Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer; know them biblically and you'll get all the answers.

xx

"The philosopher Lao Tzu once said...he said...god, what the fuck did he say?"

Bella white knuckles either side of the sink, her head dropping in frustration. Perhaps it's the echo in the girls' bathroom that's derailing her train of thought – being inundated with the sound of her voice bouncing off the walls could be making her woefully self conscious. It's a bit like listening to your own voicemail message being played through a megaphone.

She takes a deep breath, lifts her face up towards the mirror, steels her gaze (stopping to momentarily frown at the bags under her eyes), and tries again.

"The philosopher Lao Tzu once said..."

There's laughter in the hall just outside the door, and Lao Tzu in all of his infinite wisdom and eternal peace is probably glaring down at her from atop a fluffy cloud in heaven, because Bella forgets it all and contemplates drowning herself in a toilet.

This speech was perfect at five o'clock that morning. She knew it backwards and forwards then (she recited it backwards and forwards just to showoff); she'd studied the shapes her mouth formed around the words – her tongue tripping upwards, rearing back, or gently hitting her teeth – she'd practiced her cadence, messed around with where to put the emphasis, scratched things out and started over, all without giving a second glance at her note cards. Now just ten minutes away from unleashing the brilliance that will capture the hearts and minds of the Senior class (Yes. We. Can.), Bella's fucking it all up with a tampon machine, and marker graffiti there to bear witness to her failure.

She's nervous. She's pacing. The well-worn soles of her Vans occasionally squeak against the grimy tile and she's starting to do that thing with her hair.

There's a flush, and a stall door creaks open. Bella's feet keep moving, and her hand keeps clawing, but she's still able to fix the pudgy Freshman that's unwittingly stepped into her meltdown with a glare.

"You got eye problems?" Bella snaps.

"What? No, I just had to pee..."

"Get. Out."

"Who made you the fucking gate keeper?" the girl snaps back, but leaves Bella all alone with her torment.

She's still pacing, now with several frightening scenarios playing through her mind, the lot of which include, "Is this really happening right now? What if I'm actually dreaming? Oh god, I'm sleeping through the most important day of my high school career" and, "What if I never remember what Tzu said? What if my entire memory has been wiped clean? Okay...name, Isabella Marie Swan. Date of birth...date of birth...date of birth...Jesus shit."

The tantrum loses steam before the prickling at the corners of her eyes can turn into tears and, "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves" pops back into Bella's mind as though it'd been buried with loose change and gum wrappers underneath couch cushions.

She feels happy and light. She has a good feeling about everything.

But, while en route to the auditorium Bella stops to get those note cards out of her locker.

Just in case.

xx

In the summer of her eleventh year of being, Renee convinced Charlie that sending Bella off to an arts camp would be an enriching and rewarding experience (at that time, Renee was still keen on hanging the millstones of broken and unrealized dreams around the neck of her daughter). Bella arrived just outside of Olympia knowing full well that her stick figures, though whimsical, were not going to be enough to squash homesickness and a growing inferiority complex. But, all was not lost. Oh no. Bella made fast friends with her bunkmate, Fi. She was a charming girl of thirteen with a Tennessee lilt, and a love of Edward Gorey, and she taught Bella how to French kiss one night behind the canteen.

This fond memory is the reason Bella held onto her standard issue Camp Spring Lake t-shirt. It still fit, that shirt, and it was only mildly depressing her body hadn't changed a whole lot since eleven. Last she remembered, it was hanging haphazardly from the top of the towering clothing heap in her hamper, so seeing Rosalie kicked back in her chair onstage, Camp Spring Lake written in block letters across her chest, is a shock that sends Bella tripping over her own two feet and straight into the back of Eric Yorkie.

His smile is cheerful as he puts out his arms to steady her. "Whoa there, Bella. Trying to take out the competition, I see." Eric jokes with those easy manners of his, and Bella tries to keep the fact her heart just stopped a secret.

"Sorry," she replies sheepishly.

"Shake those nerves off, girl," he says with an encouraging pat to her shoulder. "Picture everybody naked, it always works for me."

Bella's up fourth, just behind Kate Pearson when the remaining seventy members of the graduating class are squirming with boredom in their seats and their eyes are starting to glaze over with thoughts of the lunch period. She climbs to her feet with purpose, with butterflies the size of bats banging around in her stomach, with her mind focused on counting the steps to the podium to keep from looking in Rosalie's direction. Bella makes it; she shuffles her note cards, she clears her throat away from the microphone, and though her mind is screaming against it, she glances over her shoulder.

Rosalie wears aloof so well.

There's a rush of saliva in her mouth while sweat beads across her upper lip, and Bella's memory wants to relive her time spent freaking out in the bathroom earlier. All because of a bored look, that stupid t-shirt (and the indecent way it clings), and the myriad of reasons why Rosalie would want (and would want to display) anything that belongs to Bella to begin with.

She swipes at her bangs just once – she may be shaking with the force it's taking to not faint, but some habits die hard – and Bella looks at those note cards. Her head is foggy and she wants Lao Tzu to be proud so she reads, "The philosopher Lao Tzu once said, 'Life is like a box of chocolates'..."

The laughter from the crowd rolls into Bella's ears like a tidal wave, and the fog lifts allowing her to finally notice that the handwriting on the top card doesn't belong to her at all.

Her brain is beginning to tear at the seams, however the last thread of rationality digs its heels in and although Bella's becoming dizzy from the potential threat of a fit, she catches the eye of the science teacher, Mr. Molina, and begs for a moment. She catches Rosalie's eye, as well. A mistake that will cost Bella two weeks of detention and the election, because Rosalie, wearing a smile that says "I unhinge my jaw to eat my food", blows her a kiss and Mr. Molina has to drag Bella offstage kicking and swearing.

xx

Alice enters the bathroom curiously and cautiously. She has a speech prepared; it's a variation on one she's used many times before when it comes to dealing with the monster that is Bella and Rosalie. It bends to fit whatever bit of fuckery the two are in at the time ("Bella, I don't know why she cut up your costume", "Bella, I don't know why she took your reed", "Bella, I don't know why she threw that ball at your eye"), but the meat of the speech is well worn like the soles of a comfortable shoe.

A sniff rings out from behind the door of the third stall, and Alice stops and rests a hand against it. "I am so, so sorry, Bella. I don't know why she ruined your speech, and at this point you have absolutely no reason to believe me, but I swear when you get to know her, Rose is sweet and capable of human behavior. I don't know why she has it in for you, but I promise I'll talk to her, because this shit's gotten way old."

Alice may have to repeat it, but she does keep her promise time and time again. Her "what the fuck is up with you?" inquiry is always met with a grunt and an abrupt subject change from Rosalie.

There's a hiccup in response and with concern etched in every line of her little, pointy face, Alice's knuckles tap three times on stall. "Bella? Are you okay?"

The hinges creak and groan as the door swings open, and she gasps at the sight of Bella's tear streaked face. Alice's arms stretch wide, because after the speech comes the big comfort hug, but Bella's shoulders begin to shake and it quickly becomes apparent she's not crying.

Bella's laughing. Hysterically.

Alice blinks, clearly confused. "Are you...sane?"

Bella throws her arms around Alice's neck and says with total happiness, "Al, I'm perfect."

"Oh-kay, perfect is good, I think. Except...I'm feeling a little like I've wandered into a Lynch film here, so do you wanna maybe clear some things up for me?" Alice asks.

"Clear what up?"

"Bella, your speech was just totally ruined. I mean, I came in here with the idea that I'd be spending the rest of the day steering you clear of sharp objects, instead you look..." Alice pulls back in order to give Bella a discerning stare, "you look like it's Christmas morning."

Bella lets her go with a shrug. "I just find it funny, that's all."

"Find what funny?"

"Rosalie's... desperation," Bella says after a slight hesitation. "I dunno, maybe she didn't get enough hugs growing up or something. Whatever her damage is, the jealousy and the need for attention it's become…hilarious."

Alice's head curiously tilts to the side. "And that's it?"

"Yup."

"And nothing else?"

"Nope."

"Hm," Alice says and pays careful attention to the way Bella's bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Alright, well the laughing is definitely better than the screaming."

"What can I say," Bella starts with a grin, "I've got a new perspective about this whole thing. But, thanks for coming to talk me down. I'm gonna be fine, Al, really."

"Bella," Alice says when her best friend is half way to the bathroom door. "Didn't you go to Camp Spring Lake?"

Bella laughs loudly, uncomfortably. "Yeah, a long time ago."

xx

Rosalie, with equal parts condescension and affection, refers to Bella as, "My Little Type A" when they head towards Rose's car. Some time after their sentence was handed down by Mr. Molina, they give an Oscar worthy performance in the nurse's office to get out of the rest of the day's classes ("My dad thought he was being sweet by making my lunch today. I think I've got food poisoning"/ "I ate off her plate"), and take off together. It's an inconspicuous escape; the senior parking lot is far enough away from the P.E. track that no one could have possibly made out their figures or spotted the way they allowed their pinkies to touch.

Now Rosalie's car sits just off a backwoods dirt road – the sort of place where the smell of earth and the stench of farm animal clings to the air – with its windows clouded from their breaths.

"Give me your hand."

The entire ride, Bella worried over her exchange with Alice in the bathroom. In the past, she was able to hold off the giddy mania that tends to follow confrontations with Rose until she's far away from concerned, prying eyes. The laughter, the euphoria – they were easy to dismiss as a love for revenge, but Rose started sleeping over every other night and they talk on the phone sometimes (about nothing, mostly since they're not ready for the everything part); lying to herself just doesn't hold the appeal it once did. Still, personal revelations didn't make Bella gung-ho for public ones, and there's a come to Jesus session with Alice looming on her horizon.

It made her throat lump up and her guts knot. She let Rosalie smooth and detangle it all with her mouth.

The ridges in the backseat dig into Bella's bare knees; it's a mild discomfort that's eased away by the picture Rosalie's painting – a hand pressed to the glass, back arched, legs splayed, and that shirt (Bella's shirt) riding high on her stomach.

"Your hand, Rose." Bella's got a little authoritative edge to her voice (revenge couldn't ever hope to come close to being as sweet as the power held in hearing your name moaned to the heavens), and Rosalie obeys. She takes Rosalie's fingers and guides them into completely spreading the girl apart before her, and Bella says, "Stay just like that" before dropping her face back down between those thighs.

One night when her parents thought she was helping Alice through a boy related crises, and Alice thought she was busy fucking around with some much too old for her dude in Port Angeles, Rosalie asked Bella what she tasted like.

It was said in all seriousness (she could be terribly narcissistic on occasion), but Rose did have enough humility to blush and take a sudden, deep interest in watching the smoke from her cigarette billow out of the window, so Bella couldn't help wanting to indulge her.

Bella's mouth opened to give an answer and promptly shut itself.

Rosalie is not peaches and cream, or a nice fruit tart. But how could you tell someone, if darkness and light could swirl together and if it could glisten on your fingertips or coat your tongue they would be it; that if this unholy concoction could have an aroma, it would be akin to the muskiness between their thighs? How does one say, "You taste like wickedness and virtue. You are everything that's wrong, but so right. You are secondhand smoke. You are napalm"?

You just couldn't. Unless you enjoy sounding like a cooz.

Bella shrugged it off with a smile. "Fish tacos," she said.

Rosalie playfully shoved her shoulder. "Can you be for real? Like, two seconds is all I'm asking."

"I've never been more real," Bella snickered. "You should really take a stroll on a Summers Eve if you catch my drift."

Those blue eyes rolled heavenward, but Rosalie was still grinning and Bella leaned over in order to bring their faces closer. She wrapped her fingers around the base of Rosalie's neck with one hand while the other dug into the carpet for leverage. She let her tongue mingle with Rose's and gave her a diluted sample of her own sin and godliness.

When she broke the kiss, Bella told Rosalie words could never really do her justice anyway, and Rosalie socked her in the shoulder again for daring to be sentimental, but it was already too late. Because Rosalie's eyes were her downfall; they housed the tell. She's a seasoned professional at aloofness, but the heady atmosphere aided in dropping her guard. Her heart. Her liver. Her everything. Exposed and undoing seven years of masked intentions before she could think to blink it away.

Bella wanted to laugh, not out of cruelty, but out of relief. Who knew (keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer; know them biblically and you'll get all the answers)?

She wondered if Rose would ever dare to look at her that way again without hiding it. If there would ever be movie dates, or family dinners, or gift exchanges on all of the important, Christian holidays. She hoped there would and for once didn't try to trick herself into believing otherwise, but for all of this newfound mobility, they were still caught in a cycle and it was doubtful either possessed the power necessary to stop it.

Bella rested her forehead against Rosalie's, her heart slamming in her chest. "Someone's going to get really hurt."

"That's the point," Rosalie told her, voice thick with all of the things she's continuing to avoid saying despite having her confidence betrayed by her eyes.

And Bella gave her a rueful smile, because she knew the push was coming, and she would be expected to (she'd have to) pull.

"Yes. Yes, it is."

Author's Note: The prompt: "Bella/Rosalie hate sex".

The thank yous: to the fictionators for the glowing recommendation (I blushed a lot). To my super boo, htothem for being awesome. And to you, for being you. I hope you all had as much fun reading this as I had writing it.

Til we meet again.