Word Prompts: Petition, Ambition, Repetition
Choose one word and write what your imagination dictates. As an added challenge, include all three words in your entry.
Something True
Repetition
This Summer
At dusk, Bella travels between the few scores of surviving firs to her old place. When the, now small patch of woods opens up to blankness, she doesn't like the way the blackened ground crumbles under her feet. Every few paces her foot feels like it might fall through the earth. Here and there, some dead, straggly-limbed, partial-trees still stand like misshapen skeletons of what they once were—or ghosts. If she so much as leans against one of them, it's sure to fall over.
But for the most part, from here all the way to the beginning of West End Road has been cleared out.
It's depressing to look at. Bella presses on over crackling sticks until she comes to the lake. Heading downshore, she thinks she'll just take a look at the cottage. She doesn't expect to see Edward standing out on the front deck tending to a sad-looking sapling in a half wine barrel.
He lifts his face to Bella. His appearance isn't much changed from last night. The outsides of his eyes are red, and his hair's standing up
"What are you doing here?" He seems to be saying this to the tree as his hands work the soil around its base.
"I was just - I was just walking."
"Rosalie's inside." He sets the end of a hose over the barrel, and moves to turn the spigot on.
Bella lets herself into the cottage. She wonders if he finished clearing the walls or if this will be a strange repetition of last night. But no, the walls are bare, missing paint in some areas, faded paint in other areas.
Not only is Rose here, but so is Royce. She's sitting on the floor between his legs as he sits on the couch. His hair falls down his neck in dark waves. He pushes some of it behind his ear. Rose turns away from whatever explosion-movie they're watching to say hi to Bella.
"Hey," Royce says.
Lifting her hand in a wave, she smiles, and it feels different, vacant—like it used to be something more substantial but now it's nothing but a shell of a smile. She can feel the emptiness in it and wonders if others can see it, like the ghost trees up the hill.
Keeping her jacket on, she sits at the far end of the couch, pretending to watch the movie on the big, old-fashioned TV encased in wood.
Bella doesn't know that Edward has come in through the back door until Rose asks, "Still alive?"
"Barely. I'm not letting it die." He has a beer in his hand and plops himself into the big chair next to the couch, leaning back, his knees spread apart. He looks exhausted, like he hasn't slept in days. Bella watches him take a sip of his beer, watches his arm return to his leg, watches his head fall back, his eyes close.
"Mom wants you home for dinner tomorrow," Rose says.
"All right," Edward says, lifting his eyebrows a little, but not his eyelids
"Really?"
"Maybe."
Eyes still closed, he brings the bottle to his mouth, takes a gulp, drops it to his knee again.
"Get me a beer, Woman," Royce says. Edward's eyes open.
"Just a sec. I like this part." It looks like the one part of the movie where the characters are actually talking, nothing is being blown up, no gunshots, no fires.
"Now, bitch," he says. "I don't wait."
"You talking shit to my sister?" Edward places his beer down on the table in front of him, and leans forward. He's wide awake now, his eyes glowering.
"She likes it."
"Get the fuck out." He stands up, towering over all of them, aiming a finger at the front door. His brow is furrowed, his jaw set, his lips tight. Bella has to look away.
"Edward, it's okay," Rose says.
"The hell it is. What?"
"He's kidding around. He doesn't mean it. Just... sit down. Royce, I'll get you a beer. I should've offered it anyway." She starts to stand up.
"You sit down, Rosalie, or everyone's out." And then to Royce, "Keep your mouth shut and get your own goddamn beer. Bella, do you want one?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "Get one for Bella, too."
Royce gets up to do what Edward says, but Bella doesn't like any of this, doesn't want to be a part of it. She sneaks away into the bathroom.
The bathroom is long and narrow, wood siding on the walls. It looks like cedar, matching the floor and the coffee table in the living room. Navy towels hang neatly from the iron rack. She opens the floor cabinet across from the bathtub, more folded towels inside. Leaning her back against the cabinet, she faces the tub. It's a clawfoot tub with a clear shower curtain in front of it and a shower head coming out of the wall above it. She likes the bathroom and doesn't think she'll leave. Though, eventually she has to.
There are three other doors in the hallway. One is open and Bella peeks in to see nothing she expected, not a bed, a dresser, none of that. It looks like a music studio, a keyboard in the center, a guitar case leaning up against a wall, all kinds of electronics with buttons and knobs Bella would be afraid to touch, afraid she'd ruin something.
She hears the floor creak beside her and turns to see Edward. Looking at her, into her eyes, he leans across her, reaches out for the door handle, his chest close to her face. So close she can smell his soap and his aftershave and his skin as he pulls the door shut.
Bella would've apologized for snooping if he'd given her the chance, stuck around long enough.
She follows his shadow back to the living room. Royce is gone. It doesn't look like he got up to get any beer after all.
Rose's face is in her hands. "I tried to get him to stay." She moves her hands away and glares at Edward. "Why'd you have to do that? Stay out of my business. Things were just starting to get good again."
"That was good?" Edward asks.
"Shut up. You don't know him."
"I think I know enough, and if that was good, what the hell is bad?"
"Let's go, Bella." Rose takes her wrist, leading her to the door.
"What's bad, Rosalie?"
Still pulling Bella out into the dark, she doesn't answer her brother. "I'll drive you."
"I live like ten feet away." More like ten minutes on foot. It still seems too close for driving.
"Bella?" Edward says, the porch light flickering on. He's holding the screen door open. "You live that close?"
She nods.
"You walk by here a lot?"
"It's the short-cut from school.
"You should stop by."
She's confused. She isn't sure if he means it, especially after that music room incident.
"Why?" she asks before she can think better of it.
He shrugs.
She stares, about to walk away before he says, "I like your quiet."