Jasper stares at the lit-up numbers on his phone. 6:02.
He hasn't been to bed yet—by choice—and he isn't planning on it for as long as he can manage. The problem with going to sleep sober and waking up sober is that he remembers his dreams for a change.
While that would be fine if he dreamt of something pleasant, the recent trend in topics seems to be a non-stop sequence of out-of-control parties, failed classes, fights, and Maria.
Sleep is supposed to be restful, a respite from the inevitable disappointments and dilemmas of real life, but he's instead dragging himself through an incessant, 24/7 stream of anxiety and stress.
At least when he's awake he has some control over where his mind goes.
He hasn't had a drink in three weeks, and his prescription dosage is down to half of what it had been, but the two are sounding more and more appealing with each passing day.
This, he knows, is why so many people have trouble with recovery.
He goes to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and watches the machine churn and screech as it makes his drink. He can hear the shower running—Peter and Charlotte got home a half-hour ago—and there's a box of pizza sitting on the counter that wasn't there earlier.
Jasper flips open the lid and there's a few slices of cheese inside. He grabs one and eats it with his coffee.
Alice will be awake soon, if she isn't already, but Peter and Charlotte will be sleeping until at least mid-afternoon.
The day feels so unbearably long without sleep.
He sits down on the couch and turns the TV on low. He flips over to the news and half-heartedly watches the morning report.
His phone buzzes.
He flips the TV over to a different news station with a yawn.
His phone buzzes again.
Jasper picks it up and reads the new text messages.
Good morning! I think Emmett needs a hiking buddy if you want to go with him. Everyone else bailed, but I'm helping Esme with a project today. It's from Alice.
The second message is from Emmett himself. Hey, man. Wanna go for a hike at Rattlesnake?
Jasper types back a good morning message to Alice before agreeing to Emmett's invitation. He hasn't been hiking in a while, and it would keep his mind occupied for a few hours.
Emmett pulls up to the apartment forty-five minutes later in his dirt-speckled Jeep Wrangler. He honks when he sees Jasper.
The tired blond pulls his hoodie up over his head to block out the misty haze outside. He gets in the passenger side and is immediately greeted with Beyoncé music on at full blast.
"'Sup! Thanks for coming with," the curly-haired football player booms over the music. "It's just us because Carlisle's working and Edward's being a little bitch."
Jasper turns down the volume slightly, so he can hear himself over the sound system. "Why?"
"Who knows. He's always like that," Emmett shrugs. "Have you been to Rattlesnake before?"
"Nah, I've stayed in the city mostly."
"It's a four-mile hike. It has a really nice view, but we probably won't get to see it with how overcast it is today."
They drive along to the musical accompaniment of Lemonade, and Emmett runs over a traffic cone in one of the many construction zones they pass through.
"Have you talked with Rose at all about like why she moved and stuff?" Emmett asks abruptly as he shifts the car into park.
"She didn't say much. Why?" Jasper asks, wondering if his sister had mentioned the reason behind her sudden change of mind on the wedding or all the bruises she had.
The dark-haired football player sighs and starts across the lot, leading them to a path around a lake. "No reason. Just kind of worried about her."
Jasper nods. "We don't really talk about stuff like that. She'd probably be more likely to tell you than me."
"Yeah, I get it," Emmett replies. "Hey, do you work out? You look like you do."
The blond gives a short laugh. "I used to a lot more than I do now. My last school made us get up at five A.M. to workout every day."
"Oh, damn, that's right. Military school. How was that?"
"Exhausting."
"I bet," the football player says, pausing to kick a rock out of the path. "What are you doing after graduation?"
"I don't know."
"Yeah, same. Sucks." Emmett says with a nod.
...
"Rosalie, do you have a moment?" Carlisle calls out as he passes by the nurse's station.
They've been well-staffed all morning, so the blond girl was killing some time scrolling through her Instagram feed looking at pictures her old coworkers shared. A new puppy, another baby, and an obligatory Christmas engagement in front of an ice rink seemed to be the highlights of the past week.
"Sure," she says, getting up and following him into his office.
"How's everything been going?" he asks, taking a seat at his desk. He has a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, recently filled from the cafe downstairs. "You're coming up on three months here so I just wanted to touch base."
"It's good," Rosalie says, feeling a pit growing in her stomach. She immediately starts to wonder if Emmett blabbed. "I like it here. The location is convenient."
"Do you like working in the ICU? You were training in pediatrics before, correct? The workload is a bit different."
She feels a small bit of relief when he brings up an entirely unrelated concern. He doesn't know. Good. "I felt like I was keeping up pretty well. Am I not?"
"No, that's not it at all. You've been doing a great job. I ask because a position just opened up in the PICU, and I was wondering if you'd like to transfer."
"Oh," Rosalie hadn't thought much about it, but that was what she'd wanted to specialize in. She'd just been so preoccupied with other things that she hasn't been able to focus on her career as much as usual. Her goal had just been to get a job so she had something.
"I enjoy having you on my team, but I'd be more than happy to write you a recommendation if that's something you'd prefer. I could help set up some time for you to go shadow over there," Carlisle offers.
She hadn't even really thought longterm about what she would do if she stayed in Seattle. There isn't anywhere else to go, though. She has friends and a boyfriend here now, her brother's here, and she signed a twelve-month lease, so she supposes she should stay.
"I'll think about it," she agrees.
"Why don't you go to lunch? It's about that time, isn't it?" he suggests.
"Yeah. I'll see you in a half-hour," Rosalie says, turning around and leaving back out into the hall.
She checks her phone as she gets into the elevator and sees a new message from Vera asking about if she'll be coming home for New Year's Eve. She ignores it for now and goes back to Instagram.
She types in Royce's name into the search bar and his page comes up. The latest picture is from a charity gala to support young girls in tech. Her stomach turns just looking at the photo of his face.
Every few days she anxiously checks his page, hoping she doesn't see a date with him in any of the pictures. Hoping she doesn't see a girl she knows with him.
She knows she needs to speak up about it to ensure it won't happen again. The second she says something, though, it means that everyone she knows back home—her parents, Vera, her classmates from university, even her old hairstylist, would know what happened to her. Gossip travels like wildfire in their close-knit community.
After making such a big deal about the wedding and having her mother praising the King family at every turn, she would feel idiotic. Shameful. Naive. Royce's public image is so squeaky clean that people probably wouldn't even believe her. It's her word against years of old money and power.
She eats her lunch of tomato soup and crackers distractedly as she tries to quell her internal irritation at the situation.
Rosalie dials Emmett's number and listens to it ring, drumming her fingers on the lunch table.
"Hey, Babe, how's it going?" he answers.
"Hey. Are you still out hiking?"
"Just finished! We're heading back now. I think we're gonna get tacos in Belltown. You're on lunch right now, yeah? Do you want me to bring you anything?"
"No, I got food in the cafeteria. It's fine."
"Blech. I'll bring you lunch tomorrow. What did you call for then?"
"No reason."
"Aww, do you miss me? And you wanted to hear the sound of my voice? I miss you too, boo."
"Emmett, I swear—" she warns, stopping as soon as she hears Jasper's laughing in the background. She sighs. "Yeah. I'll talk to you later tonight. I have to go."
"Laters, Babe!"
...
Bella rests her head against Edward's shoulder. The pair sits together on the chaise lounge in his room listening to soft rock music.
She's been procrastinating a conversation she's been wanting to have all week by tracing the veins on his arm with her fingertips, studying the faded freckles on his skin that are slowly disappearing as they get further from summer.
"I was thinking about what you said at Charlie's. About how you were going to start working in the fall," Bella begins. "Maybe I can amp up my class schedule and do summer quarter so I can graduate early too. Not as early as you, of course, but in two or three years instead of four. I could finish at the same time as Alice."
"Why would you do that?" Edward asks, his hand pausing the careful stroking motion it had been making through her hair.
"So I'm not left going to college by myself while you and your friends are all out in the real world."
He shakes his head. "Bella, you are in the real world. You're working fifteen hours a week and going to university full-time. There's no way you'll be able to manage a double course load on top of that."
He thinks she can't do it. He's doubting her.
"I can try! I'll set up an appointment with a counselor as soon as campus opens back up. It's not too late to enroll in a few extra credits," she counters, a spark of defiance and hope in her voice.
Edward doesn't buy it. "Why are you in such a rush to get out of school? You only just got here."
He doesn't understand because he's not the one lagging behind.
"I'm not. I just want to catch up with you. Do you really want to date a barista-slash-college student while you're out working in some fancy law office downtown?" Bella questions.
He would be around fully grown, professional, I-have-my-life-together women. Women who wear nice clothing and go out for drinks after work and have actual adult lives.
"Yes, and you should be making the most of your time in undergrad. It's most people's last slice of freedom before retirement," he says in an authoritative tone that she's become very used to by now. It annoys her.
"It's not!" Bella protests. "After undergrad is when things start to take shape. I'll finally be able to do what I really want to do. I don't have to waste time on things like...studying for a mandatory calculus course or writing a paper for some geology class that I'm never going to find use for again."
"What happened to being excited for college literature classes?" Edward sighs. "Either way, I'm not worth you skipping out on your final years of academia, Bella. Pace yourself. A lot of people don't even get the chance to go to college, let alone one as nice as ours. Take your time."
She's getting frustrated. He's not seeing the issue.
"I want to be with you, and I feel like you're leaving me behind," she says more directly, feeling a heavy pang of rejection in her chest at his lack of enthusiasm at her plan. "You are worth it. You're not giving yourself enough credit."
"And neither are you. You're not just some random college student barista. You're my forever," he reassures. "I'm graduating, not going away. We'll still see each other at night and on the weekends. Is that not enough?"
She shakes her head. "For now. But what about in a year when you're settled into the nine-to-five and I'm still studying for midterms? You're going to come stay in my crappy little college apartment that doesn't even have a dishwasher or hot water that lasts more than fifteen minutes?"
He might not know it now, but in a few months, they'll be even further than ever. Two slow-moving icebergs drifting in opposite directions. She might never get another chance to be as close to him as she is now once the separation process begins.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," he says determinedly. "Your education is important, though, and you're not going to jeopardize it because of something so trivial. I don't start working until next fall, so we're months away from that."
Bella nods, not comforted in the slightest by his words.
...
Rosalie's shift has been over for all of five minutes when her phone buzzes in her pocket.
She gets in the elevator and presses the button to go to the parking garage as she reads the message.
"Hi! It's Alice. Do you have plans for dinner? Do you want to get dim sum?"
The blond's face instinctually twists into a grimace at the other girl's last-minute invitation. She wants to go home, shower, and sit by herself in her apartment watching reruns of Sex in the City while eating take out.
She's planning on leaving the message ignored, but when she reaches her car, Rosalie realizes she's being childish. They're part of the same social circle now, and she's been wanting more friends here. The only thing holding her back really is her general lack of motivation to socialize and let new people in.
More than anything, though, she wants to find out why the girl's still hanging out with Jasper. If it's not for easy access to drugs, which Jasper insists he isn't dealing anymore, is it blissful ignorance? A savior complex? A general penchant for troubled, moody guys?
Rosalie types her response back to confirm. She stops by her apartment to change into something nicer than scrubs before following the address she's given to Westlake.
"Hi!" Alice says, jumping up and waving at her as soon as she walks into the restaurant. "Have you been here before? I'm a big fan. I remember when they first opened up a location here, the line to get a table was several hours long."
"I don't think so," Rosalie says, looking around at the subtly elegant, modern decor.
"I think you'll like it! You just got off work, right? How was it?"
"Fine. Nothing too exciting. What were you doing up until now?" Rosalie asks in an attempt to be polite. The blond catches her reflection in the window to the kitchen where several chefs are preparing dumplings. She fixes her hair part and tries to fluff it so that it has more body. Her black blouse hugs her figure well, and she thinks to herself how she's glad she picked it over the tee-shirt she had also considered wearing.
"I went to a barre class this morning, ran some errands with Esme, talked to Jasper on the phone for a while, then I reorganized my closet...Oh, and I watched The Devil Wears Prada again."
"Love that movie. Where do you go to barre classes?"
"There's a studio in Greenlake I like. It's kind of by this açai bowl place, which is also really good. You should come sometime," the shorter girl chirps.
"Two?" the hostess at the front counter asks. "There isn't a wait if you want to sit at the bar."
"Sure, that works for me," Rosalie agrees, going to an empty high-top table.
Alice slips off her long wool duster, revealing a fluttery white blouse and an indigo skirt. A slouchy pair of tall black leather boots and sheer tights complete the look. Her make up is natural except for the dark blue eyeliner along her upper lash.
"I'll have the ginger pale ale," Rosalie says when the waiter comes to take their drink orders.
"Hot green tea, please?" Alice requests in her usual bubbly manner, filling out some kind of menu card for the table.
"What year of undergrad are you?" the blond asks.
"Junior!"
"So you're twenty-one?"
"Not until next fall," she says airily. "Is there anything specific you want? Or should I just order us a bunch of stuff?"
"Oh. Um, I don't care," Rosalie says, realizing the other girl hadn't ordered a drink because she couldn't. Unless she had a fake I.D., that is. "How long have you known Jazz?"
"Not too long, I guess. A few months," she says, handing the filled-out order form to the waiter when he returns.
"How did you meet?"
Alice gives her a funny smile. "We both decided to have breakfast at the same time and place. He didn't mention anything?"
"Not at all. He's always been pretty private about that sort of thing," Rosalie says, sipping her drink. "Does your family live in the area?"
"Nope, just me! I really like it here, though. I have a really good group of friends. Are you liking Seattle, or do you think you'll eventually want to move back to the East Coast?"
"I'm not too keen on New York at the moment, but I haven't lived in Chicago or Philadelphia yet, I suppose. Not that I want to. I don't care at this point where I am as long as it's on the opposite side of the country."
"Why?" Alice asks.
Rosalie rolls her eyes. "I fucking hate my ex. I don't want to be anywhere near him."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Hm. Have you been to Hawaii? I've always wanted to go. It looks nice and sunny."
"I go to Maui every summer. Yeah, it's fun. I didn't go this past year, though," the blond answers, seeing their food is arriving.
"Let's go once spring quarter finishes!" the petite brunette exclaims happily, picking up a soup dumpling with her chopsticks and dropping it in her spoon. "Carlisle and Esme have a beach house in Kauai. It'll be so much fun!"