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Death to the Non-Believer

Chapter 6

It took almost an hour between explanations, ice, and convincing the receptionist not to call Chief Swan, for me to finally end up at the nurse's office. It took less than ten minutes for the nurse to thoroughly inspect me, deem me non-terminal, and send me on my less than merry way. It wasn't until after I'd left the nurse and started heading towards the parking lot that I realized I had no idea where the parking lot was. I obviously couldn't ask for directions, since even Bella wouldn't have forgotten the lot where she had parked just that morning. Mike had said something about parking near the office… Luckily the deserted campus left no one to witness my aimless wandering before I finally stumbled upon the parking lot, which stretched narrowly along one side of the school. It was no where near the office. It occurred to me that I had no idea what Bella's infamous truck looked like, or even where her keys were, but once I rounded a corner I realized it would be easy to find, since the lot was totally barren. In fact, I didn't see any vehicles, Bella's included. I continued to walk down the lot, rounding a corner building that I had already forgotten the name of when I saw it: the beast.

I screamed and broke into a run down the sloped lot. It was beautiful. It was a behemoth, an ancient road warrior… and now, it was mine. I was stunned. I ran my hands over the aged, sun-bleached red paint, walked around to its bed and felt the thick curves which had gone out of production in the sixties at the latest. It wasn't a truck: it was a tank. I remembered an old battered blue truck that I used to pass on the way home from school years ago, and how I had thought it must have resembled Bella's car. I had been totally wrong. Nothing could have matched the corroded majesty of my rusty giant. I could have mowed down redwood forests with this baby. If I had been the mowing down redwood forests type. I resisted the urge to hug the driver's side door when I came to it, glad that no one had seen the odd greeting ritual.

I dug into my left pocket without thinking, and pulled out a drab set of keys. I would have to fix that – I was obsessed with danglies and keychains and the like. I climbed (literally) into the looming cab of the truck, and tossed my backpack on the passenger's seat, taking in the cracked beige leather that covered the interior. It just needed a cross hanging from the rearview, and it would be perfect. Or maybe something else. I might need to wear my crosses if I stayed in this book much longer. Or did that not work on Edward… I couldn't remember. I jammed the key into the ignition and let out a sigh of satisfaction as the truck roared deafeningly to life all around me. It was like riding in the belly of an angry bear. I was about to put it into gear when my hand paused: I had no idea how to put it into gear. In my excitement, I had conveniently forgotten that I had only just started learning to drive back home: I couldn't drive an auto-shift more than five miles an hour, let alone this hulking, stick-shifting beast. I looked down at my feet and stared at an ominous third pedal I had never seen before, which I could only assume was the clutch. At least the break and the gas were still in the same place… I think.

I glanced out the window. I glanced at my feet. I stared at the wheel. I stared at the clutch again.

This would not end well.

I contemplated calling Chief Swan, telling him the truck had broken down… of course then when he got to the school and realized it was fine, I would still be expected to drive it home. Did Forks have Triple-A? Doubtfully. Maybe if it was close I could push—

Yeah, RIGHT.

Ok, obviously I couldn't push this thing two inches, let alone all the way home. Maybe I could… Maybe… I…

Dammit.

I sat there in my metal monster, completely stumped. I might as well pull out the keys and walk… I looked down at the keys, clutched in my finger tips, still in the ignition, half turned, and it dawned on me: I hadn't known where the keys had been. I would have had no way of knowing, without even a bulge or a jingle-jangle in the puffy coat to give it away. Yet I'd reached for them automatically… just as I'd corrected Coach Clapp to "Bella" automatically…

Maybe… no. Could I?? No. It was preposterous!! …but maybe…

"Ok, Bella," I said out loud, "if you're in there somewhere… make my day." I sat back and stared at the steering wheel again, waiting for inspiration to strike.

"Ok," I repeated in the stillness. A frog croaked somewhere in the distance. "….aaaaaanytime now."

Nothing happened.

DAMMIT.

I breathed slowly out and in. There was no alternative. I hoped driving a stick shift wasn't as hard as it looked. I hoped driving a tank wasn't as hard as it looked. Knowing my luck, it was probably even worse. Oh well. Maybe I could figure it out.

Fat chance, said a nagging voice of reason in my head. I sighed.

"Ok, let's do this." I was a space case and I talked to myself. Maybe I was actually totally insane, and all of this was just a hallucination. I paused on that for a moment: it made more sense than anything else had all day. Apparently, even in my own hallucinations I couldn't drive. Great. I took the keys back out of the ignition, then back in and turned. I closed my eyes and rested my hands on the steering wheel. My foot stretched out for the clutch. Automatically. I opened my eyes and smiled.

Yes.

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By the time I found my way to Chief Swan's house, I had meandered over about four times as many miles of road as I needed to. I had realized after I'd left the school (and once I was a ways down an unfamiliar highway) that I had no idea where Bella's house was, or even what it looked like. This was going to be harder than I thought. After passing it three or four times, I noticed a house with a squad car parked out front. I was hoping Forks only had one policeman, or at least only one that drove his squad car home.

I pulled into the driveway and hopped out of Jefferson – no, Reginald – no, Theodore – I would have to come up with a name for the beloved truck eventually, and I had been working on it most of the way home. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought of anything I actually liked. I grabbed my bag and sauntered up the walk to an old once-white house that looked like it should be haunted. I paused in front of the damp little porch and frowned, looking from the house's ancient and rusted roof fixtures, to its curled and peeling shingles, to its weather-beaten walls, all the way down to the splattery brown stains running all around the bottom that seemed to be the mark of a decade's worth of rotted foliage. I was no princess: I hadn't been expecting the Ritz. But this would take some getting used to. As I walked through the front door, I hoped that the place would at least smell better than it looked. It didn't. Charlie must have been a fish guy. I was not. I hated fish; especially the smell, which permeated every inch of the kitchen. I held my breath and walked through to the living room. I looked over the back of a large plush couch and found a man sprawled across it, snoring so loudly that he drowned out the sports announcers blaring on the TV in the background. As I leaned over him and grabbed for the remote, I saw that — to my relief — the lapel on his furry-collared police jacket read "Chief Swan". His snoring seemed even louder after I put the game on mute.

Once I had trudged upstairs, it didn't take long to figure out which room was Bella's: of the three rooms on the second floor only two were bedrooms, and I was betting Chief Swan didn't have lace curtains. I flopped onto the fluffy bed in the middle of Bella's room. This must be the dream of a million Twilight fans across the world: to see Bella's room, to lie in her bed, to live her ridiculously fragile life. The Edward parts I wouldn't count, since they were overrated thus far; but beyond that, I was living the impossible fantasy of thousands of girls, any of whom I would have traded places with in an instant. But it wasn't Edward Cullen's #1 fan lying here in Bella's shoes, literally: it was me. And all I wanted was to get home. But how? I didn't even have any clue how I'd gotten here in the first place. I buried my face in Bella's pillow with a groan. It smelled like strawberry pudding. I sighed as I rolled over and stared out the window, basking in the pitter-patter of the raindrops against the clean glass.

Compared to the rest of the house, Bella's room felt totally out of place: tidy, cheerful, bright. I wondered if Charlie had fixed up the room once he'd found out his daughter would be coming to stay. No doubt he'd been the one who had staple-gunned a long phone line along the floor, which connected to a bulky, boxy computer. I slid over to the desk and booted it, hoping to find some clue that would help me keep up my Bella-charade. Some case files and character bios would have been nice, but I wasn't holding my breath. Fortunately, her password was auto-remembered on her computer. Unfortunately, it contained almost nothing — didn't Bella keep a diary or something? — but her inbox was already full of mail from her mother. I tried to remember how long it had been since Bella left Phoenix, without success. The emails were almost identical:

Dear Bella,

How are you darling/sweetheart/honeybun? I haven't heard from you in 2 hours/7 hours/24 hours/the last 5 seconds. Did Charlie/your father/that man install the internet connection like he was supposed to? You know if you change your mind/get lonely/feel homesick, or if Forks is too cold/rainy/uncomfortable/full of blood-sucking monsters for you, you can always call/email/write/fly home immediately.

Love/Love/Love/Love,

Mom

By the time I logged out, I was giggling quietly to myself. As far as I was concerned, Bella had hit the parental jackpot. Of course Charlie (from what I remembered of the book) was a bit clingy and under-emotional, and Bella's mother – from what I'd read – was moderately clingy and over-emotional; but if those were their main flaws, they were definitely keepers in my book. Maybe Bella had used up all her good luck on great parents, and that was why she had absolutely none left for average day-to-day luck things like not sitting next to undead lab partners who want to eat you. At any rate, Bella and her mother were obviously very close. I wondered if I would get to meet her…

Or Charlie for that matter, who I heard still snoring away downstairs. I could see right away that Charlie was going to be the biggest problem: he'd known Bella from birth, whereas I'd only known her from this morning. He would be the first one to catch on to anything out of place in Bella's usual behavior, and my usual behavior was about as 'Bella-like' as it was… well, nothing. I would have to pull the still-adjusting act around Charlie, at least until we got to know each other a little better. That is, if I was going to be in the book that long. I'd been acting like a permanent resident all day, but the truth was that I could have been back home at any minute. Surely if I'd been dumped into Forks out of the blue, I could be rescued just as suddenly. I could be standing in front of Bella's sink tomorrow morning, and the—

My eyes flew wide as I leapt out of bed. Why hadn't I thought of it before??

I bolted out the door and down the hall, skidding to a stop at the bathroom and turning both knobs on the sink as far as they would go. I wiggled first one, then the other, tested more hot, less cold, one, the other, trying to create the same cold steam from this morning. The tap ran irregularly, gurgling hopefully at random intervals as I watched it, transfixed. A minute passed, two, five.

Nothing.

The sink steadily started to fill with water, and with an inward groan I relented. Maybe the sink had to be broken, like mine? I could see how that conversation would go: 'Hey, Charlie, can we break the sink? I should really learn to fix a sink you know, because I'll be off to college soon and on my own and then I'll need to know how to fix my own sink and I can only fix one now if it's broken first, so let's break this one. …All the other girls at school are doing it.' I bet that would go over just swimmingly.

"Like some stupid sink is going to be some kind of mystic portal or something anyway," I muttered, leaning my forehead against the cool glass of the mirror with an exasperated sigh. After a few deep breaths, I stood up and nearly screamed at the girl who appeared out of nowhere in front of me. My heart raced as I took in the earthy brown hair, the heart-shaped face, the alabaster skin… I blinked, and the girl blinked back at me. It was Bella — I was Bella. I glanced over her delicate nose, her stubborn chin, her long eyelashes, her frail frame… this was me? I touched Bella's face and felt her fingers on my cheek. I pursed her lips and felt the blood rushing in my own. It was real. I saw it and felt it and breathed it and watched Bella stare back at me and knew that it was no hallucination. I didn't know how, or why, but it was no dream: I had really become Bella. Well, except for one minor detail: my eyes weren't the deep chocolate brown I remembered from the book, but the same soft sea-green that had always stared back at me. I blinked and focused on the familiar irises, each yellow spec, each blue semi-circlet still in place.

I didn't realize I was crying until I saw a fat tear roll off Bella's cheek and fall into the sink. I couldn't have said why. Maybe it was the realization that I wasn't going to wake up and find out that everything had been a nightmare. Maybe it was the compounding frustration of the entire day. Maybe it was the shock of two near-death experiences. Or maybe it was the comfort that, trapped as I was in Bella's life, Bella's story, Bella's body, a little piece of me was still infused. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve – Bella's tear ducts may have been hyperactive, but I was no crybaby. I stared at myself in the mirror silently, with only the sound of the rain and Charlie's snores.

It'll be ok, I reasoned to the Bella reflection. Edward will know how tasty you are now, so he won't get close anymore. You don't have to worry about school, you already know everything you're being taught. You just have to hang around and play house until whatever put you here in the first place decides to put you back. I became more confident as the argument went along. It made sense: without the threat that Edward presented, I really only had to wait. There was no need to panic. It was just like an extended vacation in a place with great weather. An adventure.

Patience. All I needed was my wits and some patience. I retreated to Bella's bed and lay watching the rain. I was a patient person, or I could be. I crawled beneath the covers and stared at the pointed ceiling.

I would have to be.

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A/N: Ahhhh, kind of a boring chapter (not a stitch of dialogue!), sorry. I think it's kind of an important one though, and it took a lot of abstract thinking lol. Btw, any thoughts on the name of Bella's truck? I'm taking suggestions~