Beautiful Disaster

The flash of relief on her face is priceless, although it disappears after a few moments. When she doesn’t say anything else I let go of her, then step up to the closet to get the blankets and pillow stored in the upper compartment.

"Come on, let’s find out just what’s going on. Because I somehow feel like there’s more to this than Jazz and Alice just having a minor disagreement."

Bella shrugs, her face carefully blank, as she follows me out of the room, and after my call with Alice, I can’t help feel the same undercurrent of resentment she must be trying so hard to hide.

Chapter 22

While I follow Bella downstairs, my arms laden with the spare blanket, my mind starts dissecting what little information it has received over the last minutes. I’m usually not that slow to catch on but compared to Bella I’m downright sluggish in ridding myself of the level of arousal and frustration that has been clogging my thoughts until now.

Maybe she’s just more used to that than I am.

My first reaction at Alice’s tone and words has been disbelief – and feeling betrayed that she’s lying to me. Now the thought occurs to me that she could be telling the truth, that it is all just a new ploy of Jasper’s to seed distrust between Bella and me – but what for? From what I know she’s steered clear of him for the last few weeks, that more than anything speaking plainly that she’s not on the best of terms with him.

And when I see him hunched over on the couch, his fingers bunching up his wet hair, his eyes red while he’s obviously fighting not to break into pieces, I know that this is real and not just a show.

Unlike Bella or me, Jazz is good at telling lies and pretending, but not that good. That I fell for his act once all those months ago has been part of why I’ve been hating myself so much – if I hadn’t been so selfish and lost in my own misery I would have seen right through it. I’ve known him long enough to see the inevitable signs when I look closely enough, and I don’t get a fake feeling from him right now.

Alice is another thing entirely. She’s usually on the chipper side but to me she’s been sounding way too perky, and too fast to deflect my question. Of course I can’t be sure by her voice and words alone, but if I have to take a guess, Jazz is not the one putting on a show. And it hurts inexplicably more that Alice would do this to me now that I’ve been feeling us reconnect at last.

While I busy myself with dumping the duvet on one of the chairs Bella fires up the coffee maker and hunts down a box of cookies. Inwardly that move is cracking me up – while not a perfect homemaker, Bella does have better manners than I will ever have, and guests normally get food served on platters. The fact that she nearly hits Jazz in the head with the cookies when she throws them in the general direction of the couch speaks of a comfortable familiarity acquired by endless years of knowing each other –

that never fully went away, it seems.

I still wait for Bella to sit down next to Jazz before I take my seat on her other side, farthest away from him but not exactly avoiding him. The fact that it’s a conscious decision on my part is telling, but I’m happy the others ignore it. And unless I want to perch on the arm rest it’s the only comfortable space on the sofa, anyway.

Jazz dumps sugar seemingly at random into his coffee, then drinks it without adding cream. The liquid must be scalding his tongue but he doesn’t seem to notice, and he remains silent, his eyes fixed on the table top, until Bella lets out a soft sigh.

"Wanna tell us what happened?"

He looks up and a multitude of emotions run over his face, too fast for me to really make them out – but the openness of it underlines my guess that he isn’t playing any games right now.

"What usually happens, I guess. We had a fight, we both said a lot of things that needed out but that we probably never should have given voice to, and then she told me to pack my things and go, and never come back."

Bella frowns, then indicates his overnight bag and the backpack still sitting by the door.

"And that’s all?"

"There weren’t really that many things of me in her apartment. Left most of it in the storage space."

Where they went after I kicked him out, but he doesn’t say that. Doesn’t need to, either.

The realization of how little he had over with her strikes me as strange – it can’t be more than a few books and some clothes. I try to remember the last time I’ve been over at Alice’s, but I can’t think of many personal belongings of his in sight. And suddenly his phrasing – her apartment –

registers. It doesn’t seem as if it has felt like theirs to him for a while to be familiar with the term, casual as his sentence sounds.

Of course I can’t really compare our condo here to that as Bella and I have moved in together into the uninhabited space from two separate living units, but even before that there has been the content of three large moving boxes of her stuff at the old house, only a two minutes walk from her studio.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but to me it seems as if Jazz has never made an effort to become a permanent fixture in Alice’s home – or that she hasn’t let him. Either option is just depressing.

"At least it’s not all wet now," Bella tries to lighten the mood, but her words sound so hollow, echoing my own sentiments, that she goes on immediately. "Are you hungry? I can whip something up for you quick."

Jazz shakes his head, then stares at the cookies as if they are a bunch of poisonous snakes.

"I’m not hungry, thanks."

Silence falls, becoming awkward fast, and uncomfortable not long after that. I feel like I have to say something, anything, but what can I say that makes a difference?

"You know you can stay here as long as you need to."

My words seem to amaze him as he actually looks up at me, surprise clear in his eyes.

"Thanks, I really appreciate it, but you don’t need to get all lost in your pity for me. It’s just for a few days."

The light note of scorn in his voice makes anger rise in me, but before I can get in his face he shakes his head and buries his face in his hands.

"Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, it’s just that I can’t … I can’t f**king think!"

The sheer helplessness of that outburst dampens my ire again, and I can see that same mixture of sympathy and pain I feel mirrored on Bella’s face.

He might not be the most welcome guest in this house, but that doesn’t mean we’re immune to the despair coming off of him in waves.

Still, on some level I’m not sympathetic with him, I’m even a bit gleeful at all this happening. Feels too much like karma being a vindictive bitch – and for once not kicking my ass but someone else’s who might even have deserved it. And it’s not like a break-up is the end of the world, something he seems to realize himself, judging by his words.

I might have smirked a little at those thoughts because Bella shoves her elbow into my side where Jazz can’t see it, and I try hard not to react. The temptation is there to offer a scathing remark, but I refrain from it, more for her sake than his. Instead I try to steer the conversation into a direction that won’t end with either of us biting each other’s head off.

"I thought things were okay? I met Alice just a few days ago and she seemed pretty content with how things are."

She also sounded happy and unencumbered just minutes ago on the phone, but I don’t add that, nor do I want Bella to know – yet. I’ll probably tell her later when it’s just the two of us, but she and Alice have never been really close, and I don’t want her to lose the last bit of objectivity when she feels she has to throw in her lot with Jasper.

"Well, it was," he replies, but must have realized how insincere he sounds right away as he exhales loudly, leaning back, getting a little more comfortable. Bella in turn snuggles into my side and I pull her closer with my arm around her shoulder, wondering for a moment if our show of comfortably unity is cruel, but Jazz doesn’t seem to notice or care.