Waxing Gibbous

First Sight (A)

Once I sat down, I got my first good look at Bella. She was very similar to Charlie, very pale in complexion almost as pale as the Cullens, with long, straight dark brown hair, a widow's peak, and a heart shaped face. She was thin, not to the extreme like me, but she was still pretty small. Unlike the other girls who looked like they had some more muscle tone than either of us.

What really stood out though was her clothing, it wasn't much different than the other girls, but the large winter coat stuck out like a sore thumb.

Despite being surrounded by eight people, Bella's eyes were focused on one table. The one table where six students sat, in the corner of the cafeteria as far away from where everyone else sat as they could get.

The Cullens.

They moved down a few years ago, just the start of Freshman year and it was big news. But they did not want anything to do with anyone other than their family. It rubbed the student body wrong and left a lasting impression.

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 Bella, unlike most of the other students. But I was assuming this was not what kept Bella's attention.

They didn't look anything alike. Of the three boys, one was big — muscled like a serious weightlifter, with dark, curly hair, Emmett. Another, Jasper, was taller, leaner, but still muscular, with honey blond hair, he always looked like he was in pain, which was a little disconcerting. The last, Edward, 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... the one that haunted my dreams, Rosalie, she was statuesque, with 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.

Everything about her was perfect.

The bane of my existence and the one thing that made me question everything. Well question and answer it. I had pretty much accepted that I was not like the other girls here. I couldn't tell anyone because we lived in a small town, it wasn't 'normal'. So, the only ones who really knew were me. And my aunt Eve, it was hard to keep things from her. Especially when she was more like a best friend rather than an aunt.

Alice was the shortest of the Cullen's and pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction. Kind of like Tinkerbell.

The final girl, Lucia, was in only slightly taller than Alice. She had chocolate brown hair that barely grazed her shoulders, her skin tone wasn't pale like the others but had a hint of Spanish ancestry, sometimes I thought she looked sick because she had this pallid tone to her face, but she was healthy as a horse. She too was beautiful, not nearly as beautiful as Rosalie but still more so than any other girl here.

And yet, they were all exactly alike. They all had very dark eyes despite the range in hair tones. They also had dark shadows under those eyes — purplish, bruise like 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.

Like statues of Greek Gods and Goddesses.

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, Alice rose with her tray — unopened soda, unbitten apple — and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. Another thing; they all had, grace, like they had taken ballet their whole lives. Which I suppose was possible seeing as no one knows anything about their past.