For the heart feels what the mind neglects
Author's note:
My first fic :)
I'm experimenting with the writing style
I hope people get who each character is
(apart from my OC, of course)
Enjoy!
A couple months after Renesmee started school in Forks, she had grown so much that the family needed to move to avoid suspicions and remain anonymous. A mid-winter move to a colder climate seemed a wise decision and a straightforward cover, easily concealing their cold touches and providing an excuse for constant long-sleeved shirts and jackets to conceal their skins from the winter sun.
Yet while the weather climate was easily predictable, an emotional climate was found that was slightly more curious, and much less navigable.
The new family arrived in town in the middle of winter, taking the frigid temperature of Minnesota exceptionally well for newcomers from Forks, Washington. Apart from the occasional hushed words about the curious family, the town of International Falls, despite boasting the title Icebox Nation and nicknamed Frostbite Falls, had taken to warmly welcome their newest additions. With the constant freezing weather and requirement for a 3-layered clothing at the least, the peculiar family fit right in with no trouble.
Tucked by the edge of the America-Canada border, which runs across the snaking Rainy River, Falls High School played the part of welcoming the family's adopted siblings—all of them in high school except for their youngest, a third grader who went to the nearby Falls Elementary School—while around the corner, Rainy Lake Medical Center welcomed a young, commendable doctor.
One typical sub-zero Monday found the school in full swing, with students pouring in from school buses and family cars, a couple of the older kids carpooling in an effort to save gas money, and most everyone walking to their classes in bundles of cheerful chatters. On the far side of the high school parking lot, a white hardtop Jeep Wrangler rolled to a stop, followed mere minutes later by a silver S60R Volvo. As their six occupants made their way to the school building in hurried, but measured steps, the school bell's ringing signaled the start of yet another school day.
As it was any other day, a group of thirty-two in first-period German class. As it was not on any other day, a burly, dark-haired boy also took his place to the side of the class. One of the new transfer students starting school just today.
Class proceeds in its usual rhythm, and lunchtime came rolling by soon enough. As the group of students made their way to the school cafeteria, the burly boy as well strolled out of his classroom, spotting his blond-haired brother across the hall, and—grinning widely—clapping him in the shoulder before rushing off to find his gorgeous girlfriend. The blond brother, meanwhile, was caught amid the mass of hungry students heading down the only hall that leads to the cafeteria.
Stuck at walking at a human pace among the swirling scents of warm bodies, he focused his mind on the emotional temperature of the people around him—partly as a distraction, and partly as a way to pass time. Testing the climates of the surrounding temperaments, he sifted through the excitement and anticipation for the food; joy, amusement, and mild annoyance amid hearty conversations; love from new couples and bitter envy from dejected exes; all of the normal blend of high-schoolers' sentiments. The emotions were all so expected and common, that the next bit of out-of-place emotion that washed over him as he scanned individual students shocked him still for a good 1/64th of a second. Searching for the source of the resigned grief, constant apprehension, painful hopelessness and mild self-loathing, he could not find a demeanor to match the thick swirls of despair making their way to constricting his unbeating heart.
The medium-built girl with black, wavy hair and grey eyes took her usual place among a group of 6 teens chatting over lunch at one of the cafeteria's round tables. She smiled and laughed at all the right places, spouting witty remarks and playful jabbing comments that got the boys pouting and the other girls in stitches of laughter. She would finish her lunch in time with her other friends and cheerfully continued on with her next class, all the while trading light banters with one of the boys who'd sat on her table. To every teacher, classmates, and passers-by, she's the picture of a common, good-natured high-schooler, set on graduation and moving on with her bright life. So full of brightness, that casted a shadow over the sinking hole that gradually sunk deeper into nothingness, one that no one would notice under the canopy of well-crafted sunshine she wore on her sleeves. Everyone was none the wiser.
But somebody noticed the subtleties beneath.
From the corner of the cafeteria—always the same corner for the weeks to come—a statue-like figure with wavy blond hair would sit, finally succeeding in pinpointing the source of his earlier shock; and a pair of molten-gold eyes would follow her around silently.
Occasionally the figure would be joined by a pixie-like lady with black hair that would sit by, throwing small, understanding smiles as she looked between the blond statue and the girl. Occasionally, it would be his copper-haired brother, who would from time to time stare in barely-concealed fascination, alternating between the two.
For the copper-haired brother could hardly believe he was among the crowd of ignorants, up until he glimpsed the somber truth from his brother's mind.
For the pixie-like lady understood the need of her soulmate to soak these subtleties, perhaps an attempt at alleviation, and above all, simply to understand the whirring pool of blackness neatly wrapped in golden rays of sunlight, that is the grey-eyed girl. The well-crafted front that was so deeply founded, that it fooled absolutely everyone… but one.
For the girl doesn't even pay any mind to her own underlying feelings, so rooted to her core that there is no escape from them, to which—of these feelings, despite their solemn dark taint—there is no mind to read.
Yet the currents of these emotions, with their raw edges capable of wrecking damages that it's a wonder their host was yet to be paralysed in despair, are as clear as the sun on a cloudless day, to the one person gifted in the subtleties of the heart.