Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. Please read and review, if you've gotta moment. Enjoy!
Bella would've slept through the entire morning if it hadn't been for her screaming stomach. She realized with a groan that she hadn't actually eaten anything since Saturday morning's breakfast at the Cullens. Not that she was a stranger to hunger, but this past week had spoiled her a bit and she had almost forgotten what it was like to not know how she'd come by her next meal. She quickly checked her fridge and thankfully found that it contained a few things. She took out an apple and hungrily bit it into it.
After she satiated her hunger somewhat, she showered and pulled on her cleanest pair of jeans, shirt, and jacket and headed out to start her first day of school.
The bike ride took nearly half an hour and by the time she reached the campus the cool air had invigorated her a bit. Charlie had left her a box full of school supplies she'd probably need...empty notebooks, a calculator, pens and pencils, etc. It was strange to leave the rest of her clothes and meager possessions behind. But if she remembered anything from her grade school days, it was that she was likely to meet some bullies who would insist on upending the contents of her bag at some point during the day. Obviously she didn't want to have her only clothes in said bag when that happened.
She wished Charlie had left her some instructions on what to do once she got there. Bella didn't have any school records so placing her wasn't going to be all that simple. She locked her bike in front of the biggest building and, since she was there already decided to go in and try to find the main office. She was still incredibly early. Even most of the teachers weren't there yet. Inside she quickly found the office, took a deep breath and stepped in.
"Excuse me," she said politely, "I'm not sure where I need to go. Can you please help me?"
"Yes?" A tired looking woman replied.
"My name is Bella Swan. I'm new. Er-I think my father told you I'd be coming?"
"Hmm, yes. Yes, he did, although for the life of me why you couldn't procure your records I don't understand!"
Bella didn't think of anything to say so she stayed quiet. The woman sighed dramatically and bid her over to an empty room.
"Leave your bag here. These are placement exams for your age. Finish them and then we'll see," she said quickly.
"Thank you," said Bella, and quietly took the papers and a pencil and went inside the room.
Here we go, she thought to herself. Bella had already memorized the state's standard levels for sophomores through seniors, and she knew exactly what she needed to do not only to place into the correct grade, but also to tweak the system a little and get into classes certain friends of her were taking.
Carefully, but still in record time, Bella completed all the exams. When she walked back out the woman, Mrs. Cope according the placard on her desk, stared.
"Done already?" She asked incredulously.
Shit. Bella thought she had worked slowly enough, but apparently she was going to have to work a lot harder if she wanted to avoid raising suspicions. Deciding that trying to explain herself would only make things worse, Bella kept quiet as the surprised woman graded her exams against a rubric.
"Hmm," was all she got.
It took her longer to grade than for Bella to take the tests. Bella waited patiently, all while listening to the growing throng outside. The students were arriving. She knew that technically speaking, this school had a very small student body, but she was still quite anxious at the prospect of spending hours every day cooped up in small rooms with so many of them. Her heart skipped a few beats as the memories of the hell she'd endured as a child in school came back to her.
"All right, we're going to place you in 10th grade, but you can choose a few higher level courses if you'd like," said Ms. Cope, reluctantly it seemed. "Here, take a look at the schedules and mark your choices."
Bella eagerly took the schedules and tried not to look too pleased with herself. She had done it! And looking down at the schedules in her hand, fought back a smile as she realized she'd be with a friend for most, if not all her classes. She silently thanked Alice for letting her look at all their class schedules last week. In the end she'd be taking art and gym with Alice, AP physics and AP calculus with Rosalie and Emmett, and AP US history and AP English literature with Jasper, which Alice also took.
"Hi Bella!" she heard a bright voice behind her say. Alice danced her way into the office, a big smile on her face. Rosalie followed in behind her. "Got your schedule yet?"
"Yea, right here," Bella smiled. She showed her, acting like she had no idea they'd be in classes together.
"Oooh this is wonderful!" Alice exclaimed. "You have some classes with me! And some with you too Rosalie!" she said, looking at her sister. "We have art together! Oh, please be my partner! Please, please, pretty please!"
Bella laughed. It was impossible to feel any negativity around this girl. "Of course I will," she said, "but don't you have a partner already?"
"Nah," she started, looking a little down. "We kinda keep to ourselves...and people don't really talk to us much."
Well that was a surprise, she thought as she frowned. Bella couldn't imagine anyone not wanting to spend time with Alice or Emmett or Jasper. Rosalie she might understand...hard to want to hang out with someone who looks like they want to kill you...but Bella knew that Rosalie had a kinder, gentler side that she was still hopeful she'd reach eventually. She opened her mouth to say as much (not including the bit about Rosalie) but Alice just smiled gently and shook her head.
"I know what you're going to say," she said, "but it's true. That's actually why we wanted to talk to you a bit before class started. Bella, we really think you should try to find some other group to sit with at lunch. Not because we don't want to hang out with you! Believe me-," she added quickly when Bella's face fell, "but because you'll never make any friends otherwise. Trust me."
Bella really didn't know what to think or how to react to that, so she just nodded slowly.
"All right," she said, though it was difficult to hide the disappointment in her voice. Find other people to sit with? Other kids who'd probably realize it was more fun to torture her than befriend her? Her budding friendship with the Cullens still amazed her. That she had connected to strongly with kids her own age, and their parents, in such a short amount of time was nothing short of miraculous. She didn't think she could pull that particular rabbit out of the hat twice.
Alice and Rosalie showed her where her locker was and walked with her to Art, the first class of the day.
"How did it go with your dad?" Rosalie asked her quietly.
Bella almost tripped. Was Rosalie actually speaking to her? Bella looked at her as they walked, and the look she got back held no anger or malice of any sort. Rosalie was actually...gentle.
"Fine," she said, trying to hide the surprise in her voice. "It was fine."
"I've seen his house a few times from the road," she said. "It looks like a nice place. Big, certainly. Did you like your new room?"
Where was she going with this? "Uh, yeah," she replied. "Bigger than I've ever had before." It was the truth, actually.
Rosalie looked at her for a few moments like she was contemplating something.
"Would you mind partnering with me and Emmett in calculus?" Rosalie asked. "He never stops fooling around in class, and I'd like to get an A this semester. I have a feeling you'll be able to help me keep him in line."
Bella couldn't believe what she was hearing. Furthermore, she couldn't believe how beautiful Rosalie's voice was when she spoke this softly. No wonder Emmett was in love with her.
She nodded and smiled at the girl, and was ecstatic when she was rewarded with a small but genuine smile from her. Rosalie excused herself from their company then, needing to go in another direction to her own class, and Bella continued on with Alice through the crowded hallway.
She wasn't sure if it was because she was a new student...she was getting a lot of stares from the student body as they walked down the hall. Bella was about to ask Alice if this was normal, when she stopped and looked back some more. No they were staring at her and at Alice. Like they were seeing something, other than Bella, that they'd never seen before. What the hell?
Bella didn't have time to be confused for long because before she knew it, they were at the classroom door.
"Let me talk to the teacher first," Alice whispered, "...get to her to assign you by me, if that's ok?" Alice suddenly looked unsure.
"Of course!" Bella exclaimed. "Jeez, you don't have to ask!"
Alice smiled brightly and skipped to talk to the teacher.
That pattern continued all day. One of the Cullens was always there to walk her to her next class where they'd somehow convince the teacher to let her sit and/or partner with them. In every class she was asked to stand and introduce herself, which she did while hoping she wouldn't stutter or do anything to attract bullies' attention. During class she would spy other kids occasionally looking at her out of the corners of their eyes, curiosity clearly written on their faces. At the end of class she'd have the teacher sign the paperwork that needed to be signed for new students, walk out with a Cullen, and start over again.
There were two points in the day when the pattern deviated a bit. The first was during her study hall which was the only class where she truly knew no one. Without Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and even Rosalie to protect her, Bella was finally approached by a few other students.
One of them, Angela, was nice enough. She asked her name, about her time in Pennsylvania, and what living with her Dad was like after all those years. She was a little surprised, but later realized she shouldn't have been, that Angela and apparently everyone in school knew a few things about her already. It was a small town after all, but still...
Bella tried to be friendly. She really did, but it was hard with all the noise surrounding her. This study hall was not quiet, and a lot of the other kids kept leaning over and looking at her, wanting to hear from the new girl. There were so many of them. She didn't want to judge prematurely, but she couldn't help comparing these kids to the younger pubescent varieties she had last encountered in a school. A gleam in someone's eye, a smirk, a look of irritation or a sarcastic smile between friends...she knew the signs when she was little, and she recognized them now in some of the people around her. Still, Angela had only been kind and Bella wanted to reciprocate. So when she casually invited her to sit with her and her friends during lunch, Bella agreed.
As they entered the cafeteria together, Bella's heart drummed loudly in her chest and her ears throbbed painfully from the blood flow. She thought she had prepared herself for this but now that she was here, she felt woefully in over her head. Angela gave her a questioning look when she noticed Bella's white knuckles around her lunch tray.
"Sorry," Bella said with a weak smile. "I don't like crowds."
"You think this is crowded?" Angela asked in surprise. "There's only a few hundred people in this whole school! I take it you went to an even smaller school in PA?"
"Mmm," Bella replied, not wanting to elaborate further on her fake previous life.
They picked up their lunches and Bella followed Angela to a much too crowded table.
"Hey guys," Angela began. "This is Bella Swan, the new girl."
A chorus of hello's followed. Bella smiled a shy smile to each of them in turn as they introduced themselves: aside from Angela she met Mike, Tyler, Jessica, Ben, and Lauren. Bella was really hungry, but would hardly swallow a bite when someone would ask her a question about herself. She'd put on a show of taking her time swallowing as she thought of something to say, then respond in as few words as possible while not appearing to be rude. Whenever she saw an in, she'd ask one of them an open-ended question and thankfully, these kids seemed to love hearing themselves talk and obliged her with long, winded answers.
She glanced at the Cullens' table, wishing she could sit with them. Emmett and Alice caught her eye a few times and gave her a thumbs up, which comforted Bella a little; she had calculus with Emmett and Rosalie after lunch. Just a little while longer, she thought.
There was just 10 minutes to go when an excitable, raven-haired Asian boy plopped onto Mike's lap and smirked, "Miss me honey?"
"Ew, dude," said Mike. "Get off!"
"No can do!" Eric said. "I'm here for the 411! New girl! Bella Swan, right? Babe, what's the deal?"
"Sorry?" Bella asked, thoroughly confused.
"Word on the grapevine is you're pals with the Cullens!" He exclaimed as if it was the most obvious thing. "Do tell."
"Er," Bella didn't know what to say, or what Eric wanted her to say. And it wasn't just Eric, Bella realized as her stomach fell. The entire table was looking up at her with rapt attention. "I'm not sure what you want to hear. Yeah, we're friends. We met last week and hung out a lot. So what?"
Eric looked at her like she had a second head. "So what? So what?! So nobody is just 'friends with the Cullens.' That's gotta be a bigger achievement than befriending the Kardashians," he said wistfully.
"Like you could ever dream of hanging with the Kardashians," Angela stepped in. Bella sighed and silently thanked the girl.
"Ha! What's not to love?" He asked smirking again. "I got beauty, brains, and personality baby!"
They all laughed at that.
And then Lauren, who was very quiet until then while Eric was there spoke up. "No offense, Bella. But you really shouldn't hang out with them. It's totally screwed up that they live together and hook up like that. It should be illegal. And they're actually all super mean. I mean Alice is ok, but the others? Jasper looks like he's in pain all the time and won't talk to you. Total creep. The big guy, Emmett, actually broke a locker once when he was mad at something. He's dangerous and probably takes steroids to be that buff. Edward just looks right through you like you're not even there. And I'm sorry, but Rosalie is a total bitch."
Jessica, Mike and Tyler murmured their agreements and Eric, bored, left the table. If any of them had actually looked at Bella at that moment they would've seen a look of anger that few people had ever witnessed.
"No, she's not," said Bella.
"What?" Lauren asked.
"No. She's not," Bella said, loud enough for the rest of the table to look up. "Rosalie is not a bitch. She's a good person and has a heart of gold. And everything you said about the rest of them-it's not true. They're the nicest people I've ever met. And anyone who says otherwise either doesn't know them or doesn't deserve to."
They all gaped at her. She was still angry, otherwise she'd be extremely self-conscious from the long stares. Thankfully the bell rang just then, and she quickly gathered her things and left after saying goodbye to Angela.
She walked as fast she could to her locker, still fuming, to drop off that morning's heavy textbooks and head off to calculus. As she closed it again and turned around, she spotted Rosalie walking towards her. Again, she had that same gentle smile on her face...and again Bella caught herself noticing her radiant beauty. She quickly masked her admiration with a shy but friendly smile.
"Shall we?" Rosalie asked playfully, sticking her arm out. Hmm, Bella really hoped nice Rosalie was here to stay.
Bella's smile widened as she looped her arm through her's. "Let's," she said, and together they walked to their next class.