EPOV
Dread. Yeah, everywhere I go all I can feel is dread. Did I break a mirror and I didn't notice? Walked under a ladder? Perhaps a black cat?
My streak of bad luck didn't culminate on Saturday, after the humongous humiliation I suffered after I kissed Bella. No, sir. Given the circumstances, Bella spent the rest of the weekend with her mother; meaning I only had the chance to talk to her until today at our first class. Yet, we didn't talk about Saturday's night events because our dear professor gave us the sad news that the whole class failed the last test. Well, not 'fail' like we had zero right answers, but he said we didn't perform to our usual standards. He offered us a deal, to the whole class. We could repeat the test, but to gain the right to do it and keep the higher score we had to present him with a model of one of our favorite inventors and his creations. Better, if we come with something really creative, he would add a few points to our score. He was kind enough to let us chose our partners
So we agreed to discuss our date and our possible future after we dealt with this little issue. Oh, right. Because we have until Friday to come with our project. The silver lining is we passed our other subjects with excellent grades. So this little project is the only thing we have to do for college.
Bella had a bout of inspiration and decided to crochet a model of Nikola Tesla, with a fluorescent light in one hand and an x-ray photograph on the other which I have to create. So that's we are here in the little town of Forks, at her parents' house. Collecting materials. We called Renee, but she was out on an errand but she told Bella where the spare key was hidden. And while Bella is busy rummaging through old boxes through the attic, I'm sitting with a pad supposedly sketching my part, but in reality, I'm still ruminating the events of the last days.
"Hold this," Bella said, giving me a plastic bag with various sets of needles. I could had used one to stab that bodyguard, you know.
I still remember how it felt to be lifted like I weighed nothing. I mean, he was a bit taller but if I wasn't so distracted I could have fought him. Oh, yeah. I still remember it...
"This is a private area."
"That I reserved, you moron." The moron murmured something to his radio while I turned to made sure Bella was fine. I didn't reserve it per se, but if I knew my mother she only encouraged me to come here after she was absolutely sure it was ok. Then I heard steps. Uh, oh. It was my mother! Damn, I sound like a pansy.
"May I ask what are you doing here?" She directed her menacing glare to the flushed bodyguard. Clearly, I need to learn how to walk and instill authority like mom.
"This is a private area and... and..."
"You have no authorization to be in here, as I certainly discussed with the staff and the organizers." Mom was tapping her foot to the floor while scolding the ashamed bodyguard. Meanwhile, Renee took Bella outside.
Mom turned to the back where she found the cause of the presence of the bodyguard.
"Judge Sanders! And... Kate?"
Talk about a blast from the past! Mom whispered something to Renee who was back... alone and she started to fumble with the plants surrounding the balcony.
"Keep an eye on the blond. Your boss will thank you later." Mom ordered to the mute bodyguard as she sashayed her way to the not-embarrassed-at-all couple.
"Kate, we keep meeting like this."
Kate lifted her face and gave Mom a smug smirk. While at first look she still resembled that young girl from years ago, time surely hardened her features. The cruelty of her scowl showed the wrinkles around her mouth and her eyes. Time wasn't gentle to her. How did she fool me?
"Elizabeth," she muttered and then she turned to me. "My, my. Look how handsome you turned out, Edward. I should have to keep in touch with you all these years."
The fact that Kate wasn't showing an ounce of shame, confused Judge Sanders.
"Do you met before?"
"Oh, yeah. You should be careful with this one. She likes to keep mementos of occasions like this." My mother told him.
"Here!" Renee found a camera in between the twigs of a bush. Kate just stomped her feet but didn't seem too frazzled. She was completely sure her indiscretion would go unpunished, though something on my mother's eyes told me the contrary.
Judge Sanders paled. He also was duped by a professional.
"Err, hmm, well, I think it will be better if we forgot what happened here..."
"Oh, no." My mother uttered. "Let's have a few words. It's not like Kate is going to leave the area."
The bodyguard stood covering Kate's exit and acting all confident again.
Renee had the same devious smile as my other and took my arm.
"Edward, why don't we dance for a while? You have to tell me how it went before the interruptions."
Half an hour later, my mother was back at our table, smiling like the cat that got the canary. She simply stated that now Judge Sanders became the biggest supporter of the charity and would help to set another scholarship. She never told me what she did to Kate but she assured me she would never bother me again.
xxx
"Edward! Wake up!" Bella was nudging me with her arm. She had a box full of different kinds of paper, glitter, cardboard, bottles of glue, and scissors. "This may come useful. It's from when I was little."
She dumped the box, walked back to a wooden rack and climbed to the highest shelf.
"I can't reach the last box."
I stood up and lifted her, so her hands could reach it but it was still too high for her. I stood on the tip of my toes and she finally could push it with the tip of her fingers. The box fell with a thud.
"I don't remember this one." She pulled the x-acto knife and opened it carefully.
At the top, there was a picture album, covered in dust. She was fast to take it before I did, and opened it.
"Oh, shit." She yelped.
I didn't have a chance to give it a glance as she passed the pages fast, scaring me with the scowl on her face. I turned to look at the other contents of the box, pulling a spandex light blue suit, exactly like one my dad used to...
Suddenly Bella dropped the album and wailed. "Liar, despicable liars!" And she ran out of the attic.
Thinking it would be best if I let her calm down, after all, I got the car keys and she couldn't leave without me, I decided to look at the album that caused her ire.
Oh, shit indeed. Picture after picture showed that Charlie Higginbotham, ahem, apparently neé Charlie Swan, was the elusive Chuck Eagles we were looking for.
xxx
Two minutes later, I walked down the stairs, hoping to find Bella still at home. But what I found was Renee crying at the door.
"She found out, right?"
I still had the album in my hands, nodding I had to ask her. "Why Renee? Why did you keep this from her? This is the real reason why you never wanted Charlie to know we were friends, right? It wasn't that crap about he protecting her against men."
Renee sobbed loudly. "I told him we have to tell her, you don't have an idea of how much I insisted. How many times I tried and set it up so she would find out. But not like this." She blew her nose with a tissue and pleaded to me. "Please, find her! I don't want her to be alone."
Like she had to ask me twice.
Still, she was calm enough to help me to get our materials in the trunk of the car, besides the box with Charlie's mementos from when he was a Dazzling Proximity's member.
She pointed where Bella liked to go to think and I left.
xxx
As Renee told me, Bella was sitting at the edge of a little bridge over a stream, kicking her legs to the air.
"Have I told you why my last name is Swan while my parents are Higginbotham?" She didn't turn to look at me.
"Nope." I sat beside her.
"It was because of my grandparents, the Swans. I met them occasionally while growing up, spending one week of summer at their apartment in Boston. They were kind of rich. It never mattered to me, because they had the time and patience to play with me or bring me interesting movies to watch. I enjoyed the time spent with them." She sighed. "Grandpa died when I was nine. By then, I already knew they disowned Dad but no one ever explained why. Until my grandmother explained to me that he was extremely wild and irresponsible so they disowned him for his own good. So when Dad married Mom he took her last name."
Bella took a rock and threw it into the stream under the bridge.
"But after she died I found out that they left everything they owned to me, they only had one condition. I was supposed to be Swan should Dad had behaved properly, so given that I was a respectful member of society, all they asked me was to change my last name to Swan, to keep the name alive."
She threw another rock.
"At first, I didn't want to. But Mom convinced me to do it, she said it was to respect their last wish."
I nodded and gave her another rock.
"But now, now I understand why they were ashamed of him."
Pluck, pluck. Another rock went to the water.
"You know what bothers me the most? That he kept me away from the world, not because he was worried about my safety, but because he feared I found the truth."
It seems like Charlie Swan has a lot explaining to do.