A/N: I'm getting to like this. Odd, but true.
Chapter 3: Unresolved
I was shocked. Alice seeing something like that? I took an unnecessary breath to steady myself and looked her in the eyes. She wasn't lying. Why would she lie about something like that, anyway? "Give me the details. I don't want to work everyone into a panic when I get home." I sounded much calmer than I was, which Alice must have had noticed, as she relaxed, leaned back in the chair and toned her voice down.
"Bella, we're not gonna die. I said so already. Whatever it is, it can't be worse than that. But on the other hand - Bella, would you stop that? An odd, metallic noise was grating in my ears, and I realized it was coming from my nails cutting into the hard skin of my palms. "Oops." If I could still have blushed, I would be completely red-faced by now.
"Doesn't matter. We'll have to wait it out. As it is, I can feel something on the edges of my consciousness now, but it's too early to see exactly what it is. So anyway, should we go home now?" I'd planned on staying a bit longer with her, but now it was probably best to return. Even with my memory, the trip home was blurry and indistinct, suppressed fear lashing at the inside of my head with every step I took. Alice was our lifeline, the only way we could plan our moves in the more chaotic periods of our existence. About halfway to Forks, I began thinking about possible causes.
The Quileute? That seemed a convincing reason for all of two minutes, and I forced it to remain in my head for three more. But gradually, I began realizing that I was deceiving myself. For that - or Nessie and Lily - to be a possible explanation, the werewolves would have to play a role in all our lives, at the exact same moment, in a way that we couldn't avoid, no matter what we did. Impossible. When we were nearing Forks, I forced the annoying thoughts out of my head and began focusing on Charlie's family party. It was about one o' clock at night, which left me with a lot of time to waste.
The night went faster than I'd expected. Edward and I spent about six hours in the cottage's bedroom. Even though I'd won the wager with Emmett, I could still hear his booming laughter all the way from the house. I decided to ignore it.
Another two hours passed watching Renesmee while she was sleeping, admiring every single detail in her glossy hair, even as a cold, foggy Forks dawn broke above the pine trees. Nessie, Edward and me walked through the forest for the next five hours. Renesmee never got bored once, instead following us from above, leaping from tree to tree and once in a while bursting into excited giggles while me and Edward studied every single animal, every single plant and every odd landscape formation, finding fascinating patterns in the most unassuming things.
By four o' clock, when we got back from the walk, Charlie's party had already started over at his house. Odd how it was so easy not to call it "my house" anymore. I should've thought into the conspiratory smile on Alice's face as we drove there in Edward's Volvo, crammed together in an oddly familiar, human way, because when we pulled up to the house, I realized that there was no way Charlie would have organized all this by himself.
"Family" at least seemed to have a very loose definition in this context, as the cars parked all around were clearly not just close family. Inside, I found out that Alice had helped invite everything that could possibly be called family, together with the families of people who'd married into the Swans and close friends of just about every family member present.
Later, through the mess of shouting, eating, chattering and gossip, I found out that she'd volunteered to let some of the guests sleep in our house, a logical idea, since the amount of people had passed the hundred at about six o' clock, and now, after two more hours spent unwillingly talking to obscure relatives, tolerating various friends of the family undressing me with their eyes and working up the courage to eat something - like Alice had said, it tasted well enough, but afterwards, it stuck in my stomach, and I had to suppress the urge to throw up - the amount was pushing a hundred and fifty.
Even later, I stuck to small-talk with my close family - Charlie, the Cullens and a slightly freaked-out Renee - as the rest had emptied the scarce wine on the tables and were beginning to do beer runs with everyone from the age of twelve. The night passed easily with that, and I realized that I could get pretty close to sleep by just lying down alone, relaxing and not worrying about Alice's words.