Chapter 16
I can't take what you doing to me.

Boy why is it so hard for you to see.

If you keep calling trying to holla.

There's no need.

~Stop Calling Me- Cherish

"What do you mean it's gone?" Jacob growled into the phone.

Bella watched her husband gripping the house phone with enough force to break the small device. Yesterday they had eaten at the restaurant and Jacob had gotten drunk which led to a raunchy night in the parking lot. They hadn't gotten home until well after midnight, much to Charlie's chagrin. Bella felt bad and allowed Charlie to sleep the night on their couch. Before Charlie had left that morning, she made breakfast and wished him a good rest of the day. Jacob had stumbled out of bed around noon and after devouring some cold leftover breakfast, he headed into the living room with an agenda. Bella didn't know who he was talking to, or what the subject matter was even about. All she could tell was that Jacob was unhappy with whatever the person was saying.

"We can sue you! This is unacceptable!" Jacob snapped, clenching his free hand angrily. "Excuse me?! How dare you!" Jacob slammed the phone down on the receiver and ended the call. "This can't be happening. This has to be a dream." He groaned aloud.

Bella entered the living room warily. She knew how Jacob could be when he was angry. "What's going on?" She asked softly.

Jacob had covered his face with his hands, peered out at his wife between his fingers. "We have a huge problem."

"What is it?" Bella crossed the living room and took a seat beside her distraught husband. "Who were you talking to on the phone?"

"I was on the phone with auto shop. I was asking about your car." Jacob removed his hands and turned to his wife. "It's been weeks. It shouldn't be taking this long."

Bella frowned and reached out to pat Jacob's back. "Is it the engine? I know it can be expensive to replace, but don't worry. We can figure it out."

"It's not the engine." Jacob made a face as though he were sucking on a lemon. "It's gone."

Bella was confused by Jacob's words. "What's gone?"

"Your car." He responded simply. "Your car is gone."

Bella removed her hand from Jacob's back slowly. "My car is...gone? How is that possible?"

Jacob stood up from the couch and began pacing. "Apparently they don't have any record of the car ever being on the lot."

"Huh?" Bella felt like the room was spinning and had to close her eyes for a moment. "Why wouldn't they have record of it?"

"I have no idea. But they don't remember your car ever being there. So as far as they're concerned, we never gave them your car." Jacob stomped his foot on the ground and turned to his wife. "Do you have any documents or anything we can do to take this to court?"

Bella thought back to when she had her car put in the shop. It was so long ago that it took her awhile to retrieve the memories. "I remember calling a tow truck. Paying in cash because he didn't take credit. But after that, it's all a blur." Bella fiddled with the fabric of the couch. "I don't think I ever even called the shop. The tow truck man just told me he was going to take it to the shop and gave me their number."

Jacob leaned against the wall and looked at the ceiling. "I can't believe this is happening. Your car has essentially been stolen. We can't even sue the auto shop because we don't have concrete evidence." Jacob cursed quietly and looked at his wife with anger. "We can't afford a new car."

"I know." Bella stood up from the couch but felt light headed immediately and fell back. "Whoa."

Jacob noticed and was immediately at his wife's side. "Are you okay?" He sat next to her and held her face in his hands.

"I'm fine Jake. Just stood up too fast. Don't worry about me." She sent him a wry smile. "We need to focus on the task at hand." Bella pulled out her cell phone and quickly found Charlie's number. "If we report it stolen, then maybe they can find it."

Jacob sighed heavily. "We have no clue how long your car has been stolen, Bella. It's been weeks. Whoever took it most likely sold it and trashed the plates."

"Doesn't hurt to try right?" Bella called her father who, luckily, was a police officer. She didn't want to explain the entire situation to him as everything seemed so hectic, but merely told him that her car had been stolen. Charlie promised to put in a report when he went to work the following day, and Bella thanked him before ending the call. The whole conversation took less than ten minutes, and by the time she was finished, Jacob had calmed down. "It's alright Jacob. We'll get through this like we get through everything else."

"I really hope so Bella." Jacob muttered. "How can you be so calm about all of this? It was your car. I feel like I'm more upset than you are."

Bella shrugged and produced a small smile. "Well one of us has to be level headed." She kissed his cheek gently and smirked. "Or maybe I'm still on cloud nine from last night."

Jacob flushed from embarrassment. "I can't believe we did that in a parking lot."

"What did you do in a parking lot?" Renesmee asked suddenly after entering the living room with her pet at her heels.

Jacob looked to his wife for an answer but she merely tried not to laugh and looked at him expectantly. "Well Jacob? What did we do in the parking lot?"

"Uh," Jacob looked at his daughter nervously. "We ran over a squirrel."

Renesmee gasped in fright and Bella glared at her husband. "He's joking Renesmee. Don't listen to him." Bella opened her arms and her daughter embraced her.

"That was scary." Renesmee murmured into her mother's shirt. "Why did daddy try to scare me?"

"He wasn't trying to scare you. He was just being silly." Bella looked at Jacob and mouthed the words 'I'm going to kill you.'

After Renesmee had calmed down from her mild scare, Jacob suggested they take Midnight for a walk, stopping by the park. Renesmee was delighted with the idea and rushed to her room to put on her shoes and grab a jacket. "It's a good thing it's not raining today."

Bella peered out of the window and a small smile graced her face. "I think for the next couple of weeks, it's not going to rain too badly. On Renesmee's birthday it's even going to be sunny!"

"Really?" Jacob made a face appreciation. "So the party then?"

"I think it's doable. I'm going to look up some places where we can have it." Bella ended the conversation as their daughter dashed into the room.

"Let's go daddy!" She held Midnight's leash and passed it to her father who quickly clipped it on Midnight's collar. "Mommy do you want to go too?"

Bella shook her head regretfully. "Sorry honey. But mommy has things she has to do." When Renesmee began to pout, Bella sent her daughter a half-smile. "But I'm sure you, daddy and Midnight are going to have fun. When you get back, I'll have lunch ready and maybe we can watch a movie."

Renesmee seemed intrigued by this idea and hugged her mother.

"Jake, why don't you take the camera? We haven't made home videos in a while." Bella pointing to where the camera lay abandoned atop the TV.

"Good idea." Jacob grabbed it then blew his wife a kiss. "C'mon Nessie."

Bella watched her family head out then grabbed her laptop that was resting on the coffee table. She wasn't sure where she wanted Renesmee's party to be, but she wanted it to be a kid friendly place. While she was googling ideas, she called Charlie for the second time that day. "Hey Charlie."

"I'm so popular today." Charlie joked through the phone. "Whatcha need, Bells?"

"So as you know, Renesmee's birthday is on Saturday." Bella got comfy in her seat by lifting her legs onto the couch. "I'm going to throw her a surprise birthday party."

"That sounds like a great idea." Charlie paused then shuffled the phone to his other ear. "And you're calling to see if you can hold the party here?"

Bella hadn't thought about it, but that was actually a great idea. Charlie had a large fenced in backyard. They could easily set up a kid friendly party back there. "Yes." Bella said. "Would that be alright?"

"Of course Bells. She has a few friends here. I'll be seeing most of their parents during the week if you want me to invite them."

"Charlie, that would be awesome." Bella smiled through the phone and felt relief with how well the party planning was turning out. "I'll bring all the supplied by Saturday morning and we can set up. The party will be in the afternoon, maybe 2. Is 2 a good time?"

"Fine by me."

Bella ended the call a few minutes later after fine tuning some details. The venue was now booked; Charlie's backyard. Now she needed to come up with a theme. Most kid birthday parties had themes. She vaguely remembered being a little girl and having a barbie themed birthday party. She'd also gone to others including a dinosaur and disney themed party. Renesmee was different than Bella was as a child. Bella had been more reserved and only liked a handful of things. Renesmee on the other hand was a very open child who enjoyed a wild variety of things from toy cars, to dolls to Midnight. "Midnight." Bella murmured aloud as an idea struck her. "Puppy themed birthday!" Renesmee had really taken a shine to Midnight. She played with the pup from sunup till sundown. Yesterday at the restaurant Demetri had told her that his neighbor had puppies. Maybe is she asked nice enough, Demetri would be able to ask his neighbor if they could bring the puppies to the birthday party. Who didn't love puppies? Bella made a mental note to ask Demetri the next time she saw him.

She put away the laptop after successfully finding her theme and listed the stores she would need to visit to buy party supplies. She set up an alert on her phone so that she would be reminded to pick up the supplies after work on Friday. She was going to make sure it was the best birthday party ever for Renesmee.

The house phone suddenly began ringing and Bella plucked it from it's ringer, bringing it to her ear. "Hello?" she greeted happily.

"Hello Isabella." A deep voice returned neutrally.

Bella felt the smile drop from her face and her voice lowered. "Edward. What do you want?"

Edward chuckled darkly. "What? I can't occasionally call you and ask how you are?"

Bella scowled into the phone. "We both know you don't give a rat's ass about me. You never did."

"Now Isabella, you know that's not true. I loved you once." Edward tutted into the phone. "But then you ruined my life and all of that changed."

Bella hated hearing her name on his voice. She knew the only reason he was using her full name was to piss her off. "What do you want? Why do you keep calling me?"

"Are you saying you don't enjoy my calls?" Edward chided. "That hurts."

Bella wanted to hang up on him but she couldn't figure out why he was calling her. "How did you even get my number?"

"I have my ways Isabella Swan."

"Why can't you just leave me alone?!" Bella shrieked. She was tired of hearing from him. She wanted to just forget about the past and her relationship with him. But every time she seemed to have a good day, Edward somehow made an appearance to remind her of the terrible life she'd had with him. "What, do you miss me?" she snapped.

"You know why I'm calling." Edward growled lowly. "You've ruined my life."

"You ruined mine!" Bella slammed the phone down on the receiver and unplugged it from the wall so that he wouldn't be able to call back. She'd had enough of Edward and never wanted to hear from him again. "Who needs house phones anyway?"