Out of Choices - Chapter 11
Title: Out Of Choices
Chapter 11: Falling (Previous Chapters: 1. Aloneness, 2. Fracture, 3. Escape, 4. Defeat, 5. Triumph, 6. Discernment, 7. Attachments, 8. Monster, 9. Overreaction, 10. Overreaction)
Author:JCAddict/picklewinkle/Sher
Fandom: Twilight
Word Count: 5,478
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**
I have reworked this chapter a billion times trying to make it understandable from Bella’s messed up perspective. I am in love with how it turned out but often find myself taking at step back and wondering if it translates properly. I hope that it does. Give it time to answer your questions and I’m pretty confident that they will all be answered by the end of the chapter. Enjoy!
NOTE: This chapter contains underage drinking. Consider yourself warned.
From Bella's POV...
11. Falling
Stupid fucking Prickward and his ‘I feel sorry for you Bella Swan.’ He could shove it up his ass. Who the fuck did he think he was calling me out in the middle of class like that? He had some fucking nerve. Some shit was just private. Some lines you just don’t fucking cross.
I went to class with no expectations but to keep my fucking head on straight. Yesterday I’d royally fucked up. I’d been a hormonally challenged lunatic, but today I was determined to be strong. Yesterday I let myself be affected by Edward Cullen. Today I would not. Or that’s what I told myself.
It took exactly one lie for me to fuck up and get caught. He was good, I had to give him that. And I guess on some level I deserved it for even trying to deceive him with my subprime lying skills. Part of me wondered if I was just feeling guilty for the day before and trying to be nice by letting him down easy. I should have just told him to leave me the fuck alone. It would have been way less complicated.
We shot the shit about Alice, and about me getting caught skipping out, and he even apologized at one point for upsetting me the day before. It was really fucking awkward given the freaktacular display I’d put on yesterday, which I kind of apologized for in my own ass-backward way. It was the most normal conversation we’d ever had.
Too normal.
Too comfortable.
Too unlike us.
I didn’t even notice what was happening until it was way too fucking late.
So much for being unaffected.
I’d bet my life that he brought that friggen iPod just to get me to talk to him, all a part of his asinine plan to manipulate me. It took five minutes of normal and comfortable with him for me to let my guard down and be overrun by him. I fell for all of it like a fucking loser. I knew he wasn’t on the up and up, and my instincts were fucking screaming at me, but I ignored them and fell for his bullshit. He had me too, had me in the palm of his goddamn hand all trusting and shit, ignoring the screaming and falling for him and his motherfucking lines. And even though some part of me knew he was patronizing me by saying anything he thought I wanted to fucking hear just so he could get into my goddamn head I stayed right there in the palm of his hand and disregarded my instincts and believed his lines and continued to fall, pretending I didn’t know what was going on.
It was like walking a tight rope, scary and uncomfortable, where your hands are clenching the balancing pole so fucking tightly that your knuckles go white and you’re panting and bobbling and freaking out because you know that one misstep will make you fall. So while you search for your equilibrium and regain it and lose it, there is this small part of you, a tiny broken part, that wants to know what it’s like to fall even though you know it will be the stupidest motherfucking thing you ever do. And the more you think about it the more you realize that you might not get another fucking chance to try. And you do your best to fight that little voice and you think you can’t fight it but the truth is you don’t want to. So you give in. And you fall. The wind is whoosing all around you, humming and hissing and warning you, but all you can feel is the high of falling and the freedom that you never allow yourself and it’s everything you dreamt it could be and more. Eventually the hissing breaks through and you recognize too fucking late that there’s no net to catch you. You realize that the eleventh hour has passed and there’s no going back and that it’s too late to change anything. And you know that when you hit the ground nothing is ever going to be the same again.
And just before I hit the ground I could hear myself whispering ‘stop.’
But it was too late.
I’d already fallen.
Eventually denial fades into acceptance. Only acceptance is so much worse than denial. You try to hide from reality but you can’t hide from it. It chases you down like a dog. And when I tuned out the screams and whispers and all the white noise from falling, I could hear the little voice that said, ‘this isn’t real.’
The acceptance trickled through slowly at first and then rushed at me all at once, and I clawed at it and tried to push it away but suddenly I was choking on it and I wanted it all to stop - the reality and acceptance and whispers and screams and tiny messages of truth. Everything. I needed it to stop.
The lies, the pretending, the nice for the sake of being nice, it wasn’t me. It would never be me. So I pulled back from him because it was the only thing I could do. It was the only thing still within my power to change.
He doesn’t know me so I didn’t expect him to understand it. And really, it didn’t matter if he understood. I fucking understood. I knew what it meant because I know who I am. He can pretend he knows me all he wants, until the fucking cows come home, but that doesn’t make it true. He only understands what I want him to see. And there are parts of me that I don’t want to share with him, that I don’t want to share with anyone. And I have a fucking right to those parts, to keep them locked up and hidden away from prying eyes and rapacious minds. They’re mine, not yours you manipulating bullshitting motherfucker.
You made me fall. Isn’t that enough?
So the writing was on the wall. And I thought about ignoring it. The problem is that the message on the wall just continues to stare at you until you believe the truth in it. It’s shows up everywhere you look. You can try to run away but you keep looking over your shoulder and you tell yourself that you got away from it but it will always be there, following you forever. Truth was a patient son of a bitch.
And the most important truth was that people like Edward and I just don’t mix. Too different or too the same, it didn’t matter which. We just didn’t make any sense together. You can add it up any way you want to but the numbers will never work out.
We were opposites in every way that mattered. He was perfect, and handsome, and rich, and all of the things that went along with perfect, handsome and rich. I was none of those things. I was broken, and empty, and worthless and only the very few things contained within broken and empty and worthless. He was the vessel through which everything good and positive and hopeful flowed and everyone wanted a piece of him. I was the leper who was avoided and ostracized and dying a little more with each passing minute. He was freedom. He did what he wanted and took what he wanted and didn’t care what he left in his wake. I was quarantine. I lived within the protective walls of my lines and it was the only way I knew how to be.
And that’s why Edward and I didn’t work. He wouldn’t let me live within my lines. He pushed and he pulled and he manipulated until the lines were pushed aside. And without my lines I couldn’t cope. I couldn’t function or think or breathe or exist. Because without the lines all I did was feel.
And I didn’t want to feel.
Not anything.
It was too painful.
And that’s why falling made me the stupidest motherfucker that ever lived, because falling was all about feeling.
And the floodgates were open and I was feeling everything.
So what did all of the manipulating and ignoring and falling and denial and acceptance and feeling get me? A lecture from the high and mighty Edward, perfect human specimen, ultimate moral authority, who reinforced the reality of what we weren’t, who stabbed me with the truth and left me alone with all of my secrets dripping on to the floor like spilled blood.
And while I doubted that anyone else heard what he’d said, it was devastating enough to know they could have.
It was the worst biology class in the history of biology classes - worst day, worst fall, worst everything. And it wasn’t even friggen over.
I made excuses to my coach about why I couldn’t play basketball that day and I’m sure I looked the part perfectly. I could have probably puked on command if need be. I sat in the bleachers and wallowed and tried to figure out why the fuck I fell when I knew better and what the hell I could do about it now. And the answer was nothing. And it sucked big giant donkey balls.
It took the whole fucking gym class just to call the fall what it really was. I knew what it was, but using the right label made it so fucking real that it scared the shit out of me. And with the goddamn feeling floodgates open, there was nothing I wanted more than to not feel any more pain or fear. But I faced it down and admitted what I’d been fighting for days, admitted the painful idiotic truth of my stupid fall.
I was in love with Edward fucking Cullen.
And with the fear and pain of admitting that fact, my body contracted and convulsed and gagged until I did throw up. All over the bleachers and my shoes and my dignity.
I wasn’t completely ungrateful. I was grateful they dismissed gym early so I didn’t have to watch everyone watching me and making faces and being grossed out by all my fucking grossness. I know it was gross people. I lived it. Not that I could leave early. I had to go see Alice. And I was grateful for the spare pair of shoes in my locker so I didn’t have to walk around smelling like puke. That was pretty much it for my list of things to be grateful for that day though. Not such a long list as far as lists go.
I waited for Alice at the same table in the library and tried to pretend that I hadn’t just turned my life into a joke. I went over my lines in my head again and again and tried to find the hole that allowed the mistake. I guess I needed a new line that simply said ‘don’t be a stupid motherfucker and fall in love with Edward Cullen.’ Specific and apt really, and absolutely too fucking late for me to apply.
Alice rushed into the library and stopped dead in her tracks when she caught sight of me. On a normal day I would have called her behaviour bizarre and challenged her on her weirdness but today everything was off. She’d probably already heard the puke story and was wondering if I was going to infect her with some disgusting heinous germ. No worries Alice. No germs here, just a stupid motherfucker who fell in love with your brother. I’m not entirely sure it’s not contagious but I’m pretty sure you’re immune given your biological relationship.
“Hey,” she called with a half-smile full of pity.
“Hey,” It didn’t even sound like my voice to me.
“Are you okay?” She pulled out a chair and sat down, tossing her book bag aside carelessly, keeping her eyes glued to my face the whole time.
“Fine,” I offered half-heartedly. I couldn’t even be bothered to make it sound convincing. We both knew it was a fucking lie.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she offered compassionately.
“I puked. What’s to fucking talk about?”
“You puked?” She wrinkled her nose up in disgust.
“That’s not what you were talking about?”
“No. I was talking about what happened with Edward.”
“How do you know about that?” She couldn’t know.
“I saw Edward. He was in pretty bad shape.”
“How’d you see him?” I wondered. “He left early.”
“I was bringing the attendance to the office when he checked out.”
“So you know then?” The shame of my idiocy smothered me again.
“Know what?”
“That we fought.” That I’m the queen of stupid motherfuckers.
“You fought?”
“Kinda.” It wasn’t a fight in terms of name-calling or accusation hurling. But the end result was him feeling insulted and me being devastated.
“What was the fight about Bella?”
“Stuff.” Everything Edward said to me had been one hundred percent dead to rights correct. But for as sure as I was that I had insulted him, I was even more sure that he had no idea why I picked the fight or about the grandly fucked up change in my feelings for him.
“You don’t want to tell me?” she prodded.
“No.” I didn’t even want to tell myself.
“I might be able to help?”
“I doubt it.”
“I could try talking to Edward to smooth things over for you.”
“I don’t want to smooth things over.” I was pretty sure I’d be fine if I never had to see him again.
“But why?” she asked horrified.
“It is what it is Alice. It was bound to happen. We’re like oil and water. We just don’t fucking mix.” He was the water - clean and healthy and life giving. I was the oil - dirty and greasy and black as night.
“Oh,” she sighed. She seemed far more disappointed than she should have been, almost like she’d had her hopes pinned on the two of us being friends, which was really fucking weird since up until yesterday she didn’t even know we knew one another.
“So what are you doing this weekend?” I tried to change the subject. I was sick of wallowing.
“Did you want to get together Bella? We could have a girl’s night or maybe do some shopping? You really shouldn’t be alone when you’re this distraught.”
“I’m not distraught.”
“Yes you are,” she assured me.
I squished up my face in confusion and looked at her. “I was just being polite Alice…with the weekend comment.”
“Oh,” she sighed.
“I don’t really do shit like that, the girly crap with the sleepovers and shopping and all that bullshit. It’s not really me.”
“Jasper and I are going to a party tonight, down at the beach. Did you want to come along?”
I’m sure my discomfort with the idea registered on my face. “I so don’t want to be your third wheel Alice. Just…no.” The last thing I needed to observe was Alice and Jasper being all lovey-dovey. Dead fucking last thing I needed, or close to it anyway.
“Oh Bella,” she squeaked in her high falsetto voice. “Why don’t we just call it quits for today. You really seem like you could just use a break.”
“Thanks Alice. I appreciate that.” She couldn’t be more right. I was exhausted. I grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulder as I got up from the chair. The weight of the bag tipped me sideways and I slammed into the table off balance.
“Are you going to be ok to drive?” she wondered.
“Fine,” I assured her. “I’ll see you Monday Alice, and thanks again for being so understanding.”
I couldn’t get to my truck fast enough. The thick metal cage of the truck made me feel somewhat better. At least it was predictable. I could count on my truck to be the same, even if everything else in the world had changed.
I went home and took a boiling hot shower and rinsed off the puke smell and covered myself in vanilla and spice scents instead. I still felt like shit. Boiling hot shower water didn’t rinse of stupid motherfucker.
I threw myself on my bed and stared out the window and dared myself to be dumb enough to recount the day’s events. I’d already proven I was an idiot. Why fight it? I reviewed the day that felt more like a nightmare and I felt foolish in the grand scheme of things to have fallen in love with a boy that hated me, to have ignored all the warning signals along the way that told me to stop being so fucking stupid, to have allowed myself to get comfortable around him and be struck by his beauty and let my guard down even the tiniest bit. I knew better.
The whole situation was entirely fucked up. There was none of the hope or possibility that should exist within the confines of a first love. Only disappointment, over before it began. It was hollow and sterile and barren. It took away the strength I had felt in my aloneness and made me feel lonely. I couldn’t even feel happy about falling in love. All I felt was lost and lonely. And it wasn’t about him hating me or not reciprocating my feelings or knowing that it would never turn into anything beyond me loving him. It was the horrifying realization that I needed another human being in such an acute way. I wasn’t even sure if it was because I needed him, or just someone in general. I hadn’t needed anyone since my Mom died. It was against my lines to need someone. And because the fucking feeling floodgates were open all I could feel was how much I fucking needed her, which was so stinking pointless because she wasn’t coming back to me. Just like Edward would never be mine, she would never be mine ever again either and it hurt just as fucking much to feel that today as it did the day she died.
I pulled the covers over my head and wished for sleep and tried to block out everything around me. I tried to pretend that the world didn’t exist beyond my fabric bubble but the realist in me wouldn’t let go. I cocooned myself in the comforter from head to toe and waited for the darkness to take me. Even the darkness didn’t want me. I tossed and turned and pretended and blocked out and by the end of my patience I had accomplished nothing but aggravating the fucking hell out of myself because the world did exist and I had been an idiot and I had fallen in love and I did miss my mom and I still didn’t want any part of any of it.
I needed to close the fucking feeling floodgates before all this feeling rendered me insane. I stared in the mirror and screamed internally at myself. ‘Snap the fuck out of this you stupid bitch. Your Mom is not coming back no matter how much you piss and moan about it. You are alone and there isn’t a fucking thing you can do about it. You are alone! And so what if you fell in love? You were a stupid motherfucker and fell in love so get the fuck over it. You know there’s no such thing as happily ever after. Now get the fuck over yourself and man up and stop wallowing in shit.’
And to my extreme non-amazement it didn’t make me feel the least bit better.
I had to get away from all of it some how. I couldn’t face Charlie. I had to get out of there. There had to be something to do or some place to go that would grant me the chance to disengage and be numb. I needed it more than anything.
I scribbled a note for Charlie with no specific details and a promise to be safe and be home at a reasonable hour. Of course his definitions of ‘safe’ and ‘reasonable’ were probably way fucking different than mine but I was all for open interpretation.
I got in my truck and started driving. I didn’t know where I was friggen going and had no particular direction in mind, just random turns that avoided any direction that felt wrong. Before long I was rolling though downtown Forks and it was every bit as boring and uneventful as I’d heard, a group of old ladies on a bench, a couple crossing the street holding hands, one lone neon sign flashing incongruously.
I pondered my choices. The opposite direction led me to school and I highly doubted there would be much to do there at 8:00 PM on a Friday night. East was Seattle and the rest of the world - a tempting option if there had been more travel money at my fingertips. That left me with west. I turned the truck around and headed towards the ocean. The tree-lined roads were pitch black in the darkness so I drove slowly and carefully and waited for the smell of the ocean to waft through the small crack of my open window.
It seemed to take longer to get there than I remembered but it could have just as easily been my impatience to get away. Eventually the countryside started to look familiar and the salty brine of the ocean filled the cab of the truck and I found the same gravel parking lot to pull my truck into. The ocean looked different in the darkness, angrier or lonelier or more ominous somehow, but I had nowhere else to go.
I could hear people in the distance, not all that far off from where I stood. The beach was deserted though so at least I had that. I walked along the water’s edge moving up and down the sand to avoid the uprush of swashing waves as they came ashore. It was too cold to go bare foot in the water and the spindrift blowing from the wave tops made it even colder.
Nothing held my attention very long. I climbed the beached logs and skipped stones and watched the dorsal fins of a pod of dolphins bob in and out of the shallow surf. Finally in complete frustration I scaled the worn boulders that made a bridge thirty feet into the water and screamed on the top of my lungs into the wind. No numbness. No disengagement. Even here amongst all the peace of the ocean there was no peace for me. Finally I settled onto the sand and wished for a gigantic whale to come and swallow me whole and put me out of my misery. After the day I’d had it didn’t seemed too far fetched.
“Mark, you’re an idiot.”
My head flew towards the unexpected voice.
“No dude, you’re an idiot.”
I didn’t recognize either boy. When they saw me they erupted into a fit of giggles.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I suggested curtly.
“This is a public beach bitch. You ain’t got no right to tell us to leave,” the taller, fair-haired boy said.
“Dude she’s kind of pretty,” his dumpy short friend whispered. Only it wasn’t a whisper like he thought it was. It was almost a yell.
I got to my feet with the intention of leaving. The search for anything that would help me forget the day had been fruitless and the last thing I fucking needed was to deal with these two drunktards.
“You wanna come to a party?” the dumpy one offered. I remembered that Alice had mentioned a party earlier. “Free booze.”
Suddenly the party seemed like a great idea. Who was I to turn down the only thing that might make me numb at this point? I wasn’t going with these two dolts though. “Thanks but no thanks.”
“I told you she was a bitch,” the taller one offered as they turned away from me and back towards what I assumed was the party. I waited a minute or so and followed behind them, leaving plenty of room so I wouldn’t be caught. As soon as I got past the clump of beach grass at the edge of the dune I could see the lights up ahead. The house and surrounding property was brightly lit and there were all kinds of kids on the beach behind it and on the deck that came off the back of the house.
As soon as I was close enough I started scanning the crowd for familiar faces. I found Mike Newton first, just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse! Then I realized that he had his tongue down Jessica Stanley’s throat so the likelihood he’d even notice I was there was slim at best. There were other faces too. Lauren Idontgiveashitwhathernameis was off in the corner looking board, snapping her gum like the annoying wench that she was. Eric and Tyler were on the deck arguing over the best adaptation of a comic book to the big screen. I nodded a ‘hi’ to Angela Weber as I passed her on the stairs. She was the only one of the bunch I could honestly say I liked. I searched the crowd one last time for Alice. She wasn’t there. This party was even too lame for even Alice to have fun. But free booze was free booze.
I found the well-stocked kitchen with little trouble - just had to follow the line of drunks. They were everywhere, huddled on couches and leaning in doorways and sitting on counters and floors and any flat spot that could fit an ass. There was a room of mellow well-behaved drunks and another full of too-young wannabe-frat-boys body slamming and cursing and probably destroying the room and all its contents. A least it wasn’t my friggen house.
I just wanted to grab some liquid anaesthetic and go and that narrowed the choices of what I could pull from the fridge. Beer would have worked if I could stomach the taste but it generally made me want to gag to start with. A big ol’ bottle of wine would have been fine too but there was no wine anywhere that I could see. That left me with coolers, coolers and oh, coolers. Orange ones, red ones, clear ones, - the choices were bountiful. I settled on ‘orange smoothie,’ so the label told me. I took one from the fridge and twisted off the top and downed the bottle without stopping. Yep, orangey and delicious and just what a growing girl needed to numb her soul. Second verse, same as the first. Drink face here I come! I pulled a second bottle from the fridge and repeated the action. It took me a little longer to down it but it was every bit as delicious. My compliments to the chef or party planner or poor parent who stocked the fridge. Excellent taste!
I could carry four bottles safely so I did exactly that, grabbed four bottles of orangey delicious numb-your-soul nectar of the gods and snuck out the front door, bottles in hand. It was easy enough to get away from the crowd since the entirety of the party guests were in the house or at the beach. I stuck to the trees hoping to find a trail that led back to the public beach but no such luck. That I expected for lucky I was not, so I was ok with no trail. I had my liquor and my solitude and that was all I could ask for. I found a place to sit, a rather uncomfortable fallen tree trunk that was green and squishy and covered in moss but it beat sitting on my ass on the soggy ground. I was another two bottles down before I knew it, and I was comfortably numb.
There was music coming from the party now, loud dance music that would normally annoy me with its clichéd rhythms and repetitive beats but tonight my toe was tapping and I had the urge to get up and dance. Everything else in the fucking world had changed, why not my dancing urges too? I stuck out my right leg and tested the ground while moving my toes in time to the music. It all seemed rather easy and straightforward enough. I slid my body out of my makeshift chair and stood completely still for a moment, eyes closed, just soaking up the music. Without my permission my hips started to sway and my arms moved above my head interpreting the music that tickled my ears. My body was going to dance and I was too drunk to stop it. I quickly grabbed another bottle and went with it.
I was spinning and laughing and dancing and generally making a complete ass of myself and it was the biggest high I’d had in months. I didn’t have to bother to care because there was no one there to impress. I didn’t have to do what was expected because there was no one there to put expectations on me. I didn’t have to pretend or be anything but what I was because there was no one there to shoot me down. And I was too fucking drunk to care about any of it anyway. I was free and I celebrated that freedom zealously.
I jumped on my soggy tree trunk chair and played air guitar and sang into my bottle as loud as I could push the words from my mouth. And when the song finished I did it all again on the next song. I did it again and again until I was a panting, sweaty mess with no alcohol left to drink.
And then I collapsed into my makeshift chair and closed my eyes and let the tree trunk behind me hold my body up while the numbness consumed me.
The fucking feeling floodgates had been successfully barricaded by copious amounts of alcohol.
And I was happy.
And that was fucking something.
“That was quite a show.”
I’d know that voice anywhere, even with my eyes closed. Perhaps I was dreaming it due to said amounts of alcohol? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. I didn’t have the courage to open my eyes and find out if I was doing this to myself or if he really was there and I couldn’t decide which option I wanted to be true.
“Do you always dance alone in the forest?” His voice sounded so real.
“Only on the third Friday of every two hundred and tenth month.”
I could be snarky if he was just a figment of my imagination couldn’t I? If he was just an illusion then couldn’t he be better than the real Edward? Couldn’t I make him whatever I wanted him to be - kind, caring, and true - and even better, couldn’t I be me? Not some made up version of who people thought I was but just me, faults and all. And if he was an illusion wouldn’t it all still be ok?
“What a coincidence,” he chuckled, a deep throaty rumble that would have made his Adam’s apple bob in the sexiest of ways. I could see it in my head and I licked my lips in response.
“Edward.”
I wished for him in a soft whisper and I opened my eyes to see if he was really there.
“I’m right here Bella.”
He stood ten feet from me, leaning against a tree, smiling his perfect crooked grin, too good to be true. If he was imaginary then my imagination had outdone itself.
“So you are,” I agreed. I still hadn’t decided if he was truly real.
“And why are you right here?” he wondered. I could see the sparkle in his eyes as they held mine and waited for me to answer.
“Having a fucking party,” I answered honestly. “The best way to forget a shitty day is to have a celebration.”
“You had a bad day?” Real/non-real Edward sounded surprised.
“No I had a shitty day. There’s a difference. Shitty is way more fucking bad than bad. You should know...you were there.”
“Then what are you celebrating?” What was I celebrating? I couldn’t remember.
“Dancing.” Or was dancing part of the celebration?
“You’re celebrating dancing or celebrating with dancing?” Real/non-real Edward was confusing me.
“Both. Would you like to dance with me Edward?”
“Yes.” Real/non-real Edward’s voice sounded very sincere, but that was the point where I stopped caring whether he was real or not. It didn’t matter. I didn’t want to know if being in his arms and pressed up against him wasn’t real. I would just pretend it was.
Chapter 11: Falling (Previous Chapters: 1. Aloneness, 2. Fracture, 3. Escape, 4. Defeat, 5. Triumph, 6. Discernment, 7. Attachments, 8. Monster, 9. Overreaction, 10. Overreaction)
Author:JCAddict/picklewinkle/Sher
Fandom: Twilight
Word Count: 5,478
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**
I have reworked this chapter a billion times trying to make it understandable from Bella’s messed up perspective. I am in love with how it turned out but often find myself taking at step back and wondering if it translates properly. I hope that it does. Give it time to answer your questions and I’m pretty confident that they will all be answered by the end of the chapter. Enjoy!
NOTE: This chapter contains underage drinking. Consider yourself warned.
From Bella's POV...
11. Falling
Stupid fucking Prickward and his ‘I feel sorry for you Bella Swan.’ He could shove it up his ass. Who the fuck did he think he was calling me out in the middle of class like that? He had some fucking nerve. Some shit was just private. Some lines you just don’t fucking cross.
I went to class with no expectations but to keep my fucking head on straight. Yesterday I’d royally fucked up. I’d been a hormonally challenged lunatic, but today I was determined to be strong. Yesterday I let myself be affected by Edward Cullen. Today I would not. Or that’s what I told myself.
It took exactly one lie for me to fuck up and get caught. He was good, I had to give him that. And I guess on some level I deserved it for even trying to deceive him with my subprime lying skills. Part of me wondered if I was just feeling guilty for the day before and trying to be nice by letting him down easy. I should have just told him to leave me the fuck alone. It would have been way less complicated.
We shot the shit about Alice, and about me getting caught skipping out, and he even apologized at one point for upsetting me the day before. It was really fucking awkward given the freaktacular display I’d put on yesterday, which I kind of apologized for in my own ass-backward way. It was the most normal conversation we’d ever had.
Too normal.
Too comfortable.
Too unlike us.
I didn’t even notice what was happening until it was way too fucking late.
So much for being unaffected.
I’d bet my life that he brought that friggen iPod just to get me to talk to him, all a part of his asinine plan to manipulate me. It took five minutes of normal and comfortable with him for me to let my guard down and be overrun by him. I fell for all of it like a fucking loser. I knew he wasn’t on the up and up, and my instincts were fucking screaming at me, but I ignored them and fell for his bullshit. He had me too, had me in the palm of his goddamn hand all trusting and shit, ignoring the screaming and falling for him and his motherfucking lines. And even though some part of me knew he was patronizing me by saying anything he thought I wanted to fucking hear just so he could get into my goddamn head I stayed right there in the palm of his hand and disregarded my instincts and believed his lines and continued to fall, pretending I didn’t know what was going on.
It was like walking a tight rope, scary and uncomfortable, where your hands are clenching the balancing pole so fucking tightly that your knuckles go white and you’re panting and bobbling and freaking out because you know that one misstep will make you fall. So while you search for your equilibrium and regain it and lose it, there is this small part of you, a tiny broken part, that wants to know what it’s like to fall even though you know it will be the stupidest motherfucking thing you ever do. And the more you think about it the more you realize that you might not get another fucking chance to try. And you do your best to fight that little voice and you think you can’t fight it but the truth is you don’t want to. So you give in. And you fall. The wind is whoosing all around you, humming and hissing and warning you, but all you can feel is the high of falling and the freedom that you never allow yourself and it’s everything you dreamt it could be and more. Eventually the hissing breaks through and you recognize too fucking late that there’s no net to catch you. You realize that the eleventh hour has passed and there’s no going back and that it’s too late to change anything. And you know that when you hit the ground nothing is ever going to be the same again.
And just before I hit the ground I could hear myself whispering ‘stop.’
But it was too late.
I’d already fallen.
Eventually denial fades into acceptance. Only acceptance is so much worse than denial. You try to hide from reality but you can’t hide from it. It chases you down like a dog. And when I tuned out the screams and whispers and all the white noise from falling, I could hear the little voice that said, ‘this isn’t real.’
The acceptance trickled through slowly at first and then rushed at me all at once, and I clawed at it and tried to push it away but suddenly I was choking on it and I wanted it all to stop - the reality and acceptance and whispers and screams and tiny messages of truth. Everything. I needed it to stop.
The lies, the pretending, the nice for the sake of being nice, it wasn’t me. It would never be me. So I pulled back from him because it was the only thing I could do. It was the only thing still within my power to change.
He doesn’t know me so I didn’t expect him to understand it. And really, it didn’t matter if he understood. I fucking understood. I knew what it meant because I know who I am. He can pretend he knows me all he wants, until the fucking cows come home, but that doesn’t make it true. He only understands what I want him to see. And there are parts of me that I don’t want to share with him, that I don’t want to share with anyone. And I have a fucking right to those parts, to keep them locked up and hidden away from prying eyes and rapacious minds. They’re mine, not yours you manipulating bullshitting motherfucker.
You made me fall. Isn’t that enough?
So the writing was on the wall. And I thought about ignoring it. The problem is that the message on the wall just continues to stare at you until you believe the truth in it. It’s shows up everywhere you look. You can try to run away but you keep looking over your shoulder and you tell yourself that you got away from it but it will always be there, following you forever. Truth was a patient son of a bitch.
And the most important truth was that people like Edward and I just don’t mix. Too different or too the same, it didn’t matter which. We just didn’t make any sense together. You can add it up any way you want to but the numbers will never work out.
We were opposites in every way that mattered. He was perfect, and handsome, and rich, and all of the things that went along with perfect, handsome and rich. I was none of those things. I was broken, and empty, and worthless and only the very few things contained within broken and empty and worthless. He was the vessel through which everything good and positive and hopeful flowed and everyone wanted a piece of him. I was the leper who was avoided and ostracized and dying a little more with each passing minute. He was freedom. He did what he wanted and took what he wanted and didn’t care what he left in his wake. I was quarantine. I lived within the protective walls of my lines and it was the only way I knew how to be.
And that’s why Edward and I didn’t work. He wouldn’t let me live within my lines. He pushed and he pulled and he manipulated until the lines were pushed aside. And without my lines I couldn’t cope. I couldn’t function or think or breathe or exist. Because without the lines all I did was feel.
And I didn’t want to feel.
Not anything.
It was too painful.
And that’s why falling made me the stupidest motherfucker that ever lived, because falling was all about feeling.
And the floodgates were open and I was feeling everything.
So what did all of the manipulating and ignoring and falling and denial and acceptance and feeling get me? A lecture from the high and mighty Edward, perfect human specimen, ultimate moral authority, who reinforced the reality of what we weren’t, who stabbed me with the truth and left me alone with all of my secrets dripping on to the floor like spilled blood.
And while I doubted that anyone else heard what he’d said, it was devastating enough to know they could have.
It was the worst biology class in the history of biology classes - worst day, worst fall, worst everything. And it wasn’t even friggen over.
I made excuses to my coach about why I couldn’t play basketball that day and I’m sure I looked the part perfectly. I could have probably puked on command if need be. I sat in the bleachers and wallowed and tried to figure out why the fuck I fell when I knew better and what the hell I could do about it now. And the answer was nothing. And it sucked big giant donkey balls.
It took the whole fucking gym class just to call the fall what it really was. I knew what it was, but using the right label made it so fucking real that it scared the shit out of me. And with the goddamn feeling floodgates open, there was nothing I wanted more than to not feel any more pain or fear. But I faced it down and admitted what I’d been fighting for days, admitted the painful idiotic truth of my stupid fall.
I was in love with Edward fucking Cullen.
And with the fear and pain of admitting that fact, my body contracted and convulsed and gagged until I did throw up. All over the bleachers and my shoes and my dignity.
I wasn’t completely ungrateful. I was grateful they dismissed gym early so I didn’t have to watch everyone watching me and making faces and being grossed out by all my fucking grossness. I know it was gross people. I lived it. Not that I could leave early. I had to go see Alice. And I was grateful for the spare pair of shoes in my locker so I didn’t have to walk around smelling like puke. That was pretty much it for my list of things to be grateful for that day though. Not such a long list as far as lists go.
I waited for Alice at the same table in the library and tried to pretend that I hadn’t just turned my life into a joke. I went over my lines in my head again and again and tried to find the hole that allowed the mistake. I guess I needed a new line that simply said ‘don’t be a stupid motherfucker and fall in love with Edward Cullen.’ Specific and apt really, and absolutely too fucking late for me to apply.
Alice rushed into the library and stopped dead in her tracks when she caught sight of me. On a normal day I would have called her behaviour bizarre and challenged her on her weirdness but today everything was off. She’d probably already heard the puke story and was wondering if I was going to infect her with some disgusting heinous germ. No worries Alice. No germs here, just a stupid motherfucker who fell in love with your brother. I’m not entirely sure it’s not contagious but I’m pretty sure you’re immune given your biological relationship.
“Hey,” she called with a half-smile full of pity.
“Hey,” It didn’t even sound like my voice to me.
“Are you okay?” She pulled out a chair and sat down, tossing her book bag aside carelessly, keeping her eyes glued to my face the whole time.
“Fine,” I offered half-heartedly. I couldn’t even be bothered to make it sound convincing. We both knew it was a fucking lie.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she offered compassionately.
“I puked. What’s to fucking talk about?”
“You puked?” She wrinkled her nose up in disgust.
“That’s not what you were talking about?”
“No. I was talking about what happened with Edward.”
“How do you know about that?” She couldn’t know.
“I saw Edward. He was in pretty bad shape.”
“How’d you see him?” I wondered. “He left early.”
“I was bringing the attendance to the office when he checked out.”
“So you know then?” The shame of my idiocy smothered me again.
“Know what?”
“That we fought.” That I’m the queen of stupid motherfuckers.
“You fought?”
“Kinda.” It wasn’t a fight in terms of name-calling or accusation hurling. But the end result was him feeling insulted and me being devastated.
“What was the fight about Bella?”
“Stuff.” Everything Edward said to me had been one hundred percent dead to rights correct. But for as sure as I was that I had insulted him, I was even more sure that he had no idea why I picked the fight or about the grandly fucked up change in my feelings for him.
“You don’t want to tell me?” she prodded.
“No.” I didn’t even want to tell myself.
“I might be able to help?”
“I doubt it.”
“I could try talking to Edward to smooth things over for you.”
“I don’t want to smooth things over.” I was pretty sure I’d be fine if I never had to see him again.
“But why?” she asked horrified.
“It is what it is Alice. It was bound to happen. We’re like oil and water. We just don’t fucking mix.” He was the water - clean and healthy and life giving. I was the oil - dirty and greasy and black as night.
“Oh,” she sighed. She seemed far more disappointed than she should have been, almost like she’d had her hopes pinned on the two of us being friends, which was really fucking weird since up until yesterday she didn’t even know we knew one another.
“So what are you doing this weekend?” I tried to change the subject. I was sick of wallowing.
“Did you want to get together Bella? We could have a girl’s night or maybe do some shopping? You really shouldn’t be alone when you’re this distraught.”
“I’m not distraught.”
“Yes you are,” she assured me.
I squished up my face in confusion and looked at her. “I was just being polite Alice…with the weekend comment.”
“Oh,” she sighed.
“I don’t really do shit like that, the girly crap with the sleepovers and shopping and all that bullshit. It’s not really me.”
“Jasper and I are going to a party tonight, down at the beach. Did you want to come along?”
I’m sure my discomfort with the idea registered on my face. “I so don’t want to be your third wheel Alice. Just…no.” The last thing I needed to observe was Alice and Jasper being all lovey-dovey. Dead fucking last thing I needed, or close to it anyway.
“Oh Bella,” she squeaked in her high falsetto voice. “Why don’t we just call it quits for today. You really seem like you could just use a break.”
“Thanks Alice. I appreciate that.” She couldn’t be more right. I was exhausted. I grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulder as I got up from the chair. The weight of the bag tipped me sideways and I slammed into the table off balance.
“Are you going to be ok to drive?” she wondered.
“Fine,” I assured her. “I’ll see you Monday Alice, and thanks again for being so understanding.”
I couldn’t get to my truck fast enough. The thick metal cage of the truck made me feel somewhat better. At least it was predictable. I could count on my truck to be the same, even if everything else in the world had changed.
I went home and took a boiling hot shower and rinsed off the puke smell and covered myself in vanilla and spice scents instead. I still felt like shit. Boiling hot shower water didn’t rinse of stupid motherfucker.
I threw myself on my bed and stared out the window and dared myself to be dumb enough to recount the day’s events. I’d already proven I was an idiot. Why fight it? I reviewed the day that felt more like a nightmare and I felt foolish in the grand scheme of things to have fallen in love with a boy that hated me, to have ignored all the warning signals along the way that told me to stop being so fucking stupid, to have allowed myself to get comfortable around him and be struck by his beauty and let my guard down even the tiniest bit. I knew better.
The whole situation was entirely fucked up. There was none of the hope or possibility that should exist within the confines of a first love. Only disappointment, over before it began. It was hollow and sterile and barren. It took away the strength I had felt in my aloneness and made me feel lonely. I couldn’t even feel happy about falling in love. All I felt was lost and lonely. And it wasn’t about him hating me or not reciprocating my feelings or knowing that it would never turn into anything beyond me loving him. It was the horrifying realization that I needed another human being in such an acute way. I wasn’t even sure if it was because I needed him, or just someone in general. I hadn’t needed anyone since my Mom died. It was against my lines to need someone. And because the fucking feeling floodgates were open all I could feel was how much I fucking needed her, which was so stinking pointless because she wasn’t coming back to me. Just like Edward would never be mine, she would never be mine ever again either and it hurt just as fucking much to feel that today as it did the day she died.
I pulled the covers over my head and wished for sleep and tried to block out everything around me. I tried to pretend that the world didn’t exist beyond my fabric bubble but the realist in me wouldn’t let go. I cocooned myself in the comforter from head to toe and waited for the darkness to take me. Even the darkness didn’t want me. I tossed and turned and pretended and blocked out and by the end of my patience I had accomplished nothing but aggravating the fucking hell out of myself because the world did exist and I had been an idiot and I had fallen in love and I did miss my mom and I still didn’t want any part of any of it.
I needed to close the fucking feeling floodgates before all this feeling rendered me insane. I stared in the mirror and screamed internally at myself. ‘Snap the fuck out of this you stupid bitch. Your Mom is not coming back no matter how much you piss and moan about it. You are alone and there isn’t a fucking thing you can do about it. You are alone! And so what if you fell in love? You were a stupid motherfucker and fell in love so get the fuck over it. You know there’s no such thing as happily ever after. Now get the fuck over yourself and man up and stop wallowing in shit.’
And to my extreme non-amazement it didn’t make me feel the least bit better.
I had to get away from all of it some how. I couldn’t face Charlie. I had to get out of there. There had to be something to do or some place to go that would grant me the chance to disengage and be numb. I needed it more than anything.
I scribbled a note for Charlie with no specific details and a promise to be safe and be home at a reasonable hour. Of course his definitions of ‘safe’ and ‘reasonable’ were probably way fucking different than mine but I was all for open interpretation.
I got in my truck and started driving. I didn’t know where I was friggen going and had no particular direction in mind, just random turns that avoided any direction that felt wrong. Before long I was rolling though downtown Forks and it was every bit as boring and uneventful as I’d heard, a group of old ladies on a bench, a couple crossing the street holding hands, one lone neon sign flashing incongruously.
I pondered my choices. The opposite direction led me to school and I highly doubted there would be much to do there at 8:00 PM on a Friday night. East was Seattle and the rest of the world - a tempting option if there had been more travel money at my fingertips. That left me with west. I turned the truck around and headed towards the ocean. The tree-lined roads were pitch black in the darkness so I drove slowly and carefully and waited for the smell of the ocean to waft through the small crack of my open window.
It seemed to take longer to get there than I remembered but it could have just as easily been my impatience to get away. Eventually the countryside started to look familiar and the salty brine of the ocean filled the cab of the truck and I found the same gravel parking lot to pull my truck into. The ocean looked different in the darkness, angrier or lonelier or more ominous somehow, but I had nowhere else to go.
I could hear people in the distance, not all that far off from where I stood. The beach was deserted though so at least I had that. I walked along the water’s edge moving up and down the sand to avoid the uprush of swashing waves as they came ashore. It was too cold to go bare foot in the water and the spindrift blowing from the wave tops made it even colder.
Nothing held my attention very long. I climbed the beached logs and skipped stones and watched the dorsal fins of a pod of dolphins bob in and out of the shallow surf. Finally in complete frustration I scaled the worn boulders that made a bridge thirty feet into the water and screamed on the top of my lungs into the wind. No numbness. No disengagement. Even here amongst all the peace of the ocean there was no peace for me. Finally I settled onto the sand and wished for a gigantic whale to come and swallow me whole and put me out of my misery. After the day I’d had it didn’t seemed too far fetched.
“Mark, you’re an idiot.”
My head flew towards the unexpected voice.
“No dude, you’re an idiot.”
I didn’t recognize either boy. When they saw me they erupted into a fit of giggles.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I suggested curtly.
“This is a public beach bitch. You ain’t got no right to tell us to leave,” the taller, fair-haired boy said.
“Dude she’s kind of pretty,” his dumpy short friend whispered. Only it wasn’t a whisper like he thought it was. It was almost a yell.
I got to my feet with the intention of leaving. The search for anything that would help me forget the day had been fruitless and the last thing I fucking needed was to deal with these two drunktards.
“You wanna come to a party?” the dumpy one offered. I remembered that Alice had mentioned a party earlier. “Free booze.”
Suddenly the party seemed like a great idea. Who was I to turn down the only thing that might make me numb at this point? I wasn’t going with these two dolts though. “Thanks but no thanks.”
“I told you she was a bitch,” the taller one offered as they turned away from me and back towards what I assumed was the party. I waited a minute or so and followed behind them, leaving plenty of room so I wouldn’t be caught. As soon as I got past the clump of beach grass at the edge of the dune I could see the lights up ahead. The house and surrounding property was brightly lit and there were all kinds of kids on the beach behind it and on the deck that came off the back of the house.
As soon as I was close enough I started scanning the crowd for familiar faces. I found Mike Newton first, just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse! Then I realized that he had his tongue down Jessica Stanley’s throat so the likelihood he’d even notice I was there was slim at best. There were other faces too. Lauren Idontgiveashitwhathernameis was off in the corner looking board, snapping her gum like the annoying wench that she was. Eric and Tyler were on the deck arguing over the best adaptation of a comic book to the big screen. I nodded a ‘hi’ to Angela Weber as I passed her on the stairs. She was the only one of the bunch I could honestly say I liked. I searched the crowd one last time for Alice. She wasn’t there. This party was even too lame for even Alice to have fun. But free booze was free booze.
I found the well-stocked kitchen with little trouble - just had to follow the line of drunks. They were everywhere, huddled on couches and leaning in doorways and sitting on counters and floors and any flat spot that could fit an ass. There was a room of mellow well-behaved drunks and another full of too-young wannabe-frat-boys body slamming and cursing and probably destroying the room and all its contents. A least it wasn’t my friggen house.
I just wanted to grab some liquid anaesthetic and go and that narrowed the choices of what I could pull from the fridge. Beer would have worked if I could stomach the taste but it generally made me want to gag to start with. A big ol’ bottle of wine would have been fine too but there was no wine anywhere that I could see. That left me with coolers, coolers and oh, coolers. Orange ones, red ones, clear ones, - the choices were bountiful. I settled on ‘orange smoothie,’ so the label told me. I took one from the fridge and twisted off the top and downed the bottle without stopping. Yep, orangey and delicious and just what a growing girl needed to numb her soul. Second verse, same as the first. Drink face here I come! I pulled a second bottle from the fridge and repeated the action. It took me a little longer to down it but it was every bit as delicious. My compliments to the chef or party planner or poor parent who stocked the fridge. Excellent taste!
I could carry four bottles safely so I did exactly that, grabbed four bottles of orangey delicious numb-your-soul nectar of the gods and snuck out the front door, bottles in hand. It was easy enough to get away from the crowd since the entirety of the party guests were in the house or at the beach. I stuck to the trees hoping to find a trail that led back to the public beach but no such luck. That I expected for lucky I was not, so I was ok with no trail. I had my liquor and my solitude and that was all I could ask for. I found a place to sit, a rather uncomfortable fallen tree trunk that was green and squishy and covered in moss but it beat sitting on my ass on the soggy ground. I was another two bottles down before I knew it, and I was comfortably numb.
There was music coming from the party now, loud dance music that would normally annoy me with its clichéd rhythms and repetitive beats but tonight my toe was tapping and I had the urge to get up and dance. Everything else in the fucking world had changed, why not my dancing urges too? I stuck out my right leg and tested the ground while moving my toes in time to the music. It all seemed rather easy and straightforward enough. I slid my body out of my makeshift chair and stood completely still for a moment, eyes closed, just soaking up the music. Without my permission my hips started to sway and my arms moved above my head interpreting the music that tickled my ears. My body was going to dance and I was too drunk to stop it. I quickly grabbed another bottle and went with it.
I was spinning and laughing and dancing and generally making a complete ass of myself and it was the biggest high I’d had in months. I didn’t have to bother to care because there was no one there to impress. I didn’t have to do what was expected because there was no one there to put expectations on me. I didn’t have to pretend or be anything but what I was because there was no one there to shoot me down. And I was too fucking drunk to care about any of it anyway. I was free and I celebrated that freedom zealously.
I jumped on my soggy tree trunk chair and played air guitar and sang into my bottle as loud as I could push the words from my mouth. And when the song finished I did it all again on the next song. I did it again and again until I was a panting, sweaty mess with no alcohol left to drink.
And then I collapsed into my makeshift chair and closed my eyes and let the tree trunk behind me hold my body up while the numbness consumed me.
The fucking feeling floodgates had been successfully barricaded by copious amounts of alcohol.
And I was happy.
And that was fucking something.
“That was quite a show.”
I’d know that voice anywhere, even with my eyes closed. Perhaps I was dreaming it due to said amounts of alcohol? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. I didn’t have the courage to open my eyes and find out if I was doing this to myself or if he really was there and I couldn’t decide which option I wanted to be true.
“Do you always dance alone in the forest?” His voice sounded so real.
“Only on the third Friday of every two hundred and tenth month.”
I could be snarky if he was just a figment of my imagination couldn’t I? If he was just an illusion then couldn’t he be better than the real Edward? Couldn’t I make him whatever I wanted him to be - kind, caring, and true - and even better, couldn’t I be me? Not some made up version of who people thought I was but just me, faults and all. And if he was an illusion wouldn’t it all still be ok?
“What a coincidence,” he chuckled, a deep throaty rumble that would have made his Adam’s apple bob in the sexiest of ways. I could see it in my head and I licked my lips in response.
“Edward.”
I wished for him in a soft whisper and I opened my eyes to see if he was really there.
“I’m right here Bella.”
He stood ten feet from me, leaning against a tree, smiling his perfect crooked grin, too good to be true. If he was imaginary then my imagination had outdone itself.
“So you are,” I agreed. I still hadn’t decided if he was truly real.
“And why are you right here?” he wondered. I could see the sparkle in his eyes as they held mine and waited for me to answer.
“Having a fucking party,” I answered honestly. “The best way to forget a shitty day is to have a celebration.”
“You had a bad day?” Real/non-real Edward sounded surprised.
“No I had a shitty day. There’s a difference. Shitty is way more fucking bad than bad. You should know...you were there.”
“Then what are you celebrating?” What was I celebrating? I couldn’t remember.
“Dancing.” Or was dancing part of the celebration?
“You’re celebrating dancing or celebrating with dancing?” Real/non-real Edward was confusing me.
“Both. Would you like to dance with me Edward?”
“Yes.” Real/non-real Edward’s voice sounded very sincere, but that was the point where I stopped caring whether he was real or not. It didn’t matter. I didn’t want to know if being in his arms and pressed up against him wasn’t real. I would just pretend it was.