Disclaimer- I don't own any of the Twilight characters, although the plot is all mine :)
PREFACE
I have always wondered what it'd be like if I had been born into a different family…would I be the same person I am today? Would people have treated me differently? I sit in my car pondering these questions while the rain beats down on the window. I am now well on my way to find out though, aren't I? I chuckle grimly to myself…
CHAPTER 1 – A FRESH START
I stand in my room looking one last time at the packed boxes, feeling that this is surely a dream.
Somehow this all feels completely unreal even though I knew it was coming. Hell, I basically begged for this!
I'm scared of course. I mean, who wouldn't be? In a matter of hours, I'll be on a plane leaving the place I've called home for the last seventeen years, heading forward to the unknown. Yet, my nervous jitters are nothing compared to the excitement I have from my first attempt at independence. And from my plan of course, but I'll explain that later.
I look around the airport trying to find the sign that my driver is supposedly holding. I've been walking around in circles for the past twenty minutes and am starting to lose faith in myself that I'll be able to pull this off. I mean, I've just landed and I'm already messing up.
"Isabella Swan?" I gasp, turning around, frightened for a moment from being suddenly pulled out of my inner monologue. I find myself facing a middle-aged man wearing a suit and a bored expression.
Upon seeing my face, he straightens up a bit and waits for me to answer with a now much more polite expression on his face. I nod while sighing inwardly to myself and begin to follow him.
I really hoped I wouldn't have to come to school with a driver. I fought about it with my mom for a whole week but eventually she won -I'm a real sucker for guilt trips.
Why she didn't think I'd be perfectly capable of going on a bus like a normal person is beyond me. God knows how her head works, but to tell the truth, I'm not all that surprised. I mean, I've been babied from the day that I was born, given anything I could possibly want and a whole lot of other things I didn't even know I needed.
I tried explaining this once to my friends back at home, but they didn't really understand what I was talking about. Actually, that would be an understatement. They basically stared at me with blank faces the whole time, and when they finally recovered, they were just all like "But don't you like getting stuff and being rich? I mean, it's like, totally completely cool and stuff!"
Yeah that just shows you how deep they go. But honestly? It got me thinking. Am I like them? Is that how people see me? Do they think that I'm some rich stuck-up snob who thinks about how much better she is than others just because her daddy's richer?
I was actually starting to get frustrated, wondering all the time about how different my life really is because of money, and every time I thought about it, I always came back to the same conclusion that I can never really know, and that just frustrated me more.
You see, I was born to two very well-known and rich people. Something that made me one as well. I wasn't nearly as well known as my parents, but boy was I rich. My dad, Charlie Swan, is basically the new Steve Jobs. He invented a new game station, Power X, that kids all over the world are after. My mom, Renee Swan, besides being the wife of the richest man in the country, is also well-known for her modern art exhibitions. Even people who aren't all that into art have heard of her; she's created a whole new style of art that's sure to put her down in the history books. I'm for the most part rather unheard for my own achievements, but merely being the spawn of my parents get's people's attitude to change around me.
Anyway, around that time I was frustrated by my upbringing, my old school started a new program where the students talked to other kids from different schools around the country, and I got paired up with a girl my age from a school called "Forks Academy of Washington." Her name was Alice and we hit it off immediately. We talked about our lives, and I listened in envy as she told me stories about her friends and classes. I was hesitant though to tell her about myself in the beginning, since I was afraid that when she found about my money she'd start treating me differently.
Kind of like every one of my friends-if I can even call them that. I swear sometimes I think they're just acting like my friends because of my money. Or maybe I'm just paranoid. It isn't much fun anyway.
So you can imagine my surprise when she continued treating me the same even after I told her who my parents are. Sure, at first, she asked tons of questions and acted almost like a fan girl, but she got over that rather quickly, and when she did, we picked up right where we left off. Only rarely do I let some detail slip and realize by her response how completely abnormal that "little detail" actually is.
As time passed I realized that even though listening to Alice's stories was fascinating, it just wasn't enough. I wanted to experience these things for myself. I knew I couldn't and that made me depressed.
Alice noticed of course, and when she found out why, she nearly laughed in my face.
"That's what's been bugging you so much? I should have known you'd be the 'what if' type!"
"Jeez, Alice, didn't anyone ever tell you it's not nice to laugh at other people's pain?"
"Sorry, but it's just so funny because it's so obvious what you should do," Of course that immediately got my attention.
"What do you mean it's soobvious what I should do?"
"Well, you said that you're all upset because you can't ever possibly know what it'd be like to live a life without having people treat you differently because of your money, right?"
"Yeah I guess," I answered hesitantly, starting to feel that there was something big going on in that hyper mind of hers.
"And you want to experience for yourself how it would be?"
"Well yeah," I said, feeling more confused by the moment.
"Then don't you see what you should do?"
"Um, no not really," Where was she going with this?
"God, Bella. You know, for a smart girl sometimes you're really clueless."
"Would you just get to the point already?" I snapped, starting to feel quite frustrated.
"Humpf. So impatient," she replied bitterly.
"I'm sorry, Alice, please continue," I sighed, immediately feeling guilty.
"As I was saying..." Alice dragged. "What's so obvious is that if you want to see how it'd be like for people to treat you normally then all you have to do is to be somewhere where no one knows you," she states as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
"But, Alice," I groaned "Everybodyknows me here!"
"And that's why you need to move," she says in a matter of fact tone.
At that point I started arguing with her about all the reasons why I couldn't possibly just move.It didn't take her long to come up with an answer to every possible excuse I may have. Even though at first it sounded ridiculous and impossible, I found that the idea was starting to grow on me.
Soon enough, I found myself actually considering the idea and how I would do it. If I truly was to move, I would go to Alice's school, which was a boarding school. It was far away enough that no one there would recognize me, and I would have close help in the form of Alice since she would be in on the secret.
The biggest problem of course was my parents; they just couldn't understand why I would want to leave my excellentprivate school -their words not mine- for some not so special boarding school on the other side of the country.
But I can be stubborn too, and after hundreds of arguments they finally agreed.
A loud snap of fingers pulls me out of my thoughts and I realize after a moment that it's the driver trying to get my attention.
He's looking at me, waiting for me to answer. What did he ask again?
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I ask politely.
"I said," he explains slowly. "Do you want me to take you to the headmaster's office or are you good on your own?"
I suddenly realize that we have already arrived at the school and are now in front of the main entrance.
"I'm good, thanks for the offer," I say quickly and before he might decide to come with me anyway, I step out of the car.
I take in a deep breath and mutter "Here goes nothing" before taking my first step into the unknown.