Decode

His gaze was not warm, but it wasn't cold. It felt like he was looking right through me, to see the elaborate painting on the wall. His brilliant green eyes then looked away, only to flick back at me a few seconds later. What was this human emotion? Was he panicked? Was he happy? Was he scared?

"Reneesme?" Clay waved a hand in front of my face and I looked at him. "What's going on? Is there another one here?" I placed a hand on his arm and showed him James, than he turned around to look at him. "Wow, strange eyes. They're totally different from everyone else's. How do you know this guy?" I showed him what had happened the day before, how I had met him and he had seemed less than interested in me. Though I was hoping that Clay wouldn't pick up on the strange discomfort I felt for James not being interested. "Heavy stuff; good think we can't get mixed up in those little human problems." He laughed, got up, and went to the lunch line. I however, did not follow; I wanted to examine this human a little more.

Every gesture of his was pure magic. The slightest sigh sent shivers down my spine. He was a quiet boy, only saying a few words every once in a while, though with each word he had meaning behind it. He didn't just talk to talk.

"I'm going to go and sit with her; are any of you pansies going to come with me?" I heard Justin's voice and saw him sitting only a few seats down from James. Justin stood up and began to walk over to me; I would have left if I hadn't noticed that four guys were also following him, and James was one of them.

"How do you like the food so far?" Justin laughed as if he had told one of the funniest jokes ever known to man. All of his friends laughed with him, except for James.

"I haven't had the chance to get something to eat yet. My brother went and got lunch first." Right on cue Clay sat next to me and handed me a slice of pizza, an apple, snickers bar, and a bottle of water. I nodded my head in thank to Clay, and we both looked at the group of boys sitting with us.

"So, have you met any of these guys yet, Renee. There's Jason, Jackson, Jarrod, and James; and me, Justin."

"Are you all related?" Clay said, with his eyebrow raised.

"No, why would you think that?" Justin said a little harshly.

"Because all your names start with a J; I thought it might be some kind of weird family thing."

"All of our names start with a J?" Justin looked, confused and then looked at the group of boys sitting around him, "Did any of you guys notice that?" All the boys shook their head. "This guy is hilarious." The boys started to laugh, and I looked at Clay. Had I really found the stupidest boys in school to come and sit with me? When my eyes met James' frame I noticed he wasn't laughing; rather he was shaking his head like he couldn't believe he was really friends with such idiots.

His eyes caught mine and for a moment I thought that I saw them change colour, as if they went from green to black in a single heartbeat and then back again. "I rested my hand on Clay's knee, so that the boys didn't see it, and asked him if he saw what I had just seen. His eyes flicked up, for an instant, and then back down. So he had seen it, I wonder if the humans had as well…

"So what class do you guys have next?" Justin said after he was done laughing.

"We have Integrated Chemistry and Physics."

"We have Gym."

Clay and I looked at each other. How was it possible that we didn't have all the same classes? There was no way that we could help each other deal with humans if we weren't in the same classes.

"Cool, man." Justin put his arm around Clay's shoulder. "We have gym next hour too, we've needed a fifth man on our basketball team and you'd be perfect."

"My name is Clay." Only I could hear the resentment in Clay's voice.

"Dude, your skin is so weird. It's like cold, but not."

"Isn't that how skin is naturally?" When James spoke my eyes couldn't help but look over to his person. His voice was so melodious, so absolutely perfect. But his breath, it had his scent so strongly embedded in it. Even though he has said the statement aside, his smell still hit me hard. Clay could feel my hand tense on his knee, and checked a quick glance at me. There was no way I would be able to last an hour with James in the same room with me.

"Whatever, man." Justin shrugged. "Don't you have ICP next hour too, man?" Justin looked at James while he nodded. "Cool, you can like, take Renee.

If my heart had been a normal one, than it would have skipped a beat at the thought of James walking with me to class; instead my heart sped up. I knew that the inner monster inside of me would try all it could to find a way out and kill the poor boy. True, James was incredibly handsome, and his voice was perfect; but isn't anything that is tasty perfect? Isn't a steak perfect to a starving man? Isn't a full bodied wine the best to sample? James was definitely my type of wine, and I needed a taste.

I stood up from the table. "Clay, I guess I'll meet you in Choir after gym." Clay nodded, clearly disappointed in the fact that he had to go to gym with these clowns.

As I left eh cafeteria I could hear Justin's voice: "Dude, you're in Choir?"

I walked down the hallway towards my ICP class when I had to stop, because I felt dizzy. I had never felt dizzy before in my life; not even when Jacob used to spin me around. I felt pressure behind my eyes, and pretty soon I was seeing white spots. I searched for the word to categorize my pain. Migraine? I had never had one before, but before I had left Forks my human friends told me all about them. The pressure behind my eyes, the dizziness, the spots, they all were symptoms of migraines. But I had never gotten a migraine in my entire existence; how could I start getting them now?

"Reneesme! Wait!" Even if James had said "Reneesme you hair smells like horse shit, stop and let me tell you how much I hate it!" I would turn around for him. I saw him walking towards me, his messenger bag swinging and him holding my purse in the other hand. After a few humanly long moments he reached me holding my purse outstretched from his person; it was as if he didn't want to be near me at all.

"Thank you." I began to walk slowly back towards the classroom, and then noticed that my migraine had gone as quickly as it had come. "Have you ever gotten a migraine before?" When I turned to look at him I was surprised to find that e was right next to me, close enough to touch.

"No, I don't think I ever have gotten one before. My mom gets them all the time though; do your parents get them all the time?"

I had been coached on what to say about my parents on the flight to Forks. "My parents are dead."

"Ooh. Do you miss them?"

I was shocked, on the inside. This human who couldn't give one fig about me was asking about something emotional. Was this just an attempt at a conversation? Did all humans talk this way now? "They died when I was very young. I hardly remember them at all."

"So who do you live with?" We were almost to the classroom so I would have salvation from his scent in only a few moments.

"I live with the new local Doctor and his wife. They adopted Clay too, and we have a few brothers and sisters that the Cullens adopted a while ago." What the hell was I doing? Spilling my family out to him? Yet talking with him was so easy, so second nature to me.

We arrived, as I had planned, early to the classroom; so the only person that was in there was the teacher, . "Ah, this must be the new student, Reneesme Hale?"

"Reneesme Cullen, sir. Clay Hale is my brother." I smiled; I couldn't help but be happy that somebody could pronounce my name correctly.

"Ah, yes well, we will need to find you a lab partner. Let me see who I have on my list that is in need of one." Harrell pulled out a slip of paper from his desk and began to look down it, scanning for an empty space. "Here. You can be lab partners with James."

"What?" James spoke from his desk in the middle of the room. "I really don't need a lab partner Mr. Harrell, I've been doing quite fine on my own."

It was a blow. A hard punch in the stomach. A slap to the face. What was this kids problem? Why was he having such a hard time being around me? Did I smell bad, or did I have a huge zit on the end of my nose? "If he feels more comfortable with me not being his lab partner I really have no problem with it."

"Oh no, he;s just shy. It will be good for him to have a partner, he hardly talks to anybody." Mr. Harrell pointed, with his pen, towards the desk where I was to go and sit. As I began to walk over to the desk, James turned and opened the window, which caused a breeze to blow into the room towards me.

I heard the low growl that erupted from my chest. I could feel the inner monster inside of me turn over and awaken. My throat was burning with his scent tingling down to my toes. I sat next to him and opened up a spare notebook and took out my pen. After twirling it on my fingers, to try and get my mind of his scent, another breeze came into the room sending his scent towards me. This time I gripped my pen so hard that it snapped in my hand. I looked up to see his face staring at me, eyes wide in shock.

"Are you okay?" He looked down at the broken pen in my hands back to my face.

"Yeah, that was just a really cold breeze. Do you mind shutting the window for a while; it's kind of aggravating my migraine."

"Sure." When James turned to shut the window all the students began to file into the classroom. In a few minutes the bell had rung and Mr. Harrell began his lecture.

Though I tried very hard to concentrate on the teacher I couldn't help but feel the electricity between James and myself. It was if a current were trying to tie us together. Whenever I glanced over at James, he had pulled his chair as far away from me as possible, and never met my gaze.

After Mr. Harrell was done with the lecture we all noticed that we had a few minutes to spare. "Talk amongst yourselves, I don't have anything else to say."

The whole room erupted with sound, all except for my partner and me. He looked over at me, and smiled, shyly. "So, where did you move here from?"

"England."

"Why did you move here?"

"My family wanted to move here, I had nothing to do with the decision." It was a lie, but it was only a small one. Besides, it wasn't as if he would get to know me very well. I couldn't have human friends again.

"Right." He drummed his fingers on the desk. "What sort of movies do you like?"

Was this a real question, or was he just pulling my leg? "I like the old Tim Burton films."

"I know! He's a genius!" I turned to look at him and found his eyes shift colours again. They went from green to blue, maybe he was wearing contacts and they were slipping around his eyes.

"Yeah, I always thought so." It was strange. This whole situation was strange. One moment he didn't like me, the next he was talking my ear off about my family and what kind of movies I enjoyed. This kid had to be bipolar or something.

"My favourite has always been Sweeny Todd." My hand gripped the side of the table, hard enough to put a small dent in it. It was a good thing that James didn't notice. "He was just a genius with getting Depp and Carter together like that." This was sending me up the wall. Not only was his conversation intoxicating, but his scent was driving me bonkers.

"Yes, that is one of my favourites as well." I felt a tug inside of me, and I knew immediately what was happening. Jacob. The last time I had watched that movie I was with Jacob.

"You know he has a new movie out. Do you think you might like to go and see it this weekend?"

I didn't know what to say. I would love to see the Tim Burton movie, I had planned on seeing the Tim Burton movie, yet could I really go with him? He was so cryptic with me. One moment he hated me and didn't want to be near me, and the next he was asking me to movies. I felt my foot begin to bounce. "Sure, why not?" What the hell was I thinking?

"Great, let me get your number." His voice had lifted. Was it somehow possible that the answer to decoding him was accepting a simple movie invitation? He wrote down my number on a slip of paper and then stowed it in his pocket. "I'll call you tonight, promise." Then, for the first time, he smiled at me. It was a breathtaking experience, and I hadn't felt so short of breath since I had last been with…Oh God.

The bell rang and he was up and by the door before I could tell him not to call me, or even to give back my number. As I walked through the hallway toward choir I decided to grab Clay before he entered the room and drag him out to my car. "We're going home."

"Isn't it bad to cut school?"

"Look, we have a problem here. We need to go home, now." I was glad that he didn't ask any more questions. It was nice to have somebody just get in the car.

We were home in less than ten minutes and Clay was surprisingly silent the entire length of the ride. When we got into the house my parents were already waiting for me on the couch. I glanced over to Clay who pulled out his phone. "I texted them on the way, you didn't think I would just sit there did you?"

"Reneesme, what happened? My father was by my side in less than a second. "Did you do something to a human?"

"Edward, I doubt she would ever do anything that would put this family in danger." My mother was always calm and collected, but she was also serious when she used my father's name, instead of Darling or Dear. "What happened, Reneesme?"

"Look Mom, Dad, nothing happened. I just met this human who seemed to take an interest in me, and it just so happened that I might have taken an interest in him as well."

"What?" My father had a shocked expression on his face, while my mother looked somewhat worried. "You mean, you might like somebody else?"

"No; not that kind of interest. I mean, he smells so good! I never knew that a human could smell so appetizing. Just him sighing is enough to make we want to rip his head off. But when I thought about doing it, for some reason I couldn't."

"That's a good thing, sweetheart." My mother was back to smiling at me. "That means that you have a good sense of control over yourself. We're very proud of you, aren't we, honey?"

"Yes." My father's eyes were wondering, he was far away from here. "We're very proud. Would you please excuse me for a moment?" Without waiting for a response from my mother he walked out of the front door and began to run for the woods.

I walked up the stairs and went to my room, where I flopped down on my bed and turned on Carter Burwell. How was this possible? I couldn't go out with this guy. He was a human, and besides what about Jacob? What about Jacob? I had been harping on Jacob for more than two hundred years…wasn't it time to leave the past in the past?

I closed my eyes and as sleep came to me I hear the faint howl of a wolf, and couldn't help but think of the man that I had loved.