Chapter 1: Birthday
Nessie
My alarm blared in my ears. I hesitated and refused to open my eyes at first. But I couldn't ignore the alarm clock for very long. I groaned as I sat up in bed. I pressed down on the alarm clock hard. Finally. Silence.
I looked at the date. Sigh. It was September 11th. It was my 14th birthday but no one was going to acknowledge it in any meaningful way. The foster home I lived in didn't give a crap about my birthday because I wasn't their real child. The words were like steak knives into my heart. I knew that I was unwanted and unloved. But did I really need all of the verbal reminders?
I'd been rejected all of my life. My own biological parents rejected me. They couldn't even be bothered to take me to a hospital or somewhere where I'd be safe. Instead they dumped me in a forest where I wouldn't be found for two days dying of starvation and hypothermia. According to the doctors it was a miracle I had survived that long in the rain without any nourishment. If I hadn't been found when I was I would've died within a few hours.
Rejection was something I'd gotten used to. I'd spent the last 14 years bouncing around from foster home to foster home around the state of Washington. It was last year, on my 13th birthday, that I gave up all hope of ever getting adopted. Nobody ever wanted to adopt teenagers. The cute babies and toddlers got all of the luck.
I got out of bed and started getting dressed for the day. I grabbed my backpack and went downstairs. I left for school, having decided to eat breakfast at school instead of home.
I always walked to school. I enjoyed the solitude. I heard nothing but my own thoughts and the crunch of gravel beneath my feet. It was peaceful. School would be an entirely different matter of course. I'd been bullied and harassed at every school I'd ever attended. I hated it.
Luckily there weren't many other kids at the school just yet. I was one of the rare high school kids that actually liked waking up early just to get to school early.
I went into the cafeteria and bought cereal, milk, pop tarts, and orange juice. I sat at a table by myself. I opened my backpack and took out my sketchbook. For as long as I could remember I had always loved art. Drawing and painting were two of my favorite pastimes. I loved to draw and paint Disney characters particularly. I was about to finish my painting of Simba when I came across another painting I'd been working on recently. It was a woman who kind of looked like me but even more beautiful. I'd dreamed of her recently and when I woke up from my dream I just knew that I had to paint her face. She had dark brown hair, a heart shaped face, a thin nose and prominent cheeks. Her most prominent features were her gold eyes and skin that was as white as snow. My painting couldn't truly capture the beauty that I had seen in my dream but I thought it came close enough. Bella. In my dream the girl was named Bella. It was fitting since Bella meant beautiful in Italian.
All of the blood drained out of my face when I saw them. Xavier cronies were. What the hell were they doing at school so early?
I stuffed my sketchbook back into my bag. I rose from my chair slowly hoping that he wouldn't see me. I snuck to the nearest restroom and locked myself into one of the stalls.
My heart was racing from the anxiety. I pulled out my favorite stuffed animal that I carried everywhere with me from the time I was five. My Simba plushie. I held that yellow stuffed lion cub to my chest. It sounded silly but he always helped me curb my anxiety. Perhaps it was because he was the one constant thing in my life. A friend had given him to me on my fifth birthday. Leila had been my one and only real friend and the only person ever to acknowledge my birthday.
I hid my stuffed animal at the bottom of my bag underneath my textbooks, binders, and notebooks. I left the restroom only when the bell for first period rang.
Algebra was far from being my favorite subject. I zoned out at the begging of the lecture. I fantasized about how different my life would've turned out if I had a family that actually loved me. None of the foster homes I'd been in were a loving, caring, or nurturing environment. Some foster homes were way worse than others. I was just a paycheck to them. That was it. As soon as I turned 18 and the paychecks stopped I would be kicked out of the house. I'd already been warned by my current foster parents. At 18 I would be on my own.
I wish I knew why I my biological parents got rid of me. Did I cry too much? Was I just a burden to my mother? Did my parents take one look at me and decided that they hated me? What could I have done to make my family hate me so quickly? I was only two days old when I was found and taken to the hospital nearly dead from hypothermia and starvation. The doctors were able to guess my age and determined that I must've been born two days prior on September 11th.
A loud sound made me jump in my seat. Mr. Smith glared at me face red in anger. The edge of his ruler on my desk. All of the other kids in my class laughed at me.
"Are you going to answer the question, Renesmee?"
"W-what question?" I stuttered nervously.
"Well if you had been paying attention you would've realized that I asked you to find out the answer to the equation written on the board. I gave you the minutes. Now what is the answer?"
My palms were getting sweaty. My heart was beating erratically. On the board was a complicated math equation. My brain solved it quickly though.
"17," I answered.
Mr. Smith snatched my sheet of paper from me. . He turned it over. It was blank inside. "Renesmee how were you able to solve this problem?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "I-"
"She cheated sir!" Xavier yelled.
"No I didn't!" I said defensively.
"She must have used a calculator sir!" another student yelled.
"Renesmee you know the policy about cheating. I'm sorry but I am going to have to send you to the principal's office,"
"But I didn't cheat sir. I swear,"
"Renesmee there is no way you could have solved this problem without showing your work or using a calculator. You know very well that using a calculator is cheating,"
"But I-"
"No buts!" he held out a note for me to give to the principal. I snatched it out of his hand harder than I should have.
"Bye bye loser!" Xavier yelled.
I couldn't convince the principal that I hadn't cheated either. So I was sentenced to after school detention for the rest of the week. Great. I'm not even a month into high school and I'm already getting detention. For something that I didn't do nonetheless.
My second period was Art. Ever since middle school I took Art as an elective. I loved it. My art teacher just smiled when I handed in the assignment at the end of class.
It was break time and I was walking out to the garden when someone tripped me. I tried to catch myself but I wasn't fast enough. My face hit the concrete and I could feel blood oozing out of my left cheek, as well as my arm and my left leg.
"Oops. Watching where you're going you stupid klutz," came Xavier's nasty voice.
"Why don't you just leave me alone?" I asked as I tried to sit up.
"Excuse me? Did you say something to me? Because I don't remember asking you to talk," he yelled. He kicked me really hard in the ribs. I could barely breathe as a result.
One of his friends grabbed my backpack and yanked it off of my shoulders. He opened it and everything came flying out of it. "Oh my God look at this!"
"I can't believe she carries around a stuffed animal with her! What is she?! Four!" Laughter erupted all around me.
Xavier was holding Simba. Showing it off for everyone to see. "Give it back!"
"Oh does the little baby want her little baby toy back?!" He taunted. "Let's face it. You're just a loser," he started kicking me and quickly his friends all joined in. One of them picked me up effortlessly and held me so the others could punch every single part of my body they could reach. My head, my stomach, my face, my breasts, even my private parts. I couldn't fight back because there were five of them. The assault lasted a long time. People gathered around and did nothing.
I was thrown on the ground again. I started crying. "Let's face it kid. You're just a stupid lover that nobody wants. Hell not even your own parents wanted you. That's why they threw you away first chance they got. I know I would've. Here's your dumb baby toy. Freak," he threw Simba next to me. I grabbed him and clutched him to my chest.
That just made everyone laugh harder. "What a freak," they kept laughing as they walked away to their next classes.
I couldn't take it anymore. The tears kept falling. I packed up all of my stuff in my bag. I needed to get out of there. I didn't want to go home either. I just wanted to go somewhere where nobody could ever hurt me ever again. The front gate was still open so I seized the opportunity and left. I walked to the nearest bus station and spent what little cash I had on a one way train ticket.