Chapter 5
I DO NOT OWN TWILIGHT OR CHARACTERS
Bella blinked rapidly and turned to Rosalie, a slow sinking feeling beginning to build in her gut.
"What do you mean he left for Denali three days ago?" she gawked, trying very hard not to ball up her fists but it was too late; they clenched until the whites of her knuckles showed.
No, no, no, her brain said. She's a liar. Rosalie's a filthy liar. He wouldn't do that to me.
"I mean exactly what I said. Are you slow now, too? Damn, we should have grabbed your helmet before we left! I knew I was forgetting something," Rosalie snapped her fingers as if she'd just remembered, then smiled coldly.
A quiet rage stirred in her gut as her throat closed. Never, in all her life, had Bella hated her quite so much. The rage became stronger when Bella realized that Rosalie had known. She had known the moment the blond told her that Edward was 'preoccupied' that she was holding back, and had waited for the perfect moment to really hit her as hard as possible with the news.
This was not kicking Bella while she was down. This was stomping her into a bloody pulp.
For the first time, the brunette understood how deeply Rosalie must hate her if this was how far she'd go to hurt her, but for the life of her, she did not know why.
"Rose!" Esme barked. "Out! Now!" she pointed to the staircase, eyes blazing as Bella made a soft noise in the back of her throat.
"He wouldn't have done that," the human breathed, arms wrapping around herself, but when she looked to Carlisle for confirmation with her eyes already watering, she knew it was true. The blond patriarch looked pained and he put a tentative hand on her shoulder which only made it hurt a thousand times worse.
"Obviously, he would," Rosalie snorted as she stood, dragging a frowning Emmett by the hand.
"Rosalie!" both he and Esme yelled as Bella blanched.
What in the nine circles of hell was her problem?
"I want a word with you, young lady," Esme ground out through clenched teeth. Rosalie rolled her eyes and tossed her hair over her shoulder, unbothered by her adoptive mother's tone. Within seconds, all three of them blurred up the staircase and out of the room. The sound of a door slamming shut punctuated their exit.
"I'm sorry, Bella. I'm very ashamed of Rosalie; I don't know why she acts so cruelly. But I am more ashamed of Edward. We tried to tell him to settle your problems maturely, but he…He wouldn't listen," Carlisle said in that soothing doctor voice of his.
Bella felt like she was being told a family member had just died during surgery and that, too, only worsened the pain.
He left. He really up and left. I never thought he was taking the fights that seriously, she thought, breathing shakily and shrugging off Carlisle's shoulder as politely as she could. But then again, wasn't I too? Had I not thought about breaking up with him if it kept up? But I never would have done him this way! Tears burned the back of her eyes as a powerful feeling of betrayal settled heavy on her shoulders and a bitter laugh left her mouth before she could stop it.
"I guess I should have seen that one coming," she huffed, furiously wiping her eyes.
There was dead silence from the other two people left in the room, one of which should have been right next to her right now, wrapping an arm around her and consoling her with her soft, bell-like voice, calling Edward every name under the sun and telling Bella it would be okay.
But Bella did not even have the strength to look at Alice right then and see what expression might be on her face. All the pain of knowing she'd probably officially lost her best friend came rushing up again and mixed with…
With the quite curious sensation she had of knowing Edward had left with no warning for his ex in Denali.
"Why would you have known?" Carlisle inquired, a muffled bewilderment in his voice.
Bella felt a little bewildered too. Her heart didn't ache the way she thought it should…In fact, remembering that Alice hated her now hurt much, much worse. The feeling in her chest wasn't one of a broken heart…No, it was a rugged sense of abandonment and betrayal.
He was my boyfriend…But more than that, he was my friend. He was my closest friend next to Alice in this stupid town, and he left me like a piece of trash, like I didn't mean shit, she thought, and knew that her tears were falling out of anger more than sadness. So what if we were fighting? How could he do that to me? Did I not mean anything to him?
Maybe their break up had been a long time coming. Maybe it was actually better for them to have broken up. Bella searched within herself but could not find it in herself to feel upset that it was over, and she knew because of that that deep inside, maybe she had really just wanted it to be over, too. Looking back she had to admit to herself that she wasn't entirely guilt free; she had lost count of the number of times she'd contemplated screaming It's over! in his face during one of their frequent fights. She also couldn't lie about the satisfaction she got thinking of doing so.
But it was still absolutely shitty of him to do it like this. She loved him, damn it, as much as she would a family member, and he left her without a single word. Not even goodbye.
"I think this was going to happen eventually," Bella answered honestly, even as she swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped furiously at her streaming eyes. "But how could he-he just left. Like it all meant nothing. I was thinking about breaking up too, you know? But I would never do this to him. Not to anyone."
Her voice was too weak and broken for her taste but she decided it was only fair that she was allowed to sound kind of pitiful, considering the circumstances. Carlisle's eyebrows rose in surprise.
"You wanted to end it too…?" he said. "Bella, permit me to be honest…I believe you were right then. Your relationship seemed meant to end. He said almost the same thing to me before he left, that he figured you wanted to break up with him as much as he wanted to go. I think Edward actually thought this was what you really wanted."
Was it? Was it really what she wanted? Did she really want to break up with him, or was it all part of the heat of the moment?
Bella closed her eyes for a moment and imagined Edward in front of her, smiling his crooked smile with his thick bronze hair and model perfect jaw. She imagined wrapping her arms around him, kissing him and tasting that dark chocolate taste on his lips that was uniquely his.
But she didn't feel much of anything at the thought. All she felt was a sort of affection like the one she might feel for a brother. And then she imagined him scowling and glaring at her, yelling and balling up his fists while bracing his shoulders so tightly that she could see the muscles knot beneath his shirt.
And she knew that he was right; it was time for their rocky relationship to end.
Just not like this.
"Yeah, well. That didn't mean I wanted to lose him. But I did," she shrugged, but the pain of his leaving was slowly giving way to a hurt that was unfathomably stronger, that was clawing at the inside of her chest and making her heart creak.
There should be no reason to feel so much at the loss of a friend. Surely, it was a difficult thing to experience to lose such a good one, but should that really override the loss of a boyfriend? Should it really hurt so much when they had known one another for a little less than a year?
And yet it did. Bella's eyes overflowed again before she could stop them, and she could also not stop herself from looking at Alice, really looking at her despite her silent vow not to after that cold shoulder.
She did not expect Alice to be looking back.
She had expected those strange blue eyes to be still staring determinedly anywhere but at her, but that was not the case.
Their eyes connected and Bella was crying properly before she even had the chance to try not to. The weight of that stare prevented her from comprehending. She couldn't read the vampire's expression. All she felt was the squeezing sensation in her chest.
"And I've lost you too. I lost my boyfriend and I lost my best friend all in one go, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I know you guys only b-brought me here to tell me to get lost and I know you think I'm a f-freak, but I n-never-I didn't mean to kiss you, Alice. I didn't m-mean to, and I don't know why I did it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she choked out, her arms tightening around her own waist as the tears really began to fall, thick and heavy and the deepest sense of pathetic self loathing closed in around her at her own desperate words.
Edward was just the icing on her proverbial cake. He was literally the cherry on top of her personal fucked up milkshake of bad decisions. It all tasted rotten and bitter in her mouth.
She suddenly couldn't see anymore when the tears began to blur her vision.
…But she could hear just fine.
"Bella! Oh, Bells."
It was Alice. It was Alice's high, bell like voice crying her name and when the smell of rain, butterscotch and berries flooded her brain, she knew that it must be Alice that had flown across the room, that it must be Alice's arms folding around her neck and pulling her close.
Oh, she thought, her sob freezing in her throat so roughly that it made it impossible to breathe. Oh my…
Bella breathed in as if she had surfaced from a thousand feet underwater. She choked a little and wildly wrapped her arms around the tiny dancer's waist, if only to keep her buckling knees from collapsing as Alice embraced her with a soft, plaintive noise.
"Bella. No, baby, no," she whispered into Bella's ear, squeezing her neck gently.
"Hungh," Bella said.
Sorry to say that word isn't in the English language, Ms. Swan. Or any language for that matter.
Good try though.
She called me baby, her brain screamed. Baby.
Why that was the only thing she could latch on to at the moment was odd, but she was drowning in pheromones like there was no air to be found in the room, so it was understandable.
"Alice, remember what we talked about," Carlisle's voice sounded far away, though he must be standing only a foot to Bella's right if he had not moved.
Like before, Alice's pheromones crowded into her skull and smothered her mind in a mad sort of heaven, where breathing felt like inhaling a thick slurry of want, where thinking was unheard of, where Alice's touch was the only thing that mattered.
This was not a normal reaction to pheromones. There was no reason for them to be affecting Bella the way they were. They never should have been doing that in the first place.
What was going on?
It was even more powerful than before, a million light years ahead of anything that mysterious redhead woman might have done. The sensation did not creep up on her like it did the other night but blasted her in the shock of Alice's hug and she almost fell to her knees when the vampire abruptly drew back.
"Oh, sorry! Oops," she winced as Bella swallowed hard and could not pry her wet eyes off of Alice's bright blue ones. "I forgot."
"Wha-" Bella slurred, confused, her hands still on Alice's waist.
Jasper appeared behind Alice and pried her slowly out of a pheromone drunken Bella's grip. The brunette let her go without a fuss though something inside her that she could not name snarled at him in protest, her fingers feeling boneless and her legs filled with jelly.
"Easy does it, Bella," Carlisle hummed next to her and she felt his hand grip her elbow. She was eased back and down as her brain buzzed as if she'd been shooting up on pure Alice. She flinched a little when the backs of her legs hit something firm and she abruptly sat down on the couch behind her, dizzy and beyond confused.
Slowly, the trance began to break and she shook her head to free herself from the flurries of Alice's lingering touch. She blinked and shook it again, grunting as her skin tingled pleasantly.
"What the hell was that!" she gasped when words finally succeeded her. Her voice was low and cracked embarrassingly. She blushed and rubbed up and down her arms to stop the buzzing sensation. She tried to ignore the way her lower belly throbbed in a knot, but couldn't.
Jasper and Alice were now sitting together again on the opposite side of the coffee table. He had his arm around her shoulders, and something about that bothered her, the lackadaisical way he did it, as if it belonged there. Alice was grimacing in Bella's direction.
Beneath the flood of pheromones dissipating reluctantly around her, a stirring of joy fluttered uncertainly in her chest. She hugged me, Bella thought wonderingly. She hugged me and called me baby…She doesn't hate me?
"That," Carlisle stated as he sat on the arm of the couch next to her, sounding slightly amused, "was Alice's pheromones."
Oh, well, no shit, Sherlock.
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as if to say Oh really but her gaze was ripped right back to Alice. That stirring of joy blossomed when Alice gave her a weak, sheepish grin and mouthed "Sorry".
Yes, she was confused beyond anything, but Alice didn't seem to hate her. She was talking to Bella. She hugged her.
So nothing else mattered.
Hope and a wary relief began to fight for her attention as Carlisle began to speak.
"As you may have noticed just now and last night, they are…Stronger than anything you might have previously experienced. Part of that has to do with Alice's unusual symptoms, which we've brought you here to explain…Not to tell you to get lost."
Stronger was an understatement, but Bella looked quickly to him at the admonishment in his eyes were kind and she blushed at the look. Apparently, he had not taken well to her fear that they would tell her to beat it.
That only intensified the hope that maybe she had not ruined everything, if he was actually offended that she thought they would treat her that way.
Oh god, I hope I'm not getting my hopes up like an idiot…
"As you can tell by Alice's display of affection there, I don't really think she thinks you're a freak, Bella. None of us do. There are perfectly valid explanations for last night, and even if there weren't, we are no strangers to issues with controlling oneself. I hope you'll pardon how early we sent Rose to come and get you, but I figured you might be extremely distressed and I wanted to ease your mind as quickly as possible. And…I hope you'll pardon me from sending Rose in the first place. I knew you two weren't on the best of terms, but Emmett's license was revoked and Jasper, Esme, and I were running damage control here," Carlisle spoke with that calm voice of his that really told all of Bella's anxiety and trepidation to go away.
Seriously. It was no wonder he was a doctor. Bella could have been dying of a heart attack and Carlisle could have convinced her she was fine.
"I don't understand," Bella admitted, looking from him to Alice and back again. "I…"
"What don't you understand?" Carlisle asked, not unkindly.
Anything, she responded mentally.
"A lot of things…Like why her pheromones are doing that to me now when they've never done that before…And why her eyes are blue, and why her bite didn't even really hurt me, and why I couldn't control myself, and why she's in a sling-"
Or why Edward left me like that, or why I turn into a lesbian with the crush from hell when Alice touches me, or how it could ever be possible that Alice does not hate me after everything.
The questions came pouring out before she could stop them and she had about a million more, but when Carlisle laughed she snapped her mouth shut, glancing back at Alice, who was watching her with eyes that seemed to glisten in the light.
Were those tears?
"Okay, okay, I knew you had a lot of questions Bella, so allow me to answer them all in the best way I can. I believe I have reasonable theories for all of this. Trust me, I was as confused as both of you when Alice came limping home last night, bawling like a baby. Having been around for quite some time and having studied vampires for much of that time, I would ask you to listen to my theories and see if they make sense to you."
It wasn't like she had much choice. She was dying for answers.
She was also dying to get up and go sit by Alice and spew out a few thousand more apologies and ask if Alice hated her, but that would have to wait.
"Okay," Bella agreed meekly, turning to face him when Jasper leaned down and began to whisper into Alice's ear, causing Alice to turn away from her.
Well.
She wasn't really talking to her after that out-of-the-blue hug, but at least this was better than the cold shoulder. A part of her was still dying to know what Jasper murmured intimately into her ear though.
"Okay then. Let's start from the beginning," Carlisle hummed and put his hands together.
Bella got the sudden feeling she was in for a rant.
"The night you first bit Alice, Bella, she came home and admitted that she had come close to biting you back. Esme and I reprimanded her for not better controlling herself, but we understood that she had been startled. I assume you believed she was avoiding you because of the awkwardness of the situation, but that was not entirely the case."
Bella's eyes whipped to Alice's for a split second and back again. Why the hell else would she have spent a solid week not coming around?
However, Carlisle had only just begun to weave his story. He spoke in long winded speeches but in a direct way that made it easier to understand.
Strange behavior began to develop into my daughter whom he knew so well. When she walked, she sometimes bumped into things. Alice wasn't as graceful as she had been before, nor as strong. And though Bella's teeth should have done nothing more than clang off her shoulder as if she'd bitten metal, they ended up leaving a mark that did not fade for the entirety of the week. Carlisle was extremely puzzled and watched her closely. None of them had ever really seen anything like it. Alice had trouble hunting and seemed fatigued. But after a while, the symptoms began to fade, and though Carlisle was beyond curious about why Bella's bite seemed to be affecting her so, he could not be certain of anything. And eventually Alice returned to almost normal, and went back to see Bella.
"I believe her intentions were to never let you know the effect you had had so as not to worry you…But then last night happened," Carlisle outed his daughter shamelessly.
Again, Bella looked straight back at Alice with narrowed eyes.
She had been told absolutely none of that. Alice guiltily looked away from her and a rush of irritation bloomed in her belly.
Why had Alice not told her any of that? Had Bella known she never would have agreed to bite her again –which she should not have agreed anyway but that's besides the point- and she also would not have been so worried and anxious the entire week she was gone. She didn't get the chance to protest this injustice because she had to keep listening to Carlisle to keep from missing anything else important.
"During the week of the first bite you gave her, Alice was not only acting strangely, but she was also depressed," Carlisle continued.
Alice apparently felt awful for kissing her and scaring her, which Bella already knew, it continued to plague her non stop throughout the week. Alice had some of the better control in the family and was beyond disappointed in herself, especially considering how close they were.
"You're one of the best friends she's ever had, whether you know it or not, Bella. You're the first human who's ever even managed to keep her attention for longer than half an hour, so the fact that you seemed wary of her when she came back probably only escalated the situation."
That rush of irritation was quelled instantly with a rush of affection. Bella felt her heart swell at
Carlisle's words and when she looked yet again at Alice, she saw a tiny smile there that made her belly flutter curiously. She bit the inside of her lip and kept listening, but had eyes only for Alice and her weak but encouraging smile.
"So though I am very disappointed in her idea for correcting the situation, as logical as it may have seemed, I am unsurprised as to what followed. When you bit her again, I'm pleased to say that she kept control, but the vampire inside her has defense mechanisms that I think were activated by an unforeseen attack mechanism that you hold in your saliva, Bella."
Bella cocked her head and furrowed her brow at him, desperately confused now.
"What?" she blinked.
If this had been a comic book, a series of question marks would have popped up over her head.
'Huh' sufficed well here but 'What' sounded slightly less dumb.
"If my theories are correct, it is not you who should fear a vampire's bite, Bella. It is vampires who should fear yours…That is, if they wish to stay a vampire," Carlisle continued.
When Bella only stared blankly at him, plainly not understanding what he was on about, he went on.
"You've witnessed Alice's awakened defense mechanism already when she hugged you. It is her pheromones, Bella. They are operating at a rate that is so toxically high that you are rendered incapable of 'attacking' her, so to speak. It is the vampiric attempt at making you weak enough to defend against. It is not unknown to happen. Our pheromones frequently increase in strength when we're frightened, aroused, and hungry, but this is a whole new level. They were already higher than normal when she entered your room which I know you noticed. That is part of what made you incapable of controlling yourself."
Holy hell that sure explained a lot. No wonder being so close to Alice affected her so much. Her pheromones were not only suddenly more potent, but pumping out at a rate that Bella's poor little nervous system had no way of protecting itself against them.
More relief came flooding into Bella and she sighed, relishing the fact that her gay panic had been for nothing. She didn't have some weird lesbian crush on Alice caused by the first kiss they'd shared. It was just the pheromones, just like she thought it was!
Thank god, she thought.
But then why had Alice refused to look at her when she walked in? Surely she couldn't blame Bella for that. It wasn't her fault.
She was still freaking bewildered as to what 'attack' mechanism she had that was capable of making Alice more human. That didn't make any sense. Why would her saliva be able to do that?
"I believe your saliva has the ability to transform vampires back into what we once were, and I believe the vampire in us will fight that to the death with everything it's got," Carlisle elaborated and Bella only raised her eyebrows, skeptical and still confused.
"So when you bit her, already her instincts were being activated whether either of you knew it or not. Your bite acts quickly, Bella, and was only stronger a second time. This time it did more than make Alice weak and clumsy. Her fangs rounded out. Her physical strength waned. Her grace, her invincibility to normal injury was greatly lowered, and her eyes turned their once human color, blue…But her instincts? Her vampiric will to survive? That shot up to a new extreme. And thus her pheromones increased tenfold and you kissed her because that's what pheromones do to humans."
Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush.
She flushed red and internally swore, opting not to look at Alice in her gut wrenching embarrassment.
There was no need to bring that up! She still felt awful enough about it!
Okay, maybe there was a reason to bring it up, but still. She wanted to whine at Carlisle to shut up about it before Alice became legitimately disgusted with her, pheromones be damned.
"They physically attract you in for the kill, forgive me for how morbid that sounds. There was no way you'd have been able to resist that unless you had superhuman levels of resistance. But that kiss also only spurred Alice's instincts on even farther, and when you ran, it became a triple assault on her senses. Running ignites the predator in us as much as anything else, and so Alice lost it…But thankfully your bite had done its work and she couldn't do much damage…To anyone but herself, really. It's almost like that impossibility, where an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You practically canceled each other out with some, er…Interesting consequences."
Interesting.
What a quaint way to put it, Carlisle.
"That's it, really. Alice has a sprained elbow and a sore ankle, but thankfully your bite doesn't act too quickly or her fall from that height might have been a bit more lethal," Carlisle finished, waving his hand to indicate Alice's injuries.
"My bite did that to her?" Bella questioned, suddenly understanding that she might really be even more at fault for Alice's injuries than before. She felt terrible instantly but Carlisle shrugged. Maybe that was why Alice was angry at her, because Bella had made her weak.
"Yes, I believe so. I've never heard of a human being capable of doing this, but it's the only explanation we have readily available," Carlisle shrugged his shoulders.
Bella only half believed him until she took in Alice's injuries and a sick thought occurred to her.
"She's not stuck that way, is she?" Bella asked anxiously. "There's no way I really turned her human, right?"
"No, I don't believe so. Already Alice is exhibiting more vampiric qualities than before, the same as the last time you bit her. Her fangs are even back already. What further bites would do to her, we don't know and why you have this peculiar ability we also do not know, but I believe Alice will make a full recovery," Carlisle reassured her. Before Bella could question him further, he said, "And speaking of bites, those look rough. Allow me to dress your wounds, Bella. I don't want them to get infected."
Bella didn't really listen to that as Carlisle darted out of the room, presumably to gather medical supplies for the bites on her neck that still throbbed faintly whenever she moved. Her focus maintained on Alice, who had remained remarkably silent throughout Carlisle's explanation.
There was an uncomfortable silence between her, Jasper, and Alice. Jasper was whispering in her ear again, but Alice only grimaced and squeezed his knee, and he stopped.
The maddening desire to know what the hell he was saying overtook her again, but she only shifted uncomfortably and opted against words. It was hard enough to maintain eye contact with Alice after everything she had learned and she wished for a moment that they could talk privately, without Jasper or Carlisle or anyone interrupting them.
She also hoped to avoid that with all her might because damn that would be awkward, but…
And why was his arm around Alice's shoulders bothering her so much? Maybe it was because he kept muttering in her ear and Bella couldn't tell if it was about her or not, but she had the sneaking suspicion that it was. She'd never had any problems with Jasper but she tended to avoid him because of how poor his control was, but right now he was kind of pissing her off.
Before the silence could become too intense, Carlisle returned with some gauze, cotton, and…
A bottle of rubbing alcohol.
Fuck.
"Um, hey, I already disinfected it, can we just bandage it?" Bella eyed the stuff like it was the devil.
"They look pretty red and swollen. I think another disinfection is a good idea," Carlisle replied as he perched next to her on the arm of the couch and tilted her head to the side gently, gripping her by the chin.
There was no arguing with the doctor.
She winced and drew in a deep breath, dreading what came next. With vampiric speed, he unscrewed the cap to the bottle of rubbing alcohol, soaked a cotton ball, and then swabbed it over the first bite.
She yelped and tried to draw away but a second later he blew a stream of cool breath on the wound that smelled faintly of mint. The cold air took the sting completely out of it and her eyes widened.
A second later she hummed in appreciation. There was another sting further down her neck that was also soothed a moment later by Carlisle blowing on it, and then before she had blinked twice, he slapped the gauze onto her neck in perfectly cut squares and taped it down.
This all took about thirty seconds. Sometimes vampire speed was nice. It certainly hurt less than her own idiotic 'disinfecting'.
"There. All better," he said, placing the medical supplies on the coffee table.
No wonder Esme liked the man so much. He was a genius at this stuff. Bella wondered how efficient he was at real surgery and knew that the Forks County Hospital was in good hands.
"So…All of this was caused by me biting her?" Bella inquired slowly, absentmindedly touching the bandages on her neck.
She wondered how Alice still refused to speak even when they continued to talk about her as if she weren't even in the room.
"In a roundabout way, sort of," Carlisle said in a way that showed he was trying not to upset the human. "If I'm correct. We're not even sure."
Bella was pretty sure if anyone could figure out what was going on it was Carlisle and she pretty much completely believed his theory. It made sense, at least.
"And…The only reason I-I um…Kissed Alice…Was because of her pheromones, right?" she fished, searching for a proper confirmation.
She fully expected to get one, too.
Yet Life had other plans, it seemed.
Carlisle opened his mouth as if to respond and then promptly shut it. He frowned in a way that made her stomach drop. She fought the urge to say Right? again.
I only kissed her because of the pheromones, right? She yelled in her mind. Why isn't he answering me?
Carlisle rubbed his jaw and glanced over to Alice then back again. Bella was beginning to notice it was a nervous habit of his. She didn't even think he had nervous habits before today. He had just opened his mouth to speak when he was interrupted.
"Carlisle, can I talk to Bella alone please?" Alice spoke up. Bella jerked her head to the side, eyes wide as the pixie like girl abruptly stood. The distinct impression that they were keeping something from her gave way to panic.
What? She mentally freaked. Why? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Shit!
"Um. Sure, of course. If you're sure?" Carlisle inclined his head towards her, standing as well.
"I'm sure. Jazz, you too honey. I really think Bella and I should talk privately," Alice affirmed, rolling her shoulder awkwardly in the sling as if it bothered her. Jasper stood quickly. A little too quickly in Bella's opinion, but that was the least of her worries.
Panicked butterflies swarmed to life in her stomach and beat their wings ruthlessly.
Alice wanted to talk to her? Really talk to her?
Alone?
Bella's eyes flitted to each of their faces in her sudden alarm as she remained the only one seated, her hands clenching her raggedy jeans tightly.
"Yeah, of course hun," Jasper drawled as he put a hand on her hip. He then turned to Bella, inclined his head the same way Carlisle did while looking her right in the eyes and said, "Bella."
And then he kissed her.
Their lips touched with a soft smack that made Bella wince at the PDA.
Something about the way he did it really…Really…
What?
Fucking grinded her gears, that was what.
The way he darted in and kissed Alice with no warning, the way Alice kind of flinched in surprise, the pointed way he had looked Bella right in the eyes before he did it made the something that had snarled at him when he pulled the vampire out of her hands growl.
What was his deal? First he whispered about her –because Bella was sure that was the only thing he could have been muttering under his breath over there- and then he did that? Was it all the Cullens that had an issue with her now save for Carlisle and Esme?
She apparently had a knack for agitating the others; that was for sure.
Bella kept the affronted look off of her face with great difficulty as Alice raised an eyebrow at him when he and Carlisle left the room in two blurs.
And then there were two, her subconscious chimed in a manically amused sort of way.
Alice still stood and without thinking about it, Bella stood as well. She realized too late that the the action was kind of awkward, but it was too late to take it back. They were painfully silent as Bella searched for something to say, uncomfortably wiping her sweaty palms off on her pants as Alice only stared. The vampire seemed to note the move as her eyes jumped from Bella's face, to her hands and back in one quick movement.
"Hey," Alice finally spoke, breaking the tense silence. Bella imagined a pen dropping at the end of her sentence to punctuate it properly.
One word had never sounded so beautifully terrifying.
"Hey," she croaked back, attempting a smile that probably came out more of a grimace.
God, I've never been this nervous around her before! She thought frantically. Think, Swan, think! What do I do to make this right? You cannot mess up again!
Alice shifted on her feet and slowly, ever so slowly, looked Bella up and down.
Bella felt her stomach dip at the appraisal and the butterflies shoot around in surprise at the sudden descent.
"Well. I think we've both looked better," Alice grinned when their eyes reconnected. The sight of her smile, as it always did, brought a real one to Bella's face as if she could not even control it, tentative though it was.
"Cool battle wounds," she went on, a quiet but no less real edge of amusement lingering in her voice. The sound of it made Bella want to leap with joy. "Been fighting again, I see. We just can't keep you under control, can we Tiger?" Alice smirked and that really did it.
Bella swore she could hear the sound of shattering glass as Alice effortlessly broke the ice. She wanted to squeal and writhe on the spot but that would have made her look ridiculous, so she settled on a smile that showed off all of her front teeth.
"You should see the other guy," she replied loftily as Alice's smirk broke into a full blown beam at her words.
"Oh, yeah? No doubt, no doubt. You are quite the scrapper," Alice nodded in faux agreement and seemed to be holding in a fit of giggles when Bella shrugged and flexed the tiny muscles of her right arm playfully, knowing how dweeby it was and totally not caring because holy thank god, Alice was talking to her like she always had and it felt freaking amazing.
"I don't think she likes Spongebob quite as much as you though," Alice waved her hand at Bella's neck and the brunette furrowed her brow, one hand going to the gauze on her neck. She glanced at the mirror hanging on the living room wall to her right and gawked when she saw, sure enough, that holding down the gauze of both bandages were a series of bright yellow and blue Spongebob imprinted band aids instead of tape.
It appeared Carlisle had a sense of humor she had never experienced before.
Alice finally exploded into laughter at her expression and the sound of it, just the sound of it made Bella fall apart too. She dissolved into giggles, laughing so hard that her eyes watered as all the tension that had been building between them was diffused by the return of their usual joking dynamic.
For a long, blissful moment, they just laughed together. Relief soothed Bella's butterflies into calm, fluttery little things that settled into nothing inside her stomach. When they finally calmed down and their eyes met once more, she could see that twinkle she loved so much sparkling in astonishingly pretty sapphire eyes.
If she looked closely, she could see a ring of deep gold around Alice's pupils. She could not help but take that as a sign that things were really going to return to normal.
Thank God, she thought for what felt like the thousandth time. She doesn't hate me. Thank God.
She'd have to remember to send Carlisle a Thank You card too.
Alice smiled a softer smile at her then, one full of a familiar fondness and lightly jerked her head towards the couch on her side of the coffee table.
"C'mere, Bells."
Bella breathed in deeply, knowing that even though they had broken the tension that they still had some heavy things to discuss and she still dreaded that, but at least now she could go into it knowing that most likely they were going to come out the other end okay.
She walked around the coffee table as Alice sat back down, facing Bella with her legs tucked under her. Naturally, Bella moved to sit next to her, close to her as they always sat together but stopped immediately when she seemed to step over a line where Alice was just a friend and where Alice was something more.
Pheromones assaulted her and she reared back, gasping softly. They slid around her, into her, a silent attack on her senses. When her eyes widened dramatically, Alice winced and put up a hand as if to hold her back from afar.
"Maybe-Maybe over there for now, okay? You've got one hell of a mouth on you, honey. You've done a real number on me," Alice advised gently. "I can't make that go away."
Bella nodded hurriedly and quickly sat down on the opposite end of the couch where the pheromones couldn't reach her half as well, though she still sat her body down facing her friend.
"Sorry," they both said the moment Bella was settled and the pheromones seemed to stop being overpowering.
They both grinned a bemused sort of grin at each other and then instantly tried to talk at the same time again.
"No, Alice, really I-"
"Bella, seriously, I never-"
"-Didn't mean to hurt you, Alice, I never wanted-"
"-Never meant for any of this, Bella-"
They both abruptly shut their mouths as Bella blushed and Alice rolled her eyes and chuckled at their haphazard attempts at conversing.
"Me first?" she suggested and Bella nodded helplessly. She was desperate to know what the other girl was thinking at this point.
Alice went on. "I've wanted to say this to you since you walked in. I'm sorry, Bella. I'm so, so sorry for what happened. I never meant for any of this to happen. There are so many things I did wrong but the main one was hurting you, and I will never forgive myself for that. There aren't enough ways for me to apologize to you, and I hope you don't hate me half as much as I hate myself, because that would really, really…Suck," she finished lamely, shifting her arm in the sling, eyeing
Bella with trepidation and sincerity in her eyes.
Like last night when Alice had leapt into her room and all this started, Bella was dumbstruck.
"You-You think-"
Is she serious? Is she really freaking serious?
She was at a loss for words. Alice's eyes searched hers and she could only shake her head in astonishment.
"My turn?" she cocked her head forward a little and Alice nodded, eyebrow rising slightly at Bella's surprised stuttering.
"Dude-you have got it all twisted. You always get it twisted. How can you think for even a second that you're the one at fault here? I bit you. I hurt you. You don't have to apologize-God, I'm surprised you aren't screaming at me right now for doing this to you. I'm the one that started all this by being an idiot and I'm the reason you're wearing that stupid sling and I'm the one who should be saying sorry. And I am. I am sorry with all my heart. And if you think for even a second that I could ever hate you-" Bella cut herself off as the absurdity of it all really hit her. "You're so wrong. You're my best friend, and I don't hate you. You're the one who should hate me…But you don't, do you?"
The last question was so pitifully insecure and fearful that she wanted to take it back, but Alice's dissenting scoff was the most heavenly sound on the earth.
"No! No, no, no!" she stated repeatedly, shaking her head as if Bella had just told her that vampires weren't real. "No. You have it twisted. I bit you, Bella, and whatever Carlisle says, that was a hell of a lot more dangerous than you biting me. I could have changed you-I could have killed you. If your saliva worked any slower, I would have! Don't you get that?"
"Yeah, I get it, but-"
"But nothing. And you think I hate you? Carlisle wasn't lying when he said you're one of the best friends I've ever had…Bella, listen to me when I say I don't hate you, that I could never hate you. We've known each other for what, seven months now? But you-Bells, I've never met a human like you. I've never met a person like you. I couldn't stand to see you crying at the thought of it…It killed me. I hugged you just to try and let you know that it's not you I hate for what happened, it's myself."
There was silence at that as they both stared each other down, each blaming themselves more than the other and having no way to convince the other that they were wrong.
"Alice, look-"
"Listen, Bella-"
"It's my fault, not yours-"
"You're not to blame here, I am-"
"It's not your fault," they finished together. For a second they both glared, annoyed by the other girl's determination to point the finger at herself.
And then they both broke out into self deprecating grins and laughed at their inability to talk simultaneously. This released some of the frustration in the room and they fell quiet, watching each other with uncertain, skeptical eyes.
This time, it was Bella who broke the silence.
"Look-can we both just agree to disagree? Or at least agree that we were both at fault here? We both messed up but-hey, it kinda worked out in the end. I don't hate you, you don't hate me, neither of us blames the other and I sure as hell want to stay friends, so can you please listen to me this time when I ask you to just forget it?" Bella pleaded, eyes beseeching.
Alice still looked unconvinced, but at the look on Bella's face, the fight seemed to go out of her.
She slumped and sighed before reluctantly humming in agreement.
"Okay but…I won't forget it. This was a learning experience for both of us. But I will let it go. I don't want our friendship to end over this either," Alice told her. "I think I'm ready to just move past this."
Bella had never heard sweeter words.
"Yeah, definitely…So, we're good?"
There was a tiny part of her that still needed reassurance.
And it got it when Alice smiled her gorgeous, contagious smile.
"Yeah, we're good, Tiger. Always friends, right?" Alice echoed her words from the previous night.
"Right. Always."
The weight of the world officially lifted off of her shoulders.
They spent a moment just grinning goofily at each other, the first comfortable silence they'd endured for a long time settling over them. But a nagging thought niggled at the back of her mind and she broke it again.
"So…What was Carlisle going to say when I asked him about your pheromones and me…Ya know. Kissing you?"
If she muttered 'kissing you' any softer Alice's weakened hearing wouldn't be able to catch it.
At her question, Alice grimaced and rubbed at her shoulder. Bella would have apologized profusely for that when the surge of guilt hit her if they had not already agreed to stop apologizing, but it was Alice's slow, measured response that wiped away everything else.
"Um, Bells…There's something we've never mentioned to you about pheromones before."
The feeling that a bomb was about to be dropped in her lap made Bella tense.
"And that would be…?"
Alice's reluctant sigh sounded like the hiss of its fuse reaching its end.
"What?" she demanded, extremely on edge now.
"Our pheromones only ignite physical attraction in people who are capable of being physically attracted to us…"
When Bella only stared, Alice clarified.
"Which means you're either capable of being physically attracted to girls, or…You're capable of being physically attracted to me."
And BOOM, the bomb exploded.