Filled with Excuses
I laid my head in Jaspers lap as I continued half reading A Tale of Two Cities while Alice and Kennedy were sprawled across the floor with their textbooks. This is how we normally started our weeks, except with less tension throughout the house. It’s even gotten to the point where you wouldn’t need vampire hearing to hear Emmett and Rose bickering about Bella. It wasn’t long before Emmett brought his now solo party upstairs to us.
“So, how long do you think Edward will survive Tanya?” Emmett laughs as he enters the room and jumps onto the end of Jasper's bed, the bounce making me lose grip of my book as it narrowly avoids hitting me in the face.
“Give me 3 to 4 business days to get back to you.” Alice replied, barely looking up from her work. Jasper humored Emmett on a bet when Rose joined us in the room.
“If he was smart he would stay there. This isn’t going to end well no matter what Alice’s visions tell us right now.” She stayed in the doorway, her arms crossed.
“Come on, babe!” Emmett exclaimed, “Don’t you want another human in the house? It will be like having a third puppy.” he laughed.
“Yeah are we that bad?” I asked Rose as she glared at her husband's statement.
“No. But the fact that Jasper can control himself around you and Edward can barely control himself around her tells me all I need to know.” she stated as she coldly walked out of the room. Kennedy and I looked up at Emmett with a confused look, but Alice answered for him.
“Edward almost lost control today in biology. I have no doubt that he would have taken out that entire classroom if you two weren’t in it with him.”
“Wow.” Kennedy sighed, “I love unknowingly saving my class from vampire tendencies.” she mumbled. “Do you really think he’s going to stay in Alaska?”
“I mean he literally doesn’t have to.” I interject. “Have him come back and just tell the schools he’s transferring schools.”
“And what school would he go to genius?” Emmett asked. “The next school near us is a 40 minute drive.”
“Have him stay home? Seriously, no one will know. It’s not like you’re missing anything.” I stated.
Kennedy nodded in agreement. “Why do you guys even go to high school anyways?”
“The younger we start out the longer we can stay.”
“Okay, but why not just go through college then go get a job. All of you could easily pass as older than you are and you could actually have an independent life instead of living through high school over and over.” Emmett stared at Kennedy, clearly never coming up with that solution on his own. Jasper tries not to laugh as Emmett got up and left the room.
It was Wednesday when Bella finally caught up to us. Until now, she would glance at us whenever we were around, whether that be in class or the school parking lot with the rest of the Cullen's. Kennedy and I had to finish up our art projects due tomorrow so we skipped out on our usual homework session at the Cullens. Bella pulled up next door as we were taking our canvas’ out of the backseat of my car.
“Um hey.” Bella said as she jogged over, her hands shoved in her jacket pockets. “Do you guys know where Edward is by any chance? I mean, he was there my first day and then he just sort of disappeared. I guess I’m just wondering if he’s alright?” she stumbled over her words a bit.
“He’s in Alaska, Bella.” Kennedy replied, shutting her car door and walked around towards her.
“Alaska?” Bella asked, obviously confused. It’s clear that she didn’t ask the Cullen’s anything herself. That or they just full up avoided her this whole time.
“He’s visiting a friend.” Kennedy replied, only confusing Bella more.
“Who died.” I added. “They um, use to date.”
“Such a tragedy. She was like part of the family.”
“Then why is Edward the only one gone?”
“She went a bit crazy at the end there.” Kennedy gave me a look then hopped right into digging ourselves an even deeper hole.
“Yeah. It was really conflicting for him. That’s why he was asking so weird that day, he found out the night before and was still trying to process it all. You know how it is.” She finished and Bella just nodded, trying to put something together in her head. “So Bella, we haven’t heard much about you. Where did you move here from?” From there we got to learn a bit more about our new neighbor. We exchanged numbers and then quickly went inside to inform the rest of the Cullen's of the bullshit story we just made up to get Bella to stop asking questions.
Edward finally returned to Forks later that week, just in time for Esme’s Sunday brunch with us. Esme and Carlisle really enjoyed taking up cooking ever since we started coming over to the house late Freshman year. We have since established Esme’s Sunday brunch for her to try new recipes on us. The rest of the Cullen's were mostly in and out of the house on these days, but today Edward joined us at the table, even if he wasn’t going to eat anything. He returned early in the morning, finally annoyed with Tanya’s antics or something like that. I wasn’t really paying attention to that part of the conversation.
“So you’re just going to talk to her like you didn’t gag at her when you first saw her?” Kennedy asked, trying to hold back laughter. Esme smiled at us as she put down plates of strawberry crepes in front of us. Edward playfully nudged her as Alice seemed to float through the living area to grab something.
“You better talk to her soon, I want to be her friend!” Kennedy chuckled at her girlfriend’s eagerness to befriend Bella. She didn’t think it was fair since Kennedy and I have been texting with Bella on and off throughout Edward’s absence.
Shortly after finishing our meals, Bella called. She made point to call at some point during the weekends since we somewhat tricked her into helping us with biology since Edward never did. I answered the phone and put in on speaker with Kennedy since Edward left the room to go find some board games they had laying around somewhere. We barely got past hellos before Edward walked back downstairs naming off the games he found. I quickly took Bella off speaker as she asked if that was Edward that she heard. Edward and I seemed to freeze in our spots as we made eye contact. Kennedy grabbed the phone from me.
“No. That was our pastor. We’re at Church. Um break is over so we have to go..sing..now?” I looked at her confused.
“Do people even sing in Church?” I asked myself out loud before turning to Carlisle who was helping Esme behind the Kitchen counter, “Carlisle do people sing in Church?!”