I do not own Twilight.
The rest of the week passes in a blur, and not the good kind.
I feel like a pawn, the rest of the world moving and changing around me. Life goes on for the rest. My mother returns to work, her apology given and taken; Charlie returns to the station, booking and arresting as though the world depends on it. And maybe it does. Maybe jail has an important part in peoples' lives, including mine. It's made me rethink past relations, made me realize past mistakes.
Made me consider past events and how I've had a hand in them.
Jail, if nothing else, is humbling.
For me.
It still worries me—Edward's reluctance to speak to anyone but me, but I'm hoping my concluding words, to speak with his brother, have resonated with him. I'm hoping he'll break down that last wall, let his own brother in, the same brother that has been there for him his entire life. I know he doesn't want to, but I want him to speak about his father, about his mother and how her absence affected him. And, most importantly, I want to help him through that, if he needs me to. If he wants me to.
Rosalie eyes me from across the room. She's curled on the couch, coffee in hand, watching me score my notes from the small kitchen table. Finals are impending…the last finals before college is over.
"So?" she says when I don't look at her.
"So what?" I ask nonchalantly, not bothering to look up.
She scoffs and I hear her switching her position.
"Isabella." Her voice picks up an octave, "You can't honestly believe I'm not going to demand an explanation. I mean, you come back with swollen, red eyes and under eye circles that are darker than a med student's. What happened?"
I put my pencil down and level my gaze at her. With her blonde hair pulled back, she looks five years younger.
"I got into a fight with my mom," I say.
"You always get into fights with your mom," she counters. She's heard plenty over the years we've been friends.
I shake my head. "A real fight. I basically accused her of being a bad mom."
Rosalie raises her eyebrows, a look of pleasant surprise on her face. "Good."
"No, I…I feel bad," I say. A night away from my mom, sleeping on everything that happened, I woke up with a sudden bout of regret. Not exactly for what I said, just the way that I said it.
"Why do you feel bad?" Rose asks. "She deserves to know how you feel. You deserve to tell her how you feel." She sips her coffee and then places it on the side table. "How did she respond?"
"She argued at first, and then she just kind of…fell apart."
Rosalie's jaw drops and she stands, crossing the small room quickly until she's leaning against the chair across from me.
"Fell apart how?" she demands.
"She just…dropped her head into her hands and agreed she's been a bad mom." I sigh, pressing my fingers into my hair, staring down at my notes blindly. "She told me that her and Edward are the same. That they both tried to control me, and she was sorry for that." I glance up at Rose and she's watching me with piqued interest, concern. "She said they ruined me."
"Bullshit."
My eyes widen, shocked by the outburst. "That's what she said—"
"No, I mean they didn't ruin you, Bella. If anything, they made you more resilient. I mean, think about it. You have normal friendships." She points to herself and I roll my eyes, but can't help but to smile. "You're graduating college, you know what you want out of life—kind of"—she grins—"and, most importantly, you took yourself out of a relationship that was not good for you."
"It took me months, though," I retaliate. "I wasn't strong enough…"
She shakes her head, interrupts, "I'm not talking about Edward."
I swallow.
"You don't think I've seen the marks on your wrist?" She reaches across to grab my arm, though I pull it back. Long-sleeves have been my go-to as the bruise mars between black, blue, green, yellow. Her face softens, "You don't have to tell me what happened, but I'm proud of you for leaving him. I know it's not always easy."
I blink away a few tears, because what she's saying isn't necessarily true. It was very easy to leave him. I never gave it a second thought, because he isn't worth it.
Mike isn't worth the back and forth, the pain, the heartache. Mike isn't worth second chances, and I don't think it's just because he physically hurt me.
"What's wrong?" Rose asks, her expression turning from proud to concerned. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"
"No," I croak. "It's not that…it's just…" I don't know how to explain it without backlash, without someone thinking I'm a fool.
I take a breath, steady myself. "He wasn't worth it," I say. "Mike wasn't worth it."
The concern turns to understanding, and then appraisal.
"But Edward is," she says. It's not a question, nor an opinion. From her mouth, it sounds like fact. Or perhaps to my ears, it sounds like fact. And I don't miss the fact that it isn't in past tense.
The tears spill over, but they're silent. They're hot; they sting more than just my face. As always, Rosalie doesn't react. She's tough; tougher than Charlie, even. She doesn't take kindly to self-pity.
I lick my dry lips, tasting a hint of the saltiness that brims over. A tear tracks down my throat, tickles me, but still I make no further sound. It's like they are inevitable, now. There. A part of me.
"Is it stupid…" I start and then stop, clearing my throat, chewing on my lip for a second while she patiently waits. "Is it stupid to feel that way, after everything?"
She smiles sadly. "Do you think it's stupid to feel that way?"
I shrug, because I honestly don't know the answer to that. It feels stupid…but there's a part of me that thinks I feel that way because I think I should feel stupid and foolish.
As though she can read my mind, she reaches across the table and takes my hand. I glance up at her, sniffle. Her eyes are content, soft. Vulnerable, almost.
"Don't think about what should be the correct answer. Sometimes what is the answer and what should be the answer are polar opposites." She lets go of my palm, pats the back of my hand once. "You just need to figure out which one you want to listen to. Which one you want to believe."
Black and white, I think. This is coming from someone who I thought saw the world as black and white.
It makes me purse my lips and wipe my tears as she turns away, her concluding words final. It's up to me, she's saying. It's up to me to decide. It surprises me, the fact that she's telling me the answer might not be obvious. That it could be in the gray world, rather than her yes-or-no world. Maybe I don't know the people I love as well as I thought.
I've been proven wrong many times over the past few days.