A/N: legit sitting in a chair, mom beside me in the ER for tonight. Its long coming, so no sleep i can barely type this. Posting anyway to keep awake. we're back to Bella with Jameson in her bathroom and one used pregnancy test. Now everything thatt happens after moving forward.

thanks a million for the reviews! xoxox

Chapter 31 - Crazy Virgin Mary

BPOV - Back in the Bella's bathroom

Jameson's eyes dry up minutely as he stares at the droplets that gather over the film of the shower curtain. The drip, drip, drip of another leaky faucet he might have to fix are like jackhammers in this silence. His chest hammers the same.

He hasn't touched Bella. She sits in the same spot by the sink, the pregnancy test stick now on the floor. She starts to cry again; the tears dripping onto her nightdress, where they darken the fabric.

That's when his eyes sting as they seal shut. He hates when she cries. It tears at him. But right now, it tears at him in another way. The realization, the math was figured out. They don't match.

She said the dates. He counted his fingers and stopped. It can't be. No, it has to be. He counted again, and again, his mind a blur of scenarios.

Months ago. Months. That's the result of the equation.

Bella knew. Her lip wedged between her teeth, hiccupping her sobs away, as she watched him count.

Then the silence.

Bella crawls to him. He pulls back, gives her a burning look. She freezes where she kneels, and this will kill her; that look, that cold rejection. A warm Jameson is never indifferent to her.

He has reason now. So many weighted reasons.

"I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head. "So sorry. Please." She reaches out a hand to no avail. "I can't do this alone."

"You haven't been. I've been here, every damned second, Bella. When … how?" Jameson jerks a hand in the air, catching himself. "Well, we clearly know how!" He sighs after shouting. He rubs his face.

Bella lays on the floor. She tosses around and curls herself into a ball as she sobs.

Jameson would leave, but he's stuck where he is, genuinely curious about an affair. When could it have possibly happened right under his nose? He's not crazy. There were no signs. Bella grieves. That's her passing time now. She grieves, she goes to school, eats, and sleeps. She's barely consciously present, even in social gatherings. Everyone has grown used to it. This is her phase in life where she gets nothing out of it.

Bella is but a shell of what she used to be. And it was justified. Fully validated. Just temporary.

There were no signs there. Were there?

"It's yours. I know it. It has to be," Bella tries to reassure.

"You conceived three months ago." James interrupts dryly.

"Don't say this to me," she begs.

"You haven't had your period for months."

"James," she pleads.

"I didn't touch you then!"

Bella sucks in a breath at the shout. Yes, she knows this. She just cannot believe it. She tumbled upon tampons in the cabinet, remembered, then remembered. She couldn't recall the last time she had to use one. The other box for the test was to the right. Her heart dropped. She knew just then all the odd changes to her body, her moods, they were all proof.

"Bella, you're never out of my sight." Jameson is calm this time when he speaks. "Explain this to me. I'm honestly curious."

Bella picks herself up. She sniffs away any remnant tears and sighs.

"Only Mom knows this; no one else on earth. And she told me before she died … that … that I should follow my heart because she understood. It took a long time for her to understand. It's all I ask of you—to try. And I'll understand that you may never." She nods.

Jameson knits his brows in confusion.

"I was ready to let it go. I was learning," she says. Her lip trembles. "Now this …" her balled hands fall at her lap.

"What could Renée possibly encourage that would completely deceive me?"

Bella gives him a sharp look. "Has it?" she asks bluntly. "Have we been completely honest with one another?" She waves a finger between them. "This is a convenience. We're convenient. We've drifted. There's no glue here, James. We just care for one another. That's why I still love you."

The words 'in love' are lacking there. It doesn't escape him. But he listens. He's all ears.

"I guess, I screwed up. I did." She nods. "I committed myself to horrible things. But if you ask me, I'd do them again."

Jameson scoffs with a humorless laugh. He begins to stand. To run out? He doesn't know.

Bella reaches and pulls him back by his shirt. "That didn't come out the right way. What I meant to say was, this isn't typical. I wouldn't go on with it. I wouldn't go out of my way every summer for years, sneak out of the cabin at dawn or at midnight, pray to god no one would follow me. Blindly search through the dark trails, hiking for hours to find the same path beyond the lake where I found him. I wouldn't have betrayed you for anything less."

Jameson lets his muscles relax back into place. He's intrigued. His enigmatic brain tries to make the connections. He has to ask.

"Who did you find in the woods?"

Bella watches him. It's only a matter of time. She waits for it; the moment those brilliant sparks in his brain she depends on, solves the puzzle. A thief living in the woods was always the conversation around the lake during summers.

He knows who.

His eyes slightly widen. His mouth gapes as his chest seems to let out all the air.

"Bella …"

Just her name being called that way make pins and needles prickle at her eyes again. A blurred astonished Jameson before her.

She nods at him.

"He's not a stranger to you." Bella tucks in her legs and lets the image of Edward's eyes come back to her. She promised she would forget him after that night of bliss in his bed, but now he's engraved in her for life. "You're such a compassionate person, James, you would thank him for pulling me out of the lake. You wouldn't resent him." She peeks up at him from the corner of her eye.

Jameson feels the second pang to his chest. Another blow that takes his breath away, another to curl his stomach in disbelief. Faintly, it comes to him. A tall man, dark sunken eyes, pale wet skin as he gave life to Bella, mouth to mouth. Jameson thought, how kind of a stranger to do what he did, to go the mile. All along, they were connected. He went the mile to save her because she was his.

Jameson stands. He leans over the sink. Bella follows him with her eyes vigilantly, like dynamite will set off. He cups water in his hands, he rubs his face. His reflection gives him no answers. He sighs heavily, squeezes his eyes shut. He needs more answers. He needs all of them.

"Okay…" he says, trailing away. He rubs his temples. "Lay this out for me, or I swear, I'll drive there now and kill him myself."

Bella shrugs. "If you can find him. It took me all last spring and summer. But he found me. And he doesn't deserve your wrath, so kill me. I'm the one who has forced this relationship on him. He only wanted to be left alone in a crowded world. Kill me."

"Jesus, Bella!" He bursts. Fists bang against the porcelain sink. The toothbrush shakes, the soap dish falls to its death.

"I know," she says. "Mom said the same words. It's why I need you to help me. I can't do this alone."

He leans in, his fist at his chest, rage in his eyes. "You'd ask me that!"

"Yes," she affirms. "I have no one else. How would I explain this to everyone? I can't. No one can know."

Jameson stands choked. "You mean to tell me; I take the brunt for this? That's your plan?"

He's thunder. She's steel sitting silent and still.

What other options does she have? It's Jameson or a crazy Virgin Mary story. The latter is a one-way ticket to an asylum.

Bella shrugs again. "I could say I had a crazy drunken night at a random bar," she says and waits. Then she perks. "A high-end escort job to pay for college books?"

Jameson pushes himself off the sink and disappears. The door to the apartment far away slams shut. Bella watches the vacant sink. This is it. She's alone. Dreams only last for so long. Eventually, you wake up to disaster, remnant, blissful feelings fading, just like the rose-colored filter. Stark realization.

Shakingly, her hand finds her middle.

"Not completely alone."

….