petrichor [rosalie hale]

xi. fangs

"So I was thinking, if we're going to be doing this every day - and hopefully we will - then we should probably include some homework. I don't want Billy thinking I'm a bad influence on you," Bella told Jacob as he started working on the two rusted motorbikes.

He was still trying to keep his mind off how annoyed he was at Kiara becoming close friends with Sam and his friends after how often she would spend crying about not being good enough for them after they had cut her off just a year prior. He was always there to pick up the pieces and eh couldn't help but almost expect her to come back crying again at every given moment.

"You, influence me?" Jacob asked, a teasing to his voice as he looked at Bella over his shoulder. "Please. Besides, I doubt my dad will have much to say about you influencing me when he doesn't seem to even notice how much influence Sam Uley has on my sister."

Bella squinted at that, not really sure how to reply. She could sense Jacob's underlying frustration about Kiara and the La Push boys but she wasn't really sure of much of the history there. She was aware Kiara and Paul had once been a couple - or at least friends with benefits - but that was almost as far as her knowledge on the topic went.

She rubbed her neck awkwardly for a moment, studying how Jacob's hand clenched around the wrench in his hand for a second before he calmed himself down and went back to working on the bikes. Bella knew it wasn't wise to prod too much into the whole Sam Uley folklore that he loved to complain about, but he had opened a can of worms.

"Does... does she keep in touch with them?"

Jacob looked up at Bella, not needing to ask who she was talking about. She was trying too hard to pretend like she wasn't dying inside while she waited for an answer and he hated seeing her so hung up on those pale faces. Sure, Jacob was yet to truly find out about the vampirism that had taken over forks, but that didn't mean he liked the Cullens.

He shrugged, a bitter taste in his mouth as he thought about how he had heard Kiara's sobs from her room over the blonde one when she thought that everyone else was asleep. Jacob was sure their father had heard it too - but if Billy had he either didn't want to know why she was crying, or he already knew and didn't want to hear a single word about it. Either way, Jacob knew that their father never knew how to handle Kiara Black when she was emotional about anything.

"If you mean the blonde one," Jacob spat, the hostility in his voice instantly making Bella wish she hadn't asked. "Then yeah, she's heard from her once or twice. The rest of them I don't think so."

For a moment Bella's mind was clouded of ways she could use Kiara to somehow reach Edward - ways she could tell him that she wouldn't and couldn't live without him. Then she remembered the look in Kiara's eyes when she had declined the phone call that Bella now realised was Rosalie, only hours before, and how happy she was once she saw Sam Uley and his friends. She loved Edward more than life itself, but she wasn't going to force Kiara to relive the memory of Rosalie essentially ghosting her with no explanation.

_____

"Hey Rose, it's me. Kie - Kiara, but I guess you can see that anyway cause of caller ID - wait can you even get caller ID on voicemail? Anyway, just calling to let you know that... this is embarrassing. I- I just wanted to say that I really miss you and I thought that I was doing better without you but now... I'm just not, I'm not happy without you. I know you got shipped off to New York with your family but I just need to know, once I'm done with Forks and La Push and if I get one of those fancy scholarships we talked about - do you, do you think there could ever be an us again? I just need to-"

Kiara pulled the phone away from her ear as a long beep sounded out, furrowing her eyebrow in annoyance.

"Voicemail limit reached," the robot voice replied, continuing on with its spiel. Kiara rolled her eyes, too lost in the moment to realise that the voicemail had sent before she had the chance to press delete.