No One Like You

I sat there with my backpack between my legs and refused to get out of the car.

"Awww come on Bella. It's not going to be that bad. We're sophomores now. It's the begging of a new year- a clean slate."

Alice was my best friend; she had been since the 6th grade. I trusted her with my life, but there was no way I would allow her to convince me to get out of her car.

"Bella. Just because freshman year wasn't your best, doesn't mean that this year won't be! Put Tanya and her stupid self behind you and move on. You don't see me sulking over it do you? I got over it, now so can you!"

That's when I really got mad. "Alice you have no idea what you're talking about!" I grabbed my bag, stepped out of the car, and slammed the door of her precious yellow Porsche to face her. "You could've been popular! You have the clothes, the cash, and the car! Why do you have any reason to worry? They're mean to you only because you turned their offer down. They hate me because I'm a poor, pathetic loser! Why did you turn them down anyway? Why did you pass up the chance to be one of the populars? You could be in the VIP section of the social status of this school by now!" I finished my rant and began tearing up as I stood trying to catch my breath. Alice stood there unfazed. We stood there in silence until Alice's face relaxed with a caring expression.

"Bella, I came to this school to be with you, not to be with some group of popular, air-headed, idiotic jerks." I couldn't believe it. Alice had given up the perfect route to surviving high school, to be friends with me. I know we're friends, but this was a true sign of friendship. I now know that if we were in each others position, I wouldn't give Alice up for anything either. I didn't even need to say it to her. She knew exactly how I felt and swept me up in a huge bear huge.

"Enough ally, you're squeezing the tears out of me."

She let me go and went to go get her bag out of the car. "It's going to be ok Bells, I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere."

"Thanks Ally. I know that now. I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

Alice and I started to walk towards the front office to pick up our locker and schedule assignments. We entered through the double doors (it was still pretty early so not a lot of kids were there yet) and Alice let out a small groan when she saw Ms. Cope, the school's secretary sitting at her desk filing paperwork. I laughed to myself as we approached the desk to ask for our folders.

Alice and Ms. Cope had a very strange relationship. In fact, it wasn't a relationship at all. It was more like Alice despised her in every way physically possible, and Ms. Cope just always smiled at her thinking nothing was wrong. It all started in 6th grade when Ms. Cope was first introduced to Alice and not only pronounced her last name wrong, but also mistook Alice for a boy with her short black spiky hair. Ms. Cope had thought nothing of it at the time, but little did she know that Alice is the kind of person who holds a grudge. That wasn't the only time though where she got on Ally's nerves. She just annoyed her in general. She was a terrible school secretary; she never did anything, and when she did, it was usually all wrong. Alice tried, several times, to get her fired, but the school board didn't want to let her go because there was no one else to take her job. This was one of the very few things Alice's money couldn't fix for her.

"Here you go Ms. Swan." Ms. Cope handed me my folder before I had a chance to ask for it. Wow. Maybe she had changed over the summer. "You must be new here," she said now addressing Alice, "what's your last name?" Whoops, I spoke too soon. I had to pull back on Alice's arm to prevent her from smacking her.

"Alice Brandon," she tried to say calmly but came out in a growl, "I've lived in this town for sixteen years. My house is two doors down from yours." Ms. Cope, completely ignoring the second part of Alice's comment, probably because she was short of hearing, filed through the cabinets and handed me the appropriate one.

"Here you go. Make sure you show her around sweetie, you know how hard it was for you to adjust to a new school. Hope you enjoy your time in Forks Miss Bordon."

"Brandon," Alice corrected her, but I forced her out of the office before she could say something she would regret later. Ms. Cope hadn't heard her and returned to playing solitaire on her broken down computer. Once we were outside, we raced to building A to get out of the cold.

"Thank God you got me out of there when you did. One more minute in there with that excuse for a woman and I would've jumped over that desk and strangled her!"

"Haha, oh come on, she's not that bad."

Alice gave me her famous 'are you kidding me' look and opened her envelope; I did the same. I always thought of Alice as a superhero-always using her powers for the forces of good. Being an only child and having insanely rich parents did have its perks. Alice had to make sure we were in most of each others classes, so she sent a little 'tip' to the school administrators during the summer. "If that retarded woman didn't get our schedules right, I'm going to go straight back in there and-"

"Alice! Enough with the death threats already! Yeesh!"

"Fine, fine. My locker is 194 so yours should be 195."

"Yes it should, sadly it's 191. So it's just two down from yours. It won't matter, the point was to have our lockers close together, and they are. I just wonder who's between us."

"Ugh. That woman can't to anything right! Forget it; let me see your schedule to see what else she screwed up." Alice and I compared our lessons while more students filled the halls and went to go collect their books. Alice had thankfully done the courtesy of having our books pre-purchased and delivered to our respective lockers. "Ok, so we have all our classes together except for Spanish, Chemistry, and Gym."

"What!? Gym?" Alice and I had always been gym partners.

"It's not that bad, you're amazing at sports, you'll be just fine."

"Enough with the sarcasm Alice, this is serious! We both know I can't walk over a stable flat surface without finding some way to trip and kill myself!"

Alice giggled, "Well let's hope you find a good partner who won't let you commit suicide."

The first bell rang; we got our books, and went towards our first period, Algebra 2. This was really good that we had this particular class together. Math was one of my better subjects and not one of Alice's strongest- this way I could help her if she needed it. As I was thinking about the study sessions we would probably be having, I tripped over something and fell flat on my face; throwing my books all over the hallway.

"Watch where you're going loser!"

I looked up to the one strawberry blonde I could've gone all year without wanting to run into, Tanya. She was standing there with her foot stretched out and with her two closest zombie clones, Jessica and Lauren. They always thought of me as a dork, and ugly waste of space in their school. I don't even understand why the girl hated me. Maybe she saw me as a threat. Maybe she really thought I was pretty and was just jealous of me. "Ok, stop lying to youself, get up, and just ignore her and walk away," I thought in head. Tanya and her popular crew were the people I wanted to avoid this year. I hadn't done anything to them and yet they decided to make my freshman year at Forks High living hell. I didn't want to repeat the experience; just because Tanya wanted to be a total bitch to me for no reason, didn't mean I had to respond. I picked myself and my pre-calculus book off the floor and proceeded to walk away.

"Don't walk away from me freak! I'm not done with you!" Tanya stepped in front of me and slapped my books down again. This time Alice stepped in. She spoke with a sweet smile on her face, but you could tell from the edge in her voice that Tanya was one wrong move away from having Alice rip her throat out.

"Back off Tanya, she didn't do anything to you. Why don't you go get a life and find someone else to bother?" Her smile was so lovable, but you could obviously see he daggers in her eyes. I owed Alice my life, not only had she saved me here, but in all other situations where thing went sour for me; she was like my guardian angel.

Tanya turned away with a big 'HMPH', signaling her clique and mumbled something that sounded like, "She's even a bigger freak than before. We'll have more fun with her when the pixie isn't around." With all the drama, they finally left out the doors of the building to go to their class.

Alice handed me my books, she had switched her deadly smile for a scowl. "Can you believe her? Walking around like she owns the school. One of these days she's going to get what's coming to her."

"Forget it Alice," I said with head down, "it doesn't matter. I knew it would be like this. Let me just deal with this and let's move on with our lives. Come on, we're going to be late."

"No Bella." I turned around and saw Alice still standing still instead of walking with me.

"What do you mean no?"

"What I mean is, no, don't let her win. If you give up like this, she's had the effect on you that she wanted. She wins the fight that way. Don't let her be a total bitch and get away with it! You have to stay strong and keep fighting back against her! Don't let her do this to you!" Alice now looked as pained as I felt. It hurt her to see me being miserable and treated so badly. She only wanted the best for me; she wanted me to be happy. She was a true dedicated best friend. I wiped my face and finally realized that I was crying. We stood there, facing each other, for what felt like hours, but the second bell rang so it couldn't have been for more than a couple of minutes.

I ran over, hugged her, and whispered in her ear, "Thanks…I won't ever give up, not as long as I have you to keep me going." We broke apart and smiled at each other before it finally set in that we were late for the first class of the year. "Come on," she said, "let's go."

We sprinted for the room (well Alice sprinted, I just tumbled around a lot) and walked in, just as our teacher, Mr. Varner, had called our names for attendance. "Thank-you ladies for finally joining us. Everyone else has already chosen there math partners for the year, so I guess you two will be working together. Please take your seats at the open table in the back there, and don't make me regret the decision to put you two together."

"Yes sir," Alice and I said in unison. The class passed fairly quickly. The entire time was spent with Mr. Varner handing out different sheets of paper and telling us what we were going to be accomplishing this year. Alice and I went through the same routines in our History and English classes while meeting up and talking with old buddies we had missed over the summer. When fourth period came along, I left to go to building B for Spanish and Alice stayed in building A for politics. Not being with Alice here wasn't the end of the world. Spanish was one of those subjects that I wasn't great at if I didn't study hard and review a lot. I could do well in this class; I would just have to work hard at it in order to do so. I had heard as well that the new Spanish teacher this year, Mr. Banner, was really easy. The period sped by like all the others, except during class I managed to really catch up with my other close friends Jackie and Samantha.

I met up with Alice after class and we went to the cafeteria for lunch. We sat down with Jackie at the last free table available. Alice, not having seen her yet asked, "Hey Jack, how are you? What's the latest news around school?" Jackie was a one of a kind girl. She was the person who knew everything about everyone. When we needed the newest update about anything, Jackie was the go to girl. We were lucky to have her as a friend to be able to keep us in the social loop at Forks High. It was because of her that we were on the guest lists for parties that hadn't even been fully planned out yet

"Well nothing too exciting yet girls, but the big thing around campus is the news kids that moved to town recently."

"Kids," I asked thoroughly interested, "how many?"

"Three, the Cullen Family: two brothers and one adopted sister."

Alice then cut in, just as interested as I was. This was Forks High, a school with an estimated population of 300 students. Getting new people around here was as a big of a deal as a day without rain. "What ages are we looking at?"

Jackie responded eagerly. She was very excited that her true gossip self had a chance to blossom. "Emmet and Rosalie are both juniors. And guess what? They're dating! I know they're not actually brother and sister, but they live together-it is still kind of weird. And the other brother, Edward, who is drop-dead gorgeous by the way, is a sophomore like us."

"Oh I've seen him," ally said finally remembering something, "he sat nest to me in politics. All of the girls kept staring at him like he was the new shiny toy. I was going to talk to him, you know, to introduce myself, but Mr. Travis gave us so much class work, I never even had the chance."

"Well it doesn't look like you'll ever have the chance now," Jackie said in 'a matter of fact' tone. She pointed towards the popular table, "it looks like Tanya and her crews already have their claws around him." I turned around and scanned the table until I saw the unfamiliar face. Jackie was wrong. He was not "drop-dead gorgeous." He was so much more than that. Words could not explain his beauty, how perfect he looked. He had pale skin and a head covered in light bronze tousled hair. His eyes were a bright emerald green and although he was so, so…..well hot, he looked annoyed and uncomfortable sitting there listening to the conversations around him, as if he didn't belong.

"So did they pull him in for any specific reason? I mean besides the obvious?"

"Well besides the fact that he's male model material, his family is also loaded too. His father is Dr. Carlisle Cullen. Apparently he's this huge famous doctor and they moved here to finally settle down.

Alice was now thoroughly impressed. "Jack, you found this all out before lunch?"

"Well of course, you know me. I'm hoping that it's not all rumor, so I'm double checking my sources this afternoon. I want to make sure I have all the facts straight on this subject. The main point is though, is that they're rich. That's why they've got dibbs."

I was a little upset now. He seemed nice, but once Tanya got her hands on someone, she never let go. I felt bad for him; he hadn't even been here for a full day and he had no idea what he had gotten himself stuck into. I had Chemistry in the chem. Lab across campus next period so I got up with my tray and went to go through away my apple and half eaten taco. I usually ate all my food, but for some reason I couldn't find my appetite today. Maybe it was because I was still secretly upset about the whole Tanya thing. She had left me alone so far today, I had almost forgotten about it. I was deep in thought about how my Chemistry class would go as I walked passed the different tables. I caught a glimpse of Edward, but instead of looking bored like before, he had a panicked worried expression on his face-like he was waiting for something bad to happen that he couldn't prevent. I was worried about his new appearance and out of the corner of my eye I saw Tanya knock over something on the table.

That's when all disaster struck.

I was walking quickly passed the table, trying to avoid any eye contact with the popluars, and slipped on the puddle of soda left by Tanya's "accidental" spill. I fell back on my butt, tossing my tray in the air and my taco covered me entirely in greasy meat and cheese. If that wasn't bad enough, my apple hit me right on the head, making me fall back so I laid there, on my back, completely covered in my food. The laughter could be heard from all directions. Everyone roared, clutching their sides as if they would burst. Alice ran over to me to try to help me up as the laughter and embarrassment continued. I tried to stand, only to step on more taco meat and fall over again. This was so not the time to be uncoordinated. The sound from around me got louder and louder and for the first time I looked up at the table next to me to see Tanya, smiling and laughing harder than anyone else. I got up again, this time without tripping, tears streaming down my face and ran as fast as I could out the cafeteria- Alice was right behind me.

I ran into the nearest bathroom and sat on the floor unable to hold back the tears that were already bursting from my eyes. A second later, Alice was right next to me, pulling me into a tight hug while I sobbed into her shoulder. "It's going to be ok," she kept repeating although I knew it wasn't. I had just embarrassed myself in front of the entire student body. I couldn't have asked for a more miserable first day. I should've just stayed at home, I shouldn't have let Alice convince me to get out of her car. But I would never blame Alice for my bad luck. These kinds of things were just drawn to me like a magnet. Even if I hadn't come to school today, something just as bad as this would have happened eventually. These were the kinds of things that happened to an average, nothing special, dork like me. I would just have to learn to deal with it.

"Are you going to be ok?" Alice smiled at me sweetly and dried the tears off my face with a tissue; I had stopped crying now and stood up to wash my face in the sink. I smiled back at her half heartedly and said, "I think so." I hated lying to Alice, but I couldn't let her be upset about all this. This was my problem and my problem alone. Alice helped me clean up and brought me an extra shirt from her locker so I wouldn't have to go around for the rest of the day smelling of taco meat.

"There you go, much better. Now get to Chem. before you're late and I'll meet you at out lockers after school."

"Yes mommy Alice." I hated pretending to be ok, I felt as though I might break down at any moment, but I tried to do my best for Alice's sake.

"Ok then, see you later!"

I tried not to think of the incident as I walked to my next class, but I could hear people giggle behind me as I passed them in the hall. This class would be good for me though. I knew Chemistry like Alice knew shopping-I was practically a genius. I sat down at the open desk in the very back of the room. I didn't want anyone to notice me at this stage, I wanted to be invisible. I kept my head down and began to doodle or the back of my notebook as the other students filed in. I saw a shadow in front of me (I guess my wish to disappear wouldn't work for me this time)

"Had enough?" Of course it had to be Tanya. But why this class? My favorite class?!

"Go away," I said without looking up, "just leave me alone." I could tell she wanted to say something else, but at that moment Mr. Wiggins came in and called the class to order. Tanya sat down at the desk in the front of the room next to Jessica. At least she's far away from me I thought with some relief. I looked up to pay attention and saw none other than Edward Cullen standing at the front of the room with Mr. Wiggins.

"ok class, this year we have a new student joining us. This is Edward Cullen and I want you all to make him feel right at home here. Now you can have a seat Mr. Cullen right next to-"

"Me," Tanya almost screamed as she shot Jessica a look telling her to move.

"No that's ok; you're already with Miss Stanley there. Edward you can have a seat in the back there with Miss Swan." Perfect, just perfect. Tanya was already in my class, now she had more reason for hating me. It's not that bad; I said to myself, it's only for today. Edward sat down as Mr. Wiggins started to talk.

"Hello," came a velvet smooth voice next to me. I looked up automatically and regretted it at once. His eyes were even more stunning than I had remembered. His smile was dazzling and I murmured a quick "hey" before looking back down at my notebook. I'm sure I was blushing and I wanted to prevent embarrassing myself any further than I already had today. He probably thought of me as a loser klutz, it was in my best interest to just stay away and not talk to him.

"Ok class, now I hope you're friendly with the person sitting next to you because congratulations! They are going to be your lab partners for the rest of the year."

That was the icing on my perfect day at school.

"Since it's the first day, I want you all to stay in your seats and get to know your partners better. Spend the rest of the time talking to each other and we'll do our first lab tomorrow." Why did God hate me?

"I'm Edward Cullen; it's nice to meet you Isabella." He held out his hand and I shook it. Was he actually talking to me? Hadn't Tanya told him that I was public enemy #1? And Isabella? No one had called me that in years. There were so many questions in my head at that moment, but I managed to say, "Just Bella. It's nice to meet you too."

"Are you ok? You know, from Lunch?"

I stared at him in shock. Did he actually care about if I was ok? He might have been a popular, but he sure didn't act like one. There was no possibility he cared, he was probably laughing just as hard as everyone else. "Why do you care?" I tried to say harshly, but I could feel the tears building up as the painful memory filled my head. He looked at me directly in the eyes with true sincerity, "I'm so sorry they did that to you. I assure you that I had no part in it, but I blame myself for not stopping it. Why they did it, I don't know. Why anyone would be mean to someone like you is beyond me." Someone like me? I was nothing special. Why did he care so much to make sure I didn't think he was like the others? So many questions, so many thoughts and doubts. I finally managed to say, "Do you really mean that?" he just smiled and nodded his head.

At that moment, no matter what my head was screaming at me; I believed him.

"Thanks."

We sat there silently before I finally spoke again. "Wait, if you don't like them, then why do you hang with them? It looks as though Tanya has taken a pretty strong liking towards you."

He chuckled, "Is that the nasty blonde's name? She and here friends came up to me after my second class and asked me if I wanted to sit with them at lunch. I didn't know anyone else so I agreed, but they're all just obnoxious snobs."

"That's terrible. Hate to break it to you, but Tanya has got her tentacles wrapped around you and it doesn't look as though she wants to let go." We both turned our heads to the front of the room and saw Jessica and Tanya glaring angrily at both of us. Perfect, this year was definitely going to be living hell for me. "Are you the only new member of their cult? Or did they pull in any other innocent bystanders?"

"Sadly, one other kid. He was the first friend I had made today, so I think they wanted him because of me. It's my entire fault." He put his head into his hands.

"Don't feel too bad, you had no idea it would happen. Wait, what his name?"

"You might know him, Jasper Hale."

"Oh no! Not Jasper!"

"Why do you know him?"

Yes, he's one of my good friends, and you know Alice? The girl I was with earlier? Well Jasper is sort of her really close friend." I tried to hint that they weren't dating, but she really liked him. Thankfully he understood before I had to make it anymore painfully obvious.

"That's definitely not good."

I could feel the two pairs of eyes digging into the back of my head. If I kept this conversation going, I would regret it later. I saw that the bell was about to ring to I tried to quickly rap up our conversation. "I feel really bad for you two. I wish I could help, but I really can't get involved, Tanya hates me enough as it is. I'm just a no one; there are a lot of better people for you to be friends with." I know I sounded mean, but I had no other idea how to let him down gently. "I know you don't want to be popular, but it's were you belong. I'm really sorry, but I think it's best for both of us if we're just not friends." The bell finally rang and I tried to get out as quickly as I could.

"What? No, Bella! Come back, please!"

"Where do you think you're going?" As if this scene wasn't bad enough, Tanya had to join to make matters worse.

"I was just leaving, to go to gym." I didn't want to cause anymore trouble; I kept my head down and my answers short and to the point.

"Do us all a favor and disappear! No one gave you permission to talk to him, or any of us for that matter! Just stay in the corner where you belong. Didn't I get that through your head at lunch?"

"Sorry," was all I was able to choke out. I started to walk out of the room, but she pushed me from behind and I fell of my face and threw my books everywhere just like this morning in the hallway.

"Ha! What a klutz! Come on Edward, let's go, we'll help you find your way to your next class. This loser won't bother you any- Edward? Where did he go? I guess he couldn't stand to be in the room with this dork for any longer! Come on Jess, let's go." And with that I was left alone in the room. Had Edward really left? The tears that had been building up inside finally spilled over when I realized that I was finally alone. I know I told him to stay away from me, but could he have really walked out when they were doing that to me? That's when it finally hit. He really didn't care, not at all. He was just another popular, being nice to me was just a sick cruel joke, trying to make me thing that I guy like him could like a girl like me.

I was in no position to attend gym class. If I skipped one class it wouldn't be the end of the world. I was really upset and I needed time to think, so I grabbed Alice's car keys and went into the parking lot to sit in her car. I put on my favorite classical CD and started to break down. After about 10 minutes I finally recovered and was able to think clearly. Just then I heard a knock on the passenger side window. I guess I had been sitting there for more than 10 minutes, school was probably over and that was Alice wondering what had happened. When I unlocked the door and she got in I was about to explain everything, until I finally looked over and saw that it wasn't Alice. In fact it was Edward!

I almost nearly screamed at him, "What in the world are doing!? Get out! Now!" I had had enough of Edward. I never wanted to look, or even hear about another popular ever again.

"Please Bella, let me explain."

"Explain? Explain what? That you were a total jerk? That everything you said about caring about me was a lie? That you're just as much of popular jerk as the rest of them? Is that what you wanted to explain?"

Bella, you've got it all wrong. I care about you, I really do. When I saw they be mean to, I panicked. I didn't know what to say and I couldn't stand to see that happen to you."

"How do I know that's the truth? How can I trust you? I just met you; we're not really even friends."

"You can trust me, I promise. You're the first person to really understand me. I can't stand to see you upset. You're, you're, you're…amazing."

"Stop it. No I'm not. There's absolutely nothing special about me. Like Tanya said, I'm just a no one."

"No you're not. Bella, you're one of a kind. I've never met anyone like you." He started straight at me, giving the full affect of his stunning emerald eyes. He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. It was a short kiss, but the magic was definitely there. He smiled at me as he pulled away. "I'm sorry. That might have been moving it to fast."

"It's ok." At that moment there was nothing more that I wanted that for him to kiss me again. "I really like you, Edward."

"Me too, but what about the others? If they find out about this, who knows what they'll do to you."

"I guess we'll just not have to tall anyone."

"UMMMMM EXCUSE ME!!!!!" Alice was standing with her jaw open wide staring at us from the front of the car. "BELLA MARIE SWAN! YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO! FIRST OF ALL WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING IN MY CAR!!!!"

"Haha, I guess we'll have to tell just one other person," I said to Edward. "Come on in Alice, I'll explain everything."

(Hope you liked part 1 of my 5 part series!!!!!!!! :D)