Okay, so this chapter is almost entirely made up of dialogue between Bella and her new friend, Kelly. It's laying a steady foundation for the story, though, so I think it's going to be more action-packed from here on out.
Everything is ready. I'm packed and dressed, all before the sun has even come up. That's the issue with depression; sometimes all I can do is sleep all day, or I can barely sleep at all.
I grab a raisin granola bar from my bag, my staple breakfast for every day I've been here. I eat it robotically as I sit on the edge of Kelly's grandmother's bed, staring at the wall. I think about my mom, my almost empty wallet and I know what has to be done. I'd known it since my last job rejection, but last night's collective events were the icing on the cake.
I'm going to have to do the thing I'd seriously hoped not to do. I'm going to have to go back to Jacksonville. I can't just abandon my mom just when she needs me. Phil is a great husband for her, but can he guide her through this? He might be able to hold her hand but I fear she might need more than some gentle encouragement.
I stand, stuffing the other half of my granola in my pocket for later. Right on cue, the sound of Reilly's wailing cuts the silence like a knife. I'm going to have to get used to the sound of infantile tears if I'm going to be living with mom and Phil again.
I walk into the hall, listening as Kelly begins soothing her son with a gentle voice, already awakened for him. I guess nobody can sleep through that, anyway.
"Um, Kelly?" I call, tentatively rapping on her door. I jump when she opens it quickly, holding an adorably pyjama'd, sniffling Reilly on her hip.
Kelly is not wearing pyjamas, though. All she's wearing is a skimpy white bra and panties, yawning as she bounces her son gently.
I gasp stupidly in surprise, considering she saw my buck naked yesterday, turning my gaze downward. I feel blood red heat spread from my face down to my chest.
"Oh!" she laughs, acknowledging my embarrassment. "Sorry, Belle, I'm half asleep! Hold, Reilly for me, will ya?"
I laugh back, chagrined, awkwardly accepting the little guy in my arms, feeling his weight on my hip. I'm surprised by the warmth that spreads through me when he buries his face in my hair.
In my peripheral, I see Kelly reach behind her bedroom door for something. In her grasp is a little pale blue satin robe, which she gracefully shrugs into. Her hair is in a high bun and her face, even without makeup, is almost flawless.
"He likes you," she grins, closing the door behind her as she joins me in the hall. "I see that you're and early riser, too." She reaches for Reilly and I feel almost reluctant to give him back. Who knew I would have such tenderness?
"Um, actually, Kelly, I was just going to hit the road. I really want to thank you for letting me stay the night."
Her face falls a little, her hazel eyes seeming almost...disappointed?
"But...Bella, how were you planning on 'hitting the road'? We're miles away from anywhere walk-able," she says, looking confused. She leads me down the hall, down the narrow staircase and into the open living room downstairs. As she reaches for something beside the couch, I explain to her that I was just going to walk to the highway and hitch a ride from there to the city centre, where I would get a train back home.
Kelly barks out a laugh as she unfurls a changing mat, setting the baby down on it before kneeling up to look at me. I sit on the couch, pressing my lips together.
"You really want to hitchhike? After yesterday? Are you nuts?"
I think about Patrick's huge body on mine, shuddering at the fresh memory. She gazes at me with knowing sympathy.
"Seriously, girl, I'll give you a lift. Just let me fix us some breakfast and we'll head for the train station," she murmurs, methodically undressing Reilly.
"Honestly, I can't let you do that. You've been so kind, I can't accept anymore handouts."
"Oh, hush. I'm driving in anyway so it's no trouble," she insists, changing Reilly's diaper without even looking. He giggles sweetly as he reaches for her long, silky black hair. I smile.
"Thank you, Kelly."
"No thanks needed," she smiles, flashing her pearly whites. She hands me a dressed Reilly and disappears through a door that I'd thought lead to a closet, but was actually a little bathroom. She returns couple of moments later, after presumably throwing the offending diaper away and washing her hands. Reilly smiles grins at me, baring all two of his canine teeth.
They look like little vampire teeth, I notice. I can't help but laugh, humourlessly.
"What's funny?" Kelly asks, a slight smile on her lips.
"Reilly has little vampire teeth."
She rolls her eyes, grinning widely. "I know. It's bizarre."
"Kinda cute, though. Are you a scary little monster?" I ask him, feeling totally out of character as I coo at him. I manage to get a little giggle from him. He's so lovable.
"Okay," Kelly says, clapping her hands together. "Let me feed up this little monster and then I'll fix us some breakfast."
"Oh, don't worry, I had a granola bar," I say, standing so it's easier for her to take Reilly.
She just raises her eyebrows. "Granola bars do not count as a real breakfast. I won't have you leaving with an empty belly."
I look at Reilly, suddenly feeling like we might both be sharing her as mother.
A short while later, Reilly is in Kelly's arms as she feeds him formula. We get comfortable on the couch, watching the morning cartoons. I start to feel nervous when she goes quiet, seeming lost in thought. I glance at her several times, wondering what's on her mind. She remains quietly pensive.
Reilly falls into a deep sleep halfway through his feed and Kelly gives me a small smile, holding her finger to her lips as she carefully stands, signalling that I should be silent. I listen as she slowly carries him upstairs. When she returns baby-free, we go to the kitchen, where she prepares a breakfast of scrambled eggs.
"I'd offer you bacon but I just ran out of the stuff," she mumbles, still somewhere else.
"Oh, eggs are fine," I assure her with a smile. I feel paranoid at her awkward demeanour, suddenly aware that maybe she's just starting to realise she may have made a mistake by bringing a stranger into her home. Does she regret it?
"Can I help with anything?" I offer, watching as she fork-whisks four eggs in a glass bowl.
"No," she says, pulling out a chair for me. "Go ahead and sit down. I got this."
I awkwardly stumble my way over to the chair, nibbling my lip as I go. I sit down, and Kelly spins around to face me.
"Is everything ok-"
"I have a proposition for you, Bella," she cuts in, her eyes intense. I gaze up at her, confused. What proposition could she possibly have to make me?
"Go on," I urge. Kelly relaxes a little, going back to whisking her eggs.
"I feel so silly. I can't believe I even forgot..."
"About what?"
She gazes down at me, biting her lip, mirroring my nervous behaviour. "When I was feeding my son, I remembered that we have a job opening at the club I work in. I think you'd be perfect for it."
Dangerous hope blossoms in my chest as I look at her. A job?
"Really? Are you serious?" I ask, allowing myself a slice of excitement. I could get a job here, with Kelly, someone I know. I could build a little life here, a life of my own.
I could escape.
"Yes," she says, still seeming somewhat anxious. Why is she so on edge?
"Well, that's great. That doesn't explain why you're biting your lip off, though," I say, giving her a half smile. Kelly sags.
"Okay," she sighs quickly, seeming to have plucked up her nerve. "This is going to sound way out of left field, considering the fact that you got attacked yesterday and that you and I hardly know each other. But...I feel like this is kismet, or something."
I raise my eyebrow questioningly. Kismet isn't something I really believe in anymore, not after the last time its magic led me from the broken motorbikes to Jake.
"And?" I'm visibly leaning towards her, curiosity piqued.
"Do you remember when I told you that I'm really strapped for cash, last night?" Her eyes are pleading, seeming urgent. Why do I feel like she's asking a favour from me, instead of the other way about?
"Of course."
"Well...I need a roommate," she confesses quickly, the words garbling out of her mouth so suddenly I almost don't make sense of them. " I can barely afford to feed my son, let alone pay the bills. This house might be small but it's not cheap and neither is being a mother. This is my grandma's home. I practically grew up here. This place..." she presses her lips together, suppressing her over-flowing emotions. "It's all I have left to call home. I can't lose it. I don't want to end up raising my son in a place where I don't feel like he's safe."
I gaze up at her, astounded. Is she asking me, a weird stranger who just stumbled into her life, to be her housemate?
"I just need a nice person who I could be friends with to pitch in, so I can stop struggling. You need a place to stay and I need a person to fill an empty bed. It seems like fate, don't you think?" she asks, hopefully. Her bright eyes burn a hole in me.
Friends. That's problematic, for me. Making connections in the very place I'd hoped to start my perfectly isolated life seemed like a surefire way to get hurt again.
Looking at Kelly, though, I didn't think she could throw me anymore heartache than I'd already suffered. I'm not prepared to look a gift horse in the mouth and the more I look at this place, the more I feel at home.
But what about Renee? The small voice in the back of my mind questions.
I can handle Renee. I can handle being selfish to preserve her from my sadness. What I can't handle is the thought of denying this woman the right to her home.
"So, you want me to go for this job, so that we can be roommates?"
Kelly nods, solemnly. "You would be doing me a massive favour."
"But...you hardly know me."
"I know," she breathes. "This is crazy, I know. But we can try it out and if it doesn't work out, then we can part ways. I have a feeling that we might get along, though."
That's what I'm afraid of, Kelly.
"What's the catch?" I whisper hoarsely, feeling that this is too good to be true. She can already see I am so totally in. Her eyes are visibly more relaxed.
"No catch as such...I just need to know a few things. As do you," she murmurs, pursing her lips after a beat.
"What do you need to know?" Excitement bubbles up in my less than complete stomach. Kelly abandons the whisked eggs, sitting with me. Her eyes are alight with hope.
"Don't be offended, okay? When I became a mom, I also became a paranoid psycho bitch," she laughs wryly. "I just need to know that you're not going to bring anything bad back to me if you move in?" she says it like a question, clasping her hands under her chin, leaning on her elbows.
"I'm sorry?"
"What I mean is...do you do drugs?" she blurts. "Do you have any bad habits that are going to get in the way of rent, or worse, put my baby in danger? Or are you running away from something...or someone? Because I gotta admit a girl blowing into town without much of a reason to give sure ain't-"
"Look," I say, interrupting before she can go on. My voice is shaky as I explain what I never wanted to explain. "I know that from your perspective, a girl like me staying in a shady motel because she's job-hunting might seem a little suspicious to you but really...there aren't any chickens coming home to roost, not for me."
Not now that Victoria, my vampire nemesis, has been terminated.
"Then...why? I'm not being nosy, I just don't understand." She looks frustrated.
"Remember when I said that I left my small town home, with my dad?"
She nods, leaning forward. I feel my heart tug. I don't want to go here but she needs to hear it.
"Well, I had a um...boyfriend, there. It seems stupid, but I was really in love with him, to the point where I couldn't even imagine my life without him. I thought he loved me too. One day, though, without any warning...he up and left. He told me he didn't... didn't," I stutter, feeling the invisible scars in my chest begin to tear open. I hold an arm across my torso, doing my best to hold myself together. I need this. I can't let her think that I'm not stable enough to do this.
Only when Kelly kindly passes me a kitchen towel do I realise that tears are falling. I flush, embarrassed as I wipe them away. They flow, unbidden down my cheeks. I feel a warm hand on my shoulder and the tenderness very nearly breaks me.
"Men are scum," Kelly whispers. "I know how it feels to be abandoned by the person you love."
I look up at her, questions in my eyes.
"Shaun left me and my boy just three days after he was born and the checks stopped coming two months ago. That's why I've been struggling," she answered, deadpan. She wants to think about Shaun about as much as I want to think about...him.
"I'm so sorry to hear that."
"We can move on..." Kelly whispers compassionately.
"No. I can manage," I insist, wiping my tears away. Get a grip.
I breathe in deeply, steadying myself. I look at her and smile blandly through my tears.
"After he left, I was a shell. I barely ate or slept for months. My dad thought I was catatonic. It sounds like I'm emotionally unstable, but this wasn't about me. It's just the connection I had with him...when he left, it never broke, yet I couldn't even call him. I don't even know where in the world he is right now.
After a while of me waiting for him to come home, I knew it was never going to happen. I'm too plain and he was...so much better than me in every way. I knew that without him, that small town held nothing for me, nothing but painful memories. So I packed up and went to Jacksonville, where my mom and stepdad live. To cut a long story short, I basically knew that my mother wasn't equipped to handle me in the state I'm in. I made some excuse about staying with a friend from school here, ready to start my life somewhere fresh."
"So basically, you're here because you didn't want to impose yourself on anyone?" Kelly says, a slow, meek smile lifting the edges of her lips.
"Yes," I admit.
"You are crazy," she chuckles lightly. "But I like you, Bella. I think we can definitely make this work."
"Thank you. You've really made this so easy for me."
She shrugs. "Glad I can help. I hope that, with time, you'll start to get over that asshole. He's not worth it, girl."
If only you'd known him, Kelly. I think, sadly. You'd know exactly why I will never get over him.
"So," I start, changing the subject fast. "What's they job?"
"Um..." Kelly murmurs, quickly standing to get back to the eggs. She turns on the hob, tipping the egg mixture into the frying pan. "You'll be a waitress."
"You sound a little optimistic. I might not even get it."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. I'm in pretty good with Gina, the boss," she winks. "I'm sure when I give her my puppy dog face she won't be able to turn you down."
"I hope so," I laugh.
Like I said, hope is a dangerous thing...and I'm drowning in it.
Let me know what you guys think in the comments? A waitressing job...hmm!