"People don't like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug."
Chapter 21: The Asshole on the White Horse
Two weeks into the semester I was running to class in the morning, quite unused to the sheets of ice that were coating the sidewalks.
I didn't see the body right in front of me until it was too late and I was skidding, unable to stop myself.
I heard the person I had attempted to run over exhale in a huff as his arms came around me and both of our precarious balances swayed as we toppled into the snow and ice.
"Son of a…ouch." I mumbled, rubbing my sore knee.
"Couldn't have said it better myself." The voice next to me drawled, detaching his arm to rub his elbow. "You alright?"
"You mean apart from the fact that I've got snow up my skirt?"
A low chuckle reverberated almost into my own skin, and I finally sat up enough to survey the boy I had run down.
The tendency to gape was hard to resist.
Blonde curls in a wild disarray of style were naturally highlighted with bleach-like strands, and his skin was a caramel tone that did not come from a tanning bed. It came only from a place where the word winter was not associated with snow and ice and multiple layers of clothing.
He had a crooked nose; like perhaps he had broken it when he was a kid, riding horses and playing cowboys and Indians.
And he had a smile that could melt butter, which was sheepishly aimed at me.
His hands were large, rough, and nail-bitten. His school-issued tie was hanging undone around his neck, and everything else about the uniform screamed how wrong he looked, done up like the rest of Them, when he clearly did not belong in any such category.
But it wasn't the raw good looks and the disheveled hair that was causing me to stare.
It was that if his face was a little less tanned and broad, and his jaw a little more rounded instead of squared, he could easily pass as a clone for…
And that voice.
That was exactly the same. Same twang, same depth, same honey-like tone with just a hint of arrogance.
Same brown eyes.
I exhaled and ran a hand through my hair, brushing away any snow. He did likewise, but neither of us made any move to stand.
"Is there a fire or a shoe sale that I should have been forewarned of, or do you usually do the hundred yard dash on sheets of ice?"
I stiffened. "I'm late to class. The bell rang a couple of minutes ago."
And if I hadn't fallen asleep in detention, I would have been on time.
"I know. Been tryin' to find the Kessler building. I have geometry now."
Geometry. A sophomore.
But not any sophomore that I had ever seen before.
And as if he read my thoughts, he extended a hand to me. "I'm new. Starting classes today. I'm—"
"Christ on a crutch Alice, what did you do?"
I turned to see Emmett leisurely on his way to class, staring at me and the almost-clone sitting in the snow.
And before I could reply, his arm was around my waist, pulling me to me feet and dusting snow off my blazer.
His hands.
On my person.
His big, warm hands moving down to my skirt to the thighs beneath the material, brushing off snow.
Like it was his right.
Like he hadn't been ignoring me for weeks.
Like the boy on the ground next to me didn't exist.
Or like he was sending the boy on the ground a message.
Hands off.
I shoved his hands away testily. "I accidentally, maybe, possibly ran over this nice gentlemen while trying to get to class on time and he might have fallen down while trying to keep us upright."
Emmett's smile was genuine.
"You knocked him over? You?" His meaning couldn't have been more clear as he looked down at me, his width nearly twice of me.
Next to Emmett, I looked (and occasionally felt) like a hobbit.
The new boy was on his feet now, dusting off his own clothes.
"There might have been an ice patch involved." He drawled with a smile.
"I really am sorry." I said, and was startled to feel Emmett's arm drape across my shoulders.
"Alice. You weight maybe a solid hundred pounds. I don't think you've done any permanent damage. Now come on, I'll walk you over to Delmelza."
I frowned. "You're not taking sculpting."
The smile flashed again. "Got my schedule changed this morning."
He held up the paper, which presumably held the proof.
I rolled me eyes. "Are you actually going to attend class this semester?"
Emmett shrugged. "First time for everything, isn't there? Let's go. It's frickin' cold out here."
The new boy was watching our exchange idly. I turned to him and gave him an apologetic smile. Emmett was being rather rude.
"Kessler is the second building on the right, just there." I pointed and he followed my finger and nodded. "Sorry I made you even later."
He waved me off. "No worries. Not like I was exactly looking forward to my first day."
I nodded sympathetically and waved good-bye as Emmett and I made our way to the art studios.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
When Emmett was done getting a very stern lecture about the attendance policies from the tiny, white-haired woman who taught the sculpting class, who everyone simply referred to as Lady Anita, he plopped down next to me and eyeballed the rough drawing I had done of what I wanted my first clay sculpture to look like.
It was a disaster.
He merely smirked and rolled some ceramic clay between his fingers.
"Cullen told me you two aren't shacking up any more."
I sighed audibly and strands of my hair blew off of my forehead.
"Emmett, either say what you need to say to me or get out."
Emmett looked away from me, mumbling something.
"What was that?"
"Why did Cullen have to tell me? I thought…I thought after that day that you'd tell me."
I stared blankly at the replica of the human hand that I had foolishly been trying to recreate with clay.
"I…I've been busy." Busy looking after Rosalie, who spent every waking hour possible with a teacher who was infinitely better equipped to "look after" Rose in a way that she would actually appreciate. Busy sitting on my ass, bored to tears, as I sketched ideas for new outfits and waited for Rosalie to appear.
Busy pretending to be busy so I wouldn't feel lonely.
"Yeah. Busy." Emmett said in a strained voice.
"I should have told you." I said quietly, my eyes still on the misshapen form on the table.
"Don't worry about it. You were busy…you know what? I'm busy too. And I don't think this going to class thing is for me. Later Alice."
And he was gone before I could even comprehend that the weird look on his face had been hurt.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I waited up for Rosalie until midnight, when she appeared, breathless and surprises as she slipped inside the doors, well past curfew.
"You're still up."
"You have bite marks on your collarbone." And bruised lips.
Rosalie flushed, and her smile nearly lit up the entire room. Her hand went up to the v of her eggplant-colored sweater and touched the marks lightly.
She collapsed onto the bed next to me, quite a feat as it was so narrow. Her arm went around my waist and her eyes danced.
"I can't even stand it Alice."
"Can't stand what?"
There was a long pause. Then Rosalie's eyes cleared slightly and she glanced at me.
"We haven't had sex yet."
"Say what?" I gaped.
"We've never had sex. I think it's some kind of mental barrier. Student, teacher, teacher, student—I think he thinks that's too far over the line."
I snorted with the elegance of a rhino. "You've been fooling around for how long? But actually having sex is crossing the line. Unbelievable."
"You said you weren't going to judge, and it's literally driving me around the twist. Some days in class I swear my clothes are going to just catch on fire because he's got me panting for it so bad. I can't concentrate on the math, I just keeping have these flashes of fucking him on every inch of that desk, with every student in the room watching, wishing they had the balls to go after something they want, and damn the consequences to hell."
I squeezed my eyes shut to block off that slew of visuals. "Christ Rose, have you mentioned all that to him?"
Rose's face snuggled into my pillow. We were both lying on our sides, one half of our face blocked by the pillow, making only one eye visible to one another as we eyeballed the other.
"You think?" She replied dryly. "He tells me he needs me to be patient. But if he thinks we're waiting until I'm eighteen he's clearly out of his fucking head. I will hijack that cock if I have to, but I will be on it before the month is out. It's probably not healthy to be so turned on all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. I dream about him, I can't get enough of his fucking gorgeous cock, and his hands—"
Rose broke off and shuddered, eyes shutting.
Wow.
Who knew it? Rosalie Hale, gushing over wonders of love, instead of pragmatically listing the practicalities of sex.
I felt a twinge in my stomach and rolled onto my back.
"Oh." Rosalie had come back from la-la-land. "I'm sorry Alice. You haven't had sex since…Thanksgiving? Christmas? And here I am, couldn't get my mouth to shut if Mike Newton was trying to shove his cock in. I'm….."
"Ass over elbows in love with your teacher?" I suggested idly.
"Horny." Rosalie said, and I could feel her evil look being pointed in my direction.
We were quiet for a moment, listening to the sounds of the old building settling in for another winter night.
"Rose, how long have you and Dr. Carlisle been…"
"You want the long story, or the short version?" Rosalie said, settling in like I had already told her I preferred the former.
I was too easy to read.
"It all started with Royce, which is a pretty sad statement, because Royce is a twatwaffle of epic proportions. I knew he wasn't hanging out with anyone I should be associating with, but he showed up at parties every once in a while and I knew why. Don't think I didn't. I don't even remember how we met exactly…only that I was on my way to get blitzed and turn down some boys who were so desperate to get laid it was almost embarrassing how much they fawned over me."
So Rosalie was unaware that Edward had introduced the two. I wondered to myself if that would make him feel better or worse. Probably neither. He was completely content to take the blame, even though Rosalie clearly knew it was her own fault.
"I didn't start with blow. I didn't even do any weed for the first month. But I went with him to various parties and let the gutter-dwellers stare and fall all over themselves. I was a freshman and I really, really liked being at the top of the 'girls everyone wants to fuck first' list. Never mind that I had already slept with one of my older brother's friends the previous summer—"
"Jesus. That's how you lost your virginity?"
Rose shot me a testy look. "I wanted to choose. And I didn't want it to be with some clueless high school punk. So I seduced this guy and got him to teach me all about sex. Much more practical than waiting for someone I actually liked. That's just too much pressure."
I stared at her. This coming from the girl who, five minutes ago, was all but dying for a little loving from a man she wouldn't admit to loving.
"Stop interrupting. The first time I did weed I got a terrible, terrible migraine. And a rash. Among other things. I didn't like feeling so fuzzy. So Royce suggested that like my upbringing, my body would only truly like the 'good' stuff. Marijuana was too low-brow for me I suppose. Blow was daring, and I thought it was impressive that a freshman had that kind of knowledge, and the access to some serious shit. I certainly impressed the older guys, but Royce never let them get to me, which is just about the only nice thing I can say about that sorry fucker.
I guess we started having sex shortly after I started, I don't think I can actually pick out the first time from my haze of memories, only that we started doing it a lot. And I was perfectly content with getting what I wanted out of that relationship, until the thing I wanted was to get out.
While this was going on, all the girls were salivating over Carlisle, including myself. It's practically a rite of passage or a school tradition. I didn't think twice about it, except as a little fantasy material. I'd flirt and roll my skirt higher for his class, and at first I was determined to impress him with how easy math was for me.
He smiled and complimented my mathematic ability, but other than that, nada. I was okay with it; I was fifteen he was in his mid twenties. I was positive he had some insanely beautiful supermodel at home and it wasn't a big deal. Not that I didn't get more daring with each passing day. More cleavage, sexed-up hair, smiles that should make cocks salute like it was Flag Day, the usual. But I did that with everybody. Literally. I was hiding the fact that the come-downs from using were horrific by being the most sexually blatant person possible. It tends to distract people. It was a good cover-up, and it allowed me to catch Carlisle's eye. He flirted sometimes, I think, and he expressed his hopes that I would go into a math-related field. But nothing inappropriate.
I didn't think the man knew the word inappropriate until one day Royce was waiting for me with a 'gift'. I think he was trying to get me to do something…anal maybe??? The smack always helped. But I had other ideas. So I kicked the poor bastard out, got loosely high, and headed back to Kessler, in my smuttiest heels and my shortest skirt.
Can you just imagine my fucking shock that Dr. Carlisle was otherwise occupied? Tanya Denali, stupid skank, was already there, already in stilettos and an indecently short skirt with white, school-girl panties. She was me, except she had gotten there first. And she was swallowing his dick like her ticket to Harvard was going to come bursting out any second.
The look on his face….I have never, bar none, ever seen a look like that on a man's face. I can't even describe how he looked; only that he looked like he was in ecstasy. Better than any drug I had ever tried, better than any sex I had ever had.
I decided right then and there that I'd have him, because that was what I wanted."
Like it was that simple.
And maybe it had been for Rosalie up until that point. See, want, get. Repeat as needed.
Rosalie fell quiet and I turned my head to see her picking at her nails, which were bitten again, a true sign of her sexual frustration.
"Royce didn't appreciate being told to fuck off, did he?" I asked quietly.
Rosalie huffed. "Especially not when I was still a customer. He knew how I got when I used. There wasn't anyone in the world that I couldn't conquer in a variety of ways. More than one night I thought I had killed him with sex.
We were both coming down when it happened. I demanded he take me back to the dorms, he refused and I just…snapped. Smacked the shit out of his left cheek and clawed his neck.
The next thing I know, he's fucking me while we're both slapping and trying to beat the hell out of one another. I finally got a death-lock on his balls and threatened to do permanent damage before he let me go. Sick fuck looked like he was enjoying it too.
I walked back to my dorm and I thought I was going to pass out. I remember that Edward was there trying to help, but I didn't want help. Not from him. Not from anyone.
After that, it got ugly. I started failing math on purpose so I could hang around for tutoring, hoping to get 'in' like Tanya. And I was using more often, mostly because if I wasn't going to do my homework, that meant I could party any day of the week.
I was high when I went to his house one night. Completely out of it. I threw myself at him, fell on my knees and tried to repeat that scene I had pictured so many times, only with me instead of Tanya.
I think that's the first time he realized just how deep I was in. I didn't even know at the time. But he waited until I had come down a little and then he fed me and drove me back to St. Olaf's. I was so out of it that I just figured he had given me some line about crossing the student/teacher lines and sent me on my merry way, but I was wrong.
He waited until after class one day and then proceeded to tell me that I was sabotaging myself for something was never going to happen. He waited until I was completely there, not messed up on chemicals, and then he pretty much ripped out my guts. Tore me apart into so many tiny little pieces that I couldn't even be hurt or sad or anything. Anything but completely and utterly pissed.
For the rest of the year I fucked around with some guys I knew, did a lot of smack, and occasionally fucked Royce just to taunt him that I could have him whenever I wanted. Flunked math, passed my other classes with C's and a couple of D's. Got so fucking sick of the lip service and fakeness of everything that I just hid in the fake high of the drugs.
Carlisle told me a week before school was out that I had an F in his class and would need to repeat it. I'm sure I made some innuendo or said something…but suddenly he was yelling at me. Yelling, like the way my father did when he thought someone was a screw-up, a complete waste of space and time and effort.
He told me I was perpetuating every single rotten stereotype on the planet, and that I was a huge disappointment to him personally. That I was immature and childish and sullen. He thought I was vain and petty and nothing more than a sack of skin and bones with no true character beneath."
"So he basically said you were Paris Hilton?" I suggested, horrified and intrigued by Rosalie's story.
"Worse than. He maligned my character so hard that I was struck by the obvious. At one point and time he thought I had some worthy characteristics, and that now I was wasting them. I mean, if he hadn't been calling me a sluttastic whore, it would have been a classic after-school special moment. Teacher tells student she has potential to be more than she is. Carlisle was angry with me because I was wasting myself on the cretins who attend this school.
And then he kissed me. Really kissed me, like he was punishing me and trying to find me all at the same time. Like he couldn't help himself. Like he had seen into the future and he knew the kind of person I was going to turn out to be. Like that was the girl he was kissing.
And after months of self-destructive behavior, it took the man less than a minute to make me see how completely fucked I was."
"So you decided to stop?"
"I decided I was going to have him, no matter the cost. I went through hell and back, during the school year, during the summer, and I wanted something that was worthwhile to focus on, to plan for. You don't plan for the easy things. They just come to you. But the hard things—sitting up at night choking on acid and shaking so hard I could feel my teeth rattling—that was hard. Not conforming and meeting everyone else's expectations of me? That's hard. Having someone like Carlisle there to remind me that I'm worth something more than an epically amazing rack and a closet full of designer threads? It's not easy. I have to be better so I feel like I deserve to have him."
"And holding out for sex? How hard is that?"
"Hardest thing yet, and I wish I was joking. But it'll be the best thing yet, I don't give a shit how good shooting up feels. I worked fucking hard for that man, and sooner or later I will reap some benefits that will hopefully render me unable to walk for nearly a week."
I smiled at Rosalie's aggravated tone.
Despite the cloud of lust, Rosalie was exceedingly clear-headed these days.
And scarily enough, blissfully happy.
Rosalie had chosen the harder path. Not the path filled with easy fucks and feel-good drugs.
I had always assumed she was screwing around with her teacher because her teacher came onto her and Rosalie liked being thought of as beautiful and superior, being what the other kids weren't.
Rosalie was superior because she knew how to work for what she wanted.
Knew what she wanted in the first place.
I didn't know what I wanted. I had taken easy paths and hard paths and paths that wound up and down so much that I was dizzy and a bit sick.
When I had been offered a hard path, I had gone with the easy.
And when the easy path turned hard, I back away from that one too.
Thinking I could shield myself, like Rosalie.
Thinking I could be cool and smooth and untouchable, like Rosalie.
Thinking that if I didn't take the hard path, no one could get to me and make me feel inferior.
And while I had been thinking, Emmett had been waiting.
Waiting for me to tell him I was done with easy.
I smirked.
Edward wouldn't appreciate being called 'easy.'
Rosalie was watching me. I blinked.
"Where'd you go?" She asked quietly.
"Nowhere." I said dismissively, waving my hand at her. "I'm tired. Not all of us have sexy professors to keep us up all night."
Rosalie's eyes called me a liar, but she thankfully didn't say anything out loud.
I closed my eyes and I when I opened them again, Rose was gone and it was morning.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Rosalie uncharacteristically appeared on Friday afternoon immediately after classes, looking grim.
"The pervfessor not able to get it up today?"
"He's twenty-six Alice. Not quite ready for those little blue love pills yet."
"So why the pouty face?"
"Rumors." She made another face and went to my half of the closet and began rooting through my carefully organized options.
"Uh…what are you doing?"
"Looking for…wow. When did you get this?"
She held up my dress from my time with Esme and I explained the details of that weekend.
"I love Esme, she's so…real. No bullshit, no shady crap. She's just after what she wants."
I nodded silently. "So why are you looking through my clothes?"
"We're crashing Emmett's date tonight."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, ok. There are technically two parts to this brilliant plan of mine. Allow me to educate you on the benefits of killing two birds with a single, well-placed date crashing."
I raised a brow. Well, that should be interesting.
"You and I are taking Edward to the movies tonight. You might want to text and ask him, I doubt he's very open to talking to me right now."
If she only knew.
"Emmett asked Lauren Mallory to the late show, which is really just code for 'it's a cheap old black and white movie that I'm going to grope you during'. Asshole can't even be bothered to take her to a new film where he'd have to pay full admission and bear the teasing of his jock friends. After all, the entire school knows he's been hung up on you, and then Edward of all people—skinny, pale Edward—won you, well temporarily. So he's been getting grief for months and apparently he's done being a kicked puppy. You, of course, would choose that exact same moment to spend the week brooding and being all quiet, which is entirely disturbing. Brooding does not work for you, it makes you look constipated."
I wasn't even going to touch how she knew I had spent my week mulling over the Emmett situation, especially since she was never here.
"And the second part of this plot?"
"People are talking. Well, people are always talking about me, but this time they're talking about my recent outbreak of…"
"Hickeys."
"Gross."
"Love bites?"
"Nauseating."
"Cat scratches?"
"Not plausible unless we want to be busted for having a pet in the dorms."
"Has anyone used the term 'teacher-fucker' yet?"
"No." Rosalie was glaring, I was grinning.
"So what you're not saying is that you need an excuse, preferably a horny, male, and seventeen year old excuse for those marks all over your neck, and I'm assuming, other places?"
Rosalie threw a pillow at me without heat.
"You're awful chipper for someone who has been pining."
"You weren't actually here to see me pine, so how do you know I was pining? I could have been tap dancing for all you would have been aware of. You're too busy being one half of a couple."
"God I like the sound of that….quit distracting me. It took me the better part of study hall today to figure this out in between naughty daydreams about my professor boyfriend."
Rosalie looked immensely smug at getting to use the word out loud.
"My apologies."
"Accepted. Edward can be my reason. You and Emmett, me and Edward, it's just like I originally planned. Edward is my beard, and Emmett can be your boyfriend."
I held up a newly painted finger.
"Two problems. Emmett hasn't wanted to speak to me since November and is trying to move on with Lauren Mallory. And two, even if that crazy ass plan does work, Edward isn't getting laid. The foundation of that incredibly stupid plan the first go-round was that they boys were getting laid. I can't imagine Edward would appreciate celibacy."
No more than he'd appreciate being a fake boyfriend to the girl he secretly imagined himself in love with, while having no idea that he actually would be a cover-up for an illegal affair between a student and a teacher.
Rose bit her lip. "Shit. I must be losing my mind, sex never even entered into the equation when I was drawing that up."
I stared.
Rosalie caught me gaping and flipped me off.
I nearly crowed with laughter.
"Rosalie Hale not thinking about sex? Hell has frozen over in Bumfuck, Massachusetts!"
"Shut up Alice and help me think."
But there was no solution. We puzzled for over an hour and then we grabbed food from the cafeteria and puzzled some more.
And by nine o' clock that evening, there was still nothing that could satisfy Rosalie's need for a fake boyfriend who would be agreeable to being a fake boyfriend without ulterior motives or a desire for sex, money, or the reason why Rosalie Hale needed a fake boyfriend in the first place.
"Well, we should go to the movie anyway. You still need to catch yourself a man, and you need to catch this one before he gets the clap from the disease ridden cooter that is Lauren Mallory."
Rosalie seemed a bit down, but I could tell she was trying to be a good friend to me. It was appreciated, and I finally felt like our walls were coming down.
Like this was the real thing.
Friendship. Ugly and honest and full of secrets and sex and laughter.
It was a good feeling.
I dressed in my new outfit, adding leggings and a zebra-print cardigan over the top so it wasn't too dressy. I added zebra-toned jewelry (courtesy of Rosalie) and did my hair and makeup.
"How are we getting to town?"
"I called Tony, my parent's driver. He had my Escalade brought down for the weekend."
My jaw dropped slightly.
"Come on Alice. By now you should be used to ridiculous displays of money. That skirt probably costs the better part of three hundred dollars."
My jaw snapped shut and I fought not to adjust my skirt.
Holy shit.
As we were on our way out, I paused to grab my cell phone.
"Sure you don't want me to call Edward?"
Rosalie nodded and tugged me down to her white Escalade.
We drove to the old movie theatre on the "bad" side of town. It was eleven thirty, the movie wouldn't start till midnight.
We bought out tickets and staked some claim in the back of the theatre.
Emmett and Lauren didn't show up until five minutes into the movie, with Lauren's arm around Emmett's waist, clinging to him as they giggled and stumbled to a seat in the dim movie theatre.
There was actually quite a crowd from St. Olaf's there, all in couples and all already playing rousing games of tonsil hockey in their seats.
No one was paying any attention to Bogart or his Maltese Falcon.
Rosalie nudged me as soon as Emmett and Lauren sat down, several rows ahead and to the right of us.
"What are you going to do?" She whispered.
"I thought you had this one planned out." I accused right back.
"The stalking thing, yes. But the actual confrontation?" Rosalie shook her head and continued to devour her gummy worms with surprising speed. "You're on your own."
Of course I was.
Well.
Esme had said to be an Amazon.
I grabbed the box of gummy worms.
"Hey!" Rosalie yelped and I hit her to shut her up.
"Hey!" Rosalie whispered loudly again. "Those are my favorite."
"What are you, four? I'll get you another box."
Rosalie shrugged and leaned back with her arms crossed, clearly not appeased.
"Pouty snob." I hissed.
"Trailer trash." She huffed.
"Elitist prig." I retorted.
"What the hell is a prig?"
I bit my lip to keep from smiling and handed her a gummy worm.
The rest I began to strategically throw in the direction of Lauren and Emmett, who were one blob of shadow ahead.
They weren't making out, but if Lauren got any closer, she'd be on his dick.
And I was in the process of proclaiming that I wanted that dick for myself.
One of my gummy worms hit Emmett in the back of the head.
"Hey!" He turned and I ducked, pulling Rosalie down with me.
We sat up a minute later.
More gummy worms began to fly as Rosalie got into the act, tossing them with surprising accuracy.
A couple hit Lauren in the back, one bounced off Emmett's shoulder. We ducked each time, not able to control our giggling as we ducked and then we would rise for only a second to hurl another worm.
"I'm out!" Rosalie gasped, laughing.
"Then I guess it's show time."
I hurled the remaining fistful of gummy worms and a shower of candy fell on them.
I stood up and watched as they both turned around to yell at whoever was torturing them.
Emmett froze, his arm around the back of Lauren's seat, as I walked down the aisle until I got to them.
"Hey. Enjoying the movie?"
I stuck the remaining gummy worm in my mouth with a small smirk.
"What the fuck are you doing Brandon?" Lauren yelped and suddenly I could hear a lot less macking and heavy breathing in the house.
Humphrey and his Bogart remained blissfully unaware up on the screen.
"Correcting an error. You see, you're here under the impression that the man to your right is available for you to sink your claws into and use for popularity gain and presumably bragging rights. I find it to be my responsibility to inform you that he's not."
Emmett's eyes were burning holes into mine.
His jaw was clenched and I could see the muscles beneath his long-sleeved shirt clenching.
He was furious.
Well good.
I hadn't exactly been thrilled to hear I was being replaced by Lauren Mallory.
Standards anyone?
"Alice."
Emmett's tone was a warning. One that clearly stated, "Get the hell away from me."
I ignored it.
"I made a mistake. Before Christmas. I'm the one who made a mistake."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Lauren demanded, looking at Emmett.
But Emmett's jaw just clenched even harder. He was probably grinding his teeth into sand.
My heart sped up.
Be an Amazon, Alice.
Be an Amazon.
"I want you to be that asshole on the white horse." I said simply. "I made a mistake, but people can fix mistakes. I can fix this mistake."
The mistake that had sent us spiraling before Halloween, the mistake that had changed my gut response back in December, the mistake that had kept me silent when I finally realized what and who I wanted.
This wasn't romantic, it wasn't practical, and it sure as hell wasn't polite, but it had to be done.
I was crashing Emmett's date and trying to hijack Lauren's potential future fuck buddy.
This wasn't a fairy tale.
There was no damsel.
There was just me.
Just Alice.
Fighting for what she wanted.
Lauren seemed to have finally caught on to what I was doing and she jumped up, towering over me by two or three inches as she got right up in my face.
"I thought I had seen everything. But you. You are an embarrassment. You show up and start sleeping your way through the population because you know no one would so much as look at you if you didn't. You're pathetic and Emmett doesn't want you around. Nobody does, so why don't you go home back to the swamp and get yourself knocked up by some nice guy who has no teeth and owns a double wide?"
Emmett was still sitting, staring at me.
Waiting for my reaction to his "date."
I wondered if I punched Lauren in the uterus like I did Jax, if it would hurt.
I wondered if I punched Lauren in the nose if I would get expelled.
No punching. I let my fist relax and my fingers unfurl.
"Lauren, have you ever wondered if guys shove their dicks in your mouth simply because they can't find another way to shut that hole in the middle of your face?"
Lauren's eyes widened and I saw her hand reach out, nails extended, to either slap me or pull my hair.
A fluid wrist whipped out to catch the hand before it struck.
Emmett was up and out of his seat a moment too late; he wasn't the one holding Lauren back from me.
I turned and in the dim saw sandy blonde hair, stylishly disheveled, and a crooked nose, holding Lauren's arm tightly in his hands.
The boy who had broken my fall on the ice with his body.
"You." I said, my eyebrows quirking up in shock.
"Nice to see you again Alice. Quite the mouth you've got on you." He looked to be holding in a chuckle.
"Where the hell did you come from?"
"Your friend asked me to keep an eye on you."
"My friend?"
"The blonde." He grinned. "You have some nice friends."
Rosalie sauntered down the aisle like she had been waiting for an introduction.
"Jasper, I think you can release the she-devil. I'm sure she has to rush home for some urgent reason right about now." Rosalie's tone was icy and cruel. Her best smirk was in place while she was glaring at the girl in question.
Lauren did indeed scramble out of the theatre at breakneck speech the moment she was released. She shoved by me in the aisle and left to the heckling and mocking of St. Olaf students throughout the theatre.
"Nice date you had there, McCarty."
Emmett grumbled and ran a hand through his matted down curls. "Shut up Whitlock."
I spun on the blonde. "Whitlock?"
The crooked smile, like melting caramel, flashed.
"Jasper Whitlock. I believe you've met my brother."
He kissed the back of my hand quickly and I yanked my hand away.
That boy was trouble. Possibly more so than his older brother, and that was saying a hell of a lot.
I turned to Rosalie. She was grinning at me.
"How do you two know each other?"
Jasper shrugged. "I was here with a girl from school when I saw your very valiant attempts at hurling gummy worms. Naturally that seemed more fun than trying to get to third base. Actually my date may still be up there, trying to get there all by herself."
He peered up into the corners of the theatre like he was looking for her.
"You ditched Samantha DeLane?" Emmett finally joined the conversation.
Rosalie's smile broadened even further.
Jasper shrugged. "She have tequila-flavored cunt juice or something? I've heard so much about this girl and yet all I've gotten from her so far is the story about how her plastic surgeon botched her first boob job and upgraded her C's to D's for the second go-round."
"That's Sam DeLane alright." Rosalie snorted and Jasper grinned at her.
"She's not nearly as stacked as you are."
Rosalie eyed him easily, not even hiding the fact that she was doing it. Then she straightened and looked at me.
'He'll do.'
I could almost hear her thinking the words.
"C'mon Jasper, we should probably go back and let these two work things out….do you like gummy worms?"
"Sweetheart, I like anything that has to do with you sucking on something long and delicious."
I choked and Rosalie laughed outright.
A lack of verbal filter seemed to be a brotherly trait.
Jasper and Rosalie returned to where Rose and I had been sitting, laughing and talking quietly.
Rosalie would have him reeled in in no time.
As for me, that outcome was still less certain.
Emmett was still glaring at me.
"Fuck the movie."
He grabbed my elbow and dragged me out of the theatre. I didn't even have time to grab my coat.
Once we were outside, standing under the lights of the marquee, he turned to me.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Fighting."
"I don't want you to fight. You nearly give me an apoplexy every time you go near anyone. First Whitlock, now Lauren. Are you trying to get yourself kicked out?"
"I'm trying to get myself back into your good graces, and your arms, and maybe even your pants you stupid, stupid boy. Did you hear any of the crap I said in there? Because the majority of the school will be able to repeat it back to you verbatim on Monday."
Emmett's hands were clenched in his shirt at the sides.
"You can't just keep changing your mind Alice."
"I didn't. I said I didn't know before. Now I do."
"Just like that? How about next week, when you decide Whitlock is for you?"
"Which one?" I smirked.
Not surprisingly, Emmett didn't find that very funny.
"I don't believe you. I think this is another ploy, another stupid plan devised by Rosalie Hale for some purpose that will eventually involve me looking like an asshole again, sitting around wondering why you won't give me the time of day when you'll give guys like Cullen, guys like Jax Whitlock, everything."
"I gave them nothing! Nothing. They're easy. They aren't scary. They aren't terrifying. They are throw-away laughs and innuendos. They are flimsy excuses for girls to get out their vibrators. An occasional thought, that's all I ever gave or will give them.
You're terrifying. Everything you've ever said to me is terrifying. Do you know what the first thing you said to me on the second day I ever knew you was? That you didn't even notice I had chopped off my hair. Ten inches gone, and you went on acting like I had never run into you with one braid scalped off. Like you saw me beyond hair and the poverty line and the crap that Rosalie and I got ourselves into with that stupid plan. Everything you say means I'm naked in front of you and you're at your leisure to look."
I'm sorry I didn't make the right choice then. I wasn't ready to. I wanted things to be easy, because I'm scared. Having sex with you, and talking to you, and thinking about you is scary because I don't have any defenses. You are right up in my space and you don't apologize. You don't step back. You want to be there and you are the first person I've ever met who does. You want to be inside me in a way that has nothing and everything to do with sex. So excuse the fuck outta me if it took me a while to decide that the risk of being completely humiliated and exposed is worth the risk of being with you."
Emmett stood silently, listening to my tirade. When I was finally tired of yelling at him I clutched my cardigan tighter and waited.
He did not disappoint.
Standing there, in the late January frost, he took a step forward and wrapped both of his arms around me, burying me into his chest and body.
His lips brushed the side of my face and I looked up at him, leaning up on my tip toes.
I didn't care if I had to climb him like a monkey, I would reach up for this man and I would get what I wanted.
I wanted his arms, and his body.
I wanted his mind and his humor.
I wanted his soul, wanted just a tiny little piece to read 'Alice' for whenever I couldn't be there to see him.
I wanted him to kiss me.
And the man on the white horse never disappoints.