Jesse and I walked into the noisy and taciturn cafeteria, and I followed his lead. We got lunch, discoursing the socioeconomic merits of the comic book movie. After picking up food, we wound our way to a group of about a five other students, a few of which I was sure I had seen in some of my classes.

"Hello," said one girl, a blonde with a bit excessive makeup and darker blonde roots. "I'm Michelle. If you swear to god to never ever add 'Mouse' to it, we can be friends and you can call me Mickie."

"This is Benjamin," Jesse added before I could speak.

"Ben," I added quickly, sighing inwardly.

Introductions were made quickly, and I caught Taylor, Lauren, and Angelo before they moved on. I spent the rest of lunch being talked over, left out of the loop, but given the chance to observe at length. I was just getting bored with the latest rehashed gossip when I looked up, and that was when I got my first look at them.

For a moment, time seemed to slow down. I was thankful because there was just so much to see. It was a though a slice of some other world had been dropped down into the school, and I was the only one who seemed to notice. It was two boys and three girls, sitting around a single table, and something about their appearance somehow reminded me of Greek statuary. Maybe it was their undeniable beauty, each one seeming to be their own flavor of perfection personified. Maybe it was the casual though obviously high-end clothes. Maybe it was their expressions, bore with just the hint of superiority and boredom. Maybe it was the almost graceful way they appeared to be, even in near stillness. It was as though some lesser pantheon of Gods and Goddesses decided to hold court in a high school. I couldn't help but stare.

"Who are they?" I asked no one in particular as one of the girls stood up and glided out of the room with a grace of a lifelong professional ballerina.

Jesse snorted, indicating each as he spoke, "That's Emily and Edwina Cullen, and Rory and Jasper Hale. The girl who left was Alice Cullen."

Emily was tall for a girl, broad, and was hands down the most athletic person in the room, probably the town, or the state. Rory, next to her, was an utter knockout. I wasn't sure if there was such a thing as a male supermodel, but he fit the bill without breaking a sweat. Jasper was tall and spare, with thin shoulders, honey-colored wavy hair that settled behind his ears, and had a slightly androgynous face. I couldn't really see Edwina from this angle, but her coppery hair fell about her shoulders, and there was something about her posture, lounging in a backward-turned chair that seemed almost feline to me.

"Yeah," I said back, "but who are they?"

"They are the children of a local doctor," he went on. "Her husband and she adopted them or has custody or whatever. I don't really know, because most of them are couples. Like, they date each other. Isn't that like illegal, even if they aren't related? I don't know."

"What do you mean, most are couples?" I asked.

"Rory and Emily are together," he said, "and so are Alice and Jasper. They're like couples, but they live together and have like the same parents. What's up with that?"

The questions came out of my mouth before I could even consider it, "And Edwina?"

Jesse made a sound like he was choking, "She is totally stuck up. Doesn't date at all. Don't know who her type is, but so far, it isn't any of the guys here."

I couldn't imagine why she turned him down.

I had looked over to make sure he hadn't actually been choking. When I looked back, I found myself locked in the gaze of the deepest, darkest eyes I had ever seen. They bore into mine with an intensity that made me think they really ought to be the green slitted eyes of a big cat. There was a touch of curiosity there, a bit of confusion, but mostly just a focus that spoke of undeniable and inexorable confidence. It was staggering and I quickly looked away.

By the end of lunch, I felt different, in a way I couldn't put my finger on. It was almost as though my day had become disjointed, as though I wasn't in the same one as I was before I had walked into the cafeteria, but I couldn't understand why or how that could be. As I walked into Biology beside Mickie, I checked in with the teacher, as I had with every other class, and she told me to sit in an open seat. Once Mickie had sat, there was only one open chair, and it was at the two-person table right next to her.

Edwina was, well, there wasn't any other word for it; she was gorgeous. She had the sort of beauty that you almost wanted to resist, wanted to pull away from, to deny, to insist wasn't possible because if you did, you would have to admit that you had gazed upon perfection and then know that the rest of your life would be downhill from there. I could feel the butterflies even before I took a single step towards her.

I stepped carefully, taking my time, knowing that with my luck, I would trip into her lap and spend the rest of my life unable to live it down. Finally, I came to the desk and noticed that something was wrong. She had her face turned away from me, her entire posture seeming to wall herself off from the rest of the world. I sat without saying hello and realized that she was sitting ramrod straight, completely motionless, almost to the point that I wondered if she were breathing. As class went on, I glanced at her from time to time but soon gave it up. Every time I did, there was an undeniable tension that filled the air between us, and I knew that I didn't want that tension to snap.

Finally, when the bell was about to ring, I turned one last time and wished I hadn't. She had moved without me even noticing, and she looked me dead in the eyes, as she had at lunch. But this time, her eyes were... furious. The word did not do her expression justice. It was violent, the intensity the same but filled with implications of what I could only fathom was my impending death. What had I done?

Her chair slid back into the wall behind us, clattering against it at nearly the same second the bell rang. She was the first one out the door, and I just watched her go with utter bewilderment.

"What did you do?" asked Mickie as we walked out of the classroom.

I shook my head, "Nothing. I didn't even speak to her. Is she normally like that?"

"She isn't normally like anything," said Mickie. "I can't even remember the last time she spoke to anyone who wasn't one of her siblings."

It turned out that I had Gym with Mickie, who seemed unduly enthusiastic about this, but I guess she was just being friendly. Why, oh why, did we need to take four full years of Gym?! I would be contemplating riot again if I wasn't so focused on trying to understand what I had done.

What did I do? Whenever I had been ostracized in the past, it was for a definitive and obvious reason, even if that reason was that the other person was just a bully. But I hadn't done anything. How could I have insulted her so, simply by existing? I didn't understand it.

After wading through the seventh circle, I changed back into normal clothes without school colors or mascots and went back to the office to turn in my schedule with all my teacher's signatures. Just before I pushed open the door, I felt something thrum through me. Once I entered the office, I heard it. It was the smooth cadence of the loveliest voice I had ever heard in my life. I stood there for a moment, just listening to it, trying to understand how such a thing was possible, until I realized what the voice was saying, and once I knew what she was saying, I turned to finally see, knowing who she was.

Of course. Edwina was standing in front of the desk, talking with the gentleman who I had spoken with this morning. She held herself completely differently than I had seen her earlier. There was a vulnerability to her, her subtle pleading to her every imploring word, as she tried again and again, in near desperation, to transfer out of fifth-period biology.

I refused to believe that this was about me. The door behind me opened, and I stepped aside as someone came in, the warmth of a vent hitting my back. By the time I returned my attention to her and office worker, she had stopped talking. She turned slowly, looking directly at me, all her pleading and vulnerability gone, her piercing eyes full of ferocity again.

"Never mind," she said, resonate edge to her voice slicing through me. "If it isn't possible, I understand. Thank you so very much for your help."

Every one of her words was biting, polite with an undercurrent of resentment. She pulled a fluttering hand to the lower half of her face as she turned and stepped as far as she could around me, walking just as quickly from the room as she had before. I turned in my schedule and headed home, finding that I had been wrong about today; it was worse than I had imagined.