My Pale Skin
Chapter Four: She Loves 'Em
"You're getting married?" I exclaimed, taking my mother's hand in my own to closer inspect the ring. It was a sterling silver princess cut — simple and elegant, but not too ostentatious in my opinion.
The engagement ring was stunningly beautiful, but I'd never been one to be distracted by material things.
Clearly their relationship was more serious than I thought it was; never would I have imagined that my mom would get married again. She'd always been the one to tell me that marriage only caused pain and complications. I wasn't sure how I felt about this.
I mean sure, I liked Phil, but I hardly knew him! Now he was going to be my stepfather? That was a big step for us. Someday, sure, but I wasn't sure if I was ready for it yet. Honestly though, all I wanted was for my mom to be happy, and if that meant getting to know Phil, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
"That's… great. Congratulations mom," I said, making up my mind to be happy for her. Yes, Phil was young, but my mom has always been young for her age, unlike me.
Suddenly, with a low grumble of my stomach, I remembered that in all of the drama going on, I'd forgotten to start on our dinner. I was pretty hungry, considering that I hadn't eaten for a significant amount of time. I turned to my mom's fiancé and said:
"Are you staying for dinner, Phil? I'll go run and put some tea on the kettle. I haven't started on dinner yet — too much homework, but I can make enough dinner for three with mom's help." Renée didn't like the taste of coffee, so I'd grown accustomed to making tea for her. It helped her calm herself down after doing something exciting, she said. I think they just offered it at that beauty salon she went to one time and she thought it looked sophisticated.
"Actually, Bella, we already ate," Renée replied sheepishly, glancing down at the ring on her third finger again, probably thinking about when he'd proposed — at a restaurant, most likely, if they'd already eaten. "I'll tell you all about it later. Actually, I'll tell you now. Phil was just leaving."
"Are you sure? You can still stay for tea…" I offered, making an effort to get to know him and for us to spend some more time together. Phil opened his mouth to reply, but Renée cut him off, clearly wanting him to leave so she could tell me about the day's events.
"No thanks, Bella. Phil doesn't like tea, do you Phillip?" She gave him a pointed look, and he held his hands up in surrender.
"Alright, alright, I can take a hint. I'll see myself out. Later Bella. Bye, Renée." He gave my mom a short-but-sweet peck on the lips and pulled me into a tight hug with his strong arms — baseball makes a man strong, I guess — before seeing himself out, like he said he would, with a short wave over his shoulder.
I looked at my mother and raised my eyebrows at her expectantly, but she was staring out the window intently at Phil's retreating figure, acting like a lovesick puppy — she really did have it bad. Hopefully second time's the charm for her.
When she finally pulled her nose away from the window, leaving a foggy outline where it used to be, she took one look at my expression and said, "What?" I pulled my eyebrows higher together, and we both burst out laughing.
My mother brings joy into my guilt-stricken life.
Thinking back to that day when she found me passed out on the floor… I think she blamed herself for that. You know, for keeping alcohol in my reach. But the thing is, I wasn't a baby anymore, even back then. Yes, I was fourteen, young, and dumb, but she never expected me to do something like that. It definitely wasn't her fault — just something I added to my open tab of guilt. Guilt will definitely be the thing to kill me someday.
"So…" I began, "Phil, huh?" A huge grin spread its way across her face as she launched into the details of his proposal. I placed a hand in the small of her back and lead her from the hallway to the couch in the living room as she yammered on about her afternoon, listening in from the kitchen where I was making some herbal tea to calm her incessant chattering. Bobbing the tea bag up and down in our favourite set of teacups that were chipped at the sides from too much love, I hummed in agreement with her as she spoke, fixing my hair back into a messy brown bun when it fell out of the elastic.
From what I gathered of her talking, they'd gone to dinner, like I had guessed. Then she started talking about wedding plans — she wanted to have the wedding in Mexico in a few months time. It was quite a farfetched idea, and a very short time to plan a wedding in, but Renée kept insisting that she could do it, and that she'd practically been planning the wedding since she met Phil. It was the perfect date for the wedding, too — I'd be back from Italy by then, assuming that I got into the program.
I tried my hardest to listen to her intently, but my head was still pounding for some reason, and I was starting to get the slightest bit dizzy.
"Here mom," I said slowly handing her the piping hot tea, and she stopped for a moment to thank me and take a soothing sip of tea before she continued, slower this time for my benefit. I let the steam relax my face and appreciated the herbal scent, taking a long sip to ease my sore throat. My head quieted its pounding in my ears a bit, and I sighed in relief. Sadly, it only lasted for a while, and soon my vision was blurring again. What was going on with me?
Renée was talking about something uninteresting — dresses, I think — when she must have finally noticed that I wasn't paying attention. She waved her hands in front of my face and shot me a worried glance.
"Honey? You seem a little… out of it today. Is everything alright?"
"Y-yeah mom, everything's fine. I just… can't seem to concentrate lately," I said slowly, trying to ignore the buzzing in my ears and the obnoxious throbbing in my head. It felt like someone was hitting my brain with a hammer, and I resisted the urge to rub my temples so as not to worry my mom. "Just tired, I think. Mind if I turn in for the night?"
Her brow furrowed in worry. "Sure hon, just tell me if you don't feel well."
I nodded, heading for the stairs. My eyes started to droop, and I suddenly started feeling really tired. Yawning, I rubbed my eyes, struggling to keep them open, and felt my legs go a bit wobbly.
My fingers started to tingle, and I couldn't hear over the unbearable ringing in my ears. "Mom?" I yelled, my voice sounding strangely faraway. "I don't… feel too good."
"Bella? Bella, are you alright?"
"Fine," I gasped, panting over my knees and squinting to see. My forehead burned, and I broke out into a cold sweat. "It's… hot." Scared, frustrated, and panicked, I felt my heart race and my body go weak. This was escalating quickly, whatever it was. I felt my head hit the wall and a warm liquid drip onto my neck before hitting the floor and going completely numb.
Black spots covered my vision, and the last thing I heard before drifting away was my mother's familiar voice calling my name again worriedly. A sharp pain in my side pulled me into unconsciousness, and I was taken over by darkness.
- three years ago -
The tall grass, wet from morning dew, brushed against the pale skin below my knee, gently grazing the hem of my white funeral dress. The warm December sun was half-way its climb up the horizon, showering early morning, lazy Arizona with beams of orange sunlight, shattering its dreams of a white christmas this year, once again. I slid past Green Acres' gate, the cold metal heavenly upon my burning skin.
I slipped off my devilish two-inch heels, placing them against the fence and rubbing my sore feet, pausing to wince at an especially tender blister. The wet lawn was almost therapeutic against it.
Continuing up the hill, the grass was cut shorter and shorter, until I could barely feel it under my feet. Inscribed headstones jutted out of the dirt, marking the presence of spirits. They all laid under my feet, but I was not above them. No, my spirit was being dragged at my heels. It was as dead as the lifeless bodies in this cemetery.
I carried along the uneven ground, surrounded by the smell of death and flowers. I looked down at the lone flower that I carried in my right hand: a white rose, symbolizing innocence and purity. Tess was only 14, after all. Such a young age to pass away — she hadn't had long enough to make her own mistakes and learn from them. The biggest mistake she'd made was one she couldn't learn from, couldn't come back from… ah, there it was.
.
Toujours dans nos pensées, pour toujours dans nos coeurs
Theresa Montclair
1987 - 2001
.
I traced the letters of her name with my finger, softly humming our song. The base of her headstone was covered with white roses, much like the one in my possession; they were her favourite flower, after all.
Beginning a pure white and fading into a soft yellow at the heart, the petals were fragile and velvety. The leaves were a shade lighter than the stem, which was littered with thorns.
I crouched down in front of the stone and moved to place the rose on it.
"Ouch," I hissed, dropping it neatly onto the dirt. A sharp stinging was coming from my finger — it felt like a bee sting, or a paper cut, or even like getting a flu shot; in reality, it was from an especially sharp thorn, and my carelessness to top. I brought my finger closer to my face to inspect it and steadied it with my left hand.
Blood was pooling at the cut, the dark red a striking contrast to the white of my skin. It was… strangely beautiful, in a way. I gently squeezed my finger, and the blood trickled down my hand, onto the earth.
No, that wasn't where it had landed. A single petal, once the colour of milk or fresh snow, was now stained with red: darker in the middle and fading into white, like the effect of rubbing alcohol on sharpie marker.
I stood and picked the rose up between two fingers, wary of its thorns, and brought it to my nose.
And immediately dropped it.
The floral scent was mixed together with what I identified as rust… and salt. Ever since that day I had always hated the smell of blood. I looked back up at my finger and felt myself get a little lightheaded, when I heard a tree branch snap behind me, followed by even footsteps. I whipped around, face to shoulder with a little boy, his eyes filled to the brim with acrid sadness.
He walked up to me silently, reaching into his backpack, and then grabbed my bloody handy. He carefully wiped away the blood, sanitized the cut, and wrapped it in a Pokémon band-aid. I gave him a watery smile in return.
"Thanks Jake." He grinned sadly.
"Like you always taught me Bells," he replied. I chuckled humourlessly — he was right. I'd lost count of how many times I'd done this for him, since he had no one else to do it for him.
I slipped my hand into Jacob's little one. With his free hand, he reached into his backpack again and pulled out 11 white roses, laying them down beside mine on her grave.
"Hope you like 'em, Resa." He smiled at the ground, tears silently pouring down his face. "Hope you love 'em." I squeezed his hand.
"I'm sure she loves 'em, Jakey, I'm sure she loves 'em."
I felt the weight of light press against my closed eyelids and groaned, squeezing them tighter in a vain attempt to rid myself of the steady-forming pressure at the back of my head. I could hear people arguing what couldn't be more than five feet away and the familiar sound of beeping from a heart monitor. Definitely familiar.
Instead of trying to sit up or open my eyes, I did what I saw in every movie I'd ever seen with a hospital scene; I shut my eyes tighter and pretended to be asleep, hoping they wouldn't notice, and listened in to their conversation.
The buzzing in my ears was clearing up, and I could hear them speak more clearly now.
"Malnourished? Are you sure?" the frantic voice of my mother filled my ears. "She's been normal all week, though!"
"The numbers don't lie, Miss. Are you sure she hasn't been acting strange?" Who I presumed to be the doctor paused for a moment and then spoke, this time lowering his voice so I couldn't make out every word. "Sure…she…sad? Maybe…incident…medical history…?"
"Not again," my mother whispered. "Please, not again."
My heart rate increased, and so did the speed of the heart monitor.
"She's awake…"
I felt my mother's presence by my side not long after, and she grasped onto my hands tightly. I opened my eyes and groaned again as the light hit me straight in the eyes. Who decided to put lights on ceilings again?
"Hey mom," I croaked, my voice hoarse. I coughed. "Water, please." She handed me a bottle and helped me sit up. "Thanks."
As I tried to unscrew the cap, I felt something pulling at my arm and looked down to find an IV. I looked at my mother questioningly, although I had a good guess.
"You're malnourished. Not to mention thin to the bone, and then some. What happened, Bella?"
I opened my mouth to speak, and then I closed it again. How was I expected to respond to that? Would an 'I don't know' suffice?
"I don't know, mom." She gave me a look — apparently it wouldn't. I sighed heavily, trying to form a sentence in my head. "I guess-"
"Signs point to anorexia or depression, Miss." The doctor stated, flipping through papers on a clipboard. What was next, a pencil behind his ears? "It could be extremely serious, mentally or physically, or maybe even both."
"No offence, Doc, but last time I checked, you weren't a psychiatrist." He gave me a dirty look.
"Correct, that is not my medical field, but I can assure you that I am rightly qualified to make that claim, Ms. Swan. Also, my name is Dr. Reeds, not Doc." I huffed and leaned back against my headboard.
"Well, Doc, I can assure you that I am neither anorexic nor depressed, and so your services are no longer required. Thank you," I replied, slightly annoyed now.
"Bella!" reprimanded my mother. "I'm sorry doc- I mean, Dr. Reeds, about my daughter. She's not usually like this."
"Well…" he muttered, taking a pencil out from behind his ears and scribbling something on his clipboard. There we go. "All the more worrying, I'm afraid."
After a ton of convincing and strict directions on how to get the nutrients that I needed, I was discharged from the hospital and we headed home.
"Bella, you know we need to talk about this," Renee said to me as she pulled out her keyring and unlocked the front door.
"I know — tomorrow, I promise. I'm going to hit the hay for tonight, okay?" She hesitantly nodded, and I kissed her cheek. "Goodnight, mom."
"Wait, Bella! Sleep with me in my room tonight, just in case?" I nodded at her and went up the stairs to the bathroom.
After brushing my teeth, I made my way across the hall to my room to get a change of clothes; I'd been wearing the hospital gown when I'd woken up, and the only other clothes I had with me were the ones from this morning.
When I left the bathroom, I could hear shuffling inside my room. Who was in there? I was pretty sure Renee was the only other person in the house…
I grabbed a hardcover from the coffee table nearby and tiptoed down the corridor, just to be safe, but when I saw inside, I dropped the book and it fell to the ground with a thud.
Inside my room was my mother holding, one in each hand, mine and Tessa's matching diaries.