IMPORTANT NOTE: This story Origionally Belong to brunette-in-black (it was Ella Cullen, check it out, it's really good). She has discontinued it, so I adopted it. This is HER Story, revised and continued by me. I'll tell you when the credit belongs to me. This is NOT her story verbatum - I've changed it and mixed it up just a bit for some foreshadowing.
Any questions press the button. I dont know what you think until you comment! (BTW, I heart answering flames, so go ahead, if thats what you feal.)
Thanks
Bella Citron
Chapter One
In wich we meet Elizabeth Cullen.
Sixteen Years And Ten Months Later...
Bella POV
I lounged beside Edward on the couch, examining our intertwined hands and the ring that adorned mine while the television entertained itself with a romantic comedy. It was one of those movies where a man meets a woman, and through impossible circumstances, the fall madly in love and live, well, they live happily ever after. In New York City to boot. Now, knowing what I do, and living the life that I have, it seemed somewhat… shallow. I wasn't watching, too preoccupied by the fluttering heartbeat that sung to us all from the living room below. I traced that veins that showed clearly through Edward's granite skin, the ones that now flowed with venom instead of blood. I moved my gaze from our intertwined hands to his face. Bellisimo. That's what he taught me. An exclamation of beauty in Italian. Our visions for the future had become a reality.
One of those visions, now veracity – our daughter Elizabeth Marie Cullen, walked past the door. She was looking for something again.
We call her Ella. She has already become a young woman, too fast grown. She's seventeen now, the age that Edward appears to be, which poses more than a few problems. I can remember holding her in my arms, just a darling bundle of titan curls and blue eyes. Time seems to fly, I muse, when one doesn't age. We adore her, and who couldn't. She seems like the… perfect daughter.
I can feel Edward's hand twitch under mine in annoyance. He knows where it is, what ever she's looking for, but how couldn't he? He has access to the innermost thoughts of everyone around him, except for me of course… and her, which poses a few more problems. As if we didn't have enough.
When we walked together in town, arm in arm, Ella and I, I see several boys eyes wander to her face, but more often her figure. It infuriates Edward, but just makes me giggle along with her. She is gorgeous, her eyes pools of glowing topaz. Her hair is just like her father's, so much so that Emmett had nicknamed her 'Edwina' before I … intervened. Her pale skin, so much like mine used to be, reflected her ancestry and her aristocratic nose.
It seems like it could have been yesterday that she was five years old, clutching to Edward's hand in front of a class of kindergarteners. We haven't moved since then, for fear of crippling her social skills. A few yeas back, we had decided that it might just be time, and she had set us in our place. 'That's alright - you all can go I'll just stay here with Sophia' She is much more bold than I ever was, I guess that's all her father.
Edward POV
Elizabeth - my beautiful Ella… She is my pride and joy. She's also the biggest pain in my ass. Not that I'm saying she's not the perfect child, if that's what you would call her now. She's intelligent, and witty, creative and well spoken. But those qualities, as good as the may seem, don't redeem her of her adolescence. She blasts music through the house as if we could hear like humans of out actual age - In essence, music to wake the dead. While blasting her music, she sits calmly in her room, painting. It's as if she needs to be surrounded by chaos to create works of serenity. This probably explains the state of her room.
When she was little we were forever following her around, cleaning her messes – putting dirty clothes in predetermined bins and shoving toys into cubby holes on the wall. I still sometimes do it, despite protests. When she would wake up from a nap, she would cry and cry because her room was clean again. As a whole, the Cullen clan has decided to stay away from the diminutive pink and crème war zone that was her personal space. Today, it's the same, except that the pink and crème war zone has morphed into a modern white room with spatters and murals in oil paint on the wall, and its inhabitant has forsaken the skirts and frocks of childhood and changed into something even I can't recognize.
I find it quite amusing that she can even fall asleep with the music blasting that loud. A nuclear bomb could explode and she would sleep through it. Although this might be selective hearing because whenever she's asleep and any of us say something we don't want her to hear she always does.
At home, at school, and in public, she always seems to be the point of concentration. Her teachers love her. It seems funny to me that she is as reluctant to accept the numerous invitations to dinner, dancing, and somewhat… indecent activities from boys. And then again, these invitations are not amusing to me. They are shallow, based on shallow hopes and desires. She is worth more…
Ella POV
My eyes are glazed over as I gaze out the window into the constant mist that seems to forever envelope Forks. I imagine shapes in the mist as Sophia copied the diagrams on the board with the cold ferocity of those possessed by a bad grade in my peripheral vision. I blink. The trees outside are covered with a hundred years worth of moss, exuding the pungent fragrance I have come to associate with Forks High. The short man standing in front of the room spoke on in a monotone voice that managed to vibrate his toothbrush mustache. I looked into the woods, looking for something to free me from the manacles of this outrageous boredom. I kept my eyes open until they burned, staring into the dense mist. Suddenly, something black and white flashed through the trees. I leaned back into my chair suddenly and gasped. The teacher stopped and looked at me with that 'oh, shut up, will you?' look.
"Miss Cullen, would you be so kind as to answer numbers one through three?" the mustache twitched in revulsion.
"Um, well…"
The bell rang, and I got up quickly, giving him a forced smile.
"Sophia Weber-Cheney you better haul ass." I whispered to her in embarrassment her as we crossed the threshold. The halls were crowded as we made our way to biology.
I liked Sophia. She was quiet, but she was real. I have never caught her giving dirty looks or exchanging snide remarks. She thinks she's plain, but there's something in her that I can see, something that shines out of her eyes that makes her beautiful. Prefect eyebrows and high cheekbones help, though.
The best part is that she knows exactly what I am and there is no need to hide it. She knows the whole deal that I'm half-vampire, that none of the family I live with ages, that my mom and hers were best friends when they were in high school and that both of my parents – well my dad looks the same as he did then. I guess it was just fate.
Though she exchanges no snide remarks, Sophia, she knows how to take care of herself. She's been my partner in crime ever since we met in third grade. Secrets have weaved a strong bond between us.
"Ella, you know I really need these classes. Can you help me study, please?" her eyes pleaded with me and made me cave.
"Well, its Friday and our movie night. If you want you can stay over Saturday as well and we'll hit the books." I willed the scowl from my face. Teaching this stuff was more interesting by half, than having it rammed into my head in a monotone-voiced fool, but it was still boring as hell. "And it wouldn't hurt if we watched a flick or two…" I said, succeeding in adhearing a toothy grin to my face, "Have you seen that new Tim Burton animation?" I asked, knowing she hadn't and was dying to.
She smiled a huge 'you're the best' smile and gave me a quick hug before walking swiftly to her seat. The teacher began his dull lecture and I sunk into a dream state, imagining the how the tendrils of mist that caressed the trees in centuries old dance would look in oil paint.
I jumped in my seat when the bell sounded; swiping myself with an open blue marker I had forgotten I was holding. I shoved the cap on and tossed into my bag, pawing at the image of the trees shrouded in mist I had drawn on the whole grimy white desk in my trance. It was surreal, my hand coming down on my thought. The marker only smudged a bit. Damn it, I thought, sharpie…
Sophia, seeing what I had done, snorted with laughter. With a withering look, telling her to pay no notice to it, I fled the class room, Sophia close behind.
My assigned locker was on the other side of the school from Sophia's, where we now stood, but with a little sweet talking and a wink or two, I had convinced the depraved Matt Newton to trade lockers with me. He was happy to oblige, but dropped in every once and a while - like he did now. He comes with a show of masculinity – punching his companion in the face as a dismissal, looking strait at us with a 'come hither' look, whipping off his letterman jacket and tossing it over his shoulder and running his hands through his over jelled hair, probably getting the expensive goop all over his hands. Some girls down the hall titter and giggle, whispering behind hands. I grimace. This sort of behavior seemed to attract some girls, but…
Of course, his little show left little time for sweet talk, so he got right to the point, "So, the semi formal…," he gives an eyebrow waggle, "It's in two weeks."
"I'm aware," I said, mentally cringing. I had to do something fast. I looked around, and saw the tail lights of the silver Volvo, my saving grace. "Soph, look, it's my dad's car! Oh, what a bummer, sorry mike, gotta head out…"
I grabed Sophia's wrist and ran towards the car at a sprint, going just a bit too fast.
"Hey, you want to go with me?" He called after us.
I kept my head down and whispered surreptitiously to Sophia, "Oh golly! Little ol' me?" She stifled her giggles.
"Let me think!" I called.
We clamored into the car and dissolved into a mess of giggles in the back seat, laughing so hard Sophia had an asthma attack. This only made us laugh harder, nearly crying from the ache in our stomachs.
My dad looked at us somewhat disapprovingly, raising an eye brow.
"Hi dad." A smile.
In the garage, we stumble out of the car, holding our sides.
"That Newton boy asked you to the semi-formal. How… appropriate," he said, cracking a smile. It was no secret that Matt's father, Mike, had taken an extreme liking to my mom before she and my dad had gotten together. "I guess its safe to assume from the giggles that he'll have to find another young lady to escort."
I rolled my eyes. " Yes, It's safe to assume that."
I had communicated often the troubles I've had with Matt Newton. In the third grade, my scalp was constantly sore from his pulling my hair. From there, it's just been downhill.
He leaves, a blur of iron skin and casual clothes. I look at the downpour and grimace. Sophia grabs her pack, and I grab her other sholder like we're posing for a picture, and run – way too fast for a human. I smile when I come to a stop on the veranda.
Sophia runs her hand through her hair, now slightly damp, " I don't think I'll ever get used to that…"
"Neither will I."
I put my hand on the door knob, and it swings open, startling the both of us.
It's Uncle Jasper, and his eyes are black. He grins, and tugs us in.
"Hello my dears." he says, his smile sanguine. "We're going on a little trip, and your little party looks like it's going to be unsupervised. Now look here girls, no boys in the house that you mind being eaten," he says cheerfully. We giggle at this, but I was uncertain whether or not this is a joke. It doesn't matter though, it's not like I have someone of the opposite gender to invite to a sleepover, anyway.
"Don't worry, Matt Newton is all yours."
Sophia and I climb the stairs three at a time, Uncle Jasper's giddiness contagious. We race down the hall and open a purposely paint splattered door on the left. The doorknob is warm from the paint-print I had made with my hand a few years ago. The room itself was white, or was originally. The air was filled with the faint smell of turpentine and the rainbow paints that I used to paint – on canvas and, when an idea struck me, on the hardwood floor, walls, and ceiling. I crouched behind my easel, turning on a classic song at a volume my father would approve of. I pulled a stack of movies from the video store in Port Angeles from beneath the flat screen TV that hung on the wall opposite from my bed. It was a gift from My Uncle Emmett. I spread the DVD cases into a fan and showed them to Sophia.
"What first?" I asked, leaning against the massive bookshelf built into the far wall, opposite of the glass one that covered the entire back of the house. When I stepped onto the plastic sheet that covered my bookcase while I was painting, it crackled, reminding me of snacks.
"Snacks!" she said, mirroring my thoughts. We jumped up and ran down the stairs, rummaging through the cupboards.
