A/N: This story is labeled as AU due to the fact that there is no Bella. As in, she never came to Forks; she might've never even existed - I'll leave that up to your imagination.
Chapter One
It was the first day of Spring and it didn't fill like it in the least. As Dodie pulled one last box from the backseat of her mother's Altima, a shiver wracked the frame of her body and she hastily pushed the car's door closed with the heel of her right shoe, heading towards the shelter of the much-despised house.
The house. It had a cheery enough exterior, almost like a children's hospital that helped parents lure their little younglings in to extract their tonsils with false promises of an abundance of ice cream and free cable television (when, after getting said tonsils out, you were too uncomfortable to eat the ice cream and the TV provided only hospital-sponsored channels that informed one how to maintain a well-balanced diet). The second you stepped inside the house, though, you were accosted with a sticky lavender paint job that screamed for you to get out and save yourself while you could. Her mother had tried to fix the lavender living room up, adding all sorts of decorative touches: abstract pieces of art she had purchased from the gallery that was located down the street from their old house, white lace curtains over the windows, a few random vases of flowers, framed family photos (indeed, the overall effect was somewhat overwhelming to the eye, and distracted a bit from the paint job).
"Dorothy!" her mother's shrill voice rang through the house, snapping her out of her reverie. "Come here for a sec, will you?"
Dodie dropped the cardboard box on the loveseat in the sticky lavender room and headed to the back of the house where her mother's voice had come from. She poked her head into the first door on the left (a bathroom), but no mother there; no luck, either, in the door across the hallway, but that was a closet and Dodie hadn't expected to find her there. In the last door on the right, though, Dodie found Bonnie, her mother, a color swatch in both hands and staring studiously at the walls in the master bedroom. She held the one in her left hand with her long fingers against the bland white wall nearest her.
"What do you think?" Bonnie asked critically, cocking her head like a confused dog.
"Aw, c'mon, Mom, it's brown. Oliver hates brown."
"No, it's gold."
"He'll still hate it."
"Since when does he hate gold?" The older woman sighed dramatically and crumpled the gold-colored swatch into a tight ball, throwing it to an empty corner of the room.
"Now I, on the other hand," Dodie said suavely, "thoroughly enjoy the wonderful color that is brown-"
"-it's gold-"
"-so feel free, at any time, to paint my room." Dodie paused. "But not gold; I want a good, solid brown."
Bonnie's cell phone chose the moment to ring, interrupting their petty bantering.
"Hello?" Pause. "Oh, hey, Ollie."
Dodie liked her brain cells, and was in fact very fond of them, so she chose to slip out of her mother and step-father's bedroom in favor of her own. Bonnie and Oliver (said step-father) had a tendency to speak in complete gibberish with each other ("Hewo, my wittle pumpky-pie!"), and it was not endearing in the least.
Bonnie Cooper-Wilkins (née Cooper) was the type of woman who strived to please everyone around her. She endeavored to have dinner on the table for Oliver when he got home from work, she was nice to everyone so they wouldn't think bad of her, and she tried to be the best mother possible to Dodie (in a semi-endearing up-in-her-face kind of way).
Oliver Cooper-Wilkins (né Wilkins), on the other hand, was as down-to-earth as any man of the male species came. It never mattered to him whether or not Bonnie had cooked dinner that night (after all, he had a car and a wallet, and no doubt there was a McDonald's around somewhere), he could care less what people really thought of him, and he had enough grace to let Dodie grow up and figure things out on her own.
No matter how many stories Dodie had read where the protagonist despised their step-parent, she hardly found this the case for herself. Oliver, in all reality, was more a father than her real one had ever been.
"Dodie," her mother said affably the next morning, "you know you don't have to do this, right? I mean, I'm sure we could wait another week or so to, erm, let you get settled in and all. How 'bout it?" She knew her mother never referred to her as 'Dodie' (instead of the usual 'Dorothy') unless she wanted something – badly. Bonnie's long fingers clenched and unclenched around the steering wheel of her Altima worriedly as they headed to Forks High.
"Mom, it's not like we can put this off forever. Lay off it, please; you're acting like I'm leaving for the Armed Forces or something."
Bonnie's face darkened briefly and her eyebrows contracted. "Dorothy, don't say that."
"Sorry."
The remainder of the drive went on in silence. Dodie ran her nails along the legs of her jeans in agitation. When the car stopped in front of the school's office, Bonnie placed a cool hand over her daughter's, stilling their frantic movements. "You know I hate it when you do that. It makes me want to grind my teeth."
Dodie smiled weakly. "You're so weird. The most random things bother you."
There was a noticeable pause. "You're nervous."
She could only nod tautly in response and wonder when her mother had become so observant – maybe it was just a mother thing. Dodie stared down at her mother's hand, still resting over her own. The skin was stretched over the back of her hand and tan from years of sun-exposure. After Bonnie pulled back (placing her fingers firmly around the steering wheel once again), Dodie stared at her own hands and wondered why they looked so...kiddish. She could barely see the bones of her knuckles unless she made a fist and her fingers felt thick and clumsy. Why couldn't she have pretty, grownup hands like her mother?
"...could still come in with you, if you like, and help get you checked in at the office," Bonnie was offering when Dodie tuned back in and focused her attention away from her hands.
"No, no, that's not necessary." She glanced at the watch encircling her left wrist, and grabbed her bag out of the backseat, swinging it over the console in between the two front seats. "I should go; the bell rings in ten minutes."
"Behave. Make new friends. You know the drill."
Dodie smiled at her mother's attempt to be nonchalant. "Okay." She pulled the door handle open and swung out her legs, pausing only to say a rushed "bye" to Bonnie. She followed the stone path up to the building, carefully keeping her eyes turned away from the adjacent parking lot, and arrived in the office. The small room was bland and boring enough that Dodie didn't focus on the details of the décor.
A redheaded woman stood behind the desk and she smiled widely as Dodie strode forward, resting her forearms on the desk. "I'm Dodie – er, Dorothy Cooper."
"Ah, yes," the secretary exclaimed excitedly, "the new student! I'm Mrs. Cope."
As Mrs. Cope went over Dodie's schedule with her, outlining where each classroom was located in each building, she had a feeling she'd be known as the "new student" all day.
Probably longer.
Dodie, walking out of the office only a few minutes later, idly made her way to the language building where she had first hour French. Her peers allowed her a wide berth, but their manic grins hidden behind their hands were not lost on Dodie. Clearly, a new student on campus was a big deal to them.
"Bonjour!" a loud voice called as she walked into the classroom with the last few stragglers. Dodie wordlessly handed the French teacher the slip Mrs. Cope had told her to have her teachers sign. "Je m'appelle Madame Nelson. Comment t'appelles-tu?"
She figured Madame Nelson was testing to see if she knew a lick of French; Dodie's name was clearly written on the slip of paper in front of the wrinkled teacher.
"Oh, je m'appelle Dorothy." She rushed on to elaborate, "But I prefer Dodie."
Madame Nelson switched back to English. "And besides this year, how long have you taken French?"
"One year."
"Ah, bien, bien." The teacher handed Dodie the slip, now signed, and gave her a gentle push towards an empty seat in the back row of the classroom. Squeezing through the desks, Dodie was able to reach the empty one and dropped her bag by the leg and slid into the seat, pointedly keeping her head focused on the front of the classroom and ignoring the stares of her over-curious classmates.
"You dropped this."
Dodie could have chosen to let the voice go unacknowledged, but there was just something about its tinkling soprano depth. As she looked over to the speaker, it was if an invisible hand had grabbed her chin and forcefully directed her gaze to the left. Dodie's eyes went wide.
"You dropped this," the girl (yet she seemed so much more than just a simple girl, or teenager; there should have been a more in-depth word to describe her, but Dodie couldn't recall any) repeated, smiling in a way that was supposed to be encouraging. Dodie tore her eyes away from the "girl" and down to the extended hand where her favorite ballpoint pen rested.
"Oh. Right. Thanks." She snatched the pen away and averted her gaze to the scratched surface of the desk where some poor soul has scribbled a deformed heart into the wood. It took all of Dodie's self-control not to look to her left. She was just so...exquisite (though, again, the word seemed inadequate). Her features were small, pixie-like in a way, and her dark hair was cropped, pointing in every which direction. And her eyes – they were like liquid gold.
There was a sharp clap of hands as the French teacher stood behind her lectern, attempting to capture the rowdy classroom's attention. "Bonjour, la classe!" she crowed. "We are very fortunate to have a new student with us today." Madame Nelson smiled at Dodie expectantly from the front of the classroom. "Well? Introduce yourself, won't you?"
Dodie grimaced and the class snickered at her obvious disgust at the attention. She pulled herself out of the desk, though, and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her pants. "Uh, I'm Dorothy. And no, before you ask, I don't have a dandy little terrier named Toto, nor do I think there is 'no place like home.'" The girl from her left giggled quietly as Dodie resumed her seat, but she resisted the urge to look at her and, for the rest of the class, her eyes were glued to the front of the classroom as Madame Nelson explained the French passé composé.
The bell rang, signaling the end of first-hour classes, and Dodie swung herself out of her seat, grabbing her bag from the floor and hastily stuffing her newly-acquired French book and favorite ballpoint pen in with it. Though she kept her eyes carefully trained away from the face of the pixie-like girl, she couldn't help but notice, as she too collected her bag, her grownup hands and how the skin stretched perfectly across the back of it, not a wrinkle in sight.
6/13/10 - edited format.