twi saga | Page 2

so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food
in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got
lost, but still…
"I want to go," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, but I' d been saying this
lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost con vincing now.
"Tell Charlie I said hi."
"I will."
"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come ho me whenever you
want — I'll come right back as soon as you need me."
But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind th e promise.
"Don't worry about me," I urged. "It'll be great. I love you, Mom."
She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and
she was gone.
It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, an other hour in a small
plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive ba ck down to Forks.
Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Charlie, though, I was
a little worried about.
Charlie had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed
genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with hi m for the first time
with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for
high school and was going to help me get a car.
But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what
anyone would call verbose, and I didn't know what t here was to say
regardless. I knew he was more than a little confus ed by my decision —
like my mother before me, I hadn't made a secret of my distaste for
Forks.

When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen
— just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.
Charlie was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too.
Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary
motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcit y of my funds, was
that I refused to be driven around town in a car wi th red and blue lights
on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.
Charlie gave me an awkward, one-armed hug when I st umbled my way
off the plane.
"It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically caught
and steadied me. "You haven't changed much. How's R enée?"
"Mom's fine. It's good to see you, too, Dad." I was n't allowed to call him
Charlie to his face.
I had only a few bags. Most of my Arizona clothes w ere too permeable
for Washington. My mom and I had pooled our resourc es to supplement
my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk
of the cruiser.
"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he anno unced when we were
strapped in.
"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for
you" as opposed to just "good car."
"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."
"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La P ush is the tiny
Indian reservation on the coast.
"No."
"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Charlie prompted.
That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of
blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory .
"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "so
he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me h is truck cheap."
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of e xpression that this
was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.
"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine — it 's only a few years
old, really."
I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to belie ve I would give up that
easily. "When did he buy it?"
"He bought it in 1984, I think."
"Did he buy it new?"
"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties — or late fifties at the
earliest," he admitted sheepishly.
"Ch — Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able
to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't af ford a mechanic…"

"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that
anymore."
The thing ,