A/N I'm really surprised at just how much fun I'm having with this story. I have some major things planned so stay tuned :)

Read and enjoy!

Constructive criticism is appreciated!

JESSAPOV

"JESSA! Jessa Wolf get back here right now! YOU FORGOT YOUR LUNCH HONEY!"

My shoulders clenched and I squeezed my eyes shut in embarrassment as my father voice filled the parking lot. Giving the lot a quick glance, I rushed to my father's car and grabbed the brown bag dangling from his fingers.

"Thanks Dad." I grumbled, "Now please. Leave."

He chuckled at my obvious embarrassment. "I'll see you when you get home, sport." And with one final pat of my head, he was off to work.

I watched him go, wishing that he'd turn around and take me right back home. I slowly spun to face my new hell.

Sigh. Well, this was it. Forks High. Where I would be spending the majority of my time for the next few months. Hopefully a very short few months.

Transferring to a new school was always hard. I had done it enough times in my life, what with my father's job always moving us around. No one knows you, you don't have any idea where your classes are, and everybody feels the need to stare at you like you have a third eye smack in the middle of your forehead. It's exhausting.

Then there were the questions. Will anyone like me? How are the classes here? The teachers? Will I be able to keep up with the course work? And worst of all: Will the teacher introduce me in front of the class?

That part I hated the most. It was always the same. The teacher would ask my name, tell the class to greet me, and then the awkward questioning session would begin. How old am I? Where did I go to school before? Where was I from? What were my hobbies? The whole ordeal was awkward and unnecessarily embarrassing.

"God, I hate this," I mumbled to myself as I made my way to the attendance office.

A motherly looking woman with red hair clad in a purple t-shirt sat at the front desk, sorting through some papers. She waved me over and helped me with my schedule. I found myself zoning out, thinking how my life in Forks was going to play out.

I felt miserable. The white-gray sky cast a dull light over everything, making things look dreary. The only source of color anywhere was the eerie green that spattered the trees and forest floor. It was like stepping into another world, an alien planet. I told myself I just had to make the best of life here.

Who knows? Maybe I'll actually like it here?

"…and the last class you have is Chemistry, with Mr. Birdie in building 4. Well, that's all for right now, dear. Please come back if you have any questions." I was snapped out of my daydreaming to see the woman whose name I had already forgotten smiling up at me.

"I…thanks." I said. Great. Now I was going to be lost. What a fantastic way to start out my day. I sighed as I walk out of the comforting warmth of the office and into the chilly drizzle outside.

I glanced at the map of the school that had been mailed to our house a week before school started. There were several building that made up the school, buildings 1 through 4 for the various subjects, and a separate building for the gym and cafeteria. Now the only problem was navigating.

I attempted to make sense of the map for a few minutes, but eventually I gave up and decided to ask for help.

"Hey," I said, tapping the shoulder of a brown haired girl gabbing close to me, "sorry to bother you, its just that I'm new and I'm having a little trouble making sense of this map. Do you think you help me out?"

She turned to face me and I had to resist the urge to gasp. She was one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen.

A delicate, heart shaped face framed by thick brown hair and the most unusual golden eyes I had ever seen stared back at me.

"Of course," she said with an infectious smile that curved her full red lips, "let me take a look at your schedule." I deftly handed her my paper. As she was studying my schedule, the person behind her caught my eye.

He was beautiful too. I tried not to stare at his copper brown hair and those same mesmerizing golden eyes.

Is there something in the water here? I thought. Not half a second after it crossed my mind the beautiful boy was trying to hide a smile, almost as if he had heard what I was thinking.

The girl touched my shoulder to get back my attention. I had to force myself not to flinch. "Looks like you have almost exactly the same classes as my friend Angela, except for Italian. If you give me your map I can show you where to go from here." She flashed that inviting smile at me again, but this time I wasn't distracted.

There was something…not right about her teeth. They were too perfect, too… unnerving. It set me on edge to look at them.

I snapped myself out of it, seeing that she was waiting for an answer. "Sure, that would be great," I said, giving the pair of them a nervous smile.

She pointed to a few places on the map, and gave helpful directions on which was the fastest way to get around. "You'll be fine, trust me. I was new here not that long ago. I met some really great people," she said, looking adoringly at the boy standing next to her, who returned the look.

Ugh. Gag.

He chuckled again. What is up with that? I thought. There was definitely something different about these two.

The boy looked nervously at me and then back at his girlfriend. "We really should get to class, Bella. The bell is about to ring."

"Sure, Edward. It was nice meeting you…"

"Jessa. Jessa Wolf," I offered.

She flashed those freaky teeth again. "Nice meeting you, Jessa!" And she loped off after Edward.

"Weird," I said aloud to myself, watching their departure.

"Right? She used to be really quite, Bella Swan. Ever since she started hanging with the Cullens she's really changed."

I started at the voice suddenly at my side. I turned to see a brown haired girl. "Angela Webber," she said with a sweet smile, sticking her hand out. I took it and introduced myself.

"You're new here." She said matter-of-factly. "Is it really that obvious?" I asked.

"Not really, but there isn't much to talk about in a school of 277 people. Any news spreads fast." I nodded. "Mind if I take a look at your schedule?" I handed her the slightly crumpled paper.

She studied it for a minute, and her face brightened. "We have almost the exact same schedule."

"Yeah. You must be the Angela that Bella mentioned." I said.

She gave a slight frown. "Bella mentioned me? Weird. We don't really talk that much any more, ever since she became best friends with Alice." I could see the slight hurt in her eyes. I hated to see anyone look like that, especially a girl as nice as Angela.

"Well, maybe you can show me around a little? Help me to my classes?" I asked.

Her expression changed almost immediately. "I'd love to!" she said, taking my hand. "First period is this way." I followed her all the way to our first class. Maybe it really wouldn't be so bad here.

JAKEPOV

Climbing higher and higher. Every step takes me closer. All I want is to escape... I just want to fall and keep falling. Feel the icy wind slicing into my every poor. Every inch of me doused in water.

I can almost feel it. The water is getting closer. The tear keeps widening, deepening. I see the water below me turning red, churning faster and faster. I'm almost there…almost…

"JAKE! WAKE UP! SCHOOL!"

I sprang bolt upright, panting. Sweat dripping everywhere, soaking my bed in perspiration. My heart slowly stopped trying to bust a hole through my chest and I let my head fall back onto my pillow, closing my eyes.

This wasn't the first time I had had a nightmare like that. They had been terrorizing me since I'd gotten home from the hospital. Almost every night I found myself falling, falling…

I shook my head and ran my hands over my face. Time to get up. After calling out to my father that I was up, I stripped out of my sweaty pajama pants and hopped into the shower.

I stood there for a moment, letting the hot spray wash away all the memories of the dream. Soon enough, there was a banging on the bathroom door. "Jake! You're going to be late!" I sighed and quickly washed myself, hopped out and dried off.

I was walking back to my room wrapped in a towel when I saw Embry and Quil in the living room down the hall. They took in my half-naked self and snickered at each other, before their eyes unconsciously slid to the jagged scar that was peaking out of my towel.

I hurriedly walked into my room and quickly got dressed, towel drying my hair as I made my way into the kitchen.

The reunion with the pack after I returned from the hospital had been… difficult. Mostly it involved my initial deflection of their questions and then strained conversation, everyone trying to pretend that it was completely normal for me to have been gone for as long as I was.

After the awkward first encounter, we had fallen into a kind of rhythm. They didn't ask any more questions, and I didn't offer any answers. Simple as that.

Except that it wasn't. I could tell that the first time I phased back into a wolf that they were all salivating for more information on what had happened. They were just waiting for me to slip up and think about it while we were on patrol. Except it never happened. I was too careful.

It hurt to keep things from them, made me feel that I was somehow betraying them. But I just wasn't ready for it yet. Later, when I had figured everything out myself, but right now… it just wasn't possible.

I still had no idea who my savior was. The one and only time I brought up the incident with anyone other than my therapist was when I had asked my dad about the mystery man. He told me that the guy had jumped in, saved me, and then disappeared. Simple as that.

In a way I was grateful, though. Dealing with yet another person who wanted me to talk was not something that I needed at the moment.

The weeks that had passed since I got home had been mostly uneventful. I patrolled with Embry and Quil, hung out at the beach with the pack a couple times. Mostly, though, I turned down their invitations. I hated being near that stupid cliff.

Life went on as normal. Well, almost normal. Mostly I just tried not to think about anything hard. But those nightmares just kept coming back.

"Seriously, Jake. You gotta hurry up, man. I don't feeling like enduring the wrath of Principal Stec for being late on the first day of school." Quil's impatient voice sounded from the living room.

"Sure, sure. I'm coming." I said, stuffing a granola bar into my mouth before following them out the door and into Embry's waiting car.

I slid into the back seat as my friends chatted about sports or something. Staring out of windows had become a favorite past time of mind recently. It took Quil 3 tries to get my attention.

"Jake! Really, what is up with you today? Pay attention," he said, reaching around his seat to thump my shoulder. I growled at him.

Embry laughed "Lighten up, buddy. We're almost at school."

"Awesome." I grumbled. They both laughed at my grumpiness.

We were ambushed by Paul and Sam as we entered the La Push High campus. 'Hey guys!" said Paul cheerily, not the usual emotion exuded by our volatile friend. "Me and Sam are planning a trip to First Beach this weekend. To kick off the new year. You in?"

Quil and Embry both accepted enthusiastically. They turned to me. "What about you, Jake?" Sam asked cautiously. They all waited.

I looked at all their faces, waiting for my reply.

It was about time I started acting more normally again. Maybe a trip to First Beach was exactly what I needed. "Sure. Yeah I'm in."

They all smiled and knocked my shoulders. The bell rang and everyone dispersed to first period, except Sam.

"It's nice to have you back, Jake. We really need you. Things haven't been the same since….well, it's good to see everything going back to normal." he said, giving me an encouraging smile. Then he was gone, and I found I was the last on standing in the courtyard.

I hurried off to my first class.

JESSAPOV

I had successfully made it through my first day at Forks High without any severe damage to myself or my reputation. This was a good sign.

I was headed to my car to escape when I heard a voice calling my name.

"Jessa! Wait up!" I turned to see Angela following me. She was trailed by her boyfriend Ben and a girl whose name I think was Jessica Stanley.

"What's up?" I asked once she finally reached me, breathing heavily for a moment.

After she caught her breath she started, "Ben, Jessica, and I were wondering if you wanted to join us this weekend on a trip to First Beach? We're inviting a whole bunch of people and I thought maybe it'd give you a good opportunity to meet some new people. There will probably be some kids from the reservation there too. What do you say?" She looked hopefully up at me.

How could I say no to a face like that?

"Yeah, sounds really fun Angela. Just text me the details later ok?" She nodded and walked back over to Ben and Jessica.

I had a feeling that this was going to be an interesting weekend.