Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer, but Slutward is a product of my own imagination playing around with her perfect Edward.
4. Avoidance and Disappointment
The next two weeks passed in a blur. When I wasn't working the floor I was hanging out with or checking in on Andy. Andy's room was party central with the guys and me floating in and out all day long. Even the other Femmes began dropping in to say hi.
Edward, however, was avoiding me like the plague. Anytime I would drop in he would miraculously have somewhere else to be and would disappear into the hallway, not returning until after I was gone. We never talked about that morning in Andy's room and the kiss that shook the very foundations of our friendship. Andy gave me a hard time about it whenever we were alone, calling me out for being chicken shit. He thought that the two of us needed to get over this whole Junior High immaturity thing and talk like the honest to god adults that we were supposed to be. He was right; I was chicken shit about talking to Edward because where right now we were in friendship limbo, I was terrified that if we actually ended up talking about it that we would go from limbo to destruction. I just couldn't bear the thought of that…so instead I followed his lead in avoidance.
Two days after sending off Ethan's blood work I received the cancer screening results which thankfully were also negative. Well, I say thankfully, but in a way it wasn't the best news. There was only one test left, the results of which I was dreading the most because I suspected bad news.
The other possible option that could account for his frequent trips to the ER had also crossed my mind, but I had quickly dismissed it in favor of a medical answer. Most doctors, when looking at Ethan's file, would have immediately jumped to possible abuse. It was not uncommon for children to come into the ER on a regular basis with stories that matched up with Ethan's. Falling out of a bed or hitting their faces on door knobs when in reality the youngster was actually being beaten by a family member. Often in those cases the children are withdrawn and their stories seem shaky or contrived while the parent seems jumpy or overly loving. None of these things were the case with Ethan and his mother. Granted I had never met his father, or any other family members, but Ethan's personality in and of itself was not that of a child who was being beaten down. When he shared his numerous stories of woe he would always look me straight in the eye and his story would never change or waiver.
As the two week mark approached, I began checking Ethan's chart daily to see if the results had returned, thinking somehow my request to be informed had not been passed on and I missed it. But every day his file remained unchanged.
It was two weeks to the day that I finally got the page indicating that his results were ready. I was lounging in Andy's room after a grueling sixteen hours in the pit, having chased Edward out of the room only ten minutes before. I jumped when the pager began to vibrate in my right pants pocket, resulting in the boys laughing at me when it nearly made me fall out of my chair. I shook my head as I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it seeing a request to call the lab. I gulped and took a deep breath leaving the boys to all look at me strangely.
"Hey Andy, can I use your phone for a sec? I need to call the lab for some results. You're not expecting your parents to call or anything are you?"
"Oh no Bells, go right ahead." He replied with a warm smile.
I heard the phone ringing on the other line and I had to fight to keep down the bile I felt rising in my throat. Finally on the third ring a young lady answered. "Hi, this is Dr. Swan. I'm calling for the results of the DNA profile for Ethan Lancaster."
"Oh, just one moment please Dr. Swan," the girl replied hastily before putting me on hold to listen to the monotonous piano concerto. Normally the music was calming and I really didn't mind listening to it, but today I was anxious. One of the boys told a joke and they all broke into loud laughter. I turned to shush them when I heard the music abruptly stop indicating the girl was back on the line.
"I have it here Dr. Swan. Is there anything in particular you were looking at for this?"
"Yes, I need to know if there was an indication of Osteogenesis Imperfecta." I held my breath as I waited for the lab tech to scan the results.
"Yes Dr. Swan, the patient in question's profile did indicate the potential for OI." My heart fell into my feet and I could feel the moisture collecting in my eyes as I tried to force it away.
"Thank you," I replied in a robotic tone. "You're welcome Doctor." The line went dead, but I couldn't bring myself to remove it from my ear. Sweet little Ethan was going to be plagued for the rest of his life with the pain of weak and easily broken bones, and now I had to call his mother to arrange an appointment to break the terrible news. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I could taste the bitter bile that was lurking, threatening to bring my stomach contents to the surface.
I finally set the phone down and looked up to see a room full of concerned expressions. "You okay Bells?" Jasper asked from his place on the foot of Andy's bed.
"Um…, not really. I just found out that I have to share some pretty bad news with a patient who shouldn't have to hear it. Uh, okay, well, if you'll excuse me, I need to go down to the doctor's lounge and make a call."
"Okay Bells. We'll be here when you get back okay?"
"Yeah, uh, thanks." I walked in a state of numbness I made my way down the hallway to the doctor's lounge. I was not looking forward to making this call, even though I would only be telling Mrs. Lancaster that I needed her to come in for a consultation, it was still going to be heartbreaking because she will know, as all people do, that if the doctor needs you to come in, the news is not good.
I opened the door to the lounge, relieved to see that it was empty. I signed in at the computer to retrieve Mrs. Lancaster's phone number from the database. I lifted the phone from the desk with a tremor and dialed the numbers, taking a deep breath before pressing the last digit. I forced myself to breathe normally as the phone rang.
"Hello, Lancaster Residence," I heard the cheery voice of Mrs. Lancaster on the line.
"Hello Mrs. Lancaster, this is Dr. Swan calling from Northwestern Hospital."
"Oh hello Dr. Swan," the hopeful tone of her voice made my heart ache, "are the last of the lab results back?"
"Yes Mrs. Lancaster, it appears that we have discovered what is going on with little Ethan and these problems with his bones breaking. I was hoping that you could come in sometime this week so we can discuss it further."
The other end of the line dropped into a dead silence. "Dr. Swan, is it bad?"
How do I answer that question? How do you tell a mother that for the rest of his life her son will suffer the pain and agony of broken bones on a regular basis while partaking in the most basic of tasks? Thankfully Ethan seemed to have a less acute case of OI, but even then, life would never be easy for him. "It would be better to discuss the particulars with you in person. There is more going on with your son than just his lack of coordination and knowing what is causing the problem will go a long way in helping keep him from being hurt as often."
"Is that really all you are going to tell me? I was really hoping you would do better than this Dr. Swan. This is my son we are talking about!"
I bit my lip so hard that it drew blood leaving the rusty flavor on my tongue urging the bile to grow more intense in the back of my throat. "Please Mrs. Lancaster. I don't want to upset you, but I don't want to misinform you either. If you could come by tomorrow afternoon at three pm and ask the information desk to page me, Dr. Kopinski and I will discuss everything with you and fully answer all of your questions."
I heard a deep sigh on the other end of the line. "Fine, I will leave Ethan with my neighbor and be there at three."
"Thank you Mrs. Lancaster. I will see you at three." I hung up the phone and struggled to catch my breath as the tears I had managed to keep at bay refused to stay submerged any longer. Giving bad news was the worst part of my job. Suddenly the bitter bile rose up in the back of my throat. I jumped up, running into the small bathroom attached to the lounge and kneeled in front of the toilet as my stomach emptied its contents.
I flushed the toilet and sat there after wetting a paper towel and rubbing it over my face and lips. I hadn't sat there long when I heard the giggling of a girl and a male voice in the next room. I rolled my eyes knowing it was yet another sexcapade in the doctor's lounge. I don't know about all hospitals, but the ridiculous amounts of quickies that take place here make Grey's Anatomy look tame. I was just about to clear my throat to let them know I was here when I felt another wave of nausea hit me and I gagged into the toilet once more and groaned standing back up to rinse my mouth out at the sink.
"Ew, gross, someone's spewing in there," the Mensa reject whined from the next room.
The voice that answered back made my stomach ache even more and my heart felt like it was compressed down to the size of penny. "Well that definitely killed my mood Mag, we should probably get going anyway. I need to get back to Andy's room." Edward, the man-whore extraordinaire.
I was suddenly filled with total rage, I threw the door open and stalked past the duo entangled on the couch just barely noticing Edward's wide eyes as he proceeded to extract his hand from under the fabric of Maggie's red lace bra, her uniform top already dispatched to the floor.
"Bella…" he called from his place under Maggie.
"Like I said Eddie you choose them every night of the week," I sneered at him as I slammed the door to the lounge and walked as quickly as I could to the elevator without drawing undue attention, waving Emmett off as I passed him in the hall muttering that I would see him at home.
I stood tapping my foot with my arms crossed as I waited for the elevator to arrive, only to have both Emmett and Edward reach me at the same time.
"Bella, what's wrong," Emmett asked with concern in his eyes at the same time as Edward yelled "Bella, wait, it's not what you think."
I wanted to yell and scream at Edward. I wanted to grab hold of Emmett and let him hold me while I cried over all the ways that yet another day had gone to hell, but instead I just stood there staring at the doors with a blank expression. When the doors opened all I said was, "Emmett please, I will see you at home."
Edward started to step into the elevator behind me but froze mid step when I felt the compartment shift with his weight and turned to glare at him. "Don't you even dare! Leave me the fuck alone, Masen!" I growled at him low enough that only the three of us could hear.
Edward opened his mouth to argue but Emmett reached his hand to clasp on Edward's shoulder. "Dude, I think you better leave her be. Catch her later if you want to talk, but you know that look as well as I do and if you want to walk away with your balls in tact you better back off."
He took a half step back to stand next to Emmett with a pathetic look on his face. The doors closed between us, leaving me to my solitude as the sobs once again started. Why the hell did it hurt so bad to see that? I mean it's not the first time I've seen Edward in the arms of another woman, granted it was usually on a dance floor at Dooley's and fully clothed instead of half naked and ready to go at it like rabbits, but still. Of course we hadn't shared an amazing mind blowing kiss before that either.
The only other time my lips had ever touched Edward's was when I was seventeen and Jake had asked me out, but I wasn't sure how I felt about him. So, I cornered Edward and kissed him because I knew I would always remember my first kiss. I wanted my first to be with someone who I wouldn't look back at being embarrassed or regretting it. The look of shock on his face was priceless as he froze with wide eyes and then gently grasped my upper arms to pull me away. When I explained why I had done it he laughed and hugged my shoulders saying something about first kisses weren't meant for brotherly type guys. He proceeded to give me a pep talk about my first real kiss with Jacob - things I should avoid doing so I wouldn't feel as embarrassed. Of course looking back on it at this moment, I knew my rationale was very faulty because in this moment I regretted kissing him more than anything I'd ever done with Jake.
By the time the elevator opened on the ground floor I was composed enough again to walk out the front door without causing a major scene. I rushed home and went directly to the shower where I let myself go again and cried until I was all dried up. I was kicking myself for being such an emotional girl all the time lately. Normally I wasn't such a pansy ass, but this had been an exhausting month and where I could normally rein in my emotions, these past few weeks were proving to be more than I could suppress. I climbed into bed and fell asleep almost immediately as the physically and emotionally taxing day overwhelmed me.
EPOV
Okay, so I'm the first one to admit that when it comes to Bella I'm a great big coward. It's been two weeks and we still haven't discussed the whole kiss thing, but I was pretty sure that she had reached the same decision I had… It was a comfort when we were both hurting for Andy and she was afraid of losing us, so I kissed her to let her know that we were here for her. I mean it's not like it's the first time we kissed…granted she was seventeen the only other time our lips met and I didn't - couldn't return the kiss then because I knew it was so wrong on so many levels, but this was similar in some ways, right?
I am also fully willing to admit that I'm a pussy for leaving Andy's room every time Bella stopped by. I had made it a habit that if I wasn't at work or sleeping, I was visiting Andy, but that also meant that Bella inevitably walked in almost every time I was there.
The first day or so I would go hide out in the cafeteria, get a coffee or something and sit around bored for a while until I thought it was safe to go back up. By the third day I was so bored it wasn't even funny. I was sitting there considering running home for a shower when I heard a soft voice ask if she could join me. I turned to see it was one the three hot nurses from Andy's floor that I had met with Bella the morning of that fucking kiss that never should have been. I smiled and held my hand out in invitation. She sat down, introducing her self as Maggie and asked how Andy seemed to be doing to me. We sat and talked about him for the next half hour until her supper break was finished and then we walked back to the elevators rode to Andy's floor together.
After that I found myself wandering down to the nurse's station when Bella would arrive to check in and see how Maggie's day was going. It started off innocent enough; she was just a sociable girl that I could pass the time with while I was avoiding my best friend. It was the end of Andy's first week when Maggie was getting off her shift just as I left the room to avoid Bella. Maggie asked if I wanted to join her for some supper at a diner across the street before she went home. I shrugged and agreed. We ended up sitting for the next two hours talking, loosing all track of time. She was pretty and sweet and kind of funny. She wasn't overly intelligent, I mean she was smart enough to be a nurse, but that was sort of where her intellectual prowess ended, but I wasn't the smartest guy to walk the earth either so it didn't bother me any.
As I sat there talking easily with the pretty blonde girl who had been such good companionship over the past week, I thought back over what I had promised myself the night that I had escorted the drunken Bella home, it was time for me to try something new. I was going to hang up my player hat and give an actual relationship a shot, so I asked Maggie if she'd like to go out on a date sometime. She seemed quite pleased, exchanging numbers while a wide excited smile lit her face.
The next night just so happened to be her night off; we made our first date and after I got off of work I stopped in to say hi to Andy before going home to shower. I actually put in effort to attempt to tame my hair and dress nicely for the first real date I had been on in ages.
The night went very well and ended with a kiss on the cheek at her door before I went back to my apartment alone which was actually a first for me. At the very least my dates had always ended in a lot of tongue and at least a little heavy petting, but I was turning over a new leaf, I was going to be respectful.
We had two more typical dates that following week, consisting of supper after she got off of work and me walking her to her door, but each night the goodbyes would get a little bit hotter.
Today marked the one week point that Maggie and I had been seeing one another and so once again when Bella arrived I ducked out and headed down to find her sitting at the nurse's station talking to Olivia and another older nurse named Donna. She smiled up at me with a gleam in her eye when I walked up and we chatted casually with the other two before she asked me to follow her down the hall to give 1515 his meds and then she'd be able to take her break.
I waited in the hallway when she left the room and walked straight over to me wearing a sexy as hell smile as she stretched up and wrapped her arms around my neck as she whispered in my ear. "Edward, you've been the perfect gentleman for a week now, but I'm tired of chaste little kisses on my doorstep, I want you to put your hands on me and make me feel like the beautiful woman that we both know I am." Then she grabbed my hair and pulled me down into the hottest kiss we'd shared to this point.
I debated with myself for an entire half a second before my poor neglected dick, who hadn't seen any action since Bella shamed me a little over two weeks ago, decided to take over my decision making. I grabbed Maggie's ass as she moaned and began pulling me toward a door at the end of the hall that said 'Doctor's Lounge' on it.
"Uh, are we allowed to be in here?" I finally managed to get out as she ran her hands all over my body and boy was my body eating up the attention. Soft girl hands felt a lot better than my rough ones that had recently taken care of business in the shower to get me through.
She giggled, "Nobody ever uses this room, except for things like this. We'll lock the door and nobody will know the difference."
"Are you sure, I don't want you to get fired…" I couldn't finish my sentence as her hot little hand reached down the front of my pants and grasped my hard as hell dick while she lapped at my mouth with her tongue. She used her other hand to rip her uniform top over her head to reveal a red lacy bra covering a beautiful pair of D's that were most likely silicone, but who the hell am I to complain?
She pushed me on the couch grinding on me as she kissed me fiercely and my hand moved automatically to grasp at her tit under her bra and she moaned in my mouth. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was hearing that little tiny voice calling my name. Edward, this feels far too familiar. Don't be Slutward. This is no different from taking a chick home from the bar, the only difference is you've talked to her a few times first and ate a meal of two with her, but this is not the romantic first time that a real relationship should be…is it?
I was just about to open my mouth to suggest that maybe this wasn't such a good idea and we should wait until some other night when we could taking things a bit slower when the sound of someone retching from behind the closed door of the bathroom made us both jump.
"Ew, gross, someone's spewing in there," Maggie whined from on top of me and suddenly she didn't seem quite as sexy, she seemed sort of ridiculous and I felt a wave of relief that we had been interrupted knowing that while I missed sex, this wasn't what I had promised myself.
"Well that definitely killed my mood Mag, we should probably get going anyway. I need to get back to Andy's room."
Suddenly the door flew open to bang against the wall and the hurt and extremely angry face of Bella complete with red eyes and a matching red glow in her face came stomping out and across the room to the door. I looked down in horror to see that my hand was still under the cup of Maggie's bra and how bad this must have looked to her.
"Bella…" he called to her hoping to explain and ease some of her anger.
"Like I said Eddie you choose them every night of the week," she sneered at me with more venom than I have ever heard come from her voice in the seven years that I have known her. She slammed the door so hard behind her that it echoed in the room.
Maggie, who now was making me feel completely disgusting as she resumed grinding on me as if nothing had ever happened, turned my face back to hers. "Come on baby, let her go. It's time for us to do what we've both been dying to do since the first day you came up to the nurse's desk and pretended to be crazy about the mousy little doctor girl."
I snarled at her as I stood up leaving her to fall to her ass on the floor. "Well aren't you the great little actress. You're not at all who I thought you were and that "mousy doctor girl" is a thousand times the woman you will ever be. Do me a favor and don't call me again or talk to me for that matter."
I ran to the door and opened it looking down the hall trying to remember which way the elevator was and then running to find Bella. I knew she would make a bee line for the elevator trying to get home. She was so pissed, more pissed than I had ever seen. God I'm such a fuck up!
I turned the corner and saw her standing in front of the doors with her arms crossed as her foot tapped quickly against the linoleum floor. Emmett was walking up behind her and I could tell from his posture that he was in concerned brother mode. I picked up the pace in a full out run trying to get to her before the elevator arrived giving Bella the chance to escape before I could talk to her. I had to make her understand what was going on and that Maggie hadn't been what I thought her to be.
I was almost there when I heard the ding of the elevator arriving at the floor and I yelled to her, "Bella, wait, it's not what you think."
She stood there not even acknowledging Emmett. I arrived at his side just in time to hear her say, "Emmett please, I will see you at home." Her voice sounded so hollow and dead and I knew I had really screwed up this time. Bella had two angry modes, full on emotional during which she didn't pull any punches laying it all out on the table for you whether you liked it or not; she only fell into the second mode when she'd had such a bad day that she couldn't deal anymore at all. In this mode she would pretty much shut herself down turning into a zombie. It took a lot to put Bella into zombie mode and today I had totally fucking sent her there.
I went to step in next to her, determined to explain what had really happened, hoping she would see I wasn't the total and complete dick she thought I was when she spun on me with fire and hatred burning in her eyes as she growled at me. "Don't you even dare! Leave me the fuck alone Masen!"
I opened my mouth to tell her that I was sorry and that we needed to talk about this, but Emmett's strong hand clasped my shoulder keeping me from stepping all the way into the elevator with her. "Dude, I think you better leave her be. Catch her later if you want to talk, but you know that look as well as I do and if you want to walk away with your balls in tact you better back off."
I didn't want to let her go. I knew that if she just heard what I had to say that maybe she wouldn't be quite so upset, but I knew Emmett was right too, she was in zombie mode and she wouldn't really hear what I had to say anyway. She would finally get fed up and knee me in the balls and stalk off leaving me to suffer alone. I should know because she's done it to several of us, and me on more than one occasion…and spending the remainder of her teen years with us, for such a small thing she could really inflict a lot of pain.
I watched the pain and anger in her eyes feeling completely helpless as the door closed between us and I was left standing next to Emmett with his bear claw still grasping my shoulder roughly. It tightened when we both heard a loud sob through the metal doors before the compartment lowered too far away for us to hear anymore.
"What the fuck did you do to her?" Emmett's eyes were full of nearly as much anger as Bella's. I looked up at the ceiling and sighed.
"Everything is so fucked up Emmett. You don't even know."
"Well, all I know is that she was already upset enough when she left the room after calling to get some lab results and then went to the doctor's lounge to go give a patient some really bad news and then the next time I saw her she had slipped into her fucking zombie mode. Now what the hell happened between when she left us and just now?"
"Oh Emmett, you're going to fucking throw me down the elevator shaft when I'm done with this story."
I took in a deep breath as I saw his fist clench next to his side. "Well come on then, we better go back in the room because if that's really the case then we need the rest of the guys there to keep me from actually killing your ass."
He turned and stomped back down to Andy's room and sat down in the recliner by the window with his fists still balled and his arms crossed as I told the story starting with our kiss the morning Andy woke up and ending with the elevator. Looking around the room I was beginning to think that maybe Emmett had the wrong idea because Jasper, Andy, and Joey all looked like they were even more likely to pound my ass than Emmett.
I began to count in my head to see how long it would take before the onslaught began. I made it to three before all four of them began yelling at me at once calling me every name in the book and telling me what a complete and total ass I was. I knew they were right. They were all right…but I already knew this, which is why I was avoiding Bella to begin with. Things had been getting far too complicated and I had spent the last two weeks trying to figure out how to stop things from escalating and eventually hurting Bella. Unfortunately it was too late now, I had already hurt her and I fucking hated myself for it.
After ten minutes straight of listening to them yell at me Donna finally came in to tell us to be quiet shooting me a dirty look, probably having gotten an earful from Maggie upon her return from being rejected in the doctor's lounge. They finally settled down and started discussing things more rationally. They all agreed I was a hopeless fucking mess and that I was completely clueless when it came to women having seen that Maggie was a slutty bitch from the first minute they met her.
After a while they finally told me that I was going to have to give Bella some time and then find a way to talk to her and fix things and stop being such a chicken shit, pansy ass, motherfucker, the list went on for at least five more minutes before I was finally able to leave for the lonely, shameful walk home. As I passed by their building I looked up to see that Bella's lights were out and I was hoping that at the very least she was getting a good night's sleep because I was pretty sure I wouldn't.
I walked in the front door and threw my keys on the table kicking off my shoes and plopping down on the couch staring out the window into the night. My eyes shifted for a moment to the pictures that lined the top of the entertainment center. With the exception of the portrait of my parents that was taken just before my father died when I was ten, every single one had Bella in it.
I rubbed my hands over my face and through my hair with a sigh. Oh Bella, I'm so sorry. I'm such a fucking waste of space.
After a while I flipped on the TV and threw in a random movie hoping to distract myself from the thoughts that kept running through my mind. I wasn't sure how I was going to get her to talk to me and listen to me and give me the chance to apologize, but I knew that I had to, despite having no clue how.
At some point during the night I must have eventually fallen asleep because the next thing I knew I could see the sun rising over Lake Michigan and I still had no idea how I was going to win Bella back. Wait…win Bella back? What? Get Bella's friendship back, that's what I need to concentrate on. That's the only thing I can ever be in Bella's life…a friend…that's all, right?
Author's Note: Oh Edward, Edward, Edward, always making all the wrong choices before finally making the right one!
I was totally amazed…yesterday I posted the last chapter for this story and a chapter for Chasing Away the Shadows and ended up having 1,230 hits! I about peed my pants! 715 were for FDKK alone and the others were evenly split between ITSOTD and Chasing Shadows. I was astounded. I'm so, so, so glad that so many people are enjoying this story.
Thanks for taking the time to read and add it to your alerts/faves etc. and a special thanks for the reviews!
Also a special thanks to Sihaya9, my ever vigilant Beta. You're awesome!