Claircognizance / / J. Hale

{9 A Close Call}

Evelyn Swan

Today was going to be a not very good kind of day.

I could feel it.

The morning air felt significantly colder than it had previously, this fact was only solidified by the ice that had begun to form over the roads and the frost over the trees. I heard a quiet yelp as Bella slipped on a patch of ice as she made her way over to her truck. Dad and I quickly rushed over to pick her up off the ground. There was something, some small whirling sense of appreciation that was fluttering around my gut, near whispering in my mind that this was some kind of odd omen.

"You okay?" Dad double checked as Bella began to steady on her feet.

"Yeah, ice doesn't really help the uncoordinated" she joked back, brushing the ice off her jeans.

"Yeah that's why I had some new tyres put on the truck, old ones were getting pretty bald. I also got some snow chains for your bike Evie. Well, I'll probably be late for dinner, I gotta head down to Mason County, a security guard at the Grissom Mill got killed by some kind of animal." Dad shuffled his way over to the cruiser awkwardly, making sure he had everything he needed for work.

"An animal?" Bella questioned.

"Your not in Phoenix anymore girls, anyway I figured I'd lend a hand" he explained, leaning on the cruiser door.

"Be careful, and thank you for the snow chains" I chimed in, giving dad a quick side hug before making my way over to my bike.

"Always am" he smiled, opening the cruiser door "You're welcome"

"Thank for the tires" Bella said, eyes clouding up with an unfamiliar emotion, as she kept glancing down at them.

"Yeah"  and with his final word dad took off to Mason County for the day.

"Ready to go?" I asked, now turning to Bella as she got into the rust bucket, she gave me a small smile and thumbs up. The ride to school was just as quick as it had always been, as just like any other day Bella and I pulled into the Forks car park before getting ready for the day.

Bella had finally perked up after Edward's week away, her subtle brooding now replaced with longing and curious looks at the bronze-haired boy. It was clear that she was just waiting for biology to finally come around as she half payed attention to the rest of her lunch table. Her eyes kept glancing over at the table the Cullens and I were sitting, clearly locking onto Edward after she 'confronted' him yesterday. Rose began to get slowly more and more irritated the longer that Bella continued to look over at us. Her sharp golden eyes seethed at my sister, pale hands angrily ripping apart at the apple that was sat on her tray until there was nothing left but skin scraps and mush under her perfectly manicured nails.

"I'm sorry about Bella's staring problem, she hasn't really acted like this before" I apologise, words falling off my lips slightly confused at my own pondering of her actions. Bella and I have always been introverted, I suppose that it is just the nature that we inherited from dad. But Bella never really seemed to have crushes either as a child, celebrity or not, Rene herself never seemed to coax out one from her either and much to her credit Rene did have a healthy attitude towards her children's sexualities. Even if there was a slight awkwardness to the 'love knows no bounds' chat she tried to have with Bella when she was sixteen. I can still remember almost impeccably remember the redness of my sisters face when Rene implied that Bella may be playing for the other team. Bella simply did not grow up having crushes.

But Bella never seemed to be as interested in anyone as she had been interested in Edward.

My inner musings where interrupted by the soft sign of Rosalie as she slowly drew her eyes away from my sister. "You don't have to apologise for her, you really don't. But she needs to catch a hint" and before I could question her further that same old shriek of the bell rang out throughout the cafeteria. Jasper and I fell into our same routine of dumping our trays into the bin before making our way over to maths, easily avoiding the stampeding horde of teenagers as most students made a habit to avoid Jasper's general area. In only a few short minutes were we sat at our desks in the back of the classroom as the rest of the class began to pile in.