Chapter Text
Monday morning arrived with aggression. Or at least it felt that way. Bella's alarm had screamed her awake, the shrill sound forcing her cruelly from sleep with a jolt. She'd showered the night before so that she could braid her hair this morning without worrying about the middle staying wet all day. In a true show of grace that could only belong to one Isabella Marie Swan, she stubbed her toe on her doorframe as she walked from the bathroom to her bedroom, finishing off her braid. The string of expletives that fell from her mouth was truly impressive. Charlie was downstairs, putting on his shoes and coat, when she made her way to the kitchen for her oatmeal and tea. He asked for the forty-seventh time if she was sure she didn't need him to go with her that morning; she replied for the forty-seventh time that she knew how to drop papers off in the office and that she would be fine. He left to start his day, and Bella started her breakfast. Which landed on her shirt very shortly thereafter, and she had to change before she left.
All in all, not the best start to a day she'd ever had.
By the time she made it to the school, which was an abstract collection of small tan buildings, who on earth thought the rainiest town in the continental US needed a half-outside campus? Like, what kind of logic was that? She pulled into the parking lot and parked by the building that looked to be the main office. She'd gotten there a little early so that she'd have time to find her locker and classes without being tardy. Her business in the office was shored up quickly; Ms. Cope greeted her enthusiastically. If the woman's desk was anything to go by, she must have done a full office staff's work just by herself. One of the paper piles had almost been knocked off the desk when she was looking for Bella's folder, and Bella was a bit afraid the whole desk would have tipped over, balance being thrown off and all. Ms. Cope pointed her in the direction of the nurse so that she could drop off her prescriptions and fill out the necessary forms.
Once everything inside had been taken care of, Bella headed back out to find which building her locker was in and where her first-period class was. Outside of the office, the air had become heavy with something that existed in the ambiguous state between fog and mist. Schrodinger's rain. The past few days had been relatively clear; she had hoped it would hold. Bella looked down at the slightly drooping map in her hand. Ms. Cope had very helpfully and enthusiastically highlighted paths to all of her classes. Every path was in the same color ink, and Bella had watched with a grimace as what looked to be a neon yellow ball of spaghetti took shape. She was broken from her meditation on art appreciation by the shout of her name. Looking up, she found Mike and another boy approaching, Mike shouting her name and waving, the other boy looking just as embarrassed as Bella was quickly becoming.
"Hey, Mike," she greeted once the three of them were in proximity to each other that didn't require shouting.
"Bella! Good morning!" It appeared that her assessment on Thursday had been correct. Golden retriever.
"It is morning. That is a fact," Bella agreed.
The other boy snorted a laugh. "Hi, I'm Eric. Um, I'm supposed to give you a tour?"
It was nice to see that she was not the only person incredibly uncomfortable. Eric's shoulders were heading towards hunched, and he was fidgeting too much to have been merely for stimulation.
"Great, because this map is, uh, creative." She waved the offending piece of paper.
Mike took the paper from her and gave it a look, then died laughing. "Did she take emergency exits into account? Make contingency plans? Why are there so many paths?"
"Your question is why so many paths; mine is why are all the paths the same color?" Bella said, face blank but lips trembling in an attempt not to laugh. "I might frame it. I think it's art."
Eric snickered and then asked for her schedule. While he looked over the paper, Mike told her about how Eric was on StuCo and how his name had been picked to give the new girl a tour, even though Mike had argued that he should get to do it since he'd already met Bella. The argument did not hold, so he just tagged along anyway. Also, he was avoiding someone named Jessica, and the best way to do that was to not stand in the same place he had stood every morning for the last three years. It was sound logic to Bella.
"Okay," Eric interrupted. "What's your locker number? We can go by there first if you want."
The trio embarked on their journey, Eric and Mike pointing out different buildings or fields and what classes and activities happened there. Well, really just one actual sports field and then an empty lot by the school that they called a field. Students would hang out there and play touch football or whatever sport after school when the weather allowed. Bella informed them that she and all negative one-hundred percent of her grace would bow out of that. Then, of course, she had to explain to them how she was the biggest klutz on earth. Possibly ever. Her own personal theory is that it was the brain damage, because, well, it would make sense. But according to Talia's memories, Book-Bella had been incredibly klutzy too. But whatever, it was the excuse she was sticking with. Not that she shared that with Mike and Eric. She didn't just "Hi, I'm Bella, and I have brain damage, lol." them. She wasn't trying to be that girl.
Eric assured her that her locker was great; she got one of the newer ones, so she didn't have to worry about figuring out where to hit it to actually make the lock mechanism disengage. So even if the rest of her day was crap, she had that going for her, she guessed. Eric was in her first class, which was honors English. She'd have trigonometry later in the day with him and Mike, and then Mike was in her last two classes, gym and biology. Both of which she was not looking forward to. Mike told her that Jessica (who apparently he was friends with but was avoiding for an undisclosed reason? She didn't push.) would be in her Spanish and government classes, and that Jessica would be more than willing to be her friend, so not to worry. She didn't have the heart to tell him that her worry wasn't not making friends, but she appreciated the heart of his action.
Her first classes all passed as if they were scripted the exact same. Enter room, introduce self to teacher, get paper signed, be made to share information about self with class, be assigned a seat beside someone who would inevitably spend the whole class trying to ask her about Arizona instead of focusing on the lesson. Trig was a relief when it came, which is not something she ever would have anticipated thinking. Thankfully, Eric was her desk neighbor, and she got to sit in an end row, so there were fewer people around her. Eric had offered to bring her his last semester's notes for the class so that she could look them over, which she was incredibly appreciative of. She wasn't necessarily bad at math, but she wasn't good at it either.
Bella would have loved to have said that lunch came quickly, but it did not. She'd met Jessica in Spanish, and she'd insisted that Bella sit with them at lunch, which Bella was pretty sure was where she would have ended up anyway, since Mike and Eric had seemingly adopted her. Which, honestly, she was fine with. They were both pretty funny, and they were nice. Neither of them made her feel othered in the same way most of the rest of the student body had. She'd also met Angela in one of her classes, who, on the way to lunch, Eric informed her, sat with them. She liked Angela. She seemed sweet, quiet, but that wasn't a flaw to Bella the way it was to a lot of other people. Silence had its place.
She made her way through the line with the boys, grabbing an apple and a lemonade since she hadn't brought a drink with her. She'd accidentally left the house without her water bottle this morning. By the time the three of them had made their way back to the table, all the other seats had filled. As she sat, Jessica greeted her extra enthusiastically. Or maybe just normal enthusiastically for the bubbly, curly-headed brunette, but if Bella ever displayed that level of enthusiasm over anything less than winning the lottery, Charlie would probably drug test her. Jessica seemed to be one of those people who did not actually breathe oxygen; she breathed talking. It was the only explanation for the sheer volume of words the girl produced per minute.
"So, Bella, I don't know if you've met everyone else. Angela, of course, was in gov with us, and you obviously know Mike and Eric." Her voice did a weird thing when she said Mike's name that reminded Bella that he had been avoiding her.
"The blond is Lauren," Jessica said, pointing with her fork. "And then by her is Tyler, and that's Lee and Ben."
Each person gave her a wave or said 'Hi' as Jessica called them out, except Lauren; she just scoffed and stabbed her very sad-looking salad. Bella was unoffended. By Lauren, at least. The salad was very offensive.
"Nice to meet you guys," Bella said with a smile, then started unpacking her lunch.
Conversation followed a predictable pattern. Yes, she was Chief Swan's kid; yes, Arizona was a lot sunnier; no, she didn't hate her new stepdad; yes, her school in Phoenix had been a lot bigger. That is, until the topic of favorite media came up, and then Eric, Angela, and Bella bonded over the absolute crushing disappointment it had been when Firefly was cancelled and how they were cautiously excited about the movie. Bella had to mentally 'la la la' when Talia's memory of the movie popped up. She didn't want it ruined. It didn't happen often, but occasionally, when a book, show, or movie was mentioned, if it was something Talia had been really into, Talia's memories and opinions of it would push to the forefront of her mind. Immediately, whatever excitement Bella'd had about the thing in question was ruined. No one wanted to go see the new Harry Potter movie with a monologue running in the back of their head about all of the things that were different in the books. No one.
It finally happened about halfway through lunch. The cafeteria fell into an unnatural hush as the door opened and a gaggle (Pod? Pack? Murder? What would the scientific name for a group of vampires be? If she ever, unfortunately, meets the Volturi, she might ask.) of Cullens entered the cafeteria. It wasn't until they were all seated at their table, off to the side of the room, that the noise continued. It just picked right back up from where it had stopped, like someone had hit pause.
"What the fuck was that?" Bella asked, not thinking better of it.
"What? Them? Oh! Have you not seen them yet? They're the Cullens. They were—"
"No, not that, like sure, I'll wonder about their names later. What the fuck was the—the pause. They walked in, and then like, everyone froze and stopped talking until they were past. That is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen in my life. It was like--" Bella's mind caught up to her mouth.
Like when a pack of deer realize they're being hunted. Like they all pause, and their heads shoot up, and then they run away. Only the running away didn't happen. Everyone just started eating their cafeteria pizza again and talking about math class. And she almost said that out loud, where the resident apex predators would have heard her. Bella felt like she was about to lose it, not just because she had almost just verbally signed her own death warrant, but how did no one else notice that? Did that actually happen every time? Have these people been going to school with them for like two years and not noticed the bizarre behavior?
"Never mind." She rushed before anyone else spoke. "I'm—I get migraines, and sometimes they make me weird. I think I'm getting one. Ignore that. Does anyone want this lemonade? I can't drink it. I didn't realize it had artificial sweetener."
"Aaaannyyyways," Jessica said, ignoring that Bella had just acted like a total weirdo. Thankfully. "Like I was saying, they're the Cullens. They're all, like, adopted. Dr. Cullen, the dad, and his wife adopted all of them; well, some of them are fosters, I think. The two blonds. That's Jasper and Rosalie Hale. And then the others are all Cullens; the little one, that's Alice. She's, like, really weird. Sometimes she just, like, stops in the middle of the hallway or something and just stares at nothing."
Jessica paused as if waiting for Bella to agree that that was, in fact, the weirdest thing she'd ever heard.
Bella shrugged. "Maybe she has seizures. Absent seizures can cause that."
"Well, it's weird. But whatever. The big guy, his name is Emmett, he's like totally in love with Rosalie; they're like dating or something, even though they live in the same house. They're like siblings, and they're dating. So are Alice and Jasper."
"I mean, they all got adopted as teens, right? They didn't grow up together? That's more like dating a roommate, I guess, than a sibling," Bella dismissed.
"But they live in the same house! My parents would never let that happen," Jessica said. "Then the other one, the redhead, that's Edward. He's the only one who's single. But like, don't even try anything. They don't talk to anyone outside of their family. It's like a cult or something."
"You're just still upset that he turned you down for the winter formal last year," Mike laughed.
"Rude! No, I'm not. I didn't even want to go with him anyway. I was just trying to be, like, nice or whatever."
"Does anyone else have biology next?" Bella asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the vampire elephant in the room. (Coven a coven of vampires. Stupid.)
"Just you and me," Mike answered. "Edward Cullen is in that class too. I think he's the only one who doesn't have a lab partner, actually, so you'll probably end up sitting with him."
Bella did her very best to respond with something that would come across as "Oh, interesting" and not "Welp, I'm fucked". She wasn't sure how successful she was.
The rest of lunch passed without incident. She tried to pay attention to the conversation happening around the table, using it as a distraction. She learned that Angela was the secretly funny type. The kind of person whose dry commentary was hilarious. Jessica came across super ditzy, but Bella was pretty sure it was, like, 60% manufactured. There were several times when she would butt into a conversation with something that was too observant for what she tried to pretend to be. Her act was so much more intense when she interacted with Lauren, Tyler, or Lee. Bella half wanted to make a plan to break that. Time for character development, baby.
First, though, she had to live through biology.
About ten minutes before the end of lunch, Bella announced that she needed to get something from her locker. Mike jumped to go with her, using the excuse that he had to show her how to get to biology anyway. Jessica looked decidedly unhappy to see the two of them leave togetherher. That was going to be a real pain to deal with if Jessica got weird jealous every time Bella interacted with him. There had been several times during lunch where Jessica had glared at her for talking to Mike. Bella was going to have to deal with that. She hated confrontation.
When they got to her locker, Bella stored a couple things from previous classes away and then grabbed the gallon Ziploc bag she'd put Jake's jacket in. Mike looked at her a little funny when she switched jackets, so she made up an excuse about having dropped some of her chicken salad on the other. After changing her jacket out to the hopefully thoroughly werewolf-scented one, Bella pulled her hair down and redid her French braid as tightly as she could. Mike was very impressed at her ability to do it without a mirror. It seemed to be one of those "girls have superpowers" moments for him. Like when a teen first observes a woman with an inordinate amount of stuff clutched in one hand, because women have evolved to have superior grip strength since they didn't get pockets. It was science or something. She was willing to take the little confidence boost, though. She needed it for what was next.
They started on their way to class a couple minutes before the bell rang, after a quick stop at the water fountain and bathroom. Which apparently, Talia had weird feelings about water fountains. Bella wasn't sure what that was about; maybe she'd been a germaphobe. On their way, Bella learned that Mike was avoiding Jessica because she wanted him to ask her to the spring dance that was coming up. Mike didn't even want to go to the dance, let alone with Jessica, so for the time being he was avoiding her.
"Why not just tell her you're busy that day? It's on a Saturday, right? Volunteer for a shift at your parent's store or something. Or ask your dad to take you fishing. I'm sure he'd love that. Parents love when you want to do things with them," Bella suggested.
"That was so easy; why didn't I think of that?" Mike responded.
The biology room was uncomfortably warm. Bella had beat Edward there, which had been a goal. Her scent couldn't get blown into his face if his face wasn't present. Mr. Banner signed her paper, checked out a textbook to her, and pointed her to her seat. The few minutes she had to wait for Edward to appear were excruciating. She was doing everything she could to keep her heart steady. She wasn't sure if a rapid heart rate and adrenaline would trigger some kind of hunting instinct, and she didn't want to find out. She imagined the other students in the class didn't want to either.
She ran through her check list in her head as she sat, trying to remind herself that she'd taken every precaution she could. Her hair was braided back, the loose part of the braid tucked into her jacket. She was wearing Jacob's jacket, which, if her theory was right, should smell violently of wet dog to a vampire, and she had smeared a layer of Vic's over her pulse points. Would the menthol assault to his senses do anything? Who knew, but it made her feel better.
Bella distracted herself by running through every name for a group of animals she could think of. Pride, pack, pod, smack, colony, mob, murder (nopedon'tthinkaboutthatone), parliament, school, flock—what were flamingos? It wasn't a flock, but it was appropriate. Flamboyance. A flamboyance of flamingoes. Prickle, array--
Edward came into the room, and every muscle in her body froze. In the back of her head, the ghost of Talia was singing some kind of lullaby in Russian. Bella tried to focus on that and remember the meaning of the words, focusing all her mental faculties on that rather than on the fact that she was very well about to die. He strode into the room, casual as anything, then stiffened when he saw her at their shared table. He continued over, sat beside her, and then turned towards her.
"Hello, I'm Edwa--"
His voice trailed off and his breath hitched. Bella watched in real time as the liquid amber, honey color of his eyes turned black. It was one of the freakiest things she'd ever seen in her life. It could have been a special effect during a movie where someone gets possessed. It took every single ounce of her self-control not to jump backwards and scream.
"Bella," she choked out.
"Are you okay? Do you need the nurse? You don't look very good."
He leaned as far away from her as he could.
"Yes. Yes, I think I do," he growled. Like, actually for real, growled. Not 'Oh, his voice was a little rough'.
Edward stood up too quickly and sent his stool flying backwards. ,He caught it before it slammed into the table behind them. When he slid it back under their lab table, Bella could see the imprint of his hand and where plastic had cracked and crumbled off.
"Mr. Cullen, where are you going?" Mr. Banner asked.
"Um, I think he's going to be sick." Bella spoke up.
Edward slapped a hand over his mouth and nose. Bella wasn't sure if it was because he was playing into it or if he was just that desperate to not smell her. He bolted for the door at a speed you could barely call human.
"Well, that was an exciting start to class," Mr. Banner said, watching the door slam closed. "Okay, children--"
Bella tried her very best to pay attention to the lesson. She was really, really hoping that the change in interaction that just took place was because she smelled bad enough from the jacket that Edward had a little more self-control and not because he was called to more by Talia-Bella's blood than Book-Bella's. They had the same blood, right? So it had to be the jacket.
About halfway through class there was a knock on the door, and when Mr. Banner opened it, the smallest Cullen stood there, a polite smile on her face.
"Hi, Mr. Banner. I'm just here to grab Edward's things. He's being sent home, sick."
Mr. Banned directed her to his spot so that she could gather his bag, saying something about waiting just a moment and he'd get her the worksheets that Edward had missed. As Alice grabbed Edward's things, Bella was like ninety percent sure she'd heard Alice sniff her.
On the way to gym, Mike made a comment about how he hoped Bella didn't get what he had since she'd been so close to him. It took a lot for Bella not to laugh psychotically, because yeah, she didn't want anything he had, germs, vampirism, or otherwise.
Gym passed torturously slowly. Bella had really hoped that she'd get to sit out the first day since she didn't have her gym kit; however, Coach Clapp had come prepared and met her at the door with it when she arrived.
Mike volunteered to be her partner, despite her trying to convince him that he was risking his life. One tennis racket to the head later, he believed her but persevered like the trooper he was. She appreciated that she hadn't had to awkwardly meet someone new to poorly play tennis with, but she also wished she hadn't brained her new friend the first day they really got to know each other.
After school Bella headed to the office to drop off her signature paper. It was a straightforward task; however, as she was leaving the office, she happened to catch the beginning of Ms. Cope's phone conversation. She mentioned Mrs. Cullen and "mhmm"-ed a few times and then said something about "Oh, that's terrible. Well, I'll keep you all in my prayers and mark down that he'll be out."
Okay, so did she fake tying her shoes and then dropping her keys so that she could linger longer? Yes. Sue a girl. But she wasn't walking away after hearing "Mrs. Cullen" without trying to learn something. It was nice to know, though, that the plot was still following the same path despite the changes. Well, was and wasn't. She didn't want to, like, accidentally end the world or something because she gave the wrong panhandler twenty bucks, but she also, maybe even more than that, didn't want to end up married to Edward, with a half-vampire monster baby.
She could deal with being a Cullen for all eternity if she had to (re: walking into a bonfire the moment she wouldn't accidentally eat whoever made the bonfire); maybe she and Rosalie would get along. They could sit and be judgmental together. And then maybe become cringy third-wave feminism Tumblr bloggers. Bella shivered at the thought.
Her drive home was quick. Nothing like the rush hour traffic in Phoenix. In Forks rush hour was when you had three cars at a four-way stop. Sam Uley and his black truck sat at the curb in front of the house when she pulled up. Or at least she assumed it was him; otherwise, she had no clue who was outside of her house. The day before, she'd gotten his number from Billy and scheduled a consultation with him about the shed. She wasn't expecting him to be there so soon.
Hoping out of her truck, Bella headed to unlock the front door.
"Bella Swan?" the hopefully-Sam-Uley man asked.
"In the flesh. Sam Uley?" She asked.
"Nice to meet you." Sam held out a hand, and Bella shook his very not-human-temperature hand.
Like, how did he get away with that? Does he just tell people, "Oh, I run warm" and get away with it? Probably. If the Cullens can masquerade as human high school students who wear high fashion clothing and badly pretend to eat lunch, the werewolves who are so warm a normal person's brain would be melting probably get away with, "Oh, I run warm".
"You too. Wanna come in? I just need to put my school stuff away. Can I get you water or anything? I think we have a couple Sprites if you want one."
The two walked into the house, Bella slipping her coat off and hanging it on the hook. Sam inhaled sharply as soon as her jacket was uncovered. She had wondered if he would be able to smell Edward just from having been in such close proximity to him. Evidently the answer was yes. Or she hoped it was that, because otherwise Sam discovered something worth hiding his reaction to with a badly faked cough.
He cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah, I've got a bit of a scratchy throat. Just allergies, I promise, but I would take a glass of water."
Bella fetched a glass of water and handed it to Sam with a "be right back", then she disappeared upstairs to her room to drop off her backpack and change into some sweats. She was back downstairs after a quick bathroom trip. Sam had finished off his cup of water and was standing in the hallway looking at the "Wall O' Bella," as she liked to call it. Every school picture and picture Charlie had been given of her was on the wall. There were gallery walls, and then there was whatever monstrosity that was.
"It's awful, isn't it?" She asked.
"He loves you," Sam shrugged. "That's not awful."
"Sure, being loved isn't awful. But seeing every awkward stage you went through plastered across the wall every single day? That is awful. Did you see this one?" She pointed to a picture of eight-year-old Bella with a bob cut. A bob cut that looked more like a bowl cut.
Sam tried to choke a laugh down.
"No, no. Laugh. It's terrible. One day when I know Charlie is gonna be out for a while, I'm going to reorganize them from worst to best and see how long it takes for him to notice. Maybe I'll make a poll, let everyone vote on which are the worst. But we all know Bowl-Cut-Bella is going to be there."
Sam gave up fighting the laughter.
"You good?" Bella asked, doing her best to raise an eyebrow. She wasn't very good at it.
"Sorry, sorry. Yeah," he coughed. "So, I'm here for a shed?"
"Yes. Gardening slash fishing equipment slash whatever other crap gets shoved in there. So, uh, probably your run-of-the-mill shed."
Bella led him out to the backyard and pointed out where she had thought it should go. They discussed materials and layouts, and he even let her know what permits she would need from the city, which was great. Sam told her that if she was okay with reclaimed materials, he was taking down a workshop for someone and that he thought a lot of the material was going to be reusable. It would cut down material costs, and she was all about that. She told him that she had to talk to Charlie first since he was the one paying for it, but she was fine with it. The consultation didn't take very long, and Sam was gone before Charlie got back from work. He was going to email both of them a quote for labor and materials within the next couple of days.
Once she was in the house, Bella pulled one of the casserole pans from Sue out of the freezer and preheated the oven so she could pop it in for dinner. She glared at the phone, knowing she should call Renee to do a first day of school debrief. If she did it now, she could use the excuse of dinner being ready and needing to do homework to get off of the phone in a reasonable amount of time. If she waited, her excuses would be gone, and Renee would know that she was lying, because she mostly always knew when Bella was lying about something like that.
With a sigh, she picked up the phone and dialed Renee. The line only rang a couple of times before Phil's familiar voice greeted her.
"Hullo?"
"Hey Phil, it's Bella. I was just calling to talk to Mom," she twirled the end of her braid around her finger as she spoke.
"Oh, hey Bella! Uh, she's out right now, actually. She's attending some class for—I don't know, to be honest. She's found so many classes and groups to try out since we got here, I can't keep up with it," he laughed. The sound of it actually made her a bit homesick; that was surprising.
"Heh, yeah. Give up on that now. Half the time I don't even think she knows what she's going to until she gets there. Do you know what time she'll be back?" She flicked her braid back over her shoulder.
"No, I'm not sure," he said. "Do you want me to take down a message?"
"No, that's okay. I was just calling to tell her about my first day of school here. I figured she'd get upset if I didn't."
"Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay, well, I'll tell her to give you a call when she gets back."
"Thanks, Phil."
Attempting to contact Renee concluded, Bella headed upstairs to take a shower after putting dinner in the oven. Once she was squeaky clean, she pulled out what little homework she had from the first day back. Personally, she considered any homework on the first day back too much homework, but really it was just a biology worksheet and then some problems from her math book. Charlie was home by the time she got back downstairs. They talked a bit about her first day. He was happy to hear that she was making friends, less happy that they were male. He didn't actually voice that, but Bella could for sure tell.
That night as she was lying in bed hoping for the sweet embrace of unconsciousness, the heater ruffled her curtains, and as if she had stuck a fork in a power socket, Bella remembered one of the creepiest parts of the whole Edward Cullen X Bella Swan thing. He'd watched her sleep. He had snuck into her room through the mother-flipping window and watched her sleep. What the fuck was she going to do about that?