A/N: This chapter is just a bit of background info and leads into the fun and drama that's going to be going on in the chapters to come. =] The pairings won't be canon at first for all of the couples. Hell, there are no couples right now to begin with. You won't even see everyone until the next chapter, but I promise you'll see everyone soon! There's a smidgen of cursing in the chapter, but nothing too intense that you can't handle.
PS. I checked for grammatical errors a few times, but I don't have a beta right now, so I'm sorry for the few/many I missed. After you read through it so many times it all looks alike. haha
I inhaled a shallow breath and let it out slowly before turning over so that I could snuggle up next to my boyfriend. I loved the feeling of waking up and sharing our body heat with one another. It made me feel whole and loved and needed and every positive word under the sun.
But as I turned over to place my arm on what should have been his chest, my hand instead continued its path down to the cold silk sheets.
He wasn't in bed. This was odd. Jake always slept in on Saturdays. It couldn't have been any later than seven in the morning. The sun had barely made its grand entrance through the curtains yet.
I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes before sitting up and listening for any sounds or movements coming from the apartment. There was no water pitter-pattering from the shower in the bathroom. I heard no bacon sizzling from the frying pan in our kitchen. It was evident that the TV was not turned on in the living room. Everything in the apartment apart from myself was still sleeping, excluding Jake, considering that he apparently wasn't even here.
I couldn't imagine where he would have gone at such an early hour on a Saturday morning. I looked around the room for a note or some kind of clue that he'd left, but not one article in the entire room was misplaced.
And then I saw it. I noticed a piece of paper folded in half on the mahogany nightstand. I picked it up and threw it onto the bed in a fit of rage after reading only the first line.
'I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. It's been over for a while now…'
Was I reading this incorrectly? Was I looking too far into the words I'd just read? No. I most definitely was not. There was no other way to take it. Jake had left me in the middle of the night and the only way he found right to tell me was in a letter written on a piece of notebook paper.
I looked down at the grotesque piece of writing laying on my bed and noticed that he had filled out the entire page. The nerve of him. He was a coward, a phony, and a gutless fraud of a human being for doing this to me in a god damned letter.
I had no idea what to do. This was completely unexpected and the last thing I imagined waking up to on my Saturday morning. I felt like I was going to shatter to pieces in a matter of seconds. I fell back onto the bed and felt the hot tears welling up in my eyes. Without even trying to hold them back they started to fall freely.
Sure our relationship wasn't perfect, but I didn't know of any that were truly flawless by definition. I mean yes, we argued once or twice a week. Okay, okay, maybe I'm lying. But they were never big arguments. I always considered it more on the bickering side. We would have tiffs over why I didn't have dinner ready when he got home or I would fight with him about why he got home so late every other night. Come to think of it, these "tiffs" as I called them, happened on an extreme regular basis.
We'd argue almost every single evening before bed. Half of the time, those nights resulted in crazy, fantastic, multi-orgasmic makeup sex. The other half of those evenings consisted of him sleeping on the couch for a night or two because I was livid over how insane and out of proportion our arguments would get.
Looking back on the past few months and realizing that this is how we spent our time together, I came to a stunning realization. Our relationship really was over. I had been living in a dream world while I wrote my novel and somehow started mixing up real life with what I wished our reality could have been. But in all truthfulness, our relationship was a failure and I had completely fallen short at realizing it.
At this point, the tears were coming down in buckets and my nose was stuffed up beyond reason to the point in which I was forced to breathe out of my mouth. I was starting to hyperventilate – something I hadn't done since the last time I had a panic attack years ago.
I ran to the bathroom to blow my nose and realized that the toilet paper roll was empty. I began to bawl even harder for the simple fact that I was now reminded of Jake once again on top of everything else. I always had to tell him to put a new roll of toilet paper out when he finished using the old one, but this was just another reminder that he never listened.
I sulked my way to the hall closet and grabbed a few rolls. I also grabbed the house phone on the way back to the bathroom.
As soon as I reached the master bathroom, I fell to the floor and landed on the plush green rug that Jake and I had bought when we first moved into the apartment. I couldn't even see the rug clearly due to the tears that were continually streaming down my cheeks. I unrolled a few sheets from the roll of toilet paper and attempted blotting my now puffy eye-lids and blew my nose.
It was one of those unfortunate times where you blow, but nothing comes out. It's all stuck somewhere in your nose laughing in your face at the fact that you can't breathe or blow it out.
I quickly gave up, realizing it was a lost cause and dialed the number for Alice. Even though she was my best friend, I wasn't sure how she'd handle this early of a phone call. I realized that it had to be only 7:15 by this point in time. This could be risky.
The phone rang repeatedly. She answered on the sixth or seventh ring with a not so welcoming good morning. "What in the hell do you need? It's barely seven in the morning." she said with a raspy morning voice.
"Alice," I sniffled. "I'm s-s-sorry to wa-wake you up like this, b-but Jake left me this m-morning." There was a long pause. I took that time to attempt breathing normally again, which was just a big fail. I began hyperventilating again at hearing myself admit the words out loud.
"Left you. Like what, went to get some breakfast or something?" she asked confused. Poor Alice. She wasn't one to make much sense when woken up randomly.
"No, Al. He… He broke up w-w-with me." Short pause.
"At seven in the morning?"
"I d-don't know. He left me a n-note this m-morning when I woke up." There was no pause this time. Just yelling.
"He WHAT?! He broke up with you in a fucking letter? You've got to be kidding me." I was crying too hard at this point to respond. "You're not kidding." I could hear her gears shifting into overdrive. "Well I'll be there in just a few minutes, okay sweetie? I'm on my way!" Click.
I put the phone down and curled up in a ball on the green rug and waited for Alice.
__________
After what seemed like days later, Alice was using her key to get into the apartment. I glanced at the clock on the bathroom wall. It had only taken her 6 minutes to get here. I was certain it had been at least hours. But who was I kidding? I'd been pretending I was in a healthy relationship for only god knows how long now. I was clearly the wrong person to judge anything right now.
I heard Alice calling my name, but I didn't feel like I had it in me to say anything. She soon realized where I was, and hurried over to my side. She propped me up in an upright position and had me leaning back on the tub. "Why are you in the bathroom?" she asked with a look of concern spreading all over her tiny features. I looked at her as if that would be all the response she needed. Why else would I be in the bathroom? I was sulking and couldn't make it back to the bed. Simple enough answer to give with just a look, right?
"Bella Marie, look at me. You will not wallow in self pity like every other person. You are better than that. Jacob Black is not worth all of these tears." She blotted some more toilet paper at my tear stricken face.
"You deserve someone that is going to treat you right. Jake was so involved in law school that he forgot about what it took to be a good boyfriend. He took advantage of the fact that you wanted him no matter how he treated you, or how often he made time to see you.
"Sure, it was good for you two the first few months. But you were together for over a year, and the rest of those months you spent miserably. The only time you ever enjoyed yourself is when Jasper and I would divert you from all of your worries about Jake, and when you were writing.
"Think about it, Bella. You were happy before you had him. And you can be happy without him. You still have Jazz, and me, right? That has to be worth something, I should hope."
A miniscule sized smile passed my lips. I tried hiding it, but it was too late. She saw that she was breaking ground with her little speech of hers, so she didn't hesitate in continuing.
"You know that I've always been there for you, and you've done the same for me. Remember when your brother dumped me? You were there to help put the pieces back together in no time."
I couldn't help but giggle at her use of words. "Al, you and Jazz dated in middle school. I can hardly count that as real heartbreak."
"You can't judge true love, Bella. Your brother and I have something special. We always have. Just because it didn't work out in middle school, doesn't mean that it's not meant to be. I can feel it. He and I are such close friends. He's my soul mate and you and I both know it. You're just being a stick in the mud right now because Jackass Black broke your heart." I gave her the most sour face I could muster.
"Don't give me that, little missy. You will know true love when you find it. It will hit you so hard that it knocks the wind out of you. Did you ever have that happen when you were with Jake?" I thought about it for a moment.
"Well, there was this one time when we were having sex. He had me upside down at some awkward angle, and –" She cut me off before I could finish reminiscing the moment.
"Woman, I am talking about love here, not fucking somebody. Look, I'm sorry. But we'll find you a new guy, I just know it. I can feel it in my bones. And I know just how we're going to do it." I looked up at her and she was staring down at me with the most evil grin I had seen from her in ages. I didn't like the looks of this.
"We're going on a vacation." I could feel my eyes bugging out, as puffy as they were. My face was in utter shock. A vacation? That is not what I needed. What I needed was a nice week long period of mourning and self pity.
"Oh Bella, don't look at me like that. You should expect things like this when it comes to me. I'll tell you the details as soon as I get you all cleaned up."
And that was that. She had me showered, dressed in a comfortable red and black sweat suit, and even had me breathing through my nose again. All in a half an hour!
I was then moping on a bar stool by the kitchen counter with my elbows on the table top and my fists holding up my head. I was going for the whole nine yards here.
She was in the middle of making me pancakes for breakfast before she mentioned the dreaded vacation again. "So, are you prepared to hear what I've planned in my head for us?"
I pulled my still damp hair into a messy bun on the top of my head and looked at her with a dumbfounded expression on my face. "Do I look ready for a vacation?" I asked solemnly.
"Yes," she said truthfully. "If anyone looks worthy of a trip to forget their pasts right now, that person would be you." I rolled my eyes at her statement, but she chose to ignore me and continued.
"I'm fixing to make a call to my father's travel agent. We've gone on so many vacations over the years through him, so he kind of owes me a favor at this point. Would you rather me tell you my plans before I make the arrangements or just surprise you as the phone call progresses? You know either way that you'll be going with me so I guess it doesn't matter. But I think I'll stick with the element of surprise, anyways. You'll appreciate it more that way."
"Alice, I have a life. I can't just desert it for a few days and forget about everything."
"Actually, Bells, you don't have a life anymore. You haven't for a while now! You've been caught up in writing that novel of yours, and the stress of dealing with that ass of a man. So you do deserve to leave for a few days... Actually I was thinking more of like a week. Yes. Yes, a week would do you some good."
"A week?! That's insane. When do you plan on taking this said-vacation, hmm?" I asked her with pure animosity in my voice.
"Well, Ms. Grumpypants, I'll let you know as soon as I make this phone call." That was that. There was no talking her out of it now. When Alice set her mind to something, it was going to happen whether the rest of the party liked it or not. And this time, that party was me.
And so all I could do was sit and watch as she made my pancakes and talked business with the person on the other end of that phone line. Poor guy.
"Hi. Is this Mitch? It's Alice…"
"…Yes, Alice Cullen," she said with a wry smile. "I was wondering if you could help me out with a spur of the moment trip. I was thinking Cap Juluca for a 7-10 day vacation…" I heard a mumble on the other end of the line.
"…Yes, you heard me correctly. I'd like one of the three bedroom villas. I'd like to leave ASAP. Tomorrow, if possible." I heard a gasp on the other end of the phone line and some stuttering before Alice continued to persuade him. In this case it was more like black mail.
"…Oh Mitch, we both know you have the connections I need. I'm sure you can make it happen. I've got complete and utter faith in you. Need I mention to your other clients that you once double booked my family a suite in Mammoth, once? We walked into our room to see a newlywed couple making sweet, sweet love on what should have been my bed…" There was a short pause on both ends of the line after that. I could hear some extreme typing skills on his end of the line and some muttered words that seemed like cursing. But no sooner than it started, it was over.
I could hear him talking again on his end, and Alice 'mhmmm-ing' on the other.
"…Thank you so much, Mitch. You've been a great help. We'll need two plane tickets and I'll be there in a bit to pick them up."
She hung up the phone, and looked at me with pure excitement in her hazel eyes. She flopped the pancakes onto a paper plate and bounced over to me with her spiky black hair bobbing in rhythm with the current spring in her step.
"Aren't you excited?" she asked through a grin of pearly white teeth.
I stared at her glumly. "Alice, I told you that I'm not ready for a vacation, and yet here you have already booked it for us. I have no idea where we're going, when we leave, or how long we'll be there. I don't know how excited you expect me to be at this point."
My words didn't faze her cheerfulness one bit. "Trust me, Bells, when we get there you will be more than thrilled with my decision to take us on this vacation."
No sooner than I was about to tell her to get off of her cryptic high horse, she said "I'm not telling you a single thing. All you need to know is that this is going to be so much fun. You're going to get your mind off of everything and we're going to have a blast. You'll see. But first things first. We have to go shopping for this excursion of ours."
If my face looked morose already, I am sure that it sunk in even more at that moment. I didn't enjoy shopping like Alice did. Shopping to her was just the same as writing was to me. It made her happy and it was something she had talent at, and I'd like to say the same about my writing. So when I thought about the situation that way, it was impossible to turn Alice down. The only problem now was that I was broke. Being a freelance writer doesn't exactly pay the big bucks.
"Alice, I will go with you and all but I don't have the money to be spending on clothes. I can't even afford this trip, I'm sure." She looked at me as if I was the dumbest creature to walk the earth.
"Bella, do you really think I'd let you pay for any of this when it was all my idea in the first place? Daddy will pay for everything. It will be his pleasure, especially when I tell him why we're going. He'll be more than happy to do this for you. He never much cared for Jake anyways." I couldn't help but frown at her statement.
"Sorry, Bells. Hearing his name will get easier, I promise." At that, I smiled and sniffled because the tears had started welling up again.
"Thank you so much, Al. I don't know what I did to deserve a best friend like you. I'll try my best to put down the talons and enjoy the trip. If we're really doing this, we might as well go all out. Let's go shopping." I cringed at the last word.
__________
The rest of the day was a blur. The only thing Alice had told me thus far about the plans were that we were to be at the airport by 6 P.M.
The first thing we did after breakfast was pick up the tickets for the flight to wherever the hell it was she was taking us.
Our next stop was to the mall. As you can imagine, we did quite a bit of shopping. We purchased clothes everywhere from Macy's to Urban Outfitters to Victoria's Secret. And let me tell you, Vicki's secret is out. She sells the most amazing push up bras in the entire world! I can officially vouch for that.
Afterward, we went for a late lunch at a local Thai restaurant following much fussing on Alice's account. She insisted on eating American food because she claimed it would be the last time I saw it for the week, but I said that I was the one that was most recently broken hearted and therefore won the argument.
Then we packed up all of our things, and while Alice wasn't looking I snuck the letter Jake had written me and put it on my carry on, just in case I decided to grow some balls and read it while we were … well I wasn't exactly sure where we were going. And then we were officially on our way to what Alice called 'bliss and living the good life'.
While we were waiting at our terminal, Alice requested that I call Jasper and tell him my plans for the week instead of just up and leaving. I figured that since she had been so kind to arrange the whole trip, the least I could do was call my brother and tell him what was going on.
I called a total of five times with each phone call going straight to voicemail. We assumed that his battery had probably died so I left him one voicemail, and Alice filled up another two of them.
Alice was chattering away to me about our new outfits when the woman at the front desk started boarding passengers. "Now boarding flight 112 to Anguilla," she said with a nasally voice. Hmmm, so we're going to some place called Anguilla. Sounded exotic enough. Maybe this wouldn't turn out so bad after all.
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A/N: Please let me know what you think. I would absolutely LOVE some feedback from you guys both good and bad! It'll keep me going. Let me know if you want another chapter or not. It would make me the happiest girl in the world. Especially when I come home from a dreadful night of work. Please and thanks, you guys.
Like I said before, I promise you'll see everyone soon and then the fun will begin! If you guys could just bear with me for a tad bit longer, I'm hoping you'll be pleased. It's my first fanfic so I'm a little nervous, I'm not gonna lie. lol But I'm working on the next chapter now. Hoping to get it out very soon if you guys want it, that is! Thanks for reading. It makes my day, it really does. =]