36First Sight Alice read
You know what Alice I don't think I want to stick around to read this book I'm just gonna go somewhere. As I tuned to walk out of the room Emmett ran after me, picked me up, tucked me under him like a football, and walked back to where he was sitting like nothing ever happened.
"Emmett put me down right now or I will kill you"
"Oh No I am so scared Bellers" He had a fake scared smirk on his face
"Emmett put Bella down and give her to me" Edward said
So Emmett got his butt up and put me in Edward's lap, I thought Edward was going to let me go, but boy was I wrong he tightened his grip around me and whispered in my ear that he was only going to let me up when we finished the book and told Alice to keep reading.
My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favorite shirt sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture.
"Bella I don't care if you were wearing it because you would never get to wear it again, but I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that, just ewww". After that "Wonderful" interruption she went on reading again.
My carry-on item was a parka. In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover if clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America.
"Hey, Bella do you want some popcorn I can go pop you some right now". Was he really that stupid it really makes me wonder how many times his momma dropped him on his head when he was little.
"Emmett I am a vampire now and I can't eat human food".
"O right I forgot". I rolled my eyes and signaled for Alice to keep reading before Emmett said anything more stupid.
It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old.
"Bella why do you keep using really big words I don't understand what you're saying" Of course that comment came out of Emmett's mouth.
"Emmett shut up and let Alice read". He was so annoying sometimes.
It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down;
"Bella why was one of your feet up in the air for fourteen years". Did he really just ask me a stupid question like that?
"Emmett it's a figure of speech it means that she told her mom that she didn't want to do something" Esme said.
Then Rose hit him on the back of the head and he said he would shut up; I really wish I could believe him.
these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead. It was Forks that I now exiled myself an action that I took with great horror. I detested Forks.
"But Bella you love Forks" Alice said,
"Yeah, but I only started loving it when I met you guys" Everyone gave me a look that said they understood and Alice carried on reading.
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." My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. I felt a spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes.
"She also thinks like a child, it's really funny listening to her thoughts" Edward said and I smiled.
How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself?
"You sound more like the mother than the child Bella" Esme stated.
"Well my mom acts more like a child than I do soo…"
"That is so sad" Esme thought out loud.
Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would 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'd always been a bad liar,
"Ain't that the truth." Alice and Emmett said together
"Hey, I've been getting better at it" I said.
"Love, no you haven't so Alice can we keep on reading please." I turned to give him the death glare and went back to listening to Alice.
but I'd been saying this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now. "Tell Charlie I said hi." "I will." "I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want I'll come right back as soon as you need me." But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise. "Don't worry about me," I urged. "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.
"Of course she would be gone why would she get on the plane with you?" I rolled my eyes at Emmett and Rose smacked him yet again.
"If you don't stop saying such stupid things I am gonna kick you out so shut up." Rosalie yelled at him
"Shutting." He said
It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and than an hour drive back down to Forks. Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Charlie, though, I was a little worried about.
"Sweetie, why would it be awkward to be in a car with Charlie." Esme asked me.
"Because, were too much alike and with two shy people you get awkwardness and not much talking."
"Oh, I see continue Alice."
Charlie had been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for high school and was going to help me get a car. But it was awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose, and I didn't know what there was to say regardless. I knew he was more than a little confused by my decision like my mother before me, I hadn't made a secret if my distaste for Forks. When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.
"Bella, why did you say goodbye to the sun that's just weird." Emmett had to say.
"Emmett you're weird, and what did I say about interrupting." Rose said.
"Sorry Rosie" Emmett was quiet now so Alice took her opportunity to keep on reading.
Charlie as waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too. Charlie is the Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on the top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.
"Were with you sister." Rose and Alice said at the same time causing everyone in the room to smirk.
Charlie gave me an awkward, one-armed hug when I stumbled my way off the plane. "It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me.
"LOL, I would've loved to see that," I wish Emmett would just shut up. So everyone ignored that comment because everyone wanted to see me trip. UGGH. SO glad I am a vampire now.
"You haven't changed much. How's Renee?" "Moms fine. It's good to see you, too, Dad." I wasn't allowed to call him Charlie to his face. I had only a few bags.
"Do you have to mention that Bella." Alice said, and I just laughed.
Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for Washington. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk of the cruiser.
"Please stop talking about your clothes Bella it's driving me insane I want to go shop now."Alice commented again about my clothes.
"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when we were strapped in. "What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for you" as opposed to just "good car." "Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."
"Oh, God I hate that truck." Edward and Rose said in union. I smacked Edward and glared daggers at Rose, because Edward still wouldn't let go of me. I loved that truck it had very good character.
"Where did you find it?" "Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La Push is the tiny Indian reservation on the coast. "No." "He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Charlie prompted. That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory. "He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."
"This conversation in the book is so boring Alice can we just skip it no one cares about the stupid truck except Bella." I huffed at crossed my arms and glared at Emmett.
"No, we can't I want to hear this WHOLE story." Alice told him.
"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this was the question he was hopping I wouldn't ask. "Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine it's only a few years old, really." I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily.
"You're so stubborn." Edward said and everyone agreed with him. (Had to use it from the end of New Moon)
"When did he buy it?" "He bought it in 1984, I think." "Did he buy it new?" "Well, no I think it was new in the early sixties or late fifties at the earliest," He admitted sheepishly. "Ch-Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic. . . ." "Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."
"They don't build them like that anymore because there freaken stupid, Oh sorry Bella." I just rolled my eyes because I was going to have to get used to the teasing sooner or later.
The thing, I thought to myself. . . . it had possibilities as a nickname, at the very least. "How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise on. "Well, honey, I king of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift." Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression. Wow. Free.
"You're actually happy about getting a gift?" Jasper announced
"Why do you always let other people gifts, but not me?" Edward asked me
"I already told you when I was human and I know you remember it perfectly."
"You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car." "I don't mind I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at the road when he said this. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. So I was looking straight ahead as I responded. "That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." No need to add that my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. He didn't need to suffer along with me.
"Whateva." Emmett whispered, Uggh I wish I could just go slap him!
And I never looked a free truck in the mouth or engine. "Well, now you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks. We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for conversation. We stared out the windows in silence. It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.
"You are very descriptive about things Bella." Alice pointed out.
It was too green an alien planet. Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage 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.
"Eww." Rose yelled
"Can you people stop interrupting me please?" Alice shouted
"Yes, mam" We all replied.
"Thank you."
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, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chiefs cruiser.
Alice and Rose shuddered from that thought.
"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again. It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed laced curtains around the window these were all part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk now held a second-hand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.
"The rocking chair was still in your room." Alice asked shocked
"Yup." I answered
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact. One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been all together impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. I wasn't in the mood to go on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to think about the coming morning. Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven now fifty-eight students;
"How many kids were at your school when you were in Phoenix?" Carlisle asked me it was the first time he had said anything this while time.
"Umm, I think like 400 students per grade."
there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home.
"I guess I got that question wrong there's your real answer." I said to Carlisle and he laughed.
All of the kids here had grown up together their grandparents had been toddlers together. I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak. Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to my advantage. But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty, blond, a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps all the things that go with living in the valley of the sun.
"Now you just described Lauren except her tans not real it's fake." Edward said and Emmett's booming laughter filled the room.
Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.
"Bella, you're a vampire now and you still can't play sports you suck at them." Emmett annoyed me to no end.
"Just please shut up Emmett and I only tripped one time playing baseball." I stated
"Yeah, but vampires don't trip and you did." Emmett snickered and I got mad.
When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bag of bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed my through my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but already I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty it was very clear, almost translucent looking but It all depended on the color. I had no color here. Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here? I didn't relate well to people my age.
"That's why you got married to a 110 year old man." Jasper said while Emmett snickered.
Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning. I didn't sleep well that night, even after I was done crying. The constant whooshing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. I pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too.
"Well, don't suffocate yourself now Bella." Emmett was laughing at his joke and everyone else sighed at how stupid he was.
But I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle. Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage. Breakfast with Charlie was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me.
Everyone laughed at this comment in the book
Charlie left first, off to the police station that was his wife and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing was changed. My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Las Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to last year's. Those were embarrassing to look at I would have to see what I could do to get Charlie to put them somewhere else, at least while I was living here.
"Will I ever get to see those pictures?" Edward I asked me and I said no. He frowned, but to distract him I asked if we could go hunting then finish the rest of the chapter when we got back. Everyone agreed and we headed out the door.
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