A/N: So, sorry that this took longer then normal.. people have lives.. they like to steal my lovie beta and make her work and I don't like that. Anyway, I have chapter 12 done and 13 is one paragraph from being done. SO you might get chapter 12 soon.

Erin, my lovie, my NESSI, you make my heart soar, you are the wind beneath my wings and I want to spend a week in Scotland with you searching for mythical creatures... fertilizing your eggs.. my lil nessi you! Love you Beta!

Songs I listened to during this chapter

Boys Like Girls- Thunder, Catch Your Fall- Gavin Mikhail, Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard, Won't Go Home Without You- Maroon 5

ENJOY

EPOV

All of a sudden, the doorbell rang and I jumped up and was at the door in seconds. I ripped it open to find someone who I knew I would see at some point after word got out about this.

"What do you want?" I spat.

"We need to have a little chat about Bella."

You have got to be kidding me.

There, at my door, stood the infamous Jacob Black, and he didn't look happy. Bella had obviously followed through with telling him. His expression was murderous.

I let out a heavy sigh.

"Listen, what happened between Bella and I is none of your concern, Jake." I said as I started to close the door.

His large hand met the door with a loud thwap as he prevented me from closing it.

"We will talk now," Jacob growled slight. His eyes narrowed. "this has gone on long enough, and no one else will say anything. They all think you will finally come to your senses and wake up. I, however, see you for what you truly are, an idiot."

"What are you talking about?" I had no idea where he was going with this little speech. " I know I made a mistake, and I also know that I possible ruined the best thing I have ever had in my life. No one needs to point that out to me. I definitely know."

Jake just shook his head.

"You don't get it do you? Are you really that blind? Excuse me," He pushed his way past me and walked into the living room.

"What am I blind to Jake? Jasper tells me I need to open my eyes, you tell

me I'm blind, and Emmett tells me I am a fucking idiot. What am I missing? I know I fucked up, It's obvious," I shouted with desperation thick in my voice. "Bella isn't here, she moved out. I can see that, I'm not stupid." I gestured my hand around the room. I was seething.

"What, am I supposed to feel sorry for you?" He scoffed, "You did this to yourself; you used her like she was a cheap whore for a quick romp between the sheets, then tossed her to the side like a used Kleenex the minute Tanya came back to you. You didn't even have the decency-" Jake didn't have a chance to finish what he was saying. He had crossed the line and my fist had made contact with his face.

"Get the fuck out of my house!" I bellowed.

"No." Jake said while touching his lip that was now bleeding. "Not until I say what I came to say."

"Well, I don't want to hear what you have to say. I want you to leave. You have no idea what you're talking about." He knew Bella for 5 minutes. He had no right to lecture me on our relationship.

"I have no idea what I'm talking about?" he laughed bitterly, " There is an amazing girl right in front of you that I would kill to call mine. She is funny and smart and so beautiful, but she doesn't even know it. I would do anything in the world to make her happy. I would spend the rest of my life letting her know how beautiful I think she is…but I will never get that chance. Do you know why?"

"Why?" I really didn't care to play his stupid little games.

"Because she's in love with you."

"What?" My head snapped up. What the hell is he talking about?

"You heard me. Everyone knows it. Everyone has seen it. Everyone except you. She has been waiting and waiting for the day that you would see her the same as she sees you. Bella would wait the rest of her life for that to happen. Hell, she thought it had. Then, you go and crush her by taking Tanya back."

"You're wrong…" He was wrong. It wasn't like that between Bella and I.

He shook his head with a condescending smirk.

"You really can't be this damn stupid!" he smiled. "Think. I know it is a hard concept to grasp, but think. She is in love with you. In some way or another, she always has been. You call yourself her best friend, how could you not see this?"

"She is my best friend. I made a mistake; I took advantage of her kindness. But, just because we slept together doesn't mean she is in love with me. It isn't like that."

"Maybe not for you, but I can assure you, it is "like that" for her. It always has been, and you have failed to see it. She has been waiting for you to feel the same for half her life, Edward. Bella thought the night you two slept together was you finally feeling the same." He shook his head disbelivingly. "Do you have any idea what you have done to her? What you are putting her through?"

He couldn't be right. I couldn't believe this. He was fucking with me. This was Bella; I knew everything about Bella. I felt my chest begin to tighten uncomfortably.

Could he be right?

"She was so happy when she left. She was going to tell you everything when she got back from getting your sorry ass coffee. When she got home and saw you with Tanya, her heart basically died. You did that to her." He pointed an accusatory finger in my direction.

"But…why? She never told me, why didn't she ever tell me?" Why would she have kept something like this from me? Bella knew she could always tell me anything.

"You know her, she had her reasons. She thought if she told you and you didn't feel the same way that she would loose you as a friend. That to her is more important then anything. She also is under the ridiculous impression that she isn't good enough for you, not pretty enough. Then, not to mention the fact that you basically told her as much when you slept with her and a few hours later, went back to the model."

"How long?" I gasped. All the air in my lungs was missing. My heart was beating so fast, it felt like it would explode at any minute.

"Who knows? For a few years that she has been aware, but she thinks she must have always loved you in some way or another."

"Why did no one tell me?" How could our friends let me hurt her over and over?

"Because, they felt it wasn't their place. Bella was so afraid that it would change things between you two, that she begged them not to say anything. Doesn't mean they didn't try to help things along the way. Like the kiss, you remember that, right? Or the dancing? Those were two of the best moments of her life. You ruined both by being clueless, and both times she ended up crying herself to sleep."

"What?" Why would those have upset her?

"Well, after the kiss, you jokingly reminded her she was nothing more then a best friend. And the dance, you ended that by going off with Tanya. But, the worst has been you making her think you wanted her finally, then sleeping with her. You know, she waited to sleep with the person she was in love with. Why do you think she went along with it so easily? The person she was saving herself for was you."

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I sat down in the nearest chair and pinched the bridge of my nose.

This couldn't be happening.

If this was true, then I have hurt her beyond anything I could ever repair. My best friend. I had tortured her for god knows how long, and the finale straw was sleeping with her.

I thought back to the moments that Jake brought up.

The dare. Kissing her soft lips and how amazing it felt. How she seemed to put so much into that kiss without even trying. It was an emotion-filled kiss, and I had missed it. I thought it just her taking part in the dare.

What an idiot. I am a fucking idiot.

The dance. Me calling her beautiful was completely true. She was, but how had she taken that? Did it make her happy, give her hope? If it did, the fact that I brought Tanya there and basically blew Bella off for Tanya…

Oh God.

Everything was coming back. The hotel and how she was so angry with me, so hurt. So much so, that she couldn't even stay there. Everything she had ever done for me, it was all out of love instead of friendship. I had taken advantage of her, and she never complained. She waited and waited for me to return the same feelings, and I never did. I didn't even notice. Why didn't someone tell me? I wouldn't have let her continue to go on hurting if I knew.

What have I done?

Bella had saved herself for me, and I took her innocence without a second thought. She gave me the most important thing to her without question because she knew she loved me and she thought I loved her too, and I crushed her.

I was going to be sick.

"Jake, where is she now?" I asked quietly, not looking up from my toes.

"I think she went back to Alice's." Jacob shrugged.

"I have to see her. I have to tell her how sorry I am, and that I didn't know… I would have never…I didn't know," I felt like screaming or hitting something. God, IDIOT!

"Do you honestly think that is going to make things better, that it will bring her any solace? All she is waiting for is for you to love her too. Do you? Because if you don't know, if you're unsure, then it isn't going to help."

I loved Bella all my life as my friend, never as anything more. It never crossed my mind that it could be more. She was the single most important thing in my life.

"I - I don't know…"

"Well, until you know for sure what your feelings are regarding Bella, I am begging you to stay away. I know I don't have the right to ask, but she dies a little more inside when you refer to her as your friend. It is like you are driving the point home that you will never want her as anything more. And at the moment, it is the last thing she needs to hear. She has heard it enough."

"Why are you doing this?" I didn't understand him. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because I care for her. I want her to be happy. If it isn't with me, then that is fine, I'll have to live with that. I can't stand to see her hurting like this when it could be so easily fixed. But know this; I will be waiting for the moment you mess up. I will be there to pick up the pieces if she'll let me. Bella deserves better then what you have given her, Edward. She is ten times the person Tanya will ever be. I would think long and hard before you decided, because, once it is done, it is done. You'll never be able to take it back."

"I know…"

"Well, I guess I am done here. I'm still kind of hoping you're as stupid as I think you are, But if you need any further proof of what I have told you, go check out her work that is display here." He threw a flyer onto the coffee table.

With that, he left, and I was left alone to stew in my stupidity over the last who knows how many months or years Bella had been living in pain because of my actions. Why didn't she just tell me? She had to know I would never let anything come in between our friendship.

I couldn't sit in the house any longer. I had to get out of here. I was going to drive myself nuts. I wanted to talk to her, but Jake said it wasn't a great idea until I figured this out. I didn't want to hurt her anymore then I already had.

But each minute that went on without her here killed me. I had never been away from her this long. We had never been on the outs like this, and I didn't know what I could do to fix it. I had to fix it, though. She was a part of me, a part of who I was. I needed her to survive; I couldn't live in a world where she didn't exist in my life.

I grabbed my keys and the flyer Jake left behind, and headed out to the car. I didn't know where I was going to go, but I knew I had to get out of the house. The fact that she was no longer there and the reason why was suffocating me.

While I was driving, I began to feel more and more pissed. Why had our friends let Bella live in pain for so long? Why had they let me be the person to put her in pain? Someone should have said something, anything to stop it. I wouldn't have ever intentionally hurt her. I loved her…

I looked at the flyer and I decided that I should check out what he said. If I needed anymore proof that Bella did indeed love me, I should see her photos.

What ever that means.

I headed to the Gallery, it was easy enough to find, and parked out front, and took a deep breath. I wondered what I would find when I went inside. I wondered how Bella's pictures would be able to prove to me that she loved me.

I walked into the gallery and was automatically hit by a blast of cool air. I smelt a faint hint of patchouli incense. The walls were covered in all types of mediums of art. There was photography and oil paintings, to sculptures of both clay and what looked like recycled material. I couldn't believe that Bella has something up in a gallery and I didn't even know that she had an interest in art.

This hurt me; that we had come to a point in our lives together where we weren't sharing the good things. Maybe I had been hurting her all this time, and she no longer felt like she could share things with me, that I would some how not care. That couldn't be further from the truth.

I slowly searched from wall to wall, scanning for any thing that Bella could be responsible for.

I had made my way to the back or the large open room and I was checking out a piece on the wall to the left of me. I didn't understand how some things were considered art, it just wasn't my thing.

I turned to the right and I knew I had found it.

On the wall to my right were black and white photos framed and matted in groups. In one group were pictures of huge trees in what looked like a forest of some sort. The sunlight was shinning through the branches, casting broken prisms of light all over. It was beautiful.

I couldn't spend too much time looking at them though, because the next group of photos took my breath away. They were the most important people in Bella's life.

There was a picture of Alice and Jasper together. Jasper had his guitar in his lap and Alice was sitting at his feet. He was bent over kissing the top of her head, and Alice was wearing a lazy smile. You could feel the love those two share burst out of the picture.

Next to that was a picture of Emmett and Rose. It was a close up of just their faces. Both their foreheads were touching, and they were staring deep into each other's eyes, both wearing smirks on their faces as if they both had the same thought at that very moment, and everyone else was clueless to what it was. Like a secret moment shared between the two. It was almost like invading something private looking at this photo.

Then, there was a photo of us as a group, each coupled off, but all close together. We were our own little family, all so happy.

I looked to the next set of photos and my breath caught in my throat. They were of me. In all the hundreds of times I had seen pictures of myself, they were nothing compared to this.

In other photos, I was always someone else. Some character made for the public eye to drool over and bring in money to the studios. But these, these were me.

I remembered her taking these. She was sneaking around snapping pictures of me one day. She had said she was just testing out her new camera.

There was a picture of me from the shoulders up, a profile shot, looking off at something that couldn't be seen in the picture. I looked peaceful and happy. Then, there were three sectioned pictures, all close ups of parts of my face. The top one was my crazy messed up hair, the next was my eyes staring straight at the camera, and the last was of my mouth in the crooked smile Bella always teased me about. They were all things Bella had always commented on what she loved about me I never thought anything of it.

There was one of Bella and I sitting in the backyard on the ground leaning up against the huge tree that cast a shadow over the pool. I remember her setting up a timer and trying to get a nice picture. But every time it came close to flash, we would bust out laughing and it would ruin it. This was the one still we were able to get that we didn't laugh through. She had her knees pulled to her chest and her head on my shoulder. I in return had my head resting on top of hers. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling. She looked so happy.

The last one was taken one morning Bella had tried to wake me up. I had pulled her down into bed with me and she had brought her camera to get evidence of how difficult I was to wake up. She had snapped a picture of us together, her back was pulled tight to my chest and she was smiling as I had my face buried in her hair.

Everything clicked, and I felt my heart drop. The burning feeling in my stomach was getting worse, and I started to feel nauseous.

How had I missed this? All these pictures of us and our friends were examples of love; Jasper and Alice, Emmett and Rose, Me, her love for me, and in the last, my love for her…I had never seen it before, how could I have missed it?

Looking at the picture of us in bed together, I had never looked happier. Even the feeling that the picture brought forth was new. The look on my face…the look on hers. How could I have missed it? I can't believe I missed this.

I loved her. The look on my face in that picture was of love, and I hadn't seen it until I stepped away and saw it from someone else's point of view.

She was beautiful, I knew that, but then these feelings hit me. Kissing her, how I had never been kissed like that, how her lips felt, how she tasted. It was the best kiss I had ever experienced and would give anything to feel that again.

How she danced with me, how her curves felt against me, the feel of my hands on her hips. Her laugh was musical as we danced to the ridiculous song. That she was terrified of dancing but with me she relaxed and let me help her. How she blushed when I told her she was beautiful.

How she felt the night we slept together. Even though I had been drinking heavily, I could remember parts, and it wasn't like the meaningless sex I had with others before. With her, I had been slow and gentle. I took my time touching every inch of her body. While it isn't what I would have done, and I would give anything if I could to take it back because it hurt her, it was different. Had it been love?

Then, everything came flooding back. The hurt I had brought to her. How long she had been suffering because of me? I had been the one to make her cry, to ruin our friendship, to take her love with no promises in return. I had done this to her, left her with nothing but memories hanging on a wall in a gallery for all to see but me. I wondered how many people have seen this and saw what I was only seeing now.

Love.

I could feel it rising in my throat. I was going to be sick. I frantically searched for the nearest trash can, running out of the place bracing myself against my car and leaning over the curb dry heaving.

What had I done?

I was in love with her too, and I was never going to be able to fix this.

A/N: So what did you think... are you freaking uber excited that the D-bag Realized!!

I am so stoked, yesterday I heard a song and read the lyrics and I have the most amazing story planned for when this is done. It will be epic heart fail!