Woo! As usual, you guys are seriously my hero's - I mean, 247 reviews? !! - my reaction in an inaudible form :-)
The shop Bella got her dress from was called Alannah Hill - an Aussie designer of the wickedest clothes ever. Expensive, yes, but fabulous too! I pretty much described the store in Melbourne as the one in Seattle. (By the way - I have no idea how long it takes to get from Forks to Seattle, I'm flying blind in that area.) Alannah Hill's site is: .au/ if you want to have a look. I highly recommend it.
Anyway, here are the reviewers:
All.The.RageR, Child-Of-God13, CrazZy-BunNy, Silas1, booknerd14, Lianna Weschester, joellen818 (x2), Ghosts in the Snow, laibballfan, jennifier potter, Muff-Nbutter, mrsjacobblack91, dollegirl, tthrai01, AlwaysBettingOnAlice, FrEvrNvrLasts, mari alice, okiegirlforever, Music ADD, x-aly-x (x2), yaaaay, Intoxicated By His Presence, BellaAtHeartt (x2), Princess-Tinkerbelle (x2), jacob is the new black, bedwardforever, PerfectlyChaotic, Kevin the Cornbread Slice, to lazy to log in, twilightaddict26, ForeverWasteAway, pierce.me.through.with.sadness.
Child-Of-God13: Good guesses, but Mike's parents don't have any more input on Bella and Mike's relationship. As for the rest... this chapter will answer most of your queries.
CraZy-BunNy: We'll be seeing Edward in this chapter :-D
joellen818: Yep, Bella's first class is Trig in the Twilight books, but for the sake of having things fit a little better I changed around some of Bella's classes in this story. Good observational skills though!
laibballfan: I really really wish I had a photo to go with the dress I envisioned for Bella... but I don't... unfortunately it was all in my head. But at least this way, you can all picture your slightly different variations of what she'll be wearing!! No restrictions on imagination!
jennifier potter: Don't worry!! You'll like this chapter, I promise!! cringes away from blunt object
mrsjacobblack91: Awww, it's so great that I can change your mind with my writing like that! I'll try and make up your mind a little better during the rest of the story... though by the end I'm sure you'll have made a good decision all on your own!
dollegirl: Thanks for the pat on the back about the moth/flame thing. I saw it happen once, totally freaked me out - but somehow and in some weird way, it was actually beautiful. I hope you know what I mean! I'm not morbid, not at all.
mari alice: Very observant, and I agree totally with the whole 'being comfortable with your bf/gf and that's why you stay with them' thing. It happened to me once, but I am SOOO better off on the single side of the fence!
x-aly-x: Yep, there will surely be JasperxAlice action. But atm it's one of the background focuses, though I think you'd be able to pick up on minute advances in their 'relationship' of sorts if you looked for them in the story. But you knew that already!
BellaAtHeartt: Awwww.. thankyou! It's good to hear people like my story in as many words, no matter who says it :-D and I would LOVE to give you and AlwaysBettingOnAlice feedback for your story. It shall be wickedly awesome! I'll check on it once this chapter has been updated :-)
Princess-Tinkerbelle: As always, your reviews are fabulously interesting and crazy to read! Me and my friends were sitting around the computer tonight saying how we all agree that you'd totally mesh well with us. So, if ever you're in the Barossa Valley in Aus, come and visit!! Lol. England is fabulous - my sister's living there atm. I'm sure you'll love being able to gloat when you're out of school and we're all locked in stuffy classrooms getting an education bleh.
jacob is the new black: I still LOVE your username. I wish I was that creative!!
bedwardforever: Hahahaha, I agree, Mike does seem to be a horny little beast in lots of other fanfics! At least Stephenie Meyer is nice to him, lol.
PerfectlyChaotic: Hahaha, that's the first suggestion of Mike being arrested that I've received. Good work lol. Thanks for the compliments btw!
Kevin the Cornbread Slice: I miss getting your reviews! I wish you'd review more often, I love reading them. And just for you - Edward will get to have a crack at Mike. Literally. But you'll have to wait a little while for the sweet moment to arrive.
ForeverWasteAway: YESSSS!! I was waiting for someone to make a comment about the aversion to butterflies thing - it's VERY important. Do not forget it! I didn't know there was an Isabella Moth - how strange, eh?
pierce.me.through.with.sadness: I LOVE the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus! Great, great band. Love 'em. I'm from near Adelaide, in a town so small I don't think it even comes up on Google any more lol. Sydney eh, I have family there. Wonderful shopping city! I liked Feeling Sorry For Celia too; and I didn't like Finding Cassie Crazy in the beginning but I kinda warmed to it. But I love it now. The characters remind me of me and my friends!
--
Anyway, I'll shut up now and let you read the story. Here we go!
Chapter Fifteen: China Doll
I didn't know what to do with myself. After I'd woken up on Sunday morning, avoiding the lingering thoughts of a dream involving a humungous clock ticking beautifully over my head while I was attacked by small winged creatures, I decided it would be the best idea to avoid the kitchen and head over to Angela's.
When I got there, however, there was no one home. I wondered where to go while I sat in my truck, and after a minute I was inspired. Soon I was standing in front of Alice's door with my hand raised to the doorbell.
"Hey, Bella!"
I tried not to let my facial expression betray my shock.
"Hey, Leah, what are you doing here?" I knew I had sounded rude, so I smiled immediately to show I hadn't meant it to come out that way. Leah just grinned happily as I stood on the porch.
"Visiting Alice. She has a wicked house, don't you think? I've gotten lost so many times already!"
Alice did have a wicked house. It was huge, obviously, and to emphasise the point of this I would have to use the comparison of being able to fit my living area comfortably in Alice's own personal bathroom.
"Yeah, it is a little confusing sometimes."
Alice appeared then, holding a bowl in her hands and sporting some dusted flour in her hair. She has an apron on and was going barefoot. Once I'd cared to notice, Leah was dressed in a similar fashion; her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and her hair carelessly thrown into a bun at the nape of her neck.
"Bella!" Alice exclaimed, blowing a loose piece of hair out of her eyes.
I decided that the exercise must have been Leah's idea. Alice not only did not know how to cook, but she was currently stirring the bowl in such an off-balance manner that I could see the full contents of it – and it appeared to be pure flour that she was mixing.
"Hey Alice," I replied neatly, swaying on the spot. "I just came around for a chat."
"So Charlie didn't ground you for getting home so late last night?"
I shook my head, both in answer to her and to try and discourage the memories clawing their way up my mind.
"You can help, if you like?" Leah offered, turning to Alice with a nod, who nodded back.
I knew that a kitchen which was not my own would be a health hazard to all involved, so I shook my head. "No, thanks. I'll wait for a while, if that's alright… Alice?"
Alice nodded enthusiastically. "Sure thing. We shouldn't be too long."
Leah clapped me on the shoulder in a friendly manner before turning and heading back into the kitchen, Alice following close behind.
I didn't pay a lot of attention to the time, and apparently, neither had my body - because when I snapped out of the reverie I had been in I realised two things. One was that my buttocks was in a sleep worthy of a coma, and the other was that my eyes had practically dried out from staring at the television I hadn't realised was on. I was sure I'd just given the term 'day-dreaming' a whole new perspective.
I started rubbing at my eyes, probably giving myself the appearance of someone who had just finished a good cry, and heard the door-bell ding in some corner of my conscious mind.
I heard voices; Alice and Leah and someone else, then turned as a movement in the corner of my eye required.
There, in the doorway and looking unfairly delicious, was Edward.
I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend.
"Hey, Bella! I didn't expect to see you here," he said in a friendly manner, crossing the expensive carpet to sit beside me on Alice's couch.
He was wearing a casual t-shirt and a pair of jeans with a belt, but I couldn't peel my eyes from his face for long enough to notice anything more than that. I did notice that he looked very good with dark colours, however. His hair was done in a similar manner to last Saturday, and I was annoyed with myself for noticing this stupid detail about him.
I smiled then leaned forward to catch the remote control and turn the volume down. The show I had been watching wasn't even in English.
"I didn't think I'd run into you here, either," I said, trying to sound casual and to hide the faint hysteria building in the back of my throat. "What are you doing here?"
I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend.
"Picking up Leah," he said, turning slightly so he was facing me. I knew I wasn't going to make an easy escape to the kitchen. "How are you?"
I remembered that my eyes looked puffy and swollen from having them dry open then be forcefully rubbed into a watery state.
"I'm fine, just spacing out as usual. I think I might have actually beaten a goldfish at a staring competition."
"There are no goldfish in here…?"
"Inside joke. Never mind."
I tried not to smile but couldn't hide it at the memory.
"What?" he asked me, starting to smile himself at my obvious flashback.
I sighed, and looked at him, which proved to be a mistake. His green eyes were swimming, swirling, may just cause me to swoon…
"I had a goldfish when I was little. Alice bet me that I couldn't beat it at a staring competition, so I tried, and when it didn't blink after around ten minutes I tapped the tank to try and distract it – and knocked it clean off the cupboard. Needless to say I didn't own any other fish after that, nor did I try to stare down a creature that does not possess eyelids."
Edward laughed, and I smiled with him.
"Really?" he asked, still laughing happily.
"Yeah." I shrugged and pretended to be devastated, but Edward just pushed me in the shoulder and I rolled over on the couch, breaking into laughter like he was.
After a minute we had both settled down, and Edward turned to me again, thoughtful.
"What are you here to see Alice for?"
I shrugged, but he didn't buy it.
"C'mon, we're among friends here!" he joked, sweeping his arm to the invisible people sitting in the leather seats around us.
I rolled my eyes. "Uh huh."
I swayed within my thoughts for a moment and debated whether to tell Edward or not. Perhaps a guy's perspective would help this? I was quite sure I knew what Alice would say if and when I told her; practically the same thing I would tell her had she been the one to forget her six-month anniversary.
"Okay, well," I started, thinking about how to explain it right. "Mike and I decided to organise for our parents to have a formal dinner together, along with us too. To skip the boring parts, his mother basically insulted me and I stood up for myself. I thought Mike would stand by me but he took his parents side. He apologised for it later and promised to make it up to me, which is where we find our issue…
"I went shopping with Alice yesterday and she has this rule about not having your phone on you because it is a distraction from the shopping world – thought I just think it's because she wants me to have no method of escape during the day."
Edward laughed at that and I tried to be serious as I continued.
"So I got home pretty late, and I thought Charlie was waiting up for me so I went inside, all quiet and stuff. But I noticed a random coat hanging on the pegs, so I went into the kitchen, and there was Mike. He had made me dinner and had little candles on the table; he'd even gotten me a gift. I opened it while he was still asleep, and the little note on the inside said that he loved me, which was a first. Plus, the watch wasn't cheap and I'd only said something about liking it six months ago, on our first date.
"Then he woke up, and I tried to apologise but he seemed, well, weird. I don't know how to explain it. It was like he'd had enough or something. So I don't know what to do, because he told me he loved me and in the same night I totally screwed him over."
Edward seemed deep in thought, and didn't say a word for at least a full minute. I kept silent, not wanting to disturb his tense stillness. He raised his head eventually and looked at me with a mixture of expressions.
"It seems that the fates are against you, Bella, from what I've known of you! This is pretty big though, I would be freaking out if my girlfriend did that to me, especially on that particular milestone when I'd put my self on the line like that."
I felt a massive wave of guilt wash over me. So it was as bad as I'd thought… I might as well plaster 'idiot' over my head for all the world to see.
"However," he went on, staring at the carpet by my feet. "It isn't unrepairable. But it won't be easy, and it won't be quick."
I nodded at him, knowing this already, but still hoping in the back of my mind that he would say something that would fix it all in an instant.
"The only real question now it, do you want to stay with him?" He looked at me with more intensity than anything I'd seen before and found myself caught in his gaze. My throat tried to work, tried to push out some kind of sentence, but though my lips moved nothing came out.
"We're done!" sang a pixie's voice from the kitchen.
Alice came dancing in, swinging a chocolate-smothered cake in her arms as Leah rushed in after her. Leah kept step behind Alice, a shocked look replacing her usually cool-as-a-cucumber act, holding out her own arms in readiness to catch the cake in case Alice thought it could fly.
"Wicked," Edward said abruptly, standing from beside me. I noticed once he had moved that there wasn't really space to breath between my own face and his while he had been sitting down, and felt a huge stab of regret for not noticing this before. "Time to go?" he asked Leah, a little happier at the prospect of leaving than I wanted him to be.
"Yeah, okay. Alice, put the damn cake back in the kitchen and try to sit still for a minute."
Leah warily stepped back from Alice, who disappeared in the kitchen then reappeared less than five seconds later. I heard the sound of the fridge door sealing shut behind her.
"I'll help you get your stuff," Edward said shortly, making to follow Leah out into the hall.
"But I haven't got anything to-" Leah started, but she was yanked from the room by Edward before any more words were out.
Alice sat down beside me, crossed her legs, folded her hands and breathed a sigh.
"So," she said, looking at me expectantly. "What's the big news?"
I spent the next ten minutes telling her detail-by-detail what had happened when I'd walked through the front door last night. She nodded in the right places but made no movement or noise throughout the talk.
"So what's going on between you two now?" she said when I'd finished. She looked concerned, but I could see the cogs of her mind fast at work, trying to think of a way to fix it. I hoped.
"I really don't know. I feel like I've more than half lost him, and everything just seems to be going wrong. I didn't even get him a present, Alice! And I'm the girl! I'm meant to be rushing around making my wedding plans before he's even proposed, and there I go, missing the six-month anniversary! What kind of girlfriend am I, anyway? Mike deserves better than this."
"Yes, he does, but so do you." Alice sighed again. "Look, Bella, Mike and you had an obvious connection in the beginning, not to say you don't have one now. But maybe your relationship has reached the stage where it's time to let it go while you can still be friends. Do you still want to be with him?"
"I don't know, that's the problem! He said he loves me, Alice!"
"Okay, okay. I'll make it easy." She cleared her throat and it was obvious that her mind was working in top gear. "When you see him, does it make you instantly happy? Do you feel giddy when he says your name, or when you say his? Do you miss him when he's not there, do you feel like you would happily be a human bridge for him if he needed it?"
I stared at the shining wooden coffee table, thinking. The last time I had felt that way about Mike was… well… to try and fit everything to Alice's exact words…never. I couldn't remember feeling happy just to be around him, or to know I was going to see him. It was more of an, 'I'll see Mike today' rather than an, 'I can't wait to see Mike today'. Maybe she was right? Alice was usually right. Especially about things that required an epiphany.
I was careful with the word, like it might physically break something if said the wrong way.
"No."
"Then you have your answer," Alice said, nodding once.
There was a bustling on the stairs and Leah and Edward appeared. Leah had her hand-bag over her shoulder and Edward carried nothing, making my eyes tighten suspiciously. They both looked back innocently. Too innocently. I was sure they'd heard Alice and me.
"We've gotta go, thanks Alice, see you later!" Leah said in a rush, seizing Edward's sleeve and yanking him out the door.
Edward raised his hand in goodbye to Alice and I, but had barely opened his mouth to voice it before he was gone and the door was clicking shut behind them.
"Must be something in the Port Angeles water," Alice said, shrugging. She stood quickly and was gone from the room before I could answer, so I just shrugged.
I chose to stay in the lounge as I paced, Alice calling to me from the kitchen a moment later.
"So when are you going to do it?"
"Huh?" I called back, pausing in my pattern across the carpet.
"See Mike," she clarified. I heard the fridge door snap closed and thought she must have been getting into the cake, so I headed slowly for the kitchen.
I rounded the door to the kitchen. "I don't know. When should I?"
"Soon. The longer you leave it, the worse you'll feel." She twisted around on the bar stool and held up a spoon for me so we could share the piece of dark chocolate cake she had at her disposal.
I sat down beside her and cut off a small piece. "Tonight?"
She nodded. "Tonight."
--
It was nice to not have to deal with Charlie before leaving for Mike's house. Charlie was working late – more like, Charlie was staying down the station to finish a round of cards he and his badged buddies were playing. I didn't mind. Charlie deserved to have a break now and then.
So now, after devouring half a chocolate cake with Alice and discussing the best way to deal with Mike, I was driving more slowly than required in the direction of Mike Newton's home.
The tyres ground into the gravel of Mike's driveway as I turned off the bitumen. Mike's house was on a slight rise to the entrance gates, so I had to crouch slightly to see the building above me. Behind it I could see that there were clouds brewing, and knew I was going to have to drive home in the rain. Not like that was very unusual, though.
I wasn't surprised to see a curtain flutter when I got closer to the house. The sound of my truck was hard to miss and easy to recognise. I wondered whether it was Mike, his mother, his father or his housekeeper. By the way Mike appeared at the door, I was sure it had been him.
I stepped out onto the gravel, trying to not move it with my weight but still hearing the crushing noise under my feet as I crossed the small distance to the steps leading up to his porch. Mike smiled at me, and stepped forward, closing the door behind him. I felt a horrid sense of dread in the pit of my stomach, but tried to ignore it as I plastered a fake smile on my face and hugged Mike.
We pulled away, and I wasn't sure whether I was glad that his hug had been as half-hearted as my own or not.
"Come in," he said, stepping to my side and putting his arm awkwardly around my waist as we stepped forward. He opened the door and let me through first. It was much warmer inside; I hadn't realised through my minor panic that it had been almost arctic outside.
"Its lovely inside," I commented more formally than I had intended. Mike simply smiled at me.
He stepped over to the foot of the white stairs in the entrance hall and beckoned me over. I obliged. "I'll be up in a sec," he said, sweeping a kiss across my cheek, then disappearing through the door leading off to the kitchen and entertainment areas. I stopped myself from following him like I wanted to, and plodded my feet unhappily up the stairs.
I had expected the sight of Mike to make me feel a little happier, but it didn't. I wanted the butterflies to knock around inside my stomach, but they didn't. I wanted him to speak my name, or to say his, but the words were lost in the uncomfortable silence we shared. I'd dreaded the arrival rather than revelling in it, meaning I had not been upset to be away from him. The knowledge that I did not love Mike hurt me more than the knowledge that this was the end.
I pushed the door to his room open, and found that it was a little messy, just like the last time I had seen it. His bed was unmade, the covers thrown in a triangle like he would have done when crawling out of bed. There were shirts lying over his computer on the desk, pants lying scattered around the floor. Random assorted school books lay around various points on the carpet. I skipped over the obstacles and was fortunate to trip close enough to the bed so if anyone had been looking, it'd have looked like an intentional leap.
"Thirsty?" Mike's voice came from the doorway. I suspected he had seen me trip. I looked at his hands, where two glasses of water were being supported. I guessed it didn't matter if I wasn't thirsty or not.
"Yeah, parched."
Mike smiled at my choice of words in a way which was close to the smile I missed, but it wasn't all quite there. It made me a little sadder to know this.
"So, what's up?" he said, but his face betrayed the realisation that was in his mind.
"It's about us," I said, not wanting to drag it out. I stumbled for the right words. There wasn't a lot of experience I could call on for this; to be truthful, Mike was the first boyfriend I'd ever had to break up with.
"Yeah," he said warily.
I swallowed largely.
"I don't know what's happened between us, but I don't feel the same way about you that I used to. Things just keep going wrong for us, and I feel like there's no point in trying to fix them anymore. You've made the last six months of my life the best of my life, but I think that's all they can be now. Do you know what I mean, Mike?"
He was looking down at the visible patch of doona between our seated bodies. Slowly, he looked up at me. I felt the urge to say something more, but bit my tongue and held it in.
"You're breaking up with me?" There was far more hurt in his voice than I had expected. He might have known it was coming, but that didn't make it any easier for him. He still wanted me exactly the way I didn't want him.
"Yes." I had to whisper. For some silly reason, I believed whispering would make it hurt him less.
He was silent. I looked up from the floor, realising tears had pooled in my eyes. I looked at Mike's face and they spilled over, silently tracing moist lines down my cheeks.
When I was small, my mother gave me the most beautiful china doll. I would sit in our home, on the soft carpet of our living room, and just stroke the beautiful porcelain face for hours. Renee loved it because I was silent and she would always know where to find me.
One day, when I was naughty, Renee took the doll from me. I kicked and screamed the biggest tantrum of my life trying to stop her, but when she saw me doing this the doll escalated another shelf higher than it had been originally. Being a reasonably smart chid – or devious, I wasn't sure which - I decided to bide my time in getting the doll back.
Once Renee was busy enough with dinner or some chore of the like, I went to the high shelf and started to shake it with as much strength as my four-year old arms could muster. It only took a few seconds, but the doll finally came free of its high prison. I fell, not a long way, but long enough for its face to break into a million tiny pieces all over the floor.
I screamed up a storm. Renee came running in to find me with bleeding feet and pieces of china in my hands. The china had been broken in such a way that they were too small to be repaired but big enough to slice up my tiny feet when I tried to run across the wooden floor to retrieve my faceless doll.
The look in Mike's face now brought back that memory, because the delicate state of Mike's heart was now in pieces far smaller than that beautiful doll's face. His own face displayed the pain he was feeling, and my own heart felt winded from simply seeing him. I wanted to reach up and touch him, just to make sure he was still there, still alive, still real. But I didn't. My hands were frozen to my sides, my blood running ice cold in my veins.
So painful was the look on his face that I actually stood up and left the room without another word, afraid that Mike was going to cut me too deeply with his own pain.
The tears were still streaking down my face when I ran down the stairs, they were still dripping from my chin when threw the front door closed behind me, they were still clouding my vision when I pulled out of his driveway, and they had made me puffy and red eyed and I was hiccoughing when I walked in Charlie's front door.
Before I fell asleep on my bed at a time inappropriate for a Sunday, the image of Mike's face in my mind caused me to scream into my pillow in the vain hope that it would help me to dispel the intense aching in my heart.
Okey dokey! I'm sorry if the end sounded a little emo, by the by. But now, you won't have to bug me about when Mike and Bella will split!! I'm sure there will be other, more compelling queries you shall come up with.
This chapter's question: Where did your username on this site originate from?
Mine came from this little story:
My name is Chanelle - so when the whole Schapelle Corby thing first came out everyone was like "haha, your name rhymes with 'Schapelle'" and from there it got shortened to Shaps. And it has stuck. Plus, I like it and it's unusual so I don't usually have to add numbers or anything on to the end of it for usernames!
By the way, I did my maths exam today. It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be! But at least it's all over and done with now!
Hope everything is fabulous with you all, stay wicked,
-Shaps (.)