Ch. 5 Slow Going
I stared back into Alice's eyes. She could have been a ghost for how I was reacting, but I couldn't believe it. Alice Cullen was standing right in front of me, my former best friend, the one girl who I thought loved me and would have fought for me no matter what, but she didn't. She abandoned me just like the rest of them. She didn't love me anymore than he did... which was not at all. The realization hit me like a freight train, and the sharp intake of my gasp was nearly painful.
"Excuse me? 'How've ya been?!'" I was fuming, angry tremors rocking through me. "I've been fantastic. Better than great, really. Now get the hell out of my apartment."
"Wait! Bella, I'm sorry. I...I didn't know what to say after all this time. I shouldn't have said that..." her voice went up a few octaves if that were even possible. She had venom lining the rims of her eyes. "I just—"
I closed my eyes and sighed. I never could resist her before, but I had to be strong. I had to protect myself, so I cut her off. "No, Alice. It's been a long time with no word from any of you, and now you both just appear out of nowhere? Just...things are different now. I'm different now."
"So I see." She eyed me speculatively.
That was it, the judgement in her face. Even after all I had done, I still wasn't good enough for the perfect Cullens. "Are you kidding me? You disappeared for three and half years. You left me, remember? You don't get to look at me like that, and act like you know anything about me! Leave. Now." I was trying my hardest to keep my breaths as smooth and regular as I could so that she wouldn't know the way her presence affected me, but I could feel my resolve crumbling when her golden eyes flicked up to meet mine.
"Bella—"
"Go." I pointed to the door. Seeing Edward earlier and now Alice and hearing the hurtful way they were each able to distance themselves emotionally from anything we had been through together all those years ago sparked in my mind the world's greatest epiphany and shook me to my core. I would never be anything to them. I really was just a human distraction, a blip on their eternal radar. The realization ripped my little bit of composure to shreds, but I couldn't let her see what was internally happening to me. I had come too far after all this time to fall victim to these supernatural games.
Alice looked into my eyes earnestly for about half a minute. I don't know if she was searching for something in my expression or if she was searching my future, but whatever she found, she finally decided to leave me...again. "I'll be around if you change your mind and want to talk. I'll leave my number on the kitchen counter for you. Sorry for everything, Bella...really." She sounded truly upset, but I knew from experience that these vampires were the best actors I would ever meet. I stood silently and turned my head away so I didn't have to look into her face of false innocence.
After a few moments of silence, I assumed that she had left, and I allowed myself to glance the way she left. She was gone, and the feeling of the room was strangely desolate as if she had never been there at all, a void, a reminder that I was alone. My lower lip began to tremble as I no longer fought to maintain any form of dignity, and a single tear dropped from my eye. I clutched at my chest as I remembered the indifference in Edward's voice from before. 'Forget her. Forget him.' I thought as I swiped the traitorous tears from my cheeks. No more tears for those selfish, shallow vampires!
My phone, which never seemed to stay quiet for long, started ringing, and real life suddenly caught back up to me.
"Hello?" My tone had just a little bit too much bite to it.
"Toni, baby. Where ya been? Look, I needed to talk to you about that last chapter you wrote. You can't kill off the main character that way. The readers want a happy ending. Just keep 'em happy, and give 'em what they want. We've been over this." Stan, my agent, was a good guy. He'd been with me from the beginning, but he was in this for the money, the success. I just wanted to be done. I was already a billionaire. I could disappear into the shadows of anonymity, and go on to live a happy, human life, just like a certain vampire always wanted for me. Jerk.
"Keep them happy? Them?! What about me? What about what I want? Don't I get a say in anything? What if the readers don't really know what they want until they actually see it in writing? What if they liked my ending? MINE, the one that I want! We won't really know until we try it out, right? Maybe we've been feeding ourselves the lie about a happy ending for so long that we've gotten off track of what could have been a great thing?! Huh? What about that?" I sounded like a raving lunatic, but I was tired of being steamrolled by everyone around me.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about? The editors just needed a little rewrite on that last chapter..." He was clearly taken aback by my uncharacteristic show of aggression. I was usually pretty laid back about things.
I sighed, feeling guilty for my outburst. If I was being honest with myself, I wasn't really upset about the book. I wanted a happily ever after for the characters too, but that wouldn't stay true to the real story, now would it? But it wasn't my agent's fault that a certain family of vampires were trying to ruin my life. "Sorry, Stan. You're right...I'm just...I'm a little stressed about the release coming up. You really think it will go well?"
The relief in Stan's voice at my shift back to my much more amiable and familiar demeanor was nearly palpable. "It's gonna be great! Look, come over to my place around seven, and we'll talk about it. I gotta go. There's a guy I gotta see about a new client. See ya soon."
"Yeah...ok...see you later." I hung up, and stared at my phone. Within a matter of hours, I had gone from being totally in control and sure of how things were going in my life, to totally neurotic. Ugh. The Cullens.
I looked to the clock on the wall. It was just four now. I still had time to shower and swing by the editorial office at school and drop off the final edit for this week's article to Eric. He asked me to do a filler piece for the paper, so I wrote a self-improvement article, of course. Write what you know, and you can't fail. That's my motto.
When I arrived at the school, I caught Eric just as he was leaving the office.
"Hey, Be—Marie. Sorry. It's so weird that you changed your name. Are you sure you're not a spy?" He laughed.
"Nope, just wanted a change. I think Marie suits me better anyway." I shrugged. Marie was strong and sure of her place. Puny Bella was meek and gullible. Good riddance.
"Whatever you say, babe." He kissed me on my cheek. Things were moving kind of slow between us. It had been nearly a month ago that we went on our coffee date, and there had only been one other date—a lunch—since. Everyone knows that lunch is not a real date. He was very difficult to read, though. He seemed interested, but he just wouldn't make the move. Oh well, maybe he was waiting on me. Well, Game on.
"Here, I brought the article you asked for. It's a self-help type called 'Five Fun and Fast Ways to the New You.' You wanted fluff, right?"
"Umm sure...Sounds great...so, did you hear the news?" He brushed off my description so easily that I couldn't help but frown, but he was grinning widely, almost bursting at the seams with whatever information he wanted to share.
I narrowed my eyes thinking of what his 'news' could be. I usually tried to stay as in-touch with the outside world as I could, but I was really busy now working on multiple things—work, school, work... Eric could be referencing anything from international current events to a sports match on campus. "Remind me and I'll tell you."
"They're bumping up the release date on 'Date with Destiny.' You know, the new Toni Byrd book? They made the announcement about it online like an hour ago. Isn't that great?"
"What?!" I nearly choked on my own saliva when I heard the title of my next book leave Eric's mouth, and then when I replayed back in my mind what he actually said, I really wanted to vomit. No one had even mentioned anything about a change in the date of release to me, the author.
"Yeah, so exciting! But anyway, I suggested to the team that in order to increase our readership and maintain reader loyalty we could post a series of articles on the author of the series to reel them in. You know an exposé on him, a 'who done it' type. Each week we will update our readers about what we have found. It's going to be so cool, a real-life mystery!"
"What? No one knows who the author is. That's half the fun of the series." Eric had no idea that he was looking right at her.
"You're right, except you're also wrong. One of my buddies at U-dub said he had a lead on who it might be. He didn't want to get involved in my exposé though, something about contractural clause...Apparently the author used a publishing house out of Seattle originally, and when they moved buildings they left some of their documents behind. He was doing some renovations to the building when he worked in construction last month, and he found some interesting stuff..." Eric wagged his brows at me conspiratorially. "How amazing would that be if we figured it out?! Our editorial could be featured on the national line-up! We could work anywhere we wanted after graduation! So how about it? You want to go in with me 50/50?"
Now I really wanted to vomit. I didn't want this. My identity was supposed to stay in the dark. The plot line of the story hit way too close to home for comfort. While the public might not be able to decipher the meaning or sift through the metaphors, a certain...species...of people would, and this could only end badly. "I don't really think that's a good idea, Eric. The author obviously wants to stay hidden. I mean, shouldn't we respect that?"
"Hey, calm down..." He reached across to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear, and I had a flashback of Edward doing the same so many times all those years ago and I jerked backward.
"I don't feel very good. Look, I have a meeting at...errr...work. I'll just call you later if I'm feeling any better. Just...please don't do anything yet. We don't even know the legal implications of printing something like that. There's a reason your friend didn't want to get involved." I silently pleaded with my eyes. If there was ever a time that I wished I was more seductive, this was it.
"You're really worried about this, huh?" He cocked his head to the side as he looked back at me with concern.
"Yes, I just don't want you to get into trouble. You're such a brilliant journalist, and while this might seem like a good idea now, it could really mess things up for you if it's not legal. Just be careful."
"Yeah...ok." He furrowed his brow and looked down awkwardly to his black converse which he used to kick away a loose pebble on the pavement. "Please, call me later for real if you're feeling better. There's a party here on campus that I wanted to invite you to. It will be a lot of fun." The spark of mischief was back in his eye when he returned his gaze back to me.
"I don't know..." Large parties had never really been my "thing." Hoards of drunk twenty-something's hanging all over one another and shockingly loud music didn't sound like my idea of fun.
"Aww come on! You never want to go out and do things like a normal college student. Lighten up, Swa—Higginbotham...so weird." He laughed again at my name change.
Seeing the look of hope in Eric's eyes as he begged me to go made me rethink my decision. "Ok, I'll think about it if it's that important to you."
"Really? Yes!" I had to crack a smile at his excitement. He was like an eager puppy, always wanting attention but also so easy to please.
Like, Follow, and Review please and thank you! :)