Hello! Yes, I realize this chapter was supposed to be up last Sunday but I honestly didn't have time to type it out. This week has also been hectic and I didn't have any time at all to write until today. Sorry about the delay, but you don't have to wait anymore, so go ahead!
Oh and a huge hug to ugabrat and Iheldyourhand for your wonderful reviews :)
Disclaimer: Don't own anything, although I wish I owned Edward
I woke up on the bathroom floor with a pool of blood at my feet. You'd think that after four years of cutting, I would stop feeling queasy at the sight of large amounts of blood, but nope my head was spinning like crazy and I felt sick. I quickly averted my eyes to the mirror. I saw a pale skinned, brown haired girl with deep shadows under pools of brown. Yep, that's me. Isabella Swan, carrying the last name of a murderer. Memories flooded my mind again.
Grandma standing by the stairs, smiling at me with an envelope in her wrinkled hands, grandma arranging flowers on the kitchen table. Everywhere I turned, grandma was watching me. Her kind face started to wither, her warm eyes changed to empty sockets and she rasped out in a terrible screech "you…killed…me, it's all your fault, your fault your mother is dead, your fault, your fault, ALL YOUR FAULT!" no! I wanted to scream, but I couldn't find my voice. This is not real, this is not really happening, leave me alone, no, leave me alone. Please, just go away, GO AWAY!
Suddenly, grandma vanished and I was left alone shaking and clutching the bathroom counter for support.
My dorm room was spacious and cozy with two twin sized beds pushed against the opposite walls with a bay window dividing the room in the middle. There were two built-in desks and an empty bookshelf on my side of the room. Plush, cream carpet covered the floor. The door to the bathroom was located on the far end beside my roommate's desk. A flat screen TV was in the middle of the room. It already had lots of DVDs around it, all of which were stacked into a neat pile. Another door led to a big walk-in closet. Half of the closet was already full of color-coordinated, designer clothes. Walking back out in to the room, I noticed that the bed closer to the door had lots of suspicious pink stuff on it. Great, my roommate is probably going to try and persuade me to play Barbies or dress up with her. Oh, and judging by the perfect piles of DVDs and arrangement of the closet, she probably has OCD too. Just my luck. And here I imagined that somehow my roommate and I would become BFFs and eat rocky road ice cream on the floor watching Casablanca.
Just then, the door opened and a tiny girl decked out in designer clothes like the ones in the closet came bouncing in. I mean literally, that girl was jumping up and down. She strode over to where I was standing with a big smile and held out her small hand.
"Hi! You must be my roommate! I'm Alice Cullen"
"Bella Swan" I shook her hand, but it felt awkwardly formal. Alice must have also thought so, because she pulled me in to a hug instead.
Alice Cullen was very small, barely five feet tall, with short and spiky jet black hair. She had an elfin face and very dark blue eyes. Her bubbly personality was radiating from her and I couldn't help but love her right away. She was wearing a dark pink shirt and designer jeans, matched with black converse. I looked self consciously down at my worn green sweater and baggy jeans. She obviously grew up in a very different world from my own.
"Wanna go shopping with me and Rosalie today? We need stuff for our dorms. Rose is my older brother Emmett's girlfriend since high school. They're both sophomores" Alice explained.
"Sure'' I found myself saying. I was captured by her optimism and friendliness no one has ever treated me with before. Maybe I could finally have a real friend. That sparked some hope in me and I couldn't help but smile at this person who let me think that maybe I can still be happy someday.
"Great! She should be here any minute! I left her in the hallway because she was saying goodbye to Emmett and I do NOT want to know what they are doing right now" she wrinkled her little nose in disgust and I laughed. She was just so cute. Alice was still prattling on.
"I hope you don't mind me choosing this bed. If you want we can switch? I just thought that since I wouldn't have much use of a bookshelf I might as well leave that side to someone who would actually put books there."
"It's fine, and that bookshelf is going to be full when I'm done unpacking" I said. Alice squealed and jumped on her bed.
"I can feel we are going to be best friends!" I watched with a grin as she bounced up and down on her pillows. It looked so adorable and fun that I couldn't resist and climbed up on my bed, only to start hopping like Alice.
"Alice I brought your last bag. I seriously don't understand why you felt the need to..." a beautiful velvet voice brought me back from my brief moment of happiness to reality. I fell off the bed hitting my head in the process.
"Ow!" I huffed at that voice for interrupting my fun.
"I'm sorry for startling you" a smooth hand reached out to help me up. Once I was on my feet again, I looked up at the source of all the trouble – and my heart missed a beat. Before me stood a live personalization of a Greek God. Dishevelled bronze hair, alabaster skin and flawless lips. Hmm, I wonder how it would feel to run my hands through that gorgeous hair. And those lips look very kissable, I can imagine what they would feel like against my skin… Wait WHAT!? This is really getting out of hand. I'm having fantasies about a man I met about thirty seconds ago. To distract myself, I looked up into his eyes. Uh oh. Bad mistake. My Adonis had the most piercing, deepest, emerald green eyes I've ever seen. I must have stood there and gaped like a moron at him. Maybe I even drooled a little. What's wrong with me? Must be the New York air. It's getting in my head.
"I'm Edward Cullen, Alice's brother" he said politely, looking at me strangely. Probably he was wondering why I was staring at his face like an idiot.
"Bella Swan, Alice's roommate" we shook hands and he smiled at me. My knees turned to jelly and I swayed a little. He had the most beautiful, lopsided smile in the universe. He reached out to steady me.
"Wow, are you ok? You must have hit your head pretty hard" yeah, I'm ok. I'm pretty sure I just freaking died and gone to heaven.
"I'm fine" I mumbled, looking down at my feet. What's wrong with me? I felt my face getting hot. I groaned internally. Fabulous. My idiotic tendency to blush. I'm positive I looked red as a tomato now.
"I'll see you later Alice, Bella" Edward turned and exited the room with another one of those breathtaking grins.
As soon as he left, Alice went back to her bouncing, but I stayed rooted in the spot, still trying to clear my head.
"So what's your major?" Alice asked me after a while of silence, in time with her bouncing.
"Ummm, English. I want to be a writer" I was still distracted and I answered without thinking. I can't believe I just shared my greatest dream with a person I barely know. I expected her to laugh at me, but instead she became even more excited.
"Really? That's so cool! To think that I might be a roommate of a famous writer! I'm majoring in art. I want to be a fashion designer, and if I ever succeed, you can have free clothes!" Alice truly was one of a kind. Anyone else I told either laughed at me or just didn't take me seriously.
Alice jumped once more and then plopped herself on the pillows. She began telling me about her own designs when the door creaked open and a gorgeous blonde head peaked into the room. Alice's face lighted up and she quickly pulled the girl into our room. I assumed this must be the Rosalie Alice was talking about. Sure enough, the little pixie as I subconsciously called Alice squealed and embraced her, yelling,
'Rose! Hi! Oh my gosh, I love your shirt! It looks amazing on you! This is Bella, my new roomie. You don't mind if she comes shopping with us do you?" Alice gestured to me. I felt even more self conscious around Rosalie then I did around Alice. Ali was pretty and charming, but Rosalie's beauty was exquisite. She had a tanned, well-proportioned body with a shapely face, warm hazel eyes and pouty lips.
"No of course not. Hi Bella, I'm Rosalie Hale" she waved at me and I was surprised to see her nails were plain and cut close to the skin. I guess I expected a person like her to have perfectly manicured hands like Alice.
"Hi" I waved back awkwardly and went to retrieve my wallet and purse, tripping over the carpet of course.
We all walked down to the parking lot and over to a red BMW convertible. I stared at it in shock, while Rosalie climbed in the driver's seat.
"Wow" that was the only word that went past my lips before climbing in the backseat. Alice and Rose snickered. Alice turned around from the passenger seat to explain.
"Rosalie loves tinkering with cars. It's her weird hobby. She values this car above her own life. No one has ever driven it apart from her, not even Emmett although he begged her many times. I don't even think he had the honour to sit in the driver's seat yet" Rosalie smirked.
"No, he hasn't, but we did explore the backseat quite well"
Alice laughed while I yelled "Ew! I'm sitting in the backseat!"
Rosalie and Alice laughed even harder. "Yeah, there was this one time when Em was on top of me-"
"Spare the details please!" I cut her off. I so did not need to know that.
The rest of the drive passed in comfortable silence. The mall we arrived at was huge. I didn't even know so many stores existed. Alice and Rose studied the layout of the mall for a few minutes in concentrated silence, and after that they knew just where everything was and they dragged me from one store to the next. We got tons of stuff and my feet were killing me but I didn't want to complain. After all, I'd rather have sore feet and walk with friends around the mall instead of sitting alone in a dorm sulking.
We were passing by Macy's when I started to believe that a God existed after all. On the door was a sign that said "Help needed". I walked into the store and fifteen minutes later I walked out employed. That was my first little success in this new place and it made me feel a bit better. I was much lighter on my feet when we finally made our way back to the car through the crowds. I was already sitting in the backseat again when I heard Rosalie fighting with someone.
"YOU ASSHOLE! LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY CAR!" I looked back and there was Rose in all her glory, red faced yelling at a poor guy who was cowering in front of her. It seemed like he scratched the back of her BMW with his shopping cart by accident. Alice was standing on the side trying to hold in her laughter.
"Calm down woman! It's just a scratch! You could barely even see it!"
"A SCRATCH!? MAYBE IT WOULD BE A SCRATCH ON THAT PIECE OF CRAP YOU'RE DRIVING!" Rosalie looked really menacing in that moment and I made a mental note never to get into a fight with her. She looked as if she wanted to punch that guy in the face. Alice realized it was going too far and she quickly dragged Rosalie away and pushed her into the car. Rosalie stomped on the gas pedal and the car jerked backwards, almost colliding with the man. Me and Alice screamed "Rosalie!" but we were already speeding down the dark road. I didn't even notice when it got so late.
We arrived back at the dorms quarter to nine and I was completely dead on my feet. I threw my stuff on the floor and fell back on the bed groaning. Alice did the same, but she was up in a moment, putting her stuff away. After she was done, she turned to me with the cutest puppy dog eyes.
"Bella? You know you're the sweetest roomie I could have ever asked for? And that you'll be even sweeter if you let me unpack your things?" she wanted to unpack my things and save me from all the trouble? Be my guest!
"Sure Ali, but leave my books alone. I have a special system for those"
"Yay!" Alice threw herself at me and squeezed the air out of me. Immediately she opened up my suitcases, hanging all my clothes according to colour or style or whatever it was she was organizing it by. I watched her for some time, making sure she doesn't touch my books, but after a while my eyes started drooping. It was a long day and I was reaaallly tired. My last thought was that maybe my college life wouldn't be as bad as I thought it would be.
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