I sauntered out of my father's police cruiser, and made my way up the driveway to our little pale yellow house. I sighed. Forks. My kinda place, only not really.
I heaved my bags back up onto my shoulder and reached up on top of the eave of the front door for the spare key. It wasn't there.
"Cha- Dad, where's the key?" I said, frustrated.
"Right here." he said, holding the keys up from his oversized keyring. "After what happened back in Phoenix, your mother and I decided to give you, well, less opportunity to sneak in and out when you please."
Great. I was still being treated like a child, after all, it wasn't really my fault what went down it was only a little- and that's when I saw it. Steel bars. On my window? I dropped my bags.
"Dad...Bars? Window? I'm not a felon." I whined
"Like I said, sneaking in and out. As little as possible. You show me you're a responsible capable young adult, we'll see where this situation goes. But for now. Bars."
Great. My mom and my step dad, Phil couldn't handle me, so they sent me off to live with Police Chief Swan. Okay, I could handle that, but for him to treat me like one of his little inmates was downright degrading.
I bent down and picked up my bags and waited for Charlie to come unlock the door. He smiled at me as I heard the tumblers click into place. I didn't even wait for him to take his keys out, I bolted through the door and up the stairs into my room and slammed the door behind me.
I looked around, the room was still the terrible mauve color of my childhood, disgusting and faded. You'd think Charlie would have redecorated, but he's obviously too busy with his wife and kids, the police station, to care; my old lace curtains had become yellowed and the rocking chair was still in the corner. I'm surprised he even mustered up enough gumption to take my crib out and put an actual bed in.
Charlie and my mother, Renee, had split when I was five. She couldn't stand to be around a man who solved his problems with alcohol, and he couldn't bear to be with a nagging wet wipe all the time.
So, they split and I went with my mother. Every summer, I'd came back to Forks to spend time with my dad. Meanwhile, he spent time with Billy Black and some Budweiser. Go figure.
But according to Renee, he'd cleaned his act up and went to AA and now he'd been sober for blah blah blah. Like I actually cared.
The guidance counselor at my old school, Phoenix Area Consolidated High, said that I was "acting out" over being "tormented by my parent's emotional problems when I was a young girl". I think he was full of it. But, whatever. All I did was get in a couple of fights, and maybe possibly set the school gymnasium on fire. Just a little bit. But, I got expelled and Renee said that that was the last straw, no "but's" about it. So, she shipped me off to prison in Forks. Which wasn't too far of a stretch from living with Charlie now-a-days.
He hovered. He hovered bad. Every fifteen minutes he came to check on me to see if I unpacked or not. He didn't stop bothering me until I pretended to be asleep, which he actually fell for.
I got up and started to unpack. Clothes went in the closet. Shoes, under the bed. All that good stuff. After I was all settled in, I decided to wash the nasty rain of Washington State off of me. It was seriously so depressing here. Rain, Rain and more Rain. Ugh.
I stepped into the single bathroom that Charlie and I were forced to share, yuck, and took a good look around. It was clear a man lived here, empty toilet paper rolls were on the floor, beard trimmings littered the sink and there was loose change all over the floor.
Whatever, I thought.
Tomorrow was going to suck at school. Being driven there in a police cruiser, what a joy. Forks High School had a population of 312 students, well, 313 now. And I had a feeling each one of them were going to be fascinated with me.
"Oooh! Look at the new shiny play thing Elizabeth!"
"Isn't she just ravishing Timmothy, darling?"
Yay. I'm just over joyed to go to school tomorrow. Looking like the pale, stingy brown haired freak I am. Great.