Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight

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Jessica's house looks as if the purple section of a party supply store has exploded inside of it. As I walk past bubble machines and balloons being volleyed across the living room, I'm greeted by several people who have to shout over the music to be heard. I'm not one for yelling, so I return smiles and waves as I continue through the house. Even if I come across someone who I want to talk to in here, I don't think it's possible. When I spot Heidi, she winks, and I raise my brows in return when I notice the guy leaning against the wall beside her. She lifts her shoulder and laughs as she turns back to him. I smile, but I feel a rush of longing. Flirting is another concept that I didn't get enough time to spend on.

I extend a quick wave to Mike when I see him standing beside Jessica as she sits on the dining room table. He raises his drink my way before his attention turns back to Jessica. She seems enamored with him as well. I feel a sense of pride at having given Mike that advice when he wasn't sure if they were just friends or maybe something more, and remember how Cullen nudged Jessica into talking to Mike after declaring that he himself was already seeing someone. Right now, I might not have much to show for the time I spent with Cullen, but would these two even be together if Cullen and I never got involved?

Sliding open the back door and stepping outside, it's cold enough that I stop looking for familiar faces and immediately make my way toward the glowing firepit.

Holding my hands out to the warmth of the flames, I take a moment to just feel. I decide if for nothing else, this moment is why I came. My jumbled brain needs more of this. As I breathe in the chilly evening air and watch the bounce of the flames, I let the rest of the world flee my mind. My moment is short lived as I get surrounded by a different kind of warmth when an arm goes around my shoulders.

I look up into familiar eyes as I'm squeezed into a side hug. "Hey."

When I take a small step away, Tyler laughs and lifts his arm off me. "How have you been?"

"Okay," I say because things haven't been great, but I feel better than I did in recent days. "How about you?"

"Fantastic," he says, and I follow his line of sight to the other side of the fire where Lauren is glaring icy blue daggers our way. "Oh, hey, don't worry about her."

"How can I not?" The fire is nice, but I imagine Lauren wouldn't hesitate to push someone into it.

"She's not threatened by you."

"Oh-kay." That actually hurts. My aura must not reflect my time with this town's coveted Edward Cullen. I'm just a nobody. I hate that I even give a second thought to that.

He picks up a twig and tosses it into the flames. "I'm getting the impression that she might be right."

"What do you mean?"

"She doesn't think I have a chance with you, so she doesn't take me talking to you very seriously, apparently. Is she right?"

My lips tighten into a straight line. I should have known this was coming, but his playfulness always just toes that flirty line. Once upon a time, I would have considered this guy a possibility, but now, I can't. "It's just…things with me right now are complicated. We're friends, right?"

He smiles, but it's sad. I hate to have to dim the sparkle in his eyes. "Yeah, of course." He looks over my shoulder before saying, "I better go before I get another one of those, 'Tyler, can-you-not' requests."

My eyes widen at those words. I want to know more about these requests, but when he walks away, I don't stop him. It seems rude to let a guy know I'm not interested in him and then question him about the guy I am interested in. I watch Tyler as he makes his way around the fire to Lauren, but she's not having it. She turns away and places a hand on the chest of what seems to be the first guy that just happens to be there. I've had my share of relationship drama, but at least I can say I don't behave like them. It seems like all they ever do is circle back around to cause each other more pain.

There's a squeal and someone running toward me. I only have a moment to brace myself before Angela throws herself against me.

"You came."

When she takes a step back, I say, "I did. How's the party been?"

"Fine, but I drank too much." She switches to whispering, but she's basically yelling. "Can we make cookies? We ran out of time to make them with all the party set up, but Ben is here, so I need you to not let me hook up with him no matter how much I think I want to."

"I can do that." I let her link her arm with mine as we head back inside. The music is nowhere near as loud as it was when I arrived, which is good, since I'm not too keen on having my dad show up to break up the party.

I try not to laugh when Angela shoos everyone out of the kitchen and complains about a certain "stupidly attractive" ex-boyfriend that she needs to avoid. I pour myself a non-alcoholic mix from the beverage offerings as Angela sets about finding the ingredients they'd bought for the party.

When she drops an egg on the white linoleum, the laugh I've been holding in comes right out. "Okay, you go lean against the counter for a bit."

She does as I ask as I grab a plastic cup and fill it with tap water.

As I hand her the cup, she says, "Thanks. I'm such a hypocrite."

"Why?" After making sure she takes a sip, I look around for something I can use to clean up the slimy mess on the floor.

"We agreed to see other people, and I can't get over the fact that he did."

I pause as I pull off a few sections of paper towel. "Right, you saw someone else too."

"Yep, total hypocrite."

As I bend down and start cleaning up the slippery substance off the floor, Angela says, "No alcohol for you?"

I'm about to answer when the last voice I expect to hear says, "No, I'm good."

I look up, meeting Cullen's green gaze as he pours one of the drinks that's meant to be mixed in with the alcohol that I had just poured for myself moments before. I never considered he'd actually be attending any of these parties, but here he is. His dark, long-sleeved button-up shirt looks semi-casual with the way he has the sleeves pushed up above his elbows. It sends a twinge to my stomach. I may have dressed up for the party, but the only time I've seen him try to dress up was on the one date we went on. I wonder why he's here, and if he's trying to impress someone. It's silly because he impresses everyone by just existing, but not to long ago, he was doing those extra things for me.

As frustrating as he is, seeing him still makes my heart stop.

"Good choice. People make bad decisions when they're drunk," Angela says.

I tuck my lips in to keep from reacting to Angela's words. She said them, not me. I finish cleaning up and wash my hands.

He looks from me to Angela before setting his eyes back on me. "I didn't realize you'd be here."

I look behind him to see who's around, but he seems to have caught a reprieve from his groupies. "Yeah, I would have called, but you know…" I hide behind the rim of my Solo cup as I take a tiny drink.

"Right," he says, and I think he's aware that I know I can't call him since he blocked me. "What are you guys doing?"

Angela gestures toward the gathered ingredients. "Giving people salmonella. What does it look like?"

He nods. "I'm pretty sure you can get arrested for that."

"Somethings are just worth it," she says before adding, "Go ahead and stay. We'll make you some."

He raises his brows before he asks me, "Are you okay with her?"

I smile. "Yeah." Of course, he cares about her, or maybe me—maybe both of us. I'm not sure.

"Yeah, she is. She's awesome." Angela juts her chin toward Cullen. "You're just dumb."

My jaw drops. I probably should have figured out something I'd want her to say to him when she asked me, but I had no idea this would be what she'd say if left to come up with something on her own.

I look over to apologize, but we're interrupted by a busty brunette who presses her chest against Cullen's arm. "Oooh, make me a drink too."

I turn away and attempt to control my gag reflex. I can't handle this.

"Can you not?"

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath as he tells her to go away. I had to move away from Tyler's arm around my shoulder not too long ago, but it doesn't matter. I get the hypocrisy Angela was talking about. By the time I pull myself together to face Cullen, he's gone.

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If there's ever a day to wallow, it's Sundays. I'll get back to working on myself tomorrow. As I lay on my bed and pullout my yearbook, I hear the front door open as my dad heads out. I didn't bother getting dressed. I should probably get hot chocolate or ask friends over for ice cream to fully embrace my woes, but for now, I'm content with this. Page after page, I look at photos of Cullen, as if I haven't already memorized every image.

I feel like a preteen, admiring celebrities in a magazine. A tap at my door stops me from caressing glossy pages that could never compare to the feel of his actual skin.

I slide the yearbook under my pillow and make sure my oversized t-shirt is covering my underwear. "Come in."

The door opens, and I start to say, "What did you forge—," but it's not my dad.

"Hey, your dad said you were up here as he was leaving. I didn't know if I was supposed to come up. Is this okay?"

I nod with wide-eyed confusion and find my voice in time to say, "Yeah, it's fine. Of course."

Cullen steps into the room and closes the door behind him.

"How was the party?" I ask, as if him showing up in my room isn't making the top ten list of the most random of things that have ever happened to me.

He rolls his eyes, while he turns my computer chair away from my desk and sits down, as if he too is treating this as just a casual stop in. "I only went for a few minutes, so you probably saw me for most of my time there. I owed Mike, and he asked me to make an appearance, so that's all I did."

I sit up, feeling the way my shirt rides up, but oh well. I still pull it back down, but he's seen way more of me than my legs, so I try not to think about it too much. "Did you sign any autographs?"

One corner of his mouth lifts. "A few."

I want to ask why he's here, but I also don't want him to rush to his point for being here because that could lead to him leaving. I definitely don't want him leaving. "I'm glad you're here."

"Yeah?"

I nod, as I tuck my hair behind my ears. "I don't like the way we keep leaving things."

"Me either. We should probably stop with that." He looks at the door, and it makes me worry that he's already ready to go.

I look back to make sure the yearbook is safely concealed beneath my pillow.

He licks his lips and looks down. "Look. Well, what I mean is, can we try?"

"Okay," I say immediately, but I don't know what we're agreeing to do. We could try working things out. We could try eloping in Vegas. Okay, maybe that's too crazy. We could try kissing though and see where we go from there. I don't know about having him in my bedroom but still so far away from me. Even if we're fighting, I'd rather be touching him. I'm pathetic, really, but whatever it is, we do need to be trying something. "What are we trying exactly?"

He lifts one shoulder. "I guess…being friends, if you want."

I deflate. A bubble of hope bursts. "Okay, but it's hard to be friends when you don't trust me."

He sighs as he says, "I do though."

When I just stare at him, he adds, "It wasn't that I didn't trust you. It's that you didn't trust me."

"That's not true." I want to scream into my pillow because he never makes any sense. I obviously trusted him too much because I never expected him to walk out on me the way he did.

"It is though. I didn't think you were like…hooking up with Jake behind my back, but when it came to him, you wouldn't talk to me like…at all." He closes some of the distance as he rolls the chair forward.

"That wasn't because I didn't trust you. I didn't talk to anyone about all that. I didn't even want to think about it myself." He looks torn, and I want to reach out, but I don't know if I get to do that anymore.

"And now?"

"Well, now, I think he's going to move on with his life, and I have several things in mine I'm working on that don't have to be overshadowed by what happened with him anymore."

"Right, huh?" He drums his fingers against his knee. "You got a job, and this thing with Angela, that's new too?"

"Yeah."

"That's cool. She's all right."

"Mmm hmm." I agree, but she'll probably find this comment as funny as I do, seeing as he was calling her annoying just yesterday.

"You and Sam's ex…." He pauses before he says, "I thought you weren't friends."

I shift so that my legs are beneath me. "Me too. I don't think we are technically, but there's this random thing that happens sometimes where I meet someone, and they just like me. It's rare, but it happens."

"Oh, okay." He laughs, and things start to feel a little more natural between us. "And, you and Jake?"

I bite my lip, still not used to talking about this before I shrug. "I don't know if we'll ever be friends again. He doesn't fully understand how platonic our relationship was, but he seems really motivated to move on with Leah, so he'll figure it out eventually, you know?"

He nods before he asks, "Does that bother you though?" He pokes my knee when he refers to me.

As fleeting as the touch was, he might as well have kissed me. I pull myself together though because I don't want him to question having touched me. "No, they probably should have been together all along. Does them being together bother you?" I poke his knee right back. Even though mine is bare and his leg is jean-covered, I can't help but mimic the action.

He cracks a smile as he looks down at where my finger just was. "No, I don't care what they do, but I'm not trying to be friends with them, either."

I shift on the bed, letting my legs go to the side and feel flirty as I ask, "But, you want to try being friends with me?" I smile, but I hope he says no because I'd really like us to be so much more than that.

His smile drops. "I don't know."

"Oh."

He closes his eyes a moment before he says, "It makes sense, right? If we're friends, I should be cool about whoever you date, but I don't think I'm there yet." He stands up. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here."

When he turns to leave, I'm up on my knees and grabbing his hand as I pull him back to me. "Cullen, wait!"

He looks at where I'm clutching his hand, so I drop it.

We're nearly eye level when I say, "I wouldn't be cool about anyone you date, either."

His head tilts, his eyes soften, and I'm reading into all of it. "That's not going to happen."

I shouldn't have let go of his hand. "Okay, and I have no interest in dating anyone, so you don't need to worry about that." When he crosses his arms, as if he doesn't believe me, I add, "If you're thinking about Tyler Crowley right now, I am going to scream."

He laughs and sits back down on my computer chair. "I guess it was a good thing I was thinking about Eric Yorkie."

"Oh, of course. I forgot about him." I roll my eyes and smile. "You are so random, you know that?"

"Have you met yourself?"

I stick my tongue out before shaking my head. "So, we're going to try being friends and we're not going to date anyone?"

He nods. "I think that's what we said we were going to do."

It probably would have been better to say we weren't going to date other people, but I let that go for now.

"Unless that's not cool with you," he says.

"No, it is. I was just thinking. I've said this before that I wasn't going to date anyone, but this is different. I'm different, and I think that's a good thing. I still have some stuff to work on, obviously, but I'm not that same person I thought I was. Maybe, I never was. Sorry, I'm being weird again."

"You're not." He leans forward, and even though he's still too far away, I can fill the shift in his proximity all over. "I'm not, either…the same person. I have stuff to work on—more stuff than I realized, apparently."

I scrunch my nose because I guess I added to that. "What issues of yours were you thinking I couldn't handle before I spouted off all the issues with you I felt like I was dealing with?"

His leg starts bouncing. "I mean, I'll think about those things you said, but I was talking about all these random girls that like to pretend they're obsessed with me."

"You didn't feel like I was handling that?"

He lifts his hand and then lets it fall back to his lap. "I guess, yeah, I think you were trying, but I know it was getting to you. Every time my phone went off or someone tried to talk to me, it just seemed like it was getting harder and harder for you to deal with, and it's been years. I can't make it stop."

I nod because it was getting harder. The longer we were seeing each other, the more territorial I felt, but he was never really mine, so I had no claim to tell anyone to back off. Clearly, no one had any idea that their actions were disrespecting the relationship that I felt like I was in. I force a smile. "What do we do now?"

He presses his fingertips against his eyelids before his shoulders slump and he says, "I don't really know how to do this, but we're all hanging out at Jasper's on Wednesday. You should come."

I hold my fake smile up a little longer. "I'm flying to Phoenix on Wednesday."

"Right. I knew that. I just didn't know the details. I guess I'll see you around."

When he leaves, he sort of gestures a goodbye. We may be the kind of friends who don't date other people, but we're not the kind who hug, either. What are we even doing?

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Author's Note: Hey! I hope you're all doing okay. Thanks for reading and thanks so much to dazzled eyes22 and YourVixen for all their work on this story!