Elizabeth twirled a strand of her hair around a pencil, sitting surrounded by tall stacks of illegible writing. Her study table lay clean a couple of inches from Jacob, who was sprawled across the floor, a book on his face as his chest slowly rose and fell. Elizabeth looked at the math book again, defeated.
"Dad!" She whined, as she gently toed Jacob. "You're supposed to be helping me study!"
"Too much..." Jacob muttered slowly. "Brain hurt... Get Mom..."
"That's what I wanted to do in the first place!" Elizabeth cried, getting on her feet and pulling the book off Jacob's face.
"Need help?" Edward offered at the same instant, poking his head into Elizabeth's room.
Jacob sat up and frowned.
"It's your fault she is behind." Jacob said, sourly. "You were supposed to be tutoring her in Math. Why is she behind?"
"I taught her the prescribed syllabus." Edward countered defensively. "But the teachers assumed the students already know few things. It's rather simple. I can teach her."
"And as I clearly mentioned downstairs, I think Elizabeth's education should be looked after by her parents." Jacob said, getting to his feet. "That was made clear for Nessie's education."
"Great!" Elizabeth said, rolling her eyes. "I live with geniuses and I'm still going to fail!"
"You're not going to fail!" Jacob exclaimed. "Let me get Nes..."
"No." Elizabeth protested. "Dad, we tried it your way. No offense, but you aint..."
"Are not." Edward corrected Elizabeth immediately.
"...are not the world's best teacher. I really need to understand this for tomorrow's class. So can you just let Granpa teach me?"
Jacob glared at the grinning Edward. He shrugged and slumped on Elizabeth's bed.
Edward and Elizabeth settled around the study table. Elizabeth tied up her hair while Edward made a big show of organizing papers and adjusting his seat. Elizabeth patiently waited to start. But after Edward restacked the papers for the fourth time, Elizabeth snatched the papers from his hand. Edward had instinctively pulled his hand away to avoid Elizabeth from breaking a nail.
"It's rather distracting when Jacob keeps muttering profanities." Edward said, innocently.
Jacob shot up to his feet as Elizabeth's brows furrowed.
"Dad, leave." Elizabeth said, monotonously.
Jacob lingered for a while but decided to leave the room, stamping his foot and grumbling all the way.
"Why do you guys keep doing that?"Elizabeth muttered darkly. "Make everything a contest. I can't even get a moment of peace in this house, the way you guys are always going at each other."
"We haven't had the luxury of fun in a long time." Edward whispered, inaudible to Elizabeth.
He could feel the whole house agree with him as he started his lesson.
-X-X-
Elizabeth had tried to approach Bethany again over the course of the first week. But it seemed like they were always in close proximity to her family and she wanted to avoid them in school as much as possible. Against the dull gray sky, her family continued to look like supermodels in clothes Elizabeth was sure was at least a hundred years old.
"I love the jacket!" Elizabeth heard Bethany coo to Edward. "Is it vintage?"
The Cullens maintained a stony, unfriendly appearance but Bethany was relentless. Elizabeth felt bad for Bethany. Even though it was obvious that Edward and Bella were a thing, Bethany did not lose heart.
"Watcha doing?" Alice chimed near Elizabeth.
Having grown up with vampires, Elizabeth didn't scare easy.
"Ask Granpa to be nice, OK?" Elizabeth muttered under her breath as she made her way to the cafeteria.
Being unable to talk to Bethany had another downside. Elizabeth was so focused on befriending Bethany, that she didn't interact with many people. And everybody made their groups and Elizabeth ended up alone. She knew why Alice came to talk to her. Her family was insisting that she sit with them during lunch. They could tell that Elizabeth wasn't picking out the"most nutritious" foods in the cafeteria. Elizabeth had been fending them off but she was starting to feel lonely. She scanned the cafeteria for an empty table and quickly settled down. The sooner she ate lunch, the sooner she could get to class. Elizabeth was in the process of deciphering the contents of her lunch when she heard a small voice speak.
"Would it be OK if I take this chair?" The voice said, timidly. "I don't need the table. You're probably waiting for your friends."
Elizabeth looked up to a small, bony girl with mousy brown hair and olive skin. Her dark black eyes studied Elizabeth apprehensively, as though wondering if she crossed some line. She wore lose fitting warm clothes which hung off her shoulders and large chunky bracelets. The girl blinked rapidly as she waited for Elizabeth to reply.
But Elizabeth's voice was stuck in her throat again. She didn't know why but she found it difficult to speak with regular people. The girl loosened her grip on the chair and seemed to be about to walk away when Elizabeth quickly got to her feet.
"No!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "No... I mean... please.. I mean you can sit here if you'd like. I'll leave."
Elizabeth hastily gathered her things, the surprise in the macaroni doomed to remain so forever.
"No, no!" The girl said, waving her arms rapidly. "I just wanted the chair. Please, I will leave."
"No!" Elizabeth countered as she pushed her coat into her bag. "I will leave."
"But you barely touched your lunch!" The girl said, backing away from the table at the same pace as Elizabeth.
"Why don't you guys just sit together?" A passing Emmett commented as he moved towards the Cullens table.
Elizabeth's gaze followed Emmett as he joined the rest of her family, who seemed to have been watching the whole exchange amused. Elizabeth looked at the girl who was now studying her food. The girl took a deep breath and sat on the chair. She looked at Elizabeth, who quickly mirrored her actions and sat a little to roughly onto the opposite chair. They both nervously smiled at each other as they slowly started eating.
"Why aren't they talking?!" Edward lamented, as Bethany twirled her hair at him. "They are both having great conversations in their heads. How is that even possible?"
"They're shy." Bella commented.
"More like a small push away from puking all over each other." Emmett snorted. "I can smell the teen stress all the way from here."
A calm started spreading across the cafeteria.
"So many teenagers..." Jasper sighed. "So much stress..."
But Elizabeth's shoulders slowly loosened.
"I'm Marcy Gray." The mousy hair girl said, a glazed look of relaxation in her eyes. "I'm glad we're sitting together. I was scared I will be alone again."
"I was a step away from eating in the bathroom stalls!" Elizabeth added, smiling a little. "I'm Elizabeth Masen. Thank you so much for eating with me."
The girls giggled before they resumed eating in silence, each pondering over an interesting topic to bring up.
"Movies, music, clothes, books..." Rosalie muttered. "Anything, Bethy! Talk about anything"
But the girls continued eating in silence, sometimes glancing nervously at each other.
Urgh. Elizabeth thought. What is in this? Should I throw this away? But what if Marcy is one of those environmentalists? The ones who worry about the food in Africa. Not that anybody in Africa would eat this even if their lives depended on it. What if she leaves offended? What if she yells at me?
Elizabeth smiled cautiously at Marcy and continued eating, unaware that a similar string of thoughts were going through Marcy's head.
"Maybe next time we can slip in some broccoli on that plate." Rosalie murmured, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
A shiver went down Elizabeth's spine. She frowned and turned to look at her family, who seemed to be deep in conversation with each other.
"I'm guessing they are the Cullens?" Marcy said, as she followed Elizabeth's gaze.
"The hot new thing." Elizabeth said, a bit too callously.
Marcy looked at her confused.
Shit! Elizabeth thought. She is going to think I'm the judgmental type. I don't even know them in school. Why did I say that? It's because they were talking about me, I'm sure of it. But Marcy thinks I'm awful. Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!
Repeating the mantra, Elizabeth scarfed down her lunch and a little short of ran out the cafeteria. She could feel an extra pair of eyes studying her as she made her way to Math, the studying from last night dizzyingly slipping out of her.
As always, Elizabeth was the first in class. And as always, she sat alone. Every class she attended had an odd number of students. That was because she shared classes with a girl who was sick and hadn't been able to come to school yet. Elizabeth sometimes day-dreamed of hitting it off with the unknown girl (who in her head looked like a mellow version of her Aunt Tanya from Alaska) and becoming her best friend. Since the seat next to her was the only empty seat, Elizabeth was atleast sure of being cordial with the unknown girl. Elizabeth was content. She had never been cordial with anybody before.
Elizabeth gazed across the misty lawn as the bell rang and the class started to fill out. She used to try to make eye contact with the other kids before. But either they didn't see her, which was the best case, or they caught her averting her eyes hastily, which was the worst case.
The pot bellied Math teacher with wispy dark hair, Mr. Gillian, walked into class. He roughly slammed the table with his books, calling attention to the class who settled down on their desks. He cleared his throat as he surveyed the class, making sure that his students were alert and at an arms length from each other. He frowned at the empty seat next to Elizabeth.
"Don't just stand there!" He barked at the door. "I haven't got all day!"
Elizabeth heard a tiny squeak and the mousy haired Marcy scurried into the room. She paused searching for an empty seat and almost cried in relief when she saw the place next to Elizabeth. She quickly made her way to the seat and opened her book to the page Elizabeth was on. She smiled nervously at Elizabeth, glad that she was sitting with a familiar face. Elizabeth smiled back and spent the rest of the class day dreaming about being BFFs with Marcy, Aunt Tanya's face quickly replaced.