I walked into James's office and gestured for him to take a seat while I leant against his work table. He obliged, and then I began to explain to him what had been going on with me for the last couple of days. He sat there at first, his face void of any emotion and then slowly, I saw emotions flicker over his features, anger, hurt, pain, sympathy...... but never pity. He asked me why I didn't call him from the hospital and I explained to him how I didn't want to be a burden to him. He hugged me and said that I could never be a burden to him, and then he chastised me lovingly for it. We sat and talked for a bit about it. He thought I should talk to somebody about it. A therapist. I told him I would look into it. He asked me how I felt about men, asked me if I needed help, told me to call him no matter what, and so on. That was James, kind and caring. It was his way of telling me that he was there for me. He then asked me about Edward. I told him all about how Edward had helped and how I was grateful to him. I then told him about my infatuation with Edward. James wasn't pleased about that. He was too protective for his own good. He worried that Edward would take advantage of me in my "mental state". He then went on the threaten Edward. After he was done with his little rant he told me to go for it. His exact words were "Bella, if you find yourself taken by Edward, you must pursue him." He sounded a little bit like my grandfather. I went home feeling better about everything in general. Talking to James always helped me.
When I got home I checked my voice mail. Just a couple of messages from my friends. I didn't bother listening to them. I would check them later. I hopped into my shower and thought about Edward. How he was kind and caring and it didn't escape my notice that he was one of the very few nice men that I had come across, apart from James. I heard the phone ringing and in a haste wrapped myself in a towel and jumped out of the shower to get to it. On my way to the phone I stubbed my toe against the leg of the bed. "Ow!!" I yelped. By the time I made it to the living room, the answering machine had already beat me the answering the phone. That's when I heard his voice. It was....unsure. "Uhhh hi Bella, this is Edward, you know...the guy from....your your...uuhh I'm just going to go now. Bye." He was nervous. That made my heart melt. It also comforted me. I wasn't the only insecure shy one. It was cute and internally it made me go "Awww". By the time he had hung up I was smiling so wide my face hurt. I walked back into the room and got dressed and then walked into the living room and listened to the numerous messages my friends had sent me. Alice, who had just gotten hitched to Jasper, her long time lover was in Bali, with said long time lover and they were honeymooning. Ew. They were gross and all touchy feely. Made me feel even more like a third wheel when I was out with the happy couple. I wasn't unhappy for them. I loved both of them dearly, it's just sometimes that they made me feel like I was missing out on something and I couldn't help but resent that feeling of being lonely. The message was the usual, "we're doing fine, how're you" sort of stuff. The other message was again from Alice, something about shopping and how I should hop on a plane and do a one day shopping spree thing with her. The next one was again from Alice, this time about her thriving sex life. Ew. Again. I breathed a sigh of relief when the message after that wasn't from her, but rather her husband. Jasper. He was calm and apologetic about her spamming my voice mail. He told me to take care of myself and then he filled me in on how they were doing and how they missed me. I smiled at that. They were having a good time and they deserved it. They were good people. They were happy, healthy, safe and in love. Those were the things I dreamed of having. The next couple of messages were from Emmet and Rosalie. They were another happy couple. Emmet was a football player and Rosalie was an agent. She was good at what she did. No, scratch that. She was a shark at what she did. Getting her clients the best deals was one of her many agent-like talents. That's how Emmet and Rosalie met. Emmet needed an agent and Rosalie so happened to be in the right place at that right time. She had gotten him the best deal ever. She wasn't his agent anymore, that was a decision they had both made together. Currently, they were in Madrid somewhere, for a football match that Emmet had. Rosalie wasn't just tagging along. She would never do that. The woman had more pride than that. She was there because her clients were there. We all knew that she used that as an excuse. We just didn't say anything to aggravate her. Everyone was happy. They had called just to check in and make sure I was okay.
Once I was done returning their calls and messages I sat down on the couch to ponder if I should call Edward or not. He had called and it puzzled me how he had gotten a hold of my number. After about fifteen minutes of pondering I decided to call him. I went to the fridge, my new venue for his number and punched the numbers into the phone. After about three rings his answer machine picked up and I left a lame message. That night I went to sleep with a smile and a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, Edward Cullen had a slight crush on me. I knew, without a doubt that I had it bad for Mr. Cullen.
