Chapter 7

She's not sure why she still makes these calls anymore, not when a new medicine-newdrug (his beautiful voice, concerned, loving, "keep walking") had made itself known to her. He comes when she is in danger, just like he'd always come to save her when she first started to imagine her perfect lover and family. As long as she finds a way to get her heart rate racing she can see him again and maybe if she finds a dangerous enough hobby he can be by her side all the time, just like before.

Part of her is horrified by this new train of thought, 'what are you doing Bella! He's not a dream, people remember him, your just in denial, he just left yo-', but she willfully ignores those thoughts.

In reality she doesn't really see a need to these continued conversations, but she continues making the call anyway; part of it is habit she's sure, another part is sure that she just can't fall asleep without the sound of his chatty baritone echoey voice lulling her like a lullaby (music, cold skin, beautiful voice).

A last hidden part of her is hoping he'll slap her out of whatever this sudden loss of lunacy is

"What happened then?" she asks after a significant silence stretches on, those have been happening more and more, or perhaps she just can't bring herself to pay as much attention when things are looking so up.

"… I watched by friends and family die in a burning inferno before time was rewound a couple of hours" he answers after a pause his voice dull, quiet, and sad.

She remembers Edward (and how joyous it is to be able to think his name again even if there's still a dull pain) hating the idea of her being on a motorcycle. She knows she can't afford a new, or even functional one, but knew there was a yard in Seattle that her father picked up a bunch of old car parts from. She could just use the money she had originally saved for college to buy something cheap and get someone to fix it up.

Wasn't Jacob(sunshine, crush, smile) the one who'd given life to her old red machine in the driveway, maybe he'd help if she could make it worth his while.

"That's great Danny" she replies after another long silence, but instead of immediately responding there's an even longer pause.

"…No… it's not Iz… it's really not" he eventually says in a dead tone she's never heard in the sarcastically optimistic boy, "have you heard a single word I've said Iz?"

She stops and thinks, she's been exceptionally rude calling him up and ignoring him, but it wasn't like he said anything about anything anyway.

"You got into a fight" she answers the most likely option given Danny seemed to have been born with either very poor luck and a great fate to get him into various serendipitous situation or a crappy fate and the strangely good luck to survive it; Danny himself very rarily seemed to go looking for the trouble he got into.

"With whom?" he demands

"Sam?" it comes out more of a question than anything; most of his fights are physical against 'bad sorts', but considering some of the emotion in his voice she can assume it might have been a verbal one with his parents or friend Sam.

"No" Danny grits out between teeth, where was this hostility coming from?, "Not with Sam, but maybe with another annoying teenage girl.'

"Do you have something to say to me Danny?" she ask testily, she's no fool and has a very good idea of who the 'annoying teenage girl' he has issues with.

"If I did, you wouldn't hear it, too busy talking to whatever little memory you got running around in your head." He answers bitterly

'He can't know, he can't possibly know' but his comment cuts a little too close to home anyway.

"I thought someone like you would just be content to hear the sound of your own voice anyway' she retorts heatedly

"What the hell does that even mean!?" he shouts

"It's not like you care about this stupid program anyway, I'm just your personal diarly to whine and moan about your problems!"

'Stop it' she begs herself, 'don't belittle his problems (hated, runaway cousin, fighting parents) you always go too far, don't go too far'

"Myself!" Danny shouts incredulously, "Do you really think I'd be up at 4:00 a.m. talking to a mumbling psycho if I was doing this for myself!"

The insult cuts far deeper than it should considering she's never confided much of her fears to him, but she has issues with being rejected (Edward, Cullens, Mom) and the fact that it is Danny ("I'd love to hear about that", "Total Fruit loop I'm telling you Iz", "I got you") makes it cut deeper.

"I'm here because I'm trying to help you!" Danny shouts, "That's what we do Iz, we help each other!"

"Oh please" she says in a venomous tone that sound too much like Lauren, arrogant, belittling, and infuriating, "Let's not pretend this is for anybody's help let alone yours you liar"

"What are you talking ab-"

"What town in the world has fights happen in broad daylight every day and its occupants are too stupid to notice your so called injuries" she throws out the chief of his inconsistences, "who causes so much damage over and over again without law officials getting involved or even better, without you breaking your crazy fighting obsession if you hated it so much." She asks in a mocking tone that says she's calling bullshit on all his stories.

"I AM NOT A LIAR" he roars

"YOU LIE TO EVERYONE YOU MEET'' she screams back, " Your parents, your teachers, your sister every time you tell her this program is helping your long list of psychotic issues, your best friend you don't have the BALLS to say you don't want her, to say you think she's a burden, to say YOU WANT TO LEAVE HER!"

There's a brief silence as she pants, her voice scratchy and tired, in the next room she hears her father moving around.

"…Sounds like someone's letting their own issues get the better of them." He says low and darkly and she stiffens at how close she's come to blurting it out.

"You don't know what you're talking about." She grumbles out defensively

"No. You don't" his voice low and cold, and then there's a dial tone as he hangs up

She clicks her own phone off and throws it across the room

*'Knock, Knock*

"Bella, kid, you up?" her dad asks

"I'm fine dad" she says quietly, then for the first time in three weeks puts her head in her knees and cries.

Next chapter Danny's side