Alright, I got a bit of heat for my last comment. Let me clarify that I am a never-ending abyss of randomness, and can do that part well. Sappy moments in sappy stories? That's where I'm essentially useless. Talentless celebrities give me hope!

I hope you really like Jacob in this story; because I do. He plays a part later. :)


According to the quantum theory of E=MC2; the faster you are moving in comparison to the speed of light, the slower 'time' passes for said moving object in relation to a stationary observer. In simple English, if one were to move at the speed of light, they could essentially move backwards in time. At the exact rate of 299,792,458 meters per second; it would seem that time were not passing at all - in theory, creating a standstill.

At the speed Alice's car was whizzing down the road? I swore we would end up in the 1980's.

"God, Alice - slow down! I'm in no hurry to get back to my 9 to 5 job, but I do want to get there." I said, clutching at my seat belt.

Alice laughed, and cranked up the radio. "Relax, it's the country side - there's nothing to crash into. Here, look at these pictures."

I nearly rolled my eyes. How could someone possibly multitask like she did, when driving at a breakneck speed? Here I was, trying not to get swept away to Alaska; while Alice did everything she possibly could that didn't involve driving. Telling me stories about her parents?- Yeah, she's a 'hands talker' and reenacted the entire tale. Shuffling through her iPod to find a better song?- Let me tell you that she has over 1000 songs on that thing, not to mention that every other one was her 'absolute favourite'. Reaching into the backseat; deciding between pairs of sunglasses; or just plain looking at me while she talked were among many things that I was certain would eventually get us killed.

"If you keep your eyes on the road."

"Fine."

She handed me a small envelop of old pictures from the pocket of her door. I flipped through them, finding myself grinning at each image. There were only a handful of pictures, and they were of Alice and Edward as kids, presumably growing up in Boston. The tiny Alice was accompanied by a tiny Edward, and I couldn't help but laugh at their matching mushroom cuts. Not only that, but there seemed to be a cat in every picture that contained Edward.

"Sexy." I said, and the both us understood that the childhood pictures were anything but sexy.

"Everybody goes through the mushroom cut phase." She said, laughing.

"I didn't," I said. "I was more of baseball cap every-day-until-grade-6 type of kid. I thought I was tough shit."

Alice snorted. "And you tell me you're not gay."

We were on our way back to New York at this point in the day, having left the reservation after lunch. What was supposed to be a four hour drive back, would probably be turned into two hours with Alice behind the wheel. I almost dreaded being back in my flat. Jacob's cabin and his presence alone had engulfed me into their protective bubble; filtering in what was good, and leaving out the bad. Now I was on my own, out in the real world. I didn't care if they started calling me Bubble Girl - I wanted back in, and I wanted back in forever. In the meantime, Jacob and I's last conversation still replayed in my head; I couldn't help but wonder if he was right.

"Hey, I found your shirt in the bathroom." Jacob said, poking his head into my room slowly. I didn't have a lot to pack, but I was taking my sweet time and then some."Figured you wouldn't want to leave it."

"Thanks, Jake."

Instead of tossing me the shirt, like I expected; he waited around, looking like he wanted to say something.

"Hey, Bella?"

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Don't forget to take your smile."

I laughed at him. What a dork. "I don't think it's something I can leave behind."

He walked into the room, and closed the door behind him. "Just promise me you'll use it, though." He said, offering me a crooked grin.

I sighed. I was sure to smile back in New York; I guess I just wasn't sure how often. "Well, I'll give you a progress update sometime." I said.

Jacob stood in my room, as if he were expecting something. What did he want me to say? That I'd be sunshine on legs when I walked into my flat? Let's be realistic - this place was more of a home than a lifetime in the flat could ever be.

"You know," He started, tracing his fingers along the wardrobe carefully. "She likes you."

Who, Alice? Yeah, thick chance on that one. As friends, maybe - as anything more; I seriously doubted it. I had learned a while ago not to get my hopes up - not when it was such a long fall down. Jacob should know that, right? "I don't think so, Jake." I said, heaving my luggage onto the bed.

He laughed quietly. "What makes you so sure?"

I stopped stuffing socks into the luggage, and looked at him. Wasn't it obvious? There weren't any lines for Jacob to read between this time.

"She just doesn't."

"Not when you have that attitude." He chuckled. Well, I was glad somebody was finding this funny. "You think she'll never go for you, eh?"

What was with him? Didn't he know I was already struggling enough - I didn't need more package while trudging up this mountain.

"Her and I aren't exactly on the same page, Jacob. She has a perfect life and a perfect boyfriend back home; I have a job that I landed by complete fluke, and a pretty much mediocre everything else. She doesn't have anything more to 'go for'."

"You should ask her." He said, turning to face me. He threw the shirt he was holding to me, which I caught in mid air, and crossed his arms. "Funny you still call them flukes. . ."

...

I scrunched up my nose. Starbucks or not, coffee generally tasted like shit. Being from New York it was practically in my job description to drink coffee though, and I hadn't been left out of that statistic. A litre of milk and five million sugar cubes later, and the liquid poison became somewhat drinkable.

"What'd you get?" I asked Alice, as she sat down across from me.

"Cafe Americano. Black." She answered.

What a brave, brave soul. Who drinks their coffee black these days?

"That's a no bullshit drink." I said.

Alice laughed, cupping her drink between her palms. She looked extra cozy, as if she were sitting beside a fireplace and were bundled up in a blanket. The image made me smile inwardly; did everything about her have to be so cute? "I only got into coffee when I started college. I figured I'd take the macho route."

"And this route led you to life you have now?" I asked.

"Precisely."

"Who knew? The secret to riches, success, and love is at the bottom of black coffee."

Alice winked at me. "Don't tell anyone."

That feeling of an entire butterfly kingdom being set loose in your stomach? That's exactly what her wink triggered.

God, I wondered if she realizes that I'm not usually like this. Lord knows, I'm not the type of person who calls misplaced adrenaline and endorphins, 'butterflies'; I'm also not the type to take a week off a new job for an impromptu trip in the woods. I don't dive into algae water, eat salad for dinner, ride motorbikes, or speed down dirt roads. I don't like girls, and I definitely don't love them. This wasn't me; this was me on hard drugs, me going through a mid-life crisis, me not being me. It was ridiculous! I was being stupid, juvenile, pathetic, nonsensical, retar- whoa, why's she sucking on her bottom lip? That's actually pretty cute. I like that. What does it mean? Did I do something? Did-

Ugh! Back to my inner monologue.

In reality, it takes me a long time to be comfortable with people. A really long time. Save Jasper, I usually have to spend an unhealthy chunk of time with someone to consider them my friend, let alone like them. Let alone love them. That's just it - I was going mental. It seemed like the only logical explanation. What normal person talks to themself as much as I do? Perhaps my inner narrator was just overactive, the monologues and all that are just 'it' being obnoxious.

Maybe I've developed OCD. Why else would I be acting like this? There must be a simple chemical explanation for the imbalance in my brain. I fall a lot - hello, something must've gone wrong. -Else I wouldn't notice all the little things like I do. Examples off the top of my head? How about the way she bites her lip when she's finished a long sentence, and is awaiting a response; the way she blinks slower in the morning than in the afternoon; or the way she prefers celery over carrots on Fridays, and only on Fridays. Now I had to add this cute lip-sucking thing to my list, right after I find out what it's for.

Like I said - mental.

I wonder if she knows the effect she has on people. Does she notice how things get brighter around her?- How she walks into the room and the paint on the walls seem to turn a few shades lighter? Did she know that every time she walks past a group of people, every single one of them does a double take; wondering who she is and how she loves? Surely, I couldn't be the only one.

Nicholas Sparks needed to get into my brain and make a home there - it'd seriously give him a few ideas.

...

We were driving down the road again; much slower this time because there was traffic. The city and its looming buildings could be seen in the distance, and I knew we'd be home soon. This was probably the last time I'd have alone with Alice. Roughly, that translates to 'this is the last time I get to talk to Alice before she sucks face with Jasper'. Right, go time.

She was just finishing up a story about her and Edward, and I figured it was now or never. I wanted to relieve that nag that had been there for days.

"You never finished telling me about Julliard." I said, trying to be casual. Except I wasn't casual and that was totally the most un-smooth entrance I've ever made; considering I had totally cut her off from the end of her story. Well, I was only human.

"Uhh-"

"Sorry, I interrupted, didn't I? Please finish." I said, trying to redeem myself.

"Then Edward and I went home."

I waited a few more seconds before realizing that that was the ending of her story. Oops. I guess I should have waited.

"Sweet." I said. I probably should have picked a better word, since 'sweet' was pretty much interchangeable with 'cool'; thus making both words conversation cutters. You know when you don't know what to say when somebody's talking to you, and you just say 'cool'? Yeah, I hoped she didn't think I was doing that now.

God, my head wasn't on straight.

"I'm surprised that you remember the Julliard thing," Alice said, laughing. "I totally forgot about it."

"It seemed interesting, and you kind of got cut off before anything juicy happened." I said back to her. No need to tell her I'd slightly obsessed about it that night. No need at all.

Alice shrugged. "It's a long story."

"We're stuck in traffic."

"It's kind of boring."

"I don't think you're capable of boring me." I pressed on. I smiled to try to make myself less of a nuisance, but here I was being impolite again. Buttons need to be pressed to find out what's underneath, don't they? And no, that was not a sexual reference.

Alice laughed again, seeming to resign. "Alright, fine. Where did I leave off?"

"Right at the beginning."

"Oh, okay. Well, yeah - so I'd been living Boston and it was between Julliard and Harvard. I mean, I didn't want to be lame and go to the same school as my older brother but my parents really wanted me to go there." She started. "But I was absolutely in love with drawing. Like, I thought I was Picasso or some shit. Anyways, I decided to go against pretty much everyone who supported me, and ended up in Julliard."

"And presumably, that's where you met your love?" I asked. I seemed to have a knack for interrupting.

"Uhh, yeah. But Tanya comes in later." She answered.

I blinked.

Tanya?

Is that . . .

"A girl?" I croaked.

Alice nodded. "Well, yeah. So like I said, I went to Julliard and-"

I literally heard nothing else she said. I will never know how that sentence ended, because I was too busy reminding myself to breathe.

My mind mentally shat itself.

It also vomited a little.

Then it started yodeling.

Oh my God. Alice bats for my team. Or batted for my team. Or I bat for hers, because technically she was on that ship first. Or something.

Or. Or. Or. Or.

Wow that sounds like a seal's noise.

But that doesn't matter because Alice Cullen was, is, should be, gay.

I rolled down my window to make sure the world was real.

It was definitely real.

Dear God, I know I don't pray to you often; but what the fuck are you playing at? Please and thanks. - Bella.

Mental diarrhea ensues.


Possibly a terrible place to leave off, I meant to write down Alice's whole story in this chapter. Instead, I tried to opt for a bit of humor because Bella was being too angsty for my taste.

It's mostly because I left the sheet of paper that mapped out Tanya and Alice's story up in my bedroom, and I am too lazy to go grab it.

Hehe. . .

Tell me if you saw that coming.

...

Oh, and by popular request, I hinted at some Edward+cats in this. Sorry guys, that's as far as I will go :P. Those who read Hot and Cold will get the inside joke. Those who don't . . . well, you're missing out. :D