A/N: I feel the need to clarify something because it was mentioned by a couple of reviewers: in chapter one, Bella voiced her disapproval of women who dance "provocatively." This is not, in any way, a slut-shaming thing. This is about how this Bella feels about these particular characters, which will be explained in greater depth in later chapters. Thanks for asking! xo
February 6, 2013 – Word Prompts: Plate, Grate, Slate
. . .
For the tenth time, I curse my absentminded packing, which has left me stranded in my father's house without my Kindle or even a trusty paperback with which to distract myself. I never bother bringing my laptop, since Charlie doesn't have WiFi, and his three basic cable channels are showing a rerun of Murder, She Wrote, a cooking show, and a documentary about paleontology that I gave the old college try before realizing about six minutes in that I'd rather subject myself to a root canal than sit through. I scan Charlie's living room "bookshelf," finding fishing magazines, baseball almanacs, and more than a few true crime paperbacks I've bought him over the years. There are also two copies of Stories About Summer: one in hardcover and one in paperback.
I slide the hardcover out carefully and crack it open, flipping a few pages until my eyes find the handwritten dedication that I'd penned beneath the printed one also bearing my father's name.
To my father, Charlie, who taught me to speak and to write, and who helped me find the voice with which to do both.
Beneath it, simpler words in my own looping hand.
I love you, Dad.
Love always, Bella.
I slide the book back in beside its paperback twin, smiling when I remember the first time I'd noticed them sitting there side by side in his living room, the only fiction books I've ever known him to own. When I inquired as to why he needed two: "I wanted to walk into a bookstore and buy my kid's book." An embarrassed flush, a gruff shrug – Charlie in a nutshell. I miss him suddenly, painfully, and immediately feel silly for doing so considering he'll be home in time to attend the shindig that looms overhead.
On the off-chance that there's still a well-thumbed favorite left behind, I return to my bedroom. A quick perusal of my own shelf shows only the required reading from my high school English classes and a few books I hadn't enjoyed enough to want to take with me when I left. Glancing upward, I spy a few board games atop the shelf, one in particular launching me back in time with all the subtlety of a catapult.
. . .
Another snow day, another blanket fort. A bit more kissing this time, then, at Esme's barely-disguised implication of a warning, a board game. I look down at my tray of letters – E, T, A, E, S, P, G – and then scan the board; if I can find an unused L or R, I can make something out of nothing. Grate, plate, slate.
"This is pretty masochistic of me," he says as my eyes traverse the board.
"What?"
"Playing Scrabble with a writer. Really, it'd be like you trying to take me in darts."
"I could take you in darts," I argue, more because that's what I do than because I believe I could ever best him at anything remotely athletic, particularly anything involving throwing.
Edward snorts. "Yeah, right."
"I've got a good arm."
"No, you don't, but you've got good other parts."
Another glance at my tray, and it's too bad we can't just spell something with the letters we have. T-E-A-S-E. "Well, I'm hardly a writer yet." Deflection. Also what I do, particularly when these new things between us become too unfamiliar. Too overwhelming.
"Being a writer isn't like being a doctor," he argues as he drums impatient fingers on his denim-clad thigh. "You don't need some fancy degree or a license to make you one. You write beautiful words, Bella; you're already a writer. You just have to figure out what you want to write and write it."
I keep my eyes trained on the board, even as I'm momentarily unable to make any sense of it. "Thanks," I say finally.
After another moment of silence, I see Edward's fingers toying with his own tray. Finally, he speaks. "Promise me that when you do write something, I'll be in it somehow."
When I glance up at him briefly before considering the board again, his eyes are downcast. I return my focus to the puzzle of words before I reply. "Promise me that you'll still be around, so you can be on the dedication page."
He meets my eye, the smile I love stretching the lips I love. "You got it."
Back to the board and I find an E; glancing down at my tray, I beam when I spot what I hadn't seen before. I lay down the letters.
E-L-A-T-E.
. . .