Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns it all.

Chapter 2: Getting Ready

The next few months passed like wildfire. Before I knew it, I was graduating Summa Cum Laude with my undergraduate degree. Jacob and I spent the summer together, our free time spent at First Beach, just hanging out with the gang. These boys, Quil, Embry, Seth, Sam, and the others had become brothers to me in the past 4 years since Jacob and I had been married. I hated to leave them, but as July came to an end, I knew that my time with them was drawing to a close.

The week after I graduated, Jacob and I went apartment hunting. It was a good time because so many graduates were vacating their leases. We found me a one bedroom apartment only a few blocks from the medical school. We put a deposit down on it, and signed a year lease to begin in July. I started packing my clothes and the other things that I would be taking with me during the second week of July, and we rented a U-Haul on the third weekend of July to move a bed, a table and chairs, and a couch to the apartment. I really didn't need anything else. Quil and Embry helped us move. I went to Wal-Mart and bought a cook-set, plates, glasses, and some towels and washcloths. By Sunday, I had everything set up in the apartment.

Monday I went by Financial Aid and signed for my student loans. I had also won a moderate scholarship which I also signed for. I went by Campus Security and got my student ID made. I registered my vehicle for student parking. I went to our bank and opened a new checking account for the loan money. Then I took my required items list and set off to go shopping. I went to the bookstore in the basement of the medical school and started looking around. I had no idea what books to buy. The requirements list didn't say anything about books. Luckily, there was another student in the bookstore, an upperclassman, who noticed the blank stare on my face. He introduced himself as Henry Covington, a third year, and said that he was just as lost his first year. He showed me the anatomy section and showed me the labels under the textbook. Then he showed me the anatomy lab manual, the anatomy atlas, the embryology textbook, and the biochemistry book. I couldn't fathom how we could cover the amount of material in a book the size of the biochemistry book. It was about 6 inches thick and weighed at least ten pounds. I then started on the list that I had been mailed. I gathered two long lab coats, a dissecting kit, a box of gloves, and extra #10 scalpel blades.

I lugged the books to my car. Then I went to Wal-Mart. I bought ten plastic binders, several packs of black pens, several packs of multi-colored highlighters, and twenty packs of college ruled paper. I also bought several sizes of sticky pads. I bought some groceries, mostly non-perishables, and then I made my way home. I unloaded everything and sat down on the couch pulling out the anatomy textbook. I thumbed through the first chapter. It didn't look really bad. I started reading it. It soon got in depth concerning the muscles, nerves, arteries, and veins of the back. I found that I would have to read a paragraph two to three times just to begin to understand what information the paragraph was trying to convey. One paragraph would have twenty to thirty facts, all of which would be important. If I tried to highlight the important facts on a page, I would be highlighting basically the entire page. I was soon overwhelmed with the amount of information in the chapter, and I realized that my old ways of studying would no longer work for medical school. After several hours of trying to memorize the muscles and their origins and insertions, nerve supply, and arterial supply, I got up and decided to call Thomas. I felt like I would definitely need his help to get through this year.

I dialed his cell phone, and he picked up on the second ring. "Hi Bella. How was your summer?" he asked.

"Fine. I didn't do a single thing. How was yours?" I asked.

"Good. I did as little as I could get away with. What's up?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm at my apartment. Why? What's wrong, Bella?"

"Have you picked up your books yet?"

"No, I thought that I'd go get them later this week. Why?"

"I got them this morning. I started reading the first Anatomy chapter. Thomas, I'm scared. I don't think that I'm going to be able to do this. There is way too much information. The entire chapter is important. There isn't any filler material. I think that I'm in over my head. There isn't any way to memorize this much material," I said, panic starting to find an edge into my voice.

"Bella, hundreds of people have done it before you, and hundreds will do it after you. You are a bright young woman who is definitely capable of doing the work. I know that you will be able to hang. Where are you living now?"

"Ivy Ridge Apartments, number 5A. Can you come over? I'm really freaked out. This is going to be impossible. I'll go with you to get your books. I think that I saw some anatomy flash cards that I want to get."

"Sure, Bella. I'll be there in about an hour, but Bella, I really don't think that you'll have anything to worry about," he said.

"I hope not. Bye, Thomas," I said, hanging up the phone. I went into the kitchen and made myself a sandwich. I really did hope not. Thomas was right. There were hundreds, no thousands, who had made it through anatomy before I did. Nothing made them more special than me. I had graduated with a 4.0 GPA from college, but this amount of material was something that I had never faced before. I didn't know how I was going to assimilate the vast amount of knowledge on a daily basis. Oh what had I gotten myself into?

Before long, Thomas was knocking on my door. He was a sight for sore eyes. I gave him a hug before grabbing my purse and following him to his car. We drove back to the school, and I pointed out the books that he would need. I also helped him gather the other items. While we were in the anatomy section, I picked up a box of anatomy flash cards. We made our purchases and returned to my apartment.

I made us a couple of Cokes, and we sat down on the couch facing each other, Indian style. He picked up his Anatomy textbook and began thumbing through chapter one. He told me that it didn't look so bad, and I laughed at him. I told him that I thought the same thing until I started reading it. He turned to the first page and started to read. I couldn't help it. I had to watch his face as he began to comprehend what I was talking about. His eyes, while at first eager to begin his medical school studies, soon turned concerned, and then visibly showed the trepidation that I had been feeling for the past several hours.

"Oh my God! Who could possibly learn all of this? Every word is important," he said after about thirty minutes of reading and only turning the first page of the text.

"I know." I couldn't help but to laugh. "I feel so overwhelmed. I recognize several of the muscle names, like the trapezius and the latissimus dorsi, the supraspinatus and the infraspinatus, and so forth, but the origins and insertions, the arterial supply and the innervation. I'm so lost not even Hansel's bread crumbs would help me out of this mess, and I haven't even looked at the lab book or biochemistry yet." I took the box of flash cards and started pulling out the muscles of the back that were covered in the first chapter. I took out my atlas so that I could get a good picture in my head of what the muscle looked like and exactly where it was, and Thomas did the same. Then we started quizzing each other. At supper time, I made us a couple of sandwiches, then we resumed studying. We called it quits at about 10 o'clock. We had managed to learn about half of the muscles very well, with the other half at least being familiar to us. Thomas left to go back to his apartment, and I crawled into bed, mentally exhausted.

During the night, I again dreamed of him. Tonight's dream was more vivid than usual, though. I saw him walking in a crowd, his bronze hair blowing in the wind. I called out to him, and he turned, looking at me. He gave me that grin, the one that always melted my heart. Then he walked towards me. I felt faint, and my eyesight began to grow dark. I felt myself falling, but I never hit the ground. His hands caught me, lifting me up, steadying me back on my feet. Then he looked me in the eye. As his lips moved towards mine, I woke up, shaking in the bed. I was reaching for him, but he wasn't there. I felt a cry rising in my throat, but only a whimper came out as I realized that it was only a dream. He wasn't holding me in his arms. He wasn't about to kiss me. He left, and he wasn't coming back. I turned over in bed and curled up into a ball. I cried the tears that I never let anybody see me cry, tears for what I had lost, tears for what was never coming back, tears for my soulmate.

I looked at the clock on my nightstand. I was only 4 o'clock in the morning. I knew that there was no way that I'd be able to go back to sleep after my dream. I never could. I got up and went into the kitchen. I got a bowl of cereal and opened the lab manual. I started to read the first few pages. It looked like we would be starting our dissection on the back. It didn't look like the dissection would be all that complicated. First, we would be peeling back the skin to display the superficial layers of the back. There were some nerves that ran through the muscles to the skin that we'd need to watch for, but otherwise that was pretty much an easy enough step. It didn't seem to get complicated until we were cutting through the superficial layers of the back muscles to reveal the deep back muscles. Then we would have to be careful of some arteries, veins, and some more nerves. I took the atlas and reread the dissection instructions, comparing the two. It made sense, so I put it to the side.

I looked at the clock, and I had used up 2 hours. Jake should be up by now, so I thought that I'd give him a call. I dialed his cell number and let it ring until his voice mail answered. I figured that he was in the shower, so I left him a message to have a good day at work and not to wear himself out on patrol. I told him that I'd talk to him later and hung up. I picked up the biochem book and started to read chapter 1. At least every word in this book wasn't important. There were some a's, and's, and the's, I thought almost laughing out loud. After I had read the first chapter, I laid down on the couch and took a nap. There wouldn't be many more of those in the months to come. I thought that I'd enjoy one while I still had a chance.

I spent the rest of the week doing basically the same thing. I'd read and study, take a nap, study with Thomas, and go to bed. It was peaceful during the day. I was living an uneventful existence, with the exception of my nighttime dreams, of course. As each night progressed towards the beginning of school, the dreams became more and more realistic, more believable, more intense, and more sensual. In my dream on Saturday night, the night before the Freshman Welcome Tea, not only did he catch me when I almost fainted, he whisked me out of the room and off into the woods where we kissed and held each other in the sunlight, his skin sparkling and giving off rays like thousands of prisms. I woke up from that dream gasping for air, again reaching for someone who would never be there.

As I woke from the dream, I again found tears in my eyes. Why would my dreams be all of a sudden worsening? Was it because Jacob wasn't with me at night? Was he somehow keeping my dreams at bay? I wasn't sure what it was, but I was starting to have a hard time coping with these dreams. Before, the dreams of him were really just snippets of him here and there, a glimpse of him in a crowd or one of his piano pieces in the background of a conversation. Now, he was everywhere, in every capacity. I was starting to think of him during the day. I would find myself thinking of him when I was supposed to be reading. Last night, while going over flash cards with Thomas, I zoned out, and Thomas brought me back to reality when he wiped a tear off of my cheek. He had wanted to know what was wrong with me, but Thomas has never been privy to my background of major depression and history of him. I just blew it off as stress, and I think that he bought it. He packed up our books and pushed me out of the door. He took me to Wendy's and got me a Frosty saying that we all needed a stress reliever every now and then.

Then we headed to the Sand Point Country Club for the Freshman Tea. I was the daughter of the Police Chief of Forks, Washington. I had never been to a country club in my life. Thomas, however, was the son of successful attorneys. He actually belonged to the Sand Point Country Club, so he was familiar with the lay of the land so to speak. He drove us to the building where the tea was being held and parked. He came around and opened the door for me. He took my hand and escorted me into the building. There was a young lady at a table in front of the room who was making name tags. Thomas and I told her our names and got our name tags. After putting them on, we went into the room proper. There were many people already there. I immediately felt uncomfortable. I tried to hang back, but Thomas took me by the arm and escorted (basically drug) me into the crowd. I started to see some people that I had known from college. They were cordial but not overly friendly. An older gentleman walked up to Thomas and me and introduced himself as Dr. Anthony Fields, Dean of Students. He congratulated me on my scholarship and said that he was sure that I'd live up to his expectations. He asked me if I was anxious to get started, and I told him that I was extremely nervous. He laughed and said that the brightest students always were. He then excused himself and went on to some other students.

"Well, that was interesting, wasn't it?" I asked Thomas.

"Bella, why do people keep having to tell you how special you really are?" he replied.

"Because I'm not special. I'm forgettable, and I'm not worth keeping," I whispered, turning away from him. As I looked up, I thought I saw it, that bronze hair that I knew so well. I started walking that way, making my way through the crowd. When I got there, I realized that I was mistaken. What I had thought was his hair was just an artificial plant up against a staircase. I was going completely nuts.

Thomas caught up with me. "Where were you going, Bella? You took off like someone was after you. What the hell?"

"I thought I saw someone that I used to know," I said. "I was wrong. I'm sorry if I scared you Thomas. Let's get back to the party." I took him by the arm and led him back into the crowded room. "Why would he be back for me? He left me. He didn't love me. He said so," I whispered to myself.

"Did you say something?" Thomas asked me, turning me to face him.

"No, nothing important," I said, turning back to the crowd. "Hi, I'm Bella Black and this is Thomas Gates," I said to a blond girl who was staring at Thomas.

"Nice to meet you," she said to Thomas, extending her hand to him. He shook her hand. "Is that Gates as in the attorneys Gates?"

"Um, yeah, that is my family," Thomas said.

"Oh, how nice. They do a lot of work with my family. I'm Amanda Miller, of the Crowson's," she said.

"Nice to meet you Amanda. I don't know any of the people that my family works with. I never took any interest in the family business, and they never pushed it on me. It has been a pleasure to meet you though," Thomas said, taking me by the hand and pulling me away from her. Once we were across the room from Amanda, he leaned over and whispered into my ear, "She is a gold digger from hell. Her family makes a living suing large companies for millions of dollars for frivolous things. I hate that my family is involved with them. I think that they are bad news, but my uncle says that money is money, and he'll take it where he finds it. My grandfather would turn over in his grave if he knew what my uncle was doing to his law firm. At least my dad and my brother are trying to change things for the better."

"You never told me that your family was important," I said.

"You never asked, and I loved the fact that you didn't care. I have always hated the fact that people became my friends just to get an 'in' with my family. You always seemed different."

"That's because I don't know anything about your family. They may as well be like my family."

We stayed for another hour. We met several other students and a couple of the professors. Thomas drove me back home, and then he left. I took my cell phone and dialed Jacob's number. He finally picked up after 4 or 5 rings.

"Hello, Bella. How are things going? I miss you like crazy!" he said before I had a chance to say a word.

I laughed and said, "Hi, Jacob. I'm as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I got my books at the beginning of the week, and I've been reading up on the first chapter of the anatomy and biochem books. Thomas and I have been studying all week, and the amount of information is staggering! We went to that tea this afternoon, and we met a few of the students and some of the professors. I just don't know how I'm going to do this, Jacob. I'm worried."

"You'll do fine, Bella. I know that there aren't many people there that are smarter than you. If they can do it, you can do it, too. I have faith in you."

"So where were you when I called earlier this week? Why didn't you call me back?"

"I've been taking more patrols lately. I'm going crazy without you here. The house is too quiet without you. I basically go to work and then patrol. I sleep for a couple of hours a night. I guess I didn't call back because when I was available to call, I hoped that you'd be asleep. How is Thomas? Has he been over a lot?"

"He's okay. He is just as overwhelmed as I am. Yes, he has been over every afternoon. He is going to be in my study group, so I'll be seeing him everyday. There is no way that I'll be able to learn the material by myself."

"Now don't you go and fall in love with Thomas, you hear me," he laughed.

"Jacob, don't go and get jealous. You know there is only one man that I love," I said.

"Yeah, Okay. Bella, I've gotta go. I promised that I'd join Seth during his patrol tonight. The guys have been great to keep me occupied since you left. You'd think that they're my mom or something the way they've been watching out for me."

"They'd better. I'd have to whoop some wolf butt when I see them again if they didn't. Are you eating well?"

"Yeah, Emily is feeding me along with the rest of the pack. She has taken me under her wing as well."

"Okay, Jake, I'll talk to you later. Love and kisses,"

"I love you, too, Bella. Gook luck tomorrow. Bye."

"Bye," I said, hanging up the phone. It was good to know that the pack was taking care of him. I needed to drop a card off to Emily to thank her for feeding Jake. He wouldn't eat right if it was left up to him to feed himself.

Speaking of eating, I fixed myself something, and went to sit on the couch. I thought about Jacob and realized that he was going to do fine. The pack would definitely take care of him. He would be kept entertained and fed. He wouldn't be lonely. They would see to it that he wouldn't be alone. As I thought of Jake, my thoughts turned to how he took care of me after he left me. Jake was one of the people who had brought me back to reality when I wanted to just curl up and die. He never gave up on me. He would come to my house and sit with me, just talking, telling me that I was special and that he was my friend and that it hurt him to see me hurting so badly. He would tell me that I was wasting away, and that my laughter was something that kept him going. He was missing the sound of my voice. He was missing my smile. And yet, he continued to come over to my house daily. He gave up going out with his friends. He just payed attention to me, trying to pull me out of my funk. Between him and my psychiatrist, I recovered. I knew that I owed my current life to them.

It was with these thoughts that I went to bed. I fell into a fitful sleep. Again, I dreamed of him. I saw him in a hallway. He was walking in front of me. I ran through the crowd to catch up with him, pushing people out of my way. I finally caught up with him and grabbed his hand. He stopped and turned around. He had a look of surprise on his face, and he gazed into my eyes. He grinned. I lost my breath. He took me into his arms and kissed me. I leaped into his arms, and he carried me away, the whole time kissing me, whispering that he loved me and that he was sorry to have ever left me. I woke up with tears on my cheeks. I looked at my clock. It was 6 o'clock. I might as well get up. Today was the first day of medical school.