Understanding Isabella Swan
Click..click..click-click-cli-clik-cl-cl-click
Charlie growled lowly, releasing the handle of his front door. The knob merely clicked again, proceeding in its usual position as the lock from the inside remained stubbornly stiff. It was stuff like this that made him scratch his head in confusion. The door should have opened. He pressed the house key in, turned it and the lock even made its clicking sound, making an impression that it had been open.
Implying that the door should be open and that he should be collapsed onto the couch right now. However the door remained persistently adamant, as well as his personal station, standing awkwardly in the fronts of his steps.
Charlie sighed, scratching the back of his head absently. Maybe someone is on the other side was pushing it? Which is odd. Charlie released another soft sigh, peering down at his heavy boots. If he thought about it - like really thought about it - it wouldn't come to a huge surprise. Odd things have been happening often lately, so much so that its become almost normal for him. Its not like its been bad odd things, just...different.
Bella for instance. Nothing impractical has happened that would make red warning signs spring in his mind, just dull details that never seemed to be there before. This, he supposes, is natural for a teenage girl. He'd actually rather not think about what occurs in his shy and quiet daughter, somewhat beyond terrified of what he might find. The same terror that sparks alive when walking into the bathroom to find a shiny white paper covering what he assumed to be a tampon. Its just something that makes you want to walk slowly away and pretend you never lied eyes on it.
But he has seen it, and once seen, its hard to forget. As in his daughters differences...not the tampon, though undoubtedly that experience has marked a scar somewhere in the man's head.
It was...well, it was her eyes. Bella, ever since he saw her walking through the airport, she always seemed so far away. Like she was just drifting through this world, each day hardly making an impression on her because it was beyond her. Incomprehensible. Like she couldn't understand it, unable to relate to the very world she steps through, where her heart beats continually. Because she lived somewhere no one could find her, somewhere deep in the pages of books, in the words written with black ink.
So with her foggy mind so far away, in a world unseen by others, her chocolate eyes had remained distant and detached to others. She hardly surfaced into this reality enough for her presence to be recognized, so she just disappeared within herself with her nose hidden in the pages of her book. It had become an acknowledged routine, one that had long stopped becoming a concern.
In fact, it had become so commonly seen that when she abruptly broke away from this detachment, it had startled Charlie. This sudden acquaintance to reality didn't happen slowly or even gradually, it happened quickly like being awoken from a nightmare, gasping and jerking from her smoky deep sleep to reenter the world. And just like that, her once brown eyes that had become so dull and vapid, lit a fire within their smoldering depths, burning alight with a vivid and almost surreal passion.
Then there were situations like these that kept building up to a more frequent manner. Such as doors suddenly becoming locked despite their key being completely valid, the serious decrease of food in the refrigerator and pantry, Bella suddenly taking piano lessons and staying late at school for 'extra curricular' activities. They were small, maybe even healthy, it was just something Charlie wasn't used to.
Despite this fact, it still managed to create small tremors of fear to quake over the shy and humble man. Because small details that spark out of no where don't just go away, and when they don't leave, they build up. So, in the end, it has a damaging effect for everything he had worked for.
Its common knowledge to him now, because really, its happened before.
Renee had the same kind of change, her dull brown eyes suddenly sparking into a hungry kind of determination, and that's when she got up and left. And when she disentangled herself from his life, he realized that he had bought a house for memories he now had to endure through alone. He carried on with a solider like obligation, trudging through the day without any particular knowledge as to what the ending would bring.
Charlie knitted his brow together, shuffling from left to right, the man scuffed the snow from his heavy boots and allowed his sudden rapid pulse to decrease to its usual tired lull. What a day to speculate life, the sudden diversion in his thoughts created low brew of uncertainty to tumble and toss in his gut. Clearing the knot in his throat, Charlie let out his usual gruff voice out in a contemplative sigh.
"Bella? Are you home, kiddo?" Their was a high-pitched squeak before flooded movements called from the other side of the door. This alone was enough to make Charlie's gut twisting sensations increase double fold, his instinct telling him to pull out his shot gun and yank down the door. Then clicks and turns squeaked out from the lock and chain before the once adamant door swung open, revealing a very flushed and blushing Bella.
"Hello Ch-Dad!" Bella's smile stretched larger, becoming tighter as her eyes flickered to a spot on the wall beside her before returning to Charlie's gaze. "I wasn't expecting you home so early." Charlie's brow knit tighter, but he smiled anyway, stepping closer to the front door. Bella backed away silently, shuffling to the side so that she leaned against the wall next to the opened door.
Bella smiled again, a darker blush burning on her cheeks as she scratched at the back of her neck. "So...did you have a good day?"
Charlie couldn't remember if he answered his daughter's question, too consumed on the fact that he was certain he just saw a flash of blue eyes peer up at him from behind Bella. Grinding his teeth together, Charlie quietly closed the door, arching an uneasy eyebrow at his daughter. Bella blushed.
Something clicked in the man's head, everything suddenly connecting each dot together, a realization dawning on Charlie's features. Whether from the fact that Bella's usually silky hair fell into tatters around her shoulders, tangled and snarled as if someone played with it, or from her puffy red lips for...more obvious reasons, something just clicked. Heaving a quiet sigh, Charlie looked back up at his daughter.
"Alright, funs over. Son, you can come out now." Charlie guessed his assumption had hit a nerve by the complete terror that washed over Bella's features, her eyes managing the impossible, widening even larger than before. Silence enveloped them as the sudden acknowledged guest from behind Bella suffered from paralysis, their attempts to blend into the wall becoming insufficient.
A soft clearing of the throat alerted Charlie of their presence, and only seemed to frighten Bella more as the stranger in the shadows shifted to move in the light. A shock of dark silky hair curled and bounced just above slender shoulders, a very delicate body teetering shyly from the wall to hide partially from behind Bella and into clear sight of Charlie.
She almost looked like a child, her timid grin displaying her dimpled cheeks, flushing a lovely innocent pink. Her hands curled into small fists that clenched at her waist, as if in silent turmoil as to where she would place them. Had it not been her long and elegantly curved fingernails that curled over her fingers, flaunting each manicured coat, her hands would have easily been misinterpreted as a child's.
But she was not a child, and neither a boy. Both would have rendered a consequential reaction, but now, Charlie was left gaping at the small girl who dared not to venture too far from Bella's side. Questions bombarded him in the confinements of his skull, bounding against the walls and wearing down his tolerance to silence. How was he supposed to react to this? How did he feel about this? What the hell is this?
Charlie gulped visibly, flickering his gaze at Bella. Apparently she had no intention to cover this entire situation up, one that would be too easy to lie through. In fact, she seemed pretty reluctant to processing this situation entirely. Bella's flushed face remains staring straight ahead, frozen like ice. Charlie knows he would have accepted just about anything by now, even studying, despite the fact that no books lay abandoned by the door frame. But Bella was too much like Charlie, when something pops up unexpectedly, they both freeze up in sudden paralysis and loom helplessly in silence for someone else to take some initiative to spur up an explanation.
Which happens to all fall on the smaller girl's shoulders. Nervously, her fingers fiddled with the black frays of her skirt, readjusting it so that it fell naturally once more, and not crumpled up like it had been moments before. Sadly she could neither hide or fix the red swelling of her lips or even the wildness her short feathered hair had endured. In fact, every detail seemed to point to the obvious, the poor girl looked like she had just walked through a tornado.
"Well..." The small girl whispered roughly before quickly clearing her throat, washing away the strain in her throat. 'Its a pleasure to meet you Mr. Swan." The smaller girl swiftly elbowed Bella in the gut, still maintaining the sweet smile and innocent wide eyes. Charlie momentarily sympathized with Bella as she attempted to absorb the jab, tenderly massaging her side to relieve the swift pangs the girl's elbow had delivered. Sending a soft glare to the smaller girl, Bella refocused her attention to her father.
"Dad, this is Alice Brandon." Bella gestured weakly between the girl and Charlie, a dark blush resurfacing to her features. "And she's my..." Suddenly both girls had too much to say at that moment.
"Lab partner-"
"Tutor-"
"In Chemistry"
"For math."
"I'm helping with-
"Geometric shapes and-"
"The balance between ionic bonds that occur during chemical reactions."
Everyone shared awkward smiles. Despite the obvious catastrophe that just occurred, Charlie was eager to move on, grasping a hold of this flimsy excuse, ignoring its blatant holes and disregarding its dysfunctional logic.
"Good, good." Charlie nodded, scratching the back of his head as his gaze flickered between the two tense girls. "I'm glad you have someone to teach you this stuff Bells, you know I wouldn't have been much help." He smiled tiredly, already mentally reaching to the couch so that he could just sit. That's all he wants right now, just to take a break.
Bella and Alice nod stiffly, smiles almost mirroring each other, both strained and uncomfortable. Bella resolves all this uneasy tension in the air with a quick kiss on the cheek to her fathers cheek, dismissing this situation from being further fumbled awkwardly. Though Charlie thinks he caught a small amount of disappointment shimmer in her brown eyes, a small frown puckering her lips before all regret is relieved from her expression.
So Charlie takes his well deserved seat, his tightly coiled muscles relaxing enough to sink into the state of euphoria, a soft sigh of content brushing past his tight lips. Bella and Alice gravitate to the kitchen, exchanging light and happy smiles, shadowed always by shy and timid glances. There is still that burning passion illuminating in Bella's eyes, smoldering deeply as they glance at Alice, both supposed to be looking at the ingredients to the dinner seemingly formulating on the counter.
The two girls play and banter quietly in the comfort of the kitchen, in belief that Charlie is far from acknowledging the very obvious bonds that are binding themselves together. He can almost feel Bella cutting away her ties to Charlie to reform them in another. And though the uneasy tumbles and turns that seed themselves deeply in his gut becomes pronounced again, he can't help that quiet bubbling of joy as he watches his daughter smile and laugh, released from all the fogginess and unhappiness that had plagued her before.
And as Bella smiles adoringly down at the smaller girl, swiftly tucking a lock of her untamed hair, Charlie thinks that maybe these sudden differences aren't so bad. And as Alice swiftly kisses Bella's cheek, gradually turning his daughter into a blushing mess, he thinks that things are starting to finally making sense, that everything is finally starting to look normal.
Charlie growled lowly, releasing the handle of his front door. The knob merely clicked again, proceeding in its usual position as the lock from the inside remained stubbornly stiff. It was stuff like this that made him scratch his head in confusion. The door should have opened. He pressed the house key in, turned it and the lock even made its clicking sound, making an impression that it had been open.
Implying that the door should be open and that he should be collapsed onto the couch right now. However the door remained persistently adamant, as well as his personal station, standing awkwardly in the fronts of his steps.
Charlie sighed, scratching the back of his head absently. Maybe someone is on the other side was pushing it? Which is odd. Charlie released another soft sigh, peering down at his heavy boots. If he thought about it - like really thought about it - it wouldn't come to a huge surprise. Odd things have been happening often lately, so much so that its become almost normal for him. Its not like its been bad odd things, just...different.
Bella for instance. Nothing impractical has happened that would make red warning signs spring in his mind, just dull details that never seemed to be there before. This, he supposes, is natural for a teenage girl. He'd actually rather not think about what occurs in his shy and quiet daughter, somewhat beyond terrified of what he might find. The same terror that sparks alive when walking into the bathroom to find a shiny white paper covering what he assumed to be a tampon. Its just something that makes you want to walk slowly away and pretend you never lied eyes on it.
But he has seen it, and once seen, its hard to forget. As in his daughters differences...not the tampon, though undoubtedly that experience has marked a scar somewhere in the man's head.
It was...well, it was her eyes. Bella, ever since he saw her walking through the airport, she always seemed so far away. Like she was just drifting through this world, each day hardly making an impression on her because it was beyond her. Incomprehensible. Like she couldn't understand it, unable to relate to the very world she steps through, where her heart beats continually. Because she lived somewhere no one could find her, somewhere deep in the pages of books, in the words written with black ink.
So with her foggy mind so far away, in a world unseen by others, her chocolate eyes had remained distant and detached to others. She hardly surfaced into this reality enough for her presence to be recognized, so she just disappeared within herself with her nose hidden in the pages of her book. It had become an acknowledged routine, one that had long stopped becoming a concern.
In fact, it had become so commonly seen that when she abruptly broke away from this detachment, it had startled Charlie. This sudden acquaintance to reality didn't happen slowly or even gradually, it happened quickly like being awoken from a nightmare, gasping and jerking from her smoky deep sleep to reenter the world. And just like that, her once brown eyes that had become so dull and vapid, lit a fire within their smoldering depths, burning alight with a vivid and almost surreal passion.
Then there were situations like these that kept building up to a more frequent manner. Such as doors suddenly becoming locked despite their key being completely valid, the serious decrease of food in the refrigerator and pantry, Bella suddenly taking piano lessons and staying late at school for 'extra curricular' activities. They were small, maybe even healthy, it was just something Charlie wasn't used to.
Despite this fact, it still managed to create small tremors of fear to quake over the shy and humble man. Because small details that spark out of no where don't just go away, and when they don't leave, they build up. So, in the end, it has a damaging effect for everything he had worked for.
Its common knowledge to him now, because really, its happened before.
Renee had the same kind of change, her dull brown eyes suddenly sparking into a hungry kind of determination, and that's when she got up and left. And when she disentangled herself from his life, he realized that he had bought a house for memories he now had to endure through alone. He carried on with a solider like obligation, trudging through the day without any particular knowledge as to what the ending would bring.
Charlie knitted his brow together, shuffling from left to right, the man scuffed the snow from his heavy boots and allowed his sudden rapid pulse to decrease to its usual tired lull. What a day to speculate life, the sudden diversion in his thoughts created low brew of uncertainty to tumble and toss in his gut. Clearing the knot in his throat, Charlie let out his usual gruff voice out in a contemplative sigh.
"Bella? Are you home, kiddo?" Their was a high-pitched squeak before flooded movements called from the other side of the door. This alone was enough to make Charlie's gut twisting sensations increase double fold, his instinct telling him to pull out his shot gun and yank down the door. Then clicks and turns squeaked out from the lock and chain before the once adamant door swung open, revealing a very flushed and blushing Bella.
"Hello Ch-Dad!" Bella's smile stretched larger, becoming tighter as her eyes flickered to a spot on the wall beside her before returning to Charlie's gaze. "I wasn't expecting you home so early." Charlie's brow knit tighter, but he smiled anyway, stepping closer to the front door. Bella backed away silently, shuffling to the side so that she leaned against the wall next to the opened door.
Bella smiled again, a darker blush burning on her cheeks as she scratched at the back of her neck. "So...did you have a good day?"
Charlie couldn't remember if he answered his daughter's question, too consumed on the fact that he was certain he just saw a flash of blue eyes peer up at him from behind Bella. Grinding his teeth together, Charlie quietly closed the door, arching an uneasy eyebrow at his daughter. Bella blushed.
Something clicked in the man's head, everything suddenly connecting each dot together, a realization dawning on Charlie's features. Whether from the fact that Bella's usually silky hair fell into tatters around her shoulders, tangled and snarled as if someone played with it, or from her puffy red lips for...more obvious reasons, something just clicked. Heaving a quiet sigh, Charlie looked back up at his daughter.
"Alright, funs over. Son, you can come out now." Charlie guessed his assumption had hit a nerve by the complete terror that washed over Bella's features, her eyes managing the impossible, widening even larger than before. Silence enveloped them as the sudden acknowledged guest from behind Bella suffered from paralysis, their attempts to blend into the wall becoming insufficient.
A soft clearing of the throat alerted Charlie of their presence, and only seemed to frighten Bella more as the stranger in the shadows shifted to move in the light. A shock of dark silky hair curled and bounced just above slender shoulders, a very delicate body teetering shyly from the wall to hide partially from behind Bella and into clear sight of Charlie.
She almost looked like a child, her timid grin displaying her dimpled cheeks, flushing a lovely innocent pink. Her hands curled into small fists that clenched at her waist, as if in silent turmoil as to where she would place them. Had it not been her long and elegantly curved fingernails that curled over her fingers, flaunting each manicured coat, her hands would have easily been misinterpreted as a child's.
But she was not a child, and neither a boy. Both would have rendered a consequential reaction, but now, Charlie was left gaping at the small girl who dared not to venture too far from Bella's side. Questions bombarded him in the confinements of his skull, bounding against the walls and wearing down his tolerance to silence. How was he supposed to react to this? How did he feel about this? What the hell is this?
Charlie gulped visibly, flickering his gaze at Bella. Apparently she had no intention to cover this entire situation up, one that would be too easy to lie through. In fact, she seemed pretty reluctant to processing this situation entirely. Bella's flushed face remains staring straight ahead, frozen like ice. Charlie knows he would have accepted just about anything by now, even studying, despite the fact that no books lay abandoned by the door frame. But Bella was too much like Charlie, when something pops up unexpectedly, they both freeze up in sudden paralysis and loom helplessly in silence for someone else to take some initiative to spur up an explanation.
Which happens to all fall on the smaller girl's shoulders. Nervously, her fingers fiddled with the black frays of her skirt, readjusting it so that it fell naturally once more, and not crumpled up like it had been moments before. Sadly she could neither hide or fix the red swelling of her lips or even the wildness her short feathered hair had endured. In fact, every detail seemed to point to the obvious, the poor girl looked like she had just walked through a tornado.
"Well..." The small girl whispered roughly before quickly clearing her throat, washing away the strain in her throat. 'Its a pleasure to meet you Mr. Swan." The smaller girl swiftly elbowed Bella in the gut, still maintaining the sweet smile and innocent wide eyes. Charlie momentarily sympathized with Bella as she attempted to absorb the jab, tenderly massaging her side to relieve the swift pangs the girl's elbow had delivered. Sending a soft glare to the smaller girl, Bella refocused her attention to her father.
"Dad, this is Alice Brandon." Bella gestured weakly between the girl and Charlie, a dark blush resurfacing to her features. "And she's my..." Suddenly both girls had too much to say at that moment.
"Lab partner-"
"Tutor-"
"In Chemistry"
"For math."
"I'm helping with-
"Geometric shapes and-"
"The balance between ionic bonds that occur during chemical reactions."
Everyone shared awkward smiles. Despite the obvious catastrophe that just occurred, Charlie was eager to move on, grasping a hold of this flimsy excuse, ignoring its blatant holes and disregarding its dysfunctional logic.
"Good, good." Charlie nodded, scratching the back of his head as his gaze flickered between the two tense girls. "I'm glad you have someone to teach you this stuff Bells, you know I wouldn't have been much help." He smiled tiredly, already mentally reaching to the couch so that he could just sit. That's all he wants right now, just to take a break.
Bella and Alice nod stiffly, smiles almost mirroring each other, both strained and uncomfortable. Bella resolves all this uneasy tension in the air with a quick kiss on the cheek to her fathers cheek, dismissing this situation from being further fumbled awkwardly. Though Charlie thinks he caught a small amount of disappointment shimmer in her brown eyes, a small frown puckering her lips before all regret is relieved from her expression.
So Charlie takes his well deserved seat, his tightly coiled muscles relaxing enough to sink into the state of euphoria, a soft sigh of content brushing past his tight lips. Bella and Alice gravitate to the kitchen, exchanging light and happy smiles, shadowed always by shy and timid glances. There is still that burning passion illuminating in Bella's eyes, smoldering deeply as they glance at Alice, both supposed to be looking at the ingredients to the dinner seemingly formulating on the counter.
The two girls play and banter quietly in the comfort of the kitchen, in belief that Charlie is far from acknowledging the very obvious bonds that are binding themselves together. He can almost feel Bella cutting away her ties to Charlie to reform them in another. And though the uneasy tumbles and turns that seed themselves deeply in his gut becomes pronounced again, he can't help that quiet bubbling of joy as he watches his daughter smile and laugh, released from all the fogginess and unhappiness that had plagued her before.
And as Bella smiles adoringly down at the smaller girl, swiftly tucking a lock of her untamed hair, Charlie thinks that maybe these sudden differences aren't so bad. And as Alice swiftly kisses Bella's cheek, gradually turning his daughter into a blushing mess, he thinks that things are starting to finally making sense, that everything is finally starting to look normal.