1. Arrival
The trees are flying by as I'm racing down the highway.
'I'm near', I think, pleased. 'And when I find them, I'm finally gonna kill them!'
I woke up to the sound of shattering glass. Immediately, I put my hand under my pillow and scanned my surroundings. My heart was racing and adrenaline was rushing through my veins.
Then I stopped.
What the heck was I doing? Why was my first reaction to a loud noise to try and grab a weapon? And why did my brain assume I had a weapon near me? Especially underneath my pillow!
No matter how many times I woke up like this, my body's natural reactions still surprised and also greatly confused me.
This dream was one I had had multiple times in the last two or three weeks.
It was always the same one, too. Sometimes the scenery that was rushing by the car windows changed from the desert to a forest or to an abandoned town, but the rest, the violent thoughts and the interior of the car always stayed the same.
Right now, though, I had better things to do than ponder over a silly recurring dream. And the shattering glass was nothing to worry about, either, Mom had probably smashed something while storing the dishes into the cupboard.
That thought instantly made me feel a bit sad. I knew I would miss my mom a lot. Today was the day I would be moving in with my dad so that Mom could be happy traveling with Phil. She had told me that it wasn't necessary, but I wanted to do this for her, since she never really had the opportunity to travel around without me to worry about.
Being a single mom was a full time job and now that I was almost an adult, I wanted to give her back some of her freedom.
She never had a honey moon vacation either, since Dad had already been working as a police officer in Forks by the time they got together and he couldn't take a lot of time off.
Apparently there had been a staggering amount of animal attacks during that time, even though Forks usually was one of the safest towns I knew.
Forks was a dull place, always cold and wet and far too green for my liking, but for some inexplicable reason I was excited to go. I didn't remember too much about the summers I used to spend there. There were some faces I could remember, like Billy Black from the rez, but since I always made it clear that I was forced to be there I had never really made friends in Forks.
That wasn't too bad though, since it meant I could have a fresh start.
I fell asleep on the plane.
My dream was different this time. Charlie, my dad, was there with me. That had never happened before. Usually, I was alone or with some dark, shadowy figures that gave off a dangerous vibe.
We were sitting on small, uncomfortable beds in a cheap-looking motel room surrounded by tons of guns of various sizes, cleaning and reloading them.
The weirdest thing was that I felt happy. I was sitting between weapons made to murder people and I was happier than I ever was, laughing at a joke Dad made.
Nowadays it was normal for me to be totally confused when I woke up. Usually this kind of dream was just me driving a car or running through a dark alley.
Also, my dad and I weren't what you would call close since I had always told him how I hated spending time with him in Forks.
It only then dawned on me that my dad was supposed to be a cop and that he had been totally okay with him and me being buried in guns in that dream.
Of course I knew that my dad was no stranger to handling guns, but I definitely was. The quiet confidence I had felt during that dream was honestly scaring me. What would need to happen for me to become so comfortable around guns?
After this dream I also felt this strange pull when I thought about Dad, some sort of deep connection I had never felt before.
I didn't even have to remind myself not to call him Charlie anymore.
Considering my usual clumsiness, I had expected to stumble out of the plane, like I always did, but strangely I didn't even trip once.
Come to think of it, my clumsiness had almost disappeared over the last two weeks or so...
Since the dreams started.
That was something I would have to test more thoroughly later. Did this mean I would not have to constantly embarrass myself during gym class anymore? I really hoped it did, because I actually enjoyed working out. I had attended some of Mom's yoga classes and they had been really great. Yoga was surprisingly exhausting if you did it right.
Dad was excited to see me, but obviously very surprised when I initiated a hug.
We both usually weren't comfortable with general touching, but at that moment it just felt right.
The ride home was a bit awkward, just like I had imagined.
But then, Dad told me about the car he had found for me, a Chevy truck.
The car I drove in my dreams was a Chevy truck, I remembered. That was enough for me to already love the car, without even having seen it.
For some reasons, stats about the truck were running through my head, as well as tips on how to fix cars.
At first I thought Dad was telling me these things, because the voice certainly sounded a lot like his, but when I looked over, his lips weren't moving.
That was weird.
Dad's house still looked exactly the same.
He hadn't changed my room much, only added a bigger bed and an old computer. That would be the first thing to go, I thought... This computer looked like it belonged in the Stone Age! The room itself was fine for now, though I wanted to remodel a bit if I planned to stay here longer.
The first thing I did after unpacking all of my stuff was take a shower, afterwards I sat down on my bed.
Honestly speaking, I had expected to feel miserable. Obviously, I already missed Mom, but the urge to cry that I had been waiting for simply didn't come.
Instead, I was itching to take my new baby out for a ride. But where to?
Maybe I could pay Billy Black a visit and thank him for the truck.
Dad thought that was a great idea and immediately called Billy.
We got invited over for dinner.
The truck didn't run quite as smoothly as I was used to from my dreams and the color was wrong, but I was confident I could fix it.
Billy welcomed me like a long-lost daughter, which seemed strange to me at first, because I hardly remembered him, but then again I had spent a big part of my holidays in La Push.
He told us that Jacob was the one who had actually fixed up the car, so he and I went outside while Dad and Billy watched a baseball game.
Holding a conversation with Jacob was pretty easy, once I ignored the fact that he was definitely trying to flirt with me. Besides the fact that he was most definitely not my type, he was also too young for my taste.
I steered the topic towards cars and asked him about a few parts I knew I needed. He had everything in the garage and we started taking apart my baby.
We were just finished when Dad came back out and said that we should be going.
Before we left, I had Jake promise me to help repaint the truck, because the washed out red really wasn't pretty to look at.
I didn't dream that night, probably because I was so exhausted.
Dad wished me good luck on my first day of school, but I doubted that wish would come true. I might have started being less clumsy, but that didn't necessarily mean I had become any luckier. I'm also not what you would call a social person, I actually hated being around people, especially strangers, for long periods of time.
My personal space bubble just couldn't handle it.
Finding the school was fairly easy, with Forks being not all that big to begin with.
School itself was bearable. Most people just stared at me, a few were brave enough to talk to me.
Some seemed a bit intimidated by me, which I couldn't quite understand. I certainly didn't look threatening in my blue plaid shirt, slightly ripped jeans and black sneakers, did I?
Eric, Jessica and Mike were three of the people who had introduced themselves to me and, naturally, when lunch break came around, they dragged me along to their table.
At least I got to sit next to Angela, a rather shy Latino girl, who was apparently the only person not interested in interrogating me.
She started a conversation about the different subjects I had, warned me about some teacher's antics and so on.
That was when I first saw them.
Jessica had mentioned the Cullens briefly and there really was no mistaking them.
Five kids who all looked like they could be in college already.
They all were drop-dead gorgeous, especially the blonde girl.
When I asked Angela about them, she told me their names, quietly enough that Jessica wouldn't hear us.
Some of the names were a bit unusual, some could even be called old-fashioned.
I was still looking at them when the bronze-haired one – was it Edward? - turned towards out table and glared at me. It was an annoyed, frustrated glare, which led me to believe that I was not the cause for his glare and just had the unfortunate luck to sit in his line of sight.
Our eyes met briefly, then he looked away.
That was when my brain short-circuited.
They looked too beautiful to be human, they just sat there without touching their food and when the short-haired girl named Alice left, she moved incredibly fast.
My brain was shouting at me: 'They aren't human! They're dangerous!'
I was shocked by my own thoughts. Why did I have such a violent response?
They could just be very good-looking kids that apparently weren't hungry and could move very fast while still looking graceful.
But something told me I was on to something.
Trusting the bad feeling in my gut, I studied them a bit more closely.
They seemed to behave like most other students, the blond one was the only one sitting very stiffly, as if he wasn't used to this environment. He probably wasn't.
They all had different hair colors, and they were too far away to make out their eye colors, but all of them had relatively dark eyes, most likely brown.
Lunch break was over and I walked to my next class with Angela.
God must hate me.
One of the Cullens was in my biology class – and next to him was the only empty seat available in the entire class room. Of course. I had to stop myself from snorting when I realized this.
Maybe the other students also had a weird feeling around the Cullens and steered clear of them because of it.
At least now I knew what color his eyes were. They were pitch black.
'Demon' was what my brain supplied, but I knew that wasn't it. He was something else.
It didn't even occur to me to think that I was going crazy, because those things aren't real. Demons are creatures from fictional stories and mythology, they don't exist!
Edward Cullen was glaring at me angrily, as if he was trying to burn a hole right through my skull. While half-paying attention to the teacher, I made a checklist in my mind of all the things that stood out to me.
There were his eyes and the dark, bruise-like shadows underneath them.
His pale skin was even lighter than mine and I'm practically translucent.
His old-fashioned name. Who the hell would name their child Edward? On the other hand, considering some celebrity babies, I thought that Edward was far from the worst thing parents could call their children.
He hadn't eaten anything at lunch.
The fact that he didn't seem to be breathing.
He and his siblings seemed to purposefully distance themselves from the rest of the student body.
And lastly, the coldness that radiated from him. Usually people were warm, they radiated heat, but I felt like I was sitting next to an ice block.
Edward Cullen left the class room as soon as the bell rang and he also moved faster than I had thought possible.
That was another thing I had to add to the list. They were fast and graceful, and Edward definitely gave off a predatory feel.
Gym wasn't as bad as I had feared.
Mainly because I didn't have to participate today, obviously.
But I actually anticipated the next day, when I would be able to join the others.
I actually felt the urge to exercise nowadays and had even considered finding a gym in Port Angeles or maybe Seattle to go to in my free time.
On the other hand, fixing the truck was a lot of hard work and I wanted to get that done first.
I didn't let the incident with the secretary ruin my day. Edward surely had a better reason to try and trade his biology class to another time.
After getting some groceries and making dinner for Dad and myself, I collapsed on my bed and fell asleep almost immediately, not even the slightest bit bothered by the constant sound of raindrops hitting the roof.