A/N: I own no part of Twilight. Now I present chapter 32. This one is pretty subdued, but it reflects upon itself. You'll see. Enjoy.

XXXII.

in the land of gods and monsters
i was an angel
living in the garden of evil

"Hey, Em," Bella sighed into her cell phone. "It's Bella, if you never put me in your contacts. If you guys are around Venice still, call me back. I…" She felt herself shaking. It was even worse in her voice. "I need to come home with you guys. So if you're around, call back and maybe we can meet up or something. Please. I know I fucked up, but I really—"

Beep.

Bella's already-beaten face crumpled up, and she was glad she wasn't anywhere near a mirror. She didn't want to see that she looked as bad as she felt. She hung up the phone, put it back into her backpack, and then carefully placed the backpack on her lap.

She was at a bus station in Venice, but she had hours to go until she could hop on the earliest bus to San Francisco. It would be a long trip back to Forks. Even though she knew she was a shitty person and friend overall, she didn't want to go back alone.

She was finally tired again, but she wouldn't fall asleep. Underneath the bright lights, she felt too awake. Too vibrant. Did Venice even have a light switch? It needed one.

Bella closed her eyes for ten seconds before she could feel the stares. She already knew it. There were men gazing at her, looking her up and down, taking her apart piece by piece. Nothing and nobody slept here. Neither would she.

She stood up and lodged the backpack on her left shoulder as she continued walking. She didn't care where she was going, just as long as it was away.

About twenty-four hours later, Leah and her girls on a bus were somewhere in Northern California. The coloring of the area was more subdued, lacking all the neon lights. Leah had never been more thankful for the paleness of reality.

Leah tried to sleep, but as Kim sat next to her, her thigh shook. It was distracting.

"Kim, are you okay?" Leah asked.

"I feel so bad," Kim blurted out. "We messed up."

"How? We're on the way home."

"We left Bella."

Leah snorted. "She left herself, and, anyway, it was your idea to leave."

"I didn't wanna go without her, Lee, and you know that."

"Well, that's not what you implied when you were upset about her having a dick in her mouth," Leah said sharply. "And we're already out here. It's not like we can just go back."

"We can always go back," Kim assured Leah. "I just worry about her. Her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or whoever the hell he is to her… he's not good for her."

"Yeah, but his dick was."

"Lee, could you, like, not be an asshole for once?"

Leah calmed down a little bit. "Listen," she began. "Bella wanted to stay with her boyfriend. Don't even worry about it. You're just putting on way more stress than you need. She'll be okay."

"But what if she won't be okay?" Kim demanded. "Then what?"

"Then it was nice knowing her for the time being."

Kim sighed. "God, Lee, you've just got manners for days, don't you?"

Leah looked up and smiled. "I just can't believe this is still a surprise to you."

The girls had just crossed the California-Oregon border when their bus ride had ended. They were about to buy passes for another bus, one to Portland, when Kim spoke up.

"We need to go back for Bella," she said definitively. Her voice was sure, but her body language wasn't. With her hands stuffed into the pocket of one of her old cheer sweatshirts and her eyes low, Leah didn't know whether or not to take her seriously.

"Who's we?" Leah replied.

Kim looked to Emily. "Both of us," she said.

"So you guys did some conspiring while I was asleep or something?" Leah asked. "There's no way you're going back for her."

"We have to," Emily said. "We owe it to her."

Leah's eyebrows furrowed as she folded her arms across her chest. "For what? Getting us arrested?"

"We brought her here," Emily explained. "We can't just leave her behind like that. It's fucked up."

"No, you know actually what's fucked up?" Leah asked. "You guys. I don't know why you're suddenly friends with her. She's never really fucked with us, and both of you know it. She doesn't care about us. If she did, she would have gone with us when I asked her to."

"She's your friend, too," Kim said. "I don't get how you can just talk about her like that."

"Kim, I don't fucking know her. None of us do. And even if you go back for her, what are the odds of you finding her? She's probably laying in some ditch right now."

"And you wouldn't care, right?" Kim challenged. "Because you don't fucking know her?"

"Precisely." The single word came out like a dagger.

Usually when Kim was judging Leah's unbearable attitude and matching pride, she addressed it sarcastically, in a way that made Leah sound endearing.

This was the first time Kim ever hated Leah.

"Don't you ever get tired of being so selfish?" Kim asked.

Leah didn't respond. Instead, she turned and bought a ticket to Portland for one.

Bella stuffed the crumpled twenty dollar bills into her backpack as she exited the man's car. He was an older man, about fifty years old, and Bella promised herself she would never sleep with somebody for money again. The only thing she wanted to do more than go home was to die.

She walked without making a sound as the man pulled out of the alleyway. He could have at least given her a ride to the nearest bus stop, which was only miles away from here. She was somewhere in Sacramento. All she had to do was get to Oregon and she'd be okay. She thought about calling somebody, but then she realized she had no friends and Charlie thought she was in Seaside.

I fucked up so bad.

She reached the nearest bus stop a couple of hours later, and then she fell asleep on a bench. It was freezing cold, but she tried to get used to it. If she could survive the cold, then she could survive anything. She didn't need anybody but herself. That was what mattered, and it was what she was going to keep telling herself even though she didn't believe it.

Bella woke up at the crack of dawn the next morning and was about to buy a bus pass to the next furthest city up when a bus arrived and people poured out of it. She wouldn't have cared about that bus or its occupants if she hadn't spotted Kim and Emily. At the sighting, Bella was a firm believer in guardian angels.

Bella ran to them and the collision was so strong that Kim almost got knocked over. Bella wrapped the other two girls in her arms and didn't want to let go. She breathed them in deeply—they all smelled horrible—but she didn't care. They were real and they were here and she wasn't alone. Bella wasn't the type of person to ever have many friends, but she loved these girls more than anything now. They were all she knew.

She finally let go and then asked, "Is Leah in the bathroom or something?"

Emily shook her head. "She didn't wanna come."

Bella's smile faded. "Then where is she?"

"Vancouver, maybe," Kim said. "She has to be in Washington, for sure, though."

Bella tried not to be upset, but something deep down—way deep down—hurt at the thought of Leah being out there by herself. And even though Bella knew it was all her fault, she still felt bad. She didn't like apologizing to anybody, but she would apologize to Leah seven million times. She couldn't stand to be hated by her again, even if she deserved it. Leah was special to Bella. Even though she was a hard-ass and a jerk-and-a-half, Bella didn't want to not be around her. Bella, the queen of burned bridges, could put her pride aside and admit this.

She wished that wherever Leah was, she could do the same.

As the cold Vancouver wind blew in her face, Leah decided she hated the real world and would take the badlands back any fucking day.

Having traveled alone for a little while now, all she knew was the unknown. She ached for familiarity. She yearned for a familiar face or voice. Anything. She was almost home—she could feel Puget Sound on her tongue at this point—but she didn't want to do this anymore. She didn't want to fight. She was the kind of person who could argue forever, like how she had argued herself out of camaraderie with Bella and something a bit deeper with Kim, but she didn't have the energy anymore. She couldn't voluntarily put her pride away to try to be better; her pride had merely been weathered away with everything else. It was floating around in the wind.

She didn't know if she wanted it back.

Leah wanted to sleep to kill some time between now and the next bus, but she had an entire night to get through, and she couldn't see herself falling asleep. She didn't want to get assaulted. People around here were fucking nuts. She could get raped, shot, and murdered tonight, and her body wouldn't be found for weeks. She didn't want to leave the world like this.

She retreated to a payphone. Her fingers were frozen as she pushed the buttons that completed Emily's cell phone number. It had been the same number for years. She didn't want it to change.

"Hey, Em," Leah sighed. "It's Lee. I'm in Vancouver. When you guys get up here, could you… Could you maybe let me know? I can't do this alone. I know I fucked up, and I know you're probably still mad at me, but please. Just… just get back to me. It's best for us to—"

Beep.

A/N: Up next: a throwback to one of our favorite doomed couples (no, not Bella x Edward).

Thanks as always,

HS