After showering

After showering, I flew down the stairs. I mean, like rocket boots flew. I didn't even touch the carpet.

There was no response to my knock on her door. I knocked again, waited, knocked again, waited. Where the feck are you, Sweetness? Pulling out my phone I texted, and got the same answer from my phone that I got from the door - nothing.

Okay. I just hoped she'd gone to the store or something, and not fucking left town again. Calm down, Edward. People always go to the store, right? In the morning, before the rush at lunchtime? Yeah. I had stuff to do anyway, domestic things like vacuuming, and changing my bedsheets and cleaning the bathroom. I could keep myself busy and pop back downstairs in an hour or so.

But she wasn't back in an hour.

I swept my kitchen floor and tidied up in the living room and rang my sister for her birthday, killing another hour quite nicely. Bella still wasn't home. Or answering her phone.

I went to a movie. I didn't even fucking watch it, just sat in the cinema with my cell on, which you're not supposed to do. But I was waiting for an important call. It didn't come.

Back at our block, I dropped by the bar. Marcus was on duty at the door.

"Have you seen Bella going in or out today?" I asked him.

"Nope. I just started, though. Everything all right?"

"Yeah, sure. Fine."

Like hell.

I tried her door, again, to no avail, and then decided to go downstairs. If she came past, I'd know about it. This was a stakeout.

It wasn't like me to be in there at three in the afternoon - a fact Dimitri commented on as soon as I sat next to him. I got a couple of messages from friends asking me to meet up, and I replied that I was already busy. Busy waiting on a girl. Busy being a wallflower. By nine I hadn't moved, other than trips to the bathroom during which I'd asked D to keep an eye out for Bella for me.

"What's up with you two?" he'd asked, after the fourth time, because he'd been plying me with beers and by then I needed the bathroom every five minutes.

"Nushing," I assured him. "I jush need to seer, thassall."

Normally, I think I have an iron constitution and I can drink most people under the table, but a six hour session with D had rendered me rather shabby. Well, shit, I hadn't eaten since this morning. Actually - this morning had featured the frittata, which had taken pride of place in my kitchen reminding me of its bringer until I found a container for it and put it in the fridge. Turned out Bella wasn't too averse to a bit of blue vein after all, hadn't it? Oh, shut up.

Eleven rolled around and I had to start thinking about the possibility that she wouldn't show. Why not? Either she wasn't coming home, or she had been home all day and hiding from me, or she'd been out since this morning and she'd gotten back in without me seeing her, which was distinctly possible because by now I couldn't see three feet in front of me.

I bid D goodnight, asking him to pass a message on if he saw Bella.

"Sure. What shall I tell her?"

"Ah - shay - um - "

"Edward says um?"

"No! Um - "

Dimitri started to smirk. "There is something going on, isn't there? About time you two kids got together."

"What're you shalkingbout?"

"Oh, come on. You're both in here week after week, getting on like a house on fire. You're both unattached. She's gorgeous, you're - well, I've seen worse."

"Shank you so mush."

I made my way pitiably upstairs. There was no thin line of light under Bella's door to indicate that she was there. Well, crap fuckity-fuck. What sort of girl would hang around with you for two years, creeping her way under your skin with you barely even noticing how important she'd become, then wave her boobies in your face before taking them, and herself, away for weeks, leaving you bereft, then turn up again and perpetrate a devastating act upon your person that left you insensible with longing, then mere hours later commit another overwhelming act, then not answer your calls?

Sunday I was seeing my parents, and there was no word from Ms Swan. Not a peep. I was brutally hungover, but I'd worked out a script and I knew what I was going to say to her if I got the chance. It was along the lines of, "Can I see you? Soon? It's not about yesterday morning. Well, it sort of is, but not in the way you might think. Not in the way of asking for any more, please don't imagine that. Well, it's sort of related to that but it's more about Friday night, too. But that's not all it's about, because I really think we should talk. We talk all the time anyway, right? Just more talking, that's what I want to see you about. So, anyway, yeah. Let's talk, okay? Your place or mine, or downstairs - whatever you prefer. I just want to see you. You know, soon."

So I was working on this speech in my pounding head, and lunch was pretty grim, with my mother saying brightly, "Oh, Edward - when are you going to meet a nice girl and get over this partying? You're twenty-seven years old. What about your liver?"

My father, who doesn't drink, gave me the cirrhosis talk, and spiced it up with a cautionary tale about someone he'd heard of who drank so much that he got lesions in his throat and lost his voice for good. Thank you, Dad. No, I sure wouldn't like that to happen to me, you're absolutely right.

And back at home, there'd been no sightings of the newly-elusive Ms Swan. Sunday night came and went. How many times could I call her without it getting creepy? How many messages could I send? How many notes under the door?

Work that week, and the following weeks, was a bastard, because my firm had pitched for nine new accounts, figuring on getting three of them. We'd been awarded eight. My workload increased beyond what anyone could be reasonably expected to achieve. I was getting in there at the crack of dawn and not leaving until late, and was nowhere near getting through what I needed to get through. My manager hired two recruits, giving me the job of training them. Fucking great. Two smartasses straight out of college with their architecture degrees, full of promise and hot air, and neither of them with a fucking clue about things actually happened in the real world.

Every night I stopped hopefully by Bella's door and every night carried on upstairs, unanswered and increasingly forlorn. And starting to get pretty pissed, too. What had all the camaraderie and good times of the last two years been worth to her if she was avoiding me now? Why would she be so scared? All she had to do, surely, was say, "Uh, Edward, gee, I guess I love you, let's get it on," or "Oh, Edward, you're a sex god and I couldn't help myself, but I'm over it now," or "Well, duh, that was a huge mistake, wasn't it? It'll never happen again, so let's meet for some slammers and forget about all that whole episode."

But silence reigned, and shit, I was so fucking tired. Exhausted with twelve hour workdays, and worn down by the disappearance of Bella.

Then one of the college graduates said it was her birthday on Friday and she was having drinks downtown with a few friends. Would I like to come? Oh, I am so not a rung for you to climb on your ladder to success I thought, until I found she'd invited the whole office. All right then. The message had been received loud and clear with relation to Ms Swan, after all. I could go for a few drinks, mix with some new people. I was single, unattached, untaken. And it was time I met a nice girl.

There were about a dozen nice girls there, as it happened, and I spoke to every one of them. Victoria, amazing hair. Rosalie, amazing legs. Siobhan, amazing accent. A few weeks ago I would have been in heaven. A few weeks ago I would not have gone home unaccompanied.

But I'd developed a headache by ten-thirty, and just couldn't stay. I found Bree, my new assistant, and made my apologies before hailing a cab outside.

Aro's was busy, as usual for a Friday night. Laurent was on and he gave me a really strange look as I passed him.

"Wassup?" I asked, and he just shook his head. Shrugging, I was about to head for the staircase when I had the thought that more beer wouldn't go down too badly. Not in the bar, hell, I'd left one crowd behind, I wasn't in the mood for another. No, I'd just have a quiet word to whoever was managing, and I'd get a couple of takeaways to nurse on my own, upstairs.

So in I went, weaving through talking people and dancing people and drinking people, all the way to the bar itself, opposite the door. And crap - there she was, the object of all my recent worries, the focus of my fervent wishing - Bella Swan. She was giving money to Alec, who was handing over two bottles of wine. Oh, Bella. Let me help you with that.

As I nudged my way through to get to her, remembering with a smile that she had no proper glasses and in the past at her place we'd drunk from rinsed out jam-jars, Alec passed her two wine glasses. Coming up to see me, finally, are you Sweetness?

She nodded a thank you to Alex, then turned. There was some guy standing next to her I'd never seen before. Tall, brown-skinned, short black hair. He smiled at her, taking the bottle and the glasses, and bent to kiss her cheek. The fucker! Before my astonished eyes, he cleared a way through everybody for her, and the two of them left.

"What the fuck?" I said to Dimitri a second later.

He looked nearly as taken aback as I felt.

"Dude," he said. "Jeez. Dude."

.

.

.

Here's the thing. I never had an anonymous review EVER until these recent changes by ffn. If you want to leave an anonymous review, fine. But bear in mind, no-one here is using their REAL NAME. I am not really called jackqueenking. I don't care if you don't want to identify yourself/ves, but what if I really like your review and I want to get a dialogue going? If 8 people are calling themselves Anonymous, how do I know which is which? Come on, now. Out of the shadows, here baby, into the light. Call yourself whatever you want, I'll call you that too.