Chapter Nine

February

Another month had passed, and Bella and I still weren't speaking. I was busy doing all my essay work for my scholarship anyway. Bella drama was the last thing I needed right now. I was happy to have Jasper back, he and I hung out most weekends, splitting his time between me and Alice. Alice was starting to come around as well, giving me kind smiles in the hallway and polite hellos when Jasper would be on the phone with her when we were together. Rosalie and Royce had been hanging out more often as well, but once again being surrounded by other couples reminds me of what I can't have.

I wish I didn't love Bella; I really do. But unfortunately, I do, and I hate that this girl that used to be my best friend can't even speak to me anymore. Or won't I suppose. She had stopped trying and I don't blame her. I would have given up by now as well.

"Emmett? Sweetie, come down here please." I heard my mom call for me from the bottom of the stairs. I sighed and rose from my desk and scuffled out onto the landing.

"What's up?" I asked. Leaning over the railing and peering down at her.

"You have a visitor. And I'm not turning her away again." My mom gave me a stern look and tossed the dish towel over her shoulder with her fists on her hips. She meant business.

"Honestly, if he doesn't want to see me then it's fine. I understand." I froze.

What was she doing here? We haven't spoken in months, and my mother kept sending her away? So, she didn't give up then? But what was the point?

"No," I said. "It's fine. You can come up, Bella." She rounded the corner where my mother was, and her face came into view. Her hair was up in a messy bun like she used to do all the time and she had on leggings and a baggy sweater. She looked so much like my Bella in that moment that my heart constricted, and my palms were sweating. I watched her smile at my mom and make her way towards the steps, taking a deep breath and she started coming toward me.

I pushed off the railing and made my way back to my room, sitting at my desk with my pencil in hand. I refused to look at the door.

She quietly crept in and shut the door softly behind her before taking a seat on the edge of my bed. I didn't say anything for a few moments, and neither did she. But I couldn't handle it anymore.

"What do you want, Bella?" I asked, trying to focus on my homework.

"I wanted to talk to you," she said. "I wanted to explain everything. I know you probably won't understand, or even want to understand. But I love him, Em." I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, I know. I know you love him, but I didn't think you'd drop your two best friends over it."

"Drop you? You and Rose stopped talking to me first, not the other way around." She was standing now, and I still wouldn't look at her. "Look, I didn't come here to fight with you. I came to fucking explain and to get my best friend back. I miss you. And everything is so much harder now that my mom is gone, and my dad is a train wreck. He's like a zombie, just going through the motions." I finally looked at her, and my heart sank.

I noticed the dark circles under her eyes, and the redness that rimmed the chocolate in them. I saw that she was thinner than she had been, she was paler. She looked like a mess, like she was barely holding on. I should have been there for her. I should have listened to her when she first tried so many months ago. Why couldn't I have just pushed aside my feelings like I've done the last several years? Why did everything have to change senior year?

"Bella, I'm sorry." Homework be damned. It was Friday anyway, since when did Emmett McCarthy do homework on a Friday night? "I didn't realize how hard things were for you. I should have listened to you from the get-go. But I'm not sorry for beating Edward's face in." She smiled lightly at that.

"Well, that's okay. He deserved it anyway. He is a dick, isn't he?" I rolled my eyes and smiled at her.

"That's the understatement of the year." She sat back down again and crossed her legs under her. "I missed you, Bella. I'm sorry I was such a shitty friend the last few months." She shook her head at me.

"I hadn't exactly been a walk in the park either." I nodded along.

"So, Jasper said there was a story to tell?"

~~~GND~~~

"Wait, so you were pregnant?" I asked, shock still setting in from the story she was telling me. She nodded along at my words. We were still up in my room, both of us on the end now with snacks littering between us in the small twin space. "And then, you lost it?" She nodded again. "Fuck, Bella, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, it was for the best anyway. I am nowhere ready to have a baby, but Edward insisted that after we found out that we would have to get married after we graduated. I wasn't very keen on the idea. But then, I lost the baby. I didn't want to continue with the wedding, but he insisted it. So instead, I broke up with him." My eyes shot to hers. "You mean you hadn't noticed?"

I thought back to the last few months. Bella said she had lost the baby in November, so she would have had to have broken up with him around that time frame. But the first day back to school in January, they seemed fine.

"We carried on acting like everything was fine. We hadn't told Jasper or Alice that we had officially split, not with everything about the miscarriage being so intense. I think Alice took it harder than I did, to be honest. She wanted to be an aunt so bad, and she was always so supportive of Edward and I getting married. I couldn't tell her. And in return we couldn't tell Jasper either."

"Well, Bella Swan, you are one damn good actor." I popped a piece of jerky in my mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. "So, does this mean I get my best friend back?"

"Yes," she laughed. "It sure does."

~~~FH~~~