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Chapter 9 – Somebody That I Used to Know

"Hello," a bored male voice intoned through the long-distance line.

"Hi! Is Edward there?" I asked eagerly.

"No," Edward's roommate told me.

I waited for a few seconds to see if he was going to elaborate. Silence followed. I thought I heard crickets chirping in the background, but that might have been my imagination.

When I knew for sure that he wasn't going to give me any more information without prompting I asked, "Do you know when he'll be back?"

"No."

Oh great. Another monosyllable.

I was starting to get irritated…again.

Seriously though, what had I expected? This is how all of my conversations with Edward's roommate went. I didn't even know the guy's name. He'd never bothered to introduce himself.

"Do you know where he went?" I asked letting my exasperation leak into the question.

"No. He's off with Kate," he said, still using words with one syllable each, but actually giving me a bit more information this time.

My stomach started to hurt. This was exactly how every conversation with this guy went. Edward was always with this mysterious Kate person.

"Well, can I leave him a message?" I asked a little more sharply than I should. My patience with Irritating Roommate was at an end.

"I guess," he droned tonelessly.

"Will you tell him Bella called? AGAIN."

"Sure," Irritating Roommate agreed, followed by a click and a dial tone.

I held the phone receiver in front of me, wrapped both hands around it, and proceeded to choke the life from it like I wanted to do to Irritating Roommate.

Needless to say, this guy was not my favorite person in the world.

Edward had been gone for over a month.

His classes had actually only started a couple of weeks ago. But since he was dragging his stuff two-thirds of the way across the country, he'd left early, deciding to arrive at his dorm at the earliest possible opportunity to move in.

He'd wanted to have some extra time to get acclimated and to explore the Indiana University campus so that he could become familiar with where things were. He hadn't wanted to spend his first week of classes totally turned around, lost, and depending on the kindness of strangers to give him directions.

It had been the mature and logical way for Edward to approach leaving to attend college so far away from home. Intellectually I knew it was a sound decision.

I still hadn't wanted him to go.

It was selfish of me. I knew that. But I didn't want him to go until the last possible moment. The truth was I wasn't ready to say goodbye. And I was hurt that Edward seemed so gung ho to leave me.

He wasn't leaving me though, was he? He was just going off to school like everyone else our age was doing.

So, why did I feel so hurt…confused…bereft?

I should be happy for him. I was happy for him.

Edward had made a decision based on what was best for him. He was a talented composer and pianist. He wouldn't have gotten into one of the best music programs in the country if he wasn't. He owed it to himself to go somewhere where he could take full advantage of how talented he was. Where he could learn and grow.

I wanted that for him. I did.

I just wished he could have done that at a place that wasn't two thousand miles away from me.

Actually, it was two thousand two hundred and forty-eight miles according to Yahoo maps. Yes, I'd been pathetic enough to look it up.

His parents had hired a small moving truck to take Edward's things to Indiana. Carlisle hadn't thought he could take time enough away from the hospital to drive a U-Haul that far himself. And when Esme had hinted that maybe she and Edward could drive the rented truck across the country alone, Carlisle had put his foot down. Taking their younger son – their last child at home – off to college was not something he was going to let his wife go through alone. The three of them flew from Seattle to Indianapolis and spent the night in a hotel near the airport. Then the following morning they'd driven a rental car the extra hour and a half down to Indiana University and met the movers at Edward's new dorm.

I'd wanted to go. I'd wanted to be there to see where he would be living. I'd wanted to make sure that he was settled and comfortable in his new surroundings. But the cost of a plane ticket made it impossible.

Well, that and the fact that Edward never asked me to go with him.

So, I'd said my goodbyes to my best friend in his driveway during the pre-dawn greyness of an August morning. With his parents looking on. It wasn't exactly the way I'd pictured it.

It was just the four of us there. Me and the three Cullens. Jasper hadn't bothered to come home for the summer. Not that it made much difference anyway. Over the last couple of years I hadn't really seen Jazz even when he was home. He'd always kept himself separate from his brother and me, but now it was like he'd left all of us completely behind.

The small number of our party should have given me a comfortable, intimate feeling. After all, there were no people in the world I was more at ease with than these three. So, why did I feel so jumpy? So nervous? So ill at ease?

I'd tried to distract myself by helping to load their luggage into Carlisle's Mercedes, but Edward and his dad handled most of the heavy lifting. My friend seemed to be constantly in motion and in not much of a mood to talk. It was five o'clock in the morning, so maybe that had something to do with his silence. And maybe the extra-large coffee I'd seen him chug could explain the excess energy. Or maybe it was just the nervous excitement of leaving home.

The car was loaded. Time was growing short. And still he wouldn't stop pacing around. I was finally reduced to practically hurtling myself into his path and narrowly missing a head-on collision. I fisted my hands into the front of his jacket, wanting to keep ahold of him until I had to let go. If I could have, I think I would have burrowed inside of him. That way he would have had to take me with him, right?

It wasn't all about me at the moment though. I needed to be there for him. To give him comfort and calm him down. This was for him and not me. "You'll do great, Edward. I know it," I said.

"I know," he responded quickly. A little too quickly? He wouldn't look at me.

"Hey," I said to get his attention, lightly bumping my fists against his chest. When he finally looked down at me I continued, "You're the most talented man I know. They'd be crazy not to see how terrific you are."

Without waiting for him to say anything else, I slid my arms around his waist and held him close. I felt tears welling in my eyes.

I didn't think I could do this. How did I do this? How did I let him go?

It took a few seconds before I felt his arms wrap around me too. I heard his whisper in my ear. "It's going to be okay, Bella. It's all going to be okay. I promise."

Hearing him say it. Hearing him promise me. He almost made me believe it.

"Take care of yourself, do you hear me? Don't get so caught up in studying and playing piano and meeting new people and partying that you forget to eat and sleep occasionally. I will drive all the way to Indiana and kick your butt if I have to, Edward Cullen. So don't test me."

He pulled away from me then and tried to give me his crooked grin, but it looked a little forced. "Yes, Miss Swan."

"Let me know when you get there, okay?"

"Alright, Bella," he said, taking a step away from me. "Good luck this year. Take some of your own advice too, okay?"

My heart clenched. I knew this was a goodbye, but did it have to sound so… I don't know… Final?

Without another word, Edward spun on his heel and was gone. I heard his car door slam and watched Carlisle's Mercedes back down the driveway.

I wanted to run after them. I wanted to scream for them to stop. But I couldn't. I was frozen. I couldn't make myself believe that this was really happening. It was though. It really was.

I was alone.

And I realized I hated the way that made me feel.

~*~B~*~B~*~B~*~

It was seven in the evening when my worry became absolute panic.

Their plane should have landed at 4 o'clock in the afternoon my time. It had been three hours, and I still hadn't heard from Edward.

I had tried to be patient. Tried to understand that planes didn't always take off or land on time. Tried to be realistic when I imagined the time it would take before they would be allowed off the plane. Or how long it would take for them to claim their luggage.

It wasn't like Edward not to call me. Especially not when he'd told me he would. I hadn't exactly expected him to call the instant he'd stepped off the plane. Well, maybe I had. But I had told myself that was a ridiculous expectation.

Maybe he had been tired. It had been a marathon day for him after all. And I was sure that spending the day in cars and airport lounges and on airplanes had been grueling. I'd told myself that he'd probably call me after he got to the hotel. Or maybe after he got something to eat.

By eight o'clock, I had the television tuned into CNN, waiting for news that Edward's plane had crashed.

I had tried calling Edward's cell a few times. Alright, maybe I'd called sixteen times. And every single one of those calls had gone through to voice mail. Where was he?

I was startled from reading the news banner at the bottom of the CNN broadcast when my phone sounded. It didn't ring with Edward's ring tone like I expected though. It buzzed to indicate an incoming text message.

Here ok. Ttyl. ~E

What? That was it? He'd given me my first grey hair, and that was all I got for it?

I immediately started to dial his number. But halfway through, my brain caught up with my fingers, and I hit the End button instead. I wasn't going to call him. If I called again, I would just look pathetic...like the seventeenth call was monumentally more pathetic than the first sixteen.

After my moment of pique though, I started to reconsider.

I didn't reconsider making that seventeenth call. There was no way I was going to do that.

But I reconsidered my anger at my friend. There had to be a reason that he hadn't called me.

This was Edward. It had been a long, exciting, exhausting day for him. He had to have just been caught up in all of that. He was never thoughtless…never careless…not when it came to me. He'd call me soon – probably first thing in the morning. I was just going to have to be patient.

~*~B~*~B~*~B~*~

My patience quickly ran thin.

With all the ways there were to stay in touch in this day and age, it should not be this difficult to connect to my best friend in the world. In the month that Edward had been gone, I hadn't spoken to him once.

I'd given up on the not-calling-his-cell-because-I-would-look-like-a-pathetic-loser thing after the third day.

I always got his voicemail.

And he never called me back.

Just when I thought I should give up trying though, I'd get a text from Edward.

They were always short.

But they were enough to encourage me not to give up.

I sent him long emails asking him to tell me everything about his new life and telling him about my preparations to move to Seattle. I wrote epic treatises on the minutest details of my life.

After five unanswered emails, this is what I finally received in return.

Bella,

Things here good. Meeting new people. Making friends. I've been really busy.

Don't worry about heading off to UDub. You'll do great.

Edward

Seriously? What. The. Fuck?

That's when I'd gotten his dorm phone number from his mom.

I could tell she'd been taken aback when I'd asked. She was as surprised as I was that Edward had been so out of touch with me. Apparently he called his parents at least twice a week.

This was Esme, so she was kind and generous and reassuring as she handed me the number. She told me what a big adjustment college was for anyone and that for Edward – striking out on his own for the first time so far away from home – it was going to be especially tough. She urged me to be patient, to give him time to settle in.

It made sense. I knew it did. But that didn't mean that Edward's distance didn't hurt.

I was determined to take Esme's advice to heart though. I wouldn't give up. So, I added periodic phone calls to his dorm room to the cell phone calls and emails.

Three things happened during those phone calls to Edward's dorm room. I "met" Irritating Roommate. I found out that Edward never seemed to actually be in his room. And I learned that he was always in the company of someone named Kate.

But who was Kate?

Considering how much time Edward apparently spent with her, you'd think he would have mentioned her in the one email he'd bothered to send me.

"Meeting new people. Making friends," he'd written.

Kate?

Was that what she was? A new friend?

Just a friend?

A new best friend maybe?

Or maybe a new girlfriend?

It was time, wasn't it? He hadn't dated anyone since Angela. So now that he was in a new place – a bigger pond, so to speak – wasn't it entirely logical that he'd met someone? I hadn't expected him to be single forever.

Had I?

No, it was the idea of this girl replacing me as Edward's friend that had twisted my stomach in knots. It had to be.

So when the time came for me to do my own moving to the dorm thing, I was extra anxious. Because added to the normal nerves of starting a new life on my own for the first time was the worry and fear that I was losing Edward.

I did have to admit that once I got there, I thought I understood why Edward may have been so hard to pin down, at least in part. College was overwhelming. Everything was new. Everything was different. And unlike the first eighteen years of my life, I didn't have my mom and dad to lean on. Or Edward. I didn't have anybody, and that was scary as hell.

I was also trying to get to know my new roommate, who was not the easiest nut to crack. Rosalie Hale was tall, blonde, and gorgeous. She also carried herself in a cool, almost regal manner – removed from us mere mortals like a goddess descended from Mount Olympus.

At first, I'd thought she was just stuck up. It was easy for me to imagine someone that beautiful would be a spoiled rotten brat with the matching bad attitude. A girl who looked like that must have always had the world at her feet, right?

I'd refused to let her ice queen demeanor deter me from trying with her though. And little by little I realized that maybe things with Rosalie Hale weren't all that they seemed. She gave me glimpses of the real her that convinced me that there was a person worth knowing underneath all her prickly layers. I got the sense that her coolness and reserve were her defense mechanisms. For some reason I had the distinct impression that they covered a vulnerability and unwillingness to let anyone get too close. So I kept at her. Slowly peeling back bits and pieces of those protective layers and refusing to let myself get offended and scared off when she tried to keep me at arm's length.

After a few nights sleeping in the same room with her, I found out why Rosalie was the way she was.

On the second night, she woke me up with her screaming. Turning on the lamp beside my bed, I looked over to her side of the room, trying to clear my sleep-clouded brain to figure out what in the heck was going on. Rosalie was sitting straight up in her bed, covered in sweat, her eyes wide open but seeing something I obviously could not. And even though her eyes were open, I wasn't entirely certain she was really awake.

"Rosalie," I said her name tentatively.

She continued to stare straight ahead. Her screaming had ceased, but her breath was coming in gasping pants.

"Rosalie!" I said louder, climbing out of bed and hurrying to her side.

When I touched her shoulder, she finally looked at me. After a moment of blankness, I saw the light come back into her eyes. "Bella?"

"Yeah, it's me. Are you okay?"

I saw her swallow hard and take a deep, steadying breath. And then the ice queen returned.

"I'm fine. Goodnight."

She lay back down and rolled away from me, giving me her back and pulling the covers up over her shoulder, clearly dismissing me.

A few nights later, I awoke to her heartbroken sobs. Flipping on the light once again, I found her cowering in the corner at the head of her bed, her back against the wall and her knees drawn up protectively.

Seeing her like that, so wounded and scared, I didn't think. I just reacted. In a moment I was next to her with my arms around her, like a mother comforting a frightened child.

I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. I just hugged her and let her cry herself out.

Finally, she was quiet, and I started to feel a little awkward and silly. Who was I to offer comfort to Aphrodite? I was getting ready to release her and scoot off the bed when her voice stopped me.

"Bella?"

"Yeah?" I responded.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

Her question surprised me. It seemed to be so apropos of nothing. Maybe that's why Edward's face popped unexpectedly into my mind.

I quickly shook his image from my inner-eye.

It was just that Edward was the one who came to mind when I heard the words boy and friend. It was an entirely different context then what Rosalie was actually asking me.

"No," I told her. "I went out with a guy from school, Mike, for a little while last year. It didn't really work out though. I just went out with him because he kind of wore me down by asking me a million times. And I felt like I was the only girl in high school who'd never had a date. It was a mistake. I didn't really feel that way about him."

"Did he ever hurt you?" she asked, not looking at me, her forehead resting on her knees.

"Hurt me?" I said, not really understanding. "No, of course not."

"You're lucky," she said quietly.

Suddenly the truth clicked in my brain. "And you weren't."

She shook her head and gave a hysterical half-laugh. "No, I wasn't."

I was silent but hugged her just a little tighter, trying to let her know that we didn't have to talk about it if she didn't want to, but at the same time that I was there for her.

"I had a boyfriend. Royce."

She paused. I thought she was trying to decide whether or not she should go on. And then she did. "He was a football player. I was a cheerleader. We were kind of the golden couple. At least that's what everyone thought. Even me."

She glanced at me, but when she saw me looking back at her, she dropped her eyes. "I thought that up until the night he celebrated a big win by drugging me and passing me around to his friends."

I covered my mouth with my hand – partly out of shock and partly because I felt sick. I had thought I knew where this story was going, but it turned out to be so much worse.

"I knew something had happened. The next morning. I woke up naked and alone. I was sore all over. There was blood on the bed and between my thighs."

"You were a virgin," I guessed, horrified.

She nodded.

"Where were your parents?" I asked.

She gave that hysterical laugh again. "They were home. I wasn't. I was at Royce's. I lied to them. Told them that I was staying over at a friend's house. So I could be alone with Royce. So I could give myself to him. Isn't that funny? He ended up taking my virginity that night, just not in the way I'd imagined."

"God, Rose, I'm so sorry."

"I don't need your pity," she said harshly, lashing out at me.

"I know. It's not pity. It's empathy, Rosalie. That shouldn't have happened to you, and I'm sorry that it did. That's all."

After a moment, she seemed to accept that.

"Bella, take my advice – don't trust them. Men. You think you know them. You think they care – that maybe they even love you. But it's a lie. Don't fall for it the way I did."

Again, I didn't know what to say. So I let the silence grow between us again before my curiosity brought me to ask, "What happened to the guys who did that to you?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" I asked incredulously.

"I never reported it. You're actually the first person I've ever told."

"Why?"

She sighed. "I was an idiot, Bella. At first I thought it was just Royce. And even after what he'd done, I still loved him. I didn't want to get him in trouble. I didn't know about the others. Not until I became the school joke."

"A joke? What happened to you was in no way funny, Rosalie."

"The guys at school sure seemed to think it was a joke. They laughed about it enough anyway. The girls? Well, they let me know in no uncertain terms that it was exactly what I'd deserved. I actually heard two girls I thought were my best friends say that. That I'd deserved what I got for acting so perfect all the time. After that, I was just too ashamed to tell anyone who didn't already know. I felt like it was partially my fault. I was the one who wanted to be alone with Royce."

I was angry on her behalf. I couldn't believe what had happened to her.

Not just the rape, although I couldn't fathom how anyone could do something so horrific to a fellow human being.

But Rosalie had been violated a second time by the small-minded cruelty of her classmates.

I was even more angry that this kind of thing could still happen. That these kind of attitudes still existed. We hadn't really come as far as a society as we sometimes liked to think. It was just the same old shit on a different day.

"It wasn't your fault, Rosalie."

I saw the doubt and cynicism in her eyes.

"It wasn't," I said again emphatically.

"And listen, I'm always here," I told her. "If you ever need me. To talk. Or to listen. Or to make you laugh if you need it. I'd like to be your friend. A true friend, Rosalie."

I thought maybe from the look in her eye that she wanted to believe me. But her experience had taught her to be wary.

I understood that, and I was willing to be patient. I knew that like Rome, friendship with Rosalie Hale wouldn't be built in a day.

I'd expected her to withdraw from me the next day…to push me away. She'd told me some pretty intimate stuff in the dark that I thought she'd want to hide from in the light of day.

She completely surprised me when she asked me to go out with her that evening to celebrate the end of our first week of classes.

"Come on, Bella. I need to decompress. We'll have dinner. Have a few drinks."

When I raised my eyebrow at her, she clarified, "Virgin, of course."

I laughed. "What's the point in that?"

She actually smiled a little. "We can pretend. I may even mock-slur and stumble for you."

I was impressed. Rosalie Hale had just made a joke!

"I feel like dancing," she continued. "I know the perfect place. I've heard about it on campus. It's not far."

I was happy that she hadn't retreated from me. That she actually seemed to be making a gesture toward friendship. I'd wanted to encourage that, so I'd agreed.

I wasn't so sure of myself two hours later when I found myself sitting in a local bar and grill totally self-conscious in a hip-hugging pair of jeans and a borrowed shirt that Rosalie had insisted I wear. I never would have worn it on my own. It just wasn't me.

As I looked around, I noticed that Rosalie had been right – that most of the other girls in this place were wearing similar outfits. I had put up a feeble protest when she'd first held up the scrap of midnight blue nothing that was supposed to be a top, but she'd reminded me that we were going to be dancing. We needed something that we weren't going to overheat in. Still, I was nervous. I hadn't shown this much skin since… Well, since birth to be honest.

Rosalie and I had ordered dinner and were sipping our virgin strawberry daiquiris when I suddenly felt someone's eyes on my back.

But rather than be creeped out, I felt a pleasant chill spread across my skin.

Goosebumps rose on my arms.

I knew there was someone behind me. Someone watching me.

I started to turn around to find out who it could be.

Then I heard a voice.

His voice.

"Bella?" Jasper asked.

Please don't blame the author. The characters have minds of their own. ;)

I'm not sure I can promise a chapter every week from now until the end. I am still writing and immediately posting chapters. I don't have any in reserve. But I have been riding a creative wave lately, and I promise to take full advantage of that.

Thanks to DeltaSwan90 and my2galspal for doing beta duties for me and to Vican for making the Destination Wedding banner!

If any of you have any questions or comments about Destination Wedding (or feel the need to rant about my characters), you can find me on the Destination Wedding thread on twilighted. http:/www(dot)twilighted(dot)net/forum/viewtopic(dot)php?f=44&t=14195&start=0