A little teaser for Chapter 12 while it's being beta'd by Beans827:
We arrived only moments before the bell sounded signalling the start of the school day. Bella was already here, her large red truck sticking out like a sore thumb amongst all the boring suburban vehicles. Her scent lingered in her truck, which we passed on the way to the front entrance, as well as in the hallway as we separated into our various classes.
My first class today was Math; my next was Biology with Bella. My stomach roiled, it felt like a mass of butterflies were flying around in there. I wondered whether I had actually drunk too much before coming to school. I had never heard of a vampire vomiting up blood before, but I was thinking I might be the first. The math class seemed to take forever, when finally the bell sounded and I rushed to the lab.
I wanted to be there first to mentally prepare myself for meeting Bella again. Emmett was in the next room and for once he kept himself reined in and resisted teasing me. In fact, according to his thoughts, he was almost as nervous as I was about this class with Bella. Despite all the teasing and the rough-housing that Emmett enjoyed with Jasper and me, he truly loved the family with a depth that would seem quite surprising if you took him at face value. Underneath his large build, he had such a heart of gold and was genuinely overjoyed that I might, in his view, have found someone to love. It didn’t faze him one little bit that Bella was human, unlike a few others in the family who were plagued with concerns.
A sudden case of nerves hit me as more students starting filing into the room. I felt exactly like a seventeen year old boy with his first crush. I don’t even think I felt this nervous around a girl when I was actually a human seventeen year old. In every other time that I had found my soul mate in her previous lives, she had been a little older, and circumstances were always such that our relationships had occurred in an adult environment.
How was this going to work? I was starting to panic, my supposed plans for the day had completely flown from my brain. Bella was 17 and in 2005 that was considered very young. She was too young to be involved in a serious relationship, too young to consider marriage. How would I be able to protect her if we would only be able to be with each other on occasion? My mind was going haywire. What the hell was I thinking? I don’t think I’m ready to do this. I had even gone so far as to stand up to leave the room when I felt a wave of calm descend over me and Jasper’s whispered words, “You can do this, Edward.”
I took a deep breath and thanked Jasper under my breath. It wasn’t like this was the first time I had had to approach my soul mate when technically she didn’t know me from Adam. Mind you, not knowing what Bella was thinking was an added complication I had never had to face before. Along with the alluring call of her blood, the lack of access to her mind had certainly been sent to try me after all this time.
I closed my eyes to centre myself and it was at that point in time that I felt the pull my body had towards Bella kick in. I opened my eyes and there she was, standing in the doorway staring at me, as if she could hardly believe her eyes. As if in a daze she almost glided across the floor, past the other tables and slipped into her seat, never taking her eyes from mine. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all?
Her heaven-scented blood, pumping through her delicate purple veins just below the surface of her pale skin, still called to me but the pull was so much less than it had been a week ago. My throat still burned, quite strongly in fact, but it was manageable, with enough concentration. I smiled at her and opened my mouth to introduce myself.....
Suzanne
