So this chapter ended up having more changes than I thought it would have, which while it removed a great deal of teenage angst in the argument between Bella and Edythe, I felt it made more sense and future chapters may embellish that angst a bit more solidly. Thank you for waiting for me! I enjoyed writing this chapter, and I am looking forward to when I can upload chapter four pretty soon, guys.
Chapter Three
Something was different when I opened my eyes the next morning. The light pouring in through my bedroom windows was still the greenish-gray color of a cloudy day in the forest; but, it was clearer somehow. It took me a moment to realize that there was no fog veiling my window. It seemed warmer, in feeling if not in temperature, and excitement filled me.
Jumping out of bed to look out the window, my excitement waned immediately; a groan escaped me in horror.
The yard was covered in a fine layer of snow, dusting the top of my truck; whitening the road. Had that been the only touch of bad news, I might not have sighed to myself, but all the rain from yesterday had frozen solid. Coating the needles of the trees in fantastic, gorgeous, patterns, my appreciation of such beauty was dampened by the driveway having become a deadly slick of ice.
I had enough trouble walking without tripping when the ground was dry – much less when it was slippery by design. My mouth curled; it might be safer to just crawl back into bed and pretend to be sick.
The idea of being seen as a coward suddenly bothered me, and I left the window to face the day. Meticulously looking over what clothes I had for what would be the safest and warmest things I could wear against the ice. A dark green sweater and jeans would have to do.
Charlie must have left for work before I finished getting ready, as the house was eerily dark and quiet. In many ways, living with Charlie was like having my own place. He was gone before I left for school, gone when I returned, and I found myself reveling in the solitude instead of feeling lonely. My mom was like a gnat, she was always there, and while I loved my mom very much – she didn't understand the concept of personal space.
The idea of going to school excited me, even as it scared me. Barely eating a bowl of Raisin Bran and a glass of orange juice without feeling my mouth creep into a smile, I knew my excitement had nothing to do with the stimulating learning environment. Even the thought that I had school-friends didn't bring that burst of life I felt. If I was being wholly honest with myself, I knew I was eager to get to school because I might see Edythe Cullen. Which was very, very, stupid – we were barely friends! It didn't make sense that her weirdly spelled name made me happy when it crossed my mind.
Her eyes, shifting between black and antagonistic to gold and intrigued, flooded my chest with a strange burst of life. Each nuance of her expressions, the way her eyebrows furrowed when she asked me questions, was a fluttery stone in my stomach. Why was she suddenly so interested in me, when a week ago she seemed to hate me?
Cleaning up my dishes and grabbing my bag, I tried not to think about her. Her eyes kept reappearing in my head. Bronze locks of barely tamed hair overshadowing her pale skin and defined cheekbones. Really, I should be avoiding her entirely after my brainless and embarrassing babbling yesterday. I still felt suspicious of her, too. Why would she lie about her eyes? The difference was too obvious for me to ignore, did she want me to pretend I was stupid?
Fear still clutched inside me when I remembered the hostility in her eyes, the vehemence that I still felt emanating from her. But that didn't stop e from feeling my tongue swell when I thought about her perfect face.
Edythe was a perfect person to me, her family was wealthy, had the nicest cars and clothes, her father a talented surgeon who had chosen her on purpose to adopt as far as I knew. She was in a league I couldn't touch, with a loud and blaring old truck that made everyone in the parking lot dread when I pulled out.
Her face, raised in laughter at me, haunted me. It wasn't cruel, a laugh to hurt me on purpose; but, still it stung inside my chest.
Why did she even want to be my friend? Maybe it was a fluke, and she was just being kind to me because I'm her lab partner. The thought hurt me more than I was comfortable admitting to myself. There wasn't a reason to be anxious about seeing her if she was just being nice to me.
It took every ounce of concentration to make it down the icy brick driveway without slipping and knocking my head into the ice. Very nearly falling three times before I finally got to the Beast and held onto my truck's side mirror to save myself.
Great, if all the ground was a giant ice cube, today was going to be hell.
Driving to school with the radio on, to try and distract myself from my terror of falling and embarrassing myself, my mind slipped to Eric and Mike. I couldn't deny it anymore, boys treated me a lot different here than in Phoenix. Surely I was the same as I was back in Phoenix, and no one had been impressed by me there. Maybe it was just that the boys back home had watched me pass slowly through all those awkward phases of adolescence and they still saw me that way? Perhaps it was because I was a novelty here, where novelties were few and far between. Maybe my crippling clumsiness was seen as endearing rather than pathetic; casting me as a damsel in distress?
Whatever the reason, Mike's puppy dog behavior and Eric's apparent rivalry with him were disconcerting. I wasn't sure if I didn't prefer being ignored. As nice as it was to have friends, it didn't seem like Eric or Mike wanted to be 'just friends' with me. Maybe I was reading too much into them. While I drove, the Beast seemed to have no problem with the black ice covering the roads. Even so, I drove very slowly, not wanting to carve a path of destruction through main street.
When I got out of my truck at school, something silver caught my eye, and I saw why I'd had such little trouble with the ice. Carefully holding the side of the Beast for support, I walked to the back of my truck to examine my tires. There were thin chains crisscrossed in diamond shapes wrapped around them. Charlie must have gotten up God knew how early to put snow chains on my truck. My throat suddenly felt tight. I wasn't used to being so well taken care of, and Charlie's unspoken concern caught me by surprise.
Struggling to fight back the sudden wave of emotion that the snow chains had brought on, I was still standing by the back corner of the truck when I heard a really strange sound…
It was a high-pitched scream, and it was fast becoming painfully loud. I looked up, startled.
Several things simultaneously happened. Nothing was moving in slow motion, the way it does in the movies. Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work much faster, and I was able to absorb in clear detail several things at once.
Edythe Cullen had been standing four cars from me, in absolute horror. Her face stood out from the sea of faces staring at me, all frozen in the same mask of shock. Of more immediate importance, however, was the dark blue van that was skidding – tires locked and squealing against the breaks – spinning rapidly across the ice covering the parking lot. The blue van was going to hit the back corner of my truck, and I was standing directly between them.
I didn't even have time to close my eyes.
Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me – hard. Just, not from the direction I was expecting. My head cracked against the icy blacktop, and I felt something solid and cold pinning me to the ground. I was lying on the pavement behind the tan car I'd parked next to; but, I didn't have a chance to notice anything else, because the van was still coming for me. It had curled gratingly around the end of my truck, and, still spinning and sliding – was about to collapse with me again.
A low oath made me aware that someone was with me, and the voice was impossible not to recognize. Two long, white, hands shot out protectively in front of me. Two perfectly shaped hands fitting providentially into a deep dent in the side of the dark blue van's body, and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from my face.
Edythe's hands moved so fast that they blurred – one was suddenly gripping under the body of the van, and something was dragging me – swinging my legs around like a rag doll, til they hit the tire of the tan car. A groaning, metallic, thud hurt my ears and the van settled – glass popping – onto the asphalt.
Exactly where, a second ago, my legs had been. It was absolutely silent for one long second before the screaming began. In an abrupt bedlam, I could hear more than one person shouting my name. But more clearly than all the yelling, I could hear Edythe Cullen's low, frantic, voice in my ear.
"Bella? Are you alright?" She asked over and over, and I just drank in the sound of her velvet voice before I realized this wasn't a horrible dream – I had narrowly escaped death.
"I'm fine," my voice sounded so strange. Trying to sit up, I realized Edythe was holding me against the side of her body with an iron grasp.
Everything felt warm, even though she was so cold. Edythe was protecting me, she wanted me safe, she wanted to be close to me; nothing else mattered to me for that little moment.
"Please be more careful," she warned as I weakly struggled against her grasp to get more comfortable. "I think you've hit your head pretty hard."
At her words, I became aware of a throbbing ache centered above my left ear. As if her voice had turned my nerves back on, and I could feel the pain of where I had hit the ground.
"Ouch," I whispered, surprised as I tried to touch behind my ear.
"That's what I thought," she said, her voice warm and bemused, as though she was trying not to laugh at me.
"How..." I trailed off, trying to clear my head and process all I saw. "How did you get over here so fast?"
Suddenly Edythe's voice was serious. "What do you mean? I was standing right next to you, Bella."
Trying to sit up again, this time Edythe let me, and with some sadness in my chest she released her hold around my waist and slid as far from me as she could in the limited space between me and the tan car. I looked at her, concern in my naive expression, and I found myself disoriented by the force of her golden-colored eyes. What was I even asking her?
"No...I saw you...over there..." I weakly pointed, but it didn't matter then.
That was when they found us, a crowd of people with tears streaming down their faces, shouting at each other – shouting at us.
"Don't move," someone instructed, their voice sounding much older than myself.
"Get Tyler out of the van!" Someone else shouted.
There was a flurry of activity around us. I tried to get up; but, Edythe's cold, slender, hand pushed my shoulder down so I stayed on the asphalt.
"Please stay down," Edythe beckoned, and I let my body rest there.
"But, it's cold," the comment left me before I could think about it, and it surprised me when I saw Edythe chuckle under her breath. There was an edge to the sound, like electricity rushed through me when I heard it.
My mind hadn't lied to me, though, I knew Edythe had been four cars away when Tyler's van came toward me. Even though my head hurt too much to demand answers from her right now, her face looked, like she was hoping I wouldn't notice how fast she moved; how her hands had blurred to move me and stop the van.
I felt like if I asked her more, with all these people nearby, she would just deny the truth again. Or she might get mad and leave me here alone on the icy ground. Reaching out for her hand, she moved hers away, and I knew something was wrong. I wanted her to keep holding my hand too much, and maybe she saw that and felt disgusted with me. Some pathetic deer that needed to be held and coddled in stressful situations – which was never me before...I don't know why I wanted it so badly.
I could hear the sirens now.
It took six EMTs and two teachers – Mr. Varner and Coach Clapp – to shift the van far enough away from us to bring the stretchers in. Edythe vehemently refused to lay on a stretcher, and I tried to do the same, but Edythe told them I'd hit my head and probably had a concussion. I almost died of humiliation when they put me in a neck brace.
It looked like the entire school was there – watching soberly as they loaded me and Tyler into the back of an ambulance. For some reason Edythe got to ride in the front, and it was maddening. To make matters worse, the school must have called Charlie, as Chief Swan arrived before they could get me safely into the ambulance.
"Bella!" Charlie yelled in panic as soon as he recognized me on the stretcher.
For some reason, this made it so much worse, and I wished I could really have died right then than to have had to see that worry on his face. His eyes were so hurt and frazzled; it crushed me to see him so worried about me. I'd never seen him more worried in my life.
"Bella, I'm here, what happened?!"
"Dad, I'm okay," I weakly began to say, but the closest EMT recognized him as my father and they began to talk. My father demanded to know what had happened while they closed me in the ambulance, and as I couldn't defend myself right now, I just focused on the inexplicable images churning chaotically in my head.
When I had been lifted up in the stretcher, I saw the deep dent in the tan car's bumper – a very distinct dent that fit the contours of Edythe's shoulders...as if she had braced herself against the car with enough force to damage the metal frame of the tan car…
And then there was her family, looking on from the distance, with expressions that ranged from disapproval to fury. Their eyes held no hint of concern for their sister's safety, the only thing close to worry was what I saw in Alice's face as Edythe followed my stretcher toward the Ambulance. She seemed concerned, but not about her, like for some reason she was upset with her sister.
During the ride, I tried desperately to think of a logical solution that could explain what I had just seen – a solution that excluded the assumption that I had a concussion and this was all in my head. Naturally, the ambulance got a police escort to the county hospital, and I felt embarrassed and ridiculous the whole time they were unloading me. What made it worse is that Edythe simply glided through the hospital doors with her normal gracefulness without anyone making her wear a neck-brace of shame or ride in a humiliating stretcher. My teeth ground together, it must be the perks of being so strangely ethereal, which didn't seem fair in the slightest.
They brought me into one of the emergency rooms, a long room with a line of beds separated by pastel-patterned curtains. A nurse put a pressure cuff on my arm, and a thermometer under my tongue. Since no one bothered pulling the curtain around to give me some privacy, the shame of wearing the neck brace grew to be too overwhelming. As soon as the nurse walked away, I quickly unfastened the Velcro holding the brace around my neck and tossed it under the bed.
There was another flurry of hospital personnel, another stretcher brought to the bed next to me, and I recognized Tyler Crowley from my Government class beneath the bloodstained bandages wrapped tightly around his head. Tyler looked a hundred times worse than I felt; but, he was staring wide eyed and anxious at me.
"Bella, I'm so sorry!"
He was so genuine, so remorseful, and for some reason I felt guilt at his worry over me. "I'm okay, Tyler – you look awful though, are you alright?"
Waiting for an answer, nurses began unwinding his soiled bandages, exposing a myriad of shallow slices all over his forehead and left cheek.
He ignored me. "I – I thought I was g-going to kill you, Bella! I was g-going so fast, and I hit the ice wrong…" He winced as one of the nurses started dabbing at his face.
"Don't worry about it – you missed me, and I'm okay."
"H-How did you get out of the way? You were right there – the car came right for you..."
His shock at how I was okay shattered any illusions I had that I had made up what I saw. "Edythe pulled me out of the way."
He looked so confused. "Who?"
"Edythe, Edythe Cullen? She was standing right next to me," I'd never been a very good liar, but he seemed to have been convinced.
"Really? Wow, I didn't see her...It was all so fast, I guess. Is she okay?"
"I think so," I paused to try and give a reassuring smile. "She's here somewhere – they didn't make her use a stretcher."
Deep down, I knew I hadn't been crazy – I hadn't gotten a concussion. What had happened then? There was no logical way to explain away what I'd seen.
While they tended to Tyler, nurses came and wheeled me away to X-ray my head. I insisted that I'd probably only gotten a bruise; but, they said it was protocol. When the test was over, I sighed inwardly, because I was right. There wasn't a concussion, and I asked the nurse if I could leave.
"You have to talk with the Doctor before we can release you," she said, and realizing I was trapped in the ER, harassed by Tyler's incessant apologies and promises to make it up to me, I laid down on the bed and tried to sleep. No sleep came, and no matter how many times I tried to convince Tyler that I was fine, he continued to torment himself.
Finally, I just closed my eyes and ignored his remorseful mumbling. Pretending to sleep, even as my mind was too restless to sleep. Edythe had somehow saved me, I know she did. She had, for a short time, held me and worried about me. Why? How? She had been too far to run and stop the van, and yet...she had.
"Is she sleeping?" A musical voice asked, and my eyes flew open. Edythe was standing at the foot of my bed, worry in her eyes, a playful smirk on her face.
I wasn't sure if I was glaring or ogling at her – it was hard to be angry at Edythe for escaping being humiliated on a stretcher. She did look to be okay, as perfect as she always seemed to be.
"Hey, Edythe, I'm really sorry-" Tyler began, but Edythe lifted a hand to stop him.
"No blood, no foul," she said, flashing her brilliant teeth. "I think the cars got dented more than we did," she said with such playful sincerity that Tyler seemed to finally stop apologizing.
Edythe approached me, closing the curtain between my bed and Tyler's, and feeling somewhat alone with her, I both relaxed and tensed. She must have sensed the way my stomach curled, because she stayed at the foot of the bed, out of arms length.
"So, what's the verdict?" She asked me, concern in her gaze, the humor almost gone from her lips.
"There's nothing wrong with my head, but I have to talk to the Doctor before they'll let me go..." I confessed, not able to lie to her, for whatever reason. "How come you aren't strapped to a gurney, too?"
"My father's rather important here," Edythe said with playful amusement. "But don't worry about me, I'm quite alright. Besides, I came to free you."
As if on queue, a doctor walked around the corner, and my mouth fell open. The man was young, blond, and more handsome than any movie star I'd ever seen. He was pale, tired-looking, with circles under his eyes. Assuming from Charlie's description – this had to be Edythe's father! He couldn't have been older than his early thirties, and that was being kind to add years to his face.
Edythe moved, to let her father look at me.
"So, Miss Swan," Dr. Cullen said in a remarkably angelic voice. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine," I said, hopefully for the last time today. He walked to the light-board on the wall over my head and turned it on, considering the image with a quiet hum.
"Hmm, your X-rays look good," he mentioned. "Does your head hurt? Edythe mentioned that you hit your head rather hard earlier."
Worry contorted my face, and I felt my mouth curl into a mild scowl. Why would Edythe keep insisting I hurt my head so much? Was she trying to hide something?
"It's alright," I added with a soft sigh.
Not convinced, Dr. Cullen moved his cool doctor's hand close to my head, moving his fingers to lightly probe behind my ear. He noticed when I winced.
"Tender?" He asked.
"A little," I replied. I'd had a lot worse than this in my life, this kind of stinging didn't really bother me.
"Well, that's normal, you have some bruising – it should clear up in a couple of days," Dr. Cullen mentioned, then flashed me an almost debonair smile that made me feel like I was in a soap opera Hospital show than in Forks, WA.
"Well, your father is in the waiting room, when you're ready, you can find him around the corner and down the hall on your left," he paused. "Get plenty of rest, and if you feel any unexpected dizziness or trouble with your eyesight, come back right away. Your father has my number."
Get plenty of rest? What did that mean?
"Oh, I thought I would just go back to school..."
My eyes darted to Edythe, but she wasn't there anymore. Pain filled me, both at the idea of Charlie trying to take care of me when I was fine, and of missing out on an entire school-day where I might be near Edythe more.
"Maybe you should take it easy today, Bella, just in case you develop more symptoms," Dr. Cullen insisted, and I felt my eyes well up.
"I'm fine, really, I don't want to miss school-" I insisted, and saw the curtain move ever so slightly.
Edythe was standing at the far foot of the bed beside her father, her hand had moved the curtain to look at my face, probably because my voice was wavering and pathetic. I sounded like I was about to blubber, and if I was being honest with myself I probably looked like I was going to cry, too.
She seemed confused, pained even, and I didn't understand her expression. "My father is a very skilled Doctor, Miss Swan, please listen to him."
She entreated with such concern that it felt like a hand squeezed my stomach, but I couldn't bring myself to promise I wouldn't go. I could only nod, and wince from the pain shooting through my skull.
"Are you going to school, though?"
I found myself unable to look away from her gold eyes as she watched me nervously nibble on my lip. She was almost smug as she cockily tilted her head at me. "Someone has to spread the news that we survived, right?"
Dr. Cullen cleared his throat, but I could swear it sounded like a chuckle. "Actually, I think the entire school seems to be out in the waiting room."
"Oh no..." I whispered as I got up – too fast. I staggered, and Dr. Cullen caught me with concern in his gaze.
I realized his concerned eyes were also Gold, which seemed strange to me. Weren't Edythe and her siblings all – adopted – by him and his wife?
"I – I'm okay," I assured the doctor. No need to tell him my balance problems had nothing to do with hitting my head.
"Take some Tylenol for the pain," he insisted as he helped to steady me.
"It really doesn't hurt that bad, but I will," I tried to reassure.
Dr. Cullen smiled, signing my chart with an unearthly flourish as he looked to me. "It sounds like you were extremely lucky, Miss Swan."
My eyes drifted to Edythe, who had moved away from the foot of my bed, and was avoiding looking at me for some reason. Maybe because I was wearing a medical robe and it was rude to stare.
"Lucky Edythe happened to be standing next to me," I amended, my eyes hardening as I studied Edythe's face. She didn't look like how a hero would boast, she looked like she was hoping her father wouldn't have heard what I said.
"Oh," Dr. Cullen began, looking at his daughter. "Well, of course," he agreed, suddenly very occupied with my sheet as he turned away from me and shot a glance I couldn't see at Edythe.
After that, Dr. Cullen moved to focus on Tyler, and Edythe started to walk away. I knew she'd leave if I didn't say something, so I moved with one hand holding my hospital gown behind me for modesty to reach her side. "Wait..."
"Yes?" She asked, confused as to why I had stopped her from leaving.
"Can I...talk to you for a minute?"
Edythe took a step away from me, and for some reason her jaw suddenly clenched as if she was irritated.
"Your father is waiting for you," she almost seemed to demand, as if she just wanted me gone from the hospital. I glanced at Dr. Cullen and Tyler, they both didn't seem to be listening to us.
"Please – just give me a minute…" I asked, and she almost glared at me. Her change in demeanor struck me, like she'd stabbed something in my arm, and she gave me the faintest of nods before she walked out of the room.
After I dressed behind the curtain, grabbing my bag, I walked outside the emergency room – half afraid that she would have just ditched me in there – but she was waiting at the end of the corner into a shorter hallway.
Joining her, I followed her into the tiny hallway before she spun around to face me.
"What is it?" She asked, sounding annoyed. Her eyes were so cold, her sudden lack of concern or care intimidated me.
Caught so off guard, my words fell out of me like a bumbling waterfall. "You weren't by the car, earlier."
Her eyes were daggers for me. "Yes, I was," she seethed like a venomous viper.
Tyler's worry from earlier flooded into my mind, along with the images of her shoulders making a dent in the tan car. "No, you weren't. I saw you by your Volvo."
"I was walking -toward- you, Bella, I wasn't – that – far away," she insisted, but I could swear there was panic in her eyes. Panic she was trying to disguise as hatred, and to be honest I wasn't sure if I was imagining the panic and she really was finding me an annoying person.
"Why were you walking to me, then?"
Edythe froze, stunned momentarily by my question. The hatred left her eyes, only for a moment, before she narrowed her eyes and looked utterly disgusted at me. "What does it matter? I saved your life – most people would be grateful for that."
"I didn't say I wasn't thankful-" I tried to combat, but she interrupted me, already starting to move around me.
"What do you -want- from me, Bella."
The loathing in her voice hurt me, tore me, and I froze. I didn't know what to say, how to even formulate something that even sounded rational to me.
When I couldn't answer, Edythe shirked past me.
"Go home, rest your head," she said before walking down the hallway as fast and as gracefully as she always did.
Feeling like a complete idiot, I watched her go; but, I couldn't bring myself to leave the tiny hallway for another ten minutes at least.
She hated me, that's what her words felt like. She probably thought I was some kind of worm she had to be nice to, something that would break into a hundred pieces unless someone held me by the hand and made sure I didn't die. Given my track record of trips and breaking bones, that thought wouldn't have been entirely wrong.
I couldn't believe I had just frozen up like that! What kind of backbone did I have! She did – something – to be able to save me. Tyler hadn't seen her, so I hadn't been making it up. The van should have hit me, it could have even killed me if not for Edythe going out of her way to save me.
I was so angry at myself that I could feel the anger tears well up inside me. I tried desperately to force them back by grinding my teeth together; but, with no one watching me and no one seeming to even use this hallway, I faced the end of the hallway and hid my face behind my hair. I wasn't stupid! She had lifted the van! Even if I didn't know how she did it, she'd done it!
What I thought barely mattered in that moment, everything in my head lashed out at me. All I could picture was Edythe's spiteful, disgusted, snarl as she looked at me. The way she shirked past me and walked away like I was a thorn in her side.
Mostly, I hated that I had become one of those girls who cried when they were rejected. I'd never cried when I lost friends before – I couldn't really understand why it hurt so much right now.
It took me ten minutes of trying desperately not to wail like a dying animal until the hot tears stopped balling down my face. When the anguish left me enough that I thought I could fake that the tears had never happened.
When I could walk again, I made my way slowly to the exit at the end of the hallway – praying to myself that Edythe wouldn't be there to glare at me in the waiting room when I entered. Unfortunately, the waiting room in question was more unpleasant than I'd feared, but not because Edythe was there.
It seemed like every face I knew well in Forks was there – staring at me. All of them looking at my dry, puffy, eyes, ruined hair, and horrified expression.
Charlie rushed to my side, and I was both relieved and stressed out to see him.
I raised my hands up, fearful that he'd try and coddle me. "I'm okay, Dad," I answered him, trying not to speak with a sullen voice. Not in the mood for chit chat here, in front of all these people.
"What did the doctor say?"
"Dr. Cullen said I was fine, and I could go home," I said with a sigh, really wanting to go home now and hide my humiliated face from Edythe for a while.
Mike, Jessica, Angela, and Eric were all there – beginning to converge on us, and I couldn't bear to answer any of their questions right now.
"Please, can we just go," I urged.
Charlie put one arm behind my back, not quite touching me, and led me to the glass doors of the exit. Waving with faked enthusiasm to not worry my friends, I followed Charlie out to the parking lot.
For the first time in my life, I was relieved to get into Charlie's police cruiser. We drove in blessed silence, and I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I hardly noticed Charlie was there.
When we got to the house, Charlie finally spoke.
"You...need to call Renee," he said, hanging his head from guilt.
"Y-You told mom!?"
"I'm sorry, Bells-"
Slamming the door of the police cruiser harder than I meant to from anger, I rushed inside to call her on the house phone. Mom was in hysterics when I called, of course. I had to tell her I felt fine at least thirty times before she would calm down. For twenty minutes she begged me to come home.
All while Charlie anxiously sat on the couch with a guilty expression.
Her pleas were easier to resist than I might have thought, even though I'd just been nearly crushed to death. Even when she wanted nothing to do with me, I couldn't bear the idea of leaving Forks. I wanted to know how she saved me, why she seemed to care about me, then hate me all over again. Any normal person would be desperate to escape Forks after what happened, but I wasn't normal – and I had to know the truth of what happened.
Reassuring Charlie I was okay was easy in comparison. He reluctantly went back to work, and I went upstairs to take some Tylenol and try to get some sleep.
For hours I lay in bed, replaying the pathetic conversation with Edythe over and over again. The absolute clarity I had in how she had saved me from being crushed by Tyler's blue van. She had saved me, she had been too far away to shove me from danger so fast.
Why do it if she loathed me? If she didn't want to be my friend? When the pain finally eased, and I wasn't tearing up anymore, I drifted off to sleep…
That was the first night I dreamt...of Edythe Cullen.