Commas are nice, semi-colons are better. Procrastination tastes like chicken.
It had been a long two days.
After waking up in the pre-dawn half light, her face swollen, her eyes dry and bleary, Bella thought, Oh, right, and painfully tried to smooth the resurging memories of the night before back down into the dark recesses of her mind; and she slowly, grimly, forced herself to take stock of her physical surroundings.
Jake had lain next to her, looking stoic - as he well should have considering the death grip her stiff fingers still held on his ruff. Dr. Reyerson lay, fast asleep, on the other side of the campfire, breathing deeply, his simple presence exuding the comforting air of a reliable old boot. And so the darkness that still plagued her heart faded into the softness of the morning.
They had broken camp not long after in companionable silence. If the doctor had seen anything of her outburst by the fire, he said nothing, and his eyes had revealed nothing more to her than the pale sky above them.
The return hike down to the trailhead from Base Camp had been uneventful, and after a flurry of last minute packing, data entry, and acquiring lodgings for Jake, Bella and Dr. Reyerson crammed themselves and their presentation materials into a small prop-jet to make the short, bumpy flight out of the backcountry of Montana to their commercial connecting flight to Alaska departing from the airport in Spokane.
Finding a place to keep Jake while they were out of state had been somewhat of a problem. None of the newer interns wanted anything to do with him: he was too large, too intimidating, and too damn smart. Nor could Bella trust him to be left alone. His wolf genes and his extraordinary size enabled him to be a consummate escape artist, and he took any prolonged absence from his human counterpart as a personal offence that demanded retaliation in diabolically epic proportions.
Bella had learned this the hard way, returning to her tiny apartment after an unplanned overnight stay in the lab to a scene of unparalleled destruction. Jake, she found, had expressed his deep displeasure at her supposed defection from his canine altar by brutally mauling every single left shoe from all of the pairs that she owned. He had also eaten the crotch out of every last pair of underpants in her top dresser drawer. Sufficiently disturbed, and not a little bit amused, Bella had chosen what proved to be the lesser of two evils and bring Jake with her wherever she went from that point on. Although she did leave him fastened securely to a bench outside when she went to buy new underwear – that, she supposed, would have been like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and her imagination was only too happy to supply her with images of Jake running rampant through the store, shreds of satin and lace flying everywhere in Montana's first lingerie massacre.
Eventually, she had been able to make arrangements with the wildlife sanctuary they teamed with through part of the Wolf Study. The rescue establishment proved to be a good match for Bella and her super-intelligent wolf-beast as they had sufficient experience and facilities to deal with animals of all shapes and sizes that had no desire to stay put. Thus, while Bella found herself preparing for the talk Dr. Reyerson had roped her into at a swanky tourist lodge in the hillside just outside of Anchorage, Jake was safely tucked away in one of the sanctuary's rehabilitation runs, eating whole raw chickens, and discovering that the chain link fence of his enclosure had, in fact, been cemented into the ground.
Now, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror of her suite, Bella wished for nothing more than to be back in Montana with her dog instead of painting and primping herself for a night of speeches, wet handshakes, and painfully obvious drunken leering stares into her cleavage. Bella smiled sardonically to herself as she applied the last of her mascara, and adjusted the fit of her dress. If she was going to figuratively whore herself out for the study, she decided that she may as well look the part.
The dress she wore was a deep gold silk that glowed warmly against her pale skin. It had thin shoulder straps that held up a loose gathering of fabric as it draped over her breasts, and then lower down her back before gathering tightly around her waist and hips, and then fell in a shimmering waterfall to rest over her painted toenails. It wasn't actually a trashy dress – Bella wouldn't go that far, and as much as Dr. Reyerson joked about her role as bait, he would not have hesitated to throw a blanket over her and drag her out kicking and screaming if she had sashayed into the gala as Bella of the Bordello looking ready to give out hand jobs and fellatio for endowments and trust funds – but she knew without a doubt, looking at herself in the mirror, that she looked every bit the beautiful young woman she had grown up to be; and she would be turning heads regardless.
What a waste.
Five years ago it would have taken an act of God, or some other member of the supernatural, to get her to even be in the same room with such an outfit. She would have protested a ridiculous amount, citing plainness, clumsiness, and an overall sense of feminine unworthiness, getting herself much more attention than her flimsy protests would have suggested that she wanted. In short, she would have made a scene. Now, however, Bella had the courage to recognize beauty where she saw it, and right now it was staring at her out of her bathroom mirror.
She sighed. She had not the time, or the luxury tonight, to indulge herself in a litany of "if onlys."
Instead, she pulled her talisman, her one deliberate reminder of the life she once had, and gently fastened it around her neck, where it fell, just below the hollow of her throat. It was a little chunk of polished amber framed in gold, hanging on a matching slender chain. Bella had found it in one of the many roadside tourist shops outside of the Park in Wyoming. She had not been looking for it – she had no use for jewelry – but the color naturally caught her eye (it was a sick reflex from that bygone time she couldn't help) drawing her notice where she otherwise would have continued on to the first aid kit and the bottled water that she actually needed.
But the bit of amber called to her from its modest gold setting, pulling her in when she least expected to be. Looking closely, she saw that the piece of crystal was not entirely clear, that trapped within the smooth chunk of resin was a tiny winged insect, frozen in perfect flight, its life stopped, suspended for all time in a golden prison.
Just like me.
Because for all she had grown, for all the time that had gone by, Bella remained caught in the half-life between the real and the supernatural, with her broken heart planted firmly in the world she no longer had any access to. Edward had made sure of that. No matter how many times she heard the words in her head, woke with them burning on her lips, Bella knew she was living his lie to the fullest extent.
It will be like we never existed.
He was wrong. His words, his departure, framed in the dead light of his empty golden eyes, had devastated her, broken her, denied the deepest aspect of her feminine self, and left her neither a girl nor yet a woman, unable to feel for anyone, want for anyone the way she did for him. The way he never felt for her.
So now she stood in front of the bathroom mirror in a tiny suite in a fancy lodge, staring at a reflection of herself that clearly said "female," while her own body remained in a state of frozen chastity, his resounding "no" to her final question whispering to her "nothing," and "never again;" and the bit of amber hung at her throat, it's tiny winged prisoner caught suspended, like the virginity she would never desire to offer to any man that wasn't Edward Cullen.
Bella sighed, smoothed back her hair, and adjusted the straps on her heels, before squaring her shoulders and stepping out the door and into another tedious night of what Dr. Reyerson called "the seedy underbelly of the environmentalist movement."
Her stiletto heels no longer posed the danger they once would have. It seemed that with the casting off of her old life, Bella had finally managed to grab hold of her inner equilibrium; that perhaps in all her clumsiness had simply been an unconscious attempt to fall out of the life that had been laid out, unasked, before her; and that in gaining control of her destiny, in learning to be confident in herself, she gained control of her body as well. So now she walked, quickly, composedly toward a night evening that held no terrors for her, the staccato tapping of her heels the only sound of her passage.
She was greeted at the bottom of the giant river-stone staircase in the lobby by Dr. Reyerson him self, who took in her appearance with a neutral glance and a nod before flashing her a friendly smile.
"Glad to see you were able to get all that grease out from under your fingernails, Swan."
She grinned back at him, feeling suddenly at home amidst all the strangeness – herself in a dress, Dr. Reyerson uncharacteristically dapper in a dark grey suit.
"You'll like my perfume then. It's called Eau de Goo Gone."
It was true, after almost a solid hour of scrubbing with the stuff, while Bella's once permanently stained fingers were now a much more feminine ivory, the end result was that she now carried with her the strong smell of citrus soap, along with the fainter odor of her strawberry shampoo.
Dr. Reyerson chuckled as he took her arm, wrapping it under his.
"Just don't let yourself be mistaken for the fruit salad. I'd rather not have to punch anyone tonight."
Bella took the latent compliment implied within the warning in stride.
"Duly noted. I was planning on standing over by the prime rib anyway, so I can be closer to the big knives."
"A wise choice. Let's get this horror show over with, shall we?"
And so they walked into the carefully crafted atmosphere of the lodge's rather spectacular ballroom, arm in arm, smiling conspiratorially together.
The evening was unremarkable, for a fundraising reception. Bella and Dr. Reyerson were not the only research team present, but they did have the good fortune of presenting first, before the food and alcohol kicked in and the following speeches were tuned out. Dr. Reyerson had said only a few words of introduction before turning the reins over to Bella, and she gave the well-rehearsed lecture and slideshow with barely a flicker of anxiety.
Sitting down to dinner, with the presentation behind her, seated between Magnate This and Junior the Third that, Bella could not help but have another moment of longing for the silence of the Montana woods, and the blandness of outdoor cooking. While she had learned to never turn down free food, she knew from experience that the fare offered at these gatherings would be too much for her less worldly stomach to enjoy.
Another night with nightmares and heartburn, thought Bella listlessly. Someone kill me now.
She ate as little as possible, planning on ordering a grilled cheese sandwich from room service as soon as she was able to get back to her room. Picking at her food, responding reflexively to the gentlemen sitting next to her while desperately trying to ignore the fact that both of them were practically nose first in her cleavage, Bella was relieved when the main course was removed and the desserts were passed. The sooner the obligatory dancing and mingling were over with, the sooner she could be back in her room, curled up in the enormous bed, replete with pillows, eating the bread and cheese concoction she had been fantasizing about since she caught sight of the pickled beets and orchid petals artfully garnishing her starter salad.
Fortunately for Bella, the final course was a chocolate mousse torte, which she readily plowed through like a field hand, unlike the rest of her dinner.
By this time, the dancing had started, and rather than risk any physical contact with her leering dinner partners, Bella opted instead to find Dr. Reyerson before either of them had a chance to corner her on the dance floor. A silk dress and stiletto heels were not suitable for combat, after all. She excused herself from her dinner companions, taking her champagne flute with her for deflection purposes, and went to search for her mentor.
Weaving through the throng of dark suited men and their sparkling female companions, Bella finally spotted him as he stood amidst a small group, with his back toward her, huddled in one of the darker and more removed corners. She had almost reached his side when he turned to her, as though he expected her at that very moment, and drew her towards the group.
"Gentlemen, " said Dr. Reyerson in his best schmoozing voice, "I want you to meet my partner in crime, and the pride of our department: Miss Isabella Swan."
Bella had been looking down at her feet, trying desperately not to laugh at what long months of experience told her was the absolute insincerity of his tone, when Dr. Reyerson jogged her elbow.
"Pay attention, Swan," he hissed, knowing full well why she had averted her gaze, and Bella whipped her head up, and looked directly into a pair of very familiar golden eyes.
Carlisle.
Her heart leapt and then plummeted, careening through her ribcage, her chocolate mousse, her indifferent attempt at dinner, and landed somewhere in the vicinity of her shoes.
Shitshitshit
He was exactly the same – how could he not be? The same golden hair, the same pale skin glowing in the warm light of the dance hall, the same impossibly handsome face, bland, professional, calm.
Looking at him in that brief agonizing pause before the formal introductions started, his face carefully blank as he gazed back at her, Bella was suddenly furious.
How DARE he? She knew it was irrational, that she could not control where the fragments of her old life would fall as they swirled away from her, but she could not help the anger that roared through her veins at the man who was, either deliberately or otherwise, partially responsible for the mess that her life had become after Edward left her in the woods in Forks.
He left me, too.
Bella squared her shoulders, her anger giving her the courage to stare coldly back at the being she knew could tear her head off with a flick of his finger, and when Dr. Reyerson introduced him in the name that had become part of the silent mantra of her past memories, she replied formally in kind, her voice firm, and politely removed.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Cullen."
Her eyes held his as she willed all her flimsy powers of human persuasion into them.
You don't know me. You don't want to know me. You LEFT me.
Something flickered in his eyes, she wasn't sure what, and she couldn't make herself care. There was a fire burning, red and twisting, in the pit of her belly, making her heart pound and her palms sweat, and it roared in her ears, and his voice sound tinny and thin, and almost sad? as he murmured politely back, "Miss Swan," as though they had never met, as though he had never touched her, never held her still while his "son" sucked the blood out of her poisoned wound, never stitched her arm back together while her life went quietly to pieces around her. He did not offer her his hand.
Bella gritted her teeth as he spoke, the soft musical tone knifing through her rage, a gorgeous piercing pain cutting to her soul. The champagne glass snapped in her fist.
She almost didn't feel it, the shards of the fragile stem digging into her palm, almost didn't recognize the dull ache of the severing of her tender flesh. All she saw were Carlisle's eyes as they widened infinitesimally at the salty tang of blood tinged the air between them, and she felt the warm, sticky liquid as it slipped between her fingers.
It was too much. Even without the sharp sting of the glass lodged in her skin, even without the smell that made her want to retch, the pain, the anger that swam in her blood, deafened her, blinded her; and the room was too small, too warm; and the memories of her past howled, waking and alive, before her very eyes. She had to run; she had to escape before they swallowed her whole, before she lost herself again in the abyss of grief. There would be no coming back this time.
"Gentlemen, excuse me." Her voice was surprisingly calm, her feet steady, as she turned from the group and walked swiftly out of the hall, blood dripping around the pieces of broken glass she still held in her nerveless fingers.
She didn't see the two pairs of eyes that followed her, one gold, one gray, identical in their concern.
Instead Bella strode down the wide hallway, leaving the sight and the sound and the smell of the night behind her, her heeled shoes clicking on the hardwood floors as if they were another extension of her body, and not the instruments of disaster that they once would have proved to be.
If she didn't get out of this damned building she was going to explode.
Mercifully she found herself walking toward a pair of doors, their glass become mirrors against the darkness of the night. She could see herself stalking angrily, gracefully forward into their reflection, her eyes dark, two bright spots of color high on her cheeks, and then she was through the doors, outside in the velvety midnight of the Alaskan air.
The night was still and beautiful. She had walked out onto a wide balcony jutting out over the hillside, leading down into the pale harbor of Anchorage as it glistened under the stars and the faint fingering brilliance of an early aurora borealis. It was every brochure, every bit of tourist propaganda, every bit the romantic evening in every fairy tale that wasn't hers.
Bella saw none of it. Moving swiftly toward the edge, she threw the broken glass away from her, hearing a satisfying crash as it shivered apart against the decking, and then she was gripping the rough hewn wood of the railing like it was the only anchor in the maelstrom of hurt and rage and fear that pounded through her veins, behind her eyes, within her breast. And Bella screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
All the rage, all the pain, the betrayal, surged, newly awakened into her aching throat and poured out of her in a poisoned, agonized wail.
She screamed until she had nothing left, until her voice was ripped out of her as well, and she clung, weak and trembling, sobbing quietly against the cedar rail that separated her from the night, and the darkness below.
It was only then, in the watchful stillness, with the throbbing echo of her cries fading into the hillside, that she realized she wasn't alone - that there was someone standing, hidden in the shadows behind her.
"Bella?"
Oh. FUCK.
How do you like them apples?