Chapter 2 – Coming to Bon Temps

I stepped on the gas, wanting to make it to Bon Temps before it got too late. The sun had already set, and knowing Sookie right she didn't like company late at night. She'd always been the good girl, the Southern Belle that everybody adored. So when I saw the sign that said; 'Welcome to Bon Temps', I could only hope that Sookie would take me in. I knew Sookie had a few choice words for me, hell; I had some choice words for me. And on some level I hoped she'd be angry. I hoped that she would yell at me; even hit me if it sufficed to help her forgive me. But I strongly doubted she would, seeing as Sookie would never put her hands on anybody. Let alone her former best friend. She didn't even defend herself when the entire population of the hick-town Bon Temps gave her the nickname; Crazy Sookie. She would smile and pretend like it didn't hurt her, but I knew it did. She had cried on my shoulder more times than I cared for. She was telepathic. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that she wasn't what she said she was. I'd witnessed it first hand – even though she couldn't read me. Something about an unclear signal. On some level I was glad that she couldn't; I liked for my mind to be mine. But I always loved seeing her use her gift, even though she sometimes got severe headaches.

I observed the forest that incased the highway, as I thought about pushing down on the gas a little more but decided against it. I didn't need to give Justin any opportunities of finding out where I was, and a speeding ticket might do me in. I had lied to him about where I was from, saying that when I wasn't staying with my father I had been moved around foster homes all over the country before finally being adopted and settling down with a family in Seattle before Dad got me back: Which was mostly true except for the Seattle-part. And I knew that's where he would look for me first. I didn't know why I'd done it, I had trusted him in the hospital after all he had saved my life. But I knew all too well that trust was a fleeting thing, Dad always used to say that trust was for the weak as was just about every other human emotion. My parents, (as I had called them for two of the three years I lived with them) though not biological, had taken a liking to me after seeing me outside the orphanage that I was living in, in Mississippi. I'd always thought that Mr. Delahoussay only wanted me because Linda did; but I was still surprised of how much they could care about me, feeling unworthy of their love. An emotion I had barely experienced before. Mr. Delahoussay always tried to get Linda into experimental clinical trials but she would only smile saying that she was just fine with living what was left of her life with her family. She became deeply religious in the months before her death and we would all go to church every Sunday, though I had refused to at first. I was upset about how my life had been, from the moment I was born and I refused to believe that a God existed. Linda didn't push me but I could tell she was a little disappointed seeing as I was with them now, a part of their family. I had been devastated when she passed, Hadley had disappeared off the face of the earth and Mr. Delahoussay locked himself in his room for days at a time. Then came that fatal day when I had come home from school. I was beyond angry. How could he do that to me, we were in this together. There was no questioning whether he loved me or not, he did, just… not as much as he loved Linda. I'd gone back to my father. Two years later Gran had a private detective track me down. I was 19 when he finally found me but I was with Justin then, still deeply in love, and I had refused to leave him even though the beatings became more and more violent.

I pondered that for a while, feeling guilty that Gran had ever wasted what little money she had on me. I hadn't deserved them or their love. I had left them, scarred by the eight years I'd spent bouncing around from foster homes to orphanages. Unable to think that anybody could ever love me, angry that they'd abandoned me after taking me in to begin with, and hurt by all I had had to witness and grow up around.

I found myself closer to Sookies house than I thought I was as I passed by Merlottes, the local hotspot. I began preparing my speech for Sookie. I had no glue what I wanted to say to her, and I got more anxious the closer I got to the old Stackhouse residence. I thought about why I hadn't considered going to Jason's, but I just couldn't visit that place. He'd inherited their childhood home and had moved there as soon as he'd been able to. I told myself that I couldn't bear to visit that place, it meant too much to me. It held too many memories, happy ones that collided with the feelings of betrayal I'd once clung too. But that wasn't the reason and I knew it. I knew why I was going to see Sookie and not Jason. I knew why I was more nervous of making my presence known to Sookie than to Jason. I knew it and I just couldn't stand to think about it. I'd left her. I'd left her and Gran without a single word of goodbye and I knew that that fact had hurt them more than anything.

So here I was, pulling up the driveway to the 200 year old house, steadying myself for the inevitable. I was going to see Sookie for the first time in four years and I could feel myself begin to hyperventilate and shake. I calmed myself, shaking away the nerves and climbed out the car. 'Here goes nothing' I though as I stood seconds from knocking on the door. 'Oh, who am I kidding? Here goes everything.' The door snapped open, leaving the screen door between me and the only one I dreaded to meet. Even more so than Justin. A beating I could take, but my family rejecting me I couldn't.

'Hi Sook' I said nervously, as I watched her observe me with non-believing eyes. Her eyes wide in shock, looking as she was seeing a ghost.

'Annabelle?'

'Andy?' Sookie whispered softly as she opened the screen door. She looked so different. Good different. Grown-up different. She'd been 21, when I had left, as innocent as a daisy. As I looked at her I saw that she was still in her Merlottes uniform. Black shorts and a white T-shirt with the bar-name right above her left breast. I'd always hated the uniform, feeling awkward whenever I had covered a shift back in high school. Merlottes was the place to be in Bon Temps, the only other bar close to Bon Temps was set in Monroe. There weren't a whole lot of variations on the menu, but Sam always managed to hire cooks that did the food justice. I was a cheeseburger-freak myself and I'd never had anyone make me a cheeseburger that knocked the socks of me. That is until Lafayette started working there. Charismatic as he was he'd always managed to get it just right. If I didn't know better I would have blamed it on the amount of make-up he wore and the flamboyant way he dressed: that the food somehow drew from his personality and always ended up tasting mouthwatering. I'd told him this much and he'd laughed, waving his spatula at me and saying; ''Hooker, it aint nothing but a thang.'

I waved nervously at Sookie, waiting for her to say something, anything as she stood there staring at me; a whirlwind of emotions gracing her face.

SLAP!

I didn't know what had happened. Only that a sharp pain shot through me, right below my right eye. Almost crippling me form the throbbing that enveloped my face. Tears started welling in my eyes. I grabbed my cheek, the spot where the pain had centered around, wincing a little when I realized that the skin was still bruised from taking that last beating from Justin. I slowly regained my footing, grasping that Sookie had slapped me. My Sookie, the Sookie I'd grown up with who had used to bring home injured animals because the Boogieman would take them otherwise. I wished for a second that Justin hadn't beaten me so badly that Sookie couldn't hit me again without me passing out. I wanted her to cause me physical pain anything to get that look of hurt off her face; anything to get her to talk to me, to wrap her arms around me and comfort me as I wept in her arms. Though I knew I didn't have any right to. I didn't have any right to believe that she would even speak to me ever again, to love me again.

After a moment of pure shock I regained my composure. Drawing from the many years I'd spent in orphanages where you always had to be guarded. That's why my next move, shocked me more than it did Sookie. I slapped her back; staring at my hand that had left a red mark on her face. Suddenly I was thrown clear of the porch, landing on my hand and re-breaking my wrist. It hurt like hell and I had half a mind to lie there, screaming in agony, but I didn't. I got up, dusted myself off, before turning to see what had happened. After I'd landed I thought that maybe Sookie had developed a new power, but a tossed that idea away as I distinctly remembered a pair of hands on my shoulders, pushing me. And there he was. Next to her stood a man around 6 feet with dark brown hair. He was pale… really pale. A vampire, I thought. But I refused to allow the shock of seeing Sookie with a vampire throw me of track… more than it had already anyways. I trekked up the porch steps, eyeing another woman watching me from the living room window. A redhead. Also vampire. I ignored the hiss that come out the vampire's lips and pushed past a paralyzed Sookie that had grabbed the vampire to prevent him from attacking me again.

'I'm going to my room; don't try and stop me.'