Chapter Thirty Three
{5 months later- August.}
I sat with my back against the tree, my knees pulled up to support the sketch pad, as I dug around in the hand painted pencil tin. My hair was chopped to shoulder length, though I regretted that decision now as I couldn't keep strands of it back from my eyes half the time. I was alone today, sitting at the edge of the woods that bordered La Push beach. Sam had patrols, Leah was attending to her cousin who was visiting from one of the northern tribes, and Jake was helping his sister's pack their stuff up for college. Ever since Sam had picked me up that day in spring, I found myself hanging around more often. A couple more of the boys had turned, specifically Paul and Jared. Neither one of the boys particularly enjoyed the fact that an outsider was privy to the tribal secret, but there wasn't much that could be done. Despite all of the time I was spending on the reservation, most of which was hiking or surfing with Jake, I was still able to hang around town with Gaia.
Jessica had returned shortly after spring break, and her attitude to me had changed dramatically. She apologized to me for how she had acted in the past, explained that things weren't okay for her and she was taking them out on me. Angela had started hanging around more, bringing Jessica along sometimes, but usually it was just her, Gaia of course was a permanent fixture, and the three of them now created the table at which I sat during lunch. I spent the remainder of the year eating lunch with them, occasionally some of the guys would sit with us, mainly Mike Newton. Something that caught both Gaia and I off guard however, was how well I took to driving. Gaia had barely managed to obtain her license, passing the test by a hair, but I seemed to have no problem. My official test wasn't for a month, I was still fifteen, but my driver's ed was going swimmingly.
I continued digging around in the pencil tin before realizing I couldn't find the eraser, and the frustration only built inside me. "Damn it!" I all but shouted, slamming the sketchbook shut and chucking it into the woods in frustration. I knew I'd have to go retrieve it, but for now my outburst was satisfying. Burying my head in my hands, with my elbows positioned against my knees, I pressed against my closed eyes. All my emotions seemed frayed ever since the day at the end of the driveway, like being away from Edward had severed some tie and it was slowly unraveling. It had been nearly about two months since my last outburst, which unfortunately Angela saw, and I had been hoping I had put it behind me. When Angela had witnessed the tantrum last June, she of course was all too kind to me.
{Last June}
"Ari? Are you okay?" Angela stood in the doorway of my kitchen, staring down at the cookie sheet I had just chucked across the room. The memory of my fight with Edward had come back when I burnt my hand, albeit not the same way as I had the night Sam went missing, but similar enough to remind me of the photo shoot and how easily I had caved afterwards. The first burn scar still sat long and thin across my palm, but now there was another shorter and fatter burn that crossed it to make a small x shape.
"I'm fine Ang, just… wait in the living room I'll be out in a minute." I spoke a little too harshly as I pulled the medicine cabinet open to grab the burn cream, which also reminded me of that night. I slammed the burn cream onto the counter with a huff and began struggling to open the top, but Angela's hands stopped me.
"You burnt yourself, let me." She whispered, pulling the burn cream from my unharmed hand. She opened the lid no problem and began to apply the ointment to the inside of my palm.
"I'm sorry." I mumbled, flinching only slightly when her fingernail raked the edge of the burn.
"Ari. I've known you for years, you don't have to be sorry for being a little upset." Her eyes were serious as her hands finished their work and recapped the burn cream. "You obviously don't mean for these things to happen, and nobody's gotten hurt… well other than yourself." She smiled sheepishly.
"I burnt my hand before I threw it for the record. I just definitely didn't mean to frisbee toss it towards the door."
"You didn't know I was there, I just got to the door when the sheet hit the wall." She waved her hand dismissively and grabbed the pot holder. "Besides, how were you supposed to know that your dad put this in the oven last night instead of putting it away? You're just trying to make dinner." She laughed as she retrieved the pan and placed it in the sink where it sizzled against the remaining drops of water from the vegetables I had just rinsed.
"Yeah I guess you're right." I grumbled, pulling my mixing bowl over to me to add the sauce to the Dutch oven. "He knew I was making brisket tonight and that I would start it a little earlier too…" I shook my head as I poured the beef broth and red wine concoction that had been passed down through the generations in my family. It had various ingredients, but I was always told those were the most important. "Ang, can you put this in the oven on the middle rack?" I asked after placing the lid on it.
"Yeah! Of course!" She snatched it up and slid it in as I walked over to the cutting board to assess the potatoes. "So… about the elephant in the room." I turned and looked at her in shock. "You and Edward… you're not together anymore are you?"
"Nope." I said curtly as I leaned against the counter.
"Can I ask why?"
"He didn't respect me enough to respect my boundaries." I clenched my jaw and suppressed a sigh. "So I called it quits." I spoke through clenched teeth, attempting to suppress my anger.
"Ari, I'm so sorry." Angela's face looked as if her heart had cracked wide open. She stood awkwardly by the oven for a moment before walking forward to hug me. "You're stronger than most people our age." She mumbled as she set her jaw on my head. Angela had always been taller than me, but now she stood at 5'10 and it was just downright unfair of a height difference.
"Thank you." I mumbled back, holding back the tears I hadn't shed since the day I left Edward.
"When did you two…" she paused, letting the silence do the talking. "If you don't mind me asking of course!" She added quickly, her eyes widening.
"No I don't…" I sighed and stared down at my feet for a moment. "About three months ago? It was during spring break so… March?" It suddenly struck me, our relationship had only lasted during the holidays. Officially we had started to date in November, and officially we had stopped after saint patty's day.
That knowledge stung.
{back to present day}
I took a deep breath, and prepared myself to get up and search for the sketchbook, when I heard a rustle beside me. Hesitantly peeking out from behind my hand, I saw Sam standing there in gym shorts, holding my sketchbook. It was so hot out today that he had pulled his long hair back away from his face, and now looked at me with a small smirk. "Drop something?" He walked over and crashed down next to me, tossing my sketchbook next to the pencil tin. "You wanna talk about it?" He raised a brow, his deep brown eyes inquisitive.
"I mean not particularly." I placed my chin on my shoulder as I looked at him.
"Come on Ari, it's been almost five months. I've given you your space but I'm drawing the line now." He was using the same voice with me that he used with Paul when he would lose his temper. It would never have the same effect on me as it did on them, but it was powerful regardless.
"Okay? And? I still don't have anything to say." I could feel the venom in my words, the bite they had coming out of me, but I couldn't stop them.
"You've been getting more violent. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you do." He grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine. "If you don't want to talk to me about it, fine, talk to Leah." He and Leah have graduated now, both having turned 18. They had moved into a house on the reservation, I had been over a few times, it sat right on the edge of the woods near some cliffs that looked out over the water. Leah was so happy, it made my heart sing watching these two love eachother so freely. They were already engaged, but Leah wanted to hold off for a bit until they got married, stating she wanted to enjoy the feeling of being engaged for a little bit.
"Sam I just…" I heaved a sigh and laid my head back against the bark. "I don't know how to process it all. What happened with me and Edward, what's happening between Angela and I…"
"If you want to move on from him, move on from him. Don't stop yourself from being with Angela because you're afraid of what some immortal douche might say." Sam rolled his eyes, having decided early on he preferred Angela as my significant other over Edward. "At least she's human and you can live a semi-normal life again."
"I know… I know." I thought about what had begun to develop between Angela and myself, how it all started on the Fourth of July. "She's too good for me."
"Bullshit." Sam tossed a clump of grass at me.
"She is. I swear." I tipped my head back and stared up at the sky for a moment. "She is one of the best people I know, Sam. How can I willingly pull her into this chaos?"
"You aren't as apart of the chaos as you think. The Cullen's just had you believing that because you were with him." Sam pulled my hand under his chin and stared at me intently. "You're like a sister to me Ari. For your own sake, at least try to be happy with her."
"Sam… what if I ruin her?"
"You won't! Okay! Think about that story you told me about the fourth?" He huffed, dropped my hand back to the grass, and I willingly obeyed and thought back to that night.
{the Fourth of July}
I sat with my feet dangling off the pier, I felt so nervous but I couldn't tell why. Angela sat next to me, we were quiet for a moment as we listened to the crickets. The sun was still setting but the symphony of night had already begun. "Have you ever been wakeboarding?" Angela asked eventually.
"No… I've been surfing though!"
"Oh you should totally try wakeboarding tomorrow!" I was staging the night in the cabin that Angela had convinced her uncle to let us use. All the adults were going to use the campers, they claimed they wanted their own spaces, but all of us who had been invited by Angela got to share the cabin. All together that was myself, Jessica, Gaia, Angela (of course), and the most surprising edition, Bella Swan. Apparently Bella and Ang had met a few years back during one of her trips to Forks, and while Angela wouldn't have invited her of her own volition, my dad and Charlie were both out here for the weekend with us, so Bella had no choice. Of course she seemed pretty okay with it considering we were far enough from Forks that we had to count in an entire day just for travel.
"I absolutely want to go wakeboarding tomorrow!" I felt a smile fill my face, and joy swell in my chest. It had been a while since I let myself feel anything so powerfully, always fearing the bite of rage or sorrow that would come along with it.
"Should we invite the others?" Angela, as always being thoughtful, made me only smile more.
"I think that would only be kind, but I doubt Bella will want to go."
"You were friends with her when you were little, right?"
"Yep, she moved right before school began, she used to come around every summer until about fifth grade."
"Has she always been so…"
"Shy? Kinda."
"I think I meant clumsy?" Angela laughed lightly.
"Oh she's always been like that." I held my arm out to trace the thin scar along my elbow. "She gave me this scar when we were eight." Angela grabbed my arm to look closer in the dying light.
"Oh my god!" She let go and started laughing. "Yeah maybe it's better that she sits out of wakeboarding."
"I will say I'm surprised she's spending the whole time reading, she use to be adventurous too." I thought back to the little brunette that used to chase Jake and I around the police precinct. It seemed like another life… no it was another life. That's when the feeling of sorrow started to seep back in, slowly it soaked into every bone. Angela saw the shift in my eyes, and her hand caught mine up.
"Hey? Are you okay?" She shifted on the dock to face me, only one of her legs dangling from the side.
"Yeah, no I'm good." I wrestled with the emotions to push them down, but it seemed a tad harder than it should've been. I pinned my gaze to the sky, which was now a rich deep shade of violet.
"Ari." Her voice seemed stern, and she gently placed her hand on my cheek to encourage me to look at her, naturally I obeyed. "Please." Her voice was barely a whisper, as a shiver traveled up my spine, she dropped her hand from my cheek, folding her hands in her lap.
"Ang… I…" I couldn't find the words. In the last embers of light, I could barely make out her face, but I was pretty sure she was moving towards me. A moment later, I was entirely sure, as her breath brushed against my face, and just barely the tips of our noses touched.
"You're… okay with this? Right?" She whispered, her voice shaking slightly. With a small almost inconceivable knod from me, she moved forward and closed the distance between our lips. It wasn't like the kisses shared with Edward in Alaska, it was soft and sweet. Instead of electricity cracking through my body, it was a soft warmth like candle light. That warmth slowly consumed me as I lifted one of my arms that had been supporting me against the dock and found her knee. She had began to move her own hand, it had found its way to my cheek again, her thumb brushing my jaw just slightly. All thoughts of Edward had melted away from me, and just at that moment, the scream of the first firework pierced the sky. As we pulled away from each other, a brilliant explosion of gold painted both our bodies in soft light, the water acting as a mirror itself. We both stared for just another moment, then turned to face the fireworks, our hands interlocked all the meanwhile.
{Back to present day}
"It's been a month since then, and you've talked almost every night, Ari." Sam kept his pointed gaze, his eyes flashing with challenges and authority.
"Okay…?"
"Okay! And the Cullen's don't even call you the right nickname! They all call you Ara, do they not know why we all call tou Ari?" Sam looked almost flabbergast by my dismissive tone.
"No…"
"Oh my god you never corrected them." Sam's face deadpanned.
"No…"
"Arabella." Sam scolded.
"What!? They didn't know my mom, she's the one that coined the nickname!" I burst out a little louder than I had intended, the sharpness in my words not being lost on me.
"So! You love it, you told me you hoped everyone would always call you it because it reminded you of your favorite memories!" He raised far too valid of a point, and I felt the anger bubble in me once more.
"Just because she called me her 'little Aria' and her 'little song' doesn't mean everyone has to change from my original nickname." I spoke dismissively, waving my hand in the air like I was batting away the accusations.
"You didn't feel that way after she died?" He challenged me.
"Okay but I feel that way now Sam! I don't feel like fighting okay! I don't want to think about her death! I don't want to think about the fact that the guy who was supposed to be able to understand me even when I didn't couldn't get a fucking clue! I don't want to think about how I could screw it all up between Ang and I! I'm tired of thinking about everything all the time!" My shout caused a few birds to fly from the trees adjacent to me, but I could feel Sam's sympathetic gaze.
"Is that what this has been about?" Sam's voice sounded almost broken when he finally spoke.
"What, that I'm frustrated? That I was let down by someone who was literally set up to anticipate the outcome? That I broke up with the first person I ever said 'I love you' to but never heard it back from?" I lifted my head and met his gaze. "Yeah Sam. That's what this is about."
"Ari, you can't just hold this all in. That's why you keep exploding like this." He gestured to my previously airborne sketchbook.
"I've been holding it in so long, I don't think I know how to let it go anymore." I clenched my jaw and changed my sitting position, crossing my legs and leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. "I don't think I can just let myself cry about it anymore."
"That's why you have me." Sam sighed, grabbing me and pulling me into a hug like he did the day he picked me up. "You said you called me that day because nobody else would understand, but then you didn't talk about it." He tightened the hug and sighed. "Let me understand it."
Something about the entire situation finally broke me, and the first tear in five months slid out of my eyes, soon enough there was a river. I explained it all, I told him about the attack, about where the car accident was staged, and about the final conversation I had with Edward. I spoke about how much I feared having to have classes with him in just two short weeks, how I feared developing a relationship with Angela because of everything, and how I still had feelings for Edward but I couldn't forgive him for this.
Sam just held me and listened, and that was exactly what I needed.