Bella lied under the covers and stared at the wall to her left. Her hair was still damp from the ocean water, but she was surprised when Alice had not protested that she dry it. Of course they had heard, with their vampire super-senses and all. And Edward would find out everything from their minds.
Emmett had finally let her pass. He had stormed into the house a minute after her. And then he went hunting with Jasper and their mates. Esme was downstairs, perhaps reading a cookbook.
Bella couldn't understand why Emmett was all worked up over it. Why should he care? He had his own beautiful wife to think about, why did he bother to get involved in her relationship?
Their meeting still haunted her, and she longed for sleep to wash it away. Emmett had asked her what she was without Edward. But she was nothing without him, she knew that from those long, lonely months. She had withered away.
Now, his love is what kept her going. She lived for him.
Was that so bad?
And now that she thought about it, how hungry was Emmett when they had been outside? It could have been dangerous. She knew he wouldn't hurt her on purpose, but when a vampire was angry and hungry, anything could happen. He shouldn't have gotten so close to her if he was hungry.
She vaguely remembered that Edward hadn't called like he said he would. Or maybe he had while she'd been out, and Esme took it. She was glad he hadn't raced right back just because she didn't answer it. She didn't think she could talk to him properly at the moment, what with her mind so consumed elsewhere.
Bella squeezed her eyes shut when she heard footsteps outside her door. It creaked open, and she pretended to be asleep.
"Do you want to talk, Bella?" Esme asked kindly. "I know you're awake."
"No," Bella whispered.
"We're all worried about you."
"I'm fine."
"You don't feel fine." Esme said.
Bella groaned. Jasper!
"Maybe you'd feel better if you got it off your chest."
"Didn't you hear?" Bella asked glumly, "I already did."
"Not everything. May I come in?"
Bella did not reply, and so Esme entered. She sat on the bed beside Bella.
"Emmett said I shouldn't be with Edward." Bella said, summing it up. "He had no right to say anything about my relationship, let alone insult it."
"He's just concerned, although he might have shown it in a better way…" Esme said.
"There's no reason anyone should be concerned. I'm happy. Isn't that enough?" Bella asked.
"You know boys. They can never leave well-enough alone. And if they don't understand something, they have to pick it apart until they do." Esme sighed.
"I love Edward. There's nothing else to it. It's not some complicated puzzle or equation that needs solving."
"Why do you love him?" Esme said. But Bella was silent for a couple minutes, trying to think of what to say. Why did she love him? She bit her lip in contemplation.
Bella turned around, but Esme was gone, and she was left to think of the reason why she loved Edward. It shouldn't have been hard, but somewhere along the way it had become that, without her even realizing it.
And it left Bella feeling even worse. Why was everyone suddenly against her?
Bella woke up sometime around four-thirty. She got up and trudged down the stairs, not caring that her hair was probably a nest since she hadn't brushed it last night after coming in from the beach.
Emmett was sitting on the couch, staring at the TV, but everyone else seemed to be gone.
She turned into the kitchen, not interested in striking up a conversation with the stubborn vampire.
"They're outside in the water." Emmett told her, his eyes still on the TV.
"Why aren't you with them?" Bella asked as she got out some cereal and a bowl.
"Didn't feel like it." He turned off the TV and came over to the kitchen as Bella poured some milk. She inwardly groaned.
Emmett unexpectedly laughed. Bella looked up at him in surprise. His eyebrows rose as he looked at her. "Alice would die if she saw that thing on top of your head."
Bella touched her hair. "I'm sure she would." She dug out a spoon and started eating.
While bringing the spoon to her lips for the third bite, Emmett suddenly appeared right beside her and guided her hand to his mouth instead. He chewed and swallowed, licking his lips.
"Yummy," he said, grinning.
Bella rolled her eyes. "Yeah right."
"No, really," Emmett said, "That's some good stuff you got there."
"Ha ha," Bella said dryly, staring flatly at him. She brought another spoonful up to her mouth, but again it was rerouted.
Emmett made a show of rubbing his stomach after he swallowed. "Mmmm."
Bella sighed. "Emmett, are you trying to prove something here? Because if you are, it'd be great if you could tell me what it is."
"No point," Emmett defended. "Just enjoying myself some cereal."
"Then get your own bowl," Bella told him before walking toward the table and sitting down at it.
"But you took the last of it." Emmett complained as he followed her.
Bella groaned and felt like hitting her head against the table. "Fine, have mine then." She said, pushing her bowl toward him.
"What if I don't want it now?"
She stood up. "Then what do you want?" She asked, wondering why he was intent on bugging her like this.
The next thing she knew, she was wrapped in Emmett's arms and he was kissing her. It wasn't gentle or careful like Edward's. It was strong and urgent and passionate, his arms squeezing her almost uncomfortably. Her lips felt like they were bruising, but she liked it. She liked actually feeling something, being with someone who wasn't afraid to touch her.
Bella wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing his lips even closer. She didn't really think about it, think about whom it was she was kissing. It just felt so good that she didn't want to stop.
He shoved her onto the table, toppling the cereal over, its contents spilling out onto the floor. He stood in between her legs, his hands tangling in the mess of her hair. Bella pulled at his shirt, wanting it off of him, needing to feel his glorious torso.
Her lips broke apart from his so she could gasp in air. She opened her heavy eyes. And then she realized what had happened.
It was Emmett standing there, looking at her lustfully. Emmett, with his hands still in her hair, his hips spreading her legs apart. She looked at her hands fisted on his shirt. It had ripped a little at her pulling.
It took a minute for her brain to comprehend what had happened, for her mind to wake back up again.
She had just made out with her boyfriend's brother.
And it had felt so good. Great, even. Fantastic. Divine.
Bella groaned and leaned her forehead on Emmett's shoulder. His hands disentangled themselves out of her hair somehow and wrapped around her waist, bringing her flush against him, her legs spreading even farther.
"This didn't happen," Bella whispered to him, still trying to regain her breath. But her heart was beating a hundred times a second. It would beat right out of her chest. It would jumpstart Emmett's heart.
"It did." He told her softly.
"No, it couldn't have. It didn't."
"Bella," Emmett said.
She groaned in frustration and anger. She leaned her head away from him. "How could you do this?" Bella growled at him, tears springing to her eyes. "How could you kiss me? How could I kiss you back?" A sob wracked her body. "I'm such a slut!"
"You are not a slut." Emmett said, getting angry too.
"Yes I am!" Bella cried. "I just made out with you, and I have a boyfriend. You have a wife! I'm a home-wrecker!"
"Stop it!"
"I can't!" she said. "Everything's ruined now!"
Emmett's large cold hands settled on her cheeks, moving her face up so she would look at him directly. "No it's not," he told her, his voice so optimistic.
"Edward will find out. He'll hear your mind and he'll find out. Rosalie and the others probably already heard everything." Bella said, tears leaking from her eyes. They bumped off of Emmett's fingers.
"The others are a long way down the beach. They didn't hear anything. And I'll keep my mind busy, I'll think about other things. We all learned how to block Edward out fairly early." Emmett reassured her, his thumbs stroking the tears away.
"That's not the point!" Bella shouted, watching as he winced at her volume. "The point is that I cheated on my loving boyfriend. I've ruined our relationship. I'll have to tell him, and he'll hate me."
"Would you stop blaming yourself for everything all the time?" Emmett shouted back. "Stop putting him on a pedestal and worshipping him! He's not perfect!"
"I don't worship him!" Bella's voice grew quieter, "I just love him."
Emmett distanced himself from her, taking a few steps back. His gaze was stony, his face dead serious. It made Bella's heart beat in a sickening way in her chest. "You're not equal to him." He said, echoing his words from yesterday evening in the water.
Bella shook her head. It hurt for him to say that—it would hurt for anyone to say that. But she knew it was true. It needed to be said by someone. "I know." She whispered. "I know I'm not. And now, after this, I don't deserve him."
"Haven't you listened to anything I've said lately?" Emmett asked, and Bella couldn't look at him any more. Everything was just becoming too much. "You're not his equal because you are better than him." Bella shook her head, tears coming down once more, but Emmett continued on. "You love him more than he could love you. It's because no matter what happens, he'll always be afraid of hurting you, of breaking you."
"He's being considerate and concerned." Bella murmured.
"He's being condescending and controlling!" Emmett argued. "You don't want to be treated like a porcelain doll, kept tucked away behind a glass wall, having to watch the world from a safe distance."
Bella bristled. How dare he tell her what she wanted! She would say something, too, if he wasn't completely right. How did he know all this? Was it obvious? Could everyone but Edward see right through her?
"You use 'love' as an explanation for all his actions, as a dismissal for all the things he does that you don't like. We've all seen it, how you have to push all your friends to the side for him. We know you have human friends, and what about Jacob? Don't you miss him? Isn't his friendship worth something to you?"
"Of course it is!" Bella defended. "Jacob's my best friend!"
"Then why do you always obey Edward when he tells you not to see him?" Emmett countered.
Bella paused, and Emmett took the opening, "It's because you're so scared that you'll lose Edward that you comply to his every word, and you let him treat you like he owns you. You don't make any decisions for yourself," Emmett said. Bella wiped at her tears with her hands. "You just let Edward rule the world."
"Please," Bella said, hating the way her voice cracked, "just stop."
She was surprised when Emmett did. When he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her, waiting for whatever was going to come.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispered. "Why are you saying all these things?"
"Because they're things you need to hear, whether you want to or not."
Bella licked her lips. "Why are you so intent on being the one to tell me then, all of a sudden? Why bother?"
Emmett didn't reply, and Bella decided she wanted to crawl back under her covers and go to sleep. It would be easier to escape this world, to never have to open her eyes again.
She slid off the table and adjusted her shirt before walking toward the stairs. Emmett wrapped his arm around the front of her shoulders and stopped her.
He studied her for a moment, as she stared straight ahead.
Emmett leaned in close and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Because I love you." He dropped his arm, and Bella robotically walked up the stairs, closed her door, and climbed into her bed.
She stared at the ceiling. How could he love her? Why would he when he had Rosalie? Oh no, Rosalie. Would she be devastated? She would hate Bella more than ever.
When did things become so complicated? Had Emmett always felt this way, and she was too blinded by Edward to notice anything else? Why did all these guys like her so much? Edward, Jacob, now Emmett… She didn't see any reason behind it. It just didn't make sense.
It was one thing for her to think bad thoughts about Edward, to quietly analyze their relationship. But last night was the first time she had ever voiced her frustration about his character. And now, hearing Emmett so intensely deter her from Edward was too much.
Sleep. She needed sleep. Everything would be better when she woke up. Emmett would realize that he'd made a mistake, and he'd either apologize or pretend it never happened. And she would either forget his words and his kiss, or pretend that they never happened as well.
For some reason, she felt like crying at the thought of it.
The world had turned upside down at the blink of an eye. And she couldn't even remember what right-side up felt like anymore.
Bella lied in bed for hours, trying to fall back asleep. But the release would not come to her, so she just stared at the wall.
After a while, her eyes got tired. But she just kept on staring. Thoughts had left her mind long ago, and it was all just blank.
She looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly nine. Groaning, she got out of bed and looked at the adjacent bathroom. She needed to do something about the ratted hair bunched up on her head. She pulled some clothes out of the wardrobe and set them on the bed, grabbing a bath towel as well.
Right before Bella was going to go in, she noticed a piece of paper on the floor near her closed door.
Curious, she picked it up. The handwriting was messy, but still legible.
It made her feel like hiding under her covers once more. It made her so confused; so conflicted. She knew whom it was from. And he was without a doubt going to be the death of her after all.
What we love isn't always best for us.
It was a pretty short kiss, but I hope you still enjoyed the chapter. :) Reviews are appreciated!
