I stare at the painting on the wall in front of me. It is a chaotic blend of colors that resembles the spin art I did as a child. It is called Fish. I do not know why. I am forced to wonder how I am the one who was put in a mental institution, because clearly there was something wrong here.
I turn to look at Alice who is standing next to me. "I don't get it," I say.
She squints at the picture for a moment, and I'm afraid she's about to go into some sort of rant about the artist's interpretation of the fish, and how the fish is really a metaphor for… I don't know a bus or something, but I am wrong.
"Yeah, me either," she giggles.
We have seen many interesting pieces thus far, most of which are called Untitled which I personally find extremely annoying. How do any of these artist's keep track of their work? My personal favorite was a pink piece of wood that was hung just slightly askew. A close second was the bench that wasn't a bench that I attempted to sit down on before Alice pulled me away.
"Do you think if we stare at it long enough and walk slowly backwards a 3D fish will appear? Like in those magic picture books?"
Alice laughs at my comment while shaking her head and pulls me into the next room. I have to hand it to the little vampire, she took me somewhere where I can be as snarky as I want, and no one's going to say anything because there's almost no one else here except the guards, one of whom I caught holding in a laugh at one of my more punching pieces of comedy.
That's not to say that some of the stuff isn't really cool, because it is, I just have a problem with some of the less defined pieces that seriously look like the pictures you make your dad for father's day in school oohs and ahhs over before placing them in the top drawer of his dresser with his socks.
We've been in the art museum for a few hours and Alice asks me if I want to go check out some of the other rooms with art that I might appreciate better, but I decline. I skipped breakfast this morning and I'm starting to get hungry. Alice and I leave the museum and she drives to a tiny, off the beaten path bistro that promises to give us privacy for the discussion I know she's been craving.
I order my food and wait patiently for Alice to start questioning me. Or the groveling, I'm honestly not sure what to expect at this point.
"Bella, I'm not going to subject you to the inquisition, so you can stop looking like you're waiting for the torture session to begin. "
"I thought you said you wanted to talk."
"I do, I just think that questioning you all about your feelings and the past is something that's best left up to Rosalie. I probably stepped way out of line on that front yesterday, and I don't want to do that again. For the most part I want to apologize to you."
I open my mouth to interrupt her, but she holds her hand up to silence me.
"I'm not going to apologize for my shortcomings back in Forks, I realize now that there's nothing I can say that will change the way you feel about what happened there, and I think you have every right to be angry with me about it, but I'll get to that in a little bit. What I really want to apologize for is the way I've acted since you've started living with us. I've been treating you more like a doll than a person. Honestly when Rosalie came home that first day after she found you and told us all what was going on, I almost went immediately to the center and brought you back here myself, but Rose made me agree to do things through the proper channels. "
She paused for a moment as if considering what to say next.
"I want you to know that while I have come to agree with several of the things you said yesterday, some of them are completely untrue. I've considered you my sister from the day you popped up in my visions, and I haven't stopped thinking of you as one since, regardless of how my actions may have indicated otherwise. And as soon as you were back with us I just assumed we'd pick up where we left off, but I can see clearly now that that was foolish of me. I broke your trust and I'm just going to have to earn it back. That means no more randomly walking into your room, or playing Bella Barbie because I'm bored."
She looked me straight in the eye.
"I am going to earn your trust back Bella, and we will be sisters again, if it's the last thing I do."
I considered that for a moment, it wasn't all together a bad plan. It wasn't that I wanted to be mad at Alice, or any of the Cullens for that matter, it was more that I was afraid to trust them with my heart again. And the truth was, even if it was just a façade so that Edward could play with the human, I had missed them all terribly.
"Okay Alice, that sounds fair, but we're going to have to do this slowly, at my pace, or I just don't see it working out."
A huge grin split across Alice's face, "So Bella, what do recently reacquainted friends talk about while they're out to lunch?"
We both burst out laughing.
SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA
The next morning it was back to business as usual and I was once again being subjected to my sessions with Rosalie.
"Did you have a nice time with Alice yesterday?"
"Yes, it was… different."
"Different how?"
"I don't know, it was just different."
Rosalie looks pensive for a moment. "Was it good different or bad different?"
"Neutral different," for once, I am not trying to be difficult, I simply cannot find the appropriate words to describe yesterday's outing. Thankfully Rosalie seems to realize that I am not trying to dodge her questions and decides to take a more direct approach.
"What did you too talk about?"
I wage an internal debate as I try to decide how much to tell her. Part of me wants to keep some things from her in order to preserve both mine and Alice's privacy, but a larger part of me knows that I need to keep therapist Rosalie separate from Alice's sister Rosalie if I ever want to get better. I give Rosalie a rundown of our lunch conversation, which she considers for a few minutes.
"So Alice didn't ask your forgiveness for what she did to you in Forks?"
I shake my head, "No, just for more recent history."
Rosalie looks me dead in the eye and asks, "Would you have forgiven her if she had asked?"
Her question causes me some pause. My heart and my head are warring with each other, one demands compassion, the other retribution for the pain she caused me. I want to pull Alice into my arms and tell her that everything is all right and that I know she did what she thought was best at the time and that everything's going to be okay. But I also want to have vampire strength for a little bit so that I can pull her head off her shoulders and play soccer with it until I feel like she's felt some of the pain she caused me.
"I don't know," I whisper honestly, "in that moment I probably would have, but I wouldn't have meant it."
"Why not?"
"Because I was riding on a high from our day together, and I would have said just about anything to keep Alice happy in that moment. It wouldn't have felt like a concession given the immediate reward." I laugh quietly to myself.
"What's so funny?" Rosalie asks, confused.
"It's nothing," I reply, "I'm just remembering these kids I knew when I was younger. They were three brothers, and we went to the same park some afternoons. They used to fight all the time, so their mom would come up with something to tempt one of them away from the argument. Like if the oldest one was playing with a soccer ball and a younger one took it, he would try to get it back, and they would fight. So the mom would pull out a lollipop or something for the older kid, and he'd take it and everything would be fine… until the lollipop was gone. Then the kid would take the soccer ball back, usually by force, and there would be an even bigger mess than before."
Rosalie nods in understanding, "And in this situation, your forgiveness is the soccer ball?"
"Yeah, and the happy, carefree ease Alice and I attained yesterday is the lollipop. I don't want to tell her I forgive her, when in all honesty, I really don't, because later, it's just going to be worse when something goes bad and I revert to being upset with her again and she doesn't know why."
"So where do you two go from here?"
I shake my head, "I honestly don't know. I want our friendship back, but not at the expense of my having to give Alice a false apology."
"I think that you're seriously underestimating my sister Bella. Alice wouldn't have said she didn't expect your forgiveness if she did, she's not that passive aggressive unless clothing is involved, and she honestly believes that she doesn't deserve your forgiveness yet."
I think about this for a moment. "Well, what do you think? What would you do in my position?"
"Honestly I think you've been thrown through hell and back by my family, and if I were you I would have tried to run as soon as I got in the house. I would have yelled and screamed, and refused to leave my room. I would tell Alice to go screw herself, and her apology."
I am fairly shocked, Rosalie's face is hard, and I am fairly sure my mouth is hanging open. Her eyes soften.
"But, you're not me Bella, and as much as I hate to admit it, that's probably a good thing. You're more forgiving than I could ever hope to be. It's actually one of the things I admire about you. So, as much as I think you should just kick us all to the curb, I know that you're going to forgive everyone in the end. That's just the way you are… and I believe that about wraps up our session for the day."
I look at the clock and see that only half the time of our usual sessions has passed, but I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth and so I leave.
SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA-SA
I am lounging in my bed when there is a light knock on the door.
"Come in Alice," I say assuming that the little pixie will be standing outside the door.
However I am wrong and Esme quietly enters my room, "Sorry, dear, not Alice, although I hope your welcome applies to me as well."
"Of course Esme, you know it does."
She smiles at me, "I was actually just on my way to the grocery store, and I thought that since you're the only one in this house who actually eats you might like a say in what I buy. Want to come with me?"
I sense that this has nothing to do with my meal preferences as the Cullens all know that I'll eat anything they put in front of me, but I agree to go along with Esme anyway.
We get into her Lexus SUV which I think is very upper class soccer mom, and drive off to an upper class organic grocery store. Esme pushes the cart along pulling items off shelves seemingly at random, encouraging me to add anything I might want to the cart along the way. I grab a few things that look like they may be okay, and we check out. Our conversation while in the store is innocuous, we talk about the weather and how it will affect her garden.
Once we are back in the car I ask the question that's been burning in my mind since she started piling useless foods in the cart.
"What do you do with all of this?"
She laughs, "Well obviously you eat some of it, but I try to buy as many non-perishables as I can so that I can donate it, although I have to spread my donations out over a decent area. It seems a little bizarre if someone sees me in the grocery store Monday with a cart full of food and at the shelter the next day donating all of it. And of course I bake things for Carlisle to bring to the hospital, and I cook meals for some elderly neighbors."
"Seems like a lot of work for someone who doesn't even like the smell of food."
She shrugs, "It's not that bad, and don't forget, unlike my children I spend the day walking around the house while my mate is at work. The others don't…"
She trails off and leaves me confused.
"The others what Esme?"
She turns her head to me and smiles, which is a little alarming given the fact that she is still driving, "Nothing dear, I was just going to say that the other's don't have the time or the interest."
She seems sincere, but somehow I know that she is thinking of Edward, and how her home is not complete without him, or for that matter without his mate, whoever she may be.
For a while we are silent, until we turn onto the Cullen's street, when Esme mentions that she is going to be making cupcakes for a colleague of Carlisle's and asks if I would like to help, but I never get the chance to answer as we pull into the Cullen's driveway.
Because stepping out of a standard sedan, looking as beautiful as ever, stands Edward Cullen.
And he looks pissed as hell.
A/N: Copymachine- sorry to confuse you, hopefully this chapter cleared some things up for you.
Serina 93 – I appreciate your point of view, and I agree that in some stories I find that Bella is too quick to forgive the Cullens, however, the way I see it Stephenie Meyer made Bella a very forgiving character, and this is just my interpretation of how Bella may have developed in a different set of circumstances. I'm not saying she forgives Alice, but she's also not quite that angry in the fic.
Cassandra96 – Hmmm, a JPOV… I have to tell you that I haven't had much luck with writing Jasper in the past, so it's unlikely that I'll do it, but I'm not ruling anything out because I may be really punch drunk one night and find my inner Southerner.
Thanks to all of you who reviewed the last chapter, I really appreciate them, and they keep me wanting to write more of the story! Let me know what you think of this chapter if you feel the urge to do so.
