Puppy Love
Chapter Three
For three days I couldn't eat, though not for lack of trying. Charlie brought home some lasagna the night Mike drove me to La Push, and I could only get three bites. A half-hour later I vomited the whole thing.
I wasn't sick. Well, I didn't run a temperature or anything. But nothing I tried eating—chocolate graham crackers, spaghetti and meatballs, Raisin Bran—would stay down.
It felt as though I were bereft of something that I needed. Without this thing, I might die of starvation. But I had no idea what it was.
On the fourth day Charlie took me to the emergency ward at the hospital. A cute doctor in his early thirties gave me an X-ray. His name was Carlisle. I was pleased to be examined by him, until I heard a nurse call him, "Dr. Cullen."
Dr. Cullen? Was he the Edward creep's father? He had to be, didn't he? After all, Cullen wasn't a common name, and Forks was a small town.
"Mr. Swan," the cute doctor said to Charlie, "your daughter is not suffering from any physical ailment. Rather, it is a malady for which no medicinal cure exists."
"Is it serious?" Charlie asked, worried.
"Depends on what you mean by 'serious.' You see, your daughter is ill from lack of love."
"What? I give her plenty of love."
"Not the kind of love a father can provide, but the love which only a lover can deliver. Tell me dear," Dr. Cullen said, turning to me, "do you have a boyfriend?"
"I broke up with my last one months ago," I said, while thinking that if Dr. Cullen suggested I date Edward, I would slap him hard across the face.
"Well, I'm afraid that until someone enters your life who you truly care about romantically, you won't be eating normally for a while."
"So is my daughter supposed to starve to death?
"No, Mr. Swan. There is one thing she can eat which her body will consume. Valentine's chocolates."
"But…those aren't available in stores yet! It's out of season!" Charlie exclaimed.
"Ah, but luckily for you, my wife Esme buys a large quantity each year to meet just such an eventuality."
"Okay," Charlie said. "But won't they be expired by now?"
"Whitman's chocolate can go three years without expiring," said Dr. Cullen.
"Okay, one more concern: health. Won't she get more sick by eating so much chocolate and nothing nutritive?"
"Better she's ill than dead, I say. The important thing is that she finds someone she really cares about. If she can do that, then she'll be eating properly again."
"But if she gets sick from eating chocolates, how is she supposed to meet anybody?"
"It is not my area of expertise to answer that question, Mr. Swan. I only know how to diagnose the love illness, not to cure it. Though I might suggest you send her boy-hunting every day until she's snagged a boyfriend. That way this will be over sooner rather than later."
"Okay, when I can pick up the chocolates?"
"Esme will have them ready by five o' clock tonight. Of course, I could have my daughter deliver them, if you wish."
"Well, it would save me gas money," Charlie said. Both he and Dr. Cullen laughed.
At five that evening, the doorbell rang, and I went to answer it. It was raining outside, as usual. The day Mike had driven me to La Push and Jacob Black saved me, was a rare sight in Forks, with no rain whatsoever. Well, I guess it's more accurate to say it rains sixty percent of the time here. Then again, I'm no meteorologist, and I only know that rain is common here.
I looked through the peephole and saw a petite girl there whom I knew to be Edward's sister, for she had the same marble skin as he. If it had been a boy standing there, and especially Edward, I would've called Charlie to answer it. But since it was just a girl, I flung the door open.
She entered without being invited, placing a large bag on the kitchen table. I looked at her. She had not changed a bit since the first time I laid eyes on her, two years ago. This was eerie. Surely she'd be older in appearance now?
"How old are you?" I asked her.
"It's rude to ask a woman her age," she said..
"Have you ever perambulated in pluvial weather without the unnecessary encumbrance of a bumbershoot?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind," I said. I turned my gaze to the bag on the table. "So that's the chocolates?"
"Enough to last you a week," the girl said. "Hopefully by that time, you'll be cured."
"Hmmm," I said. "Look, I know you from school, but I don't know your name. You were a class below mine."
"I'm Alice Cullen," said the girl, extending her hand. I shook it. The hand felt cold. "My father has only ever diagnosed one person with love illness before. Let me tell you that what you have is serious."
"Don't I know it," I said. "Only being able to consume chocolates, I tell you…this seems so absurd."
"There's nothing absurd about true love," Alice said, stonily.
"True love?" I scoffed. "I'm only nineteen!"
"Listen to me, Bella. Yes, I know your name. Edward talks about you all the time. This illness you have…it's rare. It only comes when you're separated from your true love. You must have already met this person."
"Impossible! I would know if I had met—"
"You may not know it. Your heart does, but it's possible you don't."
I swooned, nearly collapsing to the floor..
"Oh, I nearly forgot," Alice said. "You haven't eaten in days. Please, open a box of chocolates." She pulled a box out and handed it to me.
I opened it and grabbed one. It was filled with coconut, and I ran to the trash can to spit it out. I took another, and this time it was caramel. That one I swallowed with indecent haste.
Except for the coconut one, I ate them all. And I didn't feel like throwing up!
"I'm sorry I didn't offer you one," I said, turning back to Alice.
"It's okay. I can't eat chocolates."
"Do you break out in hives?" I teased.
"Something like that," Alice said.
"So you were saying some nonsense about true love?"
"Oh, yes, that. You must've already met him. Or her."
"Her?" I said, outraged. "I'm not a lesbian!"
"And can you prove that?"
"I've had three boyfriends, and kissing them has never felt awkward."
"That doesn't mean you're not a lesbian. Not that I'm saying you are, just that you could have a true love that is a girl."
"Next you'll say my grandmother was a teapot," I said.
"If she did a voice for Beauty and the Beast, then she might've been."
"Do you ever say anything comforting?"
"No," Alice said. She paused, as if there was something else she wanted to say. "Well, cheerio, darling. Cheerio." She was out the door.
After eating another box of chocolates, I ran upstairs and grabbed my diary. I wrote in it: "ALICE CULLEN IS INSANE!"
To think that my true love could have mammary glands! Inconceivable! At that moment I wanted to receive the Heterosexual of the Year Award, if it meant I had to kiss every boy my age in Forks, La Push, and Seattle. Even Mike Newman and Edward Cullen. I had to prove that I was straight. Being anything else was repugnant.
In order to calm myself, I put The Wedding Planner in the DVD player. There's a film with no lesbians whatsoever. Nothing to remind me of the revolting suggestion Alice had made.
When The Wedding Planner ended, Charlie went out to get some Chinese. He didn't watch the film with me, for he despised romantic comedies. And after a while I remembered that Alice had said that a boy might be my true love after all. She didn't meant anything by claiming that a female could be my lover. But it still gave me the shivers when I thought about it.
The one good thing about it was that Alice hadn't insinuated that she herself could be the one I must love. In fact, if Alice had explained it to me correctly, she wasn't even in the running. It was someone I already met, since before the illness. The last day I had not been sick was the day Mike took me to La Push.
Is it possible I was with my true love that day? I was sure it wasn't Mike, and the only other people I was with were Jacob and his friends. So did that mean I loved Jacob?
But I barely knew him! His name, yeah. What he looked like, yeah. But nothing else at all. How could a girl love someone she knew nothing about?
When Charlie returned from the restaurant, he asked if I wanted some Chinese.
"If I did, I couldn't eat it," I said, miserably.
"Oh yeah, that's right. Sorry, Bella, but tomorrow I'm going to implore you to go man-hunting. You've got to get over this as soon as possible."
"But Charlie…" I started to say.
"Bella, I want you eating healthy food. A diet that consists solely of Valentine's chocolates is not healthy. Now, go upstairs and plan how to catch a guy before going to bed."
I couldn't tell him about my fears concerning Mike Newman. I had half an inclination to ask him to put Mike in jail until I found a boyfriend. Of course, Charlie would never agree to anything so silly. Furthermore, I didn't want to tell him about what Mike had attempted to do to me. So I kept mum and went to bed.
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