Chapter 8: Adrenaline (you can Google it)
This is kind of a half-pint chapter and it's pulled right from the book, so I apologize. I think I gave my own Vesper-take on it. In any case, expect another update by Thursday. :)
It was snowing and icy the day Tyler nearly drove his van into Bella. With human reflexes, anyone could lose control of their tires on wet ice. Edward had to remind himself of that for weeks afterwards to keep from doing something that would make Tyler legally incapable of driving ever again.
He had been distracted by something and not paying attention to Bella when the tires squealed with ineffective breaking. What could he possibly have been doing? Parking, maybe. Why had he wasted the energy when there was something so important so close by? When he saw the SUV skidding towards Bella at the edge of his vision, her eyes were locked on the windshield of the Volvo, seeking out his face. One last look?
He moved without thought. Thankfully his family backed him up just as quickly. Jasper jumped over the gearshift and cup holders to finish parking the car and close the driver side door before it banged into the next car over. Everyone else ran to easily missed places at the front of the school and Jasper rushed to follow, as if they had all been there for a while.
Edward crouched, moved his body between Bella and the van. He took her by the waist and pulled her down into a squat, then swung her legs out and underneath her truck. He slid to the left as he took the impact of the hit to his back, letting the van end pressed against the unharmed truck bed. He dragged Bella with him by the shoulders. It ended up looking as if the van had missed them both by a few inches and Bella's truck was incredibly resilient. People always thought those iron monsters never got damaged, anyway.
It took a few seconds for the commotion to start. Edward picked her up, back against one arm, legs bent over the other, and stood. An image of them was thrown at him by Jessica – with the top few buttons of his shirt popped off, it spread open to reveal a few inches of chest, his hair was disheveled around his face, Bella's blowing around in the wind, and her chest plunging out of her shirt with each heavy breath. They looked like the cover of a medical Harlequin paperback. Jessica, the nasty little child, was actually jealous it hadn't happened to her.
He scanned the rest of the nearby minds – no one suspected he was anything more than a very quick-moving fellow. Many people had already changed their earlier memories to fit him in next to her.
"Are you all right?" he said, scanning Bella's body for injuries. She wasn't bleeding. He couldn't be holding her if she was. Her head had hit his knee pretty hard though, and, from the way she was holding her ankle, she might have hurt it.
"I'm fine!" she said, running a hand through his hair. "I'm—ow. Are you all right? Did anyone—"
After all that and all she was worried about was keeping his secret? All he wanted to do was cry or kiss her and he couldn't do either. "No one saw anything," he assured her very quietly. "Does your head hurt? Your ankle?"
"Yeah." She nodded and then winced at the jarring movement.
A crowd had gathered around them and he tried to keep them a few feet away. Alice and Jasper were useless, playing screaming teenager along with the real ones.
Ben, Conner, Austin, and Mike went to help Tyler out of his van. It was too many men for the job and Mike was left with nothing to do, so he revived his role as Edward's personal cheerleader. "Everybody!" he said. "Edward saved Bella's life!"
He raised his arms and a cheer exploded across the courtyard. They were soon drowned out by the sound of sirens.
Once the van was moved and a stretcher was brought for Bella, she desperately didn't want to go to the hospital, but she might have had a concussion and, even if her ankle was only sprained, if Carlisle didn't give her a brace for it, she would break it by tripping on something by the end of the day. He refused a stretcher for himself, gaining a vicious glare from underneath an adorable neck brace, but he insisted on riding in the ambulance with her and Tyler.
As they were loading the desperately apologizing boy into the truck, Sally Mallory appeared out of nowhere.
"—yes, savior again, seventeen-year-old Edward Cullen saved Isabella Swan from certain death this afternoon. Here he is, holding her hand in the ambulance, always ready to avoid tragedy, then provide comfort," she said. He raised his hands and shook them at her – he was very carefully not holding her hand, thank you very much. "Here they are, poster children for young love."
How she would make the image of their glowering faces fit her words, he was almost excited to find out.
She felt something like a pregnant woman in labor, being rushed into the hospital in a wheelchair flanked with nurses and Edward running along one side. They stopped him from following past some swinging doors, to which Bella thought she heard him growl, but he stayed in the waiting room. Oh god, was she going into surgery? She didn't need surgery! She didn't need to be here at all.
"We're not sure what you need yet, baby doll," one of the nurses said, patting her shoulder. "We're just going to scan your head and your leg, see what your body's doing. It'll be fun!"
It was not fun, of course, especially with Tyler and a never-ending flow of apologies in the room with her.
"We're just going to set you up in a bed, doll, get you some fluids. Your friend Taylor will be in there with you!"
That nurse was annoying and a liar to boot because, after they pressed an IV into her arm and checked her temperature, she was alone in the room for at least five minutes. She threw the neck brace across the room and glared at the wall. Edward was the first person to come in. She noticed again that his shirt was ripped in the process of saving her and a generous amount of his pale pectorals were exposed. She thought if she craned her neck, she could probably have seen a nipple. Although she was feeling woozy, she still had enough control over herself to not do it.
"They gave you an IV?" He laughed. "That is entirely unnecessary."
"This hospital visit is completely unnecessary. You are such a traitor."
He just smiled. "Are you thirsty?" After a test swallow, she realized she was. "I'll be right back." And then he was gone again and Bella was alone in the room for another wretched amount of time.
She was ready to pull the tubes from her arm and make a break for it when Tyler was brought through the door. He was still in a hospital gown from the X-rays and she saw his naked butt as two nurses moved him on to the bed next to hers.
"I'm so sorry, Bella," Tyler told her for the fourth or fifth time. He looked terrible, gauze wrapped around half his face and dark circles under his eyes. A nurse assured him she'd be right back and left them alone.
"It could have happened to anyone, Ty—" she tried to comfort him, but he interrupted.
"It wasn't the ice. Well, I mean, it was, of course it was—I lost control, Bella, I promise!" She smiled and nodded calmly. Who would try to hurt her? "But I've lived here my whole life, and half the winter there's ice! My dad taught me to drive when Mom got pregnant the last time so I could take her to the hospital if I had to – I was thirteen – I know how to drive on ice—"
"It's not your fault—"
"It's Alice Cullen!" he shouted and then blushed, put his head between his legs and took deep breaths. "I saw her smiling out the window of Edward's car. She drives me crazy." Tyler leaned his head against a knee, whispering. "She just – and she just dances and – she smells like – everything perfect."
Bella thought of Jasper. She would be more frightened for Tyler if he was going up against Emmett, but not by much. If Tyler announced to the school that he was taking Alice to prom, Jasper wouldn't take it as lightly as Jacob had the year before.
"Lauren!" she said the moment she thought of the other girl. "Do you know who would be a great distraction for that? Lauren! Lauren still really likes you, you know." Bella didn't really want to put Lauren on anyone, but she would definitely be distracting. Or at least neurotic.
"You think Alice is out of my league?" Tyler was about to cry, his eyes round and wet.
"No-o-o. It's just Lauren…" Bella quickly considered leagues – baseball leagues. First she thought of Phil and then of the game she'd seen the night before. Yes, Alice was in a different league all together. "Lauren is on your team. She's the catcher to your pitcher. Do you know what I mean?"
"Do you mean she'd put out?"
"That, too. Yes." Tyler grinned and straightened his shoulders. Bella pat him on the back and he winced, bruised from the collision. "Probably on the second date if you… pitch well."
"That metaphor's falling to pieces," said Edward, back with a glass of water. Two nurses followed him with a wheelchair and started loading Tyler on to it. "If Tyler pitched well, the batter would get the ball and Lauren would miss it entirely."
"The metaphor's fine," Bella said and took the glass. Their fingers brushed and she felt it like an electric current up her arm. "You're on the other team, that's the problem. You're batting. If you're on outfield – like Tyler – a good pitch passes over the batter and Lauren catches the ball."
"The batter being my sister," Edward said, staring far, far down at Tyler.
"Whoa, man," Tyler said and almost fell out of the wheelchair as he worked the wheels, helped the nurses get him out the door. "I mean, yeah. Ball passes over Alice all right. I would never send Alice the ball."
"Good," Edward said, satisfied, and dropped into the chair next to her bed. Tyler hastily waved goodbye to Bella and the weighted door closed behind him. "Jasper would rip the child's throat out. He doesn't need the provocation."
Bella smiled, despite Edward's sober warning, smiled at Jasper's deep love for Alice, smiled because Edward was next to her.
A husky voice came from the doorway. "Maybe I'd get to little Jasper first."
"Jake—" she started, but didn't know how to finish. Edward's last words confirmed everything Jacob thought about the Cullens and Bella didn't know how to tell him what she felt – that it didn't matter what their instincts were, that it was that Jasper didn't want to hurt anyone that was the crux of the matter.
"What are you doing here?" Jacob hissed. Edward stood, a few inches shorter than Jacob and maybe half his width, and met his gaze calmly.
"Bringing Bella a glass of water. I'll leave now. Don't let her drive herself home."
Jacob's hands were fisted at his sides, his body trembling. Bella said his name again and touched his arm, with little affect. "Don't give me advice—"
"She's fragile," Edward interrupted and he quickly surveyed her body under the blue and white hospital sheets. "And she's precious. Don't forget what you can do."
"Same to you," he growled, almost too low to understand. He was fifteen seconds from phasing, maybe less. She tried to beg Edward to run away now with her eyes.
"I'm leaving," Edward said again and then, much more forcefully, "Calm down, Jacob Black."
"Calm down," Bella repeated and cupped his fist in both hands. Finally, Jacob stopped shaking and turned away from Edward, took her hands in his and kissed her palms. Bella smiled at him and when she looked up for Edward, he was gone.
"What happened?" he said. His voice was rough, cracking with worry.
"Why aren't you in school?" she said and he chuckled, lay his head on her lap.
"Sam was in town getting some tools when someone ran in the store saying there was an accident at the school, that you were involved." His breath came out as a shudder and Bella stroked her fingers down his neck. "He ran back and got me out of class to tell me – no one knew what happened, if you were even okay… I didn't even think before I ran here. It took Sam and Quil both shouting at me to change back into human form to stop me from just wolfing it inside." He sat up and kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth, then repeated, "What happened?"
She told him the story as succinctly as possible and ended with, "Jake, this is the second time Edward has saved my life. This time I'm sure I would have died."
"What is their plan?" Jacob growled, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palms. "What the fuck are those Cullens going to do? I can feel the massacre, Bella, it's like Chinese water torture, steady drops of blood on the back of my neck."
"Excuse me," Carlisle said, appearing at the door. Bella's breath caught. He had certainly heard Jacob's words, but his gaze was even and kind. "I'm so sorry to interrupt. And I apologize for taking so long, Ms. Swan. Mr. Crowley had some light internal bleeding and I had to get the surgery ready. Your X-Rays look good, no concussion and no broken ankle, just a second or third degree sprain."
Bella looked at Jacob to share a smile of relief, but he kept a steady glare on Carlisle, not even blinking. She looked back at Carlisle and tried to apologize for him without speaking. The doctor's smile didn't even strain. "I just want to give you a brace for your ankle, make sure you don't hurt it any more, and then you're free to go."
He made light conversation while he fit a brace to her left ankle, but Jacob refused to speak to him, not even when Charlie arrived and exploded with thanks to Carlisle and Edward.
Insisting on leaving by her own power, she was finally free of the wheel chair and hobbled to the cruiser. "I'll meet you at your house, okay?" Jacob said.
"No," she said, surprising him. "The Cullens have done nothing wrong. In fact, they have been nothing but kind and generous to me. I am offended that you can't get over your prejudice and I don't want to see you tonight. I'll call you after school tomorrow."
Charlie didn't mention her unprecedented behavior until they were just a few minutes away from the house. "Billy and Harry told me a few months back that the Cullens were banned from the reservation. Their only explanation was that the elders had a bad feeling, that the family was a bad seed, like something was intrinsically wrong." He sighed. "Now, they're some of my best friends and I'd trust them with my life, but that is not okay. Dr. Cullen's a good man and Edward has proven himself as a brave and compassionate friend to you. I just avoid the topic – didn't tell Billy when Edward came by on Christmas, for example – but you were right to be straightforward with Jacob." Bella couldn't help but be pleased at her father's approval, but he fell into platitudes. "He'll come around. You two will work it out."
Why was her eventual marriage to Jacob and happy ending always such a given?
