Chapter Two

Bella

My first week at Forks High School had been completed to my great relief. I hated being stared at and as the New Girl, one who'd just lost her mother, and was the Police Chiefs daughter meant I got a lot of that. I'd made a couple of friends, Angela Webber and Mike Newton although his girlfriend Jessica wasn't too happy about that. So far everyone seemed quite normal, no monsters in sight although there were some rather strange students. Well five actually, the Doctors foster kids. Renee would have run screaming from the room if she'd seen them. She had a real thing about very pale skin, it made her shudder although she never explained why and these five were so pale they were almost white. Two of them were in my year and I had some classes with both of them but we never spoke. The other three were a year older and I never saw them except at lunch break when they all sat together and seemed happy to be ignored by the rest of the school. I'd asked Angie about them but she just shrugged her shoulders,

"They don't mix and frankly no one is worried about it. They're a bit odd".

"How?"

"Well four of them are couples, Alice and Jasper and Emmett and Rose. The drop dead gorgeous one is free but he ignores any of the girls who try to get to know him".

I looked over at him and he glanced up as if he'd heard her and grinned.

When I got home on Friday the last of my things had arrived, Phil had packed them up and shipped them on to me along with a cardboard box taped up and with Renee scribbled on it. She'd carried that tatty box around with her ever since I could remember, it was full of photos of me growing up, leaflets from places we'd visited before she got too sick to travel, my baby shoes and odds and ends. I didn't unpack it, just pushed it to the back of the closet and sorted out my books and CDs which had come with the rest of my clothes and rubbish I always seemed to accumulate. The room was beginning to look more like a bedroom but tomorrow I was going to do something about the decoration. I couldn't live with the colour any longer. Charlie had offered to buy new furniture for me and a new carpet but after I got his welcome home present, an old red truck which got me from A to B loudly, I couldn't let him spend any more money so I told him of my plan for the floor. At first he looked dubious but I think he decided to let me get on with it. After all if it went pear-shaped we could always get a rug to hide it.

On Saturday morning Mike and Angela came over to help me strip out the room and drag the Pink carpet downstairs and on to the bonfire heap. I was determined to have a ceremonial burning as soon as I'd finished my room. They had to leave then, work commitments, I knew I'd need a job soon so I could save for college, my fund was very small at present. I got Charlie's sander from the basement and started on the floor boards. They were in pretty good shape I was surprised to find, although a couple were loose. I decided to nail them down before I started sanding and another trip to the basement furnished me with the necessary. I'd already nailed one down when the phone rang. It was Phil just checking everything had arrived in good order.

As he was about to ring off he remembered something.

"Bella I found a book that Renee had been writing in, a kind of diary I think, so I put it in the top of the box before I taped it back down. Hope it helps".

He was a good man and I loved that he'd looked after mum right to the end, never getting upset when she had one of her fancies as we called them.

Sometimes she would seem to leave us behind and live in her imagination. It was as if we didn't exist, she could only see the people in her head. The upsetting thing was that they weren't always nice people she dreamed of, and when she came back to earth she would be upset, crying that Phil hadn't saved her from harm. He tried to explain she was at home and safe but he couldn't comfort her, she would mumble on about the Cold Ones and hiding in plain sight but we could never get to the bottom of it. Once she was back with us she would act as if she had no idea what we were talking about but I wasn't convinced because the haunted look in her eyes took a lot longer to disappear.

I went back upstairs and got the hammer and nails and finished fixing the floorboards before starting with the sander, it was hot and dirty work but very satisfying and I got it finished and showered before Charlie got home. I even got steak and baked potatoes started. I think he was secretly pleased I'd taken over the cooking but it was a case of that or starve. He was a, throw it in the microwave or order Pizza, kind of guy. We sat together to eat, then while I washed up he went to check on my work in the bedroom.

"Good job Bells. You going to stain it tomorrow?"

I nodded,

"I thought I might".

"Well we've been invited to the Res for lunch so I thought you might leave it till next week".

I didn't want to go to the Reservation, I didn't know anyone really but as they'd been so kind since Renee died I thought I should, so my room went on hiatus until the following weekend.

That night as I was getting into bed I remembered what Phil had said about Renee's book. I'd never seen her writing in a book and I was curious so I dragged the box out and there was the book right on the top. I took it to bed with me, well the mattress on the floor. I hadn't wanted to drag all the furniture back and out again, I didn't mind camping out. I opened the book, it was a hardback with lined pages and it was full of writing. I flicked through it first and saw some photographs near the back cello taped down. I didn't recognise the people in the black and white photo that was obviously quite old so I flicked back to the first page and started to read.

"I met the most wonderful guy today, Charlie Swan, dark-haired and really hot. When he spoke to me my legs went to jelly".

I stopped and smiled, it was a kind of diary from the time she met my Dad and I couldn't wait to read on and find out what had happened while they were dating. There were the usual entries about going to the cinema, their first kiss which had been at the back of the cinema!, going out for a meal, the school dance and it was quite obvious from the entries that she was crazy about him. It saddened me to realize that somewhere in this book would be the reason she'd left with me.