Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer.

Chapter 5 (BPOV)

I'm hovering somewhere in a gray, cold cloud. My body moves slightly, up and down, to the left and right, as if I'm in some body of water, being pulled this way and that by an unseen current.

Back and forth, to and fro, endless numbing waves. There's no present, past, or future. I'm just hanging here, waiting for nothing.

—

I wake up with a start, inhaling sharply and sitting up in bed. My clothes are still damp from yesterday, slightly chilly and stiff. I look around rubbing the sleep from my eyes, disoriented, not sure where I am. I take in the pale walls, the unfamiliar weave of the sheets, and strange heaviness of the covers. I grab a handful of the comforter and feel the crinkling-soft texture of feathers.

Slowly, I start to remember the previous day, going to my new school, lunch, talking to the boy in biology. I'm so tired. I think back to how stupid I felt last night and chide myself.

The strong, inside-Bella that I imagine giving me pep talks is fed up with me.

Come on, Bella. You're allowed to just be yourself. No one cares that much about you to even laugh at you in the first place. You have to try, at least try. No more pity parties, okay?

Strong-Bella only shows up once I've re-surfaced again, somehow she's never there when I really need her. No matter how much I remind myself I'm probably just a normal kid, the insecurity creeps in and I feel like I have to remind myself over and over and over that I've said the wrong thing, smiled at the wrong time. It's like if I don't, something bad will happen to me so I have to remind myself.

Everything's like that. I try and think about the worst possible thing that could happen in case it does happen so I'll be ready. Because sometimes it does happen. People forget that, but not me. The floor is quicksand so often. If I remind myself that people think I'm stupid, I won't be hurt if they tell me that. I shouldn't be talking to anyone so it's never an issue.

"Stop," I whisper, wrapping my arms around my middle and squeezing myself.

This will be the year I stop looking over my shoulder. This will be the year I let Bella be Bella.

Of course, it's easy to make all kinds of pacts with yourself when you're just cowering in your room.

I really want Forks to be different, so I'll keep reminding myself that I'm okay, it's okay. I can just be me. I can already feel the skepticism taking root and the dull acceptance washes over me. It's like a constant battle, trying to get out of this hole.

I get out of bed, yawning and trying to comb the tangles from my hair with my fingers.

There's a light tap at the door.

"Bella?" Charlie says, voice rough from sleep, "I'm making breakfast, you want anything?"

"No, thank you."

He leaves without questioning me, which I appreciate. Renee would have pushed and pushed until I ended up begging her to make something. She was a good mom to make me food when she didn't even like cooking.

Was she? a little whisper asks.

I'm a little worried that she hasn't returned any of my calls yet but she's probably super busy with Phil and getting everything packed, and all. I'm sure she'll call back soon. There's always a chance that something messed up has happened, thought, that's true. Car accident? Stove left on?

—

I take a quick shower, almost melting to the floor as the comforting hot water washes over my head, shoulders, back, and legs.

The girl is the mirror looks back at me as I brush my teeth. Long brown hair, no real style to it. I started cutting it myself when I was ten, just taking a few inches when it got longer than my chest. Dull brown eyes, dark circles underneath. My skin is okay, a nice even tone, except when a blush splashes across it. Small chin and nose. Reasonably sized neck, I guess. My favorite feature is my collarbone, I love the way it sweeps across my body with little valleys and hills.

Get over yourself, I think, rolling my eyes and spitting minty toothpaste into the sink.

—

I sit down with a book at the kitchen table while Charlie eats toast and oatmeal. We definitely don't talk as much as Renee and I did, which is fine with me. His face is placid, only moving when he spoons another mouthful of brown mush into it or crunches his toast. There are little crumbs stuck in his salt-and-pepper mustache. I wonder if I should say something but I don't want to break the calm.

"Do you ever shoot your gun?" I blurt, instead of telling him about the crumbs, breaking the silence anyway.

"No, not really," Charlie says, chuckling, "It's a quiet place, Bells. Doesn't mean bad things doesn't happen, but the team and I usually deal with pretty boring stuff."

I nod and make a mental note to research crime statistics in the peninsula. There's a good chance he's just trying to keep me from worrying. I wonder if drugs are a big thing.

I try not to fidget as I turn a page of the book I can't seem to focus on. Part of me is just waiting, I guess. Waiting for the quicksand. I remind myself that Charlie isn't Renee, but some things are just etched deep inside your bones, tattooed on the inside of your skull. And I really don't know the man at all.

My mom needs a lot of reassurance. She just has so many feelings and they tend to buck her around like a rodeo bull. When the feelings are good, she's the best person to be around. She'd pull me out of school on a whim to visit sea lion colonies, or go to museums. She'd hear about a food truck and we just had to go the same day.

Phil is pretty good with her but I wonder how long it'll last between them, how much he can take.

It's raining again on the drive to school. Nothing else happened during breakfast that didn't happen before. Charlie finished his food and washed up, then said good-bye with a crinkly smile. I grabbed my bag and walked out the door, triple-checking it was locked before running to the truck.

Renee texts as I'm leaving and I know I should call her, but I want to make it to the school first.

She calls 10 times back to back before I pull into the parking lot. When I answer on the 11th call, her voice has that delicate keening to it that sets my own nerves to jingling and dries up all the saliva in my mouth.

"Bella?! Bella, honey, are you okay? Why didn't you answer, I was so scared!"

I miss the first two class periods sitting in my truck while she cries huge snotty, weepy tears and I tell her over and over that, no, she's not a bad mother, yes, it's okay that she didn't call before, yes, I'll make sure to answer her texts when she sends them, yes, I still love her, no she's not terrible, yes, I'm okay, no, I don't need her to come get me or fly me back.

Absently, I wonder what she would do if I did ask her to come get me, completely change her plans because it was what I needed. Oh yeah, I think. I know exactly how that would go.

I think about why I stopped taking dance classes when I was 8. Renee had started energy healing sessions with Paulo, her latest boyfriend, and the appointments often lasted hours. Hours of some sleazy guy waving his hands over her while she twitched and moaned. She wasn't able to take me to the studio or pick me up and didn't let me go by myself, even though it was only a few blocks from our house.

We spent about two hours together, hands clasped over the table, Renee alternating from berating to talking herself up. Eventually, I was the one comforting her, telling her I didn't even like dance anyway, that I'd be much happier staying at home by myself. And I meant it, too, after all the tears and the yelling, just wanting it to stop and for her to smile and make us some chai tea and we could be friends again.

She got to keep doing her energy sessions and feel like a good mom because I was telling her it was okay, it was the right thing to do, and I got… what? Hours at home alone?

She and Paulo broke up after a month anyway, but I didn't ask to get put back into dance. I figured something else would come along that Renee needed more than my silly dance classes that I wasn't even that good at. I missed them, sure, but I was willing to make the sacrifice, happy even.

Guilt bubbles up quickly with these thoughts, even worse because she's in my ear, still talking about how sorry she is, and how bad of a mom. I know that I shouldn't feel guilty, that I had every right to what I wanted, too, but it's not so easy to fight yourself when your soul gets so bogged down in sticky-nasty goop.

I'm sick of listening to her. I slip down into the seat and lean over the steering wheel, pressing my cheek against the cool leather. It smells like tobacco and peppermint. My bones are wilting underneath my skin. My eyes start stinging and I clear my throat to try and get rid of the thick feeling.

It takes another ten minutes before she finally says good-bye and I'm so relieved. I want to turn the truck back on and go back home, curl up in the covers and dream that weightless dream again.

I brought an elastic band with me today, thankfully. I pull it from my pocket and slip it around my wrist, snapping it until most of the trembles and fizzes drain out of my body and my skin is bright pink underneath. I don't cry at all. I don't. I just breathe in so, so deep until my lungs almost burst.

The sleeve of my dark blue henley just barely covers the skin on my wrist but I don't think anyone will be looking at me anyway. I'm sure after the first day everyone knows I'm nothing worth looking at.

When I get out of the truck, the rain has mostly passed over, just pillow-soft gray clouds overhead. Huge puddles of water litter the black pavement, some sparkling and shining with oil-slick rainbows. I feel a tiny weight lifting off some place deep in my chest.

It's actually pretty far from Phoenix to Forks.

Ms. Cope seems to buy my excuse of the truck breaking down and gives me a note to take to my teacher.

Jessica waves me over after I hand my note to the teacher, who frowns at the interruption to his lecture. She raises her eyebrows at me and I realize she wants to know where I was.

"Car trouble," I whisper.

"Lucky!" she whispers back.

—

I sit with the same group as yesterday after tagging along with Jessica from Trig like a lost puppy. They're all talking at the same time, teasing each other and talking about new classes, new clothes, new movies. I see Eric look over at me a few times from the corner of my eye but try to avoid his glances. Whenever I start to feel like running, I snap the band on my wrist under the table. I only have to do it a couple of times since the calm I managed to achieve in the truck is still floating over me like a haze.

"Oh my…" I hear Jessica start underneath her breath.

"Hey!"

I look up sharply and see a tiny girl in front of me. The table goes silent except for someone taking a loud, air-filled slurp of their drink through a straw.

It's a Cullen kid, the little dark-haired one.

"I'm Alice," she says with a little wave of her delicate fingers.

"Bella."

"Cute name! Well, Bella, you're going to think this is totally weird but I saw you have the same type of phone as me," she says, pointing toward my green iPhone sitting on the table in front of me, "Could I borrow your charger until the end of the day? I'm a total idiot and left mine at home and forgot to charge my phone last night."

No way I was the first person she saw with an iPhone. I don't know why she would make an excuse like that but my inner suspicious self is intrigued to know why.

I bet she doesn't even have the same phone, I think, picturing shining an interrogation light on her. Exhibit A, the suspect owns an Android.

Alice twirls around to face Eric who turns splotchy-red all the way down to the collar of his white button-down.

"So! Eric, what time do you want to talk to Jasper today? Or is it going to be later this week?"

Eric doesn't say anything for a few beats, so Angela jumps in.

"It would have to be last period, that's when we have Journalism. Eric can just go by his classroom and let his teacher know."

"Thanks, Bella!" she says, taking the cord I'm handing her and sticking it in the pocket of her artfully distressed jeans, "and Angela, that sounds great! I'll let him know, I know he's excited."

She turns to me, picking an invisible pice of lint from her frilly, light blue top, "Are you doing your interview today, too?"

My heart does a nosedive and lands somewhere on the floor.

—

Ugh, writing BPOV is tough. I want to make everything happy-warm-nice for her right now...

Jasper is going to meet Bella next chapter! What do you think he's going to do?

Thanks for the reviews! It's really nice to read what people think.

XxFantasyFiascoxX - The "California 8 or 9s" comment is definitely going to resurface lol.