Bella's Little Sister

Chapter 4

The morning passed fairly quickly and, all in all, it was a rather good day. As Bella and I walked to biology, Eric joined us and began talking about being on the prom committee. Needless to say, I had tuned him out pretty rapidly, much to my sister's chagrin. I knew my sister very much wanted to do the same thing, however she was far too nice to actually do so.

I waited for Bella to hang her jacket up on the coat rack by the door. She turned back to face Eric, who had begun asking her a question about her music playlist, but he was interrupted by Mike's arrival.

"What's up, Arizona? Huh?" Mike began shaking raindrops off his hat onto Bella and I. 

Bella threw me an apologetic expression, seeing my lips pressed tightly together in annoyance, before quickly stopping in her tracks. I followed her gaze to where she was looking, only to become instantly surprised at what, or rather who, I saw. No words were spoken as I met my sister's worried stare. I shook my head once, indicating to her that she did not need to step in, at least not yet. It would all depend on Edward Cullen's current mood.

The first thing I noticed when I sat down was that Edward's eyes were a golden color, instead of the black I distinctly remembered them to be the last time I saw him. I was also mildly shocked to see that they did not hold any frustration or hate.

"Hello."

And neither, I realized, did his voice. I was slow to look in his direction. Not only was I still bitter about what had happened last week, but I was also half-worried that he would return to the same state he had been in before.

"I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to introduce myself last week," Edward continued. "I'm Edward Cullen. You're Jess?"

Bella, knowing that I was not going to respond, stepped in. "You can talk to her all you want, but she won't respond." Her tone held an obvious touch of the same bitterness I was still currently feeling. I was, after all, her little sister. Bella was sure to be protective when it came to me.

The faint smile Edward Cullen was wearing slipped, but it was almost imperceptible. If it had not been for my constant, thorough observations of people, I would not have noticed it in the slightest. 

Mr. Molina ended all further discussion then and there by explaining the lab we were to be focusing on today. "Miss Swan, you can move to work with your sister and Mr. Cullen."

"Ladies first." Edward positioned the microscope closer to me, his eyes watching me closely, as though he were looking for something.

"You were gone," Bella stated as she moved to my side.

Edward seemed to think over his words, choosing each one carefully, before actually speaking them. "Yeah," he started slowly. "I was out of town for a couple of days. Personal reasons."

After I had taken a look through the lens of the microscope-this was really more of an effort to show Mr. Molina that I was taking part in the lab, rather than just sitting idly by as Bella and Edward did all the work-Bella claimed the stage of mitosis to be prophase.

"Do you mind if I look?" Edward questioned as he pulled the microscope closer to himself.

I gave my sister a sly glance after watching Edward look through the lens. Her eyes gave her away; she, too, had noticed that it was barely long enough of a glance to correctly distinguish the stage. Once again, Edward was carefully watching me, studying me the way I studied everyone else.

"So are you enjoying the rain?" His question was aimed more towards my sister than me, though I could tell by the way he eyed me that he was hoping I would respond.