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Coming from Arizona, Bella believed she was used to the heat. Yet here she is, lying on top of a stripped bed wishing for the rain that she so often wants to go away.
It's early. Too early to go to bed, too hot to really do anything. The heat keeps her from concentrating on Jane Austin-- Mansfield Park lies forgotten in a tangle of blanket on the floor-- makes her too frustrated to enjoy music--tinny music coming from a pair of cheap headphones grates against her nerves. The thing is that she's used to the heat, but not this heat. Not this heat that makes everything stick to her skin. Not this heat that won't let her sweat evaporate. She is-- 'was' she wonders to herself-- used to a heat that left her cool after a shower. A heat where a wet washcloth draped around her neck provided relief, not one more thing to make clothes stick to her.
She lies there staring at the ceiling, willing a ceiling fan into existence. None appears. Mentally Bella chastises herself for not asking Charlie to put one up, knowing the cool weather would give out one day. She sighs, thinks of Edward next to her. Skin like ice pressing against her, cooling her off. Lips against her collarbone, like the last time he spent the night. The lips are smaller, more feminine . He is away during this heatwave, hunting. He seems to have to hunt a lot lately. That's okay. She knows it's hard for him to be around her, especially after this spring. She’s tried being understanding.
But...
She wants him here--doesn’t she? Of course she wants him there (why wouldn’t she?), his presence, a cool salve on the feverish heat. She wants. Wants something she can't quite imagine.
To want is to lack.
What is she lacking? Alice Something she doesn't know, something she wonders about in the silence of a dark room. When did it get dark? It was light just a...just a what? A moment, a minute, an hour? The heat pickles at her skin and she feels herself sweating. Swears she feels the sweat coming from the pores, dripping down her sides to the sheet beneath her.
Alice, I lack Alice. What do I lack? She wonders as she lies there, hoping at some point sleep will take her--if only to get this night over with.
Orpheus. The name swirls around her mind, motes of a discussion in English floating through her thoughts. The spring semester three weeks gone.
He went to the underworld to get his love back. How does the story end? Bella tries to remember, the prickling heat along her scalp making it hard to think.
Trust.
That’s the message.
What if she never left that ill fated dance studio? Orpheus loses Eurydice because he can’t stop himself from looking back with salvation just a few steps away. Unable to trust that she will just be there, that she will follow him. What if this is the underworld?
It’s not that Edward doesn’t trust her. Not exactly.
Can she place her trust in someone who doubts himself as completely as he does?
Alice ? What a strange thought.
And yet?
The thought, unbidden, comes to her again: Alice is different .
Sweat has soaked through the sheet and mattress cover beneath her. Sleep has been hard to come by, it’s hard to sleep when she doesn’t feel safe. Her wrist aches. For a moment she’s back in Phoenix and the heat leaves her body as the full weight of terror comes back. Bella knows what true burning is like, burning from the inside out. The scar burns. How could Edward leave her when she needs him most? How like Edward to leave when she needs him most.
A whine escapes her lips unconsciously, a barely controlled scream. She drags the comforter over herself, wanting a feeling of safety. Lacking safety and peace of mind. For a moment there is a flash of cool as the breeze created by the comforter stirs air across her torso. Wanting Edward’s embrace lacking Alice’s settling for the comforter’s and the thin safety it provides. James is dead, he can’t hurt Bella again. Alice wouldn’t let that happen.
She can hear Charlie snoring in his bedroom.
She wishes she was snoring too, longs for her dark bedroom in Arizona with the ceiling fan blowing the air and evaporating the sweat of even the hottest nights. She wishes for someone to be there to press a cold hand to her cheek and lull her to sleep, the chill length of a thigh stretched out alongside hers. Alice’s thigh draped casually over hers, cheek pressed between her shoulder blades.
Bella sits up with a start, mind supplying the image of Alice tucked up next to her, holding her gently.
Images swirl in the haze of lost sleep, frustration with Edward bleeding away. Moments of Edward’s crooked smile sliding away--replaced by the way that Alice would look at her (really look at her) behind her omnipresent smile that always touched her eyes. Moments of Edward’s touch and the way that he holds her, fading away like a dream to be replaced with one of Alice’s hugs that lingers just a moment too long. Fingertips dragging. How simple it seems now
Why not Alice? Heat floods her body (as if she wasn’t hot enough). The air around her, the mattress under her, and now her skin flushing. She pushes her hair off her neck, wishing that she’d taken Alice’s offer to cut her hair. Alice said it would look cute short . She kicks her legs against the bed in frustration. What kind of frustration, Bella?
She picks up a pillow and pulls the sheet off of her bed. The comforter lays in a piled heap at the foot of the bed again. A casualty. Shame. She may have better luck on the couch. Or the kitchen floor.
It's late. Late enough that she should be asleep, but sleep remains elusive. Maybe she's dozed off for a moment or two. Night is shorter here in the summer than it is in Arizona, but seems to last longer.
This is the small hours of the morning. The liminal space between two dreams, where drinks of water and nightmares happen simultaneously. Where trips to the bathroom are annoyances that keep the world from its natural state.
In Forks, that time seems to start as soon as the sun is down below the lip of the horizon and stretch all the way until dawn.
Maybe that's why the Cullens like this town. The perpetual feeling of twilight.
Sleep doesn’t come easier on the couch, but at least it’s different, a change of scenery. Unlike the band posters--curled at the edges--in her room, the walls of the living room are covered by old photos of her and Charlie, one with Renee too. The windows are open and the sounds of night stream into the living room. The room dozes around her (at least it can sleep albeit uneasily), a few blinking lights on the TV or the DVD player the only signs of consciousness.
Bella closes her eyes, tries to focus on her breathing, made difficult with the flashes of resentment at the night and the heat and Edward.
"Hey" The voice comes from one of the open windows, breaking the natural sound of night with something harmoniously discordant. A shiver runs down Bella’s spine, unconnected to the open windows or the nonexistent breeze.
"Hey yourself." Did her thoughts summon Alice? With her visions it is possible. Bella is grateful that Alice cannot read her mind. Has Alice seen where this night will end? Is it the same way Bella imagines it ending?
"What are you doing here?" Bella asks, daring Alice to break the tension, to say what she knows. To say what she thinks. To say what Bella knows she feels
Alice smiles coyly, “It's too hot to sleep."
Bella rises from the couch and goes to the window
"You don't sleep anyway," Bella's reply comes as she looks around the dark living room enveloping her. The room no longer dozes, it’s wide awake now. As awake as Bella, Alice’s presence is better than coffee, a night’s rest, or Edward.
"Oh, right." Alice laughs, the sound like tiny chimes in the breeze. "What are you doing down here?"
"Too hot to sleep." Bella's reply is terse and more curt by half than her intent. “Why don’t you come in?”
“Why don’t you invite me in?” Alice replies, moving like a dancer in one of Bella’s dreams to a different window. The dim moonlight playing over her features, making her spectral.
“I didn’t think you needed to be invited in.” Bella gets up from the couch and makes her way to the window.
“Why yes.” Alice affects a slight southern accent as she leans in the window inches away from Bella’s face. “It’s right polite to be invited into one's home.”
“You know what I mean,” Bella’s heart is in her throat. “I read enough about vampires to know being invited in is just a myth.”
Alice doesn’t drop the accent. “Oh sugar, there’s plenty about vampires you don’t know. Yet.” Her smile is brilliant and coquettish, luminescent. Edward doesn’t ever smile like that.
Bella stands at the window, mouth agape staring down at Alice. Dark, shadow cast eyes flash with amusement as brilliant as lightning out of a clear summer night. She wonders for a moment if Alice is even there, really there, or if this isn’t some kind of waking dream. The way the night hides her eyes makes Bella’s heart beat all the faster.
“Why don’t you just come in?”
This is real , Bella thinks, I don’t think I’m dreaming.
Alice laughs and slips away again. Bella moves into the kitchen, stubbing her toe against the table. Perfect, she thinks. The floor is cool against her feet as she picks her way to the back door. There’s less light in here and she feels her way along the counter, her feet careful to avoid a repeat of the kitchen chair.
Alice is at the door by the time Bella gets there, waiting for me . There is no doubt in Bella’s mind that she was there before Bella moved from the living room. Through the windows in the door, Alice’s smile is visible, nearly glowing in the wan light of the half moon out there.
Bella’s hands move of their own accord, unlocking the deadbolt. Alice is the light on the other side of the window, amber eyes beacons in the darkness. The sight of Alice beaming in the doorway makes her smile too. It feels like hours, days, weeks since the last time Bella smiled.
“Aren’t you actually going to invite me in?” Alice asks, her hands behind her back. She stretches up on her tiptoes in a motion of impatience. As though Alice stands on a precipice and just waiting--as though if Bella were to say “I’ll catch you” then Alice would leap without hesitation.
“Alice,” Bella’s voice is low, rougher than usual. She clears her throat, swallows. Maybe she just needs some water. “Would you like to come inside?”
“I thought you would never ask.” Alice, exasperated, enters. Alice is always doing things like removing her shoes before coming in, she’s proper like that. Once she’s inside then she shows little consideration of personal space. Such the opposite of Edward.
"It is warm, but I thought you'd be used to it." Alice says, the sliver of gauzy moon against her cheek. Her lips purse with unasked questions that must still be working their way through her mind. As if spoken, Bella can hear those conversations. ‘Did you miss me last week, while I was hunting? Aren’t you glad I’m standing here instead of Edward? ’
Bella almost answers one of the questions that hasn’t been asked. She catches herself at the last moment. Taking a step back, she bumps into the counter. The cold tile raises goosebumps along her back. "You'd think the Arizona girl would be used to the heat but it's humid too and nothing works! And your brother chooses the heat wave to go hunting. I’m miserable!"
"I can help with that." Alice says, head still tilted but now looking down. She reaches out a nearly luminescent hand through the darkness and touches Bella's cheek. Gently. There is no force to it, it is a butterfly landing on a flower. The touch is inauspicious, barely noticeable.
Goosebumps erupt from every hair on her neck, down her arms, and across her back. Bella shivers for just a moment and leans into the touch, cold as winter mornings. For the first time tonight her mind is silent.
Still.
They stand together in the kitchen, Alice’s hand lingers on her cheek and the seconds seem to swell, stretching into minutes until Alice breaks the contact, withdrawing her hand with an impish smile. In those moments with Alice’s hand against her skin, Bella feels weightless.
Alice pulls her hand away, slowly for her, but fast enough that Bella noticed it before the chill of her skin left. A whimper escapes from Bella’s lips before she can think to stop it.
“Why did you come over?” Bella asks. The faint bit of breeze that comes from the doorway warms the skin where Alice had cooled it, the frustration slowly working its way back into her, sinking its claws into her brain.
Alice closes the door and they move back to the living room.“Do I need a reason?” Alice’s voice is barely a whisper and Bella strains to hear it. She moves closer, until she can smell Alice’s hair, feel her breath across her collarbones. Her chest aches.
She thinks about asking what Alice meant, but stops herself. “You never need a reason.” Her whisper isn’t so much wind rushing through trees, and more the rustle of long grass underfoot.
Alice shrugs so elegantly. Bella yearns to move like that. The scar on her wrist aches again and catches her off guard. She was close to moving like that until...
“I just wanted to come see you.”
“It’s…” Bella gapes. What time was it really? The DVD player flashes 12:00, it is no help, “Late, you could have come over any time.”
A shadow ripples over Alice’s face giving the momentary appearance of a skull. Her warm, comforting eyes dispel any fear before it settles into Bella’s chest. “I guess I could have, but I knew you’d be awake.”
“You were spying on me.”
The question seems to catch Alice off her guard, Bella realizes that it wasn’t a question after all. She had turned it into an accusation. The person that she had most wanted to see, the person that her mind had taunted her with for hours was here, and she was accusing her friend of spying.
“Sorry.” Bella is glad for the dark because she knows she blushed a furious shade of red. “Heat frustration.”
“I wasn’t spying.” Alice draws the word spying out in a way that tells that she was doing just that, “I just peeked a little.”
"Guess that's okay. "
"I know." Alice's reply is clear and certain and they make their way to the couch and sit.
Bella wonders how well Alice can see her, see the house, see everything. Bella doesn't have bad eyes, but even she has to admit that Alice can see so many things that Bella can't. Not yet. Maybe one day she'll be able to see Alice as clearly as Alice sees her. In many ways she already does. Well, she hopes she does.
"Scoot closer." Alice says patting the cushion she is sitting on.
Bella does, her heart hammering hard in her chest. This isn't just from the heat, it's from something else, something is making Bella flirt with fight or flight.
She doesn’t flee..
Why would she? After all, she loves Alice.
Cold sets Bella's mind racing again with sharp clarity. She looks around the darkened living room seeing it--really seeing it--for the first time tonight. Her head spins around looking for the source of this ice down her back. She twists and turns and is only met with muffled laughter and realization. Alice’s hand still rested where the nape of her neck had just been.
"Sorry." Alice is still laughing, her word coming through as a gasp, "I thought you looked really hot and wanted to try and cool you off before it rains later tonight."
"It's going to rain?" Bella barely remembers the word rain at this point. So silly, it's been less than a week since it rained last and she already misses it. Strange how fast she acclimated.
"Yeah, later tonight, but you looked like you couldn't wait for the rain, was that okay?”
“More than okay.” Bella only realizes she said it out loud after it’s too late to swallow it. “It’s a miserable night.”
Alice faces her, a pout on her lips. “After I came all this way just for you?”
“You’re the only good thing about this night.”
“I choose to take that as a compliment.”
“You should. I don’t remember the last night that was this hot and miserable.” Bella moves closer to Alice, not realizing it until cold spreads up the length of her side. She’s pressed against Alice. Alice doesn’t seem to mind.
For several long moments silence settles on the room as it starts to fall back asleep. Alice’s arrival startled it, but it has forgiven the transgression. Even the blinking DVD display seems to calm down.
Bella gives herself permission to enjoy this without worry. A memory stirs within her. “No that isn’t true, I do remember the last night like this.”
"Tell me," says Alice.
“I was about eight years old and the air conditioner broke in the middle of the night. Just started blowing hot air, like a hair dryer. After a while it woke my mom and I up, the house must have easily been eighty-five. Mom had the idea that we should go lay on the couch where it might be cooler. It really wasn’t, but she got each of us a carton of ice cream and we lay on the couch with the ice cream on our chest to cool off.”
“That sounds fun. Do you have any ice cream? We could do that now.”
Bella laughs. “No, Charlie and I ate the rest of it after dinner.”
“Oh well.” Alice pauses, the silence settling around them like, “Your mom sounds like fun.”
“She is, she’s flighty as hell most of the time, but she’s my best friend.”
“I’ll try not to take offense.” Alice says, the faux Southern accent makes a reappearance.
Bella shakes her head. “You’re more than my best friend...” Bella trails off, something she’d thought to say died on its way out and she is glad for it.
Silence swells between them pleasantly uncomfortable, like stretching after waking up from a deep sleep. A moment later and that same silence has relaxed around them.
“I don’t have any memories of my mom.” Alice confesses. “My real mom, my biological mom, my human mom I mean. Don’t get me wrong, Esme is incredible but...”
“It would be nice to remember her?”
“Yeah exactly! I’ve been making up my human life as long as I’ve been a vampire.” She shrugs, bumping against Bella. They both laugh at the unexpected contact. “When you don’t have anything real, you get to make stuff up. I like to imagine that my parents were a lot like yours.”
“Like mine?”
“Yeah, I know it’s not likely, with the whole hundred years difference and different expectations, but a mom who is fun to be around and cares deeply, and someone as sweet as Charlie is.”
“Don’t let Charlie hear you call him sweet, I don’t think he’d ever forgive us.”
“He is, though! At least in his stoic, manly way.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Bella pauses. Her eyes unfocus no longer seeing the sleeping room. She speaks again without realizing. “He still loves her. My mom I mean.”
“Oh.” Alice whispers her reply.
“Sorry, that came out of nowhere, I was just thinking--”
“No it’s okay, I’m not surprised, if she’s anything like you--”
“He just hasn’t gotten over her and I can tell it eats at him…” Bella trails off, she doesn’t know if she heard Alice correctly.
Alice’s mouth snaps shut. A brief, tense silence falls over them, before Alice saying, “that’s terrible,” shatters it into a million fragmented pieces.
“It is.” Bella’s eyes are still unfocused, she can see the green of the DVD player’s light but not enough to make out the blinking 12:00. “Terrible to be in love with someone who you can never have.”
Alice is still for a long minute, the silence glues itself back together, less tense than before but one that has all of the same pieces. Bella cannot see her, cannot see anything. She feels the icy hand still resting on the back of her neck and leans into it, snuggling into the soft, cool stone.
“Are you okay?" Alice again breaks the silence, this time it shatters into fine powder and scatters.
No, I'm not okay , Bella thinks. She chews her lip to buy her some time, but she can feel Alice's eyes boring deep into her soul. They're locked on her as surely as a hawk's are trained on a mouse. Is that what she is? A mouse? No, she may have been out of her league before but she isn't a mouse, she has been able to stare down scarier things.
But Alice isn't scary . She’s sweet
"Earth to Bella." Alice taps her shoulder to get her attention.
Only then does Bella notice the faint smell of copper and the taste of iron. She's bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, has Alice noticed? Is this what a heat stroke feels like? Something is pressed into Bella’s hand, a napkin. She dabs at the inside of her lip.
"No," Bella says numbly and wonders where to even start. "I don't know, I think I'm just tired."
"I bet." If Alice cares about the blood she hasn't said anything. The gentle hand reappears on Bella's back. The cold is welcome this time, rather than shocking her awake it relaxes her. It is comfortable, like Bella is around Alice.
"Do you think I'm making a mistake?" Bella says, her voice is rough again with sleep that she now is fighting against. Alice's palm on her back, may have been there for a second or hours at this point. Time has dissolved around her, leaving her in a morass.
"I don't get what you mean." Alice is on the couch beside her, sitting closer than she absolutely needs to be.
"Right now I just mean with everything, I just feel like I'm messing everything up." The words are poor, they are a poor substitute for what she needs to say but they are all she has. To say more right now would break the fragile air around them.
“Do you mean…” Alice trails off. It doesn’t need to be said.
Tears form in Bella’s eyes. Words freeze like ice in the back of her throat threatening to choke her. She wants to whisper them, to say them, to scream them. Instead of words, tears flow.
Alice is there, guiding Bella’s head into her shoulder where the tears stain the sleeve of Alice’s shirt. She rubs Bella’s back in small slow circles and makes a soft shushing noise as Bella silently cries.
Words, half formed, escape Bella’s lips. They make no sense, not even to Bella. In those moments she wonders if Alice can get the meaning. God if Alice does, will she leave? Run? Leave her?
"I don't think you're making any mistakes. Just follow your heart, Bella."
Bella takes a deep shuddering breath and while the frozen words don’t move, she can breathe. She concentrates on Alice’s touch, sending ripples of goosebumps up and down her back. She trembles, Alice continues to rub her back. It feels...the only word Bella has is good. It simply feels good. The contact with Alice may be better than anything else tonight or ever . That it cooled off her body and silenced her mind made the moment that much better.
Alice.
She is glad that it is Alice that is here tonight. Alice is the only one that Bella wants here on this sleepless summer night.
"Thank you," Bella says. It's the only thing that she has left to say. Her heart is killing her. A weight sits on her chest, crushing the words against her sternum. A scream boils inside of her, kept in place by the pressure of the weight that is her own heart and the ice that are her words.
A silence settles over the two of them. Bella feels like the darkness has swallowed her whole while Alice transcends the darkness to glow, a firefly in the otherwise suffocating darkness. The heat has dried Bella's throat to a point that she can no longer take. In the darkness she stands, Alice’s touch falling away but allowing her up, and makes her way to the kitchen, careful this time not to stub her toe on anything. She bangs her hip on the counter instead.
She hears Alice say something, or maybe she hears Alice laugh. There are no specifics to the sound, but she puts words to it all the same. "Be careful."
No, she doesn't think Alice would say something like that. No, if she says something it would be closer to, "there's a wall there."
Bella gets herself glass of water, drinking half of it before she leaves the sink. She fills it again until it overflows and runs onto her fingers. She laughs. That same laugh becomes higher, more manic than it has any right to be, but it still comes through her all the same. A pressure valve has released through her. The heat, the lack of sleep, stumbling, bumping, all of the thousand aches that she has been subjected to tonight.
Alice appears in the doorway, haloed by the thin moonlight that keeps her radiant glow visible. "What's so funny?"
In that sticky night, Bella holds up her wet hand knowing that Alice can see just fine. "Nothing," she chokes out between laughs. "My cup runneth over." She laughs again at the ridiculous joke.
"You're so weird," Alice says, joining in with her own controlled laugh.
"Says you” Bella says between bouts of laughter, “The one who plays chess without moving a single piece."
"At least I'm not the one quoting the Bible at 2:32 in the morning."
"It was a funny joke." Bella wheezes, trying not to laugh again.
"I think you might be over tired." Alice steps forward and takes Bella's hand in her own and takes her back to the couch.
And I think you’re beautiful. Bella allows this to happen. The touch is so gentle, a suggestion more than any demand. She knows very well that she could easily refuse this, but doesn't want to. She's enjoying the contact. "I think you might be right."
"Would you like me to stay?"
Bella doesn't have to think, she answers before she's even aware of it. "Please don't leave me."
The words are small, but fill the room as surely as the morning light will. After spending hours wanting this night to be over, Bella doesn't want it to end. There's something here, in the darkness of the cramped living room, in the tiny house, in the small town, which doesn't exist anywhere else. Bella doesn't know what it is, but she wants to find out. She knows she cannot find it on her own, just as she knows she needs Alice.
What was it she was thinking of earlier? Wanting? Lacking? It feels like an eternity since she was up in her bed wondering at these things. How could she ever be lacking anything now?
"I’ll never leave you."
She'll stay. The words spin around the room like motes of dust. It's more than Bella hoped for, Tonight she is Alice falling through the rabbit hole to Wonderland. She is Eurydice coming back from the underworld hoping Orpheus doesn’t look back at her. She is whole for what feels like the first time in her life and she doesn't understand the feeling. Things seem like they're obvious like blocks falling into place. She doesn't realize she's falling into place until she does.
Alice is there, next to her sitting with her shoulder resting against the couch smiling, lips just ever so slightly parted. Content.
Bella is there, lying on the couch--she doesn't remember when she lay down. She wishes Alice was next to her, but the couch is too small even for that.
She reaches a hand out and Alice is there. Solid. Her fingers brush Alice's cheek tentatively. What is she doing? She doesn't really know. Alice doesn't seem to mind, her smile grows, just a fraction, but it grows. She takes Bella's hand in hers. So cold, so comforting. When was the last time she felt this way? Surely she has. Surely she has felt this way hundreds of times before, but it wasn't like this. It wasn't as delicate and maybe it's time to focus on the delicacy for now.
Alice is delicate, focus on her.
Bella’s mind whirls to the point where she is dizzy. She needs to say something. The silence is suffocating and she can't find a way to take a breath, but she knows she is safe. She won't die. Alice won't let her. Alice will pull her out of the storm of her own mind. She gasps for breath, her lungs taking in the humid night air. She realizes how long she had been holding her breath. Her chest burns but Alice is there, cold hand on her cheek now.
"Bella?" Alice splinters the silence bringing all of the air Bella needs back into her lungs.
"Yeah?"
"You should probably get some sleep. I think you're forgetting to breathe." She laughs.
Bella wants to say something but something cool presses against her forehead. Lips. As Alice kisses her forehead she slides. Slips down the well to sleep. She fights. She fights tooth and nail to stop sleep from coming to her. She wants to stay up, wants to stay with Alice. Wants this night to last as long as possible.
But she sleeps.
It's almost morning now, the faintest bit of color on the horizon. Alice was wrong. It didn't rain overnight like she'd promised. Perhaps it will rain this morning.
Alice is still, leaning up against the couch. Eyes closed, looking peaceful. Bella realizes this may be the first time she's ever seen the vampire look peaceful. It's almost enough to think she's asleep, but Bella knows better.
Bella lies on the couch, head propped on the arm of the couch, eyes mere slits to try and keep up the charade of sleep. She doesn't want this moment to end. It's serene. She is at peace. There have been moments like this before but not one that has made her feel quite this way. Spending the night awake with Alice. Talking, sharing their deepest fears and knowing that they can trust. Or that they should trust, because no matter what they will stay together.
She imagines the rain that Alice had promised. Coming down as a sprinkle, the air cooling down noticeably. She swallows, mouth dry, imagining the sweetness of the rain.
There's Alice pulling her out the kitchen door to enjoy the rain. She says it helps to remember to live. She pulls Bella into her and starts to dance while drops of rain fall around the yard and onto them. Alice insists that they dance to celebrate making it through the hot night and Bella can't help but agree. They made it.
Morning looks different now. After last night everything looks different. She's down the rabbit hole now and she doesn't know if there's a way to climb back up. Doesn’t want to climb back up.
"Good morning sleeping beauty." Alice says, continuing to not move.
"Morning," Bella's voice is clogged with sleep. She barely remembers what she has said and hopes that she hasn't said too much. "It hasn't rained."
"Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there's still time."
"It's morning. You said so yourself."
"Good morning is just a phrase you use when someone wakes up."
Just then, a flash of lightning cuts across the sky, blinding Bella for a moment. The peal of thunder that follows is instantaneous, so loud it rattles the windows. Will that wake Charlie? No, Bella decides that it won't wake her father. There seems to be nothing that can wake that man. Even still, he would probably just listen, he wouldn't intrude. He wouldn't destroy this moment or this night.
"Come on!" Alice tugs on her arm, getting her up off the couch without dislocating her shoulder.
Before she knows it, they're outside. The rain hasn't started yet, but she knows it's coming. She can smell it on the air. Maybe it isn't just Alice that can see the future. This was the moment that she imagined. Without warning, the cloudburst. Rain cascades down in one sheet drenching both Alice and Bella to the bone. Alice's high laugh cuts through the rain roaring around them.
Bella laughs again, not the high keening manic laugh of the night before but a low laugh that lives deep within her belly. She tilts her head to the sky and lets the rain wash over her face. After a moment, she takes the chance of the night, the thing she has been waiting for without waiting for it. At arm's length is Alice. With a tug, Bella brings Alice in close. The rain plasters the spikes of her hair to her skin, giving her eyes an innocent, overlarge appearance. They're now pressed together. The only thing separating them are thin clothes heavy with rain.
Bella starts to dance, unable to help herself. The water is cool, taking all the summer heat out of the air in an instant. In the distance, another flash of lighting and a longer pause before the thunder. The storm is already beginning to move on, taking this moment with it. It doesn't matter, right now only a few things do. And those things dance in the rain.
Together.