Ch.1 — Sunshine
My story does not have an uncommon start; teenaged girl leaves home to live with one parent after the other one of them gets a new partner. New friends, new school, new town, new problems to deal with… I just didn't expect to get as involved here as I did. Let me start over. My name is Isabella Swan, I am 17 years old, and I've just moved back to the town I was born in – Forks Washington. My mom and dad met here when they were young – Renèe was barely out of her teens and Charlie had only just reached his stride in life – and after a few fraught years of marriage, after having me, after Renèe realizing she did not, in fact, love the constant rain and low-key life of Washington, they divorced.
Now I obviously ended up with my mother, 1988 was not exactly the pinnacle of trusting single men with children, and that served me just fine growing up, I was able to see Charlie for several weeks every summer – and I never lost a connection to the small town I came from even if I did most of my growing in sunny – and busy – Phoenix. The situation I had found myself in, though… Renèe has a new fiancé, her boyfriend of several years turned more serious than I ever would have expected out of that flighty woman, and they want to travel the country together for Phil's baseball games. I understood, a sudden deepening of the relationship, true love… I got it. So, I told Renèe I'd move in with Charlie for the last year of high-school. Sure, it meant moving back to Forks, and if you listen to my mom, she'd tell you it's all doom and gloom there, but me? I like a melancholic atmosphere, it's comfortable.
So here I stand, at a stove in Charlie's – well, now mine as well – kitchen cooking eggs the only way I know how: scrambled. Charlie insisted he could cook, but I had seen the state of his kitchen when I arrived last week and I knew in my bones it was best if I handled this little piece of domestic responsibility for the foreseeable future. "So… Dad, no work for the Chief of Police on the weekend?" I asked hesitantly; I saw him every summer, and I'd been here several days already, but that didn't stop me from being a little awkward around him at times.
Charlie looked up from his newspaper with a slight smile before answering, "No, Bells. I have a Deputy to handle the weekend work, I didn't work my up the totem pole to Chief just to work weekends." He sounded proud, and to be honest I was definitely proud to have him as my dad, "Plus this is a small town, the crime rate is very low and I'll tell you it comes from the community holding itself accountable and the people looking out for one another." Charlie went on about 'police accountability' and how important it was for people to lock their doors, but I focused on finishing the eggs struggling to think of another topic to bring up after he finished his impromptu speech.
"That's great dad," I said with as much cheer as I could muster. I plated the eggs and put some ketchup on the side for him before setting the plate down in front of him. "So, you'd say all the kids here are pretty nice?" I wondered if I'd have to worry about bullying, or drugs. I didn't plan on coming out, but I worried about being lesbian in a small town high-school, I hoped I wouldn't have to plaster a smile on my face around homophobia.
"Oh definitely, Bells!" Charlie replied cheerily, sounding like he was getting invested in the conversation "I believe there are only 12 kids in your graduating class this coming up semester – well, 13 with you included, I suppose – some of them might be a little on the traditional side, it being a small town you know, but I haven't had any trouble with any of the kids in town yet!" Charlie's cadence was actually pretty engaging, the only thing that made talking a little awkward was our shared introversion.
I smiled and sat down with a plate of eggs, I wasn't sure how to reply – it was good that the kids here never got in trouble with the law, but given how the law could be, it was really only a small comfort.
When I finished breakfast, I ran up to my room to get dressed for day; I had one more full day of nothing before going to school. Charlie had decided that giving me a whole week to settle in seemed fair enough – honestly it felt like he was just trying to bribe me. But I'd take it. Forks may have been small town but there was still a museum and more thrift or antique shops than you would expect from a population of 3,000. Not to mention the hiking and, well, I just won't – I'm not built for uneven ground.
Most of my day was taken up by reading a history book on ancient magic. I'd been obsessed with magic and the supernatural since I read Harry Potter as a pre-teen. I had always hoped for my letter, but nowadays my interest in magic was just for entertainment purposes – my days of mixing various bath products together and making 'potions' were long over. I liked a lot of the concepts, being a witch would be exciting, and the existence of gods, ghosts, vampires, or werewolves would certainly add a certain spice to life, but I was pretty accepting of the mundanity of existence.
I made my way downstairs to start making the pasta I had planned for Charlie when my stomach started to grumble at me about dinner time. We had an unspoken agreement that conversation should be kept generally brief, because although we loved each other we were still both introverts. "Making dinner!" I called into the family room. Charlie had probably fallen asleep watching TV, I half-listened to the newscast trying to make some animal attacks in the sticks of Washington exciting. Apparently, some tourists had gone into the woods unprepared and suffered the consequences. Personally, I just wouldn't go into the deep woods surrounding the town; I'll stick to the nice open copse of trees by my house if I wanted any nature, thank you very much.
When I finally made it to bed after dinner, I had to force myself to ignore the temptation to pick up the book I had been reading earlier; getting up at 6AM at the latest was basically a must if I wanted to look any sort of presentable and still have time to bike to school. Charlie had talked about getting me a car, but apparently the person doing the fixing was still actually doing the fixing. For the first week of school, I was going to be environmentally friendly, and likely very soggy.
Forks High was an interesting place, comparing it to Phoenix Union High was a little bit like comparing a paper airplane to a 747. Sure, they both flew – to some extent – but you wouldn't exactly be accurate in saying they're much alike outside of the name. The single building that represented Forks High made the brief speech given by the kindly lady in the office about 'how to find your way in the hallways' seem patronizing, despite the genuine smile she offered me. PXU had an entire district, the Elementary, Jr. High, and High School of Forks only covered three buildings, I doubted I could get lost even if I tried.
My first class of the day was Trigonometry, and I was assigned a seat in the front. I couldn't say it was a class I loved, exactly, but I liked knowing things, and I loved learning, so I applied myself in Trig as much as I would in Language Arts – although with less enthusiasm. The teacher seemed nice enough and he seemed to know what he was talking about, but he didn't pay much attention to the actual class; I was stared at by nearly everyone for almost the entire period. But not by anyone so much as the attractive fae-like girl sitting two rows behind me.
I could feel her gaze on me like the sun on a cool day, not uncomfortable in any way but definitely noticeable. It made concentrating on the teacher's words more difficult, I wondered what I had done to catch her eye. I looked down at my outfit, checking for the second time that day if I had dressed too much like I wasn't conforming to the gender I was expected to, but no, I looked feminine enough. I wasn't wearing anything eye-catchy or particularly queer, and there weren't any stains on me. I decided to just pay attention in class and hope she was just bored.
When lunch came, I found it odd that I hadn't seen the girl again. I'd been through four more classes so far, and while I'd seen a couple other people who seemed to share a similar eye color and oddly pale skin, I didn't see her. A deep sigh escaped my lips as I neared the lunchroom door, I wasn't even sure why I was thinking about her. As far as I could tell there weren't any out lesbian or gay kids in this school and I hardly wanted to be the first, I decided to just pretend to not notice how she acted in trig, nothing good could come of pining away after a girl that attractive anyway.
As I pushed through the door I was accosted by a cheerful masculine voice "Isabella? Gosh you've managed to avoid attention all morning! It's like you're a ninja or something," his laugh was slightly nervous, I hoped he wasn't trying to ask me out. "Uhm, I just wanted to introduce myself, y'know, say hi to the new kid! Eric Yorkie, at your service!" He rubbed the back of his head with one hand while holding out the other to shake mine. He seemed friendly enough, if a bit of a nerd, so I shook his hand and introduced myself in return.
"Hi, you can call me Bella, by the way, Isabella is for when I get old." I tried a little joke to insert some levity into the conversation, but I cringed slightly when Eric didn't laugh. He dropped my hand and glanced back to a table of seniors and when he looked back to me, I wondered if I'd blown it; not that I would be too disappointed, I couldn't tell what kind of style he was going for, but it looked like he'd landed on frat boy – his boat shoes, beige cargo shorts, and button down screamed 'I'm a manly professional man, respect me.'
"So… Do you wanna sit with me and some friends? Most the seniors are friends, but not all of us sit together, anyway the table is just over there if you want." His voice trailed off and I realized I'd been staring at his outfit and I coughed slightly before I replied.
"Yeah, sure, it'd be nice to make some friends on day one." I gave a slightly awkward smile and berated myself internally for sounding desperate, but Eric started walking to the table so I followed diligently. The chatter at the table seemed to reach a fever pitch as I approached but an extremely femme-looking girl with straight black hair shushed everyone with a glare around the table before setting her sights on me. I'm sure she meant to look friendly, but I could only picture a hawk staring down a mouse.
"So, you're the new girl? Word in the hallways was that you'd be coming from Arizona, shouldn't you be more… I dunno, tan?" She asked with a raised eyebrow that, had it not been directed at me, would actually be kind of cute.
As she eyed my outfit, delicate eyebrow raised, I decided to reply as honestly as possible, no one at the table seemed malicious, just nakedly curious. "I actually spend most of my time indoors reading, my friend group was pretty interested in studying really old texts on all kinds of things: history, magic, war…" I trailed off and shrugged, offering a her a half smile; I hoped she didn't find my answer too weird.
"Well, I don't know much about ancient history, but that makes sense I suppose. I heard it gets pretty hot there anyway, I understand wanting to be inside most of the time. I'm Jessica by the way," she said, and then introduced the rest of the people at the table in turn. There was no way I was going to remember everyone right away, but Eric and I took a seat as I tried to commit some of the names to memory; I know I heard a Mike and a Lauren, but the rest were hopeless. I tried to field the deluge of questions that seemed to follow Jessica's approval as best as possible, but halfway through what felt like an interrogation the lunchroom doors opened a little too loudly and the three ethereally gorgeous people, along with one more I hadn't seen yet walked through the doors and quickly made their way to a table in the back.
I had to turned to see what had quieted the room down and ended up staring at the fae-like girl from my trig class. If I still believed in any of the folklore I studied, I would swear they were sidhe. One of the boys noticed my distraction and frowned at me "Those are the Cullens, they look pretty but don't let that fool you, they're old money, and fully uninterested in making any friends at this school. Their father," he seemed to grimace on that word, "works at the local hospital. None of them are openly hostile, but it's just bad energy you know?" he nodded to himself as if he'd done me a favor by letting me in on the 'secret' of the Cullen kids.
Angela spoke up, shyly at first but gaining steam as she went on "Tyler, you know that's not fair. They were all adopted pretty late and who knows what kind of trauma they went through before Doctor Cullen brought them here. It's a small insular town and nobody really reached out to them, Isabella is lucky that Eric is so extroverted now or she might be sitting off at a table on her own too. Plus, I'm pretty sure Jasper and Rosalie still use Hale as their last name."
I cringed at the usage of my full first name but she was right, I had been planning on sitting alone and reading during lunch. "Well maybe they –" I started at the same time as Tyler spoke.
"No, I just don't want to see her caught up in the Cullen spectacle. Yes, they're all very attractive; but they're also very unattainable, and we all know people have tried." Tyler said, sounding slightly exasperated.
"Maybe I'll try to be their friend this year, none of us here have tried just inviting them out." Angela replied. She was leaned back in her seat now, arms crossed. Now that I was looking closer at her I noticed she had earrings with a labrys and a black triangle and I looked away quickly. As she and Tyler continued to argue about the Cullens I tried to pretend I hadn't noticed anything, but I saw Jessica looking at me with narrowed eyes before she went back to eating.
Most of the table seemed to be engrossed on the topic of whether or not the Cullens would be open to friendship from the right people, but I just continued to eat and hoped that Jessica's look hadn't been her realizing I was, in fact, a major lesbian.
Lunch ended before too long, and my last two classes of the day were Chemistry and Art History I, only one of which I was actually looking forward to. Three guesses as to which one that was, and the first two don't count. I guess that's not fair; I like Chemistry well enough, about as much as Trigonometry, at least. Art History though, has always held a special interest to me, as a lesbian. It gives me the chance to look at attractive women and not feel like I'm being scrutinized for having too much interest in the artwork. Was I looking too closely at Sappho by Auguste Charles Mengin because I liked boobs? No, of course not, I just appreciate art!
I laughed quietly to myself on the way to my final class of the day, so far everything had been great. Even though I'd missed the half-week of school, being in AP classes at a school like Phoenix High made catching up here in Forks simple. As I opened the door to the classroom I was greeted with a far more relaxed-looking classroom than I expect even from an art class, but especially in a small high-school. Sure, there were chairs and desks scattered around, but their placement was haphazard and there were even a few beanbag chairs littering the room.
I walked up to the teacher to check in and she seemed very kind, so of course I picked a seemingly randomly placed desk near the front again. The only class I hadn't elected to sit near the front in was US Government, and only because the teacher was a gruff bearded man in his 50's that didn't seem like someone I would want to be nearby. As more students filtered in, the chair next to me remained empty, and I was distracted by the book I had been reading in between classes. It wasn't until she spoke that I noticed someone sat next to me.
"Hi, I'm Alice. How is your first day going, Bella?" Her voice surprised me, not because I didn't expect a seatmate so much as I hadn't expected such a combination of characteristics to even be possible in a voice. Her voice was like bells, but also somehow honey. I blinked rapidly and looked over at her, as we made eye contact a warm smile spread across her face.
"Wh– um. It's been good so far. It's… yeah, nice." I cursed myself internally, talking to girls usually didn't give me any trouble, even pretty girls like Angela or Jessica I could easily hold a conversation with, but something about the way that Alice was looking at me made my heart race. Her smile turned into more of a smirk, and I thought she might've been making fun of me until she replied.
"That's great! I'm so happy that you're having a good first day, they say first impressions are everything, don't they?" Her smile was blinding and her care-free melodic voice made me realize that yeah, I had a crush. She had the most vivid crimson eyes I'd ever seen, and I would have suspected contexts if I wasn't close enough to see that she definitely wasn't wearing any. They might be frightening on anyone, but they suited her quite well.
"Fuck," I whispered under my breath, I needed a moment to think but I didn't want to leave her hanging in the conversation, she stifled a giggle as if she'd heard me "Yeah first impressions are totally important. So far, though, I feel like you're doing a much better job of this impression than I am." I said, with a small self-deprecating laugh.
Alice put a hand on my shoulder and leaned a little closer, "Actually I've seen you around town this past week, I feel as though I already have quite a good impression of you. I like what I've seen, so no worries, alright? Okay." She nodded once and leaned back, sitting fully into her chair as the teacher started his lecture on Early Medieval Art. My heart was racing so far and my mind was in a fog, she smelled like lavender, cedar, and something citrussy… Lemon, maybe? It was amazing. I was too distracted by her scent to wonder when she could've possibly seen me.
I tore my eyes away from her and tried to pay attention to the teacher, but I found myself doodling hearts in the margins of my notes. Alice giggled again and I blushed, pointedly not looking at her as I flipped to a new page to take notes. As much as it seemed like she was a very nice teacher, she wasn't very engaging when she talked about Medieval art. Or maybe it was just that I wasn't very interested in that age that kept me distracted. In the back of my mind, I knew it was because Alice was sitting next to me.
When class finished, I gathered my things. I tried not to glance at Alice, but in trying too hard to move like a normal human I ended dropping my backpack and spilling my books on the ground. I scrambled to pick them up, annoyed at myself for exposing how uncoordinated I was in front of what had to be the most beautiful girl in the world. As I reached for my books, Alice leaned down to help me at the same time. When our hands met on my trig book it was like a shock of electricity had gone through me. We both jerked our hands back and I mumbled an apology while trying to figure out what the heck just happened.
"Sorry," she said lightly "That was weird, I guess I can say you make a shocking impression though," she laughed, full of mirth and face as bright as the sun despite her inky black hair. I was entranced, she pushed my trig book gently into my chest and I remained speechless. I just grabbed the book and put it into my backpack.
"Thank you," I said, internally quite pleased I was able to speak without stumbling over my words. I could feel my face burning but I hoped it wasn't too obvious I was blushing, and I hoped to all the gods that she didn't know how fast my heart was racing right then. Alice stood to leave, and made it halfway to the door before she turned around.
"It was really lovely to finally meet you. I hope we can be friends." She smiled, her spiky hair falling across her face as she tilted her head slightly. I knew I was doomed right then. I nodded and weakly raised my hand in a goodbye wave as she turned and left. I couldn't even fathom what she wanted to be friends with me for, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I wanted to be her friend. Heck, I wanted to be even more than that. I could settle for friends though.
As I biked home I was giddy, thinking that since she had said she wanted to be friends, I could probably invite her out for coffee or something under the guise of friendship. I wondered what books she liked, what her favorite color was, if poems made her cry. There were a million things I wanted to know about her. I pulled my bike into the yard and stuck it in the shed, taking a moment to breathe in the crisp air. It may have been overcast, but in my heart there was sunshine and rainbows.