Chapter 6 - BPOV
Since I can't make a decision and my body feels exhausted, I lie down on the bench and stare off into the distance, losing track of time. I might even fall asleep.
I hear someone call my name, but it's far away, like I'm under water.
I wince at the soreness in my shoulder and my leg… and my eye that I can't seem to open.
"Bella." The voice is more frantic, and a hand is now shaking my shoulder.
"Ow," I whine, weakly trying to push them away and get them to quit touching me.
"Bella, are you okay?"
I use what strength I can muster and lift my head up to see Lauren, my RA, looming over me. Due to the streetlight shining down behind her, she looks like an angel, with the glow of the light creating a halo around her head. "Lo?" I ask, wondering why she's here.
"Hey," she says, squatting down to be closer to eye level. Brushing the hair off my forehead, she scrutinizes me. "What happened to you?" she whispers, gently touching my head.
"Fight," I mumble, not feeling like making complete sentences.
"I can see that. Who with?"
"Tall Guy and Eric."
Her eyes grow wider, and her hand flies to her mouth. "Oh, my God. Did they...?"
I try to sit up too quickly and nearly fall off the bench. Lauren catches me and squeezes in beside me, allowing me to lay my head on her lap. "Not what you think," I tell her because it dawns on me what I must look like and then talking about the guys… I'm sure her mind is straight into Worst Case Scenario mode.
"Can you walk?" she asks, pushing my shoulder and helping me sit up.
"Yep, walked all the way here."
"Let's get you back to the dorms." She reaches into her pocket and takes her cell phone out, calling someone and telling them to come pick us up.
A few minutes later, a sleek black car pulls up by the curb, and a guy gets out. He runs over and looks down at Lauren questioningly but doesn't say anything, just practically picks me up and puts me in the front seat of his car.
This is a bad idea because this car is really nice, and I'm partially covered in puke. I smell myself, and it almost makes me hurl again. Rolling the window down, I let the cool air soothe me.
When we get back to the dorms, he pulls up at the curb and helps us to the door, where Lauren tells him she's got it from here. As she helps me to the bank of elevators, I notice she's dressed up like she's been out partying.
"What the hell were you doing out by yourself so late looking like that?" I ask, pointing down to her short skirt and high heels.
She laughs wryly and looks down at me. "I could ask you the same thing."
"I went to a frat party," I mutter, still feeling stupid for going in the first place.
"Really?" she asks. "I never see you out on Thursday nights."
"First-timer."
She sighs and pulls me closer to her side, wrapping me in a hug. "You sure nothing worse happened to you than what I can see?" she whispers, her lips on the top of my head.
"No." I reach up and rub at my split lip. I can only imagine what I look like. Looking down at myself, I see red stains on my light purple shirt, and my jeans have a streak of puke dried to them. The open-toed nude pumps I wore are also sporting splatters of red.
As we step out of the elevator, I begin to walk toward my room, but she pulls me into hers. "Bathroom, go," she instructs, grabbing a towel and shoving me into the tiny room. When the door shuts behind me, I begin to undress, peeling off the layers of disgust and bypass the mirror, heading straight for the shower.
Ten minutes later, I'm free of puke and red drink… and the blood that was dried to my face. I take the chance to look in the mirror above the sink as I spit out some mouthwash I found on the counter. My eye is squinty. I can barely see the white or brown. And the cut above it looks worse, but I think I'll live. My split lip isn't as bad as I thought it might be. Head wounds just bleed a lot. The cut above my eye is still oozing a little blood, so I take some tissue and stick it to it.
Knocking on the door that leads back into the bedroom, I call out, letting Lauren know that I'm done, but I don't have anything to wear. A minute later, she hands a t-shirt and boxers through a crack in the door.
When I walk back out, feeling much more human than when I went in, she directs me to sit on her bed. She pulls the chair up and looks at me for a second before reaching over for a first aid kit. "I think you could've used some stitches on this. It's not too late if you want me to drive you."
"No, I hate hospitals."
"Okay, well, let's hope this butterfly bandage does the trick." She puts some ointment on it and then the bandage. Brushing my hair back from my face with both of her hands, she forces me to look at her. "Tell me what happened."
While I begin telling her everything I can remember, she walks to her mini fridge and pulls out an ice pack, handing it to me for my eye.
"So, just a case of wrong place at the wrong time."
"Something like that."
"Well, I'm just relieved to hear that nothing else happened. When I saw you lying on that bench, I immediately thought the worst."
"I know."
"Next time, call me." She picks up my phone that she must have found on the bench and puts her number in, handing it back to me.
"Hopefully, there won't be a next time."
"Shit happens, Bella, especially in college."
"Yeah," I say, nodding and touching my lip again. "My boyfriend told me I shouldn't go tonight."
"So, Eric isn't your boyfriend?"
"No," I say with a laugh, shaking my head. "He's a friend. He asked me to go. I could tell when I turned him down that he felt bad, rejected…" I pause, shrugging. "I just didn't want things to be weird because he's my partner a lot for class projects and stuff like that. So I told him we could go as friends."
"And the boyfriend?" she asks, tilting her head. "He wasn't pleased?"
"Not really, but he wants me to have the full college experience."
"Right," she says, nodding. "So, where's this boyfriend?"
"Dallas."
"Is that home?"
"Yeah," I say, shrugging. "I mean, he's home. I've lived tons of places."
She smiles. "And he's out of college?"
"Yeah." I nod my head, fighting a smile. "He's out of college."
"Oooh, older guy," she teases. "Nice."
She has no idea. I don't really talk about me and Edward. There isn't anyone to talk to about us. I'm not close enough to anyone here to tell them my life story. It's too complicated. I feel like I've lived five lives, where most of the people here are just getting started on their first.
"You gonna be okay?" she asks, reaching over to rub my shoulder.
I nod, standing from the bed. "Thank you… for everything. I'd probably still be sleeping on that bench like a homeless person if you hadn't found me."
"Oh, that would've been an ugly walk of shame tomorrow morning."
"Oh, God." I groan and bury my face in my hands. I know the mortification of the disastrous evening hasn't even begun to settle in. I'm sure I'll feel the full effects come Monday when I'll be forced to face Eric. Hopefully, I'll never have to see Douchebag Tall Guy ever again.
Pretty sure that was my first and last frat party.
"Hey," Lauren says, stopping me before I get through the door. "It happens to the best of us. If you hadn't had one night of shame and debauchery before you left the good ol' University of Oklahoma, then you wouldn't have gotten your money's worth."
We both laugh as I walk out of her room. "Oh, shit. My key is in the pocket of my jeans," I tell her, pointing toward her bathroom. She walks back into the bathroom, scoops up the disgusting clothes, wads them up, keeping the cleanest part on the outside, and hands them to me. "Call me if you need anything."
"Thanks."
I make my way down the hall, and when I get in my room, I plop down on the bed and stare at the ceiling, wondering what the hell happened.
The comfort of my room and bed lulls me into a deep sleep.
~C22~
A shrill ringing wakes me, and I try to open my eyes to see where it's coming from. The swelling of my right eye is down some, and I can see through it more than just a little slit, but the pounding in my head is making me not want to.
The offensive sound erupts again, in my room… in my head.
Somebody make it stop.
But it doesn't. It continues, once every five seconds. After the fourth time, I realize it's a phone, but not my cell phone. It's the phone on the wall of my dorm—the one I've never even picked up. I didn't even know if it really worked.
I drag myself out of bed and stumble over to the wall, practically knocking the phone to the tiled floor, wanting to take my frustration out on the inanimate object.
"Hello?" I utter. My voice is scratchy and rough.
"Isabella?"
"Edward?"
There's an audible sigh of relief on his end of the line, followed by a "thank God".
"How did you get this number?"
"I called campus security."
"What? Why?" I ask incredulously.
"Because you didn't call me like you said you would." The anger in his voice is evident. I can tell he's trying to keep it tamped down, but it's not working. "Because you didn't answer any of my calls. Because I've been up worried about you all fucking night."
"I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say, but the words sound empty leaving my mouth. "It was really late when I finally got back to my room… and…"
"And what? I asked you to call me, and you said you would, but you didn't. Why didn't you call me?"
We sit in silence for a couple of minutes. I'm sure he's seething on the other end, pacing back and forth, while I'm trying to come up with a good excuse as to why I didn't call him, without telling him about what happened.
"I almost hopped on a plane last night, Bella." He breathes deeply into the phone, obviously releasing pent up worry and frustration. "I immediately thought the worst."
"It wasn't the worst. It wasn't good, but it wasn't the worst."
"What does that mean?" he asks, his voice harsh.
"Please don't overreact."
"Tell me what happened, and I'll be the one to decide how I'm going to react."
"This is why I didn't call you last night. I didn't want to hear any I-told-you-sos."
"What. Happened?"
"I was, uh, at the party," I begin, trying to think of a way to make this not sound as bad as it is. "And I had a few drinks."
Edward clears his throat on the other end of the line. I know he does that when he's angry. I don't want him to be angry with me, but I don't see how to avoid it either.
"Eric, the guy I went with, disappeared. So while I was looking for him, some other guy, who I don't know, started talking to me. He made me another drink and then asked me to dance. I told him I don't dance, but he insisted. It's all fuzzy. I can't remember much, but all I know is that Eric came out of nowhere and was pissed because the guy was dancing with me, I guess?" I honestly don't know. Everything after that is a blur. "The next thing I know, fists are being thrown, and I caught one to the eye and lip."
Something on the other end of the line breaks. It sounds like glass shattering, and Edward lets out a growl. I think I catch something about "won't fucking listen", and I assume he's talking about me, but I continue. "I felt sick, so I found a door that led outside. I threw up in their yard. It was humiliating—the entire night. I didn't want to see Eric or any of those other people in there who'd been watching the shit show, so when I felt like I could walk without throwing up, I took off toward the dorms. My RA found me on a bench and helped me back to the dorms." I just spill the rest of it because I hate secrets, especially where Edward is concerned. I'd rather have it all out in the open, regardless of how ugly it is.
"Are you okay?" His voice sounds pained.
"My lip is sore, and my eye is a little swollen… and I could use some grease to settle my stomach, but I think I'm going to live."
"That," Edward says, pausing for emphasis. "That's exactly why I didn't want you going to a frat party."
"I know, but it was a random occurrence," I say. "Could've happened to anybody."
"But it happened to you."
"It did, but I'll live."
"I hate this," he says, and I don't know exactly what he's referring to, but a smidge of worry sets in because his tone sounds defeated.
"Hate what?"
"All of this," he says, sighing heavily. "I hate not being able to be close enough to take care of you right now. I hate worrying about you 24/7. I hate being apart."
"You have to trust me. And you have to let me make some mistakes, even if that means a fat lip. If nothing else, I know I'm not going to any more frat parties." I laugh, trying to lighten the mood.
"Why can't you just transfer back to somewhere closer to Dallas?"
"Because I got in here, and I'm on track to be accepted into law school… and I have financial aid… and I'm making it on my own," I say, listing the reasons I should be here—the reasons I'm staying here—the final one being the most important.
"I could get you in at any university you'd like around here. You wouldn't have to worry about financial aid." He's beating a dead horse. We've had this discussion before.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask, leaning against the cold concrete wall, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. I look longingly at my bed, wishing the cord on the phone would reach so I could crawl back in. "I'm not having this argument again."
"I want to be with you."
"I want to be with you, too."
"Then, come back. Let me take care of you. Let me know you're safe every night."
I swallow the lump in my throat. When he starts talking like this, it overwhelms me. I've never had anyone truly take care of me, not like he talks about. The fear is that I'll let myself be vulnerable, accept his help, and then it'll all be taken from me.
Our situation is more than complicated. Edward worries about marrying me too young and losing me later down the road. I worry about Edward getting tired of waiting on me and losing him before we have our chance.
"I'm tired, and I want to lay back down. Can we talk more about this later?"
"Bella," Edward begins, and I can hear something different in his voice… something like resolve and regret mixed together, like it pains him to say what's coming next. "I think we should… I don't know… Maybe we shouldn't be together right now. Maybe you need to live your life without me interfering. Maybe we need to give it some time and see what happens down the road."
"Down what road, Edward?" I ask, tears thick in my throat. "How much time? Are you… is this… Are you breaking up with me?" I ask the question, but it sounds ridiculous. I don't even feel like it's a possibility.
"It's not like that, Bella," he soothes. "It's like a break… not a break-up. I think we both need some time. You can live a little, and I can take a break from worrying about you every second of the day."
I feel guilty the moment those words leave his mouth. He worries about me every second of the day, like it's a job or something… like I'm his responsibility. That's not what a relationship is supposed to be like, is it? I don't know. That's the crazy thing… I really don't know.
"I love you," I whisper, trying to think of anything to keep him from making this decision final.
"I love you, too. Always." The words are sweet and sincere, but they sound a lot like goodbye.
A few seconds later, the phone goes dead. I pull the receiver back from my ear and stare at it long and hard like it's the offender… like it's the one who just broke my heart. Letting it drop to the floor with a thud, I follow right behind—lying on the cold hard ground, with my tears pooling beneath my cheek.
A/N:
As always, a big THANK YOU to our beta, GeekChic12! And to Rachel (J Ray Fanfiction) and Pamela (DrivingEdward) for their awesome pre-reading skills!
See ya tomorrow!