A/N: I wanted to get one more chapter up before I left my moms house for the week, i'll be uploading another one either sat or sun. So kind of like the last chapter of me not knowing how American hospitals work.. i also don't really know the school system. Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I dont own anything.
My alarm was blaring, and I stumbled through my room to turn it off, I should have put it beside my bed. I tripped over my suitcase and stubbed my toe. "SHIT!" I finally reach the damn thing and I couldn't feel for the off button. My room was still dark from the early morning. When I finally managed to turn it off I can hear the floor creaking from Charlie's room beside mine. He knocked on my door a second later.
"come in." The door opened.
"Morning Isla, you okay?" I just laughed
"I couldn't find my way through my room in the dark, sorry to wake you."
"Don't worry about it, I gotta work this morning. You drink coffee?" I nodded vigorously
"Yes! Can you make a full pot please? I'll probably have three cups, minimum."
"You'll stunt your growth, kiddo." I just laughed him off.
"Too late for that Charlie." I was feeling pretty good this morning, minus the fact my eyes were red and swollen from crying last night. Nothing cold spoons won't fix.
I jumped into the shower for a quick wash. I threw on a pair of yoga pants and the warmest sweater I owned. I put my hair into a French braid and put some waterproof mascara on to make my eyes pop. I was feeling giddy about starting at a new school. If I'm being honest with myself, I was nervous about the different curriculum I was going to be learning compared to the stuff I learned in Canada. I didn't want to sound like a dummy in front of anyone. I wasn't too familiar with the politics here.
I walked over to Bella's room and quietly tapped on the door.
"Bella? You in there?"
"Come in!" I opened the door watched her pack her bag. I had a note book for myself, but the rest of my school supplies were non-existent which was another thing I had to talk to Charlie about.
"You nervous?' I ask. She looked at me and sighed.
"I almost forgot that you don't remember. I was hoping that it was all a bad dream. I never liked Forks and I'm miserable to be back here. Everyone is going to be trying to get a look at the new girls, I'm sort of uncomfortable having any attention on me, really."
"Why don't you like Forks? It's such a cute little town." I frowned.
"My mom left with me when I was just a baby, I miss the Arizona heat, the big city, my home." I felt a prang in my chest at the mention of home. I also felt annoyed that she was complaining about something so mundane compared to what I'm going through. My mom is gone, and everyone seemed to think I'm from California. She seen the look on my face and immediately starting apologizing.
"I'm so sorry, Isla. I didn't mean to make my problems sound worse than yours." Whoa. Now I felt bad. I wasn't expecting this girl to be so selfless. I immediately felt guilty for my thoughts.
"No, no Bella. I'm sorry, I just felt sad about the mention of home I guess." She smiled sympathetically at me.
"did you want to talk about anything before we go?" I hesitated. I wanted answers, but I also knew whatever she told me might not add up.
"I guess the first thing I wanna know- "I took a deep breath "What happened to my mom?" Bella looked at the ground a moment before answering me.
"She was in the hospital the last two month of her life from liver failure. They couldn't find her a donor in time." Huh? I was confused.
"Why did her liver fail?" she looked up and I could tell she almost didn't want to say.
"Your mom was an alcoholic." Okay, I didn't believe that. My mom was strongly against drinking. I'd know, I was constantly getting in trouble for coming home drunk on the weekends. My friends and I would usually find someone old enough to buy us a bottle. She seen the disbelieving look on my face.
"It's true." She said quietly.
"Well… my mom was a criminal lawyer in Vancouver. She was completely against drinking. Always told me it made you look old before your time." I'm sure looking young wasn't her only reason though. Bella was shaking her head.
"Isla, your mom didn't work. She collected checks from the government, you guys lived in a small two-bedroom apartment and you worked part-time at a diner to support your online shopping habit." Hold the phone. What?!
"that's not true. I've never shopped online in my life! I bought all these clothes from little boutiques in Vancouver! Look at the tags" I pulled off my sweater to show her.
"I was visiting you the summer this sweater came in the mail. I remember watching you open it."
"What part of California am I from?" I asked.
"you lived in Modesto, you lived close to the national parks, that's why you're into hiking and all that."
"I'm into hiking because the mountains were just in my backyard!" I nearly yelled. I was starting to get frustrated. I huffed before apologizing.
"It's okay, Isla. I have some pictures I can show you when we get home later." I just nodded. I didn't know how I would convince her of my past unless I came up with some proof. I would have to start investigating soon.
The drive to the school was quiet. I didn't have much to say really. I just sipped on my coffee from a giant thermos I found in one of the cupboards. We pulled into the staff parking lot to go retrieve our class schedules. I was curious to see what levels they would have me in. I was in honors courses back home, but I was curious about my "California grades" I still couldn't comprehend it. We both jumped out of the cab and into the rain. I had my polka dot umbrella with me, so I didn't hide my face into my hood like Bella did.
We walked into the warm office and I was surprised at how comforting it felt. There were plants all over the room. I loved it. We walked up to the middle-aged woman whose name tag read Ms. Cope.
"Hello girls, how may I help you?"
"Hi, I'm Isla Bright, this is Bella Swan. We're suppose to be starting today." Her face lit up with recognition.
"Of course! We we're expecting you, welcome to Forks. Here is your class schedule and a map of the school grounds. I've highlighted the best routes to class." We took the papers "you need these slips signed by each of your teachers and returned here at the end of the day." We both nodded.
"Thanks Ms. Cope, see you later." I called over my shoulder as we walked out into the rain. Bella pulled the truck around the find a spot in the student parking lot. Seemed like most of the school has arrived. I noticed all the cars were older like Bella's. Except for the shiny Volvo. I wouldn't be surprised if whoever drove it was a stuck-up bitch.
Bella and I sat in the truck for a few minutes after she turned off the engine and compared our schedules. I was in all the right classes, but I noticed I was in junior level math.
"what the hell is this?" I showed her.
"You're just really bad at math." She shrugged.
"I'm not bad at math. I was taking advanced calculus. Even if it was true, I shouldn't be so behind I'm supposed to graduate this year. They better give me my damn diploma" I was just going to have to talk my way up or maybe take some sort of test to show them I'm more than capable. Bella didn't say anything. She looked a little uneasy from my anger.
"Well let's go then" I say opening the door. I pulled out my umbrella and walked to the other side of the truck.
"It's okay Bella, don't be nervous. You got me with you." I winked, she visibly relaxed at that.
I walked with her to the English building. Of course, everyone was looking at us. An Asian boy with greasy black hair and acne stopped in front us to introduce himself.
"Hey, I'm Eric. You must be Isla and Isabella, right?" We both shook his hand as Bella corrected her name.
"Do you know which building you need to go to?" I looked at Bella and raise my brow. She answered my silent questions with a slight nod.
"Yes, we do, thanks anyway for your help." I grabbed Bella by the arm and steered her away to her English building. I didn't really care if I was rude, I could tell Bella was uncomfortable.
"I'll only be seeing you at lunch today, so speak up and make some friends. I can't always be there to shield you from everyone else." I told her sternly. She just nodded and smiled.
"There's the Isla I know." I felt the emotions well up in my chest. Thanks Bella. I just rolled my teary eyes and made my way to Spanish.
The teacher signed my slip and let me sit down without introductions. I didn't bother paying attention, I just sat there making a list of memories that were concrete for me, like how I fell out of a tree on the west side of Vancouver when I was eight and now had a wicked scar on my knee. I'm sure I could get a record check and show Bella how all my misdemeanors happened in Canada. Do I even have a passport? What does my birth certificate say? More questions started to come up the more I thought about it. I wrote them all down. The bell rang and I was surprised how fast class when by.
My next class was history. This should be interesting. When I walked in the room my eyes immediately found the blonde goddess sitting at the back. Her beauty was unparalleled, and her eyes were dark, looked almost black. Her hair was like a white-gold waterfall, looked like pure silk. When she noticed I was staring, she turned to me and glared. Ugh, she must be the driver of the Volvo, and I was right, she is a stuck-up bitch. She ruined any good mood I might have had. There was a big burly guy with curly hair I almost didn't notice… almost. I was too busy admiring the blonde bitch. He was handsome and looked just as pale. He had this fun-loving vibe radiating off him. His eyes were black too. These kids need some vitamin D. I sat towards the front and decided to listen this time. I could feel my neck hairs rising like i was being watched, i knew these students were nosy. I just ignored it. I was vaguely aware of American history, it wasn't something actively taught at my old school.
As the teacher spoke I realized that I knew the majority of what he was talking about, like I've already heard it before and the information was just laying dormant in my brain. I was confused to how I could have known. I have no recollection of ever learning about this. Stupid amnesia. It was only the explanation I had.
When class was over I looked over to the pale beauties and I was surprised to see them holding hands… they must be together, I guess. It was a little weird cause they kind of looked the same, maybe it was their eyes, but what do I know. I got up to leave and this boy with brown hair and a cute face stopped me to talk.
"Hey, are you Isla or Isabella?" I just kind of chuckled.
"Isla, nice to meet you-?"
"It's Daniel, nice to meet you too." We shook hands.
"how are you liking it here so far?" he seemed innocent enough and he went up the cute scale a few notches now that I was paying more attention to his features.
"It's good, I need to fix my schedule, but I like everything else so far." He smiled at me and I couldn't help but to return it.
"Let me walk you to the cafeteria." I nodded and grabbed my notebook.
We chatted about the weather and he told me about the sports teams here, the volley ball team was holding tryouts in the next week which had me over the moon. We reached the entrance at the same time as Bella. She was standing with a girl several inches shorter than us with big curly hair.
"Hey, how was your morning?" I ask her. She told me it was fine and went on the introduce me to her new friend.
"Isla, Jessica. Jessica, Isla. She's my cousin. She moved here with me yesterday." She looked nice enough until she started sizing me up, judging me. I raised my brow. Silently challenging her. She quickly looked away. I noticed Bella's eyes were looking beside me and I remembered I was still standing with Daniel. I started laughing.
"Sorry! Daniel, Bella. Bella, Daniel. He's in history with me."
"No worries" he said with a small wave at Bella. We walked into the cafe. Daniel put his hand on my lower back and guided me to the line to buy lunch. That made me uncomfortable, I didn't know this guy and he was touching me like he did. I removed his hand and told him about my bubble.
"Don't enter it and we won't have problems." I told him bluntly, he was shocked but nodded anyway. Its not like I had this weird thing about contact, I just didn't like strangers touching me. I grabbed myself a pizza and water and walked with Bella towards the table filled with juniors.
"Hey, you wanna come sit with me and the other seniors?" Daniel asked just before we reached the table.
"Not really, I wanna sit with my cousin." I told him. He seemed to deflate.
"Okay well, hopefully we have more classes together" he said with a smile. I decided last minute to be flirty, to keep his spirits up.
"Maybe" I said with a sultry wink. It might have been a bit pretentious of me, but it worked. He became nervous and tripped over a backpack while walking to the other table. I just chuckled and turned back to the juniors. Bella was watching the whole thing trying not to laugh. She went to sit down beside Jessica and I sat down on her other side. She moved to whisper to me.
"He's cute" I rolled my eyes at her.
"I'm not really interested. I was just having a bit of fun." I chuckle.
"Why not? You deserve to find someone for yourself. Especially after your ex had cheated on you." I just looked at her.
"I've never had a boyfriend before." She just shook her head.
"After school" was all she had to say. I was going to hold her to that because I was positive I've never had any emotional or physical attachment to the opposite sex before.
When I looked around the table, everyone was looking back at us. Great. Jessica went around introducing us to everyone. I forgot everybody's name, I wasn't really interested to be honest. The girl with glasses was nice, she tried to make Bella and I feel more comfortable.
I was looking though my note book, reading the list I had made when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked around the room and noticed the outside door opening, the pale beauties were walking towards the empty table across the room. The blonde bitch and the burly dude were holding hands, ignoring everyone looking at them.
"Who are they?" Bella asked.
"The blonde one… that's Rosalie, and the big guy is Emmett." Two other people with the same pale features walked in. "The short one is Alice, she's really weird and the blonde guy is Jasper." I was admiring her spiky hair when Jessica's next comment almost made me choke.
"They're all together, like… together-together." Like it was the most scandalous thing she's ever heard. I had my suspicions though.
"Jessica, they're not actually related." I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. They looked somewhat related, they all had the same pale skin and dark eyes.
"Dr. and Mrs. Cullen adopted them." Oh! I met Dr. Cullen already… he did not look old enough to have teenaged kids. I felt a little weird about calling him the hot doc in my mind now.
"Rosalie and Jasper are twins, I think Mrs. Cullen is their aunt or something. I don't think she could have kids of her own." She said appallingly. My eyes snapped to Jessica's.
"That's none of your business. You don't treat someone's infertility as your own entertainment. Don't talk about people like that." She looked properly scolded.
"Who's he?" Bella asked and the sexiest guy I have ever seen walked in. Bronzed tousled hair, again, dark eyes. Abercrombie Finch looking model type. I would have drooled.
"That's Edward Cullen, totally gorgeous. I wouldn't bother, apparently no one here is good enough for him." I snorted, and she glared at me.
He had a smirk on his face as he walked. I watched as he made eye contact with Bella, then with me. He stopped in the middle of the cafe to look at me. He looked like he was staring through me into my soul. What the fuck. I thought. I didn't not like that. He snapped out of it and went to sit at the table with his siblings I just went back to my list and pretended that didn't just happen. I didn't want to waste my time with creepy dudes that were out of my league.
I saw the weird exchange between Isla and Edward. I looked back and forth while Edward continued to stare at her. Isla just looked creeped out. When he finally went to sit down, she was back to reading her notebook. What just happened? Why was she not acknowledging this? I decided I would ask later. I looked at the Cullen's a final time and could see Edward still looking at Isla with an intense gaze. This time with a scowl on his face. The bell rang, and Angela offered to walk with me to biology. I told my cousin I'd meet her at the truck after school.
We all piled into the car and headed to school. I wasn't trying to read my siblings thoughts, but Alice was listing the best fashion designers in the world. Chronologically. She only did that when she was trying not to think of something around me.
"Alice?" she looked at me in the rear-view mirror.
"Never mind, Edward." Brushing me off. She can keep her secrets, anything Alice does is usually for a good reason.
We got to the school and the parking lot was only half full. The students around us were buzzing with excitement, they wanted to see the new girls. I could admit that I was a little curious about who they were. I knew the one girl, Isabella Swan was the long-lost daughter of Chief Swan, who's finally come home. The other girl was a mystery. No one knew she was coming with Isabella, until today.
It wasn't until after first period that I was able to see the girls through other student's thoughts. I learned that Isabella preferred to be called Bella and the other girl was her cousin, Isla Bright. Bella was beautiful but didn't seem to know it. Isla was gorgeous, but you could clearly see she was either very tired or just sickly. She had bags under her eyes and she was pale. It looked like she lacked nutrients.
After second period I went to put my books into my locker and I took my time going to the cafeteria. I could hear everyone's thoughts revolving around Isla and Bella before I even entered the room. I opened the door and I immediately tuned into their minds, I could hear Isla thinking of me as an Abercrombie Finch model, I smirked at that. It was so innocent compared to what I was used to hearing. I can hear Jessica becoming bitter about me rejecting her and my smirk grew. I tried to tune into Bella's thoughts and realized I couldn't hear her. I looked up to see if she was still there and my eyes automatically shifted to Isla sitting beside her.
The sensation that flowed through me when our eyes had met was electric. Her beauty seen though the thoughts of others was nothing compared to seeing her in front of me. Her sickness was also more prominent. Her face changed to a frown and her thoughts turned aggressive What the fuck it was enough for me to realize I was just standing there staring at her. I quickly moved to the table my siblings were at.
"Sorry I didn't tell you, Edward." I looked over to Alice's guilty face.
"Why didn't you?" I was angry at her for keeping this a secret. I didn't want to be mated to a human. I didn't need this right now.
"Because I knew you wouldn't have come to school." She just shrugged. I ignored them for the remainder of lunch, listening to Isla attentively. She thought she was out of my league. I couldn't help but be flattered. She found me attractive and it made me happy, she also thought I was creepy, I guess I was. I was sitting here invading her mind and she didn't even know it. She stopped thinking of me and started reading a list from her note book. Birth certificate, ask Charlie maybe call Renee. Record check, ask Charlie. Buy a new phone. Ask to use Bella's computer or go to the library, contact old friends. Wouldn't I be able to find records from different places in Vancouver? But where…
"Meet you at the truck after school, Isla."
"See ya, Bells. Have a good class."
I was so busy paying attention to Isla that I didn't realize the bell had rung. Why was she collecting this information? What was for her in Vancouver? I thought she came from Arizona with Bella. I swiftly walked to class trying to figure out why she was making a list of these things. I was still lost in my thoughts when the fan blew a mouth watering breeze in my direction. My eyes snapped up to Bella Swan standing in the front of the class getting her slip signed. My thoughts switched from being curious about my new mate to the million different ways I could kill this girl in front of me.
Multiple scenarios ran through my mind in the eighty minutes class took. She feared me, and I liked it. The bell was a second away from ringing when I got up and walked as fast as I could out the door. I was stopped short when I accidentally knocked someone over.
"What the hell! Watch where you're walking." It was Isla. Trying to get up off the floor in front of me.
A/N: Cliffhanger! until next week folks. Don't forget to review! The part where Alice apologizes to Edward, i changed it cause it just said he was angry but not at who or why... so i fixed it.