Chapter Text
Bella really wasn’t conflicted about leaving Arizona. She burned in the shade, she didn’t tan (she barely even freckled); she was basically the exact opposite of everyone else in her school. Hell, her life.
Though, come to think of it, there really wasn’t much difference between the two.
She was the type of person who the popular girls made friends with to make them feel charitable. For instance:
Samantha, Taylor, and Raven (the popular girls in school) wait semi-patiently for her to get out of the Mercedes convertible. Taylor (who’s driving, and whose car it is) plasters on a smile that’s as fake as her new nose.
“Have fun at your new school!” This was followed by a chorus of general platitudes, telling her not to be a stranger and to write. Bella, smiling awkwardly steps out of the car.
“Have a good-” Her foot hit a rock, almost tripping her up, her arms splaying to keep herself upright. When she’s done fighting the battle with gravity and wins, she turns to finish her sentence only to see the car almost out of sight, “Life.”
She turns when the door opens, and she smiles slightly to see her mother walk out of the house, equal parts worried and annoyed. Bella raises an eyebrow at her as she moves closer, taking the cell phone as it was waved in her face.
“It won’t work. Again.” Bella glances at the phone and smiles.
“That may be because you put it on hold.”
“I did?”
“Yup. And, look! You also called Mexico.” She grinned when Rene laughed.
“I’ll figure it out so you can reach me while me and Phil are on the road.”
“Very romantic.” Rene grinned at her as Phil came out, carrying Bella’s bags to the car.
“Yeah, probably not.” He rearranged the carry on so it fit next to her luggage.
Rene turned back to her, face suddenly serious, throwing Bella off. Rene was never serious, not if she could help it.
“You change your mind, call me, alright?”
“I won’t change my mind, mom. Trust me. It’ll be fine.”
~
There’s awkward conversation followed by awkward silence when Charlie comes to pick her up. They awkward her stuff up to her room and Bella looks around, fist clenching in a ball with the effort it’s taking not to cry.
Suddenly, there’s a honk outside, and Bella runs to see an old pick-up truck pull up.
She runs downstairs (almost tripping twice), meets Billy, bond with Jake about weird-ass fathers when Charlie tells her that the truck is her homecoming present. She beams.
It’s perfect.
~
Bella walks into Forks High School with little to no hopes of finding anyone she’ll connect with. Not that she’s not completely sure that she’ll be popular, at least for a little while, as the new girl. Once they got to know her, however, she wasn’t sure she’d continue to be popular.
She smiled awkwardly as the boys revolved around her, trying to make her like them by offering to put her in the newspaper, take her on the tour, or introduce her to everyone. She thought it was cute enough that she refrained from letting them know that she really doesn’t bat for their team.
Not that it was any of their business anyway.
(The photographer for the school newspaper seems disheartened by the news that there isn’t going to be a story on her.
“Sorry. You could always right about eating disorders or speedo padding on the swim team.” The girl- Angela- looks intrigued.
“That’s not a bad idea.” Bella smiled shyly and shrugged.
“Been known to happen.”)
She’d managed to make it through the day not hitting herself, dropping anything, or getting hit, which Bella chalked up as a win. She shoved her newly-acquired pile of textbooks into her locker and got dragged to lunch by the chick who had a crush on Mike.
Bella’d been eating, vaguely listening to Jessica explain the school to her while imagining her in Regina George hair, when the noise in the cafeteria lulled. Bella followed gazes to the group of pale (like, really pale: computer nerds she’d met on a school trip to NYC and had accidently walked into a LARP party had more of a tan than these people. They both look about the same amount of sleep-deprived, though.) kids who walked over to the only empty table in the cafeteria. Come to think of it, Bella hadn’t seen anyone even think of going over there.
Bella blinked, before raising an eyebrow slightly.
“Who’re they?”
“The Cullens.” Jessica leans forward. “Doctor and Mrs. Cullen's foster kids. They all moved down here from Alaska two years ago.”
“They kinda keep to themselves.”
“Because they're all together. Like, together together. The blonde girl, Rosalie, and the big dark-haired guy, Emmett, they're a thing. I'm not even sure that's legal.”
“They’re not actually related.”
“But they live together! And then there’s Alice, she’s weird, she's with Jasper, the blonde who looks like he's in pain.” Jessica snorted. “I mean, Dr. Cullen's like this foster dad/matchmaker.” Angela snickered.
“Maybe he’ll adopt me.” Bella smiled, and then looked back over.
“And the last one?”
“That’s Edward Cullen. He's totally gorgeous, obviously. But apparently, no one here is good enough for him. Like I care.” Bella raised an eyebrow at her, and Jessica flushed slightly before recovering. “Anyway, don't waste your time.”
Bella giggled, gesturing with a french fry.
“I really wasn’t planning on it.”
She spends the rest of her lunch talking with her new friends. Every once and awhile, though, she gets the weird feeling that she’d being watched.
~
Mike takes Bella to Biology, and she gets assigned the seat next to Edward Cullen. She goes to sit next to him, and knocks someone’s bookbag over backpedaling at the look he gives her.
She sits reluctantly, making a mental note to ask to either get 3rd period Bio or to get her seat switched. She does not feel safe next to Cullen.
~
When she goes to check in at the office before leaving, Bella trips right back out the door when she sees Cullen, but not before she hears him ask to switch his 6th period class around.
At least the feeling was mutual.
Jerk.
~
That night, when Charlie takes her out to dinner (something Bella can’t see happening every night, and then offers to cook. Charlie looks sceptical until Bella reminds him of her mother’s distinct lack of cooking skills) she asks about the Cullens. She’s surprised by how ardently he jumps to defend them.
~
Bella, who’d gotten an email from the office saying she couldn’t switch classes, and her emails with Mr Molina the night before didn’t exactly inspire confidence (he’d managed to find three different ways why this was just first day jitters talking and she wasn’t getting moved), got to school early so she could confront Cullen and tell him to keep his problems to himself.
Of course, when she still had the confidence to actually confront him, Cullen wasn’t there.
~
Charlie gets her snow tires.
She isn’t exactly sure why this affects her so much (maybe because she’s so used to taking care of her mother, she’s not used to being taken care of) but it does, and she’s still floating on the extremely unfamiliar feeling when he tells her he’s going to help the sheriff’s department in Mason County about an animal attack.
She tells him to be careful, and every time she passes the parking lot, she smiles at her tires.
The aforementioned feeling is what gives her the courage, when she walks into Biology and sees Cullen at their table, to walk up to him and confront him.
A plan which is yet again derailed when Cullen looks up at her.
“Hello.”
Any connection to her brain to her mouth is temporarily put offline by the fact that, not only was he acknowledging her presence in a way that doesn’t look homicidal, but he was talking.
Bella may need a minute.
“I didn't have a chance to introduce myself last week. My name is Edward Cullen.” Cullen pauses to let her answer, but Bella’s still taking her minute. “You’re Bella.”
“I- yeah.”
They get through the project (which she’s already done) quickly, making awkward small talk while they worked. Cullen isn’t all that bad, actually, though he does get a little creepy towards the end with the whole, “You’re very hard to read” intense stare thing. She blinks, more confused than intimidated.
“Did you get contacts?” The glare cut off, his eyes widening with surprise. “Your eyes changed color.” Cullen swallows and stalks off, muttering something about fluorescents.
Oh-kay then...
~
The next day at lunch, she sits down and Eric turns to her immediately.
“La Push, baby, you in?” Bella raised an eyebrow.
“Am I supposed to know what that means?” Mike leaned forward eagerly.
“La Push beach, down on the Quileute rez. We're all going after school. Big swell coming in.” Eric leered.
“And I don't just surf the internet.” Jessica rolled her eyes.
“Eric, you stood up once. On a foam board.” Bella is going to say no so fast it’ll make their heads spin when a hand lands gently on her elbow. Angela smiles shyly.
“There's whale watching, too. Come with.”
Bella starts to recant when Eric repeats, “La Push, baby!” with a eyebrow wiggle that he probably thinks is hot. Instead, it makes her giggle.
“I'll go. If, and only if, you stop saying that.”
Later, in Biology, they’re back to their awkward lab doing/small talk making routine when Bella asks,
“Are you going to the beach? It’ll probably be fun; sand fleas, wind burn, salt water stinging your eyes...” She smiles slightly at the miniscule smile she gets from Edward as he leans into the microscope.
“Which beach?”
“La Push, I think?” The smile shrinks slightly, and Bella raised an eyebrow. “Is there something wrong with La Push?”
“It’s just a little crowded.” If Edward thought his glance in Mike’s direction was subtle, he was very wrong.
Oh well. Awkward bonding between lab partners would have to be limited to class, then.
~
It’s fucking freezing by the time they pull out to La Push. Everyone but Bella and Angela suit up to go surfing, leaving them to wander by the driftwood.
“I keep thinking Eric's going to ask me to prom, then he just... doesn't.”
“Take control then.” She looked uncertain. “Take control. You're a strong, independent woman.” Angela looked skeptical.
“I am?” Bella didn’t know whether to laugh or reassure when she heard someone yelling her name. She smiled when she saw Jacob, and walked back to the parking lot, meeting him where the others were still getting suited up.
“Hey, Jacob. Are you stalking me?”
“You’re on my rez, remember? You surfing?”
“Definitely not.” Jessica smirked, teasing.
“Her date bailed.” The smirk melted slightly when Mike straightened up.
“Date? What date?”
“She invited Edward.” Bella shrugged, confused.
“Just to be polite.”
“I think it's nice she invited him. No one ever does.” Angela smiled her support while Mike started tugging on his zipper violently.
“Because Cullen's a freak.” One of the boys who came with Jacob nodded
“You got that right.” She cocked her head.
“You know them?”
“The Cullens don't come here.”
She sees Jacobs warning look, and leaves Angela with his entourage (in her defence, Angela looks like she’s enjoying herself, and Eric looks less than pleased) to get him to tell her why they don’t like the Cullens. It takes some god-awful flirting (and, yes, she knows it’s bad, he isn’t her type, at all) but he tells her a story.
“It's just an old scary story. Did you know the Quileutes are supposedly descended from wolves?
“Like fur, fangs ... doggy breath?” This prompts a chuckle, and Bella smiled and pulled the conversation back on track.“So the legend about the Cullens is?”
.
“Well, they're supposedly descended from this ‘enemy clan’, but they claimed to be different, so we made a treaty with them.”
“Didn't they just move here?”
“Or just moved back.” Bella raised an eyebrow at Jacob’s spooky voice.
“Riiiight. So, what was this treaty?” Jacob leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“If they promised to stay off Quileute lands, we wouldn't expose what they really were to the pale-faces-”
He was cut off by a blood curdling scream, and they both whip around to see Eric chasing Angela with a dead crab. They glanced at each other and smiled.
Bella was about to get him to finish his story when Jacob got called back over to his friends. Recognizing a lost cause when she saw one, Bella waved him off and turned to continue down the beach.
“Vampires.” Bella almost tripped as she turned towards the voice, but the girl caught her. She’d been in the background when Jacob and his friends had gotten there, obviously not all that interested in the visitors.
“W-what?” The girl held on until Bella was stable, and then stuck her hands back into her hoodie.
“Quote, ‘if they promised to stay of Quileute lands, we wouldn’t expose what they really were to the pale faces, vampires,’ unquote.”
“Oh.” Bella could feel her cheeks start to heat up, and the girl looked at her with a pitying expression.
“I’m Leah.”
“Bella.”
“Ah, so you’re the one Jacob keeps talking about.” Bella blinked before her forehead furrowed.
“He talks about me?”
“Yup. He’s got a bit of a crush on you.”
“Oh, awesome.” Leah looked surprised as she barked out a laugh. “What?”
“No, it’s just most people would probably have started hyperventilating by now and asking if their hair was okay.”
“Yeah, he’s...not my type.”
“Ah, okay.” There was a moment of silence before Bella looked up from the ground.
“So. Descended from wolves, huh?” Leah rolled her eyes.
“It’s really long and involved, are you sure you want to know?”
“Sure. I mean,” Bella turned towards the surf and gestured at the shrieks echoing from them. “It’s not like I really have anything better to do. Not that I-” Leah waved off her apologies and took a deep breath, letting it out in a long suffering sigh.
“Alright, so, when he said wolves, he meant ancient spirit warriors. Legend has it that warriors and chiefs could leave their bodies and wander as spirits, communicate with animals, and hear each other's thoughts. Now one of them, a warrior named Utlapa, wanted to use the power to take over a couple of neighboring tribes, but the leader, Taha Aki, said fuck no and sent him on his way. Now, every once and awhile, the chief hides his body and does a tour of the reservation, checking for weaknesses and intruders and the like. Utlapa followed him, possessed the Chief’s body before killing his own so Taha Aki couldn’t come back, and went back, taking over the tribe, and doing exactly what he wanted. It took a while, but Taha Aki found a wolf in the woods who he thought was a prime specimen of wolfitude and asked to share the body. The wolf agreed, and they went back to the tribe. He tried to convince the tribe that it was him by yelping Quileute songs.” There was a slight pause for a giggle break, and then Leah composed herself. “It worked-hmm. ‘Scuse me. It worked just as well as one could expect, but a elder figured it out and ignored the false chief’s orders not to go into the spirit world and went to talk to the wolf. The false chief freaked and killed the elder, which so enraged Taha Aki that he lept, lept to kill Utlapa, but his emotions were too much for the poor wolf, and he turned into a magnificent human, the glorious flesh interpretation of Taha Aki's flawless spirit. The false chief was killed, and things were rapidly set right.”
There was another pause while Bella finished laughing at the expressive hand gestures that Leah had used to accompany the last part. From her spot on the ground, where she’d been left when her legs had given out from under her, she grinned up at Leah, who was leaning over her with an amused expression.
“I take it you’ve heard that story once or twice.”
“Maybe a couple times. You need help?”
“Yeah.” Leah pulled her up easily and helped her brush off all the sand.
“Where was I?”
“Things were rapidly set to right.”
“Ah, yes.” Leah mentally re-aligned herself. “He had a bunch of kids, all male, and when they ‘reached the age of manhood’, they could turn into wolves, too.”
“So, it was purely coincidental. You could have been werechipmunks.” Leah raised an eyebrow.
“Theoretically, yes.” Leah cocked her head. “Come to think of it, we probably would have gotten told less stories about it if we were werechipmunks.”
“Hmm.” Bella cocked her head. “Do you have a Facebook?”
“Yes. Would you like the Facebook?”
“Yes, please.”
“Pen.” Bella dug one out of her pocket, and her eyes widened slightly when Leah took the pen, caught her wrist, and scribbled out her email. “There. There are a surprising number of Leah Clearwaters on Facebook.” Bella cursed her damn-near-translucent skin when her face started to heat up.
“Yeah. Just in case, maybe I should get your number, too.” Leah nodded thoughtfully.
“Good idea.” It took all of her willpower not to whimper, but she’d gotten her face under control by the time Leah handed her pen back to her. “Tell me who you are, yeah? I get a lot of wrong numbers.”
“Sure.”
When they wander back onto the beach, finding out that Leah was Sam’s girlfriend only broke through Bella’s haze enough that she felt slightly guilty when she went out of her way not to wash off the writing later.
~
They actually became pretty close friends, texting late into the night and well into the morning. They alternate visiting each other, their dads becoming friends after all the times one of them has to crash at the other’s house because it’s a little too late to go home.
Leah is who Bella’s texting with one day, after it’s been raining for a week and the puddles have turned into black ice. She puts her bag down on the hood of the truck and starts searching for her keys when she can hear the screech of tires over her headphones.
She turns to see whassisface, Tyler, in his van, careening across the ice towards her. She takes a halting step back, realizing that she’s about to get crushed between the van and her truck.
Bella ducked her head, squeezing her eyes shut, hoping it’ll be fast and painless, when she’s knocked over. When Bella opens her eyes and looks up, she sees that the only reason she isn’t so much Bella hamburger is because she’s been knocked over by Cullen, who stopped the van less than a foot from her head. She looks at the large dent his hand had put in the side of Tyler’s van, and then back at Cullen, who looks freaked.
Everyone’s screaming and running over, and Bella glances at the Cullen’s corner of the parking lot as she lies on the gurney being pushed towards the ambulance. They all look pissed.
~
Once Bella’s been checked out, Charlie comes running in, growling when Tyler tries to apologize. Again.
Dr Cullen comes before he can do any worse than taking Tyler’s license, giving her a final once over. Bella watches him carefully when she asks,
“It would have been a lot worse if Edward hadn't knocked me out of the way.” Charlie raises an eyebrow.
“Edward? Your boy?” If the way his gaze flew to her chart indicated anything, Bella had the feeling he knew what she was talking about.
“It was amazing he got to me so fast. He was nowhere near me.” Dr Cullen looked up with a smile that seems slightly forced.
“As long as you’re okay.”
~
As their leaving, Charlie goes to sign paperwork, leaving Bella to call Rene on his phone and assure her that no, her only daughter wasn’t dead. When she catches a glance of Edward, Rosalie, and Dr Cullen at the end of the hall, arguing, she pulls her phone out of her bag and goes to her chat with Leah.
This is about when she realizes that she’d left Leah mid text, and Leah had started freaking out about 5 minutes ago.
After sending a text to tell her she hadn’t died, she added sleepover. tonight.
She got a near immediate reply. Why? Nightmares?
Vampires.