A/N: Thank you so much Nilla79 anf fan for reviews!!

So here's the last chap but there is still an epilogue coming. I hope to get it here during this year! (It was my personal goal to get this finnished during this year :D)

Hope you like this one and remeber to review :)

21. Like it would be so easy to stop caring

Bella's PoV

I startled awake and it took me a while to remember where I was sleeping. Then I felt Edward beside me, and realized that I was in his bed. How had I ended up spending the night here again?

"Oh fuck," I mumbled.

"What?" Edward asked and reached out to touch me.

"Are we late for school?" I asked and looked out for my cell to check what time it was.

Edward laughed and snuggled against my back. "We don't have school. It's Christmas holiday."

"Oh," I said, remembering now that he had said it.

"Let's go back to sleep," Edward mumbled, his eyes still closed. I chuckled softly and got up. I sat on the edge of the bed and leaned against the wall, glancing down at Edward. He turned around, yawned and opened his eyes to look at me. I smiled at him, thinking that I loved mornings like these with him.

"So what do you want to do today?" Edward asked. "We have the whole day before the party."

I smiled and leaned against Edward's shoulder. The party he was talking about was kind of a tradition. Emmett and Jasper usually had this big party every year the first day of winter break.

"I promised I'd do some Christmas shopping with Alice and Rosalie today," I said.

"Fine," Edward said and pulled his jeans on. "Have you thought about Christmas already? I actually quite like the idea of you being with us. At least then my aunts wouldn't have to keep asking about when I am finally going to get a girlfriend."

I shrugged. "I don't know yet. Are you sure that would be okay with Esme and Carlisle?"

"Of course. They like you," Edward said. "Think about it."

"I will," I promised.

"Come on, I'll make you breakfast," Edward said.

"Oooh, romantic." I grinned and jumped out of the bed.

Edward made us some eggs and toast and we sat at the kitchen table.

"I should get going," I said after we had eaten. "Alice is probably wondering where I am already."

"Don't go yet," Edward said.

"I'll see you tonight," I said and got up. Edward walked me to the door, kissed me for a while before letting me go.

It started snowing again while I walked back to Alice's house. Christmas was only couple of days away and somehow I felt restless. I didn't really know what I would do this Christmas, I had started to actually consider Edward's idea; their Christmases sounded nice. But I didn't know if his family would want me there, I guess I just would have liked some place where I belong. Like a family.

"Alice," I said a while later, when I was lying on her bed.

"Yeah?" she mumbled, only half concentrating on me, half on the website she was scanning through.

"Do you think I should move out?" I asked. Lately I had played with the thought. Now that Alice's mother was on a holiday she had been home more, and even though she never let me feel like I wasn't welcome, somehow I still felt awkward living in her house.

Alice finally turned to look at me. "No. What do you mean? Where would you go?"

"I don't know, I can't just live here forever," I said. And then after a long break: "Victoria did say I could move in with her anytime."

"You don't have to worry about it if you don't want to. You can stay for as long as you want to," Alice said. "But would you like to move in with her?"

"I don't know. I mean, before I knew anything about this mess with my parents, I would have loved the idea of living with her. And I'm tired of this; to be honest I want my aunt back."

Alice came to sit on the bed with me. "Maybe you should then. You can't just hate her forever, can you?"

"I guess no," I sighed.

"It's gonna be okay. Talk to her," she said.

"I guess I should." Alice didn't have time to answer that, since that was when my cell started ringing. I glanced at the screen and then breathed in sharply.

"It's mom," I said to Alice.

"Well maybe you should talk to her too," Alice said and shrugged. "At some point you have to." Then she walked out of the room to let me speak with mom alone.

"Bella." Mom sounded slightly surprised that I'd picked up at all.

"What do you want?" I asked her.

"I just wanted to talk," mom said.

"Fine. Let's talk," I said.

"I thought – maybe you could come over?" mom asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I kind of have plans for today."

"Just for a while." Mom sounded desperate. "I need to talk to you."

I thought about that for a while. I thought about what Alice had said, I couldn't just keep hating them forever, despite of what they had done. Despite everything, she was still my mother. At least she was right about that, however mad I was with her, she would always be my mother, I couldn't change that even if I wanted. I didn't know if that was enough for me to forgive her, but maybe I should go see her.

"Is dad home?" I asked.

"No, he's –" Mom sounded uneasy. "He hasn't been home that much lately."

"Fine, I'll come," I said. "Just for a while."

When I stepped into our living room, I could see that mom had cleaned up and made some coffee.

"Hi, darling," she said, and for once her hair looked clean and she had even make up on. I didn't know what she was trying to prove.

I sat down on the couch feeling oddly formal as she poured me a cup of coffee.

"How are you?" mom asked.

I shrugged. "Okay. Nothing special."

"No really, what have you been doing?" She sounded genuinely interesting.

"I don't know, just hanging out with Alice and… um, Edward."

"Really?" Mom smiled.

"I guess we are kind of together now," I added, thinking that I probably should tell her at some point anyway, since we were doing this official relationship thing.

"That's nice!" Mom sounded pleased. "You like him?"

"Yeah." I chuckled. "I like him a lot."

"And he takes good care of you?"

"Mom, I don't need anyone to take care of me!" I exclaimed. "But yeah, I suppose he does."

"I'm happy for you," mom said. "How's Alice?"

"Fine."

Mom tapped her fingers restlessly on the table. "Have you thought about coming back home?"

"Stop it, mom," I said firmly, but not especially rudely. "I'm not coming home. I didn't even like living at home before."

"Bella, listen." Mom didn't seem so unsure anymore, she was speaking more sharply now. "Things have been a mess since you left. Fine, I'm not saying that we got it under control before, but even more of a mess. We need you back home."

"Well, I don't need you," I said. "And I'm tired of being in the middle of your dramas and disasters. You two got to get it together, but this time you can't lean on me. I don't hate you anymore, maybe I never did that much and maybe one day I'll forgive you, but I'm not moving back. I can't." I felt kind of selfish saying that, but I assumed that I was entitled to be a little selfish.

"Please, Bella," mom said. "Where else would you go? You have to come back, this is your home."

"I was thinking about moving to live with Victoria."

For a moment there was a stunned silence. "What?" Mom cried out then.

"Don't freak out," I pleaded her. I felt like I couldn't take it if she had yet another one of her scenes. "It's just practical."

"It figures," Mom exclaimed bitterly. "That after all these years of taking care of you, I am just losing you to her. That easily. I should have never allowed you two to have a relationship. That's just sick. For God's sake, I raised you! Doesn't that mean anything? You are not her daughter."

"I fucking know that," I said, starting to get angry too. "And I don't even want her to be my mother. She will always be my aunt for me. But I don't want to live with you two."

"She doesn't deserve you. She's as guilty as we are, even more. And she abandoned you."

I could believe what she was saying, didn't she realize how childish she sounded? Couldn't I even reserve the right to be childish, I would have kind of thought it was my right, being the youngest. "Oh grow up, will you!" I yelled. "This is not about deserving me. This is not about who abandoned who and when. You know, thinking about it, you've abandoned me too. Just look at the way you've let dad threat us when he's drunk, and you've never defend me, the way I see it, that's abandoning too."

Mom was taken aback my change of subject, guess she couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"And you're my mother, after all. And she was just some teenager, who happened to give birth to me back then," I said tiredly.

Because mom didn't say anything I continued: "And besides, I'm not some object you can own or deserve, I'm a human. And if you so fiercely claim that I am your child you should want me to be happy. And it's been a long time since I've been happy here."

"I'm sorry, Bella. I am so sorry for that," mom said. "But we can fix it."

I stood up. "I don't think so. Not all can be fixed."

"Please don't go yet, we can talk about this," mom said, standing up too.

"You're right, we can. But not now, when you act like a selfish child and every time we try, we end up fighting," I said.

She followed me to the front door. "I love you, Bella. Despite everything I love you just as much as before, maybe even more. Just please, remember that. I love you." As she said that, she reminded me more of the mom she had been when I was a child. It felt odd seeing that expression on her face, so similar to the one she used to have when I was little and she was tucking me into bed every night. Her eyes looked much more alive and less sad then. I could almost see the person she was then behind her hollow sad eyes for a while.

I shut the door and held on to the handle for a while. "I love you too," I whispered to the closed door. I couldn't say it to her yet, but maybe someday I could again. I'd tried so hard to just throw them out of my life, but despite the fact, that they definitely weren't the perfect set of parents – any of them – I guess they weren't going anywhere.

xxx

That evening it seemed like everyone had come to the party at Emmett's. Even his enormously big house seemed to be full by the time Alice and I got there. We were pretty late though; because Alice said she looked fat in all her dresses and took forever to decide what she wanted to wear.

"I need a drink," I said to Alice once we stepped inside the living room.

"Me too," Alice said. However, on our way to the kitchen Jasper stopped us.

"Um, Alice? Can I talk with you?" Jasper sounded just slightly drunk already.

Alice glanced at me unsurely. "Okay, sure. I'll be back soon," she said to me before she walked away with Jasper.

So I continued to the kitchen where I found Rosalie. We chatted and drunk couple of beers together and then walked to the living room where we found Edward and Emmett. I sat on Edward's lap, because there wasn't much room left anymore. I gulped down few more drinks but then I saw Alice coming downstairs and heading for the kitchen looking rather dark. After her, Jasper walked from the same direction and headed for the front door, looking equally miserable.

I glanced at Edward and saw that he was looking at Jasper too. "What's up with those too?" I asked from Edward in a low voice.

"No idea," Edward answered.

"Maybe we should – " I started. Edward nodded and we both stood up. I gave him a small smile and headed towards the kitchen were Alice had gone and Edward walked towards the front door.

Alice stood by the kitchen sink looking out of the window.

"What's up" I asked, stepping beside her.

"I need to get really drunk," Alice said sipping from my beer.

"That bad?" I said looking at Alice. She looked like she was debating with herself whether to cry or not. "Did you fight with Jasper? Did you break up?"

"How can we break up when we aren't even together?" Alice snapped.

"I was just asking, no need to bite my head off," I said.

"Sorry," Alice said and walked over the fridge to get her own beer. "Something like that, I guess. We kind of fought."

"About what?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know, really. Everything. All the old stuff we didn't really talk through before. It got kind of nasty."

I wrapped and arm around her shoulder "It's going to be alright," I said the sentence she had been saying to me so often.

"I just wanna get really drunk," Alice answered.

About an hour later I was starting to feel pretty tipsy myself too, but it was nothing compared to Alice. Maybe her amazing ability to get so completely wasted in such a short time had something to do with her tiny size.

"You know, I don't care," Alice exclaimed to me. We were sitting on the kitchen table. I didn't quite remember how we had ended up there, but well, maybe all the chairs were taken.

"Care about what?" I asked and tried to focus my eyes on her and realized it was getting far too hard. Damn, I shouldn't have drunk so much.

"About him," Alice said and swept her hand so hard that she almost lost her balance and fell off from the table, but I grabbed her arms just in time.

"Really?" I asked. "Like it would be so easy to just stop caring. You love him, Alice."

"No, I don't," Alice said. "I loved him, yes. But it's over now. I'm finally letting go, I don't want him back anymore. I'm better without him."

"Maybe you're right," I said thoughtfully.

"I am right. Now let's go dancing!"

"No! I may be drunk but I am not drunk enough for that," I said as Alice pulled me down from the table despite of my resisting.

"Come on, don't be such a buzz kill," Alice laughed and pulled me on the dance floor.

I didn't feel like dancing at all, but soon I realized that I was dancing what so ever. Our dance moves were pretty ridiculous and unbalanced and we were holding on to each other to not to fall, but we still had fun. Soon we were both laughing so hard that dancing was quite impossible.

Alice cried out and hugged me tightly. "You're my best friend!" she screamed at my ear.

I laughed and hugged her back. "I know, Alice. I've been your best friend for like ten years, so nice that you noticed," I said and ruffled her hair.

After about fifteen minutes we stumbled away from the dance floor all sweaty and laughing. I had almost forgotten, how it felt. To feel that happy and carefree. Like things were finally starting to settle down. Like I could be happy again.

"What's up, girls?" Edward appeared from somewhere and wrapped one arms around my waist.

"We were dancing," I said still gasping for air.

"I can see that," Edward chuckled. "Is Alice okay?" He asked from me in a low voice, glancing at Alice who was still laughing.

I shrugged. "How about Jasper?"

"He's okay," Edward said. "Are you drunk?"

"I thought that was kind of the point of the party," I giggled and leaned against Edward to keep my balance. "Let's get new drinks."

Edward rolled his eyes but followed me and Alice to the kitchen.

"When did you become so boring?" I asked and threw him another beer.

"Since, you both decided to get wasted and I need to take care of you," Edward said.

"I'm not wasted, I'm just a liiittle drunk," I said but I guess my spluttering made it a bit unconvincing.

"Right," Edward said.

"And besides, I don't need anyone to take care of me, I'm a big girl," I said and winked at Edward.

"Oh, trust me, I know," Edward said and pulled me close.

"Could you guys stop?" Alice exclaimed, as Edward placed his lips on mine. "That's not really considerate. If you don't happen to remember, I just broke up."

"Sorry," I muttered, immediately moving from Edward's arms, beside Alice and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. I didn't think it was necessary to remind her that she had just a bit earlier said that she had not broken up.

"It's all right," Alice said, not looking at me in the eye. "I'm going to… find a bathroom."

Then she turned around and disappeared from the room before neither of us had time to say anything. I looked at Edward with a puzzled expression on my face.

"I should go look that she's alright," I said.

For a while Edward looked reluctant to let me go, but then he just nodded. "See you later," he said and gave me a quick kiss.

I knocked through all the bathrooms in the housed before I found Alice.

"Alice?"

"What?" Alice asked from the other side of the door with a muffled voice. It was her I'm-crying-but-I-don't-want-anyone-to-notice –voice.

"Let me in," I said.

"No."

"Alice, this is stupid, let me in," I shouted from the other side of the door.

There was a little silence and then she opened the lock. I stepped inside and locked the door again. I sat on the mat in front of the bathtub and looked at Alice who was sitting on the toilet, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"You do care," I said quietly.

Alice shook her head. "I'm just drunk."

"You're not just drunk. I'm your best friend; you think I don't know when your heart is broken?"

Alice stepped down from the toilet seat and sat next to me on the floor, leaning her head against my shoulder, so that my t-shirt was wet with tears but I didn't care. "Can't we both ever be happy at the same time?" Alice asked with a small, bitter chuckle.

I smiled too. "Maybe it's meant to be that way. So that when the other one feels so low, the other one can pull her back up again. If we were both unhappy, who would tell you it's gonna be alright."

"What if it's not?" Alice asked.

"I know you're going to be okay. You always keep telling that to me so you have to believe in that too. You know what, I am happy. Even though my family is a mess and I don't have a place to live in, I am happy like you always said I would be. You're going to get there too."

"I just can't see how," Alice said.

"I know it feels that way, but you're going to see it. Jasper doesn't have anything you can't live without. He was just you're first love, that's all. We're going to go to college and you're going to meet other guys and you're going to fall in love so many times and you'll realize it doesn't hurt anymore."

"But I don't even want it to stop hurting. I don't ever want to forget him," Alice said.

"You almost did, already. Don't you remember? When you two first broke up, you were fine."

Alice didn't say anything to that and the silence was filled with her small sobs that eventually turned into giggled.

"I'm quite miserable, aren't I," she asked laughing.

I turned to look at him and bursted into laughter too. "Yeah," I giggled, sweeping the tear off her face.

"Come on," I said and pulled her off the floor. We walked out of the bathroom hand in hand.

"Do you want to go home already?" I asked.

"Yeah," Alice said. "But you can stay."

"No, of course not." I shook my head, even thought I badly wanted to find Edward and just talk and be with him for a while.

"Bella, don't be silly. I can see that you want to be with Edward," Alice smiled. "It's okay; I want to be alone anyway. And besides, when Jasper and I were still together, how many times did I do that to you."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes! I want to be alone, really."

"And you're not just saying that so that I wouldn't feel guilty?"

"Of course not," Alice said. "Now go, I'll see you tomorrow." She gave me a quick hug and disappeared.

"Edward?" It took me a while to find him from upstairs where he was with Emmett, Jasper and couple of other guy from our school.

"Yes, baby," Edward said and pulled me close. I laughed at his mildly drunken expression.

"Can I come over tonight?" I asked.

"You're always welcome," Edward said and his hands slide a bit lower on my hips that I thought was necessary.

"Edward, behave!" I said and glanced at the other guys who were raising their eyebrows at us but couldn't help giggling.

"You wanna go already?" Edward asked.

"Yeah."

"I can't find my keys," Edward whispered to me at the front door.

"Oh come on," I exclaimed in a low voice and started feeling his pockets too. "Do you think Esme and Carlisle are awake?"

"Hope not, I'm far too drunk to talk to them," Edward said.

"Me too," I giggle. "They're so not going to let me in your Christmas party if they see me now."

"Oh, so you decided to come?" Edward asked. "Besides, they've seen you drunk before."

"Yeah, because you got me drunk to get out of trouble yourself," I snapped, not really angry at him though.

"I didn't get you drunk," Edward argued. "Let's just find the keys, before they wake up and come to see what the fuck we are doing."

I finally found Edward's keys from his jacket's pocket and aimed at the lock a few times, until Edward took it from me and opened the door. We stumbled inside and I bumped into the shoe stand.

"Careful," Edward snapped and grabbed my arm.

"Be quiet," I whisper.

"Oh, and who's being more noisy?" Edward asked sarcastically and pulled me towards the stairs.

We both sighed in relief when we finally closed the door in Edward's room.

"It's been quite a day," I said and lay down on Edward's bed.

"Yeah," Edward lay on top of me and kissed me softly. "I love you, Bella."

I kissed him back and slipped my hands under his t-shirt. "How did we end up this way?"

"What do you mean?" Edward asked, but he was already pulling off my shirt.

"So… happy. Like we really belong to each other, or something. Against all odds, it's so weird," I said and held on to him a little tighter. If I had something learned in life it was that never take love for granted.

"Yeah. I love you," Edward repeated, like it was just that easy.

"I don't want to live without you anymore," I mumbled as a response as he moved to kiss my neck.

xxx

When I went back to Alice's place the next morning, I found out something rather surprising. As I stepped inside with the spare key Alice had given me I found Alice in the living room – with Jasper.

I stared at the two of them talking on the couch like friends, my mouth hanging open for a while before they noticed me.

"Hi Bella," Alice said casually.

"I was just leaving," Jasper said.

"Oh, no hurry. Talk as long as you want to," I said. "I'll just go to your room Alice."

"No, I was really going," Jasper said, but I didn't listen but just jumped upstairs to Alice's room.

After about ten minutes Alice came up and sat on the bed sighing heavily.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"We talked," Alice said.

"So you're not fighting anymore?" I asked. Alice shook her head with a small smile playing on her lips.

"Are you together again?" I asked. She shook her head again.

"We're just friends. This time really," Alice said.

"And how do you feel about that?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Okay. I mean, it's going to take a while, but it's better this way. I still love him just a bit, I guess. But it's fine, it's just didn't work out between us."

I looked at Alice, there was still a hint of sadness in her eyes, but I could see that she was telling the truth. She was fine, or at least she would be, soon.

We both startled as my cell started ringing. "Victoria," I said to Alice and picked up.

"Hi, Bella," Victoria said. "Can you explain why your mother called me and accused me of stealing her daughter and manipulating her to move in with me?"

"Oh crap," I sighed. "It's mom. Of course she had to cause some trouble. Sorry"

"Don't worry about it," Victoria said and there was laughter in her voice. "I mean I'm not complaining, but you could have also told me. When are you moving in?"

I chuckled. "I don't know, today?"

"Great," she said. Then her tone of voice got serious. "Bella, are you really doing this."

I was quiet for a while. "Yes," I said then, not sure if I had just made a big mistake.

"That's good," Victoria said. "I won't let you down again."

"I really hope so," I said.

After I had ended the phone call Alice grabbed my hand. "Remember that if it's awful you can always move back here," she said.

"I'll keep that in mind."