Chapter 8: Port Angeles
Jess drove faster than the Chief, so we made it to Port Angeles by four. When I say Chief I'm referring to my father, I realize this may be confusing, especially in a book in which Native Americans feature so prominently. I'd been a while since I'd had a girls' night out (since I had no friends and stuff) and the rush of e was invigorating. E referring to estrogen, of course. We listened to whiny rock songs (authors note: this is the sentence the directors of the Twilight movie latched onto when picking the soundtrack) while Jessica jabbered on about the boys we hung out with. Her dinner with Mike had gone very well and she was hoping by Saturday night they would have progressed to the first-kiss stage. I laughed to myself because Jessica's relationship with Mike seemed so juvenile. By Saturday I was hoping to reach the committed to each other by blood oath stage with Edward. Angela was happy to be going to the dance but not interested in Eric, because honestly who'd be interested in that stupid loser? Jessica tried to get her to admit what her type was but I interrupted with questions about dresses because we're girls!
Port Angeles was a beautiful little town, if you liked crummy tourists traps and are able to enjoy stuff, which I can't (unless, of course, it starts with an E and ends in ternally bound together.) Jessica and Angela had been here before though, so they ignored the picturesque board walk and quaint independent shops and went straight to the department store, just like how people familiar with reading skip all the classics and go straight for Twilight.
The dance was semiformal but what did that really mean? Wasn't something formal or casual? This is a world of black and white, you're hot or you're not, you're a vampire or you're not. That's what makes the world interesting, imagine if everything was just in shades of grey? Like, what if Edward actually had flaws? I mean, like, legit flaws, not the pretend ones he thinks he has or the unintended ones that result from my ineptitude with character development. What if he had real flaws that made him a three dimensional character with layers and crap, then everyone might get distracted from how smoking hot he is and miss the point entirely! And no one wants to fantasize about a vampire with real issues.
I told Jessica and Angela how I'd never been to a dance before and they were stunned, it was literally the most shocking thing they had ever heard.
"How do you expect normal teenage girls to relate to you if you've never been to a dance?" queried Jessica.
"Lots of teenage girls haven't been to school dances," I countered.
"But teenage girls who'll read your book?"
She had a point, it was difficult to imagine some burn out freak girl enjoying a thousand pages of my inner monologue, let alone wishing she was the I when I say I.
"Didn't you ever go with a boyfriend or something?"
I couldn't admit the shame of my dancing incapability so I told her how I'd never had a boyfriend or even just a friend. Jessica seemed skeptical since I'd already been asked out by every boy in school, even ones that had tried to hit me with their van.
"I really didn't have a boyfriend," I repeated, "I was too busy giving my mom baths and making sure she didn't accidentally stab herself with a kitchen knife."
"You gave your mom baths?" Angela asked, shocked.
"Chyah," I shrugged and look away to hide my red cheeks. My cheeks were red because I was embarrassed, "No homo, or anything. No incest-o either."
"Well lots of people ask you out here and you say no," Jessica pointed out in case you had forgotten my desirability.
"Well, except for Tyler," Angela amended.
"WLkera;wjeflmse WHAT!?" I shrieked.
"Tyler told everyone he's taking you to prom."
I'll admit it, I was having trouble remembering which one Tyler was, but I was %99 positive that he wasn't Edward and that meant he wasn't taking me to prom.
"I told you it wasn't true," Angela murmured to Jessica, but I heard her say it.
I was so angry I could have punched a baby, but unfortunately there were no infants around, so I settled for a pregnant lady in the maternity section. After Jess and Angela had convinced the woman not to press charges we got down to business. The girls both found some dresses and tried them on. Jess was having trouble deciding between a slutty black dress and a slutty electric blue dress, I encouraged her to go with the electric blue dress because I have a terrible fashion sense. Angela chose a pretty pink dress that brought out her blandly pleasant, wall flower features. I complimented them both profusely and helped them a lot even though it was hard to focus on someone who wasn't me or Edward for that long.
Once they had purchased their dresses I was ready to move onto another scene, but they still had to buy jewelry and shoes. Jessica got silver stripper shoes. While she was drooling over them I approached Angela.
"Hey, Angela, is it…normal for the Cullens to be absent from school a lot?" I asked her.
"Oh yeah," she said, "They're absent whenever it's sunny to go camping. I think that's why they've been held back so much. They've been in the same grade for the last twenty years."
She didn't ask one question like "Why are you so obsessed with the Cullens?" Or "Why have they not aged at all in the past twenty years?" Which, I guess, is how the Cullens have managed to go undetected this long.
We were going to eat dinner at this Italian restaurant but our dress shopping hadn't taken as long as planned. Jessica and Angela were going to put their dresses in the car then walk to the bay. I told them I'd meet them at the restaurant in an hour, I was going to find a bookstore. They were both willing to come with me, but I reminded them that a group of girls was a lot less likely to get raped than a lone girl walking the streets of a strange town at night. They both agreed it was a fair point and let me go out on my own.
I found the bookstore with no trouble, but it wasn't what I was looking for. It looked like a hippy store, and to make matters worse it was in a well-lit, highly trafficked part of town. I figured there must have been a normal bookstore in town and I wandered down the nearest ally looking for it. I wandered for a long time, not paying as much attention to where I was going as I should have. I was wrestling with despair. No, seriously. "wrestling with despair" that's really what I said. I was trying not to think about him and what Angela had said about them. Were the Cullens really so outdoorsy? I'm not good outdoors. I could get hopelessly lost ten feet from my house—no, seriously, it'll happen, just wait. Could Edward ever be interested in a girl who couldn't climb Mount Everest? Could any boy ever?
"Hey there!" a voice shouted, interrupting my unnecessary moping time.
I looked up and saw a group of four dangerous looking men, drunk and a few years older than me.
"Hello," I mumbled reflexively, picking up my pace trying to get away from these dirty criminals.
"Hey, wait!" one of them called after me.
I didn't wait though, my unreliable sense of self-preservation kicking in for once. I walked until I could no longer hear their sinister chortling.
Once I was done running for my virginity I took a moment to see where I was. It seemed I'd left the city limits of Port Angeles and was now in some sort of warehouse district. I tried to think of a worse place to end up, but naturally couldn't think of anything.
I noticed that it was starting to get dark, from both the sun setting and heavy clouds forming. I felt a shiver run down my back as I realized the weather was getting a bit too dramatic for a casual stroll down the road. I glanced over my shoulder to glare at the offending clouds and noticed two men walking silently behind me.
I really hadn't heard them before, and there was a chance, and I didn't know how big that chance was, that they were vampires. I decided, just to be safe, I'd get to a more populated area before asking. I continued down the block and turned the corner. I could see pedestrians in the distance, but it they were all too far away, because the other two men were leaning against a wall between me and them.
I gulped.
The situation was seeming less than ideal.
"There you are!" one of the men boomed.
I took my purse off and gripped the handle, ready to pelt them a good one if needed.
"Stay away from me," I muttered.
"Don't be like that, sugar," said one of the men, approaching me.
I relaxed a little. Sugar, while demeaning and degrading, wasn't a very threating thing to be called. It wasn't like they were dressed in white jump suits and calling me Devotchka or anything.
Suddenly a silver car appeared out of nowhere, screeching to a halt next to me. As a pleasant surprise Edward popped out of the drivers side door looking all hot and bothered.
"Get in," he growled.
I waited for one of the men to oblige.
"Bella, get in," he specified.
"Oh, you meant me," I skipped to the passenger side and slid into the car.
Edward got back in the car and slammed the door.
"Put on your seat belt," he commanded as he through the car in reverse and sped off, leaving the men stupefied on the street. I obediently put on my seat belt.
Edward looked upset about something so I asked him, "Are you okay?"
"No," he said lividly.
I wasn't anticipating that answer. I'm pretty sure the polite response to "Are you okay?" is "Yeah, are you?" The way the polite response to "How are you?" is "Good, how're you?" So I sat in silence not sure what to say.
I looked out the window but it was too dark to see anything and Edward was driving too fast.
"Bella," he said through clenched teeth.
"Yes?" I breathed.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes," I replied, confused. What could be the matter with me? I was sitting next to the love of my life.
"Distract me," he ordered.
"How?" I asked. I couldn't think of anything that could be more distracting than Edward, but he was with himself all the time so I doubted my usual conversation topic would work.
"Just prattle about something unimportant until I calm down."
Well that should be easy enough. I wracked my brain for something trivial. There was so much, it was hard to choose where to start.
"I'm going to run over Tyler with my truck tomorrow."
"Why?"
"He's telling everyone that he's taking me to prom, when I am waaaayyyy out of his league. Either he's insane or he's still trying to make up for almost killing me. Like, get over it dude. And he thinks prom is somehow the correct way to do this. So I figure if I kill him, no more problem."
"I heard about that," he sounded a bit more composed and I thought maybe he'd really been upset because he thought I was going to prom with Tyler.
"You did?" I asked him, shocked because he never talks to anyone outside of his family, probably in an effort not to stand out as much.
"Are you feeling better?" I asked him.
"Not really."
Again, not the response I was expecting. It was like someone posting a vaguely upset status message on facebook for attention. So I felt obligated to ask, "What's wrong?"
"Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella," he said in an uncomfortably cool tone. Like in a movie when a guy you thought was normal turns out to be a serial killer, "It wouldn't be helpful for me to turn around and hunt down those…" he paused, "At least, that's what I'm trying to tell myself."
I might have wondered briefly why I felt so much safer alone in a car with a would be murderer than I did on the street with would be rapists, but the light from the dashboard exaggerated the manly angles of Edward's face and I couldn't think about stuff like that.
We sat in awkward silence for a little while longer.
"So…" I started, "I'm supposed to be meeting Jess and Angela for dinner at an Italian restaurant…"
Without a word Edward turned the car around and soon we were back in the light of street lamps barreling down the boardwalk toward the restaurant. He parallel-parked in a space I would have thought much too small for the Volvo, but he slid in effortlessly in one try. I wondered what other small spaces he could slide effortlessly into, wink wink.
"How did you know where…" I began, but he ignored me. He hopped out of the car and in the blink of an eye he had my door open and was waiting for me to get out.
I stumbled out ungracefully because I'm clumsy.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm taking you to dinner," I felt faint. The way he didn't even ask if I wanted to go to dinner with him was soo sexy I almost jumped him right there on the boardwalk.
As we were walking into the restaurant we bumped into Angela and Jessica coming out.
"Where have you been?" Jessica asked suspiciously.
"I got lost," I admitted, embarrassed about my near assault. "And then I ran into Edward.
I pointed to him, as if they hadn't already noticed the magnificently beautiful man creature next to me.
"Would it be alright if I joined you?" he asked.
"Er…well, Angela and I were really hungry, and you didn't seem like you were going to show so we already ate."
I frowned, thinking about the timeline. It seemed to me, that to be able to have ordered, received, and eaten their food already they would've had to have gone straight to the restaurant instead of waiting the agreed upon hour. And it was kind of pissing me off that they decided to order pasta when I didn't show up instead of, like, looking for me. But they probably just instinctively knew I'd run into Edward and wanted to give me a chance to go on a date with him. It was thoughtful of them, since this night will be pretty much the only real "date" we go on in the entire series!
"Okay, I'll see you guys later," I said dismissively, prancing into the restaurant, Edward on my tail.
I guess they left because I didn't seem them again.
The restaurant wasn't crowded. The host was female, something I could have conveyed by calling her a hostess but then I would have missed out on using all these words. She was also prettier than me and she was checking Edward out hardcore. She welcomed him warmly jutting out her perky breasts in his direction. My welcome was less warm as she elbowed me surreptitiously in the stomach.
She led us to four person table in the middle of the restaurant. I was about to sit down when Edward said, "Maybe something a little more private?"
I was stunned, I'd never seen anyone but assholes refuse a table before. The host who was female brought us to a booth in the back corner, looking annoyed.
"Perfect," Edward flashed her a smile, dazing her momentarily.
"Um, your server will be right out," she said, walking away unsteadily.
"You shouldn't do that to people," I said.
"Do what?"
"Dazzle them like that, it's not fair."
He seemed confused.
"Don't play dumb with me, boy, you have to know you have that effect on people.
He tilted his head to the side, "I dazzle people?"
"Duh! That's the point."
"Do I dazzle you?" he asked, a trade mark sigh appearing in the air next to his perfect head.
"Frequently," I replied. We paused, freeze framing the moment.
Then our server arrived. She was another pretty girl. Did they only hire pretty girls here? She looked happy to see Edward and smiled at him unnecessarily at him. Though, in my opinion every smile is unnecessary.
"Hello. My name is Amber. I will be your server tonight. What can I get you to drink?" It did not get past my astute observation that she was speaking only to him.
Edward looked at me.
"I'll have a Coke please."
"Two Cokes please," he said to the waitress.
"I'll be right back with that," she said with another unnecessary smile, "Remember, if you drink Coke you can have a sexy boyfriend like Edward too!"
She walked away.
He stared at me.
"What?"
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine," I replied, showing him the appropriate response to a question like that.
"You don't feel dizzy, sick, cold…?"
"No more than usual," I assured him.
"I'm actually waiting for you to go into shock," he chuckled. I wasn't going into shock, but if I was I didn't think chuckling was the appropriate action.
"I don't think that will happen," I said, "I mean, you could slit my throat right now, and—if I had time before I bled out—I'd probably make out with you."
"Just the same, I'll feel better when you have some sugar in you."
If it had been anyone beside Edward I might have thought it insensitive to bring up sugar when my would be rapist had just called me that. But Edward was just handsome enough to pull it off.
Right on cue the waitress showed up with our Cokes.
"Can I get you anything to eat?" she asked Edward.
"Bella?"
I had forgotten to look at the menu because I'd been talking to Edward. I didn't want any awkwardness while I looked over the menu so I just picked the first thing I saw, "I'll have the mushroom ravioli," I said. Shit! I hate mushrooms! I felt tears start to well in my eyes at thought of the onslaught of disgusting I was about to have to endure. I felt my body tense up and I had to fight to keep my breathing regular. What could be worse than mushroom ravioli?
"Nothing for me," Edward said. Of course not.
The waitress left before I could find the strength to ask for something else. Somehow I would have to live with the violation of mushroom ravioli.
"Drink," Edward ordered. His bossiness was nothing if not arousing. I knew someday—with any luck today—we'd have an explicit sex life. It would be so raunchy we'd have to change our names…I've always fancied myself an Anastasia…
I sipped my soda submissively while he watched me with his dominant eyes. While I was drinking I noticed he was wearing a jacket. It looked fuzzy and nice. An evil planned formed in my mind.
"Oh, burrrr," I said shivering.
"Are you cold?" he asked concerned.
"Burrrrr,"I repeated more dramatically.
"Do you have a jacket?" he asked.
"Oh," I pouted, "I left my jacket in Jessica's car."
I fought to keep the self-satisfied grin off my face as he shrugged out of his jacket and put it around my shoulders. What's a love story without the good old boy gives girl jacket cliché. Just a story, that's what, just a boring story with no love in it.
"Thanks," I said, and put my arms through the armholes. The jacket was cold, like mine was when I first put it on in the morning. This might have struck me as odd, but I was too busy smelling his wonderful scent on the fabric.
"That color blue looks lovely with your skin," he said, "It really brings out the blue of your veins."
"Thanks," I said blushing.
He pushed the bread basket toward me.
"Really, I'm not going into shock," I protested the breadsticks.
"You should be—a normal person would be."
"I'm not normal," I tried to say seductively, "I'm better than normal, I'm self-destructive." I winked, "And I feel very safe with you."
I took a breadstick and put it in my mouth sexily. He furrowed his brow. I wondered if he was imagining the breadstick was his penis.
"This is more complicated than I'd planned," he murmured to himself. I was thankful for my good hearing, since everyone seems to communicated through murmurs and mutters in Washington.
"God, you're usually in a better mood when your eyes are this shade of yellow." I said.
"What?"
"You're usually only a bummer when your eyes are black, I expect it then."
"You're very observant." he said.
I shrugged, "Not really. Most of the time I don't even notice when I'm breathing, or walking, or falling, or talking," I realized I was blabbering on. "I have some theories about your eyes."
"More theories?" he said mockingly, "Were you more creative this time, or did you steal these from comic books as well?"
"I didn't come up with it on my own, but it's not from comic books," I said, not knowing that there are, indeed, comic books about vampires.
The waitress came with my food then. She put the disgusting mushroom raviolis down in front of me. I nearly puked right there. Much to my chagrin the mushrooms were shredded into the ravioli itself, so I couldn't just pick around them. Could this day get any worse?
When the waitress left, Edward said, "You were saying?"
"I'll tell you about it in the car If.."I paused.
"there are conditions?"
"Of course."
I took a sip of my Coke, feeling a bit like a mob boss. It was a good feeling. Maybe mob boss would be a good career option for me, if my first plan of marrying a hot rich dude didn't work out.
"Why are you in Port Angeles?"
He looked down, "Next."
I picked up my fork, "You will answer my questions."
He sighed, "Okay then, let's say, hypothetically, that someone could read minds, with only one exception," he looked meaningfully at me. I was confused, this conversation had taken a weird and sudden turn. Why were we talking about hypothetical psychics like we were on the freakin syfy channel or something.
"Okay…" I went along, "How would this person be able to find someone, a girl let's say, the moment she was in trouble?"
"Hypothetically?" he repeated.
"Hypothetically."
"This mind reader would have to be stalking her, following her around everywhere, constantly reading the minds of everyone around her scanning for wrong doers."
"So you were stalking me?" I asked.
"Hypothetically."
"Well then, hypothetically, I'm really turned on."
"Weird." he said.
"That makes two times you've saved me now," I pointed out, "Do you ever think that maybe my number was up with Tyler's van and you've just been interfering with fate ever since."
He looked at me seriously, "You're number was up the first time I met you."
I wondered why teenaged girls didn't print out pictures of this moment and scribble that line over their notebooks. That was way hotter than "Do I dazzle you."