CHAPTER THREE
text book introduction

I'd like to say that each day since stepping into Forks had been a small adventure, a fresh pulse in my long and tangled existence. But it hadn't. Christmas came and went like a shadow slipping away, most of it spent locked inside my room, brooding. The idea of celebrating a birth, of exchanging presents, felt like a cruel mockery, a bright ritual I no longer belonged to.

Maybe in another lifetime, I would have loved winter celebrations, the quiet magic of snowflakes, the warm glow of candlelight in frost-bitten windows. But those details had faded, worn thin by time and distance. Instead, the only thing Christmas gave me now was the cold. Frost clung to the roads like fragile glass, turning every step outside into a dance on an ice rink, sparkling beneath a dull, heavy sky.

January brought school. I started back on the first day after the break, not ideal, but better than waiting for a later start I could choose to avoid. I wanted to go, after all. The temptation was a lure I could not resist: the young, vibrant blood rushing in their veins. I was like a child in a toyshop, eyes wide with longing, yet always out of reach.

What was forbidden to them was an abomination in me. The craving gnawed at my insides, but somehow, it fueled me. Smelling it, breathing it in, it became almost my own scent, a fragile mask beneath my skin. To others of my kind, I would blend in, smell normal enough to avoid suspicion, but beneath that surface, the truth simmered quietly.

That morning, I almost stayed behind in my threadbare room, cocooned in shadows. But the sun broke through the clouds for the first time in days, casting thin ribbons of gold onto the empty streets. I had been granted the ability to hide, to cloak myself, but the sun remained my greatest enemy. When its light struck my skin, it betrayed me: my flesh shimmering with an eerie translucence, my fingertips glittering faintly like shards of glass. If the day were hot enough, a rarity here, they might truly sparkle. But fear kept me grounded, held me still in the cold shade.

Still, today, I braved it. Teeth clenched, I blinked fiercely against the brightness during the drive to school, wondering how my eyes must look beneath that glare. I hadn't seen sunlight in so long.

They should be golden, bright and gleaming, like a necklace forged from flame, fresh from feeding the night before. Or darker still, onyx black like the eyes of the last vampire I encountered, wild with hunger, broken by want. But mine were always a muted brown, shifting between amber flecks and chocolate rims, a quiet camouflage shaped by my diet. They had never been gold or black. I'd never dared to see if they could turn red.

Life had granted me centuries of knowledge, yet one thing remained a mystery: my gift. Vampires were said to be born with a gift, though no one knew from where or how. Until 1920, I'd survived without understanding it. Now, I was thankful to have it, even if it was a riddle I couldn't solve.

The scent of young blood hit me as I turned into the school's car park. The buildings sprawled before me, more a low-budget retreat than an academy. Towering pines framed the edges, their scent, pine and damp earth, nearly drowning out the scent of the people crowding around.

I must have looked strange, smiling quietly to myself. My hair was pinned back in an old-fashioned style I'd loved in my repeated youth, an era far beyond vintage charm. A folder was tucked beneath my arm, a small green bag slung over my shoulder, barely big enough for anything of value. Closing the door behind me, I made my way toward the only destination I could think of: the reception.

I didn't mind the routine. The schedule swallowed my days whole, leaving only a faint sense of unfulfillment in its wake.

Cars droned into the lot, filling spaces, spilling out students who wandered with bored faces. Pairs of friends linked arms, laughter lifting even the dullest moment. Perhaps the sun was a small mercy, brightening what threatened to be a tedious day. I couldn't blame anything except the relentless pallor the pale light cast on my skin.

My feet shuffled up the steps, then over a grassy path lined with planters and the occasional noticeboard. Of all the schools I'd known, this was the least like a place of learning. It reminded me instead of a rehab centre, surrounded by green and muted blossoms, but dry and dull inside, like a prison with no walls.

My pulse would've quickened once, when I was someone else, in another life. Now, it stayed infuriatingly still when a boy stepped into my path with the easy grin of someone who'd never been hunted.

"Hi?"

He wore his curiosity on his sleeve, head cocked, blue eyes blinking behind windswept hair.

"You're new, aren't you?"

I nodded, watching how his grin widened as if he'd won something.

"I'm Mike. I'm a junior."

"Me too," I said, softening my voice. "Elide."

There was a flicker of something when I said my name. Not recognition- more like momentary intrigue. A word he hadn't heard before.

"Where you from?"

"Canada," I lied. The vowels bent politely in my mouth.

"You don't sound Canadian."

I smiled, just enough. "I was born in England. Moved around."

"Still," he said, falling into step beside me, "don't get why anyone would move to Forks."

The warmth in his tone was meant to disarm, but all I could hear was the steady thrum of blood beneath skin. The way his freckles darkened against pale cheeks in the soft hallway light. So human. So unguarded.

I bit the inside of my lip, not out of hunger, but caution. I hadn't been this close in a while.

"It's not bad," I shrugged.

Mike blinked, caught off guard by the honesty in my tone.

"Do me a favour?" I asked. "Show me where reception is."

His grin returned. "It would be my pleasure."

Reception smelled like ink and stress. A woman handed me a timetable, a letter, and a map with a practised smile, her fingertips stained from years of copying schedules. I slung my bag onto my shoulder with a murmured thanks, stepping back toward the door.

"We'll need that form by the end of the day!" she called after me.

I stepped into the hallway just as the bell rang, the air now electric with chatter and movement. Students spilt out like a tide. I stood for a moment in the middle of the current, the noise brushing against my skin like static.

Then: Mike. His shoulder propped against the wall, one foot bracing his lean like a practised routine. He straightened too quickly when he spotted me, almost stumbling.

"Biology next by any chance?" he asked, appearing at my side again.

I smiled, tilting my head. "You scared me."

"You didn't look scared."

"I don't have to scream to be scared," I said, already walking.

"Alright, Canada," he said, trailing behind.

Mike talked as we walked. About the cafeteria food, the gym, and which teachers to avoid. I tried to listen, truly. I wanted to understand the lives they lived, the details they clung to. Humans always believed everything mattered so much.

But all I could think about was the scent- the relentless flood of it. Dozens of pulsing, living things around me, each one a heartbeat counting down.

By the time we reached the biology classroom, the lights overhead seemed too harsh. There were only three seats left empty. Mike nudged me with his elbow and beamed as he weaved toward the back, sliding into a chair as if the room were his stage.

"Ah, you must be Miss Masters," the teacher said, his voice gruff but not unkind.

I nodded and took the offered textbook. It smelled of dust and decades. "They asked me to get a form signed by all my teachers."

"No problem. Remind me to give it to you at the end of the lesson."

Mr. Banner tucked the paper on his desk and turned toward the room. I braced myself for the dreaded introduction, but he only scanned the class, eyes snagging on one of the half-filled rows.

"There's a seat next to Miss Stanley. Raise your hand, Jessica."

A girl near the middle raised her arm half-heartedly, elbow anchored lazily on the desk and blocked by a tall boy beside her. On the other side of the aisle, Mike watched with the same familiar grin.

Jessica Stanley didn't look at me as I slid into the seat beside her. Her hair was a dull brown in the fluorescent lighting, and she radiated the kind of perfume that was meant to smell expensive but registered as a headache.

"Hi," she said eventually, still not meeting my eyes. Her gaze remained glued to Mike.

I recognised her instantly. One of the girls who had passed my car the week before, laughing too loud and too sharp.

"Hey," I murmured.

My bag thudded softly against the leg of the desk. I could feel Mike leaning toward me across the aisle like gravity was pulling him.

"So, what was Canada like?" he asked, grinning.

Jessica finally turned to look at me, her expression twisting slightly as she took me in. I watched recognition bloom behind her eyes, faint but certain.

"Hey," she said, her tone overly sweet, "didn't I see you in the woods the other day?"

"The woods?"

"Yeah. I was with Angela."

I tilted my head thoughtfully. "I was walking around town. Decided to take a look. It was a nice day."

Jessica's expression flickered. Mike had started to listen again.

"Yeah," she said, her voice lifting. "It's nice to get out in nature now and again. I try to, like, all the time."

Mike brightened. "We should totally go on a hike sometime!"

Jessica laughed, brushing a hand along his arm. "Definitely."

Then, unexpectedly, they turned to me.

"Elide?" Mike asked.

I blinked, surprised to be included. "Sure."

We agreed to plan it at lunch the next day. I had no doubt Mike would find me again. I was already part of his novelty. The new girl, the foreign one, the blank slate.

And sure enough, he did. After English, Mike appeared at my elbow, grinning. Jessica followed moments later, her smile wide enough to look painful.

They led me to the middle of the dining hall, where two circular tables had been pushed together. Mike pulled out a chair for me, motioning with exaggerated charm.

The girl beside me was the one I'd seen with Jessica in the woods the other day. Angela. Up close, she seemed even taller, though she sat with her arms folded and her spine curled slightly inward, like she was trying to disappear. Her eyes never met mine, but I smiled at her anyway, softly, carefully, watching as her face turned pink at the attention. The blush caught me off guard.

"Guys, this is Elide," Mike announced, all enthusiasm, dragging a metal chair between Angela and me with a clatter that made a few heads turn. "She's coming hiking with us this weekend."

"Nice," a boy across from us said. I recognised him vaguely- he'd been in my English class, scribbling stick figures into the margins of his notes.

"Really," I murmured, mostly to myself. "Doesn't anything more exciting happen around here?"

Jessica laughed, flipping her hair like it weighed nothing. "Nope. The last thing worth talking about was, like, two weeks ago, and that was just Tyler breaking up with Tina."

I cringed inwardly, and as if summoned by name and gossip, another chair scraped behind me.

I smelled him before I saw him: cheap cologne layered over adolescent sweat, a sugary drink on his breath, something else too warm and too alive.

His head popped between Mike and me, so close his cheek nearly brushed mine. His smile was bright enough to hurt.

"You mentioned me?" he said, winking. "Tyler."

"I gathered."

He smirked, pulling up a seat on Mike's other side. He kept glancing my way, as if waiting for me to look again, to say something more. I didn't. I didn't need to.

For the rest of lunch, they talked about teachers, classes, and names I didn't know. Or maybe I'd heard them already and simply hadn't cared enough to remember. Gossip poured like syrup across the table, slow and cloying. Jessica brought up someone's breakup. Mike recounted a story about a substitute teacher who'd cried during a film. Tyler made a joke about gym class and flexed his arm for show.

I kept quiet. It was easier that way. They didn't notice the silence as much as they filled it.

Outside, the sunlight filtered through the cloud cover for once, casting fractured patterns across the dusty cafeteria windows. I watched the shifting light, the way it caught in the smears on the glass, and imagined stepping out into it, skin humming, eyes sharp, the scent of damp pine in my throat.

Angela tried to pull me into conversation a few times. She asked how I liked Forks so far, and I told the truth, or part of it.

"It's not as bad as it could be," I said. And that seemed to satisfy her.

But she couldn't know what I meant. She couldn't feel the way the walls pressed too close, or how every hallway smelled like recycled air and blood and perfume. She couldn't understand that I hadn't just left Canada because I had to. I'd left because something inside me had hollowed out. Because I'd lived in the same day for too long, each one bleeding into the next like overexposed film. And I'd wanted something to change. I still did.

But Forks hadn't given me change. It had given me repetition.

And I wasn't sure if it ever would.