two

september


September: it was the most beautiful of words, he'd always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.

- - - Alexander Theroux


o.o.o

The sky is overcast, a blanket of droll grey clouds that sweep along the horizon in soft, thick wisps, trapping the heat of the sun on one side and the cool cleanse of rain on the other. The weakly filtered sunlight through cloud cover is what wakes Bella as it seeps into her room through the translucent gauze of her curtains. She rolls onto her back, instantly awake, and heaves a sigh. Already, she can tell that the day was going to be a classically muggy September; the seasonal change in Forks always seemed to eek on for days and then change in the blink of an eye.

September was a month that would draw out summer for as long as possible.

She readies for the day efficiently, washing her face with warm water and running a finely bristled wooden brush through her hair, which hangs in syrupy waves down to her middle back, dark as molasses and curling slightly at the ends. She doesn't bother with make-up, having never been interested in it and almost positive that the natural contrast of her dark lashes against her peaches-and-cream skin was more than enough to emphasize the unique mossy shade of her eyes. And, to Renee's great disappointment, she didn't have a clue about make up beyond the tinted balm of Burt's Bees that she slicks on her lips and tucks into her backpack. Bella dresses with the same indifference to the weather that she has always had, pulling on dark-wash shorts, a marled heather t-shirt beneath a loose-knit hunter green cardigan, knee-high grey socks, and a trusty pair of black Doc Martens.

It is the gargantuan task of selecting her books for the day that takes up the largest chunk of her morning. She has a habit of taking a book with her everywhere she goes, but for school, she takes at least three so that she'll have something to read depending on her mood. She's almost done with Resurrection, so that book goes into the bag, along with A Bolt From the Blue and Other Essays and Fahrenheit 451. It takes some time to arrange all of her books into her bag between also having to compensate for the binder and notebooks she has already packed away. When it dawns on her that she'll probably be taking home textbooks later, she huffs and transfers her extracurricular books into her woven satchel, which she slips over her head before fitting her arms into the straps of her backpack.

By the time she trudges downstairs, Charlie is long-gone but he has left the coffee pot on and she fills a spare thermos with relish, grabbing a handful of almonds from a jar on the counter on her way out the door. She navigates through the side streets until she comes to the highway, where she walks on the grassy shoulder meridian at a leisurely pace. Bella pulls Resurrection out of her satchel, reading as she walks and sipping from the thermos as she goes. Her pace slows as she gets caught up in reading, but it's okay - she'd planned for that and she had plenty of time before school actually started.

She wouldn't admit to stalling. Which she wasn't.

A mile-long walk should only take twenty minutes, but Bella manages to stretch it out into an even half-hour. She pauses at the turn-off to the school, lingering by the moss-covered brick reading FORKS HIGH SCHOOL - just as she plans to take a step off the curb and scuttle off to orientation, two cars screech into a turn off the highway and zoom into the parking lot. She scowls at the shiny silver Volvo and the admittedly very cool cherry red BMW, then scoffs to herself when she catches the familiar strains of Debussy filtering out of the silver car.

A bit pretentious, she thinks around another swig of too-strong coffee. She doesn't stand around in that spot for long, though, weary of being run over by other reckless drivers.

Bella has been to Forks High exactly once - a week ago to register for classes and argue with a guidance counselor that really, yes, I'm sure that I want to take those classes - but her memory serves her well. It isn't difficult to locate the gymnasium, which is packed with fresh-faced fourteen and fifteen year olds, the new freshman class that Bella was not actually a part of. She'd argued about this, too, but ultimately Charlie had been the one to insist that she probably should attend orientation, just so she would be on the same page with the rest of the school. Advanced classes or not, she still had to find her locker and locate classrooms. Orientation helped with that and, honestly, what was an hour of her time, especially when it only took up a block of time for homeroom and half of first-period?

If she got bored, she would do what she normally did: read.

Bella selects a seat low on the bleachers, tucking the too-long sleeves of her cardigan over her hands. A marginal measure of protection, should anyone feel like a handshake and Bella fervently hoped that nobody would. Her seat is buffered by several feet of empty space, which is what she had intended - but as Principal Greene calls the freshmen to attention, a group of four converge on the empty seats.

Bella stiffens subtly. The girl sitting next to her with a head full of bouncy highlighted curls notices the movement and beams, showing off a bright white smile. "Hi! I'm Jessica Stanley! Aren't you excited? Oh, my God, this is so cool. High school. Can you believe it?"

"It had to happen eventually," Bella responds dryly.

Jessica giggles, nudging the boy next to her - a personification of the American Dream, all blonde hair and blue eyes - with her elbow. "This is Mike," she says, then quickly points at a handful of students within ear shot. Bella manages to identify three others between Jessica's motor-mouth enthusiasm: an icy blonde named Lauren with a snub nose and snooty attitude to match, an Asian boy named Eric Yorkie who has a demeanor that is exactly like the dog of his namesake, and broad-shouldered Tyler, whose smile is slow and easy. Not a single one of them are paying attention to the Principal as he rushes through the welcome speech, not that it's terribly informative anyway.

Bella comes away from orientation with no information that she couldn't have figured out from a map and with Jessica Stanley's successful discovery of her name. Ordinarily, Bella might have been uncomfortable with the attention, but Jessica flits between everyone in her group so easily, commanding attention with her bubbly personality. She has the notion that Jessica would be crowned Prom Queen in four years and win because she was genuinely well-liked by the student body. She's almost sad that she'll miss seeing that. Almost.

The coaches and a few freshmen-only teachers usher the hoard of students toward the book depository, which moves along at a fast clip. Apparently, freshmen only get to take home a few books because all the rest are meant to stay in the classroom. Bella discovers that this is most assuredly not the case with senior-level classes. While the librarian disappears into the textbook closet, Bella crosses her arms over her chest, hunching her shoulders just a bit when the murmurs behind her grow after the librarian disappears again to gather the second half of the books necessary for Bella's classes. Bella mutters a hasty thank-you and turns, weighed down by no less than seven textbooks; with the spines facing out, it's impossible to hide the fact that Bella's books are not the same that Jessica and her group have received.

Mike's jaw drops. "Uh, that's not…Algebra I."

Bella shakes her head, bracing herself for a scene of social rejection that is not at all unfamiliar. It always happened; teenagers weren't a forgiving breed, even less when others don't fit the mold, which Bella most certainly did not. This, right here and at this moment? This is why she dreaded first days and why she carried three extra books with her to school. She didn't think she would ever be able to explain just how uncomfortable moments like this were. She's glad that she's not touching any of them; she would hate to know what any of these strangers were thinking at the moment.

"No, it's not," she agrees hesitantly, adjusting the books where the covers have begun to pinch at her skin through her cardigan. "I guess I should have mentioned it before, but I won't be taking classes with you. I've skipped a few grades."

The group - and surrounding students who are obviously listening in - is silent for a protracted moment while Bella edges away from the book depository, making room for the next student in line. Jessica is the first to bounce back, whereas the rest of her friends seem unsettled and unsure of how to proceed. Bless the girl who keeps the mood light. "We'll totally see you at lunch though," she says brightly, forging past the awkward moment with admirable tenacity. "Right? You can sit with us and I'll finish introducing you to everyone and you can dish on all the hot upperclassmen."

"That would be great," Bella smiles gently, trying to convey her honest gratitude that Jessica had made the situation dramatically less awkward that it might have otherwise been by using social skills that Bella just simply had not ever felt the need to cultivate. She is amused to note, however, that Lauren's expression is more sour in light of this development and that Erik appears more curious. Tyler and Mike relax, too. She supposes that towns as small as Forks very rarely have students that skip even one grade - or students that are held back a year. She understands why the faltered. "Anyway, I'd better get going…I'm already late for my first class."

"See you later!" Jessica calls, her words quickly echoed by the boys in a cluster of still-breaking voices.

Bella nods, biting her lip and turning on her heel in search for her locker. That could have gone better, she thinks, but it also could have gone worse.

She's just glad that she hasn't completely alienated her age-mates yet, just in case she did alienate her actual classmates, which was a distinct possibility. That, too, was something that happened all too often.

o.o.o


o.o.o

After locating and successfully opening her locker and depositing most of her books and her empty thermos, Bella glances at the map laid out over the hardcover of her Trigonometry textbook, compares the map with her schedule for her room number, and then trots off in the direction of the quickest route. Forks High is not like other schools, arranged within a singular large building; rather, it is a collection of multiple smaller buildings with awning-covered walkways branching off from a larger building in the center-front that housed the administrative offices, library, and cafeteria, with the gymnasium set toward the far side of the school near the track-and-field. She thinks it will be hardest to adjust to the outdoor lockers; she doesn't look forward to the biting winter months.

Because of orientation, she arrives to the right classroom well after the half-way mark of the class. The teacher, Mr. Varner, is not best pleased and he - sadistically - makes her stay at the front of the room and introduce herself to an entire class of older students. She levels him with a blank look, then turns to the class and says flatly, "I'm Bella Swan and yes, I am meant to be in this class."

"Sit down, Swan," says Varner, gesturing to the whiteboard at his back. "You're lucky this is the first day and that we haven't covered a lot of ground. Take notes and don't be late again. Tardiness is not tolerated."

"In my defense, I did try to get out of the freshmen orientation, but I promise I won't be tardy in the future," she replies coolly, moving down the aisle to the only free seat, which happens to be in the back of the room next to a striking girl with honey-blonde hair and familiar amber eyes.

Mr. Varner doesn't dignify her back-talk with a response, but he does write the next equations in a firmer hand and then tries to make an example of her toward the end of class, calling her to the front to try and solve the warm-up problem that rested in the upper corner of the whiteboard. Bella, having quickly caught up with meticulous notes, stands and deconstructs the equation in bright red ink. She caps the marker with a sweet smile, stepping back while Mr. Varner examines her work. He shoots her a skeptical glance, but nods and dismisses the class. Bella wonders if maybe they had reached some sort of silent truce. Is it strange if she hopes that's not the case? She was so rarely challenged by teachers.

Spurred on by the ringing bell, Bella collects her things and heads off to the next class, following the mental map in her head to the self-study rooms branching off from the library. It had taken an awful lot of arguing for the school to even let her do independent study for Italian; she'd had to prove that she passed Spanish at a high-school level and it was cumbersome enough that she might have just settled. Charlie had pulled for her, though. Later, he would tell her that it was because he'd settled far too often in school and that he wanted her to push limits wherever she could. She thinks she gets it; both of her parents were proud of her academic prowess, Charlie more than Renee most of the time. He might see something in her that he hadn't been able to achieve, but times were different now and Bella had more opportunities than her parents.

The next hour passes quickly as she familiarizes herself with the program the school had chartered for her to learn Italian independently. Bella has an edge, of course, already being fluent in Spanish. She wonders if she might have to try a different language next semester if she masters Italian by December.

She stops off at her locker before her next class - Physics - which is taught by Mr. Banner, who seemed to be generally overworked; he was the science teacher for both the seniors and the juniors and he covered Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Environmental Science in the spring. He was nice, though, and didn't kick up a fuss by her obvious age. She's glad that she's not late for this class; she draws significantly less attention as she settles into one of the rear lab benches, organizing her workspace with readied pens, her notebook opened to a new section, and her physics text already opened to the page written on the board. It's as she's searching for a highlighter that she registers the weight of eyes on the side of her face.

Bella looks up and then sharply to the left. The striking honey-blonde girl from her trig class is seated next to what Bella can only describe as one hulking example of the male form. Both stare at her with those oddly-colored eyes - the girl with indifference and the dark-haired boy - man, really, because he is positively massive and obviously at least eighteen - grins widely. She quirks a brow at them. The boy's smile grows wider and he turns to say something to the blonde, who raps him on the back of the head by way of response. When Mr. Banner does the roll-call, she learns that the names of the amber-eyed student are Rosalie Hale and Emmett Cullen.

Cullen, like Esme Cullen who helped me at Home Depot? It's not like Cullen is a common name, so this must be her son.

Bella turns away, abandoning her search for a highlighter, deciding that she must have left it in the library. It wasn't such a tragedy; she had another half-dozen in her desk at home. More importantly, Bella discovers halfway through Physics that she would have to work to keep up with the material, a fact that delights her to no end. She makes a notation in her notebook to find a bookstore nearby so that she can raid it for physics treatises. Or she could skip the bookstore and simply mention her new interest to Great Uncle Aro; he probably had an entire section of his library dedicated to Einstein, Hawking, and the like.

For fourth period, her class is an English course for this semester that is focused on the collective works Shakespeare; a cursory glance at the reading list reveals that Bella already owns all the plays covered in the curriculum and that the lit textbook on her desk has the relevant sonnets. Good. She had hoped to test out of English - her best subject - but Forks High had a policy against more than one elective a semester and she was pushing her luck with her independent study. Maybe the class would surprise her, but she honestly assumes that she'll be spending the majority of this class doing extracurricular reading.

Lunch is when the day finally gets interesting and at first that's because she finally has the time to crack open A Bolt From the Blue and Other Essays after rushing through the lunch line to buy an apple and settle down at an empty table near the windows lining the side of the cafeteria. She is contentedly biting through the shiny red skin of the apple when the table shudders at the arrival of a dozen freshmen converging upon it. Bella's eyes widen and she makes to leave, but then Jessica is slipping into the seat beside her, happily drawing everyone into conversation about the first day of school. Jessica makes a point to introduce Bella to a girl named Angela, who is equally as quiet and more apt to observe the conversation; Bella takes Angela's allowance for observation as permission to go back to her reading and Jessica doesn't object until something apparently vital catches her attention.

It takes Jessica a good three tries before she pulls Bella away from her book and by then her eyes are bulging with excitement and her whisper is not as hushed as it probably should have been. "Do you see them?" she asks, ticking her head twice to a group on the far side of the cafeteria.

Bella follows her gaze, catching sight of five students - two of whom she was somewhat familiar with. "Oh," she says dispassionately.

"Oh?" Jessica echoes incredulously. "Just oh? Bella! Look at them! I've never seen such gorgeous people in my life! Oh, I wonder who they are - seniors, right? They have to be…Hey, do you have any classes with them? Do you know who they are?"

Bella sighs, placing her bookmark in A Bolt From the Blue and Other Essays and closing the cover. She looks again to the table of very attractive teenagers - Jessica is right about that - and examines them critically. All pale, all with the same amber eyes with a shade or two of difference, and all with none of the same features; jawlines, noses, heights, and hair colors are all different. There aren't any two that could pass for siblings, so Bella thinks they must be their own clique or something, even though Forks High didn't seem to observe cliques in the traditional sense, with jocks mingling among all tables, including her own.

"The tall girl with the blonde hair? That's Rosalie Hale," Bella says to Jessica after a moment. "The guy who looks like he can lift a car is Emmett Cullen. I don't know any of the others."

"Bummer," Jessica sighs dreamily, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. "I was hoping you would know who the one with the reddish hair is…"

Bella shrugs, itching to get back to her book - but then something odd happens. The boy Jessica had been talking about, the lanky one with hair that shone bronze under florescent lights, he turns and looks right at their table, as if someone had called his name, and then turns away dismissively. Like reflex. But that couldn't be possible - he couldn't have known that they were talking about him or any of the others, right? Except that when she looks more closely at the table, she notices that the dark-haired girl with the pixie cut is staring at her with bemusement and that Rosalie Hale is staring - maybe glaring - too.

Unsettled, Bella tucks the sleeves of her cardigan around her fingers, then says to Jessica, "If you really want to know, why don't you try asking a sophomore?"

Jessica gasps, eyes lighting up. "Oh, that's a great idea," she breathes before she darts up, tugging Lauren behind her in her quest to find out the names that belong to the super-model worthy faces at the other end of the cafeteria.

The boys are largely uninterested by the conversation and turn to other topics once Jessica leaves, but Angela chews on her lip, casting a worried glance of her shoulder. Her eyes raise to meet Bella's, her voice barely a whisper. "Don't they seem sort of…dangerous?"

Bella pauses, considering the question as her head tilts. Her gaze flits toward the table again, catching first Rosalie's eyes, then eyes of the boy with the reddish hair. Do they look dangerous? Bella didn't think so. Certainly intimidating, but she didn't feel fearful when she looks at any of them, including the massive form of Emmett Cullen. The seemed secular, complete unto themselves, and largely out of her realm of interests. Maybe if they were doing something other than sitting around looking gorgeous she would have a different opinion.

She shrugs, offers Angela a moue of disinterest, and turns back to her book. "No," she says simply. "They're just people."

"Just people," Angela repeats, shoulders relaxing as she nods. "You're right. I'm just being silly."

Bella hums, flipping to the page where she left off, and Angela drifts back into silently listening to the boisterous conversation that has taken over the rest of the group.

When lunch is over, though, and Bella stands with her backpack holstered and book tucked into her arm, her gaze is unwittingly drawn back to the table that had dominated the lunch discussion. The boy with the reddish hair is still looking at her, but this time his expression is frustrated as he ignores the pixie-haired girl chirping at him from across the table.

Bella turns away without a second thought.

Her fifth period class promises to be interesting. The teacher, Mrs. Kelley, calls the roll and then launches into a detailed explanation about what she would expect from the class. Bella's favorite part is the promise of debate. "This is a participation class," says Mrs. Kelley, hands on her hips. "We might be learning about Modern World History in this classroom, but I want to see evidence of real thinking. And for that, we need discussion. I expect critical thinking every day from each and every one of you. If you have a problem with that, if you don't think you'll be able to keep up, then I encourage you to visit Mrs. Cope in the front office at the end of the day and transfer yourself to a different history course."

Bella sits up straight at this, an unbidden smile gracing her face - and she is not the only one. For the fourth time that day, she has managed to find a seat at the back of the classroom right next to a student with amber eyes. This one's name is Jasper Hale, presumably the brother of Rosalie Hale, as they share the same shade of honey-blond hair, although Jasper's is curly, long enough to tuck behind his ears. Bella notices that they also share a similar baseline for pinched facial expressions and guesses that they might have the same prickly disposition. She ignores Jasper Hale just as readily as she ignores his sister.

Unfortunately, Bella's next class is a bit of a throw-away. She'd needed a physical education credit and had no intentions of spending her last year - honestly, her second year - of high school running around the gym, so she opted to take a Nutrition course instead. Flipping through the textbook, she notes that it isn't going to be much different from the anatomy course she took in Phoenix, just with more emphasis on macronutrients. She suppresses a sigh, slumping a bit in her seat as she twists her neck to stare out the window to the right, only to meet the friendly gaze of the pixie-haired girl with - yes - amber eyes.

Allison? She wonders, casting her mind back to the first half of this period. No, Alice. Alice Cullen and her strange eyes that strangely match the eyes of two people she's not related to exactly.

Bella makes a very conscious decision to not ruminate on this. She wasn't curious like Jessica was. She could care less about the Cullens and the Hales and so she spends the rest of sixth period delving into Fahrenheit 451, a personal favorite that had once belonged to Charlie.

Her very last class of the day is an art elective - Ceramics - that did not require any additional materials. Since her locker is on the way to the art building, Bella makes a pit-stop to put away her textbooks and hang her backpack inside; she doesn't have any homework yet, so there was no reason to lug it back home. Only, inexplicably, her locker is jammed and since she's too stubborn to simply try again after class, she spends a good three minutes messing with the lock until it clicks open. Should she buy her own if the school's lock is faulty? Probably a good idea. Charlie would approve.

The delay with her locker has made her late to class, though. She rushes through the outdoor hallways, not really paying attention to where she's going, and that is why she is so completely blind-sighted when - completely out of the blue - she is halted in her tracks by a brick wall.

Or, actually, by a stone-hard chest and two vice-like hands on the top of her arms that prevent her from falling to the ground.

Bella looks up, startled, and meets eyes that are pitch-black - eyes that are so dilated that they are all pupil with a very, very faint ring of burnished gold around the edge of the iris. The eyes are set into a breathtakingly lovely face of angular bones beneath taut pale skin, heavy brows, and a full-mouth pulled back to reveal an upper row of slick white teeth. She pulls her focus back, taking in the tall, lanky form currently doing his best to bruise her with his long fingers digging into her flesh. Bronze hair. The frustrated one. The beautiful one.

Or he might have been if he didn't look like he legitimately wanted to murder her at the moment.

Her pulse jumps, heart rabbiting in her chest, and his lips curl further away from his teeth. Bella's breath catches. She doesn't understand what's happening - and she so very rarely doesn't understand. She remains still, some instinct in the back of her mind screaming that she should not move. She tries not to, swallowing heavily. His eyes track the movement of her throat, growing blacker by the second if that was even possible.

"Edward, no!"

Bella's eyes flick to the side, marginally startled by the sudden appearance of Alice Cullen, who is staring at Edward in naked horror.

Between the space of one heartbeat and the next, Bella's back connects with the row of unforgiving lockers as the boy named Edward crowds her against them, black eyes still unblinking in spite of the fact that he appears to be growling with undisguised menace. She winces at the impact, then freezes again, scarcely breathing.

"Think of Carlisle," Alice cries. "He would be so disappointed!"

Bella doesn't have any idea what Alice is talking about - who was Carlisle? - and it doesn't seem like Edward particularly cares. His posture changes again in a flash, head dipping lower - dipping close enough that his nose ghosts against the side of her neck. He inhales, long and deep. Savoring.

She trembles.

"Edward," says another voice. Jasper Hale, stepping around the corner, also with black eyes and an aggressive stance, reaching one hand toward Edward's back, as if to quell by touch.

And then Emmett Cullen from the other side with Rosalie Hale, each of them looking fit to grab Edward and drag him away from her at a moments notice. She wonders why they haven't done it yet - clearly Edward wasn't stable. He was sniffing her, for God's sake, and none of the Cullens or Hales seemed very happy about it.

"Step away from the girl, Edward," Emmett rumbles, brow knit tight. "This isn't the Cullen way."

Edward growls again, moving faster than a flash to curl his hand around Bella's throat and physically lift her from the ground by several inches. She scrambles, heels banging against the lockers, breath coming in panic-fueled gasps as Edward snarls, "Mine!"

Bella cringes, hands coming up to pull at his immobile fingers in the futile hope of loosening his steely grip -

All it takes is a touch.

.Kill, drink, killkillkill…So sweet, that blood, I must taste it….It's mine….Killdrinktastebitebitebite…she's mine….

Edward's mind is chaos, a cornucopia of noise and scent and emotions strong enough to still the beat of her heart - and his thoughts are black, both with intent and with self-loathing even as he contemplates what her blood might taste like, and how much he could drink before anyone could stop him, and what it would feel like to be wrapped up in all that human-like warmth, inside and outside and-

Bella has never felt a mind like that before, so dynamic and complex and absolutely twisted around itself. In that split-second of contact, she feels like her nerves are set alight, like her brain simply can't process so much at once. Warmth drips down from her nose a moment after she begins clawing at Edward's hands and his intent to harm her intensifies - but so too does her resolve to survive.

And Bella does something that she has never done before.

She presses her hands against the one at her throat, digging her nails into diamond-hard skin even as he darts forward - in for the kill - and she pushes her mind forward like a wrecking ball.

She thinks only one thing: NO.

Instantly, Edward releases her, clutching at his head with a cry of pain. Bella crumples on the floor, gasping and grasping at her over-warm throat, watching as Rosalie Hale and Emmett Cullen flash toward a still-cringing Edward almost faster than they eye can see, hooking arms around Edward's lean body and literally dragging him away, blurring with their speed. She blinks at the place where Edward was for a long moment before turning wide eyes to Alice Cullen and Jasper Hale.

They stare at each other - silent.

"Alice," Jasper murmurs, eyes still black. "She's bleedin'. I have to go."

Alice nods and Jasper flashes away in the same direction Edward had been dragged off to. Only, Alice doesn't really seem to be all there, right? She's gazing at nothing, still as stone, and Bella is reeling. It had all happened so fast.

But what was it? What was Edward? And was he the same thing as the Cullens and the Hales?

Even in a situation like this, though, Bella's mind is lightning quick. Her conclusion is unerring because there is only one logical explanation, especially with all the emphasis on blood over the last few moments. Jasper couldn't stay because she was bleeding. Edward wanted to drink her blood. Amber eyes. Pale skin. Strength. Speed. Preternatural beauty, if that even counted at this point.

"Vampire," she breathes, wiping at the blood from her nose. Her head aches something fierce, spitting and hissing like an overloaded power outlet.

Alice Cullen startles from her trance, trailing her eyes over Bella. She doesn't offer confirmation, but she doesn't really need to. Bella knows. Later, she'll realize that it wasn't just the obvious clues that she'd observed, that she'd absorbed from Edward's mind; later, she'll realize that she knew because something in her shifted the moment Edward Cullen touched her skin.

"You won't bruise," is all Alice says before she, too, disappears in a blur of too-fast movement.

o.o.o


o.o.o

Alice was right. Bella didn't bruise. She felt like she should have, though, because her throat still twinges and throbs when she gets home. But when she examines her skin in the newly-painted mirror in the bathroom, there isn't even a shadow of a blemish.

She sits on the tiled floor for a long while, going over every prolonged millisecond in detail, pulling herself together before Charlie comes home. He doesn't suspect anything over dinner and she goes to bed early, staring at her ceiling for long hours.

The next day, Edward Cullen isn't at school.

o.o.o


o.o.o

Dear Great Uncle Aro,

Alright. I stand corrected. While Poe certainly is an acquired taste, The Tell-Tale Heart is universally pleasing to all audiences. You were right, but you already knew that since you were ever-so confident that I would eventually see your side of things. This reminds me of the time where you were so aghast by my ignorance of female philosophers that you - somehow - managed to dig up what I am sure are priceless writings of Hypatia that should have burned in Alexandria. Always so, so confident that you can change my mind. Curse you for being right so often, Uncle!

And when will you ever tell me how you managed to obtain Hypatia's writings? Or is it still a secret that can only be revealed when I visit you in Volterra? By the way, Uncle, that is such a very queer request, but I'll allow it for the time being.

Speaking of secrets, though…Could I ask you for some advice? What do you do when you know a secret about somebody that changes everything? And what if that secret is potentially dangerous for other people? Do you keep the secret in the hope that it will resolve itself in time, or do you push for more secrets until you're sure that the danger isn't as dangerous as it first seemed?

And Uncle, what do you do if revealing this secret could cause bigger problems than the problem already at play?

Please tell Aunt Sulpicia that my mother did finally talk me into piercing my ears over the summer and that it did not hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. I don't know what I was so afraid of. What does she think of me getting another piercing - like one on my cartilage?

All my love,

Your Great-Grandniece Isabella

o.o.o


o.o.o

The week following what Bella begins to privately refer to as The Incident, the remaining Hales and Cullens give her a considerably wide berth at school - quite an impressive feat, considering that the school was quite small and that she shared most of her classes with at least one of them.

Bella is glad for the distance. It gives her time to think, to mull over what happened and what it meant now that she knew something about all of them that she would guess very, very few people knew. In the meantime, she takes the time to unobtrusively observe them and she is frequently struck by how normal they seem despite the rather glaring evidence of vampirism that sticks out now that she knows what to look for. Emmett Cullen in particular behaves the most human of them all, shifting in his seat and barking out laughter. By contrast, Jasper Hale seems the least comfortable with the human facade, almost too-still, too-silent. Alice, she notices, is almost as ill-fit for acting human, though her issue mostly seems to be with randomly spacing out in the middle of class.

Rosalie Hale, though, is different. She watches Bella just as much as Bella watches her - and over the course of the week, her expression transitions from hostile to suspicious to almost blatantly skeptical. Bella figures that Rosalie is waiting for the other shoe to drop; now that Edward Cullen had revealed what they all were, it was almost inevitable that Bella would sing like a canary.

Right? Except, wrong.

Bella watches them, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, and decides that she'd been right when she told Angela that the Hales and the Cullens were just people. In spite of The Incident, Bella didn't feel that claw of danger in her hind brain that everyone else at Forks High seemed to feel. Even with all that she'd seen, she didn't think the Cullens and Hales were dangerous. All the other students, all the teachers, they all reacted to something about these pretenders - something that apparently didn't register with Bella at all.

Was she desensitized to the danger, now?

But, no, because she hadn't felt danger even before The Incident. Angela had sensed apex predator from across the lunchroom and, Jessica and Lauren's fascination notwithstanding, that seemed to be the norm.

Bella - she doesn't feel it.

If anything, she's curious. How do they do it? And why go to high school? And was Esme Cullen, that kindly helpful woman from Home Depot, also a vampire? What about Carlisle, whoever he was?

So, after a week of cataloguing behavior and assessing the Hales and Cullens, she returns to reading her books and sitting next to them in class on purpose. As if nothing was wrong.

Because nothing was wrong.

o.o.o


o.o.o

The next week, Edward Cullen still hasn't come back to school.

Bella doesn't know what to make of it, but at least his siblings and the Hales have relaxed around her, as if taking her lack of panic as permission to go back to their little daily act.

Well, except for Rosalie Hale, who has finally seemed to settle on being stumped by Bella's behavior.

o.o.o


o.o.o

It's kind of pathetic, but Mr. Varner really doesn't like Bella. He's taken her presence in his senior-level Trigonometry class as some sort of challenge and as such, he spends an inordinate amount of time calling her to the front of the room or calling her out for reading during his lectures. He's yet to trip her up, though, and it appears to be getting to him.

Bella can't really help that math is so easy for her, though. It just clicks. Once she's learned it, she's learned it. And she doesn't understand why Mr. Varner is so strung-up by her success in his class. Shouldn't he feel accomplished as a teacher for being able to teach the subject so well? Bella knows they got off to a rough start, but honestly, by week three at Forks High, she was hoping that he would have gotten over it already.

So, when he calls her up to the board again, Bella sighs just a touch too loud and Mr. Varner's eyes narrow. "Hale, you too," he barks, stepping up to the board to scribble a second equation next to the first. "Swan, see if you can solve this faster than Hale. Whoever wins gets out of the quiz on Friday."

Bella reaches the board right after Rosalie, shooting Mr. Varner a baleful look when she realizes that Rosalie's equations was one that they had already gone over as a class and that her equation was new. How fair of him. She bites her tongue, though, and sets to deconstructing the equation, finishing within seconds of Rosalie but still finishing last. She sighs. Bella doesn't really care about getting out of a quiz, but this challenge hadn't even been fair in the first place -

And that's when she notices, right at the same time that Mr. Varner does, that Rosalie Hale had solved the problem wrong.

Bella's eyes fly to Rosalie, startled, because there was just no way that the mistake wasn't deliberate. They had just gone over Rosalie's equation; and even if they hadn't, Rosalie did very, very well in this class and definitely knew the right answer. And Rosalie is outright smirking as she glides back to her desk while Mr. Varner grumbles and erases the board with more strength than is strictly necessary. Bella sits back down, head swiveled toward Rosalie in stupefaction.

"I do not tolerate double standards," says Rosalie.

It feels - unbelievably - like some kind of acceptance and Bella just doesn't know what that means.

o.o.o


o.o.o

Bella turns fifteen on September 18th. It's a Thursday, which is kind of underwhelming, but the day that greets her is sunny, a rarity in Forks. After pulling her hair into a high ponytail and dressing in an customary assortment of shorts, socks, boots, and cardigan, Bella trots downstairs to discover that Charlie must have gone to the only bakery Forks has before he officially left for work. Sitting on the table, still warm and decorated with a single blue candle, is a massive cinnamon roll topped with icing and candied pecans. Her favorite.

Underneath the plate is a note that reads in Charlie's spiky handwriting HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BELLS, followed by a reminder that Renee would be calling from the road after school. Beside that are two brown paper-wrapped packages with a familiar thick white envelope affixed to the front of the first, sealed with red wax and her Great Uncle's impressive ornate script.

Bella's lips stretch wide. She fixes herself a cup of coffee, gorges on half of the cinnamon roll, and carefully unwraps the first package, which is in the unmistakable shape of a book. Her brows shoot up once she reads the cover because it's a modern book and Great Uncle Aro seldom sent moderns. She flips to the front matter of Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation and hums thoughtfully. Leave it to Great Uncle Aro to provide her with a reference. She shakes her head, moving to the second package, which is smaller and from Great Aunt Sulpicia. Her breath catches after she pries open the rich brown leather box, tracing her fingers over the fine circular rubies set into a delicate silver-wrought filigree earrings. She doesn't hesitate to slip the studs into her ears before she works the wax sealing away from the back of her letter.

Dearest Isabella,

While I am gratified that you have changed your mind in regard to the most esteemed Edgar Allen Poe, I confess that I have grown quite concerned over the issues of which you are asking advice. Tell me, precious, are you in danger? Or are you merely concerned for a new friend, perhaps? I am quite anxious to know the answers to these questions.

In answer to your questions, I find that I cannot provide sufficient advice without first knowing the secret - but I shall not pry to know the specifics of this secret you have discovered, precious. I will respect your decision to keep or reveal a secret, as it is always your choice. However, as I am sure you have already discovered, I have sent along a book for you to read that might answer your queries as it elucidates the morality of secrets and secret keeping.

I will say that, personally, the act of secret keeping is not something I consider to be immoral. Rather, if it is within your ability, keeping a secret is often a solution and a mercy. Never forget that secrets are secret for a reason, darling. Yet…if it keeps you and your interest safe, then perhaps that is how you should decide whether or not to keep a secret. And then again, perhaps not. I am afraid that of all the inquires you could demand of me, this is not something that I may decide for you.

This letter has grown quite heavy, dearest, and so I shall pass along a message from my wife. In answer to another of your questions, Sulpicia intones that "so long as you do not wear jewels below your station, I see no reason as to why you should not indulge in decorating your body as you see fit". I believe that this is intended to be permission and encouragement. And while I am dubious myself, I have been informed that my opinion is not wanted in such matters. I suppose I shall hold my tongue, then, or risk the wrath of my wife.

Also, my precious love, I offer my most joyous congratulations on this, your fifteen birthday. It is quite the momentous occasion.

My eternal heart,

Aro

o.o.o


o.o.o

Bella's choice of reading for the next few days is dedicated to Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation. It is not very often that she reads philosophy, mostly because it takes so long to reconcile the reading with her own thoughts. Fiction is much easier. Philosophy requires deep critical thought and a great deal of attention. Ordinarily, when she reads philosophy, she breaks it up with healthy doses of fiction to cleanse the pallet, so to speak.

However, it's much too important that she understand the implications of her decision to keep this secret she inadvertently discovered, and Bella persists in reading - and re-reading - the book for the next several days. She hardly pays attention in class or at lunch, and even Charlie notices her preoccupation with the book. If he has anything to say about the content of the book, he keeps it to himself.

At the end though, after reading certain chapters for a third time, Bella places the book on her over-loaded shelf, unfaltering in her decision and assured more than ever that it was indisputably for the moral good of everyone involved, including innocent humans, that this is one secret that must absolutely be kept.

She sleeps very well that night.

o.o.o


o.o.o

The sun doesn't clear from the Forks sky until the following Thursday and that is when the Hales and the Cullens - all except for Edward, of course - return to classes. Bella hears a rumor from Jessica that apparently the Hales and the Cullens always skip school on sunny days, something about hiking that Bella doesn't buy for a second. She's relatively certain that their absence has something to do with exposure to the sun. Do they burn? If so, that would explain why they chose Forks of all places, given that it's the cloudiest town in the continental United States.

She wants to ask, but she doesn't dare break whatever silent impasse she and Rosalie Hale have come to.

She minds her business, once again back to her normal routine at school and at home, introducing Charlie to foods that were much better than his old diet of fast food and Harry Clearwater's fish-fry. She's almost certain that she's won him over with the dumpling soup she'd made over the weekend, mykyrokka, a recipe Bella learned from Great Aunt Sulpicia. At least, he's finally stopped holding his breath for the first bite of any new dish she puts on his plate. That was some sort of progress.

Of course, she couldn't have predicted that Alice would not honor the standing impasse that Rosalie had struck nearly two weeks earlier. In their Nutrition class, on the last day of September and quite out of the blue, Alice Cullen snaps out of her weird trance, turns to Bella and announces brightly and with no small amount of relief, "He's coming back!"

There's only one person Bella can think of that could possibly be returning, only one person that Alice Cullen could possibly be talking about that would in any way impact Bella.

Edward.

o.o.o


o.o.o

That is September.


A/N: So, first, if you're at all interested in Ethics, totally read the book that Aro sent Bella. It's fantastic. Second - eep, right? I totally have an explanation for why Edward was so aggressive. It's kind of suggested in Twilight/Midnight Sun that the only reason he didn't immediately chow down was because there were too many witnesses. So of course I had to wonder, "But what if there weren't any witnesses?" What of his self-control then?

Also, that soup (and other random foods in this story)? Yeah, very deliberately chosen, okay, and they all have one very important ingredient in common. Kudos to anyone who figures it out before I actually reveal it in-story.

All the reviews are so encouraging! Thank you, everyone, for reading!

As always, be brutally honest. I can take it.

~cupcakeriot