Chapter pic: None this time, sorry!

Chapter music: bit(dot)ly/sotpm08-music

"SINS OF THE PIANO MAN"
CHAPTER 08: CELLULAR BREAKDOWN

"If only we were wiser or better people,
perhaps the gods would explain the mad, unbearable things they do."

From "Children of the Mind" by Orson Scott Card

ISABELLA SWAN
Despite the sadness I'd felt over my botched date with Edward, I slept deeply and dreamlessly, waking a little after nine the next morning. Stretching under my covers, I reveled in the feeling of having true rest. I didn't know what was going on with me, but I'd been sleeping better all week.

After a quick shower, I decided I wanted to see Charlie and spend the weekend with him, but I couldn't do that if I went into work at eleven. A Saturday at Hal's was really good money that I—we—definitely needed, but it was also a day away from my father, who had looked somehow even weaker last Sunday. After three months of small stages of chemotherapy, I'd convinced myself that he would start to look stronger, but he'd only continued to deteriorate on the whole.

Each moment with him was precious. It had always been that way. The only difference was that I was wise enough to know that now.

Surprisingly, Judy was true to her word that she'd be understanding, telling me that it would be no trouble to get someone to take over my shift, even though I was giving her really short notice. I thought she might have even told me to "take care" at the end of the conversation, but I was sure I was just hearing things.

I packed a backpack with jeans, pajamas and a couple of sweaters. I still had Edward's jacket to keep me warm, but I didn't want to get the third degree from retired Chief Swan, if at all possible; showing up in some boy's clothing was a surefire way to walk right into that. I stuffed barely-used rubber boots on top of everything else. I'd go fishing with Charlie this weekend. And I won't complain one time about how fucking boring it is. At least it'd give me time in his presence.

Lauren was in the living room when I went downstairs. Seated on the floor, she was bent over a large piece of poster paper, color markers and tubes of glitter strewn on the carpet around her.

"Going to another protest?" I asked while adjusting one of my backpack straps. Protests, rallies and political meet-ups were often how Lauren spent a Saturday during the warmer parts of the year.

She finished coloring in a bubble letter before looking up at me. "Yeah, definitely. Going up to Seattle about the layoffs. I still can't believe the Seattle Police Department is looking at laying off a quarter of the force. I don't know how the hell they expect to find a serial killer if they haven't got enough people to even answer domestic abuse calls."

"Serial killer? Really?"

"Jesus, Bella, don't you pay attention? People are disappearing left and right. Give a shit."

I rolled my eyes. As if I'd had time to pay attention. I sighed and sat on the arm of our battered old couch. "Just catch me up on it a bit." Even when I wasn't insanely busy, I never kept up with local news and politics the way Lauren did. It was a flaw of mine, to feel so connected to those I knew and loved and so indifferent to those I didn't. Have I always been that way? I wasn't sure.

"There have just been all these disappearances in the last few months. At first, no one thought they were related, but now people are wondering if it's gangs or a serial killer…"

"How many people have gone missing?" I asked.

"Twelve was the last number I heard," she said. "It doesn't sound like a lot, but most of the time people show up eventually. That's more like how many people actually go missing in a year in Seattle. And most of the time it's kids, not adults."

I got chills just thinking about it. Maybe Charlie had been right about Seattle. I still wasn't going to lug around pepper spray all the time, though.

Lauren frowned as she drew another letter on her poster. "It's really strange. Other than the fact that they're all adults, there aren't any patterns to any of it. Like, people are disappearing from all economic backgrounds and histories, so it doesn't really seem like a serial killer or gangs, but no one knows for sure."

"And they won't find out with a force that's spread too thin."

"Exactly." She looked up at me again, her green eyes vibrant. "I just think it's crazy they're talking of layoffs at a time like this. I mean, I know states are tightening their belts and shit, but this is serious. We're hoping they'll listen to us."

Her tenacity made me smile. "I'm sure you'll do everything you can to make them."

"Damn straight." She noticed the backpack hanging from my shoulder then. "Going somewhere?" She glanced at a clock we had hanging on the wall. "And shouldn't you be at work?"

I shrugged. "I called in… Decided I'd spend the weekend with Charlie."

"That'll be good. You haven't done that in a while." She looked at me slyly. "So, not seeing anymore of Edward Masen, pianist extraordinaire, then?"

I blushed. Thanks, Lauren. I was trying really hard not to think about him. "Mm, I don't think so," I answered. "Our date could have ended better."

"Oh well." She sniffed. "It's not like you need a man, anyway."

I thought of Edward's changing eyes—the gold, the black—and wondered once again if he even was just a man, but then I laughed inwardly. Maybe I didn't get enough sleep. "Yeah, you're right," I said. I really didn't need any more complications in my life, anyway—at least, that was what I was telling myself. It was better to think that, than to feel like I'd ruined the only date I'd had in years.

Even though Port Angeles was just an hour's drive from Forks, the weather could be quite different. Where Port Angeles had been characteristically overcast when I left it, Forks was dark and steadily raining, a town of slick mud and overflowing gutters. Its darkness reflected my mood in a lot of ways. Away from Forks, I kept up my guard and trudged on doggedly. I felt at least somewhat strong. Here? Here, I was just a kid again, unsure and afraid.

I could barely see through torrential rains as I pulled into Charlie's brick driveway. I parked behind the faded turquoise pickup truck he'd purchased after retiring and losing the police cruiser. The right side of the truck was parked on the lawn, tires sunk deeply into mud. He hadn't driven in a while; he was too sick to.

I turned off the ignition and sat for a moment, taking in deep, calming breaths. I always tried to prepare myself before going inside.

Charlie may look worse, but he's going to get better.

Charlie doesn't need you to do everything for him. Don't hover. He hates that.

Smile. Act happy. Create a positive environment.

Tell him you love him at least once while you're here.

As I continued my mantra, I looked over the house, which in the last year had begun to look a lot worse for wear. Charlie's house was plain and simple on the outside—a lot like us Swans, really. It had white siding, an untended garden of mulish weeds and a porch with two rotting banisters—a consequence of age and perpetual humidity. I'd recently noticed a few of the wooden slats on the porch were beginning to abnormally darken, too—a sign of the rot to come. No amount of water resistant coating could protect them in this sort of climate; it was difficult enough to find a dry day to even put a water resistor on the wood.

The inside of the house was like us, too. At first glance, it had no story to tell with its two upstairs bedrooms and single bathroom, the latter of which Charlie and I had somehow managed to share through my last two years of high school without too much embarrassment. (I tried not to remember the empty tampon box incident.) It was only when you looked deeper at the furnishings and decorations inside that you began to see a sad, if not uncommon story.

My parents married young, and I was their mistake, a wrench in what were probably youthful and idealistic life plans. Dreams of gratifying work, luxurious homes and fast cars tend to fall to the wayside when you're nineteen and have a seven-pound bun in the oven. Renée resented marriage, and by way of that, my father Charlie and rainy Forks. She divorced him and dragged me with her to California when I was just six months old. I wasn't sure I'd ever understand why she took me; she loved me, sure, but she'd never been cut out for motherhood.

After we'd moved, I'd only seen my father one month out of the year—every July—until I went to live with him in 2005. We'd been near strangers and mostly stayed that way until my last year of high school.

From the Vegas wedding picture on the mantel of the fireplace, to the sunny yellow paint in the kitchen that was my mother's favorite color, nearly all the decorations in this house told of my parents' fucked up marriage. Charlie was a constant man, and he'd never stopped loving Renée, no matter how many times she'd bitched at him on the phone in one of her more childish fits or complained that he'd not sent child support, simply because she hadn't checked the mail yet to see that the money was there. It always was. Charlie had never been late on that.

The older I got, the more I felt my father had gotten the real short end of the stick. He'd paid for me, though he hardly ever got to see me (and when he did, I was a complete brat). He unconditionally loved a woman who didn't give a damn about much beyond what had her attention for the week. And what had happened? Renée had gone on and gotten most of what she'd wanted, even found someone else to marry. Charlie? He was here, like he always was, alone in a house full of bittersweet memories, battling cancer.

Life was not fair.

Earlier in the year, I'd thought that he was maybe going to get his second chance at a happy relationship, that maybe it was only a matter of time before the kitchen was repainted and my old room turned into a proper guest bedroom. The first sign of a change had been the day I came home and found my parents' old wedding picture gone from the mantel.

He'd been dating Sue Clearwater, a sweet and quiet woman who liked to cook—all good traits in a partner for Charlie. She was the widow of Harry Clearwater, a Quileute man who'd been one of my father's closest friends before he passed away from a heart attack a couple of years ago. Sue and Charlie both had wounds they needed to heal from, but they were good match, and I'd believed it would be a lasting one, that they'd heal each other.

Unfortunately, everything changed when Charlie was diagnosed. Sue couldn't watch another man she loved die while she stayed behind. Even if I understood her reasoning logically, I hated her for leaving my father. She'd seemed so constant, but then she'd left, too, just like Renée. She called Charlie sometimes—more often, she called me to ask after him—but she never came to visit.

A month ago, the Vegas wedding photo made a reappearance.

At the door to the house, I hesitated. Even though this was still technically my home, too, it didn't feel like it. As I'd gotten older, I'd begun wondering if I'd ever really had a place I considered home. I'd thought it was Phoenix, because that had been what I'd known best; and then when I'd had Jake, I'd thought it was Forks. But experience had taught me that homes were never really places, but the people in them. I'd yet to live in a place where sadness or rejection hadn't ultimately struck like a nasty bolt of lightning.

Now Dad's leaving me. I felt the flood of tears hover at the edge of my eyes and bit at my lip to keep them from surfacing. No tears, I told myself.

I knocked on the door before entering with the key that was on my keychain. Not bothering to untie my laces, I nudged off my shoes and called out. "Hey, Dad! Thought I'd drop by today! Staying for the weekend!" I kept my tone light and cheery—stress-free, because Charlie Swan, like all loving fathers, wanted his college-going daughter to be happy.

"Hey, Bells," Charlie replied from his recliner in the connecting living room. His voice was quiet and raspy, and he sounded so tired.

I padded into the room and forced myself to keep a smile on my face. My father was dying from cancer—and the treatment for it—and it fucking showed from his hairless upper lip and the beanie cap on his bald head, to the way his recliner swallowed up his bag-of-bones body. He didn't look anything like he used to, and the changes always hit me like a punch to my gut.

He'd never been a towering, hulking man, but he'd been strong in his own right. Now that he was weak, I missed his strength. I'd never realized how much I needed my father, until I became supremely aware that, be it sooner or later, I was going to lose him. Forever.

It drove me crazy. How did people do this? How did people lose their parents and go on? When I was a kid, it'd felt like Charlie would always be there, even a lot of times when I didn't want him to be.

Now everything had come down to borrowed time.

"Glad you're gonna spend some time with your old man," Charlie said with an awkward smile. "Been, uh—been missing you around here, Bells."

I swallowed thickly as I walked over and hugged him as gently as I could. He was tired, and so he didn't lift his arms around me, but he pressed his cheek into my hair, so that his uneven breathing was right against my ear.

Charlie and I had never been good at sharing our emotions with each other, but we'd gotten better over time; and since he'd gotten ill, we'd doubled our efforts. I pulled away and took in a calming breath. "I've missed you, too," I said with a weary smile. "I'm sorry I've not been around as much. It's just been really busy at school, and with my part-time job…"

"Hey, don't you worry. You're here now. That's what matters. Besides, I hardly get a moment to myself with those Cullen women coming 'round all the time."

I grinned at him, knowing well that while his pride might have taken a hit in the process of having the Cullens help him, he also loved the attention from pretty women—and the Cullen women were nothing if not movie-star beautiful. "I don't think you mind too much when Esme's here, Dad."

He snorted a little, and I watched as a hint of pink colored his cheeks. "Well."

I laughed and shook my head at him. "I'll be right back, okay?" I ran upstairs to the small bathroom and washed my hands, scrubbing all the way up to my elbows until my skin was red and raw. I washed my hands a lot whenever I was at Charlie's. Chemo treatments had weakened his immune system, and a single, simple virus could easily turn to pneumonia and kill him. I compulsively washed everything around him.

I returned to the living room with another plastered smile. "So," I started conversationally, while plopping down onto the old couch adjacent to Charlie's recliner, "I thought we could take it easy today, but I'll make us dinner tonight, okay? And tomorrow, I thought we could maybe go fishing." Smile, Bella, smile. Fucking smile.

Charlie looked over at me in amused skepticism. "You hate fishing."

"Not the company, though," I said honestly.

He snorted. "Yeah, well, we'll see, kid." He went back to flipping channels, pausing every now and again on some show with hunting or machines or police chases. He used to watch sports all the time, but he'd stopped recently for reasons known only to him. I was too afraid to ask why, afraid that his reasoning might be sad. I couldn't take anymore sadness.

I sat with him in companionable silence. We took turns with the remote, more often than not just to channel surf; there was never anything good on television on a Saturday. The day dwindled and turned to afternoon, and eventually the rain lightened to an irregular sprinkle. A blue and purple-grey sky opened up just for sunset, and light poured in through the front windows.

Seeing the afternoon light reminded me of how Edward had pulled away from the sun in Hal's last week. When I'd casually asked about it on our date, he'd said he avoided sunlight due to a "skin condition." He had poor circulation, too, and I wondered what his ailments could be related to; it was hard for me to imagine Edward being sick, when he was so healthy looking.

Not that you can tell anything from that.

What if he is sick?

What if he's dying, too?

I took a deep breath. Get a grip. Don't be ridiculous.

Thinking of Edward of course led me to analyze our date again, which I'd been doing all day long, in spite of myself. His anger at the end of our date still seemed strange. When I thought about what he said, though—that I couldn't begin to imagine the monsters that existed in the world—I couldn't help but feel like he'd seen some awful things in his life. He seemed to know a lot about the darkness in the world, and I felt sorry for him.

Sighing, I shook my head. He's not your problem. He's done with you.

I needed a distraction, and television just wasn't cutting it for me.

"I'll start on dinner," I said and rose from the couch. I touched my father's shoulder as I passed his recliner. "Do you need anything?"

"Just a beer."

I frowned. "Carlisle said that can interfere with the drugs you're taking."

"Not with the new stuff they've put me on," he answered, his eyes darting away from mine. Liar, liar. "I can have a drink every now and then—Carlisle said."

Well, in our house, what Dr. Carlisle Cullen said was treated like gospel. He was the only doctor I'd ever met who could deliver horrible news in a way that still left you with either a sliver of hope or at least acceptance. We trusted him implicitly.

"Okay, Dad…" I narrowed my eyes at him. "But just one."

And I'm definitely checking with Carlisle to see if you're fibbing.

I entered the kitchen and was immediately hit by the scent of old fish. Fucking disgusting. My stomach roiled as I switched to breathing through my mouth. I grabbed a can of beer from the fridge and a napkin and gave them to Charlie before tackling the health hazard that seemed to be located under our sink.

It was the garbage that smelled so strongly. It was overflowing, which never happened when Alice and Esme were around. It used to not happen when it was just Charlie. Little things like this told me how sick my father really was; he'd never been one for spotless perfection, but he'd never been unclean, either. Not Chief Swan. He'd kept things in order, and when he couldn't, now the Cullens did.

"Have Alice and Esme not been around much lately, Dad?" I called out while pulling the garbage bag from the bin. The smell was god-awful, and I was surprised I hadn't smelled it earlier, before I realized I hadn't been in the kitchen since arriving..

Did Charlie even eat lunch? I wondered, but then I remembered I hadn't eaten at all today, either. I sighed.

"Alice was here Wednesday," Charlie said from the other room, "but I've let Esme and her off the hook a bit this week."

On the way to the front door, I lugged the garbage into the living room with me. Charlie waved a hand in front of his nose as we grimaced together, but for very different reasons. "Dammit, Dad, is Billy giving you shit over the Cullens again?" There were few people in this world that could piss me off more than Billy and his son Jacob.

"Well," Charlie said a little quietly as he scratched around the port catheter at his chest, "he might've called a time or two."

"I don't know why you give him the time of day," I complained. "You aren't even friends with him anymore."

"I know that, but this isn't about me. I don't need Esme and them looking after me all the time, you know"—the rotting fish in the trash begged to differ—"and I don't want the rez giving the Cullens any trouble. They do that enough as it is."

"Fine," I said tersely and turned on my heel with the garbage. "I'm just taking this to the curb." Huffing, I stuffed my feet back into my sneakers, yanked the front door open and half-stumbled down the porch steps to the corner of the driveway, where the garbage pickup bins were.

Fuck you, Billy. I hope you rot in your stupid wheelchair.

I had no idea what had happened between the Cullens and the people on the reservation—and I didn't really give a shit—but the Quileutes hated the Cullens—like, deep, this-is-the-fifties-and-we're-racist-bigots kind of hate. Billy had called Charlie frequently when he found out that Carlisle was treating him and that Alice and Esme were visiting almost daily.

Billy was all concerned when he called, talking about how he was looking out for Charlie and me and blah, fucking blah. Frankly, I didn't care what his reasoning was. He could just stay the fuck away and keep out of our business. We didn't need him.

The Cullens were around for my dad. The Quileutes weren't, and it pissed me off to no end that they continued to meddle. If it kept on, I was going to have to call Billy to set things straight.

Again.

I took a deep breath to clear my head before returning; creating a stressful and angry environment for Charlie wasn't good. I turned the porch light off and kicked my shoes into a corner, grumbling when mud got wiped along the wood floor in the process. "How's your treatment been going, Dad?" I asked as I went back into the living room, on my way to kitchen.

Charlie mumbled a reply and turned up the volume on the television.

I stopped and a hand went reflexively to my hip. "What did you say? I couldn't hear you."

In reality, I was afraid that I had heard him.

Setting his beer can down on the coffee table with an aluminum clink, he huffed and muted the television. "Said I'm not going to those damn chemo treatments anymore. I stopped this past week. Already feeling better—fit as a fiddle." As if his body just wanted to spite him, he let out a small, uncomfortable-sounding cough that left us both wincing.

"You did what?" I spat. Anger and hurt welled inside of me.

"I've just decided I'm gonna live my last days feeling okay," he said with a shrug, his voice gravelly with pent up emotion.

"So it's a death wish then, is it?" I shook my head and went over to his recliner. "You can't do this," I whispered. I sounded like a child in that moment and wondered if that's what I really was—a little girl trying to wear big girl's shoes. I felt like I was tripping all over the place. That'd be just like me. "You won't get better without the chemo. Why would you do this?"

Charlie rolled his eyes at me and ran a hand over his face, but his supposed annoyance didn't fool me. We were both breaking under the weight of reality, under the weight of what this decision would mean. "That chemo is toxic. I feel it in me all the time, tearing up everything. And the nausea is… Well, it's not pretty—"

"Is that it?" I interrupted, grasping at straws as I drowned in my fears. "It's the nausea? Carlisle can get you a different drug for that, Dad. There's all sorts of stuff we haven't tried. And don't worry about money, okay? We'll find a way to make it. Or hell, you can have pot brownies. They'll soothe you and help your appetite." My voice had risen, taking on a hysterical, high-pitched edge as my words scattered ungracefully.

"It's not the nausea, Bells. It's just…well, it's everything. And I'm going to pretend you didn't just say pot brownies," he said wryly.

"I was being serious, and it's not like you've never had them. Mom told me that story a long time ago."She'd never come out and said it to my face, but I had a sneaking suspicion that a friend's rowdy birthday party and some pot might have even played a part in my being in the world.

I frowned at him. "You can't just stop your treatment like this." Now I sounded petulant.

"I can, and I have," he argued in an equally childish manner. We stared at each other for several seconds before he sighed loudly. He knew I wasn't going to give up on him that easily. Swans were made of stubborn stuff.

"Look at me, Isabella."

Any anger I'd felt was swallowed by an uncomfortable, cold fear as I stared at my dying father. He never used my proper name. Never. I'd only ever been Bella or Bells or—a long time ago—Baby Bell.

I'd never been Isabella. Not to my dad.

Giving in to the feelings of smallness I was experiencing, I knelt beside his chair on the hard floor and took one of his hands. We weren't usually touchy-feely people, but I needed to feel him right now, just to know that he was alive and with me in the moment. His hands were shaky, thinner than they used to be and cool to the touch. I looked up at him, silently willing him to change his mind.

He had an uncomfortable grimace on his face. Whatever he was about to say was going to be emotional. I braced myself and gripped his bony fingers more tightly.

"I don't want to live this way, and you've got to accept that. Yeah, the chemo might do the trick for a while, but even if I survive it, I'm just buying myself a little time. My chances of lasting five years—even another year—are slim, practically unheard of at my age and this stage of the cancer. It's a lot of money to blow—a lot of pain to endure—for something that probably ain't gonna work.

"I just want to enjoy my life, kiddo—what I've got left of it. I want to go fishing and read those philosophy books Carlisle's been giving me and eat your cooking and just not goddamn think about anything else." His brown eyes pleaded with me as mine pleaded with him. But I knew I was losing. "I just want to relax and let nature take its course. If it's my time, well, that's just the way of things. Remember what I told you when you called the day your fish died?"

I nodded sadly.

"Everything's got to go one day, Bells," he repeated from our past.

Tears began to trickle down my face—hot and ugly and raw. "You just can't give up, Daddy." I shook my head forcefully. Didn't he know that he was all the family I really had left? Perhaps the only family I'd ever had—the only parent that had, even if only for a very short time, taken care of me?

He squeezed my hand. "Don't cry. You know I've always hated when you cried. Couldn't even handle it when you were a little thing."

I only cried harder, and I knew then that this was the first of many goodbyes to come.

He sighed and scrubbed away tears of his own with his free hand. He then handed me a crinkled napkin that had been on the side table by his chair. It had a cool, damp ring on it from his beer can. It was comforting. It was my dad, the police chief who came home and relaxed with his cheap local brew.

"I'm not giving up, you know," he said suddenly, slicing through the pained silence that had enveloped us. "Not really. I'm just choosing something that you don't especially care for. There's a difference." His eyes darted away from me then, to the muted people on the television screen. He didn't want to talk anymore.

And so that was that.

I wiped my face and sucked in a deep, ragged breath. "Okay," I said quietly, because I needed to acknowledge him, but didn't have anything better to say.

This was his choice, his life. I had to be an adult—not some snot-nosed kid—and respect his decision, no matter how much I wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let him go.

"Good," he said with a half-smile. He awkwardly pulled his hand away from mine and grabbed his beer again. His other hand took hold of the television remote. It was Charlie's way of saying, Thanks for the chat, but this is making me uncomfortable.

I made spaghetti that night, and Charlie ate better than he had in a long time. It was bittersweet, knowing the reason why, that the chemo drugs were no longer turning his stomach at every moment. He ate in front of the television—something we had never allowed between the two of us, no matter how much companionable silence there'd been at our kitchen table. I wasn't going to stop him, though, if that was what he wanted. As far as I was concerned, my life had just made another change. Now things were about making Charlie's dwindling time on this earth as pleasant as possible. He deserved that.

Though I was hungry, I didn't eat. I knew there was too good a chance that it'd all come right back up.

Instead, I trudged on with dogged determination. It had become a goddamned habit. I washed Charlie's clothes, changed his bed sheets, switched out towels, and cleaned the bathroom with bleach. Then I started in on the kitchen, cleaning the dishes and sink and under the table and in the fridge and even behind it. I even went back outside and swept the damp driveway under the glaring yellow glow of the floodlight. It didn't matter that I knew pine needles and other green fronds would litter the bricks again in a few hours. All I wanted was to take my mind off of the fact that it was all over.

It wasn't enough, though, and the conversation with Charlie kept replaying and replaying and replaying. This was so much worse than when he'd been diagnosed, when I'd thought we'd get a second chance with more time. Now? Now, there was no hope, only what luck would give us, only what some uncaring god or fate or nature saw fit to let him suffer through. I felt angry and hurt and betrayed by the universe and even by my father.

Chief Swan just wasn't supposed to give up.

But he wasn't Chief Swan anymore, I reasoned. He was just Charlie Swan—a single man, a single life—and he was going to give up this time, because the bad guy wasn't some underage twerp who'd shoplifted booze or burned rubber in a quiet cul-de-sac. It was fucking cancer. Not many people beat lung cancer. According to what I'd read online, only ten percent survived after being diagnosed. Few lasted more than a couple of extra years.

Charlie might make it to Christmas.

When I went back inside, I found he'd fallen asleep in his chair. The ten o'clock news aired before his closed eyes, coloring him in shades of flashing white and blue and red as the images on the screen changed without his knowledge. I stared at the television, feeling as though I couldn't possibly be further removed from the rest of the world as I was right then. The world went on, spinning and spiraling, oblivious to our circumstances; sometimes it felt like we were standing on the outside of all of it.

"Zero down, zero interest for the first six months…"

"More searching in Portland tonight for the two missing…"

"Did you or a loved one recently suffer an injury…"

"Maybe it's Maybelline…"

"I lost forty pounds…"

I switched off the one lamp lighting the room and got a blanket to cover Charlie. I tried to ignore the way his breath came out in soft wheezing sounds, but it was all I could hear. Only turning down the volume, I left the television going, so he'd have some sound to wake up to if he got up in the middle of the night.

I bent and kissed his forehead, then the soft knit beanie cap. "I love you," I told him, wishing for the millionth time that I'd said those silly, simple words so much more over the years, that I hadn't been such a bratty kid, that I'd fished more, that I'd never taken him for granted.

As much as I often tried to deal with things on my own, I knew tonight shouldn't be one of those nights. By midnight, I was ready to fucking climb the walls, I was so stressed. I tried calling Lauren first, but I only got voicemail. Angela was in bed asleep, I was sure, but I tried anyway out of desperation.

Voicemail.

She'd probably turned her phone off.

I even called Alice, who always picked up, no matter the hour (or so she'd told me). At first, when the ringtone stopped, I thought she had answered, but then there was a beep, and I lost my signal to her.

Hugging a pillow close to my chest, staring at a hole in the toe of my left sock, I felt as if I was alone at sea. It's just like my dreams, I thought. I'm going to end up alone. I gasped in a breath, my whole body shaking as panic stole over me like a long-legged spider crawling down my neck.

And I nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone buzzed with a text message.

From: Edward Masen
May I call you? If you'd rather not speak to me, I'll understand.

I didn't even think about it as I rapidly punched in two words and sent the text: "Please call."

I answered on the first vibration. "Edward," I said quietly, trying to keep my voice even. It wasn't easy, when I was swallowing back so much grief—and now nervousness.

"Hello, Bella."

My shoulders slumped in relaxation as he smoothly spoke my name, immediately providing some distraction from my awful day. I listened as a gust of wind blew into his phone. Wherever he was, he was outside.

"I'm sorry about last night," I blurted.

"I should be the one apologizing. It wasn't your fault. I—"

"Got upset over fictional monsters?" I said dryly.

He chuckled, and the sound came out dark and low. "Something like that."

"Why did you get so upset?"

"It's a long story."

"Well, I don't mean to pry…" I sighed heavily. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but I get that you maybe have a complicated past. Just know that you can tell me. If you want. I mean, I know we hardly know each other, but I want to get to know you better, and I won't ever tell your secrets. Ever. Not to anyone." Ramble, ramble, ramble.

"Thank you," Edward whispered, "but I'm fine." I heard a door shut and a soft, canine yip that I knew must be Lucky. The normality of the sounds made Edward seem a little less otherworldly to me in that moment.

"Truly, I'm fine," he continued. "I just overreacted. It had been a long day for me." He paused, as if gathering his thoughts. "But you're right. My past is dark, to say the least." He paused. "How do you know I'm not a monster?" His voice was light and teasing, but I could hear the undercurrent of truth—or at least truth, as he perceived it.

I knew I'd been right about him!

Considering how little I actually knew this man, I probably should have felt fear at his words, but I only laughed at him. "Don't be ridiculous. I don't think you're a monster."

"You sound so sure."

I did, and I was. My groundless conviction even surprised me a little. "I am sure," I answered. "I don't know… There's just something… You're not bad, okay? Weird, maybe, but not bad. Whatever it is that bothers you, it shouldn't be guilt. You aren't a bad person, and I get this feeling that you think you are." I'd seen it in his eyes a few times—this overwhelming guilt and all the uncertainty that came with it—and I'd certainly heard it in his music. I had a deep urge to wipe that away, to give him a clean slate.

Edward was silent on the other end.

I nodded, though he couldn't see me, accepting that whatever was bothering him wasn't going to come out tonight. I sniffled back leftover tears and snot. "Eww, gross. Sorry." I better not be trying to get a second date this way.

Edward ignored my embarrassment. "You've been crying. Why?"

I threw his words back at him. "I've had a long day." Understatement of the year.

Before he'd called, all I'd wanted was to talk to someone and let everything go, but now I felt embarrassed and uncertain. I'd probably scare him away with all my emotional baggage; he was already bad about running away. It wasn't like we were really dating for me to go about spilling my guts to him, anyway. We'd seen each other a few times, and I'd eaten dinner and one of us had enjoyed a zombie movie. We weren't exactly "in a relationship."

Are we?

How did these things work as an adult?

"Bella?"

"Yeah, I'm here." I rubbed at my face. My skin felt rubbery—swollen and wet from crying.

And then Edward said four words that completely unraveled me.

"Tell me what's wrong."

The dam burst. I let out a sob, one I hadn't even known was knotted up and buried in my chest. My heart fluttered and clenched painfully in my chest. "It's my dad," I said at first. "It's everything."

It was everything, and I told it all, as if he was some psychologist for me to throw all my cares onto. I told him how the year had started so brightly; how I was on my way to getting a degree I enjoyed; how though I was single, my life was filled with things I loved, people I liked being around; how my dad was so proud of me, even though I was in a silly arts degree at a small college.

Edward listened to every word that tumbled out.

"But then we found out he had lung cancer," I continued. "It doesn't seem fair. He didn't even smoke that long—quit when I was a baby." I sighed in frustration. "It makes me angry. I don't know why he gets to be the one to have it, when there are people who chain smoke until they're fucking eighty.

"The bills pile up like you wouldn't believe. I quit school before the semester started, and I'm working to cover him. He doesn't know. He would hate what I'm doing, but I just… Some medicines work better than others, you know? And if I don't cover him a little, he can't afford those. Some family friends have tried to help, but we can't take their money. It's our problem, you know?

"It's just kind of been one thing after another. The months are just flying by, and he just keeps looking worse and worse. I hate it and really wish there was something more I could do." I felt tears roll down my cheeks in full force as I came to the hardest part. "But now he's said he's quit chemo. He's just…he's just gonna let himself fucking die. It's just…so fucked up, Edward. Everything is fucked up."

"I'm sorry. I had no idea. I didn't know," Edward replied.

Through tears, I smiled sadly at his earnestness. "How could you?"

"I'm still sorry. How long does he have?" he asked.

"Different doctors have said different things. Our family doctor…he said 'til December without treatment. Maybe. We might get Christmas if we're really lucky." I looked down at my sweater and picked at a loose thread. "I'm really hoping we get Christmas."

"Bella…let me help you. I want to help. What can I do?"

I snorted bitterly. "Nothing."

He sighed. "Well, where's your mother in all this? Why isn't she helping? Is she…still around?"

"Renée?" I scoffed. "Renée doesn't give a shit, and she's not about to come up to Forks to help us. She hates it here. I don't think she's even been back since '87. Besides, it doesn't affect her directly, so…"

There was a sharp and unexpected inhale, and then dead silence. I couldn't even hear Edward's breathing.

"Edward?"I asked in surprise, my own grief momentarily forgotten. "What's wrong? What happened?"

No answer. Just silence.

"Edward? Are you there? Are you okay? Edward?"

"I'm here," he said suddenly. "I— What's your father's name?"

"What?"

"Bella. What is your father's name?" His voice was hard as he enunciated each word.

"It's—it's Charlie. Why?"

"I should go," he growled.

"What? Edward, what's going on?" I frowned. "I just told you everything. The least you can do is tell me what's happening to you right now."

"It's nothing."

"No, it's something," I argued. "You keep doing this. You run away whenever you're uncomfortable. It's driving me crazy." If he thought I was just going to let him off the hook this time, he had another thing coming.

He wasn't listening to me. "This isn't right."

"What isn't right?" I felt my heart pounding in my chest. My whole body was alert, and before I knew what was happening, I was pacing around my room, the phone pressed so hard against the side of my face that it was hurting my ear. "What isn't right?" I asked again.

He seemed to be talking to himself when he spoke. "I know I should go."

I heard something in his voice, something frighteningly final. "Don't!" I cried out, not caring if I sounded stupid or melodramatic. "Don't—whatever it is you're doing. Don't go. Please. Just don't go. Okay? You said you wanted to help me. Don't—don't go." I wasn't even making sense. He just wanted to get off the phone, right? Right?

Don't leave me.

None of my feelings made any sense to me. I shouldn't give a shit about Edward. I hardly knew him. But the thought of him leaving… I couldn't stand it.

"You don't know what you're asking."

"Then tell me. Explain it to me. Whatever it is, it won't matter." I came to a stop at my bedroom window and looked out past the tree just outside it, into the dark night. "Just don't run, okay? Stop running." Please.

There was silence for a long moment, and I held my breath.

"I'm only going to make your life more complicated," he said dejectedly.

But all I heard was his acceptance in that moment, that he'd stay if I wanted him to—and I did, so much and beyond all reason. A deep, aching tension fell from my chest and shattered on the floor. Relief flooded me, and my muscles suddenly felt tired, like I'd been running the Olympic torch around. "My life can't get any more complicated than it already is."

"I'll stay, then," he whispered, "until you ask me to leave."

I smiled, feeling overwhelmed as my emotions got tossed from grief and anger, to fear and now some semblance of…was this happiness? I didn't even know anymore. "Get comfortable," I told him. "I want to get to know you." I laughed as I fell back onto my old, small bed. "Especially since you now know my whole life story. It's your turn to spill."

Edward laughed with me, and it was the most beautiful sound in the world. "Hardly. There's plenty more that I want to know about you."

We were silent, and I listened to his steady breathing. When he wasn't flying off the handle, he seemed ridiculously calm and controlled for a person of our age, like he really had his shit together. He breathed deeply, rhythmically, like some yoga master or a cyclist with a resting heart rate of forty beats per minute. I tried to match my breathing to his and felt myself relaxing.

"You're tired," he whispered, and my eyes snapped open.

"Yeah," I said with a sigh. My whole body was shutting down at this point. "I should get some sleep." I looked over at my bedside clock. It was one in the morning. "You probably should, too."

"I'm fine. Why don't you get ready for bed, and then come back and talk to me before you rest?"

"You don't want to wait on me."

"The sooner you go, the sooner you'll return."

"Fine, but if you get bored or tired, feel free to just hang up."

"I won't."

If I was being honest with myself, I was glad he didn't want to break the connection, as silly as it was for me to feel that way. It wasn't like we were using landlines that kept him grounded to Port Angeles or me. Nonetheless, knowing he was on the other end, waiting for me as I got ready for bed, was soothing. It was almost like having someone wait for me in bed.

Almost.

Another emotion joined all the others as I rushed through my nightly routine, this time foregoing a shower so I could make it to bed sooner. It was that excitement I always felt when I saw Edward—even the first time I'd seen him at The Rosebud—but it was also something deeper, something scary. Something you better be fucking careful of.

We'd only had the one date, if it could even be called a date. What the fuck was I thinking?

"That didn't take you long at all," Edward said when I put the phone back to my ear several minutes later. I could hear the grin in his voice and felt relieved that whatever had bothered him tonight didn't seem to be on his mind now. I hoped I'd understand him soon, because his mood swings were pretty alarming.

Resting on my side, I smiled and snuggled down beneath my sheets. I let the cell phone rest on my cheek so I wouldn't have to hold it. "Entertain me," I teased.

He chuckled. "You're very demanding."

We talked lightly for half an hour, discussing mundane but somehow incredibly important things, like what our favorite colors were—mine being green, his being blue—or what ice cream we liked—vanilla for me, chocolate for him. He was born in Chicago and played two other instruments besides the piano—guitar and mandolin. I told him that Renée had made me take ballet lessons as a kid and that, graceless as ever, I broke my leg trying to play touch football shortly after coming to Forks. Half asleep, I was smiling like an idiot, and somehow, for just a little while, the world felt right.

"Bella?"

I murmured sleepily in reply.

"May I see you tomorrow?"

That woke me a little. "I'm staying in Forks for the weekend," I said with a yawn. "I always spend Sundays with Charlie."

"Ah." He paused. "What if I came there?"

"Uh, I don't know that that's such a good idea. I mean, I should be around my dad."

"I can take you both to lunch."

Persistent. "Um, yeah…okay. I mean, if you want." I smiled. "Just so you know, though, my dad's a retired police chief, and he'll totally grill you, so be prepared. Don't feel bad. He does that to everyone. Even to me sometimes."

"I'm sure I'll be able to handle the interrogation." We laughed.

Is this a date?

Is he meeting Charlie as my friend or…?

What's going on between us?

Everything felt so serious, considering how little I'd seen him. What was wrong with me? My heart thudded heavily as I tried to figure out where we stood with each other. But I didn't ask any questions, not when just an hour ago he'd been panicking and telling me he should "go"—whatever that meant. I rattled off Charlie's address to him.

"I'll be there at noon," he said.

"Great," I mumbled, once again falling asleep. "Oh, and don't bring up his cancer… We try not to talk about it."

"I won't."

"Thanks." I yawned. "And thank you for, you know, listening."

"It's never a problem listening to you," he said.

We were silent, and I once again fell into the comfortable cadence of his breathing. "Bella?" His whisper was like a cool breeze over rippling pond water.

"Mm?"

"Would you like me to hum to you?"

I snorted a little. "You sing, too? Wait. Stupid question. Of course you do." Musician, cook, charmer…Jesus.

He better be shit at something.

He didn't reply, but instead began to hum the lullaby I'd heard at the bed and breakfast. It wasn't exactly the same this time—darker in some places, lighter in others—a living, changing composition—but I fell into it just like the first time. Tears slipped past my closed eyes, but they were peaceful and quiet tears that healed some of my hurt.

Sunday morning I woke to a series of loud, door-rattling knocks that were followed by a musical call. "Rise and shine, sleepyheads!"

I rolled over and groaned. Well, good morning to you, too, Alice.

Since he'd slept on his recliner, Charlie beat me to the door. His face softened into an expression of utter indulgence as soon as Alice stepped inside, who looked immaculate, as always.

I was in sweatpants.

"You know I told you that you didn't have to keep coming 'round," Charlie said gruffly. He was breathing heavily, a little winded, just from walking to the door.

She beamed up at him, laying it on real thick—golden puppy dog eyes and all. "Aww," she said with a cute little pout, "but I've missed you."

And just like that, Charlie melted.

Why had I never been able to do that to him?

Alice patted his forearm gently and led him back to his chair in the living room. "I was hoping I could drag you two out to lunch today." Her eyes shifted to where I stood in the doorway. A delicate, perfectly-shaped black eyebrow tilted upward at me.

I frowned at her. "Actually," I said, "uh…" I looked at my father and bit at my lip, feeling a little self-conscious now that morning had come and I had to ask my father to go to lunch with Edward and me. Oh, well. Fuck it. "Dad, I've been seeing this guy, Edward Masen, and he's coming by at twelve to have lunch with us, so we've got plans, if you're okay with that. Oh, and it'd be really great if you could be nice to him, okay?" Since he basically held your daughter together last night.

Alice grinned at me, the corners of her eyes crinkling with her amusement. "Mind if I tag along?" she asked.

"I guess that'd be fine," I said hesitantly. "We didn't make any concrete decisions…"

"Clearly." She smirked.

Charlie huffed in his chair. "Don't I get a say in all this? And who's this guy? Masen? How long have you been seeing him?"

"It's Edward, Dad. And not long"—only the one time if you counted non-coincidental meetings, if that was what they truly were—"and there's no label on it, so be nice." Please.

"You meet this boy at school?" He coughed and patted at his chest.

I chose to ignore the elephant in the room that was his perpetual illness and rolled my eyes. "No, I met him…" What should I say? It was creepy to say Edward and I met at the bed and breakfast in Seattle and then found out we both lived in Port Angeles. Retired Chief Swan didn't believe in those sorts of coincidences. I wasn't sure yet that I did. "I met him at work," I lied, hoping my face wasn't giving me away. "He was buying a book."

"Why didn't you tell me about him sooner?"

"Because I didn't want the third degree." That I'm getting right now. I wanted to stick my tongue out at him, but I managed to refrain.

Alice gave Charlie's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "I'm sure everything will be fine, Charlie." Deciding that the conversation was over, she turned on her heel and headed straight for me, a look of determination on her face. "Upstairs," she commanded.

"What?"

She waved a bag in front of me that I hadn't noticed she was holding. "I brought you something to wear today."

"What?" I asked her as we went upstairs. "Why?"

She sighed, as if exasperated. "Because I thought you'd look nice in what I've brought. And it's a good thing I brought you something, since we're meeting your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend," I muttered. Is he?

"Whatever," Alice said with a shrug before shoving a set of clothes into my arms. "Go shower and put these on. I'll do your hair when you get out."

"I can do my own hair, Alice."

Short as she was, she had to look up at me with her deep frown. "Was I or wasn't I right that everything worked out with Hal's?" she whispered so there was no chance of Charlie hearing. The Cullens were the only ones in Forks who knew I had dropped out of college and was working two jobs; they also knew not to tell Charlie that, even if they didn't like my decision.

I frowned back at her. "Yeah. You were right," I grumbled. "And how the hell were you so right, anyway?"

She giggled. "It was a hunch." She turned back toward my bedroom. "So is this. So don't sass me."

And so I didn't, because I had a hunch of my own that Alice just might be psychic.

Nah…

Author's Notes (August 30, 2010): As always, a special thanks to duskwatcher2153 and Aleeab4u. SotPM really wouldn't be the same without them.

Author's Notes (January 26, 2011): Cleaning house / editing.