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CHAPTER THREE ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ'ᴅ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ɢᴏ?
One thing I'd noticed about Alice, was her inability to stay still. It was so unlike the rest of us. While the rest of the Cullens, with their effortless beauty and grace, could sit for hours, calm and unblinking, Alice could not last a minute. As I lay beside her on the bed, her head resting against my stomach, she played with my hands, moving between fingers as if inspecting the most interesting thing in the world. She hummed out a song- something I might've heard coming from Rose's radio- and tapped a bare foot against the metal bar of the railing.
It was this excitability that meant I wasn't surprised when she eventually shot up from the bed, stopping to beckon to me for a moment at her bedroom door before she sprinted downstairs. For a moment, I knew she must have seen something, to take her to the front door. But then in the past weeks, it was rather her inability to see anything that often spurred her movements. Jacob's presence often had that effect.
When I finally made my way down the hall, Alice's high voice was already filling the room. Everyone was listening. Edward shared the same grave look that was plastered on her face. When she saw me again, eyes squeezed shut, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose, she strode across the room and there her head down onto my shoulder as if it could block anything that was in her mind.
"What is he doing? What is Jacob doing that has erased my schedule for the entire day? I can't see anything!" She groaned, only pulling her head up again when her brother spoke.
His words came out as an angry growl. "He talked to Charlie. He thinks Charlie is following after him, coming here."
"Told Charlie? Told him what?" Bella echoed, her red eyes piercing into him.
"What else could he have told him to send him racing here?" Alice said, arms folded petulantly over her chest.
"Edward?" Bella glanced over to him, seeing his nod confirm her scared suspicions. She let out a brief shriek of frustration. "Doesn't he understand? How could he do that? Charlie can't know about me! About vampires! That would put him on a hit list that even the Cullens couldn't save him from."
I didn't voice the fact that my own fears mimicked that of Bella's. She didn't need any more pessimism surrounding the fate of her father. Nor did I voice the fact that this scene here was likely to have always happened, no matter the circumstances. Bella had been set on her changing since the moment she'd found out about us all- Charlie was always going to be the compromise.
But Charlie knowing about why her eyes were red and why she'd been on the brink of death didn't need to be a bad thing. In a way, he was the most laid-back man I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting, along with Carlise. Though looking back, my track run with men had never been very positive. I could have sworn I saw Edward nodding along with my thoughts.
"Jacob's on his way in now."
The group didn't give him time to reach the door. Alice pushed the front door open, readying to shout at him, but Jacob glided straight past, brushing her slightly with his shoulder as he strode straight through into the living room. She glared after him, mouth opening and closing again, for once speechless.
