the ghost in the house

I woke up to the sound of rain tapping against the windowpane, a steady, rhythmic drumming that filled the otherwise silent room. The soft gray light of Forks seeped through the curtains, casting everything in a muted, dull glow. The air was stale, thick with the scent of dust and faint traces of something old, something forgotten. It was as if my childhood bedroom had been frozen in time, waiting in limbo, unsure whether to welcome me back or resent my return.

I lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of the silence pressing against me. I had expected to feel something more—nostalgia, relief, maybe even a shred of belonging. Instead, all I felt was the same hollowness that had followed me from Phoenix, the same emptiness that seemed to take up permanent residence in my chest.

The walls were still the same dull blue, but the space felt smaller, suffocating. The bed creaked as I sat up, running a hand through my tangled hair, my fingers catching on knots that I was too tired to deal with. This wasn't my room anymore, not really. It was just a space where I had once existed, where I had once been a child who believed in love and family and the idea that home was more than just four walls and a roof.

The smell of burnt bacon drifted upstairs, breaking through my thoughts. Charlie was trying. It was a small thing, but it meant something. He was never the type to be overly affectionate, but he had his ways—burning breakfast, shuffling awkwardly around me, giving me space while still letting me know he was there. It was more than I had expected.

I forced myself to stand, my body sluggish, unwilling. I had school today, I was a year below Bella. The floorboards groaned beneath my feet as I made my way to the dresser, pulling out a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I dressed quickly, avoiding the mirror, unwilling to look at the girl staring back at me—the one with tired eyes and a lost expression, the one who didn't quite belong anywhere.

Downstairs, Charlie sat at the kitchen table, sifting through paperwork, his brow furrowed in concentration. The kitchen was dim, the overhead light flickering slightly, casting shadows against the walls. He glanced up when I entered, his expression unreadable.

"Made some eggs, too," he muttered, pushing a plate toward me without meeting my gaze.

I hesitated for a moment before sitting down across from him. The eggs looked slightly overcooked, and the bacon was burnt to a crisp, but I didn't care. It was the effort that mattered. I picked up my fork and took a bite, the taste of charcoal spreading across my tongue. I forced myself to swallow, forcing down the lump in my throat along with it.

Charlie didn't say much, but that was normal. He was a man of few words, and I had long since learned to appreciate the quiet. There was something comforting about it, even if it did little to fill the aching void in my chest.

The front door creaked open, and Bella walked in, her face flushed from the cold. She barely looked at me as she grabbed her coat, already halfway out the door again.

"I'll see you later, Dad," she said, her voice light, distant. So she was going to let me walk?

"Where are you headed?" Charlie asked, setting his papers aside.

"School," she answered simply, not even bothering to glance in my direction.

It took me a second to remember. Today was Bella's birthday, though it hardly felt like anything to celebrate. I watched her leave, the door clicking shut softly behind her. A small pang of resentment rose in my chest. She's spending her birthday at school, I thought. It was always like this with Bella. Always so preoccupied with everything but the family. Her focus had been on Edward for so long now, it felt like I barely existed in her world anymore.

I pushed my plate away, suddenly not hungry anymore.

Charlie sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "She's been so wrapped up in Edward lately," he said, more to himself than to me.

I nodded, but I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. It had been like this for months now, apparently.

I stood, pushing my chair back, the legs scraping against the floor. "I better head to school," I murmured.

Charlie looked at me for a moment before nodding. "Alright. Just take a jacket. It's cold out there."

I grabbed my coat from the rack and stepped outside, letting the rain hit my skin, letting the cold seep into my bones. The air smelled like wet earth and pine, the scent sharp and grounding.

I closed my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath.

I was here. I was home.

So why did it still feel like I didn't belong?

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The first day at Forks High felt like stepping onto a stage in a play I didn't belong in. The kind of play where you're given your lines, but you don't understand the script. Everywhere I went, people whispered. I could feel their eyes flicking between me and Bella; whenever we were in the same room, the comparison so obvious it might as well have been written across their faces in big, bold letters. Bella's sister. That's all I was to them. A footnote in a story that had already been written, a girl who didn't even get her own title card.

I wasn't surprised, though. Bella had always been the star. She was the one who mattered. In Phoenix, everyone knew her name, the chiefs daughter. they barely knew about me, the other one. that was fine, it was preferred. But she was the one who was always the center of attention, always the one everyone talked about. I had spent my whole life being just... there. Bella's sister. That was the extent of who I was to everyone, and coming to Forks hadn't changed that at all. In fact, it only made it worse.

As I walked through the hallways on my way to my first class, I tried to ignore the stares. Some were curious, some were dismissive, but all of them had the same undercurrent: You're just Bella's sister, and that's all we need to know. It didn't matter that I wasn't Bella. It didn't matter that I wasn't her. I was just the girl who had to fill the space left behind when Bella disappeared into whatever strange world she had made for herself. That world that had swallowed her whole.

I had caught a snippet of Edward and Bella's conversation, which was accompanied by a small, beautiful girl- and a blonde guy who looked to be in immeasurable pain. "No fair, Jasper!" I tuned it out, putting my head down with a sigh. Had I kept my head up, I would have seen Edwards calculated eyes at the back of my head.

In class, the teachers recognized my last name with vague interest, as if they had been given a memo to expect me. Most of them tried to make small talk, asking if I was adjusting to the school and if I missed Phoenix. I could see the pity in their eyes, a mixture of curiosity and judgment. Was I going to be like Bella? Would I be as quiet, as out of place, as weird? I could almost hear them wondering what my story was, but it wasn't like I was going to tell them. It was easier to sit quietly and let the silence swallow me whole.

The students stared, too. Their gazes were thinly veiled, but still obvious. Every time I walked down the hallway, I felt their eyes on my back, measuring, assessing. I could practically hear the unspoken comparisons in the air. The way they whispered, their voices low but still cutting through the hum of the hallway. "She's Bella's sister, right?" "Yeah, she looks just like her."

I hated it. I hated that I couldn't escape the shadow that Bella cast over everything. She was the girl who had left Forks with a bang, who had captivated everyone with her strange, magnetic pull. And now, she was gone, but I was still here. I was stuck in her story, stuck in the aftermath of everything she had done.

When lunchtime came, I found myself sitting at a table with Bella's old social group. It was as if I had been assigned my seat by default, as though I was just the placeholder until Bella came back. Jessica and Angela were polite enough, asking the usual questions like they had already rehearsed them. "So, how's Phoenix?" "Is it weird being back?" "Do you like the rain?" They fired these questions at me like it was part of some script, something they had to check off in order to feel like they were fulfilling some obligation.

I had the answers ready, of course. "It's fine." "I don't know yet." "It's different." But even I could hear the emptiness in my words. They were meaningless responses to meaningless questions, things I said because I had to say something.

The conversation turned to Bella's accident, and for a moment, the table fell uncomfortably silent. The air shifted, thick with unspoken tension. I could feel all their eyes on me now, but not in the way they had been before. This time, it wasn't curiosity. It was something else entirely. Sympathy. Pity. Guilt. Their glances shifted between one another before someone, I think it was Jessica, hastily changed the subject.

I knew what they were thinking. They were thinking about Bella. They were thinking about the accident that had nearly killed her. They were thinking about how close they had come to losing her, and how lucky they were that Edward had been there to save her. They were thinking about Bella's story, about the way she had been marked by something so much bigger than any of them. And I wasn't a part of that story. I wasn't Bella, and I never would be. God, I sounded pathetic, but its true. I'd never been my own person.

I realized then that I wasn't just living in Bella's shadow—I was living in the aftermath of her life, an afterthought in a story that wasn't mine.

But no one cared about me. No one cared about what I thought or how I felt or what I had to say. They only cared about Bella, and they always would. They only cared about the girl who had walked into a world of  a different tone than everyone else's.

I pushed my tray away, suddenly not hungry anymore. The food didn't taste right, and the air around me felt thick with expectations. The group kept talking, but I wasn't really listening anymore. I was too lost in my own thoughts, too overwhelmed by the reality of what I had walked into. This wasn't just a new school. It was a new life that I wasn't sure I was ready for, a life that had already been written by someone else. Bella had lived it all, and now I was just left to pick up the pieces.

I could feel my chest tightening as I stood up and grabbed my tray, walking quickly to the trash can to dump it. I tried to shake the feeling of suffocation, but it clung to me, wrapping around me like a heavy blanket. I could feel my breathing get heavier, my thoughts all consuming;

I left the cafeteria with my head down, my thoughts a jumbled mess of frustration, sadness, and confusion. It was hard to breathe here. Hard to think clearly. I didn't know anyone, didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. Everyone was so focused on Bella that I was starting to wonder if anyone even cared who I was.

At the end of the day, I walked home in silence, the weight of the day pressing down on my shoulders. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know where I fit into all of this.

I walked home in a daze, my mind too tired to focus on my whereabouts. I could feel the emptiness in my chest again, that dull ache that had followed me from Phoenix. Forks had not fixed it. It had not made me feel like I belonged.

As the house entered my range of eyesight, I didn't see Charlie's patrol car parked outside. Entering the house, feeling the weight of my thoughts pressing against me with every step. I was here, but I wasn't really here. I was just an echo of something that had already happened.

The silence of the house greeted me, the kind of quiet that made everything feel even more empty. I knew Charlie would be home soon, but for now, I was alone. I took a deep breath and tried to push away the heaviness that had settled in my chest.

Maybe tomorrow would be different. Maybe I would find a way to make this place feel like mine. But for now, it was hard to see beyond the shadow of a life I hadn't lived. Quickly changing out of my clothes, I left the house; in desperate need of new scenery.