It was a cloudless blue sky when Reneé drove me to the airport. The weather was 75 degrees, perfect weather in lovely Phoenix. “You don’t have to do this” my mother said before I got on the plane. “I want to go.” I tried to lie convincingly. “Don’t worry about me, it’ll be great. I love you, Mom.” These were my last words, she hugged me tight and then I got on the plane.
It’s a four hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, an hour in a small plane to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive to Forks. It was a long trip but flying doesn’t really bother me. What really worried me was my reunion with Charlie. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him. Neither of us are much of the talkative type. I take after him, we like to keep mostly to ourselves. I’m sure he was pretty confused as to why I wanted to move to Forks. I stopped going there when I was 14 and made him come visit me instead. My distaste of Forks was never a secret.
When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I shrugged off the lousy weather, I had already said my goodbyes to the sun. Charlie was waiting for me in the cruiser. My reason for wanting a car despite the scarcity of my funds was that I refused to be driven around town in Police Chief Swan’s cruiser. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop. Charlie gave me a one armed hug when I stumbled my way off the plane. He automatically caught and steadied me. I can never trust my own two feet.
I only had a few bags, most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for Washington. My mom and I scrounged our resources to make a decent winter wardrobe, but it was still pretty scanty. I was a little suspicious when Charlie said that he had found a good car for me, as opposed to just a good car. It belonged to Charlie’s long time friend Billy Black from La Push, he’s in a wheelchair now so he can’t drive anymore and he offered to sell it to him cheap. When I asked for the year of the truck I didn’t get a straight answer, I was a little freaked if anything would go wrong with it. “Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don’t build them like that anymore.” he said. He got it for me as a homecoming gift, an unnecessary gesture, but greatly appreciated.
Washington is beautiful in it’s own way, I couldn’t deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered in ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves. It was too green, like an alien planet. We eventually made it home. Charlie still lived in the small, two-bedroom house he’d bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new, well, new to me, truck. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn’t know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Now my horrific day tomorrow would be that much less dreadful. I wouldn’t be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the chief’s cruiser.
It only took one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. It’s the same room that had belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellow laced curtains around the window, these were all part of my childhood. The only changes made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk. The desk now holds a second-hand computer, that I’m using to write this post. Having a computer was a stipulation of my mother’s, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner of the room.
I tried not to dwell much on the one bathroom for the house affair. Charlie left me alone to unpack and get settled, something impossible to do if it were my mother. The best thing about Charlie is that he doesn’t hover. It was nice to be alone, not having to smile and look pleased. It was a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the downpour of rain and let a few tears escape. I wasn’t in the mood to go on a crying spree. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to think about the coming morning: school at Forks High.