A/N: Hello, gorgeous ducks. Let's see what Eddo is up to after that meeting.

As he put distance between himself and the studio's downtown office, Edward's phone rang. There were two people on the planet he would have answered the phone for at that moment. One of them had, understandably, refused to answer his calls since he left her standing like a fool in front of all their friends and family. The other was his twin.

With a growl, Edward pressed the connect button on his steering wheel. "What?"

"I'm calling to talk you out of going to the bar," Rosalie said, as usual getting right to the point without preamble.

"How did you—"

"Are you really going to ask me that?" Rosalie sighed. "I have no idea what just went down, but I'm sure it was brutal. You want some relief. You can't go home, and you won't bring alcohol here, so that leaves the bar. It's a colossally bad idea, Edward. For one thing, you know your ass will get papped. I know one of the rumors out there is you're on drugs. You don't want to add fuel to that fire. For another thing, you and I have the same genetics, twin. This situation isn't going to stop sucking any time soon. You know damn well alcohol is the worst coping strategy."

"That's not what you said at the wedding," he muttered, knowing he was being petulant.

"A shot to soothe your nerves isn't the same thing as drowning your sorrows in booze. I still don't have any idea what's going on with you but, clearly, it's more than just nerves. If you'd tell me what you were really dealing with—"

"I didn't know." Edward pulled into a random neighborhood and pulled the car over. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing deeply. "I didn't know what was wrong with me. If I'd known, everything would be different. None of this would be happening. I'd still have a fiancé. Hell, if I figured it out early enough, I might even have a wife. Instead, I lost a relationship I worked for and a woman I loved, almost everybody important to me hates me, and no one's going to be sympathetic because I destroyed my own damn life."

"Yeah." There was a dry tone to Rosalie's voice as she spoke. "I have no idea what it's like to actually destroy my life and have everyone hate me including my other half—my own twin brother."

Edward breathed out in a gust. "Rose—"

"I'm not giving you a hard time. The people who don't like you right now have every reason not to, just like you had every reason to be angry with me back then. The point is, you have a sympathetic ear. I don't hate you, and I won't hate you. I've given you almost a week to wallow because you said you were processing, but we're not doing that anymore. Come home. Vent. Cry. Tell me what the hell is really going on with you, and we'll figure out what happens next. Can you do that?"

Edward pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, swallowing down his initial reaction. He didn't know if he wanted to argue, yell, scream, or cry. Frustration and grief threatened to choke him. Confusion drove him to the brink of sanity.

All good reasons you shouldn't drink right now, dumbass.

"Right. You're right," he said to his sister. "Fine. I'll be there in ten."

As promised, he walked in the door of his sister's place just a few minutes later. He cocked his head as he walked through the entryway. The scent of garlic and butter was heavy in the air. His mouth watered. He cocked an eyebrow as his sister stepped out of the kitchen. "Did you cook?"

Rosalie snorted. "Right. I would burn toast in a toaster."

"Everyone burns toast in a toaster. That's the nature of toasters."

"Don't start, twin. I'm trying to be nice to you right now. Anyway, my cooking is the antithesis of comfort food." She waved a hand in a grand gesture, beckoning him into the kitchen. "Come on. Everyone gets to eat their feelings sometimes. It's not as dangerous as booze, though I know you have to keep your girlish figure for work."

Edward followed his sister into the kitchen and laughed. One counter was packed with containers. He stopped in his tracks, momentarily overwhelmed by the overabundance of carbs and cheese laid out in front of him.

"I went for the most decadent things on the menu. Fettuccine alfredo. Beef medallions. Penne alla vodka."

"So much for staying away from the booze."

Rosalie fixed him with a look. "Focaccia Barese and garlic bread, because obviously.

"Obviously."

"And your favorite that you never get… pasta carbonara with extra bacon." She picked up the container, opening it with a flourish.

"Pancetta," Edward said.

"What?"

"Carbonara has pancetta in it; not bacon."

"See. That's how I know you'll be okay. You're not traumatized enough to stop you from being a pedantic asshat."

"It's not pedantic. It's just correct."

"Pancetta is bacon."

"It's not. Bacon has to be cooked, for one thing. Pancetta is cured, and it can be eaten without cooking it. Besides, if I wanted to be pedantic, I'd have said guanciale. Carbonara should be made with guanciale." He smiled sweetly at his sister who glowered back at him. He pointed at the container she held. "But that is pancetta."

A beat passed as they stared at each other. Edward smirked. "You want to throw it at me, don't you."

"I spend an incredible amount of my life wanting to throw things at you," she said through gritted teeth.

He smiled even wider and chuckled, then sighed, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. "Thanks, twin. Really." He looked at the spread and sighed. "I don't know if I can—"

"You can eat. You're hungry. You've been starving yourself for six days, and it shows. You look like shit."

"Yeah, I'm getting that a lot today." He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "I wondered what Bella was going to say to me when she saw me again, but that wasn't any of my guesses."

Rosalie studied him. "Sit down. I'm going to make you a plate. You're going to tell me what the hell is going on. We're going to stuff ourselves until we're sure we're going to die of that instead of whatever's wrong with you, and when we're done with that, there's tiramisu."

"First the vodka, then the brandy soaked dessert," Edward tried to joke, but his tone came out lackluster. He sat down at the table, wondering where the hell to start. Rosalie had made them a pair of her favorite virgin cocktails—made mostly with Sprite. He poured himself a glass as she piled pasta on his plate.

"So, how long have you felt this way about Bella?" Rosalie asked.

The drink Edward had taken came right back out again. He coughed in surprise. "How did you—" he tried between wheezes.

"Give me a break. I was standing right next to Bella when you were making goo goo eyes at her, and I'm me. This isn't a secret you can keep from me. I know what you look like when you're in love."

It was the first time Edward had heard the words. Even in his own head, he'd slammed a wall down every time his thoughts tried to whisper the answer to him.

He knew. Of course he knew. He'd felt it to the marrow of his bones when he saw her walking down the aisle. But even now, with his world in shambles around him, some part of him thought if he refused to acknowledge it…

His shoulders slumped. He rested back in his seat, his hand over his eyes. "I swear, Rose. I never tried to look at her like that. This sounds terrible, but it's true. I've never seen her as attractive—as a man attracted to women, I mean. Not even on that shallow level."

Rosalie snorted. "That's not surprising."

Edward narrowed his eyes, confused. "It isn't? It's not like she's a stranger to People's most attractive people list."

"No, Bella's gorgeous." Rosalie pointed her fork at him. "But she's an addict. You met her in a rehab, for fuck's sake. None of us looked our best in rehab, but beyond that, you've known from the second you set eyes on her she was an addict. You never saw her—the person. You saw an addict, and you don't like addicts."

"Rose—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake." She rolled her eyes but gave him a small smile. "For the last time, I'm not trying to give you shit. What do you think they teach you in rehab? It is what it is, and you have a right to feel the way you do given what I put all of you through. Part of figuring myself out is seeing things for what they are; that's all there is to it.

"It took a while for you to see me again after everything, to talk to me the same way. But I'm me. You never had a real reason to see Bella as a person."

Edward frowned, chafing at the thought. She was speaking as if Edward saw addicts as less than human. But, if he took the emotion out of it and came at the situation from a factual point of view, he understood what she was saying. Edward wished no ill will on addicts, but they weren't the kind of people he'd associate with; not as friends and particularly not as anyone he'd find attractive. He associated with Bella as a byproduct. He was interested in Angela, and she was Angela's roommate.

Rosalie sat back in her chair, arms crossed, looking away as she spoke. "Bella didn't know which way was up while you were falling for Angela. She's been very small as long as I've known her. It's been only recently that she's started to gain confidence. She's a bigger personality now; much brighter than before."

Snapping her fingers, Rosalie pointed at him. "Then, you recommended her for Alice. It's only natural you'd start to see her, the real her, working so closely together. On top of that, you guys spent so much time planning the wedding together. Angela's such a people pleaser. She naturally defers to everyone else. That's why I backed out of wedding planning—you know my opinions are loud and grandiose even for you. So it ended up being you and Bella most of the time."

"That was… Nothing happened. We didn't… I wouldn't…"

"Whoa." Rosalie held her hands up. "I've heard everything you said, and I believe you. Not like you could lie to me anyway. Nothing happened until the wedding, right? So what happened?"

Edward laughed, the sound bitter. He looked down at his plate, twirling and twirling the pasta around. "You just figured out more in the last two minutes than I have in the last six days. The how…" He shook his head. "There's always that one moment of epiphany, isn't there? That point where you realize you feel something real, something profound, for another person? I saw her walking down the aisle and…" He waved a hand helplessly. "It clicked. The light bulb went on. The Earth tilted on its axis and started spinning the opposite direction it had been?"

"Huh." Rosalie huffed, staring at him. "Your subconscious knew. That's why you were climbing the walls that morning. But you? You had no clue you'd fallen for her until thirty seconds before the woman you asked to marry you walked down the aisle." She paused a beat. "That is spectacular timing."

Edward slumped in his seat, a hand over his eyes. "Yeah. Fucking fantastic." He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as he tried to breathe around the weight on his chest. "I'm a romantic, but I'm also a realist. I don't believe in the mysticism of 'the one.' You have the potential to form an attachment to any number of people. You can't choose who you fall in love with. You can't choose who you're attracted to. Every work of fiction has drilled that into us since the beginning of time. And I've never understood why you would think being part of a couple would magically stop that from happening. What you can choose is how you react. You're always responsible for your actions.

"I chose Angela. I committed to her. If I'd figured it out literally any other moment, we would have handled it together. I wasn't trying to fall for Bella. Of course, I wasn't. But the fact it happened doesn't lessen my commitment."

"But you couldn't marry her without discussing it with her," Rosalie said, and he was never more grateful that his twin understood him so well.

Still, he paused a beat, considering the question. "If I'd have figured it out that morning, I probably would have gone through with it. I'd have had time to clear my head. The timing would still suck, but I think we could have gotten through that if I'd waited until the day after the wedding to tell her. It would have been a different kind of bad." He swallowed hard. "But to marry Angela when my mind was consumed with Bella the way it was at that moment?" He shook his head. "I couldn't do that to her. I couldn't start our life like that."

"Sounds like that would have been a Ross says Rachel's name at the wedding situation, is what would have happened." Rosalie shook her head. She took a bite of her food, glancing at him as she chewed. "'The Earth tilted on its axis' is kind of dramatic even by your standards. How was it seeing Bella today?"

The bite of carbonara seemed to curdle in Edward's mouth. He had to convince himself to swallow, and he thought for a horrible moment it was going to come back up again. As usual, his sister could be counted on to get to the tough questions. It was easy to talk about what he felt for Angela, but she wasn't going to let him ignore the elephant in the room.

He'd spent six days convincing himself he had to have imagined it. He'd wrapped his every thought around Angela, devastated because he loved her, because he wanted the life he chose and worked hard for. He was at a loss to comprehend how he could have been the one to hurt her. Was it some sort of temporary insanity?

There was, at least, some relief in Rosalie's perspective. How quickly she'd seen what had happened. To him, it had been incomprehensible. How could he suddenly have feelings for a woman who'd been in his life, in close proximity, for years?

He'd been oblivious—a frog in a pot gradually getting warmer and warmer until it was too late to jump out. But seeing her again, he couldn't pass off what had happened at the wedding as a fluke.

"She walked in the room and…" His heart skipped a beat. His breath hitched. Despite the situation, he'd had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. But all of it made him feel like a heel, and he didn't want to say the words out loud.

"You're doing the goo goo eyes thing again."

"You should have seen her. She walked into that room like an avenging angel. She wasn't going to make a damn thing easy on me. She's a fierce friend."

"Wow." Rosalie shook her head, staring at him. "You're actually grinning about this woman ripping you a new one, which I assume is what she did."

"It's not as though I didn't deserve it," Edward muttered. "That woman can't be more than 5'2" tall, but she may as well have been an Amazon; that's the kind of presence she had in the room. Not just with me either. She holds her own against Aro, which isn't the easiest thing by a long shot. She told me once people often treat her like she's lucky to be there, to be working at all. It's not untrue in a lot of ways, but she's not going to pretend she's meek and mild. They're lucky she's there too."

Rosalie arched an eyebrow, and Edward ducked his head. "I admire her, that's all," he said.

"Clearly, that's not all."

"No. No, it's not." Edward looked up and shrugged. "She hates me. She absolutely loathes me. I was hoping to get her to tell me how Angie is doing—maybe tell her to answer the phone so I can grovel—but that would have been a disaster. I wouldn't be surprised if she's the one sending my calls to voicemail. I'm going to need to talk to her too—which will be so much fun—but not before Angie. Angie has to be my priority. If she would only—"

"Wait. Back up. Talk to her…about what? About how you feel about her?" Rosalie blanched. "Is that what you're going to tell Angela too? That you're in love with another woman?"

"It's the truth. I can't help what I feel about Bella, but I didn't do anything about it. I didn't act on it."

"You mean besides the part where you left your fiancée standing alone in front of all your friends and family."

Edward winced. "You know what I mean."

"I do. But maybe it's a blessing in disguise that you haven't been able to get ahold of Angela. You really have to think about what you're going to tell her."

"You think I want to tell her any of this? But what other choice is there? Reality has to be dealt with, remember?"

"Yeah, but reality is nuanced. In this case, you have to think about the big picture. You're right—you didn't act on what you felt for Bella. In a warped kind of way, you did the most honorable thing by not going through with the wedding. You took action literally the second you realized there was a problem and, really, given the circumstances, I'm not sure there was an easier way to do that. Maybe if you'd pulled her away with you to talk, but I get that you didn't know which way was up at that point.

"This situation is… Well. It can go sideways twenty different ways. Bella is Angela's closest friend. She's going to be the rock Angela leans on. You have to think about basic human psychology, Edward. If you tell Angela you're in love with her best friend, you're going to drive a wedge between them."

"But Bella didn't do anything. Angela would understand that."

Rosalie shook her head. "Love isn't rational. You tell a woman you fell for her best friend, and it's going to get under her skin. You've already shattered her once, little brother. I don't know Angela that well, but I can tell when she puts her faith in someone, it's unshakable. And that woman takes faith seriously. Her love for you comes second only to her love for her god. She believes the two of you were part of god's divine plan for her. That's some next-level intensity right there. She's got to be questioning everything about her life right now, and if you take her best friend away on top of it? Because whether or not it's rational, there's going to be a part of her that knows if you could betray her, of course Bella is capable.

"And as for Bella, working with a man you hate is one thing. Working with a man you hate who's in love with you is all kinds of awkward. After what she went through when she was just a kid, Bella has trust issues coming out of her ears when it comes to men and this business. This is her career, and your career for that matter, on the line." She crossed her arms, her expression uncharacteristically tender and sympathetic. "Little brother, I didn't know you could so thoroughly fuck your life up without the assistance of narcotics."ֵ

Edward stared at his sister. He opened his mouth, closed it again.

His whole life, he'd been told he always thought of the worst case scenario. For the first time, it seemed like things were worse than even his overactive imagination could have figured.

He pushed his plate away, nauseated. "I can't eat this."

"You're right." Rosalie stood and went into the kitchen. "This situation calls for the big guns. Let's cut to the chase." She plunked a family-sized tiramisu on the table between them and handed him a spoon.

A/N: Aw.

I think we're going to meet Alice and Jasper next time! Don't quote me on that though. I'm just the author.