Yay! Who else loves new chapters after a sad ending? I do! Anyway, I don't own, and I want to thank the ever amazing Lukas McDrake. Seriously, you guys, check him out. He has got some pretty awesome stuff posted (and a thing or two is even editted by me!). Leave a review, if you please.

We barely talked for nearly a week. Rosalie was constantly hiding at school, and one day I caught her crying in the girls' room during lunch period. I refused to talk to Edward and Bella, and Emmett refused to talk to me. Jasper and I spoke a bit, but whereas he had given Bella somewhat of a second chance, I thought he was being a bit too forgiving, so when she came around, I left.

On Thursday, though, Bella came up to me at lunch in the cafeteria, where I was sitting with some girls that were trying out for the cheerleading squad like I was.

"What did you do to my brother?" she demanded, glaring down at me.

I stood up to my full height. "What do you mean?"

"He's been depressed since we left your house the other day. Now what did you do to him?"

"It's none of your business what happened, and no, I didn't do it! Ask him."

"I did," she spat.

I faltered under her gaze. "What do you expect me to say? I'm not telling you. Especially not you."

A few of the girls watching snickered. Bella glared harder. "Dammit Alice, why the hell did you hurt my brother like that?"

"Why did you hurt everyone like that? Jasper may have forgiven you, but Rosalie's been skipping lunch to cry and Edward can't even look at you anymore, let alone cheat with you. He's at least working to redeem himself. All you've done is take advantage of the fact that Jasper is a good guy, and you've never deserved him."

She turned red, and looked ready to murder me. "Leave me alone, you little freak."

I chuckled and turned my back to her, happy that I'd won, or so I thought.

"At least I love him."

Before I could think, I had spun around and slapped her hard across the face. She looked shocked, and tentatively touched the angry red skin before shoving me back hard. I growled and lunged at her, reaching for her hair, and it became an all-out brawl. I don't even know what came over us. Bella was the shy and quiet one, and I was the sweet and perky one. We had suddenly turned into a scene from a bitchy-teen-movie, and it was growing worse by the second. Hair pulling, face slapping, shoving, scratching, a few punches on my side. It was causing quite a scene, what with all the people watching us and shouting.

It finally ended when some senior guys - weird, as I thought that particular group would enjoy it the most - darted up and dragged us apart, despite our flailing arms and the fact that we kept trying to kill each other while they separated us.

"Damn, Swan! I thought your brother was the tough one!" one of the guys said, making Bella madder.

"Let me go!" she shrieked, kicking.

"Like hell she's the tough one," another guy said. "I thought the tiny chick was gonna kill her. You're the Cullen girl, aren't you?"

I made a face at Bella. She growled. The seniors held us tightly, not underestimating our strength. The principal came in about thirty seconds after they managed to pull us apart. We were still struggling against the restraining arms of the five boys it had taken to pull us apart and keep us apart.

"Miss Swan, Miss Cullen," he said, giving us a ferocious look. "My office. Now." He studied us, still struggling, and added, "Peter, Garrett, please restrain the two. I'll write you a pass when the situation is dealt with."

The boy who had his arms around Bella's stomach and the one who had his arms looped under my arms - holding me up off the ground - followed Coach Fowler, still holding us fast. They dragged us into the office and stood on opposite sides of the room after putting us in chairs that were unsafely close.

"Miss Swan, the last time you were in here was when you were being commended for earning student of the month," Coach said, looking exasperated. "And Alice, you have stopped so many fights, why did you feel the need to start one?"

"How do you know I started it?" I demanded, glaring over at Bella. "She's the one who ran up to me and started harassing me."

Bella glared back. "She's the one that-"

"I didn't do anything!"

"Ladies!" Coach snapped. "All I know is that Angela Weber came to my office on the verge of tears panicking because she saw Alice slap Miss Swan across the face, and then the fight began. While you may not be the instigator, Alice, you are the one who began the physical fight, and it has to go on the record as such."

"She's the one who yelled at me for her brother being depressed and she doesn't even know what happened!" I whined, pouting.

Bella sat forward, fuming. "She accused me of cheating with her brother and not being good enough for my boy-"

"You did cheat and it's all your fault that everything's screw-"

"Ladies!" Coach warned.

"But you're the one who won't let it go, and-" Bella tried to continue.

"And you made fun of me for something personal and I can't even explain it to you because you're such a cold hearted bitch you'd go and tell him!" I finished.

"Ladies!" Coach Fowler roared. "You are in high school! Not Jersey Shore or any of those 902-whatever shows. Save the drama for after school, or you will be punished severely."

"I hate Jersey Shore," Bella muttered, crossing her arms and leaning back.

"Yeah, she likes Cheaters. She gets her best material watching it," I sneered, glaring at her.

Coach glowered at me. "I am shocked at the behavior you two ladies have shown today. You're facing being written up for physical abuse, verbal bullying, and profanity. You're normally such model students!" He let that sink in before speaking again, calmed down a bit from his tirade. "I'll make you a deal, though. If you can promise me it will never happen again, I won't give you the standard day of suspension, and you can serve three days of in school suspension instead. Are you mature enough to handle this?"

I glowered at my lap, then nodded. "Yes, Coach Fowler."

"Yes, Coach Fowler," Bella echoed.

We had to sign our write-up forms, and then we were sent to wash up the dried blood from our scratches. We stood at sinks next to each other, dabbing at the scratches we had accumulated. My nails were quite sharp from meticulous filing, and Bella's were ragged from chewing on them. It was a little funny, and I started giggling when I saw Bella trying to rub a streak of blood from her cheek.

"What?" she asked bitterly, scrubbing at it.

She winced when I reached up and took her face in my hands, then used the pad of my thumb to wipe the blood away. "Sorry about that."

She started giggling with me, and we helped each other finish cleaning up. I calmed down when I realized there was a tiny red handprint on her face, and I sighed.

"I'm sorry I slapped you," I said, looking at my feet shamefully.

"I'm sorry I said that to you," she said, sounding like I felt. "I'm sorry for everything I did. I know you don't think I'm trying to redeem myself, but I've been trying to hard. You were right about me not deserving him; he's been so forgiving, but I'm still trying. I've been trying to talk to Rose, too, but she won't even look me in the eye."

I looked hard at her, looking for any dishonesty. "Bella, you cheated with your best friend's boyfriend. She's not going to be okay with this. It sucks, but it's true."

"I know," she said, her eyes welling up with tears. "And I'm so ashamed." Her voice broke on 'ashamed'.

"Well, do you want to explain why it happened?" I asked, hugging her. "The real reason?"

"I was just in so much pain from Mom leaving, and Edward was there that first night," she said, looking almost bitter about it. "He held me when I cried and then when I was leaving his room to go back to bed I leaned up and tried to kiss his cheek, but I guess he had the same idea and our lips just kind of bumped together. It was like…Jasper was just there to talk about my feelings. He wouldn't let me kiss him like I wanted to, and I know now that that was for my own good because who knows how far I would've tried to go to try to make myself feel better. Edward was the physical one, and he would kiss me back as roughly as I kissed him, but…we never let it go past kissing, and I'm glad now. Jasper's biggest fear was that we'd…well, you can use your imagination. But when I assured him we didn't, he forgave me. He said that he still loves me, and he's not going to let some bad experiment ruin us."

I rubbed her back as she cried into my shoulder. "Did you tell Rosie that?"

"I can't," Bella whimpered, more tears coming out. "She won't let me. I miss her, Alice. You're one of my best friends, but there's kind of a limit to how close I can be to the psycho that gave my insane brother the time of day. She's really the best friend I've ever had, and I love her more than I ever lusted for Edward."

Suddenly we heard light footsteps. "Really?" Rosalie was standing behind Bella, red and swollen eyes, looking somewhat hopeful.

Bella spun around and launched herself at Rosalie. "Oh, Rosie, please forgive me!"

Rosalie and Bella hugged and cried in the girls' bathroom for a while, and I sat back and watched, then they pulled me into the huddle and we hugged and apologized and begged for forgiveness. We skipped the rest of the school day, sitting on the bathroom floor (on about a million paper towels) and talking over everything.

"What did Emmett say to you?" I asked Bella, my head resting on her shoulder.

"I asked him what was wrong when he was listening to all his heartbreaking songs on full volume, and he said 'Get the hell out, it's none of your freaking business. Go ask Alice.' Only he didn't say 'freaking.'" She sighed. "He's really upset over everything. He thinks you don't love him."

I sighed. I hadn't confided in anyone the struggles I was having. "I saw what happened with Renee and Charlie, and then you and Rose and Jasper and Edward… I'm scared that if I give him my heart, he'll break it."

Rose sat forward, looking around the other side of Bella. "Alice, Emmett… He loves you like you wouldn't believe. You two are different than anyone I've ever met. You need to tell him how you feel, because he loves you so much it hurts him to think of never talking to you again. He told me when I called him to spy on how Bella was doing."

I was slightly jealous that he would have told her that and not me, then I remembered I'm the one that sat there like a rag doll when he begged me to tell him whether I loved him or not. "I love him. I love Emmett Andrew Swan. Why can't I tell him that?"

They both shrugged. The bell rang outside and we collected our things. We shared a last group hug before going to find our respective brothers. While I was going to Edward's last class to see if he was still there, Mike Newton of all people came up to me and followed me.

"Trouble in paradise, Cullen? You missed geometry," he said, as if it was news to me. "And Swan looked like he was going to cry. Is it fun, having a two-faced wimp as a boyfriend? Maybe it helps that you're crazy, but no real woman would want him." His voice was sneering and amused, as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

"Do you know why I missed geometry?" I asked, turning to him. "I slapped someone who teased me about my boyfriend, and now I have ISS. Now leave me the hell alone and don't ever talk about Emmett again or I will personally see to it that you never talk again, got it?" I gave him a sweet sarcastic smile, then turned...

...And walked smack into Emmett.

A/N: Muahahaha. I love giving you cliffhangers. I love your feedback!

~Sidney