Hello, faithful readers. Thank you to everyone who has stuck it out and waited for the second chapter. I was on holiday in NZ and had a serious lack of internet access, and then we went and moved house! So, thank you again, and onward to the next chapter!
Disclaimer: Must you make me say it again? Fine - I do not own Twilight, Forks, Perth, the USA, Australia or a 1960's Polaroid Camera. Happy now?
(BPOV)
They were the most beautiful people I had ever seen. There were five, three boys and two girls in total, all vastly different but still very much alike.
One of the boys was big, muscled like a serious weight lifter with dark curly hair, the second was muscular as well, but thinner with honey blonde hair and the third was the most boyish looking, maybe the youngest, with bronze coloured hair. The girls were opposites. One was long and slim with long golden hair waving gently down her back. She looked like someone you'd see on the cover of Zoo or as a Playboy centrefold. The other was tiny; she couldn't have been bigger than five ft, thin in the extreme with dainty features and short, inky black hair spiked up sharply around her head. All of them were chalky pale with dark eyes, despite their range in hair colours, and had dark circles, almost bruises, under their eyes, like they hadn't slept in ages or were recovering from a broken nose. But that couldn't be, because all of their features were perfectly straight and unblemished. The girls didn't even wear makeup.
As I watched, the tiny girl with hair like a hedgehog rose with her tray, and threw the unbitten apple and unopened can of Coke into the bin before dumping her tray into a chute and walking, almost dancing the movement was so incredibly fluid and graceful, out the back doors. The others remained where they were, not speaking, not eating, all looking off in different directions.
"Who are they?" I asked my neighbour, who was shovelling something that looked like it might be chilli, or some kind of bean thing, into her mouth. I had to try very hard not to gag. She swallowed loudly, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm, and giggled.
"I see you've noticed the Cullens and the Hales." She said, leaning in. Her breath smelled like low grade beef and kidney beans. "They're the foster children of Dr and Mrs Cullen."
"They look a bit old for foster children." I said, trying discreetly to lean away from the girl's stinky breath.
"Well, they are now. Dr. Cullen is in his late twenties, think. The Hales, Jasper and Rosalie, are twins – the blondes – and have been with Mrs. Cullen, who I think is a few years older than the Dr., since they were kids. She's their aunt or something. The others are the Cullens. The one who left was Alice; she's the sister of Emmett, the big one with all the muscles, and Edward. Rosalie, Jasper and Emmett are all seniors, and Edward and Alice are juniors." They all had strange, unpopular names. I suddenly remembered that Stinky-breath Girl was named Jessica, a perfectly ordinary name.
"They're all, for lack of a better phrase, very good looking." Jessica giggled again. God, her breathe smelled foul.
"Yes! And they're smart. Every one of them has a perfect 4.0. Apparently they were homeschooled before they moved here two years ago, down from somewhere in Alaska. But they're all together though. Jasper and Alice and Emmett and Rosalie have been together for as long as they've lived here, maybe longer. And they all live together." I hadn't known her for very long, but I could see that Jessica was one of those overly curious people who always wanted to know everybody's business. I decided to try and use that to my advantage.
"What about Edward? Is he with anyone?" I asked, glancing over at the Cullen-Hale table, only to swiftly look away again. Edward had looked up as I said his name, like I had been speaking directly to him. His dark eyes held a kind of unmet expectation. I looked away swiftly, although not as fast as him. As I looked away, someone at the table snorted in contempt.
"Don't even think about." Interrupted the girl, I think her name was Laura or Lisa or something, sitting on the other side of Jessica. "Edward Cullen doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good looking enough for him." I detected a serious case of sour grapes. I chuckled, taking another bite of my homemade wholegrain bread chicken sandwich.
"What's so funny?" She demanded, her dull grey eyes narrowing to slits. I chuckled again, swallowing the final bite of my sandwich.
"It's nothing really. I was just wondering when he turned you down." All of a sudden the remaining five people at the table starting spitting out their drinks and choking on their food, like I had just broken a serious taboo. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the head of Edward Cullen snap around quickly to look directly at my current table. His eyes were frustrated, although I couldn't understand why.
"What makes you think he turned me down?" She snapped, her eyes, if it was possible, narrowing further. "What if I turned him down?" It was my turn to snort. I choked down the sudden flow of hysterical laughter that threatened to spill out.
"Oh, please!" I sniggered, putting my now empty lunchbox back into my bag. "They all have 4.0's! For arguments sake I'm going to assume that means they're intelligent and if they are as smart as Jessica claims, Edward isn't going to want to go out with someone who only cares about calorie counting and what her face looks like to other people, who probably couldn't care less anyway!" I cried, pointing to the sparse salad and bottle of cheap spring water on Lauren's (I'm pretty sure that's her name) plastic lunch tray. "Maybe he wants a relationship with substance, you know, with someone he has something in common with. It's not any of your business what type of girls Edward Cullen likes, even if he did reject you, so just keep your surgically reworked nose out of other people's lives and put it back into the pages of Teen People where it belongs." Lauren was practically snarling at me she was so pissed, so I picked up my camera and snapped a photo of her.
Almost before she could blink I had pulled the picture from the camera to develop, smiled an impish grin and headed off to class without a word, swinging my bag onto my back as I went. I peeked back behind me as the door swung closed only to see all the Cullens – Alice had managed to somehow come back into the cafeteria unnoticed, standing behind Jasper with her hand on his broad right shoulder, – and the Hales, not to mention over half the lunch room, staring at me with their mouths hanging open. Alice Cullen was the only one with her mouth closed. Her face was blank, expressionless, though something in her eyes told me she knew more than she was letting on.
The Cullens and Hales were obviously outsiders. Jessica had mentioned that they used to live in Alaska, and had moved to Forks two years previous. Their appearances hadn't seemed to earn them any acceptance, although I couldn't imagine doors that wouldn't open for that degree of beauty. It was hard to decide who was the most striking, to be honest, although it was definitely a toss-up between the golden-haired Rosalie and the bronze-haired Edward.
I didn't enter my biology class room until after the final bell, having spent the remainder of lunch reading on the grass, since the rain had taken a small break. When I arrived, nearly all the desks were full. I walked swiftly to my teacher's desk to get my slip signed.
"Isabella Swan! We've been expecting you." He proclaimed, signing my paper, "Why don't you take the empty seat next to...has anyone seen Edward Cullen?"
"I think he had to go home. Some sort of family issue." A girl with braces and a bad perm sitting in the front row said, raising her hand.
"Thank you for clearing that up, Wendy. Okay, so since he's not here, you can just take his desk for now." He gestured to an empty desk half way down the room. I thanked him quietly and hurried to my seat. I don't remember much about the lesson. I was too busy worrying what could be wrong with Edward Cullen. But that's silly, right? I mean, it was my first day, I had never even spoken to the guy and already I had vehemently defended his honour for no particular reason, potentially making myself a few nasty enemies, and now I was worrying about his family issues?! This town was making me lose my mind!
As I was packing up my bag after class, a cute, baby-faced boy with blonde hair and blue eyes came up to me, his face expectant.
"Hi, you must be Isabella!" He held out his hand to shake, but I just raised my eyebrow at him until he dropped it awkwardly back to his side. "I'm Mike Newton."
"Nice to meet you there, Mike. And I prefer Bella, if you don't mind." I said, my voice dripping with sour, fake enthusiasm that he didn't seem to pick up in the least. I took the opportunity to take a picture while he had his guard down. The flash, startled him, and he just stood there blinking for a few seconds. I rolled my eyes, putting the newly developed photo into the tin with the many others I had taken that day and stuffing it into the bag. I decided to break the moment by asking a question I already knew the answer to.
"Hey, do you know where the gym is?" Mike shook of his shock, his eyes lighting up like Christmas tree lights, or as if he had won the lotto or something.
"Sure, that's my next class! I'll take you there myself!" Without even waiting for my reply, he turned and walked straight out of the room.
"Okay." I muttered to myself, seeing no other option but to follow him out of the room.
As we walked towards the gym, Mike babbling on about something irrelevant, I saw out of the corner of my eye, Alice Cullen talking to Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper, with whom she was casually holding hands. Her lips were moving so quickly they were almost blurred, and it quickly came to my attention that Edward was missing. That caught my interest, and I unconsciously sucked in a large, freezing cold, unbearably painful breath. Almost instantly, I could feel the burning flare up like a live flame in my chest, an agonizing blaze that began to grow at an alarming rate. I began to cough hoarsely. Jasper turned his head, locking vision with me for a split second, his dark eyes filled with concern and shock, and I could feel the burn in my chest grow stronger, and begin to constrict my lungs. I realised it wasn't inquisitiveness causing this feeling. Something was going very, very wrong. I put my hand to my chest, gasping for air, clawing at my skin.
"-told me the Mystery Meat had pig hoof in it so try to avoid that - whoa, Bella, are you alright?" I had grabbed Mike's shoulder to keep myself from falling over as I stumbled forward onto my knees. My head was swimming from the lack of oxygen.
"Can't...breathe...chest...burns...." I gasped, struggling for even a little sliver of air. My ears began to ring, and I could hear footsteps running towards us, though they sounded far off in the distance.
"Mike, what's happening?" A tinkling soprano voice, which I assumed belonged to Alice Cullen, which sounded muffled and echoic, was laced with evident concern. I began to cough in between gasps, trying to force the air back into my lungs. I was on my knees now, my elbows to the ground. The murmur of worried voices began to hum, and I guessed a crowd had begun to form.
"I don't know, I was telling her about cafeteria food, and out of nowhere she started coughing and then she says she can't breathe and that her chest burns."
"We need to get her to the hospital, now." I could see black begin to creep in around the edges of my vision, and I knew I was passing out. My heart was pounding and my chest was an inferno. The last thing I heard was Alice telling someone, to call an ambulance, and that I was going to be okay, before everything went black.
There's the second chapter! I'll try and add chapter 3 as soon as possible. And guys, please review or how am I supposed to know how many people are reading it or if my work needs improvement? So go on, make my day and press the pretty green button!