Fatal Desires | Edward Cullen ¹

3 | the talk

*Thursday*

I walk towards my usual lunch table, with Bella, Jessica, Mike, Eric, and Angela. I place my tray of spaghetti down on the table before sitting down. Jessica is beside me getting a head start on a homework assignment while Bella is on my other side. She appears to be daydreaming about something.

I immediately look across the lunchroom at the Cullens' usual table. All the Cullens are accounted for, except for Edward. I frown. It's obvious now that Edward being absent from school for this long is no coincidence. Something unusual is up with him, and it may be my fault. Whatever it is that I did that ticked him off in biology the other day.

"Um, Rebecca," I hear Bella hesitate as she looks at me.

I turn my attention to the awkward girl. "What's up?" I ask.

"You don't have your own car, do you?" she questions. "It's no offense. I just noticed."

My cheeks turn a light shade of pink. "Yeahhh, I don't. How did you know?"

Bella averts her gaze before looking me in the eyes. "I've never seen you get into a car after school. You just sorta, disappear."

I can feel my cheeks turn an even darker shade of red. I sigh. "Okay, you caught me. My grandparents drop me off and pick me up every day a few blocks away from school." I laugh a little to lighten the mood. "That's why I disappear after school. I don't like people watching me get picked up and dropped off."

"Oh," Bella says. A brave look suddenly appears on her face. "Hey, I can pick you up and drop you off at your house every day, if you want. My dad brought your grandparents up the other day, and he said that you guys don't live too far away from us."

I smile at Bella's offer, feeling thrilled that the two of us are getting closer. "Yeah, sure," I say.

Bella smiles. "Cool." She immediately goes back to eating her lunch, which appears to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I quickly lean down towards my backpack on the floor and dig inside of it. I take out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. I place the paper down on the lunch table and quickly scribble down my address. "Here's my address," I say as I slide the paper over to Bella.

Bella smiles at me with a hint of shyness. "Nice," she says.

*Time Skip*

First week at Forks High done, another week to go. It's Monday, and I'm once again back to hating school with all my guts. Really, the only upside to today was that Bella got to drive me to school in her new orange Chevy pickup truck, which I highly appreciated. It's much more cool to have a friend drive you to school than to have your grandparents do it. Not to mention, a lot of the boys are still gaga over Bella, and since I'm pretty much her closest friend, maybe I can rebound some of the boys that she rejects, which I have a feeling is going to be a lot. I know these thoughts are sort of selfish, but I'm not wrong for hoping? Am I?

"So it rains here a lot, doesn't it?" I ask Mike as he and I walk to our next classes. For me, it's biology and for Mike, it's speech.

"Yeah." Mike grins. "You could say Forks is the rain capital of the world."

I giggle. "Well, it's a good thing I like rain then," I attempt to flirt but fail miserably as soon as Mike spots Bella.

"Hold that thought," he tells me before jogging after Bella.

I speed walk to catch up with Mike. He catches Bella right at the door of the biology classroom.

"What's up, Arizona?" Mike greets her. "Huh? How you liking the rain, girl?" He teases Bella as he shakes his wet baseball cap above her head. Small drops of water sprinkle off the cap and onto Bella.