A.N.) Hey everybody! Here is part one of two chapters of Bella at school! Feel free to tell me if you have any suggestions for the next part (I've taken some notes already as to what you all want to see in there, so fear not! I still have your advice! :) ). Also there will be a chapter or two until the Masquerade occurs, so you have the end of the next chapter to put in anymore votes for who you all want Bella to be with! I also take suggestions on who everyone wants Damon, Katherine, Stefan, etc. to be with because from the sounds of it, not a lot of you guys are taking a liking to Elena right now at least.

I wanted to take the time to thank aim7 (will do! :) ), Sam Winchesters love child, JennyMikaelson, RockaRosalie, SeekerOwl523, BuffySalvatore (I think Bella and Spike would definitely be interesting together! Spike I think would bring so much chaos and Damon would go berserk!:) ) , Guest, LivMichaels (Thanks! I think you should see more of what you suggested in the second part of this chapter :) ), Guest (Thanks!), JustSearching, 01katie, lis3011, Alice Gone Madd, millymollymanda, GoddessxNyte, angel897, Jojo657, Lilithcase39girl, JeaLouS150, Vivi H88, MarionV, litanolastar, steph A15, Jupitergirl25, shadowhunterherondale, RHatch89, twilightfanjm, winxgirl1997, and m. for reviewing the last chapter! I appreciate everyone's support whether it be in the form of reviews, favorites, follows or just simply reading! It really makes my day seeing that so many people are reading this story! :)

One final thing I would like to discuss is the Burning Diamond Awards. I have been contacted by the people who are running it and I have been nominated for two categories: Best Bella (Bella of Suburbia) and Best Unsuspected/ Unique Pairing (A Mikaelson Family Christmas). I have also been asked to spread the word about voting for the awards. Voting goes until January 15th (I know, so soon right!) and I would love it if you guys could vote for the awards, whether it would be for me or against me. I know that writing stories takes a lot of time and effort and that it would be so nice to offer an award to authors you think truly deserve an award for all the hard work and time they put into your favorite stories.

Anyways, before I spend the rest of my night writing about how awesome all the authors are on Fanfiction, I will give you the location you would need to go in order to go (but you'll have to take out the spaces first).

burningdiamondawards . blogspot p / vote .html

I would like to thank the person (or people) who nominated both this story as well as A Mikaelson Family Christmas. Even if I lose, I am truly honored to be considered for the awards, especially among so many amazing authors. Thank you!

Enjoy the chapter!

~UnicornNinja12

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight nor the Vampire Diaries because if I did, I wouldn't have killed Kol off. Just saying.

Chapter 17

As I made my way toward English, I couldn't help myself from occasionally looking around the hallways as if I should expect the Cullen's to appear out of nowhere. But his words lingered in my mind just as cold and haunting as his words had been in September.

"I promise that this will be the last time you'll see me. I won't come back."

I pass boy and girl holding hands in the hallway and the hole in my chest, that I had previously been able to ignore, returned with a vengeance. "You can go on with your life without any more interference from me. It will be as if I'd never existed."

"You're human — your memory is no more than a sieve. Time heals all wounds for your kind." I shake my head. If only he knew… if he knew what I barely knew about myself.

"It will be as if I'd never existed."

"You don't want me?" my voice rang in my head followed by the one word that echoed in my head.

"No."

What was I thinking coming to school? I feel myself begin to feel claustrophobic in the crowd of students. I can't do this! I look around frantically for an exit, but find none. The past few months had allowed some of the pain to dull, but I still couldn't sleep easily and the pain was slowly ebbing away. So why was it flaring back up? Why couldn't I breathe? Why couldn't I escape?

It was like I was suddenly back in Forks, walking down the hallways after my breakup, but instead of being numb, it felt fresh like I had just been stabbed. Why couldn't I just escape?

A hand suddenly placed itself on my shoulder, causing me to whip around quickly and look into the eyes of my uncle. Taking in my state, he furrows his brows in concern. "Are you alright Bella?" he asked concerned.

SPOV

"Are you alright Bella?" I ask, concern flooding through me as I take in her pained, yet frantic state.

She looks down before answering, "Alright as I'll ever be."

She may not have said anything was wrong, but you could feel the pain and sadness radiating off her. What was going on?

I try to make eye contact, but she continues to look aimlessly at the ground. "Are you sure?" I ask, hoping that she would at least look at me.

After a moment or two, she looks up at me. "Words will not draw blood, therefore will never hurt me," Bella says, not meeting my eyes.

I furrow my brows, completely confused by what she said because she clearly has a meaning within her statement. Knowing that whatever she mentioned was something she wasn't ready to discuss, I remain clueless as to what I should say before an idea pops into my mind. "You're not upset because Damon put more effort into my poster than yours?"

"What?" she asks, completely confused.

"Oh, that Damon clearly put more effort into making my poster," I taunted playfully. Mission accomplished. She is distracted! While I knew she wouldn't be able to feel better, I wanted to respect her privacy. When she is ready to talk about it, she'll talk about it.

Bella cracked a small smile. "Yeah, your poster was one step away from glitter and rainbows," she said with a small smile, "Dad knew that I would want my poster simple."

I smile in return and say, "Whatever, I know that deep down, you were jealous of my poster."

Bella laughs and says jokingly while she turns away, "Whatever helps you sleep at night, Uncle Stefan."

I don't think she should say that in front of the students and judging by her suddenly stopping and turning toward me, I think Bella came to that realization as well. Quickly recovering, I attempt to cover up the mistake. "Whatever Manager Bella," I say off-handedly.

Bella raises her hands in a confused way before whispering so only a person with supernatural hearing could hear, "Where did you get that?"

I shrug my shoulders. Who knows where that came from?

"I'll see you later, Stefan," Bella says with a small smile.

"See you later, Bella," I say watching her begin to make her way towards her first class, looking much less haunted.

Crisis averted.

BPOV

While I wasn't completely over the memories, the… argument-for lack of a better word- helped cheer me up a bit and not too much later, I made it to English as the bell rang.

"Good morning class!" cheered Mrs. Walter as I walked into my first class. "Ah! You must be Isabella!" She then quickly made her way to me and grabbed my hand before raising it into the air as she said, "Class meet your new classmate, Isabella Salvatore!"

I could feel my face burn with embarrassment as I wonder what was wrong with this teacher.

"Isabella, meet your new classmates, the class of 2011!" When no one cheered at her dramatics, she cheered for herself. "Yay! Now," she says dragging me to the front of the room. "I want you to tell us all about yourself!"

I looked at her wide eyed before trying to hide my discomfort and facing my classmates. I notice Caroline in the back with Elena and Bonnie. Caroline and Elena were silently giggling in the back while Bonnie was holding back a giggle of her own. I couldn't blame them really, I blame it on the overly enthusiastic English teacher… who was still looking at me, urging me to respond to her prompt.

"Uh, hi, I'm Bella," I say simply. The teacher raises her eyebrows, so I continue, "I moved here from Forks-"

"So wait, you lived in a Fork?" asked a girl in the front row.

"Tiki, people do not live in forks," Mrs. Walter admonished, "and you interrupted Bella. So Bella, what's your favorite color?"

"I don't have one," I say frowning.

The teacher's eyes widened before saying, "Everybody has a favorite color!" Frowning she said, "You're lucky that you are new, otherwise I would have to give you a detention."

My eyes flashed over to her face. She wouldn't really do that… would she?

I didn't have much time to contemplate what she said before Mrs. Walters swung her arm wildly before holding still and saying excitedly, "Congratulations on your new spot!" I looked to where she pointed to the spot next to Caroline… which was nowhere near where I landed.

"Thanks," I said moving toward the seats, holding onto my books as if my life depended on it. I offer a small smile to Caroline, Elena and Bonnie as I take a seat beside Caroline.

Mrs. Walters only smiled in response to my thanks before addressing the class. "Everybody, turn to Act IV in Hamlet," she said gesturing toward the books laying innocently on each desk.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare. I stare at the book as I remember the last time I read Shakespeare was when we read Romeo and Juliet in Forks with Edward. I visibly flinch as I remember watching Romeo and Juliet with Edward at Charlie's house.

"I don't envy him the girl- just the ease of the suicide. You humans have it so easy! All you have to do is throw down one tiny vial of plant extracts-" I could hear his velvet voice in my mind as he spoke those words when it came to the part Romeo and Juliet killed themselves.

I admonished him for making contingency plans he had mentioned, "Well, I wasn't going to live without you."

I could feel the tears begin to form in my eyes and a lump in my throat begin to form as the memory continued to play through my mind. I pull my hair around my face and look down, praying that my mind would stop torturing me with such thoughts. After all, he did leave me with no backward glances, only a broken heart. Was I only a toy to him?

"What would you do, if the situation were reversed?" His question echoed in my head.

"Would you want me to off myself?" I remembered asking him.

Now that he broke my heart, what was I to do? Even if I wanted me to kill myself, I wouldn't be able to kill myself. What did he want me to do now he was gone? What do I do? Think about him to the point I am barely alive?

"Bella," Mrs. Walters said shaking my shoulder. I turn to her, still lost in thought. "Your book is not open."

I nod and flip open to a random page in the book.

"So as I was saying class, Ophelia killed herself out of insanity. I guess the death of her father, Polonius, and Hamlet's fake insanity will really push someone into insanity," Mrs. Walters said. She continued to say more, but once again I became lost in thought.

Was I going to become like Ophelia? Slowly go insane at the loss of my boyfriend?

Raising my hand, I ask permission to use the restroom before making a hasty retreat from the room.

Upon my arrival at the women's restroom, I stood in front of the mirror and really looked at myself. I could see the bags below my eyes from months of poor sleep and my face was much thinner than it should be. The sad part is that I had put a little effort to prevent myself from looking like I came from the Nightmare Before Christmas and still my tiredness continues to show through.

What was I doing, allowing someone to kill me (metaphorically speaking)? What was I thinking? This face didn't belong to the girl I knew, who always bore a smile on her face through the good and the bad times. The woman in the mirror was a complete stranger to me.

What am I doing? I lean against the nearest wall and slowly slide down to the ground. This is one of those moments that I was remembered my loneliness. My mother was never the motherly type that would actually care about what was going on their daughter's life and Dad and I were still building our relationship. Edward left and my best friend Spike… who knows what happened to him. I've left numerous messages for him and he has yet to answer one of them.

Pulling my phone from out of my pocket, I quickly found his contact information and gave him a call in the hopes that he might just answer for once. The same voicemail greeted (well I suppose 'yelled at' would be the better phrase) me.

"Hey Spike, I'm sure you already know that this Bella. I'm also sure you've gotten my thousand other voicemails and I'm sure that for one reason or another you are ignoring each and every one." I sigh, closing my eyes and placing my head against the wall. "At least respond to one of them so I know that you aren't dead. I miss my friend that I could always count on to tell me I'm an idiot when I doing something stupid or laugh when I do something bizarre." I sigh one last time before saying, "I am tired of trying to get into contact with you if you can't to pick up the phone long enough to tell me to 'bugger off' or something like that. I could really use your sparkling personality right now. With that being said, expect me to call about three more times before I say I give up, bye!"

I only glance at the phone to end the call and put my phone away. Once again, he didn't answer, but I really should have seen that coming. I mean if I couldn't get Alice to muster up the ability to talk to me, why expect Spike to do the same?

What was wrong with me? Not even Alice, my former best friend, would talk to me, but I couldn't blame her too much. After all, Alice was Edward's 'sister' so I shouldn't be surprised that she would follow her brother's lead to walk away.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Opening my eyes and looking into the full length mirror on the opposite of the bathroom, I ask myself: why was I doing this to myself? So Edward didn't want me, that doesn't mean that I have to go insane or turn into a zombie. I had family that deserved to have a normal, well, close to normal girl, who I wanted to see me, not the broken me. I was better than that and I deserved better than that. It was my life, not Edward's and just because he left doesn't mean that my world has to end.

I was done feeling sorry for myself and I was most certainly done allowing myself to be hurt by another person. I was too blind to see the warning signs of our relationships demise with his strange behavior after my 'birthday'.

But even before then, he made it clear that he didn't intend for our relationship to be long-term. Did he really love me? Surely if he truly loved me as much as he claimed he did, he would have stayed and we could have figured out a way to make it work. But I was only human to him, not smart enough to know what I wanted. Did I really want to grieve over someone who treated me as if I were a child and looked down on me because he thought I was only human?

Did I really care for him as much as I thought I did? If I did, wouldn't I have told him about my true nature? After all, my mortality was a main issue in our relationship, so why couldn't I just tell him that I was immortal because I was a half-human, half-vampire hybrid? It would have been hard to prove, but in the end, that would have put less strain on our relationship. Well, I suppose it wouldn't have been hard to prove my immortality, I could have let the bus hit me or jumped off a building and come back to life as proof. Maybe, deep inside my heart, I knew he wasn't the one.

Regardless, I refuse to be hurt anymore or consider any more 'what if's. That part of my life is over and I need to focus on what is happening now. I have a family that I've only just learnt about and I won't let a petty little (well, for me, large) break up ruin my interactions with my family.

Going over the mirror one last time, I attempted to unknot my long, messy hair. After trying a moment, I gave up and quickly put my hair into a ponytail before grabbing a few bobby pins (who knows when they will come in handy) and making a messy bun of the hair dangling from the ponytail.

I frowned as I thought back to when I was with Edward. He would always push my hair back from my face and shoulders, no matter how much I protested. Pulling the bobby pins from my hair and releasing some of my hair from the bun to frame my face, I smile at the sense of freedom I felt by the simple action.

Putting on a strong face and taking a deep breath, I make my way back to English. As I enter the room and walk to my seat, I notice Caroline, Elena, and even Bonnie's concerned look, but since they don't ask (well that and I was not risking a talk with the teacher) I say nothing at the time opting to wait until after class if they wanted to ask me a question.

Hopefully the rest of my day will run smoother than it has so far.

A.N.) What did you guys think of this chapter?

What about the crazy English teacher? (The sad part about that is Mrs. Walters was crazier in my original draft... this one was the more normal of the two)

Any questions, comments, or concerns? Feel free to let me know in a review or a PM! :)

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and don't forget to vote! :)

Until next time!

~UnicornNinja12