Summary- Bella is an army brat, constantly moving from town to town until she finally settles in Forks and meets The Cullen's and the Hales. They all seem fine, except for Edward, he appears OK but Bella can sense all is not as it seems.
AH, slightly OOC
Prologue EPOVTo Confuse: v. con·fused, con·fus·ing, con·fus·es
be confusing or perplexing to; cause to be unable to think clearly
[-fusing, -fused]
1. to fail to distinguish between one thing and another
2. to perplex or disconcert
3. to make unclear: he confused his talk with irrelevant detail
4. to throw into disorder
Such a simple verb yet holds so many implications. To be confused is to not know ones self. To not know who you are, what your purpose is, why you are how you are. Life is difficult, we all know that but, is it this complicated for everybody? For if this is the case, and everybody struggles with the same bewilderments as I then life surely…sucks.
Chapter 1I have never been in love, or felt anything remotely close to it. I see everybody around me paired off with their other halves and it makes me feel out of place, as though I shouldn't really be there because I am half of a whole that will not be complete until I find…her. The thing is, I don't know who 'her' is, but one thing I am certain of is when I finally meet her, when we come face to face, when our eyes meet for the first time I will finally feel what this feeling is that everybody else seems to already know. I will become part of this exclusive club that only 'whole' people can enter.
I look in the mirror and once again, feel the familiar feeling of confusion, there are moments, rare moments when I look and I feel comfortable with what I see. The moments when I see what everybody else seems to see, but the majority of the time I look and I see a shell. A shell of the person I used to be and want to be again. But I know I never shall be, this is who I am now, it has taken control and it is strong, I know it will never relinquish this control willingly. I am not even sure if I want it too, control is the one thing I have left, this is the one part of my life I am not confused about, and this is the one part that is set in my mind. It is always certain.
No one knows who I am, not really, I'm not even sure…I know who I was, once, but that was years ago. That person is gone and I know will never return.
Flashback- 3 years ago
'Eddie boy get yo fat ass over here'
I looked up, and sure enough Emmett was stood at the end of my driveway, waiting. Impatiently. I sighed and strolled over to him, wondering what on earth he had planned for me this weekend whilst our parents were away; I won't lie I was slightly worried. This was Emmett.
'So what are we doing first Emm-dawg' I drawled, smirking slightly at him as I approached.
'Don't call me Emm-dawg you freaking loser'
'I'll stop calling you Emm-dawg when you quit with the Eddie boy's'!
He looked at me, visibly considering this option, it was almost as if I could see the thoughts being processed in his mind. Then I saw a thought I did not like the look of… with one long stride he was by my side and had hauled me over his shoulder so my feet were above his head and my head was just a couple of inches away from a place I really did not want to be.
'Yer, I guess that is one option' He shook me a little 'but you know this is much more entertaining and I could quite happily do this to you every time you use that ridiculous name!'
'Emmett Cullen put me back on the freaking ground!' He let go of my feet. I fell. It hurt. Like hell. 'EMMETT!!'
'WHAT?!?'
'Why the hell are you yelling at me?
He shrugged, 'you yelled at me' he simply stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Talking to Emmett sometimes really took a lot of effort, most of that effort went into trying to understand what the hell he was talking about and the rest went on refraining myself from hitting him when he said something particularly annoying, or stupid, or both. I sighed and picked myself up from the ground,
'Yes, that would be due to the fact that you just dropped me on my ass! Not fun'.
'Look, you complain when I pick you up, which is no mean feat by the way, you are freaking heavy! So I put you down, and you still complain, is there no pleasing some people?'
I looked down, not replying to what he said, vaguely hearing him mutter something like 'Apparently not' and then walking back to the house to pick up my bags. I continued staring down, looking at my stomach, am I really…? I refused to finish that thought but promised myself that I never would be.
'Yo Eddie-kins get in the car, it's nearly time to go to Rosalie's.'
I sighed, there really was no point in trying to tame Emmett, he was always going to make up ridiculous names for me, might as well just suffer in silence.
'Want to grab something to eat before the party? There's that new Chinese all you can eat opened up in town'
I looked down again, thinking about the promise I made myself not five minutes ago,
'No thanks, I'm not hungry'
End Flashback
BPOVDisplacement- dis·place·ment (dis plās′mənt, dis′-)
noun
a displacing or being displaced
the weight or volume of a fluid displaced by a floating object; specif., the weight of water, in long tons, displaced by a ship
the volume displaced by a stroke of a piston
the difference between a later position of a thing and its original position
I have no home. I mean, I live in a house, with 3 bedrooms and a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room and a dining room. It has a garden, walls, windows, and a roof. But that is it; it's a building, which I happen to be housed in for the next…God knows how long. This is the fourth move in as many years, seventh overall. I gave up decorating and making friends after number 4, it wasn't worth it, I'd only have to say goodbye and do it all over again in a year anyway. I have exactly three friends, my mum Renee, my dad Charlie and my cousin Jacob, although I only see one regularly. The other two are always away, saving the world or whatever. This is what gets me; it's their fault we move; yet they are never here to suffer in the new houses. I wonder what life is like for everybody else, those normal people, for if it is anything like this then life surely…sucks.
I hate being an army brat.
'Bella, darling can you come down here for a moment please?' I heard my mother calling from downstairs, I sighed, and leaving the half empty boxes scattered across my floor I stumbled downstairs. Walking into the kitchen I saw Renee sat at the table, papers strewn about in front of her.
'These walls are an awful colour; I'm trying to pick a new one out. Help?'
'What's the point? It's not like we'll be here long enough to see the paint dry?!'
'Bella please, your father has promised that we are going to be here at least until you graduate, and I am not living here for all that time with the walls this colour so pick!' She thrust the colour charts over to me, I sighed and looked down.
'Ew not beige, not for the kitchen' Tossing that one behind me,
'Bella, pick that up off the floor, this house is a mess enough as it is! And it's not beige, it's cappuccino.'
I stood up and bent down to pick up the offending colour chart, muttering 'right, cappuccino, how could I not know?' I took my seat and continued browsing through the rest of the colours 'Hey how about yellow? It's bright, warm, and doesn't look like we've spilt coffee on the walls' I said with a wide, if slightly sarcastic grin plastered on my face. My mother looked at me, frowning but then took the chart out of my hand and went to put it next to the wall. It was a 1x2 inch square of card, what was that going to help? I didn't say anything and waited for her to make her decision,
'I like it, pastel yellow it is. Thanks Bells.'
'No problem, anything else you need or can I go finish unpacking?'
'No that's fine, have fun' She winked at me as I got up,
'Yer, it's gona be a blast' I snorted, 'in a bit' I waved my fingers over my head as I jumped up the stairs.
'Oh wait Bella there was something else I needed to say to you'
I stopped at the top of the stairs turning around to face her as she stood at the bottom, almost mirroring my exact pose, one hand leant on the wall, the other on the hip.
'Sure Mum, what is it?'
'You know this house isn't actually on base, your father knew how much you hate having your whole life revolve around the army so this time we're off base, it's actually a few miles away from here in the next town along. Anyway, my point is I just rang the local high school and got you enrolled there. You officially start your first public school on Monday at Forks High. You excited?
She looked up at me, excitement shining in her eyes, hoping for a similar response from me. When she didn't get it, she frowned, 'Bella, what's wrong? I thought you'd be happy about this?'
'I am happy mum, see?' I put an extremely obvious fake smile on my face, 'this is my happy face.'
'Bella…'
'No mum, seriously, I am happy. It's just I've started a new school so many times now, I know exactly how my first day is going to go, especially in a small town like this. First will come the stares, then the whispers, accompanied with a few points here and there, then will be the rumours about how I got kicked out of my last school for having a sordid affair with the janitor in the science lab, or how I was the resident bad ass and beat up the janitor in the science lab and he is now in a coma, never to wake up again.' I rolled my eyes and looked down at my mum, 'seriously, this is much better than going to another army school. Where all the kids are either ridiculously well behaved, or ridiculously rebellious, at least here I won't have my popularity calculated instantly by my fathers rank. I am happy'. Again I smiled down at my mother, sincere this time, then turned around and went back to my room. I needed to find something to wear to school, if I was going to have my status decided upon from me, and not my father then I needed to make a good first impression.
FLASHBACK
'Okay kids, we have a new student joining us today, her name is Isabella Swan and I expect you all to give her a warm welcome, I know we all know what it is like to start a new school.'
'Yes Miss' the class chorused back. I stopped, listening through the crack in the half open door, I had heard the exact same speech five times already; it got old after number three. Taking a deep breath I pushed the door open the rest of the way and walked into the classroom, meeting the gazes of the thirty faces staring back at me. I smiled at the teacher and waited for her to say those dreaded words,
'Hi Isabella, how about you tell us a little bit about yourself?'
I groaned, this was always the worst part, I hated any form of unnecessary attention on me, and that is what this was- unnecessary. It's not like I'm going to be here long enough for them to truly get to know me anyway, but I smiled and turned to the class.
'Hi, I'm Bella, umm this is my 5th move, and both my dad and cousin are in the army.' I stopped after giving the basic facts that made up who I was. That's all these people wanted to know- name, number of moves, members in the army. Oh and what rank they were, but I wanted to keep that to myself for as long as possible, it was the worst part. And it always happened the same way, sure enough as soon as the bell rang a girl with bright red hair sauntered up to me, flanked on either side by equally beautiful girls.
'Tanya' She stated, as if that was all I needed to know,
'Umm Hi?'
'Rank?' Oh, I knew where this was going, I also knew that she wasn't stupid enough to be asking that question about me, no. She wanted my fathers rank.
'First Sergeant' I replied. She smirked, looked me up and down and said her final word,
'General' she turned and walked away. Needless to say, I was not invited to sit with her at lunch; I was left to sit with the rest of the kids whose parents were not so high up in the food chain.
END FLASHBACK
Monday was going to be a long day.