On the Bainbridge ferry, just as we were lining up to park, that day before when we were travelling from Seattle to Forks, I peered at dad, who cleared his throat and kept clutching the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were all white.
"I wonder how you don't sit on your hair," he grunted, giving a brief glance in my direction before focusing back on the line of cars before us like a responsible driver.
I lifted a strand, glancing at it, and I shrugged, looking at him: "Well, sometimes I do. I have to be careful. But I like it this way."
He gave a small, curt nod and pulled over to the left and up as signalled by the parking attendant in a neon yellow vest. "Looks good, Bells."
"Thanks."
We parked and I undid my seat belt. Dad stayed as he was. No indication he would move. No indication he would pull down the windows, which have been closed the whole ride from the airport to the ferry – I didn't dare to ask him to lower them.
"I... I guess I'll go up on the deck," I said and dad nodded.
"Sure. Just... just don't get cold."
"I'll be careful, dad."
Once I took a lungful of the crisp air and felt the wind on the deck hitting my face, I relaxed a little at last; inside dad's cruiser I was choking, as if I was one of the suspects or drunks he was transporting to his station.

It is some twenty to forty minutes of the ferry ride between Seattle and Bainbridge. That day, it was the Spring Break, Tuesday, March 25; the ferry was brimming with people, young and old, hiding from the wind and the chill in the lounge. I was grateful for that; apart from me, leant as I was against the green metal railing on the end of the ship that faced Seattle, there was only a group of teenagers on the other end, drinking and huddling in their parkas, and seagulls circling above them with mournful cries, their images sharp against the cloudy sky. I buttoned up my coat and started to play with the mourning locket on my neck, staring at the lead grey water rippling below.
It was under the white Moon that I saw him..., I remembered from a tale mum used to read to me when I was small, no past for you, no regret, no future of fear in this silver forest, only the perfect now and the white, Moon-dappled ride. And for a breath of time all is hushed; gone in a sigh, that perfection, leaving the sharp knife-edge turning slowly in the breast. The supreme moment of stillness before the flight, the moment of farewell, of wordless pleading for remembrance of things lost to earthly sight- Then the half-turn under the trees, a motion fluid as the movement of light on water . . .
Like many things from my early childhood, the rest of the tale and its name were lost. I remember fights more clearly, many tearful fights between my parents, ending in flying and crashing glasses and slamming doors; I remember the helpless inability of dad to understand what on Earth was wrong, what has he done to make mum rage and despair so, and mum's agony at his lack of decipherable emotional response, any kind of response, even anger and violence would have been better than the wall of silence, reserve and incomprehension she was crashing into day by day, against which she was raging as if it was a prison. It was not the sleepiness of Forks or the lack of money that made my mum flee in the end; it was the pain that resided in the house, his and hers separate pains, never meeting, never understanding each other.
I rubbed my face and hid the locket back under my scarf. I heard slow, quiet steps on my left. I glanced there; midway between me and the teens, there came a boy to lean against the rail. Tall, svelte like a girl, but with lean muscles and jaws and cheekbones and brows that were far from feminine, bronze-haired, beautiful, tragic somehow in his beauty the way Tadzio's actor from the Death in Venice was, as if it never brought him anything good – and like Tadzio, he had the pallor of anaemia written on his face, as if a threat of premature death. But I was far from von Aschenbach's contentment when I surmised that – there is nothing joyful in youth that perishes away intact in its beauty instead of living to mature into an old age.
Some men, yes, are beautiful, reach the most poignant stage of their beauty and vigour at ninety; I've seen it happen with my great-grandfather.
This boy, it seemed, would never know old age.
I plugged in Mahler's Adagietto and watched him for a moment as he gazed at the water with his head hung low and his joint hands hanging over the railing, surrounded by heavy clouds. I resisted the temptation to ask him if I can photograph him – he clearly gave off the 'leave me alone' vibe. With that thought, I looked away to give him privacy and pulled out my book, searching for the page at which I stopped on the plane.
Some twenty minutes later, when I got near the finish, I stared with astonishment at a drop of blood that appeared on the page, just below the text; no sooner I realized I was bleeding from my nose when I felt a forceful grip on my arm and someone pressed a handkerchief to my nose, stopping it and my mouth with it, I couldn't breathe, pushing my head forward so sharply I staggered. I struggled to get free; I felt my legs giving way; then I blacked out.

"I apologise for being so rough," I heard through the mist in my head. I blinked; images were swimming in front of my eyes, marked by black dots. I couldn't tell who was speaking to me, except that it was a male voice, adolescent. "I only wanted to stop the bleeding – but the sight of blood is... problematic for me. How are you feeling?"
"Like somebody manhandled me, scared me out of my mind, choked me and nearly snapped my neck?" I murmured, rubbing my eyes. I blinked again, slowly recognizing the boy from the deck. I glanced around and saw we were in the lounge and people kept casting worried peeks our way; somebody had laid me on the seats, propped my legs up on my backpack so they would be higher than my head. The bleeding had stopped. I couldn't see the bloodied handkerchief anywhere.
"You carried me here and did this?" I nodded to my legs.
He nodded.
I gave him a small smile with some effort. He meant well. Still I felt afraid of him; the violent way he grabbed me told me he doesn't know his own strength and doesn't think things through much while agitated – I was eager to be away from him. "Thank you. Though, next time... if we meet next time and this happens to me, better let me deal with it myself, okay?"
He just nodded again. "The ferry will be landing soon," he said. "Do you think you can sit up?"
I carefully tried it. I felt a little weak, but otherwise I knew I should be fine. I massaged my aching neck, yearning for a bag of ice. I glanced at him – and I didn't like the way he was looking at me. With a sudden chill running down my spine, I had an indistinct feeling I'm very lucky to be amongst people right now.
"Is there anybody with you?"
My heart sped up and I had goosebumps at that question. There was something about the way he asked that that made me very uncomfortable. "My dad's waiting in the car."
"Okay. Now, let me help you, let's get you to him."
He offered me his arm, but I shook my head and slung my backpack over my shoulder. "I'll be fine, thanks."
I didn't want him touching me. As we silently walked down to the parking space, joining the stream of other passengers who were going back to their vehicles, I kept my distance from him, feeling on the edge, growing more and more acutely afraid. I fought the urge to run – and for once, I was incredibly grateful to be surrounded by a crowd. I do not know whether it was purely a reaction to what happened, or whether it was a gut feeling, or a mixture of both; but I was certain I do not want to have anything to do with him.
I rushed to sit down beside dad, and as I did, the boy nodded back at me politely and entered a dark silver Lamborghini, which then started up with a wild roar like some monster kicked after winter's sleep.
Dad shook his head.
I exhaled in relief silently, then took a deep breath and exhaled again, trying to steady my voice. "What is it?"
"Do you know what sort of a car it is?"
"Lamborghini?" I read it on the back of the car; I wouldn't have known otherwise. Most of all it reminded me of a Batmobile – with an internal chuckle I wondered if the boy would have liked such a comparison.
Dad sighed. "Reventón, limited edition, brand new, some two million bucks. I've been staring at this beast and wondering whose it is. Dr. Cullen, Dr. Cullen, what on Earth are you thinking?"
"Dr. Cullen? Some local Scrooge McDuck or Don Corleone?" I tried to joke, but dad just frowned.
"A surgeon and owner of the Forks hospital. He's the most brilliant doctor you can imagine, also a pretty charitable and nice guy, but he spoils his children beyond all sanity. Especially this one, Edward. I guess as the youngest he's the family pet, but I'm not sure it's good for him. You've talked with him?"
I reined in a shudder. "Yeah. Briefly."
"Listen, Bells, you two will be going to the same school, you might meet during some classes and I'd rather you're careful around him. That boy's got some issues."
Oh God. The same school. The same classes. I felt very cold. "How do you mean?"
Dad followed the line of cars out and waited for his turn to exit the ferry. "Well, once the boy grabbed his lab table at school and threw it out through the window glass, scaring the Biology professor so much he wanted to quit. They nearly expelled him and he could stay only because Dr. Cullen somehow smoothed it out. With a hefty donation for the new Gym building, I should imagine. Then, just a month and a half ago, Edward totalled a brand new Maserati car his dad gave him that very day. It wasn't an accident or because he would be drunk or got too excited about trying out how much speed he can get out of the machine - he crashed it against a rock at top speed on purpose, as if he wanted to kill himself."
Sounds to me more like an angry protest than a suicide attempt, I thought, intrigued despite myself by the timing of the crash – but I stayed silent and listened on. I massaged my neck again.
"I wanted him to lose his driving license," dad glanced at me, "but his father smoothed it out at a higher level and the boy got out of it just with therapy sessions. At those sessions, I heard he messed with that therapist's mind so she rather signed that the boy's okay two weeks earlier just so he wouldn't drive her to the Bedlam. And you see it. Instead of setting him straight, Dr. Cullen just bought Edward a shiny new Lamborghini, two million bucks, limited edition." Dad shook his head. "Look, I respect Dr. Cullen, but I seriously think he's doing the boy a disservice with this kind of coddling. He needs to face his mistakes, not a freaking new car."
Maybe. But I would be more interested, psychologically speaking, in what led him to those mistakes in the first place – and with a certain regret I thought I'll never know, since I was determined to give that boy a wide berth.
I said so to dad, adding: "I doubt anyway he'll pay much attention to me at school. I'm not what you'd call a cool kid – I don't think he'll want the cool crowd to see him with me."
"Well, there's some comfort in that," dad grunted and we left the ferry behind.

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