A/N: Don't be too hard on yourself, Edward...

Chapter 32

Far Away

Edward's POV

I was distracted by a fucking Colgate toothbrush.

I'd noticed, peripherally, when Bella walked past the aisle I was in, but instead of listening to my first instinct to follow her, I went back to my four hour deliberation over fucking hard or medium bristles.

I had just decided on a blue one with freaking ridges, when Nummi rounded the corner, her eyes wide with panic, her face paling with it.

"Where's Bella?" she asked, her high, restricted voice emphasizing the seriousness behind it.

It completely surprised me, so much so that for a moment my only response was to blink blankly. I'd been doing a lot of that the last couple of days, but I was fucking confused by it.

And I really shouldn't have been.

I was just about to tell her she was a few aisles ahead of me, when she suddenly called out to her. She sounded so anxious, that my pulse quickened, while realization slowly dawned on me.

"—What?" I asked her, beginning to feel more and more uneasy.

She spoke one word—the one word I was fucking praying she wouldn't, "Renee."

I was rounding the corner in the next instant, my heart slamming in my chest at the very idea of what this person might do to Bella—might mean to Bella if she ran into her.

She wasn't down the next aisle, or the next. The third isle over was where I discovered her, but just as quickly as I spotted her, standing frozen to the spot, a woman standing before her slapped her across the face with so much force that it nearly knocked her sideways off her feet.

Something snapped deep within me, and for a moment I felt like I was the one who was struck. It stunned me, stopping me short, before I immediately exploded into action; the sheer velocity of my anger propelling me forward before my mind could catch up.

In the next instant this woman dragged Bella by the arm, pulling her toward her. Bella was unresponsive. I could see it in her entire posture; she was limp, and it evoked such a raw emotion in me that my skin almost felt electrified by it. It was both a seething rage and fear.

I reached Bella within seconds, without her or this person noticing me approach, before yanking her—probably too roughly—from this woman's grip, into my arms. She immediately turned and clung to me desperately, and it only made my rationality splinter. I was controlled only by my raging anger.

"Back-the-fuck-off!" I all but growled at this fucking bitch, the sheer anger in my voice making it tremble.

Instinctively, I turned Bella away from her, but every muscle within me was rigid and tense as I held her.

My eyes flew back to this woman; the warning behind my glare clear.

She only arched an eyebrow at me arrogantly, sizing me fucking up. "My, my. My daughter must be a good little whore if you followed her all the way here."

I opened my mouth to reply, wanting nothing more than to punch this bitch square in the face, when Bella shoved from my arms, pushing passed me, and ran out of the aisle.

I turned, ready to catch up to her, when she all but collided with Nummi, who quickly dragged her out of the store.

I had intended to immediately follow, when I heard this woman in front of me snort. The anger brewing within me was reaching fucking boiling point, and before I was fully aware of it, I'd turned back to her and had taken a step toward her. The cockiness of her expression fell instantly and a flicker of fear reflected in her pale eyes.

Eyes that were nothing at all like Bella's...

I had no idea what I was going to do, but before I could decide on it I was interjected by the storekeeper. He came between Bella's mother and me, edging me away from her.

"Let it go, mate," he spoke firmly, but with an edge of understanding in his voice.

I turned to leave; my focus switching back to Bella again—and the fact that this bitch of a woman had laid her fucking hands on her. That was when I acted. Whirling around, and ignoring the clerk as he placed both his hands square against my chest to restrain me, I pointed my finger at her with a direct warning.

"You stay the fuck away from her, you got me?"

She only stood there, surveying me, her eyes narrowing, before opening her mouth, fucking sneering, but before she spoke a word I was out of the store.

With her arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders, Nummi was leading Bella across the street. I caught up with them in seconds. Bella was breathing sharply, shaking her head as if to fight back her tears, her hands digging into her face. Then pulling from Nummi's arms, she merely stood there, her head lowered, her chest heaving.

"Don't you dare listen to her, Bella!" Nummi ordered her. She looked angry, but the tone of her voice contradicted her.

This seemed to jolt Bella, and she looked up apprehensively. Her hair was obscuring most of her face, but not well enough to conceal the welted imprint of a hand swelling across her cheek. It immediately made the anger within me resurface, then almost as quickly fade as she rose her eyes. They were fucking desolate and defeated, but a spark had ignited in them.

She was also pissed off.

She gazed at Nummi first before she turned her eyes on me, and when they met mine, they widened, smoothing out the pain etched into her brow. I raised my hands tentatively, to calm her, while the sight of her completely broken and hurt was making me fucking edgy and anxious. I wanted to take this moment from her; I wanted to kiss her cheek until the redness went away.

Her forehead began to bunch again, her eyes beginning to burn with so much emotion I couldn't pin point what was more prominent. For a moment she just stared at me, before tearing her eyes from mine and squeezed them shut. Then bringing her hands to the side of her face, she pressed them into her skin, as if she was trying to shut out the madness that was screamed within her.

I turned to glance at Nummi, and when she met my gaze she shook her head a fraction, with both anger and this desperate fear. I quickly turned back to Bella, not wanting to read just how dire the situation was from someone who knew her better than I did.

For a moment Bella seemed to calm, her breathing evening out, and she stood almost still. Then it was if an explosion was detonated inside her. Her face crumbled beneath it and her breath became gasps.

I took an immediate step toward her, but as if in reflex, she stepped away, before pressing her hands against her eyes, beginning to shake her head back and forth. A momentum was rising in her. Her breath became even more restricted and as she struggled against it she began to sob. Then removing her hands away from her eyes, revealing her pale, rigidly angry face—her eyes burning with the fire that was so obviously tearing her apart—she yelled, at the top of her lungs, full of frustration and anger.

"GOD DAMN IT!"

"Bella, sweetie. It's okay," I said to her making my voice as tender and as soothing as I could.

This only seemed to piss her off; though, every molecule of her face was flooded with pain and magnified in her eyes. "No!" she uttered between sobs. "It's not okay. IT'S NOT OKAY!"

I just wanted to drag her to me. Watching her suffer like this before me was ripping my fucking heart out, but I wasn't sure how she'd react if I touched her.

"Bells, calm down, please," Nummi pleaded with her, reaching out to her, but Bella again stepped back.

"I'M FINE!" she yelled out defiantly; though, she was far from it. "There's nothing wrong with me. I'm f-fi—" Her voice caught, becoming choked, before she completely broke down.

It was more than I could bear. Taking a single step, I enfolded her against me, feeling her trembling body against mine for little more than a moment before she promptly pulled away from me.

"Don't touch me, Edward!" she demanded, her anger flaring to the surface again. "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!"

I just gazed at her flushed face, and that fucked up dejected look of pain in her eyes, but it only made me more determined. Grabbing her hand, I pulled her back to me.

"I'm not going anywhere, Bella!" I said stubbornly.

She only stared up at me for a moment, becoming breathless and shaking like a leaf. It was if she was trying to comprehend what was happening; or if she were trying to comprehend me. I really had no fucking idea. Then shaking her head again, she tore her hand from mine and squeezed her eyes shut.

I would get through to her. I would let her know that her mother—her past meant nothing to me. That I loved her for the girl I knew back home in Forks, and that knowing who her mother was would never change that.

Reaching out, I grabbed her shoulders, shaking her a little, forcing her to meet my gaze. She snapped her eyes open and stared so deeply at me, looking so fucking lost and helpless.

"Just listen to me," I spoke to her intently. "I'm right here. It's gonna be okay."

But even as I spoke it I wasn't sure that it would be, and it was fucking killing me that she was being torn apart.

She only blinked, her forehead puckering as if she didn't understand, before she again turned from me. I let her go with a defeated sigh, as she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

"I don't want you here, Edward!" Her voice was choked and muffled behind her hands, but she fucking meant it.

I had opened my mouth to speak, but immediately shut it, faltering, feeling fucking injured. It was the way she'd emphasized my name, fucking coldly and with an American accent; as if she was mocking me.

Nummi beside me spoke up, "Bells, come on."

And when I turned to Nummi, she looked more fucking helpless than I felt, that I began to realize just how serious it was. How badly Bella was reacting.

Bella shook her head again; her face was burning with anger, despite the fact that she was fighting back her tears. Then, turning her eyes on me, she pointed her finger at me, fucking accusingly—as if I were the reason this was happening. "Get him away from me, Nummi!"

I took another cautious step toward her despite the fact that I felt like she'd just punched the fuck out of me, but she immediately stumbled away, almost losing her footing.

"Bella ... you can't get rid of me that easily," I said to her lowly, but I was already beginning to fucking doubt everything. She didn't want me here; what could I do?

She only stared at me for a moment, until something behind her eyes flickered and her posture changed. Right before my eyes, she switched herself off.

"You don't get it, Edward," she snapped, her tone hard and sarcastic. "You shouldn't be here. I don't want you here—you or Alice!" her voice suddenly, rose and with it all her anger and frustration, directed straight at me. "GET ON A GOD DAMN FUCKING PLANE AND GO HOME!"

She was glaring at me now and her words were like fucking acid. I just held her gaze, stubbornly letting her know that she wasn't scaring me off. When it came to a battle of wills, she always kicked my ass, but her fucking mother meant nothing to me. I just had no idea how I was going to get that through to her.

She was so completely fucking fractured that as I looked at her, I barely recognized her. This girl in front of me wasn't the same one I knew back home. This girl had been poisoned, and she hated the world at that moment, and me most of all...

Still, I continued to gaze at her, watching as she crumbled, almost shrinking away from me, until she was unable to hold my eyes. Then turning away from me, she began to run.

I immediately moved to go after her, when Nummi grabbed my hand. "Edward, don't," she warned me, sighing heavily. "Just let her go."

I turned back almost incredulously. "You're okay with her taking off, alone?"

Nummi's eyes filled with tears. "Of course I'm not! But this is what Renee does to her. She needs some time to deal with it."

Turning back, I watched as Bella's retreating body stumbled further away. I was anxious, and my legs were restless, itching to chase after her.

"I can't ... I can't just leave her here," I stammered, feeling like a useless prick and not having a single clue what the fuck I was supposed to do.

"Edward," Nummi said more firmly, "if you go after her and force her back you will make her worse. The fact that you witnessed what happened is tearing her apart. She will not want you anywhere near her."

"I don't give a fuck about her mother!" I snapped.

"It doesn't matter," she replied, her tone softening, but sounding more frustrated. "Do you think she's behaving rationally right now?"

"I..." I began before abandoning it, because I had no fucking clue what Bella was thinking, and it only made me feel worse.

Releasing my breath heavily, I reached up and rubbed the back of my head, fucking conceding, but when I met Nummi's gaze a moment later it was with resignation. "So ... every time she looks at me now, she'll be thinking about what happened today?"

Nummi sighed, deeply, drawing it out, before nodding. "For a while, she will. But she'll get past it."

I only huffed, but I was feeling defeated, and weary all of a sudden. "So what now? We just wait until she comes back?"

I turned back in the direction Bella had fled, before back to Nummi, debating with myself again whether or not I should go after her. My gut feeling told me yes, while reminding myself again that Nummi knew Bella a hell of a lot more than I did and I needed to listen to her.

Nummi pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and began dialing, explaining to me, apologetically as she waited for it to answer, "I'm calling Chris."

What the fuck!

My back immediately tensed and straightened, fucking indignant. I couldn't go after her, but fucking Thor could?

I only stared down at her, unable to answer without saying something infantile and jealous, while I could feel my face darken. She opened her mouth to reply to my obvious opposition to the idea when she was cut off by a voice on the other end.

I listened as she quickly explained the situation, while I tried to get a handle on the very same emotion I felt when I thought Bella had gone on a date with Weasel fucking Newton.

Nummi switched her phone off and turned to me with a pleading expression in her eyes. "Edward, you need to understand. Bella spent most of her life with Kel's family. Chris is like her brother. Kel was always the only one who could talk her around after shit like this happened, and I don't know if Chris will be able to, but it's all I can think of!"

And I got the impression she was telling me something else, as well: and you know fuck all about her life, so you can't help her.

I only placed my hands on my hips in defiance, forcing the air through my nose, pissed off and offended, but more than anything I was fucking uncertain; about everything, but her most of all. These people she grew up with—Chris—would be better for her than I would be at the moment. I couldn't help her, whether Nummi had told me outright or not, because in reality I barely knew her or her life before Forks.

Conceding, I nodded begrudgingly. "Okay..."

We waited for what seemed like an hour to hear from Chris while we sat in Nummi's parked car, when in reality it was closer to ten minutes. When he called, letting Nummi know that he had Bella with him, I was immediately relieved that she was okay, only to be reminded again that she was with another guy who was able to get through to her when I couldn't. Bella was my girlfriend—finally after all the shit that I'd gone through to get her. That I couldn't be there for her, fucking killed me, and pissed me off.

The drive back to the house was in silence. Nummi seemed nervous, and lost in thought while I struggled to get a grip on both the fucking resentment as well as the edginess running through me, while trying not to focus on what Bella had said to me. It wasn't fucking easy.

Nummi had told me persistently, while we were waiting for Chris' phone call, that Bella didn't mean it. Deep down, I knew she didn't; deep down I knew that Bella didn't want me to be a part of her old life and she was simply reacting to the shock of her mother. But, it still fucking gutted me.

The moment we walked through the front door, Rach zeroed in on Nummi. She seemed to know in an instant exactly why Bella wasn't with us, while all Alice could do was stare at me puzzled and with rising alarm at the no doubt expression on my face—that I had no hope of masking.

"Christ ... don't tell me..." Rach spoke with dread.

Nummi merely nodded in resignation.

"Fuck…" Rach mumbled, dragging her hands through her hair just as Nummi's mother came into the room.

She took one glance at Nummi then at me, before she released the air from her lungs in a frustrated sounding sigh. "Where is she?"

"Chris," Nummi answered sedately.

"What happened?" Rach asked, she sounded resigned, but with growing anger.

"She ... slapped her," Nummi answered quietly, her forehead creasing.

It immediately flashed through my mind, making me almost physically react to it. How Bella's face had jerked sideways, her hair flying out and covering the side of her face—that had immediately burned deep red.

"Jesus Christ, Nummi!" Rach suddenly snapped, bringing my attention back to her. "Didn't we agree that if Bella went into town one of us was always with her in case this very thing happened!"

She couldn't really blame Nummi; I wasn't with her, either.

After seeing those photos of Bella, a broken, abused child, I should have understood the danger of running into her mother. I had come to Australia to protect and support her and I'd fucked up on the second day. To see the pain in her eyes through a photograph was one thing, but to see it right before me was another. When Bella was yelling at me, I saw that little girl she once was staring back at me. It was like a fucking sledgehammer smashing its way through my chest.

Nummi's mother kept us preoccupied with food and drinks—that none of us touched—while we waited for Bella to return. We only sat distracted with our own thoughts and avoiding each other's gazes, when Alice broke the silence.

"When Bella was being abused by her mother, did anyone ever call the authorities?"

"They came out when Bella was about thirteen, I think," Rach explained. "She got the beating of her life when they went, even though she backed up everything her mother told them."

"I know mum called them a few times, but we're kind of ignored out here in the bush," Nummi replied, scoffing and rolling her eyes.

"That and the fact that her slag of a mother slept through every copper in town," Rach added, bitterly.

Carol arrived in the room and placed four cups of coffee on the coffee table we were sitting around. Then sighing wearily, she continued the story, "By that time we were able to look out for her better anyway. Her mother's reputation began cracking amongst her few allies, so she started keeping the abuse very private, but by then Bella was rarely at home."

"Only she'd go home of her own choice, always drawn back to that piece of shit excuse for a parent until the very end," Rach spat, shaking her head lightly to herself.

Carol sat on the couch next to me. "You have to understand that her mother was all she knew. It was natural for her to desperately crave her mother's love and attention."

"Where was her father?" I suddenly demanded, sounding rude and disrespectful, but I couldn't find it in myself to give a shit.

Carol cleared her throat softly before explaining, "I think her father came to town maybe five or six times, and I doubt he was aware of anything."

"Jesus," Alice whispered, meeting my gaze, her eyebrows bunched together. "When Bella told us that her mother never loved her, I had no idea..."

"Never loved her?" Nummi scoffed sarcastically. "If only that—hang on ... what?" she suddenly broke off, staring from Alice to me, dumbfounded.

"Bella told you her mother never loved her?" Rach asked with genuine surprise.

"Yeah," it was me who answered.

"Why...?" Alice asked with growing confusion.

"The fact that Bella even mentioned her mother—shit, we've known her most of her life and the only time she'd ever bring her up was when we forced her to," Rach explained, looking over to Nummi as if for validation, who immediately nodded.

"It's obvious that Bella feels safe in Forks," Carol commented.

"And it's obvious that she feels something strong for the two of you!" Rach said pointedly, glancing from Alice to me with a small, rueful smile.

. . .

After about two hours of sitting in the living room, and going into periodical small talk regarding Bella's childhood, that seemed to disturb Nummi and Rach to the point that they fell quiet, Chris Hemsworth finally pulled up noisily in the gravelly driveway close to the house. Bella was sitting in the passenger side, her eyes downcast, and her shoulders drawn. I stood up, my heart quickening, as my body burned with its usual predictable fucking surge of heat as I watched Bella exit the car.

Chris came to the passenger side and put his arm over her shoulders, immediately making me tense, as anger swelled within me; knowing if this was anyone else I would have flattened the prick. But it wasn't anyone else; he wasn't Newton, and I was acting like an irrational, jealous dick!

When Bella entered through the front door, her eyes flickered in my direction but she turned her head away immediately and disappeared down the hall with the girls; Carol included. This was not before I noticed the bruise that was appearing on her face, and was hit by a flood of emotions that, for a brief moment, threatened my rationality.

When I looked up, probably looking as fucked up as I felt, I met Chris' eyes. He was peering at me apprehensively, his expression knotted as if he was gauging me.

"Mate ... do you want to go out back for a beer or something?"

I shrugged, trying to get hold of the anger I was feeling for him, when I should have been feeling fucking grateful. "Sure."

I sat down on the patio furniture with a can of "Tooheys" in front of me, as Chris took the chair across from me, continuing to eye me closely.

"You've got the shits, and I can't blame you for that," he finally spoke, the faintest grin appearing across his face.

I shook my head feeling like the infantile prick that I was, when he quickly continued.

"It's okay—I understand. It's right with me," he paused and took a gulp of his beer before he continued. "I had a chat with her for a bit and she talked about you a lot. She's really upset that you've seen things that she didn't want you to know. She's ashamed—"

I opened my mouth to interject and tell him she didn't have to be ashamed around me, but he nodded quickly and held up his hand to stop me. "I know, but this is just how she deals with it all. She takes it all on alone and she pushes people away rather than involve them."

I took a sip of my beer, coughing into my hand to hide the grimace. Chris knew exactly what I was doing, and again a small smirk lit up on his face but disappeared just as quickly.

"Does she really want me to go back home?"

"Shit, no!" he said adamantly. "She might have said so, and she might even think she does, but if you did that I think she'd fall apart."

I nodded, taking a deep breath as I contemplated it, not really believing him.

"Look, mate, my advice is, give her a few days. She'll come around and when she does, do us a favor?" he asked.

I looked over at him surprised. He met my eyes steadily, but his expression was strained; he took another gulp from his beer.

"Yeah...?" I asked beginning to feel uncertain.

"Tell her to stop beating herself up over not coming back straight after—" his voice stopped abruptly and he cleared his throat thickly before he continued; it was obviously difficult for him, "after Kel got into the accident."

I nodded slowly, but scoffed softly. "I'll try, but fuck me, she carries guilt like no one I've ever known."

Chris only nodded, kind of ironically smiling in understanding.

. . .

I expected Bella to be withdrawn, to lay low. I didn't see her for the rest of the afternoon and she didn't come to dinner. Alice told me that she'd insisted she wasn't hungry, but Carol still took a plate of food to her, anyway.

There wasn't really much I could do. Bella wasn't comfortable with the idea of having me around her at the moment, and with the girls staying close to her, John and Brian kept me with them.

That night they got at least four "middys" into me. Carol rescued me when they were going for a fifth round, ushering me off to bed before I could puke my dinner up over the patio pavement. Staggering to the bathroom, I had a shower, gaining some of my equilibrium back, before drinking bucketfuls of water—Emmett's one and only brotherly advice if I was going to drink in the future—then went to bed.

The fucking screeching of those white birds woke me again at 6:00am the next morning. Getting dressed, I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth; I had a God awful taste in my mouth that was churning my stomach. When I stepped back into the hall afterward, Nummi, Rach and Alice were leaving their room; Bella wasn't with them.

"Hey, Edward." Nummi smiled at me.

"How is she?" I asked her seriously. "Erm ... hi!"

Her mouth tugged into a small smile before it fell with a sigh.

Beside her Rach scoffed and piped up before Nummi could answer, "Mute."

"W-what do you mean?" I asked, stammering, my fingers finding my brow subconsciously.

"She's barely spoken to any of us, Edward," Alice answered, her eyes rising to meet mine without disguising her concern. "And she can barely look at me."

"She'll come around. She always does," Rach muttered, not sounding very confident, though, while the expression on Nummi's face all but cemented it.

Bella didn't appear at breakfast, and just after I finished, Brian dragged me off for a back breaking day's work of hard labor, fixing containment fences. By the time Carol came out with lunch, I was already fucked up. She made sure I had enough cokes to keep the long necks John and Brian were drinking out of my hands, with a small understanding smile in my direction, before she headed back. There was no way I could drag the fucking size of the logs they used for fence railings, under the blaring sun, with half a dozen beers in my system. The last thing I wanted was to look like a pussy, passing out in front of these two men who would have put Emmett to shame.

By the time the "hard yakka" was done for the day, it was getting dark and I was hot, sweating, and fucking exhausted. Despite this, my muscles that were stiff and aching, felt like they were buzzing with energy, and I was anxious to see how Bella was doing. But any hopes that a day with the girls would help her come around, were soon shattered when she appeared for dinner.

She didn't speak a word, and despite the fact that my eyes never left her the entire time, hers barely rose in my direction at all. They were empty—vacant—which wasn't like her at all, and she still had that beyond fucking broken expression on her face. On top of this, the forming bruise she'd had on her face the day before, had now covered almost her entire cheekbone.

Later that night Nummi had the idea to watch a DVD. Bella, who had quietly agreed to it, didn't show up, and half way through it, having paid absolutely no attention to it at all, I went to bed.

My heart was racing with the familiar panic that seemed to have become ingrained into me over the past several months since Bella had come into my life. But I was so fucking tired I fell asleep with the edginess following me into my dreams.

The laughing birds woke me up the next day. I preferred them to the white screechers, even though the sound of them was creepy as fuck. When I turned to glance at the clock, I jumped out of bed in shock. It was almost 9:00am!

No Bella at breakfast, though since they'd been up since seven it wasn't surprising. Alice wandered into the kitchen when I was finishing up and informed me that Carol had taken Bella out with her for the day.

"Is she any better?" I asked.

She sighed and pushed her fingers through her hair before sitting beside me at the breakfast table. "No, and Rach and Nummi are getting worried. She just looks so ... lost, and my presence seems to make her really uncomfortable. It's terrible, Edward!"

She was lost, and I couldn't find her. I couldn't find where she was to drag her back to me; not when I made her more fucking uncomfortable than Alice.

The overall mood with Nummi and Rach began to grow a lot more sedate, and I almost stupidly forgot the reason I was there. Kel's funeral was the next day, and there was an element of dread in the back of my mind about going. It brought me down to earth quickly and with my anxiousness over Bella, I began to feel plagued with an increasing sense of helplessness. Making me wonder what the fuck I was even doing here.

Later in the afternoon, with Carol home, she had me peeling potatoes for Dinner. I think it was her way of keeping me away from the guys and the huge quantities of beer that they were used to drinking—that I definitely wasn't.

Bella didn't look at me when she arrived back at the house. She didn't look at any of us, but she spoke a fractured "Hey," before disappearing down the hall. Not long after she went with the girls out the back, which had left me pretty much stranded and unwelcome.

Carol kept me busy chatting, and I found I wasn't so stumped by the language as much as I used to be. I picked up on the fact that when she muttered, "bloody mozzies" and began spraying bug spray, she was obviously referring to mosquitoes, and when she asked me if I could hear the "ambos", she meant ambulance; though, it still took me a moment.

She was in and out of the kitchen a lot, while I became distracted as I watched Bella through the window—as my fucking hands cramped up from using the potato peeler. The four of them were sitting cross-legged on the grass chatting. Bella, obvious that she wasn't speaking, had pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them looking like she was miles away.

The next thing I did was run the peeler over the knuckle of my thumb, slicing off a layer of skin with it.

"Fuck my life!" I muttered under my breath, bringing my thumb to my mouth and sucking the blood from it.

I was holding it under the running faucet, grumbling away to myself, when I realized that Bella was in the room staring at me—at my bleeding thumb—with a furrowed brow. When I looked at her she met my gaze, held it for a fraction of a second before grabbing a glass from the counter and leaving the room hastily.

I left the room too, in the opposite fucking direction out the front door, my pissed off, frustrated footsteps thudding through the gravel loudly.

Not long after, I became aware that someone was running to catch up with me, and I didn't need to turn around to know it wasn't Bella.

Alice.

"Edward, are you okay?" she asked me breathlessly when she was within a few feet, grabbing my hand to stop me. "Bella said you cut your finger."

"What the fuck am I doing here, Alice?" I whirled around to face her, my voice rising angrily. "She doesn't want me here!"

I kicked up a wave of gravel and stones in frustration, dragging both my hands through my hair as a swelling of emotion began to fucking ache within me. Taking a heavy breath, I walked to the fence and leaned over it, bringing my hands roughly to my face.

"Edward ... are you okay?" Alice asked me again, timidly, after a minute where I wasn't sure whether I wanted to start roaring in complete and utter pissed off frustration, or start fucking bawling!

"I'm fine, Alice!" I snapped, without looking at her, my voice becoming fucking choked.

"No, you're not. You're hurting because she's hurting," she stated softly.

"Alice, did it ever occur to you to mind your own damn fucking business," I retorted, tearing my hands away from my face to glare at her.

Ignoring me, she stepped up on the first rung of the fence railing so she was on my eye level. "Give me a hug."

"Alice..." I sighed.

But the little rat had already wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me close.

"She needs you, Edward. She's going to crack and soon, and in the meantime I don't want you feeling this way!" she said softly, before she planted an impulsive kiss on my cheek. "Now stop being such a sooky sooky or I'll tell Emmett when we get home."

"I hate to disappoint you, Alice, but you were born in Chicago," I said to her, feeling my lips twitch into a small begrudging smirk.

She only whacked me.

A/N: Hope you liked, and go easy on Bella; she's in a bad place.