Chapter 16 – Climbing

What the fuck was I doing?

How the fuck did I find myself, sitting alone in my room, like an idiot, as my girlfriend fucked someone else in the next room over?

It was seriously one of the lowest feelings I could ever remember having.

I tried convincing myself that it wasn't Bella. That my love was locked in the depths of her mind and had no idea what the hell was being done to her body. Just the thought of her helpless like that was excruciating, but at the same time, so was thinking about sharing her physically with other people.

I was fully aware that Bella and her body were not my possessions, and I understood that monogamy wasn't what it used to be, so I was trying like hell to excuse it in my own mind. In this modern day and age, there were more and more people who were polyamorous, and people in throuples, and open relationships; sex was just sex. It had never meant much to me before, so why should it start now? At least she wasn't with another man. What was the big deal anyway?

However, as my brain incessantly replayed the image of Bella's lips on someone else's in that way, all the things I tried to convince myself of – all the things I thought I believed before – turned out to be big fat lies. Lies, that I told myself because I knew believing those lies was the only way to make a relationship with Bella work. Lies, that were ruining everything because it wasn't fucking working, and it was absolutely killing me inside.

The last thing I wanted to do was let Bella down. I truly loved her, and I was so intent on proving her wrong when she said she was incapable of being in a lasting relationship. Thinking about the despair in her eyes, even now, made me want to keep fighting. But who was I kidding, really? How long could we go on for when Rosalie was hell bent on destroying us? It was an uphill battle, and I wasn't sure if I was strong enough for the infinite climb.

There was so much I needed to consider for my future, for our future, but I certainly couldn't do it in that apartment knowing what was happening just on the other side of that wall.

I decided that I needed to go somewhere; anywhere that wasn't there. So I grabbed my laptop, intending to go smash out as much of my online psych course as I could possibly do that evening. We had yet to get to the subject of DID as a class, but that didn't mean the information wasn't there. I even considered emailing my professor to ask her personally about her knowledge of DID.

At that hour, not many places were open for me to retreat to, but I didn't care. I'd sit in my car with my laptop for the rest of the night if I had to.

I pulled on my shoes and headed out of my room to leave, but then I abruptly stopped dead in my tracks. The scene in the living room was mindboggling, so I just stood there gawking while my brain tried to catch up to what my eyes were seeing.

"Well, shit. I thought you'd be asleep by now," Rosalie grumbled the moment she noticed me.

"What the hell are you doing?" I growled, having no idea how else to respond to her current position.

"What the fuck does it look like?" she snapped back.

"I don't know. I guess it looks like you're wearing my boxers and T-shirt while eating all my pork rinds," I said, still completely baffled as to what the hell was happening. "Are you watching Cops?"

"Hey, they show the uncensored episodes in the middle of the night," she said defensively. "And I didn't know these were your boxers; they were just the first thing I grabbed out of the dryer."

"Who's boxers did you think they were?" I questioned, lost somewhere in the cracks between frustration, bewilderment, and very slight amusement. "They're men's underwear. I'm the only man who lives here."

"Alice has been known to steal her one-night conquest's boxers from time to time," Rosalie replied nonchalantly. "Why are you up right now, anyway?"

"Why are you?" I retorted. "Shouldn't you be in your room with your date?"

She waved her hand dismissively in the direction of her bedroom. "Oh, she passed out the moment her head hit the bed. Unlike you, I'm not into fucking unconscious women."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" I spat.

She shrugged. "You fuck Alice while your supposed love, Bella, is mentally unconscious. Same difference."

"No, it's not the same at all!" I disagreed.

Still somewhat in shock from seeing Rosalie in that manner, I absently plopped down next to her on the couch and grabbed a couple pork rinds.

We sat next to each other in near silence for a while; the low hum of TV was completely drowned out by the crunching between our teeth. When I swallowed my mouth-full, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Rose, this has to stop," I told her, in a final, last-ditch effort to come up with an agreement that we could both live with. "You can't bring dates here. It's just… really… really fucked up."

"Why? You know me and Alice see other people. What the fuck do you care if it's here or somewhere else? This is where we live. We shouldn't have to go anywhere else."

"Yeah, well this is where I live too, and you are in my girlfriend's body, so it's fucked up, and we both know it is. You're just doing this shit to get a rise out of me."

She shrugged. "So? It's working obviously."

I squeezed my eyes shut and mentally counted backwards to keep myself from lashing out at her. When I was calm enough to speak rationally again, I reopened my eyes and looked at her.

"Rosalie, please. I'm asking you… no, I'm begging you, for just a little shred of respect."

"Respect you? Pfft!"

"Respect Bella," I corrected her. "The very reason you exist is to protect her, right? This is not protecting her, and it's certainly not respecting her. Bella loves me. She would be horrified with what you just did."

"So, you're saying I don't deserve a life?" she asked bitterly.

"No, that's not what I'm saying. It fucking kills me to think about it, but I would never ask you to refrain from doing what you want… away from here. I promised Bella I would be okay with it, so I have to be, but that doesn't mean I can sit here and watch you do it. So, I'm asking you to please don't bring people here. I know you don't believe me, but I really do love Bella, and it hurts like hell to witness you using her body like that."

"How do you think I feel having to wake up next to you, or still feel you and smell you on my skin? That shit lingers. I can't shower fast enough; not that a shower can help cleanse my insides. The very thought of your cum in me makes me want to vomit."

I gritted my teeth. "Well, that's something you don't have to be concerned with since I've always used a condom."

"Even still. Knowing you stick your dick in me when I'm not looking is repulsive. Everything about you nauseates me. I can't even stand the way you breathe."

"Do you want me to breathe out of my mouth? Take more shallow breaths?" I offered condescendingly.

"I just want you to stop breathing altogether," she retorted.

"So, apart from dying, there is nothing I can do to get you to back down?" I assumed. "You know, I really thought when you agreed to stop attacking me with your threats of falsified criminal charges, that we would be able to coexist, but that was just you buying yourself time until you could figure out more ways to hurt me."

"My dating life has nothing to do with you," she denied. "This is where I'm living. This is where I'm going to bring my dates. Simple as that."

"Give me a break. We both know you stuck your tongue down that chick's throat while looking at me just to fuck with me. Why do you have to do that? Why do you have to be such a bitch? We agreed not to attack each other anymore. What changed?"

"Uh, excuse me, I'm fairly certain your bathroom habits are a direct attack against me. I doubt you pull that shit with Bella."

I rolled my eyes. "Stop with that crap about how I disgust you. It's all just bullshit excuses! Harmless pranks and banter, and mutual irritation is nowhere near the same thing as what you pulled tonight. I promised not to go after Emma, and you promised to stop attempting to force me out of Bella's life. So, what changed?" I demanded again, refusing to let her dismiss the question.

"Look, we made that agreement before…"

"Before what?" I pressed when she let her words trail off.

"Before this place, and…"

"You moved in here all on your own," I argued defensively. "Nobody even invited you. If you didn't want to be around me, you could have stayed away."

"And pass up on living in an apartment like this when I have just as much of a right to be here as Bella? I'm not going back to that shithole I had before."

"Fine. I will talk to Bella about letting you have enough money for a better place of your own."

"She would never go for it," she said while crossing her arms in front of her.

"I'll convince her."

"Just like that?" she said doubtfully.

"Yep. Just like that. This is my and Bella's home; neither of us should have to worry about who you bring here, and what you're doing with them when you do."

"And my feelings don't matter? So, I invade your home; you invade my body. I think I have it far worse," she reiterated, making me feel like we were just going in circles and getting absolutely nowhere.

"It's Bella's body, actually," I mumbled, even though that argument was fairly redundant at that point. We were never going to see eye to eye, and the conversation was just frustrating me. "Look, like I said, I can't control what you do when you're not here, so go and get your own place again. But until then, if you want to stay in this apartment, you can't bring hookups here. It's that simple."

"Oh, so what you say goes, huh?"

"Yes, since my name is on the rental contract, and yours isn't."

"Bella's is. And I have a license that says I'm her," she challenged me. "Besides, I like this apartment. It's one of the nicest in town. Why should I move?"

"Oh, for fucks sake!" I huffed, realizing there was nothing else I could say. "Fine. You win. You can have this apartment all to yourself. How about that? I'll leave."

"What? You will?" she asked, clearly not expecting me to say that.

"Yeah, I'm done. You will never accept me, and you clearly don't want to leave, so I'll be the one to go."

I got off the couch and headed to my room to pack some of my shit. I would have thought Rosalie would have been celebrating, but instead she quietly followed me and was watching me from my doorway looking quite conflicted.

"What?" I spat.

"When you say you're leaving, do you mean like, you're just leaving when I'm here but coming back when Bella is in control, or are you leaving permanently? And like, are you just leaving the apartment, or Bella altogether?"

I locked my jaw and decided not to respond.

"I kind of need to know," she pressed. "Because I can't exactly afford the rent without you," she mumbled regretfully. "I mean, even if you convince Bella to give me money every month, I don't think she could even afford this place on her own. We kind of need your income."

Without me consciously deciding to do so, I slowly turned my head towards her and just glared. I could feel the heat coming out of my eyes as the anger rolled off of me in burning waves.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" I seethed. She was pushing me away as hard as she could, and when I finally gave her what she wanted, she backtracked and claimed she wanted me to stay…or, at least, she wanted my salary to stay.

"I... I don't know!" she shouted, seemingly even more exasperated and confused than I was. "I really fucking hate you – more than I've ever hated anyone else before."

"Why?" I asked, feeling like it was taking all my self-control not to explode on her. "You've had a hard life, Rosalie, I know you have, so why, with all the shitty, despicable, and diabolical human beings you've crossed paths with, why do you hate me more than anyone else? Because I didn't clean the bathroom good enough? I don't fucking buy it!"

She shook her head. "You're a man. I expect nothing less than disgusting hygiene."

"So, this is simply because I'm a man and you hate all men? I'm sorry for your past and the people who hurt you but being a man doesn't automatically make me evil. You might hate men, but it's not fair to the rest of them who don't."

"It's because of the rest of them that I'm trying to get rid of you now," she said unexpectedly.

"Why?" I repeated. "I've never hurt them, and I would never."

"You don't know that," she retorted. "You might think that now, but when push comes to shove…"

"We are still talking about the possibility of a break-up? So, to prevent me from possibly hurting Bella someday, you want to hurt her by pushing me away now?" I asked, frustrated that we were stuck on that same incessant issue. "How does that make sense?"

"Because it's not just about Bella anymore," she said, finally admitting something that I didn't quite grasp just yet. Thankfully, she was ready to explain. "Being with you was Bella's decision, and I chose to let her make it and see how it played out, but then you got all the others involved, and now it's snowballing out of control."

"What are you talking about?"

"Alice is falling in love with you too," she said, taking me aback. "You're all she talks about anymore. She keeps trying to push past me to get out here just to spend more time with you. I don't understand what the fuck you're doing to them! Not only do I have to worry about Bella's fragile heart, but now Alice's too. Hell, even Bree was excited about the time she spent with you and keeps asking me when she can play with you again. And Tanya! Fucking Tanya hasn't even been out in a while, but she has some pathetic crush on you, just based on what she has seen in the theater of you with the others. It's like a stupid infatuation on a movie star, or something. I just don't get any of it. There is nothing special about you at all. Nothing!"

We both became momentarily lost in our thoughts as we let her admission sink in. She was losing her control over the others, and that was what it all came down to.

"Rosalie, I'm not trying to screw everything up for you," I told her as gently as possible, given the irritation I had. "I'm sorry you are feeling this way, but I'm not going to stop being nice to them. Bella asked me to try to… win them over, or whatever, but I had no way of knowing how to do that. I just… I've only ever just tried to be their friend."

"So, what now?" she asked after another heavy minute. "Are you going to break Alice's heart and tell her you're only in love with Bella?"

"No," I said, not needing even a moment to consider it. "Alice, and Tanya, and Bree, and even you, Rose, you're all part of Bella. I'm not loving Bella less when I'm with any of you. Even when I'm with Alice, I'm with Bella. I can love Alice too, because I love Bella."

"Well, none of us see it that way. Alice is going to be hurt if you don't love her for her."

"Then I'll make sure she feels like I love her for her," I said, thinking it was far less complicated than Rose was assuming.

"But you'll still only love her as part of Bella?" she asked to clarify.

"I don't know why you need to make it so black and white," I told her. "It's impossible to describe us when there has never been an us like us before. It is what it is. We are what we are. Or, I should say, we are what we are as long as you stop making it impossible."

"I guess I just don't understand why you are here. I mean, you love Bella, but with everything and everyone Bella is, it just doesn't make sense to me that anyone would be willing to put up with it all. I'm sorry, it just makes me suspicious and uneasy."

"Well, how I can I help you trust that I only have honest intentions?"

"I don't know, I guess you can't – just as I can't promise that I'm not going to keep making it hard for you."

"I never thought it would be easy, but you sure as hell don't have to make it impossible. You don't have to purposely shove your dates in my face like that. That shit was wrong, and you know it."

She sighed. "Eh, I suppose you're right. Fine. No more bringing chicks home."

"Thank you!" I said full of relief.

She turned to go back to the living room, and because I wasn't going anywhere at the moment, I followed her. We both sat on the crumb-filled couch and started eating more pork-rinds.

"You know, this Keto shit is easy as hell," she said casually as she brushed more crumbs off of her lap onto the floor.

"Why are you doing Keto?" I asked her perplexed. "You have like, zero body fat."

"I have a gut," she disagreed while pinching the slightly loose skin on her abdomen that consisted mostly of the fabric of her shirt. "Besides, it's not just about fat; it's about the overall ketosis state of your body."

I shook my head incredulously. "Well, you certainly can't do it by yourself when the others eat like crap."

"Alice is doing Keto with me, and Bella is always health conscious," she argued.

"Health conscious is not the same thing as Keto," I pointed out. "Bella loves bread and she eats a ton of fruit, which isn't allowed on that diet. And when Bree was here, she ate more junk food than you probably care to know."

"Whatever. We can only do our best," she said while grabbing another handful of the fried pig skins and shoving them in her mouth.

I couldn't help but watch her eat with a sense of wonderment. Never before had a woman, unrelated to me by blood, ever eaten so unflatteringly in my presence. She had no self-awareness, no bashfulness, no sense of trying to impress me in any way, not that I would ever expect her to. It was just odd, and perhaps slightly refreshing.

Suddenly we heard snoring coming from her bedroom, which reminded me that we had another issue.

"You need to see that she gets home safely, and make sure she is gone before Bella comes back," I insisted.

"Why? Because you're worried Bella will think she is your hookup?" she joked. When I just glared at her, she sighed with a nod. "Okay, okay, I'll make sure I stay in control until she is gone."

"Hey, what happened to Emma?" I asked curiously, knowing damn well that the blonde drunken Barbie in the bedroom was not the fierce brunette from her picture.

Rosalie shot her hand up between us. "Don't go there."

"Just please tell me you're not cheating on her, because that's not cool, even if you were just using that chick to get to me."

"I'm not cheating!" she snapped at me, but she immediately calmed herself. "We broke up, ok? And that's all I'm going to say about it."

"Ok. Fair enough," I relented.

I knew our problems were far from over, but for the time being, Rosalie and I were in another uncomfortable truce. I still wasn't sure how we got back there, but as long as we kept figuring out how to deal with each other, I knew Bella and I had a chance. We just had to keep taking it one day at a time and keep pushing forward. However, the drama of that evening didn't dissipate without leaving its mark on me. I was more determined than ever before to figure out how to make Bella's life a little more tolerable for the both of us.

After reminding Rose to get rid of the girl by morning, and then excusing myself to my room for the night, I pulled up my online psych professor's email and sent her a message. I needed help, and I wasn't sure where else to turn…