DISCLAIMER: Recognizable Characters - Stephenie Meyer's
Plot, Mr. Hart, & Henri - Mine, mostly due to late nights on the internet chatting with some of the most creative and talented (yet randy) bitches ever known.
Musique for zees chapturh:
Distractions - Zero 7 / Cold Shoulder - Adele / Don't Stay - Linkin Park
Present day...
"What the hell is up with Bella these days?" I asked after eyeballing her on the sofa across the room.
"Same old, same old," Alice replied, her tone conveying her growing concern. "She mopes, sighs, rarely gets out of those ratty old sweats, and still won't open up about it."
For the past few weeks, Bella had gone from a happy, vivacious woman to a mopey, PMSy harpy and it was starting to get on my nerves. She seemed withdrawn and sad, but never came clean as to why when we asked. Nevertheless, I had a feeling that I knew the cause: Carlisle.
In the time that I'd known Bella, I've witnessed a bit of the roller coaster that is their relationship. One of their biggest issues is that Carlisle travels a lot for work, sometimes for weeks at a time, and although Bella has known this from the get-go, the frequent travels (which had become even more frequent as of late) were starting to affect their marriage in a negative way. Without knowing all of the details (and without mentioning the eavesdropping that Alice had done on occasion), from our points of view, Bella was lonely and suffering from the lack of intimacy she and Carlisle used to share.
She had once confided that when they first married, she'd travel with him everywhere and they'd made love in many places all over the globe. Bu, as time passed, she stayed behind more and more often. For the most part, Bella stayed behind because of work commitments, but she'd sometimes stay behind at Carlisle's request. Apparently, he managed to convince her that the frequent travels and jet lag were exhausting and utterly detrimental to her in the long run. Besides, Bella had never been fond of flying.
So, these days, Carlisle always traveled alone and Bella stayed at home.
Truth be told, Carlisle was gone so frequently lately that I often hoped someone would swipe the little woman right from under him and he'd be none the wiser. I mean, hell, I'm not into women, but even I know a good woman when I see one. Bella is beautiful, intelligent, funny, & successful. She's practically every man's dream. Apparently, Carlisle had somehow taken that fact for granted, and if he wasn't careful, someone else could be filling his shoes in his absence.
Funny thing is that Carlisle continued to go about his business - oblivious to Bella's changing moods - living as if everything was peachy keen. However, it was obvious to everyone who could see that the more often he stayed away, the more distance he put between them, and let the romance cool. I knew it and Alice knew it. Bella knew it, too. Why didn't he? I hated seeing Bella unhappy. And she was indeed unhappy, no matter how much she tried to pretend that everything was okay. Shit, I'm no doctor and it was pretty damn obvious to me. How does a world-renowned psychologist not notice that his own wife is lonely and depressed?
Alice and I had to do something about it.
"You did bring the Patron, right? I said. "It's intervention time."
"Sure did." She replied with a wink.
Bella, Alice, and I spent the remainder of the night at Alice's, drinking shots of Patron and watching chick flicks. Alice and I did the drink-and-dump on the sly, but Bella, wallowing in her misery, drank and drank until she was spilling her beans to us, as planned.
"Rose...Rosalie...you're good with men, right?" Bella slurred. "How can I keep my man home with me more often? I mean, I prance around the house naked, I wear sexy nighties...hell, I even deep-throat him, for Pete's sake! And still...it's as if when the clock strikes twelve, my Prince Charming has to leave before his carriage turns into a pumpkin!"
I knew it. That bastard is pulling that shit on Bella now. I fuckin' knew it.
It was all too familiar to me. I remembered being the one trying my damnedest to keep my man from running off to fulfill his "obligations" and spend more time together as a couple. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way what these obligations involved. So, I hoped for Bella's sake that he was in fact overwhelmed with work and that this wasn't a repeat of my past. However, it had been my experience that a leopard never really changes its spots, so I simply opted to hope for the best and brace for the worst. In the meantime, I needed to get Bella to focus on something other than her husband, for her own peace of mind. It's never healthy to depend on another person for your happiness, and hers was obviously dependent on Carlisle.
"Bells, honey...maybe it's time you got yourself a little distraction of your own outside of work commitments. You're too focused on Carlisle's comings and goings and you shouldn't have your life revolve around his," I said with a fake smile. I really just wanted to tell her that I had several eligible bachelors lined up who'd just love the chance to fill in for that bastard during his absences.
"But Rosie-honey, " she said, and I knew that she was getting shit-faced as she never calls me "Rosie-honey" unless she's had a few drinks in her.
"I don't need a distraction, I need him," she sobbed.
Great. Here come the waterworks.
"Okay Bella, I was trying to be gentle about this, but really, you leave me no choice," I replied. "Pull your shit together and stop fuckin' moping. No one can step on you if you don't lie down and let them - and believe me, you're letting him."
She instantly stopped sobbing and looked at me with her eyes wide.
"Is that...is that what it seems like to you?" she said with a hiccup.
"Seems like?" I scoffed. "Bella, we all see it. You might deny it to yourself, but you're certainly not fooling us."
She looked over at Alice who had been unusually quiet throughout our exchange.
"And you agree, Ali? Am I being a doormat?" She said with unshed tears in her eyes.
Alice grabbed Bella's hand and squeezed.
"Bella-sweetie, you do know that Rosalie and I love you, right? We'd never do or say something to deliberately hurt you...but I do have to say this..." Alice took a deep breath before continuing. "Have you ever considered that Carlisle might not actually be working during all of his trips abroad?"
Oh shit. She did not just go there.
I needed to fix this pronto. Bella's eyes were practically bulging out of her head as she processed Alice's words.
I grabbed Bella's other hand in order to shift her attention towards me.
"Bells...Bella. Listen, what Alice means is that maybe he needs to unwind and do man-things on his own sometimes, you know, with so much work and commitments and such, one would think that he'd have the need to de-stress on his own sometimes."
Alice looked at me like I had three heads, so I used my eyes in an effort to convey that now was not the time to voice our suspicions about Carlisle to Bella. Luckily, Alice understood. However, Bella would need clarification.
"But, but...why would he want to be without me when we barely see each other as it is? Shouldn't he want to rush home to me as soon as he had the opportunity?" She replied with a worried expression on her face.
Shit, shit, shit.
Bring it back around, Rosalie. Fix this!
"Bella, who knows why men do what they do? 'Men are from Mars and women are from Venus' and shit, ya know? Trust me."
Avoiding answering the question directly always worked for dudes, so I was crossing my fingers that it worked for me.
She took a deep breath before conceding, "I suppose you're right, Rose."
I sighed in relief.
Then she came back and spilled some more.
"The thing is...the thing is...that I feel as if I'm losing him...and I'm scared, you guys. We've been married for almost 3 years and we hardly make love anymore," she said in a sad tone. "Did I tell you girls that I stopped taking the pill about a year ago?"
Both Alice and I looked at each other quickly but said nothing in response. Bella continued.
"I'm ready to have a baby. I want to be a mom. I want to give Carlisle a child. But, how do I do that when he's hardly around to even touch me?" She said wistfully. "You guys, I'm worried that I might not be enough for Carlisle, and that maybe he's thinking that he settled for me when he could've had someone better."
Alice quickly jumped in and hugged her.
"Oh honey, never! Carlisle is the one that should be thanking his lucky stars for landing you." Alice said. "Bella, for God's sake, you are a gem and I'm sure that if you just talked to him about this he'd be more responsive. You shouldn't keep him in the dark about this."
"But that's just it, Alice. I told him that I wanted to have a baby and all he said was 'Okay'."
At this point, I needed to come up with some sort of save. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Carlisle never wanted to have kids. Besides, I knew better, and just an "Okay" response from him did not register as acceptance in my book. I think that Bella knew that too. Now, how he intended on avoiding the unavoidable was beyond me. Maybe not being home as often was his way of avoiding getting Bella pregnant?
"Bella, I think we all aspire to be moms in our lifetime, but don't you think it's a little soon for that?" I said.
What I didn't dare to say was that I absolutely understood her. Heck, I too wanted the husband, the nice house with the white picket fence, and 2.3 kids, despite what people perceived me as. However, I wasn't very optimistic that there were still men out there who'd be willing to share that dream with a woman such as myself.
I was suddenly lost in my internal musings when Alice came to the rescue.
"Rose..." Her eyes pleaded with me to drop it.
Alice turned to Bella and beckoned her with a mother-hen tone. "Bella, sweetie...let's go sleep off the booze and tomorrow we'll talk more on this, when we're all sober, okay?"
Bella agreed and made her way to Alice's guest room after a round of hugs and good-nights.
Alice and I stayed up way after Bella had gone to bed and discussed how best to assess the Bella/Carlisle situation. Of course, I wasn't about to tell Alice that I knew Carlisle from the past, but I needed to get more information on what she knew in order to file away for future reference.
"Okay, Alice, the coast is clear. What do you know so far?"
She sighed.
"Well, it's taken me a while to put things together, but here it is, in a nutshell."
I held my breath.
"Apparently, Dr. Cullen has had a very colorful past. One that Bella is obviously unaware of and one which I think may still be part of Carlisle's present, considering how things are panning out," she said.
God, she could be so exasperating. "Okay, you're talking in codes. Facts. Details. What. Do. You. Know?"
"He's known in his social circles for his many sexual exploits and hedonistic ways. And I mean, 'is known', not 'was known', as in, not a thing of the past," she said in a hushed tone. None of this surprised me in the least, but I still pretended to be surprised.
"How reliable is your source?" I asked.
"I was hired to do the styling for a group of European socialites a couple of months ago and overheard 'talk' amongst two women where they mentioned 'Dr. Cullen', so I made sure to pay attention whenever I was working with them. I eventually put things together and point-blank asked one of them about him while pretending to be 'in' on the topic."
"Go on," I said.
"Well, she said that she'd had the pleasure of being one of his 'extra curriculars' a few times and that they had been the most pleasurable sexual experiences of her life. Then, the last time I saw her, she told me all about how he's the epitome of discretion with their 'arrangements', considering his 'situation', and even asked me if I had been a recent extra-curricular as well, which was what tipped me off that he may still be indulging in that lifestyle."
"However, I don't have concrete proof that this may indeed be the case," Alice said with a sigh. She was clearly feeling the weight of the information she was carrying around, not being able to tell Bella but not being able to ignore it either.
I leaned over and tapped her knee in order to give her a sense of re-assurance.
"Don't you worry about it, Ali. I'm gonna take care of this. I know a Private Eye based out of L.A. who's famous for tracking, catching, and gathering information on cheating spouses. So, if Carlisle is pulling one over on Bella, we'll have all the goods to present to her. Just leave it to me, okay?" I said.
Alice nodded in acceptance. I needed to get back to L.A and begin to formulate a plan of action.
***
On the flight back to L.A. I thought upon how destiny had brought me to this place where not only would I once again cross paths with Xander's father, but that he'd be married to one of my best friends and (most likely) still up to no good.
Part of me rejoiced at the fact that I'd have the power to hurt him as he'd hurt me, but part of me was in fact conflicted because I didn't want to re-open that long-closed wound. Nevertheless, I found myself remembering...
"Rosalie, you are a goddess among mortals. More beautiful than anything I have ever known," he said.
How that man made me swoon. How blind I had been to his games.
Carlisle had been my college professor for about 2 months when he asked me to stay after class one day. All of the girls in our class thought he was extremely good looking and each of us harbored secret crushes on him. So, naturally, I was thrilled when he singled me out for an after class chat.
"Miss Hale, would you please see me after class?" He said.
Once class had been dismissed I remained by my desk awaiting further instructions from him. Besides, my heart was pounding out of my chest and I was almost certain he'd notice if I stood too close to him. He sat at his desk to the right of the podium and looked up at me with those gorgeous baby blues. Those eyes practically pierced through me.
That was the first time that I felt the weight of his stare and the mutual attraction between us. Eventually, our interactions became more frequent and more familiar - much more familiar - and off campus, of course. Carlisle was my first love and my first lover. He was everything to me. He said and did all of the right things and I had no doubt that he'd marry me once I was done with school. He even said so himself.
How naive I had been.
On the day that the test came back positive, I wanted to surprise him by telling him in a special way. I knew that his last class ended at 10 pm, so I dressed up in some really hot lingerie, a pair of 'fuck-me' pumps, and a trench coat and decided to wait for him by his car in the parking lot. After driving around for about 15 minutes, I finally found Carlisle's car parked in the distance near the woods adjacent to the school. I pulled up near it and walked out of my car. His car's engine was running and the windows were foggy. I couldn't see a thing inside, but I could definitely hear moaning coming from within.
"Oh dear God. He wouldn't," I thought with pure fear.
I immediately rushed back to my car and sat inside. My heart pounded in my chest and felt myself begin to hyperventilate. Unable to move, I simply watched and waited for something to happen.
After about what seemed like an eternity in hell, the back door opened and out walked that red-headed whore - the one from the admissions office - who proceeded to put her underwear back on as she stepped out of the car. As I watched her bend over to pull her panties all the way up, a large male arm stretched out behind her and its hand smacked her ass, hard. The whore squealed in delight, turned around, and threw herself back inside - all along giggling and squealing like the pig that I knew she was.
It was too dark for me to see the man inside clearly, but it was my Carlisle's car, after all, so I opened my car door and walked over to get a better view. To my utter shock and horror, I saw that it was in fact Carlisle inside, and that red-headed whore had her tongue shoved down his throat.
It was my Carlisle, who sat shirtless inside the car with his pants and boxers down around his ankles while still sporting a sizable erection.
"You fucking son of a bitch!" I yelled. "You fucking degenerate bastard!"
I lunged at him inside the car not caring that the red-headed whore was in my way. Carlisle was clearly stunned to see me there and as such didn't have a chance to react. Acting out of rage and instinct, I grabbed hold of his hair and punched him in the face a couple of times. The bitch beside me did nothing but stand next to the car door, screaming bloody murder, and that's when Carlisle came back to his senses.
"Rosalie, goddamn it! Knock it the fuck off!" He yelled as he shoved me out of the car forcibly, making me land on my ass on the cold asphalt. He quickly pulled his pants up, jumped out of the car, and stood before me with a look of terror in his eyes.
At this point, I was crying hysterically and trying to get back up in order to get the hell out of there, but not before choking the shit out of the red-headed whore. I clawed at her face, yanked her hair out of her head in chunks, and settled my hands at her neck.
"He was my man, you pedestrian whore! Didn't you smell the scent of my pussy all over him? You fucking tramp!"
Watching me go ballistic on the red-headed whore, Carlisle's reaction was to pull me off her, grab hold of my wrists, and keep me in a tight arm lock behind my back.
"Victoria, get the fuck out of here! Now!" He spat at that bitch. She ran like a bat out of hell towards her own car, which was parked nearby. I would scratch her fuckin' eyes out once I got a hold of her again.
Without releasing the tight grip on my arms, Carlisle quickly turned me around to face him. His eyes were bloodshot and angry. I didn't care. I spat in his face.
"You despicable, lying bastard! I hope you rot in hell!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Here I was, believing all of your bullshit, all while you're fucking that red-headed whore and God knows who else!"
Suddenly, I felt the anger morph into the pain of heartbreak which cut through me like a sharp knife.
"God, please...just let me die now." I sobbed.
Carlisle released his grip on me and I collapsed onto the floor, dropping on my hands and knees. I threw up almost instantly and the act reminded me of why I was there in the first place.
Carlisle began to speak in a soft tone, "Rosalie, I-"
I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and looked up at him through angry, tear filled eyes as I cut him off. "No. You listen to me one last time." I said with my jaw clenched tightly.
"I came here to tell you that I'm gonna have your child."
He opened his mouth to say something but I cut him off once again.
"And before you even say anything, you motherfucker, this baby is absolutely yours. I was a virgin when you had me and I've been with no one else. You know this."
Carlisle took a deep breath as he stood there, looking down at me sadly before responding.
"Rosalie, I'm not going to lie. I do love you, but I cannot resist the lure of a beautiful woman and how easily they throw themselves at me. I'm not a man who can be with just one woman, nor am I a man who can be a father. I don't and never will want children. Ever. If you want to be with me, you have to accept these facts." He said with a straight face.
I felt as if I had been punched in the gut.
I couldn't believe the words he was saying. That my Carlisle was saying. Who was this half naked man before me? Every hope and dream and desire I had ever had was ripped from within me in the blink of an eye. My life, as I knew it, became nothing more than a fairy tale idea of happiness that would never be.
Pulling myself up from the ground, I walked up to Carlisle, placed my palms gently on his chest and softly kissed it, as I often did when we were intimate. I then stepped back while looking up at him with my most seductive smile and opened up my trench coat to reveal the "prize" inside. He smiled wickedly as he reached for my body, taking my actions as acceptance of his terms. But to his surprise, I stepped back and away from his touch for once in our relationship.
Then, with all of the strength I had left in me, I said as swept my hand down the length of my body, "You see this?"
"This, will never, ever be yours again. And the child that I'm carrying? Our child, will be taken care of. Don't even worry about it. That, I can promise you. Now step the fuck out of my way and get out of my life. Your shit will be waiting for you outside the door of my apartment, if you even care to get it back. And if you so much as step foot inside it or near me again, I will go to your superiors and tell them everything. Absolutely everything."
Carlisle stood there frozen. His eyes wide. I couldn't believe that he actually thought that I'd be okay with what he had proposed and what I had just witnessed.
I shoved past him and into my car, slamming the door shut, starting the engine, and pulling the hell out of there, wanting to be as far away from him as I possibly could. And when the sun peeked over the horizon, I realized that I was back in my old neighborhood, parked in front of my parents' house, more than a hundred miles away.
That was the last time that I saw Carlisle Cullen. My first love, my first heartbreak, and the father of my son.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We will be landing at L.A.X. within the next 5 minutes. The weather is a comfortable 70 degrees with no clouds in sight. Thank you for flying with us this evening and we hope that your stay in Los Angeles is a pleasant one."
The captain's voice brought me back to reality and at that very moment I made a silent vow to myself. Carlisle and Xander would meet. And soon.
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