I had a really hard time staying coherent today. There was no school, because it was a Saturday, so I had to battle to find tasks to occupy my time with. Alice, gratefully, kept babbling in my ear, which made it near impossible to sleep.

“I mean…” Alice huffed out dramatically, “Everyone in Forks High was at that party, Bella!” She said exasperated while I mopped the kitchen floor. “Why the hell wasn’t he there! Do you think it was me? No. No, that couldn’t be it. Maybe he doesn’t like Emmett. But Edward was there, and he’s his best friend! You’d think he’d go to his best friend’s party!” She whined. At the mention of Edward’s name, my attention piqued. I halted my mop and slowly turned towards her.

“Hey, Al…” I started cautiously. How to ask her this without drawing undue attention to myself?

She stopped her tirade at the sound of my voice, and looked at me quizzically from her seat at the bar. “Umm, this Edward guy you talk about? What’s his deal, anyways?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible. I was worried she’d get suspicious and start questioning my motives, so I added, “I mean, if he’s Jasper best friend, I might be more helpful to your predicament if I knew more about the company he kept.” I finished craftily.

Curiously, Alice grimaced at my mention of Edward. “Well… Edward is…” she trailed off, cocking her head to the side, appearing to be trying to find a good word to explain him. I thought I could help with this. Gorgeous? Interesting? Has impressive literature collections and five thousand dollar black leather sofas? “Trouble.” She finished decidedly with a nod.

I frowned. “Trouble?” I hedged. Sure, Edward might have seemed a little… abrasive, but trouble? She nodded then continued.

“He’s… well, lets just say Edward doesn’t exactly play well with others.” She added cryptically. Figures that the one time I could actually benefit from her over abundance of conversational enthusiasm, and she starts walking on egg shells.

“Alice, you could you maybe be a little more specific?” I huffed, aggravated that I actually had to ask her to continue. She rolled her eyes.

“He has issues, okay? He’s a trouble maker. Bad seed. He’s mean to everyone but Jasper, he doesn’t like talking to people, he’s been arrested before, he hates Emmet, he has the foulest mouth I’ve ever heard, and freshman year he scratched my BMW by ‘accident’, and didn’t even apologize.” She spat in a harsher tone than I was accustomed to ever hearing Alice use.

I blanched, a bit shocked at her tone and description of Edward. He didn’t seem so bad last night. Again, a little abrasive, but I know how much sleep deprivation can affect moods, so I can easily write it off. Alice, apparently, couldn’t. I felt strongly compelled to defend Edward for some reason, but knew doing so would give me away, so I stuck to my earlier ruse and continued with my false intentions of learning more about Jasper.

“Hmm, well is Jasper like that too? Mean to people I mean?” I asked, not really caring. I decided to store the information on Edward away for later inspection.

Alice shook her head frantically. “No! No, Jasper isn’t like that at all. He parties some, but no more than Emmet. One time when I stayed the night with Rose, I saw him helping his mom with her work – she’s a professor at the college in Port Angeles – and he was really sweet to her...“ She trailed of in a whimsical voice. I just shrugged and continued mopping the floor while Alice pointed out Jaspers stronger points.

Hoping to get a better impression of Edward tonight, I decided not to judge him based solely on Alice’s assumptions. I knew if he was judging me by other’s assumptions, he probably thought I was completely insane. My shoulder slumped a bit when I realized that was probably exactly what he thought of me by now. How could he not, with all the rumors going around school? For some reason I really did want Edward to like me… or at the very least remain on polite speaking terms with me, which as Alice made quite clear, was more of a rarity than I had originally expected.

In a marginally worse mood, I continued cleaning the house for the rest of the day, anticipating another encounter with Edward in equal parts of excitement and dread.

At eleven-o-clock, I decided to stick to my strengths to win Edward’s approval, and came up with a new cookie recipe. Esme told me once that no one could resist my company when cookies were involved. I was hoping she was being honest as I whipped the fudgy dough and prepared it on the cookie sheet. Alice and Esme – quite tired from her trip to Seattle last night – had already called it a night and were sleeping peacefully in their beds. I usually felt quite envious of them at this time of night, but I was far too anxious about meeting Edward to give it a second thought. Idly, I wondered how stupid I would feel if he didn’t even show up at the gazebo. Then I realized I was sounding too much like Alice and mentally slapped myself for being such a teenage girl.

Once my cookies were cooled, I put them in their Ziplock bags and labeled them accordingly like I always did. Double Fudge Rendezvous. They looked and tasted delicious, which satisfied me because I was a very tough critic when it came to such things. I sat myself at the breakfast bar and drummed my fingers on the granite while sipping a new cup of coffee. I was officially out of things to do, and I could feel my eye lids drooping against my will. I wondered what time Edward usually went out, and deciding to save my sanity, concluded I would make an appearance at exactly midnight. No need to seem so eager. I mentally slapped myself again for actually being so eager. I took some comfort in the fact there were no green mini dresses involved.

Once the clock on the microwave read midnight, I got up and put my hoodie on. Grasping my bag of Double Fudge Rendezvous, I made my way out the back door leading to the yard. It was lightly drizzling outside with just enough moonlight that I could make out the general shape of the gazebo located at the far end of the yard. I looked towards the Cullen house and noticed where I estimated Edward’s room to be still lit up. I let out a deep breath and began stumbling my way towards to gazebo through the darkness. It was rather large, with vines running up the sides and spilling onto the shingled roof that covered it. I took the two steps up onto the platform and looked around. I had never actually been out here before. There was a picnic table in the center with benches on either side. I sat with my back to the houses and looked out towards the little river that extended past the property. My eyes had adjusted enough that I could actually see the reflection of the clouds in the rippling water. All in all it was a very peaceful place.

Edward was partially correct. The slight cold bite of the breeze did keep me coherent, but the soft soothing sounds of the river were making me even more tired. I rubbed at my eyes with my fists and started eating a cookie, figuring a sugar high wouldn’t hurt matters any.

I sat there on the bench for a while eating cookies and watching the river before I heard soft footsteps coming from behind me. I was initially alarmed before I remembered I was waiting for someone. I slowly turned around on the bench and saw Edward approaching the gazebo. He was wearing a black leather jacket and dark jeans. I couldn’t make out his expression as clearly as I would have liked, but he didn’t seem to have a ‘mean’ look on his face. He took a seat at the opposite end of the bench I was sitting on without speaking, and stared out towards the river.

I allowed myself a moment to do a mental happy dance at the fact he came to spend time with me, considering his reputation for social dysfunction, before I realized he wasn’t speaking. He was just sitting there staring at the river. The light breeze was gently rustling his hair, and sending his scent wafting over in my direction. Edward smelled divine. Like soap, and shampoo, and a vague twinge of cigarette smoke that wasn’t nearly as repulsive as it should have been. Not really knowing what to do, I remembered my secret weapon.

“Cookie?” I asked in a whisper, and slid the bag down towards Edward’s end of the wooden table. He looked over at the bag and furrowed his brow. Tentatively, he reached in the bag and pulled one out, inspecting it like I was offering him a severed puppy’s head rather than a simple cookie. With an annoyed sigh, I reached in the bag and produced a cookie. I took a bite slowly, showing him he wouldn’t collapse in a seizure from eating my confections. He quirked an eyebrow at me, then popped the cookie in his mouth, taking a rather large bite and chewing it. His eyes lit up a little bit when he tasted the cookie, and I resumed my mental happy dance. I knew he’d like it.

“These are really good cookies. What kind are they?” His velvety voice finally spoke after he finished chewing..

I lifted one side of my mouth into a grin. “Double Fudge Rendezvous” I answered quietly.

“Hmm…” he hummed while chewing another bite and swallowing. “That’s a rather odd name for a cookie.” He questioned.

I shrugged. “I always get inspirations from events that happen in my day. Then I name the cookie after it.” I stated coolly. “Last night I made Bloody Newtons.” I added with a smirk.

Edward was silent for a moment before throwing his head back in laughter, both startling and dazzling me at the same time. Once he composed himself he turned towards me, amusement lighting up his features and a half grin on his face. “That’s fucking priceless. You’ll have to make me a batch of those sometime.” He winked. Yes, he winked. Good God he winked!

I took a moment to compose the 17 year old giggling girl inside of me before agreeing with a nod. We were silent again for a few minutes, just gazing out at the moonlit river through the mist of the rain that was barely falling, and eating our Double Fudge Rendezvous. My head was swimming with the fact I was so comfortable around this guy when, if it were anyone else, I was positive I’d be shaking and looking for escape routes.

“What are your nightmares about?” Edward asked in a whisper, breaking me from my thoughts. I turned towards him; his gaze fixed on his hands. I frowned, not really wanting to relay my sordid past to him. When I didn’t answer his green eyes met mine and he frowned. “You don’t have to tell me, I was just curious. I wasn’t trying to pry.” He said softly with a sincere expression.

“No…” I said quickly. “It’s okay, really. I just…I don’t really talk about it to anyone.” I said looking down at my hands folded on the tabletop. “You probably think I’m crazy enough with all the rumors going around, no need to add more fuel to the fire.” I added sourly.
He snorted, but didn’t do anything to deny my accusations. He sat there silently looking into the distance with a far away look on his face. After a few minutes he turned towards me with a decisive expression.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He said firmly.

She sat there with a dumbfounded look on her face, blinking a few times. I didn’t want to spill the beans any more than she did, but I had to know what was up with this girl.

I had spoken to Emmet earlier in the day, which was only one sign I was far more interested in Bella Swan than was necessarily characteristic of my normal behavior. Luckily, Em was suffering from a nasty hangover, and was too miserable to fight with me when I approached him. Once the words ‘Bella Swan’ were out of my mouth, he got the strangest look on his face.

“Don’t fuck with Bella, dude.” He rasped out with narrowed eyes, attempting a forceful tone, and failing quite miserably. I was highly fucking annoyed by his obvious dismissal of my question.

“Stop being so fucking difficult and just tell me what you know, dickhead.” I snapped in a tone loud enough to make him cringe away from the sound. I smiled a bit at having made his headache flare.

“She’s just weird, dude.” He groaned, putting his hands over his ears in an attempt to shield himself from any sound. “She had some kind of weird traumatic experience before she moved here, and she doesn’t like being touched. Alice never talks about it, and we aren’t allowed to ask questions.” After saying his piece, he left the kitchen to go vomit some more, and I spent the rest of my day wondering. Wondering what happened to Bella before she moved here that was so fucking bad she couldn’t sleep or be touched. I cringed at all the possibilities. After spending my day and evening completely occupied by worst case scenarios, I vowed before leaving the house I would find out.

So here I am, offering the only thing I can in return, and hoping she was somewhat as curious about my past as I was of hers. I could only imagine all the shit Alice had been telling her about me. She never could get past the accident with her BMW. I wasn’t even the one who scratched the damned thing. I just took the blame for Jasper who was freaking out so badly about it I couldn’t help but take the bullet for the sorry bastard.

“You go first.” Bella’s soft voice broke me out of my thoughts. I snapped my gaze to her deep brown eyes and digested her statement. Shit. Me first. I let out a frustrated sigh and ran my fingers through my hair. I averted my gaze to the wooden table and tried to decide how much I really wanted to give away in return for her story. Feeling more anxious than I was comfortable with, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Bringing one up to my mouth, I lit the cigarette, but sat staring at the flame for a long moment before releasing it and enveloping us once again in darkness. Making my decision, I took a long draw off the cigarette, making the orange ember glow brightly, before exhaling a steady breath of smoke.

“When I was 9, I was in a house fire, and I watched my father burn to death.” I blurted quickly in a tight voice. I decided to leave the exact cause of the fire out of my confession. I didn’t look at her reaction to that statement before I continued. “My mom sent me away after that.” I said in a bitter tone, scratching at the wood tabletop with my fingernail. “That’s what my nightmares are about. Some nights it’s the fire, other nights it’s about her leaving. Sometimes they’re about the fucked up things that happened to me in foster homes.” I finished with a shrug and took another deep drag from my glowing cigarette.

She was quiet for a moment, so I looked up at her to gauge her reaction. Her wide, worn brown eyes were filled with shock, concern, and… pity. I fucking hated seeing people looking at me with pity, so I averted my gaze back towards the river with a sour look on my face.

“I’m sorry…” she whispered in a low pained voice. I let out one humorless chuckle recalling my earlier assumptions of her apologizing too much. I just shrugged and waved the hand holding my cigarette in a dismissive fashion, and went back to scratching the wooden table. I knew it was her turn to explain, but I sat patiently waiting for her to gather her courage, and continued smoking my cigarette. Eventually it was burned thoroughly, so I flicked it out of the gazebo, following the glowing ember with my eyes, making sure it hit the wet ground, and nothing else.

The sound of her quietly clearing her throat brought my attention back to her. She was staring down at her hands entwined on the table with a nervous, yet tired expression.

“A year ago, my mom and I were victims of a month-long home invasion.” She whispered so quietly I could barely hear. My eyes widened, not really expecting that particular scenario – which is saying a lot, because I worked through many in my head. I waited patiently for her to continue. Her eyes were tight, likely recalling her past horrors, and never left her hands. “The man… Phil, was one of my mom’s old boyfriends. He broke in and held us in the house for almost four weeks.” She paused then; darting her eyes around the yard in front of her like someone was going to jump out of the darkness unexpectedly. She licked her lips and started again. “He tortured my mother and me… doing awful things...” She shuddered and closed her eyes tightly. I wanted to reach out to her and comfort her in some way, but knew I couldn’t. Emmet told me she didn’t like being touched. So I just sat and listened, hoping my mere presence gave her some amount of comfort. “He killed her in front of me.” She added in an emotionless voice, now staring in the direction of the river with a hard look marring her features. Then she crossed her arms on the table in front of her and laid her head down on them, facing me. “That’s what my nightmares are about.” She finished in a tired, slurred voice and closed her eyes.

I knew instinctively that she was editing the experience, making it seem less bad, for reasons I didn’t know. But seeing as how I did the same thing, I let the matter drop. I got the general idea of what happened. It was awful to think of Bella being… tortured. I wanted to ask her what happened to the Phil guy, but when she opened her eyes to meet my gaze again, her expression made it clear the discussion was closed. And I didn’t want to upset her further, so I just nodded, and gave her a small smile, showing her I didn’t think she was crazy. She attempted to return it, but it came out more like a grimace, so she busied herself by eating another cookie.

I turned forward then and began digesting Bella’s story. After a long while, I decided, since her incident happened recently, I could most likely find more information regarding it on the internet.

“So,” Bella spoke in a lighter tone, finally breaking the silence. Her head was still lying on her arms. “What’s your favorite cookie?” she asked with a small smile, obvious trying to change the course of conversation.

I returned her grin, and laid my head down on my arms facing her and mirroring her pose. “Well…. It used to peanut butter, but now, I’m thinking Double Fudge Rendezvous.” I said with a smirk. Bella’s cookies were positively divine, possibly the best thing I’ve ever eaten. In the Cullen household, when it came to food, it was an ‘Every Man for Himself’ situation, and since none of us had anything resembling good culinary skills, I rarely had the opportunity to eat anything really appealing.

Bella’s face lit up a bit at my hidden compliment, and she lightly chuckled. “I know five peanut butter cookie recipes. You’d like them all.” She replied smugly, before her face fell a bit. “Maybe…” she paused and looked away biting her lip before she met my eyes again. “Maybe tomorrow I could bring you some.” Her statement came out sounding more like a question.

I rolled my eyes are her very unsubtle attempt at questioning whether or not I was returning. “Yeah, yeah I’ll be here tomorrow. Who am I to refuse perfectly good cookies?” I joked. She grinned and I could just barely make out the light pink on her cheeks in the moonlight when she blushed. So fucking cute.

She freed her left arm to lightly draw patterns in the grains on the wood with her index finger. “So what’s life like in Forks?” she asked quietly.

I shrugged. “Boring as fuck mostly. I usually hang with Jazz or something to pass the time on the weekends.” I snorted. “When he isn’t completely obsessing over your bitch of a cousin.”

Bella shot straight upright then with an angry expression on her face. “Hey! Alice is NOT a bitch!” she sneered. I sat up slowly with my hands up in the air in a defensive gesture. Then curiously she furrowed her little brow, “What do you mean obsessing?” she asked cautiously.

I let out a frustrated sigh and swung my leg over the bench so I was straddling it facing her, and leaned with my elbow on the table. “He’s been madly in love with Alice ever since I’ve known him. I have to hear about her every day” I sighed.

Bella was frozen for a moment, and then doubled over in the softest laugh I’ve ever heard. I held my lips together tightly trying not to smile at her amusement, and then quirked an eyebrow at her questioningly. She composed herself before doing this weird snort/laugh.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” she trailed off with a chuckle. I sent her a frustrated glare. It was fucking annoying being out of the loop. She looked at me with apologetic eyes and continued. “Ever since I got here a week ago, I have heard nothing but Jasper this, Jasper that.” She chuckled again, and then added in a high pitched tone obviously meant to mock Alice. “Oh my God, Bella! Isn’t Jasper, like sooo dreamy?” Then we both doubled over laughter. Fucking figures. Neither one of those two had any balls.

When our laughter finally quieted down, I lifted my head to Bella and shook it. “Well, personally, I think we should keep out mouths shut a bit longer. Serves them right for making us suffer.” I smirked conspiratorially. Bella chuckled and nodded at me.

We returned to our previous positions with our heads down on the table, and sat in silence for a bit longer, just listening to the river and enjoying each other’s presence. I had my eyes closed, enjoying the cold breeze on my face. I was still tired… exhausted actually. But having Bella with me made it easier to stay awake. I was momentarily glad she was so eager for me to return, saving me the embarrassment of asking her to do so, since I so obviously enjoyed her company. It was a definite rarity for me. I was commonly known as social outcast by choice. As a general rule, I had learned years ago that people fucking sucked. It was a rule I lived by. If you don’t get close to people, the assholes of the world can’t fuck you over, and in return you can’t hurt the nicer people who don’t deserve it.

“Alice said you were arrested.” Bella said in a slurred, accusing voice. I opened my eyes to look at her and she had her eyes closed still.
I snorted. “Yeah, well Alice would know. She was the one who pressed charges.” I said lazily and let my eyes close again.

“Oh, really? Is that a story I get to hear?” she half chuckled, half yawned.

I let out a deep sigh and kept my eyes closed. “There was this whole incident with her BMW freshman year. She was fucking bitter. She didn’t press charges for it, probably because Jazz begged her not to, but she kept an eye on me, and eventually caught me doing something… less than legal.” I shrugged in avoidance and yawned, hoping she’d drop it.

“Well…what was it?” She asked sleepily when I didn’t continue. I opened my eyes then to find her staring at me expectantly. I was by no means proud of my criminal record, so I was somewhat frustrated at her persistence, but I decided to be honest. The past was the past after all.

“Possession of a controlled substance.” I said carefully while gauging her reaction. Then, God bless her heart, she just fucking shrugged and closed her eyes again, like it was no big deal. I smiled a little bit, pleasantly surprised by her reaction.

“You’ll have to excuse Alice. She has a slight tendency to hold grudges. Sometimes I find it admirable, but in other cases it can be a bit of a pain.” She replied quietly. I snorted, and then closed my eyes again. A bit of a pain? More like a fucking huge inconvenience.

I had other incidents on my rap sheet, but decided not to give it all away in one night. Better to ease her into the fact she’s spending her night with a complete fuck up. Once again, we were silent for a long while, just the sounds of our breathing and the river filling the space.

Eventually the silence was broken by a soft snoring sound I immediately recognized as Bella’s. Opening my eyes and looking at her peaceful face, I realized she had fallen asleep. I hesitantly lifted my foot and tapped her leg with my boot. Her eyes flew opened and she shot up on the bench, rubbing frantically at her eyes with her fists. I chuckled, mumbling “Amateur” under my breath.
She looked momentarily disoriented, but quickly recovered. “Sorry. Thanks.” She murmured, slowly putting her head back down, but keeping her eyes opened.

This was something that was bugging the shit out of me to no end. “Why do you always do that?” At her confused expression I added “Apologize. You say you’re sorry entirely too fucking much.” I said with narrowed eyes. She shrugged and looked like she was about to apologize for apologizing before catching my warning glare, then she chuckled.

“I don’t know why I do it. I guess it was just a polite habit I got into, and now it’s like second nature.” She admitted quietly.

I closed my eyes again. “Well, you don’t have apologize to me constantly. So cut that shit out.” I replied in a hard voice. Seriously, it was annoying spending time with someone so utterly fucking apologetic. It kind of makes you feel like shit.

I was sitting comfortable with my head down still, listening to the water again, and being lulled by its soothing sounds. Suddenly I felt a tap on my leg, and my eyes shot opened. Bella was grinning at me.

“You fell asleep.” She teased in a musical tone. I rolled my eyes at her teasing but kept my eyes wide open.

It was then I noticed the sun was showing signs of rising. Tentatively, I sat up on the bench and rubbed my face with my hands. “Sun’s rising soon.” I mumbled into my hands, and then glanced into clouds that were becoming lighter. With a deep sigh, I stood up from the bench and began stretching my stiff limbs. Bella slowly followed my lead, picking up her bag of cookies from the middle of the table.

She stood there shuffling her feet in an awkward gesture beside the bench. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” She looked up at me and bit her lip. Yeah, that’s fucking cute too.

I nodded. “Tomorrow.” I agreed with a grin.

With that we both sleepily climbed down out of the gazebo, and back towards our homes, victorious in yet another nightly struggle.

A/N: That’s that folks. Reviews are appreciated as always. Thanks for reading!