CHAPTER ELEVEN – You Left Me in the Dark
Whoa is this an update? Within 3 days of the previous chapter? *gasp*
I spoil all of you rotten… :)
Long AN at the bottom. This is the chapter you've been waiting for… Enjoy!
oOo
BPOV
I was cooking in Ben's lavish kitchen. Marble countertops, state of the art appliances… This room wasn't being put into good use and I was doing just that. I was making chicken marsala for lunch. Ben was in the other room; he was reading his script for the movie.
He was leaving in 2 weeks.
We'd been walking on eggshells since that conversation and the topic was never brought up again. But today, it was inevitable.
I didn't want to run anymore.
I was tired of lying. I was tired of pretending.
Ben walked into the kitchen when the chicken was done. He sat down and rubbed his palm against each other. I took a loaf of bread and sliced them down, placing the slices around the large bowl.
He didn't hesitate digging in. I smiled quietly, cleaning up the kitchen in a haste.
"You're not eating?" His mouth was filled with the marsala.
"No." I shook my head and turned around, getting him to drop the topic. And he did.
I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
He was done quickly and I picked up the empty bowl, placing it in the sink. I took a deep breath and started.
Now or never.
"I'm not going to LA with you."
I stared down into the sink. I didn't want to turn around and face him. I did not want to look at his face and see him flash me his smile and try to coax me into this. My decision was made, I had to be sure of that one thing.
"What? Why… What are you talking about?"
I stayed silent.
"I thought we talked about this!"
I let out the breath I was holding, turning around to face him. He already got up from his previous seat on the stool, now standing in front of me, his face stern.
"No, Ben… That wasn't talking about this. That was… a topic dismissal. I like my life here… I'm not going to leave this…"
His expression softened. "But I… Bella, I enjoy your company."
I scoffed, unable to hide my disgust at his words.
"You enjoy my company? That's the absolute best you could do?"
He stood frozen in his spot, unable to form any words. I shook my head reverently, turning back around to face the sink, turning the faucet on.
I let the water run and I turned back around to face him, leaning against the counter.
"I'm not doing this anymore, Ben. I'm not going to."
He dropped back into his seat, face in his hands.
He chose to stay quiet so I took the chance to wash the dishes, rinsing them free of the suds. I turned off the faucet and held my torso upright with my hands firm on the counters.
"Is this why you didn't come over last night?"
Tears pricked at the back of my eyes as thoughts of Edward invaded my brain in a cloudy haze. I could do nothing but nod.
"Yeah."
I could hear him scoff behind me. I could practically see his head shaking. His footsteps were loud and clear as he approached me, his hands fell onto my shoulders and I felt the weight push me under.
My shoulders didn't relax, the muscles stayed tense and stiff at his hands. But he didn't notice. Or maybe he did, he might've just chosen to not care.
"Just… Consider it, okay?"
His chin dropped onto my shoulder. I could only stare ahead into the marble tiling on the wall.
My eyes closed shut and a single, cold, fat tear rolled down my cheek. I nodded, turning my face away from him.
He seemed happy at that and he walked away quickly.
I wasn't sure how I felt about that either.
oOo
My fingers dug into my palm as my hand folded into a small fist at my side. I stared at the coat I had down on the kitchen counter, contemplating.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath.
No more running.
I reached for my phone in my jeans pocket and my hands fumbled as they searched for the thin book I'd left on my kitchen counter the day before. The card fell into my hand and I drew in a deep, ragged breath.
I typed the numbers in quickly. I didn't want to give myself a chance to doubt this. I needed to tell him everything.
It wasn't fair to him at all. He was selfless and kind and caring. He never pushed. And he didn't need to, because I was going to tell him, I had to.
I heard the beeps of the call and his voice mail started: 'Hey it's Edward. Leave a message after the beep!'
I played with the stitching on my jeans.
"Hey Edward. Bella here. I need to talk to you." I paused, clearing my throat. "Um, come over, okay? As soon as you can..."
I pressed down on the red call button and my breath fell from my lips in a quiver. For a split second I was afraid that the message was going to worry him too much, but I'd long lost the capacity to think productively.
I dropped my phone down on the countertop and I grabbed a sharpie, writing Charlie's name on the folded flap of the paper bag. I dropped it off on his desk soon afterward, and made my way back upstairs to my apartment and waited for Edward.
There's no turning back.
oOo
EPOV
It was a little before noon. I took in a lungful of breath and my knuckles hit the wood of Bella's door. The door was pulled open quickly and I was faced with Bella, her face tired and haggard. She was smiling though, and it looked genuine and bright.
"Come in." She stepped aside to let me in. I raised a brow in curiosity but I stepped inside anyway, there would be enough time for that later. Bella had walked away and into her quaint kitchen. The small apartment space smelled of fresh baking and I was taken aback to my memories of home.
I shook the thoughts away and wandered quietly into her living room to wait. I snuck another look at the kitchen, and Bella was wiping down the counters with a dish rag. She popped open the fridge and offered me a drink. I declined. I just wanted to get to the bottom of this mess.
I had to know what she had to tell me.
The past hour of work was stressful, my mind completely occupied by Bella's message playing itself over and over in my head. Bella came back into the living room with a beer in hand. She sat in the recliner and not on the couch with me and my eyes widened slightly in shock at the distance she'd just purposely created between us.
I watched quietly as Bella ran a hand through her brown locks, pulling the strands away from her face.
Her brows were furrowed together as she spoke. "I don't know where to start, Edward." Her voice was quiet and hushed and tired. I leaned back into her couch and rested one of my arms on the back, getting comfortable, letting her know that I'd wait for her to answer.
"Start at the beginning, Bella. Start at the beginning." I nodded, urging her to continue.
She tucked her sock-covered feet under her and played with the cold beer in her hands.
"It was in the fall of my junior year of high school…" She swigged at her beer quickly.
Liquid courage.
I would've smiled at her if the circumstances were different. She had a colorful pair of socks on, sipping on a beer… The thought of it amused me.
"… It was the most any girl could ask for. Autumns in Arizona… It's the most beautiful thing you'll ever see. The world's covered in shades of red and the air was light and breezy… I'd never dated anybody before James, and it was for a good reason. My family is most definitely not the conventional type."
Swig.
"My mom, Renee… She's flaky, always has been. My dad, Phil, just went along with it. They'd be gone for months at a time, and I'd be home with TV dinners and episodes of ER…" She paused, smiling for a second at the memory. She quickly licked her lips and continued.
"James was a softball player, the bad boy every girl wanted to date. I never liked him but when he asked me out, my friends egged me on and one thing lead to another… My parents approved of him because they wanted someone to stay with me while they were gone, and they were gone… A lot."
I could see the various expressions that danced across her face as she reminisced.
"We graduated high school and we went to the same college together… I didn't leave Arizona because James didn't leave Arizona… By our second year, we were living together off campus."
She swallowed the lump that had inconspicuously ridden up her throat before she continued, still playing with the beer in her hand.
"A lot of things in life I'd gotten wrong but I thought, for a long time, that this was right. It was easy, simple. That one night… I'd never forget that night. I went home from a class and he was drunk. The apartment was a mess and he was ranting, saying some shit…"
She paused again and I wanted so badly to run over to her and hug it out. But I had to let her finish so I stayed rooted in my spot, my jaw clenching.
"I'll never forget what he said that night. Everything went down the drain from there… He started to get really ignorant and he was just drunk all the time. I looked for reasons to not be home, I worked jobs…"
She took another swig at her beer and my fists clenched tight at my sides. I kept my mouth shut though, I needed her to continue.
"I left when I graduated and got my major in English. I ran. I ran away from the sun, from my ignorant parents, from James… And I ran here. A friend of mine, Angela, got me a job at an agency, a PR agency. I was assigned Ben Hollis, the Hollywood actor turned bad boy."
She looked up at me then, her brown eyes staring deep into my confused ones.
"I work for him, Edward. But I don't… I don't want to anymore. I think I only took the job because I thought, you know… A Hollywood bad boy wants me to work for him, or whatever…"
I opened my mouth and closed it shut again.
"The dating thing, it's… It's fake. It's all a media scam… But I think, I think that he has crossed that line a while ago. He has a big movie deal and filming starts in two weeks…"
I knew what was coming now. I could sense it in the way she dropped her face down and stared at the carpeting.
"He wants me to go with him to LA."
I dropped my head into my hands. I felt like I had a migraine.
Bella was leaving.
I lifted my head back up and spoke, eager to get my answers.
"So you're not really dating him?"
She shook her head.
"What do you mean by him…" I swallowed, continuing. "Crossing that line?"
I looked up at her and she was staring deep into the mouth of the beer bottle, twirling it around in her fingers.
She inhaled sharply, drawing in a quick, ragged breath.
"We slept together." She deadpanned.
My stomach rose up to my throat as I forced the words out of my mouth.
"Then… you both crossed the line?"
I watched her as she closed her eyes, her neck stiff, nodding slowly.
"Edward, I wanted to tell you…" she started, but I wouldn't have any of it and interrupted her, her eyes narrowed as she looked back at me.
"But you didn't." I spoke icily. The coldness of my own voice scared me. I caught flashes in my head of the old me, it felt like he was back for a moment.
"We're friends, right? Right? Don't you remember that?"
I was being unfair, and I knew it. But my anger was up to my throat and I couldn't stomach it anymore.
Her lips quivered as she looked at me, not turning away.
"I'm not going to apologize, Edward. This is my life. I can do with it as I please…"
"I know you can." My head shook as I wrung my hands in front of me, a nervous habit.
She swallowed. "Then you have no right," She looked right at me as she continued. "You have no right at all to be mad at me, Edward."
After a moment, I reluctantly nodded, she was right.
Of course she was right.
My tone softened when I spoke again, pushing the monster I once knew deep down back into the crevices of my mind.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She placed the empty beer bottle on the coffee table.
"I didn't know if I could trust you, Edward. Nobody else knows…"
I nodded, getting up from the couch. I picked up my jacket from where I'd carelessly slung it before.
"Where are you going?" She'd gotten up from her seat in the recliner.
I swallowed the thick, bitter bile that had risen up my throat.
"You didn't know if you could trust me?" She nodded, her eyes closed.
My hand covered the cold doorknob. I closed my eyes, regretting the words even before they left my mouth.
"Maybe you shouldn't trust me, Bella."
The cold doorknob twisted underneath my fingers and I left.
oOo
AN: Tell me how much you hate him right now? I hate him too… Right now.
My next author's notes won't be this long, I promise. Leave me a review if you're confused about anything, ask and I will reply :) This chapter's a little shorter than expected but please tell me what you think… Your reviews mean the world to me and hey, I updated early! Give me some credit…
I want to say a few things… I have seen way too many authors pulling their story from FFn and getting them published as original stories… Let's just say that, for the record, that will never happen with this story or with any of my future ones. I write on FFn because this is an amazing community where people can comment and write and enjoy stories, money free. There's no profit being made here. I simply love the kind words and the support that this community is able to provide and I do not and will not seek any monetary benefits, in any way (unless it's the Fandom Gives Back, awesome thing, that one.) So, no worries, I am writing this for everyone to enjoy, money free.
The same thank you's go to RosAlice22, she's rock and roll and yes, darling, your English is rapidly improving :D Special ones go to the people who have been reviewing (ahem, not just alerting and favoriting… just sayin!) since the early days and have been dropping me kind words ever since: NikCul, Btvs89, SabLuvsLogan, Blake Evil, mcgt, eli-rose, movies2560 (I couldn't send you a teaser.)…
I want to add more in but you have to tell me because I stink at trying to keep track. I'm sorry if I left your username out, I love you guys too ;)
Review! :) I'll drop reviewers a teaser before the next update (give me one week; I have a good feeling about this one…)
~ Michelle