Chapter Text
Probably the most damning thing about Forks is its abysmal lack of drug scene.
She’s kidding. Mostly.
The most damning thing about Forks, Washington, is the fucking vampires.
But it would be crazy to say that in the middle of her court-mandated AA meeting. Pastor Ken accepts most things she says with a tight smile and a graceful, “Alrighty then!” but even he might draw the line at her accusing the small town’s favorite surgeon of being anything but an angel sent by the grace of God himself.
Fuckin’ AA. She takes a sip of the obligatory coffee; the only good thing about it is that it’s hot.
She's been here before, is the thing. Well, not here, specifically, but here in the vague general sense. Done the steps, all twelve, twice. Done the shitty chairs, the burnt coffee, the discount donuts, the higher power she's never quite managed to locate. Done ninety days. Done ninety more. Called her sponsor at 2 AM and begged an old lady to talk her down from ledges she'd climbed herself.
She’s asked God for the serenity to accept the things she can’t change, or whatever. Begged, bartered, bribed. Repeatedly. But, God never answered. About as absent as her father who walked out to get diapers and never came back.
Maybe she’s being unfair. After all, what else could this be but divine intervention?
How do you explain waking up in a body that isn’t yours, in a book you were embarrassingly obsessed with in middle school? (And parts of college. And again when you were going through a rough breakup in your mid-twenties.)
She sniffs. Wipes her nose on the back of her sleeve.
Christ alive. She’d kill for a bump right now. Just a little one. Nothing big, she’s not greedy. Just enough to get through Marcus complaining about his own daddy issues again for the sixth week in a row.
Alcoholics bore her. They’re boring! It’s not her fault her drug of choice puts her in a manic state until she can bang out three articles right before deadline and book a trip to Paris with her limited lifesavings. Why would anyone want to ruin their life if they’re not even having fun doing it?
No. Maybe this is it. Maybe the worst thing about Forks, Washington is that it’s too small and too boring to even have enough addicts to need more than one Anonymous group. Pastor Ken thought it would be fun to dump all the troubled members of his flock in the same box. If she wants to attend an actual NA meeting, she has to ask Mr. Weber to drive her to Port Angeles, and, hell, if she’s going all the way there, she might as well look for a place to score.
Anything to make sense of the insanity that has so quickly become her life.
She takes another sip of coffee. Lets the heat numb her tongue so she won’t wince next time she bites it.
“Vera?” Pastor Ken’s voice ruins her running monologue. She narrows her eyes at him over the rim of her cup, daring him to even suggest– “How about you? Anything you want to share this week?”
She sighs. Vera. That’s who she is now. That’s what these people see when they look at her.
Vera Weber. Seventeen. Southern California party girl. Bad boyfriend, worse friends, nose like a vacuum.
The girl who used to be Vera, anyway.
She died. The original one. The real one. Went out the same way she was planning on going out, with a nose full of powder, ready to ascend to whatever heaven would have her, except when she opened her eyes, there was a stranger's ceiling and a stranger's body, and her own name was just. Gone. A big ol’ black spot where it used to be.
So, she wants to tell him no, because anything she actually feels like sharing would probably land her in the nearest psych ward. But, Pastor Ken signs her attendance slip every week, and the judge had been very extremely quite serious when she outlined the consequences of missing a meeting.
And Vera can survive a lot. Has. But she doesn’t think she’d handle juvie with much grace. Teenagers in high school are already migraine-inducing enough.
“Just the usual,” she says, because she has to be a contributing member, has to show she’s open to healing and changing and making progress. Blah. “My little cousins kept me up all night last night yelling through the walls over the new Grand Theft Auto.”
Pastor Ken looks more troubled at the video game title than he did when Vera first told him about her overdose. She doesn’t know why. Isaac and Joshua are little hyperactive hellions on the best day; everyone in Forks knows this.
Still, he bravely musters on, valiantly attempting to smooth the harsh lines in his wrinkled face.
“And are you settling in well with your uncle’s family?”
She shrugs, “Sure. Angela is sweet. She keeps trying to get me to sit with her friends at lunch.”
“Angela is a fine young woman,” Pastor Ken smiles, and his eyes actually twinkle at the name. Vera fights the urge to roll hers. When she was thirteen and first read the books, Angela had been her favorite background character, so she finds it hard to completely hate her existence. “Why are you against sitting with her and her friends?”
Because I’m a thirty-year-old woman, is on the tip of her tongue. Vera takes another sip of coffee instead of letting the words leave.
High school. Christ, why did it have to be high school? Because that’s when the story takes place, a traitorous part of her mind says, the part that always has to be right. And, sure, she argues back to herself, but why couldn’t Stephenie Meyer modify the setting to make more sense?
It’s a conversation she’s discussed ad nauseam with her friends throughout the years. Vampires? In high school? You’re joking.
When she doesn’t respond, Pastor Ken opens his mouth to push, probably because he always pushes on the Angela thing. He clearly has some vision of Vera's social rehabilitation that involves Angela Weber as a primary pillar. Perfect, lovely Angela, who volunteers every Saturday and is a Youth Group leader on Sunday.
But he’s cut off when the door opens.
And there, standing in the doorway, is the most beautiful woman Vera has ever seen.
She’s pale white and impossibly gorgeous, with the elegance and grace of a golden-era movie actress like Vivien Leigh or Katharine Hepburn. Her mid-length caramel hair falls in big, rolling waves that unfairly manage to look luxurious even under the dim fluorescent lights.
The woman looks entirely out of place, like someone cut her from the pages of a vintage magazine and glued her to a vision board for hashtag cottagecore tradwife aesthetic goals. Vera blinks, but there she stands, holding a platter of bespoke sugar cookies that could easily sell for $20 a piece at a boutique bakery in a big city.
But it’s her eyes that grip Vera tight and refuse to let her go. The brilliant golden topaz of a freshly fed vegetarian vampire.
“Sorry,” she says, voice soft and musical, lips parting into a wide, welcoming smile. She holds up the platter, “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I brought some cookies for the nurses, and they mentioned you had a group going tonight. I wanted to just quickly drop these off for you all to enjoy.”
Around her, Vera can feel the room shift. Relax. Open toward her the way plants open toward sunlight. Ironic. Marcus sits up straighter. Linda stops picking at her thumbnail. Chad stops staring daggers at the linoleum floor. Pastor Ken is already half out of his chair, arms outstretched to receive the platter.
“Mrs. Cullen!” He says, thrilled. He takes the cookies from her, and no one seems to notice how carefully both parties avoid skin-to-skin contact. Almost instinctually. “You shouldn’t have! This is the sweetest thing. Thank you so much. Everyone?” He turns to the half-circle of reformed addicts. “What do we say to Esme?”
Vera narrows her eyes as the man talks to them like they’re children. She doesn’t even pretend to move her lips when the rest of them politely mumble, “Thank you, Mrs. Cullen.”
The vampire is quick to wave off their words.
“Oh, stop, hush,” she says, smile smooth and sweet. “You all are doing such important work here. I think that deserves a nice reward now and then.”
Esme Cullen is exactly as warm and motherly as Meyer described her. It would be sickening if it weren’t so earnest. As it is, Vera prefers her sugar to come from baked goods, so she wordlessly accepts a delicate, round cookie with cute little black cat faces lovingly piped onto it. The rest of the tray is decorated with pumpkins, red leaves, and broomsticks. Across the sharing circle, Linda merrily chews on a witch’s green face.
She wonders what else is real in this world.
Vera can’t help it. She’s a little shit. So when Esme Cullen turns to leave, she doesn’t stop herself from calling out, “Oh, but won’t you eat one with us? You went to all the trouble of baking them.”
Her eyes are wide and innocent. Her smile is the same one she used to ask a man who'd buried three people in his backyard whether he considered himself a good neighbor.
Something moves through Esme's expression, quick and smooth, like a ripple across still water. Gone before Vera can name it.
"Oh," she says, face frozen in a smile like a photo. "I ate a few while I was frosting them! I couldn’t help myself. Baker’s tax, and all that."
It's not a big thing. It's barely a thing. Just a faint sense sliding down her spine that the words landed a half-step sideways from the truth. Not wrong exactly, just slightly beside it, the way a picture hangs level until you step back to look at the wall.
It’s a familiar feeling for Vera. It’s one that got her nominated for a Pulitzer in a previous life. The loss wasn’t her fault; she’s not even bitter about it; it’s not like she was held captive in a suitcase for four days because of that interview; it was impossible to be a prize-winning journalist anyway in a world that slowly chipped away at the value of the First Amendment.
Small blessings, she supposes. Sure, there’s a republican president in 2005, but at least she’s not actively living through a hostile government takeover. Just the…brewing storm of one.
Not ideal.
"Fair enough," Vera says. "I always eat the evidence too."
Esme tilts her head, like she isn’t quite sure she heard her right, even with perfect vampire hearing. Her smile stays warm and easy, but Esme’s inhuman eyes linger on Vera for just a moment. Not long. Not long enough for anyone else in the room to catch.
Just enough for her hindbrain to kick in and remind her that the difference between them is predator and prey.
Prey runs, she reminds herself. And Vera, or whoever she is, does not run.
"It was lovely to meet you, Vera." Her voice is genuine. That part, at least, Vera doesn't doubt. "I’ve heard so much about you from my children. I hope Forks is starting to feel a little more like home."
"Little by little," Vera says, keeping her face and voice neutral.
Esme smiles again, like it’s the only thing she knows how to do. Then, she says her goodbyes to everyone else and leaves, taking a little bit of the light in the room with her.
“Okay!” Pastor Ken says, clapping his hands to gather everyone’s attention. “Let’s recite the serenity prayer, shall we?”
Vera sighs. Maybe the true worst thing about Forks, Washington is being a seventeen-year-old recovering drug addict.
And the vampires. She can’t forget the vampires.