TODAY'S QUOTE:

God said that good women could be found in all four corners of the world. Then he made the world round and laughed.

The next few weeks of Forks went very simply. Wake up, dress, scare Dad with my makeup, go to school, awkwardly ignore Edward, have a tense lunch with the the Cullens, go home, ignore homework, occasionally do assessment, (mainly by finding old ones), help make dinner, and then dream of Carlisle.

Seriously.

That's all I thought of when I went to bed. And then, eventually at day.

It's like wherever I went, Carlisle invaded. And I meant that in the kindest way possible. He was like my sun. My day revolved around him, which was absolutely pathetic, considering I had met the man once, and he had to be like ten years older than me.

I also found time to laugh at Bella's expense. She was very shy, and yet she found herself at the center of the whole school's attention.

Tyler Crowley was impossible, following her around, obsessed with making amends to me somehow. She tried to convince him what I wanted more than anything else was for him to forget all about it — especially since nothing had actually happened to her — but he remained insistent. He followed her between classes and sat at our now-crowded lunch table. Mike and Eric were even less friendly toward him than they were to each other, which made her worry that she'd gained another unwelcome fan.

I felt like I bore the worst of it, though. Every day Bella came home and complained, and like the good sister I was, I put up with it for a minute, and then ran upstairs. Then she followed me.

During school, I had the most fun. When Tyler realised his apologies were getting nowhere with Bella, he decided I'd be perfect to relay them on to her. This meant I now had both my bitch face and my insults perfected. Unfortunately, I had singed the insides of four pairs of gloves.

No one seemed concerned about Edward, though Bella explained over and over that he was the hero — how he had pulled her out of the way and had nearly been crushed, too. She tried to be convincing.

Most people always commented that they hadn't even seen him there till the van was pulled away. I wondered to myself why no one else had seen him standing so far away, before he was suddenly, impossibly saving my sister's life.

Edward was never surrounded by crowds of curious bystanders eager for his firsthand account. People avoided him as usual. No one approached our table, except perhaps Bella to politely tell me mum texted to ask me to call her.

When he sat next to me at our table, as far from me as the space would allow, he seemed totally unaware of my presence. Only now and then, when his fists would suddenly ball up — skin stretched even whiter over the bones — did I wonder if he wasn't quite as oblivious as he appeared. He wished he hadn't pulled Bella from the path of Tyler's van — there was no other conclusion I could come to.

He regretted saving her, because she and I both realised there was something off about him. Of course, I had the brains to realize that the others were as much apart of the secret as him, but I knew if I acknowledged that, then that meant Carlisle didn't want me to know either, and I couldn't live with that.

"You should come with us," Alice said, breaking my thoughts.

"Hmm?" I asked, completely lost. She laughed her tinkling laugh.

"To the dance," she said simply. I stared at her in shock. "Oh, I can see it now, there's a nice black dress with blue highlights, it'd go so well with you hair."

I frowned. Sometimes I liked Alice, and other times she was a bit too preppy for my tastes. So was Rosalie, but she downplayed it.

"I don't think so," I started. "I don't like the whole dancing thing very much."

"You really should come," Rosalie said. "You can come to our place and get ready, and then sleep over. We'll make a night of it."

I thought it over. "Won't your parents mind?"

I was still confused about that. Esme and Carlisle lived together and raised five kids together, but were siblings. I mean, in a way it made sense, it was just a bit orthodox.

"I'm sure Esme won't," assured Alice.

"And neither will Carlisle," Jasper said with a wry smile.'

"I'll talk to Dad," I said. "As long as it's okay with you guys for me to completely crash your dates."

Emmett laughed. "You're fine, shortcake."

"Hey Ana," someone said behind me. I turned, a scowl on my face.

"What, Mike?" I asked, recognising the pervy boy. "And don't call me that."

"Can I talk to you?" he asked, fingering something behind his back.

"I don't know, can you?" It wasn't my wittiest remark, but I didn't have the effort to put into coming up with something different.

He fumbled for words, and decided to just ignore that comment. "Outside?" he added, nodding his head to the pathway leading to one of the buildings. It had a nice tree, but was otherwise uninteresting.

"No," I said shortly. "You can say it here."

He looked taken aback. "Oh, um, right."

"Got on with it," laughed Emmett. He seemed to take great pride in making him nervous, and he was likely very amused by my situation.

"So there's a dance soon..."

"Yes."

"It's in two weeks…"

"I'm aware."

"Wouldyouliketogotothedancewithme?" He asked that very quickly, and I only heard dance and me.

"What?"

"Ana Swan,-"

"-I told you not to call me that.-"

"-will you go to the dance with me?" He got down on one knee and gave me a rose that he had hidden behind his back.

I took it gingerly, and then gave it back to him, ignoring his crushed expression. "No, I'm going stag." Unless Carlisle invited me. Behind me, both Jasper and Emmett passed Alice money.

"But-but you have to go with me!" he shrieked, getting back up off the floor.

"I don't have to do anything," I said, my voice getting dangerously low. I clenched my hands tightly, and focused on cooling them down.

"Yes, you do," he countered.

"Firstly, it's girls choice, and-"

"So ask me!"

"-and secondly, I don't have to go with anyone, especially not you," I spat. "Go sit down somewhere else."

"No, I won't!" His voice raised, and I rolled my eyes, disinterested.

"Are you planning to eat that?" I asked, reaching over and tapping Jasper's mouse with my spoon. I swear, none of them ever ate. He handed it to me without question.

Mike spluttered, and literally stomped his foot. "Look at me!"

I ignored him, but in front of me I noticed Rosalie and Emmett both clutched tightly onto the table, molding it slightly under their holds. I tried to push that to the back of my mind.

Mike gripped my shoulder harshly, intending to make me to turn and look at him. I did that, and a little more.

The second his hand touched me, I saw red, and I stood up quickly, knocking him off balance as I rammed my chair into his legs.

"Ow!" he whimpered. "You bitch!"

I grabbed the hand that was still on my shoulder, and pulled it around, flipping him around so he was now beant over the chair, his arm twisted awkwardly behind his back. He whimpered loudly, and I held him down tighter.

"Don't call me a bitch, and don't touch me," I said into his ear. "Got it?"

"Get off me!"

"Got it?"

"Okay, okay! I get it! Now get off me!"

I released his hold, and he scampered off, most likely to go cry in the bathroom. I sat back down at the table, and opened the mouse as though nothing was wrong. I completely ignored Alice's horrified expression, and started eating.

"Morgana Swan!" yelled someone I thought sounded significantly older than I. I groaned and raised my hand.

"Here!" I said, still eating. I turned, and realised I was right. Principal Greene stormed towards me, his face going red and purple.

"You're coming with me, young lady!"

I rolled my eyes, but got up anyway. "I'll see you later," I said to the group. My eyes caught Edward, and I knew he noticed the smokey smell coming from me. He looked at me, before dropping his face.

"You better," Rosalie said, though her voice was kinda blank. "We have to discuss the sleepover."

I nodded once, before catching up with Greene.

"You are in so much trouble, right now," he muttered, as we walked into the teacher's office. Mike was sitting there, an icepack to his arm, and he flashed me a triumphant grin. I glared at him, and he shrunk back.

"For what?" I asked innocently.

"You attacked a student, Swan," he said, sitting down at his desk. "You're lucky I don't call the police. As it is, Mr and Mrs Newton can still press charges."

"For what?" I repeated.

"We know your history, Swan, but we still took you on. A dozen schools, nearly all of them kicking you out after you blew them up or set fire to something. Three murders, all excused because of your mental state."

I flinched.

"You are very lucky I don't expel you."

"For what?" I asked again, pausing between the words. "If you know my history, than you know I don't like people touching me. He asked me out. I said no. He got angry, I ignored it. He tried to turn me around, I defended myself."

"Defend? From what?"

"He tried to forcefully turn me around, sir. Forgive me for not finding that aggressive."

"You may have broken his arm."

"I'm quite sure I didn't."

"We've called his parents, and they're insisting on having a doctor come check."

Please be Carlisle. "Can't the nurse do it?"

"No. They insist on a doctor." Please be Carlisle.

"Harold?" came through the tinny voice of the secretary on the phone. "Dr Cullen is here." Yes!

"That was fast," Greene said. "We'll discuss punishment after Dr Cullen examines Mr Newton. You can stay here." Damn. "On second thought, I don't trust you. Follow me." Thank god!

"Hello again, Miss Swan," Carlisle said when we re-entered the communal office. His expression was strange; it was a mix of pride, amusement, and, was that, love?

"Hello, Dr Cullen," I said, smiling in a dazed kind of way.

"You can call me Carlisle, I've said that before."

"Then you can call me Morgana."

Behind us, Greene coughed, interrupting our moment. I rolled my eyes and glared at Mike. "Stop crying," I snapped. His sniffles were getting on my nerves, and I knew he was milking it.

Carlisle strode over and started examining Mike's arm. My stomach lurched. For a moment I thought perhaps maybe I had broken his arm, and the what would Carlisle think of me? But then I remember I didn't care what people thought, and I told my stomach to stop being annoying. It growled hungrily in response.

"It appears to be fine," Carlisle said. "Perhaps some minor bruising around the wrist, but nothing else."

"See," I said to Greene. "No blood, no foul."

"Just because it's not broken doesn't mean you'll get out of trouble."

"For what? Self-defence?"

Mike moaned loudly. I had to fight against the urge to go over and punch him just to shut him up.

Greene stared at me. "For now, we will hold off against any major consequences, but be warned, we will be watching you closely. And you will need to apologise to Mr Newton."

"Fine," I said, rolling my eyes. "I'm sorry," that I didn't break your bone, "and I acted completely out of line." in my efforts to get you to take your freaking hand off me.

"That will be sufficient. Go to class."

I nodded. "Nice to see you, Doctor."

I made my way to double English in a daze. I didn't even realize when I first walked in that class had already started. "Thank you for joining us, Miss Swan," Mr. Mason said in a disparaging tone. I glared but still hurried to my seat next to at the front.

When class ended, Bella cornered me. "What were you thinking?" she hissed. I almost felt bad for worrying her, but any of those feelings disappeared within a moment.

"I was thinking he needed to grow up and get his fucking hands off me."

"You could've just said yes, you know," she said, as if it was as simple as that.

"Excuse me?" I asked, pissed off. "Why would I say yes to that pig? When I said no, he completely flipped. Imagine being in a relationship with him. He'd never let me go."

"Imagine being in a relationship with you, a girl who tried to snap someone's arm because they put their hand on your shoulder!"

"He tried to force me to turn around. He was already having a tantrum, excuse me if I felt like I needed to defend myself," I said seethingly.

"Oh my god, we get it, alright! You want to make everyone out to be the bad guy, can't trust anyone, not even me, your older sister! Ugh!"

People were staring now. I pulled my jacket closer, feeling uncomfortable.

"I trust you," I said quietly.

"Do you? Cause for the last nine years you've rarely spoken to me," she said. I felt a twinge of guilt.

"I've been away for nine years, excuse me if the one week every three months doesn't leave for much bonding time," I snapped.

"Yeah, and whose fault is it for being sent away?"

"You're unbelievable."

I pushed past her, heading for the library, blinking back the tears in my eyes.

"Hey, Morgana!" Rosalie yelled as I passed by her locker. I pretended not to hear her. "Morgana!"

I kept walking, and Rosalie kept following. "Morgana, none of us are mad or care or anything like that," she said, pulling onto my arm. I tried to jerk it back, and she let me.

I went left, then right, then left again. I ducked into a corridor, and then into a science room. Rosalie kept following.

"Just leave me alone," I snapped, backing up.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not good for you to be around."

"What?" She sounded surprised. "Is this about Mike? Cause I thought that was great."

"No! Yes, maybe? I don't know." My thoughts were whirring around. "Look, I know there's something different about you guys. And Edward, at least, knows there's something wrong about me too."

She kept quiet so I kept talking.

"So if you guys know anything about the supernatural, you'd try to help me. But you won't, so clearly whatever I can do it really, really bad, and you don't want to get close."

Rosalie looked stumped. "It's, it's not that. It's just… not something we can explain over tea and biscuits."

"Forget it."

I stormed past her and through the school, ignoring the looks people sent me. I think it was time for biology, but I didn't bother worrying. I couldn't deal with school today, and besides, sometimes it was healthy to ditch.

I noticed Edward sitting in his volvo, but I ignored him completely.

I pulled my hair into a tight bun, and got on my bike. I didn't know where I was heading, and I was going well above the speed limit, but I didn't care. It was raining slightly, but I kept going. It was only when the slight patter of droplets turned to heavy falls that I stopped driving.

I was at a beach or something, with high cliffs off to the side and clear blue water. Checking my phone, I saw it was almost 3. I had been riding for nearly and hour. School would be finished soon.

I tugged off my boots, and pulled off my clothes till I was left standing in my underwear, which would make for a perfect fake bikini. I hadn't gone swimming in the ocean for years, and there was no way I was going to miss this chance.

I dived straight in, ignoring the cold, and swam with the fishes. Seriously. There were fish everywhere. The first few times they bumped against my feet I squealed, but soon after I got used to them.

It was only after someone clapped loudly that I realised there were others in the area. Jumping off the cliffs were a group of boys, each doing flips in the air before diving perfectly into the water and then resurfacing.

"They're crazy, aren't they?" called a girl sitting on the beach drinking some knock-off alcohol.

"Not at all," I said, shaking my hair wildly like a dog. At some point during my swimming it had come undone and now had knots all through it. "It looks awesome."

"I'm Leah," the girl said.

"Morgana."

"Swan?" she asked, before picking up her own hair and twirling it. "Stupid question."

"Yeah. You're Leah Clearwater, right?" At her nod, I kept going. "Dad fishes with Harry."

"You have to come, it's so much fun," she said seriously, before bursting into laugh. "Dad drags me along every time, and it's the most boring ass thing I've ever done."

"I can imagine."

I walked out of the water and picked up my jeans and shimmed into them, and put on my singlet, ignoring my jacket and leaving that with my shoes.

I came and sat down next to her when she patted the sand next to her.

"Do they do that often?" I asked, referring to the cliff-jumpers.

"Sometimes. All the boys reckon they're big hotshots cause of the legends."

"Legends?"

"Yeah," she leaned in close, as if she was going to share something really important. "It's technically a rez secret, but you have ties to the family."

"Does that mean you're gonna tell me what they are?"

She paused. "Sure. I honestly don't know why they're so secret - they're just legends, right?"

"Duh. None of that supernatural stuff exists." Except for me and the Cullens…

"Exactly. Do you like scary stories?"

I gave her a deadpan look. She laughed loudly, tossing back her dark brown hair. She was quite pretty. She rocked the badass look, but she didn't have to wear the clothes to back it up. I was kinda jealous. I had an innocent looking face, so if I wore something white, people tended to not care about if I was glaring at them or not.

"Well, there are lots of legends, some of them claiming to date back to the Flood — supposedly, the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest trees on the mountain to survive like Noah and the ark." She smiled, to show me how little stock he put in the histories. "Another legend claims that we descended from wolves — and that the wolves are our brothers still. It's against tribal law to kill them."

"Is that why the boys reckon they're the hotshots? They think they're gonna turn into big wolves?"

"Something like that. Then there are the stories about the cold ones." Her voice dropped a little lower.

"The cold ones?" I asked, my mind flicking to the Cullens.

"Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends, and some much more recent. According to legend, Jacob Black's great-grandfather knew some of them. He was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land." She rolled his eyes.

"Really?" I encouraged.

"He was a tribal elder, like my father. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf—well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves."

"Werewolves have enemies?"

"Only one."

I stared at her earnestly, hoping to disguise my impatience as admiration.

"So you see," Leah continued, "the cold ones are traditionally our enemies. But this pack that came to our territory during my great-grandfather's time was different. They didn't hunt the way others of their kind did — they weren't supposed to be dangerous to the tribe. So Black made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn't expose them to the pale-faces." She winked at me.

"If they weren't dangerous, then why… ?" I tried to understand, struggling not to let her see how seriously I was considering her ghost story.

"There's always a risk for humans to be around the cold ones, even if they're civilized like this clan was. You never know when they might get too hungry to resist." She deliberately worked a thick edge of menace into her tone.

"What do you mean, 'civilized'?"

"They claimed that they didn't hunt humans. They supposedly were somehow able to prey on animals instead."

I tried to keep my voice casual. "And your people still believe that they're around?"

"Yeah. That's why the Cullens aren't allowed on our land."

"Why? Are they related or something? Are they like the cold ones Chief Black met?"

"No." She paused dramatically. "They are the same ones."

Review Please!

Yay! Morgana's getting closer to the truth! And she saw Carlisle again!

I'm going to warn you now, the relationship between Carlisle and Morgana is going to be a very, very, slow romance. If it goes the way I have planned, they'll probably have their first kiss in Eclipse. This is because she's basically gonna end up being a mopey, self-hating Edward.