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Chapter 3

First Day at School 3

Edward

"All the best for enrollment!" said Alice good-humoredly, as I entered the kitchen of the main house, where we were waiting for the others.

We still had time. Beaming with joy, she handed me her first day of school present.

It had become a little ritual among Alice and me a long time ago that we gave each other a little school bag on the first day of school. Once I had given her various school supplies in a 'Hello Kitty' design. That had been my little payback for her 'Star Wars' school bag. I even still have the small BB-8 figurine.

"Thank you ... likewise," I replied.

Not in quite as good of a mood. First days of school were repugnant to me. Many new faces, which in itself was not a problem. But also just as many new thought-voices, which I still had to learn to distinguish from the sound of their correct voice in order not to make any mistakes. And as the guardian of my family, I had to listen to these many voices today, as well. It was just annoying.

Alice pulled out of her small gift a keychain with a female vampire figure made of silver.

It beeped when you whistled for it. She was constantly looking for her keys among her mountains of clothes when she picked out her wardrobe for the day. In my gift bag I found the male counterpart to it.

I shook my head and gave Alice a kiss on the cheek.

You just couldn't surprise Alice.

"Alice ... please!" I cursed angrily as I attached the pendant to my keychain.

"Sorry!" she said, embarrassed.

She had been thinking about whether perhaps I would again encounter someone whose blood I desired more than anything else. Twice this had happened to me so far. And the last time was even more infuriating than what happened in Forks.

"Good morning everyone," shouted the reason it was so much more unpleasant the second time around.

"Good morning, Samantha," Alice squealed, feeling really joyfully excited.

She loved first days of school and for Samantha it was her first time as a vampire.

"Morning," I greeted Samantha tersely.

I didn't like her much. That was far too kind of a way of putting it. Actually, she got on my nerves quite a bit. Still too nice. I loathed her, would like to break every bone in her body and then preferably kill her in agony. With this, I slowly got closer to the matter. Her mere presence was enough for me. I should have just let her drink up and die, but Alice had seen it and prevented it.

Flashback

After Forks, blood tasted like nothing. I drank to keep my strength up. But otherwise, it had become meaningless to me. I no longer could tell whether I had drunk enough. Only my eyes were an indication to me when it was sufficient. I was satisfied with it. I no longer felt any danger from the monster that was undoubtedly still inside me.

And then I happened to run into Samantha. Her blood had revived the monster in me. In a lonely alley in the middle of the night. It had attracted me as I had experienced only once before. Since Sam, the blood tasted again and reminded me with the old familiar burning in my throat that I had to hunt.

That was just over a year ago. Since then, she lived with us.

Unfortunately.

Carlisle felt responsible for her as my father and naturally offered for her to stay with us.

What else could he do? He could not reconcile letting a newborn out into the wild with his conscience if one of his family was to blame for this rebirth.

He didn't say it and didn't think it, but he had been very disappointed in me. That had hit me harder than the fact that I had attacked a human being.

Thus, every day I saw in a pair of eyes that I was a monster after all.

Samantha had coped pretty well with what this new life meant to her. She had only one senile grandmother left, so saying goodbye to her family was not difficult for her. Our way of eating had also become well under control by now and she dared to go to school. She wanted to do everything I did.

But even that was my own fault. For that I really hated myself.

Samantha looked very much like Bella and after her transformation the resemblance was even more striking. She made me doubt whether it was really Samantha's blood or just her looks that had made me attack her.

A few weeks after she woke up as a vampire, I had a very desperate evening. I thought I was alone in the house and gave myself over to my thoughts of Bella. That evening Samantha had taken advantage of my weakness and her appearance.

Thanks to Carlisle and Jasper, after a few years I had found a way to deal with my pain of leaving Bella behind. It was a battle against myself every day, but it was easier than the life I had led before. They had both studied psychology and developed a way of coping with pain for me. I no longer thought about the fact that I had left Bella.

Of course, I did not forget. No. I only changed my way of thinking. Bella was ONLY TODAY not with me. I persuaded myself of that every day. Basically, I was deceiving myself, but it didn't matter as long as it worked.

At first, I doubted that it would make me feel better, but Jasper and Carlisle were right.

By now, I could at least think her name without it feeling like it was being burned into my cold heart all over again. I included Bella in my life. Always considered how she would have reacted or what she would have said in this or that situation. I did things she liked, which I then imagined her being present for. Cinema, lying in a meadow far away from civilization, reading 'Wuthering Heights', mentally discussing my homework with her, and the like. And through it all, my only thought was that Bella was just not with me right at that moment. That tomorrow I would look into those big eyes and could tell her everything. I regularly had imaginary whispered conversations with her, imagining that she was sitting right next to me. Reporting about my experiences.

On such an evening Samantha had fooled me, because in my delusion I always dismissed everything around me not to miss any of Bella's gestures.

I had been blind and absorbed in my memories with all my senses, so that Bella was very clearly before my eyes. Her smell, her eyes, her warm skin, her pink colored cheeks. This beautiful angel who never left me alone in my thoughts. I saw Bella right in front of me, smiling at me, reprimanding me, teasing me, or sometimes even crying, and I told her about the last few weeks. Mostly from my family or whatever else I had experienced. That evening I expressed the doubts I had about Samantha. Had her blood really sung to me, or had I just remembered too well, based on Samantha's appearance, how I had been drawn to Bella's lifeblood? I wasn't sure and it made me question my self-control a lot.

But this topic had been a mistake. To 'talk it out' with Bella made my paradox with Bella, which had been working very well for several years, collapse and the pain reawakened clearly.

Everything came back. All the pain that I had successfully banished for some time. It held me captive, overwhelmed me, and I was in agony.

I had left Bella! Forever! Never again would I see her smile, or look at me, or the blush of her cheeks. Would never again feel her lying in my arms, touching me or kissing me. Would never again hear her heart skip a beat, her breathing stop short, or her enchanting voice.

I sighed.

I told her how much I loved and missed her. Asked her for forgiveness for my leaving. How much I wished she would be with me now. In my arms. Would come through my door, right now.

And Bella had indeed come. She was standing in my room.

Forgetting everything around me, I immediately took Bella into my arms. The question of how she knew where I was, was unimportant. Bella was here! With me!

"Bella! Is it really you?" I had asked doubtfully, hardly able to grasp my happiness, and she breathed to me a devoted and liberating "Yes".

A yes that made me forget the past years. I would do anything she wanted. Anything to never have to leave Bella again. Change her. Sex. Money. Leave my family. Hunt humans. No matter what impossible things my beloved wanted. I would grant her anything.

But her hands already told me what she wanted now and I was not able to refuse her anything.

Hours later, a small question jolted me mercilessly back to reality.

"So, her name was Bella?"

I immediately, forcibly and loudly, kicked Samantha out of my bed and my room and urged her to leave our family.

Carlisle and Esmé, who had been hunting with Samantha last evening, which is why I was alone in the house, joined us, of course - there was no mistaking the way I roughed Samantha up - while my siblings were all out of the house.

Quickly I enlightened them both and they were dismayed at what Samantha had done.

What she had led me to believe. Because Samantha knew about Bella. Everything except her name, because saying Bella's name was forbidden in our house. Carlisle and Esmé had only told her about Bella because Samantha had imagined after the transformation that I would want her as a mate. That I would have bitten her just for that.

From Carlisle she had to listen to another lecture, and she desperately tried to apologize and to be allowed to stay. Carlisle left this decision to me, which I had already clearly shouted at her.

But where should she have gone? As a newborn? I would have disappointed my father one more time if I had insisted that she go.

Flashback end

Since then, I tried to avoid her as much as possible. My siblings knew nothing about this incident. I wasn't sure they would let Samantha live. I wasn't even sure I wanted Samantha alive for the long haul.

Soon all my siblings had gathered and we set off for school.

We lived far outside the city, as we almost always did. This time it was a complex of four Victorian-style buildings with extensive land right on the Saco River and again in the middle of the forest.

Carlisle and Esmé. lived in the large main house, of course, with Samantha. It had its own underground parking, several bedrooms and bathrooms, a large eat-in kitchen, and all sorts of other perks.

The rest of us could gladly to do without that, as long as we had privacy once again. The other three buildings were guest houses and were scattered around the property.

A living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, guest room and a small storage room.

One for Alice and Jasper, one for Emmett and Rosalie, and in the one farthest from the main house I lived alone.

About a mile and a half from Samantha. It was not far enough away in the least.

We had been here since the beginning of the summer vacation, but had not yet been seen in the city. Carlisle had only been working at the local hospital for a week.

I already had the impression that we would all like it here very much. For example, the city was larger than Forks, so the rumor mill about our family would be limited.

Always having to compare everything to Forks, I got annoyed with myself and the Bella, in my mind, just rolled her eyes in annoyance. My paradox had been working again for a few months. Even better than in the years before I was in bed with Sam. Because, before that, Bella had always just nodded or shaken her head. But now she talked to me, now and then she even argued with me. First factual and then unfair.

We got to the school early enough to report to the office, where we received our schedules and an overview map of the school grounds.

I was starting this time already in my senior year. So far, I had only let Carlisle in on my plans: I was going to leave the family next year. Temporarily, at least. I just needed a recent graduation transcript for the next college. I wanted to escape Samantha completely for some time, because contrary to her promise, she did not stay away from me as I had asked.

The morning went like any other first day of school.

We were THE topic of conversation. But from no thought did I hear any danger to us. No one recognized what we were. They were basically the same thoughts I always heard in school. People admired our appearance, were even intimidated by it, and they avoided us. As always. There were few thoughts that could still surprise me.

I was the first of us to arrive at the cafeteria and - as was customary for us - sat down at the table furthest away from the food.

It was quite disgusting what humans had to ingest. But we were used to that.

One by one, my siblings joined me - of course Samantha had to sit right next to me - and told me about their first impressions.

So far, everyone we met seemed friendly and curious. There was only one boy whom we all began to dislike.

The quarterback of the football team.

I had Spanish with him and followed his plans for the coming weekend in his thoughts.

He had a girlfriend, whom he didn't exactly want to take out elegantly, but then finally (!) in bed wanted to get. Whether she wanted or not, it was now probably finally time. That's how he saw it.

I would keep an eye on him and Jazz and I will intervene if necessary. We were always very creative that way.

On the other hand, I had already formed a mental friendship with a boy I had not yet met. I hadn't seen him yet, but the tender and loving way he thought about a girl had drawn my attention to his thoughts. He reminded me of myself about nineteen years ago. Unfortunately, the girl was the quarterback's girlfriend. He had my sympathies.

"Hey, there's someone sitting in our seat!" we suddenly heard someone swear.

We paid no further attention to them, but smirked. We wouldn't have heard him if we were human beings, after all.

"Those are the new ones," the boy was told.

I looked through their thoughts to see who we had apparently stolen the regulars' table from.

A pretty girl with short light brown hair and a tall boy with straw blond tousled hair. In the process, I was distracted by other thoughts. An already familiar mental voice. 'Then I guess we'll politely ask them to vacate our regular spot. They are new. How would they know that this was our place,' thought the boy, who looked strangely familiar. That must have only been because his thoughts, since I had been listening to them for half the morning.

"Looks like we'll have to find another table. We are about to be politely asked to vacate the space," I announced to my family.

"Define ... 'politely'," Emmett asked, and I said this boy meant it literally.

Emmett was disappointed, but grinned.

'No ruckus on the first day of school.'

I laughed.

'Vampires!'

My laughter died and I immediately looked to the source of that thought.

It was the same boy.

'Golden eyes!'

I took a closer look at the boy and paused.

Did I know him? Why did he seem so familiar to me?

I had never seen this child before. The pale, but still typical rusty brown skin of a Native American. With mixed ancestry. At least one Caucasian relative in the first or second generation. Shoulder length, almost black hair. Athletically defined stature - muscular, but not pumped up. Dark, but equanimous appearing eyes.

"We're blown!" I whispered quickly and quietly.

His thoughts were completely jumbled. No clue how he knew about our kind. Or what he thought of us. What he would even do with this info.

His eyes lingered on me as he blindly reached behind him, apparently looking for someone. He pulled a girl next to him.

Undoubtedly his sister. A distinguished figure, very feminine and yet sporty. Rose was even jealous of that. Very similar gentle facial features with dark eyes.

An ice-cold shiver ran down my spine.

She seemed even more familiar than the boy, who turned her head almost roughly in our direction. But I had never seen her before either.

Even before her empty tray reached the floor, I got up from my chair.

'Away!' the two of them shared a single thought.

The girl grabbed her brother's hand and they stormed off. The friends of the two shouted after them.

Jake and Leah. But only with first names I could not do anything. If I had seen them before, even if only as children or even babies, I would recognize them.

Immediately, I went after them, with Alice following behind me.

I had to really force myself to stay at a human pace.

My mind demanded answers. Immediately!

But they were already pulling out of the parking lot when we walked through the door.

To continue running made no sense. By the time I would arrive at my Audi at this sluggish pace, their thoughts would be out of reach and further pursuit impossible. The range of my gift only grew with the familiarity of the voice. I would have to be lucky to find the thoughts of the two by chance.

Tensely I looked at Alice.

"Why did you follow me?" I wasn't mad at her, just curious. It was not her job to pursue possible sources of danger. Nor was it mine. Had she had a vision that she wanted to prevent? Or a vision that provided her with more answers than my musings?

"Not sure," Alice whispered apologetically. "For some reason I felt like I knew them," she admitted on the way back to the refectory.

"Me too, Alice," I put an arm around her shoulders in a brotherly way and thought about Bella.

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