Chapter Eight, Bella

As I looked up I saw Alice running at me, and at that moment I truly wished to run away. Vampire sight is very useful, but in this situation: I hated it. I could see the moment Alice slowed so that she wouldn't harm a human, but then, in that same moment a look of shock passed over her face and she sped up again, hammering into me.

"You're not dead!" She exclaimed, then paused, "Well, dead dead I mean, you know. We thought we'd never see you again, ever! It's all Edwards fault, the jerk. But you look fine, except you're a vampire, which is fine, but how. Did you meet someone else, did-"
She was cut off by Jasper, who had come outside after Alice during her spiel, "Was it Victoria?"
"Oh," said Alice, "I-"

"No." I said. I had to get across this was not a friendly meeting. This was a 'what do you want with me' meeting and a 'do you actually have a reason for what you did to me' meeting.
"It wasn't Victoria," I continued. " She's dead. Completely dead that is. It was someone else and no, I didn't just meet another vampire. It was- look we'll get to that later."

"Yeah, after you explain why it's Eddie's fault that you'd never see her again," Jake said. "Was it because she should be dead after what he did? Cause he left her in the middle of the forest? Because you completely played her and treated her like family and broke her heart into a million pieces?" Jake got louder until he was snarling out the words and shaking badly. I knew he wouldn't transform, he hadn't accidentally for years. None of the boys had, otherwise I'd have never let them near the children.

"Jake," I said. I couldn't allow him to go too far, just in case. The kids were the most important thing. They weren't finding out about them until the right time and this mess was as sorted as it could be.
"No," Jasper said. "We should explain, after all we've come back into your life the way we had. Edward told us he told you you'd never see us again. We owe you an explanation, even if we know very little."
Jake opened his mouth to complain again, but Alice beat him to it.

"Edward told us you wanted nothing to do with us. He said that being attacked twice in a short time was too much; you didn't blame Jasper at all, but couldn't handle it. You loved us, but couldn't deal with us. You didn't want to see us, couldn't stand it. You didn't want any of us and gave us a bunch of your things back. You didn't want memories of what had happened, you were human there was only so much you could deal with. We- I wanted to come see you, but Edward was so persuading. We were hurt. You never seemed to see us as anything but ourselves, we'd never opened to anyone before. We thought you were taking it from us. We thought you blamed us. We couldn't stand the thought we'd hurt you, hurt our family." Alice said, rambling. She had a hurt look on her face.
"He lied," Jasper said. "We were family; including you. He lied to us all, and none of us saw it."

Jake and I exchanged a look. "How," I said, "How could you think that. I- everything that we-" I broke of unable to find words. How could they believe that. Wasn't it obvious that they were my family, even through the little things they should have seen that. I hated shopping, but loved Alice. Speaking and spending time with them all; or trying to in the case of Rose. Wasn't I always checking what I said, just in case? Didn't Jasper know how I felt? Couldn't Alice see anything? What about Emmett, or Esme, or Carlisle? Their explanation made no sense!

But, then again, in the same way it made perfect sense. Edward worried and controlled as much as he could. I always- or so I thought- could tell he loved me. How he was careful and showed me important things. How he explained things and acted. Sure, some of it was difficult to see; he seemed so stuck in the past in many of his acts, but that was why I loved him, he was himself. Yes, he worried too much about me and 'visiting' me before we started dating was, well, slightly creepy. I could understand it in the way of acclimatizing to my scent but... He was overly protective, he worried about my friends... though I'm glad he kept Mike and Eric and Tyler away at the time. They were not the people I wanted to see myself with. He loved me in his own way; because of this I felt I could believe them. So I owed Alice and Jasper my side of the story so we could get this sorted.

From the look on Jake's face I could tell he felt completely otherwise though. I looked at him and touched my side where the worst of the scarring from the triplets was. Closing his eyes in anger he clenched his fists, slightly shaking again and nodded.

"I loved him." I started, collecting my thoughts, "You were all my family and I don't know how you couldn't see that. He obviously told you as much as possible, but little to me other than I wasn't worth it, that he didn't need me, want me or love me and didn't want to play human anymore. I was ready to drop everything to come with you as his opening statement was 'we're leaving.' After he finished he left me in the forest. I didn't know how to get out, so I followed him, getting deeper and completely unable to get out. The only thing he did well in the situation; (which could have been fixed by him not taking me into the forest), was leaving a note. Even though it was apparently written by me, at least that allowed a search party to be started."

Jasper and Alice stared. "What, don't believe her?" Jake sneered.
"No!" Alice shouted, sounding harried, "We do, and that's the problem! How could he!" Now she sounded teary.
"We didn't know. There is no way we would have allowed him to get away with that. Not even if we had to leave, we wouldn't allow a human in on the secret no matter what, it's too dangerous, unless they truly were family. You don't truly believe us, I -we- can understand that. And it was.. illogical and stupid of us, especially me, to believe him. However, you have to understand that we've never exactly opened up to a human as we did you," Jasper said.

He was right again. I did know that. I had no proof, but the proof of what my heart was telling me, but I believed them.

Though there was no way were they finding out about the kids yet.

Note 1: I'm not sure if I like the flow of this chapter, please let me know what you think. It's a shorter than the last one, but I thought this was a good break for leading into the next chapter: Bella: The Solution.

Note 2: I've updated the Jake chapter. Reading back over Jasper and Alice, I think he should talk a bit about his 10 years.

Note 3: I'm used to writing 'woods' rather than forest, please tell me if I've used both words, I've double checked, but I'd like to be sure.