Disclaimer: I do not own twilight
A/N: Sorry this chapter is late, school hates me. I will try to updater every Sunday. This chapter goes to RobDaZzLes who was the only person who reviewed, so please people, follow her example and leave me a few words.
Happy Birthday Bella!

Promises, Poppies and Pretences

Chapter One- Vampires 101

I smiled as I parked my truck in one of the last spaces in the lot. I may have been about to endure another day of endless tedium but I had a spring to my step as I quickly crossed the parking lot toward the school building because the sun was out. To someone living anywhere else this may be seen as a bizarre reaction to something as simple as sunshine however in Forks, Washington pure un-cloud-covered sunshine was hard to come by. You'd think that after almost 3 years of living here I would be used to the ever-present grey clouds and rain showers, but I still missed the bright yellow sunlight which always bathed phoenix, where I had spent the first 14 years of my life. I would have loved to take my time getting to class, just walking in the sunshine, but I had already spent far too long looking out my bedroom window and consequently was running late.

I got to English just as everyone was settling in their seats and Mr Berty was preparing to begin. Mike gave me a questioning glance at my hasty entrance and happy smile, while I very ungracefully fell into my seat stubbing my toe on the table leg as I did. Usually I got to school early and killed time gossiping with him and Jess, I just shrugged at in response and whispered.

"Sorry, I guess time just ran away from me." He opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Mr Berty calling the class to order.

"I am afraid, class, that today you will all have to be excused from your morning lessons-" Here he was interrupted by cheers, claps and shouts; I smiled wider, today just got better and better. "Class! CLASS!" He shouted over the babble until it quieted, "You did not let me finish; you are excused from your morning lessons to attend a lesson in 'Safety Measures and Awareness of Vampires in Everyday Life', which you all must learn in accordance to new laws." He paused and was answered by a few groans, then continued. "Hurry along to the hall the first talk starts in 10 minutes."

There went my good day.

It had been nearly 2 years now since the existence of vampires was officially announced and acknowledged globally. Of course, despite the presidents oh so reassuring speech on how 'the vampires had always been there we just had never known they were so there is no reason to panic or change our lifestyles in any way' of course mania followed, across the world holy symbols were hung, garlic was eaten, stakes were sharpened and for a while everything stopped when darkness fell. Shops closed, nightclubs were boarded up and everyone was either at home or in their place of worship. Madness reigned for 2 months, and the many politicians speeches, pleas for calm and order fell on deaf ears. Then exactly two months since their presence was officially announced, three vampires said their piece at yet another world press conference, no video or photographic evidence of what happened inside the hall was ever released, but every media outlet that had a representative present released their own report immortalising the first speech of the vampires. The three vampires didn't talk about themselves, didn't explain their existence or why they only revealed themselves now. They just spoke in calm tones reassuring everyone that they were in no more danger than they were before, telling them that they should go back to how their lives were before and continue to live as normally as possible. Basically repeating everything that human politicians had been saying before, but this time the room was calm and people listened. Slowly, in the months that followed things started to calm down, garlic was no longer in every food, clubs reopened and life slowly went back to normal. Charlie took down our crosses and went back to work as police chief, with just with a few new laws and instructions in case of a vampire attack. Now almost two years after that first announcement, apart from the paranoid and deeply religious, life was back to pretty much normal. The downside to all this is the endless lessons and assemblies spent on 'Safety Measures and Awareness of Vampires in Everyday Life' because the government officials have decided that teenagers and young adults are most at risk and do not take the dangers of socializing with vampires seriously enough.

I grimaced at Mike as we sat down in the uncomfortable plastic chairs and settled in for yet another morning of government information videos.

"Oh my god, could they have made that any more boring!" Jess huffed as she slammed her lunch tray on our table.

"Ug, I know, how stupid do they think we are? Seriously, if some random guy, human or otherwise, asks you to follow him into a dark alleyway, no one in their right mind is going to go!" I half shouted, irritated not only because my whole morning had been spent on dull, patronizing information videos, but also as we had now been promised at least one lesson a week on vamp safety, or 'SMAVEL' as the lesson was now called. I thought it sounded like some sort of belly button infection, if vampires even had belly buttons.

"I don't know Bella, what if he was really good looking. Vamp guys are hot; I'd totally take my chances." Lauren's unpleasant voice interrupted my thoughts. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her stupidity.

"I don't see what's so amazing about them. I know their good looking, but personally I think the whole killing people and drinking blood thing is majorly creepy."

"Yeah, but Bella you don't date anyone, ever. You don't even do group dates with us anymore." I aimed a nasty glare at her which she ignored. "So you have yet to realise that everyone has some sort of weird habit, even human guys, so why not date the best looking people and ignore or learn to live with the bizarre things they do."

"Sure why not date a vamp, it would be great. Until he gets peckish and, instead of ordering pizza, gives you one hell of a love bite, drains your blood and throws your lifeless body into the trash somewhere. He then burns it until you're unrecognisable before going of to find his next victim. Endless fun." I said sarcastically.

"Don't be such a kill joy, just because you don't understand what its like to date someone attractive-" She paused mid sentence to give me an evil smirk before continuing, "in fact scrap that, just because you don't understand what it is like to date anyone, ever does not mean that everyone else should be as lonely or cynical as you!" she shouted. I bit back what I wanted to yell in response and blinked away angry and hurt tears. Lauren had never exactly been nice to me but even for her that was low.

There was a moment of awkward silence at the end of Lauren's rant and every one tried to go back to eating without looking at either of us. But of course, with my luck, that was not the end of it, Jess felt the need to say her part.

"That's not completely true," When Lauren tried to interrupt, Jess continued quickly. "Not the bit about vampires, I'm totally with you there. I mean, the blood drinking thing is sobadass and the vamps on that video were so much hotter than any of the human guys I've ever seen." Mike, her boyfriend, dropped his fork and stared out the window, sulking. Jess pretended not to notice. "What I meant was Bella totally had a thing for this French guy about two years ago." I scowled at her; she had sworn never to bring that up again in return for details on what happened.

Lauren's smirk lit up into a full grown evil grin as she asked Jess for details, which she was only too happy to supply.

"Well, about two years ago now, loads of us went on this trip to France, in line with some new government scheme. One day we went to some old memorial, so boring, and we were all talking when Bella just wonders off to some bench and sits by this random, but seriously hot, guy….. What was his name Bella?"

"I don't remember." I lied. Of course I remembered, I remembered everything about that dusk.

"Whatever, anyway he talks with her for, like, fifteen minuets until Mr Carry screamed at her to get on the bus. Then this guy, totally old-fashioned like, kisses her hand before she leaves. She just stared out of the window the whole way back, like some love-sick puppy."

"I did not!" I hissed.

"Whatever." Was her only response.

"So Bella, you'd never follow a random guy? But you'd happily sit and make nice with him for a while." Lauren sneered. "Jess said he was hot, what would you do if he turned out to be a vampire?"

"I wouldn't go near him! I, unlike some people, don't have a death wish nor do I want to become one of the living dead! Besides I think I can spot a vampire if I was sat next to one!" I hissed back at them.

"You probably could now, that's the whole idea of the new lessons." Lauren said to me before looking to Jess. "Jess, you said you guys went two years ago, right? So had vamps even come out then?" She asked

"No, they didn't make it official until about two weeks after we got back." Jess answered

Thankfully the bell rang then sparing me from more torture, and as they all stood to leave I tried to draw a line under it all. "It doesn't matter anyway, I saw him once two years ago, and I haven't heard from him since."

Last lesson I had to suffer my way moodily through algebra, pointedly ignoring Jessica, who was sat next to me sulking, when our teacher walked up to me and told me that I could leave class early as Mrs Cope wanted to see me. Suddenly I was in a much better mood, odds were that whatever Mrs Cope, one of our schools office ladies, wanted it would take far less than the twenty minutes that Mr Varner had let me out of lesson early. So I could go home and spend that little bit longer in my backyard enjoying the rare sunshine. Even ignoring Jessica's rambles and apologies got easier as the clock got closer to 2:40, but as I packed up and left I forced a smile at her and said I'd see her tomorrow. She wasn't forgiven, but Lauren wouldn't let this go easily and I needed all the allies I could get.

Mrs Cope was a flustered, short, lady but she was always polite to me and smiled as I entered the office.

"Hey, I was told you wanted to see me." I said smiling back, inwardly hoping this wouldn't take long.

"Oh yes, Miss Swan," She looked through some papers on her desk until she found a creased A5 envelope. "I found this when I was unpacking all the flyersfor your special class this morning, I suppose you got one?" I nodded, hoping she would skip the story and just giveme the envelope. "Anyway, I dropped them all over the floor knocking over some other piles of paper over too. As I was tidying up I found this." She gestured to the envelope but still didn't give it to me. "So I'm sorry, I'm not sure how long I'vehad it or where it came from. Some of the things I found were months, if not years old, so I'm sorry but at least it finally found its way to you." Finally she gave me the letter.

Written across the front in an elegant hand were the words:

For the Attention of Miss Isabella Swan Only

The back of the envelope was stuck down with some serious tape and I had to ask to borrow Mrs Cope's letter opener to get it open. Inside was a small piece of white paper with an postal address and what I presumed was an e-mail address, but instead of a name before the sign there was just a bunch of numbers. Completely confused I put the note in my jeans pocket gave Mrs Cope the envelope and asked her to put it in the trash for me.

As I turned to leave my thoughts were everywhere. When was this thing sent? How was it sent? There was no stamp on the envelope, and most importantly, who would send me this? I was walking out desperately trying to work out who would have sent it, while carefully trying not to think back to lunch, trying not to hope it was him, when I heard Mrs Cope's voice.

"Isabella, there's still something in the envelope."

I ran back to her desk to see what she had found and held my hands out like a small child waiting for sweets. She turned the envelope upside down and I gasped at what fell into my hands. I closed my hands carefully around it then ran out to the parking lot. Once safely inside my truck I opened my hands again and gazed down in wonder at the item that confirmed my hopes and fears at once. I looked down at my hands again and shook my head in disbelief.

Because I could only think of one person who would send me a single, blood red, silk poppy.

A/N: Now please leave me some love!