SPOV

Brent was waiting when I ran out of the school. It wasn't until then that I realized that I had forgotten my History textbook in my still open locker.

"Whoa," Brent said as I slammed the door and buckled myself in. "What's the rush?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing. Everything's fine," Brent looked at me skeptically, but didn't say anything. At first.

"So, how was school?" I tensed. Answering slowly.

"School was fun; I made a new friend, Nessie,"

"Made friend's with Cullen already? Good job," Brent nodded approvingly.

I smiled slightly.

"Yes, the teachers seem to like me. Although they don't seem to like you very much," My brother chuckled.

"I had a feeling it would be something like that," We were silent. "So, why were you running out of school again?"

I looked out the window, thinking about how to answer the question without getting myself killed.

"Well, there's this boy, Brady Campbell. He was in two of my four classes today. He helped with my locker, and after school, I couldn't get it open, but I refused his help. He helped me anyway, when he reached for my lock, his hand brushed mine, and I pulled out the pepper spray," I put my head in my hands, waiting for Brent to lecture me.

"It was that bad? Back in Sydney," I looked up, surprised. I hadn't been expecting Brent to bring that up at all.

"Yes, but I'm fine now. He's not here. And besides, I have you to protect me now, right?" I tried to smile at my brother, but he was gazing out at the road.

"Right," He pulled up in front of the house, but he didn't go up the driveway. "Don't tell mom about the pepper spray. And tell her I'll be back soon," I nodded and got out of the car.

It had begun to rain while we were driving, so with a quick wave at Brent, I ran up to the front door.

Before I could pull the house key from the bottom of my bag, mum flung the door open.

"Skylar!" I was still stunned from the sudden movement. I stared wide eyed at my mum.

"Hey mum," Slowly, I unfroze myself, and stepped into the house. Mum watched me take every step.

"How was school," she inquired, taking by bag and coat from me.

"Good," I said. Now I was getting suspicious. Mum hadn't stopped smiling since she'd seen me.

"Are you alright, no one was mean to you," I sighed. So that was where this was going.

"I'm fine mum, everyone was extremely nice," I stepped on the heels of my Converses to take them off.

"Good, good," she followed me into the kitchen. Picking up my shoes and placing them on the shoe rack.

"Aren't you going to ask about Brent?" I turned on my mum. She was still watching me, but the smile had disappeared.

"Oh, no. He'll be fine, he's almost a grown man now," Her eyes grew distant as she said this. I rolled my eyes. He was only nineteen, only a few years older than me.

"Alright, if you say so," I muttered, opening the fridge.

"No, Skylar, let me. You probably have homework to do," Mum smiled as she gently closed the fridge again. She handed me my bag and ushered me up the stairs. "Lunch will be ready soon, be sure to do all your work," I nodded as my mum left the room.

I waited until I was sure she was downstairs before pulling out my phone.

16 new text messages. I smiled.

As quietly as I could I checked the messages.

Two from Brent, one from mum and thirteen from Jessie. I laughed at my friends messages. The more recent they got, the more desperate they became. As I was just about to reply, I got another one from her, begging me to respond before she called the police and filed a missing persons report.

Jessie, I wrote, breathe. I'm fine, how's school? Do you miss me yet? No, I haven't replaced you; yes there are some cute guys here. And of course I miss you! I was so lonely at lunch today. I didn't want to text you earlier because I knew you should be asleep. So, goodnight Jessie, have fun at school & say hi to the others for me. Much love. Mwah!

I sent the message and opened my math text book. I frowned at the equations.

This wasn't going to take long; I just really did not want to do it. And what was I supposed to do about the History assignment?

I shook my head; I would worry about that later.

It was about half an hour later, I was on my last question, and someone knocked on the front door. At first I thought it was Brent, but he had a key. Maybe a visitor for mum.

I continued working through the last problem, I checked my answers, and closed the book. That was one assignment down, now what would I do about the other one?

"Skylar!" I opened my bedroom door.

"Yes mum?"

"Lunch is ready," I bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen. I sat on one of the high stools that surrounded the island.

The smell of grilled chicken and lemonade greeted me.

"Smells good mum," I smiled at her.

"I hope so, maybe I can lure your brother out of his room. He's not picking up his phone," I didn't bother asking why she didn't just yell for him, like she did me. Instead, I hopped off the stool.

"I'll go get him," I told her, skipping out of the kitchen.

I knocked on Brent's door three times.

"Who is it?"

I rolled my eyes.

"The police. Who do you think? Open the door," It took a while, but eventually the door opened.

"What?"

"Lunch," I said simply, gesturing toward the kitchen. Brent ran a hand through his light brown hair.

"Right, tell mom I'm coming," I nodded and skipped back to the kitchen. I could hear him chuckling behind me.

"He says he's coming," I called before skidding to a halt. My History textbook was on the table by the door.

I picked it up gently. Not really sure if it was there or not.

"Mum," I said walking back into the kitchen. "How did this get here?" She turned to look at me for a fraction of a second before turning back to the stove.

"Oh, a boy came by to drop it off, said you needed it for homework. I didn't want to bother you, so I left it on the table," Mum looked at me again when I didn't answer. "That's okay, right,"

I nodded.

"Of course, thank you. Uhm, I'm just going to put this away, I'll be right back," I walked slowly up the stairs, passing Brent on the way.

"Aren't you having lunch," he frowned at me.

"Oh, yes. Just need to put this away," I pointed at the book and ran up the stairs.

Once safely in my room, I flipped through the book. It was mine alright. I had written my name in big scrawly letters on the inside of the front cover. As I flipped, a sticky note fell out. I put the book on the floor, and picked up the note.

Skylar,

You left your book, don't you have homework? Sorry about scaring you today, didn't mean to offend you or anything. Here's my number, I kind of need help with English, and you seem to know the book pretty well. See you tomorrow.

-Brady

I read the message three times. And then I read the phone number six times, memorized it, and saved it into my phone, I would text him later.

I walked back down the stairs. Brent was already downing his third sandwich.

"Here you go sweetie, I saved you one," I smiled.

"Thank you," I ate the sandwich slowly, not really paying attention to what was going on around me. Brady's note was still re-reading itself in my head.

Brent drove me to school again the next day. There was no lecture this time, because, according to him, I didn't need his help after all.

For some reason, this morning, there weren't as many people in the yard. Nessie wasn't there, and as far as I could see, neither was Brady. I sighed in relief.

It wasn't like I didn't want to see Brady, it was just I hadn't texted him yesterday. Or apologized for the pepper spray thing yet.

"Hey Skylar," I pressed my lips together to keep from groaning. I put a smile on my face, and stopped to wait for Brady.

"Hello Brady," I didn't dare to look up at his eyes. They might be covered, or bright red, or worse, be full of pus. "Thank you for bringing my textbook yesterday, sorry for not contacting you," Brady shrugged.

"No problem, I knew Miss A would give you homework. And I felt bad about what happened yesterday," I bit my lip.

"I'm sorry Brady," I suddenly blurted out, unable to help myself.

He seemed confused.

"Sorry for what,"

"For using my pepper spray on you!" I frowned.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I'm perfectly fine now," I was skeptical. Knowing Brent, he had probably bought the most expensive kind of pepper spray. It must have hurt a lot.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive," I glanced up quickly, to make sure he wasn't lying. And I met Brady's eyes. He had very nice eyes; I mean he must have, since I couldn't seem to tear myself away from them.

Brady and I stood, in the middle of the court yard for who knows how long, just staring into each others eyes.

"See," Brady said looking away, "I'm fine," I dropped my gaze to the ground.

"Yes, I guess I overreacted,"

"Yeah," There was an awkward silence for a while as we continued toward school. "So, what do you have first period?"

I didn't have to check my schedule for this one. "Photography," I grinned. I had been looking forward to this class for a long time.

"Cool," we walked some more. "I have History, just in case you were interested,"

"Oh," I felt bad, but I refused to look at him again. "I'm sorry; Miss A is nice, I'm sure you're doing well in that class," Brady scoffed, for some reason I couldn't come up with, and opened the door for me. "Thanks,"

"No problem," I could feel Brady watching me; his eyes were literally boring into the top of my head.

"Uhm, this is my stop," Brady shrugged again.

"Right, well, see you at lunch," I nodded and walked into the classroom. I was pounced on by Nessie almost immediately.

"Skylar! You're in this class? That is awesome," She gave me a large hug. I hadn't known we were that close.

"Yes, I've been looking forward to this class for a while," I smiled shyly at her. Nessie still intimidated me. And no, not because of her impossible beauty. Well, not really...

"Us too!" She gestured to the small class behind her. I glanced over her shoulder, and found myself staring at a class of about fifteen students.

I waved shyly at them.

"Nessie, shouldn't we sit down?" Nessie blinked at me before shaking out her curls.

"Of course, I saved you a seat," I frowned, but followed Nessie to the middle of the classroom.

How could she have saved me a seat, if she only just found out I was joining the class?

Nessie gestured toward an empty seat at a large desk. It kind of looked like the desks in a science classroom.

There were three students behind us, and two in front. There were eight students on the other side of the room, spread out along three desks.

"Hey," one of the boys in front of me turned to smile at me. I smiled back, he had a cute smile.

As I thought this, I couldn't help but feel guilty. Like I was cheating on someone or something. Frowning at myself, I erased the thought and focused on the boy in front of me.

"I'm Brendon, this is Chloe and Nick," he gestured to the boy and girl beside him.

"Hello," I greeted them.

"You have an accent; does that mean you're like British or something?" I winced. The comment had hit a nerve. My accent had always been off back home because of all the Quileute my father had tried to speak at home.

"No, Australian actually," Brendon grinned.

"Even better," Chloe hit him in the arm then.

"She's taken Brendon," Nessie said in a low voice. Then she turned to me and smiled. "She just doesn't know it yet," I raised an eyebrow at Nessie, but didn't say anything.

"Ooh, burn," Nick high-fived Chloe, and they both laughed at Brendon's reddening face. I couldn't help but smile myself at Brendon's embarrassment.

"Sorry Brendon," He shook his head and turned to face the front of the room.

I set my bag down on the desk, and when I looked up again, three more students seemed to have appeared out of no where.

"Sorry," one of the girls said, seeing my surprise expression. "Ashlee and I sit behind you. This is Kole, he doesn't speak much. And I'm Amelia," I smiled at the three of them.

"Nice to meet you," Nessie seemed to be bouncing in her seat next to me. "Nessie, what's wrong?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing just excited for lunch," She smiled, just like she had the day before. Like she knew something I didn't.

"Alright class, I'm assuming most of you already introduced yourselves to the new student," I frowned at the person at the front of the room. He couldn't have been much older than us. Maybe a few years older than Brent. But the whole class was listening attentively to the guy. Even Nessie who had stopped her bouncing.

"I'm Mr. Fillips, but just call me Ken," this was directed to me. I nodded. He waited.

"Introduce yourself," Nessie whispered.

"Oh," I stood up, Ken smiled. "My name is Skylar Bronson, and uhm, I just moved here from Australia?" Ken smiled again.

"Australia," he mused, "how's the lighting there?"

I smiled. "Good, but the light here is different, I like it," Ken nodded and clapped his hands together.

"Great, but liking the light isn't enough for my class!" He pumped his fist as his voice rose. He let his fist down slowly and winked at me. "You need a camera," Some of the girls giggled and I knew that Ken was one of those cool teachers that all the girls had "teacher crushes" on.

"Actually Mr. Fill-Ken, would it be alright if I used my own camera?" The class went silent as we all waited for him to answer.

"Of course I wasn't sure where I was supposed to find another camera anyway...Renesmee! Would you mind filling Miss Bronson in?"

"Yes, Mr. Fillips, sir," she saluted and turned to me. The rest of the class started working on a project I had missed the beginning of.

"Alright, did you bring you camera to school?"

I nodded, and carefully pulled the camera out of my bag

"Pretty," Nessie gushed as she ogled the purple Nikon d5000.

"It's a present from my mum,"

"Cool, the only thing my mom gets me is books. I get all the good stuff from my aunt," Nessie grinned, and pulled out her camera, showing me pictures for the portrait project they were working on.

BPOV

I had an extremely hard time concentrating in class; I was surprised Miss A hadn't yelled at me yet.

"Brady, Brady!" My head snapped and I glanced around me.

Collin was staring at me.

"What?" I muttered. Miss A had stopped talking. She had probably given us the rest of the period to do homework.

"What's with you? You've been out of it all class," Collin scrutinized me for a few seconds before a slow smile crept onto his face. "Who're you thinking about?" I frowned.

"No one," I muttered, copying down the assignment from the board.

Collin rolled his eyes.

"Right, and I just bought England. C'mon, who is she," I knew exactly what Collin was talking asking. I just wasn't expecting the effects of imprinting to be so visible...

"I'm not sure yet," I told my friend quietly while opening my textbook.

"Yeah, whatever, but who do you think it is?" I sighed.

"Bronson's sister," I whispered, pulling out a piece if paper.

"Bronson!"

"Sshh," I slapped my hand over his mouth. I took it off once I was positive Collin could keep his mouth shut.

"Are you nuts?" Collin asked in a whisper, his eyes wide. "That's Brent's sister. He'll kill you." Collin stated, leaning back in his chair.

I wrote my name in the right hand corner of the paper before answering.

"I know, but it's not like I had a choice..."

"Still, Brent's sister? You know how protective he is of her," I nodded. It would be hard to get around Brent. "You're nuts man. Sam'll kill you! You know how it is with newcomers and the stories." I nodded again, slowly adding the date to my paper.

"I haven't actually told her yet. But I think she suspects something,"

"How do you mean?" I put my pen down and frowned at Collin.

"I don't know, but like twenty minutes ago, I felt like I was being cheated on..." I shook my head. "I don't know," I continued at Collin confused expression. "Like I felt this pang in my gut, like I should go out and protect my girl-"

"But you don't have a girl," Collin interrupted. I scowled.

"Not yet I don't,"