A/N: I was nominated for a Golden Onion!!!! Thank you so much to whoever threw my name in the hat. I'm filled with LOVE for y'all!

Chapter 16

I survived Bella's show. Somehow.

Alice was fucking thrilled when I told her I would come with them. It was July 3rd, an Independence Day party was being thrown at The Pier, this huge bar on Lake Shore Drive that overlooked the water.

We were still on the South Side, but it was different here with the hot breeze in our hair. The entirety of the bar was outside, some of it under a palm-covered roof. That's where the stage was, where Bella would eventually get up and play her piano for hundreds of fucking people.

These people were different, too, compared to the South Siders I had grown up with. They paid a ten dollar cover fee to even get in here; I was ready to fucking hit the bouncer when he asked, but Bella told him we were on her list, so we were let in for free.

Bella having a list was different, too.

I wanted to ask her about it, about all of this, but I didn't get a chance. She was running around like crazy, chatting with strangers and stage hands, dragging Jake along with her. I tried not to watch them, but couldn't help it. It was nearly impossible to take my eyes off Bella.

She was so fucking beautiful.

Her shoulder-length hair was pinned back. Alice told me the one-piece outfit she was wearing was called a romper. It was tight and black and showed off every piece of her. How the fuck was I supposed to look away?

There were a few different bands and singers and a douche bag with an acoustic guitar before Bella hopped onto the stage. Jake had arranged everything for her, setting up her keyboard and microphone. She ran over to him, and her took her into his arms, and he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers-

I looked away.

Jasper patted my back. "You good, bro? I'm so glad you came. It's not the same without you."

Jasper was my best friend.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and took a deep breath to help put out the fire in my gut before answering. "Thanks, dude. It's good to see you."

Suddenly, Jake's booming voice came from behind me. "I'm so glad you could make it, dude!''

Somehow, the sentiment sounded much worse coming from this asshole.

"Yeah, man. Me too."

"Bella was so happy you were coming. You mean a lot to her, man. All of you do!"

I swallowed another lump in my throat. Jake went on. "I've heard so many stories about you guys. I grew up on the reservation, you know? I'm Native American. Growing up there sounds so different than growing up here, and now that I'm here, seeing it…"

"I can only imagine." I grumbled, cutting off his ranting and looking to the stage. Bella sat at her keyboard, adjusting her microphone before she spoke.

"Hey, everyone. I'm Bella. Thanks for having me."

That was all she said before her hands smashed down on the keys, playing a song I'd never heard before. She opened her pouty lips and her voice filled the space surrounding me and I was, once again, hypnotized.

I was spared of the song I heard Bella sing last time, the one that was clearly about us. For that, I was indescribably thankful to the girl.

The entire bar was clearly smitten by her. She was so fucking raw and talented, her voice unwavering as she sang against the keys. Now that I was ready for it, I could actually listen to her and appreciate how far she'd come since she used to play for me.

She fucking rocked. Her music sounded like Elton John and Queen and Lady fucking Gaga or some shit, all mashed together into this sound that was only Bella's. I couldn't tear my eyes from her the entire time she played. Occasionally, her big brown eyes would meet mine, and she would smile before looking back down at her instrument. My body felt like it was on fire, like it was electric, and I was riding waves of euphoria and misery as my emotions bobbed and ebbed and waded through the fucking riptide that was Bella Swan.

I didn't know how the fuck to feel.

She was perfect. She was everything I remembered her to be and more. She was just fucking everything, in front of me on that stage.

She was everything, but she was not mine.

When she finished playing, hundreds of people were on their feet, clapping and whistling and praising my girl as she got off the stage and skipped over to the group of us at the bar.

Jake scooped her into a big hug. I couldn't look away this time- I was still under that fucking spell of hers. I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

Alice was next, squealing and hugging and fussing over Bella before she was eventually pulled away by Rose, who then wrapped her arms around my Bella.

"You were so good!" I heard her screaming in Bella's ear, and Bella laughed and thanked her before turning to Emmett, giving him a hug as well.

She was making her rounds.

Jasper passed her off after a gentlemanly kiss on the cheek, something I was insanely jealous of, and suddenly she stood infront of me.

Time stood still for a moment. What was I supposed to do? Everyone else here had grabbed her so easily, pulling them against her chest and whispering praise into her ear. Was I supposed to do that, too?

In the two weeks since learning Bella was back in Chicago, I hadn't touched her. At all.

But, as I should have fucking expected, bold, beautiful Bella made the decision for me, taking a step forward and wrapping her tiny arms around my waist.

My heart could have stopped. Hot, almost painful sparks ignited my skin where we connected, and when I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled her against me, I felt her heart beating fast, in time with mine.

"Thank you for coming." She said, so quietly I think only I could hear.

In that moment, it was just her in my arms. No one else was there, no hundreds of people in a crowded bar, no sisters or Native American boyfriends from Arizona. Just us.

I leaned down, pressing my lips to the top of her head and inhaling. She smelled like weed and cigarettes and patchouli, just like I remembered.

"You're incredible, Isabella Swan." I murmured into her hair.

A second later, she stiffened, as if she forgot where we were, too, and just remembered. I let go of her, though my skin still tingled with the sparks her touch brought on.

"Shots coming up, y'all! C'mon, babes!" Jake belted out, and then she was gone, out of my embrace and into his.

-.-.-.-.-.-

The next day was the Fourth of July. I was fucking exhausted; I couldn't fall asleep despite having drank a shitload at the bar after Bella played. I just couldn't get her out of my mind: the way she sounded on stage, the way she felt in my arms. I tossed and turned until the sun was up, and it felt like when sleep finally found me, I was woken up by Alice's incessant pounding on my door.

She was excited. Our street was throwing a big block party, and everyone was coming. Jasper was already at our house when I finally forced myself out of bed, helping my sister make some sort of highly-alcoholic jungle juice.

We met Rose and Emmett outside, and we all set up chairs outside the house. Charlie Swan came across the street after a while with a folding table, setting it up for us so we could get our vat of alcohol and bags of chips off the ground.

"How you doing, Edward?" It was the first time I'd seen him since Bella got back, and I knew what he was thinking. He was remembering me, sobbing on his front lawn and begging for his daughter after graduation. He knew, even if he didn't really know, that I was fucking going through it now that she was here with someone else. It was all implied in the way he spoke, the way he said my name with fucking pity.

"I'm alright, Charlie. Thanks." I replied, nodding at the table, but he knew what I was really thanking him for.

He just grumbled in response. "Well, I'll be cookin' fish across the street later, if you kids are hungry."

"You know we will be, Mr. Swan!" Emmett laughed between sips from his red cup. "Can't wait for it!"

Bella and Jake didn't come outside until almost an hour later, holding hands and giggling.

We all sat around drinking and eating snacks. Alice and Jasper started a water balloon fight that Jake dragged Bella into. I couldn't take my eyes off of her as she laughed and chucked balloons at my sister and got balloons thrown back at her. They would break on her chest, making her tank top cling to her so I could see her bikini top underneath and her belly button.

For the most part, she and I didn't speak much. We would chime in on the same conversations, but there was no point where we were directly speaking to one another. Jake was all over her, and she seemed to be clinging to him, and it hurt to watch so I looked away often, but it was impossible to ignore her presence, so I kept looking back. Sometimes, she was looking at me, too.

When the long day finally turned to night, the street was emptied so Emmett's mom's boyfriend could start his now-annual firework show. Everyone dragged their chairs to the sidewalks, some folks sitting on coolers or directly on the street.

Naturally, all of the couples flocked together for the impending romantic light show. Alice and Jasper, small as they were, shared a chair and were curled into each other as they passed a joint back and forth. Emmett, who was much larger than Jazz, had Rose on his lap. Jake and Bella sat on the curb, laying back into a patch of grass and looking at the sky. She was in his arms, and he was leaning in, whispering something in her ear that made her giggle.

My heart cracked again.

Feeling beaten and wounded by their display of affection, I made my way to the porch of my house, needing to have their lovers show out of my line of sight. I lit a cigarette, taking deep drags with shaking hands and looked up to the sky, waiting for it to light up.

A bottle of alcohol was waved in front of my face.

For a second, my heart stopped. This had happened to me before, on New Years Eve when Bella came home from Florida. I was sitting alone, drowning in loneliness, when she showed up and saved me with the tequila bottle she had stolen from that bar weeks before.

This wasn't Bella, though. It was my fucking father.

"You look like you could use a drink." He slurred, more drunk than usual.

I grunted, obviously not in the mood to talk to him, but took the bottle, anyway. He was right- I needed a fucking drink.

"This is still about that Swan broad?" Dad took the acceptance of his liquor as an invitation, sitting down next to me.

I glared at him before taking another swig from the bottle. "Shut the fuck up, old man. I'm not in the mood for your bullshit tonight."

He scoffed, grabbing the bottle back from me. "You're so emotional, kid. You got that from your mother, for sure. Not me."

"Do you even have emotions?"

He laughed, shaking his head. "You got a cigarette for your old man, son?"

I sighed, but handed him a bogie from my pack, anyway, while also grabbing myself another one. I lit mine before passing him the lighter.

"I used to have emotions." He spoke again, surprising me. "Before your mom died, I did. I loved her, you know."

"Yeah, I know, Dad."

"She was the best. The light of my life." He went on.

"I know, Dad."

"Kinda like how that Swan girl is for you, I guess."

I glared at him again, angry that he was making fun of me, but when I looked into his glassy eyes I realized he was being genuine.

Weird.

"Yeah, maybe."

I'm not sure if he was trying to make me feel better or something, but he most definitely did not. In fact, he only made me feel worse, reminding me once again the reasons why I didn't let myself- or tried not to let myself- love Bella the first time. I didn't want to keep comparing her to Mom. She wasn't Mom.

I wasn't entirely convinced I wasn't my Dad, though.

Though he said it, the same as Alice did: I was like my mother, too. And my mother was sweet and kind and full of love, so unlike this asshole I was named after. Maybe I was like her, too, and maybe that would have been enough to save me…to save Bella from drowning with me.

Maybe it would have been, but now it was too fucking late.

I stayed on the stoop for the rest of the night, watching as the party slowly died down and people headed inside their homes. It must have been close to two in the morning by the time the street was empty, and only then did I take myself inside and up to bed.

I rubbed my face before throwing myself down on the bed and pulling my pillow under my head.

Fuck. I felt miserable.

I had done such a great job the past few days with Bella. It hurt to see her with her stupid fucking boyfriend, but it was manageable. All it took was glancing at her, seeing her smiles and laughter, and I was filled up with this overwhelming amount of love for the girl, and it felt so good just to see her, to have her near me.

Tonight changed things.

For the first time, I had truly seen the intimacy between her and Jake. The way he held her in the grass, the way he whispered and made her laugh while they stared into the sky, waiting for the fireworks…. It was a fucking reality check. He loved her, that much was clear from the jump, but I couldn't blame him. How could you not love her?

Tonight, I realized that she loves him, too.

The knowledge didn't sting, it didn't simply hurt. It burned. It was killing me, from the inside out, like my heart was pumping this scorching fire through my veins. I curled up into a ball, too overcome with the pain to think, to speak or to cry. I just let it rock through me, the sight behind my eyes only of my girl, back when she was mine, and I held her to me desperately, too afraid of the feeling in my chest to admit to myself that it was love.

Fuck. It was always love.

Some time passed. I'm not sure how long it was, but as I was consumed by the pain inside of my chest, time did indeed pass. The only thing that made me aware of this fact was the buzzing going on inside my pants.

My phone was ringing.

Who the fuck would be calling me at this time?

Everything inside of me was against answering, besides this one tiny part that was screaming at me to pick up. So, without pulling my head out from under my pillow, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the device.

"Hello?" I grumbled into the receiving end, though it was mostly muffled. There was silence on the other end of the line. I sat up, aggravated, making my head spin. "Hello?" I repeated, louder this time.

"You do have the same phone number." Her angelic voice sang from the speaker and into my ear, sending my heart into a sprint.

"Bella?" I asked, dumbfounded.

She laughed. "Who else would it be?"

"I-I…" I stuttered, unsure of what the fuck to say. It was almost four in the morning. What the fuck was she calling me, of all people, for? "What's up?" I finally managed.

"Uh, not much. Listen…" She started. I held my breath. "I can't fucking sleep. You're the only person I know who would still be awake at this ungodly hour." She paused again. I said nothing. "Do you want to go take a walk?"

-.-.-.-.-

The anticipation of seeing her, alone and in the dark, had my heart basically breaking out of my rib cage. I threw a black hoodie on, unsure of the temperature outside, and basically ran out the front door. Bella was leaning against my fence with a cigarette in hand. She turned around when I closed the door and smiled.

"Hey." I exhaled.

Her smile grew. "Hey."

For a while, we wandered the streets in silence. Well, of course it wasn't really silent, you know, since it was a summer night in Inner City Chicago. There were the sounds of cars and motorcycles racing down side streets, the sounds of couples screaming at each other from inside the walls of their homes. There were crickets and the El train, but there was no sound coming from either of us.

Eventually, Bella pulled out a blunt. "Wanna smoke?"

The tension broke some as we passed the cigarillo back and forth, this time, not being so careful as to not touch. My hand grazed Bella's more than once, and each time I nearly jumped out of my skin, the sensation was so intense. I wanted to ask her if she felt it too, but I thought that might have been over the line or some shit.

"So, why are you still up?" Bella finally broke the silence as she exhaled smoke.

I shrugged. "Couldn't sleep, I guess."

She nodded. "Yeah, me either. It was a weird day."

"For me, too." I agreed.

"Have you become best buds with Jake yet?"

I shot her an incredulous glance. She smirked. Ah, she was fucking with me.

"Oh, yeah, for sure. We can't get enough of each other. I was gonna ask him to sleep over tonight, but you got to him first."

She laughed, and for the first time since she came back, it sounded like a real, Genuine Bella Belly Laugh. I couldn't help the smile that spread on my face, despite the aching in my chest.

"Yeah, I thought you'd get along."

I rolled my eyes.

"He's different, you know? From us." She went on. "He grew up on an Indian Reservation-"

"He told me." I cut her off, not really wanting to get into her boyfriend's history.

"He did? That's cool." She paused, looking up at me before speaking again. I glanced back at her, scared to look into her wide brown eyes, scared to see what I'd find there.

Love for another guy? Something worse?

Bella continued. "Its been weird, bringing him here and having him meet you guys. I was scared he would freak the fuck out, but he seems to be handling it well. I should have figured, he was so good with my mom…"

"How was your mom, by the way?" I asked, desperate to get off the topic Jake.

Bella sighed. "She's a fucking drug addict, so…not that great."

I hummed in acknowledgment. That was something I understood quite well.

"Jake helped a lot, with her and with money and shit. It was tough for a while before I met him."

"Was it worse than here?"

Bella laughed again, though this time it was without humor. "Nothing's worse than here. But here is home, you know?"

I nodded, thinking about all the times Uncle Carlisle offered me asylum out there in Seattle. I knew it was better there than it was here. That was obvious, but it would never be my home.

"Home is here." I agreed.

We continued on for a bit, strolling the streets lit only by streetlights. Bella went on for a bit longer, about how Jake was 'good' and 'pure' and I kept my mouth shut, even though I wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up about him. She was trying to make a point, I guess, trying to explain how he was nothing like me, but it was honestly going right over my head. I could already tell he was nothing like me. I didn't need her explanations.

Eventually, we stopped walking when we heard a whistle from down the street. Turning around, there was a man stumbling towards us, clearly drunk off his ass.

"Damn, girl! I haven't seen a chick look as good as you in a long time." He slurred, dragging his feet as he approached us. "What do I gotta do to take a bite outta you, pretty?"

His squinty, glazed eyes were fixated on Bella. He looked and smelled like shit. He reminded me of my father.

My hands clenched at my sides. "Excuse me?" I said, taking a step closer to him.

"What, you don't wanna share, boy?" He laughed, stepping away from me and closer to Bella.

She tensed next to me. I straightened up, ready to knock this asshole the fuck out for talking to her like this. For talking to her at all.

I guess, after two years, I forgot who I was dealing with.

"I know you're not talking to me, asshole." She spat between clenched teeth.

"Aw, c'mon, baby. Don't be so tense. Why you out here so late at night if you don't want to get noticed?"

There was silence for a quick moment, before Bella laughed. Her little hands rested on the man's shoulders, and he smiled for a brief second.

In the next second, her knee was connecting with his balls.

He fell to the ground fast, his hands clenching his dick. "What the fuck!" He screamed, looking up at Bella. "You fucking bitch!"

Bella laughed again, swinging her foot back and kicking him in the center of his stomach. "You're a dumb fuck, you know that?" She said, kicking him again.

I was momentarily stunned, but the sound of my girl's laughter knocked me out of it. Suddenly, I was laughing, too. "Damn, Bella, you still got it, huh?"

She looked away from the man on the ground and back at me, smiling wide. "Let's get the fuck out of here." She said, once more swiftly kicking the intruder on the ground before grabbing my hand and running in the opposite direction.

I followed, of course, and our laughter filled the streets. We ran, fast and wild, for a few blocks, before settling between two buildings; an old diner and a 24 hour laundromat.

Bella was still laughing as we caught our breath. My face hurt from the smile I had planted on it for the past ten minutes. I probably haven't smiled for that long in two years.

"That was fucking fun." She giggled, pushing her bangs out of her face and wiping sweat off her forehead. "That's what I missed in Phoenix."

I laughed again. "What, knocking out sexual predators?"

"The opportunity to do so, at least."

"There's no creeps in Arizona?"

She shot me a glance, and her laughter died down. "No, there are. I just never got the chance to hit them."

The tone of her voice said it all. Jake. Of course he wouldn't let her defend herself- isn't that the job of a boyfriend?

Obviously, he just didn't realize exactly who his girlfriend was.

"Does he know you have that in you?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Probably not."

"His loss, then."

We stared at each other momentarily before Bella broke out into another huge grin. I smiled back, feeling my heart thump out of my chest. She was so fucking beautiful when she smiled.

Bella looked up, scanning the side of the building. "We could probably get onto this roof."

I looked around. I'm sure we could- there was enough piping and electrical boxes for us to grab onto.

"Want me to hoist you up?"

Bella's smile only grew as she nodded. She placed her tiny hands on my shoulders, and I put my hand out for her to step on. She did so easily, grabbing onto a pipe and pulling herself up the wall until she had a secure spot to step on. I smiled up at her.

"Get up there, Swan. I'm right behind you."