First look

I was falling. Faster and faster, then I hit the ground. I broke into a million pieces. I screamed out in terror and pain, but nobody heard me. I woke up, panic stricken. My breaths came in short gasps. I realized that I had been asleep. I slowly steadied myself, and looked around. Something in the corner moved, but I figured it was just Say. She was my cat. I slumped back down into my bed and drifted off to sleep again.

It was morning in Treth. Treth was the small town that I lived it ever since I was born. My dad left us when I was 3, and said that Treth was the worst place he had ever been. So he moved to New York, which is really far from Washington State. I have to agree though, that Treth isn't the brightest place in the world. In fact, it was always dark. I thought this only happened in Alaska, but apparently not.

So much for working on my sun tan I thought stumbling down the stairs. Sadly stairs were not an improvement in our house. My mom built us one, and when I got older she added a second story, just for me. The only bad thing was walking down the stairs. Especially in the morning. But like I was saying, I can never work on my tan. It's too dark, but even worse, everyone else has a tan. Everyone but me. We never go out of town for the summer, so while everyone is soaking up sun on the beach, I'm sitting at home.

"Come on down honey, I have to hurry up and get to work!" My mom was yelling to me. She had to get up really early in the mornings, even during summer, to go and work at the hospital. Sometimes I really hated it, but other times, like when I wanted to be alone, it was nice. I rushed down the stairs, almost tripping and killing myself, and stood in front of my mom. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then left. I smiled to myself. I had the whole house to myself.

I ate breakfast and trudged back upstairs. As I looked into my mirror, I shrieked. My blondish hair was all tangled and everywhere. Today was not going to be a good day. As I got my comb off of my desk, I noticed something was different. My desk was out of place. That's really weird I thought. I knew that my cat wasn't big enough to move it, I hadn't been over there, and my mom never comes up to my room. I shrugged it off, thinking I must have done it before, and started working on my hair. It hurt like crazy. I kept telling myself that I should cut it just a little, but I never did.

After I had finally brushed out my hair and put on my makeup, which really did enhance my green eyes, I got dressed. I never wanted to dress fancy during the summer, so I just got some jeans and a t-shirt. As always, I decided just to sit down in my chair and read for the entire day. I opened up one of my favorite books, 'Anne of Green Gables,' and started to read it for the tenth time. I love how she sat up on the wagon, and had a vivid imagination, naming everything she saw. After reading the first few pages, I grew tired of reading. Normally this wouldn't happen, but today I just didn't feel like it.

I got out of my chair with some struggle, and went over to my desk. On my desk sat my new laptop. Mom said I would need one starting Treth High. Yuck, high school. I just wasn't ready. I opened my laptop and found I had a new message. I thought this was weird, since all my friends were out of town and had completely no access to a computer. I knew I had been with all of my friends for at least a few weeks one summer or another. I opened up my email and looked at the sender. It was my dad.

It read,

Hey,

Niki, this is your dad. I just wanted to let you know that I have a present for you since your starting high school. It should be there soon.

Love,

Dad

This was just like my dad. I should have known he was going to give me a gift. I sat back and thought about what it could be. The message was only a few hours old, so I knew I wasn't going to get the present any time soon. Damn I thought. I reread the message again. I noticed that he used the name Niki instead of Nicole. Nicole was my real name, and nobody called me Niki unless something was up. I decided that I shouldn't worry about it any more, since I had no idea what it could be. Shutting down my laptop, I went back downstairs, carefully this time.

I looked out the window, and surprisingly it was sunny. Today was getting more and more weird. I flung open the door and ran outside. It was hot with a breeze blowing, the perfect summer day. I looked around and saw nobody that was outside enjoying this like I was, so I went back in to get a blanket and some shorts. After my quick change from jeans to shorts, I laid out my blanket and just lied out. I wasn't tanning; no weather was good enough for that. So I just lay there, enjoying the day. I heard this really loud sound. It was startling after it had been so quiet. I had closed my eyes, so I opened them really quickly. There was a big moving van headed up the road.

I was in a panic. Maybe this was the present my dad was talking about. What if he was moving back in? I shook my head to keep myself from thinking those thoughts. Mom and dad were not going to get back together, no matter how much they loved me, and really, I didn't care. Lucky for me though, it wasn't my dad, it was someone new. I would know too, because all the kids in Treth all went to Elementary, Middle, and now High school together. These must be the people who are moving into the Johnsons old house I thought. They must be pretty rich then. As the moving van rolled by, or should I say, moving vans, I caught a glimpse of one of the children moving in. He was white, whiter than I was, with brilliant golden eyes, and brownish hair. He was drop dead hot.

I blinked a few times, just to be sure I wasn't dreaming. He was staring at me as they rode past, and then he laughed. I was stunned that he laughed at me. Then I realized what I was wearing. I had pulled out the wrong shorts. These were the ones that had holes in them. Everywhere. I covered my mouth, too shocked to say anything. It was just like me to embarrass myself in front of a cute guy. My good day was over. I jumped up and ran inside, too embarrassed to remember to pick up the blanket. Mom would get it when she got home. I flew up the stairs so fast that I was surprised I didn't fall. I ripped off the shorts and pulled my pants back on. That's why I usually stuck to pants.

I walked over to my window and pulled the blinds up. The sun shone into my room and blinded me for an instant. Then sun quickly receded though, and my eyes were used to the sun quickly. I looked back to the outside and I could clearly see the Johnsons old house from my room. It was the biggest house in Treth. Two stories, 4 bathrooms, and 6 bedrooms. Not to mention a huge kitchen and living room. My mom had always wanted to live in that house. The moving vans were just pulling into the driveway. I stared, even though it's not polite. There were a lot of people, seven to be exact. I went to go and sit at my desk so I wouldn't seem rude to be staring. I ran over and pulled up all my blinds, letting even more sunlight in. I ran over to my desk and pretended to be on my laptop. I know I shouldn't have been spying, but I was curious.

People were walking out of the house, holding out arms to each other. One of the people was the guy that had laughed at me. My cheeks got really red, so I looked away from their house for a minute. Then I thought how weird that was because nobody had been living in that house for ever. I shrugged and turned my head to watch again. This time I turned away as soon as I looked. That guy that laughed at me was looking right at me. I heard a scratch at my door, and I quickly ran to get it. Say decided it was time to bask in the sun that had taken over my room a few minutes ago. But I was gone now. I laughed as she went from window to window, trying to find which one had more sunlight, but that was none of them. When she got to the window that looked at the Johnsons old house, I took a peek to see if that guy was still staring at me. Luckily he wasn't, so I had nothing to worry about. I decided that I should do something while I wad on my laptop, so I decided to see what classes I would have for High School. My classes were, in order, American History, Algebra, Gym, Lunch, Free period, and then Language class.

I hated my classes. They were all ones that I never did want to take, so of course I get stuck with them. The only good thing was lunch and free period were back to back. I heard a knock on my door, and of course, stumbled down the stairs to get it. I swished my hair out of my face and opened the door.

"Hel..." I said, and then stopped when I was looking up. Standing at my door was that guy that laughed at me. His jaw was clenched, just like he didn't want to be, just as much as I really didn't want him here. My face turned a bright, bright red, and I could tell because I just got hotter and hotter. He chuckled as my face got red, but it wasn't a normal chuckle. It was humorless. I looked down at my shoes.

"Hey, um, I was wondering, my sister, Alice, needs a pair of sneakers; do you have any she might be able to borrow?" He had such a velvet voice. I said "Yeah sure" a little too quickly, and then I was leading him upstairs. I paused outside my door. Was I really going to lead a boy into my bedroom? Well I had to.

"What size does you sister wear, Alice I mean?" I asked him. I mumbled it, so I thought he couldn't hear, but he did.

"She wears a size 7," he quickly answered me. That was exactly my size. I opened up my door, and he gasped. I bit down on my lip a little too hard. I didn't see anything wrong with my room, it wasn't too messy, there was nothing "girlie" on the floor. I couldn't figure it out.

"Your room is so, well, clean!" He seemed to be amazed, but the hard edge to his voice didn't lessen. I didn't get it though. My room was kind of messy. I ran over and picked up the first pair of sneakers I found, they were white, and ran back to give them to him. He went back to the door, and said,

"Hey, thanks for the shoes, by the way, I'm Edward Cullen."

Ok. It's sort of short, I know. Rate and Comment please, and I'll post more. And trust me, there's a lot more.

With love,

Janie