As Happy As I've Never Been...

~Chapter Ten~

"Rachel!" Bella gasps, looking at the picture over my shoulder. I look at the picture, searching or anything that could help my case, yet I find nothing.

"What?" I ask Bella, not quite ready to face Ed yet.

"What the hell are you doing?!" She asks, shocked.

"Ok, let me explain." I say as I sigh and cross to the couch. "That was my best friend, I say was because he hasn't been since the couple days before I went to London, and he wasn't because I used to have the biggest thing for him, but he didn't feel the same, he even started comparing me, harshly, to the girl he was dating, so I stopped talking to him. Anyway, he showed up last night, on the stair case, in fact, and he and I had a fight. But this morning I was on the way to-" I begin.

"Your other boyfriend's house!" Ed says harshly behind me.

"If you would've let me finish, I was about to say my VOICE TEACHERS HOUSE." I reply to him harshly, daring to look him straight on. I admit the whole Todd thing was ridiculous, but I'm not going to be punished for something that isn't my fault. Ed backs off a little. "Anyway, it started raining and Todd pulled up in a cab, he asked me if I wanted a ride. I said no, but then he convinced me." I said and Ed was then on the attack again.

"Convinced you with his lips?!" He says, furiously.

"How else can someone talk, Ed?!" I say, glaring at him, he doesn't back off this time, but he shuts his mouth and doesn't respond. "He reminded me that I have a low immune system and I get sick easily, and I can't get sick, because then I wouldn't be able to sing. I realized he was right, so I got into the cab with him, knowing it was only a few blocks, and I told him so. When we were almost there, he asked me out to lunch with him, and I refused because I had a voice lesson. He then asked me if I could skip one, but I sarcastically asked him if he could teach me how to harmonize, and he said, 'No, but I can do this.' And he kissed me. I was in shock for a moment, but then I got out of the taxi and went to my voice lesson." I finish and look at Ed, and I can't tell if he's mad or happy or anything. I think he's thinking. "Happy?" I ask him.

"Why can't you harmonize?" He asks me.

"Sang melody until I was fifteen, it just doesn't sound right in my head, so I just can't make it come out of my mouth." I say, not bothering to look at him.

"So, Todd just appeared out of the blue today?" He asks.

"Technically," I start, guiltily, "he appeared out of the blue yesterday. When I took the stairs he ran into me and I avoided looking at him as much as possible, so he wouldn't recognize me, but ya know, being best friends for so long, it wasn't possible." I said, putting my face in my hands. I feel the slight movement on the couch cushion from where someone has sat down next to me.

"Ed," Bella says, after holding her tongue this entire time, she must have been the one to sit, because she sounds really close, "if you knew anything about Rachel, you would know she is anything but a whore." I look up and look at Bella, and I was right, she's sitting next to me. She's facing Ed almost straight on, her shoulders down, making her look relaxed, yet tough at the same time.

"I think this says otherwise!" He says, motioning towards his phone.

"Oh come on, she just explained what happened." Bella says.

"Really? You expect me to believe that one of her old best friends just appeared out of the blue and kissed her?" He says, and I notice something. Ed's eyes are slight red. I get up and walk over to him, I have a theory. Either he's been crying, or... Then I smell it. Nope. Not crying.

"Ed." I start as soon as I smell the alcohol on him. "Go home, you're drunk." I say, looking him dead on.

"Maybe just a little, but that doesn't change anything!" He says.