If the Cullens hadn't been in Forks at the time of Bella's arrival, and she had continued on with Charlie living what she thought was a miserable life. The wolf legends still exist, as does the pack, although currently it's only Jared, Paul, and Sam. Set late January of Bella's senior year, and a couple characteristics of Bella are tweaked, as are her reactions because I didn't want to just basically repeat New Moon scenes.
"Home again tonight, Bell?"
Charlie's gruff question startled me from my daze of calculus, and I looked up at him, surprised. "Um, yeah? I guess." What did he mean? "I just really like hanging out with you, Dad."
"Yeah, yeah," he said, grimacing like he was about to get stuck by a needle. He had something painful to say, I knew it. I braced myself over my textbook. "Bella."
"Dad?"
"You've been here a year tomorrow, did you remember that?"
"Yeah, I did, actually." A very long, cold, wet year where absolutely nothing had happened. Everything was the same as it had been a year ago, except I was a year older; I still drove the same loud red truck, hung out with the same people and the same boys who had hopeless crushes on me – same old, same old.
Which is why I was surprised he was asking whether I was going to be home tonight.
"You have a date or something?" I asked when he kept silent, and I glanced at the clock to avoid his gaze, seeing it was close to five. "Crap, I meant to cook dinner! Give me a little bit." I stood up quickly, knocking my chair over and almost falling to the ground in my haste. Charlie watched with lips pursed to keep from smiling, but I knew he was as capable of destruction as I was. I hadn't gotten my lack of coordination from my mom.
"No, Bells. I don't have a date. I was just wondering, actually…" What didn't he want to say?
"Spit it out, don't give yourself an aneurysm." I was standing in front of my chair after having set it back up, ready for this conversation to be over.
"Well, I'm going down to La Push tonight to see a game with Billy, and I wanted to know if you would come with."
"Why was that so hard to say?"
His face twisted. So that hadn't been the hard part, then. "Well, that's not really all."
I waited patiently, blush rising in my cheeks. Was I that difficult to talk to?
"I know you don't like it here, Bella, but it's been a year and you've hardly tried!"
I was stunned at his outburst, seeing color flooding his cheeks in the same way mine did as he tried to recover. "I – don't think I don't want you here, hon," he said, putting one hand down on the old wooden table to steady himself. "I love having you. And you feed me a hell of a lot better than I could feed myself, that's for sure." I let a small, mostly fake smile pull at my lips so he stopped looking so nervous. "It's just that… Well, you made it no secret that you hate Forks. You don't like the rain or the small-town life and all that. I would think if it made you this miserable, that you would at least have made it better for yourself and l-left – I don't want you to leave, Bella!" He put his head in his free hand, at a loss.
I tried to help him. "You feel guilty that I'm so obviously miserable and doing nothing about it."
He nodded slowly, although looking hurt. Shoot, I had said out loud that I was miserable! "Well, not miserable, but just… cold," I corrected.
He laughed. "Right. Well, Bella, come with tonight to La Push. I promise you could like things around here if you'd give it a try. Or, you could, you know, go see your mom." And stay with her, his eyes seemed to say.
As tempting as it was to live somewhere where I saw the sun more than maybe once a month, Mom and Phil were still happy, as far as I knew. I couldn't keep hurting her by keeping her away from him.
But I couldn't keep hurting Charlie by not trying, either.
My decision was easily made. "I'd love to go."
"Great." His face lit up, brown eyes that matched mine perfectly crinkling at the corners. "We're leaving in about half an hour, is that enough time?"
"Yep." I moved away from my chair and pushed it under the table, collecting my school things as he stomped up the stairs. He was wrong, definitely; I had given Forks a shot and already known that it was boring. The boys were dull – not that I had any interest in them anyway – and so were most of the girls. Aside from the social aspects, I didn't much care for my classes, either, and the closest half-decent bookstores were in Port Angeles. The weather was also insistently and constantly rainy. Not my idea of perfect place to live.
Quit your grumbling, I ordered to myself. From what I remembered of Charlie's friend Billy Black and his children, his wife had died some time ago, leaving him with two daughters and a son. The girls' names I had long forgotten, hardly able to remember their faces since the last time I had seen them in childhood. The son, however, was responsible for my old truck's resistance to death: Jacob. I could just barely picture him, my last memory of him almost a year ago at La Push beach with some kids from school. We hadn't spoken much except for him to mention a car he was building all by himself.
That added a slight spring in my step as I changed my clothes, putting on jeans and a blue V-neck that I had worn to school a couple days ago. At least I would know one person who wasn't Billy or my dad. Jacob was how old, almost sixteen maybe? Not young enough that I wouldn't get along with him. Maybe I could ask about his car, keep him talking so I didn't have to.
It took about twenty silent minutes in Charlie's police cruiser to get to Billy's, and when we got there he rolled onto the porch in his wheelchair, a wide grin on his russet face. The skin of those living on the reservation was so gorgeous and unique. It was a little intimidating, however, that I looked like a porcelain doll standing by any of them, pale as paper.
"Charlie! You brought Bella! Jake will be thrilled." Billy waited for us on the porch as we both clambered out of the cruiser, and I reached into the back to grab the uncooked pan of lasagna I had quickly whipped up before we left. It would need a little while to bake, but it was better than coming empty-handed.
"Great to see you, Billy," I told him, and he kept grinning as we followed him into his tiny house, the living room hardly big enough to fit all of us inside it. I wondered vaguely where Jacob was, already ready to get away from the men as they started discussing the upcoming game. I found the cramped kitchen and turned the oven on, putting the dish in the fridge while I fidgeted with my nails and waited.
I heard Billy come past, reaching for a phone on a hook by the kitchen. He dialed a number quickly and started talking to someone. "Yeah, send him home, will ya? Tell him I've got a surprise for him." He winked at me, and I blushed, wondering what Jacob could have said about our brief encounter that could have made his dad think of me as a thrilling surprise.
Two short minutes later, I was bending over to put the pan into the oven when the front door burst open, followed by raucous sounds of multiple teenage boys coming into the already close space. The action made me jump, and I dropped the pan noisily on the rack, yanking my arm back and skimming it along the searing hot top of the oven.
"Mother," I hissed, cradling my burning wrist and closing the oven with my foot. I moved to the sink and fiddled with the knobs, trying not to move the burn too much, and the water sputtered on, cold from the pipes outside in January. It stung but soothed, and I kept my wrist under the water rather than go out and deal with the possible awkwardness and lack of space in the living room.
"Your surprise is in the kitchen," I heard Billy's rough voice tell who I assumed was Jacob, and I put on my bravest face, my wrist still searing. Three teenage boys turned the corner and filled the tiny available space, and I immediately recognized the tall, lanky one in the middle. His inky black hair was half-up, half-down, spilling over his shoulders messily and framing his face. His surprised eyes glittered, so dark brown they looked black.
"Hey, Jake." I tried a grin, and he grinned back immediately in response, crossing the small space in the kitchen in one long stride and sweeping me into his arms tightly. My feet didn't even touch the floor. "Can't – breathe – Jacob," I groaned, and he laughed loudly, setting me down. I didn't mention that he had aggravated my burn intensely, placing it back under the water as soon as I was able.
"Bella! It's so great to see you!" He stayed in front of me, but his friends near the door exchanged looks, the shorter one waggling his brows. I resisted the urge to – surprisingly – smile.
"You too, Jake. You're huge now! What are you, six-five?"
"Yep." He nodded, only now noticing what I was doing. An angry red welt had formed from the top bend in my wrist a couple centimeters down, shaped like an egg. "Dang, what did you do?"
"I burned myself on the oven." I shrugged, definitely having had worse, and his booming laugh mixed with those of the other two.
Their laughs were infectious despite my pain, and I wondered vaguely what was happening – why did I feel so comfortable all of a sudden? At home, almost?
Happy?
"So how've you been? Oh, by the way, these are my friends Embry and Quil. Guys, this is Bella, Charlie's kid." He gestured to them, the taller one Embry and the shorter, stockier one Quil. They both had Jacob's long, black hair and dark eyes, their skin varying shades of the reservation's gorgeous russet. Quil winked at me, and I blushed automatically. Jacob threw a punch at his friend's stomach, and the other boy just barely made it out of the way.
"I've been okay. Same old, same old." I repeated my mental phrase from earlier and didn't give any details, not wanting to complain or let them know how boring my life really was. "What about you? How old are you now?" I had assumed around sixteen but he couldn't be as young as I'd guessed; he was huge, his muscles hardening from the sinew of boyhood into that of an older teenager.
"I just turned sixteen." He looked embarrassed of the fact, but I had been right. Quil and Embry, his friends and therefore probably close to his age, both looked closer to twenty than sixteen. What did they feed these boys on the reservation?
"Dang, I'm sorry I missed your birthday."
"Don't worry about it. It's great that you're here now." The sincerity in his eyes was so obvious, and I blushed again, surprised. How often was someone this openly genuine? It was just Jacob, I realized. He couldn't find a reason not to be sincere, so he was.
I couldn't think of anything to say, but somehow didn't feel awkward about it, and turned off the water that was still running in the sink. He reached past me to pull the oven door open slightly, hardly any room for either of us this close in the kitchen.
"What are you making in there, anyway?" he asked, somehow not noticing that I was now pressed back against the counter with him leaning in front of me.
"Lasagna. I hope there's enough for everyone." A whole pan had to be enough for four teens and two adults, right?
"They aren't staying." Jake shot a glance back at his friends, one that I assumed told them to leave, but they crossed their arms in sync, smirking. He straightened out threateningly, taller than both of them, and they laughed, Embry backing toward the door.
"Give us a call, Jake," Quil said, staying right where he was. He winked at me again, and I smiled, blushing as usual. "You too, Bella."
Jacob moved forward like he was going to try to hit his friend again and Quil darted for the door, waving with a very brown hand before disappearing with Embry.
"Sorry about them," he mumbled, blushing. We were still very close together in the small room, but it wasn't uncomfortable. There was something about Jacob that just made me feel… safe, I guessed. At home.
"Don't worry about it," I said, hating to see his expression low, and punched him gently in the arm trying to make him smile. It worked, and he looked up at me, just now noticing our proximity and trying to move backwards clumsily. He bumped into a vase full of cooking utensils and almost knocked it over, catching it just barely as it teetered over the edge of the counter.
Redness brightened his tan cheeks, and I grinned. "This kitchen is full of dangers tonight!"
He laughed, nodding. "Definitely. I could trip on a flat surface."
"Same here." I remembered his car suddenly, finding myself truly interested rather than looking for something to talk about. "Jake, didn't you tell me you were building a car? Volkswagen something?"
"Yeah! A 1986 Volksgwagen Rabbit." His face lit up, and he started to leave the room, beckoning me after him. "It's in my shed, you wanna see it?"
"I'd love to." And I wasn't lying.
"Lemme tell them." I followed him out of the kitchen and toward the living room, wondering how Billy even maneuvered his chair through the tiny house. He leaned into the doorway, speaking to our fathers. "We're gunna go out to the shed, I'm showing her my car."
"Sounds great," I heard Billy say, a smile in his voice, and I wondered what Charlie's expression looked like. Was he happy that I was actually doing something for once?
Jacob turned to leave and ran right into me, since I had been standing right behind him, and I laughed at our collision, catching myself on the wall and watching him steady himself on the doorway. "Sorry," he said, blushing again. I hated that he was embarrassed; I wanted to take care of Jacob, to keep him smiling all the time. His happiness was so pristine and easy.
I heard the men in the living room laugh. "Don't let them be in a room together, come to think of it. Their combined clumsiness might start a natural disaster," Charlie said, and I laughed, both at his joke and out of happiness that he sounded so uplifted.
"Don't apologize just yet, I might fall and break something in your shed," I told Jacob as we walked to the front door, him in front. His back was very broad, a white t-shirt stretched over it with battered, grease-stained jeans covering his long legs. He was tall, built like a model. I wondered if he knew it.
The shed was made of several sheets of plastic stapled together, an old Volkswagen sitting in the middle of it and various tools scattered in vague organization around the edges. He opened the door for me and gestured for me to sit, and I slid into the seat, bouncing on the old leather. "This is really nice, Jake. I can't believe you built it."
"I didn't build the car, just what's in there," he said, pointing to the hood. I laughed.
"I should have guessed that, probably." I felt bad that I kept embarrassing us both, sliding over on the bench seat and patting the space next to me. "Come on."
He grinned, his eyes lighting up as he sat next to me. He kept the door open, his knees much higher than mine in the tiny car. "You like it?"
"It's awesome. I love how old and unique the truck is, and this is even better." I wasn't lying, because I really did love the truck, but I knew that telling him would make him happy. It seemed to, his smile growing impossibly bigger.
"As soon as I finish it, I'll drive you around in it one day."
"It's a date," I said without thinking, and he kept smiling, more color dabbing at the tops of his cheeks. "Wait, can you even drive?"
"We get our permits early on the rez," he said, and I laughed, looking around the interior of the car. The radio was old, like mine, and I reached forward and ran my fingers over the weathered dial.
"So tell me, Bella," Jake said, breaking the comfortable silence. I looked up at him, his features perfect. Smooth, pouty lips, a straight nose, black eyebrows drawn over his dark eyes in thought. His eyelashes were to die for if you were into that sort of thing, long and full and black.
"Yes, Jake." I tried to think of what he could want to ask, but had nothing.
"Just tell me, I guess. About you, your life." He looked embarrassed to have asked, but quickly recovered, smiling.
"Do you really want to know?"
"Of course." He laced his fingers in his lap attentively, and my smile widened into a grin.
"Well." I tried to think of how I could say it without sounding pathetic. "I don't really have much of one, I guess. I go to school, make Charlie dinner every day."
"You're a senior, right?" He seemed really interested, and I wondered if he was or if he just was trying to make conversation.
"Yep. Graduating in June. Don't take calculus your senior year, Jake, please."
He smiled. "You could help me!"
I laughed exaggeratedly. "Yeah right. I'd do more harm than good."
"I doubt it. What else?"
"Hmm." I bit my lip, thinking. "I'm from Phoenix. You knew that, right?" He nodded, and I continued. "I came here a year ago tomorrow, actually. So far, I have made friends with boring Forks people and done boring Forks things and gotten rained on. Sorry to sound so depressing."
"Not at all. I've been to Forks a lot, and it's not all that great." He was still smiling, somehow utterly interested in my boring life. "Who are your friends?"
"Jessica and Angela are my two closest girl friends, I think." I didn't want to say "best" friends; that somehow implied that we hung out more. "There's this guy Mike—"
"Ooh, a guy." He was grinning.
"Not like that," I laughed, blushing and punching him in the shoulder again. "Well, I think he'd like it to be. I've been here a year and he dated and broke up with my friend Jessica and this girl Lauren likes him and he still thinks we're going somewhere. He's a great kid, but not my type."
"What is your type?" He seemed to feel like he'd asked too much.
"I don't know, but not Mike. He just doesn't – do anything, I guess. I feel like…" I tried to think of what I wanted to say carefully. "I'm not all that interesting of a person, but I like interesting, ya know? Like, I don't want to live in Forks the rest of my life and get rained on and marry Mike Newton and take over his parents' hiking supplies store when they retire and have little blond kids who go to Forks Elementary and Middle and High schools. Like my dad." I pursed my lips, having said too much. It was too easy to talk to Jacob. "My mom left him because she didn't want to be trapped in Forks."
He looked like he was thinking about what I'd said, nodding after a little while. "I get what you're saying. So I know what you don't want."
"Your next question is 'what do you want?' Right?"
He grinned, nodding.
"I think I want – not a life, but to be alive. To fall in love, real love. To have good things and bad things happen to me and to grow from them. To be reckless, maybe. To just live." I shrugged. "I sound like an idiot, sorry."
"You sound like the opposite of an idiot, actually." He leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out somehow in the small foot-space. "How are you gunna get that stuff?"
"We don't have to keep talking about me, Jacob. I feel like I'm weighing you down with all my personal information that you don't need to know until we've hung out a couple times."
He laughed. "I like listening to you. I don't know why you don't think you're interesting."
"Tell me about you." I turned so I was facing him, kicking off my rain boots and crossing my legs on the seat with my back to the window. I had a lot of space behind me, but it was cold in the shed and therefore in the car, and he seemed to be radiating heat. If I shifted forward, the front of my shin would be against him. "What's your life story?"
He looked thoughtful again, and I felt the strange urge to reach out and touch his perfect features, to see if they were real. Especially his lips, his perfectly straight white teeth biting down on the bottom one very briefly. "You know a lot of it. Been here my whole life, two older sisters named Rachel and Rebecca. Rebecca lives in Hawaii with her husband. Rachel is away at college."
"Your life story, Jake." I met his perfect eyes, smiling in encouragement. He seemed to be suffering from not wanting to bore me talking about himself either, in the same way I didn't want to bore him. "Who are your friends?" I asked, repeating his question from earlier. "Besides Embry and Quil – oh, Quil." I clasped my hands under my chin jokingly, fluttering my eyelashes. He laughed loudly, shaking the car.
"'Oh, Quil' is right." He kept grinning even after he'd laughed, tangling his fingers together behind his head as he relaxed. He was so at ease, so majestic. I felt like I could spend a lot of my time just staring at him, and it wouldn't be wasted. "They're my best friends, but I have some more at school too. I'm a sophomore." He seemed to be less easily embarrassed now, talking openly without blushing. "Everybody kind of knows everybody on the reservation so a lot of the kids are my friends. Then there's my dad, who is so easy to live with. He hardly even asks where I'm going, I just say I'm leaving. But that's probably because he can call anyone around here and at least one of them would have seen me or know where I was."
I laughed, listening to him intently. Was this what he'd felt like? Like no matter what he had to say, I could just listen and listen?
"What about girls?" I asked him, genuinely curious. I tried to picture him with a girl who matched him in skin tone, long black hair – unquestionably longer and prettier than my plain, brown waves – falling over her shoulders. Dark eyes that matched his, and a straight, perfect smile. Surely there was someone at school, or at least on the reservation, that had his attention.
Although I didn't like the thought one bit.
"Not on the reservation."
His answer shocked me, and I grinned and blushed, wondering if he was really alluding to me or if I was flattering myself. Regardless, I leaned my head against the seat, watching his profile as I asked him more questions and listened to his answers. He tried to ask me more, too, but I kept redirecting them, loving to hear him talk. His voice was deep and husky, comfortable, happy. Jacob was just simply happy. It was contagious, too; I didn't want to ever leave the car, to stop staring and asking him questions.
"Favorite color?" I shot at him, sitting up straight now but still with my legs crossed. I was going to regret it when I stood up.
"Hmm, green."
I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. "That's a thing about Forks, it's too green."
He laughed. "What color is Phoenix?"
"Brown, orange, red. Definitely yellow, all the sun. Do you know what sun is, Jake? It's this thing that hides behind the clouds…" I said, trying to get him to laugh again, and it worked.
"Wow, what did you say it was called? Sun?"
"Yeah, the sun. It's round and yellow and makes things warm."
"Is that your favorite color, then? Yellow?"
"It changes on the day. A while ago, it was brown, because I missed Phoenix. Actually, I think it might still be brown." I was looking at his skin, smooth and flawless but interrupted by his jaw as it made its way down to his neck, when he laughed, and my eyes shot up to his face.
"Brown? Why is it still brown?"
Wordlessly, I reached for his hand and pulled up his arm, letting the faint light from outside the shed touch it. Russet brown, a stark contrast to my pale white. He grinned, and I dropped his arm, but let it fall onto my lap rather than on his. It was on one of my folded legs, and he tightened his fingers around my knee, giving me as clear a view of his brown skin as possible in the dimness.
We stayed silent for a long time, comfortably quiet together, and I let my eyes search him, the length of his long body and beautiful face and warm hands, one still holding my bent knee. Had anyone figured out a way to make moments last forever?
"Bella!" Charlie's voice called, squishy footsteps approaching the shed. I jumped at the noise, having to tear my eyes away from Jacob to look behind us at the entrance. Charlie was peering around in confusion, seeming to be looking for us despite the car door being open, and Jake took his arm away, the spot where his arm had been suddenly colder than the rest of my body. He started to climb out, and I couldn't help but stare, fascinated by his movements and his perfection.
"In here, Charlie," Jake said, reaching into the car with a grin to help me out. I quickly put my shoes on and then let him pull me forward, putting my numb feet on the ground but not standing.
"She should maybe check the food," Charlie said. "It's smelling good."
"Crap!" I said, jumping up and hitting my head on the roof of the Rabbit. "Ow!"
Jake and Charlie both laughed, and blood rushed into my legs, my knees giving out so I fell forward into Jacob. He caught me, and I kept my arms circled around his warm body, keeping me upright. "Sorry," I muttered into his chest, and it rumbled as he laughed at me.
"Don't be," he murmured in reply, his arms going around me. "Do you need help walking up to the house?"
"No," I grumbled, letting him go and resting my hand on the car door as my legs regained consciousness. "My legs fell asleep, but they're good."
"Good," Jake said. I glanced at Charlie, seeing he looked mildly uncomfortable and moving away from Jacob in case that was the cause. Maybe he just didn't know what to do with himself in the tiny shed. I turned back to Jacob, seeing he had started forward with me, and the three of us squished back to the house, all of our footsteps noisy in the mud. It wasn't raining – yet – and I glanced at the cloudy sky, the moon showing very slightly through the clouds. It was nice, I guessed. Nothing to hate about a sky where you could still see the moon.
I was glad Quil and Embry hadn't stayed, because the three boys ate nearly the whole pan before I had even gotten through half of my first piece, inhaling it while it was still steaming hot like they felt no pain. My wrist hurt, but didn't look like it was going to get really gross and blister, which was a good thing in my book. Blisters were not my favorite form of injury.
Charlie watched the game from an armchair while Jacob and I sat side-by-side on the loveseat, continuing our questioning of each other in muted voices. I learned that he didn't mind the rain or the cold weather, that his favorite food was lasagna, and that he was pretty popular at school, among other things. Apparently he was descended from the chief of the Quileutes, which was the tribe who originated on the reservation. He looked like he wanted to tell me some stories about them, but a look from Billy shut him up.
I told him some stories about my crazy mother, keeping my voice extra low for those because of Charlie's still-broken heart; I told him that I had taken care of her rather than the other way around and that she was the reason I was so self-sufficient. I told him I liked music for the most part, that I didn't really ever stay up late, and that I liked warmth, which he told me he had already inferred. Apparently I had been shifting closer and closer to him on the couch, like he had a gravitational pull, but really he had just been warming me up. Jacob was so warm.
We didn't leave until almost ten, and even then it was the adults saying that it was a school night and we had to get good sleep. I didn't want to go to school; I wanted to sit with Jacob while he kept me warm and told me stories about his life. Talking to him, being around him, was so easy and natural, like breathing.
"Come by again soon, Bella," Billy said as we said our goodbyes on the front porch, Jacob standing behind Billy's chair. "It's been great having you, and the food was great."
"I'm glad you thought so. I'll definitely be back soon, if Jake wants me." I grinned and looked at him, happy to see he was grinning back and nodding.
"Alrighty, now, you've got to get up early for school and at this point it'll be past ten-thirty by the time we get home," Charlie grumbled, exaggerating. "Some of us have to work, too."
Billy laughed and Jacob frowned, obviously as unhappy about me leaving as I was about going. I had been telling the truth about coming back soon, though. Maybe even as soon as the weekend. I just didn't want to take up all of Jacob's time, but I also wanted to be around him very badly. He was the only thing on the Olympic Peninsula to really make me laugh, make me think, make me…happy.
"Bye, Billy. See ya, Jake." I turned to go, but quick footsteps prefaced warm arms sweeping me up in a hug, and I hugged Jacob back, breathing him in. He smelled so good, like a touch of detergent mixed with outside air and just Jacob. He smelled homey, despite none of my actual homes ever smelling this good.
Charlie cleared his throat and Jacob put me down, having lifted me off the ground in his embrace, and I shuffled my feet, blushing. Jacob and Billy laughed, and Charlie started down the steps. I followed behind, turning around one more time as I got in the car to wave before they went inside.
The expression on my face must have given me away, or possibly my actions the entire night. "So you had fun." Charlie wasn't asking.
"I did." I grinned, wondering if he would be upset that I had had such a great time with Jacob. Wasn't that what he'd wanted?
I remembered our conversation before coming, trying to lighten the mood. "You know, Dad, I think I could learn to like the rain."
That put a smile on Charlie's face as big as I'd ever seen, and he was quiet the rest of the way home, the only sounds the pattering of rain and the rush of the tires.
