Out of Choices - Chapter 15
Title: Out Of Choices
Chapter 15: Rubicon (Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
Author:JCAddict/picklewinkle/Sher
Fandom: Twilight
Word Count: 4,804
Rating: R/M, for sex and language
Story Summary: An angry young woman is forced to move to the town of Forks, Washington and decides that alone is the best way to be. She buries her heart and puts on a tough façade that very few people are able to break through. Can the love of a teenage vampire get through to the lost girl inside? AU (alternative universe) and OOC (out of character). Bella is uber OOC. Edward, not so much.
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and all of its characters. I'm just manipulating them like imaginary playdoh so I feel like I have some power over them **snorts**
Ru·bi·con (rōō'bĭ-kŏn') n. A limit that when passed or exceeded permits no return and typically results in irrevocable commitment. (The chapter title says exactly where this story is headed.)
A/N: You’re going to read a bit of my nerdom in this chapter. I couldn’t help myself. I’ve always been fascinated by Stephenie Meyer’s choice to put Bella and Edward into a biology class together. My degree is in biology. I used to TA genetics. Geek they name is Sher. I didn’t set out to write it into the chapter but when the idea came I ran with it, so please excuse my nerditude and appreciate the usefulness of poor Mike’s question. **snorts**
From Bella's POV...
15. Rubicon
I ran from him. I ran as fast as my feet would fucking take me, and then drove as fast as my truck could handle. Apparently I was going to prove that I was a stupid motherfucker on a daily basis now. I didn’t want to see the look of vainglorious triumph on his face from winning the game. I didn’t want him to look in my eyes and see that he’d broken me. It was enough that I knew.
I knew he was following me when I left the school parking lot. I should have used my head and gone home and I could have slammed the door in his friggen face and hidden in a place he couldn’t get to me. It seemed like such an obvious idea in hindsight but at the point when he dropped my keys into my hand and proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the one who drove me home on Friday all I could think of was retracing my steps and finding a way to make everything untrue.
I wasn’t thinking when I headed back to the ocean and into the forest clearing. I was acting on instinct, and I was beginning to think that my instincts were totally fucked up. When I should run away, I ran to, and when I should ignore, I showered with attention, and when I should kick him in the balls and push him off me, I plunged my tongue into his mouth and pressed myself into his body. Yes, my instincts were definitely fucking backwards.
Falling in love with him was bad enough. Knowing that I may very well have admitted it to him while I was drunk was so much worse. It made me the queen of dumbasses. I was appropriately mortified. I had no friggen clue if I could trust that he had told me the whole truth. He could have just as easily been holding something back to use at a later date. That would be just like the prick with his fucking button pushing, to let me think I was in the clear and then catch me off guard and smack me in the back of the fucking head when I was least expecting it. I was doomed.
And like the dipshit I am I let him kiss me…again. And even worse, I enjoyed it. I kept wondering when my stupidity would end but apparently it was bottomless. Edward was a fantastic kisser. I hated that I couldn’t allow myself to enjoy it. It was such a ginormous waste of talent to ignore, the firmness of his lips when they came down on mine, the coolness of his tongue against my tongue, the way he fucking owned me with those huge hands of his. And his taste…he tasted glorious, sweet and refreshing, like no other thing that had ever crossed my taste buds, impossible to describe in words and do justice to it. And I couldn’t enjoy any of it, not one bit, not if I wanted to retain my sanity.
And every time his lips were on mine, and his hands held me, I questioned my need for sanity. It would have been the easiest thing to throw caution to the wind and just let him take me under. Fuck, it’s exactly what I wanted. It would have been like falling, completely effortless and it would provide me with the greatest fucking high I’d ever known. And I would be able to let him kiss me like that and hold me with those fucking fantastic hands any time he wanted. And it would be like heaven…until it all ended. Then I’d be back in a world composed of a single entity, pain. I couldn’t go back to that world because I wouldn’t survive it, not again. It would be the death of me. If I was stupid enough to give my heart away to Edward then when he handed it back to me ripped into shreds I may as well have him kill me. I’d be close enough to dead anyway that he should just finish me off. So while retention of my sanity seemed like a stupidass idea and I wasn’t so stupid that I didn’t realize that I’d be giving up a world of inexplicable pleasure from possibly the most skilled sexy motherfucker on the planet, I couldn’t ignore what the end would bring as well.
I just couldn’t risk it.
If I thought for a moment that he meant what he said…but I knew that he didn’t. It was impossible. And truthfully he didn’t really say anything about how he felt specifically. He just hinted at it in riddles, which quite honestly was really fucking irritating. I mean he might have been hinting that he cared, or I was simply hearing what I wanted to hear because I was dumb like that, not in general, only when it came to Edward Cullen. One could argue that he acted like he cared by making sure I got home safely after Friday’s drunken dance’n’kiss exposition, except that he admitted that’s how he was raised. As much as I wanted to play stupid, that meant his behaviour was more of a reflection of a good upbringing than anything to do with me in particular. Sometimes having a brain was high on the scale of suckage.
I don’t know why he agreed to dance with me. I wish I could remember more than the little flashes of memories that I was able to recall. I remember he spun me…and I remember that I tripped when I was coming back to him and smacked into his chest and he caught me - all perfectly acceptable things to do if he cared, and all things that could easily fall under the category of gentlemanly behaviour from a boy who was raised properly. He certainly seemed to be that.
The kiss? I had no explanation for it. All I had was an overwhelming feeling of falseness. I mean he was Edward freaking Cullen. He could kiss any girl he wanted, and probably had. There were no rose-coloured glasses here. I was nobody, a plain Jane, and certainly not capable of standing next to him and shining or standing out. Him caring about me didn’t make any fucking sense and I couldn’t ignore that little voice inside me that said it wasn’t real. Ok, I could, but I was just setting myself up for heartache. Maybe he was just curious what it would be like to kiss a freak like me, although curiosity only explained one kiss, not two. Maybe he was just trying to manipulate me? Maybe he was trying to get me to fall in love with me just to prove that he could? Mission accomplished Prickward! There were a hundred ‘maybe’ scenarios that I could cook up but only one thing I knew for sure. He didn’t feel anything for me, and even if by some impossible twist of fate he did, it wouldn’t come close to what I felt for him, because Edward was smarter than me. He knew when to run for the hills. He stayed away from crazy the way a sane person should. It was stupid of me to delude myself in any way about this guy and get myself caught up in him further. I had to accept it.
I dreamed of him that night. He stood across the parking lot from me at school in the pouring rain. I called his name and he just laughed at me, again and again. I could still hear him laughing after I woke up from it. It was my subconscious fucking with me, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. I longed for my old friend numbness. Life was so much easier when it was my constant companion. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep after that.
I dragged my tired cranky ass to school the next morning unenthusiastically. I half considered faking an illness to get Charlie to let me stay home but I knew I’d just lie around all day and mope about Edward. We’ve covered the fact I’m a stupid motherfucker right? I’d be no less miserable at home. I’d be no less reluctant to see him tomorrow. In avoiding him I’d just be proving how entirely obsessed and weak I was because I couldn’t deal with my feelings for him. And that’s really fucking weak. Nope, I had made my bed so now I had to lie in it, as shitty as it was. I tried to convince myself that ignoring him and how he made me feel would get easier and I was doing a pretty fucking good job of it until I saw his stupid shiny Volvo in the parking lot. Out of mind was a whole lot simpler when he was out of sight. I didn’t even try to walk by his car today. I took the long way around the far end of the school just to avoid him. It was just easier than facing him in my current state of pathetic loserdom.
My day was starting to become rather repetitive. Period one - consumed by thoughts of Edward and what a loser I was. Period two - thought only of Edward and felt like a loser. Period three - got called on by the teacher and had no answer because I was daydreaming of Edward instead of paying attention and proved to the entire class as well as myself that I was acting like a loser. Period four - redeemed myself by answering a question correctly but only because it was English and we were studying Jane Eyre and the answer to the question of whom Jane fell in love with was Edward. And yes, I still felt like a loser.
At least lunch was different. I ran into Alice in the lunch line, well, she ran into me.
“Bella?” she called in her high singsong voice.
I smiled at her, probably my first real smile of the day, relieved to see her. “Hi Alice.”
“Did you want to sit together for lunch?” she offered.
“I’d love to…but I don’t want to get in the way of Jasper?” And then I started to wonder if she meant at her family’s table and that I could not do.
“No, he’s finishing an assignment. I thought just me and you, if you’re ok with that?”
“Sounds perfect.” And it did. I paid for my food and followed her to a table, plopping down rather heavily on to the bench with a thud.
“Are you ok Hun?” she wondered.
“I’m kind of obvious, aren’t I?” I agreed feeling humiliated. As much as I wanted to tell her what was going on in my fucked up head I couldn’t say a word. It would be too weird. “I’m okay Alice, just cranky.”
“Are you sure? I’d love to help if I can.”
“No, I’m fine,” I assured her as convincingly as I was able.
“You do realize you suck at lying right?” she smiled.
“Yep,” I agreed with a laugh.
“So if you aren’t a good liar by your own admission and we both know you’re upset about something why don’t you just tell me what it is?”
“Nah, I’ve got it under control. I know what I have to do. I just have to get better at doing it.” Practise makes perfect right? I just had to control my reaction to Edward and learn to ignore him. It was the only way.
“You can trust me, you know?” she offered.
I nodded. “I know I can Alice.”
“He doesn’t like that we’re friends,” she announced, like it was written all over my face that I was thinking of her brother. How did she do that?
“Who doesn’t?” I wondered. Wanting very badly not to appear obsessed, I played stupid and looked over my shoulder to see who she was looking at. Edward was staring at me again, or staring at Alice perhaps. He looked angry. I turned back to Alice and she was sticking her tongue out at him, some sort of brother-sister pissing match.
“He thinks I’ll poison you against him or something.” She rolled her eyes and giggled.
“Why would he think that?” If only I could be so lucky.
“Edward skipped kindergarten the day they taught sharing.”
I laughed out loud. The boy probably never had to share a thing in his life. He had enough money to buy ten of everything and anything he couldn’t buy he probably just charmed his way into possessing it.
“I’m fairly sure that Edward doesn’t care if he has to share me Alice,” I laughed, working harder than I should have had to in order to sound like I didn’t care while hiding that I did.
Alice raised an eyebrow at me. “Either way, he has to share. It’s not up to him. I mean, we are friends, right? You weren’t just hanging out with me because you had to?”
It was the first glimpse of uncertainty I’d ever seen from Alice and it seemed so odd coming from her. She never seemed the type to need validation. “Well honestly, I was just hanging out with you because I had to, at least until yesterday, because my uncle would have grounded my ass if I didn’t do the time for my crime. But today, today is all about you and me.” I winked and smiled and tried to suppress my giggle.
She smirked at me conspiratorially. “You’re lucky you said that Swan,” she teased. “Or I was going to have to find a way to get you in trouble again and back into the mentor program,” she laughed.
“Can I ask you something Alice?” I wondered.
“Sure,” she agreed.
“Why does your brother always seem like he’s staring at me? I mean every time I turn around he seems to be there, and most of the time he’s watching me. It’s kind of creepy.” I hoped that I had disguised my interest in the subject matter well enough by putting the blame on Edward.
“He’s got a problem Bella,” she warned me. “He’s a bit of an ass sometimes.” We laughed together.
“No argument here,” I agreed, still laughing.
“The thing is though Bella, if you see him every time you turn around, and catch him watching you, you know what that means right?”
I didn’t follow her logic. “No, what?”
“It means you’re watching him too.”
I rolled my eyes and blushed. “Way to take my side there, Alice,” I chided. She was right though, and we both knew it.
“Hey, I call them like I see them,” she proclaimed.
I wondered how much she knew. Did she know what happened on Friday with the dancing and the kiss? Did she know he kissed me yesterday or that I let him? Did she know how badly we seemed to clash on an almost daily basis? And if she knew all of these things, what did she think about them? Edward was her brother and they seemed close. I could never put her in a position to betray him but it didn’t stop me from wondering. It was very possible she knew more about the whole fucked up situation than I did and the entire idea made me feel weird. I pushed the feelings aside. We made plans to do something on the weekend, a movie or maybe pizza or something. It gave me something to look forward to and it gave me something to think about besides Edward and I sorely needed that.
She wished me fun in biology and flitted off to class.
Fun in biology? That was a new concept.
He greeted me coolly from his seat when I got to class.
“Bella,” he said with a casual nod in my direction.
Reminding myself not to let him get to me I nodded a hello back and took my seat. Mr Banner started his lecture on genetic disorders a moment later. I flipped open my notebook and started taking notes. At least the lecture would provide me some distraction with a topic that interested me.
Edward was doing a really good fucking job of ignoring me and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t like it. I knew it was in my best interest but I didn’t like how it made me feel.
“Mr. Banner,” Mike called out, raising his hand.
“Yes Mike?”
“I don’t get what you mean about autosomal. Are they dominant or recessive?”
“They can carry both dominant and recessive mutations Mike. An autosome is any chromosome that isn’t a sex chromosome.”
The room filled with snickers. Yes, in a room full of seventeen year olds our teacher couldn’t say the word sex without snickering. We were such a mature bunch. I rolled my eyes.
Edward inclined his head toward me and whispered, “sex chromosomes, your favourite.” His breath hit my skin made me shiver and my shiver made him smile. Bastard!
“Yeah but don’t all cells have sex chromosomes?” Mike asked, confused.
“Yes, but remember the human karyotype - each cell has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, one pair of sex chromosomes and twenty-two pairs of regular or autosomal chromosomes,” Mr Banner explained.
Edward leaned over again. I was too big an idiot to think to lean away. “He said sex again,” he whispered pointedly, “I guess it’s your lucky day.” I swear he held on to the word sex just a touch too long to emphasize it. I shot him an angry glare and tried not to notice the way his whisper made my stomach twist in that all too familiar way. He shot me his crooked grin and that made the stomach twisting so much worse.
“Maybe I just don’t get the dominant and recessive thing. Could you go over it again Sir?” Mike asked.
“Is anyone else having the same problem?” Mr Banner wondered. There were several groans from the crowd. I dropped my pencil and closed my notebook. We’d gone over this shit three times and I grasped it after the first. No need to retake notes I’d already taken.
Edward chuckled at me and whispered, “and here I thought we were going to get to talk about sex. How disappointing.” He feigned a pout for my benefit. I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend for me to find his pout sexy…but not entirely positive.
“Bella, why don’t you and Edward come up here and help me demonstrate.” Great. Really fucking great. I prayed my blushing instinct would stay put and made my way up to the front. Edward followed behind me.
“Ok people, pay attention here. This is the last time I’m going to devote any time to this in class. Recessive versus dominant. Edward is dominant. Bella is recessive.” He guided me to his right side while the class laughed and Edward openly gloated over his dominant label. Even Mr. Banner wasn’t going to cut me a fucking break today.
“In every cell you have an Edward and a Bella, and twenty-one other pairs of chromosomes.” Mr Banner grabbed us both by the elbows and shoved us together while taking a step back. I lost my balance as he pulled on me and collided into Edward’s side awkwardly. The class laughed again. I wished for the floor to open up and swallow me whole, but at least I didn’t blush.
“Because Edward is dominant, whatever disease he carries will be expressed in the cell. He doesn’t need any help from any other chromosomes to spread his disease.” A chuckle escaped from my lips against my permission and Edward shot me a glare. I couldn’t help it if Mr. Banner knew the score.
“Bella is recessive. By herself, she has no effect on the cell. She’s innocuous. We have to go back to our old friend meiosis to see how Bella becomes effective.” Edward glanced down at me smugly, mouthing the word ‘innocuous’ and winking at me. I mouthed the words ‘fuck you’ and went back to listening to Mr. Banner before Edward could figure out how much I liked the wink.
“In meiosis, the number of chromosomes in the cell is cut in half so that your body can produce a gamete.” Mr. Banner pulled us apart and stepped back between us. He paused to put a hand on my shoulder and one on Edward’s as well. He turned us toward one another and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like where he was going with this.
“During fertilization, one gamete fuses with another gamete to produce a zygote with the proper number of chromosomes.” Mr Banner propelled us into one another. Edward stepped forward gracefully and I slammed into him like a klutz because I was so anxious and rigid. Edward caught me by the shoulders and righted me, and suddenly I was swimming in déjà vu. Friday night in the forest, Edward had done just that, caught me by the shoulders when I tripped. I remembered his touch that night was every bit as light and tender as it had been just now. I was overcome by the remembered sensation as his hands lingered on my upper arms.
“Now Edward and Bella form a pair of chromosomes - Edward represents the paternal DNA and Bella represents the maternal DNA. Edward and Bella have to work together in a recessive state.” As if Edward and I could ever work together, what a laugh. I looked up at Edward who was looking down at me. I tried to understand the expression on his face but couldn’t. It seemed unusually intense, even for him.
“If both Edward and Bella carry the same recessive mutation, the disease will be expressed.” Mr Banner explained. “If however,” he continued, lightly yanking me out of Edward’s grasp to illustrate his point, “Edward does not carry the recessive mutation, Bella’s disease will not be expressed.”
“Do you get it class? Same mutation on each chromosome of the pair, expression of a recessive disease.” And he pushed Edward and me together one more time. I couldn’t control my blush as my cheeks turned bright red.
“Only one chromosome with the recessive mutation, no disease.” He pulled Edward and me apart and I was sure Edward could see my red cheeks. I felt so exposed. Could the whole class see what being near him did to me?
“Thanks kids, you two can take your seats now,” Mr Banner said. I looked at Edward again, wishing I had something to say that would make me feel less obvious. Edward just nodded at me to move first so I did, happy to be taking my seat instead of being on display in front of the class.
“That was interesting,” he whispered, leaning towards me as he settled into his seat. I couldn’t tell if he was being honest or sarcastic.
“Yeah, interesting,” I mused.
“All that coming together and pulling apart…” I turned my head to the side a little to stare at him. “It was almost like dancing,” he teased. I rolled my eyes and shook my head dismissively. He leaned even closer so that his nose nudged my ear “Or sex.”
Definitely sarcastic. I blushed instantly and he smiled triumphantly. Why was I such a fucking idiot? I tried to focus on Mr. Banner’s voice but it was like a dull drone in a foreign tongue. The strange electricity that I felt when I was around Edward was zinging and zapping, and now that Edward had touched me it was pretty damn hard to ignore. It was like another distinct entity that demanded attention.
I had to turn the tables on Edward or he was going to permanently own me. I knew what I had to do and willed my courage. And even though I knew I shouldn’t allow myself this, I was going to enjoy it. I leaned towards Edward and purposely breathed out a deep breath into his ear. “You wish,” I purred. He froze beside me and I smiled like a Cheshire cat. My confidence was soaring and I decided to use his state of shock as an opportunity to take another crack at him. I leaned in even closer this time, so close that he would feel the heat of my skin against his side. I lightly brushed his ear with my lips and whispered, “One kiss isn’t enough for you is it?”
I turned away from him pretty fucking proud of myself and that’s where I made my mistake. There was no time for gloating in this contest. I should have known better than to ease back from my defensive stance. I’d left myself wide open for attack and apparently Edward didn’t like to lose. He leaned toward me and let not just his face but his whole body invade my personal space. I held my ground but closed my eyes trying to ignore the closeness of his body, sure that his proximity would make it impossible for me to control myself. It was a sign of weakness and I think Edward knew that he had me in that moment. There had been too much touching, too much erogenous innuendo, too many desires lurking just below the surface of my consciousness. His invasion of my personal space was the end of what I could handle. I braced myself for his words, knowing whatever they were they would be my undoing.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who wishes,” he breathed, lingering at my ear just long enough to finish the kill. For a moment the outside world ceased to exist. I folded in on myself and let the velvet caress of Edward’s voice take me under. I let it echo through my body and cover me in waves of euphoria. He was hands down the sexiest motherfucker on the planet and damn did he ever know how to play me. Yes Edward I did wish for your kiss. In a perfect world where all the rest of the shit didn’t matter, he could kiss me fucking senseless any time he wanted and for me it would be Utopia. I couldn’t even find it in myself to be angry with him. Just euphoric, and really super turned on.
The bell rang in the middle of my reaction to our quasi-foreplay war. It was the first time that I could remember not wanting biology to end. I was seeing it in a whole new light now. It was no longer a place to push buttons, it was a place to have my buttons pushed, and not the ones that made me bitchy and irritated but the ones that turned me on. I laughed out loud at my new perspective. If I had to be killed every day by sitting beside Edward fucking Cullen, I couldn’t think of a better way to die - death by sexual stimulation.
He was already gone from his seat when I surfaced back into reality with a big fucking smirk on my face. It was too bad really. I was euphoric enough to continue our erotic pursuits. I gathered my books in a haze and walked out, meandering lazily down the hall to my locker, trying to hold on to the sound of his voice for as long as I could. I tossed my books in and grabbed my gym bag out before I slammed the locker door shut with a sigh. I bet Edward really was actually capable of giving a girl an orgasm just by speaking. The thought of him talking dirty combined with his perfectly sexy voice made me shudder. Even gym couldn’t wreck this high.
I spun on my heel and began to walk towards the gym when I heard a chuckle. There in the shadows, in an alcove to the left of my locker stood Edward, wearing his signature crooked smirk, entirely smug. I’d never been so fucking turned on in my life. I walked over to him and pushed his body backwards into the wall. I fisted his shirt with one hand and cupped his neck with the other and crashed my lips down on his. I plunged tongue into his mouth with abandon, pressing and caressing and tasting every bit of goodness his tongue offered me back. I pressed my body so tightly into his that we became one. And I kept on pressing and kissing and licking until I was tingling from head to toe and had to pull back to breathe. I looked him in the eyes and I licked my lips, then smirked and left for gym. Let him think about that for a while.
A/N: I’m a sneaky little author, aren’t I? I told you that you’d that you’d appreciate Mike’s question :op You all are seeing biology in a whole new light, aren’t you? Reviews are love.
Chapter 15: Rubicon (Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
Author:JCAddict/picklewinkle/Sher
Fandom: Twilight
Word Count: 4,804
Rating: R/M, for sex and language
Story Summary: An angry young woman is forced to move to the town of Forks, Washington and decides that alone is the best way to be. She buries her heart and puts on a tough façade that very few people are able to break through. Can the love of a teenage vampire get through to the lost girl inside? AU (alternative universe) and OOC (out of character). Bella is uber OOC. Edward, not so much.
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and all of its characters. I'm just manipulating them like imaginary playdoh so I feel like I have some power over them **snorts**
Ru·bi·con (rōō'bĭ-kŏn') n. A limit that when passed or exceeded permits no return and typically results in irrevocable commitment. (The chapter title says exactly where this story is headed.)
A/N: You’re going to read a bit of my nerdom in this chapter. I couldn’t help myself. I’ve always been fascinated by Stephenie Meyer’s choice to put Bella and Edward into a biology class together. My degree is in biology. I used to TA genetics. Geek they name is Sher. I didn’t set out to write it into the chapter but when the idea came I ran with it, so please excuse my nerditude and appreciate the usefulness of poor Mike’s question. **snorts**
From Bella's POV...
15. Rubicon
I ran from him. I ran as fast as my feet would fucking take me, and then drove as fast as my truck could handle. Apparently I was going to prove that I was a stupid motherfucker on a daily basis now. I didn’t want to see the look of vainglorious triumph on his face from winning the game. I didn’t want him to look in my eyes and see that he’d broken me. It was enough that I knew.
I knew he was following me when I left the school parking lot. I should have used my head and gone home and I could have slammed the door in his friggen face and hidden in a place he couldn’t get to me. It seemed like such an obvious idea in hindsight but at the point when he dropped my keys into my hand and proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the one who drove me home on Friday all I could think of was retracing my steps and finding a way to make everything untrue.
I wasn’t thinking when I headed back to the ocean and into the forest clearing. I was acting on instinct, and I was beginning to think that my instincts were totally fucked up. When I should run away, I ran to, and when I should ignore, I showered with attention, and when I should kick him in the balls and push him off me, I plunged my tongue into his mouth and pressed myself into his body. Yes, my instincts were definitely fucking backwards.
Falling in love with him was bad enough. Knowing that I may very well have admitted it to him while I was drunk was so much worse. It made me the queen of dumbasses. I was appropriately mortified. I had no friggen clue if I could trust that he had told me the whole truth. He could have just as easily been holding something back to use at a later date. That would be just like the prick with his fucking button pushing, to let me think I was in the clear and then catch me off guard and smack me in the back of the fucking head when I was least expecting it. I was doomed.
And like the dipshit I am I let him kiss me…again. And even worse, I enjoyed it. I kept wondering when my stupidity would end but apparently it was bottomless. Edward was a fantastic kisser. I hated that I couldn’t allow myself to enjoy it. It was such a ginormous waste of talent to ignore, the firmness of his lips when they came down on mine, the coolness of his tongue against my tongue, the way he fucking owned me with those huge hands of his. And his taste…he tasted glorious, sweet and refreshing, like no other thing that had ever crossed my taste buds, impossible to describe in words and do justice to it. And I couldn’t enjoy any of it, not one bit, not if I wanted to retain my sanity.
And every time his lips were on mine, and his hands held me, I questioned my need for sanity. It would have been the easiest thing to throw caution to the wind and just let him take me under. Fuck, it’s exactly what I wanted. It would have been like falling, completely effortless and it would provide me with the greatest fucking high I’d ever known. And I would be able to let him kiss me like that and hold me with those fucking fantastic hands any time he wanted. And it would be like heaven…until it all ended. Then I’d be back in a world composed of a single entity, pain. I couldn’t go back to that world because I wouldn’t survive it, not again. It would be the death of me. If I was stupid enough to give my heart away to Edward then when he handed it back to me ripped into shreds I may as well have him kill me. I’d be close enough to dead anyway that he should just finish me off. So while retention of my sanity seemed like a stupidass idea and I wasn’t so stupid that I didn’t realize that I’d be giving up a world of inexplicable pleasure from possibly the most skilled sexy motherfucker on the planet, I couldn’t ignore what the end would bring as well.
I just couldn’t risk it.
If I thought for a moment that he meant what he said…but I knew that he didn’t. It was impossible. And truthfully he didn’t really say anything about how he felt specifically. He just hinted at it in riddles, which quite honestly was really fucking irritating. I mean he might have been hinting that he cared, or I was simply hearing what I wanted to hear because I was dumb like that, not in general, only when it came to Edward Cullen. One could argue that he acted like he cared by making sure I got home safely after Friday’s drunken dance’n’kiss exposition, except that he admitted that’s how he was raised. As much as I wanted to play stupid, that meant his behaviour was more of a reflection of a good upbringing than anything to do with me in particular. Sometimes having a brain was high on the scale of suckage.
I don’t know why he agreed to dance with me. I wish I could remember more than the little flashes of memories that I was able to recall. I remember he spun me…and I remember that I tripped when I was coming back to him and smacked into his chest and he caught me - all perfectly acceptable things to do if he cared, and all things that could easily fall under the category of gentlemanly behaviour from a boy who was raised properly. He certainly seemed to be that.
The kiss? I had no explanation for it. All I had was an overwhelming feeling of falseness. I mean he was Edward freaking Cullen. He could kiss any girl he wanted, and probably had. There were no rose-coloured glasses here. I was nobody, a plain Jane, and certainly not capable of standing next to him and shining or standing out. Him caring about me didn’t make any fucking sense and I couldn’t ignore that little voice inside me that said it wasn’t real. Ok, I could, but I was just setting myself up for heartache. Maybe he was just curious what it would be like to kiss a freak like me, although curiosity only explained one kiss, not two. Maybe he was just trying to manipulate me? Maybe he was trying to get me to fall in love with me just to prove that he could? Mission accomplished Prickward! There were a hundred ‘maybe’ scenarios that I could cook up but only one thing I knew for sure. He didn’t feel anything for me, and even if by some impossible twist of fate he did, it wouldn’t come close to what I felt for him, because Edward was smarter than me. He knew when to run for the hills. He stayed away from crazy the way a sane person should. It was stupid of me to delude myself in any way about this guy and get myself caught up in him further. I had to accept it.
I dreamed of him that night. He stood across the parking lot from me at school in the pouring rain. I called his name and he just laughed at me, again and again. I could still hear him laughing after I woke up from it. It was my subconscious fucking with me, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. I longed for my old friend numbness. Life was so much easier when it was my constant companion. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep after that.
I dragged my tired cranky ass to school the next morning unenthusiastically. I half considered faking an illness to get Charlie to let me stay home but I knew I’d just lie around all day and mope about Edward. We’ve covered the fact I’m a stupid motherfucker right? I’d be no less miserable at home. I’d be no less reluctant to see him tomorrow. In avoiding him I’d just be proving how entirely obsessed and weak I was because I couldn’t deal with my feelings for him. And that’s really fucking weak. Nope, I had made my bed so now I had to lie in it, as shitty as it was. I tried to convince myself that ignoring him and how he made me feel would get easier and I was doing a pretty fucking good job of it until I saw his stupid shiny Volvo in the parking lot. Out of mind was a whole lot simpler when he was out of sight. I didn’t even try to walk by his car today. I took the long way around the far end of the school just to avoid him. It was just easier than facing him in my current state of pathetic loserdom.
My day was starting to become rather repetitive. Period one - consumed by thoughts of Edward and what a loser I was. Period two - thought only of Edward and felt like a loser. Period three - got called on by the teacher and had no answer because I was daydreaming of Edward instead of paying attention and proved to the entire class as well as myself that I was acting like a loser. Period four - redeemed myself by answering a question correctly but only because it was English and we were studying Jane Eyre and the answer to the question of whom Jane fell in love with was Edward. And yes, I still felt like a loser.
At least lunch was different. I ran into Alice in the lunch line, well, she ran into me.
“Bella?” she called in her high singsong voice.
I smiled at her, probably my first real smile of the day, relieved to see her. “Hi Alice.”
“Did you want to sit together for lunch?” she offered.
“I’d love to…but I don’t want to get in the way of Jasper?” And then I started to wonder if she meant at her family’s table and that I could not do.
“No, he’s finishing an assignment. I thought just me and you, if you’re ok with that?”
“Sounds perfect.” And it did. I paid for my food and followed her to a table, plopping down rather heavily on to the bench with a thud.
“Are you ok Hun?” she wondered.
“I’m kind of obvious, aren’t I?” I agreed feeling humiliated. As much as I wanted to tell her what was going on in my fucked up head I couldn’t say a word. It would be too weird. “I’m okay Alice, just cranky.”
“Are you sure? I’d love to help if I can.”
“No, I’m fine,” I assured her as convincingly as I was able.
“You do realize you suck at lying right?” she smiled.
“Yep,” I agreed with a laugh.
“So if you aren’t a good liar by your own admission and we both know you’re upset about something why don’t you just tell me what it is?”
“Nah, I’ve got it under control. I know what I have to do. I just have to get better at doing it.” Practise makes perfect right? I just had to control my reaction to Edward and learn to ignore him. It was the only way.
“You can trust me, you know?” she offered.
I nodded. “I know I can Alice.”
“He doesn’t like that we’re friends,” she announced, like it was written all over my face that I was thinking of her brother. How did she do that?
“Who doesn’t?” I wondered. Wanting very badly not to appear obsessed, I played stupid and looked over my shoulder to see who she was looking at. Edward was staring at me again, or staring at Alice perhaps. He looked angry. I turned back to Alice and she was sticking her tongue out at him, some sort of brother-sister pissing match.
“He thinks I’ll poison you against him or something.” She rolled her eyes and giggled.
“Why would he think that?” If only I could be so lucky.
“Edward skipped kindergarten the day they taught sharing.”
I laughed out loud. The boy probably never had to share a thing in his life. He had enough money to buy ten of everything and anything he couldn’t buy he probably just charmed his way into possessing it.
“I’m fairly sure that Edward doesn’t care if he has to share me Alice,” I laughed, working harder than I should have had to in order to sound like I didn’t care while hiding that I did.
Alice raised an eyebrow at me. “Either way, he has to share. It’s not up to him. I mean, we are friends, right? You weren’t just hanging out with me because you had to?”
It was the first glimpse of uncertainty I’d ever seen from Alice and it seemed so odd coming from her. She never seemed the type to need validation. “Well honestly, I was just hanging out with you because I had to, at least until yesterday, because my uncle would have grounded my ass if I didn’t do the time for my crime. But today, today is all about you and me.” I winked and smiled and tried to suppress my giggle.
She smirked at me conspiratorially. “You’re lucky you said that Swan,” she teased. “Or I was going to have to find a way to get you in trouble again and back into the mentor program,” she laughed.
“Can I ask you something Alice?” I wondered.
“Sure,” she agreed.
“Why does your brother always seem like he’s staring at me? I mean every time I turn around he seems to be there, and most of the time he’s watching me. It’s kind of creepy.” I hoped that I had disguised my interest in the subject matter well enough by putting the blame on Edward.
“He’s got a problem Bella,” she warned me. “He’s a bit of an ass sometimes.” We laughed together.
“No argument here,” I agreed, still laughing.
“The thing is though Bella, if you see him every time you turn around, and catch him watching you, you know what that means right?”
I didn’t follow her logic. “No, what?”
“It means you’re watching him too.”
I rolled my eyes and blushed. “Way to take my side there, Alice,” I chided. She was right though, and we both knew it.
“Hey, I call them like I see them,” she proclaimed.
I wondered how much she knew. Did she know what happened on Friday with the dancing and the kiss? Did she know he kissed me yesterday or that I let him? Did she know how badly we seemed to clash on an almost daily basis? And if she knew all of these things, what did she think about them? Edward was her brother and they seemed close. I could never put her in a position to betray him but it didn’t stop me from wondering. It was very possible she knew more about the whole fucked up situation than I did and the entire idea made me feel weird. I pushed the feelings aside. We made plans to do something on the weekend, a movie or maybe pizza or something. It gave me something to look forward to and it gave me something to think about besides Edward and I sorely needed that.
She wished me fun in biology and flitted off to class.
Fun in biology? That was a new concept.
He greeted me coolly from his seat when I got to class.
“Bella,” he said with a casual nod in my direction.
Reminding myself not to let him get to me I nodded a hello back and took my seat. Mr Banner started his lecture on genetic disorders a moment later. I flipped open my notebook and started taking notes. At least the lecture would provide me some distraction with a topic that interested me.
Edward was doing a really good fucking job of ignoring me and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t like it. I knew it was in my best interest but I didn’t like how it made me feel.
“Mr. Banner,” Mike called out, raising his hand.
“Yes Mike?”
“I don’t get what you mean about autosomal. Are they dominant or recessive?”
“They can carry both dominant and recessive mutations Mike. An autosome is any chromosome that isn’t a sex chromosome.”
The room filled with snickers. Yes, in a room full of seventeen year olds our teacher couldn’t say the word sex without snickering. We were such a mature bunch. I rolled my eyes.
Edward inclined his head toward me and whispered, “sex chromosomes, your favourite.” His breath hit my skin made me shiver and my shiver made him smile. Bastard!
“Yeah but don’t all cells have sex chromosomes?” Mike asked, confused.
“Yes, but remember the human karyotype - each cell has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, one pair of sex chromosomes and twenty-two pairs of regular or autosomal chromosomes,” Mr Banner explained.
Edward leaned over again. I was too big an idiot to think to lean away. “He said sex again,” he whispered pointedly, “I guess it’s your lucky day.” I swear he held on to the word sex just a touch too long to emphasize it. I shot him an angry glare and tried not to notice the way his whisper made my stomach twist in that all too familiar way. He shot me his crooked grin and that made the stomach twisting so much worse.
“Maybe I just don’t get the dominant and recessive thing. Could you go over it again Sir?” Mike asked.
“Is anyone else having the same problem?” Mr Banner wondered. There were several groans from the crowd. I dropped my pencil and closed my notebook. We’d gone over this shit three times and I grasped it after the first. No need to retake notes I’d already taken.
Edward chuckled at me and whispered, “and here I thought we were going to get to talk about sex. How disappointing.” He feigned a pout for my benefit. I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend for me to find his pout sexy…but not entirely positive.
“Bella, why don’t you and Edward come up here and help me demonstrate.” Great. Really fucking great. I prayed my blushing instinct would stay put and made my way up to the front. Edward followed behind me.
“Ok people, pay attention here. This is the last time I’m going to devote any time to this in class. Recessive versus dominant. Edward is dominant. Bella is recessive.” He guided me to his right side while the class laughed and Edward openly gloated over his dominant label. Even Mr. Banner wasn’t going to cut me a fucking break today.
“In every cell you have an Edward and a Bella, and twenty-one other pairs of chromosomes.” Mr Banner grabbed us both by the elbows and shoved us together while taking a step back. I lost my balance as he pulled on me and collided into Edward’s side awkwardly. The class laughed again. I wished for the floor to open up and swallow me whole, but at least I didn’t blush.
“Because Edward is dominant, whatever disease he carries will be expressed in the cell. He doesn’t need any help from any other chromosomes to spread his disease.” A chuckle escaped from my lips against my permission and Edward shot me a glare. I couldn’t help it if Mr. Banner knew the score.
“Bella is recessive. By herself, she has no effect on the cell. She’s innocuous. We have to go back to our old friend meiosis to see how Bella becomes effective.” Edward glanced down at me smugly, mouthing the word ‘innocuous’ and winking at me. I mouthed the words ‘fuck you’ and went back to listening to Mr. Banner before Edward could figure out how much I liked the wink.
“In meiosis, the number of chromosomes in the cell is cut in half so that your body can produce a gamete.” Mr. Banner pulled us apart and stepped back between us. He paused to put a hand on my shoulder and one on Edward’s as well. He turned us toward one another and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like where he was going with this.
“During fertilization, one gamete fuses with another gamete to produce a zygote with the proper number of chromosomes.” Mr Banner propelled us into one another. Edward stepped forward gracefully and I slammed into him like a klutz because I was so anxious and rigid. Edward caught me by the shoulders and righted me, and suddenly I was swimming in déjà vu. Friday night in the forest, Edward had done just that, caught me by the shoulders when I tripped. I remembered his touch that night was every bit as light and tender as it had been just now. I was overcome by the remembered sensation as his hands lingered on my upper arms.
“Now Edward and Bella form a pair of chromosomes - Edward represents the paternal DNA and Bella represents the maternal DNA. Edward and Bella have to work together in a recessive state.” As if Edward and I could ever work together, what a laugh. I looked up at Edward who was looking down at me. I tried to understand the expression on his face but couldn’t. It seemed unusually intense, even for him.
“If both Edward and Bella carry the same recessive mutation, the disease will be expressed.” Mr Banner explained. “If however,” he continued, lightly yanking me out of Edward’s grasp to illustrate his point, “Edward does not carry the recessive mutation, Bella’s disease will not be expressed.”
“Do you get it class? Same mutation on each chromosome of the pair, expression of a recessive disease.” And he pushed Edward and me together one more time. I couldn’t control my blush as my cheeks turned bright red.
“Only one chromosome with the recessive mutation, no disease.” He pulled Edward and me apart and I was sure Edward could see my red cheeks. I felt so exposed. Could the whole class see what being near him did to me?
“Thanks kids, you two can take your seats now,” Mr Banner said. I looked at Edward again, wishing I had something to say that would make me feel less obvious. Edward just nodded at me to move first so I did, happy to be taking my seat instead of being on display in front of the class.
“That was interesting,” he whispered, leaning towards me as he settled into his seat. I couldn’t tell if he was being honest or sarcastic.
“Yeah, interesting,” I mused.
“All that coming together and pulling apart…” I turned my head to the side a little to stare at him. “It was almost like dancing,” he teased. I rolled my eyes and shook my head dismissively. He leaned even closer so that his nose nudged my ear “Or sex.”
Definitely sarcastic. I blushed instantly and he smiled triumphantly. Why was I such a fucking idiot? I tried to focus on Mr. Banner’s voice but it was like a dull drone in a foreign tongue. The strange electricity that I felt when I was around Edward was zinging and zapping, and now that Edward had touched me it was pretty damn hard to ignore. It was like another distinct entity that demanded attention.
I had to turn the tables on Edward or he was going to permanently own me. I knew what I had to do and willed my courage. And even though I knew I shouldn’t allow myself this, I was going to enjoy it. I leaned towards Edward and purposely breathed out a deep breath into his ear. “You wish,” I purred. He froze beside me and I smiled like a Cheshire cat. My confidence was soaring and I decided to use his state of shock as an opportunity to take another crack at him. I leaned in even closer this time, so close that he would feel the heat of my skin against his side. I lightly brushed his ear with my lips and whispered, “One kiss isn’t enough for you is it?”
I turned away from him pretty fucking proud of myself and that’s where I made my mistake. There was no time for gloating in this contest. I should have known better than to ease back from my defensive stance. I’d left myself wide open for attack and apparently Edward didn’t like to lose. He leaned toward me and let not just his face but his whole body invade my personal space. I held my ground but closed my eyes trying to ignore the closeness of his body, sure that his proximity would make it impossible for me to control myself. It was a sign of weakness and I think Edward knew that he had me in that moment. There had been too much touching, too much erogenous innuendo, too many desires lurking just below the surface of my consciousness. His invasion of my personal space was the end of what I could handle. I braced myself for his words, knowing whatever they were they would be my undoing.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who wishes,” he breathed, lingering at my ear just long enough to finish the kill. For a moment the outside world ceased to exist. I folded in on myself and let the velvet caress of Edward’s voice take me under. I let it echo through my body and cover me in waves of euphoria. He was hands down the sexiest motherfucker on the planet and damn did he ever know how to play me. Yes Edward I did wish for your kiss. In a perfect world where all the rest of the shit didn’t matter, he could kiss me fucking senseless any time he wanted and for me it would be Utopia. I couldn’t even find it in myself to be angry with him. Just euphoric, and really super turned on.
The bell rang in the middle of my reaction to our quasi-foreplay war. It was the first time that I could remember not wanting biology to end. I was seeing it in a whole new light now. It was no longer a place to push buttons, it was a place to have my buttons pushed, and not the ones that made me bitchy and irritated but the ones that turned me on. I laughed out loud at my new perspective. If I had to be killed every day by sitting beside Edward fucking Cullen, I couldn’t think of a better way to die - death by sexual stimulation.
He was already gone from his seat when I surfaced back into reality with a big fucking smirk on my face. It was too bad really. I was euphoric enough to continue our erotic pursuits. I gathered my books in a haze and walked out, meandering lazily down the hall to my locker, trying to hold on to the sound of his voice for as long as I could. I tossed my books in and grabbed my gym bag out before I slammed the locker door shut with a sigh. I bet Edward really was actually capable of giving a girl an orgasm just by speaking. The thought of him talking dirty combined with his perfectly sexy voice made me shudder. Even gym couldn’t wreck this high.
I spun on my heel and began to walk towards the gym when I heard a chuckle. There in the shadows, in an alcove to the left of my locker stood Edward, wearing his signature crooked smirk, entirely smug. I’d never been so fucking turned on in my life. I walked over to him and pushed his body backwards into the wall. I fisted his shirt with one hand and cupped his neck with the other and crashed my lips down on his. I plunged tongue into his mouth with abandon, pressing and caressing and tasting every bit of goodness his tongue offered me back. I pressed my body so tightly into his that we became one. And I kept on pressing and kissing and licking until I was tingling from head to toe and had to pull back to breathe. I looked him in the eyes and I licked my lips, then smirked and left for gym. Let him think about that for a while.
A/N: I’m a sneaky little author, aren’t I? I told you that you’d that you’d appreciate Mike’s question :op You all are seeing biology in a whole new light, aren’t you? Reviews are love.