She comes to you wounded: red-rimmed eyes and disheveled hair and a stake through her heart.
There's something seriously wrong, you can tell because the girl you once upon a time knew, the one you could trust with all your dirty little secrets and fantasies over the hood of your Rabbit and your weird cravings for tacos at three a.m. and "can't you just drive me to Port Angeles I promise it's only this one time, please Bella?", has somehow disappeared, completely vanished off the face of the earth like the fucking bloodsuckers she fell in and out of love with. It's almost like she's died and gone to burn in hell for all your sins and you can't help but be the sick bastard you are and watch her crumple in on herself in the corner of the garage, half-human and half-something else you're not quite sure you want to identify just yet or ever.
So you do the only thing any awkward fifteen-year-old can do in a Situation like this: pat the empty seat on the bench next to yours and hope to some God upstairs that when she sits down and you stare into her eyes, the color of melted wood, you'll see the girl you once knew—
Neither, of course, happens.
Seconds, minutes, a half-hour all pass by in awkward silence before your tongue dissolves itself from the roof of your mouth and you croak out, "Bella," because Bella is the only word your testosterone knows how to say but you can't just form a sentence with Bella.
Pale fingers tighten around the metal handle of the wrench you need to use to fix the thing under the Rabbit's hood that you've already fixed Somewhere in the background, over the white fuzziness burning in your ears and the saliva that's lodged in your throat, a song loops, over and over. You're biding with time, a sick charade that will last as long as your patience.
"Please give me the wrench, Bella."
Then, suddenly, the wrench is on the ground and she's in your arms and she's sobbing so hard—gripping your shirt in her little hands, banging them against your chest that isn't yet hardened with muscle or soft with adolescent fat, but just right, oh so right—you think she'll break in half.
A distant part of you aches to remind yourself that she already has.