This story was written for entertainment purposes only. Twilight and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. All original content and ideas, however, are mine.

Full summary: She didn't want to be there. New York was not her home. But when her mom, with puppy eyes, insisted that she should at least try — "for me, please?" — she could not say no.

But now she was over four thousand miles away from home, stuck in a house with people she barely knew, and feeling so cold that she thought she was going to actually freeze to death. Oh, and add to all of that her host brother... a guy that, no matter how nice she tried to be with him and his family (every day, after dinner, she even offered to wash the dishes — something she had never done at home), he seemed to be always counting down the days until she was back to her country.

Man, those are going to be six long months!

[M for language]

Prologue
-

"So? Am I allowed to say 'I told you' already?"

"Really?! That's how you answer the phone?!" Isabella rolled her eyes. "Let's start over: Hello, Carol. It is very nice to talk to you! I miss you already! How are you?" She tried to sound upset, but the truth was that she was very happy. After spending a whole day in a foreign country, the feeling of finally being able to hear a familiar voice was amazing. "And that's when you say 'oh, I'm fine, thank you. But let's hear about you! How are you, Bella?"

With a small smile on her face, she could almost see her best friend rolling her eyes — an annoying habit that Carol learned with her.

"Can we please skip the small talk so you can tell me what I really wanna know?"

"Well," Isabella dramatically exhaled, "New York is beautiful, but it just doesn't feel that amazing to be in a place that makes you constantly feel like you're freezing to death, you know?"

"Bullshit!"

"The bet is still on, darling. You haven't won. I'm not buying you that pair of pants."

"No yet."

"Whatever."

"So," Carol started saying, her voice way more excited now. "How's your host family?"

"My host family? Well—"

"OH MY GOD!" Her friend interrupted her. "Jack is calling me on the cell phone. He wants me to date his geeky brother. Can you believe it?! I think his name is Gabriel. Oh my God! Do you remember him? My god. MY GOD! What do I do?"

Isabella laughed. "I really don't know. I mean, they are horrible people!"

"Are you trying to help me? Was it supposed to make me feel better?"

"Let's try to look on the bright side..." she pondered, and then started laughing once again, because, really, there was no bright side. "Um, at least they have money?" she said, but it sounded like a question.

The moment the words exited her mouth, two things happened simultaneously: her friend snorted over the phone, and a shadow of someone she didn't know had been outside her door, listening to her conversation, crossed the hall, immediately banging the door loudly behind his or her body. What the hell?

"Care to explain?" her best friend required.

"I don't know, Carol. You know I don't care about that. I was just joking," Isabella said, suddenly feeling very tired.

"You know what? Now that I think about it, at least he would buy me some popcorn, you know, if we ever went to the movies or something. He wouldn't make me prepare the popcorn at home, and then stuck it in my purse, like Daniel did, because he didn't want to waste money."

Isabella laughed so hard there was tears running down her cheeks. "No way! Daniel did what?!"

The two best friends spent two more hours chatting, but when they hung up the phone, Isabella could not avoid thinking about who was at her door, and why this person was there. Was he/she waiting for her to finish her call to go talk to her? But why if, when she went up to her bedroom, she had just said good night to the whole family? Is it possible that this person, whoever it was, was just trying to listen to her conversation? And, God helped her, how much of it did him/her hear? She could only imagine how listening to only one side of her conversation might have sounded...

A/N: First of all, I need to tell you: this picture that I turned into a cover... well, I found it on the Internet, but I have no idea who it belongs to. It can be yours, just as it can be a pic of a scene of a movie or a TV show — I really have no idea. So, if it really is yours, or if it belongs to someone you know, please let me know, so I can give the owner credits.

Also, this chapter is not edited, so, please, don't be too hard on me.