Chapter 1.

I haven’t really given much thought to dying. But having my brains eaten by the one that I love sounds like a good way to go.

It was 35 degrees out. I just like to use the metric system because it’s the superior units of measurement. The windows were rolled down as mum drove me to the airport. This was my last day in Phoenix, the clear sky was a blue as an unused harpic toilet block.

Spoons, a small rainy town in Washington state, was my destination. It rains more in that little town than it does over the ocean, and there’s a lot of water in the ocean. It was also the town my mother escaped from soon after I was born.

My mother stood with me at the check in gates. I inherited most of my looks from her, except for her breasts. What a bitch.

“You don’t have to go you know. You could come on the road with me and Phil.”

Phil and I, I couldn’t help ruminating. Her terrible grammar always drove me insane. Phil, my mothers new husband, was a nice enough guy. He is a thirty year old baseball player trying to make it big. But let’s face it, if it didn’t happen ten years ago, it’s probably not going to happen now. But who can deny a man his dream.

“I want to go mum” I lied. The thought of it made my stomach sick like I’d drank a whole carton of off milk.

“Well tell Charlie I say hi.”

“Ok”

~If there is an Isabella Swan and Peter File in the terminal, this is a final boarding call, could you please make your way to gate 34, Isabella Swan and Peter File~ The loudspeaker boomed throughout the airport.

“I better go,” I said as I fleetingly gave mum a hug, grabbed my bag and ran after the man, also running, who I assumed to be Peter File.

The food on the plane was pretty average. I considered writing a post about it on www.mylifeisaverage.com, but I didn’t want to mess up the planes navigation systems. You’d think they would have made better ones since the 1950s, but perhaps not.

A couple of hours later I arrived in Port Angeles. Charlie’s same old cruiser was sitting in the closest park to the airport. A couple of disabled people gave him stinkeye for it, and probably would have given him the finger, if they had hands.

I hated being driven around in the cruiser. It stood out more than Marge Simpson in playboy. I couldn’t wait to buy my own car.

It was as if Charlie read my mind, “oh by the way, I got you a coming home present.”

“Yeah?”

“A car. Well, a truck really. It was Billy’s old truck. He hasn’t driven it since he sat in a wheelchair and found it so comfortable that he decided to be disabled.”

“Is it old?”

“It’s only a couple of years old.”

I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows.

“A couple of years older than me…”

“Dad…”

“Come on Bells. Jacob, Billy’s son, rebuilt it a year ago; it’s very easy on the eyes, and the truck’s not looking too bad either.”

“Well thanks dad. I’m sure it’ll be great.”

Not quite sure how to respond to a more sincere than I meant thanking, Charlie looked a little uncomfortable, “well, you’re welcome.”

For the rest of the ride home the conversation turned to the weather. How sometimes it rains lightly, and other times it rains much heavier. And sometimes it rains inbetween those two amounts. The variation seemed endless.

We soon arrived back at Charlie’s house. It hadn’t changed since I was last here three summers ago.

The good thing about Charlie was that he didn’t hover, like a helicopter, he was more like a plane in his personality. He left me to unpack my stuff and cry myself to sleep in teenage angst at being stuck in Spoons.

The next morning was the first day at school. Breakfast was quiet as Charlie read the paper before saying goodbye as he headed out the door.

I drove my “new” truck up the highway. Charlie had fitted a satnav to the windscreen, so that I wouldn’t get lost. I almost wish that he didn’t go to the trouble.

“Turn left in 200 metres. Turn left in 100 metres. Ha ha ha, I made you turn left when you should have kept going straight. Don’t you know how to play this game? You should only turn when Simon says to turn.”

Eventually I turned it off and relied on the road signs instead. It was only the next exit along the highway.

The school parking lot was empty as I turned in. I got my timetable and map from the office, and proceeded to my first class. How interesting.

I sat next to a friendly girl in history, my first class. I felt bad that I couldn’t remember her name. But I had been sitting next to her for a while now, and it would be awkward to ask her name again. So I called her Ell, I called her Stacy, I called her her, I called her Jane.

“That’s not my name, that’s not my name, that’s not my name, that’s not my… name,” she replied.

Somehow I don’t think any of my guesses were right. This made things awkward, not Flight of the Conchords awkward, but more like saying you don’t like Two and a Half Men in front of a Two and a Half Men fan. Regardless, I left the class in a hurry as soon as it finished.

A young man, whose driving ability I might question, started walking with me to my next class.

“So you must be the new girl, Isabella Swan…”

“Bella is fine.”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

“WHAT?!”

“Oh shit, I just did a Ted Mosby. Anyway, my name is Eric, and I guess I’ll see you around.”

He rushed off in embarrassment.

The rest of my classes til lunch went rather slowly. Every class was the same thing. Everyone was staring at me. It’s not like they’d never seen a pale person before, most of them were as pale as I was. It’s just that most students that move from the sunny parts of the country have long blond hair, huge muscles, super tanned and seem to not own a single shirt, yet have every single pair of board shorts ever made.

At lunch I sat with the girl whose name wasn’t Stacy and several of her friends. That’s when I saw them for the first time. There were five of them, it was as if they were walking in slow motion. I was transfixed. The one as big as a bear had his arm around the one who looked like a barbie doll with an arm missing. The small pixie like one had her hands interlocked with the one who looked like he was in pain. Then there was him. The most un-ugly of them all. His bronze hair flowed flowingly onto his dull, almost dusty, bluish forehead.

“Who are they? And how do they make it look like they walk in slow motion?” I asked the girl whose name wasn’t Stacy.

“Oh, them,” she seemed to know who I was talking about by my tone of voice, “the Cullens. They’re like totally the five drop dead gorgeous pale blue orphans, all adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Cullen. They’re like all together. Emmet and Rosalie are the bear and barbie. Alice and Jasper are the two strange looking ones. And the only single one, Edward, like gorgeous obviously, but doesn’t date apparently. I’ve asked him out like a gazillion times, but he said no. So like don’t even waste your time, cause like if I couldn’t get a date, you totes couldn’t. Like no offense.”

After lunch I had Biology 2. I wondered why they didn’t use Roman numerals like all the other schools. Then again Spoons High didn’t have a wanky Latin school motto, so I didn’t think too much of it.

As I walked into the room, it was as if the whole world had gone silent. There he was. Edward that is. There was something different about him. As if he was lacking something that everybody else had. Then it hit me, a lab partner. He was the only one in the room sitting alone. My heart skipped a beat in hope. It was a healthy skipped beat, my heart was careful not to skip too many beats, which would put me in hospital, but enough to let me know my autonomic nervous system was aroused. The teacher signed my timetable and directed me to sit next to Edward.

A fan conveniently placed behind me was blowing, causing my hair to flow in Edward’s direction. I hoped it would make me look like a hair conditioner model. His face instantly turned into a snarl, as his fists tightened as I sat down next to him. Was my BO really that bad? I discreetly lifted my arm, but I couldn’t smell anything. It would be the last time I rely on Rexona anyhow.

I tired to sneak peaks at Edward during class. But every time I did his angry black eyes were glaring at me. What had I done? I hope he didn’t hear my offhand comment about not liking Two and a Half Men at lunchtime. I would like it for you if you wanted me to. I began to see why the girl whose name wasn’t Stacy was so bitter about Edward. The class dragged on for what seemed like forever.

The bell finally rang. Half a minute later Edward gathered his books and slowly stumbled out the door. I just sat there, shocked by his rudeness.

What could I have done to offend him? Did I not seem friendly? Does it offend you, yeah? Did I smell bad? Does it offend you, yeah? Did he see me talking about him and his siblings at lunch? Does it offend you, yeah? Can I write an entire paragraph of questions? Does it offend you, yeah? Probably only my English teacher.

It was all I could think about during gym class. What had I done wrong? I answered no to all of the above questions.

“Bella!” a familiar voice broke my train of thought.

I looked up to see the girl whose name wasn’t Stacy with a panicked look on her face. I followed her eye gaze to the volleyball heading straight for my face. I flailed my arms in a desperate attempt to stop the volleyball from hitting me in the face. In good news, I managed to avoid being hit in the head. In bad news, the volleyball hit a guy playing basketball in the back of the head, and he was lying on the floor. I ran over to see if he was ok. I think there was blood.

After a couple of minutes he came around, and wasted no time introducing himself, “let me introduce myself, I’m Mike.”

Mike looked like a baby crossed with a puppy dog. I don’t think he’d lost his baby teeth yet.

“So I think I love you.”

“Errrr,” I was shell shocked. That was the second time today this has happened.

The girl whose name wasn’t Stacy saw that Mike was awake and came bounding over. “Hey Mike, I see you like totes met Bella now. She’s got a strong spike eh.”

“Yeah, I can attest to that,” said Mike as he slowly stood up rubbing the back of his head.

The girl whose name wasn’t Stacy grabbed my arm and pulled me away from Mike, “so like what was up with Edward today?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well like I dunno, he just seemed really angry in Biology 2.”

“Yeah I noticed.”

“You didn’t accidentally mention that you don’t like Two and a Half Men did you? Cause I like heard it’s totes his favourite show. Yeah, someone totes told me that. I totes didn’t like stalk him in year 10. How could you suggest such a thing!”

“Errrr.”

“Weird anyway, like I said.” said the girl whose name wasn’t Stacy as she ran off to rejoin the volleyball game once I was sufficiently far away from Mike.

I survived my first day at school. I think. I walked into the office to hand in my map, and there he was again. The cooler shades of his pale blue skin contrasted with the warm yellow light that bathed the office. He was having some kind of argument with the office lady.

“There must be something I can change to! French, physics, legal studies?”

“I’m sorry Edward, but it’s all full this semester. You’ll just have to stay in Biology 2.”

Another girl entered the office behind me. The cold wind rustled my hair. Edward’s head snapped back around, his blank eyes glared at me. How did he know I was there?

“Argh, I’ll just have to suffer through it then,” he snapped at the office lady as he turned and stumbled out of the office building. Not once raising his head to meet my gaze. I couldn’t help by notice the look of distain on his face.

Perhaps I do smell? You know I heard that you can’t actually smell your own BO.

The office lady just shook her head, and turned to me, “how was your first day love?”

“Ok,” I lied.