Clouds muscled low across the sky, thick as wool and tinted the color of a fading bruise. Mist clung to the pavement, refusing to lift, spreading itself in slow-moving swaths over the highway like something alive. The air carried that damp metallic scent the town was known for, wet cedar, cold moisture, faint gasoline from logging trucks that had long since passed.
Inside Bella's old truck, the heater stuttered out warm air that fought pointlessly against the chill seeping through the glass. A thin fog formed at the edges of the windshield, quickly cleared by the vents, only to return again in soft breaths.
Jessica had been talking for nearly the entire drive.
Talking wasn't even the word, she was unraveling audibly, thread by thread, slipping from frustration to humiliation to brittle anger and back again, all while trying to pretend none of it hurt.
Bella kept her eyes on the slick road.
Jessica kept her eyes everywhere else, on her reflection in the side mirror, on the condensation trailing down the window, on anything that wasn't the raw, trembling center of her chest.
"—and what was I supposed to think?" Jessica blurted, the words ricocheting sharply in the enclosed truck cab. "Seriously, Bella. I mean, I ask Aiden a totally normal question—totally normal—and he looks at me like I'm speaking an alien language. Or like I stepped on his foot."
Outside, the scenery blurred: dark fir trunks veined with moss, ferns trembling under the endless drizzle, the forest crowding close to the road as though trying to listen in.
Jessica's hands flew up in the air. "I swear I wasn't being weird! Everyone asks people stuff before prom. Everyone."
Her voice cracked on that last word.
Bella finally murmured, "Jess—"
"No, listen," Jessica pushed, as if the rain wasn't already loud enough, as if her voice needed to outrun the sound of her own heartbeat. "He didn't even consider it. Not for one second. He didn't blush or look surprised or awkward or anything. He just said no. Like going to the dance with me was… repulsive."
The sentence hung heavy in the air.
Jessica's breath trembled.
Her gaze lowered.
Her reflection in the window looked pale and distorted by rain streaks.
Why wasn't he surprised? Why didn't he think it over? Why didn't he treat it like it meant anything at all?
But she wouldn't say those words out loud.
Not when they exposed too much.
Bella tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
Outside, the mist thickened, drifting between the trees like silent ribbons. Forks' particular brand of gloom didn't just sit in the sky, it got into your bones, into your breath, into your thoughts. It magnified everything. Pain. Worry. Doubt.
Charlie once said Forks felt like a place that encouraged secrets.
Bella was beginning to understand that on an instinctive level.
Meanwhile Jessica barreled on, unable—or unwilling—to stop.
"And then I realized—he's been around Rosalie a LOT lately. Like, every time I glance up in the hallway, she's just… there. Hovering near him. Watching him. Or talking to him."
Bella blinked, as if trying to process the mental image of Rosalie voluntarily standing within ten feet of anyone not in her coven.
Jessica misread the silence and hurried on.
"And she's perfect, Bella. Not normal, perfect. Magazine-cover perfect. Like she's made of special effects. Like her hair and skin don't obey the laws of physics or something."
Another shaky breath.
What chance do I have against someone like that?
Jessica's voice dipped quieter. "And she's the one who found him during the accident."
Bella inhaled sharply. She remembered that moment vividly—the way Rosalie had shouted Aiden's name with an emotion Bella had almost never heard from her. Panic. Real panic.
Jessica swallowed. "She screamed for help. She ran to him without thinking. I would've… I don't know. Frozen. Screamed. Made everything worse."
Her eyes dropped to her lap.
Her fingers twisted the hem of her sleeve.
I'm not good in emergencies. I'm not brave. I'm not graceful. I'm not anything special. Why do I even try? Why do I think boys like him will ever look twice at me?
Bella opened her mouth—but what would she even say?
That Aiden was an emotional… mosaic?
That his quiet wasn't an insult, but a symptom of something deeper?
She didn't know how to explain him.
Especially not now.
Especially not after last night.
Aiden's voice flickered in her memory—low, deliberately calm, unsettling in its precision.
"Bella… you don't want those answers."
And God help her, he was right.
She did want the answers… but she didn't want the consequences that came with them.
Rain tapped harder on the windshield.
Jessica jolted at the sudden drumbeat.
Bella said quietly, "Jess, Aiden's just—"
"Complicated?" Jessica snapped with a humorless laugh. "Great. So I'm not pretty enough AND I'm not deep enough to understand him."
She turned toward the window, watching raindrops chase each other down the glass, merging and falling out of sight.
Bella's stomach tightened.
Because Jessica wasn't the only one spiraling.
Jessica thought Aiden didn't want her.
Bella knew Aiden didn't want anyone close.
Not Jessica.
Not Bella.
Not even himself.
He held everyone at an emotional arm's length—and if anyone got too close, he retreated with quiet self-destruction masquerading as isolation.
But trying to tell Jessica that now would sound like an excuse.
So Bella stayed silent.
And in that silence, Jessica's imagination twisted deeper.
"Maybe he does want to go to prom," Jessica said bitterly. "Just not with me. Maybe he wants Rosalie."
The rain fell harder, as if punctuating the sentence.
Bella blinked. "Jess—seriously, that's not—"
"Don't," Jessica murmured. "Don't try to make me feel better. It's embarrassing."
Her voice faltered… and softened… and broke.
"I'm not stupid, Bella. I know what I look like."
Bella's breath stilled.
Jessica looked down at her arms, the ones she always complained were "too normal," "too soft," "too boring."
She stared at her reflection faintly in the wet window—hair frizzing from the humidity, eyeliner smudged from the moist air.
"I'm just… me," she whispered. "And Rosalie's… Rosalie."
The words fell like stones at their feet.
Heavy.
Hopeless.
True in the way insecurities always feel true.
Bella swallowed, throat tight.
Fog spilled across the road as they reached the school, curling around the buses like pale smoke. The parking lot glistened under the dim morning light, puddles reflecting long stretches of gray sky and tall, brooding pines. Students huddled under jackets, backpacks clutched, heads ducked against the drizzle.
The buses hummed with running engines, fogging their own windows from the breath of fifty teenagers inside.
Jessica exhaled sharply, as if waking from a dream. "Thank God. I need Angela."
She yanked the truck door open, shoes splashing immediately in a shallow puddle. The cold seemed to shock her back into motion. Angela spotted her from across the lot, eyebrows rising in concern. Ben trailed behind her, quiet and steady as usual.
"Jessica—hey," Angela called softly. "What happened?"
Jessica mumbled something, the words melting into the rain—and headed straight for the buses. Angela followed, arm around her shoulders, guiding her gently. Ben trailed after them, loyal and unobtrusive.
Bella stepped out more slowly, letting the door thud shut.
The damp air hit her hard—cold, sharp, smelling of wet bark and asphalt.
Forks had a way of making every breath feel heavier.
Every emotion is closer.
Every mistake magnified.
"Bella!"
She turned.
Mike Newton jogged over, jacket half-zipped, hair already dampening into uneven spikes. The drizzle dotted his shoulders.
"I wanted to talk to you about something"
Bella tried not to deflate visibly. Not another emotional conversation. Not right now.
"So, uh… prom," he began awkwardly. "I was thinking… Maybe we could go together?"
Bella's eyes flicked instinctively toward the buses.
Jessica trudging up the steps.
Angela guided her in.
Ben nodded sympathetically.
And on the second bus—
Edward, Jasper, and Alice climbed aboard with a grace that barely seemed human.
Edward paused, looking toward her, unreadable.
Alice tilted her head, sensing something off.
Jasper's gaze was brief—but sharp.
Bella felt cornered.
Caged.
Observed.
Again.
"No," she blurted too quickly. "I—I can't. I'm going to Jacksonville to visit my mom. The ticket is… non-refundable."
Mike tried to look casual, but the disappointment flickered across his face before he could hide it. "Oh. Yeah. Totally. No problem."
He turned away, walking slowly, shoes splashing in small puddles.
Bella let out a long breath, watching it drift into the cold.
Thunder rumbled faintly somewhere deep beyond the trees.
She climbed the steps onto the bus, the air inside thick with damp jackets and morning exhaustion. Conversations blunted by rain. Footsteps thudding against the floor. The heater was blowing air that was warm but still somehow felt chilled.
She moved down the aisle, the windows fogged from fifty breaths, the world outside blurred into a watercolor of gray and evergreen.
She slid into an empty seat.
And before she could stop it—
Aiden's voice whispered through her memory again, low and too knowing:
"And before you say anything, are you going?"
She answered exactly the way he predicted.
Outside the fog pressed harder against the glass, as if trying to enter the bus, as if listening in on every thought she didn't want to admit.
Bella closed her eyes.
Forks' rain fell heavier, drumming on the roof like an unspoken truth.