Twilight 1 - Twilight | Page 7

who sat unchanging.
"Who are they?" I asked the girl from my Spanish class, whose name I'd forgotten.
As she looked up to see who I meant — though already knowing, probably, from my tone
— suddenly he looked at her, the thinner one, the boyish one, the youngest, perhaps. He
looked at my neighbor for just a fraction of a second, and then his dark eyes flickered to
mine.
He looked away quickly, more quickly than I could, though in a flush of embarrassment I
dropped my eyes at once. In that brief flash of a glance, his face held nothing of interest
— it was as if she had called his name, and he'd looked up in involuntary response,
already having decided not to answer.
My neighbor giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like I did.
"That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was
Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife." She said this under her
breath.

I glanced sideways at the beautiful boy, who was looking at his tray now, picking a bagel
to pieces with long, pale fingers. His mouth was moving very quickly, his perfect lips
barely opening. The other three still looked away, and yet I felt he was speaking quietly
to them.
Strange, unpopular names, I thought. The kinds of names grandparents had. But maybe
that was in vogue here — small town names? I finally remembered that my neighbor was
called Jessica, a perfectly common name. There were two girls named Jessica in my
History class back home.
"They are… very nice-looking." I struggled with the conspicuous understatement.
"Yes!" Jessica agreed with another giggle. "They're all together though — Emmett and
Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live together." Her voice held all the
shock and condemnation of the small town, I thought critically. But, if I was being
honest, I had to admit that even in Phoenix, it would cause gossip.
"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They don't look related…"
"Oh, they're not. Dr. Cullen is really young, in his twenties or early thirties. They're all
adopted. The Hales are brother and sister, twins — the blondes — and they're foster
children."
"They look a little old for foster children."
"They are now, Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Mrs. Cullen
since they were eight. She's their aunt or something like that."
"That's really kind of nice — for them to take care of all those kids like that, when they're
so young and everything."
"I guess so," Jessica admitted reluctantly, and I got the impression that she didn't like the
doctor and his wife for some reason. With the glances she was throwing at their adopted
children, I would presume the reason was jealousy. "I think that Mrs. Cullen can't have
any kids, though," she added, as if that lessened their kindness.
Throughout all this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to the table where
the strange family sat. They continued to look at the walls and not eat.
"Have they always lived in Forks?" I asked. Surely I would have noticed them on one of
my summers here.
"No," she said in a voice that implied it should be obvious, even to a new arrival like me.
"They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska."
I felt a surge of pity, and relief. Pity because, as beautiful as they were, they were
outsiders, clearly not accepted. Relief that I wasn't the only newcomer here, and certainly
not the most interesting by any standard.
As I examined them, the youngest, one of the Cullens, looked up and met my gaze, this
time with evident curiosity in his expression. As I looked swiftly away, it seemed to me
that his glance held some kind of unmet expectation.

"Which one is the boy with the reddish brown hair?" I asked. I peeked at him from the
corner of my eye, and he was still staring at me, but not gawking like the other students
had today — he had a slightly frustrated expression. I looked down again.
"That's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date.
Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him." She sniffed, a clear
case of sour grapes. I wondered when he'd turned her down.
I bit my lip to hide my smile. Then I glanced at him again. His face was turned away, but
I thought his cheek appeared lifted, as if he were smiling, too.
After a few more minutes, the four of them left the table together. They all were
noticeably graceful — even the big, brawny one. It was unsettling to watch.