Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Twilight characters or the rights to "New Low" as performed by Middle Class Rut, and I will not be earning income from using these materials. I do, however, own the storyline and any original characters, and would also like to say what an amazing song "New Low" most certainly is, so I will definitely pimp it out.

A/N: Hi all! I want to keep this as short as possible, but I've got a good amount of info to dump on you, so hold on cause here we go! First, because she could NEVER be last, I cannot say enough thank yous to my friend and the mistress of the grammar whip, Miss clarabella75. Seriously, she writes, and she writes amazingly, with such depth and emotional precision, I promise your heart will be angsty and happy all at once. HERE: http:/www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/6327011/1/Home ... Go see for yourself. ;)

Also, thank you SOOOO very much to each of you who read and reviewed each chapter. You know how amazing you are, but let me tell you again - YOU ARE AWESOME! You keep my heart bubbly and my fingers typing. And I can't forget those silent readers, of the favorites and story alerts. :) I hope you're enjoying as each chapter moves along, cause this stuff is for you guys too!

Okay, last but not least, I know I'm HUGE on visuals, and I like to know how things look, so I'm going to post a few links below this (just like the one above) so that hopefully, if doesn't screw up, you can see some of the items I'm pulling for this chapter. Also, I'll be posting these permanently on my profile page, hopefully by tomorrow morning, along with a few other visuals from earlier in the story and the link to my facebook page and the AWESOME FanFicAholics Anon page. Thank you my lovely readers, and happy reading!

http:/www(dot)natashamillani(dot)com(dot)au/Images/Products/Large/Angelic-Purple-Cocktail-Dress-3(dot)jpg - Bella's Cocktail Dress

http:/www(dot)models-sasha(dot)com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cocktail-dress-for-chubby(dot)jpg - Alice's Cocktail Dress

(Psst ... just remove the (dot) and replace with actual dots. If that doesn't work, hop over to my profile for a better look!)

Chapter Six:
New Low

How did I get so far from where I was?
When did I decide to lose my way?
Who have I become…

Well who am I, a cold shoulder left to cry
You feel bad, well so do I
Yeah, so do I

I cannot help feeling like I have so much at stake
So I lock myself inside my head and I just run in place
So many directions I don't know which way to go
I'm so busy doing nothing I got nothing to show

"New Low" – Middle Class Rut

After that day, I didn't see Trevor, or Edward, or whoever he was, again.

July passed into August and hot, sticky summer days. August smoothed into September, and serene breezes promising cooler days began to drift through the hazy, heated air while the sun relinquished the Deep South from its oven-like grasp. I watched the leaves begin to crisp, some blossoming into bright yellows, reds, and oranges from the chill air that blew in with wistful caresses.

It was a time of idealistic dreams, an early fall to relieve the suffocating metropolis from fully wilting underneath the summer heat. Even the rays of sunlight shooting through the heavy oaks and perfumed magnolias were airy and warm perfection to the skin they danced along. But this heady infusion of nature's absolute warmth and soul-suffusing glow did nothing to reach through the bleak cocoon I had created for myself.

For days I could do nothing but think, confused and betrayed, wondering; but no matter how long I spent, digging through my head, rewinding conversations and replaying what I had done wrong, the answers never surfaced. Only one thought was poignantly clear – the bastard had kissed me.

I couldn't reprieve myself completely of blame; it had probably seemed as though I was all but begging for it, when my only concern had been an honest attempt at figuring out the man who sat across from me. But now … well, now he had kissed me, and this one action could very possibly have opened up an entirely new level of hell, for both of us.

I still had no idea what to do with it.

I remained, trapped in that moment, even as life moved on. Of course, I moved on with it, unable to stop the ever-constant forward motion pressing anxiously against my unwillingness. I woke, I dressed, I drove to work, I worked, I drove home. My days became cyclical, never meandering from the patterns I had set to them. Monday through Friday, from eight in the morning until five in the evening, I was theirs. I acted like one of them, I laughed like one of them, I talked like one of them, I breathed like one of them. They were living, they were loving, they were thriving – they were alive.

I was drowning.

Once, I saw myself in a mirror. My limp, faded hair framing chapped, chewed lips and bloodshot, dark-rimmed eyes, set in ashen skin. That was on week three. I covered every reflective surface I could find, but I couldn't avoid everything that reflected me.

There would always be Alice. She stepped into my life occasionally, if only to do nothing more than be sure I was eating. I couldn't stand to be around her for long. I couldn't stand the pity and pain that lit her normally joyous face. I saw myself in the glossy sheen of her eyes, catatonic. She saw, but she never questioned, not after week one, and for that I was grateful.

Emmett called. Besides Alice, he tried for longer than anyone else, actually. I was surprised at his tenacity. Day after day, for the first week. I talked, sometimes. I tried to be okay, for him if for nothing else, but the figurative "big brother" in him saw right through me, even from two thousand miles away.

Soon it became easier just not to talk, and then simply not answer. After week five, he stopped calling. I know he started calling Alice, which had to have been hard as hell, because she told me. He threatened to quit his job at first, to come out and annoy me until I spilled what was wrong.

But he wouldn't come, because I'd never tell. I couldn't tell, or I'd hurt more people than I knew what to do with. I'd always fallen for the self-sacrificial thing, so my daddy told me. I never realized when you truly did it right, it hurt like fucking hell.

As much as my days had fallen into a pattern, my nights had morphed into an exact opposite. Sometimes, I paced my room, rubbing at the tops of my arms even though the thermometer read eighty degrees. Sometimes, I lay underneath two and three blankets, shivering from a chill that didn't exist in the humid room. Sometimes, I lay on the floor staring at the ceiling, and other times I stood, wedged between the window and my bookshelf, staring down at the meandering passers-by whose harried lives I occasionally envied despite myself.

Only one constant remained – sleep escaped me.

Cat naps became my way of survival; an hour here, twenty minutes there, but always a sudden thought or haunting nightmare pulled me from my restless dozing.

My mind would never turn off. Every thought ticked by, nervous and never ending, no matter what consumed them. They weren't always about him. Sometimes they were about Emmett, or my mother, or my next assignment, or the look on Alice's face as I had slipped by her and disappeared into my room.

But sometimes they were about him. Actually, some kind of thought surrounding him consumed me more than I cared to admit. 'Who is he?' and 'What is he?' were at first the most popular choices, but soon, these were too banal to be considered; they seemed obviously unanswerable for any rational state of mind. He obviously knew who he was; he had a family, a life, a past, and as complicated as it may have been for him, it still existed.

But then he had those eyes, which were taken so often by that look, and then framed by those off-center lips and crooked nose. It was a look I had seen so many times before; a look I hadn't seen in almost a decade. A look I had never been able to replicate anywhere else, no matter how hard I had tried.

And try I had. Man after man, I searched for the right 'one.' But then one turned into twenty-one, which moved into thirty-one, and before I could even begin to define what was occurring in my life, my well-known mode of operation had become the 'date n' dump.'

Now, I was alone. For the first time in six years, since the day of my seventeenth birthday, when Renee had emancipated me from the bonds of daughterhood and wished me a happy life, I was alone. I had never felt more solitarily defined. Nevertheless, as soon as I reached this conclusion my mind would snap back, unwilling to retrace the hurt, loss, and abandonment, and deal with what Emmett called my 'mommy issues.'

Instead, they would move back to him. I soon realized that I could never even say his name in my head. At this point, trying to figure out which of the two 'hims' I was talking about simply left me lost. I was angry at both, and angry was an understatement that made Rosalie's certain wrath at the knowledge of our transgression look like the meanderings of a playful kitten. But the most terrifying part was what followed after I allowed myself to admit I couldn't not see them as one.

That single, solitary day, compounded by a lifetime of bad judgment calls and a haunting, jadedly allowed kiss, had unlocked a door to an ocean I had spent a lifetime barring away. Now I stood, on the edge of that ocean, timidly dipping my toes into the surf and flinching backwards at the sting of the cold, briny water. The water brought back the nightmares. It brought back the images of happier days where I was certain of who I was, of what I was to become.

Before Death and Fate turned my dazzling dreams into the stuff of nightmares, and these nightmares turned themselves into thoughts and plagued my mind.

I would have done anything if I could have simply ceased to think.

But I continued, because I couldn't do anything else. I was locked away inside of myself, because I had nowhere else to go. I couldn't confront him; I never was very big on 'leaping into action.' So I had to confront myself. I always was stubborn.

This restless pattern became my black hole, my emptiness to climb into and ruminate.

After week five, some of my errant thoughts began to wonder if I needed an out. I wasn't sure if this was my survival instinct, but it only seemed to sink me lower under the blankets of solitude.

It was during week six that a sound at my door very nearly left me with a heart attack, lying prostrate on the floor. My weekends had been habitually uninterrupted, until now, so the unexpected sound brought my mind to a heightened awareness, even if my body didn't move. I heard the door open before I managed a reply and lifted my eyes to find Alice's frame halfway through the door. She raised her eyebrows at me and I vaguely nodded.

It was almost comical watching her step into my immaculate room. It looked as though it had stepped directly from an issue of Better Homes & Gardens – outside of me and the bed, of course. She glanced around, surprised, and her nose wrinkled slightly. I sniffed, but when I didn't smell anything, I shrugged it out of my mind. My bed frame tilted and squeaked in protest at my roommate's added weight. Her hand attempted to run through the knotted mess that was my hair, but her fingers stuck. She sighed through her nose.

"Bella …"

I made no reply, so Alice pulled her entire length onto the bed, tugged me away from the death-like talons that were gripping onto my pillow, and plopped my head into her lap. I glared up at her from the crevice between her dainty knees. At least she was wearing jeans.

She rolled her eyes and began to untangle my hair with her fingers, the long limbs working dexterously, despite their daunting task and inevitable failure. Regardless, the repetitive motion was calming to my sleep-deprived mind, and so I allowed her to continue, eyelids sagging in contentment. She managed to unwind a small section and followed this up by braiding the strands with quick motions. I remained in my cathartic state.

"Bella," her voice surprised me and I jumped, but Alice continued, untouched. "I know I have no idea what is going on in that pretty, brittle little head of yours, and I don't need you to come out and tell me, but either way, I do need you to know that this is your intervention, and you are either going to talk, or you are going to get your butt off of this bed and use a defibrillator on your social life, got it?"

Her spiel was obviously well practiced; Alice let out a deep breath after the words had flowed much too smoothly off of her tongue. I refused to roll over or acknowledge her. Yes, I pouted. Her small hands tugged a braid out of a section of my hair and shoved me off of her legs. I bounced on the mattress.

"Bella, I'm not kidding." She brought herself to sit cross-legged in the middle of my bed. I rolled over to see the fierceness in her eyes. Great. Momma Alice was protecting her young, and this time, she had decided I was a danger to myself.

Maybe she was right.

I huffed a sigh of my own and propped my chin on my forearms.

"Is neither an option?" I croaked out. Alice's eyebrows lifted. My voice surprised me. Did I always sound this bad after every weekend's vow of silence?

"Don't make me use my powers of eviction on you, missy," she threatened, wagging her finger in my face. I wanted to stick my tongue out, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. Her face fell. "Bella, I'm really worried about you …" she trailed off. My eyes followed hers as they drifted around the spotless room. "This isn't you, Bells … and," she swallowed hard. It was then I noticed she wouldn't look at me. I reached out for her arm.

"What?" My stomach twisted a bit at the look in her eyes.

"Your boss called today. He said he wasn't sure things were 'clicking' like they had at your interview." She sniffled a bit. "Bells, he said that I should let you know that if things didn't seem to be working out in a few weeks, they had plenty of other applicants to fill the position."

Her words poured cement into my stomach. I sat up straight.

"I can't lose this, Alice … it's – it's all I have." I immediately realized my mistake and reached for her hand. "I mean, besides you and Emmett, but still …" My teeth reached for my bottom lip, anxiously gnawing on one side. I could do this. I had to do this. I couldn't let the one thing I had ever truly been proud of slip through my grasp so easily. Obviously I hadn't understood how bad my performance had been at work. I vaguely realized I'd yet to take a single picture since arriving in Atlanta.

I was letting everything slide through the sands of the hourglass, all because I couldn't face myself or my past. I had been able to lock it up once; the pain had been so fresh when denial came, curling into the sealed caverns of my mind and slowly slipping the locks into place. This time, the door had been thrown wide open, and all that lay below me was a vast, encompassing sea of deep blue torture.

I was standing at the ledge alone, teetering, unwilling to take the plunge and yet unable to turn away. The door had closed and locked itself firmly behind me, leaving me with no way out. I was in limbo, and I was swiftly crashing. Irrationally, my heart began to pound.

"Bells," Alice's small hands entangled with mine. "I know you can't do this by yourself." She was almost clairvoyant in the moment, a light smile for me meshed with the assurance in her eyes. It was then I realized despite the instant rejection that flared up within me – I had never truly been alone.

"But …" I stumbled over my words, "you don't even know what I'm doing."

"I don't have to."

This small girl, whose eyes were lit by her warm soul that, for some fucked up reason, completely understood mine, had become my greatest ally. This simply southern lady was so much more, and she was beautiful. Why had I never understood that?

Suddenly, my ledge didn't feel so lonely. I squeezed Alice's hand and placed my head back into her lap.

"Thank you."

She never said a word. Instead, with more perceptiveness than I will ever understand, she moved back to ambling her fingers through my hair. We sat in companionable silence, and, for the first time in weeks, my room felt warm.

"So," she ended the moment, pushing lightly against my back, "in order to fulfill the second part of your deal and keep your lodging, I might add, you're coming to a party with me tonight."

My head immediately shot off of her lap. I can only imagine I must have looked like a doe with a semi bearing down on her – I knew my death was imminent.

"Um, don't you think this is a little fast, you know, to be shoving me out into society and all?" I wanted to retreat back underneath the covers and die in my pillow. The little pixie was unfazed by my reaction.

"Nope. And you're going. It's not formal or anything, so don't freak out." Her look softened. "And I promise, if you're still feeling down and out after at least forty-five minutes, we'll take off, okay?"

I wilted in self-defense. The obligation to maintain social graces was a war I would never win. At least the promise of leaving early was a small victory in the battle for my sanity.

"Fine," I grumbled, stretching my arms above my head. Alice's nose wrinkled again.

"Bells," she paused and then pointed at me, "when was the last time you bathed?"

I halted, trying to remember. It had been so long since anyone had cared. My cheeks warmed when I realized my answer.

"Thursday." It was Sunday. If I had thought Alice's face couldn't look more appalled, I was sorely wrong. She bounded backwards off of the bed, her entire face wrinkling in revulsion.

"Bells! That is just gross!" She sounded like a mother scolding a petulant child. I grinned, but I couldn't laugh. "Can you even smell yourself?" she protested, stepping back a few more feet towards the door. Leaning over to sniff, I mentally cringed. I couldn't. Alice was mortified. "Oh my God, you can't … Bella, you're immune to it." She pushed my bedroom door wide open. "That's just sad, sweetie."

I pouted. Alice pointed backwards through my door and towards the upstairs bathroom.

"Why don't you take yourself a nice long shower, relax, enjoy, and I'll take care of," she waved her hand around my bedroom and ended up pointing at me, "everything else. Okay? Good."

Without waiting for a reply, she pulled me off of the bed, pushed me into the bathroom, and proceeded to perform practically every other pre-bath ritual, outside of undressing me. Then I was alone, watching tendrils of steam crawl down the walls as I stared at myself in the mirror for the first time in weeks.

I looked … emaciated.

With the realization I wasn't alone came the unnerving spectacle of being able to see myself through someone else's eyes – and what I saw wasn't pretty.

My hair was greasy and limp, hanging lifelessly against my shoulders and framing a gaunt face. My skin seemed stretched over my bones, lily white, with eyes as luminescent as they were sunken in, a dirty brown rimmed in dark, ghosting shadows. My lips were chewed into a painful red. I pulled the ragged t-shirt from my shoulders, my normal fare for these long, fixed weekends, and winced visibly. The flesh along my ribs looked even more stretched than my face, and just as palely ashen, except for the two or three deep blue bruises that blossomed across my ribs and down my side, the rings fading out into a sickly green and yellow specked mess.

No wonder Alice had been so worried. Outside of the bloated stomach, starving children on the "Feed the World" commercials looked healthier than I did. I made a mental note to get Alice something extra special with my first bit of spending money.

Her ability to provide me with something to live for had been an eye opening experience, but I can't say I didn't wonder – why wasn't I enough?

"Bells, you had better actually be bathing!" Alice's voice broke into my reverie from the other side of the bathroom door. Her persistence and ability to know me inside and out was astounding. A rueful smile made its way to my lips, but I didn't stay to see how haunted it would make me look. Instead, I climbed into the claw foot tub and stepped under the spray.

The water burned. My pale flesh morphed into a rosy pink at the heated rivulets running down my skin and pooling around the drain. I performed the usual rituals, lathering my long, thin hair into a turban on top of my head and then sliding the cushioned razor up my legs. When I had to shave my legs twice, I realized not only had my razor gone bad, but it had honest to God been six weeks since I had shaved. Gross.

Conditioner slipped through my fingers, unweaving the knots that even Alice's nimble hands couldn't untangle, and I watched as dead strands of hair slipped down my legs and around the drain. How long had it been since I'd washed my hair? I couldn't remember.

I truly was an unsightly mess.

I pooled the face wash in my hands, letting the granules scrub at my skin, the senseless wish of peeling this depression off bit by flaky bit materializing somewhere in the back of my mind. Of course, the added bonus of bringing some color back to my cheeks and shedding the cracking layers off of my sadly abused lips didn't hinder my long, harsh strokes either.

I was done. I felt clean, and even if I wasn't mentally as pieced together as I had been when I started this journey, at least it was something.

As soon as I stepped out of the bathroom and into my bedroom, I felt my heart clench a bit. The air smelled of lavender and cardamom. My bed was made, with fresh sheets, I assumed, since I hadn't bothered to change them, and a deep purple, silk cocktail dress lay across the comforter. A small mirror had been propped on my desk, and all of Alice's favorite make-up kits and hair contraptions were set up along the edges. I was in for it tonight.

"Bella!" My name was a squeak to my left. "You're dripping on the wood!" In the space of a moment, my sodden mane was wrapped unevenly in a dry towel she had grabbed out of the hall closet. She slipped by me into the room.

"I'm sorry, I just –" the quick look in her eyes silenced me. She didn't want any thank you, outside of allowing her to primp me for the night. I restrained my eye roll; I would have let her without the good deeds and bribery, but Alice wouldn't be Alice without it. Instead, I clutched the towel to my chest and stepped over to the bed, fingering the dress with my other hand. "Alice, this is beautiful."

"You like it?" She smiled, rubbing gloss over her pale pink lips. She smoothed down the fluff of her knee-length, black and white cocktail dress and tuned to me. "Mother bought it for me last Christmas. God knows the woman doesn't pay any attention to sizes; the damn thing never has fit me, but I've always loved the cut. I figured if it worked well on you, you could have it."

"Really?" I fingered the silk and chiffon. Alice chuckled.

"Yes, really, you goof. Now, go try it on while I finish up my makeup, and then we'll get to work on you."

It was Fate. The soft folds fit my barely-there curves like a glove, draping easily to my knees. One shoulder was free, giving the dress a Grecian look I loved, and a wide satin belt provided the appearance of slim, sloping hips. When I stepped back into the room, Alice gave a tiny squeal.

"Bella, it's perfect!" Her eyes were bright. I could only nod. "Now," she pulled back my low-backed desk chair, "let's get started, shall we?"

Over the next forty five minutes, Alice managed to not only revive my lifeless hair, but tame it into soft waves which fell naturally around my shoulders, so relaxed even I was comfortable. My makeup was applied with a light hand; no foundation to dry out my already abused skin, light brown eyeliner paired with soft layers of deep purple shadow to bring out the chocolate brown of my eyes, and a small amount of blush to make me look less like the walking dead.

I couldn't believe the change from earlier this afternoon. While still a little thin, I looked like Bella again. Hell, I looked better than Bella.

Alice chattered incessantly. From the moment I sat down to let her play to the moment I was slipping on a pair of low, black pumps and rushing out the door, I never had a chance to think, much less ruminate on anything. As soon as I was settled and we were on our way, I realized how good it felt. To have Alice talk off my ear, well, that was questionable, but something had lifted; it was a weight off of my shoulders that made me feel as light as the folds of my very perfect dress.

Of course, now that we were on our way, my mind began to wonder again, and I felt a small snag of discomfort as I ran into something unusual. Alice had never mentioned where we were going tonight. Usually, she was more than thrilled to chatter excitedly for hours on end about the gatherings she attended of the rich and famous Who's Who of Atlanta socialites. The names of the hosts of this particular party had not been forthcoming.

"Alice?" I turned in her direction, interrupting her as she trailed off to take a breath.

"Mmhmm?"

I tasted the words on my tongue, trying to phrase them delicately in the new light of my recent discoveries.

"Did you ever mention where we were going tonight?"

She smiled confusedly. "A party, Bella, remember?"

"No, I remember that part, but …" I trailed off, turning further in my seat to face her. "Did you ever mention whose party we were going to?" I watched her complexion fade a bit at my question.

"No." Her hands gripped harder on the steering wheel. The small snag in my stomach turned into a knot of fear.

"Alice … whose party are we going to?"

Oooh ... yeah, I know it's a cliffhanger, sorry! *Hides in corner* Please don't throw anything too hard!

Will you forgive me if I promise you a present? Yeah? Well, guess what ... I'm gonna do just that!

Because Treward just won't shut up and really wants his version of the story known too, I'll be starting Mini Moments with Treward as a gift to those who review! Sorry guys, not trying to bribe you into reviewing, but that's just the only way I know of to get in touch with those I know are reading. Don't worry! If you're not a reviewer, I'll eventually be posting these in a separate story, an addendum, if you will, but for right now, they are a treat for reviewers only!

So, let me know your thoughts (hate Bella, love Bella, want to give Bella a hard drink and throttle her ;P) and Treward will let you into his head at the end of last chapter, for his unjust rejection and his stolen kiss! Much love!