Chapter Six

I was going to play my level 80 Blood Elf mage in World of Warcraft all night, because I am a lonely, bitter nerd, with no life or social activity, and so I could never possibly understand the intricacies and complexities of utter vampire devotion…

But the servers seem to be down.

So you guys get a recap.

Jacob immediately sets to work disassembling the bikes while Bella watches. He chatters on about everything and Bella is just happy to have him fill the void in her bleeding, broken soul. He mentions his friends, Quil and Embry (yeah. I know), and as luck would have it, they show up! We get a brief description of what they look like without knowing which is which, and then it’s never really clarified. So they are now going to be known as the Quilbry.

Quilbry both seem pretty hot for Bella right away, like every other man in this part of the country. When they find out that Jacob is working on the bikes, though, suddenly it’s all testosterone. Bella makes some comment to the effect of “they’re talking about mechanical stuff and I’m just a girl, teehee,” which only makes me love her that much more. Really. I would lovingly leave her to die in a desert.

Bella eventually excuses herself because she has to go home and make dinner for Charlie. You know how it is, living with a man–it’s always “do my laundry” this and “get back in the kitchen” that. She assures Jacob that she’ll be back tomorrow, and the Quilbry snicker and elbow each other. When Bella adds that Jacob needs to give her riding lessons, his friends make a dirty joke and Jacob smacks them. We don’t actually know what the dirty joke is, because sex is naughty and wrong. But describing literal and symbolic gore with as much detail as possible is okay.

Bella leaves as Jacob wrassles with his crazy friends, marveling at how she’s actually happy. Yes, using someone as your emotional medication will do that. Charlie is suspicious, now, of all times, and asks questions about what she did all day. She avoids the whole dangerous motorcycle trying-to-indirectly-commit-suicide thing and just says she hung out with Jacob. Bella goes up to bed, weary, knowing she’ll have her (infamous) screaming nightmare again, and…

Wakes up in the morning with no problems.

Hey, that Jacob kid is really good for what ails you.

Lots of narrative about how she’s afraid the numbness will come back, but focusing on using her crutch seeing Jacob staves it off. They both go to the dump, in the rain, to look for carparts. Bella comments on how nice and cheerful Jacob is. Yeah, it’s almost like he’s a normal kid without a crippling social defect like I don’t know being a self-loathing manic-depressive who threatens to kill his girlfriend when she tongue-kisses him.

It’s riveting.

They joke about how it seems like one of the Quilbry likes Bella, and Bella insists he–whichever one he is-is too young. A year and a few months, Jacob points out stiffly, as he is now talking about himself, is not too young. They immediately get into a competition wherein life experience earns you extra years on your age. Yeah. Guess who wins that one. I’ll give you a hint–it’s not the person who’s spent 17 years just lying around waiting to be paired up with a controlling pulse-less freak.

They’re in the garage when Charlie stops by. He’s surprised to see his daughter happy. I’m surprised he even freaking noticed. It looks like the whole block comes down to have spaghetti. It’s a good old-fashioned Lost Tribe of Israel family dinner.

It’s super riveting.

Bella comes home, writes her mom an email, and, oh, right, she has the screaming nightmare again. This time, Sam Uley is in it. Why does she keep having prophetic dreams? Is there a reason? You can spoil me on this one, readers. Is this going to be her vampire power?

So she wakes up and eats breakfast and goes to school and crap the running commentary on every daily event is back. I’m not sure which I would rather go with–the melodramatic description of her broken heart, or the “Then I did this. Then I did this. Then this happened” style narrative.

At lunch, Bella realizes things like some of her friends are now single, some of them have changed their hair, and other things that would have been obvious to people were they not wrapped up in their own self-created drama consisting largely of “WAAAH WHO’S GOING TO DRIVE ME EVERYWHERE NOW.”

The conversation turns somehow to the bear/wolf/wolfman people keep seeing. Lauren, the bitch from last book (she was a bitch because she didn’t like Bella), is making fun of people who think they’ve seen it. Bella jumps in with “No, these crusty guys at work were talking about it yesterday.”

And everybody just stares at her.

They try to recover–Mike quicker than the others–and include her in the conversation. Hey guys, Bella’s back! Yaaaaay.

After the conversation, Angela thanks Bella for jumping in for her, and then says it’s good to have her back.

You know, here’s a thought. Maybe my circle of friends is somehow paranormal, but if one of us was depressed and refusing to leave the house, for whatever reason (say, “my parents have divorced and in only a few months remarried to people I’ve never even met,” or “I just found out my ex-girlfriend is a psychotic character-assassinating bitch and I’m terrified everyone believes what she said and now hates me,”) we march over there, demand that they answer their phone or the door, and we drag them out of the God damn house. We don’t just sit and watch them suffer silently, hoping that maybe if we just ignore their depression it will go away.

Where does Bella find these people?