27.
Sarah is beautiful. I notice that right away. Jacob and I aren't married yet, only good friends meant to be married, potentially, inevitably, once I'm deemed old enough to be given away. We aren't supposed to be this close to town, we aren't supposed to be in it at all, yet here we are, stealing trucks, sneaking out, hunting, searching, yearning, wanting. I remember laughing, the sound of it so similar to the bell that rang when we entered through the front door of the gas station convenience store, the jingle of the dangling, rusty thing resting against the frame. It's late, dark out, an owl hooting in the trees, light snow on the ground. Jacob is drunk. Very drunk. He's stolen the whiskey from his neighbor's liquor cabinet, the one only used for special occasions: weddings, funerals, births. We share sips, the liquid burning hot down my throat, warming me from the inside on the cold, winter night.
We stumble through the door, the fluorescent lights blinding, the truck parked haphazardly across two spots outside. He's giggling about something, about what, I don't know. We roam the aisles, the multi-colored bags of chips, air-sealed, layers upon layers of candy, laid out like the keys of a massive church organ, higher and higher and higher. I'm examining the neon variety. Sour! Sweet! Worms! Bugs! Bears! I feel the crinkle of the plastic beneath my hands, the almost alien-like texture of the food inside, looking more like something one would play with rather than eat. Toxic! Non-toxic! The vibrant colors of a poisonous snake, its warning flare, keep clear or I'll bite!
Jacob is gone. I hear the rumbling cadence of his voice in the distance, marred by suggestive slurs and the occasional hiccough. My head on a swivel, I find him at the cash register with her. Her hair is long, blonde but not quite blonde, brown but not quite brown, neat, tucked behind her ears, parted down the middle. Full lips the same color as her skin, a ruddy sort of peach, fine hairs, dark eyes and eyelashes. She wears a uniform, as brightly-colored as the snacks beside me, a neon-blinking warning of a poisonous snake, keep clear or I'll bite! We are no longer in our garden of Eden. Here there are apples. Here there are snakes.
I approach slowly, cautiously, as I was always taught to do with a dangerous animal.
"Oh, hey, Bella." Jacob's goofy, relaxed smile, his head canted in my direction and then away. There's a hazy sort of something in his eyes, an attraction, an interest. He's used those eyes on me, too. "This is Sarah."
I catch her name tag, printed in all capital letters on her neon chest. S-A-R-A-H. I wonder after the mystery letter at the end, its silent presence. Why is it there at all? Perhaps it's foreshadowing, those last two letters spelling out the gasp of acknowledgement, of surprise, of wonder at staring at the face of my future for the very first time. I'm smiling too, now, watching the way Jacob watches Sarah watches Jacob. Watching the way they watch each other. Polite, restrained, but, beneath the surface: want. So much want.
"Hi." My voice is properly, purposefully shy. "I'm Jacob's friend."
"We're closing soon," she says hastily, trying to gauge our relationship to each other, trying to see if I'm being truthful with my words, if there's opportunity here. It's strange, how difficult it is to read the written language, but how easy it is to read people's faces, their expressions. It's written clear as day, no translation required.
"Then I guess we've got to head out. It was nice to meet you," Jacob grins, all cheek and brown skin and dark hair and easy smile and white teeth.
'You too." She is shy. She blushes. She doesn't ask for more. Jacob slips out the door, the jingle of the bell announcing his departure. While he's distracted, I ask to borrow a paper and pen. She unrolls a stick of gum, pops it in her mouth, gives me the wrapper. On the inside, I write Jacob's cell phone number, the beginning of everything, the passcode to my escape.
x
Edward is flushed and distracted when he brings up the coffee. There's a splash of cream in mine, not enough. The taste is bitter but I don't mention it. I'm wrapped up in the sheet, still warm from the night before. There's a dry stickiness between my legs, a reminder of the night's activities and my next eventual, required step. He perches on the edge of the bed, looks out the window, the cool morning light washing out his face as he stares. He takes a sip of his coffee, rests it in his lap, hands wrapped around the sides protectively. I remember his fleeting glances, the ones in the truck, when he wanted to look but couldn't, glancing to me then away, to me then away. Precious cargo sat beside.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
He shuffles a bit, the muscles of his chest flexing in a round. Then he looks at me, the smile painted on.
"Did your husband leave you?" he asks out of nowhere. The question pierces, entry hole exit wound no bullet. My throat clenches tightly, constricting the words. I force another sip of the coffee. I clear my throat.
"I never wanted to get married…"
"Did he leave you?" he asks again, more emphatically this time, each word a punctuation. "Or… or did you leave him?"
x
The wedding goes as planned. The wedding is important. It's the strike of the match before the explosion. I pretend to love Jacob, to fall over his every word. I tell his grandmother how excited I am to marry her grandson, though she doesn't respond to my waxing and waning. I speak to my own father, our semi-silent conversations, our grunts and our nods. How I am looking forward to beginning my life anew, to start my next stage, to have children, to watch them grow, to make our community flourish, our garden of Eden no apples no snakes. My father is fine enough with it, deems Jacob respectable, organizes the wedding and sets the next part of my plan into motion.
Meanwhile, Jacob continues to see Sarah. It's once a week at first. A borrowed truck, a long drive. Stolen moments in a convenience store just before closing then just after. Long phone conversations, spoken in whispers like I'll never overhear, like I never started this in the first place. I still clearly remember Jacob's aloof surprise at the very first phone call, the hangover permitting gaps in his knowledge from the night before. How he didn't even remember giving his number to Sarah in the first place, how it must've been a mistake. How he thought, at first, what's the harm? Talking to a pretty girl. So I'm getting married! What's the harm?
I am a background character to their tryst. I am a fly on the wall, seemingly inconsequential. Yet I pull the strings. I am a puppeteer and they are my actors. I voice their lines in my head. We can't tell anyone. This has to stay a secret. I love you. I love you, too. When can we meet next? We're meeting too much. This has to stop. I can't stop it. The show must go on. The show must go on. I leave the house when his phone rings, give him the privacy he needs. I pretend to fall asleep when he sneaks out to visit her, snoring softly on the couch. I work diligently and professionally. I feign ignorance. I pull away from Jacob, give him the room to explore what it feels like to be truly touched, to be truly loved. I feign sexual indifference. I am stoic and serious and cruel. I pick fights and I drift.
I dissolve into the trees.
"I have to tell you something," Jacob says, his voice serious and stern and sure. I know what he's going to say. I've written these lines weeks in advance.
I've been seeing someone.
"I've been seeing someone," Jacob says.
Who?
"Who?" I ask. I have perfected the mix of hurt, shock, and anger in the mirror already.
Her name is Sarah.
"Her name is Sarah." He sits beside me, holds his palm out for me to take. His wedding ring is a blunt band around the fourth finger, taunting.
From the store?
"From the store?"
Yes. I love her.
"Yes. Bella… I love her." He's speaking slowly. I don't expect him to use my name here, the little improv making me tense, adding a sprinkle of reality to the situation. This is happening. This is real. He is leaving me. I have caused this. In the distance, there is a crack in the door of my escape route. A shining light, a beacon. Hope.
Are you leaving me?
"Are you leaving me?" I ask. There's that warble I needed.
I'm sorry.
"I'm sorry," he exhales.
I give it a beat. The best acting comes not when the lines are being read, but in the silence between them. That is where the emotion is the most true, clear, and open. Honest and dishonest. Outside the window, the sun is bright and hot and the sky is clear. Yellow flowers dot the distant hillside and the pine needles of trees fall gently to the forest floor. It is a peaceful scene, gentle and strange.
"If you're going to leave then so am I," I announce. I have to credit Jacob. There is only a flash of surprise on his face, buried quickly by a steely acceptance. By a surety, a certainness. An agreement, a transaction. The solid nature of destiny realized.
"What do you need me to do?" he asks.
We sit at the kitchen table together, the paper between us. Jacob holds the pen in his hand like a weapon, the tip poised above the blank page, a glint, the sharpest point of a knife. I begin to speak and Jacob begins to write the letter I've rehearsed in my mind countless, endless times. I am the victim. It is my right to leave, to start anew. You cannot possibly blame me for this, this that has happened to me without my own doing.
"Charlie," I say, my forehead pursed.
Charlie, he writes, his forehead pursed.
"First and foremost, I'm sorry." My cadence is slow, my delivery measured. I give him the time to scribble the words.
First and foremost, he writes. I'm sorry.
x
I tell Edward all of it. I explain the beginning and the middle and the end of me. How I planned it, from that very first trip to the store to the phone conversations to the meetings to the wedding. To Jacob falling in love. To the writing of the letter, the careful plotting of the devastation. The reason given and taken. My escape hatch. My inciting incident. How I am not a victim in my own narrative, a lost girl in a world where things happen to me by chance or by fate. How I am actually the manipulator of my own destiny, holding the pen and writing a story in the language I do not know how to read.
"I had to get out. There was no other way." I am desperate, capping off my story with this plea.
Edward is silent. He looks at the carpet. At first, I think he is angry. At me, for my actions, for my decisions, for their repercussions. I wonder if he thinks I've used him, given him the role of savior in the narrative and myself the role of saved. An unfair casting. He picked up where my words left off, standing there on the highway, my plan finally enacted, the cogs set in motion propelling me forward into a destiny unknown. Into my future unrealized. Into his waiting arms, those hands on the steering wheel, ten and two. His foot on the gas pedal. His heartbeat driving the car.
His shoulders relax in an exhale. He looks at me, his smile a watery, warbling thing.
"I understand," he says, and I feel all the breath loose from my lungs at once. "Of course I understand. You wanted more."