Bella smiled as she turned her face towards the sun. It was rare for Forks to have a sunny day but when it happened everyone took advantage of it. So most of the kids at Forks High was taking their lunch break outside. "How's Ben?" She asked her friend.
Angela smiled as she took a sip of her water and laid her half eaten sandwich down onto its wrapper. "I talked to him last night and he sounded way better. I think the Doctor told him he could return to school by the end of the week."
"Its been too quiet with him gone." Bella commented. Angela and her boyfriend Ben were her only friends and that was only because they knew each other forever; since before Renee moved them and later during her summertime visits with Charlie.
"Can I ask you a question?" Angela asked after a moment of observing her friend. "You don't have to answer if you don't want."
Bella shrugged not caring. "Go ahead not like I have any great secrets to hide."
Angela picked at her sandwich. "Hows come you don't live with the Cullens?"
"The Cullens?" Bella's mouth twisted. "Why would I live with them?" She paused. "Are you feeling okay Ange? Maybe you're getting what Ben has because you're talking nonsense."
"Well your Dad lives with them so I thought you would too." Angela answered with a small frown. How could Bella not know that?
Bella slide off the top of the picnic table and sat beside her friend; her sun induced good mood gone. "Since when has my Dad lived with the Cullens?" She racked her brain for any conversation with her father that mentioned the Cullens and came up empty.
Angela was beginning to think that this conversation was going to end bad because Bella, obviously, had no idea what she was talking about. How could Chief Swan keep something so huge a secret from his own daughter? "I'm not sure..." She began tentatively. "A couple years maybe?"
"A couple years?" Bella felt herself go cold like all the warmth had been sucked from her body. "Why would Charlie be living with them?"
"Because your dad is dating their dad." Angela told her as quietly as she could. "Didn't you know?"
Bella froze and suddenly things started to make sense. Like the whispers that followed her down the halls of the school and why the house seemed so bare and uninviting. He had a whole other life that didn't include her. That he didn't want to include her if his actions were anything to go by. "I think I'm going to be sick." She grabbed her bag off the ground and bolted to her truck only stopping long enough to dig out her keys. Ignoring Ange's cries for her to stop she tore out of the parking lot and made it home in record time. She ripped the keys from the ignition as she bolted inside and up the stairs where she flung her fathers bedroom door open. There, in the almost completely barren room, the truth stared at her right in the face. A search of the closet turned up nothing but empty wire hangers. The drawers of the old dresser were equally empty. On top of said dresser was two framed pictures. One of her father and a blonde hair man and the other she recognized the smiling faces of the Cullen kids. There was not one picture of her in the entire house. Swallowing hard she slumped to the floor, back against the dresser, and wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face in her knees. It was only when she began feeling stiff that she stopped and pushed herself off the floor. Well if Charlie didn't want her here then she wouldn't stay. When Phil had mentioned last week, in passing while she spoke to her mother, that they were settling in Florida and setting up a room for her she had dismissed it. But now...It didn't take long for her throw what little belongings she had into her duffel bag, she hadn't accumulated much in the two months she had lived here, and make a few phone calls; one to the airlines and one to her cousin Jacob Black that lived down on the Reservation. Then she tossed the phone onto the floor and in a bout of anger stepped on it until nothing was left except little pieces; it was the first gift her father had given to her upon her arrival. She tossed her truck keys onto the kitchen table and didn't bother to stop and pick them up when they slid across the smooth surface and clattered to the floor. The truck was her second gift. And right now she wanted nothing from the stranger wearing her fathers face. Nothing at all.