FANFIC 1
IN WHICH BELLA COMES TO FORKS TO LIVE WITH HER COUSIN. SHE SOON BEFRIENDS HER NEW NEIGHBORS, THE CULLENS. ALL HUMAN.
DISCLAIMER: IF I WERE STEPHENIE MEYER, I WOULDN'T BE HERE WRITING FANFICTION, I WOULD BE OUT THERE SUING THE PEOPLE WHO STOLE MIDNIGHT SUN! AND NO, I DON'T OWN ANY CHARACTERS IN TWILIGHT. HECK, I DON'T EVEN OWN ANNABETH CHASE!
CHAPTER ONE: NEW GIRL
EDWARD POV
I waited impatiently for Mr. Banner to finish his lecture. Class had technically been ended two minutes ago, but he was oblivious, as usual. I swear, the man irritated me to no end. One of these days I would snap and submit to Emmett's encouraging views on tepee-ing the Ban-Man's house with toilet paper.
Finally, something the rambling teacher said captured my interest, as well as the interest of the rest of the class. "And don't forget, class, tomorrow a new student shall be joining us here. Miss Isabella Swan. I expect you all to be good examples of how we roll here at Forks High."
Muffled giggles followed the statement, but the Biology teacher didn't appear to notice. He made a shooing motion with his hand, which dismissed us, and I headed to my last class of the day, Spanish. As I settled into my desk, just in time, the teacher began to drone. I got a weird feeling of déjà vu. Hadn't I had enough of this for one day?
Looking around, I saw random conversations popping out all over the room. No one was inclined to pay much attention to anyone in the last class of the day. Tuning out most of the murmurs, I heard the name "Isabella Swan" repeated numerous times. It was kind of sad one student could cause as much of an uproar around here as it did; she was already considered an icon of sorts, yet no one even knew what Isabella's hair color was. No on, at least, save one.
I had no idea who in their right mind (which would definitely NOT include Mr. Banner) would give up beautiful, sunny Phoenix to come to dreary, depressing Forks, but I did know whoever it was would be my new neighbor. Sitting in front of me was Isabella's cousin, Annabeth Chase. Isabella would be living with Annabeth and her father during the time she stayed here. Annabeth was conversing with Mike Newton now, who never would have paid her a second glance if he weren't interested in her cousin. Annabeth wasn't pretty; she had shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, a plain face and few friends, on account of the face she wasn't that friendly. Personally, I couldn't imagine why the school was excited over Isabella if she would be just like Annabeth. I leaned forward, hoping to hear something that would prove otherwise.
" – really, really, sweet," Annabeth was saying to her avid listener. "I love her so much. She's the nicest person in the world." I sensed something akin to worship in the way Annabeth talked of her cousin, and saw profound feeling in her eyes. They had to be extremely good friends as well as cousins.
"So why is she coming here?" Mike asked, with a gleam in his eyes. Suddenly, I was feeling rather protective of a girl whom I had never met in my life.
Annabeth's admiring look disappeared to be replaced by the all-too-familiar closed one. "I have no idea. You should ask her yourself," she said stiffly.
"Yeah, I think I will," Mike said, lost in thoughts of Isabella, oblivious to the new tone Annabeth was using.
I smirked to myself, as I knew something of the new girl Mike did not. Esme, motherly as always, had requested that we have dinner with the Chase family and Miss Swan tonight, so we could become better acquainted. It was difficult to schedule, as Annabeth's dad, John, was rather absent-minded and tended to forget things. Immediately. We were to go over as soon as we changed after school, as Isabella had arrived during the school day and was already in residence at the Chase house. I wouldn't be surprised if John was in bed and asleep when we arrived.
I was pulled from my train of thought as the Spanish teacher called attention to the class in an effort to recall order.
When I exited the school building, I was so eager to meet Isabella that I practically ran to my Volvo, although I knew I would just have to wait for my siblings.
Suddenly, the passenger door opened, and I watched, surprised, as my brother and best friend, Emmett, jumped in. He was early. He must have been as anxious to meet Isabella as I was.
"Yes!" Emmett crowed. "I got the front seat!" He began to demon-strate his sadly lacking dance skills.
Ok, or maybe he just wanted shotgun.
"Did you remember your booster seat?" I said sarcastically, thoroughly disgusted with Emmett's terrible dancing. The rest of my siblings were sliding into the backseat.
"Huh?" he asked, still in the middle of his groove.
I just rolled my eyes and backed out of the parking space. As we hit the main road I stomped on the gas pedal and zoomed off.
"In a hurry to get home?" Alice commented. Looking in the rear-view mirror, I saw a smirk on her face and a mischievous gleam in her eye.
"Eh, no, not really," I lied. "Just want time to change before we head next door."
"Oh my gosh, I'm so excited!" Rosalie said happily. "Alice, you have to help me decide what to wear! I want to make a really good impression on the new girl!"
"YAY!" Emmett shrieked. "New girl!" I was surprised his pea-sized brain could follow a conversation that long. Or maybe it was just lucky for him he had shouted that at the right time in the conversation and he had no idea what we were talking about. Yep, that was more likely. I pulled on to the dirt road that led to only two houses. Soon the road forked, and I continued along the right fork, which led to a huge mansion. We would soon be traveling along the left one to the Chase residence, which was relatively unknown. We didn't really know our neighbors, which I hoped would be remedied by Isabella's coming here. More like, I wished to get to know Isabella, at least.
"I hope she's not like Annabeth," I voiced my fears. "It'll be really hard for her to fit in."
"You mean harder for us to be friends with her," Jasper teased.
"Annabeth's not mean," Alice said. "It's not her fault that she's anti-social. Blame her father. I hear he locks himself up in his workshop all the time and doesn't talk to anyone for days."
"I guess that's true," I allowed. But there was no time to say anything more, for I had pulled into our cavernous garage, parking as far away from all the other cars as I could. You could never tell with Emmett behind the wheel. As soon as we stopped moving, Alice and Rosalie were out of the car, bolting towards the house, shouting opinions on what they thought the other should wear.
Emmett turned to me. "Edward, will you help me decide what to wear too?" he asked quite seriously.
"Erm . . ." I scrambled for an excuse. "You don't really want me to help you," I told him quickly. "Look at how sloppily I dress. Don't you want Jasper to dress you instead?" It sounded lame to me, but Emmett was nodding like he got it. Jasper shot me a look that said I would pay, but I just grinned and left him to a fate worse than death. But I could take my time; knowing the three women in the house, it would be hours before we departed, regardless of the fact that we should probably be over there greeting the new girl right now. But knowing Emmett, we would probably get to the house after the dinner we were supposed to be attending. Oh, well. Then I would just have to stab him sooner than originally planned.
I began to walk towards the house as leisurely as it was possible for me to appear under the circumstances. I didn't even know why I was so nervous; did people anticipate my family's coming three years ago as im-mensely as I was awaiting Isabella's? My anxiety intensified when I con-templated how she was almost certainly next door at this very second, expecting us to meet her within the hour. What would she think of us?
When I walked in house, I forced back a smile when I saw my father sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. He must have come home from the hospital extra early just to ensure to meet Miss Swan. Esme came whirling into the room.
"Dear? How do I look?" Carlisle looked up immediately at his wife. He must have been pretending to read the newspaper; he never gave anyone his full attention that quickly.
Esme had put on a pair of tan capris, which I thought was character-istically optimistic of her. We hadn't seen the sun in days. She also wore a nice white sweater.
"Beautiful, as always," my father was telling Esme.
"But do you think I'm dressed up enough?" Esme fretted. "Oh, it will be so awkward if they make it all formal!"
"Let's not forget it's the Chases' house we're going to," Carlisle re-assured her. Huh. Nice. So if we were seeing John, it was ok to be sloppy. Well, it was kind of true.
Just then, Carlisle saw me standing at the door. "Son, are you ready to go?" he asked. Yep, he was definitely eager to get over there.
I shrugged. "Not quite. But I don't really have to rush. What would be the point, when I would just have to wait for Emmett and Alice?"
Esme smiled. "That's true. Plus, Annabeth might not even be home from school yet."
Carlisle looked crushed at this. "Oh. Well, yes. Possibly." He went back to reading his newspaper, but I could see that his eyes never moved from one spot on the page.
I shook my head and walked two floors upstairs to my room. Chang-ing into a semi-nicer shirt than the one I wore to school, again I thought about what the new girl would think of Forks. It was sure to be different than Phoenix, although I had never visited Arizona. Still, she was going from coast to coast, or close to it. I would have to ask her why she even moved here. Maybe she could tell me about her old life, and . . .
Stop it, I told myself fiercely. I hadn't even met her, and already I was fantasizing just like that idiot Mike at school. Alice probably didn't even obsess this much over her. To try and clear my thoughts, I walked out of the room and slowly downstairs.
"Edward!" a squeal stopped me. I turned, and was bodily dragged by an excited pixie into her room. "Rose and I just finished picking out what we're going to wear!" she said excitedly, bouncing up and down. "Just wait here for a second, then tell us what you think!"
She zoomed away into her giant bathroom. I sighed and sat down on her huge bed. If I tried to escape, then she would just force me back. It was kind of sad that a small little girl could have that much power. Seriously, I knew people at our school that would run when they saw Alice coming. Lots of people didn't understand her hyper personality; actually, lots of people didn't understand any of us Cullens. We had always been outsiders. I preferred my family's company, anyway, compared to any other. Our class-mates thought we were stand-offish and anti-social, but truthfully it was just that we had grown up together and didn't need any more friends. I would never need anyone else than my family.
Of course, it was a little depressing when we watched movies together. Alice with Jasper, Emmett with Rosalie, that was the way it had always been. It wasn't their fault, and I never told them how I felt over it; I was happy that they all had someone. Maybe I was just doomed to die a lame death of an old geezer. Well, it wasn't quite as lame as dying of a brain freeze.
Just then, Alice burst out of the closet, wearing an outfit I considered toned down for her. I had expected her to go all out, with some kind of prom dress thing. Instead, just a nice skirt and shirt.
"Well?" she demanded when I didn't comment immediately. "What do you think?"
"I'm disappointed, Alice," I teased. "I expected you to go over there like you were dressing up for Halloween!"
She stuck out her tongue at me. "I'm not going to be a princess today."
"Who said anything about a princess? I meant a witch."
"Very funny. I don't know what your definition of witch is, but Esme made me change once already. So I had to work out a whole new accessory set, and fix Rose's as well. The dress wasn't that pumpkin shaped . . ."
I laughed. "I'm glad I didn't see the first one. Where's Rose?"
Alice gestured towards her walk-in closet – bigger than her room. "Changing in there."
As she spoke, the door opened, and Rose walked out of the closet, more dignified than Alice was. She was much more casual than Alice; only jeans and a dressy shirt.
"Rose, I would have thought that you would be overdressing, just like Alice! This is completely uncharacteristic of both of you!"
She shrugged, unperturbed at my accusations. "I don't want to over-whelm her our first meeting. I'll save that for a little later."
I rolled my eyes. "Right. You do that. Let's go see how Emmett and Jasper are doing."
They followed me out the door and down the hall to my idiotic brother's room. I knocked, and entered when told to do so.
Jasper was sitting on the bed, looking harried. Emmett was nowhere in sight. He smiled, looking a bit harassed when we entered.
"Jasper," I greeted him. "You survived."
"Barely," he admitted. "I swear, you are Emmett's role model, Alice."
Alice faked an injured expression. "You say that like it's a bad thing!"
Well, it actually was, but Jasper would never tell Alice that.
"It's Emmett," he responded. "Do you want your immature brother exposed to those types of things? Especially since this is the shirt he wanted to wear."
He held up a white shirt. We all stared in surprise for a couple seconds, and burst out laughing. It was so familiar. We could all remember the day when Emmett bought it. We were in a collectibles store, just buying a present for our father. Emmett and I were fooling around. Then, he picked up a shirt and yelled out, "I WANT IT!" I thought he was kidding. We were, after all, goofing off. So I was cracking up, because the shirt looked exactly like the Puffy Shirt from the Seinfeld TV show. But then he actually bought it.
Jasper was nodding. "You see the problem."
"I was hoping he would forget about it," Alice sighed. "We can't let the horrific thing leave the house. Poor Emmett would never live it down."
"Poor Emmett, my foot," Rosalie scoffed. "You just want to spare yourself the embarrassment.
"Well, duh. Don't forget, I'm saving you from public humiliation too."
Emmett chose that moment to make his grand entrance. "Ta-da!" he crowed, delighted to have an audience. As he burst out of the closet, and posed for us all, his foot got caught on his dresser, and he went tumbling forward to land a hard blow to the ground. Simultaneously, Alice snapped a picture. I laughed.
"C'mon, Em, let's see your amazing outfit!" I said, helping him up.
He bounced up again, completely oblivious to the pretend-he's-not-your-brother looks mirrored on all my siblings' faces. He wasn't dressed too badly; Jasper had done well. When I dressed Emmett, he usually ended up in a skirt of some kind by mistake. Don't ask me why he has a skirt in his closet.
Esme walked in then. "Why Emmett, I didn't know you could look so . . . . normal!"
Jasper sniggered. I had trouble containing one myself. But the girls all had the same dumbfounded look on their faces. Rosalie spoke. "Good job, Jasper! So this will be your job every time!"
Jasper stopped snickering. "W-what?" he choked.
I stepped in. To support Esme's decision, of course. "What she means is, you did so well dressing your color-blind brother, you should do it all the time to help our family keep up appearances!" This ought to get me off Emmett's list.
Jasper started protesting immediately. I didn't blame him. I would have done the same in his place. But I didn't feel guilty. Oh no. I felt free. No more obligations to dress my stupid big brother!
Esme stopped him. "Now, let's go next door, or we'll be late," she reminded them. Again, anxiety batted at me. I sure hoped Miss Swan was what Forks was expecting. I thought again about what Annabeth had been saying earlier today. What was it? Sweet, nice . . . She wouldn't last long with the girls in this town if she had no devil side. They would eat her alive.
I walked downstairs silently beside Jasper. I expected him to be angry with me, so I didn't speak. It was rather unfair to dump the entire responsibility on him, but if I got out of it I wasn't complaining. I would much rather have pinned it on Alice or Rosalie, but then Emmett would come to school dressed like . . . I shuddered. I didn't want to think about it. I was surprised when he started talking to me.
He closed his eyes and shivered. "That was the worst experience of my life. I don't know how I'll survive the ordeal again. Next time can't he just borrow your clothes?" It was true Emmett would be closer to my size, but . . .
I shook my head fervently. "No way, man. No way am I letting Emmett infect my clothes. I'd have to burn them afterwards."
Jasper rolled his eyes, but I knew he knew that I knew that he knew the truth behind my own words. Or something like that.
Carlisle was waiting in the entrance, bouncing up and down nervously on the balls of his feet as if he'd been waiting there for hours. Which was entirely possible and probable. "Shall we take the Mercedes?" he asked us. My answer was yes. I wanted to impress Isabella as much as he did.
"It's just next door," Jasper said, surprised. "We could just walk, right?"
I elbowed him in the ribs, but Alice was saving the day. "No, Jasper, I don't want to ruin my shoes. And my clothes will get wrinkled. And my hair will get messed up." Thank you, Alice. The rest of the family consented a little too eagerly, and I bit back a smile. We were all complete suckers over Isabella Swan.
Carlisle had parked the Mercedes right outside. As close as possible to the house. That was weird. But I could empathize. The six of us squeezed in. It was tight, but I would just be awkward to bring two cars to your neighbor's house. Then I realized Emmett was still standing outside. He knocked on my window, and smiled in blissful ignorance. I groaned. "Do we have to let Emmett in?" There was no way he could fit. Unless he sat on . . . No. No.
Alice, with a lightning-fast move, opened my door for me, and then Emmett was cramming himself in next to me. But a more accurate statement would be on top of. The gratitude I had previously felt towards Alice was now gone. I made a mental note to include her on the noose with Emmett. There will be blood tonight. At least I only had to put up with no elbow room for about thirty seconds.
Carlisle drove off, and soon we were arriving at the Chase residence. It was smaller than our house, but not by that much. They just didn't have a third floor like us. Or like me, rather. I was the only one who ever went up there; I kind of had to. My room was on the top floor.
I shoved Emmett roughly. He tumbled on to the concrete. Ha. Un-believably, he bounced up again. Still smiling. Then again, he was kind of built like a two-ton Barbie cart. If it gets demented (or rocks are thrown at it) it just keeps on rolling. With a stupid Barbie face on the front.
All of us kids who had been in the back seat (not Rosalie; trust her to get what she wanted) smoothed our now-rumpled clothing, all throwing Emmett murderous glares in the process. Our family trooped up to the door. Carlisle rang the doorbell, nervously clearing his throat. As I surveyed them all, I couldn't help but wonder if Isabella would be intimidated anyway. After all, we did have a large family. I wondered how we would look in her eyes. I tried to picture it. Alice was perky. And Rosalie was prissy. And Jasper was . . . a little emo. And Emmett was retarded. Not literally, but almost.
What would she think of me? Or rather, what did I think of me? A hard question to answer. I had never really cared what others thought of me, but this new girl had everyone on their toes. We would just have to see if she could be a potential friend.
Just then, the door opened.