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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.
22.
"Wake up, Bella! It's our first day of class!"
If there was anything Bella didn't like, it was being woken up before she had to. It had been all fine and dandy when it had been the early morning sun flittering through the curtains of her room in the Hamptons, but when it was her 120 pound roommate jumping on her bed at six in the morning, it was definitely not okay.
"Alice! Down!" she growled, swatting at the annoying little midget who had managed to insert herself into Bella's life ever since she'd arrived.
In all honesty, Bella had to admit that as far as roommates went, Alice wasn't so bad. She was kind and smart enough to know when to leave Bella, but also push her to get out there and enjoy the city that truly never slept—well, not as far as Bella could see, at least. She could be a bit much, though, especially early in the mornings. Or maybe it was just that in the mornings, when Bella was still reeling from a restless night filled with nightmares, Alice's behavior seemed more noticeable than at time when she was more awake and up to the challenge of being around other human beings.
Or maybe it was just the jumping on Bella's bed.
"What are you going to wear?" Alice asked, already moving towards Bella's closet.
"Don't even think about it!" Bella warned, knowing that if she didn't put a stop to it right there and then, Alice would not only pick out her clothes and dress her but would probably also select her breakfast, feed it to her in tiny, bite sized portions and tell her where to sit in class. "Remember what I said about boundaries?"
Alice nodded, slightly scolded as some of the unbridled energy Bella both loved and hated started to seep away. "Okay." She pouted, scurrying back to her side of the room before dramatically flopping her body onto the bed. "I'll just be here if you need me...minding my own business…while being bored to death."
"You might put your time to good use and do at least some of the summer reading you were supposed to complete," Bella warned, knowing Alice was in for a world of hurt if one of her professors decided to put her on the spot.
"Nah," Alice shrugged her roommate's worries away. "Reading is overrated. I'll just wing it."
Bella chuckled, shaking her head as she grabbed the clothes she'd laid out the previous night. After a couple of days together, she still managed to travel from one surprise to the next where it came to her roommate. At heart, Alice was one of the fiercest and loving friends a girl could wish for. In upbringing, though, the two girls couldn't have been more different. Where Bella's humble background and stern father had made her introverted, quiet and cautious, Alice's wealthy Bohemian parents had taught her to jump into the world with two feet at once and embrace life with a firm hug.
Knowing every nook and cranny of the city she'd grown up in and loved to bits, Alice had spent whatever free time they had outside of Columbia's introduction week, showing Bella her own, unique take on the Big Apple. From quaint, hole in the wall restaurants to quiet, almost macabre slices of quiet and urban decay in the bustling, industrious city that surrounded them. Bella fell from one wonder into the next as they mixed the well-known landmarks with little, unknown treasures.
And whether she wanted to or not, Alice had dragged her kicking and screaming into her close little circle of friends, most of whom would be starting off at Columbia College that day.
Just like the two of them.
Nervous excitement started to bubble up inside of her as Bella finished getting ready for her first day. Checking her bag one last time to see if she really had everything—laptop, pens, notebook, books—before she allowed Alice to drag her out for breakfast.
"Mike is throwing a little get-together at the park this Friday to celebrate our first week as college students," Alice announced as they sat outside, soaking up the early morning sun while sipping their coffees. "He made a point of asking me to invite you as well." She rolled her eyes as she spoke the words, already knowing her friend was nowhere near as into Mike Newton as he seemed to be into her. "You should come, though. We've got this softball league-thing going with a bunch of other groups, which is fun, and we usually get something to eat and drink afterwards."
"I'll come, even if the thought of dodging Mike all night kind of freaks me out." Bella sighed, wondering how she would manage to gently crush his hopes of ever standing a chance with her when so far the guy seemed to be immune to all the little hints she'd dropped.
"Come on, give him a shot!" Alice teased. "He may look a little shady but he's pretty harmless as far as guys go. And I promise you that you'll make his entire year if you agree to go out on a date with him."
"I'm sorry." Bella dumped her empty coffee cup in the bin as she stood to make a hasty escape to her first class. "I'll come out with you on Friday but please don't try to set me up with any of your friends. I don't date."
As she walked to the building where her first class was scheduled, Bella's shoulders slumped slightly in defeat. Alice had been right: as far as guys went, Mike wasn't so bad. He had all the clean-cut looks, brains, politeness and New England kind of pedigree and girl like her should go for. In fact, a few months ago she would have definitely take Alice's advice to heart and agreed to give the guy a shot. Not any longer…
Her heart was still full of another man; a man she simply couldn't escape from even though he seemed to have made a very clean break from her, if the tabloids were to be believed. Every time she walked by a newsstand, her wound would bleed afresh when she spotted front page after front page of him stumbling out of some club or harassing a photographer.
There was no escaping him.
Even if she'd wanted to.
It was a strange kind of masochism that drove her to stalk him through the various media outlets—social as well as traditional—to see how he was doing. Even if nine time out of ten it made her heart ache with worry and shatter into pieces.
The minute she stepped into the classroom, though, Bella's thoughts were immediately focused on finding a good spot and arranging her things. As often as her thoughts still wandered to him, over the weeks she had learned to push it away to a quiet corner in her mind whenever she needed to focus or keep up the semblance of a fully functioning human being, excited about her freshman experience.
Her heartbeat drummed in her chest as the room started to fill up around her and the professor entered the room. This was what she had been working towards for years; pinning brochures to her bedroom walls and studying the Core Curriculum until it barely held any secrets for her anymore. The mixture of classes and disciplines were what had drawn her to Columbia of the first place and even though some of them seemed daunting and almost unsurmountable tasks, the challenge they offered made it all the more exciting.
And she wasn't disappointed.
As her first day as a college student progressed, Bella found herself challenged in more ways than one. From being put on the spot in her literature humanities class to forming a study group with a bunch of people she didn't know for one of her required science classes and, finally, ending her day in the university's swimming pool for her swimming test.
By the time she made it safely back to her dorm room, she was completely wiped out but with a beaming smile on her face as she called her dad to recount the events of the day.
And it was the start of many good but tiring days.
Over the next couple of weeks, Bella started to get into her groove at college; the distraction of school work moved her thoughts from Edward and her broken heart. She was flourishing again, under the excitement and stimulation of her college education.
And people took notice.
"I think Mike isn't the only one on the team who's taken an interest," Alice spoke, grinning around a bite of food as they sat on one the bleachers by the Central Park ball fields. It had become almost a tradition of theirs: score some provisions at Whole Foods after their last class of the day and have a picnic at the park while watching their friends work up a sweat. "Are you sure you still want to act like a nun?"
"Quite positive," Bella answered, "You know I don't date."
"Yeah, but I know you're lying about your reason why!" Alice, who had become a true, if not slightly intimidating, friend to her over the weeks, grumbled. "As far as I've heard, you're kicking butt and taking names in all of your classes without so much as breaking a sweat! You'd have more than enough time for some lovin' on the side." She huffed, trying to force her friend out of her shell by adding, "I'm sure the guy who turned you off guys isn't being celibate right now. And besides, the best way you get over someone is to get back in the saddle as soon as you can!"
"That doesn't matter, Alice," Bella answered softly, wishing as she had so often during the past weeks, that her friend would just drop the matter. "I'm not ready to enter into anything right now…my heart isn't available."
"But what about your pussy, Bella?" Alice pressed, much to Bella's shock and horror. "I get that you're not ready for a full-blown relationship right now but what about some hot bumping and grinding? I know a couple of guys, hell, I can even point them out right now, who would jump at the chance to give you a few hours' worth of orgasms, no strings attached."
"I don't do that kind of thing." Bella sighed, her heart heavy with the image of Edward stumbling out of a club after doing God knows what, that she'd seen on some gossip website that morning. She didn't know why she still looked (it might have been some sick, masochistic tendency or something else) but she still couldn't resist it.
And she got burned every time.
"Maybe you should," Alice remarked offhandedly, before settling her attention back on the game in front of them.
Her words kept playing on Bella's mind all evening. Maybe you should. She'd done that before and was hurt in the process, which made her very unlikely to put her heart on the line again. But what if she took her heart out of the equation? Would she be able to have fun in the way free, flowerchild Alice would want her to have?
No.
In her heart she knew she could never be as free as Alice. She could try, maybe even force herself, but she would never be the kind of girl who could enjoy a one night stand. More than eighteen years of relatively conservative upbringing told her that. It would only add to the heaviness of her already weighty heart.
All that night, she tossed and tuned, her mind mulling on the brokenness of her heart and the possibility of future happiness. When light began to stream in through the blind, she was still no further to finding the answer…still nowhere closer to separating herself from him, even though he didn't seem to have that same problem.
"Oh, how the mighty have fallen!" It was somewhere around eight in the morning that she woke up to the sound of Alice's voice and the soft, muted sounds of her laptop running some entertainment program.
"Wha-?" Bella croaked, rubbing her eyes as she sat up.
"Oh, you're awake!" Alice squealed. "I thought you'd never join the land of the living again!"
"What are you mumbling about?" Bella grumbled, displeased at having her sleep disturbed yet again by her roommate.
Rolling her eyes, Alice put her laptop aside. "It's just some item on the news about this rock star Edward Masen. Do you know him?"
"Yes." Bella's heart was hammering in her throat as the life she lived before she came to Furnald Hall and her present life seemed to converge on the screen of an overpriced piece of equipment as she watched Edward being dragged out of some hotel by the police; his hair in disarray and his clothes obviously the ones he'd slept in.
"I used to have such a lady boner for that guy," Alice gushed, "but ever since he started powdering his nose—if you know what I mean—he's taken a turn for the worse. And now it seems he's even dragged some poor unsuspecting woman into it as well!"
Bella's eyes widened as Alice's words started to take even more shape in the big fat letters headlining the news on the laptop.
ROCK STAR ARRESTED AFTER DRUG-FILLED HOTEL DRAMA KILLS A YOUNG MOTHER.
Thoughts?