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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

25.

The weeks after Edward's arrest were a living hell for Bella, though she assumed they must have been even worse for him.

To see someone she cared about—loved even—sink so low, tugged violently at Bella's heart. No matter how Alice, whose clever mind had managed to put two and two together, had tried to distract her with fun little trips around town and movie nights in their dorm room, there was no taking her mind off him.

And so Bella sneakily tried to follow him, which wasn't easy since the man in the eye of the storm had entered a retreat to 'work on himself', as his creepy looking manager had so euphemistically called it. Since Esme had turned out to be less than forthcoming with anything to do with her brother on both of the occasions Bella had dared to stealthily bring the matter up, she only had the tabloids to go to as a source of information.

And everybody knew they didn't really distinguish between blatant lies, absolute truth or anything in between.

Scouring the headlines gave her a very confusing account of what had gone down over the weeks since that fateful day. Where some of the media outlets were still convinced Edward had pushed the woman—Bree—out of the window, most had since accepted that it had been a suicide (though a lot still hinted at some sort of foul play). The woman had recently lost her baby due to a relapse in her drug addiction and as a result, her husband had started divorce proceedings and claimed sole custody of their little boy. That, in itself, was more than enough to make a person suicidal, let alone someone whose blood turned out to contain an interesting cocktail of alcohol and drugs.

What they also agreed upon, since it couldn't very well be denied, was that Edward had checked himself into rehab later that night and had stayed there ever since. His reasons for this uncharacteristic step, though, varied from trying to play nice with the courts to a dramatic final promise to a suicidal woman.

Bella didn't know what to think.

She was happy he was finally getting the help he needed…but the reason why? Her heart broke all over again when she read about how they found him; drunk, naked and with a woman dead on the sidewalk who had been in his room that night. It was obvious Edward had had no trouble moving on from her.

Whereas Bella…

After the incident, Alice had stopped trying to set her up with single guys from her large circle of friends. Though they still met up with a lot of them on Friday afternoons, Bella found she enjoyed herself a lot more now that she wasn't in danger of being set up on some secret blind date. Even Mike had seemed to accept the fact that she wasn't open to dating anyone, though it had taken quite some persuading to get him to that point. It turned out for someone smart enough to get into Columbia, the word 'no' was still a hard word to grasp.

Alice had been her rock throughout those first few difficult months. As privileged as she had grown up, there wasn't a bit of arrogance or self-entitlement to be found in her. Instead, her outgoing nature and liveliness gave Bella just the little nudge to come out of her shell a little and discover a life outside school and books.

On her side, Bella took her roommate under her wing where it came to academic achievements. Growing up in a household that lacked any sort of stability, Alice's attention span had never evolved into the kind of stuff required of a college student. In fact, she had made no secret of the fact that her father had to put in some effort to get her accepted into the prestigious Ivy League college after all. Being as it was, the longstanding relationship the Brandon family had with Columbia University had managed to get her through the door, and the simple twist of fate that had made her end up in a room with Bella Swan would get her out again, three years later, with a Bachelor's in Fine Arts.

"Bella!" And right that moment, she was running into their room, squealing at the top of her lungs. "Go get ready. We're going out tonight!"

"We are?" Frowning, Bella put her book down and stretched out on the bed, her limbs sore after an intense study session. Spring term had only just gotten underway but with the heavy course load that Bella had decided to take, she knew it was best to keep on top of things.

Alice nodded furiously as she opened Bella's closet and started throwing the appropriate clothes for their outing in Bella's direction. "It's Showcase Night at Stinky's. We're meeting the rest of the gang at the subway station in half an hour."

Caching a pair of socks before they could hit her in the head, Bella sighed as she started to get ready. As much as she longed for a night in with a good book and her trusty iPod, she knew better than to go against Alice when the little sprite was in full swing. Besides, she would probably end up having a blast anyway. "Fine, but tomorrow night we're staying in!" she finally huffed, grateful that Alice had pulled out a comfy pair of jeans and a t-shirt instead of some dress that would have her afraid of flashing her underwear all night.

"Aren't you supposed to babysit tomorrow night?" Alice asked as she fixed her makeup in front of the mirror.

"Oh, right!" In the necessity of getting back into the swing of things, she'd almost forgotten that she was supposed to watch Jasper and Rose on Saturday, while their parents went out to some charity function. "Care to join me?"

"Sure." Alice smiled as she put the finishing touches to her look while waiting for her friend to get ready. "Esme always has the best snacks in the world and besides…what girl wouldn't want to miss out on being the subject of pure teenage adoration?"

Bella snickered, remembering the way Jasper had reacted to her new best friend. To say that he had been star struck, would have been the understatement of the century. He'd been glued to the floor, his mouth almost hanging open cartoon-style as he stared at Bella's friend like a lion would at an antelope.

Alice had taken it all in her stride, though, claiming to have grown quite fond of Jasper's clumsy and completely inappropriate adoration. She never led him on, though, even going as far as to encourage him to pursue girls in his class that he thought were just 'okay'. Bella, however, was afraid Jasper only saw those girls as 'training wheels' to perfect his moves so that he could make more of an impression on Alice.

"Come, on!" Alice urged impatiently, grabbing Bella's hand as soon as she had finished getting dressed. "I want to get there before it gets crowded and you can't maneuver the floor without half our drinks ending up on your clothes!"

Bella chuckled. "Okay, Ally!" One of Alice's pet peeves was getting drink stains on her clothes. Even though Bella had yet to detect it, according to her friend the stain never truly got out of the fabric, causing it to be ruined.

For Bella, though, the true problem with busy bars was that there was no way to navigate them and breathe in some fresh air at the same time. With her being so small, all she would smell as she carefully navigated the room, were sweaty armpits and stale beer. Which meant that she was as eager to get there and buy her rounds as Alice was, so that they could get the boys to take over as soon as the crowds picked up.

"Come on!" Grabbing her hand, Alice tugged Bella out of the door. "I can't wait to see what kind of troll Tyler ends up with tonight!"

Bella chuckled, shaking her head. There were only a few certainties on those nights when Alice managed to pry her away from her books to join them at Stinky's, an obscure yet renown-in-certain-circles little music hall somewhere at the bottom end of Midtown. The first being that no matter how hard Alice tried, at the end of the night they'd still be stone cold sober yet absolutely drenched in beer. The second was that Mike would make a pass at Bella. And the third that Tyler, the only one of their circle of friends who could actually legally drink, would end up completely smashed and clinging to some giggly, fake-tanned, fake-titted monster he would spend the next couple of weeks desperately trying to get rid of.

The venue was still relatively empty when they got there, which meant that Bella and Alice could find a spot all the way up front from where they could actually see all the action on stage. Leaning against the stage, they waited for the boys to return with their drinks while more members of their regular crew started to trickle in.

"So do you know who's performing tonight?" Bella asked, as Alice kept typing away on her phone.

Alice shook her head. "Some up and coming singer songwriter I think. The description on the website sounded pretty good but the name didn't really ring any bells for me."

"I hope you're right," Mike chimed in, rejoining the group with a tray full of plastic drinks glasses that were quickly distributed among their group. "Remember that one-eyed dude singing nursery rhymes?"

They all shivered, remembering the creep who'd been up on the stage a few weeks earlier; some really weird old dude trying to make blues classics out of old nursery rhymes. It was clear to say he'd failed…and the end result was so macabre and uncomfortable, Alice and Bella had actually left after soldiering through a couple of songs.

It was the charm of Stinky's Showcase Night: one night you'd have the time of your life and discover a band that would become huge, the other it was a total bust with some arrogant sack of shit impersonating famous artists or a bunch of complete losers abusing perfectly good instruments. Mostly, the success of the performance was measured by the number of people still in the room after the band had left the stage.

Just then, the house light faded and the crowd, that had grown ever since they'd taken up their spot, started to roar as a faint shimmer of a shadow crept across the dark stage.

"Hello, New York," a voice Bella had once grown to love and so become attuned to, crooned into the microphone. "I'm Anthony Massone and I'm going to play some songs for you tonight."

Her heart skipped a beat, her breaths coming in shallow gasps as she waited for a sign—anything—

to either confirm or deny her assumption.

Could it be?

Could it really be him?

As an acoustic guitar started to strum, a single light came on, illuminating a lone figure sitting on a barstool in the middle of the stage, his unkempt hair falling over his face as his fingers plucked at the strings.

But Bella didn't need to see his face. Hell, she'd known it the second she heard him, or maybe even before that.

Edward.

Thoughts?

Just a heads up: there won't be an update next week as I'll be traveling. BitD will be back on May 12th.