"BELLA, WHY DON'T YOU TAKE OFF," MIKE SUGGESTED, his eyes focused off to the side, not really looking at me. I wondered how long that had been going on without me noticing.
It was a slow afternoon at Newton's. At the moment there were only two patrons in the store, dedicated backpackers from the sound of their conversation. Mike had spent the last hour going through the pros and cons of two brands of lightweight packs with them. But they'd taken a break from serious pricing to indulge in trying to one-up each other with their latest tales from the trail. Their distraction had given Mike a chance to escape.
"I don't mind staying," I said. I still hadn't been able to sink back into my protective shell of numbness, and everything seemed oddly close and loud today, like I'd taken cotton out of my ears. I tried to tune out the laughing hikers without success.
"I'm telling you," said the thickset man with the orange beard that didn't match his dark brown hair. "I've seen grizzlies pretty close up in Yellowstone, but they had nothing on this brute." His hair was matted, and his clothes looked like they'd been on his back for more than a few days. Fresh from the mountains.
"Not a chance. Black bears don't get that big. The grizzlies you saw were probably cubs." The second man was tall and lean, his face tanned and wind-whipped into an impressive leathery crust.
"Seriously, Bella, as soon as these two give up, I'm closing the place down," Mike murmured.
"If you want me to go��" I shrugged.
"On all fours it was taller than you," the bearded man insisted while I gathered my things together. "Big as a house and pitch-black. I'm going to report it to the ranger here. People ought to be warned��this wasn't up on the mountain, mind you��this was only a few miles from the trailhead."
Leather-face laughed and rolled his eyes. "Let me guess��you were on your way in? Hadn't eaten real food or slept off the ground in a week, right?"
"Hey, uh, Mike, right?" the bearded man called, looking toward us.
"See you Monday," I mumbled.
"Yes, sir," Mike replied, turning away.
"Say, have there been any warnings around here recently��about black bears?"
"No, sir. But it's always good to keep your distance and store your food correctly. Have you seen the new bear-safe canisters? They only weigh two pounds��"
The doors slid open to let me out into the rain. I hunched over inside my jacket as I dashed for my truck. The rain hammering against my hood sounded unusually loud, too, but soon the roar of the engine drowned out everything else.
I didn't want to go back to Charlie's empty house. Last night had been particularly brutal, and I had no desire to revisit the scene of the suffering. Even after the pain had subsided enough for me to sleep, it wasn't over. Like I'd told Jessica after the movie, there was never any doubt that I would have nightmares.
I always had nightmares now, every night. Not nightmares really, not in the plural, because it was always the same nightmare. You'd think I'd get bored after so many months, grow immune to it. But the dream never failed to horrify me, and only ended when I woke myself with screaming. Charlie didn't come in to see what was wrong anymore, to make sure there was no intruder strangling me or something like that��he was used to it now.
My nightmare probably wouldn't even frighten someone else. Nothing jumped out and screamed, "Boo!" There were no zombies, no ghosts, no psychopaths. There was nothing, really. Only nothing. Just the endless maze of moss-covered trees, so quiet that the silence was an uncomfortable pressure against my eardrums. It was dark, like dusk on a cloudy day, with only enough light to see that there was nothing to see. I hurried through the gloom without a path, always searching, searching, searching, getting more frantic as the time stretched on, trying to move faster, though the speed made me clumsy�� Then there would come the point in my dream��and I could feel it coming now, but could never seem to wake myself up before it hit��when I couldn't remember what it was that I was searching for. When I realized that there was nothing to search for, and nothing to find. That there never had been anything more than just this empty, dreary wood, and there never would be anything more for me�� nothing but nothing��
That was usually about when the screaming started.
I wasn't paying attention to where I was driving��just wandering through empty, wet side roads as I avoided the ways that would take me home��because I didn't have anywhere to go.
I wished I could feel numb again, but I couldn't remember how I'd managed it before. The nightmare was nagging at my mind and making me think about things that would cause me pain. I didn't want to remember the forest. Even as I shuddered away from the images, I felt my eyes fill with tears and the
aching begin around the edges of the hole in my chest. I took one hand from the steering wheel and wrapped it around my torso to hold it in one piece.
It will be as if I'd never existed. The words ran through my head, lacking the perfect clarity of my hallucination last night. They were just words, soundless, like print on a page. Just words, but they ripped the hole wide open, and I stomped on the brake, knowing I should not drive while this incapacitated.
I curled over, pressing my face against the steering wheel and trying to breathe without lungs.
I wondered how long this could last. Maybe someday, years from now��if the pain would just decrease to the point where I could bear it��I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life. And, if it were possible that the pain would ever soften enough to allow me to do that, I was sure that I would feel grateful for as much time as he'd given me. More than I'd asked for, more than I'd deserved. Maybe someday I'd be able to see it that way.
But what if this hole never got any better? If the raw edges never healed? If the damage was permanent and irreversible?
I held myself tightly together. As if he'd never existed, I thought in despair. What a stupid and impossible promise to make! He could steal my pictures and reclaim his gifts, but that didn't put things back the way they'd been before I'd met him. The physical evidence was the most insignificant part of the equation. I was changed, my insides altered almost past the point of recognition. Even my outsides looked different��my face sallow, white except for the purple circles the nightmares had left under my eyes. My eyes were dark enough against my pallid skin that��if I were beautiful, and seen from a distance��I might even pass for a vampire now. But I was not beautiful, and I probably looked closer to a zombie.
As if he'd never existed? That was insanity. It was a promise that he could never keep, a promise that was broken as soon as he'd made it.
I thumped my head against the steering wheel, trying to distract myself from the sharper pain.
It made me feel silly for ever worrying about keeping my promise. Where was the logic in sticking to an agreement that had already been violated by the other party? Who cared if I was reckless and stupid? There was no reason to avoid recklessness, no reason why I shouldn't get to be stupid.
I laughed humorlessly to myself, still gasping for air. Reckless in Forks��now there was a hopeless proposition.
The dark humor distracted me, and the distraction eased the pain. My breath came easier, and I was able to lean back against the seat. Though it was cold today, my forehead was damp with sweat.
I concentrated on my hopeless proposition to keep from sliding back into the excruciating memories. To be reckless in Forks would take a lot of creativity��maybe more than I had. But I wished I could find some way�� I might feel better if I weren't holding fast, all alone, to a broken pact. If I were an oath-breaker, too. But how could I cheat on my side of the deal, here in this harmless little town? Of course, Forks hadn't always been so harmless, but now it was exactly what it had always appeared to be. It was dull, it was safe.
I stared out the windshield for a long moment, my thoughts moving sluggishly��I couldn't seem to make those thoughts go anywhere. I cut the engine, which was groaning in a pitiful way after idling for so long, and stepped out into the drizzle.
The cold rain dripped through my hair and then trickled across my cheeks like freshwater tears. It helped to clear my head. I blinked the water from my eyes, staring blankly across the road.
After a minute of staring, I recognized where I was. I'd parked in the middle of the north lane of Russell Avenue. I was standing in front of the Cheneys' house��my truck was blocking their driveway��and across the road lived the Markses. I knew I needed to move my truck, and that I ought to go home. It was wrong to wander the way I had, distracted and impaired, a menace on the roads of Forks. Besides, someone would notice me soon enough, and report me to Charlie.
As I took a deep breath in preparation to move, a sign in the Markses' yard caught my eye��it was just a big piece of cardboard leaning against their mailbox post, with black letters scrawled in caps across it.
Sometimes, kismet happens.
Coincidence? Or was it meant to be? I didn't know, but it seemed kind of silly to think that it was somehow fated, that the dilapidated motorcycles rusting in the Markses' front yard beside the hand-printed FOR SALE, AS IS sign were serving some higher purpose by existing there, right where I needed them to be.
So maybe it wasn't kismet. Maybe there were just all kinds of ways to be reckless, and I only now had my eyes open to them.
Reckless and stupid. Those were Charlie's two very favorite words to apply to motorcycles.
Charlie's job didn't get a lot of action compared to cops in bigger towns, but he did get called in on traffic accidents. With the long, wet stretches of freeway twisting and turning through the forest, blind corner after blind corner, there was no shortage of that kind of action. But even with all the huge log-haulers barreling around the turns, mostly people walked away. The exceptions to that rule were often on motorcycles, and Charlie had seen one too many victims, almost always kids, smeared on the highway. He'd made me promise before I was ten that I would never accept a ride on a motorcycle. Even at that age, I didn't have to think twice before promising. Who would want to ride a motorcycle here? It would be like taking a sixty-mile-per-hour bath.
So many promises I kept��
It clicked together for me then. I wanted to be stupid and reckless, and I wanted to break promises. Why stop at one?
That's as far as I thought it through. I sloshed through the rain to the Markses' front door and rang the bell.
One of the Marks boys opened the door, the younger one, the freshman. I couldn't remember his name. His sandy hair only came up to my shoulder.
He had no trouble remembering my name. "Bella Swan?" he asked in surprise.
"How much do you want for the bike?" I panted, jerking my thumb over my shoulder toward the sales display.
"Are you serious?" he demanded.
"Of course I am."
"They don't work."
I sighed impatiently��this was something I'd already inferred from the sign. "How much?"
"If you really want one, just take it. My mom made my dad move them down to the road so they'd get picked up with the garbage."
I glanced at the bikes again and saw that they were resting on a pile of yard clippings and dead branches. "Are you positive about that?"
"Sure, you want to ask her?"
It was probably better not to involve adults who might mention this to Charlie.
"No, I believe you."
"You want me to help you?" he offered. "They're not light."
"Okay, thanks. I only need one, though."
"Might as well take both," the boy said. "Maybe you could scavenge some parts."
He followed me out into the downpour and helped me load both of the heavy bikes into the back of my truck. He seemed eager to be rid of them, so I didn't argue.
"What are you going to do with them, anyway?" he asked. "They haven't worked in years."
"I kind of guessed that," I said, shrugging. My spur-of-the-moment whim hadn't come with a plan intact. "Maybe I'll take them to Dowling's."
He snorted. "Dowling would charge more to fix them than they'd be worth running."
I couldn't argue with that. John Dowling had earned a reputation for his pricing; no one went to him except in an emergency. Most people preferred to make the drive up to Port Angeles, if their car was able. I'd been very lucky on that front��I'd been worried, when Charlie first gifted me my ancient truck, that I wouldn't be able to afford to keep it running. But I'd never had a single problem with it, other than the screaming-loud engine and the fifty-five-mile-per-hour maximum speed limit. Jacob Black had kept it in great shape when it had belonged to his father, Billy��
Inspiration hit like a bolt of lightning��not unreasonable, considering the storm. "You know what? That's okay. I know someone who builds cars."
"Oh. That's good." He smiled in relief.
He waved as I pulled away, still smiling. Friendly kid.
I drove quickly and purposefully now, in a hurry to get home before there was the slightest chance of Charlie appearing, even in the highly unlikely event that he might knock off early. I dashed through the house to the phone, keys still in hand.
"Chief Swan, please," I said when the deputy answered. "It's Bella."
"Oh, hey, Bella," Deputy Steve said affably. "I'll go get him."
I waited.
"What's wrong, Bella?" Charlie demanded as soon as he picked up the phone.
"Can't I call you at work without there being an emergency?"
He was quiet for a minute. "You never have before. Is there an emergency?"
"No. I just wanted directions to the Blacks' place��I'm not sure I can remember the way. I want to visit Jacob. I haven't seen him in months."