Beautiful Disaster

"That’s because Bella was about the only one who acted moderately mature today. Speaking of which, please tell them both that if they smoke pot on my back porch again I’ll ask for a joint for compensation next time."

Her words make me snicker, and I accept the jibe with a nod.

"Will do. I didn’t even know Jazz had any."

"Or you would have followed them outside?" she ventures a guess, then laughs at my pointed glare. "Oh, come on, I don’t believe that you’ve never smoked any pot before. I’ve been in college, too, remember? Although that was in the late seventies, we probably smoked a lot of stuff you kids wouldn’t touch anymore."

"I’ve been working in the ER long enough now to tell you that’s wishful thinking."

"Be that as it may, I think you’re missing the point about Alice," she resumes our previous conversation thread.

"Which is?"

"Now Bella not only has you, but also Jazz, leaving Alice with no one, as you so aptly summed up for her."

It’s funny how even her neutral words can make me feel like an ass all over again, but I have to admit, I’m still not sorry about what I’ve said.

"You know that she kicked him out? And unless you count a very brief spell over the last few weeks, ending the day she and Jazz broke up, Alice has been closing herself off from me. It’s not my fault that people around her have been turning their back on her."

"I didn’t say it was, just that I think that she somehow feels like the three of you are banding together against her, which is why she felt the need to attack who she presumed to be the weakest of the three of you."

"How can she think that Bella is weak?" Now I’m really puzzled.

My mom shrugs, as she herself seems to have the same problem as I do with understanding the concept.

"You know that Alice is one of the people who likes to judge a book by its cover. To her, Bella is very likely still the nice, sometimes shy girl she met in college, and the only time she revised that view was when Bella tried to fit into the image Mike had of her. It took me a while to realize that the real Bella is very different from that, and it’s mostly her good nature that leaves her seeming vulnerable and impressionable. I have no doubt that if push comes to shove, Bella will be the last to give in of the four of you."

Her words make me wonder just how much my mother knows about what has been going on between us – both between only Bella and me, and the two of us with Jazz. We’ve never really talked about it after the disastrous gala last summer, but I know that Bella and Esme have been spending a lot of time together, and without a doubt talking about us, too.

"So you think it’s jealousy that makes her assume the martyr role? Because obviously, it’s all our fault, and she’s the one suffering the most."

"Now you’re just being dense," she accuses me with a hint of laughter in her voice, but when she goes on, she’s completely serious again. "If things were so simple you would have solved them months ago. And while I think I know her well, my view of her is biased, too. I won’t even defend what she did and how she seems to approach things, but I still think that on some level, she simply feels left out. You should talk to her about that if you want to save your friendship, which I think you should, old and close friends are a rare commodity sometimes."

For a moment I just stare at her, wondering if she has gone off the deep end after all.

"How could I possibly talk to her right now? She wouldn’t listen, and I’m not sure I even want to talk to her as it is!"

"Not now, but eventually. When the storm has blown over, you’re not high up in the clouds about just how wonderful your own life is, she’s had time to reassemble herself, and you can meet on neutral middle ground. You’re not in kindergarten anymore, just because Jazz or Bella might not want to deal with her again, that doesn’t mean you have to cut yourself off from her. It’s only a matter of wanting to work things out."

The more immature side of me wants to stick out my tongue and deny that I will ever want this to happen, but I’m sensible enough to just answer with a long spell of silence. While I don’t think she’s right now, I know that my mother has a unique ability to see right through other people’s bullshit, something I greatly envy her, and I’m not going to protest her point now and set myself up for ridiculing later if she’s right. There’s something else that has been eating on me for much, much longer than the issue with Alice, and as she has more or less prodded the anthill already, I might as well go all the way.

"Does he hate me for who I am? When you said you were proud of the man I had become, it sounded like you were skipping over a ‘contrary to what others might believe’."

A while it seems like she won’t answer my question, probably as not to underline my conviction, but when she does, her voice sounds a little hollow with defeat.

"Edward, I won’t lie to you, your father has problems with several of the decisions you have made in your life, and it pains me to see the two most important people for me so at odds with each other. But that doesn’t mean he’s right, or even has a point."

"That’s not why I was asking. I just -" I have to stop there to keep my voice from skipping an octave with the sudden tightness in my chest, and it takes me a bit to breathe through it. "It’s just that it’s hard enough sometimes to live with the consequences of said choices without having my own father show his disapproval every moment possible."

"I know," she admits, then offers me another of those gentle smiles. "You know that I love your father, and we’re a good match on so many fronts that I tend to ignore where our opinions diverge. If I didn’t respect him for the person he is, he wouldn’t be your father nor would I have stayed with him for all those years. His only fault, or at least the greatest, is that he goes through life seeing only black and white, while you and I, we’re strong believers in the shades of gray philosophy."

As much as I want to agree with her – and I even do, just not in the conclusion she seems to offer – I have to speak up.

"I can see where he’s disappointed in me throwing my budding career in Plastic Surgery into the wind on a whim, and because of the backlash my private issues have caused me at the time, but I’m more than happy that I did, because I think I’m much better suited to work in the ER and Intensive Care. I can also see why he thinks that my bisexuality is something he doesn’t approve of, seeing as it’s nothing he can put in a neat box that everyone will respect, but -"

"It’s not that," she interrupts me, uncharacteristic enough for her that she stops my whining short.

"What then? Does he really have that much of a problem with the fact that I like to tie up my girlfriend and spank her?"

"If that was all you did I’m sure he would keep on ignoring it."

Her words don’t really make sense to me, and when she sees that, she explains with a weary sigh.

"Your father is, for whatever unfathomable reason, blaming himself that somewhere, somehow he must have done something incredibly wrong for his son to have developed what he thinks is a pathological mental disorder."

"He what?"

"Before you jump to any conclusions, please let me explain."

"How can I jump to any conclusions when my own father thinks that I’m some sick -"

"Edward, I said let me explain!" she bites out, and her tone alone would have been enough to shut me up. We stare at each other for a few seconds, until I speak first.

"Sadomasochism is not a disease."