Alright! Chapter Two is here! Read, enjoy, and do tell me what you think!
Once they managed to get everything packed up, they were out of that place as fast as they could, mostly because of Bella's constant urging to get out of this place as fast as they could manage, away from where Edward might find them. Or rather, her. Some day in the near future, she was sure that that man was going to find her, but at this particular moment, she was just glad that they were working on getting out of this place and back home. She certainly had some stuff she wanted to get out of her system, and that meant she was most definitely going to have something she would be able to paint.
Her friends were oddly quiet as they drove back home, though she could tell Alice was dying to say something, probably something that she shouldn't say and Rose was the only reason the girl wasn't starting to yammer on and on about something or another. "Okay. What is it? I know I didn't leave much room for discussion when I got back to the hotel room but … now you can talk," Bella said, waiting to see what it was that Alice was dying to say.
"What if he's your true love?" the girl spat out, turning to look at Bella.
"What?" Bella asked, completely thrown off by her friends sudden thought.
"What if he's your true love? What if this guy you met was just so perfect for you that in your drunken state getting married was completely and totally obviously perfect to do! I mean, except for the fact that I wasn't a part of it," Alice said simply, like it made complete and total sense.
"I highly doubt it," Bella said as she shook her head a little bit, "I was drunk. He was hot. And now for some reason he's got the same notion as you, Alice," she said, shaking her head at the girl.
"No, but seriously, I think he could be your true love. You aren't that crazy, Bella. To go and marry someone when you were drunk. You wouldn't do that unless they were outstanding in some way," Alice said.
"I was just really, really trashed. That's it. He's not my true love. Nothing like that," Bella insisted.
"Whatever you want to tell yourself, Bella. Whatever makes you feel better," she said as she smiled and shook her head at the girl a little bit.
All Bella could do in this situation was roll her eyes at her friend and pretend nothing was going on. That none of this was happening. She would happily live in denial that she had ever traveled to Vegas, but she had too many things she had to deal with because of the nice little trip she had taken with her friends to forget all about it. Most definitely, the second she walked through her front door, she was going to call her father and tell him about what happened. She would be certain to make it clear that it was Rose and Alice's fault she was ever left to go off on her own and now he needed to aid her a bit in getting everything set up so she could annul the pesky marriage.
That way, she could focus on painting while her emotions were strong. If nothing else, her friends had succeeded in giving her some inspiration for a spree of paintings that she was hoping would be well worth her pain of dealing with this pesky man that seemed to want to stay married to her for some very strange reason that she wasn't quite sure she wanted to even being to completely understand.
Hours passed by quickly as her mind raced through everything she had to take care of in the next few days, and the different ideas for her new painting series. She didn't have a name for it yet, she hadn't gotten that far in her thinking, but she wanted it to be a series of paintings depicting the downfall of a woman and then her rise, just like she was planning on doing. The downfall being getting drunk and then married, the rise kicking the man out of her life and living as an independent and strong person.
Of course, it would take quite some time to work through all the paintings and she wasn't sure if things would change by the end, but she was certain that this journey would make for some spectacular work. She always did her best when emotions were running high …
As soon as she could see her little apartment, she let out a sigh of relief and eagerly sat up straighter, ready to bold. "Now, you two understand that I am still angry at you and will be for quite some time?" Bella said, looking at her two friends as she saw Rose roll her eyes and Alice do the same.
"Sure, sure, whatever, Bella. You know you love us. And if that hubby of yours shows up sometime soon, please, call us and let us know. I would love to get to know your true love," Alice said, beaming at her friend as the other girl got out of the car.
Standing outside of the vehicle with her small suitcase in hand, Bella rolled her eyeballs. "Sure, sure, whatever Alice. I'll call you if he shows up so you can judge whether or not he is truly my soul mate or just some crazy nut job that I need to extract from my life as quickly as possible," Bella said simply before taking a deep breath and heading into her house, hoping that in the next few days this mess would be taken care of and she would never have to think of Edward again.
Trudging into her small loft apartment, she set her things down and moved to her bed, flopping out on the soft mattress and letting her eyes close as she lay there. She needed to call her father soon. She needed to let him know about everything that happened, but couldn't that wait a couple of hours? So she could actually recover from the rather strange and exciting weekend she had? And after she woke, she was certain she would want to paint … so maybe she would call him between the painting and the sleeping. Yeah. That sounded like a good plan.
Unfortuantely, that wasn't what the universe seemed to have planned for her since about thirty seconds after those thoughts had drifted across her drowsy mind she had heard a knocking at her door, a powerful fist banging on the softer wood. It sounded so loud to her sleepy ears that she thought maybe a giant was trying to break down her door to get to her for some insane reason. Though that wasn't too much more insane than her getting married while in Vegas.
When the knocking didn't go away right away, like she had hoped it would, and instead continued, slowly escalating to the point where the door bell rang, she rose from her comfortable position on her bed and trudged to the door, opening it to see her "husband" standing directly in front of her. Registering that it was him, she closed the door as fast as she could – but obviously not fast enough since his hand had caught it.
Being much strong than her, it seemed that Edward had no troubles keeping the door propped open as they starred at each other, Bella's eyes narrowing at the man. "I thought I told you not to follow me or something," she said to him, "Just call me and we'd work out the annulment," she said finished.
"You see, I just had one or two problems with that particular situation – I wanted to see you again. I wanted to get to know you better. There is something about you Bella, that just draws me in and I can't walk away, so you're stuck with me. What is yours is mine as of now, so why don't you let me into our house?" he said, "After all, I drove a long way to see you."
Glaring at the man, but being too tired to seriously resist him, Bella stepped aside, allowing him into the house though she yawned. "Sleep on the couch if you want. Don't touch anything but the TV, and keep the volume down. I'm exhausted. We'll talk when I wake up, okay?" Bella said, not in the mood to be discussing anything related to any sort of marriage, wanted or otherwise.
Quickly, she found herself in a land of blissful slumber, unwilling to stir from the lovely confines of a dreamless place, her mind wandered to thoughts of Edward, and what few pieces of information she could manage to remember about the time they had spent together in Vegas. Quite vaguely she could remember quite a bit of laughter, a deep male voice rumbling in her ear as her head was pressed against, presumably his chest.
This dream-memory whispered her name into her ear, calling her exquisite before she felt lips against her own, and she couldn't help but respond, everything about her giving into this new sensation, just wanting to feel more, experience more, be closer than she had been. There was no shame in wanting that. And Edward had certainly responded to her, his larger body pressing against hers, keeping her in a warm embrace – one that made her feel safe and comfortable. More so than she had ever recalled feeling in her life time.
She dreamed of sweet words dancing across her ears, mutterings of love and awe, uttered by both herself and Edward. Everything was a blur, though. Just a massive blur of naked bodies tangled up among the silk sheets of the hotel room they had gone back to. Edward's hotel room. And she remembered as they had lain together, limbs wrapped securely around one another in an attempt to stay as close as possible as they had fallen asleep together in that particular bed they had shared.
Of course, after this blur of a dream had wafted through her mind, Bella began to wake for real, having realized that there was something just slightly out of place with her home, that there was something just a little bit off. Something was different. There was someone else in her apartment and for the moment, for the life of her she absolutely could not remember who it was that she had opened up her door to and allowed in.
Then she remembered. She had invited the very man in that had been the root of this dream and the root of her new found troubles. And now that she was waking, she would actually have to face him. So, slowly, Bella woke, dreading what Edward was going to say to her, terrified to find out what he might try and do now to convince her not to push along this annulment of their marriage.
The next chapter should be up within a weeks time! So you know, reviews DO help motivate me to write, and if there's anything you would like to see happen, suggest it in a review or PM me and there is a good possibility it might get included in the story sometime in the future! I have some ideas, but it never hurts to have a nice little pool of them. ALSO! If I use your idea, I WILL give you a shout out as a form of thanks. :)
