A/N: If you are a returning reader, please return to chapter one. Otherwise, this will be highly confusing.

5

Love Stoned

I could honestly say that my sleepover at Bella's was the most scandalous sleepover I had been to since Lauren Mallory decided to be a lesbian for one night only in the fourth grade. Those nights of truth or dare had nothing on what was going on at Bella's house. I don't know how I missed it. It was obvious, really. The clumsiness, the continual stream of vapid comments, the stuttering, the bleary eyed gaze. I guess I was so wrapped up in the whole vampire mystery; I failed to notice that Bella was a drug addict. But what was really awkward about the whole situation was that Chief Swan, a POLICE officer had failed to notice it too. Bella had been here for three months and he had somehow missed that his only daughter was strung out. Charlie Swan, everyone: dad of the year.

I shook my head, not quite believing what I was seeing. "Bella, is that meth?"

She smiled the first actual smile I'd seen from her, turning on a purple fuzzy lamp as she pawed through the contents of her top nightstand drawer, which also happened to be…purple. "Yeah. Want some?"

"Uh, no thanks," I said from the floor. "I like to stick to the low-key stuff."

Bella gave me a look. "What do you mean?"

I pulled a stray thread from my raggedy pink pajama pants. "You know, highlighters, painkillers, weed..."

Bella laughed outright at that.

"What's so funny?" I asked. If this girl was laughing at me because I wasn't as "hardcore" as she was, I was going to storm out of that house. Aro could go to hell. I wouldn't tolerate being laughed at by a peasant.

"Jessica," Bella said. "Everyone knows meth is a gateway drug. You start with that and then you work way up to the rough stuff like marijuana."

I blinked. "You're joking right?"

Bella flopped onto her bed, glass pipe in hand. "Drugs are no joking matter, Jessica "

"Aren't you worried Chief Swan will bust you?" I asked.

Bella lit her pipe, exhaling smoke. "Not remotely. Charlie's an idiot. I don't know how he's even lived alone this long without accidentally lighting himself on fire."

So the acorn didn't fall too far from the pine tree.

I eyed the giant zip lock back of meth that was lying on her dresser (a dresser that was dotted with little purple painted flowers). The irony of the image was not lost on me. "That's a lot of meth."

"Mmhmm," Bella agreed, eyes closed.

"Do you…uh…go through a bag like that by yourself?"

Bella opened her eyes. "No, I sell what I don't smoke."

Holy. Crap. Bella was a drug dealer. "Who do you sell to? I mean you don't have to tell me, if you're bound to like a drug dealer –druggie confidentiality agreement, but I'm curious."

Bella scoffed. "I sell to all the Quileute boys. That's the only reason I let you guys drag me to La Push. I needed a new market." She eyed me.

"Jessica?"

"Yeah?" I said, adjusting the strap of my camisole.

"You know a lot of people, don't you?"

"Yeah sure," I said, not sure where she was going with this.

"How are things for you…financially?"

To be honest, my financial situation was pretty non-existent. My mom refused to let me get a job. She wanted me to marry Mike Newton and become a small town beauty queen like her. The problem with being a beauty queen? The pay sucked until you secured a man. And the hours were long.

"I'm broke," I said.

Bella gave me a mischievous smile. "I'm not," she said in a singsong voice. "And if you want to help me out…well, I could help you out too with your whole…financial situation."

"Are you asking me to help you sell drugs?"

Bella exhaled more smoke. "Depends…are you interested?"

"No," I said quickly. "I'd kind of like to finish high school with out, you know, getting arrested…no offense."

Bella chuckled. "So you're scared? Listen Jessica; this is a low-risk, high-reward situation. I'm the dealer here. You're just providing me with...contacts."

"That simple?" I asked her, tempted.

Bella shrugged, taking a giant whiff of her armpits. "Hey do you smell that?"

I shook my head no.

"My armpits smell like vomit."

"Thanks for sharing?" I said.

I was grateful she didn't pursue the subject further. Instead, she got up from her bed, dragging her purple comforter with her. "Hey, I want to show you something. Come here."

She was headed toward her closet. Given her current state, I was kind of hesitant to follow her. I mean what if she got handsy when she was high? I was not in the mood to be violated.

"Jessie-poo. Get over here. You want to see this. I promise it's not my belly button." Bella laughed loudly as if she had made a great joke.

I pushed myself up from her purple carpet and followed her. My mouth almost fell open. Her closet floor was littered with cash instead of shoes. "Meth is fun, but the real cash is in heroin," she informed me.

"Wow." I was looking at mostly hundred dollar bills, sitting idly on her closet floor, begging to be held…touched. With that kind of money, I could buy myself a nose job…or a car.

"You're not going to get caught. I'm good at what I do," Bella said.

Somehow, I had a hard time believing that the girl who couldn't even make her legs work properly was an expert at anything, especially selling drugs.

"What's the cut?"

"One percent of everything I sell."

"That's not a lot of money."

"If you want more, Jessica. You would have to…do more."

She was a sneaky one. This was her real idea all along.

"I'm looking for a partner," she said, lowering herself to sit in her money. She threw a few hundred dollars in the air. "Honestly, it's just too much money. I need to share it with someone fifty-fifty…"

"Uh huh," I said, watching her lick a twenty dollar bill.

"Don't you want to have more money than you know what to do with?"

Who didn't? But I couldn't decide if I was willing to become a drug dealer to do it. I mean what good would a car do me if I were in prison for the rest of my youth? And in prison, a nose job would probably just get me in more trouble.

"I don't know, Bella…"

"I guess I'll just have to ask Edward, but he's already loaded. I was trying to help out the less fortunate, you know?"

I knew, all right.

"If I said yes…how would this all work?"

Bella stopped licking her money to scrutinize me. "I would teach you the business. We'd do some stimulations—"

"You mean simulations?"

Bella grunted, waving me off. "Yeah. That. Whatever. And then you'd sell some ice to one of my more understanding buyers and we'd see how you do."

I looked at her. That sounded terrifying.

Bella sighed, rising from her pile of money and closing the closet door behind her. "Why don't you start out as my middleman and we'll take it from there. Clearly, my character judgment isn't great. And if you do good job, I could bump that one percent up to…I don't know… fifteen?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Okay. I can do that."

Bella stuck out her hand. I shook it.

"There's only one way to solidify our deal."

Bella pulled out another giant zip lock bag from her nightstand and produced another pipe. "Smoke the crack. Smoke the crack. Smoke the crack," Bella chanted, banging her fist on her headboard.

"Is that really the best place to store your drugs?"

Bella shook her head. "You're changing the subject. I have a crack pipe here with your name on it."

I ran a hand through my brown curls. "I'm not really comfortable with smoking crack, Bella."

"You know earlier when I told you I was lost?"

I was having a hard time adjusting to Bella rapidly changing the subject. She continued talking as if I had responded to her question. "Well I wasn't really lost. I was selling to this guy and he brought a few too many of his guy friends, you know. And they were trying to take the drugs with out paying so I told them where they could go and all of sudden they were talking about having their way with me and it was really scary. And then Edward came out of nowhere. And he saved me and I'm pretty sure he threatened to rip them to pieces and drink their blood until they were nothing but skin and bones, but it was hard to hear what he was saying through all the bullet proof glass…" she trailed, then added with a sigh, "Edward is super hot. I want jump his bones…a lot."

I had no idea what the point of her story was. I flopped onto her bed and waited for her to enlighten me.

"I guess I'm saying all that to say… now that we're going into business together I don't want there to be any secrets between us. And you should probably know that Edward and I are going to date and that he's a vampire."

Woah, woah, woah. Back up. It was one thing for me to be under the impression that Edward may not be exactly human. I had a really wild imagination. But to hear Bella just say it out loud so casually kind of blew my mind. Then again, she was high on meth...

"That's what you guys were talking about, right? The fact that you know he's a vampire and now he has to figure out what to do with you?"

Bella didn't wait for my answer. She continued babbling. "He can read everyone's mind but mine. He's pretty special…sometimes when I drop LSD I feel like I can read minds…hell, sometimes when I drop LSD I feel like I can fly.

"I believe I can touch the sky," she whispered.

"Bella?" I asked. She looked at me like she forgot I was there. "I'll take that crack pipe now."

I mean if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I probably should have run far, far away, but instead I let Bella talk me into being her accomplice. I figured at that point a single hit of a crack pipe wouldn't be the end of the world.

I was wrong.

Later, when Bella went to the bathroom to pee, I took Edward's suggestion and listened at the door. At first, it just sounded like pee hitting the toilet bowl, but then I really concentrated. And you know what?

It was a damn symphony.

Disclaimer: Meth is not a gateway drug.