A/N: I can't thank mac enough for her tireless edits of my crap. I love her! The very SEXSY DoUTrustMe also made this better. I wrote a lot after the beta so all mistakes are mine.
Facebook Status: Keep calm and stroke the furry wall
Crazy people don't know they're crazy. I held that truth to be self-evident and such. Here's the thing: I felt bat-shit nuts, like I stood outside of my body and watched my sanity plunge off of the precipice of reason and into the abyss of the unknown.
My father took the better part of me with him when he fled the house with an arsenal of rage, hate, and weaponry. Because my secret could not be contained, the deplorable truth had finally burst forth, imploding under a great pressure like lava, rendering my world into ash.
There would be no coming back from what Charlie proposed to do, and I felt impotent to stop him, unable to move or even breathe as I languished on the lawn in front of my house next to a shallow puddle of my own vomit. In truth, I didn't know if I even wanted to stop him.
No. Of course I did. The ramifications of Charlie's vigilante act were unthinkable.
"Bella?"
"Gurgle . . ."
"Shit," I heard Edward curse as I rolled over onto my side, listening to his footfalls diminish and cease. Where did he go? I kind of wished he'd drag my body deep into the woods and leave my broken soul there to die. There was no dignity in giving in to a psychotic breakdown on one's own lawn. What will the neighbours think?
My train of thought had derailed . . . moments ago there'd been a precipice, a dive into the unknown, and now I was drowning in the murky waters of self doubt, grappling blindly for my lost mind like a life preserver. Wait, that metaphor was dumb. I could blame the fact I was totally and certifiably insane on my bad poetry, except all my favourite poets were fucking nut jobs, which meant I simply no longer had any real creativity.
"Bella?"
Oh, good, Sex-hair had returned.
"Roll over, sweetheart. This will make you feel better." He pressed something wet against the top of my skull, gingerly tucking my hair behind my ears. Whatever it was felt soggy and heavy like tea bags. He was tea bagging me. Kinky.
"Whaa . . ."
Water dripped down my forehead, warm like tears. Edward chewed on his lip as if he'd adopted my nervous affectation by proxy. I felt numb, my brain prickling with pins and needles.
"Whaat's . . . "
"That's good, Isabella," Dr. Cullen urged. "Try to speak."
What was Dr. Dad doing here? When did he arrive, and how much time had passed?
"Huhh . . . " My pupils screamed at the penlight he shined directly into them. "Fuuuu!"
"Dad!" Edward snapped. "What the fuck?"
"Charlie," I moaned. "S-stop him."
"Asshole," Edward hissed, his pretty voice sounding volatile and oddly juvenile in its petulance. "This is your fault."
"Mine?" My chest rose and fell convulsively as I heaved, burning from the inside out, rolling and lolling about like a baby. I regurgitated water onto the lawn. My stomach emptied completely.
"No, Bella, mine," Dr. Cullen clarified. "You need hydration."
"I got her a Gatorade." Edward sat down beside me on the grass and dragged me into his lap. "Drink this."
"I like the blue flavour better," I protested, but popped the seal open and poured the cool liquid over my tongue, not bothering to taste anything. I swallowed several times and cleared my throat, testing my voice. "Thanks," I said slowly, drawing out the sound and pressing my head into the crook of Edward's arm. He flexed.
"Bella, I'd like to take you to the hospital. You're exhibiting symptoms of shock." Dr. Cullen appraised me in that clinical manner that only doctors could pull off, tender and cold all at once. I wondered if he was going to skull fuck me with a tongue depressor. Oh my fuck, why did I think such awful things?
"I'm fine," I managed. "But I need to get to the airport, like, now."
"No!" Edward snapped. "Why?"
"Did you see him - Charlie, I mean?" I took a swig from the bottle in earnest now, the sugars spurring my body out of stasis. Edward stood slowly, offering me his hand, but I swatted it away pridefully. Jumping to my feet, I swayed and stumbled for a moment. A jolt shot through me, knocking the air from my lungs as I did my best impression of a linebacker and tackled Edward. He grunted, his chest absorbing the brunt of my weight.
"Fuck, you can barely stand," he huffed, sounding all kinds of pissed off. "No way will you be able to fly."
"Is that a double dog dare?" My voice shook despite the bravado of my words.
"Bella . . . you're not in any condition to fly." Dr. Cullen plucked a prescription pad and a pen from his pocket and scribbled something down in the secret language of pharmacology that I couldn't discern. "Do you have any allergies?"
"I'm allergic to lies . . . and aspirin. What are you doing?"
"Do your fingers and toes feel numb?"
"No. I'm fine," I protested as he pressed his finger into my wrist to take my pulse. "I'm strong as a bull . . . a bull with mild tachycardia."
"Funny," Dr. Carlisle said, frowning. "Your colour is good. Does your chest feel tight at all?"
"My chest always feels tight," I replied without thinking. The constant weight on me never let up for long enough to take a proper breath. Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes and my throat constricted.
"Shit, Dad. She's fine. She's upset, not sick." Edward swatted the pad out of his father's hand. "How long did you know about this?"
"Now's not the time-"
"No," Edward agreed. "Now certainly isn't the time. You should've called the police as soon as Bella told you what her stepdad did to her."
"Son-"
"Because for the life of me, I have no fucking clue what you were waiting-"
"Edward," I interrupted as gently as I could. "I'm not stable, and it was a really serious accusation."
Dr. Cullen swallowed thickly. "I'm so sorry, Bella."
"I wouldn't have believed me either."
"You seemed so desperate for attention . . ." His voice sounded apologetic despite the harsh observation.
"What changed your mind?" I asked.
"Edward."
"Oh."
"I'm so fucking disgusted by you," Edward choked, his jaw becoming almost scarlet as angry blood flushed his face. "How could you doubt her?"
"I used my best judgement given the information I had."
"Then you have no business diagnosing people. You're too fucking blind to recognize what's in front of you."
"Okay, so, I'm leaving." They could take turns trying to piss the furthest without me. "My father said he's going to kill my mother so, as you can imagine, I've got some shit I gotta do."
Dr. Cullen's jaw dropped at my lacklustre proclamation, so I added, "I'm pretty sure he won't, but uh . . . that's not really a risk I feel comfortable taking."
"Wait, what?" Edward's voice cracked and rose an octave.
"He took a gun. He blames her," I explained as calmly as I could manage.
"You can't face this . . . your stepfather alone."
I shrugged, hiding my face behind a curtain of hair. "It'll be fine. No one call the police, okay? I don't want Charlie getting arrested."
"Bella," Dr. Cullen began cautiously, "you can't expect me not to alert the authorities to this."
"Sure I can. Clearly I'm only saying this shit because I crave attention."
"Bella's lying," Edward corroborated.
"Totally."
-({})-
"You don't have to come with me." It felt weird to walk through an airport without luggage - strangely liberating.
"I want to. I love any excuse to miss school." Edward smiled impishly, trying to keep the mood light as we approached the security check-point. A man clad in officious, navy polyester tapped his foot aggressively on the ground, glaring at us with expectant eyes.
"International or domestic?" he asked.
"Domestic," I whispered, handing him our boarding passes.
He ushered us through like cattle in an abattoir. When we reached the back of the line, I leaned against Edward, pressing my ear to his chest to listen to his heart. It beat so slow. My own heart was in constant flux, racing against my unpredictable emotions.
"Your mother's going to be fine," he said suddenly. "Charlie is really messed up right now; it's easier to be pissed off at her than to deal with the reality of what happened."
"That's an astute assessment of a guy you don't really know," I mused, gripping the sleeve of his shirt for dear life as the line inched forward.
He shrugged. "Your dad's a good guy. I mean, I only know him casually, but I don't think he's capable of it . . . killing her."
This conversation was positively surreal in its absurdity. I felt like Samuel Beckett.
"What if he thought she knew about what Phil did to me?" Terrible thoughts. Bureaucratic lines were unhealthy for my state of mind. "What if she knew, but didn't say anything because she had too much to lose?"
"Bella . . . did she know?"
I couldn't be sure. "I need to talk to her . . . warn her."
He squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry, pretty girl."
"Why?"
"For so many reasons. Just . . . sorry you have to go through this shit. Sorry things didn't turn out differently for you. I mean, if you stayed in Forks - if your mother never met Phil-"
"Ah, regret: the most useless since sliced bread . . . uh, wait, that's dumb."
"I just wish things could be different," he said defensively.
"Regret is wasteful."
"So is hate," he pointed out, "and self pity."
"Touché. And by the way, I really fucking hate baseball." My mouth twisted into a pout, or maybe a frown.
"Why?" he indulged. I supposed he'd grown accustomed to my non-sequiturs by now.
"If baseball didn't exist they never would've met. Do you regret baseball?"
"Uh . . ."
"And if my parents never met, I never would've been born. So you can regret Jose Cuervo for causing me."
"I wouldn't-"
"Because if Renee didn't get pissed drunk, she wouldn't have fucked Charlie. Did you know I'm the personification of an angry fuck? Like, literally?"
"Stop it, Bella," he hissed through gritted teeth, like an angry parent warning a child to behave. "I hate it when you talk shit about yourself. Your self-image is warped."
"No, your reverence of me is. I don't understand it. You can't make fine china out of horse shit."
"Are you done?" he asked as we approached the front of the line. It was time to nut up.
"Hardly." I fucking hated going through airport security. Without fail, I was privy to some sort of terrible humiliation at the hands of a glorified mall cop. "Get in a different line, please."
"Why?"
"Please?" I whined, and he muttered something under his breath as he walked away.
I grabbed a grey bin from a neat stack and stumbled into another line-up for the metal detector, keeping a respectable distance away from Edward. I shrugged my sweater off my shoulders and dropped it, along with my shoes, into the bin, rolling it over the casters through the x-ray machine.
"Any weapons?" Inquired a large woman in a drab uniform - her glossy, dark hair pulled rather unfortunately back at the base of her neck in a messy bun.
"No," I replied quickly. I mean, who the fuck would answer in the affirmative to such a question? "Oh, shit . . . I have a lighter. Is that considered a weapon?"
"Depends how you use it." She smirked. "Only one lighter?"
"Yeah."
"One is fine."
But two is considered a weapon?
"No baggage?" she asked me suspiciously.
"Yeah, lots." I chuckled, walking through the metal detector. "Just not the kind you can x-ray, if you catch my drift." Which she totally didn't.
Beep!
"Remove your watch and walk through again."
"I'm not wearing a watch," I protested, but otherwise did what she asked.
"Huh. Do you have any piercings?"
"No."
"A metal post in your spine?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Place your hands on the table," she said coolly, snapping a rubber glove over her hand.
"Fuck."
Edward looked at me with mild amusement as the security guard stuck her hand into my bra. My perverse sense of humour made me want to crack a joke about having a condom full of cocaine up my ass, but I managed to occupy my tongue by biting on it.
"I don't understand it . . ."
"This always happens. My blood must be rich in iron or something."
"Alright. You're fine," she concluded, removing the glove.
Except I didn't feel fine at all.
"That was . . . interesting," Edward mused, swallowing a smirk.
"I'm glad you find this situation funny. Hey, could you do me a favour?" I batted my eyelashes coquettishly.
"What do you need."
"I need you to call my mother," I instructed, passing him the phone. "I need you to tell her to get the fuck out of the house before Charlie shows up to blow her head off."
"He wouldn't . . ."
"Just hedging my bets," I said simply.
A/N - your reviews sustain me like the life-giving tomato. Oh and I will totally explain the story title before the end of the fic. I managed two updates of Tomato this week! Shadow will be updated soon.
The Facebook status is a reference to the movie Get Him to the Greek. I'm in love with Russell Brand. Don't Judge.
Airport security: that actually happened to me in front of my boss. I still don't know why I set off the metal detector.
Fic Recs: Dead Confederates by GoldenMeadow. I can't even begin to explain... just read the fucker.
Strange Brew by Magnolia822 - she shares a beta with me. She also loves beer. If you like sex and beer, you'll get off on this fic too.
I'm gonna sit on my phone now. Please buzz me.