The Edge

Complications

Summary: The real world intrudes upon Alice and Bella mini-vacation.

The Next Day

"She's going out with Scott ... maybe," Bella responded, her voice rising at the end of the sentence making her answer sound even more dubious than the 'maybe' had.

Alice looked up at Bella's response, the tiny nail polish brush she had been about to bring down on Bella's big toe hovering just above the appendage as Alice stared at her.

"Bella, did you even go to school while I was gone?" she asked, her eyebrow lifting high up on her forehead. All of her simple inquires about what their classmates had been up to when she was gone had been met with nothing but 'uh's, um's, maybe's, dunno's, and possibly's'.

"Yes," Bella responded, drawing the word out. "I was just ... concentrating on my school work. It was really important that I get my grades up after the ... uh, slight dip they took last spring. I needed to bump my average up 5 or community college wouldn't have been one of my options, it would have been my only option," she finished, thinking that her response sounded perfectly reasonable, even though it was actually 90 bullshit.

"I see," Alice murmured.

She then dropped her gaze back down to Bella's foot and proceeded to bring the brush down to finish painting the last toe on Bella's right foot.

Bella controlled the urge to sigh. Alice could as well have drawled 'riiiiiiiight' and then rolled her eyes dramatically before muttering 'give me a break'. The petite beauty hadn't bought even a little bit of what she was selling, Bella was certain of that. And really, she supposed there was no reason Alice should have been convinced.

Alice had seen the type of mood she was in when she showed up at the house two nights before, and if her jumping off of a cliff for fun hadn't said enough about her mental state, she knew that Charlie had been talking to Alice when she was warming his supper the night before, and she was sure that he had given her a bit more information about the zombie-like state she had been in for the previous five months.

Either way, she was sure that Alice knew that she had no idea what was happening with the others at school because she had been largely unaware of the world in general during her absence.

"Are you mad?" Bella asked as Alice worked silently on her toes.

"Mad?" Alice asked looking up at Bella with surprise. "No, I'm not mad, Bella," she continued, lowering her head to blow gently on Bella's big toe. "Honestly, you never really paid all that much attention to what was going on before anyway," she continued smiling a little, drawing a tiny grin from Bella as well. "I'm concerned ... more than anything," she finished, leaving Bella's foot cradled in her lap as she put the cap back on the nail polish bottle. "It worries me how depressed you got," Alice admitted putting the nail polish bottle aside.

"You know why I was ..." Bella began to say.

Alice nodded in the middle of the sentence, stilling Bella's words. "I know," she said sighing, as her fingers absently stroked Bella's instep. She knew, but it still worried her.

"That tickles," Bella said making a face as her foot twitched in Alice's lap.

"Does it?" Alice asked looking down as she repeated the motion.

"Hey!" Bella exclaimed swatting uselessly in Alice's direction. "'That tickles' is human for 'knock it off'," she continued pointing a finger at Alice, giving her the stink-eye.

"You don't like it?" Alice asked curiously, looking up a Bella with a touch of surprise. Bella had always responded to her touches before.

Bella opened her mouth to make a joke, but looking at Alice more closely she could see that she was being serious.