Runaway
A bed of Roses
A few moments of awkward silence passed while the whole family was staring at Bella with blank expressions. Then Emmett broke into a fit of laughter. "Don't tell me you … you became a... a dancer." He was laughing tears. She huffed feeling a little offended by his reaction. She wasn't as much of a klutz anymore. She had grown into her body by now and she could move rather gracefully. But she resolved to be mature and let it go. "No, I don't dance at Juilliard. I sing." She answered flatly. Emmett stopped laughing and looked at her confused. "Huh? But I though that was a school for dancing … that chick from that movie ..." Bella sighed irritated. "Yeah, we have a dance division among others."
Then Edward cleared his throat. "Well, that's nice. It's good to know that you're life turned out quite well despite the … well … unfavorable circumstances." He phrased carefully avoiding her eyes. She raised her eyebrows and he continued. "Yeah … and I have to say I'm really sorry about Victoria, too. I … well I tried to track her and … you know … but apparently I … well I wasn't very good at that … yeah. So, I'm sorry." A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed while she stared at him perplexed. "OK." She said slowly and cleared her throat.
This whole topic actually made her a little uncomfortable and she tried to think of something to change the subject when her gaze fell on the Christmas tree in the far corner of the room and she smiled. So its Christmas. What were you planning to do? Any special vampiric traditions?" She joked. They all looked at her bewildered and she blushed. They apparently didn't think that was funny. Then Alice chuckled and Bella sighed relieved. "Well we did already unwrap the presents, because we don't have anything for you and we didn't want you to feel bad." She shrugged apologetically. "No, that's OK. I'm not used to getting presents for Christmas anyway. So it's really no big deal." She shrugged it off, but with the way they looked at her now she probably should have kept her mouth shut.
Then she suddenly remembered something. "Damn! I have to call Roxie. She's probably worried sick by now." And with that she ran up the stairs to her bag, digging through it until she finally retrieved her cell phone. With all the fuss and the reunion going on she had almost forgotten why she ended up here in the first place. She hit number one on her speed dial and waited. Roxie picked up after the third ring.
"About time!" She greeted. "Did you actually sleep until now or have you forgotten all about your poor friend, stuck in a house full of lunatics and total fuck-ups? And before you answer remember I'm a person with quite sensible feelings."
"Sorry, I was on my way I swear but my car broke down and I'm kind of stuck here."
"What?! You hit the road yesterday? Didn't you get my message? Didn't you hear the weather report?"
"No I didn't. What message?"
"The one where I told you to stay home, because of the freakin' blizzard and to call me this morning?" Bella thought back to the day before. She had been in a hurry and ignored the message assuming whatever it was that Roxie wanted, it could wait until she got there.
"Annie? Are you still there? Hello?" Bella snapped out of her thoughts. "Yeah sorry I'm here."
"So where exactly are you now? Don't tell me you're spending Christmas in some rotten hole of a motel room." Roxie questioned.
"Thankfully I ran into some old friends and I can stay with them for now."
"Friends?!" She asked a little sceptical.
"From my high school days." It wasn't even a lie.
"And what about your car?"
"I'll figure something out." Bella sighed. She didn't even know where exactly her car was.
"Good. Now enough about you. I swear I'm ready to go berserk any minute. We've had the first major brawl about 30 Minutes after I stepped foot into the damn house. Now Mom's got a migraine again and is bitching all over the place. Dad has been drunk for two days in a row already. My aunts ratty hyperactive children from hell are demolishing the house. And I swear if my grandmother doesn't shut up about all her imaginary diseases I'm going to strangle her! ARGH!" She shouted.
"Hey hey hey, calm down. Take a deep breath and remember that within a week it will be all over and you don't have to see them for another year." Bella heard her breath in loudly.
"OK you're right and maybe next year I'll tell them I spend the holidays with your family and we can stay in New York together."
"Yeah maybe ..." Bella trailed off thoughtfully. Then there was a loud thumb in the background.
"Ugh! Sorry I have to go now. I think that little monster might have just crashed the tree or something."
"OK, bye and merry Christmas." Bella quickly called into the phone.
"Merry Christmas." Then she hung up and Bella let herself fall onto the bed. Compared to Roxie's predicament her's was probably a bed of roses – but with nasty little thorns none the less.
She got up from the bed and made her way back downstairs. As she reached the bottom of the stairs Alice suddenly stood in her path and Bella jumped 5'' in the air screaming. "Alice! Stop startling me!" Alice giggled and Emmett was doubling over with laughter but soon stopped as he realized that he was about to loose to Rosalie in his new video game because of the distraction. So he decided to cheat and tackled her trying to take her controller away. Alice and Bella just shook their heads at them. Then Alice grabbed Bella's hand and dragged her into the kitchen. "Come on. We're gonna make christmassy cookies with Esme." Bella groaned. 'christmassy' seemed to be Alice's new favourite word.
A/N: The movie Emmett was talking about is 'save the last dance' of course.