Title: Disillusioned

Genre: romance / hurt / comfort

Pairings: alice/jasper, edward/bella,

Warning: i'm in crisis, but also a sore throat

Somewhere between being named salutatorian and finishing the entirety of Twin Peaks, the gravity of her conversation with Edward settles in the pit of her stomach. It drops somewhere, like a seed of discord loose from her throat into a gaping, ragged hole in her chest. It's an old wound that splits open and bleeds as if it has never healed.

Unanswered calls begin to rack up and the taps on her window go unanswered, but Bella invites Alice and Rosalie over for movie days. She visits the pack for lunch and bonfires. She goes to study sessions and proofreads papers for her friends.

She tries, tries, tries not to think about it, but Edward is everywhere. A clear juxtaposition from when he used to be nowhere, he is suddenly everywhere, all at once, too often.

He is sitting on her porch when she comes home, looking forlorn and apologetic, but for what Bella is not quite sure. She itches to reach out, touch and comfort as much as he would allow, but then he starts talking—

"I think we can work this out—"

"Work out what?"

"—this, this fight."

"We're fighting?"

Edward blinks, slowly, brows bunching. "Yes? Yes, Bella we're fighting."

"We're not fighting," she says, gaze flickering down to his impeccable Borgue boots, neatly laced and stained to match his coat. Or, miraculously matched. Either or.

She puzzles on the nick on his left boot, just at the toe, as if he had kicked something.

"We're not fighting." He repeats and his eyes narrow. "Then what are we?"

"We're . . . not together." She says, a touch harder than she means, a touch harsher than she wants. She watches the hurt bloom in Edward's goldenrod eyes. His perfect features all working together in symbiosis to create the perfect picture of grief. "Not right now." She adds quickly, too quickly and she wants to kick herself. "I just need some space, okay?"

His jaw works as if the mechanics of the words were easier than the ones that rolled out so easily for her. "Okay," he says and Bella can feel the stab of pain-guilt-loneliness in his voice. "I'll see you later then."

He leaves her there, on her porch, where he should have a year ago.

Alice still throws her a big, ostentatious graduation party because Alice is Alice, and its cathartic.

Bella stands by with sagely nods as Alice orders food, decorations, and a goodie bags. She helps Alice and Rosalie wind pink lights around the stair railing, the patio, and the driveway. She meticulously arranges the snack table on the kitchen island—a punch bowl, a large shimmering decanter that Bella tries to veto, Rosalie vetoes, and Alice throws a two-minute hissy fit to keep.

Rosalie drags a cooler the size of a coffin out onto the back patio and fills it with several bags of ice and twelve cartons of soda, lemonade, and sparkling water.

When the food arrives, Bella smiles gently at the one hundred cream cheese frosted cupcakes topped with star-shaped sprinkles. Emily's loving touch on each.

Esme tips generously.

While Alice and Rosalie handle the driveway-dangling-fairy light-vision, Bella is left to sit in the living room, shuffling through stacks and stacks of CDs for the party's music. Bella is at first, hesitant of her choices, but Alice merely smiles, several yards of lights under her arm and a handful of spikes. "Nonsense! Everyone likes your music tastes!"

She says it so casually, Bella almost forgets that Alice can see the future and it's not just a vote of confidence, but hard cold fact. She can't quite tell what makes her feel better.

She scourges up a decent stack of music, some pop, some soft rock, mostly indie. She's really digging indie scene these past couple weeks.

When guests start arriving and the valedictorian comes sailing through the door, Bella is at once informed that the music is poppin' which makes her smile. The two of them stand in compatible silence as they take in the Cullen's decorated living room, noting the pink lights, pink table accents, and pink cupcakes.

Then, totally kidding and smiling cheekily, Jessica asks, "So, is it a girl?"

"Ah, g—what?" Bella sputters, choking on her drink and nearly spilling the sugar-free lemonade down her borrowed blouse. Rosalie's eyes find hers in the crowd, that hawk-like gold stare shooting straight through her. "What—no, we broke up."

So, that gets around town.

"I don't want to talk about it." Bella says, squeezing a bit too hard on the nutcracker Emily has given her. The walnut in her hand cracks, but the rind splits, flies, and spins in a circle around the bowl before shooting off again with the force of its momentum to disappear into the shoe mat.

Emily doesn't look up from her dough kneading, digging her knuckles deeper and deeper in.

Jake makes a noise in the back of his throat, like a dog trying to get attention. "I don't want to talk."

"Bells—"

A loud buzzer rings from down the hall and Paul, shooting up so fast he almost knocks back his chair in the process, rising to get the laundry out of the dryer. "Thank God." He mutters as he disappears down into the basement, sending a final salute to Emily.

Bella frowns, brows drawing together.

She had wanted an escape. Come to Emily's. Make some walnut pound cake. Go the hell home. Worry about which college to choose and the newborn army on the border. Easy.

Not: Charlie tells Billy who tells Jake who tells everyone that her and Edward are on the rocks, so her last safe space in the state of Washington can infected with curiosity, questions, and apathy.

Emily has been doing a stellar job not bothering her. Paul has been doing even better. Jake, however, Jake has been—

"Bells," Jake whispers as if saying it lower might distract the annoyance and anger floating around in her head. "I'm not asking as a wolf. I'm asking as a friend—"

Bella clicks her tongue, gathering the cracked shells into a pile. "Oh, you can separate the two now?"

One thing she loves about Jake, he takes her sass in stride. Like a good friend. Jake's expression twists up and if Bella thought less of him, she thought he might have stamped his foot. "That's not fair—"

"And you know why I'm not telling you." Bella says firmly and cracks another nut for emphasis. Jake does not seem to get the implied threat. She cracks another. Jake whines.

"Hey Jake," Emily's smiling face leans over the kitchen island to catch his attention. "Go help Paul with the towels. I don't trust him to fold them correctly."

Jake offers his most defeated expression and then rises. "Okay." His haltingly makes his way down the stairs to the basement and Bella slowly, gently, sets the nutcracker down and puts her face in her hands.

She shouldn't have told Charlie anything.

A chair scraping across the floor catches her attention and she peaks out of her fingers at Emily. The warm, swirly feeling of tears coiling in her throat.

Emily fists a towel, patting her wrists and elbows. Her smile is a touch softer. It's all in the eyes, dark and warm like honey in coffee. "What's on your mind, kid?"

Bella frowns. "I appreciate it Emily, but I really, really don't want to talk about it."

Emily nods sagely and then leans back in her chair to yell down into the basement. "Hey, Paul? Could you start up the next load for me? It's the blue—"

"I got it!" He calls up and then the loud rumble of the washer and dryer start up downstairs. The door at the bottom of the stair's snaps shut.

Emily leans forward. "Okay, we should be good now."

"Does that work?"

"Trust me, I made the boys test it earlier." Emily's lips curl. "I told them, 'honey, there are somethings you don't want to hear, so when I ask you to hang out in the laundry room, I need to be sure you can't hear it'." She leans forward, chin on her palm. "So, what's on your mind?"

"Well in case you missed the newsflash, Edward and I—"

"Yeah, I gleaned that much from Jake's whining. What's going on?"

Bella fiddles with the broken pieces of walnuts in the table beside her, frowning. "It's just been a hard couple of days. I don't—well, I don't have many people I can really talk to, you know? Someone who knows everything and is not on sides. I think it's just been hard to really talk about without having to edit the story a bit."

"Okay, yeah, I get that. But aren't you friends with Edward's—sisters?"

Bella smiles. "Yeah, Alice, the shorter one." Then she frowns. "I haven't been a very good friend to her lately. At least, I don't feel like I have. She can see the future and she has always said we would be good friends, but I just don't . . . I can't get myself to be that sometimes, you know?"

"Well, friendships and relationships are similar in that way. They're both work."

"But I don't know, for a while Edward and I felt so easy and now," Bella chews on the inside of her cheek. "It feels like every conversation is like being dragged through gravel. I don't think I ever really forgave him for, for leaving me."

Emily considers the pile of walnut shells between her fingers, the empty coffee mug by her wrist, and the crescent shaped scar on otherwise unblemished expanse of her bare forearms.

She reaches out, tucking her fingers against Bella's.

"Relationships are about upkeep, first and foremost. Checking in on one another with the usual things: did you eat, have you slept, how are you feeling? But they are also about how those relationships make you feel. If they do nothing for you, then maybe it is good and healthy to let go."

Bella sits a moment, drinking this in.

Emily fixes her with a leveled stare. "How do you feel when you are around Edward?"

"Well, I used to—"

"Mhm, no. What do you feel when you are around him now?"

Bella hates how little time it takes for her to summon the answer. "Lonely."

"Do you feel like you gave it an honest try?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you feel like you tried to work things out? Do you feel like you tried to fix things?"

"I guess. Maybe? No," Her teeth sink into her lip just enough to make it hurt, but not enough to make her meet Emily's stare. "I don't know. For a while I feel like I was saying something and he wasn't listening. Or, he was saying something and I couldn't get myself to listen. And he tells me he loves me whenever he sees me, and God—he looked so hurt at Alice's graduation party because everyone was thinking about it—"

"I think," Emily says, cutting into Bella's rant seamlessly. "That you know what this all means. You still love him? Sure, you do. It's written all over your face." Emily's fingers squeeze hers. "And that's okay. It's okay to still love him and think about him, just don't let it consume you."

Bella sucks in a breath as a near physical blow hits her chest. She presses her lips together. "I feel like it's consuming me."

"He was your first love. He was very important. It's okay for it to hurt."

Bella licks her lips and is momentarily surprised to find them salty. She presses her nose against her shoulder and sniffs. "I just, I don't want to get bad again. Like last year, you know?"

"If you do, you have the tools to help yourself now. You have family and friends that care about you. You know that right?" Bella nods and Emily smiles a bit wider. "C'mere, kid."

Emily envelopes her in an embrace and, for a moment, the hole in her chest aches a little less.

It's Paul that drives her to the border when her time in La Push is up. He's silent, as usual, blaring music the entire way there loud enough to wake the dead. When she tells him this, he smiles and says, "Well, how else are we gonna let those blood-suckers know we're on the way?"

Bella tries not to roll her eyes too hard and stares out the window.

Before long, they arrive at the border where Alice is sitting on the hood of her Porsche, punctual as usual. However, Bella can make out Jasper in the passenger seat beyond the tinted glass, his expression drawn and distant.

Paul lets out a low whistle. "That's a nice car."

"Somethings wrong." Bella mutters, but before she can jump out, Paul already presses the lock down on the car door, stopping her short. "Hey!"

She tries the door again and Paul presses the lock button down right before she can tug on the handle.

Paul's eyes narrow and suddenly all the laughter from this afternoon is out of his face. He is, at once, Sam's second-in-command, protector of La Push and its people. "What do you mean 'somethings wrong'? Don't just say shit like that and jump out. Jeez, do you have a death wish?"

"I mean—I think Alice may be having a vision."

Paul glances out the front window again, eyes squinting against the gleam coming off Alice's Porsche. "She looks like she's high."

"Yeah, well," Bella unhooks her seat belt and manages to open the door before Paul can stop her.

She crosses over quickly, nodding to a passing car before making her way over to Alice. "Alice, what's going on?" She murmurs and Alice's eyes open.

For a long, terrifying moment, Alice is completely silent.

Bella looks at her, the impeccable eyeliner wings elongating her eyes and giving them a low, sultry look. A bitter smile pulls at her mouth.

"The Volturi are coming here." She says and Bella watches Paul and Jasper straighten up, their twin expressions of both determination and confusion drawing them in parallel. "The guards," she amends for Paul's sake and summons the smallest of smiles. "Jane, Alec, Felix, and . . . Demetri."

hello! i am now a college graduate and my crisis is nearly complete

also, i am realizing i am not handling the issues i am causing (in the story) with the best finesse, but i am having a hard time, how we say, making myself care. i want Bella to change, i want her to be this new/better person, but as we all know (and as i have learned through hours of therapy) that we cannot change ourselves so drastically. so, it has to be messy and bloody and Demetri is fuckin' coming, what the ever-loving fuck am i doing?

so, at least, he will be in the next chapter, and i can finally tell the story i need to.

honestly, i am having fun writing this. like, really. i like fixing things i don't like. that's essentially my degree: ripping things apart and telling people why they don't work in the first place. like Bella and Edward's relationship. also, i need to handle the: i might have to be turned into a vampire without a mate thing now. and my god, do i have a PLAN

please review, they make me so happy

- cafeanna