"Jake!" Bella runs down the sidewalk toward Jacob as soon as she sees him step out of his car. She throws her arms around him in a hug.
"Hey, Bella! It's been too long!"
He's exactly how she remembers him being, with his big smile and long, dark hair pulled back in a low ponytail that falls to the middle of his back. The only difference is that he's much taller than before.
"I know, I missed you!" she exclaims. "Wow, you got big."
He laughs. "Six-foot-seven and hopefully not counting. I hit my head on too many things now."
"Yeah, I bet. That's quite the growth spurt."
"You, however, are still very short," he teases.
"I'm not! I'm average...very average..." Just like she is at everything, Bella mentally notes.
He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night."
The dark blue rain jacket and jeans he's wearing look new, but his sneakers are the same Chucks he's had for years. The little stack of braided bracelets on his wrist hasn't changed either, the colors faded from a summer of saltwater and sun. The neighbor kids had made them. Bella was given one too, but hers didn't last thorough June. Her clumsiness seemingly extends to losing those as well.
"Who says I sleep?" she says flatly.
"Do you go out partying or something now?" He grins. "Studying at the twenty-four-hour library maybe?"
While she could tell him all about the mess she's been going through since January, she doesn't feel like reiterating every tiny detail of her and Edward's relationship gone sour. It would be exhausting. Jacob doesn't want to hear that stuff. She's been living it, and she doesn't even want to hear it.
"No, I just don't anymore," she replies with an unintentional sigh. "I don't really do anything anymore."
"Except spontaneously buy motorcycles! Are you having a premature mid-life crisis? Careful, grandma, if you slack on the beauty sleep you might get more wrinkles." He pinches her cheek demonstratively. "Is that a gray hair I see?"
Her mouth drops open and she instinctively reaches up to touch her hair, then her face. The skin is still smooth, creaseless, but cool from the outside air. "I'm not old! What do you mean wrinkles and gray hair?"
He laughs hard, doubling over with his arms folded across his stomach. "The look on your face just now!"
"Because I'm not old!"
"I know, I know. You just like staying in all night, reading books, and sipping on tea. You should look into getting a cat."
Her cheeks go hot and she scowls. Her mom used to tell her the same thing growing up. She's like a little old lady stuck in the body of a young person. "Don't make fun of me. I'm having a hard enough freshman year as it is."
Jacob reaches up and ruffles her hair, making a face at her. "Sorry, you're an easy target. I couldn't help myself. You're cool, Bella. That's why we're friends."
"My writing professors would beg to differ. My number one critique in my personal essays has been lacks engagement and writing seems flat, which is code for boring."
Jacob tilts his head and laughs again. "What do you mean? You've gone a bunch of different places like Arizona and California. You have a mom who thinks people can, like, live forever if they keep their chakra balanced, and a weird stepdad who sucks at playing baseball...plus you read a lot of really old books. What's not interesting about that?"
She shrugs. Maybe she takes after Charlie more than she thought. Fishing and watching televised sports aren't exactly groundbreaking activities.
"So where are these infamous, junkyard-bound bikes?" Jacob asks, changing the topic.
"They're parked across the street in the residential area. I don't have a garage space or anything," Bella says, pointing.
"Cool, yeah, I can take a look, make a list of things we'll need, and then we can hit up the shops."
He grabs a toolkit from his backseat and crosses the street. Bella follows, skittering over the pavement.
Jacob crouches to inspect the bike and Bella sits down on the curb, watching. The pavement is still damp from rain, unsurprising since it's the first day in weeks that it hasn't been pouring.
"Do you have the keys?" he asks.
"Oh, yeah, here." She reaches into her coat pocket and hands him the rusted keyring.
"Okay, not bad, not bad. I can work with this..." Jacob pokes and prods at the red bike before moving to the black one.
If this works out and they get the motorcycles running again, she just might be able to hear him again.
Edward had encouraged her to try new outdoorsy activities, but he would surely scoff at the idea of her riding a motorcycle. They're far too dangerous. He doesn't even like her driving her old truck for fear that it could break down. He would be so worried if he knew what she's planning.
Bella bites down on her lip, chapped and stinging, as she watches Jacob inspect the other motorcycle. If she chews the skin too much, it'll crack and start to bleed. She keeps on biting it.
...
Alice watches out the window of the car as they drive slowly through the suburban neighborhood, passing quaint cottages and Victorian-style houses surrounded by methodically spaced trees.
"Starting to look familiar?" Jasper asks, turning onto a side street.
She squints, racking her brain as she tries to grasp something recognizable. "Maybe."
It doesn't ring a bell at all.
"The directions say we should be two minutes away." He glances down to consult the GPS, double-checking.
It's the same address Edward dug up from her background check years ago, but the Google Maps Street View still doesn't show much of anything there.
The car turns onto a dead-end street. When they can't go any further, Jasper pulls over. Alice realizes the place they're looking for is the boarded-up house peeking out from behind a tall wall of shrubbery.
"Is this it?" he asks.
"I don't know." Alice scrunches her brows as she stares hard at the peeling paint and unkempt lawn. She unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out of the car.
It doesn't look like anyone's been living here recently. The front door is nailed closed.
She walks around the side of the house, her chunky, heeled boots wading through the tall grass.
The gate to the backyard isn't locked, and the French doors leading into what looks like an empty living room are broken. She tries the handle and it swings open easily.
Alice wanders through the house until she reaches the kitchen. It's smaller than she thought it would be, but it's the same light green cabinetry and cream-colored walls that she remembers from her childhood home.
It's very strange being here again. She thought it would feel different. It's less familiar than she'd expected.
She drifts out into the hallway again and up the stairs. The wood creaks under her feet like she knew it would. She walks past a cobweb and brushes it off hurriedly as it clings to her blouse.
She should have rethought wearing the white eyelet top. It's not the best outfit for exploring old, abandoned homes. She'd been too excited by the prospect of warmer weather to consider packing any other outfit for today.
There are five doors, one of which hangs open to reveal a bathroom.
Turning, she sees Jasper following behind her, looking around curiously at the run-down space.
"I think...my room was...here," she says, reaching for the second door to the left.
She turns the doorknob, expecting to see her old room on the other side, but it's just a dusty coat closet.
"Or not," she exhales.
An image of pitch-black darkness comes to mind. She waits, hoping her intuition will kick in and make something of it, but nothing happens. She shakes her head. Maybe it's not a memory or a vision, but the beginnings of a migraine.
"This one?" Jasper asks, peering into a room across the way.
The walls are painted a dull shade of magenta and the tree-obscured view from the grimy window looks like the room she remembers.
"I guess so." She shrugs and starts to leave.
"I'm sure it looks a lot different without all the furniture."
"Yeah. I thought...I might have forgotten something important, but it could be that there's nothing interesting to remember," Alice replies, looking over her shoulder at him as she speaks. "Maybe I did just stay at home and dance. I guess that's...normal."
"Do you still have family in the area? Do you think they'd be able to tell us anything?"
"I have no idea. I only remember being around my sister and parents...hm...and I had a cousin who got into a car accident that I—OH!"
Her shoe catches on the floor at the top of the stairs and she trips forward, falling and reaching out for the banister. Jasper's hand clutches her bicep tightly, not wanting her tumbling down the rest of the way, but it's unnecessary. She's already regained her balance.
Alice looks down at the offending nail not hammered fully into the step. "Ugh. I even saw that coming."
"Sorry. Are you okay?" Jasper asks, relaxing his grip and putting his arm around her shoulders cautiously as they continue the rest of the way down the stairs.
"Yes, thank you."
"What were you saying about your cousin?"
"Oh, yeah. She got in a really bad car accident when I was little and she...I think she died. But I tried to tell them that I kept having these vivid nightmares about it happening. I wasn't sure what they meant at the time, and I...think I got in trouble for it."
"Trouble?"
Yes, trouble. She got in big trouble.
Her head hurts, but she can just barely remember the murky aftermath of that day. The words Mary Alice, you're going to stay in there and think about the awful things you said come to mind.
She had been shut in the dark.
Alice heard the lock turn shut from the other side of the door, and she sat down on the floor of the small, lightless room and waited. She wasn't scared, because she knew the door would open again eventually, but she was frustrated. She hadn't been able to keep her nightmares from coming true. Her cousin had been found dead early that morning on the side of the road, her car a jumbled heap of metal.
She doesn't remember anything else after that, but the lingering feeling of guilt and irritation from the memory sits heavy in her chest.
"I don't like it here. Let's go," she says.
...
"Is Edward home?" Carlisle asks. "I saw that his Aston Martin's missing from the garage."
"Oh, yeah, you haven't been home, huh? Alice took it." Emmett digs around the fridge and finds a half-eaten sandwich. "Is this yours?"
"It isn't. Where did she go?"
"Thursday morning after you left for work, she said she was going to Mississippi with Jazz. Edward's not going to be using it, so..." Emmett laughs. "She's not driving, don't worry. It should come back in one piece."
"I'm surprised she didn't just fly. That's a terribly long way to road trip."
"Yeah, I think she maxed her credit cards again. She's said something about a fifteen-hundred-dollar watch and needing a couple more weeks to liquefy her investments. She promised she'd still pay half my portion of rent, though."
"Really?" Carlisle's brows raise in astonishment. "I can't say I've ever had a better investment manager, but she works on a much higher risk level than I'd be comfortable with."
"Play big, win big."
Emmett takes a whiff of the sandwich and lets the fridge door fall shut, deciding that it's safe to eat.
He gets a better look at Carlisle now, and it's evident by the stubble on the doctor's face and the bags under his eyes that he's having a hell of a week. He's been pulling a lot of double shifts lately.
Esme comes downstairs, likely having heard their conversation. "Welcome home!" she says to Carlisle, kissing him. "Are you hungry? I was just about to start making dinner."
Carlisle smiles. "If it isn't too much trouble, that would be wonderful."
Emmett's already eating the sandwich he found. It's a tuna melt, he thinks. "Is this yours, Esme? I'm eating it."
"No, I think that was Alice's, actually. I've been meaning to clean that out. It's been in there a while."
He shrugs. "It's not too funky."
"Well, I'm off to take a shower. I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail," Carlisle announces with a yawn, leaving the kitchen to go upstairs.
Emmett checks his Snapchat and sees that Alice sent him something a few hours ago. He opens it and it's a picture of Jasper and her in front of a Welcome to Biloxi sign. He taps through to the next picture. A haunted house with the caption home sweet home. Creepy.
"Did you find any good internship opportunities for next quarter?" Esme asks, washing some vegetables she grabbed out of the fridge and setting them on a wooden cutting board.
"Nah, not really." He shoves the last bite of the sandwich in his mouth. "Coach says I have a good shot at getting drafted this year. The NFL Scouting Combine is in three weeks, so invites should be showing up any day now. Then we're having the Husky Combine next month, so I'm also training for that."
"Oh, I see. Well, if you're confident and working toward a goal, that's what matters. Good luck!"
"Thanks." He grabs an orange out of the fruit bowl sitting in the center of the counter island and starts to peel it with his hands.
Esme crushes some garlic, then dices onion, celery, and carrots expertly before tossing them into a pan. "It's so quiet," she remarks.
Emmett hadn't noticed. He's too busy munching orange slices. "Want me to sing you some Whitney Houston? I'm almost as good as Alice."
"No, that's alright."
"What are you making? It smells good."
"Are you still hungry? I thought you're going to go get dinner with Rosalie."
"I am! It takes a lot to maintain my gains! You know this!"
Esme pushes around the vegetables in the pan, sautéing them. "How is she doing?"
"I dunno. Good, I guess? I haven't seen her in a couple days, but it was chill," he reports. "She let me sleep over, so I'm happy about it."
He and Rosalie had done a lot more than just sleep, but he thinks he'll spare Esme the details of the things that happened on Rose's couch, and bed, and then finally in her shower before they'd called it a night.
"Is she going to New York again soon?" Esme asks.
Emmett gets up to throw his orange peel in the garbage. "Not until March, I don't think."
"Hm...okay. It makes me nervous. Are you going with her? Has she asked you to?"
"Uh, no?"
"Maybe ask her," she suggests.
"Really? Rose is super independent, and I don't want to be annoying and come off as weirdly overprotective and clingy."
Esme shakes her head and grabs a box of risotto from the pantry. "I don't think she'll see it that way at all."
"Okay, fine, I'll ask her," he agrees. "Thanks, Mom."
She's hardly older than he is, but she seems to have a constant stream of unsolicited advice on hand at all times.
She rolls her eyes at his sarcastic tone and waves the wooden spoon in her hand at him. "Hey, be nice, or I'll make you help me clean out the garage this weekend!"
...
Alice scrolls through her emails and skims one from her French professor giving instructions for her assignments that week.
She needs to watch the movie L'Auberge Espagnole and write a two-page book report on it, then translate a series of paragraphs attached in a PDF file. Easy peasy.
"Where else do you want to go?" Jasper asks, looking to Alice in the passenger seat as they cruise out of the suburbs and back into town.
"I want to go play the slot machines at the casino we passed by earlier, but I don't have a fake ID anymore," she replies, trying not to grumble and also leaving out the part about Edward being the reason why she doesn't have said ID anymore. He ran it through a paper shredder after she totaled his Volvo.
It wasn't a very good fake, anyway. She got caught more than half the time she used it. The person who made it forgot to change the height from five-foot-four to something more believable.
Playing games and winning money would be a fun distraction, though.
Jasper turns left into a street full of shops. "If you told me last week I could have gotten you one."
"Well, it's too late now," she sighs. "Have you been to Vegas before?"
"Several times, yes."
"Is it fun?"
He thinks for a moment before answering. "It depends on where you go and who you go with."
"You don't like it." She wonders if he's any good at games of chance, deciding that gambling is probably only fun if you come out ahead.
"I've spent enough time there to not want to go again," he clarifies. "Most of the appeal is in not being sober for any of it, anyway."
She perks up, counting in her head the weeks. "Hey, how long's it been? Two months?"
"Yeah...I think so," Jasper nods.
"Yay!" she cheers, smiling at him brightly. It's been two months since she'd driven through the bumper-to-bumper traffic to pick him up from downtown. Two months since he'd slipped up and gotten too drunk to get himself across the city to see her on New Year's Eve. He's been really good lately about taking care of himself.
"Should we find dinner?" he asks. "Do you know any good food here?"
"Sure! Um..." she scans the street. A restaurant advertising shrimp sandwiches and gumbo catches her eye. She points. "Let's go there!"
Jasper pulls into the parking lot and Alice grabs her phone from her lap as it begins to ring.
She glances down at the screen and sees Edward's name. "I should take this. You can go in and order. Get me whatever's most popular," she says over the sound of La Vie En Rose playing from her phone's speakers. He nods and gets out of the car.
Alice picks up the call. "Finally!"
The sound of Edward sighing is the first thing she hears. "Have you spoken with Bella at all?" he asks.
"No, you told me not to, remember?"
"Like you ever listen. Have you seen anything?"
Alice's brows pinch together. She hasn't, at least not anything significant. It's always tiny, bleak snippets of Bella in Seattle and Edward in Volterra, and neither of them is ever doing anything noteworthy. Just sitting around moping. "She doesn't look well. Neither do you. I don't understand why you would leave."
The other end of the long-distance call crackles in silence.
"Edward..?" She waits, hoping he'll continue talking to her or that he'll announce he's coming back home soon. She picks a piece of lint off her light-wash jeans.
The call ends.
She slouches back into her seat with a groan, kicking the glove box. Stupid Edward.
Inside the restaurant, Jasper's seated at a table with sandwiches and soup. Alice momentarily considers how he would look in a brown leather jacket, rather than the black one he's currently wearing. Something lighter for spring.
"You could have started eating," she says, poking his shoulder as she walks around the table to sit.
"Nah, I didn't wait long. It only just got here."
She takes a bite. It's pretty good.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
"Hm?" she hums, picking up a crispy, battered French fry. She realizes her brows are still knotted together and she relaxes her face. "Oh, um, Edward called. He wanted to know about Bella."
"You haven't seen her since the party."
"Not in person. I...have a feeling she's not taking their separation very well."
"He still hasn't talked to her?"
"It doesn't seem like it."
Jasper pushes his water glass around the table, moving it side-to-side. "He'll be back at the end of the term either way."
"Yeah, true." He has on-site classes to complete, graduation, and the Bar exam coming up. He can't and won't miss those.
Alice wants her friends back.
Jasper's great, and she loves spending time with him, but she misses annoying Edward all the time with her banter and shopping trips. And she misses Bella, too. Even if their friendship was more short-lived, Alice likes her no-nonsense take on things. It's so much fun playing dress-up and getting her out of the flannels and thermal Henleys that she so often wears.
"Do you want to try finding your old dance studio after this?" Jasper asks. "You have the name of it, right?"
She nods. It's printed on the back of the photo she took from James' studio. "Might as well."