Disclaimer: I do not own anything

The day has been rather slow for me, especially for someone that wants the day to end now. All day long I would hear whispers about me and eyes following my every single movement. I've kept up my façade for the most part, but there were a few that thought it would be fun to pull a few moves on the new girl that I had almost lost it. I wanted to tell Annabel about it, but I didn't want to trouble her.

I took a seat near the back of my Spanish Class, staring blankly at the board ahead of me. I recognized a few people that were entering the classroom from my other classes. There was an outbreak of whispering and staring as they saw me sitting in the back. With all these whispering, you'd think that these people would get used to having new kids in the beginning of the school year, but I guess there hasn't been enough of that around this town.

And may I take the time to reiterate about how slow this day has been going for me? I've came across lots of whispering, tons of guys asking me out, not a single moment of piece. If anything, I feel like this is almost as worse as the pity stares and the teasing.

Almost.

I took a quick breath to ease my nerves, getting ready for what was to come. I flipped my blonde hair over my shoulder as a girl from my trigonometry class took a seat beside me. I held an indifferent look on my face as I felt her stare on me.

"Your name is Bella, right?" I heard her ask.

I turned my head slightly towards her, letting her know that I was listening.

"My name's Jessica. I'm in your trig class, remember?" I looked at her fully and nodded my head.

Of course I remembered her. How could I not? I recalled hearing her talk about me with some other girl in the class the whole period.

"How do you like it in Forks so far," she asked.

I drew out a sigh. Almost every person I've came across asked me that question. I've lived here my whole life and Forks is nothing but filled with… dread.

"It's been rather… welcoming I should say." She nodded her head.

"That's good to hear. Where'd you come from?"

And before I could even answer her question, which I had intended to ignore, the teacher entered the classroom.

He introduced himself as Mr. Varner. Considering the subject he was teaching, I knew I wouldn't like him, and I was right when he had each of us introduced our names to the class. When it was my turn, I felt every pair of eyes piercing into me. I kept the bangs of my blonde hair cover my eyes so they wouldn't see me struggle. I slowly told them my name and where I was from, telling them that I was from Phoenix, then quickly sat down before my legs gave out from nerves.

Phoenix, my supposed hometown. It wasn't a complete lie though. I had once lived there with my mother after my parents had a huge blowout when I was still a few weeks old. It wasn't until a few months later that my father chased after her and reasoned things out with her that she went back to Forks with him.

After introductions, Mr. Varner started off with rules and regulations, leaving Jessica no room for talking to me, which I saw as a blessing considering that she was going to be questioning me more on my personal life.

When the bell rang, I quickly gathered up my stuff and left, heading towards my locker and then the lunch room. Upon my entrance, there was a hush. I ignored them and sought out for Annabel. She was easy to spot, seeing that she was waving her arms in the air. With a small smile on my face, I walked towards the table she was occupying.

At the table, I saw that she was with people she had met over the course of the day. There was a thin girl with short black hair covered with red streaks and a pair of black rimmed glasses on her face, a light brown haired girl with her arms covered with bracelets, and a tall lanky, tanned-skinned boy with black hair.

I took a seat right next to Annabel as she settled back down into her seat.

"Bella, these are my new friends, Stephanie, Diana, and Orlando," she told me, pointing at the thin girl first, then the light brown haired girl, and the lanky boy. Each of them smiled at me when she called out their names, and I returned the smile back to them.

"How has your day been so far," Annabel asked me curiously. "No one gave you any trouble did they?"

I mumbled, telling her that there was no problem at all, but as always, she saw right through me.

"What did those assholes do to you," she growled, her tone of voice changing dramatically.

"Oh ho! Drama already," Diana exclaimed. Orlando laughed while Stephanie was trying to get them to quiet down.

I ignored them and looked at Annabel. "It's nothing that you have to worry about," I reasoned with her. "I already took care of it."

She stared me straight in the eye, no doubt, trying to find any reason for her to go out and get the ones that messed with me. When she didn't find any, she huffed and said, "Fine, but the next time anyone decides to harass you, I swear they will never be able to have any babies again."

At this statement, Orlando automatically stopped laughing and moved closer to Diana. "Remind me to never mess with her." Diana just laughed at him while Stephanie giggled.

"Hey! I'm not that mean," Annabel exclaimed.

I soon blocked them out as they started arguing about how mean Annabel was, taking the time to look around the cafeteria. It wasn't much to look at though. Everyone was all grouped up into cliques, which I knew I wouldn't belong.

With a sigh, I got up, telling Annabel that I was going to get lunch. Before she could give me the okay, I left, heading towards the first line I saw.

I absentmindedly played with a strand of my hair as I waited for the line to move. The smell of the food wasn't as inviting as I expected it to be but I was getting pretty hungry. As I reached for a tray, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I sighed and turned around.

I came face to face with a blue eyed, baby faced boy that looked to be my age. He was grinning at me, so I couldn't tell if he was either happy to see me or that he just won the jackpot. Although, I was pretty sure it was the latter.

"You're new here right," he asked. "My name's Mike. Mike Newton."

I felt a shock go through me as a wave of memories rushed through my mind. I needed to get out of here, but I knew he was just going to follow me.

Struggling with myself, I just nodded and grabbed the first plate of food I saw and placed it on my tray.

"You're Bella Marie, right?"

I didn't respond. I just kept my gaze away from his. From the corner of my eye, I saw that he was going to speak again from my lack of response when someone spoke up from behind us.

"No shit, Sherlock." I turned around and saw Annabel standing there looking angry at Mike. Then she turned to look at me. "Hurry up, Bella. I'm hungry."

Gathering up my strength, I nodded and headed towards the register. As I paid for my lunch, I heard Mike asking me if I wanted to hang out with him.

"Like hell she will," and Annabel quickly dragged me away from him. Once we reached the table, I heard Annabel tell her friends that we needed to talk alone and then she pulled me away to another table.

I tried sitting up straight like nothing happened, but I wouldn't be able to forget what had happened just a few moments ago. I started to eat my lunch, but once I put it in my mouth, I didn't feel hungry anymore.

"Bella,"

I looked up, seeing Annabel looking at me with soft eyes.

"Will you be okay?" I nodded.

"I'll get over it," I told her. "What happened in the past is nothing now. Isabella didn't know what she was doing then. Bella does now." Annabel gave me a small smile and reached over to hug me.

"You're losing your confidence, Isabella. You're crumbling. Are you sure you want to stay as Bella," she whispered to me. I nodded again. I wouldn't give up and she knows it.

Annabel sighed, letting go of me to settle back into her seat. "Okay then."

Just then, the bell rang, signaling for classes to resume again.

"Biology," she stated, knowing that she didn't really have to ask.

"Yeah. I guess I'll see you in gym then."

"Right, then. See you," she called out as she walked away, catching up with her friends.

Once she was out of the cafeteria, I collected all my remaining confidence and headed towards my biology class. Before getting there, I stopped by my locker to grab my things and headed towards the room, but I wasn't even half way there when somebody came up from behind me.

"Man, aren't you glad that that freshman isn't here anymore? Freshmen these days. They just don't know when to keep their distance from older people like us."

I would have stopped in the middle of the hallway if it wasn't for people trying to push past us to get to class.

"So, Bella, you didn't get to answer my question earlier."

I looked towards my speaker and saw Mike waiting for my answer. "Well," I started, trying to look for an excuse to not go with him. I knew he wouldn't take no as an answer, so maybe I could ease things out and wait until he sees somebody else.

"I don't know you… well," I told him. "And I'd like to get to know people well first." Mike nodded. "Okay then. Let's get to know each other first. Where's your next class?"

I sighed, knowing that I wouldn't be able to get rid of him. "I have biology."

His face brightened at my answer. "I have that for my next class. We can go together," he exclaimed.

"Great," I mumbled, which he didn't seem to notice my lack of enthusiasm.

For our whole walk, I listened to him talk as he rambled on and on about... I don't know. He talked about something. I tried to put some enthusiasm in my voice when it required for me to speak, but when I did speak he was already moving on to something else.

Once we reached the classroom, I was glad to see that most of the seat were already taken, leaving Mike no chance of sitting next to me.

"Well, it was nice talking to you, but class is about to start," I said happily. Although, I think he took my statement the wrong way, thinking that I did have a nice time talking to him because he was grinning from ear to ear.

"Great, we'll talk more later," and he walked off, taking an open seat right next to a dark skinned boy.

I sighed, taking an empty aisle seat. "Right," I grumbled. "That'll be fun."

I heard a chuckle to my left, and I felt my anger rise, never realizing that my table was already occupied. I was about to tell that person off for listening when I felt my breath caught in my throat.

I was face to face with a pair of green eyes with tousled, bronze hair. He was smiling at me with amusement with one side of his smile higher than the other. I couldn't stop myself from staring but I was able to pull myself from his eyes so I could ask him what was funny.

"I'm just surprised that you don't have any interest in Mike Newton," he said.

His voice. It sounded so soft, so smooth. Can you even describe something you hear as smooth? Is that even proper grammar? But, oh, I could just fall into a trance by listening to him talk.

I huffed at him though, feeling my anger rise again when I realized that Mike hadn't change a bit since the last time I've seen him when we were in junior high.

"Well, I've… had a run in with him before," I told him. He nodded.

Truth is that in 8th grade, when Victoria had the money for me to go to public school, Mike and I went out for a while. Everything was going along really well until I found out that he had only gone out with me out of pity. That had to have been the cruelest thing my poor heart had to go through. To not receive love but to be given pity in place of it had hurt me a lot.

Before I knew it, tears were running down my face, which shocked my table mate.

"What's the matter? Are you okay?"

Hearing him worry about me just practically made me feel bad for myself. All day long, everybody only held little interest for me. They only wanted to get to know me because I was a new toy for them. And now, here was another person probably trying to get some gossip about the new girl.

I nodded, quickly wiping the tears away from my face. "Sorry, I'm just feeling a little home sick," I lied. If he thought that he could get some new info on me, then he is wrong. By now, everybody thought I came from Phoenix, so this lie should fix slip up.

He looked at me skeptically before nodding my head, taking my lie. "It's okay," he reassured me. "Things will get better around here. I promise," and he gave me another crooked smile.

To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I mean here's someone I don't know reassuring me that things will get better. All day long I was met by people who stare and whisper, only speaking to me when they wanted more information on the new girl… Which is to say, why is it that there are more things about me going around than Annabel? As far as I know, we're the only two new students.

I stared at him for a while, waiting for him to move away from me and tell the person behind him what happened, but he didn't. At this, I couldn't help but return the smile to which his smile grew. Just as I was about to ask for his name the teacher came in signaling for class to start.

In that class period, we just ran through class room procedures, rules, and regulations, and right before class ended, Mr. Banner decided to take this time to take attendance. That was also when Mr. Banner said that the person we were sitting next to was going to be our lab partner for the rest of the year.

By the time class ended, I've learned that my lab partner's name was Edward Cullen, and I couldn't help but wonder why I was so excited to have him as my partner for the rest of the year.

So for those of you who have been following my story, I know that getting updates when I haven't uploaded a new chapter is irritating especially when I haven't uploaded in the longest time. I apologize. I have been thinking about working on this story again for the longest time, which I am now doing. I have just finished writing the next chapter, but I'm going to go ahead and work on the next couple chapters after that. Just so I can post them to make up the time I decide to go hiatus. I've also edited a few things here and there but nothing entirely major.

On another note, I've realized that this story is going along rather slowly. I promise you, though, it's going to start picking up in the next chapter. These first couple of chapters is just so you get to know and get comfortable with my characters and how I'm characterizing Bella.

For new readers (old and new rather), please review or leave a comment. Any questions you have for me if you have any. Thanks!

Sonata Ann