Chapter 6: Scary Stories
In chapter 6, we get to hear some stories and watch as Bella is even more of a manipulative bitch than usual, significantly lessening any sympathy I could possibly have had for her in the future…and otherwise, we get a lot of description of random crap that no one really cares about. Yay!
The chapter starts with Bella waiting for her truck to be returned to her, then it showing up, which is just thrilling…and, of course, she shares more of her extremely negative expectations, and those expectations are met as usual (at least in Bella’s mind; I don’t think anything is even half as bad in ‘real life’ as she makes it out to be). Blah blah blah, blathering on about Edward; I’m fucking bored…Mike is excited about the weather, and Bella is (surprise surprise) incredibly negative about it…annnd someone doesn’t like her and is talking about her, and this is somehow surprising.
I’m sorry, I know it’s not nice to talk about people the way this girl is about her, and that she’s supposedly only doing it because she’s jealous that Edward is paying attention to Bella, but come on…Bella has given people enough reason to think she’s a bitch; has she seriously not noticed that at all somehow? BE SELF-AWARE, BELLA. You’re fucking annoying, and people don’t like that. Or at least normal people don’t. …Or maybe I’m wrong about that, given how many of Meyer’s fans seem to admire Bella as a character. God, I am just so sad about humanity right now.
Anyway, yeah, this girl named Lauren has a hate on for Bella and thinks she should sit with the Cullens instead of with Mike and his friends…which is stupid because Bella has only really been seen with Edward once, but whatever. Mike defends Bella, then we’re back home with Charlie, and we have this line:
“I think he felt guilty for leaving me home alone on the weekends, but he’d spent too many years building his habits to break them now.”
…What? Ah, fuck it; I’m not even going to bother.
Bella and Charlie have a brief conversation about the place Edward said he was going on the weekend, so we can see that Edward lied to her, and then Meyer jumps right into the next morning without a section break and goes on for a page about the weather, the types of cars Bella’s friends drive, and all their names. Wheeeee.
“Three other girls stood with them, including one I remembered falling over in gym on Friday. That one gave me a dirty look as I got out of the truck, and whispered something to Lauren. Lauren shook out her cornsilk hair and eyed me scornfully.
So it was going to be one of those days.”
Isn’t every day one of “those” days, Bella? It has definitely seemed that way so far, at least! Also, am I really supposed to believe that more than one person is this bitter about her having one conversation with Edward? No one even seems to notice him most of the time; they certainly didn’t after Bella’s accident…so why should I think it would actually be this way? Just because it’s high school? Fine. Let’s go with that.
Mike is happy to see Bella and even happier that she didn’t bring Edward, seating arrangements get sorted out (which is just fucking riveting, I swear), and then we have almost an entire page of description of the things they drive past and how beautiful they all are. That’s great and everything, Meyer, but please make me care about this story. These descriptions just aren’t doing that, though it is nice that they weren’t excessively negative for once.
The boys make a fire, which ends up burning blue and mesmerizing Bella (admittedly, it does sound pretty, but don’t driftwood fires give off toxic smoke? :P), and then a while later some of the guys decide they want to go on a hike to the tide pools, so Bella has to decide if she wants to go and risk falling into them, because she is THAT clumsy. I’m not sure why Meyer keeps reminding us of this; is her clumsiness going to be a super important part of the story later on, or is it just supposed to endear us to Bella in some way? Because it really doesn’t. It’s actually very annoying.
In the end, Bella decides to go with the guys because Lauren wants to stay behind, and Bella doesn’t want to have to be around her because she said mean things about her. So off they go, with Bella finding the negative in everything yet again, and trying not to fall anywhere. More descriptions of how pretty everything is, which again, I’m not knocking because I like pretty things and that Bella is seeing them as such, but it’s just more filler to skim over…and then we’re back to Edward again because of course we are. *sigh*
When the guys want to go back to get food, Bella goes with them, falling a bunch (seriously, why do we care about this?), and now I’m confused as to why any of this was in here at all. Why was this hike integral to the story? It doesn’t seem to have served any purpose. Sure, there is a group of people from the reservation at their campsite when they get back, but couldn’t they have just as easily shown up while Bella was still at the fire instead of wasting two pages with a useless hike?
Anyway, everyone is introduced to everyone else and Mike brings Bella some food, Bella thinks about how much she likes Angela (thank god she likes SOMEONE other than Edward, even if it is for stupid, self-absorbed reasons) and about the flow of time (which is a significantly less interesting train of thought than it sounds like it should be), and then everyone disperses, leaving only Bella and a few others at the fire.
One of the others that stays behind is one of the kids from the reservation, Jacob, who of course is interested in Bella, just like everyone else (for whatever reason)…so we get a description of how beautiful he is, despite that he’s a few years younger than Bella (which is weird), which cannot possibly mean anything other than ‘potential love interest’ in Meyer’s world.
“However, my positive opinion of his looks was damaged by the first words out of his mouth.”
…Or not. But the first words out of his mouth are just asking if she’s Isabella Swan, and apparently it’s just the fact that he didn’t know – without ever having spoken to her before – that he should be calling her Bella, that is the problem. Seriously? You are that judgemental, Bella? Wow. No wonder you’ve never had a boyfriend.
Jacob reveals that Bella’s new truck had belonged to his dad, so they talk about his family for a minute because Bella was forced into playdates with Jacob’s sisters when she came to visit her dad growing up, and we learn that apparently she was a bitch even before she was 11, since she says she “kicked up enough tantrums to end the fishing trips” by then. Yep, something to be proud of for sure.
Jacob catches her up on what his sisters are doing now, they talk about the truck and rebuilding cars for a while, and Bella seems impressed enough with him, but there is no hint as to what the supposedly traumatizing things that Bella mentioned blocking out at the beginning of the book are (because they supposedly related to Jacob’s family). …Unless that was just the forced playdates, in which case, fuck you, Bella.
Lauren notices that Jacob is paying more attention to Bella than she’d like, so I guess maybe her disdain for Bella is personal, not just because of Edward…which is surprisingly refreshing, because at least someone is seeing Bella for what she is and not just being ‘jealous’ of or in love with her. At least I can pretend it’s that, anyway. Lauren brings up the Cullens, clearly trying to stir up trouble as the next thing we learn is that the Cullens “don’t come” where they are, and then Tyler manages to distract her with a CD somehow, so clearly she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer either.
Bella is conveniently observant enough in this instance to notice that when the boy says the Cullens “don’t come” there, he’s implying that they aren’t allowed, but then Jacob is asking her a question that allows her to bitch about Forks, so she is understandably distracted for a second. And then we get into the part of the book that makes me hate Bella even more than any of the previous parts, if you can believe it.
“I was still turning over the brief comment on the Cullens, and I had a sudden inspiration. It was a stupid plan, but I didn’t have any better ideas. I hoped that young Jacob was as yet inexperienced around girls, so that he wouldn’t see through my sure-to-be-pitiful attempts at flirting.”
Wow. Fucking wow. Not only are you a stupid bitch, but you’re a stupid manipulative bitch, who is PLANNING on using a young, nice boy that you actually find interesting and pleasant to talk to, so you can find out information about Edward! Do you have ANY conscience, whatsoever? How can you DECIDE to USE someone, knowing they are at least somewhat interested in you and that they have done nothing wrong? What the fuck is wrong with you?? WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS CHARACTER??
Bella asks Jacob to walk down the beach with her, while trying to use the expression Edward uses on her to get her to do what he wants, because that’s not fucking creepy at all, so off they go. They discuss Jacob’s age as they walk and Bella ‘flutters her eyelashes’ at him (sweet Jesus, seriously, just fucking kill me now), and this whole exchange is fucking painful because the only thing Bella cares about is that she thinks her act is too obviously fake for Jacob not to notice; she doesn’t, at any point, think about how fucking WRONG it is to be putting on that act in the first place.
Bella asks about the older guy who made the comment about the Cullens, still using manipulative conversational tactics as she does so, and Jacob tells her about him (Sam), and explains that the Cullens aren’t supposed to come onto the reservation. He tells her he’s not supposed to tell anyone why the Cullens can’t go there, so Bella lays it on even thicker, trying to ‘allure’ him into telling her about it, which for some reason fucking works because everything hates me.
“‘Do you like scary stories?’ he asked ominously.
‘I love them,‘ I enthused, making an effort to smolder at him.”
I hate this book. So fucking much.
Jacob asks Bella if she knows any of the old native stories, and she admits she doesn’t, so he goes on to tell her about the Flood and whatever, then reveals that a ‘legend’ claims that his tribe descended from wolves, so it’s against tribal law to kill wolves. Then, he says, there are stories about the “cold ones”, and his great-grandfather made a treaty with the cold ones to keep them off the natives’ land, because the cold ones are the natural enemy of the ‘wolves that turn into men’, which is what the natives are.
Instead of being surprised that Jacob has just revealed that the natives are werewolves, Bella decides to question the idea that werewolves have enemies, instead. What the fuck? Jacob says they have only one enemy, but that the ‘pack’ of cold ones that came during his great-grandfather’s time didn’t hunt the way the others did, so they weren’t dangerous to the tribe, which is why his great-grandfather made a pact with them instead of killing them. The deal was that if the cold ones stayed off their land, the natives wouldn’t expose their identities to the ‘pale faces’. Couldn’t that have gone both ways, since the natives were also, y’know, werewolves, and might not want the ‘pale faces’ to know that either? Or is it somehow well known that werewolves are a thing in this universe? If so, I’m surprised that’s only coming up now, but Bella doesn’t seem to think any of this is weird.
Anyway, Jacob goes on to explain that this pack of cold ones was ‘civilized’, meaning they claimed not to hunt humans and instead preyed on animals, though of course there was never any guarantee if they got too hungry. Bella asks how all of that relates to the Cullens, assuming they must be like the cold ones from his great-grandfather’s time…but Jacob informs her that they are, in fact, the same cold ones from that time. Oooooh. God, I just do not care at all.
Apparently two of the cold ones are new, but the rest date back to before the ‘pale faces’ even arrived, which I would imagine is a long fucking time (and I’m not sure that timeline really fits with Jacob’s story, but whatever; I can’t be bothered), and Jacob says that they are ‘blood drinkers’. Bella looks off into the distance as she processes that information, and then they talk pretty casually about how Jacob just violated a sacred treaty, because y’know, who cares, right?
Bella promises to keep Jacob’s secret and acts like she thinks Jacob is just a really good storyteller, when actually she’s seriously considering that what he’s told her could be accurate, and then Mike and Jessica show up and someone or other is jealous again because Bella is in the company of someone else and I am just so fucking sick of this shit.
Bella informs Jacob that Mike is “definitely not” her boyfriend, because she wants him to keep thinking she’s interested in him because she’s still a manipulative bitch even though she already got the information she wanted out of him…but she makes sure Mike doesn’t see her wink at Jacob, supposedly to spare his feelings. No it’s fucking not; it’s so she can still pretend he has a chance too, when he’s of use to her. Fuck you, Bella; just fuck you so very, very much.
Bella tells Jacob he should come visit her when he gets his license, and finally feels guilty for using him, but not enough to fucking stop, and she somehow thinks it’s okay because she “really does like him”, and can see them being friends. Y’know, casually ignoring the fact that you KNOW that’s not what he wants or what you led him to believe would be the case, you stupid bitch.
Mike and Bella talk for a brief moment about Jacob’s stories, then Mike informs her that they’re all packing up to leave, so Bella says goodbye to Jacob and tells him she’ll come visit the next time her dad is down that way. Then off they go, with Bella having been able to find a way to avoid sitting next to Mike, since that’s obviously the worst thing ever, and that’s the end of chapter 6.
—
Chapter 7: Nightmare
Ohhh, this chapter was really just a whole lot of nothing, wasn’t it? Sooo many pages of nothing, and then a whole lot of rage. Alright, here we go.
We start off with more of Bella’s annoying attitude as she gets home, goes to her room and puts on some music to try to distract herself from thinking about what Jacob told her, though I really have no idea why she is so intent on not thinking about it. She wanted to know, now she knows, and it’s not like she’s going to be able to avoid thinking about it forever, so why bother? And really, why bother in the first place? How does not thinking about it help anything? I don’t get this character at all.
Meyer’s description of Bella listening to music goes on for almost an entire page, and then she finally falls asleep. She has another dream …and who wants to guess what it’s about?! That’s right, Edward. But not just Edward this time; Jacob is there too…and, amazingly, Mike! He’s not completely insignificant to her, apparently! Yay!
Seemed fitting.
In the dream, Bella is in the forest, trying to find the sun, when Jacob shows up and tries to pull her back into the darkest part of the forest. She tries to ask him what’s wrong, but he just insists that she run, as Mike calls out to her to run in his direction. Jacob suddenly turns into a werewolf as Mike continues to yell at Bella to run, but she ignores him in favour of a light she sees coming toward her from the beach…which is, of course, Edward. His skin is glowing and he’s beckoning her to come to him, which she does, despite that she can see his fangs. Because she’s an idiot, Jacob has to defend her, so he (in werewolf form) dives at Edward, going for the jugular, which causes Bella to cry out and then wake up.
When she’s awake, Bella realizes that it’s 5:30 am and she’s lying in bed still fully dressed (including boots…okay then), with all the lights on. She tries to get back to sleep but can’t, even after doing a little striptease, so she decides to go have a shower instead, noticing after she’s done that Charlie is already gone. When she’s all ready for the day, she bitches about the internet, gets some cereal, puts on some music, fights with some pop-ups, and does an internet search for vampires. Well goddamn, this is exciting.
As would be expected, her search returns a large variety of results, some of which she skims over entirely, and others she reads in depth. I’m not going to get into anything about any of that, because it’s really just a few pages of things you could look up on the internet yourself (in fact, the page that Meyer references actually does exist), but in the end, Bella feels that she hasn’t found much of anything that coincides with what she’s seen of the Cullens, or what Jacob told her.
That doesn’t make much sense to me, given that what she lists as the qualities she’s seen/heard from Jacob should coincide with at least some myths, yet she says there were few myths that matched even one of those criteria…I feel like I’m missing something here. But am I going to look in depth at the website Meyer mentioned to fact check this? Hell no. You can if you want (http://vampiresaz.webs.com/), but that is just way too much work for me to bother with for a book like this that I care so little about. Sorry guys.
Bella is perplexed by the fact that those things don’t match up, though, as well as the fact that according to popular culture, Edward should not be able to go out in sunlight…so she angrily shuts off the computer and feels stupid for having looked anything up in the first place. She wonders briefly what is wrong with herself that would make her do that, but then:
“I decided that most of the blame belonged on the doorstep of the town of Forks – and the entire sodden Olympic Peninsula, for that matter.”
Of course, because no blame for your own actions should ever go to you, you self-absorbed little fuckwit. So. Much. Hate.
She decides she wants to leave the house, so she takes off into the woods on foot, which is obviously the best idea ever given the dream she just had…and the fact that she goes on here about how bad her sense of direction is. I just…so very much do not understand why anyone likes this character. I know I’ve said that a thousand times before, and I’m sure I’ll say it a thousand more, but really, come on! What is there about her that’s likeable at all, at this point?
Blah blah blah, names of trees, who gives a fuck…and finally, after almost a page of descriptions of crap in the forest, Bella sits down on a recently fallen tree and realizes how stupid it was to wander out into the forest when she was trying to escape the memory of her dream. More descriptions of forest crap follow that realization, and then Bella decides that it’s much easier to believe Jacob’s stories in the woods than it was in the comfort of Charlie’s house, so she allows herself to consider the things she deems important to figure out about the situation. And what are those?
1) Is it possible that what Jacob said about the Cullens could be true?
2) If so, what is she going to do about it?
At first, she decides that it isn’t possible that the Cullens could be vampires, but then as she thinks more about Edward’s speed, strength, shifting eye colour, skin, beauty, grace, the fact that he and his siblings don’t eat, and that Edward apparently talks like he’s from a turn-of-the-century novel (I suppose I could see that) – all of which are things she just said are not qualities listed on the vampire websites (unless I read that wrong), remember – as well as the fact that he skipped the blood typing class, only said no to the beach trip when he knew where they were going (which…I get the point she’s making here, but if the sun was supposed to bother him, then wouldn’t he have skipped entirely for that reason?) and seems to always know what everyone (except her, cause she’s special) is thinking…she starts to wonder.
She decides, in the end, that the Cullens are something inhuman, whether vampire or otherwise, but that she can’t tell anyone else about that because she knows they’d think she’s crazy. So that leaves her with two options; either do what Edward said and avoid him – which she decides she cannot do because she is “gripped in a sudden agony of despair” just thinking about it (this could not be more emo if it tried) – or she can do absolutely nothing and continue looking at Edward as a good thing despite the danger he could pose to her, because he did save her life after all, so he must not really be all that dangerous. Riiiiiiight. Let’s go with that.
She thinks about the ‘dark’ version of Edward from her dream and decides that that was just a reflection of her fear of the idea of vampires, not an actual fear of Edward, especially because even in the dream she cried out in defence of him, because she didn’t want Jacob to hurt him….even though he was calling to her with his fangs out. She figures she’s in too deep to get out of it now, so why bother trying, and this is all just terrifyingly reminiscent of the thought process that accompanies abusive relationships. She’s making excuses for things she should rightly be afraid of because she ‘loves him too much’ to let him go, even though he could cause her real, physical harm. Again with the excellent role models, Meyer. You scare me.
“Now that I knew – if I knew – I could do nothing about my frightening secret. Because when I thought of him, of his voice, his hypnotic eyes, the magnetic force of his personality, I wanted nothing more than to be with him right now. Even if…but I couldn’t think it.”
See, this paragraph is fucking horrifying. Does Meyer intend it to come off that way, or does she really not see how incredibly unhealthy that thought process is? The fact that young, female readers can be influenced by that kind of thinking terrifies me. “He’s so pretty, and I love him, so I can’t leave him even if he scares me and even if I know he might kill me.” Really? THIS is the example you want to set? Fuck, I am furious, but more than that, I am just scared for the younger generation. This is not okay. I am not okay with this at all.
Bella gets up and finds the path she was on again, eventually finding her way home, then gets changed and writes a paper she has due for school. She feels a lot better now that she’s made her incredibly stupid decision, because at least it was a decision, and that’s all she needs, apparently. She thinks the decision she made is ‘ridiculously easy to live with‘, which is even scarier, but I guess there’d be no book if she didn’t. Pity, that.
She finishes her paper, thinks about her trip to Seattle with Edward and how it makes her feel the same as taking a walk with Jacob did (what?) and how she should be afraid of it but isn’t, then sleeps without dreaming and wakes up to a sunny day. Seeing the sun puts her in a good mood, which finally leads her to say something nice about Charlie, thank god…and it’s nice to have some positive descriptions of things in this book for once. It should be sunny in this book more often.
She heads out to school, and because she gets there early she decides to stop at a picnic bench and go over some of her homework. She doesn’t get very far before she starts daydreaming, though (who wants to guess it’s of Edward?!), and then Mike shows up wearing shorts, like a bunch of other people, despite that it’s supposedly March.
“‘Hey Mike,’ I called, waving back, unable to be half-hearted on a morning like this.”
…What? Are you usually intentionally half-hearted? How am I always learning worse and worse things about this character?!
They talk briefly about the fact that her hair has red in it, which is just so fucking fascinating I want to claw my eyes out, as is the rest of their conversation about when homework is due…especially because of the very feminist nature of Bella’s topic for her paper; “whether Shakespeare’s treatment of the female character is misogynistic”. I find that incredibly ironic. Almost cruelly so.
Eventually, the conversation turns to Mike asking her out for dinner, and Bella asks herself:
“Why couldn’t I ever have a pleasant conversation with Mike anymore without it getting awkward?”
Well, Bella, for one, I’ve seen no proof that that’s even the case, but if you really feel it is, you probably should have told him by now that you’re not interested. If you’d just done that before, he wouldn’t still think he had a chance with you, and probably wouldn’t act in accordance with that assumption. So…yeah.
But does she even take this opportunity to tell him she’s not interested? Helllll no! Instead, she tells him she doesn’t think it would be a good idea because she thinks it would hurt Jessica’s feelings. Great, now she’s just gone ahead and blamed Jessica for getting in the way of their love, when she isn’t even actually interested in him. Poor Jess; she’s never done anything wrong, and she gets treated like shit by Bella any time it isn’t convenient for Bella to give her what she wants.
Mike is a complete idiot though, apparently, as he somehow didn’t notice Jess’s interest in him, so Bella points out that idiocy and takes off to class. Later in the day she gets invited to go dress shopping with Jess, Angela and Lauren, even though Lauren hates her and she doesn’t need a dress since she’s not going to the dance…but she’s not unsure if she should go for those reasons; no, she’s unsure if she should go because who knows what else she could be doing, because obviously Edward is gonna show up and ask her out for some reason, despite that they haven’t even gone to Seattle yet. Logical, Bella.
Riiiight.
As they walk to class, Jess is trying to talk to her, but she is – as usual – completely ignoring her in favour of her own thoughts about Edward. Such a good friend, this one is. Fuck. She is excited to see the Cullens and compare them with what she knows of vampires, but gets a little afraid when she realizes that they might be able to read her thoughts…but when she gets to the cafeteria, none of them are there anyway.
“Desolation hit me with crippling strength.”
Really? Desolation? Edward and his siblings aren’t there one day, and desolation cripples you? Wow, yeah, this is just so completely unhealthy it’s almost unfathomable. I am seriously appalled by this. I really want to just stop reading now…
“I shambled along behind Jessica, not bothering to pretend to listen anymore.”
Yep, should have just stopped reading. Wow. Fucking WOW. Not only are you a shitty enough person that you weren’t actually listening in the first place because you’re too self-absorbed, but now, because something didn’t go your way, you’re not even going to PRETEND you’re capable of being a decent person? Why the sweet fucking HELL does anyone want to be friends with this fucking bitch? She is a HORRIBLE person, and clearly isn’t even trying to HIDE that anymore! Jess deserves SO much better! Aggggh, this seriously pisses me off, because I have KNOWN people like this, and they ALWAYS get much better friends and boyfriends than they deserve! FUCK YOU ENTIRELY, BELLA!
Bella sits down to lunch and answers some questions Angela has about the paper she wrote on the weekend as she “spirals into misery” (fuck you, fuck you, fuck you), and then Angela invites her to go dress shopping as well (Jess invited her before), so she agrees, deciding that she needs something to distract herself. Great. You’ll be great fucking company, won’t you?
She is disappointed all over again when Edward doesn’t show up for Biology, and then her entire gym class is somehow taken up by an explanation on the rules of badminton…as will the next class be, because the teacher didn’t finish in time. Okay, so either her teacher talks painfully slowly, or the class is full of complete and utter morons, because badminton is not that hard to understand. Does Meyer know anything about sports, or is Bella a reflection of her? Because that would explain a lot. Though honestly, I don’t think anything would explain why it would take two full classes to explain the rules of badminton. Not unless the classes were like 5 minutes long, anyway.
“I was glad to leave campus, so I would be free to pout and mope before I went out tonight with Jessica and company.”
Firstly, is it really called a ‘campus’ if it’s for high school? I hadn’t thought so, but maybe I’m wrong. Secondly, FUCK YOU, BELLA! You are so fucking annoying. “Free to pout and mope“? Really? How old are you; 12? GROW UP!
Her plans fall through, though, because Mike asks Jessica on a date, so they postpone dress shopping until the next day. I’m…kind of surprised that Mike asked Jess on a date, cause that’s really pretty terrible, given he has feelings for Bella still, so that’s not really fair to Jess…but wait, why am I surprised? Meyer did write his character too, after all, and everyone is fucked up in Meyerworld. Poor Jess.
Bella decides to focus on homework, then reads through emails from her mom and replies with a lie. Remember how bad she is at lying because she apparently doesn’t like to do it? Yeah, we just see more and more proof of that, don’t we? Also, she doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about talking to or hearing from her mother, for someone who claimed that her mother was her ‘best friend’.
She grabs a book and heads down to the backyard to read for a while, a scene which takes entirely too many paragraphs for Meyer to describe, given how simple it is (and how stupid; “…the thick lawn that would always be slightly wet, no matter how long the sun shone“? Right, that’s the way that works), and I’m not even going to bother going into all the details Meyer added here because none of them are even slightly necessary.
After reading, she falls asleep, and wakes up to the sound of Charlie’s car in the driveway. She feels like she’s not alone when she wakes, but ignores that feeling and runs into the house to get supper started. After dinner they watch TV together, and then she asks Charlie if she can go dress shopping with the girls the next day, which seems to be something only added so she could show just how much Charlie doesn’t get girls, yet again. No man is this stupid, Meyer. Men like opinions on their clothes too, and they also have friends; he would not be so completely vapid as to be unable to figure out one or two reasons why her friends might invite her to come shopping with them even if she wasn’t going to be buying anything. Really now; this is offensive and stupid.
“I wouldn’t have to explain this to a woman.”
“He seemed to realize that he was out of his depth with the girlie stuff.”
Yep. Those comments just…make me stabby. He’s not a fucking moron just because he’s male, Meyer.
Bella continues to demean Charlie’s intelligence as the conversation turns to whether or not he’ll be able to feed himself while she’s gone. He points out that he did so for 17 years, but what is Bella’s response to that?
“‘I don’t know how you survived,’ I muttered, then added more clearly, ‘I’ll leave some things for cold-cut sandwiches in the fridge, okay? Right on top.‘”
What. The. FUCK?! This man is her FATHER; how can she be so condescending and disrespectful to him? Why does he put up with that? How stupid does she think he is? Does he REALLY need her to tell him EXACTLY where to find fucking COLD CUTS? I’m sure he can figure that out on his own! Fuck, she is SUCH a fucking bitch, and she thinks she’s SO MUCH BETTER than everyone else around her! SO MUCH RAGE! Stop talking to your fucking father like he’s a child! And you know why you don’t know how he survived? Because you WEREN’T THERE, and you never even gave him one fucking chance to show you whether or not he could cook when you showed up, you just assumed you were oh so fucking superior and went ahead with that! GAHHHHH! I need to calm down.
In the morning it is sunny again, but the Cullens still don’t seem to be at school, so Bella is emo. Conveniently, Lauren is unable to attend the dress shopping that evening, so Bella doesn’t need to deal with her being there, so luckily, she decides to make the most of the trip and be in a good mood for it so as to not ruin things for Jess and Angela. Thank fucking god. But let’s see how long that actually lasts, I guess, before I get too excited.
Bella figures Edward won’t cancel their Seattle plans without at least telling her, so she uses that for hope to get through (so it’s not really about Angela or Jess being happy after all…surprise surprise), and the chapter ends with her feeling excited about the trip and writing a note to Charlie “explaining again where to find dinner“, just in case OPENING THE FUCKING FRIDGE DOOR is too hard for him to figure out. And here comes that rage again. Okay, I’m going to end this recap now instead of dealing with the last few lines of the chapter, lest I break something.
(See Mike’s take on these chapters at http://emptystress.wordpress.com!)
The Quizzical Llama 