"We're lazy, whatever, at least we stick together."
Raleigh Ritchie
"Have you seen them? They're gorgeous!"
Ivan twitched at the sudden sound of a screechy voice entering the cafeteria.
"I already know their names: Edward, Emmett, Jasper, Alice and Rosalie." Jess scoffed and spoke up once more, "Of course Emmet's taken, he's the big one with the muscles, and he's with Rosalie - that's so weird - but Edward, Alice and Jasper are single."
"What's she on about now?" Ivan whispers, his head pointlessly looking to the side.
"Are you stalking them?" Ivan hears Angela say in the background.
"You haven't heard about the new kids?" Anthony says, disbelief in his tone. "Everyone's talking about them, like they're gods or some shit."
Ivan shrugged, not like he'd notice either way. "They good looking?"
"The girls are, especially the blonde. She's tall, curvy, got this tough bitch expression all the time like she doesn't want to talk to us, but other than that she's definitely a looker. There's another one, a small girl, she's cute, her hair's cut like a pixie and it sticks out everywhere." Anthony whispers, quiet enough to not catch the attention of Jess' and her Wikipedia motor mouth. "The guys at least bite at my ego so it's safe to say yeah, they're good looking."
Ivan nodded, feeling slightly bitter about not being able to see the new kids and witnessing the looks that caused Jessica to practically flick out a pad and paper and become a journalist for the entire day.
Anthony continued telling Ivan that they'd been here for two days already, which shocked Ivan as Jess already knew what Emmet's favourite colour was - blue, by the way - and had figured out Edward's schedule. When Anthony told him that, Ivan's face scrunched as though he took a bite out of a lemon. It was no surprise that Jess was desperate, but being that desperate that you feel the need to memorise his schedule...Ivan had no words.
"Pretty surprised you haven't heard about them yet." Anthony mentions again. Why was it so surprising?
"They're only people." Ivan mutters, completely uninterested with the current topic of the Cullens.
"People you don't see everyday." Anthony mutters, Ivan felt him shift his body and, guessing seeing as though he couldn't exactly tell, averted his attention towards Jess, Angela, Mike and Eric.
"Exactly." Ivan replies, snorting to himself.
"Dude." Anthony mumbles, chuckling.
"Ivan doesn't look interested, as usual." Jess comments. Ivan sighs, imagining that the smaller girl was standing with her hand indenting her waist as she graced him with her attention.
He felt a tap on his side, the side Anthony was directing him to look discreetly without everyone else noticing. Ivan would thank him later. He turned.
"Why should I? I can't see them." His dull voice caused Jess' eyebrows to shoot up - Ivan wished he could see her expression since he'd successfully shut her up for once.
"You don't even need to, Iv," Angela begins to say, her soft voice fresh to the ear in comparison to Jess' ungodly screech. "Jess is overreacting." Mike voiced his agreement with a bitter 'mmhm'.
Ivan chuckled and made no movement to turn away, although he wanted to but he knew Jess wasn't finished with him just yet.
"Oh come on, you can't expect me to not get excited over a bit of eye candy, can you?" Jess exclaimed, Ivan noticed that she was aiming this towards Angela more so than Ivan.
"You're acting like a little girl, Jess, come on they're just boys." Angela says helplessly.
Ivan liked Angela, she had her head screwed on - it was like a fourty year old living in a teenagers body. She wasn't completely obsessed with boys, but she didn't entirely ignore their existence, certainly not Eric's anyway. Speaking of which, Eric was unusually silent but Ivan supposed he was typing away at his laptop and working on the new feature about the Cullens.
Suddenly Ivan was nudged, he scowled immediately thinking it was Jess, but then Anthony spoke up. "Your phone keeps lighting up. Want me to check?"
Ivan nodded. "I put it on silent on accident again, didn't I?"
"Yeah, don't worry." Anthony murmurs whilst unlocking his phone. "It's only Bella, she's asking how everything is."
Ivan chuckled - Bella Swan, his fearfully awkward cousin. Ivan loved her, missed her a lot since she was in Phoenix with her mom, he wished that she'd visit often but apparently she wasn't all that acquaint with her awkward father as Ivan was. Bella, to Ivan, is his younger mother bear who's completely smothered him in this cushion of hers, somewhere even he doesn't want to escape.
"Tell her I'm fine and that she doesn't have to worry and text me everyday." Ivan says, grinning, knowing that her response will be something like 'I'm going to anyway so what's the point in telling me not to'.
Anthony switched the phone on loud and began typing away. "Done." He alerted him, tapping his arm and sliding the phone into his palm. "Is she still thinking about coming down here when her mom leaves?"
Bella had decided that she was going to finally come back to Forkes and live with her dad for a while whilst her mom and her boyfriend Phil dash across the country in hopes of getting Phil signed for baseball. Phil was an alright guy, as good as a step uncle can get he guessed. In Ivan's eyes, he won't ever beat Charlie.
Ivan didn't know all of the gory details surrounding Charlie and Renee, he just remembered that one day his aunt and uncle split, one moved far away to sunny Phoenix and the other stayed in America's own England. But now that he thought about it, maybe their dynamics were too different. Renee's bubbly, over baring-ly bubbly sometimes, and even then Ivan was overwhelmed with how loving she is, but that's Renee and you can't change that; Ivan decided he wouldn't ever change her for the better. Charlie's different entirely, for starters: Charlie's awkward, a little rough around the edges and stoic. He doesn't know how to show his emotions, but when he does it's like he feels embarrassed about it and then he has this awkward cough thing going on. Anthony also once told him Charlie often looks away when speaking to Ivan, Ivan thought it was for respect in a way. Maybe Charlie wanted to try out the whole "I can't see who I'm talking to either" schpeel so that Ivan would feel a bit more comfortable, or he just couldn't handle looking a blind kid in the eye.
Ding. Ivan handed the phone over to Anthony again and waited. "She said: tough luck, whether you want me to or not you're getting it. But anyway, you didn't answer. Is she still thinking about it?"
"Sorry, uh, from what I know, yeah she's still thinking about it. Tell her I said I'll speak to her when I get home." Ivan says, huffing when the bell finally rings and free periods over.
Anthony did just that and tucked Ivan's phone into his coat pocket after handing Ivan his bag, too. Ivan pulled out his stick, Anthony warned everyone to step back, and Ivan whipped his wrist out in order for the stick to snap out with a satisfying crunch. Ivan grinned when he heard Angela chuckle.
Ivan had always hated his walking stick at first since that was the obvious and painful giveaway that he couldn't actually see, but he'd rather that than have to cling onto Anthony. At first Angela held his hand and made it seem like they were a couple so Ivan wouldn't get all that embarrassed whilst wandering the hallways, but then Ivan imagined that he'd be warding off the guys for Angela - Eric to be specific. And so, Angela finally let go of his hand and the walking stick came out to play.
The students always seemed to stay out of his way since he never swiped at anyone's ankles in the halls. He was thankful for that, at least they respected him in some sense. But something felt different today, a little more weird. Weird in the sense that he could feel someone staring, like they were burning two holes into the side of his head - that was even stranger, Ivan knew they were beside him, possibly by the locker. He felt something warm there within arms reach.
Ivan didn't know he was staring at Alice Cullen directly in the face, and he never caught onto the way her pupils dilated. But then, a flicker of light appeared in his vision and only for a moment did he see the topaz eyes before the blanket of nothingness draped over his view once more. Ivan froze. What was that?
Alice Cullen watched the boy with the crestfallen expression look at her helplessly.
Ivan felt a tug at his arm, he looked in the direction of whoever it was and relaxed when Anthony muttered a quiet reassurance. Ivan walked away, his thoughts racing a mile a second, Anthony wrapped his arm around him as he witnessed Ivan shake. No one knew what had happened, and no one knew how Ivan knew Alice was there.
As the blind boy walked away, a group of Cullens were left perplexed in his wake.
; ; / / ; ;
Ivan slammed the car door behind him, thanked Anthony and shuffled forward slightly, his arms out and ready to grasp onto the rails Charlie had built in front of the house. Making his way up the ramp, Ivan heard the front door open and the heavy footsteps paired with a jingle of keys somewhere in front of him. Ivan could smell Charlie's cologne, and then he grinned.
"Two." Ivan says, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Charlie moved forward, one, two, three. "Sorry kiddo, maybe next time."
"Shit," Ivan mutters, Charlie laughs and wraps his arm around his nephew, dragging him inside. "Bella's gonna' call me later. Maybe you two can finally have a decent conversation before she decides to come back."
Charlie was silent for a moment, "You think she's coming back?" He sounded so unsure and that caused Ivan to frown.
"I don't see why not." Ivan says, patting his uncles arm. "I mean, with Phil around its not like she's going to get the peace and quiet she wants if they're moving around everywhere. Plus, Renee can get a bit too much-"
"Hey, that's your aunt." Charlie scolds weakly before he snorts. Ivan hears the door shut behind them.
"She's thinking about it, you know." Ivan finally says, "Has been for a couple of days."
"Huh." Charlie mutters - this is what Ivan was talking about, he knew he was ecstatic his kid might be coming back to Forkes, but he never knew how to express it.
"I'll take that as you're genuinely excited." Ivan says, ducking from beneath Charlie's grip and grasping onto the stair case. "Got a shift tonight?"
"You betcha." Charlie mutters, Ivan felt him lean against the staircase beside him. "How was school?"
"We got some new kids in." Was the first thing Ivan said, and even he wanted to roll his eyes at how he'd basically became Jess for a minute.
"Cullens?" Ivan nodded. "Yeah, met their father, nice man, well respected doctor already. They seem like they'll cause any trouble?"
"Can't say I know for sure. I do know that the girls think that Edward, Emmet and Jasper are godly according to Jess, and Anthony's ego is a bit bruised, oh and the girls are pretty, too - apparently." Charlie hummed and tapped his fingers against his baton.
"If they're anything like Carlisle I'll have no problems with them." Charlie finally said. "Going up?"
Ivan nodded. Their bonding time was up, and like the social-parasite Charlie is, he couldn't handle any more simple conversations for the day. Charlie walked up the stairs behind Ivan who slowly felt around for each step before rising higher, Charlie turned Ivan's body left as soon as he felt the smooth panels of the landing.
"I'll see you later, I'll order tonight." Charlie says whilst Ivan shuffles his way towards his bed. "Got any homework you need to do or somethin'?"
"I'll find something to do." Ivan says, chuckling to himself. "Watch the game. Twenty - and don't walk too fast!"
Charlie laughed and suddenly the room was silent. Ivan didn't move until he couldn't hear the rhythmic thuds of Charlie's footsteps.
"Eighteen!" Charlie shouts.
"Fuck sake."