In Which I Suffer Through New Moon: Chapter 11 -- Cult · 1:36pm Mar 24th, 2018
After a week, Bella’s still alive; Victoria hasn’t gotten to her yet. Still, she’s nervous and jumpy. To make matters worse, she hasn’t heard from Jacob, through the phone or otherwise. It’s definitely not for a lack of trying on her part, since she’s tried to reach him every day. Occasionally dipping into unhealthy territory:
On Wednesday I called every half hour until after eleven at night, desperate to hear the warmth of Jacob’s voice.
CM + 1
One day, it hits Bella: Jacob’s been sucked into Sam Uley’s gang. For some reason, she jumps to calling it a “cult”, even though they’ve shown no religious beliefs. She immediately decides to go confront him, face-to-face, but before she does, she does something very mature for her: she calls Charlie and tells him her suspicions about Jacob and Sam in case the police need to get involved. However, Charlie tells her not to worry about it. From what he’s seen, Sam’s a great guy (particularly since he’s the one who found Bella in the forest). Bella tries to argue, but Charlie has to put the issue aside; there’re some hikers missing in the forest, with tracks and blood near their last location.
Taking matters into her own hands, Bella drives to La Push to talk to Jacob, even if it means she has to sit there for hours to wait for him. Along the way, she meets Quil and gives him a ride. The two of them talk about Jacob; Quil’s description of his change in behavior nearly matches Jacob’s description of Embry’s change in behavior, right down to no one doing anything about Sam. Now Quil’s scared that he’s going to be next.
Bella drops Quil off and drives to Jacob’s house. He’s there, and she’s shocked at how much he’s changed, his personality going from bright and sunny to grim and moody. (Ironically, she opens with an extensive paragraph about his physical changes — he’s gotten bigger, more adult-looking — that goes on for longer than how his personality has changed and yet says “the physical changes were insignificant”.) Sam and the rest of his gang/cult/whatever are there as well. Summoning up her courage, Bella demands to talk to Jacob alone. Everyone turns to Sam, and he lets Jacob go.
Bella’s talk with Jacob doesn’t go so well; he only tells her that his previous assumptions about Sam were wrong and he can’t say what’s going on with him. And remember how a lot of conversations between Edward and Bella in Twilight were like ping-pong in that they bounced back and forth but never went anywhere? It’s like that. Several pages that boil down to, “Tell me!” “I can’t.” “Tell me!” “I can’t.” Finally, Bella demands to know whose fault it is.
“You asked for it,” he growled at me, eyes glinting hard. “If you want to blame someone, why don’t you point your finger at those filthy, reeking bloodsuckers that you love so much?”
Yep, Jacob means the Cullens. According to him, their problem is that they exist. Suddenly, Edward’s voice breaks into Bella’s brain again and tells her what to do. I don’t really understand why the story can’t just have Bella figure out the best way to go, since the voice is technically her subconscious. However, although Bella tries to give Jacob time to calm down, he simply says that the damage is done and tries to leave. Bella reminds Jacob about Quil and Jacob freaks out even more, saying that nothing should happen to Quil and he’s not sure why “it’s” happening now. Bella asks what “it” is, and Jacob finally tells Bella that the two of them can’t be friends anymore. Bella takes this about as well as you’d expect.
“Jacob… why? Sam won’t let you have other friends? Please, Jake. You promised. I need you!” The blank emptiness of my life before — before Jacob brought some semblance of reason back into it — reared up and confronted me. Loneliness choked in my throat.
I’d thought Jake had been healing the hole in me — or at least plugging it up, keeping it from hurting me so much. I’d been wrong. He’d just been carving out his own hole, so that I was now riddled through like Swiss cheese. I wondered why I didn’t crumble into pieces.
CM + 2
Charlie recognizes the signs of Bella’s depression when she gets home. She tells him what went down, which prompts him to take her previous warning about Sam more seriously. He calls Billy about the incident — remember, Charlie and Billy are friends — and they have a fight about what’s been happening. In fact, Charlie briefly becomes Chief Swan and warns that Sam’s gang better not step out of line.
Bella has more trouble sleeping that night, with worse nightmares. But what little sleep she can get is blown away when she hears something scraping on her bedroom window.
Clinginess Meter: 41 x 3
You know, for all this reminds me of the repetitive conversations of Twilight, at least there’s actual, visible, set-up conflict here. It makes it all… mostly bearable.
Analyze your situation a bit more closely, Bella. Then your entire world can crumble into pieces!
Very good to see Bella actually use her head and her father a little. That said, while I can kind of understand Jacob keeping mum on the whole werewolf thing, you'd think if anyone would both believe him and know not to spread it around, it'd be the girl who fell in love with a sparkly, syringe-toothed statue.
Well, it's better than the fucking episode I'm watching while reading this blog, anyway.
...Because those are totally two things you can do at the same time. <.<