A/n: A bit about the author, I'm 17, a high school graduate, currently rewriting the first fifteen chapters of this story that I started last year in, like, December. My name's Breenagh. can't wait to talk to you guys, my favorite part of being a fanfic author is engaging with people who read the story. xo Bree

Chapter Two

Mom dropped me at the doors of Astoria High. I'd read about high schools before, in books, but it felt different walking into one. It felt like walking into a wall. I was hit with hundreds of smells, sounds. People were everywhere, rushing to each other, talking, shouting, their voices all jumbling up into one big stream of things I didn't understand. It was the first day of school, everyone was excited and jittery - at least I wasn't alone in that.

A few people stared at me. More than a few, but I tried to ignore it. I was an outsider to them, new in this small town. The office was a small beacon of safety in the busy crowd. I made my way there, overwhelmed already.

"Name, dear?" the secretary said. Her tag said Mrs. Fischer.

"Eden Coleman," I said. It was a fake last name, one Mom pulled off the back of a novel. I didn't have a last name.

"Coleman, E... Here we are," the woman smiled, flipping through a stack of papers. "New to town, Eden?"

I nodded, wondering if it was that obvious.

"Well, your parents picked a good place to nest," Mrs. Fischer told me. "Astoria is a wonderful place."

"Just my mom," I corrected softly, taking the schedule. "Thank you, though."

The woman nodded, sympathetic, wished me luck and I wondered if the gossip would make its way around town by lunchtime. It seemed like that sort of town, where people talked and talked to pass the time. Hopelessly lost, I wandered back into the loud and busy halls.

"Excuse me," I said to a boy that leaned against the wall. He turned his eyes on me, black eyes that glittered spectacularly under the fluorescent light. His face was not grinning, but something in his eyes was.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, but it didn't seem hostile. I was well aware of my face turning red so I just shoved my schedule at him.

"I cannot locate room 205," I told him. He grinned suddenly, dimples forming on both cheeks.

"You cannot - you cannot locate," he said to me. I nodded. The boy covered his face with a hand, trying to hide his laughter. My chest sunk and I felt absolutely ridiculous.

"Hey, now," he saw my reaction. "Don't worry. You're new. No biggie, alright? I'll show you where it is, free of charge 'cause you're gorgeous."

I still had the feeling he might be teasing me, but I let him walk me down the hall. He pointed at the little printed numbers on my paper.

"The two means it's on the second floor. The five means it's the fifth room down," my companion said. "Remember that if you need to find anything - but I'd be happy to show you around all day, darling. I'm Rocky, by the way."

"I'm Eden," I smiled for the first time, admiring his features. He wasn't incredibly tall, about five seven, but he made up for it in charm and attitude. His skin was smooth and dark, his black eyes had little crinkles from his wide little-boy-smile and he seemed to romp instead of walk. Rocky burst with life in every possible way and it was too infectious. I found myself grinning right back.

"Cool name, not a lot of Edens around here," he chattered while we ascended a red staircase. "A lot of Samanthas and Britneys. And Jessicas."

"This is Junior Math?" I asked, peering into room 205. He led me inside and sat at a table in the middle corner of the room. A heartbeat later, he pulled the chair next to him out.

"Sit down, Gorgeous," he said, pointing at the blue plastic chair. I sat. He leaned in close to chat, and I cold smell the spearmint gum on his breath and some nice sort of cologne. Underneath that, he smelled so human - his scent was warm and rich, like the deepest part of the woods, smoky and woody.

"We have double blocks in the morning on Mondays," Rocky informed me with a smile. "Which means you and I get to spend two whole blocks together every Monday morning. How lucky are you?"

"Where can I switch classes?" I said, sort of nervously but smiling in my effort to tease him back.

"Oh, you are cold!" Rocky grabbed his chest. I placed my hand on his arm as a comforting gesture and leaned in close.

"I don't actually want to switch," I explained. "The joke is that I said the opposite of what I meant."

That did it - well, I didn't understand what exactly I did, but it made Rocky howl and grab the table. He took several minutes to stop laughing.

"Oh, Eden," he said, running a finger under his eye. "You are a piece of work. I love you already."

I just smiled, completely lost. The classroom had filled up as we spoke, teenagers dividing into groups of friends, glaring at people they didn't like and horsing around with those they did. It was fascinating to watch, and I momentarily forgot my social struggles while I observed the human's reactions to one another. It was like a book but even better.

The teacher, a thick and burly man named Mr. Wolfe, did the introduction to the class. He passed out a syllabus and I was the only student in the room who was hanging on every single word. What was disappointing, I looked at the syllabus and discovered Mom and I had already covered the first three or four chapters.

"So, Eden, where are you from?" Rocky asked, playing with a pencil, already tuning the teacher out.

"Maine," I told him.

"And no offense, girl, you're kinda strange," Rocky smiled fondly. "Bet you didn't get out much back in Maine."

I grinned, trying to show him no offense was taken. "I've been home schooled all my life. It's been just my mom and I."

Rocky nodded slowly. "It's my dad and I a lot. He's cool, kinda geeky, anti-social. My mom, she's a scientist, travels a lot. But we talk on the phone."

We chatted throughout the lecture, and I enjoyed that even more than I enjoyed the learning. Rocky made a lot of pop culture references I didn't understand, references I tried to fumble my way through, but he was patient and explained. A girl in front of us, lean and athletic with dark waves of hair, kept throwing glares and eye rolls over her shoulder at me.

"Did I say something to offend that woman?" I whispered to Rocky. He rolled his eyes and slid a hand over my paper, bringing it to himself. I watched as he scrawled in thick writing on the bottom of my syllabus.

Ignore Grace. She's a bitch. Ex-girlfriend of mine. Makes a habit of tearing down other chicks, like you, 'cause she feels threatened. I repeat - ignore her.

I examined the note - my first ever note, I thought with a thudding heart - closely. The glaring made sense now.

"How about you come hang out with your new best friends at lunch?" Rocky asked, eyeing the clock. We only had a few minutes left of instructional time.

"Who?" I asked. My new best friend only smiled cryptically.

"Don't worry, they'll love you."

The bell rang and I followed Rocky down the red painted stairs, through several hallways and to an open-air courtyard, empty except for three other students, and filled with planted flowers and trees. The three students were sitting under a cherry blossom tree dead in the center of the small yard, enjoying the sweet end of summer sunshine.

"Hey, gang," Rocky said, leading me by my elbow. "This is Eden Coleman, she's new."

"Hey," a blonde girl waved. "New, friend, Rocky?"

"That's Rain," Rocky told me. She was gorgeous. Ice-blonde hair, dazzling brown eyes, wine-colored lipstick, she smelled like berries and roses and moved with effortless grace, almost as graceful as a vampire. She smiled at me so warmly, I couldn't help but smile back.

"And Hayley," he introduced the ginger girl, her hair falling down like corkscrews. She didn't talk much, or really at all, but there was no hostility around her. She was evidently the placid, calm one in the group to counteract Rocky's loud rambunctiousness and Rain's sultry, mischievous attitude.

"And I'm Spencer," the boy laying on his elbow said, smiling lazily. He wore a Letterman jacket with Baldwin emblazoned on the back, Astoria High on the chest. He had short, curly auburn hair, a firm jaw and blue eyes that surveyed everything like a king lion surveyed its pride. He smelled like cinnamon hearts, the kind you eat on Valentine's day, and something deep and musky - but undercurrents of clean, pure... something. The smell of pavement after rain. Spencer seemed sort of almost arrogant but I wanted to give him a chance. If Rocky liked him, there must be something to like.

I fell into the eclectic little group. They all looked like they belonged somewhere else. Spencer should have been surrounded by other athletes and cheerleaders. Rain should have been in a group of supermodel-style gorgeous girls, maybe reading magazines or just hanging out. Hayley looked like she'd be just fine by herself, reading in the library or just observing the world. Rocky was the only one who looked like he could be anywhere and still look perfectly at ease. I wondered if he'd "collected" these people, like how he collected me, and brought them together.

"How did you all meet?" I asked in an effort to fold myself into the conversation. Rain perked up, ready to tell the story.

"Hayley's mom and my dad are coworkers," Rain explained. "We have been friends, literally, since we were in utero. I didn't have any other friends, due to some... life choices I made in middle school. Rocky caught his then-girlfriend Grace being a class-A bi-yatch to me in the middle of ninth grade. Cue messy breakup and a new best friend for Hayley and I."

"I don't roll with bullies," Rocky interjected. "Not my style. That's why Grace is such a hater. It was embarrassing."

"And Spencer?" I asked. Spencer gave a lazy grin and ran a bruised hand through his hair. "I got a little too drunk after my first game in tenth grade, last year. I threw up at Big Burger. My hockey friends, they laughed and didn't help me - cool guys, just a little thick. The Rock here got me some water and took me home. Didn't even know each other. Since then we've all just sorta hung out."

"Every day and almost every weekend," Rain added. They asked questions about my life, learning about my lack of father and never being to school. I tried to be as honest as possible while keeping the secret.

"Must have been lonely," Rain sighed, putting her head on my shoulder. "I know how that feels - no offense, Hayley - we went to different middle schools. I had no friends at mine until Rocky."

Rocky smiled proudly. I doubted the existence of a mean bone in his body.

"What's your next class?" Hayley asked. Her voice was gentle, like rustling leaves. I pulled the folded-up schedule out of my hoodie pocket.

"English," I said.

"Me, too," said Hayley. She showed me the way, another upstairs classroom, down at the other end of the hall from my math class.

We took our seat in the back of the room, Hayley explaining that the teacher, Mr. Montenegro, liked to pick on people in the front. The class gradually filled up with students, much in the same way my math class had this morning. Hayley didn't make much conversation, leaning her head on the palm of her hand and observing the room. I had a feeling she was seeing everything - maybe just as much as I was seeing. She'd make a good vampire, I thought. The way she looked at me made me feel exposed, like she knew exactly what I was and didn't mind it.

I looked down at my yellow notebook, the one I dedicated to English, and scrawled a series of looping knots around the edges. Complicated knots, like the Celtic ones, but I liked inventing my own patterns and styles.

"Are you lost?" I heard Mr. Montenegro say to a student that wandered in late.

"No, I think - this is English, right?" said a beautiful voice, sounding completely lost and unsure, just like me. I finished the knot and looked up just as the scent hit my nose. It was sweet, fruity, and warm and unmistakably human toned - but it had the poignant sweet scent of decaying flowers mixed in. Vampire scent. The girl turned and caught my eye just as my scent likely reached her as well. My eyes caught her delicate nostrils flaring and her lips parting.

"We have a seat right here in the front, Miss Masen," the teacher said, seating the girl right in the front row. She turned away from me and sat. Nobody else noticed the strange interaction, nobody but Hayley, who's eyes I felt on the side of my face, but I couldn't look away from the girl's thick bronze ponytail. Her eyes would not leave my mind. They were doe-like, under thick lashes, and a shade of brown I had only ever seen in the mirror.

My eyes.

The class dragged on for a painful hour. The bell rang finally, after I spent the hour not absorbing a single word out of the teacher's mouth. It had to be a coincidence. Maybe all hybrids had brown eyes. Just like all vampires had red ones. I didn't know, as far as my mother knew, I was the only hybrid on planet earth. The girl wove herself into the crowd, disappearing, but I followed her scent.

"Hayley," I said, touching her freckled arm. "Thanks for showing me around. I have to go deal with something. I'll see you."

Hayley only nodded, seeing more than I could explain, and drifted off. There was no time to dwell on the behavior of my strange new friend, I had to follow the hybrid. I tracked her to an empty hallway, where she was waiting for me.

"Who are you?" she asked. Her arms were folded, defensive, but I wasn't fooled. She was just as scared and confused as I was.

"My name is Eden," I kept my stance open, non-offensive. She swallowed hard.

"I'm Renesmee," said the girl. I made myself smile. I made myself say it was nice to meet her. And then we weren't alone - a tall vampire, a real one, was standing between us. He had similar features as her, the same bronze hair, but golden eyes. That made me recoil a little bit. I'd never seen a gold-eyed vampire. Perhaps he was related to her - a father or a brother, even.

"Father," he said softly, as if I'd asked out loud. I frowned at him. "Sorry - I can hear what's on your mind."

My frowned deepened. Could all vampires read minds? Could my mother? Was that why she didn't like me? Concern made itself apparent on the man's beautiful features.

"No, not all vampires can read minds," he told me. "Some vampires - or hybrids - have certain abilities. Special tricks. Forgive my rudeness, my name is Edward Cullen. My daughter, Renesmee. But for the benefit of the humans, she's my sister, and we're Masens."

"Eden," I said. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize there were vampires in this town. I didn't know vampires lived in human places."

Part of me wondered why they were here. Were they feeding on the student body?

"No," Edward's face screwed up. "Our family drinks animal blood, exclusively. Are you with vampires here? Yes? Could you ask them to feed non-locally?"

"One vampire," I held up my pointer finger. "One. My mother."

"Not your father," Edward breathed. "Curious."

I glared at him stiffly. "We don't talk about him."

"That's fine, we won't talk about him, then," Edward was staring at me, staring at my eyes. "It's alright, we won't hurt you. We're here with seven other vampires."

Seven. Wow. I'd only ever met one vampire, my mom. Presumably my dad, but I only had one memory of his hands holding my infant body. Then I never saw him again. There was that concerned look on Edward's face again. I wished he'd knock it off.

He smiled. "Sorry."

"I'm feeling left out of this conversation," Renesmee announced, on her tiptoes, peering over Edward's shoulder with my own eyes in her skull. It freaked me out.

"Freaks me out, too," Edward said. "Forgive me - you look... you look like my wife. Her name is Bella."

And then, the girl from my dream walked around the corner.