Chapter 7 – Altered

Like any other day, I sat at my work-station with virtually nothing to do, except on this particular day, I was also plagued with obsessive worry.

Five unanswered texts.

I knew it was a bad idea to cross that line with Bella. I fucked everything up, and now there were five unanswered texts that I was compulsively checking every two minutes with the hope of some sort of reply.

I must have texted her a hundred more times, but each made me feel stupid, so I deleted them without sending. Seriously though, what the fuck was wrong with me? It was bad enough that my physicality with Bella probably drove her to the point of releasing her alters, but now I couldn't even leave the girl alone. It was pathetic, and I knew that, but I still couldn't stop checking my phone, hoping for some kind of indication she was okay.

The minutes dragged into hours, but when my lunch break approached, I became even more worried. Should I go to her like I normally did? What if she truly didn't want to see me, or even worse, the mega-bitch alter was in control? Showing up with Rosalie out could create problems for the rest of my life. Her threats were real, and absolutely terrifying. I had to take her seriously, but then again, if I didn't show up for lunch, that may look horrible too. What if everything was fine and I upset her by not coming?

My head was spinning from all the possibilities, but after picking up a couple deli sandwiches, I sucked up my concerns and walked through the bookstore doors.

"Please tell me you didn't bring a greasy burger," she jokingly whined when she saw me.

I froze mid-step and tried to decipher her comment. It was casual and completely normal sounding, but what did that mean? Was she an alter pretending to be Bella, or perhaps was she Bella now and I mistook an alter for her the night before? I couldn't decide which was worse.

"A burger is fine, I just meant I'm a little greased out at the moment," she added, sounding somewhat apologetic.

"I brought sandwiches," I mumbled as if the words were on autopilot.

"Really?" she asked, pleasantly surprised. "Have I ever told you how awesome you are? Thank you!"

I brought the food to her counter, and after plopping it down, I sat and just stared at her blankly for a moment.

She tore the wrapper off her food, but before she was about to take a bite, she looked up at me and sighed. "Please don't get weird on me."

"I'm not. Wait, what?" I asked, trying to focus and make sense of the words she was saying.

"I was worried things might get weird after last night, but I really thought you did that kind of thing all the time. When we spoke before about Alice being so promiscuous, you made it seem like it wasn't a big deal."

"It's not a big deal to me, but you also told me how much you hated Alice's promiscuity."

"I do, but that's not what this is. It's not like you're a random stranger, and I'm certainly not messing around with multiple people in any given week. I like you, and after a very short time of knowing you, I don't know, I guess I just feel safe with you. But the last thing I wanted to do was make it weird between us."

"Things aren't weird – at least, I'm not trying to make it weird. I'm just… are you still you? I mean, you left my place without saying anything…."

"I had to come open the store, and you were pretty out so I called an Uber to take me home. I barely had time for a shower before I needed to rush over here," she explained.

"I've been texting you," I added.

"Oh, crap! Yeah…" she said while holding up her shattered phone for me to see just how unreachable she actually was.

"What the hell did you do?" I asked, feeling relieved and concerned at the same time.

"Apparently, leaving your phone on the roof of the car while backing up isn't such a good idea. When I braked to put the car into drive, it crashed onto my windshield and down to the ground. So stupid! I swear I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached to my body."

I immediately let go of all that tension I had been feeling since waking up that morning. "Yeah, that really sucks."

"Super sucks," she agreed. "Now I'm going to have to get one of those cheap crappy phones because I didn't buy the insurance and the new phones are way too expensive."

"You know what, I actually have a spare. I'll just bring it over here after work and you can get it hooked up to your account," I offered.

"You have a spare cellphone? Why?"

"When I got my last one, they were having one of those buy one get the second free promotions. I never turn down free shit, so I made them give it to me despite not needing it. It's just been sitting in my room, still in the box."

"Well, that's awesome, but you should keep it in case your phone suffers a catastrophic accident the way mine just did."

"In that case, I'll just go buy a new one," I said, not understanding her issue.

"Edward," she huffed. "I know I asked you for help with my event before, but I don't want you saving me all the time."

"It's a phone," I disagreed. "It's not like I'm offering to pay your mortgage."

"Even still. I don't take handouts," she said stubbornly.

"It's not a handout," I told her, getting slightly frustrated. "I'm not buying you a phone. I have an extra. An extra that was completely free to me. That's not a handout, that's just giving a friend something I don't need."

"But you may need it in the future," she argued.

"I have never broken or misplaced a phone before," I retorted. "Besides, I'm almost due for an upgrade anyway. That model is obsolete. I kind of feel bad for giving it to you. Plus, unlike you, I actually bought the insurance, therefore I would never need or want that spare phone. It'll eventually just be tossed-out, never used and still in the box. If you don't take it, it's just a complete waste."

She was out of reasons not to accept the phone, and we both knew it.

"Edward, I just don't want to start things like this."

"Things like what?" I questioned, still not understanding her issue.

"We're friends, right?" she asked, trying to explain.

"Yeah, and like I said, friends help each other like this," I pointed out.

"Yes, but you also bring me lunch every day, and we spend all our free time together, then we had sex, and now you want to give me a cell phone. It's… it doesn't exactly feel like we are just friends."

"You're the one who said you wanted to have sex," I said slowly, driving myself crazy with wonder if it actually went down the way I was remembering it.

"I did," she confirmed. "And I don't regret it. It felt really good, it's just… I don't want to hurt you."

"I'm not scared of Rosalie," I reminded her. The topic of Rosalie's threats had only come up briefly a couple times before, but they were still like a dark ominous cloud in the distance. At some point, it was going to rain, and when it did, it was going to storm something fierce. It wasn't a matter of if the mega-bitch would strike, it was when, and how I would handle her when she tried to fry me.

"I'm not just talking about Rosalie," Bella clarified. "Alice is actually the one who has caused the most issues when it came to past romantic relationships. She doesn't want to be tied down. She gets bored easily. She doesn't believe in monogamy."

"Yeah, you already explained all that, and I get it. We're friends. I honestly don't see what the problem is. Besides, none of your alters have been out in a while, right? Maybe they'll stay gone for the rest of summer."

"Maybe," she said, making no attempt to sound convinced. "Just promise me you're not going to fall in love with me," she added, no louder than a whisper.

I laughed once. Perhaps it was out of surprise from her words, or perhaps it was for a whole other reason that I wasn't prepared to even remotely comprehend.

"Trust me, I'm not looking to fall in love with anyone anytime soon," I tried assuring her – hell, maybe I was trying to assure myself too. "Med-school is stressful enough without having to worry about someone else's feelings all the time."

"Just promise me, Edward!" she demanded.

"Yeah, alright. I promise," I said, attempting to keep my tone casual.

She sighed. "Okay, I will take you up on your spare phone offer…but I'm going to pay you for it."

"I'm not going to let you pay me for something I got for free," I argued.

"I'm at least giving you what I was going to pay for the crappy one. That's the only way I'll take it," she insisted.

"You're so stubborn," I mumbled, but was far too amused by the endearingly irritating trait.

"I'm sorry, I just can't accept handouts, even from a friend."

I wanted to argue, yet again, that it wasn't a handout, but I decided to let it go. We had wasted far too much of our quality lunch time already.

It didn't take long for us to fall back into our normal routine of joking our way through eating, and by the time we met up for dinner after work, I almost forgot anything had changed between us at all… almost.

After a mediocre meal at the local diner, our friendly-non-romantic evening suddenly morphed into more when we started making-out in my car. I couldn't recall who actually initiated it, but it wasn't long until we were parking in front of my parents' place and rushing up to my apartment room again.

It was just casual sex. Casual sex between friends that refused to let it get any deeper than that. At least, if we kept telling ourselves that we could pretend to believe it.

…

The next week continued on that way. Just friends during the day, and friendly sex at night. Of course, the longer it went on for, the less we kept our friendly romance limited to our nightly rendezvous. It began with a sweet kiss goodbye after lunch, that stretched out into a full make-out session that almost made me late for work. Hand holding through dinner, and even a little necking in the car.

We tried to keep our more than friendly affections between us, but of course people noticed, and the more people that noticed, the more Bella seemed to worry.

Something was happening between us; changing. It was subtle at first, but without even realizing it, deep emotions had invaded our friendship and it altered my entire way of thinking. Perhaps I could commute to school when it started up in a couple weeks. Perhaps I could transfer to somewhere closer. Perhaps medical school could wait and I could really just stay and help Bella with her store. Perhaps….

I wanted to discuss my thoughts and feelings with her – even if only to just help me sort them out in my own mind – but every time I tried, something always seemed to get in the way. A customer coming into the store, an urgent call she had to make, somewhere important she had to be. I wasn't sure if it was all just shitty timing, or if she was purposely avoiding the conversation we both knew we needed to have.

She avoided the talk, and I let her because I was a coward.

Even still, we continued on the way we had been, until one morning I woke up alone. Waking up alone wasn't the strange part, I had gotten use to that over the course of our non-relationship, but when I saw her car still in my driveway, I became wary.

She wasn't in my apartment, so where the hell was she?

Her car didn't look like it had moved since the evening before when she arrived, so I was left with my head spinning. It was like she just disappeared.

I ran back up to my apartment to double check that she wasn't hiding in my bathroom or closet – why I thought she would hide? I had no idea. Sure enough, the place was empty, and my concern grew tenfold. I checked my phone, but there were no messages and no indication that she was picked up by anyone or called an Uber.

There had to be a logical explanation for her whereabouts, but the more I considered the possibilities, the more worried I became.

Something made me look towards the main house, and there on the porch steps I spotted a small shiny object reflecting the sun like a beacon.

"What the hell?" I mumbled to myself. I walked closer to get a better look, and was shocked to see Bella's keys lying there conspicuously, almost as if they were intentionally placed there to be discovered.

It was a Saturday, so I knew my mom would be home, but who the hell knew my dad's schedule, so I didn't even bother to worry about him.

"Mom?" I called out as I hesitantly walked through the door.

For a brief moment I feared the worst. What if, after all this time, Rosalie had emerged and took her sinister revenge out on my mother?

"Mom?" I called again.

The house was always a bit cold and drafty, but oddly enough it was warm that morning, which only confused me that much more.

And then I heard the voices.

Instead of following the sound to the kitchen like I probably should have, I stopped and listened. It was more than voices, it was… giggling.

When I finally managed to get my stunned legs moving again, I walked the rest of the way to the kitchen and was absolutely flummoxed.

"Well, good-morning, son," my flour-clad mother greeted me.

Next to her stood an even messier Bella, but as I quickly realized, Bella was already long gone.

She smiled and waved at me, and there was a distinctive look in her eye. It was shy and scared, but also full of wonder and playfulness. There wasn't a doubt in my mind – Bree had come out for a visit…