A/N: Hellooooo! It's been forever since I've posted anything & if you were one of the few people that read my other story, THANK YOU for giving this a try. I hope you won't be disappointed. Anywhooo, I'm always listening to Marina & The Diamonds, but this song just put me in front of the computer & quite literally told me to write something. All identifiable characters belong to Stephenie Meyer, & no copyright infringement is intended! Some quotes from the UHMAYYZINNN' "Daughter of Smoke & Bone" novel by Laini Taylor are in here, & no copyright infringement is intended! Tell me what you think!
The jeans she wore were tight enough. Tight enough for the boys—young and especially old—to admire and think about her long after she'd walked by. But she wore jeans so rarely; it was a treasure to witness her hips sashaying from side to side thanks to the natural curvature of her feminine body.
She'd often wear vintage pieces so form-fitting; it appeared that the original designer so many years past had intended them for her all along. She'd wear these tiny, curve-hugging dresses underneath tiny mink shrugs, as soft and as shiny as the flowing chestnut locks atop her head, when she took lone cab rides in and around the various cities she lived in during her mid-twenties. Many times, the balding, male cab drivers, and unsurprisingly, a few of the female ones too, compared her hair to Nutella. Just as luscious and likely just as delicious in its scent.
The drivers' mind often wondered, as they admired her through their dingy, greased rearview mirrors, if she came from money, or if she'd earned her success. They often settled on imagining her as a trust-fund brat whose parents had died long ago and left her with a shitload of money. And upon closer inspection, a kind of loneliness, a missingness, a solitude evident through the stoic brown orbs that'd bewitched so many, but pleasured so few. And though she lied to herself in front of the mirror, morning after morning, that she was most comfortable alone, peaceful in her choice to give her body to those miserable few worth her time—and who'd eventually willingly hand over all their material possessions to lay beside her in pleasure, she was overwrought with misery each day when the sad, painful truth hit. She was lonely, in the simplest of terms.
But at the end of every morning in front of a mirror, she put on her most dazzling smile, her fake smile that'd inevitably become her regular, everyday smile and headed into days filled with endless credit card swiping, hip swaying, and solidarity. She fooled herself into thinking that this lifestyle was most suited to her, who'd actually come from poverty—despite the popular held belief among sleazy cab drivers everywhere—and desired to never feel that despair of wanting everything, and knowing that such desire stemmed from the absentee father who'd left when she was still a bundle of joy in Renee's arms. This lifestyle protected her from ever having to return to people like Jacob Black who thought she could be handled easily, and a box of chocolates and flowers could satisfy.
This lifestyle protected her from the—though she wouldn't confess it to anyone else—utter emptiness she felt after she'd left Jake. And emptiness that was like the soul's version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable, just like the way that loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve. But the need for moremoremoremore always more led her to break away from him and the small-town life he'd always lead.
Two days before it was to be Charlie's death's seventeenth anniversary (he'd died when she was twelve and tenacious and still developing and couldn't ascertain the unexplainable strong emotions she felt for an estranged man who'd left her and her mother when they needed him the most), Isabella Swan made her way to her just as estranged hometown.
Forks, Washington held only her mother & her father's grave to return to, something which she'd never realized was actually really…depressing. She couldn't quite place why she was here, of all places, of all people, returning to the stinkhole she'd craved to leave, and she'd had the wits to actually leave behind to find herself about ten years prior when she'd made her way to USC and made something of herself. She hadn't been back since her college graduation, when she'd seen the soft, but defined crinkling corners of Renee's eyes when she hung up Bella's Master's Degree in Communications beside her high school diploma from Forks High. Renee had insisted Bella hang the degree in her own home, claiming that it was her accomplishment, her achievement.
But Bella recognized the longing in her mother's stare, the longing for proof of the ability to leave Podunk, Washington behind and become someone. It was Bella then who insisted Renee keep it, who, by then, knew her life would not involve a permanent anything, including a relationship. Especially a romantic one. She saw those yearning for love as cats, always meowing pet me, pet me, look at me, love me. Isabella Swan was not anyone's pet kitty. No, she was the lioness, feral in her eternal desire for the big diamond ring, the world at her fingertips. And even though she could have done it all on her own, through hard work and use of the education she'd gotten years before, she chose the easy life, trading the softness of the small of her back, her smooth fingertips for the endless adoration and money of those she wrapped around her finger.
When Isabella knocked on the red door to Renee's humble home, she realized that there was no need. The spare key had always sat underneath the weathered 'Welcome' mat, and it was highly unlikely Renee had moved it. But after years of unreturned phone calls, ignored letters and e-mails, she'd done just done that. Renee would have never pictured that in her quest for liberation from Forks, Bella would become a whore. She hated the word, its implications, but that's what she figured Bella had become. When the door creaked open, Renee's suspicions were confirmed. Bella, clad in leaving-little-to-the-imagination tight cargo pants, high heels and a dangerously low-cut top under a long cardigan, was nothing like the baggy pants, t-shirt and Converse wearing, hunched-over Bella who she remembered. No, this Bella was wearing too much money and Renee could guess where the money had come from. When Bella had replied to Renee's letter about six years prior, the last letter Bella had replied to, actually, she'd mentioned an advertising firm in Dallas, Texas where she claimed to be working. Following endless phone calls, desperate pleads in letters, and useless phone calls to the advertising firm, Renee was hopeless. A tiny shred of hope came to her in a phone call one day when the assistant of the CEO of the firm let Renee know that she'd contacted Human Resources. They held no record of any Bella, or Isabella Swan ever working, or even applying for a position. But the assistant did confirm Renee's suspicions. Mr. CEO, Brian Wilkins, had recently divorced and eloped with an Isabella Dwyer. There was too much of a coincidence there for Renee to comfortably invite her own daughter into the house.
So it was without hesitation that Renee stood her ground and said, "Stop squandering yourself, child. Wait for love." And with conviction in her voice, Renee slammed the door, with tears in her eyes, in Bella's face. It isn't easy to close the door on your only child, but when said child essentially sells herself for stuff, it's certainly justified. Bella didn't have time to react to her mother's rejection, and stood agape. Rejection was just as rare as the pants she wore that day. She raised her hand to try for a second chance, to be let in, but she knew it'd be fruitless. Renee had made her point and Bella had no choice but to find somewhere else to stay. Fleetingly, the thought of driving down to La Push and visiting an old flame came to her before she could stop it. There was nothing there, and then the thought of the last place that held some value to it came to her. Her father's burial site was her last hope.
A/N: Sooo? Yes, no? TELL ME! Put this story on alert cause I've got chapter two nearly completed! As you can tell, Bella's facing some issues. What shall happen next...?!
Song Recommendation for Chapter 1: Obviously,
Primadonna Girl by Marina & The Diamonds.
'Cause it's just good and fabulous and everything nice & good about this world :D