Author's Note: I'm finally back! This is my main project for right now, so I'm going to be updating much more frequently. But, of course, school still takes precedence above this. I hope you enjoy this story and constructive critism is always more than welcome, but please, no flames!

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, and I don't pretend to. I'm merely playing with Stephenie's amazing characters.

Chapter 1

Edward's PoV

I trudged down the crowded, noisy hallway at school. These people obviously have nothing better to do than suck each others' faces off. Or gossip juvenilely about each other. I arrived at my locker and quickly turned the lock on the bland, gray door. I jammed my books onto the overcrowded shelves and slammed the door. My sister, Alice's, locker is just down the hall. I pushed my way through the crowd to it, to find her and her boyfriend, Jasper Hale, having a moment. They are a very, what's the right word here, I suppose, intimate. They are not very physical, like my brother, Emmett, and his girlfriend, Rosalie. But, they are so deep, it's as though they were married sometimes.

"Alice?" I asked.

She tore her gaze away from Jasper and looked up at me with a very annoyed expression on her pixie face. She shook her short, choppy black hair out of her eyes. "What do you want, Edward? Are you blind? Can you not see that I'm busy?"

Her annoyed tone caught Jasper's attention. He took her hand and held it between his. "Alice, honey? It's okay. I was just about to go to class anyway," he paused to kiss her forehead. "Bye. See you second hour, dear."

Alice waited until his shaggy, blond hair was completely swallowed up by the hungry crowd, giving the back of his head a very lovesick dreamy look. "Can you get on with it, Edward? I've got to go to class, too. And so do you."

"Do you have our presentation set up for fourth hour yet? And did you talk to Mrs. Arrendale about using the projector?" These were my main concerns for our fourth hour English class presentation. For some reason, the teacher felt compelled to put the twin siblings together for every, single partner project.

"Yes, I did," she sighed, shaking her head at me. "Goodness, Edward. When are you going to get a life. You come searching for your sister, and urgently ask her if she finished the English project. You are so socially stunted."

"At least I'm not vertically stunted, Alice." I returned. She had always been sensitive about her height. For twins, we look nothing alike.

She rolled her eyes at me. Then, a look came over her face. The look we all lovingly called her "Energizer Bunny Look". It meant that she was about to talk my ear off. "Guess what? There's a new student at school today! Her family just transferred in from Phoenix! She's in our English class. I almost walked into her this morning when I went in to set things up with Mrs. Arrendale. She's so pretty! You'll like her, Edward. At least, you better, because I invited her to sit with us at lunch. Oh my gosh! Do you think I'll be able to get her to go shopping with me…"

I tuned her out. When Alice went on these talking rampages, it was best to just occasionally nod. I had learned early on that she didn't really expect anyone to truly listen or even try to keep up with her mile-a-minute thought patterns.

My first hour class is biology with Dr. Harte. Since I was hoping to be a doctor, I needed to get an excellent recommendation from my biology teacher to get a scholarship to Johns Hopkins Medical School. I slid into my seat next to my lab partner, Jeremy Watkins. He was a jock and acted like he had no brain in his head, other than the part of his brain that thinks about girls and sports.

Dr. Harte walked through the door and flicked the lights off. "Class, today we are going to watch a documentary on the difference between plant and animal cells." He pressed a few buttons on the remote and turned to his computer, completely ignoring the class. Several kids whipped out their cell phones and began texting across the classroom. I took out a sheet of notebook paper and began taking notes on the boring, pointless, rambling documentary. Jeremy fell asleep on the desk on the table next to me. I rolled my eyes.

Finally, the bell rang signaling the end of the hour. We all stood up to leave. As we did so, Dr. Harte called out, "There will be a quiz over this tomorrow! Good luck!" There was a huge, collective groan from everyone. At least I could study!

I squeezed through the hallway to my locker. I exchanged my books and went to see meet Alice and walk with her to our second hour class, calculus.

As we walked along, Alice started talking about how the new girl she had mentioned earlier was in her first hour political science class. "She's so nice. And so smart, too. She sat next to me and she mentioned that she wanted to be a lawyer and that her political science grade was crucial to get a scholarship to Columbia University. She's a lot like you. All goal-oriented and stuff. I didn't ask her about the shopping thing, yet. I'm going to wait until lunch when I can ask her and Rose."

"That's probably I good idea, Alice. Best not to scare the poor new girl too badly on her first day," I said when she paused for a breath. "Although, she probably already is regretting agreeing to sit with us because she's already had a class with you." I chuckled to myself. Alice probably talked the girl's ear off already in a single hour.

We entered Mrs. Relian's classroom to see Jasper already in his seat, rechecking his homework. Alice danced over to the seat next to him. I took the open seat in front of Alice. They began talking about their date they apparently had planned for this Saturday. I checked my homework and turned it in to the teacher. The way Mrs. Relian ran her class made me feel like I was in 7th grade again.

As I went to sit back down, I heard another girl, Jessica Stanley, who was always flirting with me, whispering to Lauren Mallory, another annoying blonde who couldn't take a hint, and Tanya Denali, my ex-girlfriend from junior high, about the new girl. From their unkind words about her hair and the fact that she was able to answer the teacher's questions on her first day, I concluded that they were jealous. Wow. Now I really had to meet this girl. Especially if she could get Alice to befriend her and make Jessica, Lauren, and Tanya jealous all in two classes. I snickered internally. The Blondes' wrath and jealousy isn't hard to incur. Rosalie had been fending those idiots off for about a year now. Ever since she had pretty much permanently taken Emmett off the dating market, those girls had had it in for her.

When Mrs. Relian had had enough torture-by-calculus for one day, Alice, Jasper, and I all went to our respective lockers.

Alice and Jasper had French together next hour. I had political science. The teacher had a monotone and was such an easy grader, that last year, Emmett had written a two page essay that consisted of nothing but him rambling on about his new Wii. Mr. Huntington gave him an A. I was just surprised that Emmett knew two pages worth of words.

Mr. Huntington wasn't in the room when I entered and took my usual seat in the back. There was, however a young woman with copper colored hair standing at the front of the room. Most of the boys in our class were trying, uselessly, to get her to talk to them.

When the bell rang, she wrote her name on the board. "Hello, class! I am Mrs. Black. I prefer that you all call me Ness, though. Mrs. Black is just so formal." She smiled at us. You could tell that she enjoyed teaching. That was at least one step up from Mr. Huntington. "I am going to be your sub for the next six weeks," she continued. "Mr. Huntington is getting knee replacement surgery and won't be back until then. He left me a DVD set to play for you…" She was interrupted with cheers of excitement. "But… I am not going to use it." Groans erupted this time. She could obviously tell that she had just made some enemies. "I am going to write up a curriculum this weekend, so you have the week off. I brought some movies that are mildly related to history that I think you'll enjoy that also won't get me in trouble if the principal were to stop in." She turned around and placed a disc in the player. The T.V. went dark, then lit up with a picture of the torch from the Statue of Liberty. National Treasure was displayed. I simply ignored the movie and returned to my earlier thoughts of the new girl.

I hadn't paid enough attention to Alice's ramblings to pick up what her name was. All I knew was that she was pretty, smart, and that Alice wanted to be friends with her and The Blondes wanted her dead. And that she was going to be in my next class, when Alice and I had our big presentation.

We had had to research the life and times of a famous poet or writer. Alice, being Alice, had wanted to dress up. At first, I had vehemently refused, but no one can be as vicious as Alice, and I didn't want to cross her. So, next class, I was going to make a total fool out of myself. We had been assigned Jane Austen. Alice's great idea was that we dress up as two of her best known characters, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. She even went so far as to design, and make, costumes. I had created a compilation of music from the era and a video timeline to play for the class. Mrs. Arrendale was known for giving extra credit.

After the worthless class of political science, Alice and I dashed off to the bathrooms to change into our costumes.

I felt like an idiot. No, worse than an idiot. I felt like an idiot dressed in a costume from the late 1800's. I had on the full outfit, complete with the little vest. I sighed and went off to class. It was after the bell had rung, so, luckily, there were no more students in the hallway to laugh at my ridiculous clothing.

I entered the classroom to see Alice sitting in her usual desk, talking to a girl who had her back to me. This must be the new girl, because I had never seen her before. Her dark, chestnut colored hair flowed down her back in the most graceful way. She was leaning on her right arm. I could see the sleeve of her turquoise turtleneck sweater from beneath her hair. The skin of her hand was creamy white. Her posture brought to mind a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. "See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek…"

I shook my head. Time to focus, Cullen. You still have to do a presentation. Focus! I slid into my seat next to Alice. From this angle, I could see the chestnut haired beauty's face. She was blushing. What from? Embarrassment? Shyness? Probably both, being a new student. She had almond shaped eyes that were two deep pools of a rich, chocolate color, framed with black lashes. Her nose was a gentle slope ending in a delicate point. She noticed me staring and blushed a deeper shade of crimson.

Again, I shook my head. Focus! You've got to focus!

"Alright, class! We're going to begin now!" Mrs. Arrendale called the class to order. "We're going to begin with Edward and Alice Cullen. Go ahead, kids."

We both stood and walked to the front.

"For our project," Alice began. "We researched Jane Austen."

The music I had chosen began to flow through the room. It was one of Mozart's Piano Concertos.

"She was born on December 16, 1775. She wrote realistic novels, not common at that time…"

Fifteen minutes later, I was back in my jeans and t-shirt. Our presentation went smoothly. I couldn't stop staring at the new girl, though. I had to find out her name so I could stop calling her the "new girl". She blushed furiously every time she caught me staring. I just couldn't help myself, though. She was just so beautiful. I noticed how when she would blush, she would also duck behind her hair a little bit. I also appreciated how the deep turquoise of her sweater offset her very fair skin.

After watching all the other partners present their authors, we were finally dismissed. Alice hurried off with Jasper to lunch. The girl stood up and began to walk out of the classroom, so I caught up with her.

"Hi. I'm Edward Cullen. You're new here, right?" I asked.

She turned and graced me with a breathtaking smile. "Yeah, my family just transferred to Forks from Phoenix. I'm Bella Swan."

Bella. Beautiful. Just like her.

"So, I guess you've already been assaulted by Alice. She's my Energizer twin." I joked.

"Wait. You two are twins? You don't look anything alike!" She looked very surprised.

I laughed. "Yes. A lot of people don't believe us. She mentioned that she had invited you to lunch with us…" I trailed off to give Bella the opportunity to decline at the last minute.

Bella nodded her head and smiled again. I walked with her through the lunch line, not paying attention to what I put on my tray. We approached our usual table, talking about the political science substitute and how she seemed like a flake.

I sat down, and Bella sat next to me. Alice was on my other side, Jasper was on her left. Rosalie was on Jasper's left, and Emmett was on Rose's left.

"So, Eddie? Who's your friend?" Emmett's booming laugh resounded through the cafeteria.

"First of all, Emmett, it's Edward, not Eddie. And second, this is Bella. She just transferred from Phoenix. Bella, this is Emmett, Alice and my brother. Rosalie is his girlfriend. Jasper is Alice's boyfriend and Rose's twin." I gestured to them in turn. Rosalie waved to Bella. Jasper opted for the customary head nod.

"So, Bella," Alice cut in. "Do you like shopping?" She had the Energizer Bunny Look on.

Bella grimaced. "No. It's a waste of money to me. And annoying."

Both Rose and Alice stared at her like she had grown a third head. "You. Don't. Like. Shopping. Wait, that doesn't compute. Shopping is a girl's best friend." Alice looked like she was about to vomit. Shopping was air to that little pixie. Sometimes, I wonder if my real twin was switched with her at birth.

"Sorry," Bella said. "It's just that, I don't really have a lot of money, and what little I do have, I don't want to spend it on clothes that I don't need."

Jasper decided to distract Alice by asking her if she wanted him to go shopping with her this weekend. It worked. She was thoroughly distracted, talking about stores and clothes and other meaningless junk. Bella returned her focus to her salad.

I decided to try to strike up conversation with her. "So, Bella, why did your family move here to Forks? It's not a very exciting place."

"My mom's company transferred her to Seattle and she didn't want to live in the city, so, she found Forks. My dad got the police force in Phoenix to transfer his resume here. He's the new police chief. What about you? What do your parents do?" she returned.

"My father works at the hospital as an emergency room doctor. My mom is the librarian at the tiny local library."

She laughed. It was the most beautiful sound in the world. "I'll probably run into both of them. I'm a total klutz. I was on a first name basis with all the nurses in the ER in Phoenix. And I'm a pretty avid reader, so I'll probably see your mom a lot, too."

So, Bella got injured a lot. I'd have to fix that. I silently vowed to myself that I'd never let her get hurt again.

Rosalie joined the conversation. "Bella, what's your next class? I have gym next. But, Emmett and I are seniors, so we probably have different schedules."

"Actually, I'm in gym, too, with Coach Hurst. I'm probably going to kill myself." She muttered the last part under her breath.

Alice piped up. "I'm in gym next, too! I think you'll like it."

Bella shook her head. "No, I'm probably going to trip over something or hit someone in the head with something. I'm a klutz."

"Don't worry, Bella. Coach Hurst is usually pretty nice about teams and stuff." I tried to reassure her.

After lunch, I went to my French class. Mme. Klein was an older woman who had lived in France most of her life, so she was very particular about pronunciation and she had a very thick accent, to the point where we really couldn't understand her.

It was very unfortunate that our school didn't offer Spanish or Latin. They claimed that French was "the language of the future", but in all honesty, Mme. Klein was the only bilingual person in Forks, apart from her students.

I sat down just as the late bell rang. Mme. Klein stood to start class.

"We have a new student, today, class. Ziva David, please stand." She motioned to a girl with dark, almost black, hair that had been braided down her back. She had olive skin, dark eyes, and a smirk. Her green sweater offset the olive tone very nicely. I could tell that lots of boys would be hitting on her. I had my eyes on someone else, Bella. But, Ziva David sounded like an Israeli name. She looked Israeli, too. Wow. She was a long way from home, if that was true. I'd have to talk to her later.

Ben Cheney, the short, brunette boy who sits next to me, leaned over.

"Hey, Edward. This is kind of random, but I was just wondering if you'd heard anything about the other new girl, Bella?" His face looked mildly disinterested.

"Yeah. She sat with my family at lunch. She's also in my English class" I replied. "Why'd you want to know?"

"Angela was curious. She asked me to ask around today. She's stuck at home. One of the twins, Isaac, has the flu, so her mom quarantined them all." Ben replied. Well, that made sense. Ben and Angela had been dating each other since the beginning of freshman year. Longer than Rosalie and Emmett and Alice and Jasper combined.

"Okay, class. We're going to introduce ourselves to Mademoiselle David. Let's start here and go around." Mme. Klein pointed to Conner.

When it got around to me, I said, "Je m'appelle Edward. Bon jour, Mademoiselle David." Then I went back to thinking about Bella. She was probably dying right now in gym class.

"Class! We're going to review the conjugations of the verbs we've learned so far. Say them with me…" Mme. Klein launched into a long list of French verb conjugations. It was rather pointless reviewing these, since we had all been in her class since freshman year.

After class, as I was leaving, Ziva caught up with me. "Hi, Edward. Mme. Klein asked me to get the notes from the last unit from someone, and you seemed like a good student." Her voice had a thick Israeli accent. It was very pretty, but I still thought of Bella as the girl I wanted to be with.

"Sure. I'll give them to you in class tomorrow." I smiled at her. She was new, after all, and probably had no friends here.

"Thanks!" She turned and walked down the hall.

I continued on to my locker. I packed my book-bag and went to the gym. When I entered the locker room, Jasper and Emmett were already there, dressing out. They were talking about something quietly. I walked over to my gym locker and quickly changed clothes into my gym shorts and t-shirt.

Coach Hurst walked into the gym, where all the guys were standing around or in Connor and Tyler's case, wrestling. The class quickly got quiet. We knew from previous experience that Coach Hurst was a very easily angered man.

"We're playing basketball today, boys. Number off. Ones over there. Twos over there. Go."

After the basketball game, where Connor fell and sprained his ankle, and Eric fell and hit his head, we all changed back into our regular clothes. I was walking back to my car, Emmett had headed back into the main building to catch Rose's class, and Alice was leaning against my car, waiting for me.

"Hey Alice," I called as I unlocked my Volvo with the remote. "It's open."

She bounced in and fastened her seat belt. I did the same and started the car. As soon as I was out of the parking lot, Alice began to talk.

"So, what did you think of Bella? I like her she's so nice. Oh my goodness! She tripped over her own feet today in gym and then she hit the volleyball sideways and get this! It hit Jessica in the head, bounced off, hit Lauren in the nose, bounced and hit Tanya in the gut! I still can't believe that she hit all three of them in one shot, by accident! It was so funny! And you should have seen her face! She looked so shocked! And of course they all tried to use it as an excuse to sit out the rest of the tournament. Wimps. So, how was your day, brother dearest?"

I shook my head. She had only taken about three breaths through that whole story. "It was fine, Alice. And to answer your question, yes, I do like Bella. She's great. She's smart, and funny, and nice, and witty, and clever…" I trailed off because Alice was giving me a knowing look.

"What?" I asked.

"You like her."

"Yes, Alice. I just said that."

"No, I mean you like-like her."

"Maybe." I was wary of her gloating expression.

I was surprised by her squeal of delight. "I knew it! I knew it!" She was bouncing up and down with excitement. I simply rolled my eyes.

That night, I went to bed with thoughts of Bella still floating around in my head. Her laugh, her smile, her deep, beautiful eyes. She was simply the perfect girl. And I was going to have her as my girlfriend before the year was out.

With that happy thought in my head, I drifted off to sleep.

Author's Note: So, my lovely readers, please review! Those help me write better chapters. You'll get one even if you don't review, but if you want a decent chapter, review, please!