A/N: Strae did her beta business. Errors are my own.
Any recognized characters and/or situations belong to their rightful owner. No copyright infringement intended.
Chapter 1
You were finished long before
We had even seen the start.
Why don't you stand up, be a man about it?
Fight with your bare hands about it now.
I never wanted to say this
You never wanted to stay, well did you?
I put my faith in you, so much faith,
And then you just threw it away.
Paramore ~ For A Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic
The day that I realized I couldn't do this on my own would be one that would stick with me forever.
The house still smelled like him. Coffee, faint traces of metal and gunpowder, his cologne, and fish. I never thought I'd miss the smell of fish.
His chair sat empty across the table from me, symbolic to the barrenness of the house. His pens lay scattered on the table, his slippers discarded haphazardly by the fridge, his aviators folded up on the counter. I couldn't move any of it.
The freezer was empty of even his years upon years worth of fish, the fridge only held a box of baking soda and two year old pickles, and the cupboards were bare except for a mouse that starved to death.
I sat at the kitchen table with my checkbook and the month's bills, just as he always had. Except Charlie had always made the bills. Three were left to be made out and I was already maxed out.
All that I could do was hope that I would live another thirty days with water, electricity, and health insurance.
Charlie had been gone eight months now. The unexpectedness of his passing combined with my lack of closure still made it all seem so surreal.
The insurance money hadn't lasted long, mostly because the house hadn't been paid off and the hospital bills were ridiculous. Charlie's two hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy had just covered the payoff on the house and his medical expenses. Thank God, the police department covered the cost of his funeral.
After being t-boned at Forks' only lighted intersection – by my high school prom date, who was drunk at the time – Charlie suffered massive internal trauma. He was unresponsive from the time the paramedics arrived up until the day the plug was pulled. His heart beat but Chief Charlie Swan was no longer with us.
Pulling the plug on my father was the hardest thing I would ever do. The decision alone nearly killed me, too.
When Charlie was officially pronounced deceased, Tyler Crowley was hunted down by the rest of Forks' Police Department and thrown in jail again. Vehicular manslaughter, second degree manslaughter, whatever the charges were called, he would be in jail for the maximum sentence for killing Chief Charlie Swan. The judge threw the book hard.
Almost weekly, a letter would arrive from Washington State Prison. I read the first few, but each one was monotonously repetitive. As many times as the word sorry appeared, none of the letters were truly apologetic. There was a lot of wishing and hoping and wanting, but never an outright apology, explanation, or even a sign of remorse.
The lack of depth and emotion put into the letters was astounding. I'm not sure which bothered me more: the fact that the letters weren't remotely convincing towards his supposed guilt or that he just didn't give up.
It was entirely possible though that my currently half-completed degree in literature was making me read too far into each of his letters and I was only intended to take them for their face value. Was any apology supposed to be good enough? I could possibly forgive, with enough reason, but honestly, the undertone of the four letters that I did read acknowledged more towards a forgive and forget situation. And I could never forget. It would be hard enough to forgive. So instead, I simply ignored, which was working quite well.
Tyler Crowley's letters would swim in the trash along with the Victoria Secret ads and Adam & Eve brochures. I couldn't afford new lingerie or sex toys at the moment.
Anyway, the day I knew I couldn't do this on my own came along. Even with two jobs and the occasional "helpful" financial aid from Renee, I couldn't make the bills. I tried to cut back on little things; buying off-brand groceries, buying in bulk, giving up my cell phone, avoiding Alice-induced shopping trips, selling my beautiful Honda Civic and going back to the rust bucket Chevy truck I abandoned in Charlie's back yard. I still couldn't do it. I never realized how much Charlie helped me, how many bills he covered for me, even after I left for college.
Charlie's home… My home was two bedrooms and I didn't take up hardly any space. Moving wasn't an option, I couldn't; there wasn't even a chance that I would consider selling the house, or leaving it. The fact that there was an empty bedroom and the chance to get some side cash meant renting out the room would be my best, and only, option.
The moment Jacob found out I wanted to find a housemate, he offered.
Jacob Black's my boyfriend, sort of. He's more like a best friend, that occasionally requires sexual attention, and offers to move in with me when I can't make the bills. I shot him down faster than he could say, "please."
"Bells, baby, it makes perfect sense for us to live together. I don't like the thought of a stranger moving in with you anyway."
"No," I stated, firmly, for the fifth time.
"God damn it, Bella, stop being so stubborn. We've known each other our whole lives, we're dating, it's the next step. Come on, baby."
I slapped away the arm he was trying to put around me. "Jacob, what about your father?" I asked in a harsh whisper. I knew speaking loudly would have already caught Billy's attention and I didn't want him to hear what I was implying.
Jake pulled up short. "You're all he has, Jacob, I'm not letting you move in with me," I tried.
Truth be told, I just didn't want Jake to live with me. I loved him and he really was my best friend, but I wasn't to the point where I was sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, yet. Using Billy's disability as an excuse was low and cold, but it was the only thing that would work, because Jake was stubborn too. Billy really did only have Jake, though.
"What the hell are you going to do, Bells? Just let anyone with the cash move in? What if some psycho, stalker, creepy freak starts living with you and like…molests and kills you?"
Sometimes the two year age gap between us was forgotten, and other times it was so blatantly obvious, I felt like I was robbing a cradle.
I was nearing my limit, instead of hitting him on the side of his huge head, I grabbed my coat.
"I have to go, Jake. I'll figure it out."
I didn't even realize he was following me until his massive arms were around my waist and practically picking me right up off the ground as he spun me to face him.
"I only want what's best for you, baby," he said sincerely, pressing his soft lips to mine once before meeting my eyes firmly. "I know you'll figure it out, you always do."
I sighed and relaxed into his warm body. "I'm sorry, I'm just so stre-"
"Shh," he cut me off. "You don't have to apologize, Bells, I know."
He leaned down and kissed my ear, telling me he loved me before standing back up.
"Love you too, Jake," I replied, kissing his chest, since it was all I could reach.
Jacob living with me definitely had never been an option. Not only because of our relationship, but because he was a self-employed mechanic who really didn't make all that much, as selfish as it sounded. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if he left Billy, either.
So I placed an ad looking for a housemate. My god, I didn't even realize how weird some of Forks' residents were.
Besides Jake, there was Mike Newton, who was seriously lacking in the IQ department. If I was basing decision on money alone, he might have been a good option. His parents own and run the local sporting good chain and Mike was always guaranteed to be employed, not to mention fairly well off because of his parents' successful business. Unfortunately, Mike not only had a very unrequited, long standing crush on me, but he also gave off the "psycho, stalker, creepy freak" vibe in lethal doses.
Next!
A chick replying to my ad was a bit of a surprise, oddly enough. I actually expected mostly weird dudes looking to shack up, or something similar, but Victoria seemed genuinely interested. She was a gorgeous woman, with the most frightening red hair I'd ever seen. My "psycho, stalker, creepy freak" radar beeped slightly less for her than it did for Creeptacular Newton, which was a good sign, sort of. The fact that she was engaged put me off, but she promised her fiancé wouldn't be living with us.
Then I met James, Victoria's fiancé, and my radar screamed in protest. Next!
Laurent. Laurent had serious promise. Not only did he have a steady job, but he didn't trip my alarms with oddity. He seemed genuinely nice. But he had a cat. The thing was freakishly hairy. My eyes started to itch merely by seeing the pictures of the fur ball, which he carried around in his wallet.
Next.
Those two weird Brazilian sisters. Next, please!
After nicely explaining to Mr. Banner that his Labrador Retriever would not be allowed to drink out of my toilet bowl and hanging up the phone, it rang again.
"Hello?" I asked exasperatedly.
"Uh, hi. I'm calling about the ad in the paper for the room for rent."
"Yeah?" I followed up boredly, ready to start all over again, though I preferred to just hang up.
"Is it still available?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, um, great. What are the… conditions?"
"As in, what condition is the house and bedroom in or what are the conditions of living here?"
"Both?"
I sighed, long and loud, right into the mouthpiece then once again dished out the specifics on the living conditions.
"That sounds more than fair," commented the man.
"Do you have any pets?" I asked.
"No."
"Kids?"
"No."
"Wives?"
"No, and I'm fairly sure polygamy is still illegal in Washington State."
I laughed. This one was witty. I liked him. "Let me rephrase: wife?"
"No."
"Fiancé, girlfriend, whatever?"
"I have a, uh, significant other, yes," he responded.
"Oh, you're gay?" I asked.
"No," he blurted. "And if I was, asking me is a discrimination. You can't pick a tenant based on sexual orientation."
I laughed again. "Well, I don't care either way, I was simply curious. How old are you?"
"Discrimination again, but I'm twenty four."
"What are you, the discrimination police?"
"Yes. I'll have you arrested, woman."
I snorted at him. "I'm not sure if you're crazy or just weird, or if I like you or don't, but if you're interested in seeing the place, I'll give you directions and we can set up a time."
"The feelings are mutual. I'm free now, how about you?"
I had nothing going on so I allowed him to come.
If he was a Forks resident, he was apparently a hermit, because I'd never met this man in my life, but still felt like I should know him, somehow.
"Edward Masen," he said brazenly, his voice sure and confident, and quite possibly dripping with honey, or sex, maybe both.
"Bella Swan," I replied, my tone meager and contrastingly unsure. He grinned crookedly.
He was shockingly good looking, which should not have been my instant reaction to him, but it was nonetheless. His hair was a bizarre bronze color and he was oddly familiar though I wasn't sure how or why. His face was sculpted for modeling and his body matched. He could be a lip model, or an eye model, or a hand model, or a hair model, or just give him a freaking junk hugging pair of undies and call him an underwear model, or skip the underwear and model him naked. Did they have those? Naked models? No, those were porn stars, huh?
Regardless, I was staring and he either didn't care or notice because he paid me no mind. Rightfully so. I was mediocre at best. Jake always told me I was beautiful and that my body was a wonderland or something equally corny and cliché. My face was plain, not helped by my lack of any want for makeup and my hair was straight, with frizz, and brown. My eyes were brown too. I was ghostly white, with too small teeth and overly plump lips, a nose that was too straight and a forehead too wide. I was small to average, depending on who you asked, in build and height. My bust wasn't impressive by any means, nor was I packing major junk in the trunk. I would suffice. I wouldn't win any beauty queen contests but no one had ever complained about me looking like I was beat with the ugly stick.
Jake was the opposite of this man. Jacob was brawn and dark and hairy. This man was pale, lean and sinewy in a way that didn't allow for doubt of his strength but didn't broadcast it by being overt, and I doubted he was hairy.
Neither of us said much as I gave him the grand tour, which consisted of: this is the front door, this is hall, this is the living room, this is the kitchen, those are the stairs, this is my room, this is the bathroom, and finally, here is the renter's room.
The renter's room actually was my room. I couldn't rent Charlie's room out though, so I traded. Both rooms were about the same size. The shared bathroom was always something I detested, but I was going to have to live with it. At least this man looked clean. I couldn't imagine sharing a bathroom with Jake. The number of curly, black hairs Jake would leave on the shower floor and toilet would make me vomit. Admittedly, I couldn't go down on him without the fear of choking to death on pubes. But that's beside the point.
We ended up on the landing beneath the stairs on the main floor.
"So, any other rules you may have forgot to mention?" he asked, looking around again. "Besides the 'no using my toothbrush, ever' one that you've stressed forty three times."
I glared at him. "Seriously, if I ever catch you using my toothbrush, I'll castrate you." And what a shame that would be.
He chuckled. "So, does this mean you approve? Do I get the go ahead then?"
I thought.
He really seemed like the type of person I could live with. His funds weren't exactly copious at the moment, but he had a job. He seemed reliable, honest, and trustworthy. He wasn't completely freaked out by me and he was even witty and funny, and fucking hot. Okay, that last one should not have been a deciding factor, but shit, who am I kidding? The sexy man would provide some nice mental material for masturbatory purposes. Who the hell chances living with a hideous person when Mr. Sexy is standing on their doorstep?
I felt my face heat up as I stared at him some more. He noticed this time and raised an eyebrow at me. "So?"
"Yeah, I think so. But, before you commit to anything, I have a final rule. No sex in this house."
I'll admit, it was a spur of the moment rule, one that I might not have even thought through, but it made perfect sense to me. I didn't want him whoring around in this house, which I realized was a huge possibility with his far from unattractive looks. I would not have a man living with me if he was bringing a new STD home every night. No man whores allowed.
His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened, both of which I noticed since I was sort of lost in his beauty. His eyes were the oddest shade of hazel, almost a burnt gold, yet green too. And his jaw. It was lickable. It was the most lickable jaw I'd ever seen.
"Isn't that a bit hypocritical? I thought you have a boyfriend."
"I do, but I'm speaking broad spectrum. Not just for you, but for me as well."
"You don't have sex?" he asked incredulously.
I knew I was blushing again. I so wasn't going to breach this subject with him. "No sex in this house. If you can't do that, then we don't have a deal."
He looked away from me, glaring a hole into one of the obnoxiously yellow kitchen cabinets. "I can't believe I'm going to do this," he muttered. He turned back to me, stretching his hand out towards me. "Okay, deal. No sex in this house, scout's honor."
I reached out to shake his hand, but the moment our skin touched something ran through my body and caused me to take a step back. He seemed puzzled as he stared at our still outstretched hands that were a foot apart.
"Deal," I muttered back, now questioning what exactly I was doing.
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