Bella Swan - Forks, WA
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
After our dinner the day before, I was looking forward to going to Angela's house after school. I had to navigate the lunch hour again, and almost had to push Mike into the lockers this time because he was being so aggressive with his flirting. I could tell his behavior was pissing off Jessica and I wasn't sure I cared. The more time I spent with her the less she seemed to be genuine in what she said at any given moment.
Angela on the other hand felt like a true friend, and I was happy that things were moving in that direction. She drove again after meeting up in the school parking lot. Her little Toyota was exactly the type of thing I was envisioning when I pitched my need for a car to Dad before coming to Forks. As we pulled up to her house she paused before we got out.
"Last chance, we can go to Little Vitos instead." She offered, making me laugh.
"Angela, I'm not going to blow off your parents. It was really nice of them to invite me over." I was shaking my head but had a wide smile on my face.
"They're just happy to see me hanging out with any friend." Angela seemed somewhat sad, as though this topic brought up some bad stuff.
"Oh, so I'm just a convenient stand in for a real friend?" I kept my face deadpan hoping she would see it as a joke.
She shook her head. "No, you are my friend. Maybe the best friend I've ever had." She sounded a touch desperate, and I felt for her. To me our new relationship was being built on common interest and purpose, trust and a respect that I had felt from our first interaction.
"It was a joke." I gave her a sympathetic smile, and her face faltered for a moment. "I want to be perfectly clear, I feel the same. You are quickly becoming the best friend I've ever had, and I'll try to never lie to you." My clarification made her face bright up, and she nodded a couple of times emphatically.
"Sorry, bad head space." She tapped her temple a couple of times and then paused, "you know Jessica and Lauren haven't been invited over for years."
"I find that hard to believe." I shook my head in mild disbelief.
"Dad knows them through church and refuses to have them over." Her explanation gave me a good impression of her father, if he could spot how badly those two have been acting towards his daughter.
"We really should figure out a way for you to get away from them." I was mostly talking out loud, but I really meant it. I wanted her to be free of their toxicity, but I also knew she had to be the one to do it, I could only support her.
"I'm not sure, burning them as friends has always felt like a mistake." She was shaking her head, as she confirmed this situation was probably going to be drawn out and painful.
"I'm just worried about you, if they aren't being friendly then are they actually friends?" I attempted to clarify and she gave me a desperately sad look.
"It just feels weird to write off two decade long friendships. We've been inseparable since kindergarten." She sounded conflicted and sad, and I just wanted to hug her which was odd because I hated hugging.
"Has that been true recently?" I asked, despite feeling like I was perhaps pushing too hard or crossing a line. A line I shouldn't have gotten close to this early on in our friendship.
"No, outside of school or the occasional trip to La Push the three of us haven't really spent time together in nearly a year." She confirmed and pouted slightly, her eyes dancing around as if searching her memories for anything to contradict what she had just said. I had a thought, and I knew I was going to say it. But I was half convinced she would take it the wrong way.
"Then maybe it isn't you that's ended things. They just haven't been kind enough to tell you." Her head immediately snapped over and she glared at me for a few seconds, with what was clearly shock and anger. But then her expression broke and she just hung her head, shaking it softly from side to side.
"That… damn." She started to cry, but it wasn't heavy or blubbery. It was the saddest thing I had ever seen, like her heart was breaking in front of me. Then after a few minutes she looked up and even before wiping her eyes she smiled at me. "I'm sorry for all of this, you shouldn't be in the middle of my drama."
I pulled out a tissue from my bag and handed it to her, she quickly wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She looked out the window towards her house and I could see her eyes fixed on her own reflection in the glass. I tentatively reached out and touched her shoulder, and thankfully she didn't flinch from my touch.
"I'm just here for you, and I'm like a duck, drama just rolls off my back." I tried to be comforting, or maybe just silly and she immediately turned back towards me and actually laughed.
"Bella Duck. I like that." She gave me a goofy smile, and I had to force myself not to roll my eyes.
"Not the first time someone has called me by another bird name." I found myself chuckling despite the connotations of having my last name altered, again. Mostly because Angela made it silly instead of it coming off as insulting or derogatory.
"Sorry." Her face soured but I quickly shook my head, which made her tilt her own head in mild confusion or maybe whiplash.
"Oh, I didn't mean I minded it from you. Just remarking. Anyway, are we going in?" I looked at her and she nodded in confirmation and we both got out of the car.
The Webber's had what looked like a comfy, modest two story three bedroom house with a one car garage. The property was abutting a line of trees separating the back of the lot with another row of houses facing opposite on a parallel road. Their street ended in a cul-de-sac and there were only a limited number of street lamps. The lack of effective lighting created wide spaces of almost complete darkness between each house. Once inside I found that her parent's taste ran similar to my father's; simple and restrained, but had a slightly parochial vibe with a mild hunting and fishing motif. Among the scattered tchotchkes and trinkets on shelves there was a bit of a religious theme, and the low credenza lining the back wall next to the fireplace looked like an antique. It was a cozy home, welcoming, and her parents completed the look as they stood in the small foyer waiting for us.
"Bella, my god, how long has it been since you were last here, ten years?" Mrs. Webber held her hands in front of her, clasped tightly and didn't make a move towards any kind of handshake or hug.
"At least, Angela?" I replied, and Angela nodded.
"More like twelve. We were around five years old." Angela confirmed.
"Well it is great to have you back, and thank you for joining us. Most of our guests are from church." Mr. Webber took over the greeting, he stepped forward and shook both of my hands. It was a little awkward and a bit more familiar than expected, yet welcoming.
"Thank you for having me. So who do we have here?" I asked, spotting two sets of little eyes staring at me. I moved over to the playpen where Angela's twin baby brothers were practically begging for attention.
"That's Joshua and Isaac." Mrs. Webber said with a note of pride in her voice.
"How old are they?" I looked back towards the three of them briefly, before crouching down and holding out my hands for the twins. They reached out and grabbed my fingers, and giggled happily. They were beautiful little boys, with longer dark brown hair and the same hazel eyes as their sister.
"About a year and a half." Mrs. Webber answered easily, and paused for a few seconds before continuing. "Well Bella, I hope you're hungry. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, I hope you like Italian."
"I do. I know Angela mentioned this, but I am a vegetarian." I was sure Angela mentioned it, but I had to clarify. The last time I went over to a friend's house they served burgers, and I had to sit there awkwardly munching on French fries for an hour.
"Of course, the sauce is home made and I found some interesting looking vegan sausage to try." Mrs. Webber said with enthusiasm.
"Yum." Angela said with a very good fake grin. When her mom turned towards the kitchen she gave me a pained look, and I had to hold in my chuckle. The rest of us moved into their tastefully decorated dining room, while Mrs. Webber went into the kitchen to get the food. The table was already set, and there was already bread and butter and all the usual fixings set out.
"What would you like to drink?" Mr. Webber asked, not sitting down.
"Something without caffeine, I think I've hit my target heart rate for the day." I had been using that line for years, and no one had ever caught on that it was a movie reference.
"I have some decaf coffee, milk, water or cran-apple juice." Mr. Webber's voice rose slightly when he mentioned the coffee so I took that to mean it was his choice.
"Milk is fine, although I wouldn't turn down that decaf if you're making some for yourself." I gave him a friendly smile and his face lit up.
"That gives me the excuse, I never get to have it in the evenings usually." Mr. Webber got up and disappeared into the kitchen through a swinging door. I couldn't see much as it opened and closed, but Mrs. Webber appeared to be moving around busily getting dinner finished up.
"Your mom sets the rules of the house?" I asked somewhat rhetorically.
"Pretty much. She is a bit demanding at times, but she just wants us to be healthy. This dinner for example is one of my favorites normally" Angela didn't sound upset, but perhaps a bit resigned to it all.
"What's different about it?" I was curious, she had been talking down about this meal since yesterday.
"Well for one it isn't pasta it's zucchini sliced into spaghetti. Two, she's trying vegan sausage and cheese for the first time. Lastly, I'm not a vegetarian and I want real meat." She sounded more than frustrated, but I couldn't help but laugh a little.
"Welcome to my life." I said in an attempt to commiserate with her food situation. Although hers was clearly involuntary and mine was self inflicted.
"Why do it to yourself?" She had asked the question that no one else had ever bothered to ask me. I sat back and thought about it for a few seconds, trying to frame my reasons properly.
"I made the choice a few years back, partially for myself because I was tired of eating junk. But also for my mom so that she would stop eating fast food." I admitted for the first time really. I'd always said it was for me, but it was more complicated than that.
"I'm not sure I follow." Angela looked a bit confused.
"Mom was a little heavy when I was younger, probably because she had been eating junk for most of my childhood. I didn't have a ton of options before I learned how to cook and basically took over grocery shopping, but she would order out or take us through a drive thru almost every night. When I swore off meat, those places really couldn't accommodate my food choices anymore. So, gradually she started cooking at home more often. Mostly salads and stuff, she wasn't much of a cook. Eventually I took over, and she eventually lost like thirty pounds." I had never framed my choice like that before, but it was the truth. I realized that maybe it wasn't about me at all, I was trying to save my mother. I was a bit lost in that thought when Angela started to respond.
"No offense but your mom sounds…" Angela started, but was interrupted in the middle of her thought.
"Dinner's ready." Mrs. Webber announced as she entered the dining room. The crock pot in her hands had a somewhat tasty smelling red sauce. The 'pasta' was fine and I couldn't even taste the difference with the sausage and fake parmesan cheese. Angela on the other hand clearly couldn't stand it and did her best to choke it down. The coffee was instant, and they only had skim milk which didn't do much for the taste.
"So Bella, I understand you're a writer." Mr. Webber asked after we began to eat.
"Um yeah." I gave Angela a small glare of betrayal, but she just shrugged slightly in return. "Mostly poetry and short stories. I did finish a novella over the summer. I'm planning my first book right now."
"What kind of stories do you write?" Mrs. Webber rebounded off of her husband's question, leaving me feeling a little like I had been ambushed.
"Up until now I've stuck to drama and romance. I'm figuring out a fantasy world for my novel." It was something I had been thinking about for a while, and I had some broad stroke ideas and a couple of characters, but no plot yet.
"I'm a huge Tolkien fan." Mr. Webber said after finishing a bit of food.
"I'm more of a George R.R. Martin kind of writer." I corrected him, because I was definitely more of a realistic fantasy writer.
"Gotcha, that makes sense after starting with drama. I read somewhere that the fourth book in that series is coming out soon, I'm not sure what it'll be called though."
"A Feast for Crows. He released four chapters as a novella last year in a magazine. I have a copy if you wanna read it." I said letting my nerd flag fly.
"Are you kidding, I've been waiting years for that book." Mr. Webber's eyes went wide and he gave me a big smile.
"Sure, I can bring it over next time." I nodded, and he chuckled with joy.
"I hope that'll tide me over. Given his writing speed, I bet the twins will be grown up by the time he finishes the series." He laughed a little at his own joke but I began to laugh with him.
"Sounds about right. By then we'll get a movie adaptation or something." I continued feeling like we had a good back and forth going.
"There's no way they could adapt it, the story is far too grand in scope and…" Mr. Webber started, but stopped when Mrs. Webber nudged her husband. "Sorry, I'm admittedly a big nerd."
"Me too." I agreed.
"Me three." Angela joined the chorus.
"Well I'm not a nerd. But I do love a couple of them." Mrs. Webber turned to her husband and they shared a look. We ate in silence for a few more minutes, and I was able to finish my plate. I looked over at Angela and could tell she was very done.
"Thank you so much for the meal, and I promise I'll bring that magazine the next time I come." I bowed my head graciously, and they both smiled brightly at me.
"You're welcome anytime Bella, and say hello to Charlie for me. We need to figure out when we're doing the next fishing expedition." Mr. Webber's eyes were wide at the possibility, although I couldn't quite understand the excitement. Fishing sounded incredibly dull to me.
"I'll mention it to him." I said off hand and then got up and followed Angela up to her room. The space was decent sized and she had her own bathroom straight ahead from the entry door. The right wall had a sliding door with a large closet, and the space to the left of the bathroom had an alcove with a desk and a window. The left wall had two large windows that overlooked the street. The gray slate on the front patio roof could be seen when standing up. Her bed took up a good chunk of the space, but there was still room for a stool with an electric piano and acoustic guitar stand. She had a little table next to the stool with several sheets of music piled on top of it. Once we were upstairs and the door was closed I turned towards Angela and began to nod.
"My mom is part of the reason I'm here. She's loving and means well, but she's a flake that can barely take care of herself. She cannot cook or balance a checkbook. Since we left my father, she's had five different jobs and we lived in about a dozen apartments before she got the house. Which is also a rental. Last I heard she and Phil are actually buying a place in Jacksonville. So you're not going to offend me by making a valid observation." I felt bad disparaging my own mother, but I wanted to be clear about my reasons for moving to Forks.
"That's rough. I guess I take for granted that my parents are together." I shrugged in response as she sat on the stool, and I took her desk chair.
"That's not necessarily a good thing in some cases. People stay together for their kids when they shouldn't. Dad loved my mom, but she was miserable here. The number of times she said she hated Forks colored my entire view of this place." It was nice to articulate that realization out loud, which was yet another first relating to all my pent up issues with my move and my mother.
"Yeah, that has to be impossible. Weighing what is good for yourself versus your children." Angela gave me a half smile and then her eyebrows raised. "Let's see that story, maybe it'll lift my spirits a bit."
I shook my head and couldn't help but laugh. "Nope, it's kind of sad. But sure, here you go."
Then she read my story.
June was seventeen, almost eighteen and a runaway. Her childhood was rough, with an absentee mother and an abusive father. One random day she meets Alex, who quickly becomes her best friend. They begin to travel around the country, and slowly they fall in love. They are together for years, until they finally get married and live together happily for decades. Then one equally random afternoon, June finds out that Alex has been killed in a car accident. As she stands at the funeral giving the eulogy, she realizes that her life has never been about escaping her past, it was about finding a family of her own.
Angela was sobbing as she turned over the last page. Then she sat looking at it for several minutes, as though she were trying to form words. Eventually I cleared my throat forcing her back into reality.
"What did you think?" I asked nervously.
"I loved it, I want to read them all." She wiped the tears from her eyes and gave me a happy, sincere smile.
"Okay, but no promises. I'm pretty sure that's my best one. Your turn." I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, and was more than happy to change the subject. I had never shared my writing before, and it was validating and terrifying to hear praise for my work. She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose, then picked up the guitar and made sure it was tuned.
"Alrighty, but I'm still learning. I do have a question, you never describe Alex. What did he look like?" Her expression showed a deep curiosity and sadness, which was exactly what I was going for with the story.
"That was the point. Alex was written to be who the reader could imagine loving. Tall, short, handsome or plain. Red hair or black hair. Man or Woman or something else. I always pictured Alex as this beautiful girl I used to go to school with a few years ago." I knew it was a risk telling her, but I wasn't about to hide my sexuality. Especially from a potential best friend.
"Are you gay, or do you just have an active imagination?" She didn't seem shocked or upset about the prospect, but I just shook my head in response.
"I don't know, I've never had much of a chance to explore that part of me, but I might be bisexual." I admitted nervously wondering if this would be the end of our burgeoning friendship. She just nodded with a casual shrug and looked down at her guitar.
"Mom had a best friend in college who was gay. He died when I was little, but she has always been an advocate for gay rights, and I think she's right. People should be able to love who they want to love." She gave me a gentle smile, then her nerves started to show. "Anyway, this song isn't very subtle or good, but here we go."
She played a simple melody with a slightly discordant chorus, which I found very catchy. Then she closed her eyes and began to sing.
"I was listening to the preacher talking down and running long.
He was talking about our future, got me up to sing along.
Sitting in confession, singing out of sin and blues.
I'm sitting in the rows, where everybody knows my secrets and lies
I'm breakin all my vows, cause they all know my secrets and lies
Miss attention preening for affection, lost all my patience with your rejection.
Knock on the doors, doing all the chores, is no cure for your dejection.
Smelling all the roses, making all the poses for the demon in your reflection.
But I'm sitting in the rows, where everybody knows my secrets and lies.
I'm making all my vows, taking all the bows, cause they know all my secrets and lies.
My secrets and lies."
"I like it." I said with as genuine a smile as I could manage. The words mostly flowed with the music, but they felt a little off.
"You're just saying that." She was frowning at the sheet music, and picked up a pencil crossing out a word and making a small musical notation on the paper.
"No really, I think you have something. Maybe it does need some refinement, but there's something there." I tried to sound encouraging, because I could hear her talent. Not only was her voice beautiful, the actual melody was haunting and intricate, with a classic rock vibe. Her lyrics needed help, but as I sat and thought about it I realized I could actually give it a shot myself.
"You really like it?" She blushed and looked hopeful.
"I do." I thought about it for a second, and decided there was little harm in asking. "Um, could I take a shot with those lyrics? I think your music is absolutely lovely, but something about the words felt a bit forced."
"Maybe you could be my Bernie. Not that I'll ever be as good as Elton John." She gave me a much bigger smile than I expected and her eyes were wide with possibilities.
"Don't sell yourself short, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I've never tried to write lyrics before. I was just thinking that I'm a writer and you clearly love to compose music. I hope I haven't stepped out of line." I was a little taken aback by her enthusiasm, but figured she had a reason.
"No, honestly I get melodies in my head all the time, but I struggle putting words to them. I'm also kind of limited in my life experience so that was all about Church and my issues with Jessica." The explanation fit, and I thought of a few lyrics that fit even better with that melody.
"Then let's get to work." I offered and moved the chair over towards her stool. We spent the next couple of hours working on that song, and by the end it was starting to sound like something I wanted to listen to again and again. She had just as many suggestions for lyrics as I did, and it felt great collaborating on something real. Eventually Angela drove me back to my truck. When I was alone I sat in the cab for a little while watching the rain fall down the windshield. The storm had just picked up as she dropped me off, and after a little while I realized I was humming our song. When I finally made it home I found Charlie asleep in his recliner.
"Dad, I'm home." I risked squeezing his shoulder and he nodded sleepily and placed a hand on mine.
"Did you have fun?" He asked lifting his eyelids slowly and blinking a few times as he sat up fully.
"Yeah, I think I have a best friend now." I felt myself smile, it was a nice feeling to not be totally alone.
"She's a good choice, I've known her since she was little." He said as he patted my hand and flipped the lever to bring the footrest down.
"Mr. Webber mentioned wanting to get another fishing trip organized." I had almost forgotten Mr. Webber's fishing reminder.
"Right, we haven't gone since Billy's accident. Felt a bit unfair." He rubbed his chin as he got up and started to walk towards the kitchen.
"Makes sense. I'm headed to bed, night dad." I made my way towards the stairs with a small wave.
"Night Bells." He called after me when I was half way up. I closed my door, and pulled out one of the boxes that had arrived for me from Phoenix. I began to sift through the stack of Dragon magazines and found the issue I was looking for right away. I placed it on my desk and sat down to write down some ideas I'd been having for the novel. It was almost two in the morning before I finally crawled in bed. The last thing I thought about before I fell asleep was how much better I felt now that I had a friend.