Author's Note: This chapter was beta'd by my Trifuckta girl jkane180. Mac214 was busy with an readalong of her awesome fic Coming Through the Rye tonight and wordslinger is moving across the country! Twisurfgrl helped me out with a pre-read and did a wonderful job!
This chapter is dedicated to Claireoth because it's her birthday :)
Facebook Status: OMG I totally drowned again!
Fuck Billy Black and the horse he rode in on. Well, maybe not the horse. There was no reason for the horse to take it up the ass.
I was slightly hung-over. Actually, judging by the way I was swaying on my feet as I stood on the rickety old porch of the Black house, I suspected I was still a fairly blotto. The door screamed on its hinges as Billy opened it. His eyes were squinted in at the corners, his expression somewhat weary.
"Uh, hey. I need to see Jake," I said, twitching uncomfortably. Billy made no move to let me in. "You could use some WD40 for those hinges," I added.
"Jake's sleeping." His voice was kind of gruff. Who the fuck pissed in his cornflakes?
"Okay..." I stuffed my hands in my pockets.
"We should talk though, Bella."
"Why?" I asked rudely. I didn't meant to be a jerk, but I had no idea what in the world Billy and I would ever need to discuss.
"Come in," he finally invited, rolling his wheelchair back away from the doorframe.
"Nah, I'm good. I'll just wait in my truck."
"Don't be silly."
"Nah." It appeared we were at some sort of ridiculous impasse. We stared at each other for a minute until I couldn't stand looking at his weathered, leathery skin any longer. "Yeah, I'm gonna go. Can you tell Jake I'm at the beach when he wakes up?"
"Wait, Bella. What do you know about imprinting?"
My phone was beeping. Did Jake try to text me last night while I was flicking the bean to Sex-Hair? Shame instantly filled me.
"Wha?" I dug my phone out of my pocket just as Billy rolled himself forward onto the old covered porch, the wood squeaking beneath his wheels.
"Did Jacob tell you about imprinting?"
"Er... like with carbon paper?" All that I could think of was taking an impression of a credit card for a receipt, but imprinting would be kind of outdated. "Do merchants still imprint credit cards?"
"I don't think you understand me. Animals imprint in the wild."
"Like ducks?"
"No."
"Cats?"
"Wolves, Bella."
"No, I don't think wolves imprint." Who would give a wolf a credit card? Oh my god, my inner monologue was fucking hilarious! Too bad I didn't suffer from a multiple personality disorder; only I was privy to this fuckery.
Billy opened his mouth to keep yammering, and I realized I needed to change the subject, lest I be regaled with another stupid legend. "Did I leave my diaphragm in your bathroom?"
"I'll let Jacob know you're at the beach," he said curtly, shutting the door.
-({})-
I couldn't quite breathe right. There were three messages on my phone:
E.A. Cullen - Ohai pretty girl. You left your registration package when you bolted yesterday. jsyk, I'm a complete dick.
Phil Dwyer - Isabella, please call me. I miss you.
E.A. Cullen - BTW I didn't mean that I didn't want to be friends, only that you were better off not being friends with me. Sorry for the cryptic message.
-({})-
It was way too cold for late August by the ocean, and the waves were positively violent. I really wanted to pull my iPhone out of my raincoat to check my messages, but I was worried about it getting wet. The windblown water was nearly torrential. I chewed on a chunk of hair - an annoying latent childhood habit - and sucked on the ice that clung to the strands in shards. My frozen hair made me notice how much my teeth were chattering, the wind and ice water burning my skin as the elements assaulted me. This was the very epitome of a pathetic fallacy. I wrapped my arms around my chest in a vain attempt to hold myself together.
Christ, I was an asshole for sitting in an out -of-season ice storm, waiting for Jake to drag his sorry butt out of bed. It would be in my best interest to go home and indulge in a hot bath and a lazy day, but I was trying to avoid Charlie's wrath. Dude was going to ground me for drinking his crap beer. Couldn't help jacking his Bud though; I needed the anaesthesia only imbibing copious amounts of alcohol could offer. I was a pathetic void of need, which, I guessed was only slightly better than being a hackneyed vacuum of want.
Even though it was Edward whom I couldn't shake out of my mind, I found myself needing Jake. Yeah, that made me a crappy person, but the way I figured it, I had amassed enough punishment in this lifetime to avoid a little bad karma. I loved Jake. I needed Jake. I was probably using Jake because, despite all of my reasoning, I wanted Edward; a boy I didn't even know. Fuck, my stomach exploded into glorious butterflies as I thought back to my drunken masturbatory fantasy of him, naked and hot and buried deep within me.
I wanted him. Yep, I was indeed a vacuum of stupid want after all. An empty vacuum bag that I wanted him to stuff with... well, his cock. I wanted his cock in my cunt. There was no metaphor for this desire. It was base and primal. I wanted him to fuck me.
The comfort I sought wasn't purely sexual though. I yearned for Jake to hold me. I needed to be soothed and cherished. I needed to feel loved, which was utterly pathetic, but I no longer cared. I was prepared to totally prostrate myself before him, and beg for him to love me fully, body and spirit. Despite my ridiculous bravado, I felt very small and terrified. Lonely.
Bitter bile pooled in my saliva as a memory tried to assault me. Inevitably sex always made me think about... fuck. I wasn't sure how Jake would ever be able to touch me knowing about what happened. Despite what he said, that shit with Phil had to weird him out. I mean, I did my best to block everything out, to forget about what happened. It just wasn't possible. Phil had taken up residence in the darkness behind my eyelids; he stalked me in my dreams like an over-sexed Freddy Krueger.
Just don't fucking think about him, slut. But fuck, it was impossible to avoid memories, and my usual tools of repression didn't seem to work anymore.
I scraped the ice crystals from my hair, only to watch them form again in a matter of seconds. My entire existence was a complete exercise in futility.
I grappled in my pocket for my phone, but it didn't matter; my fingers were too cold to negotiate my email app. I should have just waited for Jake inside the house, like Billy had offered, but couldn't fathom the awkwardness and idiocy of his conversation. Seriously! If I had to listen to him go on about another Quileute legend I swore I'd stab my eardrums with a pencil to spare myself the agony.
Fuck this, I swore to myself, I'm going to wake him up. I grabbed my bag and kicked the wet sand out of my Converse, shaking off my hair like a wet dog.
"Hey, Swan."
"Leave me alone," I replied automatically, not even bothering to see who was calling my surname. I didn't feel like making small talk. Meh, who was I kidding? I turned my head and saw Jake's idiot friend Embry waving like an asshole.
"That's cold." He pretended to sound hurt, and I glowered as he jogged down the beach, looking tastier than an asswipe such as himself had any business looking. Honestly, if I didn't get laid sometime soon, I'd turn into a complete sexual predator. Did all girls my age lust this hard after every warm body, or was I really the freak Phil accused me of being?
My stomach lurched into my chest. An unwelcomed memory invaded my mind, and I couldn't will it away.
"I'm going to vomit," I explained.
"Woah, what's wrong with you?" He took off his coat and wrapped it over my shoulders like a blanket. "You're hot."
"Thanks. You're pretty okay too." The shore was moving. I tried to steel myself for an emotional breakdown of some sort, focusing my vision on the shore. Fruitlessly, I sought out a non-moving object, but everything in my field of vision seemed to be lurching and retreating like the crested swells of the ocean.
"I think you have a fever, Bella. Can you walk to your car?"
"Of course I can, asshole," I snapped and promptly fainted.
-({})-
A scream tore through my throat, and I gurgled as an icy crest of water washed over me. I thrashed, lying prone in the water. Oh, god, I couldn't swim.
I was drowning.
I was totally going to die.
I broke through the surface gasping for air, and my chest burned as my lungs inflated.
"Shh, Bells, calm down." I could hear Jake's voice not too far away, but I was too cold to move.
I coughed and sputtered, grasping weakly for his arm.
"I'm drowning," I shrieked. "I can't swim."
"Bella, you're in the bathtub. Calm down."
"I'm in the ocean," I insisted. I remembered seeing it advance on me before I blacked out.
"No, you're in my bathroom. Open your eyes and look."
I saw a faded green tub surround and brown, daisy-covered shower curtains. I saw Jake's face looking down on me. I also saw my nipples.
"Your shower curtains are ugly," I said, completely mortified. I was too cold and distraught to ask obvious questions, such as why I was naked in a bathtub. I tried to sit up, but Jake pushed me back into the water. "I'm cold," I sobbed.
"You're burning up, Bells. Dr. Cullen said we needed to give you a cold bath to get your fever down."
"I'm naked," I wailed.
He put his hand on my cheek and did his best not to look at my tits. He totally failed though.
"What?" Mortified tears burned my eyes.
"I... it's just..."
"Motherfucking what?" I was losing patience.
"You're just so beautiful, Bella," he sighed and lowered his eyes to his lap. "I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life."
Billy's voice came back to me then. "What do you know about imprinting?"
Author's Note: Yes, this really is an Edward/Bella story, and yes, it really is all human.
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