Ch. 10: Can't Let Go

Disclaimer: We do not own the characters, the Angels, the ballpark, or anything for that matter.

A/N: Hello loves! Here is another chapter for you all, but first! Thank you all so much for the favorite stories/authors, story/author alerts and reviews! And an insanely huge thanks goes out to hgbkwrm for betaing this chapter so quickly and for sending it back a couple times.

BPOV

As I was standing there watching Edward walking back to the Volvo, I couldn't help but feel something. And it wasn't all excitement. It was as if someone was pulling ever so gently on a string that was attached to my heart. And that string was pulling me towards the parking lot. However, that feeling was gone as soon as it came and I turned around to celebrate my victory with everyone else.

Alice's eyes were shining so much you would've thought she had won the hit off, "So Bells, what do you want to do now?"

I looked at the four of them and Jasper had a protective arm around Alice's shoulders and Emmett had his big hand resting on Rose's hip. "You know, I'm kind of tired so I think I just want to go home, shower, and rest."

Alice's expression turned from one of excitement to utter horror, "Seriously? You just put the biggest douche in his place and you want to go home?"

I just nodded at her and she still looked confused when she spoke, "No party? No celebratory brunch? Not even going to Disneyland?"

Jasper looked down at her and laughed, "If Bella doesn't want to go anywhere then we won't go anywhere. She won so she decides what's going to happen for the rest of the day."

I smiled at him silently thanking him for understanding. "My ribs still hurt so I don't want to do too much too soon." I noticed her face kind of falter along with Rose's. "But you guys can go out and celebrate for me if you want."

That sparkle was back in Ali's eye and I knew she was excited, but she feigned uncertainty, "We don't have to, I mean, you are the one who won."

I started to walk back to the dugout to pack my gear up as they followed me, "Just go, Al. You guys have a good time for me and maybe when the pain goes away we can all go out together."

She removed Jasper's arm from her shoulders and started to pull him towards his Mustang, "Okay! We'll see you guys later! Love you Bella!"

"Bye Al. Have fun."

Jasper looked back at me before he was out of my line of vision, "You did a really great job out there Bella. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks. I couldn't have done it without some pretty amazing coaches." I watched as he fell out of my line of vision, and then heard the roar of his engine heading towards the main road moments later. That left Rose, Emmett, and I. Rose had started packing some of my gear in my bag while Emmett was putting all the balls in the bucket.

After all my gear was put away we were heading towards our cars, Rose walking in between Em and I, when she started to turn to Emmett to say goodbye. I interjected before she had the chance to say anything, "Thanks for all your help, Em."

"Oh, no problem, it was fun. I can't wait to see Edward's reaction to all this in the coming days." I grabbed the bucket of balls from him and gave Rose a hug as I whispered in her ear, "Go and have some fun with him."

She whispered back, "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"

I pulled away from her and nodded. "I'll be fine. I promise."

She looked a little hesitant as she started to walk towards the jeep where Emmett was already standing by the passenger door. When she was right at the door she turned around, "If you start feeling more pain, call me and I'll come home right away."

I opened my trunk, put my gear in, shut it and started walking towards the driver's side. "I will." I watched Emmett open the door and wait for her to climb in. Once the door was shut I called out to him, "Hey, Em."

He turned towards me with an infectious smile on his face, "Yeah, Bella?"

"Take good care of her. Please?"

He nodded, "I will. Now rest up!"

I laughed and got in my car and waited for them to pull away before I backed out. The ride home was nice and quiet which suited me just fine. I pulled in the driveway and opened the garage door. I put the balls back in their respective place in the garage then walked in the house to be greeted by Mo. "Hey, Buddy! Did you miss me?"

He did the typical "Husky talk" as I bent down to pet him until I felt the pain in my ribs. "Ouch."

I let him out in the back to run around a little while I went upstairs to take a shower. As I started the water I decided to check if the bruise was already forming on my ribs. It was. It was a multitude of light shades of black, blue, and purple. I was going to be branded from this day for at least a few weeks.

I finished my shower and was in my room putting on some different clothes when I heard my phone start to ring and I picked up without even checking the caller ID. "Hello?"

"Bella! Long time, no talk! How've you been?"

I couldn't help but smile at his voice, "Hey, Jake. I know; I've been good, thanks. How 'bout you?"

"Eh, you know, can't complain. Anything new and exciting happening with you?"

"As a matter of fact, I just got home from a hit off with Edward."

There was silence on the end for a little bit, "What?"

I retold the story of running into Edward at the grocery store and the deal we made to have a hit off today. As well as the wagers we put up for when we won and Jake wasn't too happy when he heard what Edward had wanted if he won. I told him to rest assured because I won and I would never hear from that Casanova ever again. Saying it out loud made it more believable and I was really happy that it was happening. After explaining how I won, my bruise, Edward's reactions and all that, we talked for a little bit longer and agreed that we needed to meet up again sometime soon.

I went downstairs to let Mo back in and gave him some food and threw his ball around for a little bit until I heard my phone ring again. "Hello?"

I heard a calm voice on the other end, "Bella. It's Carlisle."

"Hi, Carlisle. How are you?"

"Well, thank you. I just wanted to call and see how you were feeling. I know you got hurt earlier today and I wanted to make sure the pain hadn't gotten any worse."

"Nope, still the same. But I have an insane bruise right now."

"Yes, that's what I thought would happen." We continued talking for a few minutes more, mostly him telling me just to watch out for myself, and then we hung up. It was nice to hear a familiar voice from home.

The next few weeks passed without anything major happening. I was at the top of my game, the season was starting to wind down, my bruise was getting better and my thoughts of Edward had diminished to practically nothing.

It was a couple weeks before school was going to be out and Rose, Ali, and I were sitting in the family room talking about what we wanted to do for the summer. The obvious answer was to go to an Angel's game. Rose and Alice had gotten even closer to Emmett and Jasper and eventually they became official so it was only natural that they go support their men. Talking about going to the games made me wonder what it would be like to see Edward. I hadn't heard anything from him since our last encounter but I couldn't help wondering if it would be weird seeing him after so long. I guess we'd have to wait and see.

The last week of school was here and we were all studying like crazy for our finals. Every day after we got home from school we stared at our books until it was time to eat dinner and then we were right back to studying. During this week, Alice and Rose hadn't gone out at all with Emmett and Jasper. Alice and I would be finished with school on Thursday and Rose would be done at ten on Friday morning. We were celebrating the start of our summer with a baseball game, the first of many.

The week passed fairly quickly and Friday afternoon was here and we were all getting ready to go to the game. "Beeeelllllllaaaaaa! Can you please hurry? We're going to be late!"

I rolled my eyes, made my way to the top of the stairs, and leaned on the banister, "Alice. Chill, we still have two hours till it actually starts and we don't live that far away."

"But there's batting practice! And I want to get a ball!"

"Jasper can get you a ball. You don't have to fight all those little kids for one."

She pouted, "But it's not the same! I want it to be dirty from being thrown around and then I want it to be signed by them!"

"Yeah, Jasper can still do that."

Rose came into my view from the kitchen, all dressed and ready to go, "I'm with Al on this one. I'd like to leave sooner rather than later. We have amazing seats now and I want to get the full experience from the batting practice to the fireworks at the end."

I thought about it for a second; we did have amazing seats at field level thanks to Emmett and Jasper. I gave in, "Okay, just let me throw on my shirt and we can go."

As I walked back to my room I heard Alice jumping up and down clapping her hands in excitement and the front door open and then close. I got dressed and made my way down to the driveway where they were both already seated, with their seatbelts on, in my car. "Geez, are you guys anxious or something?"

Rose smiled sweetly, "Now what would give you that idea?"

Alice was starting to fidget in her seat and grabbed my keys, put them in the ignition and started the car, "Who cares! Let's go!"

"Okay, okay. We're going." I pulled out of the driveway and made our way to the freeway. Traffic wasn't too bad, considering it was rush hour on a Friday. We made it to the stadium with plenty of time to spare and made our way to our seats. Alice, gracefully, ran down the steps to claim her spot at the wall and waited for batting practice to end. Rose and I took our seats and chatted about everything until we saw Alice come back towards us with a big smile on her face, proudly showing off a ball with a bunch of signatures on it, "Those little kids have nothing on me!"

I laughed, "Wow, Al. Taking some little kid's dream?"

She looked appalled, "No, Bella. I like to think of it as teaching them a life lesson; you can't always get what you want, which is true."

"Touche." The game was going to start soon and I didn't want to miss anything so I got up to use the restroom. On my way back I was looking at all the pictures of past players on the wall when I heard someone yelling and waving their arms my way, "Hey! Over here!"

At first I didn't realize they were talking to me so I just ignored them and continued walking until someone ran up beside me. I recognized his face immediately. "Oh my gosh, Jason? Right?"

He had an unforgettable smile that I couldn't help but return until his grin faded, "Yeah. But I'm sorry to say that I never caught your name when we last met."

I held out my hand for him to shake, "Bella."

He grabbed my hand and shook it, "Well, Bella, it is a pleasure to meet you."

"You too." We continued to talk for a little bit longer, which included him asking me out to dinner the following week, which I accepted, until he had to go back to work at the team store and I made my way back to our seats. I sat down and didn't realize I was smiling until Rose asked me why I was.

My amazing response to that was, "I don't know."

Alice leaned over Rose and pointed a finger at me, "Who is he?"

"Who's who?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Missy. You're smiling like that because you met a guy. I want to know who he is."

There was no point in trying to deny it because Alice would find out eventually, "Remember when we were going to meet the guys and that guy from the team store took us to the conference room?"

Her eyes lit up, "Yeah!"

"Well I just ran into him and we got to talking and well…"

She practically jumped out of her seat when she made the realization, "So when are you going out with him?"

"Next week, most likely Wednesday."

She giggled, "Yay! Oh this is going to be so much fun! Rose and I can help you get ready and I already know what you're going to wear and–"

"Alice, I can dress myself, thank you very much."

"Well, I know but it doesn't hurt to have help." The announcer's voice asked us to stand and remove all hats for the National Anthem. We clapped for the lady who sang and sat back down ignoring the other team's lineup, continuing our conversation. "I know but I can handle it, Al. Trust me."

She crossed her arms, "Oh fine. But if I don't like what you're wearing I get to change it."

I thought about it and realized that our deal we had made a long time ago about my reprieve from Bella Barbie was up. "Fine."

She nodded and smiled, "Good."

We heard the start of our lineup being announced and cheered along with all the other patrons for our favorite players, screaming just a little extra for Jasper and Emmett, watching their pictures as they flashed across the screen. Jasper had a slight smirk going on and Alice, repeatedly, pointed out his lips, while Emmett's picture showed his huge grin that could make anyone else smile. I looked over at Rose and she looked so proud of Emmett. Once the lineup was over and all the guys were on the field, I noticed that something was off, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, then it occurred to me. Edward wasn't starting.

EPOV

As soon as I got home from the hit off I went straight to my room and just lay on the bed. On the drive home I identified the emotions I was feeling. I was hurt, immensely, but I was also angry with myself. I couldn't even give Bella an ounce of respect. I wanted to get close to her and I couldn't and I didn't know what was wrong with me. I knew I had walls up and my automatic defense was to be an asshole.

And on top of all that, I hurt Bella, physically hurt her. I vowed to never hurt her and now she'd have a mark on her showing that I broke that vow, unbeknownst to her. I spent the rest of the day in bed just staring at the wall. It started to get dark and I thought I should get up and eat something but I didn't have the desire to. I heard my phone go off a couple times but decided to just let it go straight to voicemail. I didn't want to talk to anyone. Except Bella, I thought. We all knew that wasn't going to happen though.

The next few weeks seemed to drag on. I didn't do anything except go to practice and games. I stopped going out every night and just stayed holed up in my house. A few times I was tempted to look up one of the girl's numbers just to see how Bella was doing but I couldn't. I thought about asking either Emmett or Jasper about her but they were loyal to the model and the pixie so I knew that wasn't going to happen.

It was Tuesday morning and we were at the field practicing for the series that would start Thursday. I hadn't been myself for weeks and everyone was noticing it. James took the opportunity to bash on me and I just took it. I was only concerned with one person and he wasn't her. I hadn't realized we'd started the drill until I heard Coach Griffin yelling my name repeatedly. "Cullen! Cullen! Hello! Earth to Edward Cullen!"

I looked at him and saw how upset he was then around the field and realized everyone was staring at me. "Sorry, Coach. I spaced out for a second."

He smiled at me, "Oh that's okay. I'm just going to space out right now too."

I didn't know how to respond to that and he didn't let me. "I'm spacing out your position. Hit the showers and go home."

I didn't move for a little bit but then got in the ready position, "No, I'm okay, just tired. Let's keep going."

"I don't think you heard me, Edward. You're done for the day. Hit the showers. And leave." I stood up and walked meekly towards the dugout. Before I made it to the locker room I was stopped by Scioscia. Shit. I knew I was in trouble then.

"Yeah, Coach?"

"Cullen. You're a good ball player, you know that."

"Um, thank you, Sir."

"But lately, I don't know what's going on with you. You come to practice but you're not really here. You don't put any effort into your plays. You don't hang out with Whitlock or McCarty anymore."

I couldn't look at him, I knew I wasn't myself but I couldn't help it. I felt powerless against my emotions. This person wasn't me. I felt him staring at me, "I hate to do this to any guy on the team, especially if it's unnecessary, but I'm pulling you from the lineup."

I couldn't really think of anything to say, "What?"

"I can't have this ghost of you out on the field. We have a lot of series coming up against some really good teams and it's not fair to your teammates if you're out there but aren't giving it your all."

I just looked down at my cleats. "I know, but–"

"But nothing, Cullen. You earned yourself a spot on this team and now you need to earn back your position. Scott will start for you until you can prove you deserve to be out there."

There was nothing more to say. I knew I had let my team down but I didn't think I'd be taken out of the lineup. I didn't know how long I would be in this funk. He patted me on the back, "Hit the showers, go home and get some rest."

I continued on to the locker room and hopped in the shower quickly then grabbed my gear. I went to my car and drove home in a daze. I decided to skip practice on Wednesday since I wasn't going to be part of the series anyway and just stayed home. While I was contemplating what to eat for dinner I heard my doorbell ring. I wasn't expecting anyone so I figured it was probably just a neighbor or someone. I opened my door and was surprised to see who was there. Jasper and Emmett were standing on my doorstep, "Hey, man."

For some reason, I immediately got defensive. "Jasper. Emmett."

Jasper was twirling his keys around his finger, "Can we come in?"

I stepped aside and let them in, then locked the door. "What are you guys doing here?"

Emmett looked at me like I was dense, "Well we saw what happened at practice yesterday. And you didn't show up today and Scioscia said you were taken out of the lineup until further notice. We wanted to see what was up."

I crossed my arms, "What's it to you?"

I could tell Emmett was starting to get angry because his hands started to form fists. Jasper decided to speak up instead, "So we just wanted to see if everything was okay. I mean, ever since the hit off, you've been acting like this."

"I'm doing just fine. In fact, I'd be doing great if you two did me a favor and got the hell out of my house."

Emmett brushed past me and opened the door, "With pleasure."

Jasper was still standing in front of me, "Edward, come on. Just because you lost to Bella doesn't mean anything. It was a silly competition between you guys that meant nothing."

Wrong. It meant everything to me. I hadn't heard her name in weeks and it sounded so wrong coming from his mouth. "She and I had a deal. I wasn't going to associate with anyone or anything pertaining to her."

"I know but Emmett and I—"

"You and Emmett are dating her two best friends. That puts you under the category of 'anything pertaining to her.'"

"So you're going to shut Em and I, you're two best friends, out because we're dating friends of hers."

I was starting to get really upset, mostly because he was figuring everything out and I didn't want to talk about it, "Yes, I am. This is me distancing myself from her."

He looked at me, "Unbelievable. You are insane to think that if you push Emmett and I away you're going to stop thinking of her."

"Well it's worth a shot."

He shook his head, "Fine, Edward. I'm done trying to be the voice of reason. When you're ready to make some sense, then come talk to me." And with those words he stormed out of my house, slamming the door.

What are you doing Edward? Emmett and Jasper are your best friends. Why are you shutting them out? They haven't done anything. I wasn't being rational and I knew that, this made sense to me before but now that I heard it coming from someone else's mouth, it made no sense whatsoever.

I was pushing them away because I was jealous. They got to see Bella, they got to talk to her, get to know her, everything I wanted to do. I was never one to get jealous, I was always the guy people were jealous of but now the tables have turned.

I was fucking Edward Cullen. No, I thought. I am fucking Edward Cullen. I get what I want and I don't settle. I was going to get to her. I didn't care what I had to do, I was going to get to Bella and I was going to take her out. I would prove to her that I wasn't just some jerk. Then she would love me. How could she not? After all, I am Edward fucking Cullen.

A/N: So there it is for you! The song used for this chapter was "Can't Let Go" by Landon Pigg. We know this chapter is short but, as we're sure you guys can tell, it is more of a transitional chapter. Please do us a huge favor and leave us some reviews! We don't ask for much but we love to hear what you guys think!