-| Glitch continues |-
I have a problem.
That's not to say that I didn't have a problem before. But my problem has just graduated from your basic Algebra to your Calculus C differential equation. Not only have I confirmed to my family and friends that there is something seriously wrong with me, but I've done so in a public enough manner that those who were privy to my emotional breakdown (like Dr. Cullen) could not in good conscience stand idly by should my parents do nothing about it.
And through the ensuing freak show downstairs, I drove the final nail into my coffin. If my parents had been on the fence about my lunacy (which I hoped Charlie at least might have been), they are no longer.
My life as I know it is over.
I will not be allowed to go anywhere alone. I will not be allowed to drive. I will not be allowed to see Jacob or Alice. For all I know, when Dr. Cullen had advised Renee to make sure I "see" someone, he might have been code-wording that I need to be locked up in a padded cell with my very own huggy jacket.
At the very least, I bet that a three-month "vacation" to Italy is probably in order. And if I get locked up or go to Italy, I will never find Edward.
I'm on my own here. I can't count on Charlie's rapidly wavering faith in me. I can't trust in Alice to come up with a last-minute, hare-brained solution. And I certainly can't depend in any shape or form on Edward.
I can, however, depend on Jacob. Jacob is the only person who stops by that Sunday afternoon to see how I'm doing. I hear the doorbell ring and Charlie answer it. I hear Charlie conferring with someone outside. The timbre of this unknown person's voice is familiar enough to make me drag myself out of bed to see who it might be.
A blocky, retro red car is parked in the street, right below my window. Last time I saw this car, it couldn't possibly have made the drive because it lacked wheels. It was propped on cinderblocks in the corner of a garage.
Jacob has been busy these last few weeks.
The thought of him slaving away in his garage without me, head-banging to music and throwing tools for emphasis—it makes me sad.
My stomach clenches at the idea of Charlie turning him away.
I want to see Jacob. I want to talk to someone who doesn't know anything about this. Who doesn't know about Edward. I want to see the one person who makes me feel normal.
Please, Charlie, don't send Jacob away.
The murmur of voices ends.
I hear steps on the stairs.
"Bella," Charlie asks through the door. "You awake?"
"Yeah." He cracks the door but seems wary of sticking his head into my den.
"Jacob's here to see you."
I'm downstairs before you can say schizophrenia.
Jacob's waiting by his car, kicking one of the tires to gauge air pressure.
"Nice ride," I say, descending the porch. He smiles, but there's no white, my first clue that something's wrong.
Play it cool.
"Is it fast?" I joke, knowing that Jacob will get it.
He does. He's not amused.
"Why…do you want to see if we can drive it off a cliff somewhere?" His voice is the complete opposite of joking.
Something's very wrong. "Of course not."
"Hm," he says, but it's not a sound of agreement. "What was with the Hansel and Gretel in the woods last night?"
"I got lost. The hospital was complete overkill."
He stands looking down at his car, still kicking the same tire. "Why didn't you stop and talk to me then?"
Good question. "I didn't want you to see me like that."
"See you like what? If it wasn't a big deal, why didn't you just talk to me? I waited up all night for you, Bella. I was worried."
He's worried; he's frustrated; he might kick that tire right off.
"I'm sorry." I'm saying that a lot to Jacob. Too much.
He stops kicking the tire, swiveling to lean a foot against the front bumper. He lets my apology seep into the cracks.
Then he drops the bomb. "Who's Edward?"
It's the first time he's looked at me this since arriving; really looked at me. Edward's name from those lips is like a curse word—unexpected and wrong.
"Where did you hear that name?" I demand.
Jacob's expression sours. "Let's just say I heard a lot last night while trying to find you."
There are so many things he could have heard; it makes my head hurt. It makes my heart hurt. I look away because looking into his broken gaze is breaking me.
He continues, "You told me there wasn't another guy, Bella."
"There's not." Not not not not not not.
"You said his name, in the woods. I heard you."
I fold my arms across my stomach, trying to hold it all in, trying to get myself warm. "I was delirious. The name was irrelevant."
Jacob regards me for a long moment. "I think he's more than relevant. I think he's the reason why you're doing this. I think he's the reason you're trying to kill yourself."
"I'm not trying to kill myself," I snap. "We've talked about this."
"Then what's with the reckless dirt biking? The cliff diving? You used me, Bella! You used me to enable your reckless activities."
My jaw clenches. "I told you up front I was looking for someone to be illicit with."
He scoffs. "You knew exactly how that sounded to me. You kept your intentions purposefully vague. You said that you needed time. Time for what? Time to see if you'd really have the guts to commit suicide?"
"For the last time, I'm not trying to kill myself."
Jacob's nostrils flare, his shoulders tense, his hair flies. "Yes, you are," he says. "Even if you're not trying to end your life violently, you're certainly not living. You're wasting away, pursuing someone who can never love you the way I do."
I try to ignore what that means.
He can't possibly love me.
Not after what I've done to him.
"Edward doesn't even exist, Bella!"
His words are a punch to the jaw. I'm stunned, reeling. Jacob—my solid, pillar of strength, pinnacle of normalcy Jacob—thinks Edward is imaginary. He's joined the ranks of people who think I'm crazy.
"Don't you get it?" he continues. "You're holding on to someone who isn't real! Yet here I am, standing in front of you, a real boy, and you don't even care."
I care. I open my mouth to tell him how much. I open my mouth to tell him how protected he makes me feel, how normal, how special. I open my mouth to tell him all these things and more, but nothing comes out. Something stops me. If I say the words, things will change.
If I say the words, I'll give Jacob hope. Hope that maybe someday we can be together. Hope that maybe someday I'll be normal.
But I'm not normal.
I have a glitch in my brain.
My brain picks up the FM frequency when everyone around me hears only AM.
Jacob sees me hesitate, understands, shakes his head.
The moment has passed.
He says, "I can't do this anymore. I won't hurt you anymore." He wrenches the car door open, gets inside. "You want to hurt yourself? Find someone else to help."
He leaves me standing alone on the side of a long and lonesome road.
That night, as I lay myself down to sleep, I realize my problem is beyond Calculus.
With Jacob gone, I'm on my own. I no longer have a safety net. I'm going to have to save myself. At this point, there is only one way I know how to do that. Alice had been right so long ago. Alice is always right. She told me there's one way, and one way only, to make this all go away.
To save myself, I'm going to have to lie.
And I'm going to have to lie well.
I'm going to have to start looking my doctors and parents and peers in the eye and agree that no, Edward does not exist. Yes, he's just a figment of my overactive imagination.
My strategy is easier said than done. Problem is—I, like my father before me, am an exceedingly bad liar. I have a hard enough time telling someone I like their haircut when it looks like their head was run over by a lawn mower. Even when pressed on all sides by accusing eyes and lips and tongues, I haven't been able to lie about Edward.
But to get myself out of this mess, to preserve my freedom, to preserve what's left of my sanity, I'm going to have to lie. If I don't, I might be locked up forever, sedated up to my eyeballs, a blubbering, drooling mess in the corner of my very own padded cell.
Not exactly the way I plan on spending the rest of my life.
To lie, and to lie well, I'm going to have to practice.
But first, I will have to beg.
Monday morning, I'm up before my alarm. Or maybe I didn't sleep; I'm not sure. I brush my teeth and comb my hair and put on my nicest shirt. I walk down to where my parents are enjoying companionable bowls of instant oatmeal, one of the few breakfast items Renee can cook without scorching.
I stand calmly in front of them and beg to go to school. I tell them that I need my routine, I need to feel normal, I need the distraction of school. I tell them these things because I need a broad cross section of humanity on which to practice the art of lying. It won't do to try out my dubious skills on my parents and psychiatrists first. I need to spread my wings on my teachers, my peers, my neighbors.
If I can fool them, I can fool the one who really matters.
I don't know if it is my words or my face or my eyes that finally sway Charlie in the end.
"I'll take you to school," he agrees gruffly, avoiding Renee's shocked gaze. "But I'll be there to pick you up in one shake of a lamb's tail if you need me."
The first thing I discover as I walk through the halls is that a large contingent of the student body has heard about my little escapade over the weekend. Something having to do with the fact that half the town's able-bodied men had been out searching for me Saturday night.
As far as practice goes, this is about as perfect as it can get.
I walk through school with my perfectly groomed hair and my perfectly apologetic smile and start to tell everyone my perfect little cover story about the weekend. I tell Jessica that I was on a "camping trip" with Jacob Black, waggling my eyebrows suggestively in just the right spot. I tell Lauren I spent the weekend rediscovering the joys of Mother Nature. I tell Bree Tanner that Jacob has many hidden talents.
And I smirk.
I swear-to-God, may-have-fooled-around smirk.
Yeah, that's right—Jacob's not even here, but I'm still using him.
I try not to think about this.
By the end of the day, the gossip mill churns with the fact that Bella Swan, honor student and overachiever extraordinaire, has finally gone off the deep end. Fortunately for me, it's the socially acceptable deep end.
Suddenly, I'm Miss Popular. Suddenly, I'm receiving requests to party at this person's house or that. Everyone wants a piece of this, and there are certainly enough pieces of me to go around. Roughly a million pieces of my fractured mind and soul.
My parents are sitting together in the cab of Charlie's truck to pick me up from school. When some of my newfound friends notice, I tell them that we're headed into Port Angeles for some family bonding time.
"Aren't your parents divorced?" Mike says from beside me. Naturally, he was the first person to jump back on the Bella bandwagon.
"They're thinking about getting back together," I lie, hoping that this particular lie is not true.
I get in the truck, and Renee scooches over a little too close to Charlie.
"Who are all these nice kids?" she coos, waving at them out the window. Mike waves enthusiastically back.
"My friends," I say. My parent's heads whip to look at me.
I ignore their shock and chatter on about the fact that I've had an absolutely great day. I tell them that I must have hit rock bottom over the weekend because things are really looking up. I must tell them exactly what they want to hear because they continue letting me go to school.
At school, I continue lying.
I tell Tyler that I can't go to prom with him because I have non-refundable tickets to Hawaii. I tell Yorkie that the aliens are back in town and have been asking for him. I get up in front of my biology classmates and Mr. Banner himself and give a serious and meticulously researched study about a fictitious mineral called Cummingtonite.
I get an A.
When someone starts to catch me in one lie, I merely make up an even more elaborate lie to cover up my first. And the thing is, people totally buy it. Bella Swan, honor student with perfect grades and attendance records dating back to the first grade, is trustworthy. Good thing they don't know I'm crazy.
I'm careful, of course, to only lie about myself. The better I get at it, the more tempting it is to tell Jessica that Mike is going to ask her to prom or that Mr. Banner has a thing for the lunch lady. But lying about other people is like stirring a big pot of bubbling crazy. While I'm sure the resulting mess would be amusing, I'm not ready to see my high school go up in flames.
No, I'm not out to hurt anybody. I'm just practicing up for my main event, the championship game, the lie to end all lies. But this lie will not be for my parents or my psychiatrists.
This lie is for Alice.
If I can lie to Alice, the mistress of deception herself, I can lie to anyone. If I can lie to Alice, I might finally be free.
Winter passes in a steady drizzle. Fortunately, the season is peppered with a slew of holiday events, the better to keep our flailing spirits from lagging through the rain-slogged months. Forks throws itself into Fall break, Halloween, Thanksgiving, any excuse to get together and warm away the chill. I kid you not, we even celebrate World Mental Health day on October 10. A Forks favorite.
Despite appearance, my spirits are sunk. I don't go anywhere for Fall break, don't dress up for Halloween, and don't cook my usual feast for Thanksgiving. Renee celebrates with us, and she's not big on tradition. She's not big on cooking. We order pizza.
Then I look up, and it's twelve days 'til Christmas.
How stereotypical.
I feel anything but merry.
Christmas is usually my favorite holiday. Alice and I delight in coming up with the perfect gifts for each other. This Christmas, the only present I plan to give her will be a lie. If I can lie to Alice, if I can convince her that Edward does not exist, then I can lie to anyone. I can lie to my doctors and my parents and even Jacob.
I might even be able to convince myself.
But first, Alice.
I plan the big showdown for Christmas break. The timing will be perfect. For one, Alice is more manic about Christmas than she is about anything else in her life—and that's saying something. For two, I figure that the holiday will give us space, which I'm pretty sure we'll need after this little conversation.
To begin, I will tell Alice enough of the truth that she'll recognize it's still me in here. That she isn't talking to a persona I've affected for the sole purpose of convincing the doctors I'm cured. She's been there. I'm sure she's done that. She'd recognize that particular t-shirt.
Next, I will explain to Alice my (false) reasoning why I know Edward isn't real. I will tell her that, one by one, I've learned of the "real" reasons behind the odd events we had discussed earlier this year when comparing notes.
I'm thankful that I've never told her about the book. I don't think I could have explained away the book. But I can't think about the book, or she'll see it in my eyes. If I can't lie with my eyes, then I can't lie at all. Lying is all in the eyes.
Finally, I will have to deny my belief in Edward. I will have to deny that he exists. I will have to deny his name.
Three times, three ways.
It should be enough.
But what should be enough is never enough for Alice. It never has been.
On the first day of Christmas, I'm knocking on the Brandon's front door. I'm staring into the center of a wreath made out of silver bells. They jingle merrily as Alice's mom answers the door.
"Hey Mrs. Brandon. Is Alice here?" Part of me hopes she's not. Part of me hopes she's off cruising the Port Angeles storefront for last-minute accessories or gifts. Or making snow angels down on main street. Anything but sitting up in her room.
"Of course, dear. She's up in her room."
Since it wouldn't be socially acceptable for me to turn tail at this point, I step inside. I trudge upstairs and knock on Alice's bedroom door, which she has artfully wrapped in cream and silver like it's a giant present. I'm not sure she can hear me over the holiday music blaring from her speakers, but she immediately sings out, "Come in!"
Each year, Alice spends the week after Thanksgiving decorating her room according to whatever Christmas theme she has dreamt up that year.
This year, the theme is clearly snow.
I step into Alice's Winter Wonderland.
Her room is draped in a blanket of white, from the white twinkling lights hanging from the ceiling to the white quilt on her bed to the miniature white Christmas tree floating on a white tablecloth in the center of the room.
Even her hair is a stunning platinum. I've never seen Alice as a blonde, but it works.
She watches my face for a moment as I take the time to appreciate her finesse, and then she grabs my hand. We rock around the Christmas tree. I had at first questioned the user-friendliness of having a tree in such a perilous location, but I should have known better than to question the method behind her madness.
I stop my approximation of dancing when I remember why I'm here. Alice has always been good at that—sucking me in to her little world and making me forget the real one. I walk over to her CD player and am about to shut it off entirely when the track switches to an instrumental version of Silent Night.
That'll do.
That melancholy sound will provide the perfect backdrop for what I'm about to say. I settle for turning the volume down until the song is only an undercurrent in the still space.
Then I turn to face my friend.
"Alice," I say. "You're my best friend. That's why I have to tell you the truth."
She's still smiling, her cheeks merry cherries. "The truth about what?"
I follow my three-step strategy to a "T" and watch the requisite emotions—horror, sadness, doubt—flit across her face and land forever in her eyes. In the order I expected. In the intensity I expected.
I tell her that I've realized the truth about Edward. I tell her that my psychiatrists have helped me see the light. That Edward is an imaginary friend I fabricated to deal with first the trauma of Renee leaving and then the trauma of the Port Angeles incident. I'm comforted that there is someone who will never leave me. I'm comforted that I have a savior to watch over my foibles.
With my guileless eyes locked on hers, I sell my pre-rehearsed speech so well that if I'd never heard it before, if I hadn't made it up myself, I wouldn't have known it's all a lie.
"We've been enabling each other all these years," I say.
As I speak, I watch her eyes get larger and glassier, filling with unshed tears and doubt.
"But that doesn't explain Port Angeles," she says.
"Those guys were drunk. It was traumatic. Our imaginations ran wild."
Alice just stares at me. Then, "But what about the wind?"
Her voice has risen an octave above normal. That's how I know I'm really getting to her. She hates it when she sounds like a child. I can't let her get to me.
I shrug. "I checked the weather reports from that day. Lots of wind that evening." I even have a website URL ready to spew should she ask.
She doesn't.
She just stares.
Her lip quivers.
I stare back, silent on this silent night, waiting for a barrage of questions about Edward. I expect her to grill me more about Port Angeles and all of the other things I've told her about Edward over the last months.
But she doesn't.
"Bella," she says, so softly that her words blend almost seamlessly with the strains of the music continuing to waft through her speakers. "Are you telling me that you don't think Jasper is real?"
Jasper, she says.
Not Edward.
And this is it, ladies and gentlemen.
The moment a lie goes off script, you see if you can really pull it off.
The moment your best friend since the womb asks you if you really, truly think she's crazy, you find out if all that time you spent lying to yourself in front of the mirror was worth it. You find out what you're really made of.
And I guess what I'm made of is 100 percent pure, unadulterated horse doo doo.
Because I keep my eyes locked on my best friend. I don't think any thoughts that will cause the emotions in my eyes to swim or waver. I don't think about how I'm betraying every ounce of trust in me that she's ever had. I don't think about how much I'm going to hate myself later.
Instead, I say, "No, Alice. Jasper is most definitely not real."
As I say it, Alice looks directly into my eyes, as intently as if they are twin crystal balls telling her future. They must tell her exactly what she needs to see because her eyes go hard and dark and dangerous. She flips her head at me in that way that sometimes is meant to drive the boys wild.
But I know that this time it means, Get out of my life.
I get.
I don't cry.
As I creep home from Alice's house, my eyes are free of even a single tear. I drive by the storefronts along Main Street bedecked with holiday cheer, golden light streaming from their every orifice. I put on my blinker at all the right times, come to a complete stop at least three feet before each stop sign, and even slow to let a little old lady, arms lined with shiny packages, jaywalk across the street.
I'm the epitome of rational and collected.
After all, I've done the right thing. I've done Alice a favor. I've given her the best Christmas present of all. I will no longer enable her delusions. I will no longer allow her to feed off me like we are good little co-conspirators. I will no longer serve as her gateway to the fantasy world that we've lived in together.
I'm starting to believe my own lies.
When I get home, I make my way carefully inside, up the stairs, and into my room. I sit carefully on the edge of my bed.
"Bella?" Renee says, tapping on my door lightly. I haven't even closed the door all the way behind me, so it nudges open a little with the force of her knuckles. I've gotten into the habit of leaving my door open recently, just a bit. Anything to make Renee and Charlie feel like I'm different. Like I'm better.
"What's up?" I say with false holiday cheer. Renee steps into my room.
"Alice called while you were gone."
Dread slimes my stomach. "She did?"
"She asked me to give you your Christmas present early," she says, holding out a flat, square present artfully decorated in the same crystalline tones permeating Alice's bedroom.
On a good day, Alice is quite skilled with that heavy paper, the shiny ribbon, and the curls. This day had clearly been an exceptional day. I take the splendidly wrapped present from Renee. It's light, so light that it would blow away in the slightest of breezes.
"Thanks," I say with a contorted smile. For a second, Renee hesitates, like she wants to stick around and see what the elaborate wrapping is hiding. I lay the present down on the bed and pick up the binder that contains holiday homework.
When teachers give the opportunity for extra credit, I take them up on it.
She takes the hint.
"Goodnight, sweetie," she says, moving in close to kiss me on the forehead. Then she's gone, shutting my bedroom door behind her.
I sit looking at Alice's package beside me on the bed. Its pristine beauty looks out of place in my frumpy, dark room, like a pair of sparkling Prada heels at a garage sale.
Each year, Alice delights in buying or making me the perfect present. Gifts in previous years have included thick, stylish oven mitts; an early edition of Wuthering Heights; and the amazing collage of Bella/Alice pictures and sketches that currently hangs over my bed. One year, it was a butt pad, a two-in-one gift that not only cushions me when I fall but also makes my flat rear more curvaceous.
This year, I don't know what to expect.
Part of me wants to just return the gift, to leave it with her mom the next time I'm in her neighborhood. After the "gift" I've just given her, it doesn't seem fair to accept a real one in return. But the other part of me wants to know what is so significant about this particular gift that prompted Alice to have Renee give it to me anyway.
I have to know.
Flipping the present over, I carefully slide my finger under the nearly invisible tape arranged artfully to hold the edges of the wrapping paper together. Alice knows me well; she hasn't left any sharp edges exposed to my paper-cut prone fingers.
As I reveal each subsequent piece of the present, my heart expands in my chest.
There, on a piece of cream paper, is the sketch of Edward that Alice had shown me so many moons ago in a tree house. His hair is as windswept as I remember, his brows as menacing.
But his eyes—they're present. They're open.
And they're looking right at me.
Those eyes are rimmed with dark lashes that contrast sharply with the light color of his irises. The sketch is in shades of black, so I can't be sure if the eyes are blue or green or gray. Regardless of their color, those eyes make this face. They transform the features from dangerous and disturbing to sensitive and sublime.
Even as my emotions soar, they quickly sink. For I can say with absolute certainty that I've never seen this face in real life.
This is a face you don't forget.
I tear my gaze away from Edward's, flipping the sketch over to see what Alice may have put on the back. In a lower corner, I see her signature, the date, and a short note.
It says, "He opened his eyes."
For the first time since leaving Alice's house, I cry.
I cry a lot.