Chapter Two
I woke up several times in the night, each time getting more and more annoyed at my inability to sleep. The duvet wrapped round my legs and my t shirt twisted round my body, digging into my arms painfully. When I finally fell into a comfortable, deep sleep it felt like no more than five minutes later my dad's cool, pale hands were gently shaking me awake. I groaned and rolled back over, burying my head in the pillow and trying to decide whether I could convince him I was ill.
"No," he smiled, "I know you're not ill, and I know a day off school probably wouldn't affect the outcome of your exams much," he stood up and opened the curtains, letting a bright, unwelcome light into my room. "But I think you should go all the same. And Lindsey would miss you if you didn't."
"Fine," I grumbled, sitting up. "I'll go to school if you tell me what mum was worried about last night." But he was already out the door, and the idea of hanging out in the big house by myself wasn't very appealing. I stretched and rubbed my eyes, waiting for Alice to come give me an 'Alice approved' outfit like she did every morning.
"I've got you some clothes," she announced, strolling in and placing the dress and sandals on my bed as I stood up and stretched. "Are you going to school today? I can't see the outcome of that decision very clearly so I'm assuming you haven't made up your mind." God! Is there no option of privacy in this house? First, dad reads my mind and answers questions that I haven't even asked yet and Alice knows what I'm going to do before I'm even sure of it myself.
"Yes, I'm going to school," I snapped. "But is there any point when you could just tell me what's going to happen?" I snatched the clothes from my duvet and tried not to feel guilty at the sight of her shocked and slightly hurt face as I ran into my en suite to get ready.
When I came out about twenty minutes later Alice had gone. I was starting to feel bad about my little outburst. After all, she didn't choose to be a vampire with the ability to see the future. Dad drove me and mum to school in the Volvo because Alice, Emmett, Jasper and Rosalie had already left in Emmett's car. The morning passed slowly, mainly because I was still worrying about offending Alice this morning. Me and Lindsey sat with Sarah Smith, Nicola Bates and Nadine Nolan at lunch but they were just talking about boys so I got bored and started to daydream. My eyes wandered over to where Alice was sitting but she was talking to Jasper and she didn't look over.
"Dad," I thought, as he looked over at me from his place next to Alice. I was vaguely aware of my friends laughing about something I wasn't listening to. "Tell her I'm really sorry about this morning. I didn't have a very good night's sleep and I was in a bad mood." He raised his eyebrow and gave me a look that said "That's no excuse." He glanced at my friends, distracted and smirking a little.
"Hey!" I glared back. "What would you know? You don't sleep."
"Are you even listening Renesmee?" giggled Nadine from across the table and I jerked my head back to look at her.
"Sorry. I was daydreaming," I smiled back at her, eyeing the others cautiously. "What did I miss?" This made them erupt into laughter again which made me feel a little paranoid.
"Well," started Nicola after she'd composed herself. "We were talking about boys." Sarah started laughing again and Nicola continued. "And Lindsey said 'Edward's quite nice,'" they all looked at me, grinning widely and trying not to laugh again. I stared at them blankly. They did not know how wrong that comment was. Saying my dad was attractive. I looked over at his table where I was sure he'd heard Lindsey's thoughts. I couldn't help it; I started laughing along with them. For the first time in ages I felt like a normal teenage girl laughing with her friends, despite the fact we were laughing about my dad, also known as my brother.
The next morning, Alice cornered me in my room having forgiven me for yesterday's outburst and wanting a victim to try her new hair products out on.
"What is the point of all this... stuff when you never even use half of it?" I asked, shaking my head as she put some serum on her hands and rubbed it into my scalp. I always complained but really I loved the pampering.
"I get this stuff," she replied. "So I can use it on you, Nezme," she smiled at me warmly before frowning again. "Now stop fidgeting or I'll end up burning you." She grabbed the hair curlers and started slowly winding my hair round the hot irons until all my hair was in loose waves framing my face.
"Thanks Alice!" I grinned, enjoying this new look more than the others she'd tried recently. I started to get up but she placed her hands on my shoulders and pushed me back down. Grabbing a white bag from the desk, she opened it and started laying out the contents. She grabbed an eyeliner pencil.
"No, Alice," I crossed my arms and pursed my lips. "It's just school." I remembered last time I let her do my make up and then quickly forgot it again. She glared at me, her perfect forehead creasing with her frustration.
"Hold still!" she snarled, and I laughed because Alice rarely loses her temper and trust her to get so angry about something as trivial as cosmetics. She bit her sharp teeth down on her bottom lip as she concentrated, drawing a thick black outline around my eye. She then moved onto mascara and I looked up at her sadly when she grabbed a blusher. "Don't look at me like that!" she chuckled. "You'll thank me when I'm done!" And I did. Because when she'd finished I looked like I'd just stepped off a runway.
"Thanks Alice!" I beamed, finally getting off the chair as my dad shouted for me from downstairs. "But I really need to get to school now." I turned and started walking towards the door.
"Err, Renesmee?" called Alice. I turned back towards her.
"Some clothes might help," she smiled, holding a pair of jeans and a floral vest top out to me. I looked down at my pajamas and sighed.
"Yes, it would help wouldn't it?" I agreed, grabbing the clothes from her and running into my en suite to get changed.
At school, Nadia, Sarah, Lindsay and Nicola made me promise to invite them round and get Alice to work her magic on them. I knew Alice wouldn't mind, in fact she'd probably love the fact that she had four people who actually wanted her to give them a makeover.
We went to Sarah's after school. We always seemed to go round in a little group of five now. I didn't mind, it was quite nice actually. I'd never really had any friends before apart from the werewolves down La Push and my family and relatives so it was nice to be part of a friend group like this.
We walked the short five minute journey to Sarah's and her mum, a plumpish woman with red hair that matched Sarah's- except Sarah had flattened hers with straightners- opened the door. She welcomed us in and we had hot chocolate in the kitchen because it had been particularly cold that day.
"Hang on," her mother smiled turning round from the sink and interrupting our conversation. "I know Nadia and Nicola but I don't think I've met you two before," she looked towards me and Lindsay.
"Yeah, you haven't met them. This is Lindsay Thomas and this is Renesmee Cullen," Sarah said quickly, eager to get back to the other conversation. Everyone was engrossed, talking about boys again, everyone except me of course. I started to let my mind wander to Jacob but I was brought back to reality when I noticed Sarah's mum staring at me with shocked, wide eyes. I flinched automatically and she looked away with a guilty expression on her face. The afternoon passed quickly after that and much to Sarah's annoyance her mum followed us in each room we went into, cleaning things.
My dad picked me up a few hours later in the Volvo and when I got into the car I noticed he was gripping the steering wheel tightly. A quiet snarl escaped his chest and I tried to think of anything I'd done wrong because he looked really angry and even a bit scary. When I'd done my seatbelt, he accelerated quickly and we sped off down the road.
"Stop worrying, Renesmee," he spoke calmer now, his face relaxing a bit more. "You haven't done anything wrong."
I breathed out deeply, relieved. My family rarely got really angry with me, but when they did they were horrible. I tried to avoid it at all costs.
"So what was it?" I asked. "The thing that made you so angry before?" He had a pained expression on his face now as he replied.
"I saw the look her mother gave you in your mind," he spoke slowly, trying to control the level of anger in his voice. "And I heard her thoughts." He sighed. "I wasn't aware that Forks still believed the vampire rumours."
"That's why she was staring at me like that?" I gasped. "She heard the word 'Cullen' and automatically assumed I was a vampire?" I stopped to think for a minute. "Is that why she was following us into every room? So I didn't hurt anyone?" The anger was starting to show now, my voice getting louder and I felt angry tears starting in the corners of my eyes. I wiped them away furiously.
"Calm down, Renesmee," dad said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "You have to remember, they have reason to believe those rumours. Your whole family are vampires, and a lot of your friends are werewolves."
"Yes! But that's no reason to judge me like that! For all she knows, those rumours could have been completely untrue! She saw the colour in my cheeks when I blushed."
"I think she was looking for more traditional stereotypes," he explained. "You have pale skin, just like your mothers before she was turned and especially after that make over Alice gave you, you look older; flawless skin and beautiful."
"You have to say that! You're my dad."
"I saw it in her thoughts, and the thoughts of your friends. To continue, the rest of your family is also pale, with the exact same shade of amber eyes although most of them claim not to be related to each other," he sighed. "You can see where she got her suspicions from." We pulled into our driveway and got out the car, my feet crunching loudly against the gravel.
"Well then," I smiled. "I'll just have to prove her wrong. I'll convince her we're not vampires. Or at least that I'm not anyway. Then hopefully she'll assume the rest of you are normal. Because we are not letting a little suspicion like this muck anything up," I finished triumphantly, skipping into the house.
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