*BPOV*
Welcome Class of 2011! exclaimed a large banner that hung over the front doors of the Cesar Chavez Student Center in SFSU's signature colors of purple and gold.
This was it. My first day of classes as a vampire in college. I held my breath just as much out of nervous excitement as I did out of caution for the gaggles of humans everywhere I looked.
We had to miss the student orientation last week due to a stretch of sunny weather, which was unfortunate. But it wasn't like I hadn't already 'been there, done that' at Dartmouth last year. Which is exactly what I told Edward when he seemed even more disappointed about it than I was.
I studied the campus map and memorized my class schedule which was identical to Edward's except for the last course of the day.
I had gotten into a required general education class in human sexuality. But for whatever reason, Edward had gotten waitlisted.
"You are not going to storm into the bursar's office and donate a library to get them to bend the rules! It's just one class. Fifty minutes three times a week. Whoop de doo!
" And if you're really that worried about me, I'll drop the class," I bluffed, shrugging impassively. The subtle guilt trip had its desired effect.
"You're already taking a reduced course load," Edward frowned, not at all happy about the turn of events. He wasn't used to not getting his way.
"Carlisle seemed to think I could handle it," I reminded him. "And if it would ease your anxiety," I added in a lowered voice, "I'll drop my shield so you'll know what I'm thinking the whole time."
"While I appreciate that," Edward prefaced in a strained voice, sounding like it cost him more effort than it usually did to keep his voice calm, "my anxiety isn't the issue here, love.
"If you lose control of yourself, my being in your head won't do anyone any good if I can't get to you in time. You know how quickly these things can happen," he whispered urgently.
"Besides, you shouldn't be focused on your shield. You should be focusing on your control and the course material, in that order," he added in a stern voice.
"Give her some credit, Edward," Alice interjected, rolling her eyes impatiently at her brother.
"You've only ever had to stop her the one time, and that was ages ago," she reasoned, referring to my very near slip as a newly changed newborn on Admiralty Island.
"Twice," he hissed back in correction. I watched the muscles tick in his jaw as he audibly ground his teeth together. Apparently, Alice didn't know about my little lapse of control when we had visited our cousins in Denali.
Edward and I had been having an amorous moment alone in the woods when I was caught off guard by the scent of a human friend of Tanya's. The succubus had discretely invited the man over to warm her bed after Jasper accidentally set off another sex frenzy.
I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists at my sides in frustration as my husband and best friend/sister argued about me as if I wasn't even there.
"Cool it, you guys," Jasper sent a wave of calm over all three of us. "You're not helping the situation at all with your bickering."
When I opened my eyes, I could see Edward anxiously watching me. His lips were pressed together into a thin line, though when I returned his gaze, one corner of his mouth twitched upward into an apologetic smile.
"Sorry, love," he sighed, running a hand through his fashionably disheveled locks. "It's not that I don't trust you, it's just–"
"I know. I know. You feel responsible for me, and you never want me to have to live with that kind of regret. I know," I finished for him, feeling my own teeth mash together in exasperation.
Edward's face crumpled at my icy tone. "Then why do I feel like the bad guy?" He muttered mostly to himself.
"It's the last class of the day. Let's just see how it goes, hmm?" Alice suggested optimistically. Then throwing her arms around me in a quick hug, she exclaimed in her excited tinkling voice, "Have a great first day, Bella! You're going to love it here!" she promised, grinning from ear to ear.
"C'mon Jazzy, we don't want to be late for class or we'll get stuck in seats near the back with the potheads. You know how much I hate being passed a syllabus covered in flaming hot Cheeto dust," she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
Jasper chuckled, "I don't mind potheads. They're a lot less anxious and depressed than most other people," he explained as they strolled down the bustling hallway holding hands in the direction of their shared course in the Psychology building.
Not surprisingly, Jasper was intensely bored by fashion design, as was Alice with history. Psych was the one area of study that they both enjoyed. Rosalie and Emmett wouldn't be joining us until tomorrow because they had opted to schedule all of their classes for Tuesdays & Thursdays.
"That's all well and fine for you, but the Cheeto dust, babe. Ugh! I just can't," Alice scoffed with derision.
*EPOV*
I pinched the bridge of my nose as I worked to dissolve the tension that had arisen between Bella and me on the first day of classes at our new school.
She turned away from Jazz and Alice's retreating forms and marched determinedly in the opposite direction toward the Creative Arts building.
Off to a swell start, I thought wryly. I hastened to catch up with Bella as she (too) quickly dodged a cluster of students blocking foot traffic as they examined their schedules and squinted at tiny maps of the sprawling campus on their phones.
"Bella," I reached for her arm, urging her to slow down. "You're walking too fast, love," I reminded her in a low, gentle voice.
Bella stopped dead in her tracks and I lurched to a sudden stop so that I didn't barrel right into her.
Visibly bristling, she squeezed her eyes shut and tightly balled her fists at her sides.
"Are you just going to criticize me all day?" she asked through gritted teeth, eyes still screwed shut.
I groaned. "I'm not trying to—" and blew out a breath of air before I could finish what would certainly be an unproductive statement.
In a pained voice too low for human ears to register, I firmly told her, "The Cullen facade is more important than your ego, Bella. If you're going to be around people, you need to listen to me without taking it so personally, love." I pleaded with her to be rational.
Her only response was to tighten her fists and keep walking, this time much too slowly. I huffed out a sigh, but said nothing and kept pace with her. Though it was irksome to walk at such a glacial pace, which I'm quite certain was her intent.
If Bella had been human, I could have walked away. Put some space between us until we were less frustrated with each other.
But she wasn't human. She was a newly created human killing machine surrounded by thousands of helpless humans. She was a fox in the henhouse, we all were, and she was my responsibility. I couldn't leave her alone even if I wanted to, and that was precisely the problem.
And Alice wasn't helping matters one bit, I inwardly fumed. She was quick to brush off the gravity of the situation, wanting to be Bella's friend more than a responsible older sister, I scowled.
It came as no surprise seeing as she was much the same way with Jasper. Oftentimes bending the truth about the grisly near-futures she'd foreseen. Futures that would have come to fruition had it not been for a timely intervention by one of us.
It had been merely aggravating when she'd lied to Jasper about his motivations, not wanting to discourage his attempts at vegetarianism any further than he already was.
But if Alice expected me to bite my tongue while she played fast and loose with Bella's future, and indirectly (directly!) mine, she was in for a rude awakening.
*BPOV*
Finding the door to my–our– Intro to Guitar class, I slipped inside, very mindful of the fragile bronze doorknob. That was all I needed was to dent the stupid thing and give Edward something else to rag on me about.
Edward slunk in behind me, irritated I'm sure because I didn't let him open the door for me like a good little gentleman.
I slid into the seat closest to the door (the easiest escape route) and placed my soft-sided guitar case (which was worn like a backpack) on the floor beside me.
It wasn't a full desk, just a standard-issue classroom chair with a small notebook-sized desktop area off to the right side. The kind of desk Jacob always complained about because he's a lefty, I randomly remembered, and pushed the errant thought about my ex-best friend away.
Edward took the empty seat behind me, gracefully folding his tall, lanky frame into his chair, and setting his own guitar case down on the ground in the space beside him.
The desk to my left was occupied by a ponytailed girl, about my age, with freckles and a stubby nose. She glanced over at me when I sat down, so I smiled shyly and gave her a little wave. That was a friendly, human thing to do, right?
She briefly smiled back and then returned her attention to the front of the class where the instructor, Professor David Ickies, was beginning to take attendance.
"Alexandra Arthur," he read off his roster.
"Present," my ponytailed neighbor raised her hand. "And it's just Alex" she corrected matter-of-factly.
"Noted," the professor mumbled and jotted the preference down next to her name.
He rattled off a few more names before he got to the C's. Edward's name was called first. He sat semi-slouched over in his chair, head down, drawing as little attention to himself as possible.
"Present," he called toward the front of the room in a soft voice just loud enough to be heard.
"Isabella Cullen?" The instructor read off my name next.
"It's Bella, please," I requested in a low, clear voice. He nodded, writing it down, and then looked between Edward and me, obviously noticing our matching surnames and the similarities in our pallor and unique eye color.
"Siblings?" he asked, drawing an invisible line in the air with his pencil between Edward and me.
"Married," Edward clarified, projecting his rich baritone voice this time so that no one in the class could have missed it.
Professor Ickies's eyes widened briefly in surprise, but then his face smoothed back over and he shrugged disinterestedly.
"Well, you know what they say…when you're married long enough, you start to look like your spouse," he joked.
Edward smiled very convincingly, though I had no doubt he found nothing amusing about the exchange. "We get that a lot," he shrugged, equally as disinterested.
"I'll bet," the professor replied in a clipped tone, no doubt thinking how eerily similar we looked not to be blood-related. As a family, the Cullens did indeed "get that a lot."
I sighed. It was a loaded sound.
Just a few days ago we had a family discussion about how we planned to explain our family dynamics to the humans we came in contact with at our new school.
I merely suggested that it might be smarter if I used my maiden name at school, just like Rosalie was going by Hale, and Alice was going by Brandon to avoid that very line of questioning. It didn't exactly help us blend in any better.
Edward had outright refused any sort of arrangement that involved me being known as anyone other than Bella Cullen, Edward Cullen's wife.
"Do you trust your wife so little that you have to stake your claim on her wherever you go?" Rosalie had asked at the family meeting with a disgusted look on her face.
A growl rumbled from deep in his chest. "Do you remember what it was like for me to try to date her back in Forks, Rosalie?" he spat her name like it was an obscenity. "Bella would never get any peace from the frat boys wanting her number!"
"Don't try and make it sound like you're doing this for her benefit, Edward. Who do you think you're talking to?" Rosalie fired back then raised a palm between her and her brother in a dismissive "talk to the hand" gesture.
Edward silently seethed in his seat at what must've been a very colorfully-worded, inaudible, one-sided conversation between the two of them.
I threw my shield up over Rosalie so that she couldn't needle him anymore, and that's when Carlisle opened his mouth to weigh in on the subject.
"Edward, son, while I appreciate your point of view here, I think the ladies make a valid point," he said very diplomatically, as only Carlisle could.
But then Carlisle took one look at Edward's anguished expression and apparently had a change of heart.
"Honestly, I don't think it's that big of a deal either way. If you want to be married, be married," Carlisle relented.
*EPOV*
I'm only permitting this because you're in college. You know when you all go back to high school, I'm going to have a very different opinion on the matter, Carlisle thought with stern, narrowed eyes.
I nodded once in understanding. I'd cross that bridge when we got to it, but luckily that wouldn't be for a few more years down the road.
Hopefully, by then, being stripped of my husband title, even just for the sake of appearances, wouldn't cause such a painful pit of anxiety to form deep in my gut as the mere suggestion of it did now. I really doubted it though.
Keeping her eyes forward on the professor, Bella dropped her shield, drawing me from my abstraction.
Due to her familiarity, her mental voice immediately drowned out every other voice and thought stream in the classroom.
Funny isn't it? How it's suddenly okay for YOUR ego to be more important than the Cullen facade? Bella's mental voice had a biting quality to it. I glared stonily at the back of her head as the dowdy professor resumed calling attendance.
This was going to be a long fifty minutes.
*BPOV*
While I hated the tension between Edward and me, I stubbornly and indignantly dug my heels in because he'd been an insensitive, hypocritical butthead since we got here and I wasn't done being mad yet.
From behind me I could hear the unmistakable sound of Edward furiously writing something in his notebook. I then heard a sheet of paper being torn from its binding.
Moments later, out of the corner of my eye, I observed a small white projectile fly through the air and land on top of my guitar bag. I rolled my eyes a little when I saw what it was. Edward had written me a note and folded it into an origami swan. Such a show-off!
Bella, love, he began in his perfect calligraphy.
I don't know how we got so off track today, but I'm sorry for making you so miserable on your first day. That's the very last thing I want to do.
You know why I have to be so cautious. I'm on your side. I'm always on your side, and I only ever have your best interests at heart. Can we please just start over?
I love you.
-E
I exhaled, feeling some (but not all) of the irritation leave my body. I flipped the note over to write a reply. I could have just dropped my shield and thought of my response, but writing it down helped me to organize my tangled thoughts.
Unfortunately, my penmanship hadn't improved much since becoming a vampire. I scrawled out the response:
I'll get over it. But if Alice isn't worried, I don't know why you are, you paranoid worrywart!
I just really didn't appreciate you rubbing my nose in my past mistakes to try to prove your point to Alice.
Or how you lecture me about MY ego when you irrationally insist on outing us as a married couple even though it draws unwanted attention and curiosity. Hypocritical much?
Love you too. Now quit distracting me.
-B
I couldn't remember how to fold any origami animals off the top of my head, so I took the note, carelessly crumpled it into a tight ball, and threw it over my shoulder at him.
Edward snatched the crumpled note out of the air as the professor had his back turned, writing his office hours on the whiteboard.
I heard Edward smooth out the paper on his desk, followed by a soft sigh after he finished reading it. He folded the page into a neat square and slipped it into his bag. So softly I wasn't sure if I actually heard it or was just imagining it, Edward leaned forward slightly and whispered, "I'm sorry," barely louder than a breath.
It had been wishful thinking to bring our guitars to class on the first day. Most of the class time had been spent doling out the syllabi, the course overview, and going over the list of required reading.
The few minutes of class time that were left over after the administrative tasks were complete was used on a stupid ice breaker. The kind where you had to stand up and awkwardly tell the class your name, where you're from, and one interesting thing about you.
(Except when it's your turn to talk, no one is even listening because they're all mulling over what clever thing they're going to say about themselves when it's their turn.)
"Edward Cullen. I'm from Chicago, and I speak seven languages," Edward declared when it was his turn.
"Show-off!" I grumbled under my breath, making Edward snicker quietly to himself.
"Uh, hi," I said awkwardly as I got to my feet. "I'm Bella Cullen. I'm originally from Phoenix, Arizona, and my first pet was a cactus named Spike."
The silly anecdote drew out a few chuckles from my classmates who quickly moved on to largely ignoring the next student's introduction.
The last several minutes of class was the worst. I was more than a little bored by then, so it was harder to ignore the rapidly thumping heartbeats that thundered around me like a drumline from the twenty-six other human beings in the warm, stuffy little room.
I crossed my legs to stop the jittery bouncing of my right foot. But now that my legs were still, the middle finger of my right hand drummed restlessly on the desktop. I fisted my hands and closed my eyes, holding my breath in a pointless attempt to stifle the flames in the back of my throat.
I concentrated hard on the mindfulness techniques Jasper had taught me to help me keep my focus. I counted the rhythmic oscillations of the fan humming loudly in the corner. I paid close attention to how the breeze felt on my face every time it passed in my direction.
I did the mental math and figured out that the slow-moving fan would pass in my direction eighteen more times before the end of the class period. Then I could run outside for a nip of fresh air.
Edward noticed my tense posture. Because, of course he did.
"Hey," he whispered. "Are you okay?"
I worked to relax my hands and nodded yes, I was fine. The breeze passed over my face. That left just 17 more times.
The faintly buzzing second hand on the plain white wall clock trudged around the numbers on the dial twice more. 11 more times.
I crossed my legs in the other direction and moved my shoulders up and down to make it seem like I was breathing. 9 more times.
I started packing up my things in the couple of minutes before the end of the period. 6 more times.
One more minute. 3 more revolutions and then I had done it. I had made it through my first college course as a vampire without killing anybody.
"See ya Wednesday, folks. Don't forget to pick up a copy of–" but I had already slipped out the door. I didn't wait for Edward to start speed walking outside of the Creative Arts building. He'd just have to catch up.
I made my way through an unarmed emergency exit at the rear of the building, choosing to head for the less crowded west side of campus by the Greek housing instead of the grassy quad where most of the student body seemed to be congregating.
"On a scale of one to Prom, how uncomfortable was that for you?" Edward's soft voice filled my ears from downwind of me.I whipped around to face him, brushing a stray lock of hair away from my face as I turned.
I smiled a little, appreciating that he was at least trying to keep things light instead of assuming the worst and overreacting.
"I'd say…" I paused for a moment trying to think of an adequate comparison. "Like going on a group date with Jake and Mike Newton level of discomfort," I reported, wrinkling my nose at the memory.
Edward grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I know how uncomfortable that would be for me, so I can only imagine." He shook his head from side to side as if trying to banish the thought.
"Do you want to call it a day?" he asked gently. "We can go hunting and try again tomorrow. You'll know better what to expect then. Sometimes that helps," he suggested with a casual shrug of his shoulders.
I assessed the burn in my throat, wincing when I swallowed. I wasn't sure I could get through another class period of mind-numbing administrative housekeeping. Or any more torturous ice breakers, for that matter. Coming back tomorrow after glutting myself on animal blood was a tempting proposition.
But I didn't immediately agree because, let's face it, stubborn (not sensible) was my actual middle name. Leaving now after just one class felt like admitting that Edward had been right to worry about me, and I desperately did not want that to be true.
But a small, scared voice in the back of my head reasoned that it was better to admit defeat and walk away than it was to put innocent humans (and my family) at risk trying to save face.
"Ok," I agreed after a beat. "Let's try again tomorrow," I muttered, thoroughly disappointed with myself.
"Don't be discouraged, love. You're doing so well! I saw you starting to lose it back there but you held it together. It just takes practice, that's all.
"And it only made matters worse that you went in there already agitated. That makes it way harder. Tomorrow will be better, I promise," he smiled and held out his hand.
"That's true," I conceded, taking his proffered hand. "I was pretty pissed off from the start. It won't be so bad with a cool head," I reasoned, immediately cheered by the idea.
"That's the spirit!" Edward said enthusiastically.
"Edward?" I asked quietly as we got to our Ducatis, the most convenient way to travel in the congested university town. I unlocked the helmet lock and tugged the bulky protective headwear over my ears and onto my head.
"Yes?" he replied, swinging his leg over the seat of his bike.
"I'll drop human sexuality. Can we maybe crash another course that we can take together? I don't care what it is." I asked, admitting to myself as well as him that after today I was not nearly as confident in my ability to take a class on my own.
Edward's face, what I could see of it through the open visor of his helmet, visibly softened.
"That won't be necessary, love. I just got an email informing me that my name rose to the top of the waitlist. There's a spot for me in the class," he admitted a bit sheepishly.
Incredulous, I demanded, "So that argument was entirely moot?".
"It would seem so," he laughed a little uncomfortably.
"And Alice was right?" I asked smugly, turning the key in the ignition to start my bike and enjoying the sound of her purring to life.
Edward heaved out a heavy sigh. "Let's not go that far," he hedged.
"Unbelievable," I muttered, shaking my head and carefully merging into oncoming traffic.
"What's unbelievable?" Edward whined like a chastened child.
I just grinned behind the closed visor of my helmet as I picked up speed, hearing Edward mash his accelerator to catch up.
A/N After the last chapter's lovefest, it occurred to me that I couldn't remember that last time Bella and Edward had an honest to god argument. The first day of school seemed like a great time and place to make that happen bwahaha. The next chapter is already finished and will be posted in the next couple of days. And it very much makes up for that last little fade to black. 😈
