The Wait List, Part III

The Wait List continues today in the third installment of the story...

Bella looked across the parking lot. It was empty. He was gone. Of course he was gone. 15 minutes is a long time to wait for someone who is not yet a friend. Damn it. If she ran, she'd at least catch the last bus home.

 

She adjusted her backpack and started running toward the bus lot. She got there just as the last bus had left the stop. The walk home was at least 45 minutes and it had just started to rain. Again. This time, the rain was colder, as it was part of an cold front coming down from the gulf of Alaska.  

 

She started walking along the side of the main road, which did not have a sidewalk. Her pants were soggy. Her shoes were muddy. Her hair, which still hadn't dried from her earlier shower, was completely soaked. Jessica drove by and rolled down her window. "I can give you a ride home, but you'll need to join the wait list," she taunted. "Fat fucking chance, Jessica!" Bella replied.  Jessica aimed her car toward the puddle near Bella, skidded her wheels, and sprayed Bella with dirty pavement water. Misery. This was misery.

 

Another car slowed down beside her. No doubt one of Jessica's groupies. She turned away in order to avoid more puddle dousing. "Get in," a voice called. It was a male voice. It was Edward's voice. The car pulled over to the point where the asphalt gave way to the mud.

 

"Sorry...I'm soaking. I'm going to ruin your seats, " Bella warned.

 

"I don't care about these seats. Get in now, it's not safe out there" Edward demanded.

 

Bella sat down. Edward put the heater on and directed the vents to her face and feet. The instant warmth felt wonderful.  She placed her hands to the vent after her face had dried and let the hot air warm her pruny, cold fingers. "Thank you. Thank you. I'll help pay for the mud cleaning," she told Edward. They were quiet for the next 10 minutes as she felt her body temperature slowly climb back to 98.6 degrees. He pulled onto her street. She didn't remember telling him where she lived, but maybe she had. She was exhausted.

 

"I live on the fourth house down, on the left. But do you mind driving a little further? There's a dirt road at the end of the street. Would you mind pulling off on it when you get to it?" Bella asked.

 

Edward nodded. They passed her house. The lights were still off, meaning her father wasn't home yet. He was probably working another late shift.

 

Edward pulled off to the side road and turned the car off. "You can kiss me now," he joked.

 

Bella unstrapped herself from her car seat. She moved to his side of the car. He looked nervous. He had been joking about her kissing him, but she was serious. She needed to kiss him. She reached over and unclicked his belt buckle.

 

"Listen, about the list. I need to tell you something. And it might scare you. Ready?"

 

Bella nodded. Guess the kiss would have to wait, she thought.

 

"When you sign the list, you are basically signing one of your parents up to work the boiler room at the mill. It is the most dangerous assignment. The boiler is unstable and often just blows, but someone needs to be there to constantly attend to it. The mill cannot afford another boiler. No one wants that awful job, so it is scheduled by a lottery system. If your number is picked, one of your parents has the shift. The more people on the list, the less likely the odds for one of your parents to be picked. No one has ever served more than five shifts there without being killed by that boiler. So that's why they want you to sign the list. To sign your Dad up for the lottery." 

 

Bella went pale. Edward took her hand.

 

"Jesus. That's awful," Bella replied. She started to cry. She couldn't lose her father. 

 

"Your Dad has avoided the list since he's the only cop in town, and he's had no one sign the list for him. People can't put themselves on the list, that's one of the strange rules. Now that you are here, people expect you to put him on the list. They are going to hound you until you sign it, Bella. The bullying will get worse. And if you don't sign it, Charlie will be forced into working the shift. No lottery option." Edward hated to be the one to tell her the horrific nature of the list, but he knew that if he didn't, no one else would.

 

Bella looked shocked. She actually looked like she might pass out. He had to think fast.

 

"There is a way to keep your Dad safe, though. It's not conventional and it is pretty extreme, but it will keep him safe," Edward stated.

"I can't lose him," replied Bella.

The Wait List, Part II

Read the next installment of pineylonesome's "The Wait List"...

"I'm Bella, by they way," Bella said.

"I know. You've been the talk of the school. The one person here who hasn't joined the wait list. They have been calling you Weirdo-G. I'm Edward, by the way," he said as he extended his hand to shake hers. 

Bella shook his hand. It was cool but not clammy, and had a very firm grip. For a gothy dude, he was quite friendly and personable. "Why do they call me Weirdo-G? What does the G stand for?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. I think someone sent out a text with a typo, and it stuck. Maybe you can tell me what it stands for?" Edward asked, laughing.

"Hmm...there are no synonyms for impatient that start with a G that I can think of. Tell me. What is the wait list? Why won't anyone here tell me?" Bella noticed that whenever she looked at him, she felt like kissing him. It was more than just a passing urge. Looking at him aroused her in a way that made her want to place her lips upon his. She had to do everything in her power to not sit on his lap, run her hands through his hair, and kiss him.

"I can't tell you now, and I can't tell you here. Later. You have a weird look on your face, by the way. You are blushing," he noted.

"I want to kiss you," Bella replied. "I feel like right now, at this moment, I want to just ignore everyone around us, especially everyone at your table who is now staring at us, and I want to kiss you. Hard and in not a subtle way. I can't believe I'm telling you this. It's like I don't have any control of my voice." Bella looked the ground in an effort to curb her lust.

Edward smirked. "Um. Wow. Thanks for your honesty, heh heh," he replied. He told her to meet him in the teacher's parking lot after school was over. She was certain she couldn't wait that long to kiss him, but when she looked back up to tell him she'd see him there, he was gone. As was everyone else at the table.

After gym class, Bella showered. She stepped out of the shower, and noticed someone had taken off with her towel. In place of the towel was a post-it. It read "Join the Wait List. Now." She looked around. No one was in the showers  She wasn't sure what to do. She could walk across the hall to the dressing room, naked, or she could call out for help. 

"Is anyone here?" she cried, somewhat tentatively. There was no response.

She covered her breasts and quickly ran across the shower room into the dressing room. When she got there, a row of her classmates was waiting for her, and they were all blocking  access to her locker. She was humiliated. She was dripping wet and naked. "I need a towel!" she begged. No one was going to help her. She realized that.

Jessica approached her. "Yes, when you join the wait list. Everyone needs to join the wait list. When you do, we'll be happy to give you your towel." Bella refused. Fortunately the door opened and the gym class instructor walked in. She calmly told everyone to get out and handed Bella a towel. "Sorry Bella," she said. "They'll all be getting a note to go to the principal's office." Bella dried off and put her clothes on. She looked at her watch. She was 15 minutes late. She hoped Edward would still be in the lot.

The Wait List, Part I

The next few entries leading up to Halloween will be brought to you in the form of a modern fan fiction. It's a daring combination of Twilight, Twin Peaks, and the classic 1948 Shirley Jackson story "The Lottery."

And so it begins... I give you Part I of PineyLonesome's promising fiction, just in time for Halloween. It is no coincidence that those of us who endured the wait list are now in group 6. 

The Wait List

by Pineylonesome

Bella Swan looked across the lunch room for an empty two-seat table. Preferably a table in a remote corner, where no one would notice or judge her for being alone. She had convinced herself that being alone wasn't so bad. She could finish all her biology homework and listen to her music in peace. She did not have to try to make inane conversation about fantasy football with students she had nothing in common with. Nothing was worse than a dull, sports-obsessed lunch companion. No, wait, she she was wrong about that. People who spent their entire lunch break trying to convince her to join a mysterious wait list were worse. 

Bella had moved to Hope Springs during the senior year of her high school. Everyone already had friends. Cliques were already in place. No one was interested in being her friend. There were only people interested in her joining a wait list. She made the mistake of asking what the wait list was for. No one knew, or at least they would not tell her. As soon as they caught on that she was not interested in joining the mystery wait list, they left her alone.

The adjustment to Hope Springs was difficult. She didn't mind the eternal gray and dampness as much as she minded all the creepy students at her high school. There was Jessica, who was always aggressively smiling at Bella while simultaneously upset that Bella consistently earned higher grades than she did in nearly every class. And Mike, a vacuous jock who seemed to follow her around but who always disappeared the minute Bella attempted to talk to him. There was something strange about the people in this new city. There was something unusual about Hope Springs itself. She chalked it up to the town being economically depressed. The lumber mill was the only business left, and in an effort to save money, safety corners were cut. The mill had more fatal accidents than any other mill in the United States. Most of the accidents went unreported and were undocumented; otherwise the mill would be shut down and leave the town with nothing. Maybe everyone at school was so strange because most of them only had one parent?

Bella found a seat near a table of misfits. There was one table like that in every high school. All were wearing black and staring off into space. They were not speaking to each other, but seemed content with each other's company. They reminded her of an old married couple, only they were an old married quintuple. Two thin, gothy girls and three almost conventionally attractive boys. They seemed older to her, all of them. She figured their pale, mature appearance was a result of all the cigarettes they smoked. One of the boys was looking directly at her. The one with the greasy, unkempt hair and strange patchy stubble growth. She quickly looked away and back to her chapter on cell reproduction. She turned the volume on her headphones up so she could drown out any conversation they might be having about her. She had no need to hear further comment about how weird she was for not joining the cultish wait list.

She looked down at her textbook and closed her eyes. She yearned to be back home, surrounded by normal people. She missed the predictability of the sun and being surrounded by friends who liked to talk about movies, colleges and music. She fantasized about her old boyfriend Lucas. She should have had sex with him the day she left. He wanted to, but she declined, thinking sex with him would only make her miss him more. She was wrong. Her decision only made her regret not having sex with him more. Now she would have to wait until college. God, she was horny. She thought about him kissing her neck, breathing on her chest, running his hands under the waist of her jeans. He was gorgeous. He had incredibly thick, dark hair and intense brown eyes. She bit her lip at the thought of him entering her, finally. Yup, she was a fool to leave without ever knowing that pleasure.

Suddenly she felt a presence at her table. She opened her eyes. It was the greasy mop head goth dude from the other table. He looked a lot better up close. He had gorgeous green blue eyes, skin too clear and flawless to belong to a teenager, and his stubble seemed to have disappeared. Maybe it had been a shadow? She removed her headphones.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked her. Who said that? Penny for your thoughts? She remembered her usually drunk Grandpa said that on occasion, but who else? Maybe it was a saying now being revived by hipsters?

"I was just napping...we finished cell division last year, so it is all old news to me," Bella replied. "If you are here to ask me to join the wait list, you can forget it. Not interested unless you can tell me what it is," she continued.

"No, I am not going to ask you to join the list. God, no. Would never wish that upon to you," he responded. He knew something. And she was going to make sure he told her.