Ever After You

Chapter Two
September 9th, 2002

There were new kids in school, a fact that apparently seemed to astound and amaze the student population. They were, supposedly, the adopted children of a new ER doctor at Dover General.

Their names, descriptions, and rumors about them floated off the lips of everyone in the hallways.

There were three of them, that was verified. Two were seniors and one was a junior.

Apparently, Kelly, who worked in the school’s office over the summer, saw them. Kelly told Amber who informed Kyle who spilled to Jill who confirmed to Lisa that there were two boys and a girl. But that’s just word of mouth. Like a game of Telephone, fact can, and often is, replaced with fiction in the hallways of Dover High.

But the word bouncing off the steel of the metal locker doors is that they are all extraordinarily beautiful. Dazzling was the word Kelly supposedly used.

Jane heard all of this and more than she really had any care to know. New students only meant more people in the crowded halls. It only meant more people to bump into Jane, for she was truly invisible to her classmates.

That was how she liked it. That was how she easily heard every rumor on her peers’ lips. That was how she learned fact from fiction. Jane enjoyed not being seen. It was how she kept her secrets safe.

- x -

Sitting in homeroom on her first day of junior year, Jane wished the year was already over. She wanted to be done with school. She wanted to get of Dover as soon as she could. Jane wanted nothing more to leave behind her house, her school, and this town.

Her first period of the day, US History 2, luckily flew by as Mrs. VanderWeert spent the entire forty-four minutes outlining the class syllabus and rules. Tuning out the sound of the teacher as she droned on, Jane turned her attention to the window. It was raining, although that was nothing new in Dover. Jane smiled as she could faintly hear the sound of rain drops upon the roof of the school, above the sounds of whispers and her teacher.

Her gym class flew by, as everyone assembled in the auditorium for their yearbook pictures. Dover High, much to the annoyance of most of the student body, took pictures for the yearbook on the first and second days of school.

Stealing a seat as far away from everyone else as she could, she pulled out her copy of Sense and Sensibility and was soon submerged in the civilities and society of Jane Austen’s story.

Much to her displeasure, she was pulled from her book by a commotion. Scanning the auditorium, she saw that the commotion had been caused by a boy. One of the new ones, she presumed. Given his rather large, burly size, she assumed he was one of the seniors. The boy was also tall and surprisingly pale.

He too was sitting off by himself, not socializing with everyone. It seemed impossible to Jane that this new boy wasn’t aware of the attention he drew to himself, simply by sitting there. It seemed every girl in the room couldn’t stop staring. Rolling her eyes, Jane returned to her book.

- x -

Walking down the hallway to her next class, Jane already heard rumors flying about the new boy in her gym class, Emmett Cullen.

The boys discussed whether he’d join the wrestling team. The girls discussed what his muscles would feel like. But everyone discussed how intimidating he’d looked. Jane scoffed to herself at that: the boy seemed harmless.

Jane sat emotionlessly through her AP Chemistry class while Mr. Opremchek handed out and reviewed lab safety protocol. Luckily, Mr. O was a fan of assigning partners through what he called the ‘Lab Partner Lotto,’ otherwise Jane would have to sit through the humiliation of not having a partner, yet again.

Jane cut through the crowd of students in the hallways as she made her way to her Mythology class.

Mrs. Roeser smiled at Jane as she entered; having had Mrs. Roeser as a Mythology teacher for the past two years, Jane had become very well acquainted with the teacher.

Sitting in class for the forty-four prescribed minutes, Jane was bored as she always was on the first day. All of the teachers went over the same things with the same lines.

However, the presence of the new girl seemed to disrupt the attention span of the entire class. Well…mainly, she captured the gazes of every male in the room and the jealous glares of every female in the room.

Rosalie Hale was the name whispered upon every pair of lips in the class. The girl, no doubt, was aware that everyone was talking about her. But she must’ve been used to it. She was uncommonly beautiful.

The bell rang loudly; the sound was soon replaced by the commotion of moving bodies out of their chairs and out the door.

Making her way to the cafeteria and through the lunch line, Jane sat down at a table by herself and pulled out her book to read.

While she read, she ate her lunch, too consumed in her book to pay attention to the havoc in the cafeteria.

Once she finished her lunch, she grudgingly put down her book and got up to throw out her trash.

Sitting down again at the table she occupied by herself, she glanced around the lunch room, noting the never changing groups of friends sitting together.

However, the new additions to her school caught her eye. Sitting at a table by themselves were the three new students. Jane saw Emmett, from gym, Rosalie, from Mythology, and the third boy, whom she’d not seen yet. He was obviously more slender than Emmett and younger than both of them.

Most of the lunchroom was buzzing about them and they were not being very subtle about it. With another eye roll, Jane returned to her book.

Once lunch was over, Jane floated through Precalculus, barely paying any attention to the ramblings of Mr. Hunt. Mr. Hunt was a good teacher, but Jane hated math with a passion.

Escaping her most hated subject, Jane gladly entered her most beloved class. English with Ms. Henry. Ms. Henry was, by far, Jane’s favorite teacher.

The bell rang, sending everyone to find a seat in flurry. Moments later, one of the new boys, the more slender of the two, entered the classroom.

Ms. Henry turned to him and only stared.

The boy flashed her a smile, “Are you Ms. Henry?”
“I uh…I um…” Ms. Henry, for the first time, looked as if she was speechless.

Looking around the room, Jane noted the dreamy looks on the faces of every girl in the classroom, while a majority of the boys looked as though they were sizing up the new boy.

“My name is Edward Cullen,” The boy put forward. His voice was smooth and even. The girl to the right of Jane let out a light giggle. Jane merely rolled her eyes at the girl’s antics.

“Uh…ye-yes…we were expecting you. Next time…try to be on time to class…alright, Mr. uh Cullen?”

“Of course, ma’am.” He smiled at her again.

“Oh…well…it’s quite alright.” The woman said, sounding a bit flustered. “Well…” she turned her gaze away from the boy and surveyed the room. “You may take the empty desk next to Jane. Jane please raise your-”

But there was no need for Jane to raise her hand so Edward could find her. Before Ms. Henry had even finished her sentence, Edward was already making his way down the row of the seats toward the empty one on her left.

As the new boy neared, Jane met his gaze. She expected no friendly smile from this boy she barely knew, however she didn’t expect the calculating look upon his face.

His eyes were narrowed slightly at her with a frown firmly set in place on his face.
In response, she raised an eyebrow questioningly.

Disliking me must be contagious at this school, Jane thought to herself as she turned to face the front of the room. And he hasn’t even been here for an entire day.

But the issues this Edward person had with her were of no consequence to Jane. If he chose to dislike her, like everyone else, it wouldn’t make any difference at all in Jane’s daily life.

English ended much too soon for Jane’s liking, although she was cheered by the fact that she only had study hall left to prolong her escape from the school

Jane headed to the school’s library for her study hall period, her single sanctuary in the entire world. Soon enough, her study hall, and last period of the day, ended; allowing Jane to finally leave. However, Jane knew she was only trading one prison for another.

She walked happily through the parking lot and in her peripheral vision caught sight of the Nissan 350Z that was sitting in the student parking lot. Knowing that it must be the new kids’, she continued walking on.

She stood still on the sidewalk on her way back to her house and let the rain fall down on her. The best thing her parents had ever done for her was choose to live in a place where it almost always rained.

Jane had an hour until she had to be home. Luckily, her father was off on a business trip for the week so she didn’t have to deal with his demanding her home as soon as school ended.

For now, she could just walk slowly home, enjoying the feel of the rain on her skin.

- x -

The first few days of school passed quietly for Jane. With everyone still being acclimated to the schedule of school after a long summer break, there wasn’t much homework. There wasn’t much discussion of important matters during classes. This allowed Jane to observe.

Jane observed everyone, quietly. People, no matter how much they detested her or how much she couldn’t stand them, interested Jane. She wanted to understand why people did what they did. She wanted to understand their choices.

There were two good things about the new kids, to Jane. One was that it gave Jane a chance to observe how people interacted with them. Most of the time, everyone acted stupidly. And the second good thing was that she got to observe the new kids.

They kept to themselves and barely ate anything. The only time she heard any of them talk was during class when called upon by a teacher. But other than that, they were just as quiet as Jane. During lunch, they sat together, not eating or talking. Emmett, the large one, and Rosalie were dating, Jane assumed as they were often very close, holding hands and such.

This new fact disappointed many students. Countless times during lunch, Jane witnessed girl after girl gather up the courage to walk to their table and ask out the kid from her English class, but to no avail. He turned all of them down.

Jane had no interaction with any of the new kids until the fourth day of school, during study hall.

Happy that the day was almost over, Jane found an empty near the back of the large room and pulled out her book but soon became too preoccupied in the view of the rain falling outside to become entranced in the text of the story.

As Jane became distanced from reality, she only barely heard the quiet scuffle of a chair being dragged across the carpeting of the library floor as it was pulled back from the table.

“Aren’t you a bit young to be in a junior English class, or in high school for that matter?”

Her eyes snapped, now narrowed, to the boy sitting across from her. It was that new boy, Edward. She could feel her face burning from his question. Jane could tell from his tone that he did not mean to mock her, but rather that he was simply curious. Unfortunately for him, his poor choice of words and curiosity only provided to not serve well with Jane.

Jane resisted the urge to shake her lanky brown hair in her face as she was apt to do. Jane’s mother had not been the most health conscience during her pregnancy and as a result Jane was born with a condition that made her appear years younger than she actually was. It was one of the many reasons people didn’t acknowledge Jane. She was branded as a freak among her peers because of this. It was also one of the many reasons Jane despised her mother.

“How young, exactly,” She began in an annoyed hiss as she shoved her glasses further up the bridge of her nose, “do you think I am?”

The boy smiled, as if the conversation was merely a joke. “Well, you look twelve-”

“I’m sixteen.” She snapped before turning her attention back to her book. However as she was turning the page, the book was pulled from her grasp.

“Hey!” she protested.

“First of all, you need to lower your voice. You’re in a library.” He teased quietly, “Second of all, you need to relax.”

“And you need to give me my book back,” She shot back.

“Are you always this high-strung?” He mused as he absentmindedly flipped through the pages of her book with slender, pale fingers.

“Are you always this annoying?” She asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Edward chuckled as he rested his forearms on the table and leaned closer to Jane. “Only on Tuesdays.”

“It’s Thursday,” she deadpanned as she watched his movements with her arms crossed in front of her.

The boy was silent for a moment as he leaned back in his chair and observed her.

“My name is Edward Cullen.”

“I know.”

“And your name is Jane.”

“Congratulations, you win a prize.” She replied sardonically.

Edward opened his mouth to speak again but was interrupted by the loud ringing of the bell.

He smiled at Jane as he stood up. “I’ll see you later Jane.”

“Wait!” Jane called as she stood up and grabbed her bag. “Aren’t you going to give me back my book?”

“No.” He replied back as another string of chuckles escaped from his lips.

Jane blinked and he was already leaving the library and merging with the hallway traffic.

With an annoyed sigh at her interaction with Edward, Jane pushed her way through the hallways of her school and stepped outside into the rain.