A/N: Reactions are scarce in these here parts. I was hoping that might change once I introduced Edward, but no. ***sigh***
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. Stephenie Meyer does. Most of the characters are hers, but some of them are mine.
Chapter 11
The Montel Show
I left the hospital early in the morning fighting the urge to check in on him one more time. Charlie had sent me a text to say the dinner was good. I arrived home before Carlisle and went straight to my room. When I heard Carlisle come home all I could hope for was that he wasn't going to lecture me again.
"Bella, please come downstairs," he asked. Oh no, here it comes.
I headed downstairs answering him but was met by Carlisle, Esme, Alice, and Jasper. What was this going to be a freaking intervention?
"What?" I asked as they all stared at me.
"Bella, I know you went back and visited his room," Carlisle started.
"So what? He's a patient, and I wanted to check in on him." And I wanted to be absolutely sure he wasn't Justin.
"Bella we need to be careful. We don't know how well controlled you are just yet," he continued.
"Carlisle, how much longer until we decide if Bella is a good witch or a bad witch here? I'm doing just fine and I don't need a babysitter at all times." I realized I was snarling, even though I thought I was pouting.
"I disagree," Carlisle pressed, "It's only been seven months. It's too soon to tell. It will take longer to convince me. Please understand that it is for the good of all of us, as well as Charlie, that I am asking this of you. You asked if I was disappointed in you last night, and I wasn't. But now Bella…"
I threw my hands up in the air too dramatically. Sure lay a guilt trip on me by including Charlie in the circle of disappointment.
"This is so frustrating! Look at my track record! Not one human, Carlisle! And his blood didn't even make me thirsty!" I looked for support. "Jasper, tell him! Tell Carlisle that I've got it under control!" I yelled adamantly.
Jasper took a step toward me and I cut him off. "Keep your emo-mojo to yourself!" I said abruptly, putting a hand up to stop him hoping that funny deflect-and-boomerang thing I could do with him would happen.
"I admit you're doing extremely well Bella, but you are sort of on probation here. Hopefully it won't be much longer," Jasper offered.
"Yeah, hopefully not as long as yours!" I spat. "Are we done with this conversation? The newborn needs her pacie and naptime."
I turned around and zoomed back up to my room. Why did I suddenly feel like a teenager again with curfews and lectures? Charlie was never this strict. I plopped into my burgundy sofa chair and shook my head at my once again impossible situation. My mind drifted from the anger I felt to more calming thoughts as I imagined him lying there in the hospital bed. He's probably eating Wheaties and milk right now. Dr. Gomez is probably going to release him anytime now…unless maybe they found more cause to keep him there. That was something to look forward to…him being there tonight. Still. Because, well, there was definitely something about him.
A knock on the door broke me out of my daydreaming. I could smell the little troll and Esme.
"C'mon in," I muttered, and they entered through the door gracefully.
"Alice, feel free to not tell me any more of your visions," I moaned.
"Something was going to happen last night, I was sure of it," Alice leaned against the wall tilting her head inward, like she was trying to figure out how she could have gotten it wrong.
"Well my life certainly didn't come full circle—or if it did, I missed it. Last night had its surprises but definitely not what I expected. Or should I say who I expected."
Esme sat down on the ottoman of my chair and put her hand on my leg to comfort me.
"Bella," she began in her soothing voice, "Carlisle told me a little bit about the heartbeat and what has been going on. Why didn't you come talk to me about it, sweetie?"
"I don't know. It's only been a couple of days. And anyway I have no idea what it all means. It was just a heartbeat I heard at the mall that somehow got me thinking of Justin, a guy I used to know, and then the four-circle car guy ends up in the Forks ER, and I thought it was Justin but turned out not to be Justin but when I looked at him it felt like I was seeing Justin." I was talking a mile a minute and squeezing a small pillow in my hand until I busted it open and felt the white soft fiberfill between my fingers. Whoops. Oh well, it's just a pillow.
Alice snickered.
I threw half of the pillow at Alice with too much force, which of course she caught before it had time to do any damage to her perfectly styled hair.
"What? Big deal, I busted a pillow. I'll replace it. And, I know my little sob story all sounds either really stupid or really complicated but that pretty much sums up my whole nonexistence."
"Oh it's not that!" Alice laughed a little more.
"What then?" I asked her.
"You've already given him a nickname. 'Four -circle car guy?' That's a classic sign that our little Bella here has a crush."
Esme's brow furrowed in curiosity, wondering if Alice was right.
"I'm going to ignore that remark right now. And maybe instead of 'full circle' yesterday you meant 'four circles.' How's that for subjectivity?" I scowled at her and narrowed my eyes to tiny slits. Best friends or not, she didn't need to remind me.
Hoping to get a clearer picture, Esme began, "Okay, so who is Justin?"
"Oh, you remember the graduation party, don't you Esme?" Alice baited.
"Oh yip-pie! Let's bring that up!" I said throwing my hands up in the air. I stood up and walked across the room to stand in front of the window.
"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to remember from that night," Esme replied.
"Bella invited Justin to come to the party and he said he would come but when he didn't show she got really drunk and ended up hooking up with…" she stopped, looking to me for the answer. She was being coy.
"Mark," I offered, looking back and then rolling my eyes.
"Right, right! Mark! So many of Bella's suitors, it's hard to keep them all straight. And in the meantime Justin did show up but Mark wouldn't let you out of his sight at that point. Oh, until Jacob and his crew scared him off. Even poor Eric tried to talk to you that night just about college dorms or something and Jacob shut him down too."
God-damn Jacob Black. Always in the way.
"Have I told you lately what a disaster that whole party was? Are you sure you want to have your wedding here, Alice?"
Esme had followed along. "Well this is definitely the first time I'm hearing about Bella having been drunk at our house, but Bella dear, that is all a part of growing up. Were you able to work things out with Justin after the party?"
"Not exactly," I replied.
"Are you able to remember what happened?" Esme asked.
"Unfortunately," I grumbled.
"I knew, or at least I had hoped, that I would see him the following Saturday at a house party one of the SSA supervisors usually threw."
"And did you?"
Alice interrupted, "Don't forget the part about how I warned you."
"Yeah, I saw him and his girlfriend. Alice had been right. She actually knew something, even though I didn't believe her at the time."
I looked over and smiled at my little troll of a friend. "But really, Alice, if I hadn't been prepared I think I would have lost it that night."
"I wasn't subjective that day, now was I?" Alice retorted. She came over to my side and I rested my head on her shoulder. I could feel the sadness building up behind my stone cheeks.
Esme looked at me sympathetically pouting her lips.
"I know. I know. It wasn't meant to be. It was just a crush. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever." I picked my head up and turned to look at the trees that outlined the vast forest beyond the house's property wishing I could take off and run, just loose myself to the green. I looked deep into the forest wondering if I could outrun my memories.
Then Alice started jumping up and down "Oh! Oh! Oh! You have to tell her the best part of the girlfriend thing…you know, her introduction."
I groaned in disgust. Another memory I should have forgotten.
"Is it that bad?" Esme asked. "You don't have to tell me."
"No, no, it's okay. Justin used to call me 'just-Bella.' I guess it was like this thing that I liked because, well… because it made me feel special. So the night of Andy's party I said hi to him and was blessed to meet his new girlfriend, Rebecca. When I said, 'it's nice to meet you Rebecca' she corrected me and told me, 'It's just Becca.'"
"Nooooo!" Esme called out, half surprised, part amused.
"Isn't that horrible, Esme!" Alice snickered but came up behind me burying her face into my arm and lightly grabbing my hand in comfort.
"The worst!" Esme cried. "What happened then with him?"
"A lot, but I don't want to talk about it."
"Oh, I'm sorry dear," Esme said, trying to soothe me. "It still bothers you doesn't it."
"I mean, I don't know why it should. And I don't know why I was so excited at the thought of seeing him in the hospital last night. Even still, I don't know why the patient I did see…"
"Four-circle car guy?" Alice quickly interrupted excitedly with her index finger pointing up into the air. I shook her off harshly.
"Yes, four-circle car guy. I don't know what the reason is that when I saw him I just felt like at first I was seeing Justin."
Esme was thoughtfully working out the details. "Bella, our brains work in a complicated way. We can filter and process a lot of information at once, but our emotions can be so intense that they can cloud and mask some of what we see, especially if it is something or someone, in this case, we want to see."
"So you are saying I just wanted it to be Justin?" Why would I need to see him?
"Not necessarily. Did he in some way resemble Justin?"
"Yes. He was definitely a type B."
"You knew Justin's blood type?" Alice asked surprised. I giggled at my own words.
"Uhhh, no. Jessica coined that phrase just for me, meaning my type of guy, B for Bella. I guess it is a little ironic now. Not that I would know if human blood tasted differently depending on the person's blood type. Does it?"
"Don't ask me! I think that's a question for Jasper, but let's save it for a different day." Esme didn't want to bring up enticing memories for Jasper to ponder. "So this Justin had been a Bella type, too?"
This time Alice and Esme laughed so loudly I think some of the trees on the outskirts of the property shook.
"So yeah when I saw-" I looked at Alice in defeat, " four-circle car guy last night I definitely saw Justin in him, even though he assured me that was not his name."
Esme was sorting through the information I had presented out loud and recreating a verbal outline of the events.
"Okay so Justin had already been on your mind and you see this guy in the hospital that you are attuned to his heartbeat and when you see him, you see Justin. There is actually a name for this. It is called an overlay."
"More like underlay!" Alice snorted to herself.
"Alice, don't be crude!" Esme chided. "Unless of course, Justin was dead, then it would be called an imprint…where literally his spirit tapped into the other body."
I gasped! "Perish the thought! He's my age. I'm sure he's not dead, Esme."
"Oh, I didn't think he was. I was just giving you some extra insight that I'm privy to."
"Oh right, because you're a medium," I said aloud, reminding myself.
Esme laughed. "Well yes, but that particular gift didn't come with a handbook. I got that tidbit from watching that famous psychic lady on Montel."
"OH! Of course," I laughed.
"So how bad is the crush on four-circle car guy at this point?" The little troll batted her thick dark eyelashes in fun.
"What are you talking about, Alice? What crush? I just met him today." I tried to shrug her off. "There is no crush, Alice." I plopped myself back down in my chair and grabbed at another pillow hugging it in front of me.
Alice's eyes formed into slivers. Steam was almost about to come out of her tiny pointed ears. She looked like she was about to burst a pipe, and it wouldn't be full of pixie dust.
"Wait a minute, Bella Swan! Were you having the Wayne sees Cassandra for the first time moment?" I didn't answer.
Esme looked to Alice in question, so Alice took the time to explain that it was from the movie Wayne's World but basically it was just another way to say that when you see someone sometimes the whole world just seems to stop around you and all you can do is focus in on that one person, as if an entirely different force takes over you in that moment-instsant attraction. Then she started crooning, "Oohhh dreamweaver, I believe you can get me through the night."
I frowned but then joined in singing. Esme even joined in. I had no idea she knew that song—it was soooo old, but then again, so was she.
"You did, didn't you! I knew it! I knew it! I so knew it!" Alice flared her nostrils and rubbed her hands together like she had just cast an evil spell.
"It didn't happen the first time I saw him. It happened when I went in to check on him later. And that's why I hate that Carlisle was coming down on me so harshly," I admitted sheepishly and then grinned. "I just didn't expect, I mean with the change and all, well I never thought I could dreamweave again. Ever."
Esme was a true romantic girly girl at heart. "I dreamweave every time I see Carlisle," she sighed, "I've been doing it for years but never really had a proper name for the phenomenon until now." She giggled and squeezed my hand in acknowledgement. "Just keep in mind Bella that he is a human, so any kind of relationship you have with him will require a certain amount of finesse and caution on your part."
I sat straight up, my eyes opened wide with shock.
"Relationship? What relationship could I possibly have with him? I think going on a date to have dinner and a movie don't exactly hold the same meaning for us. Meeting for coffee is probably out, too. We certainly couldn't hang out anywhere if the sun was shining. Hell, according to Carlisle, I can't even be alone with him." I yelled that last sentence out of frustration, in hopes that everyone in the house heard me.
"I know, sweetie, that it's still frustrating for you, but Bella, it's not like you can't have any interaction with him at all," Alice chirped out to me.
I collapsed back into my chair, feeling exhausted over all this.
"Why did you guys even bother to save me?"
Esme and Alice both embraced me into a group hug, reminding me that they saved me because they loved me and I was family.
A/N:
Does vampire Bella have a chance with human Edward?
