Today's Quote:

Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth.

We drove in silence to the airport. My mother had the windows rolled down, as though maybe the noise from the wind would make up from the lack of conversation. I didn't mind though - I had nothing to say to her.

It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. My older sister, Bella, loved it here. I probably would too, if I spent more than a week every three months here.

I was wearing my favourite outfit - a leather jacket, purple shirt, jeans with too many holes in them to be fashionable, and my very best combat boots. I was dressed to impress, though for who, I had no idea.

In my hand was my phone, and a set of keys to my motorbike that I bought for myself as a present and had shipped over to my dad's. It was to his I was heading. Bella insisted on leaving our… loving mother, and mum insisted I was okay enough to go with her.

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with my older sister and I when I was only a month old.

I wish I could say I went back to my dad's ever now and then, maybe for holidays, but the 'school' I attended let me escape for week long holidays, and mum insisted I visit her and her husband. My sister knew my father, but she and I rarely got along, so it wasn't as though she felt compelled to tell me much about him.

"Bella," my mom said to my sister as we got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."

My mom looks like her, except with short hair andt laugh lines. I look the opposite. I mean, I'm sure I used to look like her, but I had my hair dyed bright blue, and I wore coloured contacts so that one days my eyes might be green, and the next bright pink. I barely remembered my original looks, it had been so long.

"I want to go," Bella said in her soft voice. I frowned.

"I don't," I said, interrupting. "I'd rather stay with you. Why don't I get a choice?"

"Your sister needs you," was the answer. I rolled my eyes. "Tell Charlie I said hi."

"I will," Bella said dutifully.

"I'll see you soon," mum insisted. "You can come home whenever you want — I'll come right back as soon as you need me."

"Can I come home?" I asked again.

"No, Morgana."

"Don't worry about me," Bella urged. "It'll be great. I love you, Mom."

She hugged mum tightly for a minute, and I pointedly ignored it. Then we got on the plane, and it was done.

It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks. Flying doesn't bother me, and unlike my sister, neither did the hour in the car with Dad.

I spoke with him on the phone two days ago, and he seemed genuinely pleased to meet me for the first time since I was in my toddler years.

He'd already gotten both me and Bella registered for high school and was going to help her get a car. As I mentioned, I already had my motorbike. I had worked my ass off for weeks getting that.

When we landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen — just unavoidable. It rained in England too. Dad was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too.

Dad is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. It was almost ironic. He was the good guy who spent his life chasing off 'bad' guys like me.

Dad gave Bella a one-armed hug when she stumbled my way off the plane. "It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied her.

He turned his attention towards me. "Hello, Ana."

I frowned, but didn't mention my hate for the nickname. "Hey, Dad."

He reached out awkwardly for a hug, but when I took a half step back he ended up patting me on the shoulder.

He looked a bit taken aback my my appearance, but he didn't mention it. I think he just didn't want to scare me off.

"You haven't changed much. How's Renée?" Dad asked, turning his attention to Bella, who tripped over air at the words.

"Mom's fine. It's good to see you, too, Dad."

I had a single bag, filled with a few shirts, three pairs of jeans, an umbrella and a winter coat. It all fit in easily next to Bella's bags.

"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced to Bella, who was sitting in shotgun. I pulled out my earphones and tried to ignore the conversation.

"What kind of car?" Bella asked.

"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."

"Where did you find it?"

"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?"

"No."

"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Dad prompted.

Bella remained silent. "He's in a wheelchair now," Dad continued when she didn't respond, "so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."

"What year is it?"

"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine — it's only a few years old, really."

I groaned quietly. I hoped to god I wasn't expected to ride in it.

"When did he buy it?" Bella asked.

"He bought it in 1984, I think."

That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it."

"Dad?" I asked. He looked back hopefully. "Did my bike arrive?"

Yes," Dad said, looking concerned now. "Are you sure it's safe? Kt gets very wet here."

"I know. I have experience."

"You're sixteen. You only just got your license."

"Yeah, but my last school offered lessons."

Dada looked uncomfortable. I had been kicked out of so many schools, I think it killed the cop in him. No one in America close to mum would accept me, I couldn't go to Forks due to issues, so England it was.

"Right."

We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for Conversation. We stared out the windows in silence.

It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.

I didn't recognise the house we parked at, but it looked old. It needed a good paint job, and the garden needed to be weeded.

There, parked on the street in front of the house, was my bike. I let out a little squeal, and raced out to check over my baby.

Next to it was Bella's truck, which I mentally swore I would never ride it. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab.

"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Bella said. I was pretty sure she had somehow fallen in love with the beast.

"I'm glad you like it," Dad 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 that's weeds made me shudder in disgust. Bella had the room next to me, and I hoped desperately I never had to talk to her in the mornings.

The room had a carpeted floor, light yellow walls, a peaked ceiling, the white lace curtains around the window, all of these things making me want to recoil. It was too… happy. By the window was a desk, and a computer.

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 hair.

Someone crashed into my back, making me tug hardly on a knot. "Watch it," I snapped.

"Sorry," whimpered Bella. I rolled my eyes.

"Dear god, grow a backbone."

"Sorry."

"Useless," I grumbled under my breath.

Storming back to my room, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just appearance wise that I'd never fit in. I wasn't good with people. I snapped and glared and then tried to fix it, and at the end of the day, they always ended up hurt or dead.

And if I couldn't find a friend in my older sister, what were my chances here? Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs.

Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. I already knew I could do things others couldn't. But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning. I wondered how long it would be before I burnt the school down.

Tomorrow I had school. I hated normal school. My old institution had me placed with kids just like me. Those whose brains thought too fast, and too angrily. That was nice. It felt… right.

As if it couldn't be worse, I had skipped a grade, placing me with my sister.

Breakfast with Dad was a quiet event. He wished us good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. Dad left first, off to the police station that was his wife and family.

After he left, Bella sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor.

"Can you try to be nice today?" Bella asked suddenly. "I mean, I know people messed with you head once and now you hate civilization, but I don't."

I didn't have an answer for that. It was true. One of my schools tried shock-treatment to make me better. It didn't. It made me worse. I blew up that school, and even though it was unintentional, and I had a reason, I was still carted off to the next place, narrowly avoiding juvie.

"Coming?" Bella asked finally, when she realised I wasn't talking. "We'll be late."

"It's 7:15."

"And I don't want to be late."

"Go on without me. I'll be there in an hour."

She stared at me. I'm sure she felt like it was her job to look after me, but I didn't need a babysitter.

"Okay."

When she was gone I got up and made coffee, and then read the news. Then I made coffee again, and poured it down the sink when I realised I forgot the milk.

I changed my clothes twice, before realizing I didn't care what they thought, and what difference did it make if I looked normal today, and then strange tomorrow?

I ended up going with a short crop top with too many straps, sunnies, boots, and my jacket and jeans from yesterday.

I locked up and headed out into the rain, pulling on a helmet to shield my eyes from rain. It was just drizzling still, just enough that I'd worry driving, but still go.

Finding the school wasn't difficult, though I'd never been there before. The school was, like most other things, just off the highway. It was not obvious that it was a school; only the sign, which declared it to be the Forks High School, made me stop.

It looked like a collection of matching houses, built with marooncolored bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs I couldn't see its size at first.

'Where were the chain-linked electric fences, the metal detectors, the guards, both human and dog?' I thought.

I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door reading front office. No one else was parked there, so I assumed it was off limits, but I didn't care. I wanted to leave, go back to England, to the one school I actually hadn't been kicked out of, the one place where I felt like I belonged.

I took a deep breath before opening the door. Inside, it was brightly lit, and warmer than I'd hoped. The office was small; a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, a big clock ticking loudly.

Plants grew everywhere in large plastic pots, as if there wasn't enough greenery outside. The room was cut in half by a long counter, cluttered with wire baskets full of papers and brightly coloured gum. The red-haired woman looked up.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm Morgana Swan," I informed her, and saw the immediate understanding in her eyes.

She looked me up and down disapprovingly, and I glared straight at her.

"Of course," she said. "Your sister got here half an hour ago. You have the same schedule, except for electives. You have drama." She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk till she found the ones she was looking for. "I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school."

She brought several sheets to the counter to show roe. She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each on the map, and gave me a slip to have each teacher sign, which I was to bring back at the end of the day.

She forced herself to smile at me and unconvincingly wished me the best. I let out a grunt that could maybe be mistaken for me thanking her.

When I went back out to my truck, other students were starting to arrive. I drove around the school, following the line of traffic. I was horrified to see that most of the cars were older like Bella's, nothing flashy.

The nicest car here was a shiny Volvo, and it stood out.

It was funny watching the students faces as I stepped off my bike. Most pointed and stared, and some laughed. I flipped those ones off. When I swung my hips a little, and made myself smile, I found that I soon had a group of admirers.

Once I got around the cafeteria, building three was easy to spot. A large black "3" was painted on a white square on the east corner.

The classroom was for English small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to hang up their coats on a long row of hooks. I copied them. They were two girls, one a porcelain-colored blonde, the other also pale, with light brown hair. I glared at them when they flicked their hair and gave a little flirty giggle. I hated girls like that.

I took the slip up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked at me when he saw my hair, and I took that as my cue to sit, thankfully at a spare desk, and not at my sister's whose was at the back.

I skimmed my reading list, took a photo with my phone, and scrunched it into a ball, tossing it perfectly in the bin.

"Score!" laughed someone behind me. I turned around to be faced with someone who looked like the overly helpful, chess club type.

"You're Ara Swan, aren't you?"

"Morgana to you," I corrected pointedly. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.

He hardly fumbled, I had to give him that. "Where's your next class?" he asked.

I pulled out my phone and checked. "Government. Jefferson. Building six."

"I'm headed toward building four, I could show you the way…" Definitely over helpful. "I'm Eric," he added, giving me a smile.

"No." I turned back to the front and pulled at a thread on my jeans.

When class finished, he followed me anyway. I lost him in the throng of students. Last I saw, he had found Bella and was attempting to talk to her instead.

The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. My Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Varner, who I would have hated anyway just because of the subject he taught, was the only one who made me and Bella stand in front of the class and introduce ourselves.

She stammered, blushed, and tripped over her own boots on the way to my seat. I glared, said barely two words, and stomped over to sit next to her.

"Try to be nice," she whispered to me when class started. I nodded curtly, and she gave me a soft smile.

After two classes, I started to recognize several of the faces in each class. There was always someone braver than the others who would introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I was liking Forks.

I tried to be blunt, and force them away, but mostly I just glared and made snarky comments. At least I never needed the map.

One girl sat next to Bella and I in both Trig and Spanish, and she walked with us to the cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, several inches shorter than my five feet four inches, but her wildly curly dark hair made up a lot of the difference between our heights. I couldn't be bothered to remember her name, but I wanted to make Bella happy, so I listened to her ramble. I didn't try to keep up, though, and when we got to the cafeteria, I split from the two, sitting at an empty table.

I had my earplugs in, and was picking at a salad, so I didn't notice when they first made their appearance.

One coughed, and I rolled my eyes. One on the other end of the group rapped their knuckles on the table.

"Yeah, Muscles?" I asked, noticing his bulky figure when I looked up. He smirked.

"This is our table."

"Cool." I pulled out my phone and began looking through my music, wanting to find a different song. Muscles laughed.

"What he meant, was, move," a girl snapped. I took notice of her long blonde hair and beauty mark, and realised she was one of those girls.

"Sorry, Angel, but no."

"Emmett, make her move!"

Muscles, (sorry, Emmett), kissed her cheek, and stood in front of me menacingly.

I looked up properly and took in the sight of the five unworldly beings.

Of the three boys, one was big — muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair. Another was taller, leaner, but still muscular, and honey blond, and he was kinda really hot, except that he looked like he was going to pass out from nausea or stomach cramps. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bronze- colored hair. I decided he was Goldie. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students.

The girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her back. The short girl was pixie like, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction.

And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town.

"I don't see your name anywhere, sorry, babes."

The one that looked like he was in pain sat down next to me, and looked me directly in the eyes. I felt like leaving suddenly, like I had something else to do.

I blinked hard, and pushed that thought away. Sexy looked confused, but bounced back.

"I really think you should go," he whispered, taking one of my hands. The feelings came back, stronger than ever, and I pushed them away.

I concentrate on my hand, making them grow warmer, till they were a fiery hot even through my gloves. He jerked his hand back, and I smirked. He seemed to have a private conversation with Goldie, and I returned to my food.

Pixie sat down on my other side, and began talking excitedly. "I love your shirt!" she said. I looked down, confused. My jacket was still done up. I assumed she saw it earlier. Angel glared at Pixie.

"Okay," I said, trying to halt the conversation.

"Where'd you get it?"

"I stole it," I said truthfully. It was one of my roommates, and when she flipped out on the school and left in a flurry, I took this and a few choker collars she left behind.

Pixie looked horrified. Good.

Angel sat down and sighed loudly, making Muscles tuck her hair behind her ear and whisper reassuringly to her.

"Okay, can you leave?" I asked. They were pissing me off.

"Why? Do we make you uncomfortable?" Goldie asked. I rolled my eyes. Stupid Goldie, He seemed to be holding back a laugh.

"No, but you are annoying me," I snapped. "Either shut up or move."

They looked amused, as though they found my anger funny.

"Oh, she's perfect," Pixie breathed, closing her eyes. "It's a match made in heaven."

"Alright, Pixie, calm down the freakiness," I said with no true malice. She was kinda amusing me, and it was funny watching Angel boil at her words, whatever they meant.

"Right, first order of business," said Muscles, apparently over trying to scare me. He must have said something to Angel, cause she gave me a miniscule smile and stopped glaring. It was the strangest thing ever.

"Hmm?" I asked, taking a piece of bread and eating it.

"I'm Emmett, that's Rosalie, Jasper, Edward, and Alice."

Edward looked at me carefully, and I wondered what he was thinking. "Good to know," I said.

The bell rang, and I stood up.

"Wait!" Alice said, as I started walking. She was apparently over her daydream. "Sit with us next lunch?"

I gave a small nod, completely baffled at the last few minute's events. I flipped my sunglasses up despite the rain pouring outside, and walked out of the cafeteria.

I had Biology II for the next two periods. I walked to class in silence, ignoring the other students. I sat down at a table in the back, next to a girl named Angela. I noticed Bella at the front sitting next to Goldie.

"Hi," she said, giving me a little wave.

"Hello," I said I was in a good mood, and she seemed quiet enough.

"Are you okay with partnering?" she asked, when we were assigned a lab task.

"Sure. I've done it before, though."

"Okay."

And that was it. She looked over the slides and I corrected her mistakes, and it was an easy friendship we started building. I left that class with my heart feeling a lot lighter. Despite my flaws and worries, and the fact that I was frightened as hell to accidentally kill her and the five, (who Angela told me were the Cullens, all adopted by an Esme and Carlisle) I was happy to have some somewhat friends.

"Hey," I said, sitting down at the table. Only Alice was there, and I gave a groan as she started pulling at my hair, telling me how cool it was. I decided to ignore her, and let her begin braiding it, waiting for the others to turn up.

"Hey, Angel," I said, when Rosalie turned up. She smiled, but I'm pretty sure it was at the name and not me.

"Hey, Ana," Emmett said, swinging his books at me, making me duck.

"No," I said, whacking him on the arm. Damn it was strong.

"No?"

"No."

"Fine."

"So Morgana, how's Forks?" Edward asked.

"Mora?"

"No. Wet, cold, like London," I said simply, taking a bite out of my apple.

"Do you miss your mother?"

"Mori?"

"No, and no."

"Why?" Emmett asked, taking a break from nicknames.

"I went to boarding schools and never saw her," I explained. I had no idea why I was being so nice to them, but somehow that didn't matter.

"Schools?" Rosalie questioned, turning her head towards me.

"Yup. I got kicked out of so many it's ridiculous."

"Why?"

"Next question," I said, trying to not think about fire and shock treatments. I felt the metal of the table bend with the heat as I leant on my elbows, and I pulled back.

"Mo?" Emmett asked. I shot him a dark glare.

"No."