1
Bella Swan leaned against the railing and watched as the water beat against the side of the ferry. A cool mist sprayed her, a refreshing moisture that took the edge off the scorching heat. June had ushered in an unrelenting heatwave and the only relief she'd found was on her evening ferry rides back to Bainbridge Island. Though, the sight of the dock up ahead had her sighing.
So much for a few moments of peace and tranquility, she thought bitterly.
The ferry stopped with a slight jerk and she gripped the railing to keep from falling. She could still feel the swaying motion as the water nudged the vessel forward and it came to a stop with a sudden jarring. Once she had her bearings, she hoisted her satchel more securely onto her shoulder and joined the mass of people pushing and shoving their way off the ferry and onto the deck. She was one of the last, always at the tail end. Unlike the rest of the commuters, she wasn't in a hurry to get home. She preferred to take her time, even when the temperature soared over ninety degrees.
"Miss Swan," Thom, the ferry-boat drive, greeted her with a warm smile. He gestured for her to step off the ferry before him. "Can I give you ride? It's too hot to be walking."
"No, thanks," she replied, trying to sound pleasant. "Have a nice weekend."
"You, as well, Miss Swan."
He smiled once more before he stepped back onto the ferry and disappeared into the cabin. Bella switched her satchel to her other shoulder and started the mile walk through Bainbridge Island. The sun had already started to dip beneath the horizon. Nighttime had never been her favorite time of the day. As a little girl, she'd been scared of the dark. Now, as an adult, she wasn't scared of the dark, but what the darkness brought.
Five minutes later, she was standing in front of the rundown, two-bedroom house she shared with her mother. The small yard was overgrown with weeds and the house needed some new paint, windows, flooring, and a roof, but all of those things cost money, and money just wasn't something she had a lot of at the moment.
From outside, she could hear the music her mother was blasting. Classic rock, which meant that her mother was in one of those moods again. Sighing, Bella shuffled through the iron gate and up the front walk. She pushed the door open, a dull creak filling the air. Her mother wasn't in the living room, which like the outside of the house needed an upgrade. There were divots in the wall from where the furniture had been pushed into them, or from the things her mother had thrown from across the room. The pain was chipping, the corners filled with cobwebs, and a light layer of dust covered everything.
The furniture was ancient. A mixture of orange, red, yellow, and brown flowers on the couch and a pea-green on the recliner. A white, wicker coffee table was cluttered with old magazines, a tissue box, and the remote to the television.
Bella walked through the living room into the dining room. Like the table in the living room, the dining room table was covered with dozens of old magazines. Half of them were opened, some had pages that had been torn out, and some had been abused by a black magic marker.
Bella found her mother in the kitchen. The olive-green refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher dated the kitchen, as did the fruity wallpaper, florescent lighting, and orange and green speckled counter tops.
Renee Swan was standing in front of the stove, an apron slung over her neck, a chef's hat plastered on her head, and oven mitts on each hand. She was scrambling eggs and there was a stack of burnt bread next to the toaster.
"Hey, mom," Bella said quietly, not wanting to startle the woman.
Renee spun around, a cigarette hanging from between her lips. "My baby!"
She slung herself against Bella, who groaned from the impact. Pushing her mother's body off of her, she took a step backward. "Thought we talked about you cooking. Where's Heidi? She was supposed to be here until I got home. You didn't fire her again, did you?"
"Maybe. Caught her stealing from us again." Renee shrugged her shoulders and turned her attention back to the eggs, which were starting to burn.
"I'm sure she wasn't stealing," she said, reaching around her and turning the oven off. Her mother always thought Heidi was stealing, and the woman never did. One of these days, she was just going to quit and then Bella would be really screwed. "You're not going to be happy until you've burned this place to the ground."
"Never started a fire before. Don't see that changing today," Renee quipped, grabbing the handle of the skillet, but screaming and releasing it almost immediately. "Fucking shit, that's hot."
"Jesus Christ, Mom." Bella grabbed her mother's wrist and led her to the skin, turning the cold water on and shoving her red hand under it. "You have to use oven mitts. How many times are we going to have to go over this?"
"I forgot," she mumbled, tearing her hand out of Bella's and pushing her away.
Bella caught herself before she fell on top of the hot stove, taking a deep breath to keep from losing her temper.
"You got something in the mail today."
Bella paused as she reached for one of the oven mitts, and looked over at her. "Probably just a bill."
"From a bill from someone named A. Whitlock?"
Her eyes closed for a moment before she turned once more to her mother. "Give it to me."
Renee gave her a look before she all but threw the red envelope at her with an array of flowers along the bottom. She could see where the post office had forwarded her mail from her previous address, and the one before that, and the one before that before sending it to the small, broken down house they lived in now.
"Don't know why you continue to waste your time with them."
"You opened my mail?" Bella snarled, glaring at her mother when she turned it over, finding the back flap had already been pried open. "Jesus Christ, Mom, can I have nothing private anymore?"
"It came like that," the woman lied before she flicked her cigarette ashes on the floor and walked out of the kitchen.
Bella sat at the small kitchen table and pulled the letter out of the envelope. Her heart was racing as she turned it over and unfolded it. "Bella, I would have called, but you don't answer your phone anymore. For all I know, you aren't even going to read this, but I had to try. We had to try. We miss you — we all miss you. I wish you would just let one of us know you are okay, that you're not dead, that she hasn't done anything to you. Ben said he saw you over in Tacoma about a year ago. Said he called out to you, and you looked at him, but didn't acknowledge him. We went back a couple weeks later, but . . . I guess you'd moved on."
Bella blew out a heavy breath, remembering that morning. She'd taken Renee over for another doctor's appointment, where they were told once again the damage was irreversible. When she heard him call out her name, she wanted nothing more than to talk to him, to catch up, but Renee had been irritable after all the testing, and Bella could see the meltdown coming, so instead, she took her mother home.
"We're hosting a little reunion out at the lake on the weekend of the eighteen. Everyone is going to be there. Please come with us. It's okay to be a little selfish, put yourself first for a change. My number hasn't changed, so call or text me, something so that we know you're alive. We love you, Bella, and we really hope you'll come. Alice."
She blew out a deep breath as she let the letter fall from her fingers and hit the table. Her fingers were shaking as she dug her phone out of her pocket, laying it on top of the letter. She opened her text messages, finding Alice's name and scrolled up. Every single message for the last three years was from her, and none from Bella: Call me, talk to me, please Bella talk to me, are you okay, did she hurt you, we love you, we miss you, etc. etc. etc. Every single time, she wanted to reply back, to promise her that she was . . . She wanted to lie to her and reply that she was okay, that she hadn't regretted her decision, but how could she when all she had done for the last three years was regret every decision she made.
Alice's messages had been easier to ignore. His, on the other hand, hadn't. He begged her to come back, to let him come with her, to let him love her, to let him give up everything for her. But she couldn't, because it was bad enough she had given up everything to come take care of a mother who didn't give two shits about her. What was only supposed to be a few days, a week a most, had turned into years. Years of struggle and hardship. Years of being alone.
"You're going, aren't you?"
Bella's eyes shifted to the doorway of the kitchen, where her mother stood with another cigarette dangling from between her lips. "I don't know."
"Lying, little bitch," she groused, rushing toward her, but Bella managed to grab her phone and the letter in one quick move as she ducked around her mother and hurried upstairs, locking herself in her bedroom.
The sound of her mother's yells and screams echoed from downstairs as Bella slid to the floor, covering her mouth with her hand as she held her phone up in front of her, staring at Alice's messages on his phone. Her fingers shook as she found herself sending, "I'm in."
Thank you for reading this first chapter! Just going to say right here and right now, this is not going to be canon. If you can't read anything that isn't canon, no hard feelings. Chapters will be relatively shortish. Do me a solid and leave me a review, add it to your alerts, etc.