I tried to post this on Friday but I had no internet in my dorm but better late than never, right?

Homecoming part 6

Bella's POV

"And I know all the steps up to your door. . ."

I can't tell if I'm more physically tired or mentally.

School passed in a blur, I don't know how anyone could expect me to be able to pay attention or contribute. On more than one occasion Alice or Edward had to nudge me to get my attention and give me the answer when I was called on. They didn't comment on it but I noticed quite a few silent conversations between them.

I watch Edward with concern over the unidentifiable look on his face as he drives us towards his house.

"What is it?" I ask, weary.

"Car accident." He replies casually. "In the parking lot of the diner." He pauses. "Jessica hit Mike with her car."

He doesn't seem concerned.

"Oh my god, are they okay?"

He turns onto the secluded road that leads to his home. "They're fine, she wasn't going very fast."

"You can hear that from here?"

He smirks. "No. There's a cop car about a mile away on the interstate and the call came over his radio." He pulls into his spot in the garage and before I can even unbuckle, he's over at my side, holding the door open.

"What happened?" Jessica and Mike weren't my favorite people but I didn't want them to be hurt.

"Mike and Eric were walking to his car and Jessica backed into him before he got in his car." He tells me, his hand in mine as he leads me inside.

Emmett and Jasper are lounging on the sofas in the living room, video game controllers in their hands as they stare intently at the screen.

Huh, I guess they got a new flatscreen.

"Psft humans are such bad drivers." Emmett comments.

"Hey! I take offense to that. It happens. Who hasn't hit a person walking to their car?" My brain-to-mouth filter failed me. I knew I'd regret it the second the words came out but I couldn't stop them soon enough.

Emmett and Jasper pause the game and turn to look at me in a synchronization rivaling the twins in the shining. "You hit someone with your car?" Emmett asked slowly, enunciating each word.

"Not a car but a person?" Jasper questioned.

I felt my cheeks burn. "It wasn't on purpose."

"How did you even live till you turned 17?" Jasper added.

I narrow my eyes at them. "It wasn't my fault, I swear. My Mom's car, I was driving it and it tended to shift gears without pressing the knob on the gearshift. It shifted into reverse when I was trying to go forward and I may have hit this annoying jock. But he was fine." I insist. I glare at Edward's older brothers who are having a laughing fit at my expense. "I was just saying I get it, it happens." I mutter self-consciously.

Edward tries to cover his laugh with a cough and I attempt to elbow him in the ribs before I remember that will hurt me more.

"Well, we know who won't be driving next trip we take," Emmett added.

"Like you'd let me drive anyways," I mumble under my breath as I roll my eyes. "It happens!" I insist yet again over their second round of laughter.

That just makes them laugh harder. Emmett is actually wiping his eyes like his laughter is making his eyes water.

"Who else do you know that this happened to?" Edward asked, pulling me with him to the sofas.

I sigh, maybe this will get them to stop laughing at me. "Well, the guy more hit her car than the other way around. I had a school friend back in Phoenix, her boyfriend was trying to climb over her car like in an action movie but he fell and cracked her windshield and we had to come up with a cover story. She told her parents she hit a bird." I turned back to the video game they're playing, a little surprised it was Mario Kart. "Can I play?"

"Can you manage to not crash?" Jasper asks.

I don't answer, reaching for the remote Emmett lost during his laughing fit. I look over the controller for a second to get familiar before I unpause it without warning. I speed off, catching up to Jasper in seconds.

I rear-ended him, knocking his car into the waterfall. "Hey!"

"Oops," I mutter with a smirk.

"When did you learn to play so well?" Edward asks, his arm casually resting around my shoulders.

"Give me a sec," I reply, finishing the last turn and crossing the finish line right as Jasper gets a blue shell. "Ha!" I throw my hands up. I settle back down as if my outburst didn't happen, even though now my face is burning. "What did you say?"

"I asked you when you learned to play so well?"

"Oh. Phil, my Mom's husband, got really into them for a while and I got him the game for Christmas."

Emmett trades me for his controller that I stole. I cracked my neck to warm up for the next round. I pick Luigi and watch the countdown on the screen.

3.

2.

1.

I press the accelerator button and try my hardest to win again. That's what they get after making fun of my driving.

Two and a half laps later Jasper and I are neck in neck fighting for first after Emmett, who was first, was hit by a blue shell (my blue shell).

I come in second and curse under my breath. I put the controller down in my lap and shook out my hand. My thumb is red and there's an indent from the button I was pressing.

Edward reaches for my hand and helps soothe the pain, massaging my fingertip so the blood will come back. "You know pressing down harder doesn't make you go faster." He comments.

"You don't know that. It's always worked well for me in the past." I told him.

Once the residual laughing at my expense is over, and Emmett's ego is bruised by my video game driving skills I look around for the first time since we arrived.

"Where is Carlisle?" I asked, vaguely curious of his apparent absence. I haven't seen him, I realize, which is strange since I've seen him every day since their return. I still think he's afraid I'll break down when the weight of the Volturi incident settles.

"At the hospital," Edward answered.

"Oh, that's good. Did he get his job back?" I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.

Jasper replied. "They welcomed him back with eager arms, they didn't even bother to conceal their glee that Esme had found life in L.A. so little to her liking."

"I can't see them telling him no."

"Are you hungry, you didn't eat much at lunch?" Edward asks me.

I shrug, "I guess." I know regardless of my claim or denial, he will make me something to eat anyways. I think Edward and his parents made it their personal mission to make me gain back the weight I lost in their absence.

He kisses me before getting up.

I gesture to the seat adjacent to Jasper's. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

I feel my insecurity and uncertainty fade. "Of course, you don't have to ask, Bella. This is your house, too."

"I just didn't want you to be uncomfortable, I could sit farther away."

"Don't be ridiculous." Jasper motioned to the other cushion of the loveseat he was on, his arm hanging across the back. "What's on your mind?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Besides this question?" He jokes, a smirk on his lips. I nod and wait for his gesture for me to continue.

"What were you doing with your time, in Ithaca I mean?" I asked Jasper shyly. I feel this intense need for him to like me, I still feel awful about my birthday and how hard it was for him.

"Well, Edward left almost right away," Jasper starts. "Emmett and Rosalie had enough of him, he was a nightmare, so they went on another honeymoon trip through Europe for the first month or two. . . Alice saw the tape that James, uh, made so she was spending most of her time looking into her past. Esme was restoring a house and Carlisle was working at the hospital associated with Ithaca College, Cornel, where I was taking psychology-related courses."

"Why?" If no one else was attending school I don't know why Jasper would go through it alone.

He shrugs. "It was pretty boring around with just me and the Old Man."

"Old Man?" My lips quirked. I can feel his amusement in the air.

"Carlisle looks amazing for his age but he is over three hundred and fifty."

"What did Alice find out about her human life?" I ask. "I went through a lot for that information." I joke.

Edward disagrees, "not funny."

"A little funny," I contradict him. "So?" I turn back to Jasper.

"She learned a lot. She was from Biloxi, Mississippi, she has a grave in a cemetery there. Her father put her into the asylum after her mother died. We think he killed her and Alice saw it or somehow found out and the easiest way to discredit his daughter was by proving she was crazy, for lack of a better word."

"Oh." I don't know what I expected, but this wasn't it.

"Yeah. She had a sister, Cynthia. She's dead now, actually, she died less than a decade ago," he tells me. "She has a niece who is still alive. She lives in Mississippi, though not Biloxi, but close. We went down to meet her, without telling her who we are of course, and she is like a spittin' image of Alice and did not believe a damn word we were saying." He shakes his head. "Stubborn like Alice, too."

"What's her name?"

"Mary. Cynthia named her after her older sister."

I thought he said she had one sister. "She had another sister named Mary?"

Jasper shakes his head. "No, Alice is only half of her name," he explains. "Her full name, when she was human, was Mary Alice Brandon." Jasper smiles at the memory. "She owns a small antique shop, and Alice spent a few grand there that afternoon, as Alice does."

"Did she get any answers? Alice I mean," I ask.

"Some. We think we know why she was put in that asylum. The reason her memories are gone, at least we think it is because of shock treatments, which is also why her hair is so short." At my confused look, he clarifies. "They have to shave a patient's head for shock treatments, otherwise their hair would burn and the electricity wouldn't be as effective."

I could only imagine how she was taking this, I know I would have trouble if I was in her place. "How is she dealing with all this?"

"In her own way, it's kind of like reading a book because even if we think we know what happened, we can't be sure. We don't know how long she was in there, the few pieces of paperwork we were able to find only gave the barest details. The date on her grave is the date she was put into the asylum."

Her family left her to die, as much as I hate to admit it to myself, I know how that feels. "So you visited her grave, was that weird?" I imagine it would be weird, like Scrouge being shown his grave in a version of the future in A Christmas Carol.

"I got this one." Emmett pulls out his phone, scrolls for a minute then hands it to me. I laugh out loud at the thumbs up Alice is sporting with a big smile as she poses by her headstone. "She bought this big ass wreathe to leave on it, my suggestion of course."

"Of course," I agree with a laugh. I'm glad Alice can still find joy in the situation.

"I told her to dig up the grave and see who was in there," Emmett adds.

"And I told him that he was in Europe and I doubt Carlisle or Esme would fly down to bail us out when we got caught." Jasper rolls his eyes and I can't help but smile, feeling his amusement in the air.

Being here with Edward and his brothers, I didn't feel like my smile or laugh was forced. . . but it didn't feel natural either. The only way I could think to describe it is that it is like writing with your non-dominant hand, it didn't feel natural. It was messy and at times uncomfortable. I can do it but it isn't simple like it would have been before.

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