I do not own Twilight.

This one is extra long because it would have been a bit awkward to break it up. I'm sure you don't mind :)

The couch I am sitting on is familiar.

So, familiar and so outdated that it's almost funny. Well, it was funny and it was something we used to laugh about when we were friends, because Alice's mom has always been one for antiques. Including a fifty-year-old couch that is swirled with lime green and bright pink, hoisted up with thick wooden arms and legs that make it almost as big as the room itself.

But Alice's face as she sits across from me, straight-backed in the recliner closest to the large window, is anything but humorous.

She looks pissed, actually. And more than a little hurt.

And not surprised. She knew I'd be here eventually.

Whether she wanted me here is another story.

"So," she starts and her eyes drift to mine, dark and large as they always were. "He's in jail and now you're trying to get your old life back?"

I open my mouth to contradict her words, but close it again when I realize she's right.

"Well," I clear my throat. Alice doesn't like soft-spoken. "Being away from him kind of made me realize how fucked up everything was."

Alice tilts her head to the side and raises an eyebrow, daring me to continue. I let out a breath and soothe back my hair. I'm on the edge of my seat, figuratively and literally.

"Like that I'm the factor in all of these equation. I'm the one who fucked up, left and right."

"Oh, cut the crap, Bella," Alice snaps and I bite the inside of my cheek. I think I can taste blood. "Stop blaming yourself and playing the victim at the same time."

"I'm not—"

"Yes, you fucking are, Bella! You don't even realize it anymore!" Alice jumps to her feet now and leans over me and I'm surprised I haven't sunken straight through the couch yet. I'm trying to, though. Desperately.

"It's like, he made you think everyone was out to get you and that every interaction someone had with you was just to spite you, or something, and you believed it in your thick head!" She jabs a finger at her temple to illustrate her point, but now I'm moving forward too because what she is saying is just ridiculous. "Like he was the only one allowed to care for you or some shit and you just let him convince you of that!"

"That's not fucking true," I cry out, anger unleashing through my words, too. Alice steps back a foot and crosses her arms. "He never made me think that, and I never thought that," I hiss.

Alice juts her chin out. It's something that she does when she is offended, but doesn't want anyone to think she feels offended. I know her better than that, though, and whatever I just say…however she took it, offended her deeply.

"Then why," she starts in a low voice, "did you tell him that I told you we were only temporary friends?"

I freeze, my hands curled into fists against the couch, ready to propel myself up to fight her off if need be, but her question has my head spinning.

"W-what?"

She taps her finger repeatedly against her upper arm, clearly agitated.

"Why did you tell him that I said you and I were only going to be friends until the end of Senior year? You made him think I was some fake friend to you."

I'm at a loss for words because this is not what I expected her to be upset about. I let out a puff of air and sag back against the couch.

"That's what you're angry about?" I ask, bewildered and a little more hopeful now.

"Yes, that's what I'm fucking angry about, Bella," she spits. "I don't like people—one who used to be my best friend, no less—telling their boyfriends that I'm some horrible person who is using people for my benefit."

I throw my head back with a groan and then a small laugh bubbles from my throat. I can't help it; not because this situation is funny, but because it was so avoidable.

"What the fuck, Bella?" Alice is fuming, but I shake a hand towards her.

"No, no," I say and then drop my head into my hands. "Fuck, Alice. That wasn't…true. I mean, you never actually said that to me."

"Yeah, no shit I never said that to you!" Alice barks, and I can see another flash of hurt pass through her eyes. "I thought we were actual friends, Bella. If you didn't want to be friends, you should have just said something instead of having your fucking boyfriend come after me."

"No, I…fuck." I sigh and try to gather myself. I don't know how to explain this without Alice getting upset again. "Do you remember that list my mom made me write after Edward got suspended from school for breaking Tyler's jaw? The one with the pros and cons of dating Edward?"

Alice scoffs and rolls her eyes, dropping back to the seat behind her. "Yeah. But what the fuck, Bella. This isn't time for—"

"No," I interrupt, shaking my head. "He snuck into my room one night after I had written down a few more points in the con list—remember how my mom used to check?" Alice nods, albeit stiffly. "I was a complete and total mess because I was thinking, 'maybe I should break up with him. Maybe he isn't good for me,' and I was crying and hyperventilating and," I shake my head, reliving the memory, "it wasn't pretty."

Alice actually cracks a tiny small that she hides away quickly, but I continue so she doesn't realize I saw it because I know she'll kick me out if she thinks I think she is starting to come around.

"I was crying and red and blotchy and a mess and I didn't want him to know about the list, obviously, because it would have thrown him off the deep end, but he was desperate to know what had happened, like, he was freaking out because he thought it was something he did, and I just…" I take a much needed breath and hang my head in shame. "I knew whatever I told him had to be bad because I wouldn't just cry like that for no reason, so I…"

I trail off, but Alice finishes for me, her voice hard.

"You told him I said something to you."

"You were the only other one who would have upset me that much," I gasp, already breaking out into tears now. "He wouldn't have believed anything else."

"But why would you say I didn't want to be friends anymore?" she wails, covering her face with her hands. She can't see my pathetic shrug.

"I don't know," I sniffle. "It's the first thing that came into my thick head."

That does it.

Using her insult towards me as an insult towards myself makes that smile I saw trying to break through glimmer around the edges of her mouth.

That, and probably, my tears.

I wipe hastily with the back of my hand and she relaxes into her seat.

"I'm really sorry," I manage to mumble and then lean forward and drop my head into my hands. "I thought you were mad because I left with him without seeing if you were okay."

"Well," she says and her tone takes another ounce of irritation. "That, too. But I was fine."

"I wasn't trying to choose him over you, I just…you know how he is when…I didn't…" I try and fail to fill in words because there is no explanation for what I did back then or how I felt.

"I mean, were you even mad at him? Like, the two of you seemed fine that Monday. That's what pissed me off, too."

"Yes, Alice," I gasp, staring up at her again. Her leg is crossed over the other and I realize she's wearing those bright purple heels she had bought when we went to Port Angeles together for the first time. "I didn't even talk to him the next day. I was so mad about everything."

And that is true. I hadn't spoken to him for nearly twenty-four hours. Half of that he let me be, but the other half was filled with him begging, on the verge of tears, telling me he was sorry. And, as Rosalie had reminded me, I did eventually let him apologize in the backseat of his car when I finally agreed to talk to him the following Sunday.

He apologized over and over, many times with his tongue inside of me.

"Mad that he fought Jasper, mad that you were caught up in it, though I didn't know why until just now."

Alice's eyebrows shoot up an inch from her hairline. "You never even asked what the fight was about?"

I nod my head vigorously. "Of course, I did. He'd never tell me, though."

I look at her and there's a quick decision warring inside of my head because I don't know if, after all this time, I even want to know what Jasper said, but Alice makes my decision for me.

"Well, he walked over to where we were with Jacob because I guess you guys were leaving?" She looks at me for accuracy and I give it to her.

"I wanted to leave," I answer.

"And he pretty much took one look at me and I guess the alcohol made him brave or something, because he just spit fire about how I am a terrible friend and shit and, well you know," she says, raising an eyebrow at me condemningly.

"I'm sorry," I whisper and my nails dig into my palms.

She shakes her head as though it is old news.

"Jasper stuck up for me and told Edward that I wasn't the shitty one in your life. Jasper told him that he was ruining your life and then Edward just went crazy." Alice shrugs as though the explanation is far from satisfactory, but it is everything I've ever needed to know.

No wonder he would never tell me what had led to the fight.

I leave Alice's with a hug that lasts a long time, but is too short for all the hugs I've missed over the past year and make her promise to let me visit again next time I am in town. She laughs and, I think, reluctantly agrees, but I am desperate to repair our severed friendship.

I'm smiling by the time I'm in my car, but as I think longer and harder about the fight and what had actually spurred it, the tears are beginning to brim again. I'm glad the ride to my mom's house is twenty minutes because I need all the seconds I can get to pull myself together because I know if she sees me like this, she'll think my meeting with Alice went horribly wrong.

And Charlie.

Charlie will be so disappointed because all I can think about is how the only thing Edward had ever told me about that night was that Jasper was right.