A Summer vacation to Remember

Disclaimer: I do NOT (unfortunately) own any of the Twilight characters, they belong to Stephanie Meyer.

Chapter 15: Jerk in the Flowers and Roaming Manhattan

Bella POV

"Wow it's so pretty here," Alice says as we walk around the Botanical Gardens.

"Ya, but imagine how long it takes to take care of all of these flowers," Rose says. Emmett shakes his head.

"Girls," he scoffs, "They're just flowers."

"Emmett we're at the Botanical Gardens in New York just shut up and enjoy it," Alice says. Emmett immediately shuts up and the rest of us snicker at him.

"Hey, she can be scary ok," he protests. We all laugh and keep walking around admiring the beautifulness of the garden. And then Alice and Rose stop walking suddenly and share panicked looks. They try to direct us in the opposite direction that we were going in but it's too late. I can see him. My whole mind freezes up. It feels like it's been forever since I've seen him but at the same time it feels like just yesterday. The guys are confused about what's going on but Edward sees what Alice, Rose and I are staring at and I guess he makes the connection because he immediately frowns and puts him arm around me in a protective gesture. It feels like slow motion. He turns around and sees us. Sees me. He's with another girl whom I don't know. I guess that Leah girl didn't work out. He looks at my friends and I. He sees my stricken face. I try to force my face to go blank but it's a lot harder than I'd hoped. He looks at Edward's arm over my shoulder, my face, smirks, and then looks away without another glance, without a word or anything. If a stranger had been looking on it would looked liked we'd never met before. Like we'd never dated or never been "in love". Like he'd never cheated on me. Like my heart had never been broken. Jacob Black. And then just like that he's gone again. They disappear around the corner and everything speeds up again to normal speed. Rose and Alice are at my side instantly. Edward is holding my hand and Jasper catches on and explains to Emmett what just happened. I'm in a bit of a shock so I don't even register until later that Jasper knew for some reason what was going on.

"Bella hon, you ok?" Rose asks. I don't know how to answer at first. One would think that after seeing the man I'd dated for nearly two years, the man who'd cheated on me, I'd be... sad. I'd be upset, hurt, and confused. But everything seems so clear. After nearly a year of not seeing him, of not speaking his name, of trying not to think about him, seeing him now seems almost like closure. I'd been so worried before that I'd be scarred for life or something because of him, that I wouldn't love again, or that I wasn't worthy of it. That it had been all my fault and that I was incapable of being in a romantic relationship. But now I'd seen him and Alice and Rose were still here. Emmett and Jasper were still here. Edward was still here. I was still sane. I wasn't crying, the world hadn't spontaneously combusted, and now he's just a memory. A lesson learnt and now I could move on and be happy with Edward and with myself and forget about it. I felt calm and peaceful.

"I feel... Ok," I replied to Rose. She looked doubtful for a second but I guess she believed me cause everyone backed off. Although they did hover around me a little bit in case I suddenly broke down or something I guess. But I was telling the truth. I really did feel Ok. And now life would go on. I almost felt like laughing. Life would go on and everything would be fine. And to think of all the tears I cried over that jerk. Edward holds onto my hand for the rest of our tour. We don't see Jacob and his mystery girl again either and eventually my friends start acting normal again. By 1:30PM we were ready to head out to Manhattan.

Alice POV

As we take a ferry to Manhattan I can't help but sneak looks at Bella to make sure she's still Ok. After seeing him after so long, after what had happened, I thought she'd be more upset. I thought she'd be in hysterical shock tears like she'd been right after she'd found out about him. But she was so calm. So together. I knew Rose and I were going to question her about it once we got back to the hotel so I wasn't going to push until then. If she was going to be Ok then I was going to let her be... for now. Edward was more upset than Bella was I think. He refused to let go of her hand the rest of the day and he had a perma-frown on his face until Bella smiled at him reassuringly, then it was only a slight frown that only those people that were friends of his, like us, could see.

Once we got to Manhattan, Rose and I were off like shots with the guys and Bella trailing behind. After hitting about 5 stores and ending with Rose carrying 3 bags, Bella one and me 5, we took a late lunch break.

"Ok," Emmett says between bights of his sandwich, "Rose promised that we wouldn't shop the whole day-" I groan, "So," Emmett continues, "Now we should go somewhere that the rest of us non-shop-a-holic people want to go."

"Fine," I pout, "But I don't want to spend the rest of the day at car shows."

"We'll see," Emmett grins.

After taking like 4 different buses we get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Edward's idea.

"I hate the bus," I grumble. It's so gross," I shudder. Jasper puts an arm around my shoulder in what is supposed to be a comforting way but I can tell he's laughing at me on the inside. "Next time we're taking a taxi."

"I agree wholeheartedly," Rose says. She makes a face. "Public transpo is sooo gross." Emmett chuckles at her as he slings an arm around her shoulders also.

"Poor babies," he mocks. One day he's going to catch some rare disease on the bus and the only cure over will be some rare monkey spit in Antarctica or something and he'll grow purple bumps all over his body and then his hair will turn green and then he'll be sorry and wish he'd listened to us. One day.

Anyways we walk a block or so to the art museum and then pay the ridiculous entrance fee. As we walk around the museum Rose and Emmett disappear. We don't notice though for a couple of minutes. Ya, ya I know. What horrible friends are we for not noticing that two of our friends are gone. But in our defence some of the art stuff was pretty interesting.

"Um, where are Rose and Emmett?" Bella says suddenly looking around. We all look around and sure enough they are nowhere to be seen.

"Huh, they're gone," Edward says.

"Thank you Sherlock," Jasper says rolling his eyes.

"Hey you didn't notice either," Edward says.

"Alright children, please. Let's just look around. They probably aren't far." I say. We walk around for a few minutes but we still don't see them.

"I hope nothing has happened," Bella says nervously.

"I'm sure they're fi-" Jasper is cut off by a loud shriek coming from the girls washroom. We all look at each other.

"They didn't," Bella gasps. Another loud shriek and the sound of running footsteps are heard coming from the other part of the museum.

"They did," Jasper says smirking. We all run to the washrooms. When we get there we see a sheepish Rose and Emmett being escorted out of the girls washroom by two security guards. A crowd of people are gathering around and management had come running. We push our way through the crowds to get to them.

"Alright what happened here," A man with a name tag that says 'Tim' on it says.

"It was an honest mistake sir," Rose begins. "My friend... my friend wasn't feeling well and... and I couldn't leave him alone but he needed the bathroom you see..." At this point Rose elbows Emmett in the stomach and he starts groaning and faking sick. "We didn't mean to startle anyone." Rose puts on her most charming smile and Tim smiles back nervously.

"I see then nothing to worry about. Go ahead and enjoy the museum Miss." He waves away the crowd and they leave reluctantly, a few stray women turn and glare at them before leaving. We walk up to them after everyone's gone.

"You are such a liar Rose," I say with a grin and a shake of my head.

"Well I couldn't very well tell the truth now could I? We could have ended up being kicked out of another place here," Rose says with an unashamed smile.

"So what did happen?" Edward says with a knowing smile. Emmett and Rose share a look which basically tells us the whole story right there.

"Well we were getting bored so we decided we'd... have a little fun," Emmett says grinning.

"Ah yes, fun," Jasper says."The kind you would hide out in the girls washroom to do."

"Exactly," Emmett says. "You should have seen that lady's face when she walked in on us making out, it was priceless," He chuckles. We all laugh and shake our heads.

"You guys couldn't have just waited an hour or two to be horny couldn't you." Bella says as we walk to the exit doors.

"Of course not," Emmett says slinging his arm around Rose. We figured we were done there now. We didn't need them sneaking off again. We walk around enjoying the noise and excitement that is Manhattan. By late afternoon we're all exhausted so we take the ferry back to the hotel and decide to crash for the rest of the night. We go to our separate rooms to get into our PJs for a movie night in the guys room. Surprisingly, they're room is neater than ours. Probably because they don't have clothes all over the floor like we do. Before we head out into the hall though Rose and I stop Bella and make her sit on the bed.

"Bells, are you ok? About today I mean. Really?" Rose asks with a concerned look. Bella smiles at us and takes our hands reassuringly.

"You guys, I'm fine. I wasn't sure if I would be but I am. It doesn't feel like anything but closure to me. I have you, and the boys and Edward. I don't need him. Everything is ok." She seems sincere but Bella is known to hide her feelings when she doesn't want to worry anyone else. Rose and I stare at her for a bit trying to see how she really feels but I guess she was telling the truth. No matter how hard I look I still see calm. She really is Ok. Rose must have come to same conclusion because we both smile and have a group hug.

"Now let's go watch some movies," Bella says. We all get up and head out to the boys room where we watch movies and cuddle for the rest of the night. All in all it was a pretty satisfying day. Even if I wasn't allowed to shop as much as I'd have liked.

ok so here ya go. I know it's pretty short, even for me, but it's the best i got right now And something short is better than waiting another month isn't it? =) I give you all virtual cookies to make up for it. *sending virtual cookies* Anyhoo you know the drill. HANDS UP CASH OUT. kidding. =P No the drill is to review pretty please with a cherry on top. Thanks for bearing with me.
~Brie