Love, Loss and Desperation.
A/N: the beginning? I know sorry. I write six chapters then I give up right? Wrong. I have already done the first three of this ff. please READ AND REVIEW it makes me happy.
Here comes the anxiety.
My stomach was rumbling by the time Angela called me into her office. I felt so embarrassed entering my boss's office with my stomach making those noises so I stuffed muesli bar in my mouth before I walked in.
"Sit down, thank you Isabella." Great. Serious Angela. Something was not going as well as I thought. I couldn't remember the last it me she had called me into her office at this time of the day, at this time of the week.
Sensing my uneasiness she smiled, it didn't meet her eyes. I tried to smile back, the nerves were building now. Angela was more than a boss. She was a friend, a mentor and the main reason I hadn't just thrown in my English degree and tagged on a teaching degree at the end. Angela had been a tutee at my university, she'd taken my classes outside the lectures and she had refused to let me enroll in teaching. She claimed I was too talented. At the time I had shrugged it off, believing that because of how easily we had clicked outside class she had been blind sighted. Back then, I had been so insecure and Angela's confidence in my writing ability had changed my life. Her support caused me to enroll in journalism and to follow a dream no one else had known about. And now here I was, sitting in her overheated, stuffy, crowded office. Her framed degrees and published articles on display. Together we worked at the local newspaper, though in this town; local meant hundreds of thousands of readers. The published articles I suppose meant little in that sense, except they were published in a better paper. Not our paper. But the god dam Wall Street Journal. Yes, Angela was my idol.
She sighed. I bit my lip. It was a trait she'd noticed the first day I'd met her. I had been eighteen years old. She was twenty. A younger Angela materialized in front of me, the daydream of my first day at University. God I had been so unsure of myself so, cautious. Angela brought me back to the present by pushing her glasses up her noses. "Bells, I hate to say this but..."
"I'm not fired am I?"
"God no!" I breathed a sigh of relief. She gave me an anxious smile. Oh dear god. "Just… well….have you been a bit stressed lately?" I nodded. Stressed, that was the word I suppose. Anxious, scared, frightened to near panic attacks that was more like it.
"Yes… I'm still adjusting to Jake moving in." she smiled again. Angela liked Jake, not as much as someone else. But she liked Jake.
"I remember when you were dating at Uni and god; I was so sure that you were going to marry Edward." My heart stopped beating for the briefest moments. I didn't let myself think about that anymore. I didn't let my mind wonder to happy days, glory days. Instead I kept them on the straight and arrow. Instead I focused on what I had. I focused on Jake.
"Yep I remember the days you mean… so what do you hate to say?" I sounded so business like. So serious. So unlike how I normally interacted with Angela. I hoped she hadn't heard it. Shit. She knew me well, of course she'd heard it. I blushed.
"Oh Bella, I don't mean offensively… I love Jake…it's just funny how times change hey?" I nodded again. She shot me a worried look. I felt guilty. Angela hadn't meant to upset me. I bit my lip.
"Angela, its just I don't like to dwell on that… you know that almost as well as Alice does." We both let off a nervous laugh. Yes, Angela knew almost as much as Alice about how my heart had been severed at nineteen.
"yeah…I'm sorry… ok, so I was asked to have a meeting with you… the head bosses think your work as of late has been lacking something… I don't know what it is Bella, but maybe you need some new Insp-"
"Inspiration." I wanted to confirm what she was saying.
"Correct. And they want you to have a bit of a holi-" I cut her off again.
"I'll work harder. Please I really don't want a holiday." A holiday meant more time at home. More time looking at Jake's things, watching them slowly unpack from boxes. More time contemplating my life. I didn't want that. I needed to focus. I needed to stay attentive. I needed to work.
"Bella, it's not really offered. They want you to take a few weeks off, recharge and come back."
"Oh. It's a forced leave." I sounded surprised. It was hiding the hurt. The panic. The fear.
"Pretty much…oh honey I'm sorry."
"It's fine Ang. Really fine." She nodded and tried to smile. I bit my lip again. I felt like a fool, trying to stop the pressure. Trying to stop the panic coming. Maybe Angela had always been wrong. Maybe I just wasn't cut out for this. Maybe I should have stuck with teaching. I rose from my seat, my back sticking slightly; I cursed myself for wearing death traps on my feet. All I wanted to do was make a quick getaway and they restricted me so much. "See you in four weeks I guess."
"Don't be silly Bells; you and Jake are coming over for that BBQ remember?" I nodded again.
My hand found the door knob. I held my breath. "Don't tell anyone yet Ang."
I didn't turn to face her. I knew what she was going to say. But I needed this. I needed to keep this a secret for a moment. The humiliation, the embarrassment. The…fuck. I couldn't deal with everyone knowing. "Bella I can't really kee-"
"Don't tell anyone please. I need a few days to sort it out. I don't want Jake…or Ben knowing just yet ok?"
"Sure. If that's what you want." She sounded so unsure of herself.
"It is. Thanks."
Jake was taking me out to lunch. I smiled and flicked my hair back. I let him carry my bag; I lied and said I was having a few weeks of working at home. Home. Our home. It still didn't sound right coming from my lips. I'd always thought of it as my home and now it was ours. God, Alice was right, I had a commitment phobia. Well we all knew where that came from. Shit. Twice in one day the unwanted memories came.
Jake took me to the food court at the local shopping centre. He apologized for the choice of venue, something about how it was close to both our offices and he had to run off for a client. I waved his apologies away, he shouldn't have to apologise I mean we had been together for what two and a half years now. I didn't need him to try and impress me. I didn't want him to. He ordered my favourite fried rice and I sat at a table in the middle of the food court. I watched the people walk past. God I was numb. So fucking numb.
"So how's your day been?"
"Good."
"Good? That's all your gonna give me Bells?" I smiled hoping that would keep him quiet. "Ok, well my day has been interesting, can you remember Leah Clearwater?"I nodded slowly; I brought a spoonful of rice to my lips.
"Yeah, from my old high school." Again the 'my' word. It had been 'our' high school. Ours. Why was I so possessive of things? Jake and I had gone to high school together though he had been a year below me and I hadn't really known him that well. It wasn't until after I got back from Uni, after he…after Renée's treatment that I'd met Jake properly.
"Yeah that's right… can you remember who she was dating?"
"Of course, Jake. Sam Unley. Everyone knew about Sam and Leah. They went away to university together didn't they? Last I heard, the two of them were engaged somewhere east."
"correct." He smiled smugly. I was confused.
"The relevance of Leah is? I mean, she was a nice girl, a few years older than me though so I wasn't exactly a blip on her radar."
"Oh she remembers you."
"You saw her?"
"She came into the garage today. She had to get her radiator checked."
"Wow. She knew who you were?" he pretended to be hurt.
"Ouch Bells, I wasn't that forgettable to everyone you know." I rolled my eyes. "I used to catch the res bus with her." Of course, Leah was a reservation kid. Jake too. That was 'their' part of the school. That was them. Not me.
"Well, talk about blast from the past, does she still have long blonde hair? How many kids do her and Sam have? I bet it's at least four. Where do they live now?"
"They aren't married."
"Shit. Really? When's the wedding then?"
"Sam married someone else." I dropped my spoon. I knew my mouth was open in amazement. Jake scrunched up his face in annoyance. Well it wasn't my fault he was telling this story so slowly.
"Oh my god, who did he marry?"
"Emily."
"NO way!" Emily was Leah's cousin. That's all I really knew about her. She'd moved away when I was in the third grade and Leah was in the fifth.
"Yes. She came to stay with Leah and Sam one Christmas and stayed. Leah had to move out a month later. She's not doing to well actually; broken heart and all that. I swear Bella it's the strangest thing I've ever heard. I mean you knew them, you saw them."
I did and I had. They were the couple everyone aspired to be, not the cliché high school sweethearts that cheated on each other when they went away to collage but the real deal. Every single girl at our school wanted to be Leah and date Sam. The boys were the same, Leah was considered the catch of the school and Sam was envied. The fact that they were no longer together didn't seem right. Back in the day everyone had pegged them for being the couple to last the distance. They both had hated our small town; they both had fled as soon as they could. They'd done the semester apart from each other until Sam couldn't take it anymore and transferred to the same Uni as Leah.
"Wow."
"Very much so."
"Anyway, how is she?"
"umm…you can see for yourself." I glanced around the food court. Was she here? I didn't see her though the food court was crowded.
"huh?"
"I hope you don't mind, Bells but I actually asked her over on the weekend."
"No Jake that's fine. It will be a bit strange seeing her but yeah that's good."
"Was I a good enough distraction for whets troubling you then?" I grinned, he folded his hands over on the table and leant over and kissed me. Pulling back a bit he was chuckling. "Good to see." I scrunched my nose up at him. Typical Jake.
Perhaps it was because I was still subconsciously looking for Leah Clearwater. Perhaps it was because his arrogance ticked me off. But whatever the reason, I glanced past him. I looked over his shoulder.
It wasn't much. A brief glimpse of hair. His hair. My stomach dropped from beneath me. My heart thumped. My breath became shallower. Shit. I hadn't allowed myself to think about him for so long and now I was sure that was him. It was Angela's fault bring him back into my conscious. Back into my head. Back into my life. I arched my head around the table. Maybe it had been my fault thinking about him for a few seconds. Maybe the power of my thought had brought him here. The food on my plate was suddenly less appealing. The noise of the food court silenced. Jake's presence void. My breathing still an issue. It was like my chest weighed one hundred kilograms. It felt too heavy to hold up. It can't be him. It just can't. Alice would have said. I wiped the sweat off my brow that had formed. All I could hear was his final words before he'd gone. Salvia built up in my mouth and I made deep swallows. Jake tipped his bottle of coke in my direction. Words forming on his lips. Slow motioned. I couldn't read them. I jerked away from the table. My feet planting firmly on the ground. I had to know. I didn't know why he'd be back but I had to know.
The owner of the hair turned his head slightly. I saw the chin. I saw the briefest speck of eyes. I gasped. Fuck it was him. I felt Jake's eyes on me. I preyed he couldn't see the tears. I bit them back, almost bringing blood to my lip. He wasn't alone though. I couldn't ignore the overwhelming sense of disappointment. It clouded my mind, clogged my other emotions. I let out a whimpering sound. Fuck. It wasn't meant to be like this. She had long blonde hair, I tried to delude myself and say it was Rosalie but I knew her natural blondeness. This ladies hair was scraggy brown, dyed. She was gorgeous. I could see more of her face than his; she had plump bright red lips that begged to be kissed. Her fringe framed her face perfectly. They looked good together. He was leaning towards her. I couldn't breathe. It was meant to feel nice, I had someone and he had someone. But it didn't feel nice. It felt horrible. I wanted to march over and rip her hair out of her head and scream childish insults. I wanted to fine a giant permanent marker and write 'mine,' over his forehead. I tried to remind myself he wasn't mine, it didn't work. He wasn't meant to leave me in such a state. I felt drained. It had been five years and I still acted like a moron when there was even a hint of him. It was disgusting. I sat back down, disgruntled with myself.
"Bella…Bella are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost." Not a ghost, but a living breathing memory.
"I'm fine Jake."
"Seriously?" I didn't need him questioning me now. I was losing sight of reality. I was battling with what my mind was trying to show me. Our memories together.
I snapped. "Jake. It was nothing." I warned him as much as I warned myself. I stood up and was going to storm away but I knew I would end up at his table. I knew my feet would walk that direction unintentionally. I tried to keep my eyes away from that end of the food court but like a magnet I couldn't stop staring. I tried to calm my breathing. Jake rushed to my side. I wanted to apologise. I wanted to explain. I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted to see Edward properly. I wanted to still have my job. I wanted my world to not be crumbling.
"Come on, let's go home."
I wanted it to be my home.
