It was tempting to just throw on her clothes and leave, but a small car with a small vampire for who knew how long to get to the mall? Bella sighed and made herself take that cool shower she hated. It wouldn't be so bad if she could turn the temperature up, but she couldn't.
Alice wanted to do the tour of Bella's closet quickly, so they could get to work. Alice drove today, and was waiting for her. Bella tugged her brush through her hair a bit haphazardly after the shower and made her way out the building.
"Hey," A boy spoke and Bella didn't slow down as she saw Mike coming up beside her. She'd gotten a free pass yesterday, so apparently he was back today. "I know you said you were busy, but you need to eat regardless." Bella turned cold eyes to him and stopped. She was at the corner of the parking lot, and she could see Alice's borrowed BMW in the distance.
"Mike, I told you I wasn't interested in dating you." Bella sighed heavily and started to turn to leave, but he reached out and grabbed her arm. She was forced to turn and glare at him.
"Just give me a chance. I'm worth it." He smiled, but his grip was a little too tight and Bella felt a palpable threat in being restrained.
He leaned in, actually leaned in and Bella moved forward just a little, surprising him. "You're persistent." She told him flatly and when he started to smile she spoke more coldly, "That isn't a good thing. Perhaps when you were a child this was cute, but you're older now and this is bordering on harassment and I want to make it very clear to you that I am not interested in you. Even when I decide I am settled and ready to date, it will never be with you. You are looking to sink your tiny little dick into any woman available. Try Jessica, she wants meaningless, awful sex, as badly as you do. I could do without it." She tugged on her arm, and this time he let go. "If I bruise I'm reporting you to the school." She told him and watched him pale a little.
"What do you mean?" His voice squeaked a little.
"Nearly deserted parking lot," She waved her arm around her to illustrate that most of the cars were gone. "Me, alone and you grabbing me and not letting go. Sounds bad doesn't it?" She stared into his eyes. That child was just now getting it. "It was bad Mike, you don't do that to a woman. Never. Do you understand? Even if you weren't meaning it that way, you shouldn't ever make a woman think that about you."
"I wasn't going to," He managed before swallowing hard.
"You leave me alone, never bother me again." She told him and turned to walk away. He didn't follow.
Alice got out of the BMW and stood beside it, her smile missing, as she stared at Mike. As Bella got closer she saw Alice's eyes were black, she looked back to see Mike looking truly frightened by the entire thing. "Let's get out of here." Bella managed as she moved to the passenger side.
"Are you okay?" Alice asked as Bella was opening the door.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Bella shook her head. "I don't think he'll bother me again."
Alice was quiet just a little too long. "No, I don't think he will." Alice slammed the car door and started it up.
"I'll have Charlie make a big display about dropping me off tomorrow, that should finish Mike off. Once I remind him I'm the sheriff's daughter I think he'll actually be running from me." Bella was trying to ease the tension in the car.
"He scared you, if Charlie isn't enough to make him stay far away, we'll definitely be telling Emmett." Alice's voice held a bit of a growl. Bella felt her heart beat a bit faster when it dawned on her that she was in a car with an angry vampire.
"I don't think we'll need to go that far. He's just a stupid boy who just suddenly realized what was okay for little boys isn't okay for him anymore." Bella spoke firmly and calmly, while damning her heart for beating faster. She had to cover that. "If you aren't okay to drive, I could." Bella glanced out the windshield at the road.
"No, I'm good." Alice appeared to take a deep breath, as if she were calming herself down. Staged, practiced, Bella let herself relax as visibly as she could as well.
"First things first, my room is not done at all." Bella said as they got out of the car in front of her house. "I'm going to redo it bit by bit and it'll be pretty nice, not as nice as yours, but pretty nice."
"So don't judge you by your room. I got it." Alice finally gave a real looking smile. "Let's get the fashion show moving so we can do something about your clothes."
Alice followed Bella up the stairs, but Bella noticed that Alice was looking at all the pictures Charlie had on the wall. His daughter featured heavily in them. "Is it hard to see this?" Alice asked quietly. "To know who you were and just not be able to remember any of it?"
"Yeah, I feel really bad for him. That girl is gone." Bella whispered. "That isn't me. I don't look at the pictures and think of it as me at all." Bella spoke honestly. "I can't really think about it too much or I'll go crazy. It's just so weird. I just live for now, who I am now, what I want now, and I try not to dwell on what I've lost."
"I understand." Alice spoke so softly, and Bella knew she did to some extent, more than others, but there was a whole other level to this Bella couldn't tell Alice about.
"So my sad collection of clothes." Bella gently took Alice's hand and lead her to Bella's bedroom door. Bella wasn't normally so touchy and feely, but Alice was a bit too serious and that seemed wrong.
One look at Bella's nearly empty closet was enough to shock Alice back into acting like herself. "Oh my god, such a little closet and it's nearly empty?"
"My summer clothes aren't here yet." Bella crossed her arms in front of her and sighed heavily. "I'm sticking to clothes that go together as much as possible. I have jeans, black pants, and brown pants." She pointed them out.
"No skirts, no dresses." Alice waved at the closet.
"It's cold here, I don't want skirts and dresses. I like pants, they go with more things." Bella spoke more slowly. "I don't wear heels, I'm not overly girly." Alice turned to stare at her when she said that.
"You are beautiful, you could be a knockout with the right clothes and makeup." Alice sounded a bit upset, and Bella knew she would be.
"Well, if we can do it in pants and comfortable shoes, great. No dresses and skirts." Bella glanced at Alice. "Come on, I've only seen you a few times, but you manage to make pants look great, why is this so upsetting?"
"Well, it limits your choices." Alice told her as if that was obvious.
"Yes, to choices I'd actually make. I wouldn't choose a skirt." Bella sighed heavily. "I'd like to go shopping with you Alice, but if you think this will be too boring I could ask Charlie to take me this weekend."
"No no, I'm going with you." Alice gave her a small smile. "We'll be fine."
Bella remembered her 'plans' in History class and spoke more softly. "I like you and I want us to be friends. Maybe we could find other things to do too? Movies? I don't know."
"Sleep overs?" Alice asked quietly and Bella started to smile. That would be good.
"With movies." She added and Alice looked like she might start dancing at some point.
"And makeup." Alice added.
"I could do that." Bella saw Alice give her a radiant smile again. It made Alice look even more adorable. Bella almost wanted to suggest they do that sleepover this weekend, but she was going to wait for her to suggest it, so that she knew Alice had time to hunt beforehand.
They talked about what Bella wanted to buy as they made their way to the mall. Alice gave some suggestions that would make it a little harder, because the gift card was going to have to stretch further, but Alice was very good at illustrating the importance of accessories. That was one thing Bella never fully used, and so she'd made Alice's day by making the small vampire in charge of decent accessories.
When Alice went to park the car near the Nordstrom's Bella had to step in. "This store isn't even on the list to visit. We want to park on the other end of the mall." Bella smiled at Alice. "I'll show you how this is done. You've been shopping with a cheat code all this time, it's more challenging this way."
"You've been talking with Emmett too much." Alice smiled, which was what Bella had been going for.
They entered the mall at a much less expensive store and had to tug on Alice a little to get her to follow her to the clearance racks. If Alice didn't help her there wouldn't have been any way she could tug Alice anywhere, but the little vampire pretended to be pulled off course while laughing.
Once they got out of that first store, Alice proved she was a cheater, by 'zoning out' and then selecting stores for them to visit. Bella found amazing deals, but Alice was getting good accessories for almost nothing. Bella finally had to assign Alice to specific items, like a brown shirt, or a spring jacket, because she was getting the accessories pile too big.
There was a growl while they were looking at the map of the mall. "I could use some dinner too." Alice spoke a bit hesitantly, while glancing down at Bella's stomach. Bella blushed at the speculative look. "Should have thought of that sooner." She heard Alice apologize and chose to ignore it.
"Well, what are you in the mood for." Bella asked, glancing at the selection of fast food or full sit down restaurants. What would be easier for Alice to hide? It turned out finger foods that didn't require big bites to disappear out of them was the answer. Alice bought herself fries at the foodcourt.
In the end they were stopped by the last purchase, where Bella had to add five dollars to the last of the gift card. "And that is how it's done." Bella gave Alice as sexy a smirk as she could manage while taking the last bag from the cashier. She glanced meaningfully at the other bags Alice had been holding for her while she paid.
"This was actually fun." Alice sounded a little surprised.
"Yeah." Bella couldn't contain her smile. No one ever really liked shopping with her, but Alice even made it more fun for Bella. Her powers sure sped it up a bit, that was for sure. "But my curfew," she grimaced as she caught sight of a clock, "we better go." They still had to drive back to Forks.
She wasn't thrilled with having a curfew, but saying she had to be back home by 10 pm on a school night wasn't unreasonable at all. She showered at night, needed to wind down, 10 pm was actually later than she would have set it, if she'd thought about it herself. She really hated not getting enough sleep, and though it was getting a little easier to fall asleep she still took far longer than she'd like.
"If we want to do a sleep over, we'll need to do it soon." Alice said while quickly passing a car on the freeway. Bella turned in her seat to see Alice clearly in deep thought and hoped she wouldn't have a vision while driving. Was that why she didn't tend to drive as much in the books? Bella didn't really want to see the accident they'd have at this speed if Alice spaced out. "My brother Edward is coming back from visiting family in about a week and he wouldn't leave us alone. I can get Emmett to give us space, but Edward would ruin our fun." It was odd to hear Alice speak about Edward like the problem was he was a pesky little brother, when Bella was starting to think it wouldn't be safe at the Cullen house anymore once he was there.
"So Edward's going to be a problem?" Bella felt disconnected, but given her other response should be fear, perhaps that was better.
"Oh no," Alice spoke firmly. "We won't let him, but he isn't used to having to share us, we don't make a lot of friends, so he'll be a bit of a jerk for a while I'm sure. Just ignore him and he'll get better." Alice sighed. "We may have to spend more time at your house when he gets home. I don't want you to see the arguments."
Alice was painting a little bit of an ugly picture of Edward, which as his favorite sister was a surprise, but was it because he was going to be that ugly or was it to keep Bella from walking up to him? At this moment she wished she could just ask, but she couldn't. "So I was thinking, since we don't have school next week, maybe you could stay over Monday?" Alice was on about the sleep over now. "Rose and I will kick the boys out so they don't bother us, and definitely so Emmett doesn't try and steal you back, because this time you're visiting me." There was some possessiveness in her voice and Bella did her best to relax.
"Sure, I'll tell Charlie." Bella still had plans to visit Esme Friday, and to spend Saturday with Emmett. She felt a little odd about visiting there now though, but it was this week or nothing for a while at least. Maybe for a long time.
Damn Edward was coming back just as Bella was getting settled and finally feeling a little happy. Bella knew he wouldn't approve of the family hanging out with a human, he'd done that while dating one in the books after all. Bella took a deep breath and stared out the side window, her expression growing colder. He wasn't in charge of the entire family and Bella would avoid him, she was more than eager to avoid him, but she wasn't losing the few friends she'd already made.
She'd also have to monitor her thoughts when she was near him for a while, perhaps put out a few tests to see if he could hear her. If he did she'd have to be fast about trying to keep the Cullens from running away. At first, before she got to know them, she would have been fine with having Forks to herself, but she'd miss them, and they were the only people freakier than she was around here.
"What kind of movies do you like? We have a lot of them, but we could rent more if we need to." Alice was still talking about the sleep over.
After Alice dropped her off and she put her clothes away, Bella tried getting ready for bed and attempted to sleep. It took half the night to fall asleep, and she kept waking up. Finally she just sat up in bed and looked at the window. She'd have to figure out how, but she was blocking that window. She didn't want any creepy vampire thinking he could just slip the lock and stare at her all night, perhaps fantasize about killing her, all in the name of getting used to her scent. It was wrong, disturbed even, that Edward did that in the books and this Bella wasn't going to put up with it. She'd send over as many scarves and clothes as the Cullens needed but she wasn't going to lose what little sleep she was able to manage when he came to town waiting for the creeper to try and come in. No, she'd at least prevent that much.
She dragged herself through the next day, and when she went to have lunch in the library and study, this time she found she wasn't alone. Bella looked up from her textbook to see Rosalie sliding into the seat across from her. "I heard how things went with Mike." There was a hiss to his name. Bella blinked as the arm she had on the table was gently pulled toward Rosalie and the blonde lifted the sleeve to check her skin. "At least he didn't bruise you." Rosalie muttered, before looking up. "He won't bother you again. I have Emmett talking to him."
"I thought I'd taken care of it." Bella said, but she was hyper aware of the fact that Rosalie was holding the hand of the arm she'd just inspected. Mike had kept his distance today in the halls and in class he didn't even look at her.
"And we're making sure it's taken care of for good." Rosalie finally let go, and Bella slowly slide her arm back toward her body. "You look like you couldn't sleep and I want you to know you have nothing to fear from that worm."
"Oh, well, thanks." Bella stammered, but while she was touched, it wasn't Mike that kept her up at night worrying.
Rosalie smiled, "Alice told me that we're having a sleep over on Monday. I'm looking forward to it." Bella's eyes widened and she struggled with her shock. "Emmett is upset he isn't invited, so I expect he will hog you all day Saturday." Bella didn't remember hearing that Rosalie was invited.
"I hope we can agree on some movies." Bella felt lame saying that, but she didn't know what to say. She had to try and find something to talk to Rosalie about, because they were going to spend hours together.
"I'm sure we'll find something, but don't expect too many movies. Alice has already started to go through her makeup to try and find shades that would look on you."
"Okay, but I'm not sitting still for hours on end." Bella watched Rosalie stand up.
"Class starts in five minutes. I'll walk you."
…