I stumbled, half-asleep, into the one bathroom. My hair was a mess, a birds-nest atop my scalp.
Luckily, Bella looked equally as disheveled.
I showered quickly, hating the feeling of wetness fresh against my skin.
Charlie had laid two extra towels on the towel-rail, I took the blue one.
After fixing my hair, I padded back into the bedroom and hurriedly got dressed.
I pulled on a gray t-shirt, a pair of jeans and my favorite hoodie with the perfume sprayed on it. It belonged to my mother and had only just begun to fit me.
I adjusted my gold-framed glasses and headed downstairs.
Charlie was already gone, a note wishing us luck at school stuck prominently on the fridge.
I fixed myself a bowl of cereal, and sat down at the kitchen island, allowing my thoughts to spill over. My breathing quickened, and my heart rate increased. I felt my palms sweat as I struggled to keep a grip on the bowl.
Luckily, it was just a small panic attack, and I was now content rocking myself on the wobbly stool.
Bella descended the stairs, her brow furrowed.
"Anxious about school as well?"
My voice startled her.
"Yeah, a bit."
The main thing I liked about Bella was she didn't keep secrets from me. Everything was laid out in front of me, where I could see and take in exactly what she was saying.
She meant exactly what she said, and it gave me a sense of security.
Bella pulled a mangled granola bar out of her pocket and half-heartedly munched on it.
"Shame Jacob won't be there." She muttered to herself.
"Yeah, that guy really likes you." I chuckled and avoided her angry stare.
Once we finished talking and our breakfasts, Bella started up the car while I mentally prepared myself for the horror that was high school.
"You ready?" She called through the open front door.
"Yep, almost." I replied, before shaking my hands as aggressively as I could.
I had to get all the stimming out of my system before I went to school, and people started to make fun of me.
I did a few more checks over my things, making sure that I had all my schoolbooks, my pencil case, and all the important things. Once I was positive that I was fully prepared, I exited the house and locked up the front door.
By the time we had found a park, it had started to rain. Big fat droplets landed on my glasses as I shrugged my arms into my yellow raincoat.
Bella did the same, and together we walked into the office.
"Hello," Bella said once she rang the bell and someone rushed over to greet us.
The receptionist looked us over, and recognized Bella.
"Oh! You're the chief's daughter, aren't you?" She smiled eagerly and turned her gaze to me.
"We both are," Bella confirmed.
After the woman had given us our schedules, she pointed us over to the nearest building where our first class— physical education— was being held.
Bella groaned and I laughed. She was famously clumsy and had a record for unintentionally attacking whoever attempted to play any type of sport with her. It was usually me. While I wasn't the sporty type, I had often tried to convince Bella to play table-tennis, or badminton with me. All failed miserably. She was uncoordinated, and that was something that this new high school would have to accept.
The rain increased to a downpour, so we rushed—as fast as a clumsy girl and her sister —could run in the rain.
The changing rooms were dirty, and smelled of deodorant, sweat, and tears. I had expected as much. Bella quickly changed into her P.E uniform and waited outside whilst I got changed in a bathroom cubicle, refusing to enter the rank changing rooms.
Once we entered the Gymnasium, a large high-roofed ceiling, the horrors began.
We were playing netball, a sport that both Bella and I shared a passionate hatred of. It required tall, coordinated players, which ruled out both of us.
Still, we played as well as expected, before Bella spiked a ball straight into a boy's head.
"Sorry!" She exclaimed as she rushed over to the scene of the crime.
"I told them not to let me play." She muttered bashfully.
I looked up to see a boy with forgiving blue eyes and blonde hair slicked back with sweat.
"It's all good, no harm done." He smiled, instinctively reaching back to feel where Bella had injured him.
"I'm Mike, Mike Newton." He explained happily, the accident already forgotten.
"You're Isabella Swan, right? The chief's daughter?"
The word around here must've spread quickly, I thought.
Bella cringed at the common connection everyone made between her and our father.
"Is this your friend?" He asked, gesturing to me.
"My sister." She corrected it promptly.
I knew that no one would've heard of me. After all, I was only Bella's half-sister, and while she used to come to Forks every summer, this was my first time.
To help that factor, we looked nothing alike.
Bella shared her dark straight hair with Charlie, and they both had dark brown calm eyes.
I, on the other hand, looked much more like my late mother, who had curly mousy hair and terrible eyesight. I too had a mop of curls upon my head, and had to wear glasses for as long as I could remember.
But I liked to think of Bella and I as kindred spirits. We both loved to read, listen to music, and we were both able to sit in silence without requiring the conversation that most other people couldn't live without. It was never awkward between me and Bella. Reneé always joked that we could've been twins.
I snapped back to the present as I heard someone's footsteps coming towards us.
It was a girl, shorter than Bella, but just talked than me. She had brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. A look crossed her face as she noticed the awe that was plastered across Mike's. She clearly had a thing for him, I thought.
"Hey! You two are the new girls, right?"
She smiled, but I caught her envious glance at Bella.
Bella nodded before I could say anything.
"I'm Bella, and this is Olive, my sister." She pointed to herself, then me. Boy, it must be getting tiring for her to keep introducing us to everyone. It sure was for me.
"I'm Jessica." The girl's friendly disposition was a lie, I could tell. But I ignored it and gave her a small wave.
"Newton! Stanley! New kids! Back at it if you don't mind!" We hurried back to our places before the coach could yell at us further.
It was suddenly lunch, the class I was dreading the most.
So many teenagers, all looking, chewing, talking louder than I could handle… I shuddered violently at the thought.
At least I had Bella with me, I don't know how I would've survived without her.
She took my hand in hers and rushed over to the serving stations in the cafeteria. She grabbed a tray and started to pile it up with various different foods.
"Is that all for you?" I asked, half to myself.
"It's for both of us." She answered. I then noticed that all the food that she had taken on to the tray was separated into neat piles, nothing touching that wasn't meant to be.
"Thank you." I sighed gratefully.
Bella nodded, her mind already elsewhere.
I followed her scanning gaze over to a table where Mike, Jessica, and Eric—another strange boy who had taken our pictures for the school newspaper before Bella had told him that neither of us were keen about being the headline—were sitting.
Once she was content with the amount that was piled onto our tray, she carried it over to the table with familiar faces. I followed her, anxiously fiddling with my hair before realizing that I was stimming.
I dropped my hands and tried to force a grin.
"Hey! You guys know my homegirl Bella and her sister, right?" Eric started.
"Your homegirl? Yeah, sure." Mike lightly punched Eric's shoulder.
God, everyone was so infatuated with Bella it was almost sickening.
Suddenly, someone who I faintly remembered was called Tyler, dragged a chair out from under Mike and pecked Bella on her cheek.
"Sorry to ruin your game, Mike." He laughed and ran away, with Mike hot on his heels.
Bella flushed red about the same time that I did, feeling her second-hand embarrassment.
Jessica pulled her chair closer to mine and muttered,
"It's like first grade all over again. You two are the shiny new toys."
I politely nodded in agreement, then started picking at our food.
A breeze entered the cafeteria, Bella and I both turned at the same time to look at who had entered.
First to enter the cafeteria was an astonishingly beautiful woman, who had linked arms with a beefy dark-haired boy— no, man.
The woman had wavy golden locks that went past her shoulders, and piercing golden eyes. Wait, golden? Was nobody else seeing this?
"Who are they?" Bella asked breathlessly—she too— must've been in awe of the beautiful people. They both had pale porcelain skin. As their golden eyes scanned the room, they briefly landed on Bella and me.
"The Cullens," Angela (Jessica's friend) stated matter-of-factly.
"They're Dr and Mrs. Cullen's foster kids." Jessica added.
I tried to remember whether or not Charlie had given me information on any of them, but I came up blank.
Two more people entered the cafeteria, but these ones I could tell were definitely teenagers.
"The big dark-haired guy, that's Emmett, and the blond-haired girl, that's Rosalie. They're like, together."
We gave Jessica a look.
"Like, together-together." She added, a grimace plastered across her face.
"You know they're not actually related, right?" Angela pointed out.
"Yeah, but, it's still weird…" Jessica trailed off, the cafeteria doors flung open again, and a girl and a boy entered.
"Oh—okay so— the little dark-haired girl is Alice, she's really weird." Jessica whispered to Bella and I.
I looked where Jessica was glancing, and saw a beautiful, small girl. Her hair stood up in spikes, her topaz eyes sparkling with laughter. As her pale-skinned face lit up with a smile, I felt my face flush. She practically danced over to the table where Rosalie and Emmett sat.
She paused, as if able to hear my rapid breathing.
I froze when she looked in my direction and smiled. A bright, shiny, pearlescent smile.
My eyes dropped to the floor.
Behind Alice was a boy. I had never felt attraction to men, but I could still tell that he was very beautiful. Hearing Bella's breath catch in her throat, I sighed.
Bella was hopeless when it came to boys.
She melted in her seat before asking,
"Who's he?"
"That's Edward Cullen. He's totally gorgeous—obviously—but apparently no one here is good enough for him." Jessica pouted angrily.
Bella bit her lip.
I sighed and turned back to Alice.
Okay, maybe I could understand how Bella felt.
Maybe.
When the bell rang loudly, I covered my ears. It signified the end of lunch—thank God—so I walked alongside Bella as she headed to her next class, Biology.
We had both been top of our classes back in Arizona, so Bella didn't seem too worried about the curriculum here at Forks High School.
I was distraught that I didn't have Biology with Bella, but she assured me that I would be fine.
'Perhaps this will be an opportunity to make new friends?' She had offered me, before striding into her class.
I didn't want new friends, I wanted Bella.
With no way to change my fate, I wandered into dreaded Biology, my lunch-time high stopping just short of the door.
Once I pushed open the heavy door—not conveniently open like Bella's classroom was— I stumbled up to the teacher's front desk, handing him my 'I'm a new kid!' slip.
After handing me my books, he pointed me over to the only empty seat. It was next to Alice.