Twilight by Stephenie Meyer | Page 2

our resources 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 announced 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 Push 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 his truck cheap."
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression 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 believe 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 afford a mechanic�"
"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."
The thing, I thought to myself� it had possibilities � as a nickname, 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 expression.
Wow. Free.
"You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy 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 comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited
that from him. So I was looking straight ahead as I responded.
"That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." No need to add that my being
happy in Forks is an impossibility. He didn't need to suffer along with me. And I never
looked a free truck in the mouth � or engine.
"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks.
We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was
pretty much it for Conversation. We stared 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 branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered
with ferns. Even the 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 the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind
of days their marriage had � the early ones. There, parked on the street in front 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, paint
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 with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain
to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser.
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed 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 familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born.
The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains
around the window � these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie
had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding 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 nearest 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 the corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs,