Author's Note: Hello all. It's been a while. I was in a car accident last month at the start of another semester at college... it traumatized me a bit, but I'm back will full force! Don't worry: both TAIB and DID will continue to be written... so enjoy:

Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight characters, settings, or original plot-that belongs to Stephenie Meyers... I do however own this one ;o).

Chapter 7: Escape

Immediately I redialed their apartment, hoping against hope that they wouldn't ignore my call. I knew better than to hope but at the moment it was all I had.

"Bella?" Emmett answered.

"Yeah, It's me," I sheepishly replied.

"I'm sorry I scolded you earlier. It's not helpful and I'm really not upset with you."

"It's OK, Emmet."

"No, Bella, it's not. I was an ass. There's just a lot going on right now. Rosie is a mess and I took it out on you. Bella, I love you and want you to get better. I'm sorry that Rosie doesn't want to talk to you right now… another time would be better." His demeanor was completely opposite from Rosalie's. I couldn't blame her. If I had been in her place I probably would have reacted similarly. OK well, maybe not. It's impossible to know.

"Yeah, sure Emmett. That's fine. I'm sorry I upset her… tell her that OK?" I attempted.

"Of course I will. I'm sorry about everything, Bella I am. But right now my woman needs me. Don't let this harm your recovery OK? We want you better. I'll try to come visit soon. Bye Bella," he said by way of goodbye.

"Bye," I replied just before he hung up. I had royally fucked everything up and not just with Rosalie: I was responsible for Edward's crash, Charlie's probable soon-to-be poverty over keeping me in a place like this, and possibly even my parent's divorce. Single-handedly, I had torn my family and friends apart with my own selfish stupidity on many occasions. I knew then that this guilt I had started to feel would never go away. Fighting was foreign to me, it always had been.

Rosalie and I had never been in a fight in the three years of our friendship. Although Alice was like the sister I never had, Rosalie was my best friend. There wasn't a secret I hadn't shared with her—-or Alice. I remember the day so clearly when I had met her and Jasper in bio 101, a general education course that the three of us undecided majors had coincidentally signed up for. In high school Edward and I usually sat in the back row of every class we had together so we could hold hands or whisper without being disruptive to the class, and the habit stuck in all my other classes. As my first class in college, I wanted to do well so against my usual habits, I decided to sit in the front row.

Upon entering the lecture hall-like room fairly early, I saw an empty seat next to a pair of gorgeous blondes in the front row, which was the only thing they had in common: blonde hair. The girl had honey-brown eyes and was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. Her features were near perfection as was her lithe dancer-like physique. The guy was lanky with appropriate definition-—one of those surfer-looking beachy guys with shaggy hair and blue eyes complete with a hemp necklace. As they were making quiet conversation, obviously having known each other previous to this class, I sat down next to the girl and tried not to draw attention to myself. I was nervous and bummed that my first college class wasn't with Edward. It was bad enough that our dorm rooms were several floors apart. Breaking me from my day dreams as I tried to organize myself before class, the girl leaned over and spoke to me.

"Have you ever had professor Banner before?" she asked, as if we already knew each other.

"Uhm, no… I'm a freshman. Have you?" I replied, dumb-founded. She laughed politely as she responded.

"No, I'm a freshman too. So is Jasper!"

"Oh, uhm, cool."

"What's your major?" she asked boldly.

"I'm undecided."

"Wow, us too!" she smiled. I looked at the both of them and they seemed to be very comfortable with one another. Perhaps they're dating? I had thought. "I'm Rosalie Hale, by the way, and this is Jasper Whitlock," she spoke for them again, further proving my theory.

"I'm Bella Swan."

"Ooh, pretty name," Rosalie cooed. "We went to high school together, Jasper and I, near Leavenworth," she explained.

"So did my boyfriend and I! We're from Forks, near Port Angeles." As soon as I said that Rosalie erupted into a raucous fit of giggles.

"Oh, we're not dating!" she explained once she had regained composure.

"We've just known each other for a while. It's always nice to see a friendly face in class," Jasper spoke, for the first time. He had a little bit of a Southern accent of some sort… from Texas, maybe?

"Oh, sorry." My face flushed. "So, when did you guys meet?" I said, trying to act nonchalant.

"When I moved from Texas-—" Oh I was so right on the money "—-in the middle of sophomore year," Jasper answered. After that, the three of us chit-chatted until Professor Banner walked in. We all had hit it off so well that I invited the two of them to have lunch with Edward and myself at the cafeteria. The four of us became instant friends and created our own little clique amongst the rest of the freshmen class. Upon getting to know Rosalie, I learned that she was on the dance team. A few weeks after initially meeting her, she took me to a football/dance team kegger where we both met Emmett. At first I had been intimidated by his brutish looking muscles and overly confidant football player attitude, but not Rosalie. She had him wrapped around her little finger by the end of that first party. It wasn't long after that, that he joined our group, head over heels for our Rosalie. The next year when Alice came to University of Washington, she joined our group as well and fell for Jasper completely as he did for her. Although they had opposite personalities-—hers loud and vivacious where his was quiet and mellow-—they grew to love each other very much.

.::.

Rosalie stared at me with such contempt in her eyes. It was as if at any moment lasers would shoot out of them and burrow their way into my skin, searing away the flesh from bone and into my core. Suddenly, a wicked smile crept from the corner of her lips, slowly igniting her face in the most devilish look I had ever seen. It was then that I noticed she held something behind her back in secret.

"You wanted to die, Bella, and yet you failed," she eerily paused, "I can fix your mistake. It's all your fault! Everything is your fault" she screeched as she lunged at me, her fingers murderously entwined themselves around my neck, choking out my sputtering apologies. From behind her back, she produced a bloody sheet and tied it in a noose-like fashion, cinching it tightly where her fingers had previously been. I tried to scream apologies and pleas to spare me, but it all came out as constricted gurgles. In a flash she had tied the other end of the sheet around the ceiling beam above us, standing me on a chair. "Any last words, 'Swan?" She offered darkly before kicking the chair out from under me.

Falling, presumably to my death, I tried to scream.

"I'm Sorry!" my hoarse voice screeched as I thudded on the floor. Opening my eyes, the pale light of the Seattle morning filled my vision as well as the stark white walls of my room at New Moon. Out of all my crazy fucked up dreams I had so far at New Moon, this one took the cake. Tears poured from my eyes like the damn Niagara Falls, causing my body to violently shake. Maybe it was the thud my body made on the floor when I fell out of bed, or perhaps this time I was truly making too much noise for a normal patient, but it seemed as though Nurse Emily materialized instantly at my side. As I rocked myself forward and back, my arms curled around my knees, and she tried to embrace me in a hug.

"It's not your fault, Isabella," Emily cooed. Apparently I had been whispering it's my fault aloud. I wasn't sure what about my dream upset me the most, Rosalie's vengeful anger or the bloody sheet's reappearance. I leaned into Emily, appreciating the comfort. "It was just a dream, sweetheart, just a dream." Stroking my hair while my head rested in her lap, Emily sat with me until I quieted myself. "There, much better," she said to me as I finally sat up.

"I can't take these dreams anymore," I admitted, exhaling loudly.

"We can see if Dr. Soigner could prescribe some sleeping pills for you. They might help take the edge off."

"NO!" I screamed almost immediately, startling Nurse Emily. "No," I corrected myself in a calmer tone, "I don't want any more drugs… but, I would like to see Laurent as soon as possible."

"You have an appointment after breakfast."

"I don't want to stay through breakfast," I retorted as I stood myself up.

"Isabella, you decided to stay. Are you giving up on your treatment?" She asked while joining me off of the floor.

"No. I just want to get out of New Moon… I can be treated anywhere," I rationalized.

"Fine, but to prove that you're behaving reasonably I must insist that you shower, put yourself together, go to breakfast, and then discuss this with Dr. Laurent," Emily said after a few moments of contemplation. Everyone in this damn institution didn't want to see me leave. Why? …There must be some other reason of theirs to keep me here other than risk of suicide. What aren't the telling me? I thought.

"Fine. I suppose I can stick it out a few more hours…" I conceded. Perhaps if I seemed like a willing participant in their fucked-up game, I would get the answers I was now searching for.

.::.

"You're getting out!" Tanya gasped.

"Lucky bitch," Victoria muttered, not entirely meant for my ears.

"Well… that's what I'm telling him in... oh, fifteen minutes," I replied while moving around the eggs on my plate with my fork.

"So, because you decide to leave, you're just gonna do it? Didn't you decide to stay yesterday?" Victoria questioned. Oddly enough, she didn't seem as excited for me as Tanya, in her bizarre way, did.

"Yea… and the dreams have gotten worse. I think I'll be able to recover more fully at home…" I reasoned.

"Damn girl, why would you ever want to leave this place? The people here are just too much fun to fuck with!" Tanya gushed.

"Not everyone is as fucked up as you, Tanya," Victoria commented while staring at her own plate full of untouched eggs. The three of us continued to pick at our food, occasionally taking a bite, for a few more minutes until Tanya decided to get up and bother Jane a few tables over.

After Tanya was out of earshot, I turned to Victoria. "Vicky, are you upset with me?"

"Whatever do you mean?" She asked while composing her face in a falsified pleasant expression.

"That, right there. What is with that?"

"Well, shit Bella. You've been here the least amount of time out of anyone I've ever cared about here and you're the first to leave. I should be the one leaving! I've been here the longest… it's all James' fucking fault!" Victoria was becoming hysterical. Her voice cracked as the crying started. Maybe I wasn't the best person to comfort her-—having been lacking the will for human connection for the past couple months-—but I was the only person she had at that moment. Awkwardly, I draped my thin, pale arm around her shoulders and lightly rubbed comforting circles. The gesture only lasted mere seconds before Victoria spiraled further into her breakdown. "Don't touch me! James, you sick fuck! Get your hands off me! TOUCH ME AGAIN AND I'LL KILL YOU!" She screamed so loudly that New Moon's entire cafeteria turned in our direction. Orderlies swooped in before I even knew what was happening, all the while Victoria screamed during her breakdown. I had never seen Victoria act like a psych patient, and the whole scene was very unnerving.

Guilt must have been my new dominant emotion because yet again, it overwhelmed me. I felt like a cancer, one that made the people around me sick with it. I was an infection, at least that's what it felt like at that moment. Leaving the cafeteria, I decided that Dr. Laurent could bear to see me ten minutes early. I was, after all, his first patient of the day. Barging into his office, I caught him by surprise.

"Isabella! Anxious to see me?" He greeted cheerfully.

"Something like that," I replied while plopping down in the leather chair across from his at his desk. "Listen Laurent, I know you think it's best for me to stay here, but I just can't. The dreams aren't getting any better and I believe it's partially due to my discomfort at being here. I can receive treatment anywhere and it doesn't even have to be in-patient. There is no logical reason as to why you're trying to keep me here, well at least not one that you've told me. So, out with it; why keep me here? I'm perfectly sane and should be allowed to leave. Why try convincing me to stay?" I felt like one of those powerful business women on a Lifetime movie, going to her boss and demanding her just promotion.

Dr. Soigner's face beheld utter shock. He also looked as though I had just caught him with his hand in a damn cookie jar before dinner. My instincts were dead-on—-another justification that I was perfectly fine to go home. It took a few moments of him collecting his thoughts and re-adjusting his face before he addressed my accusations.

"Isabella, naturally I don't have any clue as to what you are suggesting," he charmed in his French accent. That bastard, I mentally cursed before he continued. "Perhaps you're now experiencing some paranoia… hmm, maybe an adjustment of medication is in order," he suggested.

"No more medication, 'Soigner! Don't patronize me. I'm quite ready to be released. What's your reasoning in keeping me? If you don't tell me, I can always call my lawyer: I do have a right to know. You don't want a license-losing lawsuit," I threatened.

Dr. Laurent sighed before addressing my threats. "Isabella, I'm keeping you here because of a lawsuit."

"WHAT!" I screeched in surprise. "What the hell are you talking about, Laurent?"

" Isabella, we thought it was best for you to stay in here until… until the publicity of the lawsuit died down," He admitted after shaking his head and further sighing.

"What lawsuit?"

"Your father's against CNN. It looks as though they might settle. Due to the fact that their misrepresentative reporting put into motion your suicide attempts and also upheaval of your family, your father has filed a lawsuit against them for libel under false light laws. He's going to win. There is, however, a bit of a media stir-up going on and we wanted to protect you from it. It is also another reason why Edward isn't staying at your apartment," Laurent admitted. "We didn't want to upset you. Your father didn't want to tell you; we thought it might hurt your recovery if we told you too soon."

Words escaped me. I was right, there was a conspiracy, I thought. A numbing feeling came over my body, one that vastly differed from the one I had felt over the past two months. This one was of a chilly betrayal. "So that's how my father planned on paying for my stay," I reasoned. None of this made any sense. Why would they keep me in here if I was OK? Don't they know they were inflicting undue damage?

"Oh, no, your father's not paying for your stay. Dr. Cullen has been a generous financial donor over the years along with donating his time and medical expertise to patients. As a professional favor, your costs have been waived." He explained. This situation was getting more bizarre the longer it occurred.

"What's Carlisle getting out of this, then? Me gone? Is that why he and Esme are so apt to argue to keep me here?" I questioned. The betrayal seemed to run deeper. I fought the tears that were inevitably going to come.

"Isabella, have you not been paying attention? We're all just trying to protect you from the ugly lawsuit and subsequent publicity. This has all been for your benefit. Your father never wanted to argue in front of you to keep you here. He felt it would be lying to you in light of everything else. Carlisle and Esme agreed to bite that bullet for him."

"This is so sick. I'm not paranoid: there really is a conspiracy," I muttered aloud unintentionally.

"It's not a conspiracy, Isabella. Calm down. You were in a catatonic state just a few days ago. Even if we had told you it wouldn't have done you any good. In only recent days you have been cognizant of your doings and have shown tremendous strides of recovery." He was speaking but I wasn't hearing him… All I could feel was … empty betrayal.

"Who knows?"

"Pardon?" Dr. Soigner responded. I couldn't tell if it was his accent or he actually lapsed into French.

"Who. Fucking. Knows. About. The lawsuit." I articulated. Hot blood filled my cheeks, staining them red with my fury. Laurent's lips stayed pressed in a thin line, so I decided to further probe. "Does Edward know?"

"No. At least, not that I am aware. If he does, he probably found out after his visit yesterday or will today." At the very least, Dr. Laurent appeared to be forthcoming in giving answers to my questions.

"Alice?"

"Yes. Only just before Edward arrived." His answer stung me deep inside my chest.

"And Rosalie?"

"No. Rosalie… she's having her own issues at the moment. We thought it best to let her deal with her own demons," he explained.

"You mean her mother's demons?" I challenged. Dr. Laurent merely shook his head in agreement before I continued to pick at my cuticles. "I assume that since Alice knows, Jasper knows. Emmett?" I couldn't bring my eyes to his. Emmett and I talked on the phone only yesterday. He had an opportunity to tell me and he didn't…

"Yes. He knows, both of the boys know." My shoulders hunched in defeat.

"And my mother?" I was afraid of his next answer.

"Yes, Isabella, she knows. She's flying in tomorrow to see you, actually," Dr. Soigner informed me. My reignited passionate fury pushed me forward again.

"So, basically my whole damn family is a bunch of liars and secret-keepers. Who the hell can I trust, Laurent? Not you! You lied. Even if I were to stay here-—which I sure as hell am not—-I can no longer in good conscious receive therapy from you," I spat. "Does Nurse Emily know?" It was my last attempt at lessening the hurt I felt about their secrecy.

"Yes, she knows. It is most regrettable that you found out this way, but Isabella, omission isn't always a lie."

"This betrayal is worse than a lie."

"Is that what you think this is? A betrayal? Isabella, your family has been looking out for your wellbeing. Naturally you can understand that they would be uneasy telling you about such a serious and stressful topic as this when it could easily send you spiraling downward again," Dr. Soigner explained.

"Dr. Laurent I appreciate your argument, but I respectfully decline to agree. I want my release papers, now." I forcefully told him after a moment of quiet contemplation.

"As you wish," he said as he shuffled around his desk and filled out the necessary papers. A half an hour later, I was on my way back to my room to collect my things. On the way, I decided to make a quick stop as I passed the multiple phone banks. After all, I needed to make arrangements for when I leave.

.::.

"Bella! How nice to see you… although your session isn't until later," Jake greeted.

"I know, I just… had a few questions for you," I shyly admitted.

"Well, go ahead," Jacob acquiesced, gesturing to a work table surrounded by a few chairs.

"I'm just going to spit it out, alright?" I warned, as we sat, to which he nodded. "…Did you know about the lawsuit my father filed against CNN?" I watched and waited for a look of knowing in Jacob's eyes but all I saw was confusion and a bit of shock.

"No, this is the first I'm hearing of it… did you want to talk about it?" Jake offered, ever the therapist.

"Oh, no, that's not necessary. It was a pre-cursor question actually. I've just checked out, and I was wondering if it would be OK if I still came to art-therapy sometimes…"

"Of course you can! We'd be lucky to have you. Patients often continue art-therapy along with their other out-patient treatment. How does twice a week sound?"

"Great. That's perfect. I'll see you around Jake."

"Take care of yourself on the outside, Bella. I'll be seeing you."

.::.

"Rose, it's Bella. I've just checked-out of New Moon… and I have something to tell you, something that no one told either of us. I wanted to tell you, so you didn't find out by forcing it out of someone. So… call me back?" I left the message on Rosalie's cell, not wanting Emmett to know what I was up to. She was my first call and my next… well, that I was undecided about. They finally had returned my cell to me so I didn't have to go through the shenanigans of using the in-house phone booths at New Moon. I found multi-tasking-—packing while making calls on my cell—-to be a relief. I was definitely back to my sane self-—better even. I now knew things about myself I hadn't previously. Hmm, Edward or Alice, I internally debated. My frustration and betrayal by Alice hadn't completely dissipated yet, but I would have rather called her to come pick me up than Charlie, Carlisle, or Esme. My dad could find out that I checked-out of New Moon when he comes to visit in the evening, that way he can be just as shocked to find out my little secret as I was to find out his.

Hmmf, I mentally huffed as I decided that necessity trumped emotions. Dialing Alice's cell, I waited while it rung for her to pick up.

"Bella?" She answered, inevitably shocked at seeing my number pop up on her screen.

"Yea, it's me. Listen, I've just checked myself out of New Moon. I'm packing and I need you and Edward to come pick me up. Do not breathe a word of this to anyone, you understand? I know you know about the lawsuit, and I'm pissed no one told me so you better hurry your little ass up because I want to leave before any of our parents find out, alright?" It all came out in a rush, and appropriately so due to the urgency I felt to leave this place.

"Shit!" She cursed, a rarity, "sorry Bella. Yea, we just got in the car. Edward finished with his physical therapy early so we'll be there in fifteen minutes, OK? I'm sorry B. I was going to tell you… I should probably tell Edward. This family is so damn hush-hush these days… even Rosalie has been holed up in her apartment—"

"—Alice! Stop talking and just drive!" I scolded before I hung up. She attempted to say something before I did, but at that moment I honestly didn't care to hear another word from her until she showed up to get me out of this loony-bin.

.::.

A/N: Does Bella get out? What's goin on with Jake?

Hahaha, find out soon.
Hope you enjoyed the story's update.
Rec's and Reviews make it a little easier to write more ;o)

-FabulousiTyxXx-