Chapter 1

The sound of the alarm clock was an irritating intrusion into the comfortable haze of sleep that wrapped its arms around Bella. She dragged her hand out from beneath the warm cocoon of blankets to hit the snooze button. She kept her eyes closed; trying to let the haze reclaim her, but the damage had already been done. She was awake now.

She sighed, still not ready to untangle herself from the covers, and she tried to recall what she had been dreaming about before being so rudely interrupted. For a moment, she thought she might remember, but the elusive whisper of her dream escaped her yet again.

This was the third day of school, and she didn't want to start her senior year with a tardy slip. She rubbed her face with both hands, trying to stimulate the flow of blood in an effort to stay alert. She was not a morning person, unlike some people she could mention.

She stumbled through most of her before-school routine; showering, brushing her teeth, dressing. After scrutinizing herself in the mirror and noting the dark cycles beneath her eyes, she once again thought how badly she wanted to crawl back beneath the mound of already cooling blankets that covered her bed like an inviting nest.

She pulled her hair into a messy ponytail- the only kind of ponytail that her unruly brown coloured waves allowed- before grabbing her backpack off the floor. She hated it when adults told her how lucky she was to have such gorgeous, natural waves, when she wanted nothing more than to blend in with the sea of shiny, flat-ironed, stick-straight hair with which every girl in her school seemed to have been blessed apart from her.

But what did she expect? Life didn't seem to want her to blend in like everyone else.

She glowered at her reflection one last time before she hurried out the door and crossing her fingers, like she did every morning, that her ancient little truck would splutter into life when she tried to start it.

Her truck.

Her father called it a 'classic'.

She wasn't so kind in her description of the small truck with its original factory red paint that was fading after years of being battered by the rainy weather of Forks.

She called it dilapidated.

Reliable, her father would argue back. And Bella couldn't entirely disagree. So far, despite its morning protests and groans- so much like her own- her little ancient truck had never been the cause of one of her (many) late slips.

Today was no different. The car coughed and spewed when she turned the ignition, but the engine caught on the first attempt and, after a few coaxing moments, the sound turn to something closer to its usual not-so-quiet grumbling.

Bella pulled out of her drive and parked it again in front of her next-door-neighbour and best friend's house, Edward Cullen.

Best friend. The expression seemed to foreign now, like an old, comfortable sneaker that once practically moulded to your foot but now strained against each step you took because it no longer fit.

The summer had changed things...too many things for Bella's liking.

Her parents and Edward's parents had been best friends for as long as they could remember and the feeling rubbed off on them. Ever since they were in dippers, Bella and Edward were inseparable.

They spent years of their childhoods combing through the forested areas that surrounded both their homes, as the explored and built clubhouses out of old timber. They had mapped and named entire sections of the woods, several of them after themselves. Things like 'Swan Stream'...'Edward Woods'...'Cullen Trail'...Bella Meadow'.

The4y had done everything together. Best friends forever. So why, then, had everything changed so suddenly?

Already, as she tapped her fingers impatiently on her steering wheel, her heart was racing within suddenly too-confined space of her chest.

This is ridiculous she chided herself. He's your best friend!

She saw the front door opening and Edward yanking his hooded sweatshirt over his head, dragging his backpack in his wake. He yelled something into the house, probably telling his family he was leaving for school, and he pulled the door shut behind him.

He had four siblings all together and all of them were adopted. Carslie Cullen and Esme Cullen were like super-parents; and their whole family looked like freaking rockstars or super-models. And each and every one of them was her best friends.

There was Alice Cullen who, if anything, was normally described as a pixie who has had too much caffeine. Rosalie Cullen was only the hottest girl in the school and had boys falling literally at her feet wherever she went. Jasper Cullen-Alice's boyfriend- looked a little like Rosalie only more quiet and thoughtful. Emmet Cullen was probably the most muscular person Bella had ever met and was Rosalie's boyfriend.

It was the same thing every day. Edward would ride with her and his siblings would rid together to school. There was nothing different from yesterday and the day before that. Nothing different from every single day since they had met.

Except that now her stomach was climbing into her throat as he grinned his stupid lop-sided grin at her and slid into her truck.

She smiled back, willing her reckless pulse to slow down. "Ready?"

"No, but do we have a choice?" His voice, which had gotten deeper over the summer, was still so well-known to her; so comfortable that she immediately relaxed.

"Not if you don't want to end up in the Principal's office for skiving."

She backed out of the driveway, barely glancing in her rear-view mirror to watch where she was going. His driveway was almost as familiar to her as her own.

She hated those new, unknown feelings that seemed to assault her whenever he was around and sometimes even when he was only in her thoughts. She felt like she was no longer in control of her own body, and her traitorous reactions were only slightly more embarrassing than her treacherous thoughts.

She was starting to feel like he was toxic to her.

Well, that, or she was seriously losing her mind. And what really irritated Bella was that he seemed to be completely oblivious of these new, and completely insane, reactions she was having to him. Obviously, whatever she had wasn't contagious.

Except that it was. She wasn't the only one that seemed to be noticing him. She almost hated the moment they'd step out from her relative peace of her noisy truck into the school's overcrowded parking lot. Because that's when the real game began.

Day three of school, but as of day one, girls had begun to wait for them to arrive in the morning.

No, not for them...for Edward.

His new fan club Bella thought sourly.

By the time she had managed to fund a parking spot, there were only two die-hard 'Edward fans' left waiting for them. Or rather, for him Bella corrected herself again.

Bella decided not to wait around to watch the flirt-fest begin. She was already half running- and trying not to trip as usual- with her backpack slung over her shoulder as she bolted from her car. "See you in second period!" she yelled back at Edward, consciously deciding that this was better anyway. The last thing she wanted to do right now was to watch him with two girls, who practically assaulted him as he got out of the truck.

Made it she congratulated herself. Three days down and no tardy slips.

Just one hundred and seventy-seven to go.

Drew looks at me,

I fake a smile so he won't see