I am so terribly sorry for how long it's been since I updated. This chapter was seriously a pain in the ass for me and I'm still not completely thrilled with it but I had to get it up! If you're not too mad at me, reviews would be lovely!!
Sadly I own nothing relating to Twilight except for three posters in my living room. hehe :)
Bella's POV:
The room spun before my eyes while I unsteadily made my way to the bed. He threw his heavy arm over my shoulders and asked where I'd been before pulling up my shirt. My brain didn't even register the other people in the room. I let him strip me down to my underwear and groggily giggled when he began running his fingers down my stomach. The muffled cries of a girl from the corner of the room were nearly registering in my subconscious, but I couldn't focus enough to figure out what I should do about them.
James was on top of me then, his tongue deep in my mouth, his groin tight against me. I wasn't protesting but I wasn't participating either. I felt suspended, frozen in time, able to think and fell but unable to connect my brain to any other part of my body. I let him remove my bra, I let him pull down my panties, I let the girl cry and cry, wincing every time I heard the vile laugh of the man swallow her sobs.
Do something, Bella. Tell him to stop!
"Stopitjames." I mumbled incoherently. He groaned into my mouth.
"Stop." I said clearly. He didn't stop. Do something, Bella.
I shoved. I kicked. Again, keep going. Don't stop until he gets off of you. Hurry up, it's taking too long…
"Fucking bitch." He yelled before slapping me across the face and rolling off of me. The slap helped and I forced all my brain power to focus on my surroundings. It was quiet, too quiet. I sat up and slowly looked around the room, seeing nothing but a blur of colors. Finally, the girl on the floor came into view, hunched and crying on the floor. I wobbled over to her. She looked up at me with swollen red lips, a red, swelling eye and the look of stolen innocence.
"Call 911." She pleaded.
I awoke with a start, the mangled face of the girl burning in my eyes. I was soaked with sweat and tears were running down my face. I was clutching my chest as the sobs came forth and I cried once again for the girl that I should've helped.
It was 3:26 in the morning and I had to get out of this fucking house. I climbed out my window and ran all the way to the house that I was the most comfortable in. I realized how preposterous it was to visit someone at this late hour, but I simply couldn't wait. It felt like I might die if I didn't confess everything soon.
I grabbed a few rocks from the earthen floor and began tossing them at the second floor darkened window. After the seventh one, a shallow light illuminated the room and I smiled weakly at the inhabitant when they looked down at me. We stared at each other for a few moments before they pointed toward the back of the house then walked away from the window. I hurried around the house and flew up the stairs and waited impatiently at the back door until it finally opened.
"Bella, what the hell are you doing here?"
I threw myself onto Alice and hugged her as tightly as I could. I was drowning and she was my life preserver. My only hope was that she was still willing to pull me from the raging sea. "I'm so…sorry." I sobbed onto her tiny shoulder. I felt her skinny arms wrap around my waist and squeeze with more force than I would've guessed was possible.
"What happened, Bella? You're scaring me." She sounded so worried and that made me feel impossibly worse.
"I brought the cocaine to the party." I choked out between whimpers.
"James told us." I shook my head at her response and she backed away slightly to look me in the eyes. "What else happened at that party?" She asked, her own tears starting to well up in her eyes.
"I'm so scared to tell you." I barely whispered and sniffed.
"You can tell me anything, you know that. Here come in and sit down. Take deep breathes." She ordered.
I did as she told me while sitting down at her dining room table. Alice sat next to me, placing a glass of water in front of me, and rubbed my arm comfortingly. I fiddled with my fingers and breathed deeply before I felt like I wouldn't faint anymore.
"Do you remember the three guys and that girl that came with me and James to the party?" I asked without looking at her.
"Um…sorta, weren't they older than us?" She asked.
I nodded my reply. "Well, they were the ones that sold me the coke." I said looking up to her with shameful eyes. She only shifted slightly in her chair. I had expected a finger wave and a 'tsk, tsk'. She nodded and I knew that meant to keep talking. "Well we all took some, in the basement…"
"You locked the door, I remember." She interrupted harshly, as if she had resented being left out.
"James and I started fooling around…" I pressed on. "But I could hear something in the background, like crying and pushing but I was so gone that I didn't even realize…" The sobs were starting again and my breaths became labored. "The crying just kept getting louder, but I couldn't get to her, James was telling me… it was ok and was holding…me down…"
"It's ok." Alice urged, although she had fear in her eyes.
"I tried forever to get him off of me, I kicked and screamed…he finally did but the whole room was spinning. I looked around and then I saw her." I cried and buried my face in my hands. "She was balled up on the floor…there was blood…" I could feel my bottom lip quivering. "She wasn't crying anymore but she was shaking…and the guy, I didn't even know who he was, he just took off and I couldn't find James. But then after I dialed 911…he was suddenly there…" I took another rattling breath. "He grabbed the phone and then he must have hit me or something because everything went black." Alice was breathing almost as heavily as I was. "I woke up in the basement with James right before the cops came. I started freaking out and I told him what had happened and he told me…that I must have hallucinated. I looked around everywhere but the girl was gone and there wasn't any blood anywhere."
I shook my head as the tears continued to fall. "I trusted him so completely. I just took his word, I didn't even know what the side effects of cocaine were but I just believed everything he told me. He acted like he was taking care of me; he even told the cops that the drugs were his. When I asked about the girl, Victoria, he just told me that her boyfriend took her home." The words were pouring out of me now.
"It might be irrational, but I can't help but feel responsible for what happened to her. She ended up killing herself a few weeks later." I finished quickly with another sob at the end. I was visibly shaking in my chair but Alice seemed to have frozen in place. Her mouth was slightly agape and her eyes were wide from the weight of my confession. "If I hadn't been so drugged up, I could've stopped it or tried to help her or something before…" I bawled.
"Bella, why didn't you tell me?" Alice asked tearfully.
"I didn't know what to do. James was gone and I didn't want to drag you all into the whole mess. So I just decided to try and forget about that night altogether and start a new life; but when he showed up here, I couldn't…I had to tell someone." I sighed and put my head down on the table.
"Bella…" Alice said sweetly while starting to rub soothing circles on my back. "This is not your fault. You can't let this destroy the rest of your life."
"Alice, a girl killed herself and I should have helped her." I sobbed.
"Yes, but I don't think you could have, Bella. Victoria took the drugs on her own, right?" She asked. I nodded without lifting my head. "You're a good person, of course you wanted to help her but I remember those guys. They were dangerous, who knows what might have happened to you if you'd gotten any more involved." She said in a pained voice.
"I know, that's what I always tell myself. I'm ready to move on, I am. I just think I need some help." I looked up at her pitifully and she smiled the second best smile in the world at me.
"I'll always be here for you, Bella. You're my sister." She finished, crying a little herself. I hugged her again, letting out a huge sigh.
"Tell me what to do Ali." I pleaded, as we ended our hug.
"Well I have a plan and part of it includes getting Edward back and let me tell you something, do you have some damage control to do." She chided.
"I know I'm so hopeless when it comes to guys." I said while wiping away a few more tears.
"You do love him though, don't you?" She asked with a knowing smile.
"More than anything, but do you think he'll forgive me for everything I've done to him?" I asked her.
"There's only one way to find out." Alice said with her typical upbeat hopefulness.
The next morning, Alice drove me to the police station.
Edward's POV:
Anger. Blinding, crippling, consuming anger is what happens to a man when too many people choose to leave him. I was no longer a broken man. I stitched myself back together and though the scars were only visible to me, they gave a certain type of strength I had never known before. Bella couldn't touch me now.
I had never been an angry person. I had always been depressed which could come off as anger but shit, anger, fucking wanna stab everyone that looks at you the wrong way in the throat anger, that shit's way more intense than depression.
The only good thing was that James had left town again. Jasper wouldn't elaborate but I didn't give a fuck anyway. He just would have been something else for me to ignore, of course that would've been harder if he had started sitting with us at lunch.
I hated the bastard on principle, even if he didn't technically do anything wrong. I seemed to relate my whole catastrophe with Bella to him for some reason. I was also thoroughly fucking jealous that he had had slept with her, but of course I'd never admit that to anyone.
I was smoking and avoiding sleeping again which Carlisle wasn't thrilled about. The fact that he actually noticed for once pissed me the fuck off almost more than anything else.
"Edward? What are you doing?" Carlisle asked after he had slid opened the door, catching me with my seventh cigarette of the day on the back porch. I glanced over my shoulder at him.
"Smoking." I said in my best leave-me-the-fuck-alone voice. The bastard didn't.
"Where is your girlfriend?" He asked with concern evident in his tone.
I shrugged.
"Did you two break up?" He asked.
I shrugged again.
"Well I can tell something's wrong; what is it?" He asked; another fucking question.
"Fuck off." Yeah, I was in full-on prick mode.
Carlisle decided to change tactics from concerned father to worried physician.
"Are you sleeping well?"
Another shrug. In truth: not for more than one hour for the last four nights.
"Edward, if you don't answer me I'm going to make an appointment with Dr. Milner." He threatened.
I snorted this time. Thought I'd mix it up for my own amusement.
"Do you know who Dr. Milner is?" He asked condescendingly. I shook my head a little and flicked my finished cigarette into the wet grass, watching the last embers smolder.
"He's the psychologist in Port Angeles." I was somewhat shocked to hear him say this but didn't let it show on my face. He hadn't threatened me with sending me into therapy since the whole 'bitch mom left me suicide thing' when I didn't talk for two solid months after it happened.
"Do that; see if I give a rat's ass." I snapped, lighting up another cigarette.
"Do you need to go back on your medication?" Carlisle asked with a last ditch effort.
"I need you to fucking mind your own god-damn business. I'm all grown-up now, Daddy. You don't need to worry about fucking fixing me anymore." I growled at him. I could almost feel him give up on me.
Right before he closed the door completely he whispered "I'm sorry about Bella, son."
I balled my fists up at the sound of her name and jerked away from the wall when the door slid shut. After my last meeting with her, which I now referred to as the Last-Fucking-Straw, I had been quite successful with letting the all-consuming rage boiling in my blood drive out any and all thoughts of Bella. This was harder to do when her name was fucking sprung on me out of nowhere. I finished my pack of cigarettes right as the moon began peeking through the clouds and finally headed inside.
I let the freezing cold water run down my back, giving me fucking goose-bumps and making me shiver. I stood under the fan in order to dry off, hoping that by staying cold, I could post-pone the tiredness that was waiting to overcome my senses. I didn't want to dream about her. Sometimes the anger left me in sleep.
Dr. Carlisle wasn't the only one to notice my new demeanor. At school, Rosalie kept throwing me what I assumed were supposed to be comforting smiles. Jasper told me repeatedly all day, every day to "Snap the fuck out of it!" Emmet, as it happened, was the only one's help I actually accepted, eagerly swigging at the flask filled with some sort of alcohol, I didn't really give a shit what type it was, that'd he pass to me in the hall between classes.
Alice on the other hand, seemed to brighten each day that my sullen mood continued to decline into down-right unpleasantness. At some point, I began acting specifically rude to her, trying to get her to fucking yell or scowl or something. She was now like the fucking Energizer bunny on Zoloft. I didn't find it nearly as endearing as Jasper. He was thoroughly enjoying how much her perpetually good mood was ticking me off.
"I bet fucking Jessica doesn't seem like a bad idea now, does it Eddie?" Emmet asked across the lunch table as I took a hearty gulp from his flask. The burning sensation in my throat mirrored my bad temper nicely.
"A pity fuck isn't a bad idea, Em. But maybe I should find someone who I'd never have to see again." I said with a bitter smile. I had been jacking off a lot fucking more now since I'd been so sure that Bella was about to make all my fucking wild fantasies about sex come true. I was a miserable, bitter, lonely, horny bastard. But at least I played the part well.
"Don't brood so much Edward. Your pretty face might get stuck like that." Alice said with a beaming smile.
"What the fuck has you so happy, anyway?" I barked at her. Jasper shot me a reproachful look.
"Nothing really, I guess I'm just an eternal optimist. I still think everything's going to turn out ok." She said lightly with a shrug. I snorted in a disbelieving sort of way. Jasper smiled at her and kicked me in my god-damn shin under the table.
Rubbing my leg, I turned to Emmet and Rosalie with a what-the-fuck kind of look. Rosalie shrugged helplessly and Emmet handed me back the flask. I took another long swallow. I now sat with my back to Bella's table. I felt her fucking eyes on me the entire time. I wanted to scream at her to not fucking look at me.
Biology was a lot of fucking fun for me. Bella had missed a few days of school after the Last-Fucking-Straw and during that time, I had convinced the teacher that I needed to sit up at the front of the classroom. Her first day back at school, her face fell immediately when she saw that I wasn't at her table like always, and I basked in that shit. I felt her eyes boring into the back of my head the entire class. But I never looked at her.
The next day, she tried to give me a note when she walked in the room. The second it fell in front of me I stood, snatched it up, walked to the trash can and dropped it in, still without looking at her.
I didn't answer her insistent phone calls, or listen to her sorry messages. Carlisle bought me a new phone when I shoved my old one that she called at least one an hour under the tire of my car and crushed it into a thousand pieces.
I was pretty proud at what a convincing dick I was being. But other than that, I was pretty un-fucking happy all the fucking time.
My mood did not improve when Alice began to riddle us with questions about prom every day. She never seemed to find my' I'm-not-fucking-going' answers acceptable.
"Oh nonsense, all the seniors are going. What else is there to do on a Saturday night in Forks?" She asked in her up-beat Barbie voice. I kinda wanted to smack her.
"I'm not going to the fucking Forks High Prom stag." I said in my new favorite voice: Drop this subject right the fuck now.
"Then you'll just have to find yourself a date. But when you do ask a girl, don't call it the fucking Forks High Prom." She chuckled. I grimaced.
"Why do you want me to go anyway? I'm just going to be a miserable prick the entire time." I said convincingly.
"Eddie, the only reason to go to prom is to find out where all the good after parties will be." Emmet piped up.
"Stop fucking calling me Eddie!" I said a lot louder than I had intended. I felt a few people turn their eyes to me and, though I have no idea how I knew, Bella gave a sad sigh at my outburst. I closed my eyes and could almost see her sad smile that I was sure was sitting just a few feet behind me. "Sorry." I grunted out when no one spoke for a few moments.
Jasper leaned over to me then and clapped a hand on my shoulder. "I get it man. You're fucking pissed, but if I could just give you a word of advice. You may want to stop trying to piss off the few people who actually talk to you." I nodded and gave the table at large an apologetic look. Alice smiled warmly at me and Emmet passed me the flask with a 'whatever works' sort of smirk.
"So I was thinking we should get a hotel suite for the after-party." Alice chimed in. I had never been so happy to hear her back in planning mode.
I began to try and do my best to act like a fucking normal person for the sake of the wonderful people still sitting by me.