A/N: Okay, sorry for being so long in updating. I was almost finished with my other story Ship Wrecked so I finished it first. Also, everything up to now was already written, just needing some editing, so updates will be slower anyway. I tried to figure out a regular updating time, but it all comes down to the number of reviews I get (and therefore feel really guilty if I don't update quickly) and when the inspiration strikes. I will try extremely hard to not keep you waiting too long, though.

Good news is that I know exactly where it's going, unless one of the characters throw me for a loop. Just a heads up. And I have no other story to worry about. Love y'all.

Disclaimer: All Twilight characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

Chapter 14

BPOV

I wasn't used to spending so much time at home. I had a job. I hung out with my friends. I occasionally went shopping (for books, not clothes). I hadn't really been anywhere since Friday, and it was Wednesday. I so needed to get out.

Alice and Rosalie had other plans, though. Apparently a lot had been going on while I was in the hospital and stuck at home a few days. How much can happen in four days? A lot.

I laid in bed Wednesday morning, trying to remember my dream. I thought I knew what it was about, but it lingered on the edge of consciousness, playing hide and seek so I never fully comprehended it. I just knew that Edward had been in it, such as he'd been in a lot of my dreams since meeting him. Stupid sandman. Couldn't he give me more realistic dreams?

I was interrupted by a flying ball of black hair followed more slowly by a mane of blonde hair.

"Morning Bella!" Alice sang out after landing next to me on the bed.

"Mornin' Alice. Hey Rosalie. Don't you guys have work today?"

"No, we called in," Rose said. "We need to spend time together since we didn't get to this weekend."

"And this day couldn't wait for next weekend. We're in bad need of girl time," Alice said. She pulled me to my feet and pushed me towards my bathroom while she and Rosalie went to fix breakfast. I smelled a full breakfast before I got out.

Pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, biscuits. Oh so much to choose from and so little room!

It was good to spend some time with them. I felt that the past few days had done a lot to send us on our separate ways. I didn't even know how Alice's date with Jasper had gone. I bet Rose did, though.

"So, Alice."

"So, Bella."

"What happened with Jasper?" She got this glazed over look in her eyes and her face turned beet red.

"Oh, my gosh, Bella. Jasper is perfect. He's just so good. I know we got started late, but we stayed up for hours just talking about nothing. We went down to First Beach and just talked since it was too late to actually do anything."

"Sorry Alice, that's my fault," I said.

"No, Bells, it's not your fault. Besides, I'd rather not change how it went. We got to know each other so much better than if it had been a more formal date. The forced changes broke a lot of tension. Especially when we got to laugh at your clumsiness," she laughed the last part. I threw my balled up napkin at her.

"So, are you two going out again?" Rosalie asked. Maybe she didn't know much, after all.

"Yeah. Tomorrow night. He wanted to go out tonight, but I have to go in to work later and didn't want to give up girl time."

"Alice, I thought you'd gotten today off?"

"Only by agreeing to come in later this afternoon. Don't worry, Bells. We have plenty of time for Rose and I to drag out the details of your nights with Richard." I sighed and leaned back on the couch. There was so much I couldn't say and so much I wanted to say.

I needed to talk to my best friends and have them straighten out what was going on in my head and heart. Maybe they could explain why in the heck a movie star would ever want to hang out with me. But I couldn't tell them Edward Cullen was wanting to be my friend. They knew him as Richard Masen.

"Nothing happened Alice. I didn't even know he was there those two nights. Sure, I saw him the second morning, but we just talked."

"Oh, but Bella, what about your two whole days with him? That boy is fine, and looks so familiar." She said that last part kind of low and to herself, as if trying to figure out where she'd seen him before. I'd have laughed if I hadn't felt so panicked that she'd figure it out. Rosalie gave me a weird look and changed the subject.

"Alright, Alice, back on task. Bella obviously doesn't think spending a few days with a hot guy is anything to talk about, so what are we going to do today?" I shot her a grateful smile that faded with Alice's next words.

"Well, we can either go clothes shopping or do makeovers!" I groaned.

"Bella, you haven't bought any new clothes and the summer is almost over. You need winter clothes. We need to snatch them up now or all the cute clothes will be gone."

"Alice, it's only July, we've still got at least two months before I need winter clothes."

"Bella, this is Forks. Summer could end at any time and you'd be stuck with last year's fashion." Alice and Rose both shuddered at the thought.

"Actually, Alice, I think it might be better for Bella to just stay in and watch our favorite movies all day," Rose said, looking at me weirdly again. I was about to ask if I had something on my face when I registered her phrase "our favorite movies". Oh no, not again!

"No!" I yelled. They looked at me, wide eyed. "I mean, Renee and I did that all day yesterday. I would really rather not watch movies again all day." They looked like they didn't quite believe me.

"Well, I guess I agree that she doesn't need to get out just yet. But what can we do now, if we don't watch movies?"

"Maybe there's something we can turn on as background noise and just talk or something?" I asked hopefully. In the end, they agreed because every other plan was shot down by one or the other of us.

"God, when did we become so boring?" Alice asked a few hours later. We were all three curled up on the sectional. Well, I was as curled up as I could be with the stupid metal rods sticking out of my leg. I couldn't help but think it was my fault that we had nothing to do.

"Sorry," I said.

"No, Bella. This isn't your fault. You broke your leg, and not on purpose. We're just not up to being very creative," Rosalie said.

"Yeah, I planned this spontaneously and didn't put much thought into it," Alice interjected.

"That's nothing new," I said, and we broke out in giggles.

"Bella, are you sure you don't want to watch movies? I mean, I know you're already reading a book in that series, but we haven't watched your movie in a while. I've been thinking about it for about a week now and really want to watch it," Alice said, reaching for where Renee had set it down the day before.

"NO!" Rose and I both yelled and she lunged towards the movie. I stared at Rosalie with an incredulous look on my face as Alice whipped her head back and forth between us. What was Rosalie's problem?

"Whatever, I didn't realize you guys had lost your passion for the hotness that is Edward Cullen. I'm going to the ladies' room. You two pick out the movie." She gracefully stood up and went to her room. I turned to Rosalie.

"What the heck was that?" Her cheeks slowly turned a very light shade of pink. She avoided my eyes and played with her fingers.

"Rose? What's going on? You've been acting weird and saying funny things since last night. You can tell me."

"Well, um, Bella. I-I w-went out on a date Saturday night while Alice was on one with Jasper."

"Okay, and?" How did that explain her leading comments and looks, almost as if we shared an inside—wait. Wait a minute. She knew! Rosalie Hale knew that Richard Masen was Edward Cullen!

"What do you know, Rose?" I decided to be straightforward and ask her. If I wasn't the first to say his name, then I'd still kept his secret.

"My date was with Emmett McCarty." That was a simple enough statement, but it held so much. Emmett was Edward's bodyguard. When had they met? Oh yeah, probably at the hospital when I was brought in. I thought I remembered that Emmett had been in the waiting room when Rosalie and Alice were there.

She knew Richard was Edward. That's how she knew he was left-handed. She'd probably spent some time with them both sometime in the past few days or nights.

"Wait, Rose, do you know why Edward hasn't called me?" Her eyes held understanding, but no answers. Before she could speak, though, Alice returned. She was still huffy, especially since we hadn't picked out a movie. She just randomly grabbed one, but not the movie since Rosalie had stuffed it behind others.

We spent the rest of our time together being silly and girly. That wasn't something I typically did, but every now and then it was nice to remember I was a girl and that it was okay to giggle and fan myself over a cute guy that was saying something way too sweet and way too fake.

Rose skipped out on me when Alice started getting ready for work, obviously not wanting to continue our conversation. Did she know why Edward hadn't called me? I would definitely be calling her later after Alice left.

"Okay, Bells, you gonna be okay by yourself tonight? You learned how to crutch around on your own alright?" Alice said, about to walk out the door.

"Yes, Alice, mother." I rolled my eyes. "God, why can't you people realize I am 26 and perfectly capable of taking care of myself? You, Jacob, Renee, and Richard all need to get a grip over this."

"Oh, Isabella Marie Swan! Richard and Jacob have been worried about you?! Oh, I'm so happy! You have to tell me more about that!" As if I hadn't already told her and she hadn't actually seen it herself as far as Jacob was concerned. I rolled my eyes and practically pushed her out of the door.

I crutched to my cell phone, automatically checking for a missed call or text message, and finding nothing, before hitting Rosalie's speed dial number. Her call back tone was some stupid rap song or something that I had to listen to four times before her voice mail picked up.

"Hey there, this is Rosalie Hale. Leave me a message and I just might return the favor sometime." Beep.

"Rose, I know you're avoiding me right now, probably pressed ignore call or something. But you can't avoid me forever. You will answer my questions." I hung up and stood up from the couch. I was bent over the DVD rack, searching for my movie that Rosalie had hidden when my phone beeped.

I had a new text message from Rose.

I'm not avoiding you for forever. Just a few days. That was all. No reason behind avoiding me. No explanation for what was going on in that blonde head of hers.

I huffed in frustration and went over to the tv to put in the movie. Since I couldn't get up the nerve to call and talk to the real Edward Cullen, the next best thing would be to watch him on the small screen.

It was more difficult than I would have guessed, watching him in that movie, knowing that I had talked to him in real life and that he'd smiled that beautiful, breathtaking smile at me.

I wished that my normal personality trait of losing interest in celebrity would come to my aide this time and make me forget him. He was the one who was so persistent in becoming friends, so why had he not called or come over?

I wouldn't be honest with myself and admit just how much I missed him, so I stopped the movie and flipped through the cable channels. Edward's face made me pause on one of the entertainment channels, but I quickly turned it. It was a story about him and his co-star in the movie series that had made him famous. Sure, I loved the books and couldn't wait for the second movie (which premiered in theatres in September, just two and a half months away!), but it rankled me to see them walk hand in hand.

Oh, God. Just stop Isabella. If you're that obsessed all of a sudden, just call him.

I am not obsessed with Edward. I just really thought he wanted to be my friend, and I wanted to be his.

Yeah, uh huh. Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart. Obviously you miss him more than he misses you.

I found my hand inching towards my cell phone. Before I could stop myself I had scrolled down my contact list to "Richard Masen". Alice had saved it in my phone Sunday after searching through my received calls directory.

"You never know when you might want to call him. And if you don't want to call him, at least you'll have his number saved and an assigned ring tone. I'll assign him, um, ah, 'Stupid Girls' by Pink. That way you have Pink telling you that you'd be stupid to pick up the phone."

I pushed call. I let it ring once but chickened out and hung up. Maybe he'd see my name on his missed calls and call me back?

Yeah, right. He probably hadn't even saved my number to his phone.

I didn't hear from Edward again the rest of that week.

A/N: I know, it's short. It's mainly filler and I had to get it out before the next one could commence. I know you hate me because here's another chapter without Edward, but it had to come. Edward will be back next chapter, I promise. I love y'all.