O' LADY MOON, rosalie hale

CHAPTER TEN

Everything happened for a reason.

Nightjars grew good at camouflaging so that they were not easy to spot; the Giant Impact Hypothesis was believed to have occurred 4.5 billion years ago and to have been a hundred million times larger than the event which wiped out the dinosaurs in order for the debris to be ejected into space and then coalesced to form the moon; first loves were meant to release chemicals in people's brain like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin to help regulate the body's inner functions; and first breakups were so often similar to the stages of grief that they were dealt with differently, taking their time to mentally prepare for new relationships, or feel less alone and, hopefully, get over an ex. But every time Genevieve tried to understand why, why things happened the way they did, she couldn't get any word out of her mouth, just like she couldn't stop the hammer drill from falling hard onto the ground the second she saw his shadow come into view from the sunbathed backyard.

"Genevieve!" Her name was called out, followed by the clinking sound of keys bumping against each other as they hit Charlie Swan's hip, "I heard Minwoo say you guys needed some help with settling the roof and the walls of the bedroom, he's notified me he'll come home late today and asked if I could join the fun in his honor." He smiled, eyes jumping to every corner of the dust mask she was wearing as if he was looking for a hint that told she didn't know he noticed how her fists clenched and her shoulders squared back.

"Again?" Her voice came out rather harsh than hurt, muffled by the anger and tiredness of the same exchange that got them nowhere every time the vocals left their mouths and the consonants crashed against teeth and tongues and were finally spat out to the side.

"It's work duty." He said, blinking too fast to be true.

Charlie was a good father. It was a fact, a period at the end of the sentence. She was a witness of all his failures and uncountable attempts to be one; she was sure he cared about his daughter like he cared about his favorite mug, his police badge, or the pepper spray she sometimes saw Bella shoving deeper into her bag when no one was around and she returned to him later after school only for it to happen the next day and so on. Charlie was the embodiment of a repetition of love Genevieve feared she envied the second her eyes were aware of each thoughtful act that she would just turn away from to not feel the blush of guilt and wanting crawling up the back of her neck; to not face any of her own decisions, even though she had probably been the one who led them right to that spot, in between the lines of truths and lies and the sourness both left deep inside the pit of her stomach, like a revolving sickness that kept on eating holes in her bones and left marks on the floor where the entrance's door grazed it when it was opened at night and her mom was asleep and she was outside, watching the shared intimacy of Sirena's house lights turning off at the same time the ones on her own turned on and the faint steps of the stairs creaked because her dad would always forget they had learned to speak in long sighs.

"What type of work duty has my dad missing dinner every fucking week day as if it's part of a nine-to-five job?" Genevieve tried to not raise her tone, to not let her mom on the other side of the house hear her, so her heart wouldn't break one bit more and only hers would be a little cracked, "You're not his personal mailman, if he has something to tell us, let him do it himself."

For a brief second, it seemed as if he had sensed her worry, the plead in the way she pronounced words. And it concerned her, how easy it was for a father to know when something was off, and yet, how incredibly troublesome it was for her own. Perhaps the problem was she didn't want to open up, she had been avoiding it all to stop the dizziness that she lugged around, tugging at her mouth things she didn't want to let out, because she didn't want to be ungrateful nor resentful-she solely hoped for taking a break from the role of a daughter where she wouldn't have to keep her voice and remarks separate like oil and water, and because she was not her mother, she didn't want to bite her tongue.

"You're not doing anything wrong." He mumbled, after a beat, but just as raising a child and cooking for the first time, it felt like it.

Genevieve took off her gloves and lowered her eyes, waiting for him to nod the moment she looked back up. That was their common ground, a white flag waved up above their heads, a treat to stay silent.

"Bella left a book for you, before she..." He moved his hands around, glancing sideways to the street and the last place he saw his daughter storm out of his house to jump in her car and drive away to Phoenix, without any explanation than breaking up with Edward Cullen and without answering any of Genevieve's messages either, besides the picture she'd sent of the responsible of her big escape roaming around her house, for which Bella had simply responded: that's a blurry tree, Gen, you're hallucinating. "I'll go get it now." Charlie caught her attention again as he started to step backwards.

"Thanks, Charlie." She whispered, yet she hoped he heard it loud and clear the same way she heard the whistling in the dead of night and the soft spoken murmur coming from the woods.