Chapter Text
Forks, Washington wasn’t somewhere I wanted to end up. The constant threat of rain leaves me on edge and the cold weather only serves to make me feel even more gloomy. On top of that, the few I have memories of the small town were nothing more than the “vacations” I had during summer break to visit Charlie. While I was relieved to get out of the Arizona heat, it wasn’t exactly the my first choice alternative.
Now, riding in the car with Charlie on the way to my new home, I deeply regret not spending more time with him. It’s a feeling that shakes me to my very core. I never expected him to be the one person in my life that I could safely turn to when everything went to shit.
It’s been seven years since we last talked. Back then he knew me under a different name. I was a different person entirely. Since then his son had grown out her hair, changed her name, and been secretly taking hormones. All the while, desperately hiding the changes from her mother and her friends. To see this sudden, stark change greet him at the airport, barely able to keep it together, must not have been easy.
“I’m sorry for what happened, Bella.” His eyes never leave the road. He voice shakes a little; clearly strained. I’ve only got a few memories of Charlie that I know are real. One’s that aren’t distorted by time and our remarkable capacity to misremember things despite thinking we know the truth. One of the few things I remember is his difficulty with conversations that are even remotely serious in tone. It seems like nothing has changed.
We drive past fields of nothing and forests that look way too dense to be traversable. The morning sun hasn’t shown itself yet but that has nothing to do with the time. I’m quickly relearning that Forks and sunshine don’t go together. A more fitting odd couple doesn’t exist. What little sunlight that manages to peek through the clouds on this dreary morning causes the wet grass and damp leaves to glisten; to sparkle. It would be pretty if it wasn’t for the lack of light causing that dreary feeling you get in the afternoons when you feel like you’ve wasted the entire day and tomorrow is going to be more of the same.
I never liked the endless sunshine of Arizona or the blistering heat. I always wanted to get out - to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. But right now I’d take anything to be back home and for things to be like they were. Forks is depressing. Forks is a reminder of what I can’t have. Forks is the logging capital of the world which all but sums up exactly how exciting Forks, Washington is.
“It’s okay.” I manage choke out, finally. My eyes don’t leave the road either. I bite my bottom lip as the pit in my stomach grows. It’s been there for almost two days now. Still, there’s some respite offered by Charlie saying that name, my name, out loud. Despite choosing it a long, long time ago it still sounds foreign to my ears. It still makes me question whether or not it’s right.
Looking over at Charlie, his face is strained. His lips fidget, his moustache moves. The drive is silent all the way to his house. I’m not sure I can do much talking anyway. Tears are still on the brink of exploding from my face..
It takes about an hour of driving past what feels like the same trees, the same forest, with nothing but the hum of the radio to keep us company. I feel compelled to say something; to start a conversation or even just small talk. However, I’m still too tired from the flight to even muster even the smallest effort. I’m too tired from everything that’s happened. Even worse, I’m afraid that saying anything will cause the tears battering at the gates of my lids to finally break free. It’s not long before we’re pulling up to Charlie’s house, anyway.
The paint is chipping on the wood and the bushes are well overgrown. Even the lone tree out the front has been scraping against the house for some time with its thorny branches. The slightest gust of wind causes it to rub and corrode the paint. It’s all but wrecked the exterior finish. At least the grass looks like it’s been mowed somewhat recently even though it’s soggy with morning dew.
“It’s not much.” Charlie comments as we’re stepping out of the car. He doesn’t hesitate before stepping around to the trunk and getting my things. I’m expecting a “but” that doesn’t come.
“I like it.” I say, putting on a smile. It’s almost worse in every way to Mom’s house in Arizona: smaller, less cared for, and a decent distance away from anywhere interesting. However, it’s a blank slate and that’s all that I can ask for at the moment.
Stepping up to Charlie’s side, I reach out for the bags. “You don’t have to-”
“Nonsense. Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”
“I don’t think you can legally call a tour ‘grand’ if it takes less than a minute to give.” I chuckle nervously. My voice croaks again. Fuck, I hope I don’t cry. My eyes glance sideways. Charlie nods. “S’pose not.”
His house is much nicer on the inside. It looks like it hasn’t changed in years judging by how all the furniture looks worn. There’s dishes drying in a rack next to the sink too. What little sunlight gets in through the clouds and windows is glistening off the plates and cutlery. Looking down at the carpet, I can see the lines made by a vacuum. Everything manages to feel a bit alien and a bit familiar at the same time but it almost doesn’t matter because it feels cozy.
Upstairs, Charlie introduces me to my room. It’s next to his - separated by a lone bathroom that’s somehow smaller than my tiny room.
Charlie lifts my luggage up onto my bed. His hands rest on his hips as he looks around. There’s a couple posters of bands I liked when I was 10 still hanging on the wall. I’m cringing a little just remembering that I used to listen to some of these guys. There aren’t any memories flooding back but the whole room feels much more recognisable than the rest of the house. Even though I wouldn’t have been able to tell you a thing about it ten minutes ago.
His hand gently slaps the only part of the room that seems out of place: a wooden desk which sits a lamp. There’s a mismatched chair too. “Picked these up at a thrift store yesterday. Figured you might want somewhere to study or…” He drifts off. A silence fills the room.
“Thanks Charlie, I really appreciate everything.” I smile. Even though it’s forced. Some significant part of me wants to reach out for a hug; to back up those words with something physical too. I don’t though. Charlie already looks like he wants to race out of the room and leave a dust outline in his wake. It’s either that or he’s really struggling with some awful aching pain in his body.
“Look, I really am sorry about Renee-”
“Can we… Not right now, okay?” My eyes find my hands which are awfully interesting. Fingers fidget with one another. A rock wells up in my throat and my eyelids suddenly become heavy.
Charlie nods and out of the corner of my vision I can see that he’s suddenly found his shoes quite interesting too. “Right. Sorry, Bella. I’ll leave you to it.”
I smile again through the hollow pain.
Everything still aches. My thoughts are drawn to Arizona, to Mom, like a mosquito to an electric fly trap. Even as I sit down on my new, old bed everything about being here just feels… wrong. Unresolved words hang around in my head with nothing to wash them away. The foreign sensations brought on by my surroundings begin to sink in.
I lie down on my bed, burying my face into my pillow, and just let myself be. As my long, brown hair hangs around my face like a makeshift curtain, I close my eyes and the darkness feels welcome. The heavy weight in my chest, in my stomach, and in my throat draws me down while the thoughts in my head drift away to usher in a restless slumber.
~~~~~~
“Bella?”
My eyes slowly squeak open to see Charlie standing in the doorway. There’s a smile on his face that makes me slightly uncomfortable because I’m not entirely sure that I remember him ever smiling. At least not that wide.
“C’mon. Get up. I’ve got something to show you. I promise you’ll like it.” He waits until I manage to rise from my bed and follow him downstairs. Outside there’s an orange pickup truck, a man in a wheelchair, and…
My heart stops beating. That pit in my stomach? Yeah, it’s just grown tenfold.
Charlie has to practically guide me over to the man in the wheelchair and the long-haired teenager standing next to him. My legs are concrete and my mind is blank except for the utter panic that’s spread throughout my body. Except for that one, tiny thing. Charlie’s still grinning like an idiot. Like this is just a casual reunion between old friends. Like one of those old friends isn’t suddenly a girl.
Jacob Black and I used to play when we were kids; whenever I’d visit Forks on those wonderfully dull vacations. I’d all but forgotten about him like most of this town and anything that had happened in it.
He’s kinda just staring at me. He’s smiling but his entire face is frozen; stuck like there’s been a sudden change in the wind.
“You remember Jacob and Billy, right Bella?”
Billy looks up at me with a smile that genuinely warms my body. He rocks back and forth in his chair like he’s brimming with excitement. Excitement over what, I’m not exactly sure. “Bella, is it now? You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman. Isn’t that right, Jacob?”
Jacob gives little more than a quiet “yeah”. It’s unsettling. It’s a stark reminder that I’m wearing women’s jeans and a women’s shirt. The clothes that I usually feel most comfortable in start weighing on me. I want to hide my hair in anyway possible, brushing it to the side so it hangs over one shoulder before letting my hands fill the impossibly small pockets that all women’s jeans come with.
The one saving grace of Forks was that it was supposed to be a clean slate. Nobody knows the old me here. Nobody would have probing questions or snide comments to make. At least, that’s what I thought. Now I’m standing before the one thing that I’ve feared most all my transition. I just never expected it to take this form.
Billy wakes me from my thoughts and the awkward pause that’s filled the air by slamming the side of the rundown pickup truck he’s sitting next to. “Whaddya think, sweet’eart?”
“It’s cool.” My fingernails dig their way into my thighs to try and override the awkwardness as I rock on the balls on my feet. “Yeah, rustic. Very hipster.”
“Hipster?” He chuckles. It’s a warm belly laugh that gives me the first genuine smile I’ve had in a long time. At least, until I glance over to Jacob and see that piercing death stare. Billy interrupts my thoughts with that deep voice of his. “I’m not exactly sure what that means but I’ll take it as a compliment. I’m sure you’ll be right at home in ‘er.”
I give a double take. My eyes widen and if it wasn’t for the absolute terror that Jacob’s neverending stare is giving me then I’m sure I’d be smiling too. “Seriously? My own car? Charlie… You di-”
“I didn’t. But I did. A small favour from Billy. Well, a big favour given it’s such short notice. Your Mom and I were gonna put something together for graduation but I figured you could do with the early present.”
My hand runs over the truck, feeling the chipped paint beneath my fingertips that’s not unlike the house she’s sitting in front of. “How… Where… Thank you.” I laugh.
“You can thank Jake. Thing was damn near scrap metal before he touched it.” My body stiffens. Still, I turn to Jacob and put on the best smile that I can muster. “Thank you, really. I…”
“It was nothing.” His voice is weirdly monotone. He’s smiling everywhere but his eyes. It gives shivers. “The clutch sticks a bit so watch out for that. Otherwise, you’re good to go.”
Charlie dangles the keys in front of my face. It doesn’t take any asking before I’ve nabbed them and am slipping into the driver’s seat. Running my fingers over the steering wheel, settling my butt into the seat, it’s all so surreal. I barely even notice the passenger side door opening and that unsettling teenager sliding in next to me.
“You can drive manual, right?” He asks. There’s a bit more life to his voice this time.
“Yeah dude, I’m good. Don’t worry. I won’t destroy her.” I chuckle, trying to be friendly.”
He starts pointing out some of the odd quirks of the care. Things like how long the air conditioner takes to heat up and how the radio only gets three stations. I’m just in awe that I get an air conditioner at all. The awkwardness seems to be washing away as we talk and I’m finally discovering that behind the muscles and the hair, there’s actually a human being in that shell.
“How do you get your voice to sound like that?” The question is sudden. In a split second, I’ve got whiplash. I shake my head, nervously chuckling to myself. “What… What do you mean?”
“Like, I get that some guys have small bodies and you can stuff your bra or whatever but how do you get your voice to sound like a girl’s?” My toes curl and my skin crawls. It actually feels like something is moving underneath there but thankfully the feeling is brief.
There’s something difficult about describing what it feels like to have someone so blatantly, so fearlessly, ask about your gender identity. Within the few seconds that it takes for me to muster up some kind of answer, my fight or flight response goes haywire. Like a needle wildly flickering back and forth on a radiometer or a scale.
They tell you to be polite. Most people don’t know better so you should educate them, right? Make it better for the next trans person they come across. Maybe one day they won’t have to ask questions because someone has already filled those gaps within them.
And, sure, I want to be that helpful person. I want to be optimistic and assume that Jacob is just curious. That, despite the stone cold stare he was giving me earlier, that he’s just new to all this.
But that needle keeps flickering. Am I indulging in his innocent curiosities or am I setting myself up to be attacked by his ignorance and bigotry?
“Luck… mostly.” I say quietly, meekly. My fingers grip the steering wheel just to have something to hold onto.
“Huh.” He says, nodding, before breaking out into a smile that’s admittedly adorable. It still doesn’t put me at ease though.
“If I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.”
I cannot get out of the car fast enough after that. I’m unsure if he felt the tension but my entire body feels like it’s going to cave in on itself. Forks is about to become the epicentre for Earth’s first black hole.
“So, whaddya think?” Billy asks, grinning up at me. Charlie still looks like an excited puppy begging for approval. It’s impossible to not feel all warm and gooey from how hard he’s trying.
“It’s great. Thank you so much.” Jacob’s by Billy’s side, having jogged around from the passenger side. “Both of you.”
It’s hard to push out those last few words but I keep up appearances for the sake of not starting something awkward. I bite down on my lip. While I’m grateful for the gift, more than grateful for the freedom it’ll give me, I want to rush back up to my room and fall asleep again. Sleep isn’t half as awkward as everything in this moment.
It’s not too long before Billy and Jacob say their goodbyes. Jacob practically goads me into making me promise to see him again sometime soon; something that makes Charlie smirk despite him trying to hide it. The whole encounter leaves me feeling confused. Happy about the truck, sure, but I feel sick about everything else. Once Billy and Jacob have made their leave, I quietly head back upstairs to start packing away my luggage.
There’s not much in the way of anything inside my suitcase. There’s t-shirts and jeans, a flannel here and there, with the only pair of shoes that I own being the sneakers on my feet. It was a split second decision to leave Arizona with nothing but my meager supply of girl’s clothes; a stash that I had built up over the years with whatever spare money I had. The bras I have don’t quite fit and my underwear selection is decidedly masculine but it’ll do.
Without my boy clothes, I’ve got no choice but to muster forward. I think I like it that way. Go into it head first, you know? But then again, I’m not thinking too hard about my first day of school next week.
Reaching into the far back of the suitcase, I wiggle my hand around until I feel something hard and plastic. It’s one of a few bottles that I’ve got buried in here. One of the few lifelines.
I pull it out and give it a shake. It’s about half full. Hormones weren’t cheap to buy online but it’s all I’ve got right now and I’m sure as hell not waiting however long it would take to actually get them sorted.