Chapter Seven
I was at a loss of what to do.
Here was this broken girl, laying down in front of me, crying her eyes out over something I knew nothing about. My entire being wanted to comfort her, but I didn't know how to go about doing that and Renee was apparently oblivious to what was happening, because I could hear her chanting something in the kitchen down the hall.
Bella's sobs turned into hiccups and it reminded me of when Alice and I were children and Alice would get upset to the point where she would start gagging. I really hoped that Bella didn't start that because I am a sympathetic puker. Hell, you can talk to me about it and I'll be hugging a toilet.
I tried to talk to her, but there was no way that she heard me over the sounds of her sniffles and other noises. I placed my hand back on her shoulder in an effort to get her attention and she pulled her hands away from her face before looking at me. Her eyes were puffy and red, still leaking tears, as if someone had turned on a faucet under her eyes, and her nose was running, but to me she was still pretty.
I managed to sit her up so that I wasn't kneeling anymore and we sat together very closely on the couch. In an effort to comfort her, I gently placed my arm around her shoulder and smiled inwardly as she snuggled into me. I could have sworn that I heard her take a whiff of my shirt as she cried silently, but I let it go. We sat quietly for a little while before I heard the oven timer go off and Renee start to skip around the kitchen. Bella giggled softly before pulling out of my embrace and standing up.
"We should eat some lunch. I take it the two of you finished without me?" she asked.
"Yeah, um... your mom said you'd be out for a while," I answered bashfully.
"That's alright. I appreciate it. I'm hungry though." She rubbed her flat stomach before walking down the hall towards the kitchen, her walking cast making a small 'plop' sound.
Like a lost and confused puppy, I followed her. In a way I was lost. I had no idea what to do next. I could feel myself falling for a girl that was clearly warring with her own emotions and had other things to worry about. More important things than me. I was lost because I had no idea where to go from here. I had never been in this predicament before and never wanted to be there for a girl in a 'non friend' sort of way. I had no idea how to differentiate from the two.
I was confused because of the way she acted around me. She had yelled at me and clearly never wanted to see me again after she caught me snooping that day. Yet she was completely hospitable towards me today and was using me as an emotional crutch when she clearly couldn't stand on her own a few minutes ago. I was confused because she obviously needed a friend at this point and my brain wouldn't allow me to only be that. I was constantly fighting the actions that were trying to make their way to the surface. I wanted something more than friendship with her, and it confused me because it didn't bother me that of all the people in this town, I had picked the one that had issues.
"Edward can you grab three glasses please?" Renee asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.
"Yes ma'am," I nodded, walking to the cabinet she pointed at.
We dished out our pizza after Bella cut it with a fancy pizza cutter and we sat around the island, Renee on one side, Bella and I on the other. The pizza was by far the best I had ever tasted and I swallowed the thoughts of me finding a girl that knew how to cook, unlike Emmett and Jasper. Bella wasn't my girl, as much as I wanted her to be, and I had no idea how to go about making her mine.
Renee spent twenty minutes trying to teach Bella and I how to fold our napkins into tiny origami birds, but gave up stating that her kindergartners were quicker learners than we were. Bella had only eaten a slice of pizza and the tomatoes out of her salad, but that seemed to please Renee as she cleared our plates. I got the feeling that that was more than Bella had eaten in one sitting for a while.
I offered to help clean up, but Bella shook her head and asked her mom if we could go sit out front. They shared a look, Bella's hollow and void of emotion, while Renee's was sad, but happy at the same time, if that was possible. Renee hugged her daughter briefly before sending a reassuring smile my way.
"Go ahead you two. You practically cooked everything, so of course I'll clean up." She then turned on an ancient radio that was
sitting on the window sill and starting bopping at the Celtic bag pipe music that was on. Bella gave me another 'told you she was nuts' look before leading the way out to the front porch.
The bubble machine was still going, but had run out of solution, so Bella tapped it with her good toe, turning it off, before sitting on the porch swing and patting the seat next to her for me. I sat cautiously and waited. Finally, Bella spoke up.
"I can imagine you have plenty of questions, especially after you've seen the way I act," she said quietly.
"I do. But I know you will tell me in your own time," I answered honestly. I shrugged in a way that said I didn't care if she told me now or not, even though the mystery was eating me alive. "I want you to know that I want to be your frie-"
"I want to tell you now," Bella said quickly, cutting me off.
"If you want." I gestured for her to begin. Bella looked into my eyes before turning to stare at the yard.
"I grew up in Forks. I'm sure you know that the whole town knows I'm from Washington," she smiled sadly. "My parents were young when they had me. They had fallen in lust and married on a whim, and I was the consolation prize.
"Growing up I had the normal upbringing, believing my mother was the most wonderful thing on the planet and that my dad was about as awesome as Superman, but as I grew older I saw that they were falling apart. I was like sticky tape holding them together and as I got older, the worse it got for them. It wasn't that they hated each other. They just outgrew one another.
"About a month before my sixth birthday, they sat me down and informed me that they were getting a divorce. My mom was going to try to find a job at any school that was hiring, and the day after my birthday, she packed up her things and moved here. I was given the choice to go with her or stay with my dad, Charlie, and I decided in the end to stay in Forks for many reasons." Her voice cracked and she wiped away a tear before it could fall down her cheek.
"One of them being that I was in the middle of my school year, and couldn't bare the whole 'new kid' status," Bella said, taking a deep breath. "The other reasons were Jake and Vanessa.
"Our parents used to joke that we were best friends, the Three Musketeers, while we were still in the womb. They went to the school on the reservation at the edge of town and I went to the regular elementary school, but that lasted only a few days before I was begging my mom and dad to allow me to go to school on the reservation. It helped that my Jake's dad was the chief of the Quileutes and he was able to pull some strings. I was the first 'pale face' there, but no one ever made me feel different. If anything, I was just as much a Quileute as the rest of them," she laughed softly.
"Eventually Vanessa and I turned into women and Jake's scrawny ass grew overnight into a man. It was like one minute we were all sitting around the local diner joking about his squeaky voice, and the next I was walking into Vanessa's room to find them shoving their tongues down each other's throats. They were terrified that I would be mad, so they had hid it from me, but it didn't bother me at all. I was hurt for a hot minute, but I got over it because I saw how absolutely happy they were and I was happy for them. They never once made me feel like the third wheel and I was grateful for that, even though I felt so lonely when they would go off to do their own thing as a couple."
"I know how you feel there," I interrupted. "I've grown up with Rosalie, Alice, Jasper and Emmett. Once everyone started getting together I was afraid that they would wake up one day and realize that I was the fifth wheel, but it hasn't happened so far and they've been together forever. Of course that doesn't stop my sister from trying to set me up with every eligible bachelorette in the city."
"Jake would scare anyone with a penis away from me," Bella laughed sadly. "I went to Junior Prom with the two of them because no one asked me. It was kind of awkward, but they included me in everything. People sort of stared when we danced together to 'Keep On Lovin' You,' and the principal was calling us over, trying to get our prom pictures taken together in a group of three instead of the regular couple. I still have mine. Vanessa and Jake were buried with theirs." Her voice was hollow again and she now had her eyes closed. I reached out and slowly took her hand in mine, but she was too far gone to realize; it clung limply in mine.
"When we were finally seniors, Charlie and Vanessa and Jake's parents were a little more lenient on curfews. We never went to parties just because it wasn't our scene. Instead we did things like go play a game of golf on a winter day because we knew no one would be out on the green, or bowling on a Wednesday night because we could. On the weekends we drove into Port Angeles, a town about an hour away from Forks and we'd shop at this thrift store for vintage clothing, or go to the local cinema and watch movies that had been out for weeks, just so that we could have the theatre to ourselves."
I could see tears start to pour down her cheeks, but she continued.
"One weekend right before the first report cards came out, we decided to head out to Port Angeles for the day because Vanessa was failing math and Jake had gotten a bad grade in art. We were afraid that they were going to get grounded, so we wanted to go out with a bang before that could happen, in case it'd be a while before we could do anything together.
"We spent hours in this giant Salvation Army trying on clothes and finding old things that no one wanted or cared about anymore. Vanessa found her prom dress and was thrilled to buy it so early, and Jake had found a huge bag of suspenders and bought them because he was set on starting his own trend.
"It was late. The movie we had gone to see had a few technical difficulties, so we had to wait longer than we thought." Her hand clenched around mine unconsciously and my heart clenched. She had already told me that they were dead, but it just hit me that she had been there.
"Jake's car was this decrepit old Chevy Impala, that we called Christine, and at the drop of a hat, the radio would change stations or the windshield wipers would start going. When he had first gotten his driver's license, it was a big deal for Vanessa and I to fight over who got shot gun, but after they started dating, I just gave it to her using the fact that I liked to stretch out in the backseat as an excuse.
"It was raining when we left the theatre, so Jake, being such a gentleman, ran to the car and pulled it up to the entrance so that we wouldn't get completely soaked. We took turns calling our parents first, Vanessa's, then Jake's, and then Charlie, to let them know we were running late. I had planned on spending the night with Vanessa anyway, but I wanted to let Charlie know."
Bella's voice trailed off and we sat in silence before she turned towards me and opened her eyes. Warm chocolate brown eyes with small hints of red flecks around the irises stared into my soul so intensely that I couldn't look away. It surprised me when she started talking, but maintained eye contact with me.
"I had just gotten him at the station and was letting him know what was going on when I heard Jake scream and saw him throw himself in front of Vanessa right at the same moment that a semi truck hit us head on." She flinched and so did I. "The driver was swerving to avoid hitting a car that had broken down and didn't see us. Jake had seen it, but knew it was too late to swerve out of the way and try to protect Vanessa. Christine was no match for a semi truck. All I remember is screaming for Charlie before everything went black."
Bella shuddered, but still hadn't blinked. I could tell that she wasn't here sitting in front of me. Instead she was sitting in the back of that car.
"I woke up before the ambulance got there. The woman in the car that had broken down was the one that called 911. She was helping the driver of the semi because she thought we were all dead," her voiced tapered off to just a whisper before she cleared her throat. "I remember screaming for Jake and Vanessa. There was so much blood; I was choking on it from my broken nose and it was pouring out of my arm."
She lifted up her arm that was still bandaged. "But they were so much worse. I screamed so loudly when my eyes finally focused on them, that by the time they were able to cut me out of the car, I had lost my voice. I had to watch them open the car with the Jaws of Life like it was a sardine can, and then pull my best friends out of the front seat. Their bodies were mangled and bent in impossible ways, but I still had hope. It wasn't until the paramedics pronounced them both dead that it hit me. They were both dead.
"The next thing I knew I was waking up in a hospital bed with Vanessa's, Jake's and my parents in the room. I tried to pretend like I was asleep because I was afraid that if I looked at them it would be true. I wanted to believe that it was all a nightmare."
I pulled Bella's sobbing body against mine, rocking her back and forth and shushing her. I couldn't see her hurting like this because it hurt me, too. More than she would ever know.
"I had woken up two weeks after the accident," she whispered against my chest. "Both of my best friends were gone and I had missed their funerals. I used to be so happy, Edward. The happiest. I was just like my mother, always happy even during the bad times, but now I'm just broken. I can't laugh or smile without feeling guilty."
She pulled away from me and reached under the collar of her shirt, pulling out a long chain with a small diamond ring hanging from it. "Jake had worked all summer at his uncle's barber shop sweeping up hair and disinfecting combs to buy this for Vanessa. He was planning on giving it to her for Christmas as a promise ring. A promise that they'd be together forever." Her voice broke and she started to cry uncontrollably and it was impossible for me to console her, to stop the grief. "I wasn't even able to be there to give it to her for him, Edward. She was buried in the ground not knowing that he wanted to marry her one day."
"She knew, Bella," I said calmly, though my voice was thick with emotion. "You have to stop feeling guilty about being happy though. They wouldn't have wanted you to turn out like this. A hollow shell of what you used to be."
Bella pulled her hand out of mine like I had burned her. "No. You don't know what you're talking about." She stood up and stared at me angrily. "Why couldn't it have been me? I can't be happy without them, Edward."
"I can be here for you," I replied, standing up and trying to walk towards her, but she backed away.
"No. You can't. I can't have friends anymore. I can't lose anyone else." Her sobs were back in full force and her tears were still pouring down her cheeks.
"Bella. I want to be-
"No Edward! I don't want you to!" she cut me off, holding her shaking hands up. "Just go home Edward. Please. I thought that this would be different, that talking about it would help me, but instead it's worse. The pain I feel is worse. I'm broken. I'm not good for you." She clutched her heart and started to hyperventilate.
"Bella. Please." I didn't even realize that tears were pouring out of my eyes.
"I can't Edward!" she cried. "No one will ever take their place!" She turned away and hobbled inside as fast as she could with her walking cast. The screen door slammed shut and I stood there completely broken. I walked over to the screen door just as she started up the stairs.
"You say you're broken, Bella?" I called.
She stopped, but didn't turn around to acknowledge me.
"That you're never going to allow someone to take their place? But I wanted to help you. To fall in love with you, but never EVER try to take their place. But I see now that that was just a waste. You're not the only one that's broken by all of this Bella."
And with that I turned and ran down the street.
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