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Song Suggestion: Busy, Olly Murs.
Chapter Twenty Five: The Busy Mask.
One pair of hiking boots. Three packets of beef jerky. Two bottles of water. Two weeks since Sam ran away. The thought caused me to double scan one of the bottles and I smiled apologetically at the customer. They waved off my mistake off easily, laughing about how things like this happen all the time. He didn't even realise, at the moment, it kept happening. My distracted mind causing me to be clumsy and forgetful and make mistakes.
But I couldn't think like that now. I'd finally returned to work after two weeks of searching for Sam. Police search parties had scoured the forest within a five mile radius of Newton's Olympic Outfitters, where I had last seen him. Sam hadn't turned up yet, and people were beginning to speculate his death, or worse, that he'd purposely run away. All of La Push and Forks had 'missing' posters decorating lampposts and taped to storefronts. A large poster was currently secured to the counter. But the rain was fading them, and too many people were giving up hope. But I still believed he was alive, lost in the woods, and waiting to be found.
"Thank you, have a nice day." The customer left and I buried my head in my hands as the door shut behind them. I couldn't concentrate. My mind was consumed with thoughts of Sam, cold and starving in the forest. He was smart enough to live off the land, our local high school held classes on wilderness survival, but he had no way to find his way home. I had to find him, I had to save him, and I had to-
"You okay, Bella?" Mike asked, wandering in from the back storage room.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Standing straight, I tried to force a smile on my lips, "Just tired." I also had to convince the Newtons' to keep me on as staff. I'd had two weeks as paid compassionate leave, but they couldn't afford to keep me on any longer and not have me working, and I needed the money to keep the house afloat.
"Any news on Sam?"
"No." My lips trembled with the effort of not crying and I busied myself with the flyers on the countertop.
"Sorry." He placed a reassuring hand on my arm and I nodded, "Do you want me to finish up today?"
"No, no, I'm fine. I need to keep busy." Busy. I'd been keeping busy for two weeks now. For a week after Sam had gone, I spent every waking moment searching for him, along with Police search parties, and with the Tribe search parties co-organised by Leah. From sunrise to sunset, I trooped through the underbrush and between trees, only stopping when Leah or a leading officer forced me home.
But home didn't feel welcoming anymore. It felt like a stranger's house. Without Sam wandering around, whistling and teasing me, it felt empty. The silences were too loud and the house too big. Leah came to keep me company some nights, but I could tell she hated being there without Sam too. Various members of the Tribe invited me to dinner, but I assured them with excuses; I was capable of caring for myself, I preferred staying home, and I wasn't feeling up to socialising.
After the first week of endless searching, I returned to school. Billy had remarked that Sam wouldn't want my grades to slip in his absence. The Tribal Elders were strange like that, nothing fazed them, something I found hard to comprehend. They only thought of the good of the Tribe as a whole. Good grade reports kept the school running without too much State interference. So I went to school for the required hours, and returned to the search for my brother in my time away from it.
Mrs Newton had called Billy a few days ago, feeling more comfortable to have such a conversation with someone else apparently. She explained that, if I couldn't return to work soon, she wouldn't be able to pay me much longer. Billy had told me right away, along with the advice that I should go back to work; I had a livelihood to keep running in the meantime after all.
Today was my first day back at Newton's and I was finding it irritating how to clock ticked slowly, as if to tease me. To mock the time wasted here when Sam was somewhere, perhaps even behind the store, waiting to be find. Scrapping my hair back into a rubber band, I went to sweep the aisles to remove my thoughts from its wanderings.
As I began to clear dust and dirt trod in by customers, the door opened. Edward Cullen strode in, looking like a model for hair gel, his bronze locks damp from the misty rain. I blushed when he caught me looking and I focused my eyes on the task in hand.
"Bella?" Edward stopped before me, leaving a couple of feet too many for a normal conversational distance between us, "How are you?"
"I'm fine, thank you." I replied automatically. Asking after my emotional wellbeing seemed to be everyone's pastime when it came to greeting me, yet I felt I could never be honest. I couldn't break down and cry over the loss of my brother, I couldn't complain of how I now had to balance bills and running a household singlehandedly while only in my junior year of high school and barely holding down a part-time job, and I couldn't not lie about being fine when Sam would want me to carry on as usual in his absence.
"I'm extremely sorry to hear about Sam. Is there any way I, or my family, can help you?" He formally offered and I smiled in response. He barely knew me, yet he cared enough to want to help.
"Bring Sam back home?" I shrugged at my obvious answer, "Thank you, but all we can do is keep looking for him."
"I'm sure he will turn up, eventually." Again, he repeated sentiments I had heard far too many times before, yet his strangely seemed more sincere than the rest, "Is there anything we can do for you?" I shook my head sadly and tried not to let tears fill my eyes.
Normally, I could keep my emotions buried, saving my tears and sorrow for bedtime, yet Edward seemed to be able to draw the truth from my gaze. His compassionate and sympathetic expression was gentle on his angularly chiselled features and I wanted to confess that everyone was giving up hope, that no one else truly believed he would return alive, if we ever found him at all. That despite all of my hope, I was beginning to believe them too.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything to keep up this conversation, that seemed so much more honest because he could see through my defences, but Mike interrupted us. He served Edward, who bought two pairs of large hiking boots, before Edward left in a hurry. Then I helped Mike lock up the store and hurried home, planning my next route into the forest, having extended my personal search to the forests between Newton's and home.