All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
-Oscar Wilde
Prologue
I look down while I walk. I'm never looking at much.
I see the checkered linoleum that has a new layer of shellac over decades of wear and tear.
I see the shuffling of my own two feet. Left right left.
I see the fraying of my worn in and soon to be sole-less moccasins.
I see my vision blur as a glaze covers my eyes.
Some days I see red and I feel hate. Those days are more frequent than the days I see blue.
I've memorized my class schedule and can walk to and from class without looking up once. Those four minutes between classes as I stare intently at my dragging feet and severely scuffed shoes, I allow myself to remember. I let her voice come back, screaming and yelling. My eyes haze over, but my feet keep moving. They remember the path, they know not to stop. They effectively avoid and ignore other students.
Four minutes to grieve.
Fifty-six to repress.
For six weeks, this has been the pattern. I give myself four minutes every hour to retreat into the shell of a human I have become and rest amongst the debris. I do this, so I can hold myself together and shield all the guilt, anger, and grief under a convincing façade, which assures concerned eyes that despite it all, I am all right.
I am a poor actor. I can barely stay in character for an hour, yet I have my audience convinced. I am a bad actor and a worse liar, but my audience is gullible, they do not really look. They see my motions and hear my words, and see me still breathing everyday. From this minimal and superficial evidence, they have concluded that I have returned to teenage normalcy. The events of six weeks ago have been dismissed from their minds. By now, new gossip has captured their attention.
The bell sounds as I cross the threshold into third period. It may as well be an alarm clock, awakening me with a shudder as I pull myself from the depths of my mind and lift my heavy head, ready for the monotony of high school.
This was the pattern.
Until he made me break it.
Chapter 1 BPOV
"Bells?" my dad asked hesitantly, interrupting the clanging of spoons against milk drowned Raisin Bran.
"Yeah Dad?" I replied without looking up from my cereal.
"I'm, uh, sorry about your birthday." His voice was merely a whisper as he mumbled through a halfhearted apology.
My birthday was a month ago. What should have been a celebration of adulthood, full of lottery ticket and cigarette buying, was merely another day. I barely noticed, until I wrote down the date on top of my notes, September 13th. It hadn't registered with me. Unlike past years, where there were colorful birthday parties and sloppily constructed, homemade cakes, there was no celebrating this year.
"Not a problem. You know I don't like the attention anyways." I forced a weak smile while collecting my empty dish and putting it in the sink. Nodding a goodbye to Charlie, I grabbed my book bag and raincoat and headed out the door.
It was the middle of October, two weeks away from Halloween and already, pumpkins lined front porches, and I wondered how long it would take for them to be splattered chunks on the street. It was foggy and moist out, the kind of weather that makes you feel as though you've submerged yourself into a hot bath. Leaping over puddles of water, I approached my rusty red truck, and cranked open the door, its loud creak upsetting the quiet of this muggy Thursday morning in lovely Forks, Washington.
Hopping in, I smiled, remembering when Charlie and Renee surprised me with this beast of a car during the summer. Alice had just dropped me off from one of our long shopping extravaganzas and commented on the "red monstrosity" blocking my driveway. After a hasty goodbye to Alice, I had run into the house, my mouth agape since noticing the newest vehicular edition to our driveway. My parents were in the kitchen, acting as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening, when Charlie presented me with the keys, just dangling them in front of my glittering eyes, as though they didn't represent freedom.
I had been bugging my parents about getting me my own car, as I was tired of my meek options of transportation. Either I could get a ride in the police cruiser or wait on Alice, which, with her maniacal driving and long morning ritual, would either land me in detention every week or wrapped around a telephone pole. Begrudgingly, I chose the cruiser, subjecting myself to red cheeks and teasing stares every morning my junior year.
But with senior year rolling around, I had been petitioning for a car since May. Subtly circling ads in the paper for cheap cars and leaving them on the breakfast table, taped on the tv screen, on the toilet, everywhere. I was nothing, if not persistent.
Without realizing that I had been driving the entire time, I pulled into a spot in Forks High School parking lot and tore myself from the happy memory. Hoping that I didn't leave a path of destruction behind me, I surveyed the area and breathed a sigh of relief when I didn't see any bloody corpses or wrecked cars. My truck would take out any car; it was built like a machine.
I did, however, notice a new car. There were only two cars that were so ostentatious you could spot them from anywhere, Alice's yellow mustang and Rosalie's cherry red convertible, a stupid choice for this weather if you ask me. But today there was another shiny new car, a mammoth silver Jeep Wrangler with monster truck sized tires. It had to be at least four feet off the ground, so there was no way a female owned that thing.
Gathering my books, I heard the bell ring, so I hightailed it to homeroom, just in time for morning announcements, where the Jeep was the farthest thing from my mind.
There was a loud slap on our cafeteria table, causing me to jump and almost fall out of my chair. "Snap the fuck out of it," sneered Rose.
"Rose! Cool it. Everyone's staring," snapped Alice, "and leave her alone." Alice was always coming to my aid. And it was true, the entire cafeteria seemed to have stilled for a quiet moment before bustling back into its normal fervor.
"Who cares? She needs to stop fucking mopping. And she has no idea what I was just talking about."
"Umm…what were you saying?" I said, snapping out of my daze, but not taking my eyes off the lemonade cap I was twirling on the table. I figured there was no arguing with Rose, she was right, I had lost myself in memories again.
"Well, if you had been listening the first time, you would be begging me to tell you more about the new student in my history class," Rose excitedly answered, her annoyance at me forgotten. "His name's Emmett and he's gorgeous. I can't wait to sink my claws into that baby. He's got shoulders to die for; ones you latch onto while you're getting the ride of your life. Mmm. And did I tell you he has dimples? Yeah, adorable little dimples. God, I want to lick--"
"Enough please," Alice said sighing, "You'll be done with him before we even get to see this guy around school."
"Well I'm sorry Miss Priss, just because you're not getting any from your hot and cold boyfriend, doesn't mean the rest of us can't fantasize."
Uh-oh, Rose just brought up Jasper. My eyes shot up and I saw Alice holding back her retort. Her eyes were sad, they drooped down and the normal sparkle had vacated her usually vibrant hazel irises. Composing herself, Alice got up from the table, elegantly striding across the cafeteria and depositing her barely eaten tray in the trash before leaving.
"Well shit, I didn't mean for that to happen." Rose looked as though she was about to follow Alice out, but decided against it. "I'll apologize after school. I know it was a low blow, so stop looking at me like that."
I wasn't aware I was giving her any look, but I lowered my head anyways and resumed the mindless twirling of my bottle cap. Rose sighed, "You never used to be like this. You didn't take my crap, you would have ripped me a new asshole two months ago for teasing Alice about Jasper's bible thumping ways. Where the hell is my best friend?"
"She's here, just hiding out for a bit," I whispered, pretending that I believed the bullshit I was spouting.
Glancing at the clock, I saw there was ten minutes left to lunch before the bell, so I nodded a goodbye to Rose and walked, head down, out the door to the aqueduct that lead past our school. Alice was already there, sitting on a rock, her knees hugged to her chest with a cigarette burning away in her right hand. Wordlessly, she handed me a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Lighting up, I smiled for the first time that day. My one indulgence, it never failed to brighten my mood.
Alice and I had claimed this spot as our own last year. Rose didn't agree with our lunchtime habit so she never joined us, instead opting to sneak into the teacher's lounge for some free coffee. It was silent as we both inhaled and exhaled smoke, enjoying each other's company before Alice chimed in, "Why are you still wearing those shoes? I thought we were going to burn them."
Leave it to Alice to bring up my clothing choices. "I'm wearing them into the ground first." I checked out my beat up brown moccasins, which were once tan; they were several wears away from falling apart and I intended to don them until they wouldn't stay on my feet.
"Whatever, we should go shoe shopping."
"Alright."
Alice's face brightened up at my concurrence, transforming back into her normal happy-go-lucky, pixie-self, "This weekend Bella, I know you. If I don't capitalize on this, you'll bail on me. Tell Rose when you see her last period." And with that Alice hopped of her rock and stubbed out her cigarette. While she waited for me to do the same, the period bell rang signaling the end of the lunch hour.
"How the hell do you always know when the bell's going to ring?" I inquired.
"ESP of course," she giggled.
We both walked towards the school and departed, Alice off to French and I to biology. Earlier in the year when the Swan name became synonymous with crazy, my lab partner, Lauren Mallory, ditched me for a seat next to Jessica Stanley, so I had my own table in the back of the classroom. Taking the seat closer to the window I stared out at the scenery of green. There was no physical evidence that the seasons had changed from summer to autumn and I was daydreaming about falling leaves and pumpkin patches when Mr. Banner called attention to the front of the class.
"Class, we have a new student joining us…Edward Cullen," he said after double-checking the name on his attendance list. "If you'll just take that empty seat in the back next to Isabella we can get started today."
I cringed when Mr. Banner said my full name and my eyes swept across my new lab partner. I was immediately entranced by the color of his hair. Was he a redhead or a brunette? Is it even appropriate to refer to men as brunettes? Maybe he's a hybrid of the two…like bronze. A smile crept onto my face. I like that, bronze haired.
While my internal rambling continued its tangential course, said bronze haired boy trudged his way to the back of the classroom and slumped into the stool beside me.
He made no effort to speak to me, so I took out my notebook as a front for taking notes. Mr. Banner was well aware that I used his class period to daydream and doodle, yet he never said anything to me.
Instead of focusing my attention outside the classroom as I usually did, I found my eyes sweeping to the right of me at the bronze-haired boy. His hair was not only a magnificent metallic color, but it was in elegant disarray, like he had been running his hand through it all day long as a stress reliever. As if he heard my thoughts, he ran his hand through his hair, scratching his scalp and I couldn't help but chuckle. Instantly, accusatory emerald eyes pierced mine and I snapped my head straight ahead while I felt the heat creep up my cheeks.
Great, I'm probably beet red. I did not look at bronze haired boy again for the entire period, but his heated glare was permanently imprinted in my mind.
Finally, the bell rang and I rushed out of class, running straight into Mike Newton on the way out.
"Ooff." My small body collided into his chest, warm and solid. It felt…comforting. Grabbing my shoulders, he thrust me out at an arm's length, an unreadable expression morphing his pretty-boy face, which was peculiar, either he was puppy dog sad or cheerfully happy. What you see is what you get with Mr. Newton.
"Bella?" he asked hesitantly and I saw hope flutter into his eyes. Instead of answering, I ducked my head down into my chest and followed the linoleum lines to my next class, reeling with dormant and unwelcome satisfaction.
At the end of the day, I trudged out to the bustling parking lot where Alice and Rose summoned me over to their cars. "So I hear you had an encounter with Mike today," prompted Rose. She was not known for her subtlety.
"I ran into him on the way out from bio, and how the hell did you know that already? I hate how small our school is."
"Was it by accident?" questioned Alice, eager for more information.
"Of course it was."
"You know you made his day, right?" snorted Rose. I flipped her off and her smile widened. "There she is. I knew she was hiding somewhere underneath all of that hideous clothing."
I couldn't help but smile right back. Today, in comparison to the last two months, had been pretty damn good. I was unused to smiling and laughing so freely. It was refreshing.
I started to walk towards my car, when Alice reminded me about the shopping trip I promised this weekend. "I said I'd be there," I grumbled over my shoulder, knowing that Rose's quip about my clothes did not go unnoticed by Alice.
As I hopped in the cab of my truck, I turned in time to see a bronze head leap into the passenger side of the oversized Jeep I saw this morning. Bronze haired boy has quite the vehicle. Perhaps he's compensating for something else…I laughed at myself and turned the key, my beast coming to life with its usual fanfare of rumbling and puttering, making it sound like a dying dog hacking up a bone.
As I checked my mirrors, I saw Mike Newton making his way towards my car; he looked like he wanted to talk. Shit. Cutting off another car, I floored it out of there, leaving behind a path of rubber and dust.