One day of mourning didn't make much of a dent in my grief. It still felt as though the world should have ended the instant Edward turned his back on me. The sun shouldn't be shining. There shouldn't be stars in the sky. Didn't the world know it was over?
I suppose I should have been expecting Edward to leave me, and there was a part of me that had known it would happen. But, somehow, that didn't lessen the pain at all. Maybe it did make sense that Edward would tire of me, but it still hurt.
The next day, as my dad had suggested, I got dressed and I drove in to school.
I wasn't consciously looking for Edward's car, but when I noticed it wasn't there my heart ached a little bit more. He was really, truly gone then.
I blinked my stinging eyes, and wondered why I hadn't thought to put on sunglasses. They might have hidden my red eyes, and meant that people would only guess that I was crying, they wouldn't actually see it happening.
Then I got out of my truck, into the Forks drizzle and remembered. I hadn't worn sunglasses because there was never any sun in Forks and I didn't want to draw attention to myself, especially not today.
I trudged towards the school, my books felt heavy, my feet were leaden, my head ached. This was the last place I wanted to be, explaining to everyone that I'd been dumped.
There was a moment when I might have turned around and gone straight home, but then a car pulled into the lot behind me, and I had to scuttle towards the entrance to avoid getting splashed. The car stopped and Alice leapt out, followed by Rosalie, Emmett, and - easing himself from the driver's side - Jasper. All the Cullens but one emerged from the car and all were looking my way.
There were all still here. Edward had lied.
If I'd been just a bit closer to my truck, I would definitely have made a run for it right then. But, the Cullens were between me and my escape vehicle. There was no way I could get away without passing them. And there was no way I could get past Alice without being forced to talk to her.
Instead I pressed on and walked into school. Maybe, if I could just keep my head down, focus on the classes, avoid any emotional conversations, maybe I could survive this.
Morning classes weren't as bad as I expected. Angela was in my first class and she told me that everyone knew about the break up already. Apparently, when Edward and I hadn't been in yesterday, his siblings had explained to anyone who would listen that he'd switched schools and we weren't going to try the long-distance thing.
I was a bit surprised that the story had got around so fast. The Cullens usually kept pretty much to themselves. But it was a relief not to have to make up a story myself.
"How are you doing?" Angela asked.
I swallowed hard. Her kind tone hurt.
"OK," I lied, "I guess."
Angela gave me a sympathetic smile, "it'll get better," she said, "everything passes."
She didn't make me talk about him any more, though, for which I was grateful. She focussed on talking about our English essay, there was nothing emotional about that.
Lunchtime was always going to be hard. I was so used to sitting with Edward, it felt weird to be walking in to the dining hall without him.
Alice appeared at my elbow, guiding me to her table. At least if I sat with the Cullens I wouldn't have to make up some vampire-free explanation of what had happened.
"We got you some lunch," she said, cheerily, steering me away from the queue.
I almost asked how she'd chosen, but this was Alice, she probably stood in the queue, deciding to pick each item in turn until she got a vision that satisfied her.
I sat down and picked at some fries.
Jasper was sat on the other side of the table, with Alice between him and me. He looked miserable and pained. Poor Jasper. The incident at my party had really upset him. I wondered how Alice had convinced him to return, it was obvious that he didn't want to be here.
When I looked at him, wishing there was something that I could do to help, he glanced over in my direction, with a puzzled expression.
"You're not afraid," he said.
I shook my head, "of course not, I trust you."
Jasper laughed dryly, "well, that makes one person," he said. "You shouldn't trust me, Bella."
His eyes darkened and for a second I felt real fear, intense, sweaty fear, like when I had faced James. Jasper's eyes were dark and deadly and I felt what it must be like to face him, alone, undefended.
I tried to shake the feeling out of my head, "stop it," I said, though it came out more as a plea than a demand, "I know what you're doing."
Edward had told me that Jasper could manipulate emotions. I hadn't really understood how real it would be. It was true fear he had given me, not some simulation.
"Jasper," I heard Alice say his name, softly.
Then the fear went away as quickly as it had arrived and I felt irritated instead.
Jasper turned back to staring the table. I didn't feel quite as sorry for him this time.
Rosalie sat next to me and Emmett sat down on the other side of me.
Rosalie watched me eat for a while, then said, baldly, "I'm sorry that Edward's such an idiot."
"We all are," Alice agreed.
I smiled slightly, "shouldn't you all be taking his side? Shouldn't you be with him?"
"Nope," Rosalie answered, "we don't all skip town on a whim." She looked very strangely at Alice then, as if she was trying to ask her something.
"He'll be fine," Alice assured me, though she gave Rosalie a tiny head shake at the same time, so I don't think that Rosalie had been asking her about Edward. "He needs a bit of time to sort his head out. But, he'll be back, trust me."
It was like a ray of light in a dark cellar, "have you seen something?" I asked.
Alice chewed her top lip, her face tightened around her eyes, "not yet," she admitted, "he hasn't decided to come home yet. But, I know Edward. I don't need a vision to know he's going to regret this and come home."
"I know this must feel awful," Rosalie said, "maybe we can help by taking your mind off things. How about a shopping trip? There's nothing like new shoes to give your confidence a boost."
I was confused. Rosalie had never seemed to want to be my friend before. She's never been unkind, exactly, but I always got the impression that she'd disliked me. Something was going on, but I had no idea what.
It wasn't exactly a question that I could ask, though. I could hardly say 'hey, Rosalie, how come you're being pleasant and friendly today, I'd expected you to be weird and rude?' There might be a polite way if phrasing it, but that was going to take some serious thought.
So instead I found myself saying, "sure, that would be nice," calmly agreeing to go shoe shopping with my ex-boyfriends sister, who might or might not hate me.
"Fantastic!" Alice said. She started bouncing around, grabbing the last coke off a tray and passing it to me, then giving Jasper a quick kiss in her excitement. At some point, Jasper had started reading a book; he didn't look up when Alice kissed his cheek, but his expression changed slightly and he looked a little less blank. Alice went on, "we'll go on Saturday; it's going to be such fun! Rose, you're going to find . . ."
"Don't tell me now," Rosalie said, "that ruins the fun."
Alice sighed, "isn't anticipation half the fun?"
Rosalie shook her head, "not happening," she said, "not this time. I want my shopping trip entirely in one timeline."
"Really?" Alice asked, "you don't want any peeks at anything that will happen?"
Something about her tone seemed to change Rosalie's mind, "what did you see?" she asked eagerly.
"I'll bet she didn't see this!" Emmett said triumphantly, tossing a pudding cup at his sister.
But, before it hit her, Jasper, without even seeming to look up, lifted a tray off the table. The pudding cup hit the tray, spun back at Emmett, and exploded messily all over his shirt.
"Of course I saw that," Alice said with a giggle.
Jasper looked over at his brother now and his lips jumped into a half smile. "Why are you still trying that, after all these years?"
Emmett was wiping pudding off his shirt with paper towels, he shrugged, "one day, I will surprise Alice, and it will be worth all the practice runs."
"That would only make sense," Jasper replied, returning to his book, "if you were learning something from your failures. You don't appear to be doing so."
Emmett gave up trying to clean his shirt and pulled it off over his head, revealing the T-shirt he was wearing underneath and attracting a lot of appreciative glances from all over the room.
Alice barked, "don't, Emmett, if you throw away a shirt because it got a bit dirty you're going to make people wonder. Put it in your bag to take home."
Emmett rolled his eyes and grumbled that his bag would smell of food, but he did as Alice suggested.
"Now you trust me," Alice said.
Emmett laughed at her, "I always trust you. It's just that one day I am determined to surprise you. It must be possible."
"It is possible," Jasper agreed, "it's merely too complicated for you to achieve."
"Alright," Rosalie said, putting her hand over Emmett's, "no throwing things at Jasper. It must be time to head back to class now."
Alice nodded in agreement, and the Cullens started tidying up the table. I would have helped, but by the time I realised that they were clearing the table, everything was gone and Emmett was tossing the rubbish in the trash.
