This was the second time in two weeks that I was clambering into a police cruiser. It was the first time I got in without it being under the pretense that I'd broken the law.

Shocker: there I was, in an awkward situation. Shotgun seat of Charlie's car. Some nasally cop muttered over the police scanner. Ribbons of rain battered the windshield, but the thick, tall trees looming over us shielded his rust-bitten car from most of the storm. What kept this mish-mosh soundscape in rhythm was the kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk of waterlogged windshield wipers.

"Yep. Sure do look like your mother," Charlie said.

Rene—Mom, now, I guess—said I wasn't allowed to call him Charlie to his face.

He's a police officer, Bella, he likes the whole "traditional households" shtick, she told me. I noticed the way her lips twitched when she spoke.

"Yeah," I mumbled. "Thanks. Dad."

We rode in silence through miles of damp, twisted road. Foliage loomed above us like elders cloaked in green. Did sunshine even exist here?

'Here' was Forks, by the way. Washington. Google said it was small town tucked away in the top corner of the whole damn contiguous States. In terms of climate, the closest I'd ever come to living in the damp lushness of Forks since childhood was Presidio Park in San Francisco. In terms of size, the closest I'd come was Sedona, Arizona.

"So? How's Rene?"

"Hysterical." What's new? "She says hi."

"Oh. Hi," he replied as if I was a phone. "Hysterical?"

"It's not like she wanted me to leave," I said, playing with a loose fabric on my new sweater. I'd be wearing a lot more of them now that I wasn't living in sunny Phoenix. Ugh. "She just, y'know…."

"Wants a more rooted lifestyle for you. I get it."

Did he? Because I was sure Rene told him nothing. Embarrassed of her 'untraditional household' shtick, I guess. Charlie had no idea that coming here was part of my own plea deal.

You need more structure in your life, she sobbed. I know that's not something I can give you…

There were three things Charlie hated talking about: Rene, feelings, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. So when I didn't open my mouth, he coughed and let the silence drag into oblivion.

I watched the scenery instead. Picked up the shapes along the highway. Rain-slicked roads twisted through dense forests, their leaves dead and matted, sickly from the rain. It was pervasive here, the wet, the cold.

Charlie shifted his weight and accelerated. Glanced at me. Slouched over again. We were now going the speed limit, first time since the airport. I checked.

"Billy Black? Remember him?"

My mind rifled through the various memories of indistinct faces cooing, Oh, look at you, I remember when you were this tall! "Uh."

"Oh, c'mon, you remember. From La Push! Right? We used to go fishing with him and Jacob and Rachel? And Caitlin?"

Fishing. "Yeah." Duh. That would explain why I didn't remember him. I did a good job of blocking painful experiences—i.e., fishing, Forks, etc.—out of my memory.

"Well, anyway," Charlie continued, "he's in a wheelchair now, so he's offered to sell me his truck for 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. His fingers tap and flit over the steering wheel.

"Well, Jacob did a lot of work on the engine — it's only a few years old, really."

Oh, hell no. I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily.

"When did he buy it?"

"Er—not that old. Early eighties. When he bought it." I raised my eyebrow. "Built in the early sixties. Maybe late fifties. Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build 'em like that anymore."

The Thing. Alright. Don't sell it too hard.

It wasn't until we swung into the driveway of my new living arrangement that I saw what he meant. Charlie kept a small, two-bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage—the only days. Parked on the street by Charlie's house stood my "new" truck.

The Thing. With its peeling red paint and ripped passenger seat, it looked like it had seen the rise and fall of empires. So badass.

"Holy shit," I murmured, bursting out of the police wagon, "that's awesome."

"Hey now, watch the language there," Charlie said. The engine died. Keys jangled in his hand.

No wonder Rene left him. She was a colorful woman, if I've ever met one.

"Sorry. Hey, Ch—Dad, this is great. Thanks a lot, seriously." My hands roamed the frame of the truckbed. Flakes of a poppy-red paint job embedded in my palm. "How much do I owe you?"

"Don't worry about it. Already taken care of."

"What? No. Seriously," I said, chest tightening. "You...you didn't have to do that. I was gonna pay for it."

"Well, consider it a gift," he replied, muffled from the backseat. He had my dufflebag slung over his shoulder as he slammed the car door. "A homecoming gift." Another peek in my direction.

Homecoming? The last time I'd permanently lived here was when I was, oh, one-and-a-half or so. I visited a lot, but even then, those stopped after I turned eight.

"Thanks," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. Now I had to find some way to repay my father. Cooking. Cleaning. Financial budgeting. Something. I couldn't just be useless.

"Welcome," he mumbled, blushing.

And so Bella and Charlie kicked off the father-daughter bonding.

Silver linings about living with my harebrained mother, Rene: it was impossible to keep many belongings. All my stuff made it upstairs in one trip.

First door on the right—my room. Since infancy, actually. Only three things had changed since my baby days: the desk, the big-kid bed, and the packed, dusty bookshelf. Other than that, it remained unchanged. Light blue walls, yellowed lace curtains. Even the rocking chair from my baby days stood in the corner.

Still better than a couch in the living room, I guess.

Charlie didn't hover. It was nice to be alone—no tossed smiles, no pleased expressions. Only my dejected staring out the window, watching as the ribbons of rainwater clung and fell from the window pane.

I had not seen the sun since I touched down in Seattle.

Sprawling across the bed, sketchbook in hand, I drew to distract from the dull ache that came with gloom. I drew to not feel anxious about blending into the smallest school I'd ever attended, with three-hundred and fifty-seven—now fifty-eight—students.

I drew a stark forest in charcoal, the elders cloaked in green.

All in all, though, honestly? Things weren't so bad. At least it wasn't Phoenix, taking care of Rene. At least it wasn't Sunrock Valley, the prep school Rene threatened to charge to a Discover card.

"Maybe if we enrolled you there, you wouldn't be, be —"

Be what, Rene? Huh? Making art?

"You know I support you, but god, Bella! Vandalism! Really?!"

Yeah, sure, legally, it was vandalism. For me, it went beyond the letter of the law. This was about who I wanted to be. Was it dumb? Yes. Insensitive? Hell yes. The moment I got on the plane, I knew I shouldn't have broken her heart like that, leaving her. I could talk myself in circles about how immature I had been in the way I chose to seek help. But we both needed it. Stability. Maturity.

The only difference was that I sought it. She found hers in a relationship.

"Can I help you?"

Reality snapped to my attention to a dingy school office with a plump woman shuffling papers at her desk. Waiting.

"Uh, yeah. Hi. I'm Isabella Swan."

Awareness lit the dull shadows of her irises. "Of course. Let me get your information." She pushed her chair to the precarious stack of papers behind her and dug through the bureaucratic sludge. "Alrighty. Your class schedule. We have alternating A-B days so, flip the page? You got your other schedule. Page 1? A-day. Page 2? B-day. A, B. Got it?"

I fought against making some joke about Forks High's rigorous academic curriculum. "Yeah."

"And, oh, here's a map of the school to help you out. I took the liberty of labeling where your classes are. Your ID—it's a temp one until we can get a photo of you, but this will get you into the lunchroom. We don't have fancy weapon detectors here, but you'll have to check in with me when—"

"Sorry I'm late Mrs. Lansen," said a little gangly guy that, at my old school, would've probably gotten thrown in a trash can or taped to a tree. He shook the rain out of his oil-slick black hair and stuck his hand out. "Hi. Sorry. You're Isabella, right? I'm Eric."

"Nice to meet you," I said, too aware that the rainwater in combination with his grip made his hand feel like an actual fish. "Actually, it's—" Bella. I'd always gone by Bella.

"What?"

"Uh—Isabella. Yeah. That's me. Are you the guy who's supposed to..."

"Yes!" chirped Mrs. Lansen before he could answer. "We had agreed on him being here at seven-thirty, but I guess he had more important things to do. He's here to show you around, introduce you to some new friends, that sort of thing. And he's in a few of your classes so—"

I'll never be alone. Oh. Cool. Lucky me.

"You're gonna love Mrs. Lansen," Eric said as we walked to the first building. "The passive-aggressive comments get increasingly creative the more times you're late coming back from lunch. That's when real fun starts."

I nodded. Silence crept over our conversation. The shuffle and chatter of students filled our silence. I tried to pick up passing conversations along the way. Homework. Lunch. Sex.

He spoke. "So it's a lot different than Forks, huh? Arizona?"

"Very."

"Does it rain at all?"

"Rarely."

"Wow, what's that like?"

"Sunny."

"You don't look very tan."

"My mother is one-fifteenth albino." He studied my face. I sighed. If I wasn't in such desperate need for companionship, I would've just dropped it, but: "It's a joke. I'm just really pale. I don't know why."

"Oh. Well, uh, I mean, it looks good. With your hair. It stands out. Like, being brownish and all. Uh. I'm not big on...hair. Color. So."

"I get it." I tossed a smile at him. "Thanks."

He exhaled relief through his nostrils and paired it with a sheepish smile. "Yeah." Connoisseur of conversation, ladies and gentlemen.

Mornings already suck when you don't have to introduce yourself to half a school, but hey, who needs normal mornings when you could introduce yourself to the entire senior class? So between the syllabi and the gawking teachers and the "I'll-just-take-forty-quick-peeks" crowd, believe me, I was having a ball.

After two classes, I recognized several faces. Someone braver than the others would always introduce themselves and ask me questions. Mostly about how I was liking Forks. I lied a lot and had to be consistent about it to boot. Jesus, this school is small.

One girl sat next to me in both Trig and Spanish. She walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. She measured up to my shoulders, but her curly dark hair helped her height. I couldn't remember her name—something with a J?—so I smiled and nodded as she talked to my ear.

At lunch, we sat at the end of a full table with her friends. I forgot all their names as soon as she spoke them. The boy from English, Eric, waved at me from across the lunchroom and—oh good, here he came now, just when I thought I would start missing him.

While trying to make conversation with nameless faces, my eye caught them.

That is, the oddest, prettiest people I'd ever seen in my life. Seriously, I mean, they practically glowed. All five sat in the corner of the cafeteria—not talking, not eating, just tucked away like extras in a movie. Of the three boys, one was big—muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair and piercing stark eyes. Another was taller, leaner, and honey blond. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bronze-colored hair. He was more boyish than all the others, who looked like they could easily pass for college kids, if not fresh-outta-college teachers.

The two ladies had that same sexy sheen to them as the guys did. The tallest one loomed, golden hair tumbling down her back. The shorter one had a thick, pixie haircut and limbs that looked fragile as paper.

Here was the weirdest thing, though: they looked nothing alike. Definitely weren't related by blood. Yet, number one, they were all collectively drop-dead gorgeous; and, two, all had dark irises framed with purple-y under-eye shadows.

What? Like, how does that even happen? Was it a coincidence? Were they a clique? A cult?

"Who are they?" I asked the curly-haired girl—Jessica.

When she followed my eyes, the boyish guy looked up as if he had been called. He glanced at my neighbor. Then his dark eyes flickered to mine. I dropped my eyes.

"The rich kids," Eric butted in. The whole table snickered.

My neighbor, also giggling followed my gaze to their table. "That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who's talking to Edward there is Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife," Jessica said. I glanced at the messy-haired guy again, who was picking bagel to pieces with long, pale fingers. He talked to the table. "Honestly, everybody thinks they're so great. No idea why."

I mean, judging by the table's reaction of jeers and laughter, it sounded like the answer was simple: they were the aloof rich kids everyone hated. Which made sense. They looked pretty hate-able they way they glared at everyone.

"They're all...pretty," I said, as if trying to dig for the biggest understatement of all-time.

"Wow, sorry, but they, like, completely destroy the word 'pretty'," she said with a nervous giggle. "Like, no offense, but like—wow."

"They're the kind of people that have the genes that humanity needs but doesn't deserve," Jessica's friend Angela snorted between bits of bread. Eric snickered over his tray.

Jessica ignored them. "But, like, they're all together though." Her voice turned to a hush, though they sat across the room. "Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they like, live together. I don't know. It's weird." Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of the small town. Everyone else at the table leaned in and murmured. As much as it felt like being around a pack of clucking hens, I gotta admit, even in Phoenix, it would cause gossip.

"Wait, which ones are the Cullens again?" I asked. "They don't look related…"

"They're not. Dr. Cullen is super young, in his thirties or something. They're all adopted. The Hales are brother and sister, twins—the blondes—and they're foster children."

"They look a little old for foster children." And for high-schoolers.

"They are now. Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Mrs. Cullen since they were eight. She's their aunt or something? I mean like, I've never actually asked them about it but that's just what I hear, you know."

"That's pretty cool that they take care of all those kids when they're so young and everything."

"I guess so," Jessica said.

"Jess is just jealous Mrs. Cullen didn't adopt her," Eric snort-laughed, and Angela covered her smile with her hand.

Throughout this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to the table where the strange family sat. They continued to look at each other and not eat.

"Have they always lived in Forks?" I asked. Surely I would have noticed them on one of my summers here.

"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."

"Damn—Alaska to this place?" I blurted and burst out laughing. "No wonder they're so pale. Beat me by a mile."

Not long after I turned to examine them again. The youngest looked up and met my gaze again, this time with curiosity. We locked eyes.

With his lips twisted and brow furrowed, he turned away seemingly dissatisfied. Of me. For no reason. It unnerved me.

"Which one is the boy with the reddish brown hair?" I asked. I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, and he was still staring at me. 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. "Honestly, like, I've heard he's kind of a jerk about it."

I wrestled with my own smile. "Did you guys have a thing, or…?"

Of course they didn't. The disdain was so thick, it could be felt across state lines. I'd like to think that that's why Edward Cullen turned his face away to smile, but I was amused enough for the both of us regardless. "Well, I mean, like, I had tried, you know, when he first came here, getting him engaged and stuff in the community. And I was like 'hey,' like, 'we should get to know each other maybe because you guys seem really cool and whatever,' and he was all like…"

And she really tried to spin it a million different ways—oh, he was stuck-up, he didn't like being here, he was too quiet for me, he probably couldn't handle a relationship anyway, I mean he's been alone the whole time since he's been here, blah blah…. Truthfully, I'd just chalk it up as a personal failure and move on, but hearing her shovel the blame on him through bites of nonfat Greek yogurt, 'like's, and hand waves was entertaining in itself.

I said goodbye to Jessica, Eric, and the rest of the table—whoever they were. Angela had Biology II with me, so we walked together. She was chill—and, okay, maybe I was saying that because she barely said two words to me. But at that point in the day, that was exactly what I needed.

"You like art?"

Damn.

"Um, yeah. How'd you guess?"

"The red," Angela gestured with her head as we entered the classroom, "on your fingernails."

"Oh. Right." I grinned, glancing at them. Over the noise of classroom chatter, I said, "Trying to figure out if it's blood?"

She laugh-snorted, blushed. "N-no, really, I just—sorry. Um. Uh, well, I was just—curious."

"Yeah. No worries. It's just spraypaint."

"What'd you spraypaint?"

I sat down on the lab stool next to her and she shifted awkwardly in her seat. It felt contagious. "Uh...murals. Art."

"That's cool." More awkwardness. "Uh—oh, actually, this spot—Mr. Banner has assigned seats, so…."

"Right." Of course. Assigned seats. God forbid we get to pick our own. The chair squeaked underneath me as I got up to ask puny Mr. Banner about my dumb seat.

At the very least, he signed my slip and handed me a book with no class-wide introduction. Cool. Okay. We could get along.

Until he marked me on the seating chart at the only open spot. Right next to the Cullen guy. Which, don't get me wrong, seemed like a fine choice.

Then I realized, oh wait, Mr. Banner totally screwed me.

Because when I looked up to find my seat, he was already staring at me. Edward Cullen. His eyes, dark like a black hole, like the pits of hell, like the middle of the night, take your pick—drilled through mine.

Seriously. Screw this guy. My eyes bore back into his as I walked towards him. The closer I got, the more rigid his muscles became. The tighter his jaw wired. The deeper the frown grew.

My heart pounded, but I licked my lips anyway and opened my mouth. "My name's Bells—s, is, Isabella."

Shit. So much for a new start.

I thumped my stuff on the lab table, but he didn't flinch. Instead, he nodded at me, pretending to focus on the fascinating laminate poster of the parts of a cell. Whatever.

But here was the only guy in this entire school who stuck out. Not only did he refuse to speak to me, but looked genuinely unhappy that I was attending this school. Did this jerk even know me? And who the hell was this guy anyway, to look so offended in my presence?

Half the lecture was spent being angry. Then I thought, this jerk was winning. He was. Because he was trying to put me in a bad mood purposefully. So I took deep breaths. And then I thought, Wait, do I smell? Was I having one of those overly-sweaty teenager days? Did he resent me for smelling horrible? So I pressed my chin to my shoulder and sniffed. Quite frankly, I smelled awesome. So I don't know; I don't get it.

Conclusion: this jerk was a jerk. Mystery was history.

But I couldn't stop myself from peeking through the screen of my hair at the boy next to me. During the whole class, he never relaxed his stiff position on the edge of his chair. He kept the hand on his left leg clenched, tendons standing out under his pale skin. This, too, he never relaxed.

The last time I peeked, I regretted it. He glared down at me, black eyes repulsed.

Cullen rose right at the bell. He was out the door before anyone was out of their seat.

I sat frozen, staring blankly after him. He was so...mean. For no reason. I sucked in a breath, but tears still pricked the back of my eyes. Which made me even angrier. Why can't I just be angry and look angry, dammit?

It was nice that I had gym that next period.

Let me clarify: I hate gym. Everything about it. I hate the team sports and having to pick partners for things and getting tested on how long you can hang from a stupid bar. I hate tripping and falling on my face and getting a terrible mile time and wearing stupid gym clothes with obnoxious school colors on them. I hate, hate, hate gym. At my last school, you did two years, bam, done. Here it was all four years. No joke. Forks was turning into my personal hell.

But, in some silver lining, we had the option to take weightlifting in lieu of class. Charlie signed off quick. Believing in "traditional households" meant that Charlie would want me to get swole in the name of 'protecting my virginity' or some such patriarchal bullshit. Or maybe he just wished he'd had a son. Whatever. Silver lining: I took my anger out on dumbbells. Ten-pounders. But still.

And after thirty minutes, Cullen's face faded from my head. So I picked other things to be mad about. The police officers who caught me vandalizing the foreclosed factory on the other side of town. Rene, for not letting me go without me leave Phoenix without my having to resort to vandalism. Me, for not being fast enough or strong enough to run away.

Maybe that's why I opted to lift weights.

When the final bell rang, I was still slipping on my shirt, arms dead.

I walked slowly to the office to return my filled-out paperwork. Maybe I could have a chat with Lansen, tell her hey, the Biology II thing really isn't working out; maybe she could place me in regular ole Biology? Better yet, remidial Biology, so I could have a degree of intellectual and physical separation from Edward Cullen?

The rain had drifted away, but the wind blustered. I wrapped my arms around myself. When I walked into the warm office, I almost turned around and walked back out. Edward Cullen stood at the desk in front of me. He didn't notice the sound of my entrance. I crossed my arms. His voice murmured low and sweet, but Mrs. Lansen kept shaking her head. He leaned in. When eavesdropping, I heard the push in his voice. He argued with her. Trying to trade his sixth-hour Biology slot to another class. Any other class.

"Wow," I muttered, "really?"

The door opened again. Cold wind gusted through the room, rustling the papers on the desk, swirling my hair around my face.

Cullen whipped around and glared like he had heard me. Shadows clawed at the skin under his eyes. Hair on my arms raised.

He turned back to the desk, glare dissolving. I couldn't stop replaying his expression in his head. The way his brow unfurrowed and knit. The way the gleam in his eyes changed.

"Never mind, then," he said in a velvet voice. "I can see that it's impossible. Thank you so much for your help." Cullen turned on his heel without looking at me and disappeared out the door.

I handed the woman my forms. She asked me how my first day went. I said fine. Nothing else.

When I got to The Thing, it was one of the few cars left in the lot. It seemed like a haven, the warmest refuge I had in this damp green hole. I stared out the windshield.

Fuck this place officially, I guess.

With my nails digging into The Thing's steering wheel, I fought back tears the whole way back to Charlie's house.