Prologue
The black Aston Martin silently sped into the highway, its black tinted windows shimmering underneath the sun's merciless grasp. I hugged my legs tighter against my chest, closing my eyes, and hoping desperately that I hadn't forgotten anything, no matter what it was. The oddly casual chocolate brown suede boots I wore didn't have a speck of dust on them and still smelt like that Gucci shop Alice adored. Unfortunately, that wasn't what I wanted in the clothes I was wearing at the moment.
Leaving for an exclusive boarding school, to be away from home for a week, shouldn't be done in discomfort. While Alice's favorite line, 'fashion shouldn't divorce utility', it was rarely applied to her practical sense, despite being her own motto. I didn't understand how Jasper, tactful, practical and sweet and comfortingly quiet could handle Alice's constant energy explosions. I wasn't one to understand exactly how the universe worked, but Alice and Jasper wouldn't have liked each other in an alternate universe. Weren't soul mates supposed to fit like perfectly shaped puzzle pieces? Weren't they supposed to be similar?
Jasper was reluctant as hell to send me to school, but Alice was eager for it. Jasper wouldn't change his wardrobe every week like my harebrained aunt did.
But maybe it was me being ridiculously demanding for comfort, considering Alice hadn't gotten me into something outrageously fancy. If she had her way, I would be wearing six-inch heels with some sort of embroidered and expensive blouse.
I wanted the smell of home to curl around me; I wanted the familiarity of smells that had surrounded me since birth. However, upon my aunt's verdict, the boots and clothes I wore still smelt like crisp cotton off the racks of a New York Mall.
For this reason, I was cherishing that last whiff of air I took in the driveway, the one that caught all of the smells that screamed home, even if there were millions of different smells that could remind me of it. These were so many scents, and each was so specific in that essence it would've been hard to keep track of them all if I didn't have perfect memory.
Juggling with memories wasn't difficult for me, not specifically, but a fear of forgetting clung to my chest in a near-parasitical fashion. I closed my eyes again and tried to remember my home and its distinctive smells, picturing the images that went with each scent.
The smell of leather bind books, of ancient pages with a distinctive scent and the tiny specks of dust whirling around a mahogany wood ceiling. The smell of leather chairs and the oak in front of the spotless, ornate and long glass windows of my grandfather's study, were all just as symbolic to him as a distinctive leather and wine delicious perfume, that beat any other smell in its exquisite lush.
Chemical smelling Lysol and nicely scented but disgustingly artificial freesia sprays on the glass windows of my grandmother's kitchen, facing the back of the thick and abundant New Hampshire forest wasn't something I necessarily wanted to remember, but it was a critical part of the fragrances of the kitchen. Maybe what I did want to remember was my grandmother's homey rising-bread-pleasant-scent, and the scent of cookies she spoiled me with, which went together perfectly.
Unfortunately, the blue 'casual' Abercrombie hoodie I wore at the moment didn't smell like leather or chocolate chip cookies—or anything worthwhile—at all. I curled into a ball, were even in my flawless memory, the cotton was so prominent that I opted for resting my chin against my knee.
Maybe the scent that would make me even more homesick, even if I was going to be home for the weekends, naturally, was the living room. Everybody had some sort of distinctive hang-out place in that part of the house. As expected, Emmet's was the couch, where he practically spent all of his existence. Whiffing the couch gave off prominent scents: the scent of the cotton, somehow mingled with every other scent of the family's, and second, Emmet's cinnamon and hyacinth scent. My mom had acquired her own personal spot she sometimes shared with Dad to read. The piano I shared with Dad, because I had been taught to play as a very little child. The brush of the ivory on my fingers wasn't something I could easily forget.
My mother had spent my entire childhood trying to hook me on to Austen classics, but I had a subtle distaste for those, and as such liked my father's favorite authors better. Discussions on Vampire Mythology had gotten me hooked on to Anne Rice, books I only read after my age looked feasible for Rice's material. I often read commercial best-sellers on planes, considering all the time I spent on them during my childhood. I had a few new purchases in one of the six suitcases Alice had packed for me.
Despite my memory, the whiffs of Italian leather from the Aston's new seats, and the scents of fresh suede, denim, and cotton, (each freshly purchased from the stories I had visited lately) overwhelmed every other stored smell or picture. So I gave in to the picked up habit of massaging my temples – something both my mother and my father tended to do under stress. Unlike my grandmother, who took deep breaths under stress. That worked too.
A sudden sadness crushed me inexplicably when I pictured my loving grandmother. I could've—should've, actually—stayed with her. She was so sweet, doting, caring. Both my grandparents had spoilt me senseless for seven years and doted on me like I was a deity rather than a child. This was,(Comma needed!) according to information, usual grandparent behavior, except normal grandparents didn't bring you a chocolate every day from work or give you candy just because you looked at it on a small shopping trip.
Dad was driving unbelievably slowly, at around 37 mph, when his average 'slow' speed was 80 mph. He was probably hoping or rather expecting me to give up and go back home, curl under a blanket and never leave. Alice would like to redecorate my bedroom, which had been as emptied as possible, now being proved by the several trunks and suitcases on the trunk of the car. This was Alice's favourite hobbie, and at first I had taken to it with great enthusiasm, but these days it got rather irritating.
Dad's lips curled up as if he had just won an argument, and he deliberately but slowly began to shift from his lousy 37 mph to 36 mph. What, so now I can't feel nostalgic? I mentally snapped, turning to glare in his direction. He had already paid the inscription fee and the dorm fee, and he was still trying to go back on the whole schooling situation?
Not that money had ever been an actual issue, but the man had a complex. He grunted and then tentatively went up a few miles per hour, without overwhelming the 40 mph speed limit he was currently on. His eyes locked back on the road.
Mom squeezed my hand comfortingly, her eyes soft, as if to say in a less irritating manner that I didn't have to do this. It wasn't like I was sacrificing myself, because that truly wasn't the case, but I felt like I needed space. Billy Black had gotten sick and tribal responsibilities had overwhelmed Jacob from a distance so he had to go back to Forks. It wasn't like I didn't like or love my family, but puberty and extreme irritation levels from six vampires aren't compatible, at least not without Jake to calm the tempestuous effects. Dad probably heard the new wave of nostalgia crush me, and his lips tuned up again, his hand twitching on the steering wheel.
He now wore an irritatingly smug smile as he drove, eyes on the road and not once on my mother, as if pretending to take the task seriously, but his golden eyes occasionally stole a haughty peek at my ravaged expression.
But I needed to do this. I had delayed my parent's college plans enough, given that they had spent seven years taking care of me. That wasn't the only reason either, considering that now Jake was back home taking care of the newly decrepit Billy.
I really needed my own space. Daddy should understand my need to not mope and face my psychological complexes without others, shouldn't he?
He had picked up my maternal grandfather's habit of 'grunting' lately, choosing to communicate that way instead of his usual articulate and lengthy replies.
"You're not an inconvenience, Renesmee," he retorted somewhat gently, stealing an actual look at my curled up position in the back of his car. "You know how much we wish you would stay home."
I knew. He had spent the last six weeks moping and sulking about how his baby was leaving him all by himself, grouchy and lonesome. That would've made me snort. He had enough lovin' company from my mother to last him eternity. After I played the 'I heard you inside the womb card' which practically made him burst out crying, he had agreed to let me go but only if I called him every day and saw him every weekend to 'bond'. And while my grandmother hadn't irritatingly moped, the gestures she made to indicate her sadness were a lot more tearing than Rosalie's, who wasn't happy that I was "leaving her childless" and stuck with Emmet. All she did was affectionately kiss my cheek or forehead or tuck me into bed and sigh about how quickly her baby was growing.
Hypothetically, Rosewood was at a normal car speed, about two hours away from home and a half hour away from an arranged meeting spot in the local national park—merely 20 minutes away from home if my family stuck to regular driving-like-maniacs schemes. Though these facts hadn't at all influenced my dad's opinion of his precious daughter going to an all-girls boarding school, nothing beats the 'I-heard-you-as-a-fetus'.
He slowed down again, nervous, as we the sign reading 'Concord: 30 miles' and he shifted in his seat, taking the speed down another notch . But with only hour left, it wouldn't really matter. The freesia and honey-and-lilac smells curling around me right now were seriously unbeatable, and ones I never wanted to forget.
A/N: A big, big thanks to my wonderful beta, Irish Froggy for all her hard work. I'm not really asking for reviews, but I would love some!