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C H A P T E R O N E ʙᴇᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋғᴀsᴛ
I don't know how I ended up in forks.
Though I'd driven there in my beat up car as well as any other time, it was too stuffy to concentrate on anything but the road ahead, the sound of tires sloshing through the remnants of recent rains. The windows were broken, not able to roll down any further than an inch, but the air that tickled by my cheek was dry, suffocated by the cold.
I think it was the smell, so earthy and fresh that had drawn me in as I passed the small town. So much like my own scent that I would be able to drift in as if an element of the forest myself, just another tree within the mossy clusters that ran for miles. It reminded me of my dream too, of the perfection of a different life, the image of a life ended while another begun, so tranquil and silent that I felt myself drift with the mere idea. Perhaps that was unnerving, but it brought a certain sense of comfort as I zipped past the rugged sign post that named the town.
It was always the same. Small town, new clueless people. I could list them all as easy as it was to sing an old song. It was easier that way.
I'd spent the summer in Canada, choosing to drive south for as long as I could one day in late November before the roads would become even more undrivable than they already were. Even though I had a natural affinity toward the cold, I hated the months when it would make my car cramp up- my ease of running would never be anything but suspicious.
In the winter month that I arrived in Forks, there was no snow when I drove slowly through the town. But the green trees and the blue tinted roads that merged to slim rows of independent shops were a pleasant change from the starkness of the last town I had stayed in. Even the grey pavements and overhead wires made the centre street feel different. Though different was not always good.
As I turned a corner into a small side street, I could see fog seeping in from over the jagged tree tops that surrounded the town. Already, I was feeling at home, the dull weather something that could protect me when I was on my own. But it was always a bad thing, my love for the same type of places that I would stay in. I always hated to leave.
At the edge of the road, there was a small bed and breakfast, no larger than three beds. On the doorway, slung in front of dated, purple-patterned curtains hung a vacancy sign. Despite the size of the place, I wasn't surprised. I wondered when the last time they'd had a guest.
By the doorway, I shuffled through the pile of crisp, orange leaves that seemed to have come from nowhere, and as I opened the stiff door, heat flooded out, brushing against my skin. The sound of chiming bells shattered the silence, and a small elderly woman came hobbling in cloaked in a lilac nightgown, white hair wrapped in cotton curlers. She stood in the doorway for a moment, wrinkled eyes staring curiously, her thin lips puckered, before she tottered forward again toward the desk at the back of the cramped reception room.
