Chapter 3

Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom

house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those

were the only kind of days their marriage had — the early ones. There, parked

on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new — well, new

to me — truck. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous

cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn't know if it would run, but I could

see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets

damaged — the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched,

surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.

"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just

that much less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking

two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser.

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

It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me

since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the

yellowed lace curtains around the window — these were all a part of my

childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for

a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk now held a secondhand computer,

with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone

jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch

easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.

There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have

to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact.

One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me alone to

unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my

mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to

stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears

escape. I wasn't in the mood to go on a real crying jag. I would save that for

bedtime, when I would have to think about the coming morning.

Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven

— now fifty-eight — students; there were more than seven hundred people in

my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together —

their grandparents had been toddlers together.

I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.

Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to my

advantage. But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty,

blond — a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps — all the things that go

with living in the valley of the sun.

Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow,

obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to

play sports without humiliating myself — and harming both myself and anyone

else who stood too close.

When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bag of

bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up

after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my

tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but already I looked sallower,

unhealthy. My skin could be pretty — it was very clear, almost translucent-

looking — but it all depended on color. I had no color here.

Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying

to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a

niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here?