A/N: Hey! I know this chapter update is really fast but I couldn't help it, I just had to keep writing. These really fast updates won't be a regular thing though. I will try to update at least every week if not more.
Anyway, I just noticed I accidently wrote "Montreal" instead of "Phoenix" in the last chapter. Oops. I already told you that this story is just a Twilight-i-fied version another story I wrote so I am very sorry for this mistake and any others I may make in the future. Sometimes I miss things when I am going through these old chapters and Twilight-i-fying them. Sorry again.
Enough with my rambling… I present, Chapter DEUX!
Chapter 2: Rain Delays
I sank down on my old bed in my old room in my old house. The rain started an hour earlier and was coming down hard.
It didn't matter though. Nothing mattered.
I missed Renee so much. I had gotten so much closer to her than I ever was in those two good years I lived with her. Then she was taken away from me and I was never getting her back.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I forced the memories back. I didn't, wouldn't, cry over this anymore.
I rolled over in my bed, opening my eyes to land on the framed photograph on my night side table and felt a slight sting in my heart.
I bet you thought the picture was of my mom, right?
Wrong.
The photo showed me and my closest friends back when I was sixteen and still living in Forks with Charlie.
It pained me to see how happy and carefree we were at the time the photo was taken. It made me almost wish I could step into the picture, into that moment, and stay smiling like that forever.
The four of us were smiling widely and dressed in our pajamas. I remembered we were sleeping over at Alice's house. I could almost smell the buttery popcorn we ate while watching the horror movies. I could still hear the laughter as Alice and I chased the guys with pillows when they laughed when we screamed at the scary parts.
Emmett, Alice's older brother, was grinning like a mad man, sitting on the ground with his legs stretched out straight in front of him. His mop of tight dark curls were all askew from the pillow fight and his green eyes, bright. His hands were pressed onto the floor behind him as he leaned back on his arms. He was huge. And when I say huge, I mean total muscle-man, weight-lifter huge. But not in a slightly gross way like some pro-wrestlers (A/N: No offense to wrestlers). He was a handsome guy, and beneath the big strong guy image, Emmett was actually a really big teddy bear with a heart made of butter.
I was sitting beside him in more or less the same position. We almost looked comical side by side since he was so much taller and bigger than me. I missed him.
I stared at the foreign girl who was supposed to be me in the picture. The girl in the photo was no longer me. I was older, and not nearly as happy.
I was smiling widely, staring at the camera with my wide, round boring brown eyes. My soft, mahogany hair was loose. The thick strands framed my heart-shaped face and mantled my shoulders. My skin, pale white, like vanilla.
People called me pretty. I called myself an average. I didn't see myself as anything special. Apart from my very rare pale skin, I was completely average.
Yup, nothing out of the ordinary. I was 5 feet 4 inches and one hundred and ten pounds. I was slim and hated sports. I guess a part of it was because of my inability to walk across a flat surface without tripping, falling, smashing my face into the floor, and humiliating myself. Ah, all in a day's work.
On my other side in the picture sat Alice's twin brother, Edward.
Edward.
Two years ago, being around him, I would hardly be able to think clearly or breathe evenly. He affected me in ways he never knew.
He was the greatest friend I could have asked for. I was even closer to him than I was to Alice. We were like two halves of one whole, him and I. I missed him more than anything.
I started having feelings for him beyond friendship when we started high school. I was confused and brushed it off. The feelings wouldn't go away, however, and kept getting stronger with every moment more I spent with him.
By the time I was fifteen (almost sixteen) I realized I was in love with him.
Call me too young at the time, but I knew I was in love. I'd known him since we were babies. I loved him. Completely and hopelessly, and it scared me.
I knew he wouldn't feel the same way, so I kept our relationship the way it had always been; platonic.
But it got harder and harder to keep it in, since I was falling more and more in love with him every day.
Alice knew. She could tell and confronted me about it. I had sworn her to secrecy.
Shortly after this very picture was taken (maybe a week or two) I finally told Edward how I felt. If I kept it in any longer, I would have self-destructed.
And he said he loved me too, and then we went to live happily in the land of rainbows, unicorns, and a talking dog called Fabio.
Ha, ha. I wish.
No, instead he told me that although he cared a lot about me, he only saw me as a friend and didn't love me the same way. I was shattered.
Of course I hid it, but I knew he could tell the pain I was in. He didn't feel the same way, but still wanted to be best friends. I agreed to this, as much as it hurt me, because I preferred being his friend instead of shutting him out of my life completely.
Of course this got too overwhelming over time. We acted as if nothing was wrong, but I was slowing destroying myself on the inside.
I know, that was pretty deep coming from Miss Touch-me-and-you-die, but being around him didn't help my love for him.
I wanted to get over him, but I couldn't when I was around him so often and not able to be with him the way I wanted to.
I felt suffocated and needed an escape. From Edward.
That's when I started looking for means of getting out of Forks and you know what happened from there.
I was going to tell him and his family I was leaving the 3 days before during our weekly movie nights, but when he brought home his new girlfriend, looking so happy and proud, I couldn't bring myself to speak.
He tried calling me numerous times on my cell phone after I left. I knew it was childish to ignore him like that, but it was for the best. After a few months he gave up calling me and I hadn't heard from him since. I had forbid Alice from writing about him when she and I emailed each other back and forth.
Staring at him now, looking so perfect in the photo, my heart beat a little faster, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was much better than I was before.
He had a very unique hair colour. I hadn't seen anything like it. Bronze sort of, like a penny, but it was casually disarrayed and messy, it never seemed to stay down, no matter how much water he put on it. He had white skin like mine and Emmett's, and the Cullen Family green eyes, but his always seemed so much greener than the others'. The other Cullen's had very nice green eyes, but they never shone with the same emerald hue as Edward's. They sparkled with amusement at the camera.
Like Emmett and I, Edward had this legs stretched out straight in front of him and he leant on his arms behind him, but one of his arms was casually slung over my shoulders. He had a goofy grin on his face. He wasn't as muscled as Emmett, but he had them. Muscles I mean. He was just a leaner version.
Alice laid her tiny body over our legs horizontally, lying on her side, her head propped up by her elbow. Her black hair was cut short and was in her usual spiky style.
I sighed, putting the picture back on the night side table, but this time face down. I didn't want to look at it again.
I was so worn out and even depressed about my mother's death, the school transfer, and the worry over Renee's killer being on the loose, I felt like I was running on empty.
I felt like I wasn't really living, that I'd suddenly wake up from this nightmare and I'd be back in Phoenix and Renee would be downstairs making breakfast, and singing something totally off-tune.
I was starting to think the whole world had become pretty pointless, with people screwing themselves, and global warming bringing Doomsday closer and closer. Pointless.
I huffed turning over again.
I needed a hobby.
* * *
I woke up early the next morning, my eyes fluttering open and darting around. A little confused at first, but relaxing after I remembered I was with Charlie in Forks.
It was still raining like last night, but it wasn't coming down as hard. Groaning, I got up to go to the bathroom.
I was grateful I didn't have a nightmare last night. Ever since Renee died, I had been having horrible nightmares about the killer every few nights or so.
Renee was murdered eight weeks ago and for the first week or two after her death I had the same nightmare every night. The killer would be coming after me, and the blood… so much blood. After the first week, I got the nightmare maybe three or four times a week and two weeks after that, I only got it maybe twice a week if I was unlucky .
Now I had the nightmare once in a while, I guess. I hadn't had it in almost a week and I was hoping it would continue to lessen in occurrence.
Half an hour later, I went downstairs, ready to say goodbye to Charlie.
"Hey kiddo. I put your bags in the truck. Are you sure you don't want me to drive with you to Seattle?"
"I'll be fine Char-Dad." Nice save Bella.
"Make a safe trip and text me or something when you get there, so I know you're still in one piece, okay?" he said, handing me my car keys. When I still lived in Forks, Charlie bought me a 1950's Chevy red truck. I loved it even though Edward, Emmett, and Alice all didn't. It had personality. Unfortunately I had to leave it behind when I went to Arizona, but thankfully Charlie saved it for me.
"Okay. Bye Dad" I said, turning towards the door.
"Bye baby. Be safe."
I smiled the smallest of smiles towards my dad. I lived with him for most of my life when Renee divorced him and went to Phoenix to start new. Renee didn't want to pull me out of Forks to go with her so she let Charlie take care of me while she sent money and occasionally visited, of course.
Charlie was the police chief of Forks. He was an easy, laid back guy, giving me more freedom than other parents. He wasn't overly emotional, like me, and spent most weekends out fishing with Billy Black from La Push. Regardless though, he was a great father.
I envied him. I knew he never really got over Renee even all these years, yet he didn't seem to be in a downward spiral of emotional destruction like I was.
Okay, maybe that was being a bit dramatic, but the point is; he was in much better shape than I was.
Then again, he might have been putting on a show to be strong for me. Whatever.
The car ride was uneventful. I drove, stopped for food, drove, stopped for directions, drove, drove some more, then Hallelujah, I was there.
I kept driving, looking around for the campus of Seattle University.
After finding it, I walked towards the main campus office in dread. I would have much preferred to be in my school in Phoenix, but what I preferred wasn't really being put into consideration.
God, I sounded so cold-hearted. I needed a friend just as much as I needed a hobby.
But then again, a friend wasn't exactly in the cards right about now. Not after what he told me.
The secretary at the front desk was older, with short white hair, leaning over her computer. I thought someone like her to be retired, but I guess not.
"Excuse me?" I said, trying to get her attention.
Her head snapped up, looking me up and down. Jeez, what was she? A pervert? Highly unlikely.
"Yes?" she said politely, but brusquely. She was obviously an aloof person.
"I'm the new transfer student from Phoenix, Arizona. Isabella Swan."
Swiftly typing something into her computer, she nodded and printed off some papers for me and handed me a key.
"Here is your classes' schedule, you don't have to officially start classes until tomorrow. And this is your room key for your dorm. You're in Building 2, Room 328. And here is your ID card. You need to scan it before entering your dorm building otherwise you cannot get in. That should be it. Welcome to the Seattle University." (A/N: I know nada about Seattle University and I'm too lazy to research any of its procedures in terms of new transfer students, so please forgive me if I get anything wrong)
I nodded taking the things and heading out. I easily found Building 2 and scanned my ID card, unlocking the door for me.
I quickly texted Charlie to let him know I was fine while I was in the elevator.
I found my room just as easily. I unlocked and opened the door, pulling my stuff inside with me. Someone then said hello to me and I looked up. I was hit with an immediate self-esteem destroyer.
Inside my new dorm room stood a beautiful, no, gorgeous, no, stunning young woman who looked about my age. I suspected she was my new roommate. To say the least, I never felt uglier around her.
She smiled at me and to my utter surprise, she came forward and hugged me. I automatically stiffened. An immediate response to physical contact ever since the incident… that, and the fact most people are uncomfortable with strangers hugging them.
Feeling my discomfort, the girl unlatched herself and took a step back, mumbling an apology.
The girl was taller than me. She looked maybe 5 ft 8" or 5 ft 10". She had long golden blonde hair that was thick and wavy. She had pale skin and gorgeous violet eyes.
I had to admit, she was like a freaking supermodel. She must have had tons of guys drooling at the sight of her, daily. I bet that if she walked into a room, angels would sing. By the way she greeted me, I could tell she was friendly person. Although, I don't think she usually does that; hug strangers. She seemed a little shocked at her actions herself.
"Hi", she said, holding out her hand. "I'm Rosalie Hale, your roommate."
I shook her hand. "Isabella Swan, but call me Bella. Isabella is too long and formal."
"Okay, and that's a pretty name by the way."
"Thanks."
Rosalie smiled and I already felt myself liking her, which was very surprising for me.
"Sorry for the welcome." Rosalie said sheepishly. "I wouldn't normally do that, but you saved me from having the worst roommate in the history of roommates. Your bed is over there by the way."
"Thanks. How did I save you?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"It's just this other girl, Tanya Denali, who had her dorm damaged in a fire, and needed a place to stay. She immediately asked me since I had no roommate, but luckily I told her you were coming soon and that she couldn't come."
Tanya, Tanya Denali. Why does that name sound so familiar?
"What's so bad about this Tanya?" I asked.
"Well, she seems to like to think she has free reign of the world and the people living here," Rosalie replied, rolling her eyes. "She has absolutely no filter when it comes to talking and is rather self-centered. She treats her boyfriend more like a possession than a person. I don't know why he puts up with her. I think he's pretty much blinded himself to her flaws, which are many."
"Oh. I understand why you wouldn't like her very much."
"Yup, but I have to put up with her since her boyfriend, who she's been with for a surprising two years, is one of my close guy friends."
"Does she know you don't like her?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. Anyway… so… what are you majoring in?" she asked, changing topics.
"English literature. Writing stuff. You?"
"Dance. Minor?"
"French." I said, surprised at how comfortable I felt around Rosalie.
Wow, I wish for friend and less than an hour later I get one. Or someone close to that. I should wish for things more often.
"Ooo, cool. My minor is music. Vocals to be specific."
"Plan on being famous one day?"
"Maybe, if I feel like it." she replied in an offhand manner and giggled.
I felt the corners of my mouth twitch. What was up with me?
Rosalie and I talked about random things, comfortably chatting while I unpacked. It felt so odd to be at such ease with someone I just met. It was like we'd known each other for years. Strange, yet comforting, and slightly scary.
"So did you live in Phoenix all your life?" Rosalie asked me.
"No, I actually only lived there for two years with my mom. I'm originally from Forks, Washington, but went to live with my mom in Arizona when I was seventeen."
"Forks, that sounds familiar… wait, you lived separately from your mom? Who did you live with in Forks?"
"My dad. My parents divorced when I was a little kid."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
"So why did you move to Seattle? Need a change of scenery?"
The pain stabbed my heart like a cold, sharp knife. I tensed before quickly composing myself.
"In a way." It wasn't a complete lie…
She looked at me curiously and I wondered if she saw the flash of pain in my eyes. But she didn't say anything more on the topic so I guess not or she didn't want to pry.
"Oh, look at the time! Come Bella, I want you to eat lunch with me and my friends!" Rosalie said excitedly. If only some of her enthusiasm could spread on to me.
I followed her out of the dorm and into the dining hall without protest. Not like I had any other plans for lunch.
Rosalie looked around for a second before smiling and leading me to a table that was pretty empty except for one guy. Rosalie was smiling and waving to him as she approached. Was he her boyfriend?
"Jazz! Hi! Meet my new roommate, Bella Swan. Bella, this is Jasper Whitlock, a good friend of mine." Oh, so not her boyfriend.
He gave me a friendly smile and a "Hi". He had the whole calm, cool, and collected air about him. He had honey blonde hair that was kind of shaggy and fell in front of his ice blue eyes a bit. Even though he was sitting, I could tell he was pretty tall, lean too. He was very handsome.
Rosalie sat down across from Jasper and pulled me down next to her.
"There are others coming too. There's my boyfriend, Emmett Cullen…"
I froze.
Em-Emmett was… here?!
"and there's his sister, who is a close friend of mine and the same age as us. Emmett is a year older. Her name is Alice…"
No, no, no, no, no! I wasn't ready to face them yet! And if those two are here than quite possibly…
"And there's also Alice's twin brother, Edward. He's Tanya's unfortunate boyfriend. So I guess you'll meet her too…"
But I stopped listening at soon as I heard Edward's name leaving Rosalie's lips. She was busy rambling about her friends, AKA the Cullens, that she didn't notice my horrified expression.
Edward? Edward?! I knew Tanya's name was familiar. It was the name of Edward's new girlfriend two years ago, the one he announced just before I left. And he was still with her? He must love her…
It didn't hurt as much as one would have thought, me having once been in love with him. I wasn't anymore, the two years in Phoenix helped me to get over my feelings for him, but that didn't mean I was ready to see him yet.
No, I wasn't ready.
I wouldn't be able to explain my sudden departure to him. Why I left without a word. He was a jerk for announcing his new girlfriend in front of me and his family, knowing how I felt. But I still left abruptly without a word to anyone but Alice, and I was his best friend! I wasn't ready for confrontation.
And then there's Alice. I knew she would forgive me, she already had. She would want to be best friends again. She would be excited to see me, for us to be close once more. But I couldn't let that happen.
I wanted to be that close with her again. Hell, I wanted my old friendship with Edward and Emmett back so badly. But I couldn't. Not only because I was afraid of confrontation, but because of what just happened to me… I couldn't.
Maybe I could fake an illness or say I need to go to the washroom and make a mad dash for the airport. Think Bella, think fas-
"Bella? Is that you?"
A/N: MUWHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! Eep! Don't hurt me!!!
Sorry for the cliffy, I couldn't resist –snickers- Soooo… quick question. Does anyone want me to post some or all of the lyrics of songs I use at the end of each chapter? If so, or if not, let me know. Ciao!
