Chapter 2:
"Jake? Jake, where are you?" I screamed into the darkness. With my half vampire senses I should have been able to see, like a cat can see in the dark. I couldn't hear or smell anything. Just blackness, a void. "Please, Jake! Don't leave me hear alone, I need you please help me!"
"Ha ha. Oh, poor lonely Renesmee all alone in the dark." I turned my head in the direction of the voice, but still couldn't see anything. The man's cold laugh echoed around me until it hurt my ears.
"He's never coming back to you. Why would he?" The shrill voice of a woman now filled the space.
"No! He loves me he'd never leave me! Jake please, come back! Please?"
"Renesmee? Sweetie, it's time to get up. Yay! First day of school." Alice? Huh, it was a dream; I should have guessed that considering it came just after I feel asleep. "Come on, quick like a bunny. Hop in the shower then I can pick you out something to wear."
Ugh! High School.
"Okay. I'm going. Don't rush me!"I whined as dragged myself out of bed to enjoy my shower as the last private moment left because today I start High School. Then nothing is private. Although, with a family that has super senses and a Dad that can read minds, I've never known privacy.
I let the hot pulse of the water calm me, unsuccessfully, and try to imagine how Jake is now that he is away at college, away from me.
"Come, come now sweetie. You can't hide in there forever." Ugh, Alice. You know for someone who has all the time in the world, she can be quite impatient.
"You know, I think I might be coming down with something. I should maybe just stay home, best not to infect an unknowing public on my first day. Heh heh." I was hoping my cough sounded convincing, but I wasn't holding my breath.
"Oh, Ness. You don't need to be nervous; I've done this a million times. It will be fun. Just you wait." She cooed, before she skipped merrily from the room. I looked over to the bed and saw that she had picked my outfit out already. She chose; a matching light blue lace bra and panties set, a pair of dark denim designer jeans, a black singlet top, a leafy green cashmere turtle neck sweater and a silver rainproof jacket with a fur around the hood.
God she was good! I had way too much on my mind to remember where all my clothes are in my closet, let alone pick out an outfit that matched.
I dressed quickly and found a pair of brown knee-high leather boots sitting at my door. I grabbed the bag that I had packed and repacked in an attempt to put off the inevitable, unsuccessfully.
"Alright, Nessie, I made you Canadian Pancakes. You need to have a good breakfast." Grandma said as she gestured to the steaming plate sitting on the breakfast bar, when I walked down the stairs from the hall to the delicious smelling kitchen. "Eat up, you'll need it."
Yeah, but I'd much rather prefer a mountain lion with maple syrup.
"I'm afraid this will have to do. No mountain lions in the kitchen." Dad said as he strolled into the room, bent over and kissed my cheek. "Good morning, sweetie. How did you sleep?"
Well that's a stupid question you already know what my dream was so why bother asking and thanks for bringing it up again.
"Fine, whatever, just eat your breakfast then we are going over everything again in the living room."
What?! We have already gone over it a billion times. If I can remember it then everyone else can. God! Stupid, detail-oriented, overprotective, high-school-forcing vampires!
"Well, you just sit, vent and eat your breakfast. We'll be in the living room when you're done." He said, with another kiss on the cheek.
I had enough time to get three mouthfuls in, before; Alice grabbed my arm and dragged me down the hall to one of the many overly sized bathrooms in the house.
"Okay, great! Now just the finishing touches." She pulled me over to stand in front of the vanity, so my back was to the mirror. She pulled my hair from its light bun; I had put it in after my shower. She put some product in her hands and then started moving it through my hair. She then applied some eye-shadow and some mascara and a thin layer of lip-gloss. She then stood back to admire her work with a huge smile on her face. "Perfect."
She turned me around to the mirror and I was almost shocked, I wasn't used to wearing make-up because Dad was squarely against it. He said it would get me too much attention. My eye-lids were a lighter version of my sweater, that shimmered perfectly in the light and my lashes were longer than I'd ever seen them. Even longer than when Alice did my make up for Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Sue's wedding. My lips were my natural colour but with a lightly pink lip-gloss covering them.
"Wow, Alice, you are really brilliant at that."
"I am aren't I?" She had her head tipped to the side to inspect me better in the mirror. "Okay we better hurry. We don't want to be late on our first day."
We headed out to the living room, Alice taking her seat next to Uncle Jasper and I sat down next to mum and grabbed her hand. She looked up and smiled at me as she moved a lock of my long bronze curls out of my face and put it behind my ear. I looked up at Dad, standing up and facing everyone as he was obviously hosting this little session.
"Okay. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew the cover story so we can travel to school accordingly." He paused, taking an unnecessary breath, before continuing. "Alice, Bella and Emmett Cullen are Carlisle and Esme's nieces and nephew. You live here because Carlisle's brother and his wife are travelling anthropologists who live in South Africa and thought it best if their children went to High School, instead of being home-schooled." Emmett punched Alice and Mom, I mean Bella, playfully in their arms. "Yes, thanks Emmett. Jasper and Rosalie Hale are twins, their parents died three years ago, and they were adopted by their parents' closest friends, the Cullen's. Renesmee and I, will be Edward and Vanessa Mason, who were also adopted, by Carlisle and Esme, after our mother died ten years ago, we never knew our father who left shortly after Vanessa was born."
That's funny Dad. Don't even want a pretend father figure for me. Yeah, probably raised by my caring older brother. Huh? Cute, Dad, real cute.
"Oh, stop arguing now go get in the car." He said in his stern, Dad voice. "Everyone, come on let's go."
Everyone stood, grabbed their backpacks and headed for the garage. Me, Bella and Edward got into his surprisingly still running Volvo. Dad growled for that one. While the Hale twins, Alice and Emmett climbed into the Beast. This was just Emmett's Jeep that had been remodelled and fixed up many times over the last seven years since my birth.
I suddenly felt sick, and being immortal I never got sick. Oh my God! I think I'm gonna throw up. Maybe I should just stay home. Just for a day or a year or so?
"Ness, if you throw up on your outfit Alice will kill you." Bella said, concern flooding her voice.
"What? Did you read my mind?" I said shocked. "I was just thinking that I might throw up."
"I didn't need to read your mind to tell, your face is paler than mine, I kind of expected you to be nervous and well you're sort of sitting forward enough that it looks like you are about to put head between your legs and vomit into your backpack." She put her hand reassuringly on my shoulders and gave one of the weakest smiles I've ever seen. I guess that was all she could muster through her own nerves.
I took a deep breath and was glad that Mom was there in the backseat to hold my hand on the drive to school. We sat in silence the rest of the way. I didn't trust my voice at the moment but I sent thanks and encouragement to Mom through my palm. She turned back to me and her smile seemed more genuine.
We pulled up to the School and parked in the spot next to the jeep.
"Oh my God! I can't believe we're actually going through with this?"
"Renesmee, when we said that we'd be going to school did you think we were joking?" Dad said, turning off the engine.
"I didn't think we'd go through with it I thought it was just some stupid, flighty idea like Jazz and Em's race around the world or Jake getting a Mohawk." I was whining but I seriously thought we'd get to school Dad would see all the guys looking at me and Mom and decide that we weren't ready.
"Hey! The race wasn't stupid! We were going to go but the timing was wrong and now we have school." Uncle Em opened my door and starting helping me out of the car. "Plus Rose said that if I lost she'd rip my legs off and make me crawl home."
"I was kind of joking." Rose muttered from her leaning position on the side of the jeep.
"Everyone just stop. We're doing this and there is no stopping it, okay?" Alice practically growled.
"Fine." She gracefully bounced over to me, handed me my timetable and gave me a quick peck on the cheek before grabbing Jasper's hand and heading towards the senior classes, followed closely by Rose and Emmett. Rose blew me a kiss and Em gave me and over theatrical thumbs up and laughed himself to his first class.
"Ness, stop worrying everything is going to be fine." Mom might have thought that but she should tell her face because it didn't exactly show that. "We will be in the cafeteria at lunch and if you make friends you can sit with them if you want. But remember we will always be here."
She gave me an almost bone crushing hug and whispered in my ear, "I love you, my darling Renesmee. More than my own life."
I squeezed her hand and gave her a silent, "I love you too." I gave her one last hug and let go. "Go now before you guys spoil my street cred."
I turned to Dad hoping to see that I was joking and wouldn't make a scene, but when I looked at him his face was contorted in anger. Uh oh.
"Edward, are you ok?" Mom was obviously as worried as I was. She reached over to grab his hand but it was clenched in a tight fist, making his knuckles standout white.
"We have to go to class right now or at least leave the immediate area, before I kill somebody and not necessarily just the males." He whispered through gritted teeth. I turned around and first noticed a small group of boys my age quickly turn away. They were staring at me and Bella and by the look on Edward's face there, it wasn't really a stretch to guess what they were thinking. Crap, poor Dad.
"Don't worry, I'll see you guys at lunch." I left, touching his arm calmingly, on my way to my first class. English.
The school looked much larger now that I was walking down the crowded halls to the classroom in the last block. Walking out the door to go towards F block, my destination, I noticed that the school was large enough that anywhere Dad was, there was at least one place I could be where he would not be able to hear me think. This cheered me up greatly, knowing that I could have friends and private conversations with them was a welcome perk to the charade that was High School.
I entered room 105, English. I noticed that it was a small room, large enough that we could fit twenty students in it, but only if packed together really close. I sighed, the room was smaller than my bedroom. Growing up in a life with many privileges, I was going to have to get used to the crowded space in this shabby room for the next three years.
I walked over to the teacher, a small, chubby man with slightly grey hair that was receding alarmingly early. He couldn't have been much older than thirty-five, but his face was worn with laugh lines and wrinkles, I can only assume came from stress.
"You must be Vanessa, the new student?" he asked in a deep and youthful voice, handing me a novel from the pile on his desk and pointed me to an empty seat towards the back of the classroom. Next to a plain, but pretty looking girl with straightened, shouldered, chocolate brown hair.
"Hi." She said sweetly, with a slight tone of French in her voice. "I'm Nikayla Osmune. Vanessa, right?"
"Ness." I corrected her nicely. "Hi, you don't mind if I sit here do you?" She smiled and shook her head. She had perfect white teeth, shining brightly against her olive toned skin. Up close she was not plain, but very pretty; her perfect skin went perfectly with her brown eyes. She was slim with cute shoes and an adorable leather jacket hanging off the back of her chair.
"Cool, thanks. Nikayla, was it? That's a beautiful name." She smiled back sweetly.
"Thanks, I like it too. I think I'll keep it." We both laughed and it was so natural. I instantly liked this girl. This friends thing was going to be easier than I thought.
Let me know what you thought and review!!!! :)
Luv Savvy Cullen xoxo