Chapter Text
Phil gave Mom a surprisingly beautiful eulogy.
I can still remember bits and pieces from it, halfway on the flight to Forks. The funeral home was packed, with both his friends and Mom’s, and I’m pretty sure there was not a single dry eye in the audience when Phil went up to the podium and spoke. He was dressed in a black button-up and suit jacket, one that made me realize why his usual choice of wardrobe consisted mostly of khakis and a novelty T-shirt; black just made him look sallow and washed-out.
Still, as I looked up at him there, his eyes welling with tears, the bruises beneath evidence enough that he hadn’t slept properly for the past several days, I felt that this was the first time I’d ever truly seen him. When Mom wasn’t buried seven feet under, her role with the two of us was primarily one of being a buffer. It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with him- more to do with the fact that I hadn’t really had a dad for several years by that point (Charlie, who I had seen last at age fourteen or fifteen, didn’t really count), and I wasn’t sure how to start now.
Maybe if she hadn’t died when she did, it would’ve gotten better- at a glacial pace, undoubtedly, but still better. I would’ve yelled at him for not leaving the toilet seat down after he went to the bathroom, and he would’ve gotten pissed at me for coming home after curfew or taking too long in the shower, and it would’ve been just as it was supposed to.
The rabbi who conducted the service was pretty patient with him, though, all things considered; taught him how to recite Kaddish properly, even though Phil’s WASP background ensured that he stressed all the wrong syllables and stumbled over words at times. He’d looked at me a few times during it, but I was just as lost as he was; Mom and I hadn’t celebrated any holiday save Thanksgiving since I was a kid, and I felt uncomfortable calling myself religious in any capacity. The Hebowitz Funeral Home made me feel like both an intruder and a fraud in that regard, though I supposed that was more Mom’s fault than anything else. Still, Mom had said in her note that she wanted a Jewish funeral, and so a Jewish funeral she got. At least her mother seemed happy about it.
I, meanwhile, had been so comatose during the entire thing, that I barely registered that Phil was speaking until I realized that everyone sitting beside me was full-on sobbing, the tears streaming down their faces with no respite. But when it finally registered, I allowed myself to come back to my body a little, looking up at his stubbled face, watching his lips move almost hypnotically as he spoke.
“…you feel like anything was possible,” he was saying. “Like you could take on the entire world and win. I remember the day my father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I was ready to break down in tears and cry like a little boy-“ that got a few chuckles from the bereaved audience- “but Renee looked at me, her face more determined than I’d ever seen her look, and simply said, ‘We’re going to get through this. You and me.’ You and me, she said, like we were a single unit, even though we’d only started dating a few months before. That was just the kind of woman she was. A kind woman.”
A particularly distraught woman I vaguely recognized as Mom’s coworker let out a wail at the last syllable.
When he went down, he suggested in a hoarse voice that I go up there and say something. I felt myself respond automatically; my legs were already carrying me up to the front of the room, even as my lips were forming the word “No.” When I finally got up there, I saw a sea of pale, anguished faces staring back at me, and I felt the breath leave my body in one fell whoosh.
I forced myself to speak after an uncomfortably long amount of time had passed.
“We stopped at McDonald’s on the way here,” I began, which surprised a chuckle out of the audience. “And because the drive-thru was completely backed up, which is a thing that happens when there’s only one McDonald’s in your entire neighborhood, we had to park the car and go inside. The girl behind the counter complimented me on my dress and asked what the occasion was for, and I didn’t feel like lying today, so I said, ‘My mom is dead, and we’re on our way to her funeral right now.’ And then she burst into tears.”
Phil’s expression was indescribable, down in the audience. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as though he wanted to stop me but didn’t know how, and I had to suppress the most inappropriate smile of my life as I continued speaking.
“It was pretty annoying, I’m not going to lie. I was the one who should’ve been in tears, not her, but there was a line forming behind us and I knew I had to say something to get her to stop. But nothing came to mind. I stood there, and she stood behind the counter, crying so hard I was afraid she would rupture something, and then I finally said, ‘Don’t worry, it was bound to happen sooner or later.’ Like Mom got cancer, or heart disease, or something irreversible and blameless. But it wasn’t. And she was entirely to blame. And I will never forgive her.”
The audience murmured unhappily. I watched Phil unconsciously lower himself in his seat, like a kid in class who didn’t want the teacher to call on him.
“I have a joke for you guys,” I said, feeling almost high off my own detachment. “What’s the difference between a deadly car crash- glass everywhere, engines on fire-, and my mom? One’s a total wreck that was bound to explode sooner or later, and the other’s a deadly car crash.”
Phil’s eulogy was better received than mine, but I like mine better.
Charlie doesn’t have much to say when he picks me up from the airport.
His eyes are red-rimmed, enough that I can tell he’s been crying for hours before I arrived, and I’m not sure why it makes me so uncomfortable. True, he and Mom had been divorced much longer than they were together, but she was still his wife. Even if she was difficult and stubborn as anything.
He wraps me up in a hug when he sees me, one that I am almost 99.9% positive he would never attempt had it not been for the fact that Mom’s funeral was a day ago. He doesn’t even comment on the hair, which is nice, since I know it’s terribly choppy and asymmetrical and will unquestionably bring me side-eyes at school tomorrow. That’s what you get for cutting it with dull scissors, I tell myself, but it’s not like I care either way.
It's funny. I used to say shit like that all the time- that I didn’t care about what other people thought, least of all disaffected high school students like myself-, but it’s only now that the statement has ever been true. As I watch the trees blur past from Charlie’s police cruiser- again, something that I know I would’ve cared far more about had it not been for the fact that I was unable to muster the energy to care about anything-, I think about how Phil had refused to look at me when he drove me to the airport, still smarting over my eulogy for Mom, and how I didn’t even lift my hand to wave goodbye before he screeched out of the parking lot. How I’m probably never going to see him again in my life, and how surprisingly okay I am with the notion.
I’m okay with a lot of things now, it seems. Okay with the fact that Charlie still has embarrassing photos of me resting on the top of the fireplace in the living room. Okay with the fact that there’s only one bathroom that he and I are going to have to share for the next ten months or so. Okay with the fact that I have three suitcases to unpack, which contain all of my worldly possessions. Okay with the fact that my worldly possessions are not much to speak of.
Charlie hovers in the threshold of my room as I mechanically begin unzipping my things and folding them on my bed. His face is pained, and though I register the fact that I’m unquestionably the one who’s causing him pain, I’m not sure how to fix it.
“Bella,” he says, his voice rough and raw. “If you- if you ever want to talk about this with me, or-“
“No thanks.”
“But-“
“Dad.”
I can’t even bring myself to be shamefaced when he gives me a terribly pathetic nod and shuffles out of my room, no doubt in search of a bottle of whiskey for which to drown his sorrows.
That reminds me. I still have a pack of cigarettes in my pocket- one of Mom’s, as it is. I fish out a cig and shuffle through my carry-on bag for my lighter, walking to my window and pushing it open as I let a stream of smoke escape from the side of my mouth. It’s the first time I’ve ever smoked, and I can’t help but cough as the smoke wafts out into the open air, but the second drag goes down more smoothly.
I’m still in shock. I know it. But knowing it and caring about it are two distinct things. I’ll be in trouble when I actually register the fact that Mom- loveable, harebrained Mom- is dead and gone from this world forever, but for now, I feel perfectly content perching myself on the sill of my open window, the smoke burning pleasantly down my throat as I look down at my hand.
Charlie hadn’t commented on the busted-up knuckles, but I’m sure that’s just because he hadn’t seen them beneath the sleeves of my jacket. The back of my hand is still an angry, pulsating red, but I like how it looks. I feel like it gives me a sort of “don’t-fuck-with-me-vibe”- that and the hair that looks like I cut it off with rusty garden shears, which probably would’ve been easier to wield than the childproof scissors I used. One side is longer than the other by several inches, but I’m not cutting it. I think it’s funny, as much as anything can be funny right now.
Charlie didn’t want me to go to school tomorrow- he argued on the phone with Phil all night long, that it was too much for me to handle, that Mom had just died and there was no way in hell he would allow me to go to a high-stress environment when I needed to rest-, but I grabbed the phone from Phil and told Charlie that if I didn’t go to school tomorrow, I’d find the nearest bridge and hurl myself off instead, so I won that argument, albeit with extreme reluctance on Charlie’s part.
It's probably really stupid of me to go to school, honestly, but I do need the distraction. I’m probably not going to jump off a bridge if I don’t, but I’ll lie in bed, comatose and numb, as I have for the past 168 hours, and that sounds more unappealing than dealing with gross fish sticks from the cafeteria. It’s so bizarre to me to think that if Mom and Charlie had never been divorced, I would’ve probably lived here my whole life, known all whopping 358 students who attended, probably be forced to join one of the cliques by sheer necessity to not eat lunch in the bathroom, but thinking about having to socialize with other people makes my stomach turn.
As luck would have it, word of the circumstances involving my move to Forks has spread. The second Dad pulls up in his police cruiser and wishes me a good day, I can sense at least a dozen eyes glued to my back. When I look up, making accidental eye contact with a freshman girl, she lets out an honest-to-God squeak, and I blink. As I look down at myself, I realize that the flannel-and-jeans ensemble I’d hurriedly thrown on that morning was more heroin chic than inconspicuous (it was either heroin chic or school shooter chic, and I would’ve much rather gone with heroin chic). It probably doesn’t help that the bags under my eyes have developed bags under themselves.
The secretary’s office is almost uncomfortably warm as I walk in, a clock hanging on the wall above the door ticking irritatingly as I wait for the secretary to pull up my schedule. She, like the freshman girl, seems a little afraid of me, but it’s the watery, creased blue eyes tentatively peeking up at me now that fills me with a little remorse. Ms. Cope seems motherly- what a mother should probably be like, anyway-, and I don’t enjoy the fact that she probably thinks I popped Vicodin in the bathroom before arriving here.
Still, she makes an effort to smile as she hands me my schedule.
“Here you go, honey,” she says, voice tremulous. “Have a good first day.”
If by ‘good’ you mean ‘please don’t cut yourself with a filthy razor in between passing periods,’ I’ll try to, I snark, before another tiny shiver of remorse passes through me. It’s not Ms. Cope’s fault Mom is dead and my innate reaction is to try to be the fifth member of MCR.
“Thanks,” I say, making sure to imbue warmth in that one syllable. She smiles back, surprised and pleased, and I leave the office feeling a little lighter than I thought I would.
That is, until I realize what I have first on my schedule.
“P.E.’s an underclassmen class,” I mutter under my breath, rubbing my eyes to make sure they- like the rest of me- haven’t gone totally off-kilter. Nope. P.E.’s still terribly present at the top of my schedule, and with no small amount of self-hatred, I realize why. I failed last semester P.E. back in Phoenix because I couldn’t do a single push-up, and between that and collapsing on my knees during the PACER test, I flunked the entire class. I told Mom I’d just deal with it this year, but that was before she died and I had to relocate to a high school who probably didn’t hire coaches that they grabbed out of the nearest sporting goods store.
That’s how I end up hiding behind the bleachers while the rest of Coach Miller’s first period class does laps around the track. His stern brow and pornstache reaffirmed my horrifying suspicions that he was actually going to force us to make an effort, and between his passionate shouting at us for not holding up our planks correctly, and being surrounded by fourteen-year-olds who looked like they pissed their P.E. shorts and were trying desperately hard not to let anybody know about it, I cursed myself for not taking the easy route and staying home like Charlie wanted me to.
Hence the whole “hiding under the bleachers” thing. If Coach Pornstache wants to chew me out afterwards, he can be my guest; I’ll play the dead mom card and he’ll back off my case for the rest of the semester, if not the entire school year. I lean against the steel poles of the bleacher and sigh. This is officially the worst first day of school anybody has ever had in the history of institutionalized American high schools.
“Ditching class is strictly prohibited, Ms. Swan,” says a deep voice from behind me, and my eyes fly open. I register two things when I finally take in who’s spoken: number one, that it’s not Coach Pornstache, thankfully, and number two, that it’s the boy that they created Sports Illustrated magazine for. He’s attractive to the point of absurdity, all rippling muscles and long legs and thick, curly dark hair. When he smiles at me, two perfect dimples form in his cheeks.
“You’re not Coach Pornstache,” I say, stupidly, and he lets out a loud, barking laugh.
“Oh, that’s clever,” he says, taking a few steps closer. I realize, with a jolt, just how tall he is as he finally comes to stop in front of me. He towers over me by at least a head, but though he should be intimidating by all rights, his smile is so disarming that I feel it almost physically landing in my chest like a close-fisted punch. “But I like to think I’m a little more attractive than a guy who has a special comb for his facial hair.”
“Seriously?”
“Would I lie about something so serious as Coach Miller’s pornstache?” He asks innocently, and I feel the muscles in my cheek twitching. It takes me a second to realize that it’s because I’m suppressing a smile.
“I’m Emmett,” he says abruptly, holding his hand out for me to shake. I take it suspiciously, expecting to find an electric buzzer concealed in his palm, but there’s nothing but the shockingly cool touch of his skin against mine, shaking my hand vigorously. I can feel the strength behind his handshake, all the way down to my bones. “Emmett Cullen. And you’re the new girl that everyone’s so terrified of.”
“It’s only first period,” I say, letting go of his hand a little too quickly to be considered polite. “I don’t know how the hell people are already afraid of me.”
“Probably because you look like you’ll bite somebody’s hand off if they so much as address you,” Emmett supplies cheerfully, and I cross my arms against my chest in a way I tell myself totally isn’t defensive.
“You’re not in this class,” I say, purposefully ignoring his comment. He grins.
“Free period,” he tells me, leaning against the support beam opposite mine. “Well, technically it’s a TA period, but Ms. Wexler doesn’t mind. Besides, I think it’s funny watching all the freshies sweat their butts off around the track, don’t you?”
“Not when I’m part of the class, no,” I say, looking away. He’s gorgeous, of course, and ordinarily I’d be tongue-tied and flustered around him, but I wish he would go away now. I want to lay down in the grass and stare up at the bottom of the bleachers, and I can’t do that in the presence of somebody who is so obviously the captain of some sort of sports team, both on and off campus.
“Oh, come on,” Emmett wheedles. “You think it’s funny. Just a little bit.”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, you do. C’mon, I know you’re trying not to smile-“
“My mom just died,” I say, watching the smile on his face drop immediately, and I feel a vicious sort of satisfaction. “And so I’d appreciate it if you’d let me hide out from Coach Pornstache in peace.”
Emmett holds up his hands in a mock-surrender.
“Got it,” he says, voice carefully neutral. “Sorry about your mom.”
As I watch him leave, I realize that my nails have dug into the meat of my palms. Hard enough to draw blood.
The rest of the day proves to be just as long and arduous.
I seem to be wearing an anti-people repellant all over me, because while I attract stares from both student and faculty alike, both seem to avoid me as much as possible. In a small town like this, it’s impossible not to have people flock to you- they’ve known the same people since kindergarten, so it’s only natural that they’ll be curious about the new girl. At least curious enough to ask her a few questions.
But not a single person addresses me throughout the day. Not in English, not in chemistry (which I switched out of biology for, though I knew perfectly well that I would suck at both), not even in my AP Government class, where everyone seems to be made of the same extroverted, almost theatrical ilk. Not a single soul asks me to sit with them at lunch- not until the last period before lunch, where a curly-haired girl named Jessica bravely asks me if I want to sit with her and her friends.
I accept, more out of dull curiosity than not wanting to sit by myself, and follow her dutifully to the cafeteria, where she introduces me to a few of her friends whose names I immediately forget. They seem almost afraid to look at me, at least until I admit (thanks to Jessica’s incessant questioning) that I draw in my free time. After that, Eric from yearbook begs me to draw something for the edition coming out this week, and a fishy-eyed girl named Lauren all but demands that I draw something for her, so that she has something to present in art class this week.
I ignore them, letting my eyes drift across the cafeteria. Freshmen huddled in one corner, theater kids huddled in the other… and then there’s a group of people to whom the word “huddle” is as foreign to them as ancient Sanskrit, for all the presence they take up in the room. I can’t help but gawk, and from Mike Newton’s small smirk out of the corner of my eye, I can tell this is a regular occurrence.
Emmett’s there, because of course he is. He somehow looks just as beautiful in the awful lighting of the cafeteria, as do the rest of his table companions. There’s a girl with spiky black hair sitting beside him, a boy with longish honey-blonde hair with his arm slung across her slim shoulders, and a boy with tousled hair and thick brows murmuring something low to the two of them.
But my attention is immediately arrested by the girl sitting next to Emmett. She is, inarguably, the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. Her long blonde hair cascades down her shoulders, down the swell of her breasts (don’t look, don’t look) in sinfully soft waves. I can tell that she’s tall, even when she’s sitting; perhaps as tall as Emmett, who’s watching me stare at her with a smirk on his lips.
I jolt when I realize that he’s looking at me, immediately glancing away.
“They’re the Cullens,” Jessica says blithely, oblivious to my discomfort. “The little black-haired girl is Alice, and the boys sitting beside her are Jasper and Edward. The snobby blonde one is Rosalie, and the boy next to her is Emmett. They’re Dr. Cullen’s foster kids, but they’re all totally screwing like bunnies on the down-low.”
“I know Emmett,” I admit, and the entire table draws in a low intake of breath that seems a little much.
“How?” Jessica demands, wide-eyed, and I shrug.
“He introduced himself to me in first period,” I tell her, shrugging. “He seemed nice. And a little annoying.”
Eric lets out a hushed, awed laugh from beside me.
“I’m pretty sure you’re the first person to talk to Emmett Cullen all semester long,” he says.
“Or any of them,” Angela Webber adds, delicately perched on top of the table with her binders balanced in their lap. “They kind of keep to themselves.”
“Guess they read Flowers in the Attic and decide to base their personalities off of that,” I say, cringing when I realize how bitter I sound. “Are they all seniors?”
“Rosalie, Jasper, and Emmett are,” Angela explains, “but Edward and Alice are juniors.”
“Weird,” I mutter, shaking my head.
“Why?”
“Because they all look like college students,” I say, shaking my head. Then, more frustrated than I intended, I added, “How are they all so hot? I can’t detect a single pore between them. If you’re going to be in high school, you better play the fucking part and look like the ugly duckling everyone expects you to be.”
“Projecting much?” Lauren asks, snide as anything, and I consider punching her in the face before I realize it probably wouldn’t look too good to get into a fight so early in my enrollment.
“Wow,” I say, in as scathing a tone as I can manage. “I literally feel like keeling over and dying because I know I’ll bear the scars of your remarkably witty comeback for life.”
“Oh, so kind of like your mom, then?”
The entire table hushes. I debate the pros and cons of punching her in the face over and over again until it resembles a pale pink slab of meat more than it does human features, but decide that I don’t want to give Charlie a heart attack so early in my enrollment.
Instead, I unzip my backpack, yank out my sketchbook, and hastily draw a crude sketch of Lauren’s face being coated by the viscous cum of an explicitly hairy, veiny dick before ripping it out and handing it to her. I make my escape quickly- knowing on an instinctive level I will definitely not be invited back to sit with Jessica and her friends-, but I can still hear the scandalized, affronted gasps behind me. And, above that, soft laughter following me from across the room.
I finish the rest of my lunch in the bathroom, which isn't as disgusting as I'd dreaded, even if there are sponged-up toilet paper wads sticking to the bathroom ceiling, and a worrisome stain splattered across the toilet seat I'm crouched on top of. Aside from that, it's fairly quiet and smells only faintly of week-old shit, and nobody comes in until the bell rings for fifth period. Thank God for small miracles.