Waxing Crescent (Alice Cullen x Bella Swan)

Chapter 1 - Golden Gaze

"Hey, Bells'. It's time to wake up and get ready for school. Got eggs cooking on the stove for ya'. Hope you like them... scrambled? They're a bit rubbery but-... eh, forget it."

I blearily opened my eyes. My sluggish body battling me tooth and nail as I tried to lift up my head.

I squinted in the direction of the voice - To the one that had ripped me from fading dreams.

He leaned up against the door frame, a soft smile peeking out from underneath a dark bushy moustache.

Oh, right. Charlie.

He was smiling. How strange. He usually doesn't do that.

For a short while, somewhere caught between sleep and wakefulness, I wondered whether the domestics of cooking eggs for your daughter was really all that thrilling.

I couldn't see the appeal.

"Thanks, Dad. I'll be down in a minute. Keep 'em warm for me?" I croaked, still attempting to make out his shape through heavy lids.

When I finally collapsed with a loud thump into pillows, thankfully Charlie was gone.

I tossed, I turned. I mumbled affirmations, although rather aggressively, under my breath. I did everything I could think of in order to muster strength.

Eventually, somehow, I succeeded in coercing myself out of bed.

I pushed back purple blankets and stumbled in the direction of the bathroom.

With the slight chill in the air something I had yet to get used to, and a warm shower too tempting to resist, I clung to my primary motivator like a lifeboat.

Ducking under the protective cloak of hot pelting water, my pyjamas a forgotten pool on the floor behind me, I exhaled and let comforting heat penetrate frigid skin.

I wanted to stay under for hours - maybe forever - but duty called.

Unwillingly alert, I looked up from the basin, water droplets trickling down my skin and catching on the towel wrapped tightly around my chest.

I'd had a sleepless night and I was suffering the consequences; dark blue bags hung heavy beneath brown eyes, and my pale skin looked almost translucent instead of its normal milky white.

That was another thing.

How would I ever explain away my ghostly hue? They would all be expecting some sort of tanned goddess, no doubt. Yet... here I was.

Gawky. Pale. Likely iron-deficient.

The flush from the shower was the only thing that saved me from looking like Nosferatu.

I rubbed my hands down my face, ignoring the red marks left in their wake.

A bit of makeup would hide it all away hopefully - the fatigue, the reluctance. First impressions were important when starting a new school.

School.

The thought brought up more anxiety than it needed to. I watched my reflection cringe back at me.

God. Why did first days have to be so awful? So full of rules? Dos, and don'ts?

I thought I had escaped all of that when I'd finally convinced Renee to settle down in one place. Yet now, thanks to my not-so-quick thinking, I was here again rehearsing mental scripts and swallowing back bubbling nausea.

Typical.

I dried my hair and brushed my teeth, all the while fretting over how bad things could get. I really wasn't feeling like an optimist today.