I spend the rest of the day puttering around and planning the redecoration of my room, I'll choose some warm colours, and paint the dresser and the desk white. And maybe the headboard too. I should get some bed spread as well. I rearrange my desk, go down to the kitchen for a quick lunch of mixed salad. I marinade the steak and wrap the potatoes with salt and rosemary in foil as Charlie washes the dishes.
Charlie and I spend the next few hours in companionable silence. He is leafing through one sports magazine or another, I'm going through The Picture of Dorian Gray again, when I hear the Blacks pull over. We both go up to the porch as Jacob is unloading Billy's wheelchair from the back of the truck. Both of them look up at us with sunny smiles on their faces. Charlie's face stretch into an answering smile, so I give it my best shot, if it looks more like a grimace, none of them seem to mind.
We settle in the living room, Jacob and I on the couch, Charlie on his armchair and Billy in his wheelchair. They watch a football match on TV, watching and commenting on the players' every move. Billy has a dry sense of humour that has even me cracking up once or twice. I didn't expect to have a good time with Charlie's friends around.
"So Bella, what are you upto these days?" Jacob asks during a lull in the game, "We don't see you around much." Billy shoots a pointed look at him, but he is looking down at the coffee table and doesn't notice.
"Not much" I shrug, I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable around me, after we had a fun time, too. "Just planning to repaint my room and stuff."
Charlie perks up at me planning something for a change, but so does Jacob.
"Really? Would you like some help? What colour are you thinking?"
"Er, I am still deciding, I'm thinking of painting the furnitures white too." I babble. What's wrong with me?
"Wow Bells, that's a big project." Charlie comments.
"I can help, if you want, that is. We can drive to the hardware store and pick up some paints." Jacob says very fast. Billy and Charlie exchange amused glances. What's going on here?
"Um, sure, okay." I mumble, we have a couple hours till dinner.
The ride to the store starts a little uncomfortable. Jacob obviously has a crush on me, which I don't know what to do with. Does it count as necrophilia if someone has a crush on a zombie? Apparently they had come by quite a few times in the past months and I have made a few appearances on the couch at Charlie's insistence, although I couldn't remember any of it. But halfway there, Jacob seems to have gotten past the awkward eagerness and started criticising my driving skill, the speed limitation on Ol' Rusty, and in my indignation, I forget to be stiff and awkward myself. Jacob seems to take it as encouragement and moves onto raunchy jokes and horrible puns.
By the time we reach the hardware store, he has managed to get me to crack an actual smile instead just expelling air through my nose or an eye roll or two. We pile into the store, shoving each other, or trying in my case. I have never had much muscles to speak of and I seem to have lost whatever muscle or fat I had. Jacob on the other hand seems to have grown a foot taller from the last time I actually remember seeing him and is packed with muscles.
Whatever they fed in the Rez, I wanted it.
Although I take drawing for my Art classes, Jacob seems much more into painting and colours. He lectures me for fifteen minutes that purple was a colder colour than teal and teal goes much better with warmer accents etc. etc. In the end I choose a slightly darker tone of teal than he is suggesting, but he seems pleased enough. We pick up some white paint for the furnitures, some primers, brushes and other paraphernalia he loads onto the cart as necessary. Finally we set off for home, satisfied with our purchase. Jacob chatters happily all the way back, I hum and scoff at appropriate times, but overall I am surprised to discover that I don't mind his company. He has an easygoing, sunny disposition and rubs off on you the longer he is around.
As we enter the house, I find myself smiling and the action doesn't seem to take as much effort. Jacob picks up the paint bucket as if they weigh nothing and follows me up the stairs to my room. Charlie follows him for some reason.
"Jacob, you shouldn't be in her room." He clears his throat.
I roll my eyes, "Dad! He is like fourteen."
Jacob glares at me, "Fifteen" then shoots a worried look at Charlie, "Just helping Bella get the buckets in her room." He proceeds to shove them under my bed. The bucket seems to catch on something.
"You have a floorboard loose down there, Bella." He informs me, "Want me to take look?"
"No it's fine." I decide not to piss off Charlie any more than necessary, "I'm planning to put a rug in here anyway."
We march down the stairs under the strict supervision of Chief Swan.
Dinner goes well enough, Charlie, Billy and Jacob keep the conversation going, laughing and teasing each other in good spirit.
Billy turns to me during desert, "It's good to have you back, Bella. I always told Charlie, that Cullen boy was no good for you. They are bad news, the lot of them."
The brownies taste like ash in my mouth. The smile has slid right off Charlie's face.
"Now Billy, we discussed this." He says sternly.
Billy looks at him for a moment, then concedes, "Of course, my apologies." The words stumble on their way out. Billy is not used to apologising, I suppose he wouldn't. He is one of the Elders of the Quileute Tribe, and he has always had a calm, deliberate manner that says that he doesn't make decisions on a whim.
"It's alright." My mouth answers, but my feet move. "Excuse me." I beat a hasty retreat upstairs, tripping twice in my desperation to escape. I'm out of breath when I reach my bed. 'No good', 'bad news', 'Cullen boy', phrases chase each other in my head.
I wake up at two, stiff and cold and gasping. I had fallen asleep on top of my covers, fully clothed. 'I don't want you', 'You are not good for me', 'I'm bored', 'you're just a human', 'I'm tired of pretending' echo in my skull. I resist the urge to cover my ears and scream to drown the voice. At this point I can't separate what He actually said and what was in my imagination. All the insecurities I had, of being plain and unremarkable and ordinary, He had brought them out and thrown into my face in the space of fifteen minutes, or was it an hour? I don't know anymore.
I pull off my jeans and burrow into the covers, but I keep on trembling, the cold doesn't go away.
I give up an hour later and sit on my desk. I'm done with all the pending assignments, so I sit and leaf through my AP Trig text. I used to have trouble with Trig, it always took longest, but I managed to qualify for AP classes through sheer stubbornness. Renee says I can be like a little mule when the occasion presents itself. So I sit and solve one problem after another. If only you could solve life's problems that way.
Charlie gets up earlier than usual, when I make it downstairs, he is already in his uniform. And then I remember, it's Monday. I have to go to school today. God knows how I have been behaving in the last months. And even before that, I had not been hanging out with my human classmates much. I feel like the new girl again, only it's much worse. I had climbed into the exclusive circle of Cullens and been ignoring them, not intentionally, I have chatted with Angela here and there, but I had stopped sitting with them at lunch, stopped hanging out with them altogether. Now They have left me behind like a used soda can, and I'm trying to crawl back into their good graces. God, I wouldn't talk to myself, if it was me, why would they?
I have been lost in my thoughts, standing at the bottom of the stairs for so long that Charlie finally folds up the morning paper and says, "Bells? Everything alright?" His voice has lost the edge of constant worry a little bit. I may have been able reassure him a little over the weekend that I won't lapse back into Zombiella.
I shake my head and start preparing my breakfast. "Yeah fine. Just thinking about school." I reply with a shrug. Charlie looks thoughtful at that. Forks is a small town, Everybody is into everybody's business, who knows what kind of talk has been circulating about me. Chief's daughter goes comatose after being dumped by the good-looking and rich Cullen boy. The knife slips from my hand as I try to butter the bagel with trembling fingers. But it's only a butter knife, and I am spared further embarrassment with only a sympathetic look from Charlie.
"Well, I'm off." Charlie pushes the chair back. "See you at dinner."
"Be careful" I say between bites. Charlie's face lights up, I didn't even say that to my father in these months?
"Always am." He throws a small salute my way and closes the door behind him. I take a big gulp of coffee to control my face.
I take a shower and deliberate in front of my wardrobe, it's full of clothes with Alice written all over it. But I didn't have enough clothes from Phoenix to start with, and throwing them out and going shopping seems petty and useless. So I pull on a pair of dark jeans, a maroon sweater and a cream woollen jacket. I wrap a scarf around my neck and let my hair down, damp and fragrant from shampoo and conditioner. Thus armoured, I head for my truck, with a flask of coffee to keep me company. I usually keep my caffeine consumption to one cup a day, but I need the assurance at hand, in case I nodded off in school. I'm well aware that I'm running on very little sleep.
It's getting colder by the day, I think as I drive, everything is tinged with dark greys and blue-green. When I reach the parking lot, it's only halfway full. So I sit in the warm cabin and give myself a pep-talk. Honestly, I have been a wall-flower all my life. It should be pretty easy here, if I haven't spoken to anyone in the last couple of months, I can just continue, it's only a few months till I graduate anyway. But I don't want to do that. It just feels like the coward's way out. Angela, Eric, even Mike and Jessica were nice enough to include me in their circle when I started here. Maybe I should give it a try, I'm nothing if not masochistic.
Finally I can't wait any longer, so I drag myself to Spanish. I have done my assignment, but my pronunciation is rusty. Jessica is surprised to see me participate at all, but she gives me small smiles every time she corrects me, so I smile back at her, and that's all it takes.
"You won't believe what Tyler said to Lauren the other day! You are sitting with us at lunch, aren't you?" Jessica bobs along beside me.
"Yeah, of course." I say.
"I mean, you used to sit at the old Cullen table." Jessica lets out an uncomfortable laugh, "We tried to get you back with us…" I almost blanch at the reminder, but as is customary with Jessica, she dances between topics without giving any time for me to react. "Anyway, Angela has someone she wants to introduce you to. You'll like him, I mean, Ben is like a male Angela. They are like made for each other."
I hesitate outside AP Bio, but not for long, evidently news of my increased class participation has spread, because with a loud cry of 'Heyyy', Mike and Tyler descend upon me and manage to frogmarch me into the classroom. They both shoot me good natured grins as they go to their seats. But the seat beside me is empty. My throat goes dry. I swallow convulsively, Tyler turns back in his seat to watch me. The pity in his eyes spurs something within me, and suddenly I'm angry. Fine, I'm not good enough for Him, fine. I'll just have to be good enough for myself then. With that thought I slam my backpack down on the empty seat and situate myself on my own. Tyler gives me a thumbs up and turns back to the front.
The day goes a little better after that. I pick up a pasta salad at lunch and go to my old table. Wait, which one qualifies for old table now? Anyway, I go to the table with Jessica, Mike, Angela, Eric, Tyler, Lauren and another guy I have never met. Angela smiles at me as I approach, Jessica perks up.
"Hey Bella, see this is Ben." She points to the guy. "He and Angela are dating since October."
Ben goes pink and stutters a hello, but Angela smoothly changes the subject, "Yeah, Ben and I were talking about the English assignment. I thought I'd write about Elizabeth meeting Wickham, but Ben thinks Netherfield Ball is a more important setting."
"I wrote about Elizabeth's visit to Rosings Park actually." I toy with a broccoli.
"The clash of Pride and Prejudice." Ben nods seriously.
Angela shoves him, "You make it sound like a video game!"
Ben grins at Angela and I, I manage to smile back.
"Speaking of video games" Tyler starts as if making an announcement, "guess who's got Call of Duty 2?"
"No way!" Mike and Lauren chorus.
"Huh! Who cares? Listen to this…" Jessica starts talking about something she heard from someone, and it is as if I have never left the table in the first place. I smile at the funny parts and gratefully chew on my pasta.
I drive to the Newton's Store after school, feeling accomplished. I haven't fallen apart in school, except for that minor hiccup in biology. I still have friends who wanted to speak to me, sit with me and joke with me. I even smiled today. I will never be good enough for Him, but maybe, just maybe, I can be good enough for myself. I pass the junkyard on my way. An old doghouse, torn sofas with springs exposed, a couple of dilapidated bikes stand out among heaps of scrap metal. An old man is stumbling around the hills of garbage and broken things. I imagine I look like that most of the times, but while walking on plain ground. How does Charlie manage? I didn't inherit my clumsiness from Renee, who doesn't stumble even when drunk. Charlie can't dance to save his life, but I never see him stumble around like me. God, is there ever a thing like a clumsy cop?
Mrs. Newton looks up as I trip into the store. She asked me to call her Linda on my first day, but she insists on calling me Isabella. She is okay though, she kept me on last March, she has kept me on these few months. Although that could be because I'm Charlie Swan's daughter. Anyway…
"Isabella! Right on time!" See?
"Hi Mrs. Newton, what do you have for me today?" I nod.
That's apparently more than she expected, she gives me a small smile and says, "We have new supplies today. These" she pointed to a bunch of packing cases, "go to the back room. And these" another load on a trolley, "Go to the shelves. Mike will come by in sometime to help you."
"Thanks Mrs. Newton." I reply as I start loading couple of boxes on a trolley and head to the back room.
Charlie laughs when I mention my suspicion about my source of clumsiness. "You're right about that, Bells. I was pretty hopeless when I was your age. If a girl is clumsy, they call it cute." We roll our eyes simultaneously, "If a guy's clumsy, they call it lame. In fact I kept on bumping and stumbling into stuff until I went into the Academy."
"Really?" I ask, hope blossoming inside, if Charlie can do it at twenty… "What did you do?"
"Physical training." I scoff, gym has always been a minefield to me. "No really," Charlie continues. "Everyone said, work on your body, you are still growing, you will get better co-ordination. And guess what? They were right."
"Ugh, so what did you do?" I sigh. No way I'm going make a fool of myself in Gym.
"I did a lot of stuff in the academy." Charlie shrugs, "Question is what can you do? No rock-climbing for you, yet. Jogging in the morning and a little bit of strength training, maybe?" Charlie raises one eyebrow.
"I don't know, dad." I hedge.
"You are only eighteen, you have a lot of growing to do, kiddo." Charlie smiles, "If you really want to change anything about yourself, you may have to put in some work."
"Yeah, I guess." But I am already thinking. The urge to get better at things have started to sound better and better. I have been seeing turning eighteen as some sort of a curse, because I was outgrowing Him. But Charlie made it sound like a good thing, like I was getting better at things. I already wear trainers everywhere, I may have some running gear somewhere in my closet. I vow to find something to wear tomorrow as I finish my dinner.
A/n: So some human (and not so human) characters show up. Tell me what you think. Thanks to megan39 and Sharpeyes for the reviews. Super thanks for the story recommendations. Unfortunately I am unable to reply to reviews directly, but if you PM me, I'll be happy to chat.