Chapter Text
A few minutes after Angela left with the hikers, Jacob sauntered over to take her place by my side. He looked fourteen, maybe fifteen, and had long, glossy black hair pulled back with a rubber band at the nape of his neck. His skin was beautiful, silky and russet-colored; his eyes were dark, set deep above the high planes of his cheekbones. He still had just a hint of childish roundness left around his chin. Altogether, a very pretty face. However, my positive opinion of his looks was damaged by the first words out of his mouth – Twilight, Chapter 6 -“Scary Stories”
"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?"
It was like the first day of school all over again.
"Bella," I sighed.
"I'm Jacob Black." He held his hand out politely. "You bought my dad's truck."
"Oh," I said, relieved, shaking his hand. His hold was firm and confident. "You're Billy's son. I probably should remember you."
"Naw. I was too small when you still came by our place. You would remember my older sisters.”
"Rachel and Rebecca," I suddenly recalled. Charlie and Billy had thrown us together a lot during my visits, to keep us busy while they fished. We were all too shy to make much progress as friends, though.
"Are they here?" I examined the girls at the ocean's edge, wondering if I would recognize them now.
"No. Rachel got a scholarship to Washington State, and Rebecca married a Samoan surfer — she lives in Hawaii now."
"Married. Wow." I was stunned. The twins were only a little over a year older than I was.
"So how do you like the truck?" he asked.
"I love it,” I said sincerely, “it runs great."
"Yeah, but it's really slow," he laughed. "I was so relieved when Charlie bought it. My dad wouldn't let me work on building another car when we had a perfectly good vehicle right there."
"It's not that slow," I objected, a little offended on my truck’s behalf. It wasn’t a fancy sports car, not by a long shot, but it was hardy and dependable. (Kind of like me.)
"Have you tried to go over sixty?"
"No," I admitted.
"Good. Don't." He grinned.
I couldn't help grinning back. "It does great in a collision," I offered in the truck’s defense.
"I don't think a tank could take out that old monster," he agreed, laughing too.
And then something odd happened. Instead of bouncing the conversation back to Jacob, I volunteered a piece of personal information. “Well,” I said contemplatively, “a Chevy van didn’t.”
Jacob’s eyes widened. “You were in an accident?”
Oh no. I looked around frantically, gesturing for Jacob to lower his voice. The accident had only really hurt Tyler Crowley and his car, but his guilt about the incident had turned into a load of apologies that segued into offers of dates, which I had no trouble turning down. But the offers of dates, plus Mike, plus Eric had made my already complicated lunch table environment even more difficult. If he’d heard...and with Lauren right there…
Fortunately, Tyler was all the way across the fire and absorbed by Lauren, who put a hand on his bicep and laughed a little too loud as I turned.
“A van was going too fast in the school parking lot a week – no, two ago, when it snowed,” I explained in a low whisper. Jacob tilted his head down towards me. “I’d parked, but I hadn’t gotten out yet. The guy lost control and hit the back corner of the bed.”
Jacob winced in sympathy. “And were you OK?”
“Yeah, not a scratch.” It might have been another story if I’d gotten out a few seconds before. I might have even been unlucky enough to be right around the back of the truck when Tyler’s van bore down on us. But for once, Bella Swan’s terrible luck hadn’t gone on to the worst possible scenario. “The guy got cut up, but he’s better now.” My eyes flicked towards Tyler. “But the van…”
“Totaled,” Jacob guessed, his grin returning. He shook his head as he did, as if the truck were a difficult child and he were amused at its misadventures. “Bet it didn’t leave much of a dent.”
The truck had taken a hit, but the dent was nothing that merited a trip to Dowling’s.“Nope. So. You build cars?" I asked, impressed.
“When I have free time, and parts. You wouldn't happen to know where I could get my hands on a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit?" he added jokingly. He had a pleasant, husky voice.
"Sorry," I laughed, "I haven't seen any lately, but I'll keep my eyes open for you." As if I knew what that was.
Jacob was very easy to talk with. In fact, this was probably the best time I’d had talking to an actual person since arriving at Forks.
He flashed a brilliant smile, looking at me appreciatively in a way I was learning to recognize (uh oh). I wasn't the only one who noticed.
"You know Bella, Jacob?" Lauren asked from across the fire. There went my hopes of Tyler keeping her busy.
"We've sort of known each other since I was born," Jacob answered, smiling at me again.
"How nice." She didn't sound like she thought it was nice at all, and her pale, fishy eyes narrowed. Then she cracked a very unpleasant smile. “You must have lovely stories of Bella as a kid then.”
Jacob’s answer didn’t miss a beat. “Nah, Bella was much too cool to hang out with a kid still in his diapers.” He turned his head, winking discretely at me, and a wave of relief crashed over me at the save.
A few of the Quileute kids laughed at that. One of them, tall and thin with chin-length hair, called out: “You mean you finally stopped using them Jake? You said you were still having accidents last week when I asked!”
Almost everyone joined in on that laugh, even Lauren. I held my tongue in deference to my newly reacquainted childhood friend, but to my surprise, Jacob was laughing too. A hint of red was visible on his high cheekbones, but he didn’t seem offended.
“At least some of us,” Jacob quipped back after a moment “didn’t need to be rushed home for a change of clothes in the fucking fifth grade, Embry Call!”
“After having “an accident” during the winter play,” chimed in another.
“With everyone and their grandmothers watching. Literally,” concluded a third.
Everyone, reservation and town alike, was roaring with laughter at that point, but the boys’ ribbing was so devoid of malice even Embry Call had joined in.
Even me. Wow.
I knew I hadn’t laughed like this even once the entire time I’d been in Forks. I cast around for the last time I’d let go like this: the first thing that came to mind was an afternoon at Grandma Marie’s with Renée, when Gran had said something smart and snarky I couldn’t remember at some daytime talk show we were all pretending to ignore, sending all three of us into a tizzy.
Gran had been dead these past six years.
Before I could hold that thought, Jacob coughed. “So, that’s Embry Call. One of my best friends.”
“He must be, if you discuss potty training with him.”
Jacob snorted. “I may have to break his nose later.”
“Please don’t, I haven’t laughed like this in…well, a long time.”
“Alright, but only because you asked”. Jacob searched my face for a moment, then he tipped his head down conspiratorially, “So, Forks driving you insane already?”
I grimaced. “Oh, I’d say that’s an understatement.”
Jacob grinned in understanding. “Well, lucky for you, this,” he said, gesturing around, “technically isn’t Forks.”
I blinked. “That’s right.” And for all that we were a just a brief car ride away from town, that this might have been another day at lunch, with Lauren being unfriendly and everyone in lively groups while Bella Swan tried (and failed) to entertain the sole good Samaritan who’d taken pity on her solitude, it felt different.
That night, when Charlie asked me how my day had been, I offered him the first honest smile I’d managed in weeks.
The two weeks after the trip to First Beach was followed by the usual succession of homework and house chores. I did manage to point Mike in the right direction with Jess, which led to a precious, sunny day in Port Angeles with Jess and Angela as both shopped for dresses. The Port Angeles bookstore that they took me to afterwards was a bit of a let-down, selling more crystals and dream-catchers than books, but the sun, the change of scenery and dinner at the little Italian place on the boardwalk made up for it.
Jess dominated the conversation, gushing about Mike, the upcoming dance and the who’s-going-with-who that seemed to come with it (which was totally fine, given that the two girls she hung out with were happier playing the audience). She prodded Angela a bit more about her preferences, which I managed to redirect by asking about Izzy Crow, who’d been asked out by two different boys and had been angsting about who to say yes to.
As the volley of gossip died down, Jess suddenly fixed me with a very strange look. “So, Bella. You’ve been in a good mood lately.”
I paused in the act of spearing a ravioli. Had I? “I just like the sun, I guess.” Forks had had a blessed, sainted two days of cloud free, rain free weather this week alone.
“Nope. You’ve been in a good mood since that day at La Push,” Jess continued, pointed but not unkind – curious, more like. She seemed to believe there was something going on that I wasn’t telling her.
I didn’t know, and couldn’t even begin to guess, what she thought I was hiding. At the dress store that afternoon I’d told them that I never went out, not even back in Phoenix, that I’d never had a boyfriend and spent most of my time here doing my homework – I was probably a week ahead in our coursework from sheer lack of anything better to do. Charlie probably had more interesting nights than I did, even if nothing was happening at the precinct.
The showdown continued for almost a minute before Angela spoke up. “It’s not that you’re happier. It’s more like you’re…more here. Awake.”
Awake. Something went aha! in my head.
I’d known I was unhappy in the weeks since my arrival in Forks – heck, even Renée, miles away and blinded by the excitement of travel, had known. I knew that I was quiet and distant, even for a natural born introvert, that I wasn’t very excited even over things that usually made me happy (my entire Jane Austen collection had sat untouched for over a month, and I hadn’t checked out a single non-essential book from the library). But it wasn’t until we’d been driving into La Push that morning that I’d noticed the emotional deadness, like a layer of wax, making me impermeable to the outside world.
It wasn’t like the day had put me entirely to rights, but the wax had been melting ever since. I’d begun to notice little things, like the pleasant sting of the wind on my cheeks as I drove to and from school on days without rain, the wood-and-pine-needles-with-a-dash-of-Charlie’s-aftershave mix that washed over me when I got home each day, welcoming me like a hug. Just the other day I’d quietly mmm’ed at how one of my steaks had come out at dinner, then wondered when the taste of food had last been memorable.
Angela was right. I did feel more awake. “Yeah. Maybe. I guess I’m finally settling in.”
But Jess had been going in an entirely different direction. “Are you sure it didn’t have anything to do with the cute boy you were talking to?”
Oh. “Jacob? No,” I answered hurriedly, “I – we – my dad used to leave me behind with his sisters when we were little. He goes fishing with Jacob’s dad.”
“He was cute.”
“He’s fifteen.” He’d looked young enough that Mike had dismissed him as a threat, looking Jacob over with mockery and relief after he’d come back from the hike to see us sitting together.
Jess stared at me for a few extra seconds, as if the strength of her gaze would make me reveal the conspiracy she seemed to think I was a part of. Then she sighed. “Still, he was cute. Even Lauren thought so,” she said, twirling spaghetti onto her fork. “And what’s two years anyway? Angela’s dad is seven years older than her mom.”
Angela nodded serenely. “It’s different though. Seven years at 33 and 40 than two years at fifteen and seventeen, I mean.”
I shot her a grateful look.
Jess nodded. But then she said “Lauren also said you guys sat really close at the bonfire and laughed the whole time. Said it was the first time she’d seen you laugh.”
“I’m surprised she cared enough to notice.”
Jess made a dismissive sound. “Her actual words were ‘Nice to know Bella Swan has teeth’ and ‘I thought her face was gonna crack’, but she did have a point. I noticed. You looked really happy when Mike and I came back from the shop that day.”
Jessica’s words made something in me itch. Right along with annoyance at Lauren’s vitriol (and over a boy!) and a wave of self-consciousness, a harsh pang of something a lot like homesickness hit me, right in the middle of the chest. It wasn’t a longing for Phoenix, which I missed often enough to know. It was a yearning for something else, some sense of comfort and belonging –
- I shoved the thought away. Instead, I groaned. “Do you think she’ll stop hating me if I run Tyler over?”
Angela and Jess laughed, and in the end, so did I.
Later that night, after Jessica had brought me home, I lay wide awake for hours, listening to the sound of swaying trees, nocturnal animals and my own anxious thoughts.
I knew my life in Phoenix hadn’t been a spiral of misery, not by a long shot. Phoenix was warmth and contentment, it was Forks that was misery and rain. Back there I’d had my mother, and I’d had my fair share of group projects, school fairs and even the occasional birthday party (no dances though, not ever). I wasn’t exactly invited to everything, but I had indeed stepped out of my house. Sometimes, I'd even managed to enjoy some of the social obligations I’d wound up in.
But that was it. My true friends all these past years had been Renée and my books. Nobody called my house just to chat or hung out with me outside school when nothing was happening. And nobody, other than the principal and whoever had handled my transfer paperwork, had been told I was leaving Phoenix.
Jess and even Angela had balked at that. Even when I explained how many people there were in my grade alone and how much bigger Phoenix was, with distance and variety that didn’t really lend itself to building connections, the “I didn’t have any friends” had sounded both harsh and unbelievable to them.
I understood though. Not having any friends in Forks meant you’d shut down everyone’s efforts to bring you into the community, or you’d been too big a jerk to everyone who’d tried.
(Or you’d run away in the middle of the day with your infant daughter and broken one of the town’s most beloved police officer’s heart).
I had had two constant lunch companions my last year, Jessica Landry from History and Lana Fox from English, but we hadn’t seen each other outside school on purpose, not ever. I’d sent them awkward goodbye emails the day before my flight, but it felt more like a formality. Anne Elliot from Persuasions, taking her leave of the people of the parish, even though her absence wouldn’t make much of a difference to them. Their answers had been very kind, but I hadn’t emailed them since I’d arrived in Forks, and neither had they. Things just weren’t like that between us.
Outgoing Renée had a revolving door of friends, picked up wherever her flavor of the week was, but none of them stayed past the decline of her interest in the club, church or group that had brought them together. Before Phil, she’d had a revolving door of boyfriends too.
Both of us were solitary, so we’d just clung to one another despite our differences. It wasn’t bad. I’d never met anyone, at school or otherwise, who seemed interested in joining my small, quiet world. Sometimes – especially once puberty hit my grade and drama of all kinds erupted, from boyfriend stealing to breakups to elaborate friendship betrayals – I was even grateful for the isolation.
But I’d seen something, felt something, that day on First Beach. It reminded me of being seven years old and curling up in a corner of the elementary school library, a pile of The Babysitter’s Club books on hand. Seven-year-old Bella had loved them, with their small town adventures and their incredible friendship: imagine that, having a whole group of friends to call if you were sad! And they’d care! And even do something about it, outside of school hours! Seven-year-old Bella had been sure she’d meet her own gaggle of best friends any day now, and start having adventures.
(Seven-year-old Bella was also pretty sure she’d be the shy, clumsy Mary Anne Spier of that gaggle of best friends, but it would all be OK because timid Mary Anne was the first of the whole group to get a boyfriend, and those were as good as princes).
That hadn’t happened and I’d been OK. My friendship with Forks-Jessica seemed in line to match with Phoenix-Jessica, polite and comfortable but distant in the end. Angela and I seemed to share our shyness and our silence. A little too much perhaps.
Maybe there was something to what Jacob Black had said, and how we’d sort of known each other since he was born. Maybe that day on the beach had been a one-off, and Jacob’s friendliness would vanish the minute a different willing body crossed his path, like Eric or even Mike to a degree. Maybe I’d go down to La Push one of these days. Maybe I was nuts.
Maybe, just maybe, the part of me that was eager to go, that felt like good things were waiting for me beyond my comfort zone, as Renée would put it, was right.
At some hour of the night or morning, my exhausted mind finally decided I’d look for the next safe, impersonal chance to visit La Push to see what was up. Course clear, my thoughts finally stopped running in circles and let me go to sleep.
I dreamed I was walking through a forest, restful under the starless, moonless sky. I walked through the pitch black beneath their branches, stumbling here and there, but somehow managing not to trip. Where’s east, I wondered, where’s east? I’m supposed to be going east. The darkness was disorienting and yet hardly frightening. Almost friendly. Where’s east?
East is where the sun rises, I thought. I reached out to the trunk of a nearby tree for support and eased myself to the ground, settling in to wait for sunrise.