A/N

Hello! Thanks for coming back!

I know; we all hate Edward right now. Hopefully, he can clear things up soon.

Sorry, this one is a bit on the short side. Real life has been stressful lately with stuff going on in my corporate gig. Wish I could win the lottery.

Unbeta'd. Ignore all my mistakes.

S. Meyer owns all things, Twilight.

Chapter 7

BPOV

Sitting on the couch, cocooned in a blanket, I point the remote at the television and absently flip through the apps.

HBO, Netflix, Prime, Showtime.

Nothing.

I don't want to watch anything.

Throwing the controller on the table, I fall onto my side like a dead tree, and my head lands on the small pillow my mom got me for Christmas last year. My cheek is smashed against the brightly colored script.

Live. Laugh. Love.

Alice makes fun of it every time she comes over. I really need to take it to the thrift store. Oscar snuggles at my feet, his stuffed pig forgotten on the floor, while my listless eyes stare at the blank screen.

Edward is engaged.

Edward has a fiancé.

Edward has a fucking fiancé.

Mr. Volturi knows about it, so it's obviously not a secret, but Edward didn't tell me. All the time we've spent together, and he never told me. I'm angry and confused. But most of all, I'm embarrassed. I feel like a fool —a stupid fool who thought Edward might be interested in me romantically. I cringe when I think about it and want to bury myself in a hole and never come out.

There's a knock at the door, and Oscar's head pops up. When I don't move, there's another, louder rap a minute later.

"I know you're in there," Alice says. "Open up."

Sighing, I throw off the blanket. My socked feet shuffle to the door as Oscar trails behind me, and I fumble with the chain before opening the door. My only form of greeting is a small smile before I turn and walk back to the couch.

"Hey, Os, who's a good boy?" I hear Alice say as I resume my position on the sofa.

A few seconds later, I feel it dip when she sinks onto the other end.

"So, this is the look we're going with?" she says.

I'm wearing my favorite Old Navy sweatpants and the tattered flannel I stole from my dad's closet years ago. I did that a lot when I was a teenager – steal his clothes. I used to call it "The Pop Shop."

"I like it," she says before placing a brown bag on the table. She gets up and walks toward the kitchen, and the sound of cabinets opening and silverware rattling fills my ears. When she returns, she places two glasses and matching spoons in front of us before reaching into the bag and pulling out a bottle of Malbec and a pint of keto ice cream. When I raise an eyebrow, she shrugs her shoulders.

"It's all about balance. Now, let's get drunk."

~!~

"She really loved him," Alice says as the credits roll. "Maybe they'll get back together someday."

We're sitting on my couch and watching the Pamela Anderson documentary.

"Baywatch was so underrated," I say, tipping my head back and swallowing a mouthful of wine.

She nods and scrapes the remaining remnants of ice cream from the container.

"Totally."

After placing the empty carton on the table, she leans down and pulls an iPad from her bag.

"You ready?" she asks.

I nod.

Quick.

Stiff.

Once.

"You sure?" she says. "We don't have to do this. I can just keep what I know to myself, and you can move on with your life."

"We're doing it," I say.

After leaving the conference room yesterday, I sat in my office, trying to wrap my mind around what had happened. I couldn't make sense of any of it but ultimately decided I was relieved. At least I found out now before making a bigger fool out of myself. I left an hour later, and when I arrived home, I curled up next to Oscar in the darkness of my room and called my best friend. And Alice being Alice, went directly into sleuthing mode.

"Okay," she says before letting out a breath. "If you're sure."

I nod again. "Tell me."

She opens the iPad and starts typing.

"I didn't have much to go on since Mr. Volturi didn't give you a last name, so I used the initials from the law firm he mentioned."

She looks over at me. "WJP - Wayne, Jankowski, and Packer." Her voice is soft. "Her name is Kathryn Hanover."

I hold out my hand, and she passes me the iPad. I take a large gulp of wine before placing my glass on the table and looking down at the screen. It's a corporate headshot, and Kathryn Hanover stares back at me with kind blue eyes. She looks to be in her late twenties or early thirties, and her side-swept blonde bangs give her an air of freshness and youth. She wears a loose-fitting white blouse under a dove grey blazer and looks into the camera with a gentle smile.

"She looks like someone we'd be friends with," I say before hiccupping.

Alice sounds resigned. "I know."

My eyes drift down to the blurb under her photo.

Kathryn Hanover comes to WJP with a strong background in Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties. After graduating from Columbia University, Kate worked tirelessly for the ACLU before joining WJP. As one of our top litigators, Kate specializes in child support cases and brings all the passion and fight you'd expect from a member of our team. Click here to contact Kate for a free consultation.

"She's on Facebook," Alice says, and I watch as her finger clicks on one of the open tabs, "But it doesn't look like she's on it much."

I stare down at the profile picture. Kate is doing a cartwheel on the beach, wearing a cute one-piece bathing suit. The photographer caught her mid-rotation, and her long blonde hair is splayed around her like a spikey fan as she hangs in the air in front of the bright blue ocean. There isn't much information listed. Columbia and the ACLU, but nothing more recent. Scrolling through her photos, I attempt to piece together a complete person from these brief snapshots of her life. There are a few of her with some girlfriends, tanned and holding cocktails. There's another one of her with an older couple who I assume are her parents.

Then I see it. I'd recognize his smile anywhere. The two of them are on some kind of trail in the wilderness. The lush greenery is vibrant, and the sun glints off Edward's sunglasses. The peak of a large mountain looms behind them, visible above the tops of the loaded camping packs they wear on their backs. The caption underneath reads -Not all who wander are lost.

I stare at them. They look young, carefree … happy.

I shut the iPad.

"So, that's done." My voice sounds hollow. Instead of relief, now I just feel empty.

"The most recent photo is two years old, Bella," Alice says. "So is the one of her and Edward … and she's not wearing a ring."

I raise my eyebrows and let out a sarcastic laugh. "And that means, what, Alice? That's he's suddenly not in a committed relationship just because it's not plastered all over social media?"

"No," she says, and her voice is quiet. "I just … ugh, I don't know. I don't know what to say except that he's a fucker."

"Such a fucker," I whisper.

"Did you text back?" She asks.

I shake my head slowly. "No."

She picks up my phone and reads the text that Edward sent me last night.

Bella, I need to talk to you. Please, just give me five minutes.

She places the phone back on the table, and I feel that pain again, the one that tore through me in the conference room, as I try to make this all make sense.

"But is he really a fucker, Al?" I ask.

She cocks her head to the side. "Um, yeah, he is."

I try to articulate my mixed emotions.

"Do I wish he would have told me? Of course. That's not the type of thing that just slips someone's mind. I may never know why he didn't tell me, but Al, the reality is, I did this. I'm not the victim of some kind of drive-by love crime here. I didn't tell him about my relationship with Tyler or my romantic situation either."

"That's different," she says and slams her hand against the couch. "You're not engag -"

I shake my head and cut her off. "I'm the one who took a friendship and made it out to be more than that. I'm the one who started making stupid assumptions. I did this."

She stares at me for a moment, and her gaze doesn't waver. "Stop gaslighting yourself. You wouldn't have made any assumptions if he had been honest with you."

I laugh. "Is gaslighting yourself even possible?"

"It sure as shit is," she says. "And you're doing it. You're turning this around to make it seem like this was all one-sided. Like Edward wasn't giving you signs and signals that he wanted more than a friendship with you."

I shake my head. "Nothing happened between us, Al, and now I know why."

I rest my hands on my ratty sweatpants, deriving comfort from their soft, familiar feel.

"I let my crush on Edward dictate what I thought was happening between us. I mistook his kindness for something more than it was. Bringing me hot chocolate and not letting me drive in the snow are not romantic overtures, and I was stupid to think they were."

She doesn't say anything, and I let a wry chuckle escape as I dissect it further.

"He probably knew I was developing feelings for him and felt sorry for me."

She gives me a look that suggests she thinks I've gone entirely off the deep end.

"That's seriously what you think? You think he let you sleep in his bed and had a smile on his face that could have lit up Times Square every time he was near you because he felt sorry for you?"

My brow furrows.

"Don't look so confused," she says. "It's been impossible to miss."

"What?"

"The way he looks at you, Bella. Anyone would have to be blind not to see it."

"Well, it doesn't matter," I say, not believing her. "He's engaged."

She curls her legs underneath her before pulling a blanket down from the back of the couch.

"You're wrong, Bella," she says, and I look up at her with a frown.

"Not about him being engaged, obviously, but about him thinking of you as just a friend."

Oscar shifts positions, and I lay my hand on his belly and rub in slow circles.

"But that's still fucked up," she says. "Because that means he really is a piece of shit who would cheat on his fiancé."

"Nothing happened, Al."

I still feel the need to defend Edward. I refuse to believe he's a terrible person. Everything I know about him and everything I've witnessed refutes that logic. He's a good, kind man, not the type who would play with someone's emotions. I think back to how awful he looked during the meeting yesterday. It was like something was eating away at him from the inside. And he wanted to talk to me. That was the last thing he'd said before we started the presentation.

My phone chimes, and we both jump. Alice and I look at each other before leaning forward simultaneously, our heads close together as we look at the screen.

Bella, I know you think I'm an asshole. But please, I need to see you.

"Shit," Alice whispers before reaching into the bag and pulling out a second bottle of wine. "I think we're going to need this."

She uncorks the bottle and pours each of us a fresh glass. "What are you going to do?"

I don't say anything, still fixated on the screen and Edwards's message, before accepting the glass she offers and taking a sip.

"He knows he fucked up." Her voice is accusatory. "He's scrambling."

I pick up the phone and re-read the message.

"Want me to reply?" she asks. "I'd love to."

"Definitely not."

I read the words again.

"I don't know if I'm ready to —"

The phone chimes in my hand, and I almost drop it like it's scalding hot before my face goes slack.

"What?" Alice asks. "What does it say?"

Looking up, I turn the phone toward her.

Bella, I know you won't believe me, but I'm not engaged.

A/N –

I always shopped in my dad's closet when I was a teenager and called it The Pop Shop.

Hmmm, should we hear from Edward next? I wonder how he's going to explain all of this.

If you enjoyed my last fic, Finding the Light, please hop over and vote for it for the Top 10 Fics of 2022. I was thrilled to be nominated. It's on twifanfictionrecs Dot com. Voting ends on Friday, February 24th, and you can vote once a day. Thanks for all of your support!