Inversion

Chapter 1 – First Day

Disclaimer – I wish. The wonderful Ms Meyer owns it all, and its probably a good thing, because I don't think I have the commitment to write 5 books on this.

Summary – What if the Cullen's were delayed by a few years in moving to Forks? Without Edward's presence, Bella begins to become close friends, not only with her fellow students, but also with Jacob Black. (Not a JxE fic – by all means a BellaXEdward ship…eventually)

I parked my 'brand new' large bright red truck outside the small maroon brick building with a small "Front Office" sign hanging from above, turning the loud roaring engine (which I didn't think I could ever get used to) off and taking a deep breath. It had been an incredibly long time since I had started at a new school, and never had I attended school in this oppressively tiny town. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat, relaxing into the material, trying to make sense of why I was here. Actually, there was a fairly simple reason, my mother, Renee, had just married a minor league baseball player almost a decade younger than her, and I understood their need for privacy. And, to be honest, I didn't think living in the same house as them during their honeymoon period (even though they would be in Jacksonville trying to get Phil signed for most of that time) would be a good thing for my psyche.

Thus I had exiled myself to Forks, a "tiny, inconsequential town" as my mother would often say, a place I had visited up until my fourteenth birthday, when I had finally put my foot down and refused to do any more fishing during my precious summer vacation. It hadn't changed at all, a small town feeling permeated every brick, every pavement, every street, all of which were usually damp. It was just so green, too green; there were trees everywhere, large trees with emerald green grass growing over any possible ground. If there wasn't grass on a surface, then it was tinted the same colour by moss; back home in Phoenix, Arizona, everything was brown, warm, alive, but here it was just damp and soggy, drowned by the water. It always rained here, literally always, in fact, it was one of the wettest towns in the world, the complete opposite of my sunny home.

I put my hand to my forehead and rubbed my eyes slightly, before breaking myself out of my nostalgia for home, if I didn't go and introduce myself to the office lady I would probably be late for class. Opening the door with a slight creak, I lowered my left foot slowly to the ground, still getting used to the distance between the cab and the ground (hopefully soon I would be able to jump out like I had in Mom's car). I walked quickly up the small path which led to the building, pulling my black jacket tighter around me as I moved, it was so much colder here!

Opening the door and stepping inside the room I found myself instantly surrounded by warmth, of course they would have excellent heating systems in such a place. I looked around at my surroundings, finding a mostly typical set-up, with the traditional choice of carpet colour, a dark grey with orange flecks, covering the floor. For some reason, this fact comforted me, it was the type of carpet you would see in most schools, probably due to its cheap price, and instantly reminded me of home. But Forks High School could not have been more different otherwise from my previous school in the Paradise Valley district, there were no metal detectors, no bars or fences to keep the students in. My new school felt entirely too, I suppose homey was the word, a number of brick buildings interspaced with trees and paths to give it an entirely too natural feeling.

I looked up at the desk and found a woman sitting at a desk behind it, I waited for a moment for her to notice me, but it appeared like she was entirely too immersed in her work. I cleared my throat and spoke, "Excuse me…", my voice wavering slightly, I watched her head fly up, blue eyes meeting my brown ones, "My name is Isabella Swan…"

After receiving my schedule and a map of the school I went to move my truck from what was obviously an 'out of bounds' area to the official student parking. By the time I reached the car park, it was mostly full, but luckily everyone seemed to have some kind of second-hand car so no one's stood out. I pulled into a park and killed the engine, grabbing my navy backpack off the backseat and managing somehow to trip while trying to put my foot on the ground. Needless to say, I didn't make a very good first impression, looking like a klutzy teenager instead of the composed new girl I had intended to be. Oh well, better that they knew the real me now rather than have a ridiculous idea of me shot down in a few weeks.

Sighing I recovered my footing and pulled out my map and schedule, finding my way to my first class, English. I handed my teacher, Mr Mason as his nameplate identified him, the form which each of my teachers had to fill out, waited a moment for him to finish it, moving directly to the seat he pointed out for me with a book list in my hand. Conveniently, each of the texts was one I had studied back in Phoenix, so I would have no problem with the work; it made settling in here slightly more bearable. I found myself seated next to a girl who introduced herself as Jessica Stanley, and found all the students around me clamoring for my attention. One boy, Mike Newton, seemed particularly invested in making me notice him, and wouldn't stop even after I recognised his presence.

I sighed internally, I was by no means used to this sort of attention, though I should have expected it, I was probably the first new girl they'd had in a long time. I'd never been a very friendly person though, usually preferring to keep to myself with a good book or some music, often both. I wasn't as confident as most people, though I was fairly good at organization and my school work, each factor normally making it difficult for me to make friends. But who knew, maybe here things would be different, after they became used to my presence of course.

Mike Newton and Eric Yorkie walked me to my next class, Government, where I went through the same procedure as the first class, though Mike wasn't a member of this one. My teacher simply pointed me towards a seat and began teaching. I hoped to go through this with each class, but I was not so lucky with my Trig class, the teacher forcing me to introduce myself before I could go and sit down. I stammered and stuttered my way through a brief mention of my former home and my name, then took my textbook and went to my seat, blushing bright red the entire time. That was probably the worst thing, I always blushed bright red at even the smallest embarrassment, and everyone could always tell, which made everything worse.

In the final period before lunch I had Spanish, and thankfully the teacher, a woman whose name I missed in amidst the foreign language greeting, who also handed me a textbook and motioned towards a seat. The class however did not last nearly as long as the despised Trig class (if I didn't hate maths before then, I certainly did now), since I was trying to concentrate on a language I was only slightly familiar with. It was soon lunch, for which I was incredibly glad, my stomach protesting loudly at the lack of food I had ingested in the last few hours. I had a circle of teenagers who led me to the cafeteria, for which I was incredibly grateful.

Purchasing the food which looked the safest, only moderately greasy pizza and a salad with a can of soda, I followed Mike and Jessica to their table. I was given the seat of honour, surrounded on all sides by a mass of interested juniors. I was being drilled about my life back home, my family, whether I missed Mom, what I liked about Forks, and any other number of fairly pointless questions. I didn't even have a chance to look around the cafeteria, all my time was taken up with trying to remember names. Soon enough the bell rang for my next class, to which I was led by the unstoppable Mike Newton.

I entered Mr Banner's class and found there was only one free desk; once again I gave the teacher the sheet to fill out, and, once he had completed it, moved to the free desk. Mike put his hand up to ask Mr Banner a question, to which I thought nothing of, assuming he was asking about the homework (oh, how little I knew about Mike).

"Yes Mike?" Mr Banner asked, noticing his raised hand and responding with a faint look of confusion, "What were you after?"

"I was wondering if I could go and sit with Bella, since she has no lab partner and probably needs to be shown where we're up to," Mike said, and I grimaced internally, so this was what came of allowing him to show you where your classes were, well I should probably bring a stop to that.

Mr Banner looked to me, "Bella, do you think you'll need help in catching up with this class?"

I looked up at him, blushing slightly, "I… I'm not sure Mr Banner. What are we doing today?"

Mr Banner looked slightly shocked, taking a moment before he replied, "We're looking at the stages of development in onion root," he looked down at the information he had on me, "You were in an Advanced Placement class in Phoenix?"

I nodded slowly, and volunteered some information, "I think we did this experiment there, with Whitefish Blastula."

Our teacher looked back to Mike and shook his head, "Somehow I don't think Isabella is going to have a problem with today's class. Maybe tomorrow, if we're studying something she hasn't done."

I continued to blush, lowering my head to look at the black-coated lab desk and murmured, "it's Bella" under my breath. As I'd expected, I had no difficulty in identifying the stages, and it was made even easier by my lack of a partner, clamoring to try and 'help'.

The rest of my first day went fairly swiftly after that; I wasn't required to participate in Gym because Coach Clapp hadn't found me a uniform yet, so I spent the time preparing for tomorrow's classes. I was a little afraid that I had alienated Mike, and in doing so ruined my chances to actually make some friends. I shouldn't have been worried.

The final bell rang and I made my way back to the Front Office, moving my car back into the other carpark to make things easier. I handed the form back to the same redhead who had given me the forms, who proceeded to ask me how my first day had been. I smiled, and replied with some airy comment about how different everything was before being allowed to leave.

I jumped into my truck and sighed happily as I smelt what was quickly becoming the comforting fragrance of tobacco, gasoline and peppermint, a scent which permeated the entire interior. Mirroring my movement this morning, I sighed and leaned back into the upholstery, trying to relax for just a moment. I laughed a little, speaking to my surroundings in a semi-crazed whisper:

"Thank goodness you only have one first day at a new school."

I drove home carefully, still not entirely used to driving on wet roads and thus a little afraid of having an accident. Though, I was fairly sure that, should I ever crash into something, it would be that something which would come out second best, and not my indestructible truck. I arrived to an empty house, Charlie was obviously still at work, 'protecting the people', whatever that meant in a town this small.

I walked up to my room and grabbed my copy of Romeo and Juliet, the play we were currently studying in English, carrying it downstairs to the couch, where I had left my backpack. I settled myself into the cushions and finished my homework fairly quickly, soon finding that I had finished all of my homework. It was at that point that my stomach grumbled and I decided to have a look into Charlie's kitchen; I'd hadn't had a chance the night before because he'd decided to take me somewhere nice instead of cooking. Knowing Charlie's cooking, that probably wasn't a bad thing. Sometime between my twelfth and fourteenth birthdays I had grown completely sick of eating fish, the only ingredient Charlie seemed comfortable with.

I groaned as I looked into the cupboards – their sunny yellow doors held only emptiness inside. Well, they were devoid of edible food anyway, so, assuming it was okay, I took the jar labeled "food money" and drove to the Thriftway. By the time I left, Charlie's kitchen would be stocked for at least a week, and I would be able to cook some decent food.

When I returned home I found Charlie was already home, something which surprised me, since normally he wasn't home until at least 5:30 and it was only 5 now. He saw me enter the house with my arms loaded with groceries and greeted me with a quick:

"Bells! You didn't have to go and do all that!"

I just laughed, "Dad, there was no food, literally no food, and I was not about to starve."

To which he gave me an embarrassed look – "Oh, right, let me help you with those."

"No, no, no," I protested, "I'm balanced, you go out to my truck and get the others."

He raised an eyebrow at me, "Others?" before smiling and walking out to the truck, I smiled at his retreating form, how lonely he must have been before me, which made me feel a tiny twinge of guilt, I should have visited him more.

"No," I thought, stopping that line of thought, "Mom needed me more than he did, she really did. She would have blown up the house or married some terrible guy if you hadn't been around. This was the best way for us all." Now if only I could believe that, this would all be okay.

The next few school days were calmer, more relaxed as I found myself being enfolded into the large group of juniors. I was making friends with Jessica and Angela Webber, a shy girl who hadn't spoken to me on the first day, but had since struck up conversation. Mike was still trying to get into my good graces, and it seemed as though I could do no wrong to him. Needless to say, he wasn't succeeding, especially in his attempts to sit with me in Biology II (it was a good thing I knew all the coursework).

No one here had really managed to stand out from the crowd, but there was one small thing in the cafeteria that caught my eye. I was sitting at what was quickly becoming my seat (right in the centre of the crowd), when I looked across the room and saw a completely empty table. I turned to Jessica and looked at her questioningly, my mind not able to understand why there would be an empty table when every other table was full.

"Jess, what's with that table over there?" I asked her, waiting for her to finish her mouthful of salad before she could respond.

"That one?" She replied, pointing to the table I had meant, I nodded and she continued, "No one's ever really sat there, I don't know why, I think its in a fairly bad position, what with it having the fire doors nearby. It would be pretty cold over there."

"Oh." I shrugged my shoulders, smiling slightly, "Just wondering." Both of us rejoined the main conversation and spoke nothing more of the strangely empty table.

I got home that afternoon at a time which was quickly becoming routine, just like every other facet of my life here; I came home, did some homework, cooked dinner, watched some TV with Charlie then went to bed and read a book. I hadn't brought many books with me to Forks, just my favourites, mostly classics, and I was beginning to regret that decision. I would probably have to take a trip to Seattle sometime soon, maybe in a few weeks.

I considered inviting Angela and Jessica with me, just for some company, but quickly discarded the idea, I'd feel guilty about the amount of time I would spend looking at the books. It was a miracle that Renee had ever been able to drag me out of the local bookstore back home; I'd always had to go in when we passed it, which usually resulted in us getting home late.

I was in the middle of cooking dinner when Charlie arrived home, unbuckling his gun belt and hanging it from the highest hook in the entryway as he entered. I smiled at this, his age old routine, leftover from the days when he thought I might accidentally shoot myself. He was in a good mood, grinning at me as he strode into the kitchen to see what I was making.

"It's Spaghetti Bolognese, Dad, and it'll be done in about.. fifteen minutes, I think. How was work?"

"Work was fine, nothing exceptional, but then again, there hardly ever is around here," he moved to one of the sunny yellow cupboards, pulling out a glass, before turning back to me, "want a drink, Bells?"

"I'm fine thanks, and that's probably not the best thing to say, Mr. Police Chief, you might put yourself out of a job!" he laughed in response to my quip, filling the glass with water from the tap.

"Actually, I had something to ask you. Do you remember Billy Black? You used to hang out with his twin daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, when we went fishing back in the days of your summer vacations here," I nodded in response, allowing him to continue, "Well, I was thinking that he and his son, Jacob, could come here next weekend for a meal and then to watch the game, what do you think?"

I turned and smiled at him, "Sure Dad, sounds like fun," then I grimaced, "Well, not the game part, but the rest of it. I'll think about what I can make for us, any suggestions for the chef?"

"How about that magnificent lasagna you make? I'm sure we can all enjoy that." He winked at me, "And I'll take care of the drinks."

I had to laugh, "Yeah, well you're certainly not coming anywhere near the food, not after I saw you burn the spaghetti the other day. Honestly, not many people could do that, you must have a natural talent!"

It was ironic, that after all the time I had spent in Phoenix, worrying about my exile, that everything was actually okay here in tiny Forks; Charlie and I were slowly getting more comfortable with each other and I was happy in my little room, the room that had always been mine, not like the number of 'my rooms' I'd had over the years with Renee. I missed Mom, of course, but she was happy with Phil, and I was doing all I could to make this time with Charlie enjoyable, though I'd never thought I'd have to do so little.

It had been a week since I had left my sunny home for my constantly wet home, and it seemed as though Forks had gotten even colder over that space of time. I woke up on Monday morning and had to groan, everything was covered in an inch of snow; it was even worse than rain! At least you could protect yourself from rain, but with snow, well, you didn't even know it was there until you made it inside to the warm classroom and felt it melting down your back – pure evil I say! I drove to school carefully, afraid of hitting an unseen patch of black ice on the roads, rain was slippery enough, but ice made things a hundred times harder.

I was surprised to realise that driving in ice wasn't as hard as I had expected, in fact, I was fairly sure I had more grip today, rather than less. As I drove into the school car-park I realised what the difference was – Charlie had attached snow chains to my tires.

I turned off the engine and got out, examining the front left tire, sure enough there was the tell-tale glint of sliver criss-crossing across the rubber. I found myself leaning against the bonnet, hands clasped together, Charlie must have woken up so early to do this for me; I'd never had anyone, not even Mom, who would have been so worried for my safety on a day like today. No, that's a lie, Mom would have, if she'd remembered, but Charlie actually woke up and did it. I was touched by the amount of work he had done.

Pulling my jacket tight around me, I stood back up, deciding to move back onto the pavement; just as I went to move my foot, I saw Tyler Crowley's van driving quickly, too quickly into the parking lot. I stared in horror as the van hit a patch of ice that I'd just barely missed earlier, the tires hit it wrong and it's direction shifted. Tyler had obviously tried to slam on the brakes, but all that served to do was to make the tyres screech and squeal against the bitumen. It continued turning but no speed had washed off. I opened my eyes wide, watching the van.

It was coming towards me.

All I could do was gape as it came closer, there was only one thought on my mind – thank goodness I wasn't standing at the back corner of my car. The van hit my truck hard, and I found myself falling to the ground, my head cracking on the pavement, I felt the pain instantly; the force of Tyler's van had pushed me as it hit my truck, but I fell backwards, away from the accident. I took a breath, closing my eyes against the onslaught of people who had come to make sure we weren't injured.

I thought I felt someone putting their hand on my head and pushing my hair out of my face, but I couldn't be sure, because it was at that moment I blacked out, welcoming the quiet.

Hello everyone : ) And welcome to my newest fic. Now, I know I promised I would be finishing my Sailor Moon stuff, but I've been obsessed with Twilight and New Moon ever since I read them last year, and this idea just hit me, literally smacked me over the head.

Now, people who love Twilight, forgive me if I've gotten stuff wrong, I tried to be as loyal to facts from the book and from the Lex as I could, but remember - first Twilight fic!

xx Usa (a.k.a Mallie at the lex)