Oh, to be Stephenie Meyer and actually write books like her. But, I'm not her. And never will be. All rights to these characters, and the twilight saga are hers, except Malia is mine! And this is my readaption of what could've happened in New Moon! Please leave any reviews, I get so excited over them, and greatly appreciate them! Leave any comment about how I should fix the way I write someone, or what I should fix about my writing entirely! Enjoy!(: I would also like to point out that I'm dumb and I wrote that Charlie was watching NFL in the last chapter, even though it's like March and the NFL doesn't even play during March.
Chapter 27: Brambles
The class right before lunch always seemed to be the longest throughout the school day. I kept looking at the clock instead of paying attention to the movie that was premiering in class. It wasn't a movie I haven't seen before. I was really well kept up with my assignments at this point, since they were offering a good distraction, but today I felt more distracted than usual. Charlie's and my conversation last night was a bit awkward during dinner. At first it was some small talk, and then some questions about our day, and obviously I couldn't give him much detail about mine other than I hung out with Jacob.
"Dad? I'm dating Jacob Black" I said to him, not able to contain it in anymore. I had to tell him. I couldn't just hide the fact that I was dating him if I wanted him to come around more in my life, not on just friendly terms, anyway. Charlie's reaction was a bit different than I expected though. He froze when I told him and just stared at me, until he finally continued to ask a question.
"He's a little young for you, isn't he?" He said, continuing to eat the lasagna, but more slowly while he was in thought.
"I mean, just by two years…" I said back to him, the conversation still quiet, "Besides, you like Jacob."
He grumbled a little bit before speaking, "He's a good kid. Thought you two were just friends."
"We still are friends, just… more than that…" I stabbed a little bit at the food, "I'm not sure we are actually dating, though."
"So, did this happen during the time he was with Malia?" He still didn't make eye contact with me. We both seemed very distant in the conversation, both stabbing at our food.
"They weren't serious. And she never called him."
"Okay, I'm just saying, you're a nice girl, Bella. And taking someone's boyfriend isn't like you."
"I didn't take someone's boyfriend. I don't think they were really together."
"Alright, Bells." He turned his head to look back at the television.
"So, what time will you be home tomorrow?"
"After I go to the Fork's newspaper and ask about volunteering. So, before dinner."
"Alright," We didn't speak for the rest of the night. We sat there, and ate dinner together, and then he assumed his position back on the couch watching the game on the television. I cleaned the rest of the food up and headed up to my room for the night.
The class bell rang, and all the students rushed out of their seats and headed to the lunchroom to get in line. I walked down the fruit and salad bar, and just grabbed myself a fruit cup and sat down at my regular lunch table with Mike, Ben, Angela, Lauren and Jessica. Angela was excited because she was sending in her finalized application to the same school Ben was going to, while Angela and Lauren were boosting about how they were going to go to California together to share an apartment. Apparently, Lauren knows people out there that can give them a cool opportunity.
"So, are you going to the Forks Newspaper building today?" Angela asked, leaning towards me.
"Yeah, I'm hoping they let me volunteer," I replied.
"You're offering free work, I'm sure they will be thrilled to have you there."
"Yeah, will have to manipulate my work schedule at the Newton's to fit my volunteer service hours." I looked over at Mike.
"My mom won't mind. Besides, it'll just mean more hours for me, and more money," He flashed a grin. Jessica looked at me and then Mike and rolled her eyes. I don't really understand why Jessica still is giving me the cold shoulder, but I wasn't going to ask. Her and Lauren are pretty close, so as long as Lauren doesn't like me, I'm sure Jessica will just agree. Lunch carried on normally until the bell rang for us to go to our next class, and the school day proceeded on after that until we were released.
I got in my truck and sat in the parking lot waiting for an opportunity to be able to pull my truck out of the parking spot. It was going to be a while, so I pulled out some of my notes from my bag to brush up on the assignment that we had due next week. Graduation was almost here in a few months, and I was definitely ready to be through with math. It wasn't my favorite subject after all. I saw an opening to leave, and I headed out, passing a few people in line and was on my way to the Forks Newspaper.
The building was small, with a large warehouse in the back. I walked through the front door, and immediately was greeted by a small, slender woman at the front desk. Her hair was dark, and short, but she seemed to be in her 30's. She reminded me of an older version of Alice with her petite figure. She was on the phone, so I stood there waiting in front of the desk until she was through. She hung up and spoke.
"Hello, welcome to the Forks Daily Newspaper, how may I help you?"
"My name is Bella Swan. I was hoping I could speak to someone about volunteer work. I can do really anything you need me to do, or whatever a volunteer is permitted to do."
"Yes, hold on, one second," She lifted the receiver on the phone and hit a few buttons waiting for the line to send her through, "Hi, yes sorry to bother you, sir. I have a Bella Swan here who would like to sign up for volunteer work... Okay, no problem." She hung up the receiver. "You can go through that door and turn left. His office should be labeled 1A on the door."
I nodded at her and walked through the door. The building was very cramped. A lot of walls and doors and random accent pieces that didn't tie the room together in any way. It was just a newspaper building I suppose. Nothing really needed to be spruced up.
"Come in," the man in the room said. I opened the door and walked in. The office was bigger than I expected but seemed smaller with the stacked papers that covered the floors and the couch that was set against the far back wall. His desk was just a foldable table with a large computer monitor stacked on top of it.
"Hello, my name is Bella Swan. I was hoping-"
"Yes, volunteer work. Come, sit down." He gestured his hand towards the foldable chair that sat opposite to his side of the table, "My name is Dan Sanders, and I supervise this building. So, you're interested in volunteering?"
I nodded at him. He paused for a minute and looked at me pushing his chin in between his thumb and index finger.
"Swan, Swan… Oh, you're Chief Swan's girl, right?"
"Yeah… you know him?"
"Everyone knows Charlie. He does some good work for this town. I remember he mentioned you coming to live with him again last year. How're you liking it?"
"It's good, Phoenix had a lot more sun though," I duly noted.
"That it does, that it does. So, why are you interested in volunteering here?" He pulled out a few documents off his table that had empty spaces to sign.
"I think I'm interested in journalism, and I needed some volunteer work and hours to add to my applications for school."
"If you don't mind me asking, what school are you trying to attend?"
"Well, so far I don't think I will be able to get into Princeton, so I was going to attend community college for my first year, bring up my GPA, and build up my hours."
"Princeton, huh. Pretty far away, pretty expensive."
"Yes, I'm working at Newton's Olympic Outfitters, trying to save up. It's a supply store down the road."
"Yeah, I'm familiar with it. How did you get that job?"
"I'm friends with their son, Mike Newton. He and I go to school together."
"Ah, okay. Do you know what specific days you can come in, and how long?" He pushed the documents towards me, along with a pen to sign them.
"Yeah, Mondays and Thursdays I thought would be good. I'm going to shift my work schedule to Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I thought maybe I could come to volunteer around this time, until 4:30 pm." I looked down, and grabbed the pen filling in the blank spaces where it asked for my name, birthday, address, etc. I slid the papers back over to him and gave him a small smile.
"Good, honest plan. Well everything seems to be in order," he stood up, holding his hand out to me to shake mine. I reciprocated the action and stood up as well.
"Thank you, I'll see you… Thursday." I walked out of the building to my car, grabbing my keys out of my back pocket. I looked over and noticed a bronze woman walking back to her car from the gas station. She looked over at me and waved.
I looked behind me, and around me trying to figure out who she was waving at.
"Bella!" she shouted in my direction, smiling. Oh, it's Malia. I didn't really recognize her from afar. I waved back to her and smiled and proceeded to get into my truck. I closed the door and turned on the ignition and the truck roared to life. I noticed from the corner of my eye that she was jogging over to my truck. What is she coming over here for? Do I roll down my window? Do I speak? Before I could even think about driving off, she was already at my window tapping on the glass and waving at me, smiling. I rolled it down and returned the smile.
"Bella, hey! Crazy seeing you here!"
"Oh yeah, you too."
"What are you doing over here?"
"I just put in some paperwork to get some volunteer hours here."
"Oh, neat! You're graduating this year, that must be exciting!"
"Yeah, it is." I left my responses short in hopes the conversation would cease to continue.
"So, have you seen Jacob around? He hasn't returned my calls." She pushed her mouth to the side of her face, frowning. What did she mean he hasn't returned her calls? She was calling him? I thought it wasn't serious. I mean, not serious enough that Jacob didn't answer, but what did she think of their relationship, and why was she asking me?
"Oh, yeah I've seen him… and not returned your calls?" I felt a little curious about that response of hers.
"Yeah, it seems like he's avoiding me. I haven't talked to him since Saturday." Oh, Saturday. The night he came over. The night he came over and spent the night in my room.
"Well, if I see him again, I'll let him know I ran into you."
"Awe, Bella! Thank you so much, Jacob did say you were dependable. Well, I need to go back to my car, thank you for having this chit-chat with me!" She winked at me and walked away cheerfully, almost skipping back to her car.
Why was Jacob not returning her calls? I mean, yes, I know him and I are sort of together, but that's just rude. And, why would Jacob lie about it? Did he not see us as being together? Was it something he just didn't want to tell me? Should I have mentioned this weekend to her, and how would she have reacted if I did? She seems like a nice enough girl, I'm sure she would understand. Their relationship didn't last but for a few days, well if you could call that a relationship, but why didn't he tell me she's been calling? I rolled my window up on my truck and pulled out of the parking lot to head home.
I got home right about the time period that I told Charlie I would be. His car wasn't in the driveway yet, so I parked on the street in front of the house. There was a lot of time to wait to start making dinner, so I stood around and cleaned the lasagna stains left on the counter, along with cleaning the living room rug. When it got closer to six, I started getting dinner ready for Charlie. It wasn't going to be a big dinner night, or anything that took a lot of time to make. An easy meat and veggie soup that I could just throw a bunch of ingredients from the fridge in. Charlie got home finally about five minutes after dinner was made, and we sat down on the couch eating the meal. He turned on the television and flipped through the channels. Nothing was really interesting to watch, so we mostly just sat there scrolling through the tv guide.
"So, Dan Sanders gave me a call today when I was about to leave and head home. Said you signed up for volunteer work."
"Yeah, I told you I was going to do that today."
"I know, seems like a pretty nifty work. What do you think you'll be doing there?"
"I'm not sure, probably just cleaning around the offices, or helping file stuff."
"Well, it'll be good for that application of yours. You still have time you know. You don't graduate for another few months."
"Yeah…" I let out a deep sigh, and looked down at my bowl, trying to force down the last few bites to finish it off.
"Just remember not to work yourself too hard. You still got to keep up with your homework and studies. Don't want to hurt your GPA."
"I know, I got it dad," I said to him. I got up and grabbed our bowls and put them into the sink, cleaning them off and hanging them on the drying rack. It was only seven-thirty, but I decided that I wasn't feeling up to anymore small talk.
"I'm going to head upstairs and take a shower and go to bed."
"Little early for that?" Charlie said with his face still glued on the tv guide.
"Yeah, I just got some schoolwork to do," I lied.
I headed upstairs, to take a shower, and after that I went back to my room and sat on my bed. I tried opening my book bag to go through some of the notes I wrote down today, but it didn't appeal to me. I looked back at my CD player again that held the CD dedicated to me; full of Edward's composed music. It still hurts. It still hurts a lot. I keep contemplating in my head on the idea of how I could still be hurting over him when I have Jacob, but I just do. I don't feel like my story with Edward was over. I feel like my story with Jacob is new, and I'm excited for it, but I don't feel like I've felt closure. I don't feel like I can properly move on.
I also can't lose the thought over what happened with Malia today. Why didn't Jacob tell me she still thinks they are together, or why didn't he tell me she was calling? I mean, it's only been three days, I probably haven't given him time to tell me. But we did have some time to talk about it, especially in the car, at least. Or on Saturday when he spent the night. Or even today, he could've called me and told me about it. I could've called him.
I got up off my bed and threw my book bag down on the ground. I went into my closet to grab my grey sweater and headed downstairs. I grabbed my keys off the table and proceeded to head out.
"Bells, hey wait," Charlie called out to me, sitting up on the couch, "where do you think you're going?"
"I'm going to see Jake," I said in frustration. I'm eighteen, why do I need permission to leave the house. I'm a legal adult, allowed to make my own decisions.
"It's getting dark out there, and I don't want you driving around and getting lost. We still haven't caught those wolves that people have been going crazy about."
"I'm not going into the woods, dad. Just going to see Jake." I marched out the door closing it behind me.
I drove up to the reservation, parking on the road near his house. The engine popped loudly, so my presence had to have been known. I made my way down the gravel driveway and paraded myself onto his porch. I stopped at the door, looking at it, annoyed. I banged on it repeatedly until someone came to answer.
"Bella, hello," Billy answered the door, leaving it only halfway open, and his wheelchair blocking the way in.
"I need to speak to Jacob," I said firmly to him.
"Bella, it's late. He's not here."
"Okay then, where is he?"
"He's out, he won't be back till the morning."
I headed back down the stairs storming off the porch, and advanced to the tree line.
Billy called out, "Bella, wait, it's dark you shouldn't be walking around the woods at night."
I turned around swiftly to face his direction while also keeping my pace walking backwards, "There's werewolves patrolling the forest as we speak, how unsafe could it be," I shouted at him, throwing my hands up in the air in frustration. I turned back around and kept up my pace towards the woods. I guess I could've been more polite to Billy, but I'm on a mission. I also probably shouted a little too loud. A few of the neighbor's porch lights turned on, and not everyone is in on the whole wolf thing. Nevertheless, it happened.
I made my way to the tree line, and the sky grew darker. It was almost pitch black in the woods, but I'm sure my eyes will eventually adjust to it the same way your eyes adjust to a dark room; you see shadows. I pushed myself past the bramble that was in the way of the entrance of the woods. I was moving through, holding my hands out, feeling the trees around me. A few rocks and broken tree limbs got in the way as I stumbled over them. In my mind, I was making progress on this track, but when I look back, the porch lights on the reservation were very clearly in view. I kept going through, trying to move my way past. A few branches clipped me in the face as I tried pushing through them.
I didn't really know where I was heading or going, I just knew I was trying to find Jacob. There was no pinpoint location that I would know of where he could be, so I was walking aimlessly in the dark, in the woods. And of course, Charlie was right. I continued walking, and squished my foot in a few puddles, along with a small shallow creek that I didn't notice because of the limited vision. It was almost pitch black, and my eyes were not adjusting like I thought they would. I could see shadows from the moon light, so the trees weren't the problem, it was everything on the ground that the light didn't touch.
The porch lights on the reservation were no longer visible. I kept treading on anyways, leaning down supporting myself against rocks when the light didn't reach certain areas in the woods. Time went by, and it went by, but the woods just continued. Ahead, I could see a few larger boulders, where I decided to rest on for a little bit before I headed back. This whole mission was pointless. How are you supposed to find a few giant werewolves in a large perimeter full of trees and bushes? I don't think I'm even on their land, I think I passed the perimeter ten minutes back. I propped my legs up on one of the boulders and leaned my back against the other. I rested the back of my head against it, with my face lifted towards the light of the moon. I felt exhausted, and this spot wasn't that uncomfortable. I just needed a few minutes to rest, trying to focus in the dark was making me feel a little dizzy.
A few dead leaves rustled in the distance. I opened my eyes but saw nothing there. Must be nice to be a nocturnal animal and be able to see perfectly in the dark. I'm exhausted from even trying. It was a nice night, the clouds were not hovering, except a few passing ones. The stars were even visible, and the moon shined so bright. As I relaxed, I found myself humming a familiar tune. A few more minutes past, and then I heard the rustling again, it sounded continuous, near the same spots, but like it was gaining some distance, but not entirely trying to get away. It stopped at certain points, and lingered, but then went farther away again. I lifted my head up, looking towards the darkness where the sound was coming from. I could feel it, the pain, the hurt.
"...Edward?" I then used my arms to prop myself up. I kept looking, staring but there was nothing but darkness, except for the few spots where the light was able to reach, "Edward… please stop hiding," I felt a tear running down my cheek. "I know you've been watching me. I've felt it. Please, come out." I waited patiently, but no more rustling sounds continued. I pushed myself up more, putting myself in a slouched sitting position. I leaned over and grabbed a rough rock that fit in the round of my hand. I lifted my arm back and threw it in the darkness where the rustling formally was. A bunch of birds flew out of the trees in a panic, and a deer jumped out from behind the shadows, running away. Well, so much for that. It's just me. No one's been watching. I sighed and leaned myself back again. Drifting myself off to sleep.