Author's Note: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to all you crazy bitches participating in NaNo! Good luck and hang in their kitties. Big boobie snuzzles to my betas Mac214 and Jkane180.
Facebook Status: Updating from the bathroom. I'm in Hell.
Hunter S. Thompson said, "You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when it's waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye."
So fucking true. Not that I was defending my behaviour; I just needed to set the scene properly.
I realized the third day of school held no promise as I loitered in the parking lot. I lounged in my truck with my head flat against the window and my legs draped over the dusty armrest thinking about misery. With a crudely-rolled joint pursed between my lips, I took a deep drag and did my best to hold the smoke in my lungs before coughing. The air around me smelled noxious yet sweet.
Was this the American dream? Hunter S. never found it before blowing his brains out; I doubted if I would. Or maybe he did find it after all. Fucking crazy, man. What if he found the American Dream and killed himself out of sheer disappointment?
It made sense... just like I always said: Courtney didn't kill Kurt - disillusionment did.
So, my drugged-out, nihilist thought for the day was - don't look for happiness. I've looked into the heart of darkness of man and found sunlight.
Holy fuck, this pot was good!
I'd earned this - a day of disgusting self-pity and juvenile indulgence - and I refused to feel guilty about partaking in something as benign as pot. If I'd had my druthers, I'd be balls deep in retro acid, like my hipster heroes from the days of psychedelic yore. My druthers were nowhere to be found, though. Neither was Jake.
I jumped out my truck and kicked the door shut, but it swung back open petulantly, whining on its hinges.
"Need some help?" a familiar shock of blond hair inquired.
"Yeah, are you mafia? Because I'd like to order a hit on my stupid truck." I couldn't focus my eyes beyond the floaters. Light seemed to refract into its component colours through my pupils, and I couldn't control the rate of my speech. Speaking was entirely too distracting anyway. Why should words matter when I could communicate in colour?
There was a tiny cut on my hand that itched, and I scratched it, marvelling at how even the wound bled rainbows.
"Bella?" The hair was still speaking.
"Are you under that crazy hair, Jasper? I can't quite see you."
"I'm here," he confirmed and took my hand away from my face. Not fair! I wanted to see the colours bounce. He laced his fingers through my own and stared at our entwined hands.
"Do you see the colours too?" Maybe he was high. He certainly had the hair for it.
"Sadly, no. I bet they're mighty pretty."
"Yep. Lovely as the day is shitty. What about a gun, cowboy? Do you have a gun?"
"I'm sorry, baby... I don't." Like Edward, Jasper had a crooked grin, but rather than making me horny, I found his smile oddly soothing.
"I thought you were Southern." I pouted, trying to reclaim my fingers, but he only squeezed harder. "All Southerners have guns, yes?
"I'm Texan, ma'am." He smiled widely. "But I'm lacking in the shotgun and hound dog department, though."
"Hm, well, I promise not to hold it against you." I tugged my hand out of his grasp and asked, "Do you party, Jasper?"
"Define party?" He frowned, so I evaded.
"I don't want to go to first period," I blathered. "I found out the book I'm studying for my independent lit project has been banned in this stupid town." Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was not deemed suitable for study due to its glorification of drug use. Literature didn't glorify drug use - being high did.
"What do you want to do?"
"I'm looking for a very specific kind of drug, but it seems to have fallen out of fashion with today's youth."
"You are today's youth." He smiled like a simpleton and asked, "Are you on Ecstasy?"
And just as soon as I'd decided to like him, the feelings dissolved. His stupidity — or rather, unadulterated ignorance — was deplorable. As if I'd drop E!
"You are of no use to me," I said simply. "I believe I've misjudged you. My apologies for wasting your time."
"Alice says you're a psycho," he said suddenly. "I didn't believe her, but-"
"But you do now." We were finishing each other's sentences. How fucking sweet. "I'm not psycho; I'm high. I thought you were kind and hoped you were clever, but you're just Alice's little lap dog." I chewed on my lip, disliking the way it felt dry and sticky at the same time against my teeth. "I think maybe I hate you a little," I confessed.
"Well, shit." He raked his hands through his hair as if he was trying to pull it out at the roots. "Why the hostility?"
"I guess I just don't trust you."
"Because of Alice?"
"Because you have a cock," I clarified. "Look… I'm sorry, alright? I'm not sure why I snapped at you, other than the fact you got in my way on a particularly crappy day."
"Want to talk about it?" A frigid blast of air made me take notice of his windbreaker. His straggly, blond hair whipped around his face as the wind shifted suddenly, blowing ice water from the ocean. He pulled the hood over his head and put an arm around me, rubbing my soaked shoulders. I didn't take much of my stuff when I moved to Forks, and I missed my orange rain jacket. Would I ever see it again?
"No. I really don't. I think I'll just go home." But I couldn't. It was only the third day of school. I glanced in the direction of my truck wistfully.
"Wait… stay?" His voice was rough, cracking slightly.
"Jasper, you're not, like, full of feelings for me or some shit, are you?" Because he kind of looked smitten. Apparently, the sick bastard got off on emo-suicide chic.
"Nah." He looked down at his feet but didn't take his hands off me. "Do you want to make out?"
"Not even a little bit," I said honestly.
"It would really piss off Alice." He hunkered down to kiss me, and I blocked his affections by twisting his nipple hard enough to bruise him... even through his jacket. "What the hell?"
"Purple nurple." I shrugged. "I'm not making out with you. Try that again, and I'll nurple your nut sack."
-({})-
Lunch in Hell. I imagined Hunter S. Thomson ushering me through the sulphuric halls of Forks High, like Virgil to Dante. The lunchroom was the ninth circle.
Hyperbole is me.
Throngs of people, cruel and ripe with hormonal lust and rage, waited in the lunch line like a collective, pulsating phallus. The air was so thick with sex I had to plug my nose for fear of spontaneous impregnation.
Edward was sitting with Lauren today. That clinched it. There was no way I could sit in this room without having some sort of breakdown.
Instead of eating lunch, I decided to run to the bathroom to vomit. Not really. I mean, I tried, but I only dry-heaved.
At least there was safety in stalls.
I comforted myself with the thought that at least the day couldn't get any worse. I sat on the toilet and texted Jake, trying to ignore the sobs coming from the cubicle adjacent to me.
"Oh my fuck, could you please shut up? I'm trying to have a psychotic episode in here." I peered under the stall and saw army boots. "Who are you?"
"Jasper's sister," the voice snuffled. "And I have what you need," she said, passing me a sheet of paper under the partition.
"Holy fuck!"
"Yeah," she said with a slight tremble in her voice. "Don't take more than one hit at a time. It's clinical grade."
"How much do I owe you?"
She actually laughed but never replied.
-({})-
Finally, I had crossed the line from mildly neurotic to psycho, stalking girlfriend. What the fuck else was I supposed to do though? Jake hardly even responding to my tweets, and when he did, he used his 140 characters to be as cryptic and uncaring as possible. Something was definitely rotten in the state of Washington, and it wasn't just the putrid fish.
This just wasn't like him. In truth, I was afraid.
"Jake!" I yelled, banging on the window of his room. There was no answer at the front door, so I thought that maybe he was taking a nap. "C'mon, Jake. Where are you?" My voice was a sad little wail, barely audible even to myself over the howling wind. I couldn't see through the yellowing curtains, but for some reason, I was sure the room was empty.
I stood up and looked down the road towards the shoreline. The ocean was a tempest. This pathetic fallacy did not bode well for me.
Where the fuck was he? His car was parked in the driveway, for fuck's sake. I ran across the loose gravel road the Black house was situated near and down to the beach. There was no sand on the shore this far south. The ocean lapped against mud, which gave way to broken rock. Kneeling down on a boulder, I whipped my head around to survey the expanse of beach.
From the driftwood to the beached fish, picked-clean by scavenger birds that stalked the shore, everything around me was dead and decaying. This was another ominous portent; I was certain of it. My life was suddenly a T.S. Eliot poem.
I was alone. Why did I keep coming here? "Jake!" I yelled fruitlessly, not really expecting any kind of reply, but voices echoed down the rock face of the cliffs. Jake said the boys liked to cliff dive, and I could see what looked like four boys goofing off; pretending to jump on the top of the highest rock.
Were they actually going to do it today? That was tragically stupid.
"Embry!" I yelled, because, really, who else would be dumb enough to contemplate cliff-diving in this weather? My voice didn't carry over the sound of the ocean.
I tapped the password into my phone to unlock it, about to text Jake to let him know I was here, but then thought better of it. My instincts were guiding me now. At full throttle, I ran away from the ocean and back up the gravel road, somehow managing not to slip and die.
Luck was not on my side.
Dying would have hurt less.
"Jake-" His name caught in my throat. I wasn't sure what I'd expected to find, but it wasn't this.
"Is your dad home yet?" a girl asked, following Jake out of the garage.
Somehow I had missed them when I'd stalked the house. Were they hanging out in the garage this whole time? What were they doing in there?
"C'mon." He tugged her away from the dilapidated structure that housed Billy's old cars. Why was he pulling her by the arm? Maybe he wanted to take her to his room.
"Your dad," she protested.
Jake caught her hand in his and smiled, looking down into her eyes. While they weren't kissing, there was an intimacy between them I'd never have a hope in hell of ever knowing with another human being. He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and she lowered her face shyly.
"It's cold," Jake said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. She rested her delicately beautiful face against his chest, turning and looking curiously at me.
I was only a phantom. She couldn't possibly have seen me.
"We should head to the house."
"Jake," the girl said, motioning to me.
I wasn't here.
"Bells!" Jake dropped the girl's hand but didn't say another word.
"I'm not really here. I died. I'm not real."
It made sense now. I'd been dead all along. This was Hell.
I grappled in my pocket for a lighter and walked away from them.
"Bella, wait!"
He didn't follow me. If he had, he would've stopped me.
It took exactly thirty-five seconds for the Volkswagen Rabbit to ignite. It would've taken me less time if I'd started at the gas tank in the first place.
A/N – writing this chapter made me a sad panda. If you're feeling sad right now and want to read something ridiculous, check out my collab with DoUTrustMe, author of Died and Gone to Heaven, and the first Canadian ever to buy timeshare on the Moon. There's a link to our joint account, DoUFlanme on my profile, where we post Don't Fear the Reaper. Check it out!
Also, stay tuned for Hmonster's project 30-days of Emmett! Jkane180, wordslinger and I will be submitting a one-shot. We love Emmett.
I'm at work so my cell phone is my purse. I'm sitting on it though. Give me a phone buzz! I welcome all reviews except the abusive ones. Hell, on some days, I can get off on those ones too ;P