A/N: Sooooooo sorry for the long wait!!!!! I had complete writers block an a busy week... band testing, volleyball, 5 billion tests, and a HUGE project coming up. Also I was having writers block, so sorry!

4. High School

"C'mon, Renesmee, you're going to be late!" my mother called from the living room. The words were so overused. Used by parents, angrily yelling to their teen children that they'll be late for school.

My mother on the other hand, was not angry, or yelling. She was simply reminding me that I had school today, my first day.

"'Kay, just a second," I said, no louder than as if she were right next to me.

I needed reassurance; I turned to my computer screen. It wasn't a practical form of reassurance that I was seeking. What I needed was much subtler; a picture would do. That picture, in particular.

The screen lit up, and the desktop became visible. My human mother, in her snow-white wedding dress, looked so beautiful. Her radiance shined from within the picture, showing her delight at getting married to my father. Blush was easily visible in her cheeks. She was cradled in my father's arms, so delicate, yet, beautiful.

My father was in a black suit that contrasted wonderfully with his pale white skin. This was such a traditional wedding picture, yet, it wasn't. A human and a vampire; predator and prey. If that was possible, then what wasn't?

There seemed to be no reason for my absurd loving of this picture, I mean, there were millions of other beautiful photos taken of my parents that I could have chosen, but this one never ceased to cause my confidence level to soar whenever I saw it.

"Coming!" I said as I dashed out of my room.

I was in a light periwinkle flowing top, skinny jeans underneath. I was in — what I knew to be — a white French winter jacket. The material was extraordinarily thin, but so warm… it had quickly become my favorite.

Alice had left my hair loose. I had requested it, I wasn't sure why.

My favorite shoes were tied snugly onto my feet. The only reason that Alice allowed me to wear them was that I absolutely refused to wear any other shoes. I even threatened to go to school barefoot. As that would have been deemed unacceptable, I was allowed to have my way.

"Renesmee, want a ride to your car?" my father said as he handed me the designer messenger bag — filled with the necessary books and school supplies.

"Okay, thanks," I said as I climbed onto his back.

Half a minute later we were standing in the entrance to the garage, hidden behind the Cullen mansion. It always puzzled me how they could possible hide such a huge garage behind the mansion.

I looked down the rows of cars, wondering which one I was meant to take. All of these would be rather conspicuous. These were probably the only cars that I could identify, thanks to my father and Jacob's obsessing.

First in the line was Rosalie's M3, next to it, was the huge Jeep that was easily distinguishable as belonging to Emmett. Alice's bright yellow Porsche was alongside Jaspers Ducati, which had been given to him as a present from my father.

My mother and father's cars — a Ferrari, Volvo, and an Aston Martin — were lined with perfect precision near the end of the line. Carlisle's Mercedes followed.

Next in line was Jacob's new car, a Ferrari Fiorano. He never let me forget that, since he nearly died when my father gave it to him. He still drooled over the leather interior and footspace.

"A Ferrari. No. Way," he was nearly speechless once he found out that the modified Ferrari was to be his new car.

"Rose worked on it a little, enlarging the cabin and working on the engine," my father explained.

The whole day was spent with Jake, driving around in his new car.

I noticed the dark colored car that was parked in the end of the garage.

"Is it new?" I asked, curiously, taking a few steps sideways to get a better look.

"Yes. It is. It's a Mercedes Guardian, slightly modified, of course," my father answered. "Oh, and, it's for you."

No way. A car.

"Are you serious? Oh. My. God!" I asked loudly, I was very excited.

"Yes, we figured that you would want your own means of transportation. Correction, means of human transportation," my father answered, even he sounded excited.

"Rose worked on this one too. She tweaked the engine, repainted it, replaced the windows, and redid the body styling to make it more to your liking. We didn't think you wanted to be to conspicuous," my mother added, "I know I didn't." She was referring to the fact of how darkly colored the whole car was, normally.

This particular car was not the gloomy black that the normal model was. It was a pretty silver, with a hint of blue. Beautiful!

"Thank you so much! A Guardian! Still overprotective?" I asked rhetorically.

"Naturally," my father answered anyway. "It's the same basic model that I gave Bella when her Chevy broke down." We all laughed.

"Wow," I said again, "but… one problem. I don't have a license."

"Don't worry, we took care of that." Jasper and Alice came in from behind us, with a smirk plastered on Jasper's face. Jasper was holding a small piece of shiny plastic in his outstretched palm, the cause of his amusement. "J. Jenks was blessed with another visit of the Cullen family," he and my mother laughed, along with Alice.

"Inside joke, I'll tell you later," I heard my mother explain to him under her breath. "Renesmee, you should hurry, you'll be late!" she pointed out to me.

"Good point, have a good time while I'm gone."

"We put your cell phone in that bag too, just in case," my father said.

"Okay, let's see how this thing drives! Bye!" I said as I climbed into the car.

The garage door slid open in front of me as I tossed my bag into the passenger seat and put my seatbelt on; safety first — as I was always taught. And, running into a policeman while speeding with my seatbelt off wouldn't be a good start for my first day of school.

"Please, stay under 120," my mother added anxiously, my father thought driving over 120 miles per hour was great fun, but not for me — the fragile half-human.

"Okay," I promised as I put the car in gear and sped out of the garage.

I drove through the winding driveway at a moderate fifty-nine miles per hour, and picked up the pace when I got onto the main highway.

If there was a speed trap anywhere near hear, I would see them before they saw me.

Glancing down at the speedometer, I eased off of the gas pedal. "Stay under 120."

Before long, the car was smoothly slowing down — morning traffic.

I was driving at a steady 20 miles per hour. I would preferably be driving faster. But there was nothing I could do about Forks' morning rush.

Finding Forks High School was not very hard. Human eyes could have missed the small sign at the school entrance, but it was easy enough for me.

I quickly parked the car, perfectly, in one try. Driving was fun.

There were only a few cars in the parking lot, most of which were old, rundown-looking. Great. My car was still conspicuous. Its shiny new paint job stood out against the dull colors of the other cars.

I had unknowingly parked in front of the school office. I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked into the room.

The walls were covered in a light lavender paint that made the small green plants stand out even more. A large desk ran across the middle of the room, with a gate leading to the other side.

The room was warm, almost uncomfortably so. Hopefully this would be quick.

"Um… hi," I said shyly to the wrinkled lady at the desk. "I'm Renesmee Cullen, I just moved here."

"Oh," she looked up and seemed stunned for a moment, "Renesmee? Oh! Hello, welcome! So how has Forks treated you so far?" No way this was going to be quick. The lady was so talkative!

"Great. Uh… I was wondering, where are my classes?" I was desperately trying to change the subject.

"Of course! Anyways, I'm Mrs. Clapp. My husband is the P.E. teacher," she explained while she searched through a filing cabinet.

Half a minute later she pulled out a file with my name on it. Her eyes widened.

"Cullen?" she sounded flabbergasted, "As in, C-U-L-L-E-N?"

She was spelling out my name now. Wonderful. "Um… Yeah."

"Can I have a list of my classes?" I was getting anxious. This woman knew something.

"Oh," she snapped out of her trance, "of course," she handed me a two papers, one with a list of classes, the other with a highlighted route to each one.

"Thanks," I said and quickly left the room.

As I examined the slightly damp pieces of paper more scrupulously, I noticed a yellow slip clipped onto the second sheet. There were six lines on the paper; I assumed that these were for my teachers to sign.

There were six classes listed:

1. English

2. Spanish

3. Trigonometry

4. Government

5. Lunch

6. Biology II

7. P.E.

Wow. I had the same classes as my parents did when they were here, only, in a different order.

Spanish? That was interesting, I already spoke fluently in Spanish, Chinese, French, Latin, and — of course — English. I guess they knew I wanted all of my classes to match theirs.

As I pulled the car out of the parking stall, I noticed that more and more spaces were being filled.

Despite my parent's best efforts, my gleaming car still stood out against the dull paint jobs, and old styles of the vehicles owned by the rest of the Forks High student body.

I could feel the stares of the Forks teenagers boring into my back.

It didn't take long to find an open parking stall. I pulled in, going a little slower and less skillfully as I usually would have.

I took a quick breath before stepping out of the car.

The scent of the humans assaulted me the moment I opened the door. I took quick, shallow breaths to try to get used to the pungent aroma. The burn in my throat was worse than ever before. I vaguely wondered if it came anywhere near the pain a normal vampire would have been experiencing.

It was harder than usual to push the burn to the back of my mind. But, I had more important things to worry about.

I glanced at the paper with my classes listed on it: English- Building 1.

I inhaled deeply, gritting my teeth. I didn't want to be responsible for any human deaths.

Unluckily, Building 1 was the closest to the parking lot. The warmth and smell of the humans would be so much stronger in the building.

I tried to walk more ungainly than normal, to seem more human. The task was harder than I initially thought.

By the time I opened the door to Building 1 I was practiced enough at resisting the burn in my throat that it was possible to push to the back of my mind. The closeness in the building didn't affect me as I thought it would.

My father was right; after a few weeks I would get used to this.

I imagined how hard it must have been for my family to come to school, thirsty. I inhaled deeply.

On my left was room 103. Here it goes, I said, trying to reassure myself.

There was that odd smell in the air again. It seemed relatively familiar, but so out of place here.

I opened the door to the Junior English room. There were a few students already in the room, and noticing my entrance, immediately shot out of their seats and strode in my direction.

"Hi, Renesmie…?" a young boy with cropped, chestnut brown hair said uncertainly.

I remembered that the same thing happened to my mother when she came to Forks. Everyone knew her name, and a bit more.

"Hi, it's pronounced Ruh-nez-may," I said clearly to all of them.

"Oh… sorry! It's just, uh…"

"A weird name?" I giggled.

"Yeah," the boy laughed too. "Anyways, my name's Gavin, and I, er, guess I'm in your English class." He sounded incredibly enthused.

"Coo—." The blond boy next to Gavin cut me off.

"I'm Nick," he smiled, "Ever heard of me? Quarterback? Football team? Na, guess not, you're new?" His hazel eyes matched the color of one of the girls that was gaping at me in the parking lot.

"Um… No to the first three, and yes to the last," he was the popular, jock stereotype.

"So, Ruh-nez-may," his imitation of how I said my name was pretty good, "how's Forks treating you?"

"Pretty good, I just moved in so…" something felt wrong, the atmosphere seemed happy enough, but there was something off, something that I couldn't place.

"I have to get this signed," I held up the yellow slip of paper, "so, excuse me."

I finally had a chance to look around the room; it was the same shade of pastel yellow that was in the office. It looked like the average classroom, the kind that you see in movies. There were about twenty desks, and the teacher's, a bookshelf, and some writing posters. Simple.

The teacher saw the yellow slip curled in my fingers and immediately said, "Hi, Renesmee, is it?" she actually pronounced my name right, there must have been a pronunciation key somewhere on my application.

"Yeah," I said as I handed her the slip.

"I'm Mrs. Burke. Nice to meet you. Anyway, class is going to start soon, so find a seat."

I strode to the back of the classroom; I would be less conspicuous in the back.

A loud ringing noise — the bell ¬— rang; a few seconds after the ringing started, and a horde of students came in through the door.

Mrs. Burke turned on the fan in the room. I had turned my head to look out the window to my left.

The taunting aroma of the humans wafted over to me, but, luckily, by now, I was used to it.

Then a different scent came over to me. I recognized it immediately. The scent was impossible to explain… exquisite, for a lack of a better word.

There was one thing in the world that could possible have that melodious mix of fragrances. A vampire.