BPOV

There is absolutely nothing special about me, and that is a fact that I have grown accustomed to, even comfortable with. I grew up in Phoenix with my mother for the better part of my life. I was happy there with her. I felt needed. My mom, Renee, is the opposite of me. She is special in every way. She looks a lot like me, but she manages to look beautiful while I border between freakish and plain. Despite the fact that my formative years were spent in the Valley of the Sun, I was pale to the point of looking like a corpse which didn't mesh too well with my dark brown hair and eyes.

My mom and I were a good team. She was wild and erratic and always looking for the joys in life, and I kept her in check. Sometimes I envied her ability to take risks but I would never be like her. I was simply too practical and far too aware of my own shortcomings. When my mom met and married Phil, it took me awhile to really understand that I was being replaced. Phil was dependable and could look after Renee as well as I could and he could be fun and charming while doing it. I could have stayed with them, but I knew deep down that my mom no longer needed me. It was kind of a tough pill to swallow. My mom and I had nothing in common. I knew she loved me because I was her daughter, but I bet if she were asked for more specific reasons as to why I was loveable, she would come up short. We were just too different and the cynical side of me decided that I had served my purpose there.

So, for my last two years of high school, I moved to rainy Forks, Washington to live with my father Charlie. It wasn't a bad two years. Charlie was a rotten cook so at least I had a purpose there. Neither of us was very talkative and he tended to watch sports while I read or did homework. I had some friends, but no one I was very close to. I just kind of went with the flow. That was how I ended up dating Mike Newton for a few months. He asked me out and the girls that I sat with said I should accept. If nothing else, I could always be counted on to do what was expected of me.

There wasn't anything really wrong with Mike, so there must have been something wrong with me. When he kissed me, all I seemed to taste was what he had last eaten. He must have eaten a lot of sausage and tortilla chips. And would it have been too much to ask for him to swallow any excess saliva before opening his mouth on mine? What is romantic about a mouthful of someone else's drool? It didn't last long. Mike finally figured out that we were never going to do more than kiss and since we really didn't have anything to talk about, we amicably ended our 'relationship.' It was funny, but I liked him a lot better after that, although I never could eat another tortilla chip.

During the times I was honest with myself, which I tried to minimize, I could admit that I wasn't really living. I was more or less existing. I knew that something had to change. I wanted to go to college and be a writer, but I knew that I had absolutely nothing to draw on from my life. Unless I wanted to be writing appliance manuals, I was going to have to do some living. So I decided to go completely against my personality and do something crazy. Crazy for me, at least. I was currently packing my bags for a trip to Europe. Graduation was two days ago and my flight was only 6 hours away. I had actually been packed for weeks, but I couldn't seem to stop pulling everything out and putting it back again. Charlie was due home any minute to drive me to the airport and I couldn't help but glance at the clock every five minutes. I was starting to get nervous and I dreaded the long drive to Seatac. Charlie certainly wouldn't be talking so I wouldn't have any distractions and frankly right now I needed some. Normally I was fine with the whole silence is golden thing, but I was officially starting to freak out.

The phone rang, interrupting my mild panic attack and it was Charlie. "I am so sorry Bells," he said. "But I can't get out of here. Some hikers were found this morning and we are still waiting for forensics to get here. There is no way I can leave."

"Oh no!" I said. "Are you saying they were murdered?" With all of the wilderness surrounding us, we had accidents every year, but the way Charlie was talking, there was more to it. Forensics didn't get called in for hiking accidents. Of course forensics was actually Bobby, one of the deputies who had gotten some kind of certificate at the community college in Port Angeles. You gotta love small towns. CSI, Bobby was not.

"Yeah bells," he replied gruffly. "Pretty brutally too. Listen, don't worry about this. I am kind of glad you are getting out of here. But you are going to have to get yourself to the airport. Just park in the economy lot and I will have Jake drive me over tomorrow to pick it up." Jake was the son of my dad's best friend and a pretty good guy. He had asked me out once, but after the Mike fiasco, I decided I wouldn't risk trading friendship for romance. It wasn't worth it. "Listen Bells," he continued. "I'm sorry I won't be there to see you off. Have fun and call when you think about it, 'kay?"

"Sure thing Dad. No worries." My dad loved me the same way Renee did. I was his daughter so it was pretty much required. But we really weren't close, even two years after living together. I mean, I knew he liked my cooking, but that isn't really much to base a close relationship on.

Well now that I knew I would be getting myself to the airport in the truck that couldn't go faster than 50 MPH, I raced to grab my bags and threw them in the car. I triple-checked that my passport and my tickets were in the backpack and hit the ignition. Just because I was beginning my new life as a risk-taker didn't mean I was going to abandon my anal-retentive tendencies. It's too bad my apparent OCD hadn't lead me to check the gas guage on the rusty red behemoth that was my truck.