Hi guys! Here's a chapter, sorry for the long wait, I knew I was going to write over my break but I got swamped with work and there wasn't a chance to get away.
Small towns were a bit of an acquired taste. There was something about the somewhat secluded town and the fact that no secrets were kept secret. The school no doubt knew things about Bella that Bella didn't even know, though there was a reason for that anyways. She liked small towns, but at the same time she didn't like being the center of attention, and she blamed the fact that people had that nosey gene in them. Well at least 5% if anything.
She ignored the kids staring at her truck, heck even she would have been staring too, simply choosing to grab her back and slam the door shut behind her. She hoped she didn't look weird as she tried walking across the lot and into the school, being careful to not trip and even ignoring some dude who yelled out 'nice ride', because she wasn't sure if it was meant as a compliment or not.
She was at least glad she went shopping. She didn't know if her ill-fitting jeans and brown sweater were going to make it in this crowd. At least her skinny jeans and hoodie fit in better in any case. Stumbling into a brand-new school was weird regardless of how often one's done it, or when It only seemed more awkward when dealing with the fact that high school should have been over so long ago. It was like walking onto a college campus as a freshman trying to find your class while holding the map upside down and being 10 minutes late. That being said this was much easier and the school was smaller in any case. Assuming the center building held the office, she made her way over and thankfully high schools had small plaques indicating what was there.
Introductions were made quickly in order to get her schedule and get a small run down about how everything will work for her first day before leaving the office and looking down at her map and making her way to her first class. She met Eric Yorkie, who offered to show her around, and walk her to her first class just as she expected. She accepted his offer though declined being put on the front page of their school paper. She was not interested in being on the front page, regardless of whether she was Gabriella or Isabella.
He seemed worse in the movie but seemed pretty chill while they walked, though still a little bit awkward, but hey, she was as well. She got through her morning with his help and then with the help of another girl, Angela. Angela was much more her type of person. She was a little quiet but very nice and Bella appreciated the girl. Though she didn't love Jessica she was able to handle her just by nodding along and ignoring her by pretending she didn't hear or simply by acting like she spaced out. As long as the attention stayed on Jessica and not Bella, things seemed to be fine.
She also remembered just how horrible high school lunches were, at least when they were provided. College lunches were awesome depending on what your campus had and what was near campus. She had already learned that they could leave the property during lunch and free time if they wanted, but in this small town, there wasn't much of an option. No McDonald's or taco bell unless they went to the next town which was over an hour away. The best bet was just to go home and get something to eat, but at the same time, Charlie and herself were big fans of take out and, as bad as the lunches at the school could get, she figured it's somewhat healthier, they had a salad at least.
She grabbed said salad and stabbed at it half-heartedly before shoving some lettuce into her mouth. Packing a lunch or suffering with a growling stomach were her thoughts as she chewed quickly and swallowed the mouthful of lettuce. There was no joy in eating salad. Limp lettuce, a few cucumbers and peppers, and no dressing since she didn't enjoy ranch.
She was in the middle of shovelling more lettuce into her mouth while ignoring Jessica talk about some drama when the cafeteria doors opened and the room quieted down to just whispers. She could hear herself chewing louder now that the room had quieted and she turned to see what was going on. She could see them walk in as if they owned the place, which they might as well have with how much attention they were getting from the other students.
She knew she was supposed to ask who they were, but she had already recognized them. So, for the sake of things progressing easily she asked. "Who are they?" She spoke towards Jessica knowing she would give her the full explanation. Especially the names which she could vaguely remember.
Jessica smirked. "Those are the Cullen's. They're Doctor and Mrs. Cullen's adopted kids. That big one is Emmett Cullen, and the blonde walking next to him is Rosalie Hale." She looked back over and remember Emmett from her fall in the parking lot, who had his arm around a tall blonde. She looked like a supermodel and that seemed so out of place. "And the little dark-haired girl is Alice Cullen." She could see the said girl smiling and giggling while she pulled on the arm of another boy. "She's really weird. And that's Jasper Hale, the one who looks like he's in pain being here." He defiantly looked like he would rather be someone else for sure and she was sure if she wasn't being conscious of her facial expression, she would probably look like that too. "And that's Edward Cullen." She glanced to the last boy walking in. "He's totally hot, but like no one here is good enough for him, not that I care." Jessica scoffed out as Bella watched them sit at a table together. "I wouldn't get your hopes up." Jessica finished off and Bella struggled.
"I wasn't planning to." She responded easily. As Jessica settled into another gossip tale, she glanced over at the Cullen table one last time. They weren't paying attention to her, but with no doubts, they had probably heard what Jessica had said.
A buzzing in her back pocket took her attention away from her nearly finished salad and equally boring conversation as she pulled out her phone. A message from Charlie letting her know he would be late. Something about a weird case coming up and Bella replied with a simple ok. It had taken a bit for Charlie to get used to texting her rather than calling, since she nearly never picked up anyways, and aside from some small texting mistakes she understood his messages. It was an improvement compared to the first longer text he sent which had no spaces between his words.
As she went to put her phone away, she had a random thought. She wasn't sure why she hadn't done this before but she hit the internet app and pulled up Gaggle.
'Twilight' She typed before hitting search.
The twilight saga film series –came up first. The photos were a bit blurry on her phone and she wasn't sure why but now that she realized it worked, she continued with her search.
'Twilight Vampires' She googled next before nearly peeing her pants. "Oh shit." She said a little too loud catching the attention of Angela and Jessica. Jessica gave her a look while Angela asked her if she was okay. What she didn't know was that the vampire table had also heard her, especially Emmett who was beaming when he saw her.
"Uh yeah. Uhm. Bathroom." She stood pocketing her phone and throwing her food away. Angela offered to go with her and walk her to class afterwards but she declined, she knew where the class was already and although she understood the mindset of girls grouping together, it was still weird for someone to come with her to the bathroom when they didn't need to go. She tried to sort through some of the heavy information circling her head as she sped walked to the bathroom.
Everything started to make sense to her. The only thing that didn't was why she was sent to live in this world. In what she thought could be exactly like the movies, or books. Not that she read the books and figured this was why her real phone came with her because as much as the videos and pictures didn't load or work, everything else did. She wasn't sure if this was a blessing or a curse.
If she were ever the stereotypical millennial who was always on her phone, it was even truer now that she held this cheat in her hands. When she had time, or more like when her teachers weren't looking, she was googling random things. Her social media feeds seemed to be frozen, no new updates from friends and family but things before she suddenly disappeared where there.
Focusing on this new life she read as much as she could about the characters and the story from the wikis. Her brain was rolling inside her head, the information was piling up faster than she could process and she was starting to realize how serious everything was. She especially freaked out when she remembered Edward was a mind reader, she knew Bella was a shield and she was really praying that ability stayed with her.
A throat cleared at the same time she glanced up to see what was happening in class. "Ms. Swan, anything you would like to share with the class?" Mr. Pike stood at the front, chalk in his hand where there were already math problems written on the board.
"Uh." She glanced at the board and really hoped he didn't see her on her phone.
"Don't answer that. Pay attention."
"Yes, sir." She waited until he turned around again to look back to her phone. She really didn't need a lesson on math anyways.
When she was satisfied with her answers from Gaggle, she put away her phone just in time for the bell to ring and for her to head to her next class. Biology, though she knew why Bella was in this class, what she didn't know is why she didn't clue in earlier and get it changed.
She knew that Edward would try to change his class and not be able to, so truthfully, she didn't want to try either because it wouldn't work and it could be embarrassing.
She spotted the main player as soon as she stepped into the room, taking the long way around to avoid the ill-placed fan that would set things into motion. He still looked awkward and covered his face while shrinking away just like she expected, except this time she knew it wasn't because she smelled bad, it was because her blood called to him.
She took her seat before introducing herself. "Hi, I'm Bella." She didn't expect a response nor did she get one so she simply nodded once before looking to the front. She wished Amazon was still a thing and would probably try to find something to mask her scent. She would maybe ask Charlie about it, if she could think of a good reason and excuse other than, to mask my scent from the vampires. Biology went by slowly, and between making sure Edward wasn't about to snack on her, testing if he could hear her or not and thinking of reasons to why she was here, the class ended.
So far, she could only think about how much of a danger magnet this girl was. Every situation nearly ends badly and yet the story continues. She wasn't sure what her role was… if anything, she supposed she was to not get too deep in the vampire business and steer the girl away somewhere else. Or maybe just to avoid the problems in the first place. Or maybe think more and not get into that mess in the first place. Edward had run off right after the bell rang and she slowly packed up her things before leaving as well.
Eric was waiting at the door with Mike as she joined them. She waved goodbye before heading to the office to hand in her slip. That's where she saw Edward trying to change his class and she smiled knowing he couldn't, she nearly laughed when he spotted her and immediately stormed off. Seeing it first-hand she had no idea what Bella saw in him, especially after the way their first meeting went. She was a firm believer in first impressions, though she defiantly goofed a good amount of them in her life.
Sure, she had stuttered words, or did something embarrassing meeting someone for the first time, but never had she seen someone blatantly act the way he did, regardless of the circumstance. Although maybe being a vampire was a good enough circumstance.
She handed her slip back and at the sight of her truck, she sped up a little more. She was to finally be done her school day and headed home.
Finally escaping from the school, she was at home and immediately grabbed pretzels and water before sitting down in front of the tv and just in time for some movie to play. It wasn't exciting but it was better than sitting and staring at nothing. She had finished the giant bag of pretzels and had fallen asleep by the time Charlie came home. The door waking her from her sleep and with her position, she waved to her dad.
"You okay kiddo?" Bella gave him a thumbs up before he nodded. "Alright, I'm going to shower really quick and then let's go get dinner."
Bella waited for a few more minutes without moving a muscle and drifted in and out. When she heard the bathroom door open and shut, followed by Charlie heading to his bedroom, she finally moved.
She groaned after feeling the kink in her neck from her odd position for so long. She rubbed her neck to relieve the pain before Charlie came back down.
"Ready?" She got up and followed him out the door, her jacket still being pulled on as they headed to his cruiser.
It was their second time there and thankfully no awkward introductions to anyone else like the first time they went. They ordered their food and made some small talk before it finally came. Even with a bag of pretzels, she was starving.
"How was school?" Charlie asked while chewing. "You meet anybody?"
"Yeah, a couple of people." More chewing from Charlie as Bella squeezed some ketchup for her fries. "Do you know the Cullen… family?" Charlie had his mug up about to take a drink.
"Yeah, why? People talking about them again?"
"Uhm a little bit." She started to flatten her burger while avoiding straight eye contact with her dad.
"It's only cause they're newcomers. Cullen's … been nothing but nice since they moved here. They should be happy to have a surgeon like Dr. Cullen in our Podunk hospital, happy his wife wanted to move to a small town. And his kids…" Bella watched as he finally took a drink from his mug. "Those kids give me no trouble. Not like the other hell raisers around here." He took another bite of his food while Bella ignored the sounds of yelling from some kids outside behind her.
"Just thought I would ask dad." She took a large bite of her burger.
"I know kiddo." They continued to eat their dinner in peace with occasional talk between bites of food.
After a good time at dinner, they were relaxing at home for the night. Charlie was downstairs relaxing in front of the tv watching a sports game while Bella was upstairs doing some homework. The first day and she already had homework. She had a lot of catching up to do but she was glad she already knew how to finish her homework.
Felt a little short to me as well, but I wanted the next chapter a little separate. I'm also bad at sticking to one story because I constantly have ideas floating around and sometimes I end up writing a few chapters of another story.
Question: Shorter chapters but faster uploads? Or Longer chapters but a little slower uploads? 3