A/N: This is my first Twilight fanfic. I'm desperately in love with the books, I don't know why my devotion hasn't led me to creating a fanfic until this point. The idea came to me almost immediately, I don't know why I haven't thought of it before. FYI: Stephenie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I only own Evie Whitley, Rob, Chloe, Heather, Jules, and whoever else is to come… please, review!
CHAPTER 1: PERFECT
There was a new girl in school.
There was a new girl, and she was a big deal.
I wasn't a fan of hers. The boys practically fell over themselves in their attempts to guide her to classes, to hold her books, to open the door. Even my own boyfriend could be caught ogling her. She'd been here only a week and had already made enemies of pretty much all of the junior females.
She probably didn't deserve to have such a concentration of hatred towards her. I watched her be gracious and kind to everyone, ever so polite. But there was just something about her that repelled me instantly. The way her chocolate brown eyes noticed everything. The way her shining brown curls bounced when she walked, and when she laughed. And the way her skin was so flawlessly pale, just like Snow White. She was too beautiful, too nice, and too perfect.
So when I discovered she'd been put into my class, and seated right next to me, I was a wee bit ticked off.
Renesmee Cullen- known as Nessie- took her seat next to me fluidly, gracefully, and beamed a smile at me.
"Hello there," her voice was musical. Musical. Now I hated her even more.
"I'm Nessie Cullen, nice to meet you." She held a hand out to me, and I discovered that she was wearing white lace gloves. Expensive white lace gloves, an expensive violet satin dress, expensive black heels over slate tights. And, holding her curls back, was a diamond-encrusted headband. Diamond-encrusted. Was this her sick attempt at being subtle?
I ignored the hand. "I'm Evie Whitley. Hi." I looked pointedly at the blackboard and planned to ignore her for the rest of the class, and probably the rest of the year.
Nessie Cullen had apparently moved here to Hanover, New Hampshire with the rest of her family. Her older siblings were attending Dartmouth, and it seemed that the family had followed. That was weird unto itself. When I went to college, my family most definitely was not moving with me. I could only imagine how ticked off her siblings must be- but then again, if they were anything like Nessie, they probably were just so gosh-darn happy. Oh, and there was another thing. She had six older siblings, three girls, three guys, and they were all foster children. That was way weird. Who adopted seven kids?
She frowned slightly, noting my obviously cold dismissal of her, and followed my lead by focusing her attention on the blackboard.
At lunch, as I sat surrounded by my friends, I stared sullenly at her. She was not surrounded by friends. She was surrounded by admirers. There was a cluster of guys at her table, both sitting and standing; but I was annoyed to see a throng of girls included. Traitors. They'd switched to the dark side. If you can't beat em, join em, right? I examined the faces of the traitors and caught one face that I hadn't expected to see.
"Omigod," I gasped to Rob. He was sitting next to me, his head resting on his folded arms on the table, staring at a carton of milk after I'd scolded him for watching Nessie quite obviously. "Rob, Chloe's over there talking to her!"
"Evie, breathe. What, do you think Nessie's going to put her under mind control or something and make her a follower? You are seriously over-reacting to this." He said, his voice bored and his eyes rolling. He caught my icy gaze and immediately returned to analyzing the milk carton.
I didn't think I was over-reacting. I'd always had a natural aversion to the popular kids, it was true. Especially the popular girls. But my hatred for Nessie- beyond her perfection- was her instant popularity. I'd been a "new girl" before. I was Evelyn Whitley, the new girl from New York, the state, not the city. I'd entered into this high school in freshman year, not knowing anyone, when they'd all known each other forever. I felt the sting of rejection and loneliness spot-on. It didn't help that I wore glasses, and braces then. People just refused to see beauty behind such devices. I made friends after a while that first year, such as Chloe, Heather and Jules, and then there was Rob, my boyfriend of two years.
My point: it took me a while to fit in. I earned my friends and position in the social standings- perfectly in between. But Renesmee Cullen only had to walk into the school, and everyone just fell in love with her. They saw her beauty and that was all it took. She seemed to me like a girl who just had everything handed to her. I sat stewing in my anger and reminded myself that my traitorous best friend was over at Nessie's table.
"CHLOE!" I shrieked. She jumped, scattering the popcorn from her bag all over their table. I felt a smidge of satisfaction when I saw a large portion of the popcorn had spilled into Nessie's hair, awaiting the sure-to-come hissy fit from the princess of new-found popularity. She laughed and waved off Chloe's apologies, expertly removing the kernels from her still-lustrous hair. I growled under my breath, stood up, stomped over and grabbed Chloe's arm and dragged her back to my table.
"God, Evie, chill." She protested, and sat in her chair with a huff.
"Chloe. You're acting all buddy-buddy with my nemesis. That's not cool." I glared down at her. Chloe flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder in response and gave Heather and Jules a look. They simply rolled their eyes, much like my nearly dead-with-boredom boyfriend next to me.
"Evie, she can't be your nemesis when you haven't even spoken to her."
"I have," I muttered sullenly, sinking into my chair. "Once."
"Once," she laughed. "Nessie's nice, you know. She's sweet. You should give her a chance."
"Haven't you noticed how freaking perfect she is? That's not normal. She's… not normal."
"Yes, she's abnormally gorgeous, isn't she?" Chloe rolled her eyes again and grabbed the milk carton, taking a swig. I couldn't help but laugh when Rob blinked, his object of fascination suddenly removed from him.
My eyes gravitated back to Miss Perfection and I felt the breath flush out of me. She was looking at me. Like, right in the eyes. And she looked hurt. I gulped and tried to tear my eyes away from hers, but she seemed to hold them. How can she have possibly heard what I said? She's sitting so far away! Then I blinked and managed to look away, but I still felt her looking at me, with that same saddened expression.
*
I walked home from school glaring at the pavement. I didn't live in Hanover, I lived just outside of town, but I still had to walk. It was a long, treacherous walk. There were a lot of hills and stretch of road in the trees that was scarily barren. But I preferred this over riding on the bus, with all of the noisy kids behaving idiotically. That is, I preferred it until the rain began to pour over me. I huffed angrily and pulled the hood of my sweater of my hair, and resumed glaring at the pavement.
I was soaked to the skin and still had at least 20 minutes of walking left when a car pulled up to me. It was the barren stretch of road, the one in the forest. I realized I hadn't even noticed when the pavement disappeared and when the dirt road began. I steeled myself to snarl at the supposedly kind citizen next to me when I noticed how amazing the car was. A silver Porsche. Beautiful. It looked brand-new, completely untarnished. Then the tinted window of the back passenger side rolled down and a familiar face poked through. For the second time that day, the wind was knocked out of me.
"Hey, Evie!" Renesmee exclaimed melodically, "Do you want a ride?"
I blinked at her. Renesmee Cullen wanted to give me a ride home. Nessie Cullen, the abnormally perfect one. I tried to formulate words to answer her, but none immediately came to mind. Then the window of front passenger seat rolled down and I was met with another strikingly beautiful face. But instead of spurning instant hatred, this one spurned on something in me the exact opposite. I felt a blush rise in my cheeks and swallowed hard.
He was gorgeous. Bronze hair and fair skin, and, wait- amber eyes. Amber.
Did everyone in this family look so freaking awesome?!
"Evie, right? I think you should come with us." I caught his eyes flicking behind me, around me, for a split second before returning to look at me. I wondered what could be so distracting.
"W-what? Why?" I stuttered, trying to remember more words than questions.
"Well, because it's pouring rain, and you're in the middle of nowhere. How's that for a start?" Mr. Mind-Blowing replied, the corner of his mouth turned up in a grin.
"I, well, yeah, but, you're kind of strangers. We are kind of taught from birth to avoid rides from strangers, you know."
"I'm not a stranger." Nessie said. I groaned inwardly and remembered that she was there.
"We won't hurt you. We're just giving you a ride home." Mr. Mind-Blowing said, and I felt my resolve abandon me. It was raining…
Before I could convince myself otherwise, I bolted to the driver's side and slid into the backseat. I had just barely shut the door when the car jetted off at a faster speed than I'd ever driven. Warning bells chimed in my head, but I pulled my seat belt on nonetheless.
The guy in the front seat said something quietly to the driver, whom I had yet to see, and I assumed he was asking him to slow down. Wrong. We sped even faster. I glanced at Nessie, seated next to me, and saw her gazing worriedly out the window at the flashing landscape. There was an inescapable air of tension in the car. I gripped my shoulder bag tightly, fighting my nerves.
"Heh," I laughed aloud. I was notorious for being unable to stand tense silences. "Where's the fire?"
Yet another musical voice laughed in the front seat. Female, so it must be the driver. "No fire. I just… feel a need for speed, I guess."
I laughed cautiously, and Nessie smiled slightly, but the edge didn't go away. I suddenly wondered who exactly the people were in the front seat. I assumed they were Nessie's older siblings.
"I'm Edward Cullen, by the way." said Gorgeous Guy in the passenger seat. I blinked, surprised, but glad I didn't have to ask.
"Oh, I'm Bella Cullen." said the driver.
"Evie Whitley, as you've… heard." I figured I might as well introduce myself, too. I remembered my most-hated classmate sitting next to me. She kept on whipping her head around to look out the back window. She seemed so uneasy, like someone was following her, or chasing her. But why would that be?
I glanced back out my window and flinched back, gasping.
"Bella, on the left!" Edward cried.
"Gotcha." She murmured, and we sped even faster.
Nessie had her hands clasped on my shoulders to steady me, but I didn't care. There was someone running and keeping up with us at the side of the road. It didn't even register with me that that should be physically impossible. I couldn't see his legs, they were a blur. All I could see- all I couldn't escape from- were his eyes, blood-red, and fixed directly on me.