When You Come Home

I Wish I Knew You When I Was Young

AN: Wrote this as a part of TPF Short Story Challenge March/April 2023. Thought I'd share it and see what you all think.  The prompt is 'I Wish I Knew You When I Was Young'.

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Isabella Swan considered herself a successful woman. Her teaching career was at an all-time high, with years spent building a reputation as a stern but fair Classical Literature Professor at the University of Washington. While she'd originally gone out of state to get her degree, it didn't take long for her to leave New York behind to return to her roots, or as close as she was comfortable with, which meant Seattle. Now, here she was, about to turn 38, a date she dreaded with every year that passed, and she couldn't quite handle the news she received the morning of.

Sue Swan, formerly Clearwater, had called Bella just that morning. Thinking she was going to be receiving her yearly much hated yet secretly adored birthday wishes, her step-mother had left Bella's heart bleeding on her office floor. Charlie Swan, retired Chief of Police and beloved father and husband, had passed in his sleep of natural causes the previous night.

To say Bella was devastated would be an understatement. She'd spent so many years avoiding Forks because of the events of her 18th birthday. While she had tried to spend time with Jacob and get to know him after her first breakup, she simply couldn't deal with any more drama. So when Jacob started avoiding her, she let him. Pushed him from her mind until he, like a certain family, were relegated to a dark and dingy corner at the back of her mind. It was there she buried her past, it was there she buried her heart.

She had been inconsolable in those first months after being abandoned by them. Then she'd become angry, that rage fueling her rebellious motorcycle rebuild project and subsequent trek down the west coast after Jacob's disappearance. Unfortunately, that had run her afoul of a gang of idiots near southern California who thought she would be easy pickings, only for them to end up staring down the barrel of her father's service revolver she'd taken, along with whatever cash he'd had in his wallet.

She nearly killed them all when another night intruded into her thoughts. Drunken idiots cornering her, a Volvo careening carelessly into the parking lot, feral black eyes. In her fear-addled mind, she'd seen nothing but darkness and felt nothing but rage at feeling like the 'helpless human' again. But she wasn't helpless this time was she? No, the gun felt heavy in her hands but she held it steady as she aimed true for the so-called leader's head. All it would take was a pull off the trigger and she could end this nightmare.

Luckily, the men appeared to be scared so shitless that the night and day of the memory versus her reality was enough to bring her back from that precipice. She was not like them or their kind. She was not so willing to take a life just to save her own. But she was not that weak, pathetic girl she'd once been either, as she took aim at the nearest bike and began systematically taking out each tire until she had only one bullet left. She needed a safety insurance in case they tried to rush her, after all.

"Let this be a lesson, boys," she'd all but snarled at the trembling young men. "The next person you try to jump might not be so willing to let you walk away. The nearest town is fifteen miles north of here. I suggest you get to hiking."

There was a brief hesitation before she twitched the gun back towards their group, causing the men to fall all over themselves to rush off down the road. Not only had that been a lesson for those despicable men, but Bella has learned something valuable herself. Her life was not so meaningless as she had thought, nor did she need to feel helpless anymore. Yes, she had briefly been a part of a world where she was nothing more than prey, weak and at the mercy of their protection. But now that it was just her on her own, amongst other mortals, she felt herself more confident in her place.