Don't Look / No Promises

Eight

Bella

Bella busted Alice and Rose at the soda fountain. They had their heads tucked in low together, whispering secrets, tangled fingers, and Bella stomped right up to them on the verge of a fit.

“What’s even going on with you two? I haven’t seen you for days and now I get this? Last time I saw you, you were ready to kill each other,” Bella grumbled. “Now you look like you’re . . .”

Rose looked at Alice and Alice looked at Rose and Bella just stood there while they stared at each other.

“It’s complicated, Bella,” Rose said, still not looking at her.

“So say it simple,” Bella snapped.

“It might be love,” Alice whispered.

“Might?” Bella asked.

“Might,” Rose repeated, nodding.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

They both shook their heads.

“Fine!” Bella threw her hands in the air. “You’ll be happy together, you’re the two most infuriating people I know.” She turned and stomped away, still on the verge of that temper tantrum. Her dad had taken his car fishing that morning so she had no other option but to foot it and she walked blindly, not even caring where she ended up. By the time she reached Ash Street, she was all cried out and moving on to anger.

The blue Bird crawled to a stop beside her.

“Hi there, pretty girl? Ever had a real man before?” Edward grinned the cocky smile at her, lowering his glasses to undress her slow and sure and calm right there on the sidewalk with nothing but his eyes.

“Nope.” She kept her mouth tight and her brow arched. His mouth fell open.

“Well, that’s gotta be fixed, doll.” He leaned across the seat to shove the door open. “Get in baby, I’m taking you for a ride.”

“Who says I want to be taken anywhere?”

Edward’s jaw tightened. “You just tell me who put that look on your face and I’ll go beat the shit outta them.” He was glaring at her, at the furrow between her brows.

“You can’t hit girls,” Bella sighed.

“Who’s this?”

“Alice and Rose.”

“Your two chicks? With the jackets?”

Bella nodded.

“They been ignoring you for boys?” he asked.

“Not exactly.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Girls, then?”

“Each other, more like it.”

“Well, damn. You ever thought about it, doll?” Edward bit on his bottom lip like he was anxious for her answer.

“No, and I’m not going to. I have a thing for a five o’clock shadow and, sadly, girls only get those on their legs. Not their faces.”

“I’ve got a thing for stubbly legs,” he laughed and revved the engine. “C’mon. You’re stalling.”

---

Edward

They were parked on the bluffs. The cliffs that overlooked town. Eating candy and smoking weed and drinking tequila. He was flat on his back on the ground, grass tickling his ears and sunshine tickling his face and something that felt warm and fuzzy fluttering in the space between his lungs. He was on the hook. Wiggling. Snowed in, and she was the blizzard. Cranked way up high, as high as he could go and this girl was too much for him, maybe.

Maybe he was falling harder than he thought he could.

Bella sat up, her cheek imprinted with the denim pattern of the vest, fingering the patch on his chest. “Who is Jasper?” she asked.

“My brother.”

“And Emmett?” She glanced at the other patch.

“My other brother.”

“They’re dead? Both of them?”

He nodded, unable to actually say the words.

There had only been a shy six days between them, not even enough time to get over Jasper, before Emmett took himself out too. Part of Edward didn’t want to believe it, but his mother swore that it was Emmett’s depression, the little black raincloud that followed him around from day one like it was tied to his wrist, never far away, always in periphery. Those two boys had less than a year between them and were tight, never far apart, always together, even in death. Edward was twelve years younger than they were, the annoying kid brother who could just never quite break into their circle and they were gone before he was even old enough to appreciate them. He was freshly sixteen, had a shiny new driver’s license and he got two lessons, right in a row, about just how dangerous driving with a fucked up head could actually be.

Jasper had been drunk. Emmett had been sad.

Jasper drove his bike right into a retaining wall. Emmett wrapped his truck around a tree.

“Jacob said to take it easy on you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of a mess,” he admitted.

“I like messes. They’re a sign of genius.”

“Oh, really?”

She nodded.

“You saying I’m smart?”

“I’m saying that I’m not scared of you.”

“Even when I drive too fast?”

“Even then.”

Next

AN: There are Betas, and then there is Hadley Hemingway. She is a whole different sort of creature. A unicorn, and the rest are just horses in costumes.