Deep down inside he loves me
Though he may run around
Deep down inside he loves me
Some day he'll settle down

Oh maybe I know that he's been a cheatin'
Maybe I know that he's been untrue
But what can I do

He really loves me that's all I can say
Before my tears fall I just walk away

Maybe I Know - Leslie Gore


This was all becoming a bit too much. As the rigor of classes began to ramp up, she could feel her nerves beginning to fray at the ends, and according to Alice, it wasn't making her especially easy to live with. But it wasn't just the academic pressure that was building on her shoulders; ill but inevitable news had finally reached her from Arizona.

Bella,

Tonight's our last night at the base. They told us where they're sending us a couple of days ago, but I'm not allowed to tell you where, besides the obvious. I've never been on a plane before. Some of the guys are excited about that, even though I told them we aren't getting stewardesses and hot dinner like this is fucking Pan Am or something. I guess I'm a little excited, too. I haven't really been able to sleep.

I can't believe you're taking five classes. Isn't three or four the normal amount? Good thing you decided against calculus or chemistry or something like that. When the hell are you gonna use any of that? I know I won't.

I know you don't really know that chick, but you should go to the wedding so you can drink all their booze and report back on all the funny rich people shit. I've only been to tribal weddings, so everything I know about the other kind comes from movies. They look kind of stuffy, if you ask me. Rebecca just went to the courthouse since they needed it done quick before they got sent to Hawaii, and the old man has been pissed about it ever since.

To answer your question, better, or at least a little better. I think I've gotten used to some things, and the guys here are alright, but it's never going to come close to what I'm missing.

Promise me you won't sit in your room all night. I worked really hard to corrupt you and I'll be mad if it goes to waste.

- Jacob

She sighed and folded up the letter, stuffing it back into the envelope and putting it in the back of her desk with the others. She wanted to write back, but she was having difficulty putting anything into words. Of course he wasn't going to stay stateside forever. However, the thought of him leaving for real made her queasy. Basic training practically naptime at kindergarten compared to what lay ahead, and it was the one and only time she could know for certain that he was out of danger.

Alice skipped into their room, making her jump at the sudden intrusion. She tossed her books onto the bed and headed straight to the vanity table, where she immediately began primping. She cast a somewhat disapproving look to her roommate in the mirror.

"Tell me you're going out tonight, Bella."

"I wasn't planning to. Why?" This elicited a heavy sigh from Alice, who rolled her eyes.

"Tonight is bowling with Jessica and the girls from upstairs, remember? Or are you passing on that too?"

"I've been busy with school, Alice. You know that."

"Too busy, if you ask me," she replied, casting a toxic plume of Aquanet around her head. "When was the last time you had a date?"

That was a great question. A greater question was what constituted a date, and if it's still a date if you don't know you're on one.

"I don't remember. A while, I guess."

"It's not healthy," she stated matter-of-factly. "Just because things didn't work out with Edward doesn't mean you should swear off men forever. Prince Charming could be out there right now, and you'd never meet him because you were in the library, for some reason."

The idea of going on a date with some guy was nauseating. Until now, the thought hadn't even occurred to her, and the overall ritual of dating made it all the more unappealing.

"Rapunzel was locked in a tower, and a prince still managed to track her down."

"Honestly, Bella." Exasperated, she spun in her seat and gave Bella a withering look that made her feel like an ant under a magnifying glass. "Tell me the truth: Are you still in love with Edward?"

It was a question she had actively avoided for a long time. She was, sort of, but it felt fundamentally at odds with Jacob. Could you truly love more than one person at once? Her efforts to smother her feelings for Jake were further complicating matters and, though she was not willing to admit it, failing.

"Not exactly," she replied.

"Is it someone else, then?"

Drop it. Please please drop it.

"Not….exactly."

"You're impossible!" huffed Alice. "Just come out with us, will you?"

"I can't. I have an essay I need to finish that's due on Tuesday and I'm so far behind." It was too easy to watch the little meaningless lies stack up and spill over, like balls of paper in the wastebasket.

"Suit yourself."

But Alice's departure didn't end the internal discussion, her thoughts swirling around and around, never getting clearer or any closer to an answer. Laying on her bed, she looked for patterns in the cracked plaster ceiling and wondered why she was torturing herself with such silly, irrelevant questions, but she knew. The space on the other side of her bed was transforming into a wide expanse, a cold and empty vacuum that threatened to swallow her whole. More than once she woke from nightmares of fire and screaming, barely able to catch her breath as she came crashing back to the waking world. If only he were here, holding her tight to his chest and bathing her in his almost unnatural warmth, hiding from the rest of the world, then maybe they could both be safe.

No. You know the answer. You know the reality. He's not yours, and he never will be.

It was unbearable. All of it. It was time to escape before the silence of these four walls drove her off the deep end. Kicking the shoes back onto her feet, she snatched up her keys and resolved to get the hell out.

The place was small, dark, and shabby. Patches of the floor were sticky, for some reason, and a haze of smoke hovered just below the ceiling, like rain clouds above the bar. It wasn't unexpected. Somehow, it wasn't even disagreeable. It was perfect, a little bar on the edge of town away from prying eyes, or at least those of anyone she wished to avoid. It was still early, with only a few patrons conversing in hushed tones. She settled herself at a table in the back with a glass of something strong while she waited for a singer or a guitarist to fill the vacant square of floor along the wall. Music used to bring her back to earth. It was worth a shot.

"Isabella Swan," said a cool, smoky voice behind her. She turned to find a luxurious blonde towering over her in a sleek blue dress. Her pout was painted with her usual fire-engine red lipstick, but her off-hours glower was missing. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"I suppose I could ask you the same thing," Bella replied before taking another sip of gin. This seemed to amuse her. Her mouth cracked into a faint smirk, a low chuckle rumbling in her chest.

"Mother's garden club friends have taken over the living room for the evening, and they'd no doubt try to reel me in and interrogate me about the wedding planning for the hundredth time. I'd rather jump off a bridge than stay there another minute."

"Do you want to sit?"

"Thank you," she said with a nod. "And what about you? This doesn't seem like your kind of haunt."

"I needed to get out for a while, somewhere I wouldn't bump into anyone from school."

"Ah. Well, you came to the right place. The drinks are weak, but they get some very talented musicians." She waved down the waitress and murmured her order into the girl's ear. "So, has my brother spoken to you about the wedding yet?" Bella nodded.

"I should have RSVP'ed by now, but I haven't seen him since."

"He's trying to be respectful, I think," she mused. "You know him. He wouldn't assert himself somewhere he wasn't wanted."

"He's not unwanted. In fact, I'd like to be friends with him again, if I could."

She gave a tiny laugh that tinkled like bells, picking up her drink as it landed at the table.

"Is that so? My, we're forgiving," she said dryly. Bella's forehead crinkled.

"Shouldn't I be?"

"I suppose we all 'should' be, though I've found that people seldom deserve it. No, my concern is that you may decide to reel Edward back in, now that your other…." She paused, searching for the words. "...gentleman caller… is out of the picture."

Bella blinked. Her total lack of a poker face was about to fail her yet again, and she didn't know if this kind of knowledge would be used for good or evil in Rose's hands. She quickly realized that there was no winning this game.

"Oh, don't worry," Rose said teasingly. "I won't spoil your little secret. I just find it funny how easily you had them all fooled. You can't hide that kind of thing from me, sweetheart. I practically invented it."

She flushed under the heat of Rose's spotlight. The clandestine nature of her relationship with Jacob was a source of anxiety for both the present and the future, back where there was the possibility of a future. Now, it felt more like privacy, the right to grieve and steady herself without judgement.

"Where is he, if I may ask?" An empty gesture of politeness to soften a blunt inquiry. How appropriate.

"He enlisted," she answered quietly, staring blankly over patron's heads and taking a long gulp from her glass. But there was no catty reply, no bemused commentary on Bella's naivete. Instead, something softened around her eyes, taking the chill off her perfect features.

"I'm sorry." As bizarre as it was, Rosalie's condolences brought some small comfort. It was affirming in a way that few things had been since he left, and perhaps even more bizarrely, she felt less alone.

Pensive, she allowed the growing hum of other conversations fill the void, all the while carefully observing Bella from her seat beside her.

"I've learned there are few things worse than wanting someone you can't have."

A memory crept back to the forefront of her mind, prodding her guilty conscience, and Rosalie seemed to take note.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head. "It's nothing."

"It must be something. Come on, spit it out."

Eyes locked, she felt caught in the crosshairs once again.

You can't say something like this about her fiance without causing a giant mess for everyone. Stupid stupid stupid.

"Emmett...he's been running around on you."

Rose sighed heavily and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her jaw was wound taut. Bella braced herself for the fallout.

"Goddamnit, I told him to be more careful," she muttered irritably, massaging the bridge of her nose. "But there's no getting through that thick skull of his, is there? Men's stupidity never ceases to amaze me." She finished her drink and snapped for the waitress again. She felt her eyes widen like saucers, gawking at the blonde.

"You mean, you knew he's...you know…?"

"Of course I know," she huffed. "Emmett and I grew up together. We were practically family long before we started going steady. His mother doesn't know that man like I do."

"Then why would you marry him? You could be with someone else who loves you."

Another round appeared at the table, including another one for Bella. She sipped and waited.

"Our situations are cruelly alike, his and mine." She took a large gulp. "That's the irony, isn't it? The one thing that would keep us apart is what has us stuck together."

So she was right. It was such a serious thing to even suggest that she had been eager to explain it away, but there was no escaping the truth. She had some lingering reservations, but they began to melt away as she looked at this woman with clear eyes for the first time. It was hopelessness that froze her in that sullen state, not some great defect of her personality, and that keen sense of despair suddenly became their kinship.

"I do love Emmett, even if it's not how I should." Her low voice was becoming increasingly unmoored. "I know he looks like a big dumb brute, and he certainly can be sometimes, but he has a good heart. He and Vicky mean more to me than anything in the world. So if I was going to be with a man, then it could never be anyone but him."

The glass was almost nothing but ice and a sliver of lime now. She pressed her lips together, staring emptily into it.

"I know I don't look like the right kind of girl, but it's always been my dream to have a family. I wanted to get married. I wanted to have pretty babies and a pretty house with a husband who would kiss me when he came home from work, but then I got older, and I watched that dream slowly slip away. Maybe it's all a lie, but this is the closest I'll ever get to the life I want. I can help keep that big idiot safe, and that's worth it all on its own."

Rosalie swirled the remnants of ice around and downed the last of it.

"But what about Victoria?" she asked softly. The corners of her red mouth twisted into a melancholy smile.

"She has her life, and I have mine. I'll see her when she's in town, and perhaps I'll visit her in California here and there, but there are no promises. She'll have to get married someday, and I'll try to accept it as gracefully as she has, and that'll be the end of it."

"I'm sorry, Rosalie. I really am." She shook her head.

"Don't be. Emmett truly is a wonderful man, and we'll take good care of each other. This is the best I could have hoped for."

"Congratulations, then."

After touching up her lipstick with a quick swipe and a pop of her lips, she stood, tall and regal, and reached into her purse to drop a handful of coins on the table.

"I do hope you'll come. My parent's friends are dreadful, but there's an open bar and the caterer is fantastic. I'm sure Edward would be glad to see you as well."

Bella bit her lip, unmoved by the prospect of free food. Despite her reassurances, the idea of watching her walk down the aisle with a man who couldn't love her properly was heartbreaking in a way she couldn't quite articulate. It was almost grotesque, but Rose's casual insistence now felt more like a plea.

"I'll be there."

"Good," she replied. "I'll see you then." The light from the dingy bulb made the gem on her finger shimmer like stars. She turned to leave.

"Wait," said Bella. "Do you...like me?"

"I think so," the blonde replied after some consideration. "I like you the most of any girl Edward ever dated, that's for certain. I initially wrote you off as another one of his mommy-approved choices, but you aren't what I expected. You're smarter than you look, but you wouldn't stoop to judgment and manipulation and you don't swallow bullshit. I respect that. So yes, I believe I do."

What a strange feeling it was to be liked by Rosalie Cullen. A once dubious honor, now less so. Rose paused, her lips pursed.

"If I may give you a piece of advice: Look for happiness where it can grow, not where you wish it was. If you sit around hoping and praying for impossible things, you'll never find it. Oh, and the dress code is black tie."

She turned heel and left without another word.


A/N:

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