Edward is my brother - and tomorrow comes the easter-bunny
When I woke up this morning I was dripped with sweat.
A nightmare. And that even without monsters.
How anyways? In my life there hadn't been monsters.
What other people had put down as 'monsters', had been totally normal to me.
At the very top of the general monster-list of ordinary, utterly normal people were probably wolves with a shoulder height of over five feet.
Nothing special. For me, at least.
I was still a bit groggy when I stepped into the shower. It was good to feel the warm water running down my white skin. I thought of the dream of the previous night again.
As it was with almost every dream I just remembered it fragmentally. I could remember many faces. Loads of people who were staring at me. Many were pointing fingers at me. Some were looking at me suspiciously and the others were laughing at me.
Just terrible.
When my family told me some time ago that I would have to go to school shortly I wasn't bothered by it. There was still time until then. A clear case of repression.
But now I was on the very point of doing it and in a few hours I would face my nightly reveries in the reality.
Until now I hadn't really much to do with humans.
Of course I hadn't been able to go to any kindergarten or school when I was younger.
The reason for it was simple - I would have attracted too much attention. But now I was old enough.
Well, old enough in the spiritual sense.
In human years I was merely seven years old.
But I looked like seventeen. And I will probably never look older than seventeen. This suspicious has my family at least. Will it prove true? We will see.
Still a bit woozy I ran the stairs down into the kitchen. As always Emmett sat in front of the TV. He didn't deign to look at me. Well, the TV was more interesting of course.
I tore open the fridge. Butter, cake, steaks, eggs, coke, something that had distant similarities of a pig (or a piece of it).
Christ, what do have such a full fridge for and this with just two people living here, who were actually eating something of it. Finally I found my bottle. It just figures that he had thrown into the furthest corner. I rolled my eyes enervated, removed the cap and took a big gulp. Gorgeous. 0 negative, the best which my taste buds would ever get to taste.
"You should better apportion your bottle."
I turned around surprised. Rose was leaning against the kitchen unit just next to the dishwasher.
"Do you always have to appear out of thin air, Rose?"
She smiled at me as she suddenly stood beside me and closed the fridge.
"I'm serious Nessie. You know exactly that you have just one bottle per week."
Still enervated I started to close the bottle now.
"Yeah, unfortunately. And then it is always so difficult to find between all this garbage in there."
She giggled.
"Don't resent Fido for this. He doesn't like it when you're drinking blood. He'd rather see you slinging down a plate of pasta - or ten - with him."
"Fido," I imitated her, "Can't you just leave this stupid pet name out?"
Apparently she believed it would be better not respond and simply continued looking at me.
"If you think so, Rose. Where is he anyways?"
She shrugged.
"Okay," I answered, put the bottle into the fridge again and plodded into the living room where meanwhile Esme had joined Emmett. However she wasn't as attired in the program as Emmett and got up instantly when she saw me.
"Good morning, Renesmee" her finely tuned, always gentle voice rang out. "I hope you're well rested. Today is your great day."
"Yeah, very great."
"Oh, come on," she tried to cheer me up while she plucked at my shirt, because she believed it didn't fit right. "You'll see it will be great and you'll meet new people. After all that's something, isn't it?"
This time it was me who remained silent.
Barely half an hour later I stood fully equipped down in the entry hall of our mansion. Esme, Rose, Emmett (yes, he had been able to break away from his plasma TV), Alice, Jasper and my Mom were there as well.
Carlisle was at work, my Dad already at school and with the third missing person nobody knew where he was.
"Come on, you can do this," said Alice with a gentle smile on her lips.
I knew this wasn't such a sure answer as she usually was able to give. All the other answers were mostly correct, but everything that affected me or Jacob was shrouded with uncertainty for her and so her answers were exactly the same ones like the rest of them gave me.
An assumption and just to bolster me up and take away my fears.
Apparently that was written all over my face.
"Oh, honey. When I had my first day of school at that time in Forks, I haven't felt comfortable as well," my mother told me with her chiming voice. "But after all I have met your father this day and because of that this one of the most important days of my life, aside from your birth."
I tried to smile back weakly and somehow it even worked.
"Thanks Mom. I'll do my best"
I crossed my finger symbolically to myself and stepped outside.
As Alice had foreseen for Carlisle and Dad before, the sun wasn't shining.
And though it apparently tried to come out, it was always balked by a curtain of clouds at the sky.
With a funny feeling in my stomach area, I walked to my car. It was even whiter than my skin or the snow which was still lying at some spots on the ground. It was at the end of january and the icy cold had to make way for the spring.
It was no problem at all for me to find the school.
On the contrary: I wished my sense of direction would have failed so miserably just this one time, that I wouldn't even have to lie to my family if I told them that I didn't find the building.
Even when I already saw the sign and turned around the corner onto the parking lot, I urgently hoped that the school had vanished. Blown up. Spirited away? Knocked down by mistake instead of the real dilapidated building on the other end of the railroad track?
No. The building stood there. As steady as a rock. Unfortunately.
With a bitter sigh I took my bag from the passenger seat, opened the door and stepped up to the entrance.
I let my gaze wander around the grounds. Actually it didn't look so bad. Who knows, hadn't there been the nightmares, maybe I would have been happy to be here, at a school which didn't seem to radiate anything bad.
With a light pressure on the button of the car key, I locked the central locking of my car and entered the hell.
I felt as my heart, which was anyway beating faster than a human heart did, beating faster and faster as I followed the secretary, who had welcomed me at the administrative office, to the class room.
As far as I had understood her, the class was just having a lesson with a certain Mr. Austin. Ironically, they were just having Biology, which made me smile somehow after all, even if it was just a slight one - which evaporated immediately as I finally stood in front of the class.
I had counted fifteen. Fifteen young pairs of eyes, which were directed to me at this moment. Up to now it had only be possible for someone to really look at me while I was shopping with Alice, Rosalie, Esme or my mother. Apart from that I had always lived in secret. Well, our family was big, but nothing compared to the public. At least nothing compared to this public. This kind of public where I was in the focus of attention. Me, the new one.
It was the teacher who interrupted my thoughts in the end.
"Miss Cullen, don't you want to introduce yourself?"
No, I want to leave if you don't mind.
"Of course."
All of a sudden the look on the fifteen faces in front of me had changed. I had the impression that my voice somehow influenced them. Did they consider it so beautiful, that they just had to continue to look like this? Or did they thought it didn't fit my appearance?
I doubted it. I had never been really "arrogant", but I was perfectly aware that I looked beautiful and attractive in the eyes of humans.
At least the vampire inside of me knew that. The human part of me on the other hand was shy and destroyed the self-confidence of my vampire part.
"I'm Renesmee Carlie Cullen. I am seventeen years old. My family has already lived here for a little while longer, so maybe some of you know them. We live pretty much on the outskirt of the village. But I have only moved in with them a short while ago, I lived in Forks before."
I had already inwardly heaved a sigh of relief because I assumed that the worst part had been over now. Lying was not one of my strong points and I did't like doing it at all, which is why I had no practice in doing it and I had to pray that I didn't do a bad job.
But then a hand shot up. A young blonde girl from one of the rows at the back piped up.
"So you're related to Edward Cullen?"
Certainly I was prepared for her question, after all nobody would miss the similar hair color in connection with our pale skin and the family name, but still it was one of the lies I feared the most.
"He's… my brother… yes."
Nevertheless I brought myself to say it. It couldn't be helped.
The girl just nodded shortly and sat down again.
"Does somebody has another question?", Mr. Austin called through the room.
This question was actually trivial. I could see it in their eyes that they had dozen of questions they were dying to ask, nevertheless I knew that nobody would voice them.
Mr. Austin indicated with a gesture that I could take a seat.
Much to my regret there was only a seat available next to the blonde girl.
Reluctantly I sat down next to her, nodded at her and started to follow the teacher at the blackboard at the front.
Again I wished that I had inherited the gift of my father.
I would have very much liked to know what the people in this room were thinking. Above all the thoughts of the girl who sat next to me seemed to be interesting. She was following everything except the lesson and especially me. I made every effort to behave as normal as possible so that she would eventually loose interest in me, but this wasn't the case.
As it finally rang I quickly grabbed my belongings and walked in a human, quick pace out of the room. Unfortunately so human that it did't take any effort on Miss to catch up with me.
"Hey, Ren," her voice rang out next to me, while she was trying to keep pace with me.
"If you want I can show you around the school. The schoolyard, the gym, the swimming pool, the cafeteria. How about it?"
I came to an abrupt halt and so she did the same. She seemed to be a bit out of breath as she was standing there in front of me. I remained like that for a moment.
"It's all right with me, if it's no trouble for you… eh…"
A blissful smile spread over her face immediately. "My name is Hannah."
Beaming she stretched out her hand. I knew that it wasn't good at all to touch her but it seemed to be the wrong reaction to me not to accept her hand and so I had to bite the bullet.
She let go after we shook our hands briefly. "Goodness, you're warm!", she mentioned shortly. I did just smile at her a bit embarrassed.
Fortunately she didn't expect an answer because she continued walking strait away and told me to follow her.
And indeed, the girl showed me really everything.
Since the break hadn't been long enough for it, she led me to the indoor pool after school.
I could just look at it from outside but that was enough to turn my stomach convulsively again. I was already brooding about various apologies and excuses. Was it somehow conspicuous if I had my period every time when we were swimming by chance?
"Nice, isn't it? The water is really great and you should try the water chute. "
I nodded. "Yeah, breathtaking."
"Oh, you know, the best of the swimming lessons is anyway the fact that you wear hardly anything."
It took me a moment to get the picture. "What?"
"Oh, come on," she said with an impish smile.
"Does that mean, that we don't have separate classes? I mean… together with boys?"
Her grin got even wider. At the meantime my stomach seemed to shrink to a small point.
Did I actually still have one at all?
"You'll see," said Hannah. "You're going to like it."
Then she glanced at the fragile silver watch on her wrist."
"Oh… it's already late. I'm sorry, Ren. I have to go now. See you tomorrow."
Afterwards she embraced me and gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek before she stole away. And I did just stand there bewildered. I wasn't used to so much frankness and I was torn. I didn't know if I liked her not, I didn't even know whether I should admire her for her self-confidence and openness or if it wasn't probably better for me to search for friends that were more similar to me.
Countless thoughts were flashing through my mind as I walked to my car, my eyes directed towards the asphalt all the times. Only when a fragrant scent hit my nose, I looked up. I stared at my white Alpha Romeo 8C Spider in surprise.
Jacob was leaning against the passenger door, his arms crossed. Next to the white paintwork, his reddish brown skin looked much darker.
He looked more or less at the ground, too, but when he heard me coming, he raised his head a bit and his dark black eyed met mine. He had a gentle smile ready for me as always. I couldn't actually get mad at him but as I then stood in front of him and looked up to him, I just wasn't able to restrain myself.
"Jake, where have you been this morning?", I asked with a slight cutting undertone. He didn't answer immediately, apparently he didn't have enough time to work out some answers and excuses.
"I… had to do something.", he finally came out with. I answered with a loud sigh, turned on my heel and marched to the driver's side where I almost squeezed the button out on the other side of the key again as I opened the door.
"Oh, Nessie," he soothed me. "Now don't get worked up again."
I got in and tried doggedly not to concentrate on Jacob who was rummaging in my glove compartment on our ride home.
"Can you please stop rummaging around my things, Jacob?"
Now he was grinning stupidly at me again. "If you stop to be mad at me."
I rolled my eyes.
"I'm seven and you are twenty-three. Can't you at least act as if you were older than me from time to time?"
"Oh, Nessie," he sighed and closed the glove compartment. "We're going to be adults long enough. You don't have to start with it so early."
I didn't answer any more. Jacob was a hopeless case at this point. On one hand I was quite glad that he always managed to make me laugh, no matter what happened before, on the other hand he sometimes got on my nerves with the way he is.
But I had to admit to myself that it basically wasn't about his nature this time. I had just feared this day and had hoped that he'd stood by me and had at least taken me to school and had encouraged me. Instead he hadn't turned up at all and didn't even have an explanation for it.
After a while we turned into our entrance and I parked the car in our huge underground parking garage. All our cars were parked here and there was a direct access to the house, which also led through the basement.
As I ended up in the entrance hall over the steps, my mother already greeted me. Jacob trotted along after me and was now leaning against the closed door, his arms crossed.
"Renesmee honey, how was it?", her voice was as warm and melodious as ever and she hugged me gently. It took me a moment before I could answer.
"Not too bad."
She cast a glance over my shoulder at Jake who was did just shrug.
"What happened?"
"Nothing special, Mom. They did only ask some questions and a girl showed me school grounds."
Her eyes widened.
"Questions?"
I slouched my shoulders.
"If I am related to Edward Cullen."
For a short moment it seemed as if she couldn't answer, then she was able to speak again.
"What… what did you answer?"
"What we've agreed", I answered, dragged myself into the living room and fell onto the white sofa. "That he is my brother."
My mother sat down next to me sadly. "Oh Honey, I understand you. It isn't easy to hide our true identities and tell lies to the people for all of us."
I ran though my hair tiredly. "I know, but it was still awkward."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Jake was now coming into the living room too, folded his arms onto the back of the sofa behind me and laid his head down on them.
"The questions are going to stop sometime, Nessie."
"I hope so. I don't want to overstrain my truth-o-meter."
That made him laugh.
"Yeah… I think the direct way is the better one, too."
Now my Mom glared at him from the side.
"Oh yeah, if it's about being direct you're the master of the art of it, Jakob Black."
He did just click his tongue and acted cool.
"So what? At least you knew where you were standing with me."
After that my Mom apparently didn't seem to know what to answer. She stroked my hair once, gave me a kiss on the forehead and glided gracefully into the kitchen.
I let myself sink onto the sofa even more until I simply laid there. Now I could look Jakob in the face who was still leaning against the sofa. He did nothing but smile at me.
I smiled back briefly, then turned to the side and closed my eyes…