Chapter 1

I'm sitting here staring at the lush green forest around me. The air smells damp and musky, but refreshing and comforting. The ground is wet with fresh rain, but I hear that's all it does here in Forks – my new home.

Starting over on my own at 17.

A new beginning for myself.

That's what I keep telling myself. Really my adoptive parents are finally getting rid of the one problem standing in the way of their perfect life. Caroline and Patrick Florentine have been trying to ditch me since the day I was born. Well now they are getting what they have always wanted, and so am I.

A fresh start where no one will know my short past, or suspect anything different about me. I can live the life of a normal teenager, and experience a normal life with out being told I'm a freak everyday and being hidden from the world.

The day my life began, my Mothers ended. She died while giving birth to me about six months earlier that was expected. I don't know who my father was, I don't know if any one really does. My mother had a son before me, but apparently he was a lot like his father and ran out on my Mother just like he did when he was around 18. I don't know his name all I have is an old picture of the two of them at his high school graduation. On the back it says My loving son, on the proudest day of my life in the prettiest handwriting I have ever seen. I look a lot like my Mother with long, dark brown wavy hair and big chocolate eyes. I look at that photo everyday and wish my brother hadn't left her. Maybe then she wouldn't have been alone to give birth to me, and she would be here and we would all be happy together. But who am I kidding? It's all in the past now, and even my family probably would have thought I was a freak too.

See, I have been 17 for ten years now. I don't know why. I don't know what I am or what made me this way, and I don't really think any one else ever will either. Since I was born, Caroline and Patrick kept me a secret. It's pretty hard to explain a baby who is born the size of a three month old and having full conversations by the age of six months to family and friends. Rarely have I ever even been outside in the sunlight. My hard skin glistens in a way that is easily noticeable and hardly natural.

It was pretty easy for me to go unnoticed through the years. I have never been sick or injured in my entire life – not even a cold. By the time I was three years old I was smarter than the average high school student and by seven, I looked exactly the way I do now. I haven't aged in almost ten years- I haven't even grown a millimeter.

There is one thing that has changed though about my self, and it was a large reason I had to get out of my miserable life stuck inside that stuffy house with my guardian's everyday. I noticed my change in appetite on my 17th birthday. At first it was slight. I had smelled the lovely aroma before but had always ignored it and pushed it to the side. But that day, it began to get much stronger and harder to overlook. I couldn't quite place it for the first few days. I noticed it get almost too much too handle when I was in the kitchen helping Caroline cook dinner, but always kept my distance from her anyways so it was hard to tell. One day about a week after my birthday Caroline called me down to the kitchen in the early afternoon the help her cook for some dinner Patrick was hosting for some people he worked with.

"Isabella! You're late! Get down here and start these hours devours for the party!" she screeched. When it was absolutely necessary Caroline would pass me off as the help if someone saw me.

I was standing next to her slicing cucumbers while she was dicing carrots when it happened. She was yelling something at me about wasting food because I was cutting it all wrong when she slipped and cut the tip of her finger. The next few minutes were a blur. One second I was leaping at her and tackling her to the ground, desperately wanting to taste her blood. The next second I was laying on the floor with Caroline and Patrick standing over me, each with a giant frying pan in hand, ready to swing at any time.

In the next few moments lying there, I realized what had smelled so amazing over the past few days. Their blood. Once I recognized it, it was almost impossible to ignore. Not so bad that I was going to attack- I knew I could keep myself under control- no matter how much I hated the both of them; I knew I couldn't consciously hurt another being. But I had a feeling that if there was another incident with and open would that there would be no stopping me. Caroline was lucky that her husband happened to be getting a pan out of the cabinet at the right time before I did any harm.

That was when we all made the decision that it was time for me to leave. It wasn't safe for me to be in such close quarters with them all the time and I could tell they were scared to death. I wanted to go out and discover who I was and what was going on with me and yet try to live a normal life. I knew there was something more too it than me just being a cannibal or something gross like that. And I wanted answers.

I decided to come to Forks because it seemed to be the exact opposite of Phoenix and I really wanted to start completely over. Hopefully I could be at peace and start my search for answers on my own.

So that brings me here, to the forest. Just on the other side of the trees in front of me is what I have been waiting to do for years now. It's the first day of school at Forks High. I have never been this nervous in m entire life. I know I can keep my unusual hunger under control, but I have rarely been around people my own age. Most of what I know I've learned from television and I have no idea what to expect. But this is my new life as Bella Swan, I can be anyone I want to be, all new, any story I want.