I awoke alone on the floor with Emily softly saying my name and rustling through my suitcase for clean clothes. It had to be safe to assume we were friends now, I thought, watching her rummage, and I rolled over on my back and realized that the floor was still warm. Jake had just left. I sat up.
"Did you see him? Where did he go?" I took the shirt she offered me and clutched it to my chest without looking at it.
"I didn't see him, Bella. My guess is that he headed out to save you the trouble of explaining to Charlie why a dirty, naked giant was cuddling his daughter on the floor?" She raised her eyebrows. "I'm just guessing, though, like I said…I mean, it's a floor," she muttered as she turned away to let me dress, "I'm just guessing you weren't actually so tired you just passed out on your feet."
"You're way funnier than I realized," I said sarcastically, throwing my shirt back at her while she grinned. I could feel my blush creeping across my chest while I thought about Jake again, and it deepened once I looked down at myself, sitting there. I really needed a shower before I bothered putting on clean clothes. "Emily, do you think I could grab a shower before we—wait, what are we doing?"
"We're going back to La Push so you can sample some of it's fine dining options and Sam can talk to you about the kinds of things normal people only see in horror movies."
"Okay," I muttered, feeling confused. Emily understood the look on my face, and she shook her head at me. She was clearly worried about Charlie overhearing us, and I took it for granted that he was still home. I pulled myself off of the floor and Emily graciously handed me the shirt I'd hurled at her. She turned and began to unpack my suitcase, delicately arranging the few items I'd brought on the bed. I turned back to her. "Emily, please don't—I'll just feel like a jerk if you start taking care of me the way you take care of the guys." She turned and met my gaze.
"I only take care of the people I care about, and I only do what I like," she said flatly, and waved me out of the door. I stayed for just a minute longer.
"Sometimes it's really easy to tell you and Leah are cousins," I said, but softly, and her grateful smile was electrifying. I ran to the bathroom and got ready as fast as I could.
It was hard to believe I'd arrived in Forks only yesterday. I felt like the past two days had lasted longer that the two years previous, as if the enormous pressure of so much emotional weight pushing down on it had elongated each moment. My elated mood pushed my questions away, and even though I hadn't seen Charlie at the house, we hadn't brought up the purpose for our trip again. Emily played country music in the car and I laughed because I hadn't heard any since I had last ridden in the cruiser. Even passing the Newton's store and the wide, empty parking lot of the grocery made me giddy; I had hated Forks on sight but the town had changed me irrevocably, and suddenly I was glad to be back where I'd started becoming myself. Emily watched me from the corner of her eye and smirked.
"Jake always said you hated it here," she said, "but you look like we're driving through Disneyland."
"It is really nice to be here," I said. I looked at Emily and continued, knowing that she too had once lived somewhere else and chosen the sparse, wooded landscape surrounding us over what she'd loved as a child. "I feel like my childhood was split, in some ways, between Phoenix and Forks, and when I was younger I really, really loved Phoenix. But everything about Forks originated with my first adult choices—moving here when I did, away from my mom and everything I knew, was the first step. And it was painful to be here, considering…everything…" I paused. "But it's great to be back, and feel the difference inside myself."
Emily's hands moved the wheel so naturally it was almost like she was sleepwalking. "You sound so different from when we were younger, Bella." Her face was still. "You're like a different person." She raised her eyebrows. "I don't want to sound mean but—it's nice."
I laughed. "Was I really that bad?"
The more animated corner of her mouth turned down, making her face strangely symmetrical. "You were pretty selfish," she conceded, but then looked back at me anxiously. "From one selfish gal to another," she said, and I reassured her with a smile.
"I never think of you as selfish," I said.
"No one does, but Leah," she rebutted. "And me." She looked strait ahead.
"Maybe that's why it's okay for you to be friends with me?" I voiced the confusion about the intensity of our exchanges since my return yesterday with hesitation, not wanting to create an awkwardness that could be avoided. "Because you know how selfish I can be, it makes you feel more comfortable admitting you don't feel so hot about how things…have worked out?"
"Maybe," Emily said. "I always considered us friends, in a way. Just because of the pack. Keeping secrets is hard." She looked thoughtful. "I think, when I saw you yesterday…I just got this feeling that you were going to do the right thing. Fix things, somehow. And if you can be forgiven, maybe I can too." She almost looked on the verge of tears again, but then laughed. "Selfish to the end!"
We laughed together. "Selfish isn't the right word," I said.
"Leah prefers some other ones," Emily said, and we laughed again.
"I'm serious," I protested, once we'd stopped grinning. "I'm going to think about it, and then I'll get back to you. But selfish isn't the right word."
She shrugged. "You're the bookworm, I'll let you handle the words." Her eyes scanned the main street of La Push and I realized we were about to park. "Let me introduce you to my oldest child—The La Push Bar and Grill." We slowed and she angled herself into a small space in front of a bright, busy building. My light mood buoyed me out of the car and in the door, following Emily closely. It seemed everything moved in slow motion—there was my father, who stood and waited until I sat at his table; Billy Black raised a knowing eyebrow at me and we smiled at each other without speaking. In the background, the entire pack milled through doors to the kitchen and another bright room I took to be an extra dining room. People I hadn't seen since high school were walking by, their names escaping me, but our eyes meeting and friendly. The paintings on the walls exhibited the glorious mountains and endless sea that surrounded us; the furniture and chairs were hewn from rough pine and smoothed by countless fingertips. Two tiny children with shining black hair raced by me, and the image startled me roughly in to the present. It mysteriously reminded me of the real purpose behind my visit, and I turned to see where Emily had gone.
Charlie was speaking to me, but I hadn't heard a word. Billy just watched me watching everyone, and when he saw I was pretending to know what Charlie was talking about he interrupted.
"Jake's in the back, with Sam and everybody, Bella." He turned to Charlie and said, "give it a rest, Chief. She's here for the kids, not the fogies."
Charlie's expression darkened with a note of finality. "Never again, Bella. I'm serious about that." I knew I should've listened a little harder, but my best guess was that he was referring to last night. I looked to Billy one more time. He shrugged back.
"Okay," I said. Charlie didn't look reassured, but he gave up and waved his hand dismissively. Billy nodded, and I scampered up and wandered back to the door I'd noticed earlier in my reverie after promising to say goodbye before I left.
The room was big, but not big enough for the pack. The heat was stifling, and several smaller boys I didn't recognize were working on opening the windows, their new muscles strange looking on the smaller frame of their bodies. Emily was nowhere to be seen, but at the back of the room, furthest from the light filtering in from the rapidly opening windows, Jake sat watching me. His nose was gently wrinkling and I knew he'd probably smelled me as soon as I'd entered the restaurant. Sam saw his eyes and turned towards me, nodding. Leah leaned coolly against the far wall, refusing to sit or acknowledge my presence. I bowed my head and wove through the throng of excited boys wrestling and laughing between Jake and me. His eyes never blinked.
"Hi," I said. I was breathless from the obstacle course. A deep sigh moved out of his chest as he looked at me, and then he gestured that I move closer. I wedged myself next to him and placed my ear close by his mouth.
"I was scared you'd be angry." When I quickly jerked back to look at him, he impatiently gestured for me to move close again and continued. "I had to leave before Charlie saw and you got up, and I didn't want to move you…without asking." His eyebrows were raised in question when I pulled away to look at his face.
"I know," I said, not bothering to change the natural volume of my voice. I knew Jake could probably hear things happening on the street out front. Almost as if he were psychic, his face stilled and he looked once again towards the front of the restaurant; I peered through the tiny window in the door but didn't recognize anyone until Quil and Embry burst through the door a minute later. Suddenly the room became uncomfortably small. Without being able to help it, I was pushed against Jake; he reached past me and pushed the giant body that had shoved me against him away, and then motioned for me to lean against him. I did. Our heads were once again at almost equal heights, although he was seated and I was standing. The heat was stifling, but I didn't want to move.
The undercurrent in the room was instantly tense, and I suddenly realized that almost all of the boys had been pointedly avoiding wrestling near Jake. In fact, it was now apparent Sam was the only person comfortable being seated next to him; the large body that had knocked in to me from the other side was Seth Clearwater's. Quil and Embry were seated to Seth's right, and both of them alternated looking down at the table with occasional glances towards Jake and Sam. Leah never moved from the wall, but I watched as her eyes carefully took in the entire scenario.