My bag slipped from my shoulder as my eyes fell on Edward, the Volvo driver. Averting my gaze from his face, I busied myself with closing my bag and repositioning it back onto my left shoulder.

"You're here early." Alice said.

"Yeah, I had to hand in my registration forms and since I'm already here I might as well make this my first day." Edward replied, looking between Alice and myself.

"Who's your friend?" he said, jutting his chin in my direction.

"Oh! This is Bella, she's new." Alice said, leaning in and bumping my shoulder. "Bella, this is my big brother Edward."

"Big brother?" I questioned, not really understanding how her 'big brother' could be attending school here when she herself was a senior.

"Yeah, he uh, well, your see he umm…" Alice began.

"I'm a year older, but I had to repeat this year since I had too many absences last year." Edward finished quickly, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

The bell rang out throughout the quad signaling the start of the school day and effectively ending the awkward conversation. I excused myself to head to my locker after promising to meet up with Alice outside the cafeteria for lunch.

After some searching, I finally was headed in the right direction seeing as the locker numbers were getting closer and closer to my recently issued number – 1684. As I neared the end of the hallway I read the last locker, 1650. I continued around the corner to a smaller, more deserted hallway until I finally found my destination. I quickly spun the padlock to 11-25-14 before it popped open allowing me entrance into the locker.

I was shrugging out of my jacket when I heard the lone footsteps coming down the hallway towards me. Keeping my eyes down and focusing on the task of hanging up my jacket I jumped slightly when the person stopped right next to me picking up the padlock on the locker and opening it swiftly. Closing my own locker and replacing the lock, I turned to face Edward yet again.

"See ya." I mumbled walking around him towards my first class of the day.

"Yeah" he said, nodding his head in acknowledgement. As I rounded the corner back to the main hallway, I could have sworn I heard him mumble 'be safe'.

Clearing my head with a slight shake, I went about my day. The first half of the day was as I had expected – literature, calculus, and physics. I met up with Alice for lunch and she introduced me to her friends – Jessica, Lauren, Tyler and Eric. Edward showed up a few minutes later, keeping to himself for the duration of lunch as the rest of the group grilled me for information about myself. 'My name is Bella Swan, I am from Portland Oregon, I am a senior in high school, my dad is named Charlie, and he is an independent contractor.' After the inquisition, I tried to remain out of the spotlight and simply deflected questions or tried to look busy with my lunch to avoid giving further information. Alice and I went off to history together after lunch, followed my Art and finally ending my day with the states mandated 'Health' class. It was held in the smaller auditorium and I carefully chose a seat towards the middle of the class to avoid drawing attention to myself by sitting in either the first or last rows.

A familiar head of brown hear made its way down the row behind mine, and even with my eyes forward, I could spot Edward in my peripheral. Slinking lower into my seat, I propped my elbow onto the arm of the chair and rested my cheek into my palm effectively blocking Edward out of my vision.

When the bell signaling the end of the school day rang, I quickly retrieved my jacket from my locker, check my cell for any messages from dad, and headed out to my truck ready to finally be home.

I pulled into my driveway, stopping short of the garage and jumped out of the cab of the truck to unlock the garage door. As I pulled the door open and headed back to my truck, I noticed the silver Volvo slowly creep past my house before it disappeared down the street. An eerie feeling washed over me and I quickly set to parking the truck in the garage, closing and locking it away until tomorrow and threw glances over both shoulders as I hurriedly made my way into the house making sure to lock the door behind me.

The feeling of being followed was not something I was unfamiliar with. It came with the territory of the lifestyle that dad and I were forced to adopt. Usually it didn't happen this quickly, and it wasn't until dad walked into the kitchen with a pizza in hand that I finally felt like I could breathe again. I kept the odd feelings to myself, not wanting to share it with dad and end up in a new town tomorrow morning. But much like last night, sleep did not come easy.