A/N: Oh hi. Anyways, in this chapter you'll see what is haunting Bella and the severity of it. Fortunately, her knight in shining armor is here! :)

Scarlett

I didn't even bother looking at Edward for even a second. After taking my two hour power nap, I kept my pillow tucked under my arms. I could still somehow hear her voice talking to me.

Bells, come on! I heard her loud and clear. You can't always stay this way!

Shut up, I mentally whispered.

You're no fun, I could hear her reply, but she wasn't really replying to what I said. I guess that's what you just are— a boring person.

I finally took a glance at Edward, who fell asleep beside me. "I'm not." I whispered out loud.

I'm going to show you how to have fun, little sister! She laughed.

"I know you can handle the truth, but can you handle this?" Rosalie poured a shot of tequila for me and shook some salt on the back of my thumb. She challenged me through her gleaming blue eyes and I, being young and naïve, took up the challenge. I took the piece of lime that she held and sucked on it a couple of times before licking some salt off my hand and quickly downed the shot. Cooling yet burning alcohol dripped down my throat and the aftertaste of the salt, lime and tequila left me salivating a little. Rosalie smirked, refilling my shot glass. "Again?"

I quickly called for the flight attendant. "Yes, ma'am?" She asked.

"Can I have... any liquor? Anything that can probably make me forget certain things." I requested. "Oh wait, do you just so happen to have a Bacardi here?" I lowered my voice a little. She nodded. I gave her a bright smile. "Perfect. Bring me a bottle of that along with lemon wedges, but lime's preferable. Sugar too. Thanks."

She quickly went off while I tried to ignore all memories of Rosalie from getting to me. I nibbled on my sleeve nervously as her words started attacking me one by one.

"Shit, Bells," Rosalie slurred as she crawled on the grass, feeling for her other shoe. "I can't find it." I sighed, looking over the grass patch and saw the missing shoe. I walked over to it and threw it in front of her face. She looked up and smiled drunkenly, "I owe you, don't I?"

"You don't owe me anything, Rose." I told her, holding my hand out for her to grab. She gratefully accepted my hand and stood up. "What you owe me is an extra fifteen minutes of showering. I smell so much of beer from your dumb party. It's a miracle this place is still clean."

She giggled. "You are so silly, Bells. I will teach you how to have fun!"

"I was already having fun reading in my room, genius." I retorted.

She ignored my words and linked arms with me as she skipped back into the house. "Far away, in the palace, there lived two princesses!" She sang off key. "Bells & Rosalie, forever looking out for each other because we are two peas in a pod!"

The flight attendant came back with a tray of my requests and placed them on the table in front of me. I smiled politely up at her. "Thank you."

When she left, I proceeded to take a deep breath and squeeze the juice out of the lime into the glass and scattered in a teaspoon of sugar in it too. I poured the Bacardi 151 into the glass and swirled it around. The strong scent assaulted my senses and I gulped before drinking it in one go. The burn made me cringe and I felt tears threatening to burst. Other than the burn, the taste was like vodka— sour and tasted like crap, but twice worse. I allowed the lime juice to make it a little more enjoyable to drink.

I filled my glass up again and added more lime than my first drink. I drunk it all down in one go again and this time, the burn seemed to have died a little. My senses were numbing it down a bit.

"Beautiful, Bells!" Rosalie exclaimed, clapping exaggeratedly as I took my first shot of the night. The shot didn't even taste like tequila— it tasted a whole lot worse than that. I dropped the glass on the bar table and coughed, tears flowing out from the corners of my eyes.

"Shit, Rosalie!" I spluttered. "What the hell was that? Rum?"

She grinned. "Ditto."

"You didn't say it was rum!" I coughed. "All you said was that it was a—"

"Bacardi 151. I remember it very well." She interrupted. "Bacardi is rum, except that this one has more alcohol than the other drinks you've been drinking."

"Yeah, great." I muttered. "And you give me the one that tastes like shit."

"Hey, this drink is not for anyone and you have pulled this off!" She reprimanded. "For a first-timer, you did well!"

Squeeze. Scatter. Pour. Swirl. Drink. Repeat. Squeeze. Scatter. Pour. Swirl. Drink. Repeat. I knew that I was already hammered. I didn't care. I continued the vicious cycle of self-destruction until a strong hand grabbed my left hand. My head snapped to the left and I glared. "What do you want?" I slurred a little.

"Are you even legal yet?" He asked.

I gave him a seductive smile. "Well, I'm twenty-one. Do you want a glass, or me?"

"You're drunk." He said, then stared at the rum bottle on the table. "Bacardi 151? Are you trying to go straight into your deathbed?" His eyes widened in disbelief.

"Oh, no..." I replied, tracing circles with my pointer finger on his pale arm. "There's already my sister in there..."

He waved his hand up and I frowned. "What are you doing?"

The flight attendant came over. "Please remove these and get some Xanax. Do not give her any liquor if she asks for it." Edward told her and she nodded furiously. She picked up the bottle of rum and I was about to stop her until he grabbed my arm again.

"What are you doing?!" I tried to yank my arm from his right grip. "Let me go!"

"I think I've had enough of people getting drunk for now," he told me.

"Who do you think you are?!" I hissed. "You're not my father or my brother! You're not the boss of me!"

"I'm just trying to help you." Edward replied.

"No you're not!" The alcohol kicked in fully and I was really slurring through my words now. "You're just like all of them; pretending to know what's best for me. I'm a grownup now. Don't pretend that you care for me because nobody loves me!"

"You don't know what you're saying," he whispered. "Of course someone loves you. Your family, friends—"

"Forgotten already?" I laughed. "I have no friends!"

"Well, then I'm your friend now. Calm down and just relax."

He ran his fingers through the tangles of my brown hair and I smiled. "Oh, that feels good." I moaned.

"Just calm down." He repeated. I closed my eyes in sheer unadulterated pleasure and heard a clink in front of me. I opened my eyes again and found a glass of water and a Xanax next to each other. "Take it before you fall asleep again." Edward said. "Gets rid of the nasty hangover."

"As if I don't know that." I snorted. I threw the Xanax into my mouth and drank the water served. It washed down all the bitter, sour taste from the rum but it didn't wash away the bitter memories of her.

My eyelids fluttered as I awoke from my sleep. Edward had his head in his hand as he stared at his laptop, looking extremely stressed about something he read as he browsed through his emails. The light highlighted his jawline and eyes. I studied the way he reacted— his eyebrows crunched together as he swallowed, his Adam's apple moving up and down. His grayish-green eyes flashed from the corner of the screen showing the time and the emails. His jacket was off.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked.

He finally looked at me, his cold eyes softening. He then ran his hand through his hair, glancing at the time again. "Probably close to five hours." He replied.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

He chuckled softly, turning off the laptop. "I could've slept, but I had to keep an eye on you. You don't really make this kind of trouble normally, do you?"

"I said I was sorry." I said defensively.

"Yeah, yeah. Sure." he sighed, and I could still see him shaking his head through the darkness. "Four more hours until we land in France." He then paused. "You said something about your sister in the grave..."

I shook my head, snuggling deeper into the article of clothing that was keeping me warm. "I'm not saying anything about that. How old are you?"

"Twenty-four." He replied instantly. "What's your name?"

"Why do you need to know?" I said. "Anyways, thanks, I guess."

He leaned into his chair. "For what?"

"For watching out for me. I could've done worse things. I could have even... caused the plane to crash or something."

He laughed and I stared at his shadow. "What?" I said.

"You always think of the negative, don't you?" He asked.

I grumbled. "I hate you so much."

He faced me, and I could see the outlines of his smile. "Hey, I'm sorry, okay?" He whispered.

I stayed silent for a while, then nodded, accepting his apology. "You don't sound like you're from San Fran."

"Chicago." He confirmed my observation. "I was just there for a pit stop, and here I am now for vacation."

"It doesn't look like vacation to me." I commented. "You were checking your emails. And by the look you had on your face, it was work-related."

"Shit," he cursed, which made me surprised. He was so well-dressed and seemed to be properly groomed. "Was it really obvious? Sorry then. I have a really big job at my family business after this whole trip."

"Really?" I sat up a little. "What is it?"

"I've been working at my dad's company for four years now. I graduated from Princeton when I was twenty. My first job was to manage the sales department. I had to grow up in probably a week's time by cleaning up my act and dressing smartly." He said. "Now that Dad's retiring, he's putting me in charge of everything."

"That's hard." I said.

"Enough about me." Edward suddenly said and faced me. "What are you here for? Vacation?"

"Well, something like that," I replied. "I'm going all over Europe for these two months of summer. I'm also kind of staying over my grandparents' when I'm in Russia. My father's half Russian, so... yeah. And that means I'll be back home by mid-July. I haven't really sorted out on where I'm going next. It all just depends on the mood."

"Where do you study?" He asked.

"New York University." I replied.

"And what are you majoring in?" He prompted.

I nibbled on the end of my sleeve. "Okay, don't laugh at me and my parents think it's quite ridiculous but," I hesitated, "I'm majoring in Romance Languages."

I was waiting for an Are you kidding me? or a God, you're so lame to come out of his mouth, but all I heard was fits of laughter coming from him. I groaned and closed my eyes in embarrassment. Immediately, I flipped over to the other side. "Oh, come on!" He said. "Okay, fine. You said that I couldn't laugh at what you were about to say and I did. I'm sorry."

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Whatever. Go to sleep. You've been awake for five hours straight."

It didn't take him five minutes to doze off. Almost instantly, I heard a soft snore break out from him. I laughed silently. Boys will be boys.

I didn't even realize I fell asleep until the flight attendant nudged me awake and I stretched myself from my seat. I looked to my left and saw that Edward was still asleep. I nudged him. "Hey, we're here." I whispered.

It took him a few seconds to respond. He yawned and wiped his eyes. "We're here?" He yawned again.

"Yeah. Come on." I looked at the trail of passengers getting off the airplane. I grabbed my bags and got off the plane. When I was about to head out of the departure gate, I felt someone place their hand on my shoulder. I quickly turned behind and smiled. "Hey."

He grinned back at me. "So this is goodbye, then?"

"I think so." I replied. "Thanks for everything."

"Yeah. Thank you too." He pursed his lips. "Do I finally get to know your name?"

"No, sorry."

He sighed. "Well, I guess it doesn't really matter now, does it?"

"Bye," I told him. He said his goodbyes and I walked away first, just like I always did. I still had a sense of feeling that he was still somewhere around me even when I got out of the terminal and took a deep breath of the crisp, cold morning French air, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

I shrugged to myself and felt something slip off my back. I looked down and found that it was his jacket. My mind went back to when I saw him without his jacket a few hours ago and realized that he used it to keep me warm. I picked it up and as I stood on my toes, I tried to find Edward, but he was already gone.