The smell of evergreen and moist concrete mingled in the Forks High School's parking lot while my ears welcomed the sound of the gentle breeze and buzzing of my classmates coming for school. Grunting, I pulled out my crutches from the front passenger's seat and put them outside the driver's door of my dark red 2005 Suzuki Jimny. Firmly holding on to one crutch, I eased myself from my vehicle. It had taken me a lot of practice to get off this thing with only one leg.
Barely anyone stared anymore. My schoolmates had become used to me since I had lost my leg last February. I liked it better that way. I didn't need anyone fussing and feeling sorry for me; I already had my mom for that. I leaned on my car as I wrapped my knitted scarf around my neck and chin. Not far from me, there was Isabella Swan's faded red truck. She had just gotten off her truck. Her chocolate brown eyes glanced at my chestnut brown ones. I caught her ever-expressive eyes glancing down at my missing leg and then looking away in embarrassment. I smirked; her eyes now had something more interesting to look at.
Edward Cullen was strutting across the parking lot with his amber eyes fixed on Bella's face. The cool breeze ruffled his chestnut hair, but it only made him look even more charming. His face was flawless. His smile was somewhat smug, but it was clear why Bella was attracted to him. He was incredibly handsome no matter what. He grinned once, when his petite, black-haired sister Alice hugged Bella.
I sighed, remembering when I first entered Forks High School. The Cullen family was new in the neighborhood, and Dr. Carlisle Cullen's five teenage adopted children came to the school all at the same time. Some of us tried to be friendly with them. I remembered I had.
I hurried into the building to escape the cold. Inside, nobody stared at me—not anymore. My classmates and teachers just knew that Beulah Medina was coming when they would see a dark-haired head bobbing among the crowd.
"Hey, B," said Eric Yorkie's voice. I glanced behind me and saw my East Asian friend coming toward me with his perpetual grin. "Shall I carry your bag for you?"
"Thanks," I said, handing him my heavy satchel.
"No presents," we heard Bella murmuring. Eric and I turned and saw Bella and Edward finally entering the building. Edward was sniffing Bella's hair and looking like he could be ejaculating by now. Alice followed them like a black-haired Barbie doll.
"You seem to really hate those guys," said Eric with a surprisingly low voice.
"Who doesn't?" I asked, and I felt the end of my stump stinging.
"I don't hate the Cullens," said Eric, somewhat indignantly. "They're just way too aloof for me."
I let loose a cold chuckle. "You have no idea," I murmured, too faint for him to hear.
"What did you say?" asked Eric.
"Eric, none of us ever liked the Cullen kids," I said. "You know that."
"Jessica did," said Eric.
"Jessica had a crush on Edward. Who can blame her? He's gorgeous. But that was it. Do you remember what he did to her?"
Eric scowled, and he became nearly unrecognizable. "He kept insulting her whenever she went near to flirt."
"Exactly," I said. I knew Edward had his reasons, but Jessica deserved better than that.
Eric walked me to my Literature class and handed me back my bag when I was about to enter. I loved Literature class. I'd first fallen in love with poetry here. I loved Emily Dickinson, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Robert Browning, and Edgar Allan Poe, and Robert Frost. …
Our teacher had us view the 1968 Romeo and Juliet film directed by Franco Zeffirelli. I had read the play when I was twelve, and I loved it. But I loved some of Shakespeare's other plays more. By the scene where Romeo is mourning over Juliet in her Endymion-like state, Bella and Edward started murmuring behind the classroom. I was about to shoot a glare, but our teacher took their attention, first. I smiled smugly.
I glanced at the lush green forest outside the windows. Then, at the corner of my eye, I saw wavy auburn hair framing a pale face. I dared look behind me and saw Bella Swan smiling meekly at me. I just smiled back and then turned my attention back to our teacher.
Later, Bella sat with us in the cafeteria for once. Knowing where she was when she was not with us was what really bothered me. I had my eyes on her delicate neck while she approached our table at the cafeteria. I took comfort in not finding any strange wound or mark on her fair skin.
"Your birthday is coming," said Mike.
"Stop it!" said Bella, playfully slapping his arm and smiling.
"A lot of us have been eighteen for a while," said Angela, grinning.
"Yeah, and it brings a lot of privileges—voting, booze, porn …" added Eric, issuing laughter in the table.
"But you can also get arrested and tried in court like an adult," murmured Bella.
"But you also can move out and live independently," I said, "if you're up for it."
Jessica giggled and gave me a high-five. I did not miss Bella's look of mild astonishment at the gesture; apparently, a beautiful blonde chatterbox like Jessica can't show genuine affection to a goth like me.
"Do you have plans, Bella?" asked Angela, her voice soft and charming as always.
"Plans?" echoed Bella. She went visibly tense at the question. Angela realized what she did but couldn't take it back.
"We're in senior year," I pointed out.
Bella looked at all of us and then glanced at a distant table near the big windows. It was empty because the weather was sunny that day. I knew by now that this was because they would be hiding the fact that their skins sparkled in the sun. (I gagged as I thought of it.) I also knew that they took advantage of their hiding by hunting for wild forest animals to drink their blood instead of human blood. Sometimes, I wondered why they didn't just domesticate cattle so they wouldn't have to hunt. I've read that vampire bats are fond of cattle. That would be quite convenient, because there had to be lots of blood in those huge bodies. Besides, they could sell milk while they're at it. …
Yes. I knew. I'd known since I had lost my leg. The scar itched and stung as I thought of it. I laid my hand on the stump and squeezed, fighting the urge to scratch. I felt numbness on my left leg and then realized for the nth time that it was no longer there. Vampires—sparkling, combustible or shape-shifting—they were all the same. Bella could tell me everything about Edward and his kind and how they were different, but I knew their self-control didn't make them too different. It might make them humane, but it didn't make them human.
My friends and I continued to talk about the night of Bella's birthday on the days that followed. We took advantage of the fact that Bella had been sitting with the Cullens when the vampires were in school. (This aroused the disdain of everybody in the table, although we were willing to welcome her back whenever the sun would shine brightly upon Forks.) Eric had been talking about renting our own private space at a bar. Jessica was suggesting we just hang out at Port Angeles to watch movies and shop. I was unable to suggest anything else, but I expressed that I preferred Eric's idea, "so we could all enjoy being eighteen," I said.
I glanced at the Cullens' table. Only Alice, Edward and Bella were there. Emmett Cullen and the blond twins Jasper and Rosalie Hale had graduated last year. They were now in college in Dartmouth, as Bella had explained to me. I was just about to turn away when Edward Cullen's eyes met mine. He looked at me with such loathing, that I felt like there was something in me that I didn't know he had already found out. I bravely glared back at him for a few seconds until I turned away and finished my meal.
The tension between Edward and me never faded. I tried my best to stay away from him, and I was sure he did, too. Meanwhile, I took comfort in knowing he wouldn't turn Bella into a vampire or kill her. Every day, I tried to convince myself that she would be alright. She was happy with him, and for now, that's alright with me.
On the day she turned eighteen, I waited for her at the parking lot to tell her about what we had been planning for her. I watched her park her truck. But before I could approach her, Alice Cullen did. Alice skipped toward her like a child in a woman's body, shouting, "Happy birthday, Bella!"
I sighed. I would have to wait until lunch to tell her. I walked toward the school building, ten steps behind them. Bella was saying she didn't want presents for her birthday, which was highly unusual. I guessed she was a little upset about being another year older, but no matter how old you get, it's always nice to get presents.
Edward was waiting for them by his car. The two girls stopped when they reached him, and I walked slowly past them. I distinctly heard that Bella was definitely unhappy about getting old, which was understandable. I remembered turning eighteen last May; it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but getting on the verge of adulthood did get a little scary. However, although I have been eighteen since May, it didn't bother me.
"Eighteen isn't very old," I heard Alice say. "Don't women usually wait till they're twenty-nine to get upset over birthdays?" I smiled at that. That was a good point.
"It's older than Edward," Bella mumbled to Edward's sister. My smile vanished instantly when I heard it. Edward was more than a hundred years old; Bella could never be any older than that. Bella may be a year older than Edward's physical age, but she certainly did not look it. Even if she did look older than Edward, it was not much of a difference. Her face was so smooth and so soft and fresh that she probably wouldn't have to worry about looking old for the next ten years or so.
I rolled my eyes. She was likely to refuse to believe this, but she was totally superficial. I couldn't help but shake my head slightly. Bella actually got good grades; surely, somebody that smart should have a little depth to her, right?
"What time will you be at the house?" Alice asked Bella. I glanced back at them. Bella looked as puzzled as I was.
"I didn't know I had plans to be there," said Bella.
"Oh, be fair, Bella!" whined Alice. "You aren't going to ruin all our fun like that, are you?"
I bit my lip and walked on. Eric and the others would be upset about this.
"Beulah, you gotta be kidding me!" Eric told me angrily at lunch. "I just reserved our space at the bar, and now we have to cancel …"
"Well, it wasn't her fault that she had to celebrate her birthday with the Cullens. It was their idea; they talked her into it. …" I thought about Chief Swan; wouldn't it have been nice if his daughter celebrated her eighteenth birthday with him? After all, this was probably the first birthday Bella would have with him after many years.
"What are we going to do now? We could have celebrated last Sunday," asked Eric, in an uncharacteristically low voice.
"You were the one who said that it was a bad idea," said Jessica nervously. Like me, she was not used to seeing Eric in a bad mood.
"I was wrong then," said Eric flatly.
"Well, how about a group contribution for a nice present?" I suggested frantically before Eric could say anything else in this eerily deadpan manner.
"The Cullens would have given her something far more spectacular than anything we can get with all our allowances put together," said Eric miserably. His pessimism would have made me blurt out a "who-are-you-and-what-have-you-done-with-Eric" joke. But I decided to save the wisecrack for later.
"All the same," said Eric suddenly, his voice lightening up a bit, "it's a good idea."
Eric wasn't the only one who was angry. Jessica was frowning, too. Tyler, Mike and Angela were quiet, perhaps trying not to say anything bad. I didn't say anything else. I quietly ate my food. Eric was still fuming, but I wasn't worried. He would be his own cheery self again tomorrow.
We all stopped fussing over Bella's birthday after that. In the afternoon, after class, I watched Bella's truck leave the campus. I sighed, knowing that in a few hours' time, she would be in a house full of vampires again. I shook the thought off and walked home. As long as they do not hurt her, it's none of my business.
Although I hated Edward, it wasn't totally impossible to feel even a little sorry for him. If he really loved Bella (not counting the fact that he couldn't resist her scent even if he tried), it must be torture to him to even want to be close to her. As for Bella, if she did love him (and not for the fact that she is magically attracted to him like a moth to a candle flame), I guessed it was because she deeply appreciated his self-control. That much I could understand. I just found it ridiculous that their love had to be worth this struggle; it would have been much easier if they just spared themselves the pain. Love didn't have to be worth fighting so hard against one's very nature. Frankly, Edward's willingness to do exactly that seemed just sick.
A little later, after dancing in front of my full-length mirror and head-banging to P.O.D. songs to relieve my phantom leg pain, I gave in to the urge to call Bella to see if she was alright. It might be a little too early to call. When I picked up my cellphone, I wondered if I was doing the right thing: whether or not Bella was with an entire family of vampires, I felt I might be rude to interrupt their enjoyment. I took a deep breath and selected Bella's number on my phonebook.
I exhaled slowly while I listened to her phone ringing. To my surprise, a beautiful male voice spoke: "Hello?"
"Edward, why are you holding Bella's phone? Get off, I wanna talk to her."
"She's in the shower."
"Is she home already? I was expecting she would be in your place 'til midnight."
"Don't be ridiculous, Beulah. Even with me to take her home at that hour, it's still a little late."
"Don't tell me I'm ridiculous, Cullen!" I said sharply. "What are you doing there, anyway?"
"I'm here to keep watch of Bella while she sleeps. It has been a long night," he said.
"Isn't it enough that you brought her home safely?" I said. "She's in even more danger just by being with you. You know that."
"Bella is safe now," he said calmly, although I could still hear the edge in his voice. "Oh, and when you see bandages on her arm tomorrow, don't overreact."
"Is that why she's home so early?" I asked.
"As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "It's an accident. You know how clumsy she is."
"Alright, fine," I said, getting agitated. I didn't believe him, but I wanted to stop talking to him already. "Will you tell her I called?"
"I'll tell her," he promised, before hanging up.
I didn't want to think about what had happened when Bella was with the Cullen family. It was too easy to use Bella's clumsiness as an excuse to her injuries. With vampires for company, hardly anything was an accident.
As I had suspected, something was up. Bella was particularly miserable when I saw her in the girls' bathroom during lunch period. "Hey, what's up with you?" I said when I washed my hands at the sink beside her.
"Nothing," she said automatically.
"Something happened with you at Edward's, didn't it?" I said.
"How did you know that?"
"Edward told me you had a 'long night,'" I said.
"If you insist," she said. "Something did happen. But it was nothing. Jasper just lost control when I got a papercut, but that was just him. The rest of the family protected me. Nobody died." Then, she cringed. "I shouldn't have told you that," she hissed.
"Thank the Lord you're immune to his telepathy," I said.
I didn't wait for her. I was sure that she would be sitting with Edward. (Alice was absent for some reason.) While eating with my friends, I kept glancing at the Cullens' table. Bella seemed to be quite shaken by the commotion at her birthday party last night, despite her claims that it was no big deal. Even Edward was upset. He was in a rather stony demeanor, compared to his usually affectionate behavior toward Bella. From Bella's frightened looks at Edward, she was not happy with Edward ignoring her.
"I don't know why you even care," sneered Lauren. "You their affair was coming to this."
"It doesn't make it okay for Edward to torment Bella like this," I told her.
Bella and Edward's troubles worried me as I drove home. It worried me even more when my home got calls from several neighbors frantically informing us that Chief Swan's daughter was missing. Apparently, she'd gotten home and parked her car, but she never went inside her house. K-9 units traced her scent toward the forest but not far enough to find her because the dogs were overpowered by a mysterious presence. The police asked if they could borrow Golem, but my dog refused to obey any of them. Besides, I didn't want Golem in that forest—not after recent sightings of a great black monster and dead campers in the area. Poor Chief Swan—he was scared to death he might not find his daughter.
His two best friends, Quileute Tribal Council heads Billy Black and Harry Clearwater were there. "We'll find her, Charlie," said Harry confidently. Nearby, his daughter Leah was sitting on the hood of her father's black pickup.
"Any luck?" I asked her.
"Not yet," she said calmly.
She didn't look scared at all. It was a stark contrast from young Jacob Black, who stood beside his paraplegic father Billy. Jacob was quiet, clearly worried and scared.
Not long after that, a tall young man, about twenty years old emerged from the nearby canopy carrying the pale brunette in a tan duffel coat. "Charlie," said Jacob, when he saw them.
Chief Swan sprinted across the lawn to collect his baby. "She's alright!" called the young man.
"Thank you, Sam," said Chief Swan, before walking away, nuzzling against his daughter's hair.
Harry Clearwater gazed solemnly at Sam and gave him a nod of affirmation. Sam reciprocated the gesture with honor and pride. He gazed at Jacob with the same air of honor, but the boy practically shrank back and ultimately ignored him.
He walked straight toward Leah, displaying his rippling muscles for everyone to see. But his eyes were only for the lady sitting on the hood of her father's pickup. Leah stretched her slender arms toward him, smiling proudly. He scooped her into his arms and kissed her with such passion that I wondered how it felt like. "I knew you'd find her," she whispered, her thin hands caressing his abs.
Sam touched her hand and clasped it. The image of them was so beautiful that I wanted to take a photograph. Moments later, Leah parted from him and beckoned her father to their truck. She sat between Harry and Sam; Sam was driving.
Sam Uley had been living with them for a while now. He was like an adopted son to the Clearwaters, except he wasn't actually adopted. Sam's mother died early, and his father was never around. Apparently, that didn't get in the way of his happiness. He and Leah had been dating for a while now. Neither of them could afford college, so they had been thinking of marrying after high school. It was a good idea. Sam and Leah were healthy and happy; they could definitely build a strong household.