Twilight (rewrite)

First sight

My mother drove me to the airport, the windows were rolled down letting in the dry heat that always accompanied Arizona summers. I watched out the window as we passed through the city I had spent most of life, Phoenix wasn't the best city but it was home. I wore my favorite shirt- sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry on item was a parka.
In the Olympic peninsula of northwest Washington state, a small tried town by the name of Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains there more than any other place in America. It was that quiet town my mother escaped with me, I was only a few months old and have no memory of that night. But ever since I had been forced to spend one month there every summer. But finally when I was fourteen I had been able to convince my mom to not make me go. For the last three summers, my dad, Charlie vacationed with me in California for two weeks.
It was me who decided to send myself to forks this time, sentencing myself to an entire year of exile in the gloomy town.
I loved Phoenix, it's blistering heat and constant activity, there was never a dull day in this sprawling vigorous city.
"Bella," my mom said to me—the last of a thousand times—"you don't have to do this."
My mom looks exactly like me, except her hair is shorter and deep lines showed years of laughing. I felt a spams of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself? Of course she and Phil now, so bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to ca when she got lost, but still...
"I want to go," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, but if been saying this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now.
"Tell Charlie I said hi."
"I will."
"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want— I'll come right back soon as you need me."
My eyes burned, need me. I've never needed her. And now she's offering to come back when I need her. Yeah right.
"Don't worry about me," I urged. "It's be fine. I love you mom."
She hugged me tightly for a few moments and then she disappeared back into the crowd. I shook my head thinking over her words again, i wouldn't let myself cry over it. Things had always been like this, me taking care of her. I turned back to the plane and boarded.
It a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to port angles, and then an hour drive back to forks. The flight wasn't a problem but the hour long drive back with My dad made me nervous.
My dad had been really excited for me to come stay with him in forks, the first amount of permanence I had shown. He'd even gotten me enrolled in the high school within a few days of me mentioning my idea. We had talked over getting me a car aswell, though I'm not sure id be able to afford one for a good while.
It was still awkward with him, neither of us are what you would call verbose, and I didn't know what there was much to talk about anyway. I knew he was still confused with my decision to come up to forks with how much I told him I despised it.
When I landed in port angeles, it was raining. Of course it was, this would be my new everyday. Dad was already waiting outside the airport when I got there, he had brought his police cruiser too.
My dad is the police chief Swan to the good people of forks. My primary motivation for getting a car was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.
He gave me an awkward, one armed hug when I stumbled my way off the plane.
"It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me. "You haven't changed much." And like clock work he asked the same question he always did, "how's Renee?"
"She's fine. It's good to see you , too, dad." I wasn't allowed to call mom, Renee to his face. He said I needed to respect her more.
I only had three bags, the majority of my clothes would be too cold here. Renee and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk of his cruiser.
"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced on hen we were strapped in.
"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for you" as opposed to "good car."
"Well, it's a truck actually, a chevy."
"Where did you find it?"
"Do you remember Billy Black?"
"No."
"He used to go fishing with us during summer," he prompted.
That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory.
"He's in a wheelchair now," he continued when I didn't respond, "so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."
"What year is it?" I could see from the change in his expression that he was hoping I wouldn't ask.
"Well, Billy's don't a lot of work on the engine — it's only a few years old, really."
I wouldn't give up that easily, "when did he buy it?"
"He bought it in 1984, I think."
"Did he buy it new?"
"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties — or late fifties at the earliest," he admitted sheepishly.
"Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I can't afford a mechanic..."
"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."
The thing, I thought to myself ... it had possibilities — as a nickname, at the very least.
"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise on.
"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift." Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.
My mouth dropped open in surprise, I had only been here for an hour and I already had a car. Wow.
"Oh my god- thank you so much dad! I was actually really worried about where I would get the funds for one." I said still partly in shock and laughing.
"Of course bells- I'm really happy you came. And I'm your dad, you don't have to worry about stuff like that, I'll take care of it." He still seemed a bit embarrassed by my thanks, we were both horrible at any type of social interaction.
We talked a bit more about the town and how work was for him but eventually I found myself dozing off.
Washington was beautiful, as much as I hated it here, I couldn't deny its beauty. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with mod, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air smelled green.
It was almost too green — an alien planet.
Eventually we made it to the house. He still lived in the small, two bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only days their marriage had, the early ones.
There parked in the street in front of the house was my new- well not new, but new to me- truck! It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. I loved it. I didn't know if it would run but that didn't matter, even if all I could do was sit in it and pretend that would be enough.
"Wow, I didn't think I would actually like it- but this, this is perfect." Now my horrific first day tomorrow would be a little less rough. I wouldn't be faced with either walking or showing up to school in a police car.
"I'm glad you like it." He said, his face glowing.
It only took one trip to get all of my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling covered in half falling off glowing stars, this was the only homish place I had known in this state. The only changes my dad had made was switching out 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 my dad. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact.
One of the best things about dad was that he didn't hover, he left me alone to unpack and get settled, a fear that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, I could relax and process everything. Especially my nerves for tomorrow.
Forks high school had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven — now fifty-eight— students; there were more than seven hundred in my junior class in Phoenix. All of the kids here had grown up together — their grandparents had been toddler 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, blonde — a volleyball player, or a cheerleader — all 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 was pretty strong and had defined muscles but it really made no sense — I wasn't what you would consider "sporty". I didn't have the hand-eye coordination for that.
   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 shallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty —it was very clear, almost translucent-looking— but it all depended on the color. I had no color here.
I looked at my face in the mirror, I was lying to myself, it wasn't just physically that I never fit in. And if I couldn't  find a niche in a school with three thousand, what were my chances here?
I didn't really fit in with the people around my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people in general. Even Renee, who was closer to me than anyone else on this planet, was never  in harmony with me, never in 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.