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not beta'd

storyline - Malicious

prompt - jingle, tingle

It's Sunday, and all I want to do is see you, especially after last night. But I haven't been able to get a hold of you all day. It's a little gloomy outside, but I don't mind. I'm tired. You kept me up late on the phone. It's been a long time since I did that, and I can't wait to do it again.

All of it.

But you're nowhere to be found and I'm getting a little mopey so I finish cleaning the kitchen and head upstairs. I don't even have homework to fall back on; that's been done since Friday.

I'm about to call Alice when my phone rings in my hand, startling me with some stupid jungle you must have put in when I wasn't looking. A picture of you – supplied by you too, apparently – pops up.

Rolling my eyes, I smile and pick up. "Hey."

"Hi…you home?"

"I've been home. Where've you been? I've been calling you…"

"Yeah, sorry about that. Can I come over?"

"Of course."

"Is your – "

"Yes, he's home."

"I'll just bring you to my house, then."

"A, I can drive and B, is that all you want?" I ask, fingering the curtains in my window.

"A, I'd rather you ride with me and B, if you have to ask that you really don't know me at all."

We're playing, but your words warm me anyhow. "Okay. Hurry up then."

I'm still looking out the window when you arrive ten minutes later. My father greets you at the door; your voices float up the stairs as I walk down.

"Hi," you say, two glass jars tucked under your arm.

"Hi," I respond, squinting at the jars. "What is that?"

"Can we go up to your room for a second?"

"Sure." I turn around and jog the way I just came, glancing back to affirm that you are, in fact, staring at my butt. I wonder how much you did that over the years and I was never the wiser.

We walk in to my room and shut the door. "So what's up?"

You hand me the jars, one empty and the other full of sea glass.

"Oooh, I love sea glass," I say. I really do. I've collected it on and off throughout the years.

"Good. I thought you would. There's a point to this though."

I shrug, holding the jar up so that the light from one of my lamps shines through. "Beauty doesn't need a point besides being beautiful."

"That's great," you say, smirking. "But there's a point anyway."

"Okay. What is it?"

"It might be corny."

"Edward." I set the jars down on to my desk and turn to you. "Just – what?"

You come closer, hooking your fingers through my belt loops. "I wanted to do something nice for you. Special, you know?"

I nod.

"My mom suggested something significant…"

"Your mom?"

"I was telling her about how we ended up…like this." Your cheeks pinken. "I, uh…she… she was a little pissed about last year."

"Ah, I see."

"Yeah. She like, loves you. She's always known about my crush – "your blush darkens – "so she couldn't understand why I'd treat you like shit. So anyway I wanted to do something for you, like get you flowers or something?"

"But you don't have to," I say quietly.

"No, just hold on. I do have to. Last year was a frickin mess, mostly because of bad decisions I made. Things could have been different, but instead I wasted every day resenting you for all the things I actually love about you."

You reach for the jar and hold it up. "Three hundred and fifty seven pieces. One for every day I treated you wrong."

"You counted?"

"Yeah."

My eyes start to tingle and burn. I wipe my face roughly, trying to concentrate without turning in to a crying mess. "What's the other jar for?"

"Today. Yesterday. Every day since you told me you liked me back. Every day we get to make up for last year." You take out a small handful of pieces, I assume for every day we've dated, and drop them carefully in to the empty jar.

"Did you put one in for today?" I ask.

You nod. "So…"

"So there's nothing corny about that. In fact, I love it."

"I was gonna do M&Ms, but I didn't want to remind you of the time I dumped them all over your date."

Snorting, I pick up the jar again, digging my fingers through the cool, smooth glass. "This is actually really appropriate. Sea glass isn't special until it's been softened by the water and sand. Kinda like you. And, us."

A thought occurs to me. "Is this what you were doing today? Collecting these?"

"Yeah. The beach was covered in it after last night's storm."

There's this thought tugging at my heart and if I don't say it now it'll bug me all day. "Hey."

You look at me, your face ruddy from wind, salt and sun.

I wrap my arms around you and tiptoe so I can kiss the apple of your cheek. "I love you too."

At school, we're not as secretly sexual as Rose and Emmett, who usually spend lunch screwing in his jeep with the tinted windows, and we're not as nauseatingly romantic as Alice and Jasper, with whom every day is Valentine's. No, we do things our own way. I guess we always have. For all of the BS we once put each other through, we actually got to know each other really well throughout the years.

No one seems surprised when we make it past a month, and then two, and no one's surprised when we win identical swimming scholarships to the same school.

But it's high school, and there will always be rumors. In fact, just last week I heard two junior girls discussing me and you. They said you were a sexy bastard. They said I was a lucky bitch. They said they'd heard you'd given me a hickey in the music room.

So not true.

You gave me two.

the end.

so, i'm not doing another witfit story just yet, because i'm starting a new 'for real' story soon. might be in 3 weeks, might be next week. it's mostly written. so, yeah. see you soon! and in the meanwhile, see you on twitter or edwardville (i'm roglows_here on livejournal) or a different forest or wherever.

i've loved chatting with you guys, by the way! thanks for reading and reviewing and suggesting and theorizing and answering. :)

xoxo