I'd thought about how I would die all the time. I mean, hanging around someone who could snap me in half like I was a twig was a huge incentive. I was in love with death a little, you could argue. Especially since one day I had accidentally left a sticking plaster on my finger too tight for too long. When I finally pulled it off my finger looked dead. I spent about half an hour freaking out (all in all it took a day for the colour to return to normal) and even went to the school nurse. She just laughed at me and said, "It just looks so bad because your slight tan from Phoenix hasn't faded yet." She then pointed out to me that my blood-deprived finger was not nearly as pale as some people at our high school. I knew she was talking about him and that she meant he looked like my dead finger.
Anyway, so I had thought a lot about how I might die. The incident with the car almost hitting me was in my thoughts for weeks. The first day I had met him I had been convinced he was about to beat me to death for the entirety of the class. Lastly, after I'd found out what he was I'd thought about what it would be like to bleed to death all the time. It was all so morbidly romantic.
After that horrific baseball game (oh how I hated sports) I'd also imagined what it would be like to be hunted down. It was a little flattering, to tell the truth.
I looked across the room at the guy. He was a little repulsive, actually. His hair was very dry and matted with dirt. His clothes had dried blood on them. He also looked very hungry and as a result looked as though he had aged about thirty years (for vampires got older if they were deprived of food for too long). He smiled at me and the effect was frankly, terrifying.
I was well aware that if I'd never moved to Forks, I wouldn't be in this situation, but that was the most useless observation I could currently be making. It wasn't as though I'd been forewarned. Terrified as I was, I could not regret my decision. Also, I was currently hoping that Edward, who could read minds, would come and save me. I mean, if he'd found me in that parking lot with those guys, surely he could find me in my home town. It was pretty tiny.
I stood there feeling fairly calmed down. It was okay. It's not often that life offered you a dream (read: bodyguard) so far beyond any of your expectations (read: made of stone). Basically, it was highly unlikely I was going to die here.
The hunter smiled in a friendly fashion as he sauntered forward to slaughter me in a passionate feeding frenzy.
-
It was ridiculously hot in the car because for some god awful reason the air-conditioning in the car was broken.
"Mum, can you roll the windows down?" I demanded.
"No, that will let in more hot air." She exclaimed.
I sighed and plucked at the top I'd bought because I realised if I didn't buy it now it would be gone from the shops by the time I got back. It was a flimsy, impractical thing of white eyelet lace. I wouldn't be able to wear it in Forks and the washing machine would probably destroy it the first time I washed it. Regardless, I liked wearing something that looked like a net curtain.
I was on my way to live with my father in a rainy town on the other side of the country named Forks. I was excited about this because my mother had just married a baseball player and I hated sports with a passion. I had been forced to attend all of the games he had played in and because one day I had refused to go to another one, my mother had decided to exile me for not supporting her husband who was old enough to be my brother. This didn't bother me. He had been sending me suggestive looks across the dinner table and I was glad to be rid of him.
We pulled up at the airport and spent an awfully long time trying to figure out the automated ticket machines. We both finally gave up and a helpful airline official waved us over to a desk to sort out my tickets.
"Bella," my mother said to me for the umpteenth time, "you don't have to do this."
"I want to go." I said truthfully.
"You don't have to lie Bella." My mother admonished me. I blinked at her as the woman behind the counter slapped a sticker onto my luggage and heaved it onto the conveyor belt.
"But I want to go." I said again; confused.
"Well, say hi to your father." My mother said in a disgusted tone. I made a mental note to never return to Phoenix. My bitchy mother combined with her sleazy new husband was enough incentive to stay away.
"Don't worry about me," I informed my fuming mother. "It'll be great. I love you mum."
"Don't be patronizing dear." My mother informed me. She squinted outside at the sky. "I hope your plane doesn't crash."
As I stood there with nothing to say she gave me a hug, almost stifling me with her perfume, and was gone. The loudspeaker came on, instructing me to board my plane, and I made my way over to the escalator. She hadn't even stayed to watch me board my plane. What an awful mother.
It was a four hour flight to Forks and sure enough the plane was delayed for about forty minutes. I sat in my seat on the airplane and tried my hardest not to get trapped in conversation with the strange person next to me.
"Hello." The businessman greeted me loudly. I smiled inanely and gestured towards my MP3 player (the speakers were in my ears but the sound wasn't turned on) and vaguely turned to stare out of the window. He gave up on our conversation.
I blinked sleepily at the sky outside and rather predictably, fell asleep. I woke up when the propellers of our plane switched on thirty minutes later, and then sleepily settled in for my four hour flight to Forks.
-
My father was standing just outside of my plane terminal when I landed. I walked out towards the back of the crowd of passengers and cringed when I saw the gaudy stuffed toy he was holding.
"I won this on a claw machine at the pub for you!" Charlie shouted as he handed it to me. "Isn't it cute?"
Upon closer inspection the toy was revealed to be a neon green spider with purple legs and its very own hat. I hugged it tightly to my chest in an effort to make it disappear and nodded vigorously at my father.
"Thanks dad. How are you?"
"I bought us some scratchies! They're in the car, you can have one. You might win some money!" He beamed as way of answer. I took that to mean he felt very good indeed.
My father had parked his police car just outside the airport with its lights silently flashing. Officials were eyeing it nervously but he ignored them as we loaded my luggage into the car and took off.
"Easier than finding a goddamned park." He explained to me. He roared through the parking lot toll booth without bothering to pay. "Perks of the job." He elaborated.
It was always so surprising how green Forks was in comparison to Phoenix. We roared down the motorway that for a good part was lined with huge weeping willows. The sky was predictably overcast and there was a slight chill in the air. I was freezing. Charlie had the heater on full blast but his window was open. I glanced behind me, spied his jacket in the backseat and surreptitiously dragged it towards me and huddled underneath it.
"Cold?" Charlie barked at me. I nodded and he shut his window and then adjusted all the heating vents so that they pointed at me. Within minutes I was stifled.
"It's good to see you, Bells." My father smiled at me. "How is that- I mean, how is your mother?"
"Mum's fine. It's good to see you too dad." I smiled blandly. I was still remembering her face from this morning when she'd been attempting to re-pack my suitcase. The cactus plants I'd stuffed in there hadn't made much sense to her.
I'd only brought one bag of luggage with me to Forks because the goddamned airport only let you carry on bags weighing 25kgs and charged for extra amounts of luggage. One thing I had purchased before I came was the biggest, puffiest jacket I could find and some boots. Those things teamed with my current clothing meant I wouldn't freeze in Forks.
"I bought you a truck." Charlie came out of nowhere with. I gaped at him. I didn't even have my license.
"What kind of truck?" I demanded envisioning a fourteen-wheeler. It wasn't exactly true that I had no license. I just didn't have a license for a truck.
"It's a truck from the 1960s. It still runs though." He elaborated. A little part of me could not understand why any father in his right mind would put his daughter in a truck that was over forty years of age.
"Awesome." I said, instead of saying what I was thinking. I wasn't really that worried. I was pretty sure trucks from that era were built like tanks. I could bulldoze everything. I wasn't sure if radios were invented back then though.
"I got it off Billy Black; you know, my friend from La Push. We used to go fishing back when you were young."
"Aw thanks dad." I beamed.
"His son is Jacob Black. He's about your age. Do you remember him?" Charlie prodded.
"Nope." I was still enthused about the idea of owning a truck.
"Well they'll be around this evening for dinner. I thought it would be nice to make it all festive for your arrival. Have you scratched your scratchie yet?" He demanded.
"Oh, oh yeah." I fumbled in my pocket for the scratchie he had handed me upon entering the vehicle. Two treasure chests, a starfish, two boots, a starfish, a trident and a starfish. "Alright! Three dollars!"
Charlie beamed at me as we entered the town of Forks.
-
The truck was waiting in our driveway when we arrived home and Billy Black was waiting beside it in a wheelchair with Jacob at his side. The truck was a massive red thing with the air of a monster but I was far more interested in Billy.
"Wow what happened?" I exclaimed as I hopped out of Charlie's police car. I acted so straight-up with him for I remembered Billy Black fairly well. He grimaced and scooted the wheels of his wheelchair back and forth on the spot.
"Bit of a wreck. A car wreck, I mean." The older Indian man shrugged his shoulders. Jacob's eyed flickered to the truck and I blanched.
"In that truck?" I demanded.
Charlie, Billy and Jacob all refused to meet my eye after my flash of perception into why I was getting a truck with so little effort. Jacob was the first to speak.
"Well it was years ago and the engine got redone and the panel beating was fixed. It's basically a new truck… all the parts involved got changed over."
"And you'll be doing me a favour taking it off my hands." Billy Black said gruffly.
"I've actually already bought it, Bells." Charlie explained.
I looked over at my truck of death and realised I was too tired to deal with all of this right now.
"And you're hardly going to be getting boozed before you drive it." Billy casually continued. I gaped at him.
"No, no I'm not." I stuttered. "Er, thanks for the truck." I managed. I grabbed my bag and dragged it into the house after me. Predictably, Charlie had not locked the door. Being a police officer basically meant you were a walking alarm system. It was unfortunate however that he also left windows open all the time, as squirrels got into the house too. A bag of bread was lying half-eaten on the kitchen floor. I stopped on my way to my room and shoved it back onto the counter-top. The culprit responsible had already run back outside long ago.
Charlie appeared behind me as I was opening my suitcase on my bed. It was the same room I had lived in as a child when I stayed here. Understandably it hadn't changed because Charlie still lived in the same house. He threw a puzzled look at the cactuses in my bag that had successfully covered all of my clothes with dry dirt.
Charlie was especially talented at hovering whilst one unpacked because since he had lived alone for so long, he found having people around a novelty. I could hear Billy and Jacob whooping downstairs. Billy had brought a bottle of home-brew beer with him. Apparently Jacob was the (underage!) sober driver.
"You probably should have put them in your carry-on luggage." Charlie commented; referring to the cactuses. I ignored him and salvaged all the ones I could and then began to shake off my clothes. The clothes weren't that bad. They were still wearable.
"I got you a computer to do your schoolwork on." He continued. I followed his gaze over to an ancient-looking thing that probably still printed out on paper that had holey margins you had to tear off. I blinked at it as I paused mid-shake.
"And er, you forgot this in the car." He said as he handed me my spider toy. I took it and mustered a smile as response.
"Hey dad," I finally managed, "you bought me a car of death."
Charlie had the decency to look sheepish.
"But no one did die in it!" He successfully evaded my logic. I sighed and decided to drop the matter.
"What's for tea?"
"Steak and oven-fried chips. And Billy bought fish-fry."
I tried to look enthused. I would definitely have to take over the cooking.
-
Later that night I was lying awake in bed trying to quell my nerves at starting a new school the next day. I knew I was terribly lucky due to the fact I didn't suffer from acne and that I was stick-thin but I knew I wasn't a stunning looking person. My hair was really long and pretty but I had a very bland face. That wasn't the right word. My skin could be pretty – it was very clear, almost translucent-looking – but it all depended on colour. I had no colour in Forks. I didn't have any colour in Phoenix either but that was beside the point. I was determined to feel sorry for myself and so I refused to let myself go to sleep until I had had a good wee cry.
I didn't relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people, period. Even my mother was cold and distant towards me; choosing her toy-boy lover over her only child. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the world was seeing through theirs.
Tonight I'd been sitting across the table from the two Blacks and Charlie and had been thinking, "is this what all men are like; loud, obnoxious things that like drinking and eating greasy food?"
I was pretty sure men had their own minority groups, like women, but hadn't actually come across men who weren't like that, before.
Anyway, tomorrow was coming and it would be fantastic if I could get some much-needed sleep. Sighing, I rolled over in bed and succumbed to nothingness.
-
I ended up having the most fantastic sleep of my life that night. I woke up in the morning feeling toasty warm and thanked the gods for the fact Forks did not keep you awake due to stupid soaring temperatures. I didn't understand why my mother had ever wanted to leave this place. Even the air felt fresh and clean. I slid out of bed and tiptoed along to the bathroom. After I'd washed my face I stole my father's dressing gown and slippers and wandered downstairs to the kitchen. Charlie was already there in uniform reading the morning paper and drinking some coffee.
"Christ! I forgot you were here!" He said by way of greeting. He shook his head as if to clear it and then took another gulp of coffee. "You get pretty used to not seeing people when you live alone. And you came down in my clothes so I really got confused for a second."
"That's good to know." I managed as I switched the kettle on and began making myself a cup of tea. "Do you have any sugar?"
"Honey. Honey is nature's sugar so that's what I use." Charlie informed me.
"Oh well, that's pretty nice in tea." I commented as I spooned some into my cup. "What kind of food do you have for breakfast stuff here?"
"Eggs, toast and bacon. I also have sausages. And chops."
"Chops?" I repeated in surprise.
"Ah, probably best to save them for tea." Charlie said thoughtfully. "Have some eggs."
"Are they free range?"
"What?" Charlie stared at me as I stared at him.
"Are they free range?" I repeated.
"They cost three dollars at the supermarket." He mustered; looking perplexed.
"Ah yep." I gave up. I poured some boiling water from the kettle into a pan on the stove, tried to find white vinegar, failed, found some malt vinegar, added it to the water, cracked an egg in and then watched it poach.
"Bells, you don't crack the egg open if you want to hard boil it." Charlie admonished me as he got up to see what I was doing. I resisted the urge to slap myself in the forehead.
"I'm not hard boiling an egg, dad." I explained. I grabbed a bit of toast that popped up from the toaster and put it on a plate, then I added milk to my tea and got rid of the teabag. "I'm poaching it." I said as I buttered the toast.
"Poaching!" Charlie exclaimed in disgust. "Those bloody poachers killing all those goddamned deer in the woods and leaving them to rot…" his voice faded as he wandered out of the kitchen to fetch his boots.
I finished poaching my egg and then carried my breakfast and tea over to the kitchen table. Charlie wandered back into the kitchen with his hat and jacket over his arm.
"I haven't taken your truck to be checked over yet so I'll be giving you a ride to school. I want to make sure it's in good condition."
As I chewed on a bit of eggy-toast my heart plummeted. That had been the last thing I had wanted; arriving at school via police car.
-
The engine of Charlie's police car ticked tiredly as we sat outside the school gates. A couple of passing students gave me odd looks but I ignored them. Charlie cleared his throat and looked over at me.
"You have yourself a good day, Bells." He said gruffly. He made a motion that hinted at a hug so I quickly opened the car door and scrambled out; dragging my schoolbag behind me.
"Thanks dad!" I yelled as I slammed the door shut. He nodded at me and then roared off through the misty rain. I stood by the gates but could feel myself getting wetter by the second so hastened my steps until I entered a building a short way up the drive that turned out to be the school office. I stood just inside the door with my schoolbag half on one shoulder and tucked a strand of my wet hair behind an ear. An old woman with hair dyed a shocking shade of red looked up from the front desk and beamed at me. The entire room was gaudy, actually, with fake leafy plants and unnatural colours chosen for the overall scheme. I faked a warm smile and approached her.
"Hi, I'm Isabella Swan," I informed her, and saw her eyes light up with recognition.
"You're Charlie's daughter!" She exclaimed. "You haven't been here to visit for so long we half thought he made you up! Oh his flighty ex-wife stealing you away. It's just not right, not right at all." The woman dug through a precarious stack of paperwork and pulled out a timetable with my name on it. "You flip it over and there's a map. You bring that there back by the end of the day. We just have to sign off that you've been to every class. It's the probation thing here, you see. New students we have to check out."
I blinked at her and then stuffed the sheet of paper into my pocket. The woman evidently thought she had dismissed me. She looked up from the thing she was currently writing on.
"Yes?"
"Do we, I mean, do we have lockers?"
"Oh yes. Yes we do. They're thirty dollars. You pay first, then you get a key, and if you return your key at the end of the year you get ten dollars back." She stared at me.
"I, er, have thirty dollars here." I pushed the notes tentatively onto the counter. She plucked them from my line of vision, scrawled some writing on something and then slapped a receipt and a key onto the counter.
"The number on the key's tag corresponds with the locker. Have a nice day." She abruptly slid the clear partition's window shut on me and then resumed what she was doing before. I pocketed the receipt and key and then exited the office. I'd seen the classroom number of the first period I had that day: 3. 3 happened to be in the building next to the office so I wandered in and was immediately confronted with a classroom of people casually arriving for class.
I had my timetable in my hand and was completely caught off guard when the teacher, "Mr. Mason", plucked it from my grasp and scribbled his signature on it. He thrust it back at me and then someone from behind accidentally shoved me into the room. I headed towards the nearest available seat.
I gazed at the other thing he'd handed me upon entering the room – a list of required readings – and saw some familiar names: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer and Faulkner; none of which I had previously read. Something inside of me died a little.
A gangly boy with a mop of unruly black hair leaned over towards me whilst the class was still arriving. "You're new." He said in an accusing tone.
"Er, well, hello?" I managed.
"Don't worry about it; I'm Eric." He beamed. He was a nice-looking Chinese boy dressed in very neat clothes. "Need someone to show you around school?"
I debated whether it was worth it.
"Don't worry, I have no ulterior motive. I actually get credit for this on my school record. It's some community badge thing or something. So yeah. I would like to show you around." He gazed at me and I relaxed. He was being completely self-interested; this warmed my heart.
"That sounds great then, thanks." I smiled. "I'm Bella."
"I know." He informed me. "They warned us you were coming."
The bell rang; preventing me from asking him what he meant by that statement. Mr. Mason launched into a baffling tirade about thematic overtones in Faulkner and I tuned out; choosing instead to stare out the window. I liked rainy days that were misty. It made me feel better about staying inside. When it was sunny it felt like I was wasting my life. When it was rainy I felt like I was making the best of the day by reading a book or writing a shoddy story.
The next classes were Trigonometry and Spanish. The same girl sat next to me in both. Her name was Angela and she insisted on dragging me to the table in the cafeteria that she sat at with her friends. I was relieved, to tell the truth, because I hadn't fancied sitting by myself. The moment I was able to sit down and catch my breath I was bombarded with questions.
They wanted to know where I was from, why I wasn't tanned if I was from Phoenix, did my mother really have an affair with the lawyer who moved out of town shortly after my parents split up and if I was really seventeen because I looked at least twenty.
"But it's a compliment." Angela insisted when I blushed bright scarlet. I bit my lip and shoveled a forkful of cafeteria macaroni into my mouth instead of saying anything. A girl with mousy blonde hair wrinkled her nose as she watched me eat the pasta.
"Ugh, how can you eat that? It's so foul."
I'd noticed she'd been pushing her own macaroni around her plate for fifteen minutes already and had only eaten an apple. Something told me it wasn't my taste for the macaroni that irritated her, but rather the fact I was a stick and she wasn't. Jessica wasn't even big. She was really tiny but the sort of tiny that would probably balloon if you didn't strictly control it. I sighed; she'd probably look better if she just let her body adjust to its natural weight instead of starving it.
It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I saw as possible in the long room. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. They weren't gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them without fear of meeting an excessively interested pair of eyes. But it as none of these things that caught, and held, my attention.
They all looked exactly alike without actually resembling one another. This was a strange description but it was the only one that seemed to fit. There were five of them altogether; two girls (one with long blonde hair and the other with closely-cropped dark hair) and three boys. One of the boys was very tall and large; a big bone structure. He had closely-cropped dark-brown hair. Another boy was a dark blonde and the other a tawny red-head. The aspects of them that were identical however were their incredibly pale skin and stillness. It was like they all possessed the same mannerisms.
It was the tawny red-head that caught my eye though.
"Don't bother." The mousy blonde-haired girl commented; noticing my stare. "He is the most stuck-up guy you will ever meet. He had weird moods. He never talks to anyone except his brothers and sisters. Oh, they're all foster-family related. His mother collects children because she's barren."
"Jessica! That's not very nice!" Angela admonished. Jessica rolled her eyes.
"It's all true though. They're rich as well. They're not exactly snobby but they do keep to themselves. Plus that bastard Edward rejected me. He was really horrible and blunt too. He's not very tactful." Jessica evidently gave into her cravings and swallowed a spoonful of macaroni.
"His name is Edward?" I repeated.
"Yeah. Pretty eh?" Angela smiled.
Pretty was an understatement. I stared at Edward across the cafeteria and as though he could hear us he glanced in our direction. Blushing, I dropped my gaze back to my food.
"Busted." Jessica laughed in a sing-song voice.
I knew it was really pathetic to entertain thoughts about boys as though they might end up as someone special but I couldn't help it. It was partly because my life was really boring right now. Sure I was at a new school but I had nothing to do. I needed a hobby. A boyfriend could totally be my new hobby.
"They're Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. That girl standing up is Alice Cullen." Angela continued helpfully as the girl named Alice stood up and tossed her entire tray full of food into the rubbish bin. I gaped at her, not because she was pretty but because it was so goddamned wasteful! I fought the urge to go and grab the food from the bin and throw it at her.
"Are they all anorexic?" I demanded. Jessica threw a gratified look at me; clearly she liked my attitude.
"Well, I don't think so but you would think that wouldn't you?" Angela was saying. She took a swig of her drink. "They're all so perfect looking."
We all stared at Alice who was now leaving the room. She was a gorgeous thing who could totally pull of short hair. It was actually sickening that she looked so cute. She was even wearing hip-hugging jeans and a white top that clung to everything; not an imperfection was to be seen. She had a lithe, feline body.
"Her paleness is kind of ugly." Jessica managed. All three girls at the table nodded vigorously. It was either find some flaw or claw their eyes out.
The other girl left at the table was just as furiously perfect. She had lovely straight blonde hair halfway down her back and it was full and voluminous; falling thickly around her shoulders. Alice's hair had been thinner but in a way that suited her. Rosalie had large breasts and an annoyingly trim waist. She had the sort of figure girls weren't meant to grow into until they were at least twenty-two.
"Ugh, but she sleeps with Emmett all the time, I bet you. It's disgusting. They should be married at least." Jessica spat.
"What?" I demanded. They were related, for god's sake!
"They're not related." Angela explained. "You see three of them share the same surname but the others don't. It's because they're together; Emmett-Rosalie, Jasper-Alice. The only one who's "alone" is Edward."
I resumed staring at the tawny red-head. He immediately looked up and glared at me.
"See? He is so anti." Jessica frowned. I resumed staring at Edward and Jasper; both of whom were ignoring me. Jasper was a tall, slender boy who looked very elegant. Edward was roughly the same height as him but slightly more muscular. I sighed, Jasper was quite gorgeous too.
The bell rang; startling all of us out of our reveries. The next class was Science and I followed the two girls into the classroom. They apologetically left me – it appeared everyone had a specific seating order – and the wild-haired Science teacher acquired my timetable and signed off the class. He pointed me to a seat and my heart lurched as I realised it was next to Edward Cullen.
He was staring at me with a blatant look of distaste. At first I thought I was harbouring a bad smell about me; such was his expression, but a subtle sniff of my hair belied nothing but the scent of my favourite shampoo. I was about to turn away when he spoke.
"You like pulling people apart, do you?" He snarled. I shrank back in my seat at his vehemence; how could he have heard us?
"I, er, don't know what you mean." I mumbled.
"Rosalie and Alice. You fawn over us, us male specimens but the women; you have to beat them down."
"I don't know what you're talking about." I defended myself. He had been on the opposite side of the cafeteria and we hadn't even been that loud. How had he heard us?
"And you're a liar too." His nostrils flared as he breathed in and he winced as though the motion pained him.
"I'm not a liar." I stuttered.
"Yes you are." Edward Cullen said. He fixed his disgusted gaze upon me and then turned to his book.
I sat there for about five minutes trying to control my shaking. The teacher began the lesson but I couldn't concentrate. I felt awful. I had well and truly been admonished. I snuck a glance at Edward and he was staring out the window; ignoring the lesson. I wanted to say something. I wanted to apologise but I felt like I couldn't. I had lied to him about what I'd said in the cafeteria. Maybe we had been louder than we'd thought. It wasn't a large room. Perhaps sound carried.
I opened my mouth to speak but a look from the teacher silenced me before I could begin. I twisted at a ring on my finger and my stomach rolled over and over itself. I pulled apart what he had said to me. Clearly he was very attached to his family and hearing people insult them caused him mental anguish. I should have confessed and sought forgiveness.
I stopped myself right there.
Why did I care so much about what he thought? I didn't even know him! He'd literally pulled my character apart like I was a child and he was my parent. I didn't owe him anything. Alice was ugly and pale. Rosalie was a terrible person for having sex outside of wedlock. I was allowed to have my own personal opinions.
I turned to glare at him and caught him glaring at me.
To hell with him. He was ugly himself. He possessed unnaturally pale skin even for a place such as Forks.
The bell rang.
Edward was up and out of his seat before I could even blink. As I watched he sped out the classroom door at an unnatural speed.
"Did you stab him with a pencil or something?" Eric asked good-naturedly as he appeared at my side. I shook my head with a pensive expression on my face.
"He's a rude, self-obsessed bastard." I informed Eric. "He didn't even say hello, he just verbally attacked me."
"Yeah well that's Cullen." Eric shrugged. He held open the door as I walked through it; irking me with this behaviour. "Do you need me to show you where gym is?"
"Nah I'm going to call into the office; my locker key doesn't work with the locker it says it's matched with."
My head was full of insults I could fling at Edward next time I ran into him so I was totally unprepared for coming face-to-face with him when I walked into the office. The red-haired woman was looking extremely uninterested in whatever he was saying. His words floated over to me.
"Any class besides Science would be desirable. I don't even care if it's Painting. Just any class but Science."
"Listen, you just can't change classes in the middle of the year." She informed him. "You wouldn't be able to catch up on the workload."
Something alerted him to my presence and he stiffened; throwing a glance over his shoulder and glaring at me.
"Fine," he told the office lady. "I'll just have to endure it."
"Oh my god!" I shouted after him as he strode through the parking lot. "You're pathetic! What the hell is wrong with you?"
My voice rang throughout the school yard and a few students threw unreadable looks at me. My throat was hoarse and I was fighting back tears. Edward had almost vanished from sight; he was climbing into a silver car. He hadn't even responded to my disgusted cries.
He was pathetic. He was so goddamned pathetic.
I hated him.