Chapter Text
Waking up is quiet. I hear no voices, no slamming doors or car horns. The city is miles and miles away and the only echo is the gentle brush of the rain against my small window. The quilt atop me is cold to the touch and smells like the attic. I can reach out from my place in the twin bed and touch the wall on both sides. I am home. This is Forks, as much the same as it is different.
Dad and Bella are quiet, too. I rub my face and feel around the bedside table for my watch. 7:30 AM. Too early. But today is Wednesday, and Dad didn’t save me from near poverty in Boston, Massachusetts to take up this closet of a room. I sit up and am wracked with shivers as the frigid January air hits my shoulders. I grab the sweater I wore on the flight back off of a box of frantically packed paints.
Life in Boston was a necessary evil. After I graduated from art school, it was clerical work this—gallery work that. Painting through the night when I wasn’t curled up with a book or riddled with sleep. This first Forks lay is a revelation. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in years.
I come out of the room kicking boxes. Across the hall, Bella’s door is tightly shut. The smothered light from the windows shines through the bottom of her door uninterrupted, so I head downstairs.
“Morning, Dad,” I say. That’s what people who live in the same house do, but he seems startled by my voice. He sits across from Bella at the table, but neither appear to be enraptured in dialogue.
“Morning, Andy,” he says finally, then he clears his throat.
“Morning, Bella,” I counter.
Bella looks up from her toast—which, by the way, is jam-free. I make a mental note to do some grocery-shopping. Her hair is a bit greasy but brushed. Her face washed.
“Hey Andy.”
Her eyes are hard. But not lifeless. I recall coming in yesterday, her surprise painted across her pale features, then grief, then resignation. I kicked myself to sleep with the regrets of a sister who had been unreachable for too long. Her accident in Arizona had yielded a trip out, of course. But I couldn’t stay long. And for all her colorlessness, there was a spark in her features that had her smiling to see me. I had met her boyfriend then—a careful creature, beautiful and politely reserved. Something in me cracked at the sight. Her adoration was obvious.
Mom had looked at me afterward with untamable interest. “So. What’s your read?”
It had always been our little joke, the three of us. Bella quiet and intuitive, Mom loud and sensing, me neither, the alleged source of an “accurate read.”
“I dunno,” I said, watching Edward through the hospital door, “He’s no miscreant.”
“A gentlemen, I’d say,” she said.
“Yeah.” I looked harder. His oddly gold eyes, hard-edged skin. “He looks like a fixture. Like he’s not real. There’s an imbalance between them. Bella’s a little too human in comparison.”
“With the clumsiness.” It wasn’t a question. Mom still looked mildly amused.
“Yeah. I guess the clumsiness. But there’s something about him, you know? Everything he does is so sure.”
“Sure,” she said, enthusiastically.
That Bella is gone now. And that Edward. I would never say it, but some part of me lacks surprise. Bella looks like she can read my mind. I shuffle over to the counter and shove my own slice of bread in the toaster.
“Bells was just telling me she’s having a movie night with her friend Jessica.”
“Oh?” I can’t help the surprise leaking from my voice. From our strained correspondence, I took Jessica for a showgirl—a try-hard.
Bella avoids my eyes. Shrugs. “Just … needed to get out. We’re going to Port Angeles.”
“Okay, well … that’s good, Bells.” Her eyes dart up to me. I give her what I hope is an encouraging grin. Who knows. Maybe Dad did invite me home to lounge around. I’m not good at the mushy stuff, for all my big mouth. All the same, I try not to be hurt. Did I just come all the way from Boston? Yes. Is my sister entitled to spend time with me? No.
I lean against the counter now. Bella stands, dumping the remains of her toast in the trash can and putting her plate in the sink. I can’t help but watch her movements. Everything is a guess, a hesitation. A shudder travels across her shoulders as she turns toward the door.
“Gotta get to school,” she mutters.
I catch Dad out of the corner of my vision. His eyes are wide, and his head twitches towards the door like he’s trying to whip his hair. I furrow my brow.
Take. Her. he mouths. I jump as my toast pops to life, but I pay it no mind and chase Bella out of the house in my slip-ons.
“Bells! Wait! Lemme take you to school, yeah? I wanna see it again. Get the tour.”
Bella watches me hesitantly at her truck door, like she doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or grateful.
“You don’t have a car.”
My mouth drops for a moment. I take her sass as a good thing, goddamn it. “That’s why I’ll drive your truck, smartass.”
“Language,” floats out of the house like an echo of wind, and I look Bella in the eye as we both crack a smile. This, too, looks hesitant. But she can’t hold back the chuckle. I take that as a good sign.
“Fine,” she says, tossing me the keys. They land on the icy ground, and I curse as I miss her maligned toss. I can see her smile at that too.
“Yeah,” I say as I climb into the driver’s side, “laugh it up at good ol’ jester Andy. She does kid’s parties and carpools.”
“You’re killing the joke,” she says, but her voice sounds lighter.
“It’s fucking freezing,” I say in response. The truck rumbles to life, and I pull out of the drive with minimal trouble.
I don’t mention Edward’s name. I’ve heard about it. The screaming, the isolation, the vacancy that Dad says inhabits my sister. Like she’s possessed. I could hardly believe it when he told me the state Sam Uley had found her in. Shaking. Wet. Chilled to the bone. Unresponsive.
I drop Bella off at the brick building called Forks High and try to keep my staring to a minimum. I’ve never attended. Sure, we spent summers here. Romped around on the Quileute reservation with the Black sisters screaming about being chased by handsome phantoms in the woods. But when August matured we always followed Mom back to Pheonix. To desert. The students crane their necks back at me, likely wondering why Bella’s truck is driving itself. I feel old here, surrounded by pubescent wandering gazes. Twenty-two in a college town was baby years. Here I can see youth like a flame above their heads.
I put the truck in first gear and leave. Is it the air in this place? My chest feels heavy, like the very atmosphere is settling on it.
Bella in the woods at dark. Bella screaming for a lost love. Eighteen. I shudder deeply, deeper than the chill through my pajama pants. I can’t imagine loving someone that much. I can’t explain why a part of me wants to.
At least the drive is breath-taking. Everything is evergreen and mossy vomit. I can smell the spores through the air vents.
When she gets in that evening, she’s rattled. I can see it in her gait and her wild eyes. Bella brushes it off and Dad brushes it off and I can see why he called me. I follow her up the narrow stairs and into her room. I think she wants to shut the door on me.
“Bella, come on.”
“Stop it, Andy. I’m fine.”
She’s doing the thing with her hair. The panic thing.
“Just tell me how it went. Please.”
Bella looks at me, making myself comfortable on her bed. The room is dark but I’ve come to accept that as a constant in Forks.
“Please,” I say, trying to be reasonable.
Bella strips off her jacket, semi-pacing and I can see the decision on progress on her face. I can see her worrying her lip.
“It was fine, okay. Jessica was Jessica and it was fine.”
“Bella, come on. Give me details. Something has you riled up—okay? I can tell—”
“How?” Bella exclaims. She sits down on the bed beside me. “How can you tell? It’s been so long that I don’t even think you know me. And Charlie—” I cringe at the name use “—calls you up like you’re fucking Merlin. Like you're gonna work some sort of magic on me and it’s all going to be fine.”
“Does this have something to do with tonight? Bella you know I’m sorry about that—okay? But I had to live my life—you know? And I needed to get out of dodge—Phoenix. Not because of you or Mom but because I needed to know what it was like. I just wanna help. And I want to get to know you again. So just.” I signed and reached for her hand. “Tell me.”
Bella looks at me with her eyes full of secrets. There’s a very faint buzzing, as soft as a cricket a mile away. I’m in, I think. It happens when I’m painting, mostly. When I stare at something long and intense enough to unlock its expression. When the truth of it blossoms and I learn—
“I saw someone,” she says carefully, “that looked like him.”
I’m not tactless. I don’t say his name, like he’s some kind of dark lord.
“When you were in Port Angeles?”
She nods. “It… It hurt me. But it also gave me hope. Which … maybe hope makes it worse, Andy. But I thought I saw him. And it just. My chest just. And I just. And Jessica just. And.” Bella stutters over her words, like a car rocking back and forth, until they stutter out. I squeeze her hand.
“Jessica didn’t get it?”
Bella shakes her head, hair down over her face.
“Jessica might not be deep enough to get it,” I say. Her shoulders rise once, then fall again. “It’s not a bad thing to care so much, OK? It’s just … it’s the condition you were given. I blame Dad. He’s an absolute marshmallow and the only way he fools people is by keeping his mouth shut.”
Bella looks up at me and smiles, just a little. “Yeah, I know.” I watch her face for a moment.
“Was he deep enough?” I tread lightly when she goes still. “To get it?” The protective sister in me yells hell no, but I ask anyway.
“Yeah.” She says it like a breath. “Yeah, he was. I thought. Deeper than anyone I’ve ever met. Maybe, I mean… I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I just sometimes think that maybe … maybe I wasn’t deep enough. To get it?”
My heart jumps as she begins to shake. It’s the tears, the sadness. I place my hand on her shoulder and watch her curl in on herself, gasping. I imagine I can strip it all away from her, through my hand. Watch the darkness and the hurt travel in black rivulets up my arm and thrum into my heart. Because I want her pain gone. And somewhere deep, I want to know what it feels like.