I sighed as I pressed my forehead against the cool glass window of the cab.

'What am I doing here?' I asked myself, gently thumping my head against the window.

'Oh that's right – I begged my mother to let me move my entire life to the god forsaken town of Forks, Washington. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time…

"Bella!" a voice called up to my bedroom. I groaned and pulled the bed covers over my head.

"Bella! I'm not kidding around! Not today! Get out of bed, you need to get ready"

I reluctantly lifted my head up and averted my gaze to the alarm clock on my bedside table. The bright red letters that I was greeted with were not a pretty sight.

"6.30? Mum the wedding isn't until 3.00pm why the hell do I have to start getting ready now?!" I yelled as loud as I could, unaware of where in the house my mother was at thet time. Apparently she was right outside my door.

"Isabella Marie Swan this is not a jean and t-shirt function!" She yelled stomping into my room, "You cannot get up fifteen minutes before the ceremony and expect to be ready. We have to go to the salon, pick up my dress, have makeup done, make sure the bridal party is ready, meet the photographer and get to the church and we only have one chance to get it all right so please GET UP!" I don't think my mother had ever spoken with so much authority in her life, and I was terrified.

"Okay mum I'm up, I'm up." I said hurriedly, trying to avoid another one of those outbursts, Bridezilla much? "Stop worrying mum everything is going to be fine."

"Oh I know honey. I'm so sorry I didn't mean to yell at you it's just I'm very emotional right now." Her voice cracked on the last word and the next thing I knew she was sitting next to me on the bed crying her eyes out.

"Mum don't cry." I said in my best comforting tone, crying people always made me uncomfortable. I hesitantly started to rub soothing circles on her back, in response she pulled me into a backbreaking hug. I patted her head and said "Mum don't tell me you're having second thoughts, Phil is a great guy – he makes you so happy."

"No it's n-not th-that" she sobbed into my shoulder.

"Then what?" I asked. I was totally confused.

She pulled back and looked at me.

"It's just, Phil goes to Florida after the honeymoon and I won't see him again for a long time and its just as though this wedding is the beginning of a countdown to when I have to say goodbye" Her voice went up a few octaves towards the end of her sentence and she buried her face in my shoulder again.

"Oh" Was all I could come up with. I mean what was I supposed to say to that? I'M the reason she has to say goodbye in the first place. She would be able to travel anywhere with Phil except for the fact that they can't afford to have a 17 year old trailing along with them. And actually I had been preparing to have this talk with Renee for a while now.

"Actually mum, I've been meaning to talk to you about that." I leaned back so I could look into her eyes and began the speech that I head been formulating in my head for the last couple of months. "I've been thinking, and I think that you should go with Phil to Florida."

"But Bella the three of us can't afford to all go travelling across the country you know that." She interrupted, obviously puzzled at what I was saying.

"Yes mum I know that, which is why it wouldn't be the three of us; it would be the two of you." Renee just stared at me a while and then said slowly.

"Bella I can't leave you in Phoenix all alone, where would you stay? I mean we have no family here and there would be no one to look after my baby"

I rolled my eyes at the last part "First of all I'm 17 years old mum, therefore not a baby and secondly, I wont be in Phoenix, I'll be in Forks."

"Forks?" She said blankly "You want to movie to Forks?"

"Well yeah mum, and you wouldn't even have to worry about me – Charlie's there and he already said it was okay. Although he did also say th-"

"You already spoke to your father about this?" Renee cut me off and her eyes narrowed.

Uh oh. Charlie has always been a touchy subject for my mum, lets just say they did not get on. But she never spoke badly of him in front of me and encouraged us to have a relationship, which I always thought very highly of her for, but she still hated his guts.

"Well yeah, I wanted to make sure it was even possible for me to move there before I talked to you about it, and Charlie was really great about it all – he put no pressure on me whatsoever so don't be angry at him please." I gave her a puppy dog look that had been working to my advantage since I discovered its power when I was six years old.

"Bella, honey I just- I'm not sure about this you and Charlie have never spent more than a month together at a time and now you want to move in with him?" She was reaching now, trying to give me an out in case I was just doing this to please her but I could see in her eyes that she was excited at the prospect of staying with Phil.

"Yeah, mum that's the other thing, I wouldn't really be living with Charlie – that's what I was trying to tell you when you cut me off, Charlie doesn't really have enough room at his place and I mean I wouldn't really want to live two doors down from the police station anyway." (Charlie is the police Chief in Forks and as such is responsible for any after hours emergencies, so after my mum left him he moved closer to the station. Which is fine for him but the constant sirens and flashing lights weren't my cup of tea). "So Dad suggested Forks Academy, it's only half an hour away from Charlie and I could live there and still see him whenever I wanted and I mean he's the Chief so if anything goes wrong he'll be the first to know anyway, it's a good idea mum." I took a deep breath and waited patiently for Renee to process the information.

"Forks Academy? You want to go to a boarding school? Are you sure about this Bella, I mean what about all of your friends and-"

"Mum I've thought about all of that already. Yes I'll miss my friends but I'll make new ones – you know how much of a social butterfly I am"

Renee scoffed – and for good reason, I was quite possibly the shyest person on the planet, I really only had a couple of friends anyway and we weren't even that close.

I laughed a bit at her reaction and continued, "I want this mum. I want to spend some time with Charlie and I want to see you happy. Please?" I looked at her again, I could practically see the wheels turning in her head, this can't have been easy for her – I had been the one constant thing in her life for 17 years, I was always there, and she liked feeling needed and wanted. But she had Phil for that now, and I couldn't be with her forever.

"If that's what you really want sweetheart than how could I possibly say no?" She smiled at me and I hugged her tight.

"Thanks mum. Now we should probably start getting ready. Remember - only one chance to get this right and all that, it's already 7.00 o'clock." I said trying to pull away from her grasp.

"Oh I think I can spare some time for this honey" she said kissing my cheek and hugging me even closer. "I love you."

"I love you too mum."

And that was it. Three weeks later and Phil and Renee are in Florida and I'm sitting in a cab, inching ever closer to my new home.

Charlie offered to pick me up from the airport himself so we could spend a few days together but there were only a couple of days before the beginning of the school year and I wanted to get settled in before classes started.

"We'll be arriving in a few minutes Miss" I jumped at the driver's voice, and quickly looked out the window. All I could see was green. Green grass, green trees, green moss covering those trees. Green. Everywhere.

I hate green. Green is slimy and sticky and boring.

I sighed again, as the trees began to thin. The car rounded one last corner and I let out an audible gasp. Wow. We had come to a set of wrought iron, black gates. They were already open, presumably because students had started arriving and it was a hassle to keep opening and shutting them. Beyond the gates was a long driveway, bordered with white rose bushes and every fifty feet or so, a tall tree, incorporating some of the surrounding forest. On the left side of the drive's border was what appeared to be a formal garden area, with short hedges separating small areas with benches and flowers, it was beautiful.

On the right side of the drive was a sprawling lawn, I had no idea what this was used for but I didn't have time to wonder for long because just then my eyes fell on my new school. It was a freakin' castle! I was expecting something small, shabby even but this was...This was spectacular. As we neared the front doors I gathered up my purse and coat from the backseat of the cab and ran my fingers through my hair, which I'm sure was messy from all the travelling. The cab stopped and I thanked the driver and paid my fare, then proceeded to take my bags from the trunk. It was depressing really, I had managed to fit my whole life into two suitcases, well truthfully most of my summer clothes were left behind, there would be no need for them in the rainiest town in the United States, but still, two suitcases? I have to start going shopping once in a while.

So there I was, bags in hand staring at the academy that I had convinced everyone but myself that I was happy to be attending.

"Here goes nothing" I muttered, and strode right through the front doors.