We bring ourselves down

And build ourselves up in disappointment

How fragile we are

So fragile we are, we just don't show it

We'll shake up this town

And shoot down the stars for our enjoyment

-Gym Class Heroes

BPOV

What a difference a month can make. If you would have told me a month ago that I would be spending roughly four nights a week in the outpatient wing of the hospital in Forks, waiting for Charlie to finish his chemo, I would have laughed in your face and asked you what you were smoking. No, this was not a joke though. Things had gotten tough.

Living in a small town means everyone knows your business. Your dad being the Chief in said town, makes it even worse. Everyone kept asking me when they saw me,

"How's your dad?" or, "How is your mom holding up?" Another popular one, "How are you doing?" The only thing worse than the constant questions, were the looks of pity.

I know it sounded bad, but I just didn't want to think about it. I lived with it twenty-four, seven. When I went to school I just wanted to be Bella , not the poor girl with the sick dad. Charlie, poor Charlie, it was killing me watching him go through this.

Dr. Burke kept saying that everything looked good and he was right on track. If he didn't insist that it was supposed to be this bad I would have never have thought this was "on track." Charlie was sicker than I had ever seen him. Since the treatment, he was on was such an aggressive approach, that the effects of the chemo, or poison - my name for it - had already affected him so much. Not everyone gets side affects, but poor Charlie seemed to be getting a taste of them all.

He was nauseous, tired, and he was starting to loose his hair. He was just completely miserable. Not everyone would know it though. He kept his sense of humor. When the guys from the station would come by, he would still joke around with them and give them a hard time. He still gave me trouble about Emmett and was still there for Alice when she would run to us when Dale was being an ass. Most of all he tried so hard to keep his suffering from me and Mom. We saw right through it though.

Poor Mom was exhausted, working full time now and trying to be with Dad as much as she could. Even though he insisted he was fine, and slept most of the time, we still didn't want to leave him alone for too long. Mom was also trying to make sure that I hadn't been giving up too many things. Insisting I go to the movies, hang out with Alice and Emmett. She would go as far as calling them behind my back and having them kidnap me and take me to do something fun. It was one of those days. We were leaving school and Alice had just passed the turn to my house.

"Alice, you just missed the turn," I told her, knowing she already knew.

"I know, we're going out to have a fun day. Em had to run home, but he's gonna meet us at my house," she said.

"Alice, I'm sorry but I just really want to get home. Charlie goes to treatment in an hour, and I wanted to eat and stuff before we go to the doctor."

"Nope, sorry," was all she said.

"What do you mean, 'no, sorry'?" I asked, a little harsher than I had meant to.

She let out a big sigh and tilted her head so she could see me while still watching the road.

"I promised Renee I wouldn't let you within three miles of that place. It's Friday and we're gonna have a fun night."

Well, shit. Hearing that, I felt my eyes get wet. I had been doing this lately - crying for no reason whatsoever; I hoped it was just stress.

"Bella, hun, stop. We're gonna have fun. You act like I'm kicking your puppy, I'm just trying to take you out for some fun" Alice pulled in her driveway and gave me a big hug.

"I know, I'm really sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"If you really don't wanna go out, we can just hang out here"

"No, it's fine. We should go, we haven't done anything in forever. I wanna go. Thanks Alice." I tried to sound convincing.

"Anytime." She winked and got out of the car.

We walked into Alice's condo; they lived on the opposite side of town from me. Her dad owned this condo, but it felt more like a bachelor pad. It was very plain with minimal decorations. Natural colors, and very cold looking. The biggest decoration in the whole place was the big screen TV hanging on the wall. We went to grab a snack from the kitchen but could not find anything. When Dale was home, they ordered take out. When he wasn't, Alice usually ate with us. We gave up on our food hunt and headed upstairs to Alice's room. When we got to the top of the stairs we heard a noise coming from a room down the hall.

"Dad, is that you?" Alice shouted down the hall.

No answer.

We walked down to peek our heads in the room that was his office. There was Dale, sitting at his huge desk with a phone glued to his ear. Everything in his office was top of the line. It had built-in shelves filled with books. All the wood in the room was a dark cherry. Dale was a big shot lawyer who worked mostly in Seattle and sometimes further south, in Olympia. We were surprised to see him home. He was making a shushing motion telling us to be quiet.

"I know that. No, you stop... I don't care. My client had every right to be there."

Whoever he was talking to, it wasn't a pleasant conversation.

"You're not listening to me, my client was scheduled to be there and had every right to be. You know what? That's fine we will see you in court on Monday." He hung up, slamming his phone on his desk.

He let out a big sigh and slouched back into his chair. "What did you need, Alice?" he asked, while rubbing both his eyes with one hand.

"Oh nothing, Dad. Sorry to bug you, we just heard you in here, and I was surprised. I didn't think you were going to be home today."

"Well, I'm here, but I am leaving in about an hour." He said glancing down at his watch. "I have to be at court early on Monday morning in Seattle, and my client just got himself put in jail. Hi Bella, how's your dad?" he asked while opening his laptop and starting to read something.

"He's okay, Mr. Brandon, thank you."

Alice jumped in excitedly, "So were gonna go see this awesome new movie tonight with-"

"Alice," he cut her off. "I'm sorry, but I need to get ready to leave, is this something that can wait?"

I looked at Alice, and she looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Oh yeah, of course... sorry." She quickly walked away, leaving me standing in the doorway alone.

"Er... um, have a safe trip, Mr. Brandon." After my awkward send off, I made my way to Alice's room.

Alice's room was a stark difference from the rest of the house. It was decorated in soft pink, with lighter pink swirls all over the walls. She had a huge bed with a million pillows all over it. One of those beds you want to just jump into, even if you're not tired. She had a closet the size of a small room, and a wardrobe that most high school girls would die for. I scanned the room and saw Alice sitting on her pink and green polka dot chair, in the corner by the window, with tears on her face.

"Oh, Alice, I'm sorry. He's just in a hurry. I don't think he meant to brush you off."

She looked at me like I was nuts and rolled her eyes. "Bella, for reals that's all he ever does." She shrugged her shoulders and continued, "I dunno, I just see your dad and realize it could happen to anyone. I want to know my dad, and if something happened to him right now, I wouldn't even know the person that he was."

The sad part was that it was true. I knew Dale just about as well as Alice did.

I knew that nothing else I said would make her feel better, so I just gave her a hug and reminded her how much my family and Em loved her.

She wiped her eyes and looked at me. "God, I am such a bitch, Bella. I'm so sorry - I'm complaining about my dad when yours is -"

"Stop!" I said cutting her off, this was not the conversation I wanted to have.

"Its fine. You have all the reason in the world to be upset." And then I made the ultimate sacrifice to make my friend happy "So are you gonna make me over for our night out or what?"

"Oh my god!" she shrieked. "What time it is? Em should be here any minute; we have to get started." Just like that, her mind was on fashion, and I just sacrificed myself to be Alice's project for the night. I didn't mind dressing up and wearing a little makeup but Alice took it to a whole other level. She sat me down and got started.

Alice was ready. She was wearing a light green cardigan with sequins with a long cream top underneath that she had paired with leggings and suede boots. Alice would look adorable in anything she wore.

My makeup was finished, I was fully dressed, and we were just finishing my hair when there was a knock downstairs.

"That's Em, don't move." She then ran out the door.

When she left, I looked into the mirror. She did do a good job, as always. I was wearing dark skinny jeans with a dark grey off-the-shoulder sweater and black knee-high boots, I really liked the boots. She had made up my eyes kinda dark and smoky, but overall very natural looking. We didn't do much with my hair - it was already kinda curly, so she just pulled it back halfway.

I could hear them talking, before they walked into the room.

"I know, Alice, but it doesn't start for an hour, we don't-" Emmett stopped mid sentence when he walked into the room. He just stood there and stared at me.

"Um, hi Em," I said trying to figure what was wrong with him.

"Bella you look… great."

He was still staring. This was new, and it made me uncomfortable.

"Um thanks." I said lamely.

"Bella, sit, so I can finish real fast." I was thankful for Alice's interruption, because Em was being just… weird.

"So, Em, do you wanna take your car tonight?"

Emmett walked over and sat on the bed while Alice finished my hair. "Yeah, that's fine," he said, still acting kind of weird.

After we were both ready, we all sat on the bed and just hung out till we needed to leave. Right when we were getting ready to go, Em's phone rang. He pulled it out and looked at it.

"It's Edward," he said rolling his eyes.

Just the sound of his name put butterflies in my stomach. It had been about three weeks since his big show in the school parking lot. I couldn't get him out of my head. I felt so stupid, too, because I hadn't even talked to him. I could just tell that he was hurting and couldn't stop thinking about him.

When I tried to ask Emmett about him a couple weeks ago he just said, "Edward's a jerk, forget about him." Effectively closing the subject.

"What do you mean they're coming home?" Emmett's conversation pulled me from my thoughts; he was pacing in front of the bed. "I know, but they said tomorrow. Shit!"

Alice and I just looked at each other, confused. This had happened with Em a couple of other times. We would be going somewhere and he would just say that he had to get home, but never elaborate.

"Okay. Thanks, Edward. Okay... bye." He closed his phone and just looked down at the ground.

"What's going on Em?" Alice asked.

"My parents weren't supposed to be home until tomorrow; Edward was just giving me a heads up that they will be home within an hour."

"And?" we both asked at the same time.

"Um, well they've been in a bad mood lately, and it's probably better that I'm not out when they get home."

"Why would they care?" Alice asked perplexed.

"They just do, alright," He snapped "Look, I'm sorry, but I... I gotta go. You guys have fun tonight."

"Okay. Bye, Em." We didn't know what else to say.

"Well that was weird," Alice said after he left.

"Yeah I know. He's done that before. It seems like if his parents are pissed about something, things get kinda bad at home, but other times he comes out and it's fine."

Even though we were all close, and Emmett knew everything there was to know about Alice and me - well except that I was hooked on his brother that he hates, and that I have never spoken to - he stayed very private about his home life. We knew his mom worked in management at the hospital. His dad worked out of town a lot, as a consultant. He would go to other companies and help them run more efficiently.

Even though I didn't know much about his parents, I did know Emmett could do more stuff when they weren't around and he was happier.

"Well that was nice of Edward to call him," I said to Alice. She shot me a look that said that she could see right through me.

She rolled her eyes. "I guess. Wait…" Alice looked at me again, and I knew I was busted. "You like him don't you?"

"What? No, I don't even know him," I said, acting shocked. Maybe sounding a little defensive.

"I know, but ever since we saw him you've brought him up like three times," she pointed out.

Okay... so subtleness wasn't my strong point. I just shrugged. "Well, should we get going?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah, let's go," she said jumping off the bed.

We ended up having an awesome girl's night; we rocked out to music in Alice's car to and from the theater. We stuffed our faces with popcorn and candy and watched the girliest movie possible. I was really glad we went out in the end. After the movie we stopped by the store to load up on more junk food. We went back to Alice's and got into our pajamas, ate way too much ice cream and gossiped the night away. By the time we made it to bed we were both exhausted. I don't know if it was from a sugar high or what, but I dreamt of Edward all night.