Chapter 6: Scary Stories

As I sat in my room, trying to concentrate on the third act of Macbeth (pft, yeah right,) I was really thinking about Edward and how sexy he would look in a kilt.

Friday totally sucked. It started with my friends taking interest in my life.

"So what did Edward Cullen want yesterday?" Jessica asked.

I tried to figure out when she had seen me talking to Edward, since our last interaction happened in the nurse's office/his car and Jessica definitely wasn't around. Then, after reading through the last chapter I remembered that we'd also spoken at lunch and they'd been watching us the whole time. Man, that feels like months and months ago, but it was only yesterday afternoon.

"So what did Edward Cullen want yesterday?" Jessica repeats, me having gotten so caught up in thinking about Edward I forgot she existed.

"Oh, I dunno," I said.

"You looked kind of mad," she fished. She fished a lot really. She always sort of smelled like fish too. I think she would have had a better shot with Mike if she wasn't always wearing thigh high fishing waders.

"Did I?" I kept my expression blank (fun fact: this is the sentence Kristin Stewart will base her entire performance on.)

"You know, I've never seen him sit with anyone but his family before. That was weird."

I suppose it is weird when a high school boy won't associate with anyone outside his incestuous family. It sounds like the kind of think that would make Rob Zombie make a movie about you.

The worst part about Friday was that Edward wasn't there, obvs. Even though he had told me previously that he wouldn't be in school I was still bummed. The way when I walk into the grocery store and he isn't there I'm bummed. Or when I walk into the checkup room at my doctor's and he isn't there, I'm bummed. Basically whenever I go anywhere Edward isn't, I'm bummed. And we haven't even sucked face yet.

At my unfortunately usual table everyone was full of our plans for the next day. Wait…that didn't make sense at all? "Everyone was full of our plans?" What the hell does that mean? Oh, well, I'm sure the editor will notice and fix it later. Mike was putting all his faith in the local weatherman who promised sun. I'd been burned one too many times by this weatherman, though, and knew him to be a dirty liar intent on my misery. So it would probably pour and I'd be miserable.

Lauren, who I don't think I've mentioned before, but Lauren was glaring at me all lunch. I thought that maybe she has misinterpreted my detached, gloomy expression as maliciously directed at her until I was creeping, unnoticed, behind her as she walked out of lunch and said , "…don't know why Bella doesn't just sit with the Cullens from now on." I don't know why I didn't hear the beginning of that even though I was listening the whole time.

I heard her muttering to Mike. I'd never noticed what an unpleasant, nasal voice she had until she started talking shit about me, instead of the other kids at school. I couldn't believe she would say those things about me behind my back! Except I was behind her back and she was saying them not to my face, really, but in front of my face. I had worked myself into a dense confusion so I missed my next class, wandering around the school grounds in a daze.

That night at dinner, Charlie was excited about my trip to La Push. I think he felt guilty for leaving me home alone on the weekends, but he'd spent too many years building his habits to break them now, and it's not like I was anyone important, just his only child.

"It'll be good for you to get out of the house," he said, "In fact, if you don't want to come back after, or ever, you don't have to."

I meant to sleep in but I was just too damn responsible. I woke early in the morning and found myself in a completely different location. While I had gone to sleep in a dark room I was now surrounded by unusual brightness. The room I was in now looked like a cruel mockery of my real room, the way Picasso's cubism is a mockery of legitimate art. I touched my blanket which felt the same but was a completely different shade of purple. Cautiously I climbed out of bed and crept to the window. I looked up in the sky and realized what was wrong. My room was being illuminated by natural sunlight. I let out a shriek. A few minutes later my dad knocked on the door, "You okay?" he asked.

"The sun! The sun!" I screamed myself hoarse.

"Um…yeah, okay," he lumbered away.

I pulled into the parking lot trying really hard not to hit the people there. There was Mike, and Tyler, and Eric (gag me with a spoon) and two other boys who I think were named Ben and Conner but why do they even matter? As far as girls go, there was Jess and Angela and Lauren and three other girls, one of whom I was surprised to see because she fell down in gym yesterday and I thought she was dead. The not dead one gave me a dirty look as I got out of the truck (I guess if she was alive she didn't appreciate the impromptu eulogy I'd given her when she fell and the dirt I threw on her face while crying.) She whispered something to Lauren who eyed me scornfully.

So it was going to be one of those days. You know, those days where the blonde girls are mean to you, not because you have a horrible personality and are, in general, a god awful person, but because you sat with a cute boy who they wish they could have sat with.

Mike was happy to see me though. He bounded over, tongue hanging out and gave me a big lick on my face.

"Mike! Down!" I commanded and he obeyed.

"You came!" he panted.

"I told you I was coming," I said, apparently oblivious to the fact "come" is a word one must use carefully to avoid 'that's what she said' comments.

"Will you ride in my car?" he asked.

"Yes I will ride in your car," I responded.

He smiled blissfully. Man, if he was this happy just because I'd get in his car imagine what he'd do if I ever held his hand or kissed his cheek.

"We're just waiting for some other people who won't be mentioned again, ever, in this series."

"Um, could you give them names?" I request, "Just because the more named characters in a book the better it is."

"Oh, sure, anything for you my one true love, Isabella "Bella" Swan. Lee and Samantha are coming. Lee's bringing Ben, Naomi, and Allie, and Naomi doesn't go anywhere without her boyfriend Dustin. Dustin's going to bring his cousin Annabell, and Annabell's going to bring her twin Annalise, and Samantha's got her friends Yumi, Kathie, Nancy, and Tom. Tom has his buddy Louis tagging along, and you know Louis's going to bring Claudia, Armand, Lestat, and Santiago. Plus my sister Vicky's coming, with her Gertrude, Juan, Paulo, Humphrey, and Jack. Jack doesn't go anywhere without Jill. Oh, and I almost forgot about, Grumpy, Sleepy, Dopy, Sneezey, Happy, Bashful, Moe, Curly, Larry, with their father, his son, and the Holy Ghost, and…yep that's it."

I felt bad for Cynthia, because it seemed she was the only one in school not invited.

It was only fifteen miles to La Push from Forks (go ahead, Google it motherfuckers! (I did.)) We'd rolled the windows down—the Suburban was a bit claustrophobic with nineteen people in it.

I recognized the beach when we got there, because I'd been there before. There was a brisk wind coming off the waves, cool and briny (I'm sorry, am I a typical teenaged girl or a pirate?) The sun was still shining on bravely and there were ocean birds like pelicans and eagles flying all over the place. Which gave me a good idea. I could make myself wings and fly up to the sun and be able to take so much more advantage of it. I filed the thought away in my mental "good ideas" file and joined the rest of the people on the beach.

After half an hour of nothing happening something happened. Some of the boys wanted to hike over to the tidal pools. It was a dilemma. On the one hand, I loved tidal pools, on the other I was clumsy. Actually, I just looked up the word 'dilemma' and this wasn't one at all, not even kind of. As it turned out, everyone I liked the least didn't want to go and everyone I liked the most did, so I decided to go to the tidal pools.

We went to the tidal pools, nothing happened, we went back.

When we went back to the beach the group we'd left behind had multiplied. At first I thought Eric and Tyler had managed to start some sort of weird sex cult with the girls who'd all gotten pregnant and given birth while we were gone. But then I remembered we'd only been gone a couple hours, not a couple days, so probably not. As it turned out it was just a bunch of Native American boys.

One of them was named Jacob and I could tell he'd fallen in love with me immediately, but I thought nothing of it.

I sat with Angela who I liked because she wasn't always trying to talk to me and distract me from thoughts of Edward. I realized how disjointedly time seemed to flow in Forks, passing at a blur at times, with single images standing out more clearly than others. And then, at other times, every second was significant, or at least described in excruciating detail. I shook my head and smiled, surely, if real life was written by an author it wouldn't be this way.

After lunch everybody went off to do their own thing. I didn't have my own thing beside obsessing over Edward so I just kept sitting and thinking. However, when Angela left to go hiking, the little boy, Jacob, came to sit next to me. He looked to be about fourteen or fifteen with long black hair and beautiful, silky, russet colored skin (I'm not calling him a red skin, I'm not racist!) I was mildly attracted to him in the uncomfortable way old ladies are attracted to Justin Bieber.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?"

Oh no! It was like the first day of school again, when everybody knew who I was and cared about me and wanted to be my friend!

"Bella," I grumbled wishing the earth would open up and swallow him right there.

"I'm Jacob Black," he held his hand out in a friendly gesture unfamiliar to me, maybe this was an Indian thing? "You bought my dad's truck."

"Oh, you're Jacob," I said, "I should probably remember you."

"No, I was too young, You probably remember my older sisters Rachel and Rebecca."

I blinked, "Wait…you're older sister is Rebecca Black?" All of a sudden the comparison to Justin Bieber seemed all the more apropos. OMG! Jacob Black, Justin Bieber, they even have the same initials!

Jacob looked down at the ground below him shamefully, "We don't like to talk about her anymore."

"I understand!" and for once, I really did understand, "I promise never to bring up either of your sisters ever again."

"Thank you," Jacob said, "So do you like the truck?"

"Yeah, I love the power trips it takes me on."

"So Bella, you know Jacob?" Lauren asked—in what I imagined to be an insolent tone.

"I used to know Jacob, but I forgot about him completely because, honestly, look at this kid with his stupid hair and prepubescent lack of muscle tone. Maybe if he could turn into a wolf or something."

"How nice," she didn't sound like she thought it was nice at all, and her pale, fishy eyes narrowed. Strange how I never noticed how ugly she was until she started treating me with something less than adoration.

"Bella," she called again, "I was just saying to Tyler that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn't anyone think to invite them? The poor dears. I guess Edward's willing to move across the lunch room for you, but not any farther than that."

I was about to say something snide back to that bitch but a tall older boy interrupted, "You mean Dr. Carlisle Cullen's family?"

I was really beginning to wonder if there was another Cullen family in the area, why did everyone have to clarify that it was Carlisle Cullen's family? The tall, older boy, for his part, was really more of a man and his voice was very deep. Come to think of it, it was actually kind of creepy that he was hanging out with a bunch of teenagers.

"Do you know them?" she asked, angrily, like she was thinking Great, not only will Edward sit with Bella before he'll sit with me, but he'll sit with Native American men before he'll sit with me too!

"The Cullens don't come here," he said in a way I imagined to be ominous.

Lauren stopped paying attention, her role in bringing up the subject done, and went back to flirting with Tyler. I think she liked he because he'd hit me with his van.

Jacob asked me, "So is Forks driving you insane yet?"

"I'd say yes, but in the next book I'm going to start hallucinating my ex-boyfriend and jumping off of cliffs, so, no, not really."

I was still wondering why the Cullens didn't go to a nice beach like La Push. I had an inspiration. It was a stupid plan, but I couldn't think of anything better. I hoped that Jacob was too young and inexperienced with girls so he wouldn't see through my pitiful attempts at flirting.

"Do you want to walk down the beach with me?" I tried to sound sexy, but mostly I sounded like a robot.

Jacob was taken aback by my forwardness but he agreed.

We started to walk as the sky grew more and more appropriately intense.

"So you're, what, sixteen?" I knew he wasn't nearly that old, but if I could pretend, then I could pretend I wasn't almost a pedophile.

"I just turned fifteen," he said, "Today."

Ugh, only fifteen. And I was nearly eighteen. I guess as long as I didn't have to get physical with him it would be alright.

"I thought you were older," I lied.

"I'm tall for my age," he said. I guess this could be true, but I still towered over him.

"So why don't the Cullens come down here?" I smoothly change the subject.

Jacob frowns, "That information is classified."

"Look," I said, "I'm trying to find a way to say this without being disrespectful, but Damn yous a sexy bitch," I wink at him, running my tongue over my lips in a way I hope is sexy and doesn't make me look like a clown rapist.

Jacob looks at me wide eyed.

"Why don't the Cullens come down here?" I try to hypnotize him with my smoldering brown eyes.

"Do you like scary stories?" he asks me.

"I love them!" I try to keep up a healthy smolder, but I'm distracted thinking about the scream movies and wondering if Jacob's planning on telling me why the Cullens don't come here or if he's going to clumsily stab me to death and hang me from a tree.

"Well, that's too bad, because this story isn't scary at all."

Few, once again I narrowly avoided becoming Drew Barrymore.

"So basically there's this story in my tribe about how the cold, white people came around and started slaughtering everyone, and then the elders turned into wolves and killed them. Honestly I always thought it was a metaphor, a call to arms for Native Americans to stand up to the invading settlers instead of allowing them to kick us off our land but—"

"But what does that have to do with the Cullens?"

Jacob raises an eyebrow at me, like really, you need me to spell it out for you? "Um, the Cullens are cold and pale."

"Well, if the Cullens are cold and pale why hasn't your tribe turned into wolves and killed them yet?" Once I say the question out loud it sounds kind of stupid.

"Jeez, Bella, it's just a story."

"Oh yeah, right."

Jacob seems to regret having snapped at me like that so he says, "But the explanation of legend is that the Cullens are 'civilized.' In that they don't eat people, only animals. So my tribe made a treaty with them, they don't come on our land, and we don't tell anyone they're vampires. Oops, guess I just broke a centuries old treaty for a girl because she called me a sexy bitch."

He shrugs.

"Don't worry, I'll take it to the grave." I tell him, ironically because I won't—have a grave or take it there.

Then we heard the sounds of people approaching. We looked up and saw Mike and Jessica walking toward us.

"There you are Bella!" Mike shouted, waving his arms around.

"Is that your boyfriend?" Jacob asked.

"No, definitely not," I whispered. I was tremendously grateful to Jacob, and eager to make him happy as possible. I made a mental not to give him a quick hj later.

"Where have you been?" Mike asked, snarling at Jacob. It was one thing for Mike to be instantly jealous of Edward, a super hot boy my age who I saw every day, but being instantly jealous of a little kid I just met was going a little over board I think.

"I've been here," I said, gesturing to the beach around me.

"Oh," Mike said, "Well, we're going now."

"Okay, see you later Jacob!"

I ran off with my friends.