Day 3: Part 2

Alice

I drove to the gas station outside of my home and looked despairingly at the gas meter of my truck. I flicked open my cell phone and scrolled through the contacts, looking for Edward's number. My stomach sank almost immediately and I swore loudly, almost chucking the phone out of the car window. Digging a few moments through the unruly contents of my purse yielded the same results.

Who the fuck gives you a phone number on a goddamn piece of paper instead of plugging it into your phone like any other normal human being? It leaves desperate girls stranded unwittingly in front of dilapidated gas stations in the middle of fucking no man's land.

"Fuck," I said, gripping the worn leather of the steering wheel and pulling it towards me until it groaned in protest. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

My phone trilled and I started violently. Grumbling, and praying it was Emmett, I flicked open my phone and stared at the screen.

Edward's number. You really had nowhere else to go.

I clenched my teeth and ground them against themselves. It was from Tanya's number but clearly written by Jasper. I felt a little like screaming, a little like vomiting, and a lot like bursting into tears in a very prepubescent way. I reached across the passenger seat and searched through the contents of my upturned purse until I found my cigarettes. I shook the empty pack and threw it angrily on the floor of the car.

I leaned against the headrest and put the butts of my hands against my eyelids, breathing deeply. Really, I needed to think. I could run into the gas station and steal a pack of cigarettes. If the old man behind the counter, who was so wrinkly I was convinced he was mashed potatoes come to life, was stupid enough to leave unlocked bottles of expensive alcohol by the front door, surely he had things stolen often. What was a five-dollar pack of cigarettes if not just one more annoyance for the old man?

Morals?

With only another moment of panicky indecision, I flicked open my phone and dialed Edward's number. It rang once and a woman's voice answered, asking me to please be patient while my party was being reached. And then a song came on; some classical piano and violin montage that made me want to simultaneously cry and rip my hair out.

"Cullen."

"Edward?"

"Yes? May I ask who's calling?"

"It's, uh, it's Bella. From last night. You know, the sushi." I smacked my palm against my forehead. Really? Sushi? Not, Hey, we had a relatively in depth conversation about neuropsychology or you were totally right, your brother's a real douchebag.

Edward chuckled. "La Bella. How are you?"

I grasped a low-handing piece of my hair in my hand and wrapped my fingers tightly around the strands, pulling the chunk taut so my scalp burned. My nail polish was chipped and my fingernails were chipped and a few wisps got trapped in between the broken crevices of my fingers. It felt right.

"Bella?"

I cleared my throat. "Sorry, my phone cut out." I took a deep breath. "Um, I'm good, how are you?"

"Doing fine. I'm actually at work right now. Do you mind if I call you back later?"

I pulled on my strand of hair and felt my stomach roll. I closed my eyes. In one, two. Out one, two.

"Yeah," I croaked, squirming in my seat at the uncomfortable bubbling of panic in my stomach. "That'd be fine. Um, when do you get off?"

"I'm not actually sure. Is there an emergency or something? You sound weird." His voice, which had originally been distant, snapped back into focus. "Oh fuck," he sighed. "It's Jasper, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, sort of."

He paused for a moment and in a resigned voice said, "Six-nine-six-seven Wood Run Road. The garage code is oh-five-one-three." My whole body seemed to sag in response. "I don't know when I'll be home, but there's plenty of food and a television. Feel free to do whatever you'd like, okay?"

"Thanks," I said. "Look, I promise I'll get out of your hair really soon, I just need, I don't know, a night or something."

"You'll stay as long as you need to."

I hung up quickly. I texted Emmett a quick "fuck you" and plugged my phone into my car charger. I hesitated before parking my car and heading into the gas station. I didn't swipe the cigarettes like I had originally intended, but I took a local map, which I folded carefully into a small square as I pretended to peruse the candy aisle, and stuffed it into my bra before heading out the door.

See, I could be a good person. Or something like that.

His house was beautiful, of course. It didn't have the classic elegance and sharp corners and ancient furniture that Jasper's did, but perched atop a little hill far in the depths of forest outside of town, it was grand in its own right. I sat in my car outside of it for a moment, parked on the further end of the circular driveway, my head pressed against the cool glass of my window, taking stock of my situation.

I had no clothes. No toiletry products. Only the gaudy outfit I had worn last night, which still, to my annoyed disgust, only left me with my hooker boots. I had my purse, but it only held my phone, keys, wallet, and whatever miscellaneous stuff I hadn't emptied out of it yet. I certainly didn't have any money.

Or dignity.

I heaved myself out of my car and walked towards the garage, plugging in the code on a small side panel and watched, with a panicky expression, as it opened. It was a four-car garage and in it sat three cars. One was a dark, Batcar-looking machine with a dark exterior and tinted windows. Next to it was a horrifically yellow convertible, Porsche if I could label it properly. On the other side of that was a dark Mercedes.

I looked back towards my truck, taking note of the missing headlight and bent frame on the passenger side door. A wave of something resembling embarrassment made me fight the urge to run back to it and park it inside the garage.

Instead, I weaved my way between the cars and opened the screen door, holding it open with my ass as I opened the door to the house. I put my purse down on the white tile in the laundry room and kicked my boots off.

"Who the fuck are you?"

I screamed a little and turned towards the kitchen. Wearing a face of annoyed fury and brandishing a floor lamp, was a tiny little girl with spiky black hair, who was pointing the lamp at my head like she was ready to scream "en garde" and take a lunge.

"Oh, fuck," I groaned. "He has a girlfriend."

"Who has a girlfriend?" she asked, jabbing the lamp a little towards me. "I'm not afraid of you," she added.

"I have no doubt," I said dryly, and I believed it as much as I believed I would burn my hooker boots before I ever wore them again. "I talked to Edward, he invited me over." She thrust the lamp at me again and I jumped back. "Dammit," I said. "Put that down, would you? I'm not breaking in."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "How do you know Edward?"

"I met him last night when I was at his brother's house. I'm in a bit of a, um, tight spot, and he offered to let me stay here with him. I'm not fucking him, I promise."

"Fucking him?" she asked vaguely. And then, in the same distant tone, "you were at his brother's last night? At . . . Jasper's?"

"Yeah?"

Her angry expression vanished almost immediately and what replaced it was a blank look. Even her eyes seemed out of focus. I was about seventy-five percent sure I could have made a break for it, had she not been wielding a floor lamp that trumped her height by about three feet.

Her expression came back into focus a moment later and she jabbed the lamp at me again. She contemplated me for a moment. "Are you Tanya?"

"No, I'm Bella. And I am totally not fucking Edward. Though props to you if you are."

"Bella? As in, La Bella?"

It took me a moment to respond to that. I opened my mouth to confirm, but my throat seemed too tight to speak. I nodded instead. She grinned a Cheshire Cat smile at me and put the floor lamp down, much to my immediate relief.

"You tramp," she said, still grinning.

"Thanks?"

Then she attacked me, much like Tanya had done the previous evening, throwing her little body at me with more force than I would have guessed possible. She was such a tiny little thing that when she pressed her body up against me, she was able to put her face against the edge of my neck. I didn't return the hug, though she rocked me from side to side for a moment before releasing me and smiling hugely.

"I'm Alice," she said simply, then turned, picked up the floor lamp, and scampered away somewhere beyond the kitchen.

Oh my god, I thought, she's crazy. I have to leave.

"Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back!" she called. So I stood there, rooted on the spot by indecision, before she came bounding back into the kitchen, her hands clasped together. "Guess what I have?" she asked, grinning.

"An unused prescription for some ADHD medication?"

"Edward said you were funny." She grabbed my hand and steered me towards the refrigerator. She opened it and made a grand gesture a la car show model to the contents inside. I stared blankly at the various assorted foods, my stomach growling loudly.

"Food is good," I said.

She clicked her tongue and pulled out a large, round platter from the bottom shelf to show me. I immediately recognized the individual pieces of sushi, dozens of them, arranged in cute little rows. I groaned.

"He told you everything, didn't he?" I asked and she nodded brightly, her spiked hair remaining motionless. "And who are you, by the way?"

She lay the tray down adroitly onto the island in the middle of the kitchen and peeling off the plastic lid. "No wasabi, right?"

"Right . . ." I said. Alice put together all the pieces of sushi onto two plates and gestured for me to follow her past the kitchen and into the living room. She sat the food down onto the coffee table, taking up residence on the three-seated sofa beside it. I stared at the food for a moment before a heavy pressure in my chest altered me to the fact that I needed a cigarette. Now.

"I'm going to go outside really quick and . . . fuck," I moaned, throwing my hands over my eyes. "Never mind." I looked down at Alice, who looked appropriately perplexed. "You, uh, you don't have a cigarette by chance?"

"Sure do, but they're menthol," she said, getting up from the couch. "And you can smoke in here."

"Gah," I mumbled, "thank you, it's been, like, 20 hours since I've had one and I feel like my brain is going to drip out of my ears or something similarly unpleasant."

Alice walked into some room beyond the living room and reemerged, shaking a pack of menthols at me.

"So," I said, folding my legs underneath me and sitting down next to her. I took a cigarette and the lighter from the pack and lit it as she passed an ashtray towards me. "Why did you ask if I was Tanya?"

She paused for a moment, her chopsticks posed a few inches from her mouth. With a soft squirm of amusement, I thought of Edward's guilty but self-amused grin last night at the edge of the bathtub. "You came from Jasper's?"

"Yeah."

"Well . . . I was Jasper's sub before Tanya."

"Oh," I said, now vividly recalling the conversation I'd had with Edward on Jasper's dinning room last night. Awkward silence fell quickly, due in no small part to the fact that we had both simultaneously stopped eating and smoking. "So, we can have a Jasper-bashing session?"

Alice laughed and, like Tanya, it sounded of tinkling bells. "Sure, sure."

I uncrossed my legs and planted them on the ground so I could prop my elbows on my knees and lean in closer. "So, why's he such an asshole?"

Alice furrowed her eyebrows together. "Asshole?"

"Yeah, I mean, he's a total dick and, honestly, I can't figure out what the hell I did." My smile faltered a little as she continued to look confused. "I mean," I said, a little off-balanced, "I guess I was, I don't know, cheekier than I should have been, but I mean, come on, surely you know."

"He's an asshole to you?" she asked quietly. She was looking at me but in a weird sort of vague way that reminded me of a video I had seen as a little kid, where a ship-wrecked man had come home after many years lost at sea only to look all distant and as fucked up as Alice did now.

"Well, yeah," I said. "I mean, Edward warned me that he – " But I had cut myself off. Pictures of Edward's delectable face floated briefly into the forefront of my mind, his reddish lips pulled downward into an intense frown as he told me about Jasper's penchant for emotional flip-flopping. "Well, he told me – "

What had Edward told me? That Jasper was a jerk, but . . . once I was alone, he'd be the best friend you've ever had. I looked at Alice, whose expression had changed drastically in the few moments of my reminiscence. She had resumed eating, though her smiled hadn't quite returned.

"It's all good, though," I said, "I made some cutting remarks which I'm sure wounded his feelings severely."

When she didn't reply, I opened my mouth to say something else, anything else, when I heard my phone ring from the laundry room. Without looking at Alice, I hopped up awkwardly and stumbled my way past the kitchen and towards my purse.

"Hello, Emmett," I said into the phone, my voice absolutely dripping with poorly concealed annoyance.

"Bells!" he said. "When are you going to pick your fucking mutt up?"

I froze. "What?"

"When are you picking Jake up," he almost yelled, speaking above a loud barking and then a string of angry growls. "He and Jared are just not getting along."

I swallowed. "What?"

"I know you don't have any power in your apartment, but could you just come over and, I don't know, pet him or something? He's driving Rosalie mad." He sighed over the line. I could hear the unmistakable sound of Rosalie's screeching cries in the background.

"What?"

"I said it's great down here on earth. What's it like where you are?"

My stomach rolled, a slow and aching wave. In one, two. Out one, two. In one, two. Out one, two. "Are you out of town? Are you going to be out of town?"

"Well, I'm not exactly taking Jake and Jared anywhere with me anytime soon, so – "

"Did you tell someone you were going out of town? Anyone?"

"Dammit, Jared!" Emmett barked as another round of angry snarls slipped through the line. "Rosalie, darling, just put Jared in the den! No, Bella, I'm not going nor do I have plans of going out of town. Can you just get over here, please? Bella?"

The nausea was too great. With a great motion, I made an awkward dash from the laundry room and into the kitchen, where I vomited violently into the sink. Well, heaved would be more appropriate, since I hadn't really eaten anything in about sixteen hours. I silently thanked the gods for the combined fiascos of spilling copious amounts of milk and for awkward silences with Alice.

"Oh, Jesus, did you just puke?" Emmett asked, groaning slightly. "I don't suppose you have any alcohol on you."

I spit into the sink. "No, I don't really make it a habit to carry cans of beer around with me. Though I'm not entirely opposed to the idea." I took a deep breath, testing the way the expansion of my stomach felt underneath my hand. "Dude, Jasper fucking lied to me."

"What? Why would he do that?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't pretend to understand the inner-workings of a psychopath. He told me you were out of town which is why I couldn't come see you after I stormed out of his place today."

Emmett groaned again, loudly and dramatically. "Goddammit, Bella."

"What?" I asked, bristling. "He's a psychopath. What the hell did I do?"

"Look, I love you Bells," he said, "but you are a bit socially inappropriate at times."

"W-What?" I spluttered, suddenly feeling indignant. "Unless you're saying that there's a solid reason for why he'd lie to me about you being out of town, then how does this have anything to do with me?"

Rosalie screeched in the background again and screamed Emmett's name. "Maybe there was some confusion or something."

"Emmett, he told me you were out of town!"

"Maybe he was thinking of someone else. Look, Bella – "

"EMMETT!" I almost screamed, a familiar bubbling of panic rising from my stomach and up into my throat. "Listen to me!"

"Can I talk to you about this later? I promise I'll sit down and chat with you, but in the meantime, can you make arrangements to pick your fucking dog up?"

I felt the fierce burn of anger in my body and was almost certain that my face was a deep shade of red. "No," I hissed, my teeth gritted. "I can't, and why do you have Jake anyway?"

"Um," Emmett said, and I could hear the beginnings of condescension in his tone. "Maybe because you don't have any fucking electricity and I didn't want him to freeze to death?"

"Fuck you," I spat, "how about you lock him in the fucking bathroom until I can get around to picking him up. We can have our chat then." I knew I was being immature and, though I hated to admit it, slightly inappropriate, but what-the-fuck-ever. If Emmett was going to be a masterful bitch, then he could deal with two four-pound dogs entangled in a territorial pissing contest all by his big boy self.

I hung up and turned to lean on the counter, pressing my phone to my forehead. Alice slinked up beside me and leaned her head into my arm.

"You okay?" she asked softly.

"Yeah," I said curtly. "I'm fine."

"Well," she said, "I was eavesdropping and was just . . . concerned."

I looked down at her, which was quite the impressive feat considered I was barely five-foot-seven. "Yeah, thanks."

Then she turned to me and wrapped her arms fiercely around me. She buried her tiny head into my chest and squeezed tightly. I opened my mouth to make some witty remark when, to my astounded horror, I felt a prickle of something behind my eyes.

"Alice," I said in a little, choked voice, "Alice, I – "

"You need some food, seeing as you kind of just puked."

"Succinctly stated," I said, and allowed her to drag me back to the living room, where she pulled me down next to her on the couch and passed me my untouched plate of sushi. I looked down at the multi-colored food and smiled slightly. "Thanks."

"You know," she said, reaching across the table to grab another packet of soy sauce. From her pleasant expression and equally pleasant voice, it seemed that the weird moment that passed between us in the kitchen had fixed whatever awkwardness had beheld us earlier. "Edward's a really good guy."

I threw my chopsticks on the table with a huff and picked up a piece of sushi with my fingers. "Oh? You don't like him, do you?"

She laughed. "No, no, but not from a lack of trying."

I grinned, though it was a little forced. Emmett's rejection was still lodged deeply in my tight throat. "Oh?" I said in a provocative tone.

"Yeah," she said, "we tried, but, you know . . ."

And I did know. I knew the feeling; the hopelessness of meeting guys who seemed interested in you, the awkwardness involved. The tight, almost embarrassing feeling in the back of your throat when someone asked for your number. I had given up bars entirely in favor of being a hermit in perpetual isolation.

Well, maybe not in favor of. More like I don't really have a fucking choice.

"And you know what the best part of it all is?" Alice asked and I was under the impression she had continued talking despite my lack of a response.

"Hmm?" I shoved another piece of sushi in my mouth.

"The whip," she whispered and a series of goosebumps shot up my arms. "I mean, and as much of a jerk as he is, have you seen him use one yet?"

"Jasper?" I asked stupidly. "Yeah, for a moment." My mouth went dry and it was not without effort that I swallowed the remaining food.

"So you know," she said sagely, winking at me.

Despite myself, a slight grin turned the corners of my mouth upwards. Jasper, sweating slightly and completely shirtless, with his cowboy boots and leather bracelet on, holding the whip over his head, his lithe muscles rippling slightly with the effort.

"I know," I said, my grin stretching a bit across my face. "I know."

We ate in silence for a moment, before Alice spoke. "Edward likes you, you know. He talked about you all night."

My stomach squirmed in an uncomfortable but not altogether unpleasant way. "Is he going to kill you for telling me that?"

She nodded brightly. "Probably."

I sighed.

"Jasper is unique," she said, and I felt my body tense. My stomach rolled and I actually had to bite my tongue in order to stop myself from telling her to shut the fuck up. "He's . . . difficult. Complex. Can give you everything you want only to take it all away the next day. On a whim. For no apparent reason."

I barked out a bitter laugh. "That I have no trouble believing." She raised her eyebrows at me. "He was very cold to me at first and I kind of assumed it was completely unfounded. It bugged the absolute shit out of me. And then, at one point, he smiled at me. And it was just . . . weird."

"The shark smiles, as I like to call them," she said and I laughed. "Pay attention, it's when he's most pleased with himself."

"Himself?"

"Yeah. He never smiles at you. Only at himself."

"I thought he hated me," I said quietly. "And then when he smiled . . ."

"You thought he liked you."

"Yeah," I said, suddenly feeling like a fucking idiot. Sensing my abrupt change in mood perhaps, she leaned over the couch until her head rested against my shoulder. "I like you, Alice," I said. She nodded against my shirt.

"This looks promising."

Alice and I both started at the sound and I turned around on the couch, wiping some odd liquid that had managed to fall onto my cheeks, to face Edward. He wasn't wearing his lab coat like I had expected, but instead a sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. He was glistening slightly and holding a basketball between his hand and hip. A duffle bag was thrown over his shoulder. And he was smiling widely at the two of us.

I surreptitiously checked my mouth for drool.

"Why do you have to be such an awkward perv?" Alice asked, shaking her head. "You're a doctor."

"When did you get in, Alice?" Edward asked, ignoring her barb. "I thought you were going up north for the weekend."

She grinned. "About ten minutes before I attacked Bella with the lamp from your office."

He looked appropriately alarmed. "I thought we decided that wasn't a proper greeting tool."

I looked at Alice. "This is something you've done before?"

Edward gave a mock sigh. "Something she does often."

"Does?"

Alice sighed but stuck her tongue out at Edward. "I've gotten better."

"Ha!" he said.

"Don't tease me about my hobbies, Edward," Alice said good-naturedly. "I don't tease you about being an asshole."

My mouth dropped.

Edward grinned. "Hobbies? Paint a model car for Christ's sake. Take up knitting. Don't attack people with lighting fixtures."

"It's only a fixture if it's attached to the wall," Alice said.

"Appliance?" he asked.

"Kitchen."

"Utensil?"

"Still kitchen."

"A pencil is a utensil."

"But alas, it is not a pencil," Alice said. "It's a lamp."

Edward looked dubious.

"You want me to Webster that shit?" Alice said and he held up his hands.

"I believe you." He placed the duffle bag on the ground in the kitchen and plopped himself quite indelicately into the loveseat next to the couch. I patted the top of my head to try and tame whatever loose strands of hair had mutinously decided to make a break for it. "But round two is mine."

Alice hummed noncommittally before collecting herself off the couch, grabbing the empty plates from the table and making her way quickly upstairs. Subtlety at its most brilliant, I thought heatedly, my warm feelings for Alice evaporating a bit as her shadow disappeared up the staircase. Awkward silence fell quickly. My eyes were surveying the room, taking notice of the expansive book collection on the far wall and the absolutely massive television in front of the couches. I was acutely aware of Edward's presence near me and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, grateful to be finally rid of leather seating furniture that seemed to perpetuate Emmett's and Jasper's homes.

"So . . ." I said, discomfort finally forcing me to speak. "How was work?"

"Good," Edward said, shortly, continuing to drum his fingers rhythmically on the armrest of his couch.

"You know, Edward," I said slowly, "I don't actually speak Morse code."

"Want to take a shower with me?"

I turned my head slowly to look at him. His face was bright red but a determined sort of look made his lips thin. "Excuse me? Care to clarify that?"

"I meant to say," he said, turning even pinker, and looking down at his hands, "do you want to come in the bathroom with me while I take a shower."

"Oh, that's much better," I said sarcastically, picking myself up from the couch. "Asshole."

I stormed angrily into the kitchen towards my purse, both flustered and – though I hated to admit it – quite disappointed.

"Wait, Bella!"

"You're a sick fuck," I said, opening the door to the laundry room and grabbing my purse. I turned to leave, but he was standing in the threshold, both hands on either side of the doorframe, prohibiting my exit. "Get out of the way!"

"What - no, Bella. No, listen," he said, his face contorted into an expression I didn't recognize, "that's not what I meant."

I crossed my arms across my chest. "Then what is this, like, payback? For letting me stay here? Because that's fucking – "

"NO," he said, almost yelling, "no, it's just that . . ." He let go off the doorframe and pulled at the strands at the top of his head. It would have been disgustingly comical, had he not just uttered the perviest thing I'd pretty much ever heard come out of someone's mouth. "Last night, at Jasper's, while you were in the tub, well, it was good for me."

"I was naked."

"Well, yeah, but . . ." He pulled harder on the strands. "Dammit, you're making this hard!"

"You have five seconds to fix this before I kick you in the balls."

He opened his mouth and then shut it again.

"Three."

"It didn't – it didn't have anything to do with your . . . nakedness." His voice dropped to an embarrassed whisper. "I just, well, I had fun, okay?"

"Two."

"What?" Still attached to his strands of hair, he turned even pinker. "Look, you don't seem like the type of person to really open up to people and in the tub, you seemed really relaxed or something, and we were able to talk and, and stuff, and I thought that it would easier for you to talk about whatever the fuck Jasper did if you were in a setting that agreed with you." Noting my unchanged expression, he finished, a little lamely, "Or something like that."

He was still sweating a bit and dark marks under his armpits suggested he had worked out considerably. A very welcomed image of Edward jumping with a basketball propped between his hands, shooting the ball into the basket with a wide grin on his face quelled my fury pretty quickly. He was still tugging on the hair on top of his head, pulling on the roots so hard that the far edges of his eyebrows were raised, giving him a slightly maniacal look.

It was pretty endearing. And, while my instincts demanded I bolted as quickly from the laundry room as humanly possible, I found myself frozen on the spot.

Perhaps it was validation. After James, and after each day that drifted by without so much as a whisper to let me know I was still beautiful, still whole, I had a man, while not my ideal by any means, who was doing nothing short of begging me to see him. The inner-girl in me screamed with delight and my ovaries quivered again in anticipation.

"All right, Captain."