CHAPTER THREE: BREAKDOWN

A/N: There's a jump cut in here since I'd initially written several chapters and several ideas for several more chapters. I'm still trying to figure out how to integrate everything, so bear with me. If you have any ideas for how to improve the pacing or general time structure, please let me know.

I figured it would be IC for Esme to be like, "don't be silly, dear, ladies don't fix cars" and that's why Rosalie has never tried to do it for a living. Also, since Rose is a vampire and they don't sleep, she could have her shop open at hours when the other mechanic(s) are closed.

I understand that this is a much shorter chapter than what I've been posting, and I apologise for that. If anyone has ideas on what to do next, for the months of October – December, please feel free to let me know! Thank you! Fact-checkers for how car repair actually works are also more than welcome.

During the next week, I realized that Chopsticks High was so much different from my old school. I wasn't being pushed to socialize here, and, oddly, that made me want to hang out with my friends more. Similarly, not being pushed into neurotypical behavior every minute of every day calmed my rebellious side. No one was watching me like a hawk, ready to call me out in front of the class if I said something strange. No one made me copy stupid essays, not a word of which I believed, if I was rude to a classmate or teacher—which I tried not to do, but old habits died a bit hard. One student didn't take kindly to me informing him that his crimson and scarlet outfit clashed with itself. Back at my old school, I would have had to copy an essay and write that kid an apology. Here, he just glared at me and walked away, and the teachers didn't do or say anything, because they were more interested in educating their students than controlling our behavior.

I liked it, very much. It was pretty damn cool! It was kind of weird that the teacher didn't say anything about Dan walking away in the middle of class, though. Maybe he just assumed Dan had to use the restroom or something. Honestly, the teachers here did seem kind of negligent, but maybe it was just because I was used to a stricter, more overbearing environment.

Though I didn't miss the teachers from Twenchin High, I did miss my friends in Arizona. We talked on Facebook quite a lot, but it just wasn't the same. Tokiomi and I had an open relationship, so we both knew we were free to see other people, but neither of us really had that desire. Sigyn and I got along better when we didn't have to see each other every day, but I missed the Averna sisters. The one who didn't insist on going by her last name, Irina, would have had some fun coming up with new imaginary outfits to dress Dan in.

In the first week of October, I checked out as many clubs as possible. The wilderness club caught my attention, as I'd always felt at home in nature. Glee club seemed interesting as well, but they didn't do metal or much opera, and those were the only genres that fit my voice. I was awful at chess, but my classmate Eric offered to help me learn, so I kept chess club as an option.

The last activity I considered was cheerleading, mostly because I was sure my friends back home would get a kick out of it if I made the squad and partly because I wanted to be more like Peyton Sawyer from One Tree Hill, a show my boyfriend, Tokiomi, and I enjoyed. The cheer captain, a lovely blonde girl named Lauren Mallory, and the cheerleading coach, Monica Ruiz, were professionally indifferent about my audition routine. I'd decided to have some fun with it by choosing HIM's Wings of a Butterfly- to be "ironic", as my friend Cin would say. I didn't notice any reaction from Lauren, so I figured that she probably had to deal with "edgy" prospective cheerleaders a lot.

"Thank you. We'll let you know" was all she said. I nodded quickly and left. I knew I wasn't likely to make the squad- they only held auditions this late because a full-time cheerleader and several second-stringers were out with a nasty flu- but hopefully Lauren and Coach Ruiz had found my audition entertaining. Even if they didn't like the song, my dancing had merit.

As I drove home after my audition, I noticed an unfortunate clunking noise coming from my truck. Must've botched the repairs, I thought. Crap. Who was the nearest mechanic? What about that car parts shop? I couldn't remember how to get there. I pulled over to the side of the road to think, putting my blinkers on in case someone who knew cars saw me.

Thankfully, after twenty frustrating minutes of trying to get my cell phone to connect to Google, someone did. She was a tall, pale, curvy blonde, one of the non-eaters I'd noticed in the cafeteria. The girl who reminded me of Seira, I recalled vaguely. Seira would hate that comparison, but I couldn't help it. They had similar figures, even if this girl didn't eat and Seira couldn't /not/ eat.

"What's the car trouble?" the girl asked, getting straight to the point.

"I'm... not entirely sure," I admitted. "Probably something to do with the transmission."

The girl nodded. "I'll take a look, if you'd like," she offered. "Rosalie Hale, by the way."

"Serleina van Rainsfeld. That would be great!" Maybe the non-eaters weren't as bad as I thought.

"It's been a while since I got to do some real work on a car," Rosalie said from under my truck. How had she gotten down there so quickly? "It's a shame, really. Almost everyone in my family has a car of their own, but they hardly let me work on them. They act like we're above modifications and car repairs. It's dreadfully wasteful, but the instant something doesn't work perfectly, they ditch the car in question and buy a new one. I like your truck. It's old, so it must have a lot of history."

"It's new to me," I replied, my head reeling slightly. Her family's habits did sound wasteful, more so than I would have guessed. "Why don't you set up an auto repair shop in town?" Even if there already was one, surely it couldn't hurt even in a small town to have another?

Rosalie laughed, a melodic, tinkling sound. "I'd love to," she said, "but my family wouldn't hear of it. Father doesn't want us drawing attention to ourselves and Mother would consider it unladylike. The only person who'd support such a notion is Emmett."

"Well, there you go!" I exclaimed. "That's one more than nothing, as Mama Ren would say."

Rosalie scooted out from under the truck and gave me a quizzical yet thoughtful look. "One more than nothing," she repeated slowly. "Hmm."

"Yeah, so after high school, you could go to college or trade school and become certified in auto repair. Are you better at auto body or auto tech?"

She blinked at me. "You ask me that /after/ you let me work on your car?" she asked incredulously.

"Doesn't matter, you can take both," I rambled on. "The more credentials you have, the easier it should be to gain business."

"I'm a woman." For some reason, Rosalie felt the need to state the obvious.

"And?" I prompted, wondering if she was trying to make a point.

"Most business would default to a male mechanic, regardless of who has better credentials."

"Maybe at first," I said, "but if you're the better mechanic, I can't see why your gender would stop you from getting the better business. I'd rather have a car that runs well than one that doesn't."

I heard a sigh. Rosalie must have scooted back under my car without me noticing.

"I don't really want to think of it in terms of competition," she explained. "I just want to be able to do what I enjoy."

I nodded, then realized she couldn't see me. "I know what you mean," I said.

After a few more minutes of examination, Rosalie scooted back out, stood, brushed herself off, and went to look under the hood. I let her examine in peace, not offering any opinions and especially not the information that Papa and I had been the ones working on this initially. When she was finished, she concludes that the problem was with the timing belt, not the transmission. She offered to push the car home- to her home- so she could work on it there and let her adoptive brother Edward, the weird guy who stared at me a lot, know to drive me back to my place. I grimaced at that last bit, but accepted the help, on the condition that Edward keep his eyes on the road.