It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the westbedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it hadbeen belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light bluewalls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window —these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had evermade were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. Thedesk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modemstapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulationfrom my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chairfrom my baby days was still in the corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I wouldhave to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on thatfact.
One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left mealone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogetherimpossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smileand look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at thesheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. I wasn't in the mood to goon a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have tothink about the coming morning.
Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred andfifty-seven — now fifty-eight — students; there were more than sevenhundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids herehad 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 thethings that go with living in the valley of the sun.
Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or redhair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but softsomehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eyecoordination to play sports without humiliating myself — and harming bothmyself and anyone else who stood too close.
When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bagof bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myselfup after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror as Ibrushed through my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, butalready I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty — it wasvery clear, almost translucent-looking — but it all depended on color. Ihad no color here.
Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that Iwas lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. Andif I couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, whatwere my chances here?
I didn't relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn'trelate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to thananyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactlythe same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same thingsthrough my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs.
果断顶上的说 ，好帖就是这样炼出来的....
