I don't own Twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of the story.
Thanks to my Beta MadMooey18 for her continuous help, support, and love.
The teacher walks around the classroom handing them their corrected quiz papers. They are in first grade now which means that they are old enough to have serious quizzes in math, English, and Science.
The teacher places a paper on Edward's desk then pauses in her place and says, "Give Edward a round of applause. He is the only one that got a full mark!"
Everyone around him claps including Bella who is clapping like he just got the gold star. She smiles widely at him as she claps and he smiles back at her. This summer vacation was great. They hung out together in his mum's shop and in his backyard or hers.
Her parents never stay home as they have important jobs that take a lot of their time, so Bella used to spend a lot of time with the babysitter until Edward's mum offered to keep an eye on her. Since then they have spent every moment they could together. Bella is very kind to him, and sweet. She is also very funny and can make him let loose and have fun. Although, recently the roles have been reversed and he has been the one trying to act like a clown to make her happy since she isn't getting the best grades in school and her parents aren't very happy about it.
The teacher drops Bella's paper in front of her without any comment then walks to the front of the class and turns to look at her students and tells them, "Almost no one got below 6 which is great because it means that you were at least listening to me in the class and actually care about your future."
Right as she finishes speaking the bell rings signaling the end of the science period and the beginning of the Math class. He places his science book in his bag and takes out his math one. He turns to Bella and finds her looking sad while looking down. He follows her gaze and finds her staring at her paper and spots the four.
He takes the paper, folds it, and then places it in the science book and returns it to her bag and takes out her math book. "It's okay Bella. I will help you study and you will get a better grade next time."
He does. He always helps her study so that she can get better grades but this test was a pop quiz; they didn't know about it in advance, so he couldn't prepare her. The only solution he can think of is studying every days class work with her. He takes her hand in his under the table and squeezes it. She attempts to smile at him but it comes out as a grimace.
He doesn't mind helping her. Many other kids might do, but he doesn't. Explaining things to her makes him understand things better, and because Bella asks many questions he doesn't know the answers to, they always go to the library together to find the answers together and he ends up knowing more than the rest of the class.
Bella used to ask those question in the classroom, but the teacher told her to stop beIng selfish and annoying. All of the students started laughing when she said that and since then Bella stopped asking questions in the classroom. Edward secretly believes that the teacher is simply too stupid to know the answer, but he has only shared this theory with Bella.
Most of the stuff Edward knows, he wouldn't know if Bella didn't ask her question. His mummy tells see him that Bella is intuitive. He isn't sure what that means, so he just calls it smart.
"Mummy, I just don't understand why she gets bad grades. She is very smart. She is very good at math, but in science and grammar she can't keep up. When I explain things to her at home she understands them easily but in the classroom it's like she can't even listen to what the teacher says. Also teacher Lina keeps embarrassing her by asking her questions when she knows that Bella doesn't know the answer and she asks her the most in the class. Even when I raise my hand to answer Miss Lina will still asks Bella. Also Miss Lina says that if we get most of our grades less than five we will fail and retake the grade. I don't want Bella to fail."
Edward goes on this rant the moment he closes the door behind Bella. He helped her understand what they took in English and Science today, and she helped him with the reading assignment. She is a better reader. She is always reading. She can read books for fourth grade. Her dad always gets books from the library and reads them with her at night before she goes to sleep. She also helped him with his math assignment. He isn't bad at math, but Bella is so much better at math than him. It's like her mind is a calculator.
He looks at his mum waiting hoping his mummy has a solution to this problem. He knows that she is very smart. She will definitely tell him how to fix it and what to do to help Bella and make sure she goes to second grade with him next year. He can't imagine a classroom without her in it. She is his best friend in the entire world.
"Let me finish making the food and then once we sit at the table to eat you can tell me exactly what is going on. Your dad will also listen and give us his opinion too," she tells him as she ruffles his hair playfully.
He huffs loudly. He hates it when he wants an answer now and his mummy tells him to wait.
Edward sits beside Bella on the couch in his house. She is wearing a very pretty yellow dress with brown shoes and her hair is in braids that don't reach her shoulder. When he realized how much she loves braids he asked her why she keeps cutting her hair; she told him that it's because her mummy says that if you cut someone's hair when they are young it will get very thick. Her mummy must be on to something as her mummy's hair is so thick. He personally thinks that Bella's hair is thick enough, but he is a boy. What would he know about thick hair?
He looks at her and finds her nervously bouncing her knee. He reaches her hand and holds it in his. He doesn't want her to be nervous. His mummy and daddy are smart and good at getting people to listen to them. Bella's parents love her, and they are also smart and so will listen. His parents explained it to them. They told him that they think Bella should be tested for something that has to do with a person's head. The name has something to do with being hyperactive but he can't remember the rest of the name.
At first, his father tried to explain what Bella had to him, he used the example of TVs and their remote controls. Edward stopped his father and told him to use the actual terms not stupid comparisons. What he said is; not all people have brains that function in the same way. Different people can excel at different things, and different people download information in their head in different ways. Not everyone is the same. The teaching system uses the method that the largest group of people share, but that doesn't mean that anyone who needs something else is stupid. It simply means that their brain is unique.
Of course at the end, his father had to go back to the example of TVs and tell him, "It's like trying to use TV and using the remote control of a car. It doesn't mean that the TV is broken. The problem is with the remote you are using. It also means that they are really good at things non-unique people aren't as good at."
That makes sense. Bella is better than him in arts, music, theater, math, and reading. She also takes ballet at a dance studio in Port Angeles, and he attended her performance during the summer vacation. She is amazing. She also loves reading a lot. She could spend five hours reading and finish reading a book in a day.
She looks at him hopefully and he smiles encouragingly at her. She starts to feel a smile on her lips. Maybe Edward is right and she needs to have some faith. She is afraid though because her parents are both smart people and they have both been highly educated. She has to be educated like them. She needs to be good at school like they were, but she's not.
She has been grounded so many times over her bad grades since grade one has started. She tries. She really tries, but for some reason she can't seem to get the best grades. She often doesn't manage to write on her notebook what the teacher writes on the board. She forgets to do her homework and forgets her books at home a lot. Every time, she tells herself that it will be the last time she does it, but another time happens after it.
Her parents have been very disappointed in her. She doesn't want them to be disappointed in her. She wants to make them proud, so when Edward told her that his parents might have a solution for her that will help her get better grades, she got excited.
He squeezes her hands three, and she squeezes back twice. That is a game they created together. If one of them squeezes the other's hand three times, they mean to ask the other if they are okay. If the other squeezes back twice, it means I am fine.
The sound of the door getting yanked open is heard in the house followed by the sound of footsteps. She looks at Edward and he gives her a reassuring smile and she smiles nervously back, but her smile drops once she sees her parents' angry faces.
Her parents walk toward her and her dad picks her up as her mum says, "There is nothing wrong with our daughter. She just needs to stop being lazy."
"We aren't saying that there is anything wrong with your daughter. You know that Renee," Edward's mummy pleads with her as she follows them to the car. Her father opens the car's door and then places her in her car seat and straps her to it and closes the door.
Her parents continue to argue with Edward's, but she doesn't hear anything as the door is closed. Then she starts hearing words shouted like crazy, normal, and shrink, although she doesn't know what the last one means, but assumes it's bad because her dad says it with disgust.
The doors of the car slam as both of her parents get in. Her dad turns on the car without putting on his seatbelt which is strange since he always does it. He pulls out of the Cullen's driveway and onto the street. She looks at her parents in the rearview and both of them are angry. She grimaces. She is about to have a very long night.
"Are you happy with yourself?" her mummy asks her as she turns around and glares at her.
"We have given you everything you want, everything you need, and what do we get in return? Bad grades, parent meetings in which we are accused of not taking care of you, and your friend's parents making excuses for you and telling us that you need to see a doctor as if anything is wrong with you. What they don't know is that you are a spoiled, lazy, entitled kid. If we had let you go without like our parents did as kids, maybe you would know the value of what you have."
"Renee," her daddy yells as a reaction to her mum yelling by the end of her rant.
He gives her mummy a look before he looks at her through the rearview mirror and tells her, "Sweetheart, it's not rocket science. It's simple stuff. Stop being lazy and try to actually study instead of always daydreaming. Okay?" he asks her.
She nods her head having given up on trying to change their mind. Whenever she tells them that she can't focus on what the teacher is saying they tell her to try harder. Whenever she tells them that she spent hours on a test and yet got an average grade they tell her to stop lying, so she has given up on telling them anything. What is the point?
"That said, I think something needs to be done about her teacher and the company she keeps. Transfer her to a different class and hire back the nanny instead of sending her to the Cullen's place. Hopefully there won't be anyone there to fill her head with stupid ideas," her dad tells her mum.
"What? No," Bella protests but her daddy shuts her up with one look.
"That's not possible. Grade one has only one class," her mum replies. Bella sighs in relief. She won't be forced to leave her class.
"Kay then. Port Angeles has an elementary school. Let's transfer her there," before she can protest her mummy does, "Who is going to pick her up?"
"You of course," her daddy replies.
"Oh really, it's not enough that I am the one who takes her to her ballet classes, I need to do this too? How the heck am I supposed to do that when I have a job? Where am I supposed to drop her off while I'm working? Am I supposed to drive all the way to Forks and drop her at home? Take her with me to the office?"
"I don't know Renee, figure it out," her daddy huffs loudly as he replies.
"Come out and say that you want me to quit. We both know that is what you really want to say," her mummy replies in an accusatory tone directing her body towards him.
"That is not what I said," Charlie argues in self-defense.
"But that is what you are alluding to. I told you, Charlie, if we have children, I will not turn into some barefoot and pregnant woman. I made that clear to you before we even started dating and you promised that we will co-parent and you will never make me do such a sacrifice, yet since we have had Bella you have been doing it non-stop," she accused him her voice wavering at the end.
"You always wanna play the victim. We have a daughter who is struggling in school because she is being neglected. Want me to be honest with you, I will be. The reason Bella is bad at school is because her mum is absent and puts her work above her," her daddy rants.
"You did not just say that," her mummy says in a warning tone.
"Oh I did," he replies, looking at her mummy.
"Tell me Charlie, if I quit my job or decrease my hours, who's going to pay the bills?" her mum asks in a sarcastic tone.
Bella turns towards the window and tunes them out. They always do this. Whenever something related to her happens it turns into a fight between them.
Her daddy will get angry and piss off her mummy, then her daddy always brings up her mummy's work like it's a bad thing and then will say something that will hurt her feeling and her mummy will start crying. Her daddy will forget the problem and apologize to her. It happens all the time.
She watched them through the side mirror continuing their fight knowing how it will end. She doesn't understand them. They say that marriage is supposed to make you happy. They don't look happy to her. She wonders if they were ever happy before her. If they would be happy if they never had her.
Those are the thoughts that keep her up at night. The ones that make her wonder if she is a mistake. If everyone would have been better off without her. If she would have been better off without herself.
She wonders if this is going to be like one of those nights. The night that those questions are never answered. But it's not one of those nights. Right as she is about to think it is going to be, she hears her mummy scream and feels the car swerve around until she hits the back of her mummy's seat. For a second her she thinks she is hearing the sound of the school bell, but the sound keeps going lower until she hears nothing, sees nothing, and knows nothing.
It's not one of those nights. It is the first day in the rest of her life.
Hello lovely people,
I hope you guys aren't disappointed by the direction this chapter took this story. I know some of you guys were rooting for it to stay a sweet and fun story, but that was never the plan.
Sorry guys, things are going to take a turn of worse over the next couple of chapter before they get better. That said, a bit of a spoiler, but not one that is so relevant, Bella will be receiving therapy, so things won't be as dark as you might expect.
Almost an entire year was skipped between the last chapter and this one and I will probably have more of those through the rest of the story, but as per my plan I won't have a time jump over the next three chapters. That said, I do wanna know what do you guys prefer? Would you rather we get to the point in the story the prologue happened as soon as possible? Or do you want to take the scenic route with me? I would prefer the story take a slower pace, but let me know what you want and I will adjust accordingly.
You can find me as Aseel Ayelia on Instagram, substack, and Tumblr to read my original writing.
This story's updating schedule for this month is once every five days. See you on Sunday, or late Saturday depending on your time zone.
Until then,
Stay Safe