..::.. Chapter 70 - A Special Report ..::..

The TV is blaring. Jess tries to burst in, but I've blocked the door with chairs, a whole table, and a dresser after she stepped out. I took the chance. She curses as she pushes on furniture, but the mutters are muffled by the local news.

"What the fuck?" she yells.

I don't even bother looking, but I can hear her climbing around the obstacles. She's good. She's … everything I'm not.

I hoped she'd get lost.

"Bella!" she calls. The blaring and the blaring. Any news I can get with the letters on screen that spell 'Cullen' I'm perked to listen. Maybe there's been a mistake. Maybe they'll retract last month's report and tell the world Edward Cullen is still alive.

I redial the number again, the phone stuck to my hand, hours, days, trying, again and again. Ben's office secretary is tired of me.

"I'll leave him a message, Ms. Swan … along with the others you left yesterday," she says with a tone.

"Thanks, for nothing, Judy," I retort, throwing the phone. I'm vile; I'm petty. I'm also fucking desperate.

Jess makes it over the mountain, I guess. She's yelling about something. I scratch my greasy hair and scan the ticker under the news anchor in their heavy makeup.

The suspenseful jingle that announces the worst newsbreak chimes, and my heart races. I sit on my heels. The last time it did that, Edward's name made it front and center with the coupling words of death. The day I died along with him.

Then the TV goes black.

I frantically look around. "What the fuck?!"

Jess stands from the floor breathless, the damned TV plug in her hand. She angrily whips it to the floor. "That's it. No more!" she states, a finger pointing at me.

"NO!" I roar. I crawl over the bed and onto the floor. I snatch the cord, and Jess is over me. We're struggling; her with me, me trying to get to the socket.

"Bella, stop it! That's enough!"

"Get off me!" I scream and kick. She pulls on a leg when I'm almost there. "You bitch!" I push her off me and aim for the door. Now I angrily have to climb the chairs, the whole table, and the dresser myself.

I'll get answers one way or another. I tell myself this as the elevator door bings. Jess runs for it and slaps a hand between them to keep the doors open.

"Where the fuck are you going?" she asks. "You don't even have shoes or pants on!"

I hit the lobby button. "Kindly fuck off, please."

"I've told you. You can't go to Ben every time you have a doubt. You've done it all month. They've turned you away five hundred times. Bella, they threatened to handcuff you if you show your face there again!"

"You don't understand, all right?" I say calmly.

"You don't have to yell. Please calm down. Everyone on the floor will hear you. It's one in the morning," she fires back through teeth.

Okay, so I didn't say it calmly. My throat is on fire, a good sign that the words out of my mouth are angry and loud right now.

When the door opens for the lobby she jumps on me. We're a ball on the floor of the elevator. The doorman comes running, alarmed. The echoes of screams and struggle go far through the lobby. Then she pins me from above, her thighs like steel around my torso—weak, fatigued, fighting for weeks.

"HE'S GONE!" She fires back, holding my face. "HE'S FUCKING GONE!"

I fire off all the hate and profanity toward her, and she sure as fuck doens't deserve this.

Well, I'm spent when I'm done. I lie motionless as the elevator crawls back up after leveling with the doorman and slapping the buttons to close it back up.

"I loved him," I whisper. Fat, tired tears roll down to my temples. "I didn't tell him." Jess catches my quivering chin with a thumb. Her understanding eyes, her nod.

My breakdown is on its way.

A newsbreak.

A special report.

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