Chapter 3 - Forks
I'd never been on a plane before. Renee and Phil stayed with me until I boarded, doing everything for me. Occasionally I felt a compulsion to do something, but mostly I just shadowed them with my happy smile.
On the plane, however, I watched the clock steadily tick by. And that's when I realized…I wasn't dreaming.
There was no way I could dream of my ass being so numb and uncomfortable that I wouldn't wake up. There was no way a dream could be this coherent, this steady…real time. Anxiety pulled in my stomach again, and I was afraid that with the movement of the plane was going to make me throw up.
"Are you okay?" A flight attendant, male flight attendant, asked with concern.
"I…uh, I'm just nervous," I said, taking a deep breath.
He smiled and sat in the seat next to me, "First time flying?"
"Yeah, it is. I'm…I'm more nervous about what will happen when I land, though."
He ran a hand through his hair, he was blonde. Cute guy, my age…or, my real age, not Bella's age. He was probably twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. And he was flirting. Flirting with a seventeen year old…pervert. "Why is that?"
I laughed, "Because I'm about to meet a coven of vampires."
He laughed too, "Let me guess, family?"
I smiled, realizing I was flirting back. "Yeah, you can say so. I'm…going to meet my dad for the first time in…" ever, "…a while. About a year, I guess."
Another flight attendant walked past us and gave him a disapproving glance, and he sighed, "I should get back to work. If you need anything don't be afraid to let me know."
I turned my head to watch him leave, and then looked back and let out a slow breath, 'Well, Mr. Flight Attendant, give me your phone number and if I ever get back to my real body I am going to call you…that way you won't get arrested what I'm thinking about.'
For the rest of the flight my anxiety was gone, and then the plane had to land. None of that had been in the movie, but…this wasn't really the movie. This was something very different. Maybe I was in my head, catatonic on the floor of my apartment. Maybe one of the beers I had drank had been laced with something. I could be foaming at the mouth and trying not to drown on my own vomit. It wasn't a dream…it could still be a hallucination. But I was doubting that, too.
Perhaps my own love of fantasy, my desire to have a fantasy, let me wonder what if something had just transported me into this world I had fallen in love with? It hardly seems fair…since I knew exactly what happened in the movie, and in the book…all four books, in fact. I knew the moment, the second, when I would see Edward. What he would say to me…what I would say to him. Or, what the script made Bella say to him.
What if I didn't play by those rules? The script? What if I shouted at the top of my lungs that his family were vampires? Well, knowing what I knew from the books, they would kill me. They wouldn't like doing it, but they would to protect themselves. What if I chose to go to the prom with Mike, leaving Edward to sit at the edge of the story as a bystander? What if I…
I nearly had a panic attack when I thought of it…what if I died? Would I snap out of it and go back to where I was supposed to be? Back to who I was? Or would I really die? The ache in my muscles as I walked off the plane told me that I was physically affected by this world. I may not be in anguish, but I felt certain that I could feel that.
And then I tripped in the airport, my arm breaking my fall. That hurt. Charlie was right there, helping me up, "You okay, Bells?"
I swallowed hard, fear chilling me to the bone. "I'm okay…Dad."
I rubbed my arm, what if I had broken that arm? First day at a new school with a cast…great. Repeat of my own life.
"Um…did you have to pick me up in uniform?" I asked, looking Charlie over, in his policeman's Blues, badge and gun, the whole shebang.
Becca and I both had agreed that for a guy old enough to be our father, Charlie was a good looking guy. I didn't see that now, I only saw him as…my dad.
"Sorry…I'm on duty today," he muttered.
An involuntary groan escaped my mouth as he walked me to his police cruiser, and then I laughed. "Want me to sit in the backseat?" He didn't think it was funny, and opened the passenger door for me. "Serious, we can put on a show for everyone. You can handcuff me and everything."
Wouldn't be the first time I had been arrested, I had gotten pulled over for drunk driving about two years ago, but I eventually got out of it. Some weird technicality.
It was a long drive to Forks, and the police car didn't have a radio. At least, not a good radio that we could use music to kill the awkward silence. All we had was the police radio, cracks of static and codes that I didn't understand.
"You're hair is longer," Charlie said.
I smirked, a line from the movie. Charlie's first line. "Yeah, I've been letting it grow out," I said, not following the script.
He pulled up to his house, our house. He carried my luggage that the airline had graciously not lost, leaving me just the carry on bag that I had refused to give up. The rest was packed up and in the mail, my belongings. Bella's belongings.
I walked automatically to what I knew was my room, wondering if the movie had told me that or if I just knew it because I was supposed to be Bella. "I cleared some shelves off for you in the bathroom."
Great, I have to let the hunky-dad see my tampons.
"The sales-lady picked out the bed stuff. You like purple, don't you?" Charlie asked, his brow wrinkling.
I smiled at him, thinking daughterly thoughts, "Purple is great, Dad. You…you are doing fine," I said, deviating from the script again. It was painful to see Charlie try so hard to please me, when I wasn't really his daughter.
Charlie isn't real! I shouted at myself, he is an imaginary character, I am his imaginary daughter, and the father-daughter bond between us is imaginary!
"I'll…I'll let you get settled. I'm going to do a quick patrol, but I'll be back."
Charlie looked around, muttered "Okay," and then left.
"One of the best things about Charlie. He doesn't hover," I said to myself, following the script.
I looked through my collection of clothes as I put them away. One of the suitcases held a laptop and a small collection of CDs. CDs that I didn't know, did not listen to, and mostly hadn't heard of. Bella's taste in music was not my own.
The clothes weren't bad. Casual, comfortable. A lot of jeans, a few khakis, and a lot of sweaters and long-sleeved shirts. My personal wardrobe consisted of similar things, but a lot more t-shirts with funny sayings that were a size too large to hide my expanding stomach as my diets failed. All of Bella's…my new clothes, fit my smaller form nicely. I was tempted to go back to how I dressed in high school, more revealing clothes. With a figure like this, how could I resist?
Sunday was a long and awkward day. Charlie wasn't a talker, and I didn't know what to say, to ask him. Mostly I wanted to know how long this would go on. Tomorrow I would be going to school, I would see many male leads from the film that I had drooled over, fantasized over…giggled over with Becca.
A new horror. I was going back to high school! I had barely made it out with my sanity the first time!
I let out a groan.
Charlie responded immediately, "You alright?"
I sighed, trying to calm my suddenly panicked nerves, "Nervous about tomorrow," I admitted. That was reasonable. He would assume because it was my first day in a new school. If I tried to tell him that I was really twenty-four year old computer programmer from Minnesota who was obsessed with a vampire novel series and its first movie rendition that I was now staring in…well, Bella wasn't supposed to spend her first day in Forks in a therapist's office.
I had to start playing the part, I realized. Any deviation…what would happen? Happen to me, to this world? I might just go back to normal, but…I could set a rippling affect of disaster that would…
"You want to stay home tomorrow?" Charlie asked.
"No!" I answered quickly.
