**Warning-sexual situations and self-harm.**
Crowded
1
People say death is peaceful. But I say that all depends on how you choose to die.
~Bella Swan~
Wintertime always makes me sad. Makes me want to wear my father's old thermals, climb into bed with Granny's quilt, and not open my eyes again until springtime.
This winter is no different. The sunless sky hangs overhead, the fat gray clouds heavy with rain. I slosh my way home from school, my galoshes disturbing the puddles on the sidewalk. When I make it to the end of my driveway, my pace slows to a crawl.
Sue's car sits beside my father's police cruiser, and I groan. She's been nosing around the house a lot since her husband—my father's best friend—passed away last year. A normal teenager wouldn't care about her dropping by to cook, clean, and pester Charlie about eating too much diner food. Saves me the energy after all. And I don't. Care, that is, except for the fact that Sue's daughter, Leah, rarely misses an opportunity to join her mother in her almost daily visits. And Leah? Leah hates me for some unknown reason.
If they hear the door click shut behind me, they don't show it. The rumble of their low chatter from the dining room echoes down the hallway and into the foyer. I take off my raincoat and hang it on the hook. Toeing off my rain boots, I place them on the low-lying shelf against the wall and strain to hear the topic of their conversation, but only catch a word or two. Bitterness swells inside me. They're all sitting here warm and toasty while I waded through water coming home from school. Why couldn't Charlie have picked me up if he were planning on coming home early? Or even Sue?
I curse my poor excuse of a truck for refusing to crank this morning. The seats are ripped, the exhaust overwhelming, and it backfires constantly, scaring the shit out of not only me, but everyone else within hearing distance. But it's warm. And it's dry. And it usually gets me from home to school and vice versa, the only two places I visit other than the grocery store since moving to this rainy Washington town two years ago.
No one hears me leave the foyer and creep upstairs. I tiptoe into my room and close the door behind me. I dump my backpack on the bed, and the contents spill out. The cable-knit socks Sue knitted for me are soaking wet, so I strip them off and throw them into my clothes hamper. After changing into warmer, drier clothes, I turn on my space heater and tuck into my homework.
I've always been a lackluster student, but since Sue and Charlie have been … doing whatever it is they're doing, I've been acing all my classes. Homework provides a distraction from their lovey-dovey eyes and Leah's scowling face. It also distracts me from the fact that I have no social life whatsoever.
Forks, Washington, is a tiny town. Kids have known each other since birth. When I first moved to town I was like the shiny new toy, but all things shiny dim after time. The truth is, I'm shy. Like, blushing, stumbling over my words, hide behind my hair shy. And I have no idea how to make friends because I've never had any.
Shoes clack on the wooden stairs, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. Leah enters the room without knocking, pauses at the door, and mock smiles at me. Sighing, I turn away from her, shielding the ugly with a brown curtain of hair.
"Hey, Bella." She plops down on the bed beside me. Her waiflike figure barely bounces the bed. "Doing homework already?"
I open my mouth to reply, but the words are choked off by the anxious tightness of my throat. Nodding, I work out an equation on my notebook, scribbling fast so she won't notice the shakiness of my hand.
Leah stretches her long legs out in front of her and points her toes. She's wearing little ankle boots and pants so tight they appear painted on. She toys with a lock of my hair in almost a loving way, and I freeze. My scribbling comes to a halt. She tugs a little too hard, leaving my scalp burning in pain. I bat her hand away and she laughs.
"I don't know why you're always studying so hard. S'not like you're going to college or anything." She appraises me with her lined feline-like eyes. "You can barely function in the public school system as it is."
Heat crawls up my neck. Leah doesn't attend the same school as me. She goes to school on the reservation, so there's no way she could know how I'm doing in school unless Charlie mentioned it. What. A. Traitor.
Laughing at my expression, she stands and walks around my bedroom, pausing near my bookshelf. "Oh, wow. You look almost normal in this picture."
The framed photograph she picks up is one of my mother and me from about four years ago, when I was around thirteen. Renee and I grin at the cameraman, a random stranger my mother asked to snap our photo. We're wearing cheesy, vacation-themed logo T-shirts and fresh sunburns that would eventually fade into a summer tan for my mother and painful blisters for me. The Grand Canyon stands in an unfocused background, nothing but a mural of reds, browns, and tans.
The photo makes me shrink further into myself, if that's possible. I want her to put it back on the shelf, away from her disgusting hands. She doesn't deserve to touch anything of mine that's precious.
"Your mother was pretty." Leah tilts the photograph in her hand. "Mom says she was a slut. Not in those exact words, but she cheated on Charlie with another man? Then cheated on her fiancé too? No wonder she's dead. If she wasn't such a whore—"
Before I realize what I've done, I've climbed off the bed and lunged at her. Long strands of silky, pin-straight hair are wrapped around my fingers, and her grunts of pain are in my ears. I pull her hair and punch my fist into her screaming mouth until I see red, and it's not from my anger. It's from the blood. Thick, sticky, copper-scented blood coats my hands and smears my winter-warm clothes. Hit and pull. Hit and pull. Again and again until I no longer see her face from all the blood.
Two strong hands curl around my upper arms and tug me away, but I've still got her hair. Charlie drags me across the room, and in turn I drag a sobbing Leah. Sue cries somewhere in the background.
"Bella." Charlie's gruff voice and thick mustache tickle my ear. I strain to understand him over the pounding rush of blood in my temples. "Bella, let go of Leah's hair, please."
My fingers grow weak, and her slick strands slip from between them. Charlie pushes me against the wall, his hands on my shoulders. He stares at my face and I meet his eyes.
"You can't ever do this again." His face is red, one vein on his forehead bulging. "Not ever again, Bella. You girls have to get along if you're going to be stepsisters."
Stepsisters.
Stepsisters?
Once his words sink in, I focus on the crying girl whose blood coats my hands. I hate blood. Hate the sight of it, the smell of it, the warmth of it when it spills out of a wound. The sight of someone else's blood on me makes me sick to my stomach.
My stomach seizes and I lose my lunch on the shivering, screaming girl.
This was written for the Fandom for Mental Health comp. way back around Mayish. This story is finished and will update throughout the week. Days of the week subject to change depending on my work schedule.
Preread by Jonesn. Betad by Kitchmill. Rumnernikkie gave me an idea and I sort of ran with it.