I approached the barren, vacant face slowly, my truck rumbling out a comforting roar behind me. I stopped when I got to the porch stairs, because there was nothing here. No lingering sense of their presence… of his presence. The house was solidly here, but it meant little. Its concrete reality would not counteract the nothingness of the nightmares.
I didn't go any closer. I didn't want to look in the windows. I wasn't sure which would be harder to see. If the rooms were bare, echoing empty from floor to ceiling, that would certainly hurt. Like my grandmother's funeral, when my mother had insisted that I stay outside during the viewing. She had said that I didn't need to see Gran that way, to remember her that way, rather than alive.
But wouldn't it be worse if there were no change? If the couches sat just as I'd last seen them, the paintings on the walls–worse still, the piano on its low platform? It would be second only to the house disappearing all together, to see that there was no physical possession that tied them in anyway. That everything remained, untouched and forgotten, behind them.
Just like me.
I turned my back on the gaping emptiness and hurried to my truck. I nearly ran. I was anxious to be gone, to get back to the human world. I felt hideously empty, and I wanted to see Jacob. Maybe I was developing a new kind of sickness, another addiction, like the numbness before. I didn't care. I pushed my truck as fast as it would go as I barreled toward my fix.
Jacob was waiting for me. My chest seemed to relax as soon as I saw him, making it easier to breathe.
"Hey, Bella," he called. I smiled in relief. "Hey, Jacob," I waved at Billy, who was looking out the window. "Let's get to work," Jacob said in a low but eager voice.
I was somehow able to laugh. "You seriously aren't sick of me yet?" I wondered. He must be starting to ask himself how desperate I was for company.
Jacob led the way around the house to his garage. "Nope. Not yet." "Please let me know when I start getting on your nerves. I don't want to be a pain." "Okay." He laughed, a throaty sound. "I wouldn't hold your breath for that, though."
When I walked into the garage, I was shocked to see the red bike standing up, looking like a motorcycle rather than a pile of jagged metal.
"Jake, you're amazing," I breathed. He laughed again. "I get obsessive when I have a project." He shrugged. "If I had any brains I'd drag it out a little bit."
"Why?"
He looked down, pausing for so long that I wondered if he hadn't heard my question. Finally, he asked me, "Bella, if I told you that I couldn't fix these bikes, what would you say?" I didn't answer right away, either, and he glanced up to check my expression. "I would say… that's too bad, but I'll bet we could figure out something else to do. If we got really desperate, we could even do homework."
Jacob smiled, and his shoulders relaxed. He sat down next to the bike and picked up a wrench. "So you think you'll still come over when I'm done, then?"
"Is that what you meant?" I shook my head. "I guess I am taking advantage of your very underpriced mechanical skills. But as long as you let me come over, I'll be here."
"Hoping to see Quil again?" he teased.
"You caught me."
He chuckled. "You really like spending time with me?" he asked, marveling.
"Very, very much. And I'll prove it. I have to work tomorrow, but Wednesday we'll do something nonmechanical."
"Like what?" "I have no idea. We can go to my place so you won't be tempted to be obsessive. You could bring your schoolwork–you have to be getting behind, because I know I am." "Homework might be a good idea." He made a face, and I wondered how much he was leaving undone to be with me.
"Yes," I agreed. "We'll have to start being responsible occasionally, or Billy and Charlie aren't going to be so easygoing about this." I made a gesture indicating the two of us as a single entity. He liked that–he beamed.
"Homework once a week?" he proposed. "Maybe we'd better go with twice," I suggested, thinking of the pile I'd just been assigned today.
He sighed a heavy sigh. Then he reached over his toolbox to a paper grocery sack. He pulled out two cans of soda, cracking one open and handing it to me. He opened the second, and held it up ceremoniously.
"Here's to responsibility," he toasted. "Twice a week." "And recklessness every day in between," I emphasized. He grinned and touched his can to mine.
I got home later than I'd planned and found Charlie had ordered a pizza rather than wait for me. He wouldn't let me apologize.