Fight Night

"Is that blood?"

"No?"

"That's not a question you're supposed to answer with another question." By now Rose knows exactly what happened. It's the same thing that always happens when I come home bloodied and bruised. I'm usually more careful about not getting caught. And in my defense, she's supposed to be sleep.

"You did it again, didn't you?" She rightfully accuses and crosses her arms as she waits for my pitiful attempt at avoiding the interrogation. "Answer me, Bella. You promised you would stay away from those boys."

She's right, I did promise. But no one seems to understand that fighting with the rez boys is the best way to let out excess anger and aggression. I see Rose's face when I raise my voice at her. Ever since that fight, she hasn't looked at me the same way and it hurts. She's not the strong Rosalie who wouldn't go out with me until I asked her a thousand times. I move over to our sofa and collapse. Paul got a cheap shot and I messed up my ankle with my less than graceful fall. Rose rushes off to get our first aid kit to clean up the various cuts littering my battered body.

"I thought you would be sleep by the time I got back." She doesn't say anything but her gentle dabs to my brow are getting a little aggressive. At this point I just confess everything. "Fuck, I'm sorry okay. Edward and Alice came to my job today. They said they saw you talking to Tanya. And then Jake told me the same thing. Paul was being Paul and said something stupid. So...I punched him...in the face. He punched me back and you know what happened after that."

There's a long weighted silence and I know what Rose and going to say. Honestly, I knew what the truth was when Alice gave her warning, but I wasn't trying to hear it.

"Bella, how many times do I have to tell you there's nothing between me and Tanya?"

"Until she goes away."

"I could say the same for Jake. He was- is in love with you and you go see him all the time."

"That's not the same and you know it. There was never a mutual attraction between Jake and I." I take off my shirt and Rose moves to sit next to me and tend to my purple and black ribs. "What Tanya and I had has been over for a long time now. We both know this so can you stop torturing us with constantly bringing it up?"

After cleaning and bandaging the cuts on my torso, we make our way to the bedroom. "I don't like you fighting, Bella." Rose had been in an abusive relationship in the past and while I have never been very aggressive in her presence, she claims to feel my rage. We get in bed and she lays on my right side, careful of the pressure she's applying to my fragile ribs.

"I know." I murmur.

"Especially not him."

"I know."

"Then start acting like it or I'll have to-"

"I know." I cut her off effectively ending the conversation that was definitely becoming an argument. "I'll stop, for real this time. Now, go to sleep."

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