"In love, it is better to know and be disappointed, than to not know and always wonder."

Chapter 29: Redemption

The world does not stop turning just because you are stuck at a standstill.

The weather does not change just because you are in a grumpy mood.

Things that are genuinely worth smiling about will make you smile, even if your boyfriend has dumped you for cheating with his friend's brother.

People do not change in a day.

God knows everything, but teenagers know it better.

Have many times in the last three years has someone given me advice, to which I reply, "I know"? I am having trouble deciding if "I know" is a defense mechanism, or the greatest lie that has ever been told in the history of the world. Adam scolds Eve and tells her to put back the fruit, Eve replies "I know." Teenagers get told every day that sex leads to complications, pregnancy, and possibly fatal illnesses, to which we roll our eyes and reply that "we know."

And we do know; there was a special class for pregnant girls at my old school. I've heard a few dozen or so rumors at Olaf's over who might be pregnant, who might have had an abortion, who might have been the cause of the herpes outbreak last month.

So the conclusion is that we don't care.

We will do it anyways.

They call it rebellion. We will call it adulthood. Freedom. Liberation. Fun.

It is not that we don't care; it's not even that we are tired of rules and expectations, and pressure. It is that we crave the experience, the physicality of having someone inside of you, the reality of plucking that apple and taking a bite, instead of looking at it and listening to someone else describe how that apple tastes.

I wanted the apple.

Rosalie wanted the apple.

Edward wanted the apple.

Jax wanted the apple.

We all want the apple.

And for our curiosity, for our sins, there is reality.

Rosalie is standing in the middle of her room; throwing clothes unfolded and wrinkled into a suitcase in a process she calls packing. There is a neat stack of textbooks on top of her unused hamper, Algebra I and Advanced Trigonometry amongst them.

I am watching her from the doorway, deliberately not packing my own belongings. To pack would mean that in four days I will be on a flight home. Putting my uniform away would represent an uncertain future—three months of going backwards, even I as try to stop the earth from turning so I can a have a single second to think.

Even know as I monitor the haphazard throwing of articles into a patterned, purple piece of luggage I am struggling.

I cannot stand here and watch this.

I grab my key and leave without saying a word.

My feet lead me to Edward's door, if only because I am harboring serious guilt and a monkey's worth of curiosity. Well, that and my actual inclination to see Emmett reminds me of five hours earlier, when he sailed out of ISS, acting like I hadn't been in the doorway at all.

His book bag had practically thrown me in a wall as he slid by me, eyes on the ground.

Edward had his headphones hanging around his neck as the door swung open. To his credit, he didn't look surprised.

It was Friday, his punishment for pulling the fire alarm was officially over, and Monday it would only be Emmett and me in that room, taking our finals.

"It's good you stopped by. I found some stuff that you missed when you moved out."

No bitterness, not in tone or expression. His green eyes were subtly taking stock of my yoga pants and black tank top, but it felt more like the gaze was doing deeper than the layers of fabric and skin that covered my insides. He stepped aside and motioned me in.

"You too huh?" I turned a complete circle and noticed the posters and framed pictures were gone. His sound system was missing from his shelf. The windowsill that had been cluttered with guitar picks and assorted small items were cleared.

"Me too?" Edward asked, standing next to me and following my gaze as it wandered. I had forgotten how tall he was. In Edward, height seemed less significant, whether it was because he slouched horribly (on purpose I suspected) or because he was physically less of a male presence than others. Edward had fluidity in his every movement, and the mental capability to swiftly hide every instinctive response if he chose to do so. His mind led, and his body followed.

Emmett's chest, filled to bursting and always slightly sticking out, led him where ever he went. Rosalie's chin, tipped up to meet everyone in the eye with a blatant 'fuck you' stare led the rest. Jasper and Jax both led with their hips, swaggering just enough to draw eyes to their lanky, lean torsos and their confidence.

And what did I lead with?

"Rosalie is clearing out her stuff too."

Edward nodded and his gaze pulled away from me, staring at the laundry basket full of shoes.

"She asked…she texted me last night and asked if I wanted to come with you and visit her this summer. She's staying in Miami with her brother, because her father is still furious with her."

I coughed.

"Funny, she never mentioned that to me." Nor did she mention that she and Edward were on speaking terms again.

Edward's face stayed completely straight, but I had a feeling he was laughing a little bit on the inside.

"Don't get it yet, do you? She wouldn't…she's asking for help. For company. Without actually asking of course."

Oh.

Christ.

Couldn't she have just taped a plane ticket to the bathroom mirror? Why ask Edward? Did Rosalie just know he would find a way to tell me? It's not like we had been spending a lot of time together lately.

Seriously. We lived in the same room. We had sex with mostly similar people. We shared a bathroom. I've seen her strung out on a piano.

But then, if Rosalie ever did come asking for help, I'd be alarmed and probably wondering if she was high. It's just the way she was.

"Help me take down my shower curtain?" Edward asked, tossing his IPod on his bed and already his way to the bathroom.

We squeezed into a bathroom even smaller than the one in my room, and I stood on the edge of the tub to hold the bar (which was incredibly unstable and bent, probably from someone hanging off of it in the past) while Edward unclipped his own shower curtain, which was black and had neon green guitars all over it.

And I studied him while he was reaching up and concentrating overly hard to get the plastic material off the old metal hooks.

"You're looking at me." I barely saw his lips move. The only indication that I could see of his speaking, despite my careful observation, was the tongue that poked out right before the words tumbled out to wet his pale lips.

"You're nice to look at."

"So are you." He briefly met my eyes and smiled. "Is your hair still going to be blue the next time I see you?"

I swung my head so I could catch a peripheral blur of color and hair as it swished forward and then back. I had thought multiple times about dying it back, or dying it all fire-engine red, or even brownish-blonde (Emmett would look good with a blonde), but I had always held off.

The blue made me different and noticeable.

Who's the girl with the blue streaks?

Oh, that's Alice Brandon.

It helped give me an identity here at this school and I was reluctant to let that go.

But I knew I didn't need the blue anymore.

I had people.

Names and numbers in a cell phone.

Possessions left in their rooms.

A person who would sit in ISS with me, even though I hadn't spoken to him outside of inane chatter since Christmas.

Who was huffing at a particularly difficult clip and pretending to not be waiting for me to answer a ridiculously simple question.

"My mom will flake and Rosalie bought the hair dye for me, but…." I shrugged, even though he wasn't looking at me. "I guess I just like it."

Edward hummed a reply that was noncommittal.

I cleared my throat and changed the subject.

"I didn't know Rosalie had spoken to you."

Eye roll.

Hand through the hair.

Another clip released and the curtain began to sag.

"She didn't. Well, at least not until I spoke to her first."

"That's pretty fucking noble of you, after…."

"You stepped all over my chest with your dainty girl shoes?" Edward supplied easily, with a crooked smile.

"Something like that."

Shrug.

"I'm not an idiot Alice. I knew she wasn't thinking of me like that. Not that she couldn't, otherwise I would have given up on her altogether ages ago. That's why I agree to all this you know, at least at first. Sure I wanted to stick it to some of my fellow classmates, that's always a plus in my book. But I joined for her. Because I had fucking been looking at her since she was thirteen and she had yet to look back. And people look at me. But she didn't, still doesn't really. Even when I was introducing her to Royce fucking King, the twatking of them all, or telling her I wanted her to make it with a chick, nothing. And while it does blow my mind that it never actually occurs to Rosalie to, I don't know, address a fucking problem for once in her life; I'm better off now than I was at the beginning of the year."

The curtain was down. He gave me two ends and took the other, maneuvering us out of the bathroom to give us more room to fold it.

"Are you really?"

Edward came toward me to fold it in half. I reached down and pulled the bottom up to fold it once more as he gave the plastic a hug to squeeze the air out of the curtain.

"Sure. I got a 4.0, banged a few chicks, got drunk a dozen or more times, made some new music, sabotaged some of the more obnoxious fucks out there, and spent my first day ever in suspension with four people who could give a shit less about money, status, cars, or clothes. It could have been a lot worse."

Really? It could have been?

"I never pictured you as an optimist, and it's severely traumatizing my opinion of you."\

Edward chuckled, bending over to shove the shower curtain into a Rubbermaid tub that was sunny yellow. "M'not. But you look like someone snipped off your ponytail again, so I figured I'd better find some silver fucking lining before you start crying or trying to tell me why exactly you lowered yourself to sleep with Jax Whitlock."

Ouch.

"Jasper would have been willing if you really wanted to get a taste of the legendary Whitlock charms and coffers."

Damn.

Touché Edward. Remind me never to ignore you again, since you've been stockpiling quips since Christmas.

And what else could I do except for take it? And take it gladly, if he was telling me that he still wanted to be my friend.

Edward's mouth was shifting from side to side, as though he was trying to decide something.

"I followed her."

"Wow, girls just love conversations that being with that stalkery little nugget."

"Shut up. I didn't mean it like that…I went after her, Rosalie, after she left. We were in the practice room in Eliza Kelly and she just left. I thought she'd yell at me or something.

I didn't know what I should say, I mean, 'don't you want to bitch at me and then storm out?' is just pointless, you know? So I took my time, trying to figure it out. And by the time I got up the steps, she was letting Professor Carlisle in the door. I almost thought I had to be mistaken, but she went in there with him and I just—I was pissed. She was sitting all 'woe the fuck is me' on top of my goddamn piano, and then she turns around and is screwing with him in her room?"

I eased back onto the bed, watching Edward pace, an action more indicative of his current state of anxiety than the blank look on his face.

"But she dropped math. And she was kissing Jasper in front of him….and she just looked so worn out when she in the music room. Rosalie isn't that good of an actress. And if he was following her, after she had finally worked up the nerve to end it….I got pissed. And I panicked. And the fire alarm was the first thing in my line of sight."

I stared, not really looking at him, and he quirked a wry pair of lips at me.

Well.

Looking at the past year from this point, with it mostly in hindsight, it's a wonder Edward and I didn't work out. We didn't have a lot in common, but we had enough. A gift for reading people and Rosalie Hale come to mind first and foremost.

He wanted to protect her, make sure she was okay. And maybe a small bit of his subconscious was about what he wanted, but the majority was in favor of doing his best for his friend.

I grabbed Edward's hand and pulled him down to sit on the edge of the bed with me. He acquiesced easily and took my hand instead, gently tracing the peaks and valleys of my fingers.

"Was it worth it? Thinking you wanted her, doing…what we did, having to be told that you can't always get what you want, and pulling that fire alarm?"

Edward shrugged and hummed out another response.

I tilted my head to the side to look at one of his framed pictures of one of those painting where the staircases all lead back to the same place, while going somewhere different each time. It made me dizzy.

"I think it was."

Another hum, he was twisting my knuckles now. I scissored my fingers just to get an acceptable acknowledgement of my statement, but Edward kept his head down.

"I mean, the thing with Jax…I'd take it back, but for Emmett's sake. Not for Rose's. So does that mean I wouldn't take it back or that I would? And if I want to take it back, does that mean I'm the girl who puts her boyfriend in front of everyone and everything? Am I the girl who's imagining white dresses and infinite variations of meatloaf for dinner with her sixteen year-old boyfriend? If I could take it back, and throw Rosalie to the wolves, is that who I am?"

Edward's razor-sharp eyes turned on me and stared.

Thanks, that's not disconcerting or anything Edward.

But really, I was trying to ask a question here. One I desperately wanted an answer to. One I needed an answer to.

Could I be both? Could I be a friend who valued her friendships and someone who had a boyfriend that she (gulp) loved and wanted to do right by? Could I still be me if I was so attached to this people, or were their problems tainting my existence with their sinful existence?

Would I take it all back? If I could, would I stay home in Mississipi and "know" what it meant to compete and live and thrive in this cut-throat, complex environment, or would I experience the sex, the love, the betrayal, and all the other negatives that occur?

No.

Such a simple word. I had said it to Jax and severed a year-long affliction with his vicious charm and his face had fallen before a cool façade had risen up instantaneously.

No.

I wouldn't take it back. It was pointless to even wonder or think "what if." I made the choices; I saw the freedom that excessive money and intellect wrought. And even if I was still as confused as ever, I had learned.

Better yet, I experienced.

"I wouldn't take it back. Not any of it. "I declared, as confidently as my teenage addled brain could muster.

What other declaration could I make?

Edward let go of my hands and rose.

"Make sure you take these."

He handed me a box, presumably with the aforementioned contents I had left.

Funny how 'Make sure you take these' sounded a lot like, 'good for you.'

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In my shoe box of belongings were a wealth of bobby pins, a pair of socks, a couple of sketching pencils, some folded up scratch drawings of dresses and clothes, and a blank CD that had the words "Indy Theme" across the front in black Sharpie.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Celibacy."

My eyes swung from the Spanish translations that were beginning to swim in front of my face. It was officially the Monday of finals, albeit 12:02 AM. I blinked repeatedly until my vision cleared and Rosalie's resolute face stared down mine, her textbook lying on the floor as she simultaneously did lunges and chanted verbs and vocabulary.

"Excuse you?"

"Celibacy. Abstinence. Self-denial. Torture. No nookie. Not until we're not so fucked up anymore."

WE?

"Uh, we?"

"You slept with a Whitlock."

"How many years it is going to be before you can't use that against me anymore?"

Rosalie smirked and started on squats, sticking her butt out and straining her toes upward as she sank onto her quads.

"Seriously. I'm going to be moving in with my brother, who is, if you can believe it, even more promiscuous than Jax or myself. I've slept with eight guys already, and technically one chick and I want there to be something left to do when I turn like, twenty, so….celibacy."

She made a good point, and truth be told, Rosalie could do with a little non-sex for a while. Still…

"I get why you need celibacy, but what if Emmett. Ahem. What if Emmett develops amnesia and forget that I slept with a Whitlock?"

Rosalie snorted.

"You haven't called, texted, emailed, or stalked Emmett since he walked out on you. That does not speak of a girl who wants said boy back." She straightened and glanced in the mirror, admiring the line of her thighs. "You know what else doesn't speak well of keeping said boy? Sleeping with a Whitlock."

I slumped back into my chair.

"I'm not…not doing the stalking thing because I know how pathetic that is when I'm the one who screwed up. And at the same time I can't say, if Emmett wants me, he'll come back, because what self-respecting person would do that after I did what I did?"

"Can you even say it out loud Alice? You gave Jax a blowjob. Blow. Job."

I rolled my neck and stared at the ceiling.

"Yes, that. There's no right way to go begging back to your boyfriend, and so I'm willingly miserable, because I deserve that."

"Yes you do."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. But, question. You don't want to go begging back because why again?"

I gritted my teeth and spun in my chair to face her fully. Her arms were out, keeping her balance as she sank down lower and lower, making a painful face as she bounced on her heels.

"I'm the one who screwed up. To ask him to just take me back…that's cruel. And arrogant."

Rosalie considered this for a long time.

So long I had moved onto my paper describing my final sculpture project.

"Arrogant, or proud Alice?"

"What?"

"I'm just saying, are you not going over there and apologizing until you're blue in the face because you know he'll take you back even though he shouldn't, or are you too proud to admit you made a mistake and apologize until he can look at you? Not kiss you, not screw you through the mattress. Look at you. Because he can't. But he does. All day in ISS, sneaking peaks at you and looking sick to his stomach. Watching you. Even before…he swallowed his pride and let you take care of me even though he and I both know I just like to be babied sometimes. He watched you interact with Jasper and Edward. He told you he loved you, which is probably the biggest pride-swallower there is, especially when the other person doesn't say it back. So I'm asking; are you willing to be miserable because you don't want to deal with having to tell him that you're sorry and that you love the fuck out of him?"

She went back to her exercising. Her heavy puffs of air were the only sound in the room.

~**~*~*~*~*~*~*

I was a girl with a plan.

With a vision.

And with friends who would help.

Rosalie volunteered her handcuffs for my use, in case Emmett tried to run again.

But what I really needed was an Edward.

And Edward with a wicked smile to get past the secretaries and the knowledge of the phone code that set the phone to the "announcement" setting, which could be sent to specific classrooms to call students (or teachers) to the office.

"Mr. Dubois to the first aid room please. Mr. Dubois to the first aid room immediately please."

At 10:15 on Monday morning, in the middle of my literature final (which was all essay), Edward's best "sex operator" voice came across the speakers.

Mr. Dubois assured us someone would be there immediately to watch over us, and hurried out of the room.

I got up, leaned out of the hallway, caught sight of Rose (who clearly did not have to take her math final) and shut the door, locking it. Rosalie would knock if someone came looking for us.

Emmett was frowning at the trashcan, which was less than a foot away from me, which meant he was frowning at me, but unable to do it to my face.

So I walked up to him, placed both of my hands on either side of his face, and turned it over and up until he was looking at me.

This was a mistake.

A painful growl erupted from his chest, and then I was being propelled backwards, as in some strange déjà vu the chair he was sitting in and got out of so suddenly toppled and clanked loudly against the tiled floors.

He stood in the center of the room, a safe distance away from me; his back turned and shoulders heaving.

"Shit." He breathed softly, a frustrated exhalation. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Um, that would be screwing this up within five seconds of my plan going awry?

"Alice." Emmett turned around and yanked at his collar. "What's with the Mission Impossible scene? And why did Cullen just call Dubois all the way across campus for what I'm guessing is a fake emergency?"

I shifted my weight and tried to find something to do with my hands.

"I wanted…I wanted to apologize. Truly. Not some bullshit, I want us to be friends apology. Apology isn't even the right word, because it's just a pansy-ass way to avoid actually saying I'm sorry.

And I am sorry. I'm sorry. I am sorry for not finding a better way, for not talking to anyone before I just went off and did what I did. I'm sorry for thinking I knew my options. And I am the most sorry for not even noticing everything you've been doing for me since I first ran into you in the forest. I am so sorry for never noticing all the times you would reach over and edit my papers while I was trying to research in a book, or the times you'd switch out my chocolate chip cookie for your Jell-O cake because you know I like the strawberry filling. For all the hugs and kisses and jokes that you worked so hard to give because I was so busy doing everything but looking at you."

"Alice…"

"M'not done yet." I continued, breathing as evenly as possible. There were no tears. Tears would have made this easy. Made this about my guilt, about my sadness, but it was not. This was about him and the wrongs I needed to address. I didn't deserve easy for this. He deserved to hear these words, not see the tears.

"I can't say I love you yet. Because I wasn't paying attention, and I'm so mixed up that I'm not sure I even believe you can fall in love when you're in high school, because everyday something changes, and how you can love someone when they are entirely different the next day? I want you to know that because I used to be an honest person, and I'm going to be an honest person again. See, change? So I hope you understand, and I want you to know that sometimes, when Rosalie's blabbing on and on about her own tragic life, I wish you were there to pick on her, because you're the only one she'll take that crap from without some sort of hateful retort. I think about the things you would say, and then the things I would say. I think about all that, but I don't think you know that. So um, now you do."

I swallowed and felt my heart hammering in my chest, because I was done talking now. And it would be all up to him now, without my interference because I couldn't be in his brain, couldn't meddle or persuade my way into making this work out right.

But at least now we were even. He had told me the truth, and I had repaid the favor. His "I love you" had given me clarity to what I had lost and what I had gained.

My almost "I love you" would hopefully give him everything I had been thinking about on loop for months, but had never said.

If Emmett decided he couldn't accept that my declaration was so much less than his, then I would have to learn to walk away.

One of his hands ghosted near my ear, pushing my hair back.

He was there.

In front of me, towering and looking at his hand or my ear, and smelling so good. Sleeves rolled up, jacket off, tie loosened, red Converses loosely laced with shiny, new white laces. Palms so large my entire cheek felt the heat of him.

Dark eyes contemplatively avoiding my gaze, lips loosely parted as he leaned in and inhaled.

Smelling my hair.

"Rosalie came to see me. So did Cullen. Jasper didn't invade my dorm room, but he did sit down at dinner and told me I could use his branding stick if I just wanted to brand you so everyone would know how…'smitten' you were with me."

Thick fingers, surprising in their nimbleness, adjusted the collar of my own shirt, fixing the crooked knot of my tie.

"I saw them too…well, not Jasper."

Emmett snorted, a comfortingly familiar sound. "He's completely wigged out that you fucked his brother. Afraid he'd lose his cool trying to talk to you about it, not that I blame him."

I allowed my lips to curl into a small smile at the thought of Jasper interrogating me about the activities between me and his older brother. Awkward.

"I want to forgive. The words just about come out every time I look at you. I just want it to go away. But even if I say I do, I'm not sure I mean it. I know it won't go away. And I'm so friggin pissed that whenever I see you, I think about…what you told me. But will it be any better if I touch you, and cuddle you on top of me and do-over everything that we've done, just so anything he did won't exist anymore? That's what I keep asking myself. Which will be better? Not having you and thinking about it, or being inside of you and thinking about it?"

I choked on my answer. "I don't know."

Emmett dropped his hands and they slid into his pockets.

"Me either."

A sharp knock on the door told me our time was coming to an end.

Emmett's eyes darted to the door and then back to my own.

"What the hell right? I just gotta know."

And then he was kissing me, and Mr. Dubois was shouting about 'what in the hell' and my stomach clenched so hard it knocked out my hearing, cleared the air right out of my lungs, and knocked every lucid thought right from my brain in the way that only two things can: one of them is love.

And I believe I have just experienced the other.

Redemption.