Disclaimer: please recall the fictitious nature of fiction.

Chapter Eight: When the Stars Aligned

"Bella!" Esme's voice is loud and pulls me from the computer screen before me.

I've moved up in the world - computer and all that jazz. In the past six months, I've joined a gym, gave up my American Spirit smokes, cut down on the French-press, and have added a glass of Merlot to my nightly routine. I stopped talking to Jake - actually within days of the stupid fucking blowup at my house, and changed my number to a California one - something permanent and real. I put down roots. Roots in concrete.

Why?

Because something ridiculously bizarre happened in the first days of my evolution.

One: my book was picked up by a publishing company with a history of successful authors and major contracts.

Two: In the process of extracting myself from my dependence on the McCartys, I realized my twenty-seven-year-old self had never really grown up. I hit a wall around the time I hit RJ's window with that vase, and ten years later, I found myself stuck in the mindset that the world was mine alone and my actions effected only me.

Three: Men are no more toys for me than I am for them. I know I hurt Edward, and I probably even hurt Jake - though I never got close enough to find out. Sex is rapturous, but my evolutionary list includes a promise to not partake again until I am either in love or falling hard. If I ever get that far again...or for the first time, because who knows if I ever truly loved before?

Four: -

"Bella!" Esme's excitement is loud and breaks through the soundproof walls in my mind. "I wanted to tell you tonight at dinner, but I can't contain myself." She and Carlisle are my steady Thursday night date. They probably feel bad that I haven't been dating or clubbing or whatever people think you're supposed to do in LA; they don't know I'm monking-out by choice because I'm a total fuck up. See? Self-depreciation in action. And I don't even say fuck as much as I used to.

"What's going on?" I take my Skull Candy headphones off and pause the Bach cello piece which had me in the zone.

Esme plops on my puffy, faux leather futon, as if the weight of her excitement is too heavy to carry another moment. Her eyes are twinkling in that mischievous way she has when something stupidly awesome is coming to fruition. "The publisher called twenty minutes ago." The final draft is due next week, printing scheduled three weeks later, and the release will be accompanied by a west coast book tour with a couple other authors. "An LA-based film company wants to option rights to your novel."

My eyebrows rise and scrunch together in a way Rosalie warns me will cause wrinkles so terrible even Botox won't be able to correct them. That's not currently on my list of things to care about.

"What do you mean?" I ask, bewildered and doubtful. "It's not even out yet."

"Well, someone got ahold of something from somewhere and the stars are aligning. Bella, this is the magic of LA. Aren't you excited?"

Excited? Not in so many words. Apprehensive, maybe. "There's a lot of me in that book, Esme. I don't know if I want to go as far as to have it looked at by a production company. That's really asking a lot."

"You've agreed to put it in print, so is the leap much further from paper to screen?"

She's right. Maybe the chasm isn't as wide as my mind wants me to believe, but that doesn't mean I'm ready to open my chest and take out my beating heart for just anyone with twelve bucks and a bucket of greasy popcorn.

"Look," she says, seeing the panic in my eyes, "don't make any decisions tonight or this week. Let's talk it over, have some wine, sleep on it, and reassess later on."

Reassess. Reassessing my life's choices has been on the to-do list for a while. It's hard to attack that one because it includes really delving in to some seriously fucked up shit: why did my mother abandon me; why do I let myself be used and use in return?

Head-case in action right here, folks. But maybe now is as good a time as ever to begin.