Chapter Three

If there is light in the soul,

there will be beauty in the person.

*

My dad had a very big surprise for me the day before I went to school. Notice I said big, not necessarily... nice. I mean I know it was coming from the heart, and he had all good intentions, but it was already hard starting at a new high school. Adding to that though, was a huge, ugly, orange truck that looked like it was from the pre-historic ages. But don't get me wrong, I liked it. There was something about it that made me feel safe, and it wasn't the rusty old seat belt. I'm not sure, but having my first car sure was liberating. Even if it was this truck that got me to school the next day.

As I parked in the Forks high school parking lot, I thought I was going to start hyperventilating. I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel, telling myself to stop being so stupid about this. You've been through much worse, I reminded myself. I think I could pretty much say that for the rest of my life. I hope nothing would get worse than that...

After what seemed to be hours, took a deep breath and I opened my truck door. It was horrific enough that the door squeaked open for more than mere seconds, but falling on my ass the first step on this campus wasn't so reassuring. It was a sign, I was sure of it. The ground was cold and wet, as was all of Forks. I sat there stunned for a moment or two before hauling myself up and shutting the stupid truck door, trying not to attract more attention than I had already.

Great start.

I looked down at my map and started walking in the direction, to where I presumed was the main office, where I could pick up my schedule. I wasn't necessarily paying attention to people passing me by; I was scared, I just wanted to get to my destination. I started to notice how many people were around me and their proximity. I didn't used to be a jumpy person but having James as a boyfriend made you realize these things. I noticed the skeptical stares of the people, making my hands shake even more. I clenched my jaw together to keep my teeth from chattering anymore, not only from the cold, but also from the fear that was instilled in me.

From no where, I felt a hand on my arm. It felt clammy and wrong and it made me up and yelp a little. I dropped the map of the school, put my hand to my heart, which was beating much too fast. It was random moments like these that I wondered if I would die this way- of fear.

"Woah, my bad!" a boy said as I bent over to get my map. I tried to control my shaking as I stood back up. Control yourself Bella, he is not James.

"No, it's fine," I tried to reassure myself more than him.

"How about I make it up to you by being your tour guide for the day?" the guy said more than asked me. He said it brightly, as if that would be the highlight of his life. I was a little confused however, that he knew I was new. Was it that obvious?

"You are Isabella, right?" he asked suddenly, as if afraid he had gotten it wrong.

"Uh... yes," I said a little perplexed further, as to how he knew my name...?

"Everyone is talking about you, you're Chief Swan's daughter after all," he replied to my internal question. Ah... Charlie. Of course he would tell people I was coming to visit him. I just nodded, showing my understanding, I hoped.

"Oh, yeah, my name is Eric by the way," he said putting his hand out for me to shake it, which seemed a little formal . I didn't want to be rude, but I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't comfortable and I started to squirm. I think he got the hint and put his arm down. He didn't try to touch me again, but he was friendly none the less. I was very surprised, and thankful. Although too scared to say much. Eric did creep me out a little bit, the way he stared at me was starting to give me maybe a wrong impression. He showed me to the office, where I got my schedule, then to my first hour class.

"Uh, so this is it," he said smiling as I walked in to my class.

"Yes, thank you," was all I could manage to barely whisper, turning around. Not two steps and two seconds after, I was two inches in front of another boy. This one was taller, and a little pudgier. I backed four steps away quickly, almost tripping on my own two feet yet again. I was startled... I wonder if that would ever really stop or change.

"Hi there," he said beaming at me as if I was a big teady bear he just won at a fair, "I'm Mike Newton." Who would have known people in Forks were more friendly then people in Phoenix, despite the sun and rain differences.

"I'm Bella," I introduced myself. My voice still sounded timid. I mentally reminded myself that I would have to try and change that, I needed to stick up for myself here.

Mike, although friendly, was quite different from Eric. He was much more outgoing, and was trying to openly flirt. He had the looks that you would picture as the average jock and seemed to know everyone. We had several classes together, so he walked me to them. No matter how friendly he was being, I was glad to finally get to lunch and have more people to surround us.

I naturally sat with Mike, I didn't know anyone else, and met all of his friends. Eric was at the table and was making me feel very uncomfortable for some reason, as he was glaring at me. There were a ton of girls talking about pointless things. They reminded me a lot of my fake friends from Phoenix. There was one nice girl, Angela, who really seemed, well real. It was as if she could sense something was off about me but didn't want to press me for information unlike the other girls. I sort of felt like I was at boot camp.

Right when I was thinking I needed a distraction, one walked through the lunch doors. There was five of them, and the first thing I noticed, was they were all the most gorgeous people I had ever seen. They all had the same pale skin, all different arrays of hair colors, but even from this distance I could see something very clearly. Golden, honey colored eyes. They made there way over to their seats, gliding more than walking, all so graceful, I didn't even want to be in the same room as them.

One of the girls, Jennifer I think it was, or Jessica maybe, caught me ogling them, embarrassingly enough.

"The Cullen's are social outcasts, don't even think about it," she rolling her eyes at me. I looked down from staring at anyone. I was embarrassed to even be here.

Lunch passed without much more consequence. I looked up at the Cullens a couple more times, just admiring their beauty. Jessica filled me in on more information about them. I created nick names in my head for them, just for personal reasons. I knew I would never even have the chance to talk to them, but it helped pass time time. Pixie was Alice, the girl with spikey black hair. She was cute and tiny, reminding me of Tinkerbell. Blondie was Rosalie, the girl who just looked like a bitch, but I couldn't help admiring. Shrek was Emmet, he was big and brawny, but still looked like he had a nice side. Casper was Jasper, because he seemed like he wanted to disappear. And last but not least was the most gorgeous of them all, I simply called him Edward. I couldn't think of a perfect enough name to describe him. Whenever I would sneak a glance up at him, he would be looking at me too. But it was a confused look, as if he was trying to figure out a hard calculus problem... which only confused me more thoroughly.

I of course kept these names in my head, and they never ever would get out. I didn't speak anymore for the rest of lunch and that seemed to go well for me. I finally made it to Biology, my last class of the day. Mike of course escorted me because we did have the class together, of course.

Mike was talking about something I couldn't concentrate on when we walked through the door, the first thing I noticed was Edward. The next thing I noticed was how my teacher, Mr. Banner, told me to go sit by him and that we were lab partners.

The last thing I noticed before internally breaking down, was that his face was almost identical to James's face when he wanted to kill me.

*

I walked through my front door from my first day of school; I was shaking, both from the cold and from pure fear. Would I ever escape his face? Would he ever fully leave me alone? I ascended the stairs to my bedroom wanting to just be alone. Charlie wasn't home yet but I wasn't going to start crying in his living room. It didn't seem right. I pushed through my door, shut it and melodramatically threw myself on the bed. The pillows and bedspread encompassed me, and I wish they could just swallow me into the earth and never spit me back out.

I checked my cell phone, not expecting anything of course, and dialed my moms number. I don't know what compelled me to do it-actually I do- but I don't know what part of me expected her to answer.

"Hey, this is Rene. Please leave me a message after the beep and I'll get back to you! Thanks!" beep.

"Hi mom... it's me..." I paused and thought about what I even called her for. "I, uhm..." I stopped and just hung up. There was no point anymore. The damage was done. I couldn't be fixed or helped. I was beyond that. I felt the sudden urge to do something I hadn't done in a while. It was the same feeling that kept me hating myself; only after would I have some piece of sanity.

I went to the little bathroom that Charlie and me shared and just stared at the toilet. Just the image of it could almost make me throw up at first sight. I knew this wasn't right. I never imagined me to be the type of girl to do this, if there was a certain type. I just knew how it made me feel after. Rejuvenated, in control and like I was real. So I shoved my finger down my throat and saw the contents of whatever I ate at lunch come up.

I hadn't seen someone stare at me like that since him. Possessive, like he wanted to harm me. No... he wanted to kill me.

I shoved my finger down again, my eyes swelling up with tears.

Biology passed slowly, it never would end. His eyes were piercing through me, charcoal black. No matter how gorgeous, I knew they were dangerous.

I threw my head back from the toilet, completely disgusted with myself. I wasn't crying, but I couldn't stop the dry heaves.

I took one feeble glance to look at his angels face, and was faced surely with death. I turned away and started whimpering. What did I do to him? I know what I did to James. I was a bad girlfriend. But I had never even seen this boy until today... I pushed my hair over my face so he couldn't see me cowering. I tried to just take deep breaths. I didn't want him to hear though, so this was difficult. My breathing hitched unnaturally a couple of times, and I knew he could hear it. He was shifting around, like he couldn't get comfortable, and craned himself as far away from me as humanly possible. As the expression goes, you could cut the tension with a knife. Until there was only five minutes left of class, we didn't say anything. Then I turned yet again to meet his face.

I silently whispered, "I'm sorry." And the bell rang. He barely registered what I had said before he bolted at miraculous speed, to get the hell out of there.

I just sat there on the floor for a little bit, thinking about my encounter with Edward, and shuddered even more than I already was with the dry heaves. I had hoped things would be different here. I hoped that people wouldn't know I had been abused, or think that I deserved that.

I was wrong.

Not even a week into my new life, and I had been proved wrong. I would always be the lowest excuse of a human.

I heard my dad come through the front door. I hadn't realized how long I had been sitting on the bathroom floor, I quickly jumped up and brushed my teeth. I looked at myself in the mirror, no longer surprised by the zombie that stared back at me. I rubbed my hands across my eyes and tried to look more alive.

It didn't really work.

Charlie hollered up the stairs about ordering a pizza. I told him I already ate and to just order for one. He seemed to believe me without questions, so I went in my room and started my homework.

I was meticulous about getting my homework done. It may be the only thing I had going for me. Of course if I had friends, this would probably be different. Early into my homework, I started dozing off, and eventually fell asleep.

The next day, he was gone. I didn't notice until lunch, but when I looked over at the lunch table where his siblings were, he was not sitting there.

I mindlessly talked with Mike, or tried to. I knew that even at my best effort sentences tended to be shorter that five words, so with me being distracted I'm not sure how much company I was. And why he was so persistent was beyond me. It scared me to some extent, that Mike would care so much to get to know me... but to me he was kind of innocent.

"So Isabella, I was wondering..." Mike started. I automatically reeled my attention back to him, instead of looking over every couple seconds to see if maybe.... Edward had accompanied his brothers and sisters yet.

"Yes," I said quietly, taking a bite of an apple.

"If maybe this weekend you would like to go to the movies?" he asked it so easily, but yet I could hear the strain in his voice, curious for my answer. I quickly looked down, scared of what to say. Would he be mad at me if I refused? Should I just go...? He seemed harmless enough, but a tiny voice in the back of my head was sending off warning signals.

"Um... Mike, I'm not sure... I mean," I stuttered along, trying to find the right words to let him down with.

"Oh, Bella," he said putting his arm around my lunch chair, I instantly leaned away, on pure instinct. He noticed this but it didn't make him move his arm.

"It's fine, if you're busy, maybe another time," he said grinning as a bell rang.

I was anxious to get to Biology, to see if he truly was gone. Mike of course accompanied me to the class, as I was beginning to see would probably become a routine.

I for some reason, felt my heart drop when I saw his desk was empty.

I sighed and moved forward, sitting by myself, in the same silence I was the day before.

Days and days went by, and he didn't show up. Almost two weeks, without his presence and I was starting to feel... something resembling comfortable. I could carry on a semi-normal conversation. Semi-normal. I felt safest around a girl named Angela. She was pure and one of the most genuine people I had ever met. She didn't push me to talk, on the other hand other people at our table, Jessica, Lauren and Mike, were a whole other story. They didn't have any sense of boundaries.

'Why did you move here?' was a question I got from those three almost right from the get-go... I instantly clammed up and started rocking back and forth. From then on, I think the whole table realized what a freak I was and avoided asking any pre-Forks questions. Many things remained the same, and I wondered if I ever would really heal. I screamed at my dreams relentlessly, every night they came back, almost as vivid as before, sometimes even more so.

Finally, after two weeks of not seeing him, Edward was back. I walked through the cafeteria doors with Jessica talking my head off, and I looked over at his table. Expecting to see nothing different. But he was there.

It was strange, but when I saw him, I felt as if a huge weight was lifted off my chest. It wasn't logical, and was very stupid, I had no reason why I felt this way. I was terrified, yet relieved? It was so complicated I couldn't help but scrunch my face up in wonder. I sat down at our table, trying to keep my breathing under control, but it was so hard to do. I was more scared to enter the Biology room, more scared from anything that I had been in a long time.

Mike still walked to Biology with me, today I couldn't concentrate on even one word he was saying.

Edward was already sitting in his seat when I walked in. I tried my hardest to be casual and walk up to the table as if it was no big deal. But my head was screaming with thoughts of running as fast as my non-athletic legs would carry me, away from here, and away from him. They also were pulling me toward the desk, gravitating me toward him.

I sat in my seat, taking one last breath, preparing myself for the worst. For him to stare at me like that again... for him to remind me of... him.

"Hello, I'm sorry to have not introduced myself yet, my name is Edward Cullen," I heard him say. It was so clear and velvety, I was almost afraid to talk. My voice would pale in comparison.

I looked over at him, he was smiling lightly. His eyes were the second thing I noticed. They were not the deep brown, almost black I had previously seen. They were golden, and warm. They were comforting... Not at all the face I remember from two weeks ago.

"Hi," I started, trying not to stare intently on his perfect white teeth.... or his perfect anything, "Uh... I'm Bella."

He nodded his head, still smiling, a light laugh at his lips.

This was going to be the second longest class period I had with him, yet.