(Bella)

Until I moved to Forks, my life was pretty much just me trying to go through the motions of making sure everyone else was happy.

Take care of Mom, because she's too scatterbrained to remember things like- oh, you actually need to go to work tomorrow, so maybe you shouldn't go out to the club tonight to see that band.

Go live with Dad, because Mom doesn't need you anymore and it would probably be a nice gesture to get to know the guy who fathered you even if it means moving to a tiny town where he'd be the only one you knew.

And so on and so forth.

It wasn't like I totally ignored things important to me, but more often than not they took a backseat to the needs of others. It was the curse of being entirely too empathetic and shy at the same time. When you cared too much about others and also what they thought of you, it left very little room for the person inside to be seen. I'd slowly begun to grow out of my shyness, but it was a work in progress. Unfortunately, that progress took a big stumble when I moved to Forks and had to start all over again. Knowing literally no one, but my dad in the small town he lived had squashed all my past efforts at becoming an extrovert.

But then something happened that was completely new and ended up exacerbating all the parts of my personality that I was trying run from. For the first time in my short life, a guy showed interest in me. Dating and all the aspects that went along with it hadn't even been on my radar before I moved to Forks. I had been too focused on everyone else to notice that part of being a teen. If someone paid me attention to me while I lived in Phoenix, it never registered with me. This time though, I literally had no choice, but to notice the attention Edward Cullen forced on me.

At first it was just rude staring, but that quickly morphed into an uncontrollable urge on his part to treat me like I was a delicate flower. He was constantly trying to protect me. I found him extremely annoying, but at the same time couldn't fight the attraction I felt for him whenever he was near. It was a ying-yang of emotions. There was no in-between. I loathed him, but also wanted him. Many times I tried to find my voice to tell him to leave me alone, but that shyness and inability to speak my mind would always creep in, keeping me from whatever resolve I had made the night before when he wasn't around.

Then he saved my life and things got so much worse. I'd seen him do an act that wasn't humanly possible and it made me suspect that maybe this guy wasn't actually a guy, but something far more dangerous. Not to mention that once Edward had seen how close I'd come to death, he became even more possessive. I felt helpless, like I was drowning underneath all his unwanted attention, but then she stepped in to offer me a hand and help pull me above water.

I was surprised when she had wanted to take me to the nurse's office that day. Before, I'd only known Jessica Stanley to send me indifferent looks whenever I caught her eye and the crush she had on Edward was a well-known fact by everyone. Why would she help me when the guy she wanted spent so much time pushing his affections on me? I was her competition.

Still in the span of a few short days Jess had basically become the closest thing I had to a friend and had also been the only person I knew … well, to be more accurate - human, who had the ability to put Edward in his place. I'd forever be grateful to her for that.

But after the debacle Edward put us through at the restaurant, I thought maybe Jess would never want to speak to me again. I hugged her goodbye outside my house, wondering if come Monday she would act as if I didn't exist when I saw her at school. Jess may have been brave in the face of Edward, but once she got away from me and all the crazy problems I attracted, it seemed reasonable that she'd want to go back to a normal life. I felt depressed just thinking about it, but when she called not long after Alice had dropped me off, it wasn't to write me off. Instead she wanted to get together again and my heart instantly leapt at her request. I was so stupidly giddy that regardless of the stressful day I'd had, my happiness at seeing her again so soon kept me up late tossing and turning.

When I picked her up the next day my heart was still racing, which seems odd to me, but I tried to ignore it. "Are your parents going to get mad that you're missing church?" I asked her, remembering how she'd told me they were sticklers for attending every Sunday.

"Nah, you and I are going out for breakfast. I'll be back before it starts," Jess replied, closing the door to my truck once she'd found a seat for herself inside. "Wow, so I get to ride in Bella's famous rust bucket."

"Hey, be nice," I teasingly warned. "Besides, at least I have my own vehicle."

Jess held up her hands. "You have me there."

"So where to?" I asked when she didn't offer up anything else.

"Well, there's only one diner in Forks. I'd say that's a good place to go."

I knew the diner she was talking about. Charlie, my dad, liked to eat there several times a week. He wasn't so great at cooking or that's what I had discovered once I'd moved in with him and he attempted to serve me meals. After choking down some spaghetti with noodles barely cooked and clumped together, I'd suggested that on the days we didn't eat at the diner, I would take over cooking duties.

Driving towards the center of town, I tried to navigate through the fog and also the worry in my heart. Jess was being so quiet and it caused a fear to grow inside me that she'd actually wanted to get together to let me down easy, tell me my life was too complicated for her to be a part of. It sounded stupid, but I was so worried I was going to lose her that the rational side of me leapt out the window. Trying to counteract this supposed future abandonment, I began babbling an apology. "I'm sorry about yesterday. It was such a mess. I wish I could have stood up to him in the restaurant. He was so rude to you and I should have done something-"

I was saying anything I could think of to try and stop the ending of our friendship I saw happening as soon as we ordered our breakfast, but Jess stopped me. She reached out and placed her hand over mine on the steering wheel. I twisted my head briefly to glance at her.

"Please, don't talk about him. I care so little about that dickhead. I don't even want to hear that anyone else is named Edward. I swear to god if someone named Edward talks to me I will slap them for having such a dumb name," Jess said, and I had to glance back at her to see if she was serious or not. There was a smile playing on her lips and I chuckled.

"Okay, no Edward. I promise," I sent her a look of apology before turning back to stare at the road. My foot hit the break and then I turned a corner going from gravel to paved.

Then Jess continued, but from the corner of my eye, I saw her smile fade as she leaned back in her seat. "And I think it's even worse that you're apologizing for him, like you did something wrong yesterday. I don't blame you for anything. You're the victim here. Not me and certainly not him."

I shrugged. "I know, but there's always a part of me that has to take the blame. I don't want you to be upset with me. I care a lot about you." I hadn't meant on saying the last part. It just sort of slipped from my mouth and after the words were out, I felt myself blushing.

I wondered if Jess would laugh at how corny I sounded, but thankfully she didn't. "I care about you too," she repeated my sentiment and her tone didn't sound teasing at all. In fact, when I pulled into the parking lot of the diner, I turned to see that my friend was also blushing. This in turn only made my face grow even redder and I quickly exited my truck to escape the embarrassment surrounding us both.

By the time we finally found a booth inside the tiny diner, I'd managed to get my emotions under control, but that didn't last long. After I ordered myself some tea and Jess requested a coffee, things took a turn for the serious again. When I asked the simple, "So, why'd you want to get together this morning?" I expected a simple answer, but Jess grew quiet and the worry from before began to spread from my heart until it took over every part of me. "What's wrong," I tried to prompt her into talking.

She leaned in, gripping the sides of her coffee mug in a move that looked anxious and I found myself shifting my body, so that our faces were close, so close that I could smell her perfume. "Yesterday a lot of walls came down for us," she whispered, glancing down at her cup and bringing it to her lips to take a sip. "I mean, hello, there are vampires in Forks and one of them has been controlling you into liking them."

"Wha-" I began, but Jess spoke over me, before I could finish.

"Alice told me. Apparently vampires can manipulate people into finding them attractive and also control their actions, but Edward can't control me and …" Jess paused and looked uncomfortable. I tried to encourage her to continue by placing my hands around her fingers gripping the coffee cup. Only this action caused Jess to jump slightly in shock and she ended up knocking the drink over. Dark liquid spread across the table and she exclaimed, "Oh shit!" while pulling some napkins from the dispenser. Quickly my friend tossed them down on the mess and managed to keep the coffee from spilling over the sides onto our clothes.

"Err, sorry about that," I quietly said, embarrassed that my attempt to put her at ease had done the opposite.

"Completely my fault. Why am I drinking coffee anyways? It always makes me so jumpy," Jess said and laughed off my apology. "Where was I?"

"Vampires can't control you?" I offered.

"No, just Edward," she corrected. "He can't and probably not any other vampires of his gender."

"What does that mean? Male vampires can't control you?" I asked.

Jess shook her head. "Nope. Sorry, vamps with dicks. When it comes to me, you're out of luck."

I chuckled and then asked, "But, why?"

Her face was unreadable as she paused and I tried to give Jess the best look of encouragement that I could muster, knowing that if I tried to touch her again she might bolt.

"It doesn't work for someone like me. I mean, chick vampires could probably control my mind if they really wanted to, because well … I'm gay," she breathed the last two words, hardly making them audible, but I heard enough to understand.

"You're gay? Oh." I knew I sounded like an idiot, but her reveal had left me tongue tied. I had thought many things could happen at our breakfast and this had not been on my list of possibilities. "Does anyone else know? Because even though I know different, everyone else thinks you like Edward," I finally said, pushing past my shock.

Jess grimaced. "For a long time I didn't want anyone else to know the truth, so I created a lie that I liked him. I thought it was a safe lie. No one was good enough for him, so I would never have to worry about getting asked out. God, I don't even want to imagine a scenario where that might have happened. " I saw her shudder, before continuing. "But then you moved here and things got … complicated."

"Me?" I said in a faint voice.

Her blue eyes grew wider as she looked into mine and for some reason my heart sped up. I couldn't stop the reflexive action of one of my hands reaching out to cover it. "Bella ... I've liked you since you moved here. I know this is aaaaaaaa lot to take in and I don't expect you to say anything in response right now or maybe not at all, but I had to tell you. After yesterday and all that happened … I just, I just can't leave it unsaid anymore." When she finished, Jess leaned back in her seat and sighed heavily.

"Were you guys ready to order?"

The sudden sound of another voice at our table caused my head to snap in the direction of the waitress to my left. "No!" I said maybe just a bit too forcefully and taking offense to my rudeness, she huffed while placing the pencil she had out ready to take our order, back behind her ear.

"Let me know when you are ready," the middle aged woman replied grumpily and headed in the direction of a door with the words employees only written across it.

"You like me … like, like me like me?" I said, once our waitress was completely out of earshot. I wasn't being as eloquent as I would have liked, but the surprise I had been dealt left me sounding like a tween talking to her first crush.

Jess frowned slightly. "I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable."

I shook my head, not sure about my own emotions, but certainly not wanting Jess to apologize for hers, especially when they were perfectly normal. "Don't be sorry," I said, feeling like the shoe was on the other foot now. "You haven't done anything wrong. It's just … I'm not sure how to respond. I've never had someone like me before that I might actually like back."

Jess instantly sat upright in the booth, all slouchy uncomfortableness gone. "What?" she asked, the hope in her voice saturating the air between us.

"I don't know. It's not anything I ever really thought about before. I mean dating in general was never a top priority until it was forced on me with Edward," I said.

"You mean you've never been on a date before?" Jess was skeptical, but I shook my head.

"I know, I know. I'm 17. I must look so lame, but it's just not that important to me, the whole dating thing, but I don't know … this time ..." I trailed off, trying to collect myself, but still not able to look Jess in the eye when I said, "I really like you too and … god, this is so hard to say out loud," I replied.

"Well, I wouldn't know anything about that," Jess snickered.

That teasing part of her, the one that was able to make jokes in the face of uncomfortable situations, always made my heart do something funny inside my chest and it gave me the courage to look up at her again. "So, what now?"

Jess smiled at me. "Well, I've actually never been on a date with anyone before either where I was actually interested in the person. So, I'm kind of new to the whole dating thing too. Why don't we start with today? Can this be our first date? I mean it's such a classy place we've come to anyway."

I laughed at her sarcasm. "Yeah, and the whole spilled coffee thing just added to the ambiance. You sure know how to show a girl a good time."

Just then our waitress reappeared and this time I made a concerted effort to be polite. Despite a lack of appetite due to the whirlwind of emotions moving around inside me, I ordered. I wanted to make sure that if this went down as our first date then I had at least made it look that way. "So, who pays?" I asked lightheartedly when our waitress had walked away.

"Whoever brought money," Jess replied without missing a beat and I smiled, loving the way she could always pull that facial expression from me.

But then my mind took a twist for the dark when I thought about Edward. I had told her I wouldn't mention him, but I couldn't stop myself from asking, "What do we do about Edward?"

Jess frowned. "I'm not sure, but at least you won't have to be alone in dealing with him anymore. I'll kick his ass."

"I like the sound of that … I mean, you being with me, not anything about him. Well, you kicking his ass is okay. I like the sound of that too." I blushed at my fumbling with words. This was all new to me. It was like there was an added layer of awkwardness between us now that our feelings were out in the open. My head was spinning.

"I like the sound of me being with you too," Jess smiled. "It's definitely not anything I ever expected to happen, but I'm not complaining at all."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Sometimes you don't realize you want something until that thing is right in front of you."

Felling claustrophobic, I glanced nervously around at the other students. Some were dancing half-heartedly, some in earnest and others were standing still while talking. This really wasn't my scene. I didn't dance. I didn't like large groups of people and I definitely didn't like the ska music the DJ kept playing. "Ugh, this music is awful," I commented to Jess.

My date was standing beside me and grasping my hands she did a few wide sweeping movements swaying them back and forth. "What? You don't feel like swing dancing?" she joked.

"Not unless we're extras in a teen movie from 1995," I replied cynically.

Jess snorted. "He's the town's only DJ and apparently his heyday was back in the 90s. Maybe he lost his virginity while listening to this kind of music."

I made a face of disgust at the thought of the slightly chubby, slightly sweaty man in the fedora who was spinning records, getting busy with anyone and Jess looked at me sympathetically. "Hey, we don't have to stay here if you don't want. There's a gazebo outside and I don't think from there we'll be able to hear any music containing a horn section."

I smiled and nodded, the idea of getting away from all these bodies giving me some relief. As we maneuvered through the crowd on our way towards the doors, I passed by a few faces I recognized, one being Angela. She smiled at me and I returned the gesture. Then I thought I saw Alice, but the person with the short pixie haircut was dancing so erratically that I couldn't be sure. But then it didn't matter, because we were outside.

The chill of an early Spring evening caused me to shiver. The dress Alice had leant me was completely inappropriate for the season, but I guess that didn't matter to her, because if I remembered correctly it was all about the appearance. "Oh my god Bella, that dress makes you look so gorgeous!" Alice had said, which was followed by her girlish squeal and a roll of the eyes from me.

"Are you cold?" Jess asked, noticing my discomfort.

"A little, but I'd rather be out here than in there. I'm just not that comfortable in large crowds," I replied.

Jess was quite for a bit as we walked hand in hand, but then turned to look at me and asked, "Then why did you say yes when I asked you to go to the dance?"

I shrugged. "It seemed like the right thing to do. When you date someone you go to dances together."

Jess sighed. "Bella, there isn't a handbook of rules you have to follow when you're in a relationship. You just go with it. See how it feels. I wouldn't want you to do anything you didn't want to do in the first place. Don't compromise your happiness for me."

I sent her a slight smile in response. That was Jess. The only person I knew who constantly reminded me that I had to think about myself and not always the needs of others. Sometimes I felt like she was my life-coach in how to not let others walk all over you. What she didn't understand though was that whenever it pertained to her, I never once felt like I was making a sacrifice.

Jess was now leading me up the steps of the gazebo and my eyes took in the sight of all the tiny white lights wrapped around the structure like it was a Christmas tree. I found myself gasping at how pretty the whole things looked.

"I'm not compromising anything," I said, once I found my voice again. "If showing up as your date makes you happy then I'm happy." Suddenly a need took over me. I wanted to show Jess exactly how little I minded coming to the dance with her. "So, we're at a school dance, why don't we dance?"

"Huh?" Jess hadn't heard me, which was my fault. Still battling that persistent shyness, my voice had come out as a squeak.

"I want to dance with you, Jess. I'm not very good, terrible in fact, but I'd really like it if we danced right now." I made sure to enunciate my words, so there wasn't any misunderstanding between us.

"Uh, okay." The smile on her face made me melt and when her arms wrapped around my torso, I placed mine on her shoulders.

We stayed this way for a long while. Twilight slowly turned into darkness and before long only the lights strewn around the gazebo kept it so we were able to see each other. I heard other people milling around and was aware that by dancing with Jess I was making a sort of statement. Two straight girls didn't just hold each other like we were for such a long time without any romantic feelings being involved and they certainly didn't kiss like we did either.

The moment it happened was fast. Neither of us experienced, but both of us anxious to feel the other's lips. We had pulled away from our dancing when the sound of a student stumbling in the dark had caused us to look in his direction.

"Ssssorry about that," he said to us, his words coming out in a drunken slur. "Don't mind me."

We both giggled at the idiot, but when our faces turned back to each other, I could feel a change in the air, like something physical was pulling me into Jess. She felt it too. I was sure, and then it happened. Our lips met and as we moved our mouths in a tender rhythm, I sighed into our kiss. Sadly it was over much too soon and we both stood awkwardly in front of each other, blushing violently.

"Errr, come with me," Jess finally said, gesturing with her head at the drunk boy who was now staring at us with his elbows propped up on the gazebo railing and his head resting in his hands. We had been putting on a show for him.

"Don't mind meeee," he repeated his sentence from before, but this time it was tinged with a sick sort of glee and I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Jerk," I heard Jess mutter as she led me away.

I didn't ask where we were going and then once we were halfway across the parking lot, I didn't have to, because I knew. Jess helped me into her car and then followed in after me. She closed the door and without a word spoken between us, we continued were we left off.

"Wait," Jess said, suddenly pulling away after a few minutes.

"What is it?"

She pulled out her purse and reached in to take out a cassette tape. I sent her a confused look, but laughed when she pushed it in and Britney Spears began playing. "You know, mood music," Jess winked.

"Yes, Britney is always good for that," I replied, remembering how Alice had played it for us the first time I thought I might have feelings for Jess.

Then we began kissing again, Britney's lustful moaning from the speakers urging us on.

Author's Note: If I decide to write for this pairing again I will start another fic containing oneshots for them. I'm sure there is more to be told, but I'd rather those stories be separate from this one. I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for reading and reviewing.