Author's Note:

I originally posted this story in 2011 and it was the very first thing I wrote. I'm taking the opportunity to re-edit it, going through each chapter and giving it a little polish. It's become an old friend. Aurora came out of a creative renaissance and is very special to me. I hope you enjoy this and the subsequent stories which follow on for this.

Rachel x

CHAPTER ONE

Fish Out of Water

The sparkles in her skin instantly drew my eye and I watched her walk with another boy, slowly, almost reluctantly, across the parking lot in the direction of the school buildings. Other students were hanging out by their cars, greeting friends they'd last seen before the summer vacation. I had no such friends and so headed off in the direction I was required to go, following the glittering girl at a distance.

She was tall and slim and dressed head to foot in black, in contrast to every other girl in the parking lot. They were all embracing the warm September sun, exposing as much flesh as they could. Artificially tanned legs in denim shorts and spaghetti-strapped tops seemed to be the uniform of the day. I'd chosen jeans and a purple top, my choice in rough alignment with the rest of the girls. As I followed, the strange girl's hair was caught by the breeze, streaming out behind her like a cape. It was long, almost waist length, poker straight and of the palest blonde. The boy walking next to her was equally blonde, his hair just skimming the collar of his white t-shirt. He was a couple of inches taller than the girl and his slim-cut black jeans emphasised his skinniness.

As I approached the door, my nerves assaulted me, although there was no reason for it. I knew where I was going. I'd been here yesterday with Charlie when I registered for the new semester. That had been an interesting introduction to life in Forks and not one that I'd been entirely comfortable with. The Administrator, Mrs Cope, had spent a long time fawning over the remembrance of my cousin and then had made things a whole lot worse, by fawning over Charlie. Although he wasn't married to Sue, they did live together and had done for several years. Surely Mrs Cope knew that?

The girl and boy were going the same way as I was and as they reached the door the boy pulled it open and the girl went through. He noticed I was following and waited, holding the door open for me. He greeted me with a smile that reached to his bright blue eyes. I murmured a shy 'thank you' in return for his kindness and darted inside before he let the door close behind us.

The waiting area was overbearingly warm. It was packed with potted plants and filled with the smell of plastic from new chairs, arranged in a row along one wall. The girl was already at the counter and from behind one of the desks on the other side came Mrs Cope. I noticed two other office workers casting wide-eyed looks in my direction. They too had noticed the striking resemblance to my cousin, a previous student here.

Mrs Cope smiled broadly at us, she had an ease and familiarity with them. Obviously, they had been here before.

"Welcome to your first day at Forks High School", she addressed us all. "I see you've already met Vanessa Masen who I mentioned to you yesterday." The woman gestured to me.

"Who?" The girl's head snapped round and she looked at me for a second and then her face relaxed, as if she liked what she saw. "Ah; the other new girl." She gave me a wry smile. She spoke with a strange accent that I couldn't place. It wasn't American and I didn't think it was Canadian either. Where Mrs Cope had told them about me, she hadn't told me about them. I was glad it was something she now rectified.

"This is Jessica and Daniel Taylor." She gestured to them. Brother and sister, obviously.

"Jess," the girl replied. "Just call me Jess."

"OK. Jess and Daniel,"

"Dan." Her brother said gruffly, he was over by the notice board now.

Mrs Cope laughed. "Jess and Dan. They've just moved here from England." Mrs Cope's voice conveyed how impressed she was with this. England? Hmm, they didn't sound like the English people I knew. It must be a regional accent.

"Vanessa is…"

"Ness," I replied. I wasn't Vanessa to anyone. Jess turned and smiled broadly at the shared shortening of our names.

"Ness is the cousin of one of our most successful former students." I resisted rolling my eyes. I should have placed a bet on the length of time it took to bring up the subject of Edward. Mrs Cole emphasised the word successful, but with the red her cheeks were going, I'd bet she was substituting 'successful' for another word in her head. I felt suddenly very protective of my cousin.

"Is she?" Jess's tone of bored indifference mercifully gave Mrs Cope no further opportunity to sing the praises of Edward Cullen, much to her clear annoyance. She disappeared into the back office and I was glad, because Mrs Cope was irritating me and I wrestled with a desire inappropriate for my situation. I concentrated instead on Dan. He was still over by the notice board, but now writing something in a small black notebook. Jess must have seen me looking.

"He's my fraternal twin brother," she explained. I flicked my eyes back in her direction. "And an eternal pain in the arse," she added. That broke the tension.

Mrs Cole returned. "You're all in Biology together first period. Oh and Ness? You'll be interested to meet your Biology teacher. He was a friend of your cousin's." I was waiting for the 'and his wife,' bit, but it didn't come. "He's new here too; it's his first semester with us." I knew this already. I'd been warned there was someone here that Edward and Bella knew, Charlie had told me yesterday. I glanced at the name on the sheet. Newton. My mouth fought back a smile as the bell rang for the start of the day.

We exited the office together and Dan looked at the map of the campus.

"It's over there," he said, pointing to a low, unassuming building, with a large white number four on the wall. He strode off in the direction of it.

"Come on," said Jess. "You can be our guide to the American education system. You know how this works."

I shook my head.

Her eyes widened. "No?"

"No. I've been home-schooled up until now. This is my first time in a school." We were both in the same boat, neither of us knowing how this 'worked'.

"Home-schooled? Really? Cool."

She expressed an admiration for me that I did not expect and the surprising friendliness from her drew me to her like iron filings to a magnet. She fascinated me! More than anything I really wanted a friend in this strange, alien land of High School and I hoped that Jess would want to be mine. What she did next utterly shocked me and for an instant, I froze. She linked her arm through mine as if we'd been best friends forever and looked me squarely in the eyes. Hers, like her brothers, were a stunning, almost piercing blue.

"So, she said, with a commanding authority. "Neither one of us has a bloody clue what we're doing. Me, because I'm new to the country and you, because you've never been in a school before. So, I think we should stick together. What do you say?"

"I say yes!" Wow. I hadn't expected that making friends would be so easy.

"Great! But you can do the talking, OK? I'm getting thoroughly hacked off with everyone thinking I'm bloody Australian." I gave a shocked laugh and we headed in the direction of Biology.

Meeting each student at the door was a smartly dressed young male teacher.

"Wow, he's barely older than us," said Jess, quietly.

He certainly did look young, but I knew he was twenty four, as Edward and Bella had graduated from High School at the same time six years ago.

We stood behind two more students, who he welcomed and directed to their seats, there wasn't going to be a free choice where we sat. One glance inside told me that it was one boy and one girl to a table. The students went in and Mr Newton's eyes fell on me. Just like Mrs Cope, I saw his eyes widen, his mouth fall slightly open and his breath caught.

"You are the spitting image of Edward Cullen."

I smiled weakly. "Am I?"

"Yeah!" He still looked quite stunned. I played dumb, but I knew I did look like Edward. It was hard to disown that fact when the pair of us bore a striking similarity to one another, even down to the same unusual bronze-coloured hair. Whereas my cousin's hair seemed to scarcely go anywhere near a hairbrush, mine cascaded in thick open curls down my back.

"So how is… Edward?" Mr Newton recovering enough to be polite.

"Good, thanks."

"And…?" He scratched his neck. "Is he… still married to Bella?" My teacher's cheeks turned pink, which made me fight back a smile and a strange urge.

"Yes."

"Did you know that they were in my class when I was here?"

"Yes, Mrs Cope told me. Shall I tell them that you said hello?" A cheeky thought occurred to me. I wasn't unaware of Mr Newton's fondness for Bella, Edward had joked about it whilst I was living with them.

"Yeah. Um… Tell them… Tell them Mike says hello. Newton. Mike Newton."

"I will. I'm sure I'll speak to them soon. They'll want to know how I'm settling in." I smiled, trying very hard not to flash my teeth at him. I didn't know what was making me do that.

Yes, I'd mention him to them. It would amuse Edward at least and Bella would no doubt roll her eyes at her husband's ceaseless gloating. It appeared that Mr Newton was still holding a candle for Mrs Cullen and I found that rather sweet, but it was a hopeless case. Edward and Bella were passionately in love with one another. Sharing a small house with them put you in rather close proximity to that love, sometimes too close. There had been occasions when I had wished that the walls had been thicker.

Mr Newton finally noticed Jess. She was checking out the other students in the class and hadn't bothered one iota that he'd ignored her. He marked her present and pointed out her seat towards the back of the room. He directed me to a seat close to the front, next to a gangly-looking boy who carried on gouging the wood with the point of a pair of compasses.

From where I was sat it wasn't easy to look around the room, but I glanced about at my fellow students as and when I could. One thing I noted quite plainly, I held not the slightest bit of interest for them. All eyes were on Jess. She was a beacon of oddity in a room of conformity and her lab partner was already looking confused.

The morning passed uneventfully. Considering that this was my first experience of any school, I was pleased that being home-schooled had prepared me well. There wasn't anything I hadn't covered before and sadly nothing new on the list of the set books issued in my English class. I'd read them all. Jess had read them all too, but she was gleeful that one of the set books was Jane Eyre.

"You absolutely can't have enough Bronte and Jane Eyre's my favourite. Closely followed by Wuthering Heights, of course."

I was pleased we had a love of the classics in common. I'd almost learned to read with the books of the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen. None of the other teachers commented on my resemblance to Edward, or made any reference to his academic achievement. They either didn't feel it was necessary, or they had arrived at the school in the years since he'd left. I didn't recognise any of the names that Bella and Edward had mentioned and none of my teachers seemed particularly old.

Where I went through the morning without a second glance from anybody, Jess was the subject of frequent stares and pointed comments. There was something about her that unsettled them. She stuck out and they didn't like it. For her part, Jess seemed oblivious, happy to find that she could keep up with the work. Some of the looks as the morning wore on became quite hostile, but Jess paid no attention and as we broke for lunch she was in no less a cheery mood than she had been at the start of the day.

I stuck with her. I had no desire to fight my way into one of the large groups of girls in the cafeteria. They reminded me of a pack of wolves on the look-out for weak and defenceless prey. Perhaps they were unsettled by the thought that Jess might make a bid for alpha female status?

Jess intrigued me. In the snatches of conversation we managed that morning, she very clearly charted her own course in life and didn't care if she fitted in or not. I liked that spirit very much indeed and I really wanted her to be my friend.

Moving to Forks had been a big enough thing for me, but coming to school had been even bigger. I'd never done this before and had worried a lot in the days beforehand. Bella had reassured me that I would fit in and she was right, I did. Next to Jess, I looked positively normal.

We bought food and sat down at an empty table. Sitting opposite her, I took the opportunity to study Jess more closely. Her face was very pale. Only the colour around her yes and on her lips saved her from looking like an overexposed photograph. Her skin was covered by a heavy layer of foundation and she'd made no attempt to be subtle. The sparkles I'd noticed this morning were in the face powder she touched up with before she ate.

We were quite different. While Jess was immaculately painted, I didn't wear any make-up. Jess's hair was straight. Mine, whatever I did to it, it seemed to naturally gravitate back into ringlets. Even trying to straighten it was ineffective. We were opposites with our eye colour too. My eyes were chocolate brown, the same colour as my mother's had been. Jess's blue eyes looked at odds with the thick rings of black kohl and mascara that outlined them. Even her fingernails were painted back and I wondered why anyone would willingly want their nails to look like they'd gotten trapped in a door? But Jess's choice of sombre attire was at odds with the sparkling personality she radiated. This fish out of water was confident and happy. She was naturally attractive even if she had hidden her natural self beneath heavy make-up and gloomy clothing. She chatted constantly from the second we left our last class before lunch.

Jess and Dan had arrived in Forks ten days ago from Cumbria in the north of England. Their Dad, Brian, had previously worked for the Lake District National Park and had come to Forks to take up a job in Olympic National Park. He was a specialist in forestry management. Jess said he'd always had a desire to come and work in the States and he was in his element here. Her Mom, or Mum as Jess called her, was called Susie and used to be a Doctor's receptionist before they moved. Jess didn't think her Mum would be getting another job, as her Dad's new job paid so much more.

"She doesn't need to work now and she's dead pleased about it. So what about you then?" Jess crunched loudly through a large red apple. "How come you ended up stranded in Rainyville?

"Rainyville?" I laughed.

"Yeah, haven't you noticed? It does a lot of raining here."

"I've not been here long enough to know."

"Trust me. In the ten days we've been here, and bearing in mind that we arrived in the middle of August, this is the first nice day we've had. So when did you arrive?"

"Sunday."

"Just two days then? How do you like it?"

"I've not really had the chance to look around. Yesterday was taken up with getting registered for school and sorting my stuff out."

"Dan and I have been hanging out in Fredericks, the diner. It's good, a nice, friendly place. You should come out with us."

"I'd like that."

"So where are you from?"

"New Hampshire."

"Did your Dad get a job here too?"

"No. My parents were killed in a car accident last June."

Jess's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry!"

"It's OK," I tried to smile but the thought of my parents set my eyes pricking and I fought back tears. I missed them dreadfully and struggled to compose myself.

"That Biology teacher mentioned your cousin?" Jess tactfully changed the subject.

"Yes. He and his wife came to this school and it's because of them that I'm here. Edward's father-in-law offered to look after me whilst I did the last two years of school. It was getting to be a bit of a squeeze in the house, with them and a new baby."

"No other family?"

I shook my head. "Not that I knew about. My Dad and Edward's Dad had a huge falling out before either of us were born and Edward's Dad moved to Chicago. Edward's parents died too when he was only young and he was adopted. When my parents died, the authorities managed to trace Edward and he agreed to be my guardian. I went to live with him and Bella, but the whole teenager, small baby and two adults in a tiny house thing didn't work. Charlie, Bella's Dad, he's the Chief of Police here, offered to have me come stay with him and his partner Sue."

"That's kind of them."

"Yeah. I'm a long way from home though, as much a fish out of water as you are. This isn't New England."

"Ditto. This isn't England. We really should stick together."

I smiled. "I'd like that."

"And you get on with them OK? Charlie and Sue, I mean?"

"It's early days."

Dan came over and sat down next to his sister, picking a slice of pizza off her plate. "Somebody wants to start a band," he said. "I saw a poster in the office earlier. I've just spoken to them and it could be a go-er."

"Great." Jess speared a carrot stick into her mayonnaise. "Is there room for a keyboard player?"

"I don't know, I'm meeting up with them tonight at the car repair place. They hire some space there to rehearse in. Why don't you come down too?"

"Think I will."

"You both play instruments?" I asked.

They both nodded.

"Dan plays guitar and I play piano and keyboards. Do you play?"

"A little of each. My father tried to teach me the piano, but I wasn't that interested. He plays really well. Oh sorry, played really well." I winced at the slip. "I keep forgetting." I placed my elbow on the table and pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. Jess reached over and rubbed my arm.

"It takes time to adjust." She said. "There's nothing wrong with thinking your Dad's still alive. I'm sure he is, if there's a heaven."

I smiled at her "Thanks. I'm sorry. I just miss them so much." I pictured them in my head, thinking of the last time I'd seen them, both waving from the car as they drove off into the night. It still hurt so much.

"So has she bored you rigid about them yet?" Dan bit off a truly enormous mouthful of pizza, which he struggled to chew.

I furrowed my brow. "Bored me rigid about who?"

"You've not mentioned them?" He mumbled with difficulty at his sister. "I'm stunned."

Jess rolled her eyes, stuck her elbow on the table and held her hand out towards me.

"Ness was just telling me about her parents dying, which is why she's stuck in this hole in the first place. Honestly Dan, do you think I have no tact?"

Dan finished his mouthful and swallowed it with difficulty. I could almost see it going down his oesophagus.

"It's rare that you do, you usually launch straight into it as the first topic of conversation. It's usually up right up there with 'Hello, I'm Jess." He turned to look at me. "I hope you like vampires," he gestured his right thumb at his sister, "'cause she's obsessed with them." Jess smiled weakly as if he'd acknowledged some gross failing in her. "Personally speaking," Dan continued, "I think they'd be the most boring creatures on the planet."

I laughed. Dan took another bite of pizza and chewed, indicating with his forefinger that he was going to continue. He swallowed and took a sip of Jess's Coke. She didn't appear to mind. "What vampires want you to believe, is that it's all about sex and blood and power and…whatever." He batted it away as an irrelevance. "But really, all it is an elaborate front to hide a deep desire to choose wallpaper and matching curtains in Home Depot."

Jess rolled her eyes at her brother, but I was laughing, imagining vampires choosing wallpaper in Home Depot and finding it a surprisingly easy thing to do.

"As if!" Jess snapped. "They can't come out during the day, so unless it's a twenty four hour store that's hardly going to happen. What would they need with curtains anyway? They live in coffins."

"Ah," Dan wagged his finger at her. "That's what they want you to think, but actually they live in little country cottages with roses growing around the door. And they have prize begonias."

"No they don't." Jess scoffed.

I chuckled at this imagined picture of vampire domesticity.

"Do they bake cakes too?" I asked.

His eyes lit up as he seized on the game. "Yes! They may give you the idea they're craving blood, but it's really a nice Battenberg they want."

I sniggered.

"And they go mad for fresh bread," he added. "They can't get enough of the stuff."

Jess tutted and rolled her eyes at her brother.

"So you like vampires?" I asked of her.

She was instantly attentive. "Like them? I'm obsessed by them." She emphasized the word, drawing it in to her like a possession. "Do you?"

My answer, it was clear, would determine whether we could still be friends.

"I don't mind them." I replied.

"You don't mind them?" She was shocked by my ambivalence. She leaned forward towards me, "But Ness; they're so dark and thrilling and dangerous and sexy. How can you not be drawn to that?" She mouthed every adjective specifically and finished by rolling her eyes in ecstasy.

Dan appraised his sister, rolling his eyes in resignation. "Pathetic," he tutted.

Jess suddenly looked bright-eyed and excitedly at me.

"What are you doing after school?"

I shook my head. "Nothing."

"Can I come round to yours?"

Charlie and Sue would both be out at work. I nodded my head. "Yes."

"I shall introduce you to Alric and have you obsessed with vampires by teatime."

Dan looked at me with pity and shook his head slowly. "Good luck Ness." He attempted to take another slice of his sister's pizza, Jess smacked his hand away.

xXXx

I was alone in the house for only a few minutes before I saw Jess arriving. She was on foot as didn't have a car yet and on her hip was bulging bag of DVDs. I watched her from the kitchen window as she walked up the path and smartly rapped on the door. I let her in.

"There are definite advantages to finishing so early in the afternoon," she panted, "you have much more time to watch stuff TV." She didn't wait to be asked, she just made her way through to the living room and dumped the bag on the sofa, flopping down heavily beside it. "I'm pooped!"

"Coffee?" I asked, leaning up against the door jamb, again in awe of the ease with which she made herself at home. Jess nodded eagerly.

I poured us both some coffee and brought it back through. Jess was already working out which TV channel the DVD played through. This must be a Jess thing. All other English people I knew were too polite to help themselves to your home electronics without asking.

"This is my favourite," she said, waving a box at me, I set the mugs down on the coffee table. "I'm completely in love with Alric. He's just… oh!" Her hand flew to her chest. She dropped the first disc into the tray, pressed close and scooted back to the couch beside me, taking a big loud slurp of coffee. I stared at her a fraction too long and her eyes met mine.

"What?"

I shook my head. "You're very…" I didn't know how to phrase it. I tried again. "You're not very… English?"

Jess snickered. "You mean I don't talk posh, sit quietly and have manners?"

"Sort of." I didn't want to imply that she was rude. I just hadn't met anyone as different as she was.

"I'm northern. We're a different breed to your average Brit. More forthright and have a very relaxed attitude to life." As if to demonstrate that, she put her feet up on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankles. She laughed and took them off again.

The DVD worked through its notices and the menu revealed a blonde couple entwined around each other. The woman was human, the man was, I assumed, a vampire. He didn't look superhuman though he just looked ill. It would be hard not to miss someone who was such an unattractive blue-grey dead colour.

Jess selected the first episode and settled back onto the sofa. We met Alric, a thousand year old vampire who, while out hunting for a meal in a forest, happened upon a young human girl, Christianne, who he finds (naturally) very attractive. Alric was tall, slim and to complement his repulsive blue-gray skin, he had a head full of matted blond hair and dressed as if he'd just climbed out of a dumpster. He managed to conquer his desire to kill the girl and plucked up the courage to speak to her. She, in a stunning disregard for her own safety and her parents' warnings not to talk to strangers – especially ones that look like they're suffering from rigor mortis – chatted quite happily with him. By the end of the episode he'd confessed to being a vampire but she didn't care, because she was already head over heels in love with him. I looked at Jess. Was this supposed to be a comedy? Obviously not as Jess had a vacant, dreamy look about her which got worse when I looked back at the screen and found Christianne and Alric kissing. The episode mercifully ended and Jess turned to me expectantly.

"What did you think? Isn't he just absolutely gorgeous?"

"He's a bit rough."

"That's all part of the charm, he's wild!" I didn't offer any further comment and Jess took my silence to mean that I wasn't averse to watching another episode. This one was better; we actually got a hint that Alric was dangerous, when he turned on another man who was sweet on Christianne. The sight of Alric sinking his fangs into the man's jugular was not a sight I could easily watch and I shifted my gaze beyond the TV and fixed it on the new photograph of Edward, Bella and their baby daughter Renesmee that was propped up on the mantelpiece. They had given it to Charlie at the weekend. I looked at the happy little family until I was sure the scene was over, swallowing hard against an unpleasant feeling that rose up within me.

Predictably, having killed off his rival he went and sought out Christianne and charmed her into bed. Jess sighed even more devotedly and I couldn't bear to look at Edward and Bella this time, so I examined the cracks in the ceiling on the far side of the room. Charlie would need to get those sorted.

Jess played a third episode, commenting pointedly on Alric's fabulous body during yet another love scene and justifying how he really was the most desirable man on the planet. I really couldn't see it. How could she like a man, who gave the impression that the last time he'd changed his clothes was during the Civil War?

At exactly the time Alric was sinking his fangs into another victim, with Christianne clearly blind to what he was sneaking off to do, Charlie arrived home. Jess was oblivious to his arrival, but I watched his face as he came into the living room and saw what was on the TV. Charlie was immediately edgy.

"What the hell are you watching!" His voice conveyed his full authority as Police Chief.

Jess jumped up, shocked by his unexpected presence.

"What is it?" He snapped.

"Vampire Nights," Jess replied.

"I've never heard of it. Is it suitable for you to watch?"

"It's a 15." Jess replied.

"A what?"

"Oh… um, that's British rating. I don't know what it would be here, but it's classed as suitable for people over 15."

"Really?" Charlie conveyed his scepticism over that statement. "That's on British TV?"

"It's made in America."

"Is it?" His displeasure finally came to the attention of Jess and she pressed the stop button. There was an awkward silence and Jess looked at her watch.

"I'd better go." She ejected the disk from the player and gathered her things together while I remained exactly where I was sat. I'd barely been in the house forty-eight hours and I was already in trouble. "Are you going to come down to the garage tonight and see this band?"

I looked at Charlie. This probably wasn't the best time to be asking things like this. "I um… don't know."

"Band?" Charlie was still annoyed.

"Yeah, my brother Dan is going to meet up with some guys from school who rehearse at Black's Auto Repair. I wondered if Ness wanted to come too?"

"I heard about them. The owner of the repair shop is a friend of mine. Ness, I asked him and his father to stop by this evening to meet you."

"OK." I would have to stick around for that. There'd be no skipping off early for me.

"We'll see," Charlie said giving Jess a hard stare. He walked out of the living room to hang up his jacket and gun holster.

Jess exhaled. "Sorry. Guess he doesn't like vampires?"

I shrugged my shoulders "I'll try and see you later."

"I hope I haven't got you into trouble." Jess looked sad. "That's the last thing I'd want for you. I'm sure stuff's shit enough right now without him being on your back."

"We'll see." This was certainly not a great start.

"If I don't see you later, I'll see you tomorrow, OK?" I nodded and walked with her to the door, watching as she bounced down the path and jogged off down the road.

I walked into the kitchen where Charlie was pouring coffee. He turned around to look at me. His eyebrows were raised in questioning.

"Tell me that wasn't your idea of something fun to watch?"

I shook my head. "No. Jess is into vampires, she was introducing me to her favourite show."

"Jess is into Vampires." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

I might as well get it all out. "She's obsessed with them."

"That doesn't sound good." He looked me straight in the eye. "Is this wise?" He leant back on the kitchen table, placing his coffee behind him and folding his arms. "Ness, you need to be careful. Maybe this girl isn't the right person to hang around with."

"But she's my friend," I wailed. I couldn't give her up already.

"You've only been in school a day, you'll make other friends."

"I can handle it!"

"Can you?"

I nodded. "Yes!" I tried to imitate Jess's self-confidence, it didn't translate well.

"That was pretty gory stuff. I'm not sure I'm happy you watching that. You're still very young."

"I am seventeen next week! Besides, it's not real, it's just TV."

Charlie scoffed. "I hope so." He took a deep breath. "Ness, you coming here is a big deal for me. I don't want anything to mess that up." He sighed and shook his head, smirking.

"What?"

"It's like history repeating itself but with a subtle twist." The smirk widened into a broad grin. It was good to see a smile on his face.

The phone rang. He stepped over to the wall and picked up the receiver.

"Hello," he answered cheerfully. "Hey Bella, how are you? I'm good thanks. Yes she's right here." He handed the receiver to me. "Bella," he said pointedly.

"Hi Bella!" I was excited to talk to her.

"Oh you're gonna love this one Bells," Charlie said in the background, laughing. "Tell her, Ness."

I kicked away a chair from the table and sat down. I had an idea that this would be a long conversation.