Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight.
Thanks to MariahajilE for beta'ing and to M, Nic, and BellaFlan for pre-reading. Any mistakes left are mine.
This is from chapter 20 of The Give Away Girl.
And I'll take everything as it comes my way
pushing your pain 'round my door.
And I'll cry for you as I die for you
Is this blood on my hands all for you?
(You – Candlebox)
~o~
Another night. Another fucking party.
Another night of watching Emmett shove his tongue down Rosalie's throat and trying to keep Heidi off my dick.
Aaron's house is just outside the city limits, and his parents are gone until Tuesday. The driveway is full, so I pull onto the grass and park next to Em's Jeep. I can already hear the voices and giggling coming from the crowd on the porch.
This is a huge fucking house, and Aaron's parties are usually the best by high school standards. His parents are always gone, big brother is away at college, and he has a ridiculous amount of money to spend.
People come here to get fucked up and fuck. I come here to get out of my house and my room and that goddamn bed I wake up alone in every day.
I'm still debating if it's worth it to get out of the car when Emmett opens the passenger door and slides onto the seat. "S'up, dude?"
"Not a fucking thing. How bad is it tonight?"
"Heidi's already blowing some sophomore in the upstairs bathroom, so you should be safe. Unless you're finally ready for me to hook you up with Tanya…" Emmett and Rosalie have both been reminding me it's been more than six months, hinting that it's time to move on. I'm not feeling it. "Okay, then. Wanna bump?"
We do, and it doesn't make me feel any better, but it does make it easy to grab a beer and disappear into the crowd of kids and the bass thumping through the speakers on the walls. It's dark, and people are making out on every piece of furniture.
Three beers in, I need a smoke and maybe another bump, so I make my way outside looking for Emmett. He and Rosalie are leaning against the deck, huddled together for warmth, sharing a joint.
Great.
"You want?" he offers, holding it out to me.
"Fuck you, man. You know I don't."
"I wonder if Bella sits around acting like an asshole to all of her friends." He takes a bottle of Jack from the deck rail and takes a swig.
"She's probably busy with Mike Newton."
"Dude, I'm telling you. Mike Newton is not Bella's type."
"Yeah, well. You said I wasn't her type, either, remember?" In the end, I guess I wasn't. That's what those fuckers are talking about when they spout "It's better to have loved and lost" crap. I call bullshit.
I wish to God I'd never fucking met her.
Anyone that says living like this is better is liar. Or a fucking idiot.
"She's with him all the fucking time. It doesn't get much clearer than that."
"Fuck, man. They've always been friends. She works for his parents."
I take the bottle from him and tip it, wanting the burn because it feels better than nothing. "She worked for my mom, too."
That shuts him up.
"Edward," Rosalie says, stepping forward. "It wasn't as bad as you think it looked. All we saw was his arm around her waist. She wasn't touching him at all." Fuck that. He was touching her. "It almost looked like she was sick and he was helping her."
"No. He's her type. He's a lot closer to that douche ex of hers that she can't stay away from."
"Are you listening to yourself, fucker? You've got Bella fucking everyone in your head. First Jake, and now Mike." Emmett steps closer. "You know better."
"I don't know shit, Emmett."
"You're right," Rosalie says quietly. "You don't."
"What?" I snap.
"You don't know shit. Royce asked Bella to get the answer keys for her mom's tests when he started flunking English. He threatened her." She smiles and then grimaces. "She told him to go to hell."
"What the fuck, Rose?" Emmett asks.
She turns to look at him. "I'm sorry."
"Tell me you had nothing to do with it," he demands.
I never imagined that I'd be capable of wanting to hit a girl, but I do... until I catch sight of Ben and Royce standing behind her thirty feet away, talking to a couple of juniors.
Emmett and Rosalie are yelling at each other, and Royce is smiling and laughing. There are team jackets everywhere, a sea of white and green.
How many of them knew?
"Did he tell you to feed me that bullshit about her and Ben?"
"No," she answers immediately. "Ben did."
Motherfucker.
More yelling behind me. Rosalie's and Emmett's voices fading. People saying hello. Mitchell. Randall. Laurent. Aaron slapping my shoulder when I walk past him. Marcus calling my name when I'm a few feet away from him.
I want to yell at every one of these fuckers and see how many of them knew about this. How many of them helped harass my girlfriend right under my fucking nose…
But Royce's arrogant ass seems like the best place to start.
"Cullen." He holds out a bottle of Patron between us. A nice, long shot might numb whatever is bound to happen when he opens his mouth again, so I take it from him and drink.
I hold it out to him when I'm done. "What's this about answer keys, Royce?" His smile fades, and he sets the bottle on the trunk of the car he's standing next to. I don't know if Rosalie Hale is capable of telling the truth, but Royce doesn't look surprised or concerned which leads me to believe her story.
He glances at Ben, who shrugs. Then he gazes at Rosalie and Emmett fighting across the yard. "I wondered how long it would take the bitch to turn on us completely." Ben laughs quietly next to him. "Make sure she confesses all her sins. She hated Bella more than any of us ever did."
"I don't know, Royce." Ben stops to look at me. "I kind of liked her when she was down on her knees."
"What the fuck did you just say?" I can't think past the ringing in my ears or the fury I can feel building in my chest.
"Her mouth isn't so bad when it's full, but you know that already, don't you?" They both laugh. "Hell, half the school knows thanks to the stairwell porn."
My first instinct is to punch him in the mouth, but it seems like that's what he wants. "You're full of shit. I don't care what you saw. You've never touched her. Rosalie just said you started that fucking rumor. You told her to say it."
His smile disappears, and he pushes away from the Miata he's been leaning against. "I'm talking about her going away gift, asshole. She's a feisty little thing. Or she was. Taking that bitch down a notch and showing her who was boss was one of the best things I've ever done."
The last word is a grunt, because my shoulder makes contact with his abdomen before he can get it out. The screaming and shouting start before his back even hits the ground. I let my full weight knock the breath out of him during my own landing.
It feels good to twist his shirt in my fist and let the other one fly to his face. Feels better to have a face other than Bella's to attach some of this rage to. The crowd is loud around us, but I still get the joy of hearing the crunch of his bones at the same time my fist feels the ache of victory. I hit him again, in the jaw this time, letting every piece of frustration, confusion, and anger free.
When I draw back for the third blow, something slams into my left temple and I take a dive for the driveway. Even the scrape of my skin against the concrete feels good. There's a loud scuffle, and when I look up, Emmett is beating the ever loving fuck out of Royce.
We're surrounded by teammates and classmates, all wearing the same horrified looks on their faces.
I don't give a flying fuck.
I right myself and pull Ben up by the shirt again. "I swear to Christ… If you ever even think of touching her again, I'll fucking kill you."
Aaron pulls me off of him and puts himself between us. Six feet away, Marcus and Randall are trying to get Emmett off of Royce. It takes two more volunteers from the crowd to finally separate them.
We're all bloody and heaving, staring and still wanting to kill each other. The silence only lasts a moment. Then whispers and laughs resume, and people start to wander away.
I don't care anymore. I don't care how many of them knew. I can blame this entire goddamn team, and it won't change the fact that it was no one's fault but my own.
"You broke my fucking nose," Ben whines, standing and wiping at the blood pouring from his face.
"Send my parents the bill, you piece of shit." I swipe the bottle of Patron on my way to the Volvo, ignoring the shouts behind me from teammates trying to smooth things over.
Fuck that.
The highway stretches long in front of me, but all I can see is Bella's face.
Pieces that made no sense before fit right into the puzzle now, shifting and locking in place. She hated being around them, the rumors about her and Ben, the way she disappeared right before our eyes…
Surely he's lying. No one would do that and then talk about it.
I have to pull over.
The bruises on her arm. Oh, fuck.
Bile creeps up my throat, so I hurry out of the car and lean over the guard rail.
God. He hurt her.
I think of how nervous and sweet she was on New Year's Eve, soft and scared even though I was the one that had no clue what to do. And then the last real time… on the beach. If I'd known that was going to be the last time I could love her like that, I would've kissed her more and held her captive behind that rock for hours.
I would've done a lot of things differently.
Gargling top shelf tequila after puking is a new low. It's effective, though. Any buzz I had is gone. I finish the last of it and toss the bottle under my seat.
She never said a word.
I'm not sure what I would've done if she had, but we could've at least figured it out together.
Thinking of all the times I took her around them makes me want to pull over and puke again. The games… the parties… that fucking project.
He wanted her. Thinking about him touching her and hurting her makes me want to turn around and kill him. But I need her to tell me what happened.
Her truck is in the driveway. There isn't enough room to park behind her, so I pull into the yard, blocking her potential exit.
The door opens before I have a chance to knock. She looks small and tired, wearing a Newton's polo with her arms crossed in front of her for warmth. "We need to talk. Rosalie told me about Royce. Now, I want you to tell me what happened with Ben." She looks down and away, and my stomach turns.
Something did happen.
"Let me get a jacket," she says, uncrossing her arms.
"If you try to lock me out here and disappear, I'll wake up your entire neighborhood. Swear to Christ."
She nods and disappears inside without ever making eye contact. I can hear her talking to Charlie, but I can't make out what they're saying. The nervous energy hasn't died since Rosalie opened her mouth, and now that I'm here, it's worse.
The opening and closing of the door behind me signals her return.
"I'm not sure what you're asking," she says.
If what he said is true, she's lying. "He said…" Jesus. How am I supposed to ask this? "It was him, wasn't it? The bruise on your arm that last day of school."
"How did you-"
"I saw it myself, Bella. I got out just in time to catch your grand exit." She looks confused and scared, and my gut is absolutely wrenched. "He said…"
"Just spit it out."
"He said he enjoyed knocking you down a peg and showing you who was boss." The hate I feel for that fucker… "He was laughing when I broke his fucking nose." My hand is aching and burning as badly as my gut.
"Did he do that to your face?" she asks quietly. Even now, she's changing the subject, refusing to let me in.
"No. Royce sucker punched me while I was focused on Ben. Fucking pussy. Then Emmett gave him a lesson in fair fights." I need her to just say it. I have to know. "Did he?"
Her eyes water and her lip trembles, and I swear I feel something break inside of me.
"He didn't…you know." Thank God. The relief is short-lived. "He showed up at my mom's house one night and I opened the door, like an idiot. He was drunk and rambling about all the ways they worked together to break us up. Then, he grabbed me and kissed me and probably would've done more, but I bit him and kneed him in the balls before he had the chance."
A second cruiser pulls up slowly and parks at the end of her driveway.
How did we come to this?
"Goddammit." I can't stand to even look at her knowing I let her down like that. "I took you to his house, left you alone with him."
"Don't," she says. "I was clueless, too. I thought he was a nice guy."
"You know, I was your friend before anything else. You should have come to me when he hurt you."
"It would have been my word against his, Edward. There were no witnesses. I didn't want anyone to know, especially after the rumors…"
"I would have believed you." That's probably hard for her to believe after the way I reacted to the initial rumor, but it's true. "Just like I believed you every time I asked you what was wrong and you said 'nothing.' I could feel you pulling away, so I worked harder to keep up. And every fucking time I asked you what was wrong, you said 'I'm fine.' Obviously, you weren't. You should have told me that Royce was pressuring you about those answer keys. It explains so much looking back; why you were so miserable all the time, why you started pulling away."
"I started pulling away? Are you kidding me, Edward?"
"Did you really think I couldn't tell?" Her actions were more honest than her words back then. "You weren't happy."
"Neither were you."
I was frustrated with life. She was frustrated with me.
Now, I understand why.
"It was a lot, Bella. The never-ending practices and homework and trying to keep up on three or four hours of sleep a night. And I know I was a grumpy bastard, but you still smiled like you meant it then. I'm not sure when it changed. That's the worst part. I was too busy to notice. I kept thinking to myself that we would hang in there to get through the season, and then we could fix it over the summer. People fight, Bella. All couples fight, but you didn't. You just walked away." Without a word.
That's the goddamn killer.
I never even got a conversation. No second chance. Nothing. "Have you, even once, stopped to think how different things could be right now if you had trusted me enough to tell me that Royce threatened you?"
She flinches and then whispers furiously, "What would you have done, Edward? Quit the team? So you could blame me later? Or maybe you would have picked a fight with him. Then, what? The whole school would have turned on you."
"Better me than you, but you didn't give me a choice, did you?" Does she honestly think she did the right thing? "Well, guess what, Bella? All that shit happened anyway," I yell and slam my fist on her banister. "And none of it compares to the day my ex-girlfriend drove off and left me standing in the school parking lot."
"Always" didn't mean much to her in the end.
I fucked up and let her down. But that might not have happened if she hadn't kept their secrets and helped them destroy us. She should've told me everything. Instead, she walked away without a word. "For a girl who hates her mother for abandoning her, you sure are quick to follow in her footsteps."
Her hand is lightning quick, and the sting it leaves disappears too fast.
"That's enough," Charlie says. "Edward, I don't ever want to hear you talk to my daughter like that again for as long as I live. Do you understand me?" Charlie tugs on Bella's shoulder, trying to steer her away from me. She's not budging.
She looks confused and shattered; a mirror of me. There's no way to pick up the pieces when they've been blown to Hell and back. "Don't worry, Chief. We're done," I promise them both.
"Bella, go inside."
She holds her ground a moment, looking small and sad and nothing like the crazy, sweet girl I fell in love with last year. "I'm sorry," she whispers.
She's sorry. I'm sorry. None of it fucking matters.
It could never be the same.
Too much time.
Too many lies.
Too many secrets.
It's been dead for a while. Now, it's time to bury it.
A/N- I've decided to write a B Sides (EPOV) futuretake titled "Ten" for Fandom4LLS. Cancer is an evil motherfucker that took away my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. I'd love to see this fundraiser meet its goal. It's a $10 donation in exchange for a compilation of stories from dozens of authors. Please donate if you can.
Thanks for reading!
-MSC
P.S. Dear sweet, patient DH readers, I'm working on it. I promise. Real life got angsty on me last week and writing something that hurt helped. Now, I can get back to the happy. I'll post a teaser at The Fictionators next week.