Black & Blue |C. Cullen|

TWENTY

"Come now," Alice commanded and extended her hand towards me indicating it was time to make our way to Seattle to dress shop.

"Fine," I playfully groaned, "but I'll need coffee," I grabbed my glasses and wallet from the table beside the garage door and made my way over to Carlisle to kiss him goodbye.

"Hurry, I want to get to Seattle before night!" She groaned.

"Shouldn't you be wishing for quite the opposite?" I gestured towards the brightly lit outdoors.

"It'll be fine," she scoffed, "I have my ways."

I sarcastically shot her a glance before kissing Carlisle and parting ways with the rest of the family as I grabbed my keys from their respectful place and pulling Alice out of the door behind me. I started the car, she was already in the passenger seat before I reached the door. I turned on a playlist I had created for myself and then tore out of the garage before turning up the music.

Before too long I started singing my heart out to a slew of Latin pop songs that happened to play back to back. I rolled my window down and enjoyed feeling the wind run through my hair and across my face. I looked over to Alice and waited for her to look back at me.

"Do you want to do something kind of impromptu?" I asked loudly.

"You know I'm always up for that," she grinned.

I don't think she understood what I was speaking about, however. I rolled with it anyways and turned around so that I was going south instead of north towards Seattle. I stepped on the gas peddle and just kept driving for hours. Alice didn't question my actions, she didn't speak at all. She pulled out her phone once and sent what I assumed was a text message after the first four hours had passed by.

I kept singing and didn't stop once other than to get gas twice during the trip. Alice didn't question me the entire time. When I reached my destination, I parked the car in a discrete location overlooking cliffs. We had reached the coast of Northern California just before the Sun rose. Alice and I both sat on the hood of my car and watched it rise above the horizon line above the ocean.

"It's so beautiful," I whispered. "People don't understand it."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"People have such little time- comparatively speaking. No one stops to look at how beautiful the world is. Not a lot of people allow themselves to be happy. People seem to expend so much effort keeping themselves in a stressed out state. Not a lot of people take advantage of the world around them," I used one of my hands to gesture to the beautiful colours painting themselves across the sky.

"Well said," she rested her head on my shoulder and gazed out at the horizon, for once allowing herself to not be so rigid and frozen in time.

"What did you tell them?" I asked, knowing she had to have said something to the family as we should have been back 8 hours ago.

"I told them that we were going on an impromptu adventure and that we'd be back before Bella and Edward's wedding," she explained.

I burst into laughter, "Alice, that's in two weeks! Where did you think we were going?"

"With you, I can't ever predict anything. It's rather frustrating, so I simply settled for the time we needed to be back," she answered.

"Fair enough. Why can't you see my decisions, though? Shouldn't that be Bella if Edward can't read her mind?"

"Sometimes the world has questions that are meant to go unanswered."

"Fair point. Who did you tell?"

"Jasper, I asked him to tell Carlisle for me."

"I feel bad for just dipping."

"Don't, you two have all of the time in the world to make up for it."

I froze, "I thought you couldn't see my future."

"I can't, but I can see Carlisle's," she answered.

"That opens so many questions," I sighed.

"All will be answered in time," she chimed.

"But how much time?" I looked over at her.

"He had his wedding band on, I'm assuming that it's at least a few years after the two of you are married."

"That thought fills me with so much joy, the thought of being married to him."

"That's the way it's supposed to be," she smiled at me.

I took a deep breath of the air coming off of the shore before I grabbed my keys and handed them to Alice, "All right, I'm ready to go."

"And return without a dress? No way. Get in, let's go," she instructed.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The only place we have to go now that you've got us in Cali," she chimed.

"Los Angelos?"

"Los Angelos."