Chapter Text
Bella
MY MOTHER DROVE ME TO THE AIRPORT with the windows rolled up. It was a testing seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a cloudless blue, the sun reigning high. She had asked earlier if I was okay with the heat quickly kicking in the car, dampening the back of her neck. I was. Even if I had worn the thickest sweater in my closet, the heat wouldn’t have bothered me. The top I was wearing now, the light, eyelet lace shirt she loves, was simply to soothe my mother through this new life-altering decision I was about to embark on.
She didn’t believe me when I told her that I had left my parka at home. There was no sense in it given where I was going, to a small town located in the Olympic Peninsula of northwestern Washington. Forks. Tiny, dead-end Forks rarely saw the brilliance of the sun, let alone a sweltering day. It was from this town that my mother took me, a baby of a few months, and fled from its seemingly never endless rains, leaving my father Charlie in the process. Since then, I had traveled back and forth between the sun and clouds.
What my mother Renée didn’t know was that I had never left the warmth during any of these trips. All there was inside my carry-on was a cookbook and a car magazine filled with tips on how to optimize your automobile. No parka.
Forks, Washington held warmth. And with great, swelling anxiety, I had decided to return once more and make it my permanent home.
Which, of course, made a former Forks escapee more than a little nervous.
“Bella,” my mother said to me at the airport, “Are you sure about this?”
I looked at Renée, a wide-eyed woman who wore the same dark brown hair and widow’s peak I do, the same mousy face and pale skin, except hers was always a little red on her nose and shoulders on account of the sun. Renée loved the sun, and I did too, but I’d had seventeen years of it alongside her, and now it was Charlie’s cloudy skies and rainy days I quite earnestly yearned for. Though the thought of leaving my scatterbrained, too-flighty mother alone with her new husband did rack me with taught nerves, it didn’t change my mind about my decision. I loved her and I loved taking care of her for all these years, but it was a perfect time for her to fly the nest.
“Yes, absolutely. It'll be the best thing for you and Phil. You can travel with him and his team for his matches, and I’ll always be a call and an email away. Anytime,” I reassured.
She wasn't convinced.
"I don’t want you to think you’re being a burden on me. If you decide to come home, I’m flying right back to Arizona,” she said, but I could tell she wanted to be with Phil and his baseball team as much as she wanted to be with me. It was in the way she caressed her car keys. The fidgeting of her fingers, the impatience. It would be better if I chose this new fork in our paths for her so she didn't feel the guilt of wanting to be anywhere other than at this airport that reminded of her of the place she asked from.
“I don’t think that. Love you, Mom.”
“I love you too.” She hugged me before I got on the plane. “Say hi to Charlie for me.”
“I will.”
And then I was on a flight, on a new path, and she was gone.
The way to forks was as familiar to me as the gray-blue veins that stuck out like tracks on the back of my hand. It was four hours from Phoenix to Seattle, and then an hour flight from Seattle to Port Angeles, and finally, an hour drive from there to Forks. In total, I had six hours before my life became more than taking care of my mother and reading my beat-up copy of Wuthering Heights. I had to stop myself from counting down the minutes painfully, from nervously tapping my feet until my neighboring passengers asked to have me escorted off the plane for being such a nuisance.
I couldn’t really help it. A whole new world awaited me, and I wasn’t too keen on the waiting time. But I tried my best to lessen the burden by fussing over a cookbook, memorizing the author’s favorite ingredients, and critiquing where I felt she was lacking. It helped me remain calm, even though the excitement and the nerves never truly ceased to return if I let my mind wander vacantly.
There had been a time where I hated the mere idea of abandoning Phoenix for Forks. My car rides with Charlie had been awkward and ridden with my preteen snobbery. Why did I have to let go of the sun and the city for some dead-end town in the middle of nowhere? When I turned fourteen, I swore I was going to put my foot down and end the needless back and forth. But that never happened. At fourteen, I’d found what Forks truly had to offer.
When I arrived in Port Angeles, it was raining, and I snorted to myself at its predictable welcome. The few people scattered around the gates looked about as enthusiastic as I did back when I first started commuting. They wore thick jackets and hats, the colors washed out in gray as the light from the windows cloaked them in Port Angeles’ dreary aura. I would be lying if I said I didn’t pity them. I could feel the chill start to prick me too, but I knew it wouldn’t last.
The parking lot was mostly empty when I got there. It was maybe two or three steps before I heard the obtrusive blaring horn of a vehicle. I had to bite down my smile and turn slowly before I faced the origins of the sound.
Of course, annoying brats, I thought as I saw them.
Headlights approached, and so did a gaggle of boys behind the wheel and on the bed of a large, faded brown and white Ford pickup from heavens knows what century.
My father Charlie was covering his ears and grinning inside, as the men whooped, whistled, and hollered when they saw me. The person blaring the horn didn’t pause even as I started running toward them.
That's when I tripped.
And that’s when the blaring stopped. It soon became replaced with roaring laughter, and I heard my friend Quil distinctly rumble, “the Charlie genes are kicking in,” before two sets of hands helped me up from the floor. One was my father’s, and the other pair of nearly simmering warm fingers belonged to the driver, who stepped back to assess me.
“Minor damage,” he said, “You think we might have to return it, Charlie?” At this, I sent a not-too-effective glare at the enormous, long-haired sixteen-year-old shaking his head pitifully at me. My best friend Jacob Black. Oh, how good it felt to see them all.
Charlie stood back too, placing his hands on his hips, but unlike Jacob, he couldn’t keep his sincerity and excitement from taking over the same soft brown eyes I have. His curly brown hair is one aspect of him I wished I had inherited too. He was about six inches smaller than the significantly younger, six-foot-seven boy beside him.
“Dust her off. She’ll be good as new. Come here, Bells,” he said. He extended his arms, and I scoffed before throwing myself into his hug.
When I pulled away, Jacob and I stared at each other with similar bored, disaffected expressions. It lasted for all of five seconds before his grin cracked first. The two of us bumped fists and smushed into a hug. I breathed in the smell of red cedar and earth, a combination that no one back in Phoenix seemed to master.
“Lookin’ good, Bella!” called another boy as big and as tan as Jacob. Quil Ateara was nearly unrecognizable from last year when he was five foot nine and lanky. He was one of Jacob’s high school friends and had an obvious like for teasing. His hair was a shaggy mess nearly covering his eyes. “Were you trying to impress me?”
Beside him, Embry Call was another sixteen-year-old still a fair bit larger than my father. He slapped the boy's chest, smirking. “This was her trying to avoid you. She thought no one would recognize her, huh Bella?”
I peered down at my shirt and jeans, thinking I looked about as normal as I usually did, maybe even underdressed considering the weather, but I guess my shirt was a little nicer than my clothing at Charlie’s house. My house.
The last of the gargantuan boys to speak was Paul Lahote, who had trimmed his long hair to his shoulders from when I had last seen him. He patted the space next to him on the rim of the truck’s cargo bed. “Hey, Bella. You can sit up here if Jacob’s too-fat bottom doesn’t leave you any space.” Predictably, the boy in question replied with a curse and a snarl. Together, the four teens made an usual pack. Everyone in Forks knew them to be part of the La Push region, the village holding two Native American reservations now, one of which was the Aki Tribe, Jacob’s people. I knew them as my friends.
Charlie took my carry-on and guided me towards the truck, warning the boys that the hour-long drive back would be rainy and cold. Like school children, they monkeyed around, swatting and teasing each other about their supposed but non-existent crushes on me, and then as soon as the car came in contact with the rain, they hooted and howled like chimps as the droplets came crashing onto their heads. Charlie grimaced apologetically, while I could do nothing but grin. He rubbed my arms up and down as if we didn’t have a roof over our heads to protect us from the cold.
Throughout the drive, I leaned on Jacob and nabbed the comforting heat from his helpful arm. He didn’t mind. His favorite thing was pretending that my hair smelled like a wet dog’s, sniffing really loudly for the added theatrics. I bit my retaliation down in front of Charlie. Jacob would sooo get what was coming to him, and he knew me well enough to expect it. In fact, Jacob knew me better than Charlie at this point in my life, which is to say that as far as best friends go he knew my likes, dislikes, my preferences for movies, meals, books. Relationships.
“You’re going to freak when I show you the project I’m working on, Bella,” he said. “Sorry, Charlie. Need to know bases only.”
“Whatever it is, no parties and no boys."
Jacob snickered quietly. He leaned down to whisper in my ear as best as he could while driving. “Heard that Bella? No boys. ”
“Jacob’s a boy.” I reminded him and my dad too quickly.
Charlie said, with all the sincerity I knew he kept regarding this topic, “Jacob’s fine. He’d make a great boyfriend for you.” And with a little less sincerity, he gave us a curt little OK sign with his thump.
“Ew, Charlie.”
“Disgusting.”
Though the boys in the back couldn't possibly have heard us through the rain, their whistles and coos chimed in at too perfect a time. Dad looked out the rear window, wondering what had set them off this time, but all he could see was their blurry figures obfuscated by the weather.
When we arrived at Forks, the rain had become nothing but scattered drizzles. Quil, Embry, and Paul went off running into the woods, tossing “see you laters” at me and “thanks Chief Swan” at my dad before being taken by the trees around us. Dad lent me his windbreaker as I exited Jacob’s truck, but he stopped short of leading me into the house.
“I rearranged the place when you told me you were, uh, planning to move here permanently,” he said, slowly, carefully.
“You didn’t have to do that for me.”
“I’m telling you because one of the legs to your bed snapped off,” he confessed. That explained the bashfulness. I knew he felt bad because one of the things I used to complain about the most before I decided to stay here was my bed.
Jacob came up beside me. We both leaned on the truck parked on the curb. “Don’t worry, Charlie. If you want, I can get it fixed up?”
“No, no, I was wondering if you could entertain her for a while so I can get things in order.”
We both gave each other a look. This was perfect, exactly what we needed right now. I wanted to make the fifteen-minute drive to La Push, but more than that, I wanted to chase after the boys who had run into the forest. I felt the excitement thrum in my chest, beat widely in my heart, so much so I was sure the person beside me could hear it.
Jacob said, “That’s a good idea. I’ll have her back by ten. Oh, and, we can show her the surprise too.”
Charlie shared a knowing smile with my best friend. He knew what this surprise was, obviously.
“Alright, be careful. Roads are still wet.”
Jacob and I wouldn’t be taking the roads for long. The short drive ended somewhere along the U.S 101, the truck stopping far enough off the highway to pose no serious threat to other cars. He and I went off into the woods on foot, him silently trudging along and me cracking every twig in the vicinity of my sneakers. We didn’t head for trails or camps, or the La Push road that had to be nearby. Our journey would stop when Jacob knew it was time for it to do so.
When I was fourteen years old, I thought I would never come back to Forks ever again. I missed my mother, the sun, the big city, and the bustle of people at every corner. It makes you feel like you’re a part of something, and for a girl like me, someone who spends their time reading, cooking, and cleaning, feeling a part of something is important. At fourteen, I didn’t want to be anywhere that could remind me of how unspecial I am.
I remember it had been a particularly boring day when I ventured out into the woods by myself. I had everything a fourteen-year-old could need to survive out in the wilderness, minus the knowledge necessary to use any of it. I’d hiked myself into the darkness, the trees engulfing my frail body, becoming so dense that the few rays of golden, falling light that broke from the canopies seemed like godly signs to keep going further, and further. It didn’t occur to me that I was lost until I was tired and wanted to go home, but home had been swallowed by the sky-scraping trees and their thick trunks.
I’d cried. I was angry at Mom and Charlie and myself for letting me go on this suicidal adventure, for bringing me to this quiet town that ate at the sun the way I did my last few crackers. I’d held onto my knees and sat under a single patch of light that I knew wouldn’t last when either the Forks weather or the nighttime came around. Tears glistened like jewels against my cold white hands, sliding down to the ground. I knew Charlie wouldn’t find me. I’d walked farther on this journey than any of the ones we’d been on together.
I had all but signed my own death certificate when something approached me. Two big eyes. One long mouth. Great big teeth. It moved in the darkness like a ripple, like dark silk blowing in the wind. When it stepped out into the sun, I realized it was a wolf.
“Khr! Earth to Bella Swan, do you read me?” Jacob said, drop-kicking me away from my mental wanderings.
“Oh, sorry.”
“No harm done. Yet.” He grinned, shoed me away, and cracked his fingers, giving himself an air of professionality. What a drama queen. “Now, stand back.”
I grinned too and did as I was told.
I watched Jacob Black shudder under the murky gray of the afternoon. He wasn’t cold. The snaking of protruding veins around his arms was from the effort it took him to ease himself to the forest floor. I’ve been told the hardest part is making sure you land on your front feet. The second hardest is doing it without tearing through your clothes.
“Um, shouldn’t you take off your —”
But Jacob exploded, or rather his outfit did, shredding into millions of little white and gray pieces like confetti. Not even the sneakers I bought him for Christmas last year were safe. The ground would be littered with his last good pair for a week, or at least until I felt guilty enough to return and clean it up. It didn’t help that when Jacob landed on the ground, his massive form scattered the debris into the air and surrounding woods.
Standing before me was a brown wolf the same size as the midnight black beast I’d seen three years ago. It was about as big as a bear, shaking like a dog freshly out of a shower. It circled around me once it had regained its senses, and then it huffed and puffed proudly. Showing off. Jacob was Jacob no matter what form he took.
I crossed my arms. “You’re quicker than before. That’s bad news for your next set of tighty-withies.”
He let his tongue loll out the front of his mouth, pulling back his cheeks to reveal his teeth the size of my hand. His laugh. The foliage rustled around us, like the wind was joining in on the fun. Jacob circled once more, before crouching on his hind legs. That was my cue.
“Not too fast, okay?” I came closer, and he exhaled loudly. My legs gripped either side of his abdomen, close to his haunch. As soon as I felt safe enough, I said in retaliation for the truck ride, “Wow, someone smells like a wet dog.”
He shot into the woods.
I screeched, the echoes fading behind me long before I could properly hear them. It’s been two years since Jacob first changed, three since we met and became friends, and nothing about this has gotten easier. But it remains my single biggest masochistic pleasure to race through the trees, to hold onto Jacob’s back while I’m struggling to keep my eyes open, knowing that he’s cackling like a maniac on the inside.
Three years ago, a black wolf saved me from the darkness and brought me to the daylight. Or more specifically, left me on the road where Jacob's truck now idles. The strange being had no intention of letting me into his secret, but I was old enough to know the wolf had gone the same direction Jacob was heading in now. I’d followed. I’d followed and found a place that could shred away my mundaneness, make me unusual.
Forks, Washington was the very definition of unusual.