[Disclaimer] All things Twilight belong to Mrs. Stephenie Meyer

[A/N] Welcome back my lovely readers. I'm so happy that some of you seem to enjoy reading my little story here. It's because of you that I'm still here, writing it. So thanks a lot.

This chapter is dedicated to secrets87. Yes, the vacation was wonderful, thank you. I'm so happy that you like my story so much. Your support means a lot to me.

**Chapter 64**

I poured some massage oil on her shoulders and started rubbing it into her velvety skin.

"You're tensed today." I whispered, leaning over to plant a soft kiss underneath her hairline.

"Kind of…,"

"Are you going to tell me what's on your mind right now? You've been so quiet the entire evening."

I massaged her neck, feeling her muscles relax under my touch.

"Please, don't stop." she murmured tiredly.

"I won't. Don't worry. But I need to know if you're okay. You are so quiet and sad all the time."

"I'm not sad. Just been thinking about a lot of things."

"And you don't want to talk about it, do you?

She nodded her head.

"But you know that you can tell me everything don't you? I'm here for you, if you need me."

Slowly she turned her head und nudged her full lips against my mouth so lightly that their warm skin was barely touching mine.

"My parents are going to hate me for the rest of my life." She croaked out, her voice trembling from the tears she was trying to hold back.

A sharp pain went through me, so strong that it knocked the breath out of me.

"I know, honey, and I can't tell you how sorry I'm about that. It's completely my fault that they're so mad at you."

I stroked down her cheekbone with my fingertips and put a wisp of her spikey hair behind her ear.

"You're wrong." she whispered after a few awkward moments of silence.

"Oh yes, it is."

"No, it's not your fault. Stop saying that."

She cleared her throat before she continued.

"Isn't that weird? My parents have lied to me for my entire life and still…,"

Her crystal voice cracked midsentence, when a few traitorous tears escaped the corner of her eyes.

"But you still want them to love you, don't you? I know how much it hurts you and I wished so much that I could manage to make them see that you're not the one who's responsible for all the awful things that happened."

I pulled her on my lap and started rocking her back and forth until she finally stopped trembling in my arms.

"Promise me, that you'll never leave me." she whispered into my ear, and I cringed when I recognized the fear in her question. Almost automatically I nodded my head.

"I would never leave. No, I could never leave you, Ali. For you are my whole world now and I can't imagine just being one single day apart from you."

I made a mental note to myself to have another talk with Carlisle and Esme about the way they kept treating their youngest daughter.

Tenderly I planted a kiss on her hair that was still a little damp from the shower she had taken earlier. Jeez, what would I give to shower with her…

"How do you like blue for the bridesmaids?"

"Hmm,"

"Rosie suggested pink, but that looks horrible with Lilly's hair and Jasmine hates the color too."

"I'm fine with blue. And I can't believe that you invited Jasmine to our wedding. She's probably trying to hijack you or something like that."

Ali shook her head.

"No, she won't – at least she promised me not to, and I promised her not to force her into something Barbie-colored for the ceremony."

"You know that I don't trust her one tiny bit. She's still trying to steal you away from me."

"You can't steal someone away from anyone that doesn't want to be stolen away."

"Probably. I think, Zafrina told me something like that too, when I talked to her about it."

"You're discussing your jealousy issues with Zafrina?"

"I didn't mean to, but she's pretty observant."

"Hmm, yes I know. That's something that she has in common with Jazz."

"Too bad, they don't have more in common. I'd be glad if they ended up together. It would help your ex to overcome this possessiveness she has about you"

"You want them to be together? Like seriously? You must know that I'm a pro at pairing off people!"

I raised one eyebrow in confusion.

"Are you sure that you're a pro at that? Because it didn't seem to work out the last time you tried."

"Oh, it did, exactly like I planned it to be."

"Getting them drunk so that they had sex together that made them both feel embarrassed the morning after, doesn't seem like such a great success to me."

"I'm pretty sure Zafrina wouldn't have said no to it, even if she had been sober."

"Maybe yes, maybe no…it's hard to tell what's going on in her. She's so good at controlling her emotions."

"Must be something that comes with her profession, I guess."

"Hmm,"

I started kneading the muscles in her shoulders again.

"You haven't told me about your wedding dress yet." I mumbled, letting my right hand move lower until I reached the small metal clasp of her bra.

"And I won't, because you instructed my brother not to tell me anything about yours."

"It's kind of cute how the two of you start referring as brother and sister to each other."

"Yeah, I'm happy about that too. I didn't think that it would feel that way, but it does. I really wished my father would have told be about him earlier…or about Sasha. There's so much that I would have loved to ask her and now I can't…ever."

"I'm sorry about that, Ali."

"Please, Bella, stop telling me you're sorry about things that aren't your fault at all."

I kissed the tip of her nose and sighed deeply.

"I love you."

"I love you more."

"I don't think that's possible, Ali. You're everything to me and I'm going to do anything, really anything to make you happy."

XXXX

Esme's, emerald green eyes, that had completely the same shade like Edward's, looked all puffy and red, when she opened the door for me.

"Bella?"

"Hi, Esme. Yeah, it's me. Surprise!"

"What are you doing here?"

I cleared my throat before I spoke up, trying to make my voice sound friendly and warm although I felt more like yelling at her.

"Can I come in?"

"Of course, you can. Do you want to eat or drink something?"

"I'm not hungry, thank you. But coffee would be nice."

I followed her into the kitchen that smelled deliciously of apples and cinnamon. I raised one eyebrow in confusion when I recognized that she was stirring some mustard into the dough.

"That's for Rosalie." she explained.

"The girl is craving that stuff so much right now, and I thought she would like it if I put some of it in her muffins."

She poured me a cup of coffee, and I sipped on it after adding some sugar and milk.

"I'm here to talk to you about Ali." I started. There was no use for making some small talk first. I sure didn't have the nerves for it right now.

Esme nodded her head and sighed.

"I thought so, but I can't understand why."

"Seriously, are you blind or something like that?"

So far for staying calm and friendly…

"She's completely miserable because of the way you and Carlisle keep treating her."

Esme started biting her fingernails nervously.

"Look, Bella, I'm really sorry about that but I don't know what to do. I miss her so much but…but how can she do something so completely selfish? Mary Alice isn't thinking one tiny bit about what's best for this family."

I took a deep breath through my nose and closed my hands into fists to suppress the angry shaking in them.

"Ali is not selfish, not at all. You can't call her selfish for wanting to be happy with someone she loves."

"How can she be happy in this unnatural, sinful…,"

"It's only unnatural and all this stuff in your eyes because you want it to be that. If you'd really loved Ali…,"

"How dare you assume that I don't love her, if you knew how much...," she croaked out hoarsely.

Then she pulled some pills out of her handbag and swallowed them with a glass of water.

"Is my presence giving you a headache?"

"Kind off…"

She starred out of the window for a moment while her eyes turned into glassy moss.

"Mary Alice was so tiny. I could hold her little head in the palm of my hand. She was so sick when her mo.., I mean when Sasha brought her into our house. Carlisle was so worried that she wouldn't even survive the first year of her life."

She pulled out a tissue and wiped some of her ruined makeup from her cheek. Yeah, I know exactly where Rosalie got her vanity from. Damn it, Bella, try to focus.

"I didn't want to keep her. She was so sick and there were Edward and Rosalie. How should I explain the sudden presence of an infant in our house? And the fact that my husband had cheated on me with some random chick, made me so…not really angry but sad and incredibly disappointed somehow."

"Hmm,"

"If I had asked my husband to shove her off into an orphanage, he would have done it. He would have done anything for me, just to make sure that I didn't divorce him."

She sniffed and pulled out another tissue to clean her nose.

"But when I held her in my arms for the first time, she wrapped her little hand around my finger…and I couldn't, I couldn't not love her and now everything is so messed up."

She returned to the kitchen table, her hands still trembling when she put the dough into the cake pan.

"Rosalie is angry at me too because I'm calling her too often to complain about her siblings. She thinks that I'm not interested enough in her or the babies, but that's not true. I just have no one else to turn to. Carlisle won't listen to me…well, when he's around at all. He practically lives in the hospital right now."

A low whimper left her throat when she tried to suppress more tears.

"God, I just want everything to be normal again, like it used to be."

"Normal like it used to be? Esme, I'm sorry to destroy your illusions but your family was never normal. Carlisle and you, the two of you lied to Ali for her entire life. More so, you made your children lie for you too. Normal parents don't do that. And you keep blaming Ali for everything that happened although if you look deep into yourself you'd have to admit that none of it is her fault."

I emptied my cup of coffee in one gulp and stood up from my chair.

"I assume that Rosalie has told you about the wedding?"

"Yes, she has and I can't believe that she and Emmett agreed to come to this unspeakable…,"

"Don't you dare to finish that sentence, Esme. Look, I could care less whether you and Carlisle come to the ceremony or not. You're not my parents. It doesn't change one tiny bit for me if you come or not. But it means way more to Ali than she wants to admit to herself."

"She can't expect us to watch her marry her sister-in-law. This is so…wrong, wrong in so many ways that I don't have words for it. What the two of you are doing is a sin."

"No, it's not. See, she and I aren't getting married to piss you off or anything. We love each other, we really do and we want to spend the rest of our lives together. Can't you for just one moment forget about what you want and think about what she needs?"

"I want only the best for her and she knows that. Why do you think I paid for her fashion school behind Carlisle's back?"

"You say, you love her but you don't care a thing about her happiness."

"That's not true, Bella. I do love her."

"Whatever. I have to go now. This conversation is exhausting me."

"Please, you can't just leave now. Not like that."

"Trust me, Esme, I can and I will. But do me the favor and consider coming to the ceremony, not for me but for Ali. It'd mean so much too her."

I tasted tears on my lips and realized that I had started crying too.

"I love her and I'm going to do everything I can do to make her happy, for she deserves to be happy more than any other person on earth."

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Next chapter will be the wedding special. Are you excited about that? I'm sooo nervous about it, I can't tell you. Until then, take care and leave me some reviews. I love them…not as much as Bella loves Ali but maybe as much as Bella loves chocolate *smile*