I'm so glad you guys liked the first chapter. Hopefully I can shake the awkwardness in the next few. Thank you to everyone who took the time to review! Cheers!
Chapter 2 This town...
Rain shakes the grass, but my feet won't touch the ground. I bow my head to the darkness and pray for light. Is this for the Divine or for the sacred. Was it a prayer or a request?
I feel heavy, but there is a seed within that wants to fly lightly. I feel the rain against my skin, but there's no sound. Is this a new perspective?
I open my mouth in askance, my cheeks are full, my tongue is held flat. I bare my teeth to scream and grunt, but no sound, only dry air. My fingers search past my lips for relief and instead pull wire. Wire so smooth and without taste, buttery copper wire. Heavy but painless copper wire between every tooth. It's warm out here. I slowly descend, reaching the earth beneath me as I'm forced into child's pose, forehead to the dirt.
I exhale awake, palms and soles of my feet cold and clammy. It's deafeningly quiet before my vibrating phone shakes the nightstand.
"Hey Eric." I sleepily breathe into the phone.
"Hey, Bella. Mike wanted to know if you were coming with us to the movies tonight."
Mike is delusional. I thought last week's parking lot rendezvous would be the last of him for a while. "Wait you talked to Mike?"
"Yeah so are you coming?" I didn't miss his nervously pushy tone, poking through the phone.
"So just like that, you're back friends with him?" I knew Eric was a pushover, but I had no idea he would betray me.
"Bella, don't be like that. You should come. You shouldn't hold grudges."
"And now you're doing his dirty work for him. Wow Eric!" I hope my sarcasm inflicts guilt. He gave up. He gave in, and I didn't.
"Bella give it a rest. He's trying to make amends. He offered to pay for a new paint job on the Nissan." Oh so that's what this is about, money and a chance at friends.
"Yeah after he and his new football friends trashed it?"
"I forgive him. You should too." This defensive finality to his words pushed me over the edge.
"I guess everybody can be bought huh. Tell Mike I'm not coming."
"Bella, you are no better than the rest of us. Who in this town with a dollar to their name has not been bought? This is forks. We have always been scavengers. We eat the leftovers from the predatorial rich."
"So you want me to sell myself to Mike, of all people." I'd rather eat a rusty hook.
"Sometimes you're so cold, I forget you're a girl. Mike likes you and wants to do nice things for you, and spend tons of money on you. What's not to like? No one would think any less of you, if you decided to date Mike. You're not a bad person for doing what's easy."
"It's easy to drop morals and values right." Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this town? My eyes well up with frustrated tears.
"It's not like that. Bella, please, I told him I'd get you to come. Everyone has a price. Mike said to name it."
"Have a good weekend, Eric." I hung up the phone with conviction.
Am I just like them? Do I belong here? Do I deserve this life? Have I been too abrupt and bone crushing? I feel like my face is in a knot.
Going through the motions is what's easy. Doing my job is what's easy. Everything is as it always is. My tables are slowly moving along. People have been asking for Rose every now and again. I always smile when people mention her. She really is who she says she is.
I am who I am, stern Bella, uptight Bella, poor Bella. Everything is the same for me. Except this tantalizing man smiling back at me. Who are you? Every time you smile, I get jittery.
"Hi what can I get for you?" I raise my eyebrows with a small smile playing at my lips.
"Soup of the day and an order of onion rings." His playful tone pulls me in closer.
"Ok and to drink?" I could just stare at this dangerous creature. He emanates power and warmth. His darkness is inviting, like a fallen angel.
"A sprite." His deep tan skin makes his stark black features cry out to be touched. Wild tendrils of hair are pushed back in a small knot at the bottom of his head today. I can see his high cheekbones and long lashes even better.
His sleeves are slightly pushed up allowing me to see more of his muscular structure. His bulging veins make me wish his fingers would touch me. If only I could see the rest of him.
"No milk shake today?" He catches me studying his tattoos and I sheepishly look away and watch his Adam's apple bob from over the folds of my notepad.
"Nah, not today." He takes his chin between his fingers and rests his elbow on the table. He licks his lips and my insides turn to goo. His robust chest bulging within his beige sweater is enough to command respect.
"You alright?" His deep voice caresses me out of my fantasy. Can you see my internal stirring? Can you see this weird onset of desire?
"Yeah why?" I rush to reassure.
"You look half dead, dark circles around your eyes. Not to mention every time I see you, you look like a zombie dragging your feet across the floor." I watch his smile turn into something of concern and pity. Don't pity me. Don't look at me like my worth is branded across my forehead. I am not the bait at the bottom of the barrel.
"Is there anything else I can get for you, Nancy Drew?" I know what I look like, but it's still embarrassing to hear it from him. If I thought I had any chance at being attractive to him, it's been shot out of the sky with the many arrows of reality.
"Ha! Nancy Drew! I'm more of the Sherlock Holmes type." My defensiveness has been taken for a joke.
Nah you're more of the king pin type, except not as cheesy. But he's only shown me how weird I am, and not the other way around. Every time I talk to him, he seems like a normal guy that likes to keep things light as air.
"Mr. Sherlock, It's a diner in the middle of nowhere. All the waitresses are half dead."
"Alright as long as you don't flip out and eat my brain." Ha, not unless we're stuck in a Romero film. I laugh at his bad joke and scribble his order in my pad.
"I'm more of a heart and liver type of gal. At least they're worth something." Why did I say that? Where did that come from? What if he harvests organs or something. I may be cold. I may be a hard knot, but even the tin man needed his heart.
"I like the way you think. My people eat plenty of hearts and liver." He playfully taps the side of his forehead with his index finger, flashing his crisp, white teeth. I scrunch my nose at the thought. He just laughs adding, "it's good for you. Don't knock it till you try it."
"Let me get your sprite." I bite my lip and turn on my toes in discomfiture.
"Hey wait!" He slightly raises his voice.
I slowly turn back around, my heart beating a little faster.
"You can call me Jake." His tone is sweet and disarming. How could this man be so dangerous, yet so smooth and charming? My panties moisten instantly. Jake.
I walk back to the kitchen and lazily place his order.
Such a common name for a not so common appearance. I was expecting something unique or intense, like his aura. His presence can be felt from across the room.
I reach his table again, not expecting our conversation to go any further.
"Do you party Bella?"
"No, I work and go to school." The mundane lifestyle suits me.
"Yeah you seem like the type." His knowing gaze makes me cringe.
"The type?" What's my type? Plain Jane?
"Yeah, the good girl. I feel like you do what's right, even if it'll get you in trouble. You're on the straight and narrow. A nice girl."
"You feel too much. I'm not that nice. I do what I want, nobody controls me." I look him dead in the eyes for the first time. Russet brown eyes beam through me. And for the first time, he looks jaded.
"You say that as if you can decide when to feel. Like it's selective."
"Anything selective can be controlled. That's why it's easy to remove feelings from an equation." What is so hard to understand about that.
"There is no need to control what isn't there." I'm lost in his tell-tale eyes. He's trying to tell me he does not feel as much as I do. I hope he's wrong.
"Every emotion I have, manifests from a decision I make. It is my own choice what I choose to feel." What the hell did I just say? My push to explain, has me talking in circles.
He shakes his head in disagreement. "Emotion is most often suppressed rather than controlled. Control requires acknowledgement, not avoidance or unawareness." Jake's response is clear. Somehow he understood. For the first time I have been understood.
"Well then, what do you do when you've done everything in your control but, it's still not enough. Like everything is beyond your reach?" He's not that much older than me, but I can tell he's seen much more.
"You do what you can." He shrugs his shoulders, like it's the only logical answer.
"That's it?" My head tilts forward incredulously at his simple answer. There's got to be more. It can't be that easy.
"That's it. Do what you can and regret nothing. It is impossible to control every emotion and every variable. Something has to give."
I nod my head in deep concentration, grabbing his bill and cash, heading to the register.
I go back to his table, and he's gone. I rush outside with his change, hoping he's still close.
"Hey wait.! You forgot your change!" I rush over to the side of the only black Range Rover in the lot. "You gave me a hundred dollar bill. You forgot your change." I look up and realize this man towers over me. He's at least 6'5".
"No I didn't. It's yours. Whatever it is that's making you feel like shit, don't allow it to trap you. Move forward and don't look back, otherwise it will eat you alive."
I don't know if we were talking about the same things, but his expression told me to make peace.
The last thing my mother told me was if I ever felt the way she felt, I would then understand. And if I ever felt the same, trapped and drowning in this wet town, to get on a bus and leave. "Don't ever look back" she said, and never look back she did. Is there anything keeping me here?
Alright what do you think? Do you like their dynamic so far? I know, I know it's not steamy yet but I'm working on it. What did you think of Bella's dream? How do you guys feel about an age gap? Love the reviews! Keep them coming!