-=[Isabelle Higginbotham, the present ]=-
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...
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Bella was roused from her sleep by the tingly feeling of another presence next to her own. Edward was in her bed, no correction, she was in Edward's bed. He was lying right there, by her side, watching her sleep.
Was it night? Was it morning? She could not tell in her sleep-muddled state ... probably an ungodly early hour, somewhere in between.
"Stop that!" she muttered, her face still buried in the pillow.
She knew what she would see if she opened her eyes; Edward's face close to hers, willing her to wake up with just the power of his stare.
"Stop what?" came the response in a deep and raspy voice.
"I feel you watching me. It's unnerving." She leaned a little away from her pillow and opened her eyes just a fraction. "Don't you ever sleep?"
"I'm sorry. But you're naked. I can't not watch," he offered as an answer, sounding anything but sorry, as his eyes made it down her body, lingering on her breasts.
The only light in the room came from the street lights outside filtering in around the edges of the curtains. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make out the way his sharp jawline tensed as if he tried to exercise some restraint and self-control.
"No, you're not sorry. You're either horny or bored, or possibly both," she huffed, but didn't make a move to cover herself.
"More like restless and yes ,maybe a little worked up, but that's honestly not why I'm awake."
His fingers were ghosting over her bare back along her spine as he spoke.
"It's not?"
"No. I don't want to come across like sex-starved loser with a one-track mind… even if it's hard to stop thinking about how good it feels to have you here, pressed up against me like this …. but..."
Sensing that he was hesitating, she urged him to continue. "But what?"
He must've made his decision as he looked at her with those deep green eyes, that she was sure if she looked closely enough, she would be lost in it.
"But nothing… I really am sorry I woke you up," He sighed, and rolled onto his back, away from her. "It wasn't fair of me. I just don't sleep more than a few hours at a time… never have… but you already know this about me. It's nothing new."
He rubbed a hand through his crazy bed hair, and Bella found herself wanting to replace his fingers with her own.
She forced herself to focus on his words instead. "It's an anxiety thing. Yes, I remember. You used to describe it as a catch 22; too tired to stay awake, but too anxious to sleep."
"That's usually the problem, yeah…" He propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at her with earnest, serious eyes.
"Usually, but not this time?"
"Well, I had no trouble falling asleep, as I'm sure you noticed. The post-coital drowsiness hit me like a ton of bricks. However, the trick is to drift further and further into dreamland. To let go of the world around you completely and to stay that way. Now that's not always easy, not for me anyway, especially with you here in my bed."
"Oh so are we back to that again? You trying to pin your insomnia on me."
Back in the day, he used to claim it was her insistent sleep talking that kept him awake at night, even though both of them knew it was a lie.
They would simply never talk about Edward's anxiety, or what caused it. Or rather, he'd made it clear early on, that he would rather deal with it by smoking weed and pretend everything was a-okay, than getting real and talk about the things that was really bothering him.
If Edward sensed where her thoughts had drifted, he didn't let it on. Instead, he shrugged and said, "It was a compliment, obviously. Who can sleep when there's a hot chick in your bed? I don't know how long you're gonna be around for and I don't want to miss big chunks of time by sleeping in."
"How about you tell me the real reason you're awake, Edward?" she suggested, as she let her fingers trail over his arm, drawing indistinct patterns.
"There are more reasons than just one, but alright, I'll try to put words to my thoughts," he agreed, watching her carefully as if he were searching for something. "The truth is, I woke up because… I was having this weird dream about er… the past… one that seemed so real that it was hard to push it aside after it woke me."
"You mean you had a nightmare?" she asked, frowning a little. "About the past?"
"Honestly, it was more like a bunch of vivid, dream-like flashbacks. It really turn nightmarish until the very end." He reached down to take her hand. Sliding his fingers through hers, he leaned close. "That's when I found myself trapped in a tiny concrete cell-like room with some clown-y person guarding the door-..."
"Wait. Clowny? As in an actual CLOWN clown? I do NOT trust clowns-..." she cut herself off when she realized she had interrupted him. "Sorry. You where saying..."
"It's okay, I was done. That was pretty much it. The dream turned disturbing. I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep because my brain was being stupid dragging up old angsty stuff and well... clowns."
"I can actually relate to that," she told him quietly as she rested her head back on the pillow. "I swear, I hadn't had a bad dream, or anything even resembling a nightmare, in months - not one I remember after waking up anyways - but then I came back here and BAM! My sleep is filled with all sorts of fucked up dreams of the 'flashback' variety. No clowns or anything scary like that, but still unnerving enough to seriously mess with my sleep patterns. So yeah, I can relate… "
Edward looked like he wanted to ask something, but shook his head instead.
"What?" she asked. "Did I say something stupid?"
"No. Nothing." He pursed his lips, as if he didn't want to voice his thoughts. Then he exhaled and said, "In case I haven't told you this before, I really do think you're brave for coming back here… you know, after everything that happened. My angst ridden dreams are nothing compared to the living hell, I know you've gone through."
The sheets rustled as he shifted position. His hand slid from hers, she felt a little pang of loss.
"I don't feel brave-..." she started, but then stopped. Edward had scooted away from her. He was in the process of getting out of bed.
"Where are you going? Don't I even get a cuddle out of you this morning," she tried, in an attempt at humor.
Honestly, she was a bit sad that the 'morning-after pillow talk' appeared to be over already.
"Since when do you even like to cuddle in the morning?" he asked her and threw his legs over the side of the bed, his feet hitting the floor with a soft thud. "The way I remember it, you used to be about as approachable as a cactus most mornings. It used to take a gallon of caffeine to make you perk up."
He had a point. As a teenager she'd been a notoriously bad morning person...really bad! She still was to some extent.
"Maybe, you were going about it the wrong way? Ever think of that Edward?" she countered. "Sometimes a hug or just a warm, comforting touch can go a long way. It's not like you ever made any real efforts on that front."
"What front? Mornings cuddles?"
"Yes. I'm just saying there's a difference between cuddles and cuddles. I never did find the whole being smothered in a full on body tackle, while getting your fun parts squeezed all that enjoyable first thing in the morning… "
"Hey, I don't know who you've been cuddling with!? That doesn't sound like me at all," he started to protest, but then faltered. "Or… I mean, I might have done that, like once or twice, while buzzed or high or just very happy… Sorry about that but-..."
"Sheesh. No need to get all apologetic, or defensive." She held up a hand. "It wasn't all bad. I do remember some good cuddles too. I mean, ocationally you'd let me use you as a pillow and play with your hair until one or both of us fell asleep… I secretly loved those kind of cuddles."
"Occasionally? Gee, I sound like such a prize! Why did you put up with me? More than that. Why did you pick me out of all those boys chasing you?"
"All the other boys were morons," she shrugged, ignoring the thundering of her heart, and turned her gaze up to a point a few feet above his head to avoid meeting his eyes. His lack of clothes was… distracting.
"What can I say, I like smart guys. Also, the fact that you weren't hitting on me every chance you got made you a whole lot more appealing to me," she continued. "And yeah, you were easy on the eyes, too. Hot even and-..." She stopped herself there and shook her head.
"Did you just call me hot?" He smirked, visibly pleased. "That was mighty nice of you, Miss Swan," he teased as he moved smoothly around the bed and towards the door.
"You're unbelievable!" she groaned. "Stop fishing for compliments, Edward."
"I wasn't fishing for anything, honey," he shrugged. "Now, if you could hold that thought for a minute; the one about me being unbelievably hot. I'm just gonna pop into the bathroom real quick." He slapped the door frame twice, punctuating his request, before turning the handle and swinging open the door.
"Yeah right…. You can't do quick bathroom breaks," she snorted. It was extremely childish, but Bella felt the need to get the last word. "I mean, there are mirrors in there. Honestly, if you start fixing your hair, I'm out of here!" she called out after him.
"Well, if you're not here when I get back, then there will definitely not be any cuddles," was the response she got – really, it was all the response she needed.
Even though she couldn't see his face, she sensed that he was smirking.
"You make a promise, you better deliver on it," she said to the empty room, before rearranging the blankets and pressing her face back into her pillow.
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…
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True to his word, Edward was back within a few minutes, (though, Bella could tell he had definitely taken the time to brush his teeth and comb quick fingers through his hair a few times).
To her dismay, he had also donned a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. This, of course, left Bella feeling a bit under-dressed. Before she could say anything about it, he'd reached for her discarded t-shirt at the foot of the bed.
"Here, put this on," he suggested, throwing it towards her. "It gets a bit nippy in here in the mornings. Also, if we're going to continue our earlier conversation, then I think putting some clothes on is a good idea. Because…. well, I have a confession to make."
"Uh-oh, sounds serious," she said and quickly pulled the t-shirt down over her head. "What kind of confession, exactly, are we talking about here? Is it cuddle related?"
His facial expression was hard to read and she couldn't even begin to guess where he was going with this.
"Sorry, not cuddle related, but it isn't anything bad either. I should have said that from the start," Edward apologized, as he sat down on the bed beside her.
"Right, so what is it then?" she asked and poked his shoulder. "You're acting all dramatic."
It made him smile bit before he turned back to being serious.
"It's about that clown business."
"What clown business? Oh, you mean the clown from your nightmare?"
"Yeah, about that…. There was no clown, I made that up, just to… I don't know, make it seem nonsensical and nightmarish. It seemed easier to shrug it off that way. Fewer follow-up questions, you know."
"If you don't want me to ask questions, just say so." That said, she pulled back to look at him.
"I want to talk about it, but at the same time, I don't," he admitted with a grimace. "Remember how I told you it was a weird flashback type of dream? I guess the best way to describe it would be to say I was accosted by an onslaught of fragmented and jumbled memories from the past, memories I've tried to push away. In my dream I was arrested, detained and stuck in police custody all over again. My parents made an appearance too, obviously unimpressed with me. I had a full on argument with them in my sleep before I woke."
"Oh, that sucks!" she said, averting her eyes from him. "I'm really sorry my presence has brought back bad memories and added to you anxiety levels and-..." she started apologizing.
"No. Wait. That's not what I was saying," he shushed her quickly. "Yes, your presence brought a few unresolved things up to the surface. But that's not necessarily a bad thing."
"It's not a good thing either, especially if it means you can't sleep."
"Who's being all dramatic now?" he asked pointedly. "Anyways, I just wanted you to know where my mind kept going and why I couldn't fall back asleep. Because otherwise this next part wont make much sense."
"Next part? What next part?" she asked, genuinely confused.
"I'm working my way up to something here." Edward moved just an inch closer, leaning in so that their shoulders were touching. "The aftermath of that weird dream, got me thinking about everything, and I mean everything… And now, I've got a question for you."
"Oh, okay." She cleared her throat awkwardly. "What's the question?"
"It's about… well, my release from the police custody. I realized something… I realized I never found out what kind of deal you cut with the police and the DA-..."
"What do you mean? What deal?" she interrupted him.
"To get them to reconsider 'attempted murder'?" he clarified. "I know you didn't do it for me, or at least, not just for me. But regardless, this is what ultimately led to them drop their investigation against me altogether."
"Wait. You don't know? Alice didn't tell you?" she asked, surprised.
"Tell me what? What does my sister have to do with anything?"
"Nothing. I just thought..." She shook her head. "Never mind."
Perhaps she should have known this would come up at some point… she'd just thought Alice would have told him the basics at the very least.
"You're right. I didn't do it for you," she admitted, not meeting his eyes again. It was a simplified answer to a complicated question.
"That's okay. Props to you for standing up for yourself when no one else would."
"Edward, just so are clear here. I didn't cut any deals… There were never any deals on the table for me."
"None?" he asked, sounding bewildered. "But I was told you called the police to your house because you wanted to give a statement. No way your lawyer advised you to do that if there was nothing in return for you."
"I didn't consult my attorney first," she admitted. "I knew she would have tried and stopped me… dad, too."
"For good reasons, Bella! Anything you say can, and will, be used against you… and all that jazz..."
"I'm well aware that. And also, I'm well aware that the easiest way that the police can close a case is if they can get you to incriminate yourself or someone else… "
"So why did you call them over? Why did you start spilling the tea directly to the police, instead of talking to them through your attorney?"
"I didn't summon them. What I did was that I said some well-chosen words in the presence of the police service technician while he was at our house to fit me with my GPS bracelet. He called the lead investigator over and then things kind of evolved from there."
"Okay, so what did you tell them and why? Because it seems to have been a game changer of sorts."
"Why?" she repeated his last question. "Because, your sister came to me, on the very same day I got home from the hospital, begging me to do something, to say something, because she was worried you wouldn't hack it in jail. Because God knows you were such a frail creature, with little endurance for anything remotely stressful..."
"Alice did WHAT?!" Edward spluttered, surprise evident in his voice. "I swear, I did NOT know about this. I did not set her up to like uhm... bully you, or try and guilt trip you, or whatever."
"No, I know that. It was just Alice being Alice," she snorted. "Don't get me wrong, your sister spoke some truths that day. Truths I needed to hear. Honestly, I had no idea that you, too, had been arrested, until Alice showed me a video of it on her phone. I mean, I heard about you being swabbed for a DNA test, I just never really, stopped to consider that you might get dragged into any legal wrangles because of it… because of me."
She gave him a sad face and lowered her gaze. "I was mad at you, Edward. I wanted you to hurt like I did, but most of all, I wanted you to regret it, regret ending things with me. That being said though, I never wanted to see you handcuffed and escorted away in a police van. I'm sorry about that."
"Apology accepted. Not that you needed to apologize in the first place." He closed his eyes for a second, as if recollecting himself. "So basically, if I'm understanding this right," he said after a moment of rubbing his temples. "Whatever it was that you said to the police, it appeared to have done two things; it helped establish my alibi of being way beyond regular drunk and it gave them another motive, another possible suspect, to investigate," he concluded with head tilted to one side. "But Bella, I though you said you didn't do it for me?"
"It wasn't for you. I had to get Alice off my back some way, you know," she said, keeping it simple and straight to the point. "Honestly, I didn't want your family to suffer. It didn't seem fair, they'd been nothing but great to me."
"Bella, sometimes I felt like my own family liked you better than me. They thought very highly of you. And they were worried-..."
"I know. They were worried and angry about everything, and so, so, so hurt. I felt they placed too much of the blame on themselves. I just couldn't allow for innocents to be punished for my mistakes."
"You were not bad or evil...you made some mistakes... everyone makes mistakes sometimes."
"I know that NOW, but…" she trailed off shrugging.
"You weren't well," Edward stated. "That, right there was perhaps the biggest mistake I knew something was off, and I'm not talking about the pregnancy, because that came as a complete and utter shock to me, I knew you were fighting some sort of mental anguish, but rather than make sure you got the help you needed, I just abandoned you."
"I pushed you away. I pushed everyone away," she cut in, as she felt that was the honest truth. "Your sister was a really good friend, even when I tried my best to keep her at arms length… I guess the same could be said about Emmett. I didn't interact much with your father, but he seemed to be a decent guy too, all things considered. And your mother… Your mother was terrific. She was always very professional and she always thoroughly explained her methods and what she was doing and why. She made me feel very comfortable. It wasn't her fault I spiraled down that dark hole of self hate and blame. She did everything right-…"
"...until she went on her sick leave," he finished the sentence for her.
Yet another truth that was hard to hear.
"To this day, my mother blames herself for the negative impact that ill-timed break in therapy sessions must have had on your mental well-being," he added cautiously. "I'm not telling you this to hurt you, I'm telling you this because it's the truth."
"I know. This is what I'm talking about. Innocents were suffering because of me. The sooner I could go away, get out of your lives, the better. Your sister made me realize the longer I remained silent, the harder it would be to separate the truths from all the assumptions and speculations floating around."
"The truth is that you were a victim of cruel circumstances," he stated firmly, stretching his arm to her direction, offering her a half hug. "The truth is that some beings are just pure evil and will stop at nothing to get their own way."
"You know that, right?" he asked when she didn't say anything.
"Listen, I was very, VERY confused, Edward. To the point where I was not sure of my own innocence... I just knew I had to try and remember all those painful things I didn't want to remember. I had to start take responsibility for my own actions, even if it could have meant possibly incriminating myself."
His eyebrows shoot up at hearing this. "Sound like you took a big risk, one that you cannot possibly have known would pay off. This passed over my head at the time, as I was too self absorbed to understand or care about things going on outside my own little bubble. I'm grateful my name was cleared, obviously. Again, you were brave, while I was of no help to anyone, myself included."
"It's not like I had much to share with the police, to be honest. I told them little bits and pieces of what I could remember and that was apparently enough to make them go 'hmm, maybe we've overlooked something...'"
"I'm guessing here, but this is about what happened in the afternoon slash early evening, before you even headed over to Alice's party THAT night. Right?"
She nodded. "I told them how Charlie had invited his friend Billy Black over to watch a football game with him - a seemingly innocent detail, one that I'm sure my dad had told them already. But I also told them about Jake showing up with his dad and that we argued."
"About me?"
She nodded again. "Yes. Jake didn't believe me when I said we were over – we, as in you and me. But Edward, you already know most of this from the trial testimonies, mine and Jake's."
"It's been years, Bella. Just talk me through this, refresh my memory," he urged her on. "Your 'buddy' Jake showed up at your home, all riled up and heavily influenced by his friends, who had been telling him he was being gullible and getting screwed over or something like that."
"Jake was in a foul mood from the moment he arrived." She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging herself with her arms, before she continued.
"He insisted we had to talk and that it couldn't wait. He... uhm, the thing he brought up, the thing we argued over, was the fact that he claimed he'd seen me making out with you at Jasper's birthday outing a few weeks earlier - the one I had invited Jake to tag along to, just so that he could see with his own eyes that I was over you. Ironic, right?! I don't know why he waited so long to say anything about it though… But anyway, he claimed he'd witnessed us making out and then later seen you lurking in the shadows when he walked me home. And also, that he'd seen you climb a tree to get into my bedroom, after we thought he'd left to go home."
"You told the police all that?" Edward frowned. "I mean, it was bullshit, we weren't making out… we weren't anything. We hadn't even talked one another in weeks."
"We were having a heated argument in the ladies room. Obviously, Jake mistook that for something it wasn't. And I mean, you did try and climb that tree and I did let you inside the house, inside my bedroom…. Before I kicked you out, head first."
"Alright, so the asshat's temper tantrum was somewhat justified," Edward said, with a scowl. "That doesn't give him the right to show up uninvited at your home and pester you about it in front of your father."
"I definitely didn't want him there, and I definitely didn't want to argue with him in front of our fathers... I didn't feel like I had the energy to deal with any drama that night."
"Because you weren't feeling well?"
She nodded. "I'd woken up feeling pretty blah that morning. I had stomach cramps and lower back pain all day, which I thought was one beast of an UTI. The pain didn't improve, obviously… My self-diagnosis turned out to be completely wrong." She paused to do a facepalm.
"Anyway, I didn't want to talk to Jake, but he insisted it couldn't wait and he was being loud about it and I didn't want dad to catch on, so… you know. I agreed to move the conversation to my room."
"Was he violent? Was he threatening you? I know you said no, when asked about it during the trial, but-... "
"No. He never laid a hand on me—like that," she said, shaking her head. "He was giving me yet another ultimatum, only this time he wasn't threatening to tell my dad about you and me and our secret hook ups, this time he was threatening to go get all loose-lipped about you, and how you were exchanging drugs for sex with all these different girls from school."
"Wait! That never came up in court. Did you tell the police about that part?"
"No, and neither did Jake, it seems. So I guess it was just him pulling his usual bullshit to get the upper hand on me."
"Okay, then what?"
"Jake was venting his anger by ranting and railing. He was all 'you let him walk all over you. You knew he was a jerk, but you still couldn't stay away, could you? Nooo, of course not… You're acting like you love him, love him.'" she said, keeping her voice devoid of emotion. "I guess, I didn't deny it fast enough for his likening, because this is when Jake got all weird and really, really vile. I thought he was about to lose the plot completely. He was saying stuff like 'he'll fuck you over and leave you high and dry, impregnated with his bastard baby ' and 'why did you allow for this to happen?' and 'I'll kill that f-ing bastard!' and stuff like that."
"Right. Unfortunate word diarrhea there that sure came back to haunt him later. I remember this part," Edward said with a nod. "Your attorney was twisting the meaning of all that around. She was pressuring poor Jakie-poo about who the 'bastard' was that he was going to kill and whether or not he'd known, or at least suspected, that you were pregnant."
"I did not sanction that line of questioning. It was something Charlotte, my attorney, decided on the fly. I hated it as it made me look like I was either a practiced liar or so deep in denial I'd lost all touch with reality, like there was no in between. A fine thing, isn't it, when your own attorney essentially calls you insane."
"Oh, believe me, you're not the one that came across as completely deranged, saying contradicting and absurd things while speaking under oath. But back to pretrial… You told the police you didn't feel comfortable staying in the house with Jake and his dad there, so you left and headed over to our house."
"Jake got a phone call and while he was distracted by that, I made an excuse about needing to go to the bathroom and then I stormed out the house and kept walking until I was at your place. That is correct."
"You didn't think he'd have the guts to follow you there."
"I didn't' think he'd be that stupid. I wasn't planning on staying long, an hour or two tops. But then, I heard that some of the rez kids had showed up to crash the party. I wasn't sure whether Jake was with them, or not. I just didn't want to deal with them, or Jake, or anyone really, as my stomach pains were really f-ing bad at that point, so I decided to find someplace to hide-… "
"In my room. You hid in my room, until I came up there and found you on my bed."
"I tired Alice's room first, but it was already occupied. Then, I tried your mother's study, but it was locked, and that's when we-… "
"We had our first little run-in," he cut in.
"Yes. You remember that?"
"I do. I told you to go fuck yourself, and to take that fucking imbecile boyfriend of yours with you."
"Right. That kind of stung. I'm afraid my immediate, and not so thought through, response to that was to break into your bedroom and get sick in your bathroom. Sorry," she said with a total lack of remorse.
"You're not sorry at all. But that's fine. I had that coming, didn't I? Is this when you changed into my clothes?"
She hesitated for a second. "Honestly, I don't know. Probably, but I don't remember. It's just a black hole. I can't think of any other reason why would I take your clothes. But this is just one of the many questions that has remained a black hole. Sorry."
"No worries. I'm quite familiar with those black holes myself. I don't know what I was on that night, but I do remember drinking… a lot." He scratched his chest absentmindedly. "I remember you telling the court that I was a mumbling incoherent, drunk mess by the point I entered my bedroom, which I suppose is what helped cement my otherwhise rather bleak alibi."
"All I said was that you were drunk and seemed preoccupied. I got the impression you had your hands full, trying to fend off the two opportunistic skanks that were in your company. I don't think you were even aware I was there, on your bed, until I had to make a mad dash for the bathroom to throw up… again. "
"Alright, but you were exaggerating just a bit. I mean, I wasn't 'drunk-crying' and crawling around on my bare knees, like you said I was."
"Hate to burst your bubble, but you definitively dropped to your knees in front of me when I came out of the bathroom. Not sure what that was about, I didn't stick around long enough to find out. You were drunk off your ass, and the skanks were trying to distract you with promises of naked tits and awesome sex… The last I saw of you, as I took off, were you falling flat on your face and a bare chested Jessica jumping on top of you, in an attempt to keep your attention on her and her only."
She braved a glance at him. He was hunched over with his arms crossed, looking like he didn't like what he was hearing.
"Alright. Not my finest moment," he muttered. Then, he seamed to think of something. "Speaking of finest moments… I know you told the police you actually saw Jake at the party, not only that, but that he was the last person you saw as you left. Was that really true?" He didn't sound accusatory, just curious. "Or did you lie, deliberately, to set him up?"
"Uhm… I didn't flat out lie about anything."
"You can tell me anything. All this stays between you and me," he added in a low voice, his eyes intense and the question clear in them - 'You set him up, made him the scapegoat, so that I could go free, didn't you?'
"I saw two persons standing between a couple of cars on the drive way as I walked past. I thought one of them was Jake."
"It wasn't Jake."
"No, it wasn't Jake, but it could have been Jake though," she said, adding a shrug as if it had been an honest mistake. "It wasn't that big of a stretch," she insisted. "He was there, looking for me. There wasn't much light and the person by the car had on a dark-gray, nondescript hooded jacket, similar to what Jake usually wore..."
"Come one, you knew it wasn't him," he pushed.
"Jake told lies about me all the time," she countered, hating how defensive she sounded.
"Bella, you don't have to justify it to me. I hated the guy, remember. I thought he was a complete-..."
She pinched him in the arm then... hard.
"Ouch!" he squeaked. "What the hell was that for?"
"Jake was not a nice guy... at all. We've already established that. What he did was wrong and unforgivable. I don't need to hear what you thought of him, I already know. You've told me many times before. And don't say, I tried to warn you."
"Yeah, but-..."
She pinched him again.
"Oww! Stop that! I DID try to warn you."
"I know that. Honestly, I do." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you want to hear the rest or not, Edward?"
"Okay, okay…. I DO want to hear the rest." He let out a heavy breath of air. "Actually, you haven't mentioned anything about the drugs… I mean, you exposed Jacob Black for the blackmailing, lying, scheming snake he really was - which was great, couldn't have done better myself - but did you, or did you not know, the DEA already had their eyes on half of the 'wolf pack'?"
"I really, truly had no idea about any of that." She met his gaze, trying to convey how sincere she really was. "Not only that, but I wasn't even sure Jake had any involvement in what happened in the woods that night. I just had a gut feeling, and you know what they say… you should never ignore a gut feeling. Also, I found his asshole friends dodgy as hell and I still to this day think the likes of Sam Uley and Paul Lahote knew way more than they admitted to publicly."
"Agreed." He looked like he was about to say something more but didn't get the chance.
Instead, Bella spoke again, shaking her head. "I think they found Jake's naivety and jealous streak amusing. I think they goaded him on as he continued to make one bad call after another… He was way too eager to impress, to fit in, to climb the ranks in their 'pack'. It wasn't a healthy behavior."
"So basically, you didn't know the police would find evidence tying Jake to the duct tape and the plastic bag? Making him eligible for all sorts of fun charges, or become a person of interest in that whole drug ring investigation mess at the very least?"
She knew he was calling it a 'mess' because it had never led to anything. Jake had been held and interrogated for 24 hours, before he was set free. When the warrant for his arrest finally came, he had already gone into hiding and was never found. Years passed and no progress was made, nothing happened… until Jake turned up dead in a ditch one night, with serious wounds and bruising in addition to severe injuries to his head suggesting he had been subjected to severe beatings. Though the police eventually wrote it off as a wild animal attack. From what Leah had reported to Bella, absolutely no one in town believed that to be the actual cause of death, but fact remained, Jacob Black had died a gruesome death all the same.
Bella shook herself out of her unwelcome reverie. Where the hell had that come from? She had long since stopped dwelling about what happened to Jake.
She realized Edward was watching her intently, like he was waiting for an answer to a question asked long ago. "Uh, sorry ... What was the question again?"
"You didn't know the police had suspicions of their own about Jake? That he'd been acting sketchy."
"Sketchy?"
"He was the one tipping them off about having seen me and my car drive past Mallory's gas-station, several times during the course of the night, which turned out to be a complete lie. He was also the one giving them names of people, or should I say girls, at school that I'd supposedly exploited and taken advantage of… sketchy things like that..."
"Oh? No, I didn't know the police had anything on Jake, or that anything would come out of it, when I pointed them in his direction… He was a sixteen year old kid, acting his age and making immature decisions. I can totally see him running errands for those jerks he looked up to. I do not know if that involved picking up and dropping off packages though. Perhaps it did. That wasn't why I did, what I did, though."
"The 'why' isn't actually all that important, Bella. Your gut feeling was right and you made a brilliant move. You put some heat on Jake, made him feel a little uncomfortable and... BAM! His instincts told him to save his own neck, but as per usual, he couldn't control his jealousy and he went and said one thing too many – while in court and under oath! The guy really was a moron… and a f-ing criminal as it turned out."
"I really REALLY had no idea the twist and turns his testimony would take. Yes, I wanted him to squirm for a bit. I mean, he was spreading downright lies about me to just about anyone that would listen, and he continued to do so, even after I told him to cut it out. He was bragging about being with me in an intimate way, even though all that ever happened between us was a few measly kisses and some hand holding."
Edward made an odd strangled noise at this and she glanced anxiously at him.
"Bella..." he said slowly. "You didn't do anything wrong. It served him right that the police came for him. It served him right that his lies became too big for even him to keep track of."
He took in a deep breath before he kept going "And most importantly," he said in a calmer tone "It served him right that no one believed him when he suddenly changed his tune again and insisted he was nothing more than a platonic friend who had been played for a fool and tricked into cleaning up someone else's dirty mess. Like I said, the whole thing worked out brilliantly, Swan. "
"It's weird how things work out sometimes." She touched his arm seeking comfort from his calm demeanor. "I don't think that was anywhere near the whole truth that we heard from him in court that day."
"Agreed," he said, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her look at him. "Which is why I think you should talk to the police."
"I'm considering it…really I am. "
"Don't wait too long. It's not a coincidence that you've been on the receiving end of nasty notes, slashed tires and both verbal and physical attacks these last few days."
"I know."
He let go of her chin and nothing else was said for a while.
Bella wondered what he was thinking about, wondered what he saw when he was staring into space.
"Edward?" She said his name like a question.
"Hm."
"Can I borrow your bathroom for a shower?"
"Sure," he affirmed. "I suppose you know where to find it. If not, I'd be happy escorting you there."
"I bet you would," she made a gentle laugh. "Oh and Edward, you still owe me a cuddle."
.
…..
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