Twilight 1 - Twilight | Page 3

I
didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. 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.
"Wo w, Dad, I lo ve it ! Tha nk s!" No w my ho rr ific d a y t o mo rro w wo uld be ju st t hat muc h
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 Chief's cruiser.
"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 been belonged to me since I was born.
The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains
around the window — these were all a 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 secondhand 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.
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 altogether 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 fift y-seven — now
fifty-eight — students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class
alone back home. 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, blo nd — a volleyball
player, or a cheerleader, perhaps — all the things that go with living in the valley of the
sun.
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 coordinat ion to play sports without humiliat ing
myself — and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.
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 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 color. I had no color here.
Facing my pallid reflect ion 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. 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 harmo ny wit h me, never on exact ly the same page. Somet imes 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