Cullen Hall

Chapter 1

BPV

It was my first day at Harvard University. I had been selected to be one of 1,000 freshman attending to receive free tuition and books as part of a deal that the school had with one of it's donors. My friend Alice Brandon was another one of the 1000 students to be accepted with these things as well. Alice and I were friends ever since I had moved to Forks, Washington a few years ago and I was glad that I would at least know one person on campus. What was even better was that we were going to be doming together. Alice viewed this as one big sleepover and for three months counted down the days until move in day. I was going to major in English, and hopefully become a publisher some day possibly a writer. Alice was majoring in Fashion and merchandising with a minor in business. She had always wanted to open her own clothing store and market her own line of clothing. When we got into the dorm we began to unpack and decorate. She must of had a 10 year supply of makeup and a 3 year supply of clothing . She had bought posters, desks, laptops, sheets, comforters and various other things for both of our rooms. She had known no limit when it had come to shopping, especially when her family had hit the lotto and won 250 million dollars. That must of been one of the funniest days of my life. She called me up screaming so loud that the phone actually vibrated. Her parents gave her about 5 million and placed the rest in the bank to live off of. Of course even before that the family had inherited a large sum of money. But even with all this cash, her parents still worked.

We spent most of the day hanging things up and making beds and things. When we finally found the time to talk Alice was partially jumping up and down at the chance to finally do what she had wanted with her room. I had to say Alice was good with these things. If she couldn't open that clothing store she defiantly had a career in interior design. When it was time to head in the cafeteria and eat she was still deciding where to place her roll around chair. I had already decided where to place mine. Behind the desk where my new laptop was. If you had seen Alice and I, our differences would of made you ask why we were friends. Alice was beautiful, small and pixie like, her features went well with her size. I was definition of average. I was more reserve so I didn't even have the personality to make me stand out. So it would seem to the outsider that I would not have anything in common with her. But when I first moved to Forks she was one of the first people to greet me. Also she was one of the kindest. She didn't be my friend just to gain popularity with the other students, she truly liked me for some reason. Alice didn't have a lot of friends because people tried to use her for her money and her superior fashion sense. Of course Alice seen right through those people. She had this un canny ability to know what people were going to do before they do it.

Alice decided that we should have a mixer so that we could get to know the other people in the other dorm rooms. We had figured that we were going to see a lot of each other anyways so why not try to make friends with some of them. We spent the rest of the dinner planning the mixer which would take place in a few day's , after everyone had settled down. The food here was wonderful. It was better than the only restaurant back home. Alice agreed when I had said this. She was amazed at how good the school food was.

"We should send some of these cooks to Forks High or at least to that place they call a restaurant." Alice said after finishing her strawberry short cake.

Our first mixer was a wonderful success. Lots of people came and Alice had fun decorating the place for it. She dressed the both of us in cute un matching dresses. A lot of the people were actually very friendly once you started to talk to them. That was the good thing about college, everyone was out of their element and there for they were more themselves than they were in high school. This party let everyone cut loose the nervousness that they had felt over the past few days. As I was thinking about this I saw greasy blonde spikes heading in my direction. Whoever this was had not washed their hair out in at least a few days. Before I knew it, the boy that they had belonged to had waddled to with in two feet in front of me.

" hi my name is Mike Newton."

" Bella Swan" I said as I tried not to stare at the grease. It looked like it was making his face start to break out.

" Alice Brandon" I heard Alice's soprano voice from behind me.

" Well honnies , im in room 2 b if your ever in need of any services" at that he left.

" EW did he just say what I think he said!" we both said together.

" And did you get a look at his hair, I think that spikes went out like two years ago" Alice continued.

The party continued to go well even after that little thing with Mike. He continued to slime his way to other girls, obviously getting rejected by the looks of things. Alice and I could not help but laugh at this. There was something seriously wrong with that kid. It was like he thought that he was god's gift to women or something of the sort. The sad thing was he would of been only generic looking even with out the grease. Sure that would of attracted some women, but most would find that a turnoff. That with his perverseness would give him no chance. The rest of us mingled well together. It felt much easier to talk to these people than the one's at my highschool. Maybe that was because everyone was new here, they weren't out to impress their peers. Alice looked relieved too, she had found people who would not care about her money or her fashion sense. Beside's Mike, we could get along well with these people. The music blasted and the people swayed the rest of the night. They were on the verge of dancing but no one did. The food was flying off the tables as fast as we placed it on. I swear we must of gone through twenty bags of potato chips. I was glad that I could get along with these people.

Alice and I made our rounds as gracious hostesses. We talked about where people were from, what their high schools were like. Stuff like that. I found that all high schools were pratically the same, a different face and name but same personalities. There were always the quiet ones, the nerds, the Geeks, and the popular ones. What I found interesting was the variety of students here. There were students from all 50 states as well as some U.S territories here. It really made quite an interesting mix. I also learned different foods to experiment on Alice with. Alice enjoyed seeing all of the different clothing. She hounded the kids from N.Y.C to take her shopping there, she wanted to hit up the stores there (as well as the near by ones ). As Alice's shopping " buddy/slave" I really felt bad for these kids. She would go psychotic there. She would worship all of the stores there, they would have to call the police just to get her out of there.

After a few hours of the party I was both mentally and physically exhausted. I retired to my room just to get a few minutes of peace and quiet. I went to my computer and answered E-mails from my frantic father. I was supposed to answer him the minute that I got there. Charlie was what you call an over protective father. He had to be though, he had seen enough under protective parents as Chief of police in Forks. He also saw the results of that and it scared him. That and the fact that Charlie was a single father raising an only child by himself. My mother had left him when I was really young, and I had practically grown up with her until custody was taken from her a few years ago. The court had found that her eccentric ways were not appropriate for a child to be around, and that's when I came to Forks. Charlie was definitely different with his parenting style. He was actually normal. He didn't know how to cook but that was about it.

I still remember telling him about getting into Harvard. He nearly had a coronary when he found out about the free bit. He was practically beaming with joy that I had gotten in. If he could I think that he would died of happiness.

When we packed was when the over protectiveness came into full swing. He brought me both a taser gun and mace to use against attackers. He also coached me up and down on what to tell the police if I did get attacked and then also proceeded to show me self defense moves it was actually quite interesting. When I had met Alice at the airport she had told me that her father had told her the same thing. She pulled out the mace and taser gun to provide evidence.

As I was reading the emails they increasingly grew frantic. By the last one he was threatining to board a plane and come over here just to see if I was alright. So I sent him this:

" Srry dad, its been a frantic few days trying to get settled down here. Don't board a plane we are fine. I've tried to get to know a few people and they seem really nice. Classes start the day after tomorrow . The campus is huge, I think that even you would like it. Well talk to you later!"

I hoped that he hadn't already bought his plane ticket. I hope that someone feeds him, he really cannot cook.

I was freaking about this when Alice came in. Apparently everyone had now gone, they had wanted to get a goodnight's rest for tomorrow's activities. She had a big smile on her face, the one that she always has when a party that she has planned went well. I told her about Charlie's emails and she had a look of mock horror on her face. She then realized that she had forgotten to send her parents letters as well. She went into her room and sure enough she had the same amount of emails with similar content as me. A few minutes later she came back into my room and we talked about tomorrow. We would have classes and barbeques in the next few days.

Alice was really excited about the barbeques. She had made some new friends and wanted more chances to talk to them. She also wanted chances to wear some of her new outfits that she could not wear to class. Alice really was one of a kind. From talking to other kids she was the one thing that made our high school unique. Little things made her really excited. For example one day last year, we had gone to Portland shopping. This little boutique in the shopping district had a 25% off sale and Alice ran in there cooing. She came out of there with a huge smile on her face and half of the store in her arms. Another time, someone had given her a chocolate rose, for valentines day and she was chirping the rest of the day, even after she got home from school she spent the next two hours with me on the phone wondering who gave it to her, and how much it cost. When her parents gave her a cellphone, she racked up the minutes in no time. She ordered things on the phone and called me. I swear her room looked like it was a department store for three months! It got to the point that she was banned from using a cellphone for the next year.

I was thinking about that as I went to sleep.