Twilight AF
Chapter 7
When I get home Charlie tells me I look queer. I stare at him for a good thirty seconds before I remember that most of the adults in this town still use that world like it's 1950.
"I had too much sun," I reply sounding as shell shocked as I feel as I head immediately for the stairs. "Anyway, I have homework."
Thirty seconds later he slips a pamphlet under my door; something about the evils of pot smoking. Five minutes after that Sounds of Silence plays loudly from his room.
I boot up my laptop, stare at the screen for five minutes with serious brain-fog, and then watch The Lost Boys on Netflix—twice. I conclude it was a waste of time; the vampires have mullets, are not nearly as hot as the Alaskan supermodels, and do not have black eyes. Dr. McDreamy also does not look like the googly video store owner who gets it on with the mom.
After, I contemplate hyperventilating, before crawling under the covers of my bed and full-body shudder myself to sleep.
Then I dream.
It's a complete gore-fest. Clark, in full vamp mode with long pointy fangs, is chasing hundreds of people through the woods and chowing down on them as their blood spurts from their veins like automatic sprinkler systems. One of the first people he kills is closet perv, which is very satisfying I have to say, but then he sets his sights on Jake, with gold, weirdly luminescent eyes. Jacob then turns into a seven foot tall werewolf wearing cut off shorts and standing on hind legs. He then turns in my direction and approaches slowly, licking his chops as he does. This is when I grab a baseball bat from fuck knows where—apparently I had it on me the whole time—and start cracking him over the head with it. On a side note, I always seem to have surprising, superhuman strength in my dreams. Jake starts howling and then runs off. This is when Clark emerges from the shadows, grabs the bat from me, pulls me in his arms, suctions his lips to my neck and starts moaning my name.
Okay, at this point it starts edging into the realm of porn, and I deliberately wake myself up with the completely rational—as it turns out—fear that he could, in all likelihood, be in the corner of my room getting himself off as well.
My iPhone dock reads 5:30, but I have no idea whether it's morning or afternoon. My bedroom is dark and shaded with either the approaching dusk or dawn. The clouds have returned, though. One day without them and this town gets separation anxiety apparently.
That's when I realize it's morning. I can hear the sound of Charlie shaving in the one bathroom we're forced to share. He only ever shaves in the morning, and religiously, too; weekends be damned.
I can't detect the scent of Windex, but I still check my closet all the same. I'm halfway under my bed searching for signs of disturbance when I have a delayed reaction to my dream and am forced to lay back down undecided whether I'm going to meltdown or orgasm. I have a weird amalgamation of both and almost puke. I spend the next ten minutes laughing, sweating and shaking as I wait for my father to vacate the bathroom.
Females are multi orgasmic, but since there's no moveable showerhead in Charlie's house I have no choice but to live in a semi-permanent state of sexual frustration. I shower sitting on the floor, wash my hair, scrub my teeth and then crawl out on my hands and knees.
I'm pretty certain I'm losing my mind.
By the time I manage to dress myself, Charlie's left to go fishing. I thought I heard him knock on the bathroom door to tell me goodbye, but no doubt heard me bawling and decided against it. Whichever the case, I have the house to myself, which is the way I like it. Well, it was the way I used to like it when I lived with my philandering mother and her constant string of boy toys. Now that I've caught myself a possibly undead stalker who masturbates in my room... well, not so much.
I retreat back to my bedroom, purchase the nanny cam I left in my cart on eBay, and then Google vampire.
Wiki sprouts useless bullshit about Bramstroker and Vlad the Impaler who combusted in the sun. Britannica drones on about different folklores and how babies born with teeth on Christmas day drop dead and are then reborn twenty one years later. National Geographic did a quasi-intellectual hit piece no doubt aimed at all the lonely middle aged women who drool over Vampire Diaries, and the rest is hot pics of Brad Pitt and Ian Somerhalder on Pintrest. I get somewhat distracted going through those, not gonna lie. Nothing, however, explains the idiotically hot Russian supermodels infesting a backwater town with less than three thousand people. I mean, surely one dead/missing local would work the entire population into an uproar, so it makes zero sense that they'd come here to eat.
Not to mention, they walk around town like they own it in broad daylight without a single spark.
Okay, so Googling is a waste of time, and knowing how much Clark would patronize me if he knew what I was doing right now, I contemplate a hissy and snap my laptop closed.
Then shoving a rain hat on my head and shuffling my feet into my boots I decide—for reasons unknown—to trek through the wilderness east of the house. I figure touching grass would snap me back to reality even as I repeatedly recap the events of the last few weeks in my mind and try not to drown from the moisture in the air. Thinking about buff werewolves and hot vampires doesn't seem nearly as ridiculous when you're in the elements, slowly getting eaten alive by mushy, wet, too-green trees and foliage.
It doesn't explain why Clark's batman, though.
Then I contemplate the idea that maybe Jake was totally messing with me. He's a bit of a prankster if I remember correctly. Maybe that asshole is waiting for me to call him up and tell him he's full of shit just so he has a reason to ask me out. If I reconnected with him before I met sex hair, I'd totally be down for it, but whatever spell Clark put on me has stuck.
If I'm being honest, I like the idea of Clark being some pervy, mythical creature who scales the walls of my house to watch me sleep. I really like the idea of that, even if there is a principle and he is a total creeper who has zero fucks about invading my privacy. And if I'm being brutally honest, I know if he really is a vampire, it won't change a single thing.
After all, the worst thing he's ever really done to me was death-stare me for a couple of minutes. He's never once attempted to drink my blood. Plus he did save my life while risking exposure in the process.
I quickly realize what I'm really doing is searching for justification to fuck someone who possibly only wants to fuck with my blood. So to speak.
My mother would be proud.
It starts to rain, turning the already muddy forest floor into a quagmire. Light is quickly dimming under the canopy and my mind starts to race. I have that bone chilling feeling that someone's watching me; someone creepy with cataclysmically good looks. I talk myself into panicking and haul ass back to the house.
Vampire or not, if he's going to kill me, it's going to be in my own damn bed—preferably post coitus—and not out here in the jungle.
It's noon by the time I drag my ass through the side kitchen door and yank off my boots and wet socks. Then deciding that it really doesn't matter to me what Clark is, I force myself back into my new mundane existence as a Forks high school student and start on a paper due Wednesday.
I've already read Macbeth, and have long since gotten over my concern of coming across as a blowhard in front Jessica and her lunch table, so I get on with it.
I'm done by dusk.
Charlie arrives home not long after all chipper and chuffed with himself over his large catch. He fries it up, while I sit at the breakfast table and overlook the awkwardness between us. My father is adorable in all his cluelessness and bad taste in women, and moving in with him really was the best decision I have ever made. Of course it has nothing whatsoever to do with the beautiful stalker I'm ravenously looking forward to seeing tomorrow. I tell myself that so much I start laughing. My father thinks it's over his fishing anecdotes and blushes.
I'm starting to think the rain here is a hallucinogen.
My dreams that night are a mixture of blood, gore and sex, but being unnervingly turned on seems to be my new normal of late. I wake in the morning full of beans, and almost feeling like I've won the lottery by the sight of the yellow light streaming through my window. The sun is shining twice in three days. Apparently that's unheard of.
I jump out of bed with a spring in my step, and almost fail to notice the smell of Windex is back, only mixed with the fruity scent of my body spray—as if that cagey fucker tried to disguise himself.
"You're a pervy bastard, Clark, but I'm onto you," I say to myself with a smirk as I bound down the stairs two at a time. "Heeeeeey, Dad!" I greet Charlie in the kitchen, wrapping my arms around his mid-section.
He sort of stiffens as if he doesn't know what to make of me, before he turns to goo and hugs me back, one-armed. "Hey, Bells."
"By the way, I'm not smoking pot," I say after releasing him to yank open the fridge door.
"Oh, well now, that's good," he mumbles, his ears turning beet red. "Nice day, huh?"
"Great day," I agree, pouring myself a glass of juice and meeting his gaze.
He's smiling brightly and it melts by heart a little bit. Charlie's a bit of a catch for a guy in his late thirties who's a tad too attached to his Freddie Mercury 'stache. He sure as hell could have done better than Renee. One only has to look at her newest husband to see the truth in that. We look exactly alike, me and the old man, and I thank the stars for that daily. I always thought Renee looked like a jezebel, and there's something a bit Magnum PI about my father.
He leaves a few minutes later, grinning to himself like a loon as much as I am, before getting in the cruiser and pulling away. I follow him not long after, grabbing my raincoat on the way out. I'm not in denial, after all.
The sun's so bright it almost blinds me. I half trip down the four stairs to the lawn, cartwheeling my arms manically to right myself. It's warm. And weird.
Really weird. Can't-quite-put-your-finger-on-it weird.
Then I realize I've never seen Clark in the sunshine and change my mind.
I'm one of the first people to arrive at school. I'm earlier than Clark, even, and that makes me feel needy. Then I talk myself into believing that he arrives early to school because he's just as eager to see me.
I'm really becoming as delusional as my mother.
To the right of the parking lot is an outdoor eating area with picnic tables and benches. Whoever built it must have been an out-of-towner, because I mean, it goes without saying that it's never used.
Until today.
I perch myself on top of one of the tables, angle my face to the sky and close my eyes, soaking in as much warmth as I can before the sun goes on hiatus again. That is, of course, until closet perv calls out to me.
I groan pointedly and open my eyes to him practically running toward me and waving like an idiot. He's wearing camo shorts and his legs are albino hairy.
I fight the urge to snicker even as he brazenly sits himself beside me. The guys in this town really are a sandwich short of a picnic basket.
"What can I help you with, Mike?" I go for full sarcasm knowing the asshole won't get the hint either way.
"Hey your hair has red in it," he notes, staring at it in a way that isn't in the least bit flattering. Like he wants to thread his fingers through it.
I inch myself subtly away from him, and respond in kind, "And your leg hair is whiter than my skin."
He laughs weirdly, like he's not sure whether I'm shading him or flirting with him. "Great day, right?" he changes tactics.
"Great..." I echo bluntly.
"What did you do yesterday?" he openly pries.
"I went on a date with Clark," I lie, reaching into my backpack and pulling out a random book hoping he'll find a clue somewhere in that thicker than oak head of his.
He doesn't answer right away and when I glance up at him, I realize he's staring at me, his expression blank.
"W-who's Clark?"
"Hot, kinda red-head who sits next to me in Bio," I say with overly feigned disinterest.
"Edward?" He's incredulous, that asshole, but I don't let it deter me.
"He's Clark to his real friends." I lean slightly toward him and wink.
It's clear he doesn't believe me and decides to call my bluff. "What did you do?"
"What else would I do with someone that gorgeous? We had sex of course."
He snorts this time and practically sneers. "Sure."
I shrug a shoulder nonchalantly. "Ask him if you don't believe me."
"Oh," he mopes again, "well, I'm happy for you." He's everything but, the slimy little fucker.
"Now do you get it that I'm not going to cut in on someone my friend"—my voice strangles over that one word—"is into?"
"Yeah." He sighs in self-pity, but my attention is already beyond him.
It's suddenly occurred to me that the first bell is about to signal and Clark's hatchback is not in the parking lot. For the next few minutes, I eye the entrance to the school like a hawk, holding my breath as I wait for it to pull in, but it doesn't.
I feel like crying, because what the ever loving fuck is wrong with me?
I mope off to Homeroom mopier than squinty eyes and contemplate going home early to cry under my bed. This is what that beautiful pervy bastard has done to me. I hate myself, and him too.
Jessica's all hyped up on pre-dance excitement. She drones on and on about it all morning. Apparently she and Angela are going dress shopping at Port Angeles to snap up all the good dresses before those bitches from Beaver beat them to it. I have absolutely no idea what she's talking about, but somewhere along the way she tricks me into coming. Lauren's also going, but now that I know her pissy attitude toward me is because of Clark, I decide it's a positive.
Jessica holds my hand on the way to lunch. Literally, as if she's decided I'm really not a threat to her fantasy of marrying Mike and birthing his spawn, and she can now be friends with me for real. I oblige her but am forced to talk myself out of tripping her up as we reach the cafeteria.
Table weirdo is empty, Clark has not annexed himself from them alone at another table again either, and my mood is officially in the toilet. Not to mention my stomach gets all tense and I come mortifyingly close to tears. I guess I am also officially one of those girls whose life becomes meaningless without a guy.
Fuck it, I'm a teenager. I'm meant to have a neurotic episode at some point, and decide this will be mine. Besides, Clark isn't just some guy; he's batman.
Okay, I really wanted to see that beautiful bastard. I wanted to sit with him at lunch again and get him to make me rabidly horny by putting spells on me, but I also wanted to test this latest theory. I'm sure I noticed his fangs are slightly longer than his incisors, and I had plans on getting buzzcut to talk to see if hers are the same. God knows that won't be hard. The girl practically explodes every time I make eye contact with her.
I can't remember her name. I think it might be Roseanne.
Lunch passes at Jessica's table. Mike and I pout together even as I let myself hope, by some miracle, that he'll be sitting at our lab table when I arrive, sexy-as-sin-and-creepiness grin on his face as I enter the room.
He's not.
I trip Jessica over at the end of Bio. Squinty eyes doesn't stop her from hitting the deck so I blame him for it. Jessica gives him the silent treatment; something he appears to enjoy.
I'm not in the mood for gym, so I tell the teacher the devil's waterfall is flowing and I'm cramped as fuck. He turns to a tomato and sends me to the nurse. The nurse gives me a heat pack and a pad several inches thick and the size of a surfboard then sends me back to class. I take refuge in John Boy instead.
Jessica passes me by at the end of the day, stopping to remind me she's picking me up at four. She's grinning from ear to ear, so I figure her siege warfare tactics with squinty eyes paid off and he caved. Then, exactly five seconds after I arrive home she calls to me to cancel. Closet perv asked her to dinner, she tells me, giggling her hyena laugh as she does.
Whatever, I'm almost happy for her.
Dress shopping has been rescheduled till tomorrow night.
Now I have fuck all to do and with nothing on my mind but Clark's glaring absence. I take my time doing my homework, and then check my emails. My mother has sent me several. The woman doesn't own a phone so this is our only mode of communication.
They're not much different than the previous one. She's having a great time without me on the road with all the NBA rejects, and she wishes I was there—I snort obnoxiously over that one. She asks a few mundane questions about the boys at school and whether Charlie's seeing anyone, because even though my mother left him in the middle of the night, she expects him to stay single until death mourning for her. I skip ahead when she starts discussing her sex life, and by the time I reach her final correspondence, I realize she has her nose out of joint by my lack of response.
I begrudgingly comply.
Mom,
I'm glad you're having a good time. No, I did not steal your Walmart blouse or your leopard-print thong. Yes, Charlie has lady friends. Almost every night. He's such a lady's man, oh my god. And no, the guys in this town are not hideous. They're HOT! I'm not even kidding. One of them has a thing for me, and I am so there for it. His name's Clark and he's superman.
Anywho, dad and I off to the bar with his latest girlfriend. I think her name's Cynthia but I often forget their names. Clark's coming too.
Tootles.
With literally nothing else to do, I grab my trusty copy of Pride and Prejudice and decide to sunbake in the front yard. Charlie owns no beach towels, of course, so I'm forced to use a dusty quilt I drag from the linen closet as a substitute.
I absolutely love Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennett is my spirit character, and now I can totally empathize with her over her sexual conundrum of wanting to fuck the asshole hottie in town while holding steadfast to her self-respect at the same time. Keira Knightley's adaptation totally nails it on the unresolved sexual tension, and I'm pretty sure I pulled that move on Clark in the cafeteria Thursday—the part where Darcy proposes to Elizabeth in the rain while calling her white trash, I mean. She responds by calling him a blowhard, they have a long string of heated verbal foreplay, and for several moments they come infinitely close to fucking right there and then. Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly the same with Clark, but that part of the movie is masturbation material so it's easy to get carried away.
I mean, if Clark propositioned me at the same time as calling me and Charlie hillbillies, I'd knee him in the balls and force him to apologize before I'd cave. I'm only human, so I'd make the bastard sweat first, but there's no way I'd turn that down.
Maybe it's the sun, but I start to feel hot and bothered. I lay fully on my back and close my eyes, imagining that beautiful creeper's come-fuck-me eyes and the way they track me like a predator.
Okay, probably not exactly the best analogy, but just the thought of him as Darcy, all flustered and staring at my lips for a pause too long after insulting me has me peaking.
I fall asleep before I can shove my hand down my knickers.
The sound of Charlie pulling into the driveway wakes me. I bolt upright almost convinced I've peed myself. Then I realize the dampness of the grass seeped through the quilt and I'm sopping wet, cold, and my nipples are hard as granite and practically slicing through my tee.
I rush inside, hauling the quilt with me, realizing it's too late for dinner now, and so canned goulash will no doubt be on the menu.
Charlie's hanging up his gun holster, not so discreetly removing the bullets and glances dubiously over his shoulder as he does.
I pretend not to notice. "Sorry, Dad, dinner might be a bit late. I fell asleep on the lawn." And in a puddle.
He glances momentarily down at my wet jeans then clears his throat and hastily looks over my shoulder. "It's no problem, Bells. I'll just watch the game for a while."
I whip up spaghetti, and after cleaning the kitchen, Charlie and I watch The Waltons. I crack up laughing every time John Boy is mentioned, while my father side-eyes me like I'm out of my mind. He appears chuffed that we're bonding though, so I use it as an excuse to slip in Jessica's dress shopping event tomorrow.
"So, Dad, Jessica Stanley asked me to go to Port Angeles with her tomorrow to shop for dresses. You don't mind, right?"
"Jessica Stanley?" he echoes looking suddenly sketchy, and I can't remember whether he told me Jessica's uncle is a flasher, or squinty-eye's, but fuck.
"Angela Weber, too," I hastily tack on.
"I thought you weren't going to the dance?" he reminds me.
I shrug like it's no big deal. "They want my input."
"Well, okay. Just don't be out too late." He gets all parental on me.
"I won't." I never had to ask Renee's permission for this kind of shit, and I really want to get my back up. I go with a different tactic though, and butter him up by promising to cook him dinner before I leave.
He smiles to himself for the rest of the night; I go to bed early.
I dream that Clark calls me a redneck, then we fuck in a gazebo in the rain.
The next day the sun is still shining and I'm beginning to think I fell into an alternate universe.
Charlie's gone again by the time I skip downstairs. I pour myself coffee and then force myself to hang around longer than usual so I don't come across as needy by rocking up at school forty minutes early. Still, when I pull into the parking lot I realize Clark's girly car is notably absent again.
The day is almost as identical as the one before. I walk from class to class, ignoring Jessica and her hyena laugh while I desperately offer my soul to the devil in exchange for sex hair's presence in Bio.
It all comes to shit. The beautiful fucker and his weirdo foster family are MIA again, and it really bums me out. For the rest of the day I'm hostile. Even squinty eyes has the good sense to stay away from me, while the gym teacher preemptively red-cards me and sends me to the bleachers the instant I exit the girls' locker room.
I sit class out almost convinced that my mother abandoning me gave me paranoid schizophrenia like Russell Crowe from A beautiful Mind, and the Russian supermodels don't really exist.
Have I been talking to an empty bio stool this whole time?
The trip to Port Angeles is still on, and thank god for small mercies. Jessica's banal as fuck voice will be a good distraction from moping over Clark. Lauren is a no-show, and that pisses me off. I was planning on shoving her out of the car somewhere between Forks and Beaver.