I love you guys! I love you for hating my Edward, and for giving me the benefit of the doubt. Having people invested in this pushes me to make it better, and I love the forum debates!

Thanks to my JV Beta jajo, who is the bees knees. Thanks to my betas twanza and SandandSirens, who have been incredibly supportive and kind, while giving me the necessary tools to make this work. Also, read their fics, because they're fabulous! Thanks to RoseArcadia for the banner and the forum thread.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Edward

This is what I do. This is what I am. I don't have relationships. I fuck for fun.

I tell myself this as I let Tanya unzip my pants, as I look down at her down on her knees; as she rolls on the condom.

I think I almost started to believe Bella's version of me, but I will remember her face on the stairs and her eyes on the deck that night. I have a vivid mental image of the moment that she realized the truth, and it makes me sick, because the way things really are - the way I really am - is disgusting.

I warned her the first day. I'm pretty sure Emmett did too. He usually takes it upon himself to give the nice ones a heads up.

I know our relationship can't go anywhere. We don't know each other outside of this lake- this summer. She can't come to school with me, where it's like The Land of Fucks Past. It would kill her. If she had even one person to rub in my face, I would kill him, which I realize is completely fucked up, considering what I just did to her.

I can't change. I won't. I will be my father. I don't fit this part I've been playing for the last month.

The last time I saw Bella, she was backing away from me on the deck, searching my face for compassion, or maybe love. Finding none, she turned and ran down the stairs off of the deck, into the dark. Rose and Jasper must have been watching, because their screen door slammed open and both of them paused to stare at me before they ran off after her. Her eyes were hateful and full of tears. His were more understanding, but not in a comforting way, it made me feel like I'm being stripped down and exposed.

I got rid of Tanya as soon as possible the next morning, and booked a ticket for myself for the next day. I couldn't stay. Emmett didn't talk to me, even when I was leaving for the airport.

Now that I'm back at school, I go out and do the things I always do. I'm revered; the prodigal son returned home.

I can have anything, or anyone, I want.

But I can't sleep, and nothing seems good anymore.

Bella

For a week I do nothing. I hardly sleep or eat. I breathe, but only because it just happens.

After hate and pain and self-loathing there's ... nothing.

I love it.

I realize that I stopped writing, something I used to do every night before Edward came into my life. I search through my journal, the first time frantically, looking for any words about him. The second, third and hundredth time I look, it feels like being in a room where something monumental happened, after everyone has gone home. The words are insufficient, and there aren't enough, almost as if entire pages were ripped out, leaving only the beginning and the end of the story.

I pull it together by the beginning of September, and am a mostly functioning human being.

Mostly.

Rose doesn't move away to be with Emmett. He's devastated, and I keep telling her to go, but she says its like "Edward tainted the entire fucking state of Texas", and now it feels wrong. Emmett flies in almost every week to be with Rose and every once in a while he looks at me apologetically. His pity makes me feel pathetic.

I'm miserable and alone in Portland, so I transfer in late to UCLA and move into Jasper and Rose's house. Alice is there, fighting with Rose about the placement of furniture and her color scheme. It should be so fun, but I hardly register the change of scenery. Everything around me is the same, but horrible and different at the same time.

I understand my part in the breakup now, if you can even call it that.

He said he had an almost-girlfriend.

True.

He said he was a prick.

True.

We didn't discuss the future.

True, true, true.

I think of the last night we spent together. There was no sex - just us together. I physically cringe. It was kind of a goodbye, whether or not I knew it at the time. I was a naive virgin who got burned, but I'm not stupid enough to think I'm unique. I've known this type of guy a thousand times. They were in junior high, high school and college, and I assume many of them make it to adulthood, still being fucking pricks. They do, and they are.

I seek them out, craving the shallow, joyless interactions and the fulfilling burn when they walk away.

He ruined me. I'm ruined.

So I ruin myself more because it doesn't really matter anymore, and some sick, fucked up, depraved part of me does it because it's what he's probably doing to someone else right now.

I hang out at lame college bars and do shots and dance with faceless men. I've taken to wearing clothes even Rose wouldn't.

The night she finds me passed out on the front porch is the last straw. I'm hostile when she wakes me up until I realize where I am. She spends the night and morning sobering me up, and makes me tell her exactly what happened.

Luckily, I didn't get completely plastered until after I mess around in the bathroom of a shitty bar with some dumb frat boy.

"What's your name?" he asks, his lips at my neck and hand up my shirt, groping inexpertly.

"Just call me B."

"Alright, B. God, you're so hot."

I don't know why I tell him to call me that, because I immediately bristle, and push him back and hop down off of the counter.

The back of my skirt is wet from the leaky sink that I sat next to while we made out, and I have to dry it with the scratchy brown paper towels from the dispenser. For some reason this depresses me so much that I decide to do a whole shitload of tequila shots. Frat boy is actually decent enough to have a cab drop me off at home, where I promptly pass out before I make it to the door.

Rose puts her foot down after that night, and announces that I will not only be going out with a chaperone at all times, but I will be going back to therapy, which I haven't done since after my mom died. She plays the chaperone comment off as a joke, but somehow every time I leave the house, I'm not alone. It's actually really nice.

For the most part, I'm normal, and seem like my old self. I smile, laugh and get good grades, but I bet those who know me best can tell the difference.

Thanksgiving arrives and I'm ready to go home. Rose and Jasper are staying in town and going to Carlisle's. Emmett is flying in the weekend after the holiday to spend it with them, because the Aggies have a game on Thanksgiving. Alice and I ride to the airport together, but she's heading to New York for the holiday.

I don't ask about Edward and no one volunteers the information. He seems like a figment of my imagination. I know he's somewhere, existing, but I can't imagine what it looks like.

I fly into Seattle late the night before Thanksgiving, and I find Charlie at baggage claim waiting for me. He looks tired, but good. We hug and he chides me for being too thin. I'm forcing myself to eat these days. I'm never hungry, but Rose still cooks extravagant dinners hoping to capture my interest. I know she and Jasper have been talking to my dad about me the past few months. He knows things that he wouldn't otherwise, and has been calling just to "chat" more and more.

It's cold, but his truck is still warm. I pull my scarf tighter around my neck and snuggle into the seat.

"How have you been?" He's looking at me out of the corner of his eye in the car.

"I'm good. Kinda tired." I can tell my answer isn't going to be good enough.

"Bells, I don't know exactly what's going on with you, but I know something is, and I want you to let me help you."

I'm trying not to snicker. I know he means well, but how can I explain this to my dad? I imagine myself saying "I'm in love with a boy who took my virginity and now he doesn't want me anymore and I'm really, really screwed up about it." He didn't at any point in my adolescence attempt the sex talk with me, and I'm perfectly happy to keep it that way.

"I know. But I just need time, I think."

He nods in response and lets it go, but I can tell he's frustrated.

I'm looking forward to this break from all of it. Charlie will be here but he works through holidays most of the time, so I'll have a lot of time to myself.

Thanksgiving day, I watch whatever game Charlie puts on the TV and pretend I know or care what's going on. That is, until it's the Aggies are playing the Longhorns, and he's on the screen in front of me, looking determined and intent and like a leader. It's sick, because it still makes my heart race. They pan the crowd of thousands cheering for their team, and I see how I don't fit into that. When Charlie realizes what's on, he turns the TV off quickly and gets up, and suggests we go out to eat. I obviously don't cook, and neither does he, so we go to the diner for turkey roll and canned cranberry sauce every year.

I spend a few days on the nearby reservation with old friends while I'm here, catching up. I walk in the woods alone and read books I'd forgotten I had. At some point I realize that I'm actually feeling better. The closer I get to going back to L.A. the more I'm looking forward to it. We don't have the heart-to-heart talk that Charlie may have been wanting, but he looks satisfied when I eat an entire steak at dinner one night, and enjoy it.

The holiday is over too fast, and I have an acute pain in my chest when I leave my dad again. I miss him so much, and have been so self-absorbed lately. He makes me promise to come to the lake for Christmas. I hate committing to it, but I do.

Jasper picks me up at the airport. Alice won't be back for a few days. We chat about my trip, and the turkey that Rose made. Something seems a little off, though, so I ask him what's wrong.

"Nothing's wrong. I mean, not exactly," he's hesitant.

"Spit it out, J."

"So this weekend, it was me, Ro, my dad and Emmett....and Esme and Edward too." My skin goes cold and I swallow hard.

"What?"

"My dad and Esme met at the cabin last month. They were both up the same week and...they are kinda together now." I just sit there, looking unaffected on the outside, but my mind is racing, trying to figure out what this means.

I'm pissed, because I didn't know and now I know I'll definitely have to see him. We go to the lake every Christmas, the whole family, which now includes Emmett and Esme, and probably Edward. TV is one thing. Real life is another.

"I'm really sorry, B."

He is.

"I know everything is always about me, but this is...so fucked up," I say, closing my eyes and putting my face in my hands.

He laughs, "Both true statements."

We don't talk for the rest of the ride, and I don't cry, but he reaches over and holds my hand anyway.

Emmett is still there when we get back to the house, and he picks me up and gives me a big bear hug. The butterflies in my stomach are back for the first time since August. I'm not ready to think about what that means yet.

He whispers "I'm sorry," before letting me go. "This shit's crazy, right?"

"That's an understatement." I laugh, and it feels okay, because this is messed up but we're all in it together.

I find out that Rose and Jasper didn't know about Esme and Edward coming to Thanksgiving until the day everyone arrived, and that Emmett knew for a few days before that but was sworn to secrecy. Rose says Edward's name like she's spitting out something rotten. This doesn't surprise me, but I'm curious as to what happened. No one mentions him again after that, though. Instead of lowering myself to ask, I imagine different scenarios in which Rose unleashes her inner bitch upon seeing 'Fuckface', her new nickname for him, in the flesh.

That night we watch The Godfather and Rose makes spaghetti and meatballs. We sip red wine and Emmett impersonates Marlon Brando for the rest of the night, which is alternately hilarious and irritating.

I'm awakened the next morning by Rose shrieking my name and running in with her laptop.

She shoves me over to sit down, plopping the laptop on my lap. I'm still half asleep, and thinking of ways to get Rose out of my room, but I wake up immediately when I see the screen.

Perez Hilton is plastered with mug-shots of Royce King, who Perez has covered with his signature illustrated penises and rude comments. Scrolling down, there are paparazzi photos of him in front of a restaurant in New York, and they have graphic photographic evidence of Alice kicking the shit out of him. There's a shot of her kneeing him the balls, and one where she's punching his face, with her big ring flashing. She's kicking his shins and slapping his head and neck, and at the end of the sequence there are a few shots of a big bouncer type trying to pry her off of him. We sit there with our jaws hanging open for a good minute before we start laughing.

Rose starts frantically calling Jasper, Alice, Emmett, or basically anyone who will pick up. She gets Alice's voicemail.

"Jesus, Alice! Where the hell are you? We just saw you on Perez, you need to call us right now and give details! You are such a bad ass."

Jasper finally answers his phone, and we find out that she was meeting her parents for dinner, and Royce saw her and approached her. When she refused to get in his limo he grabbed her arm, which triggered some latent rage, and she went totally psychotic on him. Someone called the cops, probably to rescue him from the "midget ass-beating", but he was ultimately arrested on drug charges. Apparently he was on probation already, and was obviously fucked up, so they searched him and found "enough cocaine to kill a horse".

One lucky paparazzo captured all the action.

Now all kinds of information is coming out about him. Past girlfriends are coming forward and reporting physical and mental abuse. They're digging deep into Alice's past and she's on every gossip website. Even legitimate news sites are reporting it. Jasper's picture starts popping up, and he's being portrayed as the hero who rescued her from the monster Royce King.

The stories are littered with half-truths, but it's funny to see pictures of Jasper, Rose and I walking into a coffee shop or the grocery store. Once we are identified as his sister and cousin, the accusations that he's cheating on Alice from across the country subside, and retractions are printed.

When she comes home a few days later we have to put up blackout curtains on the first floor and park in the garage so we can get to and from school without being harassed.

While high profile and stressful, the experience seems to be cathartic, and Alice's therapist thinks that while her method was unconventional, beating Royce's ass has ultimately been good for her.

The distraction is good for me, but the holidays are approaching fast, and no one mentions whether or not Edward will be at the lake for Christmas. I feel pathetic asking if he'll be there, but I need to, knowing I can't go into it blind. I finally ask Rose and Alice one morning, all of us standing around waiting for the coffee to brew. Rose nods, sitting still and watching my reaction. I shrug.

"Esme is insisting that both of the boys are there. She obviously doesn't know what happened between you two, and my dad knows about as much as she does, so I don't think they're concerned." Rose puts her arm around me and squeezes my shoulder.

"Are you going to be okay?" Alice asks gently.

I nod, hoping I look more confident than I feel. I know he doesn't feel the way I do at all, and doubt this has been as hard for him as it has for me, if it has been hard for him at all.

I lie awake in bed that night, imagining what it will be like seeing him again. I decide to put up a good- no, a great- front. He won't see one tear, or one frown, or one clue that I'm unhappy without him.

Alice seems to have the same idea, but her methods are more related to my wardrobe, skin tone and bikini line.

I am plucked, dyed, waxed, and buffed within an inch of my life for the next month.

The waxing is quite an experience. Alice stands on the outside of the curtain during the process, spouting off motivational phrases.

"When you look good, you feel good!" she chirps. I don't tell her, but I hope that's true. I hope that my inside will mirror the outside at some point. Therapy is helping, and this seems like a good step.

I let out a shriek as the sadist, waxing my most sensitive area, rips off a strip.

Fucking Alice.

She outfits me in new everything, all my usual, casual style, but in brands that I've never heard of and in fabrics that are incredibly soft and expensive looking.

Part of me wants to completely devastate him by looking so good that he realizes what he's missing and grovels on his knees, begging for another chance. I'm aware that this probably isn't going to happen. More realistically, I just want to show him that what he did didn't destroy me, and if it takes countless hours and a fair amount of pain so he can see it in my perfectly manicured nails and smooth skin, it's totally worth it.

I've got it together. I'm ready to see him.

Little nervous about this one, so I'm going to go mix a very strong cocktail and read some of my favorite fics to take my mind off of it. Let me know what you think!