Do you know how many secrets there are in the world at this very moment? Hundreds, thousands, millions even? An infinite number that cannot be counted or measured?
You have secrets from your parents, secrets from your friends and secrets from the world. Some secrets are small, like the fact you really hate the present your aunt got you last Christmas. You don't tell her the truth because you don't want to hurt her feelings. If a small secret got out it would not have a great effect. Maybe some minor negative fall back but nothing life threatening.
Some secrets however are not small. Some secrets run so deep that if they are uncovered it could change the path of your life, forever.
I am privy to a huge secret. A secret that is so tightly governed that even just knowing puts my life in danger. Although it is not my own secret, I guard it with my life. I lie to my father about it. I put on an act in front of my peers. Do whatever I need to do to protect the secret of my love and the family I have come to call my own.
I do this because I, Isabella Marie Swan, am truly, deeply and irrevocably in love with a vampire. I have accepted him, his family and his life. Others however might not be as accepting and getting discovered is a constant fear for his family, so everything must be done so the secret is kept secret.
They are good at this, in all their years of living I am the only human to have found out their secret and that was with a lot of clues. Sometimes though, I do wonder if they might let it slip again and what the consequences for that slip might be.
"Bella," squealed my over excited pixie best friend as she bounced over to the door of my truck as I pulled up in the driveway of the Cullen house.
If it was possible Alice seemed even more excited than usual as she helped me out of the truck making sure I didn't trip and fall on my face. Edward was away hunting and it seemed like Alice was under clear instructions to protect me; probable with the bribe of some Bella Barbie time to make it worth her while. Not my idea of fun but I can't ignore her puppy eyes when so time and time again I find myself in her room being forced in to outfit after outfit.
Thankful the Bella Barbie would have to take place another day. Today had a purpose. A purpose I could tell Alice was keen to get started on as she pulled out the empty bag from the boot of my truck with ease and motioned me to follow her bouncing form in to the house.
My breath caught as I followed her through the double doors and in to the house. I had seen the house with windows barred, the threat of Victoria and James ripe in the air, seen it cold, empty and filled with dust abandoned by the vibrant family just like I had been. I'd also seen it after one of Emmett and Jasper's play fights complete with window and shards of Esme's favourite vase.
However, none of these had prepared me for the sight that met my eyes as I walked in. The whole house resembled a jumble sale. Clothes lay everywhere imaginable. The floor, the furniture, hanging from the stairs and most surprisingly hanging from Esme's beloved chandlers. Even poor Jasper, who seemed to be keeping out the way in the corner, had a pile of clothes strew haphazardly over his lap.
The only place free of clothes was in the middle of the room where five huge hold all bags sat completely empty. I watched bemused as Alice made her way across the room, through the piles of clothes and deposited my bag alongside the others. Packing with the Cullens was never going to be dull but this was too much even for me, I was frozen, speechless in the doorway.
Esme greeted me calmly, unaffected by the mess and led my frozen self across the room and cleared away some clothes to give me a place to sit. I watched from the sofa, Alice in her element, wading through all the clothes every so often holding up an item to Rose for evaluation or just simply chucking clothes in to one of the cases.
As I watched the suitcase slowly fill with a variety of different clothes of various shapes, sizes and colours I thought back to reason for this insane packing. This year's school trip.
Not long after our return for Italy, when I was still well and truly grounded. When the pupils of Forks high school were still adjusting to the return of the Cullens and the novelty of my non zombie state filled the whispered words of high school gossip. On an unsurprisingly rainy Monday morning, the trip which required such amazing packing was first put in to motion.
The whole of the senior year was called in to an assembly first thing. We filed in to the rows of uncomfortable chairs, shrugging out of our wet raincoats and sat back in our seats to endure what we all thought was going to be yet another assembly about behaviour or achieving our potential.
We were pleasantly surprised when instead we were told not about how to be positive but that we as a year would have the opportunity to go on a school trip. We were told that normally they ran a senior trip every year but dew to unforeseen circumstances they had not been able to run a trip last school year. Therefore this year they were opening it up to the already graduated seniors form the last year, like Emmett, Jasper and Rose.
This was how all of the Cullen 'children' and me ended up packing, albeit letting Alice pack for us, to go to San Francisco for two weeks.
Well it wasn't really as simple as that. This trip had been the topic of conversation for months. The California weather had raised some concerns, trying to keep the secret in a place where the sun always shines would have been a challenge. Thankfully Alice solved that problem, her sight proving that everywhere has rain at some point and that most of the days of the trip would be overcast, apart from a few days which the Cullens could fake sickness.
Hunting was also another problem. Two weeks without blood would be hard for my vampire siblings so an alternative solution had to be found. It was decided that they would feed before they left and have to cope with blood collected from the animals and stored in blood bags for the rest of the trip. This solution wasn't the most appetising it seemed and it was met with much hesitation before it was deemed to be the safest and best option.
I was surprised to find that none of the Cullens ever suggested not going on the trip. At first I thought it might be Edwards doing, making them come on the human experience of a school trip with me but when I confronted him about it he explained to me that it was important to go so as not to raise suspicions. Everyone knew the Cullens had the money to go on the trip and it would seem weird and may raise suspicions if they were not to take part.
He also told me that Alice had made it very clear that she was not missing out on the shopping experiences that the trip would bring, so was going weather they liked it or not. Alice's decision to go meant that Jasper was their without question as was he when Charlie announced that he was letting me go. This just left Emmet and Rose. Emmet would come just for the laugh and Rose would follow so she was not left alone as well as joining Alice for the shopping.
I was glad that all my siblings had decided to come but it still meant that we were leaving my vampire parents behind. It would be my first time not seeing them since Italy and I knew it would be hard. Esme especially seemed to shear my feelings of sadness at seeing the family separated again, though we were both put at ease by the fact it was only for two weeks not life.
Our afternoon of packing passed in a blur of fabrics. After the initial shock of seeing the house in such a state wore off I helped Alice and Rose pack for all of us. The mountains of clothes slowly shrunk although by the end both Alice and Rose had more than one bag.
It was nice to spend the afternoon with them, laughing and joking as sisters do. Spending the day with constantly on the move vampires however does take its toll on your average human and when we were finished I couldn't help collapsing in to the sofa with exhaustion.
The sofa was soft and constable and I could have fallen asleep within seconds if it wasn't for the handsome man who walked in to the room at that moment. He crossed the floor with such graceful swift strides and had wrapped his arms around me before I could even blink. I had missed Edward all day and it was nice to have him back in my arms and I could tell he felt the same.
I watched from my cocoon in Edward's arms as Emmett and Carlisle entered the room after him. Moving with the same grace and speed to their respective partners. I watched each couple embrace and smiled before turning back to my own reunion with Edward.
We drifted in to our own world and by the time we resurfaced we were joined by the rest of the family who were sitting around us. We had already decided that we would spend our last night before the trip together as a family, watching a film together. Edward and I would then go back to Charlie's and then we would leave in the morning to get the bus from the school.
As we watched the film we sat in companionable silence, just happy to be together as a family. When the film came to an end it was time for goodbyes. It was hard saying goodbye to the couple who were practically my adopted parents but as I constantly reminded myself it was only a two week break I would be seeing them soon.
Edward then loaded my now fully packed bag in to the boot of my truck and drove me home, ready for the big trip tomorrow.