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What if the "he" in the "he's gone" rant that Bella had when Sam found her in the woods wasn't Edward Cullen? What if everything before New Moon wasn't quite as it seemed? Isabella Swan has a secret which she has to hold onto...
Hi all! So this story intends to take Twilight's first book's events and twist them into something very different from what was perceived by the town of Forks or the wolves of LaPush! It starts out slow but give it a chance please 😊 Thanks!
Angela stared outside of the dull classroom window, utterly bored with Trigonometry and just life in general; Forks was Forks, rain was rain, and her classmates were as constant as the first two things.
Maybe she was too young to be so jaded, but seventeen years of the same things had made moderating her feelings difficult. She couldn't even force herself to be interested in whatever Jessica had been blabbing about to her today, like some sort of marinette doll on autopilot, she had just nodded and smiled and pretended to be engaged.
"Everyone, I'd like you all to be welcoming to our new student, Bella Swan." Mr. Varner announced grandly, sweeping his arms to a petite, pale girl who had a shy smile plastered to her face.
Dark shadows framed her honey-brown eyes, twisting beautiful features into somehow looking slightly tortured as she warily scanned the chairs for an empty seat. Instinctual pity ran down Angela's spine, destroying any remaining ennui she had been feeling about her life, as the other students automatically began whispering in frenzied excitement.
"What crawled up her ass and died?" Jessica huffed hatefully beside her with a sneer.
"Hot. Oh baby." Mike sighed dramatically to Tyler Crowley.
There was only one empty seat left in the room. The mysterious new student walked slowly through the aisle to the seat to Angela's left. She walked gracefully, her pace fairly quick as she hastily plopped into the chair. In perfect harmony, Mr. Varner returned to his signature droll on the importance of checking that a calculator was in radians.
Bella stared at her desk, her fingers so white on her pencil that Angela was surprised that it hadn't snapped yet from the tension that she was exerting.
Sympathy ran through her because it was obvious that the girl didn't want to be here anymore than she herself did. "Hi Bella," she found herself whispering, "welcome to Forks. My name's Angela."
Those haunted eyes slid over to her, the dead expression only slightly lifting as she smiled back. "Is it really always cloudy here?"
"Yes."
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In slow fashion, Bella became Angela's friend, and not one that she had to drown out her words to spare herself from vicious gossip and blatant self-obsession. It was refreshing and Angela appreciated it. It was tiring dealing with people that strived to always be the best or unique. That mentality led to the opposite effect, and the nuances of people needlessly blended. Angela liked being friends with Bella. It was not more about one person than the other.
And slowly, the shadows on her new friend's face lightened, like the change in surroundings had taken a huge weight off of her back. But despite these changes, there were still moments where a great sadness would overtake Bella, like it was something she could never just shake off and forget. It made her wish that there was something that she could do to help her.
Because Angela noticed things. Like how Bella rarely talked about her life before Forks or that she always seemed extremely, painfully aware of her surroundings. If someone entered the classroom, Bella's eyes always followed that person's movement until that person rested firmly in his or her seat. It was almost imperceptible that Bella was tense at all, but it was there nonetheless.
The Cullen issue was the final novelty that bothered Angela about her new friend. The affluent adopted children of Dr. Carlisle Cullen were the only other exceptions to Forks' constance rule other than Bella herself. Only they made Angela's skin crawl, whether it be fear or hyper-awareness, it made little difference. Intuitive and vicious it may have been, but the instinctive response Angela possessed couldn't be driven away; Fork's ethereal elite should leave Bella alone.
It was almost instantaneous that the great Edward and Bella love affair began. The two wouldn't speak at first, but the attention that Bella received was a liquid accelerant on an already blazing bonfire to the school. It made Angela both nervous about the additional attention it bestowed upon her already shy friend and happy that someone seemed to realize what a great find Bella was.
But at the end of the day, Angela was right to be worried. Suddenly Bella's time was consumed by Edward, and it became abundantly clear that Bella's dim light was almost entirely extinguished by the Cullens' wildfire. She no longer relaxed with anyone like she did for that short time with Angela. The low, throaty jokes that had Angela clutching her stomach in laughter no longer graced anyone's ears. She certainly never saw Edward show any sign that Bella was funny.
The school had all kinds of theories about how the pale girl from Phoenix, though beautiful, caught Edward's attention. The nastiness of the rumors made Bella's lone companion flinch, and it took a surprising amount of effort to keep her mouth shut. After all, they hadn't been friends for so terribly long that she could interject in Bella's love life. So she continued to watch.
It spiraled out of control when Bella disappeared for a number of days along with the Cullens. Pregnancy, drugs, and even a shotgun wedding were all mentioned until on the third day that Bella returned, but with a lengthy stay in the hospital. Angela visited her and received a bogus story about the clumsiness that she had never been witness to save gym class. Bella actually moved gracefully, like a dancer, but only when others were too preoccupied to notice. The injuries and the story simply did not add up. Bella was stuck on crutches for some time.
It was then that Ben asked her out and Angela admittedly lost herself in a happiness that she never before thought possible. They were in their own world. And it wasn't until much, much later that Angela realized that her love distracted her from her former friend. A friend who by then was even more submerged in a quiet, tense relationship with a boy who was lethally beautiful and monstrously aloof.
Bella still talked to Angela every once in a while after the leg healed, and it still held the quality of talking to somebody who cared. She still wasn't selfish like Jessica became when drama continuously occurred between her and Mike. It placated Angela's previous concern and almost made her dismiss the abnormalities she had seen. It all became normal.
Months continued to pass until Edward dumped Bella in the woods and incited the entire town to look for her when she hadn't returned home.
And it was to her great dismay that Bella slipped back into a depression that was even stronger than the one that she had arrived with. In fact, she began to more closely resemble a zombie than her beautiful and mysterious friend.
Angela no longer bothered to listen to the insidious gossip, because frankly repetition led to ineffectiveness. It only mattered that she was there for Bella and helped her get over that long relationship she had. But it quickly became apparent that it didn't matter how much effort was put into helping Isabella Swan. That girl, the one that shone such a faint spark, was erased and replaced by a zombie that did not speak or laugh or enjoy even so much as a breath. Nonetheless, Angela always checked on her every day, hoping to receive some type of plea of help.
This hope transformed into a mere fantasy as time kept hurdling past such a dreary town. But one thing remained the same with the husk that they still called Bella. She still was jumpy whenever anyone entered the room. The fear on her face never left.
I just had to set the story up from Angela's perspective! She's observant... DUN DUN DuuuuUuun What did you think? The tone, action, and dialogue will pick up immensely from this chapter. It was my first attempt at fanfic ever, but I couldn't get this story out of mind! Please vote, comment, love it or hate it, I want to hear it all! -rednight73
