nine


Everyone speaks of high school with this disgusting sort of nostalgia. Like it's the best thing that's ever happened, ever could have happened, ever will happen. Best four years of an entire measly existence in the Olympic Peninsula.

And if that's true (dear God, I hope it's not true) I really hope I'm just doing it wrong.

It's not like high school is Hell or anything. I'm not picked on or punished or relegated to those crude sort of tortures that linger in every teen drama movie. I've never thrown up in class or gone to the Prom or attended a pep rally. I've never gotten tripped in the hallways or aced a test or even been in any sort of inkling of a food fight.

The students around me wear only slightly varying outfits of sweatshirt and jeans. The jocks aren't huge and the popular girls aren't rich, the nerds aren't that nerdy and even the stoners don't bother to smoke in the bathroom anymore.

I'm swimming in a huge soup of normalcy, ignored yet tolerated by everyone with disturbing equality.

I go to school and I go home from school and I do my homework and I sleep and I return to school the next day.

Lather, rinse, repeat. It's so easy, yet I'm so tired.

"Hey Bella," some of them say. "What's up?"

I nod or smile or go back to eating my sandwich. Sometimes, I wish for the drama. For a fight, for a teenage pregnancy, for an affair. Something worth telling, something worth writing about. Something that verifies the fact that I'm alive, that I exist.

I could make the effort, I suppose, but with only a semester and a half left of this, why even bother?

In my free time, I fill out two applications to UW and UO. They're state schools and they're easy and they're extensions of the high school I never really bothered with. In my other free time, Edward and Charlie and I swim in the pool.

"You're getting better," Edward says, holding my waist when he shouldn't be holding my waist. His hands are hot like fire in this cold, cold water. I swear they burn me up.

"Not really."

"You're trying to get better."

"I mean, not really."

He lets go of my waist. I pout. He winks.

Not quite the most dangerous game, but nearly there. I feel hunted already.

"How you doin' over here, Bells?" Charlie asks as he swims over. Even in water his gait seems dopey and uneven.

"Never better."

"She's doing well, Charlie," Edward interjects. I feel his foot brush mine under water. Swollen and pruned, a toe slides along the tiled bottom right next to my own. I don't look up.

"That's great. Maybe we can go out to the ocean someday soon."

"Charlie, it's winter," I say.

"Is my daughter afraid of the cold?" Charlie guffaws.

"There's always wetsuits," Edward says.

I glare. He shrugs.

That deep part in his eye flickers bright.

"I think I'll pass," I say, ducking under the water so no one can continue the conversation. I open my eyes against the chlorine sting and watch as Charlie kicks away. Edward's legs, covered with a thin layer of hair, stay next to me. He doesn't move, but waits until a resurface, gasping for breath.

"Nice avoidance tactic," he says.

"Shut up. It works well. Watch."

He opens his mouth to respond but I duck under again. My feet press against the side of the pool and I kick off, weaving underwater until I reach the other end. I grab the cement edge and pull myself out awkwardly, splayed on the side of the pool like a beached whale.

I'm over all of it.

The monotony of it.

I can't even bother to pretend anymore.

It's like Groundhog day, each week the same. Each breath and each action and each goddamn person the same as yesterday, the day before. Stuck. Jasper hasn't called in a little over a week. My phone remains barren of all types of messages, my e-mail is empty, my connections forgotten.

And if everyone says this is the best time—the very best time—why is it that all I want to do is move on, on, on?

I break the rules and smoke in the changing room to avoid Edward.

I don't know why, I know why.

I can feel him waiting. I can see him in my mind. Damp shirt, sweaty forehead, plastered hair, weathered hands. Back resting against the rusty lockers, hands wringing together. Eyes darting to the entrance of the changing rooms.

Wet feet padding on the tile as they exit. Fat feet skinny feet thin feet long feet but not my feet, no not my feet.

I wonder if he wants a menthol.

I smoke it down to the stub, peppermint numb tongue. I blow my last exhale into a locker, trap the smoke, and kick the stub beneath a damp wooden bench. My backpack digs deep into my shoulders as I pass him by.

My eyes flicker only barely to the confusion on his face.

There is no game if there's only one player.

"Charlie," I call from the side of the pool. "Charlie!" I catch his attention over the screams of children, the whistle of the lifeguard, the yell of teenage boy. His eyes dart around the echoing room until they land on me. He comes over.

"You're leaving already? Do you need me to give you a ride home?"

Disappointment. At least I'm good at something, then.

"No, I'll walk. I'm tired of the water. Actually, I'm just tired."

"You should nap," Charlie suggests. I let him feel helpful.

"Yeah, good idea. I think I will."

Satisfied.

I turn around and exit. Edward remains in the same spot.

"You're leaving early," he says. Coarse at the center but hurt at the edges.

"I'm tired," I repeat for my new audience.

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"You're not tired."

He takes three long strides and passes on my left, trapping me in the double door exit. Muted sounds of the pool and the highway can be heard from both sides, a warring clash of white noise.

"I am tired," I say, forcefully this time. My brows pinch, eyes pinch. Pursed lips.

"You're the wrong kind of tired."

"You don't understand."

He has the audacity to laugh. Not chuckle, not giggle. Full-blown, stomach-curling, vomit-enducing, pee your pants laughter. He nearly buckles.

"I don't understand tired? Me?" He's still smiling in that manic sort of way, where the points of his lips are turned down and his eyes are cold, hard slate.

"Don't cause I scene," I admonish, trying to push past him.

We dance and he blocks me again.

"You're the one who doesn't understand because you're so goddamn young." Harsh, voice like a whip.

"Don't belittle me."

"It's a fact, Bella. It's a fact."

"I'm just tired, okay? I'm tired of everything. Everything is so goddamn tiring all the goddamn time, okay?" Angry tears, squinted and squelched. "I know I have no right to feel it, but I do. I know, okay? I'm still goddamn tired."

He gets close to me then, voice eerily soothing.

"It feels like it's the whole world is tiring, is tired. But it's not. Not the whole world, anyway. Just yours. After all, its circumference barely breaches the midwest."

There's a pause. All his words jumble in my head, broken puzzle pieces whirling and whirling.

"I don't give a rat's ass about your stupid cryptic bullshit," I snap, successfully bulldozing through his left arm. He walks quickly, two steps behind as I cut through the parking lot of the community center.

I hear his feet stop.

"Bella!" he calls once I'm a few feet from the highway. Behind me, cars whiz past. Rush in the right ear, rush out the left. A sporadic, fading roar.

I wait for him to speak.

"It gets better. It gets bigger, and it gets better."

His face is confident, his stance is strong, his brow is furrowed.

(But his voice is sad.)


ive gotten quite a bit of questions about le writing style. usually i write screenplays n such which has a very strict format u gotta use so i use ffn to experiment. im sorry if the sporadic grammar lapses bother u, but it's intentional and i'm not going to "fix" it.

style for this fic heavily influenced by Chuck Palahniuk and Markus Zusak. theyre more talented tho. check out some bookz. (Survivor, The Book Thief)