Set in Stone || Alice Cullen

𝐈𝐈𝐈

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

CHAPTER THREE
ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴡᴀʏ

Lying in Janice's bed, tangled up in the sheets, I couldn't help but let my mind wander. My mother had texted me earlier, surprising me by saying she'd be home early that night to talk ─something that hadn't happened in well over three years. I didn't know how to feel. Was I supposed to be happy that she suddenly wanted to speak to me after we'd ignored each other for days, or was I supposed to still be mad at her for assuming I'd just go with the flow as always? I'd never been as nervous as I was when the time finally came for me to leave Janice's house.

She whined, trying to convince me to stay the night, dangling the fact that her parents wouldn't be home for the entire weekend over my head like it would somehow persuade me. I did my best to let her down easy, ending our little arrangement in the same conversation that I bid her farewell forever. I never planned to stay here long anyway. My original plan was to leave as soon as I finished high school. But since my grades were dropping by the second, the whole finishing high school thing seemed to go further and further out of reach to the point where I'd need a fishing rod to get it back on my radar.

Janice managed to slip her phone number into my jeans pocket when I wasn't looking ─presumably when I went to wash up in her bathroom─ with the words 'Call me if you ever change your mind' scribbled messily in bright pink lipstick. The first four digits I could make out but the rest had smudged together, making it an impossible task to figure out if digit eight was a one or a seven. 

Not that I cared. I was glad to finally be able to put an end to the so-called 'relationship' between the two of us. She didn't care for me, just like I didn't care for her, and I knew that even if I had decided to stay one final night at her house, it wouldn't make any difference at all. We'd just wake up the next morning with her stressed about making me leave before any of her neighbors noticed that she had a girl spend the night when her parents weren't home.

I walked home, not minding that I could barely see the pathway ahead of me. I enjoyed the peace and quiet. It allowed me to try and come up with a reason for my mother's text. Why on earth would she willingly come home at a reasonable hour just to talk to me? Would she be mad at me and start yet another pointless fight or would she surprise me further and tell me that she accepted my terms of the negotiation?

All I knew was that whichever choice she made tonight would most likely change my life forever. If she decided to fight, I would be moving with her to Forks and the roommate behavior would continue. We would be coexisting in the same house for the next two years as I finished high school, and then I would move away and possibly never contact her again. But if she decided to listen to me and actually hear me out for once in her life, we would be moving to Forks together and maybe finally bond like normal mothers and daughters.

The gravel crackled beneath my feet as I walked up the unnecessarily long pathway leading to the front door of our simple, yet elegant, two-story house. My mother liked to go overboard to show off her success to everyone around us. She always wore designer clothes and shoes and bought way too many handbags for one person. But when it came to buying our house, I managed to convince her to go for something a lot more subtle than originally planned.

My mother was waiting for me on the couch when I walked through the front door. She looked stressed and was gnawing at her fingernails —a habit I recognized all too well. I remembered watching her biting on her nails to the point where they were bloody knobs at the start of her career and all of this moving back and forth madness.

"Cassie." she greeted me with a tired smile, keeping a civil completion about her as she lowered her hands from her mouth and straightened her back. A thing I knew for sure about my mother was that she could not relax in the slightest in a serious situation. She always sat properly with one leg crossed over the other, her hands folded neatly in her lap. It annoyed me sometimes even though I knew I did the very same thing. Like mother like daughter.

"Mom," I said back as I took a seat on the couch across from her, mirroring her position with the exception of my slumped shoulders.

It stayed silent for a moment, neither of us properly knowing how and where to begin. I waited for her to start, allowing my eyes to mindlessly wander around the room in the meantime. There were no pictures of us on the walls. Just a few of my biggest milestones. One where I proudly held up the smallest of teeth possible, grinning toothily and showing the recent gap between my front teeth, one where I ironically was crying after learning how to ride a bike —I was clutching my knee for the life in me as it bled from falling off said bike— and one from me starting high school where I'd just recently started coloring in my eyebrows. My biggest regret all through my freshman year was not realizing that coloring in my eyebrows to the point where they resembled bushes more than actual eyebrows was not a good look for me.

"Cassie," my mother repeated my name, this time appearing more pulled together. She pursed her lips, hesitating to continue. "I understand that you're tired of moving around all the time, I know I haven't made any of this easy for you. But you need to understand that moving is a big part of my job--"

I shook my head, eyes closing momentarily. "No, mom, it's not. Normal surgeons usually stay at the same hospital for more than three months before accepting a larger offer someplace else. Normal surgeons aren't as addicted to the thrill of being wanted as you are." I stated, interrupting her before she could try to guilt me into being understanding. I made sure to use the word normal to get her to understand that what she was doing was anything but.

My mother was silent, guilt practically radiating off her body as she directed her remorseful gaze to the floor. I felt guilty too. It felt wrong to scold my mother, as if I was the adult and she was not. We were both grown-ups. We both knew better than to blame the other. But it still felt as if I deserved a moment to feel like a teenager with a normal mother. It wasn't right for me to think of the consequences as she went with the flow. I longed for the confidence she had in moving all around the country, knowing she was better than most as she entered hospital after hospital. I wasn't as self-assured as she was. I preferred to not make a grand entrance, I liked not being the center of attention. 

I took a breath and smiled halfheartedly, feeling more exhausted than ever before. It drained me to try and make sense of the way my mother acted and thought.

"I will go with you to Forks, mom, but that's it. I will not move around anymore. I want an ounce of normalcy and I can't have that if I'm constantly changing schools and residents. If you decide to move again, I'll simply stay behind." I said, reaching for her hand across the table. She intertwined our hands after a moment of hesitation. "I love you, mom, and I'm not doing this to hurt you. But if I want even half a chance to get a decent job, I need to stay at the same school long enough to get a fair grade and not just an assumption." I explained further to her, desperate to get her to understand my point of view.

She nodded after a while, returning my tired smile. "Okay," she said, squeezing my hand in hers. "Let's do this your way."

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

A/N

Finally got done with this chapter, sorry for the naturally short wait. Usually, I take months to update but apparently, it's much easier for me to write a full-on (incredibly short) chapter totally improvised in first person perspective. Wonder why.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this and do feel free to point out spelling mistakes or misuse of grammar (or if you notice I've accidentally changed between present and past tense, I do that sometimes) since English is not my first language and I've not proofread this yet.

Have a wonderful continuance of your day and I'll see you all soon! Bye loves!

-Jazz