WhatsMyNomdePlume is my super-awesome beta.

*0*0*

By the time Alice reaches me, I'm holed up in a suite at the W Hotel, perched on the edge of the bed, staring at the dark TV. She lets herself in quietly and drops her bag by the door. I don't look, but I can feel her approach me. Her hand comes down on my shoulder.

"What happened, Iss?"

I shake my head. "I don't even know where to start."

"Is this about Edward?"

"Yes. No. Not all of it."

"Alec called me looking for you. And your mother. Were you with him?"

I nod. She's silent, but there's absolutely no judgment.

"But now you're here, so…" I'm grateful that Alice asks just the right questions to drag it out of me, or else I'd probably never be able to say it on my own.

"A woman came in as I was leaving Edward's place. She had a key." My voice is quiet and flat. It gives no hint of the devastation of that moment, but Alice doesn't need that to know it. She sucks in a harsh breath.

I inhale deeply too, so I can continue. "She's his…" I raise my hands to gesture and then drop them helplessly back into my lap. "I'm not sure what the word is for it."

"Are you sure? What did he say?"

"He wasn't there. But she owns the building. He didn't deny that when I saw him later. She's friends with Mimi Weigert. I was there when they met."

Alice crosses around in front of me and reaches out for my shoulders. She gasps when she sees my face.

"Jesus, who hit you?"

I reach up and brush my fingers across my cheekbone. I'd forgotten about that. It doesn't hurt until I touch it, but when I do, it throbs a little. It doesn't feel all that bad, though. "My mother. That was part two."

Alice falls forward, onto her knees in front of me, clutching both of my hands in hers. "You better start at the beginning. Tell me everything."

So I do. I tell her all about Edward and his loft. I leave out the specifics, but she knows something amazing happened last night, only to be blown to bits by the horrible thing that happened this morning. It gets harder to talk once I get to the part at our apartment; the ugly confrontation on the street, and then the fight upstairs that went nuclear.

Alice is Alice, quiet and listening all the way through. She just holds my hands and listens to me talk. She moves off the floor to sit next to me on the bed, sliding one arm around my shoulders.

When I'm all finished, she just hugs me and rubs my arm. "What are you going to do?" she asks.

"I need to make a couple of phone calls. Then I'll know where I stand. But I can't do it today. Right now, I just want… I want to stop for a while."

Alice drops her hands down on her thighs. "Well, I can provide some oblivion, if that's what you need."

She gets up and retrieves her bag off the floor. She produces a little brown pill bottle and shakes out a couple of capsules. "I grabbed these from my mother's bathroom. Sometimes, you need a little oblivion in pill form."

When she holds them out to me, I hesitate for a minute. This is the kind of thing my mother does, washing away her life in a haze of questionable prescription drugs.

Alice tips her head to the side. "Iss, it's one night. Take them and go to bed. It will all look better in the morning. Well, it won't look as desperate, anyway."

I sigh and take the pills and wash them down with a bottle of water. Half an hour later they kick in and I collapse across the bed. This long nightmarish day finally ends.

When I wake up, it's mid-morning the next day. Alice has left a note on my pillow, telling me she's gone to run an errand, but that she'll be back soon. I crawl out of bed and drag my bag into the bathroom. I have to face the day and reality, and the first thing I need to do is shower off the horror of yesterday.

As I'm rooting around in my bag, I find my phone. There are dozens of alerts. The last two are from my mother, the two before that are from Alec. I don't scroll back any farther to see if any of them are from Edward. Instead, I pull the SIM card and drop it in the toilet before tossing the shell of the phone into the trash.

A scalding shower later, I'm wrapped in the hotel robe combing my fingers through my wet hair. I feel oddly detached, not nearly as decimated as I thought I'd feel, like I'm watching all of these events from a little distance. Maybe I'm still fuzzy from the drugs, or maybe I've just slipped into some alternate state of reality. Whatever it is, I'm grateful for the numbness. I can't be a crying, trembling girl. Not anymore.

I curl up in the armchair and pull the hotel phone into my lap, punching in the numbers from a business card in my wallet.

"Client Services, how may I help you?" The smooth, generic voice asks me.

"Jim Jenks, please."

"May I ask who's calling?"

"Isabella Dwyer," I say, working the power of my name one last time.

She pauses for a second, and then, "Please hold, Ms. Dwyer."

Moments later, Jim Jenks, my financial advisor, comes on the line. "Ms. Dwyer! I'm so sorry you couldn't make it in yesterday."

"Yeah, I apologize for that. Yesterday just…got away from me."

"It's not a problem," he says. Of course it isn't. Nothing we ever do is a problem, no matter how much it inconveniences him. "Shall we reschedule?"

"That won't be necessary. I just need some information."

He hesitates. "Of course," he says. "Whatever I can do for you."

"I need to know how much I have. Just me."

There's another confused pause. "The entire trust is at your disposal, Ms. Dwyer. The last age restriction was lifted when you graduated from college."

"No," I say, shaking my head, even though he can't see me, "Not the trust. Not Phil's money. Mine. The money I came here with. From my father. I know there was a little."

He clears his throat at my unexpected request. "Ah, I see. It's been some time, so I'll have to look into it. I believe there was a life insurance policy. Possibly a pension annuity. And of course, the house."

"House?"

"The house your… father owned. I'm skimming a brief summary of your assets and it appears to still be in your holdings."

This is news to me. Images flood my memory, of the little white house I grew up in. All this time, I left it behind with my fuzzy memories of Washington and my father and my childhood. It seems odd that it's still there, and almost unreal that I own it after all this time.

For the first time since yesterday, I feel something besides misery. Maybe it's just an illusion, but remembering that house makes me feel safe, and I know in an instant what I'm going to do. It's really the only thing I can do.

"I see," is all I say, but my mind is furiously making plans.

"I'll have to do a little number-crunching to give you a figure. Can I call you back in an hour?"

"I'll call you. I'll need you to transfer those funds to a new account, but I need to get a few things taken care of first."

I'm saying goodbye to Jim when I hear the door lock click. Alice sidles in with a navy plastic bag on one arm. She lifts it by way of hello.

"I know it's just the Gap, but it was right downstairs, so I popped in and got you a change of clothes. I figured you wouldn't want to go home."

I can't help but chuckle as I fall back in my chair. "No, no going back home. Thanks, sweetie."

"I'll call Connie at Saks and have her send over some real clothes for you."

I shake my head. "No Saks. The Gap is perfect. Really."

Alice gives me a look, but lets it go.

"So," she says slowly, "What do you want to do?"

I take a deep breath and sit up straight. "I need to go see Alec. I can't avoid that any more. And then there's some business I have to take care of."

"Business?"

"So I'm independent," I explain, stalling before I break it to her. It's so new in my head that it hardly seems real. "I'm going back to Washington."

Alice just blinks at me, like she's not sure she heard me right. "Washington D.C.?"

"Washington state. I grew up there."

"But who are you going to visit now? It's been years."

I take a deep breath before I speak again. "I'm not going to visit. I'm going to live."

Alice just stares. Then, "Why on earth are you doing that?"

"It's where I'm from, Alice."

She blinks some more. "Yeah, like ten years ago, maybe. Isabella, you live here."

"I lived with my mother and Phil. But that's done. I'm on my own now."

"But why do you have to go all the way back to Washington? You can stay with me! Your whole life is here!"

I smile and shake my head. "I know, Alice. And thank you. But that's the problem. This life is the problem. I need to get away from New York and the money and just… everything. So I'm going back to the beginning to see if I can figure things out. I don't know if I'll stay there. Fuck… I don't know anything at this point. But I have a house there so I'm going."

Alice looks at me for another long moment. "If you're sure…"

"I am."

"Okay, then," she sighs. "But Jesus, I'm going to miss you." She starts to cry, and that sets me off. The next thing I know, we're holding each other on the bed and I'm sobbing. It all gangs up on me at once. Edward, my mother, leaving Alice behind… The drugs have worn off and the shower has loosened all my clenched muscles and I can't hold it inside anymore. I let it all out and Alice cries, too. She pulls it together pretty quickly, but I keep crying like I'll never stop, until my eyes are swollen and burning and my throat is raw.

When we're both spent, I lie back on the bed next to her and rub the heels of my palms into my eyes.

"I could come with you," she says softly.

I'm touched to the bottom of my soul by her kindness. She really is the best person I've ever met. But I shake my head. "You have a life here, Alice. And you can't put it all on hold just to take care of me. I need to take care of myself this time."

"But I can come visit, right?"

"You have to do that," I say, reaching out for her hand. For once, I'm grateful for the money we're drowning in. It means Alice can fly out and see me whenever she wants to. It makes me feel slightly less terrified about what I'm doing. "I have to go talk to Alec," I finally say. "It's not fair of me to let this drag out."

"You want me to come?"

I smile and squeeze her fingers. "Thanks, but no. I made this mess and I have to clean it up. I'll be back soon."

*0*0*

When I exit the elevators into Alec's reception area, Irina's desk is empty. I wait for just a minute, in case she's on her way back to it, but when no one appears, I skirt around it and head down the hall to Alec's office.

I'm a little nervous about running into Phil here, since he works in the building. But his offices are on a different floor and I purposely came in the middle of the morning to reduce the risk of running into him heading out to a lunch meeting or something.

The door to Alec's office is partially ajar. He's at his desk, bent over his notepad writing something. Irina is leaning on the corner of his desk, a thick folder under her arm. Nothing about the scene is suspicious. Alec is working; Irina has brought him a file. But there's something about the slight smile on his face as he responds to her and her too-casual manner in his office that makes me feel like I've just caught them at something. Maybe not anything that's happened yet, but I've caught the potential for something.

Maybe I'm just justifying, but it makes me feel a little less bad about how I've behaved.

I don't knock; I just push the door open and walk in. Alec's head snaps up and his expression is some mix of relief and frustration. Irina stands bolt-upright and takes a tiny step back away from Alec's desk. If I wasn't quite certain about her intentions thirty seconds ago, her reaction to my unexpected appearance makes me sure.

"There was no one at reception," I say, pausing to let her squirm, "so I came on back."

"I was just… leaving this," Irina mutters, dropping her file on Alec's desk and walking around me to leave without looking away from the carpet. I watch her go and then I close the door behind her.

"Well, at least you're okay, although a phone call might have been nice," Alec says without preamble. "Everyone's been frantic, Isabella. Where the fuck have you been?"

"I'm sorry I didn't call. I needed some time."

Alec throws his pen down and pushes back from his desk, studying me. Then he stands and plants his hands on his hips. "Time," he repeats, his voice measured, laced with thinly-veiled irritation.

I nod and cross my arms in front of me.

"Have you called your parents? They're worried sick."

I can't hold back my disbelieving snort. "I doubt that and no, I'm not going to be calling them."

Alec reaches up and rubs his hand across his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut for just a second. "What's this all about, Isabella? What's going on with you?"

For just a second, I look at him… really look. It feels like the first time I've done it, openly, honestly. He's so handsome. In some ways, I know his face very well. I've seen him smiling, sleeping, shouting. I've seen him bored to death, and in the throes of passion.

So how is it that I know him so little? He feels a million miles away from me, on the other side of that crevasse that opened up in front of me yesterday. I'm ashamed of myself that when push comes to shove, it's so easy for me to let him land on that side. So easy to just let him go.

It should never be this easy to let go of someone.

I swallow hard and reach into my pocket, my fingers closing around the ring I tucked there. Crossing to his desk and stopping across from him, I reach out and lay it on top of the spreadsheet printouts he's left there.

Alec stares at it as I pull my hand back.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do this," I say, taking a step back.

He fists his hands in frustration, still staring at the ring. His teeth are clenched when he speaks again. "You can't? Look, I know we had a little fight or whatever after the benefit, but that's no reason to go and do something so melodramatic."

My own teeth clench as I struggle to remain calm. Just like my mother, ready to brush any unhappiness or show of emotion under the rug and ignore it.

"I'm not being melodramatic. I'm just not in love with you, Alec and I'm pretty sure you're not in love with me either. It wasn't right of me to say yes in the first place, and it's really impossible for me to marry you now."

"So that's it? You're done? Just like that?"

"Um, yes. I guess so. I'm leaving. And I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" he echoes in disbelief. I'm tired of listening to his scorn. He doesn't sound even a little upset, only angry. We were both so wrong to ever try this. Neither one of us was here for the right reason. I feel a chill across the back of my neck, momentarily imagining what life would have been like if I'd gone through with it and married him. So very wrong.

"Yes, I'm sorry. For everything. Good luck."

I turn and I'm almost to the door when he speaks again.

"Wait. You're just walking out? Where are you going?"

I turn back to look at him one last time because I fully intend for this to be the last time I ever see him. "I'm going home."

*0*0*

Alice and I sit at the airport Starbucks, our hands wrapped around our paper cups as we lean towards each other across the table.

"I'll come visit soon. I promise."

I nod. "I just need to get settled in and see what I'm facing and then we can plan it."

"We can redecorate your house! It'll be fun."

"Slow down! The house has been a rental for ten years. It probably needs a lot more than new window treatments and throw pillows."

She sighs and her forehead creases. Worried Alice is back. "Are you sure about this, Iss?"

She's asked me this a thousand times over the past three days. I swallow hard and nod. "I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm sure I'm doing the right thing. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, I guess it does. I'll just tell you again that I'm going to miss you."

I reach out for her hand, too warm from her coffee cup. "I'll miss you, too. You've got my new number, right?" I ask, tapping my new pre-paid phone I bought from some fly-by-night store downtown yesterday. She nods. She's the only person who has the number.

"Call me when you get there. And call a million more times after that. I want to hear about everything."

I nod and start gathering up my stuff. There's hardly anything. The small suitcase packed with the few new clothes I bought at the Gap has already been checked. There's only my shoulder bag, filled with some stuff I bought at the drugstore to get me by until I get where I'm going.

Alice and I hug and hang onto each other forever at the entrance to security. I feel like a little kid on the first day of kindergarten, about to head out into the unknown without my security blanket.

I kiss her cheek one more time and promise to call her when I land, and then I go through the security gate and into the unknown. Or maybe I'm going back to the only thing I truly know. I guess I'll find out.

*0*0*

The airport in Port Angeles is tiny. They only handle a handful of flights a day back and forth to Seattle and there's only one luggage carousel, so it doesn't take me long to clear the gate and retrieve my bag. There's only one rental car place, so that makes the choice easy. There's a man finishing up his transaction, so I get in line behind him.

I open my wallet and see the row of blank slots where there used to be credit cards. They're all gone now, chopped up in pieces in the wastebasket back at the W Hotel. They've been replaced by just one, the temporary one issued by my new bank a few days ago, the one paid for with just my money. I swallow hard around my fear as I get it out.

While I wait, I peer out the glass windows at the front of the terminal, trying to get a glimpse of the place I used to call home. Well, I'm not quite home yet. If I remember right, I still have an hour or so to drive until I'm really back home in Forks.

It's overcast. Not gloomy, just not sunny. I remember that about this place. And it's green. I see dense dark green trees skirting the road out front. There are trees everywhere. I remember that, too.

"Bella?"

I jump and spin. There's a woman standing just to my right, smiling slightly, examining me with curiosity. I just blink, so surprised at hearing that name again the second I get back here.

"I'm sorry, but you look like…are you Bella Swan?"

As she talks, something about the shape of her face, her hazel eyes, her long dark hair, her lanky arms and legs, seems familiar, and I think I know her, too.

"Um, yes. I am."

"Oh my God!" she breathes. "Wow!" The "oh my God" does it. Angela Webber. She used to say that all the time back in middle school when we were trying out our newly acquired grown-up slang.

"Angela, right?"

"You remember!"

I smile and nod, feeling infinitely lighter, better. Already there's something real and familiar, even after all this time. Angela was one of my best friends in middle school. Quiet and a good student, like me, we gravitated to each other. I remember spending my entire last summer here shuttling back and forth between her house and mine, killing time together until school started again in the fall. But by the fall of that year, my father was dead and I was in New York, getting fitted for my new uniform for Spencer. Angela had gotten lost with everything else I'd left behind.

"You look fantastic, Bella. What are you doing here?"

I open my mouth and then stop, unsure how to respond. I can't very well tell her I'm fleeing my nightmarish mother who doesn't love me, a fiancé I don't love and the man I'm pretty sure I do love, but who has broken my heart twice. That's too much to dump on someone I just ran into for the first time in ten years. All the same, I need to start someplace.

"Um, I just needed a change of pace after graduation. So I decided to come back home for a while."

Angela's eyes widen slightly and she just examines me for a second. But otherwise, she shows no immediate reaction to that peculiar news. Instead, a brilliant, wide smile takes over her face. "That is such good news. It'll be so great having you back here again!" I remember this about Angela. She's a born diplomat. She always knew just the thing to say to smooth childhood disagreements so that everybody would keep playing. And she knew how to make anybody feel welcome and important.

"So you still live in Forks?" I ask. I'll feel so much better if there's just one person there I know.

She nods. "With my husband. You remember Ben Cheney?" I nod, even though I'm not sure if I do. "We got married last year. I was just dropping him off here for his flight. He's got meetings in San Francisco all week."

"Congratulations on the wedding."

"Thanks," she says, simple and sweet. "Hey, are you renting a car?"

"Yeah, I don't have one yet."

"I can drive you back to Forks. I'm headed there anyway."

"Oh, really? That would be so great." I did end up getting my driver's license in college, but I hardly ever drive. There wasn't a lot of need for it in Providence and none at all in New York. I'm a nervous, unsteady driver, and the prospect of an hour on unfamiliar roads is terrifying.

"Sure! We can catch up on the way. Where's all your stuff?"

"This is it," I say, indicating my one small suitcase. Angela gives me a quick look. She can see how odd all this is. It's so obvious I'm in freefall and running away from something. But she says nothing. She just smiles and leads me out of the airport.

The drive goes by fast. Angela seems to sense that I don't want to talk about myself, so she carries the conversation, filling me in on the whereabouts of everyone I went to middle school with.

The names are familiar, and sometimes, young faces float up in my mind to go with them. Everybody's all grown up now, of course, but a lot of them have stayed here. It's that kind of place. People stay put. Angela talks about who's gotten married, who's engaged, who works for the family business and who's struck out on their own. She describes cookouts and girls' nights out and weaves a whole world for me, filled with all the kids I grew up with, now making their adult lives together, too. Through it all, she automatically includes me, as if now that I'm back, I'll be seamlessly inserted into their world right alongside her as if I was never gone. It makes me feel warm in a way few other things could at this point, even if she's just being polite.

I don't get much of a look at the town of Forks, since our house is off a state road before you reach the town proper. But the things we do pass—scattered houses, bait shops, gas stations and churches—all look unchanged and so familiar. A few minutes later, Angela turns onto the short street where my house is. I can see it already. Small and white, with a little wood front porch and dormer windows poking out of the second story roof. My eyes go automatically to my old bedroom window. The elm tree in the front yard is still there and the branches are still scraping the window. I remember the sound they made against the glass when I was falling asleep every night.

It's got the Spartan look of a rental property. There's no landscaping or personal touches. It looks in decent repair, though. My trust fund has apparently been paying one of my father's old co-workers a small monthly stipend to manage the property. Jim Jenks said it had only had three tenants, all long-term, but it's currently vacant. And now it's mine. The only thing in the world I own.

I fish the keys I'd retrieved from Jim Jenks yesterday out of my pocket as Angela pulls my suitcase from the trunk.

"Come with me?" I ask her, not yet ready to be completely on my own.

"Sure."

We enter and I'm hit with wave after wave of nostalgia. The memories of my dad are so strong that I almost start crying. It was right here where I'm standing, that I saw him alive for the last time, watching him strap on his holster and shrug into his jacket as he got ready for his shift. The last shift he'd ever work.

And it was there, on the battered brown couch we used to have, that a woman from the police station sat me down and told me what had happened. I remember her patting my arm and telling me it would all be okay, that my mother would be here soon to take care of me.

Angela reaches out and rubs my arm. "Remembering?"

"Yeah. I haven't actually done much of that. Being here brings it all back."

"I'll bet," she says gently. After a minute, she continues, brighter. "Well, it looks like you need just about everything, huh?"

I have to laugh, because it's true. This place is bare to the walls. "I guess so."

"What are you going to do tonight?"

"I haven't even thought that far ahead yet."

Angela laughs. "Lucky for you, Ben's away and my weekend is wide open. Come crash at my place tonight. There's a great thrift store back in PA that we can hit tomorrow to get you some basics. But for right now, how's dinner sound?"

I want to laugh, cry, and hug Angela all at the same time. But I just say, "It sounds great."

*0*0*

Two hours later, Angela and I are sitting cross-legged on the floor on either side of her coffee table, a mostly-empty pizza box and a mostly-empty bottle of wine between us.

Her little house is simple, but cute and looks like it's lived in by two people who love it and each other. There are pictures of Angela and Ben lining the mantle. I feel bad that I still don't remember Ben, even after seeing his picture, although he looks nice.

Angela leans across the table to me and refills my glass. The wine has left me warm and relaxed.

"Okay, Bella," Angela says with great import. "I don't want to pry, but I can tell there's something going on with you. Last I heard, you got adopted by your mom's rich new husband and you were loaded and living in New York. Nobody in their right mind leaves all that to move back to Forks, of all places. So what's up?"

I look at her across the table for a minute. I know I grew up with her, and once, we were best friends, but we were just kids. As adults, she's practically a stranger. But something tells me I can trust her, that she'll understand. Or maybe I'm just desperate to have someone to reach out to. Whatever it is, I start talking.

"I ran away from home."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I'm an adult. I suppose I'm free to go where I want. But I left it… all of it."

"When you say 'all of it', what exactly are we talking about?"

"My parents, the money… my fiancé."

Angela takes a deep breath, but her expression doesn't change and she doesn't look away. "Is that what it is?"

"Is that what what is?"

Angela raises a hand in front of her. "I know we haven't seen each other in a million years and I don't really know a thing about you anymore, but I can still tell that something major is going on with you. Your face... you just look… devastated. Was it your fiancé?"

I have to look down at my hands before I can speak again. "No, not him. But yes, there was… somebody." I don't know what to say about Edward. It's all so big, so thorny. Was he just a fling? That's what it would seem like from the outside. An ill-advised affair behind my fiancé's back. But he's not that. He's so much more that that. I can't explain about Edward and me in high school. I can't begin to describe what he meant to me, how he impacted me, then and for years afterwards. How, for a few hours, he made me imagine the possibility of a whole new future with him. How he made me feel so alive and wanted, even if it was all built on air.

My silence seems to speak for me though, and Angela doesn't say anything else for a minute.

"So you're running away from the fiancé… and the rest. What about your mom? Don't you want to tell her where you are?"

I laugh, short and humorless. "She won't care."

"Bella, she's your mom…"

"She gave birth to me. And believe me, she resents even that much involvement in my life. We're done."

"Oh, wow. I'm so sorry. When you left, we all thought you were going to have this great new life. All that money…"

I shake my head. "The money… you have no idea how much it fucks things up, Angela. It fucked up everything."

My throat closes up on the last words, thinking of Edward, and how he was, in the end, so tied to the money that he couldn't break free, or worse, didn't want to. I think of my mother, and her warped sense of values. The money, and the pursuit of it, was more important to her than anything. More important than her husband, more important than me.

I hear Angela move and then her hand wraps over mine on the table. She doesn't say a thing. She just rests her hand over mine. It's the most anyone could do for me, and right now, it's more than enough.

*0*0*

A/N:

So I know I said twelve chapters total, but by the time I finished, it was fourteen.

I need to say a huge thank you to the ladies at The Perv Pack Smut Shack this week. They did a roundtable review of The Art Teacher and said some really lovely and wonderful things about it. Thank you Chele, Emmy, Jeanne, Jen, Jess, Kitty, Teal, and Trin. That review made my week!

http : / /www . pervpackssmutshack . com/2011/01/perv-pack-pick-january-24th-2011 . html