Dazzled Chapter 8

Bella's POV:

I didn't move until I heard his car door slam in the driveway. Then all I could do was fall to my knees. I stared around at my disheveled bedroom, looking for answers that were impossible to find. My belongings were scattered everywhere around the room; he had been looking for something and I had a feeling I knew what the something was. I picked up my pillow that he'd thrown to the floor, reached my hand inside the casing and removed the only picture I kept in my room.

I stared down at the only photo I had ever allowed Edward to take of the two of us. He had been so excited to set up his fancy tripod on the cliff, it really was adorable. In the picture he had his arm around me and a huge genuine smile on his face. I looked disgustingly plain and ordinary next to him, with my meek smile and average looks. I had thought about folding the picture so that I could only see Edward, but I figured that would hurt his feelings. Like that would have even mattered now.

I had ruined everything, in typical, confusing Bella fashion. I was in love with him. Consuming, all-encompassing, life-posessing love with him. Edward was my end all and be all. Nothing in my life would mean anything unless he was there to share it.

So, naturally, I didn't say "I love you too." I didn't deserve any of the love he was willing to give me and I loved him enough to let him go and try to find someone better for him then me.

I ripped the picture in half, leaving only Edward, climbed into my bed, clutching the only piece of evidence that he had once loved me. Then I cried for hours until I finally fell into a restless slumber.

I didn't sleep that weekend. I didn't eat that weekend. I didn't speak one word that weekend. I didn't cry after that first night. I think I numbed myself into a zombie existence.

I had no energy on Monday morning, but inevitably, reality set in and I finally showered and got dressed. I drove to school and kept my eyes firmly away from where I knew he'd be. By lunch, my neck ached from staring at the floor constantly. I sat at my typical table and still faced Edward's lunch table. I was actually dying to look up at him and have him wink at me and smile coyly at me like he used to. I glanced at the table, looking for that mess of bronze hair but didn't see him anywhere. But I did see Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmet staring over in my direction with bewildered expressions on their faces. I looked back at them wearing my own expression of confusion until Edward appeared in front of me and cleared his voice.

I didn't even have to see his face to know that it was him; I recognized his perfectly smooth chest muscles under his tight shirt.

"Hey baby, I got the fries that you like." Edward said nonchalantly as he plopped down in the chair across from me.

"What?" I thought maybe I had lapsed into some form of insanity, but then the curious looks from my former friends suddenly made perfect sense.

"The cheesy fries, I know you like them I just don't know why." He made a face at the plate of fries and then looked up at me with a convincing smile.

"No, I mean, what are you…why are you sitting over here?" I stammered, and my stupid heart betrayed me and sped up because of his close proximity.

"I wanted to have lunch with my girlfriend." He looked at me intensely and leaned toward me across the table.

"I don't understand." I stated truthfully.

"Well how it works is, we sit here, together and we eat the food that's sitting in front of us." He explained in his cocky, know-it-all tone that I knew too well. "And that's called having lunch." He said the last part like he was talking to a three year old.

"Thank-you for that condescending explanation, what I meant was I thought we had broken up." I was starting to get angry with him.

"What would make you think that?" Edward asked as he put on his best concerned face.

"I don't know, maybe it was the gut-wrenching, soul-crushing fight that we had."

"Yeah, that wasn't a fight Belle." He was shaking his head at me pitifully.

"It wasn't?" I asked incredulously.

"No, my love; for a fight, both people have to be involved and well, you didn't say shit." Edward looked angry now and I dropped my eyes away from his penetrating stare.

"Which is exactly why I thought you wouldn't want to date me anymore," I said quietly to my hands.

"Oh, that's the other thing, we weren't really dating." Edward said harshly. When I looked up at him, he was chewing away merrily on a mouthful of pizza. "Ugh, this cafeteria food sucks compared to yours."

"What do you mean we weren't dating?" I was becoming increasingly annoyed by this conversation.

"I mean exactly that. We were, for lack of a better term, hooking up and I never got to take you on a real date that wasn't in a city 20 miles away, or walk with you at school or hold your fucking hand at lunch. But what's really fucked up is that those things are all I want to do for the rest of my life. I could sit here next to you, with all of these fucking eyes staring at us and be content. So that's exactly what I am going to do." He finished decisively and continued eating.

"Why?" was all I could manage to say.

"Because I love you and I know you love me too and I will wait until you say it." His words were dripping with honesty and I just stared back at him, stunned into an unresponsive state.

"Babe, you gotta eat something, you look like shit." Edward said in a concerned voice.

"Can I ask what brought about this change in you?" I put a fry in my mouth and waited for his response, looking down at my hands again.

"Look at me." He said firmly, but I didn't look up. He reached over and took my chin in his fingers to lift my face to his. It was the first time he'd touched me since our fight and my skin got goose-bumps from his contact. "Please." He sighed. I looked up at him and the pained look on his face was enough to bring fresh tears to my eyes. "I refuse to lose another person that I love when I didn't try everything I could to keep them in my life. So I have to try everything I can think of because I love you, because I can't lose you." His voice was low with the depth of his emotion until he suddenly sat back and returned to his baffling happy mood. "So you have to eat up 'cause it looks like you haven't eaten in days."

I picked up another fry and popped it into my mouth, far too confused and worried to speak at the moment. He was acting very strange and I couldn't decide if his words were in earnest or if he was just trying to get a rise out of me.

"How was your weekend?" He asked with a concerned look in his eyes.

I simply shook my head for a response.

"Mine was boring too. I missed you." He said so softly I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly. Everyone at Edward's usual lunch table was hard-core staring at us and I flushed a horribly uncomfortable shade of pink at the lot of them. "I couldn't sleep at all either; I've been smoking, it was terrible." I was still staring at his former lunch table and refused to meet his gaze.

"Are you not fucking talking to me or something?" He asked, finally letting his anger weave into his voice.

"I don't know what to say." I said simply. There were things I wanted to say but I couldn't give him the hope. I wouldn't let him love me; he deserved better. If I had to, I'd convince him that I didn't love him.

"You could say what I know is true and then we could move on from this fight." He complained, holding up air quotes when he said fight.

"What if it's not true?" I whispered, finally locking my eyes with his. Edward's eyes were a mix of anger, pain, sadness, and confusion. My eyes instinctively welled up with tears at his obvious pain.

"You're a shitty liar. I know you love me. I just don't why you can't say it." His eyes burned my heart and I swallowed deep before I could answer him.

"Haven't you ever thought that maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do?" I forced as much gumption into my voice as possible but I was fairly sure he could see my eyes glistening with my emotions.

"No… but I am now." He choked out the words and closed his eyes, dropped his head into his hands and sighed painfully. My arms itched to cradle him into my chest but I forced my body to remain still. If I moved at all I'd probably just end up in his lap.

Edward didn't move for three minutes but it felt like days. He looked past me when he finally lifted his face and I saw his eyes rimmed with red. I closed my eyes immediately to stop my traitor tears from spilling over. I heard him rise slowly from his chair and walk away.

I kept my eyes closed until enough time passed that I was sure he'd made it out of the cafeteria. I was met by the confused stares of four pairs of familiar eyes when I finally opened mine. I got up quickly and fled to my car in the parking lot. When I slammed the door I let out a stomach-clenching sob that I couldn't believe was coming from me,

I cried the entire way home and was so relieved to see my mom's car in the driveway that I didn't care to wonder why she was home. I burst through the door and called for her as loud as my tired voice could.

"Baby, I'm in the living room." She called to me, concern clear in her voice. I rushed to the sofa where she was laying down with a book in her hands and flung myself into her lap, like a three year hold throwing a temper tantrum.

"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" She asked soothing as she held me closely and ran her hands up and down my back.

"I screwed up, mommy and now…he's gone." I cried into her shoulder.

"Lost who? Edward?" She asked me, her voice full of sympathy. I just nodded in return. "Honey, you need to tell me what happened before I start to freak out myself."

I took a steadying breath and told her the whole ugly truth about how I'd fucked up the best thing that had ever happened to me.

"I don't understand something." My mom said after forty-five minutes of my tearful confession.

"What?" I sniffed.

"Why didn't you tell him that you love him?" She furrowed her brows at me.

"Because I'm not sure I do." I lied, looking down to my hands.

"Ah, Bella, you are the worst liar in the world." She accused with a smile on her lips. "You are so in love with him."

"How would you know?" I asked a bit too harshly.

"Because you are my daughter and I've known you for a long time…" I rolled my eyes at her. "And I know that I have never seen you quite as happy as you've been since you met him; with the exception of this weekend of course." I nodded my head at her words. "So why didn't you just tell him?" She asked again.

"He deserves better than me." I stated pitifully.

"Now I know that's not true, but shouldn't you let him decide that for himself. Edward seems like a pretty intelligent boy to me." I winced at his name. "Besides, what makes you think that you don't deserve him?"

I couldn't tell her the truth so I went with the next truest argument. "He's perfect and he deserves someone equal to him and I certainly am not."

"Maybe you're perfect to him. Did you ever think of that?" She pressed a kiss to my temple and left me sitting dumbfounded on the couch as she made her way to the kitchen and put a frozen lasagna into the oven for us.

I was even more exhausted the next day at school, having spent another sleepless night tossing and turning in my bed. Only last night's restlessness was not caused by sadness; I was so over-anxious to find Edward and jump into his arms and tell him how much I really truly loved him that I couldn't wait for the sun to rise. My mom had really knocked some sense into me with her infinite wisdom. I would tell him everything, the whole truth about my tragic summer, and put my heart out on the line and see if love could actually overcome all.

I was bouncing by my car staring at the entrance and my heart skipped a beat-or maybe four- when I finally saw his overly-perfect car pull into the lot. I watched him park and was about to run over to him when a fucking anvil landed on my head.

There he was, the only other man who had ever meant something to me, hugging Alice, then Rosalie and clasping hands with Jasper and Emmet. Jasper turned him to Edward and my throat went dry at the sight of him shaking Edward's hand. Soon Edward would know why he was too good for me, because James was back.

Edward's POV:

I was thoroughly surprised and grateful to Jasper and Emmet for how nicely they handled the whole I'm in love with Bella but she's not in love with me fiasco. I had reached a very low point on Monday night after my confrontation with Bella, but luckily had enough sense to call Jasper before I drank the entire bottle of vodka that I'd found in the house. He had come over with Emmet right away and listened to me bitch about Bella all night while we played video games and pigged out on pizza.

"You freaked the shit out of us when you sat over there by her." Emmet said through a mouthful of pizza.

"I knew something was up with you guys. You were always fucking staring at her." Jasper stated wisely.

"Was I that obvious?" I asked somewhat embarrassed.

"I didn't notice anything." Emmet said while frowning at the empty soda can in his hand like he didn't know who had drunk it.

"Yea that's surprising." Jasper rolled his eyes at me. "So what are you gonna do, man?"

"I don't know. I mean, you guys have heard everything. What do you think I should do?" I asked them.

"Beats me; Rosie never hesitated when I told her I loved her." Emmet said unhelpfully.

"Thanks, buddy, that makes me feel a lot better." I spat at Emmet.

"Sorry, I'm just telling you that this is unchartered water for me," He explained. I grimaced at his words.

"If you're convinced that she loves you…" Jasper began.

"I am. I know she is." I interrupted.

"Then just give her some time to come around. Bells can be difficult, but she's totally worth it." Jas finished.

"How would you know?" I asked, suddenly furious about the idea of Jasper ever even so much as kissing Bella.

"Because of how obsessed James was with her. He always talked about how she was the best girlfriend in the entire world." Emmet explained. I frowned even more. I had no idea what James was like but I had a gut feeling that I'd hate the guy no matter what. I didn't have to wait long to find out.

I decided to go with Jasper's plan since I really didn't have any better one at the moment. I'd give Bella space and hope that she'd realize just how miserable life was without me before someone else came along and snatched her up. I was actively not looking at Bella when I felt Jas grabbed my shoulder and point me in the direction of someone I'd never seen before.

"Edward, this is James." Jasper introduced us, excitement and a little worry in his voice. I looked up at the guy in front of me and felt a part of my soul die. He was handsome, every straight guy on earth would admit that. He was muscular and tall and he had an air of confidence and coolness to him that most women went weak at the knees for. So of course he's Bella's ex-boyfriend.

"Nice to meet you, Edward." He said while holding out his hand to me. I gripped it as tightly as I could before claiming that it was nice to meet him too.

"So, what are you doing here?" Jasper asked, standing slightly in front of me and breaking our hand shake.

"Just back for a visit. I missed you guys and my parents went out of town and left me alone for the first time since June so I decided to take advantage of it and pull a jail break." James explained in his nonchalant fashion.

"I didn't think we'd ever see you again after what happened." Alice said to James a little sadly. "Are your parents still being super harsh on you now?"

"Yea, but can you blame them. They thought I'd brought coke into their house. I'm shocked they didn't ship me off to military school." James sniggered.

"Shit, that's what my parents would've done. You got lucky." Emmet said.

"Yea well, it's better than her getting in trouble. Renee would've skinned her alive. Where is that sweet little piece of ass anyway?" James started looking around the parking lot while I felt my face heat up with anger.

"What do you mean 'better than her getting in trouble'?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"I mean if Bella's mom found it was her that brought the coke, she'd be under house arrest or locked up in the basement or sent to live with Charlie or some shit." James said with indifference. He didn't notice the expression on everyone's faces turn from confused to utter shock.

"Oh my fucking god." Rosalie whispered angrily.

Alice looked to Jasper with a horrified expression and Jasper looked as though he'd been hit in the gut. I felt like vomiting myself. Emmet looked merely bemused.

"What are you talking about? Bella didn't bring the coke." Emmet stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Of course she did. That's why she stopped talking to us. She felt guilty. What doesn't make sense is why she would call the cops." Rosalie quietly said to Emmet. Jasper and Alice looked deep in thought but I was watching James intently. He didn't look like he was lying.

James didn't appear to be listening and was still searching the parking lot for Bella when he suddenly shrieked with delight and took off at a jog from the group.

"Bella! Hey there gorgeous!" He called out to her before he reached her by her truck. I finally looked over to where he was hugging her.

Bella was five shades paler than she normally was, James was hugging her but her arms were hanging limply at her sides. She looked like she might faint or throw-up at any moment. And she was staring directly at me and I stared back and I knew that what James had said was true because of the look in her eyes.

Every shred of hope was gone. This was it, the reason she didn't want me to love her, the reason she pulled away from me, the thing that she had always had to keep from me. She mouthed I'm sorry at me before her face became hidden when James pulled away from her.

I looked around at my friends and they were all looking at me worriedly.

"I don't get it." I said in no more than a whisper.

"Don't get what?" Alice concernedly asked.

"Why couldn't she tell me that? I mean, it's nothing to be proud of, sure; but did she really think that one thing would stop me from loving her?" I asked, more to myself than the others.

Alice and Rosalie gasped at my choice of words but I ignored them. I was deep in thought. If this was the only thing keeping me and Bella apart then everything would be fine. All I had to do was convince that I didn't care at all about what she used to do, that I loved her anyway because she was my Belle.

I wasn't trying to listen to the others but I could tell that Rosalie and Alice were giving the guys hell for not sharing the juicy gossip about Bella and me.

"I'm sorry, babe but we have bigger things to think about right now." Jasper said, exasperated.

"Yea, like why would she call the police?" Rosalie asked again.

Everyone simply shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads. I looked back to where James and Bella were standing and they were now engaging in a heated argument. Bella looked on the verge of tears now but she was definitely yelling and James was in her face bellowing back at her. If the wind hadn't been so strong, we probably would've heard them.

The bell rang and we watched as Bella shouted one last thing at James then ducked her head and walked into the school without another glance in our direction. James threw his arms up in anger and sauntered out of the parking lot to where his car was parked on the side of the road without looking at us either.

We talked at lunch about all the possibilities of what could've happened at the party for Bella to call the cops. We finally came to the conclusion, after a lot of fucking speculation, that we'd have to just ask her. They decided that I should try first.

Bella had her head down and her hood pulled over when I walked into class. I smiled instinctively; I was still completely in love with her. Sat on my stool and willed her to look at me. When she didn't, I took a deep breath and just got right down to the fucking point.

"So, you used to do coke, huh?" I asked her quietly in her ear.

"You don't have to talk to me." She said pathetically.

"I want to talk to you." I said confidently.

"Maybe that's true, but I don't think you'll like to hear what I have to say." She mumbled, her head still down on the desk.

"I don't know. I just found out that you were a druggie and here I am still wanting to talk to you and…still in love with you." I emphasized the last five words. She groaned in response.

The rest of class passed with me looking over at her and her avoiding my gaze entirely. I couldn't decide if she was embarrassed or if she thought I was insane for still loving her. It was most likely a little of both.

"Are you just never going to fucking talk to me again?" I finally asked, when the bell dismissed us from class.

"I don't get why you want to talk to me." She said, sounding genuinely confused.

"I think I deserve some answers, plus I love you so…"

"Stop saying that." She interrupted.

"No I won't. You can't tell me what to do." I replied like a five year old.

She huffed loudly and stomped her foot childishly. My god, were we mature. "Can't you just forget about me?" She begged.

"Believe me, I wish I could, I've tried. It just doesn't happen. You think I enjoy being in love with someone as nutty as you?" I asked. I was glad the room had emptied before this conversation had begun.

"And why exactly am I nutty?"

"Because you, for some reason, think I'll stop loving you for something that you did before I even knew you. I don't get that. No one gets that. Just because you made one mistake doesn't mean that you have to give up all of your friends and live a hermit's existence forever." I reasoned.

"You're too forgiving." She whispered sadly.

"Maybe you're just too hard on yourself. You made a mistake. No one's perfect."

"You are." She said with the hint of a smile.

"Ah, I've missed that smile." I said to her wistfully. I grabbed her hand and pulled her swiftly to me and she buried her head in my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and breathed in the scent I'd missed so much.

"I'm so sorry, but I was sure that you'd hate me if I told you and I just don't think I could bear that." She said quietly. "At least we can part on good terms."

"What do you mean 'part'?" I asked, terrified of the answer.

"I mean at least now you know and understand why we can't be together." She said as if that thought should be obvious or some shit. I pulled back from her sharply and surveyed her face.

"You're fucking kidding me, right?" I asked, though her face seemed confidently constructed.

"No, I'm not. We can't be together. Your friends hate me now and as soon as what really happened gets around the school, I'll be crucified again. I won't let you go through that." She sounded so confident in her argument that I almost didn't know how to retort. Luckily, I snapped out of that quickly.

"I don't give a shit in hell what these fuck-tards think of me." I angrily snapped at her.

"Yes you do. You love Emmet and Jas, and even Alice and Rose; I can tell. You're better off with them than with me. I'm not good enough for you." Her voice was shaking despite how hard she was trying to be brave.

"Please stop telling me how I fell and let me make my own decisions." I took her face between my hands and forced her to look at me. "I choose you. I choose us and all the shit that may come along with it. You are it for me and nothing you say or do will ever change that." I leaned in to kiss her but she shoved me away and I felt a tear I didn't even know had been forming roll down my cheek.

"You're too young to say things like that. You couldn't possibly know. Just trust me, you deserve better and I won't be the person who holds you back from getting exactly what you should have." She cried before grabbing her bag and running out of the room.

I felt the familiar sensation of loss grip my insides. I gasped against the pain of it. I recoiled from the icy chill that stole over my body at the sight of her running away from me. Just what I need, I thought reprehensibly: Another woman who actively chooses not to love me. I was mockingly reminded of the Patsy Cline song titled 'I Fall to Pieces' at that moment and I couldn't help but wonder how much sorrow one man could take before he literally crumpled away into nothingness.