Chapter Seven

Even though I’m only reading on my afternoon breaks at work–10 minutes a day, five days a week–I am well ahead of my recaps. I’m not really sure how this could happen. I think this book is making me lose time. So it’s a recap frenzy!

Chapter seven starts us with Bella backtracking to the old Cullen place. Yes, she finds her own way there! So all those times Edward insisted on driving there because Bella “wouldn’t be able to find it” was just another excuse to control every aspect of her God damn life. I digress. She’s hoping that looking at the house will bring on the Edward Hallucinations. The psychotic Edisodes, if you will. Well, no dice. She’s just sitting in her car, staring like an idiot at an empty house. Empty, like her heart.

Well, now she feels like crap, so of course she needs to go see Jacob.

Maybe I was developing a new kind of sickness, another addiction, like the numbness before. I didn’t care.

Not only is that awesome and healthy, but it totally respects Jacob’s feelings as well. Way to go, Bella! Setting an example for girls everywhere.

Jacob is happy to see her, like he always is. Not brooding, demanding, or threatening to eat her. Just happy. He’s nearly done fixing the bikes, and he asks in a roundabout way if she’ll still be coming over now that they’re done. Well, duh, sister needs her fix. She says that later “we” can have a study date, and indicates the two of them as one unit.

Okay, great. Great. Now she’s leading him on. She knows she doesn’t love him like he loves her, she knows she’s only using him to feel better about what Edward did, and now she’s indicating that the two of them are together. What is it with her and just using this kid? What makes her think she’s justified? Is it because he isn’t white and delightsome like her? Is it because she thinks he’s just SOOO much younger than her? Or is it because she’s a self-entitled bitch?

You know what, I’m sorry. She’s hurting. Bella’s had a really hard life. I’d better make more excuses for her.

Thankfully, the next day is montaged. Mom gets an email, school was okay, work was chatty because Mike still wants to tap that. He invites her out to a movie on Friday, and Bella’s all “Oh, uh, I don’t date. Also I’m going to be out with my crutch that night.”

The next day, Jacob calls to let her know that the bikes are done. She calls him “the most talented and wonderful person” she knows. Way to keep layering it on there, Bells. She gets to his place, they load up the bikes (one of them has a blue ribbon on it, and Jacob wishes her a happy late birthday), and drive off to their super secret motorcyle-riding course.

Along they way, they drive by some guys who are cliffdiving (!) into the ocean (!!). Bella slams on the brakes, demanding they get help for them, not understand that this is recreation here. Not, you know… drugs, or alcohol, or sex, which is what all the small towns I’ve lived in like to revel in. Cliffdiving. Well, okay. Whatever keeps your DARE program happy.

Jacob gets all disgruntled about the guys showing off, which is a little surprising. Bella decides she wants to go cliffdiving later because it looks ~*soooooo dangerous*~. Jacob responds with “Yeah, uh, you just wanted me to call an ambulance for Sam Uley.” Haha, stupid bitch.

As they start off down the road again, Bella asks who those guys where.

“The La Push gang.”

“You have a gang?” I asked. I realized that I sounded impressed.

Uh, why?

Jacob says they’re more like glorified hall monitors–they don’t start fights, they keep the peace. Jacob makes it clear he isn’t very fond of them. Sam, apparently, runs the group. No, really. One of the Quilbry pissed off one of “the gang” and the dude looked about ready to rip him to pieces before Sam stopped him. Wow! This is interesting. Sort of.

Also, Sam gets all sorts of priviledges for some reason, like not having to go to college. Huh? Also, Jacob has a sister, but since she isn’t a beautiful savage man ready to save Bella from her nightmares, this is the first and last we hear of her.

Well anyway they get out with their bikes. Time for a change of scenery for this bizarre conversation. The La Push peacemakers treat Jacob weird, and his dad gets to be injun chief. Sam looks at Jacob like he’s waiting for something, like at some point he’s going to join his little bromance party. Like one of the Quilbry did. OH NOOO. It was Embry, for the record. The kid missed a week of school (I wasn’t aware a week of time had even passed between when we met him and now), was never home when they tried to see him, and when he finally came back he looked terrified. Pretty soon after that he joined Sam’s Club. He was one of the ones on the cliffs. We didn’t get a description, so now I’m pretty sure I’ll never know which one is Embry and which one is Quil.

He finally looked at me. “Bella, they bugged him even more than they bother me. He didn’t want anything to do with them. And now Embry’s following Sam around like he’s joined a cult.”

What, like, Scientology? Did Sam give him a copy of Dianetics and a week-long getaway to “clear his thetans?” That would certainly explain why Embry was so freaked out. “I don’t have the $1,500 needed for the next course! Now I’ll never cross the bridge!!”

Billy’s not helping Jacob with this. He gives him the equivalent of “You’ll get it when you’re older.” Jacob is definitely getting that there’s something very wrong going on in La Push, something that might have to do with e-meters. He stands there for a second, looking totally freaked out and about to cry, so Bella throws her arm around him “instinctively.”

Instinctively? I think this is the first time she’s put her arms around someone other than Count Ed. How is hugging “instinctive” for her suddenly? Oh, maybe it’s more that now she gets to keep leading him on. Manipulation is “instinctive” for Bella.

Bella insists that it’ll be okay, and if it gets worse, he can come live with her and Charlie. Actually, that’s sort of sweet and grown-up of her. In the next few paragraphs, though, she narrates how nice this friendship is for her and how she hasn’t had a friend like this in a while, and when Jacob touches her hair while she prolongs the hug, she thinks “Well, it was friendship for me.”

BIIIIITCH. Would you just freaking tell him already?? Her method of doing this is “Oh man it’s so hard to believe that I’m older than you hint hint hint.” Wow. Way to be, um. Direct.

I’m getting major flashbacks to my ex here. This is sort of hard for me to recap.

ANYWAY, MOTORCYCLES, EVERYBODY! I hope Bella hits her head and dies!