Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

31.

Wait.

What the hell just happened?

Did she really just agree to call Edward Masen?

"Well, so much for closure!" she muttered to herself, her feet slamming against the path as she angrily stomped her way back to the subway station. She was so disappointed in herself in that moment that she couldn't even begin to analyze where it had all gone wrong.

Of course, deep down she knew it was that same weird mumbo jumbo Edward always managed to play on her whenever he was close. It was like her mind lost all its capacity to think rationally or even think—period—the minute it sensed his presence.

She growled, scaring some of her fellow passengers as she flopped herself into an empty subway seat.

That stupid, seemingly reformed, breaker of her heart!

Why did he have to be so damn attractive?

Why did she even still care?

But she did. There was no denying it. The night after the concert she had been far too shocked to feel much of anything but, the minute she'd spotted him that morning, her heart had fluttered, seeming larger and lighter than it had for months.

And he looked good.

Healthy.

Remorseful.

Eager.

He'd been more open with her than he ever had been and what he told her painted everything he'd said and done during their time together in a new light.

He'd suffered.

Terribly.

And there had never been anyone who understood him enough to help him or tried hard enough to get through to him.

He must have felt so alone.

Her heart hurt for him as she thought about that little boy, all alone in a car with his dead parents, or being the slightly older boy growing up in a loveless home with a sister who was ten years his senior and on her way to freedom while he remained incarcerated in a golden cage.

Was it any wonder he'd grown to be a little screwed up in the head?

Could she really blame him for freaking out when finally someone threatened to punch through the wall that years of neglect had put up?

She didn't know.

But what Bella did know was that the whole thing left her confused and suffering from a mild migraine. After all, what he'd said had shocked her to the core and tore at her heartstrings, but it didn't make what he did right.

Not by a long shot.

So where did that leave her?

Did she want to forgive him and give them another chance?

Or was she too scared to ever let him get in a position to hurt her again?

Bella was in no way closer to answering that or any of the other questions that were swirling around in her mind by the time she reached her dorm room, but at least as soon as she entered, she knew she would have Alice to distract her.

Or not.

Her friend immediately veered up from the bed as soon as she spotted Bella coming in, her earplugs quickly discarded as she sat up straight. "So how was it? Did he say something? Did you hit him again? Did he explain?"

"I don't know. Yes. No and yes," Bella answered, sighing as she threw her cell phone onto her bed. "It was…weird, I guess."

"Good weird or bad weird?" Alice wanted to know, patting the space next to her on her bed.

"I don't know," Bella repeated herself, massaging her temples. "I got all the answers I wanted, so I guess I should feel satisfied now I got some of the closure I needed but…I don't know. Our story still doesn't feel all that closed to me." Sighing, she fell back on the bed, her frustration growing again as she thought back on their meeting. "Hell, Alice, I even promised to call him!"

Alice merely snorted as she lay down next to her best friend. "Like that is any news!" She giggled at Bella's shocked look. "Seriously, Bella, I could have told you that before you left this morning!"

Frowning, Bella turned to her side, even more confused than she had been. "I thought you were telling me I needed closure?" As much as part of her craved it, she had never really given any serious thought to a chance of a reconciliation with Edward. "How am I supposed to ever trust him again after what he did?"

"I don't know, Bella," Alice answered, her hand folding around her friend's. "I wish I had all the answers, but I don't. I do not know if the two of you really have a shot at starting over or if you'll ever be able to move on from what happened. What I do know is that one day, or maybe even right now, you're going to kick yourself for not trying…that there's always going to be that nagging 'what if', if you don't give this a try."

Bella sighed, thinking about what Alice has said. "I guess you're right." Bella exhaled slowly, knowing that once again her friend was right on the mark. "Damn, Ally, how did you get so relationship-smart?"

"Years of watching daytime television when I should have been doing my homework," Alice deadpanned. "Now if only I could apply that wisdom to myself and find a decent, not-too-weird-but-weird-enough guy to settle down with before my eggs dry up and I start morphing into Estelle Getty, I would appreciate it!"

"But what am I supposed to do now?" Bella wondered aloud. "How am I going to be around him and all of his expectations when I can't even be sure of what the hell it is I want? Or how I'm going to protect myself from the freaky voodoo tricks he's playing on my mind?"

"Safety in numbers," Alice suggested. "Invite him to come play softball with us next Friday and keep in touch through texting or some type of private social media until then."

"Like that's so easy!" Bella snorted. "The guy's an international rock star, Alice. Are you seriously suggesting I should invite him to come play softball with a bunch of college students?"

"Yep," Alice replied. "And I guarantee you he'll come, no matter how possibly awkward it will be. The guy's completely smitten with you and nobody, not even you, will slap that out of him."

Bella's skepticism only lasted as long as it took for her to contact Edward and find him much more enthusiastic about the softball-scheme than she could have ever imagined. Though, as she would have suspected, his enthusiasm wasn't so much about the game or the prospect of spending time with a bunch of college students, but the appeal of getting to spend a little more time with Bella.

Although she might not have known it, Edward would have gladly spent a full week in close quarters with Carlisle Cullen if it gave him the chance to spend more time with her.

She was nervous, that Friday, as she packed up her laptop after her final class of the day and joined Alice in their room for a bit of 'sprucing up' before they'd head on down to the playfields.

"Do you want to drop by Whole Foods on our way?" Alice asked as she slipped on some comfortable sports gear. "I don't think I can hold on until after we're done with our game. I'll starve!"

Bella chuckled, knowing the amount of food her tiny friend could eat. "I guess I could get a snack." She pulled her hair into a messy bun before tying her shoelaces, her hands trembled as she glanced sideways at the clock.

Only sixty minutes.

"Are you nervous?" Alice asked as she waited by the door for her friend to finish getting ready.

Bella nodded. "I know there's no pressure and that I'm free to decide whatever the hell I want but at the same time…I know he wants this and even though I'm torn, I kind of really want to want this too, if you know what I mean."

"You mean you want to get back to the way you felt before he broke your heart?" Alice asked, linking her arm through Bella's as they went on their way. "I can understand that."

"It's tough." Bella frowned, trying to organize her thoughts. "Especially since the whole thing made me doubt whether the image I had of him was real." She shrugged. "I dunno. Sometimes I think about what happened, both before and after, and my heart breaks all over again because I feel like I've lost my soulmate. But there are other times when I start to wonder if I ever really knew him at all. I mean, we talked but never that much about the future or the things going on between us…" Shaking her head, she added, "And it's pretty pointless, isn't it? What's a rock star going to do with a college student? How could that even work?"

"I could be really corny and say that love always finds a way," Alice offered, "but I figure that most of the times it's about wanting to put in the effort to make it work…make it find a way, regardless of all the obstacles or the people telling you that you're wasting your time. If you want it, you'll make it happen and if you find something in him that makes you want to reconnect, you'll take the chance to get to know him again."

"But I don't know if I want to…not yet, anyway," Bella explained as they pushed their way through the subway station.

Alice merely shrugged, almost toppling into Bella as the subway abruptly surged forward. "You will."

Bella tried to take Alice's words to heart as they exited at Columbus Circle, picking up some snacks before heading over to the Heckscher fields where they met up with the rest of the team.

"Who are we playing today?" Alice asked, grabbing her glove from the designer backpack she'd brought along with her.

Bella, meanwhile wandered off, scanning the bleachers for a sign of Edward, her anxiety and disappointment growing when she found none.

He was late.

Was he even coming?

Did he forget?

Did he come to the conclusion that she was just not worth his effort?

"Bella? We're getting started." Judging by the tone of Alice's voice, her best friend had noticed that Edward hadn't shown up, either.

Disappointed, Bella slid her glove on and trudged towards her spot: one of those where a ball was most unlikely to end up. Now that her evening had become a bust without even starting, all her zest for the game had vanished like snow before the sun.

Mike smiled at her from his spot on the pitcher's mound before focusing his attention on the game as he tried to start strong by striking out the first player of the other team. Pitching was the one activity where he actually had the right to boast, as opposed to his grand tales of genius were hugely overstated. Between Mike and Tyler, who was a pro on first base, they made three outs in no time and as Bella walked back to the bleachers, she had a hard time keeping herself from walking straight to the nearest subway station.

As much as she had dreaded this outing, the disappointment over how it had turned out made her long for her bed.

"Am I too late?" Edward was a panting, sweaty mess as he appeared before her, seemingly from out of nowhere. "I tried to get away sooner but Marcus wanted to put down some more tracks." What Edward didn't mention was that it had almost come to blows between him and one of the most renowned indie producers of the day when the mercurial artist had demanded his freedom while the man who would rescue his career had demanded more of his time and attention.

And with his career still hanging in the balance, Edward hadn't dared risk alienating another industry great.

"You're here now, that's all that matters." Bella smiled, deciding the guilty look in his eyes was enough to let him off the hook. "You could have called, though."

"I know." Edward rubbed his neck, looking like a kid scolded for missing his curfew. "I was so busy cursing out my producer that I kind of forgot about that. I did send you a message, though, as soon as I was out of the building."

"I must have been out on the field by then," Bella surmised, knowing from their text conversations throughout that week that they were using a recording studio not that far away from the ball field.

"So shouldn't you be out there right now?" he asked, motioning over to the rest of her team.

"Nah," Bella answered, taking a sip from the bottle of water she'd produced from her bag. "Mike and Tyler, our team captains, made me try batting twice before we concluded it was best for all of mankind of I sat that one out." She chuckled, patting her baseball glove. "In fact, I'm not actually any good at this game at all but I tag along because it's fun."

"That's all that matters, isn't it?" Edward quipped, applauding as Mike all but hit the ball out of the park.

"Well, I guess there can be such a thing as too much fun!" Bella remarked, blushing at the sneer she'd made. "Sorry."

"Nah, I deserved that," Edward gracefully admitted. "And a whole lot more, I'd say."

"True." Bella nodded, carefully sipping her water. "So is that what rehab taught you? Well, apart from staying sober, that is."

"Among other things," Edward confirmed. "But mostly it taught me not to be a punk-ass dick to the people who love me."

Bella smirked, remembering the way he used to be. "I guess that's an important lesson to start with."

"And it taught me how to deal with all the shit from my past," he added. "That's not to say I'm not scared shitless about the future, though."

Angling her body towards him, Bella studied his face carefully before she asked her next question, wanting to assure herself that there wasn't any fakery in his face. "How come?"

"I'm sober now and absolutely completely clean of all drugs and alcohol, but I know what it's going to be like when I go back on tour or when the whole media circus starts up again. It will be so easy to slip back into old habits…"

"But do you want to?" Bella asked.

Edward shook his head. "Seeing Bree Tanner lying on the sidewalk with a bloody sheet covering her body made me realize that it could have been me in a few years maybe, when I'd succeeded in fucking everything up." He remained quiet for a moment as his eyes followed the game but his mind seemed to be miles away. "I don't want to fuck things up anymore and I don't want to hurt the people I love even more than I've already done. I'm over not giving a shit about what I do to myself and to others, but it's just that it's fucking hard some days to walk that line."

"I'm not going to pretend I know what you're talking about, because I don't," Bella started, "but I can imagine that with the scene you're in…yeah, it's hard to stick with the program. But as long as you really want to…"

"I want to prove myself," Edward admitted, "but even more so I want to actually have a life, have real friends, be a brother and uncle…a partner." He sighed, his eyes briefly searching hers. "And I don't want to pressure you or assume anything but…I really want to be your lover."

"I know," Bella admitted as Alice had another spectacular strike, much to her own amusement, signaling another switch in teams. Grabbing her glove, she was actually glad for the out this gave her. Because with Edward's persistence she could feel her walls cracking and her heart hammering with fear and excitement. She needed a little break to get her wits back.

"I can be patient, though," Edward called after her, causing Bella to walk out onto the field with a smile.

Thoughts?