The tiniest part of Edward’s brain, the only part not diligently working to figure out the best method of killing her without having to possibly wipe out the entirety of Forks High School, felt bad for the poor girl when she started sniffing herself. But there was no way he could tell he how her scent was only offensive because of how appealing it really was. And then she actually started talking to him, making it harder to simply ignore her since he was actually a little curious about why he couldn’t read her mind. Plus he knew that even if he didn’t actually kill her, Charlisle and Esme would still be ashamed of him for being rude to a new and probably already frightened teenaged girl. “I’m fine.” He ground out through his teeth, taking his hand down from his nose as he chose to just stop breathing and think of everything but murder. “I just had to sneeze. It’s gone now.” It wasn’t the most convincing lie, but he delivered it with enough smoothness that if Bella was actually as empty headed as the mental silence from her would lead him to believe, it should’ve come off as fairly convincing.
Though she should have been paying attention to the lecture in front of her, Bella couldn’t stop worrying about this boy. Sure, he was dumb attractive and had the coolest colored eyes she’d ever seen, but other than that, there was no good reason she should have been so preoccupied with his wellbeing, especially since he admitted (in a rather strangled way, she might add) that it was just a sneeze. “Oh. Okay, pretty powerful sneeze,” she tried to joke, though neither of them were laughing at this point. Bella opened her notebook to start taking notes before realizing she hadn’t introduced herself. “I’m Bella, by the way,” she whispered over her shoulder, sending the boy a small smile. “Guess we’re partners for the whole year.” Unless this was one of those teachers that switched the seating chart around halfway through the year to spice things up or whatever.
