A/N: Hi, guys! I'm feeling great today. Great enough to publish another chapter. (If you missed the last one, read it; it was published yesterday. If you missed any others, start at 17 or something. I don't know, haha.) I'm kind of excited to share it. Oh, and the next three. So, enjoy, guys! I think you might like this one. It was inspired by Ellie Goulding's "Salt Skin" and Sleigh Bells' "You Lost Me." Yes, I am a big fan of Sleigh Bells. If you can catch all the song references, then you win a mug of hot chocolate. I'll send it in the mail. Enjoy!

Salt Skin :: You Lost Me

Dear Mom,

It's been forever, right? I still have a lot to tell you. It's about Edward Cullen.

You haven't met him yet, have you? Damn. Well, you'd love him. He's good-looking, protective, seems to love me... yeah, he's great. At least, on the outside he is. You wouldn't want to know the crazy little things that run through his head.

Edward's a druggie. He turned me into a druggie, too. We may be two losers that can only communicate with others through sex, drugs, and alcohol, but at least we can be losers together. If I'm gonna die soon, it had better be with him. It would only make sense. We were born to lose and born to die.

Edward's not right. Not right in the head, not right for me, not right for anything. Even his family hates him. After a pothead and a teacher, I ended up with this kind of guy. I sure know how to pick 'em, huh? He gets me lost at times. I'm on an insane road to hell with him, where we can act like kids all we want, but we're not there yet. Being with him is sometimes a treat, sometimes not.

Edward Cullen is one-hundred percent wrong. Born in the wrong place and the wrong time. Living a wrong life now. Then again, I must be the same way. At least we can be wrong together. I'm as much of a loser as he is.

There's been one thing I've done right since I moved here a while ago: Jacob Black. (Yeah, I did him. I did him more than twice. Sue me.) Dating Jake was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It's stupid how I had to let him go. Jacob and Edward are polar opposites, as different as day and night, the sun and the moon, whatever stupid simile you want to throw in.

I don't think things are going to go back to normal, if they ever were. Nothing with Charlie, or Edward, or Jacob, or myself. I'm lost. Totally, completely, definitely lost.

But shit happens, you know?

Pouring my heart out to my mother in an email would have calmed me down a little bit, but I wouldn't send it. I couldn't send it. Edward would know in an instant. He'd accuse me of being a liar like he always did.

I didn't have the time to send an email this long, anyway. After what seemed like a long time, I dragged myself to work at the Newton's Olympic Outfitters store. Edward had even dropped me off on time.

The other employees - which included Mike Newton - all looked at me strangely when I got there.

"Wow," Mike said. "What a sight for sore eyes."

"I've just been busy," I said as I got started like I always used to.

I had only been doing my job as a clerk for five minutes when Karen Newton, Mike's mother and the owner of the store, sauntered from her office to the cashier's station, my station. She told me in a low, serious voice, "I need to talk to you in my office."

Without a clue of what she was getting at, I followed her to her office in the back of the store, and sat at the chair in front of her desk, facing the back of her computer monitor. She turned the screen around and there I saw a gallery of photos of me. The Facebook photos from the party. My jaw dropped.

"I don't think you have to explain this," Karen said.

"I... I... I'm sorry," I managed to say. I needed to keep this job. I had to. How else would I pay for gas, or heroin, or clothes, or anything? I had my college money saved up, but that was already dwindling. I wasn't planning on going to college anymore. My grades weren't horrible, but going to college just wasn't interesting anymore.

"Bella," Karen sighed. "I thought you were better than this."

That's two people. "I'm sorry," I said again.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to let you go." Karen didn't sound sorry.

"But... but it won't happen again," I promised.

"It's not just the pictures, sweetie. You haven't been here in days. You didn't even call in sick or anything."

"I was busy," I murmured.

Karen pointed to the photos on her computer screen. "I can tell. Bella, I'm sorry, but you're fired."

"Are you serious?"

She nodded. "I'm gonna need your nametag and smock back."

I quickly took off the smock and nametag, and handed them to Karen. I got my stuff together and left without a word.

Ugh, fuck this. Fuck it all.

Sometimes life just sucked. Today was one of those days where this statement was completely relevant.

I'd lost my job, I was out of money, and to make things even better, Edward wasn't even there to pick me up. I'd called him plenty of times already. He hadn't answered once. The perfect boyfriend he was.

Oh, yes. Life sucked. It sucked a lot.

"Bella? What are you still doing here?" a voice called to me an hour later. I turned from where I sat on the sidewalk to see Mike Newton walking to me. As if I really wanted to talk to him after I was just fired. But he couldn't have cared about whether I wanted to talk or not. He sat down next to me on the sidewalk.

"Hey, Mike," I said, trying to remain cool. "My ride's not here. Don't worry, I'm not trying to sell drugs and bang people in front of your store just yet."

"Sorry about you getting fired," he said.

I sighed. "Whatever. I didn't go to work that often, anyway."

"You used to," Mike pointed out. "Those photos were brutal, though. Everyone saw them."

Wow, I thought. You don't say!

"I know," I said.

We were silent for a while, and then Mike asked, "Bella, do you have a drug problem? Or a drinking problem?"

Wow. Okay. Great. Even Mike fucking Newton, whom I didn't even talk to that much anymore, was questioning me.

I shook my head. "I don't." Then I sneezed into my sleeve, which didn't help me redeem myself at all. People that snorted always sneezed.

"I saw the photos," Mike said.

"Well, everyone did," I replied. "I know, I'm a slut that can't keep myself out of trouble. I can't even keep a damn job. And the sky is blue. What else can you say?"

I hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but by the way Mike's face looked after I said that, my words must came out harder than I'd thought.

"I say you need help," he said. "I know it's not my place to say this, but I think you do, Bella. You should get some help before it's too late. I've seen too many people like you crash and burn. It's not pretty."

Mike stood up, gave me a half-wave goodbye, made his way to his car, and left. Just like that. He left me hanging cold, just like I'd done so many times with him.

Karma's a bitch.

Edward eventually picked me up from my ex-job, another hour later.

"You're late," I said as I got in. "Again."

"Whoops," he said, lighting a cigarette.

"Ugh," I groaned. "Why do you smoke?"

"Please, don't tell me you're disgusted with smoking. You do worse."

I exhaled sharply. "I know. I just hate everything."

"Don't blame everything on me. It's not my fault you can't do anything." Ugh, he was as sharp as a knife.

I kept my mouth shut. He was right. I wasn't capable of finding any decent job. But it wasn't like it had to be decent...

Mike was right. I did need help. Some people had serious problems, and I was one of them.

A/N: So, how was that? I know, it was kind of short and stupid. But, you know, you can't keep a job doing that, lmao. Welp, that's the twentieth chapter. Damn, it's rushing by fast. At least to me, anyway. Thoughts?

Drink water, sit in the sun, root for Team USA or something.

MTL.