Chapter 2

Excitement

BPOV

I groaned as my alarm clock buzzed loudly in my ear, fumbling around my bedside table until I found the button to switch it off. I hit it so hard it fell to the floor. I rolled out of my bed and also fell to the floor, my back landing heavily, right on the clock. I groaned even louder rubbing my back fiercely and slowly rose to my feet and staggered to the bathroom. As soon as the spray of hot water hit me I woke up. I stood under the stream for what seemed like hours, after I had lathered up my hair and body with my scrumptious vanilla and strawberry scented products, until the temperature of the water started cooling. I stepped out of the shower feeling refreshed and energized. This was the usual chain of events on my weekday mornings. I was definitely not a morning person.

Dad had already left for work, as usual, so I was alone in the house. I towel-dried my hair, not wanting to blow dry it this morning and left it hanging loose down my back to dry naturally. As this was Forks I wasn't expecting it to dry quickly, I was probably going to end up walking around school with damp hair for most of the day. I opened up my closet and grimaced at my selection of clothes. I did this every morning, and, like every other morning I promised myself that I would get some new clothes soon. I picked out a long sleeve blue top, over faded loose fitting blue jeans and put on my white sneakers.

Then I moved to my vanity mirror and grimaced once again. I was so plain looking it was depressing. I quickly brushed mascara on my lashes and put some lip-gloss over my lips. I didn't really like wearing make-up, but with a best friend like Alice I had to make some kind of effort. It was even more depressing having her as a best friend. I mean, I loved her like a sister and was glad she was my best friend but she was a constant reminder of everything I wasn't. She was pretty, popular, outgoing, energetic, stylish and just overall fun to be around. Plus she had a hot boyfriend who was on the basketball team. I was just plain, shy, quiet, definitely not stylish and definitely not popular. And no hot boyfriend either but that was my own fault as I had turned down a lot of dates, so I couldn't really complain. I often wondered why Alice was friends with me and whenever I asked her why she would just roll her eyes and say,

'Bella you are way too hard on yourself.'

I looked over myself in the mirror one last time, snatched my coat and hurried down the stairs. I grabbed an apple and went out into the grey, drizzling town of Forks.

Four years of living here and I still wasn't used to the weather. I still wasn't used to the town. I still felt new.

In fact, I was actually still considered new as most of the residents in Forks had been born here. I was the newest member of the town and although the excitement from when I had first moved here had long since died down, I was still treated differently. It wasn't differently in a negative way, they just treated me like I was special – hence all the date offers – and that made me uncomfortable. I hated having attention drawn to me. I wished there would be someone else new in town that could draw the attention away from me, but who would willingly want to move to Forks?

I was only here because my mother thought her new husband was more important than me. Phil said he hated kids so my mom had sent me to live with my dad when I was thirteen. I wasn't unhappy. In fact, I actually liked Forks, minus the weather. Plus, it was the first place I felt accepted. I loved my dad, Chief of Police, Charlie Swan and living with him had been great, no problems so far. But it still hurt to know that your own mother would willingly get rid of you just to please her new husband. I still spoke to 'Renee', as I called her now, but the conversations were tense and strained. I had visited her a few times over the years too but the visits were equally strained.

I parked my old, red Chevrolet truck in my usual parking spot in the lot, next to Alice's Porsche – another reason to add to my depression that came with having Alice for a best friend – and went to my first class, French. Alice and I had this class together and I could tell from the way she grinned widely at me at bounced in her seat that she had something to tell me.

"Oh my God Bella you'd never guess what!"

She didn't bother giving me a chance to guess.

"There's a new new guy! You're old news baby!"

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Alice you're this excited because of a new student?"

"Oh, but it's not just any new student Bella! This new guy is Jasper's cousin! Remember the one I was telling you about? The guy that visited one weekend I stayed at Jasper's. The hot one!"

I vaguely remembered her telling me about Jasper's 'hot' cousin.

"Alice you have a boyfriend, remember?" I scolded, "And not only that, but the 'hot' guy you're drooling over happens to be your boyfriend's cousin."

"I know that." Alice said rolling her eyes, "obviously I'm not going to try to seduce him or some shit. I'm just going to....enjoy the view." She wiggled her eyebrows at me.

I sighed. "Mary-Alice Brandon, I'm sure Jasper isn't going to be too happy with you enjoying viewing his cousin. Why did he move here anyway?"

"Well..." Alice moved closer to me and whispered, "Ok, I don't want to start any gossip and Jazz will kill me if I did anyway so keep this to yourself."

I rolled my eyes. Like I had any problem keeping things quiet. It was Alice who was the blabbermouth.

"Of course I will Al, you know that."

"Ok, well Jasper told me that this guy's mom has some kind of mental problems or some shit and something big happened to her and he had to be taken away from her because she couldn't take care of him anymore. Jasper's too good a cousin though, he won't tell me what that something that happened was and he won't tell me anymore than that. So basically Edward – that's his name by the way – is going to be living with them from now on."

"Wow..." I began, but then Mr Rosa told us to keep quiet and we couldn't talk anymore after that.

As Alice and I walked to our second lessons, I began to see that she wasn't the only one excited about the new guy. Everyone around me seemed to be whispering about him. It reminded me very much of my first day. A lot of the whispers coming from the females seemed to be centred on how 'hot' he was. Alice and I split up to go to our next classes.

"See you at lunch!" She called over her shoulder.

My next class was biology, which I kind of enjoyed actually. I strolled casually over to my desk by the window and froze when I noticed it was occupied. The guy sitting there was looking out of the window so I could only see the back of his head.

I scraped my chair noisily, but he didn't turn, and sat down. I nervously began taking out all my stuff I needed for class, leaning forward to hide myself in my long, damp hair. I heard the guy start taking out his things too, but I didn't dare look up. What the hell was wrong with me? It was just a guy. I sat next to guys in some of my other classes and it didn't bother me. But I knew exactly why this guy was bothering me. It was The New Guy. The guy Alice and the rest of the school had been talking about all morning, the guy that had no doubt been stared at all morning, because he was still being stared at right now. The New Guy, Jasper and Rosalie Cullen's cousin, Edward.

I felt bad for the guy because I knew exactly how uncomfortable it was to have people constantly staring at you and whispering about you. I mean, people were craning round from the front of the class just to look back at him. It was ridiculous.

I still didn't look at him. Partly because I was shy, and my face was probably scarlet by now, and partly because I didn't want to be like every other person in school gawking at him. I could see Tanya Denali and Jessica Stanley from the desk adjacent to ours eyeing him up hungrily.

"Mmmm he is absolutely delicious!" Jessica whispered.

A pointless whisper it was if I could hear it because he definitely could too. I grimaced.

Poor guy, they were looking at him like he was something to eat.

"I know." Tanya said in an equally loud whisper.

She turned towards him and smiled a sexy smile and wiggled her fingers at him. I couldn't see his reaction to this because I was still hiding in my hair, but I heard him move. This caused some air around him to stir and I was hit with a gorgeous scent.

It was sweet, yet musky, with spiced undertones. I had never smelt cologne or whatever it was, so aromatic and so, dare I say, scrumptious. Great, now I was thinking of the guy as something to eat. I was curious though, as to what all the fuss over this guy was about, and his scent made me even more curious. I slowly leaned back a little, enough so that my hair was not fully covering my face anymore, and glanced at him from the corner of my eye.

He was not hot.

He was.....breathtaking. I literally gasped a little. He seemed tall, even while seated he was taller than me. He had a strange, beautiful shade of tousled bronze hair, which looked to be a little damp. His skin was pale and creamy and absolutely flawless, his head was leaned to the side slightly and I could see a strong, perfectly defined jaw line, his lips were full and red. He was wearing a blue t shirt and I could see the muscles defined in his pale arms. I couldn't stop staring.

What a damn hypocrite I was.

His thick eyebrows, slightly darker than his hair, were faced downwards and his forehead was slightly creased in a frown. Still I sat staring. Suddenly he turned and looked at me, right in my eyes and I blushed hard, leaning forward and hiding my face once again. But in the second that he had looked at me, I had noticed his eyes. His eyes were perhaps the most beautiful and striking of his already stunning features. They were a bright hazel, an almost golden brown, yet in their depths you could see flecks of green.

For the first time in my life I was in agreement with Jessica Stanley.