Her new friends explain that the Cullens are a family of wealthy and mysterious foster children who are also all dating one another—THIS IS THE REAL PLOT—because the dad, Dr. Cullen, is “like this foster dad slash matchmaker.” (Foster! It’s Australian for incest!) To recap, this teenager is saying that a local doctor legally adopts pairs of teenagers that he thinks would be romantically compatible, and makes them date, which they do. Absolutely no one acts like this is weird at all, Bella takes it completely in stride, and everyone forges ahead.
Bella has a class with one of the Cullens, Edward, and when she walks into the room, he vomits (blood, I guess?) into his mouth. He cannot stop staring at her and gagging for the entire period, and then tries to switch out of the class to get away from her. When the registrar won’t let him switch, he says, “Fine, I’ll just have to endure it,” and then stops coming to school ENTIRELY because Bella stinks so bad. Hahahahaha.
Bella goes out for a Gardenburger with Dad and does such a bad job with the ketchup bottle it seems like she should go to the hospital. She’s still thinking about Edward and how he hurt her feelings: “I planned to confront him and demand to know what his problem was. But he never showed.”
Bella’s dad tells her that the security guard at the mill got killed by some kind of animal.
Bella: Animal?
Dad: You’re not in Phoenix anymore.
Yeah, they definitely have animals in Phoenix, sir!
It’s not a spoiler if I mention that the Cullens are obviously vampires using the seamless and extremely low-profile cover story of “weird incestuous foster family,” right? Because I cannot wait one more second to talk about how fucking bananas it is that any of these old-ass sexy corpses still go to HIGH SCHOOL. You don’t have to keep going to high school!!!!!! If a Forks, Washington, truancy cop comes up to you and says, “Shouldn’t you be in high school right now?” just be like, “Yeah, I’m twenty-five, haha, yeah, I know I look young.” DONE!
Regardless, Edward returns to biology class and is assigned to be Bella’s lab partner. Which is a fucking huge win for her, since he’s already taken biology 179 times. His first year of biology, they dissected humans.
Bella tells Edward that she doesn’t really like cold, wet things [twitch twitch], which is awkward because he’s a cold, wet thing.
Edward: If you hate the cold and the rain so much, why did you move to the wettest place in the continental US?
Bella: It’s complicated.
Edward: I’m sure I can keep up. I’ve been alive for seven hundred years. I’ve read EVERY BOOK.
They twitch at each other for the rest of class.
From this point on, Edward is just constantly staring at Bella around corners and peeking at her from under manholes and disguising himself as a potted plant so he can watch her pee. Heads up: your children think that is romance now!
One day one of Bella’s friends is leaving the school parking lot in his van when he skids on some ice and almost crushes her. (Then Bella’s dad threatens to take that Black teenager’s driver’s license away, for revenge, which is extremely fucked up!) Edward zooms over there using wizard speed and stops the van with his boday.
Bella: How did you get over to me so fast?
Edward: I was standing right next to you, Bella…Bella, you hit your head. You’re confused…Nobody’s gonna believe you.
Gaslighting! Vampire gaslighting!!! Later that night, Bella wakes up and thinks she sees Edward inside her room watching her sleep. But he’s not. OR WAS HE? (Yes!!!!!!!)
“That was the first night I dreamt of Edward Cullen.”
Bella and Edward become more and more erotically enthralled, but they’re teens (well, one teen and one EXTREMELY ELDERLY MAN), which means lots and lots and lots and lots of staring, and Edward constantly walking up to her and saying stuff like, “Bella, we shouldn’t be friends,” and “If you were smart, you’d stay away from me.” Dude, YOU CAME OVER HERE.
Bella invites him to go to the coast with the regular kids, but he’s like, “What if I’m not the hero? What if I’m the bad guy?” so, that’s a no, I guess.
At the beach, she runs into Jacob “Mud Pie” NeighborBoy and his friends, and this is as good a time as any to mention that this character is Native and they should have cast a Native actor! Bella asks, very rudely, “What are you, like, stalking me?” and Jacob says, “You’re on my beach, remember?” and Bella’s like, “What did your friends mean about ‘the Cullens don’t come here,’” and Jacob reveals that his tribe has an ancient legend about the Cullens SPECIFICALLY. An ancient legend about the group of foster children who go to her high school. “If they agree to stay off our land,” he explains, “then we won’t expose what they really are to the palefaces.” Oh! Okeydokey!
Bella decides to pop over to Port Angeles to get a book about Quileute legends so she can learn more about HER LAB PARTNER. In the dark and twisting alleys of Port Angeles, Bella is menaced by some Port Angeles rapists, but then Edward appears and rescues her in his lil vampire hatchback! He casually drops that he can read minds and then takes her out for mushroom ravioli. (Waiter: “You’re sure there isn’t anything I can get for you?” I don’t know, do you have a BOWL OF BLOOD??)
Edward tells Bella that he feels very protective of her, and also he can read the mind of every human in Forks AND Port Angeles except her. “It’s very frustrating.”
Edward: I don’t have the strength to stay away from you anymore.
Bella: Then don’t.
Their hands touch, erotically, and his is cold as ice. Because he’s dead. And old. Dude, Edward. Come on. All the other vampires are with other vampires! What could you possibly have in common with
