WARNING:

THIS chapter was stress written and will have parts rewritten when I come back to it

Chapter Five

A Vision in the Hot tub

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Nearly a week later - late Friday afternoon - Angela and I fought our way to the concession stands to buy soft drinks and hotdogs. It was a home game and a lot of parents had turned up. Our school wasn't big enough to have a cheerleading squad, but we did have a spartan mascot, dressed in a white toga, open-toed sandals and a gladiator helmet with red plumage and bronzed crest.

His looked straight out of an Ancient Rome textbook, but last time I checked, Spartans were Ancient Greek…

Though, what did small details matter in the grand scheme of things, right?

It's all fun and games until a History nerd flips a table.

Four rows of marching band were keeping the crowd entertained, as we bumped our way through strangers and I took a salacious bite out of my hotdog. People were holding up banners that said, "Come on the Spartans!" that we had to squeeze past to get to our seats. We were positioned right at the back of South stand, behind three girls who snuck looks at me when they thought I wasn't looking.

This was nothing new.

Ever since the dance last Friday, where Seth and I were officially spotted together, I was waylaid more. Hanging out with his crowd in Port Angeles, and eating lunch with them at the cafeteria the Monday after, were two separate experiences. It was like being in a fish bowl times a thousand. Suddenly, I craved the simplicity of being with Angela or being in the art room on my own, working on a watercolor.

It's why I declined Rosalie's invite to come to her house before the game today, thought I couldn't refuse the game itself because Seth had asked.

Autonomy.

I was practising my autonomy.

Though I did like each of them, the more I got to know them.

When we sat down, Angela remained transfixed on the marching band that were crossing the field as her glasses slipped down her nose. There were about twenty students; and I was pretty sure she was crushing on one of them. The first row was brass, two in the middle were percussion - mainly snare drums being hit with offbeat strokes and the final was woodwind. Leading out front, was a color guard in a bright red tunic with a gold sash, white gloves and pants with a red strip running down the side; holding aloft a metal sabre.

They exited the field and the football players ran out from the tunnel.

"Which one is it?" I asked, unaware the switch had happened.

Angela's interest waned and she started squirming as the volume of the spectators grew.

"What?" She played dumb.

"Which one of them do you like?"

"None of them!" She said as I pointed at the field.

I turned to face the field and noticed she was telling the truth. The Spartans were up against the Montesano Bulldogs and they were all warming up. Whoever Angela had her eye on had disappeared, and I didn't get a chance to narrow down the candidates. Instead, I focused on the boys I recognized among the football players not benched.

Emmett.

Jasper.

Edward.

Seth.

"Angela, do you know what a quarterback sneak is?"

"My whole family are Seahawk supporters. I'd be disowned if I didn't."

"If it happens in this game, could you show me?"

"Do you want me to talk you through the entire game?"

I batted my eyelashes at Angela and she sighed. At the beginning, it was easy enough to follow. "Do you know that imaginary line in-between both teams before the start? That's called the line of scrimmage. Look at the center. He has the ball and he's in charge of starting the game. He does that by snapping the ball back to the quarterback who can pass it downfield to a rushing back, or pass it to the wide receiver if he isn't going to make a play himself. Each play is a down -"

I began to get lost when I tried to relate it to the game in front of me.

Everything was so fast-paced, and I was trying to place the guys I knew to their positions. Jasper was center and Emmett was quarterback, so they were easy to follow. When the other guys got involved, it got a bit technical for me and I couldn't tell who was ahead as the defence kept winning the ball back through a lot of fumbles, though they weren't scoring.

Did that mean the Spartans were bad?

Or the Montesano Bulldogs weren't that good either?

In six minutes that all changed, and we were seven points down. Another six minutes later, it was fourteen down and the Spartans got in a huddle. I was a bit worried about Seth, because he'd been targeted by the defence and conceded possession the most.

Whenever someone shoved him and he landed on his butt and just stayed there, that was the final straw.

What was wrong with him?

Why was he taking it?

"This game." Angela shook her head. "There's a reason I don't watch high school football."

I praised, "But you really are knowledgeable."

"Are they always this bad?" Angela glanced at her watch. "Should we leave after the second quarter?"

"We could," I ventured. "What should we do next?"

"Pizza and sleepover."

"At yours?"

Angela hesitated. "Yeah. But you're here to support your boyfriend. Maybe he wouldn't be happy if you left without him -"

"He wouldn't care."

"Why would you say that? He invited you didn't he?"

Realizing I nearly gave the game away, I nodded firmly. For most of the week, Seth drove me to and from school. We spent one lunch and part of the weekend together. I know Angela was miffed with my dating and social horizons suddenly expanding, but she didn't give me a rough time. Angela had her own extra circulars to feel omitted from my comings and goings. But yet she refused to be presented to Seth's group.

"Come to think of it you're not sitting near the front to watch him."

Aware the ears of those in front of me were twitching, I rushed, "It's because I don't find football that interesting. And we should totally leave after the second quarter to get that pizza!"

It went from bad to worse when play started again.

Just like the weather, as a drizzle had started up.

The whole team was trying to make up for Seth's shortfall, but when one member was terribly off his game, it made the others work harder. It was only a matter of time before he was taken off. They managed to claw back points before the whistle, but the lead for the Bulldogs got bigger. As I heard shouting from the edge of the field, Angela and I made our way to the exit. There was nothing I'd watched, that made me want to stay for the last two quarters.

And I honestly didn't think anyone would contact me about it.

Thirty minutes later, in the pizza parlor, I got a text.

Were u at the game?

The sender was Edward.

That was his first text to me.

Honestly.

Yes, I replied.

I got a message back instantly.

Did u stay till the end?

Feeling hostile, my fingers flew: What is it to you?

We collected the steaming hot pizza, and I drove back to Angela's place as we'd both taken my car to the game. Angela lived in a nice part of Forks, with chaotic twin brothers who were playing basketball in the front yard when we pulled up. Joshua lifted up his vest to wipe his face and I looked away, not wanting to be flashed his fourteen-year-old jailbait abs. As we went into the kitchen, to dish out the pizza and maybe put on a movie, I got a further two more texts from Edward, making me wonder why he was texting, when my so-called boyfriend wasn't.

Just to be clear, I wasn't being critical of Seth.

It was an address and a single word. Party.

Yeah right.

Like in what universe was I going to a party that I didn't know anything about.

It was near midnight, when Edward rung me. By then, I'd brushed my teeth, changed into pajamas and gone to sleep. It was the ringing that had me shooting upright and banging my head against the upper two draw handles of Angela's bedside cabinet. She stirred and tossed in the bed above me as I was sleeping on an inflatable mattress pumped up earlier on the ground.

"H-Hello?"

I wasn't expecting the bite in his words when I answered.

"Your boyfriend's drunk and passed out in a bedroom upstairs. You'd better come and collect him."

"Edward…" I groaned, not intentionally making my voice raspy.

He sucked in a breath.

I could tell it annoyed him.

"Can't you just take care of him?" I said, not realizing what I was saying.

"No," came his merciless voice, like it was renewed and fortified. "You don't deserve to be let off that easy. Come here and clear up the mess you created. He's in bad shape and I'm worried about him."

"What happened to him?"

I squinted at the alarm clock on top of the cabinet, but my vision was blurry. The phone was hung up abruptly and that wounded me enough, to get up and start getting dressed in the clothes that I originally wore to school that day. It was a navy coat, jeans and a sweater. Not clothes one would wear to a party, but that was the least of my worries. Picking my way through the house, I noticed the twins were asleep in the living room, the TV still on. One spread-eagled on the sofa, the other stretched out across the carpet, mouth open with drool.

Quietly letting myself out, I got into my car and backed out of the driveway.

My headlights swung in front of the house and that woke one of the twins up, because they crawled to the window and poked their head over the sill.

By the time they lifted the net, I was gone.

The entire drive, I thought about Seth.

Was he okay? What happened to him? Why did Edward think I'd done something to him? Would he need an ambulance? How bad is he?

I parked in front of an unfamiliar address the text lead me to and ran to knock on the door. It took five minutes of hammering before someone heard me; and that was because the music was so loud inside. Once in, I looked for Edward. Thankfully, I found him. He was standing in sight of the door by the staircase, with a group of male friends, sipping from a red solo cup.

"Edward!"

He didn't notice me, continuing to sip as he looked around.

"Whose mom are you?" A drunk guy asked me.

The one who answered.

Ignoring his hands that were reaching out for me, I raced over to Edward's side and stopped in front of him. He looked down, just as my hand went to his shoulder and I went on tiptoe to reach his ear.

"How's Seth?" I yelled.

He turned his head, so his breath brushed the outer shell of my ear, so our cheeks were touching. I shivered at the tickle, and our chins bumped.

I noticed something.

There was no alcohol on his breath.

He murmured, "He's upstairs. Room on the farthest right. Has a 'Do Not Disturb' sign in bright yellow. You need to take him home."

"Will you help -"

Now his message was delivered, he lifted up an arm so he could drink from his cup and that forced me back. "You're sober!" I shouted when he acted like he couldn't hear me. "Why can't you help?" Noticing one of the guys with him was discussing how out of place I looked, and another was giving me an unflattering score out of ten, before the third elbowed the second, and told them I was Seth's girlfriend –

I gave them a mental curse and made my own way up.

Going down the narrow landing, with gaudy wallpaper that was peeling near light sockets and a single lightbulb swinging back and forth, I found the correct door. Or so I thought. Cracking it open, I slipped in and waited with my back to the door, for my eyes to adapt to the darkness. Seth was sprawled out on a double bed, on top of the gray covers and his shirt was drenched.

"Seth!" I said.

He groaned.

When I went to him, his eyes were rolled back, the whites showing and his cheeks were sallow, a low rattling noise exiting from his mouth. Feeling worried, I pressed my ear against his chest and heard his heartbeat. But it was so sluggish, I wonder if he was drugged or absolutely wasted.

"Seth, can you get up?"

I shoved my head under his arm and tried to lift his bodyweight.

I ended up in the opposite corner of the bedroom, when I staggered back and tripped over my own feet, which left Seth half hanging over the bed. The door opened, and a lanky guy with shoulder length hair blond hair peeked in. When he saw me on the floor, clutching my arm his pale eyebrows raised. "Sorry, I was in the bathroom and heard a loud thump. Do you need any help?"

"Yes!" I cried, afraid he'd vanish.

He stepped in.

"It's my friend – I mean my boyfriend! Can you help me lift him?"

The guy looked him over and whistled.

"He's got some muscle to him but I can try."

Going over to Seth, he tried to do a similar thing I did, by slinging one of Seth's arms over his shoulders and trying to bodily lift him off the bed. This resulted in both of them crashing to the floor, and a spill of blond hair against the dark carpet, when the guy who'd come to help, became pinned under Seth's immobile mass and unable to roll out from under him.

I pulled on Seth's feet, and with the blond guy using all his might, he managed to find a crevasse big enough to wriggle out of, and flipped to his hands and knees to hack up his lungs as he coughed and spluttered.

Rubbing this stranger's back, and holding his hair out of the way, I thought of Emmett.

Emmett, the biggest guy around.

He had to be at this party, right?

Throwing off my coat, and pushing up my sleeves, I raced down the stairs and into the main living space where people were dancing on tables or playing beer pong. Edward was no longer by the stairs, but he wasn't who I was after. Spying an open patio door, with further people dressed in bikinis outside on this frigid January night, I surmised there had to be a pool out there.

A heated pool, going by the flush on their skins.

There was no pool outside, it was a hot tub.

A lot of people were half naked, but not many were in it. I soon realized why as a pair of bikini bottoms floated to the surface and I saw Rosalie trying to clamber out. Her fingernails scoured the wooden deck around her as she clawed with both hands, shrieking like she was being murdered. She would periodically go quiet, her face slack and lifeless, tongue lolling out and then she would start screaming all over again.

She turned her head to the other side, so none of us could see it and rested her head on the deck.

Her whole body was violently jiggling as her upper half sprawled on the wooden panelling.

What was wrong with this picture?

I took in Emmett's naked torso bent in double over Rosalie's small form, his face twisted in stark savagery as he pounded into her from behind. That's why her bikini bottoms were floating on top of the water.

He was fucking her like a madman.

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AN: M rating kicking in. Bella just had the shock of her life.