Chapter one
BPOV
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!
I rolled over Monday morning to the sound of my stupid alarm clock. It was a dreadful noise, much too shrill for this early. It was also the noise I dreaded each day, knowing that I'd have to get up and continue with my hellish life. I hit it across the room and it shut up, but not before clattering over the floorboards and skidding to a halt in the doorway.
I held my breath, praying to god that he hadn't heard me. When no sound arose from the silence, I straightened out my aching limbs and carefully walked over to my bedroom window. I sighed in relief when it became evident that my father and Chief of Police, Charlie Swan, had already left for work, because his cruiser was not in the driveway.
I showered and dressed in a pair of black skinny jeans and a purple top with my converse trainers. Then I went into the bathroom to inspect the damage. I was sporting a big blue bruise on my left cheek, which I deftly hid with my recent best friend, cover-up. Then I tackled my hair by brushing it multiple times, making it shine. It was my best feature; it fell down my back in luscious chocolate curls, matching my brown eyes perfectly. However I had horrid pale skin and my eyes, although rich in colour, were poor in life. They were dull and dead. If anyone had had the decency to make eye-contact with me they would have seen how much I was hurting, mentally and physically. But no. Nobody in this god-awful town cared about me, and they never would.
I'm not complaining, though. It was my fault. My mother Renee died giving birth to me, and Charlie blamed me for her death. Which I suppose was spot on. If I had never been conceived, my poor innocent beautiful mother would still be alive, instead of me, ugly, useless, waste of space, Bella Swan.
I kissed the picture of my mom on my desk and promised her, "I will get through today. Goodbye, I love you." This was my normal routine to give me strength. If it wasn't for my mom's memory, I would have crumbled and killed myself long ago.
I gritted my teeth as I chugged through the school gates in my truck. It was hideous – Charlie hadn't wanted to waste precious money on my first car, so he'd gotten a family friend, Jacob Black, to fix this monstrosity up so that it was just good enough to run.
I noticed briefly that there was an extra car in the car lot that I had never seen before. It was a silver Volvo, outshining all the other vehicles in Forks by far, especially my tangerine truck.
I sighed as I grabbed my bag from the seat beside me. Here we go.
EPOV
I was just leaning up against my Volvo along with my family; Rosalie, Emmett, Alice and Jasper; when I saw her.
She was beautiful, way more pure and pretty than any other human girls I'd ever seen before. Whereas they wore extensions and caked themselves in makeup, this girl had long waist length chocolate locks and a determined expression. I tried to read her thoughts to find out her name, but something came as a shock to me – I couldn't.
Confusion washed over me, fixing a frown on my face. Jasper looked at me questioningly, having felt my emotions. I just shook my head. I'd have to look more into this.
The bell rang inside the building, and my girl – wait, where did the 'my' bit come from? – walked quicker, it seemed that she was in a rush for something. Maybe she was just a very enthusiastic student. My family and I began walking inside, and I listened to all the thoughts swarming around us like angry bees as the other kids stopped dead in their tracks to watch us, some openly staring at our inhuman beauty, others stealing glances when they thought no-one was looking.
Wow, she's hot. The things I'd like to do to her- I growled softly, so that only vampire ears could hear me. I hated those bastard humans thinking shit like that about my family. The majority of the boys' minds seemed to be thinking about sexual fantasies including themselves and my sister, Rosalie. The others stopped to look at me, puzzled. I was about to explain when someone thought, Ha, that little one is already strutting about like she owns the place. Well we'll see who's toughest when I steal her lunch money. That made me growl louder. My siblings' minds were demanding to know what I'd heard.
"Someone wants to have sex with Rose and someone else wants to steal Alice's lunch money," I spat, marching past my brothers and sisters as they too began growling, the boys protectively, the girls angrily.
The guy who had wanted to bed Rose was a kid named Mike Newton, and judging by his mind, he thought pretty highly of himself. And the girl wanting to steal Alice's lunch money was called Jessica, and she seemed to be the 'queen bee' around here. She had blue eyes and brown hair, but compared to the girl I'd seen get out the truck, it looked lank and boring. She looked lank and boring. I fleetingly realised that a whole load of other thoughts were about me – most of the girls, actually, were admiring my ass. Damn tight jeans. I'd had to endure hundreds of years of high school, and frankly it wasn't flattering any more, it was boring and creepy.
My family were walking beside me again, and I could feel Jasper trying to calm me down. My first day here was going to be as crap as it always was, maybe even more so.
