Hello! I'm Cherry!
This is the first chapter of the final Edit of Moirai! I hope previous readers return and I get some new ones too! This whole story has been a labor of love from start to finish, and I really hope you enjoy it!
Please leave a review down below if you're excited for the next chapter, I'll be updating this story weekly, every Sunday!
Thanks for giving this a shot!
My eyes were locked on the rolling white, rhythmic on the edge of the beach. The sand there was dyed dark and glistening in the sun as the tides continued their languorous, slow laps. I could feel the sun reflecting off the dry sand nearest to my feet; it would be too hot to walk on, even with sandals on.
I sighed and rocked back on the seat of my bike, closing my eyes and tipping my head back to feel the sunlight. Might as well soak up every speck of Vitamin D I could before I finally had to leave. After several minutes of letting the unfettered UV rays cook my cheeks and eyelids, I pushed my weight into my arms and turned the handlebars to head back home. My bike followed the path paved right alongside the beach in the direction of home — well, what used to be home. We moved to Redondo Beach from San Diego when my mom got an Executive Assistant position in LA. I'd been a sophomore in high school at the time, but I was lucky to land where I did. I fit in much better at that school than I had my previous one. Living in California was something I would always miss, even with LA's weirdness. Not to mention the oddities of living right off the edge of million-dollar estates and beach properties in a much smaller, two-bedroom shiplap house.
I wasn't in any rush to get home; my mom was trying to get some extra sleep in before our long road-trip later that day. So, I weaved up the hill from the beach, trying to commit the cute, colorful little boutique shops and restaurants to memory again - refreshing it. I had done this each time I prepared for another semester, reminding myself I would be back on breaks and for holidays.
It was never forever.
I eventually pulled up the small driveway of our tiny house, dropping my bike in the shaded car park and locking it to the wood post that supported it before going inside. It was still early, seven am, and we didn't start our drive until later. I was waiting for the reality to hit me, transferring undergraduate programs.
I was headed to good old Washington State U. I'd known this was coming for a while. I got through freshman and sophomore year at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, but I was running out of money. WSU was not my first choice. But with my older brother living nearby (having attended himself and graduated two years prior) and the amount of financial aid they were offering me, it just made the most sense.
The time seemed to fly after that, finishing packing and stuffing my mom's car with everything I owned. It wasn't until I was looking at my empty bedroom for the last of my things I realized how much time had passed. I glanced into my closet, then the bathroom, not seeing anything important enough to try and cram into my mother's already packed hatchback. I walked slowly out of our house, attempting to take it in one more time. As I tried to burn the sun and sky itself into my memory, my mom called from the car and hurried me off the porch.
"Bella! C'mon! We're wasting daylight here, and I still have to drive back!" She was chiding but smiling slightly. I knew she understood.
"I'm comin', I'm comin'!" I sighed and headed for the passenger seat. Swinging open the door and ducking in, I sat on the newest acquisition to my wardrobe: the heavy parka I'd need when we got farther north. It looked so odd against the backdrop of blue, green, and palm trees outside the car.
I looked at my mom as she mouthed along to a song on the radio, her braids tied into an elegant and simple twist on the top of her head, a silk scarf protecting her hairline. Her dark green sunglasses reflected the sun like an instagram photo. No filter needed, black don't crack. I had to smile, committing this image to memory too.
Soon enough, we were on our way up the coast. We'd done our best to miss rush hour to skip the worst of the traffic in LA, and we'd managed to time it seemingly perfectly. I kept the windows rolled down as I watched the city roll by. Slipping on my sunglasses,popping in my headphones, and bouncing my leg anxiously, I tried to imagine what to expect.
Before my dad sold the old house in Pullman, my new-old city, he offered to board Kain up in our childhood home while he attended WSU himself. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with my siblings and I when I was only a few months old. It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down - I hated being crammed inside as a kid, especially over summer break. After that, the family vacationed in LA and then florida for two weeks instead.
Kain had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the time being, claiming his two bedroom apartment was lonely and "haunted". After he'd graduated, he'd helped mom and dad sell the family home and found his own place closer to the university, where he now worked. He'd already gotten the other bedroom cleared out for me and was going to help me get a car. But it was sure to be a little awkward, having his little sister peddling around his bachelor pad. It was a nineteen-hour drive to Pullman, so I'd packed plenty of entertainment for the ride. Mom already had her audiobook playing over the car's Bluetooth, and I decided it was a great idea to listen to my own to take my mind off of the impending shift to my existence. I was also going to miss the friends I'd made out in Nebraska, and it was dawning on me that I wouldn't see them this year. The longer I lingered on that thought, the more my eyes burned. I looked down at my phone, shooting an "I miss you guys already :(" to the group chat, scrolling through the photos of the last two years, reminiscing, and getting lost in my thoughts. The hours passed quickly, as they tended to when you weren't necessarily looking forward to the thing you were headed towards. I'd cleared two of my audiobooks, gotten a four-hour nap, and taken the wheel so my mom could nap for a bit herself. She was in the driver's seat as we passed into Washington, and I couldn't suppress my grimace. Of course it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen—just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.
My leg bounced so hard I was nearly shaking the car as we finally pulled into Kain's apartment complex. My mom chuckled at me.
"Calm down, sweetheart, you're going to be just fine. I think you might even have fun." The car bounced as we rolled over the driveway that led to the parking lot. I glanced at my phone to see if Kain had gotten my text, letting him know we were here. I rolled my eyes at the horrified emoji he sent back, looking up and waiting to spot the dork.
Finally, I saw him waving hard outside one of the fairly identical buildings, using his full arm to his shoulder. Even from this distance, I could see his wide grin. He was hard to miss - he stole all of the "tall" genes before I was born. He was at least six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and relatively fit. He had the same messy, rust-colored coily hair I did, but he managed to make it look nice, trimmed up into a short fade. It also looked like he'd started growing a scruffy, short beard since I'd last seen him. Mom pulled into a parking spot near the waving dork and his - I mean, our - apartment building, laughing as she got out to hug my brother and say hi.
The next six hours blurred again as we emptied the car and hauled my things to the 4th floor and into my brother's apartment. We ordered pizza and ate together in the small kitchen, my mom catching up with my brother and making sure we had everything we needed. She was off to a hotel for the night, needing a real bed after the exhausting drive, only to head straight home after she'd slept.
It hit me like it always did, this was the last time I would see her for a while and the hugs we shared were longer than normal, but still finite. I held back the sting in my eyes as the door closed, resisting the urge to run after her and cling to her like a little kid. After gathering myself and scrubbing my eyes with my hoodie sleeve I finally turned to my brother.
"It's good to see you, boo," He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and turned me in the direction of the bedrooms, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me when I stumbled on my own toe.
"You haven't changed much. How're the 'Rents?"
"It's good to see you, too, Nerd. Dad's still closing on the house in Jacksonville, Mom's already transferred to the new school there. So they're chaos, as per usual. " He stuck his tongue out at me and let me walk into the new, bare bedroom I would be calling my own.
"I uh…found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when I fwumped down onto the bare mattress of the full bed.
"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for you" as opposed to just "good car."
"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."
"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black? Dad's old friend from way back? They own that pub downtown, The Rose and Thorn."
"No."
"He used to go fishing with us during the summer, he brought his daughters..." Kain prompted. I faked recognition, my memory had always been crap, I could kind of remember the fishing trips we'd gone on as kids, but everyone but dad, Cass and Kain were totally indistinct.
"He's in a wheelchair now," Kain continued when I didn't respond, "so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask.
"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine—it's only a few years old, really." I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily.
"When did he buy it?"
"He bought it in 2005, I think."
"Did he buy it new?"
"Well, no. I think it was new in the early 2k's" he admitted sheepishly.
"Bruh, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic..."
"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. "They don't build them like that anymore" is what my boyfriend said, well, ex-boyfriend said." He grimaced, pouting slightly at the memory. The "thing", I thought to myself… it had possibilities—as a nickname, at the very least.
"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise on.
"Well, Boo, I kind of already bought it for you. As a "welcome to Washington" gift." Kain peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression, biting his lip.
Woah, I hadn't expected that.
"Wow, hey you didn't need to do that, Kain. I was going to buy myself a car."
"I don't mind. I want you to be able to get around and back and forth from class easily." He gave me a grin, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket to dangle them, a pink bow tied to the key ring.
"That's…really nice of you, Bro. Thank you. I really appreciate it." I never looked a free truck in the mouth—or engine.
"Awesome cause it's also my bribe to make you cook and do dishes while you're here!" he beamed a shit eating grin, and I guffawed, faking out a punch at his head.
We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for conversation. I went to the window in the room to survey the forest I was overlooking. It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves. It was too green—an alien planet. Watching me take it all in, Kain finally piped up.
"sooo, wanna see your truck?" He was grinning excitedly, showing off the keys again in a way that finally made me smile, heading over to him and grab them from him.
"Yes, I wanna see what you mean by early 2k's." I chuckled, hearing him huff as he led me out to the parking lot, as we turned the corner, he gestured to a vehicle with a flourish.
"Ta-da!"
I stared at my new—well, new to me—truck. It was a metallic black color, with big, rounded silver fenders and a massive cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those SUV's with a ton of trunk space, great for my messy self.
"Holy shit Kain, it's perfect!" I jogged around it giddily, seeing "Trailblazer" stamped on the trunk. Now my terrifying day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or catching a bus.
"I'm glad you like it," Kain grinned, embarrassed again. We opened the doors and explored it for a bit, before the rain started to increase, continuing our conversation as we headed up the stairs again. I finally let myself explore the apartment a little. There was only one small bathroom at the end of the hall with the bedrooms, and with a little chagrin I realized I would have to share with Kain. I tried not to dwell too much on that.
He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible if I'd been in a dormitory. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stretch and flop onto the still bare mattress. I threw my arm over my eyes, trying to coax my brain into chilling with the anxiety. It's not like I hadn't done this before, but it was always nerve-wracking. The biggest problem with small state universities, so many of the kids here had grown up together—gone to the same highschools at least.
I would be suddenly supplanted into the Junior class - this was certainly not as bad as if I'd been a twenty-one year old freshman - but it would still probably peak some interest. That and, knowing my brother, he'd been hyping up my arrival at every college frat party, houseparty, rave, nightclub and afterparty in the city.
Maybe, if I looked like a girl from LA should, I could work this to my advantage. But physically, I'd missed that mark pretty clearly, people pictured sporty, perky, slim. Maybe some kind of instagram model looking at Kain.
I finally sighed and got up, grunting and cursing as I tackled the pile of boxes and bags, making my bed and unpacking my guitar from it's case.
"Welcome to your new home baby.." I cooed to it quietly as I placed it on its stand, I would need to tune it before I played it, travel and the change in humidity would probably have stretched the strings. I put up a couple photos, set up my little desk in the corner, dropped my work lamp into the corner of it, and finally finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser. The rest went into the little closet, thanking the gods I'd purged this summer.
I took my bag of bathroom necessities and makeup and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror and pulled down my smushed space buns. I tried to comb through it with my fingers, then when that failed, my pick. When my pick got stuck halfway through and wouldn't budge, I groaned and left it there, staring at my reflection with the comb stuck in the rats nest. I grumbled and decided to just take a shower, wash day was overdue anyway.
I was a short, topheavy girl. I had always been mesomorphic, bulky and thick, with a lucky break in my somewhat hourglass figure. I was muscular, but obviously not someone who worked out. I did a lot of labor jobs in highschool, saving for college. I'd been a hotel maid, summer nanny, dishwasher, waitress, gas station cashier, I wasn't picky if the pay was good, but it also kept me relatively fit. I didn't have the necessary hand-eye-leg and foot coordination to play sports without humiliating myself—and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close. At least I'd never had a problem with my face, honestly I liked it, big round greyish brown eyes and plump cupid's bow lips, round nose speckled with freckles slightly darker than my skin. With a little brown eyeliner, mascara and an eyebrow pencil I could fix up my face pretty nicely. And my hair, while currently wrecked, had an awesome curl pattern when I actually styled it down.
Maybe it was the light, but already I looked sallower, plus I could feel a breakout coming on with the humidity and stress. My skin was really clear right now, and still held the rich glow of the sun, darker than usual, I hoped I could hang on to the glow as long as possible. But in the white, incandescent light of the bathroom, I looked ashy and flat. I had no good color here, I wondered how I would present myself tomorrow.
I'd always struggled with making friends, I was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism as a kid, and I assumed that had been what provided my "too-much-ness". I was always too loud, too exaggerated, too interested or too distracted. I always thought that was why I didn't relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page.
Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs, considering the glitch in my brain. But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. I took my shower and pushed all the bad vibes out of my head, feeling better after I'd scrubbed every inch of myself and blew out my hair, putting it in a much neater bun to sleep in.
I was feeling a little more human after I made the room my own, nested, like I had in dorms previously, but it still felt off. As I worried, I didn't sleep well that night, staring at the alarm clock while the anxiety roiled around my guts. The constant whooshing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. I pulled the new smelling duvet over my head, and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle.
Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage. Breakfast with Kain was a quiet event. He wished me good luck in my classes, not really looking up from his phone. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me, as did any manner of focus.
Kain left first, off to his current office job. After he left, I sat at the little IKEA dinner table in one of the three cute wooden chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its neutral tan walls and similarly painted cabinets, the generic mock granite countertops. Nothing was very personal, and the lack of familiarity made me itch. It was still early, so I managed a bowl of cereal and went to the bathroom to see if I could do anything with my hair. After pulling it down and putting it up in about ten different styles, I gave up and put it back into a messy topknot, letting the loose curls frame my face. I dabbed on a bb cream to even my skin-tone after washing my face, and put on some brown eyeliner and matching eyebrow pencil, defining my features. I leaned back and smudged the eyeliner a little bit, trying to make sure I didn't blend out too far. Last, I brushed on a black mascara and leaned back, trying to make sure I didn't blink it onto my eyebrow before it dried. I wasn't hopeless when it came to fashion and makeup, I certainly wasn't a MUA, but I could get by alright with youtube tutorials and walgreens palettes. Of course, everything now had to be waterproof. I liked looking nice, it made me feel more put together than I actually was.
I chose a chunky green sweater and some dark jeggings for an outfit, throwing on a camisole underneath when I thought about the chill, and my beat up black combat boots. I felt pretty, and I smiled at the reflection, satisfied I looked perfectly normal. I finally glanced at the clock, I didn't want to be too early to my first class, but I couldn't stay in the apartment anymore, too anxious to get into the thick of it and manage my expectations. I grabbed my messenger bag and made sure I had my laptop and charger, donned my jacket—which had the feel of a biohazard suit—and headed out to the stairs then into the rain.
It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through, The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. I couldn't pause and admire my truck again as I wanted; I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my hair under my hood. Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Billy or Kain had obviously cleaned it up, but the tan upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, to my relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume. Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw. The CD and cassette player worked, a plus that I hadn't expected, pulling out my phone and the odd little cassette to headphone jack gadget I had used in my moms car, putting on one of my more soothing Spotify playlists for the drive, relaxing into Hozier's warm, husky voice. It just seemed fitting for my surroundings, really, humming and singing along as I followed Google Maps.
Finding the school wasn't difficult, though I'd never been there before. Google maps made things easy on me, although finding my lecture halls and classrooms in the massive campus was going to be a different story. It looked like a collection of large, identical mansions, built with maroon-colored bricks and tan trim. It was sprawling, big courtyards and interlinking sidewalks and streets. I followed the new student signage and parked in front of what seemed to be some kind of main building, big banners plastered with the schools logo and mascot announcing freshman orientation and offering guidance. I sighed at the feeling of once again being an underclassmen, glad it wasn't the actual case, even though I had two credits I needed to make up this semester. I could only hope I wasn't the only one in need of an english and a history credit. I stepped unwillingly out of the toasty truck cab and walked down a little stone path lined with dark hedges. I took a deep breath before opening the door. Inside, it was brightly lit, and warmer than I'd hoped. I followed the signs quickly to grab a map and another pamphlet, pulling out my phone to make sure I had my schedule and classlist saved to my photostream. I was so absorbed in logging in past the various school assigned web-pages I nearly walked directly into a support beam, swearing as I caught myself an instant before my head would have collided with it. Two girls snickered at me as they passed, and I felt my face flush deeply in embarrassment and frustration, pulling up the hood of my coat to hide my embarrassment.
When I went back out to my truck, other students were starting to arrive for their own 8 am lectures, several people stumbling out of their dorms in just pajamas, reusable coffee mugs in hand like lifelines. Then there was the starry eyed, made up and fully dressed freshman. Ah, the excitement of youth.
I drove around the school, looking for the upperclassmen lot, following the line of traffic. I was glad to see that most of the cars were older like mine, nothing flashy. At home I'd lived in one of the few lower-income neighborhoods off the beach. It was a common thing to see a new Mercedes or Porsche in the student lot. The nicest car here was a shiny black Audi, and it stood out. Still, I cut the engine as soon as I was in a spot, so that the thunderous volume wouldn't draw attention to me. I looked at the map in the truck, trying to memorize it now; hopefully I wouldn't have to walk around with it stuck in front of my nose all day, it would only result in more distracted injuries or accidents. I found my first building on the map pretty quickly, thank god.
I finally stuffed everything in my bag, slung the strap over my shoulder, and sucked in a huge breath. I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me.
"aquí vamos…" I exhaled and stepped out of the truck.
I kept my face pulled back into my hood as I walked to the sidewalk, crowded with wide eyed freshman and half dead upperclassmen. My plain black jacket didn't stand out, I noticed with relief. Once I got around the nice looking commissary-slash-campus bookstore, building sixteen-oh-three was easy to spot. A large black "1603" was painted on a white square on the east corner. I felt my breathing gradually creeping toward hyperventilation as I approached the door. I tried holding my breath as I followed two unisex raincoats through it.
The building was huge, bustling already as people figured out which lecture hall held their first class. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to check the class list taped to the door. I copied them. They were two girls, one a snow-colored blonde, the other also pale, with light brown hair. Great, at least I'd be adding to the school's diversity quota, I rolled my eyes. I saw my class was on the second floor, so I headed up the stairs and followed the numbers to the hall. At the front, in the bottom of the bowl shaped room, I saw the Prof, a tall, balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Professor Mason. He was busy setting up, and I settled into one of the small desks in the back. I kept my eyes down on the reading list that had been sent out via e-mail earlier that month with my class list and syllabus. It was fairly basic: Brontë, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I'd already read everything. That was comforting… and boring. I wondered if my mom would send me my folder of old essays, or if she would think that was cheating. I went through different arguments with her in my head while the class started and the professor droned on through the syllabus. When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair black as an oil slick leaned across the aisle to talk to me.
"Hey! You're uh,...Isabella, aren't you?" He looked like the overly helpful, chess club type.
"Bella," I corrected. It felt like everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.
"Where's your next class?" he asked. I had to check in my bag.
"Um, Foundations Government, with Jefferson, in the Richards building."
"I'm headed toward the Science building, I could show you the way.…" Definitely over-helpful.
"I'm Eric," he added. I smiled tentatively.
"Thanks." We got our jackets and headed out into the rain, which had picked up. I could have sworn several people behind us were walking close enough to eavesdrop. I hoped I wasn't getting paranoid.
"So, this is a lot different than LA, huh?" he asked. I was a little disconcerted that he seemed to know so much about me, Kain had been talking.
"Very."
"It doesn't rain much there, does it?"
"Not a ton, usually 75 and sunny unless it's the wet season."
"Wow, what must that be like?" he wondered.
"Warm, and beachy."
"You don't look like someone who spent a lot of time on the beach." He eyed my sweater and old boots.
"I'm allergic to water."
He studied my face apprehensively, and I sighed. It looked like clouds and a sense of humor didn't mix. A few months of this and I'd forget how to use sarcasm. We walked across campus, following signs posted around. Eric walked me right to the door of my building, though it was clearly marked.
"Well, good luck," he said as I touched the handle. "Maybe we'll have some other classes together." He sounded hopeful. I smiled at him vaguely and went inside. The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. I managed to trip pretty spectacularly in Trig, so focused on finding a clear enough seat in the lecture hall the toe of my boot caught one of the stairs and sent me sprawling. My professor, Dr. Varner, who I would have hated anyway just because of the subject he taught, managed to put himself pretty firmly on my shit-list when I heard him smother a laugh.
After two classes, I started to recognize several of the faces in each class. There was always someone braver than the others who would introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I was liking WSU, where I'd started before this. A lot more people seemed to know about me than I had thought would be the case. I tried to be diplomatic, but mostly I just stayed vague. At least I never needed the map. One girl sat next to me in both Trig and AP Mesoamerican History, and she walked with me to the Campus Commissary building for the break period. We passed the coffee cart, and I doubled back at the smell, grabbing a coffee from the dude on our way.
She was tiny, not much shorter than my five feet 2 inches, but her wildly curly strawberry blonde hair made up a lot of the difference between our heights. I couldn't remember her name, so I smiled and nodded as she prattled about roommates and classes, boys and couples and sororities that were no good. She was nice, a bit of a gossip, but she was so forward I was starting to relax, maybe I could make friends easier than I thought. She continued on, and as much as I tried to pay attention, I couldn't keep up. We sat at the end of a full table with several people who seemed to be her friends, who she introduced to me. Students had moved into the dorms a little over a week ago, so I had apparently missed a lot. I grinned shyly, trying to commit the names to the faces, morosely sure they would vanish and scramble as soon as they were out of my sight. At one point Jessica excitedly pulled out her phone, tugging me close by the shoulder.
"We should take a selfie! I can tag you- oh do you have a Facebook?" She gave us a moment to smile, pausing and moving her arm around until she got the lighting on her face just right, then snapped several, I smiled politely, but it looked a little strange, my attempt at throwing up a peace sign was lame at best, but it was a cute pic.
"Um, yeah, here- let me friend you…" We exchanged socials, and numbers, I was nearly immediately added to the group chat. I was a little overwhelmed, but, happy, I guess I was better at this than I thought. The guy from the English class, Eric, waved at me from across the room. It was there, sitting in the crowded student seating area, trying to make conversation with seven curious and half conscious strangers, that I first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the odd groupings of tables and laptop counters. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. They weren't gawking or attempting to peruse their class lists, so they were obviously at least upperclassmen, they weren't even on their phones, they were almost like moving sculptures. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, my attention. They didn't look anything alike. Of the three boys, one was big—muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, long-ish dreadlocks, his skin was dark too, the gold beads and hoops decorating his locs and the whites of his eyes were a stark contrast. He lifted his pale palms up as he seemed to shrug at something. Another was taller, leaner, but still muscular, with deep brown hair. I couldn't place his expression, somewhere between pain and apathy. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy red hair. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they could be seniors, or, even professors. The girls were opposites. The tall one was dark and statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take 2D6 body image damage just existing near her. Her hair was a rich brunette color, nearly black, but the incandescent lights caught shimmers of gold and burgundy. She had rich chestnut brown skin, perfect dark eyebrows and thick eyelashes, a long slim nose that had a slight hook, and soft, pouty lips. The short girl was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, her 4c coils pulled into two fluffy twin buns. She had very pretty wide eyes and looked mixed, like me, she giggled at something the blonde boy said to her.
However, they were all…..exactly alike. Every one of them was blemishless, almost too smooth, but they looked,...dry, the word "ashy" came to mind. That seemed impossible considering the moisture that hung in the air like a blanket. They all had very dark eyes despite the range in hair tones. They also had dark shadows under those eyes—purplish, bruise like shadows. As if they were all suffering from a sleepless night, or almost done recovering from a broken nose. Though their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect, angular. But all this is not why I couldn't look away. I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the face of an angel. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful—maybe the perfect desi girl, or the black body builder, or the bronze-haired boy. They were all looking away—away from each other, away from the other students, away from anything in particular as far as I could tell. As I watched, the small girl rose with her tray—unopened soda, unbitten apple—and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. I watched, amazed at her lithe dancer's step, till she dumped her tray and glided through the back door, faster than I would have thought possible.
My eyes darted back to the others, who sat unchanging. "Who are they?" I asked the girl from my Meso History class. As she looked up to see who I meant—though already knowing, probably, from my tone—suddenly he looked at her, the boyish one, his clothes looked baggy, a large ochre sweater hiding his exact build as he slouched his shoulders forward. He looked at my neighbor for just a fraction of a second, and then his dark eyes flickered to mine. He looked away quickly, more quickly than I could, though in a flush of embarrassment I dropped my eyes at once. In that brief flash of a glance, his face held nothing of interest—it was as if she had called his name, and he'd looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to answer. My neighbor giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like I did. "That's...Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen; they all live together off campus." She said this under her breath. I glanced sideways at the beautiful boy, who was looking at his tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with long, pale fingers. His mouth was moving very quickly, his perfect lips barely opening. The other three still looked away, and yet I felt he was speaking quietly to them. Strange, unpopular names, I thought. The kinds of names grandparents had. But maybe that was in vogue here—small-town names? I finally remembered that my neighbor was called Jessica, a perfectly common name. There were two girls named Jessica in my History class back home.
"They are… very nice-looking." I struggled with the conspicuous understatement.
"Yes!" Jessica agreed with another giggle. "They're all together though—Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they're married." Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of a small town, I thought critically. They must have all met in highschool or something. I paused to think about the names,...married? Siblings? Which was which?
"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They don't look related.…"
"Oh, they're not. They all live with the Cullens' adoptive parents, Dr. Cullen is really young, in his thirties. He adopted Edward, Alice and Emmet. The Hales are brother and sister, twins—the blondes—and they're the ones that married in."
"They look a little young to be married already.."
"They are, Jasper and Rosalie are both twenty-two, but they've been with Emmet and Alice since early highschool."
Throughout all this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to the table where the strange family sat. They continued to look at the walls and not eat.
"Have they always lived around Washington?" I asked. Surely not, I'd lived in LA long enough to spot celebrity.
"No," she said in a voice that implied it should be obvious, even to a new arrival like me. "They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska." I felt a surge of pity, and relief. Pity because, as beautiful as they were, they were outsiders, clearly not accepted. Relief that I was not the most interesting newcomer by any standard. As I examined them, the lanky one, one of the Cullens, looked up and met my gaze, this time with evident curiosity in his expression. As I looked swiftly away, it seemed to me that his glance held some kind of unmet expectation.
"Which one is the redhead?" I asked. I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, and he was still staring at me, but not curiously like others had today—he had a slightly frustrated expression. I looked down again.
"That's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him." She sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes. I wondered when he'd turned her down. I bit my lip to hide my smile. Then I glanced at him again. His face was turned away, but I thought his cheek appeared lifted, as if he were smiling, too. After a few more minutes, the four of them left the table together. They all were noticeably graceful—even the big, brawny one. It was unsettling to watch. The one named Edward didn't look at me again. I sat at the table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I'd been sitting alone. I was anxious not to be late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who considerately reminded me that her name was Angela, had Biology with me the next hour. She was very pretty, tall and stoic, long braids that started black but blended into lovely bright reds, pinks and purples. Her skin was nearly night dark, and even in the pale light of the cloudy day, it seemed to gleam. Her face was soft and rounded, a wide, elegant nose, big sweet brown eyes and the softest looking lips I'd ever seen. I couldn't help but blush looking at her, my unhelpful, panromantic heart unable to not notice how lovely she was. Maybe not "Cullen" pretty, but certainly up there. I was lucky she'd already informed me she had a girlfriend. I'd seen them together at lunch, the other girl was much taller, thinner and more angular, dark brown hair in a bob she was obviously growing out, I think her name had been...Becca? God I hoped that was right.
We walked to class together in silence. When we entered the building and then the lab space, Angela went to sit at a black-topped lab table exactly like the ones I was used to. She already had a neighbor. In fact, all the tables were filled but one. Next to the center aisle, I recognized Edward Cullen by his messy auburn hair, sitting next to that single open seat. As I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the professor, I was watching him surreptitiously.
Just as I passed, he suddenly went rigid in his seat. He stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on his face—it was hostile, furious.
I looked away quickly, shocked, going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to catch myself on the edge of a table. The girl sitting there giggled. I'd noticed that his eyes were black—coal black. Prof. Banner signed his sheet and handed me a syllabus packet with no nonsense. I could tell we were going to get along. Of course, he had no choice but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room.
I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by him, bewildered by the antagonistic stare he'd given me. I didn't look up as I set my book on the table and took out my laptop, getting ready to take notes, but I saw his posture change from the corner of my eye. He was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and averting his face like he smelled something bad.
Inconspicuously, I sniffed my hair. It smelled like mango and coconut, the scent of my favorite moisturizer and curl cream. It seemed an innocent enough odor. I pulled the scrunchy out of my hair and finger combed it down, making a dark fluffy wall between us, and tried to pay attention to the teacher. Unfortunately the lecture was on cell differentiation, something I'd studied in depth in my Pathology class last year.
I took notes carefully anyway, always looking at my laptop screen. I couldn't stop myself from peeking occasionally through my hair at the strange guy next to me.
During the whole class, he never relaxed his stiff position on the edge of his chair, sitting as far from me as possible. I could see his hand on his left leg was clenched into a fist, tendons standing out under his pale skin.
This, too, he never relaxed.
He had the long sleeves of his sweater pushed up to his elbows, and his forearm was surprisingly hard and muscular beneath his light skin. He wasn't nearly as slight as he'd looked next to his burly brother.
The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because the day was finally coming to a close, or because I was waiting for his tight fist to loosen? It never did; he continued to sit so still it looked like he wasn't breathing.
What was wrong with him? Was this his normal behavior? It couldn't have anything to do with me. He didn't know me from Eve. Was he just super racist? I guess it wouldn't shock me living in this tiny town.
I peeked up at him one more time, and regretted it. He was glaring down at me again, his black eyes full of revulsion. As I flinched away from him, shrinking against my chair, the phrase if looks could kill suddenly ran through my mind.
At that moment, the bell rang loudly, making me jump, and Edward Cullen was out of his seat. Fluidly he rose—he was much taller than I'd thought—his back to me, and he was out the door before anyone else was out of their seat.
I sat frozen, staring blankly after him.
What a dick, I hadn't even had a chance to say anything dumb to him yet, and he was already treating me like a freak? My whole body was in fight or flight mode, a familiar queasy pit filling my stomach as I considered the reasons for his behavior. I grabbed my keychain out of my bag, wrapping my hand around the cat shaped self defense weapon I kept on it after I finished packing and warily watched the door. But, wait, his adoptive brother was black, and his sister was mixed, I had a brief flash of confusion, then another possibility made me anxious. I wondered if I'd done something rude or gross without realizing it, been distracted. I felt my earlier confidence crumble, my shoulders slumped.
I tried to block the anger and anxiety that filled me, for fear my eyes would tear up. For some reason, my temper was hardwired to my tear ducts. I usually cried when I was frustrated, a humiliating tendency.
"Aren't you Isabella?" a male voice asked. I looked up to see a cute, baby-faced frat guy, his pale blond hair carefully gelled into orderly spikes, smiling at me in a friendly way. He obviously didn't think I smelled bad, or that I did something wrong.
"Bella," I corrected him, with a smile.
"I'm Mike."
"Hi, Mike."
"Do you need any help finding your next class?"
"I'm headed to the Rec space, actually, this girl, Jessica, wanted to show me around while I was on break between classes. I think I can find it."
"That's my next stop, too." He seemed thrilled, if not, quick to respond. We walked to the big red building together; he was a chatterer—he supplied most of the conversation, which made it easy for me. He'd lived in California till he was ten, so he knew how I felt about the sun. It turned out he was in my English class also. He was the nicest person I'd met today. But as we were entering the most modern looking building I'd seen on campus, he asked,
"So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or what? I've never seen him act like that."
I cringed. So I wasn't the only one who had noticed. And, apparently, that wasn't Edward Cullen's usual behavior. I decided to play dumb.
"Was that the guy I sat next to in Bio?" I asked artlessly.
"Yes," he said. "He looked like he was in pain or something."
"I don't know," I responded. "I never spoke to him."
"He's a weird guy." Mike lingered by me instead of heading to wherever he'd originally planned on going.
"If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you."
He gave me a grin, and I gave him a small giggle for his efforts.
"Thanks for walking me here, I'm gonna go find Jessica and Angela." I tried to keep my voice politely detached, then smiled at him before walking through the space towards the arch labeled Gym and Pool.
He was friendly and clearly admiring. But it wasn't enough to ease my irritation. I tried to shake it off, looking around for Jessica and Angela, hoping Jessica's shock of strawberry blonde curls and Angela's pretty dark skin would help me identify them over the other students' heads.
I finally saw Jessica, relieved, waving and jogging over, both her and Angela perking up with recognition and met me in the middle. Jess was off immediately, and I realized her voice was oddly soothing as she rambled from where she'd left off, Angela beside her looking indulgent, but happy.
They started to show me around all the different spaces. I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously in the big basketball court/gym area. Remembering how many injuries I had sustained—and inflicted—playing volleyball back home, I felt faintly nauseated. There was an odd little Arcade, pinball, foosball and pool. Mike was there with a couple other boys, I was cringing at the idea of wielding a giant pointed wooden stick, watching him crack the cue ball into two striped balls across the pool table before he stood up.
"Hey Bella! Hey Jess, Angela." He got elbowed by a dark haired friend of his, then rammed in his side by the other guy he was with, Mike whining and cussing at them, I think I distinctly heard the term "Man-whore" as Jessica rolled her eyes and walked us onto the next space, Angela giggling.
There were quiet study rooms on the second floor, and a small mock movie theater for students. There was a massive hall of vending machines for snacks, sodas and coffees. Some reservable conference rooms, and a small gym stocked with weight lifting equipment and a couple treadmills. Last but not least the pool, I was honestly excited about that, the large tiled room humid and hot with the heated, chlorinated water. It was an olympic sized pool, two diving boards on the deeper end. I loved swimming, nothing cleared my head more than floating weightless in warm water.
By the time the tour was over it was already nearly four o'clock, and I had to run to my next class, the rain had drifted away, but the wind was strong, and colder. I wrapped my arms around myself as I hiked through the campus back to the science building.
When I walked into the warm office, I almost turned around and walked back out.
Edward Cullen stood at the desk in the front of the building, talking quietly with an administrator there. I recognized again that tousled bronze hair. He didn't appear to notice the sound of my entrance. I tried to sneak around him to get a glance at the sheet taped to the glass window of the main office door, grimacing at how close I had to be.
He was arguing with her in a low, attractive voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. He was trying to trade from the 12:05 3rd year Biology to another time—any other time. I just couldn't believe that this was about me. It had to be something else, something that happened before I entered the lab. The look on his face must have been about another aggravation entirely. It was impossible that this stranger could take such a sudden, intense dislike to me.
The door opened again, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through the room, rustling the papers on the desk, swirling my hair around my face. The girl who entered merely jogged past to her next class, heading up the stairs. But Edward Cullen's back stiffened, and he turned slowly to glare at me with piercing, hate-filled eyes. For an instant, I felt a thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms.
The look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind. He turned back to the receptionist.
"Never mind, then," he said hastily in a voice like velvet. "I can see that it's impossible. Thank you so much for your help." And he turned on his heel without another look at me, and disappeared out the door.
I went meekly to the class sheet, finally finding my class and hobbling my way there. I couldn't pay attention to this syllabus read through, hearing something about a Moodle site, still brooding about this random dude who seemed to loathe me for unknown reasons.
When the class was finally dismissed, I stretched and trudged my way out. When I got to the truck, it was almost the last car in the lot. It seemed like a haven, already the closest thing to real privacy I had in this damp green hole. I sat inside for a while, just staring out the windshield blankly. But soon I was cold enough to need the heater, so I turned the key and the engine roared to life. I headed back to the apartment, fighting tears the whole way there.
A/N: What do you think of our start? Leave a review!