Chapter Four

It was some time after the whole van fiasco that I was invited to go to Port Angeles with Angela and Jessica. Alice was even invited though she basically added herself to the get together, which wasn't that bad. She was going to go to the Girls' Choice Spring Dance with Jasper, while Angela would take Ben and Jessica would take Mike. I was taking no one, I just wanted to go and get some fresh air and be away from Forks for a while. It had been a good bit of time since I had been in a well populated coastal town, Forks was too small for me.

I was in the foyer of Charlie's house, making sure that my hair wasn't going to come out of its braided ponytail that I had painstakingly braided this morning. I wanted to make my hair look good, while my clothes were just the last bit of clothing, I had in my closet that hadn't been dirtied enough to need to go to the dirty hamper. I should probably stay home and do laundry, but it was something that I always forced myself to do, the girls were right. I needed to get out of this house, I needed to get out of this town or else I would literally go insane.

"So, you're going dress shopping with some girls?"

My brown irises flickered from my reflection in the mirror that Renee had installed in the foyer before she ended up leaving not even a year later, and towards the reflection of Charlie standing near the couch with a beer clasped in his hands.

His voice had been gruffy and he was obviously not knowing how to feel about his daughter being social here. The last time I had been approved for my socialization I had ended up pregnant, but this was a harmless social gathering between me and the girls. We were just going to get dresses, there weren't going to be any boys that were on the trip.

"Yes, Dad. There's not going to be any boys there. I promise you," I reassured him before I went over to him and kissed him on the cheekbone. He made a huffed noise, but he seemed content with the knowledge that there was no reason why I would lie.

"Good. I–"

Charlie wasn't able to finish what he was going to say before we had heard hands knocking on the front door. I turned my attention away from him and instead looked through the peephole, noting how Alice was standing on the other side of the door with her hands clasped together behind her back. She was dressed in a navy-blue velveteen blouse that was long sleeve, dark washed jeans that fit her smug, a jacket that covered her almost completely that must have belonged to Jasper along with some boots that had just the right kind of height to it that was intimidating.

"It's Alice."

I pulled away from looking through the peephole and opened the door, noting how Alice was beaming brightly at me with excitement radiating from her. She was bouncing on her heels before she rushed forward and shoved her hand forward so that Charlie could shake it.

"Hi! I'm Alice! I've adopted your daughter as a best friend and potential sister! Rosalie might fight me for first place, but that's okay! You must be Charlie!"

Alice shook Charlie's hand as it was out, limp in shock at how much she was excited.

"Oh! It's nice to meet you, Alice. Thank you for deciding to be friends with my Bella," Charlie remarked, making a red blush cross my features at what I was hearing. I brought my hands up and covered my face, squeaking in embarrassment.

"Dad! We're leaving, come on, Alice."

I grabbed Alice by the sleeve of her jacket and tugged her out of the house, leaving Charlie awkwardly standing near the front door with his beer can still in one of his hands. He brought his free hand and waved goodbye to us, before the front door shut behind us.

I made sure to lock the door behind me and then went towards the nice yellow beetle bug that was a convertible with an open/close roof. There were daisy decals that were throughout the beetle bug, making it even more cheerful. It was a two-door vehicle instead of a four door. That was the only reason why I didn't see the other two girls gathered together in the car. I liked this; I would rather be with just one person instead of all three people at the same time.

Reaching Alice's beetle bug, I got into the front passenger seat of her car and waited patiently for Alice to go around the car and get into the front driver's seat. There were a few flower necklaces that were strung around the rearview mirror. Her car had a fruity spray that she must have used to keep the car from smelling musty. There were designer seat covers over the car seats and a couple of Hello Kitty stuffed animals lined the back dashboard of the car. It was everything that I had imagined Alice to have, though I wondered why she didn't drive the beetle bug to school.

As though she sensed this, Alice spoke, "I know that you're probably wondering why you don't see the beetle bug at school but that's because there's so many of us. Half of the time we go in Edward's Volvo and the other half of the time I ride with Rosalie in her red convertible. I go and run my own errands in my own car, but other than that there's so many cars at our house."

"Then there's also the fact that Emmett and Rosalie are huge grease monkeys. Emmett is always pushing the cars to the limit when it comes to what's legal to add to them and what's just ridiculously unneeded. Half the time Emmett tries to add something to my car, but I always manage to catch him in the act. I like my Beetle bug the way it is."

I tried to imagine myself being like this, wanting to be there and underneath a car, fixing what needed to be fixed but also wanting to add to the undercarriage of the car. I tried to imagine myself rolling the board underneath the undercarriage with my legs and feet poking out from underneath the car. I would have music that was playing through the garage, and I would be conversing with others around me about all different types of things.

Alice talked to me about random things when we were on our way up to Port Angeles. There wasn't anything that was concrete with what she would tell me. She'd tell me all kinds of things, such as how her cousins lived in the national park of Denali up in Alaska and how they lived up there with their cousins. Their cousins were actual descendants of the founders of the national park, so they had always made sure to take care of the national park with passion and proper activism for wildlife.

Eventually we reached the parking lot of one of the business strips. Alice parked next to Jessica's car and Jessica was leaning against the front hood with Angela standing on the curb. Jessica was wearing a white long sleeve shirt with the bottom of the shirt falling a few inches above her jeans. She had on some tennis shoes that were bejeweled randomly on the sides of her shoes and she wore one of her nicer winter coats that I was jealous of. Angela on the other hand was wearing a long sleeve purple dress with wool leggings underneath, winter boots, and a denim jacket.

Jessica perked up when she saw us getting out of Alice's beetle bug, before she came over and hugged me. She went and turned and hugged Alice, before pulling away and shivering some.

"Wow! You're freezing, Alice."

Alice merely waved away the comment in dismissal, and instead cleared her throat. "I just have poor circulation, that's all. I would rather go and shop for some dresses!"

"True, true! Let's go! I have a list of the best dress shops for us to go to!" Jessica reached into her pocket of her purse and pulled out an actual list full of dress shops for us to go to. I looked at it, finding that there were some that you'd find down in Phoenix, but there were mostly those that were exclusive to Port Angeles.

"May I?"

Alice had her hand out so that she could take the list from Jessica. Jessica seemed as though she wasn't that enthralled with handing the reins over for a moment, but this was completely unexpected. None of us thought that Alice would end up coming to spend time with us.

She and her siblings always stuck together and never seemed to separate. So of course, Jessica in the end decided she would let Alice choose what shops that we would go to, partly because of the fact that Alice and her sister had the best fashion taste in the high school and town.

Alice was handed the list and only three of the shops were crossed off, where there had once been ten shops we were going to, we would end up going to seven shops. A lot more shops than I was accustomed to shopping around and seeing. I never really went shopping unless I was in the mood to do so, and that was only once in a blue moon, and right now it seemed as though that blue moon would come around once again.

Angela stayed next to me when we went down the main strip where we had parked our cars. We had eaten lunch before we had gathered together here so in case we wanted to stay until dinner time we could eat together and talk about whatever we wanted to. Chances were Angela and I would listen to them talk about their boyfriends. Jessica was dating Mike for a couple of weeks now and Alice had been with Jasper a little over half of three months in the first year she had met him when she was first fostered.

The first two shops I entered were just normal priced clothes, and accessories. Alice didn't seem as though she was that interested in any of the dresses that she tried on. She was more interested in helping Angela pick out her dress. Angela was just as shy and quiet as a church mouse as she was handed multiple amounts of dresses that were all modest. The shoes were never too high, since Angela was always a modest and proper girl.

Jessica on the other hand was trying so many different dresses that had all different types of fits and colors to them. Some of the dresses were neon and had spots of them that showed bare skin. I found it quite humorous to watch her pick these dresses on, putting them on and placing one of her hands onto her hips before throwing the other one up over her head. She would act as though she was a burlesque dancer doing her audition for us.

"I'm ready for my close up, ladies! Do you think that I'll make the cut?" Jessica pouted out her lips and made sure to angle her body in a way that would have others glancing at her in order to see all of her angles properly.

Jessica had asked this when she tried on the last dress in the third store, only for me to say that she had found the dress. Angela nodded her head too, while Alice gave an agreeable nod. A warm pink, one shoulder high slit long sleeve prom dress. It made her look just the right type of tempting and I knew Mike would be ecstatic when he would see her in that dress.

"Good! I'll start looking for some shoes too, but I know that I was going in the pink direction when it came to the dresses. Maybe we'll find a dress for you at the next shop, Angie. And you too, Alice, though I'm certain you already have plenty of dresses to have chosen from. I would have asked to try on one of your dresses, but our heights and weights aren't the same," Jessica rattled off, before she requested for Alice to take a quick picture of her in the dress, before she would change out of her dress and back into her casual clothes.

I was more than ready to head off back to Charlie's house after the next store, and sensing my discomfort, Alice told Jessica and Angela how she was going to walk along the pier with me since she decided she would wear one of her older dresses because they were obviously still in style. Jessica had pouted, for she was sitting on one of the nice futons that were statistically placed in the shoe aisles so that she could try on the heels she had chosen for her pink dress.

Angela nodded her head.

She and Jessica were going to one last dress shop together so that Angela could have one last chance at finding a dress she would like but if she didn't find one, she liked she would just have to wear the dress she had bought last year instead. She and Jessica both had my phone number along with Alice's so they would text us when they were heading off to go to the restaurant near the piers of Port Angeles.

Leaving the store behind us, Alice and I made our way in the direction of where the piers were. We weren't too far away from the water. The weather was still quite chilly, but I hugged my jacket to me even more as some of the wind came off of the ocean and blew through my hair. Alice didn't seem as though she was bothered with the weather, the wind didn't even move an inch of her hair from her face. Her golden irises were flickering with all different shades of yellow.

As we went closer to the piers, I bit the corner of my lip and noted how the small and short girl had no fear in her. There was nothing in her that screamed she was weak. She held confidence and I was certain that it was a rare thing to make her second guess herself. She didn't let doubt settle its roots deep within her, that would do nothing but cause problems.

"Alice."

Alice hummed to let me know that she was listening to me, and I stopped, though she went to keep walking. She paused and turned around, her eyes landing on me.

There was a little bit of irritation that flickered in those eyes of hers, before she tapped her right fingers against her left arm, Jasper's jacket still swallowing her whole. She resembled more of a middle schooler than a high schooler right now, as though I was the one who decided to take my little sister to Port Angeles.

"Not here, Bella. Please."

I put my hands together and motioned for us to go to one of the empty alleyways that were near us. I entered and Alice came behind me, there was a dead end, but I felt safe. Alice and her siblings weren't human, that much was obvious, and I knew Alice wasn't going to suddenly kill me and leave me for dead in the alleyway. She didn't want to talk to me about the inhumanity that was permanent on her and her siblings, but maybe that was because she wasn't allowed to talk about it.

Alice glanced over her shoulder before she turned and looked at me. "Bella, I've always known that you'd figure it out, that we aren't…like you and the others. Rosalie wanted to be the one to tell you but the only person that is allowed to tell you exactly what we are happens to be Carlisle. He's the head of our family, he's the one that will tell you."

"So, when will I be able to talk to Carlisle about your whole not-being-human?"

Alice opened her mouth to tell me when wolf whistling came behind us. Alice turned around so that she was facing the three tall and muscular men that could overtake Alice and I without hesitation were making their way towards us.

One of them had a switchblade in their hands, letting it flicker open and closed every few moments as though he could let both Alice and I know he was weaponized enough for us to want to cry and beg them to leave us alone. Another had his hand in the waistband of his pants, tapping his fingers there to let us know there was a gun he had. The last one didn't have a weapon on hand, but he had enough of a strength to let us know he would use his fists without any hesitation.

Alice gave a razor-sharp smile at the men, before saying, "Excuse us, gentlemen, which I hate to call you because you clearly do not have the manners of a gentleman, but my friend and I were talking to each other alone. If you wouldn't mind–"

The man with the hand on his waistband pulled the gun out and pointed it directly at Alice in the middle of her face. She didn't gasp at the sight of the gun in her face, instead she turned her head and looked at me with enough of an aggravation to let me know she was going to have to show me what she was but I was not allowed to talk about it.

Before I could do anything, the man had his gun ripped out of his hands and it was in Alice's instead. My mouth fell open as she broke the gun in half as though it was merely made of paper instead of actual metal. She broke until it was just shards of metal on the ground, including the bullets. The man stood there in front of her with his knees quivering in fear. He fell down onto his knees as though he knew his life was forfeit.

"P-Please don't kill me, please," the man cried, tears flowing down his cheekbones as he peered up at the inhuman girl standing in front of him that was so much smaller than him. I stayed quiet in the background, intrigued by what was happening in front of me.

Alice grabbed one of his hands and crushed it enough in a grip for him to scream like a little girl. She dropped his hand and let his crumpled hand fall to his side. The one friend that didn't have a weapon was already gone but the friend that had a switchblade in his hands was almost tempted to test himself against Alice to show that it was just pure luck she had done what she had done. His eyes flickered towards me, making my heart skip a bit in my chest, as he narrowed his blue irises on my brown ones.

"Run," she hissed, in a growling like manner that made the man with his crumpled hand get up from the ground and rush out of the alleyway. The other man with the switchblade went forward to try and stab her when her attention was focused on the man that was leaving the alleyway.

Alice took the switchblade from him and stabbed him in the side of his abdomen before she turned to me and reached her hand out. I put my hand in hers and allowed her to lead me out of the alleyway while the man screamed in anger and went to pull the switchblade from his abdomen. I didn't have to be near him to know that he would have a good bit of him bleeding out, but I did know that Alice would have hit him in a section of his abdomen that wasn't fatal.

I didn't say anything, we went forward out of the alleyway and kept our hands together. I couldn't care less if anyone looked at us and thought we were dating. There were some envious looks from the guys around us that thought that, while others just didn't care. They shamelessly stared at Alice, and she dismissed them without even one glance at them.

Reaching the piers, we went to the most desolate one and sat down at the end of the pier. The water was calm and clear, the perfect water to swim in. I would have taken my shoes off and put my feet into the water if it weren't for the fact that it was mid-February.

Alice stayed quiet for a moment as she peered forward at the boats that were traveling throughout the waters in front of us. I closed my eyes and soaked in the little bit of sunlight that came through and hit me. There wasn't really enough sunlight to impact me. I was still kind of cold and knew before long we would be heading to a restaurant to eat an early dinner before we would have our hour-long drive back down to Forks from here.

"You can come over this weekend to our house and you can talk to Carlisle."

I nodded my head, my eyes noting in the corner of my eye that a mother was walking along an adjoining pier with a baby stroller in front of her. She was talking down to the stroller with the brightest smile upon her face, as though the baby that was within that stroller was the reason why everything was perfect in her life. Envy and pain washed over me, and I pushed my hand against my stomach. I turned away from where the woman was and instead peered down at the depths of the water in front of me.

Beeping of a phone next to me made me look up, where Alice had looked down at her phone. "Let's get going if we want to make it to the restaurant around the same time as Angela and Jessica. It's the weekend so it's a busy night."

I got up from the end of the pier and went back towards land instead of towards the water. Alice was next to me, staying as close to me as she could. Others wouldn't know of what would have happened just twenty minutes ago in that alleyway because I was certain those two thugs would know better than to talk about what had happened.

We went towards the restaurant, which I soon learnt was named La Bella Italia, which made me cringe some from the fact that my name was in it. Alice giggled some at the obvious distaste I had. She knew that the others wouldn't think too much about the restaurant sharing my name since Bella also meant beautiful in Italian. The Beautiful Italy, yes that was probably a quite common name for an Italian restaurant.

Arriving at the one-story Italian restaurant that was quaint and homey, we were greeted with Angela and Jessica waiting for us. The good news was the restaurant wasn't that far from where our cars were parked so we didn't have to go pick up our cars before parking in the almost completely filled up parking lot of the restaurant. Both of the girls didn't have their bags with them from the shops, so I was certain they had gone to the car and put their bags away.

Entering the restaurant all four of us went up to the hostess before learning that we had a thirty-minute wait before we would be led to a table. Sitting down on the benches that were in the front of the restaurant so we could wait for us to be led to the back my mind kept going back to the memory of Alice protecting us from those thugs.

I could only imagine what the two human girls would have done if they had learnt this, thinking that I had imagined the whole Alice breaking the gun with her bare hands. They would claim that the adrenaline would have made me think more than what I saw. So that was the reason why I didn't tell Jessica and Angela about what had happened, but also because I knew I would get my answers from Carlisle during the weekend.

We were led back to where the tables were and sat down at one of the booths. There were a good number of customers that were around us. Some of them gave second glances at Alice as though they hadn't thought they would be greeted with an immaculate beauty such as Alice Cullen. She didn't pay them any attention but that must be because she was accustomed to the stares, she would receive from the humans around her.

When the waitress named Amber came up to us, she shamelessly flirted with Alice, making sure her chest was dipped forward in hopes that the girl would notice her breasts. Alice didn't seem as though she was interested in flirting with the girl and ordered a bowl of soup while I had ordered some lasagna. Jessica ordered a Caesar salad and Angela ordered some parmesan chicken.

We conversed with each other about the upcoming Girls' Spring Choice Dance and for a moment I didn't think about Avalyn. I didn't even rub my fingers against the locket. I was like any other girl that hadn't suffered from a miscarriage.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: 3 in 1 update. When I update this fanfiction, I will update the other two fanfictions that are in the stand-alone trilogy, 'Blood-Stained Girl', along with 'As I breathe'.

as always: Twilight doesn't belong to me

-Emmy