opinion...but I didn't. In the end I decided
to trim down, but not get rid of it completely.

I threw on clothes that would be easy to take off. Unfortunately, I didn't have one
of those bras that have the clasp at the front. Well, he'd had sex before, so he
could deal with getting a bra off, right?

Other than that I put on a simple long sleeved shirt and some jeans. Everyone
knows how to work jeans.

I was going through my plans for tomorrow when Charlie knocked on the door.

"Yes?"

"When are you heading out?" He peeaked his head in the door, and upon seeing
me sitting on the bed, fully dressed, stepped into the room.

"Edward is picking me up at six thirty."

"Ah. that's soon."

"Yes." I stared up at him and he stared back at me. He appeared to be trying to
say something with his eyes. I had no idea what, so I went back to Bob.

"Aren't you going to get ready?" Charlie asked after a moment of silence.

"I am ready." I didn't look up from Bob's screen.

"That's what you're wearing?"

"Yep."

"Oh."

Giving me fashion advice for dates was a little too much for Charlie. He looked at
me pointedly for another moment than headed downstairs. As soon as he left I
looked at my clothes. I was sure they were perfect for the situation. Pants that
came off normally and a shirt that went over my head. The underwear wasn't
exactly a red lace thong, but it wasn't granny panties either.

I had thought of putting on a skirt, as that seemed like very easy access, but all
my skirts lived on the business end of my closet and weren't good for pushing up
to the waist.

My outfit made complete sense. It wasn't my fault that Charlie didn't think of
these things.

I heard the doorbell ring fifteen minutes later. Six thirty on the dot. The boy was
learning, I would give him that.

"Bella!" Charlie's voice called up the stairs before I could get out of my room.
"Edward's he-Oh."

I was halfway down the stairs before Charlie had finished talking.

"Hey." Edward looked...perfect. He was in jeans and a shirt as well. And he'd
shaved. I wondered what kind of underwear he had on.

"Hi. Thank you for being on time." I grabbed my jacket as passed the front
closet, and slipped on some comfortable shoes.

"You kids have fun." Charlie said as we turned out the door.

Both of us paused and looked back at him. He sounded genuine and we didn't
know how to respond.

Charlie shut the door on us so that we didn't have to.

"Well, you ready?" Edward asked.

I looked over at Edward. I felt Bob in my pocket and thought of the plan. This
was one of those moments that would make or break the plan. I had been in
them before. A split second where I could change my mind, do something
different. And my whole life would suffer the consequence, for good or ill.

Edward paused in his walk to the car, also recognizing the moment for what it
was.

"Yes, I am." I made sure to enunciate each syllable, to be very clear. I was
ready. My plan was right.

Edward took my hand and led me to the car. I felt his skin next to mine and
realized that in a few short minutes, I was going to be feeling so much more of it.
My hand flexed around his and I wondered if all of his skin was as warm. What
was it going to be like to have that warmth touching me?

He dropped my hand once I was seated in the car and I stared at it. What was it
going to be like to touch him? I turned my head and watched as he got situated
in his seat, noticing all the movements each part of him made. He was going to
let me touch any part of him I wanted to.

His hand was suddenly on mine again, and he placed our hands so they were
resting together on the console between us.

He started driving and after a minute I could tell where we were going.

"The Dew Drop Inn?" This was his plan?

"Uh...Yeah. Well, it was within my price range and not quite as cheesy as the
Forks Motel." He had the grace to look sheepish.

I glared at him. An inn? With two Ns. We weren't having an affair.

"Hey, none of our parents will be there. That's the point, right?"

"They won't be there but they'll know about it soon enough. Jessica works there.
In fact, half the school works there. "

"Don't worry. I checked in earlier today. Everyone thinks I just want to get out of
the house to do some studying. Another reason why it made sense to only come
in my car."

I nodded and looked back out the window as we pulled into the parking area.
Thankfully, you could park right in front of your room, and our room was on the
ground floor with a parking space next to it. Edward dropped my hand as the car
came to a stop and we got out.

It wasn't until we were standing outside the door and he had the key card in his
hand that two things occurred to me. I couldn't see any condoms on him. And we
were about to enter the room in which I would lose my virginity.

I almost hyperventilated. My near asphyxiation was alleviated by Edward taking
my hand again. He pushed the door open with his foot and led me inside.

My eyes were immediately drawn to the box of condoms by the side of the bed.
He had stuck to the plan. We were both on the plan. My breathing evened out
again.

As soon as the door closed behind me, I wriggled out of my jeans. We were
scheduled for 7:00, and we had to get moving.

"Bella!" Edward appeared to be fighting with himself not to stare at my nude legs.
I was clearly going to have to be the adult here.

"Dammit. I forgot my shoes." I slipped them off, kicking them toward the door
then got a look at Edward, who hadn't moved. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

Edward stared at me slack-jawed. "Uh, don't you want to...I don't know...umm,
work up to it?"

"No. It's nearly seven. Sex is planned for seven. Let's go." Whenever I thought
Edward beginning to get the plan, he would make a crazy suggestion like that.

"Bella, this speedy behaviour isn't really conducive to me being...uh...ready to
go."

I looked at him for a moment and thought of my book.

Sexual intercourse occurs whenever a man puts his penis into a woman's

vagina. When the penis is in its normal, flaccid state, this feat is difficult

(though not impossible) for a man to accomplish. However, when the penis

becomes erect and hard, most men learn quite quickly the technique of

inserting the penis into the vagina — sometimes too quickly (for more about

that, see Chapter 20)

Still staring at him, I reached down and shoved the underwear to the ground. His
eyes immediately dipped and didn't come back up.

I stepped backwards toward the bed that I knew was behind me. It came up
quicker than I thought and instead of gracefully lying down, my upper half fell
down onto the bed my feet still on the floor, my knees spread.

Edward gasped. I turned my head to look over at him. Apparently grace is over-
rated.

I had always thought the "pop-tent-syndrome" was a myth. I'd never noticed a
guy in class have problems. Or any guy, anywhere having to hide anything. But
Edward proved me wrong.

"Bella, are you sure you don't want-"

He was still trying to be a gentleman, so I interrupted his misconceptions.

"Edward, take your pants off. The clock is ticking." He looked so concerned for a
moment that I thought he might not be an actual teenage boy.

I shifted onto the bed a little, to be more comfortable, and something must have
changed in his view because he groaned, and finally started to follow my
example. Except he remembered to begin with kicking his shoes off.

As he moved toward the bed, I realized I had made a tactical error. I was lying
down with my shirt still on. I couldn't take it off, and I was afraid that if I sat up
and deprived Edward of his view, then it would all stop.

Besides, with the shirt on it almost felt as if I wasn't naked. As if he wasn't
staring at that part of me. As if he wasn't going to be touching me.

Then he was touching me. The back of his hand was resting on my ankle and as
he moved closer to me on the bed, he trailed his hand, slowly, up my leg. He
stopped around mid-thigh, turned his hand and gripped my thigh.

I think I might have whimpered, or something. His touch made me feel weird.
Like I had a lot of energy but couldn't move. I would jerk or shiver without
warning or intention.

Edward moved my leg up farther onto the bed, and his eyes roved up and down
the inside of the leg, the same way his fingers had. He took his jeans off and
must have pushed his underwear down with them because, quite suddenly, there
was no pop-tent syndrome.

For a split second I was disappointed that I didn't get to see what type of
underwear he had chosen for this evening. Then I realized what I was staring at.

I pushed up a little on my hands to get a better look.

"Huh," was all I could think to say. There had been diagrams in my book, so I
knew what to expect. Still, seeing a picture and seeing the real thing were two
different experiences. The diagrams made everything look like it belonged. But
the actually thing looked like, ...well, it looked as if he tried to develop a third leg
but couldn't manage it.

If he were shrub, I would trim it off because it looked so out of place.

Edward smiled down at me. I could tell he was suppressing laughter.

"What are you laughing at?"

He pushed me farther up on the bed and crawled up onto his knees, bringing my
left leg up behind him so that he was kneeling between my legs.

"You continue to surprise me. I like being surprised."

"Oh."

And then without warning he hands moved up the inside of my thighs and started
rubbing lightly on the freshly shaved part between my legs. I thanked Bob I had
decided to trim down.

"Do we want this off?" He fingered the bottom of my shirt with one hand while
the other continued rubbing. I was still staring.

I forced myelf to stop staring and looked up at the shirt he was still wearing. "I'm
good like this, if you are." How would he get my shirt off? He would probably
have to stop what he was doing down there, and that was feeling nice. I didn't
want him to stop.

He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. His mouth was
just there. Open. With lips straight out of any girl's fantasies. Not that I had
fantasies, but the point is that he had perfect lips for kissing.

Then he closed it and nodded. His fingers between my legs moved suddenly and I
jerked and let out the weirdest noise.

"What are you-." He brushed over that same spot again before I could finish
talking.

"Relax, Bella. There's plenty of time."

We were both silent as he continued moving his hand down there. It would feel
kind of good, but then my legs would jerk or I would make a weird noise or
something else I couldn't control.

And then he moved his hand down a bit and his fingers embarked upon a pioneer
journey. That is to say, his finger was in me. In me. Nothing had ever gone in
there before. It didn't hurt, but it wasn't amazing, either. And I was pretty sure I
was supposed to be doing something for Edward while he was, um, touching me.
My hands were still at my sides, gripping the comforter whenever he did
something that made me edgy. He still had his shirt on, so it wasn't like I could
be touching him on his chest. I could maybe reach his head? Did guys like to
have their hair touched? It wasn't covered in the book.

After several minutes where I unsuccessfully attempted to catalogue the
sensations I was having, he removed his hand.

It was show time. Finally.

"Do you need one of these?" I reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the
box of condoms. "Really? The Magnums?"

He shrugged. "They were first ones I grabbed when I reached into the bag."

"Are they going to work?" Never having seen a live one before, I didn't know if he
was boasting or if the he actually needed the extra-large variety. I glanced back
down at his awkward third leg, he was big and all, but weren't they all supposed
to be big?

"Don't worry, it'll work just fine." He grinned down at me.

I opened the box and pulled out. Without looking at what I was doing, I ripped
the corner of the foil packet and then stopped.

"You can." Edward whispered.

"I-" I handed the condom to him. "I don't want to do something wrong or
anything."

Again, he looked as if he might say something but stopped himself. He took the
condom and put it on himself.

As I watched him, I thought of Yoda.

That is, I thought of one of Yoda's proverbs. "Do, or do not. There is no try."
Edward didn't try to put the condom on. It went on without effort or worrying.

I was a little sad to have my view change. I had been enjoying it.

He shuffled forward on the bed, bringing his...Pen-...His erec-...His...Thing, closer
to me. My hands slipped out from under me and I flopped to the bed.

Edward chuckled and brought both his hands to my thighs, shifting me until I
could feel him.

That was the instant that it dawned on me what was going to happen.

"Wait."

Edward stopped moving and looked down at me. He wore a funny expression. He
almost looked relieved.

I didn't have time to think on Edward's feelings right now. Instead, I let me
nervous gibberish fill the air. "Are we even sure this is going to work?"

"Pretty sure."

"I mean, everyone does it and all, but does it always, you know, work? Should I
be worried? I've heard it hurts the first time, and I have a high pain threshold,
but my book didn't describe the pain that well. I'm better if I'm prepared for the
pain."

"Bella?" Edward tried to interrupt, but I couldn't stop.

"And really, I read a statistic that only twenty-one percent of women feel pain
during their first time, so chances are it will be fine." Edward didn't need to know
that statistic was from VH1's Pop Up Video of Madonna's Like a Virgin.

"How long do you think this will take?" The word vomit kept pouring out like a
river that had broken through a dam. "I understand teenage boys aren't the best
at lasting, though you didn't seem to react to the condom. Are you not in the
mood? Do I need to put you in the mood?"

"Stop!" Edward almost shouted.

"Shush. People next door might hear you."

Edward shook his head. "Do you want to do this or not?"

I stopped talking, in fact I stopped thinking. I just stared up into his eyes.

"If you want to stop, we'll stop. If you want to go on, we'll go on."

I thought for a moment, I wanted to be sure after all; I didn't want him to feel
bad about all this when it was over.

In the end, it was his hands that convinced me. They were high up on my thighs,
and they kept clenching and unclenching. They were the only sign that he wasn't
as patient as he was acting.

"Edward?"

"Yes?"

"I want you to. I want us to. I mean, let's do it."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

One of his hands moved away from my skin, I didn't want to look at what it was
doing.

The irrepressible energy was back and it was hard to stay still. I turned my head
to give myself something other than his face to look at and caught sight of my
jeans.

I gasped as I heard the seven o'clock alarm on Bob chime just as he entered me.

"Huh."

"Are you okay?" His voice sounded odd.

"Ummm," I thought about it for a did hurt. But it wasn't unbearable. "I think I'm
good."

"Bella," His hands came forward suddenly, until they were resting on the bed
beside my shoulders. He followed them down toward me so that our shirts were
rubbing against each other as he started to move inside of me.

"Oh." It was an entirely new feeling. Nothing I had encountered before had
prepared me for this.

It was a little painful, but mostly it was just...alien. Not good. Not bad.

Edward's breathing grew rougher and I took a metaphorical step back from the
situation. Edward's face was next to mine, his nose kept hitting the pillow and his
cheek kept grazing mine.

He was using what modern-day jean companies had decided was the waist to
thrust, although I'm pretty sure it was actually his hips to move himself in and
out of me. Our legs were lying against each other, our skin creating heat as he
moved back and forth. And his feet touched mine every time he thrust in.

Despite our shirts, it felt like too much of him was touching too much of me. He
was too close. Closer than anyone else ever had been. With each thrust in, every
exhaled breath on my ear, I felt that he was getting more of me than I wanted to
give him.

Then he moved. He pushed in and it was different then the other times. It was
harder and more intense. As if he'd lost control. I gasped and arched up a little
without meaning to.

And this time he didn't pull out, he groaned loudly, whispered my name and was
done. He collapsed into me, burying his face in my neck and the pillow and
stayed that way for five minutes.

He whispered my name again and kissed the area that might have been my neck,
or it might have been my shoulder.

Edward rolled off me then and got up. I didn't watch him. I turned over on my
side and stared at my jeans where the light was still blinking from the pocket
because I hadn't told Bob that I had gotten the alarm.

The bed moved as Edward got back on and sidled up to me.

"Hey." He whispered into my hair.

"Hey." I whispered into the empty air.

"You okay?"

"Umm," I wasn't sure what he meant by the question. "Yeah? I mean, I think so.
I don't really feel any different."

I waited for Edward to answer but he didn't. Craning my head a bit I saw that he
had fallen asleep.

Day 8: In Which Bella Makes a New Plan

I'd always planned to walk home alone. The idea of speaking to him after what
had just happened, looking him in the eye without at least having a shower first
made me stop in my tracks and shudder. And I could not imagine sitting in that
car with him, after...well, after everything.

Besides, I hadn't ever actually said he could drive me home. I just let him
assume it. And it wasn't as if he didn't know I wanted to be responsible for
getting myself home. He knew, he just chose to ignore it. So, I chose to ignore
his request.

About halfway home it started to rain. Luckily, it was only a ten minute walk, and
it was more like it was misting than actually raining. Tiny little water particles
dotted my shirt and my hair. Bob was tucked away safely in my pocket.

I stared at everything intently during the walk. Fences, trees, the sidewalk, my
shoes, everything. Tulips were everywhere, and some other flowers that I didn't
know the name of. Every couple of seconds my mind would flash back to that
room and what had happened there, and what I had left there. Flopped over on
his stomach, dead to the world, his pasty rounded cheeks sticking up in the air.

I had to keep pulling my thoughts back to the present. Dwelling on the naked
man at the Inn was only making me feel uncomfortable. And that was the
problem.

Everything around me looked the same as every other time I walked through my
neighbourhood. Nothing looked different. Nothing felt different. Naked Edward
still made me feel…

I jerked to a stop, staring at a crack in the sidewalk and shook out my arms, as if
getting rid of a case of the cooties. Just thinking about that partial-third-leg-thing
made me feel uncomfortable in my own skin. I ran a couple of steps to leave the
feeling behind.

After reaching my house I must've started up at it for a good five minutes. In the
rain. It was just my house. The same as it had been this morning.

Wasn't the world supposed to look differently now? Wasn't I supposed to feel
different?

I sighed, long and loud, and dragged my feet up the porch steps and into the
house.

"Bella?"

"No, Dad, it's the other person that lives here."

He walked into the entranceway and glanced out the front door, then looked back
at me.

"Where's Edward?"

I shrugged.

"Did you two get in a fight or something?"

"Nope." I walked slowly up the stairs toward my room. "I'm heading to bed."

"It's eight o'clock."

"Yes, well, you know, schedule and all."

Charlie didn't say anything else, and I continued my trudge up to my room.

I winced as I flopped down onto the bed. Well, I guess, that was different.

I kicked off shoes and crawled under the blankets. I shoved my jeans off, then
kicked them onto the floor beside my bed. I left my shirt on and stared at the
ceiling.

Was Edward awake yet? Had he left the hotel room? Or was he still there,
sprawled out on the covers, unaware of the world around him, expecting me to
be there when he woke?

Pulling the covers up to my chin I rolled over onto my side and brought my knees
up to my chest.

I couldn't have stayed, I just couldn't. But I couldn't help feeling that I had
missed out on something.

Sometimes sleep makes everything clear. You wake up in the morning and a light
bulb has gone on, you know exactly what the plan needs to have everything work
well. You wake up, and the day seems fresh and ready and eager. And you get
out of bed and it all happens so easily.

That didn't happen for me.

I woke up sure of one thing and one thing only. I didn't feel any differently. The
thought of seeing any male naked still gave me the heebeejeebees. The thought
of sex was still vague and mystifying.

There was only one explanation. It was all Edward's fault.

The problem was that I woke up at four in the morning, fresh, ready and eager to
a world that was still asleep around me.

So, I did what any sane person would. I washed my bedding. I washed any dirty
clothes I could find. I dusted the living room. I made Charlie his favourite
breakfast, pancakes and bacon, half an hour before he would be getting up.

I was still ready to leave for school an hour early. But I wanted to get there
before Edward anyway, so I just left.

The parking lot was empty when I got there. I don't know why this surprised me
but it did. I was so used to having to search for a space, its emptiness
looked...Wrong somehow.

To pass the time I took out Sex for Dummies. I turned to Part II ("Doing It"),
Chapter 8 ("Intercourse: Coming Together for the First Time") and looked for the
part about first times for girls. I knew I'd seen it in here somewhere.

Passing over the bits about choosing wisely, and not rushing, I found it, hidden
near the end of the chapter.

Although I certainly hope that all goes well for any of you women having
intercourse for the first time, you should be aware of two possible stumbling
blocks: breaking the hymen and the possibility of vaginismus.

What in the world was vaginismus?

I skipped the part about the hymen, and read on, mumbling to myself.

"I was right!" I yelled to no one.

I put the book away and pulled out Bob. Brick Breaker was always a good way to
spend quality time with Bob. Soon enough the parking lot started to fill with cars.

It wasn't long before I saw his car. I couldn't stop myself from jumping out of the
truck, I wasn't even sure if I'd locked it behind me, and bolting across the parking
lot towards him.

He saw me coming.

"Bella, wh-"

"You! You didn't, did you?"

"What?" He looked utterly confused.

"You didn't-" Without meaning to I cut myself off. I started the sentence without
knowing how to finish it. I stared at him, pointing at his chest, angry and
frustrated.

"What? What didn't I do? I've done everything you wanted me to!" Now he was
yelling as well.

"But did you really?"

"What?"

"I don't..." I trailed off, still unsure of my words.

"What?"

"I don't feel any different! The thought of...Of s-sex still makes me uncomfortable
and-"

"You? Uncomfortable? You've never seemed to have a problem with that in the
past!"

I tried to interrupt but he wouldn't let me.

"And isn't my fault if you don't feel," he paused in his speaking and waved his
hands at me. "Different. That was never part of the plan. As far as I knew, the
plan was sex."

"So...so, we did have sex?"

Edward looked at me for a moment, then turned and walked away without saying
anything.

I stood where I was and looked around. The parking lot wasn't crowded, but it
wasn't empty either. There were many curious eyes darting in our direction. I'm
sure one of us had yelled the word sex.

I put my hand in my pocket, wrapped my fingers around Bob and hurried toward
the grey stone building that had always seemed so welcoming, but today
appeared cold and threatening. The inside had a similar phenomenon happening.
I could see the same yellow hallways as usual, but today they made me feel
unwanted.

I walked through the hallways, ignoring the turn that would bring me to my
locker and force me to start my day. Instead, I wandered aimlessly, sure that if I
didn't pick up my textbooks than class wouldn't actually start and the day would
stop here, and I wouldn't have to make my mind up about anything.

Then the warning bell rang and it dawned on me that, although I could get people
to conform to my schedule, I could not get time itself to conform to me.

I decided to protest this non-conformity by hiding in the bathroom.

"Hello." Alice was standing at the sink staring at herself in the mirror. "We do
seem to keep running into each other here."

"Oh, yeah, hi Alice." My hiding plans were ruined. I was forced to stop and talk to
her.

Alice was pushing parts of her face around, twisting her nose this way and that,
making her eyebrows go up and down. There was a silence between us but it was
awkward and I wanted to leave but also felt as if I were nailed to the ground.

"What, uh," I struggled for a topic that would break the silence without actually
saying anything. "What are you doing?"

"Hmm?" She looked over at me and I gestured toward her hands, which were
plastered all over her face. "Oh. I'm just...I don't know." She shrugged and
turned away from the mirror. "I'm always paranoid that I'm beginning to look like
Edward even though I know we were fraternal twins and most definitely not
identical." She shrugged again and looked back at herself.

She had managed to bring up the one subject I didn't want to talk about under
any circumstances and it had taken her less than five seconds.

"Ah, well, I don't think you look anything like him." Why did I say anything?
Especially anything so telling.

Alice did not need to know that I had seen enough of Edward to know she did not
resemble him in the slightest.

Alice glanced at me through the mirror, and for a moment we held each other's
eyes in the glass. She gave me a mysterious smile but didn't say anything.

"So, what happened with you the other night?" I needed to get the subject away
from Edward.

"What night?" She had turned away from the mirror as the tardy bell rang, picked
up backpack, and made for the door.

"At Li's."

"Nothing, I went home and sulked and then took a leaf out of your book." She
smiled coyly and opened the door. "I came up with a plan. Aren't you coming?"
She gestured toward the door with her head.

I didn't realize until right then that I wasn't going to class.

"Oh, no, but you go on. I can, uh, catch ya later." I snapped my fingers at her as
I spoke, then blushed at my awkwardness.

Alice stared back at me then let the door shut slowly and locked it.

My eyes darted back and forth between her and the door and I was suddenly
nervous to be left alone with her. We didn't know each other that well and it
looked as if she grew two feet while standing there. I wanted to cower in the
corner from the expression on her face.

"Bella, you've lived in this town for how long?"

"Uh," I started doing the math in my head before it became apparent that the
question was rhetorical.

"And in all that time I don't believe you've skipped one class." She was taking
small precise steps in my direction. I don't know why, but she made me nervous,
so I started backing up as well. "And now, here you are, hiding in the bathroom,
the same as last week."

My back hit the ledge of the frosted window and Alice kept approaching, stepping
right through the personal bubble. I don't even think she realized it was there.

"Now tell me, what is going between you and my brother?" She stabbed me in
the chest, repeatedly with a pointed finger while I gaped at her.

"Uh,"

"I know I interrupted your date the other night and I'm sorry but, really, it was
Edward's fault. He could have just minded his own business. But he had to come
to the rescue, as always." She shook her head and looked frustrated at the idea
of her brother.

"Plus there was that weird incident when Dad came home from work on
Wednesday. And, well the both of you have been acting strangely."

I blushed at the mention of Edward's father.

"So, tell me. What has been going on between the two of you? And I don't believe
that silly rumour that you had sex. That is so ridiculous. You've only been talking

to each other, outside of biology, for about a week. And the last time my brother
had sex, well, let's just say he was a little too gentlemanly-"

Alice cut herself off abruptly. I think she finally noticed the look on my face. It
was part mortification that the rumours had spread through the school in all of
five minutes and part intrigue at the mention of Edward's previous partner.

"Oh my God, you did. Didn't you?"

Not needing clarification, I looked down at the floor and moved my head in a slow
nod.

"Bella...w-wha, I mean, why would-"

"Because I needed to, okay? I needed to get this out of the way so that the rest
of my plan would work properly. I needed to not be uncomfortable around males
when I get to the part of my life where I want to get married. It made sense."

"It made sense?" Alice raised her eyebrows and looked at me as if I were crazy.
"You had sex with my brother because it made sense?"

I nodded as I looked away from her.

"Bella, that doesn't make any sense."

"It does to me." Alice was quiet for a moment and I kind of snapped. "You have
no right to be judgmental. I saw you throw yourself at Emmett when he was
clearly with someone else."

"That situation is completely different."

"How is it different?"

"Bella, you just said that you slept with Edward because it made sense. I think
we both know that my fascination with Emmett does not make sense." She
smiled as she said this, obviously proud of it not making sense. "Okay, you know
what you need?"

"What?"

"I can't believe I have to say this to you but," Her words were directed at the
ground as she did an odd pirouette before sitting. On the ground. In the
bathroom. "You need a plan." And then she gestured for me to join her.

Alice noticed my hesitation about sitting and gestured at me again. "I have a lot
of inside information about Edward. I think you should sit."

She was right, and I did.

"Okay, first, tell me what Edward was like when he got home last night."

"I don't know. I didn't see him."

My shoulders slumped in disappointment.

"But, that means he hid in his room all night. So, we can assume he was sulking
as…well, nevermind."

"What?" I demanded she finish that. Every piece of information was useful at this
point.

"Well, you've given me the feeling that it wasn't likely he was replaying the
events of the night for any…ah…stimulating reasons."

I nodded once. "Right." At least, I certainly never wanted to replay the event
over in my mind.

"Alright, here's what must've happened. You approached the situation the way
Bella would. While my brother approached the situation the way Edward would.
And now, neither of you have the outcome you wanted."

"We compromised. We went on a date. I didn't want to go on a date."

"A date which was cut short. Do you two even really know each other? At all?
Edward isn't the type of guy to sleep with anonymous strangers just to get off."

I was hardly an anonymous stranger but she had a point. Saturday, the
unplanned day, had felt a lot more like what I imagined a date would feel like.
He'd even somehow gotten me to mention her on that day. And it hadn't felt that
awkward. Well, until his dad came into the room. That had felt awkward.

"I think I know what you're getting at." Alice smiled at me in encouragement.
"Now that I've had sex and won't have to explain to anyone, ever again, that I'm
a virgin. Because I'm not. A virgin, that is. I'm not one. Well, not technically
speaking anyway." Why, when talking about sex, did I always turn into a babbling
fool?

"Anyways, so now I just have to work on being more comfortable in a male's
presence."

Alice nodded her head. "Right."

"So, I should just come up with a new plan that has a similar goal of what Edward
wanted before the sex, except after the sex. This way we have the same outcome
just out of order. And then everyone's happy, right?"

Alice nodded her head slower this time. "Well…yes. I think."

Bob was in my hand and the calendar pulled up in less than a second. It always
made me happy to use my calendar.

"Bella? Are you still here?"

I jerked my head back to Alice. Sometimes I lost track of time while using Bob. I
had no idea how long I had been inputting my plan.

"Yes. I'm here. In fact, I'm great."

"Bella, you look, kind of, uh, feral."

"Yes. I've got it all figured out."

"What do you have all figured out?"

I stood up and brushed off my pants as best I could before heading for the door.

"Bella!" Alice had stood now as well and grabbed my arm, stopping me just as I
had opened the door. "I think, maybe, you missed the point of-" She stopped
abruptly as I looked over my shoulder and smiled at her. My smiled was bright
and beautiful. I knew exactly what I was doing.

I yanked my arm away from her and ran out into the hallway.

"Bella, I'm sure it's a bad plan!" Alice yelled after me.

Obviously, she didn't know what she was talking about. I knew about plans. This
one was solid. It was perfect. It was even a little beautiful.

After five minutes of searching the empty hallways I remembered that everyone
was in class. Which might seem like a long time, but I never skip class, so it
didn't occur to me. I decided to continue to wander the halls, hoping I would find
what class Edward was in, until the bell rang. I didn't find him, and I couldn't
miss my next class as well, so I decided to wait until lunch.

As had been happening so often lately, class dragged on. I don't remember much
except my English teacher asking me over and over again to stop clicking my
pen. But I never realized I was doing it, so I only ever stopped for ten seconds.

An eternity later, it was lunchtime and I marched toward the cafeteria, head held
high, confident.

Edward was standing near his usually table, his hand on Emmett's arm. Emmett
looked angry. So did Edward.

My steps picked up, and I smiled, knowing that what I had to say would cheer
Edward up.

"...or don't come!" Edward's heated voice finished as he and Emmett glared at
one another. Neither said anything else so I interrupted.

"Edward," I made to sound perky, almost bubbly, so that he wouldn't think this
was going to be a repeat of earlier. "May I speak with you a moment?"

He looked over at me, his eyes raking over me but his attention still on Emmett.

"Sure." He sounded guarded and glanced pointedly back at Emmett before
stepping toward me.

Once we were a few steps away he stared at me, waiting for me to speak. He
looked different than the last time we had spoken. Always before I had gotten the
feeling he was teasing me silently. Or baiting me, or going out of his way to get
me riled up. Now he just looked resigned.

Which, I figured, would make him all the more pleased with the idea I was about
to put forth.

"First of all, I wanted to apologize for this morning." He looked surprised at that.
"I was a little confused and...well, it doesn't matter. I'm over that now." I paused
as it looked like he was about to say something, but he didn't so I continued. "I
was wondering, however, if you would consent to kiss me."

The expression on his face wasn't quite surprise but it was similar. He hadn't
been expecting this at the least.

"I figure we don't need to really schedule it, as it isn't much of an event, just
anytime, anyplace will do. Right now if you're agreeable." I figured the whole
school already knew we'd had sex, what did I care if they saw us kiss?

Edward stared at me blankly a moment longer. His chest puffed out and he
looked resigned as he answered.

"No."

He turned away without another word, and sat down at his lunch table with his
back to me.

I know there was a thousand things I wanted write here…I don't remember a
single one..

Day 9: In Which I Gain and Misplace a Planning Partner

I stood there and stared at him. No? He said no?

That wasn't part of the plan.

My legs were frozen and I didn't know what to do. I could feel Bob in my pocket
and a part of me was sure that if I could just reach my hand in and pull him out,
everything would be all right and I could make this work. But I couldn't get my
arms to obey me. I stood there staring at the back of his head. I watched his arm
slowly reach down into his bag and pull out a bottle of orange juice.

And I didn't even care.

"Bella!"

Alice's shout from across the room startled me out of my frozen state so that I
jumped forward, directly into Jasper, whose tray of food crashed to the ground,
and splattered all over my legs.

"Uh," I started to speak, unsure what I was going to say when Alice, who had
been running toward me, slipped on Jasper's lunch, banged into me and we both
joined the Beef Mysterio on the ground.

"Ow!" A stabbing pain shot through my hand and I yanked it toward my chest,
out from under the sharp heels of Rosalie.

Rosalie screeched, tottered for a moment, then joined us on the floor, her green
salad with raspberry vinaigrette raining down upon us.

Was this actually happening?

"Get off me, you little freak!" Rosalie screeched. She pushed Alice away from her,
although Alice was in no way impeding Rosalie's ability to stand up, and then
raised her hands in the air.

Emmett pulled a scowling Rosalie to her feet. Her scowl melted in the face of
Emmett's infectious smile, and they left the cafeteria together holding hands.

Alice and I did not fare so gracefully.

Our eyes met for a moment, she opened her mouth to speak but I shook my
head at her. There was nothing to say. I stood up, wobbled a bit, checked that
Bob hadn't been injured in the crash and marched out of the cafeteria.

Did I glance at Edward? Well, no. I didn't want to see the look on his face. Not at
all.

As soon as my feet hit the slippery floor of the hallway I started running. Running
in the hallway at school. One of the first rules you learn in school was not to run
in the hallway. I didn't stop running until I reached my truck.

I sped home, clomped upstairs in my shoes and sat on my bed. I stared at the
wall.

The plan didn't..well, it didn't happen. It didn't work.

There had been times when this sort of thing had happened before. When
someone was late, or something didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. But, I
always knew what to do. I always had a backup.

I didn't know what to do in this case. Edward had flat out said no. And then
walked away.

My goal hadn't been reached. I still felt awkward when I thought of sex. But I had
nowhere to go with this plan which meant I was going to let someone down. I
wasn't going to be what my future husband needed me to be. I was a failure.

I was just like her.

I don't know how long I sat there, but I must have fallen asleep eventually
because the next thing I knew Jake was sitting on the edge of my bed. He was
looking down at me with a goofy grin on his face.

"How did you get in here?" Sitting up, I looked around confused. The light was
different outside and it took me a minute to adjust to being awake.

"Your dad let me in and told me you were asleep."

"Dad's home?" I must have been asleep longer than I thought. "I have to make
dinner, and do homework, and-"

"Bella, your Dad got a call from the school. You skipped class today."

"I-I didn't mean...I mean, I didn't think-I" My head swung around in a panic, my
hand found Bob hidden in the covers of my bed and clutched him. Dad, couldn't
know I skipped class. He just couldn't.

"Bella, calm down. He doesn't care."

"That doesn't matter. I care."

"Bella?" His voice forced me to look up at him. "What's really wrong?"

"There's...well, there's this boy at school. And he...he's just messed everything
up!"

"Huh." Jake sounded confused.

"What?"

"Well, I knew you'd reach the mentality of a middle-schooler sometime, I just
didn't think it would be this early."

I hit him with my pillow. He burst into laughter, without so much as a flinch.

Bob was in my hand in less than a second, my fingers flying across the keys.

"What are doing?" Jake looked nervous. He was right to look nervous. He knew I
could do things with Bob. Bob gave me power.

"Texting your dad."

"Why are you texting my dad?"

"I'm going to tell him how much you miss fishing. How you long to go again." I
smirked in Jake's direction. "I'm going to tell him how much you love the early
mornings and the smell of freshly caught fish. The spiritual connection you feel to
the land when-"

Jake threw himself forward and tried to pry Bob out of my hands. But Bob and I,
we were connected. Bob would never leave me. Bob was always on my side.

"You can't take Bob from me!" I screamed at him as his fingers tried to jerk Bob
out of my hand.

Jake smiled and sat back up.

"There. You look like you again. Bella," he paused, choosing his words carefully,
"if there's one thing I know about you, it's that you can do anything once you put
your mind to it."

I smiled up at him.

"And if there are two things I know about you, it's that you just don't get other
people."

My smile disappeared.

"What's this boy's name?"

"Edward."

"Right, well, try to remember that Edward hasn't known you all that long. He
doesn't really know much about you at all. And vice versa. You probably said
something very Bella to him and he reacted like any person would."

"Maybe I did say something." But, really, what teenage boy doesn't want no-
strings sex?

Maybe that was the problem. He'd gotten his sex and now he didn't want
anything more to do with me. And even though this was what I promised him, it
made me feel...weird. Or, different. It didn't make me feel good.

"Right, so maybe you should try to meet him in the middle. Do a few things his
way? I know that might be a little difficult for you but, c'mon, you skipped class
today. You can do anything."

Jake stayed for dinner. I didn't end up doing any homework that evening. But
something else did happen. The moment after Jake left, Bob buzzed in my hand,
displaying a number I didn't recognize.

"Hello?"

"Bella?"

"Alice?"

"Meet me at school tomorrow, half an hour before class starts. In the usual
place."

The phone went dead and I was left to wonder if that was actually Alice, and to
further wonder where in the name of Bob the usual place was.

I thought about it all night. About everything, that is. About what Jake had said,
about what Alice wanted, and mostly about Edward.

And about sex.

Now that I had started thinking about it, I couldn't make myself stop. I thought
about sex every minute of the day. It never went away. I thought about how his
skin had felt, how he had touched me, the sound of his breath in my ear.

I hadn't reached my goal at all during the events of Sunday, I didn't feel any
different than before but...I did feel...something. Incomplete?

Yes, that was it. The...encounter with Edward wasn't finished. That's why I
needed him to kiss me. I didn't know why he didn't before. He'd certainly felt
okay with doing other things. The kiss would complete the whole ordeal and we
would both be good to move on with our lives.

But, he'd said no. And Jake thought I should try to compromise with Edward.

I wasn't sure how to compromise with him. Getting him to kiss me was still the
plan. There was no other way that this connection between us would be finished.

Tuesday morning, bright and early, I was waiting in the girls bathroom for Alice,
praying I had the right place and that it hadn't been some weirdo on the phone
the night before.

The bathroom was, well, creepy. The school was empty, the lights in the hallways
were all dark, the bathroom was like this one spot of light in the middle and every
time a stall door creaked, my head jerked to make sure no one else was in here
with me.

Which was what lead to the ear-piercing shriek emitting from my throat when
Alice, dressed in a short, black poufy dress, burst through the door.

"What? What?" Alice whipped her head around searching for whatever had scared
me, not realising that she had been the culprit.

"You scared me." I could feel that my eyes were wide and my breath was heaving
quickly in and out of my chest. It took me a moment to calm down.

"Oh." Then, without so much as a second thought about frightening me half to
death, she started chattering. "So, we both know why we're here."

"Uh, no we don't" I interrupted.

"To plan. Isn't that what you do? Like when computers aren't doing anything,
they hibernate. When Bella isn't doing anything she plans."

"Oh. Right."

"So, here's the plan I've come up with."

I leaned forward, listening intently. Alice had never struck me as the planning
type. She'd always appeared to be a go-with-the-flow type.

I shuddered at the thought.

Still, planning of any kind was always thrilling. The creepiness of the empty
school faded from my mind, and the tingle of excitement spread through me. Bob
was at the ready.

"I'm having party on Saturday for my birthday. All we have to do is get Emmett
and Edward to the party. Well, we won't have to get Edward there, we live in the
same house."

Alice's shoulders were shaking and she was bouncing on her feet.

"And, I've already invited Emmett, so we don't have to worry about this part of
the plan at all."

I nodded, impatient to get to the actual plan part of this plan.

"And then, we..well, we make them make them make out with us." Alice smiled
at me in triumph.

"Ah...how?" As far as plans went, well, this didn't sound like it was one I wanted
my name attached to.

"I don't know," Alice shrugged. "We just...jump them or something."

"Alice." She looked up at me, with hope and the need for approval coming off her
in waves. "I don't think that's a plan."

Her face dropped and she jerked back as if stabbed. I back peddled.

"It's an idea. A good idea. Your birthday party makes sense. We just need a plan,
for the party."

Alice nodded her head slowly. "I thought it was a good plan."

"It is. We just need to work on it." She was still looking depressed so I added,
"Together. We'll work on it together."

She perked up a bit at this, just as she opened her mouth to talk the door opened
and a janitor froze in the doorway, obviously not expecting to find us there.

"What are you girls doing in here?"

Choosing not to answer, I started ushering Alice out. "Why don't we brainstorm
this morning, and meet up at lunch, compare notes, and form a strategy." We
were now walking down the hallway toward my locker. "I'm sure together we can
come up with a sure-fire way to make this work."

Alice paused when we reached the corner. She grabbed my arm, and stared up at
me. Nodding her head once, she then pranced off down the left hallway. I stared
for a moment, wondering what had just happened.

All my life I had overheard people groaning about how long and boring class was.
I'd never understood this. Class was part of the structure, part of the beauty of
school. Now that I kept having people to talk to and plans to work on during
lunch and after school...well, I was starting to understand the impatience of
others.

I wanted my morning to classes to go by quickly. They didn't. I could feel eternity
stretching out before me, separating me from lunchtime, Alice, and the ultimate
goal of Edward's lips.

I tried to help the time go faster by brainstorming ideas. At its core, Alice's idea
was a good one. Get the boys to the party, finish our business with them, and
have someone to talk about our success with. It was just missing all the
connecting pieces. How to get them to talk to us at the party, what we were
going to say them, and how we were going to bring about the main event of lips
touching other lips.

All of the ideas I came up with involved complicated and well-timed movements,
lines, and actions. I'm pretty sure one I had pulled straight from a 90s sitcom. It
sounded like something Blossom and Six would get up to.

The morning started to develop a pattern. I sat down in one class, filled a piece of
paper with the least intelligent ideas I'd ever come up with, ripped it out of my
binder and shoved it to the bottom of my backpack, then repeated the process
until it was time to go to the next class. Then I'd start all over again.

This went on until about halfway through my last class before lunch, when Ms.
Yearwood called on me in class and instead of answering her, I tore my paper up
and growled in her direction.

"Bella, stay after class, will you?" Her voice rang around the room, bouncing off
walls and echoing back to me.

The eyes of the rest of the class bored into my skull.

I'd been asked to stay. Kept back. Almost a detention. Detentions were for other
people. People who didn't have plans that they needed to get back to. I never
had detention. I didn't know what one did in detention. Would I just have to stare
at the wall, and do nothing. I was pretty sure I couldn't do nothing.

I contemplated the horrors of doing nothing for ten minutes before it dawned on
me that I was just sitting there, staring at the wall, doing nothing. So,
apparently, I could do it.

It also dawned on me that this detention thing would keep me from seeing Alice
for even longer. I nearly growled again.

The bell rang, everyone around me got up to leave, some of them glancing at me
as they walked by. Judging me, I was sure. I bet everyone could see my plan, my
life, falling to pieces around me.

Also, they had probably heard the rumours that Edward and I had...fornicated.

Was fornicated even a word?

I was so lost in contemplating linguistics that Ms. Yearwood had to shake my
shoulder gently to get me to realize she was talking to me.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Bella," She said my name on a sigh. "Are you alright?"

The question startled me. I was expecting a tongue lashing. A punishment. At the
very least I thought we'd make an appointment for the punishment to be dealt
out as she saw fit.

I'd also decided to not use the word detention anymore.

"Uh...yes. Yes, I'm fine."

"You seem slightly frazzled recently. And, as someone who has known you for
four years, seeing you slightly frazzled is like seeing..." She paused trying to find
the right simile. "Well, it's like seeing a fish swim through air. It just doesn't
happen."

Unsure of the point Ms. Yearwood was trying to make, I stared at her, hoping she
would elaborate.

"I guess, I'm wondering if everything is okay with you?"

"Everything's okay. Why wouldn't everything be okay?" Things were only not
okay because I was here in this room wasting my lunch time.

"Well, it's just that I'd heard-" She cut herself off as her eyes watched my hand
grab Bob from my pocket.

I held him tight against my thigh and kept myself from breathing. If she asked
me about sex I had no idea what I was going to say. Maybe if I didn't disturb the
air, nothing would happen.

Of course, she disturbed the air by letting out the biggest sigh I had ever seen.
She must have breathed in all the oxygen in the room.

"Bella, just, be careful, okay?"

I nodded and spoke as I slung my backpack on and moved toward the door. "I'm
always careful, Ms. Yearwood."

There was something in my tone of voice that made her turn and follow me out
the door. "That's good, Bella."

I blushed, and ran out. I wasn't sure how that had turned into a conversation
about sex, but it had.

I shuddered as I sped down the hallway toward the bathroom.

Swinging open the marked up wooden door, I realized two things at the same
time. The first being that I hadn't thought of a single good idea for the plan and
the second that Alice was not in the bathroom. The bathroom was in fact full of
girls applying make-up and gossiping about goodness knows what.

The way they all stopped and stared I was afraid they had been gossiping about
me, and backed out of there as fast as I could.

I jogged to the cafeteria but Alice wasn't there either.

Where else did Alice spend time? I'd only ever seen her in the cafeteria and the
bathroom.

I glanced around the room one more time but instead of finding Alice my eyes
ended on Edward.

He was sitting in between Emmett and Jasper, looking uncomfortable.

I remembered what Jake had said to me last night, about meeting halfway. And
all the rules and stipulations Edward had last week.

And then I was in the zone. The planning zone. I knew exactly what had to be
done.

I spent the rest of lunch time waiting outside the biology room for Edward. Our
eyes met the moment he appeared in the hallway and walked right to me,
stopping less than a foot in front of me.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"So, I was wondering," I paused to draw in a reassuring breath, not
understanding why this was harder than asking him to have sex with me. "Well, I
was wondering if maybe you'd like to-to go, uh, I mean, to have dinner tomorrow
night."

He stared at me.

"At a restaurant. I mean, I would cook for you, I'm a pretty good cook, but then
Charlie would be there. And I don't want that, and trust me, you don't want that.
No one wants that. Charlie probably doesn't even want that. But I thought dinner
would be nice and I know you like to date girls. I mean of course you like to date
girls. Unless you're gay. If you're gay then...wow, you should be an actor
because the whole sex with girls thing-"

"Bella," He interrupted. "Are you asking me out simply as part of a plan to get me
to kiss you?"

I thought of lying but I was pretty sure he would see straight through that. Also,
it felt wrong to lie about this. I didn't want to trick him into kissing me, I wanted
to plan him into kissing me.

"Yes."

He smiled a small smile. "Thank you for being honest."

I knew it had to have been a test.

"Bella!" Alice's voice blasted down the hallway. She came running up to us so fast
she couldn't stop in time and ended up crashing right into Edward.

Edward was pushed forward into me but got on arm out on the wall to stop from
himself from squishing me.

I looked up at his face, so close to mine now. This would be perfect for kissing.
But I could tell it wasn't going to happen.

"New Year's!" Alice squeed from somewhere behind the wall of Edward in front of
me.

"What?"

"My birthday party. It's going to be New Year's themed."

Sorry for the delay in getting this written, I'm insanely busy at school.

Day 10 In Which Everyone has Problems.

I poked my head out from the Edward wall separating Alice and me.

"What?"

"My birthday. On Saturday? We were talking about this earlier. When we plan to-"

"Alice!" She was going to spill the beans right there and then.

I glanced up at Edward to see him smirking down at me. Smiling back at him in
an innocent manner I tried to move away but his arms were keeping me trapped.

I glanced up at Edward; he was staring at his sister with a frown on his face.
Hoping he would understand I took half a step to the right. "Can I get," I trailed
off as he looked back at me. His face was a stony mask. He didn't move an inch.
"Could you..." I raised my eyebrows at him as unsuccessfully tried to escape his
arms. He continued to stand there, blocking any escape route. "Move." His eyes
narrowed at me. "Please."

"Bella-" Edward leaned in closer.

"What?" I stared up at him, his face inches away from mine. He looked almost
confused. Or indecisive.

My fingers twitched with the need to do... something. I didn't know what. My
eyes darted to different points on his face and neck, anywhere but his eyes. If he
was going to say no then I hoped he would just hurry up and do it and back off. I
knew we had been much closer than this but it still made me uncomfortable.

"Bella!" Alice's voice cut into the moment. I'd forgotten that she was there. "I
need you!"

"Your sister needs me." I was still staring at his neck as I spoke, and my breath
did what my hands could not. Edward shivered and jerked back, releasing me
from my imprisonment.

"So, you see what I'm saying...with New Year's." Alice tried to whisper with all
the subtlety of an elephant.

I watched Edward go into the classroom. He paused at the door and turned back,
a knowing grin on his face. He'd known right away that the date plan's purpose
was to get him to kiss me. I couldn't help but think he knew exactly what was
going on between Alice and me. He knew I had a backup plan.

"Alice, shush! He was standing right there."

"What?" She whipped her head around looking for who I was talking about. "Oh,
Edward? Don't worry, he's about as observant as a blind caterpillar. Now, about
Saturday-"

I was willing to admit that Alice knew Edward better than I did. She grew up in
the same house as him, after all. But her comment was so different than the
Edward I'd come to know. He knew about my strange attraction to the orange
juice thing, he always asked the most personal questions, and somehow he
always seemed to know how to get me to change my plans. I'd never changed
my plans for anyone before.

"Are you listening to me?" Alice's voice dragged me back to the conversation.

"No, sorry. What were you saying?"

"I said that I've already spoken to my Mom, she's cool with a New Year's party."
Alice raised her hands and made quotations around 'New Year's' as if I wouldn't

understand what she meant. "I found an old recording of the Countdown show, or
whatever it's called, that we can use."

Why would anyone record a show that only mattered in one specific moment? The
more I got to know Alice, the less I understood her.

"That sounds great, Alice, but I think we-" I was going to say we should work on
the actual kissing plan a little more but she cut me off.

"We should get to class. Right." She turned around and bounced off down the
hallway, just as the tardy bell rang.

"Schedules wait for no man!" She almost punched Ben Cheney in the face as she
pumped her fist into the air as if inspiring the troupes. I was left to stand in
confusion about Alice being more aware of the time than I was.

I darted into the classroom, hesitated for a moment as I realized that I would, of
course, have to sit beside Edward. Like every other biology class this year. It
shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it did. Also, I swear the whole class was
watching as I sat down beside him. Were they looking for some physical evidence
that we'd had sex? Was there physical evidence?

"Is your sister always so..?" I asked and turned to look at him to block out the
stares of the rest of the class.

He was drinking some juice from an unmarked bottle, but it was distinctly orange
in colour. My stunned silence transformed into an annoyed scowl. "You enjoy
tormenting me, don't you?"

Edward grinned as he placed the bottle back in his backpack. "I have no idea
what you're talking about."

My scowl deepened as he started rummaging through his bag, piling textbooks
and binders on the table in front of us, ignoring me. I stared at the back of his
head a moment.

"You haven't answered me yet." I regretted the words the moment they were out
of my mouth.

Edward sat up slowly, his eyes fixed on me the entire time. I didn't want him to
answer. In fact, I wanted to forget I had ever asked him out in the first place. It
was a stupid idea. Alice's idiotic New Year's plan was ten thousand times better
than my date plan. Obviously, I was all planned out. Done. Forever. My life ruined
at the tender age of 17.

"I-" Edward started, my wide eyes staring at him, willing him to stop, praying to
all the mighty powers in the universe for some sort of miracle.

And the universe must have heard and been feeling rather magnanimous that
day as my prayers were answered in the best way imaginable.

"Books away, phones off, its pop quiz time!" The teacher's voice rang out cheerily
across the room as he started putting sheets of paper face down in front of
everyone. As he walked by our table I was sure he was doing this because I had
skipped yesterday. I knew I wouldn't get away with it that easily.

I shrugged at Edward and cleared my workspace of everything but two pencils.

It was better this way anyway. Dr. Ruth said:

Teens who get too serious too early often wind up in trouble. They spend too
much time with each other so that they can't concentrate on their school work,
friends, or family.

It was better to take things slowly. I could wait until Saturday for Edward to kiss
me. Well, technically Sunday as it would be at midnight. Either way, I could wait.
I didn't need to ask him out. I didn't need to give him the chance to say no. He
would have to be there on Saturday so even if Alice's plan never got any better, I
was sure I could come up with something.

With this in mind, I bent my head to my test and filled it out faster than I had
ever completed a test before. When I told Charlie about it later I wasn't even able
to relate what the test had been on. I had no idea what the questions were or
what my answers were. I just knew they had nothing to do with Edward and that
made me feel better.

Mr. Banner let us go as soon as we were finished with the quiz, so I was the first
one out the door. I made extra sure to pay a lot of attention in music class, as I
had missed it yesterday and I'd been zoning out so much lately. Plus I wanted to
distract myself from the fact that I had asked a boy out on a date. And he hadn't
answered me.

Not that I'd given him much of a chance.

"Bella, are you okay?" Mrs. Green asked me as I groaned out loud while writing
trying to draw a treble clef over and over again in the margins of my sheet music.

"Yes," I said without taking my eyes off my paper. It was surprising that she
noticed me at all. The music teacher at Forks High lived in a world of her own and
didn't ever seem to get that teenagers were in her care.

How bad must I seem to be attracting her attention?

I almost groaned again.

Why hadn't I let him answer? I did want to go out. Well, I wanted him to kiss me.
I wanted all this uncertainty and confusion to go away. I wanted this whole thing
to be over and done with and to never have to see Edward again.

Except that wasn't true. I liked seeing Edward. I liked his hair and his eyes and
his orange juice. I didn't like being around him things felt so...incomplete
between us. Incomplete and awkward.

There wasn't a glimpse of red hair to be seen as I made my way to the truck after
class. The drive home passed in a daze and I briefly considered staying home
from my music lesson, but as I'd skipped the last one I decided I'd better go.

Grabbing a snack, I left a note for Charlie in the kitchen, picked up my violin from
my bedroom, sawSex for Dummies sitting in the middle of my bed and hesitated.
I dragged the book to the edge of the bed, flipped it open and glanced through
the index.

Page 57... the section on dating.

I skimmed through a lot of insignificant tripe about courtship (why would they let
her use that word?) and marriage before I found anything about teens and dating
and sex. What I found wasn't encouraging.

Teens who get too serious too early often wind up in trouble. They spend too
much time with each other so that they can't concentrate on their school work,
friends, or family.

Had I spent too much time with Edward? Looking back on the past week, it was
hard to judge how much we had spent together. He was in my thoughts so often,
it felt as if we spent every waking moment together. But I was sure we hadn't.
Had we?

No, because I saw Jake. And Charlie. And got to know Alice a little. But,
somehow, all of those interactions seemed connected to Edward.

Bob beeped at me as I flopped back on the bed. It was the signal that I had to
leave to make my music lesson on time. Instead of getting up and leaving, I
pulled out Bob and called my instructor. She got paid whether or not I turned up
so it was no hair off her back if I missed another session.

I lay half on the bed, my feet dangling over the edge toward the carpet and
skimmed through the rest of the section on teenage dating:

When you do start dating, don't suddenly let your heart take complete control
over your head. Just because you like someone doesn't mean that you have to
take risks in order to see them.

Is that what had happened? Had I let my heart take control over my head? What
did that even mean? What risks shouldn't I be taking? Wasn't dating a risk in and
of itself? I groaned in frustration and threw the offending black and yellow book
to the ground, rolled over until all of me was on the bed and my face buried in
the pillows.

And then I must have fallen asleep as the next thing I knew was a burning need
to use the bathroom, and the light coming in from the window was lower and
darker.

And, oh yeah, some thing was making noises at the foot of my bed. Noises that
sounded distinctly like a human. A human something was on the floor at the foot
of my bed. One part of my brain was screaming at me to pick up a lamp, or my
laptop, or something to use as some sort of weapon. The other, larger, louder
part of my brain was simply screaming, "PANIC, PANIC, PANIC!" at the top of its
lungs.

And, I'm ashamed to say, that was the side of my brain that won.

In something similar to slow motion I felt my mouth open as an ear-splitting
shriek emerged from the depths of my throat just as a mop of familiar red hair
appeared at the foot of my bed. The face underneath the hair looked just as
terrified as I felt.

In the second it took me to realize it was Edward and stop screaming, he
launched himself onto the bed and clamped his hand over my mouth.

We were both breathing hard, and I acutely aware of my lips against his hand.
Before we could move, a loud shout rose from the living room.

"Bella? You alright?" Charlie's feet were soon hitting the stairs and, thankfully,
this time I beat down the panic side of my brain and pushed Edward off of me
and the bed.

"Bella, I can explain." Edward glanced toward the door, the look in his eyes
making it obvious that he had let the panic win.

"Not now! Charlie has shotguns and isn't afraid to use them." I shoved him into
my closet and jumped back onto the bed just as Charlie burst through the door
into my room.

"What happened? What's wrong?"

Now, I am a terrible liar. Lies always seem to complicate things and make life
harder. But the idea of blurting out the truth point blank, as I usually would,
seemed like a bad idea. Especially as I wasn't sure what was going on.

"What?" I tried to sound sleepy and confused.

"What?" Charlie looked at me bewildered.

"What are you doing here? When did you get home?" I didn't have to fake the
confusion in my voice this time. Falling asleep mid-afternoon wreaked havoc with
my inner schedule.

"The usual time. Why were you screaming?"

"I screamed?" I did my best to make it sound like a question and not a
statement.

"Yes. Loudly."

I gave him my best vacant stare.

"Bella, what is going on? Why didn't you go to your music lesson?"

"I meant to. I must've fallen asleep." I made a big production of being appalled
with myself, and digging Bob out from his hiding place in the bed, so I could call
my instructor.

"What was the scream about?"

"I don't even remember screaming, Dad. I must have had a bad dream."

"It wasn't about the accident, was it? Cause I can call-"

"No, it wasn't that. I don't remember it at all. I'm fine. Sorry to startle you."

Charlie turned for the door and was almost out when a crash in the closet
stopped him.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." This, of course, was the worst thing I could have said as it obviously
wasn't true.

Before I could think of another thing to say, Charlie crossed the room and yanked
open the door of the closet, and then froze at what he saw beyond.

"Uh," I started but there wasn't anything I could say to explain that I had hidden
a boy in my closet.

"Hello, Mr. Swan."

"Edward."

The silence that came afterward stretched out far beyond what I thought it could.
Edward stood frozen, shoved in between my button down shirts and my business
skirts, with his hands above his head holding up the shelf he had knocked off of
its bracings. Charlie, his hand on the door knob of the closet, glared at Edward
with malice but made no move from where he was.

I sat on the bed raking my brain for an explanation. But there wasn't one. I didn't
even know the truth of why Edward was in bedroom, and had no hope of coming
up with a convincing lie.

Charlie slowly turned his head to look at me, noticed my face in its state of terror,
and then turned back to Edward. His head started to nod up and down as if he
were convincing himself this was actually happening.

"Well," Charlie spoke, then stopped, shook his head, and slowly backed out of the
room without another word.

He even shut the door when he was on the other side of it. I heard the click of it
just as Edward finally lost his grip on everything and the shelf came tumbling
down on him.

"What are you doing here? And why did you feel the need to sneak in?"

"I could use some help."

"Just let it fall."

I winced as he stepped out of the closet and the shelf holding all of my old
planners and notebooks crashed to the ground.

"What are you doing?"

I'd picked up Bob and was scrolling through my schedule. "Looking for a time to
fix that." I gestured at the mess he'd left in my closet.

"Oh. Well, see ya." Edward turned toward the window to leave.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving." He had one hand and one foot on the window and looked as if he was
just going to jump the two stories to the ground.

"How...? What...?" I took a deep breath and decided that asking questions wasn't
the way to go with this situation. "If you don't sit down and explain yourself I will
follow you to your house and tell your parents that you spider-manned yourself
into my bedroom, uninvited, while I was asleep."

Edward backed away from the window and sat down on the edge of the bed, still
staring toward his escape hatch.

"So...You're here because..." He looked as if he needed some encouragement.

"Well, I came to steal this." He lifted something off the floor and waved it toward
me. "But when I saw that you were still here I thought I'd better just get out of
here as soon as possible then you woke up and, well, you know the rest."

"You wanted to steal- But, it's my bible! It's my Oprah!"

"Exactly. Oprah is scary. This is scary," He shoved my book toward me. "It isn't
how you make a relationship work. This isn't even intelligent. I will never go on a
date with you while you still have this book. Ever."

My hand reached out to grab it. Edward let go and the book landed on the bed
between us.

"You won't go out with me?" We both knew that wasn't the real question.

"No." His answer had weight and force and I knew it was final.

"Uh...okay."

"What?"

"Okay, take it. It's yours."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Edward stood up and walked toward the window. I couldn't bear to look as he
took Sex for Dummies away from me.

"Wait!"

Edward sighed, and turned around, thinking I had changed my mind.

"Maybe, you should leave through the front, so that Charlie knows you're gone."

"Oh. Right." His face had a greenish tinge and the muscles in his jaw were
twitching in an odd way. He looked more uncomfortable than he did that time we
ran into his dad at the family planning place.

We walked down the stairs together, both avoiding looking toward the living room
where Charlie was watching television.

"So, tomorrow night?" Edward was half out the door when he looked back at me.

I'd forgotten that we hadn't settled anything about our date.

"Sure," I angled Bob so I could read the screen, and brought up my calendar.
Nothing too pressing. "Tomorrow's good. I'll pick you up at six?"

"You'll pick me up?"

"Yeah, I asked you out. I'll pay too."

"Okay. Sure. I'll see you then."

"You'll see me in class first."

"Oh, right."

He didn't move. I took a step closer to the door, closer to him. I took another
step. My fingers brushed the spine of Sex for Dummies, and for a second I
thought he was just going to kiss me, right then and there.

But Charlie turned up the volume on the television, probably to give us privacy
but it just reminded us of his presence.

I took a step back. Edward nodded in farewell and started to walk away. Half way
down the front steps he turned back.

"How does it feel?"Edward asked. "To be on the other side of the crazy schemes?"

"My plans aren't crazy schemes."

"Uh huh, sure." He turned and started walking in the opposite direction of his
house.

"You know you live the other way, right?"

"Yeah. My car's around the corner."

"Oh, well, see ya."

"See ya." He waved as he reached the edge of the yard.

"They aren't crazy schemes!" I yelled at his back. He laughed and continued on
his way.

I watched him walk away for a moment then turned toward the living room.
Charlie was smiling at the TV but as he was watching the news about a serial
killer in Seattle, I didn't think he was smiling at that.

"So?" It was best to start the conversation myself and not let him be on the
offensive.

"So." He didn't even turn away from the television.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

"About what?"

"About-" I stopped myself from answering. It seemed stupid to ask for a lecture
on having boys in my room. If he wasn't going to say anything about, I wasn't
going to bring it up. Besides, it wasn't my fault anyway. "Never mind."

I turned toward the stairs and was all ready to sprint up them, away from the
living room when Charlie spoke again.

"Bella?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"Tomorrow, can you remind Edward that we have a front door?"

"Sure thing, Dad."

"Thank you." The stairs disappeared under my feet as I raced up them.

Despite being alone and fully clothed, once I reached my room I felt naked. Or
exposed. Or something. It was uncomfortable and I wanted it to go away.

The sight of my violin case in the corner made me feel guilty, so I pulled it out
and played until Bob announced the end of my lesson. The nap earlier had made
me restless and I spent the remainder of the night reorganizing my room and
staying as far away from the computer as possible.

I knew I could get a copy of the book on there, but giving my physical copy to
Edward felt like a promise to not use it anymore. Eventually I moved on to re-

organizing the apps and folders on Bob and fell asleep for the night, fully dressed,
Bob resting in my lap.

Edward's car didn't show up in the parking lot the next day. And I waited until ten
minutes before class started to leave my truck and head inside.

Alice was standing beside my locker, with what looked like a lifetime's supply of
binders and textbooks in her arms.

"Morning, Alice."

"Bella! Good, you're here. You're usually earlier than this aren't you?"

"I was waiting for Edward to show up in the parking lot. Do you-"

"Oh, he stayed home today." I waited for her to elaborate. She didn't. "So, Bella,
about the party. I was thinking-" But the warning bell rang and interrupted her.

"Uh, can we talk at lunch? I have to head to class."

"Oh, right. Sure thing." She launched herself off the wall and started speed
walking down the hallway, presumably toward her first class.

I made sure to pay attention and take notes and act normally in my morning
classes. Never letting my mind slip into dwelling on Edward. Or, at least, not for
long.

Why would he be absent? Was he ashamed of breaking into my bedroom? That
didn't seem like him.

Although, how well did I really know Edward? I knew he liked orange juice and I
swear sometimes he could read my mind. He was patient but annoying. He
always seemed as if he was mocking me and it made me want to slap him
sometimes. I knew he was caring and attentive. But I didn't know what music he
liked. I didn't know what TV he liked to watch. I didn't know his middle name.

I didn't know who he'd had sex with before me. Or how many times. Or why he
wouldn't kiss me.

With all these Edward thoughts streaming through my mind, the notes I was
taking in my classes got more and more jumbled as the morning wore on. Lit
notes were separated by long lists of the questions I was going to ask during our
date. Despite being accepted to several universities, I still had to pass all my
classes, and the last week and a half hadn't helped toward this goal at all.

I was still scribbling in my notebook while I walked into the cafeteria. Alice was
sitting at her usual table, all of her books spread out before her, and a rainbow of
pens and permanent markers beside her.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I sat down beside her.

"Making a guest list, a snack list, a games list, an alcohol list, and, well, doing
anything to distract myself from that." She pointed toward a table over to the left
where Emmett and Rosalie were, well, it looked like they were eating one another
for lunch as their food lay untouched in front of them.

"Why don't you go somewhere else during lunch?" Alice looked up at me as if I
were insane. "Well, then you wouldn't have to watch-"

"No." She sucked in a deep breath. "That would be like admitting defeat. And I
cannot do that." She nodded her head then turned back toward her organizing.

"Is there something specific you wanted me to do?" I was almost afraid to ask.

"Not now. I will need your help the night of, in order to separate Emmett from
that trashy ho."

"That trashy ho happens to be Emmett's girlfriend." Alice and I looked up at the
owner of the new voice.

"Jasper. What are you doing here?" Alice's tone clearly meant, "Leave now."

Jasper sat down across from us, and started eating as we stared at him.

"What are you doing?" Alice asked with malice in her voice.

Jasper looked up, a piece of lettuce dangling from his mouth. "Eating lunch." He
mumbled around his bite of sandwich.

Alice stared at him a moment before bursting into laughter. "You look so
ridiculous."

Jasper swallowed and grinned at her.

"What are you two ladies discussing?"

I straightened my back, and was just about to suggest we pack up and move our
meeting to the library when Alice answered him.

"We're discussing the party I'm having this Saturday. The one you are not invited
to because I have no desire to find you having sex with whatever slut you bring
on my parents bed."

"Whoa. Someone's feeling hostile today." Jasper had finished his sandwich but
was still grinning at Alice.

"It isn't hostility, it's just the truth."

"First of all, who said I even want to go to your party? And secondly, what makes
you think I would randomly screw some girl in your parent's bed?"

"Well, as you were just screwing Lauren Mallory in whatever semi-private space
you could find here at school last week, your reputation kind of speaks for you."

"And and a person can't change?"

"Not in one week, they can't."

Jasper's eyes sparkled and his grin widened. "Really? Well, what if I told everyone
that just last Friday you were begging me to-"

"I was hardly begging-" Alice stopped abruptly and looked in my direction.

I was pretending to be busy with her list of acceptable party food. With
everything that had happened since Friday I'd forgotten that Alice had wanted
Jasper to kiss her. And that Jasper had turned her down. Would the Jasper I had
overheard on Monday have turned down any opportunity with a girl? Would I
have cared this much about kissing someone last week?

Could someone change that drastically in a week?

"Alice, I think you should let him come."

Alice turned and looked at me as if I'd betrayed her.

"If you don't he's just going to tell the whole school some horrid story about what
the two of you did in the biology lab or something." I blushed as I spoke. Alice
and Jasper didn't even take biology.

The two of them stared at me a moment, before Alice sighed and looked down at
the table.

"You can come if you wish." Jasper opened his mouth to respond but Alice stood
and began gathering all her books up before he could speak. "And I catch so
much as your toe in my parents' bedroom, I will personally murder you."

She walked off, her arms dangerously full, leaving me sitting at a table with a boy
I'd never spoken with before.

"So, you and Edward had sex, huh?"

I got up and followed Alice without saying a word. I'd forgotten that I'd
inadvertently announced to the whole school that Edward and I'd had sex on
Sunday.

"Alice!" I yelled at her once I'd left exited the cafeteria. She was halfway down
the hallway.

"Oh, Bella, sorry. I just don't like looking at him. He makes me feel
uncomfortable."

I decided to not mention the kissing thing at all.

"Alice, can I ask you something?"

"Ah, sure." She looked nervous.

"Why isn't Edward here today?"

"Oh," she shrugged. "He told our parents he wanted a day off. Mom and Dad
don't care if we skip as long as we keep our grades up. Especially now that
there's only like two weeks left."

I nodded. "But you don't know why he wanted a day off?"

"Nope. I don't really keep tabs on my brother."

"Hmmm, okay, thanks."

I turned away with the intention of stopping at the library and trying to put my
notes from that morning into some sort of sensible order but Alice's voice stopped
me.

"Bella?" I turned and looked at her over my shoulder. "Yes?"

"Do you think people can change? I mean, do you think they can change that
fast?"

"Yes."

"You didn't even think about it?"

I didn't have to think about it. I was one hundred percent sure that a person
could change in a week. They just needed the proper motivation.

"A person can change. They can change rapidly." I walked away, leaving Alice
standing in the hallway.

The afternoon continued on in a way similar to those before I started thinking
about sex and Edward. I fixed my notes, went to class, and filed away all
thoughts that were not related to the subject matter at hand for examination
later.

I didn't worry about anything until I arrived home and, for the second time in my
life, was struck with panic about what to wear on a date. If I started ransacking
my closet right away, I figured I could have it looking back to normal before
Charlie got home.

Of course, as I started throwing every single shirt that I own into the reject pile,
it occurred to me that he might not be able to go on this date tonight. What if he
was sick or busy and just hadn't called me to say?

Did he even have my phone number? Did I have his?

A quick look at Bob told me I didn't, which probably meant that he didn't have
mine either. What if he'd been wanting to call all day but couldn't because I didn't
think ahead to give him my phone number. I always think ahead. I told Charlie to
purchase travel insurance that time he had to cross the border for less than day.
I even told him where to go for the best rates.

But I never thought to ask the man I had sex with for his phone number?

I was a failure. Why did I think I could do this interaction, relationship...thing.

Was this another sign about how much I was changing? If so, I didn't like it and it
needed to stop. I needed to be in control of these things. I needed to be able to
call my sex partner at a moment's notice. Not be lost about whether or not our
date is happening because I'd neglected to ask him his phone number.

I collapsed onto the pile of clothing on my bed, letting out a sound of frustration
and decided I would just stay there for the rest of the night and forget about
Edward Cullen.

The moment I thought that, the doorbell rang.

Pushing myself off the bed, I flung open my door and trudged down the stairs.

As I opened the front door, I realized a blouse had stuck to the sweater I was
wearing, and as I began to peel it off, Edward, on the other side of the door,
spoke.

"Interesting look for a date."

My hair was a mess, I had random clothing sticking to me, and I was dressed in
the same clothes that I'd spilled formaldehyde on in biology. Some girls might
have been upset or embarrassed at being seen like that. Not me. I knew when to
blame him.

"Why are you here so early? We had a plan." I started to let him answer, then
remembered. "Wait! What's your number?"

"My number?"

"Yeah, your phone number. I don't have it. I need it."

Edward, still standing on the front porch, pulled out his phone, hit some buttons
and a moment later Bob buzzed in my hand.

"There's my number."

Passing over my curiosity as to how he managed to acquire my phone number, I
addressed my other concerns. "Why weren't you at school today? Also, you're
two hours early. I am not ready for you. Please leave, I will pick you up from
your house as previously discussed." I nodded at him and started to close the
door.

"Bella, we're not going out tonight."

We're not? But I thought you-"

"I mean we're staying here. I'm cooking you dinner. That's why I'm early."

"But I've already made reservations for us."

"No you haven't. Nowhere in town takes reservations."

Why did I think he wouldn't know that? He's lived here longer than I have.

"Right." This was an unforeseen turn of events. And I couldn't think of a way to
change his mind. "Well, you're still going to have to wait; I'll need to clean up the
house a bi..." I trailed off as I looked around the living room, clear of Charlie's
gun cleaning supplies and random bits of cop uniform.

In fact, now that I took a moment to look around, the whole house looked rather
neat and tidy. Huh.

"I told Charlie yesterday that I was going to do this. He probably cleaned up a
bit."

"You told Charlie?" Edward nodded. "Was this before or after he found you hiding
in my closet."

"Before."

"Right." That meant that he'd decided to say before he stole the book. What
would he have done if I hadn't given it to him?

"So, can I come in?"

I stepped back from the door and let him in. Edward had two grocery bags in his
hand and he immediately headed to the kitchen with them.

"Thanks, you can go and do whatever it is you need to do to get ready. Dinner
will be served promptly at six."

I was still standing at the front door, a little bewildered.

"Is Dad going to be showing up at all tonight?"

"Not until later. He said he'd be at," Edward hesitated here. "A...black house or
something? In La Push?"

"The Black's. It's a last name. Family friends."

"Ah. Yes, well, he'll be there."

"Did he say when he was coming back?"

"He did tell me a time to expect him, yes. Now, go do whatever it is you needed
to do. You're not supposed to worry about these things tonight."

"I worry more if I don't know."

Edward started toward the kitchen in silence. He wasn't going to be telling me
anything more.

The only thing that greeted me upstairs was a mountain of rejected clothes with a
me-shaped dent in it. And I could tell there was nothing to be found in that pile
that would be helpful this evening.

What was I going to do for two hours while Edward cooked in my kitchen?

I mean, even if I did shower, that would only be ten minutes. Make-up would be
eight, and hair would be three. Sometimes living such a scheduled life sucked.
Other, less efficient girls could probably waste three times as much time
prepping.

Me? Trying to waste time? Alice was wrong; people could definitely change in a
week.

Giving up on the whole business of looking good for Edward, I tiptoed down the
stairs, unsure of my welcome in my own kitchen.

"Uh, can I come in?" I poked my head around the corner of the entrance from the
hallway.

"Sure." Edward turned his head from the stove and smiled at me. "You don't have
anything you need to do before our date?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm ready."

His smiled widened. "Come on in and sit down then. We can have a longer date
this way."

I smiled and tentatively stepped toward the kitchen table, leaning against it
instead of sitting.

"Why weren't you in school today?"

"I had some thinking to do this morning. Also, I found the illustrations in your
book very distracting."

I blushed and looked down at the floor.

"So..."

"So?" I looked up at him as he stirred something in a pot on the stove.

"Generally speaking, people talk on dates. Discuss themselves. You know, get to
know each other." He chuckled and moved to the cutting board on the counter
which had some vegetables and a bunch of bread on it.

"Okay, you go first." I had no idea what to say about myself. No one had ever
asked before.

"Well, I have an annoying twin sister, a father who works at a family planning
clinic, and a mother who obsessively sells Avon products. What's your family
like?"

"I have a Dad. He's a cop. You know him. Sometimes I think you know him better
than I do."

"And...?"

"And, that's it. My mom's dead." It was weird to say it out loud. I hadn't spoken
about her at all in eleven years.

"How did she die?" Edward had stopped what he was doing and turned around to
look at me.

"I don't really like to talk about it."

"I know." He gave me a look that clearly said, "I'll wait."

"Well, she died two months after I came to live with Dad. In a car accident."

"That must have been hard."

I shrugged. "I suppose."

Now I did sit down at the table, facing away from Edward.

"I've only had sex with one other person."

I whipped my head around to him.

"Her name was Sarah. She was my girlfriend for all of tenth and eleventh grade."

"What happened?" I whispered my question.

"Nothing really. We stayed together because we were together. We were friends
more than anything. And after a certain amount of time of being together it felt
like we had to sleep together. So, we did. Once. And the next day we both
realized how stupid being together was."

As much I'd wanted to know about Edward's sexual past, I'd also been scared to
hear about the girls before me. To hear about others who had more experience or
weren't different the way I was different. But, this was almost a relief. And I saw
it for what it was. An offering.

I smiled at him and turned to face the wall again.

"When I turned ten I decided I didn't want to be like my mother. She, well, she
used to forget about me a lot. That's why I was sent here, to live with Dad. So, I
planned out my days. I wanted to know exactly where I had to be and who was
expecting me. It was just little things to begin with."

Edward went back to chopping and mixing and whatever else he was doing at the
stove.

"And then, anytime I came up with something, it just seemed right to plan it out.
I still have all my planners that I used before Bob. I've written down extensive
details on what I'll be doing for the rest of my life."

Edward chuckled. "I think they all fell on my head last night."

"And, well, the night before I asked you to have sex with me, I realized that sex
had never entered into my plans. Marriage and children had, but not sex. And I
didn't want to be an Andy Stitzer."

"Who?"

"The main character from The 40 Year Old Virgin. I watched that movie with Jake
the Sunday before all of this happened."

"Wait." He put down his wooden spoon and walked over to me. "Are you telling
that all of this happened because you watched a Steve Carell movie?"

"Well...yes. Is that a problem?"

Edward shook his head and moved back over to the counter. "You realize, don't
you, that you changed your life plan because of a stupid movie?"

I'd never thought about it like that. "I suppose."

"Okay, so why me? Why ask me to have sex with you? We'd never spoken unless
we had an assignment to do together."

"Well..." I hesitated. I didn't really want to tell him how long I'd been attracted to
him. "Of all the boys in the school you're..." How to explain? I didn't want to tell
him the whole story. But I felt as if I owed him an explanation after everything.
"Well, you've always been the only boy who could make me lose my focus."

"Oh? In what way?"

"In that, well," I straightened my back even though we were facing away from
one another and said, without an ounce of embarrassment in my voice. "I've
always found you very attractive."

Edward made an odd noise but I continued to face the wall.

We seemed to be going back and forth with the questions, so I figured it was my
turn. "What about you? Why did you say yes?"

There was silence for what felt like eternity.

"Honestly?"

"Of course."

Edward sighed before answering. "I thought you would back out and I wanted to
make sure you were with a guy who would let you back out."

"Oh." That wasn't what I'd been expecting at all. So, he agreed to have sex with
me because he didn't want to have sex with me? That didn't make any sense.
"So, why did you go through with it?"

"Ummm, well," He stopped all movement and stared out the kitchen window for a
bit. "I don't really know."

"You don't know?" What did that even mean?

"Yeah, I just thought, well, we'd come that far, you know? Plus, well, you were
kind of half naked and-" He stopped before he could dig himself a deeper hole
there.

I didn't understand at all. "You appear to have intimacy issues. You've slept with
two girls for no apparent reason?"

"Yeah, well, you scheduled in losing your virginity. I think it's fair to say we both
have some problems."

Things on the stove seemed to come to some sort of stand-still, so Edward sat
down next to me, leaving pots simmering and steaming.

"What are you making?" The counter was covered in vegetable rejects and more
knives than I'd seen used in the making of one meal.

"Spaghetti."

"Spaghetti?" A five year old could make spaghetti with less mess.

"Yep. Very special Cullen family recipe. You should feel honoured." He spoke with
such sincerity; I couldn't tell whether or not he was pulling my leg.

"Well, are you going to clean up the mess when you're done?"

He nodded.

"Then I do feel honoured."

"Can I ask you something I don't think you want to answer?"

I've never understood why people worry about that. I'll ask anyone anything, if
they don't want to answer then they don't have to. "Sure, ask away."

"How did your mom die?"

"She died in a car accident."

"Were you there?"

"No, why?" Hadn't I told him that I came to live with Charlie months before Mom
died?

"Well, last night when you screamed and Charlie came in, he asked if you'd had a
nightmare about the accident. I thought maybe you'd been there."

"Oh, no, for some months after the accident I had some bad nightmares about it.
But they stopped."

Edward gave me that look again. That one that said he'd wait. Like he knew I had
more to say. "See, Mom was, well, forgetful. She once forgot to pick me up from
school for four hours. And, well, she wasn't very good at life."

"You feel guilty don't you?"

"I feel that, after I left, she didn't have a reason to try anymore."

"That doesn't make it your fault." Edward said as he got up and went back to the
stove.

"It's easy to tell yourself that but," I let the sentence hand in the air, not sure
where I'd been planning to take it.

"Well, the good news is, dinner is ready."

The spaghetti turned out to be delicious. I didn't know what he'd done to it and
he wouldn't tell me. The rest of the evening went by in such a way that I
imagined no one had ever had such a normal date. I didn't pull out Bob once, he
didn't drink any orange juice. We didn't talk about our odd beginnings. I don't
remember any details of what we did talk about but I remember the evening
being smooth, easy.

Until I said goodbye to him at the front door.

"So, do you think this is our first or second date?" Edward asked as he paused in
the entranceway.

"What do you mean? This is our third date."

"How?" He looked confused.

I gave him a pointed stare.

"Bella, you can't honestly expect me to count our sex appointment as a date."

"Sure as shooting I do. In fact I could make an argument for the day before being
a date, making this our fourth." I poked Edward repeatedly in the chest as I
spoke, taking a step closer to jab him harder.

I'm not going to lie. I knew it was the end of the date, prime first kiss territory,
and I wanted to situate myself as close to him as possible.

Edward grabbed my hand in his and yanked me toward him.

"I know what you're doing." He whispered.

"You do?" Was he going to stop? Did he want to kiss me or not? Why couldn't he
just speak plainly?

"Yes, and it's not going to work."

"Oh," I tried to sound disappointed. I was disappointed but he was leaning his
face down to mine as he spoke. Was he teasing? Or was he talking about
something other than kissing and this whole conversation had just been a terrible
misunderstanding and now I was going to be kissed while expressing
disappointment.

"Bella?" I was so lost in my own running commentary that it took me a moment
to remember that was my name.

"Y-yes?"

"Relax. Stop thinking so fast."

He leaned his head down closer, his lips less than an inch from mine when
something happened. I'm not sure what. But before I knew what I was doing, I
had jerked my head back, banging it on the open door behind me.

"Ow!"

"Bella! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I could feel tears threatening to fall. I'd screwed it up. All I had been
hoping and planning for and I messed it up. Me. Mess up a plan. I shook my head
at myself, my face burning with embarrassment.

"Bella, it's okay if you-"

"Stop!" I interrupted him and extricated myself hand from his. "Just stop. I need
to..." But there was nowhere to go with that sentence; I didn't know what I
needed.

Without a backwards glance I ran from Edward, ran up the stairs and into my
bedroom, locked the door behind me and collapsed on my bed.

A million thoughts raced through my head, fighting for dominance. Thoughts of
my mother, who I hadn't spoken about in years. Thoughts about Edward who had
just been about to kiss me. And thoughts of myself, and what my life was going
to be like now.

The thoughts kept racing and jumping and bouncing around until eventually, I
burst into tears. I didn't know why. I wasn't sad or angry or frustrated. But I
cried and cried. I cried and sobbed and ripped at the cover of my bed without
knowing what was wrong.

And then I cried myself to sleep.

Day 11 – In Which Edward tries to kill me with his fingers.

"What is that?" I looked over at the messy notebook that Alice had in front of her
instead of a lunch.

Edward was sitting across from me at the table, Jasper beside him. I think
Edward's foot was touching mine. I wasn't sure, though. And the only way I could
think to figure it out would be to move mine. But I couldn't do that. If his foot
was there and I moved mine closer to him he would think I was playing footsies.
If I moved it away from him he would think...well, I don't what he would think
but I was sure I didn't want him thinking it.

Besides, Edward must already be thinking awful things about me. I did just leave
him standing at my front door last night. I'd been sure he wasn't going to
acknowledge my existence at all today. Or ever again. Had he stood at the foot of
the stairs until Charlie came home? I didn't know, and I didn't want to know.

Or, at least, I didn't want to have to ask Edward about it. I was just going to
pretend it had never happened.

Edward must've had the same thing in mind, as he hadn't said anything. He just
sat there, staring at me. Taking a slow, calculated sip of his orange juice once a
minute. I was timing him.

He couldn't want to talk about last night, right?

"My plans for the party." Alice answered after a moment of looking at the page of
scribbles in contemplation.

"That isn't a plan. And you," I pointed to Jasper as he laughed around his
mouthful of lunch. "Can stop your laughing, or leave this table."

"But I don't want to go to bed without dinner, Mom." Jasper had been sitting
there trying to be silent as Alice and I talked about her party this weekend.

Alice looked up at me quizzically. "What is it then?"

"It's," I searched for the proper word. "It's a mess. Give it to me."

I motioned for Alice to pass the notebook to me as I leaned down to pull some
blank index cards and my pouch of highlighters from my backpack. This, of
course, moved my foot and I jerked my gaze up to Edward as my foot kicked his
away from me. He was still staring at me and hadn't moved an inch from the
moment he sat down.

Pretending I hadn't seen, I went about organising Alice's, well, I didn't even think
you could call them ideas. Doodles? She had scribbled out where she wanted the
food laid out, and where the drinks would be. The words "not too long on a rock
band instrument" were scrawled across the top.

I sighed, and plunged into fixing Alice's mess. She was such a novice.

"Who's buying the drinks?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're eighteen, I'm eighteen. Who's buying the drinks?"

"Oh, Mom or Dad will do that."

"Really?" I looked to Edward for confirmation. He jerked his head once. "Okay."
Their home situation was different than mine. I couldn't imagine asking Charlie to
buy alcohol for me. Or asking him to have a party at our house.

I spent the rest of lunch scheduling shifts on fake instruments and mapping out
the main floor of the Cullen household. Alice started talking good places to corner
Emmett.

"I don't get it." Jasper interrupted.

"What don't you get?" Alice sneered at him.

"Your obsession with Emmett. He isn't-"

"I'm not obsessed," Alice nearly screamed at him.

People at the surrounding tables looked over at them. I stared harder at my
index cards and did my best to ignore them.

"Um, does this look right?" I quietly asked Edward, showing him the bird's eye
view of the first floor of his house.

See, I could be normal with Edward. There was nothing to feel awkward about. I
didn't feel awkward.

"Uh, yes." He sounded disturbed. "How did you do that?"

"I have a good-" But my sentence was cut off.

"You don't know anything about Emmett! You just want to kiss him because
you've turned him into a superhero in your head. He isn't like that."

"Yes, he is!"

"No, he isn't!"

Jasper and Alice continued their argument in the style of five-year-olds.

"What were you saying?" Edward leaned across the table so I could hear him.

"Oh, well, I have a good memory, and," His foot slowly slid against mine again.
"Uh, the layout of your house makes sense. It was quite easy."

"What is this?" Jasper yelled, louder than before, gesturing toward Alice's
notebook. The whole cafeteria was now staring at our table.

"Nothing!" Alice picked up her notebook and held it to her chest.

"You have plans for me? At this stupid party?" Jasper sounded offended.

"If you think it's so stupid, why are you even coming?"

Jasper didn't say anything.

"I'll tell you why. You have some sort of nefarious plot. You're going to ruin
everything. Why else would you want to be there?"

Jasper shook his head and collected his books. "You're wrong. About everything."
Then he stormed out of the cafeteria.

As soon as he was gone Alice started shoving all of her things into her bag as
well. I could see her untouched sandwich get squished by her binder.

"Here." I handed her the perfect index cards. "Orange is food, Pink is alcohol, and
Yellow is anything to do with scheduling."

"Thank you." Alice walked away from the table just as Bob made his ten minutes
until class sound.

I looked over at Edward, but couldn't think of anything to say. Gathering up my
things I decided to follow Alice.

"Hey," I tapped Alice on the shoulder where she had stopped out in the hallway.
"Do you remember last week, when we first ran into each other in the
bathroom?"

Alice, looking miserable, nodded.

"Why did you paint what you painted?"

She shrugged, "Because we're graduating soon and I wanted to leave an Alice
was here mark somewhere."

"You know, I was in the bathroom today, and they haven't painted over it, or
cleaned it off or anything. They've left it."

"Do you really think Emmett doesn't care about me one way or the other?"

I didn't know what to say to her. She seemed to be looking for comfort but I
couldn't lie. Especially about this. There wasn't a lie I could tell that I had
anything to back it up with. "Alice, I don't know Emmett at all. I have no idea
how he feels. Why do you like him so much?"

"I've liked him ever since I was six. He found me lying on the sidewalk after
crashing my bike. I was crying and my knees were bleeding and my face was
scratched up." Alice turned and looked me. "Emmett was playing hide and seek
with Edward and Jasper, and he lost that round on purpose to walk me home."

As someone who had begun an infatuation over a bottle of orange juice, I
couldn't fault her logic.

Bob beeped again, signalling five minutes until class.

"Your graffiti in the bathroom helped me out a lot. Maybe you should take it to
heart about yourself. And Jasper."

Alice looked at me as if I'd said the sun was brown. "Jasper isn't beautiful."

"Well, I don't think so either, but I guess that's all in the eye of the beholder or
what-have-you." I was getting off topic. "I don't think you meant physical beauty
anyways."

"I guess not."

"I'm only saying there has to be more to Jasper than a manic sex fiend and-"

"Did you just say manic sex fiend?" Alice burst into laughter.

I blushed and looked away. Alice kept laughing and I could see there would be no
reasoning with her after that.

"I'm going to class."

I hurried away before she had a chance to respond, not wanting to be late for
biology. We'd probably get our quizzes back and I couldn't remember a single
word I'd written on mine. I was racking my brain trying to come up with some
prediction on how I'd done, when I walked into the classroom and saw Edward.

Crap. I'd forgotten that we'd have to sit next to each other.

He was already at our table, looking relaxed and comfortable as his eyes followed
my progression through the room. Neither of us said anything as I sat down
beside him.

We spent class that way, silent and ignoring each other, but aware of one each
other more than anything else that was going on. I tried to pay close attention to
Mr. Banner. I even laughed at his joke about relative dating not being incest. I
felt Edward shuffle his stool over.

As the bell rang, indicating the end of class, Edward turned to me and spoke, a
touch of anger in his voice. "Are we just going to ignore each other forever?"

I packed up my bag, feeling defensive, and refused to look in his direction. "I
didn't ignore you at lunch." Which implied that I was ignoring him now and,
despite it being true, I didn't want him to think that. "And, I'm not ignoring you
now, or at all. I don't know Edward, I thought you were ignoring me."

"I haven't been ignoring-" But just then the bell for our next class rang and we
were still standing around our biology table.

"I have to run!" And I dashed out of the classroom not giving Edward the chance
to say anything.

After classes were over, I still didn't know what I wanted to say to Edward. I
raced out to my truck and sped out of the parking lot as soon as possible.

I knew I'd have to talk to him. I did still like him. But, I didn't understand why I
ran away. So, how could I explain? What could I say? Hey Edward, something

about you repulsed me last night, sorry? That didn't even make sense. And it
wasn't true. I wanted to kiss him. I really wanted to kiss him. Whenever I
thought about his lips on mine, I got tingly feelings throughout me.

Thinking about the sex still made me feel uncomfortable. I couldn't believe I'd
had real sex with a boy. It didn't seem like something I'd ever do. The me that I
pictured in my head wasn't someone who'd had sex. She wasn't even someone
who thought about sex. But now I kept having all these thoughts about sex, and
being naked and seeing him naked, and touching him and kissing him and...Ugh.
I hadn't even seen him fully naked yet and I was plagued by thoughts of his
nakedness.

I missed being asexual.

I pulled up in front of the house and took Bob out of pocket. Bob always made
me feel better. His sleek curves and tiny buttons, perfect for organisation and
scheduling.

"What am I going to do?" I started looking at all of my Bob apps. They'd held all
the answers before.

"Aha!" Recipes. Very good. I was going to take my mind off of everything by
cooking a big dinner. Charlie would love me.

Time went by in the mindless task of measuring and cutting and grating. The
chicken went in the oven just in time, and Charlie was home ten minutes before
everything would be ready. I knew how to time a roast chicken.

"Smells good," he yelled from the entranceway as he hung up his jacket and took
off his shoes.

"Thanks. It's all ready, come in and sit down."

"Isn't it a little early for dinner?" Charlie noted as he walked into the kitchen.

"Maybe, but I wanted to cook when I got home from school."

I placed Bob beside me on the table, double-checking that he was on vibrate, as
Charlie sat down across from me and we began to eat.

Well, Charlie began to eat. I wasn't hungry and I think my staring into the
chicken as if it had all the answers of the universe started to creep him out.

"Did you want to talk about something, Bells?" he asked, his fork paused midair
on the way to his mouth.

"No."

Charlie continued looking at me as if I was a stranger at the dinner table. As soon
as the chicken entered his mouth, I spoke again.

"Why didn't you blow a gasket about Edward on Tuesday? And then why did you
let him come over on Wednesday? And why did you stay away? Do you not care
about your only daughter's virtue? What if he sullied me, or whatever?"

Charlie put down his fork and pushed his plate toward the centre of the table.

"Bella, how old are you?"

This seemed like an odd response but I was used to indulging Charlie's bizarre
tendencies.

"Eighteen."

"Right. Your mother and I were married when we were nineteen. We were dating
for two years before that. Now, I don't want to scar you or anything, but let's just
say I have no desire to be a hypocrite when it comes to...uh...that sort of thing."

He was saying that he and Mom were having sex when they were eighteen. I
suppose that was only to be expected, and it shouldn't bother me.

I shuddered anyway.

"Why did you get married so young?" I'd always wondered but been too afraid to
ask. Thinking about Renee at all used to trigger nightmares, and brought up
feelings of guilt.

"As a teenager your mother was the most exciting person I'd ever met. She was
the complete opposite of my family. Renee took everything to the extreme. When
she was happy, she glowed. And when she upset, the entire world was ending.
She was crazy. Which I loved when we were young. She made me crazy, too."
Charlie smiled at whatever he was remembering. "I thought she was perfect.
Then we got married." Here he shook his head and sighed. "And everything
changed."

"How did everything change?"

"Well, I grew up and Renee never seemed to. She was the wild child. Even after
you came along."

"Why did you let her take me?"

"Renee was always good with you. I wouldn't have let you go with her if I thought
for a minute that she was unfit to be a mother. But I was leaving her, and I
couldn't bring myself to take her daughter away from her."

"You left her so you would be happy?"

Charlie thought about this a moment, then nodded. "Yes. I wasn't going to let her
mood swings, as I thought they were at the time, ruin the rest of my life. My only
regret is letting her take you."

"Huh." I looked down at my chicken, pushing it around with my fork.

"Bella?"

"Yes?" Looking back up at Charlie was hard. We were never very vocal about our
affections for one another and I'd ignored the parts about me in his speech on
purpose.

"I-I'm sorry that you had to grow up that way. And that-"

"It's okay, Dad." I stopped him before he could get...emotional. Things just
weren't done that way in the Swan household.

Charlie nodded in understanding and went back to his chicken. I followed his
example.

After dinner I sat in my room for thirty minutes and didn't do a single thing
except for stare at Bob and think.

What would make me happy?

I had no idea.

Well, I felt fulfilled when I completed a part of the plan. I became giddy when
updating my Bob's software and getting to rearrange all of his apps. I felt a
strange sort of peace and accomplishment when I played my violin without
having to read the music.

But, I couldn't remember ever being happy. I wasn't happy last Sunday, when all
my plans came to fruition. The closest I could remember to being happy was last
Saturday, the unscheduled day I'd spent with Edward. Not that I would ever let
him know this, but I'd liked his teasing. I'd forgotten about the plan for a while,
and we just spent time together. Sunday had felt awkward and blurry, as if the
whole experience of losing my virginity had been scenery rushing by, not
something I'd experienced myself. I hadn't even felt fulfilled at the culmination of
all my plans.

Well, I felt filled but not...

Blushing furiously, I hit two buttons on Bob before I could change my mind and
brought him up to my ear.

"Bella?" Edward's voice pierced the silence of my room a second later.

"Hi. Edward. I'm ready."

"What?" Oh, right, he couldn't read my mind. Duh.

"For you to kiss me. I'm ready. Do you want to come over now?"

There was silence for a long time, and I didn't know which would hurt my chances
more, speaking up or staying silent but there wasn't anything else to say, so I
stayed silent.

"I'll come over but," he started. I held my breath, afraid of what he was going to
say. Finally, he added, "Look, just don't go anywhere."

"I wasn't planning on going anywhere." Hi request confused me. I'd just invited
him over. Although, I guess I did have a habit of running off, but I wasn't going
to do that this time. I'd invited him over for Pete's sake.

"I'll be right there." He hung up his phone without saying another word.

I ran downstairs immediately after hitting the red button on Bob and hovered
around the front door. The knock came less than ten minutes later and I was, for
the first time ever, thankful that I lived in a small town.

"Hey," I said as I opened the door.

"Hey." Edward was wearing the same thing he'd had on at school, jeans and a
nondescript t-shirt, but this time, I noticed the way he looked in his clothes.
Which made me think about how neither of us had gotten around to taking off
our shirts last Sunday.

I started picturing him naked and blushed and stammered as I tried to form a
coherent sentence.

"Uh, so did you...want-" Thankfully, I was interrupted.

"Hey, kids." Un-thankfully it was my Dad.

"Hello." We both mumbled back.

Charlie walked by us into the living room and sat in his customary chair in front
of the television. I gestured toward the stairs with my head and walked away
from the front door, hoping Edward would follow.

"Wait." He grabbed my hand and pulled me back until I was facing him again. "I
didn't come over so that we could go to your room and create an awkward
situation where the last thing I'd want to do is kiss you."

"You don't want to kiss me?" Why was it easier to arrange for the two of us to
have sex then it was for us to kiss?

Edward adjusted our still connected hands until we were holding hands properly.
Like a cutesy couple that couldn't help their public displays of affection.

"No, I'm not going to kiss you."

"Ever?"

He smiled at me and tugged my hand a little closer. "I brought a movie over. I
thought we could watch it."

"What movie?"

He held up a familiar looking orange DVD case.

"Really?" Was he mocking me?

He nodded. "It's sort of our movie isn't it? Other people have a song or a place or
something. We have this." He was smiling. He looked excited and kind of cute.

"Charlie will probably watch with us."

"That's a little awkward but, okay."

This time I tugged on his hand and led him toward the TV.

"Do you have any orange juice?"

I shook my head in disbelief as we got ready to watch the movie that had
brought us together.

"No. No orange juice. I dumped it all the down the sink." This was a lie, and I
smiled at him as I said it. But there was no way I was giving him orange juice
while Charlie was around.

"What are you kids up to?" Charlie asked as we took over the television without
saying anything to him.

"We're going to watch a movie. You have no choice. Sorry." I felt a little bad
about interrupting his normal routine, but he was the one who kept encouraging
Edward to interrupt mine, and revenge was sweet and beautiful.

I settled on the couch next to Edward as the DVD started playing and he took my
hand again, which immediately made it impossible to concentrate on the movie or

anything else. I sat there, staring forward, my mind consumed with what I was
supposed to do next. Stay where I was? Lean on him? Squeeze his hand?

None of those options seemed right and I was left to sit, unmoving, and pretend I
didn't notice that he was holding my hand.

"What's this movie about?"

"Sex." Charlie looked over at me as I answered and I leaned forward so that he
couldn't see that Edward was holding my hand.

"Ah."

There was a moment of silence as the movie started.

"Well, I have to..." Charlie looked around in a panic, not wanting to be in the
room to watch the movie with us but not wanting to be obvious in his need for
escape.

"Dad, if you don't want to watch a movie about sex with your teenage daughter
and her...ah, well and a teenage boy, you don't have to. We understand if you
have to leave."

Charlie nodded. "Right then. I'll just," he pointed vaguely toward the hallway and
got up and left.

I was watching a movie about sex with Edward.

"Bella?"

"Uhuh." I squeaked and then blushed and stared harder at the wall.

"You're allowed to relax."

"Oh, no, I'm good like this." Did I just admit to not being relaxed? I was relaxed.
I was at my leisure, even.

I tried to prove it by leaning back against the couch, but that didn't work, I was
just as rigid as before except now I was staring at the ceiling instead of the wall
behind the television.

"Bella, look at me." I could hear the grin on his face.

I had to sit up and turn my shoulders to look at him. It was even more
uncomfortable.

Edward stared at me, a creepy smile on his face.

"You're only making me feel more uncomfortable. Not that I'm uncomfortable.
Just, if I were, you'd be making it worse." What was I saying? Did everyone feel
like this when left alone with a boy they like?

"I'm just trying to figure it out."

"Figure what out?"

"Whether or not you're ticklish." And then he attacked me.

It wasn't like when an adult tickles a child. And it wasn't like those tickle attacks
you see on television. You know, the ones that are more like wrestling and are
always a precursor to sex. No, when I say he attacked, I mean he attacked. His

fingers were rushing all over my sides, digging into my ribs, forcing me to laugh.
I was laughing so hard water started leaking from my eyes, ribs started to hurt
and I began to fear I would die if he didn't let me breathe. My whole body started
to convulse and I was in actual pain. Not to mention it was getting difficult to
control my bladder.

And I did not want to scar my future grandchildren with the story of how I'd peed
all over the man who'd taken my virginity and then never had sex again.

Not that I'd have grandchildren because I would never have sex again.

"Stop. Stop, stop!" I finally managed to drag in enough air to yell at him.

Edward stopped and his hands lay still on me. He was leaning over me, forcing
me to lie on the couch under him. I was a mess, my clothing askew, my hair a
mess, my face soaking, and my eyes blurry. Edward was smiling and laughing.
And his face wasn't that far from mine. Which meant his lips weren't that far from
mine. I couldn't help but think of the other kind of tickling. The kind that lead to
sex. Maybe this too would turn from physically aggressive to physically intimate.
He would only have to lean down an inch.

The same thought seemed to occur to Edward at that the same time. But he
didn't move. He looked as if he were waiting for something. But what? I'd given
him my permission. Charlie was hiding. He had me pinned to the couch with my
clothes all out of place. What could be more perfect for snogging?

But Edward continued to look at me. I didn't know what he wanted and the
moment passed. He smiled wider and sat up.

"We're missing our movie. Stop being awkward and enjoy it or I'll have to tickle
you again."

"Tickle me again and I'll punch you in the face. You could've killed me!" I'd been
close to blacking out near the end of the skirmish, I was sure of it. I was also a
little ticked off that he'd let our almost perfect moment slip by.

Edward, of course, just chuckled in the face of my pain. "You know, if I'd had a
glass of orange juice in my hand I probably wouldn't have done that."

I groaned and leaned against the back of the couch, my hand in his again. When
had that happened?

The rest of the movie passed in relative peace, although, I laughed a lot more on
this viewing compared to when Jake and I watched it.

When the movie was over I escorted Edward to the door, hoping for an end of the
date kiss.

"Uh...Edward?"

"Yes?" He sounded nervous.

"Earlier when..." No, that wasn't right. "Um, when people ask about you-" Who
was going to ask about him? He'd lived here longer than I had. Everyone I knew
already knew him. "I mean, what should I tell people we are...you know, with
you and me and what we've done in the past." I hated Edward and the power he
had to turn me into a bibbling idiot.

"Yes."

"What?" Had I asked a yes or no question in that ramble? I didn't think I had.

"You can tell people I'm your boyfriend. Just as I wouldn't have sex with someone
I wasn't dating, I would never kiss anyone who wasn't my girlfriend." He smiled,
to imply that he was joking. I think.

And then he squeezed my hand before letting it go and turned and left the house.
No goodbye, no see ya later, no parting arrogant smirk.

And no kiss either.

Day 12 – In Which I a Van Crushes My Plans.

Bob beeped me awake. I reached over to the nightstand and grabbed him,
stroked my fingers over his perky little buttons and stopped his upset noise.

"Thanks, buddy." Cradling him to my chest, I stared into his screen and got
excited for the plan we had today.

I smiled in to my pillow before getting out of bed and heading for my shower,
already ahead of schedule. Alice's New Years, kissing, party-thing was tomorrow,
Edward was my boyfriend and the sun was... well, not shinning. But the
familiarity of the grey sky was comforting. It was going to be a good day.

I continued to smile all throughout my shower and getting dressed. I smiled as I
brushed my teeth, and that was a little difficult. I smiled as I went downstairs for
breakfast.

"What's up with you?" Charlie greeted me as I entered the kitchen.

"Getting ready for school, Dad. Everything's on schedule and beautiful and
wonderful."

Charlie smiled and left the kitchen looking as if he was heading back up upstairs.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to ask, "You'll be home tonight?"

"Yep. How do feel about extra cheesy lasagne? Very little noodle. Mostly meat
and cheese." Charlie wasn't a big fan of pasta.

"Sounds good." He'd just turned his back to the front door when the bell started
ringing. And didn't stop. I almost had to cover my ears.

"You expecting anyone?" Charlie looked over his shoulder at me. The way he said
anyone I could tell he meant Edward. Which was silly. When did Edward ever
show up when I expected him?

I shook my head and smiled to myself. Maybe it was Edward. Maybe he wanted
to ride to school together and he'd shown up early because he knew about my
schedule and that I needed to be on time.

"Hihi!" Alice stood on the other side of the door. I tried to hide my
disappointment.

"Bella!" Alice yelled into Charlie's face. "Oh! And Bella-dad. Hello!"

"Good morning, Alice. Did your parents drop you off?" Charlie asked, suppressing
a laugh.

"No, I got up early and walked over." Alice pushed into the entryway.

Charlie laughed and went back toward the kitchen. I guess he decided it wasn't
worth tormenting me when it wasn't Edward.

Alice advanced on me as I walked out of the kitchen. She placed her hands on
her hips tilted her head up, planted her feet and tried to do an impression of a
wall.

Alice and serious didn't go together that well. She looked like abnormal.

"We need to talk. You're giving me a ride to school." Her voice had lost its high
pitched, perky edge.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked as I went back toward the kitchen for
my breakfast.

"Edward." She paused a second, then followed me. "And Emmett because when
Edward came home last night, he, well he..." Alice burst into tears

Not so serious any more.

I looked from the sobbing Alice to the kitchen. All possibilities of breakfast that it
held. Why couldn't friends schedule mental breakdowns? Then everyone would be
prepared.

"Uh," Charlie had come back from the kitchen and was staring at us. He was
holding in a laugh which I thought was a little insensitive of him.

Should I hug her? I never had before. And I really didn't want to in front of
Charlie. He would never let me forget it. What if he asked me to hug him before
bed or something? I didn't want to make it a regular thing. So, my arms sort of
flailed around until Alice threw herself at me and took the choice out of my
hands. I hit her on the back a couple times in the hope that it came across as a
comforting pat. Alice didn't seem to notice at all.

"Edward's so mean! I don't understand why he's made it his mission in life to
destroy my happiness and mock my pain."

Edward a pain? But I woke up with a smile and he was my boyfriend and I didn't
think Alice understood Edward at all.

"Okay, you sit here." I directed Alice into a chair near the front door. "I'm going
to get my stuff, and then we can talk on the ride to school."

Without Charlie listening in.

Getting my school things didn't take long as I'd gotten everything ready the night
before. However, shuffling a sniffling Alice out to the truck took ten minutes. I
wanted to help my friend, really, I did. But if she made us late for class... I would
have Charlie arrest her.

Once we were settled in the car, I checked the time on Bob, then invited Alice to
start her story again. Skipping breakfast had us on time. It was a good thing I
always made a point of preparing my lunches the night before.

"Well, Edward came home all blissful last night, so I assume he came from your
house."

I started to interrupt her but she stopped me. "Don't say anything, I don't want
to know. It freaks me out enough that I know you two... did the horizontal
mamba." She shuddered.

"You know, I'm not the first person he's had-"

"Stop! No talking about that." She shook her finger at me. Charlie was rubbing off
on me.

"So, he came in and I asked him what he was getting me for my birthday.
Edward replied that he'd think about that in two months, when my birthday
actually is."

As I had been with Edward when he bought Alice's gift, I knew this to be untrue,
but was unsure of my place in the middle of their sibling relationship. I did not
know if I should say anything or not. It was possible that Edward may have been
trying to annoy her, or he might have wanted his advanced-shopping to be a big
surprise as well.

Besides, Alice didn't give me much of a chance to interject anything.

"Then Edward went on and on about how my party was going to come to nothing
because plans couldn't make someone like me. So, then I brought up you and..."

Great. Thanks Alice. As if things weren't patchy enough between Edward and me.

"And then Edward said that was different and then he claimed I wouldn't like
Emmett at all now. And then he told about all the girls and which girls and oh my
God, I don't want cross-contamination! Emmett once had sex with a girl because
Jasper dared him to. I'm not going to say what girl but believe me when I say he
was taking his life in his hands with that one. And then I told Edward that I didn't
care. Emmett had always been nice to me. And then Edward I was being a stupid
little girl. And that this plan was never going to work. "

I thought that was a little unfair of Edward considering how we had... hooked up?
Commenced our affair? My plan had worked just fine. Although, to be fair,
Edward had been in on my plan.

"And then he said that Emmett would never kiss anyone as silly, immature, and
short as me." Alice wasn't snivelling at all anymore. She was pounding her tiny
fist on my truck's dashboard.

I feared for my truck.

"And then I said that he was a bitter, sexually frustrated asshole who took
advantage of, well, you." Alice gestured at me here. "Except I didn't say it as nice
as that. Sorry."

We drove along in silence. I drove on and Alice sat hunched over and sulking in
her seat. She didn't have her seatbelt on. This made my eye twitch, but I didn't
say anything. Alice appeared to have bigger fish to fry than possible death at the
moment.

Also, I wasn't sure if I was angry with her. What had she called me? Did she
really think that about me? I did have intercourse with her brother without really
knowing him at all. Did this make me a slut? Did Edward think I was a slut?

The silence stayed until I parked the car at school.

"Do you think this party-plan is a stupid idea?" Alice asked as I was about to exit
the truck.

"No plan is stupid."

"You didn't even hesitate."

"Well, you've invited people, right?"

Alice nodded.

"So, there's no cancelling it. You can't go back on plans like that. It's bad form.
The theme is set, the guests invited, food and alcohol have been paid for. In
addition, I colour-coded a bird's eye view drawing of your house and mapped out
predicted movement of guests."

Alice continued nodding.

"And if it's all going to happen, you may as well follow through on the plan.
Otherwise, it's all been for nothing. The plan is set, the players in place, now all
we have to do is follow through on the strategy." My voice had taken on the
quality of a television evangelist. I was preaching planning and wasn't going to let
disorganization win. I was going to get my kiss with or without Alice's
enthusiasm.

"Now, go to class—and remember, my crazy plan worked out for me, so there's
no reason yours can't work out for you."

Right? Edward and I had worked out? Sure, we hadn't kissed just yet... but it was
going to happen. Tomorrow. At the Party of Kissing.

Class went by fast and I was able to take concise notes without my thoughts ever
straying to sex or boys, which until late had been the norm but I now thought
was a miracle.

I sat in my seat gripping my pen like a sword and kept my mind on the mission.
Mine and Alice's. I concentrated, took the best notes I ever took, and was a
perfect student. I was being such a perfect student that I didn't even notice when
someone sat down beside me.

That is, I didn't notice him until he poked me in the ribs, and I jumped about a
mile and made a strange yelping noise. Miracle over.

"Bella!"

" Jasper! Don't ever do that again!" I raised my voice at him so, of course, the
entire class was staring at us. The teacher was holding her chalk midair and
giving us an incredulous look. I smiled and shuffled my seat away from Jasper a
bit.

He didn't take the clue, and moved closer to me as everyone turned around, and
went back to what they were doing.

"I need to ask you something." Jasper whispered in my direction.

I rather thought it was a little late to try being covert.

"What are you doing here? You're not in this class. We don't have any classes
together."

"Bella. It's the second to last week of school. Ever. We're not learning anything
new anymore. Have you really looked at what you're copying down?"

I looked down at my notebook then glanced at the chalkboard. I had been
studiously taking notes on a game of hangman. No wonder the teacher hadn't
kicked him out.

"What are you doing here?" I repeated, choosing to ignore the whole hangman
thing.

"I wanted to ask you to help me."

"What do you need my help for?" This was the first time Jasper and I'd had a real
conversation. We didn't even really know one another.

"Well, I want to sabotage Alice's ridiculous plan."

"What? Why? Ridiculous?" He wanted to do what to my plan?

"Because it's stupid." I almost smacked him.

"Why do you care?"

Jasper hesitated before answering. "Because Emmett's an asshole, and he isn't
going to care, and she's just going to end up the ass-end of some joke."

"And I ask again, why do you care?" He'd insulted my plan. I was not going to let
him get away with this.

Even if he did have a point. Emmett didn't seem like the world's most upstanding
citizen. Besides Alice's plan to hook up with Emmett coincided with my plan to
kiss Edward. You couldn't cancel one without cancelling the other. Besides, I still
didn't see what any of this had to do with Jasper. And I didn't see how, after
everything, there was any way I could walk up to Alice and tell her not to try with
Emmett.

"I care because...because..." He took a deep breath and entered start over mode.
"Look, Emmett only hooked up with Rosalie because I told him I was interested in
her."

"Then Emmett doesn't care about Rosalie at all. Alice might still stand a chance
with him."

Jasper shook his head in frustration. "No. That's not what I'm saying. Emmett
hooks up with girls to sleep with them and to brag that he has slept with them
and that is all."

Brag about having sex? What was there to brag about? It isn't as if Emmett's
encounters were the result of well laid plans and perseverance.

"And you're any different?" I accused attracting more stares.

Jasper glowered at me for a moment then stood up, knocking his chair over.

"Fine. Continue on with this stupid party. I'll watch and laugh when it blows up in
your face."

Everyone stared as he stormed out of the classroom.

"Well, that was entertaining." The teacher said as after he'd left.

I stared at the door, thinking. If the party was just going to hurt Alice more, did I
want to go through with it? She was pretty upset last Wednesday and Emmett
didn't say or do anything. But why would Jasper infiltrate my class, give me a
cryptic warning about things blowing up in my face, and then leave a short
minute later? Why wouldn't he just want to watch it blow up in Alice's face and
laugh at her?

Possibly while having sex on her parents bed.

I really hoped the Cullen parents weren't going to be home during this party.

The rest of the morning classes snailed along in hangman and exam review. I'd
never wanted time to speed up as much as I did that morning.

I hadn't seen Edward at all before class. Logic dictated that I shouldn't miss him
as I'd seen him less than twenty-four hours ago, but I did. I missed him a lot. Or,
I missed being with him. I wanted to be with him. It didn't help that Alice's words
this morning gave me a vivid yet irrational fear of him rethinking our whole
relationship, or whatever it was, and coming to some crazy conclusion that he
should break up with me.

At least, I hoped it was irrational.

So, I was ecstatic when I exited my last class of the morning to find Edward
leaning against the lockers across the hallway, waiting for me.

"Hey," I said as I walked toward him.

"Hey," he replied and stared down at me.

He didn't look mad, so I took this as a good sign and reached down to take his
hand. We walked toward the cafeteria, smiling at each other in a dopey manner. I
think I might've been glowing.

We sat down at our table in the cafeteria still holding hands. Alice and Jasper
joined us. We took out our lunch and ate, still holding hands. Alice and I talked
about Saturday. I pulled out Bob and placed him on the table, looking things up
when necessary but only using one hand. Jasper Alice argued about the party.
Alice told Jasper he wasn't welcome, Jasper said he would come anyway.

Someone had to have sex in inappropriate places.

It was all so normal, so perfect. I looked over at Edward with a big bite of ham
sandwich in my mouth and he looked at me at the same time and our grins
widened. I still felt like I was glowing. I'd never felt this way before. I was having
lunch with my boyfriend, and everything was perfect.

Afterward we walked to Biology together, still holding hands in comfortable
silence. It wasn't until we sat down at our table that I noticed the guidance
councillor standing at the front of the room and got a tingle of excitement down
my spine. Guidance counsellors meant guidance—about school—but we were
done with our high school education, so I hoped we would be talking about the
future. I loved talking about the future. And this time I could talk about the
future with Edward. My two favourite subjects together.

"Today, instead of biology, we're going to be talking about your future."

My eyes lit up and I bounced in my seat when the woman said this. "You will all
be graduating shortly and while I'm sure some of you have plans for the fall..."
She looked at me as she said this. "And I'm sure that some of you are lost now

that you will no longer be legally obligated to spend time with your friends every
day."

The councillor had pamphlets and late application forms and inspiring speeches
for those that hadn't applied or gotten in to any colleges yet. She started passing
them out to those who wanted them and I was surprised when Edward put up his
hand to request some.

"What?" I kind of shrieked at him. "You don't know where you're going?"

Edward shook his head.

"Why not?"

Edward shrugged. "Well, Alice hasn't decided yet, and I want to go anywhere she
isn't going." What did Alice have to do with his future? Siblings are so strange.

"That isn't a reason to put off your future." How could someone place their future
in someone else's hands like that?

Edward shrugged again and flipped through a pamphlet on Washington State.

"You have applied to places, right?" What did it say about me if I've slept with
someone who hadn't been accepted into college?

"Mmm." Edward made a non-committal noise in response. I stared at him,
appalled.

"What?" He asked me. "I suppose you have everything all planned." He said it
like it was a dirty word.

"Of course."

"Well, lay it all out for me."

"Dartmouth. Degree in business, then move to Seattle and work for Red Sky Blue
Water at an entry level for three years. Meet my keeper-man at twenty-five and-"

"Red Sky Blue Water!"Edward yelled.

"Yeah, it's a marketing firm." How did he not know this?

"Marketing?" Edward stood, knocking down his stool in the process. "That's what
you want to do with your life? And what is a keeper-man?"

"Edward," the councillor had walked over and was hovering over the pair of us.
"Is there a problem?"

"Yeah." He said while staring down at me, "I hate planning." He stormed out of
the room.

"Edward!" I called after him. Glancing up at the teachers at the front of the room,
it only took me a moment to decide to go after him. What had happened to
everything being perfect?

"Edward!" I called again out in the hallway. But he wasn't anywhere I could see.

I ran up and down a few hallways but couldn't find him. I decided to venture out
into the rain.

He was standing by his car. Not making a move to get in or come back to the
school, he wasn't even leaning on it. He was just standing next to it. Drenched.
He wasn't wearing a jacket and the state of his loose button-up shirt had me
kicking myself for not making him take it off during... well, during the sex.

I walked over to him, getting soaked as well, trying not to think about the state
of my shirt.

"What's wrong?" Edward glared at me when I spoke.

He sighed and looked away from me. "Nothing."

What did one say to that when it was so obviously a lie? He ran out in the middle
of class and was standing in the rain. Did you confront the lie? Or were you
supposed to play along? Why did people answer questions that way?

"You're lying." I hoped that was right thing to say.

"Look, I just want to not have to think about my future right now."

"What? Why not?" I was appalled. How could anyone not want to think about
their future? Especially right now.

"Because, not everyone is as obsessed with planning out their lives as you are.
Some of us just like let things be. I don't need to know everything about my life
before it happens. That would be boring."

"Boring?"

Edward made a frustrated noise and turned away from me.

"Okay, I'll just go back inside then." I turn and start to walk away, so I barely
hear what he says.

"Yeah. Go back to your college plans and your career goals and your keeper-
men."

"What do you want from me? You come into my life and start demanding-" He
cuts me off.

"You asked me to come into your life, remember?"

"Just to have sex with me. That was all. All the other stuff was you. The dates
and the mixing things up and the wanting to get to know me. I just wanted my
plan and now you're upset about it?"

"No. I'm upset because I thought you'd changed, because I never would've
agreed to continue seeing you if you were still hung up on planning every single
moment of your life. What if...?" But he trailed off and made as if to get in his
car.

"What if...what?" He had his hand on the car door and I knew I had to stop him. I
couldn't let him drive away.

"What if," he was whispering this time. "I wanted to go to the same college as
you, and I didn't want to go to Dartmouth. What if I wanted to live in the same
city as you, and it wasn't Seattle. What if I wanted to travel the world? What if I
wanted to go to Washington State and then come back here and live in a small,
rainy town for the rest of my life? And what if I wanted to do it with you?"

"Well, why didn't you say something? We could've talked about this."

Edward turned back toward me. "Really?"

"Yes." I reached into my pocket and felt my fingers close around the hard plastic
of Bob.

"Bella."

"Don't you know by now that there's nothing I like better than a little planning?" I
pulled Bob out and waved him in front of Edward's face.

His face transformed. A darkness entered his eyes, and he took two menacing
steps toward me. "That isn't what I meant."

"I can always work people into my plans, Edward." I turned Bob on and opened
my calendar. We could meet up tomorrow and make things work. We could be
going to college together in the fall.

"No. That...you don't. I'm sick of being second place to a stupid, little machine!"

"What? Why are you mad at Bob?" Edward looked so angry. Why was he so
angry?

And then he reached out and grabbed at Bob. I yanked my hands out of the way
a second too late.

Edwards's hands hit mine and Bob went flying through the rain, landing with a
splash in the puddle covered cement.

I heard a squeak of tires and looked up from Bob lying forlorn in the water. An
old, ugly, green van was barrelling down toward us. Tyler's van. Why wasn't Tyler
in class?

"No," I yelled and leapt forward but Edward's hands grabbed me and pulled me
back. In a matter of seconds Bob was a shattered, broken mess scattered
throughout a puddle.

"Bob?" I whimpered.

"*"

Day 13 – In Which The Best Laid Plans Are Ruined.

The pain in my right hand woke me up on Saturday, and everything was all
wrong. There was no friendly beeping to tell me it was 6:53 AM, time to get up.
No little device of plastic shell, LCD glow, and Bluetooth smiles waiting to get me
through the day. No little jingle to tell me 7:01 AM had arrived and it was
therefore time for my glass of orange juice. The unthinkable had happened: I was
alone in my room, I had no idea what time it was, and I was never going to be
able to drink orange juice again.

Another thing Edward had destroyed.

Why did I get rid of my clock last year? How could I be so stupid as to not predict
this contingency?

I saw the plug-in end of his charger and couldn't help reaching out to stroke it
with my pinkie. I wanted my Bob back.

Having always prided myself on being a logical person, someone who could step
back emotionally from any situation, and decide on the best course of action to
take from there, it was difficult to think about yesterday afternoon. I had just
been so angry. Edward destroyed my Bob. Ripped him out of my hand and flung
him beneath the wheels of a van. Just thinking about it made my vision go red. I
was rent with a desire to tear my pillow into shreds and stuff them, one by one,
down his throat.

Which just made me feel more ashamed.

That moment was burned on the back of my eyelids, it would be there forever
and I would see it every time I closed my eyes: Bob breaking into pieces, Tyler's
van disappearing around the corner, Edward's hand on my shoulder, holding me
back. It was then that I felt the rage. The all-consuming knowledge that life as I
knew it was over, and it was all his fault. My fingers curling, the muscles in my
arm trembling, my body shuddering as I turned toward him and swung with all
my might.

Punching Edward was infinitely better than having sex with him.

Oh God. I'd punched a person before. It was all Edward's fault. He came into my
life, changed everything, and then destroyed my Bob. He should've known he
was going to get punched.

Getting out of bed was difficult. If I didn't have a schedule, a plan, what was the
point in doing anything? What was the point in beginning the day if it was empty?
I slumped out of bed anyway and pouted my way through a shower, which made
my hand hurt even more.

After getting dressed, I figured I may as well head down to the kitchen. Nothing
better to do than to stick to my currently non-existent schedule and go about my
life as normal, when really, nothing would ever be normal again.

Charlie was sitting at the table drinking a coffee and reading a newspaper when I
staggered into the kitchen. He looked so content that for a moment I hated him.
How was I ever to be content again?

"Good morning," Charlie greeted before I could speak.

My intention was to say the same thing back, with a more glum tone of voice,
then a get a cup of coffee, sit down in a chair, and share a silent breakfast with
my father. Like every other morning.

Instead I decided to have a meltdown. "Bob's dead!" I screamed, before
collapsing on the table, burying my face in my arms, and sobbing.

"Dead?" Charlie asked, sounding confused.

"Crushed under the horrible weight of emotional expectation and a van!" I wailed
through my tears.

"Oh," Charlie, still sounding confused, reached out and patted me on the back a
couple of times. We weren't big on physical signs of affection. "Was Edward at all
involved in Bob's death?" he asked after a moment of speculation.

That stopped me short. I looked up at my father and choked out, "How would you
know that?"

Charlie's eyes refused to meet mine. "Edward phoned about ten thousand times
last night. The kid sounded upset."

"He didn't say anything about pressing charges, did he?" I had, technically,
assaulted him.

"What?" Charlie's confusion kept on expanding.

"Nevermind." I put my head down and went back to sobbing into the kitchen
table.

My best friend was dead, and Edward phoned? Well, he could live in misery as far
as I was concerned because I was never speaking to him again–and I hoped his
cheek hurt ten times more than my hand.

A thousand times more.

Charlie's hand settled on my back and he asked in a gentle voice, "What
happened?"

I related the strange events surrounding the demise of my trusty Blackberry.
Charlie appeared to be holding in laughter throughout the tale. Why were parents
such asshats?

"Bella, it sounds as if it was an accident," Charlie tried to sound soothing or
whatever.

"It wasn't an accident. Edward had a tantrum and decided to catapult Bob across
the parking lot. I'm sure he rejoiced in it. He's evil that way. Now, all of my plans
are gone, and I don't know what I'm going to do!"

"You had a plan before you had a Blackberry."

I lifted my head from arms and stared Charlie in the eye. "Not just any
Blackberry. Bob. His name was Bob." Charlie raised his eyebrows at me. I
continued in a grumble, "And besides, whenever I had to switch plan-keeping
devices before there was always a transition period. I would relocate my files
from the old device to the newer—but now I can't. I haven't just lost Bob, I've
lost all of my plans. I have no idea what I'm doing next week. I'm probably going
to miss very important things. I have important things! What am I supposed to
do without Bob? There isn't even a corpse to mourn because Tyler's ancient van
crushed him to pieces." My head collapsed back onto my arms when I was
finished.

Charlie was silent for five minutes. I wished he would stay silent forever. Sadly, I
did not get my wish.

"Bella..." Charlie sighed. I knew my wish wouldn't come true. Nothing good was
going to happen today. "Bella, I know that you felt very attached to Bob. I know
this better than anyone, and I know that you found... ah... him very useful."

I sat up and tried to interrupt at this. Bob wasn't just useful. That was an insult to
Bobs everywhere.

But Charlie didn't let me talk. "Look, when it comes down to it Bob was a
machine. A gadget. A handy one, that helped you a lot, and I understand that
you're upset about not having him anymore. But," and here he looked me
straight in the eye. This more than anything had me paying attention. Charlie
was always finding the hidden joke. Seeing him so serious was startling. "Edward
is a human boy. A human boy who likes you. And your other friends. Jacob and
Edward's sister, you two have been planning a party, haven't you?"

Right! That's what the plan was today. The Party Plan. The Kissing Plan. Did I still
want to kiss Edward? No. Yes. No. Maybe. NO. He killed Bob. Kissing Edward
would be turning traitor.

Charlie continued, "And you have me Bella. We are people. We have
relationships. And Bella, each and every one of us will help you in life ten
thousands more times than any electronic device." He was silent for a moment,
still staring at me, driving his point home. "Don't push any of the humans in your
life away for the sake of a phone. If you do, you're going to end up alone and
lonely and dreaming of real friends."

Charlie had never said so much to me in my life.

"I," I started to speak, but this time Charlie interrupted me.

"Don't say anything right now, Bella. I just want you to think about this. I know
it's hard. I know losing your mother hurt you, but it could be so much worse.
Instead of losing people, you could never have them in the first place."

I wanted to say a lot of things to him. I wanted to tell him how Bob had never let
me down, had never abandoned me. I wanted him to know that I was scared. But
all I said was, "I punched Edward." Then I let my head collapse onto my arms
again and remained silent.

Charlie got up and poured a cup of coffee and set it down beside me before the
phone rang, and Charlie went to get it.

"Hey, there's a girl having a panic attack on the phone. I'm pretty sure it's for
you." He handed me the cordless.

I figure it must be Alice because... well, because I didn't have any other female
friends.

"Hello?"

"Bella!" Alice's voice screeched through the receiver, and I almost dropped it,
before thrusting it away from my ear. "Where in the world are you? I didn't even
realize it was possible for you to be late? Did something drastic happen? Is
Charlie dead?" Alice sounded as if she was about to have a heart attack.

"Charlie answered the phone, Alice, he's fine."

"Oh, right, of course. Well, where are you?" She squealed the last bit.

I took a deep breath, preparing myself. "Bob died yesterday. Edward murdered
him, so I don't have my schedule anymore, and I wasn't sure of when exactly I
was supposed to come over." There was no way in hell I could tell her that I'd
forgotten. This is why I needed Bob.

"Come over now! I need you! It's going to take all day to set everything up and
make it perfect so we can both get the kisses we've been dreaming of." I was
pretty sure she performed a whimsical twirl after saying that. I wondered if she
had a birthday tiara on her head.

And again, did I still want this kiss?

No. NO. But the plan… What else could I do but obey the plan I had put in place
for myself? I had to honour Bob in what way I could, didn't I? "Okay, I'll be over
as soon as I can."

"You'd better hurry."

She almost hung up when I shouted her name into the phone.

"What?"

"Happy birthday."

"Thank you." She didn't sound whimsical at all now. She sounded genuine.

"I'll see you in a minute." I hung up before she could say anything else, ran
upstairs to grab her present and... well... I couldn't grab Bob. I felt that I had to
grab something though. I couldn't just leave the house with nothing.

In the end I grabbed a small notebook that was buried in a drawer and rushed
out to the truck. I was half way to the Cullen house when it truly hit me that Alice
was Edward's sister and that he was likely to be there. In fact, he lived there. I
would have to interact with him.

This was somehow worse than asking for sex.

After parking on the street, I took a deep breath, oriented myself, and exited the
truck without allowing myself to get worked up about it. It would be fine. Edward
and I were lab partners. I would have to see him sometime sooner or later
anyway, and at least this way, it wouldn't affect my school work at all.

While walking up the driveway I noticed that their front door was slightly ajar and
took this as an invitation to walk right in, as if I owned the place. Besides, Alice
had invited me, and I wouldn't balk in front of Edward when I was properly
invited.

I entered the main hall area, looked around, and I almost turned and left. It
didn't look anything like it had the last time I was here. The last time I had
visited the living room had been a comfortable, lived-in family room, but now, it
looked as if a fabric store had exploded all over it. And then someone had come
in and vomited streamers all over the cotton and taffeta rubble.

"Uh... hello?" I said as I took a tentative step into the rainbow-coloured ruckus.

"Bella!" Alice screeched from somewhere.

"Yes?" I whipped my head around, trying to find the source of the Alice-screech.

"Thank God, you're here! Can you help me with this?" I didn't see movement,
and her voice was loud, muffled, and seemed to be coming from every pile of
fabric there was.

"Ah, sure. Where are you?" I directed my voice toward the room with the piano,
thinking that was the most likely room to be the center of things.

"In here!" Her voice didn't seem to be coming from that direction.

"I need you to jump up and down, or do a Marco Polo thing, because I cannot
find you." I started digging through streamers and balloons and party hats in a
line, leaving a channel of destruction behind me. I found her buried in the den, on
the floor beside a card table. She had a deflated balloon in her hair, a ribbon in
her mouth, and was wearing a teddy-bear pyjama shirt on top, and green
leggings and a hot pink silk pouf skirt on bottom.

"Alice, you look ridiculous," I blurted, and then because I knew I wouldn't be able
to think about anything else until I had an answer I asked, "Where is your
brother?"

Alice didn't seem to notice that I'd insulted her. "Look at this mess!" she wailed,
pulling at the balloon in her hair, "It's never going to be ready in time! You were
supposed to be here at eight!"

Which did not answer my question about Edward. If I weren't worried about
Edward and Bob, and the fact that I missed an appointment this morning, I might
have laughed as she started flapping about in all the confetti litter.

It was a good thing I didn't ask again, because if I'd asked, I would've had to
stop mid-syllable as Alice collapsed in a pile of hot pink fabric, and burst into
tears. Not little tears. Big, sloppy, snotty tears and gasping sobs. It didn't sound
as if she could breathe. I had only ever taken one CPR course in order to babysit
the neighbour's child three years ago, and in the moment, I couldn't recall an
inch of my training. Nor did I have Bob to Google techniques. I had no idea what
to do.

Was this what I had put Charlie through this morning? If so, I felt a little bad.

Jacob never did this, and he was my only friend up until this point in my life, and
he didn't sob or cry. He played at being a rather butch guy who spent his time
tearing apart cars and putting them back together. He would never engage in
such theatrics, nor would Charlie, therefore, I had never before been confronted
with such a spectacle. I searched everything I knew about human relationships
and came up with two actions I could take. Sit down beside her and join in, or
make a cup of tea.

Deciding to split the difference, I sat down, but decided not to join in. I figured it
was allowed as I'd already had a good cry that morning. "What's wrong?" I asked
in a calm and slow voice. I reached my hand out and patted her shoulder. That
was all I had in me though. She had initiated the hug yesterday and when I
thought about trying it myself I felt physically ill. I was turning into my father.

"H-he's not c-c-coming!" Alice choked out.

I went out on a limb and assumed she was talking about Emmett. "How do you
know?"

"Because Jasper told me. Emmett and Rosalie are going out to some s-stupid
thing tonight. The whole plan is stupid, and I hate my life!" she yelled the last
part loud enough that, as no one came running into the room, I assumed the
house was empty except for us. No Edward. Thank goodness.

This whole thing was turning into such a fiasco. Emmett wasn't coming. Edward
was a phone-murdering, plan-wrecking jackass. The entire school was heading
over here in... I looked at my watch...ten hours. Also the house looked like a New
Years Eve bomb gone off.

"I have no idea what to say, Alice." This was true, so I said it. Were you not
supposed to say true things when they didn't help? How did one handle
comforting friends when their own life was falling apart? "Do you think we should
cancel the party?"

Had I just said that?

Alice continued to sob as she sputtered, "W-we can't. There's no w-w-way to tell
everyone. People w-would show up anyway."

I missed Bob. If I had Bob, I could look up exactly what to do in this situation.
Bob would have something to say. Bob always had something to say. I needed
Bob. Bob would make Alice feel better.

"You've lost Emmet, and I've lost Bob," I said.

"You mean, you've lost Edward." Alice corrected me.

"What?"

"Isn't that why you're upset? You messed things up with Edward?"

"Excuse me! He messed things up with me!" I yelled at the crying girl. Did that
make me a horrible person?

I decided to change topics. "Alice?" I asked, "Why did you like Emmett so much?"
We'd talked about this before but I couldn't think of anything else to say and,
well, if we were going to make this place presentable, Alice had to pull herself
together.

She began to relate the story about the bike, and I interrupted her.

"No, I mean, not why did you begin to like him, why after all these years, do you
still like him?"

Alice shrugged. "He's always been nice to me. And, I don't know, he's just
so...so...hot." She giggled a bit. Probably thinking about his massive arms.

Not that I'd ever thought about said arms. I have mostly always been able to
subvert my teenage hormones. Not letting a guy take over my life because I
think he is hot.

Well, mostly, anyway. Alice didn't need to know about my orange juice thing.

"What about Jasper?"

"What about him?" she says with something similar to disgust in her voice.

"Well, he's kind of hot? Maybe." I'm not the best at interpreting human
behaviour, but I was pretty sure Jasper was interested in Alice. He had been
hanging around her a lot. Not to mention the weird moment in class yesterday.
He must've been trying to say something, right? Something he couldn't say at
lunch time.

"But he's an asshole!" she yelled at me, "Emmett, on the other hand, is nice and
perfect and wonderful," except for the part where he was dating someone else, I
thought. Alice went on. "And Jasper is a man slut who, who, who... who would
never be interested in anyone one person."

Was this not also true of Emmett? Was that not why he and Jasper were friends?
And did she want Jasper to be interested in just one person? This line of thinking
made me think about why Edward was friends with them and decided we needed
another change in topic.

"Let's start setting up." I stood up and dragged Alice up with me. She still had the
balloon on her head. I pulled it off for her, careful not to pull on her hair.

She wiped her face on her sleeve and gave me a fake smile while picking up the
large piece of fabric she had just been cowering in.

We started setting up. Alice made music start playing from somewhere. It wasn't
my usual calm, classical taste, but Alice was rocking out to it and soon she
dragged me into it as well. We were setting up, but we were also dancing. Or
whatever I was doing that seems to have something to do with the beat of this
awful song. I don't think it's actually dancing.

The mess was misleading. It wasn't that bad and an hour later, the couches were
clear, the floor was vacuumed, and the trash had all been taken outside. I'd even
dusted.

"No dishes?" I asked staring at the table we'd set up as "the bar." On it, we had a
serving bowl for punch and some other food but no cups or plates or utensils.

"Edward is bringing them. He had to buy something this morning anyway. I
assume it's my present. The boy always did leave things to last minute."

The mention of Edward made me freeze up.

Alice noticed this. "You know, just because my plan is ruined doesn't mean yours
is," Alice said and I realized I hadn't told her what happened yesterday.

"Edward killed Bob. I don't want to kiss him anymore—or anything else." The
front door opened as I spoke and Edward walked in. Of course.

"Oh, hey." He stopped when he came in and stared at me.

I did not respond.

"Is that for me?" Alice yelled, immune to the awkward tension in the air, and
started bouncing up and down pointing at a gift bag in Edward's hand.

"Uh, no,"he said, still staring at me. "But this is." He handed her a grocery bag
full of disposable dishes and then hurried upstairs.

"Liar," Alice said after he'd left.

"What?"

"You so want to kiss him."

I glared at her. "No, I don't. He catapulted Bob to a watery death."

"And you'd rather mourn Bob, an electronic device, than kiss a real boy. One
you've had sex with?"

I ignored her impropriety. "Real boys are more complicated," I explained
academically. "We'd have to talk before we could kiss. It's… demanding, and I
don't want demanding. Bob was undemanding." I missed Bob. A true giver and
not a taker. But from more than just his death yesterday. All week, I've been
with Edward, talking to Edward, trying to kiss Edward. People were so difficult. I
missed dealing with the simplicity of Bob.

"But real boys are more rewarding, aren't they?" she said almost wistfully. I get
the feeling she isn't just talking to me anymore.

"Also, I punched your brother."

"Really?" Alice's eyes were alight with glee. "He probably deserved it.

We smiled at each other, before going upstairs to her room to get ready. The
whole school was going to be here tonight, we had a themed party that didn't
matter anymore, and I hadn't even thought about what I was going to wear.

All without Bob.

'*'

The party got started around nine, which felt late to me, but Alice assured me
many times that the time was normal.

After welcoming the first half of the guests, Alice had gone to get us drinks and
hadn't come back. I had seen Jasper come in and figured she was hiding from
him as he was probably looking for someone to have sex with.

Why was everything always about sex? I tried and tried to not think about it. To
plan my life so that I didn't need to worry about it and still sex was constantly on
my mind. Was that a side effect of being a teenager? Did it ever go away?

About fifteen minutes later I realized that there wasn't a non-alcoholic drink in
the place, and I was thirsty. I'd never been drunk before, but it was starting to
look like a good idea. Maybe then I wouldn't be so worried about running into
Edward.

I went to the kitchen and got a real glass because the plastic ones, blue and red
on the outside and white on the inside, felt like too much of a date-rape cliché. I
kept peaking around corners to make sure Edward wasn't in the room I was
about to enter. Ten minutes were wasted standing beside the punch bowl
thinking about the possible ramifications getting drunk might have on my future
versus the possible ramifications of staying sober. Then there was a flash of red
hair in the distance. Edward. I knew for certain.

I abandoned the drink table and bolted, still gripping my empty glass. I did not
want to have a conversation with the murderer.

I made my way through hordes of teenagers wearing sparkly hats that said
"Happy New Year!" and the countdown show from 1999 was playing in the
background. A lot of the more drunk people were blowing party blowers in
people's face and running around (indoors!) with sparklers. It was all very surreal
in June.

I headed through the room with the piano and down the hallway to the kitchen,
looking over my shoulder the entire way and hoping the Cullens had a backdoor
like my house did, just off the kitchen. There were some random partiers hanging
around the fridge and doing weird things with whatever they can find in there. I
walked past them and in a stroke of luck, found a door that leads to a porch.

Outside was blessedly cool. It wasn't quite hot but you could tell that the rain and
the cold of spring were coming to an end. Those few short months of summer,
where it was sunny more than rainy, had always been my favourite. It put people
in a better mood and keeps everything happening smoothly.

The coolness allowed me to relax and think. I looked up at the sky and smiled at
the sight of the stars, and not the empty gray of a cloudy sky at night.

The stillness was broken by sniffling. I could hear quiet sobbing coming from the
yard beneath the porch. Not the overly dramatic sobs and yelling of earlier. But
quiet, real tears.

I didn't have to look to know who it was. At her own birthday party. Alice
sounded so sad. I didn't know if I should go talk to her or not. She was kind of
hiding, but having found her out, it seemed callous to just stand here and not do
anything while she cried.

Just as I was about to go down the stairs toward Alice, a hand on my shoulder
and stopped me. I could tell it was a male hand a part of me prayed it was
Emmett. I wanted Alice to get what she wanted. But a part of me also hoped it
wasn't. When I turned and saw who it was, well...at least it wasn't Edward. I
don't think Alice or I wanted to talk to him.

"I'll talk to her," Jasper said, pushing me back from the stairs so he could get to
them in front of me.

I was, once again, at a loss. Was I supposed to leave them to their privacy? Stop
Jasper all together? Did Alice want to talk to Jasper? Did she even like Jasper?
Did the best friend have a sacred duty to eaves drop?

Whoa. Am I a best friend? And, if so, when did that happen and how do I fix it?
Do I even want to fix it?

I sighed and decided to stay where I was. If Jasper upset her more, I could
intervene, if there was something Alice would want to discuss later, well, then I
would be prepared for the conversation.

"...knew he wasn't going to come." I'd missed the beginning of their conversation
with my internal struggle.

Alice answers with sniffles.

"Did you even really want him to? He would have just brought his slut."

"What do you care?"

"I care." I could almost hear him shrug as he spoke.

"Since when? You never cared about me before."

"I don't know. Since you went insane."

"What?"

"With this whole plan/party thing. You've been kind of, I don't know. I just like
being around you, you know?" He sounded as if he was trying to rip his hair out.

"You keep telling me that I should give up on Emmett, that he's nothing but a
man-whore who only goes out with girls who put out fast, but that just makes
you the biggest hypocrite ever." Alice sounded dejected.

"I know. I know I haven't done anything that inspires trust but, but... I want to,
and you know?" His words didn't make any sense but he sounded as if he really
wanted her to know what he meant.

"What?" Alice prompted.

"I don't know, I think, I mean, I'd really like it if you..." But he trailed off again.

"You'd really like what?" Alice demanded.

"To prove that I'm interested in more than having illicit sex on your parents'
bed!" Jasper shouted so unexpectedly that Alice jumped back and squeaked.

"To prove to me?" Alice asked.

"Yes. I think, I mean you're just so— I want to get to know you not just—you
know?"

By this point I was praying Alice could read his mind and put him out of his
misery. Jasper seemed to have forgotten how to string a sentence together.

"You know, it's after eleven."

"So?"

"So, my parents are going to be home at midnight. It's too late to really do
anything on their bed."

"Uhuh…" Jasper sounded just as confused as I was.

"Well, you're not there, with some random chick. You're here. With me."

"Is that a strike in the pro column?" Hope filled his voice.

"I guess it is."

I looked harder into the darkness at them. Jasper had reached out and entwined
his fingers with Alice's. They were staring at one another in silence. The silence
last at least a full minute before one of them spoke.

"Can I kiss you?"

"You want to kiss me?"

"Yes, it's all I've been able to think about since I heard what you did to Rosalie at
the restaurant last week."

"It's not midnight yet. We're supposed to kiss at midnight."

"C'mon, live dangerously." Jasper dared her.

"Fine, I give you permission to kiss me. But keep it clean. And keep your hands
above the clothes."

"Clean? You mean no tongue?"

"Hmm," Alice gave this some thought. "Maybe a little tongue."

After they started to kiss, I figured my duty as the best friend was over and
turned back to the house. Everything had worked out, well, not according to plan,
but it had worked out to a positive conclusion.

I opened the door and went back into the kitchen. He was waiting there and there
was no way to avoid him. So, I stood still and silent, staring at him. I wasn't
going to be the first to talk. Instead I stared at the place I had punched him.
There wasn't a bruise or a welt or any evidence that I had hurt him at all.

My hand still ached. I hated Edward.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

I bristled. That didn't really count as breaking the silence. Did that make
whatever I answered the official breaking of the silence? I didn't want to be the
one who broke the silence.

I nodded. Tersely. I hoped I looked angry, evil, and menacing–and not sad,
depressed, and lonely.

Edward motioned for me to follow him upstairs. After stepping over people
making out, people drinking, people drinking while making out, which should be
impossible, we reached a closed door. Edward pulled out a ring of keys and I
couldn't keep silent any longer.

"You have a lock on your bedroom?"

"Yes. Alice is my sister. She was raised by mother. My father decided when I was
twelve that I needed to lock out the two nosiest women on the planet." He led me
into the room and took a seat on the bed.

It was all very masculine. Well, teenage masculine. It didn't look anything like
Charlie's room. His duvet was blue, his pillows beige, his wall beige, his carpet
beige. Masculine and boring. "A lot of beige," I commented politely.

"The room was painted when we moved in. I just decided to go with it instead of
painting again."

Despite the clear invitation to sit next to him on the bed, I decided to nose
around a bit first. The wall directly opposite his bed was covered in a huge map of
the world with red tacks in it and print outs from the computer surrounding it.

"What's this?" I asked pointing at the mess on the wall. It looked like a
geography project had exploded.

"My version of a plan," he said.

I shrugged and reluctantly sat down at his desk. He was lucky I decided to face
him for whatever conversation he wanted to have.

He took in a huge breath before he spoke. "Bella, I'm so sorry about Bob. I never
meant to break him like that. I just wanted... I don't know. I was angry, and I
wanted you to talk to me without putting your Blackberry between us–and I
guess I yanked with too much... gusto." He sighed. "I never meant to throw it. I
swear."

"I..." I didn't know what to say. I wanted to be mad at him, I was mad at him.
Furious. But, it seemed like, even though I'd only been talking to Edward for less
than two weeks, he felt important to me. It was like what Charlie had said this
morning. People were more important than electronics. And Alice had gotten her
happy ending, which made me want mine but to have mine I'd have to forgive
him. Did I want to just forgive him for no reason?

"Why were you so upset that you felt you had to kill Bob?"

"I didn't mean to kill," he started but then stopped himself. "You were just so
determined, so, set on your plans. It made me feel insignificant to you, like I
meant less to you than a stupid Blackberry. You had sex with me, but the plan
you made when you were eleven meant more to you than me."

"What do you want from me, Edward?"

"I want...I want normal-ness."

"Define 'normal-ness'?" "A relationship. A girl and a guy who like each other and
want to see if they would be good together for the rest of their lives?"

"The rest of their lives? Do you really think that about me?"

"I don't know! Maybe. I like you. A lot. God knows why, but I do."

An odd version of a compliment. "What do you want from me?" I asked again
because I still didn't know.

"I want... I want..." I could see that he knew what he wanted but had no idea
how to say it. "I want you to want something from me. I want..." He groaned in
frustration. "I want to be important to you. More important than a smartphone,"
he said the last word with such censure that it felt like a slap across the face.

"Oh," I said in response. I really didn't know what else to say. I didn't think I
could just change my life right there and then because a boy asked me to but I
didn't want to give Edward up either. Did I have to be one or the other?

"Bella, what...what do you want from me?"

"Huh." His question surprised me. What did I want from Edward?

"And I don't mean something to check off some to-do list that you have. I mean,
why me? Why did you ask me to have sex with you? What you want from me?"

He made it sound like a life or death question. And maybe it was. The life or
death of our...relationship or whatever it was.

"I want...I want...I asked you because, well, especially when you drink orange
juice, you're just so...so...yummy." Yummy? I felt myself blush from the roots of
my hair to the tips of my toes. Yummy?

Bella, that was the wrong choice of word.

This was immediately backed up by Edward bursting into laughter.

"I mean...I don't mean...I mean." Nothing was ever going to be as humiliating as
this moment, right here.

"That's why you asked me?" Edward continued to laugh.

I nodded. He forced himself to stop and got a calculating look on his face.

"How long have you thought that?"

Did I have to be honest? "Si-uhhh, six years." I stuttered out, more embarrassed
than before. "Or so." I shrugged, hoping to make it seem as if it wasn't that big
of a deal.

"Six years!" he yelled back at me.

"Mmhmm."

"And in six years, I'm the only guy you've thought of as... yummy?" Now he was
just gloating. Imbecile.

"Yes, you're the only guy I've ever even thought about having sex with, okay? I
lied when I told you there was a list. You were the list. If you'd said no, I don't

think I would've gone through with it." There. Was that what he wanted? To know
all of my secrets?

"Really?" he sounded astonished.

"Yes."

"Well then." And then he reached behind him and pulled out a gift bag. The one
he'd walked in with earlier. "This is for you."

"It isn't my birthday."

"It isn't Alice's either, but there's a pile of presents for her downstairs."

I guess he had a point.

I took the bag and glance in. There's a white box about the size of a cell phone.
Rushing now, I yanked the box out of the bag and threw the cover off, then
stopped in surprise.

"I thought maybe you could switch it up a bit."

It was an iPhone. I felt my left eye twitch.

"I took the liberty of naming it for you already."

"What, uh, what did you name it?"

"Fred." I smiled. It looked like a Fred. Edward continued, "I really am sorry about
your phone—I mean, Bob, Bella. But I just think this might be a good
opportunity...for us, you know?"

"Good opportunity for what?"

"I never hated Bob, but I just think you use him as a shield. Something in
between you and the people who mean a lot to you. The people you're afraid will
disappoint you."

I thought of my mother then. I thought of as I hadn't in so long I didn't know if
I'd ever thought of her that way. I thought of when she taught me to play the
piano. The patience she had. The way her fingers guided mine. The love I felt in
that moment.

"Charlie thinks I'm afraid," I admitted.

"Of what?" he asked, gently.

I find that I can't look at him as I answer, "of people disappointing me again. Of
losing the people who are important to me the way I lost my mother. Of people
sending me away like she did." I took a deep breath and looked up at him. "Bob,
the plan, everything, was just a way of going through life without putting myself
at risk. I mean, I loved my mother. I still do. But it hurt so much when she sent
me to live with Charlie. And then died. Why... I mean, wasn't I enough? Couldn't
she have gotten sober for me?"

I was almost crying by then and hating myself for it.

"Will I be enough for you?" I asked amongst sniffles

"Bella, Bella, Bella." Edward moved off the bed, toward me.

"I'm sorry I punched you." Now I was really crying, tears racing down my cheeks.
Edward tried to brush them off, but they wouldn't stop.

"Your mother's death had absolutely nothing to do with you. And I totally
deserved to be punched."

Then Edward kissed me. His lips on mine. They were soft...and hard. They were
encouraging and demanding. I was sad and happy.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and lifted myself closer to his lips. He
opened his mouth, and well, it was my first kiss and the whole thing with tongues
and noses and teeth well, it was awkward for a minute. But as Edward brought us
both back toward the bed, we worked it out. Then...well...it was so much better
than sex. This kissing. It was wonderful. It was magnificent. Edward's lips. They
were magical.

Edward started to slide his hands up my back, under my shirt. His skin touching
mine was the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't need more than this.
I didn't want anything more than this.

"Edward?" I pulled back from him, gently, and he moved his perfect lips down to
my neck and started kissing me there. That felt just as good.

"This might sound weird but, oh...that feels good." He'd started sucking on my
earlobe and I started finding it difficult to breathe.

"What sounds weird?" he asked, which forced him to stop sucking on my earlobe.
Unacceptable.

"Don't stop." He obliged me. "I mean, that I don't think I'm ready to have sex."

He pulled back from my ear and looked me in the eye. I continued rambling. "I
know we already did have sex, and it wasn't awful—" I'm sure that's what every
guy wants to hear "—But it doesn't feel like we crossed any sort of threshold
or...I don't feel any different now than I did before and this," I gestured at us,
lying on the bed fully clothed, our arms wrapped around one another. "This feels
more intimate than anything else."

Then Edward smiled. "I think we'd have a better time of it without the
instructional manual." He laughed and leered at me. I hit his shoulder. "Don't
worry, I don't want to rush anything with you." He leaned back down, and just
before our lips connected again he said, "I just want to be with you."

Then our lips were together again, our arms gripping the other, our bodies flush
against one another. Nothing had ever felt this wonderful before. Maybe, just
maybe, I could change all of my plans for this. For us.

I pulled back all of sudden. "Edward! What time is it?"

He looked at me like I was insane then glanced across the room at what I
assumed was a clock. "It's 11:56."

I laughed a little into his neck. "Perfect." I pulled his face down to mine again.

It had been a stupid plan, anyway.

'*'

Day 14 – How My Life was (semi) Happily Ruined

Well, that's a lie. It was raining. But it felt bright and beautiful. I was warm in my
bed and the world around us is real in how we interpret it be so... whatever. For
me it was bright and beautiful.

Edward showed up early, and this time I didn't find it annoying. Charlie and I
were eating breakfast when he knocked on the door, and I may have let out an
embarrassingly high-pitched noise of excitement. To be fair he was there to pick
me up so we could go and get Fred all set up on my account, and I had been
spending a lot of time with Alice.

After spending many minutes making out on Edward's bed last night, he'd walked
me out to my truck, then we'd kissed some more, then I raced home, and spent
hours researching the iPhone. I'd read for hours about the first iPhone had
revolutionized cell phones, and starting looking into what apps I would be
acquiring first.

I'd also found a weird list of facts about the phone that seemed to be comparing
it to Chuck Norris.

The iPhone 4 can cure cancer with its radiation.

I was pretty sure Fred and I were going to be good friends.

"Hey," Edward said, looking all smooth and suave when I opened the front door.

"Hi," I said, anything but suave. And then I threw myself at him. He stumbled
backwards on the porch and took a minute to get his balance then started kissing
me back. I thought I'd become proficient with the use of my tongue last night, or
Edward and I had reached an understanding of how our tongues should interact
but that was nothing compared to what happened on the porch where everyone
could see. He held me so tight, and his lips and tongue and his teeth went
everywhere and somehow it all felt good. Caressing my chin in light back and
forth strokes, barely touching me with his lips, or attacking my mouth so hard
I'm sure he bruised me.

Kissing Edward was a special joy I wanted to experience over and over, all the
time. It was better than putting things in my new calendar. I could feel him
smiling as he moved his mouth to my ear and blew gently before returning to my
mouth, re-introducing our tongues to one another. It was simple and special and
didn't rely on anything before or after this moment. It was just now, and now was
beautiful.

Until Charlie cleared his throat behind us—then now was awkward. But after the
last two weeks, I was sure I was equipped to handle awkward.

"Sorry, Dad."

"Hi, Charlie.," Edward said, still grinning.

"Mmhmm." Charlie grunted before walking back to the kitchen.

"Your Dad go likes to make things painful for us, doesn't he?" Edward said.

"Mmhmm," I answered. "I'm dri... uh, you okay with me driving?" Edward noticed
my slip up and subsequent hasty fix.

"That's fine. I like your truck." I nodded and scrambled into the driver's seat.

"So," Edward said once we were out of the neighbourhood.

"So?"

"About college."

"Right. College." And the freak out we both had on Friday.

"I got so angry because you were acting like you didn't want me to be a part of
your life after high school."

"That isn't what I meant, well, maybe it was. At the time–but not anymore. I do
want you to be a part of my life. Unless we break up. I mean, we're still together,
right? I'm still your girlfriend? That fight wasn't a break up, was it?" Panicking
while driving is difficult, so I pull over beside a stop sign and look at Edward.

"Yes, Bella. I'm still your boyfriend. We're still together. It was just a fight. But an
important one, I think." Edward was trailing his fingers up and down the window
in a nervous gesture. I'd never seen him do it before and it made me want to slap
his hand.

A car honks and the driver yells at us as the pass us, I hadn't done a good job
pulling over. Unable to bring myself to care, I just stared at his hand, going up
and down the window.

"But what happens if we do break up? We change our plans, we make...
together-plans, and then something happens and you start to hate me and we
break up then...then what do we do? Our lives will be ruined! And stop smudging
the window!" I yelled that last bit and lunge across the seats, grab his arm and
yank it to me.

He chuckled a bit, and grasped my hands in his to stop himself from doing it.

"See? This is what I mean! What if we just aren't compatible? What if I'm always
yelling at you and then you hate me?"

"Our lives won't be ruined, Bella." Edward started rubbing the backs of my hands
with his thumbs.

"You can't know that. What if I cheat on you, or you cheat on me? Or we do
something so horrible to one another that we never want to see each other
again?"

"Well, we'll never have that chance unless we try to make this work. And that
means changing plans. I can't promise that we will work out. I can't promise that
we'll live happily ever after. Sometimes, you just have to take a leap of faith. I
know that scares you. But, it's the way life is."

Edward always seemed to understand what I was thinking, even when I couldn't
express it well. I smiled at him and pulled out on to the road again.

"What would you do if I said I want us to take a year off together?"

My foot pushed down on the breaks so hard and fast we screeched to a halt. I
didn't know that happened outside of the movies. "What do you mean?" A year
off? What does one do with a year off?

"Yeah. And go to Europe or something. See the world."

See the world? That wasn't part of my plan. "It's like you're going out of your
way to change my plans as radically as possible."

He grinned and gestured at me to keep driving. "Would it really be so bad if we
decided to buy plane tickets today?"

"Yes!" I yelled as the truck started moving forward again. "Where would we go?
What hotel would we stay in once we got there? Why? What would we see? What
would we do? We have to plan a trip like that."

"So, you're interested in planning a trip for us?"

"What?"

"I can compromise. I want to do something radical. You want to plan. Why don't
you plan out our radical trip? It doesn't have to be Europe. I don't care where we
go actually. I just want to see more of the world then," he gestured at the houses
around us, "this."

"You're serious?" Incredulous does not begin to describe how I'm feeling.

"As a heart attack. I want to get away for a bit. And I want to get away with
you."

I stopped the car again and checked to make sure no one was behind us. "You
want us, the two of us, to take a trip around Europe or something that will take
us so long we have to take a year off school?"

"We don't have to be gone a year. But I figure it'll take you a month to plan the
trip, and we'll want to be gone for at least three months, but no longer than six,
otherwise my savings will not be happy with me when we try to go to school. If
we want to stay somewhere for a bit, we can. We could get under-the-table jobs
and... and just be somewhere that isn't Small Town, America." Edward started
bouncing in his seat and grinning wildly. He looked like four year old on a sugar
high. I remembered that map all covered with pins and stickers in his room. "His
version of a plan," he'd said.

I started driving again.

"Money isn't a problem for you, right?" Edward asked, which as far as I'm
concerned he should have asked first.

"Why would you think that?" The fact was it wasn't, but I'd never told him that or
anything.

"Well, you own a nice a new truck, you take private violin lessons, you have the
latest in smartphone technology and your dad is a police officer in a small town. I
figure he can't make that much money."

"My mom." I hated talking about her, and I'd been doing it a lot lately. "Mom had
life insurance. I guess she wanted to look after me in the only way she could."

"That isn't the only way she took care of you."

"It isn't?"

"She sent you to live with your Dad, right? She knew she wasn't equipped to
raise you properly so she sent you to someone she trusted, someone she once
loved, who could raise you well. If she'd cared less, she would have been selfish
and kept you with her, where you wouldn't have been happy at all and probably
would've grown to hate her."

I remained silent for the rest of the drive, thinking over what Edward had said.
I'd never thought of it that way before. I'd always thought she'd just abandoned
me.

It took us much longer than usual to get to Port Angeles because of all the
stopping and starting at the beginning of the trip. Once we were there, we
headed for the mall ...or what passed for a mall in the middle of nowhere.

Everything with Fred was easy. and we were in and out within twenty minutes.
And I had a new best friend!

Well, no, I had a new helper-companion-thingy.

More than a phone, less than a human.

That was my new mantra.

When we're back in the car, I look at Edward and said, "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes." I nodded.

"Context?"

"Europe or whatever. Let's do it." I can't believe I said that out loud.

"Really? Why?"

"What do you mean, why? It was your idea!"

"But I never thought you'd agree."

"Well, it only makes sense. If we're going to be making future plans together this
is a good way to spend a lot of time together without doing anything that will
change our future. Do you have a passport?" I sharpened my gaze on him. If we
were going away, there was so much to get done first.

Edward opened his mouth, then closed it. "That isn't quite what I..."

"Compromise, Edward. Do you have a passport?"

Edward sighed. "No," he stopped me before I could start telling me what a poor
traveller he was. "I'll fill out the papers tonight. Alright? But we have to have a lot
of fun and do some things spontaneously."

"I can live with that." I smiled at him and reached out, gripped his shirt and
pulled him to me for a kiss. "As long as we can do that as often as possible."

Edward smiled back. "Your wish is my command."

I kissed him one more time, just because I could, then started the drive back to
Forks.

"We should make a list of the ten cities we most want to visit and see how many
coincide with one another, then we can-"

"You never change, do you?"

I smiled over at him I didn't know what the future would hold, but that didn't
scare me as much as it used to. I was almost looking forward to it.

I took a hand off the wheel as I drove, reached over and slid mine into Edward's.
Maybe it wasn't the safest way to drive, but it was the best.

'*'