"I always feel out of step with everyone around me—stumbling through life, it hurts so much. Everyone thinks I'm broken. They're right, because I am—I don't want to be normal!"
Isabella Swan flipped through the diary her predecessor had left behind. Between the cramped lines and jagged sentences it was obvious: the girl who'd written this had problems—deep ones. Long-term rejection had worn her down into a kind of tiredness that lived in her bones.
To fit in, the girl had tried. She learned how to mirror the people around her—teachers, classmates, her mother, and yes, her mother's current husband. She joined clubs, went shopping with the girls, watched the boys play basketball, stumbled through debate practice, spent weekends doing random volunteer work she didn't care about, and pretended to be interested in topics that bored her to death. She tried to look like someone who belonged.
But life isn't a payoff machine. The more she tried, the more the effort hollowed her out. Her pale face slowly tightened into a permanent heaviness; the bright smile lost its sparkle. All that effort and she still ended up labeled—freak, quiet, outcast.
One prank went wrong, the frightened girl overreacted—and that's when the traveler jumped in and took over.
"What a naive kid. You mess with her, she gets revenge? Nice." Isabella dug out the previous girl's makeup and, after sorting through it, used primer, foundation, powder, an eyebrow pencil and lipstick to build a light, careful face. The pale undertone faded a few degrees; she studied the reflection and nodded.
That, she decided, was the main reason the girl had been bullied.
I'm just too damn pretty.
A princess who ought to command storms and thrones had lived like a maid. Isabella felt sorry for the old life. She had fantasies—storming the campus, making all the boys and girls who'd tormented the previous girl kneel and sing "Conquest." But those fantasies didn't come true: the girl's social skills had been so bad her mother had arranged a transfer.
The cold acceptance letter snapped Isabella out of the "I'm beautiful" loop.
"Forks High? Are you serious? Is this a joke?" She dragged her mother into confirmation.
If you could birth a beauty like Isabella, your mother certainly wasn't hideous. Near forty, Renée Dwyer still kept a respectable look; her current husband was a broad-shouldered, solid man—a combination that told the usual story without needing words.
Renée stroked Isabella's hair. "Sweetheart, why such drama? You always wanted to be with your dad, remember? Go. Spend some time there, clear your head. Washington's climate is nice—much less dry than Arizona."
Isabella heard the subtext loud and clear: Get out. The longer you're with your father, the better. We're fine here—don't worry about us.
The next day her mother and stepfather left on a trip.
Washington State is not Washington, D.C.—they don't even point the same way on a map. Washington State sits at the far northwest of the country: ocean to the west, Canada to the north, a proper northerly state.
Isabella was being shipped from sweltering Arizona to damp, green Washington. Was that a problem? Would she run into danger along the way? Her mother didn't care.
"Bella's an adult now. She can handle this. When I was her age—" and on went the lecture.
Bella wanted to say: Mom, I just jumped into someone else's life two days ago. I don't know anything about Washington State!
No point arguing. Dawn found her wheeling a suitcase out the door.
Sunlight sliced through the trees in scattered beams, gilding the pavement. People hurried past—heads down, lives in tow—and Bella, heavy with thoughts, walked toward the station. She was saying goodbye to a city.
Phoenix—what a name. Phoenix, reborn from fire. Beautiful symbolism. And in a way it was fitting: the girl who'd died at work in a previous life had been reborn.
At first she'd counted herself lucky. Then she learned this world had Stark Industries and Oscorp. Luck, it turned out, had limits.
Her mother's letter: attend Forks High in Washington State. Lucky and unlucky collided—two strikes that together spelled cold.
Could this world be a mash-up—Twilight fused into the Marvel universe? Bella didn't need to solve metaphysical riddles.
From memory, Forks was an odd little place. North of town lived a pack of werewolves; south, a family of vampires. Now and then a vampire from out of town would race through. "Dangerous" wasn't the right word—more like alive in a way that made the hair on your arms stand up.
What could she do? Drop out of high school and start a company? She wasn't bright enough, and she had zero capital—about a thousand dollars to her name.
Her only practical plan: crash with her father in Forks, finish high school, and then apply to a college as far away as possible. Preferably another country.
"Isabella Swan? Global Airlines wishes you a pleasant journey." The attendant said the rote phrases and checked her luggage through.
After clearing security, her phone buzzed. She flipped open the old clamshell phone, glanced at the number, and answered.
"Hey, Mom."
"Hi, Bella—are you at the airport?" Her mother's tone was breezy and efficient. Bella's luck, it seemed, had been spent when she crossed over.
Was there no warmth in this family? Not exactly—more like a shallow current. Since the traveler had taken over, the mother's attention had shifted more and more to her husband. Today's trip merited only a perfunctory call.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You guys have fun." Bella's American politeness matched her mother's.
A few practiced lines, and the call ended.
She listened to the boarding announcements like a hawk—too many words could mean a canceled flight. The previous life had given her beauty; it had left nothing else of use. Her English vocabulary was fine, but she'd never actually lived in an English-speaking environment. Listening and speaking required her to translate whole sentences in her head before the words came out. With her mother it was worse: often she would have just decided how to answer when her mother was already on to the next sentence.
She had to pay attention—or important things would slip past her.