The names are not mine, the rest - is.

Balancing Stories

My mom just looked at me with concern, you know, if concern looks like blame. Blame for messing up their "free time." I imagine her welcome home as"Why must you do this to yourself?" and her longing for me to be gone, out of sight, out of mind, as"This was supposed to be the time we get to do the stuff we missed out on." All while we sit at the dinner table as nobody speaks. Dad kind of just acts like it's not a big deal because, I think, it's really probably not to him. He knows my mom will worry enough for the both of them and he is more the... "It'll all work out." parent.

I stab at the green peas on my plate for the second time. I look down at both of my hands and uh, what a fucking mess. I look at the both of them and realise, I look nothing like them. Not really. I have my dad's dark eyes, while my mom's are a hazel green. He has dark hair, an olive complexion, and a full beard covering his smile, fluffy and mysterious - not at all like his personality. My mom is light-haired, pale with freckles, and pretty. An obvious pretty. She has long curly hair, like mine but not really, because I look nothing like them.

My room is like, home again. Home again in the most seriously safe way. I am one hundred percent present to the fact that it's all mine. But it's not me. And I miss Nettie and Rose, and our room at WV.

The walls here are a creamy purple-and-yellow-mix of a child I no longer am and the frames on the wall depict people I don't know anymore. There are frank reasons why I didn't take them with me and it has been an age since I listened to any of the music that sits on the shelves next to my TV. My yellow TV - matching the flowers that run around the light on the ceiling - that I was so excited to get three years ago. Dad told me all the stuff I could do to hook it up to my stereo, rambling about cables and buttons I knew I'd forget as soon as he stopped talking, while mom mumbled something about "Well that's it, Charlie. We'll never see her now; when she's not out at the Res, she'll be in here blasting MTV." She has always been so confusing, a perfect mix of resentment and over protectiveness. My bedroom was my box. My big box of safe ways to hide. And when I wasn't here, well...I don't have that other place anymore either.

Whenever my mom gets flustered, she causes a fuss and we argue. My dad will always attempt to calm her, to contain the rage - he doesn't do stress well - thirty seconds, a shake of his head, two hands either side of her shoulders, "Renee, you have to let it happen. It'll all be okay. Come on now, don't go missing the good parts."

The good parts.

The good parts they don't actually get to live with me. The good parts I make at WV with my new friends, that aren't all that present...most of the time. I know a small group of people at school, like I said, mostly I just watch. I just don't know them like I expected to. I thought I would find friends like the guys down at the Reservation, except maybe more into the worldly things I dream of and the far away places I can't reach, more like me, wanderlusting for a life past this town. Don't get me wrong, they were my best friends at one point or another in time but now it would all just be sad...and angry. I haven't seen any of them since the beginning of summer, and I rarely think of them, except today. Today, a part of me wishes I was thirteen again, sitting round the campfire as Billy tells stories, Jacob and Seth constantly fighting across me as I bat their arms away - I wanted to get lost in those stories. Billy's voice was like another world, in another time. And now, that time is gone, no longer existing in the pale light of today. The people I know at school are more complicated. I don't fit in too easily. Nettie gets on with everyone, even the people she doesn't like. I can't stand the fake pretense of the kids trying to put on a show for other people. Can't they just admit they like each other or that they don't? Can't they just admit that they're all searching for something too? Maybe I'm a hypocrite; I pretended a little for Edward, didn't I? I didn't speak when I really wanted to. I tried to be cool instead. I tried not to try so hard. I tried to just wait, and I spoke to him only when I thought I had something to say. Granted that something was turtles, but I think by now we both know there is something there, something beyond all the rambling and awkwardness.

I don't know what happened. I don't know why he got carried away with me today. He is so strong. I remember how it felt having him hold me, my fingers wrapped in his and I didn't want it to ever end. Except I got anxious, dizzy inside. High on Edward. His was just a physical reaction to the newness instead of my nervous and scared one.

He said he wanted to say hello and hold my hand every day, and to find out why I make those little boxes. When does he see me in Marshall's class? And I think of all the times he's looked at me, looking at something else. I don't know if he does see me when I sneak up to the attic - the empty classrooms that nobody uses - the first few times I went up there, small groups of art students would use the scoops to paint in. But after a few months, they stopped showing up. I saw Edward though, among that group, just sitting, sometimes reading. I fantasized that he was there to see me. But he never once came over. And he never hung around. Except once. I left real late one night and parties had already begun all over campus; Edward was hanging around outside the tech building across from the art building, just waiting. It was at that point, I convinced myself he must have a girlfriend, who he must have been waiting for. But I never saw her. I've only ever seen him with the grungy kid and his girlfriend, a big dark haired guy that I sometimes see Rose talking to, and then a bunch of the guys from the team.

It was so weird waking up at his house, so quiet and surreal. His dad seemed nice. He fixed me up and I should probably call and say thank you. Maybe I'll just write a note and give it to Edward in class. Except, he might not be there. I don't get why he has to leave. He said he might not be in class. What does that mean? And why is he being so extreme? What kind of response is that?

Maybe it was all too much too soon. Maybe I came on too strong and now he just, wants to get away from me. I fucking fainted. Who wants to deal with that, right?

We haven't even kissed.

So I think about it being bad, it's easier that way. I mean, what if he tastes bad? What if he bites my lip by accident?

At the party, he was so beautiful. So dark and mysteriously distant from me. So high and relaxed. So sexy and languid. His perfect eyes and his perfect teeth.

No. Edward Cullen would be a good kisser.

But maybe I won't ever know now. I fall back onto my bed, the moonlit shadows dancing inside the petals of the flowers on the ceiling. I'm so turned around by the time it takes to do everything, to think over the rush of the past two days, both of my hands hurt and my body is yelling at me non-stop.

I sleep for days it seems. And all I dream of is Edward.

Edward holding my hand down so I can't leave. Edward carrying me across the parking lot. Edward stroking my face. Edward taking my blood, playing lines along my skin as I lie in an alleyway hooked up to a machine that won't stop beeping.

Edward sitting in my room at WV as he takes my books off the shelf.

Edward sitting in my room here. At home, while I sleep. Waking me up and telling me he made a mistake.

I wake up each night, sweaty and cold. I have a fever and I think I'm like, fucking insane now from the lack of normalcy.

After three days of suffocation from my mom's passive aggressive tone and my dad's nonchalance, my hand doesn't ache so much anymore, so I decide I'm going to tell them it's time to go back to school. I decide I need to find Edward and make him tell me the things he pretends he can't say. I decide it's not over yet, because it hasn't even begun and he isn't the one who can make those decisions for me.

AN:

The Boy pre-reads my slow spinning crazy, he's waiting for the lusty goods just like us!
Next chapter: Saturday

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samrosey. xo