All recognizable characters and plot belong to Stephenie Meyer and I make no money off this fic. Enjoy!
Chapter One: First Sight
It was warm as we headed for the airport. I was enjoying the breeze as it filtered through the open windows, sun warm on my skin. I was going to miss this.
I was heading off to go live with my father, Charlie. In Forks. I detested Forks. It resided on the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State and all it was known for was for being rainy and gray the most out of anywhere in the U.S.. Positively dreary.
My Mom had left Charlie and taken me with her when I was only a few months old. I'd been forced to go back every summer until I was fourteen and finally put my foot down. For the past three summers Charlie and I had taken various two week long vacations instead.
I loved Phoenix. I was going to miss the warmth, the sun—they sky in general, the air, the city. I stopped myself from going down that path. I wanted to do this—I lied to myself—I needed to do this.
"Edward" Mom said to me again as she helped me grab my bag out of the trunk, "You don't have to do this."
"I want to go." I lied again. I'd said this so many times that it almost sounded true.
She sighed before pulling me into a hug.
"Mom." I muttered, but didn't pull away.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry." She said, wiping a tear off her cheek. "You just grew up so fast."
I stood awkwardly for a moment before she patted me on the back and pushed me toward the door.
"Go, go. You're going to be late. I love you, Edward. And tell Charlie I said 'hi'."
"Okay Mom, I will. And I love you too."
"Fly safe!" She yelled after me as the door shut. As if I had any control over that.
Eight hours later I was deplaning in Port Angeles. Charlie was supposed to pick me up there and then it would be about an hour drive from there to Forks. The flying didn't bother me, it was the drive that I was worried about.
Charlie had been surprised when I had called him, but otherwise good about the move. He didn't understand it, but seemed happy about it nonetheless. He'd registered me for classes the day after I told him and said that he had a lead on a car that I might be able to get. He talked like that a lot, in police terms. See—Charlie was the Chief of Police in Forks, the main reason that I wanted to get a car.
I stepped out of the airport and headed to the Police Cruiser, Charlie's only car. It had been raining steadily for about the last half of my trip and I was soaked the second I stepped out from underneath the overhang.
Charlie got out of the car to greet me.
"This it?" He asked, motioning to my one bag.
"Yeah, what am I, a girl?" I joked. He laughed, patting me on the back awkwardly.
"No, I guess not. We should get going then."
Truth was, I actually had a lot of clothes, just not a lot of Forks approved clothes. Somehow, lightweight Polo's and cargo shorts didn't seem like they would cut it here.
"So, how's Renee?" He asked once we were on the road.
"Mom's good, she says 'hi'." I responded.
"Well that's good. So listen, I found you a car. Really cheap and it runs well." He said.
I could tell that there was something that he wasn't saying. It was written all over his face and his voice was laced with it.
"What aren't you telling me, Ch-Dad?" I asked tentatively.
He looked at me sideways. "Nothing. It runs great!"
"Dad." I said, "I know something's up, you can't hide it from me."
"So, you're still doing that, huh?" He asked, looking back at the road. "And it's still creepy." He muttered. I was sure I wasn't supposed to hear that part.
"Yup, guess so. Spill."
"It's a Chevy—a truck."
"Ookaaay…" He didn't seriously think that he was going to get away with that, did he?
"Do you remember Billy Black?"
"From that reservation?"
"La Push, yeah. Well, it was his. He did a lot of work on it…"
"And why exactly did it need a lot of work done on it?"
He glanced at me again. "I don't know how you—oh shucks. It was new in the early sixties, I believe. But it runs really well!"
"If it runs so well, why did you get it for so cheap?"
"Well, he's in a wheelchair now and can't drive it, so he offered to just give it to me, actually, but I couldn't take it from him. Anyway, he wouldn't take any more than that for it, said the rest was a gift." He smiled.
"Well that's…nice."
Billy and Charlie were best friends and if my recollection was right we'd been fishing together a few times, the three of us. They'd known each other forever, but my memory of that was a little fuzzy, seeing as I tended to try and block my summers here out.
"Really though Edward—the thing runs great. It's sturdy, and the engine is only a few years old…"
"It sounds…" Better than the cruiser. "great. Thank you, Dad."
The Thing. It sounded like it had potential—at the very least as a nickname. I wasn't so sure how I felt about the only word he used to describe it being 'sturdy', though. That sounded…iffy at best.
He glanced at me again and I could tell that he just wanted me to be happy here, it was written all over his face. Not one to show much emotion though, at least to other people, he responded with a simple, "You're welcome, son."
It was quiet for most of the rest of the drive, save for a few comments on how wet it was. I mean, don't get me wrong—it really was pretty here, everything was so green, but I'd take tan any day if it meant that I could stay dry.
Finally, we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the same house that he had with mom. It was small—modest. It had just as much room as he needed, and not a bit more.
Parked out on the street in front of the house was The Thing.
An apt nickname, if I do say so myself. I thought, though I loved it. It was round and stalky and had obviously at one time been red, though now it was more of an orange color where the paint hadn't chipped away completely. It was one of those cars that you just knew had been through a lot, and could face a lot more. And it had character. I couldn't wait to drive it.
"Dad, I love it!" I said, jumping out of the cruiser before it had fully stopped.
Charlie chuckled, grabbing my bag and saying "Good, I'm glad you like it."
We walked in the house and he dropped my bag by the front door, handing me both a house key and the key to The Thing.
I took my bag upstairs to my room. It was small, like the rest of the house, and overlooked the front yard. It hadn't changed much in the years that I had been there.
"I hope everything's okay." Charlie said, coming in behind me. "I got your computer hooked up to the internet a few days ago and the sales lady picked out the blanket…I figured that blue was a safe color to go with…the walls are blue…" It was clear that he was uncomfortable.
"It's great, Dad." I didn't really care about the comforter, as long as it was warm, and it looked like it was down, which promised to be. "You didn't have to put this much effort in. I could have taken care of all that."
"Yeah, well, I just wanted to have it all ready for you when you got here." He stated, fidgeting.
"Thank you."
"Well…I'll leave you to get settled then." He said, walking out of the room. Something that I really liked about Charlie was that he wasn't suffocating. Mom never would have been able to leave me alone to unpack, in fact, she'd probably insist on doing it herself.
I was really glad that I could be alone so that I didn't have to pretend to be happy. I was glad that I could stare out the window and collapse on the bed in response to the sheet of rain that met my eyes.
I lay on the bed for a few minutes, fighting the jetlag and thinking about tomorrow. Forks high school had a grand total of three hundred and fifty-seven, soon to be fifty-eight students. That's less than half of what was in my class alone at my school in Phoenix. Nearly all of these kids had known each other their whole lives, just as their parents and their grandparents before them and here I was—the new kid. Fresh meat. I hated being the center of attention, and there was no doubt that in a school this small, any new kid would be, let alone the Chief of Police's only son, taken from him shortly after birth who none of them had seen in years…
I let out a groan and rolled off the bed, heading downstairs for dinner.
_._._._._
I slept horribly that night. The rain pounded on the side of the house and the roof and it sounded like an elephant was learning to tap-dance right on top of me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make it background—white noise. I'd even tried piling the blanket and extra pillow over my head and holding it down, but it just wasn't having it. It would be heard, and it got its wish.
Sometime around 2:30am it finally let up to a light drizzle and I shifted in and out of an uncomfortable sleep. I was up before my alarm.
I was sick of lying in bed so I got up and walked to the window. I couldn't hear any more rain and was curious as to why it was still so gray.
Fog. I couldn't even see The Thing parked along the street. I let out a sigh. This was going to be a looong day.
I showered, dressed, and had a quick, quiet breakfast with Charlie. He wished me luck, I thanked him, already knowing that I wouldn't need it because no amount of luck could make today good—and he was off to work.
Once he'd left I took a few minutes to get reacquainted with the little old house. The darkening yellow paint in the kitchen was chipped and cracking, and the white linoleum flooring was stained dark with age in some spots. It hadn't changed one bit since I could remember.
The next room over was the living room. The small space was dominated by a huge flat screen TV on the far wall. A couch, a loveseat, and Charlie's recliner along with an end table were shoved in there as well. For when he had people over to watch 'the game', I assumed. There was also a little fireplace between the kitchen and the living room and on its mantle was a picture of Charlie and Renee after they got married, one of them at the hospital with me, and every one of my school pictures for the past ten years. I groaned. Those would need to go. Nobody wants their middle school pictures staring them in the face while they're eating breakfast.
Looking around, it was obvious that Charlie had never gotten over Renee. I didn't want to think about that, it made me uncomfortable, to say the least.
I looked at the clock. Enough time had passed that I could leave now and get to school early enough to get my pre-first-day stuff done, but not early enough to be early.
I grabbed my jacket—which was very large and suffocating—and my backpack and headed out to jump in The Thing. If I was being honest with myself, this was what I most looked forward to today.
It had started to rain again while I was eating and the sloshing under my feet as I headed out was unnerving. It was warm and dry in the cab though, something that I was a little worried about. The Thing may look a tad sketchy from the outside and be rusted though in some places, but she was watertight where it mattered, and that meant that she was a keeper.
The cab had obviously been cleaned out but when I took a deep breath, I could still faintly smell tobacco, gas, and peppermint. I liked it, it suited her well.
The engine started quickly and easily, roaring to life. I could barely hear myself think over the noise. But again, if I was really being honest with myself, that was probably a good thing.
"Well, if wasn't already going to draw attention to myself, I surely will now." I said to nobody as I pulled out down the street.
Forks High was just off the main road, like everything else in Forks. It had a large sign and I groaned as I pulled in. Instead of one big building, Forks High was built California style, many smaller buildings that weren't connected to each other by anything. Whoever built that here was nuts and just wanted to torture everyone, it was obvious. There was no other reason to build a school of that style in the rainiest place in the US. This style worked out great back home, but here it was going to be a nightmare.
I followed a few students in and parked in what I hoped was the student lot. I followed a winding path to the back of the school where there was a sign that said 'Front Office'.
Not very 'front', if you ask me. I thought, pushing the door open.
The room was well lit and warm, warmer than I expected a school to be. It was nice. There was a small little waiting area with a few folding chairs and a big desk. There were plants in every corner and they clashed with the bright orange carpet. The desk was cluttered and covered in baskets filled with brightly colored papers and fliers.
There was a large red-haired woman sitting behind the desk and she looked up when I entered.
"Can I help you?"
"I'm Edward Swan." I said, and she immediately recognized me.
"Of course you are, honey." She said a little too sweetly for my taste. "I have your schedule and sign-in sheet right…" She rooted through a large stack of papers "here." She finished, pulling a few sheets of paper out and beckoning me over. She explained how to get to my first class, showed me a map of the campus, and told me that I had to have every teacher sign the sign-in sheet and that I was to bring it to her at the end of the day. She smiled at me, obviously hoping, like Charlie, that I would like it here, though she didn't say anything else as I walked out of the small office.
I went back out to The Thing to grab my backpack, glad to see that most of the cars in the lot were older like mine. Back in Phoenix most of the students at my school came from money and it wasn't out of the ordinary to see Mercedes or Porches in the lot. The nicest car here was a shiny black Volvo and even that stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the others.
I took a moment to try and memorize the map, hoping that I wouldn't have to pull it out again and headed off to my first class.
I was glad to see that while I didn't my like my jacket, it didn't stand out. Everybody else was wearing one much the same. I took a deep breath.
"You can do this. Nobody is going to bite." I muttered quiet enough that nobody else would hear. I thought I heard a small chuckle nearby but ignored it, knowing that it wasn't directed at me.
I walked up to a well marked building and followed the throng of people inside. There was a wall with hooks where everybody hung their coats. It reminded me of preschool and I couldn't help but smile. A girl in the second row was staring at me with her mouth hanging open. I looked away. It made me uncomfortable when people were interested in me, and I wasn't a fan of the attention.
I walked up to the front of the room and handed the teacher my sign-in sheet. He stared at me for a moment, noticing how much I looked like my parents but not saying anything before signing the sheet and sending me off to sit at an empty desk. Luckily, he didn't make me introduce myself to the class.
I looked over the reading list that he passed back to me. It was all fairly basic stuff, nothing that I hadn't read already, some of it that I've even had in classes before. It would be good because I'd have less work to do, but boring because I'd done it before. I sighed and looked back up towards the front, ignoring the students that still managed to stare, even though I was in the back row.
As the bell rang, a boy with acne and the darkest hair I'd ever seen leaned over the desk behind him and said, "You're Edward Swan, aren't you?"
"Yeah." I answered, noticing that the girl up front who had started at me as I walked in had turned around and was listening, not even trying to hide that fact.
"Where's your next class?" He asked. The girl got up and walked over. I checked my schedule.
"Social Studies, in building six." His face fell.
"Well, I have class in building four, I could show you the way…" Overly-helpful and trying too hard. "My name's Eric."
"It's okay, Eric, I have that class. I'll show him the way." The girl said, shooting him a fake smile before turning back to me. "My name's Jessica. Come on, it's this way. We don't want to be late."
I'd had girls who had been interested in me back in Phoenix but it made me more uncomfortable than anything else. They always seemed so forward and obvious, though apparently I was the only one who saw it. Jessica was definitely interested.
We grabbed our jackets and headed off to building six. The students behind us were a little too close to just be following and it was obvious that they were eavesdropping.
"So, I've never been to Phoenix but I bet this is pretty different, huh?" Jessica said, batting her eyelashes at me.
"Yes." I better shut this down before she thinks that there's something else going on.
"Does it rain much there?"
"A few times a year and then random quick bursts." I said, not looking at her.
"Wow, I bet that's nice…" She said, finally looking away from me.
"Yeah, it's very sunny." I responded after a long pause.
"You're not very tan…" She said, looking me up and down. I took a small step away from her.
"I'm part albino." I said, only half joking. She didn't get it and we spent the rest of the walk in silence. I sighed. Yeah, a really long day.
The rest of the morning went by about the same way. Jessica wasn't in my next class but Eric was, and I met a nice quiet girl named Angela who walked me from Social Studies to Trig. She was obviously pretty shy. The trig teacher was the only one who made me introduce myself to the class, as if I needed another reason to dislike him. I kept my introduction short and sweet. It consisted of: As I'm sure you all already know, I'm Edward Swan. Something you didn't already know? I hate rain. The end. Then I sat down. The room as a whole was shocked, but at this point I didn't really care anymore and nobody said anything more about it.
I was starting to recognize faces, and throughout the day people were getting braver and introducing themselves to me. A few of them even asked me questions about how I was liking Forks or what it was like back hom—about Phoenix. This was my home now.
Mostly, I just lied a lot.
Luckily enough, I never needed the map. Both Jessica and Eric were in my Spanish class and they walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch.
We sat at a table near the far side of the room with their friends. I forgot all their names as soon as they said them, though I recognized a few of them from some of my classes. They seemed pretty impressed that Jessica and Eric were talking so much to me and the room as a whole was jealous of the table for getting to eat with me. I wished I could shrink against the wall and become invisible. Attention was definitely not my thing.
It was as I was leaning against the wall only semi-listening to the chatter around me that I first saw them. They were sitting in the opposite corner of the cafeteria, as far away from us as physically possible in the small space and I couldn't look away. There were five of them, and they were preoccupied with themselves. They weren't eating, though there was an untouched tray of food in front of each of them, and it didn't look like they were talking but they would all occasionally react to something that I had obviously missed.
The only thing that they had in common as far as looks went was the whitest skin that I had ever seen. There were two boys and three girls. One of the boys was massive, he looked like he was taking some major magic vitamin, and the other one, while still muscular, looked tiny in comparison. Though the second one appeared to be taller than the first. Sitting next to the huge one was the blonde girl. She was beautiful, by far one of the most beautiful people that I'd ever seen. She looked like she deserved to be on the front cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, not sitting at a table in this tiny school in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere Washington. Sitting between her and the other boy was a short girl with spiky black hair. The only way to describe her was like a female Puck. She was very pixie-like. The other girl had her back to me so I couldn't see her face but she had beautiful chestnut hair that fell in soft waves down her back. I just wanted to touch it.
"Who are those guys?" I asked Eric who was sitting next to me without looking away from the table of, even I had to admit, devastatingly beautiful people.
The table looked around to see who I was talking about before Jessica jumped in.
"Those are the Cullens." I glanced back at her before turning to look back at them again. The girl who I couldn't see before, the one with the chestnut brown hair was looking at me. My breath caught in my throat. She had dark eyes to match her hair and they were striking against her skin. Her face was roughly heart-shaped and her lips were perfectly placed, in both size and shape to fit her face. She was nearly as if not more beautiful than the blonde girl, but in a more classically simple sort of way. She only held my gaze for a fraction of a second before turning to face the others at the table again.
"That one who just looked over is Bella Cullen, she's twins with the big one, Emmett. Hard to believe, right? The blonde girl and the tall boy are brother and sister, Rosalie and Jasper Hale. And the other girl is Alice Cullen. She's not related to the other Cullen kids by blood or anything, she was just adopted by Dr. Cullen and his wife. The Cullen twins are Mrs. Cullen's niece and nephew or something, Alice is adopted and the Hales are foster kids. They all live together, obviously."
I glanced back at the girl, who was picking at her food now, seemingly uninterested and never bringing the food to her mouth. The pixie, Alice's mouth was moving very quickly and the girl, Bella nodded her head.
"They're…good looking." I said a bit awkwardly, though nobody was about to disagree with me.
"Yeah, no kidding. They're all together though. Like, dating." Jessica said, leaning forward, obviously excited to share this bit of local gossip. I turned back to look at her. "Emmett and Rosalie, and Alice and Jasper, I mean. They live together. I think it's just sick." She said, leaning back.
"What about the other girl?" I asked, looking back and ignoring her commentary. "Bella?"
"Oh, she's not dating anybody." Jessica said uninterestedly with a wave of her hand at the same time that Eric said, "Single. Though unfortunately seemingly uninterested anyone." He sighed. It was obvious that he'd tried at some time in the past and been shot down.
I had Biology next and Angela had it too, so she showed me how to get there. We walked to class in silence, though I didn't mind. I couldn't get that family out of my head. There was something different about them…
Angela went to her seat as we entered the classroom and I walked up to have my sheet signed. The teacher directed me to sit down, no introduction. I was grateful. As I turned to sit down, I was surprised to see that Bella was already sitting, the only open seat right next to her.
As I started walking towards the seat, Bella went rigid, sitting stick straight and as still as a statue. She stared at me again and her face was blank. I looked down and back up again. She was still staring at me and this time I noticed her eyes. They were black as pitch, and she looked pissed. I quickly thought back through my actions since I walked in the room. Had I done something to offend her? I couldn't think of anything. Her eyes followed me all the way to my seat.
"Hey." I said hesitantly as I sat down. "I'm Edward…" She didn't say anything in return, only nodded curtly, once. I looked back up at the teacher. Her eyes looked furious, hostile, and hungry for something, but other than that she was unreadable.
I had a sort of talent. It was really difficult for people to lie without me catching them and I had a pretty good since of who someone really was right when I first met them. I could tell where they were going in a conversation before they got there, and I was a really good judge of character. It really threw people off sometimes, and it kind of creeped my parents out. In short, I could read everybody—anybody—all the time. Until now. Bella was totally unreadable, except her eyes, which were screaming at me to get away. It was incredibly off-putting.
I looked down at my book as I took a notebook out of my bag. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella shift. She was now sitting at the complete edge of her seat and leaning away, getting as far from me as she possibly could, and she didn't seem to be breathing. I couldn't smell that bad, could I?
I tried to pay attention to the teacher, but unfortunately he was covering something that I'd already gone over in Phoenix, so it was hard to focus. Bella just stared at me the whole class, leaning away and seeming not to breathe. I took notes until I couldn't focus anymore and then started doodling on the corner of my paper until just before the bell rang, when Bella grabbed her backpack and books and stormed out of the class without another glance. I let out a big gush of air that I didn't realize I was holding and started to pack up my books.
"Hi, I'm Mike, and this is Lauren." A boy said, walking up with a girl following in tow. It was obvious that she dressed for attention.
"Edward." I said, though I'm sure that they already knew this. They looked vaguely familiar and I wondered if they had been at the table at lunch.
"Do you know where your next class is?"
"Uh…"
"What is it, I'll show you where." She said in a way that I'm sure she thought was suggestive. I had to suppress a gag. What was it with girls in this town?
"It's gym, actually. I know where that is, I'm good." I said, putting my schedule away.
"Oh, that's where we're heading too, we can walk together." Mike said, smiling. "What did you do to that Cullen girl, by the way? She looked like she wanted to rip your head off."
"I don't know, man. I hardly said two words to her. She was like that when I sat down…" So obviously that wasn't her normal behavior or he wouldn't have commented on it. Hmm. What was wrong with her?
He talked at me on the way to gym, which was nice because I was tired of answering the same questions over and over again. Turns out that he's in my English class too.
I got my uniform and dressed down. We played volleyball and it went pretty much as you would expect volleyball in a gym class at a small school to go. The final bell rang at least and I dressed out quickly, ready to turn in my sheet and get home.
It had stopped raining, but a hard, strong wind had taken its place. I flipped up my jacket collar and made my way to the office, fighting the wind to close the door behind me, appreciative again of the warmth this room supplied.
I turned around and took a step toward the desk before I looked up and froze in my tracks. Bella Cullen was standing there, glaring at me again. She turned back to the office lady and said, bitingly "Well, if you can't switch me to any other class, I guess I'll just have to…deal with it."
Her words made me shiver, but I wasn't sure why. She grabbed her bag and headed out the door, careful not to touch me, no small feat considering that I was still standing in front of it.
"So, how was your first day?" The office lady asked sweetly, taking my paper and making sure that I had all of the appropriate signatures.
"Great." I said sarcastically, though she missed the sarcasm. What was it with these people? I needed to get out of here.
"Very good, honey. Looks like you're all set! Let me know if you have any questions."
"I will." I said, as the door closed behind me.
As I walked out to my car, I noticed the strange family from the lunch room, minus Bella, standing around the Volvo—watching me. They would have the nicest car here. I thought, jumping into The Thing and grateful that the heater worked. I turned the key and she roared to life again.
I looked in my rearview mirror as I left, and the family was still watching me.
"Ridiculous. I didn't do anything!" I said to nobody, fighting the urge to punch something the whole way home.
A/N: Alright, so there's chapter one. I'm still going to keep up with MRS (My Redemption Song, check it out!) as well as try and do this but that was has a buffer of about five chapters and this one doesn't. Also, these chapters are longer and it's surprisingly more difficult to translate Bella (Twilight) into Edward (this) so bear with me! And just know that MRS will probably be updated a tad more frequently than this, due to the chapter buffer I've built up. I'll work on getting one for this. Reviews might help speed things up. I'm not saying that as some nasty trick, it's just the truth of the matter. Hope you enjoyed, tell me what you think, and check out MRS if you haven't already!