I want to protest, but try as I might, no words come to my mind. Of course Rose is right - Alice has been about as much into commitments as Jazz, and it's entirely possible that until recently, no one really got under her skin like that. She hasn't spent years pining after someone she's considered out of her reach, nor has she ever had to deal with the person she wants most running off with someone else. Because the only time she ever got close to anything like that was when Jazz chose her in pretty much the most extreme way I can think of - and for the first time ever I feel like anything that has happened on that cursed Friday makes sense.
"It wasn't about us - it was all about her."
Rose lifts one eyebrow at my words but I'm too caught up in my train of thoughts to explain, my mind racing the figurative mile a minute. Part of me wants to cling to what I have believed to be the one possible explanation for so long, but the more I mull things over, the harder it gets to deny that maybe, just maybe there is another option. As rash as Rose can be sometimes, she remains calm and just looks at me, a silent offer to be my sounding board if needed. And like so many times before I finally take her up on it. For whatever reason, it's always been easy for me to voice my thoughts around her - maybe because her rash and no nonsense way conveys the kind of brutal honesty so few people know how to handle well.
"I was just thinking, the whole mess back in early summer - I think Jazz did that entirely for Alice."
The look she deals me could have withered a mountain, but when she sees that I'm serious, Rose clears her throat.
"Isn't that what he has said himself before? To Bella at least?"
Momentarily I'm pissed off that she doesn't share my enthusiasm about this new revelation, but then I get where I've lost her.
"He said so much crap to so many people about that day, I'm not sure he himself can still keep his stories straight. But that's not entirely what I meant."
"Which is?"
I test the words in my head first, feeling my pulse pick up with the kind of elation only kids feel when they realize that they haven't been caught with the hand in the cookie jar after all.
"It really wasn't about us. Not about me. We were collateral damage, his tools in his stupid ploy to, I don't know, show her his devotion or something."
"You pretty much said the exact same thing before, repeating that won't really make me see it any better, you know?" she retorts, then when she sees me frown, Rose sighs. "E, just spell it out. We haven't really talked that much about your mess-up beyond how you were dealing with Bella regaining her trust in you. Maybe I just know too little about the whole picture."
As usual I feel the wave of desolation and self-loathing surge up inside of me, but it has seldom been so easy to battle it down.
"I guess."
It's still hard to give voice to these thoughts that have been rattling inside my head for so long.
"It's mainly that since that afternoon I've been raking my brain to come up for the reason why he hates me so much."
Even now acknowledging the sheer fact of that kind of rejection and betrayal is hard, but I force myself to keep eye contact with Rose, using the utter lack of judgement on her face to make myself go on.
"I mean, I can sometimes understand why he might have figured he was protecting her when he tried to force me to fess up about some of the things I had done that I hadn't told her back then. I should probably have told her about Chelsea before, but really, it was hard enough to rout out Bella's own insecurities that already existed without adding a whole new slew of them myself. But he knew how much she enjoyed herself, how well we worked together, I just couldn't understand how he could jump to the conclusions that I would ever pressure her into anything she didn't want to do herself."
"You mean, how could he fuck you both if he was so convinced that you're such a monster."
My brief bark of laughter is answer enough for her, but I do her the courtesy of adding a nod.
"Yes. And let me fuck him, too. But that's beside the point. I really spent all that time beating myself up how the guy who I've thought of as my best friend could think all that of me. Who knew me better than I know myself sometimes. It was so fucking easy to believe that although what he said was bullshit, it was so easy for Bella to believe, even for a few hours, because there was more than just a grain of truth to it all."
The sadness in her eyes reflects what I feel inside, but unlike Bella she doesn't feel the need to comfort me.
"He made you doubt yourself, made you hate yourself, and that's why it took you so damn long to get your head out of your ass again."
"Yup."
Rose mulls that over for a moment, then shrugs.
"The fact that he used his two best friends and disregarded any emotional fallout that might come from that just to land with a girl doesn't exactly paint him in a better light than trying to protect Bella by proving to her what a bad egg you are."
"But it's so typically Jazz that I can't really stay mad at him for the rest of my life."
Her snort is loud enough to double as a scoff.
"And that's something I'd expect Bella to say, not you. You don't give anyone free hall passes like that."
"It's not like this makes anything that has happened better. But it makes me feel better, simply because I can justify wanting to stop jumping at my own shadow whenever he's around just because I expect him to drag the next blood-thirsty killer rabbit that's out to get me out of his imaginary hat."
Viewing things under this light also explains why he hasn't done anything to backstab me over the summer. Why he hasn't sicced Charlie at me at Bella's birthday party, why he has tried several times to strike up a light, meaningless conversation without trying to make me look like an ass - and also why he has never defended himself when I've gotten into his face like the defensive little fucker I've been acting like. All that doesn't make up for the damage he has caused - but at the same time I'm finally able to accept a fact that has been weighing me down for a while now - as much as I want to punch him in the face for how he has made me feel, I just don't have it in me anymore to hate him. He might be a manipulative asshole, but he has also been my best friend since college, and while I'll never be able to forget what he has done, I can maybe start to forgive him.
"I take it that's a good thing as you're not living inside a Monty Python's movie?"
"I'd say yes," I retort. Rose rewards me with a wise nod.
"Too bad, really, I was so hoping for a spectacular fight between you and him at some Christmas party or other. I know, wishful thinking, but a girl can dream."
"You're watching too much second-rate TV shows if you actually expect something like that to happen."
"Oh, the showdown between Bella and Alice in the bathroom in spring would have made screen writers weep!"
"But you will agree that it would only have been half as much fun without your revelation about your own devious sex life."
"So true," she laughs, then smiles over her shoulder in the direction of the nursery. "Nothing beats real scandal!"
"By then Alice and Jazz will have moved on anyway."
"Of course they will. Probably sooner than we expect, I don't really think either of them is the type to wallow in silence for months. Oh, wait, actually no one I know except you would ever do that!"
"So nice of you to bask in my past misery once again."
"Ah, Eddie, come on, you're about the only one in our nice circle of friends who gets laid right now, you can take a little scorn from me!"
"Actually that's not necessarily the truth," I retort, earning an eye roll from her.
"Why, does the mean hospital keep you away from your sweet Bella? Or is it the bogeyman on your couch that's got your panties all in a twist?"
"Neither, actually. The missus just doesn't feel comfortable with her BFF
possibly listening in on us getting it on."
Rose's laugh is loud enough to make her clap her hand over her mouth in fear that she has woken up the baby, but when we don't hear her crying, she sighs, then shakes her head.
"You don't really believe that that would stop her?"
"It's what she's told me, at least. And why should she lie to me?"
"Maybe it's simply not the whole truth?" she offers, and I can't shake off the feeling that Rose knows more than she seems to want to tell me.
Interesting, and somewhat disconcerting. Just when I want to ask her about it, her phone rings, which in turn does wake up Mona, and the following fifteen minutes of us trying to coerce her back into sleep about conclude that conversation. I still stay over midday and get some take-out for both of us, but our banter never quite gets back to the topic of what might or might not be going on with Bella.
When I finally leave her to nursing her baby with the promise to drop by soon again my mind returns to pondering that question again. I don't really know how to react, partly because I'm not sure if there's really anything going on. I don't even want to suspect that she's lying - also not by omission - but I can't shut off the concerned boyfriend part of me. Then again I can't rule out that I'm simply overthinking things, and she's just too tired and stressed with work, Jazz staying over, and me adding our own special kind of pressure to her life. In the end I decide to just trust that she will come to me with whatever is troubling her, if it's something I can help her with. It's her life, and I don't have to be part of everything in it.
I'm only moderately surprised to find Jazz working on his laptop when I get home - against all odds his new business venture seems to be bringing in some contracts already. He absentmindedly returns my greeting, then keeps typing when I don't say anything else. I'm so used to either being alone or with Bella that sitting in the same room with him weirds me out after a while, and because the weather isn't too bad I decide to go for a run.
Yet before I can get off the couch I hear Jazz's chair scrape back.
"Hey, wanna go shoot some hoops? At least there's a basketball court down at the park around the corner, and I've never seen anyone play during the day there."
I'm a little surprised by his offer, but after a moment of hesitation nod.
"Sure, I think we've still got the ball stored somewhere here."