Stupid Little Game

by Powered by 23 Kicks

In high school, Edward ruled and Bella suffered the consequences. Years later, they meet again as different people. Still hurt and pretending she's not, Bella is confused by the pull she feels for the man she once knew as a bully, and begins a game of angry indifference to keep him at arm's length. But does she want to win or lose?

14. Chapter 14

Let's finally do this.

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Thanks to:
Di, my editor,

Paige, and Aileen, my prereaders.

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Stupid Little Game
Chapter 14

Edward's question—your place or mine—shocked me at first, but it wasn't as though we could simply go to a mom-and-pop restaurant and sit down for a public tête-à-tête over coffee. I had some ugly things to say, and I had a feeling he did, too.

"I don't feel like I'm winning, by the way, but I'm relieved you're coming to me," Edward mentioned. "I was giving you space, waiting until you were ready to talk."

"Oh, did the winning remark rankle? Well, it worked like a fucking charm," I replied, backing away from him to eye the top of the Downtown Moxy building. It was a hotel . . .

Edward's astonished voice: "You want to—"

"No," I yelped. "I wasn't exactly prepared for what would happen after I found you."

"We're just going to have a badly needed talk, Bella."

The look in his eyes was close to one of amusement, as if I'd hinted at something more.

"Oh, please. That's the last thing I have on my mind," I snapped and strode away.

If he followed, we'd go to my place. It was within walking distance, and I needed the air. If he didn't follow, I still needed the air.

As I crossed the street onto North La Salle, I heard his footsteps. In no time, he was easily neck-and-neck with me, his face aimed toward mine. It made me . . . crazy nervous, because reality was starting to kick in. I forced myself to take deep breaths as little sparks of fear and adrenaline worked their way all up and down my body.

"We're going to your place?" Edward wondered.

"Since you're giving me a choice, we're doing this on my turf."

"I don't care where we go, as long as we finally get to do it."

I scoffed at his choice of words, throwing him a fulsome glare. Wanting to shake him up, I guessed, because he seemed too at ease, and how could he be so at ease when I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin?

"You're over there thinking everything is going to go oh-so-smoothly."

"I'm hoping to clear things up," he said, unaffected by my attitude. "I want to help get rid of your anger, that's all."

"You're going to have to face it first."

We were coming up on Hubbard then, just two streets away from Wacker Drive, when he suddenly reached out to grab my arm. I stiffened and gasped, trying to jerk away.

Instead of releasing me as I thought he would, Edward's hold only tightened. In the same instant, a car horn blared, and I flinched back from the street, horrified that I'd been about to step in front of a moving vehicle.

"Shit!" I cried, raising a hand to my head as my eyes filled with tears.

Edward was quick to soothe me. "Now that I have you, I'm not about to let anything happen to you," he said, but I was embarrassed and yanked my arm free.

"Thank you, I'll be more careful," I said and sniffed, my heart still racing.

Damn it.

The next few minutes passed in silence as we moved farther down La Salle, and I was relieved to see that others were out walking, too; although they were young, happy, and carefree, not dark and tense like me.

"So what about Jacob?" Edward asked.

I was confused. "What about him?"

"You two looked pretty close back there."

I shook my head as we began our climb onto the Marshall Bridge over the Chicago River. "He was with Erik and Emmett, not me. He did say you two didn't get along, though. So, do you rub everyone you meet the wrong way?"

"Only if someone gets in the way of something I want," he replied shortly.

Because of the way he'd asked about Jacob and me, I wondered if . . . I was something he wanted? The idea was unfathomable. We might have been attracted to each other—oh, hell, who was I kidding? I was attracted to Edward—but we worked together. He was my boss.

Don't be stupid, I told myself.

We reached my building in record time, but the closer I came to the front door, the more my steps slowed. I was afraid. Afraid of myself and what I would say. Afraid of what he might say.

"Don't back down on me now," Edward said quietly, his patience grating on mine.

"I'm not," I snarled as I punched in the code for the entrance. "Just don't crowd me."

It was after eleven, and the building was quiet. The elevator was deathly so, and I closed my eyes with a long sigh of release, feeling his gaze like an irritant. In the seconds it took to go from the ground floor to the fifth, my body stiffened all over, and I began to pant.

"We're just going to talk," his voice came to me.

"Shut up," I replied. Panted. Then unsteadily stepped off the elevator and walked the short distance down the hall to my apartment door.

For fuck's sake, don't barf.

Tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, I poked my key into the lock and pushed open the door. And then I stopped, swaying silently over the welcome mat.

"Bella."

"I don't know if I can do this," I whispered as my throat tightened. My fight or flight response was kicking in big time. "I thought I could, but now that we're here, all I'm thinking about is shoving you back and closing the door on you."

And running for dear life, because I feel like I'm losing control of everything right now.

"This is how we do it," Edward said. "One word at a time. You're safe, I promise you."

I squeezed my eyes shut. "Save it. You're not my shrink, and I was never safe with you."

"No, not always," he agreed after a moment, before he tentatively pushed a palm against my shoulder and tried to guide me inside the door.

It had me springing inside like a jackrabbit, where I turned to face him with my hair standing on end. "How many times do I have to tell you not to touch me!"

A look of careful patience on his face, as if he was deliberately treading lightly with me, Edward closed the door behind him with a quiet snick. My foyer entrance with its tiny lit lamp on the table shrouded us both in mystery, and I hastily moved to the side to switch on the overhead lights.

And we were alone in my studio apartment. With its dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, one on the coffee table in front of the couch, yesterday's shoes at the foot. My bed was unmade, the coverlet spilling to the floor. My messy, complicated, obviously sleepless life on display, all in glaring Technicolor, if he cared to read between the lines.

I dropped my purse to my feet with a thud, staring at him stupidly. The shirt he wore was unbuttoned at the throat, and I could see the banded collar of a black T-shirt. Black on black . . . arms hanging comfortably at his sides. Beautiful and at ease. If he was even half as nervous as I was, it must have been hidden under all that je ne sais quois.

Edward and I took countless breaths together, during which time an anvil came to rest upon my shoulders as my heart sped up. Was it too late to say I'd made a mistake? Because this was quickly feeling like one. I was always too impulsive; I hadn't thought this through. Would he turn around and leave if I asked?

Then he spoke, his words urgent and needle-like, and I knew he was onto me; that he could sense my fear and doubt, and that I needed a push.

"How long are you going to ignore this conversation? Would you still be running blind from it if I hadn't forced your hand? Don't be a coward, Bella. I want you to tell me what you're feeling. Don't close up on me now."

Blind fury shot through my body; every ounce of pain he'd ever made me feel zeroed down into one breathless moment. I took a step, lacing the fingers of both hands together in a fist, then raised my arms and swung at his face. Because he was so tall, my knuckles only grazed the bottom of his chin, but it was a solid hit. Pain speared the back of my hand at impact, but there was no doubt about who was hurt worse; I heard his teeth snap together, heard his sound of pain before he staggered back, reaching for his face.

Shocked at myself and my thoughtless response, tears immediately filled my eyes as Edward braced himself against the back of the door. He was massaging his jaw, staring at me in disbelief, then in amazement.

"Wow," he said after a few long moments. "I guess I asked for that."

As the tears fell down my face, I made a sound—a half choked laugh, half wail. He took a step near me again, and I sprang back, cupping my right hand against my chest protectively.

"Let me see your hand," he said. "I need to make sure it's not broken."

"It's not," I gritted, backing away from him into the living room.

He followed me, his face filled with concern. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said, misinterpreting my move.

Then, I did laugh. Because that idea was empty. Because all he'd ever done was hurt me.

"Too. Fucking. Late for that!" I screamed, feeling something in my throat tear. It hurt. It scorched. Oh my God, my anger was a physical ache tearing me apart literally now. In front of the worst person ever.

"The first time we m-met, you tore my already broken heart out, shit on it, then rammed it down my th-throat! In front of your friends. It wasn't enough to put me in my p-place, oh no, you had to shit on me in front of others, who then p-picked up where you left off. And now you think you get to touch me? Just because I might have hurt myself? Please. I don't m-matter. My pain doesn't matter. Remember?"

Fuck, I'd devolved into stuttering. The words tore out of me in quick, uneven bursts of garbled sound as I fought to control my breathing, but it was no use. My body shook in anguish and a rush of adrenaline, and the words did, too, ugly and horrible. Giving my pain a voice out loud, in front of him, made me cry even harder. It was emasculating and terrifying, everything I had ever feared, and I couldn't stop it now. The memories and emotions I'd fought so hard to contain were being fed faster and faster through the chokehold of my mind and throat.

"I'd been s-so scared that day, too. A new school, a new home, and I was m-missing Mom so much, thinking I'd made a horrible mistake, even though I was trying to be a grown-up making grown-up decisions, letting her tr-travel with my stepdad without having to worry about me and my schooling. And my real d-dad and I weren't close then, and I felt so out of place. Good thing y-you were there to set me straight!"

I heard shuffling movement; through a kaleidoscope of shapes and color, I saw the dark body that was Edward advancing again.

"No!" I yelled as I backed away, tripping over one of my shoes, falling hard to the floor. "Do not come near me!"

"People might hear," he murmured, crouching a few feet away. "Someone might call the cops. Is that what you want?"

I just bowed my head over my hurt hand and cried, horribly embarrassed at the thought of my neighbors witnessing this mess—rendered almost helpless in the face of my own rage; ashamed I'd lost such control.

No, that was not what I wanted.

I wanted to be firm and calm and in control, and give him a slap-down he wouldn't ever forget, but instead, I was this. Me. Bawling, screaming, one hell of an ugly and spectacular mess.

A moment later, I felt him touch my shoulder, and I saw his hand in front of my face. He wanted to help me up.

Lost to the rage again, I spat on it as he'd once spat at me, shoving myself away from him.

It was difficult to stand without bracing myself, but somehow I made it. Hunching a shoulder, I rubbed at the tears on my face. As Edward wiped his hand along his pants leg, I stumbled to the kitchen behind the long counter that separated it from the living room. He stayed where he was, his body turning to follow my progress, and I couldn't help but sense he was trying to be a port in my furious storm. Dark and tall, a perfectly beautiful callus monster, unaffected by life's morass, untouched by the trauma that still painted my soul in ragged colors of red and black, black, black.

"Just look at you. God's g-gift," I choked. "Top of the class in high school, fancy car, expensive clothes, good grades. I bet it was the same in c-college. Everything's come so easily for Edward Cullen, hasn't it?"

"No, Bella," he said softly. "Not even close."

"Good. B-Because I'd hate it with every fiber of my b-being if you had it so perfect the day you humiliated me in the cafeteria in front of everyone. And wh-why? For the unforgivable crime of getting too close to you? Being th-thirty pounds overweight, and not your type? Because you had some sort of p-painful hidden history that made you act out in anger?" I gasped out as he made his way over to the other side of the kitchen counter, slow and careful, as one might approach a rabid dog. And it was very much how I felt at the moment.

Just thinking of what I had to say next, had me tensing up again, my eyes shutting against the sight of heartless, perfect him. Emotion was making my knees shake, and I gripped the edge of the sink with my aching hand as hard as I could. The pain helped center me, slowly brought me back.

"And th-then you attacked me in the cafeteria," I whispered, the words growing louder, stronger as I continued. "When I came to school that Monday, it was only d-days after we'd buried Mom. I kept th-thinking they were burying a stranger, because there was no way . . . there was no way my fun, vibrant m-mom could be killed so suddenly in something as stupid as a car crash." I shook my head, still as confounded today as I had been then. "She was my b-best friend. My cheerleader in all things. It was because of her that I was who I was, and you tr-tried to take that from me. Fuck you!"

If I had been able to kill with solely my eyes, he would have been burning to ash on my carpet.

No, he'd have been dead long before he'd ever graduated high school.

"Entitled brat of the sc-school, seeing only with your eyes, and nothing mattered but that. Nothing and no one seemed to matter to you but you," I said brokenly.

If only he'd have realized how much I'd already been hurting that day . . .

I didn't realize I'd dissolved into unspoken memories until I suddenly noticed Edward's gaze again. Distantly, I registered that he looked emotionally rocked, but there was a curious look of appeal on his face that gave me the courage to continue.

"Phil, my step-father, could b-barely look me in the eyes. He felt responsible, you see, since he'd been the one who'd talked her into traveling with the team. But he'd been on the bus . . . safe . . . on the bus," I said.

How ironic was it still that the man who'd had no one but my mother to love should be saved? Because he'd never really loved me. Because he'd often resented her attention to me. He'd tried to hide it, but I knew. I knew.

"And so I came to school!" I laughed bitterly, my breath going hard and staccato again. "Thinking that classes and b-books and other kids would help me forget all the rest of it. And you . . . in the lunchroom, I got too close and you tripped me somehow. I still remember how far all the food on my tray f-flew across the room. I can still see all those peas bouncing across the floor, see the way the meatloaf left a skid of brown behind it. But then I'm sc-screaming in pain because something's wr-wrong with my elbow and people are l-laughing. I feel like I'm dying from the inside out, and people are laughing. And I'm screaming inside, too, sc-screaming with all this pain coming from everywhere, and there's a lunch lady who's trying to get me to j-just stand up."

I sobbed, seeing it garishly clear in my mind. Sprawled and hurt and alone on the floor, wanting to die, to disappear, to have never even been born, and all the while the lunch lady just wanted me to stand up, young lady. As if I'd taken a swan dive across the floor on purpose.

"As l-long as I live, I'll never understand how someone else's pain is funny," I choked out. "And I don't want to. It's unimaginable."

"It's never funny," Edward murmured. "Not even a little bit."

He'd taken a few steps around the counter toward me, his hands raised in supplication. I saw and heard him as part of the scenery around me, but he couldn't hurt me anymore. Hadn't he already done his worst years ago?

"At home, Dad wanted to know what had happened."

I bent my head over the sink ledge, feeling my face's painful rictus of a smile.

"But I c-couldn't tell him the truth, because I never told him about you or any of the others. I wanted him to think of me as an adult. I didn't w-want him worrying about me or trying to pull some stupid stunt with the school b-board that would humiliate me even more. I was sc-screaming on the inside, though; just screaming with everything I promised myself I'd never say. Hiding my pain had become second nature then," I whispered. God, my throat hurts. "First, because it had been a promise I'd made to myself, and then because I'd wanted to protect my dad."

Nobody ever told me that hiding pain and anger practically ate you from the inside out. That it could steal your reasoning. Or maybe the shrink had, and I'd glossed over it? Still mired under all the heaviness? Clinging so hard to what I'd known?

A soft sound had me raising my gaze to Edward's face, and I could feel how heavy my eyelids were. I was . . . tired. So exhausted. And kind of empty. The air was heavy, and I was seeing things. For a second, it looked like he was going to his knees.

Oh. He was going to his knees. Right there on the kitchen floor beside me, and I staggered back in surprise, bursting into fresh tears.

His arresting face was upturned to mine, looking as if an inferno was burning him from within, his beautiful eyes sorrowful, contrite, sorry. Everything I'd needed to see, had wanted to see so many years ago, he was giving me in spades now, and it was breaking me apart all over again. And I shook my head at him because I didn't know how I could take his pain on top of all the rest of mine.

"No," I sobbed. "Don't."

He reached a hand out for one of mine, a tentative move that I could tell he thought I'd reject.

"I said don't," I wailed. "You can't."

He spoke, and the words were broken. "I'm sorry."

"You can't do this, don't do this!"

"I'm sorry."

My knees giving out, I fell to the floor in front of him. Scrambling back, I pushed his hand away. Don't touch me. Shoved him. Used my good hand to hit at his chest, but he didn't move, didn't move.

"I'm sorry."

"Shut up!"

His eyes, his beautiful anguished eyes, were tearing my heart out again.

"I'm sorry."

I was shattering.

"Goddamn you! I hate you! I hate you!"

And I could feel the words, they were bubbling out unbidden, hurting me, horrible and awful and shaking on the way out. The same repeated words I'd so often thought and tried to deny—angry and black and stinking of rage, I screamed it all at him and he never gave an inch. Never backed down. Never shied away, no matter how ugly I became, no matter how I tried to slap and push him back.

It was terrifying, and I was falling head first off the edge of a cliff into all of that pain, sure I was going to die.

And so . . . and so . . . and so I gave in.

I gave in for minutes or an hour or days.

And I cried . . .

And I cried . . .

And I cried . . .

And it was minutes or an hour or days before I came back to myself . . . in Edward's arms. In his lap. On the floor in front of my kitchen sink. Warm against his chest, his shirt wet with my tears and snot, his fingers cupping the back of my head against him, his arms strong and real and around every quivering inch of me. Holding me, healing me, helping glue the little pieces of me back together again.

Him. Of all people. The one I'd truly needed.

The awful shaking that had been such a part of my fear and rage gradually began to lessen, my breathing evened out, and I collapsed gratefully against his warmth, finally glad he was there and close.

"I'm sorry," he crooned again, his voice low and like honey. Soothing, making me sigh from my head to my toes, while his fingers combed through the hair at the nape of my neck.

He swayed us gently back and forth, and it was comforting. I didn't want to move. But then, I became aware of my hand against his shoulder. Of my uncomfortably wet face. That I had to blow my nose. I cleared my throat and tried to straighten, and he resisted me, his hands pressing tight where a moment ago they'd been lax.

"No," he murmured against my temple. "Let me hold you."

Since I wanted that too, I gave in for a few minutes more. It was alien and surreal and everything I'd never expected, but oddly . . . blissful.

When I stiffened again, he released me slowly, and I sat back to see that he looked as much of a peaceful wreck as I probably did. Our eyes were hooded and sleepy, made content by warm proximity, and I thought I saw tear tracks on his cheeks as well.

Maneuvering myself off his lap took some doing with a sore hand, and I allowed him to take it, watching with fascination as his brows furrowed, and he pressed a kiss against the worst of my pain there.

"It's not broken, I don't think, but you should get it X-rayed just in case."

"Maybe," I croaked, eyeing the reddish spot on the underside of his jaw. He was going to have a nasty bruise. "You think I broke your jaw?"

He stood in one smooth action, drawing me up easily with him; his eyes lit by inner candles as he stared down at me. His hands were warm and around my upper arms; he still didn't want to release me, not that I minded anymore.

"Not even close, although you gave it a damn good try."

Even though I had the worst urge to step into him, to lean against his chest again and feel his comforting arms wrapped around me again, nerves got the better of me. I looked away and took a step back, forcing him to release me, mourning the loss of contact immediately.

And nerves got him too, I saw; he pushed his hand into the waves on top of his head, combing through the mop restlessly as he studied the space behind me.

"Do you have any tea and honey?" he asked.

I walked over to the cabinet with my coffee and tea supplies, then took down two mugs and filled them with water.

Edward was close behind me then. "I'll take it from here," he murmured, and I could feel his warm breath against my bare shoulder. "Go get cleaned up."

With a shy look back at him, I retreated into my bathroom. My steps were sure and light, but it felt as if I was walking through a different place on the way there, even though it was my apartment. The cream and brown braided afghan I'd bought at a craft show years ago was still draped across my old burgundy suede couch; various photos of Mom and Dad and me still hung on the wall above the little end table; there was still too much dust on top of the TV console; and, my shoes still littered the floor just inside the front door.

But the girl in the bathroom mirror was new. So was the man in my kitchen.

And I wondered what was to become of us.

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AN: I've created a Group on Facebook called Powered by 23 Kicks Fanfiction if you'd like to join. Come discuss how stubborn Bella is, and how mean Edward used to be!