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Summary: Twilight and Mediator crossover. Jay moves to Forks to live with her mother. There she meets the spirit of vampire Edward Cullen. Can she uncover his dark past and find the people most important to him so he can move on? Can he move on? What's tying him to Earth? Bella. EXB?
Chapter 4 – Answers
The Library felt like the school admin building. Hot and muggy. Forks people take heating way too seriously. I mean, we don't need to feel like we're in an oven to be warmed. But anyway, I entered the library and went straight to the counter-thing where you borrow your items, and there was a guy behind it. He looked to be around 20 years old.
"Hey, do you have some reference on past residents who lived here? Or some past newspapers?" I inquired.
"Uh, yes sure. If you could follow me." He said before walking off to some far bookshelves.
I followed him.
"Ok, from how long ago do you want the reference and the papers?" He asked looking me in the eye.
Oh, shit. From what time did I want them? What year? "Uhh.... 45 years ago, I guess."
"Till up to now?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Ok, I'll get those for you. Just wait here." With that he left me to sit on some desks as he entered a room where I'm guessing, the references and newspapers are.
After a couple of minutes, he came back with a huge pile of newspapers and some big, fat, books. Oh. My. God. I'm not going to get home until next week! He lay them down on table with a thud and gave me a small, sympathetic smile.
"Once you're done with them come tell me so I can put them away, ok?"
I nodded.
He left me to it. I started on the oldest reference book from 50 years ago. The books went up by 10 years. I opened it and went down the years. 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984... For every year I checked if someone built the house of my address.
Bingo. In 1988, Charlie Swan, 19, got a house built for him, his wife Renee Sarah Hendreson (A/N: I don't know her name. Lol.), 19,and his newborn daughter Isabella Marie Swan on 27 Chamberlain Ave.
Excellent.
From there I only checked articles with 'Swan' in them. I got a notepad out and started writing down the facts.
Hmmm. In 1989, Renee divorced Charlie and took Isabella with her. For every summer in Forks, Isabella would come to visit Charlie before going back to Phoenix, Arizona to live with her mother. This happened every year until 1999 when Charlie went to visit her instead. In 2005, Isabella came to live in Forks with Charlie. She was 17. She died here at 18.
Ouch.
Charlie died in 2027.
This Isabella must've slept in my room – there was only one other room in the house and that's the master bedroom. And Ed-dude must've known Isabella. That's why he 'lives' in my room.
I put the books on the edge of the table so I would have more space for the newspapers. I only checked out the ones that were published when Isabella was in Forks.
There was nothing on her when she was little, so I skipped 6 years of newspapers to when she arrived here at 17.
She enrolled in Forks Highschool. In her second week of her being here, she nearly got hit by a van. (Some luck.) Edward Cullen saved her by pushing her out of the way.
EDWARD!! THAT'S HIS NAME!!
Edward's dad is said to be a brilliant surgeon. The people of Forks don't know why the heck he'd wasted his time in this town instead of working in some big hospital in Seattle or something.
There was nothing else on Isabella in the News section except that she left Forks for a week to go see her mother in Arizona. She came back battered and bruised. Hmmm.
I checked and checked and checked for more news on her. None. I had squeezed the News section dry so I checked the gossip section. Hey, don't look at me like that. This Isabella must've caused a stir between the teenagers of Forks, being fresh out of the desert to come live in the rainiest place EVER (its seems like it) where everyone's grandparents knew each other and grew up together.
Score.
Isabella 'Bella' Swan has captured the heart of the famously frosty Edward Cullen. The teenage girls of Forks had been throwing themselves on Edward since he moved here with his family two years ago and he had brushed them off every single time. It has been rumoured that Edward's orientation was questionable for this reason, but newbie Bella only arrived here a couple of months ago and seized his attention. It's bad enough that every hormonal teenage boy is in love with her from Forks and La Push – hint, hint a Jacob Black – but Ultimate Bachelor Edward also on the list is too much for most girls. The couple have been spotted in Port Angeles having dinner in La Bella Italia...
There were a couple of other articles like this. Talking about 'Bella' and Edward. They were pretty in love, the article says. Very serious. Like, maybe-marriage serious.
There were no pictures of Edward or Isabella anywhere, which was weird because it was a newspaper and newspapers had pictures.
Apparently, Edward and his family left Forks a week after Bella's 18th birthday in September. The reason was that Carlisle Cullen – Edward's dad – got a promotion to work in LA, so he took it.
In another article, it said that Bella was pretty cut up about it. More like, depressed about it. She became catatonic and didn't go to school for the first week of Edward leaving. The article says that Bella's mother, Renee, came to Forks so she could send Bella to Jacksonville. Bella wouldn't leave though.
This miserable, isolated state went on for 6 months before she started hanging out with a 'Jacob Black'.
Bella died 3 months after that. They say she committed suicide. She apparently jumped off a cliff. Jacob tells a source that Bella wanted to go cliff diving and he told her to wait until the waves were less choppy. She didn't listen and jumped by herself without telling anyone.
No body was found.
Her memorial was held on August 2nd, 2006. An empty casket was buried in Forks Cemetery.
There was nothing else on Bella or Edward in the later newspapers. Edward and his family didn't even attend the memorial even though they were like Bella's second family.
Holy moly.
That's a lot of information. My fingers and wrist were hurting like a bitch. But I still wasn't finished.
I still didn't know anything about Edward, except that he was pretty rich, he was Bella's boyfriend, his dad was a surgeon and that he left Forks on September 20th. Oh and that he was currently a ghost haunting my bedroom.
I reached back to the reference books to check for 'Cullen' not 'Swan' now.
After a lot of skimming and page turning I found out that Edward lived in an independently built house in the middle of the woods. He and some other kids were adopted by Carlisle and Esme Cullen. The adopted siblings' names were: Alice Cullen, Emmett Cullen, Rosalie Hale and Jasper Hale. The Hales were biological siblings. Twins.
And that's it. There was nothing else on Edward and his family other than they were like the perfect family. They were perfect at school, they didn't have a criminal record, not even a speeding ticket!
My stomach rumbled. I checked the time. 7:08pm!! Oh, god!!
I quickly called the library assistant to tell him I was done and thanked him. I put the notepad in my schoolbag and headed out to my car. It wasn't raining – thank god – but it was pitch black. I could barely see where I was stepping. When I got to my car, I heard loud laughing. I looked around and noticed a group of guys hanging out on the other end of the street I was parked on. I couldn't see their faces or anything but there was one thing I could see. One thing that stood out to me.
"Holy shit!"
It was a ghost. A teenager. He was standing right next to the group giving one boy in particular, a look filled with so much hate and anger that it really worried me. This was not good. If a ghost harboured this much anger it would mean that they would enough energy to actually do something about it.
I contemplated walking up to them to get the ghost to notice that I was looking straight at him and follow me back to my car. Maybe.
I got in the car and drove slowly up to them and rolled my window down.
"Hey guys, I need your help. Do you know how to get to Thriftway? I'm new here." I spoke to them while staring straight at the ghost, sending telepathic messages to him with my mind. Look here!! LOOK!
"Uh, yeah." The kid that the ghost was absolutely loathing answered. I noticed some guys in the group that go to Forks High. The youngest guys here were seniors and the oldest were middle-aged men. "You go on the....."
I zoned out then because my ghost friend had stopped drilling holes into the speaking guy's head and noticed me. His eyes widened a bit as he took me in before he disappeared. I don't think he was coming back tonight.
"Thanks." I'd noticed he finished. "Hey, what's your name anyway? Are you from Forks?"
"Jeremy. And no, I'm from Seattle."
"Huh. Well thanks, Jeremy."
As I was rolling the window up, some guy spoke up from the back of the group. "Hey, pretty girl. Why don't you hang out with us tonight?" Some other guys laughed but agreed.
"Don't know about that, guys. I have a curfew to make."
"Break the rules for tonight and come have some fun with us. You could play with us."
Jeremy talked now. "John, piss off. Stop hitting on her you sicko. She wants to go home, you horny bastard."
They laughed.
"Offer still stands." Said 'John'.
I gave Jeremy a somewhat grateful look. I could've handled it myself, but it was sweet how he stepped in. "I'm sure.... Thanks anyway."
I drove off to my house thinking about the ghost.
It was unnerving, the amount of emotion he had built up inside of him. And hate out of all feelings. And to who? Jeremy. I'm not sure if they even knew each other. It was all creepy.... He looked like he wanted Jeremy dead. Which was not good.
And while we were talking about angry ghosts, EDWARD?! What is up with him? If his love of his life is dead, doesn't he want to move on so he can see her again? What's holding him back? What's tying him here?
Isabella 'Bella' Marie Swan. The girl who killed herself after the love of her life moved to a different state. Why'd she kill herself though? I get the whole love-of-my-life-left-me thing, but couldn't they pursue a long distance relationship and maybe meet up in the holidays? And her death is fishy. If she wanted to commit suicide, wouldn't she have done it when she was in her catatonic state? That's when she didn't talk with anyone and only left the house to go to school. When she began improving and had a BFF in Jacob Black she should've gotten over it. So why would she kill herself after getting better?
Time heals all wounds. She should've moved way past the suicidal stage if she made it 9 months after Edward left her.
Something isn't right.
I pulled up my driveway and exited the car. Mark opened the front door before I knocked. He said he missed me too much. He is too cute.
He heated up a plate of pot roast for me. Tasted heavenly as usual. We watched the Superbowl together. He tried to teach me the rules but my brain wouldn't comprehend anything. We joked around. I made him open up a Facebook account. I helped him organise his home office – oh, god, I didn't know anything could be that messy! – and we made chocolate fudge brownies together.
Overall, it was the best fun I've had in a while, I have to say. I was pretty happy. Which was a change.
Here's another fact about me. From when I was sixteen – I'm seventeen now – I've been taking anti-depressants. I got prescribed them for suffering from chronic depression. I don't take them regularly, though. Just when I start thinking about what's the point of life.
My mother doesn't know about them though. My dad told me not to tell her. I think then she would hate me for being depressed.
So now I'm thinking about this because I don't think I'm so depressed anymore. Which was a huge improvement for me. I've always seen life as pointless. You could say that I had a bleak and miserable outlook on everything. And the ghost thing wasn't helping, and thanks to that, I've always been surrounded by death. Every time I help a ghost move on, I think to myself 'What's on the other side?' and I actually contemplate dying so I can see for myself.
My dad noticed this and got me help. I had to go to therapy for a long time. For therapy to work, you have to be honest with your therapist. I couldn't be honest with mine. I can't tell her I can see ghosts and help them move on. They'd get me institutionalised. That's when I told my dad about my sixth sense. After days of him giving me the Jay-is-crazy look he believed me somehow.
Anyway, I'm feeling much better right now. I don't know why.
And so I said 'G'night' to Mark and went up to my room. I finished my homework and called my dad.
"Hey, dad."
"Hello Jacqueline. This is a nice surprise. Why'd you call?"
"Does there have to be a reason for a homesick girl to call her dad?" I teased.
"Aww. Shucks, you're making me blush." He chuckled. "I'm glad that you called actually. I have some news for you."
"News..."
"Yeah. Um... Well, you see how Megan has been my girlfriend for 2 and half years?"
I nodded, although I knew he couldn't see me.
"Yeah... Well... I promise you that I wanted to check with you first and ask you if it was alright, but everything just happened and I couldn't call you because it was so busy and hectic, and overall, I just acted on impulse. It just felt right at that time, so I couldn't call you, but now you're calling me and I just want to explain it to you and check if it is ok with you although it already happened."
I blinked. "Huh?"
"Ok, here goes.... I asked Megan to marry me and she said yes."
Pause.
"Good for you."
It was his turn to be confused. "Huh?"
"What, you expect me to have a teenage hissy fit about how I want my daddy all to myself and how I don't want an evil step-mother?"
He coughed. "I sort of was expecting that."
"I resent that! I'm not hormonal!! I'm not even melodramatic!"
"Yeah, yeah, sure.... But this was a really big decision. It's probably going to change your life forever." Wow. The last sentence was creepy.
"Yes, sensei. I believe you, oh Zen master."
"Laugh all you want, but it will change your life, I mean. We might have to move to Queensland to live near Megan's family."
"I'm living in Forks." Automatic answer.
Long pause. "I'm sorry, what?"
Cough. "Um. I want to live in Forks." Awkward. "For now." I added for good measure.
"Honey, are you taking your meds?"
"Laugh all you want, old man, but I think life in Forks might be good for me." I defended.
"What's the reason for this change, huh? Just last week you were begging me not to let you go. What changed?"
I considered his question. What was the reason for the change? I don't know. "I honestly don't know. But I have a feeling it might be best for me to stay here. I have to finish some things up."
"Ok. Whatever you say. Well. Bye then. Talk to you later."
"You can count on it. Bye."
I hung up.
Why did I change? There are a lot of reasons I hate Forks and none for me liking it. It just doesn't make sense at the moment. Did I want to stay so I can finish up this Edward business? Did I not want to be a quitter? Did the Jeremy thing make me want to stay to I can finish that too? Did I want to stay because I had friends? I'm not sure about anything anymore.
Sigh.
I took a shower and relaxed on my bed looking up at my ceiling, thinking about things.
I wanted to speak to Edward about Bella. I want to ask him why he's still here when he knows that she's dead and moved on. If you love someone wouldn't you follow them? Why is he still here if he can be with her in the afterlife? Or maybe Bella's not the reason he's here in the first place. Maybe he's here for a whole different reason. But why is he in her room then, huh? It's definitely about Bella. No doubt about it
I guess I must've fallen asleep because next think I know, my alarm was beeping.
I jumped out of bed and stopped in my tracks when I noticed the most brilliant thing EVER. The sun was out!I happy danced my way to the bathroom so I can take a shower. I even sang in the shower!I got dressed cream coloured lacy top with a black ribbon under the bust, with some blue jeans and black heels.I curled my hair a bit today and left it out for once. I had a proper breakfast and left for the car.
I was happy I got early to school, I sat in the sunniest spot I could find and basked in the sun. I have to admit that I really missed Australia for this reason. The weather in Forks makes it seem like it gloom and doom all the time, while in Australia the brightness of everything lifts your spirits.
When the bell rang, I skipped – yes, skipped – to my homeroom. I think everyone in the school noticed my exuberant mood and stayed away from me. They probably thought I was high on something.
School went by really quick – lunch was awesome though; Joane is soooooooo funny. When it was finally time for last period, things fluttered in my stomach. It was so weird. I never had things flutter in my stomach before. I felt sorta sick. I wonder why I got the fluttery feeling. What does the fluttery feeling even mean?
As I entered the classroom, I noticed the teacher wasn't there.
I also noticed that Lelita was sitting in Vince's lap doing pretty explicit stuff with her mouth. Was she eating his face? Maybe I should call the cops. This scene caused my blood to boil and freeze up at the same time somehow. I was angry. Why was I angry for? Was I angry at Lelita for gnawing on Vince's face? Or was I angry at Vince for letting her?
One thing I knew was that I was upset.
"Go get a room. If I wanted to watch a porno, I would've watched one online."
They stopped doing whatever they were doing and looked at me. Lelita's look was of obvious distaste and irritation. Vince's look was unfathomable. It was like looking at a blank screen.
I sat down in my seat and waited for the teacher to come.
"Hey, Frenchie!"
I looked up. It was Lelita. She had detached her mouth from Vince's face and was standing next to my table now.
I gave her a look. "Do you need anything?"
"No, I just wanted to annoy you."
I ignored her. She sat down in the empty seat next to me.
"Are you, like, upset that Vince was kissing me and not you?"
"Upset? Puh-leeze. Besides, I don't think that was kissing you guys were doing. It looked like you were having lunch."
"But you're upset and jealous. I mean, like, the hottest guy in school who can get any girl he wants, like, picked me to ease his tension."
I grimaced. Tension? "I'm not surprised that he picked you to do it, Lisa," I only said that to mess with her. "I mean, you are pretty easy. And as for me being upset and jealous, do you even know what you're saying? Why would I be upset and jealous? For me not getting an STD? He's probably loaded with them, being the man-whore that he is, right? You would know. He probably got at least 7 off of you."
People laughed.
Vince's stare was boring into my head. When I looked into his eyes, I noticed that they were especially bright from deep emotion. They were darker today. Ocean during a storm.
That's when the teacher came in and apologised for being late.
I gave Vince a long look before turning away. I wasn't glaring at him and I wasn't taunting him. I only gave him a blank look.
When I go home today, I had the weird feeling of being emotionally exhausted. I don't ever really remember being emotionally exhausted since I was 14. The feeling itself was strange. It was like you being physically tired, but in your head. Your brain wants to rest from the onslaught of emotions that you felt. And right now I'm feeling many.
I don't exactly know why I got so worked up over Vince pashing some girl. It was expected. Why was I so upset? And disappointed?
Forks is messing with my brain. I really do think that I got some Forks disease. My brain has never felt so wired in my life. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night because my brain doesn't want to shut down and keeps thinking about stuff. It's exhausting. You know what? I need to rest my head. I'm going to take a bath and relax. Maybe I should take a sedative. Do we have sedatives present in the house? I don't think so. How about a really strong one? Do I even know how strong each drug is? I wouldn't want to take Mark's prostate one and get funky side effects. Like a temporarily paralysed face. Hey, it could happen!
I decided not to shove any drugs down my throat for fear of ODing myself.
That bath did wonders on my tense muscles and my over-worked brain and allowed me to organise my thoughts. I wanted to stop thinking about Vince, for once, and think about more pressing subjects, like Edward/Bella and Jeremy/Creepy Ghost. Those were the more vital problems unlike my issue with Vince which is merely trivial. Creepy Ghost might actually physically put Jeremy in danger and kill him if he tried really hard. I need to find out what his problem is.
And Edward, for god's sake! He is getting on my nerves. The Emoward attitude is getting really old. Just get out of my life and move on! Be with your Bella in the afterlife! I don't care! Or if he doesn't want to move on I can always make him unless he promises me that I never see him again. EVER. He didn't even try to open up. It was a straight out NO from him. He obviously doesn't want be poking into his business, and the prospect of annoying him is getting more and more appealing. I really want to find out what the heck happened to him. Maybe I'll do it for fun after he's gone.
Because there's something just off about him. Like I should feel scared and somewhat uncomfortable when I see him. If was an uneasy sensation. And seriously, his eyes!! Who the hell has goldish-brownish-topaz-oish eyes??? And he is way too pretty. Like way pretty. It wasn't that he was handsome –although he was, almost devastatingly so – it was like he was beautiful. And that's just plain weird for a guy. Like all he needs is a little glitter to dazzle! It was unnerving.
After my pretty long musings, I got out to dress. Some clothes were laid out on my bed and I'm pretty sure I did not put them there. I walked over to my bed, clad in only my towel and noticed a note that was placed on the clothes.
Jacqueline, we are going to have some people over for dinner tonight.
So please wear what I have laid out for you. We – me and Mark – need you to
look presentable tonight. It won't be about you, for once.
Clarisse,
Huh.
I look down at the clothes. Oh my lord. These are not my clothes! Are they hers? The outfit that my mother laid out for me consisted of a dark grey skirt that was longer than knee length, to about, mid-shin length – how is that possible!?! – and a long sleeved dark purple silk shirt to go with it. It even had a long, floppy cardigan for the love of god!! My shoes were some flats that looked normal. I'm going to look like a grandmother.
Nuh-uh. I was not going to wear that. That hideous witch can't make me. But I knew if I disobeyed her too much, I was walking to school from now on. She is known for her evil bouts of revenge.
Well, I'll just personalise this outfit a bit.
Instead of the shin-length skirt, I wore some shorts that were about the same fabric and the exact colour of the skirt. I kept the blouse but rolled the sleeves up to elbow length. I added a plaid grey sweater-vest thing and coupled it with some silver and gold jewellery. I wore the flats and began doing my hair.
I dried it but kept its natural curly-waviness and put it up into a stylishly messy ponytail. I fixed up my side fringe, also. I put on a little bit of mascara, eyeliner and lipgloss.
As soon as I stepped out of my room, the doorbell rang.
I came down the stairs and opened the door.
There standing, were a man and a woman, and behind them was standing Jeremy. Right next to Jeremy was the homicidal ghost from earlier.
I internally groaned. Just. My. Freaking. Luck.
Done.
There you go.
You know what occurred to me? I need to change the summary. This story has changed SO much that I need to add and delete things from it.
Guys, seriously. Review.
It's really a downer that you guys don't review when I'm adding new chapters in. It kills off my spirit just that little much. I am not going to stop writing (no way!!) but it's nice to get some encouragement. So if you are reading this story, please waste 30 seconds worth of time to review something. Criticism and encouragement. I take both, lol.
Tc
Me.
