Thanks so much to my new beta dumbrat!

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight

It was hardly light out when I woke up the next morning and it took me a second to realize where I was. I had fallen asleep on the couch. I buried my face in the cushions.

I sat up, looking around. The room was small. The couch I was laying on was dark green and sat across from an old wooden table with a small TV set on it. Along the walls stood bookcases filled with and knick knacks and faded paperbacks.

I got up and walked quietly into the kitchen.

I gently lifted up the phone and went through the same process I had done the night before. None of numbers I used worked again.

Just as I hung up, I heard a thump at the front door. Curious, I went to the front door and looked out the peephole. As soon as I saw the newspaper on the porch step, my heart skipped a beat.

If I confronted 'Charlie' with the date on the paper—clearly not 2005—he would be caught in his lie and forced to give up his act and help me home.

I flung the door open, snatched the paper up, and held it tightly in my hand. I carried my prize back into the kitchen and sat at the table, waiting for him to come down.

For almost two seconds, I was calm and sure, but when I opened the newspaper, my stomach plummeted. I had to reread it three times before I could process what I was seeing.

Tuesday, January 18th, 2005. 2005.

A loud thunk made me jump. I realized I had leapt up from my chair without thinking, causing it to topple over.

Freezing, I listened hard. When I heard the slight sounds of someone stirring upstairs, I bolted out the front door.

Once I had gone a few houses down the street, I started making detours up to front doors, checking the newspaper from each one as I went.

Each one said the same thing, right under the headline; Tuesday, January 18th, 2005.

I started running; the one number kept pounding through my head, once for every step. 2005. 2005. 2005. When I felt like my lungs were going to give out, I slowed to a walk, and then sat down on a damp curb.

How could it say 2005? Was the newspaper in on in? First the pictures, and now this?

I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that I didn't notice the car pull up next to me on the side of the road until someone opened the driver's side door and a pair of polished black shoes stepped out.

"Isabella?" It was a man's voice, hesitant and unsure. I didn't look up or answer; I was still watching his shoes.

"Isabella Swan?"

The voice was persistent. I sighed, and looked up.

The speaker was another man in a police uniform. He was average build, early twenties, with shaggy blond hair peeking out the sides of his cap.

As soon as I looked up, I could see the relief on his face.

"Thank god," he said "You're father has been practically frantic. Are you alright?"

I nodded mutely and stood up, brushing myself off.

When I didn't move, he opened the passenger side door of his police car.

"Can I give you a lift home?" he asked.

I didn't answer but I got into the car. I'd run farther than I would have guessed; it took us more than a few minutes to get back to the little white house.

As soon as we pulled up, 'Charlie' came tearing out the front door. The second I was out of the car, he pulled me in for a hug that I tried to subtly shrug out of.

"What happened, Bella? Is everything okay? Where were you?"

"I just went for a run."

"A run?" He sounded skeptical.

"Yes, a run." I walked past him through the front door.

I could hear him thanking the guy outside before he followed me into the house.

I was just standing in the front hall when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and met 'Charlie's' warm brown eyes, concern etched on his face.

"What's wrong, Bella? First yesterday at the airport and now…"

"I don't know..."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I looked evenly into his eyes and the amount of warmth and concern I saw felt like a punch to the gut.

"You really know me?" I asked.

"What?" His tone was full of disbelief. Whatever he thought I was going to say, that wasn't it. "Of course I do, Bella. You're my daughter."

I brushed a hand over my eyes, frustrated to find I was almost on the verge of tears.

"You could call Renée again," 'Charlie' suggested quietly. "The two of you can talk things out…"

"No!" I said quickly, louder than I meant to. "I mean, that's okay. I don't need to talk to her."

I heard 'Charlie' sigh. "Maybe you shouldn't start school today…"

I looked back up at him, but he was looking out the front kitchen window pensively.

"What?"

"You can stay home," he continued, now talking mostly to himself "You can get settled and adjusted here before you need to go. One day of missed school won't make too much of a difference at this point and…"

As he talked, I looked around the house and couldn't help but make a note of every detail that matched something I knew from reading the books.

The couch in the living room with its matching armchair, the yellow kitchen, and the red truck barely visible out the window were all painfully familiar to me, even though they had no right to be.

I felt almost panicky as I pictured myself sitting in the house all day long, all alone.

"I don't want to stay here," I blurted out.

'Charlie' stopped talking midsentence.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I want to go…" But go where? I wanted to go home.

"School starts in a bit…"

"I guess…I guess I'll go get ready." I heard myself say.

I went into the bedroom and noticed Charlie had brought in the suitcases. I left them by the door, untouched, and picked up the black backpack from the plane.

I went to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face and pulled my hair up into a knot. What was I doing? Was I really going to go to school? In 'Forks'? All I could think about was leaving, even if it only meant leaving the house.

When I came downstairs, 'Charlie' was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me.

"I was thinking I could give you a ride to school," he said, "if you wanted…"

"Sure. Can we leave now?

"I'll go grab my keys."

'Charlie' didn't say anything as we drove to the brick buildings that made up the high school. We pulled up to the building that had a "Front Office" sign outside and he put the car into park.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." I said.

"Okay, then. I'll be here to pick you up after school."

He waited until I opened the door to the front office before he drove away.

Inside, a large woman— wearing a purple shirt that clashed terrifically with her bright red hair—sat at a desk filling out paperwork of some sort.

I stared at her. There was I sign on her desk that read 'Ms. Cope'.

She looked up and peered at me over her glasses. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Um…I…"

"Are you Isabella Swan?"

I settled on a sort of non-committal jerk of my shoulder. Apparently that was good enough for her because she started gathering up some papers from her desk.

"Welcome to Forks," she said.

She gave me a map of the school and a schedule, highlighting where each of the classes were located.

"Thanks," I said as she handed it over. I glanced at it and, despite the fact that I told myself to expect it, my stomach clenched unpleasantly to see the same schedule as the books.

I looked up when I felt her staring at me wordlessly.

"Are you alright, Miss Swan?"

She was giving me a weird look I couldn't figure out as I stood there, confused.

I nodded. "I'm fine."

"Okay, don't forget to have your teacher's sign it before you bring that back at the end of the day," she said.

I took it, thanked her, and went outside. I shivered and huddled more snuggly into my jacket. I mentally shook myself, trying to pull it together.

When I looked around and got my first chance to really see the campus, I was hit with the same panicky feeling I had gotten back at the house. Everything was too familiar. It was more than just weird.

Now that I was alone, I was starting to wish I hadn't come. I hadn't thought too far past my immediate concern of being alone in 'Charlie's' house to think my choice through. I looked away from the campus and stared down at the schedule and map I had gotten.

When the warning bell rang for the start of classes, I jumped. When all of the other students started going inside, I trailed after some people going towards the first class on the schedule, English.

Inside, a grey-haired teacher signed my schedule and sent me to a seat in the back of the room. Once I got there, I fidgeted uncomfortably. It was unsettling to have all of the other students twisting around in their chairs to stare at me.

About halfway through the class, I spotted a tall boy with dark hair and acne across the aisle from me.

I tamped down my anxiety and tried to avoid looking around the rest of the classroom. I spent the rest of the class staring at my hands. The second the bell rang, I grabbed my things and hurried outside, keeping my head down.

I had only gotten a few yards away when I heard someone shouting behind me.

"Hey! Wait up for a second."

I turned around and immediately wished I hadn't. The dark haired boy I had noticed before was jogging to catch up to me, a little out of breath by the time he slowed down to walk next to me.

"Hi, I'm Eric. You're Isabella Swan right?"

I shook my head. "No. No, I'm not"

"You're not," 'Eric' repeated doubtfully. "Who are you then?"

"I'm…I'm…" I grumbled in frustration. "This is ridiculous. I have to go," I said as I sped up.

He kept up. "You're just messing with me aren't you?" he said, grinning.

"Yeah, I'm just messing with you."

"I knew it!" he said, laughing. "You're funny!"

"Gee, thanks."

"Where's your next class?"

"Building six, I think."

"I'm heading toward building four, I could show you the way…" he trailed off hopefully.

"That's okay. I think I can find it."

"I don't mind at all though."

He was smiling enthusiastically now. I nodded.

"Okay."

"It's just this way," he said cheerfully.

The fact that I wasn't particularly chatty didn't seem to bother him. He was perfectly friendly, but it was impossible to forget who he was pretending to be. He ended up walking me right up to the door of my next class.

"It was nice meeting you, Isabella," he said, smiling, "Maybe we'll have some classes together later."

"Maybe. Thanks for the help." I looked at him one more time before I opened the door and went inside.

The rest of the morning went by insanely slowly. I was torn between wanting to just stay at school for the rest of the day to avoid 'Charlie's' house and wanting to go back to 'Charlie's' house to avoid the school.

As the morning dragged on, I tried not to notice a short, curly haired girl who was in both my Trigonometry and Spanish classes.

She walked over to talk to me just as I was getting out my seat after Spanish.

"Hi!" she was really loud and had a large smile plastered on her face. "I'm Jessica. You must be Isabella!"

I ignored her assumption as I stood up and walked past her. "Nice to meet you."

She followed me outside and matched her pace to mine.

"You should come eat lunch at my table." 'Jessica' was smiling encouragingly at me.

"No, thank you," I said, trying to speed up my pace.

"I insist." She linked her arm in mine and dragged me into the cafeteria.

We were almost inside when I realized that I had somehow forgotten about the one group of people who made the biggest difference to this place. The Cullens.

I guess in the back of my mind I had just assumed that the Cullens wouldn't show up because they couldn't. They weren't anyone a person could actually recreate because they weren't actually human people.

I started searching the cafeteria the moment I got inside. It wasn't long before I found what I was looking for. Five people sitting alone at a table in the corner.

It was almost impossible not to identify each one the second I saw them. 'Rosalie' was obvious with her tall willowy frame and long blonde hair. 'Emmett' sat next to her, with his curly brown hair – that happened to look a bit like 'Charlie's'—and large bulky muscles. He was huge.

'Alice' and 'Jasper' sat across from them; one with pointed features and short spikey hair, the other tall and lean with straw colored hair. I found 'Edward' last, his reddish-brown hair almost looked like it gave off its own shine under the cafeteria light.

When I saw them, my heart pounded in my chest and I froze mid-step, grinding 'Jessica' to a halt. It wasn't their shockingly pale skin that made me stop. It wasn't even their beyond incredible good looks.

It was the way they held themselves; the unbelievable grace and control in each miniscule movement. It seemed so obviously inhuman I wondered how no one else saw it.

As I stood frozen, my mouth hanging open in shock and horror, the tiny girl with jet-black hair suddenly looked up and met my gaze from across the room.

I tore my arm from 'Jessica's' and bolted. In a small corner of my mind I heard 'Jessica' yell after me.

The girl's eyes had been gold. Not just a strange shade of brown, but a deep, burning gold.

I ran around the side of the building and came to a halt, leaning up against the wall for support. I could feel myself steadily going to pieces.

You couldn't fake what they were like. It wasn't human.

Which only meant…

They were real. All of it was real. Charlie, Renée, the house, the school, the students in it—all of it.

The last shred of hope I had that the day before had been a joke slowly crumbled away. I felt like I was losing my sanity along with it. I was trapped, stuck. What was I supposed to do?

I sunk down against the brick wall, my knees curling up against my chest. The tears I hadn't realized I'd been holding in silently leaked out of the corners of my eyes.

I heard a door open nearby and I went stock-still.

"I don't get the problem, Jasper." A deep male voice drifted in my direction. "I'll admit that was weird, but she's just a girl. Why are you so worried?"

I almost stopped breathing. I tried to melt back into the wall and make myself as small as possible.

"You don't understand the level of panic radiating from that girl, Emmett. I felt it immediately from across the room. She was terrified." The second voice was softer, not as deep, but much more serious. "It was almost as if…You can't say that was normal behavior."

"I'm sure it's fine," the first voice answered. "Look, Alice said nothing changed. It had nothing to do with us. Don't you trust her?"

"Of course I do," the second voice said harshly. "But that doesn't mean—"

The voice suddenly cut off and I feared I was caught. I heard the doors open again and the babble of a group of very normal-sounding people reached me.

I didn't move for what felt like ages. When no one turned the corner in my direction, I let out a shaky sigh of relief. Then I burst into tears.

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