Bright Like the Sun picspam part 1
This awesome story you can read here. =]
I have never in my life been somewhere so gray. It’s like when you adjust the colour from “vivid” to “movie” on the TV, and all of a sudden the colour just goes off somewhere to die, leaving behind some faded grayish mockery of a colour in its place. It’s depressing. I’ve been in Forks for less than twenty minutes and I already feel depressed.
“What was that?”
“What?” I ask, without turning away from the window.
“You made a noise. I thought maybe you wanted to say something.”
“I didn’t make a noise,” (....)
“Yeah, you made kind of a grunt noise.”
Yeah, that’s not embarrassing at all. “I was just thinking... is it always this gray?”
I stop in the middle of some kind of outdoor hallway in an attempt to get my bearings. On the wall there’s a sign that says cafeteria that points to the left, and another one that says Auditorium which points to the right, but nothing to indicate where the administration offices might be. That’s some lovely planning they’ve done there.
As I’m walking into Biology, the teacher standing at the front points out where I’m supposed to sit. It’s the bench table in the back corner on the wall side of the room. There’s a boy already sitting on the stool next to the wall, but he’s so far into the shadows I can’t make anything out. Taking the aisle seat I notice the small amount of muted natural light coming through the windows peters out about four feet from me, like it wasn’t strong enough to make it just a couple more feet.
Pulling my stuff out of my bag, I glance at him sideways. He’s pale, really pale, but cute. He doesn’t really acknowledge my presence, but I’m not exactly falling over myself to say hi, so I’m not really in a position to be offended. (....)
I look down at my notes, trying to figure out where I left off writing so I can catch up before he changes the overhead again, when the room gets brighter. I look out the window to see the sun edging its way out from behind the clouds. The sunlight makes its way rapidly across the room, and I can just barely feel a brush of warmth on my cheek as it touches my face.
Suddenly the chair next to me scrapes across the linoleum, clattering to the floor, and the guy who was sitting next to me jostles my shoulder as he rushes out of the room. I watch him leave in surprise, and then turn to look at the stool lying on the floor.
“What’s wrong with you?” I mutter as I sit down next to Jess. Her chin is propped up on her palm as she stares forlornly across the cafeteria at a table occupied by four exceptionally pale people, and an empty chair.
“Jessica’s lovesick,” Mike responds mockingly.
“Shut up... I’m just worried.”
“About what?” I ask, poking my plastic fork at something vaguely resembling chicken on my plate.
“Edward,” Mike supplies with a dreamy sigh. His silent laughter turns into a flinch when Jess kicks him under the table, really hard.
“It’s not funny. He hasn’t been in school since Monday. Something might have happened to him,” Jessica scolds.
"I demand a rematch.”
I pretend to think it over for a moment, and then reply, “No way.” I won, but it was definitely a fluke. If we play again I’m gonna lose hard, and I’d like to be able to hold this over him for a while. At least until the next thing he finds to laugh at me for.
“Come on! You can’t play once and walk away,” Jake cajoles.
“Yeah, especially when you beat him,” Billy laughs, coming up next to my side of the couch.
“Beat meonce, AND you kept making all those weird noises, it distracted me.”
“Uh huh,” I reply, rolling my eyes at his excuses.
“I don’t think you’re fooling anybody, buddy,” Billy says, as we share a knowing look. Jacob’s full of it.
“Just one more game, even if I win you still beat me the first time.”
Mike looks like he’s about to say something, when Jess excitedly squeals, “He’s back!”
I follow her gaze to the entrance of the cafeteria, and see Scary Weird Dude walking towards the back table with the empty chair.
“Anaphase,” SWCIFD states as he moves away from the microscope to write it on his sheet. I assume he’s talking to me, even though he never actually acknowledges my presence, because... who else would he be talking to?
I turn the microscope towards me and look through the eyepiece. He’s right, it is indeed anaphase. I write it down on the line next to Slide #1: on my work sheet.
“You don’t trust me?” he asks flatly. He doesn’t sound offended, or even vaguely curious. I’m getting the impression he doesn’t really care. He breaks his complete silence to ask me something he doesn’t really want to know? He’s messing with me. The bastard’s trying to make me feel awkward. Maybe I should add... no, it’s too long already.
We throw our backpacks in the trunk with our overnight stuff. Jess’ kind of staring off into space beside the driver’s door when I come up beside her to get in the back. It isn’t until I move to snap her out of it that I realize she’s not so much spacey as staring... at SWCIFD, who's walking across the parking lot with the petite girl with short black hair, and the blonde guy she’s apparently doing from the Caf. The girl is walking between them talking very energetically, and SWCIFD smirks at something she says.
(...)Behind her I notice SWCIFD staring at me with a curious expression. He doesn’t look away when I catch his eye; he just keeps staring. I give him a quizzical look, and then he seems frustrated and looks away. That dude is seriously weird.
It happens again not ten minutes later, but this time I’m not confused. I know exactly what he’s doing. The fucker’s trying to mess with me again.
I hip check my bedroom door open, dump my armful of stuff down, and then rush to kick the bra on my floor under my bed. I get it under before he’s through the door, but I lose my balance in the process, and unceremoniously drop down onto the foot of my bed.
“Where do you want this?”
“Just dump it,” I answer, waving my hand dismissively. “It’s nothing that’s going to break.”
I reach down and grab my laptop off the floor.
“You can take a seat,” I offer, indicating the desk chair across from the foot of my bed. “I have to email my mom, before I forget. I don’t want her to flip out on me again.”
He nods, and pulls out the chair, spinning it around to face me, before taking a seat.
It’s rainy, and windy, and cold. My knees are sore, my palms sting, and I think I might have done something to my lower back.
These are the things I mutter about, in-between curses, as I rub the damp dirt off my hands again. Jake just laughs quietly, muttering “we’re almost there” and “you’ve got to be careful” amongst other not-fucking-helpful things.
We start off on the trail again. I’ve come this far, I’m making it to the tidal pools, even if it kills and/or seriously injures me.
The path follows the landscape of the forest, which means it goes up and down, over rock outcrops and around looming trees. We’re currently picking our way down a moderately steep hill.
I pull into a parking spot at the end of a row, but even with the snow chains the truck slides forward into the, thankfully empty, spot in front of it. At least now I won’t have to back out.
I carefully step down from the cab, and make my way around to the front of my truck.
I’m assessing the expanse of empty, icy pavement between my current position, and the front of the school, when a blue van makes a sharp turn into the row I’m on. The turn’s too sharp, and the van starts sliding sideways towards me, I mean right at me, tires screeching as it moves.
I can’t believe I was right.
And then my brain just stops.
I’m not hit from the front, and crushed back against my truck hood. The impact comes from the side, knocking me towards the ground.
