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35. Sunday, February 19, 2012. Around 6:30 PM

At Home.

"Is he gone?" Rose asks, a condescending tinge to her tone, while standing in the bathroom door clutching a towel around her otherwise bare middle.

"Who?" I stare at her from the corner of my eye as she waits there for my response, one eyebrow quickly rising. Since this morning Rose has been giving me the silent treatment—a barely there gesture or a clipped answer whenever I tried talking to her.

"Don't be so fucking dense." She sighs in exasperation. I have an inkling who she's asking about, but I hate that tone in her voice.

"Yeah. He went to work a while ago," I tell her.

"Great." She drops the towel ostentatiously down to her hips, baring her chest as she walks into the bedroom. Running around naked has never been her thing before; a sign of protest rather than a preference. "Is he coming back again?" she starts back up while rummaging around the dresser.

"Why?" I shrug. "Alice already said she's not coming home tonight, so we're just going to stay in her room."

Rose huffs, securing the bra straps over her shoulders. "That's not the point."

"What is the point then?" Rose's grumpiness is grating and, right now, more unsettling than Heidi's list of menial tasks.

She turns to me from her spot in front of the dresser. "Are you serious? I have like no privacy when he's around," she spits at me, before going back to search through the drawer. Edward hasn't spent that many nights here, so I think her annoyance is out of proportion.

"Newsflash, no one has any privacy in this apartment." I reach my hands out to easily touch both sides of the bedroom wall.

"Which is why I didn't move in with a random guy!" Her voice is getting shriller as she slams one drawer shut and pulls out another, one that's incidentally dedicated to my stuff.

"Oh, come on! Don't you think you're being a little hypocritical here? I mean, when you were dating Roysten, he lived here for weeks at a time. I freaking washed his dirty underwear." It was a pair of red boxer shorts with mini reindeers on them. "And besides, what do you want me to do about it? Do you want me to break up with him?"

"Don't be such a fucking drama queen, Bella. Of course not. It's not the point." Leaving the draw open, the stalks to the closet. "And Roy only stayed here because he lived on Long Island and taking the train back was sometimes impossible."

"I'm not sure this is all that different. Edward lives at the ass end of Brooklyn. So what's my option then?"

"It wouldn't kill you to at least spend some nights there. Give his roommates a show for once." Rose taps her fingers along the edge of the closet and then grabs the black dress I wore for New Year's with the torn zipper. "Can I borrow this?"

"The zipper is broken. And I don't know what you're talking about. It's not like we're screwing on the kitchen floor." She inspects the dress, pulls out an extra zipper from her drawer and then props her hand on her hip and fixes her gaze on me.

"Let's just say you're not as quiet as you think you are," she says and stomps off to Alice's room, presumably to sew in a new zipper. "And he fucking grunts all the time."

"Says the person who gives instructions loudly while at it." Alice and I once listened for two hours of lessons on how to hit the right spot.

Curious about what's making Rose pull out her sewing machine on a late Sunday afternoon in a hurry to fix my old dress, I follow her. "Where are you going anyway?" I ask, while she's neatly pulling the thread of the old zipper out.

"Out."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Don't just stand there and stare. Can you search for some black yarn in that box?" She points to one of Alice's plastic boxes filled with fabric, different rolls of yarn, and needles.

"It's dinner. With a guy."

I hand Rose a roll of black thread. "And? What's the big secret?"

"No secret," she mumbles, dropping the role onto the spool pin.

"Do I know the guy?"

"Yeah, you met him." Her brows are furrowed in concentration as she adjusts the thread and then starts sewing. The machine is too noisy, so I wait until she's done with my follow up question.

"So who is it?" I ask as soon as the sound of the machine fades.

"Remember the doctor at the clinic?"

I start laughing. "You're going out with him? He's at least twenty years older than you. Gross." I laugh, but Rose doesn't join in. "Why? I mean, don't you think you're taking our rules there a little too far? You know you're just going out with him because he obviously has a career."

"That's not it. I can't believe you'd actually say this to me," she says, letting the dress slip from her hands. "After all, you went out with a bulimic who didn't even touch you just because he paid for dinner." I'm too angry to respond and then Rose continues quickly. "At least Carlisle is nice and smart and definitely has no intimacy issues." With a determined look on her face, she lifts the dress from the floor.

"Carlisle? His name even sounds like he's your grandpa." The sound of the sewing machine stops me in my tracks again. "So what, he asked you out during a follow up visit and then made out with you in his white coat?" I half laugh at the thought. Rose sitting on a cold examining table while he suggests dinner for two.

"Yeah." She shrugs her shoulders, bites the yarn off and pulls on the dress, which incidentally fits her much better than it did me the last time I wore it. I stare at her. "So what?"

"Don't you think that's kind of… I don't know, unethical?"

"Who cares? It's not like I didn't want him to ask me," she says and leaves for the bathroom.

"How do I look?" Rose asks ten minutes later, pulling on her coat.

"Lovely," I tell her, rolling my eyes and turning on the TV.

Edward shows up thirty minutes later with a bag of Thai food in hand.

"Hey," he starts, when we sit stuffed on the bed watching TV. "I have a shift tomorrow morning. Do you mind if I stay the night? I might quit the job soon, if I get some more clients for piano lessons, but until then ..."

I don't even hesitate when I reply, "Sure. No problem at all."

Sorry for the long delay. I promise I will finish this shit. :) Thanks for reading.