A/N: Welcome! I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this story. Not going to chunter on, but before I begin, obviously nothing of value belongs to me, apart from the plot. If you like it/ hate it/ are confused/just feel the need to say something, please leave me a review . Much love!

Chapter One

I looked at the stuffed giraffe in my hand. His fur was matted and a little dirty after years and years of abuse, he smelled a little, hell, a lot, like dirt, and he had, most unfortunately, lost an eye in some tragic accident I could not recall. Yet the compulsion to pack him into my big red suitcase was so strong that my arms would physically not let me let go of him. I was clutching him so tightly it was likely his long, scruffy neck would fall off.

"Cute," a deep voice whispered in my ear, making me jump. An almost painfully white smile appeared in the russet brown face the voice belonged to as he knelt down next to me. Jacob surveyed the giraffe critically. "Where the hell did you find this, Bella? I think it's probably carrying about a million highly deadly germs..."

I ignored him, snuggling the giraffe into my chest. "He is not deadly," I argued. "And it's not an it, he's a he. Say hello to Orange, Jacob." I held out one of the giraffe's feet to Jacob, who shook it hesitantly with his hand, a smirk on his face.

"Orange? How imaginative."

"I was two," I complained. "My Mom and Charlie bought him for me from a zoo... I can't even remember which one. He was my favourite toy when I was little, but I haven't seen him for years..." I was lost temporarily in the nostalgia of the little, disgusting animal that represented a very small, but nevertheless important, part of my childhood.

"And is he coming to England with you?" Jacob asked.

"You know what? I think he is," and without further hesitation, I gently but firmly pushed Orange into the top of my suitcase.

"You're mad," Jacob laughed, wrapping his strong, long arms around me. I sighed, a mixture of sadness and happiness causing tears to sting in my eyes. I closed them so I didn't have to see the exact same expression undoubtedly reflected on Jacob's face, and felt the roll down my cheeks. Warm fingers flicked them off. "What are you thinking?" he whispered softly in my ear.

"That I'm scared as hell," I whispered back. I opened my eyes. Jacob was stroking my face with his long fingers, attempting to soothe me.

"What are you scared about?" he asked.

"Everything," I admitted. "But mostly, about going somewhere on a different continent, where I won't know anyone, and won't have anybody to run back to if it all gets too hard."

"You can ring me whenever you want, and I'll visit you whenever I can. You'll be back as well, and you'll make friends, Bell. It'll be fine- you'll love it."

"I know I will," I said. "I've just got cold feet." He laughed, pulling me to my feet as easily as if I was a sack of flour, and dumping me ungracefully onto my childhood bed. It was pink and floral and childish- it was under it I had found the collection of toys and games. All I had discarded, to be donated to children's charities, apart from the stinking giraffe that I had been unable to dispatch of. It was the last piece of my childhood I had to cling on to, and I supposed that was the reason why Orange just had to come to England with me.

Jacob led on the bed next to me, staring up at the ceiling. There was a poster of a dinosaur stuck up there with double sided tape. I remembered how it had got there- at the age of twelve I had put a chair on top of my bed, and stood on it on my tip toes to stick that poster on the ceiling. I had succeeded, but as soon as I did, I tumbled off and crashed into my wardrobe, breaking my arm in the process. I sniggered as I remembered the painful, but now funny, memory.

"What's with the dinosaur?" Jake asked.

"He was interesting."

"How old were you when you lived here again?"

"I was fourteen when I moved to Forks, but I was twelve when I did the dinosaur poster."

"Wouldn't a normal girl that age have stuck up, I don't know, a poster of a boy band or something?"

"Haven't you noticed, Jake?" I murmured, taking his hand in my own. "I was never a normal girl."

"I noticed," he grumbled, making me laugh. I sat up on my bed, looking at my now empty room. I hadn't lived here for four years- it had been the room I had aged in, but not grew up in. I hadn't properly grown up, became who I was now, until I had moved to Forks. It had started me on the path to becoming who I was, but it had not shaped it as absolutely as life in Forks had.

The walls were pink and cream- colours that held no appeal for me now. I couldn't remember if I had been attracted to them when I'd had the room painted- when I was about nine. I probably thought they were the right colours to have, so I had chosen them. Now I would have preferred a midnight blue, or a forest green, or maybe crimson. Something a little more interesting and unique.

This was the last part of my leaving home experience- I had packed up everything from my home in Forks, said my goodbyes to my father Charlie, to Billy, to my friends. I had stopped in to my mother's house, my childhood home, for one night, to see if there was anything here I wanted to take with me to Oxford. I hadn't found much- I had taken anything useful to me when I was fourteen and had decided to live in Forks, Washington with the father I didn't feel as if I truly knew, considering he had divorced my mother when I was only five and I had visited sporadically since. And as different as Forks was to Phoenix, I had loved it there, and I knew I would miss it, and all the people living there, so much. Another wave of nostalgia made me so appreciative I had made the decision, enabling me to get to know my father so much better, but also to have Jacob in my life.

Tomorrow, I would be on a plane headed to England, headed across the world, and that would be that. There would be no turning back, no more nights spent in my childhood havens, safe and sound and a little bored. The thought excited me as much as it scared me.

At that very moment, my mom knocked and came into the room before waiting for a reply. It was one of her more annoying tendencies, her complete and utter lack of patience. She looked flustered, her hair a dishevelled mess and her clothes covered in flour. My mom, who had promised me she would make me an incredible meal for my last night in America, who said she had been taking cooking classes, who had excitedly informed me she was able to make all manner of dishes, and I would be truly shocked by her talent in the culinary field.

"We're getting takeout," she snapped. "What do you two want?"

I couldn't help the broad smile that took over my face. It was nice to feel that some things would never change.

"Well this is...nice?" Jacob said, making the statement in to a question, looking at me for approval, searching for my opinion before solidifying his own. The room was small, even smaller than my bedroom in Forks had been. It was pretty bare as well- there was a bed that was too big to be considered as a single bed, yet slightly shy of the size of a double bed, pushed up against a wall that was painted a dark, somewhat secretive grey colour. I had expected cream- lots of cream, and was quietly delighted by the absence of it in all of its drab and predictable glory. Apart from the bed, there was a small wooden wardrobe, a few shelves also painted grey, a humming mini fridge, a reasonable sized television and a black desk.

The room was lots of things. It was boring, impersonal, uninspiring- and it was mine. And for that reason alone, I loved it already. I said as much aloud to Jacob.

"What's with the sudden burst of independence?" he asked, stooping to fiddle with the television. Typical man with his gadgets.

"It's just... cool. To have my own place. Sort of." I amended, dumping my small hand held bed from the flight on the cover of the strangely sized bed. Jacob, of course, had volunteered to lug my large suitcase up the 3 flights of stairs, but annoyingly had done so with a minimal effort, being as ridiculously strong as he was.

"Your own place shared with 12 other hormonal adolescents," Jacob snorted.

"This coming from the high school student," I retorted. I had been the first person to arrive at the shared accommodation that would become my home for at least a year. I had expected this- international students were scheduled to arrive a full 24 hours before everyone else. It appeared I was the only international student in my house. I thought this would mean I would be able to pick my room first- but I was assigned to the one I was in. It was on the top floor of the house, the only room on that floor, and that suited me just fine. I was all for socialising, but I was someone who needed her own space desperately at times.

My stomach twisted as I thought about the twelve other people I would be living with.

I expected Jacob to shoot back some sarcastic comment at me after my age jab, but instead he just came to stand in front of me, his arms reaching out for me, to gently grip my forearms as he studied my face with his dark, watchful eyes.

"They'll all be in the same position as you," he said, surprising me by comforting instead of cajoling me. He must have sensed my fragility and trepidation- I shouldn't really have been surprised. Jacob always seemed to know how I was feeling better than I knew myself. "And there's twelve people living here, at least one of them is bound to be weird enough to get on with you."

I rolled my eyes, knowing the seriousness could never last. "I wonder what English people are like," I said.

"The same as people in America I would guess," Jacob replied. "Apart from they'll talk funny and want to play soccer and have ugly teeth." I giggled as he listed the stereotypes we had dug up weeks ago when he had searched for every scrap of information about England on the internet. "Nah, I'm joking. I'm sure they'll be cool. They'll all be geniuses if they got in here, just like you."

He ruffled my hair affectionately. He always called me his little genius- and I had to admit in spite of myself, it was pretty impressive that I had got a place in Oxford University. Places were hard enough to come by if you lived in the area, never mind if you lived thousands of miles away in America with no ties to it other than the desire to try somewhere new, somewhere far away.

"I hope they're not stuck up," I whispered.

"Some of them will be," Jacob replied. "But you're not stuck up, and you're here." He kissed my forehead, and pulled me to sit next to him on my bed. "Bell, I need to talk to you."

"Famous last words," I muttered, snuggling into his chest. No matter what Jacob said, ever, it would always be impossible for me to feel anything but completely at ease around him. He was the one person that understood me, which I trusted to never hurt me, who I never felt any tension around.

"I just wanted to say... I know you're not my... my girlfriend or anything," Jacob stammered slightly, showing he was uneasy around me right now, surprising me a little. He did know I wasn't his girlfriend- I had always been clear about that. Our relationship was a little, okay very muddled, and in so many ways we had crossed the "just friends" line. And I knew that Jacob loved me more than as just his best friend- and as much as I loved and adored the massive but gentle giant whose arms were wrapped around me right now, it would never be as anything more than my very best friend, my comfort blanket. "And I don't need to give you permission... but I just wanted you to know that you're, obviously, free to do what you want while you're here- kiss as many boys as you want, sleep with whoever you want..." he trailed off. His tone was light and joking, but I knew those words would be hurting him to say.

I sighed as I thought how impossibly selfish I had always been with Jacob. I expected him, and needed him, to be there for me at every turn. Hell, the boy had flown across the world with me just to make sure I got settled in to my new house in university, and then would fly back, completely alone. He loved me; he wanted me to be his. I had kissed Jacob, I had slept with him- but I saw our relationship in the strangest of ways. I had no boundaries with him, no confines to our relationship- apart from one. I did not feel that spark of anything with Jacob. As much as I wanted to love him like he loved me, I couldn't, and I knew it hurt him more than anything. I had volunteered, of course, to leave him alone, to not cling to him as I did, but he had told me he didn't care how much I could or couldn't give him, he just wanted anything that I possibly could. He was so much more than I would ever, ever deserve.

The tears fell silently and without warning down my cheeks. "Why are you crying, Bella?" he asked.

"Because I love you so much, Jake," I whispered. "Thank you so much for everything. I'm going to miss you so, so much. And when I come back to Forks, I expect to see you with some beautiful girl on your arm who is going to make me feel so jealous, and I sincerely hope you can barely remember my name."

"I'll never forget your name, Isabella Marie Swan," he said. For dramatic effect, I presumed.

I couldn't deal with too much emotion just now- I didn't want to cry in front of Jacob. "Well, thanks for giving me your blessing Jake. I'll be sure I kiss every single boy in my room, maybe even some of the girls. That was why I came here after all."

He snorted. "You know that's not what I meant."

"I do know, Jacob. Thank you." It wasn't what I wanted to say, I wanted to say something deep and meaningful and I wanted to make Jacob realised how much he meant to me. But I couldn't find the words- they would just stick in my throat. And anyway, as soon as I had got my acceptance into Oxford, Jacob and I had discussed time and time again how much we meant to each other. I had said all I had needed to say- and I just hoped Jacob knew the depth of how important and fantastic a person he was.

"Well, seeing as you're here now, I suppose you could make yourself useful by helping me unpack," I joked, thinking of the fact that Jacob's flight home left in four hours, and then it would be just me, in this foreign country, with nothing but a dirty stuffed giraffe to cuddle as I began my new life.