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Bella
Rosalie rolled her eyes and said no.
"No way in hell I'm going to school in that thing! Did I teach you nothing, Bella?"
"You taught me many things, Rose… but the Volvo stays. Period."
Better late than never, but I had my little revenge on Rosalie for changing my car without asking me first, all those years before! After the visit to the graveyard (Not as many ghosts as I expected, but I had already seen a couple I wanted to have a word with…) Edward and I passed near a car park, and since we needed a car to go to school we entered and gave a look around. After we pretended to drool at the most expensive ones, we – I – went straight for a second-hand blue Volvo that was almost the spitting image of the car I had when I was human. Edward wondered aloud while I was buying the car and what was with Swan girls and their love for old wrecks, making me giggle. But it wouldn't be right if we showed up at school in my Camaro or in Rose's Mercedes, even if we both loved our cars to pieces. We needed a normal car for the normal people we were pretending to be.
At the end, Rose resigned herself and sat in the backseat between Edward and Jasper. Emmett, being too huge for the backseat, sat next to me.
"Sis, not to bring back bad memories and stuff… but are you sure you wanna drive?"
"If what I've seen in Grand Theft Auto is any indication, Emmett, you're not getting anywhere near my car. Any of my cars. Got it?"
"Bella, this car is so old that you could get a thousand more bumps on it and hardly notice the difference. And keeping me away from the Lamborghini is pure cruelty!"
"So sue me. And… Rose? if you really don't like this car could change it with a pick-up truck… Because there was one at the car park and for a second I felt tempted," I said, exchanging an amused look with Edward. "We Swan girls love battered, slow trucks, after all…"
Rose's outraged expression made the rest of us laugh hard, but no one laughed harder than Emmett. Once he calmed down, he hit me playfully on the arm and told me to shut up and rev the engine already.
Our new school was named Lincoln Park High School. Edward and I would enroll as fourth-year students, while Rosalie, Emmett and Jasper will attend once again the senior year. That would give us at least a couple years of peace before moving again.
Used as I was to the schools at the reservation and Forks High School, I gave a perplexed look at the school's interior once we were done with the registration and got our schedules.
"That's… big."
"Just remember, little one… lay low, and everything will be fine," said Emmett, in one of his rare moments of seriousness.
"Not a problem, I spent my entire first life laying low at school. K, I have English Literature now… who has the same lesson?"
Rose checked her schedule. "I do... Off we go then. Jasper?"
"Coming…" said my husband, touching his head like he was in pain or something. Half a second later, I was already at his side.
"Something wrong?" I whispered.
"Nothing… teenagers and their emotional baggage. I'll get used to it in a couple of hours. Let's go… see you later guys," he said, bumping fists with Emmett and then with Edward. I was so happy they started again to get along, like two real brothers. It was the way things were supposed to be. Edward and Emmett had Physics now; we didn't have lessons in common that day, so we would see each other again at lunch.
The English Literature teacher was a middle-aged man that looked at me and Rosalie like he was daydreaming or something. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes.
"Good morning. I'm Mr. Howe. Welcome to my class."
"Good morning," replied Jasper, with a cold tone. Whatever feeling he felt coming from Mr. Howe, didn't make him happy. "I'm Jasper Hale, and these are my sisters, Rosalie and… Bella."
"Good. You can take the seat in the second row. The two misses Hale… first row, by the window."
"Cullen," I corrected the man.
"Sorry?"
"It's Bella Cullen. We're adoptive siblings."
"Note taken. Mr. Hale, Ms. Hale, Ms. Cullen, to your seats, please…"
I walked with Rosalie to my seat, feeling all the eyes of the other students burning holes in my back. Rosalie and I both sat with grace in our seats, and we listened in silence to Mr. Howe's
analysis of Price and Prejudice. Ten minutes later, another student walked into the class. Mr. Howe sighed, annoyed.
"Miss St. John, thank you for joining us."
The polite tone he used with me and Rosalie was gone. The black-haired girl didn't seem to notice the hostility in his voice, or in the faces of the rest of her schoolmates, and she walked to the empty seat next to me. I saw a guy trying to make her trip on his foot. The girl saw it, but instead of walking past the obstacle she stepped hard on his foot with the heel of her shoes. The boy let out a tiny wimp from his tight-closed mouth, and I couldn't hide a smile. Rosalie was giving the girl an annoyed look instead. That St. John girl couldn't mine Rosalie's self-esteem or mine, but she could seriously mine a human girl's. We were without a doubt the three most beautiful girls in the room. Nice coincidence, we were all in the first row…
I smiled to her, but she gave me a hostile glare that almost frightened me. She had a silver bracelet on her right wrist; it was old, maybe ancient. The engraved motif was complicated, and it was very similar to a
piece of Celtic jewelry I owned. The penchant earrings matched the bracelet and the pendant she was wearing around her neck. Why would a girl so young wear jewelry so old?
I wanted to introduce myself at the end of the lesson, but when the bell rang, she immediately left the class and disappeared in the crowd.
I saw her again at English, but she ignored my attempts to get to know her. The hostile glares directed at me were a constant during every lesson... By lunchtime, I was deadly curious about her name and her story.
My brothers and I gathered in the cafeteria, and we filled our trays with food we would never eat. I hated wasting it, but it was essential to keep the appearances. All the tables were already taken; not a single table available in sight… except one. The black-haired girl I saw during my morning lessons was sitting on her own, eating lunch and reading something from a notebook.
I heard Edward groan. Rosalie smirked.
"Friend of yours, Edward?"
Emmett laughed. "Edward and I had Biology with her. She was his lab partner."
"And?"
"Emmett, can you please taunt me later on this? Thanks."
Unfortunately for Edward, my big brother Emmett adored me. A pleading look from me, and he told us everything of the big fight between Edward and that girl over the outcome of their lab experiment.
"So thanks to her I've a 10-page essay to write for Thursday. Lovely."
"Look at the bright side, you don't have to write it with her."
"And of this I'm grateful to God, Emmett. That girl is a nightmare."
"Still," I said, "We'll have to share the table with her. Unless you want to eat right where you're standing."
"Sounds a good option to me, Bella."
I rolled my eyes and I walked to the table. She didn't seem to have noticed us… but she surely did when she saw us occupying the rest of the table. Her eyes fixed on Edward. He narrowed his eyes.
"Oh God, it's you again," said the black-haired girl with a hostile glare. "Leave. Now."
"It's the only free table," replied Edward with the same look.
"Not my problem."
"You're being quite rude."
She snickered. "So sue me, redhead."
"God, you have already introduced yourself, I see," said a brown-haired boy with bright blue eyes, just arrived near the table with a tray full of food. "It's ok, sit wherever you want," he added with a smile, sitting
opposite her. "And forgive my friend, she had been raised by a pack of wolves. Oh, by the way… I'm Michael Gardiner. The bitch here is Elizabeth St. John."
"Hi… I'm Bella Cullen. These are my brothers and sister… Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Jasper and Rosalie Hale. Nice to meet you."
"Same here. Right, Lizzie?"
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and opened her soda.
"That's a yes. She's usually nicer than that, but she's having a bad day…"
"Mick," said Elizabeth, quietly. "I really don't want to hurt you, so please… don't make me."
It seemed a serious menace because Mick stopped talking immediately. I couldn't help but watch her again. Elizabeth was beautiful, as beautiful a human girl could be. She had perfect ivory skin and big, green eyes framed by long eyelashes. She didn't wear makeup, but in my opinion she didn't need any. You couldn't help but admire her face. But something didn't add up. My eyes flashed to the table were all the popular kids were sitting. I could see her there, somehow… God knew why.
After Mick's presentation, they both ignored us and we did our best to ignore them as well. We pretended to eat in silence, but Mick was feeling chatty and obliged Elizabeth, who he kept calling Lizzie, to talk with him.
"Come on. Even you, my beloved Ice Queen, need to have fun. And you love that band."
"I'm babysitting the girls, I can't move. And I have to check the photographs Gabe did for the journal. So unless you want to step by and watch cartoons all evening…"
"You should apply for the job instead of doing it for him. Your pictures are amazing."
"Like they would give it to me."
"Lizzie, it happened two years ago."
"And I'm still here at this table with you. What other proof do you need? Not that I miss being one of them, anyway," she said pointing with her head the table I had eyed before. So I was right… she had been one of the popular kids some time before our arrival.
She went back concentrating on her notebook, following her writings with her index. With a quick move, Mick stole the notebook from her.
"Well, look what we have here…"
"Mick, give it back! Now!"
"Music? You're back to composing? That's a big news, when did you start? And why you didn't tell me?"
"And which one of your questions do I have to answer to first? I'm just playing… I suck at composing, you know that."
"Right, that ballad you composed for your Grandma sucked so much that you have to play it at the piano every time you go see her at the retirement home."
"Playing," she repeated to her friend, taking back the notebook. "Not composing. I'm done with composing. It's a waste of time."
"Whatever you say, Lizzie… Are you going to eat that?" he asked then. Elizabeth gave a disgusted look at her barely touched tray and pushed it towards Mick.
"You don't eat food, you hate sunlight… do you still have a heartbeat, by any chance?"
Elizabeth sighed and gave him a really annoyed look. It probably wasn't the first time she heard that joke. If only Mick knew he was sitting next to five real vampires…
"Nice. It's Monday, so… music hall?"
"Yes. Thank God."
Suddenly lots of students got up from the tables and hurried in the corridor. Mick got up as well, but Elizabeth didn't move. Her lips were curled in a little smile… like she knew exactly what was going to happen.
"Sorry," I asked her. "What's happening?"
Death glare. Again. What the hell had I done to her?
"How should I know?"
"You give another impression, actually."
Elizabeth gave me a piercing look, and she rose to go in the crowded corridor with the others. We followed her, just in time to see the boy that had tried to make her fall being taken away from the police because he failed the surprise inspection in his locker. Again, I looked at Elizabeth. That smug smile was sort of… scary.
"Tell me you didn't," Mick whispered to her ear.
"It was a joint effort."
"Like he cared. Lizzie, Mark will realize it's you behind this trick."
"I'm not afraid of him."
In that moment, the boy, Mark, passed near us to be taken outside the school. He shot Elizabeth a glare full of distaste, the same look his friends were now giving her as well.
"Maybe you should," Mick murmured.
Elizabeth
Maybe I should?
Mick should know me better than that. After what I had been through, I didn't think there was anything left that could scare or upset me. And Mark and his cohorts were definitely not in my list.
Two years earlier, I was the uncrowned princess of this place. My father was an important lawyer, Mom worked at the community college as a Romanian teacher. Everything was perfect… then the storm came, and we lost our money, our house, everything. And the worst part of it was that my father was accused of stealing money from the company he worked for. Money that belonged to friends and little investors of this city. People started to hate us, but we kept our head high; we knew we were all innocent. But before the trial that would've proven my father's innocence - of that I never doubted - my parents died in a car accident. The brakes didn't work and the car ended up in the lake. They didn't get out in time.
When they told me about their deaths it was the one and only time I cried for them. I… stopped feeling after that. I was like anesthetized. I became The Ice Queen, as Mick nicknamed me. Mick was the only one of my friends brave enough to stay at my side till the end and beyond; like me, he was now ostracized by our former friends and some teachers as well. If they couldn't take out their resentment on my parents, they would settle for me and whoever had been stupid enough to have remained by my side.
I got lucky with my foster family. Grace and Allen Beckett were nice people, with a lot of experience with foster kids. Beside me in the house, there were two other children now, two orphaned girls aged three and five with sadder stories than mine. I would never admit it, but I liked being a sort of big sister to them. Being with them melted the ice walls in my soul. And most of all, they were the cutest blonde angels ever; I loved taking pictures of them. I loved taking pictures of whatever was beautiful to me. It didn't matter if it was a place, a plant or a person. Whatever caught my eye deserved a picture.
And Bella and Edward Cullen were no exception… I took pictures of them on the way to the cemetery the day before, and spent the night watching them. I never saw anyone more beautiful and perfect in my life. Especially the boy. I printed the pictures and put them on my wall, along with the others, with the absolute certainness I would never meet them again… Yeah, right.
I changed my opinion on Edward ten seconds after I met him. How could be someone so beautiful be so irritating? I almost felt guilty for being mean to Bella during our lessons together, cause she seemed a really sweet girl, but for some reason, Edward annoyed me to no end. And he was always ready to contradict me during that experiment in the Biology class. Always. I was this close to stab him with a scalpel! And the way he talked to me… I wouldn't call it 'patronizing', but it was really close to that. Like he knew what was right and wrong and I was just a stupid kid…
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that it was Monday. One free hour plus PE, that I always skipped thanks to a certificate attesting I had a congenital heart defect incompatible with sports. Two hours I spent in the music hall, playing Mozart and Debussy, my favorite composers… a little privilege I kept thanks to my music skills and the lack of pianists in the school's music program. It was the only time I could exercise, excluding when I went visit my grandmother and entertained the other guests for a couple hours in the afternoon on Saturdays. The only moment in which I could pretend I was still the old me, the one that loved playing the piano above everything and that stayed awake at night trying to compose… Grace and Allen couldn't afford piano lessons for me, and I wouldn't ever ask them that. I took photography as a surrogate hobby because my mother loved it. The last camera she had bought before dying was my most precious belonging. Wherever I went, that camera went as well.
I sat at the piano and sighed happily. I grazed the black and ivory keyboard, and then started playing Mozart's Turkish Rondo. I was completely absorbed in the music… so much that I didn't notice Edward Cullen entering the hall at first. But eventually, I did.
Edward Cullen. Again. I was so close to hit my head against the piano.
Did I anger the gods or something that day?
So... what do you think about Elizabeth? Love her? Hate her? Let me know!