Sorry it's been a while since I've updated, but I had a fun-filled weekend at Disneyland! And now I'm melting in Los Angeles' 111 heat. I guess the only good thing about work right now is free air conditioning…Anyway, enough rambling. Here's another chapter, enjoy!

And thanks everyone for their reviews, and keep them coming! They make me happy.

Chapter 11

"You really don't have to do this," Bella said as Alice gently wiped the blood that was coming from Bella's nose.

"Oh hush," Alice said. "Don't worry about me. You have enough to worry about as it is."

"I just don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"I'm not. Now hold still." Alice finished cleaning Bella up and grabbed an ice pack from the freezer in the kitchen. "I don't think it's broken, but you might want to put this on it just to keep any swelling down."

Bella looked at Alice helplessly as she placed the cold towel on her tender face. "Thank you," she whispered.

"You don't need to thank me," Alice said matter-of-factly. She changed the tone of her voice, though, when she saw the look that came across Bella's face. "I owe you so much more than this right now, and I swear that if it takes me a century to make everything up to you, you will realize someday how much you really mean to us."

"But you left," Bella said softly. "You didn't love me enough to stay."

Alice was the one that looked helpless this time. "I don't know if anything I can say will make you believe otherwise, but you're wrong. I loved you too much to stay. It wasn't my choice."

"What do you mean it wasn't your choice to leave? Even if Edward didn't want me anymore, you could have stayed."

"He did want you. He still does want you, but there are so many other things to worry about right now. You're right, I could have stayed. I should have stayed, honestly. But how could I go against the wishes of my brother? Especially when he thought he was doing the right thing?"

"I don't know what you mean," Bella said, avoiding eye contact with Alice.

"It's not my place to explain it to you," Alice said, lifting Bella's face so that it looked straight into hers. "I have a century to pay you back for everything we've done to you, he has a thousand years. And he will be there to explain, when you're ready."

"I'm not. Not yet," Bella said.

" I know. But now you have a few things you need to explain to me," Alice said.

"There's nothing left to say. You saw how Kevin treats me. And you saw me stand up to him, for the first time. There's nothing more to it."

"I don't just mean Kevin. I mean everything, Bella. What happened to you?"

Bella whipped her head up in anger. "You know exactly what happened to me. You left me. You all left me. And because of that, I've lost everything I've ever loved."

Alice desperately wished she could cry at that moment. But there would be no release for her. She thought that maybe it was part of her punishment, and that gave her the courage to ask her next question. "Renee? Charlie? Bella, what happened to them?"

Bella was silent for a few moments before answering. "You thought you had protected me when you killed James. But instead, you put me, and everyone else I loved, in more danger than we had been in before."

Okay, so sue me. I love cliffhanger endings. I'll be posting the next chapter today, so it really isn't that much of a cliffhanger. I just feel a dramatic ending to a chapter fits with the style of the story.