Prologue
It felt as if I was crushed by the heaviest weights on earth. My heart sank as I watched his bronze head of hair walk towards the gate. Each step he took stabbed at my heart, over and over again. Each step he took, took him further and further away from me. Each step he took reminded of me all the stupid selfish mistakes I made. I realized as I stood there, my hand reaching out to him fruitless, that as he walked away from me he took my heart with him. Tears cascaded down my already wet cheeks as I had flashbacks of him, our time together. I wanted to die over and over again, remembering all the pain I had caused him. Remembering how spitefully I had pushed his love away. In that moment, nothing mattered. It didn't matter that he was my teacher and I was his pupil. It didn't matter that I had slept with him. It didn't matter that he had slept with her afterwards. No, nothing mattered. All I knew was that I couldn't live without him; all I knew was that I loved him with every fiber of my being. That was all in vain now. He was gone forever. It was too late now, too late.
Chapter 1: The Start of the Tangled Rope
I wiped my tears away quickly as I lifted my clothes off the ground, put them back on. I couldn't believe what had happened last night. I couldn't believe what I had done. How could I do such a thing? I thought I was more responsible than that! What would the student body think? What would the school think? I was such a model student and then I had to go ahead and do this.
Maybe I should start from the beginning, it all started when I fell in love with my Biology teacher…
"That was not funny!" I said irritated, clutching my heart after Alice had jumped out at me from behind the door in my face.
"Come on! Yes it was!" she bumped her hips into mine. I started walking even further away from her, grasping my books which were slipping from my arms closer to my chest. I fixed my trousers which were repeatedly getting caught in my black school loafers. There were times in which I wished that Cheltenham Ladies' College was a co-ed and let us wear our own clothes.
I was glad that I was in Sixth Form now so I didn't have to wear the ugly green attire. Though, I had to admit that the Sixth Form uniform wasn't that much better. We had navy blue trousers which thin white stripes running through them lengthways which no one actually tied up properly. We just folded them over at our hips without actually doing up the button or the zipper. This meant that our underwear could be seen at very regular intervals as our dark green jumpers were always bought a size too short on purpose. None of us cared who saw our bright neon lingerie, which we were constantly reminded, was not 'appropriate', as we were an all-girls school. Except that the perverted male teaching staff was always having erections after catching a glimpse of the top of someone's thong.
Alice ran up behind me and jumped, grabbing my shoulders for support. Alice, even though she was my best friend in our circle of friends, still annoyed to hell sometimes. I don't understand how she can be so happy and energetic all the time, especially with the insane amount of homework we get each and every day.
My best friend Alice Cullen and I attended the Cheltenham Ladies College in a rainy little town called Cheltenham in the south-west of England. I was eleven when my parents decided that it would be best to send me off to a private boarding school since things weren't going great between them back at home in Forks. My mother and father were separated now. I was very young at the time but I still knew that my parents weren't going to be together for long. They had lots of fights and my dad would leave the house and not come back for days on end. One day Renee came home and revealed that she had been cheating on him. That was the end for them. Dad still lived in Forks, but Mom, having married her love, Phil, traveled around America as Phil has a traveling job. Ever since then I had been back and forth between England and America.
"So you want to go for lunch today Bella?" she asked walking beside me now.
"Um, maybe...It depends what they have in the school Dining Room. If it's disgusting, as usual, we'll go to Starbucks or something."
"Okey-dokey then,"
"You have a free period now, yeah?" I asked Alice.
"Yup, you?"
"Yeah," We walked in unison to our usual spot in the school lawn. We sat on the warm grass, with our back on the legs of the bench. I reached for my phone in my trousers pocket, but as soon as I touched the empty space I realized that I didn't have my phone, I had had it confiscated the previous because I had been caught with it in lessons.
"Hey Ali," I said distracting Alice who was glued to her own phone, chatting to Jasper no doubt. I sometimes envied Alice and all my other friends, because even though we went to an all girl school; they had the perfect boyfriends. I...well let's just say that my love life wasn't going great.
"What?" she asked turning towards me, returning her phone back to her pocket.
"Mrs. Vass confiscated my phone, remember?"
"Oh yeah,"
"Can you come with me to smuggle it out of her office please?"
"Sure!" Alice perked up at the thought of doing something so exciting. "I'll text Rose to join us! She can keep look out!"
"No, no Alice, seriously not Rose. What makes you think she would want to help me?" Rosalie Hale had hated me, for a reason unknown to me, from the first day I joined two years ago. She and Alice were pretty close since Alice was dating her brother: Jasper; and Rose was dating Alice's brother: Emmett McCarthy.
"Fine, I'll text Roslyn. She'll be up for it!" Alice gave me a skeptical look before agreeing. She was constantly annoyed that Rose and I could never work out our differences. It wasn't my fault, if there was ever a competition for the biggest bitch of the world, Rose would win hands down.
We gathered up our stuff in our non-regulation totes and headed inside. As soon as we walked through the doors leading into the corridor in which Mrs. Vass' office lay, we spotted Roslyn's blonde hair bouncing up and down.
"Bella, Alice!" Roslyn whisper-yelled and skipped over to us and hugged us both. Roslyn was one of our best friends along with Sahaj.
"Where's Sahaj?" I asked.
"Oh she went to talk to Miss Adams about when we find out what universities we got into," she answered giving me an eye-roll about Sahaj's predictable behavior. She was outstanding in every way. Academically excellent, and she knew computers like the back of her hand. We would usually tease her by calling her a geek but truth be told, we couldn't live without her. Roslyn's answer reminded me of a fact that I was trying very hard to forget about, higher education. It was daunting, going to a new place, leaving all my old friends behind. Another thought which I was desperately forcing to the back of my head resurfaced; Rejection. I did not want to be rejected by the university that I desperately wanted to study at, that my family were all expecting me to attend.
"Bells, you coming or what?" Roslyn asked already walking toward the door of Mrs. Vass' office.
"Yeah sure," I replied feeling dazed. I sighed in relief as I saw that Mrs. Vass was in fact not in her office. I rummaged through her drawers in her desk to find where she had kept my phone.
"That woman is so sad," I said as I caught sight of a box labeled, 'Confiscated Phones'. "She needs to get her own phone, seriously, instead of confiscating everyone else's."
"Yeah she went on a spree yesterday," Roslyn said from her place in the doorway as I took the box from one of the shelves. "She just confiscated every phone she saw."
"Shit, Shit! Which phone is mine?" I said panicking after I opened the box; there were millions of Blackberrys and iPhones in there.
"Dude," I heard Alice say, "It'll be the one with 'Bella' encrusted in rhinestones at the back!" she said. I was in such a panic that I forgot that obvious fact.
"Thanks Ali!" I said rummaging through and finally catching sight of my phone, I took it out a hugged it to my chest.
"Oh thank God," I said sighing with relief. I had my baby back; I could not live without my phone. It was the only way to feel normal in this hell-hole.
"Oh and get Sahaj's as well," I heard Roslyn say. "She managed to get hers confiscated as well." That was a shock, Sahaj, the goody-two-shoes managed to get her phone confiscated? What did she do?
"Sahaj?" I said the shock evident on my face.
"I'll explain later," she hissed. "Just get it and go," she looked up and down the corridor to make sure no one was coming. I dug through the box and finally found Sahaj's blackberry, the only one which was still in mint condition. Typical, I thought internally rolling my eyes.
"Come on," Alice whisper-yelled at me.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" I said quickly grabbing our two phones and running out to meet Roslyn and Alice where I high-fived them both.
"Yeah!" I said in triumph but that was quickly interrupted by Roslyn's squeal.
"Shit!" she squeaked.
"What?" I said following her gaze.
"She's coming!" she said alarmed, and down at the end of the corridor there was Mrs. Vass, making her way to her office.
"Run!" I whispered urgently to them and we dashed across the corridor and escaped from the door that led back into the garden.
"Phew," I said, running a hand through my hair. "Now that was close!"
"Tell me about it," Alice said. "Let's go," and on that note we headed back to our usual spot near the big tree. We walked in companionable silence and settled down near our bench, with Roslyn and I sprawled across the grass and Alice sitting up on the bench.
"Oh my God, guys!" we heard a familiar squeal, and I looked up to find Sahaj running towards us full speed ahead. I wondered what had gotten her so excited.
"Sahaj!" we all said in chorus as she collapsed down between Roslyn and I.
"Oh my God!" she said again.
"What?" I said.
"Oh. My. God." She repeated.
"WHAT?" Roslyn yelled in her face.
"Oh my fucking God!" she squealed again.
"Would you tell us already?" Alice said, sitting down on the floor between us.
"Did you guys hear?" she said.
"Well obviously not, since you won't tell us," I said, irritated. Would she just spit it out already?
"There's a new teacher! And he's so hot." She said looking dreamily at the school building.
"Oh please," I said. "I can't possible trust your judgment. You thought Mr. Nye was hot." Mr. Nye was this lanky, spotted freak. Sahaj has literally had a crush on him for the most part of this year.
"Oh psh," she said dismissively. "I was young and naïve."
"It was last month," I said raising an eyebrow at her.
"My point exactly," she and we all burst into laughter.
"Who is he replacing?" I asked.
"Mr. Bowers," she said and both Alice and I yelled
"YES!" and high-fived each other. We, sadly, had Mr. Bowers for Biology, he was the most boring teacher on this entire planet.
"How do you know?" Roslyn asked.
"Well I just had Biology," Sahaj said reaching in her pocket for something. "Oh shit, Mrs. Vass has my phone," she sighed.
"Oi," I said a greeting that Sahaj and I used on each other. "Don't sweat it," I said throwing her phone at her.
"Oh, yes!" she said, her eyes lighting up. "Thanks Bella," she proceeded to hug me.
"No problem," I said.
"Hey I helped!" Roslyn said, faking being upset.
"Me too!" Alice said faux pouting.
"Thanks guys!" she said sarcastically and got up to give them a hug each, while I rolled my eyes. We were a right bunch.
"Anyway, but you don't have Mr. Bowers, so how do you know?" Roslyn asked.
"Oh well Mrs. Mech was ill so he was filling in for her and let me tell you as soon as I walked into the lab I was like 'Fuck me, he's hot!'" she said and we all burst out in laughter, it was such a typical Sahaj thing to say.
"Wow," Roslyn said, both of her eyebrows raised.
"Yeah and he's just moved here from America and he the sexiest accent ever! Period." Sahaj said, laughing.
"Hey!" I said. I may live here half of the time but I was still an American. "I'm American! Isn't my accent sexy?" I said pouting.
"Yeah but Bella," Sahaj said, placing a hand on my knee sympathetically. "You've lost it now, you're one of us," she said laughing; and it was true. I was one of them now. I had stayed here so long, my American accent had rubbed off and I got the standard British one to replace it. Every holiday, when I went back to see my Mom and Dad, people would laugh at me because I sounded all posh and they always asked me to say words like 'can't' and 'whatever'. Also they'd get annoyed because I said 'like', a lot. It was hell whenever school ended because we all had to go back to our own homes. I to Forks, Alice to Alaska, Roslyn to Scotland and Sahaj just stayed in Cheltenham as she lived here. We loved each other so much we were always flying back and forth the world, to see each other.
"He is so hot. Even his name is hot, Mr. Cullen," Sahaj said and I could literally see her drooling.
"Well I'll be the judge of that," I said even though he name was hot. "I have Biology next period."
"Bella, shit." Alice said looking at phone. "We're late for Biology!" she said panicking.
"Oh fuck," I said, I really didn't want to make a bad impression on the new and apparently hot teacher.
"See you later!" I yelled behind my shoulder to Sahaj and Roslyn as Alice and I ran inside to the Biology department. It was ages ago, we ran all the away down the marble corridor, which was right next to the Library so the librarian came out and yelled at us; but we ignored him and ran on. Once we reached the end, we ran through the Milky Way, through the quad and up the stairs to the Biology department. Once we finally got there, we burst inside the classroom.
"Sorry, we're la-" I started saying but I was cut short as there was an old man teaching in front of us. I was not expecting that. I thought Sahaj said he was really hot? It was then when I had noticed that we had just interrupted a lesson of the younger years. Alice and I slowly backed out, apologizing.
"Bella," Alice said thumping her forehead. "We're in the other room today!"
"Now ya tell me!" I said, running to the room upstairs. Once we finally got to the room, we slowly entered to see Mr Cullen, I presumed, writing on the whiteboard.
"Sorry we're late," I said breathless from the entire running.
"Its fine," he said and Sahaj was right, his accent was sexy; he still didn't turn around and continued writing. "Take your seats," he said and Alice and I proceeded to sit at the front as someone had already taken our usual places.
As we sat down Alice leaned across to me and whispered, "Oh my gosh, his hair." She was right, it was a bronze mess; it looked like he had just rolled out of bed. It was sex hair.
"So today-" he started, turning to face us and I blanked out after that. He was absolutely stunning, he had piercing green eyes, strong cheekbones, a defined jaw line, tousled bronze hair and I could tell through the thin fabric of his shirt that he had a well toned stomach. Sahaj was so right. He was sexy.
That was the day that I started falling deeply in love with Mr. Cullen.