Chapter Text
The next morning, I lay in bed for over half an hour past my alarm. My limbs buzzed with discontent, swaying forward and backward, ruining my plans of a longer rest. Not that there was much to lengthen; I had barely slept at all. My pillow, dashed to the ground once again, danced with the ghost of sunlight I was not ready for.
I felt like the flowers in Renee’s failed garden. Wilted, unhealthy, and utterly exhausted from trying to survive.
I considered asking Charlie if I could stay home today, but a brief glance out the window told me he had already left for work. There must have been an early call this morning. Perhaps another squirrel.
While there was nothing stopping me from staying home, my body propelled me upward in a burst of awkward, unplanned energy. I could hear the clock in the kitchen. The schedule I had made, unwritten but firm inside my head, did not allow for skipping. I needed to stay on track.
And besides, I didn’t want to disrupt Charlie at work.
Fear and lethargy had kept me from showering yesterday, but they had nothing on me this morning. The feeling of skin touching skin, the oil of the day before, those were far more pressing concerns.
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I tapped my fingers together in frustration as I waited for the water to heat up. Bella Swan did not take cold showers. Not now, not ever, not since… Not the time.
But even as I waited for steam to fill the small room, I could hear the clock ticking.
“Bus leaves in five minutes, Isabella,” I murmured to myself unbidden, “just five minutes.”
After my shower, hair slightly easier to work with and skin blissfully clean, I dressed in a thick, oversized hoodie.
It was soft, dull blue with a large hood. The best to block out noise, and, as an added bonus, the black-eyed glares of classmates.
I had found it at a thrift store in Phoenix after a desperate but short-lived search for my old picture day shirt. It was far too warm for Phoenix, but the material was gentle on my skin.
In Forks, however, the weather was perfect for such an outfit. So much different in Forks. And no buses, I reminded myself as I clambered into the truck. Delighting briefly in the engine’s red roar, I was suddenly glad.
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I listened to the truck idle for about five minutes once I had reached the school. Same parking spot as yesterday, same puddles swirling below the tires.
Reality was setting in. An anxious, heady fear bit at my chest and lungs as I looked out the window. Every minute passing, every raindrop down my windshield, was a threat to my peace. I could imagine it already.
Mr. Varner’s snapping, targeted criticisms.
The brush of coat against coat, body against body in the narrow halls.
And Edward Cullen’s piercing, violent, dark-brown-not-black eyes.
A thrum of warning pierced my skull, an alarm bell sounding off. I marveled briefly at my mind’s ability to express its discontent.
Until I saw the others, responding in a jumbled cacophony, to the very real school bell outside. Not my brain after all. A girl I didn’t know tapped my window, gesturing to the main building.
Wordlessly, I allowed myself to be led out of the truck, through the halls, and into the classroom.