CHAPTER EIGHT- "Pressure," by Paramore
I was curled up on my bedroom floor, slowly falling to pieces. My arms were wrapped around me, my hands ripping at my bare skin. My fingertips scraped unsuccessfully across my chest, trying to reach the black hole that was threatening to destroy me from the inside out. My breath stayed inside my lungs, despite the pathetic whimpers that jumped from my lips every few moments. The ghostly words of my past echoed through the room, louder, even, than the CD I had blasted at a deafening level.
"I heard he left you. Said he didn't want you, that you weren't good enough for him."
"Bella, remember when we had that conversation about imprinting?"
"It will be as if I never existed."
It had been a long time since I'd had to hold myself together. Sure, there had been moments where I had to catch my breath or wait a minute before moving again, but I hadn't had one as bad as all this since I left Forks. And the stupidest thing was that I'd brought this one on myself. I was the one who turned on the music.
Normally, when I had these episodes, I'd put on loud music, like the CD Phil had given me so long ago. But this time, my world was crashing all around me to the sound of a lullaby. Mine.
"You're going to their house. Edward will be playing the piano," I'd told myself. "It probably wouldn't be a good thing if I suddenly fell to the floor as soon as he started playing." So, being the idiot I am, I took a deep breath and turned on the CD I'd found under my floorboards so long ago.
Which, of course, overpowered my bravery and reduced me to a whimpering ball on the floor. I laid there for the longest time until my breathing slowed and the exhaustion washed over me, making me too tired to even hurt. It would be a miracle if I made it through the entire Christmas without crumpling into pieces.
After a while of listening to Esme's Favorite, I suddenly realized that there was somebody knocking on my door. Door. Mine. Somebody knocking. Despite the fading ache in my core, I jumped off of the ground and threw myself at the front door. I never got visitors. I hadn't had one since Edward, and before that, never.
"Who is it?" I said through the door, putting my hand on the doorknob.
I was already opening the door when my visitor called back, "It's Alice and Jasper!"
"Huh?" Opening it the rest of the way, I found myself face-to-face with my once-best-friend. My eyes switched back and forth from the pixie-like girl to the tall blond in the driver's seat of the car, and my right arm snaked around my torso. "What are you guys doing here?"
"I have some last-minute Christmas shopping to do," Alice began, giving me a bright smile. "And we wanted to know if you wanted to join us."
"Alice, I... Um..." I lowered both my eyes and my voice. "I don't know if I can afford presents for everybody."
I don't know what I expected, but it certainly wasn't for her to burst into hysterical laughter. She had one arm holding her side, the other against the door frame as she leaned against it. Jasper, in the car, was pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to suppress his own laughter.
"You think..." Alice began between gasps of air. "That we invited you over because we wanted presents?" She could barely get the sentence out before she dissolved into giggles once more. "Bella, we want you to come over so we can spend time with you."
If I'd been human, I would have flushed a pretty shade of red, but instead, I just smiled shyly. "Can I have five minutes to get dressed?"
Alice, still grinning from her fits of laughter, looked me up and down. "Sure. I'll help." She then turned to the car. "Give us one second, Jasper. Now," she gently pushed me inside. "Let's get you out of those pajamas."
She dragged me through the house, finding her way to my bedroom. "Okay," Alice pulled my closet doors open and quickly picked out a knee-length khaki skirt and a dark green sweater. As I tugged them on, she got on her knees and pulled out a pair of dark brown boots. I kept my shoes in the same place I'd kept them since I was twelve.
"Alright, come on." she said, waving me forward. "I'll do your hair in the car." I followed her back outside, not bothering to lock the door, and got into the backseat of Jasper's shiny, black car with her.
"Hello, Bella," Jasper said calmly, and I'm sure he was testing the air, feeling out my emotions.
"Hi, Jasper," I responded. "Always nice to see you."
Alice made a sound of mock surprise. "And what am I? A dog?"
"Of course not," Jasper grinned, pulling out of my long driveway and turning onto the outer street. "Dogs are a bit furrier."
I smiled, feeling a little more comfortable than I had a few minutes ago. But that probably had something to do with Jasper.
"Okay," Alice said, and she pulled me closer. "Turn around and pull out that pony tail."
I did as she instructed, taking my hair down and slipping the rubber band on my wrist.
"Ew." Alice wrinkled her nose as she began running her fingers through my brown locks. "Rubber bands destroy your hair. We'll buy some actual holders for you at the mall."
"I haven't had a problem with them," I mumbled absentmindedly as I watched the scenery begin to blur. Her fingers were working quickly, gently tugging my hair into a French braid down the back of my head. Panic began to surge through me as my thoughts wandered toward Christmas, but it was quickly extinguished by Jasper.
It took all of five minutes to get to the mall, and all of five seconds to get Alice across the parking lot and into a designer store. She asked me my opinion of about ten different bags before she gave up and moved onto a rack of sunglasses. Jasper stood awkwardly by the register, probably trying to ignore the gossip of three teenage girls in the far corner of the store.
"Do you think Rosalie would like these?" Alice asked me, slipping a pair of too-big sunglasses on.
"Of course not," Jasper muttered. "They'd cover her face."
"Shut up," Alice said, but the smile on her face proved that she didn't mind his comment too much. It made me giggle.
"Gasp!" Alice said, still wearing the glasses. She sounded like a human teenager when she said that. "Did Bella just laugh?"
I instantly hid my smile. "No," I muttered, wandering off towards a wall of hideous but expensive shoes. It was rude of me, I knew, but I still couldn't find it in myself to forgive them, and I didn't want Alice thinking she'd win me over so easily.
"What did I say?" I heard her ask her husband.
"Don't worry about it," his bass voice replied, and I made a show of crossing my arms and staring at a pair of strappy sandals.
"But-"
"We'll talk about it later," he murmured, and I heard her sigh with frustration.
I hated making anybody feel upset, or like they were walking on glass around me, but I just wasn't ready to wholly accept them back into my life. They were the ones who had left. Was it so wrong of me to want to decide for myself if I wanted them back?
I drifted back towards them after a few minutes, and Alice would continue to ask my opinions on certain items. Eventually, she decided on a diamond necklace for Rosalie and an expensive-looking watch for Carlisle.
"Is there a furniture store somewhere in here?" Alice asked me as we were leaving the store, much to the gossipy girls' dismay.
"Somewhere," I sighed, looking around. "I think there's one down that way."
"Great," Alice said with a smile. "Jazz, would you mind going upstairs to pick up Esme and Carlisle's order?"
He nodded and gave me a half-smile before disappearing into the Christmas Rush.
"So, anyways," Alice said as we dodged through crowds to reach the store I'd pointed towards. "How's it going? Anything exciting happen since the last time we really talked?"
I could tell she was really making an effort to reach out to me, but my self-defense system made me automatically say, "I lost the only two men who ever really loved me. You?" I immediately felt bad for saying it, but I didn't apologize or take it back.
She looked away, running a hand through her hair and biting her lip. "Um. I lost my best friend. And almost lost my brother."
"That sucks," I said. "What happened?"
Alice looked up at me from beneath her eyelashes, and she seemed to catch my drift. There would be no direct conversations for a while. "Well," she sighed, adjusting her bag on her wrist as we ducked into the furniture store. "They were dating, my brother and my best friend, and they were crazy in love."
I nodded, as if I was hearing this story for the first time.
"My brother's a vampire, as you know, but my best friend was a human, and he was stupid. He thought that she would live a fuller, happier life without him or any other vampire interruptions. So- out of his love for her- he convinced us to leave town. We idiotically went along with everything he said, not necessarily agreeing, but doing as he asked either way."
"Okay, I'm following," I said as I fell into a cushioned chair. She moved on, looking at bachelor chests, and I watched her as she continued with her story as if she were telling a stranger.
"So basically, it sucked." She shrugged. "I missed her all the time, and my brother left. He would go around and practice his tracking, trying to find some vampire who wanted my best friend dead."
A cold shiver slid down my spine, and I shook my head as if to shake it off.
"And then one day," Alice continued. "I got a vision of her trying to kill herself, jumping off of this huge cliff into the ocean. In the middle of the storm, of all things. So, we all freaked out, and it got around to my brother that she was dead. He went insane and tried to kill himself. Me and my sister got there just in time to take him down and drag his sorry ass home."
She sighed, bending down and looking at the detailing on a waist-high chest. "After that, he was just like a lump on a couch. He wouldn't go hunting until Emmett- my other brother- literally slung him over his shoulder and strapped him into the car. He never talked to anybody, and he rarely came out of his room. He never did anything until we came to this one place in Michigan.
"Apparently, my best friend hadn't killed herself. Or at least she tried and failed. But she was a vampire, somehow, and she was teaching the classes we'd enrolled in. And I don't know..." Alice shrugged. "She's just so distant now. And any time I try to talk to her about it, she gets so touchy, like I'm poking at a bruise or ripping off a band-aid."
"Hmm." I tried to get comfortable in the chair, but the cushion felt like a rock. "Maybe she just needs time. A lot probably happened in the time you guys were gone. And then you just pop back in? That'd be a lot to handle."
"I guess you're right," she said, nodding. "I guess it is a little unreasonable for us to expect her to welcome us with open arms. I'd just hoped we could go back to the way things were, you know?"
"You can never go back to the way things were." I told her solemnly. "That's what makes them what they were. The only thing you can do is try and make the best of what's happening now."
"That's good advice," Alice finally looked at me, smiling. "Who said that?"
I tried to keep her eye contact, but the sincerity in them made me look away. "The second one I lost."
"Oh." We were both quiet as she looked over another chest. "What do you think of this one? Esme's redoing the family room, and she's been looking for something like this."
I looked over at it. It was to her hips, made of a light-colored wood. There were four drawers- two in both rows, and it had some fancy carving around the edges. "Hmm." I paused, biting my lip. "It'd be better if it were stained darker."
Alice looked down at it, running a finger across the grain. "Maybe you're right." She summoned a salesman and murmured a question to him.
I stood, brushing invisible dust off my skirt. My arms folded over my chest, I caught Alice's eye and mouthed that I'd be outside. She nodded and disappeared into her conversation once again. Roaming outside, I found a empty wall near a soda machine and leaned against the it, sliding down until I was sitting.
Alice definitely wasn't very shy about saying that Edward loved me. In fact, it was possible that we hadn't had one conversation yet that didn't include him. It didn't bother me so much when she talked about him loving me in the past- it was the past, always different from everybody's point of view. If you ask somebody about an event, they'll give you a story different than what someone else said.
But what bothered me was when she said that he still loved me, that things could so easily fall back into place. Who was she to assume that all my pain, everything I'd gone through since they'd left, could disappear and be easily resolved? Sure, she stood on the sidelines as Edward went through his depression, but where was she when things went downhill with Jacob? When I had to watch my mother burst into tears while packing up my stuff, just to see her return weeks later to pack up Charlie's? Where was she when I nearly killed two children in my first wave of bloodlust? Still assuming that I was happy in my afterlife.
I found myself staring at a pair of plain, white tennis shoes.
I looked up, seeing Jasper standing over me. He didn't say anything, just tossed the two bags he was holding against the wall and sat down next to me. "Alice..." he began, folding his arms over his chest and looking into the dense crowd of Christmas shoppers. "Can be... less than delicate... when it comes to dealing with fragile situations."
"I know," I mumbled, staring off to the side.
"She can't see you, you know." He glanced at me, only to look away again a second later. "In her visions, I mean."
This surprised me, and my eyes widened a bit. "She can't? Why not?"
"We don't know. But ever since she got that vision of you jumping off that cliff, she's never been able to get a clear picture of you." He stretched his long legs out, sighing. "That's why she never knows the right thing to say. She can usually see how somebody will react, but without her visions to rely on, she's as blind and clueless as the rest of us." He chuckled. "Well. The rest of them."
"Them?" I asked, looking at his profile and raising an eyebrow. "You're not included?"
"I think I may have a better picture of you than anybody else in my family. Just because I can feel your emotions, know how you're feeling when people bring up certain subjects." He gave me a slight grin. "I don't know exact thoughts, like Edward would, but I know other things. See other things."
"Like what?" I challenged. "Impress me."
"Well, he said, still looking into the distance. "For one, when Alice said something about you laughing a while ago, your emotions went all screwy. First you were surprised, and then you were mad, and then you were guilty. Now, I can't tell you what brought those emotions on, but I knew enough to tell her to ease up."
I nodded to let him know I was still listening.
"And then another thing. Whenever she or I say Edward's name- like just now- you tense up, whether you realize it or not. It's real subtle, but your shoulders come forward a little bit, you instantly look away, and your hands twitch like you want to find something to hold on to."
"Very..." I paused. "Perceptive." Did I really give that much away? I thought I had been so good at covering things up.
He gave a short laugh. "I get to be that way sometimes."
We were quiet for a long time as we waited for Alice to come out of the store. People passed by, holding on to toddlers' hands, balancing purses and bags and cups of eight-dollar coffee, completely unaware of the two vampires sitting not three feet away. They were so caught up in their own lives, in their own shopping trips, that they didn't even take the time to pay attention to the world they thought they knew so well.
There was a crinkling noise next to me, and I looked down to see Jasper handing me a thin, plain-covered book. I silently took it, reading the title- "The Truth"- to myself. Pursing my lips, I flipped through it, finding poems written in old English. I stopped on one, reading it through, and smiled slightly. It was signed, "The Debtor."
"He's an amazing author," Jasper said, almost as if he were thinking aloud. "I can find you more, if you want."
I nodded my thanks, flipping the page to read another one. "You know, Jasper," I said as I closed the book and hugged it close. "I never blamed you. For my birthday party, I mean."
"Doesn't matter."
His statement was so plain and bold that my jaw actually dropped.
He grinned at me. "It's impossible not to blame people- it's in our nature, human or not. In fact, you probably blame yourself." He had me there. "But what's not impossible is for us to forgive, without even giving it thought. That's what you did, because you cared about me and my family. You forgave on reflex. Esme calls it a heart-jerk reaction."
"I still do," I said without thinking. "Care, I mean."
"I know." Jasper murmured. "We all do. But this isn't a heart-jerk reaction. We're still waiting to be forgiven."
