at dead of night | a twilight fanfiction

prologue

july 27, 2003

the sun was blinding outside, but in the distance i can see the clouds starting to gray. it was quiet, save for the radio station playing some of my papis' favorite songs, which contained a lot of songs in his mother language.

"how much longer?" i asked, my head leaning against the window of the passenger seat within the u-haul. i can see my mama driving behind us in our family car. the drive was a drag, at least it was when we were cooped up on the road for almost 22 hours if you don't count the nights in crappy motels for my parents to rest for a couple of hours. i bet my younger siblings were having fun bugging mama, while i was stuck in silence with papi, save for our occasional duets to vicente fernandez or juanes, or even ricky martin.

"give it another hour or two, we're almost there." papi answered, sparing me a glance before focusing back on the road. no point in really paying attention for other cars ahead, we haven't hit civilization since that last town, yakima, or something like that.

i sighed deeply, sinking further into the seat with the seat belt digging uncomfortably into my shoulder. i gazed back out the window, watching the blur of the greenery pass by, as the music filled the silence. 

'i just don't understand how we went from living in Las Cruces to on our way to forks, washington.' i thought to no one, watching the bottom of my sight water up with tears. i didn't dare letting my tears fall openly, or that would open a can of worms with papi and i didn't want to open that. my eyes just fluttered closed, and with the music and the ride lulling me to sleep, I might as well use these last two hours to rest.

___

july 25th, 2003

"cherie!" i heard my cousin call out, and i looked away from the car window to look at her with a smile. we were heading home from a month trip out for the summer, it was our little present from our respective parents for making it through freshman year of high school. they were dropping me off first and reconvene another time. 

lupe, my cousin, was quick to show me her phone screen. on the small screen was from her  boyfriend, markus, talking about how he missed her over the month span. she squealed to this revelation, which made me roll my eyes and bump her shoulder. 

"well, respond!" i said, laughing to seeing her click away at her motorola to type out her response to him. i was jealous, not of her having a boyfriend, but that she has a phone. my parents were running a "trial", seeing how well i was during freshman year then they would consider one. i just hoped i proved to them i can have my own phone, i want to text my friends, i heard some of the phones even had games on them!

"¿se disfrutaron tú viaje?" my uncle, lupes' dad, asked us from the drivers seat. we looked up at him, meeting his eyes in the rear view mirror and nodded. (did you enjoy your trip?)

"si, tia and lupe bought so much clothes!"  i revealed with a laugh, and the man looked to his wife in the passenger seat who simply smiled to her husband with fake innocence. the man just chuckled, holding her hand as he turned into our neighborhood.