Yes, another update today. I couldn't help myself. Sorry.
Chapter eight
"Okay, well, I figure we can drive up the coast to California, too," Jake said, showing me a map on his phone as I sat on his lap at my kitchen table.
"Really?" I asked, bringing the phone closer to my face.
"Yeah, yeah, I've taken that trip before. It's a blast."
"Can we go to Vegas?" I asked.
"Sure," Jake shrugged. "If you want. Shall we take in a Cirque du Soleil show or something?"
"Cirque du Soleil," I scoffed, shoving backward with one shoulder. "Celine Dion, please."
His mouth dropped open an inch. "Seriously?"
"Don't act like you're too good for 'My Heart Will Go On,' Jake. Just don't. I know you too well." I bit my lip to keep from laughing and he noticed; his eye narrowing, he started pinching my sides, making me gasp with laughter. "Okay! Kidding, kidding. Kidding! Stop!"
"I mean... I'll Celine if you wanna Celine. But can we come up with a back-up plan, please? I feel like those tickets are nasty expensive."
"Hmm. I don't know what I want to do, not really. Everything? I've never taken a trip like this. We could go anywhere."
"Sure," Jake said, scrolling down the map.
I was getting excited for the trip, going away for the first time on my own, getting out of Forks and maybe getting some perspective.
My mom had told me that maybe, once I see how big the world can be, I might decide to go to school out of state. I might get a whole new outlook on life.
"Jake?"
"Yo," he said, looking up.
"I'm like, crazy excited for this. Thank you."
He squeezed my waist and tipped me over, kissing my face with a loud smack of his lips.
"I'm going to Seattle this weekend," I told him. "I've got to find a new bathing suit and I want to find...I don't know. Actual summertime clothes for Arizona."
"Make 'em skimpy. It'll be hot as... well, hell, when we're there," Jake said, winking and smacking me on the butt.
"You pervert," I said, getting up to go the sink for a glass of water. "You want?"
"Sure. So. About us going away together...I don't want you to feel like...you have to do anything-" I noticed that his blush showed through his darker skin, twin apples of pink embarrassment blossoming on his cheeks.
"I've never felt that way with you. I mean, like, expectations," I told him, my stomach falling through a hole in the world. And I didn't. I hated that I didn't.
Thing about me and Jake was that we were friends, too. In addition to whatever it was that we weren't calling ourselves.
Maybe more friends than anything else, even.
Sure, we made out and fooled around, and once he even went down on me... but he was a turning point for me during this whole thing.
He was unexpected light in a dark tunnel, kind of leading the way.
I'd always love him in a way for that, for dragging me back to life and showing me that it's okay to laugh again.
"I know, I know. But...I don't want you to think I did this just to-"
"Jacob. If you spent all this time and cash just to get laid, I'd have to think you were sorely desperate," I laughed, and I was relieved that there was nothing negative in his gaze, no judgments or recriminations. The best thing about Jake is that he was content to simply be, and not just with me- with himself, with life. The terrible truth is that Jacob Black was much better at being a person at seventeen than I'll probably be ever.
"That is true," he said, narrowing his eyes and looking to the ceiling in fake contemplation.
"Besides...I want to. With you," I told him.
"You do?" His lopsided grin lit the room and maybe me a little bit, too.
"Yeah," I told him, and I meant it.
"Oh Christ," Jake sighed, looking down at his now tented pants. He pushed me off his lap and started walking, half crouched, toward the sink.
"Not in my parents kitchen!" I said balefully, my laughter choking in my throat.
"You're going to kill me, Bella," Jake said, hunching over the sink.
"Hey."
"What?"
"I want that, too, you know?" I asked. "I've got...wants."
"Wants?"
"Yeah, wants," I returned, my face heating.
Jacob cackled over the sink, his boner forgotten for the moment.
xxxxx
"Oh, Bella, I wasn't born yesterday," my mom said, pulling into our neighborhood, the car loaded with bags from Seattle.
"Mom, please don't."
"You're going away with a boy. Just...be safe."
"I will. Seatbelts, the buddy system-"
"I meant sex."
I blanched and adjusted the bags at my feet.
I knew there would be more to this mother-daughter shopping trip than just free clothes.
"Mom-"
"Even if you're not planning on it, it could happen."
"I know that."
"Do you know how to use a condom? It's not just the boy's responsibility to know about-"
"Mother. Yes."
"How do you know that?" she squawked.
"I had sex ed in the fifth grade! And again in seventh, and again in ninth. Also, I have friends. And I've seen Never Been Kissed. Just... they're condoms, Ma." I knew I was bright pink by then, but the hell with it. We'd had worse conversations, some of them recently. "Besides, they're kind of pretty self-explanatory."
"Bella, baby. If that's all there was to condoms, you wouldn't be here."
"Oh, gross. Mom."
"Look. Be careful, and don't do anything you shouldn't."
"Got it."
"And read the directions. Even if you think you know. Read the directions. Or maybe you could YouTube it," she said, turning to me and getting all excited. "That YouTube has everything, doesn't it?"
"Mother, I swear to God," I muttered, my cheeks now officially on fire.
"Bella," she sighed, turning to face our street, which we'd just pulled into. "We trust you. You've never done anything to lead us to not trust you, we know that. It's been a difficult...well. Dad and I both feel like this could be a really good thing for you. So. Don't prove us wrong."
"I won't."
"And not just with sex. No drinking and for the love of God, don't get arrested. Dad would die."
"I suppose I could come up with alternate plans for the bail money I've been saving," I offered, my cheeks losing some of their flush.
"Cute," she snorted before continuing. "And most importantly?"
I sighed. "What, Mom?"
"Have fun. Let yourself really see what's out there, Bella."
"I will," I promised, nodding and looking out the window.
"Remember to call at least once a day while you're out there having your fun," she said.
"I will."
"I know," she smiled as our house came in to view, the driveway vacant of my father's cruiser.
"I thought he didn't have to go in until nine tonight," Mom mused. "I wanted to go for pizza."
"We can order in," I suggested, taking my seatbelt off. As the wife of the chief of police, being ditched at the last minute was something my mom was used to.
It annoyed her, but she never complained too much about it.
"And we won't have to order pineapple," she said thoughtfully, grinning at the prospect of not-gross pizza.
"Amen," I agreed, opening the door.
I took my shiny, new bags filled with shiny, new possibilities upstairs and plopped them down on the bed. I set about emptying them just to admire a few things, like the strappy sundress that I'd never be able to wear with practicality in Forks.
My phone buzzed in my purse and I fished it out, seeing Rose's number flash.
"Bella! It'll be here in fifteen!" Mom's disembodied voice called from somewhere downstairs.
"'Kay," I called back, dropping my phone in my purse. I'd call Rose back after I ate, anticipating at least an hour-long conversation in which I described every detail of everything I bought...then text her pictures of all of it.
I walked downstairs and plopped down on the couch, exhaustion from the long day settling in, my stomach rumbling with hunger.
My mother walked in and sighed, looking at me.
"What?" I asked.
"I gave in and ordered one with pineapple. He can have it after his shift."
"Sucker," I snickered, flipping through an old People's Sexiest Man Alive. Jude Law might be like, super old, but I still would.
"I'll call him, see when he'll be home," she said, stalking off.
"Well?" I asked when she came back in the room.
"Marks wouldn't put him through," she shrugged. "Said he was dealing with an emergency."
"Weird," I commented.
We hadn't seen any accidents or heard sirens on the way home, and in Forks, if there's an emergency, you hear about it awfully quick. I flicked on the TV and put my feet in my mother's lap. She absently pulled on my toes while I flipped through stations.
"Thanks for the clothes," I told her absently, staring at a music video.
"You're welcome," she said, snatching the remote from my hand. "Thanks for changing the channel." I pulled a face and let her flip through. She stopped on cable news, the big, bright red Breaking News ticker on the bottom catching her attention.
We both sat up slowly as we read the words coming painfully slow across the screen.
"Miracle in small town Forks."
"Us Forks?" I asked, wrinkling my nose.
"Shhh," Renee hissed, batting my arm with the remote before pointing it at the TV and turning the volume up.
"Right now, things are very unclear as details slowly pour in, but what we can say is it's definitely miraculous, Dan," some polished lady with strategic blonde streaks and cherry red lips was saying.
"What? What was?" I asked urgently. I was hushed again by my mom, both of us slowly leaning toward the television.
"Any reports on where he's been, Anne? What his condition was and how he was found?"
"It's all unfolding, but from what Forks General spokesperson Don Gerandy has said, he seems to be in good condition, and we're hearing he wasn't found. He found home," Anne said, shaking her head, a smile on her face.
"Once again, Edward Cullen, missing for almost two years now, has reportedly been found alive this afternoon, apparently walking into the Forks Police station of his own volition. It's a shocking story, surely confusing and we'll have details as they come in."
"Anyone in custody? Do we know if he was alone?" Dan asked Anne...but I was frozen, utterly unable to move or squeak or emote.
Edward Cullen. Home. In Forks. Alive?
He's alive.
It was pointed out to me that the page breaks weren't making it once I uploaded, so I'm super sorry about that! I went back and fixed that in the previous chapters.
As always, thank you for your amazing reviews!