it's not that there's nothing to do, it's that all of those things are boring

[self_composed]

Bella rolls over onto her back. She's been doing leg lifts. Now her legs hurt. She's going to lie there for a while, and then she's going to drive home, and then she's going to write about a paragraph of Government essay before expiring from boredom. Jessica is sick. Angela is babysitting. They're still doing stuff she's covered in Bio and books she's read in English; it would take better teachers than she has to make Spanish and Trig interesting. A trip to Port Angeles to do something is the work of an entire day, not a school afternoon. She really needs to save up and buy more books. Or take up - quilting, or something.

Sigh.

Comments

[edgeofyourseat]

He grins. "Exactly," he says, leaning back against the wall.

"So. To make a really long story really short?" He ticks off three words on his fingers, at a natural speaking pace. "Got caught hooking."

[self_composed]

Bella reacts to this with a long, slow blink, first.

"Why were you doing that?" she inquires.

[edgeofyourseat]

"The parents don't let me touch actual money. I wanted some. Plus it was fun." His hand drops away from the scar; he shrugs. "Mostly, anyway."

[self_composed]

"I suppose if there's a clientele at all here it would be smaller," Bella says. "If I'd had to guess what you'd do if itching for income I would have guessed something like "steal any of several hundred knicknacks in the house and hock it", but perhaps that's not even mostly fun? Or substantially more hazardous?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"One, there are way, way more guys in New York who want to get their dicks wet and don't really care how than there are valuable little goodies in even my stupidly huge house," he says. "Two, it is way, way easier to get caught stealing from my own house than it is to get caught being fucked in an alley. And yeah, three, it's not as much fun."

[self_composed]

"So if that fellow from the cafeteria brawl the other day had discreetly taken you up on your offer and indiscreetly informed anyone afterwards, you'd be moving to - I don't even know what's next down on the ladder from Forks. Siberia?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Probably," he agrees. "Or I would've bitten it off and then I'd have a whole different set of problems."

[self_composed]

Bella crosses her eyes trying to erase the mental image. "Rather." She brushes her hair back from her face. "What do you do with money, when you have it, that they don't want you to do?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Buy stuff I actually want."

[self_composed]

"Such as?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Well, I was saving up for a sewing machine," he offers as an example.

[self_composed]

That seems utterly harmless. "Your parents wouldn't let you have a sewing machine?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Nope."

[self_composed]

"And yet," Bella continues, "you formed the expectation that if you acquired one, they wouldn't instantly assume bad things about how - and would let you keep it?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"I was kinda hoping they wouldn't find out," he says. "For a while. Long enough to be worth it."

[self_composed]

"What would you sew?" she asks, leaning against the nearest column and sliding to sit on the floor.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice grins.

"Pretty dresses."

[self_composed]

"Is that why they wouldn't want you to have a sewing machine, I wonder," says Bella dryly.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Kind of icing on the cake as far as things Delaney Hammond Junior is not supposed to wanna do," he says with a shrug.

[self_composed]

"What's your plan?" she asks. "Do you have the grades to get into college without being financially dependent on them, when I'm told you don't even show up to class? Have you considered getting a non-hooking job? How old are you now, for that matter?" She looks at the ceiling. "Or is it your life's ambition to do something just scandalous enough that you can't be bought out of jail, and you're on a long hunt for where that line is so you can poke a toe over?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"If I wanted to be in jail, I'd walk into school and kill somebody," he says, like it's so obvious he doesn't have to think about it. "I don't wanna be in jail. I don't wanna be dead, either. Killing yourself's easier than killing somebody else; you're guaranteed one less person trying to stop you." He shrugs again. "Shit, if I had a plan, I'd be out of here by now."

[self_composed]

"Oh, come on," Bella says. "If that's the best way you can think of to go to jail, I'm very disappointed in you. Somebody else would have to die in that plan. That's hardly necessary, even if we start from the assumption that you wouldn't care much about others' lives compared to what you'd get out of ending them. You could pull a fire alarm or call in a bomb threat or make obvious attempts to distribute large amounts of marijuana. You could vandalize the police station in broad daylight or knock over a convenience store or loudly claim to have explosives in an airport security line. There are so many relatively harmless illegal things."

She sighs. "I'm glad you don't wish to be in jail."

And pauses. And says, "You need a plan."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Well, it looks like you're better at those than I am," Alice observes.

[self_composed]

"I'm good at that. But it's a simple process. I just ask myself my favorite three questions," Bella says. "What do I want? What do I have? And how do I use the latter to get the former?"

She glances up the stairs, makes sure the door is closed. "So," she says. "What do you want, Alice?"

[edgeofyourseat]

He spreads his hands.

"Out."