The Swan Has Horns

2

Charlie was over the moon, you couldn’t tell the man anything to calm him down when he got off the phone with his eldest child. In a way you could say he was more excited about having Antonio come down, than he was about Bella. He thought he would have to beg in order to get his son down, but a stroke of luck was made when he mentioned Bella coming down, maybe he should’ve considered begging Bella to move in earlier if that was all it took for him to agree to come down.

“You seem to be in a good mood this morning.” Bella strolled in, with her hair still wet from her morning shower, “what's got you in a good mood?” She had only been here for two weeks, and she never had seen her dad smile this much, so early in the morning.

“Your brother is visitings.” He grinned, “I guess telling him about you moving in gave him a little push to come see his old man.” He spoke happily, though Bella felt a surge of confusion flood her system, she had talked to her brother multiple times, when she came to visit Charlie over the summers, but that all stopped once she stopped visiting Forks .

“He’s visiting?” She wasn’t upset, though she didn’t know how to feel about the matter. Another person was coming to stay in this small house, and she had never properly met them before, despite being siblings.

“Yeah, he won’t be staying long I suppose.” A hint of sadness was there, but Charlie had long since accepted that he failed as a father to both his children, sure he still called his son, but maybe he should’ve been more pushy about moving back in with him after the divorce.

“That's nice, I guess.” She didn’t know what to say after that, “where is going to sleep exactly?” She hoped they wouldn’t be sharing a room, there wasn’t even enough room for a mattress to be added.

“The attic,” Charlie shrugged, “I’ll have to take a few days off to get the place nice and cleaned up for him, even if he’ll be staying for a couple of days.” He had no idea what Antonio could be doing at the moment, but the joy of finally getting to see his son after so many years, was boiling him.

“Attic? We have a room up in the attic?” She never had been up there, but she guessed if they decided to have another child, then there had to be another room otherwise there wouldn’t be any space left.

“Yeah, it’s still the same as he left it, hopefully he still likes the darkside.” Charlie wanted to laugh a little at his own joke, but only he would find it funny since he knew exactly what Antonio was into when he was still living with him.

“Would you need help?” Bella was curious about her brother, she had never met the boy, but she knew he was a great deal older than her, and refused to talk to their mother who constantly cries about it every time she would tell her about talking to him over at Charlie’s.

“Wouldn’t want to bother you, but it’ll be greatly appreciated.” Sipping on his coffee, some father daughter bonding time, over cleaning a room for someone special to both of them.

In Bella’s eyes, this would be a distraction from the Edward Cullen situation. He hadn’t shown up to school for an entire week, and she was starting to feel really annoyed with the whole thing. It also gave her an insight on what her eldest brother could’ve been into when he was younger, was he a nerd? Was he weird, or was he just a normal boy?” She couldn’t help the curiosity that ate her up inside, there was even a part that wondered if he had a girlfriend even though that part didn’t necessarily concern her. She had been told that a nosy could get her in trouble, but would it really be bad, if all she wanted to do was catch up with her brother? Get to know him, talk to him, but most importantly see him.

“Earth to Bella! Rejoin us mortals Isabella.” Mike basically spit into her ear with how close he was to her face, “what's got you so in thought? Still thinking about that Cullen?” A hint of jealously was heard, but he still held that same stupid smile on his face, that made Bella recoil a little everytime she saw it directed towards her.

“No.” She snorted, she was done thinking about him at the moment, “family problems.” She shrugged, already snatching off her coat when she made it to the comfort of her warm biology class.

“That sounds tough.” shrugging his own coat off, he took the time to shake the water out his hair onto her, “though how you like the weather!” laughing, he ran off before Bella could attack him for the wet assault. A little annoyed, she sat down to her surprisingly present lab partner.

He sat there with his hand up to his face still, but at least he wasn’t sitting on the edge of his seat like before. At a certain point in her thoughts, she wondered what his problem was with her, and why was he acting like she smelled when in reality she didn't smell like anything.

"Hello, I'm sorry I didn't get to introduce myself last week, I'm Edward Cullen." He spoke formally, almost like he was in an interview and Bella couldn't help but stare, tuning out the chatter from the other students as she took in his voice and facial features.

"You were out for a while." She almost scoffed, distracting herself with arranging all her notes from her bag onto the table.

"Yeah, I was visiting family, because of some personal reasons " he smiled, but it looked forced, "so are you enjoying the weather?"

"The weather? No, not a fan of the rain, or cold." She almost laughed because of the basic conversation starter, but at least he was trying.

"If you don't like the rain, or cold then why did you come to the rainiest, and coldest place on the continent?" He was really smiling now, fiddling around with the materials that were laid out on the table before them.

"Wanted my mom to have some freedom with her fiance." She shrugged, not really having a reason other than she didn't want to hold her mom back.

"So you moved down here where you'd rather be unhappy?" He nodded almost like he finally found something worth knowing.

"No, there are people here that I wanted to see again also." She almost flinched, she did hate it here, but she didn't think that it was that obvious.

".See who, besides your father?” Curious he stared at her, she was a little unnerved with how much he was looking at her, but she did learn that the family was on the weird side so maybe this was what had labeled him weird.

“My…” She had paused, did she really want to bring up her brother who had left all those years ago? The person who she hadn’t talked to in years, because she stopped visiting the man that lived in the town she didn’t like? No she didn’t want to tell him that, didn’t even want him to know that side of her had existed, to a certain extent still did, she didn’t want him to know.

“My childhood friend on the reservation,” She merely glanced at him, “hadn’t seen him in a while and decided that this was my chance to make up for the time we’d missed.” She would blush whenever she'd lie, and she hoped he didn’t see that when she had decided to dig around in her bag for something nonexistent.

“It’s good you want to catch up with friends,” He shrugged, “I guess.” He looked nervous after that, instead choosing to stick with working by himself in favor of talking more to her, while simultaneously taking glances at her from time to time.