1. The Perfect Application

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"Bella," my dad warned. "I don't understand who's more upset about your grades. You or me."

I had been pouring a bowl of cereal at the time, and as the comment smarted I acidentally started pouring the remainder of the cereal on top of my shoe. I couldn't help it. Whenever my dad attacked me like this, I was always at the most vulnerable. One time I'd been towel-drying my hair, and I'd dropped the towel when my dad had barged into my room after a short abrupt knock.

I didn't think to yell at him then. What if I had been indecent?

But since every person in the house had the foresight to dress in the bathroom before they exited, I don't think the thought even troubled him.

What did trouble him was the college prospectus that had been shoved through my front door by the mailman. Immediately seeing the word Havard printed across it, I went into a state of shock, where I stared at the magazine like it was a prancing guinea pig in a tutu. My dad didn't say anything. Instead he watched me tight-lippred, as my face paled and my breathing became shallower.

"What went wrong, Bella?" Charlie burst out, when it looked like I wasn't going to acknowledge him. "You were the best damn student in Forks until a week ago. What went wrong? Was it money? Sex? Drugs?"

My lower lip trembled as I realised it wasn't my father who was interrogating me, but the cop who had invaded his body. My dad had pulled up enough teenage delinquents, to know the main reasons why a child went offtrack. That made me want to cry harder. Because it was horrible to realise that these punks who didn't even show up half the time, were getting the exact same grades as me on results day.

The only difference was that they were too stoned to even be unhappy about it.

Me on the otherhand? I bawled like a baby.

The tears didn't start on the day I got my results but the day after, when Charlie finally cornered me in the living room listlessly playing solitaire on my laptop. Even thought I kept losing, I found the furious way I clicked the cards in order to make a home straight strangely hypnotic, with the sole thought that if I won once then everything will be okay. I would go to sleep, wake-up and relive the day again. But instead of getting a 2.0 grade average I would get the perfect 4.0.

But after my little nap, I was disappointed to jolt awake and fine Charlie staring right back at me. On the opposite settee.

I would've screamed if I hadn't felt so down-trodden.

"Had a nice nap?" Charlie asked, sounding inquistively polite. "Been spending the day playing card games, have we?"

It hurt to see my dad so polite when it was quite clear he wanted to be anything but. Shouting and screaming would've been better because then I would've expected it, but this-this was worse. No Ivy League school will touch me, let along a big empire college like Havard or Yale. What my grades had guaranteed me, was a future at some dead-end college, where the dregs of society ended up, before being coughed out at some bar to serve pina colada to every prick that comes their way.

The very idea of it, made me want to jump of the highest bridge around here.

So what, if it hadn't killed me. The mere action should be enough for someone to get their skates on, and cart me off to the nearest mental ward. But the idea of ending my life didn't sit too well with me. Up until now my life had been pretty darn peachy. Not a blip on my radar. And then in the course of a dreadful day, those non-existent blips became huge submarines threatening to drown me in sorrow.

How could I have messed up so bad?

"It must've been your friends," Charlie continued now. He slammed the carton of milk on the table. "They've been a bad influence!"

I guiltily thought of Lauren and Jessica, the so called it girls who had taken me under their wings three years ago. My grades had begun slipping then- but only from an A plus to a B minus which I manged to keep constant until about a year ago. And then I began getting the unmentionables (grades below a D) and I hid it from Charlie, even if it was the worst thing to do, because I always thought I can bring my grade up. In the next test. Definitely.

And hence I got caught in a viscous cycle. There was always The Hills to watch with Jessica during our Free, or that all important documentary I had to catch after school. One documentary became three, with a movie edged in laceways to even it out. And then one day, became a week, and then a week, became a month and then by the time it reached a year, it was much too late.

So it wasn't Jessica and Lauren's fault really. It was mine.

And I didn't know if that sucked more than realising if I'd stuck with Angela and Ben, I would be filling in my application for Harvard right now.

No-one else was to blame. It was all me.

I was repeating the year.

Everytime I repeated myself to a former classmate or a new one, I felt my IQ dropping a few points. The looks my former classmates gave me ranged from pitying to genuinely upset they wouldn't see me in class. The latter was Angela, and I couldn't help but melt in her arms as she hugged me fiercely. "You'll do better the second time round," she whispered encouragingly and I loved her for it, even thought I believed it far from true.

The Junior and Senior assembly was a nightmare. All the Seniors sat in the back, but I couldn't join them because I felt too embarassed to show my face to them. Individually I could handle. As a jeering crowd, I could not.

Instead I sulked in with the other twelfth-graders, and acted like I was exactly their age and not a year older. It must've worked a little, because a gaggle of them sat next to me but didn't actually think to turn and include me in their conversation.

The curse of being a year older. It meant you never bothered with the small fry!

Back when I was superior to them and that shit.

"Girls," a voice said dramatically, hushing the obnoxious boys though they weren't being addressed. "And boys!" (Now they were!) "Welcome to a fresh start at Forks High. Are you all ready?"

I made a point not to answer that one.

"Last year was our best yet! A staggering 57 percent of our current Seniors passed last year with a C-grade at least!" (A big cheer that did nothing but sour my mood came from the back) "But all you 12th-graders! Sitting in the front row! Don't you want to beat that statistic?" (Now a great chorus of boos met the cheers errupting from the front- one even went as far as braying LOO-SERS!)

I was bored with this speech already. I'd satten one just like it, the year previous. Oh what I wouldn't give to turn back the clock.

"There are so many opputunities that are available- that would look great in your application. So much volunteering work to do during the week-nights and ends. Of course the hours are flexible for your studies...but get involved! Be motivated!"

I was in the middle of writing it off when I caught myself, mid-stride. I froze, like the many times I'd done when my dad had walked stiffly by after results day, and thought isn't this what I'd done last year? Written everything off because it would cut into my alone time with the TV? Maybe this was a sign. Maybe I was meant to be here, facing the same decision I'd faced last time-except now I knew which path I had to take. It was written all so clearly.

I had to volunteer for something- anything preferably, where the hours were long and I could stay out of Charlie's hair as long as possible.

I had to find the perfect place where I could do my "service" and then find a hidey-hole where there was no gadget or gizmo in sight until I forced myself to take my work out and do it in boredom. I know. I know. I should be doing my schoolwork because I enjoyed it not because I "had" too- but reality was it was every bit the latter. I wanted a good job, but to get there I needed to put in hours and hours of work to make up for last year.

I needed to get the grades. The college. The perfect application.

I needed that volunteering gig.

Even if it was only to save my future from a bar, serving pina colada to pricks.

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A/N: Please review. Especially since this issue is close to my heart! The story's not going to be about education though. Bella will get her GPA 4.0 by the end of this story, but more important than that... How did Bella acheive such a feat emotionally? Which boy did she become bonded to in particular? (Hint: Goes by EC, and he's bed-ridden most of the time)