Big thank you to my betas Reamhar, Zillanxio & BMD. Any remaining errors, typos etc. are all my own doing – as always.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


12. White Rabbit

I woke up the next morning feeling antsy; I wanted to get my chat with Alice out of the way. The whole Edward situation was turning me into a nervous wreck. Rose's advice was still fresh in memory and I was hoping beyond hope, and contrary to his announcement, that he'd come to the party. I'd decided to take a bottle of Jack with me just in case.

I jumped out of bed quickly, before anybody in the house was awake, walked downstairs and pulled out a bottle from Charlie's not-so-secret stash. I ended up grabbing two bottles, just in case. With the booze secured, I stalked back upstairs, took a quick shower and, as I exited the bathroom, I noticed Rose and Jas were up and moving around.

The morning hours dragged on as slowly on our 'date night' the week before. I couldn't wait to get out of this place to finally put some pieces of my Edward puzzle together. The weather was abnormally nice, which would have made the fact that we were attending an outdoor party in January more bearable, but it didn't matter to me today. I was too focused on my mission to truly care about the weather. Rain wouldn't have stopped me. I tried in vain to figure out what exactly I would ask Alice. Just asking 'so what's up your brother's ass? I like him, but he makes no moves' sounded a little too straightforward.

My mind wandered back to Jas and our bedtime chatter. He'd stated the obvious: the Cullens were loaded. Yeah, I figured that much from looking at the way they dressed and the car they drove. I'd never spent much time thinking about 'wealth' and the strange effects it had on how you were treated, mostly because I wasn't usually surrounded by people with a lot of money.

Money mattered; I knew that much from living with Renee, because at the end of each month we usually barely had enough to pay the bills. When we were little, Rose always whined when she wanted new clothes or toys that Renee on her meager salary just couldn't swing. I wasn't much of a sucker for new clothes or toys and I was happy with a couple of books that I could easily take out from the library, but I can't lie, sometimes I wished we had more money. Not to buy clothing or to live in a fancy house, but just enough so I knew I could go to college, no matter whether some school gave me a scholarship or not. For Renee, I always hoped she'd be able to earn more money for the long hours she used to work, so that she could buy herself the silly little things that lightened her mood.

Now I wondered whether money mattered in more ways than I'd previously considered. Nobody had ever treated me differently because we weren't rich, and I'd never viewed my family as 'poor.' But now Alice's mother was treating Jas differently, and not only because of who our mother was, as I'd come to expect in this town, but because of our apparent lack of funds. I started worrying whether it mattered to Edward, when I heard someone knock on our front door loudly. I looked up at the kitchen clock and noticed that it was only about two o'clock.

I opened the door and found Emmett standing at our doorstep, his hair a little wet, wearing jeans and a wool sweater.

"Hey, Emmett. Are you here to pick up Rose already?"

"Yeah, I thought we could get there a little early before the crowds from our school arrive, so I came here right after practice."

"Come in," I said, stepping aside from the door. "Do you want anything to drink while you wait? I think Rose is taking a shower." We could hear the sound of water running in the shower upstairs.

"Nah, don't worry about it. Unless you're getting something for yourself."

I walked over to the fridge, pulled out two bottles of soda and handed him one.

"Sit down, why don't you," I suggested. "Rose usually takes a while."

"Sure," he said, sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs, looking at me with a smile on his face. "So Bells, is Edward picking you up soon? I tried calling him, but his mom said he was busy and couldn't come to the phone."

"No, why would he?" I answered flippantly.

"I don't know, he said something yesterday about going to pick you up from work, so I assumed you'd go together to the beach as well."

"He didn't pick… " I halted midsentence, as I remembered seeing Edward's Volvo drive by the diner. "Well, I didn't see him last night and I asked him whether he wanted to come along to the beach, but he said something about being busy."

"Right, dear Eddie is busy." Emmett started chuckling. "If he spends anymore time studying, he'll be bored in college, that's for sure." He laughed out loud now. "Seriously, Bella, you need to grab the darn fool by his shirt and drag him out of house once in a while."

"Yeah, I'm not sure about that," I murmured, embarrassed that Emmett thought I should grab Edward and drag him along. What made him think he'd let me?

"Hey, if anybody can get the boy out of his shell, it's you! And somebody needs to urgently; otherwise he'll stay cooped up at home until he goes off to college," Emmett commented. I thought about what Jas had said about Mrs. Cullen and thought she'd probably be really pissed if her son dated another one of those unkempt Swan kids, barely a step above sewer rats if one were to believe the gossip going around this town.

"Ugh, yeah, Emmett, I don't know about that. I'd doubt I'd be able to drag him anywhere unwillingly and, secondly, I think his mom would be none to pleased if I'd knock on their front door." I shrugged my shoulders and I saw Emmett tense up.

"I'm sorry about that. I guess my father isn't much better in that respect. I'm assuming Rose told you the stuff my dad told me? About your mom, I mean?" he asked, looking all of a sudden unsure and ashamed.

"Yeah, she did."

"I'm sorry. My dad was . . . is an idiot sometimes. I'm sorry I even repeated the stuff to Rose," he stuttered.

"No need to apologize to me. As long as Rose has forgiven you, you're okay with me." It was true. Emmett hadn't really done or said anything to me personally. Before the conversation could get any more uncomfortable, Rose came down the stairs.

"Hey," she purred, when she saw Emmett sitting in the kitchen. "Did you come here right after practice?" She walked over and settled herself on his lap, giving him a kiss on the mouth.

I sat next to them too flustered to move. Did Edward drive by the diner to come and pick me up? Why hadn't he stopped? Could Newton's presence have prevented him?

After two minutes of P.D.A. in the kitchen, Rose and Emmett left and Jas came running down the stairs.

"Let's head over to Alice's place," Jas said, as he took his jacket from the hook in the hallway. I followed him silently to the truck and we drove down the town's one main road until we hit a small dirt road that seemed to disappear into the woods. Jas headed down the little path until we reached a clearing and I saw the road ended in a circle in front of a gigantic mansion, complete with columns, a fountain, trimmed hedges, and flower arrangements. To say that the house looked a little surreal in the middle of bumblefuck Forks would have been an understatement. The whole place looked like it was loaded up on a truck in Beverly Hills and just parked up here. It didn't belong here.

We drove around a flower patch in front of the house and stopped next to marble steps that led up to the main entrance. Jas was about to turn off the engine, but Alice gracefully flew down the stairs and opened the door of the truck on my side and climbed in, beating him to it.

"Hey, Bella, I'm so glad you came!" she said cheerily, as she gave me an almost bone shattering hug.

"Hey," I greeted her, barely managing a strangled whisper, because she squeezed me so hard that it almost took my breath away. When she let go, she winked at Jas quickly before we drove off. No Edward in sight. The bottles of Jack sitting in a bag at the bottom of my feet would probably not come in handy for seduction purposes, I sullenly realized.

I glanced back at the monstrosity behind us through the rearview mirror and saw Edward standing in one of the windows of the ground floor. I wanted to tell Jas to back up, so I could go get him. He looked so lonely and left behind standing there, but I couldn't get my mouth to open. All I could do was just stare, first at the mirror and, then, I turned around and looked out the rear window, not wanting to let go of his image.

We drove through the forest until we reached a road along the coastline where the almost black waters of the sea were crashing on the rocks below us. Jas took a particularly steep curve at the end of the road to veer onto a smaller road, which made the bag I'd brought along fall straight on my foot.

"Ahh, shit," I moaned, as the bag hit me and the pain spread from my toes to the rest of my foot.

"Man, Bella, what did you drag along in that bag that makes it so heavy?" Jas asked, cocking his eyebrow at me questioningly.

"Some Jack," I admitted, pulling one of the bottles out of the bag.

"Groovy, let's open it!" Alice screamed excitedly. Seriously— I'd never seen anybody freak out over a bottle of whiskey. I gave Jas a glance from the side; he rolled his eyes in response. I'd noticed when she jumped in the car that, while she still looked way better dressed than we did, her style had changed slightly. Her hair seemed more unruly and less coiffed; she'd replaced the mini-skirts and dresses with a pair of jeans; and her make up was definitely toned down—no more dramatic eyeliner. It almost looked like she was trying to fit in with us; why was beyond me.

"Yeah, sure," I said, as I unscrewed the top and handed it to her. Alice's small hands grasped the bottle and she started drinking the stuff in big gulps. The sight of the little Pixie guzzling away Charlie's Jack shocked me a little, if I was being honest. She just looked so well mannered and small. I'd envisioned her sipping Sherry out of delicate little glasses, not glugging down whiskey straight from the bottle. I couldn't suppress a smile.

"Did you bring anything else along?" I looked over at Jas, thinking that he wouldn't come unprepared to a party.

"Yeah, I got some gin and some beer in the bed of the trunk," Jas answered, nodding his head towards the truck bed. Alice giggled in response.

When we arrived at the beach a group of people from school was already there, and Jake and some of his friends appeared to be busy arranging wood for the bonfire they'd planned for tonight.

"Hey, Bells, what's going on?" I heard before I was crushed yet again into a hug.

"Hey, Jake!"

"I gotta go, 'cause Sam and the other guys still need my help with the fire, but I got something for you," he said, pressing a small plastic bag into my hand, before sprinting away. I examined the contents of the bag—brown, dried-up mushrooms. I pushed the bag into my jeans pocket and walked over to Alice, Jas, Rose and Emmett who were sitting together on a couple of logs lying around the beach.

"Jas, check out what Jake just gave me," I whispered, as I sat down and handed the bag to Jas. "I think they're mushrooms. Should we take some?"

"Silly rabbit, of course!" he answered, as he popped a couple of the crumbled brown pieces into his mouth and washed them down with gin. I followed his example after he'd returned the bag to me. "Do you mind if I offer Alice some?"

"Yeah, I don't want to take the stuff back home anyway," I answered. Not even a minute later I saw Alice popping some of the mushrooms into her mouth, washing them down with the beer in her hand.

"Man Jas, what are you guys taking now?" Rose said, squinting at the bag that was back in my hand now.

"Just some mushrooms, chill!" Jas snapped.

"Want some?" I asked wiggling my eyebrows at Rose.

"Yeah, Rose, shit might expand your mind a little!" Jas added.

"Come on, Rose. You know this party will just be boring without it!" I tried egging her on.

"I'll have some," Emmett said, before we could further tease Rose. I laughed and tossed the bag over to him.

"Ugh, babe, you're letting those two slackers corrupt you," Rose noted, wrinkling her nose, but Emmett ignored her and chewed blissfully, before washing the stuff down with some beer. Before Emmett could toss the bag back to me, Rose took the bag and dumped the rest of it into her mouth.

"Ahh, I see who's a bad, corrupting influence now!" Jas laughed.

"So how long until this stuff starts working?" Emmett asked, looking expectantly at Jas and me.

"Depends on the mushrooms, but usually it takes a while," I answered, picking up a beer and opening it. The Doors started playing in the background.

You know that it would be untrue

You know that I would be a liar

If I was to say to you

Girl we couldn't get much higher

The little area on the beach where the fire was being built started filling up with people rapidly after that. I saw most of the people from our school and some kids with black hair, who I assumed were from the reservation. The music coming from a transistor radio was only background noise behind all the commotion; the waves crashing onto the sand in front of me were barely visible anymore because of all the people standing and sitting around.

After a couple of drinks, I started feeling oddly chilly. Thinking moving around would probably help, I got up to look for Jake to thank him for the mushrooms. Scanning the crowd for someone tall with black hair, I walked past Jessica and Lauren, who were standing around shivering, dressed in mini-dresses and ugly tights, the heels of their cheap pumps sinking into the sand with a bottle of apple schnapps that they were in the process of sharing. Ugh, disgusting sweet shit, how typical, I thought. I nodded in their direction without bothering to actually go talk to them.

"Hey, Bella! Why didn't you let me pick you up?" I suddenly heard Newton bellow behind. I turned around and he attempted to pull me into a hug. My reflexes kicked in and I managed to side step his arms as they came flying toward me, only to grab the air. He'd obviously had his share of booze already and I noticed a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker in his hand.

"Hey, Mike. I came here with my brother, no worries," I said, turning around and scanning the crowd again for Jake.

I started walking again, when I felt someone's hand on my shoulder. I turned around and saw it was still Newton.

"Belllllaaa, wait, come talk to me," Newton slurred.

"What, Mike? I'm looking for someone…"

"I hope not for Smarty Pants 'cause he doesn't attend any parties with the common folk of this town."

"No, not for Edward," I answered, looking for the fastest escape route.

"Good. So we can spend some time together undisturbed," he babbled, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Next thing I knew, I felt Newton's arm around my shoulder and his was face bending down, aiming apparently for my mouth.

"Fuck off," I snapped, pushing him away. He stumbled back. I was about to leave it at that and walk away, when I heard him whisper.

"Frigid Bitch."

I stopped in my tracks. Anger suddenly took over and I turned around. "Hey Newton, just so we're clear, for future reference: I don't want to date you, hang with you or have your tongue anywhere near me. Do you hear me?" I was yelling by the time I'd reached my last words and I noticed that a bunch of people were staring at us, before I walked away.

I found Jake two minutes later, sitting around with some of the kids from the reservation. I sat down with him, and he introduced me to a bunch of them, but I couldn't remember their names.

"So did you take the mushrooms?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, hope you don't mind, but I gave the rest to Jas and Rose. I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to leave some stash for you." I shrugged apologetically.

"Nah, that's alright. I'm totally set," he remarked as he pulled out a joint and lit it before handing it to me. I took a puff.

"So, no date for this party, Bells? Thought you'd have dragged someone along, seeing how your siblings are all coupled up." He smirked at me.

"Ha, ha, very funny. Nope, no date for me," I admitted. Not for a lack of trying, I wanted to add, as I handed the joint back to him. It was starting to get dark and one of the taller kids, I think his name was Sam, started to light the pile of wood in front of us.

The flames quickly spread through the dry logs and I stared at the fire, mesmerized by the yellow, red and blue colors of the flames, while running my fingers slowly through the sand next to me. I don't know how long I sat there, but by the time I tore my eyes away from the fire in front of me, the sky was pitch-black, the sea no longer visible, I could only hear the sound of the waves as they crashed onto the beach. Then the music become louder.

And you've just had some kind of mushroom

And your mind is moving slow

Go ask Alice

I think she'll know

"Alice," I whispered, as I started to get up.

"Bells, where're you going? Stay with me!" Jake pulled me back down next to him.

"I've to go and find Alice," I murmured, removing his hand from my arm, about to attempt to get up again, when I saw her. She was standing right in front of me, a small smile playing around her lips.

"Bella, come!" she said, pulling me up by my hands to stand. She didn't let go of my hands. We started spinning around in a circle, dancing, moving next to the fire.

When logic and proportion

Have fallen sloppy dead

And the White Knight is talking backwards

And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"

Remember what the dormouse said;

"Keep YOUR HEAD"

As the last note of the song echoed in the air, I remembered. Edward.

"Alice, I need to talk to you," I said, standing still.

"I know." She pulled me down into the sand. "I know. I need to talk to you too. I've been meaning to for a while now. Mmmh," she mused, her hands reaching for my hair and playing with the ends hanging over my shoulder.

"Edward," I began, hesitantly.

"Yeah, my brother, I know," she nodded.

"I think I like him," I admitted. "What's wrong with him?"

"I thought I knew. I thought he was like our mother, but now I know he's not. Not at all," she replied firmly, shaking her head.

"What's your mother like, Alice? She doesn't like Jas?" I looked at her, waiting for a clue to solve the riddle.

"Mommy dearest, you see," she said frowning, "used to stay at Bellevue, before Carlisle, our father, found her and took her away."

"Bellevue," I repeated, recognition setting in, "the hospital in New York?"

"Yeah, she was sick. She'd lost her baby, so her husband and her family abandoned her there on the eleventh floor."

My dazed mind was struggling with Alice's words. I looked at her, her pupils were dilated and the grey surrounding them was just a small sliver.

"Alice, do you think Edward is sick?" I asked searching for answers.

"No, I don't think he ever was, but for a while I used to think so. He'd always sulk, never laugh, and lock himself in his room. He barely smiled. I don't remember him smiling since we moved here.

"But then . . . then you came along. And he's fine. It's as if he was asleep for a long time, and suddenly he woke up. Now he smiles and sometimes he gets angry. I haven't seen him like this, you know, happy, in so long, Bella." She smiled at me, bright eyed.

"What are you saying, Alice?" I looked at her, confused. "Do you think he likes me?"

Alice smiled and then let out a light laugh that seemed to reverberate in the atmosphere, before she knelt in front of me and cupped my face with her tiny hands.

"Edward's in love with you," she breathed, completely confident. "Let's go find Jas."


Okay – First Kiss is around the corner…

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