Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or its characters; Stephanie Meyer does. I also do not own the words or music to "Love Song for No One" those belong to John Mayer.

A/N: Hello again. It's nice to know the auditorium isn't totally empty after all. Still no beta, so I apologize for any mistakes you may come across. Once again, special thanks to Jessica for all the encouragement and putting up with my crazy. After posting this chapter I'm going to enjoy my own personal bottle of victory beer. Feel free to join me, assuming of course that you're old enough.

Staying home alone on a Friday
Flat on the floor looking back
On old love
Or lack thereof
After all the crushes have faded
And all my wishful thinking was wrong
I'm jaded
I hate it -"Love Song for No One" by John Mayer

Bpov

"Hey, Bella. What's up?"

"Alice?"

"Yeah" She laughed. "You called me remember?"

"Oh, right. I love you, Alice."

"Ooookay? Well if that's all . . .?"

"No! No, umm I have a question to ask you. Hang on, it'll come to me." I took another sip of my victory beer and remembered the look on Edward's stupid face, his stupid pretty face.

"Hello? How long do you need to think? Why the hell are you laughing? What's going on? Bella?!"

"Here! What do you want?

"What do I wa-"

"Shhh! Alice, I totally remember what I wanted to ask you! Ready?"

"YES! Hurry the fuck up!"

"Fine! You don't have to be a bitch about it."

" . . ."

". . ."

"Bella, will you please stop pouting and ask your damn question? I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"Okay. Thanks. Sorry. Alice, how stupid am I?"

"I'm pretty sure the question should be: 'Alice how drunk am I?' because if I had to guess, I'd say 'very.' So to what do I own the pleasure of having you drunk dial me at 6:30 on this beautiful Thursday evening?"

"Umm I guess you could blame it on my victory beer?" I realized that I had finished off the fifth bottle and had no choice but to open the last one. I wondered if I could get the bottles bronzed like baby shoes. I bet they'd look wicked cool with some backlighting.

"What's Victory Beer? Is that come kind of microbrew?"

"Silly Alice! Its victory beer because I took it from Edward while his brain imploded, dumb beautiful brain-imploded Edward."

"Edward? Edward who?"

"You sound like a knock-knock joke." I giggled. "Edward, you know Edward."

"Edward Edward?"

"Yes."

"Edward Cullen?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"Edward from college?"

"Yeah."

"The Edward you facebook stalk and google once a week?"

"Oh come on! It's not facebook stalking if he doesn't have a facebook page! If he had one I wouldn't have to google him, not that anything ever pops up. Besides, I only do it like every other month, not once a week."

"Michael Edward?"

"Yes! What part of this aren't you getting? Although I don't think we should call him that anymore. He doesn't deserve any kind of nickname from us unless it's something like Jackass or Asshat or anything with 'ass' in it."

I thought about how Edward had received his nickname. It had been during the first week of freshman year and it was the first time Alice, Rosalie, and Angela met him. I'd actually met him a couple days earlier and had mentioned to them that I'd briefly talked to a good looking bronze haired guy. We had filled our lunch trays in the UC and were looking for some open seats when I'd spotted him sitting alone at the end of one of the long tables. After I'd pointed him out to the girls they had demanded that we go sit with him. I'd sucked it up and attempted to boldly lead the way, telling myself that it was just another way to fulfill the promise I'd made myself before leaving for orientation.

I'd smiled at him as we'd walked up to the table, he'd smiled back and I'd felt myself start to blush. I'd asked if we could join him, in response he'd lazily waved his hand at the seats around him in invitation. After we'd settled in, it had fallen on me to make the introductions when it had suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't remember his name! I didn't even know if we'd bothered to exchange them. I'd started with the girls while wracking my obviously flawed brain trying to come up with his name.

"Well Bella aren't you going to introduce me?" he'd asked raising an eyebrow.

Fuck! If he'd known my name then we must have introduced ourselves at some point. I'd quickly blurted out the first name I could think of.

"Of course, umm girls this is Michael?" Okay so it had been more of a question than a statement and I had used the name of the quarterback from Forks High that I'd sort of dated for a while, but there was still a chance I'd gotten his name right.

He'd leaned back in his chair with a smirk on his lips and a twinkle in those sizzling green eyes. He'd nodded at me before taking a big bite out of his sandwich. I had forced myself relax and enjoy the meal, clearly if he hadn't corrected me than I'd gotten lucky. The conversation had been fairly simple, but enjoyable. Who was signed up for what classes? Which dorm did everyone live in? What were we thinking of majoring in and why?

Lunch had ended sooner than I'd hoped but we'd all still been talking as we walked out of the dining hall. Rose had started a game of discreetly-kick-your-friend-in-the-ass-while-walking-and-blame-it-on-someone-else, by nailing Alice and blaming it on me. I'd turned to the boy next to me in the hopes of avoiding getting kicked.

"Well it was cool seeing you again and eating lunch with you. You should sit with us again sometime, Michael."

"Actually, it's Edward." He'd said with a grin and kicked me in the ass.

I'd been so shocked that that I'd forgotten to keep walking, but it hadn't mattered since everyone else was laughing too hard to walk. I'd felt my face flush again this time in shame.

"Oh, God! I'm so sorry! I'm such a jerk!"

"Don't worry about it." He'd laughed it off. "You gave me the opening and I had to take it. Just remember from now: Edward. Okay?"

"Edward. Sure. Got it."

We'd finally started walking again, when I'd noticed Edward was distracted by a squirrel that had run across the path in front of us. I'd seized the opportunity to get a little revenge by returning the kick. Sadly, I'd forgotten to take into account our height differences and the fact that I was a total klutz. My kick must have landed slightly lower than I'd been aiming, if his sudden howl of pain and immediate bending over to rub his hamstring had been anything to go by.

"What the fuck did you do that for?!"

"I . . . but you . . . it was supposed to be . . . oh crap. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to hurt you. Are you okay?" I'd asked lamely.

"Well I would be if you just kept your damn feet on the ground!"

He'd taken a few experimental steps and there'd been a pronounced limp to his gait.

"Do you want me to go back in and get you some ice or something?"

"No, I'm sure it'll be fine. I'll just man up and walk it off."

He'd walked us girls back to our dorm before heading off to his, limping the whole way. In fact, he'd still been limping the next day when I'd run into him while walking across campus. I'd felt terrible for most of the day until I'd caught him walking totally limp free from a classroom. When he'd realized that the game was over, he'd just looked sheepish and shrugged his shoulders. Then he'd asked me if I wanted to grab some dinner. At the time I had thought it was great that he had such a keen sense of humor and assumed that his dedication to jokes must extend to other things in life, like maybe adoration for a future girlfriend. Now it was just another time he'd messed with my head.

"So you want revoke his nickname? Fine, it was kind of shitty anyway. Where did you run into him? And why do you think you're stupid?"

"He showed up at my door and he was wearing that smile."

"The Panty Melter?"

"That's the one. I looked through the peephole and it was like I really saw him for the first time. I saw past his hot body and lickable mouth and there was all the crap you used to warn me about. So I opened the door and stole me some victory beer before he could react. Seriously Alice, how could I not have seen it before? I never thought I'd be one of those girls who were dumb enough to be suckered by a pretty face."

"Oh honey, you're not stupid! You were just smitten, it happens to the best of us. Look at Anne Hathaway; she dated that guy who turned out to be an art thief or something. Besides, some of it is our fault. After what happened with James, we all saw how you used the idea of Edward as a shield and we just decided to let you keep your illusions. It's just that by the time you didn't need the shield anymore it was too late to try and change your mind."

"Okay, well I think that I've had enough beer and of this conversation. I'm going to get some food and water in me, take Cooper out for the night, and then call it an early night. I'll talk to you later."

"Bella . . . I didn't mean to upset you."

"I know."

"Are we still on for your apartment warming party on Saturday?"

"Yeah, although I don't know why I should throw a party for you bums, when none of you helped me move." I forced myself to joke. It was my way of breaking the tension and letting her know that we were okay, that I would be okay.

Alice let out a small laugh, it sounded a bit forced to me, but I appreciated the effort just like I was sure she'd appreciated mine. "Well, that's what happens when you hire professionals to haul all your crap across the country, arrive on a Monday and then demand that no one can see your place until you're done unpacking. You're such a weird little perfectionist!"

"When you put it like that I guess it makes more sense. I'll see you then. Tell Jazz I said 'hi.'"

"Will do and Bella, you know call me anytime right?"

"Yeah I know why do you think I just drunk dialed your ass? Now stop talking to me so I can eat something. Bye Al."

"Bye B."

I sighed and dropped the phone next to me on the couch. Well, that had totally killed my buzz. I looked at the liquid left in my bottle and decided to chug the rest. There was no way in hell that I was going waste any of my victory beer, even if it did seem a little too bitter now. I set the bottle down on the coffee table and marveled at how the bottles had arranged themselves into a perfect triangle. For a moment, I imagined smashing them to create a physical analogy of how my illusions of Edward had been shattered earlier. But then I remembered that I was going to get them bronzed and backlit. That shit was going to look fucking awesome. I snickered to myself as I forced my body away from the gravitational pull of the couch.

"Come on Cooper, let's get some dinner."

Epov

I wasn't stalking Bella. The word stalking implied that I was proactively searching her out and watching her every move. I was merely sitting near the door so that if she happened to walk past while taking her little mutt out then maybe I'd hear her and I'd get another chance to look at her. Alright so I knew she had to take her stupid little dog out at some point, but that didn't make me a stalker either. At least I was pretty sure it didn't. Hell this time I might even get my shit together enough to actually talk to her, provided that she didn't look too pissy of course.

Now all I needed was for her to walk down the damn hallway. The past half a dozen times or so that I'd raced to the door since moving a dining room chair closer to the door someone else had come down the hallway. Well except for that last time; fuck if I hadn't imagined the sound of someone in the hall. I scrubbed my face with my hands and groaned. What I really needed was to re-grow my balls since they had clearly fallen off sometime in the past few hours, and to stop being such a fucking pussy.

While I'd waited for her to make an appearance my mind had wandered back to the first and last times I'd talked to her.

The first time had been on a set of bleachers on the deck of the university's pool. We'd been waiting for the informational meeting that had preceded the first swim team practice of the year to start. We had both arrived early and were the only ones on the deck except the extremely bored looking lifeguard. She'd looked so hot in her little racing suit with an old pair of shorts that had barely covered her ass that I'd sat down right next to her and started talking, manners be damned. I'd asked if she was new to the team like I was. She'd just nodded and proceeded to nibble on her lower lip. I'd almost growled in frustration, I'd wanted to hear her voice! She'd looked more nervous than I'd expected and I'd hoped it wasn't because of me. Concerned and hoping for a vocal answer, I'd asked her if she'd swam in high school, I couldn't imagine anyone just walking onto a college team without any competitive experience, even if we were just a Division 3 school but maybe the chick was crazy.

She'd snorted at the stupidity of my question and told me that she'd swam for her school in some tiny little bum-fuck town (my words, not hers) called Forks out on the peninsula. She'd spoken quietly and I'm sure if I hadn't been so busy watching her mouth form the vowels and consonants, I'd have been equally entranced by her voice. She'd mumbled something about the water being the only place she was graceful, whatever the hell that meant. I hadn't really been listening as my focus had shifted from her mouth to discreetly checking out her rack. To keep her from noticing, I'd asked her why she looked so nervous. She'd told me that she wasn't sure she wanted do deal with the time commitment and that she didn't know if she could take smelling like chlorine for another four years. I'd laughed even though she'd been totally serious. There was nothing sexy about reeking of pool. While we'd been talking the rest of the team had trickled in around us. As the meeting got started I'd nudged her with my shoulder and whispered my name. She'd frowned distractedly and murmured hers in return. It had suited her then and it still did now.

The last time I'd talked to her was at graduation. I'd been waiting for Bella to show up by loitering on the chapel steps, just out of the light rain that was falling, again. Of course it had rained on graduation day when we'd had to fucking process across campus in our ugly ass robes it was Washington after all. When she'd finally arrived I'd noticed two things immediately; she was sporting a new black cast on her right arm and instead of looking excited like I'd expected, she'd looked sad and confused. The cast hadn't really been all that surprising, after four years of friendship I'd come to totally understand her statement about only being graceful in the pool. In some ways it had actually been more surprising that she'd made it to graduation alive. Judging from her expression and the swipe that she'd taken at me with said cast, she hadn't found my observation nearly as funny as I had.

I'd tried to lighten the mood and commiserate with her confusion by donning a big stupid grin and confiding the fact that I had no idea what was going on around us. I probably should have read the graduation packet before going to the gathering point, but I'd known Bella would have the thing memorized and I'd just assumed she'd fill me in. Instead she'd let out an annoyed huff and asked if me I was drunk or high.

What. The. Fuck.

Okay so everyone on campus had known that the drinking team had a swimming problem and Bella knew that I'd usually gotten high a few times a week, but still graduation had been a big deal for me and I'd wanted to remember all of it. How could she not have known that about me? I'd snapped that I was neither, just confused about what we were supposed to be doing next. Then I'd turned and stalked away from her.

I'd thought that I would see her later at the party Rosalie and Alice had thrown at their house and we'd work things out just like every other time we'd pissed each other off, but when I'd asked Alice where she was I'd been told that Bella had caught a plane down to Florida shortly after the ceremony. It had always bothered me that our last conversation hadn't ended with an exchange of goodbyes or well wishes but with anger instead.

I knew that it was probably my fault that we hadn't talked again. She'd sent me a couple of emails but I'd never gotten around to opening them and then one day I'd gone to log into my account and found that it had been deleted. How the hell was I supposed to know that our emails accounts would only be open for three months after graduation? I'd thought that shit was for life. It had probably been in that damn packet.

Now I had a chance to make it right. Bella and I could reconnect and maybe connect in some news ways too, if she'd just come out of her fucking apartment. She'd seemed so different from the sweet always blushing girl I'd known back then and I interested to see just how much she'd actually changed.