Hey all, I survived my teachers' efforts to work me to death! Hooray! I hope everyone's having a great summer (assuming it's summer wherever you are).
FYI, the movie referenced in the beginning of this chapter does actually exist, but I haven't seen it. If you have…you may want to seek psychiatric help.
Chapter 6: Keep Your Hands to Yourself
Bella and Edward arrived home just in time to see the credits roll on Elle's movie while she stared raptly at the screen, though she turned off the TV when she heard them come in. "Hey, guys."
"Was the movie any good?" Edward asked tentatively.
"Yeah, the strippers all turned into zombies and became more popular than they were as humans even though they ate their customers. The ending was the best part, though - there was lots of blood when the marines stormed the strip club to take out the zombies, and it turned out that the president was behind the zombie virus outbreak 'cause he wanted to give the people something else to think about besides how much his administration sucked." The hilarity of it all brought a smile to her face. Neither of her friends knew what was more disturbing, that such a movie had been made in the first place or that Elle had apparently enjoyed it. "So how was Nathan's fundraiser?"
"It was…a fiasco, to be honest," Edward told her.
"Couldn't have been that bad." Elle glanced at Bella, expecting confirmation that Edward was being overdramatic, but Bella just jerked her shoulders in an angry shrug. "It was that bad? Did zombies break in and eat everyone?" Elle asked hopefully. After seeing one on TV, she thought a zombie apocalypse looked like fun.
"No - try to contain your disappointment," Edward said dryly, and proceeded to relate what had happened. "I can't say I blame Peter," he concluded after describing the Petrelli brothers' altercation, "although in my day gentlemen did not conduct themselves that way in front of a lady."
"It wasn't very gentlemanly of Mr. Petrelli to tell everyone his brother's crazy either!" Bella snapped. "Maybe I shouldn't have yelled at them, though. I just wanted them to stop fighting, but then Peter left before I could talk to him; he probably thinks I believed Nathan and is furious with me."
"He was upset; once he's had time to cool down I'm sure he'll feel differently."
She smiled weakly. "Thanks, Edward. I'm going to bed - I've got class in six hours."
"Let's go to our room too," Elle suggested. She lowered her voice to a seductive purr and added, "I can show you what I learned from the strip club scenes in between zombie attacks."
Edward happily took her up on her offer, and what followed kept them occupied throughout the night and into the next morning, when they were interrupted by the telephone ringing. Edward made to answer it, but it was out of reach, and he couldn't get any closer with Elle wrapped around him, stubbornly refusing to let go.
Her fingers tangled in his hair and forced his head down, bringing his ear to her mouth. "Let Bella get it." Then she put her lips to more creative use.
He was sorely tempted to let her distract him, but the phone was still ringing. "Bella left two hours ago."
Elle's mouth suddenly left his ear as she went limp, glaring up at the ceiling. "Damn." She pushed Edward off her and scrambled over to the bedside table where the phone was still persistently ringing off its hook. "Who is this and what do you want?"
"Elle, right?"
"Oh, Peter, it's you." Why couldn't the caller have been someone whose head she was allowed to bite off?
"I'm sorry to bother you…" he began.
"You should be. I was having mind-blowing sex until you butted in."
Edward groaned into one of the many pillows strewn over their bed, wishing Elle had kept that to herself. Thank heavens it wasn't his parents - or Emmett - who'd called. Peter, not knowing how to react to that unexpected and unwanted piece of information, said nothing.
"Bella isn't here," Elle continued. "She's in class now, but you should be able to catch her around lunchtime."
"Thanks."
"Anything else?" she asked in an effort to be nice and hasten the conversation to its conclusion.
"No… Have a nice day."
"Okay. Goodbye." Elle returned the phone to its cradle, crawled to where Edward lay on his stomach, watching her, and pounced on him. "Now, where were we?"
###
Peter caught up with Bella as she left campus for lunch and, approaching her from behind, made the mistake of announcing his presence with a light touch to her shoulder. "Hey-" She reacted as if he'd jabbed her with a cattle prod, wrenching herself away and kicking her assailant in the shin before her brain registered that it was only Peter. "Ow! What was that for?"
"What is wrong with you?" she asked angrily. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"
"I didn't…" He noticed then that her pupils were dilated and she was breathing hard, both common signs of the 'fight or flight' response. "…But I'm sorry I startled you."
Bella drew in a slightly shaky breath and calmed herself. "Just…say something next time you want to get my attention, okay? Don't touch me."
"You're not big on touching, huh?" Peter had noticed that Bella avoided physical contact whenever possible, and when it was unavoidable, she endured it with a pained expression that she kept very well hidden.
Her eyes ran over him in a long, scrutinizing look. "No, I'm not, but I have my reasons."
She didn't seem inclined to say anything more on the subject, and Peter, deciding that pushing her would be ill-advised, fought down his curiosity. "Okay… I'm here because I need you to know that what Nathan said last night wasn't true. Like I already told you, I did jump off a roof, but I swear I wasn't trying to kill myself."
"I know," Bella said calmly, and Peter relaxed. Until that moment, he hadn't fully appreciated just how worried he'd been that she might have believed Nathan - his version of events did seem more plausible, after all. She just hoped Peter wouldn't ask how she knew, because she doubted the news that Edward had confirmed Nathan was a liar and Peter wasn't suicidal by reading both their minds would go over well.
A man on a bicycle sped past, almost crashing into them, so Bella led the way off the crowded sidewalk to a more secluded area behind the building she'd left a short while ago. "I'm sorry he said those things about you," she said awkwardly. "It must've hurt - even more since it came from your brother. And…I want you to know I had no idea he'd planned that, or I'd have tried to talk him out of it. I went off on him right before you showed up and punched him."
Peter's lips twitched. "You did? I hope you aren't in trouble because of me."
Bella shrugged. "He hasn't said anything about firing me; I doubt he will after Edward showed up with me last night and let him know I'm friends with one of his biggest contributors. Not that it's even putting a dent in the Cullens' wallet," she added with a slight roll of her eyes. Financing a dozen political campaigns wouldn't put a dent in the Cullen family's vast wealth.
"What are you doing with that guy?" Peter asked before he could think better of it.
"He's Elle's boyfriend, but she didn't want to go to the fundraiser, so she sort of loaned him to me. Wait…you didn't think he and I were together, did you?" Bella chuckled. "Me and Edward Cullen? He's nice and everything, but he's just too…perfect. If we ever dated, I think he would make me feel completely inadequate. Good thing Elle isn't as insecure - he doesn't have that effect on her."
Their relationship had begun while Elle was still human, and as far as Bella knew she'd never entertained feelings of not being good enough for him, even though she'd probably been somewhat less impressive prior to her conversion, or so Bella assumed. She had only met Human Elle once and had been in awe of her, at least as much as she was capable of feeling awe while traumatized almost to the point of catatonia. She definitely recalled Elle's cocky, self-assured attitude, though, and that had remained unchanged. The one time she had tried quizzing Edward about Elle's former self hadn't really told her much about her friend; he simply described her as the most enchanting, fascinating person he'd ever known, both before and after she became a vampire, so at least Bella had learned that Edward hadn't loved Elle any less as an unremarkable human than he did now.
She secretly wished for somebody to love her like that someday, but first she had to get to the point of being able to handle that sort of relationship. Based on her panicky overreaction to Peter's unexpected arrival, her chances of doing that didn't look great.
"What's the story with you and Elle anyway?" Peter went on, unaware of the pensive mood Bella had just slipped into. Maybe he was judging her unfairly, having never met the girl in person, but he couldn't see that she and Bella had much in common.
"Elle and I met…" Bella paused. There was a lie on the tip of her tongue, but she suddenly realized she didn't want to lie to Peter. He'd trusted her with things it couldn't have been easy to open up about, so she should trust him too. She wasn't ready to spill the whole truth yet, but she could tell him part of it. "…In a hospital, actually. I had just moved to Washington to live with my dad; before that I'd lived with my mom in Arizona and only saw Charlie when we vacationed together in California every summer. I hadn't set foot in my dad's hometown for years, so I didn't know my way around Forks or the surrounding area at all. I was wandering around Port Angeles, looking for a real bookstore, and I got lost."
She stopped to take a deep breath in preparation for what she had to say next. Peter didn't know where she was going with her story but listened intently, content to let her get there in her own time.
"I ended up in the industrial part of town, and since it was getting dark everyone had gone home. I thought I was alone…until I saw four men hanging around outside a warehouse. One of them tried to get my attention, called me 'sugar'; it made me uncomfortable, so I walked away…but two of them followed. They chased me down a couple blocks, and then the other two popped up in front of me, and I realized they'd herded me into a trap, but by then it was too late for me to do anything. Their leader grabbed me and put his hand under my shirt…then he shoved me against a wall and… I won't make you listen to the rest of what they did."
Bella didn't think she could continue anyway; her voice was cracking badly, and she could feel the familiar burn behind her eyes signaling that she was about to dissolve into hysterical sobs. As she struggled to collect herself, she saw that Peter's fists were clenched, his nails digging into his palms; it had to hurt, yet he didn't seem to feel it. She tentatively laid one of her hands over his. "Hey, relax. I didn't mean to upset you."
"How did you think I'd react?" Peter bit out. "You said 'what they did' - as in all four of them?"
Bella nodded. "I guess so, or maybe it was just a couple of them over and over - I had my eyes closed for most of it. Mostly I just remember sensations - their hands on me, a corrugated metal wall scraping my back before they threw me down on the pavement, the pain and the blood everywhere…mostly running down my legs, and in my face after I tried to fight back and they hit me… They hit me a lot. There was so much blood coming out of my nose that it ran into my mouth, and I thought I might drown in it... When they were finished I was too beat-up to move even if I'd wanted to, but I didn't. I really just wanted to stay there and die, but somebody came along and called an ambulance." These details spilled out of her in a rush, her tongue nearly tripping over the words as she struggled to stay emotionally detached long enough to finish her account without breaking down. She wondered why she was sharing so much; she had never discussed that night at such length, but since Peter had asked about it she seemed unable to stop herself. Part of her actually wanted him to know about the events that had made her the person she was today, wanted him to understand and empathize with her, to give her something of the human connection she'd been missing for so long.
When she paused to catch her breath, he watched her expectantly, waiting for the rest of the story, so after a moment she went on. At least the next part was a little less painful. "I blacked out then…and next thing I knew I was in the place where I met Elle. She was, uh, working there, and even though she couldn't do anything for me medically, she probably saved my sanity. I had pretty much slipped into catatonia, and if she hadn't been there I might still be in a room with padded walls… She wouldn't let me retreat into myself; she just kept pushing until I talked to her, and she helped me get through all the examinations when I couldn't take the male doctors getting close to me. I finally convinced them I was okay to be let out, but I still don't like to be touched - especially not unexpectedly, and especially not by the opposite sex."
"I bet - God, if I'd known I never would've come up behind you and-" He let his head fall back against the shade tree they were sitting under. "I'm such an ass."
"You're not. Peter, look at me." Bella waited until his eyes were open again and fixed on her before saying, "We're friends, aren't we?"
"If that's what you want."
"I do, which makes you the first guy I've spent time with of my own volition since that night - unless you count Charlie and Edward, but Charlie's my father, and Edward…is a package deal along with Elle. I can count the times I've been alone with him on one hand, and he always keeps his distance, which is how I like it - usually, anyway. But here I am, sort of alone with you-" She waved her hand, indicating that while they could still hear the numerous people milling around NYU's main campus, there was no one in their immediate vicinity "-and I'm okay with that. I feel almost…safe."
"You are safe with me," Peter said quickly. "I would never-"
"What, rape me? No, I don't think you would, which scares me because I never used to think anyone would, but those men did. Since then I've been so careful never to put myself in a situation like that again, but you…make me feel like maybe I can let my guard down a little. I trust you, and I'm terrified of trusting you."
"Bella, I swear I'll never do anything to hurt you." It had to be said even though he knew his promise likely didn't mean much to her yet; nothing short of time would make her comfortable with him.
She turned away to hide her reaction. He obviously cared for her, and that both touched her deeply and made her feel horribly guilty for not telling him the whole story. How would he feel about her if he knew she wasn't really an innocent victim, that she was in fact a dangerous killer - and her victims weren't just the men who had hurt her, but also a kid whose only crime was being a little too friendly? I have to tell him…even if he hates me for it. Ignoring the wave of sadness brought on by the depressing prospect of Peter hating her, she forced herself to speak up. "Peter, you should know I-"
His hand twitched beneath hers, reminding her that she'd never let go of him - something neither had paid any mind to until nervousness tightened her grip to the point where it was impossible to ignore. He glanced inquisitively down at their joined hands, then up at her face, and she gave a slightly defensive shrug. "I'm not completely averse to physical contact as long as I'm the one to initiate it."
"So you can touch me, but I shouldn't touch you?"
"In a nutshell, yes. I'm sorry to be so-"
"Hey, you never have to apologize for anything after what you've been through. If this is what you need, I can handle it."
Bella ducked her head and stared at her hands, which were now tucked safely in her lap. "Thank you. You're too kind." She thought again that she needed to tell him what she really was, explain why she didn't deserve his kindness, but her courage had deserted her. The moment for telling the ugly truth had come and gone, and when he changed the subject, she happily let him.
Next chapter: Future Hiro tells Peter to save the cheerleader - though I probably won't write that scene itself since it goes pretty much as it did in canon, so if you wanna see it you can pull out your DVDs - and I may also let him find out what Bella can do.