A/N: I meant to update last night, but I've been going through Because of You, making sure there's no contraband after some snivelling little arsehole reported it. There's nothing reportable, of course, because anyone who knows me knows I don't get explicit. I'm erring on the side of caution, though. A head's up because I'm not in the mood for anyone's shitty behaviour right now. I WILL edit anonymous arsehole flames. That includes yours, my special little friend, who reads all my chapters religiously, [ANs included] only to insert your insecurities at the end. Get a hobby. One that makes you feel worth some shit, because while you're obviously not aware of it, your fragile ego is only as blatant AF.
Anywho, Thanks Kim, as always, for being an all round awesome person and beta, and to Sammy for just being your crazy self. And to my very gorgeous friends Leslie and Jamie. Thinking of you two girls and praying hard for your recovery.
Vertigo
Chapter 26
Bella.
Why is everyone so bloody convinced I'm about to off myself? First, it was my turncoat bloody shrink, then it was Edward, and now it's my brother.
Okay, talking to Jasper did make me feel better; a little bit, anyway. It was enough to put a halter on my tears and to at least quiet my mind so I could get a couple of hours sleep, but he wasn't really able to resolve anything. That's my job; if I can only figure out where I'm supposed to start.
I feel like I'm walking around in a constant state of shock and panic, only I'm not sure why. The only thing I do know is I have to work things out with Edward. The bloody shrink was wrong. I have no intention of pushing him away. I miss him, and I'm pretty sure fighting with him is the source of my underlying panic. I feel like he was the only thing in my life that made sense. Edward is the man my mother always told me to find. The man I used to dream about; maybe not in the embodiment of a Cullen, though. That one definitely knocked me for a six.
Christ, I want to call him up and ask him to come over—more than anything—but I can't.
I can't, and the ridiculous thing is I don't even know why. Every time I even contemplate it, I fall to pieces.
Okay, maybe I do know why a little bit. Edward now represents my heart. He broke it open, and if I return to him I'm going to be swamped in all the pain and hurt I drove away when I shut it off. And because my heart's apparently defective, what I feel for Edward is going to swamp me just as equally.
Three years in therapy, I have been somewhat paying attention.
Edward always told me I looked at him like he scared me to death, and I think that's what he meant. He does scare me, but it's a fear that doesn't stem from anything rational. It's a thousand things and its nothing. It's the idea of seeing that ridiculously handsome face every day of my life, and then it's of never seeing him again. It's how he makes my heart both smile and stutter in fear. All at the same time.
It's worrying myself sick over him; over the pain he can't nearly conceal behind his intense gaze, and the idea of something happening to him. It's worrying most of all that I'm the one hurting him, and the burden of what carrying it around does to me.
And it's the idea of him seeing me. Really seeing me; my flaws and demons included.
I should be able to shoulder it. Christ, I lost my family and survived. I should be able to deal with this—to be able to function like an adult and have a boyfriend, but I bloody can't.
"When you close your heart off, Bella, you can't pick and choose when and how to open it again." That's what Dr Jenks always told me was his reasoning why Edward could be detrimental to me.
Detrimental. As if he was some kind of exotic virus.
Maybe I'm naïve, or arrogant, but I honestly didn't think Edward could pose such a danger to me.
I still don't.
Dr Jenks thinks it's not a matter of just opening my heart back up again, it's resolving the issues of why I closed it in the first place. In other words, deal with my family's death once and for all.
Apparently, I didn't properly go through the grieving process and find acceptance, and now it's stunted my emotional health.
He's right. I know he's right. I didn't. I had no one, I was alone, and on top of struggling with three years of memory loss, I was being psychologically fucked by possibly the most evil woman in the southern hemisphere.
Aside from Edward's mother, that is.
All my energy was consumed by trying to survive her. When I finally escaped, I was dealing with my memories returning and realising the reality of everything my grandmother had used to keep me down were true. Jasper, my father's mistress, my father, me. Everything...
That was the last time I let it get control of me, and I swore it would never happen again. I have to believe I survived that bloody car accident for a reason, and I want Charlie, Sam and my mother to be proud of me. Even my father, because apparently I have to learn to forgive him, on top of everything else.
I know one thing. After five years of living under my grandmother's roof, I at least have a lot more empathy for him than I had before. I don't think the rest of it will be as easy, though.
Alice and Jasper have strong-armed me into staying at Alice's for the weekend. I only accepted because it's a better alternative than being alone with my thoughts. It's not that I don't enjoy Jasper's company, and Alice has been my BFF since I moved back to Sydney and started working for my father's lawyer, it's just...being around them makes me think of Edward.
Maybe that's a positive thing, though. I need to think about him in the context of reality and not on misconceptions and illusions. The reality is, we had a fight; a fight we have yet to properly resolve. He is not the source of my pain and heart ache, no matter how much the ghosts of my past and my battered psyche wants me to believe it.
Christ, if only I knew how hard it would be to miss him. It hurts. It physically hurts. I'm crying myself to sleep over him exactly like I once did for my mother.
So, why can't I just get past all this crap and go to him?
Friday night Alice and Jasper stayed over—In my bed. With me. As if that wasn't awkward enough. Of course it was only made worse by the fact that I woke at some ungodly hour screaming out incoherent ramblings into the dead of the night. It was then topped off by the fact that when I grabbed my phone to check the time, I realised Edward had called me and left a message.
Jasper suggested I listen to it, which only left me staring at him wondering whether he was fully awake, or stoned.
"Maybe you should hear him out, Bells." Bells. That's his new nickname for me.
It's completely daggy, but at the same time, oddly endearing. In return, he asked me to call him Jazz, because Jazz is his DJ name. Alice already calls him by it, but I'm not sure I can in all seriousness.
Bells and Jazz...Christ, we sound like a bloody Christmas pageant.
He has a name for Edward, too. Richie Rich. He thinks I don't know about it, and he's lucky I don't clock him right in the jazz.
The truth is, I wanted to listen to Edward's message and Jasper had given me the excuse I was subconsciously looking for. before I was really aware of what I was doing, I called my message bank. I've saved every one of Edward's voice mails. I can't bring myself to delete them. This one, however, I might have to.
"Heeeey, Bella..." I realised straight away he was drunk. Not just drunk, but bloody pissed out of his mind. "I love you..." he says, his voice hopelessly slurred, and I can hear another voice in the background egging him on. Jake, I quickly gather. "And...I miss you. I miss you so much. Please call me, Bella. I'm sorry. You're right. I fucked up, badly. I just...I can't...live w-without you." He paused and I overheard Jake's voice again. It sounded like, "Tell her about your shrink", because then Edward added, "I just wanted to help you, Bella. I needed help to help you..." Jake's voice interrupted again and then the message cut out.
I immediately broke into tears and cried until I couldn't breathe, then I threw up and cried again 'til morning.
This is when Alice and Jazz decided I was staying with them for the weekend, like I'm on bloody suicide watch, or something.
They went for breakfast just after nine this morning and spent more time than my patience could withstand attempting to persuade me into joining them.
"Why don't you just buy a bloody Nanny-Cam and put me under twenty-four hour surveillance!" I snapped, before promptly ordering them out of my house. I know they meant well and I was acting like an infant throwing a tantrum, but I haven't had parents in ten years and I don't need any now.
They promised me they'd be back around eleven, but it's barely forty minutes later when they return.
"That was bloody quick!" I burst, yanking open the front door in a fit of impatience only to discover Jake on my doorstep with an awkward smile forming across his face.
"Hey, Bella," he greets me warmly, bending down to kiss my cheek.
"H-hi," I stammer, my expression no doubt turning blank. "What are you doing here?"
It's a stupid question, because it's obvious why he's here.
"Can we talk?" He asks, glancing behind me into my house.
"Sure," I mumble, moving aside for him to enter.
He steps into the hall and shoves his hands into the pockets of his Adidas track pants, his smile broadening. He's taller than Edward.
"Do you want anything to drink?" I offer.
He shakes his head. "Nah, I'm good."
At the sound of an unfamiliar voice in the house, Oppa suddenly comes charging out from the bedroom and starts barking at him.
"Oppa, stop it!" I order him. "Go to bed." He begrudgingly obeys, returning to my room and growling to himself. I shut the door after him before turning back to Jake. "Sorry...he thinks he's a Pitbull."
He grins as though he's fighting the urge to laugh. "It's fine."
"You wanna sit in the lounge room?" I suggest, motioning to the front room.
"Sure."
I sit on the sofa facing the fireplace and Jake sits on the one aligning the wall, opposite the front window.
"Edward said you don't own a TV," he remarks, as an ice-breaker I can only assume, but I'm immediately uncomfortable.
"Yeah..." I shrug, glancing away from him.
"Sorry," he apologises and he sounds sincere.
"Why?" I put to him.
"I made you uncomfortable."
"God, I'll live. You want to talk about Edward, right?" Because why beat around the bush.
"That obvious?" He's kind of charming, and it's not hard to work out why girls, for the most part, have always swooned over him.
"Why else would you be here?"
He nods and concedes. "Yeah. Only because Edward...he backs down too easily. He'll avoid a confrontation—you know that about him, right?"
"Hmmm," I contemplate it, immediately recalling the time not too long ago when Edward waited on my doorstep for two hours. I have to fight the smile from twitching at my lips. "He was in the beginning, but not so much now. He can be pretty stubborn."
"Yeah?" He sounds surprised, and somewhat sceptical.
I nod. "You don't believe me?"
"It's not that..." he shrugs a shoulder and seems to abandon it. "He argues with me all the time, but if I'm pissed off at him, or he is at me, he'll remove himself. You were pretty angry at him, yeah?"
"Yeah..." I answer quietly. To put it mildly.
"Did you get his message last night?"
"Yes," I say wryly, and in return he smirks before his expression turns sombre.
"Even drunk he wouldn't defend himself—and he's always been like that. It drives me mental, but...I can't just sit around this time."
"So, you want to explain on his behalf?"
"Well...yeah." He half shrugs again, and I release my breath resigned this time.
"Okay, go ahead..." I mumble dropping my forehead to my outstretched hand. I'm not sure I want to hear it, but on the other hand I desperately want to. I want a reason to not be angry at him anymore.
"Well, first, Edward's not seeing your shrink, you're seeing his. He's been seeing Dr Jenks since he was in sixth grade."
This catches my attention, and I immediately straighten up in surprise. "What?"
Jake might have just given me that reason.
"Yeah. He did tell you that, didn't he?"
"Umm...I'm not sure..." He did try and tell me something to that effect, but I wouldn't listen.
"He had no idea you were seeing him, too, Bella. He really didn't," he says, his voice softening, and it's obvious how much he wants me to believe him.
I nod, and release a guilt-laden breath. Of course he didn't. I knew there had to be a reasonable explanation. "Does he still see him?"
He shakes his head. "Not really. He started going again for some advice on how to help you. The shrink figured out who he was talking about but told him multiple times he couldn't give him any details about you. Edward was talking about you, not the other way around, but the shrink did let something slip..." he pauses, and I nod knowing what he's referring to. "After that, he told Edward he couldn't help him anymore."
"Christ..." I mumble, chewing on my bottom lip. Of all the bloody coincidences...
"And you know why he lied about his car, don't you?"
I glance up at him again and nod. "Yes."
"You scared him to death, Bella. He never wanted to see you like that again."
"I know, I get it. Bloody hell..." I'm impatient at myself.
"Throw him a bone, okay? He's a good guy."
"I know he is, but..."
"But?"
"But...I don't know. I don't know what I feel anymore..." I explain, the frustration becoming obvious in my tone.
"Do you want to get back together with him?" he asks me outright.
"He deserves someone better than me," I mumble, breaking his gaze.
He snorts. "So, that's how you're going to play it? 'It's me and not you', right? Be straight with me, Bella. He doesn't want someone else, he wants you. Do you want him?"
"Of course, I do!" I say a little too sharply. "But I'll hurt him. I don't know where my head's at anymore. I just...I don't know..."
"Bella..."
"What?"
He smiles sadly, and shakes his head slightly to himself as if he finds the sight of me pitiful. "You look just as miserable as he is."
"I am miserable," I admit, scoffing softly to myself.
"Well, give him a call. He's probably going to spend the day hungover, but maybe you can hold the bucket for him," he says lightly flashing me a semi-amused grin, and despite myself I almost laugh.
"Does he hate me?" I ask in a small voice, and I feel just as bloody small.
He snorts again, but this time out of some kind of irony. "Edward can't hate anyone—except for his mother, of course."
"She made him that way, didn't she?" I ask, tactfully.
"What way? Him believing he's always wrong?" I nod numbly in answer. "Yeah, but he's a lot better than what he used to be."
"God, how bad was he?"
He's talking about a part of Edward I'm not familiar with and I don't like it. It's making me feel possessive, which is ridiculous. But it's my own fault. I had nine months to get to know him. Instead, I kept him deliberately out and fed him breadcrumbs.
"She done a real number on him. He had no sense of self-worth. She treated him like crap and he started to believe he was. It wasn't just the apologising. He literally felt like nothing he did was worth shit. His grandfather had him in therapy three days a week for years."
"Christ..." I whisper, while that maternal instinct that Edward brings out in me begins to kick in until I'm simmering with anger.
"You know when we were kids and we played cricket together, he not only apologised for bowling, or catching me out, but he often reacted as if I was going to beat the shit out of him for it."
"I know that story," I admit softly, feeling my brow knot as I recall it. "The cricket bat story, I mean..."
He scoffs and there's a bitter edge to it while his expression darkens. "The cricket bat is the tip of the iceberg."
"God...do I really want to know?" I feel like shying away from him. I'm not sure I can bear knowing anything worse.
"If you want to understand him," he replies, gazing at me steadily, and I feel like it's some kind of indirect accusation.
"He told me about his Pop," I admit, glancing away from him, "but he hasn't told me anything more about his mother."
"He doesn't think you want to know more about him," he answers candidly, and Christ...
"Of course I do!" I'm lying. The truth is I didn't for a whole multitude of reasons, but for the most part, because I'm a coward who prefers to keep my head buried in the sand.
He drops his head and sort of smiles to himself for a moment, and I'm not sure what emotion he's trying to relay. "I'm going to be honest with you, Bella." His voice is serious.
"Okay..." I reply reluctantly, practically cowering from him.
"He thought if he told you more, you'd use it as an excuse to keep the focus on him and away from you."
My mouth falls open in stunned silence, but I'm immediately filling with shame, because he's right. In the beginning I would have, but not now; of that I'm positive.
"Bloody hell..." I murmur, subtly clearing the emotion that's aching its way up my throat. Dropping my forehead to my palm, as an excuse to avoid Jake's gaze, I rub it stiffly. All this time Edward could see straight through me.
"He's also worried it'll be too much for you. You're the first real relationship he's ever had. He's struggling. A lot."
I half laugh dryly, raising my eyes to meet his. "He's not the only one."
He eyes me closely again, but this time there's confusion in his expression. "I've known Edward for sixteen years, Bella. When he was in high school if it wasn't for you I would have been convinced he was gay."
"Why?" I ask, unsure of his meaning.
"All those girls who used to follow him around? He didn't give a shit about them, but that just made his reputation stick more. It made him come across as arrogant and cocky, but he couldn't stand to be touched even back them. Christ, he only went out with Lauren Mallory because I made him. I have no idea how she got him in the sack."
"So...why didn't you think he was gay?" I'm still not following him.
"Because he was in love with you."
"What...?"
"You didn't know?"
"No...I mean, he asked me out just before his HSC, but before that..."
He smirks. "I forgot, you were pretty blind back then."
I shake my head, partly to rid myself of the growing confusion, and partly because he's frustrating. "He always looked really uncomfortable around me."
"Yeah, because you made him nervous. Remember the time I pushed him into you in the library?"
"Yeah." As if I could forget.
"That was deliberate. He'd been pining after you for years, and I knew he'd never have the balls to go up and talk to you, so, I gave him a nudge." He grins and winks at me.
I gaze at him for a moment, not sure I believe him. Edward as sappy as he is wouldn't have shied away from telling me this himself, and yet I know nothing about it. "Edward was too afraid to come and talk to me? Edward—voted most likely to be named Time Magazine's Bachelor of the year?"
"Yeah," he replies, straight-faced.
I snort, unconvinced. "Sure."
"Do you have a self-image problem, Bella? Because you're not ugly," he says, and, bloody hell, if Edward thinks I'm candid, I hate to think how he lives with Jake.
"Christ, tell me what you really think?"
He smirks again. "Edward said you were pretty blunt, so I figured I could just be open about everything."
I shake my head. "No, I mean you misinterpreted my meaning. Edward had no problem coming up to me last October to chat with me in my car."
"Yeah, twelve years of therapy later. Look, Bella, all I know is before Edward started seeing you he wouldn't let a woman put a fingernail on him. Then the first time I saw the two of you together, you had your hands all over him and he was completely relaxed. I barely recognised him. You're good for him, but I think you got it wrong, too."
"What do you mean?"
"You thought all he needed was sex, and he did, but he also needed that trust back. You gave it to him."
I feel my cheeks immediately burn, and Christ, what had Edward told him? "Jake, there's being blunt and then there's having no filter!" I protest.
He chuckles. "Sorry."
I shake my head to myself. Talk about getting caught between the bro-code. "I still don't understand. How did I get it wrong with him?"
"You're pushing him away, aren't you?"
"I'm not!" I insist, adamantly.
"Then why are you ignoring him?"
"Because..." But I can't answer, because it's not that I don't know, but that I barely understand it myself. "I don't know..."
"Bullshit, Bella." His voice suddenly hardens. "You look like you haven't slept all week and you've been crying all night."
I drop my head in defeat. I'm tired, I don't have any defences, and he's right.
"Jesus, this isn't hard," he continues. "Yeah, you've both got shit to work through, but better to do it together. Do you want me to call him?"
"We're not in high school anymore." I mumble, but I kind of do actually.
"Yet, here I am trying to sort out your relationship like we are."
Christ, he really can flip from one emotion to the next without blinking. He strikes me as the kind of person who'd be exhausting to live with.
"I...I have every intention of calling him. I just...I'm just trying to deal with everything."
"Hmm...I call bullshit. I think you're using it as an out."
"Christ, Jake!" I snap, losing my patience with him. I'm starting to suspect they're all in on it together. Him, Jasper and Alice.
"Bella, just ring him fucking up. Get this shit sorted out so I don't have to look at his miserable face every bloody day, okay?" He pulls himself to his feet. "Anyway, I've gotta go to the gym—and Christ sake, don't tell him I was here. You know how neurotic he is. I'll never hear the end of it." He makes his way to the door and I hurry ahead of him to open it.
"Thanks," I mutter, but I'm grateful he came even if it was hard to hear.
"Think about it, okay?" He bends down again to kiss my cheek goodbye. "Ness wants to have dinner sometime. Call her when you've sorted everything out."
I scoff softly beneath my breath. "Okay."
I close the door on him knowing this changes everything. I have no right to be mad at Edward anymore, and I want to call him, so badly, even if it's just to hear his voice.
So, why can't I?
A/N: Thanks for reading xoxo