Chapter 5
BPOV
I woke up the next morning with only a slight headache in a room I did not recognize. I looked around and—oh wait, it was my room. It was decorated in varying shades of purple: dark plumb, light violet, and also periwinkle blue, which was very different from the plain white-walls and stuffed animals of my childhood. That must have been Rosalie and Alice's doing, and indeed it was: I found a note saying they hoped I enjoyed the much-needed makeover. How sweet, a housewarming gift—a newly styled room—from the girls in my brother's life.
Alcohol makes my sleep dreamless, I have discovered. It's a useful tool for blocking nightmares, especially ones I don't understand. Last night was the first time since the car accident that I didn't dream; it was also the first time I had been drunk since. Every dream is the same really, I'm in a dark room and I'm screaming but no sound comes out. To me it's scary because I don't know why I'm screaming—it feels too similar to the night of the accident that I have no recollection of.
My head started whirling with memories from the night before. That asshole Cullen guy nearly ruined my first night in Forks. I found my few suitcases by the closet and decided to unpack, hoping I could distract myself from my re-found frustration. After an hour of putting away my clothes in the closet, shelving my books, and arranging the room to my taste, my stomach growled. I looked at the clock and it read 10:07 am. Excellent, I could still get away with eating breakfast!
Before I plodded down the stairs, I looked down at myself to make sure I was wearing something appropriate: oh good, a gray tank top and blue pajama pants. When did I put those on? I wondered. Emmett was in the kitchen eating cereal when I walked in. "Well good morning sleeping beauty! I trust you slept well," he winked.
I gave him an evil smile, and playfully punched his arm. Ouch! I forgot he was much stronger than me as his un-flexed, stationary biceps could hurt my tiny fist. "Har-Har-Har!" I fake-laughed, helping myself to the cereal on the table and milk in the fridge, and sat down on the opposite side of the table from Emmett.
"Sassy in the morning, that's new!" Emmett laughed while I started munching on my frosted-flakes. I merely feigned a smile and continued eating. "So, I saw you and Edward Cullen hit it off last night," he stated, matter-of-factly.
"What!" I scoffed and nearly choked. "That asshole and I did NOT hit it off. He bothered me intensely. I was merely using him for his booze."
"Ah, so he got you all hot and bothered?" Emmett guffawed.
"Shut up Emmett!" I yelled, embarrassed that he would say such a thing. "Where's dad? Fishing?" It was, after all, a Sunday morning.
"Yup, you don't have to worry about him overhearing that you like Cullen, just like every other girl in Forks."
"Emmett! I don't like him! He really pissed me off. Are you friends with that arrogant jerk?"
"Yea, he's not so bad. Plus, he's in our group because he's Alice's brother. Jasper, he, and I are kind of like the three-musketeers in a way. He's a blast to party with and before I was dating Rose, he was a verrrry talented wing-man!"
"Greaaaat."
"So… speaking of people that liked you, Alice thought you were sweet, by the way."
"What? I was drunk when she met me… and probably not very sweet."
"Her best friend is Rose, and I'll be honest: Rosalie can be a bit bitchy to some people from time to time. So to Alice, I'm sure you seemed sweet." Emmett looked at me and I rolled my eyes.
"Well, ok. Oh, tell Rosalie and Alice thanks for the room spruce-up. It was very nice to come home to a room that wasn't styled like I was still twelve."
"No problem. Dad and I thought you might want a change so we enlisted 'the gals' as he likes to call them," he paused to laugh. "They did it all in one day, since you only gave us two day's notice that you were even coming! So… you nervous for school to start on Tuesday?" Emmett asked.
"No. Not really. I mean, it's just high school, right? Been there, done that." It's true that I wasn't nervous, but I also wasn't excited. It was just one more thing I was apathetic about.
"True," he replied, shrugging.
"So, Em. What are you doing today?"
"I'm taking Rose on a date, dinner and a movie: the usual; the last one of the summer. Do you have any plans? Maybe with Edward?" He laughed. If looks could kill, Emmett would have been a dead man from the stare I was giving him.
"Not. Funny. I think I'll just read and finish unpacking or something."
"You could call Alice—I'm not sure what she's doing—or you could also call her step-brother…"
"Give it a rest Emmett! You had your laughs, now cut it out. It's really starting to bother me."
"Oh Izzy-Bear, more a grouchy bear than an Izzy," he skulked. He looked up at me and saw that I was about to correct him when he modified, "I mean, than a Bella." He nervously laughed at himself. His words were truer than he knew. I wasn't the same anymore.
After breakfast Emmett went to take a shower and I was left with the dishes, a task that I had always willingly undertaken. While rinsing off my bowl, I noticed the dust that was in the corner of the counter. When was the last time either of them had cleaned the kitchen? It had probably been a fairly long time. Well, there was no time like the present, seeing how I quite literally had nothing better to do. After I had finished scrubbing the floor into a glistening shine, I decided to move over to the family room and clean that too. I put the works on that house: dusting everything, cleaning the windows till they were practically invisible and vacuumed so forcefully that I thought the carpet might come up.
When I finished cleaning, it was only three p.m. so I took a shower, washing the filth of the house off me before I went to the store for groceries. Upon cleaning the kitchen, I had discovered the serious lack of food in the fridge and pantry. I had also discovered a long-forgotten and particularly dusty cabinet of alcohol. Charlie had bottles upon bottles that were dusty and only a quarter empty. I figured that they were from the time of the divorce, when my mother had taken Emmett and me to Arizona to start her new life. Clearly now-a-days Charlie preferred his beer because that was about the only thing other than condiments in our fridge. I thoroughly dusted the alcohol cabinet and relieved Charlie of a few bottles of the multiples he had. He'd never miss them and I needed something to fill my flask with. After all, I couldn't count on Edward Cullen to give me booze all the time. Normally, I do not condone stealing and would have felt extremely guilty, but somehow in my new apathetic ways I truly didn't care.
By the time Charlie came home around 5:30 I had dinner on the stove: fried chicken, Charlie's favorite mashed potatoes, a salad, and sautéed green beans. Walking in, removing his boots, Charlie called "Woo-ee! That smells good Bells! I forgot you could cook." He rounded the corner coming into the kitchen, smiling my favorite crinkly-eyed smile. "And you cleaned too!" I didn't do it for the praise, but I had to admit that it felt nice having my hard work being admired.
"Well, Emmett's out with Rosalie and I thought… well, maybe we could have dinner together."
"That's sweet, Bella."
Charlie and I ate together in near silence: both of us enjoying the food and the un-forced conversation. It felt like a tradition in the making, Charlie and I together while Emmett was with his girlfriend. It was strange how comfortable I felt eating with my dad when I had been so uncomfortable for the past few weeks with my mom and Phil. Everything with them was forced, but with Charlie, it was easy and natural. I had never realized how much alike we were in temperament, well, before the accident. Everything about me was either a before or after trait; it felt like I was living that way: keeping traits from before and making new ones from after. I hated how much this silly accident had affected my life, but I couldn't fight it. I didn't feel like my old self and there was no way to explain why; I didn't even know who that was.
The Monday before school started Emmett and I laid around all day, enjoying the clean house and each other's company while Charlie was at the station. Later in the evening Rosalie came over and brought with the Definitely, Maybe DVD. Although I found Ryan Reynolds particularly attractive, I got the feeling that Rose wanted to watch it alone with my brother to have some… alone time. I'm not one to miss out on any subtle hints, so I excused myself and went to my room, feigning fatigue. It was, after all, about 9:30; that was a decent time to be tired, right? Anxious about my first day at Forks High School the following morning, I put in my Sleep Mix CD and took a couple shots of Jack Daniels which lulled me into a dreamless slumber.
