This is a story I've started writing a few years earlier, but at one point I didn't know how to continue it and quit.
Now I reread it, and after changing some aspects and rewriting it, I decided to publish it here.
As I'm new at writing and publishing on this site, I look forward to your opinion, good and bad as well.
I hope you'll enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoy writing it.
Please read and review!
Bella awoke with a start. The shadows in her dimly lit bedroom appeared to be cast by the same person who was haunting her dreams since that fateful day, in which her life, up until then the normal life of any girl of her age, changed drastically. Trying to slow her heartbeat, her eyes were drawn to the window, in which the first rays of the new day's sun were slowly invading the stillness of the room. Emerging from the bed, Bella walked to the window and watched the world coming to life in the dawn's light. Trying to come fully awake, she rubbed her eyes, only to discover the tears on her cheeks, the remaining symbols of the nightmare she just woke from.
She came to live with her father, but, although she loved him dearly, had given him only moments of grief and sadness since her moving in. Everything started out fine, they were getting along very well, until that day… That day she would rather forget, but couldn't… And this incapacity to forget is destroying her life, as a student, as a daughter, as a woman. She loved going to school, to meet new people, to befriend them, but she lost all her spirit that day. Now, it was a strain to start a new day, to go to school, to face the people, who, months, years ago, were her friends, to come home again and see the pained expression on his father's face.
Bella would love nothing more than to run away, to put distance between herself and her nightmarish experience, but she knew she can't do this. She had to finish the school first, for having any chance for a new start, but, she knew that this was not the only, nor the main reason for not doing anything reckless, even having though about it several times. Her father was this reason. She couldn't just desert him the way her mother has so many years ago. She knew too well that if she would do something careless, like driving away and never coming back, or something even more reckless, it would kill him. So she put on day by day a good face and tried to live through this period.
The two year since the happening that forever changed Bella's mind, heart and view of the world, had been pure hell for her and her father. Months have passed until the day she could start to be herself again, although a much less confident and brave woman than she was before. Her relationship with her mother had come to a point of no return as it seems, and it saddened her beyond reason. She grew up being often jealous of the relation between her friend and their parents, the ties that bound some of her friend's families together was foreign for her, getting to know the meaning of love, serenity and acceptance after moving back with her father.
Bella saw from the window of her bedroom her father, the sheriff, leaving for work and it bought her back to the present. She ought to get ready for school too. She didn't feel like it, but she knew that she can start missing again, just because her heart wasn't in it. Maybe, just maybe, if her friends would be by her side, the school days could be pleasurable, but as it is, they were keeping their distance now, and Bella didn't know how to reach out to them, and rebuild the friendships that she dearly missed. They tried to be by her side, but there was a time when she was so absorbed in her thought, in her suffering, and the trying to cope with everything, that she pushed away every person who wanted to be by her side. True, her friends never knew the extent of what happened to her. In fact, nobody, beside her family, her father and mother, knew about it.
Bella took a shower and prepared herself for the day to come. She then chose some ordinary clothes from her closet and went into the kitchen for a brief breakfast. While eating and sipping her coffee, she surveyed the contents of the fridge to see what she had to buy for the dinner of that evening. Making a note of the ingredients that she needed to supply for the pizza she had in mind, she took her jacket and went to her car. Driving through the city to get to school, and then back home, was one of her favorite activities of the day. After the happening it became more so, it was the time of the day when nobody was looking at her with curiosity, at school, or with angst, at home. Arriving in the parking lot of her school, she left her car and clutching the strap of her bag, with her eyes in the floor, she made her way to her first class.
The school activities of the day bore Bella. She loved to work in school, it kept her mind occupied, but this day was not her day as it seemed. The subjects were too easy for her, and when she paid attention to the chatter of her schoolmates, she was surprised to hear them talking about the new guys, who started coming to the school the week before. For Bella it was nothing new that they were curious about them, they were about her too, when she first came in here. But after a day or two, when she started making her first friends, the attention subsided and everybody accepted her, never again making a fuss around her. So she was astonished that they still discussing so much about them.
For the rest of the day she listened to the conversations around her, after a long time, really being interested in what was being said. She knew so, that the new kids were the children of the new doctor in town, although they were his and his wife's adopted kids. They were rich and good looking, everybody seemed to think so. Bella just realized that, although they arrived almost a month ago in town, and started the school the week before, she never met them; she was so absorbed in her own world.
Curiosity got the better of her and she started to look out to unknown faces in the crowd, but she failed to lay her eyes on strangers. She listened to two of her ex friends talk about them in English class. They talked about how handsome the boys were and, although said with a little envy, how beautiful were the girls. As Bella understood, they were six, three boys, three girls. As she continued to listen while pretending to read the book that lay open in front of her, she discovered that they seemingly were lovers too. Bella couldn't begin to comprehend, although it was legally alright, how two people who grew up together can look at each other with something more than friendship and brotherly love. She thought about Jacob, her best friend, whom she knew from before the divorce of her parents, and with whom she reacquainted after moving back to his father. She couldn't even make herself to think or look at him as a man, he will always be the boy who made her take part in exciting adventures and laughs when they were kids, and who stood behind her when her world came to pieces around her. He was her best friend, her brother, and she was so grateful to have him in her life.
When the time for lunch came, Bella went to the canteen with the rest of her schoolmates and after buying something to eat, she sat down at a lonely table in the back of the hall. This was the favorite time of her and her friends back in the good days. She now sat almost every time alone and sometimes glanced at the table occupied by her friends. They were laughing, joking and passing a good time just as ever. It was the first time in months when Bella paid attention to the rest of the people in the canteen, while she waited her chance to see the new ones about whom she heard so much already. While surveying the hall, she discovered that some friendships ended in the last months, that new loves had blossomed and that everybody was living the time of their life's, in this year, before entering in the last year of childhood and total freedom.
In the canteen it became suddenly so quiet, that Bella, who usually lived in her own private world, realized it was something important happening. The heads of all of her colleagues were on the door, so she turned her eyes in that direction too. And there they were, the new arrivals, who kept the whole school in a buzz, and it was obvious to everybody, that they indeed were lovers.
First, a beautiful blonde girl and a strong looking man walked in the canteen. The woman was probably the most beautiful one Bella ever laid her eyes on, and she knew it. In the way she walked, the way she looked at the faces staring at them, the way she smiled, like she was the queen of the world, there was a posture and a confidence Bella could only ever dream about. The boy was holding her hand, and a huge grin was playing on his face. It was plain to see, that the first and most important thing for which he was so smug, was because of the woman walking alongside him proudly.
After them came a pair totally opposite. The girl had a lovely smile on her face, and although she maybe wasn't as beautiful as the blonde goddess, she beamed with such pleasure that one was easily wrapped around her finger. She was short and slim, and her short black hair indicated playfulness and elegance at the same time. She was holding hands with a guy equally handsome, but much more serious, than the ones Bella observed before. He was surveying the room as he was seeking for some sort of danger. He was holding the little girls hand and when he looked at her it was plainly written on his face the deep love and need to protect her. Bella saw that the girl looked in her way, and her smile became even bigger, although she couldn't understand why. They never met before.
Her trail of thoughts was forgotten though when she glanced at the next guy. He was walking alone, without holding the hand of the girl who came in with him. He was the most handsome man she ever laid her eyes on. He was tall, muscular but not a hunk, with bronze, unruly hair. He walked without looking up, and it seemed he was deep in his thoughts. Beside him was a beautiful girl with strawberry blonde hair, who was looking at him with longing. They didn't appear to be in love with each other, Bella thought, and she was surprised that she cared about such trivialities.
They all sat down together at a table and started a conversation. They were deeply entertained, all, except the little girl and the guy with bronze hair. The conversations at the other tables of the canteen started again too. Only Bella kept staring at the new family. The girl with the short hair was smiling with undiluted happiness and kept glancing at the table Bella was sitting at. Bella just couldn't understand why was this, but she had such a joyful expression on her face, that unwittingly, Bella smiled back at her.
The guy who drew Bella's attention when entered the hall was the total opposite of her, he sat without participating in the conversation, and appeared to be fuming over something silently. Bella didn't understand how and why she kept glancing at him, as though he was attracting her attention in some way. It was unusual for her to be this interested in somebody lately, so it was a new situation and emotion she had to deal with. As she was pondering about this, he abruptly raised his head and glanced in her direction. Their eyes connected over the fuss of the canteen and the world seemed to come to a stop for them. Bella was lost in the depths of his unusually beautiful gold eyes, which told her so much and at the same time so little about this man. She tried to avert her eyes a few times, but their eyes just kept seeking each other in the crowded canteen.
The lunch break finished and a little lightheaded and not fully understanding her own emotion, Bella went to her next class, biology. It was her favorite subject in school, and wanting to become a doctor, it was one she needed to master. As she was walking to the class, she kept thinking about the unusual new family. They had something strange about them, they were so very different, but the same in some way, it was disconcerting. Bella just couldn't point to the aspect which made them so unique and it frustrated her not to be able to fully comprehend this. She didn't paid attention to her surroundings, so she was startled when she glanced up in the biology class and saw the guy who drew her attention in the canteen sitting at her desk. She usually sat alone since her friends tired of her standoffish attitude.
The guy had a kind smile on his face and was looking at Bella with genuine interest. She closed the remaining distance between herself and her desk, and the guy, and after a few moments sat down beside him. She was nervous, she couldn't fully understand why, he didn't seem pose a threat, and with the smile on his face he tried to tell her that everything was alright. But her past experiences taught her to be careful with strangers, and she couldn't slow her heartbeat. But was it all just because she was a tad bit scared of him? Or was it more? Bella was thinking about her feelings, trying to analyze why was she so nervous around him, and why was she intrigued by him in equal way while she searched for her biology book in her bag. After she found it and set it on the desk, she saw a slow movement beside her, indicating that the guy turned to her. Bella glanced in his direction and saw that he wanted to start a conversation with her.