Prologue

Bella POV

"You want to do WHAT?"

Okay, I guess that sort of reaction is to be expected when a teenage daughter announces that she is moving across the whole country in a few weeks. Well, I guess since I already made arrangements with the school and took care of the house, all that's left to do now is pick up the pieces. And try to calm down my mother.

"Mom, we talked about this, remember?" Well, we did talk about me moving out someday, some very far away day… sort of… almost.

"Oh no we didn't, young lady. You aren't going anywhere." Perfect. That's just great – now my dad id in this conversation too. Honestly, I was kind of hoping he would take my side on this – but then again I hoped to fully explain myself to him, and I didn't quite get the chance yet.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I'm going." I said firmly and did my best to look them in the eyes. Which was hard given the about-to-cry look in my mother's eyes and the what-is-happening-to-my-baby-girl look in my father's. But I had to go. I mean, I didn't exactly look forward to all the change. I liked Phoenix. I liked my friends here, my social life, which, although probably not the most awesome, was still great, and last but not least, my parents. So loving, so caring, and so scared for and of me.

"But why?" mom asked silently. I tried my best to stay my usual cheerful self, but something just wasn't working this time. Mom's facial expression grew even sadder. She turned to dad.

"Honey, could you please give us a minute?" My dad slowly nodded and left the room. Mom slowly turned to me and made a few small steps, trying to come just a little closer. But even so, she was pretty much across the room.

"Mom, it's fine. You don't have to push yourself. I get it." Oh crap, this isn't helping. Even I could hear the sadness in my own voice. "No sweetie, it's fine." But she stopped and slowly sat down on the edge of my couch, but she was visibly shaking and so was her voice. Despite what she said, she was anything but fine. "I know you are worried about me Bella, but that's my job. And I know I wasn't there for you as much as I should have been, but I promise I'll try harder – I can do this. We'll get through this." She tried to get up and come over to me, but instead I got up from my bed and moved back several steps. Once again, I guessed this probably wasn't really helping, but I didn't want to do anything I would regret. This must be hard for her enough as it is.

"Don't worry about it mom. As I said, I get it. I mean, who wouldn't be scared of their daughter after finding out that she can randomly control elements?" I tried my best to keep it light, but my mom still turned probably as white as the wall behind her at the mere mention of it. A few years back, when I was about ten or eleven, my mom caught me with a ball of fire in one hand and a ball of water in the other, as I was practically examining evaporation. Except she sort of seriously freaked out and, well, it's never been the same since. She still loved me, of course, and we all knew that, but for some reason, she just always got crazy nervous in my presence, she almost had a nervous breakdown once. She was always apologizing and calling it irrational and stupid, but I really couldn't blame her – how could I? I was a freak. My accepted it, I was lucky. He probably didn't mind ahlf as much as I did. My mom, however... well, yeah. You get the point.

"Mom, I love you. You know that, right?" She slowly nodded. "And you love me, don't you" She nodded again as I continued. "Then this is no big deal, right? I mean we'll still talk, text and everything, I'll just be living elsewhere." I ended cheerfully, although it probably wasn't quite honest. "Plus I've heard that the school is really great – apparently, they have a really big focus on social sciences and do all sorts of social experiment and practical stuff really often." I couldn't help but smile. I always liked humanities and stuff like that. She slowly looked up at me, still a little guiltily, but not quite as much as before. "Are you sure you'll be fine? Because if not, I can really do this. I'll work it out." That was the awesome thing about my mom. She somehow had a feeling for understanding exactly what it was that the other person needed and was willing to help. But I guessed that willpower wouldn't be quite enough to solve this situation.

"I'm sure" I smiled at her. I was lying – I had no idea what I just got myself into, but there was absolutely no need why she needed to know and worry about that. She gave me one more focused look and got up. Shoot, she definitely saw that I was clueless. "Well then, there's just one thing to do, isn't there?" I gave her a questioning look. "I have to tell your father." She almost let out a small laugh and headed for the door, turned around and waved at me. I'm guessing this is the sort of situation she would normally give me a hug or a kiss, but we worked better at long distance. Of course, I wished things were different, that she could just be cool about it like dad. I hated myself for what I was doing to her. But in her defense, she did make substantial progress – when she first found out, she literally couldn't even stand to look at me. Now, seven years later, we could almost have a normal relationship, as long as there was at least four meters between us.

I sighed when she was gone, sat down on my bed and opened my laptop. I opened the last site I had visited: Forks Washington Social Studies High School.