Chapter 7
A/N
Hello! I am sorry for the long wait, my ideas for this chapter kept getting ambitious and demanding. The words disappeared as soon as effort was required. It's been a trial.
My inner child has decided that sparkles will heal us, and since I'm not doing sparkly vampires, I'm going to try to do pretty sparkle fun times in other ways.
I also keep finding typos and errors no matter how many times I read everything through, and it is terrifying. I had a typo in the last chapter where I had used 'BEASTS' instead of 'BREASTS' and it was there for DAYS and when I finally noticed it, I cringed, I laughed, I died a little inside, I had a mortifying flashback to that time in Grade 8 where my sweet old man of an English teacher giggled his way through telling the class that I had made the best typo he had ever seen when I wrote "she BOOBED through the crowd" instead of "she BOBBED through the crowd".
Apparently, tits are my kryptonite.
I almost left the typo because there's something so FanFiction about it that I kinda love, you know what I mean?
But if you noticed Bella's BEASTS rising and falling against Edward's chest instead of her BREASTS and you managed to find the restraint not to make fun of me for it – you are stronger than I am.
Feel free to point it out to me, though. *shudders. Like hapless Renee, I, too, have adhd, and so I am sure to make such mistakes again. I've been loving hearing from you all so much. I'm slightly intimidated that people are actually invested, but it's making me invest right back, and it feels really good to do.
I should have been adding more detailed tags for the chapters, and I've gone back and added them. It was thoughtless of me, and I apologise! I don't know how to toe the line between content warnings and spoilers. Vampires are vampiring. We believe in vampire evolution in this household.
Disclaimer: I am really not trained and equipped to handle storytelling that is inspired by the Quileute tribe. I don't think old mate Meyer was either, if I'm being honest. The set up I have to work with is so innately offensive in its magical stereotyping of Indigenous people (to mention just one of the problems), I'm at a loss. I could create whole new characters, world, etc, but don't know if that's the right solution either. I'm going to do what due diligence I can as we build to that part of the story. I simply would never have otherwise dared to bungle something that I really think is important. Of course, please let me know.
All right, let's see.
Get your vanilla body mist, your spaghetti straps and gloopiest lip gloss, it's time to go to prom in 2006!
It was a beautiful part of the world, especially when shrouded in mist. The wild, undulating landscape of the rainforest was cut through with rocky hills and cliffs that tinted purple in the shadowy light. The air was crisp, rich with the scents of damp wood and earth, and the three vampires snaking their way through the foliage all inhaled greedily, as if their lungs were starved.
Carlisle craned up his neck, blinking away the droplets in his eyes, taking in for a moment the quiet and unassuming majesty of a very old tree. He smiled as he watched Emmett ahead of him absentmindedly pat the colossal trunk as they trekked forwards.
Jasper came up behind him.
"Leave it to me and Emmett," he implored. "Let us do this for you."
Carlisle sighed as Jasper projected his and Emmett's determination, their protectiveness of their leader, their sense of duty, their care…
"I know," said Carlisle, though he bowed his head slightly, humbled at what Jasper had shown him. "But it's my place. He would have wanted it."
Jasper pressed his lips together in a thin line, but didn't voice his disagreement.
They abruptly halted, their nostrils flaring.
"It's here," called Emmett from up ahead. He was sniffing around a mossy boulder the size of a small car, wrapped in crawling vines and encroached on all sides with ferns and dense undergrowth. It had not been moved in a long time. It was like a chunk of the cliff towering beside them had been gouged out by a giant's hand and tossed to the ground.
Emmett crouched and braced his shoulder against it, heaving the immense stone forwards with a grunt. His foot nearly slipped into the small black hole the rock covered, before he shifted to the side and shoved it clear.
Faintly, from deep within the ancient cave system that tunnelled below their feet, a man was laughing.
They stared into the narrow hole that stretched endlessly down, further even than their eyes could reach.
The laughter choked off into a guttural snarl before a grating screech made them all flinch, and then pitiful apologies and wails echoed through the woods.
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate," muttered Emmett. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Jasper rolled his eyes and punched his arm.
"Thank you, Emmett," said Carlisle dryly. He stepped forwards into the dark.
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No one had brushed Bella's hair since she was a child, but she didn't remember it being quite this frightening of an experience. Alice's face in the vanity mirror was tight with fury, her movements agitated and too fast, yanking on Bella's tender scalp. Bella bit her lip, suspicious, her eyes flickering to where she could see Edward lounging on Alice's bed, reading one of her magazines with a scowl.
Alice had barged in on them watching a movie, and she'd scooped Bella up from Edward's arms without a word, spiriting her away into her own room, completely ignoring his half-hearted protests that it was barely past lunchtime and he wanted Bella to see the part where Gene Kelly dances on the pink stage – all to a stone-faced Alice who clearly couldn't care less what he wanted.
Now that she thinks about it, Bella hadn't seen her say a word to him in days.
"Are you guys fighting?" she asked.
Alice scoffed.
"Alice isn't accustomed to being outvoted. Don't let her bother you," Edward said blithely.
Alice snarled with such deadly ferocity that Bella jumped, instinctively shivering in fear at the sound.
"Out!" she hissed at him.
He sighed and stood, ambling over towards the girls, deliberately taking his time. He ignored Alice and leant down to kiss Bella's cheek.
"See you later," he said smoothly, their eyes meeting in the mirror as they smiled at each other. He winked. "I'm going to grab a quick bite to eat."
He muttered something too low and fast for Bella to understand as he straightened, but it sounded something like tell her and ponytail, and it caused Alice's lip to curl upwards and bare her teeth at him.
He left the room, turning once to smile tightly at Bella before he shut the door behind him.
Alice sighed in relief.
"He hasn't been this unbearable since the war," she grumbled.
"Okay, seriously. What is going on with you two? And which war?"
Alice met her eyes in the mirror, softening at Bella's frustration.
"I'm sorry," she said. She tossed the brush onto the dresser and then turned Bella's chair to the side, impulsively coming down to her knees in front of her. She looked down at Bella's lap, frowning, as if struggling to find the words.
"Alice?"
Bella was shocked to find herself suddenly enveloped in Alice's arms.
"Woah, hey! Okay…sorry, you're holding me a bit tight."
Alice's arms loosened, but she didn't let go. Bella patted her on the back, a bit bemused.
"Are you okay, Bella?" Alice whispered into Bella's neck.
"Um, what?"
Alice pulled back, her hands resting on Bella's upper arms, her thumbs stroking absentmindedly. She stared searchingly into Bella's eyes.
"Are you okay? Really, truly okay?"
"With what, prom? Yes, fine. I'm actually excited to see the dress. You were right."
"No. With…I don't know. With all of this, with us. With being stalked by a vampire, taken by a vampire, nearly killed by a vampire. And that's just Edward. I don't even know where to begin with James."
Bella would've laughed if it wasn't for how serious Alice looked. She didn't know what to say.
"Alice, where is this coming from?"
Alice hesitated, some conflict warring in her honey-brown eyes, pursing her lips.
"You have one of the most stubborn and singular futures I have ever encountered," she finally said ruefully. "Paths for humans are usually dizzyingly vague, but not you. It makes it so impossible to tell whether any of this is right for you, if there is a better way, if there are other choices. And I don't know why."
Bella was struggling mightily to make sense of this.
"I never saw him hurt you, that day in the bathroom," she whispered. Bella flushed in response, leaning away from Alice.
"You lied?" her voice was tight with hurt and confusion.
Alice grasped her hands tightly. "Yes. I don't…I'm scared for you, Bella. Just because I don't see it doesn't mean it won't happen, and everything is so set with you, I can't…I just suddenly panicked that day when I saw you two, as happy as it made you both, sure you were in danger somehow. And you're so young and good! I wanted to make sure Edward was paying attention, snap him out of it…and now…" Alice rolled her eyes. "I guess you could say I cried wolf, and Carlisle is more certain than ever about Edward's ability to protect you. I wish I could tell you more than that, but I owe Edward my life too many times over, and…damn it, I just don't know! I keep making things worse when I decide to try and fight the path you're on, even just a little, to make sure you're okay."
Alice stared off bitterly into the distance, and then she took a breath, shaking off whatever dark thoughts she got lost in, and she smiled sadly at a still very confused Bella.
"I didn't think, not really, about what it would mean for you, becoming a part of our world. I just saw how beautiful and important it all was for us to have you. And Edward – god, Bella, I don't know what's right here. I'm terrified telling you exactly what you are to him will be a burden you can't escape, but keeping things from you feels like it's doing the same thing anyway." Alice bit her lip. "It was getting dire, before you. We were all so desperately worried for him, and then you came along, a more perfect answer than we could've imagined. But I didn't think about you, a person and a girl and how much I'd come to love you, just you, and not what you would do for Edward."
Bella felt tears well in her eyes, even though Alice was talking so fast she wasn't even sure she was speaking English at times. Alice just looked so pained, so lost, and while she hadn't understood everything, she was pretty sure she at least got the sentiment of what Alice was so frantically trying to make her understand.
"Alice…you all mean so much to me. It's not like I'm special, but that's how you all make me feel, especially Edward. It's not even like a dream come true, because I could never…I mean, I have no idea how I could've ended up so lucky, getting to know you guys, and I didn't know it was even possible to feel this happy."
Alice didn't look as comforted by that as Bella thought she should.
"Like, even you trying to protect me just makes me want to cry, even though it kinda sucks that you meddled with something very personal – like, oh my god, to be clear – and made Edward extra Edward-y. But I just love you too, Alice."
Alice melted, sighing.
"Okay," she said firmly, coming to some decision in her mind. Alice tucked a strand of Bella's hair behind her ear. "But remember, Bella, that from here on out, I am on your side, Edward and my entire family be damned. Whatever happens, I am on your side."
Bella smiled warmly at her. "Solidarity, sister," she quipped.
Alice laughed quietly, pulling Bella into a gentle hug. "Always."
Alice inhaled and then froze, groaning. "And then there's that. You really smell absurdly tempting, you know."
"Sorry."
Alice leant back, shaking her head. She returned to her station behind Bella, swivelling the chair back, and picked up the brush. She was much more gentle this time in her ministrations.
Bella was going to try and push Alice a bit more, still wanting answers, but a knock at the door interrupted the pensive silence before she could.
Rosalie came in, shutting it quietly behind her. "Can I help?" Her eyes met Bella's, and she smiled. "I wasn't going to admit it, but a genuine make-over is too much for me to resist."
Bella smiled back shyly. "Me too, apparently."
Rosalie walked up beside Alice, staring at Bella thoughtfully in the mirror. Bella squirmed self-consciously, but Rosalie just scanned her eyes over her face and then started fiddling with Bella's hair, tilting her head to the side.
Alice's eyes glazed over, and then she smiled. "That's perfect."
Rosalie smirked, a little smug. She turned to Bella in the mirror. "Have you always worn your hair long?"
Bella nodded, shrugged.
Rosalie gathered up her hair and folded the ends up till it sat an inch or so above her shoulders.
"It would suit you," she said, certain. "Wavy, a little choppy…and then your eyes…"
She let the ends fall and then brushed the hair at the front of her scalp down over her forehead, pulling the strands slightly aside down the middle, leaving the rough imitation of curtain bangs. Rosalie smiled in satisfaction.
"It will bring out how large and dark your eyes are."
"Won't bangs make me look younger?" Bella couldn't imagine anything worse than that.
Rosalie and Alice shook their heads. "The opposite. It will look…"
"Youthful, but in that chic young woman way," Alice said. "Modern, but classic with your features. Oh, I can see it."
"Will Edward like it?"
Rosalie and Alice gave her such identical looks of disappointment, Bella winced with immediate feminist guilt.
"Yeah, okay, I heard it." Bella considered herself in the mirror, the long hair so easy to hide behind, and she tingled with the unique thrill of being a girl, of daring to be something as risky as pretty. "Actually, now that I think about it, I have no idea why I've never changed up my hair. Do it."
Rosalie already had the scissors in hand.
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Ben and Angela sat in his beat up Honda sedan, the indicator still flashing, staring at the tasteful, impeccably designed Cullen mansion – that blended, even in all its dramatically lined splendour, into the wild lands around them, constructed with care and subtle modern flourishes in dark wood and glass – with identical expressions of absolutely not.
"You are so annoying," Angela whispered, though there was no one else in sight. "Why does that lovely house look haunted to me now? You and your stupid theories…"
"Yeah, I fucked up. My heart is literally pounding. Are your palms sweaty? My palms are sweaty."
"Dr Cullen delivered the twins, you know. He saved my mom's life."
"Yep. Tim loves him to bits, too."
"Edward's sister-in-law fixed up this car for pennies."
"Oh, did I tell you she replaced all the tires? I only noticed last week."
"I swear to god, Ben, if you start nosing around…"
"Not a chance. This is way too real. You couldn't pay me to go sneaking into their attic."
"Ben…" she said warningly.
"Sorry," he said, reaching out and taking her hand. "I won't embarrass you, I promise. And I am just kidding around." He looked out the windshield at the house and then shuddered. "I think."
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Carlisle, Jasper and Emmett, with barely contained amusement, watched the two teenagers at the door of their house from the shadow of the trees, listening as they argued in nervous whispers about who was going to be the one to knock. They'd arrived just as the children's car was pulling in, and had decided it was best to let them become accustomed to one vampire at a time.
The boy – Ben, Carlisle remembered – was already in his slightly oversized suit, shirt untucked, thin black tie slung around his neck like a scarf. He had a jacket over one arm and a scruffy gym bag in the other. The girl was dressed casually, a black garment bag nervously clutched in her hands.
"Just text Bella and tell her we're here," Ben insisted.
"And, what, hiding at their front door? Just knock! What's the big deal?"
"You knock, then."
Emmett groaned with the effort of suppressing his mirth.
Ben eventually lost the battle, and he not-so-bravely reached up to the ornate brass knocker that adorned the heavy wooden door.
"Oh, no," said Jasper suddenly, grinning. "I forgot…"
The knocker snapped off the door into Ben's hand as soon as he grasped it.
Ben and Angela stared at it with abject shock.
"What did you do?" hissed Angela.
"I didn't – oh my god," Ben thrust the heavy clump of metal into Angela's hands.
"Hey!" They started playing hot potato with the knocker as footsteps neared the door.
"Come on, it won't look as bad if you broke it."
"Ben!" said Angela, terrified, all but throwing the cursed thing at him.
Emmett grabbed Jasper's arm desperately, shaking his head.
The door swung open, revealing Esme in all her smiling glory.
"Hello! You must be Bella's friends," she exclaimed happily.
"Oh, god, Esme," breathed Emmett. "I can't watch…" None of them so much as blinked.
Ben and Angela froze, Ben stuck with one hand raising the knocker aloft, as if he was presenting it. For some panicked reason, while staring straight into Esme's eyes, the boy chose that moment to stiffly fling the contraband over his shoulder, where it fell only a scant few metres away with a dull thud, clearly in sight.
Angela simply sighed. Emmett broke and fell to his knees, shoulders heaving. Carlisle patted him on the back sympathetically.
"How did you do it?" Carlisle asked Jasper, who winced, embarrassed.
"I was cheering up Esme. I knock and do the whole Southern gentleman calling bit…I was a bit distracted yesterday, pulled it right off. I was going to tighten it up properly, but Alice was…"
"Ah," said Carlisle good-naturedly.
Esme, for her part, just looked mildly confused.
"That's unusual," she remarked, and then smiled, shrugging. "Always thought that thing was ugly. Come inside! Angela, yes? You can go upstairs with the girls. I'll feed the young man until Edward comes back; I don't know why he's late, I'm very sorry. Oh, how are the twins, dear?"
She ushered the two stuttering and mortified teenagers inside, who shakily murmured polite apologies and thanks that Esme waved off, excited, shutting the door behind them.
"Should we intervene?" Jasper asked.
Carlisle shook his head, smiling as he heard Esme coax Ben into the kitchen with promises of food and sodas and treats.
"She'll be fine with him," he said. "And Ben's kind."
A girlish squeal of delight, impossibly loud, cut through the quiet of the woods.
"Oh my god, your hair!"
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Ben, perched on a bar stool at the kitchen island, stared nervously at the entire chicken pot pie Esme had eagerly placed before him. It was the biggest pie he had ever seen.
Ben looked up at Esme, bemused. He was about to make a joke when something vulnerable in her eyes tugged at his awareness. He couldn't say for sure what it was, but little things suddenly came together in his head. It wasn't the oddities in the way she phrased things – Edward had mentioned once that she was Russian, English being her second language, and so would say strange things sometimes – though she had no accent, which surprised him. It was more that he could see a wistful kind of loss in her gaze, gone as soon as it was there, flashing to blank happiness jarringly…he didn't know. But it was familiar, he thought, his mind flickering to the facilities he'd been to that had occasionally looked after his brother. As he considered her, he thought he saw an innate sadness to her that tugged at his sensitive heart, and he felt a surprising pang of kinship with Edward.
Ben grinned at her warmly. "Mrs Cullen, you're an angel. I'm starving."
"Oh, good!" she said, digging through a drawer and handing him a spoon. She grabbed a hefty metal server and scooped up roughly a third of the pie into a bowl – a portion larger than Ben's head – and handed it to him. She waited eagerly for him to try it.
Warm, buttery pastry, peppery cream and sweet leeks – it was good. And though he wasn't, in fact, hungry at all, Ben resolved himself to the mammoth task before him.
"Ma'am, you're never getting rid of me. Edward's been holding out. This is delicious."
She positively beamed.
As Ben tucked in, gamely making small talk with the lady of the house, he surreptitiously scanned the open kitchen, his curiosity relentless, and was drawn to a large painting above the pantry wall. It was a textured oil painting of dried sunflowers in a crystal vase, muted yellows against a stark black background.
"Did you paint that?" he asked, squinting to read the signature in the corner.
"Oh," said Esme, following his gaze, and she fluttered a hand shyly. "Carlisle always insists I hang up one of mine. That one's quite old."
He examined the painting seriously, going uncharacteristically quiet.
"It's beautiful," he said finally. "I don't know much about art – well, except for comic books and stuff – but it makes you feel something, even though it's simple. I think it's good." He nodded his head, firmly in agreement with his own declaration.
She laughed. "Thank you, Ben. What comic books do you like? I haven't read one in years."
"To be honest, they're probably the same as – oh, Jesus!" He jumped about a foot in the air as he caught sight of a grey figure with a ghoulish green face lurking at the bottom of the stairs, half in shadow. He buried his face in one hand, the other clutching at his heart. "Jesus, Ang, are you trying to kill me?"
Angela sheepishly stepped into the light of the kitchen. She was still in her grey sweatpants and hoodie, a small pink clutch in one hand. She had a few bits of hair in curlers and some kind of paste smeared on her face.
"Sorry, they promised no one else was home to see me like this."
Ben glared at her. "You did that on purpose. Oh, man. I thought we were goners, Mrs. Cullen."
"That pie looks really good," Angela said.
"Have some," Ben begged her with his eyes. Please, dear god, have some of this pie.
"Maybe later," she smirked at him. "Alice said it would be all right if I went and took some photos of your rose garden, Mrs Cullen, before the light died. It's so pretty, my dad would go nuts. He loves gardening, too."
Ben raised an eyebrow at Angela. She narrowed her eyes right back. Shut up, she mouthed at him clearly. He shook his head. Nice knowing you, he mouthed back.
"Of course," said Esme, smiling. "You two are flatterers, aren't you? Don't go too far into the trees, darling, but there's a lovely view out the back as well."
"I won't. Ben, do you want to…"
Yes, he did. "Sorry, babe. Not even that pretty green face could tear me away from this food."
Angela rolled her eyes at him and waved as she slipped out the back door, her trepidation of the Cullen house apparently a thing of the past.
Ben returned to his pie with the noble determination of a soldier facing down an enemy.
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Edward raced back to the house, cursing as he fiddled with the rips in his button-up shirt where the bear had slashed him. He hadn't meant to go so far, but the game had been too good to resist.
Plus, it had been so long since he'd been far away enough from civilisation to have his mind truly to himself with not even the hum of distant thoughts cutting through his skull, buzzing and crackling, an incessant white noise that could so easily drown him out. The relief was so profound, he found every excuse to dally. He'd inhaled peace like oxygen.
Especially after the screaming he and Alice had engaged in over the last week, mentally or otherwise. He winced.
But, then again, while the quiet had inspired a kind of clarity about the hell he had created for himself (and a few painful reminders of how many times she'd proven him wrong), answers had not been so forthcoming.
What, in the name of God's green earth, was he to do?
Escort his girlfriend to her High School prom, apparently. It was as absurd a situation as any he had found himself in since meeting Isabella Swan.
What was he doing?
What had he done?
Just as he neared the break in the trees that opened into Esme's back garden, he abruptly came to a halt as he spotted Bella out of the corner of his eye sitting on a large stump, about a hundred yards from him deeper in the trees away from the house, overlooking the sprawl of the valley below. Her long brown hair was fluttering in the wind. She appeared to have some kind of beauty mask on her face, and he smiled.
Then he noticed the sweet smoke blowing around her, and he gaped in shock.
He sped over to her, appearing by her side in a second, and just as he put a gentle hand on her shoulder to alert him of his presence, her scent wafted over him, as did a sudden clear arranging of her features that was assuredly not Bella.
Angela squawked in indignant shock and tumbled sideways off the stump.
"Edward!"
"Ange, I am so sorry, I thought you were…are you okay?"
He knelt down to help her up. She brushed away the dirt and shook off his apology, laughing, but then she noticed the rips in his shirt.
"Um, are you okay?"
Edward was unprepared. This was too many close calls in one. "I fell," he offered lamely.
Angela stared at the three parallel slash marks. "Right."
He quickly nodded to the thinly rolled marijuana cigarette. "Really?"
She winced and began rambling in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I was going to wait until I could hide in the garden shed that's in the woods outside school, but it's so nice here, and Alice told me to go chill with that knowing wink-thing she does, and Ben has this thing about Alice's winks. He says every time they've hinted at something, it pans out – well, twice, but it was enough for him – and so I thought – I'm really sorry! You must think I'm so rude, it's just…"
Edward read the thoughts behind the panic, and he felt a pang of sympathy for her.
"I'm not busting you." He smirked. "Reverand's daughter," he teased lightly.
She smiled, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. But I don't drink or anything. And I just accidentally ate a bite of one of my cousin's brownies once, and it was the first time a social thing wasn't, like, a complete nightmare for me. I don't do it often, just…"
"Special occasions," he finished for her, hearing the truth in her mind.
"Small towns, you know," she shrugged.
Edward snorted. "Yeah, I know." He nodded to the joint in her hand with a crooked grin. "Give it here."
Angela looked surprised, but she passed it over, handing him a lighter. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, lit and inhaled like an old pro, smoothly and slowly exhaling. Angela shook her head at him.
"Doctor's son," she said.
He laughed. "Touché." He passed it back to her. He pretended to cough for the sake of it.
"Will Bella be mad at me for being a bad influence on you?" Her mind flashed to the last time she saw Bella in Alice's room, giggling as she tried to paint Alice's nails. He only barely managed to control his face in time.
Bella had cut her hair? A thrill of excitement and wonder ran through him, surprising him in its intensity. It was only hair, after all. It couldn't change that much. He was being ridiculous.
"No, she'll be surprised, though. She thinks you're…like…ah…"
"A good Christian girl?"
"Not the type," he admitted, and smiled. "And you are a good Christian girl. But, still, if Carlisle catches us, he will make us look at a million gory slideshows of black, cancerous lungs drowning in their own fluid, not to mention a very confusing lecture about brain development…"
"Oh, ew. Okay, okay, let's go." She stubbed out the half-finished joint and slipped it into a tightly wrapped pouch in her bag.
Nicely done, Edward. Carlisle sighed mentally. I'm still dropping a hint to Mrs Webber, though.
Emmett was giddily replaying Ben throwing the door knocker over his shoulder.
You got your head screwed back on yet? Well, relatively for you, anyway. Jasper was Alice's knight before all else, and it would take a few rough fights before he forgave Edward for every moment he made his mate unhappy. He sent Edward an emotion he didn't recognise – perhaps something like what he felt when it was just him and Carlisle against the world for those early years, except a warmer flavour, complex and pure all at once.
Edward and Angela were making their way back to the house, comfortably quiet in their newfound comradery. He murmured too low for her to hear. What is that?
Alice and Isabella. Jasper supplied, warning clear in his tone. She loves her – respect it.
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Bella patted her face dry with a soft towel and smiled at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She shook out her hair gleefully, thrilled with the lightness and tickle of silky strands against her neck and face.
Rosalie was right: it suited her very much. She didn't feel like a new person so much as refreshed, as if she could see herself clearly for the first time in so long. And that clay mask she'd sniffed at was something after all – her skin was dewy and smooth as glass.
With a last indulgent flick of her hair, she slipped out of the ensuite into Alice's room.
Alice and Angela were in serious consultation as they examined the array of cosmetics on Alice's vanity and spilling from a little make-up bag Angela had brought. The room had been transformed with joyful flourishes into a teen girl haven; soft coloured lighting from a mismatch of kitschy lamps, unframed posters of pop bands and Miyazaki films, a boxy Apple computer with panels of neon orange – even a glittery purple lava lamp bubbled away hypnotically in a corner.
And the pièce de résistance: a lurid green beanbag, upholstered in a fluffy cotton shag. It was monstrous; it looked like someone had skinned the Grinch. Bella sank into it its depths with a contented sigh.
"We are going to be very late," Alice declared.
Angela shrugged. "Thank god, honestly. The gym is going to look so, so cheesy – Enchanted Forest. Why."
"You never know. Jessica may surprise us all," Alice said sagely.
A knock at the door caused Bella's heart to thud in anticipation. She sat up eagerly.
"You can come in," Alice called out. "We're not even close to ready," she grumbled.
The door swung open to reveal a keen Ben and Edward, both with armfuls of drinks and food.
"We come with sustenance," Ben said. He wandered in and stared around the bedroom. "Sick posters," he approved, and lay the snacks gingerly on an oval coffee table that stood at the centre of an ornate white rug. He went over to Angela and put his hands on her shoulders, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
Bella scrambled to her feet as Edward stepped fully into the room, trying to resist the urge to run her hand through her hair self-consciously.
His eyes met hers, and his expression cleared at the sight of her, a wave of warmth coming over his features.
"Oh," he breathed out, a grin breaking over his face. He met her in the middle of the room after putting his bounty down with Ben's, and he reached up to gently stroke her hair, playing with the ends, his honey-brown eyes flickering over her face. "It looks stunning," he said, and took a step back, tilting his head, as if to examine her better from afar. "It's so…you," he said emphatically, smiling in a way that was oddly shy – and so sweet, Bella melted.
"Right?" said Ben. "I told you."
"I believe the word you used was 'edgy', Ben," Edward said, not taking his eyes off Bella.
"It is! In a pretty girl way."
"Thanks, Ben," said Bella.
"Anytime."
Bella finally dragged her eyes away from Edward's face and noticed the slashes in his shirt.
"Oh my god!" she cried, grasping his arm in alarm.
"He fell," offered Angela.
Ben snorted.
Bella raised an eyebrow at Edward who shrugged helplessly.
"You girls should eat," said Alice impatiently. "It's not worth doing make-up before then," she sounded increasingly defeated.
Bella joined Ben and Angela on the floor cushions that encircled the coffee table, grabbing a mystery alfoil rectangle, unwrapping a grilled cheese. As she listened to Ben recount his heroic defeat over the largest pie in the Universe, laughing, she watched Edward and Alice out of the corner of her eye.
They were clearly having some kind of silent conversation, Edward concentrating intently. Bella assumed it was a replay of the talk she'd had with Alice, and she hoped it made more sense to him than it did to her.
His expression fractured and he took a step towards Alice, reaching out plaintively. She hesitated, but didn't flinch away, and he put a hand on her shoulder.
"Thank you," he murmured quietly, his eyes flashing to a clearly attentive Bella. He looked back at Alice and pulled her into his arms. "I'll make it right," he whispered into the top of her spiky black hair, still loud enough for Bella to hear.
After a moment, Alice hugged him back so tight she nearly lifted him off his feet.
Just as abruptly, Alice shoved Edward away and scowled.
"You better," she said impishly. She came and sat beside Bella as Ben's story reached its grand finale, rolling her eyes at her pseudo-brother.
"Why don't you have a date, Alice?" Ben asked. "Someone had to ask you."
"Nope," said Alice, smiling. She grabbed a bag of potato chips and snapped it open, plopping one in her mouth, ignoring Bella's look of shock at the sight of her eating as she crunched nonchalantly.
"No one?"
"I'm very intimidating," she said proudly. "Besides, you were taken."
"Ah, I can't say I didn't suspect. Well, we'll always have Paris."
"Boo," said Angela, giggling away, throwing popcorn at them both.
Edward went to Alice's stereo, deftly pulling a Gorillaz CD from the rack beside it. He fiddled with the dials as the breezy electronic beat picked up, and then he came and sat on Bella's other side, pulling her into his arms as she munched on her sandwich.
Bella tilted her head up so she could peek at Edward as he argued with Ben about the latest X-Men movie; she'd never seen him look so human, and not in that eerie, false way that was so uncanny it freaked her out. He seemed truly relaxed as he blended in seamlessly with her friends, and it made him look so young, even carefree.
He caught her watching him and smiled, his eyes lighting up as they took in her unfamiliar new hair once again.
"Seriously," breathed Angela, watching the two of them.
"It's a bit much," agreed Ben.
"Wait until you see them dance," Alice said, a spark of mischief in her eyes.
"Take that back," said Bella darkly.
"Edward's had classical training. Don't ruin it for the rest of us, Bella."
"For you?"
"Of course he's had classical training," said Ben wryly. "Double-oh-seven needs to be prepared."
Edward flipped Ben off with a smirk.
"I won't," declared Bella.
Alice winked.
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Esme watered the last of the roses in the fading red sunlight, smiling to herself at the unusual jubilant chatter and music she could hear pulsing away from her home.
She wound up the hose in a flash, hanging it on a discreet hook on the side of the house. Just as she was coming around the front to the entrance, a sight framed through the kitchen window stopped her in her tracks.
Jasper, Emmett and Carlisle were seated at the kitchen island, frozen in vampire stillness, half in shadow since they hadn't bothered to turn on a light. Jasper had his cheek in one hand, staring up at the stairs; Emmett was resting on folded up arms, head turned to the side; Carlisle had two fists beneath his chin, elbows on the table.
All three had identical, starkly wistful expressions curling up their lips, and there was a strange kind of shell-shock in their dark eyes, as if the youthful exuberance that sang through the house was too unbelievable to be true.
Esme blinked, and a painting bloomed in her mind. Sharp lines and heavy shadows, glints of light on metal badges adorning military uniforms, the muted hues of dusk, the perspective framed through the window, like that Hopper diner…
All Our Lost Youth? She considered a name, for this one had to have a name. For The Young, We…no – something about time, maybe…
She smiled as she entered the house, Jasper's gift washing over her with the simple joy seeping down the stairs from the children.
She hadn't painted in almost an entire decade, she realised with a shock. How did she let that happen?
She put the thought aside as Carlisle wrapped her in his arms, sighing in relief at the feel of him close and safe. He'd tell her later where he'd gone, what he'd done, when they were finally alone amongst the trees and she could comfort him properly.
And then, she thought happily, she would paint.
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Jessica had outdone herself. She'd committed nothing short of larceny and destruction of public property to pull it off. Eric Yorkie almost had a wrap sheet to his name, thanks to a very amused and fairly bored Chief of Police who had caught the terrified boy clearing out the flowers from the public gardens on her orders.
In a shocking display of landscaping prowess, she had single-handedly transplanted a young, eight-foot tall Norway Maple tree into a massive old wine barrel she had sawed in half herself. The football team didn't have the coordination to win a match, but they got that tree (and five wheelbarrows worth of soil) into the gym under her militant direction without a hitch.
It was the heart of the room, its sprawling branches bursting with flaming orange leaves. It was strung with tiny yellow lights that twinkled gently, and adorned with delicate porcelain fairies dangling from ribbons that Jessica had borrowed (in the loosest sense of the word) from Old Lady Newton's house.
"I'm going to put it all back," she had explained to the police as if they were very stupid not to realise this.
She had surrounded the tree with heavy stones and baskets spilling over with all the local flowers she could find – Foxgloves and Periwinkles and Violets, in no particular arrangement except that there were a lot. She had lived in Forks all her life and never hiked – she now knew how to use a compass, so extensive was her foraging. A log bench (courtesy of the park) was nestled beside the tree, perfect for romantic pictures.
The rest of the gym was similarly drowning in floral and magical flourishes; giant red toadstools (courtesy of the primary school), floating lanterns, hidden bubble machines, reams of sequined and glittery cloth in shades of pink and green, the ceiling draped in midnight-blue fabric, speckled with iridescent silver stars.
It all coalesced into an atmosphere that was truly nothing short of enchanting.
"My god," said Ben, as they entered through three flower arches – one red, one yellow, one blue. "Imagine if she used her powers for evil."
"You know she was underbudget? She literally stole everything," Alice said, with no small amount of admiration.
They were indeed very late, and they quickly found a spot to lurk at the back, taking in the splendour around them, away from the crowd in front of the small platform. They'd snuck in the gym's door just as announcements for King and Queen were kicking off, Jessica glaring at them furiously from the stage for their disrespectful tardiness. They all looked appropriately chastened – she had put her heart into this night for her peers, and for Jessica, it was the most unselfish instinct she had.
Alice had been right to assure Bella and Angela that their looks wouldn't be out of place at the event; she was vibrating with smugness at the fruits of her labour.
Edward and Ben had taken roughly two minutes to get into their simple black suits, Edward lecturing a very unimpressed Ben on the finer points of a Windsor knot and the value of ironing as he did, and then they'd spent the rest of the time cajoling the girls through Alice's locked door to hurry up.
Alice was dressed in a simple tunic dress in burnished gold, tasteful in its casual air, the movement of the fabric highlighting her lithe, elegant frame. Simple black heels and no jewelry, a hint of gold on her eyelids, and she looked effortless.
Angela's dress was hues of lavender tulle, the flowy layered skirt skimming just past her knees, the long, wrapped bodice a flattering jewel neckline. Her hair was half pulled back with a bejeweled rhinestone barrette, and like Bella, her make-up was soft and romantic, with sparkly purple and gold eyeshadow that gave a hint of fairy princess.
Bella had balked at the first sight of her dress, but Alice had rushed her into it before she could think too hard about it, and when she'd taken in her reflection and the magical swish of the fine material, her consternation had been immediately drowned out by the rush of girlish delight she felt at her appearance.
The fabric was constructed in accordion pleats that blushed pink and yellow and cream, the silk shimmering like water as it catches the light. It fitted into a high Empire waist, with a bodice loose but clinging ever so suggestively, the thin straps subtly adorned with crystals. Her dark hair was silky and shiny, pinned here and there with individual pearls in a rough half-circlet.
She didn't understand how, but the dress didn't look out of place on her, didn't seem like a costume. It was so perfectly tailored to her shape, she was certain Alice had made it herself. Her practical yet glittering silver open-toe kitten heels helped immensely, keeping her gait sure and steady, lending her the confidence she needed to stand being looked at.
Which was good, as Edward was looking at her quite a lot, and she wasn't so insecure that she could deny the look in his eyes, which all but burned with how beautiful she looked to him tonight.
He couldn't stop stroking the softness of the material against her waist, fiddling with a lock of hair.
They clapped enthusiastically as Jason McKinley, the long-suffering Captain of the Football team, was awarded Prom King – the honour could not have been bestowed on a more grateful recipient, after all.
Jessica was so busy glaring mutinously at the five of them still, she didn't notice at first when her name was called, only the thundering cheer making her look around in shock as the walls vibrated with stamping feet. Alice whistled so loudly in such a high-pitched tone, Ben covered his ears.
What Jessica had demonstrated in terms of her party planning was impressive, but the criminal lengths she had gone to get there would go down in Forks legend, and her peer's estimation of her for this alone had skyrocketed.
She accepted the bouquet, still in shock, but as the sash was well-deservingly placed around her shoulders, her face broke into a huge smile, and a flood of tears streamed down her cheeks as she finally relaxed enough to realise what a success the night had become. She waved at the crowd, laughing.
As the requisite slow dance began, Mike Newton was the only unhappy face in the room.
About a minute into the gratingly saccharine song that in no way enabled slow dancing, Jessica was staring to look desperate. It had gotten awkward long ago – Jason was barely swaying back and forth, a full arm's length away, his giant feet apparently glued to the spot.
"No," Bella murmured to Edward, seeing what was about to happen.
"You have to – look how happy Mike is," Alice said.
"I'm in," said Ben. "What are we doing?"
"I'll be slow," said Edward. "Just to get more people out there."
"Oh, dancing. Never mind."
"We'll do it," said Angela. "Jess deserves revenge." She looked at where their suddenly beloved Prom Queen was turning bright red. No one else was joining them, in spite of the encouragement of the DJ, and it was a painfully long song.
"There's barely half a song left, and then it will go back to something that goes doof doof and we can go sit down," Edward promised. "Please?"
Bella took a deep breath. "Yeah, all right. Fine. Don't do anything fancy."
He took her hand, bowing over it formally, smiling. "On my honour, Ms Swan."
Bella blushed for only a moment – she was not made of stone – before she snatched her hand back and scoffed as Angela swooned theatrically against Ben.
"Edward," said Ben, as he followed Edward and Bella through the crowd towards the dance floor, a giggling Angela in tow. "Get fuc –"
"Jessica, this place looks amazing!" Bella whispered as they took a spot near the stiffly rotating couple. "And I'm sure Charlie won't actually press charges," she said sheepishly.
"Well, thank you. I'm glad you arrived in time to see it," she said, with mostly good grace.
The music suddenly faded, and Bella whipped her head around to catch Alice whispering something in the ear of the DJ.
"Oh, no," she said. Edward chuckled, and with deliberate movements that were clear to the other two watching couples, he put a hand on her waist, lifted her hand to his, every line of his body straight.
A dreamy, slow waltz began – a French song, though it hardly mattered, the effect was a crooning, vintage feel that was romantic and sweet – with a crucially simple beat to follow.
"And – one, two, three…" Edward counted out the first few steps quietly, and it was easy – even Jason caught on, pulling Jessica tighter into his arms now that he had the slightest idea of what to do with himself.
"Ange, let Ben lead," Edward said lightly.
"I was! Wasn't I?"
"No, actually," said Ben, affronted.
With more couples braving the dance, and Jessica looking much more content in Jason's arms, Edward pulled Bella tighter into his arms and spun her with increasing verve.
"Edward…" she said, stumbling as he twirled her, tripping over her feet.
He steadied her, and then put a thumb beneath her chin and lifted her eyes to his.
"Eyes up, Isabella," he said, smiling.
Her mind flashed to a beach a long time ago, when Leah had given her that exact advice. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't catch a wave. She would get to her feet and collapse immediately, without fail. Leah eventually grabbed a wave with her, keeping an eagle eye on every move she made, and then had thrown up her hands after Bella had emerged spluttering from the waves.
"You're staring down at your feet!" she'd exclaimed happily. "Look forwards at the beach – eyes up."
Bella hadn't missed a wave the rest of the afternoon.
It worked similarly now – she felt like she was gliding around the dance floor in his arms, her dress flowing around her. She even remembered to turn her neck as he tried twirling her again, her eyes spinning back to his with a shining smile.
Maybe a surfboard wasn't the only place she could be graceful.
Edward was never ostentatious, he never crossed the line into outright showmanship, but if anything, the musicality in how he moved in even the smallest of ways was all the more telling of his skill, and how well he managed to dance with a self-conscious Bella.
A teary Mrs Cope dabbed her eyes at the sight of the young couple; she hadn't seen dancing like it in years.
It was a mercifully short song, and as it slowed to a close, Bella impulsively dug up some long-buried muscle memory of disastrous ballet lessons, and she dipped into a perfect curtsy – her back was straight, neck elegantly arched, one hand still held in his while the other lifted her skirt. Edward froze, speechless. From her slight bent position, Bella looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. His eyes were alight with feeling. She had to bite her lip to hold back her smile as she rose.
Ha. She knew that would get him.
The song changed, as Edward predicted, to the pop-heavy hits of the year, and Edward wrapped an arm around her waist and led her from the floor.
"Thank you," he said to her. She went on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
They grabbed an empty table against the far wall and pulled their chairs close to one another, Bella leaning back against his chest, wrapped in his arms. Others joined them eventually, and the night passed in easy conversation with good friends. By the end of the long night, not a soul left that gym without at least one memory to treasure.
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Leah was burning.
When she was twelve, she had one of those nightmares that people write conspiracy theories about. She woke to a scratching at her bedroom door, and she tried to tell her mom that she was sorry she was late for school, but then realised she couldn't speak, couldn't move except for her eyes, and the smothering hold of sleep weighed her limbs down like cement. The door banged open and a decrepit, cloaked hag, chanting and warbling in a language she didn't understand, crawled belly first across her floor to the bed in sickening lurches.
Her mind was screaming, snapping back and forth between knowing she was dreaming and then getting lost in real terror. She felt the shifting of the sheets by her feet as its spidery grey hands jerked across the foot of her bed, pulling itself up to stand over her, a leg either side of her chest. The weight of it was like stone. The hag was furiously howling, eyes black and mad, waving its arms wildly. Since she couldn't move, she tried to snarl at the creature.
Touch me and I'll kill you.
But she could only moan gutturally, the words coming out garbled from behind a locked jaw. She eventually shrieked her desperate and terrified threat behind clenched teeth as the hag leaned its putrid face closer and closer until – suddenly, in a burst of strength, she had slammed on her bedside table light, and she was sitting awake in bed, the hag gone, panting with a panicked feeling of disorientation and a startlingly clear recollection of the dream. She had burst into tears and never told a soul. That experience of drowning in helpless dread never left her, and she couldn't imagine a worse feeling in existence.
Now, she could imagine just fine.
Because Leah was burning, and she'd marry that hag in hell over having to live another moment of what her life had become.
She stared with haunted eyes at the warm domestic scene before her. Jovial laughter and comradery beamed from every overly large male crammed around the table, including her little brother. Her chair had been squeezed in, but gradually was shifted back by the raucous activity until she found it easier to just rest her untouched plate on her knees, sitting on the outside, below them all, where she clearly belonged.
They must hate her, she thought, to be inflicting their happiness on her as if nothing had been done to her. To not know or care. They really must hate her.
And Emily – the disdain she felt for her was breathtaking. She forced herself to see it all, to not look away for a second at how beautiful she looked, how strong and maternal as she dished out piles of mouthwatering food to worshipful hungry boys. The boys lit up with tenderness whenever they interacted with her.
The wretchedness she felt should Sam so much as glance at Emily was so painful she really wondered what on earth was the fucking point.
If she wasn't so vindictive, if there wasn't some part of herself that was still alive and roaring at the injustice of it all, she would make it easier for the rest of them and let the pain just kill her.
She wondered how angry her dad would be to see her. She had killed him, after all. They all knew Seth turning into an ancestral spirit animal wouldn't have been enough of a shock to stop his heart. But his daughter, a girl, as unnatural as that is? Of course it was her.
She wished someone would just say it.
And God forbid the tribe react as if she'd accomplished something that potentially no person had before in becoming the first female shapeshifter, a new kind of magic but magic nonetheless. God forbid they acknowledge that it could come from a place of power, something special about her, instead of what a failure she was as a woman.
Never mind her full-ride academic scholarship to the Peninsula College. Never mind that she'd put on her big-girl suit, made a beast of a PowerPoint, and bullied a bunch of flabby, golf-playing administrators, all simpering and eager to do the bare minimum to fill diversity quotas, into making it an annual scholarship to twenty students from neighbouring tribes.
Upon her change, the Elders had informed her that she would need to seek permission from the Alpha to continue the final year of her degree.
Sam had frantically granted it, awkwardly trying to make them move on. She had phased on the spot in furious humiliation and sprung at him anyway.
It was hard not to see things their way when she watched Emily, though, who was so gentle and noble in her homemaking, her love of caring for others, her wounded beauty. No wonder she was the imprint of the Alpha, proper woman that she was, instead of Leah, the bitch of the Reservation.
They thought that. She knew they all fucking thought that. They might pretend not to with empty pity for her, but it's the truth.
She shivered in repressed fury. Not a single person had suggested she get the initiation ceremony into the Pack the others did upon their change, where they acknowledged their great power and blessings to be chosen, and they honoured them for their sacrifice and protection.
Was a female shapeshifter really so impossible that it had to be an aberration? They turn into giant wolves – once you've accepted the reality of that, surely, this was a smaller disbelief to suspend. Considering the lack of rigid and European patriarchal structures that governed their tribe or only infected them obliquely like a toxic cloud after colonisation, was it so hard to believe that ancient spiritual power might operate in a way that's different to how they expect?
Was it so hard to believe she might have value?
"Did you want me to make you something else instead, Leah?" Emily asked sweetly and bravely, eyeing her untouched plate of food.
The table fell dead silent. They were all waiting for her to explode, she realised. To make their lives complicated, to ruin their meal like she ruined the meaning of their precious brotherhood, to spit in the face of Emily's superior emotional maturity and kindness.
It didn't matter what she did, she realised. They didn't even see her.
Leah calmly picked up her plate, sniffed it, and then threw it at Emily's face. She knew Sam would snatch her out of the way with his undying protection before it actually hit her, but she angled it so hopefully the red-sauce spaghetti would ruin that pretty white dress Emily was wearing. Leah had been with her friend when she bought it.
She wasn't disappointed. The spaghetti flew off the plate in the exact way Leah had hoped, and Emily was drenched in it. Leah was quite pleased with herself. She'd always had a good arm.
"LEAH!" Sam boomed, and the force of their leader's displeasure caused the others to flinch and lower their heads.
Leah felt it too, but the need to submit to the one who betrayed her the most and cared for her the least only made her rage stronger, especially as he cradled Emily on his lap like a little princess. She smirked at him.
"Go ahead, Master Alpha. Order me to behave myself. It would make it so much easier for you, and I'd hate for this to be difficult."
Sam panted, his eyes flashing with fury as they stared at each other. No one else so much as breathed.
"Coward," Leah whispered, and she felt a thrill of satisfaction as Sam's face crumpled in sorrow.
Leah left without looking back, slamming the door behind her. She walked behind Sam and Emily's house (that used to be Sam and Leah's house) to the neighbouring woods, stripping freely as she went, leaving a trail of clothes for the others to pick up. Leaving her bra and underwear strewn about her ex-fiancé's backyard made her grin ruefully. Ignore that.
In one single leap, like a crack of lightning, she phased, smoother than all the others were able to manage it, even as new to it as she was. There was always one strangulating instant of immense pressure, where it was like she felt herself compress and collapse into a pinpoint of dense, senseless matter. All the shapeshifters had the same dark thought in that eternal split-second of mind-bending reality; in that moment, no matter how many times it happened, they thought they were about to die. Instead, a wolf would burst into existence with the shimmering heat of a newborn sun.
Leah shivered with the relief of the animal, flexing and rolling her muscles as she leapt into the woods. It was the way she connected with the earth and the wind and the scents of the forest around her that soothed her the most. She was a part of this, even if they'd never let her be one of them. The wolf knew she had a right to exist here just as the trees or the stars did. Her paws pounded the muddy ground, leaping agilely over obstacles or ploughing through them with brute force. She finally felt some kind of peace as the wolf took over her senses, pushing everything that was torturing her into another world where it belonged. She heard another presence burst into her mind just as she was fully letting herself disappear into blissfully blank animal instincts.
Leah, please –
Don't you dare follow me, Sam.
Are you planning on coming back, though?
Leah snarled, her thoughts going wordless with fury and indignation. Like she'd abandon Seth right now.
Okay, okay. Just please try not to be gone for too long, Leah. We need you. Leah despised him.
Get out of my head, Sam. NOW!
He did.
And so Leah ran, and she didn't plan to stop until her muscles collapsed beneath her. As a wolf, it would probably take days.
Letting Leah go felt like throwing a handful of ash into the wind.
A/N
I am dead. I am defeated. I can't believe it's finally done. I wrote nothing for ages and then it happened all at once. Why was that the hardest thing ever. Please let me know what you think! Even just a smiley or a frowny face, if words are intimidating. This chapter took a lot out of me:( Was there anything you liked?
God, I love Leah. What is it with girls I write throwing food? A part of me wants to start a food fight real bad, apparently. Next up, get ready for some plot! Lol, just kidding, I wouldn't do that to you guys. Take your plot and smoke it. (nah, there will be. I'm actually quite excited)
And that's the end of Part 1! You know, the first bits of this story I wrote were the opening few paragraphs, and then that Leah scene right after that, with no intention of doing anything with it. I went back and had to fill in the blanks, and it took me to so many unexpected places. Worse things have happened.
Thank you so much for reading! I can't believe I made it this far, and we've got so much good stuff to go! Every review is as precious to me as gold. Bless you all.
A sneak peek from the future:
She didn't deserve the gift more than any other broken girl of the world – but she didn't deserve it less, either. She was simply the one who was there in that moment to receive it. Refusing the gift for herself wouldn't make the other girls less broken. It wasn't right, it wasn't wrong, it just was - that was enough for now.