Disclaimer: I've had so much diet soda that I can't remember what's supposed to go here, so please insert the appropriate disclaimer [here]. Danke.
A/N I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
Adore
Chapter 28 –I Thought I Knew You Well
For once, Bella had mastered the art of disappearing. They were less than a minute behind her, give or take, Emmett in his car, Edward in the other with Jasper sobbing beside him. They had yet to spot her car.
"We'll fix this," Edward promised. "She thinks we don't trust her. We just need to remind her of how much we love her. She'll understand. You were out of your mind, that's all. We all go crazy sometimes." His words comforted neither Jasper nor himself. Bella wasn't going to forgive them so easily, not this time. Edward realized what a bastard he'd been by not backing her up when she needed him. She thought he would; he saw it in her eyes. The real kicker was that he didn't believe for a second that she had anything going on with Peter. Even her behavior suggested repugnance when it came to the professor. Yet there was still a question mark in his mind, an insecurity. He wanted to know everything. He supposed it was morbid curiosity. Maybe he wanted to torture himself…maybe they all did.
"She's leaving us," Jasper said, barely able to get the words out. Edward hadn't seen him this distraught since Bella had nearly died a few years earlier. Nothing would ever come close to that pain, but this was different, because it was Jasper's fault, and he knew it. "What was I thinking? I don't know why I said those things."
"Jasper, you've always been paranoid about her leaving us. You overreact a lot, you know you do."
"I basically accused her of cheating…" Jasper stared at the road in front of them, horrified with himself as he rewound the evening's events over and over in his mind. "There's something wrong with me." He had repeated the latter numerous times since they left.
Edward wasn't about to negate him; there was something wrong with Jasper.. "We'll think about that later, Jazz. Right now we need to find Bella."
"She doesn't have anywhere to go," Jasper said. It didn't give him any relief, it only scared him. She wasn't going to come back to them, not after this. She could end up anywhere.
"Maybe she went to mom and dad's." Edward was hopeful, because if she wasn't there, they had no idea where she might be. She didn't have friends to turn to, no family. There was only one other person who would take her in, but Edward refused to entertain that possibility. That's what got them into trouble to begin with.
Emmett called Edward a few minutes later, his voice heavy with distress. "I lost her, man. She must have gone onto the highway."
Edward cursed under his breath. "We'll just have to leave her alone for now. She'll just run if we keep chasing."
"I don't want to leave her out there on her own…" Edward thought he could hear his little brother choking up on the other end, which was not like Emmett at all.
"Neither do I, but there's not much we can do at this point except wait it out. She needs time to cool off."
Emmett sighed. "Should we just meet at home, then?"
Jasper shook his head, fresh tears emerging from his blue eyes. He couldn't stand this. Everyone was suffering because of his stupid, thoughtless words.
"See you in twenty," Edward said, hanging up. He looked at Jasper. "She'll call us when she's ready. We'll give it a day or two, and if we still haven't heard anything, we'll keep searching."
"What about her cell phone?" Jasper asked, suddenly remembering the tracking device they had put on her first cell phone two years earlier. She had gotten a new once since.
"She didn't want a tracker on it, remember?"
"Right, I forgot. She must have known she was going to leave us one day…"
Edward wasn't in the mood for Jasper's self-pity. "Jasper, shut up."
"It's true. She was just thinking ahead. She's smart like that."
"She wasn't planning to leave us, you idiot. She just wanted more privacy. Even I can admit that we breathe down her neck all the time. She barely has any time to herself."
"But it saved her life once…it could save her again." Jasper made a good point; it had saved her life. If they hadn't seen where her phone was located, they might not have found her in time. It was still a touchy issue, however. If they tracked her down every time she needed to be alone, it would end badly, and likely have the opposite effect to which they intended.
"Just give her space, Jasper. That's what she needs right now."
But Jasper couldn't stop himself from fearing the worst. Bella wasn't like other people; she attracted danger. It followed her around like a lost dog, only it was far less cute and much scarier than a dog. And there was still the niggling feeling in his gut about the break-in, not to mention the man in their back yard. What if it wasn't a fluke? He might have just given her attacker the opportunity he had been waiting for. She might be isolated, and god knows she was vulnerable.
"We need to find her, Edward. She might be fine for a day or so, but we can't let it go on longer than that. There's still someone out there." Jasper was no longer crying. He switched gears in an instant. His guilt was still dominant, but his instincts to protect Bella were overwhelming him.
"If we can't find her, no one else can," Edward said, unsure of just how true that statement was. They hadn't seen any other cars parked nearby, but there was no telling if someone had slipped their notice or had gone ahead of them. Bella had almost a minute head start… "Okay, fuck it. We'll give her twenty-four hours. After that we're calling Charlie."
Jasper was satisfied with that. Maybe she did need time away from them. It didn't spell the end of their relationship, he told himself. There was still time to make things right.
It smelled like feet; smelly, infected feet that had never seen the inside of a shower. If she'd had more money, she would have splurged on a nice hotel, rather than an ominous, dirty motel. She dreaded to think of what germs and bodily fluids lurked on the bed she was going to sleep in.
It had been a long, long time since Bella had had a room to herself, no boys in sight. It was a strange and uncomfortable feeling, but it felt oddly freeing at the same time. She was out on her own, although she had no idea for how long. The uncertainty was something else that made her uneasy, but she reminded herself that life was full of uncertainty and endless possibilities. That was what her whole life had been like.
Bella sat on the bed, unimpressed by how loudly it squeaked. She could feel the bony wires through the thin lining of the mattress. She wasn't going to sleep well, but she couldn't blame the mattress for that.
She'd cried for the majority of the drive there. Initially she had no idea where she was going, but she knew her best bet was to take the highway. They would follow her, she knew they would, and she was no escape artist. She drove for an hour before finding the stinky motel she was now staying in. At that point she was sure they weren't following her, and she was tired of driving. The only way she managed to calm herself was by blasting the radio and listening to obnoxious pop music. It was better than listening to her own thoughts. He brain was being nasty. She was incapable of being optimistic after what happened.
Peter, the attack, the man scoping out their house, and now this. Maybe they were all glaring signs telling her to get out, that her time was up in Forks and she wasn't allowed to be with the loves of her life any longer. Maybe she wasn't supposed to have love, or maybe three was too much and she was being greedy. There might be an unwritten rule about that, and now she was being punished for it.
She laughed. Her brain really was working against her tonight. She wanted to cry again, she could feel it coming on. Was she really going to throw away the last few years of her life; the best thing that had ever happened to her? She couldn't see herself being happy without them. She would survive, of course she would, but what kind of life would that be? They would never truly let her go, either. It'd be like running away from trained CIA agents. They'd find her eventually and woo her back, because she would never stop loving them, and it was as simple as that. Love was horrible. She could do with less love. Four men was too much. Three was barely manageable, and even two was a handful. Her life would never be anything other than complicated.
On top of everything else, a new, more time-sensitive issue had arisen: her period was late. Over a week late. She hadn't told them yet. At first she thought nothing of it; her period wasn't always on time, and she had been unusually stressed out lately. But a week on and she was panicking. Bella had been planning to buy tests before telling them. There was no point in freaking them out if it turned out she wasn't pregnant. Of course, she was also worried that they'd be excited. Bella wasn't ready for a baby, and she wasn't sure she'd ever be. They wanted children, though. They wanted marriage, too.
She hadn't been brave enough to stop at a drug store yet, and now with everything else on her mind, she knew there was no way she could prepare herself for the results. The fact that she felt the need to throw up didn't help.
Her phone rang almost twenty times since she left a few hours earlier. She had turned it off after the first one, but now, with thoughts of a possible pregnancy looming, Bella suddenly needed to hear their voices. Jasper left five voicemails, Edward two, and Emmett three. Edward wasn't begging her to come back, much to her surprise.
"Look, just be safe, and know that we love you. I know it doesn't mean much, especially coming from me, but Jasper didn't mean what he said. I can't make you believe that, love, I know. And…and I'm sorry for not being there when you needed me. I was an idiot. I don't even know why I…I guess some part of me was curious, but I do trust you, Bella. I know you would never do anything like that. Please, call me when you're ready. I'm not going to push you, I can be patient, but let me know you're all right. I love you."
Bella sobbed throughout his message. Emmett's made her feel even worse, if only because he was crying to the point of being barely coherent. It was new to her, and it was oddly touching to hear her beefy, masculine boyfriend crying into a phone and begging for forgiveness.
"I'm so sorry, baby! Please, please come back. I'm a jerk, I'm a terrible person," he paused in his message, sniffling and choking on his sobs. "Bella-Bear, I love you! I'll do anything to make it better."
No one was as dramatic as Jasper, however. She should have expected as much.
"Bella, fuck this! You should leave me. I don't deserve you, I never have. I always knew it deep down, but I've been trying so hard to keep you. I smother you, I stalk you, I think about you every second of every day, I'm selfish, and now I've insulted both you and our relationship. I'm disgusting. So leave me, you'll be better off without me. Em and Edward, though…they're better than I am. But you'll do what you need to do in the end, and that's all there is to it. I love you more than life itself, but that's now always enough. I know it's not all there is to a relationship. There has to be respect and loyalty. I've always been loyal to you, but I sure as hell haven't respected you, not tonight, anyway.
"So yeah, leave me. I won't fight it. Okay, that's a lie, but I'll at least try to stop myself from acting like an even bigger jerk than I already have. I want to fight for you, Bella, but more than that, I want you to be safe, and I don't think you are. There's still a maniac running around out there, and my gut is telling me that he's after you. I don't know if it's Peter, I really don't. I just want you to be safe, and to remember that we're here. We're not going anywhere."
He was in serious mode. She wondered if he'd been crying, too. She hoped he had. She also wondered if he was trying to bait her by saying those things. Leave me, I don't deserve you. Reverse psychology, she wasn't an idiot. He would never let her go willingly. He might be trying to get her to panic, to run back to them. It wasn't going to happen. She loved him to death, but he needed to learn his lesson, and lessons took more than a few hours to learn.
Bella laid down on the bed, ready to put her thoughts to rest for the night. With any luck, she would know what to do in the morning.
"Oh Jasper, why did you say those things?"
They shouldn't have told their parents. Jasper couldn't help himself, though. He'd called his mom to ask if Bella was there, so naturally she wanted to know what had happened. Part of Jasper wanted to be shamed, to be told he was wrong. It felt good in its own, twisted way. He needed to be criticized, punished. Having his own mom telling him he'd fucked up wasn't something he was used to, though. It felt completely awful.
"I'm an idiot, mom, and I have serious issues. She deserves so much better than me." He sat at the dining room table at his parents' house. It was 10AM, and he had called in sick to work. His mom had her morning free, so she told him to come over to talk about it. She wasn't harsh about it. Esme Cullen was only harsh when it came to tacky wallpaper and laminated floors.
"You know Bella would never cheat on you, honey," she said.
"I know, mom. I knew it last night, too, but that didn't stop me from saying the exact opposite." He checked his phone, praying Bella would change her mind soon and call him, or better yet, be at the house when he got back. It was unrealistic, but he had to cling to hope or he'd lose his mind.
"What are you going to do?"
"Wait and see what she does. We decided not to call her today. Edward keeps insisting that she needs space, and he's right, I know he is, but it's driving me crazy. Then there's the worry that this guy, whoever he is, might find her."
Esme frowned, alarmed. "You think someone's after her again?"
"I know they are, I just don't know who."
"You don't think it's this professor of hers?"
Jasper couldn't deny that he wanted it to be him. It would make things so much easier. "I have no idea. Sometimes I'm convinced it is, and other times I don't. I can't picture him attacking Bella. He…he loves her."
Esme covered his hand with hers, seeing the pain on his face. "Jasper, it'll be fine. If Bella says there's nothing going on, you have to believe her."
"I just keep thinking about how the four of us were meant to be together, how Alice predicted Bella coming into our lives, and if three of us can be with her, what's to stop there being a fourth?"
Esme snorted. "Honey, I say this with love, but I'm pretty sure Bella can barely handle you three. A fourth would have her checking into a mental institution."
Jasper had to smile at that. "True. I know it's hard for her sometimes, maybe even most of the time. She puts up with us very well, though."
"I wouldn't call it 'putting up with you'. She loves all three of you, and love is hard enough as it is. That doesn't mean you can't make it work."
Jasper used to think that. He wasn't so certain now. "This might have been the last straw for her…you should have seen her, mom. She's never looked at me the way she looked at me last night. It was like she hated me. She felt so betrayed. How can I fix that?"
Esme squeezed his hand. "We'll figure it out."
Jasper attempted a smile. "Thanks, mom. I just want her to come home so I know she's safe. That's the biggest priority right now."
Emmett, unlike Jasper, didn't call out sick that day. The only reason he went was to distract himself, and it worked to an extent. He only had to rush out of the classroom to cry in the janitorial closet twice, which he thought was pretty good under the circumstances. He put his phone on vibrate and checked it every five minutes, refusing to turn it off. He was torturing himself, but the idea of waiting hours to see if she had called or texted was worse. He knew she wasn't going to. She'd only been gone for sixteen hours, it wasn't enough time. For her, not for them. One hour was too much for them. He dreaded to think how long Bella needed until she felt ready to come back to them –if she came back to them.
By the time school let out, Emmett had plummeted into a deep depression. He sunk into the couch when he got there, unsure of what to do. Jasper was in the shower, and Edward trekked in only a few minutes after Emmett, deep in thought.
"Hey," Emmett said.
"Oh hey," said Edward, distracted.
"Something wrong?"
"I don't know. Where's Jasper?" Edward threw his briefcase on a chair and sat down next to him.
"Shower."
"Good, we need to talk."
"About Bella?" Emmett sat up. Had she called him?
"Sort of. Well, not directly."
Emmett's brows furrowed. "Spit it out, Edward."
"I'd rather tell you guys at the same time. Jasper!"
Emmett grunted, crossing his arms and leaning back into the cushions. Jasper came running out a few seconds later, a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked hopeful, but was quickly disappointed as soon as he saw Bella wasn't there. "What?"
"It's Peter Wesley," said Edward. "He's missing."
