STARDUST ✑ twilight

chapter iii ; our doubts are traitors

| STARDUST, VOLUME I |

Chapter III ; Our doubts are traitors

❝Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft
might win, by fearing to attempt.❞

Measure for Measure | Act 1, Scene 4
William Shakespeare

❀

THE NEXT WEEK WENT BY SLOWLY.

Bella began avoiding me again. I woke up the morning after her first day at school thinking our talk the early morning before had maybe lessened her disdain for me. Stupid, really, to have made that deduction, as though her telling me I wasn't her sister and calling me naive and annoying was a forgettable, one-day incidence. Gullible me fell prey to optimism for the umpteenth time. Come talking to her after taking a quick shower and brushing my teeth, she wouldn't even look at me. Every apology from me got a go the hell away in return. Better than getting called names but that didn't make the rejection hurt any less. She went around that morning getting dressed and packing her bag with no more words to me, soundless even as I presented garbled apologies and attempts at conversation. Stifling silence had never felt so suffocating as it did in that moment.

She must have really not liked my answers that night. Or maybe, she just really, really didn't like who I was as a person.

She avoided the Cullens nearly as much as she did me, seeming to universally, passionately dislike all five of them. Her avoidance of them seemed more personal than her avoidance of me. Though, that could have been the optimism talking. I heard from someone gossiping about my stepsister in Statistics, about how Bella was partnered with Edward Cullen in Biology. The guy with a name I couldn't remember said, like it was all some big funny secret, that her reaction to him was anything but nice. She scooted her chair as far as it could go that first minute of class and blatantly ignored him from the start of class onwards. Whatever class activity they were working on she refused to speak to him and barely spared niceties to the teacher, Mr. Banner, when he questioned the tension. I heard Edward would glare at her when her back was turned.

She was not the only one with a problem, it seemed.

After Bella's first day, Edward promptly disappeared. I'd pulled out my books and retrieved a pencil by the time Ms. Dyer began taking attendance and reached Edward's name. She called it two or three times before anyone got the courage to announce he wasn't in his seat. I remembered looking over at his usual desk and felt strangely uneasy, like his absence was important. Why wasn't he there? Edward was just gone. He didn't miss very much, either. For the period I zoned in and out of alertness, thinking about lunch and wondering if there was a chance the entire Cullen clan was missing too. Then lunchtime came and I saw them at their usual table after I went through the line and got a plate. They were laughing and carrying on like their brother's absence was nothing unusual. And maybe it wasn't; I didn't know them that well. I noticed, though, that come art class, Jasper and Alice seemed quiet. More quiet than they normally were, anyway. I wanted to ask but I dismissed the impulse, convincing myself they wouldn't answer. They didn't know me and I barely knew them. Jasper kept looking at me oddly the whole time and after the bell rang, I realized it was because I kept glancing at him like a psychopath with a staring problem throughout class. Then Alice was looking at me too, and I left the classroom feeling more anxious than how I first walked in.

I knew it was stupid to worry so much about something that had nothing to do with me. My thoughts were rampant with questions and regrets, betraying my inner nerves that felt like I'd get caught if I speculated about other people and what went on in their lives. I was supposed to worry just about myself, yet I found myself caught in the crossfire of other people's issues.