Chapter 7: Nightmare

I told Charlie that I had a lot of homework to do and I didn't want anything to eat because I'm anorexic now. There was a basketball game on, so he didn't even acknowledge me.

I could bore you with a few paragraphs about listening to a CD of a band I don't really like, but the point is that I fell asleep, not you.

I woke up in a familiar place, surprise surprise. I was aware that I was dreaming and I was in a forest near an ocean. I knew that if I found the ocean I could see the sun. I came upon the sad realization that seeing the sun was turning into one of my only motivations. I would have to put in the extra effort to make sure dating Edward would be my sole motivation in the future.

Speaking of Edward, a person suddenly took my hand and started pulling me away from the ocean. Oh, no, wait, it was just Jacob Black. I felt a nervousness in my stomach, what if this turns into one of those dreams? I might start having some inner turmoil wondering if I'm a pedophile? I don't know if I can handle complex emotions like that!

"What's wrong?" I asked, because I could tell something was wrong from the expression on his russet face.

"Run, Bella! You must run!" he shouted like something was wrong.

"This way Bella!" I heard Mike's voice calling out from the darkest depths of the forest. Great, my first orgy dream and it's with flippin' Mike Newton, and Rebecca Black's younger brother. Edward Cullen and Martin Scorsese are nowhere in sight.

"Why?" I groaned.

Jacob fell over and turned into a wolf, I watched in horror. Pedophilia and bestiality? Things were not looking good.

"Bella Run!" Mike yelled again, and I began regretting wasting all my dog analogies on the character who wasn't a werewolf.

But then the day was saved! Edward stepped out of the trees, shirtless, glowing, radiant as a god. Like a god with soulless black eyes and razor sharp fangs.

The wolf growled at him, like he didn't trust this epic figure or something.

Edward stepped forward and pulled his lips back in a smile, the kind of smile a mob boss gives before ordering the thumbs cut off some poor shmuck who tried to rip him off.

"Trust me," he purred. Sorry for the funny verb choice, but I was having a hard time getting out of the furry mind set, you know how it is.

I did trust him, so I stepped toward him.

The wolf launched toward Edward.

"No!" I screamed, wrenching upright out of my bed.

I was in my bed, still dressed, wearing all of my clothes, I still had on my shoes. It was only five thirty in the morning but I couldn't fall back asleep.

I looked out this window and saw Charlie's cruiser gone, he had chosen the fishing pond over me again.

I pulled off my pants.

I unbraided my hair.

I took a really long shower.

I blow dried my hair.

I wrapped a towel around me.

I walked back to my room.

I put on my pants.

I put on my shirt.

I made my bed.

I turned on my computer.

I went down stairs.

I ate cereal carefully.

I washed the bowl.

I washed the spoon.

I dried the bowl.

I dried the spoon.

I went back upstairs.

I got my CD player.

I put it on the table.

I took out the headphones.

I pressed play.

I turned the volume down.

I sat down in the desk chair.

I closed the pop up ads.

I typed in one word.

Vampire.

It took an infuriatingly long time, can you imagine how annoying it would be to have to waste your time sitting there while nothing of interest happened?

When the results finally loaded I was disappointed. All I got was stuff about TV shows, role-playing games, goths, idiotic young adult novels, and Nicholas Cage. Then I realized it was a mistake to disregard the first three results which were: Wikipedia, "How Vampires work", and Vampires A—Z.

When the page finally loaded I saw it was headed with two quotes.

"Throughout the vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet adored with such fearful fascination as the vampire who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both." –Rev. Montague Summers

"If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?" –Rousseau.

I thought about the quotes. The Rev's vampires sounded really cool, but I couldn't help but feel they would be better if instead of having qualities of both ghosts and demons they had qualities of both diamonds, and male models.

Most of the vampires on the site were all interested in seducing people and drinking their blood till they died. Yawn. Nothing was like what Jacob had told me. Beside the whole be cold, hot, and drinking blood thing.

And then there was another problem (though maybe problem isn't the right word to use when it prevents your boyfriend from being a bloodsucking hell beast) I knew, from movies and what not, that vampires couldn't come out in the daylight, and I'd seen Edward out in the daylight on more than one occasion. And whenever the sun was shining he always went camping. Vampires can't camp when it's sunny out.

I was frustrated so I threw my computer out the window, not wanting to wait to shut it down properly. What was wrong with me? Well, daddy issues for one, mommy issues for another, teenaged hormones, poor character development, and general lack of intelligence and emotional maturity, but I decided that most of the blame belonged on the doorstep of the town of Forks—and the entire sodden Olympic Peninsula, for that matter.

I just had to get out of the house. I put on my rain coat and my galoshes and headed out the door into the woods behind the house. I walked fast, fueled by my anger. What was the point of dating a boy who wasn't hell spawn?

I decided to sit down on a fallen tree. I could tell it was recently fallen because I'd already done that biology lab at my far superior last school. I made sure my coat was between my butt and the damp tree trunk because there's nothing worse than having a dirty, wet ass. Except maybe, having a super hot boyfriend who doesn't have supernatural powers with which to murder you. I looked around the forest which was deep and green and just like the nightmare I'd just had. I realized maybe I shouldn't have gone here, since I'm terrified of the forest and have gotten so lost I nearly starved to death before.

It was about time I started thinking. There were two questions I had to answer. One: How do I have such a great life but am so pointlessly bitter? Two: Why did so many people like me despite my average looks and off-putting personality? I was about to think about that, honestly, but then I thought of two other questions that were about boys so I decided to think about those instead. One: Was what Jacob said about the Cullens true? No, that was actually kind of a stupid question, come to think of it. Entertaining that idea was silly and morbid, and I am anything but silly and morbid. I thought about Edward, how his eyes mysteriously changed color from shade-of-black to shade-of-yellow, how his skin was unnaturally pale and cold and beautiful, how he was impossibly strong and fast, how he never ate, how he walked with such grace, how he sometimes spoke like an old person instead of a seventeen year old boy. I hadn't heard him say 'bro' even once. Then there was the fact that he could obviously read minds, except mine, thank god, because there is no way in heck he would find me as interesting as he does if he knew what I was thinking, or rather what I wasn't thinking.

Second question: despite all this evidence to the contrary, could the Cullens be vampires?

I guess it was possible, I mean, clearly they weren't human, whether it be Jacob's cold ones or my own model theory, they were more than human. But surely if they were vampires I couldn't be the first person to have thought of this. I mean, it seemed so incredibly obvious and I'd only known them a couple weeks. The people around here had known them for years. Of course the people around here are small town hicks and probably not capable of figuring anything out other than how to drink canned beer and not brush their teeth.

Ooh! I've thought of another question, man I'm on a roll today. If all this vampire nonsense turns out to be non-nonsense what am I going to do about it? I couldn't tell anybody about it because they'd just think I was uber cra-cra. I guess there were only two options. I could keep hanging out with Edward and hopefully have him ravaging me against the dumpster behind the diner while my dad ignorantly ate his steak and potatoes before the week was out, or start avoiding him. On second thought, I guess there was only one options: keep hanging out with him. I would literally die if I didn't get to see him every moment of every day, our love is so romantic and healthy. Sigh.

My life plan all figured out I went back inside around noon and got dressed for the day. I sat down to my task for the day: a paper on Macbeth. With the internet as slow as it was here, it would probably take the whole rest of the day to download one off the web.

When my plagiarism was successfully completed I went to bed early and slept pretty damn dreamlessly for a chapter entitled nightmare.

I woke up to the sun and was again disoriented. But I got my bearing faster than the last time. When I went down stairs Charlie was just finishing his breakfast.

"Crap, I thought you'd be asleep for at least fifteen more minutes," he looked longingly at the door, probably eager to get out into the sun.

"Yes," I agreed.

Charlie smiled awkwardly. When he smiled I could see why my mom had tapped that so irresponsibly. Most of Charlie's appeal had receded away like his hair before I ever met him. They were probably connected.

Charlie snuck out while I was pouring the milk in my cereal. I scarfed down my food and ran outside. It was so bright! I could definitely see why everybody in Washington State commits suicide. The rain is depressing!

I jumped into my truck and sped off to school. It wasn't until I arrived in the empty parking lot I realized I was three hours early. Oh well, I could do studious things like the brilliant student I am. I sat down at one of the picnic tables, I wasn't sure why they had so many picnic tables when it was always raining, but it was probably the same lack of foresight that made them build the school in separate buildings. I had all my homework done, but I decided to check some of the work on my trig problems (with a social life like mine, trig was the least of my problems, hehe.) I didn't check the work though, I just doodled, because my scholarly nature is pretty much an outright lie.

"Hey, Bella!"

Edward! I snapped my head up. But it was only Mike. I realized that all the other students had arrived while I was not paying attention.

"Oh, hi, Mike," I mumbled disappointedly.

Mike sat down on the bench next to me. He took a strand of my hair in his fingers, "I never noticed before, your hair has red in it."

It was probably the sweetest thing any male character had said to me in this entire book thusfar, and it made me super uncomfortable. It was like getting hit on by a puppy.

"Only in the sun," I said resentfully, deciding Mike was very much to blame for the weather in this godforsaken land.

"What did you do yesterday?" he asked like he was my fucking keeper or something.

"I walked in the woods, and decided I was gonna lose it to a vampire, and worked on my essay."

He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand, "Oh yeah—that's due Thursday right?"

"Wednesday, I think," I lied. I knew it was due Wednesday, but I didn't want Mike to think I was pretentious or something.

"What are you doing yours on?"

"Whether Shakespeare's treatment of the female characters is misogynistic."

Mike burst out laughing.

"What?" I asked.

His laughter dried up, he looked at me incredulously, "You really don't see it?"

"See what?"

Mike shook his head, "I gotta go before they get here."

I frowned confused, "Before who gets here?"

Mike stood, "The hipsters. All this irony," he waved his arms, indicating my person, "It's going to start a feeding frenzy."

I still didn't get what Mike was talking about but I was glad he was leaving me alone.

[Insert several pages about the school day that have no importance whatsoever.]

In trig Jessica asked me to go shopping with her and some other girls in Port Angeles, I said maybe.

[More pointless description of a typical day in high school.]

Edward wasn't in school.

[More boring high school day to day.]

I left school, happy I would have time to mope about before I had to put on a happy face to go shopping. But when I walked into my house Jessica called and cancelled because Mike had asked her out.

I thought about this morning at the picnic bench, when he'd really noticed me and felt a little something in my stomach. But then I remembered how Edward wasn't in school today and decided to overanalyze his absence instead of coveting a normal existence.

When I was done over analyzing everything Edward had ever said to me, I decided to check my email, in case he had sent me a message declaring his love. It would be so sweet to get a declaration of love through an email, even better if it was misspelled and devoid of punctuation.

But all the emails were from my mom, getting snippier and snippier as time went on. As far as I could tell she and Phil were in D.C. canvasing the White House, looking for the secret entrance to the high security dungeon basement I was being held in.

I started typing a response,

Mom

Sorry. I've been trying to figure out if my one true love is a soulless monster and, if it turns out he's not, if I want to put in the effort for a relationship.

I sighed. My excuse seemed lame, so I gave up on that and closed the window without sending my response.

THE REMANDER OF THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN REDACTED BECAUSE THE PUBLIC SHOULD NEVER BE SUBJECTED TO POINTLESSNESS ON THIS LEVE