I sat in the hospital waiting room on a wooden chair with a stained brown cushion, tapping my foot on the ground quickly, impatiently. I'd already answered a million questions from both the nurses and the police - the Forks police department had shown up soon after the incident. However, they had neglected to answer my questions - no, my question, the one question that mattered - was Iris ok? I wasn't sure if I should take their silence as good news or bad, but I was hyperventilating, sweating, and shaking in the hospital waiting room. No one had shown up to wait with me. Besides all of my classmates gawking at me and Iris through the windows of our school, we had been paid little attention. The talk was all directed towards the Cullens - what the hell had happened, and where were they now?
I can't say it wasn't what I expected. Ninety-nine percent of our school didn't even know our names. But the Cullens, everyone knew the Cullens. We were just the nameless victims, the two insignificant girls unlucky enough to be in the way. The only other people in the waiting room were Iris's parents, Isamu and Mei Takahashi, who were sitting on the opposite side of the room from me. My aunt hadn't even shown up, hadn't even bothered to pretend like she cared. I fought back against the bitter, angry thoughts that started to flood my mind. Right now, I had to focus on Iris. I couldn't let my asshole aunt take my focus away from her right now. I was jolted out of my thoughts as the wooden door next to me swung open, and an elderly nurse with soft gray hair pulled back in a ponytail poked her head into the room.
All three of us stood up simultaneously. The nurse smiled at us, almost sadly. For a moment, my heart plummeted, and my insides turned to ice. The world stopped turning for a moment. I couldn't breathe, I was falling and falling and-
"Your daughter is fine," the nurse said to Iris's parents. Warm relief flooded back into me, and I took a deep, slow inhale. "She sustained no major injuries, just a mild concussion." Iris's parents smiled, color returning to their faces, which had been a pale shade of gray.
"We can't thank you enough," her father said, his shoulders relaxing as if an invisible weight had been lifted off of him.
"Can we visit her?" I asked. The nurse turned to me for the first time since she'd walked into the room. Her eyes flickered from Iris's parents to me, noticing the obvious differences.
"Are you Iris's… sister?" she asked hesitantly.
"No," I said. "Does it matter?" I added aggressively. Mrs. Takahashi gave me her familiar 'Wendi, cool your jets' look. I had known Iris since Elementary School, and her mom and dad had always been more like parents to me than anyone else, since I didn't remember my own parents, as they had died in a car crash when I was just two, and my aunt was unable to care about anyone other than herself. "Sorry," I added quietly.
"Unfortunately, it does. Right now, we're only allowing immediate family members to visit Ms. Takahashi." The nurse smiled sympathetically. I opened my mouth to argue, but Mei gave me another look, and I decided that it would be more helpful if I just shut my mouth and cooperated. With great difficulty, I remained seated and watched as they disappeared into the hospital. The door shut with a quiet click, and I was left in the silent waiting room, the only sound the ticking of the clock above the door. I was less anxious knowing that Iris was going to be ok, but I still wanted to see her so badly, wanted to see for myself that she was going to be alright. In the silence, my mind began to whirl, questions clouding my mind. Hundreds of questions that could be condensed into one singular question; what the hell had happened?
What happened to Jasper when Iris cut herself? And why did the Cullens know exactly how to deal with the situation, as if they had practiced it before? And how, how had they been so fast, so superhumanly strong?
A flash of movement in the corner of my eye jolted me out of my thoughts. Through one of the windows to my left, I saw a man walking out of the building and through the parking lot. Actually, walking wasn't the right word for it - more like gliding. He made his way to his black Mercedes with smooth, graceful steps. The way he walked didn't match up with the speed at which he was moving - it seemed to be a slow, casual saunter, but he was moving so quickly. He was tall, with golden hair and sharp, intelligent-looking features. But when I looked closer I noticed more, that he had purple shadows under his eyes, ivory skin and a hauntingly beautiful face just like… just like the rest of the Cullens.
Of course. Dr. Cullen worked at the hospital, the pride and joy of Forks, our chief doctor. And the adopted father of Emmet, Edward, Jasper, Alice, and Rosalie. They all looked similar. All had the same graceful walk, the speed, and the strength.
How?
I stood up, and before I had a chance to reason with myself, I was pushing open the double doors of the exit, I was sprinting through the freezing air to my second-hand truck, a sixteenth birthday gift from the Takahashis, who were also one of the wealthiest families in Forks (besides the Cullens, of course) thanks to Mei's luck in the stock markets when she was in her thirties.
I yanked open the door and practically jumped inside, fumbling with the key for a moment before I started the truck with a loud roar, and before I could think twice, I was pulling out of the parking lot, my eyes trained on that Mercedes.
Before I had a chance to consider that maybe this wasn't the best idea, I had hit the gas and I was following Carlisle Cullen to wherever he was going, without even thinking about what might happen when I got there.