A/n: For the prompt "drama," from the WFN Advent challenge! Also for Lupa_Barnes' challenge, Destroy Dic(tion) December.

Bella comes out to Charlie in this chapter. Everything goes okay, but here's your heads up, if that kind of thing makes you nervous!

They hadn't exactly decided to start a relationship, but they'd been texting each other for three days straight. And based on the questions Edythe was sending—about her hobbies, her favorite things, her thoughts on random issues (really random, actually; it made Bella wonder if she was googling things to ask)—Bella was pretty sure that was the direction they were headed.

Her mom knew she was bisexual. Her dad...well, it had never come up. She'd gone on occasional dates with people back in Phoneix, but none of them had gone anywhere.

Her phone chimed. "Thoughts on abortion?"

She rolled her eyes. Honestly, Edythe. It was so unrelated to anything that they'd been talking about, she was now certain that Edythe was googling random issues. "If ur not pro-choice we're gonna have a problem," she sent back.

There was a short pause before she answered, and Bella wondered if this was going to be the end of their burgeoning relationship. Or friendship, even.

"Good God. Calm down," finally came through. Edythe followed it up with, "I'm on your side. Abortion has really made leaps and bounds in terms of safety. There's lots of people Carlisle wishes he'd been able to save with the modern procedure."

Bella stared at the message, wondering if she was being punk'd. She hadn't exactly forgotten Edythe's inhuman nature, but it had definitely taken a backseat as they started to flirt around all of this. Plus...Carlisle could only be in his late 20's, and even that was a stretch, based on his youthful face. This message seemed to imply that he'd been practicing medicine since before 1973.

"How old are you?" she texted. Because if Carlisle was lying about his age...

Edythe didn't answer for a while, and she wondered if she was upset with herself for revealing too much. Or maybe it was something else. Finally, she texted back, "Sixteen." Spelled out, which was how she always texted, but now seemed to be an even clearer indication that she was...different.

Had she ever even typed "lol"?

"How long have you been sixteen?" she sent. She jumped when the front door suddenly opened. Shit, was her dad home already? She hadn't even started dinner, too distracted by texting.

"Hey, Bella," her dad said when he saw her on the couch.

She smiled up at him hopefully. "Can we order pizza today? I'm still a little tired from being in the hospital..." She wasn't, but that was beside the point.

"Sure," he said. He looked a little disgruntled to be reminded of that, but didn't say anything about suing Tyler again, so Bella was pretty relieved. There was an insurance claim—she'd overheard her dad talking about it on the phone the night before—but she did not want to go to court over something so small as this.

Charlie ordered a pizza over the phone while Bella continued to wait for a response from Edythe.

The pizza had been delivered and half-eaten by the time Edythe answered. "My birthday is in June, if that's what you mean."

It wasn't, but she filed it away for later, anyway. If they were together in June, she'd plan something. "Did you turn sixteen on that birthday?" Bella pressed.

Edythe sent back a text relatively quickly "It's been a while since I turned sixteen."

As she suspected. Kind of. Edythe didn't really seem sixteen.

"Is that a boy?" her dad asked.

Ah. Maybe now would be a good time to...say something.

"No," she said.

He looked relieved, but also somehow worried. No doubt, he thought she hadn't made enough friends, or...love interests.

"There's something I've been meaning to tell you, actually," she said slowly, trying to figure out if he would be like her mom, who she'd told over text message as an aside, or if he would need more details and hand-holding. Coming out was really the worst. Why couldn't she have beamed the idea to him when she was born, so she could avoid this shit? "About...that."

Charlie set down the slice of pizza he'd been holding, mind obviously racing. "Are you pregnant?" he demanded.

She almost spat out the pizza she'd anxiously bitten into. "What? No!"

"Oh. Good." He sat back in his chair, still eying her warily. "Did you need advice...about sex?"

Bella was certain that she was redder than the pizza sauce that had dripped onto her plate. "No! God. Let me talk, please?" At this point, getting it out in the open might be less painful.

Her dad nodded and waved his hand, signaling for her to continue. He didn't pick up his slice yet, though, which...that was probably a good thing.

"There's a girl. That I like." She practically spat the words out. Why was this so painful?

His face remained frozen.

She wasn't sure he understood her. "I want to date her. I don't know if we will, because, um, Forks doesn't seem the most progressive, and honestly, I don't know if she even wants to date me, but—I thought you should know that I've always liked girls. And boys, but, um, major preference for girls." She hadn't meant to lay everything out like that, but once she'd started, she hadn't been able to stop.

"Okay," he said. His face hadn't changed, and he started to eat his pizza again. She wondered if this was him in denial, processing, or acceptance. As much as she usually appreciated his quiet nature, it was frustrating in moments like this, where she couldn't parse what he was thinking at all.

She scrutinized him as she went back to eating, temporarily putting aside Edythe's cryptic texts. They didn't speak again until he told her he would do the dishes and she told him she would go do homework upstairs.

No homework was getting done, of course—she was crying instead.

She was being stupid. Tons of people got way worse reactions when coming out to parents. Sure, he hadn't said anything to indicate that he was angry, but he wasn't acting happy, either.

She was scared—what if...what if he was going to blow up, send her to Florida, or, or—somewhere worse? What if she had to leave Forks, leave Edythe? It was stupid she thinking that, too. They weren't even dating, but figuring out her deal was the first thing Bella had been invested in in months.

Her phone chirped. It was Edythe again. "Bella, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied, because she didn't need to spill her guts about how upset she was about coming out to someone she was just getting to know.

"Usually there's more of a reaction when I say something that gives me away."

Bella snorted, amused despite her tears. "Just distracted."

"Should I be jealous?" Edythe sent, and it was obviously teasing.

Bella sent back the middle finger emoji.

"Rude," Edythe responded.

She sighed. "As if anyone could possibly measure up to you, immortal or otherwise."

"I was hoping that wasn't the conclusion you would come to."

It was nice to be distracted by Edythe. It was probably something Bella should examine, but for now, she let it happen. They sent a couple teasing messages back and forth about how Edythe revealed too much and Bella was close to figuring it out, but—there was a knock on the door.

Yikes. She sent a quick text. "Don't ask any questions but would you rescue me if my dad kicked me out?"

"Yes, obviously. What the hell, Bella?"

She steeled her shoulders and went to open her bedroom door. "Yeah?"

He could obviously tell she'd been crying. "Bella," he said, frowning. "I'm sorry. I should have been more clear downstairs. Thank you for sharing this with me. Of course I will love you the same way no matter who you date. Whenever you and this girl work things out, I would love to meet her."

It was the most he'd said to her since she'd moved in with him, and she felt her eyes welling up again. She hugged him tightly. "Thank you, dad."

"Of course. I'm sorry for not communicating this to you earlier."

"Thank you for telling me now," she replied.

He kissed the top of her head. "Don't stay up too late," he said gruffly, clearly at the end of his emotional expression.

She couldn't help but smile. "I won't." She closed the door as he turned away and laughed softly to herself. Okay. Bridge crossed. "Don't worry," she sent to Edythe. "Everything is fine."

Edit 1/7/19: So...I changed the age exchange. I know it no longer follows the iconic conversation in the books, but I have a couple reasons.
1. Juniors, generally speaking, tend to be closer to 16 than 17. I can excuse Bella being 17, because her birthday is in December. If Edythe is 17 in January of he Junior year, but her birthday is in June, it means she either is lying about her birthday (possible), or she at some point got held back a grade, which doesn't make much sense in the context of the books.
2. If there's ever an E-rated segment of this story (no promises), I don't want to write a sex scene involving a 17 year old, even if she's an immortal one. So she (and a couple other characters) are getting aged up, though it's not explicitly clear here.