A/N: Here is the chapter where Bella finally gets some answers! I didn't feel like rehashing over every little detail after the monstrosity of last chapter, so what was already covered in Ch. 9 was summarized in this one. I hope you understand.

Oh and congratulations to the cast for all of the awards they won yesterday on the MTV Movie Awards! Rob was looking hot! Hope you all got to see it.

Disclaimer: S. Meyer owns it all, lucky lady.

Musical Inspiration: "Apologize" by One Republic (I put this song on repeat)

-oo-

Ch. 10

To say I was nervous would be a severe understatement. I spent most of the day at work trying to mentally prepare myself for what Edward may say to me.

I was so distracted that I was forty minutes late for the monthly department meeting. What made it even more embarrassing is that I was in the building. Now I am almost guaranteed to be the butt of office jokes until the next funny thing happens.

I'm just going to use my head injury as the excuse for my strange behavior.

I got out of work a little earlier than I anticipated, so I decided to head home first to change out of my work clothes.

By 3:50, I was running late because I should have just stuck with what I had worn to work.

After five different outfits, I settled on my dark wash skinny jeans, brown knee high riding boots with no heel (the very best part of them), a black short-sleeved turtleneck top to accommodate the horrible cast and my black pea-coat jacket.

I know I was probably overdressed for coffee but this was Edward. The first outfits he sees me in after five years were a sweaty jogging suit and then a hospital gown. Not my idea of sexy…not that I was trying to be that for him…

I pulled into a curbside spot outside of the shop about five minutes after four. I practically ran into the building to regain some warmth. Once inside, I quickly looked for the familiar crop of bronze hair. I didn't see him at first so I decided to get in line to put my order in. I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard it.

"Hey Bella," came from behind me.

I quickly spun around, thankfully not losing my balance. There stood Edward –

Oh. My. God

And he was wearing his hospital scrubs. I couldn't help that my eyes raked over his body as if he were my last meal.

I quickly shook my head to regain some composure.

"Hey," I mumbled. Not exactly the tone I was going for to sound like a strong woman.

As if he could read my thoughts, his face quickly formed into his heart stopping crooked smile.

I think my eyes went slightly out of focus for a second.

I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face to match his.

"Here, I got this for you," he said, holding up a coffee cup.

I gave him a confused look. "What did you order me?"

"Um, I got you a Chai Tea, dollop of whipped cream, warmed up," he resited.

"How did you know what I usually order?" I said with wide eyes.

And here come the best part – he blushed. Blushed. I have never seen him do that.

He cleared his throat. "Alice may have informed me. I told her we were meeting for coffee and I may have asked her what you liked," he said sheepishly.

I was strangely touched by this small gesture. "Well thank you for doing your research. This is really nice of you. Let me just get you some money for-"

As I began to reach into my purse for the money, I felt Edward's hand lightly grasp my forearm.

"No, Bella. I don't expect you to pay me for it."

"But-" I began to protest.

"Please. Just humor me. I did invite you" he said, finally dropping his hand. My arm had a strange tingling feeling where he had been touching me.

He handed me my drink and led me over to a small table hidden in a private corner.

I'm not going to lie; the moment was awkward we both seemed to be fascinated by our cups.

Finally Edward cleared his throat, "Um, I know this must be hard on you to be here with me. Especially since we didn't end on a good note all those years ago."

For some reason that statement angered me. Suddenly my need to be a strong, independent woman came rushing back to me.

"We didn't have an ending at all because you cowardly took off when I was 3,000 miles away," I whispered harshly.

"Maybe that didn't come out right," he said looking down at his cup.

"Well what did you mean to say? I would really like to finally hear the story on your vanishing act." I leaned back in my chair and gave him my undivided attention.

He began tapping his middle and pointer finger lightly on the table; another nervous habit that he always did. It was kind of nice knowing that there was still some part of the old Edward that I knew in there somewhere.

"Bella, I left Forks because I was a monster and a sorry excuse for a human being," he said.

"What are you talking about?" I said through tightly closed lips.

"I never told you how I truly was because you are so much better of a human being then me Bella. I got caught up in some pretty shady shit back then and got into some trouble."

"What did you do Edward?" I groaned.

He gave a bitter laugh. "Which thing do you mean? The drugs? The unexpected pregnancy? A psycho chick that blackmailed me? Which part do you want to hear first?"

I looked at him for a long moment. Drugs? That kind of explained his odd behavior all those months leading up to when he left. Pregnancy? I didn't see that one coming. And what in the hell did Tanya do to him?

He looked at me warily due to my long silence. "How about you start at the beginning?" It came out as more of a question then a statement because I didn't want to scare him off.

He nodded and exhaled a long breath.

"Well it started with Tanya revealing her disgusting habit to me right after winter break of senior year…"

He went on to tell me that Tanya threatened to break-up with him if he didn't try the cocaine. I quickly interrupted him with questions on why he didn't just walk away. He knew it was wrong. His response was that he was a hormonal teenage boy and she gave good head. Gee, that is a good enough reason to get addicted to something.

This began a whole chain reaction. Tanya basically taught him how to function while walking around high. That explains why we all didn't suspect one thing. One night they had got too high and too drunk to really comprehend what they were doing and ending up having unprotected sex. Right around the end of the year Tanya discovered she was pregnant.

At this point I started feeling dizzy. Edward tentatively reached across the table and patted me lightly on the back. He had to keep saying, "Breathe Bella."

Then he continued, saying that Tanya threatened to tell his parents about his addiction and the teenage pregnancy. She started to demand marriage. Eventually she had cornered him enough to rush off and get married right before graduation, hence the reason for the abrupt departure.

"Edward how could you be so stupid? Nobody would have abandoned you!" I said, enraged. He was always the smart one of the group, but he was proving to be a huge dumbass.

"I know! But you have to understand that by the end of high school I had zero self-esteem. Tanya drained everything out of me. And I was on this sick addiction and she was my provider. I had this messed up notion that I had to keep her close to me," he said raking his hands through his hair.

I just shook my head at him, not being able to completely comprehend this story.

"You could have come to us. We were your family Edward."

He looked down, ashamed. "I know that now. You don't think I haven't gone back in my head wishing I could change things. The worst part was lying to you Bella. I felt like complete shit when you professed your complete self to me and I just walked away. It was the darkest bit of blasphemy I ever committed – not telling you the complete truth."

"Well was did you feel at the time?"

"I reciprocated your feelings fully. I just couldn't bare the thought that I had to leave you anyways. I was so tainted that I didn't want to infect you with my atrocities."

"I would have appreciated the right to choose for myself thank you. I am so sick and tired of people handling me with kid gloves. I am a grown woman capable of a lot more!" I said clenching my fists on the table.

"What happened after you ran off and got married?" I asked before he could say anything else.

"Well we got married in Vegas. The next day we set out for New Hampshire. I used money from my trust fund and found a dingy apartment. The bitch pretty much forced me to marry her because of my money. I should have thought about that, but it slipped my mind. She was mistaken though because I am not entitled to get the entirety of my inheritance until I am twenty-five. So she was out of luck with that.

"Once she found out that the money wasn't free-flowing, she became a bit wild. She almost overdosed the cocaine. Mind you, she was doing this all while she was pregnant. Class act, huh? I increasingly became more dependent on it as well in order to escape the hell that was my life. I didn't tell my parents about anything; they didn't know that school was going poorly, that I was dependent on drugs and that my – and use this term loosely – wife was pregnant. About six months after arriving in New Hampshire Tanya went into labor." He stopped and just looked at me.

I raised my eyebrow to signal for him to continue.

"When the baby finally arrived, it was a boy. I found out that is was dark skinned and looked half Caucasian and half African American. Tanya confessed right then and there that she had been cheating on me with some guy in Port Angeles and figured that he was the dad. She decided to pass the kid off as mine because she thought I was going to provide a cushy life for her.

"I quickly left the hospital and went straight home. I went insane Bella, insane. I started breaking things and I found a fresh dosage of the powder. I took all of it. I don't remember much of what happened after that, but I do know that I collapsed and I woke up in the hospital. Carlisle and Esme were there, and all my dirty garbage was finally aired out. Dad was livid and mom was hysterical. I had almost died."

"Did the gang know about it?" I asked softly.

He simply nodded.

"WHAT! And how did I never find out?" I said standing up.

"Bella, please sit down. Please!" he said with pleading eyes.

I immediately sat back down and continued to stare daggers at him.

"Alice said that you were in a fragile state and that you almost went off the deep end when she tried to tell you."

I was immediately transported back to college. To a certain night when all four of them came into the dorm room looking solemn. Alice had begun that conversation and as soon as I heard Edward's name I lost it. They were trying to tell me about his near death experience. Oh god.

I hunched over at the table because of the sick waves coming over me.

"Bella? Take a few deep breaths. It's okay. I am okay now," Edward said moving over to sit next to me.

He continued, "My parents forced me into rehab and then intensive therapy. By the end of the first year I was on my way to getting healed. My marriage to Tanya was annulled due to false reasoning and she gave the little boy up for adoption. I pushed myself through school and moved back here after finally finishing at Dartmouth."

"Is she completely out of your life?"

At that question he quickly looked down at the table. "I'm not seeing her if that's what you're asking. We are not together, but she seems to always know where I am. She tried calling me a few times since my return to Washington. I believe she is living in Colorado now. I never return her calls; she is probably just look to see if she can manipulate me again into giving her money."

I couldn't really form words after the confession. The ground felt like it had been ripped from underneath me. I had a million emotions going through me at once, ranging from relief to sorrow. It was a strange combination of being repulsed by him and wanting to jump in his lap and never let him go.

"Bella, please say something," Edward said, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"I-I don't know what to say Edward. I'm sorry that you had such a rough go so early in life, a time when we were supposed to finally be learning about ourselves. But y-you were a selfish bastard for what you did. I'm sorry if that stings, but you were!" I felt hot tears begin to slide down my face. I guess I had decided on my emotion: anger.

"Bella…" he said, reaching across the table to try and touch my cheek. I immediately flinched away from his touch.

"Please don't touch me right now; I feel really betrayed. You have no idea what it was like for me after you left. The moment I found out you left up until right now, I did everything with only half of myself. That night that I finally had the guts to lay my heart out to you, you walked away. You walked away with the other part of me, and I never got it back. And now your back and I finally know why you left like you did. What is even harder to wrap my head around is the anger at myself. They tried to tell me what was going on with you, but your name coming off of their lips sent me over the edge. And because of that one selfish move on my part, they never told me anything else! So I feel betrayed by you, my life-long friends and myself." I finally shut my mouth, my chest rising and falling because of the lack of oxygen going to my brain.

Before he could react to my outburst, I turned on my heel and stormed out the door. I pulled my jacket as close to me as possible with the massive hulk on my arm. I heard a jingling of the door and knew that Edward was close behind me.

"Bella! Wait. Don't leave it like this." He touched my shoulder lightly.

I let out a sigh. "Edward, I need time. You have to give me that much. This is all a bit overwhelming; it feels like I have been lied to for the better part of five years by people that I thought were closer then family. I don't want to talk to you…or anybody else for awhile. Just please…"

I half turned towards him and he silently nodded with a look of pure anguish in his eyes. He dropped his hand from my shoulder and I quickly turned towards my car without looking back.

My mind was reeling as I peeled out of the spot and headed back towards my house.

Jesus. How much can one person take in a lifetime?

-oo-

When I was finally about a mile away from home, I finally allowed myself to let everything sink in.

Big, fat raindrops began hitting the windshield with fury, but that barely fazed me as I wiped into my garage. As the door was closing behind me, I turned off the car and rested my forehead against the steering wheel.

I felt my face grow really warm and for once it had nothing to do with my blushing. I felt utterly alone – and I couldn't go to any of my friends since they were loosely part of the problem. They had lied to me. Lied.

Yes, I realize that I am partly to blame. If I hadn't become such a basket case over everything Edward, then I would have known that my best friend had almost died of a drug overdose. Or that he believed he knocked a bitch up and was tricked into marriage.

But shouldn't they have tried a bit harder to tell me? Instead of keeping it all to themselves?

I finally pulled myself together enough to get through the door of the house. My answering machine button was going crazy. I knew who was on there; no doubt Edward had tipped Alice off about what happened.

I walked over and pressed the button. Yep, sure enough Alice's voice poured out of the speaker. She begged me to call her back; that she just had to explain her side of the story.

Well guess what?

Delete.

There was one from Edward just asking soberly if I got home okay. Short and simple – at least he got that I needed space.

So it went on like that for the next three days. Alice continuously called me, each message getting more and more somber. When Friday finally rolled around, I had simmered down enough to finally answer one of her calls.

I had done a lot of thinking over the last few days. I couldn't just blame one person for this big mess. We had all contributed to it. Yes I didn't know what was really going on with Edward for five years, but I had refused to have any. That was my fault. Edward was dumb for what he did and had almost died for it. I am pretty sure he finally learned his lesson and at least he was trying to move on and make up for those mistakes. And with the group, well they collectively kept a secret. So the obvious is answer – it was everyone's fault. I was ready to at least talk about it, because I had been with these guys practically my whole life and they were some of the very best parts of me.

Alice called for her routine fifth call at exactly 4:45 p.m. just like she had the past three days. This time, instead of allowing it to go to voicemail, I picked up.

"Hello?" I said.

"Bella? Oh my god! You're finally answering! I'm so sor-" she began to ramble.

I quickly interrupted. "Alice! Yes, I am finally answering. I have been enjoying your fifteen messages a day. Thank you. Now that I have had some time to let everything sink in, I will talk about it. Feel free to come over whenever."

I knew it would be sooner rather then later.

"Does twenty minutes work for you? I am leaving work here in about five," she asked quickly.

"Sounds good. Just let yourself in."

"Thank you Bella. You won't regret talking to me!" And then she hung up.

-oo-

Twenty minutes later I heard the turning of the doorknob.

"Bella!" Alice practically screamed.

"In the kitchen," I said back in a normal voice.

She came strolling in and just stopped and stared at me. I looked back at her and then slowly made my way to her. I enveloped her in a hug which she quickly responded to. Before I could see it coming, she burst into tears.

"I am so sorry. I have been a horrible friend. Can you ever forgive me?" she blubbered.

"Alice…calm down. I have come to the conclusion that nobody is innocent in this story. We are all at fault. So I have no right to judge you than you have to judge me." I guided her to one of the barstools and I quickly sat in the one next to her.

"That may be true, but I should have at least forced you to listen to me after dad and mom found out about the drugs. At least it wasn't worse then it could have been."

"Yes, thank god he is still walking around and seems to have gotten his life back together," I said.

"The others feel awful to. They are afraid to call you because you might yell at them."

This caused me to laugh a little at the mental image of Emmett cowering from me.

"So he told you everything?" she asked.

I simply nodded.

"And?" she prodded.

"I know that he got married because he thought she was carrying his baby. That she manipulated him. I think he took the cowards way out and ruined a time in his life that should have been more carefree. He told me about his feelings…" I trailed off.

She raised an eyebrow at me to continue.

"I guess he really liked me as well, at least that is how I took his confession." I began to ring my fingers together on the counter.

"I would say it's a lot deeper then love. Just because you weren't hearing anything about him it doesn't mean that it was that way with him. He would call every few weeks begging for updates on you. This was all after the drug stuff came out, but he hasn't given up on you."

I was stunned yet again at the newest revelation. He had kept tabs on me, making sure I was okay.

"I really wish he would have called me or something. I am flattered that he cared enough to ask, but still."

"Now that everything is out in the open, what happens now?" Alice asked.

I shrugged. "I am not sure. I want to go slowly though, a lot has happened. I still really care for him, so we will see."

"I have an idea. Since you have practically been cooped up here all week, why don't we all go out tonight? There is that new club downtown that just opened. We were all thinking of going. Please!" Alice started hopping up and down in her seat from the thought of her idea.

I started laughing as she began to shake me. "Okay you Pixie! Okay, yes I will go."

"Yay!" she began to clap her hand manically. "I am going to run home and get ready; I will call everyone and tell them what time to meet. It's already 5:30 so we should get there by 8. That would give everybody time to get ready and get there. I will come back here with Jasper about 7 to help pick out your outfit. I don't trust you enough to pick out your own outfit, and don't you dare huff at me missy."

I just looked at her as she began her rambling. I rolled my eyes at her over-exuberance and didn't say a word.

"Okay, so I will go. Get in the shower at 6:30…that way your hair is still wet so I can do your hair! See you in a little over an hour. Bye!" She waved as she flitted across the room and out the front door.

That was Alice for you. It was nice to have her back.

I started for the stairs, figuring that I could at least finger through some of my outfits to see what I had.

The phone started to ring just as I took my first step up the stairs. I back tracked to the phone and looked at the Caller ID. I gave it a weird look and pressed 'Call'.

"Hello?" I asked tentatively.

"Hey Bella. About time you answered the phone," said a male voice on the other end.

"Sorry. I just had to have space from life."

"I really missed you…" he said.

-oo-

A/N: First off, sorry for the cliffie! It needed to be done though. Okay…so there are the answers. Tanya is out of the picture, or is she? Hehe. The baby wasn't Edward's; she just passed it off as his because she was a gold-digger and wanted his money. Did you really think I would make him stay tied to her in that way? C'mon! Have more faith in me. He almost died, which is how his parents found out. He is rebuilding his life, which is partly the reason why he moved back to Washington.

I ended up combining two chapters because the next one was a bit shorter then I wanted. Up next is the club scene! Some good stuff. Oh and be ready for an extra guest. I hinted at him earlier in the story…can you guess who?