"Good morning!" An overly cheerful Alice greeted me in the hallway on my way downstairs.
"Is it?" I replied, still groggy.
She chimed a laugh and started flitting away but then paused and turned around. "Oh! By the way, don't bother trying to challenge my position of fashion consultant in this house. You'll lose." And with that, she pecked my forehead and sped away.
I rolled my eyes. I was too tired to argue with her. Instead, I followed my mother's humming down to the kitchen where she had an entire omlet station set up. I slumped on a bar stool at the far end of the island. Still sleepy, I put my arm down, laid my head on it, yawned and closed my eyes.
"Can I go back to sleep after breakfast?" I asked, half-joking, half-serious.
"We really need to get you on a regular sleeping schedule." Esme commented, pulling me up off the counter and wiping my face with a cold washcloth.
"Sleeping schedule!?" I repeated, wide awake after the ice water hit me."Gosh, Mom, you make me sound like a baby!"
"Everyone has a routine, Lanie." She reminded me with a laugh. "Even adults."
Coming from the living room at the other far end of the house, I heard some low, intense voices. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I could tell that it was important and desperate. Without touching my breakfast, I jumped off the barstool and went to go investigate.
"Lanie, come back here and eat!" My mother called.
"Just a second. I'll be right back!" I said over my shoulder.
"I'm warning you, don't try it." Emmett's voice was saying."You should've seem how pissed they were at me."
"Edward, you're back home!" I said, joyfully running into him and wrapping my arms around his waist.
"I got back last night." He said, and I felt his cold lips kiss the top of my head.
I sighed. "I had a nightmare last night."
"So I heard." He replied, with concern in his voice. "What was it about?"
I grinned. "Vampires."
"Oh, really? Well, I'm sorry about that."
"Not like you guys." I said. "I mean REAL vampires."
Edward and Emmett both laughed at me.
"Hey, what were ya'll talking about when I walked up?"
"Bella." Emmett answered.
"What about her?" I asked, confused.
Edward glowered his eyes and pursed his leps together in irritation. "She's at the reservation with Jacob."
"Oh." I answered. I guess Jake took my advise.I looked up to see Edward staring at me with a puzzled expression. "Don't be worried, Edward. She's in good hands."
"So unpredictable . . ." He muttered more to himself than me.
"Edward is thinking about going over the border to go get her." Emmett said.
I visibly winced as I recalled Jacob's reaction when I told him the Cullens were now my family. It was the same feelings he and his entire pack held for all vampires . . . even the Cullens.
"I wouldn't." I warned him, shaking my head. But Edward still looked undecided.
"Lanie, your breakfast is getting cold!" My mother yelled from the kitchen.
"Coming!" I replied, running back in there.
"I hope you like cold omlets." Esme said, pouring me some orange juice.
"Sorry, Mom." I said quickly, piling up my plate in am attempt to appease her. "Are you doing anything special today?"
"Actually, I'm going to the grocery store to buy a few things for you."
"Really!? Like what?"
"Oh, just some more food, shampoo, laundry detergent . . ."
"So, just bring stuff?" I concluded with disappointment.
"Yes, I suppose so." she said, smiling.
"Can I come?" I asked between bites.
She winced a bit. "I don't know, Lanie. I'm afraid someone might recognize you."
"What!? How? I look NOTHING like my old self." I protested.
"To YOU you may not, but to others, you still have many of the same features." She told me kindly. "Your sandy, strawberry blonde hair, your bright green eyes, your cute little freckles." She smiled, tapping the end of my nose.
"But I have to get out SOME time." I argued, sounding whinier than I meant to. "I could stay in the car!"
Mom glanced at me and chuckled softly.
"I'm serious!" I said earnestly. "The weather's perfect outside and I can duck when I see someone coming!"
She laughed and then looked at me like she was trying to figure out what to do.
Maybe once we're out I can try to convince her to stop by uncle Charlie's so I can get my things.
"Lanie, is there another reason why you want to go out?" She asked me skeptically.
"Um . . . sorta." I admitted. "I left some notebooks in uncle Charlie's house. They're kinda like my diaries, so they're really important."
"Hmm." Esme pulled her eyebrows together in concentration. "Perhaps we can get Edward to ..."
"Nope." I said, shaking my head. "There's some pretty embarrassing stuff in there and I don't want him to accidentally see it."
She let out a short sigh. "Alright. But we'll have to wait until tonight."
"Yay! Thanks, mom." I said with a mouthful of food.
"Good morning, Lanie." Carlisle greeted me, placing his hand on my back. "I'm glad to see you're up, especially after last night."
"Sorry about that." I grimaced, remembering him and Esme running into my room, worried sick, after they heard me screaming.
"Don't be." He said, sincerely.
Carlisle walked over to where Esme was by the sink and they began whispering, giggling and caressing each other like a couple of infatuated teenagers. Good grief! How long have they been married and they're STILL that way!? I stuffed the last few bites of my breakfast and gulped down my glass of milk and waited for a break in their ridiculous behavior. I wonder when would be a good time to ask them about Jake's get-together. They seem pretty lovey-dovey at the moment, maybe I should take this opportunity to . . .
Suddenly, both Esme and Carlisle simultaneously stopped oogling each other and looked at me with questionable looks on their faces, then exchanged glances with each other and then went back to me.
"What?" I asked, shrugging my shoulders and throwing my palms up.
"Oh . . .nothing." Esme answered hesitantly, glancing back to her husband once more.
"Lanie, I hope you know that if you ever want to speak to either Esme or myself you are welcome to anytime." Carlisle said.
Wow. they are always so intuitive! Maybe it comes with old age. . .
"Actually," I began. " I was wondering if maybe . . . if it's alright . . . if I could possibly . . . ya know, it's really no big deal . . . "
"What do you want to do?" My father asked in a direct tone.
I sighed. "Jake's having a party thing at the reservation and he asked me if I could go." I said quickly. Best to get it over with, like pulling off a band-aid.
The expressions on my parents' faces were those of extreme apprehension. I rolled my eyes. Yep. That's what I figured! I might as well kiss what's left of my social life good-bye. I'll never have another friend for as long as I live. I should've known better than to even bring it up. Now I'm going to have to sit through a lecture on how dangerous the werewolves are and how they can't control when they phase and blah blah blah!
"We'll talk more about this later." Carlisle said with a hint of humor. "In the meantime, your mother and I will evaluate the situation as best we can and decide what we think is best."
Oh, my gosh! He didn't give me an out right 'no'! I've got a nibble!
"Your uncle doesn't look like he's home at the moment, which is good." Esme remarked, as she inched the Mercedes slowly past the two-story white house.
We had agreed, much to her uneasiness about the entire situation, that she would drop me off at the door, and that she would run by the store while I grabbed my notebooks.
"It shouldn't take long." I assured her, opening the care door and getting out. "I stashed them under some loose floorboards in Bella's room. They're super easy to get to."
"Please be careful, Lanie." My mother begged through the open window.
" I will. I promise!" I said, running across the road.
I heard the car pulling away behind me as I turned around to face the familiar house. It seemed so long ago that walking up these steps and through this front door were one of the the most normal things I did in my life. Then there was a time when I thought I'd never see this house again. Now, here I am, having to tiptoe up the same steps and sneak through the same door just to go inside and grab some of my own belongings. I don't think I'll ever get completely used to how much things have changed for me.
I checked the front doorknob. Unsurprisingly, it was unlocked. Yep, we're in Forks alright! I quickly glanced behind me to make sure no one was watching me enter the house. The last thing I need right now is a call to the police station reporting that the chief's very own house was getting broken into. Lord knows that would end things in a hurry. But, thankfully, the street was empty so I proceeded.
The house looked the exact same as it did when I left and I briefly wondered how long it had been since Uncle Charlie updated anything around here. Good thing I know my way around!Slowly, I made my way up the stairs and turned right into Bella's room. I don't know why, since no one was here, but I felt an insatiable need to keep quiet.
My hiding spot was under Bella's bed and, much to my relief, the floorboards were still loose. I fell to my knees, on to my stomach and scooted myself towards the middle. It should be easy to do this seeing as how I've done it enought times before. Carefully, I wedged the tips of my fingers in between two boards and used my untrimmed fingernails to catch the side of the wood and pull it up. Voila! Piece of cake!
One, two, three, four, five six, seven. Yep, that was all of them! I mentally kicked myself for not thinking to bring a backpack with me to carry the seven notebooks in. They weren't necessarily heavy . . . just difficult to carry all at once. I awkwardly inched my body back out from underneath the bed frame and sat there on the floor.
I stared at the notebooks for a minute. They were basically diaries. All of which contained my life stories from age six 'til I began losing my memory a few months before I . . . 'died'. Now that I had them, I wasn't sure if I wanted to ever read them or not. It would be bittersweet. Reliving the life that I loved so much. I sat there, staring, with much indecision. Mom shouldn't be back for some time. It hadn't taken long to fetch these and I had plenty of time to kill. Still, did I want to put myself throught that?
I don't know how much time had passed while I was immersed in tales from my former life. Some incidents I remembered better than others. I laughed and cried all at the same time. I was so engrossed, in fact, that I didn't even hear a car pull up until the sound of a car door slamming brought me out of my preoccupation. Mom must be back already!
Quickly, I gathered up the books, stood up on my feet and rushed back out of Bella's room and started down the stairs. Mid-way down, I stopped short and stood in fear when I realized the sounds of the footsteps I was hearing were NOT those of a vampire. . . which would actually not make any sound at all. Rather, these were the sounds of a man's heavy boots. Now that I thought about it, the door slam I heard wasn't my father's Mercedes either, but more like an old car. I gasped. The cruiser! It's Uncle Charlie!
So . . . what's your favorite thing about the entire story? Anything you want to happen? Let me know!
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