Bare.pdf

Bare, by stella luna sky

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5115281/1/

Musings of the Insecure

I am not beautiful , she wrote. Her script was a mixture of cursive and print, the

lovely handwriting already a contradiction of her words. I am my mother's

keeper, my daddy's little girl, and I thank them for my name, but I do not live up

to it.

The notebook slammed shut suddenly, because she felt eyes where they didn't

belong, ghosting her words with each loop and scratch.

"There is Camus in your back pocket, and a Biology textbook on your desk," she

hissed at the boy next to her. "Surely, they are more interesting than the

musings of an insecure girl."

"Sorry," he whispered back, and she could almost feel the heat of his shame in

being caught.

She was flustered too; she hated confrontation, and she had spit fire at someone

she hadn't spoken to in months. All he had done for the past six weeks was

ignore her, shoot various looks of loathing and smoke in her direction, and then

retreat back into his own space – in the lunchroom, across the parking lot, in

Biology. She could feel herself shaking, so she raised her hand and asked for a

bathroom pass.

Once she was there, she splashed water on her face, catching the reflection she

had proclaimed minutes earlier as not beautiful. She was all dark browns, eyes

and hair and eyebrows and tiny freckles on her neck, against skin the shade of an

elephant's tusk. The heat of her hometown, Phoenix, had done nothing to put

peaches underneath her skin; if anything, it made her more white, the antithesis

sunburn.

She had no makeup on her skin for the water to mess up, so she scrubbed her

face with a rough brown paper towel, the only hue on her face a bright red dash

across her cheeks and forehead. She was flustered, and this made her color, two

rose petals pushing against her sinuses and through her cheekbones. She was

almost pretty then, she thought, but still not beautiful, still not Bella.

But she was a Bella, a non-beautiful Bella, and that almost made her happy – she

was a walking contradiction, and maybe someone, somewhere, would find that

interesting.

When she made her way back to the Biology classroom, smelling of old crinkled

brown paper and perfumed sweat, she slid back into her seat.

"Are you all right?" asked the voice next to her ear, his breath all boy and

marijuana and the apple she had watched him eat for lunch.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper," she said quietly, though she wasn't sorry.

"I'm sorry I read your insecure musings," he said, sounding like a smile, but she

didn't look up at him.

"You are not," she accused, folding her arms over her chest and resting them

against the cool black top of the desk.

"You aren't, either," he replied, and she grinned despite her tension.

"We can't be friends," she told him, reminding him of his words from weeks ago,

when he had snarled at her for thanking him for saving her life from harsh metal

and slick asphalt.

He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, licked his lips, and then settled on a wry

smile. "I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella."

Bella looked at the boy, who was beautiful with only one glance and devastating

with a lingering stare. His unlined face told of youth, but his eyes – with the

antifreeze color and the gold ring around the black pupil, reminding her of a

sunflower – told her of hidden wisdom, of secrets she would never learn.

"I'm not chasing you, Edward," she whispered.

He laughed, a clear noise, and it made Mr. Banner look up sharply.

"You couldn't catch me, Bella."

Mr. Banner was about to respond, but the bell tolled. Edward stood slowly, and

she watched the lines of his strange copper-color hair, the hue of shiny new

pennies straight from the bank. Even in fluorescent lighting, he was unattainable.

"Have a nice weekend, Bella."

Bella nodded at her desk, collecting her books and shoving them into her blue

backpack. She felt him go by her, the heat from his body keeping her breath held

in her lungs. Then he was gone, and she relaxed and picked up her Moleskine.

She didn't open her notebook again until late that night, ready to pour out the

strange day in ink. She was full; Charlie had brought home some good steaks

from the local butcher, and it was dry enough to grill, so he manned the outdoors

while she made a salad and a pasta side. Now it was rainy, the good kind of

rainy, where it made sleep comfortable and quick, and she was almost ready to

succumb.

When she flipped it open to the page she had left off on, a very different script

met her eyes. Under her rant of beauty lacking, were three words in a neat,

elegant print:

You are beautiful.

And, just for a moment, she believed it.

~*~

They're Not Listening Anyway

Seven weeks earlier

Bella Swan's name was not a lost irony on her. The first book her mother bought

her was The Ugly Duckling, and it was still in her possession, a dusty old thing;

she traced the gold lettering as she placed it on her bookshelf in her new

bedroom.

Well, her new-old bedroom. The bedroom of her youth was now the bedroom of

her upper adolescence, being seventeen-almost-eighteen, thank you very much.

She picked up a few more paperbacks, girly stories by Sarah Dessen and

mysteries by Ian Fleming and classics by Dickens and Austen. Her iPod brought

her the sounds of Charlotte Church – she was a strange girl, she knew she was.

Satisfied, she turned to her bed, the purple down comforter Charlie, her father,

had shoved in her direction earlier that evening waiting to be put in place. She

almost got to it before the tears came, but she couldn't help it, opera always

made her feel melancholy, and she missed her mother, and wanted her cactus

plant that she wasn't allowed to take on the plane.

Sniffling pathetically, she chided herself. She needed fresh air, and Forks,

Washington had plenty of it. She padded downstairs in her long, comfy tie-dyed

socks (a survivor of the seventies, straight from her mother's hippie days) and

was almost to the porch door when she saw Charlie standing in the middle of the

kitchen, looking uncomfortable.

"Dad?" she questioned, wondering why he was staring at a jar of Alfredo, a box of

penne noodles, and raw chicken breast like it was about to implode.

"Bella!" he said, startled. She must have really spooked him, or embarrassed

him, because even a small town cop wouldn't start so easily. "Uh, hi honey.

Hungry?"

No, she thought. "Sure," she said. "What's for dinner?"

He shuffled uncomfortably, and suddenly, Bella understood. Charlie was used to

fending for himself – she shuddered to think how many pizzas he had eaten –

and was trying to make her a homecoming meal. Feeling a wave of affection, she

smiled.

"How does some chicken Alfredo sound?" she asked him. "I was just about to run

out for some fresh air, but I'll come back in and cook in a second..." She put her

hand to the knob just as she heard a honk outside.

Charlie grinned at her under his mustache. "Dinner sounds great, Bella. Let's go

outside. There's a little surprise waiting for you out there."

Smiling curiously at her handsome father, she opened the door and stood out on

the porch, squinting into the twilight and light drizzle.

"Hello there!" a gruff voice called, intertwined with a light accent, all ancient

forest and oak.

Bella smiled shyly in response and looked over her shoulder at her dad. "Who's

that?"

"Billy Black!" Charlie called, both an answer and a greeting. "If you were any

slower, you'd be moving backwards, old man."

"Don't patronize me, Chief. I wouldn't want to have to embarrass you in front of

your beautiful daughter, here."

Bella flushed; she hated when her parents' friends, or any adult, called her

beautiful. It was a more of a compliment to her parents than to her, and it felt

fake and forced, kind of like when she was sick and her mother smoothed her

hair back and told her she looked fine, just fine.

She was not beautiful, and she was not fine. But that was her own secret.

"It's good to see you again, sir," Bella said, as Billy came closer to her, rolling in a

wheelchair she didn't remember.

"It must not be, if I look old enough for a sir," Billy grimaced playfully. "Jake,

don't be a stranger. Come say hi to Bella."

A boy with dark skin and glossy hair moved forward, tripping over his feet. She

couldn't make him out until he fell into the line of yellow porch light.

"Oh!" she said, recognizing the boy who used to throw mud at her down by the

river as they waited for their fathers to fish out dinner. "Jacob!" She sprinted

down the porch steps and was hugging him before she could think of what she

was doing.

He stiffened in surprise, then laughed, a beautiful sound, like bells in a cathedral.

"Hi, Bella. It's good to see you again."

She drew back, laughing at her enthusiasm. "Sorry, it's just... I forgot I had a

friend here. It's nice. Are you going to Forks High, too?"

He shook his head. "No, I go to school on the Reservation."

Bella bit her lip. "Damn."

Jacob brightened at her curse word, like he had just found a new partner in

crime. "But you will be riding to school in style." He patted the rusty truck next to

him, something she had ignored until now.

"What? Dad?" She turned around to see her father stick a check into Billy's hand.

"It's mine, really?"

Charlie smiled. "Uh huh."

She gave Jacob another hug, which made the adults laugh this time, too.

Bella had been more excited about having a vehicle of her very own than the

actual 1950's piece of armor her father had bought her. But when she climbed in

the next morning, her stomach shredded into anxious little pieces, she found she

loved it. The radio worked, though she could only pick up a country and a gospel

station, and the heater was lovely against her chilled, wet skin. She drove to

school with a small smile on her face, trying not to think of the loud noise the

engine was making. She hated drawing attention to herself.

That, of course, was always what happened. When she parked that morning,

surrounded by her classmates, the truck backfired like a 12-gauge in an

abandoned field.

She got out, ignoring the stares. She threw her backpack around her shoulder

and ducked her head. She heard trilling laughter and looked up as a girl with a

shock of dark hair, twisted and held with clips in the shape of British flags, smiled

kindly at her. She was standing next to a tall boy with amber hair, wearing linen

pants and flip flops – flip-flops, in this weather!

Bella was smiling at the pair of them so much she didn't see the pole in front of

her face, and didn't recognize the pain until she was on the ground and heard

people laughing. Tears sprung to her eyes, humiliation and the throbbing of a

nose smashed against her face. She put her hand to it and saw blood.

"Come on, you're okay," said a sweet voice in her ear. A soft hand pushed back

hair from her face and helped her up.

It was the girl who had smiled at her from across the parking lot. She was even

prettier up close; she reminded Bella of a flapper girl of the twenties, all short

hair and lanky limbs. Her lipstick was red, matching the red of the British flag in

her clips and the red of her pointy boots. Her hand was soft against Bella's

fingers.

"I think I broke my nose," Bella said, holding her hand under her nostrils to stem

the blood flow.

The girl took Bella's hand away and gave her nose a good tweak.

"Ow!" Bella cried, snatching her face away from the girl's fingers. "That hurts like

hell."

"It's not broken," the girl told her seriously. "My dad's a doctor; I've seen my

share of broken noses. It'll probably be pretty bruised, though."

Bella groaned. "This is just perfect."

The girl patted Bella sympathetically. "Come on, I'll show you to the nearest

bathroom. I'm Alice, by the way." She turned around and signaled to someone,

the blonde boy Bella assumed, and then steered Bella inside.

"I'm Bella," she responded, but it sounded all muffled, like she had steel wool in

the back of her throat. "I'm also the most accident prone person you'll ever meet.

You'll probably have to pull me from death-by-speeding-car, or something."

Alice laughed, and it was like music. She opened the door to their right, and led

Bella into the bathroom. A tall girl with dark hair was washing her hands at the

sink, and turned when they came in.

"Oh! Are you all right?" she asked, going for the paper towel dispenser

immediately, seeing Bella's bloody face.

"She ran into the pole outside," Alice said sympathetically. "They really should

move that thing; it's so in the way."

"Oh, definitely," the tall girl said, coming forward with wadded up brown paper

towels that had been run under the water. "It's such a hazard. You should

complain."

The pole was nowhere near the entrance to the school, and Bella knew the girls

were just being kind. She smiled.

"I'll be fine. If there's a pole to hit, a hole to step in, or a crack in the sidewalk to

trip over, I'll find it." Bella held out her hand for the damp towels, and then

pressed them to her nose.

The tall girl smiled back. "I'm Angela."

"Bella," she responded behind the wads of paper towels. "It's my first day here,

and of course I'd make a grand entrance."

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