Sorry for the slight delay, everyone!
Carlisle had a plan. It was a plan I detested, but it was the best plan we had, and I had no choice but to go along with it. This plan had everything: it dovetailed perfectly with the symptoms I'd already shown, it held a ready-made reason for me to leave Forks and my father's house, and it would eventually account for my sudden vanishment from the earth. The plan would work. It would work perfectly.
And it would break Charlie's heart. My mom, she would be okay. She had Phil, and she had a great therapist, and sadness didn't stick to her like it did to me and Charlie. She would grieve, and she would never be the same again, but she would survive. Some day, she would be happy again. But my dad? He'd have no one left. His life would never be anything but a long string of abandonments: His father, Renee, Billy. And now me.
"A tumor?" he repeated for the fourth time, like if he kept saying it maybe the letters of the word would rearrange themselves, turn into something else. Something that didn't hold death at the end of it.
"It—or rather, they—could be benign," said Carlisle. "Until we take a biopsy, we cannot know whether they are malignant or benign. Unfortunately, the main tumor is in a region of the brain that is very difficult to access via normal surgery. And there are other spots that showed up on the MRI as well, much smaller areas sprinkled throughout the brain. We will need to investigate each one individually to determine what risk each tumor carries."
"But you said…" Charlie struggled to get the words right. So precise, even now. I took that from him. "You said that even if it is benign, it's still causing trouble, right?"
"That is correct," affirmed Carlisle. "The main mass is pushing against the thalamus, which is the part of the brain that regulates pain. That is most likely what caused Bella's abdominal pain—it appears to have been unrelated to any local condition. This means that, without intervention, the thalamus could be put under more and more stress, causing phantom pain at any time. Or the pain could have been a result of a separate condition which we have not yet uncovered—only further testing will tell."
I had sat quietly on my cot while my doctor lied to my father about a fatal condition I didn't have. Now my father turned to me.
"Bells," he said softly, "how are you feeling now?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "It's...it's sort of a lot to take in."
"I'll call your mother," he said. "She needs to know about this."
I really didn't want to have to make that phone call, but making Charlie do it would be worse, cruel somehow. So I shook my head. "I'll do it," I said. "It should come from me."
"Bells, what can I do for you?" he asked helplessly. Carlisle recognized his cue and excused himself from the room. My dad sat on the hard little chair next to my bed. He didn't look me in the eyes, and I didn't look him in his. I knew that if I let myself see how much this was hurting him, I would want to take everything back, and that would only hurt him more in the end.
"Could you bring me my pillow from home?" I asked. "These pillows suck."
"Of course," he answered. "Anything else?"
"I could use some reading material," I admitted. "There is nothing more depressing than a hospital copy of US Weekly. Anything off the top shelf in my room will be fine." I kept all my favorites on top.
"Sure thing," he said jaggedly. A part of me wondered why he wasn't crying, when he'd cried so hard at Billy's passing. Then it hit me: he was trying to be strong for my sake. He would cry when I was dead, when I didn't need his stoicism anymore.
"It's going to be okay, Dad," I said, pressing his hand. I had a bunch of needles taped to my arm, although none of them actually broke the skin. They were just for show. "You know how good Dr. Cullen is. I couldn't be in better hands. Did you know Johns Hopkins wanted to hire him before he came here?"
"I didn't know that," he said. "That's...that's pretty good."
"Yeah," I said. "And I mean, I am dating his son. You know he'll go above and beyond. Honestly, if it had to happen, at least it's happening now, while he's around. Right?"
"Yeah," said Charlie. "Right."
Later that day, I woke from a nap to the sound of quiet voices. Miserable awareness didn't kick in right away and I lay there silently, unmoving, strangely content, sheltered by the low roughness of Charlie's voice mingled with the sweet tenor of Carlisle's.
"I'm not sure what you're asking me," said Carlisle gravely.
"I know there's something about you," said Charlie, his voice an intense whisper, strained and afraid. "I don't know what it is. I'm not going to ask, and I don't want you to tell. But there's something. I want you to promise me you'll save her. I don't care how, or what you have to do, or what I have to pay. Just save her. She ain't dyin' before me."
"Charlie, you know I will always do my best, as a doctor and as a—"
"I'm not talking about that," said Charlie impatiently. "Something else. I know you're more'n just a doctor, even if I don't know how much more. I told you, I'm not gonna pry into what it is. I'm not lookin' to get you in any kind of trouble. Just swear to me you'll save her. Please, Carlisle. I'm beggin'."
There was a pause, during which I didn't breathe. I waited for Carlisle to feign ignorance again, deny Charlie's assertions. The silence stretched out.
"You have my word," he said at last.
It felt wrong. There was nothing to be done about that. It would always feel wrong, would always have been the wrong thing to do. But it was the only thing to do, if I wanted Masen. I felt like I was trading my father for my son, like I was putting all of this weight on one person in order to spare another. But it couldn't be undone. Once I had decided that Masen must live, a brakeless train had left the station.
Carlisle told me, in that grave and gentle voice, that we would convince my parents I had to be moved to a specialty hospital somewhere too far away to visit. Carlisle would find some excuse them not to have to pay for it—it would be an "experimental treatment," perhaps, or maybe there would be some sort of scholarship for brain surgery. This was a good thing; neither my mom nor my dad could afford bills like this illness would have incurred if it were real, and to them it had to be real. Carlisle even had one thin ray of sunshine to offer me: we wouldn't tell them I had died, not yet at least. We would hope that I took to the Cullens' diet quickly, perhaps allowing me to resume contact with humans within years instead of decades. Maybe some day I would be "healed" and could talk with my mom and dad face to face again. Maybe we could put a halt to this deception somewhere short of the final destination.
Or maybe we couldn't.
I called my mom a few days after the accident. I told her the barest of "facts", emphasizing the part about it probably being nothing, but she wouldn't bite. She flew up to Forks immediately. She was cheery and pleasant; she liked Edward, and declared him "almost good enough for my baby". I suspected, and Edward confirmed, that her thoughts were darker and more fearful than she was letting on. Like my dad, she was putting on a show for me. Only she was a better actor.
I was forced to stay at the hospital for another week, so my internal organs could heal up completely—and of course, to keep up the illusion. The police station was only about a mile down the road, and so my father stopped in whenever he could. Renee was staying at a motel not far from the hospital. While she would have been more than happy to just bunk out in my room permanently, I knew that would put serious limits on how freely I could air out my engorged lower abdomen. Carlisle smiled knowingly and said that was what hospital bureaucracy was for. My mom was subsequently confined to visiting hours, though Carlisle made a great show of regretting that it had to be so, and "pulling some strings" so that she could stay a bit later than most visitors were allowed to.
I was getting the bed rest I needed, all right. I was going crazy from it. Edward brought me books and my laptop and DVDs, but I became so bored so quickly that I turned irritable. At one point, Angela and Jessica stopped by.
"How did you guys even know I'm here?" I asked in alarm. The last thing I needed was for my classmates to rally around me, Ferris Bueller-style. I felt phony enough as it was. But my friends didn't know why I was in the hospital; they'd only found out through Angela's uncle, an orderly. I told them I'd had another clumsiness-related accident, and they'd laughed sympathetically with me and then hung out for an hour, and I briefly felt a little bit less like a freak of nature. Then they'd been gone, and it was just me, stuck in a room with Edward, and maybe Esme or Rosalie when they found the time. As much as I adored Edward—and it was a lot—I so did not need to spend twenty-four hours a day with him, locked up in the same little room. I took to sending him on errands just to have some me time. Then, like as not, my me time would turn into bored and lonely time, and I would breathe a sigh of relief when he returned and we could make out and talk again.
Bree came to see me one day, edging into the room a few minutes after my dad had to leave for work. My mom was picking up some necessaries she'd forgotten to pack when she left Jacksonville. Edward was at school, which was where he said he got some of his best thinking done, provided he could block out the sound of all that teaching. I didn't know where Carlisle was, but I had to guess he wasn't close or Bree probably wouldn't be here. She never showed her face when there were Cullens nearby.
The first thing she did, before even handing off the envelope, was ask me if I was all right.
"Just bored, mostly," I said. "I don't know." I wasn't ready to accept the latest delivery of dead faces. Some weird irrational part of my brain felt like those kids only died at the moment I saw their pictures, and if I could put that off, they'd live a little longer. A few minutes. Maybe a half hour.
Bree moved toward me, reaching into her bag.
"If I promise not to talk about Victoria," I said a little desperately, "will you just hang out with me for a little bit? Just to talk? I'm so fucking bored I swear I'm about to go out of my mind."
Bree contemplated it for a few moments, and I was sure she would say no, chuck the photos at me and bolt. But she must have felt sorry for me, because eventually she sat down in the chair beside the bed, her bag settled in her lap, and looked at me thoughtfully. I couldn't think of what to say.
"If it's none of my business you can say so," said Bree, "but what happened to you?"
"I...fell," I said evasively. Bree's eyes narrowed and she looked too old for her age again.
"You fell," she repeated. "Did your boyfriend happen to be in the room at the time?"
"Nope," I said. "God, you sound like my dad. He spent the first year of my dating life just convinced Edward was out to get me."
"Well, is he?"
I had to laugh.
"Definitely not. And my dad's not, either. They both want me to be safe." Bree still looked thunderous—almost, if you could believe it, protective of me.
"Then what happened?" she challenged.
"I really did just fall," I said. Obviously I couldn't tell her about the baby, but for some reason—either foolish incaution or inspired foresight—I didn't want to shut her out, either. "I was in the bathroom and I lost my balance and fell on the corner of the counter, and I couldn't get up and I was in just searing pain. My dad had to knock the door down. But there was no reason for me to end up totally creamed like that. I literally just fell. And there's no reason why falling would mess me up like that. Dr. Cullen did a bunch of MRIs, and he found some, um, I guess shadows in my brain. He doesn't think they're malignant, necessarily, but even if they aren't they can still mess me up plenty. I may have to go to a specialist. And now basically my main goal in life is to just keep my shit together and not completely go off the deep end." That much was true. "Until someone tells me definitively that I'm in imminent trouble that a clever doctor can't fix, my plan is to go on believing it'll get better. Not worse. But that means basically trying not to think about it. Christ, this sucks."
Bree looked horrorstruck. "Oh, Bella," she breathed. "That's awful. I'm so sorry. I...my mom died from something like that. Jeez, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up dying, I mean, I'm sure you'll be okay..." She trailed off, embarrassed.
I put my hand over hers, on top of the canvas backpack in her lap. "It's okay, Bree," I said. "I'm so sorry to hear about your mom. When did it…?" Now it was my turn to trail off.
"I was only four," she whispered. "I barely remember anything about her. I've seen pictures, though. And some family videos. Everything was normal, we were a normal family, and then this awful thing happened to her and my dad just started to change. It wasn't so bad at first, because he was grieving I guess and he didn't pay me much attention. But I got older and he just started to get so mean. Just yelling, in the beginning. He would yell at me about everything. How much food I ate. How much my clothes cost. Even stuff that had nothing to do with me, stuff like taxes and the cost of gas. And then one day he smacked me right across the face, and it was like opening a floodgate. He hit me all the time. And yelled. And there was nothing I could do to make him stop. You're lucky your dad's not like that, Bella. I been watching your room all day, you know. Vicki says I'm supposed to get you alone for deliveries, so no one sees, so I had to wait for Fre—er, for my friend to clear everyone out. Your dad was in here so long, just sitting in this chair even though you weren't awake. Just reading magazines and stuff."
"I know," I said in a wobbly voice. "He's a good dad. Wish I'd realized sooner." And then I was telling her all about the divorce, choosing Renee, coming back to Forks for summer visits, the decision to move here permanently. I'd done it for kind of weird reasons, not quite self-punishing but close enough, but then it felt so good having a dad who cared about me but didn't hover. And I was rewarding all that care with a fraud that would pretty much end him.
I didn't mention that last part.
I swerved over to talk about the Cullens. "How much do you know about them?" I asked, sniffling. Perhaps too late, I realized that if I didn't want to give her new information to carry back to Victoria I should find out what she'd already heard.
"Not much," she said, shrugging. "Just that Vicki's in business with them. I know your boyfriend's really hot, though." Her eyes sparkled, and unexpectedly I laughed.
"He is that," I agreed.
"Vicki's really beautiful, too," said Bree. "She's obsessed with healthy eating, so all the food in her house is super good for you. And she's always like, giving me facials and doing my nails. And she lets me use all her fancy lotions and stuff. Seriously, I've never been this pretty." She laughed, displaying teeth that were probably Crest Whitestripped. She was right, too. She already looked prettier than she had the first time I'd seen her, but I didn't think that had as much to do with the clarity of her skin or the shininess of her hair. It was just that she looked happier, and happiness looks good on everyone.
"She really takes care of you, huh?" I said, my mind laboring in circles around something I couldn't identify. Something about this was weird. Weirder than I'd thought before. But I couldn't tell what felt off, and I wanted her to keep talking so I could nail it down.
"You have no idea," said Bree. "Vicki works out all the time, and she's even coming up with a workout routine for me, too. Like lifting weights and stuff. I don't have any really visible muscles yet but I can already tell it's working. I sleep better at night." Then she stopped, half-turning in her chair toward a noise in the hall. "I should go," she said, back in cagey-Bree mode. She was dropping the envelope in my lap and scrambling out the door before I could argue.
I didn't open the envelope. I needed to focus. Possibly the weirdness was simply that Bree was becoming more human to me with every visit, more like a friend, and I was having trouble lining up my liking for her with the knowledge that she was kind of an enemy. But something told me that wasn't it. I dozed off still circling the problem in my mind. As usual, my sleeping subconscious proved better at putting clues together than my waking mind. I jerked awake in the middle of a dream, the content of which I immediately forgot. But certain impressions had risen to the top of my dozing brain.
Living with Victoria. The beautification rituals. The strength training. The online classes. Victoria hadn't just taken a poor, lost girl under her wing. She was making preparations.
She was going to turn Bree.
Thanks for reading! Some of you wondered why the Cullens have been leaving Bella alone for Bree to find. The answer is that, after the first few times, Bree's been getting supernatural help in ensuring that no Cullens are around when she delivers the envelopes, although this does not necessarily mean that Bree herself knows that anything supernatural is going on (she may or may not). Still catching up on reviews; thanks for your patience, everyone!