Out of Choices - Chapter 7
Title: Out Of Choices
Chapter 7: Attachments (Previous Chapters: 1. Aloneness, 2. Fracture, 3. Escape, 4. Defeat, 5. Triumph, 6. Discernment)
Author:JCAddict/picklewinkle/Sher
Fandom: Twilight
Word Count: 2,571
Rating: R/M, for sex and language
Story Summary: An angry young woman is forced to move to the town of Forks, Washington and decides that alone is the best way to be. She buries her heart and puts on a tough façade that very few people are able to break through. Can the love of a teenage vampire get through to the lost girl inside? AU (alternative universe) and OOC (out of character). Bella is uber OOC. Edward, not so much.
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and all of its characters. I'm just manipulating them like imaginary playdoh so I feel like I have some power over them **snorts**
From Bella's POV
7. Attachments
My plan had worked so well yesterday that I was sticking with it. Ignore Prickward no matter what, unless the opportunity to knock him down a peg came representing. Then he was mine for the taking. I was almost cheerful on my way to biology, ready, willing and able to take on Kind Edward the No-Hearted. Truthfully, I was looking forward to it. Something was seriously wrong with me if I was cheered by the idea of ignoring a dickhead while patiently waiting for the chance to make an ass of him. This town must be getting to me.
He beat me to class and was already sitting at our table by the time I sat down. He didn’t acknowledge me even the slightest bit when I took my seat. In fact he hadn’t even as much as looked at me sideways by the time Mr. Banner called the class to order and I was a little pissed. I was in the mood for some carnage. Can’t a girl even depend on a guy to be an asshole when she needed him to be?
I decided I could allow myself one glance in his direction. One tiny look couldn’t hurt, so I turned and stole a glance. He was staring at the front of the room but looked as if he wasn’t really seeing anything, like he was deep in thought or something. He didn’t really look like himself today. There was no gleam in his eye, no smile playing at the edges of his lips like there usually was. Even in the middle of his meltdown yesterday he was able to force a believable smile to his face. Today he looked like he wasn’t even capable of that. He looked distant, detached…he looked like I usually did.
The revelation that he and I might have something in common made me blush, like the stupid idiot I am more than capable of being at times. It was almost as if he could sense the heat in my cheeks or something. He turned his head slowly to look at me, which only made me blush even harder. My head was screaming at me to turn away from him but I was being a total nimrod and ignoring the mental lifejacket my body was trying to throw me. I’d compare it to the stupid camper in the slasher movie who doesn’t leave the camp after everyone else has been murdered. That was me, the dumb sole survivor that hears a noise outside and goes to investigate and then wham, I get stabbed through the eyeball with a rusty anchor. Cullen was the anchor and I was the throbbing eyeball whose owner new better but couldn’t resist the compulsion to be a stupid motherfucker.
His eyes darted from my crimson cheeks to my eyes and then back to my cheeks and all I could do was stare at him wide eyed. I was frozen under his heavy gaze. There was something in his eyes, a sadness or dejection, like somebody has stolen his lollypop or choked his puppy or both. And as much as I didn’t want to feel a fucking thing for him I did. I felt concern and sympathy and an overwhelming urge to comfort him. What the fuck was wrong with me?
I forced my eyes away from his face and mentally berated myself for what I’d just allowed myself to do and feel. The last thing I needed was to feel bad for the button-pushing prick I knew Cullen to be. He was still looking at me though and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. I turned back toward him intending to tell him to stop fucking staring at me but when I saw his expression I couldn’t. He looked so absolutely and overwhelmingly distressed that I couldn’t say a word. I just turned away and started the assignment.
The whole hour passed like that, him staring at me when he thought I wasn’t looking and me sneaking peeks at him to see if he was doing any better. He never improved. By the end of class he looked so sallow and green that I was sure he was going to puke on me. And he never said a single word to me, or me to him. It was fucking weird. I had wanted to say something to him to break the bizarre fucking dance we were doing. I had wanted to ask him why the fuck he was staring at me so much as equally as badly as I had wanted to ask him if he was okay. But I didn’t do either. And when the bell rang I was up and out of my seat before the bell even seemed to register with him. I glanced at him one last time, looking back over my shoulder as I left the room. The same pair of hollow, sad eyes still followed me as I walked out the door. He hadn’t even moved from his stool.
That had to be the oddest thing I’d ever experienced. I tried to understand what his motivations were but I didn’t have a clue where to start. I’d never seem him act so…so…so human before. Was it possible that I had misjudged him? That I had somehow turned a couple of bad days into an assumption of character? No, I had heard all the gossip around school about Edward the loner, about how he only associated with his family and never had the time of day for anyone else on campus. I’d experienced his holier than thou behaviour firsthand and he’d been a royal prick to me. So what was the last hour about? Sudden remorsefulness? I doubted it. A bad day? Maybe. I continued to propose my hypotheses for the rest of the hour. By the end of gym I resigned myself to the idea that he’d eaten a bad tuna fish sandwich for lunch and was suffering from botulism or some such friggen ailment that had caused temporary psychological paralysis that allowed him to be human for an undetermined amount of time. There was no other explanation that I could come up with that fit any better, as far fetched as it was.
I was so desperate for understanding that I pondered asking Alice of all people. I could just imagine how her little pixie face would light up when I asked her about her handsome and perfect brother who just happened to be my lab partner and hate my guts. No doubt she’d set off on the assumption that I wanted him, which I didn’t. She’d be smitten and I’d want to puke. Then she’d explain to me how Mr. PrickPerfect was altogether too good for any of the girls at the school. The whole scenario made we want to gag. No, it was better that Alice knew nothing of my confrontational non-relationship with Edward. It’s not as if she would know why her brother had fucking stared at me in class or why looked like he wanted to puke by the end of bio. And why the fuck was I still thinking of him anyway? It was so much easier to be smug and hand him his ass than to worry about him. Ugh. Get.out.of.my.head! Out! Out! Out!
Alice was waiting outside the library for me, her arms crossed over her chest, clutching a textbook tightly to her body. She smiled when she caught sight of me and walked towards me.
“Hi Bella. I’m really sorry but do you think we could reschedule today’s session? Something’s come up at home and I have to go help out.” She didn’t seem upset but she didn’t seem like the calm person I’d spoken to yesterday either.
“Sure Alice. It’s fine with me.” I hesitated, trying to resist my next question. I don’t know why I bothered to try. I had the restraint of a piece of cheese and knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my trap shut. “Is everything ok?” Or did you notice that your brother is acting all human and shit too?
I could almost feel her smile it was so big. She was mistaking my sick curiosity for bonding. “It’s fine. Just my brother - he needs my help with something.”
I nodded like a moron who was dying to be let in on the secret because that’s what I was. “Ok.”
“You’re a doll Bella. Thanks for being so understanding.”
“No problem.” Care to tell me about all the skeletons in your brother’s closet in trade for all my understanding?
“See you tomorrow.” She smiled and waved.
“Sure thing.” I half smiled back at her, more to hide my frustration than anything else.
I watched her walk away and decided to hang back a bit and let her drive away before I went out to the truck. No need to tip off my presence in Alice’s life to Edward, or my presence in Edward’s life to Alice for that matter. I yanked my hood over my head and stopped at the doors when I saw Alice climbing into the back seat of the shiny silver Volvo. I glanced casually toward the driver and realized it was Edward. I blushed instantly. Now just the sight of him was making me blush? I was fucking done for. I may as well wave the white flag of surrender now or get loser tattooed across my forehead if this is how I was going to react at the mere sight of him. How could this be happening? Yesterday I was relishing in the triumph of putting him in his place and today I was…this, whatever the fuck this was!
At least he looked less stressed. The thought pleased me as much as it repulsed me. I did not understand what the fuck was happening to me! One teeny tiny bit of human behaviour did not a human make. We couldn’t be friends. I couldn’t like him. It was impossible. He hated me. Liking him would be like banging my head against a friggen brick wall. I was smarter than that.
I absolutely couldn’t like him. He stood for everything that was wrong with people, the attitude and the poor treatment of people. I would not set myself up to be treated like shit by someone who thought of himself as better than me. There was no fucking way I was going to do that.
There was no way in hell I could like him. That was against my lines. And right now I needed my ruler-straight fucking lines more than anything.
Yes, I had a line about this kind of stupid behaviour of mine too, “No attachments, no loss.” Don’t fucking believe them when they say they won’t leave because everyone leaves, and the pain of the loss is not worth any perceived benefit of attachment. Everyone I’d ever come across was a liar in some way. No one could be trusted and it was way fucking easier to just accept it than try to fight that shit. There was no promise that couldn’t be broken and no one who wouldn’t break one.
I learned that one the hard way. I was there living my life like a stupid trusting son of a bitch, but I was clueless, naïve and foolish. One day she was there and the next day she was in the hospital. There were words like terminal and chemo and scans of her brain and doctors upon doctors upon doctors. I swear I’ve seen enough doctors to last ten fucking lifetimes. All those fucking doctors couldn’t save her, they couldn’t make her promise to beat that fucking tumour and stay with me come true. I couldn’t even depend on my mother to keep her word when she said she’d never leave me.
Everyone leaves.
Everyone.
So taking into account that everyone leaves, there was no point in forming attachments that were inevitably going to blow up in your face at some point anyway. You were just setting yourself up for a world of hurt when the person did leave, and we’ve already established that everyone leaves. Are you catching my drift here? It was just less complicated to have zero attachments and avoid the pain altogether.
I refuse to form an attachment with anyone, Charlie for example. I refuse to care beyond common courtesy and respect because eventually he’ll leave me too, whether it’s because he fell for some young broad that didn’t want some stranger’s teenager around or because he dies too. When he goes, and he will go, I will be fine, alone and intact, because I’m never going to give any fucking piece of myself away to anyone. I gave my mother my heart and she fucking ripped it out of my chest when she died. I have nothing more to give willingly.
It’s why I don’t want friends either. People think because you’re new to a town that you must want the same shit they do. Well I don’t. I don’t want to waste my time pretending that I care and dealing with all the teenage drama bullshit. Have you ever been in a room of seventeen-year-old girls? It’s hormonal hell! All deceitful delusions and needless, pointless crap. That shit is not for me dude. There isn’t one of them that wouldn’t stab you in the back and steal your boyfriend, twist it all around and blame the whole thing on you like some big fucking conspiracy and then leave anyway. So I just skip over all the hormones and deceit and delusions and drama. No attachments, no loss.
I was happy by myself. I depended on myself and myself only. It was so much less complicated. No friends, no family, no attachments whatsoever. Today was a perfect analogy for my line, a ringing endorsement for the misery that you bring upon yourself when you when you act like a pussy and form attachments you don’t need. You spend your time peeking up through your hair like a loser trying to figure out why someone is not the person they were yesterday or the day before when it shouldn’t fucking matter. You land up standing in school with your hood pulled over your head to hide from said attachments while you watch them drive away like the putz that you are when it shouldn’t fucking matter. You land up talking to yourself like a headcase, rationalizing and making excuses for yourself when you worry about someone you have no right to worry about because it shouldn’t fucking matter. You tell yourself you feel one way when you know you feel another and you prove to yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only way to keep your life simple and uncomplicated is to live between your own fucking brilliant and much needed lines. Lines are your friends. Lines will never leave you. Lines will never treat you like you’re an idiot. Lines won’t touch you. The lines are there for a reason, to keep you safe and protected and whole. I could not like him. The lines would not allow it.
It was impossible.
I could not like him.
I would not like him.
And maybe if I kept saying it I would find a way to make it be true.
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Chapter 7: Attachments (Previous Chapters: 1. Aloneness, 2. Fracture, 3. Escape, 4. Defeat, 5. Triumph, 6. Discernment)
Author:JCAddict/picklewinkle/Sher
Fandom: Twilight
Word Count: 2,571
Rating: R/M, for sex and language
Story Summary: An angry young woman is forced to move to the town of Forks, Washington and decides that alone is the best way to be. She buries her heart and puts on a tough façade that very few people are able to break through. Can the love of a teenage vampire get through to the lost girl inside? AU (alternative universe) and OOC (out of character). Bella is uber OOC. Edward, not so much.
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and all of its characters. I'm just manipulating them like imaginary playdoh so I feel like I have some power over them **snorts**
From Bella's POV
7. Attachments
My plan had worked so well yesterday that I was sticking with it. Ignore Prickward no matter what, unless the opportunity to knock him down a peg came representing. Then he was mine for the taking. I was almost cheerful on my way to biology, ready, willing and able to take on Kind Edward the No-Hearted. Truthfully, I was looking forward to it. Something was seriously wrong with me if I was cheered by the idea of ignoring a dickhead while patiently waiting for the chance to make an ass of him. This town must be getting to me.
He beat me to class and was already sitting at our table by the time I sat down. He didn’t acknowledge me even the slightest bit when I took my seat. In fact he hadn’t even as much as looked at me sideways by the time Mr. Banner called the class to order and I was a little pissed. I was in the mood for some carnage. Can’t a girl even depend on a guy to be an asshole when she needed him to be?
I decided I could allow myself one glance in his direction. One tiny look couldn’t hurt, so I turned and stole a glance. He was staring at the front of the room but looked as if he wasn’t really seeing anything, like he was deep in thought or something. He didn’t really look like himself today. There was no gleam in his eye, no smile playing at the edges of his lips like there usually was. Even in the middle of his meltdown yesterday he was able to force a believable smile to his face. Today he looked like he wasn’t even capable of that. He looked distant, detached…he looked like I usually did.
The revelation that he and I might have something in common made me blush, like the stupid idiot I am more than capable of being at times. It was almost as if he could sense the heat in my cheeks or something. He turned his head slowly to look at me, which only made me blush even harder. My head was screaming at me to turn away from him but I was being a total nimrod and ignoring the mental lifejacket my body was trying to throw me. I’d compare it to the stupid camper in the slasher movie who doesn’t leave the camp after everyone else has been murdered. That was me, the dumb sole survivor that hears a noise outside and goes to investigate and then wham, I get stabbed through the eyeball with a rusty anchor. Cullen was the anchor and I was the throbbing eyeball whose owner new better but couldn’t resist the compulsion to be a stupid motherfucker.
His eyes darted from my crimson cheeks to my eyes and then back to my cheeks and all I could do was stare at him wide eyed. I was frozen under his heavy gaze. There was something in his eyes, a sadness or dejection, like somebody has stolen his lollypop or choked his puppy or both. And as much as I didn’t want to feel a fucking thing for him I did. I felt concern and sympathy and an overwhelming urge to comfort him. What the fuck was wrong with me?
I forced my eyes away from his face and mentally berated myself for what I’d just allowed myself to do and feel. The last thing I needed was to feel bad for the button-pushing prick I knew Cullen to be. He was still looking at me though and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. I turned back toward him intending to tell him to stop fucking staring at me but when I saw his expression I couldn’t. He looked so absolutely and overwhelmingly distressed that I couldn’t say a word. I just turned away and started the assignment.
The whole hour passed like that, him staring at me when he thought I wasn’t looking and me sneaking peeks at him to see if he was doing any better. He never improved. By the end of class he looked so sallow and green that I was sure he was going to puke on me. And he never said a single word to me, or me to him. It was fucking weird. I had wanted to say something to him to break the bizarre fucking dance we were doing. I had wanted to ask him why the fuck he was staring at me so much as equally as badly as I had wanted to ask him if he was okay. But I didn’t do either. And when the bell rang I was up and out of my seat before the bell even seemed to register with him. I glanced at him one last time, looking back over my shoulder as I left the room. The same pair of hollow, sad eyes still followed me as I walked out the door. He hadn’t even moved from his stool.
That had to be the oddest thing I’d ever experienced. I tried to understand what his motivations were but I didn’t have a clue where to start. I’d never seem him act so…so…so human before. Was it possible that I had misjudged him? That I had somehow turned a couple of bad days into an assumption of character? No, I had heard all the gossip around school about Edward the loner, about how he only associated with his family and never had the time of day for anyone else on campus. I’d experienced his holier than thou behaviour firsthand and he’d been a royal prick to me. So what was the last hour about? Sudden remorsefulness? I doubted it. A bad day? Maybe. I continued to propose my hypotheses for the rest of the hour. By the end of gym I resigned myself to the idea that he’d eaten a bad tuna fish sandwich for lunch and was suffering from botulism or some such friggen ailment that had caused temporary psychological paralysis that allowed him to be human for an undetermined amount of time. There was no other explanation that I could come up with that fit any better, as far fetched as it was.
I was so desperate for understanding that I pondered asking Alice of all people. I could just imagine how her little pixie face would light up when I asked her about her handsome and perfect brother who just happened to be my lab partner and hate my guts. No doubt she’d set off on the assumption that I wanted him, which I didn’t. She’d be smitten and I’d want to puke. Then she’d explain to me how Mr. PrickPerfect was altogether too good for any of the girls at the school. The whole scenario made we want to gag. No, it was better that Alice knew nothing of my confrontational non-relationship with Edward. It’s not as if she would know why her brother had fucking stared at me in class or why looked like he wanted to puke by the end of bio. And why the fuck was I still thinking of him anyway? It was so much easier to be smug and hand him his ass than to worry about him. Ugh. Get.out.of.my.head! Out! Out! Out!
Alice was waiting outside the library for me, her arms crossed over her chest, clutching a textbook tightly to her body. She smiled when she caught sight of me and walked towards me.
“Hi Bella. I’m really sorry but do you think we could reschedule today’s session? Something’s come up at home and I have to go help out.” She didn’t seem upset but she didn’t seem like the calm person I’d spoken to yesterday either.
“Sure Alice. It’s fine with me.” I hesitated, trying to resist my next question. I don’t know why I bothered to try. I had the restraint of a piece of cheese and knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my trap shut. “Is everything ok?” Or did you notice that your brother is acting all human and shit too?
I could almost feel her smile it was so big. She was mistaking my sick curiosity for bonding. “It’s fine. Just my brother - he needs my help with something.”
I nodded like a moron who was dying to be let in on the secret because that’s what I was. “Ok.”
“You’re a doll Bella. Thanks for being so understanding.”
“No problem.” Care to tell me about all the skeletons in your brother’s closet in trade for all my understanding?
“See you tomorrow.” She smiled and waved.
“Sure thing.” I half smiled back at her, more to hide my frustration than anything else.
I watched her walk away and decided to hang back a bit and let her drive away before I went out to the truck. No need to tip off my presence in Alice’s life to Edward, or my presence in Edward’s life to Alice for that matter. I yanked my hood over my head and stopped at the doors when I saw Alice climbing into the back seat of the shiny silver Volvo. I glanced casually toward the driver and realized it was Edward. I blushed instantly. Now just the sight of him was making me blush? I was fucking done for. I may as well wave the white flag of surrender now or get loser tattooed across my forehead if this is how I was going to react at the mere sight of him. How could this be happening? Yesterday I was relishing in the triumph of putting him in his place and today I was…this, whatever the fuck this was!
At least he looked less stressed. The thought pleased me as much as it repulsed me. I did not understand what the fuck was happening to me! One teeny tiny bit of human behaviour did not a human make. We couldn’t be friends. I couldn’t like him. It was impossible. He hated me. Liking him would be like banging my head against a friggen brick wall. I was smarter than that.
I absolutely couldn’t like him. He stood for everything that was wrong with people, the attitude and the poor treatment of people. I would not set myself up to be treated like shit by someone who thought of himself as better than me. There was no fucking way I was going to do that.
There was no way in hell I could like him. That was against my lines. And right now I needed my ruler-straight fucking lines more than anything.
Yes, I had a line about this kind of stupid behaviour of mine too, “No attachments, no loss.” Don’t fucking believe them when they say they won’t leave because everyone leaves, and the pain of the loss is not worth any perceived benefit of attachment. Everyone I’d ever come across was a liar in some way. No one could be trusted and it was way fucking easier to just accept it than try to fight that shit. There was no promise that couldn’t be broken and no one who wouldn’t break one.
I learned that one the hard way. I was there living my life like a stupid trusting son of a bitch, but I was clueless, naïve and foolish. One day she was there and the next day she was in the hospital. There were words like terminal and chemo and scans of her brain and doctors upon doctors upon doctors. I swear I’ve seen enough doctors to last ten fucking lifetimes. All those fucking doctors couldn’t save her, they couldn’t make her promise to beat that fucking tumour and stay with me come true. I couldn’t even depend on my mother to keep her word when she said she’d never leave me.
Everyone leaves.
Everyone.
So taking into account that everyone leaves, there was no point in forming attachments that were inevitably going to blow up in your face at some point anyway. You were just setting yourself up for a world of hurt when the person did leave, and we’ve already established that everyone leaves. Are you catching my drift here? It was just less complicated to have zero attachments and avoid the pain altogether.
I refuse to form an attachment with anyone, Charlie for example. I refuse to care beyond common courtesy and respect because eventually he’ll leave me too, whether it’s because he fell for some young broad that didn’t want some stranger’s teenager around or because he dies too. When he goes, and he will go, I will be fine, alone and intact, because I’m never going to give any fucking piece of myself away to anyone. I gave my mother my heart and she fucking ripped it out of my chest when she died. I have nothing more to give willingly.
It’s why I don’t want friends either. People think because you’re new to a town that you must want the same shit they do. Well I don’t. I don’t want to waste my time pretending that I care and dealing with all the teenage drama bullshit. Have you ever been in a room of seventeen-year-old girls? It’s hormonal hell! All deceitful delusions and needless, pointless crap. That shit is not for me dude. There isn’t one of them that wouldn’t stab you in the back and steal your boyfriend, twist it all around and blame the whole thing on you like some big fucking conspiracy and then leave anyway. So I just skip over all the hormones and deceit and delusions and drama. No attachments, no loss.
I was happy by myself. I depended on myself and myself only. It was so much less complicated. No friends, no family, no attachments whatsoever. Today was a perfect analogy for my line, a ringing endorsement for the misery that you bring upon yourself when you when you act like a pussy and form attachments you don’t need. You spend your time peeking up through your hair like a loser trying to figure out why someone is not the person they were yesterday or the day before when it shouldn’t fucking matter. You land up standing in school with your hood pulled over your head to hide from said attachments while you watch them drive away like the putz that you are when it shouldn’t fucking matter. You land up talking to yourself like a headcase, rationalizing and making excuses for yourself when you worry about someone you have no right to worry about because it shouldn’t fucking matter. You tell yourself you feel one way when you know you feel another and you prove to yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only way to keep your life simple and uncomplicated is to live between your own fucking brilliant and much needed lines. Lines are your friends. Lines will never leave you. Lines will never treat you like you’re an idiot. Lines won’t touch you. The lines are there for a reason, to keep you safe and protected and whole. I could not like him. The lines would not allow it.
It was impossible.
I could not like him.
I would not like him.
And maybe if I kept saying it I would find a way to make it be true.
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