AN: I don't own Twilight.
November 3rd- Forks Washington
It was strange being back on American soil. Just the ability to drink the water was a culture shock. American houses had lawns and garages and windows and paint. Everything was so clean. Too clean.
When Charlie picked me up from the airport in Seattle I was wearing a pair of cut of sweatpants and a light hoodie that I had acquired in Baja Mexico, at the begining of my adventure. It wasn't exactly the warmest outfit, especially for Seattle in November.
"Forget your not in Mexico?" Charlie asked as he eyed my choice in clothing speculatively.
"No. I will admit to forgeting just how cold it is here, but I ditched all of my warmer clothing ages ago and this is the best I could do." I answered as I buckled myself into the cruiser.
"It's nice to see you Bells, not that I don't enjoy watching those videos you post online, but it's good to have you here."
"It's good to see you too dad." I smiled.
"So how long you gonna be around for? Christmas? You know your mom is going to want to be seeing you too." he gave me an expectant look out of the corner of his eye.
"Yeah, I don't know how long yet, but I will make a point of seeing Mom before I head off." I promised.
"Well... it would be nice to have you around for the holiday at any rate. Sue makes a great turkey dinner, and her kids are around your age, so you wouldn't have to spent the whole day being bored out of your mind."
"Char..Dad. I wouldn't be bored spending time with you." I playfully pinched his shoulder.
"Well, I know it's just... you get to meet all these interesting people from all over the world and go on these grand adventures into unknown lands and I just don't want you to be so bored in tiny old Forks that you never want to come back to see me again."
"Dad. It's not even like that. I love Forks. I'm actually really excited to explore a little closer to home, maybe go on a summit trip to Mount Raineer or something." I tried to appease him.
"You got to be careful out there on those mountains though Bella..." he paused momentarily.
"...well, I guess you already know all about being safe in those situations though don't you?" he grunted out.
"Yeah, I mean once you bushwack your way through one jungle... you've pretty much done it all." I joked.
"I didn't mean to..." Charlie began to backtrack.
"No. Dad. It's fine. I understand your concern. It's your job. And...I promise to be careful." I tried to give him a reassuring smile.
"Alright then." he nodded.
"So. They got any grizzly's down there in Guatemala?" he gave me a boyish grin.
"Not exactly... they have tarantula's the size of grizzly's though." I shuttered in mock disgust.
"Yeah. I, uh.. I saw that video." he awkwardly trailed off.
I could feel the mortification running through my veins.
"So.. catch any fish lately?" I quickly tried to change the subject from the video in question. I had forgotten about the circumstances in which that particular tarantula was found.
The rest of the drive to Forks was very quiet.
I spent my first week in Forks turning my old room into a makeshift office. I had some serious editing and posting I needed to do if I was going to continue making enough money to afford my travels.
I spent some time catching up with anyone I could in between creating new content and keeping my viewers in the loop. I was only in Forks for a little over a week when I started getting the itch to explore again. It wasn't until I made a trip out to First Beach that I truely understood the gem that I had left behind. It was a shame that I had all of this unexplored beauty at my fingertips and I had taken it for granted.
I resolved to remidy that immediately.
The best thing about being a traveling nomad was how quickly your plans could change. You were free to do whatever your heart desired. After catching up with Jake for a while, he offered his knowledge as a part time tour guide, and asked if I was interested in hiking up to Rainier Summit in the Spring. I readily agreed.
I had been editing a particularly funny clip of me and Shandee, a fellow traveler from the UK. We had been trying to find an appropriate place to relieve ourselves on the side of the road. I managed just fine, but Shandee had the unfortunate luck of dropping trow just as a gang of locals came up from the beach. The looks on their faces were enough to set me off into a fit of racious laughter.
"Bells?" Charlie knocked on my door, fearing for my sanity, I am sure.
"Come in!" I called, wiping the tears from my eyes.
"Everything okay in here?" Charlie looked around suspiciously, giving my half empty wine bottle a quick glance.
"Yeah Dad, I was just editing this clip..." I trailed off.
"Did you need something?" I asked a very worried looking Charlie.
"Your not smoking pot are you Bella?" he took a step farther into the room, his hands resting on his hip's, the quintessential cop move.
The unexpected question, along with his serious posture and tone, set me into another fit of completely uncontrollable giggles . Surely, this was not helping Charlie's suspicions.
"Oh. God...Dad...no." I wheezed out.
"Well, I know it's legal in some places down there and all...and I know your an adult...old enough to make your own choices.." he scratched the back of his neck, a sign of his discomfort with the topic at hand.
"Dad! Pot is legal here now too." I stated factually.
His frown deepened.
"Not that I'm smoking pot.. cause I'm not." I quickly began backtracking.
This was not going well at all. I may as well be stoned for all the tact I managed to put into this conversation.
Maybe I had too much wine in my system. Maybe it was the air in Washington not agreeing with me. I usually had a much higher tolerance for alocohol than just Two small glasses.
"Alright then." he nodded gruffly.
"Well, you got a visitor downstairs. Some hippy looking guy who says his name is Maverick." he rocked back on his feet, looking rather uncomfortable.
"Oh yeah! I uh... I gave him my address and told him to look me up if we were ever in the same place." It was my turn to feel awkward now.
"Alright then. Uh...well he's waiting downstairs for you." Charlie didn't budge from his spot in my doorway.
"Right. Okay." I nodded.
"Bella, I know your an adult..." he began again.
"Look Dad, we don't need to have this conversation. I wasn't planning on bringing him up here alright." I tried to cut this conversation off before it reached a point of no return.
I really need to get a place of my own.
"Right. Okay then. I'll uh... keep him company."
"Kay. I'll be right down."
Charlie turned to leave, but not before muttering something about parents giving their children names like Maverick.
I smiled to myself as I hastily threw a sweatshirt over my head and pulled my hair up in a messy bun. The thing I loved the most about my travel friends was their compete lack of vanity. It's hard to look runway ready when you haven't had a decent shower in months.
I glanced around as I made my way into the living room. Maverick was standing next to the fireplace mantle, nosily looking at my embarrassing childhood photos. Charlie was nowhere in site.
So much for making my guest feel comfortable.
"What brings you around to my neck of the woods...literally?" I bumped his shoulder.
"Shit!" Maverick jumped in surprise.
"I thought you were your father. That dude scares the shit out of me." he chuckled lightly while placing a framed photo of a Nine year old Bella back on the mantle.
Maverick wasn't his real name of course, his real name was Benjamin, but we nicknamed him Maverick for obvious reasons.
He was from Ireland originally and had a slight accent that still evaded to his heritage, even though it had been diluted over the last several years. He had grown up in a strict Catholic family and left home at Seventeen to travel the world. At just Twety-Five he had already stepped foot on every continent. He was one of the first friends I ever made outside of America, and the sole reason I knew how to speak pretty decent Gaelige.
He was also the first man I was ever romantic with after Edward.
"It's good to see you Mav!" I threw my arms around him.
"You too Bella! I was in the neighborhood... so to speak and I saw your last Vlog post. I figured what the hell right?" he shrugged.
Maverick was classically handsome. He stood a little over Six foot tall and had a slim, yet athletic build. His facial features were what originally caught my attention. Strong, chiseled and distinctly man. His eye's were a unique shade of green-blue that perfectly matched the Caribbean at high noon. He usually wore his strawberry blonde hair cropped shorter, but I could see a few stray locks poking out from under the slouchy beanie he wore on his head.
"Like what you see?" he gave me a cocky grin.
"Shut up!" I reached up to tug on his goatee.
"I was just admiring the new look. I never pictured you with facial hair before. You pull it off well." I motioned for him to take a seat on the sofa next to me.
"Yeah. I figured I would go all out mountain man. Tis' the region." he slung his arm across the back of the couch, resting just behind my head.
"Oh I see. So you come to Washington and become a lumberjack?" I tease.
"You came to Washington and became a...civilian." he wrinkled his nose, as if civilian were a dirty word.
"I guess I kind of did huh?" I pulled on my hoodie string.
"If this is you all dolled up for modern living, I'll take it." he laughed.
"Hey now! I'll have you know I clean up quite well. I just didn't know I would have anyone to impress." I nodded pointedly in his direction.
"Who? Me? Bella, I've been impressed from day One." he smirked.
"Your such a terrible flirt."
"Are you...blushing?" he leaned in closer, as if he couldn't believe it.
I licked my lips expectantly.
A throat cleared from behind the sofa.
"So uh...Maverick...what brings you to to these parts of the world?" Charlie sat down in his lazy boy, making himself comfortable.
I shot Maverick an apologetic look that probably came out as more of a grimace.
"Well, I figured it was about time I explore the Pacific Northwest, Bella here made it sound intriguing enough and I have a few friends that are making their way North from Oregon." he shrugged.
"So you...travel for a living then? Like Bella?" Charlie questioned.
"Yeah. I'm originally from Ireland actually. Caught the travel bug from an early age and ventured off when I turned Seventeen. Been traveling ever since."
"Ah. And how old are you exactly?" Charlie grunted.
"I'm Twenty-Five." he began to fidget with the strap on his boot.
"So you going on this trip that Bella and Jake are taking out to the summit this spring?" Charlie popped open his beer can.
I didn't fail to miss the not so subtle reference to Jake. I rolled my eye's in exasperation. Charlie had been hoping for more than a friendship between me and Jake for years now.
"Actually yeah, I was gonna bring something like that up." Maverick turned towards me.
"Your interested in going?" I questioned.
"Yeah. I mean, how often do you get that kind of an opportunity? Besides, I have a lot of exploring to do in the area in the meantime."
"Where at?" I tucked my leg's underneath me, getting more comfortable.
"Well.. mostly Oregon for now. We're traveling with a larger group. Shanah and Rian are with us too actually, they say 'Hi'." he glanced towards Charlie.
"Really? That's great! Maybe I'll make a trip down to visit this weekend." Charlie reached forward to the coffee table and picked up the remote.
"Yeah we would all love that. It's been a while since we've all been in the same place at the same time." he reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
Charlie cleared his throat.
"Dad, I don't know if you remember... but Maverick was actually apart of the original group I traveled down to Mexico with." I tried to incorporate Charlie back into the conversation.
"I remember." he grumbled.
Maverick pressed his lips together to stop from laughing.
I gave him a questioning look, not understanding what could possibly be so funny.
"What's so funny?" I whispered.
He shook his head from side to side, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter.
"I never would have guessed there were so many kids out there just traveling around." Charlie graced us with his charming conversation skills again.
"None of you have cell phones to keep in contact?" flipped the channel to a football game.
"Oh yeah, I've made a lot of friends throughout the years. Most of us don't have cell phones actually, its pointness to pay for a service you rarely get to use. " Maverick straightened his posture, removing his arm from the back of the couch.
"Hmm." Charlie murmured.
"Well yeah, plus that's one more electronic device you have to worry about keeping charged and out of the water." I added my two cents.
"I suppose." was Charlie's wordy reply.
"Well, I think I should head out for today. I have to make camp before it gets too late." Maverick hastily sat up.
"Where you camping at? I'll give you a ride." I volunteered.
His eye's widened, before glancing cautiously towards Charlie.
"Um. Well you are the resident expert...maybe you can show me a good spot?" he seemed anxious to leave.
"Let me grab my backpack." I handed him the keys to my ancient truck that Charlie kept in working condition.
"I'll warm it up." he turned towards the door.
"It was uh...nice meeting you sir." he raised his hand in an awkward guesture.
"Likewise." Charlie turned the volume up higher.
I grabbed a winter coat as well as some extra socks and toiletries and threw them in my backpack before hastily making my way back down the stairs.
"I'll probably be back in the morning. I'm going to help Mav set up camp and it may be too late to come back tonight." I explained to Charlie as I was throwing my coat on.
"Sure Bell's. Be safe out there." he didn't even bother to turn towards me.
I really needed to get a place of my own.
I woke up the next morning in Mav's tiny tent and pulled out my GoPro.
Vlog #487
"Hey viewers, I just wanted to take a moment to update you guys on whats going on in my adventures. I made it back to the States without any issues and I am currently back home in the heavenly State of Washington. It's actually kind of strange to be back here and realize just how much unexplored territory I had left behind when I first started of towards South America. Viewers, I couldn't pass this opportunity up. Washington has some amazing Native American cultures as well as Volcanos, and a much colder, yet equality beautiful coastline with some amazing beaches. Which is why... I have decided to take a couple of shorter adventures here in Washington with some local friends...
I adjusted my camera to fit me and Mav into the frame. It wasn't that difficult, as we were both bundled up in the same sleeping bag.
...as well as some familiar faces I'm sure you will be happy to see again.
Mav playfully nuzzled his beard into my neck, causing me to giggle.
...We are going to hit up some of the gorgeous scenery that Washington has to offer and do a little backpacking. So, for now, the plan is stay until early Summer and then head out to see the rest of the world. Stay tuned though, if you are interested in seeing some of what Washington State has to offer.
I didn't even bother to edit the short clip when I arrived home, I simply hit upload and went on with my day.
