A/N: I had a bit of writers' block with this chapter, but I think I'm past the worst of it now. Also, fair warning: I'll be away from my computer a lot next month, so I may not be able to write very much. I promise I'll try, but sorry in advance if I leave you guys hanging for a while.
Shelly Cope POV
I shoved my dollar into the newly repaired vending machine in the teachers' lounge, crossing my fingers for luck. This was my third try and my only dollar bill; and I wasn't sure that the machine would take the crumpled dollar. Finally, it accepted the dollar, and as I munched on my new bag of popcorn, I thought back to the day the machine had been repaired.
"It's right this way," I had said, leading the repair man into the teachers' lounge. "It hasn't been worked in ages, but none of us knew what to do."
I had then sent the man to work on the vending machine, poured myself a cup of coffee, and sat down on my favorite recliner with a magazine. The man hadn't come inside with any tools, so I'd assumed that first he would look at the machine and then come back with spare parts once he knew what was broken. I fully expected the repair to last at least the next half hour, so I was shocked when I saw the man stand back up and come up to me a minute later.
"It'll cost you about ten dollars—it costs money to send somebody down, you know."
"But what's wrong with it? And how long will it take?" I had asked him, confused. To me it seemed he was stalling his answer. Did he have bad news?
"Well, I kind of already fixed the machine. It was unplugged, you see…"
"Oh," I'd responded simply. I gave him the money and showed him out the door, feeling somewhat embarrassed. To think that, all this time, it just wasn't plugged in! And I hadn't spent as much as money as I had expected, so there was plenty left. Maybe I would just allot the remaining money towards buying snacks to fill the vending machine. It would be easy to do, and then I'd never have to think about this whole fiasco again.
Mr. Berty and Mr. Varner walked into the lounge as I threw out my empty bag of popcorn, and I focused back on the present.
"Not sure what to do anymore," I heard Mr. Berty whisper to Mr. Varner. "I don't even like to ask her for answers anymore; she always sounds so lifeless."
The two of them noticed me then, and for a second they looked shocked to see that there was somebody else here.
"Oh, it's just you," said Mr. Varner. "We were discussing, well, we were talking about Ms. Swan's recent behavior."
I sighed because I knew exactly what he meant by that. It had taken Bella Swan a full week to return to school, and now that she was back, she was completely different. Mrs. Gerandy from the bank told me that, from what her husband had seen, the Cullens' move had made Bella nearly catatonic. For a while, Mr. Gerandy had feared that Bella wouldn't get better, but the worst was over when Bella finally came back to school. Although she was supposedly better, I hadn't yet seen her looking happy, and I suspected that Mr. Berty and Mr. Varner would tell me more of the same.
"How is she doing?" I asked tentatively.
"I don't really know," Mr. Berty began. "She doesn't seem to do much of anything anymore. Sometimes the other students try to talk to her, but she hardly even speaks back to them—just a nod or a quick yes or no. And if I ask her something, she'll give me the shortest answer she can and then go back to staring into space."
"I've never seen her concentrate so hard on her notebook," Mr. Varner added. "She seems determined not to think about anything else, and frankly, it's a little scary. And by the way, Karen is the guidance counselor around here. Shouldn't she be helping Bella with this?"
"She's tried," I told him. "But Mr. Greene only wants Karen to help students academically; he doesn't want Karen to ask her about anything that's 'too personal'. So I'm not sure if there's anything we can do. Personally, I think it's ridiculous, but you try arguing with Mr. Greene."
"Oh," responded Mr. Varner. We all sat in silence for the next minute, unsure of what to say. None of us knew what to do with a student like this, and she technically wasn't even doing anything wrong.
I'd expected Bella to be upset when the Cullens moved, but she was worse than I'd imagined. She'd been Edward's girlfriend, and I knew she was close friends with Alice, so I hardly expected her to be happy. But her reaction was stronger than I'd suspected, and now I was lost on what to do.
"So," Mr. Varner began, awkwardly changing the subject. "What did you think about that staff meeting last Wednesday? It was, um, pretty special, wasn't it?"
Mr. Berty and I both groaned at the memory. Mr. Greene had called the entire staff into the cafeteria after school several days ago to talk about our duties here at Forks High. Once a year, every year, Mr. Greene made us all listen to one of his super-lectures. He had kept us after school for over an hour just to remind us that it's our responsibility to know where all the students are and what they're doing. Nobody had even done anything bad lately, but Mr. Greene decided that something would happen in the future if he didn't enlighten us with his speech on responsibility.
"Now why would you bring that up?" asked Mr. Berty. "Believe me, I don't need to be reminded of the staff meeting. Lately I've been trying to forget the whole thing. Linda says she was counting the number of times Mr. Greene said 'responsible'—it was something like 65 times. And I, unfortunately, still remember it all vividly."
None of us had anything to say about the meeting after that, but I noticed with surprise that both men were staring at me expectantly.
"What?" I asked, disconcerted by their stares.
"Well, we kind of expected you to say something now," said Mr. Varner.
"Yeah, you always have something to say. No stories, no gossip to share?" Mr. Berty asked.
"Oh, if that's all," I said. "Well, really nothing has happened lately, besides—well, you know. Mike and Jessica broke up, but that was over the summer. And our next dance is still over a month away, so there's nothing exciting going on in school."
"Wow," Mr. Berty began teasingly. "Never thought I'd see the day when Shelly had nothing to talk about. Oh, wait, who won that bet you made about Edward and Bella? Or are they still dating?"
"No, the move definitely broke them up. Julia won the bet," I told him glumly.
"Ha-ha, you lost your own bet," said Mr. Berty. "Really, though, nothing has happened lately? I thought there would at least be some sort of message for you to pass on."
"No, nothing. If you have something you want to tell the other teachers, then fine, but right now I've got nothing."
The bell signaled the end of second period, and I realized with a shock that I had been in the lounge for almost an hour. Somebody probably had some new attendance slips for me to file, or something. I was a bit surprised nobody had come looking for me yet. Mr. Varner and Mr. Berty seemed just as surprised as I was that the period had ended already. We all got up to leave at the same time, and we said our good-byes as we each walked towards a different section of the school.
I thought back to the end of our conversation as I walked slowly to the front office. Was it a coincidence that I had run out of gossip right when the Cullens moved? Surely not all of my announcements related to that one family. But I tried to remember the rumors I'd been spreading lately, and most of them really did relate to either Bella Swan or the Cullens. Once I realized this, I missed the Cullens more than I ever had. Bella was still here, at least, but that was a small comfort since she wasn't even acting like herself anymore.
I swept aside these thoughts and sat down at my desk. The Cullens were gone, but I wouldn't let that shake me. As much as I missed being able to speculate about Edward and Bella's relationship, I decided to put it all behind me. But still, had it been too much to ask that I could see the two of them graduate, together and happy? Until now, I hadn't thought so.
A/N: This chapter was gloomier than I had originally planned, but I guess you can't expect a student to act like Bella did and escape notice.
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