Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Stephenie Meyer and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Okay, originally I wasn't gonna post this one so soon, but idk. Fuck it. I'm in the mood to post something tonight and I have this first chapter finished, and this way those of you who wind up liking this can get a second chapter sooner rather than later.

This is a Twilight retelling. Yet another one of many, I know. But I'm making quite a bit of differences in this that I haven't seen done altogether at once before, so I'm hopeful you guys will enjoy it. At the very least, I hope it won't be boring. If it is, I'm sorry lol.

Anyways, yeah. Don't know when the next chapter will be, probably before February, but I don't make any promises.

Toodaloo,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~full moon~

~chapter 1: first sight~

I'd never given much thought to how I would die – though certainly I'd had enough reason to in the past few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.

I stared without breathing across room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he pleasantly looked back at me.

Surely it was a good place to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.

I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I never would have been facing the fate I did now: death. But, as terrified as I was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, you often can't help but accept the conclusions of it without any reservations.

The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.

Perhaps I should start from the beginning.

My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, and the sky was a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favorite shirt, a sleeveless, white eyelet lace – my last act of defiance to the temperatures I was about to face and a fond farewell to the desert. My carryon item was a parka.

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town exists under a near-constant cover of clouds, named Forks. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade of dreary that my mother escaped with me when I was only four years old. It was in this town that I'd been forced to spend every summer since then, and three months to the date I had gone to in order to attend my father's funeral.

It was to Forks I now exiled myself – an action that I took with great horror. Although I had my reasons for going, I hated Forks.

I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling city.

"Bella," my mom said to me – the last of a thousand times – before I got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."

I didn't much look like my mother, with her long, straight black hair and laugh lines. Most of my features I had inherited from my father – the wavy dark brown hair and grey eyes, although I had my mother's nose and my warm skin tone was a mixture of both of theirs. But I felt a spasm of panic as I looked into my mother's wide, dark brown, and childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself? Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still...

"I want to go," I lied. I covered it up with the truth: "Nonna needs my help."

"Tell her I said hi, and Sam and Emily."

I hid a smile, thinking of what my grandmother would say if I did. My cousin's reaction, at least, would probably be better. "I will."

"I'll see you soon," my mom insisted. "You can come home whenever you want – I'll come right back as soon as you need me."

I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise.

"Don't worry about me," I promised. "I'll be okay with Nonna. It'll be great. I love you, Mom."

She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and she was gone.

It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks. Flying doesn't bother me, and neither did the ride with my grandmother.

Nonna, as I called her, was looking forward to me living with her. She wouldn't admit to it out loud, insisting that she didn't need anyone to take care of her because she knew how much I detested Forks, but it was clear in her voice just how relieved she was. My father, her son, Charlie, had been taking care of her before, up until the accident. A bear attacked him, was what the coroner had said, while he'd been looking for a missing hiker in the woods. His casket had been closed. Despite this, the coroner had insisted his death had been mostly painless.

I was sure it was more for my and my grandmother's comfort than it was the truth.

When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen, just inevitable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.

Nonna was waiting for me with her car, an itty bitty thing that was older than I was. She greeted me with a smile, her arms outstretched. "Isabella," she said, her hazel eyes alight. "Quanto tempo è passato dall'ultima volta che ti ho visto?"

"Tre mesi, Nonna," I replied, accepting her warm embrace. "Mi sei mancata."

"Anch'io, anch'io," she said. In English, after we'd gotten into the car and I'd put my few bags in the trunk, with a bit of disdain: "How is your mother?"

It wasn't a secret to me that my grandmother didn't like Renée, what I called my mother when I wasn't around her. She thought of her as too flighty, and hated how she had left my father when my grandfather had been ill, before he'd died. She didn't like how she'd left her own family too at La Push, and hadn't been in much contact with them since, or how she'd raised me. Nonna made an effort to not get into it too much around me, but I'd overheard her opinions late at night when she'd talked with my father about it during previous summers.

"She's well," I told her, deciding on a neutral answer. I didn't mention what Renée had wanted me to say.

"So, what have you been doing over the last three months?"

That was the nice thing about Nonna. She always knew how to make conversation with me, since I was never very good at it myself. Like my father, I was too socially awkward.

I told her my life in Phoenix, which didn't amount to much, and she told me about what she had been doing up here in Forks. Eventually, though, she announced, "I have a surprise for you."

"A surprise?" I didn't like those very much.

"A gift," she amended. "I got you a car that's good for you, very cheap."

It was Nonna, so I figured what she was saying was true, but I was still suspicious. "A car good for you" was not the same as "a good car." "What kind of car?"

"Well, it's a truck, actually. A Chevy."

"Where did you find it?"

"Oh, I bought it off of your father's friend, Billy," she said. I remembered who he was; he was in a wheelchair now, due to diabetes. He was technically my cousin. Pretty much everyone on the reservation, La Push, was. "His son, Jacob, fixed it up. You're friends with him, sì?"

"Sort of," I said. I wasn't really friends with anyone.

"Oh, well. Since you know Billy can't drive anymore, he offered to sell me the truck cheap for you. He thinks you'll like it. The engine is only a few years old."

"When did he buy it?"

"He bought it in 1984, I think."

"Did he buy it new?"

"Well...no. It's a 1955 model."

"Nonna, I don't know anything about cars," I protested. "I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic..."

She scoffed. "Mechanic? Isabella, it was built in 1955. They don't make cars like that anymore."

Knowing I wouldn't be able to win this argument, I settled on the other remaining factor. "And how cheap is cheap?"

Nonna hummed. "I already bought it for you."

Wow. Free.

"You didn't need to do that, Nonna. I could've bought myself a car."

"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here, Bella." She temporarily reached over to squeeze my hand. "We all do."

By this point, we were almost to my fa – to Nonna's house. She lived in the same small, three-bedroom house Charlie and René had bought in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had had, the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new – well, new to me – truck. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged – the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.

"Wow, Nonna! I love it! Thank you!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful. I wouldn't be forced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or disturbing my grandmother so she could drive me there.

Behind the truck was another car, a more modern one. Out of it stepped two familiar faces, a taller-than-life guy with short, cropped black hair, and a woman with long straight hair of the same color done in braids. The woman was holding a one-year-old in her arms. They were my cousins, through my mother's (now deceased) older sister: Sam, his wife Emily, and their son, Levi.

"Sam!" I said after Nonna had parked the car and I'd gotten out of it. I hadn't seen him since October, and along with Nonna he and Emily were the two only bright spots about coming here to Forks. "Emily! It's so nice to see you!"

"Hi, Bella," Emily greeted me.

"Loca," Sam spoke. He pulled me into a bear hug. He was two years older than me, but we'd been close since we'd been little. "Long time, no see!"

"Only three months," I returned, my voice muffled by his shirt. He was searing warm; it always felt these days like he had a constant fever, one where you could cook an egg on his skin.

"Feels like it's been longer than that," he said, pulling away. He smiled; a rare sight ever since Emily had been attacked by a bear, back when they'd first started dating. She still had the scars to prove it. "But now you're here to stay."

"Yep," I confirmed.

"Do you like your truck?"

"It looks great," I told him. I'll have to see how it runs, though."

His smile turned into a grin. "With Billy and Jacob, you know it'll turn out fine."

"We brought food," Emily said, piping up. "Dinner's on us tonight."

"Oh, wow." Emily's cooking was always really good. I waved at Levi, who reached out to me with his arms. I didn't much like babies or toddlers, but he was an exception. "Hi, Levi."

"He's missed you," Emily remarked, handing him over.

Sam and Emily brought the food inside from the trunk of their car for dinner. We ate in the kitchen, with its four-seat table and pale yellow cabinets, the latter courtesy of Renée when she'd started to actively hate the rain and dreariness of here. We talked about a little of everything and nothing, up until we were all finished eating the main course and Emily brought out dessert: a sliced apple pie.

"Really, Emily, you've done too much," Nonna sighed.

Emily waved her off. "Nonsense, you're family, Elena."

Sam leaned forwards in his seat. "So," he began conspiratorially. "Are you looking forward to Forks High School tomorrow?"

"Samuel," Nonna warned.

I had a feeling from both of their expressions that there was more going on here than I was aware of, but I wasn't going to comment on it. "I guess," I said. "There are no AP courses up here, are there?"

Emily shook her head. "I don't think so."

I figured as much. This semester was looking to be a boring one.

Sam and his family left not long afterwards. He brought my bags up to my room when he was done, although I told him he didn't have to. "It's what cousins are for," he said. "You should come down to La Push soon. Jacob will be happy to see you. The others, too."

I nearly groaned. "I will."

"And if you have any problems at the high school, any at all, you'll come to me, right?"

"Yeah."

My room hadn't changed at all. It was the west bedroom on the second floor, the other one upstairs being Charlie's (which hadn't been touched since he'd died, I knew). Nonna's was on the first floor. My room still had its light purple walls and light blue curtains around the window, its peaked ceiling, the rocking chair, and dark purple covers on the bed. The desk near the window and the modem stapled along the wall to the nearest phone jack were the same, too: they had been a requirement of my mother's when I'd turned fourteen, a way to keep in touch with her over the summers.

Another good thing about Nonna was that she didn't hover, having learned from Charlie not to. After telling me goodnight, she headed back downstairs, presumably to watch one of her soap operas.

I started unpacking my things. When I was done, I took a shaky breath, but wasn't in the mood for crying. I looked at myself in the floor-length mirror, an old one my grandmother had bought back in the early days of her marriage to my grandfather that could tilt up and down. I used to love playing with it as a kid, but now noted it with some sort of melancholy.

Forks High School had a frightening total of 357 – now 358 – students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior year of high school in Phoenix alone. All of the kids here had grown up together, and so too had their grandparents.

I was going to be the new student from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, if my features weren't so unusual. I was half-Quileute, my mother hailing from La Push, half-white. Despite the features I had in common with both of my parents, I couldn't help but feel I was an alien. It didn't help that I could never relate to kids my own age. Or, well, any people at all. The only people I ever felt I could truly relate to were my mother and Nonna. But even Renée had never been really able to click with me, there always being an undercurrent of disharmony, and Nonna had only learned because of my father.

I was one of a kind, now that he was gone.

I didn't sleep well that night, after finally allowing myself to cry. The constant whooshing of rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. I pulled my faded old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain finally settled on a quieter drizzle.

Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage.

I slipped out the door before Nonna woke up; she had always been a late sleeper. I ignored the photos over the small fireplace in the living room, starting with a picture of my parents standing outside the small Lutheran church in town (which had been quite the scandal, back when it had happened), then of them and me as a baby, then me going through all the phases of childhood and awkward adolescence up until recently. The final picture was of Charlie, a recent portrait of him after becoming the sheriff of Forks. That one hurt the most.

It was only drizzling when I went outside, dressed in a jacket that felt like a biohazard and rain boots that sloshed unnervingly, but not enough to soak me thoroughly as I locked the door behind me and headed towards my truck, which I couldn't admire long unless I wanted to get wetter. I missed the crunch of gravel as I walked.

Inside, the truck was nice and dry. Billy or Jacob had obviously cleaned it up, but the upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, to my relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume. Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw. The antique radio worked, a plus that I hadn't expected.

Finding the school wasn't hard, even though I'd never been there before. The school was, like most other things in such a small town, just off the highway. It was not obvious that it was a school; only the sign, which declared it to be Forks High School, caused me to stop. It looked like a collection of matching houses, made with maroon-colored bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs I almost couldn't see its size at first. Where is the feel of an institution? I wondered nostalgically. Where are the chain-link fences, the metal detectors?

I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door proclaiming it to be the front office. No one else was parked here, so I figured it was off-limits, but also thought they could forgive me of this one transgression while I went inside to get directions and everything else sorted out. I stepped unwillingly out of the toasty truck cab and walked down a stone path lined with dark hedges, taking a deep breath before I entered the building through its front door.

The inside of the building was brightly lit and warmer than I'd hoped. The office was small, with a little waiting area with padded chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, and a big clock ticking loudly. Plants grew everywhere in large pots, as if the greenery outside wasn't already enough. The room was cut in half by a long counter, littered with wire baskets with papers and brightly colored flyers stapled to its bulletin board front. There were three desks behind the counter, only one of which had a secretary. She was an older woman, although not as old as my grandmother, with red hair. She was wearing glasses and wearing a purple t-shirt, which immediately made me feel overdressed. Just another reason for why I didn't truly belong here.

She looked up and over her glasses as I approached the counter. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Isabella Swan," I informed her, and saw the immediate recognition flare up in her eyes. I was expected, a tale of gossip no doubt. The daughter of Charlie Swan, come home at last to take care of my grandmother after his unexpected demise.

"Of course," she said. She dug through a stack of precariously stacked documents before she found the ones she was looking for, handing them over. "I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school."

She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each on my map. Then she gave me a slip for each teacher to sign, which I was to bring back at the end of the day. She smiled at me afterwards, telling me a "welcome home" and hoped that I would like it here in Forks. I did my best to give her a believable one back.

When I went back out to my truck, other students were starting to arrive. I drove around the school, following the line of traffic. I was glad to see most of the other cars were like mine, nothing flashy. At home I'd lived in one of the few lower-income neighborhoods in the Paradise Valley District. It was a common to see a new Mercedes or Porsche parked in the student lot. But here the nicest car was a shiny silver Volvo, and it stood out. Still, I cut the engine as soon as I was in a spot, not wanting to give attention to myself more than necessary.

I looked at the map in the truck, trying to memorize it; hopefully, I wouldn't need it too much if I did. I stuffed everything in my bag, slung it over my shoulder, and sucked in a huge breath. I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me. I finally exhaled and stepped out of the truck.

I hid my face under my hood, staring mostly at the ground as I passed by the other teenagers. My plain black jacket didn't stand out, I noticed with relief.

Once I got around the cafeteria, the third building was easy to spot. A large black "3" was painted on a white square in the east corner. I felt my breathing pick up as I approached the door. Walking in front of me were too unisex raincoats, and I tried to calm myself, watching them. I can do this, I repeated to myself.

The classroom was small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to hang up their coats on a line of hooks. They revealed themselves to be girls, one a porcelain-colored blonde, the other also pale, with light brown hair.

I took my slip up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked when he saw my name – not an encouraging response – which made me flush tomato red. But he sent me to an empty desk in the back without introducing me to the class, a rare mercy in comparison to the day I was sure I had ahead. It was harder for my classmates to stare at me in the back, although they still did. I didn't really look like any of them, after all.

I kept my eyes trained on the reading list for the rest of the semester. Unfortunately, I had read everything on it: Brontë, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Falkner. A boring semester indeed. I wondered if Renée would send me a folder of my old essays, or if she would think that was cheating. I debated with a voice of her inside my head for the entire period, unable to come to a concrete answer. She was too unpredictable when it came to extracurriculars or academics.

When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair as black as an oil slick leaned across the aisle to talk to me.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?"

"Bella," I corrected. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.

"Where's your next class?" he asked.

I had to check my bag. "Um, Government, with Jefferson. Building six."

There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes.

"I'm heading towards building four, I could show you the way...I'm Eric."

I smiled tentatively. "Thanks."

We got our jackets on and ventured out into the rain. It had picked up again. I could have sworn several people behind us were close enough to eavesdrop. I hoped I wasn't getting paranoid.

"So, you're from Phoenix, right?" Eric asked.

I was sure he already knew, and didn't know whether to be thankful or embarrassed he was acting like he didn't. I nodded. "Yeah."

"It doesn't rain very much there, does it?"

"Three or four times a year."

"Wow, what must that be like?" he wondered.

"Very sunny."

We walked in silence for the rest of the way, skirting around the cafeteria for the buildings near the gym. Eric walked me right to the door, although it was clearly marked.

"Well, good luck," he said as I touched the handle. "Maybe we'll have some classes together." He sounded hopeful.

"Maybe," I echoed, before going inside.

The rest of the morning passed about in the same fashion. My Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Varner, who I would have hated anyways simply because of the subject he taught, was the only one who made me stand in front of the class and introduce myself. I stammered, blushed, and tripped over my own boots on the way to my seat.

After two classes, I started to recognize several of the faces in my classes. There was always someone braver than the others who would introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I was liking Forks. I tried to be diplomatic in my answers, but was never sure if I quite succeeded enough. At least I never needed the map.

One girl sat next to me in both Trig and Spanish, and she walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, several inches shorter than my five-foot-four height, but her wild, dark curly hair made up for a lot of the distance. I didn't know her name, so I smiled and nodded as she prattled on about teachers and classes. I didn't try to keep up.

We sat a table full with several of her friends, who she introduced to me. I forgot all of their names as soon as she said them. They seemed impressed in her bravery to speak to me. The boy from English, Eric, waved at me from across the room.

It was there, sitting in the cafeteria, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.

They were sitting in the opposite corner, as far away as possible from our table. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating, just sitting statue-like with five untouched trays of food in front of them. They weren't gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to look at them from my safe distance without fearing of locking with a pair of curious eyes. But none of the things I just listed were what caught them to my attention.

It was the fact that they were all so beautiful. They looked out of place in such a small town, not to be unfair to the students or people here. They looked like they would've belonged better in the upper-class neighborhoods in Phoenix. And yet, they didn't look anything alike.

Of the two boys, one was muscular, with curly black hair; the other was leaner, but taller and still muscular, with honey blonde hair. There were two girls with similar hair colors: the brunette as short as the curly-haired girl who had brought me to her lunch table, with a pixie haircut. The blonde with lighter, longer hair, golden, which fell to the middle of her back. She had a figure like one you would see in Sports Illustrated, the kind which make all the girls near to her jealous. Even I wasn't an exception.

The third girl was taller than the second, somewhere between her and the boy with the curly hair in height. She had bronze hair in loose curls, which fell to about her shoulders. She looked younger than the second girl and both boys, who all looked like they were better suited for college than high school.

Yet, despite their differences, they all looked exactly the same. They all had pale skin, the palest of all the people in this sunless town. Their eyes were dark despite their range of hair colors. They also had dark shadows underneath their eyes – purplish, dark shadows which made it look as if they were all suffering from a sleepless night or almost done recovering from a broken nose. But all of their noses were straight, as well as the rest of their features. Perfect, angular.

No, I corrected myself, they did not belong in the neighborhoods of Phoenix. Even for all the students from my former high school with plastic surgery or Botox, not one could compare to the hauntingly, devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful quality of the faces of the five here, as if they had been painted by one of the old masters. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful: perhaps the blonde-haired boy, or the girl with the bronze locks.

None of them were looking at each other. As I watched, though, the pixie rose with her tray – unopened soda, unbitten apple – and walked with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. She dumped her tray and glided out through the back door, faster than I would have thought possible. My eyes darted back to the others, who sat unchanging.

"Who are they?" I asked the girl from my Spanish class, whose name I'd forgotten.

As she looked up to see who I meant – although probably already knowing, judging by my tone – suddenly the younger one, the bronze-haired girl, looked at her. She looked at my neighbor for a fraction of a second, and then her eyes darted to mine.

She looked away quickly, much quicker than I could, but in a flash of embarrassment I dropped my gaze to my lap. In that brief flash of a glance, her gaze held no interest – it was as if she had heard her name, and had looked up in an involuntary response, already deciding not to answer.

My neighbor giggled in embarrassment, but looked at the table rather than her lap.

"That's Edythe and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who just left was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and her...partner." All this, she said under her breath.

I glanced sideways at the bronze-haired girl. She was looking at her tray now, picking apart a bagel with long, pale fingers. Her mouth was moving very quickly, her perfect lips barely opening. The other three were still looking away, but I had the sense that somehow, a conversation was going on between them.

Strange, unpopular names, I thought. Perhaps Rosalie wasn't that bad, but all of the others had names that grandparents had. But maybe that was in vogue here, small town names? Then I finally remembered that the name of my neighbor was Jessica, a perfectly common name. There were two Jessicas in my History class back home.

"They are very...nice-looking." I struggled with the conspicuous understatement.

"Yes," Jessica agreed, giggling again. "They're all together, though – Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live together." Her voice had all the shock and condemnation of the small town, although I could admit that even in Phoenix this would've caused quite the gossip.

"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They don't look related..."

"Oh, they're not. Dr. Cullen is gay." This, too, was said with all the condemnation of a small town. I noted it with resignation, although it was to be expected. Even back in Phoenix, I hadn't been out. Not to my fellow students, and certainly not to Renée. "Plus, she and her partner are really young, only in their thirties. No, they're all adopted. The Hales are brother and sister, twins, but they're foster children. They're the blondes."

"They look a little old for foster children."

"They are now. Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Ms. Cullen – she calls herself a Mrs., though," again with the disdain, "since they were little. She's their aunt or something like that."

"That's really kind of nice," I mused. "Taking care of the kids like that, when they're so young themselves and everything."

"I guess." I could tell Jessica didn't agree with me. Undoubtedly to do with Dr. and Mrs. Cullen's relationship.

Throughout this entire conversation, my eyes flickered back and forth to the table where the strange family sat. They continued to look at the walls and not eat.

"Have they always lived in Forks?" I asked. I surely would've noticed them before now if I had, despite only spending my summers here.

"No," she said in a voice that implied it should be obvious, even to a newcomer like me. "They moved down here two years ago from Alaska."

That was a relief to me. They were outsiders, clearly not accepted, and for that I felt bad. But I was relieved, because it meant I wasn't the only one, and certainly not the most interesting by any standard.

As I examined them, the bronze-haired Cullen looked up and met my gaze again, this time with evident curiosity in her expression. I looked swiftly away, as it seemed to me her stare came with some sort of unmet expectation.

"Which one is the girl with the reddish hair?" I asked. Through my eyelashes, I peeked at her again. She was still staring at me, but not like how the other students had today. She seemed...frustrated. I went back to looking away.

"That's Edythe Cullen. Don't waste your time with her. She doesn't have friends outside of her family, none of them do. Apparently none of us are good enough for them." She sniffed, a clear case of jealousy. I wondered how long it had taken Edythe in particular to shoot down her offer of friendship...or maybe more. But Jessica didn't seem to me to be the type.

I bit my lip to hide a smile. Then I glanced at Edythe again. Her face was turned away, but the cheek I could see was lifted, as if she was smiling, too.

I sat at the table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I had been sitting alone. I was anxious to not be too late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who considerately reminded me that her name was Angela, had Biology II with me in the next hour. We walked together in silence. She was shy, too.

When we entered the classroom, Angela went to go sit at a black-topped science table exactly like the ones I was used to in Phoenix. She already had a neighbor. In fact, all of the tables except for one were full. This one had one student, sitting in the spot next to the center aisle. I recognized her as Edythe Cullen by her unusual hair.

As I walked down the aisle to introduce myself and get my slip signed, I watched her surreptitiously. Just as I passed, she suddenly went rigid in her seat. She looked up to lock eyes with me, but this time she did with the strangest expression on her face: she was angry, furious. I turned my entire head away from her in shock, going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to catch myself on the edge of a table. The girl sitting there giggled.

I'd noticed that Edythe's eyes were black – coal black. Darker than even my mother's and others among the Quileute people.

Mr. Banner signed my slip and handed me a book with no nonsense about introductions. I could tell we were going to get along. Of course, he had no choice but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit next to her, bewildered by the sudden antagonism she was giving me.

I didn't look up as I sat my book down and took my seat, but I saw her posture change out of the corner of my eye. She was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of her chair and averting her face like she smelled something horrible. Inconspicuously, I sniffed my hair. It smelled like rosewater, my preferred shampoo. It seemed like an innocent enough odor. I let my hair fall over my right shoulder, forming a dark curtain between us, and tried to pay attention to the teacher.

Unfortunately, the lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I had already learned. I took notes carefully anyways, not once lifting my eyes from my notebook.

...For the most part, at least. I couldn't help but occasionally peak through my hair at the strange girl next to me. During the entire class, she never relaxed her stiff position at the edge of her chair, sitting as far away from me as possible. I could see her hand's hold on her left leg was tight, tendons stretching out underneath her pale skin. This, too, she never relaxed. She had the long sleeves of her maroon sweater pushed up to her elbows, and her forearm was surprisingly hard and muscular, not like what I had initially expected. Her muscles seemed carved from muscle, like a Greek goddess'. She definitely had to be stronger than either her sister or foster sister.

The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because my day at school was so close to ending, or was it because I kept on waiting for the girl next to me to relax? She never did; she continued to sit so still it almost seemed like she wasn't breathing. What was wrong with her? Was this her normal behavior?

Had she...had she figured out my identity already, a secret I'd been able to keep even in Phoenix? Was she disgusted to sit next to someone who had no sexual or romantic interest in the opposite sex?

No, I convinced myself. She couldn't know. No one else here had even the suggestion of figuring that out. She simply hated me, though I couldn't begin to say why. She didn't know me from Eve.

I peeked up at her one more time, and regretted it. She was glaring down at me again, her black eyes full of revulsion. I flinched away from her, shrinking against my chair. The phrase "if looks could kill" crossed my mind.

When the bell rang loudly, making me jump, Edythe Cullen was out of her seat. Fluidly she rose – and at what had to be six feet she was somehow even taller than I'd thought – and was out the door before anyone else was out of their seats.

"Aren't you Isabella Swan?" a male voice asked.

Standing at the other end of the desk was a babyfaced boy, with pale blonde hair carefully gelled into spikes. He was smiling at me in a friendly way. He obviously didn't think I smelled bad, nor had any suspicions about my sexuality. Or maybe he did, and just didn't care.

"Bella," I corrected him, smiling shakily.

"I'm Mike."

"Hi, Mike."

"Do you need my help finding your next class?"

"I'm headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it."

"That's my next class, too." He seemed thrilled, like it was a coincidence to have that happen in a school this small.

I shook off the negativity. After Edythe Cullen, I was admittedly glad to have another friendly face.

He walked with me to class; he was a chatterer, naturally supplying most of the conversation, which made it easy for me. He'd lived in California until he was ten, so he knew how I felt about the sun. It turned out he was in my English class also. He was the nicest person I'd met today.

But as we were entering the gym, he asked, "So did you stab Edythe Cullen with a pencil or what? I've never seen her act like that."

I cringed, and decided to play dumb. "Was that the girl who was sitting next to me?"

"Yes," he said. "She looked like she was in pain or something."

"I don't know," I responded. "I never spoke to her."

"Yeah, all of the Cullens are kind of weird like that," he admitted. Mike lingered by me instead of heading for the dressing room. "But if you had sat next to me, I would've talked to you."

I smiled at him and headed over to the girls' locker room. He was friendly, very friendly. But it wasn't enough to ease my irritation.

The Gym teacher, Coach Clap, found me a uniform today but didn't make me change for today's class. At home, only two years of PE were required. Here, it was mandatory all four years. It was just another way this town made me long for home, regardless of how I'd done the right thing in coming here.

I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously. After all of the injuries I had sustained – and inflicted, both on myself and other students – over the course of my life, I felt queasy to my stomach at the fact I would have to participate in such endeavors once again.

The final bell rang at last. I headed over to the office to return my paperwork. The rain had finally left, but in its wake it left a strong and colder wind. I wrapped my arms around myself.

When I walked into the office, I almost turned around to go back out.

Edythe Cullen stood at the front desk in front of me. There was no other student at this school, or ever really, I had seen with that bronze-colored hair. She didn't appear to have noticed the sound of my entrance. I stood pressed against the back wall, waiting for the receptionist to be free.

Edythe was arguing with her in a low, attractive voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. She was trying to trade sixth-hour Biology II for another time, any other time.

I just couldn't believe that this was solely about me. It had to be something else, something which had happened before I'd walked into the Biology room. She must have been aggravated at something else entirely, not me. It was impossible that this stranger could take such a sudden, such an intense dislike in me.

The door opened a second time, and the wind rushed past and through my hair, rustling the various papers in the room. The boy who came in, a freshman by the looks of him, meekly went up to the desk, placing a note in one of the wire baskets and swiftly exiting the office. Edythe Cullen's back abruptly stiffened, and then she slowly turned to look at me with piercing, hate-filled eyes. For a moment, I felt genuine fear, the hairs on my arms becoming raised. My heartbeat started to pick up inside my chest, making it hard to breathe.

This all lasted only a second, but the entire situation chilled me to the bone.

Edythe turned back to the receptionist. "Never mind then," she said. Her voice was like velvet. "I can see that it's impossible. Thank you so much for your help." She pivoted on her feet without another look towards me, and disappeared out the door.

I went to the desk to turn in my slip, my face feeling like it was pale now instead of red. It felt like all of the blood had rushed away from my face.

"How did your first day go, dear?" asked the receptionist maternally.

"Fine," I lied weakly. She didn't look convinced.

When I got to my truck, it was one of the last cars in the lot. It seemed like a welcoming haven, a promise of warmth and home in an otherwise terrifying, temperate jungle. I sat inside for a while, trying to calm myself down as I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel. My saving grave wound up being my need for the heater, becoming too cold. I turned on the truck and heard its engine roar to life, before heading back to my grandmother's house.

I fought tears the whole way there.

Word Count: 7,381

Next Chapter Title: second chances