AN: You all really enjoyed that last author's note. That was my brain on four hours of sleep. But because of it, I have a new things to say in Portuguese, and a correction to an old one:
Eu não falo português. Obrigada. ;) Aaaand: Eu amo pessoas que falam português. =)
So there. I feel cooler now. And if you speak Spanish and find it easier to leave a review for me in Spanish go ahead and do that. One reviewer already is. I wish I knew other languages to communicate in. My Dutch is horrible (my foreign exchange student from the Netherlands and I use to laugh at how bad I was) and my French is non-existent.
I don't usually like long author's notes but I have people to thank! Because of something stupid I was doing I lost the author's note where I thanked I'mwiththevampires08 for her rec of POAG in a chapter of Bitter Sweet Symphony. So thank you again =). I would also like to thank the person over at lion_lamb who rec'd POAG, and funkydiva1978 who rec'd this in a chapter of The Delicate Dance of Marriage. Gracias!
Anyway, this chapter is a bit shorter than usual. Don't get mad at me for that. It's necessary. Next chapter is their Homecoming dance.
Chapter 10: People Watching
I was free falling, frighteningly falling to the distant ground at a speed I couldn't calculate, knowing that only a sudden fatal impact would finally end the nauseating weightlessness of the fall.
Until my damn leg spasmed and I woke up.
I knew by the darkness of my room that I probably hadn't slept for very long, and with a soft groan I rolled over to search for my phone to give me the time. And then I groaned louder.
I had barely slept for a half hour.
As soon as my mind woke up as much as my body, I took notice of the nighttime sounds around me. They weren't very typical, or at least, not typical to me, but they were the norm for people who had lived here their whole lives. There was shouting coming from down the street, a car alarm going off somewhere, and the telltale creaking coming from the people who shared my bedroom wall. The light from the streetlamp that leaked through my poor excuse for a curtain kept invading my eyes, and I became painfully more alert, as if it were widening my pupils and tightly cranking gears in my head that I didn't want to be cranked. While my brain grew frustrated from the yellow light, the creaking from the other side of the wall became more insistent, rhythmic, and loud.
I gave up on sleep. Usually I was able to block out the sounds and find some quiet in my mind, but lately I had too many things going on in my head.
I flopped out of bed. Dragging my comforter from on top of my sheets and wrapping it around my shoulders, I went downstairs. Everything was partially illuminated by the light coming from outside, but for the most part, shadows dominated the house. A peek through the front window at the driveway told me that Dad still wasn't home. I hadn't seen him for more than two minutes the past couple of days. He still knew nothing about how my time at the mall went.
Thinking of the mall obviously led me to think of Edward. I think I laughed out loud to myself when I thought of how indignant he became when I disagreed with him and said I would rather be a Rolling Stone than a Beatle. And then I wanted to slap myself when I realized that my smile wasn't going away.
I groaned and hit my head on the wall by the stairs. I liked Edward too much. He was annoying as hell sometimes, but I couldn't deny that in a school full of people that ignored me, and who I tried to avoid in return, I liked that at least one person made some sort of effort. He could yell at me in gym until he turned blue and I don't think it would change my opinion of him. Even when things were awkward we could turn it around and get to talking about something. . . and that something, I was figuring out, could be anything. We could seriously talk about porn and I don't think it would be weird.
Again, I wondered if we could talk about my secret girl status. What would he think? That I'm crazy? Well, yes. That's a given. But would he help me out? How would he help me out? Just by letting me dump part of my burden on him? I didn't want to be any more selfish than I already was.
Originally, my plan was to make no friends. Edward was making that impossible, though. Did I deserve a friend right now?
The house was completely motionless; still, with the exception of car headlights racing along the ceiling toward the corner of the room. Noises, noises, noises kept pricking at my ears. Car noises, people noises, my own noises. I wanted the noises to match the static of our half of the house.
Walking over to the kitchen, I stood and stared out the front window again. People were everywhere. Not a lot of people, just more than you would expect at nearly midnight. It was one thing I had come to understand about living in a poor area surrounded by public housing: people didn't go inside. Their houses were small and dirty and dingy, and it was cleaner and less depressing to sit outside on their stoop to talk with other people who were doing the same.
It was all very neighborly of them. I decided to join the ranks.
I unlocked the deadbolt to my front door, and in my bare feet with the comforter hugged tight to my body, I walked across the small porch that connected the entry doors to our duplex and took a seat on the top step.
It was much colder outside than in my room. My butt was taking in the temperature from the hard wood underneath it. But I wasn't going to change my mind, I wasn't going to go back inside and sweat all night in my room.
The other people outside didn't really take notice of me. I liked to think they hated me and my father, and therefore did their best to pretend that we didn't exist. It didn't matter too much that we were white and most of them weren't, just because we were as poor as they. But, we were a family consisting of a single father who was a policeman in a town filled with petty criminals, and a daughter who now walked around dressed as a boy. We were fucking weird, and strange. Not normal. I smiled to myself at the thought that, in a town of drug pushers, we were the people to be avoided: The cop and his cross-dressing daughter. Awesome. Score one for the Swan family.
I observed my neighbors peacefully as every once in awhile someone would laugh out at full volume, and I refused to let a chill take up place in my body. Eventually, I didn't know how much time had passed, but I saw my father's cruiser turn the corner down the road, and I was happy to have his headlights momentarily blind me as he pulled in the drive.
"Bella?" he said anxiously, getting out of his car quick. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I replied, confused. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, you're outside wrapped in a blanket late at night. Why aren't you inside?"
I shrugged. "Couldn't sleep. Room's too hot."
He locked his car and stood, eyes level with mine, at the bottom step. "It's not safe out here late at night. C'mon, let's go in."
"What are you talking about? We're safe."
Instead of protesting or ordering me inside like I thought he would, he sighed heavily and took a seat beside me on the top step. He shuffled his gun around on his belt and leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking at me.
I smiled weakly. "We're quite a pair, Dad."
He raised an eyebrow. "We are?"
"Oh yeah." I tilted my head over at the people who snapped their heads in the opposite direction as soon as they noticed us outside with them. "I have a feeling the drug dealers won't even let their children near us."
He laughed gently, rubbing the scruff on his face. And then he surprised me by leaning over and hugging me tightly. "How've you been holding up, Bella?"
"Alright." I gripped his back before he let me go. "I found a suit on Friday for the dance this weekend."
"That's good," he said.
We both became quiet then, staring ahead of us. My eyes were so well adjusted to the night and glow of the streetlamps that I didn't notice shadows anymore. I watched the moon feeling some sort of yearning I couldn't justify.
"Bella?" Dad said after a moment. "How are you doing, really?"
I looked deep into his eyes and exhaled slowly as I felt a weight press down heavier on my chest. I wanted to be honest and wanted to spare him the details at the same time. "I don't know."
He stared back at me patiently. He never said anything to push, and he didn't need to. It was how we worked after Mom died. And so, as he stared at me with an entire mountain of concern behind his eyes, I opened up.
"I freak out almost every day, like there's this constant. . . undercurrent of anxiety I can't ignore. I don't know if I'm doing things right. I make sure I'm alone for most of the day and in between classes. I don't want anyone getting to close to me and figuring it out, but lately—" I thought of Edward, Jasper, Emmett, Aaron, and this was where I began gasping in order to keep back a sneak attack of tears, "—there's this, um, boy—guy, uh, kid in my gym class, and he sometimes goes out of his way to be nice to me. He's the one who took me to the mall," I explained, sniffling. "And I've messed up so much in front of him. . . and his friends. . . already. I. . . I. . ."
I didn't know how to finish, but it didn't matter, because Dad swooped in again with another hug. He managed to shift me so that my legs swung over his lap and he pulled me closer, rubbing my back as I turned into a bit of a blubbering mess on the front steps. I vaguely wondered if we stood out or blended in with the activity on the street.
"Do you want someone else to talk to about it?" he asked softly into my hair.
I nodded. "Yeah, b-but I have no idea how this kid will react. I want to be his friend and I don't want to be his friend."
I was so tired. And confused. I began to feel my eyes blink rapidly as more tears silently pushed themselves out of the corner of my eyes.
"What you're doing is very difficult, Bella," my dad began in a gentle but firm tone. "I'm not going to lie and tell you I've become okay with the entire idea, but I know you're doing it for the right reasons for yourself. That's why I support it. And if you get to know this boy better and it seems like the right thing to do, then I hope you tell him."
I nodded again, feeling like a five year old but enjoying every minute of comfort.
"I'm sorry I haven't been home that much lately," he whispered.
'It's okay," I mumbled into his chest.
"Hey, you know what Saturday is, don't you?" he asked more excitedly.
"No?"
"It's your eighteenth birthday." I glanced up and couldn't decide if Dad looked more sad or happy.
"Oh," was all I could come up with as a response. Saturday was indeed the thirteenth of September. I had completely forgotten.
"How about we go inside now and go to bed?" Dad asked when he saw me slipping out of it.
I stood up by way of agreeing to his suggestion. He smiled tiredly at me, and I think I managed to smile back. By standing I was suddenly more occupied with the realization that I wasn't feeling cranked into being awake, but that I was instead exhausted to the point my walk became a shuffle, my eyes only able to stay half open. Needless to say, I had no problem letting my dad lead me back up to my bed.
Edward's POV
"I just don't understand. Why would they do it? Why would they wanna fuck with us? I swear to God, the fact that no one cares makes it scarier." Jasper gripped his juice bottle tighter, glaring at something only he could see.
We were recycling through our tampon conversation in a quiet corner of the courtyard. I'd been repeating the same answers to his rhetorical questions, otherwise he would flip out unnecessarily, claiming that he was an island or something like that. Lately, he had even more of a one track mind than usual. The tampon was all he thought about. I had lost count of all of the variations of this conversation we'd had.
"There were only three people to actually know about it and see it," I reminded him. "Everybody else you told about it that day now thinks you made it up."
"Still," Jasper insisted, never one to be undeterred, "of those three people, there's only one that cares, that really understands the importance of what it could mean, and that's me. Why don't you get it, Edward? Why don't you care?"
"I get it." I sighed. "I do care. I've just got other things on my mind. And I'm not willing to believe the school's behind it. It doesn't make sense."
"Whatever," he said, and I could hear the bruise in his ego. "I'm about to fucking believe everything else people have been trying to warn us about—Area 51, aliens, the government being behind 9/11. Did we even really land on the moon?"
"Jazz," I interrupted his rant. "Seriously, shut up."
"No, seriously Edward," he mocked, "how can we be sure? I'm willing to believe anything right now." He rocked back on his heels. "My mind is open to the possibilities."
I raked a hand through my hair and tried to keep my rational thought intact. "Why would they lie to us about the moon?"
"Why was there a tampon in the toilet at an all boy's school?" he shot back, squinting his eyes at me. "You don't know the answer, but you know that it isn't right."
"I'm pretty there's scientific evidence behind our landing on the moon, though. And besides, landing on the moon isn't wrong. Not in the way the tampon was."
Jasper stewed for a moment and opened his mouth to reply, when something caught his eye over my shoulder, and he nodded in silent greeting.
Emmett was the person who came over and shadowed my left shoulder, and I nodded also in acknowledgement. "Hey Ed, hey Jazz," he said. "What are we talking about?"
"Conspiracy theories," I drawled. I placed my own water bottle to my mouth just to occupy it, before taking a long drink so hopefully Jasper wouldn't try and suck me into the conversation again.
"Oh yeah!" Emmett's face lit and he snapped his fingers. "Like, uh, the Romanovs? I'm totally convinced Princess Anastasia survived."
I spit out my drink back into the bottle. "What?"
He couldn't be serious. . . but one look at his face told me he was. Why in the world Princess Anastasia was the first thing to come to his mind I would never understand.
"Ah!" Jasper exclaimed. "I forgot about that one! That's also probably another big lie they fed us." He began nodding as if in on the scheme. "She totally survived. I'm with you on that."
They bantered back and forth about different conspiracy theories, even ones that had been solved and proven just that: conspiracies. I drowned out their voices and people watched everyone else who was standing in the courtyard during their break between classes. It being only a couple of weeks into the school year, no one felt any pressure to hole themselves in the library at every free moment to get work done. And the weather was still pleasant, so it made socializing outdoors even more appealing. I felt like I was the only one who wasn't really enjoying himself.
Mike Newton was clapping Paul Bates on the back as they laughed. Tyler Crowley looked like he was letting Jared Neilson copy some notes.
I watched Eric Yorkie drift off around the corner of the building on his way to his usual smoking spot and looked for Ben to be right behind him, as I had noticed that was usually the case with those two. But as I scanned and rescanned the small sea of people in identical uniforms, I realized I couldn't see anyone moving over to follow Eric. I felt myself sighing in some sort of relief at the thought that Ben was going to stop hanging out with the weird ones.
And then Emmett nudged my shoulder and nudged me out of my thoughts. "What's up with you, buddy?"
"Nothing," I sighed.
"Come on," Jasper said firmly. "You've been acting strange."
"No I haven't."
"Uh yes, yes you have," Emmett disagreed.
They kept talking about me acting like a bitch or something or other, probably in an attempt to get me angry so I'd talk to them again, but I ignored them. Ben had come out of the main entrance, brushing at something invisible to me on his shirt. He adjusted his backpack straps, and then began tugging at the ends of his hair, extending them as far away as possible from his head. He was looking very rumpled, lines creased all over his clothing and his face as he peered down at his hands and began cleaning one of his nails with one of his fingers. He walked forward without looking up to see if anyone was in his way, and then he suddenly stopped. With his hands curled near his chest, he grimaced at his shoes. He bent one leg up and his toe pointed at the ground, dangling as if it had offended him somehow. I tried to get a good look at the area near his feet and only saw a meal someone had brought outside and smashed into the ground.
It wasn't uncommon here for people to do things like that, but Ben shuddered, and then quickly and delicately stepped over it before walking away and plopping himself down at an empty bench.
My mind went reeling over the action. It was so. . . so overdramatic? And again I thought that maybe, just maybe, my recent suspicions were true. I wanted to talk to someone about it, and not Jasper or Emmett, but Ben himself. The only problem was: what right did I have to ask him about something as personal as his sexuality?
"—probably pining away over someone. Is Bree being a prude? Or is it you?" Emmett asked. It dawned on me that he was directing the question towards myself, but I hadn't listened to a word of their conversation. Before I could ask him to repeat himself, he was waving his massive hands in my face. "See?" he pointed out to Jasper. "Not even listening. I can't talk to him when he gets like this."
"Yeah, I know," Jasper said sympathetically. "Just ignore him and he'll eventually come around."
Looking over at my two friends and, finally seeing them, I found that they were both watching me with probing stares. Emmett had his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his khakis, his mouth set in a serious line that looked out of order on his usual joking face. Jasper had a hand unnaturally welded to his bottle, the other also hidden in a pocket. The inquisitive look he had in his eyes was unsettling. I had seen it many times before, but this was the first time it was directed at me. I suddenly got this queasy feeling, as if I was an ant on his back, squirming under a magnifying glass.
"What?" I asked defensively.
"Nothing," they both mumbled casually, shrugging off their stares as they looked anywhere but at me.
I glared back at them doubtfully and wished I had paid attention to what they had said before. Grasping for anything to shift their focus, I made a remark about Homecoming this Friday, effectively getting them to start talking about the dance.
I settled the weight of my attention back on Ben sitting alone at the bench. Something. . . something had to be done. There had to be something I could do to figure it out for myself without coming across as an ass. It was driving me crazy for some reason. Maybe because there were dualities I had witnessed coming from Ben. I didn't like dualities. He had to make it clear to me, directly or indirectly. He had to be one thing or the other. I needed time with him. I needed. . . more.
And then my opening hit me like a freight train.
I turned to Emmett. "You wanted to pick up some stuff before the dance Friday, right?"
He stopped mid-sentence and looked at me curiously. Probably surprised I just interrupted him and Jasper after ignoring them. "Yeah. . . why?"
"Isn't there a place in Chelmsford that's a joke when it comes to fake IDs?"
"Yeah. . ."
"What are you suggesting, Edward?" Jasper asked, pretending to be insulted. "That Emmett would stoop to going to the ghetto to find his alcohol?"
I smirked and ignored him, continuing my line of questioning at Emmett. "So is that where you were planning on going?"
Emmett looked indifferent, but confused at the same time. "Yeah, I mean, I could go there. Did you want to?"
"Sure." I smiled, glad things were going according to plan. "But hey, I've got to go ask someone something, and then I'll be back."
Emmett shrugged while he and Jasper watched me walk off. They most likely we're convinced that something was definitely wrong with me now. But I just didn't care, because I knew there wasn't anything.
I came up behind Ben and walked around to sit across from him. He wasn't rattled that I just came out of nowhere. I must do this a lot.
"Hey," he said, nodding to me while he finished messing with his fingernails.
"Hey," I replied. Now that I was here I wasn't sure how to start. The idea that hit me like a train didn't come with an introduction. So I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"You know why it's better to be a Beatle?"
"This again?" Ben asked. He looked amused that I wouldn't let our argument from the car ride home from the mall go.
"The Beatles have a wider range of musical style," I continued as if he hadn't spoken. "They didn't limit themselves. You wouldn't get bored being a Beatle."
"Sure, if you say so."
"What? What's up with that?" I questioned that he was so willing to give in. "No verbal harassment about how stupid I am to want to be a Beatle over a Rolling Stone?"
"Nope," he responded with a smirk. "I'm too tired to care. So surprise, you win. Was there something else you wanted?"
I floundered for a second before I remembered my plan and why I had come over here. "Uh, yes, actually. There is something else."
For some reason I didn't say anything more. I just watched Ben and the bags beneath his eyes as if he was supposed to the one who needed something.
"Well?" Ben asked after a minute. "Did you want something or what?"
"Oh. Yeah. How are you getting to the dance Friday?"
"Uh, bus. Why?" He suddenly sat up straighter, narrowing his eyes at me as if he didn't trust me.
"Emmett knows of a place that accepts his fake ID in Chelmsford. He was going to head over there before the dance to get some stuff for after. If you needed a ride we could swing by and give you one."
Ben hunched a little and began chewing on his bottom lip. He didn't let up on the frown he was directing at me. I sat still, arms crossed on the table between us, maintaining my casual attitude.
It took a couple of seconds longer than I thought it would for him to speak. After our time at the mall I thought it was more obvious that we got along—I didn't understand his hesitation to speak.
"Are you sure?" he asked finally, timidly.
"About giving you a ride?" He nodded. I scoffed a little. "Yeah, I'm sure. Do you want one? Do you need a ride back too?"
"Uh, sure. Yeah, thanks," he said, stumbling over his words a little. "Ride would be good."
"No problem," I said graciously, becoming more self-persuaded that the extra time might be that more that I need.
And, as we sat in an amicable silence, I let myself stare at his face while he stared over my shoulder at nothing. Ben looked not only rumpled up close, but like he was strung out. There was a glazed over quality to his eyes that I wasn't used to seeing, and I wondered if he was smoking again with Eric.
I couldn't get over how soft his damn skin seemed. The more I looked at Ben's face the more I saw how gentle he was. He was so boyish. He didn't look like a seventeen or eighteen year old high school senior. Were there girls that went for that? Was it possible that Ben was one of those nice guy secret ladies' men?
Another thought entered my mind. It flickered through in the span of two seconds, but the impression it left behind stayed with me, and fueled my next question.
"Do you have a girlfriend or date you were going to bring that we need to pick up also?"
The glazed over expression quickly left when Ben's eyes flashed to life, and his face snapped back to stare at mine.
"What?" he wheezed, appearing to fight for air while trying not to laugh.
"What?" I repeated, feeling protective of my assumption.
"You think I have a girlfriend? A date?"
I waved my hand dismissively. "Yeah. You could. I have no idea."
Ben smiled, and it reached his eyes. "Well I don't." He began chuckling shallowly. "No girlfriend for me."
I smiled with him, although I didn't understand what was so funny.
Because, as the school bell started to ring in the background and Ben and I, along with everyone else, stood to head off towards class, it suddenly became terrifying clear to me that if that the thought of having a girlfriend was so humorous to Ben then I could be one hundred percent correct.
All of his creepy-ass stares could have a different meaning.
All of these small-ass clues could have a much bigger significance.
And for the first time, I didn't want to be right about something.
