Chapter Five

Completely off-topic, but Prince of Persia blew my freaking mind. Easily worth the two traded-in-games-that-came-free-with-our-PS3 and $30.

Chapter five begins at Bella’s part-time job. That’s right. She has a job. See, Stephenie is sensitive to women’s rights. Bella works at Newton’s, the sports store owned by Mike’s family. Two grizzled old camper-type-guys are talking about running into a black bear, bigger than a grizzly. Why didn’t they describe it as a big, black grizzly? Nobody knows! Is that foreshadowing I smell? I don’t know why the hell a werewolf would look like a bear, but whatever!

Bella drives home, and explains how… no, you know what. You get a quote.

I always had nightmares now, every night. Not nightmares, really, not in the plural, because it was always the same nightmare. You’d think I’d get bored after so many months, grow immune to it. But the dream never failed to horrify me, and only ended when I woke myself with screaming. Charlie didn’t  come in to see  what was wrong anymore, to make sure there was no intruder strangling me or something like that–he was used to it now.

I’m going to rephrase that in outraged, big girl English.

Bella has night terrors every night for four months.

Every night for four months she wakes up screaming.

Every night for four months.

Charlie learns to ignore it. Charlie, a cop, learns to ignore the fact that, after finding his little girl unconscious, alone, and disoriented in the woods, she wakes herself up screaming every night.

What. THE. HELL.

You know, I’ve been accused multiple times of overthinking this series. I’ve been told I need to set aside the criticism and just enjoy it. There is a significant difference between suspending my disbelief and turning my brain off altogether. This would never happen. THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN.

Oh GOD I feel like I need to hit something. Did this woman know a God damn thing about realistic human behavior before she wrote this? Jesus H. Christ.

Okay. Let me calm down. Gotta center myself.

Bella describes her nightmare, which is basically just her alone in the woods looking for Edward and he’s not there. Yeah, that’s it. Good, classic symptom of a night terror–dreaming about some impossible task that triggers anxiety. I’d like to point out that night terror sufferers will also exhibit signs of depression. I could just choke somebody right now.

Thinking about how hard life is and how much she hurts now that her controlling abusive boyfriend has dumped her makes her stop the car and curl up on the seat. She explains how now that she looks like hell with pale pasty skin and black circles under her eyes, she could almost pass for a vampire now! Right? RIGHT?! I COULD TOTALLY PASS FOR A VAMPIRE. MAYBE EDWARD WILL COME BACK AND LOVE ME AGAIN. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

She stops to think how unfair it is that he broke his promise to stay with her forever and ever and ever, and that he made her promise to not hurt herself. How stupid is that? She should totally not have to follow through on that. Luckily, Bella has stopped her truck right in front of a house selling two broken-down motorcycles. Charlie thinks motorcycles are reckless and stupid, and Charlie doesn’t seem to give a crap about Bella’s well-being, so she immediately decides she’s buying a motorcycle as a means of indirectly killing herself. That’ll show Edward for leaving her.

Good God, I wish I were exaggerating. Bella goes up to the house and asks for the price on the two motorcycles. The kid just gives them to her for free, since they haven’t worked in years. “That’s okay,” Bella says. “I know someone who builds cars.”

Gird yourself, Jacob. You’re Bella’s new emotional crutch.

Bella gets directions down to the Blacks’ place from Charlie (who demands to know what’s wrong as soon as he answers the phone. As if you care, Dad). Jacob is excited to see her. Also, he’s a six-foot-five sixteen year old. CRAP ON A STICK this kid is huge.

Bella comes in, says hi to Billy, makes a big show about how she likes Jacob and missed him. We all know she’s just craving some male attention. Mike doesn’t count because he’s a stupid mortal and won’t live forever or turn into a werewolf that could pass for a bear. Bella gets Jacob alone in his garage and explains the sane part of the situation–she’s got broken motorcycles but don’t tell Charlie.

Now, here’s the hard part. Jacob is… well… I like him. He’s sweet. He’s happy. He’s normal (for now). Bella is almost tolerable around him, because she’s not constantly whining about the gaping oozing squirting rotting hole in her chest. I like Jacob.

Which is probably just going to make me angrier in the long run.