A/N: This chapter deals with Bella's experience on an antidepressant. This mimics my own experience, but I don't pretend that everyone who goes on an SSRI will feel this way. So bear with her for a while longer :-).

When I returned home from school, Charlie was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a prescription pill bottle. "Have you been taking your medication?"

I stopped in the doorway, most likely doing the eyes-wandering, slow pained-breathing thing I did when I lied. "Yeah, why?"

"This bottle hasn't been touched," he gave the child's safety lock the extra yank a new bottle needed to prove his point.

"I don't really believe in that stuff, Dad," I said tersely, "I heard that there's really mixed research about SSRIs and I don't feel safe taking it."

I figured Alice, my source for this concern, might have exaggerated the dangers of antidepressants out of concern for me, but I trusted her when she said that Carlisle wasn't totally behind their use either.

"Really?" his expression was dubious. "And where did you hear this?" If I told him the truth, it would open an unnecessary can of worms. I tried to take the bottle away from him, but he would not loosen his grip. "I want you to take it now," he said. "I don't want to baby you, but I don't trust you to take them on your own."

My mind was desperately searching for the reasons Alice had outlined to me why you should be careful with SSRIs. "But if you're really depressed then these things can make you more suicidal and from what I've heard a lot of people get really zombied out on them. I don't want to do this."

"That's what your therapist is for," Charlie said sternly.

"Therapists don't monitor medication," I wondered if he could seriously be unaware of that.

"We'll get you a psychiatrist. But I don't want you getting worse because you were too stubborn take your medication," I had never heard Charlie take charge like this before, but it seemed like my jump off the cliff had sharply changed him.

Feeling scared after the lecture Alice had given me, I twisted the bottle cap off and put a pill in my mouth, swallowing it dry. It was a bad idea, and the hateful thing got trapped in my throat. When I ran to the sink and sent it flying down the drain, Charlie was at my side with another pill and a glass of water. Grudgingly, I took both and sulked up the stairs to my computer.

For the first time in months, Alice's screen name, psychicpixie was online. It was nice to see, another indication that she was really back.

bellaswan17 - Charlie made me take the pill.

psychicpixie is typing

psychicpixie - Made you? What happened?

bellaswan17 - I get home, and he's sitting there with the bottle and he made me take it in front of him. I tried to tell him what you said but it was pointless.

psychicpixie - I don't trust those things. Mental health treatment may have changed since my day, but it's still not even close to perfect. I don't want you to get hurt.

bellaswan17 - I know. I'm sorry,

psychicpixie - It's not your fault. I can't believe Charlie is being so dense.

psychicpixie - I'm sorry, I shouldn't call your dad dense.

bellaswan17 - Maybe you should.

For the next few weeks, I would feel happy for a few moments at a time. During these moments, I'd be ready to run from Charlie's house to Alice's apartment, not caring about tripping or running out of breath or looking like an idiot, and throw myself at her. But the moment I had my sweater on, I'd start to wonder why Alice would want me in the first place. Even if she did want me, I didn't want her. I didn't want anybody. I wanted Edward. It was strange, objectively, how the sadder I felt, the more I loved him. The longer and more I took Lexapro, the less clear my mind was. I just got more and more confused, less and less interested in people, until I finally cut everyone out altogether. It only took about three weeks for me to completely re-isolate myself.

I finally agreed to see Jacob on a random Friday afternoon, when I was still avoiding Alice. He waited at the door for me, a combination of puppy like affection and moderate disgust. Alice's scent was probably still fresh in this place.

"So the bloodsucker's back?" he asked, as we walked outside.

I nodded. "Alice and Jasper are back."

His scowl indicated he wasn't satisfied, "Only Alice and Jasper?"

"Yes," I said, my tone giving nothing away.

"And you're okay with that?" Jacob asked. "If your bloodsucker isn't coming back for you, then what business do they have coming here?"

I shrugged. "Edward's not coming back. Ever. Alice liked Forks and decided she wanted to finish high school here. Happy?"

Proudly, he said, "yes. Yes. VERY," but when my expression didn't change, he said, "you're still never going to give up on him, are you?"

"Maybe," I said coolly. I knew he was leading me to La Push, which in his mind was the safest place on Earth. I wondered.

"Maybe?" he cocked his head to one side. "So if I offered again, I might have a chance?"

"You can try," I said nonchalontly.

He smiled faintly. "Okay then. Bella. We've been friends since we were kids, and you're the only girl I want to be with. There are plenty of gorgeous girls in my life, plenty who might even want me, but none of them are like you. You're the one that I want to be with. Will you please give me a chance?"

"No."

His face fell and I almost enjoyed it. Almost. "Is this some kind of game? Bella, I don't get it."

"Jake..." I breathed. "Jake, I'm sorry. I'm...God...I don't even care. I don't care who flirts with me, I don't care if you change right here and rip my throat out. I just don't fucking care."

I fell to a sitting position, and he followed, insisting on looking at my face. I didn't want him to look at me, and I certainly didn't want to look at him. Eye contact would break me now. "Did those doctors put you on something?" Jacob asked. "I remember when Leah started birth control, she was..."

"So that's what you assume," at this point I was purely antagonizing him, "that I'm just hormonal. On something. Well for the record I am on something. Lexapro."

He shook his head. "What is it doing to you?"

"It's supposed to be regulating my depression. But I feel barely alive, Jake. I haven't even let Alice near me since..."

"Since what?" his curiosity was piqued.

"Since I called her sobbing about how I wasn't good enough for her brother, she came over for comfort, and I couldn't let her even hug me. It just felt awful, my skin crawled at contact. I freaked out and told her to leave, and that was it. I haven't had a chance to apologize and I haven't even wanted to," I wondered if it was worthwhile telling Jacob about this, but wasn't sure if I cared.

"Well good," he chuckled in amusement, "I would've freaked too if that bloodsucker touched me."

I groaned. "Jake...I happen to like that bloodsucker. But right now, everyone makes me sick."

He reached out to touch my shoulder. "Everyone?"

I jerked away, feeling very not-amused. "What is your problem?"

"What is yours?" he asked. "You're finally rid of that bloodsucker and you're chasing after new ones."

My heart flinched at the word "chasing." I definitely had not been chasing Alice, but even if I had been, it was hardly as if she'd mind. In truth, I wasn't nearly that cocky about it, but my mental defensiveness was getting the better of me.

"Who said I was chasing after Alice?" I asked. "Alice is a girl."

"Hell if that matters," Jacob said, "not like she wouldn't still drink your blood if given half a chance."

I seethed. "Trust me, she has had more than half a chance more than once and never has. Hate Edward if you want, but leave Alice alone. And if you can't leave Alice alone, at least recognize that I'm on medications that are really fucking with me and I don't want to deal with this right now."

"Can't you talk to your doctor or something? Isn't someone supposed to be watching, making sure the stuff is working?" his voice was softer than before, less angry.

I shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I see Dr. Whoever the Hell on Thursday, but until then I'm pretty much stuck."

"Don't be stuck, Bella," Jacob pleaded, "you've done enough of that. I think you're depressed because everybody else is always trying to control your life, and now these anti-depressants are just more of the same shit."

I knew Jacob meant well. He always did, but right now I highly doubted he knew what I was going through.

"Okay then," I said, "I'll just go off them cold turkey and see what happens."

"Bella don't be stupid," was his response.

I finally pushed myself up, clumps of dirt sticking to my red knuckles. A second went by, and my heart started pounding uncontrollably. Pounding because, at a moment's notice, it knew it needed to do something the rest of me wasn't ready for. "Jake," I breathed, "I need to be honest with you about something."

"Anytime," he made a clean, graceful leap to his feet from the ground.

"Right, well," I started to walk a bit faster than he was, so I wouldn't have to look him directly in the eye. "I'm not sure if Edward is really the right person for me. But even if he isn't, Jacob, I'm sorry but...I just don't see...I don't see...I..." His eyes demonstrated that he was hanging on my every word. I swallowed hard. "I don't see you as more than a friend. I'm really sorry."

His hands on his waist, Jacob bit his lower lip and looked almost as vulnerable as his now nonexistent sixteen-year-old self I used to call my Jacob. I knew he wanted to cry, but also didn't want me to see. "There's someone else, isn't there?"

I couldn't deny it. "I don't exactly know yet. But there might be."

"Who is it?" his hands balled into fists. "That Mike asshole we went to the movies with? Bella, come on! Whoever this guy is..."

"It's not a guy, Jacob," I wondered if that was telling him too much, but at the same time I wondered if my potential lesbianism would soften the blow a bit.

Jacob's eyebrows raised in shock. "Not a guy? You mean...a girl? You don't know any girls! I thought you hated all the girls at your school."

"I do," I said. "It's..." I worried that if I came out and said it was Alice, that the entire pack would be ready to destroy her. Then again, if they couldn't attack Edward while he dated me, they certainly couldn't attack Alice, could they?

"Okay," I sighed, "it's Alice."

Jacob shout a muffled, "FUCK," into his hands. "Of all the people, of all the people you could go to after Edward..."

"It doesn't make sense to me either," I said, "you know how Edward can read minds, well, expect mine, right?"

He nodded. "I don't see what that has to do with this, but go on."

"Well Alice can see people's futures. And she says she sees us together, and I can't say I entirely hate the idea," I said, "of course right now the idea of anybody getting close to me just creeps me out. But before these damned pills, I didn't hate the idea."

"So you're telling me you're gay then?" Jacob asked. "You don't want me because you're gay?"

I wasn't entirely sure if that was true, and my previous love for Edward was leaning me more towards bisexual I thought, but I knew that knowing no man had a chance would make this a lot easier on my friend. "I think so," I said.

"Okay, but for all the jokes people used to make about Edward having a man-gina," he groaned, "Edward was a man. Still is I think. What's up with that?"

Somehow, I hadn't thought this far ahead in the conversation. "I don't know," I admitted, "I've thought about it a lot since she brought it up and well...there's a part of me that likes the idea of being with Alice. Being with anybody else just felt like lying to myself, betraying myself even, but Alice actually feels like moving on."

"I guess if you have to be with a blood sucker," he shuddered, "she's not the worst you could do. Still, I'm not going to stop worrying about you. And if that bloodsucker gets even the tiniest bit out of line, I will destroy her."

He turned and started to leave. "Where are you going?" I started to run alongside him, but his power stride kept getting faster.

"We'll talk again, sometime. I just need to be able to be heartbroken for a while," he said.

Watching him leave was one of the worst feelings in the world, because I realized I had just done to him a portion of what Edward did to me.

----

Late Sunday evening, I was lying dead in my bed, sporadic intervals of sobs and shivers overtaking my body, when I heard rustling in the tree outside my room. My ever hopeful mind thought of Edward, but instead saw Alice, knocking lightly on my window. Edward never knocked, I thought, he did whatever he wanted.

I opened it for her, and she came in, looking a bit embarrassed. "I wouldn't have done it this way, but you're not answering your phone!" she looked angry. "I've been really worried, please don't do that to me again."

"What's the big deal?" I crawled back into bed, under a blanket. "Couldn't you just see in your visions that I was alright?"

She shook her head. "You must have been with that werewolf boy," she said, "I can't see a thing when werewolves get involved."

Now I truly was sorry. "I haven't had my meds," tears were falling from my eyes, "I didn't take them. I couldn't. I felt too awful. I want to die, Alice. I want to fucking die."

"Can I come over there?" she asked.

I nodded and she crawled into bed beside me, her cold arms around my hot flesh. She looked so beautiful, her spiky hair straightened and smoothed around her face, her lips full and pouty with a mauve lipstick, and her breasts partially revealed with a respectable low-cut blouse. I didn't deserve her. With all the sobbing I was doing, I probably looked even uglier next to her.

"Did you stop taking your meds without a doctor?" Alice sighed. "Don't let her put you on Celexa. She'll try when you see her on Thursday, but trust me. You're experiencing some nasty withdrawal, I've seen this happen to Carlisle's patients. If you don't want to take the pills, and they're not doing anything for you, don't let anyone force you."

"Why does everyone think I can't even make my own decisions? I wasn't even going to take these things, but Charlie made me. I just felt so lifeless, and I knew I felt horrible but I couldn't even reach it. Before you, the only person who didn't try to have complete control over everything in my life was Jacob. And I just told him he doesn't have a chance in hell with me."

"When did this happen?" Alice asked.

"Friday," I said. "I told Jacob about you."

She sighed. "This won't end well. You didn't mention that I might turn you someday, did you?"

"No," I said.

"Good. Carlisle warned me that their treaty forbids us to turn people anywhere. So if I want to turn you, we're going to have to go through La Push first."

Not even wanting to think about La Push, I asked, "how does Carlisle feel about you going after Edward's sloppy seconds?"

"Don't refer to yourself that way," Alice said, "he understands."

"Then Edward knows," I breathed, "and he doesn't care."

"I doubt it," she said, "nobody thinks about it around him. Carlisle is pretty good at that.'

"So why doesn't Carlisle have a problem with us?" I asked.

She smiled. "So there is an us? Maybe?"

"Maybe," I repeated.

It was enough to make her squeeze me tighter, looking rather pleased. "He's known for a long time that both of us cared about you. He told us that the decision was ultimately yours though, and that we both had to respect what you chose."

"So Edward knew you had feelings for me?" I asked.

"I doubt he knew the full extent of it, but yes I think so. Edward's a little weird when it comes to homosexuality though, I really don't think he knew how serious I was," she sighed, "he's a bit old-fashioned."

"But you were interested and Edward knew it. I could have just been with you in the first place, but I got with Edward and let myself become a mess. This is terrific," I said.

"I think both of us have done enough regretting about that," Alice's fingers started to move through my hair, "it's not worth it anymore. We have eternity and we're trying now. That counts for something, doesn't it?"

I couldn't disappoint her. "Of course," I said, before falling back into her for another round of sobs.

A/N: I wish I had Alice to help me with my Lexapro withdrawal a couple months ago.