3. Forks High School

I woke abruptly to the obnoxious sound of heavy metal blasting through the speakers of my room's Musical Home and the LEDs that switched on with it didn't fail to burn my eyes when they fluttered open, surprised. I pretty much leaped for the snooze to stop the commotion that should not even be considered music, but the force the adrenaline rushing through my body produced thrust me out of my bed and onto the hardwood floor. My knee struck the wood head-on, and I slapped my hand over my mouth to muffle the scream.

What a great start to junior year, I thought sarcastically.

I unwillingly pushed myself off the floor, and hobbled on my throbbing knee to the bathroom across the hall. I splashed warm water on to my face, and it wasn't until I witnessed the goose bumps rise on my skin that I realized the house was freezing. I tried to shake off the tremors that started rushing through my body to try to warm my seventy to eighty degree native body and began to scrub my teeth. When I was finished, I drew a brush through my copper red hair that passed my shoulders, and pushed my bangs to the side.

I trugged back into my room, pulled on my long kakis, buttoned up my antique blouse and shrugged my hair out of the way to tie on sapphire necklace I found in the floor. When I was finished, I looked myself over in the mirror and made sure the other students wouldn't take me as some snotty up-tight rich girl.

My sapphire blue eyes just looked back at me the same as they always had, my plump lips in an unemotional line. I turned the morbid face into a fake toothy smile, the one I would greet my teachers and peers with all day. The happy, unscarred Ava Jameson everyone knew. The discluded, unwanted sister that was the true Ava Jameson would never be revealed, not even in the gloomy town of Forks.

Breakfast was quick, and our new choffer, Chris, ran into a conflict and couldn't drop the twins off this morning, so I was forced to spend a car ride with the demons. I spent the first drive in my new porche in silence, besides the constant giggling and whispering coming from the twins. When I dropped Alicia and Alison off at their new middle school, they didn't even mutter a thank you before they strutted toward the school simultaneously in their matching brand name clothes and custom made totes. I noticed the few dated cars sitting in the parking lot. Mothers were kissing their eye-rolling pre-teens on the cheeks and handing them paper bags filled with homemade lunches inside, while other kids were departing the Magno-train at the corner of the street. All of them normal. I bet most of them hadn't spent a month touring the best spa resorts in Europe with their mother, or had ever been driven to school by choffer. The more kids I saw enter the middle school, reuniting with their best friends after a long summer and giggling at the heaviness of the supplies in their backpacks, the more I envied each and every one of them.

The middle school was walking-distance from the high school, and I was there before I could even consider myself ready to step out of my shiny, yellow car that stuck out tremendously in the small amount of neutral colored ones. After a moment of feeling stares lingering on the darkly tinted windows of the porche, I took a deep breath, grabbed my backpack and began my walk toward the small campus of secluded and recently re-done buildings that made up Forks High School. I pretended not to notice the stares and whispers that began when I emerged my antique car and kept my eyes on the building that held the main office to get my schedule.

"Your ride is SICK!" I heard someone shout, but I kept my eyes set.

After finally making my way through the crowd of awed students and to the office, I was forced to sit and wait for the secretary to dig out my file for my schedule, which left my legs jittering in anxiety for what waited for me.

"Okay, here we are." The secretary said as she slapped my schedule and a map of the campus on the desk before me. "Boy, we have a huge load of new students this year besides the freshman. A whole family of students came in this morning for their schedules, juniors and seniors. All adopted teenagers… I hope they don't cause any trouble for the town… but their last names were Swan and Mason. Have you heard of them?"

I had no idea why she was asking me, a new student, about this. I had to get to first period before I had to be embarrassingly late. I smiled at the woman. "No, I don't recall. I just got into Forks yesterday."

"Oh! Well, welcome! And have a great first day here… I'm sure you'll like it." She replied with a wink.

I was sure of the exact opposite. "Thank you." I said before I left for first period.

Flustered over my bad sense of direction, I stared at the map while speed walking to my first class, which was Honors English. I squinted at the room numbers listed on the buildings, becoming more and more frantic when I couldn't find the room. I picked up my pace, looking over the map again, until I ran into something hard, a pole I thought at first, but it wasn't until I was on the ground with the papers I was carrying scattered, that I realized it was a person. But this wasn't just any person.

He was beautiful as he looked down at me with a concerned expression. He had dark brown hair and gloriously pale skin. I sat there, dumbstruck, as he bent down to help me gather my things.

When I finally pulled myself together, I sputtered, "Oh my God. I am so sorry."

"Oh don't worry about it," his perfectly masculine voice replied, "I'm taking it you're new?"

I was kind of offended by his typical cocky-guy remark. "How would you infer that?" I said with a bit of an edge.

His butterscotch eyes studied me warmly, and even though I wanted to be the sharp-edged girl I usually was, they completely melted me. "Well, because you're carrying a map, and like me, you have utterly no clue how to get around this blasted school."

"You're new too, I'm guessing." I said, smiling.

He looked at his feet and lifted up his right hand. "Guilty."

I couldn't help but giggle and blush like a five year-old. He just continued smiling casually, like I was an old friend of his.

"So, where are you headed?" he said, glancing at my schedule.

"Honors English. And I have no idea where to find it."

"Fellow literature junky." He nodded.

I smiled big. "You'll never catch me with out a book to read or my pod-phone with my entire music collection on it handy."

He grinned a glorious smile back. "Would you call me a fanatic if I told you I had Great Expectations in my backpack right now?"

"Would you call me a fanatic if I told you I had Romeo and Juliet and The Wuthering Heights in my backpack right now?"

"Fanatic." He muttered, defeated.

The bell rang right on cue.

I blushed. "Okay, well, I guess I'll see you around… um…"

"Ronan Swan." He smiled.

"Ronan Swan." I repeated, smiling back.

I huffed as I dropped another paper, and as I bent down again to grab it, he said "Pleasure to finally meet you, Ava."

I snapped my head up at this, dumbfounded, but he had vanished. Did I mention my name to him? I didn't remember…

Suddenly my mind was overwhelmed when the late bell rang, and I sprinted off again, looking for my English class. I finally found it, the second building, and I groaned when I realized I had to of passed it at the least three times in my frantic search. That was when one of my biggest pet peeves of beginning a new school came true.

I knocked on the closed door, rolling my eyes at my horrible sense of direction. The teacher finally opened the door about a quarter of the way and peeked out at me with a scowl on her face. "You're late."

"Yes, um…." My eyes blazed down my schedule. "Ms. Zander. I'm incredibly sorry about that, you see it's my first day here and I've never witnessed a more confusing floor plan in my life." I smiled and batted my eye lashes for effect.

She didn't look impressed. "This is the last time your tardiness will ever interrupt my class, correct?"

"Yes, m'am." I replied as I looked down at my shoes to avoid the eyes that stared me down.

When I sat down in an empty seat and began to set up my laptop, Ms. Zander asked, "You're Ava Jameson?"

"Correct." I replied, and simultaneously, heads spun around to take a look at me.

I blushed and looked down again, pretending to rummage through my backpack for something, until Ms. Zander called attention, and the blare of their stares subsided.

The rest of my classes were monotonous like the first; arriving late, stares burning through my skin, and no one to talk to.

I let out a sigh of relief after 3rd period Pre-Calculus was over, knowing my next period was lunch. I started quickly gathering my things until I saw someone approach me. She was blonde, skinny and a couple inches taller than my 5'2 frame.

She showed off a slight gap between her front teeth when she smiled. "Hey! You're Ava Jameson, right?"

I smiled back. "Yes, I am."

"Yeah! My dad was telling me about you, he works for your dad at the airport. He's the head manager of the Seattle Jameson Shuttle company. You've heard of Hugh Livingston, right?"

I racked my brain. Yes, I had heard my dad talking to a Hugh on the phone making arrangements for the move here. "Yes! I have."

"Oh cool! Well I'm his daughter, Cindy. It's nice to meet you!"

Finally, I was shown some respect besides the weird event of this morning that seemed like a dream at this point. "Same to you."

"What's your next class?"

"Oh, I'm going to lunch."

She smiled even bigger. "Oh, that's awesome! So am I! Do you want to sit at our table?"

I smiled back even wider. "Sure!"

Cindy was incredibly nice. Talked a lot, but at least I didn't have to try to be outgoing and well-hearted like I usually do with other girls. She had just enough brightness for the both of us in this cloudy town, and after multiple questions about Honolulu she asked me and comparing schedules, we made it to the cafeteria.

She gestured toward a long table with several people already starting to eat. "Over here. I'll introduce you to everyone."

She pulled me over to the head of the table. "Hey everyone! This is Ava Jameson, she just moved to town yesterday."

Everyone looked up at me with friendly faces. The first person to speak was a blonde boy with nice features, but not nearly as beautiful as the dream creature I met this morning. "Hi, Ava. Max Newton. You can sit here." He gestured toward the chair next to him.

I looked up at Cindy, who returned my look with a nod and wink. I took a seat next to Max and the rest of the table introduced themselves.

There were seven other than me at the table, and all their names went through one ear and out the other. The only one I remembered was the dark haired and dark eyed girl named Madison because of the initial necklace she was wearing. I was interrogated about Honolulu once again until the topic of my new house came up.

Max snickered when I told everyone my residence. "You live in the Cullen house?" He chuckled.

I did remember my mother's history story about the house including that the last family to inhabit it were Cullens, but what did that matter?

"Um, yeah, why?" I asked, perplexed by his joking voice.

He shook his head, trying to suppress the laughter that was now about to bubble out of his throat. "That's pretty funny. My grandfather was convinced that they were superheroes."

"What?" I replied, confused.

"Exactly." He answered my question with smiling eyes, reminiscing.

I scrunched my eye brows. "Who were they?"

Max put down his sandwich and readied himself for a long story. "They were a family that moved here in the early 2000s. They were crazy beautiful I guess, and the father was this amazing doctor with a wife and a few adopted teenagers. Two of them, a boy and a girl, were in my grandfather's grade. They always sat at this secluded table with their siblings in the grade above them and never ate anything, apparently.

"So they wouldn't really talk to anyone besides each other, and people didn't try to talk to them; they were too intimidated by their beauty. That is, until a new girl my grandfather fell in love with moved to Forks. She was always interested in the boy in their grade, and soon, they would never leave each other's side.

"After senior year, unfortunately to my grandfather, they got married. The night of the wedding was the last time my grandfather saw the girl he loved. And even though my grandfather moved on and found my grandmother and had a family with her, he would always find his mind wander to the girl he lost, and he hated this guy that took her away.

"Then, one day on one of his hunting trips he went on alone, he found himself in a meadow where he was sure he might find deer. There weren't any deer grazing, so he began walking the circumference when he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him."

Max's eyes were glowing with excitement, really getting into his grandfather's story. "Before he could turn around, he was hurled to the ground, the wind knocked straight out of him. It felt like a huge boulder had been thrust into his chest, and he was still like grasping what had happened when he heard a bell of a voice choke out, 'Mike?'

"When he finally came to his senses, he realized there was an extremely hot girl right on top of him." I heard a few chuckles from the two other guys at the table, and Max held out his fist for them to punch. I rolled my eyes, longing for him to continue. "Anyways, this chick ends up being the girl he was in love with, but she isn't the same. Her skin is paler, her eyes are black, and her skin is cold as ice. But the weirdest thing of all? She looks the exact same as she did at her wedding. Even five years later. Then out of no where, another person bolts across the meadow and rams this girl right off of my grandfather, and locks his arms around her, not letting her wriggle free. It was her husband, looking the exact same as he did five years ago.

"My grandfather seriously thought he was hallucinating and he was certain when another girl runs out of into the clearing, looking the exact same age as the couple, yelling 'Mom!'. My grandfather was like pretty much hyperventilating at this point. There was no way in hell this girl was a mother. Let alone human. But the 'child' of the supernatural couple looked exactly like them, the mom's face, the dad's hair. Yet they looked exactly the same as they did in high school. This proved to me that my grandfather was a complete whack job. Right?" Max laughed.

My eyes were wide. "Well, what did he do about these people?"

Max started again. "Well, you know, he talked to them and stuff, told them he was informing the police about the Cullen family being superheroes, which the Cullens didn't like too much. He didn't really care what they had to say. He thought there would be an investigation, he would be proven right, and he would be rich and famous." Mike spun his finger in circles beside his head, indicating he wasn't the only one who thought this idea was crazy.

"Too bad the police heard about five minutes of his spoken novel and shut the investigation he wanted to conduct down immediately. They thought he was crazy. Meanwhile, the Cullens fled almost instantly after the incident with my grandfather, and he never found them again.

"Unfortunately for my grandfather, my grandmother died at right about that time, so he became a lunatic over the Cullens. He searched their house over and over, trespassing, and he got a few warnings before the police finally threw him into a mental institute when my dad was about twenty.

"He didn't spend much time there. He was over his Cullen obsession pretty quickly after some treatment, but he brought his known fact to the grave. That the Cullens were not human." Max finished.

The whole table was quiet for a few seconds before Max started the laughter that filled my table about a minute. But I sat, laughing my loud, fake laugh, thinking about the story that hauntingly fit the house. The pictures in my closet now made sense. Renesmee's last name. The flawlessness of the people in the pictures. I was staring into space, taking all of this in when Madison pointed out the table next to us.

"Hey, are they new? Man, that guy with the muscles is cute." She giggled along with the mocha-skinned girl who's name I couldn't remember.

When I turned around to see who she had acknowledged, I came to find an entire table of incredibly attractive people giving me a death stare.