#McPherson Square Park | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bellamyblcke · 6 years

Text

Without the Dark We’d Never See the Stars

Pairing: Bella Swan/Edward Cullen, Bella Swan/Eleanor (Edythe) Cullen

Summary: "I’ve never had a boyfriend,” I said. “Why not?” Jess asked, curiously. “You’re freaking gorgeous, it’s a crime for you to be single.” “No one ever really asked." “People ask you here,” Jess said, “and you tell them no.”

in which Bella Swan is the lesbian we always knew she could be

Read on AO3

In seventh grade, Ian McPherson had told everyone on the playground that he wanted to die in a shark attack. He’d mimicked the chomp of the shark’s teeth and all the girls had screamed and closed their eyes. Emma Patterson had said that she wanted to die in her sleep, because it was the most peaceful way, and why anyone would want to die being mauled by a huge animal she didn’t know, and Stephanie Smith had said that her daddy had died of cancer and she was probably going to end up just like him.

But I had never given much thought to how I would die. And even if I had, I didn’t think I could have imagined this, the reflection of the long dark room in the mirrors, the gleam of the hunter’s eyes, the pound of my heart in my chest.

The hunter smiled.

I’m sorry, I thought, I’m so--

My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I said a silent goodbye to everything we passed -- the Costco down the street, my favorite coffee shop on the corner, the mountains on the horizon, the palm trees. I would miss Phoenix, the vigorous, sprawling city. I would miss the sun.

"Bella," my mom said. "You don't have to do this."

"I want to go," I said.

Her brow pulled in a little. The furrow didn’t look right on her face. She had a face for laughing.

“I love you," I said.

She hugged me tightly to her. She smelled like lemongrass and mint tea, like home.

“How am I going to manage without my girl?” she said.

It was raining when I landed in Port Angeles. Charlie was waiting for me outside the airport in the cruiser. He got out of the car when he saw me and gave me an awkward, one-armed hug.

“It’s good to see you, Bells,” he said, smiling. “You haven’t changed much.”

It was unclear whether this was a compliment or not.

“How’s Renee?” he said, trying again.

"Mom's fine,” I said.

It was odd to see him in the grey Washington light. He looked older and more tired than he had the last time I had seen him.

“It’s good to see you, too,” I said, after slightly too long had passed.

Charlie still lived in the two-bedroom house he’d bought with my mother, though I could barely imagine my mother living in it. She always reminded me of warm things, burning incense and cluttered knicknacks. Charlie’s house felt cold and ill-used, as though someone had just moved out, though it had been eighteen years since my mother had left him.

Parked outside the house was a truck. It was old and red and slightly rusty, but I could see myself in it. It felt worn in a way that appealed to me.

“A homecoming gift,” Charlie said. He wasn’t looking at me, staring out the window.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, leaning over and kissing him on the cheek.

He shrugged, embarrassed. “It was nothing.”

“Nah,” I said. “It was something.”

It only took one trip to get all my stuff to my room. It had been five years since I had been to Forks, but the room -- the faded blue paint, the lacy yellow curtains, the rickety metal bed -- felt like my childhood.

Made it here safe, I texted my mother. Already miss you.

She responded immediately, and I knew she had probably been waiting by her phone.

Love you, love you, love you, she sent.

It made me feel tired, like just curling up on the bed and going to sleep. But I knew I would regret not unpacking in the morning, so I started pulling clothes from my bags. It calmed me to have some of my stuff in the space. Shirts in the worn, wooden dresser, a picture of Renee and I last summer on the desk in the corner, a pile of books on the small, childish bookshelf.

I didn't sleep well that night, even after I was done crying. I told myself it was the constant patter of the rain on the windowsill.

I woke to a sky full of mist. It felt as if the sky was caging me in.

After Charlie left for work, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three mismatched chairs and examined his small kitchen. Nothing had changed -- the dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor were all as they’d always been. My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago. I sat there for a long time, but eventually, I had to go.

Forks High School was waiting.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?" The speaker was a stocky boy with blonde hair carefully gelled into spikes.

"Bella," I corrected.

"Where's your next class?" he asked.

"Um, Government? With Jefferson, I think."

"I'm headed toward building four, I could show you the way.”

Everyone was staring at me.

"I'm Mike," he added.

I smiled tentatively. "Thanks."

We got our jackets and headed out into the rain, which had picked up.

"So, this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?" he asked.

"Very." He was walking too close to me. I wondered if there was a way to politely put some distance between us.

"It doesn't rain much there, does it?" he asked.

"Ha, no,” I said.

"Wow, what must that be like?" he wondered.

I raised an eyebrow. "Sunny," I told him.

I feel like a bug in a spyglass, I texted Renee.

I clicked my phone shut after I had sent it and when I looked up I saw them.

They didn’t look similar, and yet they felt different than all the other students there. There was a strange stillness to them that felt far removed from the rest of the crowded cafeteria. I thought, sort of vaguely, that if they were in a movie, the frame would slow when it reached them. They looked like people the camera would want to linger on. They were all beautiful, that was part of it, but it was something more than just beauty. They were other in a way that was marked.

"Who are they?" I asked.

“Those are the Cullens,” the girl next to me said. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. All the boys are taken.”

When I entered the biology classroom, all of the lab tables were filled but one.

One of the Cullens, red haired and intimidatingly gorgeous, was sitting next to the only available seat.

I kept my eyes on her as I went to introduce myself to the teacher. She didn’t look up when I sat down. Instead, she was staring out the window, her hand gripping the desk so hard that I could see the tendons of her arm.

Halfway through the class though, I paused in my note taking and looked over to find her staring at me. Her pupils were blown so wide that I couldn’t tell where they ended.

The instant the bell rang, she was gone from her seat, swinging her bag over her shoulder with a fluid motion. She was taller than I would have expected, almost like a dancer, and it was only a moment before she was out the door.

"So, did you stab Eleanor Cullen with a pencil or what? She looked terrified of you."

"The girl I was sitting next to?" I asked.

"Yeah," Mike said.

"I don't know," I said. "I didn’t even speak to her."

“I’m sorry, hon,” the receptionist said. Eleanor Cullen was standing at the front desk when I entered. I stopped where I stood. She seemed too tall and bright to exist in the drab office. “I just don’t think we can switch you,” she continued. “All of the classes are full.”

The door opened again, cold wind blowing my hair around my face. Eleanor turned at the sound of the bell.

For a moment, she met my gaze.

"Never mind. Thank you," she said, and then without looking at me again turned out the door.

When I got to my truck, it was almost the last car in the lot. It seemed like a haven, already the closest thing to home I had in this damp green hole. I sat inside for a while, just staring out the windshield blankly. But soon I was cold enough to need the heater, so I turned the key and the engine roared to life.

The next day was both better and worse.

It was better because it wasn’t raining, and because I now knew what to expect. Mike sat next to me in English and walked with me to my next class. He smiled a lot. People didn’t stare at me as much, for which I was grateful. I sat with Mike, Eric, Jessica and several other people who seemed almost familiar to me at lunch, and I wasn’t drowning.

It was worse because I was tired. The wind in the eaves of the house kept me awake throughout the night, and I felt as if I was walking through my day in a haze. It was worse because Mr. Varner called on me in Trig when my hand wasn't raised and I had the wrong answer. It was worse because I had to play volleyball, and the one time I didn't cringe from the ball, I hit my teammate in the head with it.

And it was worse because Eleanor Cullen wasn't in school.

The Thriftway wasn’t far, just a few streets south of the highway. It was nice to be inside the supermarket. The linoleum floors, the long rows stacked high with cereal and peanut butter and tortillas, the wandering middle-aged women, it all felt normal.

When I got home, I unloaded all the groceries, taking my time to set a place in the cupboards for each item. The barrenness of Charlie’s cupboards was almost sad. It felt good to fill them.

“You’re cooking?” Charlie asked.

I turned around to find him standing in the doorway. He’d taken his boots off and there was something jarring about seeing his bare feet.

“Steak and potatoes,” I said.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.

“Your cabinets were empty, Dad.”

“Right,” he said. “I’ll go to the store tomorrow.”

“I went today.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.

“I didn’t mind.”

That night it was finally quiet. I fell asleep quickly, exhausted.

“So, did something happen with you and Eleanor Cullen?" Jessica asked. “Because she’s staring at you.”

Eleanor was finally back in school and I was trying to pretend as if I didn’t think it was a big deal.

"I don't think she likes me," I said.

Jessica just shrugged. "The Cullens don't like anybody. Well, they don't generally notice anybody enough to like them."

"Stop looking at them," I said.

She laughed.

“Calm down, Bella,” she said. “I don’t think your social standing rests on what Eleanor Cullen thinks of you. No one listens to them anyway.”

"Eleanor, didn’t you think Bella should have a chance at the microscope?” Mr. Banner said.

I flushed a dark red, but Eleanor just laughed. “Bella identified three of the five.”

"Well," he said after a moment, "I guess it's good you two are lab partners."

After he left, I began doodling on my notebook, drawing spirals on the cover.

"It's too bad about the snow, isn't it?" Eleanor asked.

"Not really," I said. I couldn’t believe I was talking to her.

"You don't like the cold?" Her head was tilted to the side and her hair fell in a wet tumble over her shoulder.

"Or the wet,” I said.

“Forks must be a difficult place for you to live," she mused. She was staring at me. Most people, I realized, didn’t actually look at you that often.

"You have no idea," I said.

"Eleanor seemed friendly enough today," Mike commented as we shrugged into our raincoats. “What’d you do to charm the ice bitch?”

“She’s not a bitch,” I said automatically.

When I opened my eyes in the morning, there was no fog veiling my window. Instead, a fine layer of snow covered the yard, dusting the top of my truck and whitening the road. The needles on the trees spread in dripping icicles. It took every ounce of my concentration to make it down the icy brick driveway. I almost lost my balance when I finally got to the truck, but I managed to cling to the side mirror.

Things I needed not to think about:

Breaking my neck on an ice slick

a problem I would not have if I was safe back in Phoenix

Eleanor Cullen

or her stupid, gorgeous hair

My truck seemed to have no problem with the black ice that covered the roads and when I got out at school, I saw why. Something silver caught my eye, and I walked to the back of the truck — carefully holding the side for support — to examine my tires. There were thin chains crisscrossed in diamond shapes around them. Charlie had gotten up who knows how early to put snow chains on my truck.

I was standing by the back corner of the truck, when I heard a high-pitched screech. I looked up, startled, and saw several things simultaneously:

A sea of faces all frozen in the same mask of shock.

Eleanor Cullen, four cars down, staring at me, a streak of red hair across her face.

A dark blue van, skidding, tires locked and squealing against the brakes, spinning across the ice.

I didn’t even have time to close my eyes.

"Bella? Are you alright?"

Eleanor’s face in close up. The sharp angle of her nose. The warm gold of her eyes.

"I'm fine,” I said.

When she pulled away from me I saw that there were dents in the side of the car in the shape of her hands, as if she had pushed the van off me herself. Little Eleanor, smaller than I was, almost birdlike in her delicacy. But still, there they were, those dents, impossible to unsee.

They brought me to the ER, a long room with a line of beds separated by pastel-patterned curtains. In a town this small on a Tuesday afternoon, it was mainly deserted. It was just Eleanor and I in our section of the room, her leaning against the side of one of the beds, tapping out a message on her phone, looking far too put together, and me wearing my neck brace, watching her anxiously.

“Eleanor,” I said. “Can I talk to you?”

Eleanor looked up from her phone.The screen made her seem almost ghostlike, washing her pale features in blue light. "Your father is waiting," she said.

"You owe me an explanation," I said.

"What do you want from me, Bella?" she asked. Her hair was very red in the bland room, her eyes very dark.

"I want to know the truth," I said.

She had that look in her eyes again, the scared look. She was silent for a long time. “You should let this go,” she said. “For your own good.”

And then she was gone, turning from me before I could say anything more.

It was dark. Ahead of me, a figure was waiting. I couldn’t see her face, just the pallor of her skin and the bright red of her hair.

“Eleanor!” I called, but she wouldn’t turn.

I started running, but I felt as if I was moving in slow motion and however fast I ran, I could never catch her.

Troubled, I woke in the middle of the night, breathing hard. I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time after.

And so time passed.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Jessica asked for the tenth time “You weren’t planning on asking him?”

“No, Jess, I don’t even think I’m going,” I said.

The Sadie Hawkins dance was next Saturday and it was all anyone could talk about.

“Come on, Bella,” Jess said. “It will be fun. You don’t even have to go with a date if you don’t want. Though there are like ten million boys who would die to go with you. Ask Erik, or Tyler.”

I tried to think of a polite way to say that I had zero interest in either Erik or Tyler.

“Have fun with Mike,” I said. “Really, I’m good though.”

Mike was quiet when he walked with me to class, and he didn’t broach the subject until I was in my seat and he was perched atop my desk.

"So," Mike said, looking at the floor, "Jessica asked me to the spring dance."

"That's great,” I said.

"Well…" he said, examining me closely. "I told her I had to think about it."

"Oh,” I said. “Why?”

Mike was turning red.

“I was wondering if… well if you might be planning to ask me.”

I could tell Eleanor, seated next to me, was listening.

“Mike,” I said. “I think you should tell her yes.”

“Bella?” Eleanor’s voice should not have been familiar to me.

I turned.

She just looked at me. She hadn’t talked to me since the incident with the truck, weeks before.

“What? Are you speaking to me again?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But it's better this way, really."

“Why?” I asked. It came out more vulnerable than I intended.

“It’s just,” she paused, frustrated. “It’s better if we’re not friends. Trust me.”

I thought about her eyes when she’s saved me, how they’d been warm and soft, and how quickly they’d hardened.

“It’s too bad you didn’t figure that out earlier. You could have saved yourself all this regret.”

“You think I regret saving your life?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Bella,” she said, softly.

“I know you do,” I said.

“You don’t know anything,” she said.

Charlie seemed suspicious when he came home that night and smelled green peppers. I couldn't blame him — the closest edible Mexican food was probably in southern California. But he was a cop, so he was brave enough to take the first bite.

"Dad?" I asked when he was almost done. We so rarely spoke, Charlie and I.

"Yeah?" he said, looking up.

“It’s cool if I go up to Seattle next week, right?”

"Will you be back in time for the dance?"

Only in a town this small would a father know when the school dances were.

"I don't really dance, Dad,” I said.

I didn’t get my dancing feet from my mother, so he just nodded.

When I got to school the next morning, Eleanor Cullen was leaning against the side of my truck.

“I thought you were supposed to be pretending I didn’t exist,” I said.

“I wasn’t pretending you didn’t exist,” Eleanor said.

“So are you trying to irritate me to death then? Since Tyler’s van didn’t do the job.”

I was never like this, hot and cold, and worked up over nothing.

“I’m going to class,” I said, turning and walking away. But she followed right beside me.

She looked amused. “Do you want a ride?”

“What?” I said.

“To Seattle. I heard you say you were going.”

“With who?” I said.

“With me, of course,” she said.

“Jess,” I said, coming up to her as I entered the lunchroom, grabbing her elbow. “You’ll never believe what happened to me this morning, like it was so fuck--”

“Bella?”

I turned and saw that Eleanor was standing right behind me, holding a lunch tray, and looking almost… nervous?

“Umm, hold on one sec,” I said, releasing Jess.

“Do you want to eat?” Eleanor asked.

“Um, yeah,” I said. “Yeah I do.”

“Bella,” Jess called. “Are you ditching us?” But Eleanor was already leading me across the cafeteria. I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination or if everyone was actually staring.

"So,” I said once we were seated. “This is different.”

She laughed.

“I decided if I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly,” she said.

I shifted, uncomfortable.

“I think your friends are angry at me for stealing you,” she said, after a long moment had passed.

“They’ll survive,” I said.

“I may not give you back,” she said.

The next day, she was waiting for me outside my Trig class.

“Lunch?” she asked and I nodded.

She lead me outside. The air was heavy, but it wasn’t raining.

“If you were smart, you’d stay away from me,” she said.

Her hair was bright against the green of the lawn.

“And if I’m not?” I asked.

“Well then, I guess we’ll see,” she said.

We’d sat together every day that week. It was a routine that felt too easy to grow comfortable in.

I concentrated on unscrewing the lid to my lemonade. I took a swig, staring at the table without seeing.

“Your boyfriend looks like he wants to fight me,” she said.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I said, though if I had one guess I’d bet Mike was glaring. “But I’m sure you’re wrong,” I added.

“I’m not,” she said, looking amused. “Most people are easy read.”

Mike put his arm around my waist and pulled mine over his shoulder. I leaned against him heavily. When we were around the edge of the cafeteria, I stopped, and he helped me to sit at the edge of the walk. I felt dizzy and a little nauseous. At least I hadn’t eaten at lunch, too anxious from Eleanor’s proximity. If this kept going, I was going to lose a lot of weight.

“Wow, you’re looking kinda green,” Mike said.

“Bella?” a voice called from a distance. “What’s wrong -- is she hurt?”

Please don’t throw up. Please don’t throw up.

“I think she fainted. I don’t really know, I mean she was fine and then she--”

“Bella,” Eleanor’s voice was right beside me. “Can you hear me?”

“No,” I said.

“We were doing blood typing in biology,” Mike said, from somewhere behind me.

“You faint at the sight of blood?” Eleanor asked, her voice right in my ear. “How ironic.”

I groaned.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll drive you home.”

Eleanor’s car was the fanciest in the parking lot, a bright silver Volvo. She drove so fast the world outside was just a blur. The sound of her music, soft and muted, the smell of her in the rain, the reflection of her in the door window.

“Do you think I could be scary?” she asked once we were parked outside my house. The light in the car was dim.

“I think you could be, if you wanted,” I said, honestly.

"Are you frightened of me now?" she said. My stomach twisted in my chest.

“No,” I said, but my voice came out low and throaty.

“Maybe you should be,” she said.

Friday, we were back at our same table. I thought I would have gotten used to her presence, but I hadn’t. It felt like the longer I was around her, the worse it got.

“Have fun at the beach, tomorrow,” she said. Mike had been planning the trip for weeks. Eleanor was looking out the window at the pouring rain. I wanted her to look at me again. “Good weather for sunbathing.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

“No,” she said. “I’m going out of town.”

“Doing what?”

“Hiking,” she said.

She didn’t strike me as the outdoorsy type. “Hiking where?”

“Goat Rocks,” she said, turning back to look at me. “It’s supposed to beautiful.”

"Do you know a place called Goat Rocks or something?” I asked Charlie that night. “I think it's south of Mount Rainier.”

"Yeah,” he said. “Why?"

I shrugged. "Some kids were talking about hiking there."

"It's not a very good place for hiking." He sounded surprised. "Too many bears.”

"Oh," I said. I tried to imagine Eleanor standing next to a bear in her expensive jeans and gauzy blouses. "Maybe I got the name wrong."

I woke to sunlight. Clouds ringed the horizon and the sun hung too low, but there was blue in the sky. I lingered by the window as long as I could, afraid if I left it would disappear.

The Newton’s Olympic Outfitters store was just north of town. A group of kids stood next to a rundown Suburban. I pulled in next to them and Mike came up to greet me.

“You came!” he called, delighted. “I told you it was going to be sunny.”

I was really going to have to find a way to let him down easy.

“I told you I was coming,” I said.

"Will you ride in my car?"

"Sure,” I said.

He smiled blissfully. It was easy to make Mike happy.

"Have you ever seen a driftwood fire?" Mike asked me.

When I was a child, I used to come down to First Beach with Charlie. It was beautiful: the water a dark gray, white-capped and heaving, the cliffs, uneven summits crowned with soaring firs, the stones lining the beach a multicolored array, terra-cotta and sea green, lavender and blue gray, the driftwood trees bleached bone white, the brisk wind coming off the wave.

"No," I said as he placed the blazing twig carefully against the teepee of wood.

"You'll like this then."

He lit another small branch and laid it alongside the first. The flames started to lick quickly up, a swirl of blue and green.

“You’re Isabella Swan, right?”

I looked up and saw a boy standing over me. He was very tall, and pretty in a way that boys seldom were, all finely drawn cheekbones and long, glossy black hair.

“Bella,” I said.

“Jacob. Black.” He held out his hand. “You bought my dad’s truck.”

The flames were intoxicating to watch and the beer had loosened everyone, so that we were all sprawled and lazy around the fire ring. Jacob’s arm had found its way around my shoulder and I leaned into him. He smelled like fire and boy.

“So you build cars?” I asked.

His eyes were dark, not dark the way that Eleanor’s war, inhuman and mysterious, but warm and kind.

“When I have the parts,” he said. “You wouldn’t know where to find a Volkswagen Rabbit master cylinder, would you?”

I laughed. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“Bella.” Lauren, one of Jessica’s friends, blonde and so straight it hurt, stumbled towards me. “I was just saying to Tyler that it was too bad that none of the Cullens could come. You’re friends with Eleanor, right?” Jessica had told me, in confidence, that Lauren had always had a bit of a thing for Emmett, Eleanor’s tall and brawny brother.

One of the older boys seated across from us looked up at that. “Dr. Carlisle Cullen’s family?” he asked.

She turned towards him, swaying. “Do you know them?” I put a hand out to steady her.

“They don’t come here,” the boy said in a way that closed the subject.

It was cold by the waves, and I stuck my hands in my jacket.

“What was that boy back there saying about the Cullens?” I asked Jacob.

“Oh, well, do you like scary stories?” Jacob asked. His voice was husky.

“Yeah,” I said. The dents in the car. The way that Eleanor’s eyes always seemed a different color: black and ocher and pale yellow. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well, in the old Quileute legends people claimed that we were descended from wolves and that wolves are our brothers still. It’s against tribal law to kill them.”

“Okay,” I said, drawing out the vowel.

“And there are stories about the cold ones, the natural born enemy of the wolf.”

“The cold ones?” I asked.

“Your people call them vampires,” he said.

The green light of the forest. The crashing of waves in the distance. Jacob Black, tugging on my hand, pulling me towards the blackest part of the forest.

“Jacob? What’s wrong?”

His face was frightened. “Run, Bella, you have to run.”

A voice in the distance, calling my name.

"Why?" I asked.

Jacob let go of my hand, shaking, falling to the dim forest floor.

I screamed his name, but he was gone, and in his place was a giant, red-brown wolf.

A light came from the beach and Eleanor stepped out from between the trees.

“Trust me,” she said. “Bella, trust me.”

I pulled out my laptop, curling up on my bed, and typed in one word: vampire.

I closed the laptop.

And then I opened it up again.

“I never noticed before, your hair has red in it,” Mike said, catching a strand between his fingers.

“Only in the sun,” I said, as he tucked it behind my ear.

“Great day, isn’t it?” he said.

“My kind of day,” I agreed, looking out across the parking lot.

That day, the first school day since I had come to Forks that it had been sunny, none of the Cullens came to school. I tried not to draw conclusions.

I found a quilt in the linen cupboard and a tattered collection of Jane Austen and went out into the backyard to soak up the sun. Part way through I stopped. I couldn’t focus on anything but Eleanor. I rolled onto my back. I would think of nothing but the sun on my skin, I told myself. I focused on each part of my body it touched, the tips of my eyelashes, the edge of my elbow, and soon found myself asleep.

“So, I’m thinking date two will be the first kiss date,” Jessica said. “With Mike I mean. Obviously.”

The radio blared a whiny rock song.

“But like I think it was good that we didn’t kiss on the first date, it means it's more about like a more emotional connection, don’t you think?”

“You’re so dramatic, Jess,” Angela said.

I laughed.

“Coming from the girl who hasn’t had a crush on anyone in like five ever,” Jess retorted. “Like what even is your type?”

Angela looked uncomfortable.

I was still awkward and clumsy with these sort of girl friendships. “Umm,” I said. “What exactly are we looking for with these dresses?”

Jess turned to me and Angela shot me a grateful look. “It’s semiformal,” she said. “Whatever the fuck that means.”

The mall in Port Angeles was a dismal place, the sort of liminal space that always disoriented me, all white tiled floors and strange mirrors.

“What are these dances even like?” I said, as we strolled the racks full of dresses.

“You’ve never been to one?” Angela asked, holding up a particularly abysmal sequined thing.

“Didn’t you ever go with a boyfriend or something?” Jess asked.

I laughed. “Umm no. I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

“Why not?” Jess asked, curiously. “You’re freaking gorgeous, it’s a crime for you to be single.”

“No one ever really asked,” I said.

“People ask you here,” Jess said, “and you tell them no.”

After the dress shopping, I went off in search of a bookstore. The girl’s night high had faded and I wanted some time to myself.

It was getting dark, the clouds finally returning. I found that I’d wandered past the part of Port Angeles that I was intended to see. I’d left my jacket in the car, and a sudden shiver made me cross my arms tightly across my chest. A single van passed me, and then the road was empty.

“Hey there, baby. Aren’t you looking fine tonight.”

There was a group of men lounging against the side of the building. As I turned to them one of them pushed off the side, walking towards me. I stepped backwards, wondering if I should run, though I’d never been particularly fast. Soon, he was almost upon me.

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing,” he said. His eyes were hungry.

I slipped my purse over my head, gripping the strap with one hand. Heel of the hand thrust upward. Finger through the eye socket. Knee to the groin.

Headlights suddenly flew down the street. A silver car barreled down the street before fishtailing around and skidding to a stop in front of me.

“Bella, get in.”

I got in.

Eleanor was intensely focused on the road, taking turns at a speed that was dizzying.

“Eleanor, are you alright?” I asked, surprised at how hoarse my voice sounded.

“Not really,” she said.

The car came to a stop. It was too dark to see anything beside the vague outline of dark trees along the roadside. We weren’t in town anymore.

“Bella?” she said.

It was like a shock to the system to be around her again. It had only been five days, but it had felt longer. Like an eternity.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?” she had turned her attention to me and I was surprised at the emotion I saw on her face, as if she had been scraped raw, as if she was as frightened as I was.

"Yes,” I said.

“Could you just…,” she stopped for a second, closing her eyes. “Distract me. Please.”

“What?” I said.

She was very close to me and I could smell the scent of her hair, feel her breath on my face. How was it that moments before I had been standing, clutching my purse, ready to defend myself?

“Distract me,” she said.

And then I was leaning up and kissing her.

My phone rang and I pulled back from her. Her eyes were black, her pupils blown wide. She looked as windblown and shocked as I felt.

“Hello?” I said.

“Bella, we’ve been calling, but your phone’s gone straight to voicemail. Where are you?”

“Shit, Jess, I’m sorry. It’s complicated.” I was very conscious of Eleanor right beside me, the shift of her leg, the way the AC ruffled her hair, almost touching my arm. “I’ll be there soon and I’ll explain, okay?”

“You better,” she said.

“I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up and turned back to Eleanor. She started the car without saying anything and soon we were speeding back towards town.

She turned towards the restaurant before I said anything.

It felt, suddenly, like there was a chasm between us.

Jessica descended on me as soon as we pulled up.

“Explain,” she said, and then she caught sight of Eleanor. Her gaze was shrewd.

“Would you mind if I joined you?” Eleanor asked.

“Um, actually, Bella, we already ate while we were waiting,” Angela said.

“Oh,” I said. “That’s fine. I’m not even really hungry.”

“You should probably eat something,” Eleanor said. “I can drive you home.”

I turned to look at her, but her expression was unreadable.

“Okay,” I said. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“You should drink,” Eleanor said. “Sugar will be good for you.”

I sipped my soda obediently, and then drank more deeply, surprised at how thirsty I was. I finished the whole thing and she pushed hers towards me.

“Are you cold?”

“It’s just the Coke,” I said.

“Here,” she said, shrugging out of her jacket.

It was cold, the way my jacket felt when I first picked it up in the morning, and smelled like her perfume, floral and sharp.

“That color looks nice with your skin,” she said, pushing the bread basket toward me.

“I’m not going into shock,” I said.

“You should be,” she said. “But you don’t even look shaken.”

“I feel safe with you.”

Her brow furrowed.

“You shouldn’t.”

Eleanor held the passenger door open for me. The wash of streetlamps played prettily off the planes of her face. She was so beautiful it almost hurt.

I thought of the wikipedia page I’d read on vampires, and felt ridiculously silly, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about the dents, the missing days, the way she seemed so other, so different from anyone I had ever met.

“Saturday at the beach, I ran into an old family friend,” I said once we were seated in the car, speeding along the highway. She turned to look at me. “We went for a walk and he was telling me some of the old Quileute legends,” I continued. I was watching her face in the reflection on the windshield, I saw how she stilled. “About vampires.”

“And you thought of me,” she said.

It was late. We’d been sitting in the car outside my driveway for a long time.

“Why don’t you drink human blood?” I asked.

She was holding my hand and I felt more aware of that than our conversation: the smoothness of her skin, the slow drag of her thumb across the back of my hand.

“I don’t want to be a monster,” she said.

“I don’t think you’re a monster,” I said, softly.

She was quiet for a long time, and when I looked over at her I saw that her expression was pained.

“Bella,” she said, softly. “This is so wrong.”

I pulled my hand out of hers.

Charlie was in the living room when I came in.

“Bella?” he asked.

“Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”

He was sitting watching the baseball game but he muted it when I came in. “Did you have fun?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. The girls’ night out seemed very far away. “They both found dresses.”

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m just tired,” I said. And it wasn’t until I was in the shower -- the water too hot, burning my skin -- that I realized I was freezing too.

I stood in the shower until the hot water ran out.

“I want to know what you’re thinking.”

Eleanor was wearing a light knit t-shirt today that clung to her body in just the right ways.

“I always tell you what I’m thinking,” I said.

“You edit,” she said.

“Not much.”

She hummed. “Enough,” she said.

“You wouldn’t want to hear it,” I said.

“I would,” she said, her gaze heavy on my face. “I want to hear everything you think.”

“She’s going to ambush you in class,” Eleanor said. Her eyes were on Jessica as she walked away from us.

I shrugged out of her jacket and handed it to her.

“So,” she said. “Come on, tell me. What are you going to say?”

“What do you think she wants to know?

“She probably wants to know if we’re dating or not,” she said.

I couldn’t read her expression.

“What should I say?” I asked.

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I suppose you could say yes,” she said. “If you wanted.”

“So like was it a date?” Jessica asked when I sat down in Trig.

Here goes nothing. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I think it was.”

Walking into the cafeteria hand in hand with Eleanor Cullen was a lot like my first day here: everyone stared.

“Jessica’s analyzing my every move,” she said. “She’ll break it down for you later.”

“I’m sure she will,” I said.

She leaned closer to me. “Should we make it interesting for her?”

“So, you and Eleanor, huh?” Mike asked me during gym.

I winced. I really didn’t want to start disliking Mike.

“What about it?” I said.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” I snapped.

A group of boys were surrounding the car next to Eleanor’s, a shiny, red thing (“Ostentatious,” Eleanor mumbled when we passed.) They turned to stare as we passed. I wanted to duck out from under her arm. I didn’t like the way that their gazes lingered.

That night, I dreamed of Eleanor. I woke in the morning restless and wanting.

“About this Saturday,” Charlie said, turning on the faucet.

“Hmmm,” I said, noncommittally.

“Are you still set on going to Seattle?” he said.

“That was the plan,” I said. Eleanor had said she had a surprise for me.

He began to wash the plate slowly, not looking at me, “You’re sure you can't make it back for the dance?”

I winced. “I’m not going to the dance, Dad.”

“Didn’t anyone ask you?” he asked.

“It was girl’s choice.”

“Oh.” He frowned as he dried his plate.

I felt a wave of sympathy for him. It couldn’t have been easy, being a father.

That Friday, Eleanor was at my door bright and early. I wondered if her driving me to school was going to become a thing, if that was what girlfriends did. I didn’t have enough experience to know. Still, I followed her out to the parking lot after school, let her take my hand over the gearshift.

We sat outside my house for a long time, but we didn’t go in.

“It’s twilight,” she said, softly.

She was watching the horizon though the windshield, even obscured as it was with clouds. Suddenly, her eyes shifted to me. “It’s the safest time of day for us,” she told me. “When day becomes night.”

I didn’t like the way that melancholy had stolen into the car, the easiness between us vanishing with the light.

“I like the night,” I said, softly.

“You don’t find it sad?” she said, and I wondered then, in a way I hadn’t really before, how old she really was.

“Without the dark, we’d never see the stars,” I said.

She hummed. “Charlie will be here soon,” she said.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Charlie said. Billy and Jacob Black were standing in our doorway. Charlie’s house wasn’t really made for visitors and the entryway felt small and cramped.

“I hope this isn’t a bad time,” Billy said.

“No, it’s great,” I said. “I’m sure Charlie would like some actual sports fans for the game.”

“I think that’s the plan,” Jacob said, grinning. “Our TV broke last week.”

“Yes, well, and Jacob was anxious to see Bella again,” Billy said.

“Is something wrong with your truck?” Jacob asked, sitting at the kitchen table and watching me.

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“Oh, it’s just that you weren’t driving it, I wondered.”

“I got a ride,” I said, running the knife slowly through the tomato.

“I didn’t recognize your friend,” he said. “Which is saying something for Forks.”

“Oh, well,” I said.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Jacob, could you hand me some plates?”

“You’re evading.”

“It was Eleanor Cullen,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the sandwiches.

Jacob just laughed. “I was wondering why my dad was acting so weird.”

“Right, because of the vampire thing,” I said. “You don’t think he’d say anything to Charlie though, right?”

Jacob looked at me oddly. “No, I don’t think so, why?

“No reason,” I said. “Have a sandwich.”

“You’re strange, Bella Swan,” he said, taking the grilled cheese. “But I like it.”

“How was your day?” Charlie asked. He washed the dishes as I watched from the doorway.

“Good,” I said. “My badminton team won all four games.”

“I didn’t know you could play badminton.”

“Oh, I can’t,” I said.

“Who was your partner?”

“Mike Newton?”

He looked way too happy at this news.

“Why didn’t you ask him to the dance?” he asked.

“Dad!” I said.

“What?”

“He’s dating my friend Jessica,” I said.

He frowned. “Well, I’ve made plans to go fishing with some guys from the station on Saturday, but if you wanted someone to go with you on your trip, I’d cancel.” He paused. “I know I leave you here alone too much.”

There was something in the still way he said it that deeply saddened me. I’d never felt close to Charlie like I did with Renee, but I knew that he tried hard, and that he loved me, in his quiet kind of way.

“I don’t mind being alone, Dad,” I said. “It’s okay.”

I touched his hand, sud rinsed and wrinkled. It was awkward, a not quite perfect fit, but his answering smile was worth it.

At lunch the next day, I could feel the eyes of the Cullen siblings on me. I played with the stem of my apple.

“Alice is the most supportive,” Eleanor told me.

“And the others?” I asked. “What are they?”

“Incredulous, for the most part,” she said.

“Have fun in Seattle tomorrow,” Mike said.

I wondered if I was imagining the bitter expression. I told him I wasn’t going.

“Oh,” he said. “So are you going to the dance then? With Eleanor?”

“No,” I said. “I have to study for the Trig test.”

“Oh,” he said. “Studying, I get it.”

“Mind out of the gutter, Newton. Just studying.”

“Well, you know you could come to the dance with our group anyway. We’d all dance with you.” He looked hopeful.

“I think your boyfriend has a lesbian kink,” I told Jessica.

“Ew,” she said, linking arms with me.

“He was way too into the idea of me ‘studying’ with Eleanor.”

“You guys are hot,” she said. “I can’t really blame the guy.”

“Jessica!”

“What?” she asked.

After dinner, I folded clothes and moved another load through the dryer. Unfortunately, it was the kind of job that only kept my hands busy.

Eventually though I could find nothing else to occupy myself. I put in my earbuds and played Chopin till I couldn’t think anymore.

I woke early, dressing in a rush, smoothing the collar of my shirt against my neck, fidgeting with the part of my hair. Charlie was already gone, and the sky had only a thin layer of clouds. I ate breakfast without tasting anything. I had just brushed my teeth when I heard the knock on the door.

Eleanor burst into laughter as soon as she saw me.

“What’s wrong?” I said. I glanced down to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything important, like shoes, or pants.

“We match,” she said.

I laughed too. “I guess the stereotypes are true.”

She looked criminally good in flannel. She looked criminally good in everything.

“Where are we going, girlfriend?” I asked. The word gave me a sudden burst of pleasure.

“We, girlfriend,” she said, slinging an arm over my shoulder. “Are going hiking.”

“This way,” she said, glancing at me over her shoulder.

She started into the dark forest.

“Ummm, the trail is that way,” I said.

She grinned. “I said there was a trail, not that we were taking it.” She must have seen the panic on my face. “I promise we won’t get lost.”

She turned then and I had to stifle a gasp. Eleanor was prone to wearing layers. Like a lot of layers. Eleanor in a tank top was a sight that I was quite unprepared for. The white skin of her throat, the soft swell of her chest, the way the tank clung to the curve of her waist.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing,” I said.

Eleanor in the sunlight was shocking, I couldn’t get used to it, though I’d been looking at her all afternoon. She didn’t look human. Her skin had a glow to it as if it was reflecting light instead of absorbing it.

“I don’t scare you?” Eleanor said. She was lying in the grass, her hair spread out in a halo. I liked the way it looked in the sun, copper and gold and red all mixed together.

“No more than usual,” I said.

I flexed my hand.

“You don’t mind?” I asked.

“No,” she said, closing her eyes. I trailed my hand over the muscles of her arm, following the faint pattern of bluish veins inside the crease of her elbow. “You can’t imagine how that feels,” she said.

I moved to turn her hand over. Realizing what I wanted, she flipped her hand with disconcerting speed.

“Sorry,” she said softly, when my fingers froze on her arm. “It’s too easy to be myself with you.”

“I love how you blush,” she said, stroking the side of my face.

“It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s lovely.”

“Not like you,” I said. I lifted my hand to her face. She closed her eyes and I stroked her eyelid, the hollow of her eye, her cheek, her perfect nose, the seam of her lip, parting under my thumb. Her eyes fluttered open and they were hungry. Something below my stomach tightened. I wanted to kiss her, could feel the thrum of need in my veins.

“I don’t know how to be close to you,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I can.”

“This is enough,” I said. “For now, this is enough.”

“What are you thinking?” she said.

I rolled on to my back, watching the clouds drift across the sky. It was warm enough that I could almost pretend I was back in Phoenix, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be anywhere but right here.

“I was wishing I could know what you were thinking,” I said.

“And?”

“And I was wishing that I could believe you were real.” I didn’t look at her. “And I was wishing that I wasn’t afraid.”

“I don’t want you to be afraid,” she said, softly.

It was quiet for a moment. I wanted to reassure her, but everything I had to say seemed feeble. Instead, I just took her hand.

“I hate this part of me,” she said, finally. “The part that hungers.”

Her hand tightened in mine till it was almost painful.

“I don’t hate any part of you,” I said.

She pulled me towards her. There was grass in my hair, but she was holding me.

She whispered something so softly that I couldn’t hear. I wondered, briefly, if she was praying.

“I’ll never hurt you,” she said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you.”

She could drive well, when she kept the speed reasonable. Like so many things, it seemed to be almost effortless for her. She drove one-handed, holding my hand on the seat. Occasionally she would look over at me, my face, my hair blowing out the open window, our hands twined together. The radio was turned to an oldies station, and she sang along, soft and lilting, to a song I had never heard.

“You like fifties music?” I asked.

She hummed. “Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties or seventies. The eighties were fun, but I liked the fifties best.”

She had been alive in the fifties. Not just alive, but exactly the same as she was now, seventeen and beautiful. It was a concept I couldn’t wrap my mind around.

She was so quiet beside me -- her feet making no sound on the dirt, her clothes no whisper -- that I had to check that she was still there. In the darkness, she seemed almost normal.

I took the key from the eaves, unlocking the door and letting us into the entryway, leading the way to the kitchen. She seemed to almost light up the room, leaning against the counter, the line of her legs, the spill of her red hair, the shine of her eyes. It was distracting. I focused on the task at hand, getting out last night’s lasagna, placing a square on a plate, heating it up in the microwave. It filled the kitchen with the smell of tomatoes and oregano.

The sound of tires startled me, the headlights flashing through the front windows.

“Should your father know I’m here?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

I waited too long. “Another time then,” she said, and then she was gone.

“It’s Saturday,” Charlie said. “You didn’t want to go out tonight?”

“No, Dad, I just wanted to get some sleep.”

“None of the boys in town your type, eh?”

I bit back a laugh. “No, none of the boys have caught my eye yet.”

“It… seems to be easier for you,” I said. It was criminal for Eleanor to look so good on my bed, like she belonged there. “Being close to me.”

“Does it?” she said. Her nose on on the corner of my jaw, her hand in my hair, her lips against the hollow of my ear.

“Much,” I said, breathless.

Her fingers were slowly tracing my collarbone. “Why do you think that is?” I asked. I never wanted her to stop touching me.

I could feel her laughter on my neck. “Mind over matter,” she said.

“You seem happy,” I said. We had been lying in bed for hours.

“Isn’t it supposed to be like this?” she said, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “The glory of first love?”

“It is,” I said.

“It’s all so intense,” she said.

“Hmmm,” I said.

“For example,” she said. “I thought I understood jealousy, but that day when Mike Newton asked you to the dance--”

I was surprised into laughter. “You were jealous of Mike Newton?”

“You had a queue of boys lined up!”

“I’m a lesbian.”

“Well, I didn’t know that then,” she said.

Eleanor hummed a song I didn’t recognize, an old-timey melody, melancholic and beautiful.

“That’s lovely,” I said.

“Do you want me to sing you to sleep?” she asked. She ran a hand gently through my hair, stroking it, and I moved closer, fitting myself into the curve of her neck.

“This okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “This is okay.” She continued to stroke my hair, the motion calm and soothing. I found myself growing tired.

“You won’t vanish in the morning?” I asked.

“I won’t leave you,” she promised.

It was quiet for a moment, but there was one more question I had, pressing on the forefront of my mind with her so close to me, but I didn’t know how to ask.

“Eleanor?”

“Yes?”

“Nevermind.”

“I think you should introduce me to your father,” Eleanor said.

I was pouring milk into my cereal bowl and I froze, the liquid sloshing onto the kitchen counter.

“He already knows you,” I said.

“As your girlfriend,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why won’t you tell him?” she countered.

I didn’t know how Charlie would react.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She sighed.

“I forget how young you are sometimes.”

“That’s not fair.” I pushed my cereal around the edges of my bowl.

“Are you going to tell him?” she said.

“I will,” I said. “Just, not yet, okay?”

“He’s going to need some explanation for why I’m around here so much.”

“Will you be?” I said. “Around?”

Her face softened. “As long as you want me.”

“I’ll always want you,” I said, reaching for her. She took my hand, and I pressed hers to my lips. I wanted to bring her closer and closer. I felt completely taken up, full to the bursting.

“Forever,” she said.

Her hand found its way into my hair and I leaned into it, feeling her fingers pressing into my scalp.

“Does that make you sad?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, just looked at me for a long time.

I realized, as she drove my truck out the main part of town, that I had no idea where she lived. We passed over the bridge at the Calawah River, the road winding northward, the houses flashing past us growing farther apart, getting bigger. And then we were past the other houses altogether, driving through misty forest. She turned abruptly on an unpaved road, barely visible through the ferns. The forest encroached on both sides, the road twisting serpentlike through the ancient trees. Finally, the trees thinned and I could see the house, timeless and graceful, the trees growing up around it as if it had always been there.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Not even a little bit,” I said, but I took her hand

“Not what you expected is it?” Eleanor asked.

“No,” I admitted.

“No coffins, no piled skulls, I don’t even think we have cobwebs.”

“It’s so light and open.”

She was quiet for a moment and when I turned back to her she looked serious. “It’s the one place we never have to hide,” she said.

Her room looked out upon the wide river, the large scope of the mountains.

“Sometimes, I feel as if one day, I’ll tell you something, and it will be too much, and you’ll run, screaming as you go.” Her smile was rueful.

“I hate to burst your bubble, but you’re not as scary as you think you are.”

She grinned. “You shouldn’t have said that.”

I started to speak, but before I could, she was on me, pressing me back against the couch, her arms like a trap around me. I didn’t even know how we had gotten from one end of the room to the other.

“You were saying?” she said, her hair in my face, her smile in close up.

“That you are a very, very terrifying monster,” I said.

“Much better,” she said, and then she was leaning down and kissing me. My hand wound into her hair, pulling her even closer to me. She made a soft sound when I bit down on her lip. I wanted to swallow it, to swallow her.

It was just beginning to drizzle when Eleanor turned onto my street.

There was a weathered Ford in our driveway and Jacob and Billy Black were on the front porch. Billy’s face was impassive.

“I’ll go talk with him,” Eleanor said, moving to get out of the truck.

“Just let me deal with it,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, closing the door. “I’ll be back around dusk.”

“You don’t have to go,” I said.

“Actually I do,” she said.

“Right,” I said.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said. Her eyes flickered back to the porch and then she leaned in swiftly to kiss me. I cupped her face, wanting to keep her there, but she let go quickly.

“You’ll want to put it in the fridge,” Billy said, handing me a paper bag.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Where is Charlie? Fishing again? Down at the usual spot?”

“No,” I said, though I was pretty sure he was.

“Jake,” Billy said. “Why don’t you go get that new picture of Rebecca out of the car? I’ll leave that for Charlie, too.”

“Where is it?” Jacob asked. He wouldn’t look at me.

“I think I saw it in the trunk,” Billy said.

Billy and I faced each other in silence. The quiet began to feel awkward. I shoved the bag into the fridge.

“Charlie won’t be back for awhile,” I said.

He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Bella,” he said, after a while, and then he hesitated. I waited. “Bella,” he said again, “Charlie is one of my best friends.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And I noticed you’ve been spending a lot of time Eleanor Cullen,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Maybe it’s none of my business, but I don’t think that is such a good idea.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “It is none of your business.”

“It’s not my business, but it might be Charlie’s.”

“I think it’s my business whether or not it’s his business,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, finally. “I suppose it is.”

My hands were shaking on the pan.

Just fucking do it, I told myself.

“What did you do with yourself today?” Charlie asked, once we were seated around the table.

My stomach felt hollow. “I went over to the Cullen’s house.”

“Why?” he asked. His mouth was full of fish.

“Well, I sort of have a date with Eleanor Cullen tonight, and she wanted to introduce me to her parents first.”

He took a drink from his glass. I watched him carefully. He was silent for a long time, not looking at me. I fiddled with the food on my plate.

“I thought you said you weren’t interested in anyone in town,” he said, finally. He looked sad and older than he normally did, the lines of his face turned downwards.

“I said I wasn’t interested in any of the boys in town.”

He frowned. “Does your mom know?” he asked.

“About Eleanor?” I said. “Not really, mentioned in passing, but not the dating thing, like specifically.”

“Bella,” he said, sounding disappointed.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, she knows.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.

I thought about Charlie, the look on his face when he’d thought I was dating Mike Newton and the quiet way he’d said “I know I leave you here alone too much”, his fishing dates and the way he seemed perpetually stuck in the past, a remnant of another time.

“I don’t know,” I said.

He stood up, his plate half empty and moved to the sink. “When is she coming over?” he asked.

“She’ll be here in a few minutes,” I said.

“Where is she taking you?” he asked. He was still staring out the window.

“We’re going to play baseball,” I said.

He chuckled, a low, bitter sound. “You must really like this girl.”

“I do,” I said. “I really do, Dad.”

The doorbell rang, and Charlie went to answer it. I followed, half a step behind him. It was pouring outside, and Eleanor stood in the halo of the porch light. She met my gaze.

“Come on in, Eleanor,” Charlie said.

“Thanks, Chief Swan,” Eleanor said.

“Charlie,” he said.

We stood there awkwardly for a moment.

“So,” he said. “I hear you’re getting my girl to play baseball.”

My girl.

“That’s the plan,” Eleanor said. .

“Well, don’t stay out too late,” Charlie said. I ran forward and hugged him, and he hugged me back, his arms strong around me.

“I’ll have her home early,” Eleanor said.

“You take care of my girl, all right?” Charlie asked, gruffly, over my shoulder.

“She’ll be safe with me, sir,” Eleanor said. “I promise.”

Eleanor leaned over to kiss the top of my head.

“You smell so good in the rain,” she said. There was hunger in her voice, a raw terrifying thing that sparked a surge of responding need in me, but when I looked over at her, she was looking out the window, her hand gripping the steering wheel tightly.

Her hands came to my face, almost roughly, and she pushed me hard against the side of the car. I was breathless, holding her to me tightly, molding myself into her, my lips parting against hers, our breath mixing.

She broke off after a moment, breathing heavily, her face raw. “You’re going to be the death of me,” she said.

“You’re already dead,” I pointed out.

She grinned, leaning forward and kissing me again. “Good point.”

“Do you not like to play?” I asked Esme, Eleanor’s sort of mother, as we walked down the edge of the field.

“Oh, no, I prefer to referee,” she said. “I like keeping them honest.”

“Do they cheat?”

“Oh yes,” she said, laughing. “You should hear the arguments they get into. Actually, I hope you don’t, you’d think they were raised by a pack of wolves.”

“You sound like my mom,” I said, laughing.

She hummed.

“I’m so happy that Eleanor’s found you.” She took my hand, and I let her. “She’s been alone for so long.”

“You don’t mind then?” I asked. “That I’m all wrong for her?”

Her eyes were soft, and kind. “You’re who she wants,” she said. “Everything else will work out, I promise.”

“What do you think?” Eleanor asked. Her hair was mussed on her head and there was a swipe of dirt across her cheek.

“I’ll never be able to sit through a Major League Baseball game again,” I said.

“And you did so much of that before,” she said. I liked this happy, carefree Eleanor, the one who had nothing to hide. She glanced back at the game. “I’m up,” she said, running back, but not before pecking my cheek and grinning.

Despite her teasing, I liked watching them play. It was almost impossible to keep track of the game, the speed with which it all took place, the crashing sound when they collided, like boulders falling, like thunder. The Cullens, to me, seemed now somehow both more normal, teasing each other and grinning like children, and yet so beyond extraordinary, themselves, truly, for the first time that I had seen.

Carlisle was up to bat, Eleanor catching, when Alice suddenly gasped, the ball tumbling from her hand. She and Eleanor made eye contact and then suddenly, before the others could even ask what was wrong, Eleanor was at my side, wrapping herself around me.

“Alice?” Esme asked, turning to the girl, still frozen on the pitcher’s mound.

“I didn’t see, I couldn’t tell,” Alice said. Her voice was small and her face was frightened. I felt a wave of unease washing over me, the fun of the evening fading.

“What’s happening?” Carlisle asked. The Cullens were all gathered around me now.

“They were traveling much quicker I thought,” she said.

“What changed?” he asked.

“They heard us playing,” she whispered.

“It will be alright,” Eleanor said to me, smoothing her hand over my hair. “I promise, I’ll keep you safe.”

The others had returned to the field, warily sweeping the forest with their eyes.

“What’s happening?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Take your hair down,” Eleanor said. I could see the effort she was putting into looking calm.

“That won’t help,” Alice said. “I could smell her across the field.”

They emerged one by one from the forest edge. Two men and one woman. As they approached, I couldn’t help but mark the differences between them and the Cullens, the predatory way they walked, one step up from a crouch, the leaves in their hair, their bare feet, the set of their faces. If I had cared to imagine vampires before, this is how I would have pictured them.

The man in front was easily the most beautiful, dark skinned and hard muscled. The other two rotated around him, letting him take the lead. He smiled, a flash of white, even teeth.

“We thought we heard a game,” he said. “Do you have room for three more?

The woman shifted restlessly. Her hair was a bright red, a harsh, wild tangle around her face. The other man was deceptively ordinary, nondescript face, hair, clothes, but there was something to the look in his eyes that unnerved me more than the other two. They were a sinister burgundy and I had a feeling that they did not miss much .

Three things happened simultaneously:

A wind swept through the clearing, ruffling my hair

Eleanor stiffened, her arm tightening around me

And the second male turned towards me, nostrils flaring

“What’s this?” the first man asked.

He took a step towards us. Eleanor placed herself between me and him, shielding me with her body. Her beautiful face, the face that had smiled down at me this morning, the soft morning light caught in her eyes, was hardened, fierce, terrifying.

“She’s with us,” Carlisle said, firmly.

“You brought a snack?”

I was trembling uncontrollably. I thought I might collapse, might throw up.

“I said she’s with us,” Carlisle said.

“We have to get you far away from here,” Eleanor said.

“No,” I said.

“No?”

“No.”

All the lights were on. Eleanor pulled up towards the house slowly.

“He’s not here,” Eleanor said. “Let’s go.”

She came to my side of the car, taking my hand, pulling me into her.

“I’ve got you,” she said, holding me tightly. “I’ve got you.”

I had started crying in earnest, though I’d told myself I wouldn’t. I gave myself a moment to hold her, to feel her.

“It’s going to be fine,” she said. “It’s all going to be fine.” It sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

After too short of a moment, she let me go, leading me towards the house. “Come on, hon, we’ve got to go.”

I stopped on the porch, turning to her to look at her, Eleanor Cullen, tall and majestic and beautiful, her face drawn into a frown.

“Fifteen minutes,” she said. “Okay? Fifteen minutes.”

“I can do this,” I said. “I can do it.” Once the tears had started to fall, I found I couldn’t stop them.

I took her face in my hands.

“I love you,” I said.

Her face was pained. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Bella. I promise.”

“Bella, honey, are you okay? What’s going on?” Through the door, I could hear Charlie’s voice, low and frightened. I stuffed things into my bag at a frantic speed.

“I’m going home,” I said.

“What happened, honey?”

I turned to my dresser.

“Did you and Eleanor have a fight?”

“No.”

“Did she break up with you?”

The bag was full. I tried to control my breathing.

I unlocked the door and pushed past Charlie.

“I broke up with her,” I said.

He was right behind me, following me down the stairs.

“I thought you liked her,” Charlie said, catching my elbow. He looked bewildered, but his grip was firm.

“I do like her,” I said. “That’s the problem.”

My bag dug into my shoulder.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be gay in this town?” I said.

Eleanor reached for my hand. “Pull over,” she said, as the house, and Charlie, disappeared behind us.

“I can drive,” I said. My hands were shaking on the wheel.

Her hands gripped my waist and she pulled me across her lap, taking my spot in the driver’s seat. “You wouldn’t be able to find the house,” she said, taking my hand across the seat.

Lights flared suddenly behind us and I jumped, but it was just another car.

“I didn’t realize you felt like that about Forks,” she said.

I sniffed, wiping my eyes.

“It’s complicated,” I said.

Jess and Angela and Mike, and late nights with Charlie, the view of the mountains in the weak sunshine, and Eleanor Cullen, complicated didn’t even begin to cover it.

Esme’s hands were deft, unbuttoning my shirt. I pulled hers over my head. The pants were too long. She rolled the hems a couple of times and then she was pushing me towards the door. Somehow, she was already in my clothes. Alice was standing by the stairs. She and Esme shepherded me down the stairs. I felt like a child again, a toddler they had to take care of.

“Let’s go,” Carlisle said.

Eleanor was at my side at once. Her hands were on my waist and then she was kissing me, my feet lifted off the floor with the force of it. I clutched her back just as tightly, not thinking about her family watching, about the man outside hunting us. For the shortest second, it was just the two of us again. And then it was over and they were gone, out the door and into the night.

“Can I come in?” Alice asked.

I took a deep breath. “Sure.”

“You look like you could sleep longer.” She leaned against the doorway, watching me.

I shook my head.

She moved to the window, closing the curtains firmly, blocking out the rest of the world. “We need to stay hidden, okay hon?” The endearment reminded me of Eleanor.

“Okay,” I said. My voice was hoarse.

“I ordered some food for you,” she said. “It’s in the front room. Eleanor reminded me that you have to eat more frequently than we do.”

“She called?”

“No,” she said. “It was before we left.”

It was a long day. We stayed in the room, the windows shut, the TV on, though no one watched it. Alice and Jasper were like statues on the sofa. I lay on the floor and memorized the room, the striped pattern of the couch, tan, peach, cream, dull gold, the abstract prints, a woman combing her hair, a cat stretching.

As the afternoon wore on, I went back to bed simply for something to do.

”What do you see?” Jasper asked.

Alice’s eyes were focused on something very far away.

“I see a room,” she said

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Jasper looked at me. “It means the tracker’s plans have changed.”

In the other room, Alice was sketching on a piece of hotel stationery.

“It’s a ballet studio,” I said.

They both turned to look at me.

“Mom,” I said after the beep. “Listen, I can’t explain now, but please don’t get anywhere until you call me back. Don’t worry, I’m okay, but I have to talk to you right away, no matter how late, alright? Love you.”

I thought about calling Charlie, but I wasn’t sure if I should be home by now or not, and I was tired of lying.

I must have fallen asleep on the couch. The touch of Alice’s hands woke me briefly as she carried me to bed, but I was unconscious before my head hit the pillow.

They didn’t look up when I entered. Alice was sketching again.

“Did she see something more?” I asked Jasper, quietly.

He nodded.

I watched as Alice drew. A square room with low, dark beams, wood panelled walls, a large window and a stone fireplace, a TV balanced on a too-small wooden stand in the corner, an aged sectional sofa in the middle of the room, a round coffee table.

“The phone goes there,” I said, pointing.

“That’s my mother’s house.”

I lay there for a long time after I finished crying.

I could only see this ending one way. The only question was, how many people would get hurt before it ended?

The phone rang and I went into the front room. Jasper was missing, but Alice was talking on the phone. She made eye contact with me when I came in.

“They’re just boarding,” Alice said once she hung up. “They should be in by 9.”

Just a few more hours. Just a few more hours and I would be back with Eleanor again.

“Bella?” It was my mother’s voice.

“Calm down, Mom,” I said, walking slowly away from Alice. I wasn’t sure if I could lie as convincingly with her eyes on me. “Everything is fine, okay? Just give me a minute and I’ll explain everything, I promise.”

“Mom?”

“Be very careful not to say anything until I tell you to do.” His voice was generic, pleasant even, the kind of voice you heard in the background of luxury car commercials.

I wanted to scream, to curl into a ball, to punch a wall.

“That’s good,” he said. “Now repeat after me, and do try to sound natural. No, Mom, stay where you are.”

“No, Mom,” I said. “Stay where you are.”

I was going to die.

I wiped my eyes, once, twice. Stop fucking crying, I told myself.

Alice was waiting for me in the main room.

“Eleanor,” I wrote. My hand was shaking. “I love you, I’m so sorry. He has my mom, and well, I have to try. Please, please don’t come after him. I don’t think I could bear it if anyone has to be hurt because of me, especially you. I love you. Forgive me.”

I folded the letter carefully. Eventually she would find it. It was going to break her heart, I knew. It was breaking mine.

We sat in the long row of chairs by the metal detectors, Jasper and Alice pretending to people-watch but really watching me.

“I think I’ll eat now,” I said.

Alice stood. “I’ll come with you.”

“Do you mind if Jasper comes instead?” I asked.

I wondered what my face looked like. I felt wild and panicked. She just nodded.

Jasper stood up.

He walked silently beside me down the terminal, his hand on the small of my back.

“Do you mind?” I asked Jasper as we passed the ladies’ room. “I’ll just be a moment.”

“I’ll be right here,” he said.

As soon as the door shut behind me I was running.

I sat back against the seat, folding my arms across my lap. The familiar city began to rush by me -- the road to Sarah’s neighborhood, the skating rink where I had broken my arm in third grade -- but I didn’t look out the window. I was determined not to lose myself. There was no point in indulging in more terror, more anxiety.

Instead, I simply closed my eyes, and thought of Eleanor.

In the kitchen, there, on the whiteboard, was a ten-digit number written in a small, neat hand. I couldn’t breathe. He had been here, in my house, where Renee and I had stayed up late watching Gilmore Girls, where Micah and Sarah and I had made brownies with walnuts and had our first taste of alcohol.

My fingers stumbled over the keypad, making mistakes. I had to hang up and start again.

It rang only once.

In the window of the studio there was a small, pink sign. I touched the paper, hesitantly. The door opened without any resistance. The lobby was dark and cool and empty, the plastic chairs stacked along the walls. The carpet smelled like shampoo.

The first dance floor was dark, but the bigger room was lit. I couldn’t make my feet move forward.

And then my mother’s voice called, “Bella? Bella?” That same tone of hysterical panic.

I ran, sprinting to the door, towards the sound of her voice.

“Bella, you scared me! Don’t ever do that to me again.’

I was in the long, high-ceiling room. I heard her laugh and whirled to the sound. There she was, tousling my hair in relief. It was Thanksgiving, and I was twelve. We’d gone to see my grandmother in California. We went to the beach one day, and I’d leaned too far over the edge of the pier. She’d seen my feet flailing, trying to reclaim my balance.

The TV screen went blue.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me that your girlfriend will avenge you?”

“No,” I said. “I asked her not to.”

“And what was her reply?”

“I don’t know,” I said, though I could imagine it, the horror on her face. “I left her a letter.”

He smiled, as though I had said something quaint. “How romantic, a last letter. And do you think she will honor it?”

“I hope so,” I said, softly. I didn’t want Eleanor anywhere near this man. I wanted her safe.

“And that’s where our hopes differ,” he said. “Eleanor, wasn’t it? She’s quite beautiful. You’re a lucky girl.”

I wanted to snarl, wanted to be fierce and undefeatable. But I was only a girl. A girl who was going to die in this room.

“Would you mind, very much, if I left a little letter of my own for darling Eleanor?”

He took a step back and I saw the camera.

I was on my hands and knees. Blood was leaking around me, smearing across the wooden floors. It dripped down my scalp, crossing my face. His foot stepped down hard on my leg. I couldn’t hold back my scream of agony.

He was standing over me, smiling. “Would you like to rethink your last request?”

He nudged my broken leg and I screamed.

“Wouldn’t you rather Eleanor try and find me?”

“No,” I said. “Eleanor, please, don’t--”

He grabbed my hair, smashing me back against the mirror. Glass cut into my scalp, blood flowing fast now, into my hair, across my shirt, onto his hands.

His eyes were dark with need.

Let it be quick now. I could feel consciousness leaving me, the combination of the pain and the blood loss making me heazy. Let it be quick.

My eyes closed.

As I drifted, I dreamed. I felt as if I was floating.

“Bella, Bella.” Someone was calling my name, but the voice was so far away. Eleanor, I thought. Eleanor.

“Bella, please. Bella, listen to me, please, please, Bella, please.”

Anything, I wanted to say. Anything. But I couldn’t find my lips.

“He bit her,” Carlisle said, softly.

I could hear Eleanor’s breath catch. It was hard to focus. The pain was like nothing I had ever felt before.

“Eleanor,” Carlisle said. “You have to do it.”

“No,” I said. “No, it hurts.”

“See if you can suck the venom back out.”

“Carlisle, I… I don’t know if I can.”

“Eleanor,” I screamed. I couldn’t stop moving. The pain in my leg flared sickeningly.

I could feel hands on my head, and more holding my leg down. This, this was the pain they had never forgotten. I didn’t think I would ever forget it either.

“Eleanor, now, or it will be too late.”

Her eyes were dark and worried. At least I had gotten to see her again.

Her jaw tightened. Then she bent over and I felt her lips on my skin.

When I woke I was in an unfamiliar room. The glaring lights blinded me. My hands were twisted with clear tubes and there was something taped across my face ,under my nose. I lifted my hand to rip it off.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

Cool fingers stopped my hand.

Eleanor.

“How did you do it?” I asked. “How did you save me?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

I could hear my mother in the hallway. She was talking to someone, maybe a nurse, and she sounded tired and upset. Eleanor moved from my side to the recliner, curling up in the chair. I saw that her feet were bare and I felt a surge of affection. Her toenails were painted black.

The door opened a crack and my mother peeked through.

“Mom,” I said.

I was crying again.

“Bella, honey,” she said, softly, coming to my side, smoothing my hair.

I had missed her. Missed her so much it hurt. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“You’ll like Jacksonville so much,” Renee said. We were walking slowly down the hallway of the hospital. Convalescence had been slow. “I was a little bit worried when Phil started talking about Akron, what with the snow and everything, because I know how you hate the cold, but now Jacksonville, it’s always sunny and the humidity really isn’t that bad and we found the cutest house, yellow with white trim and a porch just like in an old film and this huge oak tree, and it’s just a few minutes from the ocean, and you’ll have your own bathroom--”

“Mom, wait,” I said. “I want to live in Forks.”

She paused, looking thrown.

“But you don’t have to anymore.”

“I’m afraid to close my eyes,” I told Eleanor.

I’d had nightmares every night since the incident.

She took my face in her hands. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’ll be here, as long as you need me.”

“You know you’re talking about forever,” I said.

She smiled, and it was bittersweet. “That’s the thing about being human,” she said. “Things change.”

I could feel sleep coming for me, but I reached for her. “Stay,” I said.

“As long as it’s what’s best for you.”

I could feel her lips on my temple.

“Eleanor?” I asked.

“I’m here,” she said.

“This looks like a horror movie waiting to happen,” I said. There were actual balloon arches and twisted garlands of crepe paper.

“Well,” she whispered in my ear. “There are more than enough vampires present.”

Jacob Black was wearing an ill fitting suit jacket, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.

“Can I cut in?” he asked, looking towards Eleanor. I was surprised to notice that Jacob didn’t have to look up, even though Eleanor, in her six inch heels, was almost six four. He must have grown half a foot since I’d seen him.

Jacob put his hands on my waist.

“You look really pretty,” he said.

“Thanks, Jake,” I said.

We danced in silence for a moment.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Don’t get mad, okay? But my dad, he wants you to break up with your girlfriend. He asked me to tell you please.”

He paused, but instead of looking relieved at the admission, he just looked more awkward.

“Is there more?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Forget it.”

“Just spit it out.”

“It’s so bad.”

“I don’t care. Please, just tell me.”

He sighed. “He said to tell you, no to warn you, that, and this is his plural, not mine, that we’ll be watching.”

Eleanor and I wove our way through the dancers. I could name every face we went past, Jess and Mike and Angela and Ben and Lauren and Miller Chapman, and then we were out the doors, facing the cool, dim light of a fading sunset.

“Twilight, again,” she said. “Another ending. No matter how perfect the day, it always ends.”

“Some things don’t have to end,” I said.

She sighed. “I brought you to prom because I didn’t want you to miss out anything. I don’t want my presence to take anything away from you, not if I can help it. I want you to have everything.”

“In what parallel universe would I have ever gone to prom of my own free will?”

She smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “It wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Because I was with you,” I said, softly, touching her face.

“Is this what you dream about?” she asked me, later. Her teeth scraped my skin. “Being a monster?”

I pushed her back. Her eyes were wild. “I dream about being with you forever,” I said.

Her expression changed.

“Bella,” she said. Her fingers traced the shape of my lips. “I’ll stay with you, isn’t that enough.”

“Enough for now,” I said.

I reached for her, found her hand.

“I love you,” I said. “More than anything. Isn’t that enough.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it’s enough. Enough for forever.”

#twilight #bella x edward #bella x edythe #twilight is gay #anyway her name is eleanor bc ummm that's better than edythe i didn't make the rules #i have a lot of feelings about gay twilight okay #come cry with me

63 notes · View notes