Still In Bloom ↠ Twilight ✓

12 ; carpe diem

[before the chapter begins, it's come to my attention that in the last two chapters of wallace's story, i've been reading comments that are shaming bella or hating on bella. first, stop it. bella and wallace were never dating and he's never told her that he liked her romantically. bella is under no obligation to be with wallace just because he has a crush on her.  so while i adore your love for wallace and his feelings, bella was never wallace's property and won't ever be. second, wallace is an unreliable narrator - he only lets the reader's see his side of things and how he views them. it's no secret that wallace is insecure in his feelings for bella and also feels widely inferior to edward. i've written wallace's last two chapters to showcase his hurt but also to keep you in the dark. i think people get so blinded by hating on bella that they forget wallace's story started out with him lying and being fake with bella in order to get on charlie's good side. bella isn't a mind reader and can't see, like you guys can, that wallace loves her. bella deserves wallace and wallace deserves bella, he's just the only character in the story who thinks he doesn't]

Here's the thing: Wallace had bounced back whenever his mother had died. He had bounced back and pushed through the entirety of his father's trial. He had bounced back whenever the other kids in school had kept him at a wide berth. He had bounced back whenever Daniel and Shelby had fought every night; and he was sure he was going to bounce back after the events of Bella Swan.

Throughout his entire life, Wallace McAtee had bounced back from anything that had tried to kick him down and maybe there was a life lesson in there somewhere but Wallace held onto to this single fact about himself like it was gospel. He would bounce back.

Which is why, after spending an entire day after the graduation party feeling sorry for himself, Wallace finally finds an equilibrium. He no longer walks with his feet dragging against the carpet and his shoulders aren't hunched. It's in that stage, the one where Wallace finally thinks that things are looking up, that something has to fall down.

Daniel's hair is longer than Wallace ever remembers seeing it before. He has a new tattoo crawling up the side of his neck and it looks like something hideous and something stupid fucked each other and had a baby on top of his skin. Shelby, from where she sits beside Wallace and across from their brother on the couch, has been tracing the permanent ink for the last ten minutes with silent eyes.

"Little bro, you've looked better," Daniel speaks, rubbing his hands together in between his splayed legs. Each knuckle is covered in some Roman numeral tattoo and there's a throbbing vein in Shelby's forehead that Wallace hasn't ever seen before.

As Daniel scams his eyes towards Shelby, he grins shortly. "Shell, is that a new blouse?"

"Which one was it?" Shelby questions, nails digging into the skin of her thigh where her hands are perched in her lap. Her eyes are locked onto Daniel like a missile seeking a target and Wallace feels his heart rate spike for his brother in empathy.

Daniel looked confused, raising an eyebrow, "Which one was what?"

"Which drunken bender resulted in that stupid ass fucking tattoo on your neck?" Shelby spits and something akin to their father flashes in her expression for a moment before it's tempered. Gone within an instant.

Like Wallace, Daniel saw the slip up too. "To be completely honest, I was too drunk to remember,"

Before Shelby can open her mouth, Wallace finds himself speaking. "Why are you back home?"

Something softens in Daniel's expression at the word home. Like he hadn't expected Wallace to still consider him a member of their lives. Wallace can understand the feeling. If Shelby had it her way, she would've made Daniel the Sirius Black of their bloodline but Wallace refuses to let his brother go. Daniel, despite all of his many faults, is still one of the three people on Earth that holds a quarter of their mother's life in his memories.