Till Death (Volturi / Twilight Fanfiction)

2: Forks

No dreams that night.

The blizzard had kept most of the city awake that night. Freezing rain turned to hail and hit so hard at points that many were afraid their windows would shatter. Taylor was no different. She slept under four covers that night, tossing and turning to the sounds of creaking infrastructure. Morning couldn't come soon enough. But when it did, she wished for a few minutes more of night. She was groggy, but needed to get up. Her procrastinating had left a sizable pile of dirty laundry in her room, she needed to wash that and then pack everything up to get on a plane home. The amount of luggage she was bringing was ridiculous, but her parents insisted on bringing everything home. They wanted to replace the outdated, and of course...convince her to stay home this time. That's how they were. Wanting her to follow in the family business of consoling hurt people by telling them their dead loved one was actually cheating on them in life. And that they needed to come clean so they could move on. Probably to hell...but Taylor didn't handle that part of it. So she didn't really know.

The amount of people who die at the laundry-mat is...well...more than zero. It took her a while to get her car started this morning, so she was worried that she would run into a lot of people there. And she did, but none of them were living. Well, the homeless man in the back was still, but he was also sleeping. As close to death as the living could be, which spooked Taylor a lot. He must've been on the verge of astral projection because the amount of dead surrounding him, just staring down at his unconscious form...was unnerving. They don't really do that otherwise. Unless they're assholes.

She doubted everyone who died in the laundry-mat was an asshole.

To distract herself from the crowd she leaned against the dryer and continued reading her book. 'A Catcher in the Rye'. She didn't catch the plot between the ramblings of it's whiny little white boy 'protagonist', and she wasn't enjoying the story. But she didn't grab her backpack and this was the only book she had in the car. Her parents gave it to her when her major was in English, this was part of a pack they gave her of 'classics'. Not that she could judge the book to harshly, English wasn't her major anymore. And it was famous for a reason. She assumed.

The being standing in front of her was wondering if she enjoyed reading. They didn't like reading. They also didn't like doing laundry. Mom asked them to do the laundry because she was sore from gardening the day before. They hadn't seen how that was their problem, they had schoolwork to do. But Mom said they could get something from the 7/11 after if they washed clothes. Gave them $10, but only because their little bro had to come along. Their little bro made it home that night. They supposed that was good, it was all good, because if Mom hadn't been sore that day she'd be the one fucking round in purgatory for who knows how long. That girl, she isn't moving her eyes with the book anymore-.

"Uhg!" Taylor slammed the book shut after yelling. This woke up the man in the corner and made everything stare at her. "I can't read this damned thing..." She looked past the crowd of dead to the man who was sitting straight up still a bit startled. "...I can't stand complainers."

The dryer buzzed as it's cycle ended. The guy grunted something unintelligible and laid back down to sleep again. The spirits surrounding him looked disappointed and slowly dispersed about the building to stare at some wall or cycling clothes. One tried messing with the vending machine next to the homeless man. Lights flickered every once in a while and the spirit would smirk everytime. The one that was in front of Taylor stayed there, watching what she was doing and wondering if that book really was that bad. He used to love baseball. Taylor couldn't help the small smile as she unloaded the dryer. They were remembering their life a bit more, a step closer to moving on. She guessed.

They didn't follow her out of the building though, they couldn't. However they died was traumatic enough to keep them in that building. Until they were able to move on or until the building would be destroyed to make way for another. Then they'd be stuck in that one. Until they could move on. It wasn't Taylor's concern. Her Buick rumbled to life and she made her way back to her dorm. The majority of her things were packed in her trunk, but she wanted to pack up these clothes and bring down her toiletries as well. Then that dorm would be devoid of her things. She didn't trust her roommate not to use her shampoo when they got back if they returned sooner than Taylor. Taylor spend good money on her hair. And though most days she liked her dorm mate, some days all she had was the fucking audacity. Even after she got her shit pile-drived into the closet for touching Taylor's expensive ass iron to straighten her own hair. They both got cheek burns that day, from the hot iron being thrown around in the altercation.