(AN)-Disclaimer: I do not own any publicly recognizable plot or characters. No copy-right infringement is intended.

I don't even own my heart anymore. It belongs to you guys. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. The fact that you want to share in this journey with me means more than I could express without the use of a flow chart and graphs and a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't have the time to make.

When Life Gives You Lemons: Eat Them

Paper thin convection

Turning another page,

Plotting how to build myself to be

Everything that I am not at all.

Sometimes I get tired of pins and needles,

Facades are a fire on the skin.

And I'm growing fond of broken people,

As I see that I am one of them

~Pins and Needles, Mutemath

Chapter Five- In This Skin

The next morning, Rose and I set out to Charlie's house. Our mission was to clean out his fridge so nothing festered, and to procure a few items to bring to him at the hospital. As we pulled into the driveway, I spotted an old Chevy truck. If it was in working order, maybe I could ask Charlie if I could borrow it. That way Rose wouldn't have to play my chauffer for the next 3 or 4 months. If Forks was anything like my childhood memories, it didn't offer a whole lot in the way of entertainment, but Rose could take a drive up to Port Angeles. When I mentioned my idea to her, she scoffed, and wrinkled her nose at the faded red Chevy.

"Really, Bella, I worry about your taste in vehicles. The truck you left in Phoenix was bad enough, but this lawn ornament? It's practically prehistoric!"

"As long as it can get me from Point A to Point B, I don't care if it's from the Mesozoic era." I replied as we walked up the front steps.

I checked under the welcome mat for the spare key which I knew would be there. It wasn't as if Charlie needed to hide it. This neighborhood was the type that was so safe you could leave your homes unlocked without concern. It was like a really wet, moss-ridden version of Pleasantville.

When I opened the front door, I expected what anyone would expect when entering the home of a single male. I expected a disaster area. But while the furniture was in poor shape, and a few beer cans had been left on kitchen table, it was relatively clean.

"Your dad is really clean." Rosalie remarked, staring around in awe.

"He's usually at work, or fishing the majority of the time," I answered with a small smile.

I got Rose started on cleaning out the fridge, throwing anything away that would perish relatively soon. She didn't have much to work with, though. Apparently my father's food shopping consisted mainly of beer and microwaveable dinners.

With a shake of my head, I headed upstairs to get Charlie some creature comforts. I paused at the top of the stairs, my eyes roaming to the door of what had been my bedroom, which was slightly ajar. I tiptoed towards it, and gently urged the door further forward, stepping in for a peek. A soft gasp fluttered past my lips.

When their children are no longer in need of their bedrooms, most parents take the opportunity to turn it into an office space, game room, or a home gym. I hadn't been to Forks since I was 11 years old, but Charlie had left my room untouched, a time capsule of my youth. The small, single bed was covered by the same purple polka dotted sheets and frilly pillows that had encased me when I'd believed in the Boogey Man and Santa Claus. On the purple walls hung drawings from the mind of a child who believed in Unicorns and endless possibilities. Some of my old toys lingered, forgotten and unused, in the corners; relics of my past.

Guilt ate away at me, as I stared at the proof of my long absence from my father's life. I had a flash back of one of my last visits here; Charlie had wanted to take me fishing but I had vehemently protested, much preferring to stay home and watch the television. The visit had felt like a burden to me, and I had selfishly squandered my time with him; time that had become dangerously close to being cut off.

I was torn from my guilty reminiscing by the vibration of my cell phone in my pocket. Renee's ringtones wafted, muted, through the denim of my jeans. I hadn't had the presence of mind to call and inform her.

"Hey, Mom."

"Bella, where are you? I called the house phone last night and this morning, and you didn't answer."

"Um…I'm not in Phoenix, Mom. I'm…" I couldn't keep my voice even, "I'm in Forks. With dad. He had a heart attack."

The other end of the line was silent.

"Mom, did you hear me?"

Renee's voice answered, sounding soft and unsure. "Yes…I heard you. Is…how is he?"

"The doctors think he should recover okay. It's going to take some time though, three or four months. I'm…I'm gonna stay, Mom. I can't leave him here, you know he won't take care of himself the way he should."

"Yes, you're probably right. Are you…where are you staying?" She didn't sound like a mother checking up on the condition of her child, but like a younger sister, looking up to me for affirmation that things were fine and she didn't need to worry. Most of the time I was okay with that…but right now…I wanted her to be the strong one. I wanted her to tell me it would be okay. I needed her to step up to the plate and be the grown-up.

I brought Renee up to speed on my situation, explaining my plan of action. She seemed exceedingly happy that Rosalie was with me. Perhaps it made her feel like she had an excuse to not step up to the plate herself. After a few more minutes, I couldn't stand the awkwardness of the conversation anymore. My mother sounded relieved when I said I needed to go. The absence of sympathy, of a responsibility to comfort her terrified child, left me with an angry feeling, deep in the pits of my insides.

After gathering the requested supplies for Charlie, Rose and I headed to the hospital. He was feeling tired, so our visit didn't last long. He was getting his stints put in tomorrow, and I wanted him to get as much rest as possible. With his blessing to use the old truck, which he said ran like a beauty, and the whereabouts of the keys explained, we left my father to get his rest.

Rosalie took a look at the truck, and confirmed that it would 'run well enough for a lawn ornament'. I smiled and sent her home, opting to handle grocery shopping on my own. The too small aisles and mass amounts of rude jerks that filled them were hard enough to deal with without having another person with you that you needed to communicate with.

But then again…I was in a small town…in the middle of nowhere. As I pulled into a parking space outside the grocery store, I took stock of the maybe six cars that were there. Well Forks had one thing going for it.

The curse of a small town however, is that everyone knows everyone; especially the Police Chief. So the few people I came across in the aisles immediately guessed who I was, and ran over to say hello, ask me how my father was, and send him well wishes. Their concern was sweet, but it kind of elongated my shopping trip. Then again, if I had to weigh my options, I'd pick some well wishing townspeople over an aggressive granny with a cart any day.

I left the store in a much improved mood and slowly surveyed the rest of the shopping centre. There was a pharmacy, a nail salon, a Chinese take out place, and nestled in between a Dunkin Donuts and an ice cream parlor, was a gym. The irony of this placement caused me to release a loud chuckle as I put my groceries in the car.

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"Bells, you can't sit in my room for the next three months. I'm fine… go, have some fun."

I crossed my arms and leaned back further into the chair. Charlie's stints had been successfully placed early this morning, and I'd been sitting with him for some 3 or 4 hours now. "This is fun."

My father harrumphed cantankerously. "You enjoy watching fishing on the television? Darling, I messed up my heart, not my brain. Get out of here and go do something with Rose. Your hovering is driving me nuts." He gave me his police chief stink eye until I reluctantly gathered my things and shuffled out the door.

Rosalie jumped up and down like an excited puppy when I walked in the door. If she had been a dog, her tail would have been wagging like an out of control pendulum. "Let's go shopping!"

The look on my face was probably akin to the look on a child's face when you told them they had to eat all their vegetables at dinner.

But Rosalie Hale was not easily deterred when she was on a mission.

She fluttered in front of me determinately, her big blue eyes wide with excitement at the prospect of clothes and shoes and purses. "Come on, Bella! Therapeutic shopping…it's good for the soul. I really want to go to Port Angeles."

I decided it was better for me to raise the white flag of surrender, or else Rose would torture me for the rest of the night. "Ugh fine. But we're ending the night with a movie and I get to choose."

"Deal!" Rose agreed, the triumph of victory coloring her voice.

I'm not the kind of girl that likes shopping, probably for obvious reasons. Add on top of that natural hatred the fact that Rosalie was always attempting to get me to try on all sorts of things outside of my comfort zone, and it was a recipe for disaster. Port Angeles only had one clothing store that offered products in my size, and they were the kind of clothes that were so tacky my grandma wouldn't even wear them. This gave me an excuse to abstain from trying anything on, instead following Rosalie about while she modeled outfit after outfit. Mercifully, she grew bored after an hour, which was more like five minutes in 'Rose shopping time'.

We went to dinner at a small restaurant that offered possibly the best mushroom ravioli I had ever eaten. Rosalie didn't eat much of her lemon-butter salmon, she was too busy getting rid of the handful of guys that walked up to hit on her.

I stabbed at my meal sullenly. "It's like you have a freaking magnet in you."

"Yeah, it's called confidence." Rosalie answered. "If you'd sit up instead of slouching, and wear something that accentuated your assets, you'd be fine."

This made me roll my eyes. "Oh yeah…revealing more of my stretch mark covered, lumpy flesh would really get me more traffic."

"That! That damn defeated, bitter attitude, Bella! That's what's holding you back. You don't think there are any plus sized girls in the world who have boyfriends, and success, and fulfillment? You know I love you, but sometimes the only one making you a victim is yourself, and you're never going to get anywhere if you don't stop."

"Wow, Rose, when did you turn into Dr. Phil?"

I was answered with an irritated sigh. We finished the rest of our dinner in uneasy silence.

We headed to the movie theater, but the only film I'd really wanted to see apparently wasn't showing anymore. I tended to lose track of current films, and this wasn't the first time I'd gone somewhere intending to see a film that had been out of theaters for months.

Not ready to go home yet, Rosalie suggested we just walk around and look for any interesting shops. There was a homemade jewelry shop that we browsed in for a while. I found a gorgeous locket necklace that hung low, with a tiny key charm next to it. The front of the locket was made up of curled twists of metal colored a gorgeous, antique kind of bronze. I was tempted to buy it, but ended up leaving it behind. I didn't buy nice things. In fact, I didn't own any jewelry. I tended to wear frumpy, ill fitted clothing, and adding a nice necklace on top just seemed a bit ridiculous.

Rosalie ended up leading us into a bookstore next. I was surprised by the size of it. Rose went off in search of a new romance novel that had come out, while I meandered about without intent. As I weaved in and out of book aisles, I began to let my mind wander. I kept thinking about what Rose had said at dinner. When I looked up again, I realized I was standing in the health section of the store, in front of a row of shelves marked 'Diet and Nutrition'.

Way to be subtle subconscious. Fine, you win.

Except it wasn't that easy. The range and titles of the books left me extremely overwhelmed. Some sounded ridiculously Zen, boasting titles like "A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever". What? Then there were the 'sounds too good to be true' titles, such as "The Belly Fat Cure: Discover the New Carb Swap System and Lose 4 to 9 lbs. Every Week" Really? If it were possible to follow the directions of a book, and lose 4 to 9 lbs every week, I would think there would be no overweight people in this country at all. And finally there were 'get real' books that approached weight loss from a 'let's change your mind and your lifestyle'. These had brutally honest titles full of promise, such as "This Is Why You're Fat (and How to Get Thin Forever): Eat More, Cheat More, Lose More-and Keep the Weight Off"

Where the heck did one even start? Half of these books had conflicting views from the one next to them. This one said less carbs, more protein. This one said less fat, more carbs. Some titles suggested eating a specific food group, or even a specific food. I saw titles like "The Grapefruit Diet" or the "Spicy Food Detox".

It all left me with an overwhelming feeling of 'What the hell?'

"What are you doing?"

I practically jumped out of my skin as Rose's voice interrupted my perusal of a book entitled "Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It!" Because hey, they say sex sells. A sexy diet sounded good to me.

Snapping the book shut, I tried to play it cool. "Did you get your book? Are you ready to go?"

Rose approached me like a lioness crawling up on her prey. "Nice attempt to change the subject. What are you doing?"

Caught red handed, I replaced the book on the shelf, trying not to look at her. "It's not a big deal, okay, Rose? I was just…thinking. I guess all the stuff with my dad is making me take my own health into consideration. So I was just looking for some information."

Suddenly I was being tackled by a mop of blonde hair. Rose practically squealed as she hugged me so hard I thought my bones were going to crack. When she pulled away, I could have almost sworn that she looked a little misty eyed.

"I'm really proud of you, Bella. I think that's a really good path to be looking into going down."

After attacking me with another round of hugs, Rose agreed to let me drop the subject. She had a spring in her step the rest of the night though, and it made me nervous. I was accountable now that I'd said something to her. She was going to expect things of me now, and if I didn't deliver…there would be disappointment.

How do I get myself into these situations? Oh right…because I'm an idiot.

Later that night, I lay in my bed, yet again unable to move past the outer edges of sleep. Perhaps a midnight snack was in order. Rose's door was shut, but I wasn't sure if she was asleep. I tiptoed quietly as possible, out into the kitchen.

Hmm…what's a healthy late night/early morning snack?

The bag of apples sitting on the kitchen counter seemed like a good idea. I pulled one out, and rinsed it out in the sink. This, however, turned out to be a bad move, because the sink was right next to the counter space where Esme's baked goodie basket sat. The edge of the cloth covering was turned back, and I could see a homemade double chocolate brownie peeking out at me.

"Eat the apple, Bella." the Angel-me on my shoulder said sweetly.

"Oh come on, Bella." the Devil-me on my other shoulder whispered in my ear. "It'll be one last sweet treat. You've already eaten badly today, there's no point in cutting yourself off cold turkey tonight. You'll start fresh tomorrow."

The little Devil-Bella made a good point. Just one brownie wouldn't hurt.

"Or you could eat two brownies, and do an extra half an hour of walking tomorrow..." the Devil-me goaded in sinister tones.

"Don't do it!" Angel-Bella warned. "One turns into two, two turn into five. You know this. Stop now. Start the path now. The apple will give you strength."

"You'll regret it in the morning..." Devil-Bella whispered. "You'll regret that you didn't have your last fling with the good stuff. That apple offers you no satisfaction."

I glared down at the apple. What the hell was so tempting about an apple anyway? I'd never understood the whole 'Eve and the apple' story. Now weave me a story where Eve gets tempted by a chocolate brownie in the Bakery of Good and Evil, and that I'd believe.

Putting the apple down, I reached into the basket and pulled out a brownie. It smelled like sweetness, and happiness, and comfort. Angel-Bella gave a mournful wail and disappeared, while Devil-Bella gave a triumphant yell and fist-pumped the sky.

It was just one last time; one last tryst with my good friend Mr. Temptation. Tomorrow I would wake up to a new day, and I would say goodbye to the evils of carbs and over processed sugars. I finished the last bite of brownie number one, and pulled out number two from the basket. Yes, tomorrow, I would get a restraining order against temptation and kick it out of my life forever.

What I didn't realize is that temptation is like a crazy lifetime movie stalker. No matter how far or fast you run, it always manages to get a hold of your forwarding address.

(AN)-And there we have it. See you guys next week. *rains hugs and kisses upon you all*