FIRST SIGHT-CHAPTER ONE
My father drove with me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect cloudless blue. I was wearing my least favourite baseball t-shirt-emblazoned with the suns baseball motto- my dad's baseball team's. I hated it, but was wearing it as a farewell gesture.
My carry on item was a hoodie.
In the Olympic Peninsula of Northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this tiny town more than any other lace in the United States of America. It was to this town and it's gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother fled to without me when I was only a few months old, abandoning me with my father. It was this town that I'd run to every summer until i was fourteen. That was the year my dad finally put his foot down; he complained that by spending more time in forks with my mother I would become a sissy. These past three summers, my mom, Renee, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead.
It was to Forks that I now fled to again-an action that I took with joy. I loved Forks.
I detested Phoenix. I loathed the sun and blistering heat. I hated the vigorous, sprawling city.
"Edward." my dad said to me-not very convincingly-"You don't have to do this."
My dad looks nothing like me, fat, bald and greying, with rough stubble. I felt a spasm of relief as I realised I would soon be leaving him.
I also knew that his unhopeful plea was a set up. He didn't care if I left or not. We didn't share a very strong bond, my father and I. He only let me live in the same house as him because I was his son.
"I'm sorry."I said, not sorry in the slightest.
"Tell Renee I said hi." He said, relieved, but trying not to show it.
"Sure, sure." I muttered, getting onto the plane.
Then he was gone.
It's a floor hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small, low class plane up to Port-Angeles, and then another hour drive back down to Forks. Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Renee, though, I was a little worried about.
Renee had been overjoyed about the whole thing. She was ecstatic that my father had given me up and I was coming to live with her. '
She's gotten me registered for high school, and was even going to buy me a car.
But it was sure to be awkward with Renee at first. There would be squeals and kisses in full view of the public as she met me, and constant blabber all the way there.
I didn't mind all her chat- but I was sure to get sick of it.
When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I stepped into it face raised, letting the cool droplets splatter my face. It never rained in Phoenix, where it was always dry and barren. This was going to be great.
Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel nervous as I scanned the crowd inside the airport for a mop of brown hair that was my mother's.
When I spotted her, she was standing in front of her cruiser, on tiptoes trying to see over the mass of heads on the crowd.
One of my motivations to get a car was so that I wouldn't have to be driven around in her's. Police cruisers were sure to slow down highway traffic, and I refused to be driven around in a car with red and blue lights on top. My mom worked for the cops.
When Renee saw me, the predicted squeal emitted from her mouth. She hugged me tightly, planting a kiss on my forehead.
"Finally!" she growled over my shoulder. "I thought you would never arrive!"
I chuckled and deftly manoeuvred out of her embrace, embarrassed.
I only had a few bags. Most of my Arizonian clothes were too worn to wear here. My mom had promised to buy me some warmer clothes, but for now I had to make do with t-shirts and shorts.
"I found a good car for you, real cheap." she announced suddenly once we were driving out of the congested car lot, after a constant stream of hellos, and 'I can't believe you're here's. She sounded pleased with herself.
"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way she said 'real cheap'. Cheaper cars tended to be crap, breaking down everywhere.
"A truck of some kind- a Chevy, I think."
A Chevy? That surprised me. Then worried me. They'd stopped selling the old tank like trucks ages ago. It was guaranteed to be old.
"Where'd you get it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black from down at La Push?" La Push was the tiny Indian reservation on the coast.
"Yeah." Billy-the old man, my mom's friend's husband-I'd gone fishing with him and his two sons while Mom was out.
"Well, he's in a wheelchair now." Renee told me, as I listened. "So he can't drive anymore, and he kindly offered to sell us it cheap."
"What year is it?"
"The engine's only a few years old really." She seemed slightly nervous, concentrating hard on the road, not looking at me. She obviously hadn't wanted me to ask the previous question.
"Uh-huh. When did he buy it?"I hoped she really didn't think I would give up that easily.
She looked at me apologetically. "He bought it in about 1984, i think." she admitted.
"Was it new?"
"Well....no. It was new in early sixties-or fifties."
"Mom..."I complained, "I don't want to waste my time fixing up a dumpy truck."
"No, really, Edward-the thing runs great. You'll see."
I sighed. I knew it was unlikely that my mother could understand how well a condition the truck was in. She couldn't tell one end from the other of a screwdriver, let alone the more complex workings of a truck's engine.
"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was my only chance of denying the truck. I could just say it was too expensive or something…
"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a present, you see." She looked at me, smiling with a hopeful expression.
I smiled back, resisting the urge to sigh. There was no refusing the truck if she'd already paid. Darn. "Thanks, mom. I really appreciate it. That was really nice of you. Great." she didn't notice the faint note of sarcasm at the end.
"You're welcome, sweetie."she smiled, looking back at the road.
We continued to talk-or rather, she blabbered on about, how I was going to love it here, how to get to my school, what the house looked like, and various other unimportant things, while I pretended to listen, while staring out the windows.
It was beautiful-I doubted that anyone in the world could deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their truncks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.
Some idiot might even say it was too green-an alien planet. I wouldn't. It was nice- it was home.
Eventually we made it to Renee's. She lived in the small, two bed-roomed house that she'd bought soon after escaping to Forks and divorcing Charlie, my dad. And there, parked on the street in front of the house, was my new-and very crappy- truck. It was a faded red colour, with big, rounded fenders, and a bulbous cab. Exactly like how they were made n the fifties.
Surprisingly, once I ignored the rust, dents and slightly flat tires, I sort of liked it. It probably didn't even run properly, and I probably would normally waste my days trying to fix it- but I could see myself inside it. Plus, it was one of the solid iron affair that never gets damaged- the kind you see at the scene of an accident in a movie, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the car it had obliterated.
"Wow, mom! I like it!" Now my nerve racking day would be slightly better tomorrow. I wouldn't have to die of embarrassment as my mom dropped me of in her Police car.
"Aw, thank you sweetie, I'm glad you like it." She parked the car and ruffled my dark hair as she got out.
It only took one trip to get my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had belonged to me since my mother had invited me here the first time. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window-these were all memories of my childhood. I remembered when I was eight, demanding that I had Spiderman curtains… my mom sternly telling me that if I wanted them, I had to buy them myself.
The only changes Renee and I had made over the years, were adding a desk as I grew, and piling it with junk.
The desk now held a second hand computer, with a phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest jack. This was a gift from my mother-for my tenth birthday so I could play games on the internet when it was raining-which was nearly always. The rocking chair from my toddler days was still in the corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share-belch-with Renee. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact.
Strangely Renee, despite her bubbly personality, decided not to linger. She left me alone to unpack and get settled, quite a feat for her- I would of thought it altogether impossible.
It was nice not have to pretend to listen to her; a relief to hear the rain pattering on the roof, as apposed to her remarks abut how I would love living here. She didn't have to tell me- I already new that I was going to enjoy it here. My only problem here was getting friends.
Forks High School had a small total of only one hundred and fifty seven-now fifty eight- kids; and back in phoenix there had been- scarily- more than seven hundred kids in my junior class alone. All of the people here had grown up together- their grandparents had been toddlers together. I would be the new guy from the big city, a freak with the stupidly old fashioned name.
When I finished stuffing my things into the old pine dresser, I took my bag and went to the bathroom to clean up-my mother was fussy about appearance, unlike Charlie.
Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I laughed. I already looked better, away from the burning sun of Phoenix. The pink tinge of sun burn on my pale skin seemed to be fading. And, maybe it was the light, but it seemed like my skin was glowing. I would never look sallow and ghostly next to the tanned sports players of Phoenix again.
But I would still look like a freak here.
Maybe if I was like a guy from Phoenix should be, I could work this to my advantage. But, physically, I would never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty, blond or something-good at volleyball, or a football player perhaps- all the things that go with living in the hottest place in the united states.
Instead, I was ivory skinned, without even blue eyes or blonde hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been kinda skinny-but never got involved with sport-I was obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the brains to play sports with out humiliating myself-and harming both myself and anyone standing too close.
So I couldn't work that to my advantage. So that sucked.
And it wasn't just by looking weird that I wouldn't fit in. No- I didn't have a single friend in Phoenix. I'd never even had a girlfriend, or anything close. And if I couldn't get even one friend in a school with three thousand freaking people, what were my chances here?
I didn't get on much with guys my age. Well, actually, truth was I didn't get on with people, end of story. Even my mother, the closest person to me on the planet, was never in sync with me, never exactly on the same page.
At times I wondered if I was seeing the same stuff through my eyes as the rest of the world saw through theirs. Maybe there was a major stuffed up glitch in my brain.
But none of that mattered right now. My dream had come true-I was no longer cramped in an apartment with Charlie. No. I was in Forks, the furthest place from him as possible.
A smug smile crept over my reflection in the mirror.
I didn't sleep well that night, half nervous, but still exuberant that I was in Forks. The constant whooshing of the rain and wind across he roof made me too exited to sleep. It was a reminder of where I was. The best place in the US.
I didn't want to look like a zombie, or some other horrific creature tomorrow, with bags the size of footballs under my eyes, so I tried to drown out my excitement.
I pulled the faded quilt over my head, and later added the pillow over my head. But I still couldn't fall asleep until after midnight.
Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel nervousness creeping up on me. But I was also happy. You could never see the sky here; it was closed in by a blanket of cloud, safe.
Breakfast with Renee was a short event. She wished me good luck for school, after grabbing a granola bar from the pantry, and hurried to the police station. After Mom left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three un-matching chairs and examined her small kitchen, with its dark panelled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing was changed.
My mother had painted the cabinets yellow as a reminder of the sunny place she had been born and grown up. I hated the brightness- I wished they had been painted a nicer colour, white, or a light blue perhaps.
Over the small fire place in the small family room that joined up to the kitchen was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Renee standing by a figure with it's head cut out, dressed in a wedding dress, the beheaded figure beside her in a tux. With a sad laugh, I realised the person with no head was my father. The next photo was all three of us, my dad again with no head, standing in the hospital after I was born. Following these was a line of all my school photos up till last year's one, where my dad had practically shaved off all my hair the day before. That was embarrassing to look at-I would have to hide all of the photos soon when mom was out.
But it was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that my mom still hadn't forgiven Charlie for cheating on her. It made me uncomfortable.
I didn't want to be early for school, to appear a nerd or something, but I couldn't stay here anymore. I pulled on my hooded top- I would have to buy a jacket sometime-and ran into the rain.
It was only drizzling, not enough to soak my jumper straight away as I reached for the key under the eave and locked up. The sloshing of my trainers in the mud was soothing, relieving some of my anxiety. It reminded me of my childhood days in Forks. I didn't miss the crunch of gravel from Phoenix, usually followed by my dad shouting something after me.
I didn't pause to admire my truck, or to check inside the engine like I wanted; I didn't want to look like a wet haystack. The mist was already clinging to my hair, making it stick to the side of my head.
Inside the truck, it was dry. Either Billy or Mom had cleaned it up a bit, but the tan coloured seats smelled faintly of tobacco, gas and peppermint. The engine started quickly, which was a plus, but loudly and continued chugging at full volume.
I frowned. I would have to fix that. And a truck this old was bound to have more than just the one minor flaw. Luckily, the antique radio worked, and I attempted to drown out the roaring of the truck by turning it to full.
Finding my school wasn't difficult, Renee's earlier instructions easy to follow. The school was, like most other things, jut off the highway. When I first saw the sign, naming it forks high school, I thought I'd gotten the wrong place.
It looked like a pile of matching maroon brick houses. There were so many shrubs and stuff that I couldn't see its size at first, either. It didn't look like at school.
There were no chain fences, or metal detectors… This new observation made me grin, though I was nervous.
I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign saying FRONT OFFICE. No one else had parked there, so it was probably off limits or something, but I didn't care. I would go in and get directions rather than circle around in the rain like a dweeb.
I stepped out the truck and hurried up the little stone path lined with dark hedges. I took a nervous breath before opening the door, tasting the smell of pine needles on my tongue.
Inside, it was brightly lit, and warmer than I would have thought. The office was small; a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, an orange flecked carpet that looked like it was from a junk sale, notices and awards cluttering the walls, and a big clock clicking above them.
Plants grew everywhere, as if there wasn't enough greenery outside, in little pots of clay.
The room was cut in half by a long counter cluttered with wire baskets full of paper, and there were brightly coloured flyers taped to its front.
There were three desks behind the counter, manned by a frumpy red-haired lady who was wearing glasses. She was wearing a purple t-shirt, which looked a size or two small for her.
The red head looked up. "Can I help you?"
"I'm Edward Swan." I told her, and saw the immediate awareness light in her eyes. I was expected, a topic of gossip no doubt. Son of the chief's cruel husband, home at last. Great-not.
"Of course." She said, smiling sickeningly. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of paper and junk on her desk until she found whatever she was looking for. "I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school." She bought them to the counter to show me. She smelled of cheap perfume. I tried not to stand too close.
She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each on the map, and gave me a slip for every teacher to sign, which I was to give to her at the end of the day. She smiled at me, and hoped, like Renee, that I would like it here in forks. I smiled back convincingly, glad to finally get out of the room that was making me feel claustrophobic.
When I went back to my truck, other kids were starting to come. I drove round the school, following the big line of cars. I was relieved to see that most of the cars were older like mine, nothing flashy, most of them piles of junk on wheels, rusted Toyotas and slightly smashed up fords. In Phoenix id lived in one of the few lower-income neighbourhoods that were part of paradise valley district. It was a common thing to see a new Mercedes Sedan, or even a Porsche in the student lot. The nicest car here was a shiny Volvo, which stood out to my left.
I cut the engine quickly, tugging out the key awkwardly, so that my trucks thunderous volume wouldn't draw unwanted attention. I looked at the map in the truck, trying to remember it all now, so I wouldn't have to walk round with it stuck in front of my nose all day.
I stuffed everything back in my bag, slung the strap over my shoulder, nervous once again. I sucked in a deep breath. I can do this, I told myself feebly. It wasn't like anyone was going to bite me or anything. I let the air gush out of my mouth and finally got out.
I kept my face down as I walked the side walk, crowded with teenagers. My hoodie didn't stand out I noticed with relief-though the majority of people wore raincoats.
Once I got around the cafeteria, the building I was looking for was easy to spot. A large black '3' was painted on a white square by the door. I held my breath as I followed two other kids donned in rain jackets inside.
The classroom was small. The people in front of me stopped to hang up their coats on a pile of coats. I hung around, trying to stay unnoticed by the door, imagining that if I had a jacket I would copy them. They were two girls, one blonde and exactly the same colour as one of those china dolls faces. The other was also pale, with brown hair. At least my skin wouldn't stand out here.
I took the slip up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a name plate reading MR MASON. He gawked at me when he saw my name-not an encouraging response-and of course I flushed tomato red. I always blushed-a strange habit for a guy, I know. I guess I was just shy or something all the time. At least he sent me to an empty desk at the back of the room without introducing me to anyone else.
It was harder for my new class mates to stare at me in the back, but somehow, freakily, they managed. I kept my eyes on the reading list the teacher gave me. It was fairly basic, Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I'd read about everything. That was comforting, but also boring. I wondered if classes here would be as tedious as in Phoenix and I wondered if my Mom would let me copy out old essays for homework, or if she'd think I was cheating. I went through different arguments with her in my head while the teacher droned on.
When he bell rang, a comforting buzzing sound, a gangly girl with skin problems and braces leaned across the aisle to talk to me.
"You're Edward Swan, aren't you?" she said, flashing her braces. She looked like a nerd, and the overly helpful sort of person.
"Yeah." I said, wrinkling my nose slightly. Everyone within a three seat radius turned to stare at me.
"Where's your next class?" she asked.
I had to check my bag, embarrassed with everyone staring at me. "Uh, government, with Jefferson, in building…six."
There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes. I wished everyone would leave. It was rude to stare, wasn't it?
"I'm heading over to building four, I could show you the way…" Definitely over helpful. "I'm Erin." She added.
I smiled tentatively, trying not to hurt her feelings by wrinkling my nose again. "Thanks…"
I waited while she got her jacket and we headed into the rain, which had picked up. I could have sworn some people were getting close enough to listen in. I hoped I wasn't getting paranoid or something.
"So, this is a lot different from Phoenix, huh?" she asked.
"Very." I didn't really feel like talking to this strange girl.
"It doesn't rain there much, does it?"
"Three or four times a year."
"Wow, what must that be like?" she wondered.
"Sunny." I told her.
"You don't look tan."
"My dad is part albino."
She studied my face, apprehensive and I sighed. It looked like clouds and sense of humour didn't mix here. I was sort of missing Phoenix already. A few months of this and I'd forget how to use sarcasm.
We walked back around the cafeteria, to the south buildings by the gym. Erin walked me to the door, though it was obviously marked with a huge '6'.
"Well, good luck." She said as I grabbed the handle. "Maybe we'll have some other classes together." She sounded hopeful. I wasn't.
I tried to smile, and ended up grimacing vaguely, before going inside.
The rest of the morning passed in the same sort of way. My trigonometry teacher, Mrs Varner, who I would of hated anyway just because of her hairdo and the subject she taught, was the only one who made me introduce my self while standing in front of the class.
I stammered, blushed, and tripped over my own sneakers on my rush to my seat.
After two classes, I started to recognize some of the faces in each class. There was always someone brave enough to introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I liked forks. I told them I loved it, and then later on discovered I had been lying. This school really sucked, and my shoes were soaked, freezing my toes. Ugh. I would wear boots tomorrow.
At least I didn't need them map.
One guy sat next to me in Trig and Spanish, and he walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. He was several inches taller than my five feet four inches, with gelled blonde hair and blue eyes. I couldn't remember his name, so I smiled and nodded while he complained about classes and teachers. I didn't try keep up.
We sat at the end of a full table with several of his friends, who introduced themselves. I forgot their names at once. They seemed impressed by their friend's bravery in talking to me. The girl from English, Erin, waved from across the room. I pretended not to see her.
It was there, sitting in the lunch room, trying to talk with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away as from where I sat in the long room. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating either, though they all had a tray of untouched food in front of them. That was odd.
They weren't/t gawking at me either, unlike loads of other kids around the room, so it was safe to stare at them without fear of meeting overly interested pairs of eyes. But not of these things were what caught, and held my attention.
They didn't look the same at all. Of the two guys, one was big- muscled like a serious weightlifter off T.V, and the other was taller, leaner but still muscular, with hair kind of the same colour as honey. He sort of looked like he was in pain. They both looked like they could be at college- they didn't seem as young as eighteen. They could be teachers here rather than students.
The girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on every Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that dulled almost every girls beauty around her. But something in her own face, a tense, mean look, dulled her beauty. The short girl was pixie like, thin in the extreme, with small features and pointed shoulders. Her hair was deep black-so black it looked dyed, and it was cropped short, pointing in every direction. The last girl was almost as tall as the blond one, with bronze coloured hair waxing gently down to the middle of her back.
And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, paler than me, the usually sun burnt albino. All of them had very dark eyes, deep black, despite their range in hair tones. They also had dark shadows under those obsidian eyes-purplish, bruise-like shadows. As if they were suffering from a sleepless night, or almost done recovering from breaking their nose. Though their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect, and angular.
But all this was not why I couldn't look away.
I stared because their faces, so different and still strangely similar, were all freakily, inhumanly beautiful. They were the faces you never saw, unless you were one of those freaks who go around art galleries, looking at the portraits painted by an old master as an angel. The faces that you never saw, except on the air-brushed covers of one of those girls fashion magazines-my mom had heaps of them- scarily beautiful.
It was hard to tell who was the most beautiful-maybe the perfect blonde girl. Or the bronze haired one. I couldn't even think about looking away- I could only stare at her.
They didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular- they weren't looking at each other, or the other students. As I watched, the small, almost pixie like girl rose with her tray-unopened coke, unbitten apple- and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runaway. I watched, amazed at her lithe dancing steps, till she dumped her tray and glided out the door faster than I would have thought possible. My eyes darted back to the others, who sat unchanging.
"Hey."I asked the guy from my Spanish class, nudging him. "Who are they?"
As he looked up to see who I meant, suddenly she looked at him, one of the most beautiful ones, the bronze haired, who seemed second youngest. Older than the pixie, of course. She looked at my neighbour for a second, and then her dark eyes flickered to mine.
She looked away quickly, more quickly than I could, though in a flush of embarrassment I dropped my eyes at once. In the very quick flash of a glance , her face held nothing of interest-it was as if he'd called her name, and she'd looked up grudgingly, already having decided not to answer. But she really was hot.
My neighbour chuckled nervously, looking at me. "That's Bella and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The small girl who left-was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Doctor Cullen and his wife." He said this quietly under his breath.
I glanced sideways at the beautiful girl, who was looking at her tray now, picking her bagel to pieces with creamy coloured fingers.
Her mouth was moving very quickly, her perfect lips barely opening. The other kids-though they hardly seemed like kids- still looked away, wet I kind of felt she was speaking quietly to them.
There names were unpopular, I thought-like mine. The kind of names old people had. But maybe most people here had names like that. I finally remembered that my neighbour was called Mike, a perfectly common name. There had been a couple of kids called Mike in my history class at home in Phoenix.
I struggled to think of another question-my eyes continuously darting back to the bronze haired girl. My neighbour watched them too.
"They're all pretty hot." I finally said.
Mike chuckled again. "Yeah. They're all together though-Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. It sucks." I wondered which of the girls he liked that caused the annoyance in his voice.
"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They, um, they don't look related…."
"They aren't. Dr. Cullen's real young in his twenties or something. They're all adopted. But the Hales- the blondes- are brother and sister, twins. And all of them are foster children."
"They look kind of old to be foster kids."
"They are now, Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Mrs. Cullen since they were eight-she's their aunt or something like that."
"It's nice of them to look after all those kids like that-if they are so young and all."
Mike shrugged. "I guess so." he admitted reluctantly, and I got the impression that he didn't like the doctor and his wife so much. With the looks he was throwing at their adopted kids, I guess the reason was jealousy. Any guy who looked like Jasper would get loads of girls easily. But then he spoke again. "They're kind of freaky."
Throughout our conversation my eyes kept looking back at the table, whose occupants were so impossibly beautiful it seemed like they would disappear. They continued to look at the walls and not eat. I wondered where the small one, Alice, had gone.
"Have they always lived in Forks?" I asked. Surely I would have noticed them on one of my summers here.
"No," he said in a voice that suggested that the answer should be obvious, even to a new guy like me. "They moved from somewhere in Alaska about two years ago."
I felt a strange surge of pity and then relief. Pity because, as nice as they looked, they were strangers here, as clearly not accepted. I felt relief that I was not the only newcomer here, and by far not the most exciting one.
As I examined them, the second youngest, one of the cullens, looked up and met my gaze, this time with evident curiosity in her eyes. I looked swiftly away, and strangely thought that her glance had held some kind of unmet expectation. Strange. Maybe I was going paranoid and nuts.
"Which one is the girl with the reddish brown hair?" I asked. I looked at her from the corner of my eye, and she was still looking at me, but not gawking like the other students-she was frowning slightly, seeming frustrated. I looked away again.
"That's Bella. She's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. Apparently none of the guys here are interesting enough for her." He scowled. I wondered when she'd turned him down.
I bit my lip to hide my grin. Then I glanced up at her again. Her stunning face was turned away, but I thought her cheek seemed lifted, as if she was smiling, too.
After a few more minutes of not eating or talking, the four left the table together. They were all noticeably graceful-even the big, brawny one. It was freakily unsettling to watch. The girl named Bella didn't look at me again.
I sat at the table with the boy mike and his friends longer than I would of if I had been sitting alone. I was sort of nervous about arriving late for classes on my first day. One of my Mike's friends, a boy named Ben who was shorter than me, had biology two with me in the next hour. We walked together in silence. He seemed shy, too.
When we entered the classroom, Ben went to sit at a blacked top lab table almost exactly like the ones I was used to. He already had a neighbour. Actually, all the tables were full, except for one. Next to the centre aisle, I recognized Bella Cullen by her unusual coloured hair, sitting next to the only open seat.
I watched her as I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the teacher and get the little slip thing from the office signed. Just as I passed, she suddenly went rigid in her seat. She stared at me again, meeting my eyes with a weird expression on her face-it was hostile, furious. I looked away quickly, shocked, going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to catch myself on the edge of a table. The girl sitting there giggled.
I was confused as Mr. Banner signed my slip and handed me a book with no introductions.I could tell we were going to get along- biology had been one of my favourite classes in Phoenix. Of course he had no choice but to make me sit at the one empty chair in the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by her, bewildered by the antagonistic glare she'd given me.
I didn't look up as I put my book on the table and took my seat nervously, but I saw her posture change fro the corner of my eye. She was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of her chair, like she smelled something gross.
I was confused. I didn't smell bad-I'd washed this morning, my hair smelled of my mothers shampoo- strawberry. I couldn't smell anything. I tried to pay attention to the teacher.
Unfortunaltely, the lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I had learned already . I took notes anyway in my messy hand, always looking down.
I couldn't stop myself glancing occasionally at the strange girl beside me. During the whole class, she never relaxed her stiff position beside me, sitting as far away as possible. I could see her slender hand on her left leg was clenched into a fist. This, too, she never relaxed. She had the sleeves of her navy top pushed up to her elbows, and her arms looked surprisingly hard and muscular for a girl beneath her light skin. And she wasn't as nearly as short as she had looked around her adopted siblings-she was almost half a head taller than me.
The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because my first day was nearly over? Or was it because I was waiting for the beautiful girl's fist to loosen? It never did, and she coutinued to sit so still it looked like she wasn't breathing. She was like a statue. What was wrong with her? Did she always act like this? Maybe she had anger management problems. That didn't seem true though-but maybe that explained Mike's bitterness at lunch.
It couldn't have anything to do with me, though- she didn't know me at all-and I doubted she knew my name even.
I looked up at her one more time and regretted it. She was glaring down at me again evilly. I flinched away from her, freaked out. If looks could kill. The phrase ran through my mind. And now I was scared of this strange girl- because, she actually looked like she was about to kill me.
At that moment the bell rang loudly, making me jump, and Bella Cullen was out of her she rose, her back to me, and she was out of the door before anyone else had moved.
I sat frozen in my seat, like a moron, staring blankly after her. She was so strange. She was so beautiful. But abruptly I felt angry. That hadn't been fair-why had she walked out without talking to me? I began gathering my things.
"Aren't you Edward Swan?" A girl's voice asked.
I looked up to see a cute faced girl. She was tiny, a lot shorter than me, but her wild curly dark hair made up a lot of the distance between our heights. She was smiling in a friendly way. She obviously didn't think I smelled bad-unlike Bella Cullen.
"Yeah." I smiled back at her.
"I'm Jessica."
"Hey, Jessica."
"Do you want help finding your next class?"
"I'm heading over to gym. I think I can find it though."
"Hey, that's my next class too." She seemed thrilled, though it probably wasn't that much of a coincidence, in a school this small. We waked to class together, maybe just a bit too close for my liking-but I tried not to seem over uncomfortable while we walked.
She was a chatterer-she suppl;ied most of the conversation, which made it easy for me. She'd lived in California until she was ten, and she understood how I felt about moving away from the sun's burning glare. It turned out she was also in my English class too. Apart from the uncomfortable too closness, she was the nicest person I'd met today.
But as we were entering gym, she asked, kind of nervously it seemed, "So did you stab- Bella Cullen with a pen or what? I've never seen her act that weird."
I remembered the loathsome look on her equisite face and cringed. So I hadn't been the only one who'd noticed. And, apparently she didn't have an anger management problem. So that hadn't been her usual behaviour. I played idiot.
"Was that the girl I sat next to in Bio?" I asked unconcernedly.
"Yea," she said, "She looked like she was in pain or something." She giggled slightly.
"I dunno," I responded. "I never spoke to her."
"She's a weird one, that Bella." She mumbled something to quiet for me to hear. "If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked with you."
I smiled to her, pretending that I hadn't seen the blush, before she turned into the girl's locker room. She was friendly and clearly admiring-or something like that. But it wasn't enough to ease my irritation at the girl Bella.
The gym teacher, Coach Clapp, found me a uniform but he didn't make me dress down for today's lesson. In Phoenix, only two years of P.E were compulsory, but here you had to do P.E all four years. This was one of the crap things about Forks that I hadn't considered.
Well, at least I wasn;t going to make a floor of myself yet.
I watched four volleyball games running at the same time. Remembering how many injures I had got-and given others- playing volleyball, I felt sick.
The final bell rang at last. I walked quickly to the office to give in my paper work. The rain had drifted away, but it was windy, and cold. I shoved my hands in my pockets to warm them up.
When I walked into the warm office, I considered turning around and walking back out.
Bella Cullen stood at the desk in front of me. I recognized her again by her long bronze coloured hair. She didn't seem to notice me come in, so I stood against the back wall, waiting for the purple shirted lady to be free.
She was arguing to the receptionist in a beautiful voice, like a chorus of bells. I) quickly picked up the gist of their argument. She was trying to trade her sixth-hour biology time for another time-any other time.
I couldn't believe this was about me. It had to be something else, something that had happened before I had gone into the biology room. The look on her face-my stomach jolted at the memory- must have been about another aggravation entirely. It was impossible that this beautiful stranger could have taken a sudden, huge dislike to me.
The door opened, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through the room, rustling the papers om the desk, and breezing through my hair. The guy who came in merely stepped to the desk, placed a note in one of those wire baskets, and walked out again. But Bella Culllen's back stiffened and she turned slowly to glare at me-her face absurdly pretty-with piecing hate-filled eyes. For a second, I felt a thrill of fear, raising the hair on my arms. The l;ook only lasted a small instant, but it chilled me more than the wind. Freaky. She turned back to the receptionist.
"Never mind, then." She said hastily in a voice like velvet. "I can see it's impossible. Thanks so much for you're help. And she turned on her heel without another look at me, and disappeared out the door.
I went meekly to the desk, shy, my facer not blushing, but white for once instead of red. I gave her the slip.
"How did your first day go, dear?" asked the red-head asked maternally.
"Fine." I lied, thinking of all the days' incidents. I realised my voice was weak-and she didn't seem convinced.
When I got to my truck it was almost the last car in the lot. I sat inside for a while, staring blankly out the windshield. But soon I was cold enough to need a heater. So I turned the key and the engine roared to life. I would definitely have to fix that.
I was angry all the way back to Renee's.
Authors note: Alright! First chapter is up! If I get enough reviews, I'll keep writing. If not… I won't. Don't panic if I don't update soon. I'm going away for a bit. Crap timing, I know.
Anyhow, hope u like it.
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