Use Somebody
I was brought out of my daze by a voice from the loudspeaker,
"We will be landing to our final destination in about 5 minutes. Once again we'd like to thank you for flying Jet Blue. Welcome to Fresno." The voice said. It's funny because the flight felt like 5 minutes on its own. I was looking around and an elderly lady in the middle seat smiled.
"You dozed off sweetie; you looked so tired that we didn't want to wake you," she said pointing at her husband, as he too smiled warmly at me. I smiled back.
After an uneventful landing, we all flocked to the baggage claim area like sheep. I knew that our bags weren't on the belt yet, so I began to look around, standing on my tippy toes, checking if Jazz and Alice had arrived yet. Out of nowhere I saw them, a tall handsome blonde and next to him was a dark head of spiky hair jumping up and down, clearly looking for me. Jazz saw me and led her to me. As soon as she saw me she began shoving people out of the way in order to get to me faster.
"Bells I'm so glad that you decided to come and spend some time with us! You're going to have a blast!" She said hugging me tightly. She didn't let go for at least five minutes.
"I'm sorry to interrupt the pow-wow, but I've got Bella's bag now, maybe we can continue this at home?" Jazz asked smiling.
Alice, as always, was talking so animatedly and non-stop through the ride to their place that I found it hilarious when she asked me why I wasn't talking. Their apartment was about 25 minutes from the airport and 5 or 10 minutes away from campus. It was simple, yet lavish at the same time. Because it was a two, I clearly saw they were still putting up appearances that they weren't "sleeping together." After a very quick tour of their place and the complex, Alice stopped me in front of her apartment.
"C'mon, you can shower later, let's go see this shit!" She said in her most serious voice.
I feigned being hurt, sniffed myself and replied, "Why, do I smell?"
She laughed and yelled toward the door, "Jazz, I'm showing Bells the campus. We'll be back later. LOVE YOU!"
She dragged me toward the car and we took off for campus.
She gave me a general tour of the school and then we went into their area where they have a bowling alley. It was so fun and cheap that we played two games and had some junk food along with it. At the end of our second game, Jazz called to see what we were doing. He wanted to know when we were going to go back because we had been gone for a while.
When we began to head back to their apartment, a slight breeze had begun which slightly cooled the night air and I welcomed it warmly. I was surprised that we had avoided the subject of what brought me there so far, but I knew that I wouldn't be so fortunate for long. We got back to the apartment just as Jazz was leaving for a couple of hours for his study group. I promised him that we wouldn't get too crazy tonight and that I'd be taking care of his girlfriend just in case.
"Bella, something's been bothering you all day despite my attempts. Tell me what's going on. Please?" Alice looked into my eyes and I almost broke down.
"I'm worried about Edward," I replied simply.
"Why what's wrong with him? Is it something that he can come back from?" Alice asked.
"I think he may have some sort of psychological problem. Some sort of personality disorder maybe, I'm not sure yet. But he scared me Alice. No matter what happened between us, I would beat myself up if something ever happened to him because of me. I mean we both knew that there was a point in time where we were both happy and in love for that matter. I don't know, it's just so odd knowing that I won't go back to him," I said waiting, half expecting for the tears to fall.
"How do you know so much, I just thought that you were going to let him get what he needed to say off his chest and then walk away?"
"I was, but I realized that I still love him in some way. I mean not in the 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you' kind of way, but I want to be there for him in any way that I can. I just know that he's mentally off, you know? Not in a schizoid sort of way but in almost can't deal with realities and such kind of way," I said, showing concern to someone about my ex for the first time ever.
"So you give him some electroconvulsive therapy and TA-DA! Good as new right?" She saw my eyes beginning to water as she said, "Oh shit, Bells. I was just kidding. Really I don't think that Edward's that sick okay? Just let him see a doctor and get these things taken care of. You'll see. Before you know it he'll be back to norma,l or should I say closer to his old self, okay?" She said as I began to cry.
For the first time since Edward and I had broken up, I cried like a baby, I cried about everything. I cried because of everything that we had together had been thrown away due to the problems that both of us refused to deal with. I cried because I felt that I had tried to be too strong in the past 8 months, that I never really gave myself a chance to grieve. It had just been anger and I was tired of being angry. Finally, I cried because didn't know what else to do with my feelings and emotions. I wanted to be there for Edward, but wasn't aware of how to do it without hurting him or myself in the process. My sobs finally subsided to just to sniffles in a matter of minutes, mainly because my nose was beginning to burn.
"Do you feel better? It sounded like you've been keeping a lot in Bells. Why didn't you tell anyone? You know that Rose and I are there for you unconditionally, why couldn't you tell us that you were hurting? Or better yet, why didn't you just let it out?" Alice asked as she stroked my hair away from my face and helped wipe my tears as I lay in her lap.
"Thanks, yeah I feel a bit better; I didn't know that I had so much built up in there. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't realize how much I had built inside of me and I didn't let it out because for the past 7 months or so all I thought that I felt towards Edward was anger and hurt. I never really thought about crying or anything like that. I just don't know where I dropped the ball and closed myself up. For that matter I don't even remember the last time that I laughed and did something just because I wanted to. It's been doing things that other people want to do or if not trying to enjoy myself but not being able to because all I can do is think of him," I said, ending with a long sigh.
"Honey, Rose and I won't judge you if you're in pain. We just want to see you move on in a healthy way, not jump to the next person. When you didn't do that, when you didn't move on at all, we both got a little worried. That's exactly why we may have pushed things a little bit for you when you began to see James. How's that going by the way?" Alice asked like she knew. I knew that she knew but I'm sure that she just wanted me to simply tell her.
I took a deep breath and held it in. "I dunno Ali. After I got home from the hospital, when I broke my nose, I sorta may have blown him off. I don't know if he's prepared to deal with someone who's so unstable like me, you know? I really like him though, and he's really understanding about everything that's been going on. I don't know I guess it's all up to him and whether he thinks that he can handle the bad past that I have," I said looking up at her.
She smiled down at me.
"Well I wouldn't worry about this little speed bump, trust me. You two will be back to normal in no time at all!" Her eyes glazed over for a moment and I just waited. "Yeah, I wouldn't worry about him being mad at you, in fact I would be expecting a call soon." She finished with her knowing-everything-all-too-well smile. Smart ass!
We chatted until Jazz came home around 2 am, we talked about everything. My terrific nose break, my talk with Edward and she even came around to not make any comments about any therapies that he may need, seen as to how the first comment had upset me.
I walked into 'Alice's room' after we all finished chatting and got ready for bed when I finally checked my phone, I didn't think I was ready for this. Even with a magical eight ball like Alice, you still tend to think the opposite is going to happen. I saw that I had missed a call and had two text messages, I checked the text messages first since they were easier to reply to. The first was from Rose asking me to check in once Alice had left me alone. I'm glad that those two knew each other and that they became friends, I don't know how I would've survived the last eight months if they hadn't.
The second text was from Edward, thanking me again for putting my personal feelings aside and genuinely trying to help him. He also mentioned that he thought that I would become a great nurse. He ended that his therapy would begin on Monday with Dr. Zamudio at the hospital. I quickly texted back that I was glad that he was finally getting help and to let me know if there was anything else that I could do in order to help him.
Finally there was the voicemail. The missed call was from James so I already somewhat knew what to expect. He said he wanted to talk to me, it didn't matter what time it was he just wanted to hear my voice, I figured that there was something else behind it so decided to call him in case there was something urgent he would want to talk about.
"Huh, hello?" He answered sounding groggy.
"Hi James, you said to call you no matter what time it was, but do you want me to just let you go and we can talk in the morning?" I asked, concerned.
"No, no I'm up." He groaned into the background, "How's Fresno so far? Are you having fun?" he asked.
"Well sort of, Rose is emailing me my homework and other stuff to do while I'm here, but things are going easy so far. Alice showed me the campus today and we went bowling. Hey, did you know that they had a bowling alley in their campus?" I asked him, I was clearly amazed by that simple fact.
"No, I didn't know that, but it's cool that they do," he replied.
"I'm sorry I'm boring you with nonsense, what's going on? I mean, what's so important that you wanted me to call you, no matter what time it was?" I asked, a couple of minutes passed (at least in my brain) before I heard anything.
He took a deep breath and held it in, "Bella, I don't know exactly what you feel for your ex still and I don't know exactly what you feel for me… but I can honestly say that I feel like I'm falling in love with you, all of you. And I just want to know if you could possibly maybe one day feel the same thing for me or if I'm just going to be wasting my time. I don't like the thought that could be playing games with my heart because I'm giving myself, my true self to you. I could understand if you think it's too soon but…" James stopped as I interrupted him.
"James, you're not making any sense really, I'm sorry but you should know that my intentions with you at the moment are simply to get to know you better," I said. I was answered with only silence. Shit!
Out of nowhere I begin to hear him laughing, not chuckles or something that may resemble laughter, but full-on hearty laughter. "Uh, did I miss something? Or are you simply loosing your rocker?" I asked.
He kept laughing but in between he managed to choke out, "Did you hear what I said? I said quit playing games with my heart. What the hell am I now, a damn backstreet boy?" I had heard the words but I didn't really process them in that way until he mentioned it. I began laughing with him.
"So on a serious note, you really were serious with what you just said and with what you said in Long Beach? You know about waiting?" I asked feeling extremely hopeful.
"I am very serious about what I tell you, with the exception of the quit playing games with my heart thing since I was the one who put it out there and laughed about it, but yes, I am willing to wait for you until you're ready to have a relationship and no matter what I'll be here for you as whatever you may need me to be," he replied.
"James, I know that I probably say this a lot, but I want to thank you for being so understanding. I hope that you understand too that I care about Edward's well being no matter what happened between us."
"Well to tell you the truth I wasn't jazzed about the idea that you still may care for him, but you said it yourself, he holds a special place in your heart because he was a lot of your firsts and because you thought that you would one day marry him. Then I began to think of how if things didn't work between us, I would like us to be okay. I would like it if you still cared about me as maybe a person or a friend. So I totally can't fault you for being the good person that you naturally already are," he explained.
I smiled even though I knew he couldn't see it.
"Thanks James. You really are pretty amazing. I wasn't just saying that for shits and giggles. Anyway I should get going because it's almost four and I know that Alice's going to have me running around town with her like some lost puppy looking for her mother! Oh, and before I hang up, I'll be back in town next Monday so maybe we can talk about the rain check at that time? As far as me, don't worry, I'm in good hands with Alice and Jasper. I'll keep in touch, and James," I paused to see if he was still listening after my rant.
"Yes?"
"I can't wait to see you again. Good night," I said.
He sighed before saying, "Good night Bella."