Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.
We sat in the squad car that was dad's second home. Both of us were looking at the high school while unease settled in the air around us.
"You went here?" I asked him, trying to find some connection with the man who had always been more of a post card picture than a dad.
"Years ago," he murmured softly as he looked at the again building with a soft expression that hinted at some nostalgia that I had never felt towards any place, telling me what I already knew. I knew he had gone there. I knew that it was within those hallowed halls that he had met my mom. I also knew that it was here that he decided to become a cop even though I never asked him why.
"You ready?" he asked me abruptly, pulling himself out of some lost memory of years gone by. His sudden enthusiasm caught me off guard as I stuttered a response.
I was ready. I had a plan and a calendar that counted down until a late May graduation that would set me free from public education and the rigors that came along with it. I had my future mapped out. I was going to leave this little hell-hole behind and go to college at the University of Iowa. I knew there I would blend in as just another odd kid and not some freak that could see ghosts. It was a simple plan and one that was well within my reach as long as I stuck to the basics.
No ghosts.
"We don't have to you know," Dad continued on as I struggled to open the squad car door.
"You could take another day off. School started here a week ago so what's one more day?" he tempted me with a grin that was half hidden by the moustache that he wore.
"Dad, I just want to get this over," I groaned softly as I looked at him, urging him to understand what I knew he didn't. He had no idea that I was counting on the future to change and change me along with it. I could control my destiny, or at least that was what I had told myself.
"Don't wish your life away, Bell," he stated in a somber tone that surprised me as he looked over at me. His eyes were dark and haunted in a manner that surprised me, but if I was being honest, everything that involved my father surprised me.
I waited for some weird pep talk, similar to what mom would have given to me, telling me how these were the best days of my life, but his words never came. Instead, he just gave me a sad smile while motioning for me to go as he opened his car door.
The walk into the school was silent, but that was fine since we both were lost in our thoughts. While I wasn't quite used to living in this small town, I was slowly learning to love living with dad since he never demanded to know what was on my mind. He didn't expect me to amuse him with my thoughts and for that I was thankful since mom was one who always demanded to be entertained. He was simple, and I was slowly learning to love him because of that.
Dad opened the door for me, ushering me into the school with a sigh that confused me.
"You know, I don't think I've ever been there on your first day of school," he mused aloud as if it was some random thought that had crossed him mind, but I knew better. I could see that this bothered him. There was regret glimmering in his eyes over the years lost between us. It was heavy enough to rob me of any comforting response that I might have been able to offer him, not that it mattered since as soon as we walked in, my eyes were drawn to the trophy cases that lined the walls of the front of school.
The cases were like any others that I had seen in the countless schools that I had been in. They were crowded with old achievements mixed in with new accomplishments, but it wasn't these examples of a winning seasons gone by that caught my eye. It was the aged picture of a boy whose eyes were a bright green with an infectious smile that had me mesmerized. He was cute, but not breathtaking, with his crooked nose and ginger-colored hair, looking like any other boy that had once roamed these halls, but it was clear there was something different about his picture. He wasn't the captured memory of a sports champion or a former class president. He was the boy I had seen the other night dangling over the edge of the roof as if he hadn't a care in the world.
"You ready?" Dad called to me, pulling me away from the picture of the boy that had filled my dreams even though I had told myself that he was not real.
"Sure," I replied with a confident grin that caused my dad to look at me as if I had lost my mind before following him to the office. I walked with a stiff determination, refusing to look back at the picture while reminding myself of what one of the psychiatrists had told me during one of my many visits that my mother had insisted upon in order to fix me, as if I was broken.
Don't give the voices power.
It was simple advice that he had given me, not that I had ever followed it. I had found that the spirits who contacted me were too loud, too insistent, and I was too weak to ignore them.
"Not this time," I whispered to myself as I steeled myself towards the spirit that I knew was lurking before following my dad into the office to start my new life.
AN:
So, I lied. I decided as I sat down to do review replies that it would be easier to post this quick little chapter since it took us one step closer to interacting with Edward. Hope you don't you mind… As I have stated before, I will post the teaser for now Chapter 5 on my Facebook page, Fic Teasers on Tuesday and the review replies for this chapter.
Thanks to Lou, Andi, Sarah, & Tracy for their encouragement as well as red pen corrections. You ladies make my day : )
Thanks to you for taking time out of your day to read this and for having faith that paranormal romance include ghosts.
Until next Saturday!
Xoxo
Mamasutra
