(A/N)A little lengthy, true, but it holds a lot of information so bare with me. This will be my second story, my first still only in the three chapter status - but this one is more vivid in my mind. Actually, you're looking forward to - as of my planning now - a action-y 30 chapters (I'm excited!) - unless I add more with the help of you, my readers. If you can get past this chapter, which I whole-heartily wish you do - I promise it'll get a little easier to read!

Chapter o1. Only the Beginning

The first image that came into focus was the trees. Having not remembered waking up once after I closed my eyes at the airport, this drastic change didn't really surprise me. Still, I must have been asleep for awhile…I concurred as I shifted position. My neck really hurt. However, the nap really did me good.

Still groggy from my nap, I shifted once more, thinking about what had brought me to this scenery. It had been on Easter of that year that my father and I had sat Mother down and recapped the conclusion that had been decided by those men in the white coats a month before when we had gone in for tests. My father had been tense; my mother cried like the emotional mother I knew her to be, but amongst all the hysterics, my face had not once changed from a calm and withdrawn expression. It was a face of someone you would have thought would be saved for one who was nothing more than bystandard, one who was just sitting there and had no ties to the family - not connected to why - who was so distraught. But I was apart of this. Actually, it was about me. All of this surrounded me. Their pain was the direct response of my fate. Not that I had any choice, at least I thought so, in the matter. It wasn't like I wanted this either. Their reactions were torture enough but it seemed I was in for a lot more pain as it progressed.

Since that day, Mother and Father had been planning what was best for me and I just let them. I had honestly pulled away from everything. They said it was to be my way of dealing with the news, but I knew otherwise. All my friends, my family, people I might meet along the way: they were all going to be affected by this. They would all suffer just like me, but I'd be rid of that pain soon - they wouldn't. The act of being withdrawn made me feel better, made all of this seem less real and more controlled in this environment. In my so called "coping," I would wake up at four in the morning (ten on weekends), take a long shower, get dressed and ready, and either go to school or on my "days off": read, watch movies, or other activities. No one questioned such hobbies. After school I'd sometimes go on walks around town or in the woods. And as I continued being this new self, the parents discussed more and more about what would become of me during those few days before mom was forced to fly back. They could make the plans, they could layout those bricks for me to follow, they could layout my whole life for all I cared - I'd go along with it. I was beyond help by now. Everything I had wanted, what I'd dreamed of, was now gone. There was no more dreaming, no more wishing only to know it couldn't - and wouldn't - happen. I wouldn't do any of it. I would have no more thoughts of all those planned years. In all honestly, I had small dreams of finishing school and going into nursing. After, I was going to find a kind man who would love me and make me feel safe and secure. Then, I would get married with a big white wedding with the lit candles in the trees. There would be a small honeymoon at some small resort and I'd come back to that cliché, but oh-so-lovely, house with the white picket fence, and I'd play the role of wife. Years later I'd be with child. I was going to be a mother, a wife, the happiest person. And now, those doctors crushed everything I had dreamed for. I didn't know anymore, everything was so unclear. And for the first time: I realized how small I was.

The town in which my mother lived, a small town, was called Forks. She had left my father, well - they were never all that happy together - and started her own business in a small town. She felt comfortable comfortable in less crowded towns. It seemed that I had gotten my dislike of crowds from her. I, only nine years old at the time, stayed with my father because they thought it was better to stay with the friends and surrounded by the familiar city I was accustomed to. On holidays, Mom took a plane to the city to spend it with us. I developed this fear of taking public transportation alone and it was easier, and cheaper, for my mother to come to us rather then Dad and I coming to her. She ran a local bookstore on the edge of the city, my mother that is. Which was perfect because when she'd visit, I would always get older books that had been damaged by customers and books on myths that I loved.

By the time I started my Junior year, it being mid-September and all, my mother and father had worked everything out. I was going to move to that sleepy town where the air was clean with the scent of trees and a highly one-sided ratio when it came to land/trees and people. Never had I seen the place outside of backsplashes of pictures of my mom's friends, but I knew I was going to prefer the size over the crowded city. And Mother needed me, another thing I was sure of. My father had done all he could to help me, but with the turn in events, everything about him told me he couldn't handle the demand. Ethan, my father, worked in an office and usually had to work late and the demand of doctor visits and my need of his time when it got worse would be too demanding. My mother could do it, I started to see their linked thinking. And yet, it wasn't just that, that made me agree. Well, I did like that idea of the small town with the space to breath and less mouths to question, but there was something else. I would be away from friends that I made in the city. I'd have a new place to have more control; a fresh start if you will. When I get there, I'd skip making friends. Maybe a few I'd keep for school social life. Mom, however, would surely have made much more plans then just which room I'd sleep in and how lavishly she would decorated it, have food I liked in the kitchen, and what day I'd start school. She wouldn't make it easy for me to try and fly under the radar. While I liked to sulk and forget of my ill fate, she wanted me to explore and have a fullfuilling life. the two did not have a good middle point.

The move was going to be after Thanksgiving. Mom arrived on the fourth Thursday of November and she and I went about cooking pleasantly in preparation for the holiday. Packing was between Thanksgiving and the day before deapature. All those boxes of my clothes, my books and everything else I'd need that my mother had not bought me already were shoved nicely into cardboard moving boxes. Supposedly, mother had been very busy cleaning out what had once been her office to make it a "teenage sanctuary." That Sunday, we were off on the plane with my fretting mother at my side. It being colder weather now, I had came down with a cold. I swore I was fine but Mother never took my word for it. Or it could have also been the fact that this was my first ride on the airplane and even I was feeling the effect. Because I basically thought that the plane was going down and I would die. So, really, I wasn't able to fall asleep like my mom did. I stayed up throughout the trip, staring out of the window at the passing clouds. The sight, well, it did entrance me. However, my heart did that hard pounding in my chest; it still scared me. It seems, you could love something all you wanted, continue to stare, and still be afraid. Meanwhile, I was still clutching at a tissue, blowing my nose every so often. I had taken Dayquil a while before boarding, true, but I think it was wearing off because I was starting to get more tired and the stuffiness made it hard to breath.

It was no wonder that, when I finally stepped shakily on solid ground and then got into the car, that I was suddenly overwhelmed with that weakness. I slipped myself in the passenger side while mom wrestled the carry on luggage. Mine held the necessities seeing as mother hired a small moving van to travel to Forks. They wouldn't arrive for a few days so I would need a few of the important things: a few changes of clothes, my music, a few books, and whatever else I thought I'd need at the time.

When mom sat into the driver's seat, I sunk into my seat, resting my against the cool glass. The beat-up car started up and pulled away. There were a few bumps along the way out of the airport and onto the road and it lulled me into a peaceful nap.

"Resa, you're up," my mother's voice called from her seat.

My real name was Rachel, but mom always called me Resa. She says that she had loved the name but my dad didn't think his child should grow up with such a short name - so mom found a name close to the name she liked so she had an excuse to call me it. I tiredly tilted my head to see her in my vision. She was a lean, nervous-by-nature woman. However, you would never see it unless you were with her like I was. She was a friendly woman who could run a business and still have that friendly nature that kept some customers coming back just for the fact that she was that kind and nice to talk to. At home, though, she fretted over this and that. And now, she was fretting over her child, me.

"Um, yeah," I said, my voice was harsh from sleep so after my two words, I sat up straighter and cleared my throat.

"I should have woken you up." You could tell she was kicking herself for now being 'the right kind of parent.' Even I didn't know what that was. "Now you won't be able to sleep when we finally get you home."

I checked the clock on the radio system. It said it was 9:30. And from the looks of it, we were really close to the home. I could tell why she was worried, though. My father had hounded her with all off the ideas the white-coated men had told us. It was overwhelming, I knew, and I was also a little angry at my father. He worked a lot so he had rarely been home when I was growing up. So, if I had stayed, it would have most likely rested on my shoulders to take care of muself. He had no right to seriously list mother's responsibilities: especially when she was going to hold herself to them and leaving me to comfort her.

"Don't worry, mom, really. I'll take some cold medicine when we get there and I'll do a little unpacking. There's nothing wrong with going to bed late today and sleeping in. I'll get on a acceptable sleeping pattern later."

Not that it had ever been that good. I knew tonight I wouldn't get up as early as usual, but that was fine with me. When I was sick, I usually did have a rather erratic sleeping pattern. And today was only Friday, I wouldn't be going to school for at least a week - what with the cold, the fact that I had to wait for the small moving van of stuff, and my mother wanting me to have a small adjustment period. I wasn't complaining.

She seemed relieved because she smiled. However, I went back to window viewing and now saw houses in the immediate distance and wondered if that was how this town worked: blink - city to trees and blink - trees to town. It was dark so the only light allowing my to see was a few lit porch lights, the little street lights there were, the pale moonlight, and the headlights that shed eerie light over the crumbling pavement. Oh, man, this was nothing like the city.

Minutes later, we pulled into a drive way of an unlit house. From the light of the stars and moon, I could slightly tell the color: a blue faded with age in parts with white trimmings around the doors. It was a modest home, I thought when looking at the home. And through the tiny tour from the front door to her room, it only validated my impression. Still, it was perfect for me.

Mom soon ushered me upstairs and to the last door to the right, conveniently placed next to the bathroom that was across the hall, two feet over. When she opened the door, I saw that it was quaint. We were both waiting for some of my things to fill it out, so not much was placed into the room. There was a twin bed in the middle of the left wall, blanketed with a comforter that was a modest red and gold, designed in a bunch of hollowed boxes intermingled. Two nightstands guarded the two sides were a mahogany wood. The one nearest the door had a lamp colored gold with a red shade. The other had been toped off with a vase holding a single flower. It was only until later that night, when I was in there alone, that I felt it to find it was fake. Which was better in a way, I hated to watching as, day by day, the flowers wilted and died. Off to the side more, held a desk with an achient looking computer. She said it wasn't much but it would handle to school stuff just fine. I liked it though, the idea she had given me my own computer. It was a hassel trying to wrangle the computer away from dad on the weekends back home.

I spent the next week getting over my cold and "settling in" as my mom called it. I can't begin to tell you how many of my mother's friends stopped by to welcome me and how many dishes they brought. You know those cliché television shows when people brought dishes to "welcome you to the neighborhood?" Supposedly, that really does happen in the real world. There were so many sweets, I thought my teeth would fall out for sure. I used to really like sweets, but I haven't had any in so long.

Besides all the greeting, my stuff finally arrived in that U-Haul truck. Mom had asked the help of yet more friends in order to unload it all. She wouldn't even let me help. Instead, she had me sitting on the floor ("where it was warm and didn't call for heavy lifting," as she put it) in the living room for unpacking. Most of the friends were older that stopped by the shop regularly. With the whole small town thing going for Forks, they were all willing to help out. However, there was a boy just a tad younger than me, to stop by with his father. His name was Jacob. Before mom sent him to helping unload, she brought him over where I was literally elbows deep in those packing beady things; I never knew their real name.

He seems nice, though he had a thing about commenting on the number of boxes being carried in. I simply retorted, every time, with a snotty 'humph' and a small smile, and said that a girl liked her things. He just laughed, shook his head, and was gone for the next box. However, he'd come back for a next round.

Still, I feel like that was the first time that I thought I would do just fine here.