Chapter Fourteen

Disclaimer: Twilight and its characters are the property of Stephenie Meyer. This story however, is mine, and all similarities to real persons are just that, similarities. Hope you enjoy this journey with me.

For the whole of last week, Bella's emotions had fluctuated from one extreme to the other; at moments, she was numb and would stare off into space, and other times she was completely gung-ho about getting on with her life without Jacob.

Bella asked me if I would go with her on her trip to Portugal; her reason being that it was completely paid for and that she didn't want to spend what was supposed to have been her honeymoon alone. There had been many times while attending college when Jasper and Alice would take their little romantic weekend trips and at Alice's request, I'd "keep an eye" on Bella where we would hang out together for the few days they were gone. That's how we'd developed our ritual of our Trivial Pursuit tournaments. While I had agreed to go to Portugal with Bella, I was feeling a bit apprehensive about it to say the least. I'd been alone with her for extended amounts of time in the past to be truthful, but this time was different.

I took it upon myself as Bella's unofficial babysitter to keep an eye on her yet again, only this time it was my chance to make sure she had fun and enjoyed herself to keep her from dwelling on her now broken relationship with Jacob.

We arrived at our hotel late in the evening; luckily we'd had a quick meal at a restaurant in the airport before leaving for the hotel, so all we needed was to clean up and get a good night's sleep before Bella's first planned excursion of a full day gastronomic tour of Lisbon and Sintra, along with wine tasting. I loved that I would be able to see Bella in her element and looked forward to all of the things she could teach me about the foods and individual wines we would be experiencing while we were here.

Our plans were foiled however because the hotel suite only had the one bed with red rose petals strewn across the covers of the in a heart shape.

"Um, I can sleep on the couch in the front room," I muttered. "You take the bed. I'm going to grab a shower if that's okay?" I said after tipping the bell-hop before he left.

Bella just stood in the in the doorway of the bedroom, unmoving. I put my hands on her shoulders to move around her and grab my bag from where the bell-hop dropped it to take it with me into the bathroom. Silent tears streamed down her face while her arms were wrapped around her torso as if trying to keep herself from shattering into pieces, staring at what should have been a romantic gesture.

"Bella, baby, don't cry." I wrapped my arms around her in comfort, giving her a slight squeeze to silently tell her everything would be okay.

"I can't help it. It's just a bad reminder of everything I've lost."

"Lost? What have you lost?" I tried so hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

Bella started gesturing wildly with her hands. "Everything! Don't you see? I'm alone. We were together for ten years Edward. How could- how could he do this to me? I don't know how to be alone."

"Baby, you're not alone"

She flopped back on to the bed, her flaring around her on the pristine white comforter.

"No one will want me. Look at me! No one will want me. I've lost everything!"

"What did you lose?" I sat down next to her, placing my hand on her knee in comfort. "A man who constantly berated you about your looks? A man that had no problems ogling other women when the most beautiful woman in the world was right in front of his face?"

"Ugh. Edward. Do you really think I didn't know about the women? Of course I did; I'm not stupid."

"Well then I guess that I shouldn't feel like a horrible friend for not telling you that I knew he was out and about with other girls."

"No Edward. I don't blame you for trying to shield me from all of his bull-shit. I knew going in what I was getting in the long run. Maybe it was because I thought that marrying Jake was the best I could do. It was comfortable, you know? But maybe it's just that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life alone. I think that's always been my biggest fear; being alone."

"Well, you're not alone and you never have been. You have Alice, Jasper and me in your corner, always." I reached up to wipe her face with my thumbs, my hands cradling her face. "Now, how about you go take a nice warm shower before bed while I get this mess cleaned up, yeah?" I placed a chaste kiss to her temple and hugged her as tightly as I could to give her some reassurance that I would always be there for her.

Solemnly nodding her head, she got up from the bed and grabbed her pajamas and toiletries from her bag, taking them with her into the bathroom to take her shower.

I huffed, running my hands through my hair. This wasn't going to be easy trying to keep her spirits up. I grabbed the trashcan near the dresser and started scooping the rose petals off the bed.

As I was finishing, Bella came out of shower wrapped in her fuzzy green bathrobe over her pajamas and I smiled at her, shaking my head.

"What?" she questioned a small smile finally on her face. "It's comfy and it's my favorite."

I took my turn in the shower, scrubbing off the grime coating my skin from a full day of traveling, dressed in pajama pants and a t-shirt, and returned to the bedroom to check on Bella.

"Hey, we match," she said. I looked down at what I was wearing and sure enough, we were both wearing similar black and gray flannel pajama pants, though she was wearing a black tank top to my gray t-shirt.

"Thank you for taking care of all of that," she said, gesturing towards the bed. "I don't think I could have handled that by myself."

"Not a problem, sweetheart, let's get you in to bed."

She climbed in the bed and I moved to tuck her in like I always did. With the sheets drawn up around her, she flipped the covers over on the other side of the big bed.

"Will you stay?" she asked in a small, child-like voice. "I don't want to be alone."

With a nod, I moved to the other side of the bed crawled in next to her. She curled up next to me, seeking comfort and I pulled her closer to me, cradling her head in the space between my arm and my body.

"Your never alone, Bella." With that, I squeezed her against me and we quickly fell into a deep sleep.

Thank you everyone for all of your kind, sweet reviews! I love them so much; keep them coming! BTW, I just posted a beta'd version of Into The Fire earlier so go take a look at that as well!