I heard very clearly when the chair next to me moved, but I kept my eyes focused on the pattern I was drawing.
“Hello,” said a quiet, musical voice.
I looked up, shocked that she was speaking to me. She was sitting as far away from me as the desk allowed, but her chair was angled toward me. Her hair was dripping wet, tangled—even so, she looked like she’d just finished shooting a commercial. Her perfect face was friendly, open, a slight smile on her full, pink lips. But her long eyes were careful.
“My name is Edythe Cullen,” she continued. “I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Beau Swan.”
My mind was whirling with confusion. Had I made up the whole thing? She was totally polite now. I had to say something; she was waiting. But I couldn’t think of anything normal to say.
“H-how do you know my name?” I stammered.
She laughed softly. “Oh, I think everyone knows your name. The whole town’s been waiting for you to arrive.”
I frowned, though it wasn’t as if I hadn’t guessed as much.
“No,” I persisted like an idiot. “I meant, why did you call me Beau?”
She seemed confused. “Do you prefer Beaufort?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “But I think Charlie—I mean, my dad—must call me that behind my back—that’s what everyone here seemed to know me as.” The more I tried to explain, the more moronic it sounded.
“Oh.” She let it drop. I looked away awkwardly.
Luckily, Mrs. Banner started class at that moment. I tried to concentrate as she explained the lab we would be doing today. The slides in the box were out of order. Working as lab partners, we had to separate the slides of onion root tip cells into the phases of mitosis they represented and label them accordingly. We weren’t supposed to use our books. In twenty minutes, she would be coming around to see who had it right.
“Get started,” she commanded.
“Ladies first, partner?” Edythe asked. I looked up to see her smiling a dimpled smile so perfect that I could only stare at her like a fool.
She raised her eyebrows.
“Uh, sure, go ahead,” I sputtered.
I saw her eyes flash to the splotches blooming across my cheeks. Why couldn’t my blood just stay in my veins where it belonged?
She looked away sharply, yanking the microscope to her side of the table.
She studied the first slide for a quarter of a second—maybe less.
“Prophase.”
She switched out the slide for the next, then paused and looked up at me.
“Or did you want to check?” she challenged.
“Uh, no, I’m good,” I said.
She wrote the word Prophase neatly on the top line of our worksheet. Even her handwriting was perfect, like she’d taken classes in penmanship or something. Did anyone still do that?
She barely glanced through the microscope at the second slide, then wrote Anaphase on the next line, looping her A like it was calligraphy, like she was addressing a wedding invitation. I’d had to do the invitations for my mom’s wedding. I’d printed the labels in a fancy script font that didn’t look anything as elegant as Edythe’s handwriting.
She moved the next slide into place, while I took advantage of her diverted attention to stare. So close up, you’d think I’d be able to see something—a hint of a pimple, a stray eyebrow hair, a pore, something—wrong with her. But there was nothing.
Suddenly her head flipped up, eyes to the front of the class, just before Mrs. Banner called out, “Miss Cullen?”
“Yes, Mrs. Banner?” Edythe slid the microscope toward me as she spoke.
“Perhaps you should let Mr. Swan have an opportunity to learn?”
“Of course, Mrs. Banner.”
Edythe turned and gave me a well, go ahead then look.
I bent down to look through the eyepiece. I could sense she was watching—only fair, considering how I’d been ogling her—but it made me feel awkward, like just inclining my head was a clumsy move.
At least the slide wasn’t difficult.
“Metaphase,” I said.
“Do you mind if I look?” she asked as I started to remove the slide. Her hand caught mine, to stop me, as she was speaking. Her fingers were ice cold, like she’d been holding them in a snowdrift before class. But that wasn’t why I jerked my hand away so quickly. When she touched me, it stung my hand like a low-voltage electric shock.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, quickly pulling her hand back, though she continued to reach for the microscope. I watched her, a little dazed, as she examined the slide for another tiny fraction of a second.
“Metaphase,” she agreed, then slid the microscope back to me.
I tried to exchange slides, but they were too small or my fingers were too big, and I ended up dropping both. One fell on the table and the other over the edge, but Edythe caught it before it could hit the ground.
“Ugh,” I exhaled, mortified. “Sorry.”
“Well, the last is no mystery, regardless,” she said. Her tone was right on the edge of laughter. Butt of the joke again.
Edythe calligraphied the words Metaphase and Telophase onto the last two lines of the worksheet.
We were finished before anyone else was close. I could see McKayla and her partner comparing two slides again and again, and another pair had their book open under the table.
Which left me with nothing to do but try not to look at her… unsuccessfully. I glanced down, and she was staring at me, that same strange look of frustration in her eyes. Suddenly I identified that elusive difference in her face.
“Did you get contacts?” I blurted out.
She seemed puzzled by my apropos-of-nothing question. “No.”
“Oh,” I mumbled. “I thought there was something different about your eyes.”
She shrugged, and looked away.
In fact, I knew there was something different. I had not forgotten one detail of that first time she’d glared at me like she wanted me dead. I could still see the flat black color of her eyes—so jarring against the background of her pale skin. Today, her eyes were a completely different color: a strange gold, darker than butterscotch, but with the same warm tone. I didn’t understand how that was possible, unless she was lying for some reason about the contacts. Or maybe Forks was making me crazy in the literal sense of the word.
I looked down. Her hands were clenched into fists again.
Mrs. Banner came to our table then, looking over our shoulders to glance at the completed lab, and then stared more intently to check the answers.
“So, Edythe…,” Mrs. Banner began.
“Beau identified half of the slides,” Edythe said before Mrs. Banner could finish.
Mrs. Banner looked at me now; her expression was skeptical.
“Have you done this lab before?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Not with onion root.”
“Whitefish blastula?”
“Yeah.”
Mrs. Banner nodded. “Were you in an advanced placement program in Phoenix?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she said after a moment, “I guess it’s good you two are lab partners.” She mumbled something else I couldn’t hear as she walked away. After she left, I started doodling on my notebook again.
“It’s too bad about the snow, isn’t it?” Edythe asked. I had the odd feeling that she was forcing herself to make small talk with me. It was like she had heard my conversation with Jeremy at lunch and was trying to prove me wrong. Which was impossible. I was turning paranoid.
“Not really,” I answered honestly, instead of pretending to be normal like everyone else. I was still trying to shake the stupid feeling of suspicion, and I couldn’t concentrate on putting up a socially acceptable front.
“You don’t like the cold.” It wasn’t a question.
“Or the wet.”
“Forks must be a difficult place for you to live,” she mused.
“Yo
u have no idea,” I muttered darkly.
She looked riveted by my response, for some reason I couldn’t imagine. Her face was such a distraction that I tried not to look at it any more than courtesy absolutely demanded.
“Why did you come here, then?”
No one had asked me that—not straight out like she did, demanding.
“It’s… complicated.”
“I think I can keep up,” she pressed.
I paused for a long moment, and then made the mistake of meeting her gaze. Her long, dark gold eyes confused me, and I answered without thinking.
“My mother got remarried,” I said.
“That doesn’t sound so complex,” she disagreed, but her tone was suddenly softer. “When did that happen?”
“Last September.” I couldn’t keep the sadness out of my voice.
“And you don’t like him,” Edythe guessed, her voice still kind.
“No, Phil is fine. A little young, maybe, but he’s a good guy.”
“Why didn’t you stay with them?”
I couldn’t understand her interest, but she continued to stare at me with penetrating eyes, as if my dull life’s story was somehow vitally important.
“Phil travels most of the time. He plays ball for a living.” I half-smiled.
“Have I heard of him?” she asked, smiling in response, just enough for a hint of the dimples to show.
“Probably not. He doesn’t play well. Just minor league. He moves around a lot.”
“And your mother sent you here so that she could travel with him.” She said it as an assumption again, not a question.
My hunched shoulders straightened automatically. “No, she didn’t. I sent myself.”
Her eyebrows pushed together. “I don’t understand,” she admitted, and she seemed more frustrated by that fact than she should be.
I sighed. Why was I explaining this to her? She stared at me, waiting.
“She stayed with me at first, but she missed him. It made her unhappy… so I decided it was time to spend some quality time with Charlie.” My voice was glum by the time I finished.
“But now you’re unhappy,” she pointed out.
“And?” I challenged.
“That doesn’t seem fair.” She shrugged, but her eyes were still intense.
I laughed once. “Haven’t you heard? Life isn’t fair.”
“I believe I have heard that somewhere before,” she agreed dryly.
“So that’s it,” I insisted, wondering why she was still staring at me that way.
Her head tilted to the side, and her gold eyes seemed to laser right through the surface of my skin. “You put on a good show,” she said slowly. “But I’d be willing to bet that you’re suffering more than you let anyone see.”
I shrugged. “I repeat… And?”
“I don’t entirely understand you, that’s all.”
I frowned. “Why would you want to?”
“That’s a very good question,” she murmured, so quietly that I wondered if she was talking to herself. However, after a few seconds of silence, I decided that was the only answer I was going to get.
It was awkward, just looking at each other, but she didn’t look away. I wanted to keep staring at her face, but I was afraid she was wondering what was wrong with me for staring so much, so finally I turned toward the blackboard. She sighed.
I glanced back, and she was still looking at me, but her expression was different… a little frustrated, or irritated.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Did I… Am I annoying you?”
She shook her head and smiled with half her mouth so that one dimple popped out. “No, if anything, I’m annoyed with myself.”
“Why?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Reading people… it usually comes very easily to me. But I can’t—I guess I don’t know quite what to make of you. Is that funny?”
I flattened out my grin. “More… unexpected. My mom always calls me her open book. According to her, you can all but read my thoughts printing out across my forehead.”
Her smile vanished and she half-glared into my eyes, not angry like before, just intense. As if she was trying hard to read that printout my mom had seen. Then, switching gears just as abruptly, she was smiling again.
“I suppose I’ve gotten overconfident.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “Um, sorry?”
She laughed, and the sound was like music, though I couldn’t think of the instrument to compare it to. Her teeth were perfect—no surprise there—and blinding white.
Mrs. Banner called the class to order then, and I was relieved to give her my attention. It was a little too intense, making small talk with Edythe. I felt dizzy in a strange way. Had I really just detailed my boring life to this bizarre, beautiful girl who might or might not hate me? She’d seemed almost too interested in what I had to say, but now I could see, from the corner of my eye, that she was leaning away from me again, her hands gripping the edge of the table with unmistakable tension.
I tried to focus as Mrs. Banner went through the lab with transparencies on the overhead projector, but my thoughts were far away from the lecture.
When the bell rang, Edythe rushed as swiftly and as gracefully from the room as she had last Monday. And, like last Monday, I stared after her with my jaw hanging open.
McKayla got to my table almost as quickly.
“That was awful,” she said. “They all looked exactly the same. You’re lucky you had Edythe for a partner.”
“Yeah, she seemed to know her way around an onion root.”
“She was friendly enough today,” McKayla commented as we shrugged into our raincoats. She didn’t sound happy about it.
I tried to make my voice casual. “I wonder what was with her last Monday.”
I couldn’t concentrate on McKayla’s chatter as we walked to Gym, and P.E. didn’t do much to hold my interest, either. McKayla was on my team today. She helpfully covered my position as well as her own, so I only had to pay attention when it was my turn to serve; my team knew to get out of the way when I was up.
The rain was just a mist as I walked to the parking lot, but I was still pretty damp when I got in the truck. I turned the heat up as high as it could go, for once not caring about the mind-numbing roar of the engine.
As I looked around me to make sure the way was clear, I noticed the still, white figure. Edythe Cullen was leaning against the front door of the Volvo, three cars down from me, and staring intently in my direction. The smile was gone, but at least so was the murder—for now, anyway. I looked away and threw the truck into reverse, almost hitting a rusty Toyota Corolla in my rush. Lucky for the Toyota, I stomped on the brake in time. It was just the sort of car that my truck would make scrap metal of. I took a deep breath, still looking out the other side of my car, and cautiously pulled out again. This time I made it. I stared straight ahead as I passed the Volvo, but I could see enough in my peripheral vision to know that she was laughing.
3. PHENOMENON
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES IN THE MORNING, SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT.
It was the light. It was still the gloomy light of a cloudy day in the forest, but it was clearer somehow. I realized there was no fog obscuring my window.
I jumped up to look outside, and then groaned.
A fine layer of snow covered the yard, dusted the top of my truck, and whitened the road. But that wasn’t the worst part. All the rain from yesterday had frozen solid—coating the needles on the trees in crazy patterns, and making the driveway a deadly ice slick. I had enough trouble not falling down when the ground was dry; it might be safer for me to go back to bed now.
Charlie had left for work before I got downstairs. In a lot of ways, living with Charlie was like having my own place, and I found myself enjoying the space rather than feeling lonely.
I threw down a quick bowl of cereal and some orange juice from the carton. I felt excited to go to school, and that worried me. I
knew it wasn’t the stimulating learning environment I was anticipating, or seeing my new set of friends. If I was being honest with myself, I knew I was eager to get to school because I would see Edythe Cullen. And that was very, very stupid.
Maybe a few of the other girls were intrigued by the novelty of the new kid, but Edythe wasn’t a McKayla or an Erica. I was well aware that my league and her league were spheres that did not touch. I was already worried that just looking at her face was giving me unrealistic expectations that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Spending more time looking at her—watching her lips move, marveling at her skin, listening to her voice—was certainly not going to help with that. I didn’t exactly trust her anyway—why lie about her eyes? And of course, there was the whole thing where she might have at one point wanted me dead. So I should definitely not be excited to see her again.
It took every ounce of my concentration to make it down the icy brick driveway alive. I almost lost my balance when I finally got to the truck, but I managed to cling on to the side mirror and save myself. The sidewalks at school would be complex today… so much potential for humiliation.
My truck seemed to have no problem with the black ice that covered the roads. I drove very slowly, though, not wanting to carve a path of destruction through Main Street.
When I got out of my truck at school, I discovered why I’d had so little trouble. Something silver caught my eye, and I walked to the back of the truck—carefully holding the side for support—to examine my tires. There were thin chains crisscrossed in diamond shapes around them. Charlie had gotten up who knows how early to put snow chains on my truck.
I frowned, surprised that my throat suddenly felt tight. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. I probably should have been the one to think about putting chains on his tires, if I could figure out how to do that. Or at least I should have helped him with the chore. It wasn’t his job.…
Except that, actually, it kind of was. He was the parent. He was taking care of me, his son. That was how it worked in books and on TV shows, but it made me feel upside down in a strange way.
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