The Abomination Chapter 1 - An Old Friend
The ocean... It's the only thing that I feel understands me, sometimes. Whenever I'm upset, it's where I go to try to be at peace. I can close my eyes, smell the misty dew of a new morning, and rely on the ocean for control. Control of my thoughts and actions when it feels like everything around me is falling apart. I haven't felt like that for a while, but it still gets bad from time to time... usually when I'm thinking about my mom.
Rachel and Elizabeth used to be my ocean, but they're both gone now. They've gone on to bigger and better things and forgotten about me. The beach was our favorite place to go, and now it's just me. Our mom taught us to try to find peace in the waves and let them consume our evil thoughts that would try to consume us. From time to time, I come out here hoping that Rachel and Elizabeth will be here waiting to sit with me and reminisce about Mom. Yet I know she would tell us to move on and let the waves wash our sad memories away.
Not wanting to think about her anymore, I take a deep breath and wade waist deep into the water. Looking up at the sky, I wait until a large enough wave can pull me away and relax into it, letting it pull me onto my back. My long black hair floats to the surface of the water around me, and I let myself drift further and further away from the shore until I make it past where the waves are breaking.
'I miss you...' I think as I spin my arms gently to keep myself floating above the swelling wave behind me. 'I miss... you.' My mom's warm smile flashes into my head, and I focus on the water to make it fade away. 'I... miss...' Her face fades away and the blue sky and clouds above me flood my field of vision instead. It's then that I know that the water has washed away my sadness for now.
Just in time too, because I hear Jacob yelling "Lauren!" off in the distance.
With a deep breath, I flip my legs under me to flip onto my stomach so I can paddle out to shore. Each wave that pushes me closer to shore makes me feel just a little bit stronger and I feel the shallow sand beneath me in no time. Letting my wet long hair fall over my shoulders, I look up to see Jacob standing at the edge of the sand with my towel in his hand. He's frowning a little and looking me up and down with that judging look I can't stand.
"What?" I say, grabbing the towel out of his hand and using it to wring out my hair. He says nothing as I wrap it around my head to keep it off of my sopping wet clothes and as I wring out my oversized tee. "What...?!" I whine a little, just wanting him to spit out whatever he needs to say already.
"This is what bathing suits are for, you know." He snarks.
"Yeah, well." I sigh, knowing he doesn't understand this part of me. For being my twin, it seems like there's a lot about me lately he doesn't seem to understand. "What is it?" I change the subject.
"You'd better dry off and get changed." He says, lending a hand for me to hold onto as I get my shoes back on.
"Why?" I let go of his hand and bend down to take my towel off and shake out my hair with it.
"We're going into town to go visit Charlie."
"Swan?" I ask, standing back up and wrapping my towel around my shoulders. "How come? Is he okay?"
"You remember Bella?" He asks.
"House Mouse Bella?" I ask as we start to walk back to the house.
I look away as I see him nod in confirmation and think about the three of us running around the house making mud pies and pretending to be different animals to bug our parents while they were having coffee in the kitchen. Bella used to pretend to scurry between her dad's legs and wouldn't give up until all of our parents hopped onto their chairs and screamed like she was a real mouse in the house. I'd pretend to be an ant and crawl onto countertops, and Jacob would be a termite, biting anything he could get his mouth on. We weren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the batch, but it was our thing.
"You think she'll remember?" Jacob asks as he opens the back door. "The mud pies, I mean?"
"Jake, we were like 6 years old so I doubt it." I chuckle, walking through the door. When I walk through the door, I see my dad drinking a cup of coffee and reading the Forks' newspaper. With him being the Chief of the reservation, he already knows everything there is to know about what's going on around here. Yet he still likes to know what's going on outside the rez. It's almost as if he's waiting for a major headline to pop up on the front page that he's been expecting for years.
"Went swimming again?" He asks, looking up to see me dripping onto the kitchen tiles. I can't bother to look into his eyes, because I know that he knows what the ocean means to me, and who it reminds me of. I also know he doesn't need any more reminders of what he's lost, because the same accident that cost my mom her life cost him his legs, and the wheelchair he's in is reminder enough. "Get changed, I want us out of here in the next 5 minutes." I nod and silently walk to my room in obeyance as I hear him ask Jacob to help him get into the truck. None of the three of us ever talk about my mom very much, but I know that every time I walk into the house the way I just did, it hurts him. I don't mean to open old wounds, but sometimes I feel like I need to learn to embrace the pain. It reminds me that I'm human and that I'm still here.
"Lauren, let's go!" Jake yells from outside, and I look out the window to see him sitting in the car with Dad. Realizing I got to at least give the impression I'm out of the current slump I'm in, I quickly change into a thin white t-shirt, black leggings, and blue jean jacket and race out the door.
Jake starts up the truck as soon as we lock eyes and I quickly hop into the back seat. The trees I've spent my whole life watching grow up right alongside me quickly disappear behind us and become replaced by small shops and cars in no time at all. Forks is a quaint small town that I've never really seen myself living in myself, just because I prefer to be connected to nature. Yet Charlie's house is one of the few places away from the reservation where I always felt the most comfortable. After my mom died, Charlie was always there to be a welcome distraction from the sorrow that hung around all the familiar areas in La Push.
He's also just a great friend for my dad, and I know that the three of us coming to keep him company as he gets to know Bella again is the least we can do to repay all he's done for us. Soon, we pass by the last couple of shops and diners and pull right up to his house.
Charlie's police cruiser is already pulled into the driveway as usual, but the one thing that I haven't seen for many, many years, are the curtains drawn from Bella's room. As we pull into the driveway behind the cruiser, I look up to see a familiar face peek out in the window. Dad reaches over to the wheel as soon as Jake puts the car in park and honks the horn twice.
I quickly hop out and open the back to get Dad's wheelchair out, but by the time I'm about to grab it, I hear a familiar low gruff voice say, "I've got it, Lauren."
"Hey, Charlie." I smile warmly at the mustached police chief. What catches me off guard, is the fact that the smile he gives back is actually reaching his eyes. That's not something I've seen for a long time, and I definitely know Bella coming back is the reason for it this time. Charlie quickly sets the chair on the ground and pushes it the passenger's side door to help Dad into it. I can hear them already joking around with all their inside jokes and don't want to interrupt their moment.
When I turn around to walk towards Jake, I see the somewhat familiar girl standing in the doorway of the house with her arms crossed. It's almost as if she's unsure whether or not the daylight outside will burn her or not, what with how pale she is. However, there's no mistaking those chocolate brown eyes of hers that she got from Charlie... the girl I'm staring at who I haven't seen for 10 years, is Bella Swan.
"Bella!" Charlie yells, which pulls us out of the trance we were both in from eye contact. She slowly but surely walks down the driveway until she's standing right next to the hood of the truck. "You remember Billy Black."
"Glad you're finally here." Dad says. "Charlie hasn't shut up about it since you told him you were coming."
Charlie whips Dad around so he's facing the road instead of the house as he says, "Keep exaggerating, I'll wheel you down the hill." Dad quickly grabs the wheels to lightly bump back into Charlie, and the two of them take off into the street to wrestle playfully like they're kids again.
The youthful attitude might have rubbed off on Jake, because when I look at him he's got a dumb smile on his face. It's at this moment I know the next words out of his mouth are going to be something dumb, but I'm too curious to hear what it is first before I try to save him from humiliation.
"I'm Jacob, and this is Lauren. We made mud pies together when the three of us were little kids."
I stifle a chuckle which makes him look back at me and hiss through his teeth to silently tell me to shut up.
Bella looks between the two of us, trying to unlock that old memory before saying "Yeah... I think I remember..." I know just from the look on her face that she definitely doesn't but want to try to change the subject before Jake catches on. If he were to figure it out, I know he would be too disappointed and embarrassed to keep the reunion going. Out of the two of us, he's definitely the one who gets moodier. His sad little storm cloud can change the mood of an entire room in a matter of a minute if we're not careful, and I definitely don't want to have to deal with that right now. Luckily, she beats me to the punch with the subject change by looking past us at our dads and asking, "Are they always like this?"
"Definitely." I laugh and look over and the two men still chasing each other around.
"It's getting worse with old age." Jake adds, and the three of you share a laugh that eases some of the awkwardness of his earlier comment as well as this long-lost reunion.
"Is it weird being back here?" I ask after a couple of seconds when the laughter dies down.
Bella hesitates and cringes, almost as if thinking of how long it's been since she's been back here hurts her. Probably because she knows it couldn't have been easy on Charlie, but he had least had us and his job to try to fill the hole in his heart Renee left when they moved to Arizona all those years ago. She's just about to answer when Charlie and Dad stroll back over and Charlie pats the side of the truck.
"So, what do you think of your homecoming gift?" Charlie smiles.
Bella's jaw drops a little in awe at the beat-up old thing Jacob spent so much time remodeling. At first, I think she doesn't like it until she says, "No way! The truck is for me?" I raise my eyebrows towards my Dad in surprise. It's not that I don't know Charlie's more than willing to give us a ride back to La Push, but I'm just worried that it might be too much too soon for Bella. I know that I for one, would want a little more time to settle in before I was reunited with old friends and given homecoming gifts.
"Just bought it off Billy, here." Charlie nods.
Eager to get the chance to talk to her some more, Jacob starts to say "I just rebuilt the engine and-"
"It's perfect!" Bella interrupts, running to driver's side door and hopping inside. Jake runs around to join her in the passenger's seat to give her a tutorial on how to drive the beast, and I figure I can let them have their moment. His immediate crush on her couldn't be more obvious right now, and I figure it's best Bella gets time to catch on for herself so she can let him down easy.
I look back over at Charlie and Dad, and they seem in a deep conversation that I'm sure Dad will talk about once we get back home.
"...we go to school on the reservation." I hear Jake say, and I wander back over to the driver's door. Bella sees me approach and rolls the window down.
"Oh, too bad..." She looks between the two of us. "Would've been nice to know at least one person." The light in her eyes fades a little as she says this.
"Trust me..." I say, looking over at Jake with his love-sick puppy dog eyes. "You're going to be a hit here in Forks. It's not every day a new face comes into town..." I hesitate as I realize my mistake in my choice of words. She doesn't need another remind of how long it's been for her and add, "Well, I guess not new. What I meant was, nothing really changes around here."
"So it seems." She says, looking up at the window to her room.
"Don't worry, House Mouse." I smile and lean against the door, crossing my arms. "You can come and visit us any time you need an escape from all the attention."
"Thanks." Bella gives me a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes as she thinks about the nickname she hasn't heard for the better part of a decade.
"Wanna give it a spin?" I pat the car. "Lemme hop in." I slide into the back as Bella starts up the car. Even though Jake and I don't spend a lot of time in town, we know a bit more about it than Bella. "We'll be back! Going to go explore for a bit!" I call out to our dads as we wave and drive away.
Just like that, the Three Misfit House Pests are back in action to wreak havoc on the comfy cozy town of Forks.