Thank you to my good friend radiofreeamy for pimping this fic, and to my buddy vamplicious for providing some clever plot ideas. I hope that newcomers are enjoying the story so far.

In this chapter we will find out a little more about psychologist Nina Carlton's past. She just might be related to some characters we know!

4. Reckless and Stupid

The ride home with Mike had not been too bad. When Mrs. Newton had released her early due to lagging business, Bella had not wanted to bother Charlie again so soon after he had dropped her off, so Mike had reluctantly agreed to drive her home. Mike had seemed shocked that she actually answered a few of his questions, leading to a semi-normal conversation between them. At least he hadn't suggested they go out on a date or anything. She wasn't sure if she could have handled that kind of attention at this point, just as she was starting to wake up from months and months of apathetic numbness. The pounding ache of loss was the only thing she could focus on now.

Once she arrived home, the general sense of malaise and exhaustion set in once again, yet she dared not try to sleep lest she experience another hellish nightmare. She roamed from room to room, trying to find something to distract her, but failing. Nina's concluding words kept running through her mind: "What are your goals for therapy? What do you want to change or improve in your life?" The psychologist had looked at her expectantly.

Not thinking, Bella automatically replied, "My only goal is to get him back."

"Your ex-boyfriend?"

Bella reluctantly nodded.

"What's his name?"

She shuddered, shaking her head vehemently. "I, I don't want to say his name out loud."

Nina sighed. "Successful goals are controllable goals, Bella. I know you want him back, but unfortunately that is not under your control. I'd like you to think about some specific goals that are under your control, and we'll review them when we meet again on Thursday."

Flopping herself back on her bed, Bella hopelessly stared up at the ceiling. What did she want? What was under her control? Nothing. Ever since he had left, her life had spun extremely out of control. She wished she could tell him that he had been dead wrong. The danger did not lie in her getting hurt by one of his kind. No -- the true danger solidly lay in her getting hurt by him. When he had tried to erase himself from her life, instead of providing her protection, he had only presented her with pain.

Her eyes drifted over to the scrapbook her mother had given her for her birthday, lying on her floor. The same scrapbook from which he had secretly wrenched out every beautiful picture of himself and his family . . .

It will be as if I'd never existed.

Unable to lie motionless on her back one second longer, she popped off her mattress and meandered into the kitchen. Maybe she should eat something. When she opened the refrigerator, however, everything looked repulsive. Shutting the door firmly, she thought that perhaps she should call a friend – Charlie would approve of that. Taking her phone out of her pocket, she stared stupidly at her contact list for a second. Who in the heck would she call? Not Jessica, who probably thought she had lost her marbles, and definitely not Angela. Bella was far too angry to call that traitor. And, she realized dejectedly, she certainly could not call Alice.

Idly walking through the house, her mind kept wandering. What was her therapy goal? To try to start living again? To move on? Was that even possible without him in her life? As if her body was answering her question, the hole in her chest began boring into her, stealing her breath with its penetrating intensity. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around her torso, grateful that the prying eyes of the psychologist were nowhere near. Unfortunately, no matter how tightly she held herself, the pain would not remit.

Grabbing the keys to the truck, she dashed outside into the pelting rain. Seeing the familiar rusted red color of the 1953 Chevy calmed her somewhat, and climbing into the sturdy interior, dry yet musty, let her finally exhale. However, the pain lived here too. The gaping black hole in the dashboard, where the stereo once had been, reminded her of her own dark cavity, and she tore her eyes away from the console to focus on firing up the antique engine.

She wasn't paying attention to where she was driving, rambling down wet side streets with the ever-present tapping of raindrops on the rusted hood lulling her into a trance. Visions of black pine boughs swam through her mind as her eyes filled with tears. Would she ever be able to achieve the same sense of numbness that had recently enveloped her for months? Or was this pressing ache in her chest all that awaited her for the rest of her days? Would the pain ever subside? Horrible thoughts flooded her mind.

I'll never be able to move on.

I'll never be able to find anyone else. Nobody else would ever matter so much to me.

It was once in a lifetime that a man so exquisite would pretend to want to be with plain old me. I knew it wouldn't last. I'm ruined forever.

With one hand she pressed down on the ripping hole in her ribcage as tears began cascading down the smooth contours of her pallid, washed out face. Realizing she should not keep driving while so incapacitated, Bella stamped on the brake and pulled over on the side street, resting her forehead on the cool steering wheel while her body racked with sobs. There was no way out. She was trapped.

It will be as if I'd never existed.

What a foolish promise! He may have pilfered his pictures, but his essence was etched into her heart. His existence in her life could never be erased. She sniffed and gasped, though the huge hole in her chest thwarted her futile attempts to breathe.

Don't do anything reckless or stupid.

An equally inane promise. Well, if he wasn't following his end of the deal, then she was determined not to keep hers, darn it!

Her petulant thoughts sparked a small sense of resolve that slowed her tears, and she unhurriedly lifted her head, finding her arms defiantly folding themselves across her chest. After years of taking care of her scatterbrained mother, acting as the parent to her parent, Bella realized that she was finally behaving like a real teenager. She had gone from wise and self-sacrificial to grouchy and bad-tempered, sporting a snappish "I'll show them" attitude. Nobody was going to tell her what to do. Even him.

Peering through the raindrops at her surroundings, she grimly acknowledged that finding a way to be reckless in safe, little Forks would be akin to feeling cold and wet in Phoenix. Figuring out that she was on Russell Avenue, she glanced around at the small homes lining the street. Almost as if it were calling to her, her eyes were drawn to a sign in the Marks' yard – a scrap of cardboard perched against the post of their mailbox, with a messy hand-printed message.

FOR SALE, AS IS

When her gaze lifted to see the decrepit motorcycles corroding on the front lawn, Bella was struck by a sense of destiny. Charlie's pet words for describing motorcycles came to mind: Reckless and stupid.

Ten minutes later she was heading to La Push, wearing a devious look, recalling what she had told the Marks boy after they had loaded the heavy bikes onto the bed of her truck. "That's okay. I know someone who builds cars."

~~ * ~~

Juggling three bags of groceries in her arms, Nina Carlton blindly stepped into the darkened kitchen, managing to set down and right the wobbling bags before they tumbled off the counter.

Noticing how uncharacteristically quiet the house was as she lifted out a carton of juice out from one bag, Nina hesitated. "Mom?"

Her long fingers clutched tighter around the carton, suspended midair. "Mom, are you okay?" Again hearing no response, she swiftly strode into the family room. Finding it empty, she turned the corner and scrambled up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

She found her mother in her bedroom, sprawled out on a chair with her long grey hair tousled over the back of the cushion. The unnatural angle of her mother's head, almost lolling back against the chair, indicated to Nina that this was no leisurely nap.

"Mom!" she cried out with alarm, racing forward and kneeling by the chair.

With effort, Wuti Uley slowly peeled open her black eyes, aiming a disappointed glance at her daughter. Weakly she asked, "Where have you been?"

Ignoring the question, Nina disdainfully replied, "I'm not even going to bother to take your sugar." She held up the needle. ""Where is your glucose source up here in the bedroom? You need to take better care of yourself!"

"What do you care, daughter? You leave me alone all day -- "

The older woman's complaints were cut short by her daughter tilting the juice carton up to her lips, forcing her to drink some of the orange liquid. Nina dabbed a drop of juice that had fallen onto her mother's gaudy floral nightgown.

Frowning, Nina watched her mother's trembling slowly subside. When Wuti seemed strong enough to listen, Nina commented, "You know I work on Saturdays."

"I thought you were done at 2:00. You should have been home hours ago."

"I needed to fit a new client into my schedule today – sort of an emergency. It was a favor for a friend." She smiled faintly, thinking about the police chief, but her smile faded as she remembered Charlie telling her about Bella waking up screaming from nightmares. The girl's intense distress concerned Nina, especially since Bella had not been very forthcoming in their first session. This teenaged client would be a challenge.

"You're still late," Wuti muttered.

"And then I went to the grocery store, where I ran into two of my clients." She grimaced. "That was really fun; it's great being a psychologist in a small town. I actually caught one of my clients checking out the items in my cart – I wonder if they were looking for booze, or cigarettes, or, or condoms . . ."

"You haven't bought condoms since 1989. They should have known better."

Nina's black eyes narrowed. Evidently her mother was feeling livelier, as evidenced by the resumption of her usual barbs.

"Did you get coffee filters?"

Nina cocked her head to one side. "No? They weren't on the list."

"I told you we needed them!"

"When? I don't remember that."

"You are forgetful these days – you seem preoccupied, Nina. Maybe you should get checked for diabetes."

Still on her knees, Nina was eye-level when she scowled at her mother. "That would be unlikely. I didn't get gestational diabetes when I was pregnant, like you did." She cringed, wishing she had not brought up her own pregnancy. She tried never to think of him.

Wuti mused, "The sacrifices we make for our children."

Or the sacrifices we make for our parents, Nina silently countered.

Wuti implored, "Well, how about licorice? Did you get any at the grocery store?"

Nina arched one eyebrow. "You know you're not supposed to eat candy."

The grey-haired woman dismissively flicked her hand a few times. "Eh, one piece won't kill me."

"Hehewuti Clearwater Whitefish!" Nina admonished, her hands perched on her hips. "You have a life-threatening illness! I seem to be more worried about your health than you are."

"Humph," Wuti countered. "You don't worry about me. Nobody cares about me. Even my own brother doesn't have the decency to look in on his older sister once in a while."

Harry Clearwater is a smart man, Nina thought uncharitably.

Wuti sat up a little more in the chair, and her lecture resumed, "All you care about is your 'clients'. You care more about your work than your family; you work too much."

Nina's throat tightened; this was familiar territory they were covering. Why did she only lose her cool when sparring with her mother? She was perfectly calm in the midst of a clinical crisis, but spending even one minute with her mother could put her over the edge.

Nina took a deep breath. "Somebody's got to pay the bills around here."

"I've heard that one before."

Tossing her glossy black hair over her shoulder, Nina fumed, "Don't compare me to my father."

"Hush, daughter," Wuti corrected. "It is wrong to speak of the deceased."

"And is it also wrong to speak of drunks? Like drunks who cause their own deaths?"

Observing her daughter's defiant glare, Wuti shook her head. "You are disrespectful to your ancestors. I taught you better than that."

"I'm forty years old, Mother. I call it like it is. And I would hope my ancestors would want me to speak the truth." Seeing that they were getting nowhere, Nina rose to her feet.

"The way you see the world isn't necessarily the truth."

"We all have our own truths," Nina shrugged, "myself included. Even people who experience, uh, hallucinations, see their own truths."

Wuti's black eyes took on a calculating flicker. "Speaking of hallucinations, I'm envisioning you bringing me up a tray full of a delicious dinner in about twenty minutes." She batted her eyelashes alluringly. "Would that be a hallucination or a reality?"

When her mother aimed an impish grin up at her, Nina felt her anger melting away. She placed the tips of her forefingers onto her temples and closed her eyes, as if foretelling the future. "And I'm envisioning you taking better care of yourself, so we won't have a repeat performance of tonight, with me finding you heading into a diabetic coma." She met her mother's engaging black eyes with a persuasive stare of her own. "Would that be truth or fiction?"

"Hmm; definitely fiction."

Nina sighed dramatically. "At least you're honest." She felt her stomach grumble. "And luckily your vision of dinner was not a hallucination . . . I won't have to lock you up in a padded cell just yet, I guess. But since I have to put away the groceries first, it will be more like thirty minutes before dinner will be ready."

"Take your time," Wuti offered magnanimously.

"And there won't be any licorice for dessert."

Witnessing her mother's pout, Nina could not help but smile while strolling down the stairs.

As she prepared a meal of chicken fajitas, she mulled over her current circumstances. Never in one-hundred moons would she have predicted that she would be back living in her parents' home, divorced and childless. A stab of pain pierced her heart when the word "childless" echoed throughout the caverns of her mind, and she tried to distract herself by cutting the red pepper into careful strips.

Soon her mind drifted to the past again, however. When the divorce had been finalized over two years ago, there had been no reason to stay in San Diego. Correction: after what had happened, it had been far too painful to remain in San Diego. I'm cutting peppers, she reminded herself in a steely tone, I'm cutting peppers.

And when her mother's diabetes had taken a turn for the worse, Nina had known that she must return to Forks to take care of the cantankerous Wuti. The Quileutes had drummed into her the importance of loyalty to family, even when the family was dysfunctional as hell. Even when the Quileute tribe wanted nothing to do with her family.

After Nina delivered the meal to her mother, Wuti glanced down scornfully at the fajita fixings.

"Where's the sour cream?"

"You're supposed to avoid too much fat in your diet, Mom."

"Tell that to my brother. He eats crap all day long."

"He doesn't have diabetes though."

"Yes, but he does have high cholesterol – he should be more careful."

Nina gestured to the tray. "I did give you some cheese."

"Wow."

She ignored her mother's snide remark and began assembling her own fajita on the plate on her lap. Meals consumed in the bedroom had become more common of late; a sign of her mother's declining health. Nina tried not to think about it.

As Wuti chewed on her food, her lined brown face contorted into a grimace. "A little piece of wisdom, daughter: perhaps you should avoid cooking for a man on the first date, if you want a second one, that is. Cooking is not your strong suit."

Nina practically snorted. Finding a date in Forks would be less likely than experiencing a cold, wet day in San Diego.

Wuti continued the prodding. "What are you doing for Thursday? I'm guessing you don't have a date."

"Thursday?" Nina repeated, puzzled.

"Valentine's Day, of course."

Nina suddenly paled. With trembling hands, she set her plate aside on the bedspread.

"What's wrong?"

"I . . ." words stuck in Nina's throat. Feeling trapped, she rushed out of the room and darted into her own bedroom, swiftly closing the door behind her.

Wuti looked bewildered. She knew that Nina did not enjoy her wheedling attempts to push her back into the dating world, but her daughter typically responded somewhat good-naturedly, knowing that she had Nina's best interests at heart. What had she said this time?

Then Wuti's fork clattered to her plate. Valentine's Day. February fourteenth. It had been her grandson's birthday.

She put her hand over her mouth. How could she have been so reckless and stupid to forget the importance of that date? "I'm sorry," Wuti whispered. "I'm so sorry, Nina."

Author's Note:

What did you think of the New Moon movie? Here's what I thought (DO NOT READ if you haven't seen New Moon yet):

Overall I give the movie an A-. I realized the secret of the movies' success: Rob Pattinson. He is a magnetic actor, and when he is on screen, I can't take my eyes off of him. This secret became much more obvious to me in the scenes without Edward. While Kristen and Taylor tried their hardest to portray the characters with passion and intensity, I wasn't buying it. I did not feel any chemistry between them in their scenes, further solidifying my place on Team Edward, and I found myself a little bored during those scenes. I did love Jacob as a wolf--they managed to make him look menacing and cute at the same time! And, in particular, I enjoyed the characterization of Jessica (though one of her lines sounded far too intelligent for her--I picture her more as an airhead), Charlie, and Aro. Dakota Fanning also did well in her small role, I thought.

As you can see, I'm going to explore some of the Quileute "soap opera" in Nina's backstory, and it was cool to learn more about the wolves in the movie.

Thank you for reading! Jen