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Chapter 17

4 months later

Today was the day that Charlie would face Bella with an ultimatum, thank god. I had gone through 2 Christmases in the previous 4 months, the first was when I got gifts sent from home, the second was when I got gifts from Charlie, my friends at school, the Cullens, Jess, Anita, Lauren, and Bella.

We were sat at the table, Bella eating cereal, me drinking juice. I still didn't eat any breakfast.

Charlie's fist came down on the table. "That's it, Bella! I'm sending you home."

Bella looked up, confused.

"I am home." She mumbled.

"I'm sending you to Renee, to Jacksonville," he clarified.

Bella looked at him, horrified.

"What did I do?"

"Bella, you didn't do anything. That's the problem. You never do anything."

"You want me to get into trouble?"

"No, what he's trying to say is that you've become like a zombie, and anything is better than one of those, to him, at least."

"Thanks, Kaisha. And yeah, Bells, trouble would be better than this… you're moping around all the time!"

"I am not moping around."

"Wrong word, moping would be better—that would be doing something. You're just lifeless, or, as how Kaisha has put it, you're a zombie."

"I'm sorry, dad."

"I don't want you to apologize."

"Then tell me what you want to do."

"Bella, honey, you're not the first person to go through this kind of thing, you know."

"I know that."

"Listen, honey. I think that—that maybe you need some help."

"Help?"

"When your mother left, and took you with her… well, that was a really bad time for me."

"I know, dad." She mumbled.

"But I handled it. Honey, you're not handling it. We waited, we hoped it would get better. I think that all three of us know that it's not getting any better."

"I'm fine, dad." She lied.

"Maybe, well, maybe if you talked to someone about it. A professional."

"You want me to see a shrink?"

"Maybe it would help."

"And maybe it wouldn't help one little bit." That would get Bella a lifetime in a padded cell. Yeah, imagine, my ex-boyfriend, who's a vampire aged about 107 left me, turning me into a wreck, and he took every trace of his existence with him, except everything that belongs to this girl who pretends to be his cousin and is currently living with me, because she adores the films and books. Yeah, I have films and books about my life. Weird, huh?

"It's beyond me, Bella. Maybe your mother—"

"Look," she said in a flat voice. "I'll go out tonight, if you want. I'll call Jess or Angela, or I could take Kaisha, if you want."

"Thats not what I want." He was frustrated. "I don't think I can live through seeing you try harder. I've never seen anyone try so hard. It hurts to watch."

"I don't understand, dad. First you're mad because I'm not doing anything, and then you say you don't want me to go out."

"I want you to be happy—no, not even that much. I just want you not to be miserable. I think you'll have a better chance if you get out of Forks." No, Charlie, she won't.

"I'm not leaving."

"Why not?"

"I'm in my last semester of school—it would screw everything up."

"You're a good student, you'll figure it out."

"I don't want to crowd Mom and Phil."

"Your mother's been dying to have you back."

"I don't want to leave Kaisha alone." Hello! This wasn't in the book, or the film.

"She'll be fine, besides, if she gets lonely, she can always go to her uncle, or to her mum in England."

"No! I'm not going. I love Forks, and I don't think I'd be too fond of the weather in LA." I said. Well, the LA part was a lie, but it would be true, I'm not too fond of the sun.

"Florida is too hot."

Charlie's fist came down on the table, again. "We all know what's really going on here, Bella, and it just isn't good for you. It's been months, heck, even Kaisha hasn't heard from Edward. Only the occasional text, phone call, and email from her friends. You can't keep waiting, Bells."

"I'm not waiting for anything. I don't expect anything."

"Bella—"

"Come on, Kaisha, we have to get to school." She got up and walked to the door, I followed her.

"I'll make plans with people. Maybe I won't be home for dinner, I'll go to Port Angeles, and we'll see a movie."

We were both out of the front door before he reacted.

"Bella… this is the day I've been waiting for…"

"Why?"

"This is the day that things begin to change."

"What are you talking about?"

"Take a look at yourself, Bella, you hardly sleep, you sit alone on Edward and Alice's old table most days unless I insist on joining you, you stare out of the window in your room almost all the time, your grades have slipped, you hardly ever eat normal amounts of food, your life is a mess, and don't even get me started on the nightmares… today, things begin to change… not the nightmares, though…"

"I don't know what you're on about."

"Yeah, play the dumb girl now… you know what I'm on about. Oh, and I know for a fact where you're going tonight, who you're going with and what happens. Unless you decide to invite me instead. Which you won't. I don't like zombie films. You take Jessica."

"Jessica? I'd rather take you, to be honest. We don't have to see a zombie film… not if you don't want…"

"Yeah, okay, so can we stop at home before we go to Port Angeles. I need to get some money for shopping. So, what else are we going to do, shopping, and…"

"Well, dinner, I suppose, and anything else we fancy doing…"

"Sounds good. Well, at least Charlie won't send you away to Jacksonville, I'd miss you too much…"

"Would you?"

"Yeah, besides, Charlie would pack me back off to England…"

"Oh… yeah, I guess he would…"

"I can't wait for a few things that are going to happen. This will be epic. Amazingly epic."

"Yeah, well, we're at school now. Boo."

"Sit with your friends today, Bella, I know that there's at least one of them who will accept you back. And I'm not on about one of the boys either."

"Who?"

"You'll have to wait and see, Isabella Swan, wait and see."

"Hey!"

I got out of the truck, and headed to the cafeteria. The week after I found out about my role, discovered that we were doing 2 performances, with 2 casts, freshman and sophomore. I was Freshman Beatrice. Sophomore Beatrice was Veronica Blake, the cheerleader I did the improvisation game with.

Also, Ashley didn't have an eating disorder, turns out she was actually ill with a bout of gastroenteritis. Don't know why she ate an apple, though. I can't anything acidic when I get gastroenteritis. She forgave us eventually though.

And my lovely, blue, pink and black hair was now blue and black. I had to go to the hairdresser's, otherwise I would have had roots all the way down my forehead again, and I didn't want that. So, I decided to choose between the colours. Blue won.

I got an email from Alice every few days. We discussed Bella, how she was handling things, and she also helped plan my outfits. It was a shame that Bella was going insane emailing fake Alice, and I was emailing the real one. And, I knew where they were, with the exception of Edward, obviously... he was off being all depressed. Denali. But not with the Denali coven, just in case the Volturi found out, or my friends got accidently drained.

That day, I was wearing a pair of jeans, and a top, and two hoodies. I was never good at feeling the heat, mainly because I was used to a boiling hot house (apparently) so it felt room temperature to me. Forks felt like I was in the North Pole.

"Hi Ash, Nathan, Freddie, Allison." I said, taking my seat.

"Hi Kaisha…" Ash and Allison said, almost in unison.

"Freddie, what's the matter? You normally say 'hi' to me. Are you sick? Is it your brother? Did anyone die?"

"No… it's just… I'm feeling a little down at the moment…"

"Oh..."

"I think I need a hug, Kaisha…" He said, crying.

"Okay, poor thing… Ashley, hug him… I'm not much of a hugging person, unless I need one myself… and even then… not my favourite…"

"Well, if you were a girl, Freddie, you could go to the nurses office, say you were overwhelmed, and possibly skip lessons or something… not that I would know anything about that, of course…" Ashley said.

He gave a weak smile.

A few minutes later, I was off to Drama. We were still rehearsing, and alternated lessons working on the play, seeing as there was only one stage. It was our watching lesson. I had Maths and English afterwards, I was writing an essay in English, and I had a test in Maths. My afternoon was ICT and French. A lovely, boring day. It would be more interesting, however, if everyone else hadn't gone. Last I heard, Esme, Alice and Emmett were teaching them, in between having food fights and silly string fights. As soon as they told me that, I knew we'd have to do stuff like that when they returned. I knew that from the second I found out.

The sophomores were doing better than us at learning lines so far, at least, and theirs was much closer to being a performance than ours. I stayed somewhere in the auditorium from which it would be impossible to tell that I was actually reading, and learning my lines. It didn't matter. They were doing much better than us, well, at least we were giving it our best shot…

I have to say, though, Maths was, by far, the worst lesson of the day. The second it was over, I literally ran out of the classroom, straight to the parking lot. Then I remembered – it was lunch. I guess I was a little over eager to go shopping with Bella. I would have to be a substitute Alice. I'd give it a shot, but I wouldn't be anywhere near as good. I already knew that, and Bella knew that too.

Alice had been sending me money over every once in a while, and I'd been doing my best to save it up. I currently had the equivalent of £150. A new personal record. I was about to spend it.

As soon as school was out, I ran down to Bella's truck, and waited. And waited. And waited.

She arrived a bit later than I had expected.

When I got back to Bella's I quickly picked up my money, gave my hair a brush, and grabbed a few things before heading back out to the truck, and we set off to Port Angeles.

I had my iPod on the whole way there, and left it, safely in the truck, mainly because I knew that no-one would think of breaking in to such a crap-tastic truck. Sorry, Truck.

We went into a few clothes shops. I got a few bags of clothes, pointed out what would look good on Bella, but… she wouldn't buy anything but a pair of socks. And I bought her a t-shirt.

On the way to put the clothes in the truck, I gave her Jessica's line about the shopping, and how a pair of socks doesn't count. Except earlier on in the day.

After we'd put the bags of clothes away, I insisted on going to a game shop, and bought a few games, then I went to a DVD shop and got a few more DVDs. What can I say? I'm an electronics junkie, I guess.

After that, we went to a pizza restaurant. Between us, we had a large, margarita pizza. Well, it didn't really make sense for her to have a separate pizza if she wasn't gonna do much more than pick at the toppings.

I was expecting the motorcycle thing, after dinner. That was why I sat on a bench, rather than just stood around waiting when she disappeared into the distance, being an 'Edward junkie'.

I was more understanding than Jessica would have been when she came back. After that, we headed back to Forks.

Charlie was already back when I arrived, with no money, by the way. He spoke to Bella while I went and put my stuff away. After that, he wanted a quiet word with me.

"Was Bella okay?"

"Yeah, Charlie, she was fine." Somewhere over the previous 4 months, Charlie went from Chief Swan, to Mr Swan, to Charlie. He kind of accepted it either way, it was like I was part of the family, anyway.

"Any abnormalities?"

"No. We just went shopping, had some pizza, and came home. The end."

"She's on her way back to normal now, I can't say that it's a short road, though… I wish I could…"

"Well, thanks for taking care of her, Kaisha."

"You're welcome."

After our conversation was over, I went to talk to Bella in her room.

"Charlie just wanted to know how it went, and I told him the truth, you were fine, nothing weird, and we just went shopping, ate dinner, came home. Oh, and don't worry, I didn't, and would never tell him about you being an Edward junkie."

"Thanks… I assume that by 'Edward Junkie' you mean the motorbike bit?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't stop there." I said, stroking the floorboard under which Edward had left everything to do with him.

"Why do you keep stroking that floorboard?"

"Oh, um…. No reason… I just like that floorboard best."

"That's not weird at all…"

"Sorry, I'll, um… be going, now…"

I went into my room, and started watching DVDs. I didn't sleep that night.