Disclaimer: SM owns Twilight

A/N: Thank you to all who have added this story to their updates list. One more update for today. :)

Chapter 11

"How I miss you
How I miss you
How I miss you
I should never call
How I hope that you still miss me

Did I lose you?
Did I lose you?
Did I lose you?
Somewhere down the line
Hide & seeks alright if I find

Do you miss me
Like I miss you
If you miss me,
Never go away
Hopefully, you'll come stay someday

If you're leaving,
come back soon
That's not easy to say

I'll wait here,
dream of you
all alone as I ache"

How I Miss You – Foo Fighters

After only two days in Seattle, I was convinced I was losing my fucking mind. I was walking over to the tattoo shop to show Jasper my drawings when I passed by a little coffee shop along the way. For some reason, I glanced into the glass window there and I could've sworn I saw Bella sitting there drinking out of a black mug.

When I did a double-take though, it clearly wasn't her. It was just some lady with the same hair color who was much older than Bella. I kept walking, wondered if I needed to lay down or something. Then a little voice shrilled behind me.

"Edward!"

I'd know that annoying voice anywhere. Alice.

I turned around to see Alice Brandon's tiny black head of hair jogging toward me in her torn jeans and NOFX t-shirt, a look of unease on her pale, painted face.

"Hey," I mumbled. "What are you doing in Seattle already? I thought you weren't coming out here til school started."

"Oh I'm not moved out here yet, I'm just here for a few days to check out the apartment and then I'm going back to Forks."

"Oh." I shoved my hands in my pockets and we stood in awkward silence for what seemed like forever. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to know. "How is she?"

"She's…fine…I guess," Alice murmured. "And she made me promise not to tell you anything if I ran into you, so don't even ask anything else."

I rolled my eyes. Of course Bella would say that.

"I know I screwed up, Alice. But it's not what you think. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't give me a chance and I just…I'm so fucked up right now. I don't know how to fix it - any of it."

Alice patted my arm in comfort. "It'll be alright. Just give her some time to calm down, and then talk to her."

I nodded in agreement and ran my left hand through my hair as Alice zeroed in on the bandage peeking out from under my black t-shirt sleeve. Her eyes widened and she beamed.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Yeah," I smiled. "I just got it yesterday."

"Ooh, ooh, can I see?" She was jumping up and down like a little kid. It made me laugh as I rolled up my shirt sleeve and peeled back the tape and plastic wrap. I should've known Alice would be excited about a tattoo since she had several piercings in her ears and her lip.

Alice's mouth gaped open as she stared up at the piece. She broke into a grin from ear to ear. "Only She, huh?" she asked with a knowing look.

I smirked knowing Alice had figured out who the She was, but as my thoughts once again started to linger on Bella, my chest hurt and I had to change the subject.

"Hey, um, I was just on my way to the tattoo shop to show Jasper my drawings. You wanna come with?"

It wasn't that I really wanted to spend time with Alice, but it was nice to see a familiar face, even if she was severely irritating most of the time with her verbal diarrhea. I swear sometimes that chick just had no verbal filter whatsoever. Still, I felt somehow comforted to have her there. Plus, I figured she might slip and say something about Bella, or at least I hoped. I knew I shouldn't want to know what she was doing, but I did anyway.

Alice tilted her head to the side. "Did you say the guy's name is Jasper?"

"Yeah, you know him?"

She shook her head. "No, but I like that name. It's not a one you hear everyday, ya know?" I nodded. "Let's go."

I rolled my sleeve back down and we started walking. We eventually made it to the shop and the minute we strolled in, Jasper's head snapped up from the girl's hip that he was working on. He smiled chin-nodded at me, then glanced over to Alice, giving her an even bigger, goofier grin. Suddenly, his eyes darted back and forth between me and Alice until his smile slowly fell and he went back to his work. I looked over to Alice who was staring at him, stupefied, her eyes glazed over like she was in a trance.

I was about to tell Alice to have a seat on the couch when she pushed away from me and stalked straight ahead to Jasper and his female client. The scantily-clad customer watched Alice as she held out her hand to Jasper.

"I'm Alice," she said with confidence. "You're Jasper, right?"

He sat back in his chair and stared at her in awe until she withdrew her hand. Jasper held up his gloved hand to show her.

"Uh…I can't shake your hand, darlin'. I'm all gloved up right now…um…" He was looking all around his station – for what I have no idea. Alice suddenly bent over and grabbed him by the face and planted a big wet kiss on his lips. The female customer's jaw dropped while my own eyes widened in disbelief. I smiled at the shocking scene before me because I had no idea Alice could be so forward. I'd never even seen Alice with a boyfriend all through school, and then she just pounces on Jasper like she's known him forever.

When Alice finally let go of Jasper, he stared up at her, red lipstick smeared all over his lips, and looked over to me in question. I happily shrugged my shoulders, laughing at the ridiculous look on his face.

"Uh…" Jasper stuttered.

Alice gave him a coy, smug smile before turning on her heel and marching past me and toward the door. "Bye, Edward! See ya later, Jasper…" she sang as she walked out the door.

All four people in the shop turned their attention to me.

"Please tell me that's not the she," Jasper begged me.

I shook my head. "No way, dude. That crazy little thing is just a friend. And she's all yours now," I laughed, pointing to his face. He turned to look at the mirror behind him, then grabbed some paper towels to wipe the lipstick off.

A huge grin broke across his face. "Good…that's good," he replied as he went back to his work. I pulled up a stool to see the tat he was working on. It was a Koi fish on the girl's outter left hip and Jasper was shading in the scales with orange while the girl sat there in her thong and a tight red tank top. "Hey man, did you bring your sketches?" he asked.

"Yeah, here." I opened my sketch pad to him and flipped slowly through the pages. Some of the sketches were of famous Basketball players, some were of landscapes and buildings back in Forks, but the majority of them were of Bella. I'd never shown the rest of them to her. She'd only seen the ones I'd given her as gifts.

Picture after picture of Bella – sleeping, laughing, giving me the stink eye, a couple of her and Alice, and one of Bella and Renee that I'd copied from a photo in Bella's room. Then there were the ones that were more candid, her face looking off into the distance. My favorite was the one I'd drawn a few days prior – completely from memory, of Bella biting her bottom lip and giving me that look she'd always give me before attacking me for sex.

"Ah," Jasper said. "So that's the she."

"Yeah," I smiled.

"She's fucking gorgeous, man. What the hell happened?" he asked as he went back to work shading the fish scales.

I sighed. "It's…complicated."

"Hmm," he replied. "Usually is, my friend. So…you ever thought about tattooing?"

I thought it was strange how he changed the subject so quickly and the question he asked was even stranger. I tilted my head and looked at him skeptically. "Uh…no, I never have, I guess."

The older guy in the chair across from Jasper piped up, "Hey kid, if you can tattoo as well as you can draw, then, I'd say you've found your calling. Jasper… man, let him try some shading on my skull piece. I don't mind." The guy's back was covered with various pictures that he'd obviously been getting over years and years.

He didn't even know my name and he was willing to let me put some permanent ink on his flesh.

"Alright," Jasper agreed and turned to me. "Let me finish this last bit over here."

I nodded and watched as he finished the girl's Koi fish and bandaged her up after she fawned all over him and her new ink. He didn't even seemed fazed by the girl or her charms – not like the daze he'd been in when Alice had planted one on him. He took his payment from the girl and thanked her for coming in before sending her on her way and walking back over to me. "Put some gloves on and come on over."

Jasper set up another station and prepped the burley guy while I gloved up, then moved over so that I could get close enough and put the tattoo gun in my hand, showing me where to hold it. He held his hand over mine at first to get the feel of it and then let me go on my own. After the first few strokes I felt completely comfortable and I was hooked. I actually ended up finishing the tattoo while jasper wiped it down, showing me when to stop and wipe for myself, and when to stop for more ink.

I had no idea how much time had passed before the tattoo was finished, but Jasper was so impressed with my work, he asked the owner to let me apprentice under him. The owner was hesitant at first until he saw what I'd done and finally agreed. When I walked out of the shop later on, it dawned on me that I didn't have to choose a career when it'd already chosen me.

I desperately wanted to be a tattoo artist.

My dad was going to be pissed. And I fucking loved it.

I decided then and there to change my major from Pre-Med to Business. That way I could eventually own my own tattoo shop.

Things were starting to look up…slightly. My adrenaline high wore off as soon as I left the shop though. A car passed by and the girl driving looked just like Bella. I ran home and jumped in the shower, trying to shake off the feeling that I was going fucking crazy. When I stepped out of the shower, I stared at my tattoo in the mirror. It was like I could hear Bella's voice in my ear, telling me that she loved the fact that I'd put a piece of her on my flesh.

That gave me an idea and I started sketching. Two weeks later I was in Jasper's chair getting inked again. This time it was the sketch I'd drawn – a 40's style pin up girl with one leg down, toes pointed, one knee to her chest, looking over her shoulder. I'd seen the picture hanging up in my dad's garage when we lived in Forks. The original girl in the picture had strawberry blonde hair and a white dress with yellow flowers. I changed my girl's dress to an emerald green one – just like the one Bella had worn on her birthday - and her hair to a dark brown.

Jasper only smirked and nodded silently when he realized that I'd also changed the face to look like Bella. He still didn't know her name, but he knew I was obsessed with the girl from my sketches.

I had him place the stencil on the inside of my left forearm.

"You sure you want it here, man? It's pretty visible," Jasper checked.

"Yup, that's exactly where I want it. I'll wear long sleeve shirts if I ever have to go someplace nice."

"Your mom's gonna kill you," he laughed.

"Nah, she won't mind." I had already told my mom about the first tattoo. She actually thought it was really cool and she even came to Seattle to have lunch with me a few days after I'd gotten it. She didn't ask me what happened with me and Bella, but I know she knew we'd broken up. She definitely wasn't happy about it, but she let it go, thankfully. I didn't have the balls to tell my mom what a fuck-up I'd made.

By the time summer had ended, I'd managed to cover most of my left arm with tattoos relating to Bella in some way. Jasper had added more flames at the cap of my shoulder, and the flames faded down to ocean waves. The ocean waves surrounded a female head and shoulder looking up, with hair that meshed into the waves. On her shoulder was the symbol for Virgo – Bella's horoscope sign.

Jasper didn't say much about that one. He did however insist on adding more "masculine" pictures in the future. So he had no problem putting the lion from the Cullen crest on my left bicep.

My mom was the one who'd given me the idea. It turns out that my great grandfather Cullen was not a bastard like my dad and his father. My mom and I laughed about that one for at least an hour, saying that hopefully the bastard gene skipped a few generations or maybe had fizzled out with my father.

Speaking of bastard fathers, I'd decided by the end of the summer that there was no way in hell I could live with my dad anymore. He didn't know that I'd changed my major, and for the time being, I wasn't going to tell him anything, including my tattooing, and my mom agreed that she would keep quiet on it as well. He knew nothing of my tattoos since I always wore long sleeves or a jacket around him, and I intended to keep it that way. At first I'd planned on telling him to fuck off with his money for school, but the more I thought about it, he was my father for Christ's sake, so he could at least pay for my education since he didn't give a shit about anything else in my life. Maybe it was fucked up to think that way, but that's how I felt.

Still, I couldn't live with him.

I couldn't find a dorm room at the last minute though, so Jasper offered to let me stay at his apartment. It was huge, big enough for three people and he had one other roommate who was never there, so it was perfect. I moved in right away and my dad didn't even seem to care. He was always at work or out with some random chick, so I guess he had better things to do. I didn't care either.

School started up that in early September and it turned out that the business classes were a fuck-load more interesting than Biology and Chemistry, but not interesting enough to keep my thoughts off Bella.

I trudged along each day, going through the motions but absorbing all the information at the same time. Since I wasn't taking money from my dad – except for school, I'd worked every spare second I had at the shop. I even sold my car so I could have money in the bank. It was a classic, so I easily got eighteen grand for it. But I wanted to save that money for when I planned to open my own shop, so I put most of the money away and lived off what I made at the shop. My client base was small, but since Jasper one of the other guys had been giving me some of their clients, and I'd gotten a few walk-in's of my own, it was enough to keep me fed.

I quickly became exhausted from the horrendous school schedule and lack of sleep though. It became so difficult at times, that I wanted to just quit everything and hitch a ride back to my Mom's house and sleep forever. Whenever I needed a reminder to keep going, I'd look to my forearm and see Bella's face and that was all I needed. I still kept bugging Alice for information, but she still wouldn't budge. She was over at our apartment all the time visiting Jasper, though I never saw her since they stayed in his room almost all the time. They'd become a couple so fast it made my head spin. They seemed to waste no time and I envied that in them.

.

.

.

In late October, we decided to celebrate Jasper's birthday at our place with a party. He was pretty popular on campus since he'd already been there for a couple years before me, and between the two of us we built up a steady client base for tattoos. I'd also received several girls' phone numbers at school, but I wasn't interested. I only had one girl on my mind. Always on my mind.

The night of Jasper's party, I'd managed to get pretty fucked up. I remember leaning against a low book shelf on one side of the living room when my body began to hum and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked up from my half-empty beer and glanced across the room. Even through my slightly hazy vision, I was sure it was her this time.

She was standing next to a tall, lean guy with black hair that spiked up in a Mohawk. My eyes drifted from her long wavy brown hair, down to the short green dress – that green dress – and black heels she was wearing, making those creamy white legs impossibly long. Though she looked thinner than usual, I still thought she looked gorgeous. She had a bottle of beer in one hand as she listened to whatever the guy was telling her, while the other hand reached up to pull her long hair up and drape it over one shoulder, revealing her slender neck to me… and the Mohawk dude.

Suddenly she glanced in my direction and I forgot how to breathe. I pushed up the rolled up sleeves of my button up shirt, and shoved my hands in the pockets of my pants as I stood up straight.

Our eyes locked as we gauged each others reaction. A shy, timid smile played on her lips and her eyes slightly twinkled, causing me to grin goofily in return.

A hand came up to my shoulder on my left and I turned to see the tall brunette girl from my economics class named Gianna. I had no idea what she was saying because I wanted to go talk to Bella, but the next thing I knew, Gianna had pulled my head to hers, kissing me, attacking me with her lips and shoving her tongue into my mouth. I attempted to push her back gently but she was relentless.

Finally, I was able to peel her off and told her to stop. I didn't want to kiss anyone but Bella. But when I turned my head back to look across the room, she was gone. The guy with the Mohawk was still there talking to another brunette girl and I shook my head, trying to clear it.

I pushed away from Gianna and made my way across the room, glancing around wildly, searching for her. I asked Mohawk dude where the girl in the green dress went, but he wouldn't say shit. He was drunk too, so maybe that was why. I couldn't find her anywhere inside so I went out to the balcony. She wasn't there either. Turning on my heel, I darted out of the apartment and down to the street, again finding nothing. I leaned up against the building and shook my head. Maybe I really was going crazy.

Jasper and Alice were too busy making out in the kitchen for me to bother them when I returned upstairs. Gianna found me again but I brushed her off and went to my bedroom, alone. After locking the door, I flopped down on my bed, staring at the ceiling as it spun around while the music thumped through the walls. Closing my eyes, the image of her in the green dress burned into my vision.

It had to be her, it had to be.

A/N: Do you think she was really there?... ;)