Chapter Two

"Bella, what did he say?" Alice asked breathlessly.

It was obvious from the panting down the phone line and the footsteps in the background that she was running. Jasper must have had their car, or she hadn't thought to get it rather than run the one and half miles between our houses.

"He . . . told me he . . ." Flashes of Edward's dead body started coursing through my mind then. Various scenarios as to how he may have killed himself flickered in and out. Overdose, hanging, slitting his wrists, drowning in the bathtub . . .

"Bella!" Alice yelled, again bringing me back to the present. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah," I whispered.

"I'm almost there," she told me. "Is the door unlocked? You'll need to let me in."

I thought back to when I'd dumped Edward's stuff outside and tried to remember if I'd locked the door again. I didn't normally and I couldn't remember locking it today which was a small relief—I wouldn't have to try to walk right away.

"It's open," I mumbled.

Her breathing and footsteps slowed down then, telling me she must have been quite close. "I know you think you won't get over this because of how much it hurts now, but you will. I know how strong you are, even if you don't."

Since I'd deleted most of the messages, I knew I'd have to tell her what was said myself. How was the only problem when I could barely think the words, let alone say them.

It was just a few more seconds before my apartment door swung open and I heard Alice's footsteps crossing the small entry and then hastening when she must have seen me on the couch.

"Bella!" She gasped at the same time as the phone hung up under my ear. Alice dashed around the couch and stopped in front of my face before kneeling down. "What happened?! What did he do to you?!"

I looked across at her red, sweaty face and had honestly never been so glad to see her.

"He had her in my bed," I told her, starting with the thing I was the least surprised by and actually able to talk about. "I should have listened to you. I'm so stupid."

Alice's jaw tightened. "You're not stupid. You loved him. That's not the same thing."

I tried to smile, but it barely flickered. "He left me fifteen voicemails."

Her eyes widened. "Oh god. What did he say?"

I wrapped my arms tighter around myself and stared at a speck on the carpet. "The eighth one . . . He said he wasn't going to hurt anyone ever again. That someone who could hurt me shouldn't be allowed to live. Said he was sorry . . . until his last breath."

Alice went silent. Her hand gripped mine, and the weight of her presence steadied my spiraling.

"He said he was dying, Alice." My voice cracked. "And then the next message he screamed at me for not calling. Asked if I wanted him dead."

"Jesus," she whispered. "That's emotional manipulation. That's not love."

"I know."

We sat in silence for a long time. My breathing calmed slowly, one breath at a time.

Eventually, Alice squeezed my hand again. "Do you want me to stay over?"

I nodded. "Please."

Alice nodded without hesitation. "Then I'm not going anywhere."

She stood and crossed to my linen cupboard, yanking it open like she lived here, which—honestly—she kind of did, at least emotionally. She pulled out a throw blanket, two pillows, and a pack of unopened Oreos that had apparently been living under my spare towels. Her eyebrows rose when she found them.

"Emergency snack stash?" she asked, holding them up.

I cracked a weak smile. "I was saving those for a special occasion."

She tossed them onto the couch. "And what could be more special than a dramatic post-breakup trauma purge?" Her voice was light, but her eyes stayed fixed on me, watching for cracks.

I nodded again and got to my feet slowly. "I still have his cologne in the bathroom," I said. "And his toothbrush. And his shampoo. And probably at least one sock under the bed."

Alice made a face. "We're burning the sock. Non-negotiable."

We started in the bathroom. I threw open the medicine cabinet and began plucking things out mechanically: his razor, his half-used bottle of aftershave, the floss he never used, the painkillers he always complained I never stocked enough of. Alice took them from me without comment and dropped them into a brown paper bag she'd grabbed from my recycling bin.

She pulled a trash bag from under the sink and tossed it to me. "Bedroom next?"

I didn't answer. I just turned and led the way.

In the bedroom, everything suddenly felt more personal. The sheets were already gone—trash bagged and dumped in the hallway earlier—but the dresser still held old t-shirts he'd slept in, a copy of a Murakami novel he swore he'd read but never opened, and a wristwatch he always said he was going to get fixed.

Alice hesitated by the nightstand, picking up a framed photo of the two of us at a street fair two summers ago—him kissing my cheek, me laughing.

"Can I break this?" she asked casually.

"Be my guest," I said.

She marched it out to the balcony and dropped it straight into the garbage can with a satisfying clunk of shattering glass.

By the time we finished the purge, there were three full garbage bags by the door, a growing donation pile by the couch, and a dead plant in the hallway that neither of us remembered buying.

Alice sank onto the rug in the living room and sighed. "That was better than therapy."

I slumped down beside her. "I feel like I could sleep for a week."

"Or eat an entire pizza and two liters of soda in one sitting," she added. "Which reminds me, I brought emergency mac and cheese in my bag."

"Of course you did," I murmured, touched.

We sat cross-legged on the floor with our bowls a few minutes later, the room warm from the oven and smelling like artificial cheese powder and salt.

After a long stretch of silence, I looked over at her. "Did you ever feel like you were going insane while you were still with him?"

Alice snorted into her bowl. "Constantly. He made me question myself so much that I started second-guessing the way I folded laundry. Jasper would call and ask how I was doing, and I'd say 'fine'—and mean it—and then hang up and burst into tears for no reason."

I nodded slowly. "It's weird, right? How you can know something's wrong and still not leave?"

Alice looked over at me, her expression soft. "It's not weird. It's just love... or what you thought was love. You keep giving chances until one day, you can't anymore."

I stared into my bowl. "I think I passed that day a while ago. I just didn't notice."

She bumped her shoulder into mine. "You noticed. You just weren't ready."

Another long pause. I curled my fingers around the warm ceramic and rested my head against the couch.

"Thanks for staying," I said quietly.

"Always," she replied.

The night stretched on quietly after that—no drama, no more confessions, just two friends slowly reclaiming a space that had stopped feeling like mine a long time ago. And for the first time in months, I felt like maybe I was starting to come back to myself.


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