Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.
Rated M for several reasons.
Chapter Three Thunder in the Aisles
RPOV
Doctor Whitlock, who is every bit the fine piece of ass gossip has reported him to be, eventually gives me a clean bill of health and releases me into Dad's custody.
The drive home is silent but I know better than to head straight up to my room, there's no such thing as getting off easy in my experience.
"I don't understand you." He sighs, locking up his gun belt and collapsing into this chair. "You couldn't have just slapped his face like a normal girl?"
Oh Dad, I have no idea where to start with that one.
"I know he was putting the moves on you, the class was full of talkative witnesses and I've already had a word with him about it. But Rose? You broke his nose, don't you think that's a little extreme?"
Of course I do, that makes three of us now. I keep quiet though, since I don't know how much else they told him . . . .
"Lauren Mallory said you had a complete meltdown, that you were screaming and lashing out until Emmett Whitlock got hold of you and you fainted."
"I don't remember."
Yeah, all that brain power and that's the best I can come up with.
He levels a look at me and I look back.
We are related, he should know better than to try that on me and expect any kind of result.
He sighs, stretching his legs out.
"I don't know what's going on with you." He admits. "I love ya Rose, I want you to be happy but I'm just a man. I don't know why you're not or what I can do about it. I need you to talk to me . . . ."
"Dad." I sigh, patting his shoulder awkwardly. "I'm fine, just going through a phase like Mom said. You don't need to worry about me. It's better for me here, I've only gotten in trouble at school and my grades are up anyway, that's an improvement, right?"
"Rose, I'm not completely st . . . ."
"I'm sorry Dad. He's a creep and I overreacted, maybe I need an anger management class or something?"
I left the poor man looking online to see if such a thing exists for teenagers in Washington State and dumped myself in the tub. There's something about a locked bathroom door that makes it seem like the whole world's been made to take a step back.
...
I decided to walk to school, maybe because it wasn't until I was across the street from it that I was sure whether or not I was actually going to go.
The problem, however, with being a Hale is that we don't back down from shit.
Nevertheless I'm as pleased as fuck that I don't have superhuman hearing because it's hard enough not overhear them all whispering about me as it is.
When I was little and I scowled Mom used to warn me I'd get stuck like it if the wind changed. Well the wind's changed Mom . . . .
I steeled myself for a lonely lunch but Angela wasn't having any of it, she just butted up to the table with me and proceeded to tell me all the details of her tame but cute night at the dance with Ben. And by the time she'd done we'd been joined by the Whitlocks.
They didn't say much to us, which was probably just as well because we were in as much shock as the rest of the student body but they'd certainly sent a message. They have their own table, at the back, in the corner, they always sit there . . . .
Some school days just call for a rousing chorus of hairbrush 'I Will Survive', sue me.
...
Mike came back the next day, with two mahoosive black eyes and Jessica fawning all over him like a wet blanket.
He didn't speak to me, for which I was grateful.
And she kept glaring at me, which I couldn't give a fuck about.
...
By the end of the week the world had very quietly shifted on its axis.
Angela, Ben and I were a regular trio at lunch, somehow always surrounded by the largely silent and more than a little strange Whitlocks.
They are really starting to fascinate me . . . .
Bella is by far the easiest to interact with, she has a snarky sense of humour I can get behind and a very mature way of looking at the world that makes me want to hang on her every word. If I'm honest her other half gives me the heebie jeebies, he's far more serious and intent than a teenage boy should be and his obvious dislike of me is more than a little off putting, but she seems to love him.
Esme and Carlisle, seriously where did they get those names, are the quietest of the bunch but possibly the happiest and most relaxed. They go to class, they get straight 'A's and all of that without apparently even noticing that the rest of us are even here. When one of them speaks even the Whitlocks seem surprised.
But of course this is my life and it's clearly fucked because it's Em that fascinates me most of all.
He's clearly no idiot but seems to be a natural clown, always saying and doing something to make the other's laugh. He and Bella seem real close and I wonder if they're related, Edward and Esme are apparently twins despite the polar opposite personalities, although quiet she kind of exudes warmth while her brother is frosty enough to freeze hot air.
...
By the weekend I have committed no further acts of gratuitous violence and Dad rewards me with that banana split at The Lodge.
Om, nom, nom.
Who doesn't like ice cream?
...
Angela invites me to go with her and Ben to the next party at La Push but I decline, I'm not really in a party mood.
Instead I opt to do the grocery shopping.
I can't keep eating what Dad eats and by the looks of him he shouldn't either.
Although he's working he drops me off at the store promising to pick me up if I text him when I'm done, there's not exactly a great deal of crime for him to thwart in Forks, he's probably bored out of his skull.
Speaking of which, I can eke this out . . . .
I plug my ear buds in and slouch down over the cart, lost in my own little world as I saunter up and down the aisles reading all the labels and perusing all the recipe cards.
I'm scowling at the pasta selection here, paltry, when the cart comes to sudden stop and I nearly bash my teeth out on it.
"Sorry." I mutter automatically, yanking out my ear buds and look up into a set of eyes that send a chill down my spine.
Is he wearing red contacts, what the fuck?
"No blood no foul." He says, staring at me, unblinking.
The skin on the back of my neck prickles and every cell in my body goes inexplicably cold. And I thought Mike Newton was creepy, I'm outta here . . . .
I mutter another sorry and steer my cart round him rapidly.
"No hurry sweetheart." He chuckles, his hand snagging in the back of my hoodie.
Oh no, no, no, no . . . .
"Rose!"
"Bella?" I gasp, my eyes darting to her sparkling gold ones.
She's appeared at the end of the aisle, with Edward standing behind her, his familiar ferocious frown aimed at the guy holding my hoodie rather than me, for once.
The piped muzak is incredibly loud in the ensuing silence.
"I'd let go of that, if I were you." A familiar voice growls behind me.
I'd love to turn around and make sure its him but my muscles have locked down and I'm frozen.
My hoodie pulls tight for a moment and then it's released and the cart and I career down the aisle, crashing into Bella who flicks me behind her with consummate ease.
Edward steps forward and looking past him I can see the red eyed guy trapped between he and Em in the aisle.
"Rose?" Bella whispers.
"Um?"
"Whatever happens stay right by me, okay?"
No problem.
The three guys just seem to be staring at each other in eerie silence as she backs us round the corner into the next aisle and toward the cash registers at the front of the store.
Behind us the doors swish open and I glance over to see Esme and Carlisle enter, both of them looking tense.
"The cavalry." Bella murmurs, guiding me over to them and before I know it they've ushered me outside and into a black SUV.
I don't know what the hell's going on but I'm scared to the marrow of my bones and not really surprised when an epic thunderstorm breaks out as we hurtle down the road, seems appropriate somehow. I have many, many, questions but terror has robbed me of the power of speech, who knew? It doesn't stop me trying though, my mouth must have opened and closed a dozen times before Carlisle pulls the SUV into my driveway. And I feel like a Hollywood starlet as Bella hurries me across the grass and into the house, practically covering my head with her long coat.
"You alright?" She asks as she regards me across my own kitchen.
No. I'm freaked the fuck out, what was that?
What was that?
"I think I need some coffee." I mumble, stirring into life.
"I'd help you out with that but I'm completely useless in the kitchen."
I wave my hand slightly to let her know it doesn't matter.
"We were picking up some stuff for Alice when Em saw you." She says as I lumber about like a zombie. "I think my brother's a little taken with you to be honest, he certainly didn't seem too happy when that guy made a grab for you, he didn't think you would be either. I hope you don't mind us interfering like that?"
I shake my head. I mean I'm perfectly sane and reasonably au fait with self defence, my Dad is the Chief of Police after all. I was in a fairly crowded store, there wasn't an awful lot that could have happened to me, right? Why then am I still shaking with fear, my heart pounding in my chest? Apart from dubious taste in contact lenses and some pretty major boundary issues the guy wasn't that much of a danger to me was he?
"Coffee?" I offer.
"No thanks." She demurs.
"Do, um, Esme or Carlisle want any?" I ask, peering out the window, the SUV is still there but it looks empty. Fuck knows where they could have gone though, Dad and I are on the ass end of nowhere out here.
"Nah, they're fine too, Alice doesn't let us drink coffee, she can be a bit old fashioned. They were waiting for us in the car, at the store, I texted them to come in, just in case things got ugly."
I sip my coffee, not caring that it's burning the skin off the roof of my mouth.
"Em and Edward should be here in a minute." Bella says, checking her watch.
Not if they're walking.
Thank god that storm is over, I might finally be starting to calm down. I don't want to be one of those women, the ones that go to pieces faster than shrapnel whenever the slightest little thing goes wrong. I don't want to let this beat me, how the fuck am I gonna explain to Dad why I need to see a counsellor?
If Bella's finding the silence awkward she doesn't show it, she just watches me quietly like she can actually see my heart rate slowing.
"Here they are." She announces as heavy boots shake the boards on the porch.
I stir myself to let them in but she beats me to it.
Edward immediately sweeps her into a hug, so desperate to get his arms round her in fact that he completely forgets to give me the stink eye first.
Em just looks at me.
"Are you alright?" He asks finally, after he's inspected me carefully from crown to toe. "We brought your groceries."
I never ever want to appear weak or afraid but I also don't want to appear ungracious, he, they, did after all save me from what might have been another embarrassing meltdown, not to mention also inexplicably saving me from being a total pariah at school. Not that I needed saving from either mind you, but still, it isn't often anyone does anything for me.
"Thanks." I murmur, taking the bags from him. "And thank you."
"No problem." He says with that cocky grin. "He didn't look like the asking permission type, I was just trying to save him the two black eyes."
Instead of being offended or defensive I bark out an unexpected, and possibly not very attractive laugh.