Twilight
By Stephanie Meyer
Little Brown for Young Readers
Copyright © 2005
Stephenie Meyer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-316-16017-2
Chapter One
Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-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,
blond - 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 coordination to
play sports without humiliating 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 reflection 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 harmony with me, never on exactly the same page.
Sometimes 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 of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the
background. I pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added the
pillow, too. But I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain
finally settled into a quieter drizzle.
Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the
claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like
a cage.
Breakfast with Charlie was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at school. I
thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. Charlie
left first, off to the police station that was his wife and family. After he
left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs
and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow
cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing was changed. My mother had painted
the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the
house. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room
was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Las
Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a
helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to last
year's. Those were embarrassing to look at - I would have to see what I could
do to get Charlie to put them somewhere else, at least while I was living here.
It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Charlie had never
gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable.
I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house
anymore. I donned my jacket - which had the feel of a biohazard suit - and
headed out into the rain.
It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as I
reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eaves by the door,
and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed
the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. I couldn't pause and admire my truck
again as I wanted; I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled
around my head and clung to my hair under my hood.
Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Billy or Charlie had obviously
cleaned it up, but the tan upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco,
gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, to my relief, but loudly,
roaring to life and then idling at top volume. Well, a truck this old was bound
to have a flaw. The antique radio worked, a plus that I hadn't expected.
Finding the school wasn't difficult, though I'd never been there before. The
school was, like most other things, just off the highway. It was not obvious
that it was a school; only the sign, which declared it to be the Forks High
School, made me stop. It looked like a collection of matching houses, built with
maroon-colored bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs I couldn't see its
size at first. Where was the feel of the institution? I wondered nostalgically.
Where were the chain-link fences, the metal detectors?
I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door
reading FRONT OFFICE. No one else was parked there, so I was sure it was off
limits, but I decided I would get directions inside instead of circling around
in the rain like an idiot. I stepped unwillingly out of the toasty truck cab and
walked down a little stone path lined with dark hedges. I took a deep breath
before opening the door.
Inside, it was brightly lit, and warmer than I'd hoped. The office was small; a
little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial
carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, a big clock ticking loudly.
Plants grew everywhere in large plastic pots, as if there wasn't enough greenery
outside. The room was cut in half by a long counter, cluttered with wire baskets
full of papers and brightly colored flyers taped to its front. There were three
desks behind the counter, one of which was manned by a large, red-haired woman
wearing glasses. She was wearing a purple t-shirt, which immediately made me
feel overdressed.
The red-haired woman looked up. "Can I help you?"
"I'm Isabella Swan," I informed her, and saw the immediate awareness light her
eyes. I was expected, a topic of gossip no doubt. Daughter of the Chief's
flighty ex-wife, come home at last.
"Of course," she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents
on her desk till she found the ones she was looking for. "I have your schedule
right here, and a map of the school." She brought several sheets to the counter
to show me.
She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each on the
map, and gave me a slip to have each teacher sign, which I was to bring back at
the end of the day. She smiled at me and hoped, like Charlie, that I would like
it here in Forks. I smiled back as convincingly as I could.
When I went back out to my truck, other students were starting to arrive. I
drove around the school, following the line of traffic. I was glad to see that
most of the cars were older like mine, nothing flashy. At home I'd lived in one
of the few lower-income neighborhoods that were included in the Paradise Valley
District. It was a common thing to see a new Mercedes or Porsche in the student
lot. The nicest car here was a shiny Volvo, and it stood out. Still, I cut the
engine as soon as I was in a spot, so that the thunderous volume wouldn't draw
attention to me. I looked at the map in the truck, trying to memorize it now;
hopefully I wouldn't have to walk around with it stuck in front of my nose all
day. I stuffed everything in my bag, slung the strap over my shoulder, and
sucked in a huge breath. I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was
going to bite me. I finally exhaled and stepped out of the truck.
I kept my face pulled back into my hood as I walked to the sidewalk, crowded
with teenagers. My plain black jacket didn't stand out, I noticed with relief.
Once I got around the cafeteria, building three was easy to spot. A large black
"3" was painted on a white square on the east corner. I felt my breathing
gradually creeping toward hyperventilation as I approached the door. I tried
holding my breath as I followed two unisex raincoats through the door.
The classroom was small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door
to hang up their coats on a long row of hooks. I copied them. They were two
girls, one a porcelain-colored blonde, the other also pale, with light brown
hair. At least my skin wouldn't be a standout here.
I took the slip up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a
nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked at me when he saw my name -
not an encouraging response - and of course I flushed tomato red. But at least
he sent me to an empty desk at the back without introducing me to the class. It
was harder for my new classmates to stare at me in the back, but somehow, they
managed. I kept my eyes down on the reading list the teacher had given me. It
was fairly basic: Bront?, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I'd already read
everything. That was comforting ... and boring. I wondered if my mom would send
me my folder of old essays, or if she would think that was cheating. I went
through different arguments with her in my head while the teacher droned on.
When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and
hair black as an oil slick leaned across the aisle to talk to me.
"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?" He looked like the overly helpful, chess
club type.
"Bella," I corrected. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.
"Where's your next class?" he asked.
I had to check in my bag. "Um, Government, with Jefferson, in building six."
There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes.
"I'm headed toward building four, I could show you the way...." Definitely over-
helpful. "I'm Eric," he added. I smiled tentatively. "Thanks."
We got our jackets and headed out into the rain, which had picked up. I could
have sworn several people behind us were walking close enough to eavesdrop. I
hoped I wasn't getting paranoid.
"So, this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?" he asked.
"Very."
"It doesn't rain much there, does it?"
"Three or four times a year."
"Wow, what must that be like?" he wondered.
"Sunny," I told him.
"You don't look very tan."
"My mother is part albino."
He studied my face apprehensively, and I sighed. It looked like clouds and a
sense of humor didn't mix. A few months of this and I'd forget how to use
sarcasm.
We walked back around the cafeteria, to the south buildings by the gym. Eric
walked me right to the door, though it was clearly marked.
"Well, good luck," he said as I touched the handle. "Maybe we'll have some other
classes together." He sounded hopeful.
I smiled at him vaguely and went inside.
The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. My Trigonometry
teacher, Mr. Varner, who I would have hated anyway just because of the subject
he taught, was the only one who made me stand in front of the class and
introduce myself. I stammered, blushed, and tripped over my own boots on the way
to my seat.
After two classes, I started to recognize several of the faces in each class.
There was always someone braver than the others who would introduce themselves
and ask me questions about how I was liking Forks. I tried to be diplomatic, but
mostly I just lied a lot. At least I never needed the map.
One girl sat next to me in both Trig and Spanish, and she walked with me to the
cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, several inches shorter than my five feet four
inches, but her wildly curly dark hair made up a lot of the difference between
our heights. I couldn't remember her name, so I smiled and nodded as she
prattled about teachers and classes. I didn't try to keep up.
We sat at the end of a full table with several of her friends, who she
introduced to me. I forgot all their names as soon as she spoke them. They
seemed impressed by her bravery in speaking to me. The boy from English, Eric,
waved at me from across the room. It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying
to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat
as possible in the long room. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and
they weren't eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of
them. They weren't gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was
safe to stare at them without fear of meeting an excessively interested pair of
eyes. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, my attention.
They didn't look anything alike. Of the three boys, one was big - muscled like
a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair. Another was taller, leaner, but
still muscular, and honey blond. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy,
bronze-colored hair. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they
could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students.
The girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful
figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue,
the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by
being in the same room. Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her
back. The short girl was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features.
Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction.
And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the
palest of all the students living in this sunless town. Paler than me, the
albino. They all had very dark eyes despite the range in hair tones. They also
had dark shadows under those eyes - purplish, bruiselike shadows. As if they
were all suffering from a sleepless night, or almost done recovering from a
broken nose. Though their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect,
angular.
But all this is not why I couldn't look away.
I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly,
inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on
the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the
face of an angel. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful - maybe the
perfect blond girl, or the bronze-haired boy.
They were all looking away - away from each other, away from the other
students, away from anything in particular as far as I could tell. As I watched,
the small girl rose with her tray - unopened soda, unbitten apple - and walked
away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. I watched, amazed at
her lithe dancer's step, till she dumped her tray and glided through the back
door, faster than I would have thought possible. My eyes darted back to the
others, 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.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Twilight
by Stephanie Meyer
Copyright © 2005 by Stephenie Meyer.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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