NO REGRETS
I am super satisfied with myself.
Like that cat that barfed in your shoe. Yeah that's me right now.
Hahaha suckers.
01
Not so bad.
That's what I kept telling myself, hunched in the recess of the Greyhound's sleep-seating. Not so bad, old boy. Itchy, a bit stuffy, and everything past the window slowly washing out to the dull monochrome that is North-Eastern America. I don't know if the window is bullet-proof. This is interesting to me because I am just that bored. They're bullet-proof back in Phoenix, the buses that run the early a.m. hours. Or that's what they tell you.
No more fabulous lies from tan-and-thin-and-smiling bus drivers, though! This was Washington State, muthafuckaaa, and everyone here was pasty and solid and grim and didn't answer when important questions regarding bullet deflection were raised. But it's not so bad, Charlie Brown (my nickname, because I am round in the face and prone to misfortune). It probably should be some huge hand-wringing dramafest, but what Renee didn't know was that I'd be actually kinda happy to see my father.
I guess I didn't know it right away, either, but my mantra was picking up actual meaning: it really wouldn't be so bad. A fresh start. Let Renee cool down and we could both eventually miss each other, like in five years! More than not-so-bad: fucking perfect. Even the dismal weather seemed like an adventurous change; refreshing drops of bright cold water hit my neck and patted me on the back for a road well traveled as I stepped wobbly-kneed from the platform to collect my bags. I could even feel the safety pins in my face cooling in the air, deliciously heavy as if they were the only thing weighing my head to my neck.
I was off that stuffy Greyhound and I was going to live a manly bachelor life with my Dad and they got all my luggage through undamaged and--and I was going to finish school and not fuck up and Renee was going to fill my inbox with worry-mail and apology-mail and--and I was getting a car, a privilege denied in Arizona on account of the cheap and bullet-free public transport system. And I was going to meet new people and did I mention not fuck up?
The most popular guy in Forks, Washington though? Not entirely fucking likely.
I mean, let’s do the self-inventory dance: it’s my favorite insecurity waltz! I’m short. Charlie, my dad, he’s short. (They call me Charlie because my mother named me fucking BERNARDO. I’m going to have to get used to hearing the address aimed at someone else.) Not only am I short but I’m shit at sports. It might be a nancy thing, or an only child thing, or a raised-by-single-mother-thing. I’m piss at ball, but I can fold those tricky mattress sheets perfectly all on my oddy-knocky. (That’s “all by myself” for you Nadsat deficient.)
I‘m not hideous on purpose! I know it's all the rage to be a total freako music-video star, but I look like Sheriff Charlie Swan, and Sheriff Charlie Swan is a fucking sad-looking guy. He’s a great dad, a great person (Eagle Scout et al), but there hasn’t been anybody since Renee, and that was sixteen years ago. FOR. A. REASON. To cure the effect of my inherently mopey features, I have slung random bits of metal into my flesh! Upside: moving north would allow me to finally go for that suave art-student look and grow my hair out. (Summers are fucking death on rollerskates to scene kids in Phoenix.) Besides, I want to get as much mileage out of my hair before it starts RECEDING and I shave it all off from shame. I’ve got maybe ten years. Yes you care about my HAIR. BECAUSE IT IS AN IMPORTANT PLOT DEVICE LATER ON SHUSH. If you haven't noticed by now this story is about ME. Gawd.
Charlie has yet to go all Captain Pikard on his own and--yep, that’s him. Striding through the crowd with the authority of a seasoned officer and the timidity of a chubby middle-aged hick. Maybe that’s unfair of me. We eye each other up--manly wariness, you see, that precedes an awkward half-hug. You can see it in his watery blue eyes: he doesn’t recognize me from the spastic nine-year old who used to cling to his khaki leg-pant. And maybe I’m even a little taller than him, which is not so bad at all.
*****
“He’s in a wheelchair now.” My attention snaps back to Charlie’s droning one-sided conversation. C-captain Pikard is Professor Xavier? Dad will you really shave all your thinning curly hair off?
“What?!” I try to stifle the octave of hysteria and look less morbidly interested than I felt.
“Billy Black, remember? Down at La Push.” Oh. Old guy, friend of the family, lives on the Native reservation down on the coast. Father to Jacob Black, some whiny kid who used to complain when we left him behind.
Scabby brown knees and gape-tooth smiles of my childhood summer friends, all good-naturedly better than me at everything from fishing to fighting. The first and last jurisdiction that my name was awful and I should be called by my middle title; my father always wanted me to be Charlie Jr. anyway. ‘Charles’ to future CEOs or Ivy League colleagues or what shit.
“Well. You’re all getting old.”
“Hmp.” The half-laugh that tells me he appreciates my masculine cruelty, but I should cut the crap. “So he’s not driving anymore and didn’t want it to go to waste. It’s not bad... for a starter.”
I pretended not to be as intensely interested as I felt. “How much? No more than eight, right?”
“Eight... cents?” And people wonder where I get my sense of humor.
“Eight hundred. I only got that much budgeted for this year, if I cut out new clothes and weekends.” I have surprised the old man, but you can only tell by the speedometer.
“It’s a late sixties Chevy. You’ll be spending that much in gas and maybe repairs if you drive anything like you talk.” Zing. But then there is a heavy silence when I forget to laugh.
“Dad. How much?” The cruiser practically slows to a crawl, and we are almost home.
He is reluctant to say anything, just smiles his easy I’m-the-dad smile, and I really am almost home. “Don’t worry about it, Chuck.” It was sitting in the front yard, a faded red metal bulk of a truck. It was such a beast I could have wept. At least none of my peers would question the size of my penis!
*****
Ahhh, the prodigal bachelor pad. A sad old couch in a living room that should have been a funeral parlor, facing a large but ancient television balanced spiritedly on cinderblocks painted brown. The metal folding table and matching folding chairs in the kitchenette. One tiny filthy bathroom upstairs, wedged between Charlie’s bedroom and my own. I could feel my skin crawling just stepping on the pinecones scattered before the screened porch, and by the time Charlie and I were huffing our way up the stairs with the luggage I was fully disillusioned. First chance I’d get, I’d don the proverbial apron and go to fucking town with the Lysol. Which would also have to be proverbial, and probably only vinegar at that.
Fuck me, there are cobwebs in the linen closet. Actual honest-to-filthy-bachelor-Jesus cobwebs. If there are cobwebs in the fridge I am living in a motel. The paint job would probably be the same--everything a mix of bright yellow and burnt orange and dark stained wood. And white, if rumor is to be believed that those linoleum tiles used to be white.
If I inherited my father’s charming good looks, then from my mother came the tranquil intolerance of grime!
But enough about me. This isn't a story about a ho-hum redemption in goodhearted Amurica. Nor really about a broken family and the reunification of a gay son with his painfully straight-laced father (he knows and doesn't care and we get along great, thanks). No, my friends. This.
This is a horror story.
And I don't even get to be the teenager who is making out in the cabin in the woods when the monster attacks. But I don't know that yet. I don't even know that my home-away-from-hometown has changed all that much. But I've never spent more than a summer here, never gone to school with the kids that live in the scrubbed brick houses closer the to the supermarts and the hiking outlets and the suburban house-clone hoods. I would learn that my old La Push friends didn't even attend the school I was bound for, that I would actually be completely alone, proverbial deserted cabin-in-the-woods scene.
And I would want to make out with the monster.
*****
I woke up looking as if I'd never touched dry Arizona soil, nevermind lived under its blinding sun most my life. What was my heritage, anyway? Fucking albino Irish Russian? Gothy GermanicFrench? No, no, lemme guess: Haitian.
And no Renee from whom to borrow makeup. OH MY GOD JUST KIDDING I AM NOT THAT GAY. (it would melt in the rain anyway you bitches) <3
Not on my first day of school, at least. I even took out the safety pins, at the behest of the good Sheriff. I still looked like a kid from a city. Maybe not Phoenix. Maybe New York. I just needed those hipster glasses and tight jeans--excellent holiday giftlist fodder just in case I had any further trouble Not Fitting In. It was actually kind of exciting. I pondered future fist-fights over my bowl of Cream-of-Wheat. What injuries I would receive, which teachers would look the other way during locker-room rape.
Ironically, these are the same thoughts country teens have when transferring to a big scary city school. Only usually their nightmares involve knives and drugs. Mine just had wedgies and lonely Saturday nights.
Teeth brushed, stiff new jacket wrapped tight against the cold fog, I followed Charlie out the door. "They're going to call attendance." I whined at his back. "And they're going to say Bernardo. And I'll never survive." Teenage life is a life of over-exaggeration. You'd think I was telling him they'd ritually sacrifice the science lab gerbils.
"Get there early and introduce yourself to the teachers, then." Charlie Sr. winked at me before ducking into his cruiser. He honked his horn and waved good-luck-kiddo. Probably one of those rare moments he got to be the smug parent who knew tough situations were actually good for a child's development. Or some shit. I would short-sheet his bed later.
It was just me and the penis-compensation-mobile for a good forty-five minutes, creeping down the sort of paved roads in the shit visibility. My stomach actually sank when I saw the building, panicked I'd taken a wrong turn.
Imagine this: 700 kids in my old graduating class, near on 2,400 in the whole school. And Forks, Washington? 400 at most in the entire school ever. The foremost worry, before being the stick-out-like-a-sore-thumb new kid, before even being the gayest thing to hit this small town since sliced bread, was the possibility there would be no art classes. I mean, one's social life is bullshit compared to scholarly achievement. This was my LIFE my parents were fucking with. My FUTURE. My CAREER.
I am Jack's raging bile duct.
*****
I climbed out of the truck smelling like gasoline and tobacco, which was probably the equivalent of coating oneself in deer piss to go hunting, but wearing the bright orange sock on your head anyway. And in this scenario the deer aren't colorblind. What, you ask, is the bright-orange headsock a metaphor for? Why, my roaring beastly subtle-as-a-hooker-in-church truck, of course! The radio worked but who would want to compete with that lovely guttural engine? The Hood at my old block would have been sooo jealous.
I seriously am developing a crush on my truck. IT'S JUST SO MANLY AND OBNOXIOUS. <3 <3 <3
Something else that made me long for extended artistic education: this whole town was surrounded by trees. Everything was green and washed in mist, and by memory it would be all settled in that cold clear cloud-filtered daylight. After the rain, every leaf and twig and black scrap of bark stood out like High-Def Television. This is called atmosphere. Pay attention my babies. And the school--the school itself was so small and quaint and made from dark red brick (like in England or something!) that I was zig-zagging from utter despair to manic artistic delight.
Like, this place would be awesome to live in... when I'm older. I was so excited... for my future self. My current self was a pitiable fellow. My current self wondered if they still burned heretics and weirdoes. My current self saw a bonfire pit near the football field and had a mini-stroke. My current self was glad I took out the safety pins.
The front office was awash in that awful yellow lighting that was popular before eco-friendly halogen was invented. The carpet, appropriately gag-worthy commercial grade with flecks of orange and yellow. Papers and posters, loud agonizing clock tick-tickety in the silence before the bustle of early school. Stiff stain-resistant seating, in case someone was carried bleeding to the nurse's office and there was a waitlist or some shit.
I vaguely wondered at where they hid the metal detectors, and how many kids had guns, and how easy it'd be to actually buy pot and actually smoke it in the boy's room. Like an eighties music video. I would have been super excited to discover that the principal looked just like they do on TV. My old principal had been an ex-cop, but maybe this guy would be a real pudgy Pinkerton or Feeny.
There was a large red-haired woman watering the many potted plants, who stood up to greet me. I half expected her to welcome me to Dina's Diner and ask if I wanted to try the special. Her glasses were that bad. "Hey hon, can I help you?" I will admit this: being the underdog has its perks with authority figures. I mean, 'hon'. It's like she's got gaydar.
"I'm Ch--er, Bernardo Charles Swan." Wincing, because that name was sour in my mouth. "You can call me Charlie." Not that you're my friend, but you look like a gossip and maybe it'll catch on. My adorable helplessness landed me not only my entire class schedule, but a carefully explained and pre-routed map of the school.
She seemed to expect something from me other than a thank-you, so I stood there smiling and asked when first bell was, please. In an hour, and damn my jetlag anyway. It had not occurred to me at that point that I was interesting not only as a new kid, but as the Police Chief's only son. It would never stop creeping me out, how well everyone knew everyone else, even if they didn't particularly like each other. Luckily my Pa was a popular fellow. Eagle Scout Football Star et al.
I went back to my truck (MY TRUCK, HEEHEE) to take a nap and was relieved when the other students arrived in cars equally inglorious. Except for that shiny Volvo, but that was probably some confused TA's car that would get dented but good before the day was out, the poor sod (or sodette). Stuffing the map in the glovebox (because I am man and man are for hunting grounds grrhrr also it's a tiny ass school whatevs), I bravely clambored out of my dry-yet-fragrant vehicle into the rainy morning.
The trip to the locker was uneventful. There was no combination lock; this place operated on trust and maybe a utopian-anarchy system of reward and punishment, fuck if I know. My paranoid inner-city streak had me stuffing my jacket into my truck and locking the heavy, gummy metal locks behind me. And running my ass back inside. I did NOT have my winter fat yet, and that early morning chill was bananas. I could probably get away with never using the locker, since carrying books was good exercise and it didn't look like they had a drug-bust operation on everyone's backpacks.
Or coats. Or hoodies. Or loose pants, which can conceal all manner of sharp or explosive weaponry.
I'm not a bad person. But I felt like a wolf among sheep, fantasizing about all the stuff I could get away with. Probably make an interesting sociological study: small town school safety and how it's enforced without the aid of S.W.A.T. I was starry-eyed over the idea of a reality show called highschool S.W.A.T. when I nearly ran into the door to my first class. Classic Literature! Fucking ace.
As per cool-kid quota (and because I'm a damn coward) I sat in the very back and watched the class file in. Perhaps the black hoodie had been a poor choice of thermal wear--I felt like a dark smudge in Forks High's repertoire of rain-battling pastels. Even some of the boys were wearing 'coral' colored shirts, which hinted at the popularity of MTV. I almost smacked myself for not realizing--what do people wear in the city that sees the most rain in the entire U.S. continent? SUNNY COLORS. Herp derp I could practically feel the labels being stickied to my forehead: my black hair, my loose hooligan clothes. My only pair of water-resistant boots that HAPPENED to be black because c'mon black matches everything.
FFFFFF. And then the teacher calls out for me, specifically, out loud, because he was to personally hand me the reading list for the semester. Fuck My Life. "Bernardo Swan?" For the fifth fucking time, yes, right here pal.
A look that tells me one doesn't call a teacher 'pal' with such insolence. There is laughing, but thank god not at me. 'Mr. Mason'--a terrifyingly sadistic name if ever there was for a teacher. I didn't have the nerve to tell him I'd already read everything on that list. Maybe later I'd bring it up at the office and they'd get me switched out.
Or I could just slack off. Decisions, decisions.
"You're Bernardo Swan?" Asked a kid who looked like a teenaged Luigi. At least he pronounced my name in the proper, exotic Italian way.
"It's Charlie." I asserted, meeting his gaze. Gotta make that eye contact, yup. Every kid in a three-seat radius turned to stare while Mr. Mason outlined the reading course, scribbling furiously at the whiteboard.
"You need any help getting around, you ask me. It's Eric." He extended a hand, which I shook because whynot. I admired his Danny-Joey-Vito attitude. He probably thought I was a tough-ass exiled here because the big bad city schools ran out of correctional programs.
Mr. Mason had the good will to drag everyone's attention away from me for the remainder of the class. Eric walked me to Government class, pelting me with questions that I doubt he really cared to have answered, casting serruptious glances to the band of girls following. (Hahaha, what, ugh.) “You from Phoenix?”
“Why, you from the Bronx?” Betting myself ten dollars he’d have to GoogleMaps that shit.
“...? No. Ain’t it, like, sunny in Phoenix?”
As if using poor grammar would make him sound cooler. “Sunnier than God’s asshole, my friend.”
“Why aren’t you tanner, then?” You had to admire his dead-pan. Some of the girls tittered, but profanity among the coarser gender was first-hand, old-hat, commonplace and all.
“Miracle of science.” Really? They wanted to know why I didn’t tan as well as the perma-baked soccer moms television associates with Arizona? The ones who make pottery and paint themselves turqoise?
Mr. Varner, in trig, actually made me stand up and introduce myself. I mean, I could have just flipped him off and jumped out the window, so he didn’t make me do anything really. “My name is Charlie. I’m bad at math.”
They clapped like I’d just confessed at an AA meeting.
In Trig and Spanish, I think I made a friend. She was tiny and angry-looking, like one of those chubby chula dolls with the huge eyes and the trendy clothing. Her hair was something straight out of Seinfeld, and she was aggressively interested in my personal life. Her name. (Prepare yourselves now.) Was Jennifer. ’Hennifer Lopez’ I kept muttering.
Eric was a friend of hers, and they sat me down with some people at lunch who never got around to introducing themselves (I would have to learn through grapevine or eavesdropping). And biting into my Dorito-mayonnaise sandwich, I got my first real eyeful of the people I actually wanted to be seen with:
They had the unruffled, pale, sleep-deprived look of the city dweller. They all had skipped from the pages of Vogue, especially the metrosexual in the beige turtleneck. It seemed like the girls in the group wore anemia like a badge of honor, one tall and blonde and visibly stuck-up, the other short and sprightly and probably interested in tragic french films. Or starred in tragic french films, with her delicate face and spiky black hair and porcelain frame.
And there was the obvious sports star, built like a fridge with a chiseled Jewish profile, next to whom sat a sulky blonde kid and on the far end--the metrosexual--with tousled reddish-brown hair and pale eyes and good god those eyelashes hallelujah I’m home! These people were cultured. These people were artistic. You could feel the intelligence rolling from their table, like they were in their own little bubble of beta-teen superiority.
Jennifer caught me staring, sandwich halfway to my mouth. “The one who is leaving is Alice Cullen. There’s Rosaline and Jasper Hale, the blondies. Emmett and Edward Cullen. Emmett’s the big guy.”
“They’re related?”
Jennifer lowered her voice. “Adopted.” Her eyes narrowed. “And they’re all together. And they live together.” The green-eyed monster already, Jess? But we’ve only just met!
“Aw, that’s probably just gossip.”
“Yeah like you know, newbie.” Eric chimed in. He was gaining more and more respect from me. Perhaps eventually it would come to fisticuffs between he and I and we’d be fast friends after.
“I could find out.” Damn if I don’t love a challenge. Seven of us all stared good and hard at the group across the lunch room for a long three seconds, long enough for my beautiful Abercrombie Model to glance our way. I caught the attentions of his muted hazel-green set of eyes, and that shit-eating grin that develops when one steals one’s first cookie bloomed full-force all over my face. Angela, of our group, got up to dump her tray and obscured the connection.
“They moved here year before last.” Chimed a group-member helpfully.
Jessica scowled. “Their ‘father’ is Dr. Carlisle Cullen, the new director of FHC. He’s too young to have kids that age, but I guess The Hales are actually related to Mrs. Cullen and she can’t have any kids of her own. So they foster older kids.”
“Hey that’s tough, man. You know the psychology behind that, a kid gets pretty fucked up if they aren’t adopted before the age of six. She probably has a lot of patience and understanding, dealing with that kinda emotional development shit.” What, I watch Jerry.
“I guess.” Jessica looked like maybe she could believe the Cullen/Hale alliance had mental illness working in its favor. Maybe she just agreed so I’d stop cussing. Even Eric looked like he disapproved using such language around a lady. This did seem like a low-profanity environs. I didn’t even find any dirty graffiti on the bathroom stalls, but it was early in the year yet.
Awesome that I wasn’t the only ‘newbie’, though the Cullen/Hale alliance had each other and all I had so far was a humorless Italian and a midget Chula. BUT SHIT MAN, FUCK, I GOT TO PLAY PEEK-A-BOO-EYES ACROSS THE ROOM WITH ABERCROMBIE BOYYYY
You know, that game where you try to catch the other’s eye but look away really quick I love this juvenile shit it was so exciting omg omg omg omg omg next I thought I would pelt him with spitballs and leave anonymous notes in his locker, ufufufufuuuu. But by the time lunch was over he didn’t seem to think the game was cute, and when I got up to clear my tray he was studying me with a ... well, a look of consternation to say the least. Houston, we have a closet case. You’ll find no princess in this here castle.
Angela walked me to Biology II. She was a nice willowy girl with thin blonde hair, shy and polite and in need of many big gay hugs STAT. I did wonder when I’d stop getting escorts to my classes, but apparently the school population is so small that I had at least two classes with the same people in them at all times. Angela sat far away from me (the lab tables are assigned) and I pretended to reach for her across the room, bemoaning our separation. She laughed, but her lab partner glowered.
So did mine.
‘Cos it was Edward Cullen.
*****
You know the saying “The bigger they are, the harder they fall”? The same holds true for intense five-minute infatuations. My inner glee was not only crushed, but metaphorically set on fire and pissed upon by the following class hour. Edward Cullen did everything to avoid me, even inching his chair as far away as possible and keeping his nose in the air like I smelled bad.
Okay, Richey-Rich? Fuck you.
He clenched his fists and never relaxed the whole lecture, acting as if for all the world like he hadn’t been playing visual patty-cake with me moments before. I didn’t have time for this closet-case shit, and no that’s not a conceited way to view the situation! I don’t care how emotionally stunted the dude was just ‘cos his real mom didn’t wanna opt-out coat-hanger style. I wasn’t gonna let him waste my time. (I quailed inside, hoping his siblings weren’t anything like him.)
When the bell rang, I slammed my book shut to show I got the hint already and leaned in (because I knew it bothered him) to say my farewell. “And a good day to you, sir.” Only it was the tone of voice that could have called him anything and actually meant ‘fuckface’. And he knew it.
If looks could kill... had he been that tall at lunch?
Was I actually going to get beaten up my first day at school? It didn’t help that my nervous auto-reaction was a manic monkey grin. So instead of bowing out submissively, I laughed way too loud and bit my thumb at him.
I. Bit my thumb. At him.
And fuck me of course he was the kind of nerdy theater buff to know exactly what that meant. “They call you Charlie Swan?” WHO ARE YOU, RANDOM MUNDANE AND CAN I KISS YOUR FEET?
“Yeah, that’s me.” Trying not to shake as I turn from Mr. Death-in-Versace to address my knight in cotton-polyester armor.
“I’m Mike.” And his name was Mike, and he marched the animals two-by-two into the ark... “I’m in Mr. Mason’s english...”
“Oh.” Trying not to weep in relief as we walk away.
“I’m from Cali.”
Mike from Cali, you are adorable and kind and much tanner than me. “Awwww man, so is it hard getting used to this weather or what?” Laugh, laugh, agree, agree. We have Gym together, too. I had never been so happy to be in gym as I was that day.
“So hey, uh.” What? I thought it wasn’t proper locker-room etiquette to talk to other guys when they were half-naked. “What’d you say to Edward Cullen?”
“Oh maaan, no fucking clue!” I laughed scornfully, pulling the numbered t-shirt over my head. “He... just doesn’t like my face?”
“Well, yeah, there’s holes in it.” (By God, I almost fell over.) “But he‘s usually a nicer dude. His sister‘s in my theater class, and she‘s pretty difficult to offend.”
“You’ve got theater?” I so very much did want to change the subject before I had to admit that I flirted with the guy and he responded... not well.
“It’s an after-school program, yeah. We actually need more dudes to join, not that any of the guys are complaining exactly.” Nudge-nudge, wink-wink broseph. And a week after that is the story of how I got to meet Alice Cullen, who is small and cheerful and tactful and... what, punctual I dunno she has small boobs but she’s still really popular omgSHOCK.
BUT WAIT we are getting ahead of ourselves, my babies. There was an encounter before I left for home. Seeking to get my English class ditched for anything else (maybe fill the morning slot with biology and be anywhere else but next to ol’ Eddie Cull in the afternoon timeslot) I headed for the main office. I had to get in line, so when it was my turn in the ugly little room there was no backing out.
Madame Redhead was dealing with Edward Cullen, while a younger brunette processed the strays milling around complaining about their schedules. I waited in one of the stiff chairs, eavesdropping. He was speaking in a low, urgent voice that would have been alluring had it not been so plaintive. He wanted to trade his biology class with another, any other.
I was almost smug, but mostly stinging that he’d beat me to the punch and that our uncoordinated folly could have landed us in the same class again unawares. My mission rendered totally inane, I got up to leave. A girl pushed the door open and stepped past me--I had to turn to let her through and caught a blast of chilled air that rattled papers in their wire baskets (cabin pressurization, haw). And this is the fucking prize-winner:
Edward Cullen turns to me like I’ve just goosed him, offended and angry and fuck if I know what else. The guy isn’t out of shape, either, and I don’t wait to find out if he gets his schedule changed or not, I fucking gtfo.
*****
02
So, the next day? Charlie Sr. actually made breakfast, which was awesome. Big manly omelettes with bits of steak and spicy onions. I drank my coffee BLACK that morning, shityeah. It was a good fortitude against the anxieties of the rest of the day. Like I could walk up to Eddie Cull and tell him I had a big macho breakfast so he shouldn't fuck with me... (or he'd be getting greasy egg and steak all over his expensive shoes.)
Yeah. Yeah man, yeah.
Also: I never drink coffee and therefore would be more prone to biting in defense 'cos I was just that hyper.
Eric and Mike didn't get along, and I guess I had to mediate that. (CHESS vs SURFING. WHAT.) So it's like we can't be the three amigos, which was MY argument. Sombreros all around, guys! I told 'em both I like to draw and listen to music and it was probably on par with outing myself. ...raised eyebrows all around, guys!
The safety pins are going back in tomorrow.
The trig teacher picked on me, though. I dunno if he had this past beef with my dad (theoretical only) or was just a huge sadistic jerk like all highschool teachers 'cos I didn't even have my hand raised and got the answer wrong when I eenie-meenie-mo'd it. I did tell the man I was bad at math, didn't I? We had a chat after class where he told me to apply myself instead of just giving up and I exercised IMMENSE self-control by not rolling my eyes until I left the classroom. ROLLROLLROLL got a little dizzy and hurt my eyes but I mean JESUS CHRIST.
And all that time I was dreading lunch and Bio class, this sick little rock in my gut that probably had nothing to do with the heavy breakfast kept anchoring me in place. I mean, I don't exactly shy away from confrontation, but a guy like Edward Cullen--what was I supposed to do? On one hand I felt sorry for him. On the other, I didn't want him to recruit his brothers for a Charlie-piñata-day. But mostly I was just mad. I didn't even do anything and I'm treated like a pair of soiled panties one would find on the highway!
AAAUGH I MEAN SERIOUSLY. FUCK HIM. *rage rage rage*
...A side-effect of caffeine is mood swings. I had to Google that shit.
So. Lunch. Surprise surprise I didn't have much of an appetite. Hennifer flirted with Mike but I don't think the boy was receiving. To be fair, she is a tiny scary chula. But in her defense, she was wearing a low-slung top and you could set those bosoms on a pedestal in an art museum. Earth to Mike: you could be gay, buddy.
Also yeah I guess Edward wasn't there. But seriously whatever fuck him.
I waved to Alice Cullen (the tiniest Cullen of them all) on the way out, elbowed by Mike in reminder of the after-school club. And she smiled so I guess I'm not some terrible pervy homo in her eyes. I would see her on Friday, which is when the club officially convened.
He wasn't in Biology either. Maybe he was at home having an emo break down self-image crisis. Heh.
... I didn't want to be responsible for any suicides, though.
Deeepressing!
I mean, looking at the situation seriously: what I told Jennifer on my first day I actually believed. Foster homes are far from perfect, secure places and being gay in a *normal* household is hard enough. Maybe I would ask madame Alice on Friday. Yeah, I just had to bite my nails until then.
Ugh.
I came home to a kitchen full of groceries and the vision of Charlie Sr. in an old grilling apron and bright orange dish gloves, scrubbing the stove out.
"You're just doing that to get high, admit it." I dug around a plastic bag for an apple, as I am a growing boy and constantly need to stuff my fat face.
"Well, it hasn't been cleaned since I last fumigated." Appetite gone. "And it's getting too cold out to use the grill when there's a game on."
"Uhn. Did you wash all the cabinets out, too? And the dishes? And the countertops?"
An exasperated grunt as he stands up from his task. "Yeeees, Chuck. Just forgot the inside of the stove is all. Don't worry so much, pal." He removed a dish glove and found the apple I was looking for, biting into it and smiling at my discomfort.
"I'm gonna... go scrub the bathroom."
"What about homework?"
"It's only the second day!" Disappearing up the stairs before he could lecture me on how school was much harder when he was a kid. You know, before computers were invented.
*****
I was exhausted and covered in various cleaning agents by the time dinner rolled around. Also probably crashing from the caffeine, because I couldn't muster much energy for conversation.
"Making any friends yet?" Dad asked with an appropriate amount of concern over the salad bowl.
"Yeah, Eric and Mike." Chew chew yawn.
"Mike Newton? His family owns a sporting goods store down by the camp grounds."
I laughed a little to myself because only in a town this small could he have known exactly who Mike is. Chances are there wasn't another kid named Mike (or Eric, or Charlie) in the entire providence. It's a definite plus to individuality but a huge minus to personal freedom. You couldn't just show up to school with a different haircut and have it be No Big Deal, because you were the ONLY Mike the school had and they always associated you with Hawaiian shirts and gelled spikes.
"You know who I miss? Mike Henderson." That kid was a fucking riot. "And Carry." My best friend, whom was in all the pictures we had ever posted on Facebook.
"Your mother send you that phone card? You could call them."
I could have called them better still if I had my cellphone, but I wasn't going to bring up that fresh wound. Renee had canceled the contract (and paid the cancellation fee, which was just stupid) just to cut me off from my friends. And then doubled the insult by mailing me a phone card so I could call HER and not run up Charlie Sr.'s phone bill. Big fucking chance. The phone card remained untouched.
"Mmnh. Can I go to the library tomorrow?" With any luck they'd at least have Dial-Up and I could finally update my old crowd. I longed for Carry's acidic wit and looked forward to reading her rants over the situation. It'd be good lawls and I could have someone to whine to about the Cullen situation.
"Well, the weather won't be good for someone who isn't used to driving in it... But I guess you'll have to learn sooner or later."
"Gee, thanks." I suppose I should have felt elated, but bad weather was just so foreign to me that I couldn't help but feel like it was an oppressive omen.
*****
By Friday I had almost forgotten Edward Cullen even existed, except that he had an adoptive sister and she was a terribly fun and interesting person. I was so excited for theater club that I even participated in gym class and managed to give myself a black eye circa Mike's elbow.
It brought us closer together as only athletic injuries can.
AND THEN THERE WAS THEATER CLUB AND IT WAS AMAZING. And actually Alice wasn't even the president, it was some girl named Macy or Gracy or Gabrielle or fuck I don't remember I was too busy spazzing with the other musical buffs over Cabaret showing in Seattle sometime after Christmas (like, a perfect New Year's gift). We were convened in the cleared-out cafeteria, with one large round table all to ourselves and the junk food vending machines humming away happily as they defrosted or whatever it is vending machines do. At one point the president revealed several posters and wanted to keep them out of the reach of graffiti, so Alice was helped onto my shoulders and we lined the entire cafeteria in old-timey Hollywood fliers. It ended with us zooming around pretending to be a warplane gunning down our friends.
I didn't even bring up The Incident, I was having too much of a good time being the center of attention. I was not only the New Addition and a boy at that, but I was from a large city rife with entertainment halls featuring both professional and amateur productions. I was kicking myself on the way to the library (in the perfectly clear if not slightly cold weather, thanks Sheriff) for not getting the chance to herd Alice aside. But everybody had been in each other's conversations, eyes lighting up and voices rising to ecstatic squeals when something particularly awesome was appreciated.
My stomach hurt from all the laughing and it felt like I hadn't been able to be that honest in a long, long while.
Carry's e-mail was disparaging. Apparently my... closing act... left a wide ribbon of destruction down the center of my old social circle, and people were taking sides. It took a special talent, she wrote, to cause that much drama without even being in the same state. I didn't ask her which side she was on, and she didn't ask me about Forks.
So I read an e-mail from Renee, who wanted to know if she should ship me my old portfolios. I was polite and asked if she could hunt up any sketchbooks too, 'cos it didn't look like I'd be able to get to Seattle for shopping any time in the near future. She did ask me how Forks was, and I told her it was exactly like how she left it. She apologized and I signed off.
*****
So I settled. That was my story of settling: finding an appropriate niche and sticking to those people like glue. I encouraged Hen (my widely accepted nickname for Jennifer) and Angela to join theater club, even though girls already outranked boys three to one. And of course Eric already had chess club, which had the exact opposite ratio.
The teachers learned that I was a class clown by default, and that I would behave so long as they didn't put me in the spotlight. It was a working relationship: don't try to embarrass me with oral pop-quizzes and I won't embarrass you with thumbtacks and snark.
BUT THE GREATEST DAY, MY BABIES, WAS WHEN IT SNOWED.
I had never touched snow (I'd seen it in pictures and on TV duh). I wasn't about to tell my classmates that, but they just KNEW. Mike had seen snow because, hello, California has mountains? So I was, like, the Christmas virgin or some other shitty nickname. And then Mike got hit by a snowball in the parking lot by Eric, which was, y'know, shocker, and I got Eric back (not to take sides) with my very first snow-ball.
"YOU POPPED MY SNOWBALL CHERRY, ERIC." Across the parking lot, and it was like someone had shouted 'foodfight'. Only with icy slush instead of mustard and salads. And I was running around too much to really be bothered by the cold, except when the bell rang and we all filed in dripping wet and shivering. Luckily my coat took most of the damage, but I'd have to sit on the radiator if my jeans were to have any hope.
The hypochondriac in me feared pneumonia, but my vanity won out 'cos I looked hella good in that straight-from-the-shower hair style, and like everyone my eyes were bright and my cheeks were rosy from the exercise. Everyone including Edward Cullen, who was shoving Emmett, who had just tucked some snow down the back of his ribbed maroon sweater. I continued briskly to first hour.
Well. At least the guy wasn't dead.
*****
The theater group had taken over the big round table for lunch as well (with Gabrielle getting there early and staking her claim) so that's where I sat, dangerously close to the Cullen/Hale alliance. Alice, being a theater club veteran, sat with her siblings. It didn't seem too terribly snobby when you thought about it--they were family, and probably not too great at making friendly with people who came from normal households. Not that Emmett didn't get googly eyes from the entire cheerleading squad, but who knows... maybe the guy was just shy.
And their entire table was bare of food.
Well... that's. That's just... Weird. "--Charlie!" Black-laquered nails snapping in front of my face.
"Hm?" I was standing over Hen, my tray halfway to the table. I sat.
"Mike's planning a trip to the beach." She filled me in quietly. "But Angela thinks it's too cold for that and Sarah was going to have a party at her house that weekend. What do you think?"
"I think Mike wishes he was still in Cali, and we'd all get hypothermia. Sarah's it is." It was kinda scary how everyone agreed with me, but I'd have to use that power to my advantage before the novelty wore off. I never even got around to setting my piercings back in, though I'd have to sometime soon or they'd heal up (worry number 567: frostbite via facemetal). Mike sulked.
I was halfway through my second helping of lasagna (snowball fights take a lot out of you) when Hen nudged me with a sly grin. "Edward Cullen is staring at you."
"Is he about to throw anything sharp?"
"I don't think so..."
"Then I don't care." And I scooched around the circle so Mike would interrupt his view.
"You know... he never dates anyone."
"I can see why. Man has a terrible personality."
"I mean, he's been asked. Turned all of those girls down."
"Hen, no. No gossip." Like scolding a small dog, condemning finger-point and everything. "Gossip just leads to drama. The bad kind." That, and Jennifer seemed like the kind of girl who wanted to Know It All About Everyone just so she could Tell Everyone Else. Poor Mike wanted to know why I was scolding Hen, and why Edward Cullen kept looking over at him, and why a bonfire at the beach was such a bad idea anyway.
"I'm just saying, miho."
"It's just really none of my business. Or yours! And please don't be one of those people that assumes that I'd be interested in any... anybody who's available. I got standards, same as you."
"Tch. I hope not same as me."
Groan and rolling eyes. "Oh man, you know what I meant."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Shut up, Michello." Hen left her half-finished diet soda and all the olives she picked out of her salad behind for me to argue with.
"What'd I do?"
Siiiiigh. "I think it's what you haven't done, Mike." With Hen's seat vacated, the entire circle loosened up and Mike shifted out of the way as everyone re-settled with more elbow room. And ol' Eddie Cull glanced up from his empty tray at me. I held his stare and shoveled a bite of lasagna (large enough to choke a horse) into my mouth, unconcerned.
Then Emmett shook his snow-damp hair and doused the table and ruined the showdown with laughter. Alice escaped the impromptu dog-in-a-bath treatment and rejoined our less crowded table to hear the verdict on Sarah's party. By then Edward had cleared out and I could finish my meal in peace.
*****
By the time Bio rolled around, it was raining. Nobody was more disappointed than I, since I'd conspired with Eric not moments before to perch in a tree and snipe who we could when school let out. I was even going to empty my backpack and use it as a satchel for the snowballs.
Besides that, my lab partner was back. I'd have to carry less of the work, but I'd also have to be civil. I sat just as Mr. Banner was distributing slides for the microscopes already stationed at every table. One microscope per two students--either that was some sort of budget crisis or fate was just being cute.
"Hello."
I ignored his quiet greeting, though his voice carried that special musical quality of someone educated and speculative.
"I apologize that introductions have been delayed. My name is Edward Cullen."
Good God, he even enunciated properly. What is that, a second-level college vocabulary? I think I preferred it when he was being emo and reclusive. I started to doodle on my folder, resentful brat that I am. If he had offered a hand to shake I'd have bitten it.
"You must be Charlie Swan."
"It's Bernardo." I was competing with the forecast for freezing temperatures. "My friends call me Charlie." And then I did look at him, a cool side-glare I'd perfected at the dinner table with Renee.
He nodded once. "Fair enough. Bernardo." Ooooooh nnnoooooo, don't be all suave and pronounce my name correctly and act all polite and non-argumentative! I'M TRYING TO HATE YOU CAN'T YOU SEE THAT? (How to pronounce Bernardo correctly: Do not make the beginning a "bur" noise. Make it instead a "bair" noise. Bair-naaah-doh. Never call me Bernie I will end you.) <3
"Okay ladies and gents, put your books away and get started."
I slid the microscope in front of myself, assuming that because Edward had been absent he wouldn't know what was going on. He took the quiz sheet and double-clicked his mechanical pencil. (No fair, I totally double-click my pencil because like one just doesn't get enough lead DAMMIT I WANT NOTHING IN COMMON WITH YOUUU.)
"Prophase." I identified. Science was one of my strong points, owing to a brief but memorable love-affair with the sci-fi channel.
"Do you mind if I look?"
YES, I FUCKING MIND. WHAT, YOU THINK I'M GONNA FAIL US BOTH OUT OF SPITE? Eye twitch. I slide the microscope over carefully, as it was heavy and had decaying felt on the bottom of its tiny square legs. "Prophase," he agrees flatly. Had I detected a hint of surprise, I'd have brained him with the fucking thing. He dutifully scrawls the answer in the box it belongs, a looping old fashioned script that makes me wonder if he attended a church-run school in his childhood. Orphanage, church, ye olde english and latin lessons, all that.
Okay, I can pity the fucker but that doesn't mean I have to like him.
I am handing him the next glass slide and we brush knuckles. I jerk my hand back, hissing air in through my teeth. That was some fucking electrical shock--is his sweater all wool or what? He must have felt it too because the slide clatters to the hard black tabletop, chipping a corner and coming to a spin in front of me.
"Jesus." I am shaking my hand to dispel the numbness.
"Sorry," barely audible, because of course it wouldn't be any reason to apologize and maybe he meant for his behavior last week. Maybe he'd been on the rag or off his meds or whatever. Maybe his dog had just died and I looked like the guy who drove the truck. Maybe I am just a sucker for hotties.
We trade out for the rest of the lab, leaving the microscope in place and leaning over to adjust the view while the other writes in the answer. My print is decidedly modern compared to his cursive--it's in all caps, and small, and placed in the center of the box instead of at the bottom-left. We are careful not to touch, but that's more a Guy Thing than it is anything else. Personal space, y'know?
So we finished before anyone else and I was trying in vain to get Angela's attention so I could make faces at her and pretend the guy next to me was still sick at home. I gave up after Banner cleared his throat and announced that students who had finished should bring their results to the front. I didn't even have time to grab the sheet before Edward was walking away with it.
I can't find the words... fit... pants... khaki... ass... walking... tall leggedy ... mff.
I covered my face with my hands and wanted to cry a little. So hot*sob*.
"The rain is a tragedy. I was hoping it would stay cold." His voice was kept low lest it bring Banner's wrath upon us. I peeked over my knuckles to find him frowning at the window, but it was the kind of frown he'd had when we officially first met--like he was concerned and couldn't understand why.
"Well." Quietly crossing my arms on the table and settling my chin over them. "The snow is great. I wish it were the Hollywood kind, though. So it could be warm."
"But then it would be soap."
"Polymer-based fabric shreds, actually."
"You wouldn't be able to eat it... and it wouldn't stick very well so there'd be no snowball fights."
I yawned heavily, stretching my arms out across the desk until my shoulders popped, and curling them under again. "But it'd still look cool. That's why it's great for movies; all the beauty, none of the hassle." I chuckled darkly into my sleeve. "That probably sounded really shallow. I just don't like the cold. Or I'm... not used to it or whatever." Yeah whatever. Stop talking to me. I was wary about the whole conversation, like he was the kind of guy who just couldn't stand someone not liking him, even if he was the one who really didn't like anyone in the first place. So he was making friendly just to be That Good Guy Everyone Likes.
I couldn't, for the life of me, think of a way to pick a fight with him (a verbal one, thanks). Which was rare because aggravating people was my special talent, but he was being perfectly cordial and none too snobby and I just didn't have the energy. Too many surprises. It's why I don't date bipolar guys.
THAT'S IT. He's just bipolar! Probably!
"So why are you here?"
"To get my last mandatory science credit."
"I mean here, in Forks."
"I know what you meant. Don't be so nosy." I buried my head in my arms and faked a snore, well practiced at dodging that question with my peers.
He laughed, a magically musical homo noise like a burbling brook. If there had been any doubts cast by his impeccable vocabulary and sudden changes in mood, let them be trumped by that soft laughter. "Well now you have to tell me."
You just have to try this new cologne, it is omg to die for. "The story is complicated." Shut up.
"I shall try my best to keep up."
"Please, Edward, we've only just met." I lifted my face to bat my eyelashes at him, but stopped mid-flutter when I saw the look he was giving me. Like I was the Sunday morning paper's Sudoku puzzle.
"I'm not the only one who wants to know." His defense was half-hearted and he turned to sulk at the window again, leaning back in his chair with hands in pockets. Half the class had finished with their lab quizzes, and the conversational hubbub was gaining volume.
"Well. You're the only one who has pestered me past the 'it's complicated' line. That's usually a conversational red flag, don'tyaknow."
"Am I pestering you?" He seemed smug about it, aaand how!
"Fuck, I dunno, maybe I should just let that concern squirm around in your brain for a week. You know, the impossibility that you could be less than perfect in someone else's eyes."
Oh, the glaring. That's the Edward Cullen I know. He does not answer so I think I've won and am returning to my nap, but then:
"Enlighten me, could it be anything like the impossibility that last week had nothing to do with you? Or is it so unbelievable that there are other things happening in this town that are unrelated to the Sheriff's only son moving in?" ... Oh, that's cuuuuute.
"Just... how stupid do you want me to be?" I laughed like we were just chums discussing football or whatever so we'd not attract attention, sitting up and cracking my knuckles idly.
"I'd like to pass this class, so not terribly stupid... if you could manage."
And that was the story of how I got sent to the Principal's Office for letting a giant F-bomb loose in the middle of Biology class. It was even an F.U. class, which warranted a call home.
*****
"The guy is unbearable! He's a snob and a jackass and I don't care if he's adopted or if his family's the greatest thing since the Munsters met the Brady Bunch!"
"The Cullens are good people, Bernardo, and Dr. Cullen is the best thing to happen to this town. He could have gone to any hospital in the country--in the world but he followed Esme's wishes to live in a closely-knit community and he came here."
"That's pseudo-political favoritism bullshit! And it doesn't mean I have to play nice with their stupid brat son!"
"No. But you do have to follow basic classroom etiquette. Now, I don't know what they let you get away with down in Phoenix, but in this town things are a little more old fa--"
"Hookers and blow, dad. They drew the line at murder, barely."
"Young man," he was trying not to laugh, gripping the back of the kitchen fold-away till the tin hinges creak. "You need to learn to control that mouth of yours. I hear you're giving teachers lip, too."
"They pick on me."
"Oh, honestly?"
"I don't cuss at them."
A heavy sigh. "Well that's a start."
*****
Good news that night: Renee had mailed me not only my portfolios and a few new sketchbooks, but also my bearings and gauges! It was like meeting old friends when I needed them most, and in they went with only a little difficulty, tugging at my ears and nose and eyebrows and lip with what gravity affected them when I turned my head different angles.
Bad news the following day: Edward Cullen was treating me like I smelled like a wet dog again. And it hadn't snowed overnight, either, so everything was cold and muddy and difficult to look at. Mike was treating me like I was the Dark Knight who just punched Harvey Dent in the face, and could not shut up about how 'hardcore' I was.
"I'm actually a huge wimp. I just wear these things the way butterflies wear like, you know, giant predator eyes and shit on their wings."
"Ha. You are no damn butterfly."
I clapped my hand over his mouth. "Don't say the D-word. They send you to prison for shit like that nowadays." Laugh, laugh, shove, shove.
I made it through Bio class, barely. I addressed Mr. Banner with the idea that I could be Angela's lab partner and he told me the real world didn't work that way, the twat. Edward didn't ask me any more personal questions, though, so that was a definite bonus. Angela passed me a note asking if I had a girlfriend back in Phoenix, and if it was the girl all over my Facebook. Which was a definite... not... bonus.
Banner had the projector set up in the back, right next to our table, and its little cooling fan kept blowing hot, stale, plastic-scented air right in my face. Ol' Eddie Cull kept his hands knuckle-white on the edge of the table, tense as a fuckin' violin string.
Er, I mean 'a darn violin string'.
*****
Only instead of barfing in your shoes, I barfed in your brain.
Here's what the critics have to say:
"i actually told my girlfriend about this! and man, she couldn't stop laughing when i said that i actually liked Chuck so much that i'm overlooking it to be twilight related. but it's written so well though. i love his voice and his being such a total teenager that he feels real."
"As drawn out and useless as it is, it's entertaining. I am very much enjoying your story. Though, I have to admit, as annoying as Bernardo is at times, he's still kind of likable. And if you really want him to be a Gary-Stu then he has to be a black belt in Taekwondo and speak five languages. "
"I have a confession to make.
I think I like Bernardo Charles Swan. A LOT. He is the gayest thing to hit the earth and I love him and. I actually like this a whole lot better than the original books. "
Okay, so it was actually only two people on Y!Gal encouraging me much like one encourages that girl at that party to get up on the coffee table and strip. Only they plied me with nice words instead of beer. (Beer preferred, haha.) But I feel exactly like that chick on your coffee table with her bra in her mouth: I might lose favor with some of you higher-browed sort, but I am having a good time.
No matter how dorky: no regrets.
Like that cat that barfed in your shoe. Yeah that's me right now.
Hahaha suckers.
01
Not so bad.
That's what I kept telling myself, hunched in the recess of the Greyhound's sleep-seating. Not so bad, old boy. Itchy, a bit stuffy, and everything past the window slowly washing out to the dull monochrome that is North-Eastern America. I don't know if the window is bullet-proof. This is interesting to me because I am just that bored. They're bullet-proof back in Phoenix, the buses that run the early a.m. hours. Or that's what they tell you.
No more fabulous lies from tan-and-thin-and-smiling bus drivers, though! This was Washington State, muthafuckaaa, and everyone here was pasty and solid and grim and didn't answer when important questions regarding bullet deflection were raised. But it's not so bad, Charlie Brown (my nickname, because I am round in the face and prone to misfortune). It probably should be some huge hand-wringing dramafest, but what Renee didn't know was that I'd be actually kinda happy to see my father.
I guess I didn't know it right away, either, but my mantra was picking up actual meaning: it really wouldn't be so bad. A fresh start. Let Renee cool down and we could both eventually miss each other, like in five years! More than not-so-bad: fucking perfect. Even the dismal weather seemed like an adventurous change; refreshing drops of bright cold water hit my neck and patted me on the back for a road well traveled as I stepped wobbly-kneed from the platform to collect my bags. I could even feel the safety pins in my face cooling in the air, deliciously heavy as if they were the only thing weighing my head to my neck.
I was off that stuffy Greyhound and I was going to live a manly bachelor life with my Dad and they got all my luggage through undamaged and--and I was going to finish school and not fuck up and Renee was going to fill my inbox with worry-mail and apology-mail and--and I was getting a car, a privilege denied in Arizona on account of the cheap and bullet-free public transport system. And I was going to meet new people and did I mention not fuck up?
The most popular guy in Forks, Washington though? Not entirely fucking likely.
I mean, let’s do the self-inventory dance: it’s my favorite insecurity waltz! I’m short. Charlie, my dad, he’s short. (They call me Charlie because my mother named me fucking BERNARDO. I’m going to have to get used to hearing the address aimed at someone else.) Not only am I short but I’m shit at sports. It might be a nancy thing, or an only child thing, or a raised-by-single-mother-thing. I’m piss at ball, but I can fold those tricky mattress sheets perfectly all on my oddy-knocky. (That’s “all by myself” for you Nadsat deficient.)
I‘m not hideous on purpose! I know it's all the rage to be a total freako music-video star, but I look like Sheriff Charlie Swan, and Sheriff Charlie Swan is a fucking sad-looking guy. He’s a great dad, a great person (Eagle Scout et al), but there hasn’t been anybody since Renee, and that was sixteen years ago. FOR. A. REASON. To cure the effect of my inherently mopey features, I have slung random bits of metal into my flesh! Upside: moving north would allow me to finally go for that suave art-student look and grow my hair out. (Summers are fucking death on rollerskates to scene kids in Phoenix.) Besides, I want to get as much mileage out of my hair before it starts RECEDING and I shave it all off from shame. I’ve got maybe ten years. Yes you care about my HAIR. BECAUSE IT IS AN IMPORTANT PLOT DEVICE LATER ON SHUSH. If you haven't noticed by now this story is about ME. Gawd.
Charlie has yet to go all Captain Pikard on his own and--yep, that’s him. Striding through the crowd with the authority of a seasoned officer and the timidity of a chubby middle-aged hick. Maybe that’s unfair of me. We eye each other up--manly wariness, you see, that precedes an awkward half-hug. You can see it in his watery blue eyes: he doesn’t recognize me from the spastic nine-year old who used to cling to his khaki leg-pant. And maybe I’m even a little taller than him, which is not so bad at all.
*****
“He’s in a wheelchair now.” My attention snaps back to Charlie’s droning one-sided conversation. C-captain Pikard is Professor Xavier? Dad will you really shave all your thinning curly hair off?
“What?!” I try to stifle the octave of hysteria and look less morbidly interested than I felt.
“Billy Black, remember? Down at La Push.” Oh. Old guy, friend of the family, lives on the Native reservation down on the coast. Father to Jacob Black, some whiny kid who used to complain when we left him behind.
Scabby brown knees and gape-tooth smiles of my childhood summer friends, all good-naturedly better than me at everything from fishing to fighting. The first and last jurisdiction that my name was awful and I should be called by my middle title; my father always wanted me to be Charlie Jr. anyway. ‘Charles’ to future CEOs or Ivy League colleagues or what shit.
“Well. You’re all getting old.”
“Hmp.” The half-laugh that tells me he appreciates my masculine cruelty, but I should cut the crap. “So he’s not driving anymore and didn’t want it to go to waste. It’s not bad... for a starter.”
I pretended not to be as intensely interested as I felt. “How much? No more than eight, right?”
“Eight... cents?” And people wonder where I get my sense of humor.
“Eight hundred. I only got that much budgeted for this year, if I cut out new clothes and weekends.” I have surprised the old man, but you can only tell by the speedometer.
“It’s a late sixties Chevy. You’ll be spending that much in gas and maybe repairs if you drive anything like you talk.” Zing. But then there is a heavy silence when I forget to laugh.
“Dad. How much?” The cruiser practically slows to a crawl, and we are almost home.
He is reluctant to say anything, just smiles his easy I’m-the-dad smile, and I really am almost home. “Don’t worry about it, Chuck.” It was sitting in the front yard, a faded red metal bulk of a truck. It was such a beast I could have wept. At least none of my peers would question the size of my penis!
*****
Ahhh, the prodigal bachelor pad. A sad old couch in a living room that should have been a funeral parlor, facing a large but ancient television balanced spiritedly on cinderblocks painted brown. The metal folding table and matching folding chairs in the kitchenette. One tiny filthy bathroom upstairs, wedged between Charlie’s bedroom and my own. I could feel my skin crawling just stepping on the pinecones scattered before the screened porch, and by the time Charlie and I were huffing our way up the stairs with the luggage I was fully disillusioned. First chance I’d get, I’d don the proverbial apron and go to fucking town with the Lysol. Which would also have to be proverbial, and probably only vinegar at that.
Fuck me, there are cobwebs in the linen closet. Actual honest-to-filthy-bachelor-Jesus cobwebs. If there are cobwebs in the fridge I am living in a motel. The paint job would probably be the same--everything a mix of bright yellow and burnt orange and dark stained wood. And white, if rumor is to be believed that those linoleum tiles used to be white.
If I inherited my father’s charming good looks, then from my mother came the tranquil intolerance of grime!
But enough about me. This isn't a story about a ho-hum redemption in goodhearted Amurica. Nor really about a broken family and the reunification of a gay son with his painfully straight-laced father (he knows and doesn't care and we get along great, thanks). No, my friends. This.
This is a horror story.
And I don't even get to be the teenager who is making out in the cabin in the woods when the monster attacks. But I don't know that yet. I don't even know that my home-away-from-hometown has changed all that much. But I've never spent more than a summer here, never gone to school with the kids that live in the scrubbed brick houses closer the to the supermarts and the hiking outlets and the suburban house-clone hoods. I would learn that my old La Push friends didn't even attend the school I was bound for, that I would actually be completely alone, proverbial deserted cabin-in-the-woods scene.
And I would want to make out with the monster.
*****
I woke up looking as if I'd never touched dry Arizona soil, nevermind lived under its blinding sun most my life. What was my heritage, anyway? Fucking albino Irish Russian? Gothy GermanicFrench? No, no, lemme guess: Haitian.
And no Renee from whom to borrow makeup. OH MY GOD JUST KIDDING I AM NOT THAT GAY. (it would melt in the rain anyway you bitches) <3
Not on my first day of school, at least. I even took out the safety pins, at the behest of the good Sheriff. I still looked like a kid from a city. Maybe not Phoenix. Maybe New York. I just needed those hipster glasses and tight jeans--excellent holiday giftlist fodder just in case I had any further trouble Not Fitting In. It was actually kind of exciting. I pondered future fist-fights over my bowl of Cream-of-Wheat. What injuries I would receive, which teachers would look the other way during locker-room rape.
Ironically, these are the same thoughts country teens have when transferring to a big scary city school. Only usually their nightmares involve knives and drugs. Mine just had wedgies and lonely Saturday nights.
Teeth brushed, stiff new jacket wrapped tight against the cold fog, I followed Charlie out the door. "They're going to call attendance." I whined at his back. "And they're going to say Bernardo. And I'll never survive." Teenage life is a life of over-exaggeration. You'd think I was telling him they'd ritually sacrifice the science lab gerbils.
"Get there early and introduce yourself to the teachers, then." Charlie Sr. winked at me before ducking into his cruiser. He honked his horn and waved good-luck-kiddo. Probably one of those rare moments he got to be the smug parent who knew tough situations were actually good for a child's development. Or some shit. I would short-sheet his bed later.
It was just me and the penis-compensation-mobile for a good forty-five minutes, creeping down the sort of paved roads in the shit visibility. My stomach actually sank when I saw the building, panicked I'd taken a wrong turn.
Imagine this: 700 kids in my old graduating class, near on 2,400 in the whole school. And Forks, Washington? 400 at most in the entire school ever. The foremost worry, before being the stick-out-like-a-sore-thumb new kid, before even being the gayest thing to hit this small town since sliced bread, was the possibility there would be no art classes. I mean, one's social life is bullshit compared to scholarly achievement. This was my LIFE my parents were fucking with. My FUTURE. My CAREER.
I am Jack's raging bile duct.
*****
I climbed out of the truck smelling like gasoline and tobacco, which was probably the equivalent of coating oneself in deer piss to go hunting, but wearing the bright orange sock on your head anyway. And in this scenario the deer aren't colorblind. What, you ask, is the bright-orange headsock a metaphor for? Why, my roaring beastly subtle-as-a-hooker-in-church truck, of course! The radio worked but who would want to compete with that lovely guttural engine? The Hood at my old block would have been sooo jealous.
I seriously am developing a crush on my truck. IT'S JUST SO MANLY AND OBNOXIOUS. <3 <3 <3
Something else that made me long for extended artistic education: this whole town was surrounded by trees. Everything was green and washed in mist, and by memory it would be all settled in that cold clear cloud-filtered daylight. After the rain, every leaf and twig and black scrap of bark stood out like High-Def Television. This is called atmosphere. Pay attention my babies. And the school--the school itself was so small and quaint and made from dark red brick (like in England or something!) that I was zig-zagging from utter despair to manic artistic delight.
Like, this place would be awesome to live in... when I'm older. I was so excited... for my future self. My current self was a pitiable fellow. My current self wondered if they still burned heretics and weirdoes. My current self saw a bonfire pit near the football field and had a mini-stroke. My current self was glad I took out the safety pins.
The front office was awash in that awful yellow lighting that was popular before eco-friendly halogen was invented. The carpet, appropriately gag-worthy commercial grade with flecks of orange and yellow. Papers and posters, loud agonizing clock tick-tickety in the silence before the bustle of early school. Stiff stain-resistant seating, in case someone was carried bleeding to the nurse's office and there was a waitlist or some shit.
I vaguely wondered at where they hid the metal detectors, and how many kids had guns, and how easy it'd be to actually buy pot and actually smoke it in the boy's room. Like an eighties music video. I would have been super excited to discover that the principal looked just like they do on TV. My old principal had been an ex-cop, but maybe this guy would be a real pudgy Pinkerton or Feeny.
There was a large red-haired woman watering the many potted plants, who stood up to greet me. I half expected her to welcome me to Dina's Diner and ask if I wanted to try the special. Her glasses were that bad. "Hey hon, can I help you?" I will admit this: being the underdog has its perks with authority figures. I mean, 'hon'. It's like she's got gaydar.
"I'm Ch--er, Bernardo Charles Swan." Wincing, because that name was sour in my mouth. "You can call me Charlie." Not that you're my friend, but you look like a gossip and maybe it'll catch on. My adorable helplessness landed me not only my entire class schedule, but a carefully explained and pre-routed map of the school.
She seemed to expect something from me other than a thank-you, so I stood there smiling and asked when first bell was, please. In an hour, and damn my jetlag anyway. It had not occurred to me at that point that I was interesting not only as a new kid, but as the Police Chief's only son. It would never stop creeping me out, how well everyone knew everyone else, even if they didn't particularly like each other. Luckily my Pa was a popular fellow. Eagle Scout Football Star et al.
I went back to my truck (MY TRUCK, HEEHEE) to take a nap and was relieved when the other students arrived in cars equally inglorious. Except for that shiny Volvo, but that was probably some confused TA's car that would get dented but good before the day was out, the poor sod (or sodette). Stuffing the map in the glovebox (because I am man and man are for hunting grounds grrhrr also it's a tiny ass school whatevs), I bravely clambored out of my dry-yet-fragrant vehicle into the rainy morning.
The trip to the locker was uneventful. There was no combination lock; this place operated on trust and maybe a utopian-anarchy system of reward and punishment, fuck if I know. My paranoid inner-city streak had me stuffing my jacket into my truck and locking the heavy, gummy metal locks behind me. And running my ass back inside. I did NOT have my winter fat yet, and that early morning chill was bananas. I could probably get away with never using the locker, since carrying books was good exercise and it didn't look like they had a drug-bust operation on everyone's backpacks.
Or coats. Or hoodies. Or loose pants, which can conceal all manner of sharp or explosive weaponry.
I'm not a bad person. But I felt like a wolf among sheep, fantasizing about all the stuff I could get away with. Probably make an interesting sociological study: small town school safety and how it's enforced without the aid of S.W.A.T. I was starry-eyed over the idea of a reality show called highschool S.W.A.T. when I nearly ran into the door to my first class. Classic Literature! Fucking ace.
As per cool-kid quota (and because I'm a damn coward) I sat in the very back and watched the class file in. Perhaps the black hoodie had been a poor choice of thermal wear--I felt like a dark smudge in Forks High's repertoire of rain-battling pastels. Even some of the boys were wearing 'coral' colored shirts, which hinted at the popularity of MTV. I almost smacked myself for not realizing--what do people wear in the city that sees the most rain in the entire U.S. continent? SUNNY COLORS. Herp derp I could practically feel the labels being stickied to my forehead: my black hair, my loose hooligan clothes. My only pair of water-resistant boots that HAPPENED to be black because c'mon black matches everything.
FFFFFF. And then the teacher calls out for me, specifically, out loud, because he was to personally hand me the reading list for the semester. Fuck My Life. "Bernardo Swan?" For the fifth fucking time, yes, right here pal.
A look that tells me one doesn't call a teacher 'pal' with such insolence. There is laughing, but thank god not at me. 'Mr. Mason'--a terrifyingly sadistic name if ever there was for a teacher. I didn't have the nerve to tell him I'd already read everything on that list. Maybe later I'd bring it up at the office and they'd get me switched out.
Or I could just slack off. Decisions, decisions.
"You're Bernardo Swan?" Asked a kid who looked like a teenaged Luigi. At least he pronounced my name in the proper, exotic Italian way.
"It's Charlie." I asserted, meeting his gaze. Gotta make that eye contact, yup. Every kid in a three-seat radius turned to stare while Mr. Mason outlined the reading course, scribbling furiously at the whiteboard.
"You need any help getting around, you ask me. It's Eric." He extended a hand, which I shook because whynot. I admired his Danny-Joey-Vito attitude. He probably thought I was a tough-ass exiled here because the big bad city schools ran out of correctional programs.
Mr. Mason had the good will to drag everyone's attention away from me for the remainder of the class. Eric walked me to Government class, pelting me with questions that I doubt he really cared to have answered, casting serruptious glances to the band of girls following. (Hahaha, what, ugh.) “You from Phoenix?”
“Why, you from the Bronx?” Betting myself ten dollars he’d have to GoogleMaps that shit.
“...? No. Ain’t it, like, sunny in Phoenix?”
As if using poor grammar would make him sound cooler. “Sunnier than God’s asshole, my friend.”
“Why aren’t you tanner, then?” You had to admire his dead-pan. Some of the girls tittered, but profanity among the coarser gender was first-hand, old-hat, commonplace and all.
“Miracle of science.” Really? They wanted to know why I didn’t tan as well as the perma-baked soccer moms television associates with Arizona? The ones who make pottery and paint themselves turqoise?
Mr. Varner, in trig, actually made me stand up and introduce myself. I mean, I could have just flipped him off and jumped out the window, so he didn’t make me do anything really. “My name is Charlie. I’m bad at math.”
They clapped like I’d just confessed at an AA meeting.
In Trig and Spanish, I think I made a friend. She was tiny and angry-looking, like one of those chubby chula dolls with the huge eyes and the trendy clothing. Her hair was something straight out of Seinfeld, and she was aggressively interested in my personal life. Her name. (Prepare yourselves now.) Was Jennifer. ’Hennifer Lopez’ I kept muttering.
Eric was a friend of hers, and they sat me down with some people at lunch who never got around to introducing themselves (I would have to learn through grapevine or eavesdropping). And biting into my Dorito-mayonnaise sandwich, I got my first real eyeful of the people I actually wanted to be seen with:
They had the unruffled, pale, sleep-deprived look of the city dweller. They all had skipped from the pages of Vogue, especially the metrosexual in the beige turtleneck. It seemed like the girls in the group wore anemia like a badge of honor, one tall and blonde and visibly stuck-up, the other short and sprightly and probably interested in tragic french films. Or starred in tragic french films, with her delicate face and spiky black hair and porcelain frame.
And there was the obvious sports star, built like a fridge with a chiseled Jewish profile, next to whom sat a sulky blonde kid and on the far end--the metrosexual--with tousled reddish-brown hair and pale eyes and good god those eyelashes hallelujah I’m home! These people were cultured. These people were artistic. You could feel the intelligence rolling from their table, like they were in their own little bubble of beta-teen superiority.
Jennifer caught me staring, sandwich halfway to my mouth. “The one who is leaving is Alice Cullen. There’s Rosaline and Jasper Hale, the blondies. Emmett and Edward Cullen. Emmett’s the big guy.”
“They’re related?”
Jennifer lowered her voice. “Adopted.” Her eyes narrowed. “And they’re all together. And they live together.” The green-eyed monster already, Jess? But we’ve only just met!
“Aw, that’s probably just gossip.”
“Yeah like you know, newbie.” Eric chimed in. He was gaining more and more respect from me. Perhaps eventually it would come to fisticuffs between he and I and we’d be fast friends after.
“I could find out.” Damn if I don’t love a challenge. Seven of us all stared good and hard at the group across the lunch room for a long three seconds, long enough for my beautiful Abercrombie Model to glance our way. I caught the attentions of his muted hazel-green set of eyes, and that shit-eating grin that develops when one steals one’s first cookie bloomed full-force all over my face. Angela, of our group, got up to dump her tray and obscured the connection.
“They moved here year before last.” Chimed a group-member helpfully.
Jessica scowled. “Their ‘father’ is Dr. Carlisle Cullen, the new director of FHC. He’s too young to have kids that age, but I guess The Hales are actually related to Mrs. Cullen and she can’t have any kids of her own. So they foster older kids.”
“Hey that’s tough, man. You know the psychology behind that, a kid gets pretty fucked up if they aren’t adopted before the age of six. She probably has a lot of patience and understanding, dealing with that kinda emotional development shit.” What, I watch Jerry.
“I guess.” Jessica looked like maybe she could believe the Cullen/Hale alliance had mental illness working in its favor. Maybe she just agreed so I’d stop cussing. Even Eric looked like he disapproved using such language around a lady. This did seem like a low-profanity environs. I didn’t even find any dirty graffiti on the bathroom stalls, but it was early in the year yet.
Awesome that I wasn’t the only ‘newbie’, though the Cullen/Hale alliance had each other and all I had so far was a humorless Italian and a midget Chula. BUT SHIT MAN, FUCK, I GOT TO PLAY PEEK-A-BOO-EYES ACROSS THE ROOM WITH ABERCROMBIE BOYYYY
You know, that game where you try to catch the other’s eye but look away really quick I love this juvenile shit it was so exciting omg omg omg omg omg next I thought I would pelt him with spitballs and leave anonymous notes in his locker, ufufufufuuuu. But by the time lunch was over he didn’t seem to think the game was cute, and when I got up to clear my tray he was studying me with a ... well, a look of consternation to say the least. Houston, we have a closet case. You’ll find no princess in this here castle.
Angela walked me to Biology II. She was a nice willowy girl with thin blonde hair, shy and polite and in need of many big gay hugs STAT. I did wonder when I’d stop getting escorts to my classes, but apparently the school population is so small that I had at least two classes with the same people in them at all times. Angela sat far away from me (the lab tables are assigned) and I pretended to reach for her across the room, bemoaning our separation. She laughed, but her lab partner glowered.
So did mine.
‘Cos it was Edward Cullen.
*****
You know the saying “The bigger they are, the harder they fall”? The same holds true for intense five-minute infatuations. My inner glee was not only crushed, but metaphorically set on fire and pissed upon by the following class hour. Edward Cullen did everything to avoid me, even inching his chair as far away as possible and keeping his nose in the air like I smelled bad.
Okay, Richey-Rich? Fuck you.
He clenched his fists and never relaxed the whole lecture, acting as if for all the world like he hadn’t been playing visual patty-cake with me moments before. I didn’t have time for this closet-case shit, and no that’s not a conceited way to view the situation! I don’t care how emotionally stunted the dude was just ‘cos his real mom didn’t wanna opt-out coat-hanger style. I wasn’t gonna let him waste my time. (I quailed inside, hoping his siblings weren’t anything like him.)
When the bell rang, I slammed my book shut to show I got the hint already and leaned in (because I knew it bothered him) to say my farewell. “And a good day to you, sir.” Only it was the tone of voice that could have called him anything and actually meant ‘fuckface’. And he knew it.
If looks could kill... had he been that tall at lunch?
Was I actually going to get beaten up my first day at school? It didn’t help that my nervous auto-reaction was a manic monkey grin. So instead of bowing out submissively, I laughed way too loud and bit my thumb at him.
I. Bit my thumb. At him.
And fuck me of course he was the kind of nerdy theater buff to know exactly what that meant. “They call you Charlie Swan?” WHO ARE YOU, RANDOM MUNDANE AND CAN I KISS YOUR FEET?
“Yeah, that’s me.” Trying not to shake as I turn from Mr. Death-in-Versace to address my knight in cotton-polyester armor.
“I’m Mike.” And his name was Mike, and he marched the animals two-by-two into the ark... “I’m in Mr. Mason’s english...”
“Oh.” Trying not to weep in relief as we walk away.
“I’m from Cali.”
Mike from Cali, you are adorable and kind and much tanner than me. “Awwww man, so is it hard getting used to this weather or what?” Laugh, laugh, agree, agree. We have Gym together, too. I had never been so happy to be in gym as I was that day.
“So hey, uh.” What? I thought it wasn’t proper locker-room etiquette to talk to other guys when they were half-naked. “What’d you say to Edward Cullen?”
“Oh maaan, no fucking clue!” I laughed scornfully, pulling the numbered t-shirt over my head. “He... just doesn’t like my face?”
“Well, yeah, there’s holes in it.” (By God, I almost fell over.) “But he‘s usually a nicer dude. His sister‘s in my theater class, and she‘s pretty difficult to offend.”
“You’ve got theater?” I so very much did want to change the subject before I had to admit that I flirted with the guy and he responded... not well.
“It’s an after-school program, yeah. We actually need more dudes to join, not that any of the guys are complaining exactly.” Nudge-nudge, wink-wink broseph. And a week after that is the story of how I got to meet Alice Cullen, who is small and cheerful and tactful and... what, punctual I dunno she has small boobs but she’s still really popular omgSHOCK.
BUT WAIT we are getting ahead of ourselves, my babies. There was an encounter before I left for home. Seeking to get my English class ditched for anything else (maybe fill the morning slot with biology and be anywhere else but next to ol’ Eddie Cull in the afternoon timeslot) I headed for the main office. I had to get in line, so when it was my turn in the ugly little room there was no backing out.
Madame Redhead was dealing with Edward Cullen, while a younger brunette processed the strays milling around complaining about their schedules. I waited in one of the stiff chairs, eavesdropping. He was speaking in a low, urgent voice that would have been alluring had it not been so plaintive. He wanted to trade his biology class with another, any other.
I was almost smug, but mostly stinging that he’d beat me to the punch and that our uncoordinated folly could have landed us in the same class again unawares. My mission rendered totally inane, I got up to leave. A girl pushed the door open and stepped past me--I had to turn to let her through and caught a blast of chilled air that rattled papers in their wire baskets (cabin pressurization, haw). And this is the fucking prize-winner:
Edward Cullen turns to me like I’ve just goosed him, offended and angry and fuck if I know what else. The guy isn’t out of shape, either, and I don’t wait to find out if he gets his schedule changed or not, I fucking gtfo.
*****
02
So, the next day? Charlie Sr. actually made breakfast, which was awesome. Big manly omelettes with bits of steak and spicy onions. I drank my coffee BLACK that morning, shityeah. It was a good fortitude against the anxieties of the rest of the day. Like I could walk up to Eddie Cull and tell him I had a big macho breakfast so he shouldn't fuck with me... (or he'd be getting greasy egg and steak all over his expensive shoes.)
Yeah. Yeah man, yeah.
Also: I never drink coffee and therefore would be more prone to biting in defense 'cos I was just that hyper.
Eric and Mike didn't get along, and I guess I had to mediate that. (CHESS vs SURFING. WHAT.) So it's like we can't be the three amigos, which was MY argument. Sombreros all around, guys! I told 'em both I like to draw and listen to music and it was probably on par with outing myself. ...raised eyebrows all around, guys!
The safety pins are going back in tomorrow.
The trig teacher picked on me, though. I dunno if he had this past beef with my dad (theoretical only) or was just a huge sadistic jerk like all highschool teachers 'cos I didn't even have my hand raised and got the answer wrong when I eenie-meenie-mo'd it. I did tell the man I was bad at math, didn't I? We had a chat after class where he told me to apply myself instead of just giving up and I exercised IMMENSE self-control by not rolling my eyes until I left the classroom. ROLLROLLROLL got a little dizzy and hurt my eyes but I mean JESUS CHRIST.
And all that time I was dreading lunch and Bio class, this sick little rock in my gut that probably had nothing to do with the heavy breakfast kept anchoring me in place. I mean, I don't exactly shy away from confrontation, but a guy like Edward Cullen--what was I supposed to do? On one hand I felt sorry for him. On the other, I didn't want him to recruit his brothers for a Charlie-piñata-day. But mostly I was just mad. I didn't even do anything and I'm treated like a pair of soiled panties one would find on the highway!
AAAUGH I MEAN SERIOUSLY. FUCK HIM. *rage rage rage*
...A side-effect of caffeine is mood swings. I had to Google that shit.
So. Lunch. Surprise surprise I didn't have much of an appetite. Hennifer flirted with Mike but I don't think the boy was receiving. To be fair, she is a tiny scary chula. But in her defense, she was wearing a low-slung top and you could set those bosoms on a pedestal in an art museum. Earth to Mike: you could be gay, buddy.
Also yeah I guess Edward wasn't there. But seriously whatever fuck him.
I waved to Alice Cullen (the tiniest Cullen of them all) on the way out, elbowed by Mike in reminder of the after-school club. And she smiled so I guess I'm not some terrible pervy homo in her eyes. I would see her on Friday, which is when the club officially convened.
He wasn't in Biology either. Maybe he was at home having an emo break down self-image crisis. Heh.
... I didn't want to be responsible for any suicides, though.
Deeepressing!
I mean, looking at the situation seriously: what I told Jennifer on my first day I actually believed. Foster homes are far from perfect, secure places and being gay in a *normal* household is hard enough. Maybe I would ask madame Alice on Friday. Yeah, I just had to bite my nails until then.
Ugh.
I came home to a kitchen full of groceries and the vision of Charlie Sr. in an old grilling apron and bright orange dish gloves, scrubbing the stove out.
"You're just doing that to get high, admit it." I dug around a plastic bag for an apple, as I am a growing boy and constantly need to stuff my fat face.
"Well, it hasn't been cleaned since I last fumigated." Appetite gone. "And it's getting too cold out to use the grill when there's a game on."
"Uhn. Did you wash all the cabinets out, too? And the dishes? And the countertops?"
An exasperated grunt as he stands up from his task. "Yeeees, Chuck. Just forgot the inside of the stove is all. Don't worry so much, pal." He removed a dish glove and found the apple I was looking for, biting into it and smiling at my discomfort.
"I'm gonna... go scrub the bathroom."
"What about homework?"
"It's only the second day!" Disappearing up the stairs before he could lecture me on how school was much harder when he was a kid. You know, before computers were invented.
*****
I was exhausted and covered in various cleaning agents by the time dinner rolled around. Also probably crashing from the caffeine, because I couldn't muster much energy for conversation.
"Making any friends yet?" Dad asked with an appropriate amount of concern over the salad bowl.
"Yeah, Eric and Mike." Chew chew yawn.
"Mike Newton? His family owns a sporting goods store down by the camp grounds."
I laughed a little to myself because only in a town this small could he have known exactly who Mike is. Chances are there wasn't another kid named Mike (or Eric, or Charlie) in the entire providence. It's a definite plus to individuality but a huge minus to personal freedom. You couldn't just show up to school with a different haircut and have it be No Big Deal, because you were the ONLY Mike the school had and they always associated you with Hawaiian shirts and gelled spikes.
"You know who I miss? Mike Henderson." That kid was a fucking riot. "And Carry." My best friend, whom was in all the pictures we had ever posted on Facebook.
"Your mother send you that phone card? You could call them."
I could have called them better still if I had my cellphone, but I wasn't going to bring up that fresh wound. Renee had canceled the contract (and paid the cancellation fee, which was just stupid) just to cut me off from my friends. And then doubled the insult by mailing me a phone card so I could call HER and not run up Charlie Sr.'s phone bill. Big fucking chance. The phone card remained untouched.
"Mmnh. Can I go to the library tomorrow?" With any luck they'd at least have Dial-Up and I could finally update my old crowd. I longed for Carry's acidic wit and looked forward to reading her rants over the situation. It'd be good lawls and I could have someone to whine to about the Cullen situation.
"Well, the weather won't be good for someone who isn't used to driving in it... But I guess you'll have to learn sooner or later."
"Gee, thanks." I suppose I should have felt elated, but bad weather was just so foreign to me that I couldn't help but feel like it was an oppressive omen.
*****
By Friday I had almost forgotten Edward Cullen even existed, except that he had an adoptive sister and she was a terribly fun and interesting person. I was so excited for theater club that I even participated in gym class and managed to give myself a black eye circa Mike's elbow.
It brought us closer together as only athletic injuries can.
AND THEN THERE WAS THEATER CLUB AND IT WAS AMAZING. And actually Alice wasn't even the president, it was some girl named Macy or Gracy or Gabrielle or fuck I don't remember I was too busy spazzing with the other musical buffs over Cabaret showing in Seattle sometime after Christmas (like, a perfect New Year's gift). We were convened in the cleared-out cafeteria, with one large round table all to ourselves and the junk food vending machines humming away happily as they defrosted or whatever it is vending machines do. At one point the president revealed several posters and wanted to keep them out of the reach of graffiti, so Alice was helped onto my shoulders and we lined the entire cafeteria in old-timey Hollywood fliers. It ended with us zooming around pretending to be a warplane gunning down our friends.
I didn't even bring up The Incident, I was having too much of a good time being the center of attention. I was not only the New Addition and a boy at that, but I was from a large city rife with entertainment halls featuring both professional and amateur productions. I was kicking myself on the way to the library (in the perfectly clear if not slightly cold weather, thanks Sheriff) for not getting the chance to herd Alice aside. But everybody had been in each other's conversations, eyes lighting up and voices rising to ecstatic squeals when something particularly awesome was appreciated.
My stomach hurt from all the laughing and it felt like I hadn't been able to be that honest in a long, long while.
Carry's e-mail was disparaging. Apparently my... closing act... left a wide ribbon of destruction down the center of my old social circle, and people were taking sides. It took a special talent, she wrote, to cause that much drama without even being in the same state. I didn't ask her which side she was on, and she didn't ask me about Forks.
So I read an e-mail from Renee, who wanted to know if she should ship me my old portfolios. I was polite and asked if she could hunt up any sketchbooks too, 'cos it didn't look like I'd be able to get to Seattle for shopping any time in the near future. She did ask me how Forks was, and I told her it was exactly like how she left it. She apologized and I signed off.
*****
So I settled. That was my story of settling: finding an appropriate niche and sticking to those people like glue. I encouraged Hen (my widely accepted nickname for Jennifer) and Angela to join theater club, even though girls already outranked boys three to one. And of course Eric already had chess club, which had the exact opposite ratio.
The teachers learned that I was a class clown by default, and that I would behave so long as they didn't put me in the spotlight. It was a working relationship: don't try to embarrass me with oral pop-quizzes and I won't embarrass you with thumbtacks and snark.
BUT THE GREATEST DAY, MY BABIES, WAS WHEN IT SNOWED.
I had never touched snow (I'd seen it in pictures and on TV duh). I wasn't about to tell my classmates that, but they just KNEW. Mike had seen snow because, hello, California has mountains? So I was, like, the Christmas virgin or some other shitty nickname. And then Mike got hit by a snowball in the parking lot by Eric, which was, y'know, shocker, and I got Eric back (not to take sides) with my very first snow-ball.
"YOU POPPED MY SNOWBALL CHERRY, ERIC." Across the parking lot, and it was like someone had shouted 'foodfight'. Only with icy slush instead of mustard and salads. And I was running around too much to really be bothered by the cold, except when the bell rang and we all filed in dripping wet and shivering. Luckily my coat took most of the damage, but I'd have to sit on the radiator if my jeans were to have any hope.
The hypochondriac in me feared pneumonia, but my vanity won out 'cos I looked hella good in that straight-from-the-shower hair style, and like everyone my eyes were bright and my cheeks were rosy from the exercise. Everyone including Edward Cullen, who was shoving Emmett, who had just tucked some snow down the back of his ribbed maroon sweater. I continued briskly to first hour.
Well. At least the guy wasn't dead.
*****
The theater group had taken over the big round table for lunch as well (with Gabrielle getting there early and staking her claim) so that's where I sat, dangerously close to the Cullen/Hale alliance. Alice, being a theater club veteran, sat with her siblings. It didn't seem too terribly snobby when you thought about it--they were family, and probably not too great at making friendly with people who came from normal households. Not that Emmett didn't get googly eyes from the entire cheerleading squad, but who knows... maybe the guy was just shy.
And their entire table was bare of food.
Well... that's. That's just... Weird. "--Charlie!" Black-laquered nails snapping in front of my face.
"Hm?" I was standing over Hen, my tray halfway to the table. I sat.
"Mike's planning a trip to the beach." She filled me in quietly. "But Angela thinks it's too cold for that and Sarah was going to have a party at her house that weekend. What do you think?"
"I think Mike wishes he was still in Cali, and we'd all get hypothermia. Sarah's it is." It was kinda scary how everyone agreed with me, but I'd have to use that power to my advantage before the novelty wore off. I never even got around to setting my piercings back in, though I'd have to sometime soon or they'd heal up (worry number 567: frostbite via facemetal). Mike sulked.
I was halfway through my second helping of lasagna (snowball fights take a lot out of you) when Hen nudged me with a sly grin. "Edward Cullen is staring at you."
"Is he about to throw anything sharp?"
"I don't think so..."
"Then I don't care." And I scooched around the circle so Mike would interrupt his view.
"You know... he never dates anyone."
"I can see why. Man has a terrible personality."
"I mean, he's been asked. Turned all of those girls down."
"Hen, no. No gossip." Like scolding a small dog, condemning finger-point and everything. "Gossip just leads to drama. The bad kind." That, and Jennifer seemed like the kind of girl who wanted to Know It All About Everyone just so she could Tell Everyone Else. Poor Mike wanted to know why I was scolding Hen, and why Edward Cullen kept looking over at him, and why a bonfire at the beach was such a bad idea anyway.
"I'm just saying, miho."
"It's just really none of my business. Or yours! And please don't be one of those people that assumes that I'd be interested in any... anybody who's available. I got standards, same as you."
"Tch. I hope not same as me."
Groan and rolling eyes. "Oh man, you know what I meant."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Shut up, Michello." Hen left her half-finished diet soda and all the olives she picked out of her salad behind for me to argue with.
"What'd I do?"
Siiiiigh. "I think it's what you haven't done, Mike." With Hen's seat vacated, the entire circle loosened up and Mike shifted out of the way as everyone re-settled with more elbow room. And ol' Eddie Cull glanced up from his empty tray at me. I held his stare and shoveled a bite of lasagna (large enough to choke a horse) into my mouth, unconcerned.
Then Emmett shook his snow-damp hair and doused the table and ruined the showdown with laughter. Alice escaped the impromptu dog-in-a-bath treatment and rejoined our less crowded table to hear the verdict on Sarah's party. By then Edward had cleared out and I could finish my meal in peace.
*****
By the time Bio rolled around, it was raining. Nobody was more disappointed than I, since I'd conspired with Eric not moments before to perch in a tree and snipe who we could when school let out. I was even going to empty my backpack and use it as a satchel for the snowballs.
Besides that, my lab partner was back. I'd have to carry less of the work, but I'd also have to be civil. I sat just as Mr. Banner was distributing slides for the microscopes already stationed at every table. One microscope per two students--either that was some sort of budget crisis or fate was just being cute.
"Hello."
I ignored his quiet greeting, though his voice carried that special musical quality of someone educated and speculative.
"I apologize that introductions have been delayed. My name is Edward Cullen."
Good God, he even enunciated properly. What is that, a second-level college vocabulary? I think I preferred it when he was being emo and reclusive. I started to doodle on my folder, resentful brat that I am. If he had offered a hand to shake I'd have bitten it.
"You must be Charlie Swan."
"It's Bernardo." I was competing with the forecast for freezing temperatures. "My friends call me Charlie." And then I did look at him, a cool side-glare I'd perfected at the dinner table with Renee.
He nodded once. "Fair enough. Bernardo." Ooooooh nnnoooooo, don't be all suave and pronounce my name correctly and act all polite and non-argumentative! I'M TRYING TO HATE YOU CAN'T YOU SEE THAT? (How to pronounce Bernardo correctly: Do not make the beginning a "bur" noise. Make it instead a "bair" noise. Bair-naaah-doh. Never call me Bernie I will end you.) <3
"Okay ladies and gents, put your books away and get started."
I slid the microscope in front of myself, assuming that because Edward had been absent he wouldn't know what was going on. He took the quiz sheet and double-clicked his mechanical pencil. (No fair, I totally double-click my pencil because like one just doesn't get enough lead DAMMIT I WANT NOTHING IN COMMON WITH YOUUU.)
"Prophase." I identified. Science was one of my strong points, owing to a brief but memorable love-affair with the sci-fi channel.
"Do you mind if I look?"
YES, I FUCKING MIND. WHAT, YOU THINK I'M GONNA FAIL US BOTH OUT OF SPITE? Eye twitch. I slide the microscope over carefully, as it was heavy and had decaying felt on the bottom of its tiny square legs. "Prophase," he agrees flatly. Had I detected a hint of surprise, I'd have brained him with the fucking thing. He dutifully scrawls the answer in the box it belongs, a looping old fashioned script that makes me wonder if he attended a church-run school in his childhood. Orphanage, church, ye olde english and latin lessons, all that.
Okay, I can pity the fucker but that doesn't mean I have to like him.
I am handing him the next glass slide and we brush knuckles. I jerk my hand back, hissing air in through my teeth. That was some fucking electrical shock--is his sweater all wool or what? He must have felt it too because the slide clatters to the hard black tabletop, chipping a corner and coming to a spin in front of me.
"Jesus." I am shaking my hand to dispel the numbness.
"Sorry," barely audible, because of course it wouldn't be any reason to apologize and maybe he meant for his behavior last week. Maybe he'd been on the rag or off his meds or whatever. Maybe his dog had just died and I looked like the guy who drove the truck. Maybe I am just a sucker for hotties.
We trade out for the rest of the lab, leaving the microscope in place and leaning over to adjust the view while the other writes in the answer. My print is decidedly modern compared to his cursive--it's in all caps, and small, and placed in the center of the box instead of at the bottom-left. We are careful not to touch, but that's more a Guy Thing than it is anything else. Personal space, y'know?
So we finished before anyone else and I was trying in vain to get Angela's attention so I could make faces at her and pretend the guy next to me was still sick at home. I gave up after Banner cleared his throat and announced that students who had finished should bring their results to the front. I didn't even have time to grab the sheet before Edward was walking away with it.
I can't find the words... fit... pants... khaki... ass... walking... tall leggedy ... mff.
I covered my face with my hands and wanted to cry a little. So hot*sob*.
"The rain is a tragedy. I was hoping it would stay cold." His voice was kept low lest it bring Banner's wrath upon us. I peeked over my knuckles to find him frowning at the window, but it was the kind of frown he'd had when we officially first met--like he was concerned and couldn't understand why.
"Well." Quietly crossing my arms on the table and settling my chin over them. "The snow is great. I wish it were the Hollywood kind, though. So it could be warm."
"But then it would be soap."
"Polymer-based fabric shreds, actually."
"You wouldn't be able to eat it... and it wouldn't stick very well so there'd be no snowball fights."
I yawned heavily, stretching my arms out across the desk until my shoulders popped, and curling them under again. "But it'd still look cool. That's why it's great for movies; all the beauty, none of the hassle." I chuckled darkly into my sleeve. "That probably sounded really shallow. I just don't like the cold. Or I'm... not used to it or whatever." Yeah whatever. Stop talking to me. I was wary about the whole conversation, like he was the kind of guy who just couldn't stand someone not liking him, even if he was the one who really didn't like anyone in the first place. So he was making friendly just to be That Good Guy Everyone Likes.
I couldn't, for the life of me, think of a way to pick a fight with him (a verbal one, thanks). Which was rare because aggravating people was my special talent, but he was being perfectly cordial and none too snobby and I just didn't have the energy. Too many surprises. It's why I don't date bipolar guys.
THAT'S IT. He's just bipolar! Probably!
"So why are you here?"
"To get my last mandatory science credit."
"I mean here, in Forks."
"I know what you meant. Don't be so nosy." I buried my head in my arms and faked a snore, well practiced at dodging that question with my peers.
He laughed, a magically musical homo noise like a burbling brook. If there had been any doubts cast by his impeccable vocabulary and sudden changes in mood, let them be trumped by that soft laughter. "Well now you have to tell me."
You just have to try this new cologne, it is omg to die for. "The story is complicated." Shut up.
"I shall try my best to keep up."
"Please, Edward, we've only just met." I lifted my face to bat my eyelashes at him, but stopped mid-flutter when I saw the look he was giving me. Like I was the Sunday morning paper's Sudoku puzzle.
"I'm not the only one who wants to know." His defense was half-hearted and he turned to sulk at the window again, leaning back in his chair with hands in pockets. Half the class had finished with their lab quizzes, and the conversational hubbub was gaining volume.
"Well. You're the only one who has pestered me past the 'it's complicated' line. That's usually a conversational red flag, don'tyaknow."
"Am I pestering you?" He seemed smug about it, aaand how!
"Fuck, I dunno, maybe I should just let that concern squirm around in your brain for a week. You know, the impossibility that you could be less than perfect in someone else's eyes."
Oh, the glaring. That's the Edward Cullen I know. He does not answer so I think I've won and am returning to my nap, but then:
"Enlighten me, could it be anything like the impossibility that last week had nothing to do with you? Or is it so unbelievable that there are other things happening in this town that are unrelated to the Sheriff's only son moving in?" ... Oh, that's cuuuuute.
"Just... how stupid do you want me to be?" I laughed like we were just chums discussing football or whatever so we'd not attract attention, sitting up and cracking my knuckles idly.
"I'd like to pass this class, so not terribly stupid... if you could manage."
And that was the story of how I got sent to the Principal's Office for letting a giant F-bomb loose in the middle of Biology class. It was even an F.U. class, which warranted a call home.
*****
"The guy is unbearable! He's a snob and a jackass and I don't care if he's adopted or if his family's the greatest thing since the Munsters met the Brady Bunch!"
"The Cullens are good people, Bernardo, and Dr. Cullen is the best thing to happen to this town. He could have gone to any hospital in the country--in the world but he followed Esme's wishes to live in a closely-knit community and he came here."
"That's pseudo-political favoritism bullshit! And it doesn't mean I have to play nice with their stupid brat son!"
"No. But you do have to follow basic classroom etiquette. Now, I don't know what they let you get away with down in Phoenix, but in this town things are a little more old fa--"
"Hookers and blow, dad. They drew the line at murder, barely."
"Young man," he was trying not to laugh, gripping the back of the kitchen fold-away till the tin hinges creak. "You need to learn to control that mouth of yours. I hear you're giving teachers lip, too."
"They pick on me."
"Oh, honestly?"
"I don't cuss at them."
A heavy sigh. "Well that's a start."
*****
Good news that night: Renee had mailed me not only my portfolios and a few new sketchbooks, but also my bearings and gauges! It was like meeting old friends when I needed them most, and in they went with only a little difficulty, tugging at my ears and nose and eyebrows and lip with what gravity affected them when I turned my head different angles.
Bad news the following day: Edward Cullen was treating me like I smelled like a wet dog again. And it hadn't snowed overnight, either, so everything was cold and muddy and difficult to look at. Mike was treating me like I was the Dark Knight who just punched Harvey Dent in the face, and could not shut up about how 'hardcore' I was.
"I'm actually a huge wimp. I just wear these things the way butterflies wear like, you know, giant predator eyes and shit on their wings."
"Ha. You are no damn butterfly."
I clapped my hand over his mouth. "Don't say the D-word. They send you to prison for shit like that nowadays." Laugh, laugh, shove, shove.
I made it through Bio class, barely. I addressed Mr. Banner with the idea that I could be Angela's lab partner and he told me the real world didn't work that way, the twat. Edward didn't ask me any more personal questions, though, so that was a definite bonus. Angela passed me a note asking if I had a girlfriend back in Phoenix, and if it was the girl all over my Facebook. Which was a definite... not... bonus.
Banner had the projector set up in the back, right next to our table, and its little cooling fan kept blowing hot, stale, plastic-scented air right in my face. Ol' Eddie Cull kept his hands knuckle-white on the edge of the table, tense as a fuckin' violin string.
Er, I mean 'a darn violin string'.
*****
Only instead of barfing in your shoes, I barfed in your brain.
Here's what the critics have to say:
"i actually told my girlfriend about this! and man, she couldn't stop laughing when i said that i actually liked Chuck so much that i'm overlooking it to be twilight related. but it's written so well though. i love his voice and his being such a total teenager that he feels real."
"As drawn out and useless as it is, it's entertaining. I am very much enjoying your story. Though, I have to admit, as annoying as Bernardo is at times, he's still kind of likable. And if you really want him to be a Gary-Stu then he has to be a black belt in Taekwondo and speak five languages. "
"I have a confession to make.
I think I like Bernardo Charles Swan. A LOT. He is the gayest thing to hit the earth and I love him and. I actually like this a whole lot better than the original books. "
Okay, so it was actually only two people on Y!Gal encouraging me much like one encourages that girl at that party to get up on the coffee table and strip. Only they plied me with nice words instead of beer. (Beer preferred, haha.) But I feel exactly like that chick on your coffee table with her bra in her mouth: I might lose favor with some of you higher-browed sort, but I am having a good time.
No matter how dorky: no regrets.