A/N: Switchin' it up. I like Edward POV best because his mind is really funny to me. Hope you like. Smeyer owns and I don't.

EPOV

Alice had been sulking around like a lazy bitch for almost three days. Well, technically, just two, but something happened Sunday night that shut her up. Most people would have been thankful, considering Alice was loud and pretty much ADHD every single god-forsaken day. But something was off. It made my stomach do little flips and shit, and I didn't like being so uneasy.

I'd pounded on her door Sunday evening because Esme kept bugging me about setting the damned table, and Carlisle always said that the girls were supposed to do that stuff. I knew it was impolite to objectify women like that-I wasn't born an asshole. But I wanted to go out back and play catch with Emmett and setting tables was never my forte. When I swung her door open she was just sitting there, staring at her knees, all lethargic and sluggish. I didn't even have enough time to blink before the woman threw her shoe at my face. And then threw the other one when I didn't leave immediately. So she seemed pretty normal then…and she seemed fine after Carlisle bitched us out and made her go help Esme just as I'd hoped.

"And as for you, Edward, stop with the fucking cussing," he'd said before trotting back down the hallway to his office. I snickered at his retreating back. Good example, Carlisle. He managed to slip in an expletive while encouraging me not to use such things. My dad wasted away in his study for hours each night after getting home from work. I remember when I was younger I'd stare at that door, hating it. Every time he came home and locked himself away in there, I'd sit on the floor against the wall across from it and stare it down. I know it seems stupid to hate an inanimate object, but I did anyways. The door was thick and heavy, and I could almost hear it laughing at me as it concealed my father's face so I couldn't see him. I wanted him to just…hang out with me. I always had around two or three hours before Esme would make me go to sleep that he had the opportunity to get to know me, but he would just run to that office and I wouldn't see him until the following night unless I was lucky enough to run into him in the kitchen before school the next morning.

In the fifth grade, Alice and I had this thing at school where we had to invite a parent to come, and everyone in the class was all excited for their parents with cool, impressive jobs to come in and basically brag for ten minutes. Esme showed up with her design assistant, Javier, who was completely gay and liked to 'bedazzle' all of his clothes with rhinestones and shit. The boys in class laughed at me when my mom talked about couch upholstery and this one time when she flew to LA to renovate some famous person's living room. Their dads were firemen and accountants and one kid's dad was even a fucking mailman, but at least their dads took the time off to show up. Carlisle had mumbled an apology, patting me on the head dismissively as he shuffled out the door. "Sorry," he'd said, looking around for his briefcase, "there's just too much I have to do that day. Maybe next year."

There wasn't a next year. In middle school, there aren't ridiculous things like "Career Day." And I wanted to tell him that, but I swallowed back the lump of ice that had formed in the hollow of my throat and forced a smile. He never even looked at me.

Now that Alice wasn't upstairs to irritate and I was pretty much forbidden from rummaging through her belongings, I was out of things to do. I could have always defied Carlisle and went through her drawers anyhow, but my car was in Carlisle's name as was my college tuition fund. So I settled for the next best thing.

"Emmett! Where are you?" I called down the hall.

"In your room," his voice boomed from the third floor. I tried not to be irritated that he was in my room without permission. It would only be hypocrisy, as breaking into Alice's was my latest hobby. My room and Esme's storage room were the only ones on the third story, which made my frequent co-ed sleepovers and my smoking habit a kept secret. Emmett had his feet up on my gold comforter when I entered, not having even bothered to remove his shoes.

"Get your dirty shoes off my bed, douche bag," I growled, swatting at his muddy sneakers. He snickered, moving back just enough to miss my flying fist. To my great surprise, he complied.

"We still going to Jasper's tomorrow?" he asked, raising a thick, dark eyebrow.

"I guess. We have nothing else to do," I shrugged, opening a window to let a little light come into my dark room. Fucking storm. A lot of people from school were still on vacation, soaking up as much sun as possible the week before returning back to the cursed Forks High School.

"Be more enthusiastic, bro," Emmett sighed, stretching back on my bed. I plopped down on my sofa across the room, leaning my cheek against my hand. "It's not everyday you get the excuse of going to your friend's house just to look at his hot ass sister," he added with a smirk. I almost choked.

"Wait, excuse me?" I asked in a strangled voice. "Are you talking about Rosalie?"

"Does Jasper have another hot ass sister that I could be talking about? Because if he does, then that would fucking rock." Emmett let out a bellowing laugh, putting his hands behind his head.

"Emmett," I said, my eyes still wide with shock, "Rose is Alice's best friend. That's really creepy. Plus, Rose is a bitch." Emmett absolutely could not be interested in Rosalie Hale. Rosalie was my age, and had been friends with Alice since we were all little. To top it all off, Jasper was Emmett's and my friend. It was just fucked from the beginning. Emmett laughed again. The kid laughed too much.

"A bitch, I can handle. I'm not really concerned." He was just so confident. Rosalie was cynical, more so than anyone I'd ever known. She'd put gum in my hair once when I was twelve because I'd told her she looked pretty. "You're supposed to tell me that I look beautiful," she'd corrected, pressing a big, pink wad of bubblegum above my right ear. Esme had had to cut it out. But, in her defense, she was a really good friend to Al. She beat the crap out of Emmett and me after we harassed Alice's boyfriend when we were thirteen. Literally. It was weird how strong she was.

"This is…sudden," I said pointedly, deciding on the exactly right word to use. I began thoughtlessly sketching on a pad of paper.

"Eh, not really," he protested, crossing his ankles, his big toe sticking out through a hole in his sock. "Rose has always had it goin' on. I just decided to grow some and try it with her." I had to laugh at his words; they were so thoughtless.

"As long as you think it's a good idea…" I trailed off. Emmett was going to do what Emmett wanted to do, and nothing that I could say or do would change that.

"I think that it's a very, very good idea."

"Hey!" I yelled down the stairs, "What's going on with the whole dinner thing?" No one answered. It was eight, almost an hour and a half after Alice had gone downstairs to set the table. It was all really weird. The house was completely silent, other than Em's soft snores coming from my bed. It pissed me off. He had his own fucking bed to sleep in. I padded down the stairs, figuring they couldn't hear me all the way on the first floor.

"Hello? Dinner?" I hollered from the balcony. But the kitchen was still and empty. The entire floor was. The weird part was that there was a big salad bowl and all these little chopped-up vegetables just sitting there. The table was half-set, and a pitcher of water was sweating in the center of our round kitchen table. Alice's door was shut, and so was the study door that I so hated. I descended the winding staircase slowly, passing my mom and dad's bedroom on the way to the kitchen. I rapped on its double doors softly with my knuckles.

"Mom?" I called softly. "Esme? Are you in there?" No answer. Weird.

I made my rounds downstairs, even poking my head out the back door to the deck in case, for some reason, Esme had decided to soak up-literally-some wind and rain outdoors. I decided not to annoy Alice, considering I'd pissed her off so thoroughly earlier. And even if I'd wanted to go see Carlisle, the study doors held me back.

"Well, Em, we're on our own for food," I sighed, leaning against my doorway. He let out a great snort as he broke out of his nap, rolling over to stare at me drowsily.

"Hm?" he hummed, leaning up.

"Esme and Alice appear to have ditched on dinner. The house is like a fucking ghost town. Mom's locked her door and Alice and Dad are up to their own shenanigans," I shrugged. "We can order pizza or something."

Emmett was all too eager for the pizza idea, opting to call the pizza place on his cell, considering the house phones still weren't working. When the pizza got to the house, Esme had at some point left a blank check on the table by the front door. I briefly considered just paying for the pizza with my own cash and saving the blank check for a more worthy cause, but what was left of my weathered conscience got the best of me.

"Weird," Emmett commented as he shoved a steaming slice into his mouth, "that everyone seems to be M.I.A." I nodded thoughtfully.

The next morning seemed back to normal. Emmett bounded into my room--uninvited, once again--all eager to get to the Hale's house. I wondered what Alice would think when she caught him making googly eyes at her best friend. The thought alone made me laugh.

I dressed in a hurry, anxious to get out of the house. The rain had subsided just a little bit, but it still made me hopeful. Esme's smiling face welcomed me into the kitchen, but it didn't escape my notice that the smile failed to touch her eyes.

"What was with the ghost town last night?" I asked, glancing up at her between bites of pancake.

"What?" she asked as she reached for a mug in the cabinet. I knew she had heard me.

"Last night. No dinner. Blank check. Ring a bell?" I didn't want to play games.

"Oh. That. I was just…tired," she breathed, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "Want some?"

"Yeah, thanks," I said before taking a scorching gulp. "Damn it," I cursed, fanning my tongue. She giggled. I tried not to let the burnt-tongue incident distract me from getting to the bottom of Esme's evasiveness.

"So you mean to tell me that you left a cutting board piled with vegetables on the counter and plates on the table and just skipped out on making dinner altogether because you were tired?" I cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.

"I mean, yeah," she murmured, her eyebrows pulling together, "I had a long day." So she was lying to me. And I knew she wasn't going to tell me the truth, at least not now. So I let it drop.

"Alice, Emmett, and I are going to hang with Jasper and Rose today," I said nonchalantly, knowing her ears would perk when she heard Alice and Jasper's names mentioned in the same sentence. Strangely, her face fell and she frowned.

"Oh," she flushed, "you're bringing Alice with you? How nice. And Rosalie, too?" She finished off her coffee and put the mug in the sink.

"Yeah. Em and I figure we leave her out too much. And Emmett seems to want to be wherever Rose is these days…"

"You make sure to only say nice things about Alice whenever you're around Jasper, okay, honey?" she said, forcing a smile. Something was still off. "But I don't know if Alice will come today. She's feeling a little bit under the weather." Her eyes darted down to her empty mug by the drain, a deep line forming on her forehead. Huh. Alice had seemed fine last night. I'd just go bug her and talk her into coming. It was unlike her to deny the opportunity to stare at Jasper's skinny ass, sick or not.

It was no secret that Al adored Jasper. Every time I so much as mentioned his name, her head snapped towards me in attention. She feigned apathy, but I knew from the way her tone changed whenever she mentioned him that she was enamored.

"Sure, Mom. I'll make her out to be Mother Theresa, no worries." She threw an oven mitt at my face, which wore a shameless, shit-eating smile.

"I'm serious, Edward!" she laughed, scooping a mountain of pancakes on a plate for Emmett when he entered the kitchen. It didn't escape me that her sudden enthusiasm seemed put on. Emmett began scarfing them up without a word. Esme opened her mouth slowly, undoubtedly trying to figure out how to begin the Rosalie/Emmett interrogation, but I eyed her carefully, hoping that she would telepathically realize that she wasn't supposed to know anything about his huge crush on Super-Bitch. That woman must have either been a genius or we did share some sort of telepathy, because she snapped her mouth shut and smiled.

I knocked on Alice's door at noon since I hadn't seen her pawing through my drawers in our shared bathroom or heard her complaining about things as of yet like she usually did. I figured I'd try and give her a head start to look 'hot' or whatever for Jasper, although I couldn't understand why she liked him. Honestly, Jasper was downright creepy. He had this wild blonde hair that looked like he permed it and he was so rail thin that he looked sick. But Alice always liked the artsy boys that would let her play dress-up with them, and Jasper was already emasculated as it was so it seemed almost rational that he was Alice's latest conquest. At least Jasper was my friend, so I wouldn't feel motivated to rub pink icing in his hair.

I tapped at her door politely, trying not to rub salt in the wounds I'd ripped open by intruding in on her last night. "Alice?" I called, "Mom says you're not coming to hang out at Jasper's with Emmett and me today. Change your mind?" I expected her to chirp right up. Of course I'm coming, Dickward! or I'll be down in a second, keep your panties on! But, instead I got…nothing. Weird. This whole fucking house was just plain weird. Reluctantly, I tried the doorknob. Alice would probably kick me. But I knew that if I didn't trying breaking-and-entering, she's miss the little play date…and then kick me. So both ways, I was screwed. But strangely, door was locked for once.

I jogged down the stairs, Emmett already waiting impatiently by the front door and dangling his keys to the Jeep.

"Bye, Esme," I said, pecking her cheek.

"Where's Alice?" Emmett asked, glancing at his watch and then back at me. "We're supposed to be at the house now. The movie starts in a little over an hour and it's a fifty minute drive to Port Angeles."

"I told you. Alice can't come," Esme mumbled, turning and darting into the kitchen. I was fucking tired of her acting all strange like that. I was going to talk to her when we got home. But right then, I had to leave and watch Emmett stare at Rosalie Hale's ass.

Lo and behold, Em managed to slide his tongue down Rose's throat within the first twenty minutes of the movie. Jasper and I just sat awkwardly beside them, fidgeting and exchanging pointed glances.

"Do you fucking mind?" Jasper hissed, giving them his famous stare down. He looked creepy beneath the light of the big screen, his silvery blonde hair fanning out from his face like a lion's mane.

"Shut up Jasper," Emmett growled, grabbing a clump of Rose's hair between his fingers.

"That's my fucking sister, dude," Jasper said more sternly, jabbing a finger into Emmett's shoulder.

"Then leave, man," Emmett murmured distractedly.

So we did. Jasper and I got the hell out of there. We could have taken the car, considering Jasper had the keys, but we weren't big enough assholes to the extent of leaving Em and Rose an hour away from home with no transportation. We settled onto a bench outside the little hole-in-the-wall theater. Jasper's knuckles were clenched, and his teeth were gritted together.

"That was really fucking disgusting," he snarled, almost roaring.

"Whoa, man. Calm down. Let's talk about something else," I said nervously, because Jasper was really tall and really scary. I couldn't picture him with my sister, what with her being tiny and sunshine-y all the time.

"Like what?" He spat, eying me suspiciously.

"Like…um…my sister?" It came out as a question. His face softened infinitesimally.

"What about her?" he asked, his voice on the verge of calm.

"Well, what do you think?" This was beyond weird. I felt like I was pimping my own flesh and blood.

"She's cute. I mean, yeah. I'm not trying to make fucking advances on your sister like your fucking brother just did when he pawed my sister right in fucking front of me." His voice roughened, erasing all progress he'd made since attempting to calm down. I felt the need to defend Emmett, but I couldn't think of a plausible argument and I was trying to help Alice out to make up for being such a douche earlier.

"Yeah, um, sorry for that. It's not his fault. He was dropped on the head as a child." Jasper laughed, and I decided joking was the best way to loosen him up. So maybe I could escape with my life. "Anyways, I guess what I'm trying to say is you should ask her out or something."

"I don't really know her much. When she comes over to spend the night with Rose she stays up and talks to me sometimes. She's pretty cool. Why do you mention her?"

Because she's obsessed with you. Because I read in her diary that she wants to fuck you, which is kind of gross but whatever. Because she stares at you all the time.

"I don't know. Just a hunch."

"Well, I'll think about it. Maybe. I just, uh, I don't date. Often."

I heard a trace of something in his voice. Could it have been…embarrassment?

"You should. Al is irritating sometimes but she's a lot of fun. I think she likes you." I scratched the back of my neck, rustling my messy hair further into dishevelment.

"Hm," he hummed pensively, looking to his scuffed boots. "I'll think about it," he repeated.

"Okay," I said, and I immediately wished I hadn't. It was such a stupid thing to say, such a half-ass conclusion to a conversation that was fucking stupid in the first place. "Just don't say anything to her about this, alright? She'll hit me," I laughed, realizing how queer I sounded.

"Yeah, sure."

The ride home was silent, and Jasper took his aggression out on the steering wheel. His grip was unrelenting, and his jaw was in a hard line as he stared out the windshield with pure hatred in his dark blue eyes. Rose and Em sat in the back, having the nerve to hold hands and occasionally sending each other text messages in fear of audibly speaking. That shit was so juvenile. I tried fiddling with Jasper's iPod that was plugged into the tape player, but it just seemed to piss him off. I made a mental note to never try anything with Rosalie Hale.

My house was still a ghost house when we got home, and the rain was still pounding down just as hard as it was Thursday after school before my dad picked me up. Em tried talking to Alice again that night before bed prior to Esme telling him to leave her alone. What was the deal? It wasn't just curiosity anymore, it was unadulterated annoyance.

"What's going on, Esme?" I asked firmly. I rarely called her Esme, except for when she was really pissing me off. Like when she accidentally washed my whites with colors, thus turning all of my undershirts pink, and other stupid shit like that.

"Alice is still sick, Edward. Leave her be," she whispered softly, trying not to disturb her as we walked down the hall towards the staircase leading to the third floor. "By the way, can you and Emmett cancel any plans you have for Wednesday?"

"What? Why? Jasper and I were going to some party at this Angela girl's house. Sort of like a school year kick-off and whatnot." Sort of like a my-parents-aren't-home-so-let's-get-plastered kick-off and whatnot.

"You can still go if you'd like. Just nothing during the day. Your father wants to take you boys out on the boat." I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Dad? Wants to hang out?" I was incredulous. I'm fairly sure my jaw was lying on the floor.

"Yeah. Try not to be so shocked, alright? But he wants you stay at home for the afternoon."

I tried to piece together some sort of logical reasoning for such an occasion, but I got nothing. Emmett was going to be a senior, but that didn't exactly deserve a day with Daddy on the boat. Plus all three of us started school late, so we were starting our junior and senior years at older than a majority of the kids. So that was also undeserving of Dear Daddy's attention. It was also so unlike him to even consider missing a day at the hospital. He was more married to his work than he was to Esme. I was puzzled.

"Um, okay," was all I could muster before climbing the stairs to my bedroom. I tried to come up with a list of reasons that my dad was finally taking a sudden interest in 'bonding' with Emmett and I. Most of them involved homicide, a few including drug scandals and a couple having to do with prostitutes or even all three. Crack cocaine was on the mind as I crept into unconsciousness.

That night, I dreamt that my father pushed me over the railing of his boat. I shuttered as I brushed my teeth the next morning. It sounded like something he might do.

A/N: I wish I could just have Alice tell Edward right away. It's sad knowing what's going on with Carlisle before he does, but it will all work out in due time.