I am alive! Real life has been extra stressful, which is why this chapter is late. I make no promises for the next publishing date. Thanks for reading!

February 2013

Ben's House

Vancouver, BC

"I don't think," Ben rasped at me, "I've ever seen you like this."

"Stop talking," I shushed him, stuffing more pillows behind him as he sat up in bed. "And I don't see what the big deal is. All I did was make you a pot of caldo de pollo and a pan of Spanish rice. Standard cure for sickness in Arizona. Lord knows I make it for Brown all the time."

Ben looked at the large bowl of Mexican chicken soup on his tray. As custom dictated, I spooned the bright-orange rice in the bowl first, then ladled the soup over it. Ben stirred it around a little, sniffing at it (which was pointless, as he couldn't smell anything). He held up a lemon wedge and lifted a curious eyebrow at me.

"Squeeze the juice into the soup," I prompted, picking up his laundry and thrusting it into the hamper. As a general rule, I did not wash Ben's clothes for him, but he wasn't well enough to do much for himself, and as long as I was disinfecting everything else in the house, I might as well deal with germ-ridden clothing, too. My motivations were not entirely altruistic; I spent enough time here that I was sure to catch Ben's strep throat if I didn't take precautions. The best way to avoid a prolonged cycle of infecting each other with a communicable disease was to keep everything clean.

He'd do the same for me. My laundry didn't haul itself to the Laundromat when I was on crutches.

Halfway through washing the dishes, I heard Ben's hand-held bell ring a tentative chime. He wasn't used to using it himself—it was Hannah's bell from a long-ago bout with swine flu that coincided with Ben not having any work for two consecutive weeks. Honestly, I was surprised he rang it at all; he was so stubborn and independent, I felt sure he would just get up and try to do things for himself when he should be resting.

"Need anything?" I asked, standing in the doorway.

Smiling tiredly, his eyes twinkled at me. "Lonely. Come eat lunch with me."

Five minutes later I was sitting beside him on his bed, my food perched on an old SpongeBob tray. We clinked—or rather, clunked—our plastic water bottles together, just to be silly. I proposed a toast to antibiotics, debated what movies we should watch from his Netflix instant-watch queue—I wanted to watch Star Trek: Insurrection again but he wanted Slap Shot (I never watched supernatural horror, which amused him)—and told him a dirty joke Renee e-mailed me.

"Why are these vegetables so big?" Ben asked, slicing through a chunk of potato with his spoon.

"This takes a long time to cook," I replied, spearing some chicken with my fork and tossing a cleaned chicken bone into the nearby bone dish. "You're supposed to cut the pieces large so they won't dissolve in the broth." I told him about learning to make this when I was eleven and my mother sent me down to the taqueria around the corner from my ballet studio when she was sick. The cook was worried about me walking all that way by myself every day just for soup, so she told me how to make it myself, what spices to add to set it apart from ordinary soup. "There's supposed to be cilantro in it, too," I added, "but you said you're allergic."

"What are we doing?" Ben asked; his throat sounded much better now that he had something warm to eat.

"Talking about soup, I guess." I shrugged, a little surprised at the question. "You asked me about it."

"What are you doing?" Ben stressed, looking at me strangely. "Why are you…here…like this?"

"You're sick, and I want to look after you." A foreign thing I couldn't identify crackled in his eyes. "Is this about earlier, when you said you'd never seen me like this? By the way, that makes no sense at all; I cook here all the time. You—"

"Not that." Ben shook his head at me. "I meant…everything."

"Everything?" I repeated, confused.

"Move in with me," Ben said suddenly. His spoon was still in his hand, carrot hovering over his bowl.

"Benjamin," I said slowly, laying my fork and spoon down and shifting the tray off my lap, "are you delirious with fever again?" Yesterday at the clinic his temperature was so high he started calling the nurse a pineapple head. He wasn't far off the mark about her hair, actually.

He gave me a low chuckle and looked away. "Maybe."

Ben smiled as I leaned over, brushed his hair back with my palm, and delicately pressed my lips to his forehead to check for signs of elevated temperature, the way my mother used to. Yes, there it was. It surprised me that he was hungry at all. "Would you like me to take your food away so you can sleep?" I offered.

"No. I like it." He went back to shoveling overlarge vegetables in his mouth. "Sit down and eat."

"Okay…" I cleared my throat and pulled my tray back, resuming my own meal.

I wasn't sure what brought this on. We never discussed living together before, although now that I thought about it, it was a natural conversation to have given how often we stayed over at each other's places. And we'd been together for years. Why hadn't either of us brought it up before? Was it my fault that we hadn't because I'd been so distant? Did he expect me to hate the idea? Did I hate the idea? Considering this for a moment, I realized that I liked the notion in theory, maybe more than liked it, but the timing didn't feel right. The question came across as impulsive, but was this another one of those issues I should expect him to discuss with his daughter first, or did it fall under the category of Things Hannah Was Old Enough to Accept Without Debate? How were we going to explain the situation to her? She'd been completely in favor of having a second Christmas with Ben and myself, and we had a wonderful time, but that wasn't the same as me being here all the time. If I lived with Ben, what should I expect as far as holidays? Was he going to send me on my merry way to Forks or Jacksonville while he went to the rez alone, or would I be invited to go with him?

And what about the practical aspects of cohabitation, like bills? He made enough money to pay his own utilities, but I wasn't one to be a kept woman. He had a mortgage, and the cost of living in Vancouver was high—was I supposed to be paying him rent, or taking over the electric bill or something? Did he expect me to cook and clean for him like I did for Renee and Charlie, or was it more like you-cook-tonight-and-I'll-do-the-dishes? What should I expect from him that he wasn't already doing now? If he went for a long stretch of time without work, was I supposed to pick up the financial slack? Was I even in a position to do that? Would I end up having to cut back on my classes? Where was I supposed to put all my stuff? Because of the ridiculous scheduling this semester, I literally spent fourteen hours of every day on campus working two jobs, attending my doctoral classes, and studying, not including the time I spent at my own campus apartment—would I actually be spending more time with Ben than I did now if I moved in? His house was on the edge of town, almost in Burnaby; would my old car be able to withstand the daily commute, or would I have to finally admit to its demise and get a new one?

And what did he mean, what are we doing?

Swallowing a spoonful of broth and rice and panic, I asked him, "Are we going to talk about what just happened?"

"Muh," Ben nodded, trying to hurry up and chew his food.

"Ben," I began, hoping to head him off at the pass, "please don't get upset. It's not that I wouldn't want to, but you live so far from the university, and with my hours—"

"It's okay," he interrupted. He didn't sound defeated or hurt or angry, just hoarse and a little congested. "You've always done things in your own time." Another swig of water, and he added, "Besides, I'd hate for you to think I just want you in here for maid service and sick-nursing."

"I don't," I assured him automatically, still wondering where this moving-in business had suddenly come from and why he looked at me that way before.

"It's also 'cause you're amazing in bed," he smirked.

Just like that, everything was back to normal. I elbowed him gently in the ribs. "Pig," I laughed. And even though I knew I'd probably get sick, I leaned over and kissed him.

March 2013

Ben's House

Vancouver, BC

"I just stick these little white crosses in between, like this?" I asked, holding the tiny white foam piece in place.

"No," Ben corrected me, "turn it ninety degrees, so that the arms are perpendicular to the crevice between the tiles."

I obeyed, noticing how it looked like a little gravestone. "What do I do next?"

Ben showed me how to properly line up all the tiles and use the spacers. His house had one and a half bathrooms, and this weekend I set aside time to help him work on the full bath. That meant that tonight, before we headed out for a well-earned beer at the Chatterbox, he'd be showering at my place. Which I was happily anticipating, if only for how fun it was to join him. "It's about time you finally got around to remodeling the bathrooms," I remarked.

"Yeah, well, it increases the resale value."

Caught off guard, I paused in my work and looked up at him. "You want to sell the house?"

"I've been thinking about it," he nodded. "I originally bought this place intending to fix it up and flip it, but then the housing market went to shit. It looks like the market might be on the way back up, though. If I make a good profit, I can buy something closer to town."

"Oh." I looked at the large square tile in my hand, white marble with naturally artistic swirls of grey.

"Something wrong?"

"No," I replied instantly, then stopped myself from changing the subject. Why did I always do that? "It's silly."

"I like silly."

"It's…" I placed the marble piece on the floor and picked up another little spacer. "I just really liked these tiles, and now I feel kind of cheated out of enjoying them." I peeked up at him, feeling shy and insecure. "Like I said: silly."

Ben gave me a strange look, but he didn't make fun of me. "I like them, too. I never saw tile with this particular marbling before. Where did you get that box of tile samples from, anyway?"

"I, uh…" I tried to find something else to do with my hands and picked up the next piece. "They belonged to this lady I knew when I was a teenager. I brought them with me when I moved here. This one was my favorite."

"I see." Ben was quiet, but then he picked up a tile of his own. "She was important to you."

I sat very still, focusing on the marble in front of me. "Yes."

"And she's gone now."

Silence. I nodded, but didn't explain.

"Bella." I looked up into two warm eyes. "I've always known that it's hard for you to talk about certain things. And that's all right—I'm the same way sometimes. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. But if you do, I'm right here."

I nodded again and looked back at the unfinished floor. All the spacers made it resemble a cemetery. "I think…I want to talk about her. A little."

"Okay. What was she like?"

"She liked to restore houses," I said softly. "She really pulled out all the stops, too. She took this three story house, maybe two hundred years old, and turned it into the most amazing house I've ever seen. The front looked one hundred percent authentic, but the entire back wall was made of that glass they use on high-rises. And even though she used too much white inside the house, it wasn't a sterile space, and it wasn't pretentiously modern. It felt so comfortable."

"I've never seen anything like that," Ben replied. He closed his eyes, probably trying to picture it.

"I think she said it was called a federal farmhouse." I realized I wasn't really talking about Esme—I was talking about her home. "She was nice, too, you know? Gracious. Kind. She had five kids, all adopted as teenagers, and she loved being their mom. She and her husband would take them out to play baseball."

"Baseball?" Ben seemed impressed. "Really?"

"Yeah." It surprised me, how good it felt to say these things out loud, and saying them to Ben. "Mostly she liked to umpire or catch, but she had a mean fastball. She was talented, well-read, and always welcoming. She could do just about anything." I paused, smiling a little. "Except cook."

Ben laughed with me. "Sounds like a special lady."

"She was."

A little white cross hit me on the knee, and I looked up to see Ben still smiling. "So are you."

April 2013

Gathering of Nations Powwow

Albuquerque, New Mexico

"Bella! Bella, look at those people!"

"I see them, Hannah." Her enthusiasm was infectious. "But it's rude to point with your fingers here."

"Oh." She frowned thoughtfully. "Then what do I point with?"

"Your eyes," I answered quietly, smoothing out her hair. "A little nod of the head," I demonstrated, "and you purse your lips a little bit, like this."

"Like blowing a kiss?" Hannah looked at me as if I was crazy before puckering up for all she was worth.

"Not quite that exaggerated," I laughed. "But essentially, yes. And those people are Navajo. That's a basket dance. If you watch and let yourself absorb them, you'll feel their hozh'q."

"What's that?"

"It means…" I closed my eyes and tried to remember the right words. "The beauty of life, as seen and created by a person. It's something that comes from within, and spreads outward. It's a kind of harmony."

"You're right," Hannah said in wonder, her focus returning to the intricately outfitted dancers. "They're beautiful." Their leather, beadwork, and flowing movements were a stunning sight for anyone, but for none so much as Hannah.

"Yes, they are," I agreed, looking at her lively expression. "But so are you." With a tap on her nose, I gave her an encouraging grin and checked over her outfit one last time, straightening the collar. "Are you ready?"

Hannah nodded, eyes wide, excited and nervous. "What if I mess up?"

"You won't be the only one," I reassured her. "Everybody makes mistakes. Just keep going, keep trying your best. You're very lucky, you know—you have much better balance than I did at your age. You just need to have a little confidence. Pretend you're only dancing for your parents, if that helps."

For just a moment, Hannah's bright face fell. "I wish my mom was here," she murmured.

"I know," I whispered back, wishing the same thing. Laura had been working so hard, practicing this Spirit Dance with Hannah for months, and I hated that she had to miss this because of work. Every parent should be able to watch their little girl dance.

"Don't worry," I told her, taking her small hand and leading her into the waiting area, "your dad has the video camera, and you can watch it with your mom over and over when you get back home."

I kept Hannah's hand in mine until her number was called and wished her well in SENĆOŦEN. She answered back with a quick "HÍSW̱ḴE," then squared her tiny shoulders and stepped solemnly into the dance arena, bearing the dignity of a much older girl.

"Your daughter is lovely," I heard someone say. It took me a few extra seconds before I realized the woman who spoke was addressing me.

"Oh!" I started, glancing at the kind-faced, elderly woman. Her clothing gave her away immediately as a Makah, here to participate in the Northern Traditional dance competition. "Thank you, Grandmother, but she's not mine."

"Really?" the woman asked with raised eyebrows. "She has your eye."

"She has her father's eyes," I laughed, looking back at Hannah as she moved and glided and stepped, simple and wonderful. "I just happened to be brown-eyed, too, when I met her dad."

With a patient smile, the Makah woman shook her head. "No, I mean she has your eye. You only see her."

I nodded once, still grinning politely, and kept watching Ben and Laura's daughter as I tried to sort out my feelings. I knew I would never be Hannah's mother; I'd always known that, accepted it, even preferred it. This was the first time, however, that the thought ever made me feel so empty and sad, and I had no idea why that might be. I was not the kind of person who got emotional over the baby clothes section in the department store or stopped random strangers in parks to tell them how adorable their offspring were. I had no desire to deal with the physical restrictions of pregnancy or give up the lifestyle that I enjoyed so that I could spend every waking moment worrying over being responsible for a new little life that was entirely dependent on me. I wasn't that kind of woman and never would be.

But the Makah lady had spoken the most surprising truth of my life. In a warm desert so like the one I grew up in, in an uncomfortably hot arena full of thousands of people covered in a kaleidoscope of beads, feathers, face paint, fabrics, rabbit furs, and leather, surrounded by an infinite spectrum of cultural details begging to be noticed, I only saw Hannah.

And she just wanted her mom.

I felt my stomach clench as I remembered one of the prophylactic directives I once made for myself as a cautious, distrustful undergrad:

Don't get attached—you only lose what you cling to.

How could I have let this happen?

Hannah finished her dance, bowed before the judges, and ran back to me, surprising me with bony young arms flung around my waist. After a second's hesitation, I wrapped my own arms around her shoulders, stroking her hair as I told her what a wonderful dancer she was.

Is getting attached really such a terrible thing after all?

April 2013

Ben's House

Vancouver, BC

"What's all this?" Ben asked, his face bright with amusement and curiosity as he took off his work jacket and stood in the doorway. His house didn't have a formal dining room, just a kitchen with room for a table, which was currently laid out with his grandmother's tablecloth and the best dishes he had, which is to say, not the plastic ones.

"Dinner," I answered, standing by the table in a new dress—Shalice's idea. Presentation matters, she told me, so get something nice, not slutty. "Wash up and come sit down, please."

He did, giving me a quick kiss and inhaling as he got closer to the serving dishes. "Smells good."

"Thank you." This particular meal was a tradition in Coast Salish culture, but I'd only ever seen it served anywhere a handful of times. It took me two days to track down all the ingredients, including a special black salt, and another day of testing in Shalice's kitchen to make sure I knew what the heck I was doing. "I hope you like it."

It wasn't until our plates were on the table and Ben took a good look that his face really lit up. "Is this…?"

"Your mother's sockeye salmon recipe," I nodded, smiling. "I called your aunt. She said this used to be your favorite. Hopefully I did it justice."

"Bella…" He was staring at the table as if he couldn't believe it.

"Did I forget something?" There didn't seem to be anything missing, but maybe—

"No. It's just…I haven't had this since Mom died."

"Oh." I looked down at my plate, wondering if I'd disrespected his mother's memory. Couldn't I ever do anything right?

Ben's knife made a scraping sound against his dish. "Oh my god, this is delicious." He started attacking his food with an enthusiasm I rarely saw in him. "When did you even find time to do this? I thought you were busy grading papers."

"I made the time." Relieved, I lifted my fork and ate with him, talking of simple things, listening as he told me about his last years with his parents. From what he said, I gathered that no one else, not even his ex-wife, had ever gone to the trouble of making this for him except me. This pleased me, but I didn't stop to analyze why.

"So what was the occasion?" he asked me later, when the house was quiet and we were lying together, keeping each other warm.

"No reason," I whispered, twisting our bare legs together. "I just wanted to do something special for you."

May 2013

Dept. of Anthropology

UBC

From one of the many indigenous dialects of India, this is a language that adds various levels of meaning to the English word "love" that we must spell out if we wish to convey them. Onsay is Boro's concise way of saying "pretend to love." Onguboy more positively means "to love from the heart." Onsra has a level of sadness and translates as "to love for the last time."

"Give me one good reason," I said to the freshman who'd 'written' this in his essay on cross-cultural concepts of love for my Comparative Languages class, "why I shouldn't fail you right now."

Because I taught for them, the university had to give me office space. They did not, however, have to give me too much of it. I shared this particular room with three other instructors, each with their own little corner and desk. We were required to keep a minimum number of office hours per week, but as we were all Ph.D. students, we mostly used the time and the quiet to study. I didn't get too many visits from my students, in fact outside of class I was more likely to see them in Financial Aid than here, but sometimes I had occasion to call one in for a chat. For the sake of discretion, I scheduled this one when the other teachers were gone. The boy sitting across from me remained mute as I confronted him. He had red hair, pale skin, freckles—the only way he could be more blatantly Irish was to have the accent and be named O'Malley. I knew him to be eighteen, but he looked sixteen to me. God, was I ever that young?

I rolled my chair backwards, toward a section of low bookshelves, and pulled out a small, unassuming little hardback: In Other Words: A Language Lover's Guide to the Most Intriguing Words Around the World by Christopher J. Moore. Thumbing through it quickly, I stopped at page 117. "Onsay. Boro, India. Verb," I quoted. "From one of the many indigenous dialects of India, this is a language that adds various levels of meaning to the English word 'love' that we must spell out if we wish to convey them…I think you get my point, Mr. Malone. Do you have anything to say?"

The boy sighed. "Ms. Swan, I'm taking eighteen credit hours this semester. I'm doing everything I can to keep up with my course load."

I lifted an eyebrow at him. "Including plagiarism?"

"No!" he said quickly, his eyes dancing around nervously. "I mean, I didn't mean to do that. I meant to quote it and credit the author, you know? But time got short, and I had two other papers due, calculus and geology tests, and a lab exam to prep for, and—"

"Mr. Malone," I stopped him, "I don't know if you pulled this stunt in your other classes, but the reason I have my students submit their essays electronically is so that I can run them against a search engine that detects this sort of intellectual theft. You didn't forget just one footnote."

"Oh," the boy mumbled. "Right."

"I looked at your bibliography," I continued. "It's poorly done." He obviously wasn't taught how to do it properly. What did they teach in high school these days other than how to take a standardized test?

"Yeah." He focused on the book on my desk. "It's just…some things can be rephrased, but some things can't. If 'onsay' means 'pretend to love,' then how else am I supposed to say that? Make something up? Say 'she's just not that into you?' It means what it means. And, like, you said at the beginning of the year that you want lots of sources, but you also said you want original thought, and it's like, quoting source after source becomes 'here's what this other author said, and I agree,' and there's no room for my own thoughts because I have to tell you what everyone else thought."

I considered the young man for a moment. He wasn't wrong—I had that same concern in high school, if memory served. My English teacher then didn't have a satisfactory answer, but I had one right now. "What do you think would happen to you if you submitted a paper with uncredited sources for your thesis, or for publication?" He didn't have anything to say. "I don't want you to parrot what you read verbatim and call it yours. I want you to show you understand what the hell you're talking about."

"How am I supposed to show I understand all these forms of love if I don't even know what it is myself, in any language?" he asked, looking earnest for the first time in our entire conversation. "I don't know the difference between loving someone and just pretending. I mean, if you're treating someone the same either way, is there even a difference?"

Disturbed, I frowned and picked up his essay print-out. "A fine question for a philosophy class, but it's hardly relevant to the issue at hand."

Being a cop's daughter afforded me a different perspective than the older professors who'd been doing this for twenty years. Yeah, what this kid did was wrong, but he wasn't robbing banks or shooting anyone. This boy was a first-year student, with his whole academic career ahead of him. The sections of his paper that weren't ripped off indicated a hidden potential that needed to be developed, and probably would if he'd just pull his head out of his ass. "Because you've never done anything like this in my class before, and because you did not plagiarize excessively in this paper, I'm willing to give you a D and call it an error with your 'Works Cited' page. You'll still pass my class, but not with as high of a grade as you were hoping." I scrawled some extra notes on the last page, entered his grade in my computer, and handed his paper back. "There's a recommendation for a book to help you construct a bibliography, since you clearly don't know how it's done, so that this doesn't happen again. I would also recommend you find a tutor in the English department if you need direct instruction. You'll be writing a lot more papers before your time here is over, unless someone else flunks you. I'm not going to be the only teacher who catches this bullshit, but I probably am the only one who'll tolerate a first offense. Do not expect me to do so again. If I have the good fortune to see you in the fall, I expect better things from you. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." He thanked me, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and went away. I finished up a few things, thought for several minutes, and grabbed my cell phone.

"Chief Swan speaking."

"Hi Dad."

"Hey! Is everything okay?"

"Fine, I promise." It was unusual for me to contact him at this time of day, so I had to reassure him I wasn't hurt. "Listen, I wanted to ask you a question, but it's kind of personal, and I'll understand if you can't talk about it."

"Sure…hang on." I heard him close the door to his office. "Go ahead."

"Do you still love Renee?"

Charlie made a noise I didn't think I'd ever heard come out of his throat. "Shit, Bella."

"Yeah, I know." I toyed with the edge of page 117. It had long been dog-eared and worn from repeated readings. "That's why I called you at work, so Sue wouldn't have to hear."

"You haven't asked me anything I wouldn't discuss with her if she asked me herself," Charlie replied, surprising me. It was a tribute to Sue that my father was willing to talk about his feelings at all, but this was a level of emotional candor I had never seen in him before. "I just don't understand where this question is coming from."

"Just…I don't know. Doing some soul-searching lately."

"Is this about Ben and his ex-wife?" I only sighed in answer. "I see."

"Well?" I prodded.

"Bella," my father exhaled, "I married your mother because I loved her. People get married for the wrong reason all the time, but I married for love. There are two things you need to understand about that. One, those feelings don't die off because of separation. Your mom taking off like that didn't make me not love her, any more than it made me not love you. Was I angry? Hell yes. You don't get that pissed at someone, or that hurt, if you don't care." I had to agree with that—I wouldn't get half so mad at my mother if I didn't care so much about what she thought.

"Which leads me to number two," Charlie continued. "Just because I loved your mom did not mean we were good together. I thought the world of her, but we were only happy for all of about six months. By then the honeymoon stage wore off, which was hard enough, but she was also pregnant, extremely hormonal, stuck in the rain, and she lived thirteen hundred miles away from her parents, which she hated. She wanted to see the world and have all these grand adventures, and believe me, I wanted that for her—I wanted that with her. But I didn't grow up with beatniks for parents; I took a more practical view of the world. I had two sick parents here, and I had to take care of them while I tried to make enough money to send to you. Renee wasn't interested in getting back together and settling for me or Forks. She went off to live the kind of life she wanted, and I didn't begrudge her that. I loved her enough to be happy for her eventually, once I stopped feeling so hurt."

"I don't understand." Leaning forward, I rested my head on my palm. Which one was his onsay, and which was his onguboy? "Do you love her, or do you love Sue?"

"Both, honey." Charlie sounded so strange, like he couldn't believe I hadn't gotten this already. "It's just different. I'll always love your mother. But Sue is…well, I guess you would call her my soul mate."

I didn't say anything, just sat and pondered. I wanted to ask Charlie if he thought Sue felt the same way about him, but I was afraid to, in case the answer was no. My soul mate, if I could still call him that, if I ever could have called him that, told me he loved me every day, including the day he vanished. No matter how much I wanted to, it was hard to hope for anything better than onsay.

June 2013

Maligne Road

Alberta, Canada

Bright white bore down on me from overhead. Urgent but controlled voices swam in and out of my ear. Stinging pain wept its warm, thick tears on my leg. Why always the same leg? I tried to point my toes; it should have been an unachievable feat through my heavy motorcycle boots, but the boot was gone, and someone was holding my calf, applying pressure. The old smell of salt and rust made me queasy, but I'd grown somewhat resistant to the nausea after years of tool-bloodied knuckles.

"Mademoiselle, comment vous appelez-vous? Can you tell me your name, ma'am?"

I looked up into a pair of bright, cerulean eyes, marveling momentarily at the color before I realized she was waiting for an answer.

"Bella…Isabella Swan." I felt the other medic securing a tourniquet just above my knee. "My ID is in the…saddlebags."

The whiteness shone down on me again—the paramedic's flashlight. She was checking my pupils. "Don't worry, we've got your stuff." She seemed to be speaking louder than necessary. Why did it feel like I was moving? Was I on a gurney? "Bella, can you tell me where it hurts?"

"Just my leg," I assured her after a moment's thought and a tentative wiggle of my big toe, followed by the rest of my foot. "Torn up, but it doesn't feel broken." The leg guards on my bike…damn things actually worked.

"You lost consciousness for a little bit, there. How's the head?"

I reached up automatically to touch a tender spot on my right side and realized that my helmet was gone and I was in a neck brace. "Slight pain here," I pointed. "Is it bad?"

"Can you tell me what year it is?"

"It's…thirteen."

"Ready for transport," the male voice at my legs informed us, climbing out of the small space and shutting two doors on us before reemerging somewhere behind my head and shifting into Drive. He was talking to someone. "Dispatch, this is medic unit one, requesting permission to run hot. Priority one."

"Do you remember what happened to you, ma'am?" The female voice was further away now. Pressure on my leg again. "Do you remember anything at all?"

Wet road…tarmac…gravel… "Went into a skid…" Something seemed wrong about that. "How did you find me? I was alone." Sirens. So loud. I guessed we were 'running hot' after all.

"Passing motorist called it in." I didn't remember any cars—I didn't remember my leg getting sliced open, either. "Miss Swan, we're taking you to Seton General Hospital."

"Seton?" I asked, trying to look at the blue-eyed woman but unable to maneuver my neck. "I thought I was at…Maligne Canyon." I stopped there to see the waterfall and take pictures of the landscape. It was a planned stop on my way to Edmonton, which should have been only three hours' ride away from the canyon. Ben's company won a bid for a job there, and for my first summer off in years, I placed all my things in storage and planned an epic road trip, part of which involved traveling to wherever Ben had work. What the medic was saying didn't match what I marked on my roadmap. "Where's Seton?"

With a slight frown in her voice, she answered, "You were at the canyon. Seton's just the name of the closest hospital."

I winced at the strengthening headache, trying to remember something important. "What town?"

"Jasper."

Jasper National Park.

Shit. Leave it to Jasper to leave me bleeding and ruin all my plans. Again.

"Miss Swan, is the pain getting worse?"

"No," I whispered, lying through my teeth even as my tears betrayed me. "I'm just tired."

"You can't go to sleep," the woman said hurriedly. "Miss Swan? Stay awake with me. Can you tell me who we should notify? Emergency contacts? Family?"

I saw Alice's face in my mind. The good-natured way she rolled her eyes at me when I tripped. How she had to help me take a bath every day when my leg was broken. My leg. It was the same leg. "That leg's been broken before. A clean break to the tibia…I was seventeen," I murmured. Did I tell her that already? "And that ankle was broken…few years ago. Steel plates and pins are still in there."

"Good to know," the woman went along with me, trying to keep me talking. "Anything else? What's your blood type?"

"O negative," I muttered, feeling groggy.

"Call in O negative," she said loudly. "Ma'am, you have to stay awake. Tell me who we need to call." I was supposed to call someone. Who was it? "Where is your family?"

Bella, we're leaving…my family and myself.

"They left me," I mumbled as my eyes closed and the pain in my leg began to fade. "They didn't want me anymore." Trees. I saw trees. A stray sunbeam. A loud, fat raven on a low branch, warning his mate of danger, Ga ḵaa - Ga ḵaa! Something is coming!

"Bella, tell me about your family."

They're all gone. I stayed behind to tell you goodbye.

"YOŦ SEN OL U HE,HO,I." I'm always alone.

"Where are they?"

Where we're going…It's not the right place for you.

"Do you know how to find them?"

"Taawla hll ḵing ga." I see a rainbow.

"Where are you from?"

Phoenix. Forks. "Phoenorks."

"She's still losing blood, pulse is dropping, and she's losing consciousness. Ed, drive faster."

"I'm already driving too fast! Tighten her tourniquet, goddamn it!"

Ed…Edward…

"We're almost there, Bella. Tell me where you live."

I won't come back.

"Forks…"

"Bella! Bella…"

Dark.

Bella.

Muffled sounds. Rustling.

Bella?

Someone touched my hair. Fingers. "Dang stl'aay k'aw ga," I murmured—your hand is cold.

Bella? Can you hear me?

Not real. It's never real. "U TW̱ HE,HO,I SEN OL." I'm just alone now.

"EWE," he answered. No.

I'm not? "X̱ENIṈ?" Why?

"EWE SENs YÁ,." I'm not going.

I opened my eyes and saw him sitting on the edge of my bed, arm outstretched as he pressed frigid fingers against the side of my head.

"Ben?"

"Hey there." Relief flooded the walnut-colored eyes as he pulled the ice pack away and looked at every detail of my face. "Glad to see you awake. You scared the living shit out of me, woman."

"What are you doing here?" I asked hoarsely, sitting up in bed a little and looking uncertainly around the room. There were several beds with polka-dotted curtains around them, crash carts, four people milling about in scrubs and one in a white lab coat—all the trappings of a small-town emergency room. Through a window on the opposite wall, I could see a dark sky.

"One of the nurses checked your cell phone and called me." Had his eyes always been so bright? "I got down here in record time."

"Record time?" I checked my wrist, but my watch wasn't there. Gingerly I reached up, pressing my finger against part of my skull. For some reason it felt swollen under my fingertip, but it didn't hurt.

"It's after midnight now. I've been waiting for you to wake up." Ben handed me the icepack in his hand. "Doc says you've got a bump on the head, but no severe head trauma, no spinal injuries, and no internal bleeding."

Two other hospitals flashed before my eyes, one stark white with vertical blinds and a desert landscape painting hanging from a wall, the other long with blue walls, pastel privacy curtains, and a familiar bloody young face in the next bed—Taylor, Tyler maybe? I blinked slowly, pressing the ice to the engorged spot on my head.

Bella, you hit your head, you don't know what you're talking about.

"My leg?" I asked sleepily. I couldn't feel a thing. Must have been some really good morphine.

"You got eighteen staples in the primary gash," Ben said quietly, as though afraid, "and a lot of smaller cuts that had to be stitched up, but no breaks or fractures. That leg'll be scarred up pretty bad, and there's some muscular tissue damage, but the major arteries are intact. You're very lucky. You could have bled out if someone hadn't called it in. They had to use the last of their supply of your blood type to give you a transfusion."

I didn't like it—it made you smell all wrong for a while.

"A nurse asked that we come back and donate soon," he added. "The blood shortage is bad here." He looked down at my leg, swaddled in bandages, his hand hovering over the wound but not touching it. "I'm B-negative." His tone threw me off. Was he…apologizing?

I saved your life—I don't owe you anything.

"Huh," I grunted.

"I called your dad," he continued with a grimace. "Charlie's upset, but he didn't sound all that surprised. He suggested we not tell Renee unless we want her flying up here and pissing you off. Something about none of this happening if you'd moved to Florida?" He cocked an eyebrow at me.

I think that boy is in love with you.

I shrugged lightly.

"I bought you a change of clothes and new shoes," Ben went on, nodding at a white plastic bag on a nearby chair. "They had to cut your jeans open, and your boot was too drenched in blood to be used again."

No blood, no foul.

"The doctor says he'll release you in a few hours if someone keeps an eye on you." Ben pulled at the sleeve of the canvas work jacket on his lap, worrying the seam. "He's supposed to give me a list of instructions and a prescription for pain meds. Once he signs off on your paperwork, we'll get a place to stay for the night and get your bike from the towing company's lot when they open. I can haul it in my work truck. When you feel up to it, we can have a look at your bike and see what the damage looks like."

Can't you just thank me and get over it?

"Ben…" I tried to talk, but the words came out in strange swells, like the sea. "Home is, like…ninety-nine hours away… You can't just drive me and my bike…all the way down there and…come all the way back. It's…clowny."

"Anyone ever told you how hilarious you are when codeine is involved?" he chuckled. "Home is actually nine hours away, not that it matters. I'm bringing you back to Edmonton with me. They've got me in a hotel until this job is done, and you can just stay there with me while you heal up."

I hope you enjoy disappointment.

I stared up at Ben, my mouth forming a perfect O-shape.

"What is it?" His strong face was marred with worry. "Are you in pain?"

I shook my head, blurring my view for a second. "You came here…for me?" Wasn't that against the rules? Don't rely on anyone else; the only person with the power or desire to take care of me is me.

Ben looked at me like I was stone crazy. "Of course I did. I wasn't just going to leave you here all by yourself. What the hell kind of—?"

But I didn't let him finish; I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him down with me as I dizzily collapsed backward onto my bed. He didn't say anything at all, just kissed the uninjured side of my head. His body was too hot against mine in the chilled hospital air, but I didn't care. I sobbed like a child until a nurse came to check on me and offer more pain meds. Ben held me all the while.

Footnotes:

Caldo de pollo (Spanish) chicken soup

Taqueria (Spanish) taco stand (often used to mean "Mexican restaurant")

HÍSW̱ḴE (SENĆOŦEN) Thank you

Mademoiselle, comment vous appelez-vous? (French) Miss, what is your name?

Maligne Canyon: Located in Jasper National Park. "Maligne" translates from French as "malignant"

YOŦ SEN OL U HE,HO,I. (SENĆOŦEN) I'm always alone.

Taawla hll ḵing ga. (Haida) I see a rainbow.

Dang stl'aay k'aw ga. (Haida) Your hand is cold

SENĆOŦEN Salish conversation between Bella and Ben:

Bella: U TW̱ HE,HO,I SEN OL. I'm just alone now.
Ben: EWE No.
Bella: X̱ENIṈ? Why?
Ben: EWE SENs YÁ, I'm not going.

Leg guards, or engine guards, are bars attached to the sides of a bike to prevent the engine from dragging across the ground in the event of an accident. They would have prevented the bike from crushing Bella's leg, but they would not have prevented her calves or thighs from dragging across any debris in the road.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All recognizable characters and song lyrics are the property of their respective copyright owners. Portions of Stephenie Meyer's original work are reprinted, but no copyright violation is intended. References to real places and groups are used fictitiously, and certain elements of history are ignored. This story is in no way meant to reflect actual criminal events or territorial claims of gangs or motorcycle clubs in Vancouver or any other location.