one

A/N: lol this is a mistake. Anyways, this might not be your cup of tea if you don't like age gaps, or stupid tropes, or sporadic updates. That said, if you do stick around thaaaank yah.

Gillian Stanley sipped her - twelve shots of cream and sixteen packets of Splenda, thank you very much - coffee with the vigor and intensity usually reserved for starving mosquitos who've spotted their first bare knee cap of the summer. Her resting heart rate was elevated in a way that would have had her mother tutting and pulling out the frozen bag of peas that had resided in the back of the freezer, yes, behind the carrots, for the past seventeen years. It had been purchased only with the intent of being the unappetizing side to dinner one night, but quickly substituted as the ice pack of choice after Jessica learned to ride the obnoxiously pink Barbie bike Aunt Mona bought her the summer she turned six - a staple, if not the, staple of her childhood, really.

Despite the plethora of goodies Aunt Mona always brought back from her trips to Spain, and the peals of laughter and the twinkle of something irrevocably new, it had been a summer of hard lessons for everyone. Jess had found out rather quickly that there was a certain kind of power and unruly independence in being bruised and wild and still – still – trying again. Their parents had learned that despite the courage being six always brought, children were still fragile things, and Gillian found out there were some places even Jess wasn't going to let her follow.

Needless to say, Gillian was stressed out, and not your typical college exam I only studied for three minutes stressed out, but the gut wrenching topsy turvy feeling of a crashing plane or a derailing locomotive. She was stressed out in a dangerous, devastating type of way. And for good reason, she was only a staggering three miles away from her hometown.

Forks, Washington.

And it's all Jessica's fault. Well, not technically. Angela Weber - her sisters' best friend since grade school - and Ben Cheney - the gangly boy only known for stealing his friends free popcorn at the movie theaters and surprising everyone by getting hunky that one summer - we're getting married. But they would never have even started dating if Jessica hadn't locked them in a coat closet in eighth grade, so, Gillian supposed it made perfect sense to blame this whole train-wreck of a vacation –

"and it is a vacation Gilly! Besides, when's the last time you visited mom and dad, they raised you for eighteen years, yah know, the least you could do is come home every once in a while, and tell mom her fake meat and three cheese casserole tastes good"- on Jessica .

But either way, Gillian figured most of, if not all of the awful things that happened in the world could very well be traced back to a certain Jessica Stanley. And Gillian figured she had every reason to not want to come home; despite Jess's teasing, it truly had nothing to do with the non-existent relationship she had with her parents.

Strange things happened in Forks, Washington. And it wasn't large black hippie vans, or old men that grab and touch and take. It was the howl in the woods that shocked the trees and the ground and screamed animal yet somehow trembled human. It was the way impossible things happened to impossible people. And eerily beautiful rich kids spoke with an elegance that could have only been described as timeless. It was the woods that stirred and went bump in the night. It was the five dead bodies they found two weeks apart and the beast that always got away.

Most of all, it was the fact that nobody believed her, not even Jess. Now every time Gillian even thought about coming home a large twisty kind of darkness clung to her clothes and made her see stars, and then she'd have no choice but to squeeze her eyes shut so tightly none of the tears could escape, they'd have to stay in, in, in. And then she'd pop a pill – it's for anxiety, relax - and write positive affirmations on a stack of sticky notes only to let them rot on the floor.

Gillian swore she would never come back to Forks, if the creepy animal noises and the god damn wind – it's a living thing, Gillian had sworn to her sister a few years ago, a living breathing thing and it's terrifying - wasn't enough to keep her away, then the old aristocratic families that had lived in that small trash can town for seemingly centuries, did the job quite thoroughly.

She never understood how they could smile at you, bare their pearly white fucking dentures and ask after your parents only to turn around and conspiratorially whisper of whatever scandal or disgrace weaseled it's way into the newspaper – okay, so it rarely made the headlines but everyone knew Leana Pruett had been running the Forks gossip column for twelve years straight, she didn't have any kids or a nice word to say about anyone but Gillian had to hand it to her, she sure knew how to sell a story.

The people inhabiting Forks permanently couldn't do much, but they could talk and breathe silly standards, and archaic ideals like it was their only good personality trait. Gillian had seen lives ruined over their incessant twittering. But who did they whisper about most? Gillian, the fallen Stanley sister –

Poor girl had to be propped up and strapped onto the straight and narrow that one.

These things just happen sometimes, nothing her dear family could have done, but mind you I always said there was just something so odd about that little girl

I know, I know, smiled too wide.

Oh, and just the way she'd whisper and carry on to herself –

And her family wasn't so different, not really, from any of the other socialites inhabiting Forks. The Stanley's had a reputation to maintain and Gillian figured she was very well doing everyone a favor by staying far away.

None the less, Angela Martin had faithfully braided her hair for every middle school dance she was naive enough to care about and had even passed down her old camera when Gillian had expressed the vaguest inclination to photography. Angela was her sister in every way that counted – in all of the unspeakable heart fluttering ways it didn't.

The least Gillian could do was come home and watch the girl say I do.

So, with her nerves perfectly frayed and her heart rattling around in her chest like a caged bird, Gillian Stanley entered Forks, Washington for the first time in five years.

And she only cried a little.

"Oh, baby! Your hair is so long," Sarah Stanley trembled out as she air kissed her daughters cheeks with a haughtiness only she could have pulled off while crying, "I don't remember it being that long, Phil."

For his part Phil Stanley bobbed his head along dutifully, as he tearfully took in his youngest daughter's appearance. He had a firm smile and unintentionally furrowed eyebrows that only made sense on a politician, a stern looking man, then. Yet, he had a gummy heart. A good heart. Soft and maliable and well, he honest to god figured he'd never see his youngest daughter within a two-mile radius of this town ever again, so, was it really so silly that he had been feeling a little misty eyed?

Jessica leaned against the pristine white door frame, arms crossed, and eyes rolled firmly up at her mother's incessant fawning. Her homecoming hadn't been quite so tragic, but then again Jess had been home last weekend, and the weekend before that.

Truth be told, she missed the younger girl, and as god was her witness Bella Swan could swoop in with her silky hair and hold a knife to her throat in a semi-erotic way and Jessica Stanley would still never admit that to her sister.

"Jess," Gillian nodded tersely when she finally looked up, up, and up at her sandal clad, jean short and saltwater haired sister, a flicker of annoyance flashed in the older girls' eyes which only made Gill swallow nervously. It had been years since they'd seen each other, once they had been close, once they would have flown into each other's arms and Jess would have tugged at Gill's hair and it would have been sweet and beautiful and their mother would have cried, but she'd been away for so long.

Yet, nothing between them would ever be final, right? – not the door that rattled the whole house when it slammed or the slurred I-hate-you's that shouldn't have really hurt but burned, and burned anyways.

No, nothing was ever permanent. Not even this weird mangled moment nobody knew what to do with, not even Sarah Stanley who always had a word or two even when there was nothing left to say.

"Gill," Jessica responded in that same tight breathless way, "you haven't grown. Not even an inch."

All Gillian could think to say was, "Okay."

She often felt like her whole family was trapped on weirdly small deserted island's and because fate is – cruel – they're all facing each other but no one knows how to swim or speak because the salt doesn't just live in the water but the air and sand too. And all the words that shake and tremble and beat their way out are whispered, fragile things that don't have ends or beginnings really, just a pause and a sharp inhale and a hanging question mark –

Look what we've done to each other.

"God, who died?" Jessica sniffed bitterly, her fingers pressed into her bare forearms – it was May and only seventy degrees but you could've asked anyone, they would have said it felt like summer – Gillian watched mesmerized as her spidery fingers turned the skin white. An ugly, milky, bone white. "You know what a hug is?" There's a lift to Jess's voice, an accent, she paused for a moment and tried to decide whether or not that was new.

"'Course," Gillian wrapped her arms around her sister, the accent was new, it had to be new, the hug was only slightly weird. Despite the turmoil trembling through her fingers she found comfort in Jess's distinct smell –

It was lavender, and tea leaves, and that one smell that was really popular in 2009 when Bath and Body Works released their spring collection – spring – Jess smelt like spring.

"Oh, look at our girls!" Sarah cooed and moved to her husband's side where she fit perfectly. She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder and he stroked the back of her hand with the pad of his thumb and all was sweet and lovely in the world and they could forget that there had ever been tears or ugly nasty words that swelled, even now, between the four of them like lingering bruises. "I just can't believe we're all together again, I am so glad we can finally put that dreaded hospital behind us" –

Gillian immediately felt numb all over, she didn't need to hear the rest of her mother's sentence, her hands fell limply at her sides, useless, unreliable things. Jess recoiled to shoot a withering glare at her tactless mother. "Mom!" She cried, and for her part looked truly disturbed that she'd brought it up so soon into Gill's visit.

Jess figured it was inevitable, it was their mother after all. And quite frankly, Jess thought bitterly, scathingly, people don't just change, not even when they really, really should. But, couldn't she have waited until after dinner? That kind of rationality had never come easy to Sarah Stanley, and, well, god could only extend so many miracles to one family.

For his part Phil Stanley had pressed his lips into a firm line and furrowed those politician eyebrows down, down, down. "What? What!?" Sarah asked frantically as her husband led her into the house, "I don't understand!" As he pushed her farther away and deeper into their home only their heated muffled voices could be heard from the porch – Oi, you spoil everything woman. Philip Stanley you take that right back, or I swear you'll be sleeping on the couch! If my mother was alive –

Jess led Gillian over to the ottoman set that had sat on their porch come rain or snow for the past five years, looking only slightly weathered, the diagonal stripes were still mostly blue and you couldn't even really see the stain half a wine cooler and Gillian's upset stomach had left behind. A parting gift, Jess thought sardonically.

Gill pulled and scratched at the firm fabric – it wasn't a panic attack, panic attacks were breathless noisy hiccups that felt like death, okay, so, maybe this felt like death, but Gillian didn't have panic attacks anymore – Jess rubbed circles into her sisters back like she used to do when they were kids and it would have been wonderful if only they were still little and loved each other in that whirl-wind forever kind of way. "Mom was wrong, she shouldn't have even mentioned it."

"Yes," Gillian agreed with a flippancy at odds with the turmoil raging and coiling and destroying her stomach with its familiar song of; I shouldn't have come here, but I did, and now I am stuck, stuck, stuck. She schooled her features into an impenetrable mask of nothingness. She would not lose her composure. She would show Jess, and her mother, and the entire fucking town of Forks, Washington that she had grown, that she had learned to be calm and rational even when her bones protested and screeched and begged.

She was not stuck anywhere – so she would be calm.

"I think we should go bowling." Gillian offered conversely and Jess paused her ministrations to look at her sister – with those brown beady eyes that were so good at coaxing information, so good at seeing, and deciding – For what felt like the first time in years – and it dawned on Jess, this was the first time. Because Facebook pictures weren't for real, they didn't mean anything, and everyone knew that.

The girl's face was perfectly smooth, a cacophony of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose and her hair fell in long red-brown tresses that tangled at the ends. She looked like she'd always looked, Jess decided, just different now.

Different in the way her spine didn't curve or slouch, in the way her leg didn't jiggle nervously in anticipation, in the way her nails were long and styled and not raw brittle nubs. She has endured and she has suffered, and she is all the better for it.

"You want to go bowling?" Jess asked finally. Gillian nodded – slightly – and if Jess hadn't been looking for it, if she hadn't been scrutinizing her sisters face she would have missed it. "Let's go bowling."