Twilight OC Rewrite VERSION TWO

Chapter One: First Sight

"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Bella said as I nodded vigorously in agreement. Now the horrific day we had predicted for school tomorrow would be much less dreadful.

"I'm glad you like it," Dad said gruffly, embarrassed.

It only took one trip to get all of our stuff upstairs to the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard that we would be sharing. The room was familiar to Bella and like home to me. It had belonged to us since we were born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window — these were all a part of our childhood. The only changes Dad had made were switching the cribs to beds and adding two desks as we grew. The desks now held secondhand laptops. This was a stipulation from our mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from our baby days was still in the corner.

There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which we would have to share with Dad. I noticed my sister's displeased face when she remembered that fact.

One of the best things about Dad is he doesn't hover. He left us alone to unpack and get settled in, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for our mother. It was nice to be by ourselves, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window in Bella's case and anxiously in the mine. Both of us worried about the days to come.

Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven — now fifty-nine — students; there were more than seven hundred people in our junior class alone in Phoenix. All of the kids here had grown up together — their grandparents had been toddlers together. We would be the new girls from the big city, the curiosities, the freaks. This is a fact that neither of us took pleasure in. Although I loved the weather in Forks and the presence of our father, I was even more introverted than my sister. In Phoenix, my friends were Bella's friends, only noticing me because they knew my sister. I rarely spoke to anyone, taking that trait from my father.

Maybe, if we looked like girls from Phoenix should, it could work to our advantage. But physically, we'd never fit in anywhere. We could've been tan, sporty, blonde — a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps — all the things that go with living in the valley of the sun.

Instead, Bella was ivory-skinned despite the constant sunshine, with brown eyes. She had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; she didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating herself or harming anyone who stands too close. I looked almost nothing like her, even though we were twins, but still not the typical valley girl. I was also ivory-skinned, but had green eyes, with black hair like our fathers in contrast to Bella's brown hair. I wasn't as thin as my sister, more of an average-soft build, slightly rounder, but still considered slim. I was more of a reader than an athlete, also lacking hand-eye coordination like Bella.

When we finished putting our clothes in the matching pine dressers, we made our way to the communal bathroom to store our necessities and clean up after the day of travel. As we settled, I thought of how we didn't relate well to others our age. Maybe even to anyone at all, in Bella's case. As I could relate to our dad in most everything but sports, my sister couldn't even relate to our mother, completely. Renee was closest to Bella in the entire world, and yet, they were always slightly off-sync, never on the same page.

Neither of us slept well that night. Bella cried and the constant sound of rain wouldn't fade into the background of her mind. I worried for the day ahead, for both me and my elder sister. It was well past midnight when we both finally dozed off.

Thick fog was all we could see out of our window in the morning, and Bella started to feel claustrophobia creeping onto her, she informed me. I, on the other hand, was trying not to squeal in delight. The sky was impossible to see, almost like a cage. Whether it be a prison cell or a beautiful roof of protection was up to the beholder.