I don't own twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of the story.
A huge thank you to my beta Madmooey18 for putting in the effort and helping me make this story what it is.
Author's Note at the end.
Bright lights shine as she spins under them in her denim skirt, leather jacket, and ballet shoes. The camera doesn't capture her feet as she glides over the floor and throws her hair back for the fan to blow. She follows to the best of her abilities orders like, be sexy, a little of sensuality, be a vixen, not like a slut, smile, and dance like you mean it. Whatever the last one means.
For the last 11 hours, she has been working on a music video. Most of today are simple shots and the real scenes will come in a week from now when the artist is ready to film. Apparently the couple of acting classes she took in high school were enough to deem her the perfect person for this video. That, and the glowing review her acting coach from high school who still apparently remembers her gave the director of the video. She was surprised by the couch as she remembers him resenting her for choosing not to take part in a theater play he was arranging then. She wasn't interested. Acting isn't her thing, but modeling is and even as a teen she understood that you can't try to dip your fingers in more than one pie. If you can do many things, then you aren't good at any of them. A jack of all trades is a master of none.
Now, she is thankful for him as the pay is amazing and will make up for her lack of work and prop up her profile as a model after the disastrous fashion months she had. She needs to get back in the game. This video will do that for her.
She spins and then hears a, "Cut."
Bella sighs in relief and goes to one of the chairs in the makeup area to take off the ballet shoes.
"Thank you everyone. We are done for today," Tim exclaims clapping his hands. Everyone on set does and she stops lacing her shoes to clap too.
She stops clapping and goes back to unlacing her shoes. "You did amazing my dear. Simply phenomenal! I want you to arrive on set an hour earlier than today next time 'cause I have a couple of makeup looks in mind I want to try with you," he tells her.
Bella bites her tongue when all she wants to do is fight him over the earlier hour. She will have to miss out on waking up the boys and getting Adam ready for school. She starts putting on her shoes without saying much because Tim strikes her as the kind of person to confuse politeness with interest and she can't stand his guts.
"Looks like I missed out on Tim in action," a voice she knows too well states. She looks up and finds Edward walking towards her. She rolls her eyes at her bad luck.
Of course, the person I don't want to see happens to be friends with the director.
"Edward? Not to say that I am not happy to see you, but what brings you here man?" Tim states as he turns to Edward. She hides a smirk as she watches Tim try to discreetly straighten his back and appear taller. It doesn't work. Edward has a couple of inches on him. If she had to guess, she would say he is taller than her by less than an inch.
"Well, I was hoping to catch you in action, but I also wanted to speak to Bella once the two of you are done," Edward states. While Tim tried to hide his disappointment, Bella hides her surprise and adapts a neutral expression to her face.
Tim smiles a huge smile and claps his hands then exclaims, "I should have known that there was something going on when you recommended her." Now, Bella completely fails at covering her shock.
I knew it. He wasn't done. Of course he is going to do something to make me feel guilty and like I owe him something. This so-called recommendation is a power move.
Noticing her expression, Edward gives her an apologitocal smile then tells him, "You know it's not exactly that Tim. I just passed you the recommendations I got."
"Well gentlemen, I will have to leave you to change," She tells them then walks away to the changing room. As much as she hates what Tim insinuated about her and Edward and wanted to deny it, she hates speaking when she doesn't know everything that's going on. It's better to stay silent and let them assume what you know, than speak and have them be sure of how little you actually do.
As she changes into her jeans and sweater, she keeps going back and forth on whether Edward was lying about the recommendations or not. On one level, why would he lie like that when Tim can dispute his claims easily? On the other hand, how would Tim know if Edward is lying or not? If Edward covered his tracks well, Tim already thinks what Edward wants him to think.
It comes down to two things; intelligence, trustworthiness. Is Edward smart enough to know that she would react negatively to his help and preemptively prepare plausible deniability? Yes, he is. Edward is a smart person. Their is no argument over that. He has managed to uplift the family's company and make it one of the top fortune 500 in the world. He is not stupid. He has also managed to navigate a career in the music industry. Both those show that he is in fact smart. That said, she doesn't know him, so she doesn't know if he is a trustworthy and honest person, so she can't be sure if he got her the job with some ulterior motives, or not.
You can't go after him, all guns blazing. You need to give him the benefit of the doubt. If you do not do it out of kindness, at least do it out of defense. He seems to have a good friendship with Alice. You don't want tension in your friendship.
Bella looks at herself in the mirror and gives herself a minute to practice smiling softly. She has always had a resting bitch face. Her mum from a very young age would tell her to practice smiling in the mirror.
She also knows she isn't the easiest person to deal with. She tends to strike without thinking and assumes the worst in people. She can't help it. The two people she trusted the most took advantage of her at her weakest points and exploited her. You don't move on from that. You linger there. She knows she will always be the hurt person who just found out that she has been betrayed in the worst way. She will never move on from that. It's something that no guy interested in her will ever understand.
That said, she can always pretend that she is. That is something she is good at and it's something people can't see.
She takes a deep breath and then steps out of the changing cubical. She walks towards Edward who ends his talk with Tim and meets her halfway once he spots her.
"We will talk in my car if that is okay with you," he tells her. While the tone is not timid, it's pretty obvious that he is trying to placate her.
She almost wants to act bitchy, just to see how far she can make him go, but decides otherwise instead smiles and tells him, "Okay." He looks surprised for a second, but collects himself and nods his head beaming.
God, all it took was for you to smile and tell him okay for him to beam at you. I cant imagine it would take much to have him eating out of the palm of your hand. It's such a shame that you don't want to date.
Shut up.
I am just saying that if you let me, I would have a lot of fun with him.
She ignores the two parts of her brain bickering and focuses on the numbers dropping in the elevator. Once they reach the first floor he mentions for her to pass first then follows behind her.
"My car is parked on the street," he tells her. She nods her head silently and follows him to the Jeep he leads her to.
She turns to him and silently raises an eyebrow which prompts him to sheepishly tell her, "It's not mine. It's for Emmett. He borrowed mine last minute and if I was to go and get my other one I would have probably missed you leaving."
She nods her head and then he helps her get in by holding her hand as she lefts herself into the vehicle. They both ignore the electric shoot that zipped through them.
Once she is inside, he shuts the door and runs to the other side of the car, and quickly jumps in shutting the door behind him.
"Let me first turn on the heat before we talk. Gosh, what is with the weather? By the way, your hands are super cold. I think you should probably start carrying gloves with you or something," he rambles on as he presses all sorts of buttons to get the heat going.
You have got no reason to think he brought the Jeep with him just to touch you. This man has no idea how to even turn on the heat.
Maybe it's part of his grand plan.
I doubt it. No one is that dedicated.
I would be that dedicated.
Well sweetie, you aren't just anybody. Plus, you are low-key psychotic.
"Yes. Finally," he exclaims which prompts Bella to roll her eyes at him which he probably catches as he mutters to himself, "I am going to kill Emmett a slow painful death."
"I don't think you will. You seem too sweet to do that. You don't strike me as a sadist," Bella tells him deciding to play nice.
He turns in surprise at her words, but his surprise doesn't last long and he tells her, "Usually I am not, but Emmett took my car without my permission, let me know only last minute, and he left me with the stupid Jeep, so I am not feeling very fuzzy feeling towards Emmett and his lovely dates."
"Maybe the car size is compensating for something and he doesn't want his lovely Rosie to make the connection," Bella tells him winking. He needs a couple of seconds to understand her, but once he does he laughs loudly which prompts Bella to giggle lightly. He looks at her and notices that when she giggles her eyes crinkle in the cutest way and his laugh dries quickly after that and he keeps staring at her.
Bella notices then that there are flecks of hazel in his eyes. It's beautiful really. She hasn't seen such an eye shade ever before. Her eyes are brown like mud. They are quite boring. She can't imagine how uninspiring staring into her eyes would be. That thought snaps her out of her staring and she looks at her lap and rubs her fingertips against her knuckles.
Once the moment is gone, Edward goes back to tinkering with the heater until it's on the highest level and then he tells her, "If your fingers are cold, place them near the vent. That will warm them real quick."
"I am fine. I am used to the cold," she tells him. He nods his head in understanding. It makes sense. She just moved from Washington and lived here before that for most of her life. She is used to the cold. Little did Edward at that moment know that cold has many connotations and Bella wasn't really referring to the one he had in mind.
Bella takes a deep breath and tells him, "Before you tell me what you are here for, there is something important I need to know, did you personally recommend me to Tim?"
"Short answer is no," he tells her immediately.
She nods her head then probs him forward by asking, "Long answer?"
"Still no. I told Alice about the model Martin would need. Since she is a stylist with clients and has stylist friends, I thought she might know someone who would fit the bill. When she recommended you I just passed along the recommendation," Edward tells her truthfully. He didn't understand why his recommendation would be such a bad thing. Alice did tell him that Bella is extremely prideful, but he doesn't understand what pride has to do with recommending her.
She nods her head in understanding and is silent for a couple of minutes with him deep in thought before she asks, "Okay, what did you want to talk about?"
Edward thinks about the best way to word his thoughts before he tells her, "When we met after Alice's party, you seemed pissed off at me. That was a surprise for me. I was under the assumption that you had fun at Alice's party, but now I am not so sure. Did I do something to offend you or hurt your feelings?"
This is what I am talking about! He is ready to apologize for something he didn't even do. Do you have any idea how easy it would be to mold him into the perfect partner? A pinch of gaslighting would be all I need.
Shut the fuck up.
"No you didn't," she answers truthfully. While a part of her wants to play mind games most of her doesn't.
"Then what happened?" he asks looking hopeful.
She looks away not having the heart to see the hopeful look on his face crushed by her words then tells him, "What happened is that I had a wake-up call. I am not in a place to date at the moment. I am trying to revive a career. My kids are adapting to a new place. I am adapting to a new fucking reality. I can't offer myself to anyone as a healthy partner, and I am not stupid. I figured out that you were interested and realized that I was giving you the wrong signals."
She turns to find a contemplative look on his face and tells him, "You are a great guy, had the circumstances been different, I wouldn't have waited for you to ask me out, I would have done the asking myself. It's just the timing is bad for me, not you."
I am also bad for you. It's not just the timing.
The contemplative look in his eyes turns mischievous before he tells her in a horrified voice, "Ask me out! How forward of you! I expect you to ask my parent's permission first." Then for extra measures, he adds a wink at the end.
She throws her head back and laughs at his cheekiness then tells him in an English accent, "I apologize, sir. I meant no offense. I did not know that you are a gentlemen. My butler will be hearing from me for the misinformation. I intend to rethink his position."
He raises an eyebrow at her and then tells her, "That was an extremely good English accent. I didn't know that you had it in you."
She shrugs her shoulders and tells him, "One thing I can't claim is being predictable."
"That you aren't," he muses almost to himself.
"So we are good?" she asks.
"On a scale of one to ten?" he asks.
She nods her head which prompts him to say, "I was hoping for a ten, we are at a six, but I will live. To you it might have been nothing, but it was my heart." he states the last sentence dramatically.
"Get serious," she tells him giggling because she can't imagine him being brokenhearted. Nobody gets brokenhearted over her. She isn't that special.
"I was hoping for a better outcome, but I will take it. Friends?" he asks thrusting his hand forward for her to shake.
"Just friends? You aren't going to pretend to be my friend simply to get into my pants and then complain that I friend-zoned you?" she asks looking skeptical.
He looks offended as he tells her, "I am not that kind of an asshole. I can't imagine being turned down is worse than realizing that a friend never liked you and has been acting like a friend purely to get into your pants. I wouldn't do such an awful thing."
She nods her head impressed that a guy finally gets it and thinks about more than just his dick.
"I like you as a person Bella which means that I value the time I spend with you regardless of what capacity it is in. If you reach a stage when you are ready to date and I am single I will definitely ask you out. If our friendship evolves into more I will be very happy. If it never does I will be happy too."
She nods her head as she thinks over what he just said. She has never found herself in a place where someone is giving her this much space and freedom. Everything she ever got had a price. Many times not upfront and ones she didn't want to pay. It feels unreal to her, but for some reason beyond her she trusts him. She deeply feels in her gut that he is trustworthy and that scares her more than she cares to say.
A hand waves in front of her face before she hears Edward tell her, "My hand has almost fallen off and you have yet to shake it."
She gets an embarrassed look on her face as she quickly turns to look at him and shakes his hand.
"So, where are you going?" he asks rubbing his hands together.
"I am going home," she replies as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. He offers her a ride but she politely declines and so he goes around the car and helps her get out of it. She smiles at him and waves as she walks away and waits for the taxi to arrive oblivious to the camera in the distance that has been clicking for a while.
"To you it might have been nothing, but it was my heart" is a verse of a poem by Mahmoud Darwesh.
Hello lovely people,
I apologize for the late update, but I hope that what I wrote makes me forgiven. I know a lot of you guys feel dissatisfied with Bella by the comments you left in the review section. Bella and Edward's relationship won't be free sailing. One of the genres is angst for a reason. This Bella is quite traumatized and will naturally struggle to connect to other people. The difficulty she went through didn't just make her tougher, it hardened her. Naturally, she will behave is a way that makes no sense to anyone with an overall healthy life experience. It will get worse before it gets better and the progress won't be linear cause real healing isn't linear.
That said, I am working really hard on giving you a great story to enjoy reading and I hope you stick around for it.
Please leave a comment in the review section. It could be your favorite part, thoughts, feeling, or even criticism. Any and every comment you leave is read and taken into consideration. Your comments motivate me to update faster, and help me grow as a writer.
Until my next update,
Stay Safe