welcome to forks

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            When we first arrived at Forks last week Charlie paid more attention to Bella than he did to me. It's not something that I really blamed him for since I wasn't even his biological daughter. I was just his niece that he was unfortunately given custody over after his sister, and my poor mother, died in a car accident ten years ago. I didn't really mind living with Charlie in the beginning, he was actually a very caring and loving father figure, but I knew that it caused him great pain to look at my face and have the constant reminder of my mothers death looking back at him. Me and my mom both had long black hair, tan skin, and large deep black eyes, which Bella describes as serial killer eyes due to their size. My mother and I also shared the same laugh, which I knew hurt Charlie much more than my appearance so i decided to do what i could to make him happy again by removing myself from the picture. That was how I ended up living with Renée and Bella for the past few years in order to give Charlie some relief. However, thanks to Phil, me and Bella ended up back in Forks, where I then took it upon myself to avoid Charlie for as long as I could to prevent him from remembering the pain of my mothers death. I should've known that my measly attempts of trying to make myself invisible wouldn't work as well as I wanted them to since Charlie was now banging on my bedroom door wanting me to go outside to give me a 'welcome home' gift.
"I know you like being left alone, but Billy and Jacob are here to help me give you guys your homecoming gift so hurry up and put on a coat to not keep them waiting for too long." I tried to come up with an excuse to avoid going outside, but the excitement in Charlie's voice had me rushing to put on my nearest hoodie and head out the door.
"Camila!" exclaimed Billy, "it's been years since I've seen you darlin! You sure grew up gorgeous, just like your mother." I gave him the most genuine fake smile that I could muster and let out a slight breath of relief when I realized that Charlie was too busy looking at Jacob and Bella joking around to realize that Billy had brought up my dead mother.
"Thanks Billy. I see you're still looking as young and handsome as I last saw you. Charlie was definitely speaking out of jealousy when he said that you looked like a poor shriveled up raisin." I said in a cheeky tone of voice, attempting to direct the conversation as far away from my mom as possible.
"Your uncle's always been jealous of me," chuckled Billy.
"Oh are you sure about that old man? I could take you down right now with no issues to teach you a lesson about running your mouth," replied Charlie as he made his way over to Billy to start play fighting with him.
"Are they always like this?" Bella asked Jacob.
"Yeah, but it's getting worse with old age," replied Jacob with a little smirk, "so how have you guys been holding up after all of these years?"
"We've been pretty good, and also fairly excited now that we get to be back here with Charlie," I replied honestly.
"Well that's great to hear darling, especially since Charlie here hasn't stopped talking about you guys coming down to live with him," Billy said as he overheard my response. Charlie looked a bit red and flustered as Billy said this and quickly tried to direct our attention to the rusty red truck that was parked in our driveway behind his cop car.
"So how do you guys like your homecoming gift?" Asked Charlie.
"This is our homecoming gift?!?" Exclaimed Bella as she rushed over to examine the vehicle.
"It's gorgeous guys! We absolutely love it!" I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster to try and cover up my worry about driving this truck. Ever since my mom passed away, i've been terrified about driving, especially driving with other people in the car. If I absolutely must, then I make sure that I'm the one who's driving the vehicle in order to have more control over the situation, but I could tell by looking at Bella's excited facial expression that she would want to be the driver this time.
"I told you they would love it Charlie," chuckled Billy, "you were all worried over nothing."
"I know, but you can't blame me for being so stressed about gifting these young girls a car," said Charlie as he looked my way. I pretended not to notice the worry and caution on his face, but I always did. The problem with being so good at hiding my true feelings from other people is that I could always somehow tell how other people felt. Especially how they felt about me. This is why, in this very moment at least, I wanted to disappear into nothingness and have everyone forget about me. That way Charlie wouldn't have to worry about anyone apart from Bella because I seem to have caused all of the grey hairs on his head.
"Do you guys want to take it for spin?" Asked Jacob unable to stop staring at Bella. It didn't take a genius to figure out his little crush on my cousin. They would be a pretty cute couple if Bella wasn't so indifferent when it came to boys. I must've influenced her to act like this, since she's always been the type to keep to herself and we've really been each others only friends......until now I guess.
"Jake, we have to let them rest up for their first day of school tomorrow," Billy stated.
"Oh don't remind me," I expressed with a growing frown on my face. High school was literally my definition of personal hell. Everyone talked shit about everyone, and if you weren't a part of the popular crowd, then you didn't really matter.
"If you want, Camila and I can pick you up for school tomorrow," Bella said completely oblivious to the growing blush on Jacobs cheeks.
"I really wish you could, but I go to school on the Rez."
"Well that's pretty unfortunate to hear," I sighed, "it would've been nice to at least know one person at school."
"You won't be completely alone, though, Camila" said Charlie, "you'll have Bella." And that was true. I've always had Bella. She's been my partner in crime for as long as I could remember. I shot her a smile. A genuine one this time. She smiled back at me and that was enough to take some of the pressure off of my chest.

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