A/N: Alrighty, this story is officially off hiatus. I needed to write something light after Because of You, but have no fear, since both stories are 90% written, neither will be abandoned. It was a little hard to get into the cracked mind of Bella after Because of You Bella, but it fell into place again and I ended up writing 3 chapters in one night. Ye Gods! I need to go on more Facebook hiatuses.
I'm going to rework every chapter before posting, so I hope it will be every few days.
MWAH xoxo
Chapter 1.
Ungodly Wantonness.
Walking through the front door of my apartment, I threw my purse and keys on the hall table and flopped down on the sofa with an impatient huff.
He was a no-show!
Of course he was, and why not? It's not as if the universe was going to allow me even a shred of dignity by breaking up with him—not from the level of entertainment our pairing had caused.
It had only taken four years, but I, Bella Swan, had finally come to the realization that sacrificing one's dignity by dating a drooling imbecile for the purposes of unrequited mind sex with his best friend was detrimental to everything from office promotions, to becoming a potential participant in future bridal parties.
Office promotions, because when your dimwitted lover is also a mutual friend with your boss on Facebook, your boss starts doubting your level of intelligence, and henceforth, your abilities in the workplace. And bridal parties because at the idea of your uncivilized lover having a few champagnes and removing his shirt to exhibit his pectoral flexing abilities at your best friend's upcoming nuptials, she starts inventing a long lost cousin that she supposedly had a bridesmaid blood oath with back in 1992. After all, if I was just an obscure guest and not a member the bridal party, she wouldn't have any reservations in having me and my semi-naked date removed from the premises.
If truth be told, it was detrimental to my standing as a functioning member of the female species, not to mention the fact that the object of all past mind sex, and best friend of the ribbed condom I called my boyfriend, in all probability was in agreement with my boss.
In hindsight, the fact that I wasn't able to predict any of this did not say a lot about my IQ or self-respect.
So, here I was, another day of officially dating Jacob Black, another day of having him linked to my Facebook relationship status; and another day of the mental defective's "bro code" rendering Edward Cullen completely unobtainable.
"Fuck my life!" I burst; a pathetic attempt at the hissy fit I was contemplating.
It was only successful in catching my roommate, Rose's, attention. She stuck her head around the corner from the kitchen and quirked an all knowing, slightly amused eyebrow at me.
"Did you do it?" she asked taking a loud bite of her apple and strolling into the living room to sit beside me.
She was referring to, of course, my long overdue plan of social redemption by breaking up with Jacob. Jake Black, aka my link at access to Edward Cullen; his best friend, and object of all my current wanton desires.
Forcing myself upright on the sofa, I huffed out my breath in irritation. "I didn't get the chance—the asshole didn't show up!"
Rose didn't reply, instead her lips twitched behind her apple before she took another bite.
"Mind sharing what's amusing you?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her as her expression turned more amused the longer she chewed.
"Well, nothing, really. It's just so fitting with the whole Days of our Lives theme you have going on at the moment, Bells. Perhaps he was held up in Salem for his personality transplant." And with that she smothered back her laughter by taking another bite of her apple.
"Very funny, bitch-face," I grumbled, pulling myself off the sofa brashly and heading toward the kitchen. "Want a coffee?" I asked over my shoulder, begrudgingly, before switching on the percolator and loudly rummaging through the cupboard for my favorite mug; for his mug.
"Thank-you, Marlena Evans," she replied, failing at a second attempt to stifle her laughter.
Despite myself, I felt my lips tug in secret amusement. I actually enjoyed Rose's Days of Our Lives euphemisms. Euphemisms I deserved by committing the most cringe-worthy of clichéd sins; falling in love with my boyfriend's best friend.
Though if I could replace the word "boyfriend" with "pimp", it would be pretty much spot on.
I really had no cause to complain. I'd prostituted my body as payment to mind fuck a man who was well out of my intellectual league. It was something I'd convinced myself at the time it was a necessary evil, so it was a complex I deserved.
At least I knew my priorities were in order.
It took me longer than it really should have to admit to myself that I had feelings for Edward. I had become rather addicted to wearing my beef cake, man whore-tinted glasses, after all. It took even longer to confess it to my two best friends, Rose and Alice. I was anticipating Rose's response; it was probably one of the reasons why I kept up the charade of denial for so long. She of course didn't disappoint, and as soon as I came clean she suggested we watch Melrose Place for possible outcomes.
Bitch!
"I knew there had to be a reason you were fucking that walking dildo," she'd added, triumphantly.
It was moderately comforting to know that Rose had suspected an ulterior motive. Though, it had only been the truth for half of the time I was with Jacob. The other half had been wholly for organic reasons.
In my defense I was only twenty when we first started dating.
And I am not very bright.
Alice's reaction, on the other hand, was one of screechy fangirl enthusiasm over the ridiculous and infinitesimal possibility that we could end up being sisters' in-law. Alice was engaged to Edward's older brother, Jasper. Ironically, the two of them had met when Edward had invited Alice to his twenty-second birthday party.
How in God's name did I let this happen? I wondered, pouring coffee into two cups as well as over the kitchen sink as I let my mind wander.
But I knew exactly how.
As the only daughter of the town's widowed pastor, I had lived rather a sheltered life. There was never any discussions on what my father deemed improper—which was pretty much everything about being female. I can only thank God for Alice's mother; she'd tactfully sat us down one afternoon and explained the birds and the bees to us. She even took me shopping for my first bra, and bought me my first box of Tampax. I can only imagine the agonies that would have inflicted on both me and my father. As the single father of a teenaged daughter he constantly looked like he was on the cusp of having an aneurysm, and the older I got the larger the vein in his temple became. Then one day, obviously accepting the inevitable, he decided the best course of action was to traumatize me over a bowl of Fruit Loops.
We'd been sitting down at the breakfast table in our usual semi-awkward silence when he folded his newspaper to gaze at me for several seconds.
When I looked up at him and met his sedate eyes, he began, "Isabella, you're becoming a woman now, and there are things you need to know."
I swallowed thickly and contemplated drowning myself in my cereal. "Yes, Dad?"
"Boys your age are dirty minded heathens, intent only on defiling their bodies. If you have sex with one of them you will get gonorrhea and you will die a slow painful death. Then you will go to hell." And with that said, he ruffled his newspaper before disappearing behind it again.
That was my father's version of the birds and the bees. I was fourteen.
Later that afternoon he took me to the dentist to have braces fitted. I suspected it was a last ditch effort on his part to delay the obvious inevitability of my contracting "The Clap".
Was it any wonder that I went completely in the other direction?
By the time I was sixteen I had several nicknames. Hoochie, Jizz Magnet; Voap; Dickmouth; and The Forks Bike. The latter was the one that stuck; as well as being the most accurate.
I was a whore!
The good little daughter of the town pastor, a slut!
Such a cliché!
The more my father attempted to scare me into chastity with various descriptive adjectives of STDs, the more curious I became, until the day I ended all Charlie's hopes that I'd ever wear the purity ring he'd bought me on the sly—in a last ditch effort at denial, on his part—by deciding to throw my virginity—and dignity—to the wind, unceremoniously under the bleachers of Forks High with Tyler Crowely.
It lasted fifteen seconds, and all I'd achieved from it was a rather incriminating grass stain on my skirt, and a wet patch on my knickers, due to the lack of Tyler's—albeit over eager—navigational skills.
After that dismal failure, I wasn't satisfied until ... well, I was satisfied. I went through a large part of the male population at Forks High, before discovering that having a rather distasteful reputation was a hell of a lot worse than being devoid of Jackie O.
I first noticed it at school. As I walked down the halls, the girls all parted like the Red Sea, with various expressions of disdain on their faces. I'd noticed Alice amongst them too—pretending not to have noticed me, while blatantly hiding herself behind her folder.
Bitch!
I then noticed it in Church on Sundays. The very nice, judgmental women of the Ladies Auxiliary Club—whom my father made me sit amongst during the service, obviously still holding out hope for my virtue—refused to make eye contact with me. After that I noticed they'd stopped talking to me altogether; though it didn't stop them from saying loud religious idioms around me, like "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" and "Jesus wept" while doing the sign of the cross with excessive pious enthusiasm—as if doing so would prevent my knickers from catching fire and cremating them all! It got to the point where they completely boycotted sitting next to me, and I found myself the only person sitting in the second row pew, with the old battleaxes behind me, trying to outdo one another in praying for my salvation from my ungodly, wanton ways.
Not long after my father started making his sermons—with a beet red face, semi-hidden by his bible—about Mary Magdalen, the inmate of female penitentiary. For my benefit, obviously.
Every damn Sunday, until I began secretly suspecting Mary and Jesus had had a bit of their own action beneath the table of the last supper. After all, what red blooded woman could resist Jim Caviezel wearing sandals and a hessian dress, playing a Hebrew God? Especially one who rescued her from the stone throwing biblical version of the ladies Auxiliary Club.
I was truly hell bound, and was guessing I'd gone from inevitable gonorrhea sufferer, to town bike, to crowd splitting whore, to biblical prostitute.
That was the low point in my quest for sexual vindication, and afterward I decided to at least attempt a sexual hiatus. Though pretending to be virtuous definitely inflicted me with the same piously crazed neurosis as the Ladies Auxiliary witches, but it satisfied my father enough that he started leaving medical pamphlets regarding hymen reconstruction in my bathroom. Never mind that it was translated from Arabic as a means to escape an honor killing!
The man remained in serious denial, though, and he'd obviously never found my 12th grade year book, where under my name it read "Isabella Swan; most likely to bicycle her way across the greater Northern Hemisphere."
Of course, those bitches in the year book committee thought they were real hilarious—Alice being the president.
Bitch!
For two years I remained forcefully celibate for the sake of my father's standing amongst the clergy; though, there was always stirrings of my former life of wanton street walker.
A residual tramp whom Rose named "Celeste".
There was nothing celestial about it—at least, not enough that the Ladies Auxiliary biddies stopped flicking holy water at me every Sunday.
But then I decided to end it all—and by that I mean, any and all credibility I ever had as a member of the female species, by falling in mortifying lust with possibly the stupidest male since Sasquatch.
Jacob Black. Tall, tanned and full of bulging muscles that he liked to flex as a favorite pass time. Jacob Black, a complete imbecile who couldn't have sex and breathe simultaneously, and who couldn't possibly love anyone more than himself—preferably in spandex.
The only exception was his best bud, Edward Cullen.
Edward, who was lean, where Jacob was brawny; quiet and reflective, opposed to loud and obnoxious; and intelligent and sweet, to witless and chauvinistic. They were like a perverse version of the Pride and Prejudice where Darcy and Wickham were friends. And in reality, they were the last two guys on the planet that you'd suspect were lifelong friends, but lifelong friends they were.
Jacob had often informed me that no one was as important to him as Edward was. That included me. Of course, at the time it didn't matter to me; I was too mortifyingly diverted by certain washboard abs to have any rational thought.
I'd further shamed myself out of the next two years' worth of respectability by remaining in lust with Jake. With blinders on my eyes and a heavy, sweaty six foot four inch body on top of me, I soon discovered I was rather easily pleased. To be honest, being slammed in the groin every night by a human organ that resembled an accordion bus rounding the New Jersey Turnpike, wasn't all that kept me in the four year-long, mockery of a relationship with Jacob Black.
I stayed because of Edward.
In the beginning it was subconscious; Edward was always the glue that held us together; he made Jake's numerous failings seem redundant. It was Edward who compensated for everything Jake wasn't; his lack of intelligence, civility, decorum—I could go on—while Jacob provided everything physical.
But in the end it was because the very idea of not having Edward in my life made me want to hurl myself off a cliff at La Push; the same one Jake had willingly jumped from not long ago—at my behest. Yes, my ulterior motives did include more than him just hitting his head on the sea bottom, but by then I was a desperate woman.
I still am.
So I stayed and traded my self-respect for the purposes of mind sex with Edward—and was consequently blacklisted from The Ladies of High Esteem Quilting Club. Yes, twelve months into my relationship with Jacob—I received a membership request denial letter—filled in by my father, no doubt—in the mail; something Rose still goes into hysterics over when brought up—by her.
Another failed attempt on my father's part to prevent my now inevitable affliction of "The Clap", I was guessing.
I'm still mortified to admit it took almost two years for me to have that moment of clarity. Two years before all Jake's taut muscles and accompanying envious stares I got when in public with him, was unable to stop the inevitable; falling out of love with him—or his tight ass that I used to admire through his ceiling mirror as I was being pummeled—and falling in love with Edward.
It had been so gradual that I never saw it coming, really. It took a lot of soul searching and letting go of certain delusions I'd constructed to save myself from the embarrassment of reality, before I was able to admit it to myself.
And that's how I got here.
"How's the coffee coming, Mrs. Brady?" Rose called out from the sofa, and I could practically see the smirk lighting her face as it reflected in her tone.
Rolling my eyes, I picked up the two mugs and returned to the living room. "Down your bra, cow, if you're not careful," I retorted dryly, handing Rose her mug of coffee.
Sitting down beside her, I sipped the hot liquid thoughtfully, analyzing the last four years in my mind. My feelings for Edward had grown so slowly that I didn't realize it, but I knew the exact moment that had pushed me over the edge.
About two years into the reality of what happens when one equates affection for blow jobs—my relationship with Jacob—he had decided he'd be a good surfer. He then consequently dragged Edward and me to La Push beach every Saturday morning to watch him make a fool of himself as he best tried to show off the angles of his body, while unsuccessfully maneuvering the surfboard.
Edward and I used to spend the time laughing as the great ape repeatedly hit the water, then struggled back on the board before the weight of his muscle mass dragged his ass to the seabed. We both knew Jake's surfing phase was to satisfy his curiosity over how his physique would look in a wet suit, but Edward, ever the loyal friend, humored him every step of the way. While I, of course, only tagged along primarily for the purposes of mind sex with Edward in a pair of board shorts.
Though, I am ashamed to admit that the mind sex was initially reserved for Jake.
In the beginning, I'd spent the entire time sighing wantonly and losing myself in moral depravity at the sight of Jake's body and the contours of his muscles behind the material of his wetsuit. I was pretty much oblivious to Edward, but as the months passed something odd began to happen to me. Initially I just wrote it off as merely the result of a chemical imbalance from being involuntarily celibate during the time Jacob had his appendix removed, but I had suddenly become palpably aware of Edward—something, which had consequently given voice to Celeste.
Celeste who had been quietly lurking just beneath the surface of my skin, waiting for a reason to let loose. Until this point I was in complete control of her. I'd only ever needed to release her in the privy of the few flings I'd had prior to Jake. It wasn't until I became aware of her reaction to Edward, that I began wondering why she had remained MIA during the height of my bestiality with Jacob.
My initial thought was because I had sold my self-respect so completely Celeste felt redundant, and as a result packed her bags and went holidaying in Acapulco until the day I rediscovered my dignity. When in all reality, she had probably given herself a backyard clitorectomy after my first date with Jake and had remained convalescing until the day I began noticing Edward
Though, all too soon just noticing Edward turned into a constant battle to not press myself against his body—more than faking the extent of my shivering allowed—as we pretended to watch Jacob surf. And Edward, always the charming gentleman, accommodated my every move. He acted and reacted to me easily, comfortably—as friends did with each other—without the burden of ever knowing that his best bud's girlfriend wanted to do wanton, ungodly things to him.
Eventually the weather became warmer and I no longer had a legitimate excuse to secretly molest Edward. That was before he'd decided that while He-man, Master of the Universe, surfed, we'd go swimming. Of course, only a lunatic would swim in La Push beach, but Edward had assured me that we wouldn't ever go deeper than our waists, and by that point I would have followed him unwittingly into Hades with a shameless oversexed smile plastered to my face.
And so, with Celeste's approval, I wore bikinis that best hid the scrawny, flat chested elements to my body, while attempting to covertly seduce Edward as we frolicked in the waves together. We did this every Saturday, until the fateful day that I was forced to accept the inevitable truth.
That I had fallen impossibly in love with him.
The day I had surrendered to life's biggest cliché…
It was the end of July and Edward and I were basking in the very rare presence of Washington sunshine. I'd mind fucked him all morning in ways that would have been improper at a BDSM dungeon party. Edward had inevitably noticed how hot and bothered I was, assuming innocently it was from too much sun, and suggested we go for a dip—despite the huge swell of the sea that day.
I'd eyed the size of the waves doubtfully, weighing up whether being potentially drowned was worth the opportunity of witnessing Edward's toned upper half wet and glistening. My whorish side had won out and I chose lechery over self-preservation.
The moment I'd entered the surf I realized it was a bad idea. Even with the water up to my hips, it was rough enough to throw me around, but my rationality was distracted by the fact that Edward's hands barely left me to keep me from being dragged out by the current.
Though, by the third time of being dumped and rolled in the sand, I was no longer seeing any pros in it.
"Let's head back in," I said to him, coughing and spluttering past the last sand-eating episode and wiping the wet strands of hair from my face.
Edward had nodded conceding, when his line of sight shot behind me and his eyes widened in alarm. Because I was facing Edward with my back turned to the ocean, I didn't see the giant wave that was about to crash over me.
It knocked the wind out of me, tumbling me repeatedly into the sand banks until I was so disorientated that I wasn't sure which direction the surface of the water was.
I felt Edward's hand grab mine, but it was immediately pulled from me as I continued to be thrown about in the raging swell.
I'd fought desperately to break the surface, only to be pushed down by wave after wave. It soon got to the point that I was really beginning to panic. I was fast losing my equilibrium and as I attempted to breathe, I swallowed mouthfuls of salty seawater that seared its way down my throat.
The next thing I was aware of was that I'd hit something solid. Tearing myself to the surface long enough to take a huge breath, I realized quickly that I'd been pulled out close to the collection of large rocks about a hundred feet from the beach.
This only presented me with a new dilemma, because now the swell was crashing me repeatedly into it.
I attempted to grab hold, but the surface was smooth and I couldn't manage to get a grip anywhere. I tried screaming out for Edward and Jake but my voice was repeatedly drowned out as I continued to be dragged under.
Just as my mind went foggy and the explosion of pain in my lungs, from lack of oxygen, began to dull, I felt a pair of arms encircle my waist and pull me to the surface.
"I've got you, Bella, hang on to me!" It was Edward's voice, not Jacob's as I had initially thought.
I gasped, pulling the air into my lungs desperately, and clung to him. But as I wrapped my arms and legs around him tightly, I forced both of us back under in my panic.
Edward struggled, weighed down by me, to get us out of danger. We were pulled under several times, but eventually, he'd swam close enough to the shore that he was able to pull himself to his feet.
I can still recall the feel and sound of his heaving chest and the unstable way he walked as he carried me up the sand, but my memories were foggy and incoherent. I only really recall clinging to him as if he was all I had left in this world.
He placed me carefully on my towel then just about collapsed in exhaustion next to me. I stared at the sky, trying to fight the beginnings of shock, while continuing to feel the giddy motion of the ocean.
"Bella? Are you okay?" he asked me with a tender, concerned voice, as he continued to rein in his rapid breath.
I nodded, fighting back the sudden emotion and gingerly sat myself upright. My heart was pounding and a pulsating, burning sensation was suddenly concentrating down my side. I glanced quickly behind me; blood was pouring from a nasty looking gash, and suddenly, the world was spinning.
"Oh shit, Bella. . ." I heard Edward's voice leave his lips in a time-delayed fog, before I promptly threw up over him, then blacked out.
When I came to, I was staring at the sky again, squinting through the glaring sun. Swallowing past the horrible metallic taste in my mouth, I found myself concentrating on the unfamiliar sound of Edward and Jake arguing.
"What the fuck did the two of you think you were doing?" Jake demanded his tone erratic and pissed off.
This was something that was even more uncommon; the sound of Jake expressing open concern for me.
"Jesus—not everything is about you, Jake!" Edward replied, and my forehead immediately creased at the hostility behind his voice. I couldn't recall a time before where I'd ever heard Edward speak to Jake in a similar tone, and it worried me.
I turned my head in the direction of their voices. They were standing about ten feet from me, squaring off at each other, and both looking as equally pissed off. Jake had his arms folded across his chest, while Edward had his arms stiff by his sides, his hands clenched into fists. I found myself staring at the contrast between them, my eyes drawing to Edward, his fair skin, rich chestnut brown hair, and trim, toned body, for the first time with a desire that surprised—even me. As he faced Jake who was taller by two inches and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, he looked angrier—more threatening.
"Dude, I've had these tickets for two months and because you and Bella decided to go swimming after a freaking hurricane, you expect us to miss the game?" Jake huffed, pouting and looking suddenly like he was going to throw an all-out tantrum.
It took a moment for my mind to process his meaning, before I ripped my eyes back to the cloudless sky brashly. I should have known his concern wasn't for me.
He and Edward were flying to Seattle that afternoon to watch a Seahawks game, Sunday. It was one venture I wasn't accompanying them on. But what I wasn't comprehending, was why either one of them would have to miss anything.
"Jesus you're such a selfish asshole!" Edward snapped in response.
"Well you fucking take her then!" Jake yelled back impatiently, his face reddening, fucking petulantly.
Child!
Take me where? I wondered.
"Your girlfriend almost drowns, she's all cut up by oyster shells that could turn septic any minute, and all you give a shit about is a god-damn football game!"
I turned my head back in time to see Edward run his hand through his damp hair in frustration before turning his back on Jacob in disgust. This is when his eyes met mine and the storm behind them calmed.
In the next instant, Jake was in my line of sight blocking the sky above me with his gargantuan form. "What the fuck were you thinking, Bella?" he demanded with a small, begrudging amount of concern in his tone.
"Nothing! I stopped thinking three years ago when I became your girlfriend!" I blurted out indignantly, but of course having a hopelessly burning and croaky throat made me sound pathetic and meek, and little else.
I tore my eyes from his and tried to prevent them from welling in tears. The pounding down my back was becoming almost unbearable, and I was still fighting the emotion over my near death experience and the fact that Edward … had saved my life.
I watched in frustration as they argued more about me—as If I wasn't lying a few feet away having a wanton epiphany—while I tried to pull some coherency into my thoughts. Despite the fact that I was feeling sore and sorry for myself, a tingling sensation was beginning to course through my veins that was completely alien.
Five minutes later, they'd settled it. I was going to the hospital and Edward was taking me.
Jacob helped me to my feet, cooing and slurping over me, his attention centered on me now that it appeared he wasn't going to be inconvenienced—Edward was.
I brushed him off with irritation and turned to Edward who was gathering our gear to put back in his car. "Edward, I'm fine. I don't need to go to the hospital!" I insisted, but knowing the doubt was edging into my tone even as I spoke it. My body was now burning and every movement I made was causing me to flinch openly.
"Babe, you're going and that's all there is to it."
I whipped my head around and glared at Jake while my skin crawled at the term that used to make me go pitifully weak at the knees. "Fuck you, Jacob!"
"Don't need to, sexy, I got you for that." He winked at me, almost as if he expected me to melt in his arms and giggle like a schoolgirl.
Of course he did, because that's exactly how I would have normally reacted—sans dignity.
I shoved him, pathetically, and of course, he didn't move an inch; he didn't even waver. What he did do was grin at me cockily then tried to draw me in to kiss me. But the very idea was repugnant to me, and I pulled away from him in reflex.
His eyebrows shot high on his forehead in surprise.
"Just get in your car and piss off. I'd hate to see you miss your flight," I growled at him sarcastically, folding my arms across my chest and almost buckling from the pain that assaulted my senses, as the skin around my back pulled tighter. I'd almost cried out, squeezing my eyes shut as I willed the pain to ease.
I felt his mammoth hand grip my arm to steady me, and opening my eyes, I met the dark depths of his. Confusion alighted them rather than concern. "Be reasonable, babe. Come on."
This was typical of Jake, but because I'd sold myself out in a relationship that was based entirely on Neolithic sex, I shouldn't have been surprised. My emotional needs never came into consideration when I was self-medicating myself on orgasms.
I snorted to myself, before raising my head and looking Jacob square in the eyes. "Just go," I whispered. I wasn't sure if I had any right to be angry at him, and by that point I was feeling too miserable and sorry for myself to manage even a monotone.
Jake pecked me quickly on the cheek, before I could move to avoid him, before he picked up his surfboard and headed to his car. As he passed Edward, he stopped and spoke quietly to him for a moment. I only stared at my feet trying to hide the fact that I was succumbing to tears, when Edward's shadow fell across me.
He wrapped his arm over my shoulders, and I felt the warmth of his skin immediately envelop me. "Come on, Bella," he spoke softly, almost as if he was lost in thought.
I looked up at him, not caring that my tears were evident, and gauged his expression. He broke into a warm smile and squeezed me gently. My heart stalled a little, and I looked away suddenly feeling flustered, but I was also feeling terrible guilt.
Biting down on my lip, I caught his gaze once more, before sighing heavily. "I'm sorry, Edward. You don't have to stay. I can go with Rose or…" The words died on my lips, mainly because his smile broadened as if what I was saying secretly amused him.
"Don't be a dope, Bella. Jake's right; it's my fault this happened, and I couldn't go to the game when you're in this shape." Something flickered in his eyes and he glanced down, his eyebrows drawing closely together. My heart hammered in my chest, reacting openly to the words that I'd never heard from Jake. "I'm going to see if I can find something to clean that cut up. Okay?" When he glanced back at me, his green eyes were burning intensely and serious again.
"Okay." I nodded quickly, my voice barely audible. I was beginning to feel faint, and I slumped up against him. This is when recognition hit me. "I threw up on you. . ." I internally groaned, while my face flamed hot with mortification.
He chuckled softly, the humming feel of it through his chest lessening my embarrassment a little. "That you did."
"God—I'm so sorry." I released my breath and rubbed my forehead, feeling the heat of my humiliation residing there.
"Don't worry about it. It was just sea water anyway." The tenderness to his voice still held an edge of amusement, before he placed his arm around me gently and led me toward his car.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, past the wave of pain that was pounding throughout my back, and broke into a small smile.
That's how Edward was. Whenever I was fighting with Jake—which was most days—he always had a way of making me feel like it was all irrelevant.
I sat in the passenger seat, while Edward wet the old t-shirt he'd found in his trunk, under a nearby faucet. I was still in my bikini with almost one entire side of me—from shoulder to knee—covered in scratches that were stinging like a bitch. I couldn't see the place where the cuts ran deeper, but I could see the blood. The blood, which I had convinced myself was the reason I was trembling and literally enshrouded in indecent looking goose bumps.
When Edward came back to the car, the damp shirt torn into smaller shreds, he gently maneuvered me so my back was facing him. Tentatively, he wiped his warm hands over my back and sides clearing it of sand, before—with the gentlest of pressure—he pressed the cloth directly over my cut skin.
Sucking in my breath violently, I almost literally jumped through the roof; it burned like fire.
"Oh shit! I'm sorry, Bella," he blurted hastily, before exhaling so deeply, I felt it caress my swollen skin, soothingly. "It's a mess and I think this cut might need stitching."
"Oh God. . ." I mumbled, the very idea of it suddenly making me feel very faint.
Covering my eyes, I forcefully rid it from my thoughts and concentrated solely on Edward's hands; one that apprehensively wiped the damp cloth across my battered flesh, and the other that was curved around my bare hip.
After several minutes where the burning in my skin began to merge with the tingling of an overstimulated charge, Edward finished cleaning the blood from my back. Contemplating my reaction to him helped distract me from the pain, but as soon as he was finished, the concern shrouding his eyes brought me straight back down to earth.
After helping me back into my clothes, we drove in continued silence to Quick Care.
After fifty minutes of waiting, the doctor took one look at my back, bandaged it up and ordered me to the nearest ER.
Edward, without complaining, drove me to the Olympic Medical Centre, and we waited in the ER waiting room for a further three hours until I was finally seen.
By that point, I was beginning to feel terrible. I was faint, nauseous and suffering with the beginnings of a fever. I clung to Edward, who indulged me and held his arm around me in a concerned, protective way. I sensed his hesitation with every breath he took, but I was in no condition for platonic formalities; I was sick, needy and craving contact.
The next hour was one of the most horrendous in my life. My torn skin had to be cleaned and then stitched, but before this could be done, the wound itself was injected several times to numb, disinfect, clean—I wasn't entirely sure what, all I knew that it was like being pierced by a burning hot iron.
I had to sit upright for the doctor to be able to access it, and this time I gripped Edward without a single reservation, grasping his sides, and gripping and twisting his shirt in my closed fists. He held my arms, trying to hold me steady as I jerked reflexively from the needles while attempting to swallow past the almost involuntary urge of calling the doctor a "cocksucker".
To digress, yes, pain derived Tourette's Syndrome had become inherent in me—a permanent side effect from the two years when I'd attempted celibacy.
After what seemed like the tenth freaking needle, and after almost reefing Edward's t-shirt from his back, he curved his palm around the nape of my neck and pulled me against him.
"Squeeze my hand, Bella," he said to me, softly; sounding genuinely disturbed.
It was just in time for me to blurt out a muffled "fuck you" into his chest, which thankfully, accompanied by an angry, pain-filled roar, was unintelligible at best. I didn't want him to think it was directed at him, and to be brutally honest, I wasn't entirely sure it wasn't. He was so caring and sweet, talking me through each jab that it was making me emotional—and angry. Angry because Jacob was an asshole and he was his best friend; angry because I was fucking pissed at that moment that he wasJake's best friend.
But maybe it was the morphine. I told myself that, while not even being entirely sure that I'd been given any.
By the time my woundwas cleaned and ready to be stitched, all pretenses at anger had vanished. I was a whimpering, pitiful excuse, and hanging onto Edward's hand as though, he was all that was keeping me together—he was.
Blessedly, by the time my skin was being sewn back together, my back was completely numb. All that I had to contend with was Edward's hands, as he wiped my hair from my face; the soft, timbre of his voice as he told me how many I had left, and the astute intensity of his eyes as they kept me focused.
I closed my eyes trying to collect my thoughts and determine whether anything I was feeling was genuine or the product of some narcotic having an orgy through my blood stream. This was when I felt his lips connect with my brow, soft and warm, and lingering against my skin briefly, before he placed them to my ear. "You're a tough one, Bella."
I knew then that I had to be spinning on drugs. It was too tender, his voice too raw and honest. It was as if he'd said something entirely different.
This was when my pain induced, obscenity-vomiting kicked in again and I told him to fuck himself. Though, I suspected this time it was the result of emotional pain.
"Bella, calm down." He pulled out that soft, resonating tone again and its effects were almost instant.
I felt my head drop against his chest and a heavy sigh escape my lips. "I'm sorry," I whispered.
"I know; you're almost done."
"Did we just have a baby? How many did we have?" I asked, drunkenly this time, but I was spinning, and again I couldn't be sure it was only from the result of the painkillers I wasn't even positive they'd given me.
He laughed, softly, beneath his breath and through his nose, before I again felt the presence of his tender lips press to my forehead.
"Five," he answered.
"Oh, get a room, Celeste!" Rose's voice blasted into my thoughts, immediately returning me to the present moment.
"We had five babies," I whispered, wistfully.
Rose's brow quirked upwards. "Come again?"
"I've fucked it up haven't I?" I shook my head, trying to dislodge the panic from getting too deeply anchored. Panic that had been my closest companion ever since the day that I'd decided—or rather coerced by my two bitch-faced best friends—to give up the charade I was living.
In other words, break up with Jacob and say goodbye to Edward.
"Mmmm, fucked up isn't quite the right word. You settled for Jake, Bella, and now you've convinced yourself that you can settle as only Edward's friend. Even in Aaron Spelling's prime time viewing"—she broke off smirking deviously while I scowled deeply at her—"it's not going to end well."
My hand subconsciously slid around to my back where the remnants of mine and Edward's five babies remained. I felt an overwhelming pain begin to converge on me, before my eyes filled steadily with hot, salty tears, until they were slipping silently down my face.
"I still think you should tell him," Rose spoke, this time in a gentler tone, wrapping her arm over my shoulder and squeezing me in empathy.
I shook my head quickly, hastily wiping the evidence of emotion from my face. "No, it's pointless. Edward and Jake have been friends since they were five years old. I'm a fifth wheel, I always have been. And besides, I'd never ask Edward to choose, even if he did feel something for me."
Rose expelled her breath before she got up from the sofa, walked into the kitchen and placed her empty mug in the dishwasher. "You know my feelings on that—anyway, do you want the shower first?"
I shook my head absently, still half-immersed in my thoughts. "No, you go first."
"Okay," she shrugged and made for the stairs, before pausing and turning back to me. "But if I think Edward feels something for you will you at least think about it?"
"Maybe," I mumbled.
"You know I wouldn't screw you, Bella. I haven't ever seen the two of you alone without that ape-man of yours always present. That's the only reason I can't say either way—promise me!" Her tone suddenly rose and my attention quickly snapped in her direction, before I felt my lips twitch in response.
"Bite me, Little Miss Grand Supreme," I retorted, making reference to Rose's childhood pageant days, to which she immediately flashed me a creepy, pseudo-fake smile before turning and disappearing up the stairs.
I forced the smile to remain on my face until it was a lost cause and my cheek muscles were burning, before I accepted the melancholy that was pulling rank. Rose had never seen me and Edward together, but over the last twelve months we'd spent the majority of our free time with each other.
Not long after I had almost drowned at La Push Beach, Jake began to come up with excuses why he couldn't join Edward and me for the weekends. He always encouraged the two of us to hang out together, but regardless of the fact that I'd accepted I had fallen in love with Edward, I continued to struggle with it. I guess that's why, rather naively, I never suspected anything was going on with Jake. When I finally began to clue on, it actually helped alleviate the guilt I was beginning to feel over what I was, by then knowingly, doing; prostituting myself with Jacob to get my weekends with Edward. But the intensity of my feelings for Edward superseded common decency, and Jacob screwing around on me while I was well aware of it, and using it to feel better about my wanton nights of mind fucking with Edward, only made it seem more depraved.
Eventually, my conscience got the better of me, and I made a plan to end it. It might have been subconscious, but I stopped having sex with Jake. This was about six months previous, and I was all but convinced it would have been the last straw for him. I had basically pulled back all contact with him, but was still having sex with him to keep the degraded charade going.
Only, when I stopped, Jake didn't even mention it, let alone react to it.
I admit, like the stealth whore that I was, I was relieved. I no longer had to have the cringe worthy experience of Jake's silver-backed torso schlepped all over me, and I got to keep Edward around—for a bit longer, at least.
For almost twelve months, I had Edward all to myself, with Jake putting in a few for-appearances-only Friday nights before he disappeared to screw the semi-prettiest girl he'd crossed paths with that night.
Normally, Edward and I would ditch the nightclub and do goofy things together like ten-pin bowling, before we'd end up at his house, watching movies and snuggling on the couch together, eating popcorn.
Edward was always the gentleman, always loyal to his best bud—whether he harbored feelings for me or not, and our time together soon became too much for me to bear. I loved him too much to go on pretending that I'd ever be more to him than just his best friend's girlfriend, or even pretending that it was enough. It wasn't, and ironically, my desire to have Edward around soon gave way to the torture of spending every weekend with him and only him.
I knew I had to face the fact that I couldn't have Edward, and no amount of hoping, mind fucking, fantasizing, or whatever delusional method I'd used to anesthetize myself from the truth, was going to change it.
I wanted to have cut myself off from Jake before Alice and Jazz's engagement party tonight. I no longer wanted to seeJake, let alone puke my way through an evening of having the great ape feel me up.
Jazz had invited him and I guess the general consensus was that he'd come with me anyway. We were still technically together, and simpleminded Jacob, with the lack of fuckable bimbos in the perimeter, would no doubt find a place to warm his lecherous hands.
I shuddered, openly and audibly. The prick had not turned up for the scheduled break-up, but no doubt, he'd be there tonight. He'd never miss an opportunity to consume free alcohol and get drunk enough to remove his shirt.
I wanted to slam my head down into the coffee table at the frustrated disbelief that I'd ever sold myself out by drooling over that fire truck with a dick!
So I did.
"GOD DAMN, SON OF A—," I broke off to smother my pain driven Tourette's, behind a pissed off groan with obvious sentiments of self-pity.
My iPhone rang.
Shuffling to my handbag, I rummaged around in it, one handed—while my other hand still gripped my twitching brow—before I found it and yanked it to my ear. "What—god damn it?"
"Baaaaaabe,"Jacob's slurpy voice assaulted my ear, giving me a reflexive urge to projectile vomit.
"Where the fuck were you today?" I demanded into the phone holding it at arm's length to protect my stability from his over confident drawl.
"Belly, I'm sick. I've got—,"
"Chlamydia?" I jumped in, unable to restrain my sarcasm.
"Ha-ha, not that you'd know anything about that?" he replied dryly, in a very uncharacteristic, un-Jacob kind of way. The only thing that upset Jake after all, was a pimple on his back.
"Well what's wrong with you that prevented you from the fucking courtesy of calling to say you weren't going to make it?"
"Glandular fever—I was at the doctors," he admitted with a genuine sigh behind his words.
I snorted loudly and without sympathy. I'd contracted glandular fever once at summer camp when I was fifteen; I'd caught it Celesting a boy in the woods.
"Poor snookum's, but how surprising!" My tone was venom laced by that point, but I wasn't in the mood to contemplate my degree of disdain for the moron who was once the center of my universe.
"Why are you being such a bitch?" he spat back suddenly losing patience.
I paused for a moment deciding whether I should just throw it all to the wind and break up our farce for a four-year relationship over the phone.
"I want to end this bullshit we have together, Jake, because the sight of you these days—the very sound of your voice—makes me want to be physically sick!" I came clean between clenched teeth, unable to hold back the emotion or conviction from my voice.
He paused for a moment, before asking cynically. "Who are you fucking?"
"What?" I demanded incredulous and offended that he'd put me in the same category as him—though Celeste, on my behalf, almost blurted out Edward's name.
You wish, whore!
"You heard. So come on, who is it?"
"Fuck you, asshole! Just because you're screwing any girl you can find who has a single digit IQ!"
"Yeah and I started with you, Princess!" He really sounded pissed off by now, and for the first time I noticed the fatigue in his voice. The asshole probably was sick.
"Yeah well—whatever. I just want to end this sham and try and drag back some of the dignity I lost by being your blow up sex doll for four years."
"At least you weren't in denial. Now is that all? 'Cause I gotta go. There's still a few more girls smarter than you willing to fuck me." He hung up. He'd sounded upset despite the hardness in his voice, and despite my present anger, the realization of it in his tone tugged at my heart. I wasn't delusional, I knew the creep wasn't heartbroken over me; rather, he was offended by what I'd said.
I had been pretty mean, and if I was being completely honest with myself, I knew I didn't have a single reason to hate him. He was a self-absorbed, conceited dickhead, but he never promised anything above what he delivered. I knew it, and yet I was more than willing to accept those terms in the days before my brain evolved beyond being stimulated by a tight ass and layers of abs.
When I was one of those girls with a single digit IQ. . .
I hated Jake now, but only out of resentment, and the reason I resented him was because he was Edward's best friend; which automatically made Edward off limits to me. As much as I wouldn't hurt Edward by coming between his friendship with Jake, I wouldn't do it to Jake either.
I had no right to.
I pulled myself up the stairs to my room, being dragged down by the inevitable weight of pain with each step I took. It was over—after four years. But it wasn't Jake that I'd mourn with the end of it; it was Edward. Now that I'd broken up with Jake, I knew I'd have to say goodbye to Edward as well. Sure, we could still hang out like old times, only the thought of that created a swelling of both hope and pain to unleash the threat of more tears on me.
I shrugged them off with stubborn resolve. There'd be plenty of time for tears, but not tonight. It was Alice and Jasper's engagement party, and my last night as Edward Cullen's, best friend's girlfriend.
A/N: If you're new to this fic it'd be nice to know your thoughts, but otherwise, see you soooon. *smooch*