twi saga | Page 3

I thought to myself… it had possibilities — as a n ickname, at
the very least.
"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise
on.
"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift."
Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expres sion.
Wow. Free.
"You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to bu y myself a car."
"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at
the road when he said this. Charlie wasn't comforta ble with expressing
his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. S o I was looking
straight ahead as I responded.
"That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really apprecia te it." No need to add
that my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. H e didn't need to suffer
along with me. And I never looked a free truck in t he mouth — or
engine.
"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrasse d by my thanks.
We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, wh ich was wet,
and that was pretty much it for Conversation. We st ared out the
windows in silence.
It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green:
the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their br anches hanging with a
canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even t he air filtered down
greenly through the leaves.
It was too green — an alien planet.
Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small, two-
bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in th e early days of
their marriage. Those were the only kind of days th eir marriage had —
the early ones. There, parked on the street in fron t of the house that
never changed, was my new — well, new to me — truck. It was a faded
red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense
surprise, I loved it. I didn't know if it would run , but I could see myself
in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged
— the kind you see at the scene of an accident, pain t unscratched,
surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.
"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be
just that much less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced w ith the choice of
either walking two miles in the rain to school or a ccepting a ride in the
Chief's cruiser.
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embar rassed again.
It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom
that faced out over the front yard. The room was fa miliar; it had been

belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls,
the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains arou nd the window —
these were all a part of my childhood. The only cha nges Charlie had
ever made were switching the crib for a bed and add ing a desk as I
grew. The desk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line
for the modem stapled along the floor to the neares t phone jack. This
was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily.
The rocking chair from my baby days was still in th e corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I
would have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on
that fact.
One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me
alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether
impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile
and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the
sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. I wa sn't in the mood to go
on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime , when I would have
to think about the coming morning.
Forks High School had a frightening total of only t hree hundred and
fifty-seven — now fifty-eight — students; there were more than seven
hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here
had grown up together — their grandparents had been toddlers
together.
I would